Yeah, so, okay, we're here though to talk about Hongzhe Zhangzui, Tiantang Hongzhe. So why don't we start with that and we'll see where we go. So Chosin asked me to speak about this book, Cultivating the Empty Field, which I translated. Long time ago, 18 years ago maybe. Is this 2006? Yeah, okay. So he lived 1091 to 1157, and he was very important in the Chinese Zhaodong lineage. which is the Soto lineage in Japanese, which Dogen brought from China to Japan in the 1200s when Dogen returned in 1227. Hongzhou lived 1091 to 1157, so he was the most important a Soto teacher in China during that century before Dogen, by far.

[01:02]

He did many things. He's also, in addition to his meditation teachings, which I'm going to be talking about this weekend, he started the branch of meditation, or he articulated, I should say, the branch of meditation called serene illumination or silent illumination. But he also was a master of koans. He wrote, picked the cases and wrote the verses for the Shoya Roku or Book of Serenity, which is an important koan collection. So he also, some people think that Rinzai people do koans and Soto people just sit, but actually they both do both. So, He picked the cases and wrote the verses. And so it's the same format as the Blue Cliff Record, which some of you may know. It's exactly the same format. And then later, just like the Blue Cliff Record, which the cases were picked and the verses written by Shwedo, who was in the Yunmen lineage.

[02:08]

And then a later teacher, Yuan Wu, who actually Hongzhe studied with briefly, wrote the commentary. So the Book of Serenity is the exact same format. Hongzhe wrote, picked the cases, the 100 cases, and wrote the main verse commentary. And then a later Soto teacher, Cao Dong teacher, Wan Song, contemporary with Dogen, wrote the commentary. So Dogen never saw the Book of Serenity as we know it. Dogen saw the cases and verses by Hongzhi, though, and talked about them a lot. So one of the things about Hongzhi is he's very important to Dogen, who is the founder of Soto Zen in Japan. So I'll come back to that. But the writings in Cultivating the Empty Field are from Most of them, the practice instructions are from volume six of nine volumes of Hongzhi's extensive record. And then there's also some verses which are from volume eight. And Hongzhi's writings are beautiful.

[03:10]

They present and they evoke the experience of meditative awareness, of this just sitting or serene or silence illumination. So in these writings, he very poetically and beautifully presents this teaching of serene illumination or silent illumination meditation. And then also he gives practice instructions as to how to express them in our daily life, not in terms of practical day-to-day things as we would know them, although if he did that, we wouldn't know them because he was living in 12th century China, which is a whole different galaxy. But in terms of talking about how the serene awareness expresses itself in everyday life, that's an important part of these writings. So there are a lot of different aspects about this I want to talk about with you this weekend.

[04:12]

And we will have time to look into some of them and read some of his writings. So I'm going to try and give some background tonight. And then I also want to get into specific meditation instructions that are in his writings. Well, one aspect is that he represents the extension of the Soto Zen, or Cao Dong in Chinese Zen philosophy, and the dialectics, which go back to texts that you probably know, the Sando Kai or, how do you say it, the identity of, Relative and absolute. So there's this basic Zen dialectic philosophy that actually goes back to Flower Ornament Sutra and Huayan thinking in China, the school of Chinese Buddhist philosophy that came out of the Flower Ornament Sutra.

[05:14]

But it was expressed by Shoto or Sekito Kisen who wrote the Identity of Relative and Absolute. I say it harmony of difference and sameness anyway. So this, and then that was developed more in the Song of the Precious Mare Samadhi by Dongshan and his system of five ranks. Dongshan is considered the founder of Soto Zen. So I want to just say a little bit about that now, and we'll come back to it. But just that as a context for all of his teachings, there is this background kind of philosophy that, and he talks about it in terms of the meditation of serene illumination or silent illumination, that there are two sides of our practice. One is this recognition, this realization of kind of ultimate truth. So sometimes it's called absolute. Absolute and relative are kind of Western philosophical terms. I prefer to use universal in particular, but there's lots of ways of talking about them.

[06:18]

So in Soto literature, going back to Dongshan and through Japan, this basic underlying You could say duality, and the integration of them is one major theme. So there is this ultimate truth. And each of you here, because you're here, I know you have some sense of that, some taste of that. So in terms of our practice, turning the light within to realize this absolute is one side of our practice. The other side is that how is it expressed in the particulars, in our everyday activity, in working in the kitchen, cleaning the temple, and so forth, or in everyday activity out in the world. So these two sides of our reality And the integration of that is kind of the basis of Soto Zen philosophy, going back to the Dongshan's Five Ranks or Five Degrees teaching, which I won't go into now, but just to hear that this kind of balancing and tension and interaction is kind of in the background of a lot of Hongzhi's teaching.

[07:41]

And really the point of our practice is not to realize the ultimate, or realize sameness, or realize the absolute. That's half of it, or maybe a little less than half. The other part is then how do we integrate that into everyday activity? So that's a lot of what's emphasized, actually, in such as in training, not just meditative awareness, but its expression in the world. So that's one theme that's here. Another thing I wanted to say is that I translated these a while ago. More recently, I translated Dogen's extensive record. And Dogen very, very frequently cites Hongzhe and quotes him. So I got to translate more Hongzhe. So I'll bring in later in the weekend some of other Hongzhe writings that are in Dogen's writings. So I'll talk about this a little bit, too. Where I thought I'd start off tonight is to talk about the teaching of Buddha nature, which is another way of talking about what Hongxue is about.

[08:52]

But I want this to be kind of interactive, so are there any questions at this point? And maybe any questions about any of it, or anything I said, just to kind of, it'll help me to know what you're interested in. Yes? Good question. I would say yes, but some scholars would argue about if it's technically the same. Basically it's the same. It's very clearly this silent elimination or serene elimination is the background of just sitting or dropping body and mind. So I'll talk about that more. So really this is the practice we do. It's not called that in, so there's historical stuff which I wasn't going to go into so much but we can, that the main Linji or Rinzai lineage teacher in Hongsha's time who was named Dawei or Daiei in Japanese, was very critical of silent illumination. And later Hakuin was critical of Bankei's version of that in Japan.

[10:02]

So there's a problem with this kind of practice that Hongzhe is talking about in this part of his writings, the silent illumination, that it can become what's sometimes called quietistic. We can feel like we connect with this inner radiance, this inner illumination, and become complacent. And so Dawei's criticism wasn't directed directly at Hongzhe himself, and maybe some of his students. In fact, Hongzhe and Dawei were, if not friends, they were colleagues who respected each other. Hongzhe, before he died, asked Dawei to take over the training at his temple. So they weren't enemies or anything like that. People in the lineage of Rinzai and Soto made more of it. And so this kind of thing happens a lot, that Dawei was maybe the other great teacher of the time. And sometimes a few generations later, disciples of great teachers will kind of fuss at each other.

[11:06]

But the issue is how we actually bring the serene illumination that we connect with in Zazen, in just sitting into our activity in the world. So that is something that Hongshuo also talks about. He talks about it in a kind of subtle way, in a very poetic way. He uses lots of images and metaphors, so he's a very poetic writer, a very literary writer. But it's very much there, so I'll be talking about that. But that's a good question. Other basic questions? Oh, okay. Yes. So, thank you. So, is this the version that you checked? Was it? Ours is a little different. This is the standard. Okay.

[12:06]

So, So do you chant it in Chinese rather than Japanese, though? We do. Oh, great. OK, so Dongshan Liangjie is the founder of Soto Zen. Yuanzhu Daoying, Dong'an Daopi, Tong'an Guanji, Yangshan Yuanquan, Dayang Qingzhuang, Touzu Yiqing. And I was telling that story to someone at dinner that those two never actually met each other, but that's another story. Furong Daokai. Dansha Sichun was the teacher of Hongzhe Zhangzui. So Hongzhe is not in our lineage. He's a Dharma great uncle of Dogen. So Dansha Sichun had two, well, maybe he had other disciples too, but his two main disciples were Hongzhe Zhongzhui, who we're talking about this weekend, who's in Japanese, his name is Wanshi Shogaku.

[13:10]

So we don't chant his name because he's not directly in our lineage. But his dharma brother was Changlu Qingyao, Choryo Seryo in Japanese. And he was the teacher of Chiantong Zhongzhui, who was the teacher of Xue Doushichan, who was the teacher of Chiantong Rujing, Dogen's teacher. So. Oh, okay. Anyway, Hongxue is like a great, great Dharma uncle of Dogen. He also was the teacher at, sometimes he's called Hongzhe Zhongshui, sometimes he's called Chiantong Hongzhe. In the Book of Serenity, he's usually called Chiantong Hongzhe because he was the abbot for almost 30 years of Chiantong Monastery in Eastern China. And that's the same temple where Dogen's teacher was teaching, Chiantong Rujing. They have that, Chiantung is the name of the temple. And it's the temple where Dogen was awakened and received transmission.

[14:14]

So in a sense, he's a temple ancestor of that temple. So Hongzhe died in 1157. Dogen arrived in China in 1223, I think, came to Mount Chiantung in 1225. So Hongzhe's legend and shadow and was very much present there. So, in a sense, he's a very important ancestor in our lineage. Those are temple names, right. Yes. Yeah. So, is there some way to? time being over this way. A magnet, great. So just to go over that, maybe to see it makes it easier. This is the sixth ancestor, and then there's many lineages in China.

[15:24]

This is the Rinzai lineage, that's Rinzai or Linji there. The Soto lineage, Dongshan is down here. This is Shito, Sekito, who did the harmony of difference and sameness, or identity of relative and absolute. And here's three generations later is Dongshan. And then from Dongshan, let's see, here's, anyway, that goes down to, There's more to this map. Ta-da. So this goes down, so this is the Soto lineage, and here's Danzha, Zizhen, and this is the line to Dogen, who's here, and this is Hongzhe. Okay, and here's the Linji line.

[16:28]

It goes down to various people in Japan also. So, where's ASI? Anyway, so you can come and look at this too. So other questions? No? After Dogen's extensive record, that's enough. I'm going to comment on translations. No more translations. Although I said that after a Heishin-gi too, so who knows. But I have translated some of the rest of it in Dogen's extensive record, so I'll talk about some of that. Other questions? Well, one of the things about Hongzhe's writing is that it's very beautiful and evocative. Maybe I should start with how to read this kind of thing.

[17:31]

He's not explaining. He's not telling you how to understand. So Zen teaching really isn't about explaining anything, and Zen practice is not about understanding, even though it's okay if you understand. But the compiler of this section of the practice instructions of Hongzhe, He talked about how this was compiled, so maybe I'll read a little more of this. Sometimes scholars and lay people who trusted the way asked for Hongshu's directions. Sometimes mendicant monks requested his instructions. They spread out paper and wrote down his responses. He spoke up and answered their questions, producing appropriate Dharma talks. I have selected a few of these and arranged them in order. Ah, the emptiness of the great blue sky, the flowing of the vast ocean. I have not yet attained these utmost depths, so please excuse my attempt to record his talks.

[18:34]

I must await the ones who mysteriously accord with spiritual awakening to pound out the rhythm of his words and appreciate their tones. So, Hung's writings are very poetic and evocative, and what they do is, kind of bounce off something in our own samadhi body, in our own zazen body, an awareness that allows us to recognize something. And I think that's the point. It's like, it's not trying to understand or figure it out, it's that we recognize something. Like maybe when you listen to a symphony or some music that you really like that hits something in you. It's like that. So I'm going to try and talk about it in terms of various teachings, but also I have a variety of things to say about it, and I'll be reading some things. But at some point, I hope we can just get to reading some of it and talking about it. And let's try, if you have a question as I go along, please raise your hand and we'll do that.

[19:38]

So can you all hear me okay? Okay, so one of the basic ways to, one of the basic things that Hongzhe is talking about here is Buddha nature teaching. So this idea of Buddha nature, you've probably heard of that in China in this period and going back into Chinese Buddhism, there was this idea of, going back to India, this idea of Buddha nature, that all beings, as the Mahaparinirvana Sutra says, are fundamentally endowed with this wisdom and virtue of the Buddhas, of the awakened ones. And in the Flower Ornament Sutra, it says, well, that this is what the Buddha realized when he awakened, but then he saw that because of our conditioning, because of all of the ways in which we don't trust ourselves, because of our patterns of thinking and defining ourself and the world and our particular worldviews, we don't realize this Buddha nature.

[20:48]

We don't recognize it and we don't express it. So this practice is about expressing Buddha nature. So this is a basic Buddhist teaching and there's a lot of Zen discussion of it. So Dogen in his essay on Buddha nature later on would say, not that all beings have Buddha nature, but that all beings are Buddha nature. All beings completely are Buddha nature. And there was, in Chinese Buddhism, one shift, one of the shifts from India to China was that there was this teaching that was important in Dongshan's practice. Realizing that not just people, but all things are Buddha nature. That even walls and tiles and pebbles, grasses and trees speak the Dharma. Non-sentient beings can expound the Dharma, can help us see awakening. and express awakening. And then, of course, there's the questions to Zhaozhou or Zhoushu, does a dog have Buddha nature?

[21:57]

And one time he said, moo, or no, or not. And one time he said, yes. And so in the Book of Serenity there, that Hongzhe, Hongzhe's version of that case, he gives both answers. and even elaborates a little bit on it. So there's a lot of discussion of Buddha nature, but it's one of the starting points for these practice instructions of Hongxue. We will also be getting to the religious verses part of this, but just the very beginning of the practice instructions is about this. Hongxue says, the field of boundless emptiness is what exists from the very beginning. You must purify, cure, grind down, or brush away all the tendencies you have fabricated into apparent habits. Then you can reside in the clear circle of brightness." So Hongxue uses this metaphor of an empty field, this field of boundless emptiness, which is always here. So we could talk about this in terms of emptiness or in terms of suchness, but this is what is always in front of us.

[23:02]

It exists from the very beginning, from before the very beginning. But of course, we need to purify, cure, grind down, brush away the tendencies you have fabricated into apparent habits. So we all have these voices telling us, speaking to us in various ways, these various parts of us that are that prevent us from seeing Buddha nature and prevent us from expressing Buddha nature. So this is the starting point for Hongshu's teaching here. He says, then you can reside in the clear circle of brightness. Utter emptiness has no image. Upright independence does not rely on anything. just expand and illuminate the original truth unconcerned by external conditions. So Dongshan in his Enlightenment poem says, just don't seek outside or you get further away from yourself. There's this basic, the starting point of, whether you call it Shikantaza, just sitting or silent illumination is,

[24:04]

this practice of turning the light within to illuminate the self, this turning within. So facing the floor, facing the wall. Do you sit facing in or facing the wall? Facing in. Either way, you're facing yourself. So this basic practice of sitting facing whatever is in front of you, whatever is arising, is kind of the starting point of this practice. And this is where we start to recognize this inner brightness. But again, Hongxue expresses it in this beautiful evocative way that I think helps us to kind of connect with it. So he says, just expand and illuminate the original truth unconcerned by external conditions. Accordingly, we are told to realize that not a single thing exists. So this is a quote from the sixth ancestor who says that from the beginning not a single thing exists who's teaching about emptiness. Hongshu says, in this field birth and death do not appear.

[25:06]

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. The whole affair functions without leaving traces and mirrors without obscurations. So I'm gonna come back to this section because there's a very specific meditation instruction that he's providing there about how we, about the phenomenology of sensation and perception in Zazen. And there's another section that kind of mirrors this. But he says the whole affair functions without leaving traces, mirrors without obscuration, very naturally, mind and dharmas, mind and objects, emerge and harmonize. So this image of this practice of just meeting the empty field, clearing away or dropping away, letting go of all of the

[26:07]

voices, all of the views of ourself and the world that get in the way, all of our habits. It's interesting, he says, tendencies you have fabricated into apparent habits. So when we look closely enough, with enough compassion at our own apparent habits, we see that we've kind of concocted them. So this takes some time of practice. But anyway, in one way, one of the things about these this section of Hongxue, these practice instructions, is they're kind of holographic, like the Flower Ornament Sutra. Each section contains the whole thing. And he goes over and over. He kind of presents the same thing over and over again, just to help us see it more and more clearly, to kind of get into it, to get under it. So that's one place where he talks specifically about this idea, this paradigm of Buddha nature. Another place, and a few of you have the books, so that was on page 30.

[27:12]

On page 52, he says, Well, I'll start just at the bottom of the previous page. Our house is a single field, clean, vast, and lustrous, clearly self-illuminated. So he uses these various images for light, for radiance, for brightness. When the spirit is vacant, without conditions, when awareness is serene, without cogitation, then Buddhas and ancestors appear and disappear, transforming the world. So he talks in another place about the Buddha works. So the point of this, I'm going to come back to this again, is this transforming of the world. This is not just some exercise we do by ourself alone on our cushion or chair. It's completely related to how we take care of the whole world, how we interact with the world. He goes on to say, amid living beings is the original place of nirvana.

[28:14]

How amazing it is that all people have this but cannot polish it into bright clarity. In darkness unawakened, they make foolishness cover their wisdom and overflow. However, he says, one remembrance of illumination can break through and leap out of the dust of Kalpas. So I'll go over that. He says amid living beings is the original place of nirvana. So this is basic Mahayana teaching, but it's not exactly obvious when we think in terms of Buddha nature and in terms of turning within and in terms of bringing forth this illumination, this serene illumination, this radiant awareness. There's, and since all of you are living in a residential monastic setting, you've all turned away from the world, which is part of the necessary mode of practice. Of course, some of you are here as a way of turning back to the world because you're offering this as a place for people to come for refuge. But this relationship of nirvana and samsara is very key here.

[29:23]

Samsara is the rat race, the world of gain and loss, the world of corruption, and warlords taking us to war, and so forth, and just all the cruelty in the world. And we all know about that. And in early Buddhism, they wanted to get away from that. So they discovered nirvana. But nirvana just technically means cessation. So probably a lot of you know all this. This is basic Buddhism. So maybe I could just skip all this, but I'll just go over it for those who maybe don't. Nirvana is In early Buddhism, turning away from the world and working on oneself and perfecting oneself and kind of really in a very rigorous way, clearing away all the habits and all the voices and just being able to be clear and radiant. What Hongzhi says, and this is basic bodhisattva Mahayana teaching, is that amid living beings is the original place of nirvana. So in Mahayana Buddhism, nirvana is not separate from

[30:25]

the world out there or the world out there in here. So, meeting the world in our own habits, in our own tendencies and so forth, working with the ways that we each have incorporated the confusion and conditioning of the world is bringing nirvana into samsara. So Hongxue says very clearly that it's not running away from the world. So he says amid living beings is the original place of nirvana. How amazing it is that all people have this but cannot polish it into bright clarity. So sometimes we might see somebody else's shortcomings. Sometimes we might feel critical of other people. Maybe see how somebody is acting out in some way that causes them pain or causes them confusion. Sometimes it's very easy to see shortcomings in others.

[31:30]

Harder to see it in ourselves. Here Hongshu is saying, kind of referring, in a way quoting the Buddha, or standing in for the Buddha, but just saying it's amazing. All these people have this, but they can't polish it into bright clarity. So he's talking about us, of course. How is it that we can't just radiantly express serene illumination? Well, of course, in some way you are, each of you, but also there's this stuff in the way sometimes. In darkness, unawakened, they make foolishness cover their wisdom and overflow. And then Hongzhi says, one remembrance of illumination can break through and leap out of the dust of Kalpas, the dust of ages. And dust is a, again, I'll be talking more about this, but dust is slang for objects, to see the world as dead objects, which is how our conditioned thinking usually operates. So part of Buddhism is just to remember.

[32:33]

So again, he evokes this remembrance of our own. glimpses and tastes of this clarity, of this brightness, of this possibility of clear, bright expression. He goes on a little further. Radiant and clear white, the single field cannot be diverted or altered in the three times, the four elements cannot modify it. Solitary glory is deeply preserved, enduring throughout ancient and present times, as the merging of sameness and difference becomes the entire creation's mother. So this merging or harmonizing or integration of sameness and difference is another way of talking about absolute and relative. Or there's the world of unity, sameness. Dogen said, eyes horizontal, nose vertical. We all are the same in this way. And then each one of us in each object is completely different. The harmonizing, the merging, the integration of that becomes the entire creation's mother.

[33:35]

He says, this realm manifests the energy of the many thousands of beings. All appearance is merely this field's shadow. Truly enact this reality. So again, this kind of presents the complete practice. And again, this goes back to this background of Buddha nature teaching and this teaching of bringing this sense of illumination into our ordinary experience. So comments or responses or questions at this point? differently that we had a workshop last week on the inner critic. In this culture, as you know, we talk about the inner critic and the voice.

[34:39]

But do they ever talk about those in a personal way like that or is it always this? They do talk about it, but in a different way. So we have, as a Dharma tool, as a practice tool, all of the insights of Western psychology, which is really different. Just when I lived in Japan for a couple of years, I realized that still, even in modern times, Japanese people, well, that was 15 years ago, maybe they've changed, 12 years ago, anyway, that they really think differently about identity, about self. So yes, Hongzhe and Dogen and Dongshan are talking about the same issues, but in a different way. And there's a different kind of psychology. I mean, Buddhism has its own psychological teachings, going back to Yogacara and the workings of karma and the workings of the phenomenology of awareness through meditation. So the parts of that that do directly respond to the same kinds of issues, but it's a different kind of language.

[35:44]

And partly that's that there's a different kind of sense of self. So our habit of thinking of self, we understand about family dynamics and the way that affects us. And we think about self in terms of separate individual selves. That's the basis of Western psychology. Japanese people still think of their self in terms of, not in terms of their personal history and their social security number and that personal stuff, but in terms of how they're affiliated. Their identity is more relational. I guess there's a diluted mind different in China and Japan than there is in this culture. Well, the fundamental diluted mind is the same. You know, there are cultural particularities, and I think in any culture. The basic problem at which Chongzhi is talking about and Dogen talks about and Dongshan talks about, they all talk about, is that we see the world as separate from self.

[36:48]

we see subject and object separate. So this is true in all cultures, that just by using language, we see subject and object as different. We have subject and object, so we think we need to manipulate the objects out there to get what we want, or get rid of the objects out there that we don't want, or protect ourselves from the other subjects out there that might verb us as objects. So this is fundamental to human consciousness, to this discriminating consciousness. So that cuts across all cultures. But I would say that our culture has particular problems, consumerism and thinking that happiness is getting all the things in the TV commercials. I mean, that's how we were trained in some way in our culture. Yes, as you're talking, I'm refining my question. The fundamental separation of self and other is that which permeates all of Buddhism.

[37:52]

But in this particular culture, we have this kind of delusion of separation in ourself. There's the voice of the inner critic which is criticizing someone or something in us. There's the voice of the pusher which is pushing something in us, or the voice of the injured child. So, we actually have this model of fractured, and a fractured person. So not only are we separated from the environment, but we're also separated from ourself inside. I'm not sure whether the great teachers ever addressed this kind of issue, which is so permeates our... Not exactly in that same way. So, I mean, we should use the, in my opinion, the tools of Western psychology just to understand how we are fractured, as you put it. That's right. I think that some of what they talk about in terms of the practice is about healing that sense of alienation that is also within us.

[38:54]

It's incorporated within us. So I think it addresses some of the same things, but I think there are new tools, and this is why Buddhism is always evolving. But there are also tools that I'm going to talk about in terms of, that he talks about in terms of how to study our own process of awareness that I think are helpful still. Yeah. Other comments or questions? I'm just a little curious about the translation in terms of being able to live into a language and find a way to speak it in another language. I'm curious about that too. Do you have a question about it? I just- Well, I can tell the story I've told before about how I translated this.

[39:57]

This is actually based on my master's thesis. At some point, I finished with the help of the Chinese professor who was my advisor. I finished going through the whole text and putting it into English, and I thought I was finished. and I took it to my advisor, not the one who was helping me with the translation, and showed it to him, and then he read over it, and I came back, and he said, this is no good, start over. And he said, translate the meaning, not the words. So I went back, and I actually sat, you know, Zazen, with each, paragraph, each section, and looked at, well, why is he saying this? What does it mean? How does it resonate for me in my zazen? Anyway, so that's how this translation came about. Yeah, well there, you know, you can look at, so the reason I translated this is because there's a, one of Tom Cleary's early books is called Timeless Spring, and it's an anthology of Soto Zen writings, and he has, oh I don't know, a few pages of this from this same section from Hongzhe.

[41:24]

In Cleary's translations, I thought this writer was wonderful, Hongzhe, and I wanted to read more, and the only way I could do that was to translate it myself. So now we have a little bit more. There's still more of Hongzhe, but anyway.

[41:42]

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