Good morning, friends. So I'm thinking on some of these Sunday mornings to do talks on some of the major texts that we chant during service, which we do Monday evening and during longer sittings. And I'm going to start today by talking a little bit about the Song of the Grasshopper. And a number of you have heard me talk about it before, maybe a few times. But I wanted to go through it and talk about a few lines and their emphasis on our practice. So let's start, even though we don't usually chant like this on Sunday mornings, let's start by all chanting it. And it's on page nine of the chant book. And Huguette Sasson, would you please introduce the, just announce the chant, and we'll then, and then just all join in.

[01:04]

♪ Song of the grass, ha-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la I built a grass hut where there's nothing of value. After eating, I relaxed and enjoyed a nap. When it was completed, fresh leaves appeared. Now it's daylifting. The person in the hut lives here calmly, not stuck to inside, outside, or in between. Places where only people live, he doesn't live. Rounds where only people love, she doesn't love. Though the hut is small, it includes the entire world. In ten feet square, an old man illumines forms of their nature, a Mahayana Buddhist. I couldn't trust without a doubt. The medium or lowly can't help wondering, will this hut perish or not?

[02:09]

And perishable or not, the original master is present, not dwelling south of me. north, east, or west. Firmly based on steadiness, it can't be surpassed. A shiny window below the green pine. Jade palaces or vermilion towers can't compare with it. Just being with head covered, all things are at rest. Thus this mountain monk doesn't understand it all. Living here he no longer works to get free. Who would proudly arrange seats trying to entice guests? Turn around the light to shine within, let us return. The vast inescapable source can't be faced or turned away from. Meet the ancestors. Natural teachers seem familiar with their instructions. Bowing grasses to build a hut and don't give up. Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely.

[03:09]

Open your hands and walk in a sense. Thousands of words to marry your interpretations are only to free you from obstructions. If you want to know the undying person in the hut, don't separate from this skin bag here and now. So thank you all for joining in that. Again, numbers of you have studied this text with me before, but I think it's useful for our newer participants. So a little bit of background. The author of this is an old Chinese Zen teacher named Shuto, or in Japanese, Sekito, who lived from 700 to 790. So the texts that we chant and sometimes talk about are many of them from 8th or 9th century China, Zen masters then, some from 12th century China, some from the 13th century Japanese Soto founder Dogen, and some sutras that go further back to India.

[04:18]

some back to the time of the Buddha, 400 B.C. or so. This teacher, Shoto, also wrote the Harmony of Difference and Sameness, which we also chant sometime, and I'll talk about on some Sunday morning soon. And that one is more about the background philosophy of Zen, but this is more about our practice. and this meditation practice we do. So again, I'm just going to focus on several lines, not the whole text, but this seems appropriate to reconsider since it's been a year last month since we've occupied this wonderful grass hut of ancient dragons and get here. And I'm not sure that, you know, it's been lived in a little bit.

[05:20]

I don't know if it's covered by weeds yet. We've certainly increased the adornments and it still feels pretty new and fresh each time I sit here. So, and we will be having a temple dedication ceremony finally in a couple of months. We'll be talking about that tomorrow evening and I'll talk about that more later. Anyway, this is about the space of practice. It's about developing a sangha practice place like this, but also each of us, for each of us, our own cushion, our own life of practice, formally together like this here at Ancient Dragons' End Gate, but also in our lives in the world. What is our grass hut? What is our space of practice? develop that and support that and encourage that. So we'll have time for discussion, and if there's some lines I don't get to that you want to ask about, please feel free.

[06:21]

And I'm glad we have a few college students here this morning, so this is a little bit about Zen practice and Buddhist practice. But I want to jump to the second half of this text. and say a little bit. So there's this line, just sitting with head covered, all things are at rest. Thus, this mountain monk doesn't understand at all. So as with a lot of Zen poetry, there are often references to other teachers and to basic Buddhist teachings that are implied in this. The practice we do here is called just sitting. So our basic meditation practice, we just sit and whatever comes up is how we engage Buddha nature, how we express Buddha nature, including thoughts and feelings and sensations and discomfort in our knees or whatever. But this line, just sitting with head covered, all things are at rest, this is specifically a reference to the supposed founder of Chan or Zen in India, Bodhidharma.

[07:32]

And we have an image of him standing on the altar on the side that comes from his temple in China where he taught. But there's a story about him that he sat in a cave for nine years when he came to northern China from India. And there are images of him with a quilt covering his head. So this is literally a reference to that. But poetically, just sitting with head cover, all things are at rest. The point of this practice is not to figure something out. So if you're a college student and you're supposed to be studying Buddhism, you have to understand basic Buddhist teachings. But our practice is about something deeper than what we usually conceive of with our head, even though we talk about it a lot and there are libraries full of writings about it.

[08:33]

Basically, this is about how do we see how all things are at rest? This doesn't mean eliminating all thoughts. It doesn't mean eliminating all feelings. It doesn't mean reaching some supernormal state and becoming some great icon like Bodhidharma. Just sitting with head covered, all things are at rest. We allow our breathing, inhale and exhale, and we sit. I remember Kategiri Roshi, the founder of Minnesota Zen, saying in a practice period at Tassajara, he said this often, don't stick your head into it. So things come up in our city. Things come up in our life. We all have some problem. Our world has lots of problems. Each of us in our life, we have various challenges. Still, and sometimes it's important to try and figure out how to respond, so it's not about getting rid of that, but this sitting practice is about something deeper.

[09:44]

It's not that we put to rest everything, because that's more activity on our part. It's to see how things are at rest, how things are okay just as they are. So just sitting with head covered, all things are at rest. Thus, this mountain monk doesn't understand at all. This mountain monk is a phrase that many Zen teachers use to refer to themselves. And again, maybe here in the Midwest, we should say this prairie monk or whatever. But in most of Asia and in California, the images of mountains and rivers, as I've talked about, are important in Zen. Anyway, Shatoh is saying he doesn't understand at all. And there are other stories about him saying that, that he doesn't understand Buddhism at all. And again, the point isn't to reach, to figure out something, to reach some understanding.

[10:50]

The point is, how do we find this life, this practice, where we no longer work to get free, where we see the freedom that is already here? We don't think of freedom as something somewhere else. We don't think of enlightenment as something that happens on some mountaintop in Tibet or California. But right here, how do we enjoy and appreciate this life? this opportunity, this situation. And our sitting, our meditation practice, which we then carry into our everyday experience, is about just facing that, and appreciating that, and enjoying that, and bringing our energy, and life, and love to the world in whatever way works today, this week. How do we live in this space of the grass hut?

[11:53]

So, a few more lines I want to talk about. Turn around the light to shine within, then just return. Some of you have that written on the back of your Roxas. Turn around the light to shine within, then just return. In some ways, this line contains all of Buddha's practice. So the meditation we just did, one of the basic instructions for this is to turn the light inwardly to illuminate the self. Sometimes it says to take the backward step. Even though we sit with eyes open facing the wall, we focus on this inward presence, this body, this mind. How's thinking? How does it feel? without trying to figure it out, without trying to reach some particular state. How is it actually? This morning, this inhale, this exhale.

[12:57]

So we turn around the light to shine within. We see the quality of our own being, not our idea of ourselves, not our idea of the world. We all do have some notion of self and the world and enlightenment and all these things, but how do we shine the light, illuminate, quietly illuminate our inner being, our inner generosity? How do we see this, including our difficulties and problems and restlessness and all of that we have to look at, our habitual patterns. How do we become friends with ourself? How can we be willing to be present and upright and breathe into this body, this mind? So all of that is implied in this turnaround light to shine within. The basic instruction for our formal meditation. But the second part is equally important, then just return.

[14:01]

So the bell rings and we get up and we do walking meditation or we go, or we produce a Dharma talk together or we and go into the kitchen and bow in and do temple cleaning, or we get up and walk out into Chicago and into our lives, and how do we then carry this space without trying to figure it out, without holding on to some idea of it, how do we carry this space of turning the light to shine within? How do we carry that into our world, into our relationships and our work and our life? our everyday stuff. So as I mentioned to those who had meditation instruction this morning, we emphasize sustaining this practice, not some particular understanding or experience, but how do we find a way, a rhythm in our life where we can do this practice a number of times a week and remember, oh yeah, here I am. So we turn around the light to shine within, then we come back because

[15:07]

Part of what we see when we turn around the light to shine within is the way in which we are deeply connected to everything in our world and the world. And our cares and concerns and our problems are not separate from each other and everybody else in our life and the world as a whole. So how do we return to the world? This is... There are ways to talk about this in terms of a kind of technical issue. In Buddhism and in all religious practice, I would say, there's some impetus to turn within and focus within and put aside the world. And sometimes we need to do that. So in early Buddhism, not necessarily in practice, but philosophically, there's this idea of purifying the self. and focusing on oneself. And we need to do that too.

[16:11]

But also we have this idea of returning, of how do we bring that out into the world. Ultimately, they're not separate. Our efforts to return to the world and see how we are in our activity in our everyday activity, in our creative activity, in our daily chores, in our work life and so forth, that actually informs this body and mind when we turn around the light to shine within, when we stop and sit and take a little break in our daily life and stop and face the wall and just sit. So they're actually not separate. The idea of the bodhisattva, the enlightening being, who's dedicated to relieving suffering and awakening all beings, partly has to do with something we realize when we turn the light to shine within, which is that we're not separate, actually.

[17:13]

That many beings, many people, all the people you've seen in the last week, are part of how you were on your cushion this last period of satsang, whether or not you thought of them. somehow this body and mind that we examine in our sitting is connected. And the more we see that, the more we see that it is important to return and make efforts in our life to live in a kind of upright way. And that then, there's a mutual feedback loop that then informs our sitting. And also it is in ways we can't, usually tell it affects things in the world, the people around us. So this line, turn around the light to shine within, then just return, is very important for our practice. And then he says, the vast inconceivable source can't be faced or turned away from. So this idea of the source of our being,

[18:21]

the source of our life, the source of our world, very different from Western religions where there's some creator deity who's maybe still around, sitting up in the sky in a cloud or something. In Buddhism, the source is here, right now. All of us together, I'm sitting up here talking, but it's only possible because each of you is listening in your own way, on your cushion. And everything is like that. with each inhale and with each exhale. Together we create the world. So how do we care for that source? How do we express our gratitude for that source, for the upwelling of life, the renewal of life that comes in various ways, in various rhythms in our life. So there's a rhythm to our practice.

[19:24]

Partly it's turning the light to shine within. Partly it's returning. There's some rhythm to our life and to our practice. And this source, this higher power, greater being, however you want to refer to it, is vast. And the point that Zen emphasizes is that it's inconceivable. It's beyond our conceiving our conceptualizations, our discriminations. It's not that we should get rid of our discriminating consciousness. There are ways to use that that are helpful. But this ultimate mystery, this ultimate reality, that we get glimpses of in our city. is inconceivable. It can't be faced, and it can't be turned away from. So there's something we chant that's related to this called the Song of the Jewel of Meru Samadhi, and there he says, turning away and touching are both wrong, for it is like a massive fire.

[20:28]

We can't get a hold of it, but we can't ignore it either. So this something inconceivable is at the heart of our life, the heart of our being, the heart of our practice. So this space of the grass hut is how and where we take care of it. Meet the ancestral teachers. So this is what we're doing by studying these old Chinese or Japanese guys. But there are ancestral teachers actually everywhere in our culture, men and women. Asian and European, and so forth. So I talked about Martin Luther King on Martin Luther King Day, and I'm going to be talking about him next Sunday when I talk about love and Zen, because he has a nice writing about love. There are many ancestral teachers. Shuto says, be familiar with their instructions, bind grasses to build a hut. So we have put together this wonderful space that many of you in this room made possible and continue to make possible.

[21:37]

And yet there's also this bind grasses to build a hut also has to do with how do we take care of the weeds and grasses in our own life? and create our space for practice, each of us in our own way, for our own life. And then don't give up. So there's this very ironic juxtaposition here, don't give up and let go of hundreds of years. Again, this rhythm, hold on, stick to it, don't give up and let go of everything. Sometimes it's called rolling and unrolling, or Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, with his sword cuts everything into two, or he cuts everything into one. There's this rhythm in our life and in our practice that's at the heart of our practice. Don't give up and yet let go. Or maybe, don't give up, let it go. So there's this tension in our life and in our practice and in reality itself.

[22:44]

This line, let go of hundreds of years and relax completely. So this is the part of our practice that's maybe most difficult. More difficult than getting your legs into some funny position or some ache in your knees or your back or whatever. Let go of hundreds of years. When we sit and face ourselves, when we turn the light within, we also see these conditioned patterns of thinking and grasping and aversion, trying to get things that we want and don't have, trying to get rid of things that we don't want, that we do have. Our usual way as human beings of being in the world, trying to manipulate stuff out there, or maybe ourselves, to get what we think will make us happy. It's not exactly that that is bad. Again, it might be good, it might be bad, but this basic instruction, let go of hundreds of years, refers to, sometimes in Buddhism we talk about many past lifetimes.

[23:57]

We can understand that metaphorically or whatever, but let go of hundreds of years, all of the grasping and conditioning and self-centered thinking that we have, we see when we sit. And it can be very painful to see our way of huffing ourselves up or trying to, you know, improve our status or situation or get what we think we want or manipulate other people. This is all part of how we are as human beings. So you have to forgive yourself for being a human being. This is a practice for human beings, not for special beings sitting up on some mountain. Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely. So as we sit upright with our mudra, and if we sit for a while, it may not feel like you're relaxing completely. You may have muscle tension, and probably will, but the goal is just to relax completely.

[25:02]

To let go. To actually be willing to meet your life without holding on to anything. To not being stuck with any of the thoughts and feelings or situations. meet our life openly. So he says, open your hands and walk innocent. There's this phrase in my friend Chiraco Okamura's book, opening the hand of thought. So we have thoughts and feelings as we sit, and yet this letting go, this opening our hands, We, this gesture, even shaking hands, common gesture that we make when holding up our hand. These go back to medieval times when people would shake hands to prove they weren't holding weapons. Here I am, open hand. And our thinking also, we have weapons in our thinking that we wield against others or often against ourselves.

[26:06]

How can we open the hand of thought? Relax completely. Somehow paradoxically, this requires some effort, some not giving up, some continuing to pay attention to, who is this body and mind today on this cushion? And returning to awareness of that, but yet relaxing completely. So we keep our eyes open so that we don't relax so much that we fall asleep, because the point is to pay attention. to how it is. That Buddha nature is unfolding here, now. So, he says, thousands of words, myriad interpretations are only to free you from obstructions. So, for college students or other intellectuals who may be here, it's okay to read the thousands of words and the myriad interpretations.

[27:10]

It's okay to study this. But in Zen, this is just to help you let go of all of our habits of trying to control our life or the world. Trying to, thinking that we can control our thinking even. So you may have experienced, for those of you sitting the first time, as you were sitting, that there were thoughts that came up. Laundry lists, or song lyrics, or who knows what. these continue to unfold. So we have these teachings, these texts that we chant sometimes, just to free us from obstructions. And then the final line, and I hope we can have some discussion and questions and comments about this. If you want to know the undying person in the hut, well, of course, all of us. will eventually pass away.

[28:11]

It's very, very likely. And we have had a memorial service Monday night for three people and the scarves are still on the altar. And we continue to need memorial services because people keep dying. And yet, part of the point of relaxing completely is to see that which is beyond our usual idea of birth and death, that which is this source of energy and life in our life that we build practice sets for on our cushion or on Irving Park Road. So, to see that which goes beyond this, and this most important instruction, don't separate from this skin bag here and now. So, I know Dawn doesn't like this fray skin back, but this is a kind of old-sense slang for this body, this skin back.

[29:14]

There's other ways to talk about it, but anyway. Earth suit, yeah. Maybe if we print a new version of our chant book, we'll use earth suit. But anyway, here we are in our earth suits. And again, there's this impetus in some of Buddhism and in much of religious practice generally to kind of escape from the world of suffering, to reach some higher state of being. But Zen's not about getting high. It's not about becoming some other person than who is sitting on your cushion right now. Don't separate from this earth suit, skin bag, whatever here and now. This body, this mind, this is how we find our unique expression of Buddha nature. So don't run away from yourself. we come back to our cushion, our sitting space, and inhale and exhale and feel how it feels to be this person again and again.

[30:28]

It's not that we get some understanding or experience and then we're done with it. It's a lifestyle, a lifetime process of being aware and awake and finding how we can express our kindness, whether you do it through this practice or some other practice. how to not run away from yourself, how to actually see how it is to be the person sitting on your cushion right now. And this can be painful because there may be things, this happens to some people, that there are things about their skin bag or a suit that they don't like. Some of us feel this. We see our own patterns of grasping, or self-centeredness, or whatever. So we also have a meditation and recovery group here to help people see more clearly our own patterns of grasping and addiction, and how do we practice with that?

[31:30]

How do we learn this process of letting go? It's not something, you know, it can happen sometimes that we just let go of everything. It happens. There are all these Zen stories about that. But even then, how do we sustain a practice of letting go, of relaxing completely? Here, in this life, not in some other life we want to have, but in the life we are creating here this week in Chicago, each of us in our own way. So again, many of you have heard me talk about this teaching poem before, some haven't. I want to have some discussion. Please feel free. Questions, especially for the new people, but also if any of you who've studied this text before have comments to add, please feel free, or if you have questions about some of the other lines. Hey, David.

[32:40]

So I like that line, opening the hand of thought, in the book. So opening the hand of thought is usually where it seems we're grabbing on. Yes. Holding on to thoughts, and quite often thoughts about ourselves, which consists of a body and a mind. So when you open something that you're holding on to, it tends to fall. So it seems very similar to Dogon's line about dropping the body and mind. It's the same way. Yeah, so often we are afraid to let go. We think that some idea of who we are is crucial to our being. And so, you know, be gentle about letting go. Again, I feel this teaching poem has a lot to say about the inner dynamics of our Zen practice.

[33:56]

So questions and comments, please. Yes, Nathan. I like the phrase, and don't give up. Yeah. So, you know, we don't know how long we're going to live, but we're still alive. So don't give up. You're not dead yet. You too. Yes, Josh. I've heard this phrase, the price of enlightenment, by nature, is eternal vigilance. Yes. I feel like that's kind of saying the same thing. Yeah, that's one of my favorite Zen lines from a great old Zen master, Tom Jefferson. who had his flaws and problems, but yes, it's a wonderful line. The cost of liberty, the price of liberation is eternal vigilance. We have to return to paying attention.

[34:58]

So we may open our hands once and feel, and actually relax completely and experience that and start dancing in the street. This happens, and it's okay. This will act as wonderful when that happens. And yet then, the next day, more stuff comes. So this ongoing, continual vigilance. I like the word vigilance. Vigilance implies to pay attention, a kind of witness, to hold vigil for something. Yeah. Thank you, Josh. Dawn. I kind of think about a yo-yo. down and up. You have your downs and your ups. Sometimes you can do tricks. I was never good at that. What yo-yo tricks did you learn? Walk the dog. Walk the dog? That's like the real yo-yo? Yeah. Cool. Yeah, I think it's helpful to see that there are rhythms in our practice, that when we develop a sustained practice that, you know, there are times when we feel, you know, very free and open.

[36:09]

There are times when we feel all contracted and stuck in things. Sometimes the rhythms go up and down very fast. Sometimes they happen over long periods. Another part of that rhythm is that sometimes we get onto a plateau where things feel kind of dry and nothing's happening and we think, oh, you know, my life is not so interesting or my practice is not so interesting. I want to go, you know, do something more exciting. But we don't always know when stuff is happening. Those rhythms happen beyond our idea of who we are. They're inconceivable. So there's this other phrase that I talk about a lot, that Dogen has, to experience the vital process on the path of going beyond Buddha. There's this organic vital process that Chateau is talking about here in this song.

[37:10]

Kathy. where an old man or woman's form is in their nature. And that does speak to me, because when I sit, I don't notice it at the time, but over time I notice that I see through things that I don't see. It's the idea that you're shutting yourself away from the world like that. Yeah, very important idea. This room is bigger than 10 foot square.

[38:18]

10 foot square is also a kind of historical reference to the supposed size of the room of the great enlightened layman, the Malakirti in India, where thousands of bodhisattvas were able to find space to sit and so forth. But also it's the name for became the name because of that for abbots and the abbot hall, Hojo in Japanese, in China and Japan. Shuto, this guy, actually his name means you could translate it as above the rock, because he actually built a grass hut, and I've seen pictures, the hut's gone, but I've seen pictures of the photos of the rock, which is still there, and he built this grass hut or hermitage on that, and maybe it was actually 10 foot square, which could fit inside this room. But anyway, some of the so-called hojos or abbot's quarters were very large and fancy and much, much bigger than this little temple we have.

[39:25]

But the point is, in your practice space, on your zabuton, on your cushion, it includes the entire world. We can't run away from the world by turning the light within. Everything in our life is there. Everything in our world is there. And that's okay. And by turning the light within, we can illuminate. We can see. So yes, as you said, Kathy, when we stop and sit, it's very natural and common. It's part of this process that we do get insights. We do see in some ways into situations of our life and situations of the world, and sometimes that can be very helpful. But it's not that we stop and sit and do this meditation, and then as a result of that, we become wise.

[40:22]

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