Good morning. We are in our fall practice period, Aspects of Practice, which is led by the senior students. And our subject for this year is the ancestors, the Chinese ancestors from the Golden Age of Zen. And so, to my mind, it's appropriate that we have this talk by Ron Nestor, on this Saturday, today. His Dharma name is So-ong So-do, which means something like kind or warm, ancestral way. And he's not as old, he is from the golden age of Zen. But not the golden age of Chinese, then. Ron has been actually practicing here at Berkeley Zen Center for 45 years, since he was three years old.

[01:03]

He was very precocious, and he likes to think he's still precocious. Anyway, many of us have really learned a lot from Ron over the years and look forward to his presentation A little louder? How's the volume in the back now? Is that okay? A little bit louder? A little bit louder? How's that? Okay. Just raise your hand if it's not enough when I'm talking. We just finished the Bodhisattva Full Moon Ceremony. And we pay homage to the succession of ancestors So that's what we're doing this month, that's what the senior students are doing, is we're paying homage to the secession of ancestors.

[02:05]

And there's another phrase, another thing we say, both hidden and revealed. So we're paying homage to the revealed ancestors during this month, but there are many, many unrevealed men and women who obviously are our ancestors, but whose names we don't know, and they didn't write down everything they said. But the people that we're dealing with during this month are mostly men, but not only men, and teachers whose words are written down so that we can look at them, think about them, wonder about them. And then each of the senior people picked an ancestor. And I think we all picked people that we related to particularly. So I picked Youngman. Youngman was towards the end of the Tang Dynasty.

[03:07]

The Tang Dynasty runs from 600 to about 900. He was born in, I think, 864 or so and died in 949. So he was towards And very eminent monk in many, many columns in the collections that we have now are from young men. His first name actually was called Wen Yan until he had his own temple, but we'll just call him Young Mao, I think. Young men's teaching, why I picked him and why I like him, for one thing is the substance of his teaching is not different than any other teacher, Zen teacher, any good Zen teacher. The substance doesn't vary that much, if at all. I mean, basically there's not doctrinal disputes for the most part. I'm sure there are some, someplace, but for the most part there are not doctrinal disputes in Zen practice about the doctrine or the dharma.

[04:14]

The disputes are more about, well, how are you doing it? What's the method that you're using? Every teacher has their own way of conveying their understanding, and that's where each of the teachers is different. And some of them we can relate to, sometimes we have more difficulty with other teachers. I think we tend to gravitate towards people that we have some affinity with in the way A young man's qualities that I like are very direct, succinct. He doesn't waste words. His words are very simple and direct, but they always seem very accurate and to the point. And I think that's a real essential quality of his teaching, is that he can condense

[05:21]

a point into just a few words and convey it without having to use many words for it. And he gets right to the point. My feeling about him from reading lots of things that he said, because a lot of what he said was written down by his monks, is similar to what, you know, when Suzuki Roshi died, Chogyam Trungpa, who was a Tibetan teacher in the 70s and 80s in America, important, pivotal Tibetan teacher, said that he was very close to Suzuki Roshi and had great affinity with him, said that Suzuki Roshi was like a hot stick of incense, burning stick of incense, the tip of the tip of incense. And he really appreciated that kind of hot or burning, sharp, immediate quality about him. So I feel that way about young men, too. And Youngman is always... While he doesn't say anything that's radical in terms of substance, in terms of method, his job is he's always pulling the rug out in front of students with compassion.

[06:37]

And he's very skillful, in my opinion, the way that he does it is very skillful and helpful. He's not trying to tip somebody over. He's just trying to say, you don't need to be standing on this particular thing that you're standing on. Just stand up as you are. Another point that he makes a lot is to trust your own experience, rather than looking for the truth or the Dharma out there someplace. He said, you know, trust your own experience. Doesn't mean believe everything you think, but just trust, trust your And there's one interaction he has with his monks where one of the monks says, well, is the Zen teaching consistent with the sutras? And the young man said, yeah, it is.

[07:43]

Zen teaching is consistent with the sutras. But if you are holding on to the sutras, you might as well just be sitting in a trench of shit. So, you know, his imagery, he doesn't stint on his imagery. He's always actually, sometimes he's close to vulgar in order to cut through people's imagined purity. Somebody asked him about purity once and he spat on the ground is his answer. But he's not a rough character. He can sound rough when you read what he says. But it doesn't strike me at all as a rough character. Very accomplished. Spent his whole life studying with other teachers. Very dedicated and always has the welfare of his students uppermost in his mind. So, I'll just read you a few things that he said.

[08:50]

This is from a book. We have a lot of what he said, actually. And from the record of young men. And this book is by a Scandinavian fellow. This comes out a number of years ago. His name was Urs App. And when I looked on Amazon and saw that it said, if there's anything about young men, here's about Urs App, I thought, they've already got an app about young men. It's amazing. But no, it's just a person. The back of this book says, one of the endorsements on the back of this book. It wasn't until I saw this book that I realized I'd been waiting for it a long time. It will be a significant contribution to the translated work of the Chinese Chan masters, and will be welcomed with gratitude by both Zen students and scholars. Mel Weitzman, Abbott, San Francisco Zen Center.

[09:50]

So he got there, soldier was there, He's an interesting guy. He went to China, he poked around in the monastery that Yama taught at, and it's a very well-written book, in my opinion. So this first thing that he says, to me, is a kind of summation. If I had to sum him up in just one thing that he says, this would be it. Although there are many things that one could say that I'm not. Addressing the assembly, Master Youngman said, though you may have attained freedom from being obstructed by anything you encounter, and managed to reach the emptiness of words, phrases, and all entities,

[11:01]

the realization that mountains, rivers, and the earth are but concepts, and that concepts cannot be grasped either. And even if you are equipped with so-called samadhi and the sea of original nature, it still is nothing but waves churning round and round without any wind. Even if you forget dualistic knowledge and awakening, awakening is nothing other than Buddha nature, and are called a man or a woman without concern, you still must realize that everything hinges on a single thing going beyond. So there's no place that young man is willing to stay. It's always going beyond, which is nothing but the Heart Sutra. Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone completely beyond. So it's not different than traditional Buddhism, but his job is to convey it viscerally.

[12:12]

And staying with the Heart Sutra, someone asked a young man, what is form is nothing other What is, quote, form is nothing other than emptiness. The master said the staff is hitting your nose. So I'll make some little comments about things he says, it's just my comments. I'm not saying these are accurate, but this is just how I take it. So somebody is asking about form and emptiness. He Just imagine this wooden staff just hitting you in the nose. Not necessarily somebody else hitting you, just the staff hitting you in the nose. At that point, what about emptiness? Are you in touch with emptiness right then when the staff hits your nose? Are you thinking about form and emptiness when something hits you in the nose? One thing that a young man said, every day you come and go asking endless questions.

[13:49]

If you were crossing a river, how would you do so? And a long-time resident of the monastery, like several people here, a long-time resident of the monastery answered, step. In other words, how would you cross the river? Step. Unusually, young man was highly pleased with the answer. That's him, you know, it's like nothing fancy, just absolutely be there and do it. Master Yanmen once sees the staff banking on the seat, which he did a lot, and said, All sounds are the Buddha's voice, and all forms are the Buddha's shape.

[14:57]

Yet, when you hold your bowl and eat your food, you hold a bowl view. When you walk, you hold a walk view. And when you sit, you have a sit view. The whole bunch of you behaves this way. The Master took his staff and drove them all away at once. He's constantly driving everybody, they say, he's driving everybody out of the zendo, you know, just get out of here. But think about what he's saying, you know, that everything that we do, we tend to make a story about all that we're doing. We create a drama or a story, I like this, I don't like it, I'm worried about it, oh, I'm confident about it, I wonder what will happen next, This is what happened last time. And rather than just directly experience what we're doing, we're creating a lot of stuff at the same time. And that's what he's getting at.

[15:59]

And then he gives the other side of that, but I don't think I have it right here. Anyway, let's do one more. Now he's talking about, even though he is always telling people to experience their life directly, He also appreciates the teaching of his predecessors and thinks that it's a good idea to listen to what our ancestors say. And this is back in the 900s. Anyway, try to get a firm hold from the meaning of these sayings, pondering them from all angles.

[17:04]

And after days or years, an entrance will open up by itself. This matter does not allow anyone to step in for you. It is nothing but each person's very own mission. If some monks come out into the world, it is just to act as a witness for you. If some old monks come out into the world, like him, or Sojin, it is just to act as a witness for you. If you have found some entrance or some clue, you shouldn't lose sight of yourself. If, as a matter of fact, you haven't attained it yet, No methods applied by a teacher will be of any use." And then he's also known for his one-word answers. There's a whole series of questions that come up from monks that are one-word answers. And, like, what is the one road of young men?

[18:05]

His answer, personal experience. What is the Tao? Go. In other words, you know, what is the way? Go. Do it. Go on the way. Don't worry about what the way is out here. Just walk. Walk the way, like step across the river. And what is the right Dharma I? All comprehensive. So he had these interactions with his monks, and he's known for being able to, appropriate interactions, being able to, based on who he's talking to, how to express what he needs to express.

[19:12]

And all of the callings that we have from young men, and there are a lot of them, partly because some of his Dharmas successors, Shui Do in particular, who put together the Bluetooth record, was biased towards him, so took about 18 of his sayings and made them into colons, or developed them into colons. But when Yunmin was talking, he wasn't, what we call colons from Yunmin, were just things that he said to his students. They were just interactions. He wasn't not creating a koan, even though when we see it, what young men said, when you see this whole body of, very well done actually, well body of material around this one simple thing that he said. When Susan gave her talk, her shuso talk, actually when she was shuso, her koan was every day,

[20:18]

is a good day, which is a young man koan. But that's just one thing that he said. It took him about 10 seconds to say it. And then later, and pretty soon after he died, in the next era, the Song era, they started going back over these things the teachers had said. And they developed them into cases or koans, similar to legal precedents. And even when young man was teaching, he would say, you know, you're indicted, you know, you made a mistake, you're indicted. But it wasn't that he was creating a con, it's just that it was his way of talking. Seeing a legal precedent as important, that understanding what's true or real is just as, is actually more important, but has all the validity that we impart to the justice system. But later they developed many koans based on these very simple things that he and others said. So when you read what he says, there's an organic quality to it.

[21:24]

You recognize things that he said as showing up in the major koans that we've looked at before. But as he's speaking it, it feels very organic and simple. Just to give you a short idea of his life, which is pretty interesting, but I'll keep it short. Like many of these teachers, he was a monk from a very young age. But when he happened to be in his mid-20s, he met his first real teacher, who was Muzo. Muzo was a retired abbot, Zen monastery, fairly fairly well-known in the parts where he was teaching. But he had retired and was taking care of his elderly mother. He was making sandals. They called them sandal-maker chin to support himself and his mother.

[22:28]

And he was kind of reclusive and a little cranky and not so easy to get to talk to. So a young man had an affinity for him and kept trying to ask him, go to see him and ask him questions. And Muzo would kind of keep pushing him away It was very grudgingly, you know, it wasn't like he just signed up for dopesong to go see Shinoji. It was like young men had to fight to go even get a few words with him. But finally, you know, Musa thinks, well, he's, you know, he's kind of starting to begin to accept him. And so young man knocks on the door. Musa says, who is it? And the young man said, it's me, young man. What do you want? Well, he comes, he walks inside. He says, I just, I feel uneasy about myself. And then Muzo says, and this is like a kind of colloquialism for Chinese in that era, the stone drills of Qin. Stone drills of Qin refer to a previous emperor who was kind of full of himself and was gonna build this huge castle or some big structure to memorialize himself.

[23:38]

In order to do so, he had these enormous drills built so that I suppose he could drill, I don't know if he was gonna drill stone or the drills were made out of stone, but he had these big gigantic drills made. And then the whole project fell apart and it never even got started. And so now he's stuck with these big huge drills and they're totally useless. So the equivalent of that is that's what we do with our, that's what we do with ourself. We create a big self out of ourself. We create this big self, you know, our ego is really involved in it. And then, in the end, all that creation that we're doing is a wasted effort. It's a waste. You can't use the kind of concoctions that we come up with. So, he said, I'm concerned about myself. And it's like so much wasted project. You've just been wasting your time on this big project.

[24:39]

So then he shoves Yunlin out the door, and that's the end of the story. And that's how it's written down by Yunlin's disciples. However, a hundred years later or so, they add in, somebody else adds in, and not only did they push him out the door, but he broke his foot in the door. And he walked away, or limped away with a broken leg. But that's an add-on to make the story more interesting. Basically, he just pushed him out the door. And one commentator said, I don't see how he, after that young man spent 10 years traveling all over China, how he was able to do that if he broke his foot. Anyway, he traveled all over China for another 10 years or so, and then he met his primary teacher, Zui Feng. And Zui Feng had an affinity with him, and they had a very intimate kind of relationship. And Zui Feng recognized that young men had a lot to offer.

[25:41]

for building. And eventually, so young men, you know, eventually becomes a head student, goes and travels some more, becomes head student of another monastery. The abbot dies, he becomes the abbot of that monastery. This is near the coast in the south of China. And then the authorities like him. The government likes him. They're impressed by him and they support him. So he doesn't have to struggle in terms of the support of his monastery. As a matter of fact, the problem is there's too much interest. Tourists are coming by, people wanting to hang out and be part of the young men scene. And he gets tired of that, and the local authority realizes that and offers him to have his own monastery up on the mountain, which he joyfully accepts the offer and moves over to this mountain called Young Men, which means Gate to the Clouds. And then he teaches, he's about 64, and he teaches there for another 20 years. And that monastery fell into, what's the word?

[27:00]

Disrepair. And the Chinese, the modern Chinese have renovated it, but it's nothing like what the original was like. Yeah, did you go there? Okay. So I want to take a little diversion here about the ancestors in general, and koans in general. Because we're reading in class and in lectures, we're hearing a lot of what the ancestors in this particular period said, the Chinese ancestors. And I actually had, Sojin's been teaching a Book of Semenity class for actually about a year and a half, or even two years now. just going through the Book of Serenity case by case by case. And after a while, I'm thinking, well, I really like this. But it's interesting that they never talk about emotions. They never talk about the obvious kinds of emotions.

[28:01]

I mean, obviously, everybody has the emotion of wanting to practice. That's for sure. But, you know, depression, sadness, elation, Those kinds of boredom, those kinds of emotions are not expressed in the Koan literature very much. Maybe sometimes, but not much. And I just wonder about that, where the monks would never say, you know, teacher, I'm so depressed, you know, I'm really feeling down, I don't know what to do. I can imagine a monk saying that, but they're not gonna write that down and, you know, convey that. But anyway, in the koans, they really don't talk about emotion as much. And I have no problem with that, because I have some feeling why that is. But it seems to me that that emotion of dimension is important to recognize, that it's not directly dealt with in the koans, in the cases that we study and the things that the teachers have said.

[29:05]

So I looked up what Suzuki Roshi might have said about that, and he's got something really good, and I just wanted to read an excerpt from what he said about it. He said, Suzuki Roshi says, our emotions are deeply rooted to our true natures. Therefore, to correctly study our emotional problems, we need to understand our deeper selves. Religion is supported mainly by our emotional power, On the surface, emotions may seem very changeable, but this is only appearances. The depths of our emotional powers are stable. Through practice, we should understand the true nature of our emotional power. By this understanding, we should give up concern with our superficial emotional levels. Understanding the true nature of emotional power should lead to transmutation of this power into will and the way-seeking mind.

[30:07]

Thus, what was once described as anger towards others becomes anger at one's own stupidity and increased willpower. Its relationship to emotional power is the most important part of our practice." Which you wouldn't think that a Zen teacher would say. Our practice should be directed towards our basic emotional problems, not toward our superficial emotional concerns and hang-ups. And then he says about Dogen, you know, he said, Dogen is different from other Japanese and from Chinese Zen masters. Some people say that he was not really enlightened because what he says is too human. Dogen said that it is useless to try to escape from one's emotional problems. In a remote mountain hermitage, for example, which is different than a monastery, but in a hermitage where you're alone, for example, such problems become worse instead of better.

[31:16]

So, emotions are there, but they don't want to deal with all the myriad kinds of complexities of the coming and going of the surface emotions that we have. but it doesn't deny emotion. And actually, I think Tibetans really have a good feel for this, in the transforming emotions into something that includes wisdom, too. Finally, I just wanted to mention one koan, and I'll keep it short, that I like a lot from a young man. It's called Mount Sumeru. Mount Sumeru is a mythical, although in the early days, I think people really believed such a thing existed. And even in Hindu religion, this mountain existed. Huge, unimaginably high, wide mountain someplace.

[32:20]

This is when they thought the world was flat. And just, you know, you can't see the top of it. Mount Everest looks small compared to it. So, in the case, a monk asked young men, when not producing a single thought, is there any fault or not? Young men said, Mount Summer. That's his answer. So I just love this koan because it stops you in your tracks. What does he mean? So the monk is thinking about not thinking. He's wondering, when I'm not thinking, I wonder if I'm missing something. I'm wondering, is that the right way to do it? Has I been doing something wrong? I don't know. But in the process, he's just completely absorbed in this thinking process.

[33:24]

And so, the young man says, Mount Sumeru. So, you know, Case, this is in the Book of Serenity, Wang San puts together the Book of Serenity, he says, Some say, as soon as one questions in this way, already this is raising thought, a fault as big as Mount Sumeru. Some say it is like Mount Sumeru, unmoved by the eight winds, remaining steadfast for a thousand ages. And some say that because it is difficult for people to pass through this particular case, it is like Mount Sumner. And then Wang San says, such assessments have not yet comprehended young men's meaning. So people have different responses to what he means. Why would he say this huge, gigantic mountain in response to, what about not thinking? Am I missing something? So I had this coin in mind in the back of my mind, I suppose, and I was traveling out to Walnut Creek to visit my 99-year-old aunt.

[34:38]

And coming around the curve in the Walnut Creek area, you come around the curve and all of a sudden, the light was really nice, it was in the morning, and I saw Mount Diablo. And you know, you're driving on the freeway and you're paying attention to lane changing and all the rest of it, and then all of a sudden, there's Mount Diablo. And so this instant thought just occurred to me, that's what he was getting at. This image of the mountain just wipes out everything else. You don't need to think about it, you don't need to measure it, it's just there. I'm not saying that's what it's all about, but that was just a feeling that I had and then started thinking So what I like about it is the immediacy of that answer. You can't figure it out, but you just have to take it in. That's my feeling on that.

[35:44]

So I'll stop there, and if you have any comments or questions or differences, please speak up. Master young men. Yes. From the record of a Chan teacher, Gate of the Clouds. Alan? Do you know how his lineage progressed after him? Yeah, thanks. It died out after, I think, maybe It was like a couple hundred years. A number of generations have died out. I won't go into the five houses of Zen, but these are five teachers who were very pivotal teachers, and they had sort of a lineage that got built around the teachers because they were so good, so strong, including Soto and Rinzai.

[36:53]

The other three of the lineages died out, but Soto and Rinzai have remained. And so his lasted for a number of generations, but just generally faded out. He was a couple hundred years. But interestingly, I think this is 150 years or so after he died, Shui Do put together the Blue Cliff Record. Shui Do never met him, but it completely sort of enshrined young men in a way for people to have some feeling for. So even though his lineage died out, he's still very present, for nothing else than all the koans that relate to what he said. Can you say something? Can you say, you know, that there's a saying that every phrase of Inman has three meanings. I just kept getting fuzzy qualities about one of these aspects in particular.

[38:07]

So he's known for these three aspects. And one aspect is easy. It's like going with the waves. It's basically, they call it going with the waves, basically responding to circumstances and embodied in the way that he responds to his monks. So responding to circumstances is just what it sounds like, that rather than have a whole lot of static and your own ideas about everything, it should be this way, it should be that way, you just respond to what's happening and you respond to the person that you're talking to, which oftentimes we don't really. Oftentimes we don't really respond to the person because we've got our own agenda. Then there's also cutting off the streams.

[39:09]

Cutting off the streams, I'm not so sure what he meant. I mean, I would think the streams of how we go chasing after things and chasing after our desires and senses and so forth. getting off the stream. It stops your mind. It stops your discursive mind so that you can actually allow something to come forth. Okay. Isn't there also a more traditional Buddhist thing about leakages or something? Yeah. That's what I was thinking is more about leaking. But I think what Sogyal said is good. the streams of how we elaborately concoct stuff with our minds, much more so than we really need to, which is really a strong point of Zen practice.

[40:20]

I mean, this is a big emphasis of Zen practice as opposed to other forms of Buddhism. And then the third one, Oh yeah, all-comprehensive. Like when he says all-comprehensive, it's like, it's big. It's like, you could say non-duality, but it's like, they say heaven and earth. The word is heaven and earth. So, young man includes everything. He's not leaving something out. He wants to include everything. He's not just seeing one sign. His one word. covers the whole thing. So those are the three aspects of young men. Each one of his things has all three. Right, yeah. And you can look at his koans. I'm a little suspicious of this, because I think they may be forcing this a little bit, but you can see each of these three aspects in every one of his cases.

[41:29]

And I suppose you can do that. But you might be able to do that with the other teachers as well. I'm not sure. Okay, thank you.

[41:43]

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