I am proud to face the truth. This morning I'm going to comment on the practice instructions of Master Tendo Sogaku, Master Hongzi Xingchui, who is

[01:13]

the 49th ancestor in our lineage. We say Tendo Saga Kudayosho. He was Dharma heir of Tanka Shiju. And a very important person in our lineage. He was advocate of what's called a silent illumination school in China in the 12th century. He was born last part of the 11th century and lived in the 12th century and was a big influence on Dogen. Dogen was very fond of Guan Shi Xiao Gaku and his silent elimination was a inspiration for Dogen and is one of the factors or one of the influences of Dogen Zen.

[02:36]

And of course, silent elimination is Zazen in all of its manifestations. Wanshi Shogaku originally collected a hundred koans, which formed the basis of the Book of Serenity. I've actually talked about this before. I know I talked about this at Tassajara, and I think I talked about it here. The practice instructions are not your usual practice instructions. They're more like inspiration, inspirational talks. But they're called practice instructions.

[03:39]

More like the essence of practice instruction. So in this practice instruction, where whatever he's talking about, he's describing silent illumination practice. Sitting silently and allowing illumination to come forth. He has a little poem.

[04:46]

It's part of a poem that describes the essential feeling, which I think that if you've been sitting for any length of time, you'll all recognize. It says, when by the side of the ancient fairy, the breeze and moonlight are cool and pure, The dark vessel turns into a glowing world. Very beautiful poem. He was really quite a wonderful poet. And all of his admonitions or instructions had this poetic quality. He's what I like to call a Zen mystic. Zen people as being mystical.

[05:47]

Although Hee Chin Kim, when he describes Dogyeon, he calls him a mystical realist. What does mystic mean? What does mystic mean? Well, mystic refers to the mystery, the great mystery. the mystery which goes beyond our understanding. So a mystic is one who is involved with the mystery which goes beyond our understanding, our usual understanding. And it's a word actually that's used, the Chinese use it a lot, and we don't usually translate it as mystic, but it's actually literally mystical, mystic.

[06:53]

So he says, with the depths clear, utterly silent, thoroughly illuminate the source, empty and spirited, vast and bright. Even though you have lucidly scrutinized your image and no shadow or echo meets it, searching through, you see that you still have distinguished between the merits of a hundred undertakings. Then you must take the backward step and directly reach the middle of the circle from where light issues forth. Outstanding and independent, still you must abandon pretexts for merit. Carefully discern that naming engenders beings and that these rise and fall with intricacy.

[08:01]

When you can share yourself, then you may manage affairs and you have the pure seal that stamps the 10,000 forms. Traveling the world, meeting conditions, the self joyfully enters samadhi in all delusions and accepts its function, which is to empty out so as not to be full of itself. The empty valley receives the clouds. The cold stream cleanses the moon. Not going and not remaining, far beyond all the changes, You can give teachings without attainment or expectation. Everything, everywhere, comes back to the ancient ground. Not a hair has been shifted, bent, or raised up. Despite a hundred uglinesses or a thousand stupidities, the upright cauldron is naturally beneficent.

[09:07]

Zhao Zhou's answers, wash out your bowl and drink your tea, do not require making arrangements. From the beginning, they have always been perfectly apparent. Thoroughly observing each thing with the whole eye is a patchwork monk's spontaneous conduct." So going back to the beginning, he's talking about with the depths clear. utterly silent and thoroughly, utterly silent, thoroughly illuminate the source, empty and spirited, vast and bright. The depths clear means being able to see all the way down to the bottom. It's like a glass of water. It's got mud in it. When you let

[10:09]

When you shake it up, maybe not mud, any kind of substance, you know, when you shake it up, all the stuff comes up from the bottom and obscures the clarity. And then you set it down and pretty soon all the heavy stuff falls away. You can see very clearly. I remember one time going up to a lake in Oregon. This was in the fifties. And rowing out to the middle of the lake and looking all the way down to the bottom. I could see all the way down to the bottom without any obscurity at all. And it was the most amazing thing that I'd ever seen. It was, it still stays with me that image of seeing all the way down to the bottom of the lake, nothing in between, just clear water all the way to the bottom.

[11:16]

We rarely see ourself in that way, all the way down to the bottom, any obstruction. If we really make an effort to go to the source, it's very dark and dim, and full of garbage, full of furniture, very cluttered. Our lives are very cluttered, our minds are very cluttered, and our hearts are very cluttered. Only in Zazen can we really have that clarity. So he says, with the depths clear, utterly silent, thoroughly illuminate the source. Each one of us has our own light with which to illuminate the source. And of course, the light that we have to illuminate the source is the source's own light.

[12:26]

You could say the light with which I illuminate the source is the light with which the source illuminates me. This is sometimes called the backward, take the backward step and illuminate. Dogen says take the step back and illuminate the source. which is empty and spirited. Spirited means full of life, full of spirit and vitality. When you actually get to the source of your own being, you will meet this wonderful vitality, which is vast, and the source is vast, it has no boundary, and it's very bright.

[13:47]

Sometimes we call it light, not for lack of a better word, but because that's the feeling that's evoked And then he gives us a kind of admonition. He says, you should get to this place, but even though you have lucidly scrutinized your image and no shadow or echo meets it, searching throughout, you see that you still have distinguished between the merits of a hundred undertakings. So, no matter how clear our observation or our mind is, when we look around, we see that we're always discriminating. We're still in the realm of comparative values.

[14:51]

This is better than that. This is taller and this is shorter. This is preferable and this is unpreferable, which is a necessary thing. But it's necessary to get beyond the realm of comparative values if we want to really illuminate. If we want to find the source of illumination, we have to get beyond the realm of comparative values. Exchange values. We have to get beyond the realm of what is worth more than something else. You know, no shadow or echo remains.

[16:01]

You can't cast a shadow unless there's something obstructing the light. So we say when something is really transparent, it doesn't obstruct light, and so there's no shadow. And if there's no substance, there's nothing for an echo to bounce off of. It is a kind of metaphor for selflessness. So even though you have lucidly scrutinized your image and no shadow or echo meets it, searching throughout, you see that you still have distinguished between the merits of a hundred undertakings. You still have discriminating mind. Then you must take the backward step and directly reach the center of the circle from where light issues forth." That's a wonderful sentence.

[17:05]

To step into the center of the circle from where light issues forth. So here he's talking about Zazen and silent illumination. To step back into the center of the circle from where light issues forth. This is to actually the essence of Zazen. We say when you sit, you should center yourself. Settle the self on the self. Settle the self on the self, but which self? Settle the self on the self at the center of the circle. of light, from where light issues forth. And then the ancient fairy will be illuminated.

[18:14]

Outstanding and independent, still you must abandon pretexts for merit. So even if you reach this place, and become completely independent and free. You should abandon pretexts for merit. One of the, of course, Bodhidharma, when he had his famous conversation with the emperor, The emperor asked him if all the things he was doing to help Buddhism, if he would receive any merit for all this. He said, no merit. Sorry. In the same way, we should be very careful that we don't feel that we're accumulating some kind of merit through practice.

[19:25]

feeling that if we practice that we'll get something. That's the biggest stumbling block. I remember somebody, someone saying to me, I've invested 15 years in this practice and I should get something out of it. Not good. This is residing in the realm of comparative values and the realm of desire and the realm of attainment. It's not zazen. Zazen is just to sit, just to do something for its own sake. and let go.

[20:38]

You don't know whether your zazen is good or bad. You don't know in whatever you're doing whether you've done something good or bad, or right or wrong, even though in the realm of comparative values, you judge it that way. But ultimately, everything is just done for the sake of doing what you are doing. But because we want something, we create this problem for ourselves. We don't realize how self-centered we are. To this extent, we don't understand it. We have a hard time understanding it. our own self-centeredness. We think that self-centeredness only reaches this far, but actually it's vast.

[21:48]

So this is the problem that we face, you know, And the purpose of practice is to let go of this ambition, this gaining idea. Otherwise, whatever we have accomplished is tainted. If we still have this need or pretext for merit of one kind or another, our practice is tainted. So there's a practice, you know, of giving up, giving away merit, actually, in Buddhism, the practice of giving away merit.

[23:02]

So that you dedicate all of your, whatever merit accrues to your activity, you distribute it around the universe. You just give it away and hope that it will help the world. You don't want it sticking to you. And so this is what we do when we have service. We chant the sutras and then we dedicate the merit of our practice, which includes chanting the sutras, to all sentient beings. That's what we do with any kind of merit. We don't even know what merit there is. We don't count the merits or even are aware if there is any.

[24:10]

But if there is such a thing, we give it away freely. So that's why it's important to stick around for service. I mean that because it gives you the opportunity to let go of any kind of merit or anything that you've accumulated that's beneficial. And he just gives you the opportunity to let go of that and spread it around, give it away. And that feeling of giving it away is very important. So then he says, carefully discern that Naming engenders beings, and these rise and fall with intricacy.

[25:11]

Naming is a kind of discrimination. We want to tell our children apart, so we say, you're John and you're Mary. That's important. But this is not John and that's not Mary. We just call them John and Mary. We just call this the pillar. But what are they? What is it? We should be careful in our discriminating that we don't take the name for the thing. And as soon as we start to name something, then we create it. an idea about what a thing is as soon as we give it a name. So naming is important. And in order to order our world, we have to give everything a name.

[26:14]

You know, in Japan, they even give little hills names, you know, because they have this kind of feeling about everything should have a name. And that's good. You know, we should do that too. I think that's a very nice thing to do, is to give everything a name, because it gives you a way to relate to something. So, when we give something a name, we relate to it, but we have to realize that that's how we create our world. That's all. We should realize that we create our world by naming and by discriminating. and that we're actually self-creating beings. We create our surroundings and our surroundings create us in turn. As we create, we are created. Sometimes we feel that life is pushing us around, but we are also pushing life around.

[27:24]

And it's always an interaction. It's not a one thing. It's not from one direction. But because of our self-centered or partial way of seeing things, we don't see how we are actually creating the world. It always looks like the world is creating us. Through our actions and through our discrimination, we create our surroundings and our world out of this raw material. And everything is creating everything. It's very complex. So, carefully discern that naming engenders beings and that these rise and fall in a very intricate way. in a way that it's almost impossible to understand.

[28:26]

It is impossible to understand. You can understand it a little, but not in all its complexity. And so he said, then, when you can share yourself, when you can share yourself in this complexity, Let yourself be shared. Then you may manage affairs. And you have the pure seal that stamps the 10,000 forms. When you can share yourself, you can manage affairs. You can teach people. That's more or less what it means. And you have the pure seal. The pure seal is maybe like the Buddha seal.

[29:29]

A seal is a kind of official stamp that says, you can do this. You are now authorized to do something. And the Buddha seal means that To have the Buddha seal means that you see reality as it is. This is the Buddha seal. As soon as you see reality as it is, you have the Buddha seal. So when you can share yourself, then you may manage affairs and you have the pure seal that stamps the 10,000 forms. So sharing yourself in this way means without a sense of self. freely without holding back. Sharing yourself means that you realize that you are the universe and the universe is you. That all sentient beings are yourself.

[30:37]

That's what he means by sharing yourself freely. You don't see anything that's outside of yourself or apart from you. That's the Buddha seal of enlightenment. Traveling the world, Naras talks about going out of, leaving the zendo and going into the world. Traveling the world and meeting conditions, the self joyfully enters samadhi in all delusions and accepts its function. which is to empty, so as not to be full of itself. Entering Samadhi, there are various names for Samadhis. Samadhi is a kind of concentration, but it's, depending on what Samadhi we're talking about, it's being attentive to reality.

[31:47]

is samadhi and being in not straying from the natural order of mind which is in our school we say shikantaza or ji ju yu zamae Shikantaza means just doing something without merit, without the desire for merit, without the desire for reward. Just completely and totally being absorbed in your activity. so that there's no self-centeredness in it. That's samadhi.

[32:50]

And ji ji yu zamae means self-joyous or self-fulfilling. There are two aspects. One is ji ji yu zamae and the other side is ta ji yu zamae. Ji-ju-yu, samadhi means samadhi. Samadhi is self-joyous samadhi or self-fulfilling samadhi. Ta-ju-yu means experiencing or appreciating the enjoyment of some other person's samadhi. It's like sympathetic joy. It's someone's fulfillment. Fulfillment of others. But Jiju Samadhi includes Tatju Samadhi.

[33:52]

So we only speak about the one side because it's all-inclusive. I remember one time I was over on University Avenue. This was many years ago when we were over on Dwight Way and maybe in the 70s, 60s, late 60s, early 70s. And I was in a store over there and some guy walked in and he recognized me as being, you know, taking care of the Zen And he started talking to me about joy. He says, why do you do this? Apparently he had tried Zen, but he couldn't.

[34:54]

He quit. He said, what do you get out of this? Where is the joy in it? Is your life more joyful than anybody else's? That's a good question, you know, and I thought, I don't know, then I thought, well, let's see, does this make my life more enjoyable than anyone else's life? I mean, is there some... Then I thought, well, that's not why I'm practicing. I'm not practicing to make my life more enjoyable. I'm just practicing because practicing is what I have to do. But... The kind of joy that he was talking about was the kind of joy where everything is just always going okay. Does it make your life so that everything is always okay? Actually, it's true.

[35:57]

If you have Jijiusamadhi, everything is always okay, even when it's not okay. But the kind of joy he was talking about is the joy that's different from unjoyful, the opposite of something that's not joyful. If you have GGU Samadhi, whether your life is joyful or not joyful, there's still deep joy, which doesn't depend on whether it's joyful or unjoyful. going well or not going well, good or bad, doesn't matter. You always have this underlying joyfulness in life if you really have that Samadhi. It's the Samadhi that doesn't depend on conditions for joyfulness.

[37:05]

And it's the essence of practice. You're not turned around by conditions, even though things hurt you and things make you feel pleasant. Underneath, you're never pushed off your position. That's the anchor of your life. And you can always move. You always have some place to move or to be. So he says, traveling the world, meeting conditions, the self joyfully enters into samadhi in all delusions. In all delusions. And accepts its function. which is to empty out so as not to be full of itself. So practice of samadhi, in this samadhi, is to continually empty out, let go of things, not hang on, not clutch, not grasping and not rejecting, but to let everything pass through you.

[38:30]

frog, you know, his toe of his frog, sitting on a rock by this pool, just sitting there, motionless, not blinking. And then a fly buzzing by, and as soon as the fly gets right here, gets it. And if he likes it, The empty valley receives the clouds. When you're not full of yourself, you can receive anything and deal with it.

[39:42]

The cold stream cleanses the moon. I'd like to say the cold stream washes over the moon. but washes over, I like that better. The moon is always a reflection of enlightenment, the reflected light of Buddha nature. Not departing and not remaining. We say the target doesn't come or go because the target is so all-encompassing that there's no place to come from or no place to go to. Far beyond all changes, you can give teachings without attainment or expectation.

[40:54]

You know, a teacher just teaches without expecting anything, without expecting students. If there's one person that comes, you talk to that one. You just talk to that one person. Just talk to the 50 people and the 50 people. It doesn't matter, you know. There's no sense of, I'm educating people. You just speak the Dharma and that's all. So everything, everywhere, comes back to the ancient ground. I remember Suzuki Roshi, one of my favorite talks of his, he talks about cultivating the ground.

[41:56]

To always be with the ground. If you take care of the ground, everything else will be taken care of. compost into the ground and keep it fertile and moist and loose, then the plants take care of themselves. So to always take care of the ground of practice, the ground of our being, should always be Not a hair has been shifted, bent, or raised up. Despite a hundred uglinesses or a thousand stupidities, the upright cauldron is naturally beneficent." Now he brings in this image of the upright cauldron.

[43:00]

Upright cauldron is described, it's one of the symbols in the I Ching and in Chinese literature. I'll read you the I Ching explanation. This I Ching says, to change or transform things, nothing compares to the cauldron. Cauldron's a big pot, right? This is the vessel used to refine the wise for sages, cook Buddhas, and purify addicts. How could it not be very auspicious and developmental? So the cauldron is also a metaphor for uprightness. Zazen is a cauldron, and its image is uprightness. And it's a big pot.

[44:04]

It's your body. Your body and mind is a cauldron. And within this cauldron, All of your effort, your hindrances, your thinking mind, your pain, your aspirations all get tossed into this cauldron while you're sitting zazen. And they all get cooked in there and become a kind of stew. And also, the zendo is a cauldron where we all sit and practice together, and each one of us is like one of the vegetables in this stew. And the world is a cauldron, where you are interacting with all these elements. And your workplace, you know, your home, your family,

[45:08]

any kind of place where your practice takes place. It's like this cauldron. And we should realize that that's what's happening. A lot of times we want to jump out because it gets real hot in there. So we should know how to regulate the heat so it doesn't bubble over. And learning how to regulate the heat, turning up and down the fire to make it just right, so it cooks well, is how you practice. How you have control. You should have control over the... Sometimes you don't have control over the heat, and then we just have to take it. But we have to take it. There's no way out. You can jump out, but if you jump out of your cauldron, you jump into another one. place that we call planet Earth.

[46:14]

No place to go. You just have to settle down where you are. At some point, if you're running, you have to stop and just settle down. Say, okay, let's figure it out. Not figure it out, but let's take it from here. So Zhouzhou's answers, wash out your bowl and drink your tea, do not require deliberation. From the beginning, they have been perfectly apparent. So you know these two stories. One day, Zhouzhou was in the monastery, and a monk came to see him, a new monk, a monk who just came. And Zhou Xun was testing him out. And he says, did you have your breakfast?

[47:16]

Did you have your meal? And, you know, in those days, they used to speak metaphorically a lot. Now we say, did you have your meal? We're very literal, remember. We weren't so literal. Especially when we went to see Zhou Xun. literal way, or everything you say has some meaning. So the monk said, yes, I had my breakfast. Joshi said, well, wash out your bowl. Now you can go wash out your bowl. Whether the monk understood or not, Joshi's answer was or his response was a teaching. Go wash out your bowl. Toss out whatever you've accumulated. If you want to practice here, toss out whatever you've accumulated.

[48:20]

That's what he's saying. And keep your bowl clean. That's the only way you can practice Zen. That's actually the basic practice of Zen, is to wash your bowl. Don't bring your stuff. Or if you bring your stuff, He suffered for it. And then the other story is, Joshua was in the monastery, and a new monk came. He said, have you been here before? And the monk said, no, I just arrived. And Joshua said, well, have a cup of tea. And then there was another monk standing there, and he said, what about you? And the monk said, oh, I've been here for a long time, teacher. And Joseph said, well, have a cup of tea.

[49:23]

And the attendant said, this guy said, he just came, and he offered me a cup of tea. And this guy said he'd been here a long time, and he offered him a cup of tea. Joseph said, attendant. Joshu's non-discriminating mind. Thoroughly observing each thing with the whole eye is a patchwork monk's spontaneous conduct. So, let us observe things with the whole eye, not the partial eye or the self-centered eye. Jesus, Lord of Hosts.

[50:17]

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