So I wanted to talk about one of the teaching stories from our tradition tonight. I often talk about Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen in Japan, who lived in the 1200s. Tonight I want to talk about a story from Dongshan, who was the founder of Chinese Soto Zen in the 800s. And some of you have heard this, or a few of you have heard this story. before because I talked about it for a number of months in the Thursday Night Koan class. And Don and Jim particularly contributed to this talk, so I want to thank them. And this is, this koan, this teaching story, I particularly think of as a Chicago koan. So these old teaching stories, these koans, or encounter dialogues between teachers and students have been studied for many centuries.

[01:13]

And I've talked about how a lot of them use the imagery of mountains and waters, or mountains and rivers, and how that worked in China and Japan and California, and maybe not so much here. in the Midwest, but this is a story that particularly relates to Chicago. Maybe not this week, but a few weeks ago anyway. So the story is fairly brief and fairly simple in itself. A monk asked Master Dongshan, how does one escape hot and cold? Dongshan said, Why not go where it's neither hot nor cold? And the monk asked, what sort of place is neither hot nor cold? And Dongshan said, when it's cold, just freeze to death. When it's hot, swelter to death. So that's the story. And I feel like maybe people in California can't understand the story as well as we can.

[02:24]

So it's pretty temperate this week, but a couple weeks ago when it was down in the single digits, down below five degrees, maybe you can feel the anguish of this monk, how to escape cold. And then we know what's coming in August, how to escape hot. So this is a very elemental story. And it's two years ago this month that I arrived in Chicago as a expatriate from California, and I'm happy to be here in this land of hot and cold. What kind of place is it where there's neither hot nor cold, the monk asked. Dongshan said, when it's cold, freeze to death. When it's hot, just burn up.

[03:28]

So, Dongshan was kind of a tough teacher. There were teachers from his time who were known for their toughness. Linji, or Rinzai, used to shout and yell at his students. And Deshan, or Tokusan in Japanese, used to punch them. Dongshan's more subtle. But he's maybe just as challenging. Where is this place where there's neither hot nor cold? This is talking about something elemental, something physical, something, you know, it's not abstract. When you go out, you know, maybe not this week, maybe not today, but a couple of weeks ago, step outside and the cold means something. So I like that about the weather in Chicago. What was it, Obama commented when his daughters were told they didn't have to go to school because there was an inch or two of snow.

[04:45]

And he said, I mean, this city is strange. There should be plenty of Chicago people. So we know what it's like to be hot or cold. And I don't know so much about the geography of Dong Mountain. So Dongshan, like many of the great old Zen masters, is named for the mountain where he taught. He taught on Mount Dong, Dongshan, in China. But I imagine that it might have gotten pretty cold, and it might have gotten pretty hot in the summer. So, Dongshan is challenging us. How do we face that space beyond our comfort zone? We human beings, we have a pretty narrow range of temperatures in which we're comfortable. Just like we have a very narrow range of sound waves which we can detect and hear.

[05:48]

So we know dogs can hear things we don't. And this monk was bothered by that. So how do we find the place where it's neither hot nor cold? Or how do we face the hot and cold? So I don't think that Dongshan was literally recommending, what is it, hypothermia when you go into cold shock or immolation from the fires or the heat. But how do we face the intensity in our life? And we know this, you know, just the air makes a difference. So, where is this space beyond hot or cold? Can we give ourselves to the heat?

[06:55]

Can we give ourselves to the cold? But also, of course, can we take care of ourselves? So, you know, last week it would be imprudent not to wear a very warm coat. I saw somebody today on the L with a short sleeve shirt. One of those tough Chicagoans celebrating, you know, a harbinger of the end of winter. I don't think it's the end of winter yet. Still, how do we meet hot or cold? So, Dogen, several centuries later in Japan, who also taught up in the mountains at Eheiji, where it gets very cold. There's sometimes five or six feet of snow, usually not till February, but anyway, the monks have to go up on their roofs and brush off the snow.

[08:04]

He wrote an essay in his, Chudarmai Treasury, about this story. This essay is just about this story from Dongshan. He called it spring and autumn, which is interesting. Spring and autumn is when it's not so hot, not so cold. The place where it's neither hot nor cold, maybe. And in his translation of this Kastanahashi, who's coming next month, to visit us here, translated Dongshan's last response, when it's cold, cold finishes the monk. When it's hot, heat totals the monk. How can we totally give ourselves to this experience, this intensity of cold and heat? So in this somewhat long essay, Dogen repeats eight different comments by other later teachers about the story from this dialogue from Dongshan, and then he gives his own comments to them.

[09:17]

So this, you know, literature of our Zen tradition is kind of funny because there's this slogan from Bodhidharma who's on our altar on my left, the side of the Buddha, that he said to point directly to the mind, beyond words and letters, and yet there are these libraries. We have one back there full of words about, of Zen teachers, and most of them, most of these words are comments on these old stories, and then comments on the comments, and comments on those comments. So, what did Dongsha mean? To go to the place where there's no cold or heat, How do we face the intensity of our climate?

[10:20]

And, you know, he was writing this before, you know, the climate disruption that most of the world's facing now. I talked to my teacher in California this week and he asked him how he was doing and how Green Gulch was, and his first thought was, we're having a drought. So he was feeling the cold or the heat, or he was feeling a lack of water. So maybe this story is not just for Chicago, but is a story about how we face also the changes in our climate. How do we find a place where it's not cold and not hot? How do we allow the cold to finish us and the heat to total us? What does that mean? So, amongst his comments, Dogen says, when cold or heat comes, how can we avoid it?

[11:22]

This is to study the moment when cold comes, or the moment when heat comes. This cold or heat, complete cold, complete heat. Is cold itself heat itself? How do we settle into this moment? this experience, this skin, this light and dark, this cold or heat or maybe spring or autumn or it's neither. He says, when either comes, it comes from the summit of cold or the summit of heat and manifests from the eye of cold itself or heat itself. The summit is where there's no cold or heat. This eye is where there's no cold or heat. Can we experience the intensity of sensations, perceptions, feelings, thoughts in this moment?

[12:26]

So I feel like there's also maybe a kind of meditation instruction here. How do we fully give ourselves to this moment? Maybe this pain in my knee, or this itch in my shoulder, or this halting inhale, this wheezing exhale. How do we give ourselves to our life? This is to study the moment when cold comes, the moment when heat. comes right now. He says cold penetrates the root of cold. Heat penetrates the root of heat. Even if you try millions of times to avoid colder heat, it's like trying to put a tail where your head is.

[13:35]

So what about this running away from the colder heat? This monk who's trying to escape his life, maybe. Even if you try millions of times to avoid colder heat, it is like trying to put a tail where your head is. And then Dogen says, cold is the vital eye of the ancestor school. Heat is the warm skin and flesh of my late master. How can we be willing to just be in the situation we're in, not run away from ourselves? So, I wanted to share a couple of the comments that Dogen shared, and his brief comments on those comments. One master, Fusheng Fattah, said about the story The place where there is no colder heat leads to you.

[14:43]

A decayed tree brings forth blossoms once again. It's laughable to look for the sword where you marked the boat. Even now, you are in the midst of cold ash. Dogen said, these words have some power to crush the fundamental point underfoot while raising it overhead. So he says, the place where there's no cold or heat leads to you. A decayed tree brings forth blossoms once again. It's laughable to look for the sword where you marked the boat. So this is an old Chinese story. There was a fellow who was riding in a boat and his sword fell overboard. And he cut a notch to the side of the boat to mark where it fell. He just says, it's laughable to look for the sword where you marked the boat.

[15:45]

And maybe you should have taken a knife and marked the river where the sword fell through. That also would have been laughable. But we do that. We mark the boat, looking for our sword. He said, even now you are in the midst of cold ash. So one of the offshooting pictures or a number of stories that talk about going back into the world from the deep mountains or deep Somalia talks about going to sit in the cold ashes when the flames have burned up all of your illusions about cold and heat. But this particular verse, which Dogen says has some power to crush the fundamental point, underfoot and raising it overhead at the same time, points to another meaning of this story.

[16:58]

So this is not just about the heat and cold that we know so well in Chicago. So we also all know as human beings, sometimes this inner heat, the heat of the passions, rage, or craving, frustration, it gets hot. This is a practice for human beings, not automatons, not robots. Sometimes it gets hot. Maybe this monk who asked this Dongshan this question was a kind of angry fella, and he wanted to escape that heat. So if you're upset with someone, if someone said something that allowed you to feel your anger, and it's been with you all day, you might come in to sit here and

[18:11]

or the heat of desire and craving of lust or greed also. Human passions. Hot, hot, burn up. What about the cold? So he talks about being in the midst of cold ash. There's also sometimes the cold. Sometimes we feel like our life is very Cold. So sometimes we feel great intensity and it's very hot. Sometimes we might feel like dead tree stumps sitting here. Cold. We may feel some inner deadness. This also happens as part of our humanity.

[19:17]

So maybe this is what this monk was looking for. How do I find the place? How do I avoid heat or cold? So Buddhism particularly talks about this heat and cold, how to transform our anger or our desires. our passions and rages and frustration, how to breathe into them and find a way to not run away from ourself, to use the energy of our heat and passions. And Buddhism also talks about how to practice with this cold. So in this verse from Fushimi, he talks about The place where there's no colder heat leads to you. A decayed tree brings forth blossoms once again.

[20:20]

This is a strong theme in Zen poetry and imagery, and particularly as a metaphor for our sitting practice. There's the old phrase, a dragon howls in a withered tree. Can you hear her? So just sitting quietly, I'll pray still. As I was talking about Sunday, finding our creative energy in zazen, sometimes we can find this inner life. And a decay tree brings forth blossoms once again. Or Dogon says somewhere else, the plums blossom on the same branch as last year. So the plums are the first flowers that blossom in winter, and they're white.

[21:25]

They kind of sometimes, you almost can't see them against the snow. How do we bring life to our life? How do we find a way to not burn up in our passions? Or maybe, as Dongshan says, when it's cold, cold finishes the monk. When it's hot, he totals the monk. How do we find this place where there's no hot or cold? How do we find this middle way? How do we bring life to our life? How do we not get caught by the passions of our life? So I don't want to deny just the aspect of the Chicago hot and cold. This is also about how do we find our own way of dealing with discomfort of all kinds.

[22:30]

There's another story that he quotes Fudeng Fujian. I don't know this guy, but anyway, said, when there's no cold or heat, is Dongshan's phrase, this place is where a number of Zen persons get lost. Go for fire when it's cold, cool yourself when it's hot. In this life, you can avoid cold and heat. So this is very sensible, of course, you know, when it's cold outside, wear a warm coat. When it's, Hot, cool yourself. He's a fan. Or, you know, we, nowadays, use central air when it's hot or cold. Dungan has something interesting to say about this. Although Master Shoshon, that's his other name, is a Dharma descendant of the great master Uzu-Fayang, great Zen master, his words seem like child's talk.

[23:41]

go for fire when it's cold and cool yourself when it's hot. However, when he says, in this life you can avoid cold and heat, it brings forth the mature style of a great old master. In this life is your whole life. Avoiding cold and heat is nothing other than dropping away body and mind. So this would seem, you know, he's not chastising this monk so much, it's an interesting question. When cold or heat comes, how do we avoid it? And Dongshun said, why don't you go where there's no cold or heat? The monk said, what do you mean by where there's no cold or heat? Well, maybe he meant the Bay Area, I don't know. But even there, people get inwardly, cold or hot. Dongshan said, when it's cold, cold finishes the monk.

[24:47]

When it's hot, he hurdles the monk. So this is, again, this is a koan. This is a teaching story from the Zen tradition, and it's challenging. And Dongshan was a tough teacher. How do we face the difficulties of our life? the intensities of our life? How do we completely give ourselves to burning up in the heat or freezing in the cold? Or maybe how do we take care of ourselves and this body and mind when it's physically cold or hot or when it's emotionally cold or hot? So I've been talking about this story and saying a little bit about some later commentaries, but I don't have an answer for you. Please take care of yourself and this body and mind.

[25:50]

But how do we meet the intensity of our real life? How do we bring our life to life? How do we cool down when we need to? Zen friends, I welcome your comments, responses, questions. Let's talk about this call to me. Yes, Marion. Could we also mean, when we get to a point where we don't have preferences, that's meaning when you don't, you won't feel the call of the high, just with the intro? Yeah, so one traditional Zen approach to this is just, the third Zen ancestor said, just don't pick and choose, let go of preferences. It's a little tricky though, because, you know, just our, you know, we do feel cold or heat.

[26:54]

Sometimes we can just be with that, but part of The second skanda, the second aggregate, there are five of these that are supposed to make up what it is that a human being is. Forms, feelings, perceptions, impulses, and consciousness. These feelings is that whatever happens, we have a positive, a negative, or a neutral response. Maybe it's possible to just have a neutral response to everything, but you know, just based on electromagnetic attraction and repulsion, you know, we do have attractions, we do have aversions, we have, you know, it arises, there are things we want. So some people hear the person walking upstairs in the apartment above us and say, why are they walking so loud? And some people might say, oh, that's interesting, it's something to,

[27:57]

distract me from the silence. So you might have a, it's possible to have a positive or a negative or a neutral, not even, okay, well, it's just part of the sound. Everything that happens, we have that kind of response to. So with all due respects to the third ancestor, yes, it's good to be content with where we are. If it's hot, it's hot. If it's cold, it's cold. But also, we have this inner heat. We have this inner cold. You may escape that for some time, and it's good, again, to not be too caught up in our desires or aversions. But sometimes we see something where there's some problem, and somebody is causing harm to themselves or to others, and it's our bodhisattva job to be helpful if we can. Often there's not much we can do, but sometimes,

[29:00]

there's a way to respond. So it's not enough to just get rid of all positive, negative, and neutral responses, I think. But I don't know. What other viewpoints? Kathy? As you were talking, it made me remember when I used to do Tai Chi, and I had a Taoist teacher. And in the summer, in August, we'd be in this gym with no air conditioning, working for hours. And I remember him talking about it's good to be in the heat and not be in air conditioning. And I would remember that in the beginning it would be hard to get into it because you get so hot. But then once you start sweating, it's kind of like it became comfortable and then it became easier. And then there was kind of like a flow. And I was thinking about that in relation to when I sit, when I'm upset or angry or frustrated. that it is extremely difficult to sit there and feel it.

[30:07]

You know, I can avoid it, I can think of lots of other things, but to sit with it is extremely hard, until you gradually, you're in it, and then there's something that happens that you, it's okay. You're in it, and that's it, and it gets easier. So that's what came to my mind when you were talking about it. Good. Some testimony. Yes. So, as human beings, we spend so much of our time and energy in life, maybe Chateau would say we waste our life, trying to avoid that inner turmoil. Can we just sit with it? Can we be present without running away from it? without trying to distract ourselves with thinking about something else, but just to sit in the middle of this, hot or cold, whichever.

[31:10]

Easy to say. Takes a lot of effort, or a lot of trust and peace, yes. Yes, Andy. I was just thinking of what sort of a struggle for me is to know metaphorically when I'm talking about when to sit with the heat or the cold and when to get up and turn on the air conditioning or... Part of what you were talking before about the bodhisattva job, the expression, you know, when to sit with something and when to sort of do something about it. And is that avoiding? What is, or is that working with what is by changing what is with what you can do? It's hard to know what the best judgment is. Exactly, that's the heart of this koan.

[32:14]

Or as Mark Twain said famously, everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it. Well, maybe these days we're doing too much about the weather, I don't know. But yeah, so sometimes, you know, go put on a coat. Sometimes, okay, I have to be with this situation. This is the art of Zen practice, actually. How do we find our middle way, our inner harmony, in the middle of turmoil, in the middle of this life, this body, this mind, not our idea of how it should be. because our ideas of how things should be are always getting disrupted by reality. Nothing ever happens exactly as we expect it to. It's not that it's bad to have expectations, but that's just, you know, more not changed.

[33:22]

What I find that's interesting is when it rains, people tend to scurry around like little animals. Yes, we are, yes. And I've tried to train myself to do this, but just to put my face up when the rain's coming down. And what I've noticed as I came in that But it's really refreshing and entertaining. Once I turn my face up, and the only thing that really was reacting was my eyes.

[34:41]

To keep up. But everything else is just fine. Thank you for sharing that wonderful practice. We can try that. When it's pouring, just put our head up to it. When it's wet, you're wet. Yeah, that's the spirit. So, any other comments or responses to this problem of heat and cold? Yes, Dave. That made me think of sometimes when I ride my bike to work in the morning, if it's a cold day, sometimes I'll be tempted to put on my face mask, which covers my whole face. It's real. Don't get too cold.

[35:45]

I have to start with the theme of willingness, just willingness to encounter. Then you get feedback, like, oh, you know, if it's too cold and you get frostbite on your chin, I hope you put your mask on. There's that feedback. If it's not rain, there's something else. get in your face, you know? Like, oh, well, maybe I don't wanna have that icky stuff on my face. Okay. Yeah, how do we face what's in front of us? How do we not run away from our lives? Yes, Mark. It's like wintertime catching snowflakes on your tongue. It's always that. Is it emotional or intellectual that you're approaching that?

[36:51]

Sometimes you have more courage to be open. I think it's kind of elemental. We may have ideas about, we may share these practices. I appreciate Michael's idea of just lifting your face to the rain. But really, in the middle of heat, in the middle of cold, we have some response. We have some reaction too. We don't know what we'll do in some extreme situation. I think part of what Dong Xuan's pointing us to is just this immediacy. Here we are. And we can't plan what will come up in front of us. And yet we have the capacity and our practice helps us develop the capacity to just meet our life and respond and do what we can to be helpful.

[37:57]

to this body-mind and those around us, and what's going on in the world, and how do we respond to climate change, and so forth. I'm not sure if that gets to your question, or if I got your question, though. Well, willingness to be open, where are you responding from? You know, heart, or mind, or just all together, or if things change, No, I think how, you know, what's the principle of response? How do we respond? That's an important question. And maybe we don't know completely, and I was putting out the side of not knowing, of not, our expectations aren't there, but there's also, aren't what will happen, but there's also just... the practice of awareness, which includes all of them.

[39:10]

So Zen is not anti-intellectual. We try not to get caught in that. But yeah, use your sense and your discriminating consciousness to see how to respond, but also use your heart. And the point is, we can't grab a hold of it. and we can't run away from it. Dong Shun says turning away and touching are both wrong. How can we stay present in our life and keep paying attention and respond as best we can, but then in the next moment that response will have some effect, including unintended consequences perhaps. How do we stay, how do we sustain the gaze of paying attention and not running away from our lives? I think that's the point, rather than finding some strategy about how to do it. Even though, you know, the strategies may be useful too. But our practice is more about how do we sustain the gaze of meeting hot and cold.

[40:17]

Yes, Anthony? Actually, your point and our question kind of sort of reminded me of something that I think of a lot. You know, I think of the heart as being Okay. Okay. Yeah, and another way of talking about our practice is the middle way. So how do we include everything? How do we come from wholeness? Of course, you know, that can be just an idea too, but our effort is to return to that, to speak from our sheep. So, anyway, this is a story that's been troubling sent students for 1,200 or so years, so we're not going to settle it tonight.

[41:26]

And they didn't have air conditioning. And they didn't have central air, that's right. So, thank you all very much for your warm and cool responses.

[41:41]

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