It's nice to see everyone this morning, so many people. I invite you all to come and help us build our bigger Zendo this summer. We have a, our little Manjushri over here on the right side of the altar, my right side, has a new staff. Joe Cohen carved a new staff for Manjushri out of rosewood, a little flower actually on the end of his staff. When we got this Manjushri, He didn't have a staff, and Joe carved his first staff, but it disappeared somehow.

[01:11]

So Joe carved another one. I hope Manjushri can keep his staff from now on. He does very fine work, I must say. So, in honor of Joe's effort, I want to read a story about, talk about a case in the Blue Cliff Record concerning Monjushri. This is case number 35, and it's called Monjushri's Threes and Threes.

[02:13]

Sounds funny, threes and threes, but I'll explain what that means. Ingo introduces the subject, and he says, in distinguishing a dragon from snake, a jewel from stone, black from white, irresolute from decisive. If one does not have the clear eye, the mind, and the amulet under the arm, one invites instant failure. Just at this moment, if one's vision and hearing are clear, and color and sound are truly cognized, tell me, is he black or white, crooked or straight? The subtle difference, how could you discern it? And then the main subject, the story.

[03:16]

Manjushri asked Muchako, where have you recently come from? And Muchako said, from the south. How is southern Buddhism faring, asked Manjushri. The monks of the latter days of the law observed the Buddhist precepts a little," Muchako answered. Are there many or few? Here about 300, there about 500. Then Muchako asked Manjushri, How does Buddhism fare in your part of the world? Manjushri said, The worldly and the holy are living together. Dragons and snakes are mingled. Are there many or few? He asks a question. The former threes, threes, the latter threes and threes. So threes and threes is Manjushri's answer. And then Setso has a verse.

[04:20]

He says, the thousand hills, peak upon peak, deep blue. Who can converse with Manjushri? How I laugh at many or few. how I admire the former threes and threes, the latter threes and threes." Sounds strange. Going back to the introduction, Ingo's introduction, he says, in distinguishing dragon from snake, jewel from stone, black from white, irresolute from decisive, Dragons in Buddhism, in Zen, dragons and snakes are like the real thing in one sense, and what appears to look like the real thing in another sense.

[05:22]

Or it can mean A truly enlightened person is a dragon, and a snake is maybe not so advanced. So to distinguish the sage from the commoner, so to speak, And jewel from stone means the real from the appearance. Black from white, irresolute from decisive, these all have the same meaning. If one does not have the clear eye of the mind and the amulet under the arm, one invites instant failure. distinguishing dragon from snake, jewel from stone, black from white, etc.

[06:29]

This is discriminating, you know. Our discriminating mind distinguishes one thing from another and breaks down the world into this and that, right and wrong, false and true. And the amulet under the arm is the absolute mind, which sees everything beyond distinctions. If you don't have the absolute point of view, then the way you view dragons and snakes, jewels and stones, black and white, comes from the point of view of delusion. But if you have the amulet under the arm, so-called, the absolute point of view, which is no special point of view, then you can see dragons and snakes as they are, really are.

[07:39]

So he says, just at this moment, just now, if one's vision and hearing are clear, and color and sound are truly cognized for what they really are, Tell me, is he black or white, crooked or straight? The subtle difference, how could you discern it? And then the main subject. Monjushri asked Muchako. Muchako was a monk in Tang dynasty, a very famous monk. And there's the famous mountain in China. where Manjushri is supposed to have lived. Now, of course, we know that Manjushri, there's no person called Manjushri. Manjushri is our wisdom mind.

[08:44]

If you look for Manjushri someplace, you can see Manjushri. If you have wisdom mind, you can see Manjushri everywhere. But if you don't have this mind, then you keep looking for Manjushri in some particular place. So Manjushri is supposed to have resided, people believed he resided on this mountain. And monks used to go and make pilgrimage to this mountain where Manjushri resided. So Muchaku went to this mountain when he was a young monk. And there was a temple there and he stayed in the temple overnight when he got to the mountain. And when he woke up the next morning, he had this conversation with the temple priest.

[09:57]

with just an ordinary priest who was running the temple. And when he was ready to leave, the priest asked a little boy to lead him down the mountain. So the little boy led him down the mountain. And when he came to the bottom of the mountain, he asked the little boy, well, where is Manjushri? And the little boy pointed up to the top of the mountain. And he looked up. And when he looked back, when he looked up to the top of the mountain, he saw this wonderful temple up there. And when he looked back, he saw that the little boy had disappeared. And the temple that he'd stayed in overnight had also disappeared. Everything had disappeared. There was just a mountain. So he realized that the temple master and the little boy were just Manjushri.

[11:09]

This is the story. So he realized that the conversation he had was a conversation between himself and Manjushri. And the conversation was the main subject. Manjushri asked Muchakku, where have you recently come from? And Muchakku said, from the south. How is southern Buddhism faring, asked Manjushri. And Muchakku answered, the monks of the latter days of the law observed the Buddha's precepts a little. Muchaku answered, are there many or few? And he answered, here about 300, there about 500. He answered in a kind of common way. Muchaku belonged to the southern school of Zen.

[12:18]

As you know, at some point after the sixth patriarch, received the robe and the bowl from the 5th Patriarch. The Southern school of Zen started from him, from the 6th Patriarch. And the Northern school started from the 6th Patriarch's older brother, older Dharma brother, Hsuan Hsu. And in the platform sutra, the later platform sutra, we hear this controversy between the northern school and the southern school. In the Sandokai, which we read this morning, Reid read it this morning, says, Sekito says, there is no special teacher of the north or the south.

[13:28]

Sekito was a disciple of the Sixth Patriarch. He said there's no teacher of North or South. He was trying to stop this kind of controversy between Northern school and Southern school. Anyway, Monjushri asked him about how are things in the south where you're practicing. And Buchako says, well, you know, there are 500 here and 300 there. And he's giving a kind of very plain answer. And so Monjushri wants to say something further. And also he says, the monks are the latter days of the law.

[14:37]

You know, in Buddhism, there was this prediction about the three periods of Buddhism. The period of Buddha's time, which is supposed to be the true period of Buddhism, where people could really practice because Buddha was around. And then the next 500 years was the counterfeit, so-called counterfeit, where people just studied about Buddhism. And then the last period, called Mapo, which was the complete degeneration of Buddhism. This is a kind of prediction. Right now, you know, we're in the age of Mapo. But we don't observe Mapo, we don't pay much attention to those three predictions, the prediction of three periods. Dogen was not concerned with those three.

[15:39]

But a lot of schools of Buddhism really believe that kind of prediction, and their attitude came out of that kind of prediction. and Honan in Japan based their whole teaching on the idea of mapo, the idea that because we're in this degenerate age, there's no way that you can practice in a complete way and have it work. So they gave up practice and just decided to chant the name of Buddha. So Muchako is saying, well, in this age, this period of the teaching, this period of Buddhism, there are 300 monks here, 500 monks there practicing.

[16:43]

Then Muchako asked Manjushri, how does Buddhism fare in your part of the world? Up on the mountain, on this mountain, And Manjushri said, the worldly and the holy are living together. Dragons and snakes are mingled. And then Machakos says, are there many or few? And Manjushri says, the former, threes and threes, and the latter, threes and threes. Manjushri's answer is coming from a more fundamental place. He says dragons and snakes are mingled together. In some sense, you might think on the face of it, good people and bad people are all mixed up. The sages and the commoners are all practicing together.

[17:57]

Some people might think this is a bad thing, but actually I think it's a good thing. Dragons practice dragon practice, and snakes practice snake practice. Everyone is in some place. In a kind of discriminating way, you can say something. You can say, oh, these people really have good practice. They practice very hard. And they really express enlightened mind. And these people over here are just in the realm of delusion, completely deluded. with no redeeming factors at all, qualities at all. These are the snakes.

[19:05]

So Manjushri says dragons and snakes are all mixed up, practicing together. And then he says, when it comes to answering the number of people practicing, this is like somebody wanting to count something. How many do you have? How much money do they pay? How well-dressed are they? How big is your temple? How prosperous are things? Manjushri says, And then it comes through the gate, threes and threes come through the gate, and threes and threes leave by the gate. The sense, you know, is practice in Buddhism just goes on and on, forever.

[20:15]

Practice just goes on and on forever, in an endless way. students enter the gate and students leave through the gate in an endless progression, procession. If you stop to count people or if you think that because of some kind of difficulty that there's a problem. And if you start thinking in this way, you can't really see what's happening. If you distinguish the good people from the bad people, if you start counting the number of practices there are,

[21:21]

and looking at how much wealth they have and how much prosperity, you put yourself in a realm of delusion. Dogen Zenji says, just because there's a beautiful temple with lots of gold trim and statues and patrons doesn't mean that Buddhism is flourishing. If Five or six people are really practicing sincerely. Practicing together sincerely. Buddhism is flourishing. Practice is flourishing.

[22:24]

And enlightenment is flourishing. You know, on one level, we make some distinction between enlightened and deluded. But on an absolute level, we don't make such distinctions. Sage and commoner, enlightened and deluded, on an absolute level, everyone is equal, completely equal. Dragons should be practicing with snakes.

[23:29]

If dragons don't practice with snakes, snakes will never know what dragons are. Snakes will never know their dragon nature. So Bodhisattva practice is to practice with snakes, as a snake. You know, both Manjushri and Avalokiteshvara have the power to appear in any situation. They have the power to change themselves or transform themselves. according to any situation. Sometimes they'll appear as a little boy or a little girl or an old man or a truck driver or a waitress, a typist, a monarch.

[24:48]

We're waiting for Manjushri to appear as the President of the United States. So the great challenge of practice is how to manifest your Manjushri mind. in everyday life, in every situation. Life becomes very interesting that way. Monjushri's staff sometimes is a flower, sometimes it's a sword. depending on how it needs to be used.

[25:56]

So we say Monjishri's sword cuts off delusion, dualistic thinking. And his flower is the other side of the sword. Maybe he's more, I don't say compassionate, because his sword is compassion, and flower is also compassion. But there are two sides of compassion. One is strictness and the other is sweetness.

[27:00]

Two sides of our compassionate nature. So no matter how monjushri helps, sometimes with strictness and sometimes with sweetness, both sides are compassion. So that sword, you know, is our own sword. Our own monjushri sword is our own strict practice. Without strictness, everything just falls apart. And without sweetness, Strictness just becomes rigidity. So there's an old saying in our practice, to be strict with yourself.

[28:11]

What our attitude toward practice is, to be strict with ourself, very strict, and compassionate with others. It means that we have to have our own strict practice and maintain it and do whatever we can to help other people as manjushri. Manjushri is just ourself. So we should study Manjushri. Manjushri is in a zendo, usually is the, is usually on the altar.

[29:22]

The main figure on the altar in a zendo is usually Manjushri. And in the Buddha hall, Buddha is installed. But in our zendo, our zendo is not only a zendo, but a buddha hall, lecture hall, whatever. It's a one-room schoolhouse. So we have Shakyamuni Buddha. Maybe this is some other Buddha. I think this particular Buddha could be almost any Buddha. And Monjushri is on his right side. Avalokiteshvara is on his left side. Two aspects of Buddha, Monjushri and Avalokiteshvara.

[30:26]

Strictly speaking, Avalokiteshvara is compassion, our compassionate nature. And Monjushri is our wisdom nature. But these are two aspects, the two aspects of our Buddha nature, which must always be in harmony. If we're too strict, if we have too much wisdom, we need a big slap. And if we're too soft, too much compassion, too soft, maybe too sentimental, we need to be shored up. So there are two sides of our nature.

[31:33]

One is maybe a little bit amorphous. And we like that amorphous side of our nature. It's like the uncreate. It's like chaos or vitality, the German vitality, which is in a kind of chaos or uncertain state. And we really enjoy that, and we should. But our strict side keeps that power, gives it form, and gives it strength and direction. So if we get too much form, too strict, too tight, then the power or that fundamental self gets restricted, can't move.

[32:57]

But without it, it just falls to pieces. It becomes nothing. So how to have a perfect balance between those two. We're always dealing with that, always dealing with the balance between strictness and compassion. And when it's perfectly balanced, there's no difference. Strictness is compassion and compassion is strictness. So we actually end up treating others the way we treat ourselves. You can't do otherwise. So I think that for us,

[34:04]

Our practice, and I say this every time I give a lecture, our practice is to work on ourself as practice and appear in the world with people. And our practice will help people. you should appear as Manjushri in the world in its changing forms. If you have Manjushri's mind, then wherever you appear is a transformation of Manjushri. And there's always a place to practice. There's never any place where you're not practicing.

[35:06]

This is how we practice. Otherwise, we just have to all get shut up in a monastery. That's good, too. Actually, we should all have some training. But this is our monastery. This big, wide place is our monastery. So fortunately, we have a place where we can all come together to focus together, to practice together and realize our practice. Realize our practice in this way, this restricted way. And then realize our practice in a broader way. There's like two ends of the spectrum. It's not that there are two practices. It's not that there's a monastic practice and a lay practice.

[36:13]

It's just that there are two extremes of practice and all of our practice falls someplace in between those two extremes. And we should just remember that everyone is passing through our monastery. We can't count any special number. Our monastery is vast and wide and is a constant flow.

[37:23]

There's no place you can step out outside. So, Setso's verse at the end, he says, that thousand hills, peak upon peak, deep blue. Who can converse with Munjushri? How I laugh at many or few. How I admire the former threes and threes, the latter threes and threes. I really wanted to have more of a discussion today, but I got kind of wound up.

[38:31]

Do you have any questions? Do you have anything to discuss? This idea of balance. have an image of measuring out, measuring cups, a cup of compassion, a cup of wisdom. Could you talk about how, what could you elaborate on that? A cup of, that's it, a cup of compassion and a cup of wisdom. And sometimes they're separate, But when you put them together and mix them up, they're really the same.

[39:37]

Suzuki Roshi used to talk about eating. He said, Japanese way of eating and American way of eating are quite different. Americans mix all their food up. You know, you chop up some onion and you chop up some vegetable and meat or whatever it is and then you put it all together in some form and cook it. But Japanese way of cooking is you take a piece of paper and you mark out where the various dishes go and then Each thing, like cucumber, you chop it up and you put it on a little plate and you put it on the paper. Then you take maybe some other vegetable and you put that, maybe you mix a little bit, but each article, each piece of food is separate.

[40:50]

And instead of going by taste, or by mixing, you go by color. How things look and how they're arranged. Isn't that interesting? Very aesthetic way of thinking about food. So that each thing is, taste is eaten individually. And But it all gets mixed up in your tummy. Americans kind of mix everything up before it gets to your tummy. He called it tummy. But in either case, when it gets there, it's all one thing. all becomes one thing. But before, it's separate. So we can talk about compassion, we can talk about wisdom, as separate things.

[41:57]

But when you actually use them, they're not separate. When they get digested, when they get used, you can't separate. You can say, well, that's very, a lot of wisdom in that. That's very compassionate. You can say that, and that's true. There is that distinction. But true wisdom should have its equal balance of compassion. So one cup of this, one cup of wisdom, one cup of compassion. But maybe when we talk about equality, this cup is one cup of wisdom, and this cup is one cup of compassion, but they may not be the same size or shape. So equality in Buddhism has a different meaning than what we usually give to equality. We usually say equality means a pound of this and a pound of that.

[42:58]

But in Buddhism, equality means six pounds of this and an ounce of that. Or it means Megan is equal to Ron. Megan's a woman, Ron's a man. Megan is so tall, Ron is a different size. But we can say Megan is equal to Ron. Because Megan is completely Megan and Ron is completely Ron. from the point of view of their complete nature, they're absolutely equal, even though they're completely different. So, it's a different kind of equality that we're talking about.

[44:03]

We're talking about absolute equality, not just relative equality. In relative equality, you measure. But in absolute equality, each thing is equal to everything else, just as it is. A snail is equal to an elephant. Oh, what? Yes. Would you say then an ordinary person is equal to Manjushri? Yeah. Well, then I'm a little confused. while we're waiting for Manjushri to be President of the United States. So what I'm wondering is how can you be sure he's not? That's right.

[45:04]

That's a good koan for all of us. Thank you very much. Yes. Can you say it a little louder, please? Yes. You said in the beginning of the lecture that we should be good with ourselves and compassionate to others. Yeah. Does that relate to what you were saying in response to the first question at all? Oh yeah, I mean as far as... Well, in some way, you know, compassionate to others and ourselves. See, that's another koan. When we talk about others and ourself, it sounds like a simple thing. You know, oh, well, we do this with ourselves and we do that with others. But in an ordinary sense, there are others in ourself.

[46:06]

But in the sense that we're talking about it, you have to see both ways. If you have a jewel under your arm, as it says, then you don't, then even though there are yourself and others, there's also no self and no others. So it's not so simple. Just a kind of something for you to think about. You know, Ronald Reagan is yourself. Well, I can't help thinking of the lines when you array them, they're not the same.

[47:26]

When you mix them, you know where they are. When the food is in front of you, arranged according to color, and when it's inside of you, your relationship to it is quite different. It's not the same when it's inside, you know, it's something else. Cucumbers are no longer cucumbers when they're in your stomach. But when you mix them, you know where they are. I mean, that's where the two metaphors kind of fall down. But your relationship, when you're practicing that balance, could you talk about how your relationship to the components of it is nourishing, is changing you? Because you become different.

[48:43]

In other words, when you eat a cucumber, the cucumber changes you into something else. That's right. So, you know, it's interesting, we say when we eat the cucumber, then it becomes something else. But you also become something else. Well, ask the cucumber. I'd prefer to ask you. So from our point of view, we're changing the cucumber. The cucumber is changing. And from the cucumber's point of view, something else is changing.

[49:47]

But from the Absolute point of view, everything is changing. So, we should have the absolute point of view to see that everything is changing, everything is happening. But at the same time, when I'm talking to you, this is all that's happening. Just you and I are talking. And that's enough. That's enough.

[51:04]

Thank you.

[51:04]

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