This is the first day of this July 2024 seven day sesshin. We're going to start by reading from the teachings of Yuanwu, Chinese Zen Master Yuanwu. Who wrote these letters in this book, the book is called Zen letters, teachings of Yuanwu. And these were written by him in the 12th century, he lived from 1063 to 1135.
Over the years I've read sections of this book, The Last time I've read this section that starts on page 38, was about five years ago, so won't sound familiar to some of you. Oh, before we do that, though, some words general words about about sesshin. And starting with how to listen to teisho, how, how to go about doing your practice now, during teisho.
For people who are working on a koan, and there are quite a few who are, you want to see if you can maintain the awareness of the koan as you're listening? This, this becomes less difficult. The longer you work on a koan, you can sort of keep it going in the back of your mind. But if you're newer to working on a call on and it seems like it's at odds, the awareness of the call on is at odds with the listening to the teacher, then just forget to call on during teisho. And just listen. It's a tremendous practice just listening. What many people do, especially earlier in the session is that don't just listen. They think about what is being said. Or try to figure out what is being said. This is inadvisable. In Zen practice. Or you may have associations, something that is said makes you think of something or somewhere or some time or, and strictly speaking, you don't want to go there. You want to just listen, absorb, receive. You'll catch yourself from time to time with having gone off exiting the freeway with thoughts and sensations and memories and figuring out and everything else. But just as soon as you do then, then you want to go back to just the listening. Or if if you work at koans you're able to keep the awareness to koan, then even better, but it doesn't matter that much if, if you can't do both when during teisho The key thing with Zen with Zen practice is not dwelling in thoughts. That's almost as good as staying with your koan. So don't make a problem out of it. If you seems like you can't do both. Just listen as best you can. Come back to the listening when you find yourself having wandered off mentally. The other thing is that it is it is what I always heard from Roshi Kapleau. And he from his teachers is to not look at the teacher during teisho.
From time to time, we hear about someone who's whose hearing is marginal enough that they say well, you know I can I can. I can hear better if I'm facing the teacher and speaker. But are you sure
I've always heard that people who are blind have an especially acute hearing. It's it's all all of the all of the sense perception is, is focused on just the hearing without the the visual objects getting involved
when I keep the eyes open, always in the Zendo he's doing Zen during tea showed you during Chani, the eyes are open but but not focused on anything.
Another general thing about sesshin is, this is a kind of a warning that the most common problem reported by most people, especially the first half of a seven day sesshin. The two things pain, da, physical pain, legs, hips, ankles, feet, back, neck, physical pain, and drowsiness. Those are the two big problems that people most commonly report. And both of them are more troublesome, or really become more more obstacle, through thoughts through through engaging in thoughts. As sesshin goes on, the thoughts then out, for all of us, no exception. If you're sitting 910 1214 16 hours a day, you're going to have fewer thoughts. And when you have fewer thoughts, the pain, the physical pain is less of a problem. It probably won't go away entirely. But it's just not the same problem. As earlier in sushi. The mind settles, thoughts settle. And thoughts settle, the mind relaxes, and the body relaxes that the same. Ultimately, the body is a kind of a release in the body, less contraction, less tension. Most people find that as the sheen goes on. The physical pain is, with some exceptions, if you have a sore spot in your sitting, that could get worse. And then you have to problem solve, figure out how you can relieve that. But after just the general pain, physical pain, don't despair, if today or tomorrow or day three, it's getting pretty bad. Because usually there's a tipping point in both the middle of sesshin where it goes the other direction comes less of a problem. That is as long as you're not expecting it to if you're expecting it to that's an expectation that's getting in the way and that is might very well mess up that that trajectory of less pain as you go on
and with regard to pain it's tempting sometimes to prematurely go to a chair now, I would never I would never presume to be able to know for an individual when it's time to go to a chair. It's a real balancing that has to go on some pain, some physical pain can really help concentrate the mind. You probably all know that. If we could somehow each here have our own floatation tank So there's no gravity and work everything is zero reduce pain to zero, the mind would not be very taught concentration, it would be real work to had to concentrate in that in that situation. So that's one extreme, that's a kind of a silly extreme example. So a little bit of pain can be very useful in this goes for the stick to think of the stick as acupuncture. Because it is the use of a stick originated in China, and then was picked up in in Japan. But those two spots and that there's a spot on each shoulder is along an acupuncture meridian. Surely you all know that the stick is never used as a reprimand, never. It's just used to give some acupuncture for people who want it.
When I was working on my first koan, they were they this use of the stick was so heavy at the Arnold Park Zendo. I learned and before sesshin was soon to begin to put mole skin on each shoulder, most skin is this it's actually quite thin, some people will put socks in their shoulders near the neck to really reduce the pain, I wanted some pain. But the smallest can kept my shoulders from splitting open, which they would would have done in earlier sessions. But the the moleskin kept the the skin intact, and it worked very well. But the point is that it can be a great a two concentration to receive the stick. But again, no second guessing on our part of the monitors or we're not second guessing anyone you have to make that decision yourself. Same with going to a chair you might just you might just before going too quickly to a chair, see if you can get deeper into the practice you're working on. That's what transforms the pain
if you go too soon to a chair, then you discover that that we have within our own mind our concentration, we have this amazing power to transform pain to trend transcend pain but then it's of course up to each individual so both physical pain and drowsiness a lot of people are plagued by drowsiness. Again, I think it's more common the first half a session why? Same reason that pain is more of an obstacle in the first composition because of thoughts. And by that I never mean just thoughts but I mean dwelling invites clinging to thoughts that's the problem thoughts are going to come whether we want them to or not. This is stuff function function of living brain that there's some some at least some low level of thought activity. Without without the only way to get be completely free of that kind of fight activity is to flatline. So make peace with thoughts coming and going and just do your best to avoid getting involved with a mentally involved with them. That's where the course the practice comes in that you're working on. The breath practice, the shikantaza or the koan. You we can't just decide, okay, I'm not going to thank all we can do is find a wait place to redirect our attention And that's the practice we're working on. So physical pain, drowsiness, this is what goes on in the Zendo a lot the first half a session. But it needn't be such a insuperable problem with with the with you marshal the power of concentration on the practice. Another thing you could say as sort of the flavor of sesshin, is being tired. Now, I'm not talking about just the drowsiness of sitting still in the Zendo. But all the time. People who have been to sesshin know that this is just part of the deal.
As part of the deal of being a parent, of a newborn, an infant, a young child is just part of the deal, you're tired a lot. If parents the world over can do this. I think it's mostly mothers. If parents can do this, then surely we should be able to accept that we're going to be tired a lot in sesshin.
One other thing that I wish I had heard early in my sesshin career is that dreams, dreams during the night, can get wild during the shame. And also now I'm not just speaking from my own experience, but from many, many hearing from many students who've had the same, there's something about the way that a lot of sitting a day opens up the channels. And we have all this material that rises to the surface, and it can be ugly. I wish someone had told me that you can have dreams that are violent dreams that are grotesque dreams that are depraved this is this is not a reflection of some kind of an enduring character you have it's just garbage from deep in the mind. Good. flush it out, let it flush out. Don't waste any time analyzing your dreams. Trying to figure them out. There's a place for that that can be something in psychotherapy that may be useful. But for this one week, and for many people, many people have only one or two weeks a year to do sesshin quit the analyzing and figuring out dreams. To do so means you're not present. You're still back in the dream is your head
just a little bit more about that there's a lot that bubbles up during sesshin this is the the wonderful ironies of sesshin that the more Zen not just sesshin Zen, but especially sesshin is the more we keep the mind directed to know mind. The more of the mind, we see that is the more thoughts and memories and so forth, become become apparent to us. And that's just the natural order of things course that stuffers is rising to the surface. The important thing is not to do anything think there's anything you need to do with it
my first few sessions I thought I was working on Mu but now looking back on it. I think I was working on mom more than some very, very purging, very liberating to just just to have it come up and not do anything with it. To see it. It's enough. Watch it go buy let it go. Very valuable process without thinking about our thoughts. Sir memories or anything? All right. Now, back to you. Yuanwu. Yuanwu is credited as the author, the main author of The Blue Cliff Record, Blue Cliff Record is the, the, I think for most most Zen lineages, it's the second main collection of koans. And it's also I've read, highly, highly regarded as a work of literature aside from Zen, as a work of Chinese literature. Those of us who aren't fluent in Chinese would never be able to appreciate what a sublime work of literature it is. But it sure has a lot, a lot about the koans themselves to us who are not who don't know, Chinese. So I'm just going to pick up here about the middle third of the book and start off with one of his letters. He says, The present perception is the truth. But the truth is beyond this perception. That's a, that's a lot just in that first sentence. The present perception is hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling, and thinking. And Buddhist psychology thinking is kind of the sixth sense, in addition to the usual five. So that seeing hearing, feeling, and so forth, is it's not contrary to the truth. How absurd. Why would hearing something be contrary to the truth? It's what is it's what is it's not? How could that not be the truth. But then the second half, but the truth is beyond this perception, and he goes on to elaborate, if you are attached to perception, then this is a perception it is not arriving at the truth. The words, it's, it's the experience of just limited to the theory of seeing and hearing and so forth. And it's not beyond that. So how do we get beyond the perception is ordinary conventional perception that everyone in the world has the faculties to do? We get beyond it by not clinging to it. So that's a tall order to not cling at all to a perception. Already, just in the last 12 hours, I've seen some deer in the back here. You see from the water table, some deer frolicking. Moving about okay, that's a perception. So you notice it, there it is. How, how quickly can you let go of it? Or it's put another how, how long are you going to think about it? That's the problem. And draw associations from it and memories from it.
When I came in for the round of sitting before teisho This morning, I saw there was a dead bird on the the porch there, again, looking the other direction. Looking toward the courtyard from the water table area. There was a dead bird evidently had crashed into the glass. We do our best to prevent this. We have these decals. For a while we had these glittering objects suspended to even further keep them from doing this. But despite our best Stafford's this see still happens. Okay, so you notice the dead bird on its back with its little feet up there? How long are you going to think about that? It's natural to think, okay. Someone's going to take it away. And certainly someone will run to the monitors or someone will, will take it away. Bury it maybe if they haven't already done so. But in the meantime, okay, dead bird. Mo
for people working on, what is it? What is it that seeing the bird? What is it that's maybe thinking about the bird? Who is it, who's thinking and seeing the bird? There, it's to detach from the bird as an object. That's the key thing that I was saying in my opening talk. It's all about detaching from objects, not blocking the perception. We don't go around with earplugs and, and eye masks. So we see and we hear and so forth. But then not lingering in the sound of the sight of the smell and so forth, are the thought.
He continues, those who arrive at truth, transcend perception. That's letting go of it moving beyond but they managed to use perception without dwelling and perception. A little bit later here he goes back to this and assaults save that for them. When you pass directly through a perception and get free of it. It is all the fundamental truth
it's such a word truth is dead abstract word.
But how do you how do you share your experience in Zen without using words?
The great Sean's, the Taoist sage. He said words exist for meaning. Once you understand the meaning, you can throw away the words. But where can I find someone with whom I can speak without words?
So here, the transit Oh, I forgot. Sorry, I forgot to say who the translator was. This is, as usual, it's the Clary brothers. So they chose to render this whatever the character Chinese character was rendered as truth. Other Other choices could be it, that ultimate reality, the ultimate. They all they all miss it. Get there it is. So let's just go with with their choice of of truth, the truth of another one, one of my favorites is the way the way the Dow
This in fact, I'm just going to substitute the way for truth. This way is not being or non being. It is not speech or silence. Yet it can manifest both being and non being, both speech and silence. It is forever constant and unchanging.
When he says it is not speech or silence, of course he means it's not limited to just speech. It's not limited to just silence. How could sound whether it's words or heard calls or the sound of the fans in the ceiling, how could sound not be the way it it is forever constant and unchanging, that is this, this reality that is not limited to speech or silence not limited to the realm of being or non being
anyone who says, Therefore Yunmen said this is quoting, one of the greatest of a Chinese master known and Japanese as Oman. Therefore, Yunmen said, it can it can't be existed when you speak of it and not exist and when you don't, or existent when you think of it and non existent when you don't.
He continues, you must subtly arrive at this truth and get it's great function. Yeah, without function without realizing the function of it, it's just an abstraction. It's a word a concept. And you could say that's our assignment, in sesshin, as in Zen practice, generally, to get to how it works to be able to realize make real, how this way this Dharma, how it how it functions. Always let transcendent wisdom appear, whether you are speaking or silent, whatever you are doing.
Now, there again, we can get away from some of those abstract words by by in terms of practice making it practical, we could plug in Mu, always let Mu appear whether you are speaking or silent, whatever you are doing, or who or what
he goes on, why would you say that? It is it's close at hand when you're on your teacher's presence, let's say the duck syndrome, but far away but when you are in the countryside
as you go directly forward that is if you as your practice develops, you will encounter it wherever you are. You can say the same about sesshin as compared to non sesshin, outside of sesshin. How could there be more truth in sesshin than there is outside sesshin? If it's if it's the rial, if it's reality, if it's the ultimate reality, the way how could there be any difference about in session or outside session? It's just that lest any of you decide to leave now, it's just that in sesshin, it's easier to access this truth this realm of no mindedness, no thought. Again the function the practicality This is where we are most likely to realize this truth that is beyond all dualities. Make it real and body it.
He goes on all the enlightened ones and ancestral teachers take this one true thing very seriously. It is spread among beings of all potentials, high and low, noble and lowly, without any preferences or aversions. It is in all the myriad kinds of action naturally real clear and complete.
Every single human being and animal and plant life is equally endowed with this true nature this essence
He goes on, if you make a special thing out of your views of Buddha Dharma, Mystic marvels, then there is a lack. But if you are able to refrain from creating arbitrary views, and are clean and naked like this, then it is completely revealed
that's our that's our human affliction is to make something out of what is essentially nothing. Make make something out of these words and concepts reify them. When there's really nothing, they have no substance. We do this reflexively. We among all, all species do this
this made me remember a koan in the Blue Cliff Record called Cassens. beating the drum Kasan said, learning by study is called hearing. Cutting off learning is called nearness. Transcending these two is called Real going beyond. So a lot of a lot of words a lot of concepts there. So a mock asked, what is real going beyond Kasan said, beating the drum. The mic asked again, what is the true teaching of the Buddha? Carson said, beating the drum How could How could beating the drum be outside the truth? He's trying to get the monk off concepts. The monk asked once more. I'm not asking you about this very mind is Buddha, that's another koan. But what is not mine and not Buddha Kasan said, beating the drum. The mod continued to ask, when an enlightened one comes, how do you treat him? Pass on said, beating the drum
class on keeps trying to bring this monk back to this mind of non discrimination. It's mine beyond thought and words. Mind that transcends doctrine, principles, learning dogma knowing and not knowing attainment.
Another way of another master did try to do the same thing. When whenever he was asked about the Dharma, just turned his back on the questioner.
And then you on will continue just a little more here. If this matter were in words, then it should be definable in a single statement with no further change. Why would there be 1000s and 1000s of sayings imparted by enlightened ones, with no end to them. From this we know that it is not within words, but we need to use words to illustrate this matter.
So for, for people working on let's say Mu let's go back to Mu. There's no There's no answer in words. That's not going to
here's one here's one answer. In words for what good it is. Form is only emptiness emptiness only form. Form is no other than emptiness, emptiness no other than form. Okay, where does that get you? It has to be the experience has to be what the what the Words are pointing to not the finger but the moon
I think this is a good time to stop for the day and we will recite the Four Vows
