And this morning, I want to present a koan from the Blue Cliff Record, which is appropriate for Sashin. Number 50, Master Oum Mons. Well, this title, everyone translates it in a different way. Uman's Particle After Particles Samadhi or Uman's Dust Samadhi or Every Atom Samadhi. You can take your pick, but I'll discuss the title. But it's sort of like moment after moment, samadhi.

[01:01]

A speck of dust is like something that arises. Some phenomenon in space and time. So it's like samadhi. each world of dust, each universe of dust. So Master Engo introduces the subject and he says, transcending all ranks, rising above all expedience, spirit corresponding to spirit, words answering words, Unless he has undergone the great emancipation and attained the great use of it, how could he rank with the Buddhas and be a faultless exponent of the teachings?

[02:09]

Now tell me, who could be so direct and adaptable to all occasions and have the free command of transcendent words? See the following." So he's talking about Master Uman, the main subject. A monk asked Umong, what is particle after particles, samadhi, or moment after moment, samadhi? Umong said, rice in the bowl, water in the pail. Then Setso has a verse. Setso's verse says, Rice in the bowl, water in the pail. Rice in the pail, water in the bowl. Take your pick. Even the most talkative can add nothing.

[03:12]

The North and South stars do not change places. Heaven-touching waves arise on land. If you doubt, if you hesitate, though heir to millions, you've lost your pants. So in his introduction, Master Engo says, transcending all ranks and rising above all expedience, In other words, cutting through stages of learning and getting right to the point. Cutting through all the supports and getting right to the point.

[04:18]

So in this way he's talking about how U Mon answers this question. transcending the ranks. You know, in Buddha Dharma, we've talked about this before, in the Avatamsaka Sutra, in the Mahayana system, there are 52 stages of a bodhisattva in order to become a Buddha. 52 stages to Buddhahood. And they're very elaborately laid out. Briefly, I can give you the gist of what they are in a series of tens. There are the ten ranks of those who have faith and believe in Buddha nature without any doubts.

[05:24]

And there are the 10 ranks of those who don't stray from the absolute truth. And there are the 10 ranks or stages of those who proceed to the middle way. And there are the 10 stages of bringing salvation to others. And there are the 10 stages of those called ground, which The ground being unmoving yet provides a basis for that which moves. So it's like the ground causes or allows plants to grow but it doesn't move itself. maybe 10 stages of being able to teach or being within the absolute.

[06:43]

And then there's the rank of one who is equal to Buddha and the rank of one who has cut off all illusion and has attained Buddhahood. So those are in brief, the 52 stages of a bodhisattva. So he says, transcending all ranks. This is also called step-ladder Zen. Step-ladder, in which Zen is like sudden realization, not step-ladder learning. But we don't criticize the 52 stages. but transcending all ranks and rising above all expedience, spirit corresponding to spirit, word answering word. In other words, the student says something and the teacher responds.

[07:45]

It's like cutting right through and responding directly without explanation and without thinking. Unless that person who can do that has undergone the great emancipation and attained the great use of it, how could he rank with the Buddhas and be a faultless exponent of the teachings? So, what is the necessary quality is to have died the great death. Right? Or have the great emancipation. Or, as Dogen says, drop body and mind. And has the freedom to move without any impediment or fear or duality.

[08:52]

One who doesn't linger in life or death, is not caught by life or death, birth or death. So, and has some selfless quality. So he's talking about ummani. He's still talking about ummani. Now tell me, who can be so direct and adaptable to all occasions and have the free command of transcendent words? Because he's not attached to anything, he can respond to anything without getting lost. So this is his

[09:55]

And there are more koans concerning Master Uman in the collections than any other teacher. So, he's asking us to see the following, which is the koan. The main subject. A monk asked Master U Mon, what is particle, what is one moment after moment samadhi in a particle of dust? And U Mon said, rice in the bowl, water in the pail. This is beyond explanation, but I'll talk about it. Anyway.

[11:00]

Well, what is samadhi? Samadhi is direct, directly knowing. It's like intuition. It's actually our norm. Shakyamuni Buddha talks about the norm. He said what the goal of Buddhism is to attain the norm, not something extraordinary, not something out of the ordinary, but What do we say in the meal chant? Natural order of mind, which is samadhi.

[12:12]

So how do we attain our natural order of mind, which in a way presupposes that we're all out of order in some way. In some way we are out of order. It's very difficult to be completely balanced and not separated from our self. We're continually discriminating and separating ourselves from ourselves through our thinking mind and through desire.

[13:27]

rice in the bowl and water in the pail. Each one is its own complete universe. During Sashin, during Zazen, we limit our activity and Each one of us is in our own universe, which includes everything else, of course. And each speck of dust is its own universe. This room is, at this moment, our whole world. When we sit and face the wall, our world becomes even more limited, but at the same time expanded.

[14:53]

When we face the wall, we stop discriminating mind. And as soon as we stop discriminating mind, the mind is in Samadhi. because the mind is no longer making distinctions between pleasure and pain, right and wrong, this and that. The dualistic mind comes to a stop, hopefully. I mean, it's still there, of course. We still are discriminating. The mind is still cretching. It's still saying, I'm uncomfortable. I wish the bell would ring. I don't like this. I don't like that. I wish, I wish. But it's not so great.

[15:58]

And we can see it clearly. We can see how our mind is constantly complaining and desiring something other than what's present. But as soon as our mind settles, the more our mind settles, and accepts our situation and stops compartmentalizing, then samadhi mind emerges. Mind of samadhi becomes more present. And when you look at your bowl of rice, the bowl of rice takes on a different quality than when you ordinarily eat a bowl of rice. The water in your bowl takes on a different quality than ordinary water. But yet it's the same rice and the same water.

[16:59]

Just ordinary rice and ordinary water. But what has changed is our perception because our mind has not been discriminating. When we eat a bowl of rice in your Oryoki, it's just different than when you eat it at some other time. Different quality. Because we're... Samadhi mind includes a bowl of rice. and sees it in its pristine quality. And when we go out of the zendo, after sitting a long time, the grass has a different quality, the trees have a different quality, whatever you see has

[18:08]

doesn't feel separate. So a samadhi mind sees everything as our self, realizes that everything is our self, even though we may not realize that. So in Sancho's verse, he says, rice in the bowl, water in the pail. Even the most talkative can add nothing to it.

[19:16]

Matter of fact, the more you add to it, the more you talk about it, the further away it goes. Sorry. The North and South stars do not change places. In other words, they have their positions. And the North star has its quality, maybe big. The Southern star may look small. But small or large, they're all equal. You can't say a speck of dust is something small. And you can't say that a mountain is something big. Usually we're comparing everything and judging according to our comparison. But when we stop our discriminative comparative thinking, a speck of dust is maybe huge.

[20:29]

Matter of fact, The whole world is just a speck of dust. From another point of view, we can say, oh, it's huge, but it's actually quite small. And then he says, he says, the North and the South stars do not change places or They have their positions. They don't move from their position. And the heaven-touching waves arise on land. Heaven-touching waves, usually waves arise in the ocean, but here he's talking about the waves of our mind and the waves of our feelings. And he's saying that Even though there's great turmoil in our mind and great confusion, these are like waves on land.

[21:40]

The stars don't move. They maintain their position. So in Samadhi, Samadhi is called immovable. If you read the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, Samadhi, he says, Samadhi means imperturbability, that which is not moved, no matter whether there's something very strong or something very weak happening. And the unmoving mind is the mind of Samadhi. The only way it cannot move is by not discriminating. It's not like trying to keep things out, you know. When we first start to sit zazen, we have a lot of pain and we resist it.

[22:49]

Even after we've been sitting for a long time, we have a lot of pain and we resist it. We try to keep it away. And we try to build a fortress around ourself to keep the pain away. But it doesn't help because the entire universe is coming down on us. Did you ever sit in Sashin and feel like the entire universe was coming down on you? That's because it is. We contain the entire universe. There's the pressure inside and the pressure outside. And the only way we can maintain is to balance the pressures, just like an airplane. The only way we can maintain ourselves is to balance the pressures.

[23:51]

And the only way we can balance the pressures is to be completely As soon as we start to discriminate, the pressures change and then we feel like the whole universe is pressing down on us. So how do we contain the whole universe? How does the bowl contain the rice? How does the pail contain the water? looks easy. But if we try to resist, if we try to build a wall, the universe always wins.

[24:55]

So we have to and become the universe. That's how we sit Zazen, is to let go and become the universe, which means dropping body and mind, which means dying the great death. Dying the great death is like realizing that you're already dead. And then you can live your life according to circumstances with a lot of freedom. But maybe that's too strong. Maybe that's too strong a way of putting it.

[26:01]

Just drop body and mind. Someone may want to commit suicide. But just drop body and mind. Let go of discriminating mind. And flow evenly with the universe. When it's painful, it's just painful. When it's pleasurable, it's just pleasurable. Without resisting and without hanging on to something. Let things come and let it go. This is samadhi mind, imperturbable mind. So as I said, imperturbable doesn't mean to resist and to find out, see how strong you are, but more to be like grass. When the wind blows, the grass conforms to the wind. The water conforms to the bowl.

[27:06]

The rice conforms to the bowl. The rice takes the shape of the bowl. Water always finds this lowest level and takes the shape of whatever container is receiving it. So we're both water and container. So we flow both ways to open our container and expand it limitlessly. Our container is actually limitless even though we think that we have some limitation. to open more and more.

[28:13]

This is samadhi. And to just be one with our activity. One translation is, of heaven touching waves that rise on land is, it is nothing but an affair inside a particle of dust. If you doubt, if you hesitate, even though you are heir to millions of dollars, you've lost your pants. So, you can't hesitate. What he means by, if you doubt, if you hesitate, they'll err to millions.

[29:23]

He's referring to the Lotus Sutra, where the story of the prodigal son who leaves home and wanders around and finds himself penniless, And he wanders back through his own hometown, but he didn't realize it. And his father sees him, and he sends the servants out to go get him. And he gives him a job in the stables. And he wants the son to recognize him. He won't tell the son who he is, but he wants the son to recognize him. In other words, he won't give him his inheritance until his son finds it himself. And finally, the son does recognize the father. The father kind of brings him up again after he's returned and he recognizes his father and then he inherits his millions.

[30:33]

But he had the millions all the time and didn't know it. So sometimes we have to go out and search for our millions, search for ourself. We do, you know, we leave home and we find our way, look for our way, even though we don't always know what we're looking for. We're looking for something, but we don't know what we're looking for necessarily. And then we, maybe we do find a way to look for ourself. But we have to find it through our own efforts. So the point is, we all have our own inheritance, but our pants are down so we can't put our hands in our pockets and get it. So we had to find our pants, and then we find the millions in our pants.

[31:48]

So that's sort of what this poem is about. It's about, you have it, but don't go away looking for it. Even if you have to go away looking for it, when you find the right place, it's right there. You know the story of Dao Wu and Lung Ta. Dao Wu was a very well-known teacher in China. and Lung Tan was a little boy and Lung Tan's family was very poor but Da Wu liked Lung Tan a lot because he recognized Lung Tan's ability even though Lung Tan didn't know he had it as a little boy.

[33:00]

So he gave the family a hut to live in on the temple property. And in gratitude, well, Lung Tan's family, they baked little pastries. That's the way they made their living. So every day, Lung Tan would bring Dao Wu ten little pastries. He must have been pretty small. And every day, Da Wu would take the pastries and give Lung Tan back one pastry. And this went on for a long time. Every day, the little boy would bring the pastries and Da Wu would give him back one. And then Lung Tan, why does he do this? So he asked him one day, he said, every day I give you 10 pastries,

[34:05]

and every day you give me back one. Why do you do that?" And Da Wu said, well, I'm just giving you what is originally yours. This is the way he made Lungtan aware of their relationship and made him aware of what he was looking for. So samadhi is present both in zazen and in our daily activity.

[35:34]

When we are directly touching, when there's no obscuring of our true nature, samadhi arises and when we stay in that place, then this is what Dogen is talking about, he says, your treasury will open by itself and you'll be able to use it at will when we stay in that place. But it's hard to stay there, very hard to stay in reality all the time. So we have to keep practicing continuously and sometimes we are aware of reality and sometimes we're in delusion. It's hard to stay in reality all the time.

[36:41]

That's why it's necessary to continuously practice. And when we do practice continuously, even though we may be in confusion, our confusion is not different than reality. So when we sit today, you know, everything will go through your mind. Your whole life will go through your mind as you sit. And each one of us, as an individual person sitting, is not different than a big city with all its problems. In our small individual state, we have all the problems that are present, not only in the big city, but in the whole country.

[37:49]

in this small, small, small, small microcosm of each one of us are all the problems that are contained in the world. So how do we deal with the problems that are contained in the world in this small space? Same thing. And this small space contains everything. So, Zazen is not an escape, but directly facing who we are. we have an opportunity to deal with it in an easy way, accessible way.

[39:09]

So, moment after moment, we have to find ourself. And moment after moment, we can lose ourself. So... Our effort is to be present on each moment with non-discriminating mind and let your samadhi mind come forth and enjoy yourself. Don't be crushed by pleasure and pain.

[41:40]

If we can be open and flexible and non-discriminating, even though there's some discomfort, the natural joy of your true nature will prevail.

[42:15]

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