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Teachings of Zen Masters Foyan and Daikaku: Otter Voice Meeting Notes

Teachings of Zen Masters Foyan and Daikaku

John Pulleyn44min

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

00:01

This is the second day of this, July, 2025, seven day seshin and finish up the bits of teachings or dialogs from yesterday of the 12th century. Rinzai, Lin-chi, Zen Master foyan.

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

00:36

Foyan entered the hall. He nodded his head to the assembly, a monk came forward and said, today I have encountered something. Foyan said, don't speak foolishness. Let's just rewind that. Today I encountered something. Maybe saying today, I had an insight. Today, something came up. And why would forian and say, don't speak foolishness. It's hard to know. Maybe he could. He could. All we get here is the words we're not seeing him as forian saw him. Foyan may have seen someone who, whatever he may have encountered. It was not worth freon's time. Maybe some minor insight, something he thought that made him special. We don't know. Don't speak foolishness. And then fayan also said, every day, all of you do 1000 or 10,000 things. There's nothing you don't try to do. So why is it you don't understand? It's because your faith isn't sufficient. If your faith were sufficient, then even if you did nothing, you'd arrive at it. You'd get it. If you don't give a thought to all the affairs of the world in the 10 directions, then you'll realize it the key word there being thought.

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

02:36

Rinzai himself, Lin-chi, who started this lineage of which foyan is part, Rinzai. Rinzai himself once said, what ails you, lack of faith in yourself is what ails you.

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

03:02

He so it's he's speaking directly to the kind of doubt, self doubt we so often encounter in seshin.

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

03:18

We We mostly believe the Dharma, what we read, what we hear about the Dharma, we believe that our true self is no self, our own self is no self, but inevitably, until awakening, there is some little flickers of doubt and later in, seshin is when we most commonly run into that

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

03:56

there are different ways of kind of summarizing Zen practice, but one very, very good one is based on faith. It's not faith as a belief. We're not we don't have to, we don't have to have faith in the Buddha, as you might in some other religion. We actually don't even have faith. Need to have faith in our self, if we mean self with a small s, we don't need to be thinking, I can do it. I can do it. I can do it. In fact, it's something that no one has ever done. It's not something in the realm of doing. He says that earlier for young, says, Every day, all of you do a thought, do 1000 or 10,000 things. So why is he who don't understand? He.

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

05:00

The faith. And because Zen is so practical practice oriented, the faith is in the practice. And the practice for any given individual is that which they undertake to concentrate on or to do the breath of koan shikantaza. That's, that's where the faith has to be, not this supposed self who's supposedly doing something, but just faith in the method you could say, but the not just the general method of of sitting, sitting meditation, moving meditation, but in particular, the particular, the particular practice that you call your own, the koan, or whatever it is, I is so you could, you could? We could rephrase this as Rinzai saying, what ails you lack of faith in your practice. People might say, Well, what do you mean? I have faith in my practice. I do my best. I sit day and night, but when those thoughts intrude and you're captivated by them, well that at that point you have more faith in your thoughts. You true faith in the practice means that nothing else matters, no thoughts.

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

06:57

The good The good news is that this faith and practice grows. The longer we sit, the more years we sit, more sesshins We attend, the more this faith grows. So even if we're short of faith at our first session or our eighth session or 15th session, we still will grow into it if we keep going, if we just persist. So the measure of faith is, where does, where does your attention go? We wanted to just keep returning to the practice that's faith in our self, our true self. If this, if this translation of RINs eyes words, is accurate, then for sure he's talking about lack of faith in your true self is what ails you. You

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

08:10

he continues, every day, you all say 1000 or 10,000 things. So first he talks about doing 1000 or 10,000 things. Now he said, You all say 1000 or 10,000 things. There's nothing you don't say. So why is it you don't yet understand? It's because your faith isn't sufficient. If your faith were sufficient, then you'd need say nothing at all, if you didn't give a thought to what has been said by all the tathagatas of the three worlds, then you'd understand in A moment,

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

08:59

yeah, there is a, I think, a misunderstanding, some somewhere out there that you've got to practice. You've got the setting, you've got the support of so many others. What is, what is the need to go to dokusan and say anything, I think that would be misunderstanding. Yes, ultimately, ultimately, it's all within that's true. But sometimes just checking in to dokusan can get us back on track to the within can just help us get reset.

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

09:53

There really is nothing that a teacher can give you that you don't already have you. You have all wisdom. It's all there, but sometimes it can help to be reminded of that, or to be pointed back to your seat.

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

10:20

He continues, everyone, have you reached the field of which I speak? This gate of mind can only be spoken of in terms of authentic realization, not in terms of understanding. Here he's just contrasting those two words. Often we we use the word understanding to mean the same thing, realization, but here understanding, he's using it to mean cognitive understanding, conceptual understanding. We mentioned this yesterday, where we can, we can sort of get the gist of what these masters are saying. But that's different from realizing, if it is to be for the sake of those who experience life and death, then it must be intimately realized, if you are someone who studies self and others, then you won't suffer ridicule. But if you go seeking some special understanding, looking for it in form or words, then you will substitute form for the authentic seal. You

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

11:43

if we continue on this path, we have to get familiar with the use of the word form. It means the world of phenomena, things, ideas, objects, emotions, thoughts, those are all forms. You could say they're forms, because we have words for them. They're they're defined in some way. And he's saying that we have to get beyond our attachment to phenomena of any kind, our own body, our own thinking and things.

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

12:38

If you go, if you go seeking some special understanding looking forward in forms or words, then you will substitute form for the authentic seal that is the authentic experience. Hence the the designation since for hundreds of years now, Zen is the teaching beyond words. You could say beyond words and form, they go together,

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

13:16

and then finally, one day in the year 1120 foyan finished eating, then sat upright in a cross legged posture and addressed his disciples, saying all of the ancient worthies when they were about to leave the world. Composed a verse. This was a this was a custom, may I bid the world goodbye and just quietly go on. He then placed his palms together and peacefully passed away. You know this, this biographical material, these dialogs about foyan, was meant to be a lead lead up to the text I mentioned yesterday, instant Zen. It's a book I've done teishozan before, but to tell you the truth. This morning, I just decided that it's, it's, it's too conceptual. These, these translations. I mean, that's all we really know, is the translation. I don't read Chinese, so I can't, can't say it's foyan teaching, but I had to admit about 20 minutes ago that I don't want to do more of instant Zen foreign teach, the translations of foreign teaching. I think it's hard, especially listening maybe one. Might have be able to get into it more reading it, but I'm going to set it aside and go to another text that is much less conceptual in the language. And this one is called the original face, an anthology of Rinzai Zen. And this is also translated and edited by Thomas Cleary, as was the other one, the foyan, the one we're foregoing. There's a word about Rinzai Soto these words

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

15:46

we've here in Rochester, we've always considered ourselves part of what may be called integral Zen, where we try to use the best of of each of these schools in Japan for the most part, you're either one or the other. You don't mix them. You're either Rinzai or Soto.

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

16:18

The problem with each has its problems with the Soto school. Historically, there's been a denial of the importance of the awakening experience in Soto Zen, the emphasis is on our original enlightenment, the originally enlightened nature that we all have in common. Great That's true. That's what awakening reveals, is we all have it, if you will. We are it. There's nowhere else we have to go, but until one awakens to that, then it's Well, it's kind of intellectual. It's kind of just a belief system. The Rinzai school, on the other hand, can sometimes go too far in the other direction of putting becoming kind of obsessed with the awakening experience and not acknowledging enough our innate enlightenment. And so what Yasutani Roshi teacher, how to do, Roshi did was, was kind of meld the two together and and that's we are the inheritors of that of that lineage, sometimes it's called the Harada Yasutani lineage, sang Bo kyodan lineage. We had to pick one or the other in terms of our ancestral line. The ancestral line is the record the line of the lineage of of masters stretching back to the Buddha himself and and in Japan, you either have a Rinzai lineage ancestral line, or a Soto ancestral line, and we have always chanted the Soto lineage, because that's all, either that or Rinzai, but with their great, illustrious masters who are not part of that official Soto lineage. And so the we've been working here, the senseis and I, at first, have been working on a more inclusive ancestral line. It's very, very difficult to make the judgments about who should be included, but it will have, and it's told it won't be much longer. It will have more of the Masters who appear in the koans. That is, it'll have more Rinzai masters as well as women, because of the cultural conditioning of of East Asians. These these lineages, neither Soto nor Rinzai have included women teachers. So all of this is by way of saying we're going to turn now to a Rinzai collection, the original face you.

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

20:02

And I'm going to be reading from something pretty basic and not intellectual, Zen Master daikaku, treatise on sitting meditation. There you can't get less intellectual than sitting meditation. There's just a little bit here in the introduction about this Zen master, daikaku. He was from the the 13th century,

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

20:39

Chinese master after studying the Buddhist sutras in various places, he trained under several chan masters and finally realized enlightenment. He heard that this, again, is in China, having heard that Zen was not well known in Japan despite the flourishing of other teaching traditions of Buddhism. This daikaku crossed the sea with several disciples. He was only 33 years old, and then he spent another 33 years teaching in Japan. He died at the age of 66 and left some 24 enlightened successors. His treatise on meditation strongly emphasizes what may be called the quote round and sudden aspect of zazen as realization, again, the emphasis on awakening. So here we are, daikaku treatise on sitting meditation. Daikaku is an honorific that means great enlightenment. His his name actually was Ron K Do you? No, wait, that's the Japanese version. His original Chinese name was LAN chi, daolong. LAN chi, what an imposter I am with Chinese names. Here he goes. Sitting meditation is the method of great liberation. That says a lot right there. Sitting meditation is the method of great liberation. All the teachings flow forth from this myriad practices are mastered this way. I think of what we just recited 10 minutes ago in the Hakuin chant, the gateway to freedom is zazen Samadhi. You

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

23:09

he goes daikku goes on, supernormal powers, knowledge, wisdom and virtue all arise from here. That is the sitting meditation, the path of life of humans and Gods opens herein. All the Buddhas have entered and left by this door. Buddhas here is lowercase b, which just means all the enlightened ones. Uppercase Buddha is Shakyamuni. Lowercase means enlightened ones. Bodhisattvas practicing it, have entered this door. Disciples and self enlightened ones are still only halfway there while outsiders, though they practice, do not enter the right path, whatever esoteric or exoteric schools do not practice this. Do not have anyone who realizes the way of Buddhahood. I'm not sure about that. Think of Ramana Maharshi, who was not in the Buddhist tradition, came to great, deep enlightenment spontaneously in India and earlier in the 20th century.

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

24:36

And then he poses the question, what does it mean that sitting meditation is the root source of all the teachings. Oh, no, excuse me. That's someone else asked posing the question to him, and he says, meditation is the inner mind of the enlightened ones. Discipline is their outer character. Doctrine is. Their speech, Buddha remembrance is the invocation of Buddha's name. That's another sect of Buddhism. It's not Zen. Really. All come from the enlightened mind of the Buddhas. Therefore it is considered fundamental meditation. When he says meditation, now he's not talking about just the sitting posture while you're plowing through thoughts and memories and and so forth. He's really talking about the purest kind of of meditation that is the purest state beyond thought, beyond attachment to thought. You could say, as to use Hakuin word Samadhi, that which is beyond all phenomena, beyond time and space, a state of of utter rest.

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

26:07

Question The Met, the method of meditation is formless and thoughtless. Again, talking here about state beyond phenomena, spiritual qualities are not obvious, and there is no proof of seeing reality. So how can we believe in this? That's the question. And daikaku, your own mind and the enlightened mind are one. Is that? Is that not spiritual quality? If you don't know your own mind, on whom can you call for witness and proof, other than the identity of mind and Buddha, what proof do you seek?

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

26:59

I think daikaku would would certainly acknowledge that one can deceive oneself about whether one has come to realization, and that's one of the functions of a teacher in Zen is to try to discern in interacting with the student whether it's a genuine experience or not, so don't take what what he's saying too literally about well, if you think you've got it, then you've got it. Question, how can the ability to cultivate the teaching of one mind compare to myriad practices, cultivating myriad virtues. And here you might compare this to the difference between Zen and say Tibetan Buddhism. It does have many different kinds of practices, visualization practices, devotional practices, various kinds of physical prostrations and physical practices.

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

28:18

Let's let daikaku answer when you suddenly awaken to the pure, clear meditation of those who realize thus Ness, the six transcendences and myriad practices are complete within your body, thus the one practice of Meditation includes all practices. Haven't you heard it said that the three realms are only one mind, that outside of mind, there is nothing else. Even if you do cultivate myriad practices, if you don't know the mind, you cannot realize enlightenment. And how can there be any way to fulfill the way of the Buddha. If you don't realize enlightenment

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

29:12

in terms of more Orthodox Zen practice, it's not about adding practices to this root practice of silent meditation.

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

29:34

It can in a culture such as ours, where the common belief is, is that more is more. The more things we have, the more things we're doing, the better off we are. It's a it's really the antidote to that. It's it's less is more. You. It's the simplicity of Zen practice that appeals to so many of us. Just bring it all to a focus with this one practice that we're doing, the breath of the koan and so forth. It's all included, encompasses everything this mu, this question, the breath, the

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

30:37

risk of having told this story too many times, let me say what Gary Snyder had to say about this. So the difference between Tibetan Buddhism and Zen Buddhism. In our little Ann Arbor affiliate group in 1970 we had a visitor Gary Snyder, who trained in Rinzai Zen in Japan, who had trained for eight years, and this was after coming back to the United States. He was a great poet, and someone asked him, what's what's the what's the difference between Zen and Tibetan Buddhism? And He came up with an analogy that I think really is excellent. He says, imagine mind as a great pond. It's called a Chapin pond. He said, Tibetan in Tibetan Buddhism, you circle around, you get into that water, and you circle around and around underwater, gradually going deeper. And in that gradual submerging, you're exploring all the different features of that pond, the contours of the pond underwater, the vegetation, maybe the marine life, such as there may be, by the time you get to the bottom of the pond. And you know what that means, by the time you get to the bottom, you've come to understand a lot about the pond, the mind, he says, whereas in Zen, the way is straight down, you dive straight down. You don't you don't learn a lot about all the features of the pond. You're going straight down. You want to get to the bottom before you die, and then on the way back up post Kensho is when you expand your investigation into all these different features of the dharma of the mind. So there, there are people who who who have an affinity with the Tibetan way, the myriad practices way, and those who have an affinity with with Zen, there's a I've I've come to understand that there's quite a bit of crossover between Zen and Vipassana Buddhism, but not so much between Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, as far as I can tell, and it's starting with students who come here from Vipassana and vice versa. There aren't, there aren't many who come from the Tibetan tradition. I

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

33:44

question, how should we practice this method? Even if we practice, we are not sure of attaining enlightenment and fulfilling Buddhahood, and if it is uncertain, even if we do practice, what's the benefit? I I'll let guykaku answer and then speak up myself. This school is an exceedingly deep and subtle teaching. Once you have heard it, it becomes an excellent cause for enlightenment. For all time, an Ancient Master said, Those who hear this, even if they don't believe it, have blessings greater than humans or gods. Those who train even without attainment, eventually reach Buddhahood, then daikku continues. This teaching is the school of the enlightened mind. The enlightened mind itself basically has no delusion or enlightenment. This is actually the subtle art of those who realize thusness, even if you don't become enlightened when you sit once in meditation, you are a Buddha for that sitting we. You sit for a day in meditation, you are a Buddha for a day when you sit in meditation all your life, you are a Buddha all your life. The same is true of the future. One who can have faith in this is someone with great potential,

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

35:22

the GU questioner is, is, is putting the emphasis on the wrong thing? It's, it's, it's, we have to never forget that, that we are from the very beginning, enlightened to even talk about attaining it or getting it is what prevents us from realizing that the last thing you want to think about is, what if I don't if it's all This work seshin, after seshin, I still don't have Kensho. Don't, don't, please, don't do that. You're just impeding yourself. We have to develop the faith to rest in this mind of formlessness, this mind beyond thought and ver and right there, our enlightenment is shining. Our innate enlightenment is shining. And

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

36:32

then, if you insist on talking about enlightenment as an experience, just limit, limit it to the experience of awakening. Well, that's where you have to have faith that it will come someday, if not in this lifetime, then the next one or the next one, And meanwhile, we're drawing ever closer to the experience you

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

37:05

the questioner comes back. If so, I can practice too. How should I rest my mind? How should I use my mind? Daikaku, the enlightened mind has no attachment to appearances. Detachment from appearances is the character, character of reality among the four modes of conduct, of conduct. These are kind of just a traditional way of talking about walking, standing, sitting and lying, lying down. Sitting is considered to be stable and tranquil. This means sitting straight and contemplating the characteristics of reality.

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

37:57

So there's nothing, there's nothing really in the sitting posture that is essentially different from walking or playing golf or driving a car. It's just that in the sitting posture, we have the stability. We are more more able, more easily, to bring the mind to rest, and that's why we sit so much in Zen but there's nothing, nothing in the character, the the essential character of sitting that's can't find elsewhere, that's so the importance of making every effort to extend that mind of sitting into our walking and working and everything else.

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

38:49

Question, please explain in detail the meaning of sitting straight and contemplating reality. Daikaku, sitting straight means sitting cross legged as the Buddhas do. Contemplating reality means sitting meditation for forming the symbol of absorption in the cosmos. Okay, this refers to the hand mudra that rests in our lap, the oval body and mind unmoving. Eyes half open, you should see all compounded things as like dreams, illusions, Bubbles, shadows don't get don't get hung up in thought about them. You You know, when he says you should see all compounded things that way, let's not take that to mean that that's our agenda. Okay? I'm going to see all compound all forms as illusory. There's no i. Not trying to create an effect in Zen meditation. Rather, what he really means is, if you persist long enough in this sitting meditation, you will see you will come to see that there is nothing substantial inside or outside. Everything is in flux that I think is one way to understand contemplating reality that is reality change. Don't get hung up in thought about them. Don't get hung up in thought about things.

Roshi Bodhin Kjolhede

40:52

One more here question, crossing the legs and making the symbol with the hands is the comportment of the realized ones. That's that we see that in Buddha figures, in this one right here in our room, the Zen do, but why keep the eyes half open, watching, gazing at the wall? He says, when the eyes are open and you can see for a distance, your mind can be distracted by the profusion of objects. So in other words, looking off, focusing the the eyes in a distant way. But if you close your eyes, you fall into a state of darkness and oblivion, and your mind is not clear. When your eyes are half open, your thoughts don't race. Mind and body are one. Thusness, when you examine clearly the afflictions of birth and death cannot be approached. This is called fulfilling Buddhahood, right where you are, the meaning of great capacity and great function. I I think it's not uncommon for people to try to find this that the best way of having the eyes. It took me forever to really settle into this, but this is the traditional instructions not to have them closed for the reasons he gave. And one other reason not to have them close is is not to try to shut out the world. There are other kinds of meditation we know where you close the eyes. That's what you're told to do. And I won't, won't impugn those meditations, those kinds of meditation, but there is so much to be said for not closing the eyes completely. You're more likely to just sink into this state that is seems to be separate from the outside world. In Zen, we're trying to become one with the world. The world doesn't stop inside us. So to keep the eyes open and to allow light to get on the retina of the eyes is a way of also keeping us more alert. And so it's this middle way, the gaze, the gaze should be up on the wall ways I made the mistake for 20 years of sitting with my eyes down on the floor in front of me, and was wondering why I was always falling asleep, because the eyes are basically closed when your gaze falls that far down. So somehow, to find a way to keep the gaze up high enough couple feet up the wall, more or less, depending on your height and and then you just find a way, because you're not because the eyes are out of focus. You're not being distracted by anything. We're facing the wall. What can we be distracted by on the outside? Our time has run up, run out. We'll stop now and recite the four of us. You.

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