Rev. Chikyo Ewan Magie: The Hidden Lamp (class 3 of 6)

Rev. Chikyo Ewan Magie's Fall 2024 class on the Hidden Lamp (3 of 6).

Transcript

Well, good evening again, everyone. Welcome to Prairie Mountain Zen Center.

This is our fall 2024 class on The Hidden Lamp, 25 Centuries of Awakened Women,

this book by Florence Kaplow and Susan Moon from 2013.

And here in this third class, we are going to reflect on Chiono's No Water, No Moon.

And it's Modern Commentary by Merle Cotto Boyd from pages 37 to 40.

So again, this is a book full of encounters.

And our Zen practice is encounter. And one way to think about this is our Zazen.

When we practice zazen, we are in a dialogic encounter with our breath, with our body,

with the sensations arising, with our thoughts, with our feelings.

Like, especially in Buddhism, the feelings of desire,

meaning wanting, or aversion, meaning sort of pushing away, and sort of neutral

feelings, like we might have for the wall or the carpet.

It um and also

intimate uh intimate uh with

our habits of

mind our our long established thought patterns

that we uh establish so we are always in encounter and then of course in studying

koan we are in encounter with the characters uh the students the teachers um.

And our own responses to them.

So as we'll see in Chionos, No Water, No Moon, there's a couple of characters

that we meet, and they share dialogic exchange.

But really, Zen is encounter, and we are asked to be fully present with what arises.

And as Susan Moon says in another one of her books, we practice not turning away.

Not turning away, meaning we need it fully and intimately, including our responses.

Often, in practice, as in life, we walk with our resistance and our confusion, long and far,

over rough roads and smooth, and into the depths of the dark,

where we are unsure which way to go.

Chiono's story is one of these and also a story of kindness and friendship,

and all those elements take us into the dark with her she works as a humble servant in a Zen convent,

and she wanted to practice Zazen.

One day she approaches an elderly nun and asks, I am of humble birth.

I can't read or write and must work all the time.

Is there any possibility that I could attain the way of Buddha,

although I have no skills?

And the nun replies, rightly. This is wonderful, my dear.

In Buddhism, there are no distinctions between people.

There is only this. Each person must hold fast to the desire to awaken and cultivate

a heart of great compassion.

People are complete as they are.

What a great response, right? In Buddhism, there are no distinctions between

people. There is only this.

Each person must hold fast to the desire to awaken and cultivate a heart of great compassion.

People are complete as they are.

And she concludes by instructing, if you don't fall into delusive thoughts,

there is no Buddha and no sentient being.

There is only one complete nature.

If you want to know your true nature, you need to turn toward the source of

your delusive thoughts.

This is called Dazen.

And just as it was a bright response in the beginning, here the nun's instructions

are salient. If you don't fall into delusive thoughts, there is no Buddha and no sentient being.

There is only one complete nature.

Which is to say, we always fall into delusive thoughts. It happens all the time.

And we divide up the world, right? If we think back to Tsum Tsung Ming,

the great line, the great way is without difficulty, just avoid picking and

choosing, which makes it sound very simple.

But we're always picking and choosing.

And in fact, it's difficult to go through life without picking and choosing,

like which way to cross the street or should I have chocolate or should I have vanilla?

Which kind of sounds trivial, but we do this as part of our mind.

It's part of our limited self.

But she is trying to instruct us to see our wholeness of being,

that our absolute or Buddha nature self is never separate.

It is never apart from one, right where one is, as Dogen Zenji expresses it in Phukonza Zengi.

So if you want to know your true nature, meaning your Buddha nature,

you need to turn towards the source of your delusive thoughts.

This is called Zazen.

And it's also a lovely encouragement insofar as.

Zazen is not only on the cushion, right?

Sitting, standing, walking, and lying down as the instruction goes, right?

In other words, at all moments, we are in our Zazen practice.

We carry it off of the cushion into Kinhin and into our standing,

when we hold our hands in Shashu, and into our lying down.

Now, always zazen, always intimate with what is arising,

and always being intimate with, oh, look, there's a thought pattern,

or there's a delusive thought, or there is desire arising,

or there is aversion or hatred, dislike.

Uh chiono said with happiness in her voice with this practice as my companion

i have only to go about my daily life practicing day and night so clearly chiono

takes us to heart and i think we,

all encourage ourselves to see ourselves in Jono.

Like she had, you know, right orientation here, right?

She really saw, okay, I thought I was a person of humble birth and I had no

training. I couldn't read, I couldn't write, I could not study and practice the Buddha way.

But the nun sort of bats that away or like Manjushri He cuts down that delusive

thought with the diamond sword.

And Jono is ready for this, ready to practice day and night.

And as the nun told her, right, to cultivate a heart of great compassion.

Which includes, of course, compassion for the self, especially when we are confused

or ignorant, our thoughts are delusive.

We have that intimate opportunity with ourselves as well as with other people.

The story continues. After months of wholehearted practice, she went out on

a full moon night to draw some water from the well.

The bottom of her old bucket, held together by bamboo straps,

suddenly gave way, and the reflection of the moon vanished with the water.

When she saw this, she attained great realization.

Her Enlightenment poem was this.

With this and that, I tried to keep the bucket together.

And then the bottom fell out. Where water does not collect, the moon does not dwell.

Like so many of us, Chiono is an every person, keeping it together with whatever straps she has.

And so we try and try to hold it all together, and even to present the image

of a person who has it all together.

All right. My first Zen teacher liked to say we are all walking around with

this action figure held out in front of us, which we offer to the world,

the person who has it all together.

And with that action figure, we meet and greet the faces and people we meet.

And so in career, in relationships, in family, in all manners of life, we strive this way.

And finally, the straps break.

Merle Cotto Boyd writes, the one who is liberated must be allowed to disappear

like the water and the moon.

What a great line, right? The one who is liberated must be allowed to disappear

like the water and the moon.

So this is an encouragement about our liberation, not to overthink it here, but we let go.

And disappear.

There's a wonderful other koan, Jishan, meets the ferryman, where the teacher at last,

calls out across the water, Reverend, Reverend, there's one more thing,

and then disappears beneath the waves, stepping out of the boat.

And I always felt that's what my teacher did for me, disappearing into the mists and water completely.

So it is important to practice right effort in relationship to the many forms of Zen.

Caring for the altar, and the altar is back there, is Buddha.

Maybe need to dust the Buddha give Buddha a water bath caring for the altar

new flowers sweeping the zindo floor.

I have to do that sweeping the floor taking care of our robes I'm always having

to take care of my robes my stitches are always just a little,

a little that way And there's always another stitch to be sewn.

Caring for our Oreoki bowls, right? One robe, one bowl.

We care for our bowls and our dining sets so that we can receive the offering.

Right? We are always being served.

And we remember this in our chant, giver, receiver, and gift is one unity.

So when we care for our bowls, we care for the offerings of others and the food and who grew it.

We even care for how we walk in kinhin, how we sit in zazen.

Yet truer to the spirit in Shiono's awakening, we find ourselves dwelling within the forms of Zen,

finding freedom there, which allows our bucket to fall away,

the bottom to drop out, awakening to the freedom of knowing our own true nature,

our Buddha nature, there all along.

And maybe it's helpful to think about our bowing.

We do a lot of bowing in Zen, and each moment is another moment when we awaken,

when we let go completely and we bow and awaken Buddha to Buddha with one another,

right? We bow to each other.

And this ritual that we enact again and again, even bowing to our cushion, is bowing to the Buddha.

Buddha nature in ourselves, Buddha nature in all beings, even our cushion.

Is an expression of this Buddha nature from which we are inseparable.

So Chiono's practice unfolded long and far until she was ripe for the moment.

It says practicing for several months, but maybe we can say many years,

just to make it more real for us.

And like some other great characters Xue Feng carrying his many burdens Daishan

needing his lamp to be blown out.

We have to be ripe for the moment,

when we awaken, when we let go when the straps break and the bottom drops out,

we cannot think ourselves to this moment cannot make it happen,

our practice ripens as we go along,

and we are gradually, gradually tossed about in the rock tumbler of Sangha and

practice I know here we're in our little Zoom windows today,

but someday we'll be back in a temple somehow, maybe Jodasan will finish his

garage zendo in Longmont and we'll all convene.

And we may never be a perfectly smooth riverstone.

Rather, we will be just as we are. The full expression of Dogen Zenji's boundless,

endless practice enlightenment, hyphenated practice enlightenment.

For Dogen and for us in Soto Zen, they are inseparable.

We are taking care of all beings in our practice enlightenment.

Eventually, we may simply sit in a dry riverbed like all the other stones and

hearing the river in the trees above,

the rustling of the autumn leaves, the rush of river water in the spring,

feeling the flakes of winter snow, the heat of summer sun on our backs.

Raven croaks overhead. Droppings splatter.

Later, Bear blunders by at dusk, tipping the stone,

smoothing it smoother before darkness falls and the moonlight shines silently

on all the stones and the water rises during the night.

What is this great matter is the great koan on the zen board the han.

Music.

Hollow wooden hits thak thak pervade the silence at odd awkward intervals surprising

us compelling us to practice in Chiono's koan,

we are introduced to a humble girl of no rank a commoner who carries her wooden

bucket we are Chiono we are not separate from her,

no matter where we may come from when we go on Zen retreat,

when we are on Sashin we drop away all those,

social designations We are simply a living being.

How wonderful, the known replies, the Buddha way welcomes all.

Each one of us is possessed of this innate Buddha nature,

even though much of the time we may push away this idea and consider ourselves

not there yet or somehow unworthy.

But the nun encourages us to understand, like Chiono, everyday people awaken.

And so are we.

So in this way, Chiono is an every person, or every man, as Joseph Campbell expressed it,

a representative everyday person personifying the hero's journey that is,

at the same time, the essential spiritual odyssey.

And unlike great, powerful hero figures like Odysseus or Buddha,

she is not born noble, but rather just a regular person, full of doubt,

uncertainty, vulnerability, even limitations in the world, right?

Not born to a noble family like Dogen, not classically educated,

maybe even perceived negatively by other members in society.

Like Huan Nung in the Platform Sutra, a barbarian from the illiterate south of China,

Jono feels an innate intuitive impulse to explore the great matter right in

the middle of her everyday life.

So she is drawn to the practice.

As for many of us, Chiono's journey into Zen starts with this kind of trepidation and fear.

And the biggest portion often centers on this question of, am I worthy?

Am I really possessed of this Buddha nature? Can I really do this practice?

Lastly, James, the senior teacher at Tassajara.

Has practiced at the monastery over 45 years and met countless practitioners

in personal private interviews, Dokusan.

And she understands this feeling of unworthiness is typically the deepest,

most pervasive human problem, taking a unique expression in each person.

So it can be highly varied and it can take sometimes surprising forms.

And sometimes we can even get full of ourselves despite this, right?

We can kind of look at koans, for example, and Zen is a kind of intellectual

puzzle and we can take pride in going, aha, I get it.

But as Deshaun found in his encounter with the tea lady who humbled him,

this pride can actually cover up our vulnerability and the not knowing that

is essential for true awakening.

So Chiono shows us that she has this vulnerability.

She admits that she has these deficiencies or shortcomings, but the nun waves

them all away. and they don't matter.

Just practice your intention.

Practice your zazen. Become intimate with your delusive thoughts.

Open your heart with great compassion.

She says, in response to the nun, with practice as my companion,

I have only to go about my daily life, practicing day and night.

And this part of the koan reveals the love of practice stage,

akin to what the Vipassana teacher Sharon Salzberg calls in her book on faith, bright faith.

A beautiful experience of being centered in one's spiritual practice,

knowing that it orients the practitioner toward real depth, true and profound awakening.

In Huynang's story, The Sixth Ancestor, we learn more about grunt work,

the daily grind of practice, symbolized by his pounding rice in the kitchen.

Nine straight months.

Go pound rice. And he does it. He doesn't hesitate. He doesn't resist.

Meanwhile, the other monks are given access to the teacher and the dharma talks and the dokasan.

But Huenang sticks to his work.

He focuses intimately on what is arising. He is not distracted by resentment or fatigue.

So even if we experience Chiono's love of practice,

we may come at some point to precede Zen as a kind of dull, repetitive drudgery,

rather than the radiant, luminous moon or one bright pearl as sometimes portrayed.

In this part of practice, the practitioner may feel very distant indeed from

the kind of luminous awakening,

and Zen itself may feel like the unyielding impossibility that koans are sometimes

described as, a hard rock, a blank wall,

an unresponsive teacher, a dead end.

And yet, after months of wholehearted practice, she went out on a full moon

night to draw some water from the well.

What a beautiful phrase for our yearning.

I'm going out into the dark to draw some water from the well,

to bring up what I deeply desire.

And the bottom of her old bucket suddenly gave way.

The reflection vanished with the water,

With this and that, I tried to keep the bucket together And then the bottom

fell out Where water does not collect, the moon does not dwell.

Chiono's awakening plunges her into darkness,

Shock and surprise her realization manifests with the crumbling of her container

all the ways we keep life together dropping into the dark the water of her life

spreads to cover the world,

expressing oneness it's completely non-separate nature the water,

the dark, the self woven together,

Like many Zen stories, Chiono's awakening is intimately connected to months or years of practice.

The full moon night of Chiono's enlightenment expresses the fullness of her

practice, her complete immersion in the mystery and continuity of practice enlightenment.

The darkness revealed by the vanishing reflection allows her to inhabit the

wholeness always present.

Here at Prairie Mountain Zen, we have the opportunity to deepen our practice together.

Each of us is Bodhidharma in his cave, sitting upright in the corner of his

endo, facing the wall nine years,

cutting off our eyebrows to stay awake, making cups of tea from the tea plants

that spring up where we cut our eyebrows.

Each of us is Chiono, unsure of ourselves and our practice, carrying our makeshift buckets.

But like Chiono and Bodhidharma, we are wholehearted, rigorous in our practice.

We know that, quote, turning away and touching are both wrong,

for it is like a massive fire, as expressed in Dangshan's Song of the Jewel Mirror, Samadhi.

We sit upright in Zazen, allowing all things to be.

Turning away and touching are both wrong. Just sit.

Let go.

Let go. Sit like cold ash. Allow this world and the self to be.

We come to practice perhaps out of unnamed, intuited needs, somehow feeling

or suffering but gravitating towards a path.

And we stay because, as Norman Fisher expresses it, practice really is the truest way to live.

We recognize that we trigger all our ancient twisted karma,

when we turn away from our wounds and karmic behavior patterns,

just as we know we also trigger it when we touch it.

When we sit fully, completely upright in silence and stillness,

being nobody, going nowhere,

as Ayakama has it, we finally see the truth of our suffering and our Buddha nature.

How it manifests through our limited self.

Zen is together practice. So with Chono and with you and with me,

we practice Buddha to Buddha, awakening together.

Reverend Gail Godwin spoke recently from Houston Zen Center and shared how many

years of monastic training at Tassajara,

she would manifest her bowing in a particular monk when passing another monk on the monastery paths.

They would do their little bows

before going on, and she would whisper silently, I want nothing from you.

I want nothing from you. And this is a beautiful expression of Zen practice

where we are each allowing our fellow monks to be completely themselves,

not invading their spiritual space of practice.

And this is being upright, as Rev.

Anderson calls it in his book. We honor this completely upright practice,

and it doesn't mean that we're going to use our straps to constantly hold everything

together, but rather we can sit in our zazen,

whether we are walking, sitting, standing, or lying down.

And like Chiono, the moon and the water will drop away and we will allow our

oneness of wisdom and compassion to manifest.

Thank you.