Good morning and welcome everyone. So today is the last day of our two-month practice commitment period this year. We've been talking about the practice instruction teachings from Zen Master Hongzhi from the 1100s in China and in our Zao Dong or Soto teaching tradition from the book Cultivating the Empty Field. And this weekend I've been talking about three aspects and trying to sort of holographically include all three a little bit in each talk, focusing on the different part each day. So the first part is talking about settling and

[01:04]

illumination. And so Hongzhi talks about the deep source, transparent down to the bottom that can radiantly shine and can respond unencumbered to each speck of dust without becoming its partner. The whole affair functions without leaving traces and mirrors, without obscurations, very naturally mind and dharmas emerge and harmonize. So doing this practice regularly, sustaining this practice, we can settle down into this deep creative energetic source, as he says, transparent down to the bottom and by not getting caught up in all of

[02:08]

the dusts of the world, not ignoring them, but not being caught by our conditioning and the conditioning of the world, we can respond unencumbered, he says. Very naturally mind and dharmas emerge, mind and phenomena emerge and harmonize. So he also talks about letting go and I talked about this a lot the first day. This subtle art of letting go, not getting rid of, but as he says, to gain such steadiness you must completely withdraw from the invisible pounding and weaving of your ingrained ideas. We all have deep ingrained ancient twisted karma, our own

[03:12]

particular karma and that of our culture and society and of the human world. If you want to be rid of this invisible turmoil you must just sit through it and let go of everything. Attain fulfillment, illuminate thoroughly, light and shadow, all these judgments altogether forgotten, doesn't mean suppressing them, we have to face our ancient twisted karma, but letting go, this subtle letting go. He says, drop off your own skin and the sense dust will be fully purified. Accept your function and be wholly satisfied so that this, not passive acceptance, but dynamic acceptance of our own situation, personally and collectively. Accept your function in the whole and be wholly satisfied. In the entire place you are

[04:13]

not restricted, the whole time you still mutually respond. So this mutual response is what I want to talk about most mostly today. How do we respond and how do we see the mutuality of this response when we accept our function, when we are willing to be present in our situation. So I spoke at more length about that the first day. Yesterday I talked about how this is about the ancestors, about serving the ancestors and we have been chanting the lineage of ancestors in our particular Sotosan lineage from Shakyamuni through Huineng to Dogen to Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in our case, but also seeing the

[05:18]

simplicity of ancestors. So this is about recognizing our deep interconnectedness and our indebtedness to beings of the past and we beings of the future and beings throughout space and time. So he also talks about all beings are your ancestors, but he says those who produce descendants are called ancestors. Where the stream emerges is called the source. So this source, we can see this energetic source in various ways. After beholding the source and recognizing the ancestors before your awareness can disperse, be steadfast, do not follow birth and death or past conditioning. We can recognize our past conditioning without being caught by it. If you do not succumb, then

[06:23]

all beings will show the whole picture. Wake up and in turn the ground, the roots and the dusts are clearly cast off. Although empty of desires with deliberations cut off, transcendent comprehension is not all sealed up. There's an openness to this. Our deeper awareness, the aspects of awareness that we don't usually think of as understanding are not all sealed up. Part of this awareness is, as we'll say more later, is to romp and play in samadhi. How do we not just focus and concentrate in our meditation, but also open up to new options, new possibilities. So to allow

[07:32]

the mind to be open. Both are important, the focusing and the opening, the spaciousness. Perfect bright understanding is carefree amid 10,000 images and cannot be confused. Within each dust mode is vast abundance. So each particular sense object, we don't have to be caught in it, but if we look at it closely, everything is there. We are vast and contain multitudes and everything is like that. Dharma gates are boundless. We can enter them. But then he says, still you must gather them together and bring them within to reach the time

[08:34]

on and return to the source and serve the ancestors. Join together into unity, scrutinize yourself and go on. And we also talked yesterday a little bit about how we can see this serving the ancestors and also seeing all beings and various lineages of ancestors as in a way the family business that we carry on in our little storefront Zen shop in North Center, Central Chicago. So reading a little bit from that. Zen practitioners roam the world constantly emptying and expanding their minds without the slightest remnant held inside. They can

[09:35]

respond appropriately, not hindered by beings, not tangled up by dharmas. This is possible. Of course we do get tangled up by dharmas. So we, by phenomena and by teachings. So when we get, when we're tangled up, okay, see that. But how do we breathe into that? How do we let go of the tangles? It's possible. This is what Hongzhi is saying. Openly appearing and disappearing you can freely share but if merely involved in intellect you'll be buried. Doesn't mean to get rid of your intellect. But if you're only trying to figure it all out with your intellect that's not it. If enacting pure maturity then you can naturally journey at ease among the 10,000 changes without touching them and without turning away from them. So turning away and touching are both wrong. It's a massive fire. How

[10:38]

do we sit still in the midst of this truth of suffering? Dave was saying yesterday he felt that all the suffering in the world from, from, from beginningless time to endless time was all because of him. So it's good. We could all feel that way. I remember my shiso teacher Blanche Hartman saying something similar. It's all, it's all because of me. We can all feel that way and yet we can, we can also see that we all are doing this together and we also can see that this is a noble truth of suffering. That we can sit and face this without releasing or gathering

[11:39]

up externals. Eliminate all leaking. So it's, it's not, so actually it's not just about you. We're all in this together. Such a person can fulfill the family business. Then just return. The white clouds enter the valley and the bright moon circles the mountain. We are not separate from the white clouds and the valley and the bright moon and the mountains. We might think those are just dead objects. In, in our sitting we see these clouds and mountains and valleys and moon beams alive, alive, alive. So that's a little bit of a review of the

[12:39]

first two days. Today I want to talk about, and it's part of all of, all of what we said in the first two days too, but particularly about this mutual response. Responding appropriately to the conditions without being caught or tangled up in the conditions. Of course we do get caught and tangled up in the conditions, but also we can step aside and not be caught by them even while we are aware. So I want to read a few more of, parts of a few more of Hongzhi's practice instructions and say some things and maybe we'll have some time for

[13:42]

discussion. So this one I've read before but it's relevant now. He says, in clarity the wonder exists with spiritual energy shining on its own. As we sit and all of the fogginess sort of settles, all of the, all of the thought streams settle down, this wonder appears and exists and this spiritual energy comes forth shining on its own. We don't necessarily always recognize it or maybe we just feel it as, I don't know, many different ways to feel it. A little tickle in your back or your shoulders, the top of your head, whatever. Hongzhi says it cannot be grasped and so

[14:52]

cannot be called being. It cannot be rubbed away and so cannot be called non-being. Okay. Beyond the mind of deliberation and discussion, depart from the remains of the shadowy images. Don't worry about figuring out what any of this is. Enjoy this energy. Enjoy your sitting. Enjoy your inhale and exhale. Wonder. It's wonderful and we wonder what's going on. How did we come here? How do we take care of this? Emptying one's sense of self-existence is wondrous. Yeah, that's, get over yourself. And that process is wondrous. This wonder is embodied and enacted with a spirit that we can realize, we can enjoy. And then

[16:02]

again he invokes the natural spirits. The moon mind with its cloud body is revealed straightforwardly in every direction without resorting to tracks or traces. We and enters the senses without confusion. So this is a key point. When we sense this possibility of energy, of illumination, of openness, it responds appropriately. That word that I translated as appropriately could also be read as without guile, without strategies, without, you know, trying to make it into something else. It responds and enters the sense dust, enters the world of confusion and fame and gain without confusion. The

[17:05]

ordinary world. Overcoming every obstruction, it shines through every empty dharma. All of the stuff, the empty stuff of the world. We can say it's empty, but still we, you know, that's where we live. Amid the world of, amid sentient beings is the place of Nirvana. Hongju says elsewhere. It's not about going to some mountaintop in Nepal or California or the Alps or somewhere. We, right here in this world is where we find our place. So he says, leaving discriminating conditioning. Doesn't mean, you know, getting lobotomy or something. Leaving discriminating conditioning. We can come back to it. Leaving discriminating conditioning. Enter clean, clear wisdom and romp and play in samadhi. Allow yourself as you settle to express playful mind.

[18:13]

Play with this awareness. It's not something to put in a box to figure out, to define or explain. It's, so, you know, all those, all those funny Zen talk, Zen, Zen dialogues or koans, they're not about some precise explanation of something. They're play. They're last night. Let's play. How do we play with this wonderful jewel of the Dharma? Romp and play in samadhi. What could be wrong? He says. So this is one way of talking about our response. How do we respond appropriately to the

[19:19]

troubles of the world? All the suffering of the world, which now we've heard are all Dave's fault. I'm sorry, Dave. No, it's not all your fault. Another one. He says, expansive and inherently spiritual, refined and inherently bright, awakened mind can permeate universally without grasping the merit of its illumination. And can apprehend without being bound by discursive thinking. Let me read that again. So, so, you know, Hongzhi's languages seems kind of lofty, but he's talking about how we can actually be in this world. You know, we might think, oh, he was living in ancient China and everything was wonderful and there was civil war and disruption and conflict in his time, too. Maybe we feel like it's worse now and human survival is at risk. Well, it is. But he was talking about a way of being that he

[20:29]

had realized and he was talking to his monks who were following this practice. And he says, expansive and inherently spiritual, refined and inherently bright, awakened mind, aware mind, can permeate universally without grasping the merit of its illumination. We don't have to worry about what grade we're getting. And can apprehend without being bound by discursive thinking. He doesn't say, get rid of your discursive thinking. There are a lot of very bright people in the room. You don't have to get rid of that. But you don't have to be bound by it either. Emerging from manifestations of existence and non-existing existence, surpassing the emotions of deliberation and discussion, merely interact positively and appropriately without dependence on others. So this is our basic bodhisattva values,

[21:37]

interact positively and appropriately. Maybe it's easier to say than do sometimes, but what is appropriate action? What is positive action? How do we act helpfully rather than harmfully? How do we respond to our friends and family and the difficulties they're having? And how do we respond appropriately and positively to the difficulties we're having on our own seats as we sit here all day and see all the gobbledygook and all the stuff that happens? And then all the troubles in the world. How do we interact positively and appropriately? How do we respond? How do we resist the insanity of our government? He says, all Buddhas, all ancestors, all leaves and all flowers relate in this manner. So the ancestors do this, the Buddhas do this, but also leaves and flowers.

[22:39]

This is totally natural. So we might think that we're superior to plants, to leaves and flowers, but you know, there's a way that plants grow and the leaves unfurl and flowers blossom. How does that work? So there's an old Zen saying, and I'm reminded of my teacher, Rebs, getting interested in Zen by looking at a picture of, I think it was on the cover of Life magazine or something like that, of, it was Shinichi Hisamatsu. We didn't know it then. It's just, you know, he was sitting there looking at a Zen garden in Kyoto and the caption just said,

[23:42]

Zen monk deep in thought. And Rebs thought, oh, that's beautiful. And he just saw the back. And there's an old Zen, there's a line from a Zen poem that says, sitting quietly, a flower grows in the back. So when I sit and look out at the back of all of you, something grows in the back. A flower can blossom in the back. Anyway, all Buddhas, all ancestors, all leaves and all flowers relate in this manner, positively and appropriately. As we sit, period after period, something grows. The way flowers grow, not based on our figuring something out or calculating something. It's deeper than that. There are roots that go down to some source of creative energy and something grows.

[24:52]

And yet, with that, we can enter the world of conditions, this mutual response. All Buddhas, all ancestors, all leaves and all flowers relate in this manner. When responding, they do not grasp at forms where illuminating they do not attach to conditions, then they can stay wide open and unhampered. Only this family style, only this family wind appears complete everywhere. Let yourself accept it. So again, acceptance in Buddhism isn't passive. Let yourself accept it. Take it on. Take it on the way a flower takes on growing and blossoming. How do you respond to this possibility of something growing out of the ground that we all come from? We all grow from this earth. We are all part of this earth.

[25:57]

Well, I don't know. Maybe some of you are extraterrestrials. I hear there's some of those around. And, you know, so maybe you grew from some other planet. I don't know. But anyway, we all grow from something, from some ground. So I'll read one more, which has this wonderful line about graciously share yourself. In the great rest and great halting, the lips become moldy and mountains of grass grow on your tongue. This is an image of Sashin being silent, allowing, I don't know what, to grow on your tongue through this silence. And as Howard pointed out when I talked about this before, this is also how we connect with the natural world. Your voice becomes the voice of the mountain grass.

[26:59]

Moving straight ahead beyond the state, totally let go, wash clean and ground to a fine polish. So part of what happens when we sit for a day or we sit day after day for a while is we get ground down, we get polished a bit. It's not always pleasant. We get washed clean. Moving straight ahead. What's important is just to sustain this, to keep going. And then he says, respond with brilliant light to such unfathomable depths as the waters of autumn or the moon stamped in the sky. It's so funny that he calls that an unfathomable depth, the moon stamped in the sky, as if

[28:06]

the sky was flat and there's this seal of the moon. But somehow that image, I don't know, keeps catching me. Of course, we know the moon goes around the earth. I don't know what they thought in 1100s China, if they thought that the sky was flat. I think probably he knew the moon went around the earth. I don't know. But that's how we see it in a way. We can see it that way. Anyway, then you must know there's a path on which to turn yourself around. And this is the key point. We sit, we go within, we settle. Something's going on. There's something happening here. We don't know what it is, but it's happening. And then you must know there's a path in which to turn yourself around. We come out from our samadhi. We come out from our settling. And there's a world out there.

[29:10]

Of course, we know it's just illusory fame and gain and manipulations. And it's not real in the way that the ultimate source is real. But it's where we live, the world of suffering beings. That's what we give ourselves to. There's a path on which to turn yourself around. And when you do turn yourself around, you have no different face that can be recognized. And even if you do not recognize your face, still nothing can hide it. This face that the wall sees when you face the wall for period after period, it's still there. Here we are. Nothing is hidden. He says, this is penetrating from the top most all the way down to the bottom.

[30:16]

And when you have thoroughly investigated your roots back to their ultimate source, a thousand or 10,000 stages are no more than footprints on the trail. So I was talking yesterday about ancestral Zen as opposed to Tathagata Zen. Tathagata Zen, Buddha Zen, that we all are all Buddha nature everywhere. And how I said yesterday that my first 10 years in Chicago, I came here, got arrived here 10 years ago, January. I've been mostly focusing on Tathagata Zen, but now I'm shifting to ancestral Zen that I need to focus on ancestral Zen now. And really seeing this, taking on this family business and taking care of this, how do we continue this? And this has to do with this response. But also then a thousand or 10,000 stages are no more than footprints on the trail. And we enjoy the footprints.

[31:20]

Hongzhu then says, in one to return to the journey of failures off of the path and walk ahead with the hundred grass tips in the busy marketplace, graciously share yourself. I love that sentence with a hundred grass tips in the busy marketplace, graciously share yourself. It doesn't mean go out there and proselytize and fix everything and solve all the problems. Just share yourself. Each of you, each of you, each one of you has your own way of settling down to the core. Each one of you has your own way. And that's an endless process. And each one of you has your own way of expressing something of that. Each one of you has your own interests and abilities and limitations, which are gifts. Each one of you has your own particular context.

[32:26]

Share that. How do you find your way? And it doesn't necessarily involve going out and you know, doing some big display. But how do you just walk through the world graciously sharing yourself? And I would say that, you know, you're all doing that already. But how do you intentionally do that? How do you take it on? With a hundred grass tips in the busy marketplace, graciously share yourself. Because you're doing this practice, you have something to share. Even if you think you're, your Zazen is crummy, even if you have that idea, even if you think you're a bad person and that you're not a good Zen practitioner, even if you think you don't understand what I'm talking about. Some of you think that, I know that. You've told me. It doesn't matter. You're here. You've come back again. You have something to share.

[33:40]

With a hundred grass tips in the busy marketplace, graciously share yourself. Wide open and accessible, walking along, casually mount the sounds and straddle the colors while you transcend listening and surpass watching. So we see, we're involved with the sounds and the colors, but we don't have to get caught up in how we're listening and how we're watching. We don't have to be caught up in our particular perceptual apparatus. And yet, here we are in the world with sounds and colors, with thoughts. So thoughts are just more sense objects. We don't have to be caught up in our thinking. And yet, we can casually mount the thoughts, straddle the thoughts while we transcend thinking. We don't have to believe everything we think, and yet we can graciously share ourselves. And he just says, perfectly unifying in this manner is simply a Zen practitioner's appropriate

[34:44]

activity. Graciously share yourself. So there's, again, this mutual response. This is how we continue the family business. This is how the ancestors responded to their worlds. So each one of those ancestors in the lineage, going back 2,500 whatever years to Shakyamuni, each one of them had particular problems in the world they were in. And with the caste system in India, with the warlords in China or in Japan, there were different situations each generation. And yet, all those people, we don't have all the names necessarily. We have names that we recite. Some of them we know aren't exactly historical, the ones in India. And, of course, there were many teachers in each generation. But

[35:47]

this ancestral Zen is that somehow there was this mutual response. There was this gracious sharing. And the world responded and supported them to keep going. And somehow, it's kind of amazing, somehow this practice, this tradition survived. Some generations, it got really thin, almost died out a number of times. Dazang, okay, wait a second. I know the Sino-Japanese names. I don't know all the Chinese names, so I have to look it up. But in China, there was one generation where Dayang Jingxuan, all of his students, his successors died before him. And it looked

[36:53]

like this lineage was going to die out. This is just one example. And then he found a Linji teacher, Fushan Faiyuan. There's a really interesting teaching about him, a story about him in Ehe Xingyi, in Dogen's Ehe Xingyi. He was a great Tenzo. But he got into a lot of trouble, actually. But anyway, Dayang Jingxuan gave him this lineage, but he didn't take it himself because he was already in the Linji lineage. So he passed it on to his student, Tozi Yiching. So we say those two names right next to each other, but they never met. Tozi Yiching took it on and he was very bright, and he'd studied the Flower Ornament Sutra that Keizan mentioned last night. And he passed it on to his student, Furong Daokai, who established the monastic tradition in Sao Dong. So anyway, there were, and then we have all these Japanese names, and we don't know so much about some of them. And some of them maybe, you know, some of them managed to, maybe there

[37:53]

was only one student and, you know, the lineage maybe didn't continue, you know, barely survived. But anyway, somehow, it continued. And, you know, there have been great spiritual lineages that have died out that we don't know about. There were the spiritual lineages in the Jewish tradition that I was born into that were killed off in the Holocaust. There were other spiritual lineages in Native America that were wiped out by the Europeans. There have been cultural lineages that we don't know about, lineages of artists, lineages of musicians. We don't know. Anyway, somehow we're here. So we have something to take care of. And then we also have a world to take care of.

[39:04]

And somehow what our practice has is a way of awareness and being that has something to share, not just with, you know, Zen students or spiritual practitioners, but with our culture at large. And Buddhism is doing that, various aspects of Buddhism. Our, the mindfulness tradition is now part of American medicine, accepted as part. So we have something to share in this world, and this world needs it. And, you know, we know that our climate is in great danger from climate damage, from the fossil fuel corporations and the weapons manufacturers who control our government. And just to be aware of the depths

[40:07]

of our own spiritual nature and awareness is a gift right now that we can share each in our own way. And how to respond to our currently insane government is a great challenge. And we don't know what to do, but we know that change happens. So we have this possibility of mutual response. And many people, many, many good people from many different traditions all over the world are concerned about this and working at this. And we have our own way of offering something to all those people. So we'll have a question ceremony for those who are sitting all day today this afternoon, but

[41:13]

I want to open this now. If anyone has a comment, response, question, we have a little bit of time for that. Please feel free. I can't resist the urge to follow up on our discussion last night, specifically Gayle's question, which I can't remember specific, totally, but it involved blue and you were talking about being tangled up. So I wish that I could have made a wonderful reference to being tangled up in blue. What was your question, Gayle? Can you recall it? What? Where do I look? What color? What is the sun? And then afterwards, what? What? Color of sadness.

[42:17]

And then Gayle afterwards mentioned, oh, you could have pointed to the painting. Yes. And then you were talking about being tangled up. And some of you may not realize that Tiger is one of the great Bob Dylan scholars of our age. So anyway, maybe you can say something about being tangled up in blue. Blue dragons. Blue dragons. Yeah, we're all, who will untangle this tangle, says the Vasudhi Maga. Um. I think it's okay to just be tangled. I don't think we have to figure it out. We're tangled, man.

[43:21]

Yeah. We are living in this tangle. It's a really crazy world. And yet, it's possible to see kindness. It's possible to see wonder. It's possible to see gentleness. It's possible to see illumination. It's possible to see helpfulness. We can actually express those things. Yes, Chris. I sort of responded to your question about tangling this thing up. I always like the idea of, I feel like sometimes being psychologically tangled is more distressing than physically tangled. But I like, lately I've been doing a lot of rock climbing and yoga, and I sort of think about those

[44:29]

things as a concrete way of looking at how we get psychologically tangled. And sometimes it's like you have a Chinese finger trap over your mind, and you just want to pull more out, and it just gets tighter and tighter each time. But I think, like you were saying, this is a knot. Being what? This is a knot. Like when you're doing ashtanga, you know, it's super obvious I'm in a knot right now. Or when you're hanging upside down from a rope on a climbing wall, you're like, okay, it's all my fault. My legs are up in my head. But, you know, why can't I breathe right now? Why can't I breathe? You know, I can breathe. I should breathe and relax with the fact that, no, I'm in a knot. Knot. Yeah. But the point is that we can still mutually respond. May all beings be happy. How can we respond from there? And often it's, we don't know what to do,

[45:38]

and sometimes it's better not to do something. We have this, you know, we also have this tendency in our culture to try and, you know, react and try and go out and problem solve and fix things. So it's good to stop and sit first and see, okay, what's helpful? Because, yeah, that knot, that finger trap, you know, when you pull and pull and pull, that doesn't help. Other comments, questions, anyone? David. That's one way. Manjushri's sword can kill or give life.

[47:01]

Yeah. Yes, Howard. Yes. [...]

[48:17]

The first bodhisattva vow. Yeah. Good. Yes. Thank you. That's helpful very much. Jonathan. Yeah. But no, what, do you have a question about it? Well, I just, I talked about it yesterday, but that Tathagata Zen is all beings Buddha nature. We all have this available Buddhaness, you know, that we can connect with. But ancestral Zen, so they talked about this in China. Ancestral Zen is the carrying on of the tradition, the transmitting of this awareness

[49:19]

in a particular way. And so, you know, there are two sides. They're not separate, you know. It's not that I haven't talked about ancestral Zen, but I've been more focusing on Tathagata Zen for the last 10 years. And Hongshu has both of them. But I just, you know, as I said, what I said yesterday was that I'm shifting my emphasis now. Yes. Yeah, that's right. So that's available always for everyone. But the other side is, how do we actually take it on and carry it on and not let it get cut off? So, so that's, that's our job in this little family, business, storefront, little

[50:24]

petty bourgeois Zen shop. So thank you all.

[50:30]

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