Okay, well, I'm just going to go ahead, because it's time, and just to welcome Tiger and Leighton. So many people already know him, because he's been here at least a few times with us on Zoom. Tiger, maybe one of these days we'll get a flesh battle. But many people, even if you haven't seen him on Zoom before, it's very likely you've encountered one of his main books. He's a wonderful writer, translator, commentator. He's got so many collaborations with so many wonderful people, Taigen, on Doshan, on Shurto. Because of Taigen, we chant the Song of the Grass Root Hut every Friday morning. That's a translation of the Taigen I was working on. And then the focus for the next three weeks is Chan Master Doshan, and that's what we chant on Wednesday mornings, the Song of the Jewel, Deer Samadhi. So, Ty, just with that, thank you so much for being with us again.

[01:04]

So good to see you. It's all yours. Hey, thank you. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Okay, great. So, yes, this is the series of talks on Dongshan, who is the founder of the Soto lineage in China called Shaoshan in Chinese. And his dates, for whatever that's worth, are from 807 to 869. So he's... way back ninth century. Um, and, uh, so tonight I'm going to talk about, uh, we'll see, but maybe three stories, seminal stories from Dongshan. Um, and then, uh, next week I'll be talking about the jewel mare Samadhi and the following week about the five degrees or five positions. So, uh, The start, and I see there's still people coming into the room.

[02:10]

So I'll pause for a second. And... You're shifting around a little bit so we can see, because you make a stunning character. Okay, well, so... Dongshan... first met his teacher through an inquiry, a question that he had. This is about the national teacher at the time, well, earlier, Nanyang Huizhong, Nanyo Echu in Japanese. And he propounded that non-sentient beings expound the Dharma. So this was the issue that brought Dongshan to his teacher, Yonyan. And first, Dongshan inquired of another teacher,

[03:17]

Guishan, who was a great teacher and founder of one of the five houses of Chan, he inquired about this. He said that Nanyang had said that non-sentient beings expound the Dharma. He asked about it, and so Guishan, who was a great teacher and who Dongshan first inquired of, said that when Dongshan asked him about non-sentient beings astounding the Dharma, Guishan raised his whisk. The national teacher had said that the Avatamsaka Sutra, the great Huayen Sutra in Chinese, had a passage that the earth expounds Dharma, living beings expound it.

[04:33]

Throughout the three times, everything expounds it. So he was asking about this. And Weishan just raised his whisk. when Dongshan failed to understand and asked for other explanations, Guishan suggested that he go and meet Yunyan, who was another teacher who had studied together with Guishan under Baizhang. And Yunyan, there will not be a test, so you don't have to remember all these names, but Yunyan, Ongan Donjo in Japanese, when when Dongshan went and asked Yunyan about whether non-sentient beings expound the Dharma, Yunyan raised his whisk. So, both Guishan and Yunyan raised their whisks, and Dongshan asked them, you know, asked them, well, what, how,

[05:42]

how these non-sentient beings could expound the Dharma. And Yunyan gave another example from a sutra, from the Amida Sutra, which says that Water, herbs, tree, groves, all without exception. Recite the Buddha's name, recite the Dharma. So Dongshan reflected on Yunyan's response and composed a verse that he presented to Yunyan. How marvelous, how marvelous, the verse goes, the Dharma expounded by non-sentient beings is inconceivable. Entering with your ears, no sound. Hearing with your eyes, you directly understand. So there's a question about how to understand the teaching of non-sentient beings.

[06:54]

And Jungian said, when he asked Jungian if he himself could hear them respond, He said no, because then Dongshan could not hear him, Nyonyan. So Dongshan is admitting that he could indeed hear the expounding of non-sentient beings contrary to the other version of the story. Yunyan initially states that he could hear non-sentient beings. Dongshan could not hear him. If he could hear non-sentient beings, Dongshan could not hear him. So there are different versions of these stories. But the whole issue of non-sentient beings expounding the Dharma was something that had been in the works in China for a couple hundred years. And eventually, well, there was one teacher who said that...

[08:02]

that all beings could hear the Dharma, but could hear the Dharma of non-sentient beings. And that if not, then there wouldn't be anybody who could hear the Dharma. So... this whole issue of non-sentient beings expounding the Dharma was later taken up, uh, in an essay in Shobo Genzo by Dogen, uh, non-sentient beings expound the Dharma. And, um, But this thing about listening with your ears, no sound, hearing with your eyes, you directly understand it, is an example of synesthesia. So there are examples in modern times of... And how perceptions interact, how our sense perceptions interact.

[09:13]

So hearing with your eyes, you can hear it. Dongshan says... The French symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud talked about synesthesia, too, and went so far as to give colors to all the different vowels. So he talked about seeing with his ears. And there are... various ways in which this is expressed. So this is sort of elaborate story, complicated story. There's several main characters, Nan Yang, Hui Zhang, Wei Shan, Yun Yan, Dong Shan, and then later Dogen,

[10:19]

all talking about how we can hear and see non-sentient beings. Dogen talks about this a lot. He talks about non-sentient beings as part of, you know, earth, grass, trees, walls, tiles, and pebbles. It's all expound the Dharma for Dogen in his earliest writing in Bemdowa. So this is... And whether or not we can hear it, this is about how non-sentient beings are expounded in the Dharma. So this story led Dongshan to his teacher, Yunyan. And Yunyan was... not so well-known in his own time. Guishan was, and Bai Zhang, and other great teachers, and Nanshuan, who we'll come to.

[11:25]

And Dongshan had first studied with Nanshuan. But he took Yunyan as his teacher. And he said later that he only took Yunyan as his teacher because he didn't explain everything to him. So Yunyang became Dongshan's teacher. And after some period of studying with Yunyang, Dongshan was ready to depart. And so he went to his teacher, to Yunyang, and said, Um, later on, if I'm asked, what should I say was your Dharma? What is your teaching? So, and union, um, paused.

[12:29]

And then he said, just, this is it. So I'm, I'm, uh, using my book called just, this is it. Dongshan and the practice of sessionist books for these teachings. Um, Just this is it, Yang Yan said. And actually, the pronoun it can also be a personal pronoun, like he or she or whatever. So it could also be just this person. But for now, just this is it. And Dongshan didn't know what to say. So Dongshan went on his way. He was going on pilgrimage to meet with different teachers to test his knowledge, to test their knowledge. And as he was proceeding, Dongshan crossed a stream.

[13:36]

He waded across the stream. And as he looked down, he saw his reflection. And suddenly, just this is it became alive for him. And he wrote a poem. He said, just don't seek from others or you'll be far estranged from self. I now go on alone everywhere I meet it. It now is me. I now am not it. One must understand in this way to merge with suchness. So... Just don't seek from others or you'll be far estranged from self. I now go on alone, but everywhere I meet it. It now is me. I now am not it. In the Jewelmare Samadhi, which you guys chant, it says you are not it. It actually is you, which is another way of saying this. I now am not I. It now is me. I now am not it. One must understand in this way to merge with suchness.

[14:38]

So if you just remember one line from Soto Zen, it now is me, I now am not it, actually includes all of Soto Zen. You are not it, it actually is you, is the way it's put in the Jalmer Samadhi. And just to remember that line includes all of Soto Zen. It now is me, I now am not it. And so this is about the nature of reality, the nature of suchness, and the teaching about it. So, uh, unions, um, just, this is it is a way of talking about suchness, just this suchness, just this experience that we are having now, is it?

[15:41]

So, um, and then, uh, Oh, before, before, um, when he was leaving, um, Again, if I'm asked to describe your teaching, how should I respond? And that's when Yunyan said, just this is it. And Yunyan then said to Dongshan, who was kind of lost and speechless, you are now in charge of this great matter. You must be most thoroughgoing. So in the Jomar Samadhi, which we'll talk about more next week, he says, now you have it, so keep it well, is Yonyan saying to Dongshan, you are now in charge of this great matter, please observe it well, please take good care of it. So when Dongshan looked into the stream and saw his reflection, he realized that just this suchness, just this is it.

[16:56]

Or just this person, Dongshan. Because the pronouns can be read as either personal or impersonal. So sometimes it's translated as just this person. And everywhere I go, I meet him. uh, his teacher. I'm not him. He actually is me. Uh, his would be the way of reading it that way. Uh, but this was, this is the fundamental, the founding story of Soto Zen. Uh, so, um, You are now in charge of this great matter. You must be most thoroughgoing, Yang Yan said to Dongshan. And Dongshan saw his reflection in this dream and said, just don't seek from others or you'll be far estranged from self. I now go on alone. But everywhere I meet it, it now is me.

[18:01]

I now am not it. And later on, Dogen said, to carry yourself forward and experience myriad things, in Genjo Koan, is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves as awakening, which is a way of talking about it now is me, I now am not it. Or it now is me, I now am not it. So everything coming forth and experiencing themselves is awakening. To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things, to project yourself onto things, is delusion, Dauvin says. That everything comes forth and experiences themselves is awakening. And everything coming forth includes you, includes the one who is looking and seeking and asking.

[19:06]

So... So yeah, this is Dogen's description of delusion and enlightenment, very clear. So this is in a case in the Book of Serenity, Case 49, and this refers to an experience later on when Dongshan was teaching. after he became a teacher. This was at the monthly service for Yuen Yung, and he told the story about depicting the reality. And a monk came forward. an intrepid monk, like the kitty cat that I see in Baikyo's image, and said, when Yunyan said, just this is it, what did he mean?

[20:13]

Dongshan said, at that time, I nearly misunderstood my late teacher's meanings. The monk continued, though, said, did Yonyan himself know it is or not? So questioning Yonyan, Dongshan's teacher. So Dongshan said this amazing thing. He said, if he did not know it is, how could he be able to say this? But if he did know it is, how could he be willing to say this? So, just this is it. There, I said it. But, Mark asks Dongshan, how could Yunyan be willing to say this if he knew that this is it?

[21:19]

So, This is part of what Dongshan talks about in terms of Yunyang being his teacher. And he says that, well, if he knew it is, how could he be willing to say this? So everybody has to discover this for themselves. Just your hearing this story doesn't give you the feeling of just this is it. In the verse comment in the book of Serenity, it says, how could he be willing to say this? A thousand year crane grows old with the pine and the clouds. The jewel mirror, clear and bright, shows absolute and relative, ultimate and particular. The jade machine revolves.

[22:24]

See them both show up at once. The way of the school is greatly influential. Regulated steps continue, continuous and fine. Father and son change and pass through. Oceanic is their fame. So this jewel mirror, clear and bright, shows ultimate in particular, shows the universal and the phenomenal. And this jade machine resolves, so that word for machine there is also a word for loom or for opportunity or for... the movement of the universe itself, see them both show up at once. So this story is deep. Yonyan said, just this is it.

[23:33]

Dongshan looked in the stream as he went on his way and saw his reflection. And, you know, we don't know how calm the stream was or if it was rippling or whatever, but he saw that just this is it, that it is, that I am not it, but it actually is me. So there's a lot to say about this story. But maybe I will just pause. There's another story I want to get to about Yunyan. But comments or questions about these two stories, about non-sentient beings expressing the Dharma and about this teaching of suchness. It now is me. I now am not it. I have actually two questions for you.

[24:34]

Okay, John. Yes. First, Dung Shan says, don't seek from others, but he sought from lots of teachers, and we're sitting here listening to you now. So what's the deal with that? Well, you can seek from others, but you're not going to get it from anything I say. I cannot tell you how to be Buddha. Okay. I just won't. And yet, your particular karmic reality as a person of the way... is your reality and you have to deal with that to uh see how uh how it is you're not you're not it but it actually is you is the way this is turned so uh

[25:40]

Of course, you seek from others. You're all asking Joan how to follow the way. But she can't really tell you. I mean, she can say things. She can point to things. And we can talk about these old stories and these old texts that we do. But you have to find it yourself. Okay, and the other question is about the meaning of the word being. When I hear the word being, at least in English, it implies some sort of sentience. And when you're talking about a non-sentient being, I think maybe there's a translation from Chinese or Sanskrit for the word being. Is there some subtlety there to understanding that word? Well, beings are not just sentient beings. Beings... So, you know, the cushion you're sitting on is a being.

[26:47]

The book I'm reading from is a being. This pen is a being. So, things that are existent are beings. And so... non-sentient beings sentient beings we don't know that we don't know um so recently um Relatively recently, scientists have described how forests are sentient beings. Forests are intelligent. Trees can communicate with other trees in the forest, of other species even. and can warn them of dangers, can share nutrition, can communicate in some way that we don't understand.

[27:49]

So the usual idea of sentience is something that we understand based on our particular limitations as human beings. But actually, Green mountains are walking, as Dogen says in the Mountains and Water Sutra. The whole world is alive, actually. This is the point of this non-sentient being's expounding the Dharma. that we think of sentience, we think of intelligence in terms of human intelligence, but trees, forests, tiles and rocks, the Cheyenne people of the plains talked about rocks as having intelligence.

[28:50]

And if you go to Japan and look at the rock gardens, or if you just look at rocks around you, you can see that some of them have been through some stuff. So anyway, this non-sentient beings expounding the Dharma is very deep. And so, yeah, that's a way of seeing what existent things are. Okay, I don't think... I think this means what they call panpsychism, and I won't get into it, but there are some good arguments from physics against panpsychism, but maybe this is not the time for talking about it. Well, I think modern physics has a lot of different perspectives, and some of it is going back to Dogen and Dongshan, you know, in terms of the Eastern perspective. But, yeah, okay, I'm interested in hearing those arguments, actually.

[29:53]

But maybe we'll have time later. Okay, sure. Thank you. Sure. Other questions, comments in the room or online? Okay. Well, I'm going to talk about a story about Yunyan. He was Dongshan's teacher. So Yunyan one time was sweeping the ground. In monasteries, you know, there were work periods in the residential practice place. And so you may have Soji cleaning the temple. Yunyan was sweeping the ground. And Daowu went by. Daowu was Yunyan's Dharma brother and also biological brother. And Da Wu said to Yun Yan, too busy.

[30:57]

So, you know, sweeping the ground, sweeping the walkway might seem, you know, fairly pastoral to us, you know, in our lives of multitasking and, you know, all of the things that we are involved with. But Yun Yan said, When Dao said, too busy, Yunyang said, you should know there's one who's not busy. So this is a great saying by Yunyang. And Dao said, do you mean there's a second moon? And Yunyang immediately held up his broom and said, which moon is this? So that's the story. It's a great story. You should know there's one who's not busy.

[32:00]

Which moon is this? So Dao was concerned that Yanyan was making a kind of double reality. The reality of the busyness sweeping the ground and the reality of the one who's not busy. You should know there's one who's not busy. And So Yunyan said, this is too busy, and Dao said, too busy, and Yunyan held up this broom and said, which moon is this? And so there's comments on this. This is another case in the Book of Serenity. is 21. Yes. And, um, so who will, who will, so, um, in the, uh,

[33:14]

surangama samadhi sutra it says like the second moon who will say it is the moon who will deny it for manjushri the bodhisattva of wisdom only only one moon is real in between there is naturally nothing that is or is not the moon so um You know, he's saying there's just one moon, but in the added sayings, it also says, when Daoist said, if so, then there's a second moon. Only two? There's hundreds, thousands, myriads. So how many moons are there? How many ways to awakening are there? So the moon, when it's referred to in Buddhism, it refers to the circle of the moon, the whole moon. And it refers to wholeness and fullness and awakening, complete, unsurpassed awakening. So which moon is this?

[34:18]

Yunyan immediately just said, which moon is this? So Yunyan and Dao are expressing the reality that goes beyond one or two. So Yan Yan said, you should know there's one who's not busy. In the middle of our busy world, who is the one who's not busy? How do we see that which is not busy? In the middle of our busyness, So is it two or is it one?

[35:22]

The moon is the image of wholeness, the image of fulfillment, the image of awakening. And yet, which moon is this? So this is about how we integrate The Harmony of Difference and Saneness, by Shito, who's another great teacher, actually the teacher of Yaoshan, Yunyan's teacher. How do we bring our sense of boldness, our sense of awakening, our experience of awakening, that we at least glimpse in the middle of a period of Zazen sometimes? And how do we bring that into and integrate that into our everyday activity?

[36:29]

How do we see the everyday world and the world of where you should know one is not busy, which one was not busy? How do we see that in the middle of this busy world? How do we integrate oneness and differentiation, sameness and differentiation, the universal ultimate reality and the particular phenomenal reality? So we need to take care of our particular situation, right? Conventional reality, conventional reality is a kind of reality. This goes back to the two truths, that there's the ultimate reality and the provisional, phenomenal reality. And in the middle of the busyness of our world, how do we integrate our sense of the inner version?

[37:39]

So ultimate universal reality, the wholeness that we find in Zazen, doesn't mean that we just ignore the problems of the world. But how do we find a way to bring our sense of the universal or the ultimate into the busyness of the world? So this is the question for Dongshan and actually for our whole lineage. How do we connect the ultimate universal reality into the particulars of our particular life? of the phenomenal world. And so, nirvana in samsara, you know, in early Buddhism, nirvana literally means cessation.

[38:41]

It means to check out from the particular world and to not be reborn. But the bodhisattva ideal is that we were reborn again and [...] again. And so we are in the world, in the world but not of it, but we are in the world, but also we have this space around it. So, you know, in the current situation and politically and culturally and in our societal situation, this is a big challenge. But how do we bring our practice into this phenomenal world? So, I'm interested in hearing what you all have to say. This question about integrating the universal and the particular is fundamental to Dongshan.

[39:47]

And the phenomenal world is... includes grasses and trees, fences and walls, tiles and pebbles, as Dogen later says, and includes the possibility of wholeness, the possibility of calm, clarity, the possibility of seeing things the wholeness and fullness of the world. And yet, how do we take care of that in the particulars? It's not separate. And the five degrees, which we'll talk about in a couple of weeks, is about the process by which those are integrated. Yeah. So, comments, questions? You know, maybe it was a time where I kind of thought I saw the universal, but these days all I see are particulars.

[41:04]

Okay. But you sit Zazen, right? Yes. Okay. Well, in Zazen, you know, we get glimpses. We get tastes. We get, you know, out of the corner of our eye we see... Some possibility of fullness. Some possibility of fullness of realization. It's just there. Yeah. How to... And if you only see particulars, well, that's okay. But then, you know, the particulars also have within them the wholeness, the fullness of reality. So what particulars do you particularly need?

[42:12]

Oh... Let's see. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Okay. I want to open it up. I want you to do that. I was just trying to say how wonderful it is to hear you whenever you come and recognizing that there are some people who integrate, as we're talking about, more slowly. And so I just want to make sure that other voices get heard, too. Okay. room here just to see if anybody would like to share anything that's coming up for you. I had an experience. I was in New York City and I had the care of a VIP. She's an Ecuadorian and I don't speak Spanish. She didn't speak English and I was to care for her and I said,

[43:14]

Yes, I'll take her to the train station because I was right around the corner from Penn Station, and I'll get her on this train so I can go down the walk and get on that bus that would be wonderful. And then I arrived at Penn Station, and I thought I was supposed to be at Grand Central Station to drop her off. and I called my friend who would give me the care of this very special person, and she looked at the phone, and I asked her, you know, can you prop our gods down the steps to get on the train from this way down here? I didn't know how to do anything. And this beautiful woman, she was like 10 steps behind me, and I was trying to rush through, and we finally got to the station, and I bought her a ticket to And then I just jumped on the same train, and I said, okay, I think I'm going to be there. We were sitting on the train after all this, and she said something like that, like, life is good.

[44:17]

You know, I had been so stressed out for the past hour, and here I was with this amazing person, and we were on a train together. It's definitely going to open, and that's the Boston thing. So I don't know if that's the same thing, but that's what comes to mind. It's like the busy, she was not busy. And then I saw her, and then I just relaxed. Yes. She knew there was one who was not busy. Even if they're running around trying to get from one station to the next. But, of course, you were taking the part of the particular and taking care of her. So, you know, it was a perfect match. Susan. My name's Susan.

[45:21]

Hi. Hi. Hi. Listening to you speak and listening to the stories and thinking about synesthesia, if I'm really listening, I'm hearing you in what you're saying with something more than my ears. Ah. Good. And I have a sense of what the teaching is. And then there is the question of how to carry that forward. Yes. That is the question. so there's a introduction to one of these stories in the book of serenity that says what is the technique for helping people so yes the point of our practice is to believe suffering to help beings awaken how do we do that and how do we show

[46:53]

The one who's not busy in the middle of the busy world. How do we show, and the previous speaker's Ecuadorian friend was doing that, and yeah, and how do we, you know, in the age of, billionaire regime and so forth how do we respond to that and at the same time Well, I don't know. I was going to say keep our cool. Maybe it's, maybe, you know, getting excited and upset is part of the one who's not busy. Um, but how do we then, you know, uh, take a breath and realize, oh, okay, we have to, um, persist and resist and weather this storm and so forth. Um, So I don't know if today was May Day.

[47:58]

I don't know if there was an action in Boston. And I don't know what the weather was like. It was raining here in the morning and then it cleared up. And so I haven't heard about people in Chicago, but I assume that there were a lot of people. demonstrating, whatever, but how to do that in a way that's not, how not to be caught by our anger, or by our grasping our greed, or by our confusion, how to just see those as they arise, We can act with them, but then how do we also see the side of just the wholeness of the world? So it's challenging now.

[48:59]

I don't know if that responds to your question or not. Thank you. We have Nora looking at all the people on Zoom. Do we have anything to ask or to share? I'm going to say something. I wanted to share, Tylee, the whole time that we were sharing the third story on The One Who Is Not Busy, I was thinking about the Bodhisattva vow and thinking about how helpful it is to see that it's endless, this work, this vow, because it shifts things, you know, in a very helpful way if I start to get, I don't know, caught up in what success looks like.

[50:11]

Yeah, I'm thinking in terms of Specifically, a name on the well-being list tonight is Mohsen Madhavi. Yes. Many people know he was released. He was one of the many people who's being abducted illegally. That was a process. And helped. And was finally released yesterday. Wonderful. Wonderful. Yes. Yes. I was reading the names as I came to his name. Should I not say it? It was just a brief flicker. Should I not say it? Because he's been released. But no, this is going to be endless, especially because of what he said. It was being reported today that he said, with an iPhone recorded, I'm not afraid of you. Yes. Yeah. So, you know, this is the kind of, fearlessness of a Bodhisattva who's in it for the long haul and the walker.

[51:18]

So how this relates somehow to the one who's not busy is it just reminds me of the encouragement to just, you know, do the right thing. Forever. Moment by moment, forever. And yet, how challenging and how we need each other to encourage each other to just keep doing the right thing over and over. I just wanted to share that time because I know how devoted you are in these realms and how you also have spent your life connecting the process of Zazen with the process of justice. So anything at all you'd like to share about that? It's wide open. Please feel free. Well, yes, it's wonderful that he was released, but he still, of course, faces charges and, you know, faces court cases and is on probation or whatever word they're using.

[52:24]

So, yeah, and as you were saying, reading your well-being list, I realized that I think at Ancient Dragon we don't have Muslim Adawi and I forget their names. Well, there's so many who've been abducted by ICE and so forth. And the whole thing about immigration and how immigrants make our country stronger, actually. We've all come from immigrants, unless there are people who are Native American in the group, but even then, somebody came across the Bering Straits many years ago. Anyway, yes, so how do we see what's going on now and respond to it fearlessly?

[53:27]

And, of course, some people are more in jeopardy than others. So I, you know, people should be careful. But, yeah, Muslim Adele is not afraid. And when we see the one who's not busy, we know that ultimately there's nothing to be afraid of. I mean, there is provisional things to be afraid of. But anyway, other comments? This is Nora. This conversation was making me think of, because I was listening to this and then I was like, it's hard to see through the busyness sometimes to choose to do that because I can feel guilty sometimes maybe.

[54:29]

but it made me the discussions about you know not being afraid and doing something that might go through that i was thinking about um uh the the mothers of the plaza like the madres de la plaza in argentina um in buenos aires and how they would like March, like, every week or something like that, with pictures of their children and other people's children who had gone missing. You know, even if they were under threat from the military or anything like that, they kept... doing it you know like in terms of like visual representation um it was an emotional procession because many of them knew that their children were dead and like it was just something so and now now they've had like this like permanent monument to to what they did in, in the main capital. And so I was thinking about that and how we could, we can do actions like that, like the ones we did today for Mayday.

[55:40]

So, yeah. Yeah. So you were involved in Mayday actions today? No, I have some restrictions for work, but I would, I sent my love to them. Yes. Yes, of course. And, um, So I think there will be actions tomorrow and the next day as well. And it's going to take a long time. And there's already been a lot of damage done. But how do we see the one who's not busy in the middle of all this? How do we see the possibility of remaining calm but clear and expressing our anger? Anger is not something to be afraid of. how do we present our anger, but with the awareness of the one not risen. It's difficult, but we need to persist.

[56:43]

So thank you for the example of the woman in Argentina. Other comments or questions? Hi, Tiger. Yes. This is just a reflection. I was in a May Day demonstration today. I was on top of a bridge on the North Shore waving signs at rush hour, and somebody videotaped me. This was a friend of mine. This was not the evening news or anything, but... video stuck a microphone and said, do you videotape your comment about it? So later I was, I got sent what I said. And just before tonight I, I watched it and I'm just thinking, I felt like Dongshan looking at myself in the stream.

[57:51]

And was it me? So thank you. Yes, you're not it, but it actually is you. Or I am, it now is me, I now am not it. Yeah, so we act in the world. And the world presents us a mirror. And so how do we function in that? How do we fit into that? How do we see? How do we see? And... Yeah, so whatever you said, I'm sure was fine, you know, and helpful and important or whatever, important, not important.

[58:56]

The point is that we are alive and we are acting and we are in this world and, yeah, And, yeah, maybe, like John, you only see the particulars, but only seeing the particulars is one of the five positions in the five ranks that we'll get to in a couple of weeks. And only seeing the position is seeing the ultimate. So, Yeah, it's challenging. And the challenge, as Joan was saying, is endless. We have to keep on keeping on and acting in this life. And whatever we do, we are contributing to something bigger.

[60:00]

We are expressing something bigger. Any other comments or questions before we do that? I'm not seeing anyone in the room. I'm not sure who I was in with. I just wonder if you might share just a little bit, because this is a mixed group. There are some people brand new to Zen practice, and some people have been practicing a while. Yes. Because it occurs to me, at a certain point as you were speaking tonight, you were talking about the beginning of Soto Zen, and you made that major comment that all of Soto Zen is contained in this phrase. And I just wonder, you know, because it feels like the beginning of a new school. the new school of Zen, the Soto Zen school, I've actually never really thought about this.

[61:05]

I mean, I always knew about Doshan being one of the founders of the Soto school, but can you say a little bit more about what made this a new school? Like, what defines the Soto school in your own words, maybe thinking of Doshan a little bit? Well, you know, it wasn't just Dongshan. It was the word Sao Dong or Soto. Some people say it refers to Dongshan's disciple, Saoshan. But actually, the Sao was before the Dong. So actually, it refers to the sixth ancestor. who was called Saoshi, it's one of the places he taught, and everybody from the Sixth Ancestor to Dongshan. So we say, well, there's the Sixth Ancestor, Gui Neng, who was an illiterate woodcutter from the south, from the boondocks of Kandong, and

[62:08]

um became the sixth ancestor and then there was uh seigen yoshi sekito kisen who wrote the sando kai yakusan igen wangan donjo who's union and dongshan so in some sense the Dongshan lineage which is Dogen brought to Japan and became it's referred to as Soto even though Dogen didn't like that word but it's it's a particular lineage of people Dongshan is kind of the crown. Dongshan is also, so this is going to confuse new people, but Dongshan also could be considered, as my teacher, Reb Anderson, says, as the sixth ancestor of the Huayen school. So Huayen was based on that flower ornament, or Avatamsaka Sutra, and there were five patriarchs of that, and Dongshan could be considered the sixth.

[63:20]

So it's complicated. You know, there are all these different strands of learning and teaching. uh, going back to the school of Kanadeva, who was, uh, Nagarjuna's disciple. And that's a whole other story that maybe I'll get to next week. Cause it's, there's a reference to it in the, uh, Jewelmare Samadhi. But, um, so, but Dongshan actually, well, Dongshan said, says that the Jewelmare Samadhi was something that he got from, uh, Yunyan. But, um, in terms of it being written down. Anyway, the historical part of it, we don't really know. But yeah, Soto Zen. the practice that we do here, uh, you know, we could talk about Suzuki Roshi who brought it from Japan to California in 1959 and through the sixties in San Francisco.

[64:21]

And, uh, now it's spread to Chicago and Boston and Houston and Richmond and Chapel Hill and Milwaukee. And, you know, anyway, um, so, um, the, there's, uh, the branching streams flow in the darkness is part of the, is something that's in the Sando Kai. I don't know if you guys chant that as well as the Joel Mayer Samadhi, but, um, So, yeah, it is a new school and it's something that is part of twining vines, as Dogen talks about how all of the different strands of Buddhism, you know, are part of one thing. But this one thing is, for us, so does that. So Dongshan is the founder of that. And through the Jewelmare Samadhi and through the stories and through non-sentient beings expressing the Dharma, we see

[65:32]

something about Dongshan. And, uh, and, uh, yes, he, he was a great figure. And there are many stories about him, a number of them in the, in my book, Just This Is It, um, which I won't get to, but, um, yeah. So, um, Somehow that lineage survived through China and was taken up by Tian Tong Wu Jing, Dogen's teacher in China, and brought back from China to Japan by Dogen, and then Suzuki Roshi brought it. So there's all these people who created and embellished and embroidered the Dongshan lineage. But yes, we look back to Dongshan as the founder. I don't know if that is what you wanted to hear. And all this historical stuff, you know, there's all these stories and webs of stories.

[66:39]

And yeah, they're all part of it. Yeah, you know, the other aspect of me, you know, is I remember hearing the differentiation between Anzai and Soto as Soto being like the farmer, farmer's end. Yes. I think, you know, we have interested people here. I'm just thinking about the patience and the faith of a farmer. Yes, that's right. As opposed to Rinzai Zen, which is more the...

[67:14]

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