We're talking this week about a few stories concerning the great master, Chinese master, Zhaozhou, the Japanese joshu. So to review a little bit, the first story I talked about, a very simple story. And Zhao Zhou's responses are very simple. Also, a monk asked Zhao Zhou, I've just entered the monastery, please give me some guidance. And Zhao Zhou said, have you had breakfast yet? And the monk said, yes, I've eaten. And Zhao Zhou said, then go wash your bowl. So this has to do with taking care of Well, taking care of bulls and other things of the world, taking care of the world around us, taking care of what we use, cleaning up after ourselves.

[01:12]

But it also has to do with our relationship to causes and conditions in a phenomenal world. And so I'm starting at least from the book of Serenity Cases, about this, and Hongzhe, who wrote the verses for these, says, "'Breakfast over in the direction is to wash the bowl, opened up, the mind-ground meets in itself.' And now a guest of the monastery, having studied to the full." So this isn't just about… eating food, having studied to the full, but was there enlightenment in there or not? Opened up the mind ground, meets of itself, and somehow I feel that this isn't just abstract, there's something, there's some ground there.

[02:14]

But it has to do with how do we How does subject meet subject? How do we find the ground of this self or this mind? So all of these stories are about how do we open up zazen, or how do we settle into zazen, or how do we deepen our zazen. And again, the commentary by Wansong, the commentator in the Book of Serenity, talks about commenting on this verse of Hongzhe, talks about the story about Lingyuan who awakened to the way upon seeing peach blossoms wandering around after leaving his teacher Guishan. He passed over a crest of a hill or a mountain and looked and beheld in the valley below many, many peach blossoms and awakened and went to see Guishan who said, those who enter by way of conditions never regress.

[03:17]

And one question I have is whether it's possible to enter anything other than by way of conditions, but here we are. Each of you has, through various causes and conditions, come to be sitting here together this morning. And we have entered the Dragon's Cape. Xuanzang heard of this and said, Lingyin's quite correct indeed, but I dare say the old brother's not through yet. And Lingyin, who'd seen the peach blossoms, heard about this and asked Xuanzang, are you through yet? And Xuanzang said, now you've gotten it. So, washing your bowl is endless. And I believe that Tenzo's preparing another lunch for us, and so, we'll get another opportunity to wash our bowls. So, this business of eating to the full, but not being through yet.

[04:34]

Have you had breakfast yet? Yes, I did. Go wash your bowl. So, Jado is straightforward and simple, and yet, There are many levels. So that's one story. And we've talked about that some. And we just sort of started yesterday on another story that I want to go further into today. A monk asked Zhao Zhou, what is the meaning of the ancestral teacher coming from the West, referring to the legendary founder of Chan Bodhidharma. And Zhaozhou said, a cypress tree in front of the hall. And the monk then said, teacher, please do not use objects to guide people.

[05:39]

And Zhaozhou said, I'm not using an object to guide people. And the monk said, then what is the meaning of the ancestral teacher coming from the western challenges and the cypress tree in front of the hall. So what is our relationship to the world? So we had a good discussion yesterday. Of course, cypress trees are not objects. Trees are very much alive. Cypress trees, as we heard yesterday, were very common in this part of China, just ordinary trees. just what was in front of them, but how do we relate to the world around us? How do we... What's going on in the wall in front of you as you sit upright, inhaling and exhaling?

[06:46]

This practice is sometimes called wall gazing, going back to Bodhidharma, who is said to have sat in a cave for nine years, gazing at a wall. So maybe the wall of the cave was not flat and evenly colored the way ours are. Maybe it was more interesting and you could imagine more objects in the wall. But anyway, what is this wall gazing? Sometimes it's said it's not about gazing at a wall, it's gazing like a wall. How is it that the wall is gazing back at you? And there's also this tree. Someone brought up yesterday that the Precious Mary Samadhi and the Buddha who sat not just in the point of becoming a Buddha for ten kalpas under a tree, or maybe gazing at a tree, because in India they used to sit, well, the Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree, but they also used to sit facing trees.

[07:58]

So maybe they were, maybe they didn't have walls, they were practicing outdoors and they just sat facing a tree. Anyway, Jajo was maybe sitting in a hall like this, and I'll talk more about what kind of hall Jajo was sitting in, but he, He was also facing the cypress tree. I'm not using objects to guide anyone. And as I mentioned yesterday, when one of Jaoja's successors Huizhou went to the great teacher Faoyang's place. Faoyang asked, where have you come from? And Huizhou said, from Zhaozhou. And Faoyang said, oh, I hear that Zhaozhou has a saying, the cypress tree in the yard.

[09:00]

This question is, at least the way it's translated here, it's interesting. He has a saying, the cypress tree in the yard. Is it so? And Huizhou said, no. Paiyan said, everyone who's been around says a monk asked him about the meaning of the ancestor coming from the West, and Jiaozhuo said, the cypress tree in the yard. How can you say no? And Huizhou said, the late pastor, Jiaozhuo, really didn't say this. Please do not slander him. And Paiyan said, ah, the true child of a lion gives a good lion's roar. So we don't know what Jiaozhuo actually said. We don't know. We have these stories. So both of those stories, they're very simple and they're very direct, and it's what's immediately in front of you. And we sit with this body, this mind, on these cushions or chairs.

[10:08]

This inhale, this exhale, settling, opening, settling some more. And we're sitting here for five days and people joining us, so even people joining us for one of the five days benefit from all five days. We're all in the midst of this sashimi soup, just facing wall, this body and mind, this mind ground, whatever. Not using objects. So I'm talking about these other two stories as a kind of background to

[11:11]

A third story, which I'll mention now and maybe I'll get back to maybe today or maybe tomorrow, but this is one of the most famous stories about Zhaozhou has to do with a dog. And maybe I should say that, you know, in our culture, dogs are kind of great, precious commodities and very well treated and beloved. And my understanding of Chinese culture, at least in the Tang, was that dogs were There were dogs around the monastery, but they were kind of like... I don't know, maybe this is too much to say they were like rats, I don't know, but they weren't privileged, domesticated pets. Dogs ran around, I don't know. Like dirty dogs. Dogs were low-class beings, relatively. And so, a monk, we don't know, these anonymous monks who wandered around China and asking questions of these great masters, we don't know if there were many of these monks.

[12:24]

Maybe it was the same monk who asked all these questions and all these stories, and we just don't, you know. This great monk who wandered around, a lone reindeer, anyway. This monk, some monk, asked Yao Zhou, does a dog have a Buddha nature or not? And actually, there's a long story. This is a longer story, but there's a piece of this story that's very famous. It's the first case in the Gateless Gate, one column collection, and maybe it's the most famous. Story in Zen, the monk asked Zhao Zhou, does a dog have Buddha nature or not? And Zhao Zhou said, no, or moo in Japanese, woo in Chinese. And there are whole schools of Zen where people sit for days just going woo. Anyway, and that's a practice that people do. And concentrating on this note is not which,

[13:28]

is emphasized is not the no of yes or no. But that's not the story I'm going to tell. I'm going to tell this version of the story that's in the Book of Serenity. The cases were chosen by Hongzhe, the great Chinese master of the Tsao Tung Soto School of the 1100s, who's sort of a predecessor to Dogen in the 13th century, who brought Soto School to Japan. So in this longer version of the story, a monk asked Jajo, does a dog have a Buddha nature or not? And Jajo said, yes, or ooh, yes. So maybe a lot of people haven't heard that version of the story. But Jajo said, yes. And the monk said, since it has, why is it then in the skin bag? Why would Buddha nature appear as this dog? And Jao Cho said, Jao Cho didn't give some inscrutable, zenny answer.

[14:34]

He said, because he knows yet deliberately transgresses. The story goes on. Another monk asked Jao Cho, does a dog have a Buddha nature or not? And Jao Cho said, no. And then this monk, this persistent monk said, all sentient beings have Buddha nature. Why does a dog have none of that? And Jayaja said, because he still has impulsive consciousness, or karmic consciousness. So, Jayaja gives these quite clear, buddhistic explanations for why a dog does or does not have buddha nature. So again, is this dog an object or not? Is this buddha nature an object or not? Well, I'm going to come back to this story, but that's the context that I want to talk about this week. But I want to come back to this story of the dog and dogs through the nature or not, by way of the cypress tree.

[15:41]

So I mentioned yesterday a couple of brief, a few brief comments on the cypress tree by Dogen, Ehe Dogen in Japan, he also has a whole chapter of Shogun Genzo just about the story of the Sakura Street. So I want to read a few things from that. First, just a little bit about Jojo, this great master who's Many, many, many, probably, I think I've seen a chart listing of different people. Scholars do this, they try and figure out who has the most koans about them and all that. Jadja wins all the time. And maybe it's just because he lived to be 120. It seems to be acknowledged historically. And so he had more time to say all kinds of nice things. He didn't start at 70. Well, that's true. Yeah, one version of it is that he wandered around and for a long time he didn't become a teacher until he was quite old. So anyway, what Dogen says about Zhaozhou is that he did not have many monks, fewer than 20, because it was difficult to follow such a practice.

[16:56]

So he's talking about Jiaozhuo, so I mentioned that. I visited Jiaozhuo's temple in 2007, the summer after I moved here to Chicago, and it's now, in modern China, a huge monastery, and at that time, so that's A number of years ago, at that time in 2007, there were 160 monks practicing full-time there. And there was a big pagoda with Zhaozhou's relics in it, and a big cypress grove supposedly descended from this cypress tree. And actually a hall where part of the Wenguan gate was supposed to have been written. Very large establishment. Very lovely. Anyway, but Zhaozhou, when he was there, did not have many monks, fewer than 20, according to Dogen, because it was difficult to follow such a practice. The monks all, when they practiced, and they took food like we do in the Zen temple, but also slept there, the monks all were small, without front and back sitting platforms.

[18:07]

No lanterns were lit at night. No charcoal burned in winter. You could call it a pitiable life for his old age. The pure practice of the old Buddha Jaojo was like this. And then there's the story that Dogen tells. Once a leg of one of the sitting platforms broke. So traditionally, still in Zen dojos and temples, there are sitting platforms. So we're sitting on the floor here, but they had tons of these sitting platforms where you sit up on. raised from the floor. So once the leg of one of the tongs, one of the string platforms, broke, Zhaozhou replaced it with a burned stick that had one rope tied around it. It was like that for some years. When a monastery officer wanted to repair it, Zhaozhou would not allow it. And Dogen said, this is an unparalleled example throughout time. He goes on about how difficult and rigorous the practice was. Usually there was no grain visible in the gruel. Hungry monks sat next to drafty windows.

[19:07]

He and the assembly often picked nuts for their meals. Anyway, Dogen praises this kind of practice. And of course he's speaking, when was this? Actually, this is just before he moved, while he was still in Kyoto, just before he moved to the north and set up his temple at Eheiji, which also was very rigorous and up in the north country. So maybe he was preparing his monks for a hard lifestyle. So, you know, we have it pretty well. You live in the city and go home at night and have lovely food prepared by your tenzo. Anyway, so Dogen praises Jaojo for his strict practice. But that's just kind of introducing the story of when Jaojo was asked by a monk, what is the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West? And Jaojo said, cypress tree.

[20:14]

cause translates as the circus tree in the garden, anyway. And the monk says, teacher, please do not use an object to guide me. And Zhaozhou said, I am not using an object. And the monk said, what is the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West? And Zhaozhou said, the circus tree in the garden. So Dogen says, and there's a lot here, but I think it's interesting. Although this koan originated with Jajo, all Buddhas have in fact created it with their whole bodies. Who could own it? What we should learn from this is that the cypress tree in the garden or in front of the hall is not an object. Bodhidharma's coming from India is not an object. And the cypress tree is not the self. There is just teacher, please do not use an object to guide me.

[21:17]

And just, I am not using an object. Which teacher is hindered by teacher? If not hindered, the teacher is I. Which I is hindered by I? Even if the I is hindered, it is a true person, Dogen says. What object is hindered by Bodhidharma's coming from the West? An object is always Bodhidharma's coming from the West. However, Bodhidharma's coming from the West and the object are not sequential. It's not that one comes before the other. Bodhidharma's coming from the West is not necessarily the treasury of the true Dharma I, the one Vishvardhana Nirvana, which is what Supposedly, Shakyamuni said he was giving to Mahakasyapa, and Mahakasyapa smiled at the flower. Dogen says it is beyond this mind, beyond this Buddha, beyond this object.

[22:22]

So, Dogen is here giving many responses to what is the meaning of Bodhidharma coming from the West. The question, what is the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West, is not only a question Are the teacher and student sharing the same view? At the very moment of asking, has not one of them seen through? How much has the other attained? In further give and take, neither one is wrong. So it's not a matter exactly of right or wrong. Sometimes when we see these stories, these koans or teaching stories, it seems like, and it's understood sometimes, that there's one person who's got it and one person who doesn't have it. I was talking yesterday about seeing, reading these stories as if you're watching a theater piece or imagining who you would cast in the film version or whatever.

[23:27]

And to actually, you know, think about the people involved. It's not some abstract philosophical position that's being given. It's particular people in a particular scene. And the teacher is responding to a particular student. And the student is asking of a particular teacher. So we have to see that, and to just say, well, or sometimes it's two teachers talking to each other, or whatever, or two monks talking to each other. It's exactly a matter of right or wrong. So as Dogen says, at the very moment of asking the question, there's not one of them seen through. How much has the other attained? In further give and take, neither one is wrong. Thus, Dogen continues, there is missing the mark on top of missing the mark. Because it is missing on top of missing, it is continuous missing. Is it not receiving emptiness and sending back an echo?

[24:31]

Because that spirit has no contradiction, there is the cypress tree in front of the hall. So I wonder, this might be the passage. Thus, there is missing the mark on top of missing the mark. Because it is missing on top of missing, it is continuous missing. One question that continually comes up and people have asked me over the years and people have inquired of on the teacher list and so forth is, supposedly, Dogen said that his life was one continuous mistake. Or sometimes it's attributed to Suzuki Roshi, because all kinds of Zen sayings are attributed either to Dogen or Suzuki Roshi. Suzuki Roshi attributes it to Dogen. Yeah. But nobody's been able to find it. But it might be a misreading of this passage. Because he does say, well, this is Kasa's translation.

[25:34]

I keep going home and up to the original, but I'll probably forget. Thus, there is missing the mark on top of missing the mark. Because it is missing on top of missing, it is continuous missing. So, you know, the point isn't to get it right. And the point of our zazen is not to get some correct answer. And the point of our zazen is not to have some perfect experience or perfect understanding. It's just continuous missing. Can we be present and upright in the middle of being a little bit off, being a human being? Move? Yes. Not getting caught on one side or the other. Without being an object, it cannot be a cypress tree. Oh, and then he says, is it not receiving emptiness and sending back an echo?

[26:41]

So what is the echo of emptiness? Ah, pretty good. Because vast spirit has no contradiction, the cypress tree in the garden. This is how it translates. The cypress tree is not an old shrine, he says. As it is not an old shrine, it is totally immersed. As it is totally immersed, I have endeavored, he says. Because I have endeavored, I am not using an object. Then with what does Zhaozhou teach? I am like this. So Zhaozhou is just like this. I am just like this. And maybe you are just like this. So Dogen is warning us not to make the cypress tree into some old shrine. That's not the point. So this is turning this story about the cypress tree.

[27:49]

Again, he says that the cypress tree is not an object, and Bodhidharma's coming from the West. Actually, Kassa translates it, Bodhidharma's coming from India, is not an object, and the cypress tree is not the self. So, you know, one way to see this is that the cypress tree out in front of the hall is not separate from Jowja. It's not separate from... The question is not separate from Bodhidharma coming from the West. But it's just missing the mark on top of missing the mark. What object is hindered by Bodhidharma's coming from the West? an object is always Bodhidharma coming from the West.

[29:05]

However, Bodhidharmas coming from the West and the object are not sequential. So just repeating parts of this. The question, what is the meaning of Bodhidharmas coming from the West, is not only a question, or the teacher and student sharing the same view. At the very moment of asking, has not one of them seen through, how much has the other realized, and further give a take, neither one is wrong. So, these stories offer us a way of turning our zazen, of deepening, maybe, or just hanging out in our zazen. And as I said, when I started talking about these, you know, you can just ignore these stories, just sit, it's fine. But these provide food for our zazen. That's the point of these stories.

[30:06]

It's not about figuring out some explanation of them, of course. They just are food for our zazen. But then please wash your bowl. So after talking about this story about Zhaozhou talking about the cypress tree in the garden, Dogen continues with another story about Zhaozhou that is a link to the story of the dog. This is an interesting story. Zhaozhou was asked by a monk, does the cypress tree have Buddha nature? Zhaozhou answered, it does. So, you know, he's famous for saying, you know, dogs don't, but here he's saying the cycle of history does. And the monk said, when does it become Buddha? Chandra said, when the sky falls to the ground.

[31:09]

The monk said, when does that happen? Jaojo said, when the cypress tree becomes Buddha. So Dogen continues, commenting, now listen to these words of Jaojo while not abandoning the question of the monk. The times of Jaojo's words, when the sky falls to the ground and when the cypress tree becomes Buddha, are not separate. The monk questioned the cypress tree, Buddha nature, becoming a Buddha, and when. He also questioned the sky and falling. In response to the monk's question, Dogen says, Zhaozhou said, it does, meaning the cypress tree has Buddha nature, fully exploring the statement and freely let flow the life stream of Buddha ancestors. that the cypress tree has Buddha nature could not ordinarily be spoken of.

[32:25]

It had not yet been spoken about. And then Dogen says the cypress tree does have Buddha nature. Clarify how. Is the status of the cypress tree that has Buddha nature high or low? Maybe it's low status for a cypress tree Maybe when the cypress trees are conferring, you look down on the one that has buddhanesia. Inquire about its lifespan and physical dimensions. Ask about its social class and clan. Are hundreds and thousands of cypress trees in one class or in different families? So there are many, many cypress trees, but how are they related? Are there the buddhanesia cypress trees and the non-buddhanesia cypress trees? are there the high class buddhanesha cypress trees and the low class buddhanesha cypress trees? So this is what Dogon is encouraging us to consider.

[33:32]

Does the cypress tree become Buddha, practice and arouse the aspiration for enlightenment, or does it become Buddha but does not practice or arouse the aspiration for enlightenment? And you know, so I wonder, What is it like for a cypress tree to practice? And some of you know a lot about cypress trees or other kinds of trees. What is the practice of trees? So I haven't thought about that so much. Sometimes I think about how do I thought about, asked about how dolphins practice zazen. Because they have big brains and just wind up. What they're doing. I imagine that they have their own zazen. But they can't sit, so something else. Just swim, I don't know. But Dogen is taking us

[34:35]

into the realm of the Buddha nature of cypress trees. Well, actually he's following Jaojo into that realm. What kind of relationship exists between the cypress tree and the sky? Does the cypress tree become Buddha when the sky falls because the tree-ness of the cypress tree is always the sky? Is the status of the cypress tree in the sky its beginning or ultimate stage. And let's investigate this thoroughly in detail. So if you need something to do the next couple of days, there you go. I had my own comments, but maybe I'll just finish up what Dogen has to say about all this. Let me ask old man Jiaozhou, if you are one of the withered cypress trees sprouting from one root, what do you do?

[35:37]

Jiaozhou's indication the cypress tree has Buddha nature raises such questions as, is the cypress tree totally immersed in the cypress tree? Is buddhanature totally immersed in buddhanature? More than a few buddhas have explored these words, but not all those that have buddha faces investigate such words. Even among buddhas, there are some who can say them and some who cannot. Well, of course, not all buddhas care to talk about buddhanature. Why would they? Then Dogen gets into this next part, which is something that really interests me. He says, the words, when the sky falls to the ground, do not refer to something impossible. Every time the cypress tree becomes Buddha, the sky falls.

[36:42]

Sounds of falling are not hidden, but are louder than hundreds and thousands of thunder strikes. So what does it sound like when the sky falls to the ground? Is it like those tornadoes a couple of weeks ago? The time when the cypress tree becomes Buddha is provisionally within the 24 hours and it is beyond the 24 hours. Actually, it's 12 hours because they counted the time back. The sky that falls is not the same sky seen by ordinary people and sages, but in an entirety of sky beyond that. Others do not see it. Jaojo alone sees it. The ground the sky falls to is not possessed by ordinary people or sages, but there is an entirety of ground beyond that. Light and shadow do not reach it. Jaojo alone reaches it. At the moment the sky falls, even the sun, moon, mountains, and rivers will face it. Who says that buddha nature unfailingly becomes buddha? Buddha nature is magnificence actualized after becoming buddha.

[37:47]

Further, there is buddha nature that is born together and practiced together upon becoming buddha. So all this business about buddha nature is a little messy. We'll talk about this when we talk about the dog who, yes, has buddha nature, no, does not have buddha nature. And Dogen himself, unpacks one of the basic statements about Buddha nature from the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, which said, all sentient beings, without exception, have Buddha nature. And in his Buddha nature essay, Duncan retranslates that. All sentient beings, complete, a whole being, Buddha nature. Or you could say completely are Buddha nature, but there's not even a verb. all sentient beings in wholeness, buddha nature. Buddha nature is not something you can have. So there's all kinds of problems talking about this buddha nature business. And yet, Jaju, the story about the dog and buddha nature gets into this.

[38:54]

And washing the bowl, is this about buddha nature? Well, facing the wall, is this about buddha nature? Is this about Buddha nature? Well, you know, we don't have to even talk about that. We can just sit and be ourselves. And yet, you know, there's all this business about Buddha, and we're chanting the names of Buddha ancestors, and maybe we don't need that. Tony Packer, who died this past year, was a wonderful teacher and a very wise being, and she decided at some point, no Buddhas. She never talked about Buddha, and she didn't have any Buddhas in her. I would say she was a Zen teacher, but she would hit me for saying that. Anyway, but here we have this, but I want to go back to this, so we'll talk more tomorrow about this dog, Buddha nature story, but I want to go back to this story about when does the cypress tree become Buddha, the monk asked, and Jayajaya said when the sky falls to the ground, when does that happen?

[40:09]

When the cypress tree becomes Buddha. One problem is just that we have these separate categories. Cypress tree, Buddha. We think these are separate. And we have various nouns that we think are things that are separate. So that's one way to look at it. This is how our mind works. We separate things. When the sky falls to the ground, where does the sky start? Ah, yeah. Buddha touched the ground to verify his awakening. And everything above the ground, what is that?

[41:12]

Well, maybe we don't think this is sky here. The Chinese character for sky also means space. It also means emptiness. So if you go outside and look out over Lake Michigan, if you look left side and turn left, you can see the sky. Where does it start? How many feet above Lake Michigan does the sky start? Does it start right at the top of the waves? Is there any time when the sky has not fallen to the ground? And what is the separation between the ground and the sky anyway?

[42:26]

On a street... Where's... Oh, it's on Damon up here. There's a... Near Damon, there's a... block that's closed off. It was closed off, I don't know, several days ago. Now it's not closed off, but you can see where, why it was closed off, because the ground just, there's these big holes, something fell through. There's this, I don't know, deep pit in the street that's blocked off now. So is the sky down to the, anyway, So what is the separation between cypress tree and Buddha? Between dog and Buddha nature? Between Zen student and Zen teacher? Between dust and dust grains?

[43:43]

And Bob Dylan has a song about this. When the sky comes falling to the ground, he says, it won't matter who loves who, you love me or I love you, when the sky comes falling to the ground. Actually, it's when the night comes falling from the sky, but same difference. So... So Dogen says, does the cypress tree become Buddha, practice and arouse the aspiration for enlightenment, or does it become Buddha but does not practice or arouse the aspiration for enlightenment? What kind of relationship exists between the cypress tree and the sky? So as we sit here this week together, inhaling and exhaling, getting up when the bell rings, enjoying the food in the first bowl, in the second bowl, maybe even in the third bowl.

[44:59]

How do we appreciate Thank you very much.

[45:25]

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