Good morning. It is with great pleasure that I introduce our speaker today, who's Greg Denny. His Dharma name is He Shentando, Ordinary Mind, Right Way. He's been practicing at Berkeley Zen Center for 18, probably plus years, has been head student, and is a father, husband, person working in software, needs a dharma group here, and I'm sure many other things, so I really look forward to what he has to share. Good morning. Is this thing on? Yeah? So, I'm going to talk about a koan, the 28th koan, the 28th case in the Mumonkan.

[01:02]

I can speak louder as well. The 28th case in the Mumonkan. And at the top of my notes, I wrote, is that OK? No, it's on. Oh, wait, here we go. Now, is it on? OK, how's that? OK, we're done. Let's go. So at the top of my notes here, I wrote some, it's still too loud, I think, no? It's a little loud. It's fine. I put some themes that I'll be returning to as I discuss the koan.

[02:05]

And the first one is Form and Emptiness, right? And I wrote, so I wrote, I typically start taking notes and outline for the talk the week before the talk. And as I was doing that, I wrote at the top of this, of the notes, Form and Emptiness. And I found, so I got some books out, and I found, like, the same notes from a few other talks. At the top of two out of the three, the first words were form and emptiness. So I guess all our talks are about form. So I'm hoping that as I discuss the koan, particularly as far as form and emptiness goes, that we get some feeling or I'm able to express some sense or some feeling of the way we chant about the form and emptiness in the Heart Sutra.

[03:07]

And that is form is emptiness and emptiness is form. That they're in fact experientially in practice the same thing. A couple other things I'm going to want to talk about a little bit, I think, if there's time, is how this koan in particular, and I think koans generally, And Zen, at least in the literature, contextualizes the student-teacher relationship and what the function of the teacher is, what the function of the student is. And in that regard, I may talk about the idea of transmission, which is something that occurs between a teacher and a student, not only between a teacher and a student, I'm going to try to talk about Beginner's Mind. So in each case, I'll read the section of the Koan that is sort of the centerpiece of what I want to talk about.

[04:17]

Does everyone, most people know what a koan is? Is it worth sort of giving? Koan literally means case, but in just short version. In the context of Zen, they become, it's kind of a story or a riddle that expresses a paradox or a double mind as a teaching device. as a way to invoke or get the contemplator to have an experience or see into the identity of form and emptiness, or something essential about practice. Koans are much more important to the Rinzai school of Zen. We're not Rinzai, we're Soto here, but we still talk about koans. In Rinzai, there's a formal, there's kind of a formal path of Dealing with cause with one's teacher So anyway, this is case 28 Taishan visited long Tom and questioned him sincerely far into the night It grew late and long Tom said why don't you retire?

[05:56]

Taishan made his vows and lifted the blinds to withdraw, but was met by darkness. Turning back, he said, it is dark outside. Longtong lit a paper candle and handed it to Taishan. Taishan was about to take it when Longtong blew it out. At this, Taishan had sudden realization and made his vows. So in some ways I feel like I need to say nothing else. That moment of long time blowing out the lamp is all we need to know. Or all we need to don't know. Like a good talk would be, if I was somehow able, like we do the opening chant,

[07:05]

And then I guess I would get my introduction and then I would sit here and I'd take a deep breath and then all the lights would go out. That would be good. So it's worth, I think, sort of like feeling out that moment. That moment of the lamp going out. So the background to this is that Tehshon is a student and he has some strong opinions about the Dharma and about practice. Mostly that one understands practice, one understands Buddhism through study and he was apparently an expert on the Diamond Sutra. And he had heard about all these teachers in China who were teaching Zen or Buddhism in a different way, something called mind-to-mind transmission.

[08:07]

And that is that through interactions with one's teacher, one has a sudden realization like Taishan ended up having, but that you transmit or you pass on the Dharma, teach the Dharma through that kind of interaction and not through study. not through literature. And Taishan kind of thought this was not right. This is ludicrous. And so he had, and I might get to it, he had an incident. He was traveling around China making his case against this. And he had an incident with a woman selling cakes down by the river that kind of threw him off. And he said, and he realized that maybe he didn't know so much as he thought. And so he asked the woman who clearly had, was very wise, is there a teacher around here?

[09:15]

And she said, Longtong. So that's what happened right before he went and visited Longtong. And he met his teacher. And so, and then the case starts. And so we hear about them talking through the night. So presumably we should assume that they're talking about the dharma. They're having a dharma discussion, trying to understand things. And it seemed like when it was dark outside and Taishan said it was time to go, that was probably a pretty good discussion. They're on good terms. But then this thing happens. where he says it's dark outside. And his teacher lights a lamp and hands it to him. And so you can imagine how you feel that's very nice. This is very cordial. This is a lot of companionship and support.

[10:16]

And then he turns to go and his teacher blows out the light. So I think An entry into this koan is to put yourself in Taishan's shoes at that very moment. What's the feeling? What's the experience? Now you could shout out things if you want. But for me I could think, so there's a little fear maybe, the unknown, the darkness. But maybe a little excitement too. But that, you know, without putting it into words, but sort of trying to be in those shoes, I propose that that moment, the experience of that moment, is the essence of what we're trying to do, the essence of practice.

[11:20]

And that practice is an activity to remember, and that's too sophisticated a word, to experience that moment over and over. Because that moment is what we're trying to do. So there's a lot of sort of Phrases in how we talk about practice that try to express that moment. Dropping body and mind. Waking up to the present moment. Don't know mind.

[12:23]

I mean, maybe that moment is a good sort of way to understand beginner's mind. Where you let all ... I would say ... you let everything drop. You let things fall apart. You let ... I mean, you can put it discursively, it's dropping your discursive ... putting it discursively, it's dropping your discursive mind. Right? not thinking or dropping thinking, you know, this is all inadequate compared to putting yourself in that moment of the light being on. Yes, sir? What about realizing that you are a light, you are a constant light for yourself? Yeah, well, so Shakyamuni said, be a lamp unto yourself. Yeah, actually I'll return to that theme. I think that dying and laying this coin, you turn back to the light.

[13:32]

Or one can go back to thinking about light. I would put it maybe in other ways, starting completely from scratch. Starting from scratch. Every moment starting from scratch. So, if we think about practice and zazen as the activity of returning to this kind of moment, moment by moment, what does that mean in terms of living our life? So, not quite what you were saying, Ko. So you blow out the light, right? You take a breath. You blow out the light. Start from scratch. Then you open your eyes. The light's going to come back on. And there, what's there? Your life.

[14:35]

So every moment, you blow out the light. You wake up. And what's there? The light comes back on. It's your life. And now practice begins in a different way. Because in our life, we can't just kind of sit there, we can't stay there in that emptiness. When the light comes up, back on, you know, maybe we've torn everything down, started from scratch, when the light comes back on, things build up again. And I say it like that, instead, you know, the practice is, well, let's not build the things up ourselves, let's turn on the light and see what's there. And what's there is not going to be like some clean slate. We started from scratch. What's going to be there is our life building itself back up. Or as Dogen said, the myriad things. So what then?

[15:39]

So I think a way of looking at practice is that even as these things build themselves up, what practice is, is is maintaining the stance of that moment, maintaining the stance of that don't know, of starting from scratch and allowing the things of their life, the things of our life to appear and be there without intervention, to be there as they actually are. before we act, before everything else. So what's going to appear? So I think when I was thinking about the sojourn I used the metaphor of the screen, or maybe Suzuki Roshi did, of the screen.

[16:43]

that life is projected on or the myriad things are projected on. So that moment is how we get dropped down onto the screen. And then on the screen the myriad things appear. But we still have to practice. And what are going to appear on the screen are the people in our life, but internally, although there's no inside or outside, you know, What appear are the three poisons, our points of view, our attachments, our opinions, our prejudices, our feelings, our emotions, you know, everything. So our practice of Zazen, many or most of you know, is Shikantaza, just sitting. This is another way of understanding Shikantaza. Shikantaza is maintaining the screen to allow everything to be included, to allow everything, all the myriad things of our life to be there.

[17:53]

And not ... well, I'll get to that. So Suzuki Roshi, he has the phrase for this, as things as it is, right? So this activity is maintaining on that screen the myriad things of our life as things as it is. So I'm going to try the best that I can to flesh out maybe through some examples of what this experience is like for real things. And I, so, one of the things I want to try to say is that as the things of our life appear, you know, we might have an idea, or I might have an idea about practice that, that, or, you know, we hear, treat everything equal.

[19:00]

Or everything is equal in the realm of practice, in the realm of Buddhism. Don't pick and choose. Don't have preferences. But if we are good, or not good, if we allow things to arise as they are, I guarantee that there's going to be preferences. There's going to be things that have different value, different charge. Now there's a way that we can allow that to be and still maintain the foundation of our screen. And in fact, if we try to make everything equal, we're not really making everything equal. We're not allowing things to be as they are. For example, attachment, love, connection. When our life appears to us, we don't love everyone exactly the same way or with the exact same intensity.

[20:09]

We don't have attachments to everyone in the exact same way with the exact same intensity. And we might think that we're supposed to, but seeing things and experience life as it is, is accepting those differences. But then what do we do? In the Metta Sutta, so we chant, even as a mother at the risk of her life watches over and protects her only child, So with a boundless mind should one cherish all living things, suffusing love over the entire world." Now that's a colon right there. Because on one level it's saying we should cherish all living things as if all living things were our children. But that statement is meaningless if on the screen of letting things be as they are that we didn't really love our children in some way or that our feeling for our children in some way was completely different and more intense and more charged than our feeling for other beings.

[21:20]

If it wasn't, then we couldn't even say that in the metta-sutta. It would have no meaning. So what this can mean for us is that we recognize the intensity of our feeling and our attachment for our children and we use it. We understand that in fact the way children need to be loved and the way we love our children is the way that everyone feels that way and everybody wants that feeling of unconditional love, of caring. And seeing everyone in that way is transformative. Of remembering that about everyone is transformative. But again, it's a koan. Because the activity of doing that is on one level equalizing, but on the other level is completely informed and made possible by the fact that we do have different feelings for beings.

[22:29]

That we love our children in a special way. So that's form and emptiness intersecting. And I just add, I mean, the meta-suit, so, maybe not the best, but the person we should always remember to love or that has the same needs as a child is ourselves. Let's not forget that. So other things that arise on the screen that, you know, superficially we think, you know, it's not, that's not good. The three poisons are a poison. Anger or resentment. One example that came up in a discussion I had around this a while ago was, let's say I get diagnosed with lung cancer.

[23:32]

Awful thing. And I've I've really taken care of myself. Never smoked, eaten right, done all the right things. And my brother, I don't have a brother, but my brother has smoked two packs of cigarettes all his life, and really doesn't take care of himself, and he doesn't have lung cancer. And so a feeling arises, a thought arises, This is not fair. This is bleeping not fair. Why doesn't he have lung cancer? I did everything right. Now we might think that we shouldn't have that feeling or thought. But you know feelings or thoughts like that arise and they rise and we shouldn't cut them out. We shouldn't say that they're not worthy. They have a life. And actually they have I don't want to say use, but they have value.

[24:40]

And the value of that thought or feeling is, if I can, is it points me to my pain. It points me to my grief. And that's what I have to deal with. And I think that's true of almost all manifestations for me of anger, of resentment, of judgment, You know, our precepts are not to harbor ill will, and not to denigrate others, and you know, all those things. But feelings of that sort, or thoughts of that sort, arise in us all the time. But they have value, they're flowers, because they tell us where we hurt. They tell us about our life, and what we need to do to take care of ourselves. Conflict.

[25:43]

We all get in conflict with others. I have opinions, strong opinions, about a lot of things. Actually, ask Marie. My wife, Marie. How do I hold my opinions? There's a way I try, and I think this is practice, to hold my opinions always from the stance of that moment for Taishan. That truly, I don't know anything. And I could be wrong about everything. Now I still am going to have opinions, but my experience is that it's dramatically different when I express them, when I hold them, when they're coming from a root in that moment, the root of not knowing, the root of don't know mind, that I really, you know, I have an opinion but really

[27:09]

Ultimately, I don't know what I know. I don't know anything. And I think that this can make a huge difference when we have arguments or conflicts with the people close to us, and I think it can make a huge difference when I choose to engage in social or political action. The model for me about this kind of thing is King, MLK. I always felt, I was very young, looking at the films of him speaking, reading about the way he conducted himself, I get that feeling that he had that don't know mind at the foundation. So that, you know, you listen to the I Have a Dream speech, right, it's incredible, it's just beautiful, and there's anger in there, right?

[28:15]

There is anger in there, I can feel the anger, but it's contextualized, or it's sitting on this foundation of don't know, of humility, that makes it all the more powerful. And I would suggest that that foundation is emptiness. I think another place and maybe the most important example or area where this foundation can serve me or serve us has to do with the really, really hard places. Places, things like, you know, in the extreme manifestation, addictive behavior or habitual destructive behavior, depression, anxiety, things that are debilitating and destructive.

[29:29]

If we can allow those things to be as they are in our life, without judgment, I'm better served. seeing them as they are and not us as, how should I say this, on the screen as one of the myriad things can help us ask others to help us, can help me ask others, because then it's not me, it's something that's there that needs to be dealt with. So the don't know mind, that mind of the moment of blowing out the candle in the realm of the world of the things that are so difficult is an invitation for me to depend on people, to ask for help.

[30:59]

So one thing that I noticed when contemplating this stuff is that the practice is often about the difference between feelings, thoughts, emotions, and actions, and what we do with them. Keeping the precepts doesn't mean that we're not going to have the three poisons arise in our thoughts and feelings. It's what we do with them afterward. And insofar as we're able to see them arise on their own and as natural as deserving of a place as anything else, as a sentient being that we need to save, just like how we chant, like all sentient beings, then I'm better able to deal with them.

[32:28]

When I was sitting in Sojin's office before coming here, I opened up a book and it's unattributed, but there's this little couplet. All are nothing but flowers in a flowering universe. That goes for everything. See, they say it. I mean, I'm just repeating what it says. All, everything is a flower. That includes the three poisons. That includes my judgment about my brother without lung cancer. So, if we look at everything as a flower, then, and allow it to be, then we're better able, in the next moment, to know what to do about things. Or maybe not. At least we'll try.

[33:31]

How much time do I got? Ten minutes. Yikes. So, I'll just I'm going to go more quickly now. One way that I also have ... there's a line in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Suzuki Hiroshi says, to give your sheep or cow a large spacious meadow is the way to control him. That's kind of a different way of saying the same thing. Freedom. I was thinking about the what the meaning of freedom ... I might think that freedom is cutting things out, but no. I'm really free when I include everything on this screen, because then whatever arises, I can deal with.

[34:33]

So I guess I'll try for five minutes maybe to refer to at least one way of looking at the function of a teacher, the function of a student, as expressed in this koan. The koan is not unrepresentative. What Longtong does with Taishan is very typical of koans. There's a way in which it's turning the student back on himself. The thing about this screen is each one of us has our own. When that light goes out, and more importantly when the light comes on, for each one of us it's our light. It's our life. And practice, and one of the things that the teachers in these koans try to impart to their students is, this is your life.

[36:02]

And that goes back to what Ko was saying. Be a lay-up unto yourself. So the transmission, there's a kind of ... this is a con. The transmission is the transmission of yourself to yourself. I don't want to state this too strongly, but there's almost a self-negating quality to the transmission. Because what ends up happening in practice is that everything becomes one's teacher. The things that arise on the screen, your life is your teacher. That's practice, to make your life your teacher. And the way I was trying to talk about all this stuff that appear on the screen is, how do I make those things my teacher?

[37:09]

I have to say that ... This is something that Sojin has given me. And I'm not quite sure all the ways that he's done it, but from the beginning of being with you, sitting in Dogasan with you, there was some imparting of a way to trust myself and to trust my process with my life. wonderful thing that I've gotten from my teacher. So we're running out of time. I have some other quotes, but... I'll just finish with just a wonderful short poem by Dogen, which just talks about this last thing I just started to talk about.

[38:26]

The name of the poem is, they're different translations, the name of the poem is The True Teacher. The true teacher is not anyone in particular, but like the deep blue color of the limitless sky, it is everyone. everywhere in the world. So, let's have some questions or comments. Yes, Peter. Going back to that moment, that is to say, this moment, in dealing with the hard places. These are flowers, and could they be flowers seen as, you know, that activities seem to be driven by heaven energy?

[39:40]

Can we see that as really an attempt at wholesome, if not beautiful, choices, somehow gone in a way which produces not the effect we want? I believe so. I believe that It requires work to see them as flowers. When we see them as flowers, it's important to say that we see them for what they are. And what they are is always, always a desire for life, a desire for wholeness, a desire for connection, a desire for love. Always. and they might be unskillful or anachronisms.

[40:47]

I mean, mostly they arise at a time when they made sense, but they continue after a time in which they're not, they don't make sense anymore. But, you know, this is, to see it that way, to see them that way, is a fruit of the activity of practice, the fruit of don't-know-mind, and allowing these things to be Because what happens is that we either unconsciously act on those wounds, or when we begin to see them as unhealthy or undestructive, we try to cut them out, right? We try to kill them. But rather we need to allow them to be and see them as they are, and then they'll live and they'll die. What's so funny, Ken? Well, you know, they might just change, right, into a different kind of flower.

[41:51]

It's best not to hope for anything, right? It's just to allow the flowers to be and try to see what happens. Yes, Megan? For some reason I'm thinking of Oxalis. It's so pretty. That it is a flower, but it takes over everything if you don't look out. And so that's a flower, but a flower we have to deal with. That's right. That's right. Well, I mean, they're all plants, right? I mean, there's weeds and there's flowers. But who decides? That's right. We all decide. And it's just preference. It's, I mean, it's the Genjokan, right? Flowers grow amidst our longing. Flowers fall amidst our longing and weeds grow amidst our antipathy.

[42:56]

And, you know, one approach is that you just don't choose, right? and then your garden just becomes like the one next door. And you know, you could do that, right? But it's not as poignant, right? It's not as beautiful. But we should know that when we're choosing flowers and weeds that we're doing that, right? And knowing that we're doing that is also knowing and opening ourselves up to the impermanence. Because the flowers die. The flowers die. And in fact, part of what makes them so beautiful is that they die. Yes, sir. This is the last one, and then I get the clunker. I'd like to metaphor a flower for these things that are hard to appreciate when they arise, and understanding the beautiful aspect of them, what they are really representing.

[44:03]

It helps you to see them very compassionately. different about the metaphor of garden and these flowers is that I think that in my experience, when I see these inner flowers as such and appreciate them, but also see how their weed-like aspect, in that they cause suffering and pain, that all I have to do is see that. And that heals it. I don't have to try to pull it out and get rid of it. It does change So it weaves itself in a way, in a very gentle way. That's really well put. I didn't run out of time. There's the Suzuki Roshi talk in Nara Uesoba called The Boss of Everything. That's what you're talking about, isn't it? Boss of Everything is allowing that birth and death, as you described it, to be, and that completely

[45:10]

transforms our relationship with it. All right, well thank you very much, it was fun.

[45:16]

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