Pointing to the Human Mind

From the September 2024 7-Day Sesshin at Yokoji Zen Mountain Center

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Good morning. So I think it's fair to say somewhere in the um heart of of uh session or in the toward the the midpoint somewhere there of course not important or very helpful to nail that down too much, but there is a there is usually something of a linear process in terms of settling down. Um usually takes could take the body a couple of days to settle down for those who are newer or or not sitting as much as this, as uh often a barrier of discomfort and pain that has to be met and gone through. And with that settling down, then of the body uh a few days in um mind or the this other aspect of uh nature uh follows along or starts to settle to at the beginning, the tension rochi kindly offered uh you know, gave instruction of um many decades of experience and practice and to to boil that down into directions and pointers to how to uh arrange the body and prepare for the prepare for session to set things up with a strong foundation. And then it's up to each one of us to um it's up to each one of our own our own effort, really. You know, it comes to about this point in session or a little further, then uh one may realize that you can you can survive it, survive for session. Oh that that's certainly how was for me at times in in early sessions, you know, the the happy realization that I I can actually live through this or I can get through this. Sometimes it it it forget how rigorous it is really to gather and practice in this in this way for the seven days. I'm I'm gonna bring up uh a Koan from a tradition. I'm gonna use for record of transmitting the light as a more of a challenge to myself, as I usually refer to the Koan collections. I I know better of the cases that I know better, but as it seshin, it's like, well, I should have a push and go for something which I don't often I don't often look at and bring up a case with um one of our our ancestral teachers in the lineage, uh Jacquisson Egan. So let me do that now. Well well, maybe I'll start with it said that when he was actively teaching, that there were never more than 20 students at his place, it was usually a lot less. So that that sort of reminded me of of Yokoji. And and uh partly because of the the rigour of living there, that he express uh it was important that Zha Zen and practice was expressed in in every activity. Apparently they worked very hard. Uh communities at that time would uh have to plant and harvest and prepare their own food as well as many other tasks, and uh and so it was a it was a tough place to be, so that there were only ever a few. And that reminded me of um of this place, not to say that it's a tough place to be in a way like, oh, we make it that way because only the tough can survive here. It it's it's not that way, it's not tough on purpose, it's just it's what is required to run an authentic training center and uphold the standards of the tradition that have been handed down. Yeah, if it was easier to do that, then it would be easier. But in the long tradition of things, turns out it's always been tough, and I strongly suspect it will continue to be tough. And in the years that I've been here, I haven't met anyone yet who's come and done a session here who at the end just said, you know, it wasn't really much of a stretch for me. You know, it was it was more rigorous at another place. Yet to yet to hear that. So that's that emphasis on um realization and practice in every in every activity of day and night is uh is something very fundamental. Umigan was alive in the um let me see, late 9th and early 10th century. And this draws on again that that period of Tang Dynasty China and the early Chan masters and what's regarded as really the so-called golden age of of Zen. And in the transmission of the light, um he's the 36th ancestor from the Buddha. So in the transmission of the light is this uh genealogy almost of uh the transmission from the the founder, uh the Buddha, who's regarded as the as the founder, through these many uh generations up until up until now. And that is a that is is a truly marvelous, a truly marvelous thing to have this lineage that goes back. Of course, you know, as we get more into the legendary or more apocryphal, you know, perhaps apocryphal times or aspects of the lineage were perhaps had to be kind of patched in because some of the records were were lost. Uh I remember working on this book with with Tenshin Roshi, and um, of course, it begins in India and goes through many of the ancestral teachers in in India, and I found that that uh challenging. It's like my heart has always been with the the tradition from the from from China and Japan. And I can honestly say that I wasn't in becoming involved in practice, not not Buddhism was not my um main interest, or never has been, you know, but like to say strictly Buddhism. Um but I was always my affinity was for this uh mysterious way of Zen practice, um, and then so it in it working through the Indian cases, I was really happy when I got on the boat with um with Bodhidharma carrying his bags, and um I made it to China, and then the cases became much more familiar. So this is Yakusin Egan, the 36th ancestor, um, visited Sekito Kison and asked him, I understand the twelve-part teachings of the three vehicles for the most part, but I hear that in the south they directly point to the human mind, see their natures and become Buddhas. This is still not clear to me. I humbly ask you in your compassion to explain it. The ancestor said, This way won't do, and not this way won't do, and both this way and not this way won't do. How about you? The master was speechless. The ancestor said, Your conditions for understanding are not here. You should go to Great Master Basso. Accordingly, the master went and paid his respects to Basso and asked the same question, and the ancestor said, Sometimes I make him raise his eyebrows and blink. Sometimes I do not make him raise his eyebrows and blink. Sometimes raising the eyebrows and blinking is alright, sometimes raising the eyebrows and blinking is not alright. How about you? At these words the master was greatly awakened and bowed. The ancestor asked, What truth have you seen that makes you bow? The master replied, When I was with Sekito, it was like a mosquito trying to bite an iron ox. The ancestor said, Since you are so, you must guard it well. But still your master is Sekito. So this quite quite long case of this interaction with uh Yaksan, who begins with one of the great teachers of the time, Sekitokisan at that time, two giants of the tradition active uh on a couple of different mountaintops, uh Sekitokison and and uh Master Master Basso. And the so the Soto lineage, which we maintain here in our unique way, um traces its lineage all the way back through, hence this transmission of the light, through to uh Seki through Sekitokisen. And all of the Rinzai School traces its lineage back through uh Master Basso. And and it's a it's a nice synchronicity, and and uh that the those two teachers knew each other and had dialogue, and this isn't the only example of them sending um a student between them both. You know, bounce one kind of off the other. This was something that was was done uh during that time. Um Kazan Zenji, who compiled this book, said that uh Basso and Sekito were like the two horns of the uh the the great ox who was the sixth patriarch. So the sixth ancestor, Daikanno. Uh a little further back here, all runs tradition, lineage runs through Daikaneno, the sixth patriarch. A couple of generations further down, we have these two horns that become the Sotov and Rinzai School. That features in many different cultures, this kind of two horns on the head. I'm not sure, I'm trying to remember if it's Michelangelo or Raphael who did the, I think it's Michelangelo who did the sculpture of Moses. Is that right? Someone who's more scholarly or learned than I, no one, okay, good. Um that statue of Moses is depicted with two little two little horns on on the head. It comes up in different different traditions. So he's two great teachers. Sekito um or Yaksin comes to to see him, and then I says this question. First of all, you know, I understand, he says, the twelve-part teachings of the three vehicles for the most part. So I appreciate you know, there's the there's the humility of coming in and not just saying, yeah, I you know, I understand that. I've got all of that down. But right, like I understand, furthermore, I've got a handle on it. I know, I I know something of it. I have some experience with that. As a young man, like many of these teachers, and it's sometimes it's not really brought to the front, but many of these uh people who would go on to be in the lineage spent their youth in in Buddhist education. It was one of the ways, or one of the only ways, to receive a good education. In fact, many of the aristocracy of the day were educated in Buddhist temples. And um he had studied the Naya, the Eightfold Path, the teachings of Buddhism as as a young person. But like many of the greats, including Togsan and others, not satisfied by studying the teachings, or hadn't come to a place of real independence, hadn't hadn't satiated uh a thirst that was there. You know, everyone everyone who comes to Sachin who practices has has a thirst or a hunger to understand, to return home, to to become clear, whatever words that we put that in, there's that there's that hunger. Why would you do this? As you know, as Anya brought up with that, like why the friend asked, like, why would you why would you do that? Because you're hung because we're hungry, perhaps. Whatever that is that drives you to assay an oto this practice, you must you must be that need must be met. And it's a need rather than a want. That's something I've discovered as I've grown a little older. I realize, wow, it's very important for me to understand what are my wants and what are my needs. You know, and not to confuse those things. Often they they can be confused in life. Think what you want is what you need. And it's a whole culture that's ready to sell you things that you think you want. Well, it's really masking something that you need. It's a come into session or into this practice, there's a need that needs to be met, and a hunger. I mean, much later, when uh the first case that I looked at was also Yakson Egan, I thought, well, I've talked on that before, but so maybe not that one, is is the case where he's asked to give a dharma talk. But the administrator monk, the person in my position, asked Jakson, when he's much older and an abbot, you haven't talked for a long time, and people people are antsy. But it that's my word, not but whatever antsy was there, you know. It's like people are are are complaining, they they want a dharma talk, and so Jakson Egan comes to give the uh Dharma talk, comes up to the podium, and then gets up and leaves, and that's it. And then later the administrator comes up and says, um, oh basically, what what's going on there? You know, people wanted a Dharma talk, and he says, There are we've got sutra masters for the sutras and people who can wax eloquent on the commentaries. Why are you bothering this old monk? Why are you bothering this old monk? Now you can if we imagine we're in that congregation for a dharma talk, not so dissimilar in terms of how we practice now to how we practiced then. People show up for for the talk. How would you how would how do we respond? How would you respond to something to something like that? Right? It's like if you're hungry and you you sort of feel like lunch and you're out and about and you're like, shall I get Chipotle? And then you're like, no, I had that on Tuesday. Well maybe I've got a maybe I want a burger. But you're not, you know, you get there and it's closed. Oh, that's frustrating, but it's not a big deal. We're spoiled for choice in every direction. You know, if you if you're a little bit hungry, then you might be disappointed by Yakson folding up his cloth and and and leaving. But if someone is truly hungry or truly thirsty, then you can perhaps swallow that. What he is at his actual intent, in not opening his mouth when when speaking. Because unfortunately, words is what we have, fortunately and unfortunately, in order to share things and you know, to speak to one another and to communicate. But as we well know, when it comes to this way that we're involved in, words are clumsy at best, and uh downright distracting and poisonous at worst. Perhaps they can, and at most they can point, but it should always be taken in that way. Anything that we read over what we hear points back to this original innate wisdom that each one is already. But rather, perhaps what someone shares, whether in words or in whatever expression, points back at something that has perhaps been ignored or forgotten or obscured. We are all conditioned, or I should say I am, always in real time being reconditioned, always being conditioned, always being shaped and as a human being uh immersed in attachment and aversion. All the time, constantly. It said that you know Yakison here says, I understand the twelve teachings of the three vehicles for the most part. I didn't, you know, I confess I didn't look up what those twelve teachings are. The twelve teachings of the three vehicles, but I imagine uh a thorough and a deep dive on the Buddhist path. You know, we can the Buddha was an extraordinary person, clearly. They're not making carving statues out of you a couple of thousand years ago, if you if you weren't, you know, just clearly an extraordinary person who was able to, and it's a marvelous thing, but it's like in the ancient world, pre-scientific, you know, from that era, to be able to delineate and create such a precise way to be able to look at the actual fact of lived reality. We could put it that way. You know, as human beings, we have many ideas and narratives and stories or explanation for what the hell it is we're doing here, why, where, from, you know, right? In many different cultures, we we we have all kinds of ideas about what that means means. The the Buddha was perhaps unique at that time in nothing is presented that can't be means that can't be tested in in real time. It's like how is how does this self actually appear and how does it how does it function? What is going on without having to appeal to a faith-based system or an idea of something else, just using the ingredients at hand, and and so able to teach these the 12-part teachings or the eightfold path. And that's available to any one of us, and and many millions of people at this point have availed themselves of those teachings. You know, we we can you can do that, we can decide I will maintain the eightfold path, but how many people do that? There's a lot of voluntary restriction in observing the precepts or applying that diligently. Yeah, I remember potential she bringing up the Theravadan monk who we met in at CCLA, who you know was obeying those rules and not eating past noon, and then you know, asking him as a as a as a Zen person, like, why do you do that? And then this monk answering unexpectedly because it makes me happy, which is a wonderful answer. So we can work these systems, you know, presented with method, and avail ourselves of real benefit, many people have. But in the Zen tradition, in the tradition that we're involved in, you know, there is the uh emphasis on being able to go straight to it. To go really to go straight to it, to really to make a great leap. Make a great leap. And so every one of us in the Session perhaps is presented with that. How do you leap? How do you leap? We realize that when we're just involved in this conscious stream of trying to ponder our way through the to the way, that that is a futile activity. And even though we're reminded that it's a futile activity, for each one of us, usually that has to be worn out because it's the only recognizable tool. So he says, I've studied these teachings, but I hear in the south they directly point to the human mind, talking about this point. See their natures become Buddhas. Can you explain it? And that's a very human thing to ask a teacher. Can you can you just please explain it? You know, I would wonder that coming to early talks with uh Tenshin Roshi, Seshi were Tenki Roshi, and then back to Tenshi Roshi, and then on, and it's and part of it with the talks was yeah, okay, it can you just explain it a bit better? You know, I I recognise some truth in that, but I'm not I'm not I'm not getting it. And and then putting it on that that teacher or that person. I I need you to just kind of shave the edges down on that a little bit, or just you know, make that so that I could that I could swallow. Like what they said about the sixth patriarch and the the monk Ming, you know, he peels uh a lychee fruit and puts it in his mouth, and all he has to do is is is swallow it down. We all want that, you know, as human beings. Can you peel the fruit for me and just pop it in there and maybe I I can swallow it? Although in reality we probably just spit it out and say, I don't like lychee, I want something, I want something else. Right? So just kind I I want you to explain. And he says, um, this way won't do, and not this way won't do, and both this way and not this way won't do. How about it? How about you? What do you say to that? And he's phonics. You know, this an assault on the uh intellectual or discriminatory function on which we over-rely. It's not this way, it's not that way, it's not not this way, and it's not not that way. Oh, and it's also not not this way, and not not that way. So what is it? You know, cutting off all the ways that we could intellectualize or present some some smart answer. And even if a smart answer comes forward, what use is that? What use is some uh philosophical expression there? But Jackson needs to know that he's fumixed at this point and sent off to Master Basso, and this was probably not a you know, it's not like he could just get an Uber over there. This was like right? It's probably I don't know. I'm sure we could look it up which mountains they were on. I'm imagining a distance of a few days, fraught with potential dangers of you know, fast-running mountain streams and maybe some tigers or some bandits. You know, I wonder if they ever sent anyone between themselves, Barso, and someone never made it, you know. What happened to that monk I sent you? Don't mention that guy again, you know. I mean, this is like dangerous, but it is, it's a it's a dangerous, it's a dangerous life, right? We're living in the midst of impermanence. We may hide from it a little more in in our modern era, but still it's always there, it's always there. And this is what also, of course, what drives these great teachers of yesteryear, but drives us all of us today. You know, we're faced with this great issue of impermanence. In this reality, in this sphere of reality, the price of appearing in form is dissolution and collapse. Oops. That's that's the great the great dilemma, though. So he goes to see Master Basso and he rejoins with perhaps something similar. Sometimes I make him raise his eyebrows and blink, sometimes I don't make him eyebrows and blink, sometimes raising the eyebrows and blinking is alright, sometimes raising the eyebrows and blinking is not alright. How about you? And I said now at this point, he's awakened. He's awakened and and bows. What could possibly have happened in between? Isn't this a very similar um statement by by Basso? But in in clearly in Yekson's case, he didn't just take what Sakito said and just be like, yeah, I'm I don't understand that, so I'm just yeah, I'll go ask that guy. Right? It's not that no, no, I that that doesn't work for me, so I'll I'll I'm I'm gonna just go ask somebody else because that's I can't get a handle on that and it's too tough. It's not rejected the question, but rather becomes a deep coma. They're trapped in this duality of it's this or is it that can often be the way when we're we're immersed in study or immersed in session, penetrating sort of layers, you know, as the mind settles down and the more banal thoughts about well next week, maybe I'll and oh, I wonder what about, you know, and that stuff that kind of starts to fall off, then those those deeper entanglements, the things that really causes issues, those can come up to the fore. And through this process, this kind of glacial practice of Sashin, those entanglements can be loosened and those bonds lifted. But it requires, it certainly requires commitment and a diligent effort. A diligent effort. And that really you know talks to our practice of Zarzen and the effort that we are making. It's a curious thing, like me making effort. We always run into trouble. How do I make effort in Zarzen? Of course, you know, for those who are newer, or as like we're learning practice, making effort is focusing on method and and deepening concentration and bringing one-pointed focus into bear, into reality. You know, that like breath awareness or whatever the practice is in order to focus concentration here. That's something that I can do. I can practice method. But at some point, then that me doing something, that has to shift. That has to shift. It says here, it was like a mosquito mounting an iron ox, and I'm like, I'm not sure that sounds very cool. So I'm gonna go with the uh the other translation of mosquito trying to bite an iron ox, and it also by uh by again happy synchronicity is is the line that Rindo will read in um in the Shusohausen or in the Dharma combat, the end of the training period, if we're all still here, because you never quite know. Right? But it's that that sense of a mosquito trying to bite when I was with Sekito is like a mosquito trying to bite an iron bull. And it's easy to skip over those lines, but look at the amount of effort that's involved in that. Like when mosquitoes land on us, it's only because they're hungry, they're really hungry. I think I think I'm correct. You can fact check me, but I think it's pregnant females that bite you when it's mosquitoes. I think that I think I think that's correct. Right? They gotta wheat. They're responsible for a whole brood. They're driven to they're really hungry, they'll take that risk. Good chance you're just gonna kill them right there. But they'll risk it and they go in and they bite you. And Sekito says, uh Jekerson says for his whole time with Sekito Keyson, it was like that. Wasn't I? I was well, he asked me these questions, but I didn't understand, so screw it. But rather, I can't, I was blocked by that, and so I need, but I'm hungry and I need to eat. So, like a mosquito, I'm gonna climb on that iron ox's back and I'm gonna drill. And I'm gonna drill till I get some blood. That's how his practice was. And that's what you know, what brings into this realization. Basso says, since you are so, guard it well. Still, your master is Sequito, which is like, okay, that's great, go back where you came from. But also honoring the friendship between those teachers, you know, and being able to send him back to his teacher. It's said that after, but he was with Basso for a few years. There's a line here I wanted to bring up. Um I should have marked it. But Basso asks him before he's about to leave, back to uh Sekito about about his state of mind or about his state of being, and he says, like, I've sloughed off a skin, and now I'm facing I fa now I there's only reality. I've sloughed off a skin. That's a practice of Zazen and Session to slough off a skin, like it like a snake, right? You come in here and it this defined, identified, blocked, limited me, I sense, conditioned by the world and things, limited in scope, hopelessly lost in preferring mind, has to sit on a cushion or a bench or a chair for many hours. That one. But if we stay with that me, I self that's always picking and choosing, preferring and pondering, then you you don't see it. And Sashin is truly laborious and deflating and hard. Much later when Yakison is back with uh Sakito, this is uh some years later, a beautiful interaction. Sekito comes upon Yakison sitting zarzen and says, What are you doing? And Yakison says, I'm not doing anything at all. Sekito says, in that case, you're just sitting idly. Yakison said, if I was sitting sitting idly, I would be doing something. Sekito said, What is it you're not doing? And Yakerson replied, not even ten thousand Buddhas know. A beautiful statement about the the expression of the understanding and realization of just sitting, of Czar Z. What are you doing? I'm not doing anything. Not doing anything at all. Can you say that? Can you say, can we say that about about Zazen? And that doesn't that doesn't exclude the practice that each one of us involved in. You can do nothing at all counting breaths, you can do nothing at all following the breath, nothing at all focusing on Kohan. If fully involved in and fully aligned with or fully immersed in that, just that one thing. So it's the whole of reality. But if you stand one foot or even one toe outside that all in intimacy of practice, then you split. And then you're doing something. You know, that can run from the course of I'm sitting thinking about next week to the thin. You know, of not of maybe of cutting off of the more egregious kind of ways of misuse of time and zarzen, but still not having really found the heart of it. But that's why we sit a long time, and that's why we sit for many days and for and for many years to really drill in on this iron ox. And not doing anything, but that's wonderfully liberating. Think about the energy conservation of that statement. Not doing anything. There's nothing to do, really, nothing to do, no time to be wasted, a timelessness, no time to be counted or noticed. How about that approach to Zazen? You know, can you sit in the middle of the afternoon and not do you know and not have to recognize or or count down which period that it is? How many afternoons I've spent in here like coming up and like, oh no, the afternoon block. I hate the afternoon block. I don't like the afternoon block, right? But this has got nothing to do with me. You know, me, I, that gets your ass in the door, but then when you sit, I mean can hand the keys to the Buddha. Because I mean is too intoxicated to drive this. It's better to just hand the keys in and do nothing. If you're doing nothing, you're just sitting idly as a test. It's still all these, this is many years later, still test it, still probe it, still maintain, you know, to maintain that that high standard, not just taking it as, oh okay, you're good, I'm good, you're good, good. No, but really probing and caring to check. That's just sitting idly. You know, that's one of the wonderful mistakes or stereotypes about meditation retreats. Right? The uh enjoy your retreat of the that's one of my favorites. Um, a guy from came over from the UK, Keith, who was here for wrote Hatsu some years ago, and he got a call from from his daughter about two o'clock in the morning on the last the last night of session. And he said his heart, because he was on his emergency thing and his heart jumped. Oh my god, what's happened? And he answered the phone and she said, Hiya dad, how's your holiday going? How's your holiday? He's like, I told, I told him it's not a holiday. It's not, but maybe it but perhaps it can be. If you can just sit. And not work against something. And work against yourself. And not sit idly, which is just to you know waste time. And then he asks him that question, then what is it that you are not doing? Uh and he says, even 10,000 Buddhas don't know. What is this? Even 10,000 Buddhas don't know. That's a wonderful statement. How do you think you're gonna know? Or I'm gonna know. Even 10,000 of those who have joined the ranks of the great Buddhas don't know. It's not about finding something out. Even 10,000 Buddhas don't know. But that is the gate blown off its hinges and the wide open landscape of uh this unfolding mystery we call life. It really is. It's extraordinary. It strikes me every day that it's just like, what is this? Like, what is going on? It's extra, isn't it extraordinary? And these people from the long past, you know, they're they're well they're not even ashes at these points, they're ashes long ago blew across the mountainside. Long gone. And yet, through this lineage, you know, it's like this is what is passed down to us today. All the way from the Buddha through Bodhidharma, through these great sages in China, you know, and then Master Dogen taking the boat to China, not satisfied, had the credential, finished quantity, not in, it doesn't matter. Goes all the way to China, brings his lineage back to Japan, Kzan Zenji creates this wonderful book and so much more. Fast forward 600 years of in of selfless and devoted practice to my Zumi Roshi who comes from Japan and brings it here in the in, you know, and then Tenshin Roshi and those others who first generation Western teachers, and then on it goes, that is a beautiful family to be a part of, with some real characters in it, like any family. And that's what we're all involved in now. So, like how how precious. You know, in the time that we have, the life that we are, can we match these? Can we match these standards of of of yesteryear? Why not? They were people, hands and feet, just the same. Master Dogen asked what he was realized in China. He said, my eyes are horizontal, my nose is vertical. Right? Not some great secret to be found, but something that's abundant in everyone's heart mind now. But it you know, the cost of entry is setting aside the one who stands in the gate and picks and chooses, and is spinning and constructing the story and the narrative, wants to know, and wants to check it out before purchasing. That one has to go to the side. But how wonderful rather to return to the original context of mind. That is me I has not disappeared. But sometimes me I shouldn't be driving the bus. Okay, so um and you know, speaking to myself when I say please can let's continue to make uh real effort in every in every activity. But that effort doesn't have to be a straining get after it effort about everything, matching whatever is at hand, whatever that activity is, doesn't even have to be named, whatever the function of this now, matching that with mindful awareness, with presence, with engagement, in order to in order to really penetrate that. And then you know it for yourself.