This is case number 23 in a collection called Mu Man Con. And it's called Hui Nung, Neither Good Nor Evil. The sixth ancestor was pursued by Ming, the head monk, as far as Ta Yu Peak. The teacher, seeing Ming coming, laid the robe and bowl on a rock and said, this robe represents the Dharma. There should be no fighting over it. You may take it back with you. Meng tried to lift it up, but it was as impossible as a mountain. Shivering and trembling, he said, I came for the Dharma, not for the robe. I beg you, lay brother, please open the way for me. The teacher said, don't think good, don't think evil. At this very moment, what is the original face of Ming, the head monk?

[01:35]

At that instant, Ming had great satori. Sweat ran from his entire body. In tears, he made his bows, saying, besides these secret words and secret meanings, is there anything further, of further significance? The teacher said, what I have just conveyed to you is not secret. If you reflect on your own face, whatever is secret will be right there with you. Ming said, though I practiced at Huangmei with the assembly, I could not truly realize my original face. Now, thanks to your pointed instruction, I am like someone who drinks water and knows personally whether it is cold or warm. Lei brother, you are now my teacher. The teacher said, if you can say that, then let us both call Huang Mei, our teacher. Maintain your realization carefully. This story comes from the autobiography section of the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, which we've been studying in our class on Thursday night.

[02:52]

So I have to bring you up to the point where this incident happens. As you know, learned audience, as you know, the sixth patriarch came to visit the fifth patriarch as a young man, a barbarian from the south of China, and the fifth patriarch recognized his ability, although he had no learning. And one of the important aspects of the Platform Sutra that it tries to put forth is that Hui Nong was illiterate.

[04:07]

He had no learning and couldn't even read. And so all of the wisdom that comes out of him is his own intrinsic wisdom. And this is one reason why people feel his authenticity. So, the Fifth Patriarch recognized his ability and put him in the back of the monastery pounding rice for eight months. And nobody really knew him in the monastery. And the Fifth Patriarch really didn't have much contact with him in all that time. So the fifth patriarch wanted to transmit his dharma to one of his disciples. And so he asked everyone in the monastery to write something, write a poem that expressed their understanding.

[05:10]

And the head monk, Hsinchu, wrote a poem which went something like, and he put it on the wall of the monastery because he didn't want anybody to know who wrote it. He wasn't quite sure of himself. The poem said something like, the body is the Bodhi tree, and the mind is like a mirror bright, a bright mirror, a mirror bright. Hour by hour, wiping it clean, don't let any dust alight. Which is a good poem, expressing how one should practice expressing one's keeping the body and mind clean and open and without opinions and without delusions to constantly keep wiping, called the dust wiping method.

[06:19]

But Hui Neng came along and saw the poem, and he asked somebody to write a poem for him. He said, I can't write myself, but would you write it for me? And so this person wrote it on the wall alongside of the Shinshu's poem. And it said, there is no Bodhi tree, nor a stand of a mirror bright. Since all is void, where can the dust alight? This poem is much deeper and comes from essence of mind or more deeply felt self-nature. So the fifth patriarch was very impressed with this and in the middle of the night he gave this young illiterate layperson who nobody paid any attention to

[07:24]

the Dharma transmission and made him his Dharma heir, passing on the robe and the bowl to him. And then he rode him across the river and said, you better leave and get out of here, because there will be people who will think that I'm crazy to do this. And they'll pursue you, trying to get the robe and bowl from you. So, Wei Nung took off. And sure enough, after a little while, he noticed people following him. So there was one monk in particular. This translation says head monk, but actually that's not right. He was just a monk. And Dwayne Dung was not yet the teacher. He had the robe and the bowl. Theoretically, he was the patriarch, but he wasn't yet a teacher.

[08:33]

When he left, the fifth patriarch said to him, don't teach until at least three years from now. But actually, he waited 15 years to start teaching. lived with hunters for a long time, cooking their meals and eating just the vegetables from the pot. He does call him teacher, but actually he was not officially a teacher yet. But he had this the robe and the bowl and the patriarch, et. But he wasn't ready to present himself to the world yet. He had to mature his understanding and mature himself first.

[09:38]

So, the name of this, there was this one monk in particular who was, had been a general in the Chinese army and he'd been a monk for a long time and he was very strong and he was the one that caught up with Huineng. And this is where our story begins. The sixth ancestor was pursued by a monk as far as Taiyu Peak. Hui Neng seeing Hui Ming, Hui Ming was his name, was the name of the man pursuing him. So, Hui Neng seeing Hui Ming coming, laid the robe on a rock, put the robe and the bowl on a rock, and he hid behind in the bushes.

[10:49]

And he said, this robe represents the Dharma. The robe and the bowl represent the Dharma. There should be no fighting over them. You may take them back with you if you want. If you really want them, you can have them. Ming tried to lift it up, but it was as immovable as a mountain. Shivering and trembling, he said, I came for the Dharma, not for the robe. I beg you, lay brother, please open the way for me." And Hui Nong said, well, first he said, in another version he says, well, let's sit down and do Zazen. So they sat down for Zazen for a long time. And then in the middle of the day, maybe after doing eight or ten periods of Zazen, he said, now, don't think good and don't think evil.

[12:03]

At this very moment, what is the original face of Ming, the monk? What is your original face at this moment? In that instant, Ming had a great awakening. Sweat ran down from his entire body. And in tears, he made his vows, saying, besides these secret words and secret meanings, is there anything of further significance? And Huindong said, what I have just conveyed to you is not secret. If you reflect on your own face, whatever is secret will be right there with you." And Ming said, though I practiced at Huangmei with the fifth patriarch and the assembly, I could not truly realize my original face at that time.

[13:05]

Now, thanks to your pointed instruction, I am like someone who drinks water and knows personally whether it is cold or warm. Lei brother, you are now my teacher. And Hui Nung said, if you can say that, then let both of us call Huang Mei, or the fifth patriarch, our teacher. Maintain your realization carefully. So I'm going to go over the lines, each line of this encounter. So the sixth ancestor was pursued by Ming, the head monk, as far as Taiyu Peak. And seeing Hui Ming coming, he laid the robe and the bowl on the rock and said, this robe represents the Dharma. The robe and the bowl represent the Dharma. There should be no fighting over them. You may take them back with you.

[14:07]

So this was He displayed this complete non-attachment to these objects, sacred objects, knowing himself that there was nothing to really fight about, nothing to possess. And this completely disarmed we make. Sometimes, if somebody wants something from us, and we try to keep it, it may not be so good for us. If somebody wants your wallet, you should give it to them. It's not worth arguing over.

[15:10]

People get killed defending things. unnecessarily, even something as precious as the robe and the bowl. But what I like about this is just his willingness to let go. You know, when the fifth patriarch was giving transmission to him, The fifth patriarch said, there will be times when your life will be hanging by a thread, and you should protect the Dharma with your life, or you should... The Dharma comes before your own life. And this is a, right away, a case in point, or a point of fact.

[16:15]

So, knowing that what's really true, what's really real cannot be taken away. And it also attests to what is it that belongs to us? What can we let go of and still keep? in our lives? What can we really give up in our lives and still feel secure? I think this is a very important point. I remember reading one time in one of Edward Consley's books

[17:19]

a history of Buddhism, and there was a line that said, a monk delights in giving up, which is usually the opposite of what we're trained to do in our life. We're trained to collect or to acquire, but a monk delights in letting go and giving up. and not having, which is called true freedom. And in giving up this precious thing, which he's entrusted with, he keeps his freedom. He doesn't allow himself to be cornered anywhere. No one can intimidate him or get at him. He's always completely free, no matter what's happening to him. So he says, this robe and bowl represent the Dharma.

[18:29]

There should be no fighting over them. Here, take them away. And when Ming went to lift them up, he just stood there. Maybe he touched the bowl. Maybe he touched the robe. And then he realized, I can't lift this up. It's not mine. It's like he was stuck. And the robe seemed to weigh six tons. And he just couldn't bring himself to pick them up. He realized that when he was freely given them, he realized his own greed and his unrighteous behavior. So this giving, freely giving, opened his mind and prepared him for being turned around.

[19:52]

I can remember in my own incidents in my own life, like when I was a taxi driver and people wanting, somebody wanting to test me with a gun. What would you do if I held this gun and he had one? And I said, well, go ahead. If that's what you really want to do, Please, go ahead. And he put it down and he said, I'm so ashamed of myself. This story is very close to my own experience. When somebody really thinks they want something that they can't have, when it's handed to them, they're ashamed of themselves.

[21:02]

And it turns them around. So he couldn't lift it up. There was no way that he could have it. So then he said, look, I really just came for the Dharma, not for the road. Please open the way for me. Please give me something. Please teach me. And then we come to the koan. This is the koan. The teacher said, please sit in zazen. And after they sat in Zazen for a while, he said, at this very moment, don't think good without thinking a thought of good or evil. What is your original face at this moment?

[22:05]

We know that there is good and evil. We know that there's good and bad, right and wrong. But at this very moment, without thinking something is good or something is evil. Just keeping the mind completely open. What is your true face? With Chinese they say original face. What is your true nature? Your essence of mind at this moment? Which doesn't depend on good or evil. which doesn't fall into picking and choosing, which doesn't fall into any kind of duality, but it's the whole mind, the mind of Buddha nature. This is called body and mind dropped.

[23:16]

So in that instant, Ming had a great awakening. He was really prepared for this awakening. And his mind completely opened. Sweat ran from his body. And in tears, he made his bows. He bowed before this young lay person. And he said, besides these secret words and secret meanings, is there anything further, further significant? He thought, you know, this was some esoteric teaching that had been handed down. And Wei Ning said, what I have just conveyed to you is not secret teaching. This is not the secret. There's no secret teaching.

[24:25]

Everything is completely revealed. There's nothing in this universe that's secret. It's just that you don't see it. The great secret of the universe is right in front of you. As a matter of fact, it's closer to you than your hands and feet. But we don't see it. If you reflect on your own face, whatever is secret will be right here with you. Secret also means intimate. The character for secret also means intimate. Sometimes it will be dark, secret or dark, but intimate. You will be intimate with it.

[25:26]

There's no secret teaching, there's only intimate teaching. Teaching which is so intimate that we miss it. So simple and intimate that we miss it. This is what was conveyed. Nothing was conveyed. It's just that the mind was opened to seeing what's really in front of us. To seeing, we say inside and outside, to say inside of us, but there's nothing inside of us. You know, we say look inward, but there is no inside or outside. Inward means like saying the East. East is not the opposite of West.

[26:29]

East is not a direction. East means that which is most intimate. Inward means that which is most intimate. It doesn't mean the opposite from outside. It means that it recognizes it. It recognizes itself. If I look for it, I won't find it. No matter how much I look for it, I will never find it. But it finds itself. It is always intimate with itself. So when I stop looking, it's right there. But by seeking, running after, I go past it, stumble past.

[27:39]

That's why we say, sit down. and stop seeking. If you try to seek enlightenment through zazen, you will stumble past. Just sit down and enjoy yourself. Enjoy whatever feeling comes up. Enjoy your pain. Enjoy your resistance. Enjoy your ambivalence. Enjoy your enjoyment. Stop discriminating. If you expect something,

[28:46]

you stop yourself. Because you expect something, nothing is satisfactory. Big problem. Our dissatisfaction comes because we want something or expect something, and it's not there. When we really have nothing, then whatever is there, we can enjoy. When we realize that we have nothing, we can enjoy whatever is there. The simplest thing, a cup of tea, a cookie. But our wanting obscures our nature, even though wanting is also our nature.

[29:54]

So, is there any secret teaching? No, there's only intimate teaching. Nothing is secret. Nothing is hidden. Everything is completely revealed. See it. Let seeing see. Let hearing hear. Let feeling feel. So then, the teacher said, what I have just conveyed to you is not secret. If you reflect on your own face, your original face, whatever is intimate will be right there with you. In every activity, it will be there. In every feeling, it will be there.

[31:01]

Ming said, though I practiced at Huangmei with the assembly and with my teacher, the fifth patriarch, I'm like someone who drinks water No, I could not truly realize my original face. Now, thanks to your pointed instruction, I am like someone who drinks water and knows personally whether it is cold or warm. But, you know, Hui Ming had to go through this dramatic action before his mind could be opened up. So when he was following the Huineng, he was so intense and so intent on getting this, that his whole body and mind were one-pointed and in this tight ball of desire. And then when he finally got to the right point, Huineng went, and smashed open his mind.

[32:16]

But very kindly. He was so kind. So sweet. Gabe, please take this away. The teacher said, well, then he said, thanks for your pointed instruction. I'm not like someone who drinks water and knows personally whether it is cold or warm. No one has to tell me anymore. I know. lay brother, you are now my teacher. And then the teacher said, or the Hoi Nung said, if you can say that, then let's call the fifth patriarch our teacher, both of us. So he's very humble. He's saying, I'm very careful because I know I'm not yet the teacher. Both of us are the student of the fifth patriarch. So please go back there and help him. And maintain your realization carefully. How does one maintain one's realization carefully?

[33:18]

We say, realization, sudden realization and gradual practice. When you have sudden realization, that's not so difficult. To have enlightenment, we think enlightenment is some big thing, you know, it's difficult. Enlightenment is not so hard to acquire. but maintaining practice. That's hard to do. To maintain the realization, one has to practice, continue to practice. Practice generates realization, and realization reinforces practice. So sudden enlightenment and gradual practice to mature your realization.

[34:34]

We have various realizations in our life and every time we have some realization we practice to mature that realization. So, realization and practice, realization and practice, and unending maturity. One may have some realization, but it's still very green, and it's easy to think that you are somebody, if you've had some realization. So, you throw your realization into the pot and dissolve it into practice. Let go of your realization. Give up your realization. Like Queen Noong gave up the robe and the bowl. Just throw it away into the realm of practice. It's the fuel for your practice.

[35:41]

Realization is the fuel for practice. Very powerful, like gasoline. Put it in your tank. And then drive your vehicle. And if you have good realization, you have high octane gas. Then, Muhammad has a comment. He says, It must be said that the sixth ancestor forgets himself completely in taking action here. He is like a kindly grandmother who peels a fresh lychee, removes the seed, and puts it into your mouth. Then you only need to swallow it down. He was only concerned for Hui Ming.

[36:44]

He wasn't really concerned about himself. He was concerned about the dharma and the robe, and he was very much concerned about this guy who wanted to take something away from him. And he didn't really want to hurt him. And instead of hurting him, he actually gave him something wonderful. Of course, he didn't give him anything he didn't already have. He gave him what he already had. Instead of, you can have this, but it doesn't help you. I'll give you something that can really help you. I'll give you what you already have. That's very nice. And he made this intimate connection. Instead of fighting, he became one with his pursuer. completely won him over through very gentle sweetness and kindness.

[37:47]

That's very unusual. Mostly in the world, when someone is pursuing us, we want to defend ourselves and get rid of them. But here, so sweet and kind, and becomes one with this person. instead of being an antagonist. It's a great lesson. And then, Muhammad has a verse. He says, It can't be described. It can't be pictured. It can't be praised enough. Stop groping for it. It here is original face, self-nature. We call it it. And it, I think, is a very appropriate term to use because it can't be named.

[38:58]

It can't be pinned down. And it can't be described or even imagined. So it can't be described. It can't be pictured. It can't be praised enough. Sometimes it can be praised too much. Stop groping for it. Stop trying to get it. Just let go. The original face, which is it, has nowhere to hide. It's completely revealed. When the world is destroyed, it is not destroyed. But one time a monk asked the master, when the great fire at the end of the Kalpa occurs and everything is destroyed, is it also destroyed?

[40:01]

And the master said, yes, it is also destroyed. Either way is correct. No, it is not destroyed. Yes, it is destroyed. That's another koan. Yes, it is destroyed. You mean, self-nature is finally destroyed? Someone asked me the other day, yesterday, should we have faith? Meaning, when I die, will everything, will I be destroyed? Will everything be destroyed when I'm destroyed? Yes. No. Nothing can be destroyed. Nothing can lose the essence.

[41:06]

The forms change. But if you set up an existence against a non-existence, then you're just creating two things. There can't be two things. Existence, non-existence, one thing. But we can't conceive of that because we see Something coming into existence and something going out of existence. But no matter how much the forms change, nothing changes.

[42:09]

Fundamentally, nothing changes. The forms continue to change incessantly, but fundamentally nothing changes. And yes, everything is destroyed, and self-nature is also destroyed. But destroyed means not destroyed, because there are not two things. If you think there are two things, then you have destroyed and not destroyed. It's like the water and the waves. So at this moment, what is your original face?

[43:51]

That's the koan. You don't have to think about this koan. Just sit zazen without any idea of gaining anything. Just let go. Sit well. Put all of your energy and effort into this one thing. And just let go of everything. And don't expect anything. Don't reject anything. Don't love anything. Don't hate anything. Don't dislike anything. Just allow reality to be present without interfering. Stop discriminating and just see everything equally.

[45:09]

It's not so easy, but you can do it. You can do it. And at the point where you think you're going to break, just open up and let it be. Instead of resisting, just be open. Just be open to everything. Not easy, but it's possible. Thank you.

[45:58]

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