Good evening. I'd like to tell some stories tonight about Mazu, whose name means horse ancestor. So a week ago we celebrated the beginning of the Chinese Year of the Horse, and Mazu was one of the great important Zen masters. He was a master in the 8th century, 709 to 788, and together he was one of the two great masters at the same time as Shoto, who wrote the Song of the Grass Hut that we just chanted, along with the Harmony of Difference and Sameness. So the Cao Dong or Shoto lineage that we're a part of comes from Shoto, and the Linji or Rinzai lineage comes from Mazu, and other lineages. But actually, you know, most of

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the noted students in the 8th century went back and forth between the two of them, or would visit, or at least sometimes visited each of them. So Mazu's a very interesting character, and one of the things about these koans or teaching stories that we talk about is that is how they reflect the traditional Buddhist teachings. So partly I'm talking about this in the context of this series of classes that we started last Saturday, and Laurel's continuing next Saturday, and the week after that I'm going to be talking about the Zen teaching stories. So this is a little preview, but really they fit into the Bodhisattva Sutras that Laurel will be talking about Saturday, and in

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Chan, or Chinese Chan, which developed into Japanese Zen and what we do, these dialogues, these stories, these encounter dialogues, one way to talk about them, are kind of colloquial expressions of the main sutras or teachings. So part of what Chan was was a kind of postgraduate movement in Chinese Buddhism, which already had these great schools of Mahayana Buddhism that were really developed in terms of Chinese culture, but Chan was about bringing it out of theory into kind of a colloquial style, and maybe we influenced by Taoism, kind of natural poetic style, and the koans come out of

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that, and an expression of that, and we can see that very clearly with a lot of the stories of Mazen, and the stories I'm going to talk about particularly tonight. So there are a lot of, so there are the collections of the recorded sayings of these teachers, you know, have story after story after story, and then they were collected in the koan collections. Two of the famous stories about Mazen reflect though this, the way these are taken directly from the traditional teachings. So first one, this happens to be case 30 in the Mumon-Kon, the Gateless Barrier Koan Collection, very simple, that Mazen used to teach his students that this very mind is Buddha. So in that case, it has one of his great

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students, Dame, whose name means great plum, asking what is Buddha, which is kind of the basic question. You know, there are various versions of this question in these stories, like what was the point of Bodhidharma coming from the West, or what is your face before your parents were born, or what was your fundamental face before the Big Bang, or various versions of it, but really they all come down to what's Buddha? What is the awakened world? And Mazen said, this very mind itself is Buddha. This very mind itself is Buddha. So we've just been sitting and, you know, maybe the mind that you experienced as you were sitting was sleepy and groggy, or maybe there were lots of thoughts wandering around, and maybe it was very distracted, and maybe there was this just, maybe somewhere in the middle of that, there was just this kind of open awareness, or maybe that

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was there and you didn't even notice it. Anyway, Mazen says, this very mind itself is Buddha. And part of the point is that we can relate that to lots of traditional sutras and teachings, the Yogacara movement in Indian Buddhism that talked about mind as reality, and the aspects of mind, and the qualities of mind, and mind including ordinary discriminating consciousness, but the deeper qualities of mind, which includes, well, this is in Yogacara psychology or philosophy that all of the different experiences from all of the different aspects of karma from, we could say, past lives, or however you want to

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understand that, all of the tendencies, everything that we've experienced in all of the habits we have and so forth, and how we can become conscious of that and that can become luminous and aware and helpful in the world. This very mind is Buddha. Or we can relate that to Tathagatagarbha teaching, Buddha nature teaching. Very, very important in Chinese Buddhism and in Zen, this very mind is Buddha. It means, in some sense, all things. This very mind includes everything that you can imagine, and everything that can imagine you, and all phenomena. So self and object are not separate. So this very mind includes all of the phenomenal universe. This very mind is Buddha. So the idea of Buddha nature kind of evolved in China pretty early on, before Zen, before Chan, to this sense of

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reality itself is awakening. Anyway, Masa said this very mind is Buddha, and I'm giving a kind of commentary on that, which is very much non-Zen commentary. This very mind is Buddha. Zen commentary would be more like, ah! But, you know, just this very mind is Buddha. And we can relate it back to, you know, philosophy of mind, and so forth. This very mind is Buddha. There's another story that, later on, Masa used to say to his students, no mind, no Buddha. What's that about? So a student asked Masa, what is Buddha? And Masa said, not minds, not Buddha. And in

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the, that's case 33, in Wumenkan, Wumen said about that, if you can see this, you are a graduate of Zen. Anyway, no mind, no Buddha. Nothing at all. Well, we can relate this, of course, to Prajnaparamita and Madhyamaka, emptiness teaching. And, you know, part of the point is that we have both sides. And part of what teaching, teacher does is to see we need both sides. But there's another story about this. So, Dame, who was in the first story, after he heard from this very mind is Buddha from his teacher, the story goes, and the recorded sayings, that he had a

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great awakening. And he went to live on Dame Mountain. That's how he got his name. Often these teachers are named after the mountain. So, later on, Masa heard that, the horse master heard that this monk Dame was residing on that mountain. And he sent one of his monks to go there and ask him, what did the master, the horse master, well, what did, no, what did Dame obtain when he saw Masa, so that he has come to live on this mountain? And so he calls him here, Fatshah, which was Dame's name before, said, oh, Masa told me that mind is Buddha. So I came to live here. And there's other versions, he just lived on this mountain, eating wild berries and so forth, and lived very happily just on the mountain. The monk said, Masa's teaching has changed recently. And Dame said, well, what's the difference? And the

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monk said, nowadays, he says, not mind, not Buddha. And Dame said, that old man still hasn't stopped confusing people. You can have no mind, no Buddha, I only care about this very mind is Buddha. And so the monk returned to the horse master and reported what had happened. And the horse master said about Dame, his name means great plum. Ah, the plum is ripe. So he approved him. So, you know, maybe you could take either side. But you know, I kind of like this very mind is Buddha myself. But whatever helps. So we have these two stories from Masa, this very mind is Buddha, no mind, no Buddha. And again, there are many implications of each side. And we can talk about, you know, the philosophy of each statement,

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this very mind is Buddha. Everywhere is Buddha. Everything that this mind can conceive of is Buddha, or no mind, no Buddha. What do you mean, Buddha? What's Buddha? What's mind? That's just your fantasy. No mind, no Buddha. There's nothing, really nothing. Dogen has a comment about this. He says, mind itself is Buddha. Practice is difficult, expounding it is easy. No mind, no Buddha. Expounding is very difficult, but practicing it is easy. I'll say it again. So Dogen's comment, mind itself is Buddha. Practice is difficult, expounding is easy. No mind, no Buddha. Expounding is difficult, practicing is easy. So somehow we have these two stories from Masa. And maybe either one

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of them by itself is incomplete. There's another commentary on these two sides from Masa himself. Maybe you can say this commentary is one-sided. But a monk asked Masa, the great Buddha, horse-hand sister, why does the Venerable Master say that mind is Buddha? And the horse-hand sister, Masa said, to stop small children from crying. The monk asked, what do you say when they stop crying? And the horse-hand sister said, it's neither mind nor Buddha. Then the monk asked, when you have someone who does not belong to either of these two, how do you instruct them? And then the ancestor said, the horse-master said, I tell them it's not a thing. The monk asked him, how about when you suddenly meet someone who's there? The horse-master

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said, I teach him to directly realize the great way. Interesting. So it's not a thing. Maybe if we say no mind, no Buddha, that also could become a thing. It's not a thing. It's not something we can grab a hold of, whether it's this very mind or no mind. Don't get a hold of that either. Just directly realize the great way. So there's all these wonderful stories. I want to tell a story about Masa and Shinto, but I'm trying to tell some others. So I will. There's lots of these short little stories. A monk asked, how should one be in harmony with the way?

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And the horse-master replied, I'm already not in harmony with the way. And then someone asked, what is the meaning of Bodhidharma coming from the West? And the ancestor hit him and said, if I don't hit you, people everywhere will laugh at me. This one's a little complicated. This is a famous story too. Okay, so I'll try and tell it. A monk asked the horse-master, without using the four phrases and the hundred negations, may the venerable directly point out to me the meaning of Bodhidharma is coming from the West. So the four negations and the four phrases and the hundred negations refer to Nagarjuna, the great thinker of emptiness in India. The four phrases are, it is, it is not, it both is

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and isn't, it neither is nor isn't. And there's a whole system of hundred negations. So Nagarjuna was the great master of emptiness teaching. So this monk has obviously studied a little. And he's asking the horse-master, point out the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West without any of that stuff. And the horse-master said, today I don't feel like doing that. You can go ask Chizang. It was one of his senior monks. So the monk went to Chizang and asked the same question. And Chizang said, why don't you ask the venerable horse-master? The monk replied, he sent me here to ask you, your reverence. Chizang rubbed his head with his hand and said, I'm having a headache today. You can go ask my elder Dharma brother, Baizhang Waihai, a famous monk, the one who had the story about the foxes. So the monk went to Waihai and asked the same question. And he said, I don't know anything about it. Later the monk told the horse-master what

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had happened. And he just commented, Chizang's head is white, Waihai's head is black. So anyway, yeah. So there's all these wonderful stories and strange stories about the horse-master. But there's also, you know, there's many, there's actually quite a few stories about him. And I'm going to stop soon and we can have some comments or discussion or questions. Well, actually, I was going to say there's lots of stories about him and Shih Tzu, who I started out talking about. But there's also bunches of stories about him and Lehmann Pang, who was a great layman who studied with both Mazu and Shih Tzu. So let me find the story about Lehmann Pang to tell you about before we talk about Shih Tzu. Oh yeah, this is one I mentioned recently. But Lehmann Pang asked the horse-master,

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who is the one who does not keep company with all the myriad phenomena? And the horse-master said, I will tell you when you can swallow, when you swallow all the water of the West River in the St. Paul Gulp. Anyway, there's also, there's many stories of Lehmann Pang asking questions of Mazu and actually of Shih Tzu also. So there's these stories. So these two guys were the main, the great masters of this period in the 700s. And all of the later masters of all the five houses of Zhang, the great masters of the 800s, come from them. So there's stories of monks going back and forth between them. And here's one story about that. A monk named Dong Yang Feng was about to leave the horse-master. And the horse-master

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asked him, where are you going? To Shih Tzu, replied Yang Feng. And again, Shih Tzu is the one who wrote the Harmony of Difference and Sameness in the Song of the Grasshopper. So the horse-master said, oh, Shih Tzu's path is slippery. Shih Tzu's way is very slippery. Yang Feng said, I will use my own skills to deal with the situation as it presents itself. Then he left. As soon as he arrived in front of Shih Tzu, he walked around his Zen seat once, I guess around the Zabaton, stuck his staff on the ground, his walking staff, and asked, what is the meaning? Shih Tzu said, heavens, heavens. Yang Feng was left speechless. He returned to Ma Zu and reported what had happened. Ma Zu said, go back to see him again. When he says heavens, heavens, make a deep sigh twice. Yang Feng went back to Shih Tzu and asked the same question as before. What is the meaning? Shih Tzu made a deep sigh twice. Yang Feng was again left speechless. He returned to Ma Zu and

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related what had happened. Ma Zu said, I told you that Shih Tzu's path is slippery. So anyway, there's all these stories of students going back and forth between them and all the stuff that happens. So anyway, all these old stories are just kind of the family lore of the Zen way, the tea and cookies of our tradition. But this thing about this very mind is Buddha, no mind, no Buddha. There's a lot there. So maybe that's enough for me to say. Comments, questions? Responses? Anyone? Yes, Will. Can you remind us who said ordinary mind is the way?

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Yeah, good. That's related to this. So that story comes out of this story. So I'll tell that story because it's related. So that was the story from Nan Chuan, who was a student of Ma Zu. So it definitely comes directly out of this. And in some ways, that's the response to the story of this mind is Buddha, no mind, no Buddha. And that's, so Nan Chuan was one of, Ma Zu supposedly had 139 enlightened disciples, including great teachers like Bajang Waihai, known in Japanese as Hyakujo, who's in that story about his head is black, my head is white. He was the one who had many stories about Bajang Waihai. He's the one who said, a day of no work is a day of no food. And he's the one who had a story with a fox. But Nan Chuan is also one of the important disciples of Ma Zu, the horse ancestor. And he had a really great student named Jiaojiao, who I talked about in this session in December.

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And so Nan Chuan grew up on these stories about Ma Zu talking about mind. And I think Ma Zu actually mentioned, talked about ordinary mind at one point. So that story comes out of these stories. So good, good question. So that story, which in some ways is the basic story for me of Zen. So Jiaojiao was then a student, and he became one of the great masters. But he asked Nan Chuan, what is the way? Kind of like Dame's question, what is Buddha? What is the way? What is the Dao? And Nan Chuan said, ordinary mind is the way, or everyday mind is the way. And there are many parts of this story that are really kind of deep and elemental. Ordinary mind, everyday mind, what is that? It's not the mind that's caught up in greed, hate and delusion exactly, or conditioning, but it's maybe not separate from that either. Anyway, ordinary mind is the way. And Jiaojiao says, well, how do I get that? How do I approach that?

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And Nan Chuan says, the more you try and approach it, the further away you get. A really important lesson there, and worth thinking about, worth sitting with. And Jiaojiao was a very good student and says, well, how do I know it's the way? How do I know? How do I know if I'm doing it right? And Nan Chuan said, it's not a matter of knowing or not knowing. Knowing is just some illusion, not knowing is just indifference. When you reach the true way beyond doubt, it's vast and open as the sky. And how could it be a matter of affirming or negating anything? And Jiaojiao realized something. So that's a very important story, and it comes right out of these stories about Mao Tse-tung.

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