Good morning. Good morning. So I wanted to talk this morning about a story from the old days in China from a teacher named Zhao Zhou, in Japanese his name is Joshu. His picture is up on the altar. I had the great opportunity last month to visit his temple and see his old pagoda and walk around it and see his meditation, the place where his meditation hall was and sit in the meditation hall and see where this, in the space where this story happened. So Zhao Zhou is the hero or the protagonist or one of the characters in many, many, many of the old koans or Zen teaching stories. And I've been talking about his stories in the Thursday night classes.

[01:07]

So I started this one two Thursdays ago. A couple of you were there. And the more I look at the story, the more I think I may just spend a year on it. There's many commentaries, many different commentaries by Dogen about it. It's also case 37 in the Mumon-Khan, or Gateless Gate, which actually was written at the place where this happened. It was in the space that was Chow Chow's zendo when this happened. It was the hall where the Mumon-Khan also was written later, which I hadn't known. And also it's case 37 in the Book of Serenity. Anyway. So, as I said earlier, I'll do a formal talk this morning and an informal dharma talk this afternoon, but rather than the way our usual practice of doing a dharma talk in the morning and discussion in the afternoon, please feel free to ask questions or raise your hand at any point.

[02:17]

We can have discussion interspersed. So, the basic story. A monk asked, Zao Zhou, what is the meaning of the ancestral teacher, that is Bodhidharma, coming from the West? This question is a question that's traditional Zen question about absolute meaning. Literally it's what is the meaning or what is the mind or what was the intention? Why did Bodhidharma come from the West? Jaojo answered, the cypress tree in the yard. So there are many, many, many koans in the collections in which somebody asks, why did Bodhidharma come from the West? Exactly the same question. And there are many different answers in the records. But Jaojo said, the cypress tree, at least in this occasion, the cypress tree in the front yard.

[03:19]

And the temple at that time was called Guanyin Temple, the temple of the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Now it's called Bylimsa, Cypress Grove Temple. And there's a whole grove of cypress trees descended from the cypress tree that was in the yard at that time. So in the Book of Serenity and the Gateless Barrier, that's all of the story that they include in the case, but actually there's more to it. Actually, much more, but the basic story. The monk asks, what was the purpose for Bodhidharma coming from the West? Zazho says, the cypress tree in the yard. And the monk replied, Master, do not teach people using objects. Do not use objects to guide people. And Jayaja said, I'm not using objects to guide people.

[04:21]

So the monk asked again, what was the meaning for Bodhidharma's coming from the West? And Jayaja said, the cypress tree in the front yard. So there's a whole lot going on in this story, and there's actually more to the story, before and after. That's kind of the basic story. So a little bit about this question. Why did the ancestral teacher, that is, Bodhidharma, come from the West? So the story is that Bodhidharma was from India. Some other accounts say he was from Persia, but anyway, he was from India. And he came to China and sat in a cave for nine years after a kind of unsuccessful meeting with one of the emperors of the southern, one of the southern kingdoms.

[05:28]

And the Bodhidharma image statue that's on our altar, we got at the temple where he later taught, was donated to Ancient Dragons. And it's made of cypress wood. So you can look at that later. Why did Bodhidharma come from the West? And why is this a significant question? So, when Bodhidharma came, he died in 532, I think. When Bodhidharma came to China, there already was in China many Buddhist temples, many ordained monks and teachers, the beginning of a really Chinese version of Buddhism, of Buddhist philosophy that integrated all of the different Indian Mahayana teachings. And actually somebody on the trip, on the tour asked me, what's all the fuss about Bodhidharma?

[06:38]

It's kind of the same question. So why did Bodhidharma have to come from India to China? What was it that he was there for? So, you know, in America, too, we have books and Buddhism, even before Suzuki Roshi came, there were books by Alan Watson, D.T. Suzuki, and Gary Snyder, and there were, you know, So many of you have read Zen books, and yet here you are today. So maybe the question is, why did you come to the Cenacle? What was the meaning of you coming to the Cenacle today? Why am I bothered to come to Chicago?

[07:41]

Anyway, what is the living point of this practice? What is the living meaning of the Buddhist teaching? How do we actually put it into play, into life, into work, into helping all the suffering beings in Chicago and in America and in the world and beyond? Zhaozhou said, the cypress tree in the yard. And then the monk said, don't use objects to teach people. Or don't use objects to show it to people. It could be read as, don't use objects to point to the subject.

[08:46]

What is this cypress tree? How do we see the tree out there in the parking lot? How do we see, do we see the world in terms of objects? Jaija said, I'm not using an object to guide people. And the monk asked the question again and again, he said, the cypress tree in the yard. So again, there are many aspects of this, and I hardly know where to start, but maybe I'll just pause and say, are there any comments or questions about it, just from this basic story?

[10:01]

Would there have been some sense of an intruder or someone other than us? And therefore, how can we know what was the majority of sense in asking the question? I'm sorry, I don't understand. Was there, in asking the question, Was there an implication that something coming from the West was foreign? Yeah. And not of us? Well, I don't know if that was in the mind of this monk, but certainly the way Bodhidharma's talked about in the tradition, he's talked about as the foreigner or the barbarian. In China, Han people are human beings. Everybody else is barbarian. So they actually built a a great wall to keep out all the northern barbarians, just like we're building a great wall to keep out all the southern Spanish-speaking barbarians.

[11:14]

So yeah, there's a feeling about that, and yet Bodhidharma is very treasured. So the temple where we got this image of Bodhidharma, they're still in the process of rebuilding it. The Jaojao temple is amazingly, magnificently rebuilt. Huge Buddha hall. and many other halls, and over a hundred monks are actually practicing there where Zhaozhou practiced. But they're just rebuilding the temple where Bodhidharma taught. When they dedicated it in the 90s, 100,000 Chinese people showed up and made prostrations every other step for the last few miles before the temple. So Bodhidharma is still very important in China, in the Chinese heart. And yet, he was a foreigner, he was a barbarian. Yes, so there's something about that, but there's also phrases about Bodhidharma coming from the West and causing all this trouble, some of the commentators say. So yeah, there's a problem about it.

[12:17]

You know, all of us could be out enjoying the beautiful Chicago day, and here we are, going to all this trouble to sit and enjoy our breathing, and each of you has many other things that you could be doing, but here you are. Why did you come to the Santa Clause today? Jaojo said, the cypress tree in the yard. What a silly thing to say. And this monk was really serious. He said, don't use some object to point point out the way, don't use some object to guide us. Jojo said, I'm not using an object. So what was the cypress tree for Jojo? Bless you. What was Jojo for the cypress tree? How do we see not just each other, of course each other, but also the world around us, not as dead objects?

[13:32]

In some sense, our first Bodhisattva precept, the disciple of Buddha, does not kill. If we think that the cypress tree is a dead object, we're violating that precept. How do we bring the world to life? So, the story goes on a little bit, or there are various commentaries on the story, or there's actually a prelude to the story. But let me say, let me first start with what Dogen, one of the things that Dogen says about it, because he goes, in one of his comments, he goes over all of the ways in which this story is most likely to be misunderstood. This is one of the things that Dogen does a lot. He talks about all the different ways you might misunderstand this.

[14:37]

And he says, no, it's not that. So after telling the story, Dogen says, students in recent times do not understand Zhaozhou's meaning and do not study Zhaozhou's words. So we should deeply pity them. Someone claimed that Zhaozhou said the cypress tree in the garden before and then again said the cypress tree in the garden later. only in order to not allow the student to create any understanding. So there is this idea of these stories that they're about cutting through all of our intellect and conceptual mind and getting rid of that and just kind of being these nonsense riddles or illogical riddles. And that's not true. These old stories have been studied for a thousand years. Chacha lived 1,200 years ago. Not because they're nonsense.

[15:38]

They're not the same kind of logic that we usually think of. They're not our usual way of seeing the world. And yet, they're not meaningless nonsense. Dogen goes on, another person claimed that all words without exception expound Zen, so before and after he used the same phrase, cypress tree. So maybe he could have said anything. He could have said the microphone, or the flowers by the door. Maybe he could have said anything. But he didn't, he said the cypress tree and the art. Dogen goes on, such kinds of people are as numerous as rice, sesame, bamboo, and reeds, and yet they try to affix their spring dreams to Jaojo's words, but they cannot. Anyway, that's kind of Koan-style, Dharma combat kind of language.

[16:41]

What's going on here in this story? So let me read some, Three different poems that Dogen says, commenting on this story. A little bit more about cypress trees, though. Some of you may have seen the story where it's translated as Oak Tree. And the Chinese character that is used in this story, is used in Japanese, and the Japanese pronunciation is also used for oak, so that's why there's a misunderstanding. But actually, originally it was a cypress tree. And if you look at this image of Bodhidharma, you can see cypress wood is not good for much. It's not very useful. It's got gnarly grain, and so cypress trees can live a long time because nobody wants to bother and cut them down and use them for anything else.

[17:46]

So that's part of the story too, maybe. Did anyone actually use Bodhidharma? Jao Zhou himself lived for 120 years, so maybe he was also not so good for much. And his lineage died out pretty early on, because it was hard to surpass him. And so he didn't have so many successors, and they didn't have successors. And yet all other lineages look at Jao Zhou. So anyway, there's something about cypress tree and there's something about trees. Dogen says in one of his comments, the cypress tree without roots hangs in the empty sky. Is the ancestors intention in coming from the west before or after? The ancient Buddha protects the stump when branches and leaves have fallen.

[18:49]

On his behalf, this saying naturally appeared. I'll read that again. The cypress tree without roots hangs in the empty sky. Is the ancestor's intention in coming from the West before or after? The ancient Buddha protects the stump when branches and leaves have fallen. on his behalf the saying naturally appeared. So Dogen is uprooting the cypress tree. The cypress tree without roots hangs in the empty sky. Zhaozhou's cypress tree was planted firmly in the front yard, although when we were at the temple they were redoing the the area in front of that building where Zendo had been replanting a bunch of cypress trees. So there were some uprooted cypress trees.

[19:52]

But anyway, is this cypress tree rooted or not? Shall we agree with Dogen about this? And if he uproots it, what does it mean for it to hang in the empty sky? Is the ancestors' intention or meaning for coming from the West before or after? Before or after he came? Before or after the Cypress tree? Before or after Jowja? Is there still some meaning for us? So these stories, you know, I'm telling this old story from 1200 years ago and all these comments about it, but the point of all these stories is not about something that happened, you know, in some time in history. What does this offer us about how we can engage the way together and each of us individually today here in Chicago.

[20:55]

Aren't there cypress trees and plants in Chicago? Renee, do you know where there's a cypress tree in Chicago? It's a kind of evergreen. One of the translations calls it a juniper, so if you know So it's the same family? Yeah, there's Van Gogh painted cypress trees in those homes. What about in Chicago? Do you know of any in Chicago? So if we ever have a Zendo we should plant a cypress tree. Anyway, Dogen says, the ancient Buddha protects the stump when branches and leaves have fallen. By ancient Buddha, he's referring to Jaojo. So what is it for us? You know, the branches and leaves of the practice, branches and leaves of our own efforts to practice the way, and branches and leaves of the Dharma, of the Buddhist tradition, you know, come and go and leaves fall.

[22:08]

How do we protect the stump? How do we take care of Not even, in this poem, Dogen's not even saying, it doesn't even have any roots, but there's this stump. There was once in China a zendo called the Dead Stump Hall, because all of the students sat so still like dead stumps. It was a kind of term of praise. And many, Zen poems and Zen teachings talk about the life arising out of the dead stumps. A dragon howls in a withered tree. Sometimes it's the dragon sings in a withered tree. Or the plums blossom on the same old branch as last year. How do we bring the cypress tree to life? Here's another poem by Dogen about the same story.

[23:15]

With what plan did he sit immovably as the years passed by? Through snow and frost, a single bone is here in the garden. Zhaozhou does not speak the meaning of coming from the West. How could his ability in the ancient gnarled be on his own? Through snow and frost, a single bone is here in the garden." What was the meaning from sitting immovably as the years passed by? That refers to Bodhidharma. It might also refer to Jaoja, who sat many years in this temple. Bodhidharma, the story goes, went to this cave we saw. temple where the cave was. Actually, Mike climbed up to the cave. I wasn't well enough to make it to the cave that day. I saw the nunnery where he lived when he came down from the cave, which was really cool. It was frescoes on the sides from the 800s. Anyway, he sat supposedly nine years up in this cave up near the top of this mountain above Shaolin temple.

[24:22]

What was the point of this coming from the West to just go sit up in a cave in the snow in northern China? Why are we still talking about it? Say, Tigen, once you ask questions like why or how, what's the point, aren't you? You won't ever get it. And first koan, what's the way? Ordinary mind's the way. Well, how did I get? Well, you try to get it, it's going to flee from you. Aren't you just doing that now? You're trying to get it. Well, it's not exactly that I'm trying to get it, but you're right. My teacher says he never asks why questions. So, and yet this question, this ancient question, what is the meaning, could be read as why. But what was the meaning, what was the intention, what was the mind of Bodhidharma coming from the West? So asking the questions isn't necessarily about getting anywhere. Bodhidharma just sat for nine years in the cave.

[25:31]

Jowdra said, once again, it's the cypress tree in the yard. Yes, Ikeda. It's just reminding me of that saying, you can't be a prophet in your own land. we would overlook maybe a cypress tree. Or we might not overlook a cypress tree, because there aren't very many of them out here, but we would overlook like a maple tree or a locust tree. And I wonder if that has something to do with this. Yeah. So there were lots of cypress trees there. So it was ordinary. It was ordinary in mind. It's the most ordinary thing. In fact, maybe he was just sitting there and he looked out, and that's what he saw. The very first thing he saw was this cypress tree out front. So yeah, it is ordinary mind. So it's not that we're trying to get it, and yet part of the style of this koan lingo is, you know, what's this about? And to kind of ask questions. So even the question, why did Bodhidharma come from the West? What is the meaning of Bodhidharma coming from the West?

[26:34]

What was his mind? What was his intention for coming from the West? It can be asked in all those ways. Cypress tree out front. Now, the cypress tree doesn't get us anywhere. And yet, there it is. And is it an object? So this is an important part of the story. How do we see this cypress tree? How do we bring it to life? How do we bring this old stump of a body sitting on our cushion or chair? How do we bring it to life? How is it not an object? You know, we can make trees or cars or, you know, things out there into objects. And we can make ourselves into an object too. What is the sacristy? So it's not about getting somewhere exactly, but it is, so I appreciate your bringing back, bringing the ordinary mind into this story, Kessler.

[27:42]

Where is the life in this story? And can I talk about it long enough so that you all feel that it's actually useful and meaningful to you? Maybe not. So I'll add something else. Later on, one of Zhaozhou's disciples went to the great teacher Fayang. to study. Faiyan was founder of one of the five houses. And Faiyan asked him, I heard that your teacher, Zhaozhou, spoke of a cypress tree. Is this true? And the student, his name was Jue Tiezui, replied, my late teacher never said such a thing. Don't slander him. And Faiyan commented, the true child of a lion gives a good lion's roar. So. That probably makes it harder, not easier.

[28:48]

So it's not that it's only cypress trees, you know, maybe we could say the maple tree, but then we'd just be copying Jao Cho. What is the point? What was the intention for Bodhidharma? It was not easy to travel all the way from India to China. And he faced lots of opposition, he ended up. You know, there's so many legends, we don't know so much about the actual, we know that Bodhidharma did exist. We do know that now, that he is a historical figure, but there's so many legends. Actually, before the Shaolin Monastery itself, which has been rebuilt, which was the place where he went and sat at the cave up above it, There's this huge tourist center, which is a center for martial arts in China, because martial arts people say Bodhidharma started martial arts too, so there's all these kids in uniforms doing this kung fu, and we saw this acrobatic

[30:04]

kind of Kung Fu display, martial arts display. It was impressive and it's this huge, very modern touristy place. And there's this big statue of a very buff Bodhidharma. So Bodhidharma is many things to many people. Still, this question is in China and later on even in Japan was A very basic, intense question. What was the point of this coming from the West? We could say historically that the Chan school that he founded was about bringing the teaching into our experience out of just intellectual, conceptual understanding into this kind of rough discourse, this kind of everyday, ordinary life. How do we find

[31:08]

the Buddhadharma in our ordinary everyday life. What was the point of Sugiyoshi coming from Japan? So Bodhidharma sat up in his cave facing a wall for nine years, the story goes. There's these little dolls in Japan where there's this pear-shaped red figure and you knock it over and it bounces back to upright.

[32:13]

So some say his legs fell off because he was just sitting there so long. I think he probably got up and had things to eat and went to the bathroom and stuff like that during those nine years. But anyway, he spent nine years in this little cave. It's not very big. Nancy? I can say this. I feel like if you don't have someone living the Dharma, it's just about thoughts and words and ideas and stories. Yeah. All we have of Bodhidharma are the stories. Unless we have actual living Dharma. Right. So where's that? How do we find that? Again, it's not about getting something. It's tricky. It's not about moving towards it. It's just, what is it right now? Yes, Renee? Yeah. This breath. So Zhaozhou is revered because it's very direct, very simple, right to the point, and very deep.

[33:36]

The cypress tree up front. Who gets it? One response I've been having to this story is sort of a built-in ecology. uh huh sensitivity to the incredible kind of interconnectedness that the cypress tree and everything else has. That, you know, Katharine when you said ordinary mind, I thought yeah, that's how we do, how we understand our world is by engaging our ordinary mind. But, you know, it's a pretty limitless ordinary mind that I think is talked about. When you start to get lots of the cypress trees, But we don't. And Dogen calls it a single bone. There's something about trees too. So you mentioned deep ecology and this.

[34:39]

It's an old Buddhist practice of planting trees. Rinzai used to go planting trees way up in the mountains. And his teacher said, why are you doing that? And he said, just as a guidepost to later generations, and also to beautify the scenery of the temple. So in our age of deforestation, we could talk about that side of it. As I mentioned a couple Thursday nights ago, and we started talking about it at the Thursday night classes, In India, in the early days, now we have meditation halls. This was invented in China. In India, the monks gathered together in the rainy season and they would sit together, but then the rest of the year they'd go off and wander around and live begging alms. And they would sit, not facing walls, but they would sit under trees, just like Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree. So they'd sit facing trees.

[35:41]

And the meditation that Bodhidharma did, it was called wall gazing. He sat facing the wall of the cave. But it wasn't that, you know, and we sit facing, you know, either the white or the brick wall of conference room, I keep forgetting, was this conference room C or D? D. D. Well, I'll get that right one of these years. But actually, wall gazing doesn't mean looking at a wall, it means looking like a wall, gazing the way a wall gazes. How is it the cypress tree is gazing back at Zhaozhou? So in all of these stories, we look at all the different perspectives. What was going on for this monk? Very good monk who said, don't use objects. What was going on for Zhaozhou?

[36:48]

And then what about the student later on who said, Zhaozhou didn't say that. And also, what's going on for the cypress tree? Who was immortalized in that moment, such that the descendants of the cypress tree are still being taken care of in this temple in China. I have to tease out the piece of speaking back and saying it's not an object. I don't speak of it as an object, and I'm hearing correctly. The resistance of hierarchy is on the side of the wall. Yeah, is Bodhidharma better than the cypress tree?

[37:52]

Are cypress trees better than oak trees? Or maple trees? Our cypress tree's worse than other trees because we can't use the lumber while they live longer. So this is the basic problem. This is the original sin in Buddhism, that we separate self and object, that we make an other who's not as good as, or who's not whatever. This cuts right to the core. Is this cypress tree a mere object?

[38:52]

Don't use objects to guide people. How do we see the world? For Zhao Zhou, I have to feel like he was at one with that cypress tree. That cypress tree was not an object. That cypress tree was sitting on his cushion. How do we see the so-called other. Then there's the other side of it, that how do we confess? Yes, we do see objects. We do think of the world as dead objects. We do think of the world as stuff that we can manipulate, or exploit, or take advantage of, or use to get what we want. Not just trees, or oil, or coal, or other resources, but other people we think of as you know, objects to manipulate. Or we think of ourself.

[39:54]

There's nothing more than something we invest in, as Dylan says. How do we see the world as alive, and then how do we confess and acknowledge that we do see objects? It's not enough to say, okay, it's all one subject. We do have this delusion of objects. We're better at people who speak Spanish and Arabic or inferior, and we should just keep them out. and put them in torture camps or whatever. How do we stop doing that? And yet how do we acknowledge that we do that? This is a very deep problem. How do we not use objects to point at the subject? And how do we confess that we are caught up in a karmic habit of making the world into dead objects, making ourselves into dead objects, making our friends into dead objects. The cypress tree is very powerful.

[40:58]

Another poem by Dogen about this. A monk once asked Old Jiaozhou about the way. He only spoke of the cypress tree in the garden. Although his precise words are marvelous, still, I regret the delay in arrival of the ancestral teacher's mind." Bodhidharma's mind. I'll read it again. A monk once asked Jajo, old Jajo, about the way. He only spoke of the cypress tree in the garden. Although his precise words are marvelous, still, I regret the delay in arrival of the ancestral teacher's mind. So he could be referring to Bodhidharma or Jaojo as the ancestral teacher there. Dogen says, I regret the delay in its arrival. Is there a delay?

[42:03]

Of course, it's 1,200 years ago, but maybe the delay was for the monk asking the question. He didn't get it. He had to ask again. Or maybe the delay is that we still haven't taken on the practice of Bodhidharma. We're caught up in subject-object dualism. So the more I look at all the commentary, the more I just kind of want to climb the cypress tree and hang out with it for a while. So I don't know how long we'll spend on this story. We spent a few weeks on The Ordinary Mind is the Way, but Thursday nights we're doing JoJo, and I know some of you can't make it Thursday nights, so I wanted to

[43:10]

talk about it here, and I may talk about it otherwise on Thursday nights, but this week, this Thursday, I'm going to be teaching in Richmond, Virginia, so we'll do two periods of Zazen Thursday night, but the following two Thursday nights, it's on the schedule on the website, I'll be talking about the site history more. And this afternoon we'll be talking about it. And there are lots more commentaries to look at, In some ways it's very direct. A monk asked Zhaozhou, what is the meaning, what is the mind of Bodhidharma, the ancestral teacher coming from the West? Zhaozhou answered, the cypress tree up front. The monk replied, Master, please do not teach me using external objects. Jayaja said, I'm not teaching you using external objects.

[44:17]

The monk asked again, what is the meaning or mind of Bodhidharma coming from the West? Jayaja answered, the cypress tree. So part of our ordinary, everyday kind of practice is to not see objects. And of course we have this habit of seeing the world as dead objects, so we have to acknowledge that and confess that. But how do we take care of the cushions? and our feet as we're doing walking meditation, and the plates and utensils when we were eating downstairs in the cynical dining room, and our breathing, and the candle, and each thing during the day.

[45:44]

How can we see them as Bodhidharmas, the mind, the meaning of Bodhidharma coming from the West? Not in some precious way, but just with the respect of our gratitude and appreciation for this possibility. to be doing this strange thing of sitting like dead stumps for a day, instead of all the more exciting things you could be doing out there in Chicago. How can we gaze at what's in front of us, like Chow Chow gazed at the Cypress Tree, and appreciate So are there any

[47:19]

Comments or reflections, responses? Just to appreciate the cat on your shirt. But I want to ask that about each of you. Why did Casimir show up today at the Cynical? So, Bodhidharma's dead. He's just a dead stump up on the altar. How will you bring this meaning to life today? Each day. So, we will have the opportunity to speak about this more this afternoon.

[48:18]

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