Good morning. Yay, rain. Wow, Karin's gone. The thing I've been remembering about Karin just this morning is that she was given the job of the orioke cloth making. And she took it to a whole new level, like she created these patterns. I don't know if they're still being used or not, but she had these physical paper patterns, and she just took it to a whole new level, as sometimes people do with their position. So we're about halfway, a little more than halfway through our practice period, for those of us who are doing that. We've been talking about the Chinese ancestors, and I'm gonna talk today about a female ancestor, Iron Grindstone Lu, or as my unconscious has produced for me a couple times,

[01:19]

Iron Grindstone Lil. Maybe she's a little bit of an Annie Oakley. That's kind of, I'm wondering if she was maybe a little bit of an Annie Oakley character. And I'm also feeling like we have had so little time to have a discussion. I mean, the classes have been really interesting, so I'm hoping to leave, maybe I won't say so incredibly much, about Iron Grindstone Lil, and we'll have some time for discussion, I hope. So, let me get my notes out. I'm not gonna read from all these books. So, Iron Grindstone Lil got her, Lilu, okay, I'm gonna put that aside now, got her, nickname because she was a great debater.

[02:22]

She grew up very poor and then she left home and wandered, I guess, as a homeless person for a while. I'm not sure. It's very hard to recreate the actual circumstances that we know. She eventually, she would stay, I guess you could stay at convents, you could stay at nunneries. And then eventually she decided to enter a nunnery and studied there for a few years. And then she left and wandered some more and met various teachers and would engage in these debates, which I guess was a thing you did, you know, like I was thinking, well, we don't do that so much. We engaged in debates with each other where we try to bring forth the Dharma by some kind of edgy, challenging quality. Maybe we'll learn to do that, or maybe we won't.

[03:26]

But the stories that have survived, for me, do not have that quality. So I'm guessing maybe they were later, maybe she started out as kind of a feisty, tough-as-nails, grew up poor, don't take any shit from anybody type of person, and then she gradually mellowed or something. But an earlier story, not an early, early story, but one of the earlier stories is that she, so she already had a reputation, and she met with this teacher, Zhe Hu, who I couldn't find anywhere else. I don't know exactly who he is in the mandala of teachers, but he said something like, I've heard you're tough as nails," or, you know, I've heard you're hard to handle or something. There's actually several versions of the story, and they're very different. So, you know, we're just going with the one that's coming out of my mouth this morning. And she said something like, who says that, or maybe so, maybe not, or I don't know, or, you know, I don't presume.

[04:37]

And then he says, do you go to the left or the right? And she says, don't fall down, teacher. Which, I mean, I guess there's a challenging quality, but to me there's also a kind of warm, a warm quality there. Maybe that's just me. But then the main story. So before I will go to the main story, which actually is in both the Blue Cliff Record and the Book of Serenity, two of the three main collections that we study, I just wanted to mention a couple things. I'm sure you all know this, but just in case. There's a couple books about the women. This one, Zen Women, was written by long-time BCC senior student, Grace Shearson. And it's great, it's really a great book if you wanna feel like, because what Grace kind of, we need to go beyond the idea that the only women who were practicing all through Buddhism were like the sort of weird outliers, like what she calls the macho maidens and the tea ladies.

[05:57]

Because, of course, those are the ones that have survived, you should excuse me for saying that, because they're the ones that reference the guys. They're the ones that sort of, they're usually used as a way to show that the guy is really unmanned, because even a woman, you know, can conquer him. So there were about a sixth of the people who were in monasteries and nunneries were women. So there were a lot of women, there were a lot of men practicing in monasteries, a lot of women during this time period. And that's also curious to me, like who were these people? I think that down through history, at least on the Christian side, the people who were drawn to do a monastic practice were often the people who either didn't want to or couldn't play the social game, you know, do the usual social thing.

[07:00]

You know, as someone, I can't remember who, Alan told me that someone referred to it as involved in the means of production and reproduction. So anyway, there's a bunch of people practicing Buddhism in monasteries. And a bunch of them were women, and even back in Buddhist time, there were a lot of women, there were always a lot of women. So I think we need to feel, I want us to feel like there's always been a lot of women practicing Buddhism. As the great Zen adept, I'm paraphrasing from the great Zen adept, Sala Steinbach, if it's about liberation, women are gonna be interested. you know, if it's about finding freedom, either within your circumstances or outside of it, I think over the last 2,500 years, women are gonna be interested. And then the tea ladies are the other category that, you know, are the sort of crone, the wise old crone, who also doesn't care, isn't trying to get anybody to like her, and just says it like it is, kind of.

[08:13]

I mean, those are great people, you know, Um, but, but we don't want to fall into feeling like, well, that's not me or, you know, people like me weren't practicing. You know, I think we, I want to feel that I feel, I do feel the reason why we're studying the ancestors is because they're our family. People like us were, they're people like us. And there's this kind of tension in the teaching that. You can sort of read these stories and feel like, whoa, those people are far from me. Or you can read them and think, whoa, those people had the same questions I have. So which is it? Which do you wanna do? So this is one book, and then there's this other book, The Hidden Lamp, which another BCC member and benefactor, Susan Moon,

[09:15]

mostly partly responsible for called The Hidden Lamp, which is a hundred stories about women from Buddhism through history. And there's a hundred contemporary women commentators who each one comments on one. And one of the interesting things Susan told told either us or me, I can't remember whether this was in public or not, but when they first took on this project, she and Florence Kaplow, they thought, oh, I hope we can find 100 stories, and i.e., I hope we can find 100 contemporary women teachers, and what they ended up finding was that it was way more than 100 stories, and way more than 100 contemporary women teachers. So, you know, you need to take heart from these things. So then the most, the really famous story that's in both of these books, oh, so after she studied with that teacher for a while, and you know, I think, you know, probably she was kind of a rough diamond, and it took a while for the shine and the edges, I'm guessing.

[10:31]

That's kind of the feeling from the story. Tough, rough. But by the time we meet her in this story, she's been studying with Guishan, who was a very important and famous Zen master. Are you still planning to, so Jerry's gonna talk about him, Tang Dynasty. He's said to have had 1400 disciples and 43 people he transmitted the Dharma to, and she was one of the 43. So the story goes, I'm trying to decide whether I wanna read it to you or just tell it. The story goes, Iron Grindstone Liu arrived at Guishan. Guishan said, old cow, so you've come. The grindstone said, tomorrow there's a great communal feast on Taishan. Are you going to go, teacher?

[11:32]

Guishan relaxed his body and lay down, and the grindstone immediately left. So some of the, things we need to know about this story. So, he calls her old cow, and he refers to himself as a water buffalo. He called himself a water buffalo. And there's a great story about him, which I'll save for Jerry to tell you, around the water buffalo issue. So, it's not as derogatory of a term as it might sound to our ears. He's saying, you know, old, here we are, two Zen masters, you know, like old cows, you know. It's kind of like Suzuki Roshi with the frog, you know. There's some quality about the water buffalo that he relates to as his enlightened activity, you know. And, you know, then he says, so you come.

[12:34]

So there's a couple trick questions in Koans, you know, and whenever they refer to coming and going, it's kind of a trick question. You can sort of know that. Because it's bringing up, it seems to be bringing up, is there coming and going or not? OK, so you've appeared. You're caught in form, basically. You've appeared here. You're caught in form. And she says, excuse me. there's this festival on Mount Ty, which you need to know is 600 miles away, tomorrow. Are you going? So it's like, okay, if we're not caught in form, are you going to go 600 miles tonight? And then he sort of just lies down and relaxes, like, fine, great, you got me, or something.

[13:38]

And then she leaves. And what they describe in this, and I have to say, I'm not someone, I love koans, but I'm not someone who understands them, usually. So, and I'm always thinking, well, what if that's a weird translation? Or what if it's this? Or what if we don't know what that idiom means? Or, you know, like, I'm always sort of like bringing in too much conceptual thinking when I read them, you know? So, where was I going with that? So what the commentary keeps saying is that she's mirroring him. Like they're matching each other. He goes to the left, she goes to the left. He goes to the right, she goes to the left. So that's the quality here. He says, so you've come and this is her matching him.

[14:48]

So it's a very, a warm encounter that they're having. It's like we don't, and in the poetry, the poems, both of the poems, maybe I'll read you one of the poems. It brings up the issue of battling, but it brings it up like this is after peace has come and the war is over kind of. So Tian Teng's verse is, success in a hundred battles accomplished, growing old in great peace. Serene and gentle, who is willing to trouble to contend? The jade whip and the golden horse are idle all day. The bright moon and pure wind enrich a whole lifetime. So it's sort of evoking them as these twos and adepts who are really able to play with each other completely, with maybe a certain edginess, but really good-hearted and loving.

[16:11]

So in that way, it's a really nice story. And a lot of the... You know, a lot of the ancestors that we're studying, they were, you know, like Robert Thurman, I was in a class with Robert Thurman once, and he said, they were wild and wooly. You know, they were outliers too. They were not the mainstream Buddhism. They were out in the mountains, and, you know, And a lot of them did have women students. They were not, and we don't know that, you know, the kind of like sexist rewriting of history probably came later. There's no way to know. But they were not unopened to having women students. Let's see. So that's about all I think I wanted to say about Iron Grinder and Liu. I just wanted to mention again, so we're studying the ancestors and what is the spirit with which we're doing that.

[17:22]

My sister actually turned me on to some story in the New York Times that said that if you know, people who know what their ancestors went through have more resiliency. in their life, and if you know that you're like, you know, my grandparents lost everything in the Depression, had a beautiful middle class home in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he was a furniture maker, lost everything, packed it up, packed everything in the car that they could fit in the car with their five kids, and drove to California, leaving in all the beautiful china and whatever she had, you know? And that's the kind of thing where if you know your family went through something like that, It gives you a sense that you can go through, you can survive something like that. And my aunts even talked about how they got so much closer to each other because they didn't, they were all spending more time together. And they entertained each other by writing stories and reading them aloud to each other, my dad and his sisters.

[18:29]

So we want to listen to these stories of the ancestors. We want to be careful not to, make them far away. We don't want them to be seen far away. They are our ancestors who inspire us to feel like we can do this too. And down through the history, there's always been a tension, even way back then, there's been a tension between reading these stories like, oh, we could never be like that. There's, you know, a couple generations after the Blue Cliff Record was written, which was a few generations after the time period we're studying, a teacher noticed that his students were taking these stories in this way and this sort of like, wow, these guys were so amazing, you know? And he burned the little wooden print plaques that printed the story because it was like they were taking it the wrong way.

[19:32]

So we need to sort of wake up to what this is really, what this needs to mean to us as these were people who had the same questions and concerns that we have, and they were looking at some of the same solutions and answers that we are looking at. So I just, I wanted to say that, and then I wanted to leave it open for questions about this or other questions that people have about the topics that have been brought up at the class. We still have time, there's two more classes, so we still have time to tailor our classes to answer your questions if you have them. Anybody? Ross. Thank you, Laurie. We had a choice of ancestors to pick from, that to the community, and I'm wondering what particular story or matter do you, chose you to pick Iron Grinder?

[20:45]

Is it something that you aspire to, something you feel that you embody and are sort of sympathetic with? I would say even more maybe something I could. I think I have a lack of edginess, maybe a little bit. We debated about this and we really wanted that the women wouldn't present the women, but it's ending up that way because somehow the guys just aren't there yet. Sorry. So I, you know, and there aren't that many women that have a lot, enough to talk about, talk, you know, at length about it. Anywhere you really feel like you, there's a person there, you're getting past the, you know, the cellar of fried cakes, you know. So, and I, yeah, but I don't feel, I am not an Annie Oakley, you know, type of person. But I do like the edginess more than some people I notice.

[21:49]

I've always liked it. I grew up with very, my parents were the gentlest people on the planet. They were so gentle. So I don't have any triggering in my body or heart about a kind of edgy exhortation or challenge. Like, people, wake up! Like, that's what I see the hitting as, you know? It's like, wake up, people! Snap out of it. Snap out of this trance you're in. So I like it. I don't have a cowering kind of reaction that I've noticed that some people do have. So in that sense, I like the idea of her as the grindstone. But I don't see in these stories that quality of sparks flying. Maybe I'm not reading them right. Thank you. Anyone else? Comments? Questions? Alan? Well, I just wonder if his response, uh, what was it, teacher Tai-shun?

[22:53]

Wei-shun? No, no, uh, where she first encountered. Zi-hu. Oh, no, okay, yeah, where, the festival was where. Yeah, Tai-shun. Yeah, uh, so I wonder if, uh, he was just demonstrating his way of getting there. Yeah. Right. It's about as realistic as her request. Right. Yeah, they're playing on. The thing I didn't mention is she set up her little hut really near, a few miles from Guishan, and so they had a close relationship, and they probably saw a fair amount of each other. Yes. Thank you, Lori. When I read that story before, I didn't think of this, but listening to you, I was thinking in that same story when he calls her the cow. Okay, they were both great Zen teachers, but I felt inspired, like if you were in a tiff with someone, you might take that approach.

[24:11]

The person goes left, then you go left. The person goes right, then you go right. I wonder if you thought about that. No, I didn't. That's really interesting, though. Not that I can do it, but it seemed inspiring. Yeah. I mean, they had a lot of warmth between them. Right. And so there's a relaxed kind of being able to respond kind of freely, there's a sense of just being able to be some, what you were saying, if that's not there, oh, what would you do? How could you? Well, I guess, I don't know. If we're all practicing, then we could, we could dance with each other, even when we're in conflict. We could work towards that. It's what we're doing. what we're trying to do, what we're trying to learn to do, what we're trying to train ourselves to do.

[25:12]

Yes, Ellen. I'll just share that. I came to the first class and I, you know, one of the things about the, you know, kind of repartee is that I was like, you know, I mean, I'm just sort of saying yes, that it seemed like, oh, you know, how can they do that? And then I can't remember who it was, Peter or Andrea, that said, Maybe there's a long pause between one thing and another. I don't know, it's sort of put back in the realm of possible. It was just a really big moment for me. Maybe it doesn't just like happen and everybody's like waiting for you. And you know, Rabbi Anderson, he said that it could have been months later or years later. Parts of the story could have been, I mean, you know, these are stories that have, and they've evolved over time. Yeah. Oh, I think Ron and then Andrea and then Erica. Well, one commentary I read says that the word left and right, left and right, has a dull meaning in Chinese.

[26:22]

One meeting is like transmitted from left or from past. This has been transmitted to you now, your neighbor, peer, something like that. And so in a way, he's kind of complimenting her, but she's actually teasing him in a way. In which one, in the second story? Yeah, in the left and right story. But she's taking the second meeting, which he didn't necessarily intend. Right. It's the same spirit you're talking about. Well, and a lot of them are plays on words that we can't begin to really understand necessarily. And the idioms, you know, like when you read the Koans, they're just one allusion after another to legends and slogans and things of the previous generation and ancient teachings and things from the Pali Sutras. I mean, they're just There's just one allusion after another.

[27:23]

And you know, like even Dogen, like in the Fukunza Zen, there's like maybe 200 references in there to Zen legends and stories. So that was what they did. They brought something new from the old material, always trying to bring it into something new. Yeah, Ross has the stick. Do we have any? Sorry, Mary Beth. Okay, thank you all.

[27:53]

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