Today is the first one-day sitting of the new year. So I want to talk about some very basic practice, a basic approach to practice. is going to present the case about Choshu called Choshu's Wash Your Bowl. It's a very famous, well-known case in the Mumonkan, appears in the Mumonkan. A monk said to Zhao Zhou, I have just entered this monastery, please teach me.

[01:05]

Zhao Zhou said, have you eaten your rice gruel? The monk said, yes, I have. Zhao Zhou said, then wash your bowl. The monk understood. And then Master Mu Man, who collected these koans, said, Zhao Zhou opened his mouth and showed his gallbladder, his heart, and his liver. I wonder if the monk really heard the truth. I hope he did not mistake the bell for a jar. And then he has a verse which says, because it's so very clear, it takes so long to realize. If you just know that flame is fire, you'll find your rice has long been cooked. Typically, when we have meals in Zendo, At breakfast we have rice or some kind of cereal.

[02:26]

Actually for dinner we have gruel. The food that was left over from the other two meals goes together with rice to make a gruel, which is often a really tasty dish. In Japan, typically in the monasteries, they have rice gruel and pickles for breakfast. That's pretty much the breakfast, although there are variations. But the rice bowl is the first bowl. And it's called Buddha's head. We have three bowls. In Japan they use five bowls, but we use three. And the first bowl is the Buddha bowl. And we say that's Buddha's head. And this board that runs in front of the tans here is the meal board where we eat, and that's called Buddha's tongue.

[03:37]

So you have to be careful not to step on it. So here, a monk is entering Zhaozhou's monastery. Zhaozhou, of course, is one of the most well-known teachers in China, and he appears in many of these cases, almost as many as Mr. But Zhou Jun is probably the most famous, most well-known teacher in China, a Chinese teacher. And he didn't resort to shouting or beating or anything like that, but he had, you see, his words were golden.

[04:43]

So he just, and very ordinary. he would present his teaching in the most ordinary way. And unless you had ears to hear and sensitivity to perceive, you would just think of it as being, you know, nothing special. But everything he said had a deep meaning. So we have to perceive the deep meaning of Jao Zhou's Go Wash Your Bowl. Typically, when a monk enters a monastery and has an interview with a teacher, it's appropriate to ask, please teach me the Dharma. But what do you have to teach me? And even though a student may have many years of practice and some degree of attainment, still, to step down and give the teacher some prominence, in other words, to find your place with the teacher.

[06:07]

If you enter a monastery, even though you may have some attainment, you don't think, well, this, you know, he's a pretty good teacher, but I know a lot, so, you know. If you do, if you really have a good attainment, then you will be able to step, to find your place by giving the teacher the authority, because that's their place, and your place is as a student. So you should be able to go back and forth. You may be a great teacher. As a matter of fact, Jojo himself said this very well-known statement, I'm going on pilgrimage now. He was 80. I'm going on pilgrimage now and if I meet, even if I meet a little girl of eight years old and she is teaching the Dharma, I'll listen to her.

[07:09]

and let go of my understanding." So this is Zhaozhou's attitude. And this is very consistent with his statement of, please wash your bowl, go wash your bowls. So the monk enters the monastery and he has an interview with Zhao Zhou. And he's a monk who has actually been practicing for a pretty long time. So he takes his place as the student with Zhao Zhou and he says, please teach me. And Zhao Zhou says, well, have you had your breakfast yet? Have you had your rice gruel? Have you eaten your ice cream? Eating, you know, sounds like an ordinary statement. But here we have

[08:11]

a seasoned monk who is approaching the teacher, and the teacher, so they don't get into the kind of dialogue of, well, I came from such and such a place, and I'm 35 years old, and blah, blah, blah. It's more a direct dharma encounter. So when Jaojo says, have you had your school yet? It means something more like, have you had some attainment? Have you digested the dharma? Have you had a good taste of dharma? And the monk says, yes. Yes, I have. So this is kind of questionable, you know. Okay, you know, Zhao Zhou didn't dispute it.

[09:19]

So, like, it kind of hangs in the balance here. So, Zhao Zhou says, well, if so, please wash your bowl. Go wash your bowl. Clean your bowls. Simple statement, but Wash your bowl. It means if you have had your fill, let go of it. Let go of what you've attained. Let go of what you've eaten. Let go of what you've digested. This is the most important aspect of practice, is to have a totally open, unassuming, non-attained mind. It's the essence of practice. When you enter practice, we come with some idea about it, we come with something, we want something, but as you

[10:33]

begin to practice and continue to practice, you begin to realize that the less you have, the more understanding you have. The less you know, the more understanding you have. The less you know, the more access you have to understanding. So it's a little bit different than our usual way, which is to understand a lot and to gain a lot of knowledge and so forth. But to enter Zen practice, in a true sense, is to let go of knowledge and let go of attainment. This is the hardest thing. because we need something for security.

[11:40]

And so we use knowledge for security and we use attainment for security. So all of our universities are operating under the assumption that the more knowledge we have, the more security we have. But in Zen practice, the more we let go of everything, the more security we have. It's just the opposite. Which is not to say that we shouldn't go to the university and shouldn't have knowledge and so forth, but all of our knowledge of mind is limited.

[12:44]

It's always limited to what we can think and what we can perceive. So this knowledge which is limited to what we can conceive of and what we can perceive and what we can think and discover is limited to our sensory and mental abilities, which are limited. When we enter Zen practice, we enter the unlimited sphere, which is beyond thinking, and beyond feeling, and beyond emotional activity. So this is why we practice Zazen.

[13:47]

When we practice Zazen, we have the opportunity to let go of the limited mental activity, the limited emotional activity, and the limited feeling activity, and enter the realm of complete stillness and light, which is the basis of all other activity, just pure activity, pure existence, before anything arises. Suzuki Yoshi like to describe, use the simile of a movie, a movie projector and a screen. The movie projector, or the screen, is blank.

[14:54]

They say a white screen, but it is white because all the other colors, the white screen allows all the other colors to appear as they are, because the white screen has no color of its own. So, this is kind of like also the mirror mind, which has no expression of its own, but always reflects everything as it is. So the white screen allows all the other activities, form and color, to perform, to make its performance on itself. So this white screen has no personality.

[15:56]

because it has no self. But all the activities of mind and emotion and feeling, called the movie, is projected on the white screen. And without the white screen, there's nothing for the movie to be projected on. So the white screen, the blank screen, is the essence, essence of mind. The sixth ancestor, Huineng, is always talking about the essence of mind, essential mind, which has no special shape or form. all shapes and all forms come from it, or are produced on it, or its expression.

[16:59]

So, we don't ignore the movie. We enjoy the movie. The movie is called your life on the screen, projected on the screen. When we sit in Zazen, It's called watching the scenery of your life go by as it grinds out in your mind. Thinking about yesterday, thinking about tomorrow, thinking about what you want, thinking about what you don't want, thinking about what you like, thinking about what you don't like. This is all played out on the screen. But in zazen, you don't take it up. You just watch it as it appears and disappears and you realize it's all projections of the mind. But the actual fact of the moment is sitting in stillness without willfully producing anything.

[18:12]

You don't have to produce anything. It just all comes up by itself. You don't have to think. Thinking just comes, just activates itself. Have you noticed that? So, that, you know, Master Yagasan was asked by a monk, what do you think about in Zazen? And Yagasan said, I think not thinking." He says, well, what do you mean? What's not thinking? How do you think not thinking? He says, by the non's thinking. It's usually translated as non-thinking. But Dogen says it's the non's thinking.

[19:15]

If you say non-thinking, that's just the opposite of thinking. But he uses this term, the non's thinking. He makes the non into a noun. In other words, it's beyond thinking and not thinking. If you say it's thinking or not thinking, that's just a duality, just the other side. Who wants to not think? If you just keep trying to not think, that's just thinking. So to allow thoughts to arise, because that's the nature of the mind, is to think. But the activity that you're committed to, it's as in, which is not to produce something, but simply to sit in stillness without producing a thought. But at the same time, thoughts are produced.

[20:20]

It's producing that's producing the thoughts. As soon as you take up the thought, then you're thinking. As soon as you start building on a thought, then it's thinking. So we just let the thoughts come and go. Just let the thoughts come and go. There's no thinker. There's simply thoughts without a thinker. There's merely feelings without a feeler, and emotions without any motor. And you can watch this process on the screen. You can see the scenery of your psychic life going by as it arises and falls. And you don't have to take up something good, and you don't have to reject something bad. and you can experience or you can be this moment.

[21:31]

We say Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. What is Buddha? There are various ways of expressing what is Buddha. In this case, Buddha is our essential nature, our essence of mind. Dharma is our activity. the activity of mind, the changing mind. So Buddha is stillness. Dharma is activity. And Sangha is the doer or the non-doer, the persona. Buddha is like the white screen. Dharma is like the movie.

[22:34]

You know, the two aspects of Dharma. Dharma with a capital D means the law or truth or reality. And Dharma with a small d means things. All the little dharmas are subject to the laws of Dharma, which arise as aspects of Buddha, which arise and play their life out on the screen of Buddha. But to divide that way is simply a way of talking. In actuality, it's all one piece. Buddha is Dharma, Buddha is Sangha, Sangha is Buddha, Sangha is Dharma, and so forth.

[23:41]

They are all three aspects of one thing. So when Jojo says, wash your bowl, He says, don't interfere. Get out of the way. Clean, you know. Don't hang on to anything. Don't grasp anything. Find your freedom. In Buddhadharma, the practice of Buddhadharma is to allow us to find our perfect freedom. freedom from being caught by anything. So even though we may have some wonderful revelation or think of ourselves as having some good understanding, next moment

[24:54]

is a new moment. If we hang on to yesterday's understanding or yesterday's accomplishment, we're caught. So practice is moment by moment letting go and opening to this present moment. It's like Innocent activity. Innocent meaning without hanging on to anything. Which means freedom. So wherever we are on each moment is exactly where we should be. And how we open to this moment is exactly what we should be doing, no matter what it's like, without judgment, without trying to gain something.

[26:12]

So this is the most important factor in zazen and in our daily life. Same thing. So Zhao Zhou opened his mouth and showed his gallbladder, his heart, and his liver. In other words, he gave In this one statement, he revealed himself completely. I wonder if the monk really heard it, heard the truth. I hope he did not mistake a bell for a jar. The bell is like, ding! I hope we don't mistake our bell for a jar. So, Chajjo gave him some wonderful wake-up sound, and we hope that he understood it that way.

[27:30]

And because it is so very clear, it takes so long to realize. It is very clear, you know. When we hear this story for the first time, we know exactly what it means. As soon as you hear the story, you know exactly what it means. we need to bring it out, bring out the essence of the story, even though we completely understand it. But we don't understand it until we actually experience what this story is about. We can understand it up here easily, but how we manifest this truth So a koan like this is not about Zhao Zhou or the monk. It's about yourself. If it's just a story about these two guys, then it's just a story.

[28:35]

But the essence and meaning and vitality of the story is that it's about how do you manifest this understanding? And then he says, if you just know that flame is fire, you'll find your rice has long been cooked. This kind of refers to the sixth ancestor, in a way, when he was a young man and he entered Conan's practice place, and Conan put him in the kitchen, way back, pounding rice in the kitchen. And then when he approached him one day, he said, they had this little rapport with each other. And Conan says, is the rice ready? Meaning, and Eino said, the rice has long been cooked.

[29:44]

So if you just know that flame is fire. Know that flame is fire means know for yourself. How do you know that fire is hot? You put your finger in the ouch. You experience it. How do you know that you swim in water? Well, you dive in. So if you just know that flame is fire, you'll find that the rice has long been cooked. So there's one other aspect, and it has to do with time and space. time, space, and endless dimensions, which is sometimes called eternity.

[30:51]

We think of ourselves as living in time and space, and that at some point, if we don't go to hell, we'll be in heaven, which is eternity. and we don't think that way. We are already eternal. This time-space moment is already an eternal moment. Eternal is the best we can do, but we think of time as discontinuous. Time, one o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock, four o'clock. That is one way of dividing time. But it's not necessary to divide time.

[31:59]

It is necessary to divide time, but time is not really divisible. Time is just simply now. And now is always the same. Time is a continuum. It's continuously not going anywhere. Simply continuous presence. But discontinuously, it's going from past to present to future. So we divide it up that way, and we see it that way. It's a mental construction. So when we sit in zazen, we can realize continuous time, because we're just living on each moment as this moment of now, without going into a future or coming from a past.

[33:12]

even though there is past, present and future. So this moment is always this moment. Where do we come from and where do we go? We arise out of this moment and come back to this moment. So, because we look at it as aging in time, that's one way of looking at it. But there's simply another way to look, which is, in this present moment, everything is continually arising and disappearing. It's not a matter of coming and going in time.

[34:17]

So we experience this now moment of eternal time on this moment. This is our Religious security. There's nothing to get and there's nothing to lose. Do you have a question? No. equivalent to essence of mind? Continuous time.

[35:25]

Not cut-up time? Not cut-up time. Although cut-up time is an expression of continuous time. Our thinking mind is an expression of our big mind. Not bad, it's necessary, but it's limited. So it's important to be rooted in our unlimited mind so that our limited mind will have some wisdom.

[36:03]

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