Today is August 17, 2025 and in the light of yesterday's big event, you know what I'm talking about, I thought today would be a good day to explore koan. This koan, just like all the rest of them, are so applicable to our everyday lives, but it's specific to Zen teaching, which means it's specific to being a Zen student. This koan is from the hekigan roku, the blue Cliff record number 11, obakos, mash eaters, and this is how it goes. Obaku, instructing the assembly, said, You are all mash eaters. However you go about traveling on pilgrimages, what is your position today? Do you know that in all the land of tongue, there is no Zen teacher? At that time, a monk came forward and said, but surely there are those who teach disciples and lead communities. What about that? Obaku said, I do not say that there is no Zen it is just that there are no Zen teachers. Now I know that two, three weeks ago, there was an introductory workshop here, and some of those folks may be in this Endo, maybe at Chapin mill or online, and you may not know so much about koans, so I want to say a little bit about them, and It can serve as a reminder for everybody else that they are a dialogs between two masters, between a master and their student. It could come from a teacher's teacher's talks, or from Buddhist scripture or even folk tales. So what they're teaching stories. Who doesn't like a story? These teaching stories are always, always about intrinsically enlightened nature, always
this particular one has the master obaku as his Chinese. Name is Wong Po. He was Chinese. He died in 850 we don't have a birth date for him, but he died in 850 so that's more than 1200 years ago, or about 1200 years ago. And just because it happened so long ago, and many of the koans happened a long time ago, please do not think that it is not applicable to us. People are people, and what the koans point to isn't particular to male monastics. Which is, which is, who is in most of the koans people who lived in China in a long time ago. It's not particular to that, because they are addressing this nature that is common to all of us. Koans are universal. This nature was expressed by the Buddha upon his great awakening. Intrinsically, all living beings are Buddha, which means awake, enlightened. All living beings are Buddha, which means you endowed with wisdom and virtue, but because people's minds have been turned upside down from delusive thinking, they fail to perceive this. And koans use this mind turned upside down from delusive thinking to point to this intrinsically enlightened nature, and it does that. They do that through the use of language. Words and concepts, and because of that and they and because they use them so freely, we can't take them literally. When we are stuck in our own use of words and concepts, stuck in delusive thinking, stuck in the self, then the koans will make absolutely no sense to you. But when we open up, expand like an accordion. Definitions expand and contract. When we open it up and expand it, then they make perfect sense. Perfect sense.
Koans use words and concepts to help free us from words and concepts like, like using like, using a thorn to remove a thorn. Our practice in working on a koan is to question these stories, the story, whatever one that we're working on, day and night, no matter what we're doing in zazen and in ever in our everyday lives, sincere questioning, asking, wondering empties the mind of everything else. We've all experienced this whenever we've had some difficult life problem, some issue at work, a health concern, whether it's our own or a loved one, a financial worry, that's all we can think about. It pushes everything else out of the mind. Koans can act in the same way when we are sincerely questioning them. The job of the student is to understand the koan and to express that understanding with the body, which includes the voice, not to explain it, show it. And in this way, koans wake us up to our true nature, and they help us embody what we've waken up to, which is where it counts. So let's dive into this. Koan, the master, begins you are all mash eaters. That's an insult. That's, that's, that's like a say, someone starting an encouragement, talks, saying, looking around zazen Do you are all posers? Wanna be that would get your attention, wouldn't it? Obaku does the same. It's an expedient, insulting them now this mash that he's talking about, this is the dregs left over in the wine making process. So I want to tell you about how to make wine, rice wine, since we're in China. So to for it to make rice wine. First the rice is soaked, and then it's cooked and cooled, and then something is added to it to make it ferment and start producing alcohol. And in that process of fermentation, it dissolves into a liquid, this rice, and then more liquid is added, and that mixture is aged. And when it's done, the solids are filtered out and what's left the liquid is what we call wine. Mash eaters eat that solid that got filtered out. This. A byproduct probably smells like wine, maybe even tastes like wine, but it isn't wine. It's not the real thing. It's like someone eating you used coffee grounds and calling it coffee or or eating used tea leaves and calling it tea. It's not the real thing.
Now, why would obaku Call his monks mash eaters? These are monks, and what mash are they eating? Let's keep going. However you go about traveling on pilgrimages. What is your position today? So now in ancient times, pilgrimage was an important part of monk practice there obaku Did it too. There are records of his sayings and doings while on pilgrimage as well, as well, as well as when, when he was a teacher. After spending some time in a monastery, getting basic training and how to be a monk. Usually we hear about it, and that's called the Vinaya, that Buddhist tradition, where they learn how to be a monk, all the rules and regulations, and then they would go and visit, they can visit other monasteries that might travel for hundreds of miles, mostly on foot. So there was hardship involved. And if you're a seshin goer, you know about hardship and what that can do for you. So they would travel these long distances to practice elsewhere and and just as today, people have different reasons for practicing Zen, for doing zazen, monks had different reasons for for wandering on pilgrimage. Some of those reasons were sincere, and some of them not so much, experiencing another teachers teaching coming to refine their own understanding come those are really sincere reasons, maybe finding a master to stay with that you might feel an affinity with and staying with them for a while. There were other monks that might go for devotional reasons, going to sacred sites and paying their respects, maybe doing prostrations as they approached. And there were monks that were sight seers, they went to the same places that the devotional monks went to, but they were there as tourists. I was reading this source that said, like in the last couple of centuries, when these tourist monks would come, they could get a seal imprinted on their ordination certificates of this sacred site. It's kind of like I was here, or the less tasteful monks would get that seal printed on their, on their on their monks bag, their traveling bag for all to see. It's kind of like a ancient version of a selfie,
just out there to see the sights. And then there were the professional monks, those that were building their resume, practicing in the most renowned meditation halls under the most renowned teachers, or studying the most important texts in. Are under leading authorities,
regardless of the reason for going on pilgrimage, many of them, while they were wherever they were, picked up bits of sayings by the teachers that they visited. They would memorize them and repeat them. They might compare them with other masters debate about who said it best. The koans are filled with these monks repeating the words of other masters. It's called relying on the tongues of the Ancients, even though that ancient may be just 20 years older than you are. So instead of experiencing for themselves, what that master experienced, they satisfied themselves with what the master left behind the words,
here's a story, a great rabbi spent years in solitude meditating on the mystery of the divine in all things. When he finally returned to live among men and women, his eyes shone with the beauty of what he discovered, many seekers came to him to ask for His truth, yet he was always reluctant to answer them, to put it into words. Pressed for years, he finally relented, and with eloquent words, gave a feeble approximation of what he had discovered. The Seekers took these words with them everywhere they spoke them, wrote them, created sacred texts about them, and religious societies were formed of those who repeated them until no one remembered that the words were really about an experience as his word spread, the rabbi became disheartened. He said, I had hoped to help, but perhaps I should not have spoken at all. I
yeah, in modern times, in the West, pilgrimage in this traditional sense is probably uncommon, although I think we've we've had people come here to the center who have been many, many places. We're just another stop on their journey, more often than not, the pilgrimage that is done today is virtual, especially since the pandemic, visiting websites of another center, viewing What pictures they have on their website, streaming podcast, reading their their version of Zen Bo, or reading their books. This can be so inspiring, I think that's how most of us started. It can feel like we're right there practicing with them. It's easy to forget in these virtual pilgrimages that we're just gobbling up the dregs of someone else's experience. We're not really getting the real thing, reading their books, visiting their websites, streaming their podcasts. I'm not talking about zoom here. There are folks practicing together. Seriously.
We're talking no touch here. We. In Zen merging of East and West, by Roshi Kapleau And one of the dialogs, there was a student that said that after reading he about enlightenment, he like he felt like he clearly understood what it was that he felt this oneness, and this is what Roshi Kapleau said. Now, suppose your foot itches. Does it feel better to scratch your bare foot or to scratch the itch through your shoe? And the person said to scratch your bare foot naturally. And then Kapleau said reading about enlightenment is like scratching an itch through your shoe.
Going back to obaku, however you go about traveling on pilgrimages, what is your position today? So you've traveled, you've studied, you've read, you've listened to podcasts now, what? What's that done for you? What have you discovered? Not not from your reading, not what you've learned second hand. What is your understanding? Now I want to step back for a moment. Please do not take anything from this talk and think that you must never, ever, ever read a Buddhist or Zen book again.
Reading is how we started, most of us, since, and since most of us practicing Zen in the West. Weren't born or raised Buddhist, and we don't live in a Buddhist culture. It can be helpful to get familiar with basic Buddhist concepts and Zen Teachings. I uh, reading can be inspiring to practice, but if we're spending more time reading than we are practicing, we might want to take a good look at that. Is our reading replacing our time on the mat. Is it replacing direct experience? Roshi Kapleau Put it this way, the Good Book stirs the heart fires the imagination and leads to the resolve to let nothing stand in the way of full awakening. In short, it gets you out of the armchair and onto the sitting mat. You
now back to obaku. He said, Do you know that in all the land of Tang China, do you know that in all the land of Tong, there is no Zen teacher? Now, I think this is where some background helps. Obaku lived during what is called the golden age of Zen. This was a time when Zen, or chan in China, was thriving. There were Zen students everywhere, Zen temples everywhere. You couldn't throw a Zen teacher without hitting another Zen teacher.
So what is he talking about? There is no Zen teacher. At that time, a monk came forward and said, but surely there are those who teach disciples and lead communities. What about that? What about that? Obaku like the. So what there are people that teach disciples and lead communities, like you, teaching us, leading this community? What about that? Who? What are you doing? Who are you? Obakuza, said, I do not say that there is no Zen it's just that there are no Zen teachers. Let's unpack that. What is a Zen teacher? Now, conventionally, a teacher is somebody who has some knowledge, and they pass it along to somebody who doesn't. The Japanese word, Sensei, is often translated as teacher, but the term literally means person born before another or another. Translation is one who has gone before another, and then there's another one, one who walks ahead. Now that one is the one that speaks to me the most. It brings brings to mind my family hiking trips. My family would go hiking probably every other weekend when my kids were younger, that's it was cheap entertainment going hiking, and we would be walking on trails and usually needing a map. And so the way we would arrange ourselves, as my husband was in front, the eldest son was next, the youngest son next, and I would bring up the rear. Now understand that this was not some social hierarchy. My husband was was a more experienced hiker, and he was willing to read the map and and chart our journey.
When we would be hiking, he's out there in front. And sometimes there would be, can be some distance between us. Sometimes we were right up on each other. Many times it was some distance. Everybody had their kind of hiking space. And as he's walking along, he may encounter, say, stump sticking out of the ground. And he would let us know stump and maybe point it out. And as we pass by, we would do the same thing to warn the people behind us that there was this obstacle in the in on the path, and he probably found out because he'd already tripped on it. Sometimes, as he's reading this map, the conditions that we encountered on the road, on our path, would be different than what the map said. If it had rained the night before, instead of a dry path, we might find that there is a big mud puddle in front of us, and he would get there first, and he would try to figure out some way around it. And he always had the muddiest boots of all of us, because he would try things and that didn't work, and he would try something else to go this way. Let's go around this way. Me bringing up the rear. My boots were always the cleanest I could see where to step and where not to step. And also he may have been the first person on the trail that morning, and so he was also the one to walk through the spider webs, and he would make this sound. It's a double yell, because he had this aversion to spiders, it would be and then you could look ahead on the trail and you see him, and we knew what this yell was. This, and we you'd see him picking these spider webs off of them, because, you know, where there's a web, there's probably a spider,
one who walks ahead, now the other part of why that really speaks to me as the definition of a sensei is because it's in the present tense, one who walks ahead, not one who walked ahead as if they're done, as if they're finished, their journey is over done.
They're still on the path. One Zen teacher put it this way, I merely share with others what I do seriously for myself, what I do seriously for myself, not what I did Seriously. And what is he sharing? What is a Zen teacher giving? When Roshi Kapleau was asked this question, what a teacher can give you, he answered, Zen teachers can't give you anything you don't already have, but they can take away much that is foreign to your true nature, the sticky beliefs, chesty opinions, petty rationalizations, illusory ideals and deluded thoughts, all of which imprison you as In a cocoon and when your mind is ripe, the Roshi, and I think he means here generally Zen teacher, whether it's a Roshi or a Sensei, he says, And when your mind is ripe, the Roshi can, through words or actions, nudge that mind into awakening. At that point, it's like a hen that pecks on the shell of the egg when the chick is ready to hatch. This is a classic Zen image of the chick or the student pecking from the inside of the egg, and the teacher, which is the hen, tapping from the outside, the two are working toward the same aim, freedom for the student. But since Zen is a student led practice the hen the teacher takes her cue for when To tap from the student.
Roshi Kapleau continues a Roshi gives you himself, which is a great deal, and at the same time nothing,
a contemporary of obaku Seppo, who's Shui Fong in Chinese, said, empty handed, I went to my teacher, and empty handed I returned.
I think Zen teaching is very much like teaching, and I'm using air quotes here, teaching a child to walk,
there will be parents, especially with their first child, who will, once that that child is able to hold their heads up, will start teaching it, air quotes, how to walk. But it's in a nature of the child to walk on two legs, standing upright, so they may take the little child's hands and hold them up and like put them on a table or on the floor, and maybe move them so that they could try to walk, and the child may move. Move their legs almost like they're maybe riding a bicycle, but that's proof. It's in the nature of the child to walk. They don't need any help with that. If the circumstances and conditions don't come together for the child to walk like the child being too young or having a disability, the child won't walk. It's still in the nature of the child to walk, and if all the circumstances and conditions come together for the child to walk, then the child will walk regardless of what the parents want, regardless of the efforts of the parents, because it's in The nature of the child to walk
when it comes to walking, a parent can't give a child anything that child doesn't already have. You can support the child. Hold their hand, keep them from falling, keep them from hurting themselves. You
but a parent can't give the child anything they don't already have. The most a parent can do is support the child in realizing what is already true.
Here's another story. A Zen monk and his master were strolling through the gardens of the monastery. Though he had practiced ardently, the young man still had not come to any deep understanding of Zen. Finally, he turned to the master and asked, Please, Master, tell me something of this enlightenment. The Master pointed see that bamboo over there, see how short it is. The disciples. Said, Yes, see that bamboo over there. See how tall it is. The disciples said, yes, just that is enlightenment. And
back to Roshi Kapleau, he said, so you need a teacher to learn that there is nothing to learn. And why is there nothing to learn? Because it was all learned eons and eons ago. Nonetheless, a Roshi is essential. Even the Buddha had teachers. A fully developed Roshi personifies openness, compassion and wisdom, qualities you hope to actualize in yourself. Remember too he or she has struggled through the pain, frustration and despair you feel in your moments of brooding doubt, when you are enveloped in darkness and feel hopeless about your practice, the Roshi can give you an infusion of courage and turn You once more in the direction of the sun.
So Zen teacher can, as the monk said in our koan, teach disciples and lead communities, but no one can walk this path for someone else. No one can ride on someone else's awakening and nobody, nobody can give you what you already are.
That was Brazilian novelist Paul Coelho said this, maybe the journey isn't so much about becoming anything. Maybe it's about unbecoming everything that isn't really you so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.
So in this time that we have left, I'd like to share some teaching from obaku. I. And this is his teaching on working on a first koan, on your breakthrough. Koan, so whether you're working on Who am I, or what am I? What is this? What is it or mu, and he uses mu or or Wu, actually in Chinese, he's talking to you not only about the process of working on a breakthrough koan, but the rewards of breaking through the promise of awakening.
And I'll be reading from the book The Golden Age of Zen. And this is what he says, If you are a full grown man of heroic determination, you should resort to pondering on koan or koan. Take, for instance, Zhao Joe's answering no to the question whether there is Buddha nature in a dog. You should meditate on this word Woo, day and night without cease. Keep at it while you are walking, resting, sitting and sleeping, while you are putting on clothes, taking meals, sitting on the stool, making water, let every thought of your mind be focused on it fiercely stir up your spirits and never lose hold of the word Woo. After holding on for days and months, your whole being becomes one continuous attention, suddenly the flower of your mind will burst in no moment, and you will apprehend the initial insight of all the Buddhas and patriarchs. You will have such a firm grasp on it that you can no longer be deceived by the tongues of the old monks of the world. And great truth will flow from your wide open mouth. You will realize that the coming of Bodhi Dharma is like the rising of a wave without wind, and that the Buddha's holding of the flower is but a fiasco. Once arrived at this state, all the holy ones can do nothing to you, to say nothing of the old fellow Yama. And I'll stop here for a moment so that I can express what I think he's saying when he's talking about the old fellow Yama. Yama. Yama is the Lord of the death, of death, and upon when you die, we're told that he holds up a mirror and you see your life flashing before your eyes. You see your karma, and based on what you see, that is what determines your rebirth. He doesn't determine your rebirth. You do. So when he when obaku says, Once arrived at this state, all the holy ones can do nothing to you, to say nothing of the old fellow, Yama, I don't think he's saying that with awakening, you become free from your karma. What I think he is saying is that you become free within your karma, because that's real freedom. Karma comes and goes to be free within it,
obaku continues. Who can ever believe in the possibility of such inconceivable wonders. Yet nothing is impossible to him who has set his heart and mind to it, and then he ends with this verse, To detach oneself from the dust of the world. This is no ordinary task, hold firmly to the end of the rope and go at it with all your might, without indulging, without undergoing a whole spell of cold that bites into your bones. How can you have the plum blossoms regale you? You with their piercing fragrance.
Well, that's all we have. We'll stop now and recite the four vows I.
