Good evening. Good evening. And happy New Year. Today is the Chinese New Year. This is the year of the dragon. So I feel like this is our year. And I want to talk tonight about dragons. And a few of you were here yesterday morning. We had some children from our sangha here. And they were coloring pictures of dragons. And we talked some about dragons. And I want to continue. this evening. So dragons are very important in Zen particularly. We use the dragon image. Dragons are in Chinese lore wise and dragons are awakened. I don't know if you've noticed pictures of dragons. They have big eyes because they can see very clearly. I'll start with just a few of the stories I told about dragons yesterday morning.

[01:07]

The one that our temple is named for, the Dragon Gate, goes back to at least a couple thousand years old. Well, the gate probably was there much longer than that, but in the bottom of one of those large rivers in China. Do you remember, Tom, which river that is? The Yangtze River along the Three Gorges River? I'm not sure which river it is. It's one of the deep rivers that runs west-east. Probably the Yangtze. Probably the Yangtze. Anyway, down in the bottom of that river there's a gate. And when fish come to that gate, if they swim through, they become dragons. So we have a new image for our altar, which is an image of the dragon gate. It says Longmen in Chinese on it, or Ryuman in Japanese. And you can see, if you look later, there's a fish coming in. There's a dragon coming up above. So they say that fish, when they get to the dragon gate, they either swim through and become dragons, or they decide not to at all and just stay fish.

[02:14]

But anyway, this is a... It goes way back in Chinese lore. So this idea of, so our temple is Ancient Dragon Zen Gate, and this is a gateway to the wisdom of dragons for all of us. And as we're engaged in this practice of upright sitting, there is this opportunity. maybe everywhere, you know. It may not be just at the bottom of that particular river in China. Maybe in Lake Michigan, too, there's a dragon gate. Anyway, we say gateways to the Dharma are everywhere. We've had to enter them. So how do we find our own gate to this awareness of dragons?

[03:15]

This is the challenge of this story, this dragon game. So there are many stories, many, many stories about dragons. I want to tell a couple more stories and talk then about some examples of dragons in Zen lore particularly. And in between, I'm going to talk a little bit about the recent scientific speculation about what dragons were and how they evolved how their, you know, what their anatomy was that allowed them to fly and breathe fire and so forth. But there's one story that goes back to the 8th century in Japan, to the Sarasawa Pond, which is next to Kofukuji Temple, the great Yogacara Temple in Nara, which was the capital, still a wonderful ancient A great city of temples and amazing Buddhist statues and Kof Kuji is one of my favorites.

[04:22]

It's got a big pagoda and a deer herd that wanders through and some amazing statues of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and Buddhist disciples and of some wrathful protector figures who guard the Dharma. But anyway, according to the story, there was one of the priests there decided to play a joke on some people, and he put up a sign by the Sarasawa Pond. It's still there. It's next, right just below the Kofukuji Temple. And there's shops around it, and it's a lovely pond. Anyway, he put a signpost by this pond that said, on a certain day, at noon exactly, a great dragon was going to emerge from this pond. So people saw the sign and they started telling everyone and everybody got very excited and all the townspeople spread the word and on that day, people came from a great distance to see this dragon. And of course, the priest from that temple was making fun of them and laughing at them and just thought this was a great joke that they all believed this.

[05:35]

Anyway, as noon approached, suddenly it started to get dark. And then there was something, some bubbling coming out from the middle of the pond. And then suddenly, this huge dragon sprang up and flew up into the sky. So this happened in the eighth century. I'm not sure which year. But anyway, this is another dragon story. Probably the most important dragon story in Buddhism is from the Lotus Sutra, one of the most important scriptures in East Asian Buddhism. The sutra about Well, it's a lot of things that go on in the Lotus Sutra. I've talked about it before, but many aspects of it. One of the things that goes on is that in the first half of the Sutra, the Buddha speaks to many of the Bodhisattva disciples and some of his other disciples and tells them, through his omniscience, that in a certain particular Dharma world,

[06:41]

And he names the world. In a very distant future, you will be a Buddha. And you'll be the Buddha named such and such. So he does this with many of his great disciples. And at some point, he says, actually, that anybody who takes a phrase from the sutra and recites it will eventually be a Buddha. And then Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom, who sits in most Zen temples in the main altar, and we have Manjushri just in front of Shakyamuni Buddha on our altar. He often rides a lion, as he does in our Zen Do, and sometimes he carries a sword to cut through delusion. He's carrying a teaching scepter in this image. But anyway, he asked the Buddha, is it possible to become a Buddha very quickly? And the Buddha said, yes, indeed.

[07:44]

And then, from out of the water emerged the daughter of the Dragon King. And actually, I'll talk about the difference between Indian and Chinese dragons. There are various subspecies. But the Indian dragons are called Nagas, and they tend to live deep under the water. And there's many things about them that are very important to us. But anyway, the Naga king's daughter, who was eight years old, came in front of the Buddha. So she was only eight years old. She was only a girl, which back then in patriarchal India was kind of looked down on. And she wasn't even quite human. She was a dragon, a dragon girl. But anyway, she presented to the Buddha a string of pearls as an offering. the Buddha said to Manjushri, do you see how quickly she made that offering to me? And Manjushri said, yes. And the Buddha said, just so quickly she can become a Buddha. And like that, the Dragon King's daughter became a Buddha.

[08:46]

So this is an important story in the Lotus Sutra because a lot of Buddhism talks about many, many, many, many lifetimes and ages of practice that it takes And then eventually, in the future sometime, you can become a Buddha. But really what the Lotus Sutra tells us is that Buddha is already here. And sometimes we may feel very clearly that, oh no, this isn't Buddha here, sitting on my chair cushion. But actually Buddha is very, very close. And so this dragon king's daughter, this dragon princess, demonstrated that, this buddhaness that was right there. So all of the disciples and the great bodhisattvas who were there listening to the Buddha were very impressed. So dragons are, again, very important in Chinese lore and Japanese, too, and in Zen teaching.

[09:56]

and stories. So I wanted to share some, as I said, some speculations about what dragons are. And this comes from a wonderful film that Dolan let me call Dragon's World. And there's a book that I've been studying again, I read a long time ago, that's in our library called Flight of Dragons. Maybe I'll just start by showing you some of that. You can see the big eyes. I'll put this out later, you can look at it. Dragons have these thin wings, they have these big eyes. Sometimes, you know, there may have been a different species. In Europe, dragons are considered kind of malevolent, and various saints go and slay the dragons. But in Asia, you know, dragons are, wise. And here's a dragon just hatching from its egg, a cute dragon.

[11:04]

And there's other dragons, and I'll again read this book out for you to see. Dragons in, the dragons in China particularly seem to be very, you know, snake-like. This one doesn't have wings, so some of them didn't fly, or maybe they didn't fly at certain stages of their life cycle, so I'll talk about that a little bit. But one thing that's remarkable is that basically in all cultures in the world there are images of dragons or some variation of dragons. going back into early imagery and early lore. So we can say that dragons are just myths, but what if there really were dragons? So based on that speculation, some scientists have thought about, well, how could that be? So one idea is that dragons

[12:11]

go back to the Cretaceous era, they were simultaneous with the large dinosaurs. And when the dinosaur, when the extinction happened, that mass extinction, that actually there were more species becoming extinct in our time than there were then, but all the dinosaurs were wiped out. But maybe some thought that some dragons survived. Well, first of all, the thought is that dragons initially were water animals. they evolved various ways to survive after the dinosaurs were wiped out. So one theory is that dragons had Dragons were very large. That's clear from all the images. And they had these wings that, aerodynamically, it's impossible in terms of physics that those small wings could have allowed such large animals to fly. It's not possible. But what if there was something else that allowed dragons to be able to

[13:17]

rise into the sky. So there's a thought that part of the biochemistry of dragons involved that they had chambers in their bodies that were filled with hydrogen, lighter than air. so that they had natural buoyancy and dragons could live based on this. There are various theories about this in the film that Don has there, suggested they had sort of large bladders that were filled with hydrogen. There's one speculation. So, you know, I'm not, we don't know if this is, interesting speculation that there were sort of these spongy honeycomb kind of air sections of the dragon that were filled with hydrogen. Now one of the implications of having a hydrogen system, hydrogen is available in bones and there's a process of biochemical process that could have happened. And one of the implications of that, of having hydrogen as an aerodynamic system, would be that when they exhaled, depending on some other chemical process in their mouths, fire would come out.

[14:36]

So that it would explain the fiery breath which is depicted in many stories about dragons. And, you know, it's possible that the dragons then would that also one reason why we might not have found fossils is that part of the bio of the of the chemistry involved in Maybe you can comment on this, Jeremy, as a chemist. It's been a long time since I had high school chemistry. But anyway, that hydrochloric acid was produced, and that would have eaten away the bone. So that's why there would not be fossils. Anyway, I don't know if this is how Cauchoner theory this is, but it's interesting. There certainly does seem to be variations on dragons in the myths, in the mythology. maybe marine dragons. In India, the Nagas seem to be a form of dragon. Sometimes this is translated as dragons, but the Nagas seem to be under the water.

[15:41]

They're very important in Buddhism and Buddhist lore, too, because the Nagas were said to have listened to some of the teachings of Buddha and kept it alive. when regular people were not yet ready to hear it. So a lot of the Mahayana teachings, the Bodhisattva teachings, are said to have come from the Nagas. And there's a great figure in Buddhist history, Nagarjuna, a great philosopher. They don't know exactly when he lived, maybe 200 or 300. the common era. He's named after the Nagas. He's the sage of the Nagas. We chanted tonight the Perfection of Wisdom Heart Sutra. There are many different Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, but Nagarjuna is very much involved with that branch of Buddhism as is Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. So these Perfection of Wisdom Sutras are about emptiness teaching and about non-attachment. And Nagarjuna was the

[16:42]

kind of the great philosopher of emptiness and of non-attachment. And the lore is that he got these teachings from Nagas who brought them to him from under the ocean. So anyway, some of the dragon lore depicts aquatic dragons. Now, it may be that they, so again, the European dragons seem to be different. The Chinese dragons tend to be more forest or mountain dragons. and those are the ones that are most part of Zen lore. One theory is that the dragons adapted after the dinosaurs into various subspecies. Who knows? At any rate, putting all that speculation aside, what are dragons in Zen? Well, one famous Zen saying is that A dragon howls in a withered tree.

[17:46]

So part of our practice is just to sit still. And this now, as we're entering into Chicago winter, we can particularly see that side of darkness and stillness. And when we sit all day or when we sit long hours or when we actually confront our own human entitlement of greed, hate and delusion, it takes a while to stop and really face that. How do we face this stillness, this darkness? There was one... Actually, a Soto teacher in China whose zenta was called the Dead Stump Hall, because he emphasized it. You've all heard me say that it's okay if you need to move in the middle of a period of zazen.

[18:54]

It's okay to do that, just do it quietly. So I don't emphasize sitting still for long periods, but some teachers did. And part of this idea is to just stop. And this sense of our deepest vitality and life and awareness kind of withering. The Dogen talks also about the plums blossoming on the same dead branches last year. So this idea of energy arising out of stillness, out of the image of the lotus is the lotus growing out of the mud, out of the mud of our impurities. So this idea of where our deeper life comes from is echoed in the saying, a dragon howls in a withered tree. That's one way the dragon image is used. Of course, I already mentioned the dragon gate. And in Chinese culture, they say that dragons and tigers are often paired together.

[20:06]

Dragons are supposed to be yang, or creative, and tigers are yin, or receptive. They say when clouds arise, dragons howl. So sometimes dragons, there are these flying dragons also that hide in the clouds. Let's see. So I thought I'd read a couple things from Hongzhe, the Chinese Soto teacher, century before this Japanese Soto founder, Dogen, who talks in a couple places about dragons. just as an example. And he's also here, in this one, talking about, so I'll just read parts of it, this section, but he's also talking about how our deeper awareness and vitality arise.

[21:09]

He says, being withered and cold, a body and mind cleanses and sharpens the field. The dusts are jumbled and then distilled, leaving each realm vacant and bright. The moon in the water reflects the light in the clearing sky. The clouds embrace the mountain with its autumn colors. Whether jet black or lush green, the profound depths have great spirit. The inherently illuminated original root is not constrained by the branches and leaves. So he's talking about this deep meditation. This is the time and place to leap beyond the 10,000 emotional entanglements of innumerable ages. One contemplation of 10,000 years finally goes beyond all the transitory and you emerge with spontaneity. The clouds traveling in the vacant valley are free whether moving or tranquil. Agreeably enter every sense dust while constantly staying in samadhi.

[22:12]

So enter into the world. This practice is not a practice about separating from our life or the world, but entering into every sense, entering into the problems of our life, and still constantly staying in samadhi. And so the Hongshu says, therefore we've been told that Nagas are always in meditation, never apart from this sublime state. So one of the ways that the image of Nagas or dragons is used is that, you know, with their big eyes, they keep their eyes open. Sometimes there's images of Bodhidharma who's on the other side of our altar with these big eyes, and he's supposed to have cut off his eyes so he could stay awake. More of Zen legend, but anyway. This idea of being present and upright in samadhi right in the middle of daily life, right in the middle of everyday activity. So he says, we've been told that Nagas are always in meditation, never apart from this sublime state.

[23:14]

This is one image of the way of Zen, to be present and upright, right in the middle of our lives. There's another passage where Hongxiao talks about dragons, kind of as an image of Sangha. So he says, in the wind abode, clouds and dragons harmoniously follow each other. And, you know, these images that are, as I'm teaching more than Indian or Tibetan Buddhism, uses imagery and poetry to kind of express something. rather than trying to say it directly, because we can't really, actually. But clouds is also used as an image for wandering practitioners. Dragons, or mountains sometimes, are used to describe teachers or sages. So anyway, he says, in the winded boat, clouds and dragons harmoniously follow each other.

[24:19]

Very naturally, from the first, they do not need to express their intentions to each other. Similarly, Zen practitioners are accommodating, and based on causes and conditions, can harmoniously practice together. Arriving without display, emerging unconcealed, the wondrous clouds and dragons enter the whole scene and cannot be confused. Casually hanging above the 10,000 features, each distinctly presents a spectacular image. And of course, the images of dragons are spectacular. Complete without a hair's difference between them, springing forth with spontaneity, they clearly exemplify coming home, but still must investigate until they have eaten their fill. Clouds disperse and the winds die down. The autumn sky clears and the moon sets. The waters of heaven are limitless. Where the ground is on its own, the brightness begins to be realized. So, here again, dragons,

[25:21]

and each distinctly presenting a spectacular image, is this image for the practice of settling. So another way to talk about our meditation, and this goes back actually to early Indian meditation and salvation meditation, and Chinese meditation talks about Settling and insight. And dragons represent insight, but they also settle. So dragons used to... A lot of the stories about dragons are they're hanging out in the mountains or in caves, or in caves under the ocean or in the water. So our practice is about both sides. Settling and then springing free. Like the dragon bursting forth from Sarasawa Pond in Naan. So again, this great vitality and coming to life.

[26:26]

So I want to give some time for your questions about dragons and thoughts about dragons, but I'll end with And again, these dragons are images for, in Chinese, in Zen more for wisdom, for awakening, and also for longevity. But there's this, again, pairing of dragons and tigers. And one of Dogen's first Dharamhal discourses in his extensive record when he was still in Kyoto, Maybe around 1245 or so. These are very short talks, but he said, a dragon howls in a dark cave. The whole universe quiets. The tiger roars at the edge of a cliff.

[27:34]

The cold valley becomes warm. That's what Dogen said at that occasion. So, how do we find our dragon's breath? How do we find our dragon's heart? This is the challenge of the year of the dragon. Dragons are, this is a very auspicious year for us, and in general, dragons are very People born in the year of the dragon are very bright and charismatic. So if anybody is, well, anybody who's going to be born in this year would be in the year of the dragon, but if anybody here is going to be 12 this year, or 24, or 36, or 48, or 60, anybody? Great, we have a dragon here.

[28:40]

We have many dragons here, of course, but somebody from the Year of the Dragon, great. So, comments or questions? Or dragon utterances or stories? Adam. I saw a piece in the New York Times in China, they were expecting many more births this year than is usual. The hospitals and everything are preparing to be very, very busy. People want to have children who are in the year of the dragon. It's very auspicious, yeah. Yeah, I didn't know that. Great. Makes sense. Yes, Josh. And then I was thinking that it does kind of represent this child's quality to build a mind and maybe kind of an anything is possible quality.

[30:02]

Even in physics, there's this idea that there's a one in a trillion chance that if I do that, that way and not be so rigid about it, because I know I tend to get really rigid about things, about my feelings. That's very good to know about yourself. That's a sign of actual flexibility, to be aware of one's rigidity. Yeah. Good. Yeah, and some practice does that. It kind of opens us up to other possibilities. And whether dragons actually existed or they're just myths, I don't know. I'm agnostic about all these things. But it's interesting to speculate. It's true that there are dragons in many different unconnected, there's dragon lore in many different unconnected societies all around the world, or cultures, early cultures. And there's quite a bit of similarity. One thing is they have four legs and wings, and there's no other animal that has... Animals either have four legs or two legs and wings, like birds.

[31:13]

Anyway, we don't know if they might have evolved, and there's something in that in Loch Ness in Scotland. The most important lesson that I got through my studies as a chemist is that really anything is possible. I know that's probably not the answer you want. I don't know. You put chlorine and hydrogen in the same place, a little bit of hydrochloric acid will be created, but who knows what circumstances exist at the time. Of course it's possible. Well, I thought you might just say bah, bah, bah. No, I wouldn't. It's too much experience to say no. But, you know, even if they never existed in those forms, something about the image, you know, is there some

[32:21]

Somebody yesterday was saying we have a reptilian mind and maybe there's this image of this genetic image going back to early mammals and dinosaurs and that's where the dragon images come from. I don't know. Yes, Kyle. One theory I had heard from a friend, he said he saw it on a documentary, is the reason that dragons are so common and so ubiquitous is because they represent all the elements of animals that we both fear and respect. The arms or claws of a lion and the head of a snake or lion, body of a giant snake, wings of a bird. They kind of make them super predators. So that was one interesting theory about why And this is from yesterday, it's still there.

[33:27]

It didn't go off. So, gone yesterday, we had for the kids these temporary dragon tattoos, and I got one. But I think most of the adults ended up with them. Maybe tattoos are passe for the kids now, I don't know. Yes, Tom. In Journey to the West, didn't Isn't one of the characters initially a dragon? That's the Hermann Hesse book? Shiouji? Oh, with Xuanzang. Oh, Xuanzang, yeah. Oh yeah, the dragon, the monkey story. Yeah. There's a monkey and a pig and a horse, I don't know. I thought the horse was originally a dragon. Maybe so, I don't remember. Maybe he becomes a dragon. Puzzle. Yeah, all through Chinese lore, there's stories about, there's dragons appear. And of the 12 Chinese zodiac animals, it's the only one that's quote-unquote mythological.

[34:37]

The others are, you know, common animals. Horse, rat, dog. Ox. I'm an ox. Anybody else? Dawn. So I have that film. I don't even remember the name of it. And I took it home. It's called Dragon World. Dragon World. It's a cool movie. And that was kind of neat because it was made kind of as a documentary, if I remember correctly. So that's kind of, it's fun to watch. If anybody wants to borrow it, I would bring it back. And I don't know, they just end up in my crayon box. So that was helpful for me to kind of see that and see dragons in a different light rather than like cartoons or, cartoons really basically, it's, you know, growing up watching them. But then I was trying to remember yesterday when we were sitting here, like what they eat.

[35:41]

Do you remember? Like, cause I don't remember if they said anything on this, on that film. Then I'm like sitting here, They did us, and I can't remember now, I think they, oh yeah, well they ate sheep in that film, which is why humans, they were eating the humans. In the film that Don has, it talks about sometime, and I don't know when it is, but sometime when humans are around and dragons are around and dragons are becoming extinct, and so they finally are driven to eat livestock. So they're predators. But the other side of that is that now we've been talking about dragons. Do any of you know what Garudas are? So, and I don't, you know, since this is Ancient Dragons' Endgate, I don't know, maybe it's rude of me to mention Garudas. Garudas are Indian birds that have very long, very huge wingspan.

[36:43]

They, several yajanas, and the yajana is the distance an army can march in one day. So they're, you know, huge wingspans. And Garudas only eat one thing, dragons. So, Somewhere in his extensive record, Dogen talks about the, we've talked about the song of Faith Mine where, attributed to the Third Ancestor, where he says, the way is very simple, just don't pick and choose. And Dogen quotes that and says, Garudas choose to eat dragons. So we're all part of the food chain, you know. Even dragons have, you know, animals that might eat them. So we're all part of this. There's no way to escape being part of this world of causes and conditions.

[37:44]

And even dragons are part of that, even though dragons represent this kind of ultimate awakening. So that's quite a tangent from what you, from your question. I think of how to train. Did you see how to train? Of course. And I thought that was a really good movie. That was excellent. I've seen it numerous times. What's that one? Well, it's a cartoon. It's an animated movie meant for children. It's really good. And I think they eat cheap as well. How to Train Your Dragon. I just love that. They might eat cheap. But I can't remember. I think so. I can't remember. Yes, chair? Do you know who came up with the name, Ancient Dragons at Gate? I do. Was it you? I was one of the three people sitting in a room when I... Was it before or after I wrote here?

[38:48]

I don't remember. And we like dragons. I didn't want it to be just a Zen center. There's lots of Zen centers around. It should be a Zen gate. So anyway, it evolved from that. Fortunately, we put the word ancient in the front because it turns out in many listings of Zen places, we're at the top because of the A in ancient.

[39:12]

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