Dharma Talk by Doen Sensei 8/8/2011 I want to cover two things tonight. I sort of have been doing this kind of thing where I talk about both sides. And the first is, the deep part of the practice. The absolute, who we really are and what that is. And then I will talk about daily life. I will try to get both in one night. I’m going to use a rather difficult Koan in the Blue Cliff Record. And like I always say about this, you don’t have to understand what I am saying. It is not important to understand. You will understand it through time and in a different way. A different way then you understand things. [The Koan] is called the national teacher’s seamless tomb. Emperor “Sue Tong” asked the National teacher “Wen Chun” after you die what will you need. I going to give you side [comments] as we go. So the Emperor is asking his favorite teacher what he wants after he dies. And in those days the Zen teachers were advisors to the Emperor. So this is his advisor. The teacher is called the National Teacher, which is the teacher to the Emperor. So the National Teachers says, build me a seamless monument. In other words, a monument that has no seam. To which you might say, how is that possible build a monument with no seam. Everything has a seam. And the Emperor say please tell me master what the monument would look like. What would a seamless monument look like. And the national teacher is silent for a long time then he asks do you understand? He said nothing and was just silent he says do you understand? The Emperor says I don’t understand. And the national teacher says I have a disciple to which I have transmitted the teaching. To whom I have made transmission. “Tan Wan’ who is well versed in this matter please summon him and ask him about it. After that the National teacher passed on, he died. And the emperor then summoned Tan Wan and asked him what the meaning of this was. What was this guy talking to me about this seamless monument? And you can imagine if he made him the National Teacher he had a lot of regard for the guy. And he would want to understand very much what he would say. Especially right before he dies. Knowing he died, this is the last thing he is saying to you: build me a seamless monument. So then he gets Tan Wan, his disciple and he asks him about it. Tan Wan says, South of See Yang north of Ta’an. I guess these are very southerly and northerly places in China. Su Tei added the comment, so he is saying. Let’s put it in the way we would talk. He’s saying all the way south and all the way north. He’s describing this seamless monument. All the way south and all the way north. And then he adds another comment he says, A single hand does not make a random sound. Or even better I think the translation is a single hand does not make a sound. And then he goes on to say in between there’s gold sufficient to a nation. “Su Tei ow” who wrote the blue cliff record, adds a rough une staff. And they are going back and forth each saying something. A rough une staff beneath the shadowless tree the community fairyboat. So he adds the sea is calm the rivers are clear within the crystal palace there is no one who knows. Su Tei ow adds the comment he has raised it up. If you are not familiar with this it can be gibberish. It is even hard to believe that they are saying anything. But they are saying something very exactly. They are saying it very beautifully. They are saying it very creatively. Most of you who do Koan study are rather new at it, beginners, and this is very kind of advanced. But it is about the same thing. So I thought I would just bring this one up to you and talk about it a little. The Master says, when I die build me a seamless monument. If you look at your mind. Not the contents of your mind. Not the thoughts of your mind. But what we call mind. That thing that includes this room. That thing that includes the trees out there. That thing that includes all you memory. In fact the thin that includes everything that you can’t find a beginning to or an end to. That’s not any size. And extends everywhere. That there’s nothing outside of. You’ve found the seamless tomb. That’s what he is saying to him. Build me a seamless tomb, you can’t build a seamless tomb. You are a seamless tomb, everybody is. There’s nothing outside this seamlessness. Forget the tomb, he only says tomb because he is dying. He could have also just said, build me a seamless being. A being that reaches everywhere. Not your personality, not your thoughts, but your mind. The self. The true self reaches everywhere. That’s the first thing he says, and then the Emperor says, what would it look like? And he is just silent, you can’t say what it would look like. If you are silent enough inside, you will see what it looks like. Make yourself silent inside and it will become clearer and clearer what it looks like.. Without thought, the seamlessness reaches everywhere. Who can say what it looks like, who can say what it is. Be these jokers are about to try, but they do it very indirectly so it is very beautiful. Then he dies and the Emperor still doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about, so he calls in the guys he’s transmitted to. Who would have the same understanding, and he says to him directly could you explain to me. And he says sure. All the way south and all the way north. Or he could have said all the way east and all the way west. In Chinese “Dong Xi” , East, West but it means objects. In other words it includes everything. That’s what they mean. The other phrase would be the 10,000 things. Meaning it includes everything. Or as the teacher “zhoushu” says North, south, east, west is the seamless tomb. That’s the first thing he says, then the very clever writer of this book goes back and forth, A single hand does not make a sound. What can you compare everything to? See when you have two things [claps hands] that makes a sound. [taps a glass] these two things make another sound. He is tall as compared to someone shorter. He sort as compared to someone taller. He’s skinney as compared to someone fatter. And older and younger and whiter and bluer, or whatever. Only in comparison to. A single thing, a seamless tomb, makes no sound. There’s one thing. There’s nothing to compare it to.. That’s what he’s saying. So this seamless tomb has existed all along. Then he says, in between there’s sufficient gold to a nation. Meaning this seamless tomb contains everything, everything. The gold is just you, me, the trees, the table, everything. This ungraspable seamless tomb holds everything. And then he adds a rough une staff. Meaning it’s not something you have to construct. It’s a very natural thing. It’s the way things are. And then the next thing is the sea is calm the rivers are clear within the crystal palace there’s no one who knows. That’s the important part. Within the crystal palace there’s no one who knows. So this crystal palace is the seamless tomb. But there is no one who knows, because when you know it goes away. When you stop knowing its there. When you stop thinking there is the seamless house, the crystal palace. When you start thinking it goes away. Nothing wrong with that. Two sides of a coin. One side is the absolute, who you really are in depth. And that’s what will come with practice and time. And in time that will influence the relative which is the other side. Which is what the seamless tomb is filled with. A little description.. Quiet your mind for a second, ok? Try to keep you mind as quiet as you can. If you don’t grasp things with your mind. If you don’t use names, words, ideas. Just let everything be exactly as it is, without having to understand it. Understanding that you can never understand it. Then you begin to enter the crystal palace, the seamless tomb. There’s a lot to know. A lot of depth. And you never know it with your thoughts. You know it with your stomach. You know it the way you know water is cold. You know it the way you feel the breeze. You know it in a completely different, much more intimate way then thought. Thought pushes you away from it. All the things you will know well in life you will know it that way. I have been living, for example, with my wife for almost 30 years now. What if you were to ask me, what is Caryn like? That would be a ridiculous question. Karen permeates my entire existence, and I hers. And it seems like it has always been that way. Thinking what Caryn is like would only push her away. Intimacy is not having to think about what something is like. In Chinese when you don’t want something in the restaurant, if you watch Chinese people they appear rude in a way, you’ll hear someone say don’t want, “Bu Yao” And you wonder why are they being so rude. When you are familiar with someone or your family you don’t get formal. By being formal you drive people away. You make them feel like they are on the outside. The same thing with the absolute, the seamless tomb is you. You don’t separate from it by having a lot of thoughts and distance. You learn about it by not distancing. By understanding that it is you. It fills your bones, your pores, your whole existence, every moment of your life. You will never know anything expect this seamless tomb. I have this program I do one side then the other. So the second part I want to present tonight is about practice in everyday life and how you use it. It is always of great importance to people, it really shouldn’t be, but it is. The reason it shouldn’t be, and I’ll tell you why, it’s a misunderstanding. I always have fun using this analogy using drinking. People say how am I going to use this practice. You are not going to use the practice. The practice is going to bloom in you. It’s like drinking you don’t have to figure out after a certain amount of drinks how to be drunk. You don’t say ok I just had three shots of tequila and two beers, now how do I apply this to being drunk. Doesn’t work that way. If you practice long enough and you sit long enough it takes affect. Its not something you suddenly have to have some kind of on purpose manipulation, it just will bloom. But talking about it, like here, actually helps that process. You might think of it as, not so much as a controlling thing, but you are turning the recipe and that’s helping it bloom a little faster. There is a book called Market Wizard written by Ed Sequoia, he is a very famous trader. He’s got a masters degree from MIT and was the first guy to do computer program trading. Way back when computers were on punch cards he wrote the first programs. More interesting about Sequoia is he is a brilliant mind and he had brilliant insight. Also he is very interested in Zen, hangs out with Zen teachers and talks with them all the time. I love to read his interviews and I found this particular phrase. To him trading is all about emotion, in other words being able to let go not being controlled [by thought]. So the question he is asked here is, “what can a losing trader do to transform himself into a winning trader?” Interesting question, you might ask it of anything. What does a losing [blank] do to transform himself into a winning [blank]? Here is what he says, “A losing trader can do little to transform himself into a winning trader. A losing trader is not going to want to transform himself. That’s the kind of thing winning traders do.” Got that? One more time. What can a losing trader do to transform himself into a winning trader? A losing trader can do little to transform himself into a winning trader. A losing trader is not going to want to transform himself. That’s the kind of thing winning traders do. So, what’s he saying? When we practice we are often our own worst obstacles. We don’t want to transform ourselves. How can we learn if we are not open, if we already know everything, and we trust our minds, and are stuck in our thoughts? We can’t become winning traders. The only one who becomes a winning trader is a person who worries about whether they are a losing trader. They sit around with the trading or anything else and they don’t say I’m so great I already know everything, I’m going to stick with what I know. Those are just thoughts. Those are just thoughts. They say I want to learn. I want to be open. I want to learn. Sounds so simple its not so simple, very few can do it. But I want to describe to you what I see as the progression of people in daily life who practice. Which is this, when you start you believe all your own thoughts. Your asked to sit and drop thought. So you sit and you drop thought. You do this over and over. You do it for years. After a while what happens is, you no longer believe your favorite thoughts. In fact, you start to question if any of your thoughts are something you ought to believe. All the things you were taught. All the things you were conditioned in. When I watch students that are doing well over a period of time, their favorite thought is exactly what they lose. So if they were always worried about people disrespecting them or threatening them, that’s what gets lost. Because that was just a way of thinking. So that starts to transform. If they were always right they start to wonder about that. Whatever was the favorite thing. Whatever was, you could say from a psychological view, the conditioning. The deepest condition starts to weaken. And instead of looking at your thoughts as real you step outside them. And you can step into another position. Making a presentation of a Koan is stepping into a position. See your mind says one thing, oh I know what this is, or this can’t be, or I’m embarrassed by this, or whatever. Then you drop that, and you be. So you are learning to drop. Let me make that a clear evolution of practice. You start to drop your thoughts and be what the circumstances are. You start to live instead of thinking about living. You are no longer solving life and death. You are life and death. You step out of your thoughts about life and death to be life and death. [waving hand] This is not a hand moving. Hand moving is words that describe this. Thought that describes this. What is this when it is not a hand moving? This is this, what is this. This is the seamless tomb. It’s all over. Just take all the thoughts off it. In the Diamond Sutra it says, this world is not a world, therefore it is provisionally called a world. That means it’s not a world, world is just a world. It’s just a way we use to talk about it. [waving hand] This is not a hand moving. That waving outside is not a tree. When you get back to that you see the seamless tomb. But the seamless tomb transforms you, in daily life. If you are stuck in being a little afraid, you start not to believe those thoughts. You say I have to be careful of this, I have to be careful of that. Then you say maybe I don’t! Maybe I don’t. When so and so gets mad at me I have to do this and this. Then you say maybe I don’t! When someone insults you or intimidate you. Do you have to either back down and feel like a coward, or do you have to strike out and then maybe you’re sorry you got mad. Maybe you don’t have to do either one of those. From our practice point of view, what you want to move towards is what we call compassion. Is to understand that most people who are out there acting like assholes are not doing it out of strength. They are doing it out of weakness. When we grow up we see all these assholes around us. We think that they are all acting out of strength. As we get stronger we see that they are not acting out of strength. They are acting out of weakness. Then we could perhaps say, ok this person is having a hard life, a hard time and I am not going to add to it. I’m not going to allow them to make my life worse, but I don’t have to get into it with them because they are really having a hard time. If they weren’t having a hard time they wouldn’t be acting like this. We are not stuck in the same fight or flight thoughts. If there is one brand of thought that I understand it is that. I really do I grew up in a neighborhood where you right away either had to back off, which made you feel terrible, or you fought, or you were aggressive. And you didn’t let people disrespect you because you got nothing but disrespect all the time. But, that was then. So the teacher in that dialogue that we’re referring to the Zen teacher is saying do not enter the world of right or wrong. Instead enter the world of connection. Go toward the world of oneness and try to understand, realize your own strength and their weakness. Compassion comes from a position of strength. Compassion can’t come from a position of weakness, it really can’t. So that’s the last part of that. Part of letting go of your thoughts not being stuck is learning to be kind to other people. Learning to consider them. Understand that they are people. When they are acting in a way that is so obnoxious, it is because of their weaknesses. This is true even in the most extreme cases. Please put these two things together. The crystal palace, the place of no thought. It’s your true self. And that true self informs the content of the self as you practice and smoothes it. Stops it from reacting so strongly. Gives it more, a little bit of flow, and less attachment to thoughts. And therefore sets you free.