Good morning everyone and welcome and happy Mother's Day to anyone here who is a mother or who has a mother. So I'm Taigen Leighton, for any people that teach here at Ancient Dragons Zen Gate, and we've been We're sort of, oh, I don't know, about two-thirds of the way through with a two-month practice period we're doing here. And we've been focusing on the teachings of Hongshe Zhongshui, who was a A teacher in our lineage, in our Soto, or in Chinese, Cao Dong lineage, from the 1100s in China, an important precursor of Dogen, who brought this teaching to Japan and who We study who founded what we call Soto Zen. And Hongzhi's teachings, we're studying them from this book, Cultivating the Empty Field, that I translated a while ago.

[01:07]

kind of evocative, poetic expressions of this meditative awareness that arises in this meditation practice. One of the names for it that he used sometimes, silence illumination or serene illumination. And for the people in the practice period, there were six selections from these short practice instructions in cultivating the empty field that people were focused on. And I've been talking about them in my talks during the practice period. And I've talked about five of them. I'm going to talk about the last one today. And this is called Graciously Share Yourself. So I'm just going to read through it and then go back and talk about some aspects of it and hopefully have some time for some discussion. So I'll just read it first.

[02:14]

In the great rest and great halting, the lips become moldy and mountains of grass grow on your tongue. Moving straight ahead beyond this state, totally let go, washed clean and ground to a fine polish. Respond with brilliant light to such unfathomable depths as the waters of autumn or the moon stamped in the sky. Then you must know there is a path on which to turn yourself around. When you do turn yourself around, you have no different face that can be recognized. Even if you do not recognize your face still, nothing can hide it. This is penetrating from the topmost all the way down to the bottom. When you have thoroughly investigated your roots back to their ultimate source, 1,000 or 10,000 sages are no more than footprints on the trail. In wonder, return to the journey, avail yourself of the path, and walk ahead. In light, there is darkness.

[03:17]

Where it operates, no traces remain. With the hundred grass tips in the busy marketplace, graciously share yourself. Wide, open, and accessible, walking along, casually mount the sounds and straddle the colors while you transcend listening and surpass watching. Perfectly unifying in this manner is simply a Zen practitioner's appropriate activity." So I want to focus on that last part, but I'll go back and talk about this whole thing. This is the longest of the six, actually. So, in the great rest and great halting, lips become moldy and mountains of grass grow on your tongue. This is an expression of, we sometimes do what's called sashin, or a gathering the mind, a practice of sitting all day for a number of days. We do one of these a month, and at the end of this practice period, the beginning of next month, we'll do three days.

[04:18]

Sometimes, once a year, we do five days. Sometimes people do seven days. Anyway, after sitting for a number of days in silence, sometimes it may feel like in this great rest and great halting, sitting silently for seven days, sitting upright for seven days. Of course, we have breaks for walking meditation or after meals and for sleeping, but it may feel like the lips become moldy and mountains of grass grow on your tongue. It may feel that way. He says, moving straight ahead beyond this, totally let go, washed clean and ground to a fine polish. So part of this practice, at least, is kind of letting go, letting go of all of this stuff that comes up, all of the ways in which we separate ourself from the world, all of the ways in which we

[05:19]

in which our particular habits of greed, anger, and confusion arise, and he talks about that in various ways in these practice instructions. But he says, totally let go, wash clean and ground to a fine polish. So this is a practice, it's not about doing this just once and you're finished, this is a lifelong practice of Letting go and grinding away are, and one of the other ones he says, are tendencies we fabricate into apparent habits. So part of what's difficult about this practice is not getting your legs into some funny position, but just that we see our own particular habits of grasping and anger and fear and confusion. Of course, this isn't just personal. common collective social patterns of grasping and anger and confusion from our society and our culture and just from being human beings.

[06:22]

But part of this practice is to see that, to feel that, to become friendly with those patterns, and then to wash them away. And then often, some of them we let go of, some of them come up again. Anyway, he's talking about this process of turning within. Sometimes we say, as a meditation instruction, we turn the light within. Take the backward step and turn the light inwardly to illuminate the self. We focus on, as we sit facing the wall, we focus on looking within. We allow the wall to look at us. We see. how it is to be this person on our seat here this morning, beyond our stories about ourself. What does it feel like? How does it feel to be this body, this mind here this morning? So in doing this turning within,

[07:25]

You know, and doing this over time, sustaining this practice. This is what he's talking about in the beginning of this. Wash clean and ground to a fine polish. Then he says, respond with brilliant light to such unfathomable depths as the waters of autumn or the moon stamped in the sky. So in many of these short dharma words or practice instructions, he has nature metaphors. to evoke how natural this practice is. This is something that is part of the way it is to be a human being. This is natural for us. It may seem unusual in our culture to just stop and sit and be present and face ourselves. And I very much encourage doing this regularly every day if you can, but many times, several times at least during the week just to stop. And we sit 30 to 40 minutes at a time or more, but even to take 15, 20 minutes each day to just stop and allow yourself to see how it is to be yourself here now.

[08:47]

He says, respond with brilliant light to such unfathomable depths as the waters of autumn or the moon stamped in the sky. I love that expression. He uses the character for a stamp or a seal, the character that's part of Nyozan's name, a mudra, this seal. So we don't usually think of the moon as stamped in the sky, but if you look at old Chinese or Japanese landscape paintings, it's just there, stamped in the sky. And the moon represents the wholeness and the waters of autumn flowing down. Anyway, then you must know there is a path on which to turn yourself around. So we turn the light within when we're sitting. But there's also getting up and going out into our lives and into the world. And the point of this practice is not to become virtuoso meditators. we learn to practice this just sitting, this serene illumination.

[09:56]

But the point of this then is how do we, as he says later, graciously share ourselves? How do we respond in our life? How do we express this deeper awareness, this inner calm and openness and spaciousness? in the world and in all the challenges of the world and in our relationships. So that's what he's talking about in this one. And actually, he talks about this response in almost all of them. So he says, you must know there's a path on which to turn yourself around. When you do turn yourself around, you have no different face that can be recognized. Even if you do not recognize your face, even if you do not recognize this, true face, this inner nature, this maybe we could say Buddha nature, still nothing can hide it. So Dogen talks about nothing in the world is ever hidden.

[10:58]

So, of course, we all have things we try and hide from ourselves or from others or, you know, things we think that we don't want people to know about ourselves or that we don't want to know ourselves about ourselves. But there's this old phrase, Dogen didn't use it for the first time, that nothing in the world is ever hidden. And here, Hongzhe says, when you do turn yourself around, you have no different face that can be recognized. And even if you do not recognize your face, still nothing can hide it. This is penetrating from the topmost all the way down to the bottom. So, like Dogen, Hongxue recommends this thorough study. And this means lifetime practice. So this is not a practice where you, you know, do this for a certain amount of time and then you have some great, dramatic, startling opening experience and then you're finished. Buddha, when he became the Buddha, did not stop practicing.

[12:01]

He continued sitting every day. He continued awakening every day. So one of the phrases that Dogen uses most often for Sazan is, Buddha going beyond Buddha, or a phrase he used for Buddha. So Buddha is always, Buddha is not just some piece of wood that's in the middle of the meditation hall that we bow down to. Buddha is alive. Buddha's alive because we're here. So he says, this is penetrating from the topmost all the way down to the bottom. When you have thoroughly investigated your roots back to their ultimate source, 1,000 or 10,000 sages are no more than footprints on the trail. So in various places, Hongshu talks about the ancestors. serving the ancestors, or seeing that all beings are your ancestors, and we've been chanting the names of the ancestors in our particular lineage to Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, my teacher's teacher, who came from Japan to San Francisco and founded the San Francisco Zen Center lineage.

[13:10]

And so we have these, and Hongzhe himself, and Dogen, and other great teachers, the Buddha, and we have all these examples of great teachers who kept this practice alive. And when I talk about the ancestors, of course, we have ancestors in not just of our particular spiritual lineage, but all the ancestors we look back to in our various cultural lineages. So in the realm of science, the great scientists who helped provide us with scientific awareness, Isaac Newton and Einstein. and many more recently in the arts and literature and music, many great figures who we look back at and appreciate as ancestors. So when he says this, what he's saying here is, when you have thoroughly investigated your roots back to their ultimate source, 1,000 or 10,000 sages are no more than footprints on the trail.

[14:24]

So he's not dissing those sages. All of these people, men and women, and maybe other beings too, are how we find our way. But when you see your own fundamental wholeness, And when you keep coming back and seeing this, when we each turn the light within and come back out and see this possibility of wholeness, even when we see our own, you know, headiness and crumminess, but we also see this possibility of wholeness. So he says, when you have thoroughly investigated your roots, back to their ultimate source. 1,000 or 10,000 sages are no more than footprints on the trail." Then he says, in wonder, return to the journey, avail yourself of the path, and walk ahead.

[15:29]

So this is ongoing awakening, Buddha going beyond Buddha. Whatever realization or understanding or dramatic experience we have, The path continues, the practice continues. Return to the journey. Walk ahead. He says, in light there is darkness. Where it operates, no traces remain. So right in the middle of, so there's the harmony of difference and sameness. We sometimes chant talks about light and dark and this is used in many ways, but right in the middle of all of the distinctions, there's this deep oneness and vice versa. So right in the light and right in the darkness, no traces remain. Just this, keep going. How do we meet the challenges of today?

[16:31]

How does Buddha become alive? How does Hongjo become alive? How does the sixth ancestor become alive today? How do we become alive today? How do we each find our own way to use our interests and capacities and talents and caring in this world, with all of its problems, which are pretty obvious. And with family, friends, relations, loved ones, how do we share this moon stamped in the sky? So he says, in one to return to the journey, avail yourself of the path and walk ahead. In light there is darkness. Where it operates, no traces remain. With a hundred grass tips in the busy marketplace, graciously share yourself. So the grass tips are a kind of image in a lot of Chinese and Zen writing for just the phenomenal world, all of the phenomenal.

[17:39]

all of the stuff out there on Irving Park Road, all of the people and things in your life, with a hundred grass tips, in the busy marketplace, graciously, share yourself. That word that I translated is graciously, also has the meaning of carefree, gracefully. Part of Angie's name. Graceful willow. Graciously share yourself. With a hundred grass tips in the busy marketplace, graciously share yourself. Wide open and accessible, walking along, casually mount the sounds and straddle the colors while you transcend listening and surpass watching. So there's a lot I want to say about that sentence, but maybe I should spend more time on the previous sentence. With a hundred grass tips in the busy marketplace, graciously share yourself. How do we, what does it mean to graciously share ourselves? Gracious is an interesting word, gracefully, carefreely, with a sense of

[18:56]

There's a sense of ease to that, there's a sense of caring, there's a sense of caring about all the so-called others. How do we share ourselves? This requires realizing that we're not separate from others, but also realizing that we think we're separate from others sometimes, or we have thought that, we feel that. but actually we depend completely on others. Each of us sitting here on our seat is a product of many beings. There are many beings on your seat right now. All of your teachers and family and friends and loved ones and people you don't remember but who you had some conversation with 10 years ago or whatever. Many beings are part of how you are right now.

[20:08]

So graciously sharing yourself also means graciously sharing all of them. And, you know, sometimes we don't want to share ourselves. Sometimes we want to, you know, just take care of ourselves or, you know, or some people we don't want to share ourselves with, you know. There are, you know, maybe we can share ourselves with some people, but then there's just other people. I don't want to share myself with them. That person, yuck. But here he says, just with all, with a hundred grass tips in the busy marketplace, well, that means everything, everyone. Graciously share yourself. So this is Hongxue's image of what it means to return to the journey, to step out into the world from this place of brilliant light and unfathomable depths, from this place of seeing the moon stamped in the sky. Just step out into the busy marketplace.

[21:15]

hundreds of events, and how do we graciously share all that we are, even all that we don't even know that we are? So this is a practice of loving kindness, too. We sometimes chant the Metta Sutta, which includes, may all beings be happy. It's a practice of caring, a practice of loving. Graciously share yourself with a hundred grass tips in the busy marketplace. So even in the middle of busyness, even in the middle of all kinds of, so there's this other one that we've studied. See if I can find it. Probably I can. He talks about the invisible turmoil.

[22:24]

Well, he says also, contemplating your own authentic form is how to contemplate Buddha. But anyway, there's one where he talks about, right, amid all of the turmoil of our life. Oh, yeah. You must completely, it's the invisible pounding and weaving of your ingrained ideas to be rid of this invisible turmoil. Just sit through it and let go of everything. Here he's talking about, in the middle of that invisible turmoil, just step out and graciously share yourself. And then he says, wide open and accessible, walking along, casually mount the sounds and straddle the colors while you transcend listening and surpass watching. This is a very specific meditation instruction that has to do with how we practice with

[23:32]

the hundred grass tips with phenomena. But specifically, this is something that you can engage in meditation in Zazen itself. And I talked about this in the beginning of the practice period. In the very first practice instruction, he talks about the subtlety of seeing and hearing transcends mere colors and sounds. Before that, the deep source transparent down to the bottom can radiantly shine and can respond unencumbered to each speck of dust without becoming its partner. The subtlety of seeing and hearing transcends mere colors and sounds." So here, it's kind of the opposite, but really, it's the same practice. Wide open and accessible, walking along, casually mount the sounds and straddle the colors while you transcend listening and surpass watching. So as we sit facing the wall, facing ourselves, aware of the color in front of us, or facing the floor, seeing the floorboards, aware of sound, right now the sound of the voice coming from my seat.

[24:49]

Sometimes as we sit, other sounds in the temple are sounds from the street. It's pretty quiet in here. Or when you sit at home, maybe sounds from the streets or sounds from the building around you. Not to be caught by the sound. to hear, so here he says, to casually mount the sounds and straddle the colors but transcend listening and surpass watching, not to be caught up in the sounds or colors. And in Buddhism, we say there are six senses. There's eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind. So just like sounds and colors, thoughts are just another sense. So as you're sitting, thoughts come up. Naturally, the brain secretes thoughts.

[25:52]

We don't have to be caught up in them in the same way that we don't have to be caught up in the sound of the person walking across the floor above us. We can hear it. But we don't have to get all, you know, try and figure out who it is and why they're walking and where they're going and, you know, what they're thinking. So we have thoughts as we're sitting. Sometimes there's spaces between the thoughts, that's okay, but that's not the point of our practice. Whatever's going on, there's the sound of a truck outside. There's a thought going by. Let it go, and other thoughts will come up right after that. We don't have to be caught up in the objects of our senses at the same time that we're aware of them. This is, so this is a particular instruction here. With a hundred grass tips in the busy marketplace, graciously share yourself, wide open and accessible, walking along, proceeding, practicing.

[26:55]

Casually mount the sounds and straddle the colors while you transcend listening and surpass watching. We can share ourselves without being caught, without being trapped by those we share ourselves with as, in some ways, that we're caught. We can just openly share ourselves and continue to engage with the sounds and the colors and the thoughts and the people. We don't have to be trapped by that. And then he says, perfectly unifying in this manner is simply a patched-robe monk's or a Zen practitioner's appropriate activity. So the way he says it, he's saying it as if this is simple. And Hongsha's been sitting up on this mountain practicing with his monks for 30 years, and they've been practicing for a long time before that. So he's expressing his awareness of serene illumination.

[27:58]

And it may feel very lofty. And yet this is basic for all of us. This is something that we can actually engage. And yet it's, you know, how do we graciously share ourselves? How do we share ourselves without being caught by our thoughts and feelings and ideas about wanting to change the quality of the sound? I don't like that sound. It's too harsh. Or I've got to fix that sound and make it more beautiful. Or that person. You know, there's something wrong with them. I've got to fix them. Or, you know, we do that with ourselves, too. Our usual way of being in the world is to manipulate sounds and colors and thoughts to make them what we think, to make them better according to our ideas about it. But how do we actually just meet the world and graciously share ourselves? And, of course, we want to be helpful. And we want to try and help and not cause harm. So I want to hear your responses to all this.

[29:03]

But first, I wanted to share something that just arrived two days ago. Kazuaki Tanahashi, who will be here next Sunday speaking, he's a translator of Dogen, was in a couple weeks ago, was at Chiantung, Mount Chiantung Monastery, where Hongzhe taught for 30 years. And the abbot there gave him this object, which is the recorded sayings of Dvaipayana das remembers These are translated into modern Chinese. These aren't the, hold that please. So I don't wanna, these are bound and even though they're in modern Chinese, it's not in the original Chinese characters, but I just wanted to show it to you for two reasons.

[30:07]

One is just to show you this, This picture, so there's a picture in the front of Cultivating the Empty Field that's a traditional woodcut, but this probably is a more reliable picture of what Hongzhe looked like. And these are his complete 10 volumes of recorded sayings. in Chinese, in modern Chinese. And also, I've mentioned this, but the practice instructions, so in the Cultivating the Empty Field book, there are practice instructions, there's also some religious verses that Keizan Arshuso has spoken of in a couple of his talks, but the practice instructions part, volume six, is this much of the whole thing. So there's a whole lot more. And if any of you know any translators who might be willing to spend a number of years working on the rest of it, I'm sure there's other good stuff in here, including the cases and verses that made up the Book of Serenity.

[31:17]

So anyway, just wanted to show that to you. the temple treasure that we've received. So, any comments or questions on, whoops, on graciously sharing yourself and Hongsha's sayings? If you have any comments, questions, responses, please feel free. Or for people who are just here for the first time too, or we have someone who just sat her first period of meditation, which is very cool. So if you have any just basic questions, that's fine too. So any comments, questions, responses, please feel free. I was especially struck by the line that I can't recite today, so maybe you can help me, but about discovering that there is a method and a process to, that there's a way.

[32:27]

It says a lot in there about, it's kind of early in the passage about there being a way to do this. He says, respond with brilliant light to such unfathomable depths as the waters of autumn or the moon stamped in the sky. Then you must know there is a path on which to turn yourself around. I just find that very reassuring. And it speaks to, I know, an ongoing sense of appreciation, but definitely encountering that earlier. Yeah, it reminds me of, in Genjo Koan, Dogen says, here is the path, here the way unfolds.

[33:37]

So yeah, we're so lucky. We have this ancient tradition going back to India and China and Japan, and parts of it have been translated into English. Obviously there's a lot that hasn't, but there are many resources and there are many teachers who came from not just in our lineage from Japan, You know, it's an amazing thing in America now. There are good teachers from all of the different Asian cultures where Buddhism continued and their Western successors. And so, you know, this practice and tradition and teaching and people who've done it for a while are available. So, and talking to each other and trying different ways to make it relevant and applicable here in our world.

[34:42]

And so, it's a really interesting, lively time for the teaching, for the dharma. Yes. Yes, question. Hmm. That's a really, really interesting comment.

[35:44]

So graceful is one kind of other meaning. I said graciously, but I think what you're pointing at is very relevant. Graciously, there's an aesthetic quality to it, definitely. And this guy is Chinese rather than Japanese, but what you're saying is definitely pertinent that there's an aesthetics to it. This isn't just an instruction manual. This is about how do we do this in a beautiful way. because that's actually most effective. But there is this, you know, and so just to say that just in terms of Japanese, Buddhism, Japanese Zen. There's the minimalist side. There's also, if you go to Japanese Zen temples, there's also, sometimes you'll see very florid versions of altars that are much more elaborate than what we have.

[36:47]

This is fairly minimalist, although some people have complained about having too many things on the wall, but anyway. But the point is that, yeah, to do this, with a sense of, you put it very well, a sense of care, I forget how you said it, but not over, Aditya das remembers beings in a skillful way. So graciously, you know, has that feeling too. How do you effectively and skillfully help beings? And so I think, yeah, the aesthetic part of it is definitely there. And so sometimes that means not saying too much.

[37:52]

Graciously means just, you know, it could be minimalist. It could be what's the one appropriate a statement or activity that actually might get through to someone. Doing too much doesn't necessarily work. So yeah, that's an interesting comment. That's right. Graciously share yourself. Thank you. Thank you. Douglas. Yes.

[38:58]

Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. So this is a very important point. Thank you, Douglas. I think it's in all of them. I haven't checked it, but almost every practice instruction that Hongzhi has something about response. It's not passive. That's another way of saying what you just said, that it's an engaged practice. It may be appreciating the moon stamped in the sky, but You know, going back to what you were saying about minimalism and maybe a minimal response, or the practice of patience, we don't necessarily need to do a lot, but being present, the practice of patience and the practice of zazen is not passive, it's an active

[40:53]

It's paying attention. So it may be just sitting gently, it may be some periods you may feel sleepy, some periods your mind might be going. Either way, pay attention. So you're actually actively engaged in this process. And how to act graciously, how to act skillfully is a kind of art. and which means making mistakes or not getting it right necessarily. It's not about right and wrong. How do we, as you're saying, actually actively be involved in the process? So even when you're just sitting still and it looks like you're a piece of dead wood or something, you're actually paying attention. So you're not necessarily, as he says about the senses, you're not holding on to some sense object, but you're aware, you're attentive.

[41:59]

And it can be in a very gentle way. And sometimes in Zazen, you know, one might be kind of dreamy and allowing, as Suzuki Roshi says, allowing the cow a wide pasture, allowing the thoughts, allowing the imagination to go. But there has to be some attention. You have to be there. Yeah, Nyozan. It was bringing something to the situation.

[43:15]

And I think of this in terms of... Yeah, thank you very much, yeah. Yes, Howard. Yes. The other way I'm reading that is not just that you sit there and you sit there so well that nature decides to come into you and come out of you.

[44:47]

It's not drastic, but it's not as drastic as you think it is. Yes, good. Yeah, you become kind of one with nature. You kind of melt into some old Zen or Taoist sage who is depicted with birds growing nests in his hair or something like that. So, yeah. Well, good. We'll formally close at this point.

[45:37]

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