Good morning. Continuing with cases from Volume 9 of Dogen's extensive record, Zen Master Chongqing Da asked Baizhang, this student yearns to understand Buddha. What is it? Baizhang said, you are much like one searching for the ox while riding the ox. Dahan said, how is it after understanding? Bajang said, it is like a person returning home riding the ox. Dahan said, I am not clear. How can I protect and care for it from the beginning to end? Bajang said, it is like an ox shirt holding up a staff to watch that the ox does not disturb people's seedlings. From then on, Dahan grasped the meaning. So, this continues the reference to the ox-herding pictures from the story we talked about yesterday, which I'll refer to.

[01:08]

Well, that one's about taming the water buffalo. That was Nanshuang, who, Nanshuang, I think, was a Dharma brother of Baizhang. Manjuan had said, since I was young, I have been tending a water buffalo, trying to tame it in the east of the valley. I cannot prevent it eating the grasses of the ruler. Trying to tame it in the west of the valley, I can't prevent it from eating the grasses of the ruler. I must follow after and pay my small portion of compensation as this is somewhat visible. So we talked about this aspect of taming the self, training the self. going against, as Dogen says in his verse, directly binding up grasses against the grain of the usual human will or the conventional human will for a while and to the tens of thousands of peaks.

[02:12]

So there's a part of our practice that's going against the grain, that's turning the light within, that's Maybe going against our usual will, but also going against the usual ways of the world. Here we have the ox-herd returning home. And this follows the ox-herding pictures. This is one of the pictures that's in various traditional versions of these pictures, and verses about them. So here's Zen Master Zhang Qing Dan, asked by Zhang, and he, Don, became one of Baizhang's many disciples. This student yearns to understand Buddha. What is it? So, this basic question is at the heart of many of the classical Zen stories.

[03:21]

What's Buddha? This is the basic question. What is Buddha? How is Buddha? What is awakening? How do we find that? So this is a kind of fundamental question, and there have been all kinds of different answers. Jayatrara said, oh, it's the cypress tree out in the yard. Yuen Man said it's an old piece of turd. So, you know, there's all kinds of responses to this. But here this, Don asks, the student yearns to understand Buddha. And, so I've talked many times about this wanting to understand. So in Dogen's verse to the story we talked about the first day about the Laman Pan quoting the ancients who said, the bright, clear hundreds of grass tips are the bright, clear mind of the ancestral teachers.

[04:41]

Dogen says, although wanting it all tied up for 10,000 miles, nothing holds. We can't get a hold of it. We want it all tied up. We want to understand. We want to know. This is a common... common human desire, and maybe particularly it's a problem for Westerns and students, because we have this linear, rational culture where we think we can understand things, and maybe until recently we believed in science. Maybe that'll be outlawed now, but we thought that we could figure out everything. And so, you know, Don says, the student yearns to understand Buddha. So some of you, maybe most of you, have wanted to understand Buddha.

[05:47]

And Dahan is very honest. He yearns to understand Buddha. And then he asks, what is it? So again, what is Buddha is the question that many of the Zen stories come down to. Sometimes they ask, well, what was the purpose of Bodhidharma coming from the West? It's another way of asking. In a more interesting way, in some ways. It's a different part of the question. Anyway, Baizhang said, you are very much like one searching for the ox while riding the ox. So after, in one of the versions of the Oxfording pictures, some of them are six pictures, some of them are six stories, six depictions, some of them are ten. So taming the ox, herding the ox is the fifth in some of them, and coming home on the ox's back, riding home on the ox's back is the next one in some of the pictures.

[07:05]

Baizhang said, you are much like one searching for the ox while riding the ox. So it's like my asking now. Where are my glasses? I can't see them." Or, you know, wanting to see your own eyeballs. Or, you know, there's this searching for the ox while riding the ox. We don't realize that this Buddha, nature, this awakening is right here. We're riding it. So in the Lotus Sutra, there are these innumerable bodhisattvas that rise out of the earth.

[08:10]

And when Shakyamuni was awakened, he touched the earth. So taking care of the earth, taking care of the ground, sitting on the ground, right beneath your seat. is this true self, this true person of no rank. And so, you know, yearning to understand Buddha is like searching for Buddha while you're sitting on him. It's right under your seat, riding the ox and searching for the ox. This is what Baizhang says, And then Don asked, well how was it after understanding? When he realized, oh hey, here I am. Riding along, sailing along on the Buddha nature.

[09:15]

Bhajan said, it is like a person returning home, riding the ox. So this returning home is important. Buddha is not someplace else. You don't have to go off to the Himalayas or China or Japan or California to find Buddha. I mean, some of us have done that, but still. Right here, even in Chicago, can you imagine? How do we return home? What is this returning home? Riding the ox. So last week we had some people taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha.

[10:27]

Just settling into this home, this deepest home. This isn't the usual human will that scampers around wanting more of this and less of that and trying to figure out all kinds of things like wanting to understand Buddha or whatever. This is just coming home. Searching for the ox while riding the ox. Returning home riding the ox. And the end of all your journeying will be to return to the place you started and know it for the first time. So that's been said. So, we've been sitting here, some of us, this is the third day, and there's some struggle and effort involved.

[11:51]

But really, it's just about settling back in, riding the ox, returning home. Dogen talks about finding the home village of the self. So Dahan said, I'm not clear. How can I protect and care for it from beginning to end? How do I take care of this? Good question. So it's not just about getting there. Well, how do I, okay. We get some taste of Buddha. We get some taste of home. How do we protect it? How do we care for it? It's not enough to just see that the earth is fertile with awakening and the possibilities of awakening. How do we protect it?

[12:52]

How do we take care of it? How do we protect the water? How do we protect the earth from all the poisons that some people want to make a profit off of spreading? How do we protect and care for this home village of the self from this ground of our Buddha being? I'm not clear, Dayan said. Baizhang said, it is like an oxhard holding up a staff to watch that the ox does not disturb people's seedlings. So in this story from yesterday, Nantuan talks about him riding his ox, trying to tame it, and in one version eating all the grasses in the east and the west, and in another version trampling the grasses, and he says he has to follow after and pay some

[14:03]

some small portion of compensation he has to recompense for his ancient twisted karma, as this is somewhat visible. So, you know, riding the buffalo, riding the ox, even coming home from the ox, with the ox, on the ox, you know, we, our precepts are about helping rather than harming, and yet, like an ox in a charn shop we're trampling around. How do we protect, how do we not disturb other people's seedlings? How do we nurture the seedlings of Buddha nature? How do we feed everyone? How do we take care of our own space in a way that helps everyone else, that doesn't disturb others? So, Yogsvartha holds up a staff to watch.

[15:09]

How do we watch? And, you know, part of our practice is, you know, the part that Nanchang was referring to, is seeing that we have, at times, well, okay, I shouldn't speak for everyone, I have, at times, trampled on seedlings. Maybe not out of malevolence, just out of being stupid or too young or whatever. How do we take care of that? How do we protect and care for this ox and this homecoming? So there's home leaving and homecomings. I was talking yesterday about the counterclockwise and the clockwise movement, going against the grain of the usual way of the world. But then there's also an entering for a while, Dogen says, the 10,000 peaks.

[16:13]

But then there's the coming home, and that's what this part, that's what this case is about. And in the last of the ox-herding pictures, entering the city with bliss-bestowing hands, being helpful, really being helpful. What does it mean to be helpful? How do we really be skillful? And Baizhang here says, it's like an ox-herd holding up a staff, watching that the ox does not disturb people's seedlings. How do we respect all the seeds of Buddha in the world. How to respect all of the different possibilities. And maybe some of them we don't understand what the potential is, what the possibilities are. Maybe in our world we don't understand how some people could have voted this way or that way in the recent election.

[17:16]

But still, there's some seedling that people have. How do we not trample that? How do we respect the different kinds of seeds, how do we nurture them? How do we value protecting and caring from beginning to end for this homecoming and the possibility of homecoming to allow everyone to find their homecoming? So Dogen's verse to this case. Even with morning mist thin, his robe gets damp. Where the evening sun sets, birds fly on distant mountains.

[18:18]

In this painting, an oxherd returns home amid evening radiance, singing of plum blossoms and the moon above the snow. In some ways, there's not so much to say about this. It's so lovely. Even with morning mist thin, his robe gets damp. Where the evening sun sets, birds fly on distant mountains. In this painting, an oxherd returns home amid evening radiance, singing of plum blossoms and the moon above the snow. So, I don't know if Suzuki Roshi read all of the He Karoku, he might have, but he talks about going into, and maybe this is a An image that is not original with Dogen and goes back, I don't know, but Suzuki Roshi talked about going to Golden Gate Park and walking through the fog.

[19:25]

So the fog is very thick. It's thick in San Francisco. And he says, even just walking through the fog, his robes got damp. So here, Dogen is saying, even with morning mist thin, his robes get damp. So we may not, you know, the mist of Buddha nature, the mist of the Buddha way, it may feel thin, you know, the second period, the session day, it's just, you know. The room is a little hazy. The wall is a little hazy. Our mind is a little hazy. And yet, somehow our lips get damp. Something is happening as we allow ourselves to return home, riding the ox. So again, there's this turning within, and then there's this coming back home.

[20:35]

And maybe this image works in both ways. Turning within is returning home, coming back out to the world. and all of its manifestations, all of the different grass chips, is also returning home. We can see it both ways. But Dogen says, even when the morning mist is thin, something penetrates. So, you know, yearning to understand, well, you know, Zhao Zhou asked his teacher, Nanshuang, the same Nanshuang who we talked about yesterday, who had to pay some small portion of compensation. Zhao Zhou asked Nanshuang, what is the way? And Nanshuang said, ordinary mind, everyday mind is the way.

[21:36]

Just the everyday morning mist is the way. And Jayaja said, oh, how do I get to that? And how do I approach that? And Anjuan said, the more you try and approach it, the further away you get. So yearning to understand Buddha is just more yearning. Maybe that's a more wholesome yearning than other kinds of yearning. Yes it is, but how do we actually find our way onto the ox? How do we realize that we're already riding the ox while searching for the ox? So there's this process we talked about yesterday and that of course people resist of actually, you know, the image yesterday which people didn't like was of the nose ring and having your nostril pierced so that you can be led if you're an ox.

[22:49]

There's many other images, but how do we How do we find our seat? How do we find our way to actually allow the morning mist to penetrate? So Dogen says, even with morning mist in, his robe gets damp. Where the evening sun sets, birds fly on distant mountains. So this refers to some image or some imagination or some way of seeing the spaciousness and vastness and beauty and suchness of just this world. The birds on distant mountains.

[23:54]

You know, here in Chicago, we don't have distant mountains. We don't have any mountains, that's all. You know, we can see the distant skyscrapers in the loop, maybe. But seeing a great distance, we have a sense of who we are, of the wideness and vastness of reality. And there are birds flying on the distant mountains. The distant mountains are alive. Then he says, in this painting an oxherd returns home amid evening radiance, singing of plum blossoms and the moon above the snow. So I think he must be referring to an earlier version of the oxherding pictures. There's a picture. The versions, the most popular current versions are the ones that I know of that are after Dogen, so this wasn't what Dogen saw.

[24:59]

But there's an image of the boy riding on the ox and playing a flute, and you can sort of see into the distance. And then there's the next image with the ox forgotten, the next one of the images where he does see the moon. But maybe there were, in Dogen's time, other earlier versions of these pictures. In this painting, an ox returns home amid evening radiance. So I have a painting in, Daksana das remembers settling into home, so we'll see today. But returning home amid evening radiance, the ox sings of, or maybe it's the person riding the ox, or maybe it's both, singing of plum blossoms and the moon above the snow.

[26:13]

So there's a whiteness, and so this also refers to the ox becoming more purified, and the white plum blossoms and the moon and the snow, So in the jewel marriage samadhi that we've been chanting, and we'll chant again today at midday service, it talks about a silver bowl filled with snow, a heron hidden in the moon. Taken as similar, they're not the same. Not distinguished, their places are known. So, we can see the distinction between the plum blossoms and the moon and the snow, and yet there's a radiance that goes through all of them. There's a dampness in the midst of all of it. So, this case in this verse is kind of straightforward, not so much to talk about maybe.

[27:18]

I think on the third day of Sashin, we can invoke this riding home on the ox, just returning home, and not disturbing people's seedlings. How do we act in the world to not cause harm? Basic Buddhist principle of Vahamsa. How do we act on our own seat to not cause harm? How do you not damage your own seedlings? How do you not disturb your own seedlings as you're sitting, just riding along on this ox? How do you take care of and protect and care for this beast that we're riding on? So I could keep babbling, but I think I'll stop.

[28:22]

We'll have time for whatever discussion this afternoon, but if anyone has something to say, please feel free. Or maybe I'll just read the whole case in verse again, just for fun. Zen Master Chongqing Dan asked Bajang, this student yearns to understand Buddha. What is it? Bajang said, you are much like one searching for the ox while riding the ox. Dan said, how is it after understanding? Bajang said, it's like a person returning home, riding the ox. Dan said, I'm not clear. How can I protect and care for it from beginning to end? Bajang said, it is like an ox herd holding up a staff to watch. that the ox does not disturb people's seedlings." And from then on, Dāna grasped the meaning. So this meaning is also, this is the purpose of our practice. It's not idle.

[29:25]

Dogen's verse, even with morning mist thin, his robe gets damp. Where the evening sun sets, birds fly on distant mountains. In this painting, an ox-shirt returns home amid evening radiance, singing of plum blossoms and the moon above the snow. So, any comments? Responses? Enjoy your homecoming.

[30:22]

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