Good evening, everyone. We're somewhere in the middle of our two-month practice commitment period, and we've been talking about the Jewel Mirror Samadhi by our ninth-century founder of our Sutra lineage in China, Dongshan Liangjie. Harmony of Difference and Saneness that we chanted tonight is kind of one of his predecessors of the generations before him, kind of a direct predecessor to that chant. But I want to talk this evening about a story about Dongshan, who wrote the Precious Mirror Samadhi, or at least attributed to him. And this is a, I find this an interesting story about our practice and about our practice tradition.

[01:05]

And it's a story about a white rabbit. And it happens to be case 56 in the Book of Serenity Goan Collection. And it's a pretty short story. And actually, I'm gonna read parts of this because it's a chapter from my forthcoming book about Dongshan. But the story is about Dongshan and one of his traveling companions on pilgrimage, Sungmi, who's often referred to as spiritual uncle Sungmi, because he was a daughter-brother of Dongshan. So Dongshan students called him that. And there are a bunch of stories about them, about dialogues between them or situations that happened to them. And in a number of cases, I guess Zongli was actually senior to Dongshan, but in a number of cases, Dongshan kind of chastises Zongli for speaking very foolishly despite his venerable age.

[02:18]

And this is one of those stories. So they were, out walking on pilgrimage, probably walking between various teachers who they visited. And suddenly, a white rabbit darted across their path. And Songmi said, how swift. And Dongshan asked him, what did he mean? And Songmi said, it's just like a commoner becoming a high minister. And Dongshan said, how could such a venerable person like you speak like that? And so he asked for Dongshan's understanding, and he said, after generations of nobility temporarily fallen into poverty. So that's the whole story. But it presents two differing approaches to practice of awakening and to spiritual practice.

[03:20]

It starts with someone saying how swift, and there are different ways to translate that character, swift. Other translations, it could be how elegant or how eminent or refined. The point is that this white rabbit was very impressive and grand, not just for his speed, but sort of like there's a colloquial English expression expression, swift, and somehow I think that kind of is part of the meaning here in this old Chinese. But the question is, how did this rabbit become so eminent and swift? And really the question is, how do Buddhas and great Bodhisattvas become elegant and refined? So I'm going to leap forward a little bit to talk about white rabbits. Now, it might be that in the way the story is written up in Dongshan's recorded sayings and in the Book of Serenity, that the white, well, so, let me go back a little bit.

[04:38]

Sung Lee said it was just like a commoner becoming a high minister. And commoner is literally white robed one. So that was the way that lay people wore white robes Monks wore black robes, so it might be just that somebody wrote the story up later, and we don't know how accurate these old stories were, if they actually happened this way or if they were written up much later. But anyway, so maybe it was just a white rabbit because it's literary, it's parallel, it's a white robe commoner. But if it was really a white rabbit, then that's kind of interesting to me. Because in East Asia, Do any of you know what a white rabbit represents in East Asia? Well, in East Asia, commonly, they see a white rabbit in the moon. Just like we tend to think of the man in the moon, and I checked that a little bit, and it seems like that goes back to maybe Norse mythology,

[05:43]

There's one reference that says it goes back to Plutarch and Greek lore anyway. In East Asia, it's a very old image to see the white rabbit in the moon. And actually, if you go out and look at a full moon, you could, you know, I've started, maybe it's because I'm so Buddhist or something, but I see the white rabbit before I see the man in the moon. I don't know. You might check it out. But anyway, it's a very customary Buddhist image. And of course, the moon, The full moon, especially, whenever they talk in East Asian poetry about the moon, they mean the full moon, usually, unless they say otherwise. And that's an image in Buddhism for wholeness and fullness and full enlightenment. When this white rabbit ran in front of Dongshan and Songwei, it wasn't just a white rabbit. They're talking about enlightenment itself. They got a glimpse of it passing quickly in front of them.

[06:46]

So what they're talking about, maybe they saw a white rabbit, but they're really talking about something deeper. So these stories work, these images and these metaphors work in various ways. So the story, again, this white rabbit passes quickly in front of them, and someone says, how swift? And Dongshan asked him, and someone said, just like a commoner becoming a high minister. And Dongshan was just appalled. How could such a venerable person like you say such a thing? And someone asked Dongshan, and he said, oh, it's after generations of nobility temporarily fallen into poverty. So OK, just like a commoner becoming a high minister implies the path of cultivation, a deluded person achieving elevated wisdom through great exertion, some path of self-improvement. So, maybe this is the usual way we think of spiritual practice, and in Buddhism and in various other systems of spiritual development, and we have

[08:04]

all these various stages of development and specified stages. In the commentary in the Book of Serenity, the commentator Wansong says, usually we awaken by means of cultivation, entering sagehood from ordinariness. A commoner is directly appointed prime minister. So there's this idea, and this was in early Mahayana, too, this idea of long, arduous struggle, many lifetimes of dedicated practice and cultivation. And, you know, I think many Zen students think this is, you know, what our practice is about, too. You know, if we sit in many sessions, or if we log many kushin hours, or if we go to many dharma talks, or read many sutras, or read lots of dogon, or I don't know, whatever idea you have, eventually, maybe someday, when you least expect it, Baroom, the big E. People think this way.

[09:08]

I'm not saying any of you think that way, but there's some people who might think that way. They might think of spiritual practice that way. But that's not the Dongshan and Dogen tradition that we're part of. Dongshan says instead, Generations of nobility temporarily fall into poverty. So this is the approach in our tradition. This implies that this eminence, this swiftness of the rabbit is a facet of inalienable, inherent Buddha nature, not the attainment of some new status or spiritual social climbing. The upright nobility of a Buddha's awareness and kindness is a birthright already present, not some new state that needs to be discovered or achieved. Temporarily falling into poverty may be a necessary aspect of the bodhisattva way of life.

[10:13]

Bodhisattvas, or awakening beings dedicated to universal liberation, join fully with suffering beings, become impoverished, at least spiritually, if not also materially, just so they can reenact. and exemplify awakening to this innate nobility as an encouragement for others. And of course, sometimes we practice strenuously, not to reach some new exalted state, but to uncover something that's already deeply present. So the commentator in the Book of Serenity, in one song, says, if you're first enlightened and then cultivate afterwards, you enter ordinariness from sagehood. Traditional nobility is originally honorable. Though drifting, destitute, in myriad conditions, the basic constitution is still there. So, Dongshan's statement, after generations of nobility temporarily fallen into poverty, refers directly to a parable in the Lotus Sutra.

[11:16]

a story about a prodigal son. So briefly, this story, so there's a few, actually a few Lotus Sutra stories referred to here by Dongshan. And this story of a prodigal son, maybe you all know this story, do you all know? Does anybody not know the story in the Lotus Sutra of the prodigal son? Okay, good, so I can tell it. So in this story, there's a son and father who are separated. The son drifts aimlessly and becomes destitute. Meanwhile, the father moves to another city and becomes very wealthy and highly respected. Eventually, the son and his wandering happens upon the estate of the father. The father immediately recognizes his son and sends some assistance to bring him in. But seeing this wealthy, eminent man in front of his mansion, the son is frightened and runs away. The father understands the humble son's shame and dread and sends his assistants disguised as lowly menial workers to invite the son to come and take a job on the estate, shoveling dung in the fields.

[12:22]

After a while, when the son feels comfortable with this job, shoveling manure, the father has his assistants steadily give the son more responsibilities until gradually, after a very long period, the son is actually managing the whole estate. When the father is finally about to pass away, he calls for all of his friends and the nobles and citizens of the city and announces to them and to his son that this really is his son. They were separated long before, but that now all of my wealth belongs entirely to my son. And then the sutra goes on to state explicitly that the very rich old man is the Buddha and that we are all like the Buddha's children. So this idea of that we are all part of the Buddhist family. We're all Buddhist children. And yet we, so we've entered, we enter sagehood from, well, we enter, after generations of nobility, we fall into poverty.

[13:30]

Actually, our birthright is that of children of Buddha. And so there are many stories in the Lotus Sutra about this. And this particular story is presented by four of the Buddha's ten major disciples who are fully awakened arhats from the old tradition of working their way up to enlightenment. being personally awakened, have purified their own personal defilements, but then they find out about this Bodhisattva ideal, and then hear that one of them was predicted to become a Buddha, and they're very excited. Anyway, eventually in the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha proclaims that everyone who even hears a single line of the Sutra, as you have tonight, eventually will realize Buddhahood. It says in the sutra, anyone who hears even a single verse or a single phrase of the wonderful Dharma Flower Sutra and responds in joy, even for a single moment, I assure that one also of supreme awakening.

[14:35]

So this image of the Sangha as the family of Buddha actually appears in many sutras. It's very fundamental in Buddhism. This is Buddha's family. we have all entered ordinariness from satiation and nobility. Even though we are now drifting, perhaps, amid worldly suffering and infected by craving and hatred and ignorance, this basic endowment of awakening is Nirbhāna, isn't it? So there's a story about Dongshan and his teacher, Yunyan, Dongshan confessed to Yunyan that he still had some karmic habits that were not yet eradicated. Imagine such a thing, our great ancestor Dongshan.

[15:39]

Still had some karmic habits not yet eradicated. When Yunyan asked how he had been caring for them, Dongshan said that he had not even concerned himself with the Four Noble Truths. Pretty cocky. Yun-Yang then asked if Dongsheng was joyful yet, and he said, it would be untrue to say that I am not joyful. It is as though I have grasped a bright pearl in a pile of shit. So again, referring to the prodigal son who is willing to dig in the manure. So maybe despite this birthright of children of Buddha still, we have some karmic attachments and afflictions that need to be acknowledged and overcome. Realizing underlying awakening may require the hard work of seeing through a visual views and grasping. Even if we realize this underlying possibility,

[16:43]

this underlying reality of being children of Buddha, after generations of nobility temporarily falling into poverty. So there's two different approaches, two different views of awakening, two different approaches to practice here. And in some ways they may look the same, but are we practicing in order to get something in the future that's, you know, or that eventually maybe we'll get because, you know, if we practice really hard enough and Or is there something that is already here that we just need to allow itself to uncover? And this may take some work, too. The implications of these two approaches are very different, I would say.

[17:50]

And it's clear which one Dongshan and our tradition favors. So, in the Book of Serenity, the original cases and verses were put together by Hongshuo, a predecessor of Dogen, a century before in China. He says in his verse, matching strength with snow and frost, walking evenly through clouds and sleet. This brings kind of... represents the ability of the inherently noble to proceed with calmness, with equanimity, even through difficult, formidable conditions, or even through temporary impoverishment. Later on in his verse, he says, favor and disgrace are disturbing. Profoundly trust in yourself. In the real estate, one mixes tracks with fishermen and woodcutters.

[18:53]

Just ordinary people. We could see this in a lot of ways, but this trust yourself is important. We have to find our way to be ourselves, and to be ourselves in the sense of this underlying state of being children of Buddha, of realizing this fundamental endowment that already is here. And yet this also implies the helpful activity of the bodhisattva way, just mixing with ordinary beings. Not being, because we are children of Buddha, that doesn't mean that we're better than anybody else, because actually, from the point of view of Buddha, everyone has this potential. everyone has this quality of buddha nature.

[19:57]

So Dongshan clearly prefers the style of not falling into stages of achievement, emphasizing the background generations of nobility. Now, it's okay if you want to practice various stages of achievement. If you do that, Here we are, temporarily falling into impoverishment. We can recognize that there is this Buddha nature, and we can play in the field of stages of achievement. But it's not about getting somewhere else. Already, Buddha is present right around your cushion or chair. So I want to just close with saying a little bit more about this white rabbit. more familiar images of the White Rabbit from Modern times, there's a famous mid-19th century fable about a white rabbit who's also quite elegant and wears a waistcoat with a pocket watch and holding white kid gloves and is also kind of swift and tries to be even swifter.

[21:13]

He's concerned about, oh dear, oh dear, I shall be too late. But he leads this young girl named Alice to dive down a very deep hole. It's interesting that when Alice dives down the hole after the white rabbit, well, she falls into some distress in order to discover herself in a wonderland. And things become curiouser and curiouser. And all conventional sense of logic and proportion has fallen far away. And she's in one of these, maybe it's a Buddha field, I don't know. But one of the interesting things about this wonderland that Alice falls into is she doesn't climb and struggle up to reach some elevated state. It's right there under her feet. She just simply dives down into this hole. It's right there. And then there's, more recently, one of my favorite rock singers sang a song called White Rabbit, and she said, one pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small, and the one that mother gives you don't do anything at all.

[22:25]

And, you know, it occurs to me, you know, that in the path of cultivation, so that's Gracie Slick and Surrealistic Pillow, but Maybe in the path of cultivation and working to become eminent, some practices do make you larger. There may be meditations that make you larger, that provide a lofty perspective that may lead to self-inflation. And some practices may make you small, either via a very narrow focus or concentration or through the humbling awareness of one's self-centeredness. But it seems to me that maybe The pills or the meditation that Buddha gives you don't do anything at all. Just sit. Buddha is here. So anyway, Dongshan's Buddha, Dogen's Buddha, simply remind the practitioner of this inner uprightness, dignity, and the nobility of inner awakening.

[23:29]

questions, comments, responses, please. Jeremy. Can you help me out with the imagery of finding a pearl in ships? Well, yeah. Sometimes we have to dig around in a ship to find to the prodigal son. He spent years digging in the shit, and eventually realized that there was this jewel. There's another story in the Lotus Sutra about a jewel. There's actually a couple more, but there's one about two friends, and they were up late drinking, and the host had to leave, and the guest was you know, kind of having a hard time. So the host, before he left, sewed a jewel into the robe of the guest that had left.

[24:39]

And the guest woke up and, you know, the host was gone, and just, and they split. And years later, they ran into each other, and the former guest was really disheveled and had, you know, really having a hard time. And his friend said, what happened to you? I gave you that, you know, jewel. And he didn't realize it was, you know, there in his pocket all the time. He showed it, you know, realized it. And so this is also an image of being, having this Buddha nature, being a child of Buddha the whole time. Would you say it's not that he, I don't mean to mention found a white pearl, but that the ship is the white pearl? Well, I don't know. I don't know that you have to go that far. But the white pearl grows out of the irritation that the oyster feels. But it's not that we... I don't think... It's not that you have to go looking for difficulty.

[25:46]

You have to go looking for shit. You don't have to look for problems. Probably they'll come to you. You don't have to go looking for suffering. the world will provide that. And, you know, as I've said, if you manage to solve all your problems, someone will come and give you theirs as well. Other White Rabbit stories or responses? Hey, Joanne. Actually, when I was a little girl, and I'm just now thinking about this, it's kind of funny. I went to a mother-daughter tea when I was, like, maybe, I don't know, young, very young. And they had a magician there. And they proceeded to pull the white rabbit out of the hat. And I got to take it home with me.

[26:49]

And I didn't know that it was all prearranged with my parents and they had okayed it with them first and I just thought it was the coolest thing that ever happened to me in my entire life. And we got another one and actually it was male and female. So pretty soon we had rabbits coming out of our ears basically. We had rabbits in every possible out building and then my father decided he was going to take him to this sale barn and sell them all and then we moved back down to Tula. Oh, you still kept him? Yeah, or I didn't. I don't know, my memory fails me. But I was the rabbit keeper, so I had the duty of taking care of the rabbit. In southern Wisconsin in winter, they lived out in the hutch outside, so I had to make sure that they had water and food and all that.

[27:54]

I had to go out there and take care of them. So, I did that for a long time. It was really pretty fun. Yeah, rabbits are cute. So again, the basic message here from Dongshan is just, Buddha is here. You don't have to go looking for trouble. The rabbits will show up. We are all children of Buddha. And sometimes it takes some work to remember that. champions. I was caught by a phrase, I sort of blinked for a moment, it was a slip of the tongue, falling into enlightenment, as you said, along the way.

[29:01]

And it's an emotion for me that was falling into impoverishment, and he looked at it from another angle, is getting down to bedrock. Yeah. And a lot of wise novels about nature. Yeah. of all of that grooming, seeking after perfection, putting in quality time and practice? Yeah, the issue of, you know, do you practice trying to become special because you think you're a commoner or do you practice

[30:14]

as children of Buddha, doing what's necessary to actualize, to realize that maybe sometimes it doesn't look so different. You know, people get into thinking, people get self-defeated by thinking, oh, I'm just, you know, I'm no good, and, you know, there's these special beings up there who are Buddhas, and I think that can cause a lot of problems. If we all, if we realize that just by virtue of being here, just by making it into this room, you are children of Buddha, then some idea of unworthiness or something that some people get into that I think is part of something in our culture, that's not necessary.

[31:18]

then okay, well how do we go, the point then isn't to discover something or understand something or figure something out or become some, you know, to do some super, superpower, you know, to work super hard at some yogic exercise to reach some super state. The point is just how do I express that? quality that's somehow here already, and it may mean digging through all the ancient, twisted karma that's part of, you know, that we've accrued through the generations, through having fallen into impoverishment. But, you know, this Buddha nature, to talk about it in another way, is here. So there's some different feeling about practice from these two different approaches.

[32:31]

And I think it makes a difference. And very clearly, and working on Dongshan as I have been for a while now, it's very clear where Dongshan comes. This story is very clear, but in other stories too, it's clear where Dongshan comes from in this. I've talked about it in terms of just this rather than in this kind of immediacy of suchness as opposed to trying to reach, pass through various stages and pass through whatever system you think you need to pass through to become worthy or whatever. And there are those kinds of approaches, and that's fine, and maybe those are good for some people. But anyway, this is clearly where Dongshan, and I would say Dogen, and Sakya Roshi, and our whole tradition is coming from. It's right here. And we sit to express that, we sit to appreciate that, we sit to see how that works for each of us.

[33:39]

So it's just about time, but are there, is there a last comment? Yes, Chair. One of the things that strikes me between the two approaches is if you take the approach that there are sort of gates you have to pass through to get, it makes you think that there are some people that won't be able to get there because they don't get through the gates. Right. You know, if you take the other approach, it's like, well, you're already there. Yeah, we each have our different way of expressing it.

[34:24]

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