This morning I want to talk about case number 44 in the Blue Cliff record called Kassan's Beating the Drum. I've talked about this before and recently I talked to a doesn't have an introduction. So I'll give it a little introduction. In our practice, what we call our practice, the practice that we do is called sometimes Shikantaza. Shikantaza means just doing. to just do what is being done.

[01:02]

It's that simple. But something that simple is not so simple, unfortunately. The simplest things are the most difficult. So, in order to avoid It's the difficulty of simplicity. We invent a lot of complexity. That's the way our mind goes. When we come up against something very simple, the mind starts getting very complex and inventing many distractions. That's the nature of our human life. So keeping in mind shikantaza, just doing, I will comment on this case.

[02:16]

Gasan or kasan or kwasan or hoshan, lived between 891 and 960 in Tang Dynasty China. And he was teaching at this time. And so Kwasan gave a talk to his monks. In those days, I think that The monks used to stand for a lecture. The teacher would sit up there, and the monks would all stand while the teacher gave a talk. So Khorasan gave a talk to his monks, and this particular translation of this case is by Nyogen Senzaki, which is not published, but he always gives a very

[03:31]

Loose rendering. Not such a formal way of speaking, which I like. He says, by what you hear from others, you can learn a great deal of Dharma. But when you forget what you've learned, you can enter the neighborhood of Zen. When you pass those two stages, you can really you then you can really reach attainment. The monk whose duty it was to beat the drum, then asked Khaosan, what is real attainment anyway? And Khaosan replied, learn to beat the drum. The monk, however, asked again, what is the real teaching of Buddha? Khaosan said, learned to beat the drum. The monk persisted.

[04:35]

I'm not asking, as the old masters say, that this mind is Buddha or there is no mind, no Buddha. What is that? Kao-san said, learn to beat the drum. The desperate monk still queried. But if a real student, supposing a real student came and asked you a question, What would you say then? Cross on set. Learn to beat the drum. Learn to beat the drum. And then, there's the poem. Some Zen teachers have monks draw the stone wheel. Some have them carry heavy loads of earth. It is like shooting an arrow with a 1,000-pound bow.

[05:37]

A good archer does not waste his weapon or his arrow. Some teachers play wooden ball. None of them can surpass Kassan, who pushed one answer all the way. Learn to beat the drum. After all, watch your step. Be conscious of your exhalation and inhalation. What is sweet should be sweet, and what is sour should be sour. That's the case. So Kha San gave a talk to his monks, and he says, by what you hear from others, you can learn a great deal of Dharma. Of course, we like to know something about Dharma, and we should. We should know something about Dharma. When we first come to practice, we come because we've heard about Zen, or we've read something about Buddhism.

[06:46]

We heard something about enlightenment. Usually when we come to a practice place, it's very different than what we picture. And we're either disappointed or we're surprised. We're usually surprised anyway. But we have some idea through something we've heard or learned. And then some people don't like to study at all, anything. They just want to do something. And other people just want to study and they don't want to do anything. These are the two extremes. So, you know, by what you hear from others, you can learn a great deal of Dharma, and it's very helpful. When you forget what you have learned, you can enter the neighborhood of Zen. Usually when, you know, in Japan, the monks, before they're monks, they go to college, and they learn all about Buddhism.

[07:55]

Then they go to the monastery, And they don't study anything. They just practice. That's a good method. But it depends on where you are and what your circumstances are, how you go about doing something. We have a little different way of doing things because of our circumstances. Also, this is not a Buddhist country. So whatever we have to, whatever we absorb of Buddhism, we have to read and learn about. And it's necessary to do that. A person can practice, just come into the door, and sit Zazen, and practice Zazen, and that's very good. In a way, no obstructing ideas. But we always have obstructing ideas about something, whether we learn about Buddhism or not. But ideally, to have no opinions, no views, to leave all your ideas out the door is the way to practice.

[09:08]

But that takes time. But anyway, he says, by what you hear from others, you can learn a great deal of Dharma. This is what he's talking, he's telling his students. But when you forget what you have learned, then you can enter the neighborhood of Zen. That's true. Sometimes I recommend to some people that they study, and I recommend to some people that they don't study. If you haven't studied anything, I recommend that you study. If you study too much, I recommend that you don't study so much, so that you can actually be practiced, enter the practice. And then he says, when you pass both of those stages, when it doesn't matter whether you study or don't study, whether you have some intellectual understanding or forget it.

[10:15]

The past, both of those stages, is called the stage of attainment. So, you're not bothered by study and you're not lost in practice. And you can study or not study, it doesn't matter, because you are beyond being corrupted by study or being in the dark about Buddhism. So when you pass these two stages, you really reach attainment. So what is it to pass these stages? Where are you when you pass these stages? In our practice, we actually throw you into the ocean of practice, throw you into the ocean of enlightenment.

[11:21]

You step right off, right away, because you come in the door You get a little Zazen instruction, and you come in the door, and then you sit on the cushion. And you're right away in the sea of practice, without much explanation. That's my wonderful thing about practice, and that's what really encouraged me or convinced me about practice. I remember when I first came to Sokoji Temple and sat Zazen without instruction. I just sat down on the cushion and I got a little instruction while I was sitting. And I realized, hey, this is it. It was great, even though I didn't know exactly what I was doing.

[12:24]

I knew that this was it. So in the practice, you step off into the ocean right away. And then you begin to learn about Buddhism, little by little. So we say, you step off into the arena of enlightenment, and then you have gradual practice. you step off, and then gradually you begin to... it's not you begin to, but by gradual practice it means practicing forever, moment by moment. So then, the monk whose duty it was to beat the drum asked Karsan, well what is real attainment? to learn to beat the drum.

[13:29]

In the monastery, there are many practices. Everyone has something to do. And just like here, someone sounds the bell during service, someone cooks the meals, someone serves the meals. Whatever we have to do, whatever has to be done is like beating the drum. So beating the drum here means any activity that you're involved in. It just happens that this was the monk's duty at the time. But the monk thought, okay, now I've learned to beat the drum, now what do I do? What's next? Remember that cartoon in the New Yorker? These two monks are sitting on the top, and the one monk turns to the teacher and he says, you mean this is all there is?

[14:40]

So the monk whose duty it was to beat the drum didn't ask, Well, what is real attainment in kāsans who learn to beat the drum? Just do what you're doing completely, thoroughly, wholeheartedly, and don't look for something else. There's nothing else in this world for you except to learn to beat the drum. You don't have to study Buddhism. You don't have to think about tomorrow. You don't have to think about the next moment. You don't have to worry about your past or your future. Just learn to beat the drum. This is called shikantaza. Just doing. And it's not doing something for tomorrow. It's just doing this. This one act, we call it one act samadhi.

[15:56]

This one act, completely done, with the whole body and mind, covers the whole universe. We often feel that we have to learn everything in the world in order to understand the world, or in order to understand the universe. In order to cover the universe, how many miles is it to Mars? But actually, if you know how to beat the drum, Mars is right here. And there's no separation between the one who beats the drum I don't like to use the word beat.

[17:01]

It sounds like you're hitting something. Sound the drum. Learn how to sound the drum. Learn how to bring out the quality of the drum, the life of the drum. Bring the drum to life so that the drum brings you to life. So we tend to relate from subject, I am the subject and the drum is the object. And so when the drum is the object, we can hit the drum as an object. But the drum is not just an object. The drum has a life of its own. So we try to bring out the quality of this drum with the sound. And the way we stand the way we hold our body, the way we hold the sticks. You know, this kind of drum, it's a taiko drum, actually. Big, round drum on a stand in the monastery.

[18:03]

And there's two sticks, and you go, boom, [...] and the sticks are pretty big. And as soon as you start to work with the drum, the drum draws you into it. And if you're tense and tight, you can't do it, because pretty soon you can't keep the rhythm. If you treat the drum as an object, you'll be defeated. But if you become one with the drum, if you lose yourself in the activity, then you and the drum are one piece.

[19:06]

And the drum is creating you, and you are bringing out the sound of the drum. And when there's no separation between you and drum then it becomes effortless and the sound just radiates out of the drum so the quality of the sound depends on all those factors so this is activity of becoming one or losing yourself, as Dogen says, to study the Buddhadharma is to study the self. Study here, as I said before, doesn't mean reading the book.

[20:14]

Study means, in this sense, to do something over and over again with this kind of concentration. We talk about concentration in Zen, but concentration is one factor, and many other factors. But concentration here means to be concentric, to balance, not just be focused on one spot, but to bring all the factors that are involved into play and not ignore anything. And to take your place among all the factors so that you don't stand out in some way.

[21:17]

If you stand out in some way, you can't beat the drum. If your ego is there trying to create something, you can't do it. You have to completely disappear within the activity, and at the same time be totally present. This is Shikantaza, just doing. So then, The monk asked again. He didn't get it. He said, of course, I'm just learning to beat the drum. And the monk, thinking, OK, I can learn to beat the drum. Now, what is the real teaching of Buddha? And the teacher is very patient.

[22:20]

He didn't hit him. Learned to beat the drum. Get it? But the monk persisted. He says, I'm not asking, as the old masters say, that this mind is Buddha. You know, this is a very big koan. This mind, very mind, is Buddha. What is Buddha? This mind is Buddha. And then another teacher, another student asked him, What is Buddha? He says, no mind, no Buddha. They both mean the same thing. But the monk is trying to get to the real teaching. He doesn't want to wash the dishes. He doesn't want to clean the toilet. He wants to get to the real thing. Khasan should have said, Go clean the toilet.

[23:24]

Okay, I'll go clean the toilet. Now, what's the real teaching? So, the monk says, this mind is Buddha, or this mind is not Buddha. Tell us about that. Give us some teaching. Carl Senn said, learn to beat the drum. So, how you wash the toilet, how you clean the sink, how you serve the meals, how you cook the meal, you know, in the monastery or in the Zen center, or here, We don't usually ask a professional cook to cook the meals.

[24:28]

If someone is a professional cook, we ask them to do something else. Or if someone is a professional carpenter, we ask them to do something else. But usually, carpenters are at such a premium that they get pressed into service, and it's really bad for them. If you have some ability, some talent, when you go into the monastery you always have to do something else. You can't rely on what you've learned or what you've developed. You have to find yourself in some other way. This is like taking everything away from you. rely on something. You have to go deeper into yourself and find yourself in some activity that you don't like necessarily, or that you never thought of doing, or that you don't feel is your area.

[25:37]

Your talent. So this is, it's difficult, but it's the best training. And we have trouble with that, you know. Sometimes people are very professional, and they come to practice, and we don't ask them to do anything which includes their ability. And they get very upset. Or they go along with it for a while, and then they get upset. practice levels everyone. So when you, at some point, when you are leveled, then you can go back to your, maybe include your abilities in practice, but not in the beginning.

[26:49]

Not until you understand pretty well. So, then the desperate monk still asked again. Boy, this guy's, he's very good, but he's very stubborn. He just doesn't get it. But if a real student comes to ask you, what will you say? the drum. You know the story about the professor who came to tea, and the teacher was poured in tea. Apparently this professor had a lot of ideas and maybe was arrogant, I don't know. But the teacher started pouring the tea in the cup, and he just kept pouring the tea.

[27:56]

And usually you expect somebody to, well, maybe he's going to, you know, lift the pot now. He just kept pouring. The tea just started overflowing the cup and running all over. And he says, what are you doing? The cup is full. And the teacher said, yes, just like your mind, which is full and cannot receive what I have to give you. So then, Setso has a verse. He says, some Zen teachers have monks draw the stone wheel And some have them carry heavy loads of earth. This refers to two teachers who tested their students through their work.

[29:03]

And one teacher would have his students draw heavy loads. And you would see how they did this. And that's how he could tell where they were at in their practice. And teachers do that. When you're a teacher, if you're an astute teacher, you can tell by the way your students are walking, or the way they sit down and stand up, or the way they pick up something, where the state of mind is. becomes very obvious. Just like if you're a carpenter, a foreman as a carpenter, and somebody walks towards you and says, I'm a carpenter, you can tell whether they are or not by the way they walk, or by the way they handle themselves, even before they start doing anything.

[30:12]

So a teacher is like this, and sees in the way students do their work and walk and so forth, where their state of mind is. And then he says, it is like shooting an arrow with a thousand pound bow. A good archer does not waste his weapon. It's like, how do you do something with the least amount of effort to make it work? It's like sitting in zazen. It's a really good example. When we sit in zazen, we sit with our back straight and with really good form and effort, and at the same time, completely letting go and being very loose and supple and not stiff and not using any kind of extra effort

[31:19]

but finding just the right amount, just the right balance and the right place to exert effort. And this is how you sit zazen. Every time you sit zazen, you should think about how you exert the right kind of effort, the least amount of effort to accomplish the most. So this is like shooting a good arrow, shooting an arrow with a 1,000-pound bow, which is very strong. That's a kind of exaggeration. A good archer does not waste his weapon. In other words, he makes it work, makes it hit the mark. And you shouldn't waste your effort. We should know actually how to refine our effort so that we use the least amount of effort to do the most amount of good work.

[32:34]

That's called effortless effort. So some teachers play wooden ball. He's referring to seppo. who was actually his teacher. And one day he had three wooden balls which he rolled down the table. I'm not sure where he rolled them, maybe on the table. And this was his demonstration to his students. Of what? If you can understand the movement of these three balls thoroughly, You will understand something. But he says, none of these people who had these methods can surpass Khazan. Actually, they're all equal.

[33:36]

But he's making a point here, right? None of them can surpass Khazan. They always say this when they're comparing. Learn to beat the drum. After all, watch your step." And he adds this in Nyogen. The translator adds this part. He says, be conscious of your inhalation and exhalation. Very good. Just be aware of when you inhale that it's inhaling, and when you exhale, it's exhaling. But what is inhaling and exhaling? We say, I inhale, I breathe. But breathing breathes. Breathing itself just breathes. I breathe, I am breathed. I live, I am lit by.

[34:40]

I beat the drum, Excuse me, I sound the drum, the drum sounds me. I walk down the street, but the street walks me. Whatever I do brings me to life. We say you can't exist in a vacuum. That's quite true. Their only existence is only through relationship. When we understand what Shikantaza is, Shikantaza is I create the world and the world creates me at the same time. If you only think that you are being created by the universe, that's not enough.

[35:48]

You're also creating the universe, but there's no you. There's only three balls rolling down the table. Then he says, what is sweet should be sweet, and what is sour should be sour. Everything is just as it is. So, do you have any questions? What could the monk do since he wasn't getting it?

[37:00]

I mean, was it that it makes sense that he just kept asking over and over? Is that all he could do? Well, it seemed to me that the only thing that he could do, so the teacher was saying, telling him what to do. He was very plain, saying, just penetrate this one thing completely. And this is the essence of practice. Just do one thing completely. Suzuki Roshi used to say this all the time. Just do one thing completely. He said in America, or in the West, you have this saying, kill two birds with one stone. But in practice, you just kill one bird with one stone. So can we assume that he finally got it since the story's come down for the centuries? We don't know. Nobody knows.

[38:02]

I guess I just wonder what you can do if you, you know, you know the teacher's giving you some bit of something, but you just, you're not getting it. Just keep asking, I guess. Well, we assume that perhaps the monk went back to beating the drum. He went back to just doing what he was doing, doing his thing, doing his job. So this is how we practice in our daily life. This is how we practice Shikantaza in our daily life. Whatever it is that appears, this is the koan of daily life. Shikantaza is the koan of Soto Zen practice, Genjo Koan. Genjo Koan is reduced to something very simple like Shikantaza.

[39:03]

And it's the koan that confronts you moment by moment. And it's the koan of the particular and the universal. All koans are the koans of the particular and the universal. How to bring subject and object, how to not split the subject and the object. That's how you go beyond both learning and beyond learning. You don't split the subject and the object. You become one with whatever you're engaged with. Becoming one means not to see the object as an object. Of course, everything has objective quality. frustration to just do this one thing, you know.

[40:25]

When the boulder wasn't affecting him in his life, for him it was just an act, he was sort of condemned to this act of futility. Right. Sisyphus? Yeah. Yeah. Problem with Sisyphus is that he felt it was that the boulder coming down was a mistake, that it was a failure. That's the problem. He divided success and failure into two pieces. We do have that problem. you know, we want to be successful and we don't want to be failures. But when we have, we want and we want to do our best, right?

[41:31]

So in a way Sisyphus was very successful, but he didn't know it because He did his best. He didn't realize that just doing his best was his success. He thought that if the stone stayed on top of the mountain, that would be his success. But he didn't realize that all this time he was putting himself out completely, completely one with his activity. And the boulder rolling up was one part of his exercise, and the boulder rolling down was the other part of his exercise. If he had just allowed himself to accept the boulder falling down, and then pushing it up, and falling down, and pushing it up, that would be his practice. Just accept his practice.

[42:33]

After a while, he knows he's not going to stay up there. But he has to do it. Sisyphus, we're all Sisyphus. We're all sissies. We're all Sisyphus. We make this big effort and we're failures. But we are also successes if we put out all our effort and become one with our activity. That's the point. But we think that the point is to be successful in what we do. And that's true to a certain extent. You can't deny that. But what, you know, what is an enlightened Zen student? We think, well, the guy's highly out-freed, you know, and he struts around. No. Enlightened Zen student is one who knows how to grapple with the problem. One who knows how to be one and take on the problem.

[43:36]

And not to get rid of the problem. And as soon as we get rid of the problem, The empty space is filled with another problem. And then we have to deal with that problem. We're always dealing with some problem. And we think, and each one of us has an insurmountable problem. And as soon as we solve it, you know, it rolls downhill again. We have to push it up. How does this relate to the ghetto sweatshop worker? Well, while the sweatshop worker is working, that's the sweatshop worker's life. Each one of us has a life of frustration. What's your sweatshop? I wasn't actually concerned about my sweatshop.

[44:44]

I know. Don't you have one? It's not as painful as some other people's. Well, it's not apparently as painful. You know, it's not like right up there, but I think it's there. It may not be a sweatshop, but it's a painful situation. You know, some people You'd say, well, what about all the pain and suffering in the world? There are things that are worse than sweatshops, right? And we want justice. And we feel that all situations should be just and equanimous. And that's a great thing to think.

[45:45]

except that the fact is that life is suffering. Every life situation is suffering. Being born into this world is very difficult. And what each one of us has to do, we make some effort to overcome this suffering, you know, and to stop the means that create it. But you can't. And each one of us has to find our way within the situation that we have. I don't mean we can't change the situation or shouldn't try to make the world better. Of course. But we have to find ourselves within the situation that we have. There's no other situation. And even though things get better, we still have our problems. No matter how good it is. The people have an easy life, lots of money, you know.

[46:51]

That's a big problem. Someone, you know, a person who inherits a lot of money doesn't have to do anything, doesn't have to work. Those people have the biggest problems sometimes because they don't have to, there's nothing that they have to fight. There's nothing for them to engage. It's how we engage with life that brings us to life. And some people have a really miserable circumstance. But how you engage with that is your job. Yes? Yes, of course. It's just a microcosm of everyone's... I mean, your life is right there.

[48:00]

The whole thing is right there. in Zazen, how do you deal with the pain? You have pain in Zazen, so does everybody else, both physical and psychological. And how do you come to terms with that without escaping? You can't leave and you can't stay. You get into a position where you cannot stay there and at the same time you know you can't leave. What do you do? That's the koan. And it's not just a game. It's real life. And it's immediate.

[49:00]

And it just brings you down to right here and now, with this painful situation, what are you going to do? And then it changes. But, as I keep saying over and over, we should try to make things better for people. We should vote. Everybody should vote. If you don't vote, don't complain. You have no room for complaint if you don't vote. You should really get out there and do something. But at the same time, It will change the situation in some way, you know. But fundamentally, each one of us is faced with our own painful situation.

[50:05]

No matter where we are, who we are, and what we have. And everyone's painful situation is different. And we just have to face that. And how do we deal with that? It's called the development of character. How do we deal with that? is how we develop our character. You see, some people have been through so much pain, difficulty, and you see how they've worked with it and how it's created their character. That's the important thing, not whether they're comfortable or not comfortable. We think if everybody gets everything equally and we're all comfortable, then everything's going to be hunky-dory. No way. It'd be nice, but has that ever happened? Last night, no, no, last week there was a, on Channel 9, the story of how Hitler rose to power.

[51:16]

You should see it. And then take a look at what's happening right here in our country and look at the parallels. It's really scary. A lot of people who don't know what to do and the people that have the power through simplicity of thinking and relying on people's hate for power to really get up there and turn things around. I think we have to be very careful of where. Anyway, you know, that's the way it goes sometimes. The world looks like this, and then it just keeps turning, and it all dumps it all out.

[52:24]

All of the wonderful civil rights progress that was made in the last 40 years, just being dumped out. And it comes around again, you know? And in the meantime, we just have to rely on ourselves. I mean, deal with the difficulty. because it's always that way. So we have to do two things. One is, of course, try to make a better world. And the other side is, each one of us has our own destiny which we have to deal with and really has nothing to do with circumstances that much. So it's time. Learn to beat the drum.

[53:25]

Just really do your best effort and be one with whatever your activity is. So that We're not separate from Buddha nature. Don't just divide the world into subject and object. Then, otherwise, we feel lost.

[54:06]

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