Good morning, everyone. Good morning. So, here we are. It's springtime, officially, yesterday. Yesterday was the equinox, and we'd had a week of wonderful spring-arriving weather, and of course, Chicago being Chicago yesterday, it snowed. So, here we are. Is it snowing out there now? So, yeah, I mean, this is my fourth Chicago winter, so I know that it can keep snowing into April. And yet, we all felt this last week, this arrival of energy, this new warmth, this new life. I don't know if there are little buds in any of the trees yet. I don't think so, but maybe some. But I wanted to talk today about energy and vitality and the arrival of energy from stillness.

[01:07]

So this is a very, very common theme in Zen teaching and Zen literature, and I wanted to mention a few places this occurs. I mentioned Hongxue, the 12th century Chinese Tsao Tung-or Soto, master a century before Dogen brought it to Japan. I mentioned one of his writings that's maybe relevant, even though it mentions autumn. The field of bright spirit is an ancient wilderness that does not change. With boundless eagerness, wander around this immaculate wide plain. The drifting clouds embrace the mountain. The family wind is relaxed and simple. The autumn waters display the moon in its pure brightness. Directly arriving here, you will be able to recognize the mine ground dharma field that is the root source of the 10,000 forms germinating with unwithered fertility. These flowers and leaves are the whole world, so we are told that a single seed is an uncultivated field.

[02:17]

Do not weed out the new shoots and the self will flower. So I talked about this passage some last Monday night, but this is a good introduction to thinking about this arrival of energy. He says, you will be able to recognize the mind, ground, dharma, field, this field of emptiness, this field of bright spirit. He calls it an ancient wilderness. The ground of our mind, the ground of our awareness and being, this dharma field, this field of reality. This source of the 10,000 forms germinating with unwithered fertility. Is it withered or unwithered? Where is this fertility? How does our life arise? How does our energy arise? How do we take on the Buddha work? This is the question here. how once we recognize this mind-ground dharma field, so some of us are sitting here all day, some of us came in for a little bit this morning for the dharma talk or a period of zazen.

[03:28]

In any event, we have this opportunity in this practice to glimpse, taste, touch this mind-ground dharma field, the root source of everything germinating with unweathered fertility. He says, these flowers and leaves are the whole world, so we are told that a single seed is an uncultivated field. Do not weed out these new shoots and the self will flower. So this is the time of year when we see the new shoots arising. Of course, out in Chicago, but maybe even on our own cushions. He says, do not weed out the new shoots and the self will flower. How do we support and sustain and nourish our own germination, our own expression of this Buddha nature, this mind ground, dharma field? So this is the issue I want to talk about today.

[04:31]

How do we allow the self to flower? How do we allow Buddha's practice to express Buddha's practice in this body and mind, on our cushion? here, now, this week, this month, this season. Do not weed out the new shoots and sell for flower. I have to confess, I have a problem with, some of you are gardeners, do agricultural work, and I always, I have trouble doing weeding, because I always appreciate the weeds too. And yet, of course, to have anything grow that we can use flowers or herbs or vegetables, we need to sometimes weed them out. But here Hongxue is recommending in terms of our own self-sprouting, in terms of our own baby Buddha sprouting, allow the shoots to express themselves, allow the self to flower.

[05:37]

So there's another passage that particularly I think of every spring from Hongzhe. He says, people of the way, that's us, people of the way journey through the world responding to conditions, carefree and without restraint. Well, of course, we may be burdened with cares. That's part of our life now in this world. And yet, as people of the way journeying, how do we respond to conditions? How do we feel not carelessness, but a kind of freedom from cares, freedom from restraint? And maybe we can feel this in this situation. of germination, of sprouting.

[06:44]

Then he says, like clouds finally raining, like moonlight following the current, like orchids growing in shade, like spring arising in everything, they act without mind, they respond with certainty. This is how perfected people behave. Then they must resume their travels and follow the ancestors, walking ahead with steadiness and letting go of themselves with innocence. So I feel like this is a season for innocence, for allowing newness to be, for not holding on so tightly to who we think we are. New things are possible now. Like clouds finally raining, Like moonlight following the current, the images of the moon reflected on the stream as it flows in the current. Like orchids growing in shade.

[07:45]

And like spring arising in everything. So maybe you could feel that a little bit last week with Spring arising in everything. We see it in the world around us. We can see it in people around us. We can even sometimes feel it in ourselves, this arrival of energy. Spring arising in everything. And he says, they act without mind, they respond with certainty. So this acting without mind, I think he means here by mind, this is a tricky word in Zen and in Buddhism because there are all kinds of things it can refer to, but I think he means without this kind of discriminating consciousness, this way of defining things that we can get trapped into without feeling the

[08:47]

tyranny of subject-verb-object, where we think we're verbing all the stuff out there to get what we want, or the things out there are verbing us. But just to respond carefully, act without mind, but respond with certainty. How do we meet the world around us? This is one of these major issues in Spring. How do we feel the arising of energy and everything? How do we respond? from our own seed, from our own uprightness, from our own sense of faith and conviction, from our own exploration of what is important to me? What is my intention? How do I want to use this arising energy? walking ahead with steadiness, letting go of themselves with innocence. So to allow the new shoots to flower, maybe we need to let go of ourselves and our ideas of ourselves.

[09:54]

And what is actually arising now? Because, you know, part of the natural rhythm of the seasons and part of the natural rhythm of our life is, you know, there are times when we feel kind of stale or when we feel shut in, like in the winter, and we don't want to go out so much. We're just kind of trying to keep warm. And so there's a time for hibernating. There's a time for just sitting quietly. Like we're doing today. And then there's a time for stepping out and responding to the world with innocence, with openness, with letting go the hands of thought, as Ujjyama Roshan says. Opening up the hands of thought. Letting go of ourselves. Seeing what new shoots may flower. not being reckless, taking good care, conventional reality, but still, here we are, this possibility of something new.

[11:05]

And of course, in Chicago, where the winter can last into April or whatever, we're sort of anticipating, but still, we're in this process of new energy arriving. So again, this rhythm in our lives and in the seasons is very important. And it doesn't happen just over a period of a year. It may happen in our lives during the course of one day of sitting, or through a week, or this turning within and then stepping out and seeing the arising of energy, the arising of spring and everything. So there are many, many images in Zen that refer to this. So I want to just call forth some of those today and play with them a little bit and see how they arise in all of us. One of them, Hongzhi's ancestor, the founder of Zao Dong or Shoto Zen in China, Dongshan, wrote in the Precious Mara Samadhi, which I've spoken of a little bit recently,

[12:19]

When the wooden man begins to sing, the stone woman gets up to dance. So there is this part of our practice that is stillness, uprightness. The wooden man and the stone woman seemingly frozen still. And yet there is this mutual energizing that happens here. Does the wooden man sing first, and then this woman gets up and starts dancing, or does it sort of happen together? How does this work? And thinking about this, I was reminded, I don't know if any of you know the Hank Williams song, Collagia. There's this song about a wooden Indian. The wooden man sings, the stone woman dances.

[13:26]

Sometimes we feel like we're stuck. Sometimes we feel a little frozen. Sometimes we feel like there's not some energy and we long for it. Part of what we recommend in the Zen tradition is to just stop and stay still. One of the issues in this spring arising and everything is how is this relationship between stillness, silence, and energy, illumination. There was an old Zen master in China named Shishuang, and his Zen there was called the Dead Tree Hall, or sometimes translated the Dead Stump Hall, because all of the monsters And yet, the energy there was apparently quite something.

[14:36]

They recalled this. So, you know, practically speaking, you know, sitting, I don't, you know, there are some Zen teachers who will yell at you if you move in the middle of sitting, as I've said, and will come around and hit you with a stick. And I don't, you know, I don't feel like that. You know, if you need to move in the middle of a period of Zazen, just do it quietly. It's okay. Still, there is this part of our practice that's settling. And this is not separate or opposed to spring arising and everything. It's part of the rhythm of spring arising and everything. Maybe we need to become a wooden man or a stone woman to feel this deeper energy arising. We may have ideas about what it is to be spontaneous and energetic and dynamic and so forth, but this is about something deeper.

[15:38]

It's like the spring. It's like the beginning of buds coming up on the trees or flowers blooming or new grass or robins appearing. It happens not based on our ideas of what we think of as our own energy and expression, but it's the kind of organic, alchemical creativity that arises in the midst of stillness, and in many ways, our Zen practice is about that. Can we first stop and sit, and continue breathing as we are present and upright, and be available to this arising of energy, this arising of Buddha nature, this arising of spirit, each in our own way, each in our own life. One of Dogen's Dharma hall discourses,

[16:46]

that was given on Enlightenment Day, which is, we celebrate it December 8th, but anyway, it's early December, so it's, for Dogen, it was already the middle of winter up in the mountains in the Heiji, and a ways away from springtime. But he remarked, after talking about Gotama finding his awakening, And actually we don't know historically whether, you know, I think there's some parts of the story of Buddha's awakening that maybe seemed like it was actually in the spring. I don't know. Anyway, but we celebrate it traditionally in December. And Dogen said, after talking about Gautama's awakening, the plum blossom opens afresh on the same branch as last year. So plum blossoms are the very first to open, and they're white, and so there are lots of poems, and Dogen's teacher, Rujing, also talked about this, the plum blossoms against the snow.

[18:01]

Can you see which is the blossom and which is the snow? And yet it's, and plums blossom kind of in late winter, it's not yet spring, but it's still a harbinger. going to happen. So Dogen says, the plum blossom opens afresh on the same branch as last year. So in our life sometimes we feel like, you know, these withered dead branches, aspects of our life that don't seem to be happening in some way. And yet, the plum blossom opens afresh on the same branch as last year. This is very instructive. How do we find this? How do we appreciate? It's, of course, not that we create this or can manufacture this.

[19:06]

We have to wait. It may be it was the first day of spring yesterday, but how does the spring arising and everything work? It has its own rhythm, its own organic process. So it's not that we can create this, but how do we recognize it? How do we appreciate it? How do we play with it? How do we sing about the plum blossoms? So this withered branch that brings forth a plum blossom each year is also related to the main image I wanted to play with a little bit today. And this is an old saying, and Dogen has an essay, a chapter in Shobo Genzo about it. And I'm not going to talk so much about what Dogen says about it as just to repeat some of the images, but this is called The Dragon Song, or The Dragon Howl.

[20:12]

So maybe it's kind of related to us. The character Ryugin can be translated as song or how. So, there's a story about this and it starts with a great master Toso, who was a descendant of Shuto, once being asked by a monk, is there a dragon singing even in a withered tree? And Tosa replied, I say there is a lion roaring in a skull. Life and death is the great matter for us. How do we see the life in death? How do we see this relationship of stillness and the arising of energy? Bob Duggan says a little bit about this. The withered trees spoken of by Buddha ancestors is the understanding of the ocean drying up.

[21:16]

The ocean drying up is the tree withering. But the tree withering encounters spring. The immovability of the tree is its witheredness. Mountain trees, ocean trees, and sky trees right now are all withered trees. That which sprouts buds is a dragon singing in a withered tree. and he quotes a line by one of Masa's successors, I have encountered spring many times, but the mind has not changed. So there is this rhythm, and yet underneath there is something, this mind ground on our field. And Dogen says that this saying, I have encountered spring many times, but the mind has not changed, is the dragon singing with complete witheredness So this goes back to an old story.

[22:24]

It was Shang-Yan, a great teacher, who was once asked by a monk, what is the way? And he said, a dragon is singing in a withered tree. The monk said, I don't understand. And Shang-Yan said, an eyeball on the skull. Can we sit? and see the eyeball on the skull. Out of our silence comes illumination. In the withered tree, dragons are singing. Later, a monk asked Xishuang, who's the one who had the dead stump hung, what is a dragon singing in a withered tree? And Xishuang said, it still holds joy. How do we find our inner joy? How do we appreciate the wonder of the world, in this world of life and death, in our stillness?

[23:31]

The monk asked Xishuang then, what is the eyeball on the skull? Xishuang said, it still holds consciousness. So there's many ways to turn this. In talking about the great matter of life and death, some of us have experienced that for a few days after somebody dies, there's still some energy around the body. And we may feel our own stillness and our own witheredness. And maybe none of you are feeling this. It happens sometimes. We're already in the midst of spring arising and everything, but again, this balance, it still holds joy. How do we find this inner joy of spring arising and everything?

[24:35]

Being willing to be present and upright just in the middle of this life, this world, with all of its challenges. Later a monk asked Saoshan, a disciple of Dongshan, and some people say that Saodong or Soto is named for him, what is the dragon singing in a withered tree? And Saoshan said, the blood vein does not get cut off. This is the heart of Dharma transmission in Zen. Don't allow the blood vein to get cut off. This is one aspect of what we're doing here. allowing this tradition of dragons singing in the tree to be alive here in the storefront in North Central Chicago. The blood vein does not cut off. The monk asked Cao Shan then, what is the eyeball on the skull? And Cao Shan said, it does not dry up. Something, there's something juicy arising, spring.

[25:45]

It's not dried up yet. The monk said to Saoshan, I wonder if anyone has heard it. And Saoshan said, in the entire world, there is no one that has not heard it. So, maybe you've heard the dragon sing. We've had some songs here in this hall at times. Maybe you don't recollect hearing the dragon sing in your own body and mind and heart. Still, we say, don't get in the way of that which has heard it. Has anyone heard it? In the entire world, there's no one that has not heard it. The monk said, I wonder what kind of song the dragon sings. So this is our question. What kind of song does the dragon sing? Here we are, celebrating the arising of spring, the equinox.

[26:50]

From starting yesterday, the days are getting more and more long, longer than the nights. But I must report that Sao Chan said, when the monk asked, I wonder what kind of song the dragon sings, Sao Chan said, no one knows what kind of song the dragon sings, but all who hear it lose their lives. No one knows what kind of song the dragon sings. So the dragon's song actually is alive. The dragon's song is germinating with unwithered fertility under the soil of our sattvas and sabbatons. Each of us in our own way is bringing forth dragon, bringing forth energy, bringing forth illumination in our silence. Each of us has our own way of expressing that. There's no one right way. So no one knows what kind of song the dragons will sing.

[27:55]

It's alive. And yet, he says, all who hear it lose their lives. Well, yes, we have to remember that that will happen to all of us. And yet, here we are, another spring. We seem to have survived the winter. New energy is available. How do we take care of it? How do we share it together? How do we encourage each other with the arising of spring to enjoy this arising of energy in everything? So, maybe I'll just say a little bit more about what Domen says about all this. Well, just this one line, the one who questions hearing and singing is not the one who sings the dragon's tune. The dragon's tune has its own melody. in a withered tree or in a skull are neither inside nor outside, neither self nor other. It's right now and a long time ago." So, this rhythm I want to talk about a little bit more, and we'll have time for discussion this afternoon, but since some of us won't be here, maybe we can have a little discussion response this morning.

[29:16]

So again, this rhythm of silence and illumination, this rhythm of winter and spring, this rhythm in our own lives and body of the witherness and the dragon's howl of the dried out skull and the eye inside. A number of ways to think about this. Sometimes in Zen we talk about the great death. And schools of Zen that emphasize kensho more, emphasize that more, that we must actually feel the great death. I don't know, I think the great death is available in our world, in our culture, in our lives already. We don't need to go trying to enhance it. But yet, out of this stillness, something new sprouts. There's this rhythm of death and life. And there's a rhythm in our practice, too. So, practically speaking, some of you have been at this a while, some of you are relatively new.

[30:27]

There's a kind of rhythm. Sometimes we feel a lot of energy in our sitting, and it's wonderful. Sometimes it feels kind of stagnant. We don't think anything's happening. That's actually sometimes the richest time. the most important time to just stay with finding a regular rhythm of sitting in your week, because we don't know what is germinating with unweathered fertility underneath the soil of our stillness. Can we be present and upright like wooden men, stone women, and allow the possibility of singing and dancing to arise? Another way we could look at this dynamic is The old idea of nirvana, so in early Buddhism, in Theravada, nirvana meant cessation, meant death. The Buddha entered nirvana when he died, parinirvana, getting free of this suffering, of this world, of samsara. So this is, you know, another aspect of this idea of the withered tree, this idea of

[31:31]

When will this end? How will we be free from this? And there's so much suffering in the world. So much suffering in the world. And it's hard to keep paying attention to the poor people in Haiti and the poor people in Iraq and Afghanistan and the poor people in ghettos in Chicago and the aspects of our own life that are impoverished and our friends who are sad or suffering. But the life that arises out of this stopping, the alternative way of seeing nirvana is our Buddha work in the world. So sometimes that feels challenging. How do I express kindness and compassion? How do I support peace and justice? How do I support creativity and kindness in the world? And yet, that's the Mahayana, Bodhisattva idea of nirvana, that we can still be present in our stillness.

[32:36]

And yet, some possibility arises for doing Buddha work, right in this world of suffering. We don't have to run away from it, and we don't have to run away from ourselves. We don't have to separate from the skin bag here and now. There's a dragon song awaiting to be sung. Another way to look at this dynamic is kind of attachment to non-attachment. The withered tree is, you know, sometimes we can get so into just being still and silent that it's very attractive. It can be a kind of hangout. We can feel safe and secure and take refuge in that. That attachment to non-attachment is the most dangerous attachment. And maybe sometimes, you know, we have to experience that. We have to actually enjoy just letting go of everything. Stillness and silence.

[33:37]

And then the dragon song for that is that we can also, right from this place, engage our own dharma position. We can see our own karma, our own life, and our own situation, and meet that, and respond with certainty, or just take it on. So whatever problems each of us has in our own life, whatever challenges we have and difficulties that concern us in the world, there's a way to be with that and engage it and try and be helpful. So I've always already talked about the silence, the side of silence, and Hongshu talks about silent illumination. This is a traditional way of talking about Buddhist meditation, shamatha, vipassana, or stopping and insight, that there's two sides of our practice, and we need to honor both of them. One is settling.

[34:38]

Maybe this is the withered tree. We have to let go of all of the adornments and chests. But it's not separate from the other side, which is illumination, the arising of energy. And we need to balance both of these. So balancing and seeing the liveliness and vitality and organic quality of this rhythm is important. And then maybe the last way of talking about this that I want to mention, and we can have a little discussion is, that the weather tree also represents returning to the source. So as we stop and sit still, as we become wooden men, how do we settle back into the source? So there's a poem from Wang Wei that I've talked about, an old Chinese poet, And I won't give the whole poem, but just one part of it.

[35:44]

I follow the stream back to the source and stop and sit and wait for the time when clouds arise. Then he says, perhaps I meet a person of the woods and we laugh and talk and I forget to go home. But anyway, just these two lines, following the stream back to the source. This is an actual practice that you can do. So those of you staying for the rest of the day, you're welcome to try this. Just stop and sit. And follow the stream back to the source. See the thoughts and feelings and sensations and perception as they arise. And can you work your way back to the source? Can you return to the source? And just stop there. At some point, there will be some time when clouds arise or when spring arises and everything.

[36:45]

So this is a rhythm in our meditative practice. It's a rhythm in the world outside. It's a rhythm in nature. This is part of our spirit life and our practice life. And when the clouds arise or when the spring arises and everything, then how do we take care of it? How do we find our own song? So each of us has our own Drakensang. And, you know, we try and harmonize together. And howl together in some way. But you can't kind of just make it up. You've got to allow the settling. You've got to allow the stillness. And so this rhythm of winter and spring is something that's deeply part of our practice. and this auspicious time of the equinox yesterday is an opportunity to remember this and to take good care of the spring arising in everything.

[37:50]

And then, you know, a song may come forth. Please enjoy your song. Please share it. Please support each other. This is our job as Sangha, is to help each other to allow the space to just settle and stop and sit, and also to allow the arising of the Dragon Song. So maybe that's enough for me to sing about this morning. We will have a discussion period this afternoon. But does anyone have any responses? or songs, or howls, or questions, or comments, please feel free. Yes? I've been wondering some about the wind man and the stone woman, and

[38:56]

Is there deeper metaphors behind the wood and the stone and the man and the woman? Well, there's an energy also to men and women. Sometimes to men and men and women and women too. But anyway, the stone woman is an image of barons, actually, in terms of classic Chinese. So, a baron woman. A stone man. You know, I can't think of anything better than Hank Williams. Does anyone know? Colliger was a wooden Indian sitting in a store, and he saw a statue of an Indian princess, but he couldn't say a word to her. So he never got a kiss. That's part of the lyrics of Hank Williams' song. But just that there is in all of us a wooden man or a stone woman or maybe both. And, you know, part of what Hongzhe is saying by bringing that forth is maybe we need to be that for a while.

[40:04]

But he's emphasizing when the wooden man begins, we could say when this, then the other, but we could also just say the wooden man begins to sing, the stone woman gets up to dance. Out of our sense of stillness out of our sense of, you know, as I've been saying, out of our sense of lack of energy, out of our sense of witherness, there is this possibility of a song arising, or getting up and doing a jig or whatever. I don't know, anybody else have any thoughts about those images? They're used a lot in Korean Buddhist imagery, in Korean Zen imagery. Sometimes they're spoken about in stages of practice, where you enter stages of practice where suddenly it seems like, well, magic is possible, and maybe miraculous things even happen.

[41:18]

But it's a stage, and it's not, you know, my old teacher used to talk about there being 360 degrees in the circle of Zen, and that's a stage that you pass through, and you come around, you know, it's like, mountains are no longer mountains, and waters are no longer waters, and then mountains become mountains again, and rivers become rivers again. So it sort of seems like it works into that in some way. But I think that there are many ways to understand it. Yeah, and there is this rhythm, and maybe cycles of our practice, just like there's cycles in the seasons. And I think it has Taoist context too, that a lot of Taoist meditation has to do with taking care of energy and taking care of the physical energy, well, physical meditative energy. The meditative body has its own alchemical process of

[42:23]

yang and yin and arising energy and settling energy. So this has to do with that kind of sense of deep balance, which has 360 degrees or 60 hexagrams. There's a process that happens that there are various systems for trying to understand it, but it happens whether or not we understand it. So I would encourage just how do we allow this arising to arise? How do we take care of it? How do we take care of all the cycles of energy of our practice life? Yesterday I did a spring detox and cleansing, and I'm definitely feeling the heart song today.

[43:37]

And while it may make the sitting practice a little uncomfortable today, it's still it's still enlightening because I can feel just the energy kind of in my body that I'm happy that, you know, I'm feeling a little bit today because that means that I can feel things and I'm getting out and awakening what this brings, so. Good, yeah. Yeah, you know, there is this possibility of kind of feeling numb in this part of the side of the winter or the wooden man or stone woman. And, you know, the world, we can feel numb to all of the troubles in the world and all of the corruption and cruelty and so forth. And we can feel numb about all the sadness, you know, amongst family and friends in our own life. So when the energy arises, as you said, you know, it's maybe hard to sit still. And we may resist the arising of energy.

[44:41]

We may try and shut down that dragon howl. So that's part of the cycle of energy too. How do we take care of the energy as it starts to arise? How do we allow ourselves to be still with it? So this serenity and insight, they're not really separate, but it is part of the cycle. without being able, we can't control it. It's deeper than us in our thoughts and ideas. And yet we can allow its flow. We can, it's not getting in the way. And we can enjoy it. And how do we take care of it?

[45:33]

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