Good morning, everyone. We're into the final week of our spring practice commitment period, which will end with our three-day sitting next weekend, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And we've been talking about these stories about practice or engagement with suchness, this immediacy. experience of reality that is available to us in this meditation practice and in our whole lives. And we've been talking about stories about this from Dongshan, the founder of the Soto lineage in China in the 800s, so this goes way back, and of course back before him too. But particular stories about Dongshan have been going over in terms of engagement with in terms of how our usual sense of a path of practice often is based on stages of accomplishment or something like that, and Dongshan strongly critiques that view and talks about the immediacy, starting from the mountaintop, starting from the top, of just being this, just this is it.

[01:24]

So there are numbers of stories about that and also stories about how we meet the ultimate or unconditioned aspect of wholeness in our everyday activity and how that integrates. But I want to go back this weekend to the starting story and focus on that again in terms of how that informs our practice and all these aspects. So this is the story about when Dongshan was leaving his teacher, Yunyan, and was going to go off wandering around, as was the custom. And this happens here now in the West of going around and visiting different teachers and so forth. But after he was leaving his teacher, Yunyan, he asked, later on, if I'm asked to describe your reality, your truth, your teaching, How should I respond? And Yongyan paused and said, just this is it.

[02:37]

Dongshan had nothing to say in response, and Yongyan said, you are now in charge of this great matter. Please be very careful. I'll take care of this. And Dongshan left and was going to wander to other temples. And he was wading across a stream and he looked down and saw his reflection in the stream and realized something about what Dongshan had said. And he wrote this verse, just don't seek from others or you will be far estranged from self. Now I go on alone, but everywhere I meet it. It now is me, I now am not it. One must understand in this way to merge with suchness." So this teaching about suchness is the point here, and then this single line which contains the whole of our practice, it now is me, I now am not it.

[03:43]

So we've talked about this before, but I want to go back to it and kind of as part of this preparation for Sashimi, but just to go back to this central question. So, many aspects of this story. Again, just this is it. So, going back before Zen in China, and actually going back to India, this idea, this sense of suchness, the immediacy of reality, as we sit and face the wall, as we sit and face ourselves, just being present and upright and settling into that. Just this is it. This presence that we all have tasted, that has something to do with

[04:50]

whatever word I say isn't it, but with the ultimate, with the universal reality, with wholeness. So this suchness actually isn't something that we can get. Suchness is a way of talking about the depths of our experience and reality. Suchness is about that which we can't get a hold of, because anything we say in our usual discursive language and logic and discriminating consciousness where we separate self and other. It's not this suchness. And yet, this practice allows us some taste or sense of this deeper reality. So, just this is it. said, you can't get it from others, you can't seek it outside.

[05:57]

So nobody can tell you how to be Buddha, each of you on your Kushina chair has to uncover that yourself. The particular way in which each of us with our particular context and background and stories and illusion of a self which we have built up for our whole lifetimes, this sense of an ego. It's not that we should get rid of that, but that it's an illusion and that actually we're all deeply, deeply interconnected with everything, with everyone you've ever known is part of how you are sitting there on your seat. So, We can't get it from outside, from seeking from others. I now go on alone, but everywhere I meet it, it's everywhere. We say in our closing vows, dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them.

[07:01]

So opportunities, gateways to reality. We start from this meditation exercise of just sitting and being present. observing how thoughts and feelings arise and flow. So it's likely that at least some of you during this period of meditation we just did had some thoughts. Now, you know, there are times when people actually settle very deeply and maybe there's no thought for a while. That's not the point. It now is me. I now am not it. Don't chance it. So this gets into the texture of this. And so there are many ways to talk about this, and none of them completely covers all of it.

[08:11]

But the 13th century Japanese monk Dogen, who brought this tradition, Dongshan started, from China to Japan, said, to carry the self forward and experience Murray Dix's delusion. So that's the side of I now am not, I am not it. we see that our particular stories and patterns, our individual patterns of grasping and craving and anger and frustration and confusion are not reality, are not the whole of reality. We still need to take care of them. We still need to acknowledge to ourselves these patterns, and maybe sometimes to someone else, but to study them. Dogen also says to study the ways to study the self. So we don't, and he said that enlightened people are enlightened about their delusions. Deluded people have delusions about enlightenment. The I am not it side is to see that, to see all the ways in which we're caught in our descriptions and stories about this person.

[09:26]

And a big part of the practice is to become so familiar with that, and to forgive ourselves for being human beings, and to not react and act out from that stuff so that we don't cause harm. a basic Buddhist precept, to be helpful rather than harmful. So how do we study this I that is not it? And how do we see how, in what ways it's not the whole of suchness? But the other side is that it now is me. Or Dogen says that when myriad things come forth and experience themselves, that's awakening. Now, that doesn't happen out there somewhere. We're part of that. It Now Is Me includes that everything in the whole, not even just this planet, everything in the whole, everything we can imagine and everything we can't imagine, this whole of reality,

[10:42]

includes us. It now is me, but I'm not it. So how do we then practice with that? It's not enough to just hear that or even have some understanding of that. How do we, in our life, in our ordinary, particular, phenomenal life, acknowledge that and act on that and support this ultimate, this wholeness, this background. Again, any word I say is not it. But how do we support that in our lives? How do we respond to the difficulties in our relationships, difficulties with ourselves as we sit for 30 or 40 minutes facing all the stuff that comes up? How do we take care of the world around us? friends, family, relationships, loved ones, but also co-workers, people we don't get along with, and then all this stuff going on in our world.

[11:50]

How do we take care of that? It now is me, for each one of us. So this is a life work. This isn't something that we figure out and then we're done. Because everything is changing, everything is shifting. So in each new situation, how do we see? It now is me. I'm not it, but it now is me. This story is part of the Book of Serenity, the Sento Lineage Koan Collection, and there are a few things in this case from the Book of Serenity that talk about this story that I wanted to come back to. So one of them is just, it's actually the main case, it's case 49. Later on, after Dongshan became a teacher himself, he was presenting offerings before an image of Yunya at his monastery.

[12:54]

And he retold the story about depicting reality and about Yunya saying to him, just this is it. So, Paula and Laurel just came back from Branching Streams, which is a meeting of various affiliated temples in our Suzuki Roshi lineage. So we're connected with various other, in different ways, with various other parts of American Buddhism and even Japanese Buddhism and beyond. At San Francisco Zen Center, there's a monthly ceremony. We don't have a kaisando here. We have our facilities being a storefront, a little temple here. We don't have all the facilities in a big temple, but they have a founder's hall there. And for those of you who've been to San Francisco Zen Center on the second floor, you see it when you walk up the stairs. There's a room, a small room, with an image of Suzuki Roshi, and then actually pictures of some of the people in the audience just before him on the wall.

[14:03]

But there's a monthly ceremony honoring Suzuki Roshi that happens at San Francisco Zen Center around the fourth of the month, which is the day that Suzuki Roshi passed away, and the evening before and that morning. So I imagine that this story takes place at such a ceremony that there was probably a monthly ceremony that Dongshan did at his temple for Yunyan, his teacher. And after they'd done the ceremony at this time, a monk came forward and asked Dongshan, when Yunyan said, just this is it, what did he mean? And, you know, there's various ways to understand that, many ways to understand that story. So I've been talking about one major way, just this, the sense of presence, is everything, in a sense.

[15:12]

Just this is it, this ability to sit and be present, And not just in formal salsa, and in our everyday activity, eventually that becomes evident if we sit like, if we do this practice regularly, several times a week at least, just stop and sit and be present. And whatever happens is okay, so don't worry about whether you're doing this correctly or incorrectly. Just to take some time to stop, and whatever happens, just to be there. And pay attention to it. So, just this is it. But also, you know, we could hear Yang Yan saying, so this monk had asked Dong Xuan later about the meaning, just this might refer to Dong Xuan asking the question, what's your teaching? What's the reality? What's real? What's meaningful? Or it might have been just the,

[16:13]

the situation of the student and teacher sitting together, because part of this substance is how does it get shared? How does it get conveyed? So that's what we're doing here. How do we express this? How is it expressed already in everything in the world, not just by people? So there's another story about Dongsheng finding his teacher where he had this question about so-called non-sentient beings, how do they express the Dharma? How do they express reality? So this is not merely psychological. This practice is not some self-help practice. Of course, there are benefits to it, and we do find some settling, if we do it regularly, and some openness. But anyway, just this is it. So this student is asking Dongshun, what did Yunyan mean?

[17:14]

It's a good question. And actually, it's even more complicated than that, because there's a pronoun there. The pronoun that I translated as it, just as it, could be a personal pronoun. So it could be read as just this person, just this person, sitting here in front of you. Yunyan is saying, that's it. Anyway, Dongshan responded to this student saying, at that time I nearly misunderstood my late teacher's meaning. And then this monk, I think it's pretty, I don't know if it's rude, but it's pretty bold, he asked, did Yunyan himself know it is or not? So, Hyunhyun said, just this is it. But did, you know, the monk was asking, did Hyunhyun actually know that? And that question also has lots of layers.

[18:14]

So the point of these stories, by the way, it's not to, you know, these koans or teaching stories, it's not to figure them out, they're not nonsense riddles, they're not, you know, it's not something you have to solve or answer. It's, these stories we stay with, we study with, We study them not just as artifacts from 9th century China, who cares, but as stories about ourselves and our practice. So these stories may seem abstruse or esoteric or, I don't know, abstract, but they're stories about the texture of our own engagement with reality. So this monk asked Dongshan, Did his teacher Yunyan himself know it is or not? And Dongshan said this really interesting thing. He said, if he did not know it is, how could he be able to have said it? Well, of course. But also then he says, if he did know it is, how could he be willing to say this?

[19:20]

So this is a really, you know, juicy question. If Yunyan knew it is, how could he be willing to say it? a little indirect or something, but it's pretty bold to just say, just this is it. And I'll repeat it, just this is it. But if I relate to you, how can I say such a thing? So again, there's this sense in the tradition of each of you has to see this for yourself. I am not it, but it now is me. What is our relationship to reality, to the ultimate? It's not enough to just have some flashy experience. That happens sometimes. That's not the point. How do we live with this awareness of this reality, this deeper reality, beyond all of the games and toys and...

[20:29]

enticements and distractions of our culture and all the problems of our culture, how do we take our seat, so to speak? How do we find our way to engage all of that? And again, it's not a fixed thing. It's alive. Suchness is alive. It's shifting with circumstances. So if he didn't know what it is, how could he be able to say this? If he did know what it is, how could he be willing to say this? So this is this basic question. And so the cases and the verses of the Book of Serenity were selected by a great Chinese Tzu teacher a century before Dogen, a guy named Hongzhe. But there's commentary by a Chinese contemporary of Dōgen in the later 1200s. I'm sure they didn't know each other or about each other, but these comments are, you know, I'm appreciating more and more after decades of studying this.

[21:44]

So, Wansong Hu, as the commentator says, If you say he absolutely doesn't know what it is, then there is gain and loss. So if Junghyun did not know what it is, then you're talking about somebody knows it and somebody else doesn't, and you're stuck in comparisons, and you're stuck in trying to attain something, achieve something. There is completely not knowing it is, there is knowing it is, then, after all, not knowing. So that's one possibility. You can know, just this is it, and then let go of knowing that. So part of what all these Zen teachings are about is the variety of ways of knowing, and maybe the variety of ways of not knowing. How do we know anything? How do we actually really know what's important to us?

[22:52]

how we want to be in the world, how we want to take on the opportunity of this life with all of your abilities, with all of your interests, with all of your experience, with all of your curiosity. How do we do that? What do we do with it? So, there's completely not knowing it is, then there is knowing it is, then after all, not knowing. And then, there is not knowing... Not knowing it is turning into knowing it is. So we might not know just this, and then we might know it. So it can go in various directions. Dongshan said, if he did not know it is, how could he be able to say so? If he did know it is, how could he be willing to say so? And then the commentator talks about the Huayang school, which is the Chinese school that comes from the flower reminder of a Tamsakan teaching, where they say, inner reality is complete.

[23:57]

Words are partial. When words are born, inner reality is lost. So I'll repeat what Dogen says at some point. Don't worry about remembering anything I say or anything you hear this morning. That's not the point. In fact, there's a kind of trick question I sometimes ask Guzan students when they've been to a talk that I wasn't there. I'll ask them what it was about. And most of the time, they can't remember a thing. But sometimes they do. Anyway, so this flower in a school in China says, inner reality is complete. Words are partial. When words are born, inner reality is lost. This is mystery upon mystery, ever more wondrous, integration and harmonious communion, the impartial, non-leaking bloodline. So bloodline is a way of talking about the tradition of a particular lineage.

[25:01]

But this mystery upon mystery, ever more wondrous, integration and harmonious communion. It's a wonderful phrase. So really the point of all of these Dongshan stories integration and harmonious communion. It's not about having some experience of the ultimate. That's kind of easy on some level. I mean, many spiritual practices are devoted to finally seeing the one or whatever. But that's the starting point, really. So whatever you have seen of just this in this period of Zazen, and including for the people who've done this practice for the first time here this morning, and that's wonderful for us, how does the process, the life work about it, the real practice, the real awakening and enlightenment, is how is this integration and harmonious communion, how do we allow this

[26:06]

sense, this taste of wholeness to impact all of our particular activity, even amidst all of our greed and anger and confusion and so forth. How do we, as we come back to sitting again and again and some taste of something that goes beyond It's some unconditioning. There's many stories about that from Dongshan that I talk about in this book. But how do we allow that to be part of an integrated, harmonious communion with our life, with reality, with everybody and everything we know? So this is the practice that we do here. So in some sense, it's very simple, just saying. and keep doing that. And doing it regularly allows that experience to be part of you, and then, you know, without intending or trying to make it, to manipulate something so that you are doing this, allowing this integrated harmonious communion to be there, and then appreciating it, and then supporting it, and exploring it, and deepening that.

[27:37]

So we chant, one of Dongshan's teachings is the Jewel Marrow Samadhi, which starts, the teaching of suchness is intimately communicated by Buddhas and ancestors, now you have it, keep it well. So this echoes what Yun-Yang said to Dongshan. And when we chant that, and we'll be chanting that next weekend, we say, now you have it, keep it well, And in some sense, our whole practice is about how do we take care of this? How do we take care of this practice place? How do we take care of our life in the world and all of the ebbs and flows and permutations and gains and losses and so forth that are part of our mundane world, the ordinary stuff of our life? So again, there are key phrases which you might remember from these stories, just this is it, or again, it now is me, I now am not it.

[28:46]

You can say that to yourself as you do Zazen if you want. Here's another one, integration and harmonious communion. So just remember that phrase. It might be helpful sometimes. Anyway, this wonderful commentary goes on. There's another story about Dong Shan doing a memorial service for Yun Yang, probably a different occasion. And another student asked, what instruction did you receive at your late teacher's place? And of course, that's a very reasonable, you know, question, and in our Sangha we have many people who have practiced in other or related traditions. So, you know, I could ask Douglas, what instruction did you receive at Ruben Rios' place? I don't know what he would say, but what Dongshan said when he was asked this about his teacher,

[29:54]

He said, although I was there, I didn't receive his instruction. The monk said, then why do you conduct a service for him? Why do you take him as your teacher? Dongshan said, even so, how dare I turn my back on him? The monk said, you rose to prominence at Nanchuan's. So there's a story when Dongshan was very young. called Dongshan, but where he studied with this great teacher, Nanchuan, who was much more famous than Yunyan. Why do you instead conduct a service for Yunyan, the student asked. And Dongshan said, I do not esteem my late teacher's virtues or his Buddhist training. I only value the fact that he did not explain everything for me. So that's a great answer. I had a teacher once who asked me to not explain anything to anybody for a year.

[31:02]

And it was very challenging. I'd like to do that, and I was working at Tassajara Bakery at the time in the front. It took me a while to understand. My teacher, Reva, finally helped me. This was a different teacher than me. Helped me to see how to practice with this. People come to Zen practice and want explanations. What's it all about? How do I understand this? What should I do with my, with this life? How do I figure out, you know, what to do about my relationship or my job or, you know, what all kinds of questions that people want explanations of? Just this is it. There's no one right, you know, so I'm gonna, maybe I'll go on a major digression, but I'll first finish this story. He said, I do not esteem my late teacher's virtues or his Buddhist teaching.

[32:10]

I only value the fact that Yun Yang did not explain everything for me. The monk said, you succeeded to your late teacher, Yun Yang. Then do you agree with him or not? Dong Xuan said, I half agree and I half don't agree. And I think I can say that about my teacher, too. I half agree and I half don't agree. The monk said, why don't you completely agree? Dongshan said, if I completely agreed, I'd be unfaithful to my teacher. So these stories are trying to be mysterious, but they're getting at the underlying, the I'm not it. So looking at his reflection in the stream, Dongshan could say, oh, that's me.

[33:18]

And even if you just look into it, the stream is kind of wavering a little bit. We don't know how deep it was there. He was wading across it, so it couldn't have been too deep. So there were ripples in the stream probably. But he recognized, oh, that's me. But I'm not it. So any idea you have about who you are, well, that's you, but you're not just that. So this, again, is about this teaching of non-self. Who and what is it that is sitting on your seat now? And we can't get a hold of that. because in some sense, ultimately, it's an illusion. It's an illusion that we take care of, so you need to pay the rent and take care of your relationships and so forth. And we emphasize that, actually. This is this integration and harmonious communion, how to take care of the phenomenal world, but with this background of someone not having explained everything to you.

[34:35]

So there's also, besides Wong Sung's wonderful comments, Hongzhe has verse comments, and I wanted to say something about that, and I won't read the whole thing. Well, maybe I will. How could he be able to say this? In the third watch, I think that's like midnight. No, that would be like just before dawn. The cock crows, dawn for the forest of homes. How could he be willing to say this? The thousand-year-old crane grows old with the pine in the clouds. So there are many images of cranes in China City on top of pine trees in the clouds. Then the key lines here. The jewel mirror, clear and bright, shows ultimate and particular. The jade machine revolves. See them both show up at once. The jade machine revolves.

[35:41]

Well, that word that's translated here by Tom Cleary is machine. It could be translated as the jade works, or that character means loom, like weaving. And it also means kind of the underlying meaning of everything. It's this very interesting Chinese character. It means opportunity or function or workings. So this jade machine revolves, see them both show up at once, talking about ultimate in particular. The way of the school is greatly influential. It's regulated steps, continuous and fine. Father and son change and pass through. Oceanic is their fame, so the last party is just praising Dongshan and Merlin. And now, fortunately, we have mothers and daughters in this lineage, too. But this jade opportunity, this jade machine of all, seeing them both show up at once, the jewel mirror, clear and bright, shows ultimate and particular.

[36:52]

So, I would say that this jade mirror, this jade works, the jewel mirror, jade works, is this line. I am not it, but it now is me. See how everything in the world is that you are connected with that, but also you're not it. This is very subtle. It keeps turning. It goes back and forth. And did Jungian know what it is? Well, how could he possibly have known what it is? If he talked about it, how would he be willing to do that? But also, if he didn't know what it is, how could he have said that? In one such commentary to this, he says, although the mirror is clean, it has a back and a front, right? So there is everything we face, and there is that which is behind us, which we don't know, but it's there.

[37:52]

So when you're all sitting facing the wall, and I and sometimes one or two other people are sitting facing the center, just, you know, to be aware if anybody needs help or something. But also, entering a room where a lot of people are sitting, you see all these backs. That's the face of the wall. And they're very expressive. There's an old poem, Sitting quietly, doing nothing, a flower blossoms in the back. So the grasses grow on their own. Something happens in this practice that we can't figure out, or track, or delineate exactly. The jade machine revolves.

[38:54]

See, they both show up at once. And one of them comments, although the mirror is clear, it has a back and front, Only the jade works spinning. It weaves them together, both light, both dark, and the technique of simultaneous realization. It's funny he calls it a technique. It's not a technique in the usual sense of some mechanism. It's this practice of paying attention. And both show up at once. This background, ultimate, and then the particular situation. And both are connected through you. Each of us, in some ways, is... And the point of this practice is this simultaneous realization.

[39:59]

And don't worry about figuring it out. That's not the point. Somehow, organically, alchemically, doing this practice regularly, we are in this communion with both sides. Maybe I'll end with... I haven't talked about this during this practice period, but one of the things that in Zen history Dongsheng is most famous for is a teaching called, sometimes called the Five Ranks, I call it the Five Degrees. So there are many stories here that we've talked about where he's talking about not getting caught in the stages of practice. So these are not five stages that we go through to get to somewhere else. Here we are. And yet, these five degrees, it turns out that in looking at this process of this harmonious integration, this harmonious communion, this interaction between the ultimate suchness and the particular phenomenal situation that each of us has been engaging this week, and will continue to,

[41:19]

Looking at that, there's a five-fold pattern. You can read that chapter, but don't worry about understanding this. The point I want to make is that we usually think in terms of right and wrong, or good and bad, or one from column A and two from column B, we usually think in a binary way. This is deeply embedded in our language. Subject, verbing, object. me and everything else out there, and our habit in our human life and in our cultures, we do things to try and manage or manipulate stuff out there, or to not be managed or manipulated by subjects out there. So, this binary way of thinking is really deeply embedded in our awareness, and I think it's biological. We have a left and a right, and the front and the back, and male and female, and we think our whole orientation is in terms of twos.

[42:27]

But this five-fold thing is not about five stages. So I talk about, in that last chapter, about echinoderms, like starfish are echinoderms. There are creatures in our world that have what's called a five-fold radial symmetry. So it's possible that on some, in some planet somewhere, that those, that such beings would have some intelligence, develop that. The Kingdom Germs on this planet don't seem to be able to do that, they're invertebrate, they can't develop that, although they're actually the background, they're the invertebrate that was the precursor of vertebrates, but anyway, I'm getting too into this. Just to imagine someone who had five, instead of a front and a back and a left and a right, had a five-fold context. Then they wouldn't see these five degrees as stages, but it would just be the natural way of seeing things.

[43:37]

Not in terms of twos, but in terms of fives. Anyway, that was a little footnote. The point is, how do we... engage our life and take care of the particular aspects of our life with this background sense of something that goes beyond, something that's ultimate. So I've talked too long again, but does anybody have any comments, questions, responses? Please feel free. or for new people today if you have any basic questions about the practice or the meditation.

[44:39]

I thank you very much for a wonderful talk. I heard something in your talk today that never really struck me in the same way And it's maybe because this is the time of year where there are lots of graduations and people leaving their teachers and families and institutions and going out on their own. But I was really struck by the, I don't know, the profound moment where one leaves a teacher. You know, just in the story of Daochan leaving his teacher and how, you know, We rely on our teachers to teach us things, and evaluate us, and correct us, and show us the way. And I appreciate that you also acknowledge that there are some things that our teachers can't convey, either because they didn't get them when they went through, or because they just can't convey them. And there are some things that they might be conveying really well that we just can't take in.

[45:43]

and how, I don't know, disappointed it is when that moment where, you know, Dongshan is asking for sort of, you know, what's this one last thing? And then, you know, whatever was he got from that moment, he goes out on his own and it seemed like it really embodied, you know, when he sees his reflection, it seemed like it really embodied the what the Buddha told his followers when he was passing into Parinirvana, which is, be a lamp unto yourselves. It's like he's left with, really, himself, and the profound responsibility of how do you take all these things that you've learned, or not learned, or partly learned, and take these broken wings and learn to fly, and how do you then live your life? And I love that where he sees it as in a reflection from a stream, which is a reflection that we can literally understand, but really, you know, the world is giving us reflections all the time of where we are and what we're doing, and it reminded me of, you know, in some of our sermons here, you talk about, you know, now the whole world will be your teacher, and so that seems, that just really came forward to me in this time of year, and you're telling this story again, that, you know, you go from,

[47:10]

Looking outside yourself a little bit when you're a student. You're looking for guidance and then you go to this moment where you really have to rely on just this person to sort it out. Because ultimately the responsibility is always with each of us. Any other comments or questions or responses? Yes, John? I was really struck by the part about, I half agree with my teacher. That really hit me, because I thought about a couple of ways. One is, sometimes I feel like I only half agree with myself. Because by the time I express the opinion, it's changing already, or I realize it's only partial, or I've left a lot of things out.

[48:16]

So maybe I half agree, nothing can be that fixed, but that's it, that's the whole story. Yeah, don't believe everything you think. Thank you. Maybe we have time for another comment or response. It's been said that the ultimate response is silence. Well, thank you all very much. I'll add that if you have to agree and have to disagree, be careful about which half you agree to.

[49:13]

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