I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. Good morning. Can you hear me okay back there? It doesn't sound to me like this is on, but I tapped it and I know it's on. So Wallace Stevens. I don't know how many of you got a chance to read these poems ahead of time. I thought it might be helpful, partly because it's a lot. Two poems in one lecture is really too much, but they go together. There's an essay partly about these poems, largely about these poems, by Aiken, Robert Aiken, in Original Dwelling Place.

[01:05]

The essay is called Wallace Stevens and Zen, and he's saying that Wallace Stevens teaches Zen, which I think is certainly true. Wallace Stevens probably was not much of a student, was not a student of Buddhism at all. probably had some familiarity but not a lot, regardless or nevertheless. His poems certainly reflect some kind of understanding that we would call or recognize as a Zen understanding. In his collected poems, the last one is called, what is it? It's like, I don't know, it's like the thing itself, not the idea of the thing or something like that. Sounds pretty good to me. Okay, so the two poems are Snowman, and that's not the snowman that you make in the snow, but snow man, snow person.

[02:15]

And the other one is Tea at the Palace of Hoon, And I understand them to be about this notion that Mel talks about, sometimes the Dharma turns you, and sometimes you turn the Dharma. About locating yourself in emptiness, which of course is impossible, but you have to talk about it somehow. Locating yourself in emptiness and then acting. For those of you who were here when he taught the Song of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi and the Five Ranks, it's a coming from emptiness. At any rate, I'm going to read the two of them

[03:22]

And then I'll come back to the snowman. So the snowman. One must have a mind of winter to regard the frost and the boughs of the pine trees crusted with snow and have been cold a long time. to behold the junipers shagged with ice and spruces rough in the distant glitter of the January sun, and not to think of any misery in the sound of the wind, in the sound of a few leaves, which is the sound of the land full of the same wind that is blowing in the same bare place. For the listener, who listens in the snow and nothing himself beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

[04:32]

I think I'm not going to read the other one now, it's too hard. So I'll read this again. It's not ironic, it's easy to get caught in the beauty of the language of this. One must have a mind of winter to regard the frost and the boughs of the pine trees crested with snow and have been cold a long time to behold the junipers shagged with ice and spruces rough in the distant glitter of the January sun. and not to think of any misery in the sound of the wind, in the sound of a few leaves, which is the sound of the land full of the same wind that is blowing in the same bare place. For the listener who listens in the snow and nothing herself beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

[05:48]

For me, this poem is about emptiness. It's about the wonderful, actually joyous potential of emptiness. arises organically, naturally, when we let go of all the extra that we add on, all the adornments. When we let all those leaves fall and we just let the scene be as it is. When the wind can just be wind and we stop our habitual self-centered thinking about it, the misery of the wind he refers to, because we anthropomorphize our experience.

[07:04]

We do it a lot with animals, right? We project human traits onto animals all the time, but we also do it with nature certainly. We just do it with our experience. We have some idea about it, and we tell ourselves a story about it, and we don't see anything. Or we don't see very clearly. We adorn it. We stick up little colored leaves all over the place. And we can't really see the trees. So one must have a mind of winter. and have been culled a long time. Because it does take, it takes practice. And I'm talking about Zazen. I mean, it takes a lot of practice to let go of all of those ideas that we have about whatever's happening. And just let it be itself.

[08:10]

And it's interesting that this is, it's a winter scene, because you know that the color white is actually all colors. Black is the absence of color, but white is all colors. And that gets at the sense that I have of this, of emptiness as this great potential. And in a way, that's how there's joy in it, because it's just letting the life force life. without adding on to it, and what a great adventure that is, if we could just let it do its thing, including this one, letting this do its thing, too. And it says this wind is the sound of the land blowing in the bare place. And I would imagine that when you hear this, the emotional response may well be, whoa, that is cold.

[09:29]

That is really cold. And I mean cold in the sense of that was a cold shot. almost to the point of being unkind, or maybe past being unkind, including certainly being unkind. But if we can drop all of our ideas of winter, I just keep having this idea of this The image for me is of a tree that just keeps shedding its leaves, dropping its leaves, and after a while you can really see the tree. I don't know how many of you have lived where there's real winter and there are lots of deciduous trees. But it's quite amazing what happens in the fall, the late fall. It starts getting cold and windy and the leaves start dropping.

[10:33]

Surprisingly, well, it was a surprise. I lived in Alaska for a year, so that's part of where I saw it. And also at Tassajara, there's lots of sycamores and maple trees, and they lose their leaves. And one of the things that happens is it gets lighter. You know, here it is, the sun is getting less and less, and maybe it's cloudy a lot, maybe it's raining a lot, but somehow, because there's not that canopy of leaves that kind of obscures the trees and obscures the light, things get lighter. And it was quite a surprise to me the first time I experienced that on a big scale, maybe partly because Tassajara gets very dark in the wintertime because the sun doesn't come up much above the ridgeline, so you're very grateful for anything that sheds more light.

[11:39]

But for me, that's the image in this, that's what comes up, that's my projection onto this poem, that there's a great relief and letting go of all those leaves, letting them fall. One must have a mind of winter to regard the frost and the boughs of the pine trees crusted with snow, and have been cold a long time, to behold the junipers shagged with ice and spruces rough in the distant glitter of the January sun. and not to think of any misery in the sound of the wind, in the sound of a few leaves, which is the sound of the land full of the same wind that is blowing in that same bare place.

[12:41]

For the listener who listens in the snow and nothing himself beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is." The nothing that is is everything. One way of understanding that kind of nothing is no thing. No separation. No us, them, I, you. Just us. Just it. No doing what we usually do, which is making objects of our experience, making it an other. separating from it. So seeing the no thing that is there. There's great joy in that, when we forget about the separation for a while, when we drop our habit of separating.

[13:47]

I asked Mel Friday, I guess, about the perennial, what about evil? And if we're Buddhas, how come there's evil in the world? And one of the things he said was, it's separation. It's when we forget connection. When we separate from one another, when we forget that we're all connected, that's when bad things happen. He kind of didn't want to talk about evil, but I like it because it gets our attention. But I'm talking about the whole range from tsk-tsk to murder. We forget connection. We forget no thing, and we make an other. And I don't want to talk a lot about Iraq, but I do want to just say out loud that I know that this is the second anniversary of our invasion.

[14:57]

And that's writ large making things of our experience, I think. And it isn't separate from you and me. We do this on a small scale, and we do this as a country, no matter what your politics are. We have some role in it. So can we set aside all these ideas, all this habitual separating, and see the nothing that's there, the no-thing that's there? It's what he is suggesting to us, I think. He is suggesting to us that we ... I think I said we locate ourselves in emptiness.

[16:01]

that we settle into emptiness, sink into emptiness, allow emptiness, stop sticking labels on emptiness so emptiness can just arise. For the listener who listens in the snow and nothing herself beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is. So no thing oneself also, right? So often we think, oh yes, everything is connected, but still, it's everything over there. It doesn't include oneself. We started doing the universal dedication, may the merit of this chanting extend to all beings or whatever. It floats around the translations. But we decided we put in, in Vallejo, we put in the phrase, all of us everywhere. to remind ourselves to include ourselves, because so often we don't.

[17:08]

All those people are connected, or everything is connected, but there's a way in which we often, we have a habit of holding ourselves separate from that. So nothing herself. So no thing oneself either. Just no escape. So I want to go on to tea at the palace of Hun. When we have tea this afternoon, we're going to have discussions. So that'll be a chance to talk about this also. Because I don't know how much time there's going to be today, this morning. Tea at the palace, P-A-L-A-Z. I don't know why. I wish I'm not a Wallace Stevens expert. I thought I was going to be in a meeting with Norman before this, but that got postponed, so I haven't had a chance to ask him.

[18:13]

And Hoon, I don't know who Hoon is. It's H-O-O-N. There's another poem that makes a reference to mountain-minded Hoon. I'm sure that people have done dissertations on Hoon. But I'm afraid I don't know. However, Tea at the Palace of Hoon. Not less because in purple I descended the western day through what you called the loneliest air. Not less was I myself. What was the ointment sprinkled on my beard? What were the hymns that buzzed beside my ears? What was the sea whose tide swept through me there? Out of my mind the golden ointment rained, and my ears made the blowing hymns they heard.

[19:20]

I was myself the compass of that sea. I was the world in which I walked, and what I saw or heard or felt came not from but myself. And there I found myself more truly and more strange. Compass, I think it's, we know we use the word this way, but not so much. I looked it up and, you know, it doesn't just mean the thing with the needle that points to magnetic north, it means the boundary, but it can mean kind of to control, in the sense, you know, to encircle and to, you could even probably say contain. It also, as a verb, it means to surround, to bring about, to accomplish, the reach or sweep. Tea at the Palace of Hun. I think of this as being about that kind of time in the afternoon, around four o'clock, say.

[20:28]

Day is starting to end. Not less because in purple I descended the western day through what you called the loneliest air. Not less was I myself. What was the ointment sprinkled on my beard? What were the hymns that buzzed beside my ears? What was the sea whose tide swept through me there? Out of my mind the gold anointment rained, and my ears made the blowing hymns they heard. I was myself the compass of that sea. I was the world in which I walked. And what I saw or heard or felt came not but from myself. And there I found myself more truly and more strange. That first stanza, not less because in purple I descended as an image of royalty.

[21:41]

Purple is the royal color. But not less was I myself. And not more. And this is where these two kind of overlap. Aitken talked about it as the hoon, as in his view, kind of the other side or the completion of the snowman. Now, he didn't describe it, what I'm going to say from here, but it seems to me that that's true and that the snowman is about letting go of everything. It's about becoming empty, maybe becoming emptiness. And then tea at the Palace of Hun is about coming from emptiness, about coming forth.

[22:48]

This is, if the snowman is stepping back and allowing yourself to be turned by the Dharma, then this T is stepping forth and turning the Dharma. So, not less was I myself because in purple I descended. There's a kind of, you know, in the early sutras it talks about being a person of noble family But it's not talking about having a daddy who was the king. It's about being somebody who practices. And I'm saying that there's a kind of nobility in that, a real nobility in that. in being willing to be completely yourself, which is one of the things that happens, right?

[23:53]

When you are you, Zen is Zen. Reb once said he practiced for 40 years in order to be willing to be himself. So not less, because in purple I descended, the Western day, not less was I myself. I think we have some idea that if we give up all of our ideas and all of our projections that we won't be ourselves anymore, we won't recognize ourselves, and it's kind of a frightening prospect, this notion of setting aside all of your stuff that you carry. around, I don't know if I've said this here before, I may probably have, I had this image once at Tassajara, really it was a visceral physical experience, it wasn't a thought, but I had this experience that I realized that I was carrying my stuff around and I did not want to set it down and that it felt like I was carrying around a bag of shit

[25:08]

And it didn't smell good, but it was warm and it was mine. And it was protecting me right here, you know, in the gut. And I just knew in my bones how I didn't want to set it down. This was, as I say, this was, I guess this was like a little enlightenment experience. This was not a brain event at all, right? And I think it's about being unwilling to just be myself without all that extra, without the padding, without the, padding will do it, you know, the sense of having sort of like fencers have padding on them because then that keeps them safe. So if we can come into experience, into this no-thing experience without all that extra stuff.

[26:12]

We're not less ourselves. In fact, we're completely ourselves then when we come from emptiness. That is being yourself. And it takes a kind of noble courage to do that, to step forward in that way. And there is, it's funny that, you know, the first poem to me, my emotional response to it is joy. And kind of excitement, like, ooh, all this potential. And this one, about coming forward, my emotional response is that it's very lonely. And I, I think I'm sure part of it is, you know, I descended the Western day in a tea at four o'clock.

[27:17]

It's descended the Western day, the sun sinks in the West. This is kind of the end of the day. And he, what you call the loneliest heir. I don't know who you is, if there's anybody in really in particular for him. But I don't know if you ever read Norman Fisher's translation of the Psalms. He talks about how it's called, what is it, opening to you. And he translates God as you a lot of the time in the Psalms. And he talks about the intimacy of that. So through what you called the loneliest air, not less was I myself. and then what was the ointment and the hymns and the sea out of my mind and my ears and I was myself the compass of that sea.

[28:19]

So again, these are images of not separating. And they're images of, for me, of the fact that we create our world, our minds create our world. I was the world in which I walked, and what I saw or heard or felt came not but from myself. And that is our experience. You know, Uchiyama talks about how each one of us is the self, with a capital S, and each one of us is the entire universe. And sometimes I think I kind of understand that, and sometimes I don't, and I'm afraid I'm in a don't right these days. So, oh well.

[29:29]

But that's what they say, that we, each of us, is the entire universe, and somehow we all exist, together, and we don't bump into each other. And we do this. So if some, I'm not quite done, but when I stop, if somebody has an understanding of this, I think it's useful to remind ourselves of this notion, because I really trust the people that I've heard talk about this. And I really trust Uchiyama Roshi. He did the opening the hand of thought and the commentary on Dogen's instructions to the Tenzo, among other things. And he's Okamura's teacher. And I think he's very trustworthy. So it's worth considering.

[30:32]

how we create our universe. And Ojiyama talks about it being lonely, by the way. You know, he says that there's some way in which you're completely, each of us is completely alone. And in his inimitable style he says, you cannot exchange so much as a fart with somebody else. That's when I fell in love with him when I read that. I do have some understanding, I think, of how I create my world, but my understanding is about it in terms of how I kind of skew it through my own ideas, how I can only see my idea of something. So I don't think that, I think it's more than that. I think it's beyond that. I was the world in which I walked and what I saw or heard or felt came not but from myself.

[31:45]

That's true, I know that. And there I found myself more truly and more strange. More truly and more strange. when we let go of all of our ideas about what's happening, when we can just allow our experience to arise, we do find ourselves more truly and more strange. What a wonderful word. Again, an image that might at first seem, I don't know, yucky or depressing or sad or something, but really, what about the freshness in that? something that's strange is new and unfamiliar, maybe unmediated, more truly and more strange because I wasn't imposing some idea on it.

[32:55]

I wasn't making, trying to, we fail actually, but I wasn't trying to make my experience familiar. I saw myself truly and strange, and it just seems delightful to me, more truly and more strange, beyond any idea that I have of myself or of you. I just think, well, sounds good to me. So we have a few minutes for questions, and as I say, we can talk about this later. It's just, I know this is a lot. It's a lot. So, Laurie? I often puzzle over that phrase of Deng Xiang's, you are not it, it actually is you.

[33:56]

And I think of, I mean, I have this feeling that he could easily have said, it is not you, you are actually it, or something. I mean, it's something about, like there's a way you could do this as just making yourself really big, but still kind of self-centered somehow. And I often think, as a parent, when you first have your kids, there's this moment of non-self-centeredness where you have to put them first, but then it seems like what we do is we start making that into a new, bigger self, but still with a self and other quality. And it seems like, I don't understand either, but I think I just think of that as like, it has something to do with that. You don't stick yourself onto it, but you let it absorb, you know, you become absorbed into it.

[34:58]

That's right. Somebody said about this, not less because in purple stanza that it seemed like it was about not separating and they thought about that. Does everybody know the Deng Xian referenced? Maybe not. It's okay to say no. He was leaving. He had been officially enlightened and recognized as a teacher and so on, but he wasn't quite sure. He had asked his teacher for one last word, kind of, and his teacher said, just this is it. And he laughed, and he was crossing a stream. They had been talking about whether they'd see each other again or not. And he laughed. He was crossing a stream, and he saw his own reflection. And then he finally completely settled, and the poem He wrote a poem about it, and he says something like, now I meet him everywhere, or it, some different translations.

[36:06]

And he is not me, or it is not me. I am it. I am he. One of those, something like that. And that is how I understand that, that it's about, if I said, I am he. There's a kind of a separation to that. Puts it over there. I have to go over there. But if he's me, it's right here. Whoops. It's right here. And we do do that with our kids. I do it with my dog too, I'm sorry to say. Yeah. Yes. I always recall a very specific experience of walking down a street in downtown San Francisco and was writing and everything, experienced that everything I was seeing, all I had to do was write it and it was the poem.

[37:18]

I think so, I think so. I mean, we can't call him up and ask him, but it seems like, at least that's certainly a good description of my experience of his poem, too. I don't know if immediacy is quite good enough. Yeah? poetry is using are adornments through which we enter this poem and then yet we have to go a step further to let those adornments go and then to sort of get maybe it's interesting multilayered yeah maybe it's true of all poetry

[39:04]

Well, it's like in the, you know, there's this real Dogen-esque, right? Because he draws you in and he draws you in, and then the last, the nothing that's not there, and the nothing that is, he just pulls the rug out. That's wonderful, yeah. The other thing I wanted to say about this question of, you know, the multiple worlds, us, you know, when you were bringing it up, it reminded me of the imagery of the lotus Yeah, and I have, I mean, when I, I just, I start to feel almost nauseous when I think about this, and sort of woozy, and that was my experience of the Lotus Sutra, and the time stuff, you know? Now Buddha's alive, and now he's dead, and I was really always there, and I just felt like, they're just, somebody is just trying to, in the Lotus Sutra, they're just trying to get you to stop it. Stop trying to figure it out.

[40:09]

Just be here, would you please? One more, yeah. To me, the you in the Palace of Home is almost like a bell saying, I'm alone, but you said something. It's all me, but I still have, there's still a you. So, Mostly alone. Only you. Okay, this has to be it. When you were talking about the difficulty of imagining each of us as containing the whole world, I thought about and went forth, and how the child experiences the day completely unmediated, and at the end of the day, the child is the world, and the world is the child.

[41:20]

So maybe I can actually keep talking, because it is a hard thing to grasp. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, well, let's stop now, and we can talk about this more later. if you want, or something completely different.

[41:42]

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