I love to taste the truth about the darkened desert. Morning. Again. Well, this morning I want to present a koan from the Blue Cliff Record, which I've talked about a number of times. You know, the booklet record is for you who haven't studied koans very much, or I haven't talked about them for a long time. But there are many koan collections that were put together in the Tang Dynasty in China. Among them are the Mulan Khan, a collection by Master Mouman, and the Blue Cliff Record, Heigan Roku.

[01:05]

And in the Mouman Khan, there are no introductions. In the Blue Cliff Record, most of the goans have an introduction. And then they have a poem by the compiler that kind of sums up the meaning. So this particular koan is from the Blue Cliff Record, number two, and it's about discrimination and non-discrimination, and you may recognize it as I go on. And there's quite a long introduction by Engo, who wrote a poem. The introduction, this koan is about Zhou Xu.

[02:12]

I'm sorry, I got the wrong one. I do want to, actually, I'm going to talk about two koans, but that's the second one. The first one is, ìJoshuís ìThe Real Wayî is not difficult.î Now you can all go home. So Engo introduces and he says, The universe is too narrow. The sun, the moon, and the stars are all at once darkened. Even if blows from the stick fall like raindrops and a khatz shouts sunlight thunder, you are still far short of the truth of Buddhism. Even the Buddhas of the three worlds can only nod to themselves, and the ancestors of all ages do not exhaustively demonstrate its profundity.

[03:17]

The whole treasury of sutras is inadequate to expound its deep meaning. Even the clearest-eyed monks fail to save themselves. At this point, how do you conduct yourself? Mentioning the name of the Buddha is like trudging through the mire, actually mud and water. To utter the word Zen is to cover your face with shame. Not only those who have long practiced Zen, but beginners too should exert themselves to attain directly to the secret." So this is like he's saying in the whole universe there's no It's almost impossible to explain the Dharma. The universe is too narrow. The sun, the moon, the stars are all dark. Even if blows fall like rain and the teacher shouts like thunder, you're still far short of the truth of Buddhism.

[04:26]

Even the Buddhas of the three worlds can only nod to themselves, and the ancestors of all the ages do not exhaustively demonstrate its profundity. So, in other words, you can't explain it, right? This is the problem with them. You can't explain it. Even the clearest-eyed monks fail to save themselves. At this point, how do you conduct yourself? What's your practice? What are you doing? How do you get it without having it explained to you? Because no one can explain it to you. Mentioning the name of the Buddha is like trudging through mud and water. To utter the word Zen is to cover your face with shame. Not only those who have long practiced Zen, but beginners too should exert themselves to attain directly to the secret."

[05:36]

So you have to attain directly. The teacher can only give you a nudge. So he's setting up a big wall, right? So here is the main subject. Joshu spoke to the assembly and said, the real way is not difficult. It only imports choice and attachment. With but a single word, there may arise choice and attachment, or there may arise clarity. The old monk, this old monk, does not have that clarity. Do you appreciate this meaning of this or not?"

[06:39]

Then a monk asked, if you do not have that clarity, what do you appreciate? The monk was really pushing him. Joshi said, I don't know that either. The monk said, if you don't know, how do you say you do not have it either? That clarity. Joshu said, asking the question is good enough, now go make your vows and retire. Interesting. The Real Way is Not Difficult is Joshu's using the Xin Xin Ming, the opening statement of the Xin Xin Ming to open his talk. Xin Xin Ming is the

[07:42]

one of the earliest Zen writings by the third ancestor, Seng Tsan. And it goes like this, in the beginning, the great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinctions, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinions for or against anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is the dis-ease of the mind." So that's the beginning of the poem. And Joshu puts his own spin on it according to the koan. Joshua spoke to the assembly and said, the real way is not difficult. It only abhors choice and attachment, or clinging, actually.

[08:52]

But with but a single word, there may arise choice and attachment, or there may arise clarity. So he's using choice and attachment and clarity as opposing each other. Clarity is probably okay. Choice and attachment or clear mind, maybe. It's like multiplicity and oneness, basically. We divide the world, our world, into multiplicity diversity and oneness. So, in other words, you're saying, I'm not attached to either oneness or diversity. I have no preference between oneness and diversity.

[09:53]

Usually, in Buddhism, oneness is the great truth or enlightenment. When we realize the oneness of everything, that's enlightenment. but it's only half of enlightenment. In order for the box, for the lid to fit on the box, we need to understand diversity, to appreciate diversity, because diversity is oneness, and oneness is diversity, but we continually make the mistake of separating oneness from diversity, and it's almost impossible not to. This is why this cannot be explained. You have to get it.

[10:56]

Even though you explain it in 10,000 ways, you have to get it. And we fall into the trap all the time. So in order to not fall into the trap, we either go to one side or the other, which creates more of a trap. You know, one of the problems with religion is what we call fundamentalism. We all like to be fundamental, of course, But religion has a tendency to divide the mundane from the spiritual. And the more fundamental people think they are, the more of a gap they create between

[12:06]

the spiritual and the material side of life. So the mundane or worldly is considered evil and the spiritual or side of oneness is considered holy, but it's not holy because holy means whole or all-inclusive. Holiness means all-inclusive, so if you eliminate something, it doesn't work. You may think you're holy, but you're really just dualistic. And religion has this problem, and it's the big problem that causes more problems than it solves. Religion is has to develop.

[13:11]

Religious people tend to, or fundamentalists, people who are caught by fundamental delusion, feel that religion doesn't change and that's another big stumbling block. Religion has to continually keep and it's evolving. So religion and evolution are not two different things. So the big fight between evolution and religion, which is totally delusional, because religion has to be evolving. It's always been evolving. And if it's not evolving, then it's destructive, because it's dead. We have airplanes and we have bulldozers.

[14:14]

We'll just keep going. So, Joshu spoke to the assembly and he said, the real way is not difficult. It only abhors choice and attachment. With but a single word, there may arise choice and attachment, or there may arise clarity, one or the other. This old monk does not have that clarity, does not have, I think, have maybe means does not cling to that clarity, is not attached to that clarity, does not hold on to that clarity. Do you follow me? I think maybe it means that. Do you appreciate the meaning of this or not? Then a monk asked, so this monk you know is very clever, he's very logical and he has good bright young guy and he's kind of cornering Joshu.

[15:28]

So he says, well teacher if you do not have that clarity what do you appreciate? And then Joshu says, I don't know that either. So this don't know is not the same as someone else's don't know. Joshu knows very well what he knows, or Joshu's not knowing is a big not knowing. It's not the small not knowing of not knowing what he's doing. He says, I don't know that either. The monk said, if you don't know, how can you say that you do not have that clarity? So, Joshua's back up against the wall, but he has a way out. Then Joshua says, asking the question is good enough. Now make your vows and retire. Sounds like he's just kind of brushing him off, right? Or saying, well, if I get rid of you, you won't bother me anymore, right?

[16:34]

It sounds like he's copping out. But actually, he's saying, you really have a good grasp of logic, but logic doesn't apply here. This is not the place for that. You can ask me all these questions, it still doesn't make any difference. When he says, now make your vows and retire, means go back and practice. just attending your practice. It's good to ask these questions, but the way to find your way is through your own practice. That's what he's saying. Asking the question is good, good enough. You did a really good job asking these questions, but you can't penetrate this through asking those questions. So, in the realm of values, religious people value spirituality more than mundanity.

[18:00]

I guess mundanity is a word. Joshi's saying, I don't value one above the other. And Suzuki Roshi, I remember, always used to say, our practice is not a spiritual practice. He didn't mean that it was not a spiritual practice. He meant that it was not a spiritual practice as opposed to mundane practice, because our spirituality comes through our mundane activity. and our mundane activity is, if we understand what we're doing as practice, is how spirituality is expressed. So we don't have a separate ... although we do Zazen, so Zazen looks like, well this is the spiritual practice, then we walk out the door, that's the mundane practice, the ordinary practice, but actually

[19:09]

Zazen is the mundane practice, and your so-called ordinary life is the spiritual practice. You can't deny that. I mean, you can deny it, but ... So, there's no separation. The hardest thing for us is to find no separation, or to realize no separation, because like this monk We're always dividing things. So I'm gonna mix this up with another koan, which is from the Mumonkan. And it's about Joshu and his teacher Nansen, and it's about how Joshu learned all about this.

[20:16]

Joshu asked Nansen, who was his teacher, what is the way? You all know this. Ordinary mind is the way, Nansen replied. Shall I try to seek after it? Joshu asked. If you try for it, you'll stumble past." Responded Nansen, well how can I know the way unless I try for it? Persisted Joshu. Nansen said, the way is not a matter of knowing or not knowing. So this is Joshu, I don't know, you're not either, right? Not a way of knowing or not knowing. Knowing I don't like to say confusion as lack of awareness, not knowing as lack of understanding or lack of awareness. Maybe confusion is okay.

[21:20]

When you have really reached the true way, beyond doubt, you will find it as vast and boundless as outer space. How can it be talked about on the level of right and wrong? With these words, Joseph came to a sudden realization. So what is the way? Well if you go for it, if you try to pursue it, you're actually going away from yourself. As Dogen says, it's like trying to find the North Star by looking in the South. But if you don't go after it, if you don't seek it, then nothing happens. So that's a good go-on. How do you do that? How do you divide seeking and non-seeking?

[22:23]

Within the seeking is non-seeking, and within the non-seeking is seeking. ordinary mind. Ordinary mind is the way ... well, when we say ordinary we think of all the stuff that I do every day, but that's also ordinary. But ordinary is that which we all seek, but we think it's extraordinary. When we seek spirituality, we think of something extraordinary. When we think about enlightenment, we think about something extraordinary, right? Otherwise, why would we seek it? So what we don't understand is that the extraordinary is in the ordinary, and the ordinary is in the extraordinary.

[23:25]

is in the ordinary. So, what we're always looking for, when we have it, when we live in the mountains, we get tired of it, we say, I'd like to go to the city. And when we live in the city, we say, I'd like to go to the mountains. But actually, the mountains are in the city, and the city is in the mountains. It's all in your mind. It's all in the big mind. Interesting. Niyogen Sensaki says about this koan, he says, usually a Zen teacher does not answer a student's question intellectually.

[24:32]

Hopefully that's so. but only shows the way to live then. Here in America, many so-called spiritual teachers gather around them the students who carry many questions and patiently try to entertain them with favorable answers." We make that mistake. They should follow Joshu's way every once in a while and say, �Your business of asking questions is finished. Why don't you go home and take a rest?� So then, Setso, who compiled the book of record, has a verse on the case. He says, the real way is not difficult.

[25:36]

Direct word, direct speech, Direct word and direct speech, the word that can penetrate, right? Speaking to the point, he's talking about Joshu actually, that actually what Joshu's evasive seeming speech is, is actually direct. It looks like he's avoiding saying anything, but it's actually very direct. He says, one with many phases and two with one. One, in other words, this is one, and this is many phases, right? From one comes many, and within many is one.

[26:37]

To me, this is a perfect demonstration of the one and the many. It's really all contained as oneness and it's all contained as many. One with many faces, two with one. Far away in the heavens, the sun rises and the moon sets. Beyond the hills, the high mountains and the cold waters, This is like the way things are in nature, this is the way things actually exist. You know, the sun rises and it's daytime, but actually on the other side of the world it's nighttime, so is it daytime or nighttime? Is it two things or one thing, or daytime and nighttime, one thing or two things? They're two things, but they're one thing, because the world is round.

[27:45]

Everything is round. Roundness means there's only one side. Far away, the hills and the high mountains, beyond the hills are the high mountains and the cold waters. But here, it's spring and it's warm. The skull has no consciousness, no delight. The dead tree sings in the wind, not yet rotten." This comes from a poem, Sozon, which I'll present someday. It's very, very nice, very interesting, but I can't explain that all now. The skull has no consciousness, it's like these two go together, the skull has no consciousness and no delight, and the rest of that

[28:51]

And then the dead tree sings in the wind, not yet rotten. So even though there's a dead tree, the wind brings it to life. Wind is like breath of life. Wind is a metaphor for life breath. So the wind in a dead tree makes the tree sing. phenomena are changing and what once looked like it was alive is now dead, actually, comes back to life because birth and death are simply two ways of talking about the same thing. We think, well, so-and-so has died, and that's the end.

[30:05]

Maybe. That's the end of something. But life itself is not dead. Within dead, death is birth, and within birth is death. But we tend to always think dualistically. Of course when someone dies we cry and we mourn and we have all these feelings, but the fact is that this is the process of life. Death is the process of birth and birth is the process of death. But because of the drama of our life, we tend to forget this. And we tend to be very much attached to the drama of our life, the story of our life.

[31:10]

So, then at the end he says, difficult, difficult. Attachment and clarity watch and penetrate the truth. And then I want to read you again Nyogen Sensaki's other comment. He talks, he has his own version of the poem. He says, final road is not difficult to reach. Word or no word never disturbs the walking. Different interpretation. One is many and many are one. Sun rises and moon sets.

[32:19]

Water is icy cold in the remote mountains. Dried skull is not separate from living being. Living head. Decayed trees rustle in the wind. Their life has not ceased as yet. Hard, hard. Preference or non-preference. To experience this, one must work out by himself. Then he has this comment, equality without discrimination is wrongly conceived equality. Discrimination without equality is wrongly conceived discrimination. We see the rising sun and the falling moon in this half of the earth, but people who live in the other half see the moon rise and the sun fall. Is the water icy cold in the remote part of the mountain or are we entering the remote part of this mountain and therefore feel icy cold. A skull would never be a skull without a living person.

[33:20]

Decayed tree is another name of living tree. You put out your hand, but it is a combination of palm and back. I call it a hand for convenience. If I call it a foot, no one can blame me. you know, attachment and non-attachment. The other day, you know, I had this wonderful car, my 85 Toyota Tercel, for 20 years, and it was such a wonderful vehicle, it was like, and so, but it wouldn't pass the smog test, the latest smog, so I had to give it up, you know. They gave me a thousand dollars for it, but you know. I hated to give that car up, you know, so I said that to somebody and he said, �Oh, you know, you shouldn't be attached to things, especially you.� But I didn't want to go into explaining to her attachment and non-attachment.

[34:48]

We should be attached to things. is buddha nature we get this we think we shouldn't be attached to anything yes we should you know we should be attached to things if you say i'm not attached to this or i'm not attached you're kidding yourself of course we're attached we should be attached that's not bad but we should also be able to let go so within attachment is non-attachment, and within non-attachment is attachment. If we don't understand it that way, we get caught by attachment. Yes, I hated to see my ... I saw the guy driving it away, you know, behind ... where? So, We should appreciate what we have and appreciate all the things that we use because they're all part of us.

[36:00]

It's interesting, when people live in a house, the house is alive. And when they leave, after a while, it dies. It's called a haunted house because nobody's living there. We bring it to life. We bring everything that we use in our whole world to life. It's not like it's all here before. So, do you have any questions? Or am I over the time? No? Yeah? You talked about fundamentalism. I was wondering how Zen and fundamentalism are one. One? one and not two different things. Oh, well, Zen is fundamental practice. You know, Suzuki used to say, this is my fundamental haircut.

[37:05]

So, fundamental for us means non-dual, non-dual. Fundamental practice is non-duality, practice of non-duality. So often fundamental means cutting something down the middle and this is right and this is wrong. That's what I mean by fundamentalism. I don't say that all religion is fundamentalism, but there is an extreme side which values one side and doesn't value the other. So that's what I would say would be fundamentalism. I guess what I'm thinking is that I have a tendency to think, oh, I don't like fundamentalism. And I feel it causes all these problems. I have all kinds of bad associations with it and so on.

[38:09]

But I also find that when I see that in myself, it's not a totally good feeling. Because I feel like it makes me not like those people. It's very dualistic. So, although I believe in my ideas about fundamentalism, I find that they're dualistic and not necessarily constructive. So, what I'm wondering is, how do I somehow maintain those beliefs about it at the same time, not have it become ...? When you ... as the poem says, when you neither love nor hate, then your mind is at ease. When you're not caught by loving or hating, We must love and we must hate, you know. Sorry. Oh, I hate, I hate. Yes, I, you know, hate may be a strong word, but I dislike something.

[39:11]

Okay, I dislike it. But if you can, you know, separate out your feelings from your observation, then by observation you see how dividing and valuing this and not valuing that is not healthy, right? You don't have to hate that. What we hate is the effect that that has. But I think we have to have compassion for what we feel is people acting under delusion. Rather than hate, have compassion. You can't help having the dislike, but the compassion has to be there as well.

[40:17]

Otherwise, this is what causes people to kill each other, because although they don't like what the other one is doing, they don't have compassion. So, of course I don't like what the other one is doing, but I have compassion, so I'm not going to kill him. Try to work it out, you know. Try to bring non-duality into people's awareness, which is what we think is right. This is fun, we are also fundamentalists, right? But a different kind of fundamental. The fundamental of unity instead of, I would say, just fundamental. Yeah? Do you have time to read that little poem one more time about the tree? The way he translated it, I do.

[41:21]

This is Setso's poem, translated by Nyogen Sensaki. Nyogen Sensaki, you know, was the dharma brother of D.T. Suzuki, and he was the earliest monk in America who really stayed here. So, he said, the final road is not difficult to reach. Word or no word never disturbs the walking. One is many and many are one. Sun rises and moon sets. Water is icy cold in the remote mountains. The dead dried skull is not separate from the living head. Decayed trees rustle in the wind, and their life has yet not ceased.

[42:25]

Hard, hard, preference or non-preference, to experience this, one must work out by themselves." So, we have preferences. We have to choose all the time. hopefully we're choosing on the basis of non-discrimination. So we say the discrimination of non-discrimination, which confuses us more, but that's good. I mean, that's okay. Beings are marvelous.

[43:24]

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