joining us from California. I'm going to talk this evening about Soanka, the Song of the Grass Hut. But before I get into Soanka, I want to talk about the person who wrote the Soanka, wrote the Song of the Grass Hut, Shito Shichon, or Sekito Kisen in Japanese. Joan, do you use the Chinese or Japanese when you talk about these, these old folks? I tend to use the Chinese. Oh, good. Me too. OK. So Shoto Shichan, Sekito Kisen in Japanese, lived from 700 to 790. So I want to talk a little bit about him before I get into the Song of the Grass Hut. He's a very important figure in the Saodong or Soto lineage. Again, he lived 700 to 790. And he's much better known for writing The Santo Kai, as it's pronounced in Japanese, the harmony of difference and sameness, which maybe you all chant occasionally.

[01:09]

And so I want to say a little bit about that, just a little. That's a very important poem, you know, similar in length to the Song of the Grass Hut. And that one is more important kind of philosophically. It's the basis for the Soto and really the Zen philosophical dialectic. So it's called the heart and in our, well, actually in cultivating the empty field, which Joan mentioned, is where my translation of that appears along with the first ever appearance of the Song of the Grass Hut. Do they translate that? Do they chant that at San Francisco Zen Center? I don't know. Well, I want to mention that, at least for as long as I was there, it was never chanted. And we, in this practice place, use the San Francisco Zen Center chant book. And that's the one edition we've made, is the Song of the Grass Hut.

[02:09]

I don't know if they chant that there, but they chanted in Minnesota, they chanted at my places. And yeah, anyway, so I, it first appeared in print in Cultivating the Empty Field, where I translated it. But before I get to the Song of the Grass Hut, the harmony of difference and sameness is very important, because it's this basic philosophical context of the polarity or the dialectic between Well, difference and sameness or the particulars and the universal, the phenomenal and the ultimate. And so in that poem, it talks about difference and sameness and harmonizing them. So it's very important philosophically. And the one line I want to mention in it is that according with sameness, in one translation merging with sameness is still not enlightenment.

[03:17]

So the point of that text is that we have in our Zazen practice, we have some a sense or experience of what we might call sameness, oneness, the ultimate, the universal. But the point of our practice is not to realize emptiness or realize the ultimate or realize oneness. In many spiritual traditions, that's the point of the practice is to realize oneness, to realize the Godhead or whatever. But in our practice, the point is to have some sense of that, but to bring it into the differences, to bring it into our everyday activity. And actually they're not separate. So this, not to get too theoretical, but this comes out of the Huayen tradition in China.

[04:24]

And this is the basis of three generations after Chateau, Dong Shan, who was the founder, technically the founder of Zao Dong, or Soto Zen. Do you ever chant the Hokyo Zama, the Song of the Jomar Samadhi? Every Wednesday. Oh, good. OK. Well, that text goes further into it. And there's a five-fold relationship, sometimes called the five degrees or the five ranks. That's a Soto Zen primary philosophical teaching about how difference and sameness or the ultimate and in particular, integrate. And again, the point is, in this harmony of difference and sameness, the point is to bring realization of the ultimate into our everyday lives. So this is why, you know, I really like teaching in, as I do in Chicago, in a non-residential lay practice place, which is, I guess, what you have here, too.

[05:33]

And that we, and my old Mountain Source Sangha in the Bay Area, and there's a couple people from there. Welcome. So this, how we bring this into our experience in the world is the point of our practice. The point of Zen, the point of Zoto, Zen particularly, but this is the point of Buddhist practice, really. Nirvana and samsara. Okay, so that's the Sannokai, the harmony of difference and sameness. And that's by Shoto or Sekito. And so that's more like the philosophical basis for Soto Zen. So Anka, Song of the Grass Hut, is the practice, how it's actually practiced. This is about this poem, this song that we're going to talk about tonight is

[06:36]

is how to establish a practice place. And, you know, the job of Zen priests is how and what Zen priests learn is how to set up a zendo, how to set up a place of practice. And that's particularly interesting in our current COVID pandemic situation, our current Zoom Zendo situation. But that's what the Song of the Grass Hut is about. It's about how do we find our place of practice? So that's what I want to talk about in terms of this poem. And it's called a song. So-an-ka, so means grass, an means hermitage. or hat, ka means song, just like the song of the Jewel Marrow Samadhi is also called a song. And of course, we don't know if there was actually a melody originally for these poems.

[07:44]

I think maybe there was, that's what they're called. And as you all know, it's easier to memorize. These were all kept alive through oral tradition. So in monasteries and, you know, monks memorized texts. That's what monks do in all kinds of monastic traditions, Western as well as in Asian traditions. But you all know that it's easier to memorize a text when there's a melody, when there's a song. So how many of you could recite the lyrics to some Beatles song? after Grace's hand immediately. Yeah, so if there's a melody, if there's a tune, it's much easier to remember the words. So I don't know what it's been lost, even whether or not there was actually a melody to the Song of the Grasshopper. We don't know. But probably. OK, so I want to talk about, oh, let me say something about the character for Hermitage.

[08:53]

And then I'm going to tell some stories, a couple stories about Chito before I get into the text itself. But Hermitage on there, you know, this hut, he says in the text is 10 feet square and probably Chateau's hut was pretty small. It was built on a rock near his large monastery, a big rock. I've seen pictures of the rock, it's still there. And a fellow from the Zen Center traveled in China and took photos of it. But this character An, which means hermitage, many temples in Japan are called An. There's other names for temples, but some of them are very big and elaborate. Very big and elaborate hermitages or huts.

[09:57]

Anyway, okay. So before I go to the text of the Song of the Grass Hermitage, a couple stories somewhere here. Oh dear, where is it? somewhere. Did you say the cat knocked it over? Yes. That frisky cat. She's not in the room right now. This is from Dogen's extensive record, which Joan mentioned before. And he and Dogen tells numbers of stories about Chateau, but I'm going to mention a couple of them just to get a little idea of Chateau, and I'll say a little bit more about Chateau. So sometimes they just say a monk asked you know the teacher in this case it's they give them they give the monk's name because he later became a teacher himself Tianwang Dao asked Jatob what is the essential meaning of the buddhadharma?

[11:44]

So this is the kind of question, you know, that sometimes students ask teachers and, you know, you might ask Joan sometime and she might have some answer. Anyway, I can tell stories about that question. But Chito said, not to attain, not to know. That's a pretty good answer. Dao said, beyond that, is there any other pivotal point or not? Chito said, The wide sky does not obstruct the white clouds drifting. So I love that image. The wide sky does not obstruct the white clouds drifting. Dogen says something about it, but it's anyway. And you could see how that has to do with, universal and the particular but it's a very practical kind of uh saying worth remembering the wide sky does not obstruct the white clouds drifting when you're sitting in zazen and clouds come up thoughts and feelings the wide sky does not obstruct their drifting

[13:07]

Anyway, that's one saying from Shuto. One more. Oh, and this is a story about Shuto and Mazu. Mazu or Baso in Japanese, were the two great masters in the 700s. There were others, but three generations after Shuto is Dongshan Liangjie. the founder, is considered the founder of Tsao-tung, or Soto Zen, who he wrote the Jewel Marriage Samadhi, and there are lots of stories about him. You can see them in my book, Just This Is It. Mazu was the other great teacher, and there were students who went back and forth between the two of them. Mazu, three generations after Mazu, was Linji, Rinzai, a Japanese founder of one of the other five houses of Chod, which eventually became one of the two main schools in Japan.

[14:14]

So here's a story. So Dogen was telling the story. Zen master Dongyin Feng was leaving Mazu, his teacher, and Mazu said, where are you going? Dongyin Feng said, I'm going to see Shito. So often monks then went back and forth between the two of them. Dongyin Feng said, Mazu said to him, Shito's path is slippery. Deng Yinfeng said, I'm bringing with me a tent pole for traveling theaters. According to the situation, I will improvise. He immediately departed. As soon as he reached Shuteau, Yinfeng immediately circumambulated the meditation hall one time, shook his monk staff to make a sound, stood before Shuteau and asked, what is the essential meaning?

[15:24]

Shuteau said, blue sky, blue sky. Deng Yingfeng was speechless. What would you say? He returned to Mazu and told the story to Mazu. Mazu said, you should go again. And when he says blue sky, you should immediately make a sound of crying. Deng Yingfeng went to Xiu Tou again and asked the same question. What is the essential meaning? Xiu Tou immediately made a sound of crying. was again specious and returned back to Mazu. Mazu said, I told you that Shinto's path was slippery. So anyway, those are a couple of stories about Shinto. Just thought I'd throw those in there. Okay, so Song of the Grass Hut. I'm gonna go through it sort of line by line, but I'm gonna emphasize certain lines. So it starts,

[16:29]

I don't know if maybe just to start if you can, somebody has the text to screen share just to put it up at the beginning. We'll get that up. Okay, but I'll just proceed. So and I just to have it at the beginning, and then I'll ask you to take it down. So it starts, I've built a grass hut where there's nothing of value. After eating, I relax and enjoy a nap. When it was completed, fresh weeds appeared. Now it's been lived in, covered by weeds." So, yeah, this is a grassroots hermitage. And he says, there's nothing of value. There's no valuables there. It's just very simple. It's just a grassroots hermitage, a grass hut. After eating, I just relax and enjoy a nap. Now, to relax and enjoy a nap after eating, you know, that's just sort of living naturally.

[17:41]

When it was completed, fresh weeds appeared. So he's built this hut with grass and weeds appear in the grass in the hut. And there's not so many of these kinds of thatched huts left in Japan because they're expensive to repair. But it used to be a style of homes. And now once it's lived in, it's covered by weeds. So he's talking about this practice, too. He's talking about being covered by weeds. So Suzuki Roshi talks about weeds growing and composting them and mind weeds. So he's also talking about zazen here and relaxing, enjoying a nap. That's not how we usually think of, you know, rigorous zazen practice, but we'll come back to this idea of relaxing.

[18:46]

Again, Shito's hut was built on the rock. Shito means above the rock, literally. Sekito, seki is rock, to means above. So there was literally a rock near his, so he had many students in his monastery, but he had this little hermitage off to the side of the monastery where he went and just lived peacefully. The person in the hut sits here calmly, not stuck to inside, outside, or in between. So that's kind of a strange statement. So he's not caught anywhere. Later on, we'll talk about turning the light within. and then coming without. So in the in the harmony of difference and sameness, he's talking about turning, he's talking about the ultimate, which we may be experiencing meditation turning within an introspection, and then the outside going in into the world.

[20:05]

And he but he's not caught by either. Then what's this in between? So I'm interested in what you think this in-between is. So I will try and leave time afterwards for comments and responses and discussion questions. But this is an interesting statement. But the point is he's not stuck anywhere. He's not abiding anywhere. So he's not caught. He's not caught by attachment to inside. He's not caught by attachment to outside. Just being calm. So this is interesting now. So actually, I think maybe I'll have you, I'll bring it back, but you can take down the text now. I'm just going to be reading from it, but yeah, thank you.

[21:06]

I want to see you all. So this idea of not being stuck, not abiding anywhere, not abiding outside, not abiding inside. And what is this not abiding in between? You might think, oh, I want to abide outside, I want to abide inside. But, you know, maybe I'll hang out, you know, in both of them, or maybe I'll hang out in neither of them, or maybe I'll, you know, what is this in between? Is it in the weeds? You know, where is this in between? But again, living calmly. not abiding it, not abiding either outside, inside or in between. Maybe the dude abides, but Chitra doesn't abide anywhere. So, and living calmly. So places worldly people live, he doesn't live, realms worldly people love, she doesn't love. So it's, this is a retreat from the worldly. And part of our practice is to step aside from worldly values.

[22:09]

So, you know, we go back into the world and there's a line further down where I'll talk about this, this rhythm of practice that he talks about philosophically in the harmony of difference and sameness. But here he's talking about how to establish a place of practice. how to establish this grass hut as a metaphor for how we build our practice place. Whether it's a temple, a zendo, or just our own place where we practice. our own, well, in our current context, our own little cube in the Zoom world or whatever, our own little place where we sit at home, our own way of practicing in the middle of this interesting, terrible situation of

[23:16]

the COVID that's spreading everywhere, and the pandemic of systemic racism that we know about, and the pandemic of difficult elections, and the pandemic of climate chaos, and all the pandemics that we are living in. How do we not live where worldly people live, not love what wealthy people love. So this is a real question here. How do we be in the world but not of it? How do we step away from, I don't know what, consumers' values, the values of I don't know, the values of the worldly, the mundane.

[24:25]

So this is this practice, this grass hut that he's talking about. So the grass hut is a metaphor for how do we find our personal space for practice. OK. And we can come back to any of these lines, The next line is very important, though the hud is small and includes the entire world. So when you sit on your Sabutan, or your chair, or however you express Buddha in your body, so Zazen is our way of sitting like Buddha in this body mind. we express Buddha in our body. Zazen is kind of a performance art. We're performing Buddha in this body-mind. We're expressing, you know, the Buddha that is our body-mind somehow.

[25:37]

And so in a zendo, there's always a Buddha in the center. and Manjushri usually, or sometimes it's just Manjushri Bodhisattva wisdom in a large temple where there's a Buddha hall somewhere else where the Buddha is. But we sit like Buddha, upright, breathing, calm, upright, whatever upright means in your body. So we all have curved spines, but how do we sit? calmly. And though, you know, the space of our, you know, on our Zabaton or on our chair, wherever is small, it includes the entire world. Wherever you are sitting right now, the whole world is there. Even if you're not in a zendo, when you're sitting in your room at home or in your little Zoom cube, everything's there.

[26:47]

Everybody you've ever known is there. It's been a long time since I've seen Rose from Fairfax. Hi, Rose. She's one of my students who I gave lay ordination to, my old sangha. the Bay Area, and Paul, my old sangha, hi. But they're always with me. And people I knew in third grade are with me. And my fifth grade teacher is always with me, even though I didn't like her so much. And, you know, everybody you've ever known is with you in some way. And of course your parents and, you know, teachers and old lovers and childhood pets and everything that ever, everybody you've ever known, and even people you maybe just met at a party once, in some way are part of what you are on your seat right now.

[27:50]

So, though the hut is small, it includes the entire world, and even people you've never known. And now, you know, with the internet and with Zoom and, you know, in my sangha in Chicago. So I was gonna talk about this when we got to the line about will this hut perish or not, but I understand that you've given up your temple space in North Shore. And we've given up our temple, we're giving up our temple space in Chicago. We can't afford to pay rent on something that we can't occupy. So we have this, And, but still, wherever we are practicing includes the entire world. And then the next line, in 10 feet square, an old man illuminates forms in their nature.

[28:56]

How do we illuminate? How do we see? How do we, express and bring light to all of these forms and their nature. I wanna talk about this 10 feet square though. This is a kind of Buddhist Zen slogan. How many of you know about the Vimalakirti Sutra? Some of you do. So this is a really, this is one of the most entertaining Buddhist sutras about a great enlightened layman, supposedly in Shakyamuni Buddha's time. And there's a whole, there's lots of stories, but anyway, one of the stories is that he was sick and he, The Buddha sent all of his disciples and bodhisattvas to go call on him, and long story short, they all went and led by Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom, and he lived in this small room where he was sick, and they all fit in this small room.

[30:16]

This sutra was very popular in China because he was an enlightened layman. And in China, lay people were important. And so the emperor sent an emissary to go check out this hut in this room of Vimalakirti's in India, in the city where Vimalakirti was supposed to have lived. And so this monk went to all the way to India and asked, he went to Vaishali where Vimalakirti was supposed to be and asked, oh, where's the place where Vimalakirti lived? And, you know, the Indian people there kind of laughed because, you know, in Indian sutras are, you know, metaphorical and, you know, they didn't take these things literally. There's a lot more to say about that, but they showed him to some space and he measured it and it was 10 feet square. So he went back to China and told them that all those disciples and bodhisattvas who called on Vimalakirti fit into this 10 feet square room.

[31:28]

And in Sino-Japanese, that's hojo. So in Japan, all monks, all abbess quarters are called hojo. And abbess are referred to as hojo because of Vimalakirti's room, of a joke, but Shinto here says in 10 feet square, this refers to the Vimalakirti's room where all these bodhisattvas and disciples fit in to ask after Vimalakirti's health. And there's a lot more to say about that story. But anyway, in 10 feet square and all mantle looms forms in their nature. So, but this also then is a kind of reference to this small hut that, and there were, you know, so I should have said at the beginning, there were many in China and in Japan, there were many

[32:34]

hermit priests and monks and poets who actually did build these small grass huts, some of them were very famous, like Han Shan, a great poet in China, and Liu Kan, 19th century Japanese Soto monk who's great poet, and who actually lived in small huts like this. But as I was saying, there's, there are also these hermitages that are really large that, and the Hojo, the abbot's quarters, it can be very hard, even though it's called You know, it supposedly had 10 feet. Anyway, so the point is that though the hut is small, it includes the entire world. So I want to keep, I want to move along. Mahayana Bodhisattva trusts without doubt, the middling or lowly can't help wondering will this hut perish or not. So trusting without doubt, the whole question of questioning,

[33:37]

Mahayana Bodhisattva has faith, without doubt. It was just not to say that they don't question. So he's, so Shuto says, the middling or lowly can't help wondering will this parrot perish or not. You know, in Zen, there's sometimes, more in Rinzai, they talk about the great Tao. And that's supposed to be an impetus to, you know, developing some intense questioning about koans and so forth. But, you know, questioning is helpful. It's part of our practice. So, but there's also, there's a kind of right questioning and there's a kind of unhelpful kind of questioning. In Abhidharma, there's what's called skeptical doubt. So if you're questioning in a way that is corrosive to your practice, that's not so helpful. So Mahayana Bodhisattva has faith that includes questioning, but,

[34:44]

So it doesn't have this kind of skeptical doubt. But then Shatohir says, the middling or lowly can't help wondering, will this hut perish or not? So in my Chicago sangha, and for you guys, our hut has perished. Actually, I guess you let go of your temple a little while ago, right? We're abandoning our wonderful little storefront temple. Paul has visited it in North Central Chicago and Joan has visited it when the lease expires at the end of December. And we'll just be on Zoom. Well, we're effectively just on Zoom. So will this Zoom temple perish or not? Well, Perishable or not, the original master is present. So how do we find a practice place, a place of what is it that is our practice place that is perishable or not, where the original master is present?

[36:04]

This is a real question. So this isn't the first time that, you know, temples have perished, you know, In Dogen's time, there was civil war. Dogen had to abandon his temple in Kyoto and head to the hills and move north to the mountains in northern Japan. We don't really know why. It may be just that he was offered a better situation in the northern mountains, or he may have been chased away by some of the established schools in Kyoto. But, you know, there was civil war at times in China. you know, we're living in difficult times. I mean, that's, that's clear. Um, so we have now headed into zoom, uh, and here we are, and, uh, we're still practicing together somehow. Um, so, you know, uh, it's funny.

[37:10]

I don't, are you guys doing all day sittings or anything like that? You are. Every book. Wow. Well, I, you know, I need to talk to you, Joan, because I, we're not doing that yet. I don't, somehow I can't, you know, we do, we sit sometimes, you know, before Dharma talks or in the morning, every morning, five days a week on Zoom. And that's cool. But somehow I can't, I don't feel like an all day sitting, not in the same room. But anyway, maybe we're going to be experimenting with what we can do on Zoom in the next year. Because that's where we are. And I miss Sashin. But how do we find our place of practice? So again, the song on the grass, this song is about how to find a place of practice. And how do we do it? You know, in the zoom world, where we're experimenting, lots of people are experimenting with this. And how do we state that the original master is present?

[38:18]

You know, we could say the original master is Shakyamuni or, you know, what is the original master? How is Buddha here? And one of the things about, Zoom, at least in a Dharma talk like this, I can see your faces, all of you. When I'm sitting in our Zendo in Chicago, you know, we're all in the same room and we're breathing the same air. But, you know, people sitting across the room, I can't see their faces as well as I can see your faces now. So, you know, there are... Zoom in Chicago, there are people from a dozen different states who come sometimes in a couple of different foreign countries. So it's interesting. What is then going to be in here? You know, I'm talking to you and some of you are in Boston. Is that where you are now? The Boston area? That's great.

[39:20]

So something's happening, but we don't know what it is. Anyway, Perishable or not, the original master is present, not dwelling south or north, east or west. Firmly based on steadiness, it can't be surpassed. So this is really important. How do we find steadiness in the midst of the strangeness of the pandemics in this Zoom world? How do we find our steadiness? How do we find calm and resilience? We need that. because our practice allows us to find that. Not that we don't have questions sometimes, not that we don't feel anxiety and question and what's going to happen, you know, we can feel that, but our practice lets us feel some calm. and some steadiness and some resilience, and allows us to return to our breath and to enjoy our breath.

[40:28]

And when we do that, and as we go out into our worlds, or we don't go out, but with the people who we interact with, even if they're not so-called Zen students, we share that. And that's part of the point. Maybe that's the whole point. So firmly based on steadiness, it can't be surpassed. The shining window below the green pines is a technical term. He says jade palaces of a million towers can't compare with it. This is a Chinese cultural term. The window below the pines is a term for study. So this is a term used by the literati or the government So, in some ways, we're studying ourselves, as Togan says, to study the ways to study ourselves.

[41:36]

But it's also about, literally, that's a term borrowed from people studying texts, as we're doing now. Then there's, so I, I'm taking more time than I thought I would. Just sitting with head covered, all things are at rest. So this just sitting is not the same characters as Dogen's Shikantaza, but it means just sitting. But then with head covered, all things are at rest. This head covered is a reference to Bodhidharma. So you may have seen references to Bodhidharma, the Indian monk who came to China a legendary monk who supposedly founded Chan and sat in a cave for nine years. And there are images of him with a quilt over his head. So that's what this is a reference to, with head covered. But it also metaphorically means with our head covered, without thinking a lot.

[42:36]

just sitting physically. This is a yogic practice. It's just sitting. It's not about thinking a lot or figuring things out. Thoughts come, of course, and they're like the clouds in the blue sky. We don't have to get caught up by them. Thus, this monk doesn't understand at all So this mountain monk is a way that Zen monks talk about themselves. This mountain monk doesn't understand it all. So, you know, in a way he's bragging, but this not knowing is kind of Zen slogan, you know. Not to know, as Shuto said, not to know, not to attain, is the essential meaning of Zen. So, of course, there's lots of things that we understand. We all, each of you has a lot of, I'm sure a lot of bodies of knowledge, and that's okay.

[43:44]

And one of the 10 paramitas is to use knowledge for the benefit of all beings, but ultimately, You don't understand it all. So Zen literature is, so Genjo Koan, for example, which maybe you've talked about Dogen's writing, where he talks about different perspectives. So when you go out into the middle of the ocean and look around, you don't see the shoreline. You think it's just round. Or when you go, when you see the water, Humans see it one way. Fish see it another way. Dragons see it yet another way. Hungry ghosts see it differently. So the limitations of human perspectives and human understanding and human faculties. So ultimately, in terms of ultimate reality,

[44:49]

we're limited in our understanding. So we don't really understand it all. I wanna keep going so we have some time for comments or questions. Living here no longer works to get free. So this is when we settle into the space of not being caught up in thinking we have to figure everything out. So we have to understand completely. Living here, we no longer need to work to get free. It's not about making some effort to figure everything out. No longer work to get free, just being present. Dogen talks about presencing as a verb, to bring ourselves to be present with everything, just to see this as this, just to breathe and enjoy our breathing, to feel how we feel, to feel this body as we sit upright. no longer working to get free.

[45:52]

And then there's this interesting line, who would proudly arrange seats trying to entice guests. So there are many great Zen masters historically who didn't have huge, I mean, Shinto had a large monastery with a lot of people. I don't remember how many. There were great Zen masters who had like eight students or five students. It's not a matter of how many guests you can entice. Okay, turn around the light to shine within, then just return. Maybe if we're getting to the end of this, whoever's doing this, please share the text on the screen again. So this is one of the most important lines in, there's several, but one of the most important lines in the text, turn around the light to shine within, then just return. This line, it's, I don't know, two thirds of the way down, three quarters of the way down.

[46:56]

Turn around the light to shine within, then just return. In some ways encapsulates all of Zen practice. Turn around the light to shine within is a traditional Zazen instruction. Sometimes it's take the backward step to turn the light inwardly and illuminate the self. Tolkien says it that way sometimes. Turn around the light to shine within. That's Zazen instruction. So we, in Zazen, we focus within. We focus our attention, our light within. But then he says, then just return. This is the essential rhythm of Zen practice. We, so, um, just in a period of zazen, we turn the light within, but then we come, we return, we come, we stand up, we leave the zendo, or we leave the zoom room and we go back out into our world. Or, you know, if you do an all-day sitting, you turn the light within to shine, just to attend, to pay attention to this situation.

[48:06]

And then just return, go back out and express that in your everyday activity or in the rhythm of practice period. If you go to a practice period at a place like Tassajara, for example. Joan, you were at Tassajara, weren't you? So I was there for a few years. So even, you know, going into a practice period or monastery is about going for some extended period, turning the light within. Sashin too, turning the light within for a week or whatever, or five days. But then we return out to our life in the world. This is the basic rhythm of Zen practice. Turn around the light to shine within, then just return. This one line is the rhythm of all of Zen practice. And how long you go, how long you turn around the light to shine within can vary, but then always we just return.

[49:07]

So in Zen monastic practice, unlike, you know, I guess in Catholic monastic practice this happens sometimes too, but in Christian or Catholic monastic system, you know, monks go in for life. Some people at Tassajara have been there a real long time, but mostly you go there for a while and then you come back out and go to the north shore of Massachusetts and lead a group. Cher, we return. And then he says, the vast inconceivable source can't be faced or turned away from. So in the Jewelmare Samadhi, Dongshan says, turning away and touching are both wrong. It's the same characters there. Literally, it's turning your back.

[50:08]

We can't grasp it in the Jewelmare Samadhi. He says, it's like a massive fire. Turning away and touching are both wrong. We can't ignore it. We can't turn away from it. We can't turn our back on it. We can't really get a hold of it either. So this vast, inconceivable source, Shatoh says, can't be faced or turned away from. How do we stay present, right near it? We can't really look at it. We can't really turn away from it either. So how do we stay near it? So this is how this turning the light to shine within, and then returning this dance, this basic dance of Zen practice. Meet the ancestral teachers, be familiar with their instructions. So that's what we're doing. We're meeting this ancestral teacher, Shito, Shichan, and looking at his instructions.

[51:10]

And these kinds of teaching poems, you know, there's no end to studying them. you know, some of these teachings, we chant them because each time we look at them, there's more to see. He says, be familiar with their instructions. That means, being familiar means really being intimate with them, coming back to them again and again, like the sutras are like studying Dogen. You know, you can, or like reading this, End Mind, Beginner's Mind. You know, you can go back to it again and again. And then he says, bind grasses to build a hut and don't give up. So the point of our practice is just to continue. Set up your practice places. Bind grasses to build a hut.

[52:11]

Metaphorically, find your way to sit upright, wherever you can do that. even if it's on Zoom. Don't give up. Keep coming back. And then my favorite line in the whole song is next. Let go. So first he says, don't give up. And then he says, let go. And the next word, don't give up and let go. Together. Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely. So if you walk into the middle of a Zendo, in the middle of Sashane, it doesn't look like those people are relaxing completely. They look really, you know, it looks very stoic. But really the point of our practice is to relax completely. So whoever's got the text up, you can take that away now.

[53:17]

I want to see you all. Let's see if you relaxed completely. So in the middle of Sashin, it feels like your knees are hurting, your back is hurting, but the point of this practice is to relax completely. I've seen that a few times. Somebody's sitting Zazen. Maybe more than a few times. But I first noticed it when there was a, at the Green Gulch Zendo, and Baker Oshi was speaking, and there was this visiting Rinzai teacher. He was sitting sort of in between where I was and Baker Oshi was, and it was just, I just noticed it. He was sitting upright, but he was relaxed completely. I could see it. and let go of hundreds of years means, you know, part of what's, you know, maybe what's most difficult when we're doing zazen is that hundreds of years of karma, you know, maybe hundreds of lifetimes of karma comes up, our patterns of grasping and anger and confusion, greed, hate and delusion, our own particular patterns in our body, you know, that stuff is, you know,

[54:42]

wherever, you know, and it comes up and we see it. And sometimes you can just let go of things, you know, third day of seishin. Mostly you have to kind of befriend it, get to know it. Know it so well that you don't have to act on it and react to it. So let go of hundreds of years and relax completely. This takes a lot of work to relax completely. This is a yogic practice. And the point is just to continue. Don't give up. Open your hands and walk, innocent. So Uchiyama Roshi talks about opening the hands of thought. Thousands of words, myriad interpretations are only to free you from obstructions. So Zen is supposed to be this teaching beyond words and letters. That was one in Japan who wouldn't let his students read anything.

[55:53]

If magazines came in the mail, they would be confiscated. Some of the Americans who were practicing there had to get special permission to get language books, because he couldn't speak English. They wanted to study Japanese, and they had to get special permission to get books to study Japanese, because they weren't allowed to read anything. So that's a little bit fundamentalist. Actually, this beyond words and letters doesn't mean not studying. And particularly in Suzuki Roshi's lineage, we study. But the point of studying, and there's libraries full of Zen commentaries on how to go beyond words and letters. The point of all the studying and all the texts is just to encourage us to practice, to relax completely. And some people are more, you know, some of us are more intellectual or whatever.

[56:54]

And I happen to be an academic, so oh well, I'm stuck with it. Anyway, thousands of words, myriad interpretations are only to free you from obstructions. If you want to know the undying person in the hut, The person in the hut, in the zendo, who's beyond conditioning, who's beyond life and death, who's not caught by inside, outside, or in between, by life and death, don't separate from this skin bag here and now. So skin bag is a kind of zen jargon for this body. And when we first started chanting this, my sangha in Chicago, one of my wonderful students was very offended to think that she was a skin bag. She just had so much trouble with that. So I'm sorry I've taken up so much time.

[58:09]

Just a few minutes if anybody has a comment or question about anything I've said. Please let me know. Raise your hands. What a delight, Taigan. I'm going to break the ice here. I hope people will speak. So I'm not going to speak long, but Taigan, thank you so much. This is so wonderful to kind of break this down line by line. I think I mentioned to you that we chant this on Fridays. So we'll be chanting this tomorrow morning and we'll be thinking of you. Um, the question I've been having, where does this text appear in Shih Tzu's life. Was this toward the end of his life that he wrote this? Or was, where does this figure, like, especially with regard to the Sando Kai? No, no, I don't think there's any, I don't, it's, it appears in the Taisho, in the, you know, in the, you know, in the record of his life, but I, in the texts of Zen, but I don't know.

[59:20]

I don't think we know. It's interesting because in my mind, it's always kind of a seasoned practitioner who just relaxes into his or her being after all that effort, all those decades of effort. You know, as you said, the Sandokai, it's got a very different quality from the Song of the Grass Hut. Yeah, I imagine this was later after the Sanda Kai. Sanda Kai, again, is like this really seminal philosophical, you know, basic philosophy of Zen, and very, very important. This is more like, again, how to find your, your space of practice. So, you know, it's talking about a grasshopper, it's really about your yours us and see, yours us and body. So, but yeah, we don't, we don't know. So we, you know, we have these stories, but we don't know so much about, you know, the history of, of Shuzo's life, so.

[60:25]

Thank you. I really encourage people to, it may be, yeah, John, great. Thank you. I really like Chateau, and it was very helpful to step through this. I have two questions. One of them's kind of pedantic, and one of them's maybe a little bit more to the point of the meaning of the text. The pedantic one is that in Chinese, was this poem a formal poem with rhyme, meter, and rules, sort of pertones, or is it a free verse poem? I don't know enough Chinese to know about tones, but yeah, it's, I have the Chinese here and yeah, it's, it is a formal poem. It's, each line is, it's a seven character line, each line, with there's some exceptions. Some of the lines are six, so he breaks that a little bit, but it's basically seven character lines. So it's, it is a formal poetic scheme, so. But I don't know about tone, so I can't really say. The more question, more to the point, and this is one of these questions where I'll reveal myself to be a bad Buddhist again.

[61:33]

But you know, you're talking about, you know, neither inside, outside, nor in between. And this sounds very much like this weird Indian logic of the tetralemma, you know, not birth, not death, not birth and death, and so on and so forth. And when I hear this stuff, to me, it often just sounds like, oh, here's the Zen master trying to out-Zen somebody else with the rhetorical flourish, maybe saying it's a little bit past your logical mind and stuff like that. But it kind of pisses me off somehow. And I just wonder sometimes if there's really anything behind it or, hey, it's just words, and I'm just out-Zening everybody else. Well, he's challenging you. So, I don't know, it's poetic and it's, you know, it's rhetorical, but it's also, if you take it on, if you take it on, it's a real, you know, you can take it, you might, you are welcome to take it on as a real question, or you can say, well, it's just rhetorical, you know?

[62:36]

And it's not, maybe it's not the most interesting line in the whole song. Thank you very much. Yeah. Yes, Wendy. Hi, thank you so much. I love this poem, and it's such a treat to hear you talk about it. I have a question about the word illumines. Near the beginning, an old man illumines forms in their nature. Is that important? What's he doing? Hold on, let me find it. This is the one in 10 square feet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can find the character. Yeah, it just means to... I will find... I mean, this is my translation, so it might be translated otherwise, but I'm trying to find the character.

[63:42]

I can't find it here, but anyway, it's, oh, wait a second. Yeah, it's just, it means to clarify, to light up. I mean, it has just the English word to talk about that. It implies to, you know, forms in their nature. It means to look at reality and to, Oh, I found it, okay. Yeah, yeah. It actually might be translated as to liberate forms in their nature.

[64:48]

So it's to reveal, to illuminate, to shine, to make clear all of those meanings that are implied. One of the things about the Chinese characters is that they have a lot of overtones. So to translate them, you have to choose, you know, one word, but actually often, uh, there could be, you know, multiple, uh, multiple meanings involved. And in the Chinese, they're all there. And in English, English is more precise, fortunately and unfortunately. So, uh, in that case, it means, uh, it also means to clarify, to liberate, to, uh, you know, to light up, so. Thank you. But to look at, to look at forms and their nature. Yeah. Thank you. I don't know how, I don't know what the timing is.

[65:52]

I think, no, we've got a little bit more time. I think Rose had a question or a comment. Yeah. Well, I just wanted to thank you all for having this opportunity to hear Taigan teach again. It's been years. And this was always one of my favorite chants that we did when we, Mountain Source, practiced together. And when I first heard it, I just laughed out loud when we got to the skin bag part. I just loved it. And I've always loved, I really like this. I actually have a book called Inside the Grass Hut that Ed Connolly wrote, and Taigan has the introduction, which I founded at Tassajara a couple summers ago. Anyway, this has been a very precious chant to me personally, so I would just I'm really happy for this opportunity. And my only question is what's with the eye patch?

[66:53]

Oh, yeah, this is I had a retinal detachment a couple years ago. And after several surgeries, I, you know, I can sort of see with it, but it's real blurry. So if I want to see clearly, I just wear it for reading and for you know, it's a It's okay. It's just, yeah. So I'm okay, but it's great to see Rose and a couple of plugs. So Ben Connolly is a young priest from the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center. And he wrote this book about this. It's a good, it's a good book. It's a practice book inside the grass hut about this chant. And so, because he wrote that book, I didn't have to write a book about this, this chance. Because I would have written a different book. But, you know, anyway, so I recommend that book, Inside the Grass Hut, is that what it's called? Yeah. It's how to, how you, he applies it to modern day life, you know, living in the modern world.

[67:57]

I just read it very slowly. And I just happened to restart reading it. So, That's one reason I signed up to do this. It's a good book, but if I may, Joan, another plug, you're all welcome to come to another Zoom at the Ancient Dragon Zen Gate. Go to ancientdragon.org and we have Sunday morning and Monday evening, Chicago time, Dharma talks, and we have lots of other things going on too, morning satsangs and all kinds of other stuff. So you're all welcome to check out ancientdragon.org and come to our events there. We will check that out. And, you know, many people know Lori because Lori comes every year for people who don't know for to help us with sewing. She's our sewing teacher and training Jeet Kune to be a sewing teacher. And also just this diaspora. It's so beautiful. People here know Ben Connolly. Also, he's visited twice Zen Center North Shore.

[69:01]

But I don't think he ever spoke on the grass hut. He has spoken a few times at Ancient Dragon. Another plug is that at ancientdragon.org, you can go to our podcast archives. And there are lots and lots of, I think, 700 some different talks, people like Rebecca Solnit. Oh, wow. and Peter Coyote, and Joan Amaral, and Norman Fisher. And anyway, so you can check out that too. We'll do that. We'll visit you. We can Zoom in to Chicago. But I want to just take a backward step again, because we have a few more minutes. And it is such a joy and a delight and an honor to have you here. So Kate and then Lita, I think, had questions. Hi, Kate. Hello. Thank you so much. so wonderful to go line by line.

[70:02]

And there's something that, you know, with the Zoom world we're in, this sort of interesting concept of, you know, the in between or not in between here and there, that just, it's like a different form. And my question is about the sitting, you know, the sitting in Zazen, you know, against the wall or in a wall and in the zendo, that was a very kind of grounding way for me to sit zazen, but now I kind of look out the window and we're all looking in all these different positions. But I wondered, was that orthodox always? And like, even in the situation of this song, the expectation of sitting kind of with the wall or not, And if maybe the Zoom situation might have an effect on that practice.

[71:07]

Yeah. So, you know, when we started doing sitting at Ancient Dragon in Chicago, people would sit like this during Zazen facing the screen. But we realized at some point that that's really distracting. So what we're, our form is now to when you enter the screen to, I don't know what you do here, but to bow and then face away from the screen for Zazen, except for the teacher and maybe the speaker, but then we face together. But, you know, in India, the monks wandered around, except during the rainy season when they'd come together and sit with the Buddha, but they would sit facing a tree. when they were wandering around. But in China, they started having meditation halls. That didn't happen in India, that happened in China. And then it continued in Japan. So there was a particular form for the monastery that developed in China.

[72:11]

So yeah, facing a wall is part of the tradition. Bodhidharma sat facing a wall in a cave. But, you know, in some ways, if you've been doing that for a while, so I, you know, when I'm sitting in, back when we had, a long, long time ago, when we had a temple on Asendo in Chicago, I would sit facing out and face, and Patrick, maybe you'd do that and did that in Santa Cruz. So I would face, you know, to see, you know, how everybody is, but, you know, sitting facing the floor, it's the same as facing the wall after a while. So I have a story from a shisho ceremony, but I won't go into it. It's a long story. But facing the, you know, at some point after a while, you're always facing the wall. Lita, did you have something? We have a couple more minutes.

[73:15]

I don't have a question, I just wanted to, I'm grateful you're here, Tegan, and I'm grateful that I was able to make it and it was an enjoyable experience. And I like, I have this affinity with the grass hut because I've often referred to my house or apartment as a grass hut. It's this rundown building. And so I often called it a grass hut. But what's coming up for me is it includes the whole world. Because this particular space that I'm in right now, home, for me has been the most difficult place to sit still. I can sit zazen in the zendo, or in the woods, or at the beach, or anywhere else. It's often an enjoyable, pleasant experience. It wasn't always.

[74:17]

It's a lot of work in the beginning, but at home is when all the hundred years of stuff comes up, whether it's the screeching of the cows out the window, or the dog barking to come into this space, or my kid telling me to shut up when I'm chanting, or the gym across the street with their Zumba pump. It does include the whole world. So aluminum forms in their nature is noticing what's coming up when all this is happening in this entire world. Well, I hear the screeching and the banging out the window. What's coming up inside of me is this bodily experience. Maybe it's a bit tense or a tension. But then there's also what's going on outside too, what's causing me to feel like that.

[75:22]

And then there's the space in between. That's the space of practice, the breathing and noticing what's happening. There's a lot going on there. I can hear it. Yeah. But that's, you know, that's a really important, interesting point. Maybe in between is the breath. Thank you. You know, I mean, there's some people who come to a sitting place and they've been sitting for a long while at home. and they've never sat in a group before. I've met people like that, and they're used to sitting at home, and they come to a sangha, and that's interesting. There's other people, I remember a guy who'd lived at Green Gulch for numbers of years, but he had never sat on his own outside of the zendo, and I just thought that was really strange. And then, you know,

[76:25]

All of the, so, you know, for me, when I sit at home, there's so many distractions. There's all the things, all the projects I'm working on. And, you know, it's easy to be distracted, but I, you know, okay, I can sit and face the wall or, you know. I think the point of practice is to not find some pure place where there's no no distractions. The point of practice is, you know, thoughts come up, the blue sky is not disturbed by the white clouds drifting, right? To be able to sit in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of a crazy election, in the middle of confronting systemic racism in the middle of how do we find our way to be present? I remember somebody, a priest at Tassajaras, Joan knows her, who was really upset when she could hear the sound of the generator near the Zendo, like it was supposed to be pure and no sounds.

[77:42]

It's funny, you know, so going off to Tassajara is as close to, you know, there's no ambient light at night and it's really quiet except for the sound of the creek. And, you know, I sat next to a guy who, a German guy who was, his father was a symphony a concert musician, and this poor guy, he would hear in the sound of the creek, Beethoven's symphony, and he would stop in the middle, and he would drive him nuts. So, you know, whatever's going on around our grass hut, or inside our grass hut, or in the thoughts and feelings coming up, how do we stay presence and upright and calm in the middle of being in the world.

[78:46]

That's the point. And that's what we, and that's what, you know, I think we have to offer to people in the world around us, even if they don't practice, just as an example of being present and calm and resilient and, and, responding appropriately to the suffering in the world from that place. So finding some ultimate purity is not the point. My favorite koan comes from a great American Yogi who said, if the world were perfect, it wouldn't be. This was a great American league Yogi anyway. Some of you know who he was. Anyway, do I have time for one more question or comment?

[79:49]

You know, I was beginning to feel like I was taking advantage of you here. If you're up for it, it feels like just a wonderful conversation that's getting going, but it is getting late. Maybe one more question or comment, if anybody has anything. I'm here, I may as well. You're an hour behind us, right? It's only 7.30, your time. For us, it's the late hour of 8.30. Well, you know, Taigan, since you're up for it and I don't see a hand, I do want to share with you that when we first started chanting this, there was a young man who came to our practice place for the very first time who had just been released from prison. And when he heard this text, he felt that it was talking about him. 10 square feet reminded him of his prison cell. And then last night I was on a panel which was looking at the culture of incarceration in Massachusetts, but generally speaking.

[80:55]

And I was thinking about this line again, the line that you love and the two lines that I love. Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely. Open your hands and walk innocent. Just in the spirit of not giving up on anybody, how we might divide the world up, but the whole mindset around how we view people who are incarcerated and how without even knowing it, we're dehumanizing them. So this always comes up for me every time we chant this. I think about this young man who had been released from prison Thank you, Clint. And you used the word liberation, I think, when you were talking about that line that Wendy asked about, illumines, liberating forms in their nature. Anyway, there's just so much there. Thank you so much for illumining this for us, just with your presence and with all of your inquiry, your years and years and years of study and dedication.

[81:58]

What a treasure you are. Thank you so much, Ty, again. Thank you everybody for being here to witness this and to participate and to enact it to bring it alive. So we're going to end by chanting the Pali refuges and we'll bring those up so that we can all end our practice day together. They're in the chat. Buddha Sarnam Gacchami Dhammam Sarnam Gacchami Sangham Sarnam Gacchami DUTYAM PI BHUTAM SARNAM GACCHAM MI DUTYAM PI DHAMMAM SARNAM GACCHAM MI

[83:17]

DUTYAM PI SANGNAM SARNAM GACCHAM MI TATYAM PI BUDDHAM SARNAM GACCHAM MI TAT YAM PE DA MA SAR NAM GA CHA MI TAT YAM PE SANG NAM SAR NAM GA CHA MI

[84:09]

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