Good morning and welcome. And happy Enlightenment Day. So today is the day traditionally celebrated as the day that Shakyamuni Buddha awakened. It's also, for some of us, the fifth day of Rohatsu Sashin, and for some of us, the first day. And we've been working with this text from the founder of the Cao Dong Soto lineage in China, Dongshan in the 9th century, the Song of the Jewel Marrow Samadhi, and looking at it as a kind of koan text with many of the lines functioning as turning phrases or koans or zazen instructions.

[01:23]

And talking about what happened 2,500 years ago, more or less today, he says, the dharma of suchness was intimately transmitted and continues to be intimately transmitted by Buddhas and ancestors. Now you have it. Preserve it well. So even though we celebrate Shakyamuni Buddha's enlightenment, this was not like a one-time thing that was finished and that's it. Dogen, in Dongshan's lineage much later in the 1200s, talks a lot about Buddha going beyond Buddha. So here we are today. this dharma of suchness, of just this, is intimately transmitted. So Shakyamuni Buddha, when he became the Buddha on this day, 2,500 or so years ago, didn't stop practicing and didn't stop awakening.

[02:41]

He continued to practice and awaken every day the rest of his life. And somehow it was intimately transmitted. And Yunyan said to Dongshan, now you are in charge of this great matter. Now you have it. Please take care of it. Please be thoroughgoing. Please take care of it well. And now We chant this, and so now we have it. How do we take care of it? So this is what we've been talking about all week and practicing with. I wasn't going to do this until later, but I've been threatening all week to bring the Chinese characters to this. We'll bring them to this sentence.

[03:44]

Now, the dharma of suchness is intimately transmitted. The word that's translated here as transmitted is not the same word as dharma transmission. It's not that character. It's just intimately entrusted, this character. So it's used for transmission, but it's not the character for dharma transmission. And the intimately, this was a question that came up yesterday, is, as I thought, mitsu. So it means closely, carefully, secretly, mysteriously. It's the word for esoteric Buddhism, for tantric Buddhism. So it's the same character that Douglas was asking about in the last line on the other side.

[04:45]

With practice hidden, which could be just that those characters could also travel incognito. With practice hidden, functions secretly. That secretly is the same character as intimately transmit. function intimately, function. So this is the kind of final closing instruction, I'm jumping to the end here, since it's the last day, of this song that we've been singing, or reading the lyrics of anyway. Yeah, so. Here, I have my Chinese translator right next to me. So intimately, carefully, we could say secretly, but it's closely, carefully, intimately, function, use it.

[05:48]

So like a fool, like an idiot. just to do this continuously is called the master among masters, or the host within the host, to use the host and guest jargon. So I will go back to the characters a little later, but I just wanted to clarify that. This entrustment of how we preserve it well is done carefully, tenderly, intimately, so It's hard to say what it is and how it is done. It's very tender. And this has happened somehow since Shakyamuni Buddha's time, even from India to China. where they started talking about masters and lords and children and fathers.

[06:58]

And now we want to think about this in terms of helping and serving in other ways. But even from China to Japan, and even from Japan to California, and even from California to Chicago still, We are intimately, carefully, tenderly trying to take good care of this 2,500 years later. So a little later from Dongshan, a couple of other Teachers in this lineage of Dongshan put together a book of serenity. And Hongzhe and Wansong commented on something from the great flower ornament, Avatamsaka Sutra, about what the Buddha realized.

[08:06]

when he was fully awakened, 2,500 years ago, today, or more or less. We don't know the exact date, but maybe somebody does. Anyway, according to the Flower Ornament Sutra, the Buddha said at that point, now I see all sentient beings everywhere fully possess the wisdom and virtues of the enlightened ones. But because of false conceptions and attachments, they do not realize it." So this is the same as, now they have it. The dharma of suchness is intimately transmitted. Now they have it. Now you have it. Now we have it. the Buddha realized, because of false conceptions and attachments, we don't realize it.

[09:15]

Sometimes we don't realize it. And then commenting on this, Wansong said, he was quoting another commentary on the practice and vows of the great Bodhisattva Samantabhadra, the shining practice Bodhisattva, called it the opening up of the source of the nature of beings. And in those vows of Samantabhadra, he says, oh, children of Buddha, there's not a single sentient being who does not fully possess the wisdom of the awakened ones. It is only because of false conceptions, error, and attachments that they doubt that they do not realize it. If they give up false conceptions, then omniscience, spontaneous knowledge, and unhindered wisdom can become manifest. And it also says, then the Buddha observed all the beings of the cosmos, not even just this world, with his pure, unobstructed eye of wisdom and said, how wonderful

[10:35]

How strange. How is it that these beings all have the wisdom of the awakened ones, yet in their folly and delusion do not know or see it? I should teach them the right path to make them abandon illusion and attachment forever so that they can perceive the vast wisdom of the awakened ones within their own bodies and be no different from the Buddhas. So we've been talking about that, too, in the Song of the Jewel Mara Samadhi. It says on the second page, when teachings and approaches are distinguished, each has its standard, whether teachings and approaches are mastered or not, reality constantly flows. So this reality of the awakened ones, it's right here. Now you have it.

[11:40]

Serve it well. But then the song goes on to say, outside still and inside trembling like tethered colts or cowering rats. So this is one of those Azen lines. And some of you were willing to acknowledge that sometimes In your Zazen, people right in this room, even while they are outwardly still, are inside trembling like cowering rats or tethered colts. And it's possible to untether the colts. Just as a demonstration of that, we arranged to have a colt upstairs traveling back and forth, just so you can imagine, an untethered cult. Some of you may have heard that. So the ancient sages grieved for them and offered them the dharma. So this is what we're talking about this week.

[12:43]

Shakyamuni Buddha, Dongshan, Hongzhe, Wansong, Dogen, Sugiroshi, Led by their inverted views, they take black for white. So that's what the Book of Serenity was talking about, that because of false conceptions and attachments, because of inverted views, they don't realize, we don't realize, this reality constantly flowing. Dharma of suchness, just this, that has been intimately, closely, carefully made available down through the ages.

[13:45]

So the ancient sages grieved. like in the story in the Book of Serenity, and offered the Dharma, led by their inverted views, these beings with their false conceptions, with negative thoughts, with negative emotions caught by these, Take black for white, thanks to these topsy-turvy views. But when these stop, when we let go of these, when we take the antidotes of the dharma, when we stop harboring ill will, when we convert our anger to positive uses, when we let go of difficult emotions, this is not easy.

[14:54]

This takes a lot of practice. This is part of our meditative arsenal, to put it that way. When that inverted thinking stops, the affirming mind naturally accords. So this affirming mind is the good news of this song of the Jewel Marrow Samadhi. So we've been talking about some of the turning phrases, some of the wonderful koans spread throughout this. So I want to go back now before I come back to the affirming mind. The Dharma of Suchness is intimately transmitted by Buddhists and ancestors. Now you have it. Preserve it well. That's the first key line of this song. It's intimately entrusted.

[15:59]

It's closely, carefully entrusted. Now, it's here. How do we take care of it? How do we see through our topsy-turvy views, our karmic entanglements from greed, anger, and confusion? And then the other key line here, like facing a jewel mirror, form and reflection behold each other. You are not it, but in truth it is you. So I've been encouraging you to use this in Zazen, to face the jewel mirror, to face the wall in front of you as a jewel mirror, and to allow it to face you. Form and reflection behold each other. What is it like when the wall sees you?

[17:04]

You are not it, but actually it's you. And is there any place that's not a jewel mirror? Please consider this. You are not it, but in truth it is you. As Dogen says in amplification, to carry yourself forward, to experience the wall, is delusion. When everything comes forth and experiences themselves, that's awakening. And that includes you. The wall is not blocking you from anything. The wall is a window. The wall is a doorway. to the whole world, which includes you. It reflects you. There's so many wonderful, juicy lines in this song.

[18:21]

It's one of those songs, you know, like some of the, I don't know, if there are any Beatles or Dylan or Leonard Cohen songs that have so many great lines in them. But a pivotal moment brings it forth. The meaning isn't in the words, but there are pivotal moments. So I wanted to go and I've talked about that line, but I wanted to say more about that character. Yeah, the meaning is the mind, the intention of the dharma of suchness, of the truth, the reality of suchness.

[19:34]

It's the meaning, it's the intention, it's the mind of dharma of suchness. It's not caught in the words. But when this moment, when this function, when this capacity when the activity, the fundamental activity of the world, when the inquiring student, when the true question comes forth, then it responds. The dharma of suchness responds. This character here, which also means a loom or a mechanism or an opportunity. So that's one of the lines here that no single translation can really capture, because there's so much going on in that line. But there's this possibility, even though we wonder, what is this?

[20:36]

Yesterday Douglas asked, what is this dharma of suchness? No single line can catch it, but when we bring forth this energy, this function, when we question it, it responds. The intention, the meaning, the mind of the dharma of suchness comes forth. So this is a zazen instruction, this line. This is a koan, this line. How do we bring forth the mind and the meaning and the intention of this reality of suchness, of justice, of the heart of the world? It does respond. We can't say it exactly. And yet, when we are willing to just sit and be present and upright and feel our inhale and exhale, something happens.

[21:44]

We don't really know what it is, but something happens. It's not unavailable. It's in the world. It's here in the room. It's on your seat. And then, you know, the song goes on to tell us, amongst other things, that turning away and touching are both wrong. and literally it's turning your back. It's like a massive fire. It's like a big, big fire and turning your back on it or trying to grab it, trying to, literally that means to gore or offend or arouse, to trying to get a hold of it.

[22:51]

Both are wrong. You can't do that to a big massive fire. Buddhas sit in the middle of fire, and they don't turn away from it, and they don't try and get a hold of it either. It doesn't work. So throughout this song, there are all these wonderful instructions or hints or koans about how to preserve it well, how to take care of this teaching of suchness. And another level of what's going on here is that inclined and upright interact, that the ultimate, the true, background reality, the universal reality, and the partial, the phenomenal, the particulars of this world, of this situation, of this, you know, the complicated mess of our personal lives and our communal life in this world, they interact.

[24:11]

This practice and this five-fold business is about the process of how they interact and how we bring this underlying truth of the dharma of suchness that Shakyamuni Buddha discovered 2,500 years ago or uncovered for us, how to bring that into our lives in this world. That ultimate awareness is not something far away, up in the Himalayas or in some mountains in California or somewhere. It's even in Chicago, believe it or not. So we have to penetrate the source.

[25:15]

Somehow we have to find. What's true? This dharma of suchness. And then travel the pathways. See how it works. Travel through all the different teachings and teachers and all the different, you know, see, watch how it's been passed to us. Embrace the territory. Treasure the roads. Treasure the pathways. Treasure all the ways that it's come to us. And respect it. So part of this process, this process of preserving it well, is this radical respect, to respect ourselves for being here. What did we chant at the beginning? This dharma is rarely matched with even 100,000 million kalpas. That's even more time than since Shakyamuni Buddha awakened, right?

[26:26]

So earlier, Musashin, somebody kind of freaked out when they realized it was 100,000 million kalpas. So we would do well to respect this. But it's just natural and wondrous, he goes on to say. It's not about delusion or enlightenment. This isn't about reaching some state of enlightenment, some special, exotic, flashy light kind of I mean, those things happen, actually. You know. They do.

[27:30]

But that's not the point. How do we take care of it? Within causes and conditions, time and season, it's serene and illuminating. Even in winter. Even with the causes and conditions that brought you here. Reality constantly flows. So affirming mind naturally accords. What is this affirming mind? How do we say yes to this process? How do we say yes to Buddha? How do we say yes to Dongshan and Hongxue and Dogen and Tsukiroshi? How do we say yes to ourselves? That's maybe even harder. Maybe it's easier to say yes to Dogen than it is to say yes to ourselves. The affirming mind naturally accords.

[28:31]

So I particularly wanted to talk about this ancient Buddha from the Lotus Sutra today on Shakyamuni Buddha's enlightenment day. So we've been talking about this one on the verge of realizing the Buddha way, who contemplated a tree for 10 kalpas. And I've been recommending that as a zazen instruction. There is a, the story is also in, I think it's the Mumonkan, it's a case in one of the Koan collections, and they sort of criticize this Buddha, like he wasn't really, you know, why couldn't he just do it, you know? What was his hangup that he took so long to get it, you know? There's that way of understanding the story. But there's also, he just, you know, he was just right there and he just,

[29:41]

You know, like the galloping horses, he just wanted to appreciate facing the wall, facing a tree. For 10 calpas, that's a long time. It's not quite 100,000 million calpas, but he was just, you know, just being on the verge. And it seems to me like it's a very noble practice not to step over the line, to be an example of just staying in the world, not checking out. And just for new people, in India, as I said, just to complete the reference, they didn't have meditation halls like this.

[30:48]

I guess during the rainy season they had places where they gathered and maybe they faced the wall, I don't know. But most of the time they would wander around and they would sit and face a tree. You know, and so that's, it's like facing the wall. So he contemplated a tree. And Buddhism is an earth religion. We appreciate the earth. We appreciate trees. We oppose deforestation. We like trees. The great master Linji, Rinzai in Japanese, There's a story about him planting trees way up in the mountains where no one would see them, just because he wanted to appreciate trees and leave them as a legacy. Anyway, this guy sat in Zazen facing a tree for 10 kalpas.

[31:54]

And according to the Lotus Sutra, throughout those 10 kalpas, Bodhisattvas rained down flowers on him while he was sitting there. So these kind of magical stories, some of you It may not, they may not appeal to. But anyway, the story goes that finally he did, after ten kalpas, become a Buddha. And then he taught many people, and he had sixteen sons. So he wasn't into, I don't know, he may have had many daughters too, and they don't talk about that, sorry. But the youngest son, later on in a later life, became Shakyamuni Buddha.

[33:05]

Anyway, that's that story. But going back to the affirming mind's naturally according, well, there's many other stories about that. There's the arrows meeting head on. There's the wooden man starting to sing, the stone woman getting up to dance. There's the energy arising out of stillness. Many stories about that. There's the cats and white oxen. There's Nan Chuan, Zhaozhou's teacher, once said, The Buddhas and ancestors don't know it is. Cats and white oxen know. Cats and cows know it is. So they do. Cats just kind of know. Cows know.

[34:11]

Maybe Buddhas and ancestors need to not know. I don't know. But when the wooden man starts to sing and the still woman gets up to dance, it's like the drumming and singing begin together. This is something that happens, you know, not based on our deliberation or, you know, our thinking. It's not that you should get rid of your thinking mind. There's some very smart people in the room. And it's not that you should get rid of your, you know, your intellectual, analytical minds. Use them, use them to help beings. But what we're talking about here, this taking care of the dharma of suchness, you know, you can use the liberation to help that maybe, but what this is about is more immediate than that, more intimate than that, more tender than that.

[35:12]

When the wooden man starts to sing, the stone woman gets up dancing. How do you serve and obey the Buddhism ancestors? And even more, how did you do this continuously? How do you do this? Everybody in this room does it sometimes. I don't think you'd be here if you didn't. But then our practice is, how do we take care of it? How do we do this? How do we preserve it well? How do we take care to do it? So Dongshan says, practice, submerge into, go or practice,

[36:39]

Have your practice hidden, or submerged, or dive into your practice. And function, use it, serve, work intimately. You could say secretly, but it's really, it means more like carefully, intimately in this case. Closely. Like a fool. Like an idiot. If you can do this well, this compound, continuously, doing it thoroughly over and over, that's master amongst masters. That's what they call in Zen jargon, the host within the host. So how do we keep on? How do we keep at this? How do we continue doing this? Some of you have been doing this practice now here at Ancient Dragon, or at other places, and then here, and then at other places, and then here, or whatever, for a long time.

[37:59]

And the point, according to Dongchun, is just to keep doing it. How do we express the dharma of the reality, the teaching of just this? Just this is it. So this is what the Buddha awakened for us. This is our challenge and our joy on this Enlightenment Day. So thank you all for doing this. Thank you all for being here. Are there any comments or responses or questions? Please feel free. I think it was helpful to give those alternative readings in a number of terms. I think it really added a lot of color to the talk.

[39:04]

Good. I have the characters here. Are there other lines that you want further elucidated? She got a sliding scale stipend for this. So, like a fool, like an idiot. Where's the character for idiot? These two are... Yeah, so do you want to say more about what these characters mean? The later one, the second, so they're... It's a, I would say that most of this, this whole song is composed of sort of like four character short sentences.

[40:09]

That's my feeling. Yeah. Yes. Four character, like, um, four character lines. Yeah. Yes. Um, but these characters fool and idiots. And so the first and third means like, like, and sec, second and fourth, I don't really understand the fourth, but the second one is just, um, stupid or dumb or slow. It can be like that. But also, it's not necessarily. Yeah, to me, it can also entail the good, diligent, and dumb students serving. Yeah, bad student, like a galloping horse. And the other thing to say. It's a little bit unfair to ask Xing Xu, because this is Tang Dynasty Chinese. So they may have had other meanings, but just from the dictionary, the first one means also dunce.

[41:15]

Which one? This one. OK. Dunce. And the second one means idiot or foolish or stupid. So anyway, those are from the dictionary. But yeah, I don't know if that helps. Yes. kind of very earnestly and very simply.

[42:17]

Yeah, I like the word simple. Yeah, thank you. That's good. Yeah, Aisha. I may have not heard correctly, but seeing you, I thought you said it also could mean like a good student. Is that? Yeah, this is more of a like context. It reminds me of also like other ancient texts that describe mostly our students who were very It's a sort of, even a culture thing, like sometimes it can mean that the dumb students are often the most diligent and in the long term they will be the one that do the best. That's kind of what I thought you meant, was that a good student doesn't think that they already know things. They let themselves be dumb. Yes. Or they're just, it can also mean that they're not the quickest. They are not, but they insist upon something, which is also mentioned.

[43:20]

To do it continuously. And also, I hope I'm not talking too much. That's fine, that's good. But like, with this part about of a Chinese character, like it really feels like, I have this image of like, you know, like when you dive into the pool and you just, you just really like go underneath the pool. You don't like, it really has the feeling of going deep and really humbly and very diligently. I feel like this sentence really brings out both the attitude and also the action that's required. Yes, it's going deep, yes. Ah, that's a good, yeah, good. Thank you for throwing that in, yeah. So there's a, oh yes, Suzanne. I'm trying to remember, there's a story that involves a monk, I believe, who sleeps, like in South Sudan, he's always sleeping, sitting straight up.

[44:26]

You might be talking about Shantideva. There are various stories like that, but Shantideva was a monk in India who was considered very stupid and foolish, and the other monks wanted to kick him out, so they made him give a talk, and his talk turned out to be the Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life, the Bodhicara, I forget the Sanskrit name, but it's a classic that's studied now in the West. When he was finished, he flew up into the sky, as they say. So yes, but there's also the story, speaking of the horses and the tethered cult and the galloping horses, the story of the four horses, Suki Roshi talks about. Do you all know the four horses? Yeah, oh, okay. I don't need to talk.

[45:30]

That means you're the first horse. You don't even have to tell the story. But Suki Roshi says the fourth horse is really the best. about because some are wide-eyed cats and white oxen. What is wide-eyed? That could also be translated as because some are capable of wonder. I thought wide-eyed caught that. So that's about skillful means. Because some are common or just vulgar, jewel tables and ornate robes as a way of attracting people who would be attracted by fancy stuff. Although, that might also appeal to people who have some aesthetic developments. This is just talking about different approaches, skillful means. Because some are capable of wonder is another way to translate that first phrase.

[46:35]

Here I'll show. white cats and white oxen who are just simple creatures who, let me see if I can find that and see what you say. But the cats and the white oxen is also a reference to the ox herding picture. So I've been talking about this song just in terms of itself without all the references, but since you're, oh, in fact, another other interpretations here. Is this it? No, this is a different line. I'm sorry. No, wait a second. Excuse me. Yeah.

[47:47]

Which line is it on the English? The cats and white oxen. It's before this. Is it? No, here it is. This is it. For the common. Because there are the common, the inferior, the base, the vulgar, then there are jeweled tables, fancy robes. Then for those, For those capable of wonder, I just translated that as wide-eyed. I don't know what you want to say about that. Then there are cats. This could be translated lots of ways. And white ox, white bulls. I don't know how you want to translate that.

[48:48]

Here. Some of these lines can be translated in various different ways. Wow, okay. So these two sentences look really parallel. Yes, yes, right. So there's common and bad quality. and treasure and good clothes. And that's the first of the sentence. Yeah, so that's translated here as because some are common, common meaning like, you know, the common people. Yeah. And then there's surprise. Yeah. surprise and eccentricity, that's exactly what it is.

[50:01]

So it could be translated as black cats, but it also could be translated as... Black slave? That character also could be translated as slaves. So there's lots of ways to interpret this. We chose cats and white oxen. And white oxen. Wow, this doesn't make sense. Yeah, but that character that also could be slaves is the one that's used in the koan about Nantuan talking about cats and cows. Yeah, it's just... So it's an old character used in different ways. Yeah, it just sounds to me... It just talks about... So getting into the thicket of these old characters and how they're used is not necessarily the point of the Dharma of suchness. But anyway, so any other questions about Buddha's enlightenment or Dongshan's teaching?

[51:30]

Kathy? As you were going through that, Right. Yes, that's right. And, you know, the meaning is not in the words, but it responds to our energy. So the point is that these are guides to how we can take care of this dharma and practice of just this, of this teaching and practice that was opened up for us 2,500 years ago.

[52:41]

So, Chris. I think you had said you were That's reassuring. It's in the harmony of difference and sameness. Yeah, there's a story about that that I did talk about yesterday. So just to mention that. So one of the things that I haven't focused on in this Jewel Marrow Samadhi, there's so many things going on. There's a whole discourse about language and how to use language. There's also this five-fold interaction between the ultimate and the particular. Again, I've talked more about how to take care of this dharma of suchness. But there's also, in a lot of this, and you have to play with the pronouns to get to it, but talking about teacher and student and the story about the arrows meeting head on, it's kind of like parallel about the

[53:56]

the wooden man singing and the stone woman dancing, but it's about a great archer who, I told the story yesterday, who had a student, so the greatest archer in the world had this student who thought he was better than his teacher. So he decided if he killed his teacher then And he would be the greatest teacher and the greatest archer in the world, so he took his bow and fired at the teacher. But the teacher knew this, and so he took his bow and fired, and the arrows met in midair, head on. So this is an example of It has to do with teacher and student, but it also has to do with great intimacy and meeting. So there's also this issue of intimacy and relationship, which is a big part of what the Dharma of Suchness is about. So that's what that reference is to. So there's all these weird stories in Chinese law.

[54:58]

Well, thank you all very much. We have the rest of the day to sit with this and with these stories and with this issue of this dharma of suchness. And for those who are here for the day, we will have a questioning ceremony this afternoon in which we can meet further. So thank you all very much.

[55:32]

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