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New podcasts every Tues, Thurs and Sat. Here you can find talks from various teachers involved with the Zen Community of Oregon. We share talks from our retreats, as well as our different weekly offerings between Great Vow Zen Monastery and Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple.
Zen Community of Oregon's purpose is to express and make accessible the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha’s teachings, as transmitted through an authentic, historical lineage. To support and maintain Zen Buddhist practice in order to realize and actualize our Buddha nature in everyday life.
For more information, please visit zendust.org.
Hello, and welcome. This is the Zen Community of Oregon, making the teachings of the Buddhadharma accessible to support your practice. New episodes air every week.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna make sure I get on here with the folks on Zoom. There's quite a few people on Zoom. I wanna just give folks a shout out there. Thanks for being with us. Some familiar faces there.
Speaker 2:Okay. Alright. Hi everybody. Oh. And if you'd like to join me in taking refuge, you're welcome to.
Speaker 2:I take refuge in the Buddha. I take refuge in the Dharma. I take refuge in the Sangha. How beautiful to have a refuge at all. Thank you all for being here.
Speaker 2:Thank you for being here last Saturday or two Saturdays ago now for Zaz and Kai, our day long retreat that we had right here. Very sweet, very steady, very solid practice. It went so beautifully and I just have so much gratitude for everyone's participation, everyone's support, and so much appreciation for this place and the community here, the UCC community. The labyrinth, and I understand folks walked the labyrinth last week on Tuesday and just allowed that to be the teacher, which is so beautiful. Some people commented after the Zazenkai that walking in that way, it felt like being all one body.
Speaker 2:It also felt, another person expressed kind of the silliness of it, look at us kind of just doing this thing. But being outdoors and being connected in this larger space in the natural world, together and separate, really beautiful experience. I'm glad it's something that we're incorporating into our regular practice. And our theme for the Zazenkai was continuous practice and practicing in activity. So basically just being present in whatever we're doing.
Speaker 2:That it isn't just sitting on the cushion, that's not just where practice is, it's everywhere. And do not wait for great enlightenment as great enlightenment is the tea and rice of daily activity. The tea and rice of daily activity. We did the activity of work in connection with the UCC and we got a beautiful thank you from Chuck for everyone's efforts indoors and outdoors. I'll put that in our newsletter, you'll see that for yourself.
Speaker 2:And just a shout out also to Pastor Steve, thanks for making this possible and all the UCC folks, we wish we a few people here tonight, thank you. So I also heard that I would be proud of all of you when I'm not here for holding the practice so beautifully, and I'm not surprised to hear that. I like the I've always just appreciated the scrappiness of this little sangha. That there is this you know, it's not about me, it's about us and it's about the practice, which is really beautiful. So that enables me to also do things like go visit my mom, 92, many of you know, I've talked about her.
Speaker 2:She's doing pretty well, as well as can be. She's learning the senior bus and I felt like a parent. I'm like calling the place and getting her tickets and figuring it all out and she had a dentist appointment and she took the bus today. I've called her and I'm like, did you get on the bus? And she did and So she's thankfully not driving to places that she can't remember how to get back from.
Speaker 2:And she now has this option because she doesn't like to ask people for favors that she can't return is what she said. So, and then also visiting my brother, who's in community theater, and we went to one of the musicals he was in, and that was really sweet too. He lives there with her. So this Dharma talk that you got last week in labyrinth is really a beautiful example of Zen in particular or just of Buddhism in that it is a teaching that is sometimes referred to as beyond words and letters. Beyond words and letters.
Speaker 2:This is expressed in, and Buddhism loves its lists of fours and eights and threes and all of that, sixteens and whatever, but here are the four statements of Zen. This is attributed to Bodhidharma who is the first ancestor go from India to China, Bodhidharma. Separate transmission outside of teaching or separate transmission outside of the scriptures. Not based upon the written word, directly pointing to the heart mind and see nature become Buddha or seeing into one's true nature becoming Buddha. Realizing, so the word, it's not that we're becoming, we're realizing our Buddha nature.
Speaker 2:So this beyond words and letters has its origins even before what we now know as Zen that really, you know, Jhana is the Sanskrit word for concentration or meditation, which translates into Chinese chan, which when it went to Japan became Zen. So it's this concentration or meditation focused way in Buddhism. Even the first transmission of Gautama Buddha's first disciple was beyond words and letters. This took place during what's called the Buddha's flower sermon, the flower sermon, in which he went through all the preparations for a talk. So you saw kind of all the preparations that we did, and da da da, and bowing, and everybody's doing the incense and the stuff.
Speaker 2:And so the Buddha sits down, everybody's settled down and of course there were probably a ton of people there to hear him and he did nothing but hold up a flower and twirl it in his fingers. And his primary disciple, Mahakashyapa, smiled when he saw this. That's it. And the Buddha said, I have the treasury of the true Dharma I, the wondrous heart of Nirvana. I entrust it to Mahakashyapa.
Speaker 2:I have the treasury of the true Dharma I, the wondrous heart of nirvana, I entrust it to Mahakashyapa. This was a wordless transmission. Yet there are so many books about Dharma, and we have a whole library of them. You're welcome to borrow some books on Dharma. You're, you know, in some ways, at some point, it really has to be about our practice.
Speaker 2:So what's the role? There is this literary tradition with such depth. There are so many scholars and so many poets and so many artists who help us encounter the teachings, who help it take some familiar shapes as we find ourselves feeling around in the formless. Sometimes forms and words are really useful, really important. They can be really helpful.
Speaker 2:But if we take hold too tightly on them, that's where we get in trouble really. So have you ever seen someone that you haven't seen in a while, and they relate to you the same way that you used to be, but you aren't that way anymore, like years ago? So maybe you were shy, and they start talking about what a shy person you are and you're kind of like, well you know I'm kind of different now. Maybe they assume you're still interested in the same stuff that you were back then and you're just not. It's just not who you are anymore, but they can't seem to see the person in front of them.
Speaker 2:They're relating to their idea of you. And this is what we do all the time to everything. When we get a concept fixed in our minds and we start treating them as if they're real and true. We think we know what the world is. Meanwhile, it's changing.
Speaker 2:Meanwhile, everything is constantly changing. It's a constant flow, a constant process. There is nothing fixed. There is nothing permanent. How could we say this is how it is?
Speaker 2:It's already not true. Everything is changing. And that is kinda disturbing sometimes, isn't it? We want to know, and we want some ground under our feet, don't we? We want to know, we want to comprehend, we want to grasp things.
Speaker 2:Even that word grasping, that can mean we understand something, right? Oh I have a good grasp on that. Or it can be the grasping that is really by definition in our tradition, that is suffering. Grasping and aversion to the causes of suffering right there. And in many ways, both meanings of grasp, they're the same.
Speaker 2:So I wanna tell you a couple of Zen stories tonight, but to do that I first need to talk a little bit about the Diamond Sutra. And I mean that's its own lifetime of talks. It's actually the oldest piece of writing that was ever printed, the Diamond Sutra. So one of the repeated phrases in the Diamond Sutra is this, and it's kind of a repeated phrasing. There's no such thing as x.
Speaker 2:It's only called x. That's why we call it x. So there's no such thing as a microphone. It's only called a microphone. That's why we call it a microphone.
Speaker 2:So a microphone is this temporary collection of parts that will for a limited amount of time function in a certain way. And it's made of dozens of parts, you think about it, thousands and millions of parts and cells, atoms, and the energy of humans, and none of this is separate from anything else in the whole universe, in your whole life. It's all moving, it's all changing, it's all flowing. It's decomposing, right, even as we sit here. Maybe imperceptibly, but it is.
Speaker 2:So how can we call anything anything if that's true? So for instance also my brother, his name's Brad. We've had some difficulties in the past, sure. Was he the same person in this recent visit? Now if I treat him that way, how will the visit go?
Speaker 2:If I can remember that there's really no such thing as my brother Brad in the way that I want to box him up into a concept. Right? There's no such thing as that. If I can remember that there's no such thing as my brother Brad, that he is so much more than any concept I could make of him, any description I could offer you, any portrait I could paint of him. If I can remember that there's no such thing as Brad, he's only called that.
Speaker 2:What happens? What happens? There's this openness. There's there's curiosity. There's possibility.
Speaker 2:And Brad and I do have some karmic ties. And experiences. And he is a unique and unrepeatable being, changing in every moment. And he takes his place in the universe as my brother, my mom's son, the drummer for his band. That's why we call him Brad.
Speaker 2:It's just kinda useful that way. Why? Yeah. Wait. Right?
Speaker 2:That's all it's for. Not to say, not to limit him, not to kill him with this idea, but just to for convenience, really. There's no such thing as x. It's only called x. That's why we call it x.
Speaker 2:So another important phrase from that sutra, from the Diamond Sutra is this, and if you don't grasp it, that's probably a good thing. Just let it wash over you, just let it move through you. So this is part of the Sutra where the Buddha is describing mind. But mind is not in fact mind. It is only called mind.
Speaker 2:Why is that? Because past mind is ungraspable. Future mind is ungraspable and present mind is ungraspable. So that's the piece from the Diamond Sutra that's relevant to this story coming up. So these Zen stories, they're stories of, they're sort of old family stories basically, families in our lineage.
Speaker 2:There are teachings embedded and delivered interactions. This is so much of how the Buddha taught, it's so much of how Jesus taught in parables, in stories. This is how we contain these much larger truths. And a lot is communicated in these relationships between people. So there are two stories in this.
Speaker 2:The main character is a monk named Tokusan. There's a tea lady in the story and there's teacher and an abbot of a monastery named Ryutan. These are their Japanese names even though these stories, the story is set in ninth century China, the Tang dynasty, which is a wonderful time in Chinese history to be studying the richness of the Zen tradition, Chan tradition. At that time in a time of tremendous political upheaval, violence, and persecution that even and perhaps even to some degree because of all of that, the Dharma just flourished and that's where so many of these stories take place in Tang Dynasty China. So this is the interaction with the Tea Lady who is an archetype in Zen.
Speaker 2:You get your fancy robes as a teacher and you know the monks are very impressive and the professional Buddhists or whatever, but then you have these Tea Ladies who are kind of nobodies and in the archetype usually what their job is is to utterly school a monk and offer a really, what's the practical application here? And they're usually just caught completely flat footed. So it speaks to the emptiness of these ranks, of gender, it's a really important archetype. So we got a tea lady in this story and I love that. So when Tokusan, so this is Dogen, a translation of Dogen telling this story as translated by Shasta Abbey.
Speaker 2:When Tokusan in his earlier days was still not a solid fellow, like he was not clear in his understanding, when Tokusan in his earlier days was still not a solid fellow, he had excelled in the diamond cutting scripture, the Diamond Sutra. People at that time called him Chu, the fully perfected lord of the diamond cutting scripture. So he was a complete expert in this sutra. He was king among more than 800 scholars. Not only was he well versed in the commentaries, but he had also edited a ton of writings, and there was no lecturer who could stand shoulder to shoulder with him.
Speaker 2:When he happened to hear that there was an unsurpassed Buddhist teaching in the South, a teaching that was being passed on from successor to successor, he went there crossing mountains and rivers, loaded down with his own manuscripts. Now in some stories, he's carrying all these commentaries on the Diamond Sutra, everything he's ever thought he's written, other people have written their thoughts and opinions on the Diamond Sutra. And in some of the stories it's like he takes one of those poles with two big baskets and he's just like dragging them for miles and miles on a you know hike. China is not small to go from north to south with these just like others. He's got a handcart, he's just like dragging this cart of commentaries from place to place because he's gonna tell them all whatever they have going on, he needs to school them.
Speaker 2:So he had stopped to catch his breath by the side of the road that led to Master Ryutan's temple when an old woman came by. Tokusan asked her who she was. The old woman replied, I'm an old woman who sells rice cakes. Tokusan asked her, will you sell me some rice cakes? The old woman said, Reverend Monk, why would you want to buy them?
Speaker 2:Tokusan replied, I would buy your rice cakes so that I might refresh my mind. The old woman remarked, Reverend Monk, that load you're carrying with you is really something. Tokusan replied, have you not heard of me? I am the fully perfected lord of the diamond cutting scripture. I have so mastered this scripture that there is nothing in it I do not understand.
Speaker 2:What I'm carrying with me are my commentaries on the diamond cutting scripture. Upon hearing him say this, the old woman asked, Reverend Monk, would you permit an old woman like me to put a question to you? Tokusan replied, Yes, ask whatever you may wish. She said, I once heard the part in the diamond cutting scripture where it says, the mind of the past cannot be held onto, grasped. The mind of the present cannot be held onto, the mind of the future cannot be held onto.
Speaker 2:Which mind do you think you're going to refresh with these rice cakes? If the Reverend Monk is able to say, I will sell him some rice cakes, if the Reverend Monk is unable to say, I will not sell him any rice cakes. Tokusan at this moment was so flabbergasted that he could not recall how he would have customarily responded, whereupon the old woman dismissed him with the flick of her wrist and left without selling Tokusan any of her rice cakes. This interaction is so rich in all the different translations, all the different ways people tell this story, and I love the pomp and just, you know, yeah his own example of his, he's so impressed with himself and yet when she asks him to apply the teachings, how would you apply the teachings in real life? No answer.
Speaker 2:All of his scholarship, all of his commentaries, all of his knowledge was not there for him in practice. So next part of the story. He realized, okay, kind of in that slight slightly open. The humility of it is so opening, isn't it? When we are up against the wall of suffering, our heart is broken open a little bit.
Speaker 2:We might be a little more willing. So he continues on the path to Ryutan's Temple. Ryutan translates into Dragon Pool, Dragon Pool Temple, and he decided to stay on for the time being. One evening as he was attending on the master ryutan, the master said, the night is far advanced. Why don't you retire to your own quarters?
Speaker 2:After wishing the master good night, Tokusan went out, but he returned at once. He didn't realize how late it had gotten. He said it's pitch dark outside. So Ryutan lit a candle and handed it over to him. But just as Tokusan was on point of receiving the candle and stepping out, Ryutan suddenly blew out the light.
Speaker 2:At this point Tokusan was completely awakened and bowed to the master. What does it mean to be in the dark? When we're in the dark about something, when we don't know, when we don't understand, when we aren't able to grasp, when we aren't able to grasp hold of anything. All the different things that we try to label and reify with our concepts and freeze them into dead words. All of those things are undifferentiated in the dark.
Speaker 2:The dark makes all words one, one of our chants says. The dark makes all words one. So that morning Tokusan brought all the volumes of his commentaries to the front of the hall and raising a torch said, an exhaustive discussion of the abstruse is like a hair thrown into the infinite void. The fullest extension of all capabilities is like a little drop of water falling into an unfathomable gulf. Thereupon he set the commentaries on fire.
Speaker 2:Now, that might be a little extreme. I certainly value the commentaries of all the teachers who have come before, and I think in the Jewish tradition that's a big part of the tradition is commentaries on the teachings. And they become a living conversation over the centuries that we can see what other teachers thought of these interactions and wanted to add their twist to it, add their impression of it. And yet, they can't practice for us. It's right here, it can only be here, it's only ever right here, right now, this life.
Speaker 2:And whether it's in a labyrinth that's beautiful and outdoors or wherever we're walking, Even if we're walking in a nursing home or a restaurant or you know, just some ordinary place. This is where the practice is alive, in our direct experience of it. So, yeah, there is a time and a place for allowing the books and teachings to provide us some scaffolding, but that should really be balanced with our direct experience, our practice, our sitting practice, our meditation practice, wherein we open to just observing our habits of mind so that we can catch them in the act, so that we can see through them. We know that that's not the whole truth. And we see for ourselves, which is much more interesting than anything I have to say.
Speaker 2:So I want to close with one of my favorite poems by admirable Wendell Berry. And this poem is called To Know the Dark. It's brief. To go into the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark, go without sight and find that the dark too blooms and sings and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.
Speaker 2:To go into the dark with a light is to know the light. To know the dark, go dark, go without sight, and find that the dark too blooms and sings and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Zen Community of Oregon podcast, and thank you for your practice. New episodes air every week. Please consider making a donation at zendust.org. Your support supports us.