and listen to Get some more ventilation. Leave it. Leave that door open as well. Get some more cross-ventilation in here. Period. I want to lecture about our Xana ancestors and the stories of our Xana ancestors.

[01:09]

And I think we will all together find a way to connect that to our lives and to what's going on in our world. But just to remind ourselves that in our tradition there are deep wellsprings of wisdom and practice that are You know, even if some of them go back two and a half millennia, they're still... And our teachers, Sojin Roshi, Suzuki Roshi, and others, were constantly bringing these forward to our attention. So that said, just that I recognize that there's a terrible battle going on in Israel and Palestine with massive exchanges of weapons, missiles,

[02:40]

So far, there have been at least 300 deaths on both sides, and I suspect that that's an underestimate. So I'm just not going to speak of that in detail, but I hold that in my awareness of at least what I'm carrying with me into this room and trying to understand how these wellsprings of wisdom can serve us in the face of many terrible things happening in the world. So, I'm sorry

[03:44]

You don't have to lay that in front of you, but it really is in front of all of us. Nevertheless, what I wanted to speak about tonight, today, is about our ancestor, Banke Yodaku. Some of you, we haven't studied him for a long time, I don't think. I think we did some studies. Sojun talked about him from time to time. Three weeks ago, I went with my son, Genpo, to do a several-day sushin with His teacher and someone who's been a long time, Shodo Karada Roshi in L.A.

[04:53]

And in his excellent teishos, although I wish I knew them, I wish I understood them better, he teaches in Japanese. He'll speak for like 20 minutes. And then the translation will be like three. You know you're missing something. But just his presence is... Anyway, he spoke about Bande in one of his teishos, and it really resonated with me, and so I want to talk about that today. first to tell a story from Banke, and then a little more into the details of his teaching, his teaching of the unborn, his teaching of original mind.

[05:59]

And there are a couple of books that collect his record. One, I think it's called The Unborn, translated by Norman Waddell and there's another of this pretty much the same record by translated by Peter Haskell and they're both quite good and you can get them so in the record Banke tells this story two men are walking towards the city of Takamatsu One is a good man, and the other an evil man, though of course neither of them is conscious of it. As they walk on engaged in conversation on a variety of subjects, if something occurs along the road, they will see it, and though they have no thought to do so, they will see it though they have no thought to do so.

[07:09]

The things they come upon appear equally to the eyes of the good man and the evil man. If a horse or a cow approaches them from the opposite direction, both men will step aside to let it pass. They step aside even if they take the time, despite the fact that neither man has made up his mind beforehand to do so. If there's a ditch they must jump over. They both jump over it. When they come to a stream, they both ford it. That the good man would step aside to let the horse or cow pass without prior reflection, whereas the evil man would not be able to do so as readily, that is, without some deliberation. But the fact is, there isn't the slightest difference between them in performing this act.

[08:15]

It shows that the unborn Buddha mind is found equally in the good person and the evil person. So, Balkei Yurka, who lived from 1622 to 1693 in the Tokugawa period, which was a period of wars and battles in Japan. And he was a Rinzai Zen master and the founding abbot of two temples in Japan. best known for this teaching of the what I would call I find the term unborn somehow it confuses me somewhat so I like to use another term he uses which is original mind so as a child Bankei was

[09:36]

rebellious and mischievous, although he was really sharp and intelligent. When he was 11, his father died. That year, he entered school. And in school, what they were studying, I mean, this was a relatively elite, upper-class school, and so they were studying Confucian texts. And he found these Confucian texts really . And one day, the teacher read him the first line from a text called Great Learning. And the line was, the way of great learning lies in clarifying right virtue. Clarifying right virtue. And Vanke didn't understand what that meant.

[10:38]

And he got in an argument with his teacher, trying to argue his teacher into explaining this. But he didn't get any satisfactory answer. And shortly after, he was kicked out of the school. because he was a troublemaker. So this gap in his understanding really really bothered him and he would ask Confucian and Buddhist scholars and nothing None of them could really answer. When he got kicked out of school, a relative gave him a small hut to live in.

[11:48]

He's like 12 years old. And he wrote on a slat of wood outside the hut. He said, practice hermitage. So he was determined to practice. He took up Shin Buddhism, Pririn Buddhism. At the age of 15, he also studied Shingon Buddhism, which is esoteric Buddhism, tantric Buddhism, and did some sutra study. But he wasn't really happy with any of these approaches. At 16, he went on pilgrimage and met Umpo Zencho at Tsuyo-ji. And Umpo said the only way he was going to get to the bottom of this question about bright clarity was to practice sasa.

[12:57]

And he ordained under umpo and received the buddhist name yodaku long polishing of the mind gem he at 19 he kept on with his pilgrimage and he did this for years he would stay at temples or sleep in the wilderness bridges just scrounging for food as a baker. Excuse me, Hozan. I'm getting complaints that the sound is, the volume is too low. Could you turn it up just a little? Yeah, let me just check this. Okay, we're on this microphone. How about now?

[14:03]

Sounds good. Is that any better? Some people are saying still go up a little more. Still go up a little more. It's up all the way now. That's the microphone. Yeah, it's microphone gain. How about now? It's good, but there's a lot of static. That's because we're doing something with the microphone. Static or no static? This static. Right. I don't exactly know what to do. One second. Let me try this. How about now? Is that any better? Yes? Okay. What happened, I turned... You probably have to work with these settings. I turned the original sound for musicians off. So that means there's some noise reduction. Okay. Take breath.

[15:07]

So he returned to Zuyoji and he picked up his practices and then he left and he picked up his practice as a hermit. And he decided, you know, like the Buddha decided, you know, At a certain point, he was just gonna sit there until either he woke up or he died. And he did that. And eventually, the bodily neglect, and this goes back, if you think about it, maybe you've seen some of these images of the Buddha before his Last effort for enlightenment, he practiced all these austerities and, you know, reduced his diet to two grains of water. And there are these images of this skeletal Buddha.

[16:19]

I've seen them. I have photos from Thailand. Just like wasting away nothing, thinking that this self-denial was going to get him there, which it didn't. And finally he takes up to Middle Way. Banke had to get there. So eventually his neglect he wound up with and the doctor said that he was going to die. And One day during this near-death period, he had this experience. He writes about, I felt a strange thing in my throat. I spat against the wall a mass of black phlegm large as a silk berry.

[17:20]

Silk berries can be like an inch or an inch and a half large. A mass of phlegm large as a silk berry. of the wall. Yuck. Suddenly, just at that moment, I realized what it was that had escaped me. All things are perfectly resolved in the unborn. Following this breakthrough, his doubt and questioning ceased, while his physical condition he proved. And once he was strong enough, he went back to Umpa Watsuyoji to relate his experience and he was confirmed. So, this is the difficult path that he took. And it was different than other practice modalities that were

[18:27]

He did not practice koans. In fact, he really argued against them. He didn't talk about getting to a great, you know, and having to break through it, which is really the way that practice is configured in the in the Rinzai tradition. He just spoke of this unborn Buddha mind. It's the original mind. He says it's right here. And all of us have it. And you may not know it. But I want to read you what he says in his record because it's It's really accessible.

[19:29]

Banke addressed the assembly. Among all of you people here today, there's not a single one who's an unenlightened being. Everyone here is a Buddha. This is talking to you. Talking to just this community 500 years ago in Japan. This is true now. So listen carefully. What you have, what you all have from your parents innately is the mind alone. There's nothing else that you have innately. This Buddha mind you have from your parents innately is truly unborn and marvelously illuminating. So it's marvelously illuminating. This is the illumination which was the quandary that he was in as he was trying to understand these Old Confucian texts.

[20:45]

The actual proof of this unborn is perfectly everything is that As you're all listening to me talk, if out back someone is hammering, or a dog barks, or this calling of crows, chirping of sparrows, rustling of the wind, sound buzzing of the air purifier. Even though you're not to hear each of these sounds, you hear them and you make no mistake about them. This is the proof of this original mind.

[21:54]

So when you understand this, recognize the marvelous functioning, the fluidity of our mind, that is being a living Tathagata. He writes, while you're all turned this way listening to me talk, you don't mistake the chirp of the sparrow out back for the call of the crow. for that of a drum. You don't mistake the sound of a hammer for the sound of an electric saw. A man's voice for a woman's voice and an adult voice for a child. You clearly recognize and distinguish each sound without making any mistake. That's the marvelously illuminating dynamic function.

[23:00]

I doubt there's anyone among the people here who'd say, because I was deliberately trying to hear it. If anyone says he did, he's a liar. Wondering, what's Banke telling us? What's Hozan telling us? All of you are turned this way, intent only on what I'm saying. No one's trying deliberately to hear the various sounds that are coming from out there. They just come in and we hear them. Because we've heard them before, that those seeds of identification are planted in us. Sometimes we don't identify them. Sometimes we don't. We don't know what they are.

[24:04]

That's why all of a sudden sounds appear and you recognize and distinguish them, hearing them without making any mistake. Nobody here can claim he or she heard these sounds because you've made up your mind beforehand to listen for them. So, in fact, you're listening with your original mind. Your original mind, which is completely receptive, completely fluid. just moves towards whatever perception is very naturally.

[25:12]

When you abide in This original mind, you're abiding at the source of all things. Because abiding means when you allow it simply to arise. Turning towards this miraculous capacity that you were born with. You know, it starts functioning with your first perceptions. Maybe it actually starts functioning. We're in the womb. What everyone has from her parents innately is the Buddha mind alone.

[26:44]

But since your parents themselves fail to realize this, we become deluded too. And then we display this illusion in raising our own children. As I'm quoting here, even the nursemaids and babysitters lose their temper. So that people involved in bringing up children display every sort of behavior including stupidity, selfish desire, and the anger of fighting demons. Fighting demons is one of the six realms in the Buddhist cosmological system. Somebody insults us, somebody confronts us, and we become Fighting demons, that's part of our habit. Growing up with deluded people surrounding them, children develop a first-rate set of bad habits.

[27:47]

They're quite proficient at deluding themselves. Originally, when you're born, you're without delusion. But on account of how you're raised, someone who is with Buddha mind is turned into a first-rate, unenlightened being. This is something I'm sure you all know from your experience. Your parents didn't give you any delusions, whatever, when you were born. No bad desires. So it's like... a perceptual tabula rasa. Maybe. That's at least what he's proposing. It's worth speculating about. But you come into the world, you picked up all sorts of delusions, which then developed into bad habits, so that you couldn't help becoming deluded.

[28:59]

That which you didn't pick up from outside, is the unborn Buddha mind. And here are no delusions. We have this. This is also part of our true nature, our original mind. We have this if we can only find the way to turn to it. There's a sentence here in this record. Everyone insists that the way he or she likes to behave is their innate character. So they can't do anything about it. This is one of the most problematic things that I've encountered in talking to people.

[30:03]

Even in examining myself. Is. This is my truth. Those are. Those are really difficult words. Because you're doubling down. On your identity. Which is. And you think it's. your truth. But it's really just the construction and it's a construction of delusion that we cherish. We are habitually self-centered and We've learned to like it, even though it doesn't serve us right.

[31:12]

So can we tap into this original mind? We like the way Bangke talks about zazen and the practice in his monastery. He says in zazen, it's a matter of Buddha mind and rest. So it's just this open awareness that allows yourself to perceive whatever is coming in, including whatever is coming in in your own thinking mind. It's the Buddha mind doing continuous sasen.

[32:13]

Sasen isn't limited to the time you sit. That's why around here is monastery. If people have to do something while they're sitting, they're free to get up and do it. This is radical for a Zen monastery. It's up to them. Whatever they have a mind to do. Some of them will do Kenyan for a long time. But they can't just continue walking. So then they sit down and do Zazen. They can't be sleeping. And in another place he says, you know, if people in the Zen don't want to sleep, fine. We're not going to hit them to make them wake up. You know, it's like, that's... the fullness of their Buddha mind unfolding. This is a pretty radical perspective, right? They can't be sleeping all the time, so they get up.

[33:18]

They can't talk constantly, so they stop talking and they do some zaza. They aren't bound by any set rules. In recent times, however, wherever you go, you find that Zen teachers use old tools when they deal with their pupils. They seem to think that they can't do the job without them. And so they trust themselves forward and confront their students with these tools. These Islas Bonzes Bonsa is the name for, it's a derogatory name for a monk or a priest. Pilots bonds with their tools Zen. If they don't have their implements to help them, they aren't up to help handling people.

[34:19]

What's worse, they tell practicers that unless they can raise a great ball of doubt and then break through it, there can't be any progress in Zen. Instead of teaching them to live by the unborn mind, they start by forcing them to raise this ball of doubt any way they can. People who don't have a doubt are now saddled with one. They've turned their Buddha minds into balls of doubt. It's absolutely wrong. My religion is beyond this. My proof is this. While you face me and listen to me say this, if a sparrow chirps or a person says something, though you sit there without any intent to listen, you'll hear a distinguished sound.

[35:21]

Because it isn't yourself that is doing listening. It isn't self-power. On the other hand, it wouldn't do you any good if you had someone else here and distinguish the sounds for you. So it isn't other power. When you're in the unborn, each and every sound is. So you don't have to make this vain effort to somehow decontextualize every perception.

[36:39]

You know, sometimes we're in some, from some teachers in some books we read, you know, Can you hear something without putting a label on it? Can you that you would call pure hearing? I would say no. And that's a kind of radical thing to say. Sometimes we have pure hearing. but mostly because environment, the social environment, the cultural environment, the physical environment that we live in, we're trained, we receive all of this and it's folded into our perceptual body.

[37:49]

So we hear a sound and Almost instantly, we identify it. What Bankai is saying is that entire action is our original mind. Not just this verified, purified, bare perception. This is one of the problems that I have with how mindfulness is being taught. in the present day. It has an emphasis on as if it were just pure decontextualized perception. Hear that cat?

[38:55]

hear it instantly. You know what it is. You might not know what everything is, but that's not because getting to the perception before you've put a name on it. So can we accept that as this really, this deeply human capacity that is actually our Buddha mind? just the original mind, whatever is arising, and to allow whatever feeling comes up in a sense, appreciate it. There's more than I could say, but I think I'm going to stop there and take questions.

[40:07]

So if you have any questions here, I'm going to pass the microphone around. I see Hannah, and then I see Mary, and then I see Joel, and anyone out there in Zoomland, you can raise your hands and I'll try to get to you as well. Thank you for this talk. It's very juicy. It reminds me of a moment in the study group that we just had at Hasahara, where we came to the conclusion that the Buddhist response to the concept of original sin is original enlightenment. But the question I have is, This question that Hambanke had of finding clarity and polishing the gem sounds very similar to or parallel to Dovin's question about why do we need to practice?

[41:23]

It sounds, would you agree with that? Yeah, generally. I would agree with that. I mean, these I think that many of our teachers, and I think actually if we look at ourselves, think back to when you were a child. And think back to the things that you wondered about. That just filled you with wonder, and yet you couldn't get your mind around it, you couldn't understand it. In their case, each of them had a cultural context for wrestling with the mystery. And so the mystery may have different manifestations.

[42:33]

But I think that if we really look inside ourselves, we all have been aware of the mystery from very early times. You may have forgotten about it to some degree. If you weren't engaged in that, you would not be here. Because this is really a stupid activity. And kind of boring. It's the mystery that draws us. Anna? I was just kind of stunned by your inclusion and identification as part of the action of the original mind, and that made me think about, well, because I think I had encountered a lot of, you know, mindfulness, whatever stuff that's like trying to somehow be with the pure perception, which is actually, as you were describing that, it felt very...

[43:58]

not the middle way, it felt very sort of clinging to some absolute that doesn't really exist naturally. But then I was also wondering like language kind of in general and how this immediate identification is somewhat of a linguistic inherent process and so like Again, like another maybe idea of Zen that I had was that, yeah, like emptiness and enlightenment is de-conceptual and kind of non-linguistic. And so, I guess I'm wondering about, like, having a middle way within language that is itself, as you said, an activity that's completely of the original mind.

[45:07]

And I don't really even know specifically what that would be or look like, but yeah. That's great. You're really like swimming in deep waters here. I think that the The circumstances that you're talking about is really in line with what Dogen was teaching and doing. And he articulated it over and over again. That unlike others of his time, he did not derogate Thinking, that thinking is an activity of Buddha mind, and I think that's what Banke is saying. I want to point to a little reading a very interesting new book that came out a month and a half ago.

[46:16]

It's called Rethinking Meditation. Buddhist meditative practice in ancient and modern worlds. by David McMahon. And if you don't know David, also, he wrote an incredible book called The Making of Buddhist Modernism. So what he's looking at is, in this book, the way we've shaped, the way meditation is shaped without any judgment, without any value judgment. Meditation, the way it was described, say, in the early in the Satipatthana Sutta is very different from the way it's described in, say, MBSR. And that our activity is, we have this on the one hand, we are, if you really look at the Satipatthana Sutta, there's all this conceptualization.

[47:24]

The whole thing from all four foundations of mindfulness, you're taught things in a conscious way and move through them step by step. Not to get to some rarefied pure perception. So, but the project is interesting because on the one hand Buddhism historically has been looking at how we construct reality. And on the other hand, we're being led to deconstruct reality. And we are right in the middle of that dynamic tension, which is wonderful. Not so comfortable, but wonderful. I think that's, I really recommend this McMahon's book, Rethinking Medication. Be very careful not to make value judgments about one modality of meditation.

[48:28]

If you look at the modern mindfulness movement, it's about appreciating your life, appreciating our bodies. And if you look at the ancient monastic tradition, this life is a trap. We want to get out of it. Our bodies, you know, are disgusting. There's full of all this disgusting stuff, you know, and why would you worship this? So we have these, we really have these dynamic within our practice. But I must say that my heart goes to when I was reading Banke, that just really speaks to me. know and it's to appreciate the fluid appreciate it and it's like you know like last week ellen was she was voting uh uh this quote from suzuki but she checked out with red where uh they were driving you know where someone was marking on the sunset and said it was beautiful uh suzuki said

[49:53]

Yes, and it's a sin to say so. What's the sin? The sin is actually making, I mean, internally, we see the sunset, it's like, that's enough. But when we say it, then all of a sudden we're operating within a social context, and we're making the sunset. If I say, that's really beautiful, I'm making the sunset about me. And that's where it's in. So how do we appreciate, how do we just see what's arising, you know, without saying, wow, it's amazing. I can hear the hammering out there, even while I'm trying to think of words in here. It's like, yeah, but that's just a functioning that has We don't need to make any more of it than just its marvelous functioning.

[51:00]

Thank you. Sorry, I went on so long. Joel? Thank you. Oh, I see a hand. A couple of hands out here. But Joel, go ahead. Ryan, I just wanted to mention an incident with me and Sojin, where... Excuse me, Joel, can you hold my hand please? How's that? Better. Okay. So, incident with me and Sojin, talking, and I said, okay, let's imagine we're doing goat song, and it's wonderful. And all of a sudden, there's World War III out there. Tremendous noise and bombs and whatever. And he says, oh, that's the unborn reality and i was kind of stupefied and didn't understand it and he was very intense and i brought it to you and you told me to read bankai and and so this this was wonderful and maybe part of what you're saying would be like both

[52:14]

all of the manifestation of world war three and my reaction this is terrible or whatever sojourn's reaction is is in a sense all the unborn the manifestation this is it and i just wanted to share that and also it just to say it seems to me it's at least that is moving towards that come out about the great Kalpa fire. Like, does it still survive? I mean, we're talking about World War III. And it just seems to, there's the two answers. Yes, it does, and no, it doesn't. But I don't know where to go with this, but I thought I'd share that. I think where To me, well, first of all, World War III or their facsimile of it is happening.

[53:20]

You bet. If you're in southern Israel and Gaza right now, it's happening. Absolutely. The question for us, which really tests us, is How do we take responsibility for this? How do we use all of our resources to be peace and to create peace? And I don't have the answer to it. Each of us, as I said to someone a few days ago, each of us has to shine one corner of the world, has to weave one into the tapestry at the best we can. It's very difficult. It's very painful. Yes. It is World War III.

[54:22]

No question. Thank you. I see Marley and Katie, and then we'll probably end. Marley? Yes, thank you. I really appreciated this. I think my question is, and maybe here's another Deep Waters, is we've talked about how does this reconcile with some idea of non-conceptualness, but there's also how does this reconcile with the action side of practice, with the 16 precepts, with the four vows, with active in the world in a compassionate way. Because I imagine you can't just fall away and say, oh, it's all the functioning of original mind.

[55:26]

Cool. Thumbs up. Right. So I think if we look at the Buddha's early teachings, It's not, there's nothing that contradicts what we're saying about original mind. But even in what Banking, how we're raised by our parents, and how we're raised into delusion, well, yes, original mind is available to us at every minute, at every moment. If we can awaken to it completely, But there are also all of these methodologies and practices, and this again goes to the Satipatthana Sutta, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, that you see that it's all about invoking ways of seeing things and sets of practices

[56:40]

that that create an ethical context for an enlightened life there has to be an ethical to an enlightened life so yeah if you can wake up to it without any of that great most of us need some help some work we need a teacher to mirror us if we will but we need to also and all of these, the teachings that have been given us are ways of doing that, of allowing us to, so I think that the teachings allow me to sit here and appreciate the fluidity of my mind without removing me, as I said a moment ago, from the responsibility for taking care of... Well, thank you.

[57:53]

Katie? Hello. Thank you, Hozan. I have also a practical question, maybe. I really appreciate this inclusiveness of original mind and kindness to ourselves and our processes. And also I'm wondering, can you relate it to the Four Noble Truths and the end of suffering? Because selfishly and unselfishly concerned with the endings, my suffering and others. you know, very worried about my poor, sick kitty right now. And, you know, like, and the, you know, kind of getting to the crux of it. And we're really suffering. So I'm just wondering how to connect Banke's teaching with the Four Noble Truths.

[58:59]

Well, I want to dig into the fourth, into the Eightfold Path. is a map to a good life. It tells us how to live. It's not, so the be all and end all is not necessarily meditation, that's just one of the elements of the Eightfold Path. So, Can we bring the unself-centered fluidity of our mind to all the ordinary activities and live in a way that is not mired in delusion, not mired in self-centeredness? And the Eightfold Path is the methodology for that to me.

[60:03]

It's a map to it. And so I do rely on that. And then there's, again, if we're going back to the foundations of mindfulness, if you look at the fourth foundation, it has you investigate the hindrances, enlightenment, the Four Double Truths, and the Eightfold Path. So our fluid mind can turn in any direction. That's the great capacity we have is to allow anything to come to our awareness and also consciously to bring it to our awareness. You know, Banke is pointing out one thing. And there's a reason why he's doing it that way, but that's not, you know, there are other that the original mind has that are not just unconscious attention, but I think they include, and this gets back to what Hannah was saying, they include conscious attention, attention to our action.

[61:33]

The amazing function in our mind is that we have the ability to do all these things. That's what I would say. That's maybe a good place to end. Thank you. to those online with us, and as always, welcome in particular to anyone who might be new here.

[64:26]

My name is Pauline, and these are the announcements for Saturday. Tomorrow, BCC will have a half-day sitting from 8 a.m. to noon. Email Mark Poppathorn if you want to register. This coming Monday will be a Zendo holiday. Next Saturday, BCC will hold a day-long session to commemorate the start of our annual aspects of practice period. BCC students and members are strongly encouraged to meet and develop a relationship with a teacher or practice leader. Other teachers and senior students are all available for formal or practice discussion. Please visit the BCC website's teachers tab for contacts and interviews. Today, the library will be open for browsing from 1130 until noon. Maria Teresa is available if you have any questions about that. For more information about any of our programs and membership, please check the bulletin board outside, see the links in the Zoom chat, or visit our website at vzencenter.org.

[65:32]

To make a donation to support VZC, please use the donations box, which is under the bulletin board out there, or visit our website and click on the generosity tab. Those here in the Zendo, please maintain silence until you're off the porch. Then feel free to socialize out in the courtyard. If you picked up one of our folded chant cards from the alcove on the zendo porch, please return it to the alcove on your way out. If anyone is new here and has any questions about our practice, soon today was our Zazen instructor and is available to talk about anything practice. After the tea and cookies are consumed, I need two volunteers who are willing to stay after and watch the feed groups. Anyone here, or if anyone's in the community room on Zoom? Margo, thank you. Yeah, thank you.

[66:34]

If a couple of people are available to stay behind on your way out, help set this end up in order, that's always appreciated. And those online may now unmute and share greetings. Hi, everyone. Hello. Thank you. Good to see you. Glad we could hear it, Philip. Good morning. Good morning. You too, Philip. Thank you. Wow. Wow.

[67:44]

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