So, in my role as Shuso, I have been sitting a lot in part to encourage everyone, but this morning when I was sitting, you know, I face inward and I had the thought that I was sitting in a forest and we were all trees and some trees were very straight and some trees were listing over a little and some were strong and some were more frail, but we all were sending our roots down and, you know, now they don't think of trees as individuals. They think of them as not even communities, as really one organism, so that their roots,

[01:05]

you know, go down into the earth and then they actually communicate silently through their roots and they share water and nutrition. And so I felt this morning like we were all helping each other and I was helping you and you were helping me, so thank you for being here. I'm going to start with a story. Last weekend was my sister's 70th birthday and I had promised that I would attend and it was an overnight in a big house in Tahoe. So Saturday after the program, I drove up there and we had a wonderful celebration,

[02:07]

but it was very cold and in the morning, I didn't find this out till later, but it was below freezing and I woke up, of course, quite a bit before anyone else. So I decided to go out for a walk and I went out the door and then there was a set of steps and I went down the steps, but because it was cold, it was 28 degrees, there was a thin layer of ice on the steps and I slipped and my feet just went like straight out and I just landed on the steps, right on my sacrum. And I thought to myself that I was just going to stay there for a minute before I tried to do anything. So I was lying there and looking up and even though it was so cold, it was very beautiful and you could see snow on the mountains and the sky was blue and I thought, maybe I'll

[03:17]

check out to see if I can wiggle everything or maybe I broke something. And then I thought, next thought was maybe I won't be able to go to Session. I didn't. And then I thought, yeah, maybe I broke something. Maybe I'll be in the hospital getting pinned back together. And then I thought, but that was, could still be Buddha's life, right? And so, would that be different? Yes. Would it be the same? Yeah, in a way, it would. So I just wiggled my toes and fingers and they were working and sort of got up and have been kind of limping around a little ever since, but much better now. So I am going to talk about my koan yet again, but I will also today talk a little bit about

[04:25]

the verse. So I'm going to read my koan, even though most people have heard it multiple times. This is a slightly different version because it appears both in the Blue Cliff Record and in the Book of Serenity. This is the Book of Serenity version. So this is the case. Master Ma was unwell. The monastery superintendent asked, Master, how is your venerable state these days? The great teacher said, sun face Buddha, moon face Buddha. And I'm going to read the verse and I'll read another version maybe later. So this is the verse and it's written by someone else, but it's about, I think it's really about Master Ma or Baso as we call him in another version.

[05:28]

Sun face Buddha, moon face Buddha. Stars fall, thunder rolls. The mirror faces forms without subjectivity. The pearl in a bowl rolls of itself. Don't you see before the hammer gold refined a hundred times? Under the scissors, silk from one loom. So just to remind you and tell the people that aren't familiar with this koan that Master Ma was a teacher in the 8th century and he was a very strong and very powerful teacher. And he had a lot of disciples and he was physically a very big man. And this story, well, he lived in the, yeah, he lived to be 78 years old.

[06:35]

So this story took place when he was 78 and the day before he died. And the sun face Buddha and the moon face Buddha were two kind of legendary Buddhas that were part of a kind of a list of Buddhas of many, many Buddhas that came before Shakyamuni Buddha and the sun face Buddha was said to have lived 1800 years. And the moon face Buddha was said to live a day and a night. So I've talked about what this koan has meant to me in many ways. And as time has gone on, I've kind of settled into really thinking of it as being about two things.

[07:42]

So a long life and a short life. So long and short, and then, you know, life and death, maybe most importantly. And youth and age and sickness and health. And the ways those things are different, they are different. And they are also one. And Master Ma, you know, lived his life. It was Buddha's life, he lived it moment by moment. And in that sense, there is no life and no death. It's just moment by moment. And I have really sort of gotten this at times, you know, I've really seen the oneness and I've seen the difference.

[08:46]

And sometimes, just sometimes I can sort of hold them both. Or even not be too worried about it. But lots of the time, I felt like one of those monks that, you know, yells in the middle of zazen and runs out of the zendo, tearing its hair. And, you know, ultimately, maybe at this moment, I've kind of let go a little bit. And, you know, allowed it to just kind of float around without really being able to hang on. And I'd like to give you a definitive solution.

[09:55]

But so far, I think that's the best I can do. I will read something from Suzuki Roshi, which sums it up better than I do. We should understand our everyday activity in two ways and be able to react either way without a problem. One way is to understand dualistically good or bad, right or wrong. And we try hard to understand things in these terms. Yet we should also be able to let go of this dualistic understanding. Then everything is one. This is the other understanding, the understanding of oneness. So you should be able to understand or accept things in these two ways. But this is not enough.

[10:57]

It is still dualistic. Without thinking, this is one of two understandings. You have the freedom to move from one to the other. Then you will not be caught by your understanding. Whatever you do will be the great activity of practice. And then I'm just going to go on a little bit because maybe this is strong for me. Sun face Buddha, moon face Buddha, no problem. Whatever I am, whether I am at Tassajara or San Francisco, no problem. Even though I die, it is all right with me. And it is all right with you. And if it's not all right, you are not a Zen student. It is quite all right. That is Buddha. Somebody asked Sojin in Shosan, I think that somebody might be here.

[12:10]

What is it that we're doing here? And he thought that was a good question. And I think it's a good question. But I think there's a lot of answers to it. Maybe everybody has their own. But one thing I think for me is that I'm practicing having, seeing the oneness. And in my sitting practice, I practice not discriminating, not. So allowing, you know, my thoughts to just be my thoughts and the herd just be what I hear and what I see just be what I see. And I practice that because I think that the discriminating mind is,

[13:19]

you know, it's more familiar. It's something that I do all the time and I'm good at. So, you know, here when I'm sitting, I practice the non-discriminating mind. And it's not that that's where I want to stay. But I do want to be able to move back and forth. And without this practice, it's not accessible to me. It doesn't flow in and out of my life. So that's one of the things that I'm doing here. I just want to tell another story. I better keep an eye on the time. Oops, I didn't bring it. Oh, yeah, there's my watch. Oh, I have quite a bit of time. Yeah, I have my watch actually. So I don't think I've told this story, and I'm not sure this story is actually true. But I remember as a child, I was quite an amenable child.

[14:28]

That I think is true. Everybody used to say that about me. My parents did. I was an amenable child. And I had an older sister, and we shared a room. She was somewhat older. And so, you know, I just sort of went along a lot with whatever she did or thought. And my parents. And I had a little brother who was, you know, pretty demanding. And I was in the middle. And, you know, I just remember going along. I remember not. I don't remember. I mean, of course, I could tell the difference between a dog and a cat, you know. But I just don't remember caring too much. You know, I just do remember this sort of sense of kind of flowing. And, you know, like, you know, when we went out for ice cream, my sister would like say, we have to go to the store that has the caramel, whatever.

[15:30]

And I was sort of like, ice cream, fine, you know. But then when I was like 11 or 12, and I'm not sure why I did this, but maybe I needed, I wanted more attention, I think. But I decided I needed opinions. And I didn't have any. And I really, really had that thought that I just didn't really have any opinions. And that I should have some. And I actually remember trying to get them, you know, like trying to make them up. And, you know, I sort of feel like that was, what do they call it, you know, the end of Eden or something, you know, that I stepped out of Eden, you know, into the world. And then I was ferocious about it. And I can remember that, you know, that I really, you know, I really had them. And I didn't let them go. And I didn't let them go. And I didn't let them go. And now maybe I'm trying to let them go. But it's funny.

[16:34]

It's a funny memory. Anyway, I want to go on and talk about the verse a little bit. And I'm going to just read another version of it, because, not because it's better. This one, I think, is much more poetic. But this one is more pedantic a little bit and a little bit easier to maybe understand. So in this version, well, it doesn't matter. Sun face Buddha, moon face Buddha, stars shoot, thunder peals. The mirror renders images without ego. In a basin, the ball rolls of itself. Don't you see in front of the hammer and the stand, gold purified a hundred times. Under the scissors and the measure, a roll of silk. So I'm going to talk about that a little bit.

[17:35]

I'll talk about this version because I like it better. But so this verse, I think, is about Master Ma. It is, you know, it's talking about him. And so he says, sun face Buddha, moon face Buddha. This is not by him. This is about him. Stars fall, thunder rolls. And, you know, I think, you know, what he says is illuminating and it's a force of nature. But when a star falls or thunder rolls, you know, you can't hold on to it. And, you know, they're over when they're over. And albeit that I've been trying, you know, you can't hold on to it. So the mirror faces forms without subjectivity.

[18:38]

And in the other version, it's without ego. So this, you know, it's like just imagining that, just imagining taking your ego out of what you see. I mean, it's like you could spend five days in a session, you know, imagining what that would be like to really see without ego or, you know, what the ego does to what you see. So again, I think that's our practice that we, you know, we hear a sound and we just, we don't go anywhere with it. Or if we do, we see where we go or we have a thought. And again, we don't go with it, you know, and we just let it be. We just see it and let it go. So I think that's, you know, kind of part of our practice.

[19:41]

The line that has really compelled me, and I liked it right from the beginning, and I talked a lot with Sojin about it. And there's actually a lot of kind of reference to this in, or sort of, I'll read the line again. So this is the pearl in a bowl rolls of itself. So apparently, you know, there's a legend that there was a harbor in China where if you harvested the oysters or the pearls that they, and they would roll in a bowl by themselves. They were called running pearls. So I have come to see this, I've thought about it a lot. And as I said, there's a lot of reference to pearls in Zen literature.

[20:46]

I think you could make a compendium of pearl references. And I'll read you one other before I stop. But I think this for me has to do with kind of what Sojin was talking about yesterday about, you know, being free or rolling free or one's true nature being free of unbound from hindrances. And, you know, not with edges or flat places or places that would get stuck, that really it's free to flow. And at some point during these weeks, people have talked to me about something that's going

[21:51]

on with them. Maybe a problem. Yeah, a problem sometimes. And they would talk to me about the problem and I would sort of see, I felt like I could see where they were caught. And even though they were talking to me about it, I felt like they couldn't see where they were caught. And I talked to Alan about this and he said, oh, are you judging them? And I said, no, I'm not judging them. I feel sort of sad, but mostly I feel like, you know, can I see this about myself? Can I see the places that I'm caught or do I see them? And so I decided, and I know that we do this a lot, but I decided to really see, you know,

[23:02]

if I could very carefully observe the things that caught me. And I did it before we started Session, but I do find that Session is a very good container for observation, partly because some of the things that, you know, really catch me, I'm not reading like the news, right? Or, you know, I'm not talking to people who I love who are not here and are having life problems. So the things are subtle and I feel them the way I know is in my body. And then if I pay attention to my body, I can catch the little things that catch me.

[24:05]

And some of them are aversion. Some of them are things I don't like. And I just, it's like a trace through my body. And if I watch it carefully, I really can see how they catch me. And what they are. And some things are desire, things I love and are want, like Mary's cookies. And I can feel that too. And I feel that in my body. And so it's been a very focused time to see what is it that catches me? What is it? Where are my edges that don't roll? What keeps me from flowing? And, you know, I feel also like another thing we're doing here is we're sitting

[25:14]

and, you know, sometimes it's a very strong physical sensation. And sometimes it's very uncomfortable. And yet we don't move. Or sometimes we move, but mostly we don't. Or we sort of notice if we do. And again, I feel like that is what we're doing here. So we're noticing, you know, what catches us. And it could be very strong. You know, it could be, you know, a powerful feeling of I don't like this. Or I don't like you. But we're sitting with that, like we sit with our sore knees. That we're, you know, we don't necessarily react. We don't do something about it necessarily. And so again, I feel like that's what I'm doing here. I'm sitting with very strong sensations sometimes and sometimes very subtle ones.

[26:17]

And I'm not reacting. I'm being patient with them. And so that's what I'm doing. That's what I'm paying attention to. I'm going to just read another. This is from a different koan altogether. And I'm not going to go into it. This is from Ruyan's Constant Principle. But it's also about pearls. And this is the verse also. The round pearl has no hollow, hollows. The great raw gem isn't polished. What is esteemed by people of the way is having no edges. And then it goes a little bit into the actual case. Removing the road of agreement senses and matter are empty. The free body resting on nothing stands out unique and alive. And I just want to read a little bit of the commentary because I just liked it a lot.

[27:20]

In general, when things have edges, they cannot roll freely. If you want to be lively and frisky without sticking to or depending on anything, just set your eyes on agreement, non-agreement. So I kind of like that. Oh, then it went on to say, naturally, you will not stay on this shore, nor on that shore, nor in midstream. So I said earlier in a different talk that I'd written to Alan when he was away and said that I was feeling unmoored. And he thought that was fine, but it wasn't totally comfortable. But I do feel a little bit like I was not on this shore and not on that shore and not in midstream. But I like the lively and frisky. I do feel like there's maybe more possibility for energy

[28:25]

than I sometimes think there is in this practice. More possibility for friskiness, playfulness, humor. And I don't think those are my strong suits necessarily, but I'm thinking about that quite a bit. You know, that I could just flow and not try quite so hard. I will talk about the end of the verse just because I started. So the last two lines are, don't you see before the hammer gold refined a hundred times. So I think we think of that or think of Master Ma

[29:26]

as having refined his hammer a hundred times. You know, his true nature. And still, you know, that you can make gold into anything. And even in here, they talk about making it into coins and, you know, hairpins and cups. That, you know, the true mind or his true mind is refined, but it's also in his daily life. It's cut up. It's, you know, it's both oneness and difference. And that's as it should be. And it's still his true mind, his refined mind. And under the scissors, silk from one loom. And again, this is very pure silk. Again, it's pure mind that's cut up and made into, you know, everything in the world.

[30:26]

So it's again that not one, not two, back and forth. And the turning back and forth of pivoting the flowing without clinging to one or the other. And so um maybe lighten up a little. Maybe that's my koan for right now for myself. So I think I'll stop there and see what you would like to add or ask. Thank you. Dean. Girl, I'm glad you found those opinions. I like them. And I'm not so sure that you're really that committed to the ones that you have. Thank you so much for what sounds to me a simple and direct expression of presentation.

[31:40]

This morning, there was a well-being service for a woman who has organ failure and may die. And that's really sad. And then there's friends of hers who can't really have access to her. And that left me thinking all morning about things and how we don't have access to things that are happening. And how does one find the no problem in that? Well, I've been thinking about that a lot, too, actually. There's no problem because it's true, there's no problem. And it's devastating. But the truth is, really the truth is, there's no problem.

[32:46]

That's the truth. That's the only reason that you can say there's no problem because it's true. Gary. I thought I heard you say that you saw sun face, moon face as opposites. Yeah. I don't think it's about opposites at all. I think it's about differences, which he said, too. But because Baso is dying, it seems like the sun face, moon face is brought up because of that. And that we feel that he's responding to his dying, but I think he's responding to like judging our opposites. That there are no opposites, that he thinks there aren't any?

[33:48]

No, I don't. But I think the koan is not talking about opposites. I think it's talking about differences. The difference between living a long life, sun face, and living a short life, moon face. You don't think long and short are opposites? Well, I guess that could be. I think the difference is more than opposites. I'm not going to quibble. I think he's pushing the acceptance of anything, like you said. Yes, and? No, no, you're not. That's absolutely right. And they're also different. At least to me. And, you know, to just think of it as one, I think does miss part of the koan.

[34:54]

James? Can you just speak up a little bit? I don't know what I would guess. If you grieve, you're not a real Zen.

[36:18]

Thank you. I think you're a real Zen student, and I really think you should grieve. And I think I'm a real Zen student, and I really think I should grieve. And actually, I didn't say you shouldn't grieve. I said, death is okay. Actually, Suzuki Roshi said that, but. Yeah, there was something, but it wasn't that. Would you like me to read it again? It's all right. Yeah, does that work for you? Yeah, and it is all right.

[37:30]

It's kind of Dean's question, I think, too. And I think, I think, I think you don't know how passionately I think you can grieve. Yeah, and is that all right? Is that all right with you? And whenever I know of someone overdosing on heroin,

[38:43]

they leave a very not all right feeling behind, like something that just shouldn't be. And, but, you know, other deaths are more all right, even if I grieve very much. And does that mean I could be a better Zen student, too? Um, or is this just not all right? Are we talking about a context where not all right isn't a valid concept? Um, you know, again, I think it's both. It's, you know, on some level, I do think that whatever happens is all right. And on another, you know, the other side of it is not lots of things aren't all right. You know, they just aren't. John? I was listening to the not all right and all right, and I thought this young girl,

[39:47]

twins, actually, that were born together, and they have two heads and two hearts and one reproductive system, that's just the way they are. And often we would say, oh, they look at me like I have two heads, right, which is terrible. And I shouldn't, you know, be that way. And, or I've got a giant goiter or something, right? And yet we go on day to day with life, right? And having two heads, you know, it makes it up. It's the original pariah, they have two heads. And yet, if you've met or watched these girls in the videos that I've seen, they're happy, they're amazing, right? And no, it's not fun sometimes. And no, it's not great sometimes. But if you have the goiter, or if you're the person with the two heads, you better get on, right? And I think that's what Suzuki Roshi is saying, is that if you are the guy who is, you know, accused of all sorts of things, or if you are the guy who actually did all sorts of things, can you get on?

[40:50]

And if you're a Zen student, and you're doing Shikantaza, and you're practicing, the answer is pretty suggestive by Suzuki, you can get on. Two heads, goiter. Maybe. Maybe. But maybe not. And if not, then that's all right, too. Hmm. Sometimes I don't know. And sometimes I think of it as just this moment. So no life, no death. Just this moment. Because life and death are a concept. They're an idea.

[41:51]

They're a convenience, really. And really, that's kind of an answer to your question, too. I mean, your comment is, you know, this is it, and there's nothing else. But when you say sometimes I don't know, sometimes I don't need to, sometimes you grasp it, but more importantly, you see it in a realistic term. I do, yeah. Lisa. I'm thinking greatly about my three-year-old granddaughter, who is confronting life and death. We welcome these brand-new lives, and we tell them that life is joy, and that we're so glad they're there. And at the same time, we are gifting them with death.

[42:55]

And to explain this to them in any sort of sense is a devastation to them, that I'm struggling with. How do you do it? I am asking you. I'm really feeling like I don't know how not to be tripped. That's a really good question. I don't know. I think the best I can come up with is that it's really part of life. It's, you know, and if you've been with, well, I just say for myself that when my father died, I was with him, and he didn't have a horrible, painful death.

[43:57]

But I really felt like it was just like being with my sister when her baby was born. You know, it was exactly the same. It was like this huge shift in the universe for me. And it was so similar. It was so intimate and so kind of, you know, being with a passage. You know, so maybe that's what I would say, you know, that it's a flow. Penelope? This topic area is reminding me when my mother died, my daughter was five and a half years old and she went into a stage of grieving that was extraordinarily deep and contracted. And a wonderful librarian gave me a book to read called Lifetimes, which I think was written

[44:57]

by Julius, I'm not sure. And the mantra that goes all the way through the book is for different species, so they trace all different kinds of living beings. We are born, and we die, and in between is our lifetime. And when you keep saying that, at least my experience with my daughter was how helpful that was. That just became more and more embedded in her, that it was thus. And then there's a section in the book that said that sometimes, they talked about butterflies and bunny rabbits and various species and human beings. Sometimes we get sick, and then we die. And that is very sad. And that is terrifying. But it's a very beautiful book that's ostensibly for children.

[45:58]

Thank you. Is that it, Susan? When you ask the aspect of life, you say, where does that person aspect of life? So you don't have to think that death is the end of everything.

[47:02]

If you think that death is the end of everything, because it's the process of life, then you have to stare. Thank you. Oh, are we done? Oh, James, sorry. Go ahead. How so? The pain of life?

[48:20]

How do you deal with it? I don't think I know. I fail. I try to comfort myself and make sure things work. I fail at that, too. I'm grateful for the temporary shelter of my parents. I can't help. But maybe not. Then it's just a hypothesis.

[49:30]

You're right. You know, if your life is 95% painful and 5% fun, what do you do with that? Well, it reminds me of people who are really in a lot of physical pain. And, you know, they say, this isn't everything. And they're in really a lot of pain. And they say, it's not everything. It's not my whole life. I don't know how they live with it. Randy? So I think sometimes we have to look at other species. And I'm thinking of a teenage dog that two of my neighbors had.

[50:31]

And this dog has cancer. And they took the dog for chemo. But the side effects were really bad. I don't know exactly what happened. And now the dog is just on radicillum. And they're not going to do chemo again. And they love this little dog. The dog is very smart and can do all kinds of tricks. And they just have to see every day. Like some days the dog has good days. And some days not so good. And one day one of the neighbors took the dog down to Lake Merritt. And took another neighbor with a wagon in case the dog didn't make it around Lake Merritt. But here was one neighbor pulling the little wagon around Lake Merritt. And the little dog walked all the way around. And I've seen the little dog walking like in the neighborhood. And it's just being in the present. And I think that sometimes we as human beings, we do have this layer of suffering.

[51:39]

And that's really difficult. But if we could learn from other species just to be in the present. And maybe it's a good, you know, it is sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. So the little dog Tashi is teaching us even in her last days. Good, good point. Thank you. Well, when you were talking about long and short, my mind went right to the garden. Because you have flowers that bloom for one day. And they're quite beautiful. And then you have flowers that last all season. Or come at different times in the spring, the summer, or the fall. You get a fall late bloomer that's killed by the frost. And yet the garden seems to be the container for all of it. You know, it just accepts all of what happens.

[52:42]

Maybe that's the way sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha are warm. Yeah, nice. Thank you. Oh, we should stop. Oh, Mary, did you want to say something? A solidity that happens where clearly something is missing, something is not there. And it's an openness. It's an expansion. It's solid.

[53:44]

And I think it's okay to have feelings about that. That the suffering comes, if you say it's not okay. It's not okay, it's not the status, if you say it's not okay. I mean, how can you not? How can I not? There's no way. I mean, I don't think. And I think it's fine. You know, I think it's, you know, the more full out, the better in my book. Thank you.

[54:31]

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