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Talk Notes
Well, good evening everyone.
I just want to thank everybody for being here tonight. And it occurred to me as I was sitting down and kind of falling backwards off my cushion and trying to get myself all together that we all come from so many different places when we arrive here. So whatever happened to you today or whatever is happening in your life today, I hope you have found this a safe place and a place where you can let things be for a little bit.
Chris and I have been giving a five-part dharma seminar on the teachings of Huineng, the sixth Chinese ancestor and Dogen, our dharma father, I guess, in Japan. They lived 600 years apart. One lived in 7th century China and one lived in 12th century Japan, 13th century Japan. And we have found quite a few things that they have in common. So that's what we've been doing is seeing how they interact or not. This book, the Platform Sutra is the book of Huineng's teachings and the translator is Red Pine who is I guess we call him a dharma brother. He lives in Port Townsend and he is a incredible translator.
So what do we take away from the Platform Sutra? Huineng, sixth patriarch, born in the middle of the Tang dynasty in China gave us several critical ideas. First the nondual mind.
I'm quoting him here. Meditation and wisdom are of one essence and not two. Meditation is the body of wisdom and wisdom is the function of meditation. Fellow students of the way, be careful. Don't think that meditation comes first and then gives rise to wisdom or that wisdom comes first and then gives rise to meditation or that meditation and wisdom are separate. For those who hold such views, the dharma is dualistic.
"Not two" is the phrase we carry into present time. This brings into question things like better or worse, high and low, good or bad. We are asked here to look at the world with curiosity rather than judgment. We see how interrelated we are.
Even the shooter was somebody's baby. Our bodies come from stardust and ocean water. How are you integrated or disintegrated?
Second, the notion of sudden enlightenment versus gradual. Remember the competitor in the if you have been here you know that there was a story of Huineng and he was part of a poetry contest. Shinyin, the temple of Hanjour wrote this was the person who everybody thought was going to be the next ancestor the body is a bodhi tree the mind is like a standing mirror. Always try to keep it clean. Don't let it gather dust. Huineng stepped in and theoretically dictated because he was illiterate his poem. Bodhi doesn't have any trees. This mirror doesn't have a stand. Our Buddha nature is forever pure. Where do you get this dust? Even a momentary glimpse is a moment of sudden enlightenment. This tends to be rooted in the ordinary. A moment for me happened after listening to a really complex dharma talk one day in the middle of a sesshin and feeling bad because I didn't fully understand it. After the talk, we had a brief sit. And while I was sitting, ruminating about all of that, suddenly a bird trilled outside the building. And for me, it was the most stunning, profound sound I'd ever heard. That's an everyday awakening. Think of moments in your life when you had a moment. Our last class reminded us that sudden enlightenment is best followed by a lifelong practice. Our sudden enlightenment might ebb a little bit. So we can always we can always continue to practice
And you know it's a practical path. It's something that you can do. Huineng was a simple man without title or formal education. He showed the way to the common person emphasizing finding the Buddha inside yourself rather than from outside focus. Like Dogen, Huineng pulls from ancestors. When talking about what Zen is, he quotes Vimalakirti, a teacher who was living before him. Vimalakirti said, "Suddenly, all at once, we return to our original mind." Then he references the bodhisattva precept sutra and says our original nature is pure and goes on to say good friends see the fundamental purity of your own nature. Practice for yourselves the practices of a Buddha. Begin and complete yourselves for yourselves the path to Buddhahood. The whole idea of polishing the mirror in the original poem where we work on perfecting ourselves, our big to-do list, self-improvement project of of Zen according to outside instructions isn't the path we're suggested to take including the former rigidity and compulsory nature of rules versus the formless precepts.
And of course seeing and living through the lens of prajna paramita.
Later on in the sutra Huineng says the moment you give rise to the light of prajna all your delusions will vanish in a flash. This is your truest friend. With one realization you reach the state of Buddhahood. Use this wisdom to illuminate the land of the mind of your nature. And when inside and outside are perfectly clear, you will know your own mind. And once you know your own mind, you will be free. Once you have gained your freedom, this is the samadhi of prajna. And the no thought, I'm sorry. And the realization of that samadhi of prajna is no thought. The teaching of no thought means to see all dharmas without being attached to any dharma. To reach everywhere without being attached. To reach everywhere without being attached anywhere. So I ask myself, what does attachment feel like in my body? I am attached to cookies. One day during tea at Sesshin, I surveyed the tray and chose the little fruit and nut cup.
This sounds very ordinary. For me, there was a burst of ecstasy when I realized that I had made a choice outside of my habit pattern. I felt free. This to me is everyday zen.
I want to echo Hannah in saying thank you so very much for continuing to show up. When we first started planning these seminars, we asked ourselves a simple question. How do we show that these teachings are still alive today? Huineng was teaching in the 7th century China. Dongshan was one century later. Dogan carried those teachings to Japan and expressed them with extraordinary depth, clarity, and confusion. Then 800 years later, Shunryū Suzuki brought them to America where many of us first encountered them. Different centuries, different places, different cultures, different personalities. And yet when we listen we begin to hear the same current flowing through all these teachings. They are not separate. They are not philosophies or competing schools of thought. They are a living continuing conversation that has continued for the last 2,500 years. And tonight we have the opportunity to participate in that conversation. Usually I do not like to quote long passages but I'm going to do it because this is the one of the books containing talks by Shunryū Suzuki our first teacher in America. And he has a brief chapter here that I would like to partially quote. It's going to be a little bit long, so sorry for that. And the chapter is called, don't try to figure out who you are.
When you try to figure out who you are, you are using your self-centered limited mind and it does not work.
After seeing his reflection in the water, Dongshan wrote an enlightenment verse. Don't try to seek yourself. Don't try to figure out who you are. The you found in that way is far from the real you. It is not you anymore. But when I go on my way, wherever I turn, I meet myself.
This verse means that you must find yourself in each zazen period. When you take your own step, then wherever you go, you will meet with yourself. That is the bodhisattva way. You may think that you can figure out who you are by looking at your reflection in the water. Dongshan says that although the image you see there is not you, what you see in the water as it is is actually you yourself. In the Jewel Mirror Samadhi Dongshan makes the same statement. You are not it. It is you. He uses a paradoxical statement like this to catch your mind. You are not it, it is you. Means that when you try to figure out who you are. Even if you see yourself in the mirror, that reflection is not you. But if you just see your image in the mirror without any idea of trying to figure out what you are, that is you yourself.
When you try to figure out who you are, you're using your self-centered limited mind and it does not work. If you try to attain enlightenment or become some great Zen master, you cannot.
Before you practice our way, you are Buddha. But when you practice in a small self-centered way, you will lose yourself. You may misunderstand this and then think whatever you do that is our practice. That misunderstanding comes from a selfish gaining idea. It is pretty hard to practice our way without any expectation or gaining idea.
This is like chewing while walking, drinking water while wearing a mic.
So don't try to figure out who you are.
After seeing his reflection in the water, Dongshan wrote this poem and I just fell in love with that passage. So sorry for quoting so much. Suzuki Roshi spells it out so clearly what our true work on the cushion is and he does something very characteristic for our tradition.
He begins by talking about not trying to figure out who we are, but almost immediately he reaches back to another ancestor, Dongshan.
You are not it. It is you.
And what strikes me is we're now listening to several teachers separated by centuries.
Huineng, Dongshan, Dogen, Suzuki Roshi, spanning continents and centuries. They all sound different. They all have their own style, but they're pointing towards the same place.
Suzuki says, "Don't try to figure out who you are."
Dongshan says, "Don't try to seek yourself."
Huineng tells us not to become attached to thought and Dogen offers us Jijuyu Zanmai.
They are all trying to free us from the same habit. I'll come back to teach Jijuyu Zanmai a little bit later.
So most of us spend an amazing amount of time in our lives trying to manufacture ourselves. We want to become calmer, wiser, kinder, more spiritual, less anxious, more confident. We construct ideas about who we ought to be and then compare ourselves to those ideas. Even our spiritual life can become a self-improvement project. And there is nothing wrong with wanting to grow. Practice does change us whether we like it or not.
But these teachers are pointing to something more subtle. They are asking what happens if the one doing all the improving is itself the problem. Have you ever thought about that? Suzuki says when we try to figure ourselves out we are using what he calls our self-centered mind. So basically the mind we're trying to use the mind that created the original problem to fix it. Do you see where I'm going? That mind can only produce another picture of our "self". It can't reveal who we really are because it is already looking through filters and lenses.
I think that's why Dongshan's verse is so beautiful. Don't try to seek yourself. And then he says, "When I go on my way, wherever I turn, I meet myself." He doesn't say, "I finally found myself." He says, "I meet myself." Meeting is alive. It happens in relationship. It happens while walking, while making tea, talking to a friend, driving home after a difficult day. The self isn't something we discover once and then put it on the shelf.
Our goal is to remain in relationship with the whole world. That I think is exactly was what Dogen is pointing toward with Jijuyu Zanmai. It is one of those Zen expressions that can sound very mysterious if we leave it untranslated, but it sounds very impressive. In truth, it is very ordinary.
Ji means self. Ju receive. Yu make full use of or freely express. Zanmai is samadhi, complete absorption. Taken together, Dogen is describing a way of living in which this very life completely receives itself and completely expresses itself. Notice what has disappeared. There isn't some little manager standing outside our experience evaluating every moment, criticizing. There isn't a second self constantly asking, "Am I doing this right? Am I finally becoming enlightened? Am I finally turning into the person I should be? Instead, life is simply living itself.
Dogen doesn't describe a mystical experience reserved for special people. He's describing natural functioning of a mind that has stopped trying to manufacture itself.
And that's why I hear such a deep harmony between those four teachers.
So Dogen says when we stop doing all of that, what remains is Jijuyu Zanmai the samadhi of this life freely receiving and freely expressing itself.
And Shunryū Suzuki encapsules it perfectly when he says, "Don't try to figure out who you are." Practice then begins to feel less like self- construction and more like participation.
I think that is why these teachings have remained alive for such a long time. They are not asking us to become someone else. They are inviting us to stop standing outside our lives trying to direct them and instead to participate so completely that there is no separation between ourselves and this moment.
It's funny that's exactly what happened when I just dumped this water on myself. You know that there was no thought of oh, I shouldn't have done that. Are people making fun of me now? It just oh, I'm I'm I'm wet.
And we both have said several times practice is not a self-improvement project. It is inviting us to be intimate with the life that is already there. Because just like you yourself, life is not an improvement project. It's already there in all its completeness. Let us receive this moment completely just as it is. And then without adding anything extra, let us respond as honestly and compassionately as we can. I know this does not sound particularly dramatic. Doesn't sound like any of the old Zen master going 30 blows. It isn't the kind of thing this culture celebrates right now, but I think it's quite and quietly revolutionary.
So many of us spend so much time and so much of our lives standing outside of ourselves evaluating, comparing, improving, rehearsing. These teachings invite us to step back into our own lives. Not tomorrow, not after we've fixed ourselves, but now. So Hannah, do we have time for the? I think we should I think we should go to triads. So, we would like to go to triads and I have a couple of questions, but feel free to talk about anything that moves you at this moment. You know, there's no grading afterwards. Another thing is please treat your partners with respect and keep it confidential whatever you hear. I have a couple of questions that you might want to ponder. One is what would it be like to stop trying to manufacture yourself for one moment? You're not asking even for five minutes, just for a moment.
And what happens to the real you if you believe you can figure yourself out?
What is the dust you are still trying to polish?
