Thank you for joining me here. I'm actually going to put my glasses on now since I'm going to read some things and I don't want to have to keep putting them on and off. So one of the privileges of being the shuso is that I get to work with a koan for the six weeks of the practice period. And I want to say that I don't have a lot of history with koans. I said in my Way Seeking Mind talk on Monday that for 10 years I studied with Joko Beck and she did not encourage us to study the koans at all.

[01:03]

She may have mentioned them in her talks but since I didn't know them, I didn't know they were koans. When I came here, I was interested in reading, but I, you know, it's a little inaccessible in the beginning. And Sojin started teaching a class, and that kind of gave me the, encouragement and to start to read them, but really when I first started, and we were reading from the Book of Serenity, and that was sort of compiled and published, I think, in about the 12th or 13th century. And, you know, I felt like when I read the Koan, I just, you know, hit a wall. It really, I didn't understand anything. And it was daunting, you know, it was really like, you know, I don't know, and then I would go to class and Sojin would go through every line of it and, you know, I would like kind of feel like this sort of excitement, you know, this kind of like, oh, you know, maybe, you know, I can sort of, where's,

[02:26]

raw stretch, you know, to like kind of hold this, you know, very sort of contradictory, you know, kind of thought process. And, you know, over time, I actually felt like I could do that a little bit on my own. But, you know, I still felt like when Sochin and I sort of chose this koan that I'm going to work on, that, you know, I had some idea that I had to do this right. I had to get the right answer. You know, I had some image of that, you know, that there was something to really, you know, prove maybe. So Sojin gave me some commentary, some books, and then I went to the library and I took out like this many books.

[03:30]

And I wrote a little note to Greg, the librarian, and I said, I know I'm only supposed to take two books out, but I have to take all 10 of these books out. And then I staggered home, you know, with my 12 or 13 books. you know, put them on the table and then I sat down and I started reading them. And I got through about five, you know, and I, you know, I guess I had an image like I was going to write a, you know, a term paper or something and, you know, I was going to get all the information and then I was going to, you know, organize it and But after about five, I realized, wait a minute, these guys do not, they were all guys, I have to say, I haven't found any by women, but I'm determined, I'm still looking, these commentaries, you know, that, you know, they don't agree with each other. You know, they all have a different opinion about this.

[04:33]

You know, it was like really kind of a liberating moment. I was like, oh, you know, if they all have a different opinion, you know, maybe I can have an opinion about this myself. And it could be different from theirs. And actually they overtly didn't agree. You know, they would say, I don't agree with, you know. So I haven't gotten that far, but well, actually I have. You know, yeah, there is somebody I don't agree with or I'm not interested in. So once that happened, you know, I felt much more engaged in the process. And, you know, many of you know that I am a choreographer and I used to make big dance pieces, you know, which had a lot of people and music and you know, a visual component. And during that time, you know, like everything would start to relate to it.

[05:38]

So, you know, birds flying, any kind of movement, you know, children playing, cars going, you know, over the overpass, just anything that moved started feeling connected to what I was making and, you know, it felt very creative and exciting and actually this started being that way too, you know, I just felt like kind of so much of my life and everything people said to me kind of, you know, was fermenting with my koan and I'll give you an example. On Monday when I gave my talk, We did a well-being ceremony for Mary Beth Lamb's partner who had gotten some very serious medical news and not good news. And so we did the well-being ceremony and then I gave my talk.

[06:40]

And then at the end of my talk, I read a little short poem that was kind of about, you know, how everything is one and we choose it that way and we want that. And then, you know, I finished my talk and I felt sort of, oh yeah, you know. And then I went outside and I was talking to people and then, you know, after a while Mary Beth came up to me and she said, but I don't want it. I don't want it this way. And I was like, oh, right, I wouldn't either. And that's my koan. You know, that really was my koan. And so that's kind of the way my life has been. I will also say that Mary Beth's partner is in surgery as we speak. And so I'm thinking of her. So now I will tell you what my koan is.

[07:46]

And it's one many of you are familiar with. Even I was familiar with it many years ago, even though I don't read koans and didn't, I knew this one a little bit. And it's Sun-Faced Buddha, Moon-Faced Buddha. And again, there's many translations of it, even though it's very short. And I picked the one that I liked the best. And I liked it because I thought it was the sort of sweetest translation. And so it goes like this. Baso, a Chinese Zen master, was sick in bed. The managing monk of his temple visited him and asked, teacher, how do you feel these days? Baso answered, sun faced Buddha, moon faced Buddha. So, I will give you kind of the back story. This koan appears in the Blue Cliff Record and also in the Book of Serenity, and both of those are collections of koans that were compiled in the 11th and 12th centuries, so kind of contemporary

[08:59]

Yes, you know, that word, yes. And actually the teachers who put them together were, they knew each other. And so they each have a hundred koans and about a third of them are in both compilations. And this one is. So Baso, Master Baso, actually lived, he's a historical figure, lived in the 8th century, and he was one of the most famous Zen masters. He was a very large and very imposing and sort of powerful and physically powerful, I think. And, you know, another thing that almost every book says about him is that he had a very long tongue and that he could cover his nose with his tongue.

[10:08]

And I will just tell you that as a child, I actually could touch my tongue to my nose. And I was sort of famous in my neighborhood for this. This was something my siblings would kind of show me off that I had this. So there's not too many ways that I relate to Baso, but that's... No, I could just barely touch it, and I forgot about it, and I tried it, and I can't even come close anymore, so I don't know. So Basa was one of the first teachers to use this sort of Zen dialogue that has been recorded in a number of these koans, and he appears in a number of koans. He had a large following of disciples, And many of those, like 80 of those, became teachers who went on to teach on their own after he died, or maybe before he died.

[11:18]

He was also known for, somebody put this well, a kaleidoscopic repertoire of using the stick, hitting, pushing, slapping, tweaking people's noses, the list kind of goes on. He was physical. You know, that's sort of his in this context now that we're living in sort of appalling, but actually I can sort of relate to it. I don't know why, but there's something about, you know, kind of waking up. Oh, he shouted a lot. That was another thing, you know, just, you know, kind of bringing people into the present moment that kind of in my state of, you know, being in my head a lot with this, is kind of attractive or appealing. I'm not repelled by it, which you'd think I would be, but I'm really not. So I will just give you an example of one of his pissy sayings.

[12:29]

A monk asked Baso, what is the essential meaning of Buddhism? So pretty heady question, right? Baso answered, what is the meaning of the present moment? And another part of this story is that, and this is a little hazy for me, but apparently in truth, in actuality, really, there was a translation, I assume from Sanskrit to Chinese, of a book that recorded the names of 1,192 Buddhas from many realms. And, you know, I can't tell you a lot about this, but it was called the Butsu Myokyo. And so in that long list of Buddhas, one was the Sun-Faced Buddha.

[13:37]

And the Sun-Faced Buddha was said to have lived 1800 years. And then there was also the moon-faced Buddha who was said to have lived one day and one night. And the last thing I'll say in terms of kind of the background is that this little story, this little koan was supposed to have taken place the day before Baso died. So, really, it was the last teaching he gave. So, when I first read this, which was really many years ago in Suzuki Roshi's book, Not Always So. You know, my mind just went to, I want to live a long time.

[14:42]

I want to be the sun-faced Buddha. And, you know, so I wanted to, you know, kind of not include the one day and one night and also, you know, I had a choice here. I wanted to choose the sunny side. And, you know, I sort of read the commentary and sort of understood that there might be some benefit in, keep using this word, stretching myself to include, you know, the Moon-Faced Buddha. But when I think back upon it, I think how I mean, there's a couple of things. One is, you know, how slippery these opposites are, like long and short.

[15:43]

Well, you know, what's long and what's short? And you could say, you know, well, there's a nice little, quote from one of the commentaries that I think I'll read you. Yes, I will. This is from Yogan Senzaki. He says, a drop of water from the old pond, if you see it under a microscope, will have hundreds of sentient beings moving around in it, fighting, procreating, having birth and death. They're not living a particularly short life, but fulfilling their own life of suchness. So probably shorter, maybe shorter than a day and a night. And then he goes on to talk about, you know, light years and, you know, how light years are millions and millions and millions of miles and time and so on.

[16:46]

And, you know, so 1800 years compared to a light year is short. And these things are slippery, you know, all of them are slippery. Every, you know, opposite really is slippery, like good and evil or light and dark. When I get up at five in the morning and I come to the Zen Dojo, it's really dark, but it's starting to get light now. And I'm just like, look how light it is, you know, it's like so light. So there's light in the darkness there. But we do divide things up. And when I think about this koan, one of the things I think about is that it's an effort to kind of talk about something that's sort of infinite.

[17:50]

and really all the Koans are trying to talk about kind of the infinite, but when you talk about it, you start to kind of cut just a piece out of it, and it's actually You know, it's very hard to know that you're going to do that. And so I just wanted to say that I know I'm going to do that, maybe a teeny little slice. And I hope that you will help me make it a little bigger with your comments and questions. But I felt like this one, and maybe I just felt this because it's my koan, and maybe I felt it because, you know, this teacher was, this was his last teaching, but I feel like this one is a little bit bigger than some, you know, that it really is kind of wider and holds more.

[18:53]

Maybe because I've read a lot of commentary, you know, it just seems like it's sort of a big one. But back to cutting the world up, you know, I feel like we all do that. We do it all the time. We have to do it. fire engine is coming down the street at us, we don't want to, we want to distinguish it from a puppy dog, you know, we want to step out of the way, we don't want to get confused about what things are, we need to know, we need to discriminate. But again, it's slippery, you know, young, old. When I was 30, I was an old dancer, you know, Now I'm a really old dancer. And health and well, health and sickness, success and failure. That's a really big one, you know. What's the edge of that? What's real about that?

[19:57]

Living and dying. Rich and poor. Infinite and finite. You know, there's people that don't want to hold those things together. They want to stay in one infinite or just finite. It's hard to hold them together. And I think, you know, that's kind of what our practice is. It's about, gosh, I keep using this word stretching, you know, to hold a little bit more, you know. Even the things that we really don't like. I get migraine headaches. I've got them all my life. I've had them. And before I get them, I know I'm going to get them. So I don't have the headache, but I know I'm going to get it. And I'm just like, I hate this.

[21:01]

And then I get the headache and it's the headache that it is. Some of them are terrible, some of them aren't. But then afterwards, and this is, you know, a physiological thing, I feel better than I feel any other time in my life. I just feel fabulous. And, you know, I've practiced with that and I still hate them. And I've, you know, I thought, oh, you know, you hear those stories about people, you know, Zen people who go to the dentist and don't get novocaine and stuff. And, you know, I'm just like, I hate migraines. I just do. But, you know, it's like I'm stretching, I'm stretching, you know, to try to include the migraine, you know. Actually, when I am over it, sometimes, you know, like I use medication, so sometimes when I'm over it, I run out of medication, I think, oh, I should order some more.

[22:04]

And then I think, really, I have this thought. This is so crazy. I've had these for my 50 years. I think, maybe I'm done. Maybe I'll never get another one. You know, it's like complete denial. You know, I push it away. But I'm working. And I'm actually pretty tolerant of how much I hate them. You know, I don't even try to push that away anymore. I wanna leave time. So, our practice, my practice is about changing perspective a little bit.

[23:09]

And Sue here, she talked about that in one of her talks about just shifting enough to hold both sides. But our practice is also a little bit of a practice, a little window into not discriminating. In Zazen, I feel like, you know, we practice with a sound being just a sound. And it could be a sound that we want to go somewhere else with, but we try to stay back from discriminating just in Zazen. And so we don't go to, oh, that's a dog barking and that's that dog next door that's driving me crazy. You know, we don't go there. We kind of back up from that and just hear it in the woodpecker. And then we just try to feel the sensations that we feel.

[24:11]

So it's this little window of a little touch of not discriminating. And then we go out in the world and we're back, you know, dealing with time and objects and so on. People. But we've had that moment. You know, we've had that tiny glimpse. And I don't know why it makes such a difference, but for me it makes a big difference. It really does. It just shifts that. It's this way and it's going to be this way. It just shifts that so I can you know, I can step back a little bit. So, I want to say, you know, really there's a lot of things you could say about this koan, but I want to say a little bit, and this is just maybe me more than other commentators, but for me,

[25:18]

It's made me kind of think about the way I think about the sun and the moon. You know, and this is kind of, I guess what you, at least I'm taking the liberties to do this. And, you know, for me, the sun is light and life-giving and warm. And I really attribute those qualities to it. And the moon is, you know, kind of darker and a kind of more receptive kind of energy. It's associated a lot and spoken of a lot in terms of enlightenment. So, you know, the sun can also be too hot. And, you know, the moon has a lot of darkness associated with it. They're both also cycles.

[26:22]

They change, you know. The moon is big, and then it's smaller, and then it's smaller, and then it's smaller, and then it's bigger. And then it's covered with clouds, and then you can't see it, and then you don't know where it is. And, you know, then you forget about it. So it's not the same. And the sun the same, you know, it comes up, you see a little tiny bit of it and then it's like raging beautiful and then it's, you know, behind the clouds and then it's sunset and you see a little bit of it and then it's gone, it's dark, it's missing. So, you know, for me, this is kind of about, you know, even these things that seem fixed in our lives, long, short, actually are changing. And, you know, it's hard to hold that, and it's also very liberating to hold it. And they're just different, sun and moon, they're just different. I don't feel one is better than the other.

[27:24]

It's this, it's that, you know, it's sort of a, you know, it's, we want them both. So when he said sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha, he didn't say sun-faced Buddha or moon-faced Buddha. He said sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. Just one, just one. And I think I'll end by reading the end of Suzuki Roshi's really beautiful commentary on this koan.

[28:27]

And this was also written fairly shortly, or was a talk fairly shortly before he died. I had a friend who told me that the only way that she would ever believe a Zen teacher was good is if they died well. Anyway, so this is the end of his talk. Sun-Face Buddha, Moon-Face Buddha does not mean to be indifferent. I don't care whether it's the Sun-Face Buddha or the Moon-Face Buddha. I don't care. That's, he's saying, don't do that. It means that whatever it is, we just enjoy it. This is also beyond non-attachment, because when our attachment reaches the point of non-attachment, that is real attachment. If you are attached to something, be attached to something completely. Sun-faced Buddha, Moon-faced Buddha.

[29:28]

I am here. I am right here. This kind of confidence is important. I felt like that was Mary Beth's confidence. I don't like this. When you have this kind of confidence in yourself, in your being, you can practice true Zazen beyond perfect or imperfect, good or bad. Thank you very much, that's what he said. So I would like people to speak and I would encourage people, you know, I didn't expect to find myself here and I could have practiced a little bit when I was there, you know, trying to articulate and I would encourage people to, I mean, some of the people who are newer to get going, you know. Yes, Alan.

[30:29]

And yes, I hated them. I'm not sure I would put it like that, but I would say that I have had the thought that I would not be a Zen student were it not for my migraines.

[32:30]

I'm not sure what was cultivated, but there's something about, you know, it's a little bit like basso hitting somebody, I think. It's like, you know, it's so, you know, people say, you know, it covers body and mind, you know, it just is all there is. Right? No. Yeah, it's very real. So do... Yes, you do. Thank you.

[33:40]

There's a talk, not only so, it talks about the Blue Jays. You know, in Paso Haro, there's so many Blue Jays, they come down, they dive up, take the stand up to it, and you go, oh! So, then they squat. Right. Thank you.

[35:10]

Oh, that was, hmm, that's a good question. I think it's the same person. I think it's, yeah, I think so. It's Nyogen Senzaki, and it's a book, actually. It's a kind of a spiral bound book that Sojin gave. I also feel like I'd like to, for a really long time, kind of eschew the concept of the moon-faced Buddha. And recently I read the paper about this gentleman who went to Switzerland to die.

[36:20]

He didn't have enough sun. Definitely. Yes. I definitely want to pay off. Thank you. Yeah. Is it time?

[37:47]

Oh, five minutes. I feel like I should call on people. Co? Thank you. Lent. You did not lend it, Co. That's great, thank you. So the story was that my mother had given me some wool blankets and Ko was staying in our house and met a young woman who was cold and he gave her one of our blankets, my mother's wool blankets.

[38:54]

So what has happened? You know, I totally even then I totally saw your point of view on that, you know, and I still had mine. Oh, you lent her the book. Well, I didn't ever see that blanket again. Thank you. Hmm. Yes. Well, I don't have any experience. You know, I don't think there's ever a time when I'm you know, where I don't wish I didn't have it, that's always there. But it is a, well, I think Ellen was really speaking of it, it's a profound experience. It's really intense pain.

[39:57]

And it's not just pain, you know, it's like, there's a lot of kind of physical depression associated with it, so you just feel bad. And, you know, it's what I said, it's really like, You know, like I said, like Basso, it like, it takes over, you know, it really takes over to the point where, you know, that's it. That's it. Just one thing. So that's really what I can say. Peter. basically talking. So there are things. You know, I don't really do that by intention, you know, as much as maybe I could or should, but I do it by, you know, I mean, partly I have to say this,

[41:50]

this opportunity of being Shiso is a good example of that because, you know, when I wake up at five or actually at four and don't go back to sleep till five and then get up, you know, I don't even think about, I mean, I notice that I don't want to, but I don't even, I mean, and there is something very freeing about that, you know, that I don't You know, I don't pay any, I mean, I just get up, you know, and put my clothes on and, you know, and, you know, yeah, there's some little voice, like, I don't want to be doing this. I don't want to get up. But it's, you know, there's just something powerful, not powerful, but liberating, really, about just getting up. You know, it's really, it's refreshing, actually. You know, it's like, it's like, It's like peace almost or there's something wonderful about it.

[42:54]

So I would and I don't I don't do it, you know, mostly, you know, mostly I don't do it. I mostly I, you know, listen to all that chatter a lot, you know. OK.

[43:07]

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