I vow to taste the truth of the Tathāgata's words. I have the pleasure of introducing you to Mary Levering. She's a professor at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville in the Religious Studies Department, and she specializes in Chinese Buddhism. And she's long had a particular interest in women practitioners, kind of in the golden age of Zen. And she's here for a symposium last weekend at the San Francisco Zen Center, and then she spoke at Clearwater on Monday, and now she's here with us to talk about our women ancestors and give us some flavor of what these ancient sisters are like. So, Mary, thank you. Thank you, Mary. It's a pleasure to be here with you all.

[01:01]

And furthermore, I've had a wonderful meal. I have various things I'd like to do with you tonight, and I hope that maybe some of them will warm your imaginations. I'd also like very much to hear what you think about a number of things. Years ago, in 1980, I got going on this puzzle about why I've read numerous books on Zen, and I'd never read anything about any women in Zen. And there seemed to be, in the way that Zen was presented in English in any way, in those days, it was presented with one wonderful story after another about men students encountering men masters and becoming awakened.

[02:03]

And also, beautiful pictures of glorious Zen monasteries in Japan, all full of monks, right? And so I began to search through the Zen historical texts that I had learned about when doing my dissertation on a Rinzai master, Daiei Zenji, Daiei Soko Zenji, a Daoist zongao. I began to search through the genealogical records of Zen and the enlightened stories of Zen, looking for women, women masters. And I also wanted to know what Zen people thought about gender. Did gender matter? And I wrote an article, it was published in 1982, joyfully proclaiming that Zen had no problem with gender,

[03:07]

this was just great. Because masters said things like, there's no difference between men and women when it comes to the Dharma. The Dharma is an egalitarian Dharma with only one flavor. It doesn't matter whether you're old or young, rich or poor, aristocratic or commoner. It is simply open to everyone. In a single instant of thought, you can realize the Buddha's truth and become a fully awakened being. But, while I was writing that, I had still not actually found very many women in Zen. And furthermore, my male teacher at Harvard, Masatoshi Nagatomi, said, Mary, this is just too optimistic, and what a rosy view this is really. And my men colleagues said,

[04:11]

this is a terribly Pollyannish article that you've written here. So, I kind of had other things that I had to do first, but I went back to the topic again. In 1992, I tried to make up for this wide-eyed night of day by writing an article that was more critical of the tradition. And it was called Minji or Rinzai Chan, and the rhetoric of equality, the rhetoric of heroism. There was this rhetoric of equality, but that was not the whole story, right? There are other things you might need to look at to see how, in fact, the discourse of Chan, the practice of Chan might encourage or discourage,

[05:15]

support or not support women in their practice and their aspiration. It seemed that in Rinzai, particularly, there was definitely this rhetoric of equality, but it was only brought out when there were actually women in the audience. If you begin to look at the text, many, many people would say that it doesn't matter whether you're old or young, rich or poor, aristocratic or commoner, but they would really only bring up the subject of men or women if a wealthy female donor had sponsored the sermon. And they had another message that they were giving, which was that to be successful at Zen, you had to be a da jang fu.

[06:17]

You had to be a fiercely determined and courageous, strong, stout fellow, sometimes, as a translator. You really had to be. And that this was a very male image that they were constructing around this notion. And it was definitely a gendered image in the Chinese and Japanese. And women could do it, could be people like this, but they were exceptional. Of course, men who could do it were probably exceptional, too, but that wasn't ever mentioned. Whenever a woman did something, it was mentioned that she was very exceptional, because as a woman, she was nonetheless one of these strong heroes, male heroes. And so the phrase, although you see her as a woman, she is nonetheless a da jang fu,

[07:25]

was very, very commonly used in this tradition, which seemed to sort of give to women, on the one hand, a sort of tenderling on the other. Then I began to raise the question in my own mind of, when was it possible for women to be recognized as teachers in this lineage? And by now, I knew a lot more about these texts. I found texts I hadn't found before. Anyway, I was really actively looking for all the women I could find who were included in the genealogical histories of Chan, which are really the only way that you can know whether someone was really accepted as being involved in Chan or involved in Chan. And I found during the Tang Dynasty,

[08:32]

that is from 620 to 906, a period that was somewhat what we call the Golden Age of Chan. Most of the Zen stories that we know that are set in China and feature great masters come from the Tang Dynasty. In that period in the texts, there are no women whatsoever who are listed within the lineage, as Dharma heirs of the teachers of the lineage. From the next period, the Five Dynasties period, from 906 to 960, we have this one story, a story that Dogen picks up and tells, which probably most Japanese teachers you would meet would know the story, and most Chinese teachers you know would meet might know the story too.

[09:36]

Because it lands in a very, very prominent text. The Kei-toku-den-to-roku, which everybody knows from then on. That text is in 1006, and it becomes a very formative text. Probably you're familiar with this story, the story of Mo-shan-ryo-ra, or what would it be, mokusan-ryo-ra in Japanese. Mo-shan was a woman. She was an abbess of a temple. She was teaching, and it was spread around that she was teaching Chan. A male student who's going from teacher to teacher, learning in various temples, has heard that she's teaching Chan,

[10:38]

so he says, well, I'm going to go up there and see whether she's really capable of teaching Chan. And if I find she is, I'll stay and study with her, but if I find she's not, I'm going to overturn the Dharma seat. I'm going to really make it impossible for her to go on. And expose her. And so he goes and enters the temple and asks her attendant to fetch her to the Dharma hall to ascend the seat, and be the teacher, but he doesn't bow or in any way indicate any kind of respect for her. She comes forward, and they have a series of exchanges. At one point,

[11:42]

he asks her about herself, about what is mo-shan like, what is she like. She says, mo-shan, this mountain, has neither male nor female form. And he then says, well, why don't you change your shape? If you are in fact an enlightened being, why don't you become a male? Why don't you become a male? Prove it to us by becoming a male. And this actually is a challenge that a number of women in the Zen text face at one point or another. If you are enlightened, demonstrate it by becoming a male right in front of us. And she says, I'm not a ghost, I'm not a fox spirit,

[12:45]

what should I change into? Why should I change? And he acknowledges that she has had the best of the exchange, stays and serves as, studies with her and serves as her gardener. And later, he goes to study with Linji, and he receives his Dharma transmission from Rinzai. And as you know, Dogen says about this story, that Jurchen received half a ladle from Moshan and half a ladle from Rinzai, that Moshan was his mother in the Dharma and Rinzai was his father in the Dharma. And Dogen brings this up to point out that he has the right stuff as a Zen student because he doesn't care whether she is female or male.

[13:48]

Of course he did care, but he doesn't care. He studied, he has taken her as his teacher once he realizes that she has really attained the way. So Moshan makes it into the genealogical histories. I'm told that today if you go to China, you can find a statue to her, the site of Moshan, the site of the temple. Then after that, a long time goes by. I just want to stop you for a minute. That monk that was counting herbs, Dogen? No, no. Okay, Dogen was talking about that. Yes, Dogen talked about that later. His name was Jershen. Now if you were someone on the cynical side, you could say, well, why is she in the histories?

[14:50]

She's in the history because a male studied with her and possibly men talked about her, right? But there might have been other women in fact teaching Chan the whole time, right? That somehow nobody noticed or paid attention to because no male went to study with them. But in any case, she became kind of the exception that proved that Chan really is an egalitarian gate with single flavor. Well, there are a whole series of genealogically arranged histories of Chan, histories of the transmission of the land, the transmission of the plane. The one that was compiled in 1006

[15:55]

was the most famous of these. There had been others, a very important one compiled about 906. And then throughout the Song Dynasty, period from 960 to 1276, every 20 or 30 years, somebody put out a new updated genealogical history, right? So there's a whole series of these things. And they included more people as they went along. You can, it's interesting to look at these and see the way in which women were treated. Some stories of women that were included drop out. Stories of women change. One of the most noticeable things

[16:59]

was that in this period, in the 11th century, Bodhidharma's female student, there's a story that Bodhidharma had four students. One received his skin, his flesh, his bones, and his marrow. You all know this story about Bodhidharma. Dogen talks about it. That story is in all the texts from the very beginning. In the first versions, there's no comment about it being better to have the marrow than the skin or the flesh. There are three monks and a nun. And the nun ranks number two. If there's a ranking, she's number two. With each successive text,

[18:03]

she starts being ranked number three, and then number four. And it becomes important whether you have the marrow or whether you have merely the skin. The story changes, and she kind of sinks in the story. It's clear that it also has become important that Bodhidharma should have had only one successful heir, one true heir. The others were not really heirs, only those who got the marrow. So that's a case of a story of somebody who isn't quite recognized as a Dharma heir. Even though there's a story about her, and she certainly studied with Bodhidharma and had pain with the story, she's not really recognized as a Dharma heir.

[19:04]

Now, in, I think, 1189, there suddenly are two women who are practically contemporaries, might have died in 1170, who were included in the latest updated version of the genealogical history. And as full-fledged Dharma heirs and teachers, and sermons are told for them or recorded for them and dialogues that they have. And these two women are Miao Dao and Miao Zong. It was a kind of fortunate accident for me

[20:11]

that Miao Dao and Miao Zong were Dharma heirs of the male master whom I happened to have written a dissertation on years ago. So, and as I looked around, it turned out that this male master was one of maybe seven or eight male masters who seemed to be quite enthusiastically teaching women students. And in the subsequent, the next genealogical history, updated version, we suddenly have 16 of these women recognized as full-fledged Dharma heirs and treated as full teachers of the lineage.

[21:11]

And one is then praised for the fact that she has had four different temples and in each case, she has converted the temple from a Tiantai temple into a Chan temple. So not only are women Dharma heirs, but their temples are now recognized as Zen temples and they are sort of spreading Zen. So in this period, in the second half of the Song Dynasty, there are a number of women who are recognized in these genealogical histories as full-fledged Dharma heirs and what they're teaching is Chan. And in some cases, these women have students who are in the lineage of these genealogical histories, although it never goes

[22:22]

sort of beyond the third generation. We don't have, I've never been able to find a kind of long, ongoing lineage of women students. However, I began to search also the sermons and letters of the various masters of this period and I began to turn up accounts of networks of women who were studying with these women teachers, many of whom were not recorded as Dharma heirs. They never got to the point of being a Dharma heir, but they were nonetheless studying with the women teachers and introducing their cousins and nieces and friends and studying also and so forth. So there was clearly, clearly women in that society were looking for women Zen teachers

[23:26]

which was only natural because Zen was, you know, the most exciting form of Buddhism around and all the men wanted to study it, so why wouldn't the women want to study it, right? It was a natural thing. It was harder for women because as long as women remained laywomen, they were quite secluded. It was a society in which women were expected not to be seen by other males and so they should stay home. If any of you have ever seen the great scroll, this enormous scroll, which shows the Song dynasty, northern Song capital, at the Spring Festival. This is a very famous scroll that shows every dimension of the capital city

[24:31]

in sort of one street scene after another and sort of public places and vendors and all levels of society, you know, high and low are depicted on this thing, all having a great time on a spring day at the time of the Spring Festival. And the shocking thing is there are virtually no women in this thing. Where we see the women finally, it's sort of peeping around doors or hidden behind curtains in a sedan chair. It's amazing how public spaces didn't have women. So women didn't have the same opportunities, probably often have the same opportunities to travel to teachers. However, despite that, they seem to be turning up at the temples where teachers were. Da Hui, about whom we have lots of sermons,

[25:37]

and he talks about how he met this particular man, talks about how he's been instructing the husband and now the wife wants to study with him too. How are they going to make it possible for the wife to study? Is it going to have to be done sort of at a distance or is she going to be able to come to where he is? So it was hard. Despite the fact that Confucianism was the reigning way of thought among the upper class, there seemed to be lots of upper class women who nonetheless became nuns. And once a nun, one could travel pretty freely. It seems that nuns traveled around quite a bit to the big monasteries and asked questions of the masters and stuff like that. So if you could get to be a nun, you could get to study with somebody.

[26:38]

The papers that I'm handing out to you, one is the story, the one that's on pages 21 and 22, is the story of how one of these first two women, Miao Zong, came to... Does everybody have a copy of this? ...how she came to awakening. Miao Zong was apparently an enormously impressive woman, such that someone, perhaps one of her women students, compiled this kind of biography of her, this rather lengthy account of her way-seeking mind, her studies with different teachers on the way to

[27:48]

her final acknowledgement by Dapeng as a full Dharma heir. And I'm sure that you can understand this more profoundly than I can. I don't know if you can understand it, but... Why don't we go around and read it aloud, and maybe everybody can take three sentences and just read it. Do you want to start, maybe? Chan teachers of Zishou Temple. When she was 15 years old, she was ignorant and didn't know what Chan meant. But she wondered where people came from when they were born and what happens to them when they die. She concentrated in contemplation and had a sudden belief. Eventually, this wasn't anything unusual.

[28:53]

Assuming they knew what this means consciously or just, it was all for fun at least. But she never told anyone about her experiences. Later, her parents married her off, but before long, she became very insensitive to her parents and began to dislike her and her father's son. She wanted to continue to suppress the transcendental and the position of the world's church formation to do that for ages. And when they called on Chan, they asked her again and again, and Chan asked her, what does a housewife to do when this is her great man? And this great man term here is this da jang for this hero. And housewife here is translating a phrase that is something like, what does a protected lady of the upper class women's quarters have to do with this great hero? And Chan asked her,

[30:14]

Chan used to strike people as soon as they entered the door. She said, hurry up, this is very important. The master said, you're not there yet. She took the incense stand with her hand. The master said, as long as there's an incense stand, you may hit it. But what if there's none? She immediately went out. The master called her. When she was walking, she saw a woman with a large garland. She turned around and said, where is the person? The master said, this is a woman. Yong Ja. Yong Ja. She said, what's wrong? I was talking about a petition. She said, I don't know. You're crying. Zhen Xie.

[31:19]

Zhen Xie. Zhen Xie. Now this guy, Zhen Xie, by the way, was an ancestor of Dogen. He's in Dogen's heart. Let's see, there's... Yong... Yong Ja's... What was it? Zhang Dao Ge. There's a famous poem by Yong Ja. The Proving of the Way, or something like that. Yong Ja was an earlier master, quite a bit earlier master. And this phrase, from the beginning, there's not a single thing, I guess, comes from this. It was loose. Ah! Ah! Is that right? It's like...

[32:38]

Shall we stop a second? Would anybody like to... Merit, do you want to give us an explanation of what's happening? This is... Well, I mean, she's... She's being... She's being... Emptiness. She really is standing up there. And... Yes, but you said you're not there yet, and she hit the incense stand. It just seemed to me like classic Rinzai kind of things, you know, peeking over the rice bucket, or the... water vessel, I think. That kind of thing. And also what occurred to me is that she hit the holy thing.

[33:52]

She hit the incense thing. Nothing. So then I thought of Bodhidharma, right? Nothing. Nothing holy. But then he... He challenged her, again, you know, they need to go out of the way. What if there weren't an incense stand? So it's kind of like, so you're showing off. And... What do you really understand? And then she said, I see there's not a single thing, and then he said, well, that's somebody else's line. And then what's wrong with using it temporarily to show some spirit? It's... She has some understanding, whether it's complete, isn't it? Yeah, right, right. But she certainly is showing... She's showing no spirit for Zen, wanting to understand her, or being willing to say, this much I do understand. That's what I think.

[34:54]

Okay. Well, I like the way you referred to it. You see, to her, it's like a little cub. Uh-huh. You know, the lion is there, but it's still a cub. It's still a cub. He's encouraging her. Yeah, yeah. It seems somehow that the weakest thing she says is this thing about what's wrong with using it temporarily. I mean... But she doesn't cave. But she doesn't cave, right. And then it seems in the next exchange, to me,

[36:01]

as though she, in fact, has a better of him. Or rather, Zhen Shi, in the next exchange with Zhen Shi. He gives her a dilemma, and she doesn't fall into it. I assume the I in reporting is referring to the... Pardon me, to I, the wisdom I. The wisdom I, right. If you don't know whether this is ordinary or holy, you could see that. And then his line is sort of, what's it like to come face-to-face with it? What's it like to come face-to-face? She holds up her sitting mat. But I've been wondering whether this is not the mat that...

[37:01]

the cloth that you all, in fact, spread when you're about to bow. Yeah, why she's holding it. Why she would have a sitting mat. Or the cushion she's on. Well, let's go on. It's unfortunately not going to get any easier. But still, it's an interesting story. You can read it nearly all the while. Don't try, that's just a different kind. That's the way along with your husband, who's holding the stuff that you want, that you're holding. You don't need to be critical. You just have to acknowledge that you are a doctor, in fact. And then it happens that doctors are in the same position, with this doctor, both he and you, and together you take thousands of steps. They're wasted,

[38:05]

and the weight bearer, Jessicaine, has seen a spirit, a ghost, that has not yet had the opportunity for refinement by a board and fellows. She's like a huge ship, on Earth, with no outlet. She can't turn around and move, that's why. . . . Does anybody understand that last line? I'm totally, completely troubled. I think she was so straightforward, that he got the strength. She had him either way, but Mary did something, and he did the other way, so it's straightforward.

[39:07]

So Dahle has picked out that she has something. There's no mimicking, there's no game, there's no act. She's just there. Ah, but he's just said something kind of critical of her, that she's like a huge ship. I don't think that's critical of her. No, I don't think at all. What I see is that when someone is that strong, the master's mind needs to be big enough to contain her, so that she can move and grow. Ah. So there's no space for her to grow, if there's no one bigger. There's a definition of enlightenment as when someone calls your name, and you just turn your head. It's almost as if she would turn her head, and she would see so much more on the other side.

[40:15]

That's a real helpful thing. That's how you interpret it, too? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. She can't turn around. Well, it's probably both, because that's why things are so deep. From every angle here. That's right. And maybe if we go on to... She's a housewife, and that's why she's caught in this harbor. You can ship with your housewife. She can't move in a small apartment. Huh. That's interesting. Of course, he does say the opportunity for refinement by a court of law suggests he thinks she really needs a teacher. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but it's a contrast.

[41:19]

Spirits and ghosts are kind of this encounter that's not quite there. The origin of those is really how it's brought to life. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. It really can work for maturity. It really can work for maturity. Yeah. Yeah. So... Ooh, wow. That's interesting, isn't it? Ah. That's interesting. Ha, ha, [...] ha. She might wake up. Yes, that's right.

[42:24]

How did you figure this out? Yeah. And there the answer is she didn't turn her head. She was... Hmm. Somebody want to keep reading? Okay, where is it? The next day. The next day. The next day, some... It was the moment the governor had the thought wave at the Senate and the thought wave was totally crap and said here today we have someone who's going to say I checked people out like a couple of blocks ago and I see you coming and I can't look at that because you're reading. Ha, ha, [...] ha. When he got down from the boat the server finally came and asked him for an initiative for a... He named her...

[43:26]

What? Wu...Wu Zhuo. Wu Zhuo. Wu Zhuo. And... Jack Wu, what is... Wu Jack Wu? Who is this? Wu Zhuo. Good morning Stephen. You are very likely to say that this position of the Jewish people to presidential position but not even There's so many people have wondered How do you all understand that verse?

[45:02]

I just have a great and ordinary feeling of partitioning these groups already. Particularly her situation in the other place. In these groups. Right. The whole thing. In fact, she's still a laywoman as far as I know. Well, he gave her a name for this. It kind of seems like it might have been a sort of ordination. I don't know. I don't know. It's a reference to her line.

[46:28]

Her last line is, the whole bunch of you bandits are busted. If you keep asking how and so what. If you keep nitpicking or trying to really name things and figure them out. I take it that all my cleverness managed. There was no point in Bodhidharma coming from India. There was no point in the second patriarch, Kveka, bowing to Bodhidharma as a teacher. All of that transmission was totally unnecessary. You don't need to get it from someone else. It's right here. It's right here. Right. Bam. There it is. It's also an expression of Bodhidharma. Uh-huh. Right.

[47:29]

Right. There wasn't any point because nothing holy. No teaching. And I actually, this is a theorist's translation, but when I was trying to translate this, I took the whole bunch of you bandits to be the mind and the senses. The sense organs? The sense organs and everything that you're through. They're sometimes referred to as thieves. Uh. Wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. Um. Okay. Well, let's keep going. Once when she entered Dawei's room, she asked him,

[48:31]

the monk who just came, asked him, tell me, why didn't I agree with you? He said, I've been suspended. Dawei raised his hand and said, what do you call this? She said, heavens, heavens. Dawei did not. He said, sometimes you'll put someone on the stake. Read it. Dawei said, as long as it won't land, then I'll stop. Why worry about whether it's suspended? For the sake of circulation. Puzzles me. This is puzzling. I think I wrote these comments. I don't know if I can have them far enough.

[49:37]

Let's see if I can find them. Um. All right, here's what Eken Roshi said. Um. Tell me, why didn't I agree with him? Eken Roshi says, because disagreeing is most agreeable. How can you suspect me? Eken Roshi's comment. Suspicious Dawei. Suspicious Zong. Um. What do you call this? Easy enough. Uh. Heavens, heavens. Scandal. Um.

[50:42]

I don't know. The. Huh, did it help? I'm not sure it helped. It seems like they're just playing. Yeah. I'm not going to do that. Yeah. Uh-huh. What do you call this? If you're not going to enter that, maybe I can catch you on this. Uh-huh. Right. There's a. Sometimes you see this phrase. Translated sort of blue sky, blue sky. But it reminds me of the modern Chinese phrase. You know, sort of. Really sort of like heavens. Like heavens, heavens.

[51:46]

Heavens to Murgatroyd. Heavens to Murgatroyd. And Dawei often liked this koan where he would hold up the stick and say. If you call this a stick, you're wrong. But if you don't call it a stick, you're wrong. So what is it? It's really a traditional koan. Very traditional koan. Yeah. Uh-huh. Is it nothing or something? Something. All right. All right. I love this next little exchange. It's Durban Mary again. Well, we're almost. One day she paid her respects. One day she paid her respects and took her leave to return to her hometown. Dawei said, when you leave this mountain, if someone asks about the teaching here, how will you answer? She said, before arriving in Jishan, one couldn't help but doubt it.

[53:02]

Dawei said, what about after a while? She said, that's a little tricky to explain. I love that. It is what it is. It is what it is. That's right. Dawei said, haven't some ants been making out to get food? She covered her ears. Henceforth, she was much admired by the congregation and became famous. After a long time of concealment, she finally became ordained as a nun. Although she was well advanced in years and virtue, she kept the precepts very strictly and polished herself in austerity and regality. Because of her fame in the way, she was eventually ordered by a governor to appear in the world. Appear in the world, as a phrase, just means come forth and take a position as abbess. As abbess of Jishan Monastery.

[54:03]

This is her. This is taking place in the 12th century. We have some sermons of hers and some dialogues of hers. We'd like to know a great deal more. She was also asked to write prefaces by male masters who took together books on Chan. So clearly she was a talented, very talented high-ranking. Great powers of expression of Chan. We never really do hear what happened to her husband. He sort of drops out of the picture. Back in the harbor. It sounds to me like what she was doing was very provocative.

[55:12]

I'm really going in the middle. But I'm just saying that her husband died. Now she's free. And so, because she was well advanced in her career, it sounds to me like she was. That's what it might be. We're not causing a big scandal here, are we? But she... Was it common then for the woman to be substantially younger than the man? Well, that's interesting, isn't it? Probably so. Well, sometimes they're married as children, right? Well, not in her social class. But she might have been married at 15 or 16.

[56:15]

The question I have about this time is, did she have more than one man or have a concubine? Sometimes there'd be big releases. And about big releases, when they'd return from the household, they'd keep a concubine. Well, he asked DeChant to lecture, so he apparently sounded disconcerting. Yeah. Actually, there's a letter in Dahui's collections, which he wrote to him. So it sounds like there was a period when both of them were involved in this, to some degree. I have a very interesting question about the binding of the feet. Whether in fact that was going on at this time. This is the time when people think that foot-binding began. Ah, for a trot.

[57:15]

Yeah. So how did these women get around, and these travelers didn't have to carry cars? Yes, if their foot were around, they definitely could. They could definitely be riding in sedan chairs. I'm sure. Yeah, I don't know how widespread it was at this time, but this was the time when it was. Sorry? Maybe it wasn't as widespread. The time when this ideal of beauty was starting at this time. Do you know anything about Iron Bride's dog, Ruby? Yeah, well, only the story that you've probably heard. I don't have that with me, unfortunately. That's a good take. Yeah. Good take. I think so, yeah.

[58:15]

Now there's a case where her story is listed in his biography, in his genealogical records, and she doesn't sort of have a biography of her own. They didn't have to place her somehow, and yet the whole story is really about her and not about him. But it is about him. Well. I mean, that's how they were different. That's the one figure, Ruby. Oh, oh, oh, oh. Now we're thinking of something else. But that's not the story about her. No, Iron Bride's dog is a different story. Now, yeah, the... There's another nun that comes. Gutei. There's a nun that comes named Shirji. And there's this monk, and he's meditating in a hut, I guess, by himself. And she shows up. And this is one of the first sort of named women, actually, in his text. Her name is Shirji. Shirji. And his name, interestingly, is a Sanskrit word,

[59:23]

although it never gets translated. He named Koti a vast number of times. An enormous Koti. An enumerable Koti. Kota is right. But Koti is his name. Anyway, she comes in to his temple, and she doesn't take off her bamboo traveling cap, which she should have taken off when she got to the gate, the Sanmon. That would have been the etiquette. But she leaves it on, and she circumambulates him in... In his hut. His hut, right. And... I've forgotten how he addresses her, but sooner or later he says, you know, won't you stay the night? And she says, well, I will if you can say something. If you can say the word. Say the word, right. There's a couple times where she sort of challenges him to say something. If you could say something. And he's unable to say anything. And so she leaves.

[60:24]

And even as he's leaving, she says to him, won't you stay? Right, right. And he says, I'll stay. I think it was first, will you take off your hat? Will you take off your hat? You have to say the word. I'll take off my hat. And then as she leaves, he says, well, won't you stay the night? It's getting late. If you say something. If you say something. And then he says, or at least the text says, here I am a, hear this word again, a da jang fu. Here I am a man, a stout man, and I'm made a fool of by a mere woman. I mean, the texts are different, but some of them have this really strong link. And so he realizes that he's not getting anywhere. And so he goes, thinks he better find a teacher. So he has a dream, right? He dreams about, the dream says if you stay put, the teacher will arrive. Let's look at the other sheet.

[61:31]

Maybe here, pages 14 and 16. Da Hui's teacher was Yuan Wu, who was the, we're probably going way over our time. Da Hui's teacher was Yuan Wu, who was the author of the sort of final level of, letter of commentary on the Blue Cliff record. So again, we're in sort of Yunzai territory. Now this woman, this is the only story that I know of of a woman in the Song Dynasty period who's not from the upper class, right?

[62:34]

This is the, and it's a wonderful, wonderful story, and I'm sure that many of you are familiar with this story. A woman who's a donut maker. And again, we have, I think, Aiken Roshi's comments. Others first here. She's been given the koan here, the true person of no rank. And she hears a beggar sing a song. If you haven't heard the song of Yang Yi, how could you come to find Lake Dongting? Context or not, and you know, the beggars can sing the song of Yang Yi. I wonder if it applied to your view of it.

[63:36]

So this is the light of Lotus Sutra. That's a Lotus Sutra. So, you know, a popular song like this. But his comment is a reference to the Lotus Sutra. His comment is the voice of the law. The voice of the prostitute, the voice of the law. Or the court of Zion, we should say, right? We're talking about educated people who could write. Anyway. Lake Dongting. Anyway, she rushed us to see.

[64:53]

Now, here again, we have a Zen master. She's been a doughnut maker or not, right? She's been able to take advantage of the presence of a Zen master and ask him questions. Get him to give her a call. Then Yuan Wu comes to town. And I love this part where she shows up in the assembly and he's giving a public lecture, a public teaching. He's processing, you know, forward toward the high seat and she just bumps him. Goes back into the crowd. He says, when you see the strangeness,

[65:55]

the strangeness is not strange. The strangeness disappears itself. Then the next day, he seeks her out. She shouts, such a yellow-mouthed little boy and you say you're a teacher. He says, don't brag so much, lady. I recognize you. Rub it in, huh? Whenever a monk came, she would say, child, child. If the monk hesitated, she would shut the door. Zen master put in, Jun went to test her. She saw him as usual. She said, child, child. Jun said, where's my father? She turned around and bowed to the pillar.

[66:59]

Jun pushed her over with his foot. Said, I thought there'd be something special about you. Then he left. She sprang up and said, boy, boy, come here. I'm afraid you'll take this as the norm. Some of that translation doesn't seem quite right. But after all, he did not look back. Elder An came. She asked where he came from. And he said, he came from Deshan. She said, Deshan Tai is my child. An said, whose child are you? She said, having been asked this question by you, I can only piss in my pants. And then we're given a famous poem that she wrote here.

[68:02]

Sun Face, Moon Face, about Matsu. She said, Sun Face, Moon Face. Lightning and thunder in the sky. And he cuts off the tongues of all the monks in the world. Clearly, he's only said half of it. There's... No, there's a sort of tremendous spunk in this poem, in this story, right? She's not restricted by her class. Right, she's not restricted by her class. But... Or her husband, actually, right? That's right. I think we have a clearer idea that she... I think she left. She ditched the... Something I can't understand.

[69:09]

Okay. Now, at the workshop the other day, I shared this. Again, a story that I'm sure you know. Let me pass these around. This is... This is the lineage of... Of... Of the Soto school leading down to Dogan on the left-hand corner. And... But putting in the women Dharma heirs that... Sort of gold-faced type here. So that... Dogan's... Ancestors. In fact, had women cousins and women nieces. I'm sorry I didn't make copies of that for everybody, but just to show you that...

[70:17]

That Dogan has... Some women out of these 26 women in the Soto family. Three members here. And one of those was Huiguang. Yeah. Judy, why don't you read this? Huiguang here. Huiguang. It's starting well down the page there. Huiguang. And then it just goes up a little bit up here. The emperor of the Macadam was preaching here.

[71:26]

And now he's alive. He said, You see, I have a question to ask this girl here. She went over to the assembly and said, It's a matter of talking about Chong and the way, well, he's great Chong master. He's always doing a good job. At this point, it's up to him to decide whether he should learn how to teach. He said, American words and explanations are just made and you never hear anything. So, ultimately, how is it? She covered it up in the first book. After a while, she did a patchwork covering again. Very expensive. At this point, I don't understand it at all. I like that story. Anyhow,

[72:28]

this is a period in which we have these stories of women. And then it's also the period just before Dogen goes to China. And if he knew of these genealogical histories, he could have been reading about 26 women. And when he got back to Japan, he started a temple at Koshoji outside of Kyoto. And he talks about how ignorant of the true Buddha way the Japanese are because they seem to be excluding women from practice areas like Mount Hiei and Koyasan and so forth. I read that essay,

[73:30]

which probably started as a sermon, the Raihai Tokuzui, as coming in part perhaps out of his experience in China. Because he was there right at the period when this had really opened up to women in China. He even cites women who were... Yeah, he cites... Right. Real-life people. Now, I'd be happier if he cited all the women I found, but he doesn't cite all of them. But anyway, it seems to me that he'd been to China. There was sort of an idea in those days that China was where the Buddha Dharma was really being practiced properly. He's come back, and he's being approached by women who want to support his effort. One woman, as you know, donated money to build a lecture hall at the temple and so forth.

[74:35]

He takes women on as disciples. And he gives this message that this is the Buddha way. After all, this is also what they're doing in China. Now, when I bring this up to my male colleagues, what they say is that that whole piece in which Dogen is talking about the importance of finding a true teacher and the importance of being willing to study with a true teacher when one finds one, no matter what kind of person or what social status that person has or what status in the Dharma that person has, may seem to be about women, but it's really about Dogen. That is, Dogen's message in that chapter

[75:39]

was to say, Look, I left Mount Hiei. I was once a high-status guy, but now I'm kind of a low-status guy. I'm out here in the boondocks trying to get a temple off the ground. And you, if you come and study with me, are going to kind of get outside the system, the system through which you would rise in the ranks and attain great position. If you come and study with me, you're going to be marginal monks. He's also saying, if you have real insight, you'll understand that I'm a really good teacher. That's right, that's right. So he's saying, I may be marginal, but real insight would see a great teacher in a woman, or a fox, or in me, or whatever.

[76:41]

So that's how they read that. In that life I took at Hiei, there should be none holed up, as you know, Dogen didn't make any questions. I find it very interesting, that it's a fundamental flaw, in that he talks about the status of women and how they should be able to go to Mount Hiei and play a song. After all, the status of the Buddha laid out is ordained men, ordained women, lay men, lay women. He doesn't say ordained people. He already takes the status that the Buddha laid out, which is ordained men are on top. And Dogen quotes it, this is the way, of course the Buddha laid it out this way, so of course women should be allowed to go before lay men, for example, because they come after ordained men. I think that's an extremely excellent point. That it's there, that the Buddha, or what was passed down from the Buddha,

[77:48]

the sexism, is already there, but he takes it away. He says it's the Buddha way. I think we can go too far in making Dogen out to be a great feminist. I like the point the guys made in your department. What was really underneath that? What was really underneath it all was... And what about me? What do you think about me? Yeah, I think Dogen... was not a radical egalitarian. But... If he were... Right. He would get away. The staff would get away.

[78:48]

Yeah. Yes, I think that's a very good point, Frank. He goes out of his way to talk about women. And he had to bring in students, too. Serious, serious, serious students. There were so many things... Impressed him. That might have been one of them. That's been really striking. It's funny to see a woman anywhere. Right. Right. I mean, Dogen could be sort of having mind blown by seeing people put their... on top of their head. Uh-huh, uh-huh.

[79:49]

Uh-huh. He would equally have had his mind blown. Yeah. That's what's so interesting about it. Yes, something happened, and yet there's this part of women that he takes as well as women. Right, he doesn't... Right. Yeah. Right, right. Well, he had that skit when he got to China,

[80:53]

supposedly, about how he wasn't ranked by seniority. Kind of racist practice. And in a certain way, he's, you know, reinstituting it. I mean, go back to the Buddhists, you know, there's men and there's women separately. But for himself, when he went to China, you know, he wanted to be ranked higher because his ordination date back then, that they would award him a higher system. Well, they said he was just a 16th or 17th. Yeah. It doesn't count. It doesn't count. His ordination date didn't count for him. Uh-huh. Yeah. We should stop. I think, what I think is that Dogen was trying to get something off the ground and women were helping him and he was open to this, right? And then he took in these Dharma Shu people,

[81:56]

which included, again, a bunch of nuns, as well as monks, right? He took in these people who had studied with Nyojin, that's the teacher's name, who founded this other sect. He'd never been to China, but he'd sort of sent in his enlightenment poem and gotten a certification. Anyway, a bunch of disciples of that man came and studied and joined Dogen's group and some of them were men and there were some women in there, too. So, he was open to what was, you know, going to get this thing off the ground. To what extent he maintained that interest and that degree of openness, I guess is the question. Thank you.

[82:57]

But it may also have been that he recognized sincere practice. Well, thank you all very much. I appreciate your help in understanding these things and kind listening to me ramble on about things. That's only I in the whole world really care. No, I think you take good place where people care. If you'd like to see more, pick up some more. Pick up some more of these. Thank you. You're welcome.

[83:34]

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