The One Behind the Name

You have to break through to this.

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Good morning. Nice bright good morning. And uh thank you for your everyone's efforts so far. Somebody said to me a few days ago, uh Session's hard. I'm like, yeah, no kidding, right? Session is it is difficult. Uh it is a a challenge. You need to make uh real effort during Session. And yet that um and that effort is one of the hallmarks of our practice, one of the hallmarks of a Zen school, is to make uh make a real genuine effort in the way. And um, I feel sincerely grateful. Um, and I do, you know, it's like I don't mean as a cliche, you throw out you hear the word gratitude or appreciation quite a lot, but I know so I feel grateful. I feel grateful to to be here. I feel grateful for for your being here and uh upholding uh the our practice and um bringing uh bringing life and energy to to this week. And I'm conscious too that something of my you know part-time attendance. Um I feel I'm I'm grateful I'm being supported uh by uh Tenshirochi and others, all the residents, you know, Dan stepping up and and others, in order to have that be possible and still things being being taken care of. But anyway, it's I shouldn't want to begin with an Oscar speech. That's the terrible terrible approach. So but I did want to uh thank you for your efforts so far, and and this is really the time now where we go into the into the home strait, you know, or turn the corner, you know, coming down into that into that strait where everything that went in before uh is about to really count. You know, the end the end uh is approaching in that way, and yet there's still uh a full day and uh great opportunity for uh for for realization, if we use that word. It's a great opportunity for um taking care of whatever it is that brought each of us to this place here now, and made this decision to invest uh time and and energy in uh in coming to retreat. What a remarkable thing that this tradition has endured for for so long. It really is a remarkable thing. There are not many things in this world, many many systems or traditions that have continued unbroken for for millennia. And we can turn to these uh collections from the past, look into the you know, the so-called golden age of Zen, maybe in the late Tang dynasty. I'm going to bring up a case from from there. And these these cases have been cherished and worked on, guarded, and more importantly, they've been used. They've been used, they've been put to use as tools to catalyze people toward realizing their nature, this nature. Um I'll read the case. Let me see. So this is uh uh case 38 of the book of equanimity. You may know this case, uh Rinzai's true person. Main case, attention. Rinzai addressed the assembly, saying, There is a true person of no rank. They are always leaving and entering the gates of your face. You beginners who have not witnessed him, look, look. Thereupon a monk asked, How about this true person of no rank? Rinzai got down from the seat and grabbed him. The monk hesitated. Rinzai pushed him away, saying, This true person of no rank, what a shit stick he is. Right, so quite uh ends on a kind of a coarse note, you know, but that's that's uh not a negative thing. Um Taido Sensei Rich brought up yesterday uh some of the exemplars, some of the um the greats of a tradition in in this same same era. Bringing up uh how um would um would drive people from the hall of his stick. We have Rinzai here, who is certainly fond of the stick as a as a device, would strike people, would um would drive them from the hall. Rinzai here grabbing somebody, you know, not for the for the first time, not for the for the last time. We can we can look back and it can seem, wow, that's that's uh that seems pretty coarse or over the top. You know, we have this tendency in the modern generation to look back in time and judge people and things by the standards of now. In fact, we do that looking five years back, you know, but if we do it, we we also do it looking a couple of a couple of thousand years back. But the ancient world was a uh a brutal and dangerous place. Uh recently I I love to listen to podcasts. I've been listening when I drive, I've been listening to a historical podcast, and it's the I finished a history of Rome and it I went to the history of Byzantium, it's like the Eastern Roman Empire. I know nothing about that. Didn't cover that in school. And I've been listening to it, and I'm up to about the same time, like the late 7th century, where this is occurring, just around the same time. And um compared to what was happening in Byzantium in those areas, chasing the monks out the hall with a stick is pretty light stuff. You know, that would be like considered a a microaggression in the in in the ancient world. Like put it put in that in that context, it's uh it's not so coarse behavior, but why why did um why did teachers behave uh and express in this way? Again, you know, with Taido bringing up talk yesterday about uh uh what is what is appropriate, what is appropriate, what is the appropriate statement or the appropriate response, and uh what is it here that we are actually doing? What is the the the business of Sesshin? Yeah, I I love this Koan, I think, because for what for one reason is when I first came here, the first training period I did here was um somewhere in two, I think it was 2000 or 2001 at spring, and it was uh Hector Hector Belanios, yeah, Hector Dogin. Balanos, who's Dogin, I think it meant something. Do you remember what that meant? I think it's like heavenly way or something, or something, something like that. It was something because I remember him telling the name to some visiting Japanese monks, and they went, oh and they said his name was Dojin. And um he he was he was head trainee at the time, and this was his uh head, this was the co- that that he did. And um recently with with with Stefan performing that function, uh taking on the role of head trainee, you know, I I got the head trainee book where we write the case co-on, each head trainee, each training period, writes uh their their case co-on down. And uh so it just began at the start. It's like a little storybook through through through history of you know, at least 20 something years there. And and oh, I forgot about that person. You know, it's amazing how you can forget about somebody you you shared three or four years with, and then you're like, oh yeah, so and so, you know, and and then other people in there who've passed on as well, other people, you know, people who are no longer with us. You look back even through that short amount of history, and yet this uh this this way continuing. I recall uh being uh Jikido for Session, which is the role that um you know Pierre is is is performing now, and I remember being uh told off or kind of uh critiqued for my Han run being uh too fast. You know, so I was out there, it's like yeah, always finishing the Han too fast. I think it was Hector at the time. He won't mind me telling this. And um I said, look, here's a from a book, it says nine seconds. And I started counting and then hitting it, and he's like, no, no, don't do it like that. It's more like this. One. Two. And I'm like, those aren't seconds. And he's like, doesn't seconds, and and then really, but really railing against that as having a sense of injustice around, you know, it should be, it it should be the it should be done the right way. You know, I have an idea about what the right way is. But you learn you learn that um well, you learn that there is no right way, or that right way, that um desire or or uh impulse to to be right, to be in that position, uh doesn't doesn't serve so much. But to to be able to blend, to be able to disappear into a role and bring a role to life, to let a role function so that you don't appear there. But rather it's done how it's meant to be done. There's no need for you. Um Roshin is talking, he he brought up, you know, I have my my friend who I talk with who who practices in in Japan, was um with with the abbot there, was went down into the founders hall to do a service. And founder, one of the key founders of Rinzai Zen, Kanzan, Egan, much venerated in the Rinzai school. In fact, I haven't been there, but he said that these kind of steps that make you go, you go down low, like it's like you go and descending into a into a tomb or something, and then you come up in the founder's room and he's there. And he said during the service he he uh he uh hit the clappers a little loud, like we have the clappers for for kin. And and when he later uh he said, you know, the abbot Sogan wrote he really reamed him out for hitting the clappers too hard. And he he he just hit him a little hard, but he's just like he said he was he was upset in that the clappers are struck just so the clappers are struck like this. They they're just struck, that's how the clappers are struck. That's what the life of clappers are. You know, I'm kind of kind of adding my thing here, but it's it's that that's that's how the clappers are struck. If you hit them too loud, you know, or you hit them timidly or too soft, that's bringing you in. Yeah, that that's that's when we bring clappers are struck just so, the bell is struck just so. Everything is done just so. And it's one of the great gifts of the training here, of a training of forms anywhere, but here they're really sharpened to that point where we do things as they are meant to be done, how they're practiced, how they've always been practiced. So we don't have to drag a lot of me in and do it my way, of a way that I think it should be done. Because after all, the business that we're involved in is in confronting the dissatisfaction and the paradox and the problem of this I mean identity. Are we not involved in that? You know, when we I wanted to bring up something just as an aside from Master Master Umon, which I think is instructive. So this is his very first day, Umon, as um as abbot. So he succeeded to uh he's a successor of Seppo. Umon first entered the hall as abbot, the governor attended in person and said to the master, your disciple asks for your valued teaching. First day is abbot, so what have you got? And Umon says, There is nothing special to say. It is better if I don't speak and thereby deceive you all. I'm sorry that I've already played the part of a wily old fox for all of you. If a man of clear vision were to suddenly see me now, I'd be the object of laughter. But if I can't avoid it, then I'll just ask you all from the beginning what's the big deal? What are you lacking? I don't have anything to say. There's nothing to be seen. You have to break through to this on your own. And that's really worth emphasizing. You have to break through to this on your own. And don't ask silly questions. In my mind, this is Uman, in my mind, there's just a dark fog. Tomorrow morning and the day after, there are a lot of affairs going on here. If your disposition is to stay here, tarry, and not return to your usual lives, to look here and there at the gates and gardens built by the ancients. What point is there in all of this? Do you want to understand? Good question. Do you want to understand Zen? Do you want to understand something in this practice? That's just due to your own quagmire of delusion accumulated for endless eons. You hear someone expound on something and it puts doubt in your mind. So you ask about Buddha and you ask about the ancestors looking high and low, searching for a solution, getting caught up in things. This scheme in mind is wide of the mark. It's always caught up in words and phrases. Isn't what you require the non-intentioned mind? Don't be mistaken about this. And there's nothing more to say. Take care. You know. But isn't it that what we require? The non-intentioned mind. Do you want to understand? That's the quagmire of your own delusion throughout the eons. What's the big deal? What are you lacking? I don't have anything to say. And this is consistent through through the teachers of this era and this era. That era, this era, the same era. That's the standard. You have to break through to this for yourself. That that is the journey of the process of practice. For many people, we begin at the beginning with a goal. Maybe the goal is to become enlightened. Maybe the goal isn't so grandiose. It's just to reduce difficulty, reduce stress, or what you know, to get over something. You know, it brings uh different people in different different ways into this in order to in order to practice. So so here we have again Master Rinzai addressing the assembly. And there's a true person of no rank. Every one of us has an identity. An aspect, uh fundamental aspect of our human condition. The accumulated karma of our parents, our grandparents, so forth, back to whenever. You know, the accumulated karma of a whole world showing up in the cause of causes and conditions that show up as this body, this personality, this idea or sense of self that we call me, with the history, with uh the things that have happened, the good parts and the bad parts, the traumas, the joys, all of that collection of history or of uh of karma. I use that word. I was reading about Master Bokushu, who uh helped instruct umon. When he was about to die, he said, uh, this body's karma is almost complete, I'm dying. This body's karma is almost complete. You know, we appear one day in this world. What what where where is the meaning there? So one one day we just fly in through a window somehow, we just appear. We're here, there's this body, there's this circumstance, the certain family born in a certain country, a certain way is manifest. It's way beyond our comprehension or or or our control, born into this role, this this role of a lifetime. You we're each of us is that, living, living this role. And and so through our living and our um the through our experience, we could we come to a practice like this. We realize, as it talks about in the in the instructions that are read at the beginning of Seshin, all those who come to Seshin have way-seeking mind. There is that uh for those for those people, these people, us, right, there's that spark. At some point that spark says, wait, what with a world of this experience is life. What is this? What is this? What is this? Yeah, and practitioners of Xena, uh, you know, we we come into this. I love in the in the Jukai, we'll have a Jukai tomorrow. Uh, and it there's a line in there it says um uh you now you no longer uh you will no longer follow those of uh uh dualistic belief. It's like you you've realized that uh uh the stories, the stories we're told about what this life is, where it comes from, where you go, how it all works, is um is a crafted narrative, you know, which can help keep you happy. It works for many people. But for for meditators, practitioners of of Zen, although some people can practice Zen or practice Dharma and you know practice the religious aspects of that and take some uh take some instruction or some solace from out from that way. But that's not the way here of uh uh of Master Rinzai. There is a true person of no rank, no identity, no history, no name, who is that one? Always entering and leaving the gates of your face. Well you have long hours of Zazen this week in the Zendo. How much of, you know, for many of us is a certain maybe a tussle to stay with the one with the identity in the history, the one that is always pondering, sort of planning, thinking about, projecting the future, you know, pondering the past. Some of that is necessary. After all, we are this that is a powerful aspect. Of the human condition. So we have to sit with those dregs in order to allow over time, over the seven days, you know, really allow the body, mind to sit, allow all things to be as they are, and allow these causes and conditions, positions and identities and all of those things between the ears to fall off, to settle. And then do we not then there is C the true person of no rank? When that one without is beyond the identity or has no identity or name. Who is that one? That one that we realize in these hours of Zarzen, and not just in Zarzen, but also in our other activities. When we're able to just let go of a cacophony of, you know, the ghosts in the cave kicking around the ears, having conversations, we let that fall off. Whereas a true person of no rank leaving and entering the gates of your face. That's perhaps a difficult line to understand. Do you see any leaving or entering? Any arising or passing away? But we hear sounds, we hear we also hear silence, we see shapes. You beginners who have not witnessed this one, look, look. And I would love to look back and see what character was used here for beginners. Because I still feel it's instructive for uh experts, beginners, and intermediaries alike. Rather to say, look, look. The real the the great activity of uh of Zazen. To look. I really appreciate the the signs that um Toku is um Roshi have worked on a mountain in the Zendo. You know, you just see it when you go up, Zendo. Alright, this is important. You enter here, look, look. This is the time now to look. Look with more than the eye though, looking with the ear, looking with the heart, looking with all of this true one. The one that's true, this one, the one that never moves, it doesn't change. But everything comes and goes within, we see the forms, including the karma, you know, again of this this very body, this changing, yes, what is it that doesn't change? That's the work, that's what is so important to really see into. You know, because if we're always just working out the conditions of our life, then that's that's a waste of uh of effort and session ultimately. You know, if we're just arranging the conditions, because those conditions will eventually turn sour and collapse, no matter how beautifully structured the form of our life is, it will all collapse. I I appreciate the the monk here. You know, if this is one of those coins that doesn't end with a little line, and they got deeply, they were immediately and greatly enlightened. But but that, you know, for myself in reading these cases when I first became interested in in Zen and in study, that was a wonderful device. It's like, ah, I want that. You know, that's that's that's what I want to see. That person became enlightened by a pebble striking a piece of wood. I want that, I want that. You know, maybe I should, maybe I'll have to move to the States. You know, not such a still, that's a good decision anyway. Zen or not, it's better it's better over here. But this this doesn't this doesn't end in that way. As he often would do, apparently stand in front of the assembly and like, alright, times are ticking, let's go. Let's say something, and let's see who's who's got the courage to throw their hat in the ring and stand up and do something or say something, risk something. Session is that, risk something. Even better, push it all in. You know, don't play the five dollar table. You know, just sit there trying to have the three drinks. You know, but rather it's it's it's all at some point it all has to go in, and it has to it really has to be risked. Those who have not witnessed this one, look, look, thereupon a monk, someone says, alright, going in, I'll have a go. And this would take courage with with teachers of this ilk to to do this. And then he says, How about this true person of no rank? You know, perhaps not the strongest retort. You know, maybe trying to, you know, it's like a little jab, trying just at least trying to get in there, throw something. I'm gonna throw something. How about this one of no rank? What would you say? What do you say? You know, what would you say in this in this place? Or would we sit there? Uh, I'm gonna see what happens. I'll just sit quietly and let them have a go. You know, I was reading something recently, I'm gonna paraphrase it awfully, but it was something that John F. Kennedy wrote about uh Roosevelt. He said, uh a man who uh who dared to dared to risk, you know, who lived greatly and dared to risk. He said, and that's what's important, to risk something. And then if you succeed, you can do great things, leave a mark, have legacy. You know, and if you lose, if it fails, and still, you know, you're remembered, you have great legacy, like this monk, not named here, but somebody who is able to, whether they lose or not, isn't important. You know, but the willingness to step into the role, whether it's host or guest, whether it's expert or fool. It's priceless, endless opportunity here and in Sachin to move smoothly or to enter into all of those roles. You know, we're we have a turnover now with some like with new, or there's always some new people, and some people leave and some people come, and so we're always starting the training and the practice over and over again. Sometimes it's a little wearing, like, oh, got a train from scratch again, you know. And yeah, you know, walking in, I woke up, okay, bow, go up. Alright, there's no incense, there's no one here to give me any incense. I'll get my own incense. I'll get the incense, go get the incense, and then oh no, someone's here. Oh, it's Roshi getting the incense. I'll like the incense. You know, it's not like, well, I don't do that, and the abbot, you know, that's the demon's role. Although it's nice when somebody, you know, there is a it's good to see that though, and keep the eyes open and you see, oh, okay, it's not a big deal. You like the incense and we do that. We move through these, it's important to be able to step into the place of whatever is whatever is required. Yeah, I was coming home once from a driving back here, and I stopped at a restaurant, uh, at a rest stop off the freeway, and uh it's one of those like I gotta go, you know, and you and I packed the car and I went up and I went to walk in, and this lady's like, hey, whoa, whoa! And I look, and it's like the the lady's cleaning the place, and she goes, That's the ladies, you know, and there's another lady with a cleaning, and I'm like, oh, and they just laughed at me like I was the biggest idiot, you know. And and it was really in me to to say something, you know, to like scroll, you know, to you know, and push back on that. But then I realized I can be an idiot for you. You know, so I I laughed a little bit too. I'm like, oh yeah, I'm a dumbass, and then walked around and went to the men's. And there was nothing lost in that by being the dumbass, and hopefully making a brighter day for somebody who's got a pretty shitty job and cleaning up at the at the at the rest stop. Yet if we have this like rank and identity, you have a person of some rank, got some chevrons, and and I am this person, and therefore I need to be, I can only enter into these situations, then it's limiting. Then you struggle. You can only live a certain amount of forms in life. You can only enter in a few a certain amount of gates. But in our in our practice, again, we learn to be able to set that one, not even set that one aside, that's the practice. That's a practice. Right? We hear that over and over. Set thinking aside. Don't resist that and find that, resist that impulse. Sooner or later, stop. Stop working it out, stop just rearranging the furniture in our heads of our life, and that there is almost like a putting aside there, but really the shift is that no longer runs the show. That is not the most important thing. That is rather just an aspect of being. But that functions or not. But we have choice, we develop, we find the space, we find the the choice, you find the freedom to be able to be as as you are. To trust, to respond naturally. How about this person of no rank? Rinzai got down from his seat and grabbed him. You can only you can picture that, you know. Like, oh no. And the and the stutter or doesn't really know what to say. The monk hesitated. This was uh not the desired response to hesitate, to try and think it through, to find the right thing to say or the right thing to do. You know, no real confidence there. You know, when real confidence settles in, you can again you can be the fool. Or you can be the boss, you can be everything in between. The confidence to like let that let that come naturally. And it helps, it's a wonderful device in this training to be again put into those positions where it's difficult. It's so unpopular now, especially in this day and age, to cause any kind of affront to anybody. You know? I I I was at uh a meeting some time ago and the word came up triggered, and it caught it, it's like wildfire. People are like, I'm triggered, and then someone else said, I was triggered by that too, and somebody else was triggered by something else, you know. But being tri be triggered, be triggered, and session, and that of our practices are triggered from our place of uh the nest, of a comfort, of a place where we're hanging out and feel a certain amount of solidity and safety. Much better that that is disrupted, much better that that that rug is yanked from from under us. But you know, the the monk had the courage to put themselves in that position. Rinzai pushed them away, saying, This true person of no rank, what a shit stick he is. Um Rinzai was famous for saying such things in some of these uh Tang dynasty masters. My my basic understanding um was may know better. I think that shit stick was the toiletry of the day. It's like a stick, I think it had a piece of cloth on the end, and and and that's what that's what you used. So clearly there's you could take it as a rebuke. Right? You're you're a shit stick, nobody wants to be called a shit stick, and yet a shit stick performs a wonderful purpose that no one no one or nothing else wants to do. Who wants to do that? Even a shit stick is valuable, is important, performs a function. Remember when COVID was first happening, and it was pretty early in the game for realizing with some trouble coming here and being responsible here as the administrator. It's like we've got to start, you know, Roshiday talking about it. You start laying in some supplies just in case this is like a bowler or something, you know, so start to go down. And I I was amazed at the toilet paper thing. Why? Like, why did the toilet paper go? It wasn't a gastric illness, right? But and yet there was something that people just drove people to say, toilet paper, get the toilet paper. That's an essential. It turned out to be very like very very up for people. I mean, I need that, that's an essential thing. It was a big run on shit sticks too. Yeah, big run on shit sticks. Exactly. I got them back audited. But uh so here, you know, you may say Master Rinzai is a great is a great teacher, and then we have the monk who doesn't really know what they're doing, and then he's kicked out for not answering well. Clear winners and losers. That's but that's still that's only really a surface look. You know, you look more broadly, everybody wonderfully fulfills their role. Master Rinzai needs for Fall Guy, for the Koan to make it to the page. It needs for congregation to witness it. You know, the people that compiled, put the record together and took care of this and passed it down down the years. All with a wonderful, again, as Master Umon on his first day talked about, that that non-intentioned mind, that mind that is this true person. Extraordinary that we we have this, we all have this, we all are this in common, this common root. When the me, my, those things that is put aside, maybe we process that through by Wednesday somewhat, you find some space there. And then what the sameness, the commonality, the same root of all things, people, that really starts to shine and come forward. You see the truth, the great, the real, just the great truth of this this practice, this realization. It isn't dependent on scheme or belief, narrative, but is investing the time and the energy to like and the courage to come face to face directly with this great matter of being this, appearing as this in this life. These people down the ages, long gone, long gone, their bodies, long gone. This body on its way. So so how powerful a goad then, how important to look at, okay, looking beyond this conditioned one or this one that lives however many years, to really become intimate with the one who is ageless. That always is always thus. Earlier in the week, of course, we had the memorial service for my Izumi Roshi's brother, Junio Roshi Roshi. Um, I was more affected by that than than I would have assumed. I I'd met him at the 50th at ZCLA, and but then you know Roshi texted me that this had just this just happened. I saw an email or white plump because it should just check and okay, because we'll of course we'll do a memorial service. It was so affecting, and you know, I woke up at like maybe like three o'clock, like I think I'll go up and start making a start at around four to like start to you know this this isn't because this is important. This is important. This is important, you know, that somebody who gave so powerfully to this place, this tradition, this way, passes from this life, and now and the responsibility. I feel that, I feel that. It's like it's okay when there's one someone ahead of you carrying the torch and you can stay one step behind. That's a good spot. You know, it's like when you see the geese or gulls flying in the sky, you know, and you see one or like an Peloton and a Tour de France, it's nice to just sit on the shoulder of the leader, right? You can you can get their slipstream a little bit. It's much tougher when you're the one who has to go to the front. And um, I read that there he had some last words as traditional in the Zen tradition for have some last words. There's uh collections of uh death poems in Japan, not just in Zen, in Samurai tradition as well. Incre you know some incredibly power incredible poetry. You know, I mean such a rich time to write something down. And this was this was his. I'd like to close with this uh from Baikaku Junio Daiosio. Eighty-two years. Some were good, some were bad. Like this, like this, like a dream, this life, so full of richness. The Dharmakaya never dies. The true person lives forever. From someone who practiced and came to know as a true person of no rank. So whether uh whether that's been a uh a distant has been a something on the horizon or a glimpse or whatever our understanding of realization there, this is endless in scope. And whether uh a beginner or expert or somewhere in between, there's no place to stand there. There's there's no nest to sit in. There is this con there is this always this refinement, this going straight ahead. You know, matching, finding that appropriate response, or rather allowing that appropriate response, having that confidence and freedom that knows, knows in the cells what this is now, how to act, how to go forward, how to live this role, each one of us, our role of a lifetime, how to live it fully. Right? So when you when you're done, there's no regret there. You left it all on the stage. So please let's uh again thank you for your your efforts. Let's let's continue. Uh and just uh a reminder to yeah that this is the the time to really, not the time to throttle back or to to coast, but rather this is the turn into the final straight. Yeah, this is the time to like push to the front. This is the time to go further and to stretch. So thank you.