HALLELUJAH! Today I'm going to talk about case number 87 in the Blue Cliff Record. This case is called, Uman's Medicine and Sickness Cure Each Other. And Ingo introduces the subject, and he says, He's talking about Master Umang, or someone like that.

[01:01]

And he says, the clear-eyed one person knows no restriction. At one time, he stands on the top of the mountain with the weeds thick around him. At another time, he is in the bustle of the marketplace, enjoying perfect ease of mind. When he displays the wrath of Nada, he is three-faced and six-armed. When he shows the mercy of the sun-faced and moon-faced, he gives forth the all-embracing light of blessing. In every particle, he reveals all the bodies of the Buddha. Mixing with people, he trudges through the mire. When he performs a transcendent action, even Buddhas cannot follow him, and they are driven back thousands of miles. Is there anyone among you who can go with him and act with him? See the following.

[02:02]

And here's the main subject. Uman said to his disciples, medicine and sickness cure each other. All the earth is medicine. Where will you find yourself? And then Master Setjo has a verse. And he says, all the earth is medicine. Ancient and modern men, or people, make a great mistake. Shut the gate, but do not build the cart. The universe is the highway, vast and broad. Mistaken, all is mistaken. Though their noses are stuck up to heaven, they will still be pierced for a rope. I have to explain that. So, in Engo's introduction, he says, the clear-eyed man or woman knows no restriction.

[03:15]

No restriction means not stuck in any place. In the Prajnaparamita Sutra of 8,000 lines, it says, One should stand in a place where there is no place to stand. One should not be stuck somewhere. Even though you find a good place, you can't stay there. There is no place to stay. Even though we find some temporary place, we think, oh, here's a good place to stay, and then we make our nest there. All nests are temporary. There's no place to really, that you can stand.

[04:21]

So when you understand this, then you have no restriction. When you're caught by it, you're tied with a rope around your nose, through your nose. The clear-eyed person knows no restriction. At one time, he stands on the top of the mountain with the weeds thick around him. This means completely unattached to the world, maybe like a hermit on top of a mountain. perfectly contented with no problems, no cars, no smoke, no money, no people to deal with, no cell phone, perfectly self-contained.

[05:25]

That's pretty good. At another time, He is in the bustle of the marketplace enjoying perfect ease of mind. So he comes down from the mountain and enters into all kinds of relationships and deals with all kinds of problems and drives around, answers the telephone, has money, does all the things that people do. but with perfect ease and peace of mind as if on the mountaintop. If he gets stuck on the mountaintop, this is a kind of sickness. If he's not willing or able to enter into the marketplace, staying on the top of the mountain is a kind of sickness.

[06:29]

if he's only interested in the marketplace and is not able to stay on the top of the mountain, that's also a kind of sickness. So the hermit sickness is cured by going into the marketplace. The marketplace sickness is cured by going to the top of the mountain. Enlightenment and delusion mutually cure each other. We want enlightenment. Enlightenment is Not yet being on top of the mountain.

[07:34]

Or being on top of the mountain is not yet enlightenment, as it says in the Sangha Kai. Just being one with everything is not yet enlightenment. This enlightenment has to be cured by delusion. Delusion means the marketplace Strictly speaking, enlightenment is to be free of the marketplace, free of everything. Delusion is to be caught by everything, to be stuck and caught by our desires. But desire is also Desire is also a kind of poison.

[08:40]

As Buddha says, desire is the cause of suffering. So this is a poison. But desire is also a medicine. The desire for a way-seeking mind is medicine for the desire of being caught by things, by the world. So when desire is turned toward way-seeking mind, or when desire is turned toward practice, it's called way-seeking mind. It's no longer called desire, even though it's the desire for dealing with desire. In one sense, desire is poison, and in another sense, desire is medicine.

[09:46]

There's no fixed place. There's no fixed thing. To stay on the top of the mountain is very good. As Mao Zedong used to say, religion is poison. The Chinese say religion is poison, and it's true. Religion is poison, but it's also medicine. Buddhism is medicine, but it's also poison. If you are sick, you take some medicine. If you take too much medicine, it's poison.

[10:50]

Or if when you stop being sick, you keep taking the medicine, it's poison. And poison, we use very powerful poisons to cure our illness. Poison is not poison for everything. Medicine is not medicine for everything. The medicine should fit the cure. I think Gilberton Sullivan said something like that. When he displays the wrath of Nada, he is three-faced and six-armed.

[11:53]

I don't want to explain who Nada is. It's kind of a Japanese deity, actually. But here it represents Buddha in his many phases of saving or it could be a thousand arms, meaning the various ways Buddha has of dealing out medicine. So when he displays the wrath of nada, his three-faced and six-hundred wrath, it kind of means a heroic endeavor, and also means like chasing away the demons, right? Ah, so when chasing away the demons, he is totally wrathful. But when he shows his mercy, he's the sun-faced Buddha and the moon-faced Buddha.

[12:58]

He gives forth the all-embracing light of blessing. You know, sun-faced Buddha and moon-faced Buddha is also when U Man was sick. U Man uses this sickness a lot. There's a lot of koans where U Man is talking about sickness and cure. And Sun Face, Moon Face is no exception. When U Man was sick, he apparently was pretty sick, and the director team over, he said, Sun-Face Buddha, Moon-Face Buddha. Sun-Face Buddha, there's a sutra that names thousands of Buddhas, and in this sutra there is a Sun-Face Buddha and a Moon-Face Buddha.

[14:08]

Sun-Face Buddha lives for a thousand years, or a kalpa, something like that. And moon-faced Buddha only lives a night and a day. So Uman is saying something like, whatever. So when he shows the mercy of the sun-faced and moon-faced, he gives forth the all-embracing light of blessing. In every particle, he reveals all the bodies of the Buddha. The bodies of the Buddha. Well, there are many bodies of the Buddha.

[15:11]

There's the Dharmakaya, the Sambhogakaya and the Nirmanakaya. But I think what he's saying here is that maybe more like the 32 or 33 transformation bodies of Avalokiteśvara. Because Avalokiteśvara is the embodiment of personification of mercy and has many transformation bodies in order to meet people. So when Avalokiteśvara meets A boy, he takes on the heart of the boy, enters the heart of the boy. When he meets a girl, he enters the heart of the girl. When he meets a well person, he enters the heart of the well person. When he meets a sick person, he enters the heart of the sick person. So that he understands and merges. can help people in a fundamental way.

[16:19]

It makes me think about the present circumstances of our country. Every time someone performs an act of aggression against our country, we call them a thug. Instead of trying to understand, I never heard this question asked, why are you doing this? How come you don't like us? No one ever asked that question. How come you don't like us? We don't know how to enter the heart of our so-called enemies or adversaries and understand where they are. You're totally in the realm of delusion. And we keep creating. But it's not that people are stupid. We create these circumstances in order to make money for somebody.

[17:24]

And to create power situations. It's all... For some people it's well thought out. But for everybody else it's just delusion. But... For the last 20, 30 years, we've had absolutely no diplomacy. Diplomacy is just a little cover for doing our aggression. But there's absolutely no diplomacy, no diplomats in our country. So we don't enter the heart of our adversaries, and so we don't understand them.

[18:29]

If we wanted to understand them, we could. But then we wouldn't be making a lot of bombs, armaments, and then our economy would go down the drain. So it's a big problem. Anyway. Mixing with people who trudge through the mire. This is Avalokitesvara. He's mixing with people. He trudges. In other words, he's willing to go along with entering with people's problems. And sometimes there's this statement by Joshu, where he talks about his students, and he says, it's okay if you spit on me, I'm still with you. You can drag me through the mud and water, but I'm still with you, it's okay.

[19:35]

This is my job. I don't mind. So, I was thinking about, I read an article that Alan Snocki wrote in The Turning Wheel, that had this picture of Suzuki Roshi and his congregation outside of the temple during the war, when the government came around and collected all the bells to melt down into armaments. And it's a well-known picture. And everybody's looking very grim. And the government took the bells away and melted them down. And later, the armaments became bells again.

[20:35]

But in Southeast Asia, certain places in Southeast Asia, there are a lot of shells from America that the Americans left. when they left the country. They left all these shells there, and so they became, people disarmed them, and cut them, cut off the front, cut off the top, and made bells, temple bells out of them. Alan brought one back, and it kind of goes around different places. It's kind of a peace bell. That's interesting. At one time this metal is a bomb, at another time it's a bell. So... Then the main subject, Uman, says to his disciples,

[21:46]

Medicine and sickness cure each other. Cleary says subdue each other. Sometimes I think subdue is right. Sometimes I think cure each other is good. I like cure each other because it has that equality to it. But all the earth is medicine. Where do you find yourself? in this. How do you cure the earth and how does the earth cure you? And the greatest sickness, there are various kinds of sicknesses we all have. We have sicknesses of the body.

[22:49]

When we talk about sickness, we talk about sickness of the body, usually, and we also talk about mental illness. But spiritual illness, spiritual sickness, is what everyone is ailing from. What is ego medicine, or spiritual medicine? How do we cure ego? How do we cure self? What's the medicine? The earth or the universe. The whole universe is the medicine.

[23:53]

When we let go of ego, When we let go of self, the whole universe becomes self. Or medicine. Self and medicine. Same thing. Mutually cure each other. We're bound to be sick. Everyone gets sick. But even though we are sick, there's someone that's not sick.

[25:00]

Who is the one that's not ill? That's another poem. Who is the one that is not sick? we have the sickness of feeling permanent, or we have the sickness of permanence. When we get rid of the sickness of permanence, then we can enjoy our life. We watch a flower. We watch it come up. We watch it be a bud, and then bloom, and then get a little old and tattered, fade, and then droops.

[26:12]

But this is the destiny of flowers. Is there anything wrong or right? We like fresh, wonderful fruit and vegetables. But then they get old. And then we put them in the garbage. Then we put them in the compost. And they go through various stages of decomposing and they smell. We don't like that. But that's just from our point of view that we don't like it. Sorry. Every stage is a wonderful stage. Every stage is a dynamic stage of life. Without compost, without change, without transformation, nothing would thrive.

[27:20]

There's a, in India and other places in the world, people drink urine as medicine. And the old Buddhists used to, that was one of the medicines that they were allowed to take was to drink urine as medicine. And sometimes treating it as just a kind of There are people in Africa who cover themselves with dung. Cover themselves completely with dung. It's a kind of purification ritual. The whole earth is medicine. That's what it says in Sancho's verse.

[28:37]

He says, all the earth is medicine. There's a little story here. Manjushri once asked Zenzai, Zenzai Doji, who was the seeker in the Avatamsaka Sutra, who visited 52 masters. So Manjushri once asked Zenzai, An earnest Zen student, Manjushri once asked Zenzai, an earnest Zen student, to bring him something that was not a medicine. Zenzai could find nothing that could not work as a medicine. Manjushri then asked him to bring something that was definitely a medicine.

[29:38]

Well, bring me something that is a medicine then. Zenzai handed Manjushri a blade of grass. Manjushri held it up and said to his assembly, this single blade of grass can give life to a person and can also bring death to a person. Used as medicine, everything is medicine. Used as poison, everything is poison. So Satya Oni's verse says, all the earth is medicine. Ancient and modern people make a great mistake. They think that there is a yes and a no. They think that things are fixed. Because they think things are fixed, they make a great mistake. Shut the gate, but do not build the cart. This comes from an old Daoist story about, not story, but that

[30:41]

you can build a cart in the shop. And because all the roads, the ancient roads had the same dimensions, you could build the width of the cart to fit all the roads, because the roads had a standard dimension. And so you didn't have to go out to the road to build it. You just build it in the shop and then put it on the road. And you'd know that it would work. So he says, shut the gate, but don't build a cart. In other words, this cart is not fixed. Well, there's more to that. Shut the gate but do not build a cart. The universe is the highway, vast and wide. If you're going to build a cart for the universe, it doesn't have any special dimensions. There's nothing fixed. And it also means don't set up something.

[31:45]

Don't set up Buddhism in some fixed way. There shouldn't be a cover to Buddhism. People think that religion is fixed, and religious people present religion as something fixed. But actually, it's evolving like everything else. If religion is not evolving, then it just becomes a fossil. People get attached to this fossil, and then it becomes a poison. It's no longer moving. It's no longer beneficial in a world that's continually changing.

[32:49]

So religion has to keep changing and evolving as well. And Buddhism or Buddhadharma, I don't like to say Buddhism because Buddhism has the feeling of something fixed. But Buddhadharma is always free. And if it's not truth or reality, then whatever does not stand up to truth or reality has to be chucked. So Buddhism is a search for reality. Buddhadharma is the constant search for reality. And it has its doctrines and its so forth, but there's nothing fixed. And then he says, mistaken, mistaken, or wrong, wrong.

[33:53]

Meaning, if you see it as fixed, it's just wrong. And in the Platform Sutra, the Sixth Patriarch, Huinomi, Daikon Eno, a monk asked him about understanding Buddhism. I can't remember exactly what the monk's question was, but Eno said, I'll try to think of what he said. He said, Something like, is it necessary to understand Buddhism or something like that?

[35:04]

Or how do you understand Buddhism? And the six patriarchs said, I'm sorry, but I don't understand Buddhism. That's it, anyway. I don't understand Buddhism. which is a wonderful answer for the patriarch, right? And that should be a key for everyone. As soon as you understand, or as soon as you claim that you understand either Buddhism or enlightenment, then you've already fossilized it. You've already fallen into delusion. So, then Engo says, or Setso says, though their noses are stuck up to heaven, they will still be pierced for a rope. Those people who feel that they understand, or that they know, or that they're enlightened, or

[36:14]

that they studied so much that they really think they got it. Their noses are stuck way up to heaven, but they still have a rope in their nose which pulls them around by the nose. They're really quite tethered. They're not free at all. Do you have any questions? Yeah? I was interested in two things. One is the image of the weeds. Do you have to speak louder? The weeds stick all around the person on the mountaintop. I was interested in that translation. I think of weeds as being something that is just anything that is not planted where you want it. And I would have expected wild grass as just something meaning a wilderness.

[37:27]

removed from the marketplace, but why weeds? Well, it's just a translation. It just sounds like something unwanted, and I wouldn't have expected that on a mountaintop. Well, weeds mean letting go of unnecessary things. you're speaking of religion as poison and I think of the expression escape into piety. And I think of it in very individual terms of what happens very often that we hear Zen is sounding like we want to achieve equanimity and peacefulness and the escape into piety can be a sort of clinging to no feeling, and actually repressing the emotions that I think of as the weeds of our thoughts.

[38:37]

Well, we never use the word repress. I know we don't use the word. People can very easily get the idea that that's what's needed. There's a difference between all those things that you say and non-attachment. Non-attachment does not mean detachment. There's really a distinction between detachment and non-attachment. Detachment means to be unhooked, which is okay, but non-attachment means that within the activity, one has the freedom to turn around and not be pulled around. That's the trick. So, we enter the realm of feelings. And when you sit Zazen, you let the feelings come up. You don't repress anything. There's nothing repressed. You let the pain come up. You don't repress it. And let the weeds be thick around you.

[39:39]

And let the weeds be thick around you, yes. You were talking about the patriarch and what he said about not being able to define Buddhism. I don't understand Buddhism. I don't understand. I just wondered if you could say something about the forms that we, you know, the structure of the service and how that is just. Can you be specific? Yes. Hmm? Oh, can I be specific? The fact that we speak, we have services that are very precise, we bow, we do things in a very fixed way. in opposition to that. And I'm asking the question because I was just wondering how I would explain it if anyone asked me. Yeah, just say, please come and try it. You know, there are reasons for having things done in a certain way.

[40:53]

And the reason for kind of ritual, so to speak, is to curb arrogance and ego. Let go of ego. Let go of self. When you enter into something that's not your own invention, you can let go of yourself. And when you bow, you're letting go of yourself. When you chant, you're letting go of self. That doesn't mean that everybody that bows or chants lets go of self. But you have the opportunity to do that. And it also creates good habits for practice. You may think, well, habits are not freedom, right? Restriction is freedom. In other words, making a strict delineation of what you do enables you to have freedom.

[41:56]

To not have any restriction is not freedom. You may think that not to have any restriction is freedom, but that's not freedom. You may think the birds are free to come and go as they please, right? But the birds follow strict patterns. They're always following strict patterns. They're not just flying around for the fun of it. They're following very strict patterns. The cows on the field are following very strict patterns. The horses are following very strict patterns. The bees are following very strict patterns. Are we the only ones who don't? Well, when we don't, we lose our freedom. We have choice. More choice. Or we think we have more choice. So it's kind of a problem.

[42:56]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ