where the target is, to your meaning. Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here this lovely morning. So the theme for our sitting and for the talks today is the silent illumination or serene illumination, teachings of the Chinese Chan master, Chan Tong Hongzhe.

[01:00]

Can you hear me okay in the back? Please let me know if there's a problem with the sound. Is everything working okay? Great. So a silent illumination or a serene illumination is one of the traditional names for Zazen for the sitting meditation that we do. And there are many other names also, just sitting, which doesn't mean only sitting, but just sitting. Or the jewel mirror samadhi, or the samadhi, the meditation of the ocean seal, of the ocean mudra. And another name that Hongzhe uses is the samadhi of self-fulfillment and self-enjoyment.

[02:05]

So all of these are ways of talking about what it is we're doing here today, what this practice is. Silent illumination, serene illumination. So there are many ways I could talk about this and talk about Hongzhe's teaching. So I'll try out a few of those ways and we'll talk about it and read some of Hongzhe's wonderful ways of expressing it. So, maybe the best place to start is with Shakyamuni Buddha and his awakening, which

[03:09]

set us off on all of this. And the story goes that when he was awakened, what he realized, what his awakening was, was to realize that all beings are Buddha nature. All being is Buddha nature. All that is, is Buddha nature, from the very beginning, from before the very beginning. Only because of our conditioning, because of our illusions, because of our hang-ups, because of all the ways we've been twisted and turned around in this life and many lives, we don't realize it. So Hongzhe says this in a number of ways. One of them is, Our house is a single field, clean, vast, and lustrous, clearly self-illuminated.

[04:11]

When the spirit is vacant without conditions, when awareness is serene without cogitation, then Buddhas and ancestors appear and disappear, transforming the world. Amid living beings is the original place of nirvana, this is very important, right amidst our delusion, right in the middle of deluded, sentient, living, vital beings within and without us. That's the place of nirvana. We don't have to go somewhere else. We don't have to become somebody else. We don't have to be some other person than who we are right now. We don't have to achieve some other state of being or consciousness. We don't have to be any place else but right on this cushion. And he says, How amazing it is that all people have this, but cannot polish it into bright clarity.

[05:16]

In darkness, unawakened, they make foolishness cover their wisdom and overflow. But the good news is, one remembrance of illumination can break through and leap out of the dust of many ages. So this is very simple. There's nothing we have to do but just be right here, in this body, in this mind, in this person, with this particular weird set of karmas that we are. So, in a way, it's very simple. We can all just go home now. But the other side of it is that we have been trapped into thinking that this isn't enough. So at the very beginning of his practice instructions, Hongzhou also talks about this. He says, The field of boundless emptiness is what exists from the very beginning. This field of boundless emptiness, this ancient wilderness. It's wild. It's strange. It's beyond

[06:29]

our wildest imaginations. It's deeper and vaster and more wonderful than anything we can imagine. And yet we can be that. We can see it. We can see it, not just with these eyes, but we can taste it. And that's what we're doing here today, in this satsang. This 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. Utter emptiness has no image. Upright independence does not rely on anything. Just expand and illuminate the original truth unconcerned by external conditions. Accordingly, we are told to realize that not a single thing exists.

[07:30]

In this field, birth and death do not appear. The deep source, transparent down to the bottom, can radiantly shine and can respond, unencumbered, to each speck of dust without becoming its partner. So these teachings of Hungry are meditation instructions. I encourage you to take them on, each line, each paragraph, as a meditation instruction. How do we respond, unencumbered by all of our conditioning and baggage, to each speck of dust, each diluted thought, each piece of confusion that arises in front of us, without becoming its partner, without getting stuck by it? Just to see it. Just to see these thoughts, these feelings, as the scenery of our life. To see it, let it go. It will come back. It's okay. It will never

[08:33]

be at one. That's okay, too. The subtlety of seeing and hearing transcends mere colors and sounds. So this is something we can do in this space of meditation we've entered today. See how seeing and hearing transcends the forms and colors and shapes, transcends the sounds. See how thinking transcends the thoughts. The whole affair functions without leaving traces and mirrors, without obscurations. Very naturally, mind and all the phenomenon emerge and harmonize. So how do we, not understand. Understanding is not so important. How do we become this?

[09:34]

How do we embody this? How do we realize this? Not just with our ideas, but with our muscles and bones and marrow and ears and noses and toes. How do we meet this Buddha nature that we already are and just settle into being that? That's the question. And part of the problem is that we have all these thoughts and ideas and ways in which we've been conditioned to think about the world and to think about ourselves. We have all these ideas about who we are. We have all these notions about what we are and what the world is. And it's okay that we have these notions, that's part of the world too. But how do we not get caught by them? So part of the problem is that we have this language that we talk to each other with these

[10:41]

words and we think with these words. And the very structure of our language, the very syntax of our thought, makes us imagine that we're separate from this Buddha nature. We think in terms of subject and object. Subject and verb and object. And we think that we are doing things to other things. We think the world is dead. We think this is just a teacup. And we imagine that we can pick up a teacup and that there is some me right here drinking the water. Or sometimes we imagine we're the objects too, right? There are subjects out there doing something to us. We're the victims of things that are doing us. Or we think that

[11:45]

we can manipulate the world and do the world. And whenever we think that way, and we can't help being conditioned to think that way when we use language, at least without a lot of work, we think of the world as a lot of pieces of little stuff, a lot of objects. We think of our thoughts that way too. And we have all these ideas about what we are and who we are. This is killing the world. This is the violation of the first Buddhist precept. In fact, when we sit here and realize that we're connected to everything in the whole universe, we can realize that the world is very much alive. And our life is alive. And everything we do is connected to everything in the whole universe. Where this teacup came from is a very elaborate

[12:49]

story of causes and conditions that there's no end to. And we can't help being conditioned to that. So first we have to see that the world is alive. That we're not just a bunch of dead bodies sitting on cushions, but that we are Buddha nature. And just babbling like this about all of it, again, is just more language. So, what do we do? How do we talk about this? How do we share with each other this sense that we can get when we sit here like this, of this vastness, of this deep interconnectedness, of this vitality and life that is our life? And sometimes the best way is just to say nothing. We don't have

[13:52]

to say anything. I can just sit up here for 30 minutes. We can do some more zazen. But since you've all kindly invited me here to come and babble, I'll keep doing it. One of the ways in our tradition to talk about this is, in the Zen tradition that we've chosen to connect to here, is to talk about this in terms of nature metaphors. We can't really talk about this because when we use language we have subjects and verbs and objects. But we can look at the world of nature and see how it works, and see how we're part of that. So the Zen tradition in China and Japan, throughout East Asia, has often used the natural world for landscape painting and landscape poetry, and just going outside and seeing the trees

[14:55]

and grass and the wonderful pine needle, yellow brick road. And it's funny because there's a kind of bilingual pun going on here. We say Buddha Nature, and that word that we translate as nature is a totally different Chinese character than the world of nature, trees and mountains and wind and all of that. And in fact, in Chinese and Japanese, there was no word, nature, for that kind of nature until they got it from Western culture, until they got this idea of nature. They didn't have to have a word for it, it was just where they lived. So they talked about landscape as mountains and rivers, mountains and waters, and sky and birds and trees and rocks and pebbles. So it's very interesting that these two words in English are the same, because one of the

[16:05]

ways that they must talk about this Buddha Nature in the Zen tradition is to talk about what we call nature. Then there's a third meaning of nature, which is kind of natural. So there's this word in Japanese, jinen, which was later used for nature, but it means natural. So there's this other meaning, that things happen naturally. And the etymology of that is selfly, coming out of our self. And this is not the self that's stuck in this skin bag. This is not the self that's between my short hair and this cushion. This is the self that we are, but that includes everything. So another name for this meditation is objectless meditation. And objectless meditation means

[17:15]

there's no particular object, but it includes every object. It includes everything. So this is the self that we sometimes refer to in Zen when we talk about self. We all know about the other self, this little petty self that has lived so many years and has all these thoughts about being separate from other people, and what that person did to me, and why did that person say that. All of the things, all of the pettiness that we see in ourself, in our little self when we sit here and run the tapes over and over. So we have that self too. We can't run away from that self, and we shouldn't, because that self is actually totally connected to this natural self. So there's these three senses of nature. There's this Buddha nature, there's this world of trees and birds and sky and grass and dirt that they didn't even have a word for, but

[18:19]

that in English we call nature. And then there's this naturalness. Maybe some of you remember Mr. Natural. This idea of just being natural, being ourself, being totally ourself, being totally engaged in ourself. There's a problem with that too, that we sometimes think that this is automatic. So being natural is not automatic. We do this strange thing of coming here and sitting in this funny posture and putting on these funny clothes, some of us, listening for a bell before we can get up, and all of these forms that help us to be natural on the steeper sense. So it's not automatic. There's something that we're called to realize, to embody, to become, and it's not something that we aren't already. So if I keep talking about this more I'm sure to get tangled up, so I'm going to take refuge

[19:26]

in Hongxue. So these nature metaphors, these ways of looking at the world around us, looking at the trees and the breeze blowing the leaves and looking at the sky and the dirt, this is a way of showing us how natural, how easy, how plain and simple it is to just be alive, to be this Buddha nature. So Hongxue says, the field of bright spirit is an ancient wilderness that does not change. With boundless eagerness wander around this immaculate wide plain. The drifting clouds embrace the mountain. The family wind is relaxed and simple. The autumn waters display the moon in its pure brightness. Directly arriving here you will be able to recognize the mind ground dharma field that is the root source of the ten thousand

[20:29]

forms germinating with unwithered fertility. These flowers and leaves are the whole world. So we are told that a single seed is an uncultivated field. Each thing in this world, each thought, each feeling, each itch, each twinge in our knees is a seed. The whole world comes out of that in each moment. The whole world can come out of that. But he says it's an uncultivated field. It has not yet blossomed, but in a sense it's always blossoming. Do not weed out the new shoots and the self will flower. We are told that a single seed is an uncultivated field. Do not weed out the new shoots and the self will flower. So this practice is not about getting rid of yourself. This practice is not about obliterating your ego. But it's

[21:45]

about how do we let this self flower? How do we let the self that includes everybody we've ever met? How do we let that flower? A person of the way fundamentally does not dwell anywhere. The white clouds are fascinated with the green mountains foundation. The bright moon cherishes being carried along with the flowing water. The clouds part and the mountain appears. The moon sets and the water is cool. Each bit of autumn contains vast interpenetration without bounds. So each bit of autumn is right here in this room. It's very simple. Clouds flowing around the mountains. So this practice demands some effort. We have to get in the

[22:53]

room. We have to sit ourselves on our cushion. We have to be this Buddha nature. Of course we can't help being this Buddha nature. But we think we're something else. So what do we do? So I would suggest that instead of seeing this meditation and this practice and this life we're doing as something that we have to fix. Something that we have to improve. Something that we have to manipulate. That we want to become better people. That we want to save the world. Whatever it is we think we should be doing. Of course if you can save the world please do it. This life is actually about how do we enjoy and play and celebrate this Buddha nature. How do we express it? Okay I'll read this one too. Empty and desireless,

[24:17]

cold and thin, simple and genuine. This is how to strike down and fold up the remaining habits of many lives. So we do have to see through this conditioning. We do have to see through our habits. We do have to see through the ways in which we think we're not Buddha nature. When the stains from old habits are exhausted the original light appears. Lazing through your skull. Not admitting any other matters. Vast and spacious like sky and water merging during autumn. Like snow and moon having the same color. This field is without boundary beyond direction. Magnificently one entity without edge or seam. Further when you turn within and drop off everything completely realization occurs. So this is very important. We have to turn within. This is our life too. We have to become empty and desireless, cold and thin. This is also who we are. Right at the time of entirely dropping off deliberation

[25:25]

and discussion are 1,000 or 10,000 miles away. So forget all these words. These words are all just commentaries on silence. Please don't try and remember anything I said. No principle is discernible. What could there be to point to or explain? People with the bottom of the bucket falling out immediately find total trust. So please find the way to trust your life. I could say trust Buddha but that's even too much. Trust the world. Trust your life in this very deep way. We are told simply to realize mutual response and explore mutual response. Then turn around and enter the world. Roam and play in Samadhi. So this is a kind of play. We are all Buddhist children playing in this wonderful Buddha field that includes

[26:30]

of course all of the suffering and cruelty and horrors that we know go on out there and in here in each of us. How do we connect to the wholeness of it? So again I would suggest that instead of thinking of fixing it, instead of thinking of manipulating your life and your world, that this practice is about something deeper. This practice is about connecting to everything. Of course sometimes there are situations that we do need to fix and sometimes it is possible to adjust things to help beings, to help ourselves. So we do that of course naturally. That's part of the water's flowing also. But more deeply there's this sense of how wonderful it is just to be doing this life that each

[27:33]

of us is doing. Each of us is doing this one particular life that is completely connected to everything. So there's a sense of wonder that comes up, a sense of gratitude, a sense of amazement that is also part of our practice that we connect with through Zazen, through just coming back every day, taking this position of uprightness and remaining upright in the middle of everything. In clarity the wonder exists with spiritual energy shining on its own. It cannot be grasped and so cannot be called being. It cannot be rubbed away and so cannot be called non-being. Beyond this mind of deliberation and discussion, depart from the remains of the shadowy images. Let go of all of those ideas you have. Let

[28:34]

go of all those identifications, all of the ways in which you imagine the world is or you are. Emptying one's sense of self-existence is wondrous. This wonder is embodied with a spirit that can be reenacted. The moon mind with its cloud body is revealed straightforwardly in every direction without resorting to signs or symbols, radiating light everywhere. It responds appropriately to beings and enters the sense dusts without confusion. So this is a way in which we actually are connected with everything. There is a way in which when we settle into what we are, what this life is, how this Buddha nature

[29:40]

is for each of us from our own particular limited conditioned experience, we can connect very deeply with a way of being with everything. We can respond. So this practice is a celebration of Buddha nature and a way of finding out how to express Buddha nature, just as this person we are. And it's very natural. People of the way journey through the world responding to conditions, carefree and without restraint. Like clouds finally raining, like moonlight following the current, like orchids growing in shade, like spring arising in everything, they act without mind, they respond with certainty. This is how perfected people behave. Then they must resume their travels and follow

[30:47]

the ancestors, walking ahead with steadiness and letting go of themselves with innocence. So to celebrate this fact, this actuality of this depth of what we are, we have to be keep coming back to seeing, to recognizing this self in all of its aspects. It includes everything and it also includes all of the conditioning. We have to study ourselves as Dogen says. So we sit here and I think for many people when we first start to do Zen practice, we feel worse. You might see how the stuff you've been doing actually doesn't feel so good. You might see the ways in which you're not responding carefree, you're not letting

[31:49]

go of yourself with innocence. This is how we are too. So, how do we accept the whole thing? How do we see it and just gently stay with it and just continue on this practice of being natural, of being like the clouds and the moon and the mountains and the water and the pine needles, without trying to manipulate them? We have a path of pine needles. Even before we put the pine needles on it, we don't really have to put the pine needles on the path. Sometimes maybe it helps us to see if somebody does something like that. But our life is just pine needles. So, I want to finish up by talking a little bit about how our life is, how our practice

[33:02]

is, this self-fulfillment, this self-enjoyment, this practice of enjoying ourselves. So, there's a particular technique. In the Sutta Zen tradition, we talk about Zen meditation as no techniques, just sit there. Maybe we follow our breath, we continue with uprightness. But there's a basic technique, in a sense. And this is just what Dogen calls the backward step, turning the light inwardly to illuminate ourselves. So, there's the silence and there's also the illumination. We need both sides of that. When we can quiet ourselves down and be serene, this light pours forth. So, Hongzhe says it this way, with the depths clear, utterly silent, thoroughly illuminate

[34:17]

the source, empty and spirited, vast and bright. Even though you have lucidly scrutinized your image and no shadow or echo meets it, searching throughout, you see that you still have distinguished between the merits of a hundred undertakings. You're always judging and comparing and picking and choosing and this is better than that and wouldn't that be good. And this is what we do. This is how our mind works. So, when we see that, then we must take the backward step and directly reach the middle of the circle from where light issues forth. Turn the light within, come back into ourselves. So, we do this by sitting for 30 minutes or by coming into a space like this for a day or a week. Outstanding and independent, still you must abandon pretext for merit. Carefully discern that naming engenders beings and that

[35:18]

these rise and fall with intricacy. When you can share yourself, then you may manage affairs and you have the pure seal that stamps the 10,000 forms, traveling the world, meeting the conditions. The self joyfully enters Samadhi in all delusions and accepts its function, which is to empty out the self so as not to be full of itself. So, this is another name for serene illumination or Zazen. This self joyful Samadhi. So, this is another very interesting word. So, please, by the way, enjoy yourselves and sit comfortably. Don't try and hold on to some particular posture now. So, this word in Japanese, Jiyu Jiyu Samadhi, is very interesting. It means self, the same

[36:21]

self I was talking about before in terms of selfly is the word for naturally. The self, and then Jiyu means enjoyment or fulfillment. But each of the two characters separately mean accept or receive your function. So, to enjoy the self, to fulfill the self etymologically in terms of this name for Zazen, it means for the self just to accept and receive its function. Just for the self to take on your own position, your own role, your own life. That's fulfillment of self. That's enjoyment of self. Just to be who you are. So, this is another name of what we do when we sit here like this, is to do the concentration, the Samadhi, the meditation that settles our self into just accepting what we are, what our function is, what our role is, who we are. And that is to enjoy the self. That is

[37:22]

to fulfill the self. That is the celebration of serene illumination. So, we turn within and experience this fulfillment of the self, and then we naturally go back out at the end of the period of Zazen, at the end of the day, and we share ourselves. So the point of this practice is not just to come in and learn how to sit straight and fold our legs up in these funny positions. The point is how do we fully take on our life? How do we fully take on, accept, receive our function, our role, our position in life, this life that we're doing? That's to enjoy our life. So, we take the backward step, and then we have this kind of oscillation that is fundamental to our practice. We turn within, and then we go back out. So, I'm sorry to do all this reading, but it's just, his words

[38:31]

say it better than I can. In the great rest and great halting, the lips become moldy and mountains of grass grow on your tongue. So, that's what it may feel like to you to be silent for a whole day. Moving straight ahead beyond this state, totally let go, washed clean and ground to a fine polish. Respond with brilliant light to such unfathomable depths as the waters of autumn or the moon stamped in the sky. Then you must know there is a path on which to turn yourself around. When you do turn yourself around, you have no different face that can be recognized. When you have thoroughly investigated your roots back to their ultimate source, a thousand or ten thousand sages are no more than footprints on the trail. In wonder, return to the journey. Avail yourself of the path and walk ahead, so we have to turn ourselves back just to our ordinary everyday life, to our family, our friends, our jobs. In light, there is darkness. Where it operates, no traces remain. With

[39:39]

a hundred grass tips in the busy marketplace, graciously share yourself. So, I'm going to our practice is to turn within, to realize that we are Buddha nature, to feel that, to experience that, to be that, to serenely illuminate this self that is all selves, that is just this self. And then go back out and walk out on the pine needles and do your life, accept your life, be yourself. We don't have to be anybody else. In fact, we can't. Just as you are right now, this is it. And so we come here to celebrate that, to roam and play in Samadhi. So, I want to close with a little meditation

[40:41]

instruction, a little gift from Hongzhi, which I offer to you and invite you to take on as a practice in your zazen as the day continues. So, another way of talking about this practice is non-duality, to see that we are not separate, to see that we are totally interconnected with everything. So, he says, this matter of oneness cannot be learned at all. This is not about learning meditation. This is not something we have to study and learn and words we have to memorize. This is something we come back to within ourselves. So, this next sentence I want to offer as a zazen instruction, as a practice to try

[41:42]

on. The essence is to empty and open out body and mind as expansive as the great emptiness of space. The essence is to empty and open out body and mind as expansive as the great emptiness of space. Naturally, in the entire territory, all is satisfied. This strong spirit cannot be deterred. In event after event, it cannot be confused. So, try on, if you'd like, emptying and opening out body and mind as expansive as the great emptiness of space. One way to do that is to see this body, this mind, and see how it fills this space of this wonderful chapel here. We all are sharing the oxygen that is in this space. So, empty

[42:42]

and open out body and mind into this space. And then, if you'd like, you can go a little further. You can take the space from the sound this way, and the inlet that way, and empty and open out body and mind that way. Take it as far as you want, north and south, and east and west. And let go, in innocence, let go of body and mind and open it out to this vastness of space. So, you can try it on that way. You might also try on, this is not something that's out there or in here, it's both. You might try on emptying and opening out body and mind to the vastness of space just in this body, between the top of your head and your cushion. There is vastness of space. In each fingernail, there is vastness of space. So, this is what science teaches us today. We can't measure, really, what an electron

[43:51]

is. We think there are electrons and protons, but within each atom there is vastness of space. So, just let go of this body and mind and empty and open it up. And please enjoy the vastness and the serenity and illumination. Thank you. www.mooji.org

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