Maybe we can take a couple minutes and do what we did last time and there are some new faces here and just go around and say your name on Grace. I'm Ross. Peter. Mark. Lois. Deborah. John. Charlie. Ann. Marjorie. Steve. Martha. Leah. Judy. Eric. Carol. Ben. Dolly. Autumn. Hi. Last week, when we started the class, we talked a little bit about the evaluation that you all would be doing of the class and of me as instructor. And for some of you who weren't here then, just as a reminder, next time you'll be doing the evaluation. So some of the questions are about whether the class met your expectations, what was useful, what wasn't. Did I communicate material effectively? And was the lecture material relevant?

[01:03]

And how would you improve the course? And would you like to see any of the materials we used in the class as the focus of another course? And finally, does the class support your practice? So even though you're thinking, not thinking, you can be thinking critical thinking at the same time. Did anybody do some reading or have any questions about the reading or anything we talked about last time? Not yet. I have to get people feeling a little comfortable. I'm reading. You're reading. Good. We'll give you a star, Steve. Anyway, I'll start out by summarizing what we covered last week and then pick up from there. Last week we talked about Buddha's enlightenment and his continuation of the way through his disciples and that he emphasized that each person needed to rely on their own connection to the truth for this practice to continue.

[02:19]

And he did that because it's one thing to start out with a set of ideas, and it's another thing for them to continue in a way that doesn't get shifted by power struggles within the community. And there was some evidence that that was about to happen. One of his cousins wanted to take over where the Buddha was leaving off. The other thing that we covered was how important was the handing of the flower, the holding of the flower up, and how Mahakasyapa smiled. And this was the beginning of the concept of the transmission, mind to mind, of the teaching beyond words, and how important that became later in Zen tradition. what we were trying to do in that class was to understand how we had come from something as gentle and compassionate as this metta sutta which we chant in the zendo to the exchange which I will share with you once more between the hermit Kuyin and layman Pong.

[03:30]

And maybe, Ross, if you remember your lines. The layman visited the hermit Kuyin. Ross and I enacted it last week, but we haven't had any requests for an encore. Who are you, asked Kuyin. The layman raised his staff. And Kuyin said, isn't that the highest activity? The layman threw down his staff. Kuyin said nothing. And the layman said to Kuyen, you only know the highest activity. You're unaware of the highest matter. What is the highest matter, said Kuyen. The layman picked up his staff. Don't be so crude, said Kuyen. And the layman responded to him, what a pity you strain to make yourself ruler. And Kuyen said, a man of uniform activity has no need to pick up a mallet or raise a whisk, nor does he use wordy replies. If you were to meet him, what should you do?

[04:33]

At which point, the layman asked, where would I meet him? And Kuyen grabbed hold of him. Is that what you'd do, said the layman, and spat right into his face. Koo Yin said nothing. I didn't spit on moss last week. I had a squirt gun. The layman offered this verse. You lowered your hook into flaming water where there's no fish and nowhere to look for one either. I'm laughing at your chagrin. Koo Yin, the Chan elder, Tzu, how pitiable you are. You've been spat on and now are ashamed to look at me. And this is a rather mysterious exchange that is in code in some way that we have a hard time understanding. And especially in light of the Metta Sutta, which is about suffusing everyone around you with love. And I don't think he had spittle in mind when he wrote this.

[05:35]

May all beings be happy. May they be joyous and live in safety. So we're trying to... I was trying to describe how was it that Buddhism had taken this turn to this very concise, abrasive, combative interaction. And one of the things we talked about was how difficult it was, once Buddhism was established, the priests not to be, in certain ways, bought by the hierarchy, by the emperors. It became very fashionable to be a Buddhist. At one point in Japan, in fact, the emperor shaved his head and said he was a Buddhist priest. I mean, I don't think he followed too many of the precepts, but they were also selling the certificates of enlightenment in the marketplace. You asked a question about impure practice, and this was the issue.

[06:38]

So, because of this, the Zen masters who wanted to follow Buddha's way developed this way of knowing one another and challenging one another, and not relying on credentials, and not relying on these symbols of power. In fact, running away from them. and going off into the mountains by themselves and having this way of speaking that only the enlightened ones would recognize. Maybe that's why we have so much trouble with it. But I think maybe it's lost a little bit in translation too. So what we came to was that there were certain principles that apply to this communication. And I'm going to call these essential principles that gives in its flavor, and I'm going to list some of them off.

[07:41]

We talked about that, and that's kind of where we left off last week. First of all, it's anti-hierarchical, and that includes not idealizing the teacher. We don't have to go so far as to spit on them, but it does mean that They often will call each other rice bags or, you know, things like this. This is purposeful. Not courting favor with the established powers, a democratic structure in the community, and the recognition that's based on Buddha mind, not longevity in the practice, or not attainments, not memorizing certain texts, or having the right family background. It's also centered on the practice of Zazen and not faith in books and texts, which means it lives in this moment. It's a spontaneous responding that can't be imitated. And sometimes we'd better not try.

[08:42]

It's not an intellectual or an analytical approach. There's a unity of body and mind, which is about the grabbing and the spitting, you know, it's like immediate response with the whole self. And it's not dependent on words, even though we talk a lot. And then the third principle was, it does not revere the sacred or disdain the ordinary, which means everything in life is practice. Everything and everyone in your life receives your full attention and effort. And your life manifests Buddha mind in every detail. Each action is realization. And that's something about what this exchange is about, that as they're enacting this, they're enacting their level of realization. So, does anybody have any questions about what I just said? Or anything to add about other qualities of Zen that they might want to make on this master list here?

[09:45]

Yes? I don't know if this relates, but the Zen masters that went to the mountains became hermits. They also kind of gave up the idea of sangha, I guess. Or, I mean, I don't know, maybe their community were the rocks and trees. Sometimes. Sometimes they spoke of that, and sometimes they had just one disciple. And they did talk about their loneliness, and when we cover some of them specifically, we talk about how that was dealt with. Some of them had no disciples, and some had maybe only a couple. Yes. There was a comment you made partway through there that says that they didn't revere the sacred and then something on them. Disdain the ordinary. Disdain the ordinary. I guess I've always thought that there's the sacred in everything, so... That's the same thing. That's just another way of saying it. Yeah, to make that separation. So, anything else?

[10:47]

No, I read a little bit and You know, the idea that I get is that there is a hierarchy. You say that there isn't, but from what I read, you know, I mean a hierarchy in one sense. You bet there's a hierarchy. Yeah. But the principle, as Akinroshi said so well, Zen destroys all concepts, even the concept of destroying concepts. So we question the hierarchy. Well, that's good. Yes. I encourage you to do so, as you just did. Zen has a universal and absolute quality, which has been described, I think, very nicely in the readings that I gave you, the Fukan Zazengi, Skeletons, and Hakuin's Song of Zazen. And it's also the same quality that was described by various class members in terms of wanting to have a direct connection, each individual with the absolute, and sort of that's what brought them to Buddhism rather than staying with the religion that they were maybe born into.

[12:05]

So there's a direct experience of spiritual connectedness. But Zen also takes very specific, particular, and personal expression in its manifestation. That is, we don't just talk about divine union in abstract terms, but we also describe this experience in terms of meeting our own life just as it is, in very concrete ways. And an example of that is in Joko Beck's first book, she said something about, you know, there was a Zen maxim of, chop wood, carry water, that now we ought to translate that to be, make love, drive the freeways. And that this is an expression that's very concrete and expresses our realization. So, I bring up this particular because we're going to talk about specific teachers, and each of the teachers we study is an event in a particular circumstances, at a particular time, the product of his family life or lack of it, upbringing,

[13:13]

his own particular inclinations and tastes, and his deep immersion in the practice. And I think, for me, this is very important to state this, that as we get the teaching, just as the Buddha passed it to Mahakasyapa, it's very personal, so we can't think of it as, okay, the perfect, absolute teaching is represented in some way by this person, because this person is also part of this teaching, so that the absolute is manifested as well as the person. And that's what we need to question, that we don't go along blindly. So, it's very important to me to state this. First of all, Zen is new to this country and is evolving, and old ways of teaching may be left behind for more skillful means that are suited to these times and these places. And as Zen students, being honest with teachers and with yourself, but still having a familiarity of what's essential, will help shape Zen in this country now.

[14:24]

Also, there's a problem with any practice, which is the idealization of the teacher, or the way it's always been done. And if you know already, we're talking about this is contrary to Zen's core teaching, even though we may see it in practice. And it's contrary to the Buddha's instruction. His instruction and ours at this time is, please look to the truth and do not be hypnotized into following blindly. And finally, if we idealize the way and the teacher, we tend to excuse ourselves from our own responsibility to realize our own true nature. which Akin Roshi talked a little bit too. He said that there can be a cop-out in Zen. It can tend to be nihilistic and not be involved socially. And we need to be the bodhisattva that goes out and uses our awareness in our life in some way to help others. And there's a lot of work to be done.

[15:26]

So by understanding the essential teaching and by practicing it, our contribution is immeasurable. And we've also seen the other side of that, even in our own, not in Berkeley, but in San Francisco Zen Center, examples of how the idealization of Zen teachers has contributed to great suffering. So, right now, at least in our Zen Center, we are shaping American Zen in the form of, at least the practice that we do here, after Dogen Zenji. And that's where our main teaching comes from. And so I'm going to cover Dogen first because he is of the utmost importance to our practice place. And he is the root teacher of our practice place. But I must say I have less to say about Dogen since, personally, his personal life, since less is known about him than some of the other teachers.

[16:30]

But I will tell you what I do know. You can look at his writing maybe through some of this information. But a little history on our practice center. It was established in 1967 by Sojin Mel Weitzman at the request of Shunryo Suzuki Roshi. And Mel had been a student at the Zen Center in San Francisco prior to establishing this practice place at his home in Berkeley. And Suzuki Roshi followed these Zen teachings of Eihei Dogen, who lived from 1200 to 1253 in Japan. He died rather young by our standards. Very little is known of his early life. He was of aristocratic birth. His father, they believe, was an influential minister, and I say they believe because they think they know who his father was. Has anybody else read the tales of Genji? There were some real carryings on in the imperial palaces at this time. They were very active sexually, and there were all kinds of intrigues.

[17:34]

So we think that they know who his father was. Probably an influential minister of the imperial court, his mother the daughter of an imperial regent. His father died when he was three years old, his mother when he was eight. Like the Buddha, he was in a position to enjoy his noble birth, but was unable to do so. Perhaps the early loss of his mother turned his thoughts to suffering and realization. In any case, he was a child prodigy, studying the classical Chinese literature and encouraged by an influential court member and scholar who adopted him. He tried to encourage Dogen's career in political science. He taught Dogen political science. But Dogen ran away, and he had an uncle who was a Tendai priest, a Buddhist priest, but mostly around Kyoto, In those years, they were practicing the Tendai, which was very ritualized about the magic. So, not so much Zazen.

[18:35]

So he ran away with the help of this uncle to become a Tendai monk at Mount Hiei, which is still a place where Tendai monks practice in Kyoto today. He studied Buddhism in the Tendai form, mostly of rituals and services with secret teachings. But he, Dogen, was fascinated by the question of why the Buddhas aspire to and practice the way of enlightenment if the reality of enlightenment is already inherent to each being. So he was encouraged by his Tendai teacher to study Zen. But the intention was that he would continue to study Tendai Buddhism and studies Zen with it. But he found a teacher at the age of 15. He was studying with a Zen teacher, Myozen, and found that they still didn't feel they had the way. So at 24, when Dogen was 24, they both went to China to find the true teaching.

[19:38]

This was a very dangerous trip at the time. And Dogen met with seven teachers before he found a teacher that he felt was the right one for him. And that's Nyojo. And I think that's one we chant just before Ehe Dogen when we chant the Buddhas and Ancestors. So he spent nearly two years studying with Nyojo without ever lying down to sleep. That was part of their practice. He had an awakening when he heard his teacher scold a dozing monk. When the teacher said these words, Zen study requires the shedding of body and mind. He became enlightened. And after he received formal recognition of his realization, he returned to Japan. But maybe it was just a way to lay down again. I don't mean to be skeptical, but I'd be ready to be enlightened after two years of not laying down, too. Okay. In Japan, he stayed at Keninji and spent time at over 13 practice places offered to him by patrons until he set up a temple outside Kyoto.

[20:44]

He taught at Kosho Horon Temple for about 13 years before he established a heiji. Now, something happened, which is not, as far as the books that I studied, not quite understood, but there was a lot of tension at this time between the Tendai school and other kinds of practices, probably Shingon and Zen, which were emerging. There was some incident where Dogen was required to come, I think, apologize at the imperial court for his breaches. I don't mean his pants, I mean the fact that he broke certain understanding by leaving Tendai and going for this other practice. There was a real shift in Dogen at that time. where it seems to me, and I'm looking at it from my own angle, that there was a kind of bitterness that entered into his life and his way. He'd been previously open to the practice of lay people and also to the different sects of Zen, the Rinzai sect, but after his move to Eheiji, he censured other practices and maintained that his practice was the ultimate and the only one true practice.

[22:01]

But his health was failing, and that may have been part of it, too, that he kind of shut down. And he concentrated on his writings, turning over his temple to his disciple Koan Eijo, who's the one we chant after Dogen Zenji, and when we do the Buddhas and Ancestors. Dogen left a powerful body of Zen literature. Most of it remained hidden until the 19th century, and this was probably for political reasons. because of the tension and all the warring factions, that it wasn't safe for him to bring out his writings. In Japan, he's considered a religious genius and honored for the depth and originality of his philosophic insight. But I unfortunately don't have any more about his personal life. And the element of the writing that I included in the handout, I think we ought to take a look at for at least a little bit here, is the Fukunza Zengi. which is basically a condensed description of the Wei and Zazen instructions.

[23:06]

And some of the scholars who have studied it find it to be very similar to earlier Chinese Chan writings, which he may have just translated into the Japanese. The readings that I gave you, the Fukan Zazengi, Skeletons, and the Song of Zazen, are things that you could probably study for the rest of your life. So I don't expect that we're going to cover them in detail in this class. What I hope to be able to do in this class was talk about how they manifest these essential principles, and maybe answer any questions you might have about the writings. The very first paragraph where he describes the way as basically perfect and all-pervading, how could it be contingent upon practice and realization?

[24:08]

This is about his basic question. that he had that brought him to Zen practice that took him to China. If we all are already Buddhas, why do we need to practice? So he says, the way is basically perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent upon practice and realization? And then he answers the question by saying, The Dharma vehicle is free and untrammeled. What need is there for concentrated effort? Indeed, here's the answer, the whole body is far beyond the world's dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from one, right where one is.

[25:15]

What is the use of going off here and there to practice? Of course, we all do that, and so did he. Can you answer my question? Yes. What do you mean by Dharma vehicle? The Dharma vehicle is the way that the way is explained. all the rules and the way itself. Does that make sense to you? The vehicle for explaining the way. Yes, the vehicle for explaining the way. And this reference to who could believe in a means to brush it clean. is a reference to the Platform Sutra, the Six Patriarchs poem about that there's nothing and no need to brush it clean. So some of you may know that. One of the things you'll find as you look at these important pieces that have been written, they all refer to one another in the symbolism that they've been used. So that one's a reference to the Six Patriarchs. And yet, if there's the slightest discrepancy, the way is as distant as heaven from earth.

[26:17]

And here is the other side of the answer. Yes, it's true. The way is perfect. We're all perfect Buddhas. And we just need to realize it. But if there's the slightest discrepancy, the way is as distant as heaven from earth. If the least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion. That's our problem, because we generally have a few of those around, likes and dislikes. And in the third paragraph, need I mention the Buddha, who was possessed of inborn knowledge, but the influence of his six years of upright sitting is noticeable still. Or Bodhidharma's transmission of the mind seal, the fame of his nine years of wall sitting is celebrated to this day. Again, this is a reference to something we discussed in the last class, Bodhidharma's coming to China, which is a big part of Zen literature. But this paragraph is the emphasis on the importance of zazen. The next paragraph is the emphasis on anti-intellectual approach.

[27:18]

You should therefore cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words, and following after speech. Well, in that case, I should just shut up. I should just sit. And learn the backward step that turns your light inward to illuminate yourself. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest. Now, sansen, which is the next paragraph, actually, this is a little confusing because sansen is the practice interview with teacher, but it's almost as if he's talking about zazen. A quiet room is suitable, eat and drink moderately. But it has been a big part of monastic practice in monasteries where The monks live and have daily interchange with their teacher. It would usually occur every morning and every night. After all the sitting, they would be tested. They would walk in and have this interview to see what their realization was.

[28:21]

Can you say again what Sanzen is? Sanzen is what we call Dokusan. At the side of your regular sitting, this begins his Zazen instruction, which you can read. and study. Maybe you already know how to sit, but we all need reminders. The next page he becomes a little more poetic, which is something that Dogen is really wonderful with. What Zaza and I speak of is not a learning meditation. Again, the emphasis here is this isn't about learning anything. It is simply the Dharmagate of repose and bliss, the practice realization of totally culminated enlightenment. When we sit, we are enlightened. And again, In the next couple paragraphs down, it must be deportment beyond hearing and seeing.

[29:23]

Is it not a principle that is prior to knowledge and perception? It doesn't have to do with learning. But it does depend on effort and zazen, which he goes into in the next paragraph. This being the case, intelligence or lack of it does not matter, because this is not something you learn by analyzing, thinking, and studying. Between the dull and the sharp-witted, there is no distinction. If you concentrate your effort single-mindedly, that in itself is negotiating the way." Practice realization, and that's really Dogen's concept, that the fact that we sit down and practice means that we are realized, or we are realizing at that moment. Practice realization is naturally undefiled. Going forward in practice is a matter of everydayness." So he continues to talk about the principles that I outlined and that we've talked about that are basic principles of Buddhism, devotion to sitting, in the next paragraph.

[30:29]

And finally, the emphasis on emptiness Form and substance are like the dew on the grass, destiny like the dart of lightning, emptied in an instant, vanished in a flash. Nothing to say, we can't really talk about emptiness. So, finally, he emphasizes what I think the class emphasized in terms of their own needs. the direct connection in the last paragraph. Devote your energies to a way that directly indicates the absolute. Succeed to the legitimate lineage of the ancestor Samadhi. Constantly perform in such a manner and you are assured of being a person such as they, which is what the Buddha would say. You trust yourself and your own connection to the truth.

[31:34]

Your treasure store will open up itself and you will use it at will. Now, as I said, we could spend probably the rest of our lives studying it, but anybody have any questions about it? Two, but I guess one strikes me as the most, and this, it seems like, very familiar from Zen mind, beginner's mind, the same idea, probably quoting Dogen, of when you are sitting, you are enlightened. Now, this is, you know, my rational mind trying to understand this, but, you know, I was asking one of the, somebody wants to focus on, kind of, well, does this mean like if you're sitting and you're really concentrated, or suppose you're sitting and your mind is wandering, or is it just that you're sitting still? I mean, it's not really clear to me what exactly it is that he is saying, this is enlightenment. Yes, it isn't clear to you, so just sit.

[32:38]

Until it is. That will be maybe, we'll have a few more lifetimes of that. That may be clear to all of us. But I think if we try to discriminate, is this good Zazen? Am I doing it right? We've taken a step away. You know, as he said in the beginning, you know. It's as if there's a slightest discrepancy, the way is as distant as heaven and earth, you know, so better not take that step of trying to say, is this good zazen, am I doing it right? Just sit. What is meant by the absolute? Well, the absolute includes everything, and yet everything has form. So the Absolute is where everything was born from and where everything goes. But there is no coming and going in the Absolute as well. And Meili talked a little bit in a way that maybe was understandable in her talk at the Sesshin, which was there's this backdrop of perfect harmony.

[33:46]

It's another way of referring to the Absolute. Even though we have all this going on, there's this background of perfect ease somewhere. Who talked about it? Maile in her talk at the session. Maile Scott. That's another way to describe it. I think you mentioned last time something about it's wise to have a teacher. And here you say, When you like something or you don't like something, you're in a mess already. Don't like your teacher. And don't not like your teacher. I mean, to be very honest, I mean, you would go towards someone you like, and that doesn't mean necessarily that you like their personality, but rather that you can see something underneath that, or you can sense it intuitively, you know. I mean, sometimes when you're around grumpy people, you know, they're dropped as a feather underneath, you know.

[34:50]

You hope. You hope. Yeah, but... So right away, you're in a... You could be, you could be in a bind and you can just... I have something that I say to myself when I get in that, you know, do I like this or, you know, am I doing the right thing, which is turn to the light, you know, or whatever your original intention is. Just settle yourself on yourself and let your movement and your action come out of that. Yeah, well, if you go towards someone, I mean, it's like you forget their personality. And you see the spirit in them. So... That's how it works for you. Yeah, that's what I try to do. Well, that sounds good. So I suppose when, if you went towards some teacher, that that's what you would do too. Yeah, that's your way of finding the teacher is through something that you would sense, their spirit.

[35:50]

Yes, something from your heart that you feel. Yeah, whatever your intention is. Your intention is to live your life more fully through your practice or whatever your original intention is that brought you here, if you keep returning to that and returning to your breath, your actions that come out of that will take you in the right direction. And your sense of who the person is ought to come from that. As you're saying. Okay? Okay. Okay, now we get to some of the more fun guys. We know a little more about, I say they're more fun because we know a little bit more about what happened in their lives and shaped their writing. So, maybe I give myself away One of my favorites was the first writing I gave you, which was Skeletons by Ikkyu Sojin. And then Ross tells me that our own teacher Mel got his name Sojin from Ikkyu, whose name is Ikkyu Sojin.

[36:58]

Ikkyu means one paws. What does Sojin mean, do you know? No, I don't. Yeah, we'll have to ask him. But Ikkyu was the illegitimate child of the emperor. He lived from 1394 to 1481. And he is the rascal of rascals. In fact, in this book I have crazy clouds, zen radicals, rebels, and reformers. He is the emperor of the renegades. He is the star of the actor-outers. He was the illegitimate child of the emperor, was sent to a monastery at age six to protect him from the court intrigues. Because in those times, even an illegitimate child of an emperor could, if he had power and support and was politically wise, could make claim to the throne. So in order to protect his life from plots, his mother, who had been banished by some jealousy on the part of one of the other closer in consorts, sent him to the monastery at age six. He was safer there and would receive his education there.

[37:59]

He maintained a relationship with his mother, but not through seeing her, maybe through letters. And he was very saddened and deeply affected by her fate in the imperial court. And she lived an isolated life after that. Now, Ikkyu is known not only as the emperor of the renegades and the chief Zen rebel, But he's also known as the Nasruddin of Japan. He was a brilliant child and prone to mischief. Do you know Nasruddin? Nasruddin is a Sufi rebel. And we all have our favorite Zen stories. Peter, I know you have... I mean, Nasruddin story. You want to tell your favorite Nasruddin story? My favorite Nasruddin story is... train of donkeys that border guards would take everything off, all the donkeys, and inspect everything, looking for what he was smuggling, and they could never find anything.

[39:12]

Finally, years later, one of the retired border guards saw him sitting in a cafe The Sufi stories have seven levels of understanding. And this is an interesting way to practice. I don't know, I might beat the heck out of sitting on a cushion and staring at the wall all day. I was reading these funny stories about Nasruddin. My favorite Nasruddin story is the one about Nasruddin being asked to give a sermon in his village. And he appeared at the sermon the first week. He said, how many of you here know what it is I'm going to preach about? Nobody raised their hand. He said, well, how can I preach to such an ignorant lot? And he left. Next week he came back and he asked the same question.

[40:14]

How many of you know what it is I'm here to preach about? And everybody raised their hand. He said, well, since you all know, why should I tell you? And he left. The third time he came back, he asked the same question, how many of you know what I'm here to preach about? And one rather bright young man stood up and said, sir, half of us know and half of us don't. He said, well, great. The half of you that know, teach the half of you that don't know. And he left. So, just like this exchange with Kuyin and Laman Pong, we can think about these stories for a while. But that was the Sufi teaching, and Ikkyu was very much compared to Nasruddin. And one of my favorite stories, which I'm going to give you a few of Ikkyu, is about the story of the candy.

[41:18]

And because his family and his upbringing was from the age of six, was in the monastery, he was very much subject to the idiosyncrasies of the abbot. And the abbot had a big candy bowl, and he told all the children, all these boy monks, that the candy was poison, and if they ate it, they would die. They knew differently, but I don't know who he thought he was kidding. I don't know if he ever tried telling the kids that candy isn't good for them. There's no point in it. So one day when the abbot was out, Ikkyu and his chumps ate all the candy. And they knew the abbot was coming back. So Ikkyu told his friends, just leave it to me. And he proceeded to break one of the abbot's favorite bowls in his study. And the abbot came back in and he sat there rubbing his eyes and saying, I am so sorry. I broke your bowl. I was so sorry for breaking your bowl that I had to eat this poisonous candy to kill myself.

[42:24]

But nothing happened. So I had to eat it all. And still nothing happened. I just don't know what to do. And the other thing was about that same age, so he must have been under 10 at this time, one of the other boys called for his protection knowing how good he was at making up these stories from the abbot because the boy had broken the abbot's teacup. So he waited for the abbot to come home and said, you know, you gave us a talk about impermanence and how There's time for everything to die. I'm very sorry to tell you it was time for your favorite teacup to die. And there was one other story, I think, of that age or younger. He really enjoyed flustering the abbot, as you can see. So he was blowing out a candle, and the abbot came up and said, what are you doing? He said, well, I'm blowing out the candle.

[43:25]

He says, you can't blow out the candle with your breath. your breath is dirty and you're blowing towards the Buddha. And you must blow it out like this or put it out with your fingers. You can't blow it out like that because of your dirty breath going towards the Buddha. So the next day, the abbot came into the zendo and found Ikkyu chanting with his back to the Buddha. He said, what are you doing, you idiot? He said, well, I can't chant without breathing, and my breath is dirty, so I have to turn my back to the Buddha. And this was the beginning of his long love of deflating hypocrisy. And I think he came to it in part because he was very intelligent, but also because of the circumstances of his birth, where he was really the son of an emperor. and all of this hierarchy and pomp and circumstances had such an artificial quality to him.

[44:28]

He left the temple he grew up in when he was about, actually he was about 13, and then the next one he went to, trying to find a more serious temple, he still felt that he hadn't found the way, and this was a poem that he wrote. Filled with shame, I can barely hold my tongue. Zen words are overwhelmed, and demonic forces emerge victorious. These monks are supposed to lecture on Zen, but all they do is boast on family history. And that gives you a little bit of the flavor of what was going on in the monasteries at that time. Actually, he lived in a time in Japan that was very chaotic, there was a big changing over in those, in a couple centuries there from Japan being very closed off to sending people out, traders coming back with goods and changing over from complete agrarian to trading and coins coming in and so there was a lot of fluctuation in wealth and there was a lot of chaos and this was a time when

[45:44]

Buddhism was very fashionable because of the cultivation that it brought to the court, the poetry, the calligraphy. And this was a time when people were buying certificates of enlightenment. This was a time when homosexuality, especially perpetrated on these very young boys in the monastery, was very prevalent. And in fact, in the sources that I read, was certainly perpetrated on Ikgyu, and he made some statements about it, that he really had enough of that, he really loved women. But there was, you know, I read one description about how some of these abbots actually spent most of their time courting the young monks in their monastery, rather than practicing. And it is a very vast understatement to say that Ikgyu had a particular dislike for anything he thought was hypocrisy. When he did find his true teacher, he found his teacher, he had a very hard time.

[46:47]

He insulted the patrons when they came to the temple. And he's known for this one exchange he had with Kaso at the funeral of Kaso's teacher. And he came in his usual rags while everyone put on their finery, their best robe. And his teacher spoke to him about it and he said, I'm dressed as a true monk should be, and the rest of you are glorified shit covers. That was his way of dealing with pomp and circumstance. This teacher that he had, had some disciples, but he had left Daitoku-ji, which his own teacher had founded, maybe a couple of generations away from him, because of the corruption at that large temple and had gone off and had a very shabby temple, but he did have some disciples.

[47:51]

difference with Ikkyu was, unlike the Zen establishment of the time, he was very honest about his sexuality. He believed, and this is as radical as we can get, I mean we still don't have teachers saying this in Zen tradition, he believed the passions were the anvil in which true enlightenment is forged. And here's one of his poems about that. A sex-loving monk, you object. Hot-blooded and passionate, totally aroused, but then lust can exhaust all passion, turning base metal into pure gold. And he actually had a genuine appreciation for women. There's a story of how he was on a walk, and he saw a woman bathing, and he stopped and he bowed. And someone who was walking along said, you know, another man might have stopped and ogled her. Why did you bow? He said, I bow to her genitals because from there all beings and all Buddhas emerge.

[48:55]

This is a holy thing. And he actually included women as people that he taught. did, as far as I could tell, I read of at least two children that he fathered and two wives that he took. He lived to be quite old. There's another story that illustrates his detesting the hierarchy and the celebrating what I was saying, the celebrating the sacred There is a ceremony on Mount Hiei every year where they would take out the sacred texts and they would air them to keep the bugs away. And he decided to take, he went up for that day to see these texts and he got sleepy, probably was out drinking sake, he was a real scoundrel and ran around a lot. And so he decided to take a nap in the cemetery there where they were airing the text in this holy place.

[50:04]

And some monk came over and saw him sleeping and he said, what are you doing? This is no place to take a nap, you sacrilegious scoundrel. And he said, which is better, Buddhism printed on paper or Buddhism in the flesh? Right now, I'm airing Buddhism in the flesh, so leave me alone. And his summary remark for his way was, joy in the midst of suffering is the mark of Vick Hughes School. And he really suffered a lot. He did not have a happy life, much as I'm telling these stories of him being a rascal. He had one suicide attempt when he lost his first teacher. And his mother had sensed his despair and sent someone to follow him, and he attempted to drown himself in a lake. And she said no. She sent a note with a servant, and it said, you know, please continue the way.

[51:06]

I know you will attain enlightenment. And so he continued. But he was not only hard on other people, he was very hard on himself. and I'm sure I'm a psychologist, we would find a diagnosis for him if he were around today. You know, probably manic-depressive, with this, this, and the other. But he had a very extreme personality and really had a hard time getting along with people. In fact, a defect in his personality, much as he was realized, and this is my point, much as he was realized and had such a wonderful devotion to Zen and the real thing, he was very jealous of Kaso's other disciple, Yoso, who finally was named as a true disciple because Kaso just, you know, couldn't deal with Ikkyu, even though he was given a certificate of enlightenment first. And so Ikkyu, once Yoso was named the disciple of their common teacher, left the monastery and took off

[52:15]

and went out on his own and continued to make remarks about Yoso that he was throwing shit water in their teacher's face with his phoniness and so on and so on. But the other hallmark of Ikkyu was he never accepted his certificate of enlightenment. And when it was given to him, He refused to take it, and then they followed him, and he said, I have no need for these words, you know, Zen is beyond words, and it's the absolute teaching, and then they followed him with it, and tried to give it to him, and he tore it up, and then they pieced it together, and tried to give it to him, and he burned it, and he also never gave one. He never gave a certificate of enlightenment. But he did work with anyone who wanted to work with him. He helped the merchants and the farmers with their everyday problems. And he also was the inventor of the use of calligraphy as a way for people to practice.

[53:24]

For a farmer struggling with the question of life and death and the conflicting view offered by various teachings, he brushed this poem. And he did it in katakana, which is the simplest Japanese writing. So this man who was not educated in a fancy way could read it. And the poem is, if there is no one before your birth, then there is nowhere to go at death. He described the Zen aesthetic in this way. Because of his deep grounding in the practice and also his education in all the ancient Chinese texts, he's considered really the father of most of the Zen arts. The tea ceremony goes back to Ikkyu and his connecting the tea ceremony, which had existed in China, but in Japan, he was the first to connect it where the tea master of

[54:26]

The current tea master who was ever in favor at the time of the emperor studied with a particular Zen master, and this tradition has continued between the tea ceremony and Zen teachers. And he also, as I said, began the use of calligraphy as a teaching method, and also used poetry, which had always been used in China, but really introduced it in a more creative way in Japan. And because he was so instrumental in connecting the tea ceremony with Zen, he also brought a lot of attention to Japanese pottery. Whereas they had followed the whole Chinese style, now they began their own. So this is his description of sort of the essential aesthetic in Zen. He sounds like a tragic romantic. Yeah, right. Are you in the Enneagram? He described the aesthetic in this way, deep awareness of the essential, appreciation of the natural and the unadorned, appreciation of the mellow, the solitary and the tranquil, taste for the astringent and the understated.

[55:45]

So he spent most of his life maybe 20 or 30 years from the time he was in his late 20s, I think, till he was in his 50s, wondering about having some disciples. There's one dialogue between him and a disciple who decided to copy him and was using the sutra books as toilet paper. So he was attracting a certain type of disciple that, you know, he had to kind of look in the mirror there. He had to have a word with this guy. But eventually, and ironically, even though he had been so against the Zen hierarchy and the temple of Daitoku-ji, because of the corruption that was going on there, there was a point where I guess it was the Onin War, and I don't know exactly what years it was. Everybody was revolting against everybody. All sides were shooting at everybody, and they just ended up burning everything. And Kyoto was virtually burned to the ground, and the streets were littered with corpses.

[56:53]

And that's when this poem, Skeletons, was written. About this time after this war, he was asked again to be an abbot at Daitoku-ji. He had had a temple at Daitoku-ji and had walked out because he felt that it was too phony. But at the time he was in his 80s, they called him back and said, you are the only one who can rebuild Daitoku-ji. And so he called on everyone he knew and all of his extensive connections and he did rebuild Daitoku-ji. And this is what he wrote about becoming Abbot of Daitoku-ji. Daito's descendants have nearly extinguished his light. After such a long, cold night, the chill will be difficult to melt with my love songs. For 50 years a vagabond in a straw raincoat and hat, now mortified, as a purple-robed abbot.

[57:53]

This is terribly embarrassing. He had to wear this fancy robe. And, in fact, at the time that he was in his 80s, he was having a wonderful love relationship with this blind minstrel lady, Mori, and they had a daughter together. And when they did the portrait of him, which all of the abbots of Daitoku-ji, there are portraits of them throughout history, they did a portrait of him in a very plain robe, and her just sitting beneath him and quite adorned. So the other poem that he wrote upon having his portrait done is, Crazy fellow, stirring up a mad wind, wandering about for years in brothels and wine shops. Anyone here care to match wits with me? You can sketch me in the south, the northeast, and I won't change a bit. And he wrote, to his disciples as he was dying.

[58:54]

After my death, some of you will seclude yourselves in the forest and mountains to meditate, while others may drink sake and enjoy the company of women. Both kinds of Zen are fine, but if some become professional clerics babbling about Zen as the way, they are my enemies. I have never given an Inca, that's a certificate of enlightenment. And if anyone claims to have received such a thing from me, have him or her arrested." And in comparison, this is his root teacher's admonition, who was also the founding abbot of Daitokaji. And these words, actually, I guess, are still carved somewhere in Daito-kuji of Daito. All of you who have come to this mountain monastery, do not forget that you are here for the sake of the way, not for the sake of clothing and food. Address yourselves throughout the day with knowing the unknowable from start to finish. Investigate all things in detail.

[59:55]

Time flies like an arrow, so do not waste energy on trivial matters. Be attentive, be attentive. After this old monk completes his pilgrimage, some of you may preside over grand temples with magnificent buildings and huge libraries adorned with silver and gold and have many followers. Others may devote themselves to sutra study, esoteric chants, continual meditation, and strict observation of the precepts. Whatever the course of action, if the mind is not set on the marvelous transcendent way of the Buddhas and patriarchs, Causality is negated and the teaching collapses. Such people are devils and can never be my true heirs. The one who tends to his own affairs and clarifies his own nature, even though he may be residing in the remote countryside in a hut, subsisting on wild vegetables cooked in a battered cauldron, this person encounters my tradition daily and receives my teaching with gratitude. Who can take this lightly?

[60:56]

Work harder. Work harder. So he did have a lineage, even though he had a hard time staying with it, fitting in to the established lineage. You can see there's a real similarity between his last statement and the one that the teacher before him had made. But even when he was dying, his death poem reflects that he still was not ready to go quietly. Dimly, dimly, thirty years. Faintly, faintly, thirty years. Dimly, faintly, sixty years. I pass my feces and offer them to Brahma. But one of his disciples, Ikkyu's disciples, wrote this eulogy. Ikkyu did not distinguish between the high and the low in society, and he enjoyed mingling with artisans, merchants, and children. Youngsters followed him about and birds came to eat out of his hands.

[61:58]

Whatever possessions he received, he passed on to others. He was strict and demanding, but treated all without favoritism. Ikkyu laughed heartily when he was happy and shouted mightily when angry. So maybe we can look at what he wrote, Skeletons. I hope some of you have read. This first couple paragraphs are, especially the second paragraph, filled with disgust and longing to liberate myself from the realm of continual birth and death. I left home and set off on a journey. This was occurring during the time of the slaughter and the destruction of Kyoto. And even though so many people were suffering and starving, many Buddhist priests were isolated from this and protected by wealthy patrons as well as the imperial class.

[63:03]

And I don't think it's an accident that Zen in the way we know it and our attraction to this kind of Zen came about during the 60s when there was so much feeling of anti-establishment because it was certainly prevalent. in many of the Zen teachers. So he even questions, he questions the corruption in the field of graves is really what he saw in the streets of Kyoto. In this whole first page, all things become Nod by returning to their origin. And even his questioning, you know, what really did come out of Bodhidharma facing the law? What really came from the Buddha's 50 years of proclaiming the law? What happened? You know, it didn't seem to hold. Look at this destruction that's going on around him. And he says, such deep musings made me uneasy and I could not sleep.

[64:07]

And then we get into his discussion with the skeletons on the next page, which essentially is, don't get hung up on these sad feelings and project them on reality. And a skeleton says to him, violate the reality of things in Babel about God and Buddha and you'll never find the true way. So, on this page, when we get to the next couple paragraphs, what is not a dream, which is outside of the poem, there's a paragraph, I like the skeleton, and then the next one, what is not a dream, who will not end up as a skeleton, and again, I'm just gonna cover this from the perspective of what I was talking about, what's essential, what's essential, he's in. Here he gets down to the bare bones. This is the basis.

[65:08]

We think that there's someone there, you know? And even though he's such a lusty guy, he's most concerned with this. High and low, young and old, male and female are all the same. Awaken to this one great matter and you will immediately comprehend the meaning of unborn and dying. On the next... Anybody have any questions about this? I'm just skimming it and I hope you'll take some time to go into it yourself when you feel like it. The next page starts, a single moon bright and clear in an unclouded sky, yet still we stumble in the world's darkness. This image of the moon, that goes back as well to Dogon. It's quite common in Buddhist poems and Buddhist writing. And Dogen, the book that was written about Dogen, quoting him, I think in a poem, is Moon in a Dew Drop, which is the reflection of the moon in a dew drop is an example of how the absolute or the Buddha mind can be reflected in any person's mind completely.

[66:29]

So, this single moon, bright and clear in an unclouded sky, The way is completely there before us, yet still we stumble in the world's darkness. In the middle of the page, your span of life is set and all entreaties to the gods to lengthen it are to no avail. Keep your mind fixed on the one great matter of life and death, the essentials. We don't need to worry about the fancy stuff. And again, he questions, why do people lavish decoration on a set of bones? As he mentioned, the Zen aesthetic is to be unadorned. The original body must return to its original place. It goes over emptiness. And then he raises a question that many of us have asked, and considering birth and death, how do we really know what happens, where we came from or where we go? But, Like with the image of the moon, many paths lead from the foot of the mountain, but at the peak we all gaze at the single bright moon.

[67:42]

And I think that's also something that's reflected in this chapter of Suzuki Roshi's about original Buddhism. Which is, whatever you call it, whatever sect you want to say you are, really it's all the same. There's only one single bright moon to see, no matter what words we put around it. Near the bottom of the page relax and the mind runs wild control the world and you can cast it aside This is the importance of discipline to him and the water image also was um Well, we we see it in Dogen the water image We see it in if you hear rain hail snow and ice all are different but when they fall they become the same water as the valley stream and also In Hakuin Zenjin, the writing I gave you about all Buddhas are from the very beginning, water and ice, there is no water without the ice. That's a very common theme in Buddhist writings and in Zen writings.

[68:50]

And also, I think Joko Beckett, her new book, goes back to the same theme of ice cubes and water and how we get frozen in our defenses. Oh, something very familiar to us. I don't know why I didn't number these pages, or did I? Do you have page numbers? Yeah. Okay, what's the last page number? Okay, so on page 6 is the last paragraph, ìThe flower of the Buddhist law cannot be described in physical, mental, or verbal terms.î This is page 7. It is not material or spiritual, it is not intellectual knowledge. And here he talks again, goes back to Kashapa, so you can see the importance of the Maha-Kashapa exchange here.

[69:58]

He's talking about the same flower, Allah is the flower of the one vehicle. And in the paragraph before, he describes it in more detail, the teaching beyond words. Anybody have any comments to make on EQ or his writing? Well, I really like EQ, but I'm troubled because the parallelism, at least that I know that a lot of people in the 60s and all the way through, kind of tuning up to posture in a similar way, sort of self-promoting, yeah, kind of hedonism and, you know, it was really havoc.

[71:15]

So in getting a picture here of McHugh's life, it would help to have a piece that would sort of show where he made the bridge between his own chaos and Do you have any pieces? Well, I think, for myself, I agree with you that there's this problem, and I think for the people who wrote about him also saw it as a problem, that it was a character flaw, that he, in some way, and I think it comes out of, number one, you know, he was this illegitimate child, and he had no connection to his family. They also said he was quite homely, so he was always trying to prove himself, and probably was sexually molested at a very early age. And he had some real problems to overcome. And he was very vindictive and extreme and insulting.

[72:16]

And I don't think anyone won't agree with you on that. But he did rebuild Daitoku-ji. He did have this wonderful love relationship near the end of his life, which he was very devoted to. And he called himself Crazy Cloud, and there was a kind of craziness about him. But I don't think I can argue with anything you're saying or prove it otherwise. I mean, I see the connection. I'm just trying to look for some bits that show where the bridges could happen where they happen. You don't find it in the writings, in the skeleton? Oh, I can see it in the writings. It's very moving, but it's interesting. If I could locate a story about him, then I guess I just have to check. Yeah, well, there's a couple of sources. This one, Three Zen Masters, where I've taken a lot of this from, and also this one, Crazy Klaus, Zen Radicals, Rebels, and Reformers, where he's described as the king of all of them.

[73:20]

So maybe you'll find those and read about it. Either this particular Buddhist month's criticism of the hypocrisy of Buddhism, or in any other Buddhist month that you will cover, was there what would have been the counterpart to a value placed on what we now call engaged Buddhism? Yes. Yes, I think so because one of his, he was really disgusted when he wrote Skeletons because of the fact that so many people were dying of starvation and that yet the priests were being protected by their patrons and that they weren't caring for the people. Yeah. And he did help, and maybe you'll find that in the story, he did help many merchants and many people in the village. I think I think it was he, yes, it was he, because I've read so many stories recently in preparing for this.

[74:28]

There was a pharmacist who had a remedy for sore throat, which he sold. He gave the recipe to IQ, but if he promised not to tell anyone else, Korsaki immediately wrote it out on a sign and posted it for everybody. And the guy said, what are you doing? And he said, I'm saving you from hell. He said, if you had kept that to yourself for your own selfish purpose, you would certainly end up in hell, so you should thank me. Maybe that's the kind of connection you're looking for. But he was very caring of the people around him, the merchants and the people. Well, it sounds like when you're talking about it, really he used his abrasiveness to overturn the corruption. He tried. And of course that might be what it would take. Yeah, well, they knew where to go when they wanted to preserve the real thing and rebuild Daitoku-ji. You know, they went to him. But by then he had calmed down.

[75:30]

I'm sure he couldn't cause as much trouble as he did when he was in his 80s. It sounds like he wanted to live out his polarities. Yes, he did. And instead of just knowing his polarities, he decided to live them out. Yes, he did definitely live them out. And he felt that that was a much better way than to try to pretend he didn't have them. And it's always been a dilemma in Buddhism, this whole celibacy issue. And he was the first, maybe the first or the only one, who dealt with it in the way he did, which was to be out front about it. I'm not, and I don't think it's a good idea, and it's not, you know, if you guys don't like it, too bad. Exactly. Yeah, it's... I think the fact that he was illegitimate, too, probably put him on that path, you know, of wanting to know the origin. and the unfunnyness of everything.

[76:31]

I don't belong. I only belong to God. I belong to the Spirit only. Yeah, I think that did have a big effect on him. And also the sadness, his mother's sadness, which it wasn't until after he was enlightened, so-called, that he wrote a poem describing a resolution of his mother's sadness. I have a tape here, a videotape. Well, I have a book which I'll pass around with some pictures of Daitoku-ji in it as it looks today, and I put some pieces of paper in where the pictures are, so I'll pass that around. I'm going to start talking a little bit about Hakuin-zenji, and I'm only going to begin Hakuin because that was my plan. We don't have time to really cover him thoroughly, but I want to show you a videotape which I made as some of it shows Hakuin's temple as it stands today, which is a very sweet place. So I'm just going to tell you a little bit about Hakuin and get to the point of founding his temple. Just take a few minutes and then show you the picture not only of Hakuin's temple but also of Eheiji that Dogen founded.

[77:43]

Hakuin lived from 1686 to 1768. His family ran an inn and served as postmasters of Hara, a village lying at the foot of Mount Fuji in Shizuoka province. It was one of the first temples that I visited in Japan when I went with the women for a practice period. We stayed in Shizuoka province at Suzuki Roshi's home temple, which you'll see a little footage of that. Anyway, it was one of the first temples I visited and it was a really sincere and genuine practice place even today. Very much part of the community with classrooms for people to come, lay people to come and take classes. Like Ikkyu, Hakuin was a prodigy, memorizing everything he heard at the age of three, bursting into tears at his first sight of the seashore and the endlessly rolling waves. He accompanied his mother to many Buddhist temples and amazed his family by repeating verbatim the entire sermon and service he had heard.

[78:45]

But I'll give you the clinical rundown. Haklund's fears and intense prayers by the age of 10 look a little bit like anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder of childhood. I mean, he would get up every night at 2 o'clock in the morning to make prayers because he was so terrified after hearing sermons that he was going to go to hell. He would venerate his guardian angel, Tenjin. Later in childhood, still worried over whether Tenjin could protect him, he decided to worship Kannon. as well, just in case. However, even backed by this dynamic duo, Tenjin and Kannon, he continued to fear eternal damnation. He believed his only salvation was to enter the religious life. His father thought his decision premature. His mother was in favor. He studied Confucian texts, the Diamond Sutra, and he memorized a whole collection, whatever there was, of Zen words and phrases. And his parents finally consented to his ordination as a Zen priest when he was 13.

[79:52]

And he was ordained at Shoinji, a local temple that had been restored by his own uncle, great uncle. So I think if we can get set up here, let's take a minute and get set up and put on a little bit of this tape that I made about the women's practice period. And you'll see I included a little piece from Rinso-in, which was Suzuki Roshi's home temple. And then it'll go into the, I think after that is it, to the next part. It's about 10 minutes worth, so we're ready. Does it mean Hoichi is now? Hojo-san, yes. Hoitsu, yes. That's where he is. Although, I think at this moment, he might be in Tassahara. No, just generally. He generally lives there, yes. Despite their non-stop temple activity, they are unfailingly present for us.

[81:21]

This is a little bit of a flavor of Rensselaer in person. ...that we can potentially exhaust them. We are eager to find ways to help them to return to their offspring. That's his wife in a sharing boat. They were returning from a wedding. This was in 1992. When our communal life began to take shape at Rensselaer, we were reminded of the poem, Madeline, about the twelve little girls who lived in a convent in Paris. In an old house in Paris that was covered with vines lived twelve little girls in two straight lines. In two straight lines they broke their bread and brushed their teeth and went to bed. Our beds laid edge to edge symbolized the intimacy of our convent life. Sleeping together, sitting together, chanting together. and bathing together. This room, the Shurio, is where we rested and took our meals on days off.

[82:44]

Our life together as nuns was warm and supportive, flowering in the climate of Zazen, Japanese kindness. Every afternoon we shared tea and sympathy in the uni hall and each woman told the story of her own life and the path that brought her to practice. Alright, who wants to try? My name is Deanna Forbes and I practice with the Monterey Bay Zen Center. There's a, if you ever see the old video, which person had the time to do it? It's Jan. To the Japanese, context is everything, and we exist and practice in the context of what our ancestors bequeathed to us.

[84:07]

With us in this way, our ancestors are both alive and dead. Part of the purpose of our journey to Japan was to meet these ancestors face-to-face, touching their clothes, touching their tombstones, and smelling the fragrance they left on themselves in their temples. I returned home full and nourished. I learned a great deal from Holy Suzuki Roshi and his family about the essence and everyday life of a temple priest. I will draw upon this experience to the rest of my life. Clearly, Suzuki Roshi is our nearest ancestor. At our home temples, we have participated in services for him commemorating both his founding of California temples and his death in 1971. This ceremony is our memorial service for him, deeply meaningful to us at his home temple.

[85:13]

Our relationship to the practice through Suzuki Roshi was clear and undistinguishable. He brought us his practice from Japan to California, and we were tracing it back from California to Japan. Once in Japan, we would follow the thread back through Suzuki Roshi's ancestors. Our first trip was to the great Zen master and artist Hakuin Zenji's home temple, Shoninji. Hakun Zenji had not only extolled the virtues of practicing the Way in everyday life, but he had recognized many lay practitioners and women students. His motto was, meditation in the midst of activity is a billion times superior to meditation in stillness. His most famous written work was the Song of Zazen. All beings are from the very beginning Buddhas. It is like water and ice. Apart from water, no ice. Outside living beings, no Buddhas. Not knowing it is near, they seek it afar. What a pity! It is like the wand in the water who cries out for thirst.

[86:15]

It is like the child of a rich house who has strayed away among the poor. The cause of our circling through the six worlds is that we are on the dark path, the dark path upon dark path. When shall we escape from birth and death? The Zen meditation of the Mahayana is beyond all our praise. Straight runs the way, not two, not three. Taking this form, the form of no form, going or returning, she is ever at home. Taking this thought, the thought of no thought, singing and dancing, All is the voice of truth. Why is the heaven of Bama Samadhi radiant, the full moon of the fourfold wisdom? What remains to be sought? Nirvana is clear before her. This very place, the Lotus Paradise. This very body, the Buddha. At this altar, dedicated to the victims of the atomic bombs during World War II, he offered incense and three vows.

[87:22]

At which point they brought out more scrolls from the south valley. We are approaching Eheji. Eheji was founded by Dogen Zenji in 1244. It has been in continuous use ever since. We are guided and scheduled on a 24-hour tour that includes an elaborate dinner and breakfast in a private dining room, bath, lecture, zazen, and a short sleep on futons with barley-cusped pillows. We are awakened at 3.15 in the morning. For 30 minutes, an hour long, full-blown, operatic style, with a couple of hundred lines and a couple of hundred days. We are walking in our single file through long corridors, past courtyards with streams and fountains and gardens that have been carefully tended for centuries. I'm Grace Jill Shearson.

[88:23]

As a 45-year-old working wife and mother, I'm amazed to find myself in places I have dreamed of for over 25 years. I'm overwhelmed by the beauty of Japan and by the power of this women's practice period. This overnight visit to Eheiji is more than I can grasp, so I'm trying very hard to behave appropriately. At Winzowin, we have been reading Dogen's Bhūgān zazenji, zazen instruction, every night at the end of the last zazen period. The way is basically perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent upon practice and realization? And yet, if there is the slightest discrepancy, the way is as distant as heaven from earth. We are appreciating the artwork. Each of the panels on the ceiling has been executed by a leading artist to show each panel a complete and unique statement of the artist's vision.

[89:26]

We are well taken care of. A professor has been assigned to lead and instruct. Did this used to be part of a hate temple? Yes. We are looking at the faces of our ancestral names that we chant face-to-face with our lineage. We are looking at a painting of Buddha's death. is pari nirvana, meaning literally complete extinction, the perfect quietude when all illusion is destroyed.

[90:53]

You could mention the cinematographer. Yes, well, I'd rather not. Some people have to take Dramamine to watch it because it moves all around. Anyway, I think you get the idea of the temples and how beautiful they are. Next week, we'll finish Hakunzenji and we'll cover Ryokan. And I have, some of you may already have some of the writings of Ryokan, but I brought in more somewhere. One of these piles. You've got them? Yeah. Great. Yes, on that table. And also, I was hoping that for our last evening together, each of you will come in with a poem, koan, or some statement of your own essential practice of Zen. So you don't have to, but it would be fun if people bring something to share of themselves for our last class. Anything else? Well, you can write that up in the evaluation.

[92:07]

It will be the last class for now. Yes. So, we'll beat you with sticks on the way out in keeping with the tradition. Or else I'll use a squirt gun.

[92:31]

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