April 13, 2010
Salt Lake City
 
Announcement
Doen announced that he is going to kick off each of the three groups (financial freedom, artists, and helpers) and will need a coordinator for each group.  The financial freedom group will meet at 5:00 the next time Doen is in Salt Lake.
 
Anecdote 
Caryn took Doen’s new picture while they were walking in Redwood Park.  Doen said he has an unusual smile in this photo and that the reason for it may be different than one would think.  Because Caryn knows that Doen’s purposeful smile looks posed she asked him to think of something he liked.  In this photo he is thinking about West Lake Restaurant dumplings falling from the trees, the truth behind the smile.
 
Koan
Doen decided to talk about a Koan today that he has spoken on before.  This talk was prompted in part by the fact that one member of our group had a friend die recently.
 
Think neither good nor evil
 
The background to this Koan is the story of the Sixth Patriarch.  The Sixth Patriarch established Zen in China.  Before this in Buddhism was transmitted from one ancestor to one successor.  The Sixth Patriarch started Zen by transmitting to multiple disciples.
 
The story of Eno (the Sixth Patriarch) is recorded in the Platform Sutra.  Eno was a poor woodcutter living in the South.  He did not have a good life, his mother died and he was upset.  One day a monk came by reciting the Diamond Sutra and Eno heard this, understood it, experienced a big opening, and decided to go North to learn more. 
 
At this time there were no trains and the North was a long way.  Eno was on the road for a long time.  Eno being from the South was uneducated and dark skinned. Southerners and Northerners at this time were actually different races.  When he arrived at the gates of the monastery it was like in the 1940s if a gay, African American knocked on the door of the DAR to tell the members what the American Revolution was about.  When the Fifth Patriarch saw Eno at the gates of the monastery he knew there was a potential problem with the other monks.  When Eno knocked the Fifth Patriarch, to test Eno, greeted him by telling him that Southern monkeys have no Buddha nature. To which Eno responded that in Buddha nature there is no Northern or Southern, that north and south make no difference.  The Fifth Patriarch hearing this took Eno in but sent him to work in the kitchen so that the other monks would not realize Eno enlightenment and kill him.
 
One day the Fifth Patriarch decided that he was ready to give transmission so he set up a contest to test the knowledge of the potential successor.  The person who wrote the best poem was to receive transmission. Everyone knew that the head monk was the most learned and the head monk posted this poem –
The body is the tree of truth, 
The mind is a like bright mirror in a stand;
Take care to wipe it all the time,
And allow no dust to cling.
 
This poem was not bad and revealed a depth of understanding but not the depth sought by the Fifth Patriarch.  Eno in the kitchen saw the posted poem but because he could not read he had someone else read it to him and to write his response – 
 
Boddhi truth is not originally a tree, 
Nor the stand of a mirror bright.
Since all is empty from the beginning,
Where can the dust collect ?
 
When the Fifth Patriarch sees this poem he takes it off the wall and goes to Eno in the kitchen at midnight with his robe and bowl (the symbols of transmission).  He tells Eno that the rice has been pounded but not sifted yet.  By this he is saying that he has the insight but needs to refine it and tells Eno to go far away and come back in 20 years (Eno was quite young at the time).
 
The monks were jealous and somewhat outraged by this and a monk named Mayo who was a retired general felt that Eno had usurped the transmission and goes after Eno. This may sound absurd but his happened all the time and was very much related to the right/wrong moral mentality.  Mayo felt he was right and that Eno (now the Sixth Patriarch) was wrong.  After months Mayo catches up with Eno and tells him he has come for the robe and the bowl.  Mayo expects a fight from Eno but Eno simply says that the robe and bowl are nothing but symbols and the Mayo may take them.  With this response Mayo hesitates getting a clue that Eno is the real thing.  The Sixth Patriarch then says 
 
At this moment think neither good nor evil

Mayo experiences a big opening with this statement and leaves the Sixth Patriarch unharmed.
 
Eno then studies for 20 years.  When he comes back he encounters two monks debating:  is the flag moving or the wind moving.  Eno responds that neither is moving, it is the mind that is moving and with this statement he is recognized.
 
Think neither good nor evil.  We think we know what is good and what is bad.  We make death bad.  We make up ideas.  We don’t need to be for or against things.  We don’t have to experience attraction or aversion. Accept life on its own terms. Come from a place of I don’t know, I don’t have an answer.  If you do this you change from rock to water and are in a place where we don’t understand and don’t know.  This of course is easier on paper than in practice.
 
As one gets older it may be easier to do this.  Doen mention that Bob Dylan is turning 70 and that it has been 13 years since Miles Davis has died.  One day we all will die.  You don’t have to be for or against life.  Just take it as it is.  Be one with your life.  This is better than being bored with understanding.  What is true is the here and now.  We pursue the ways knowing it is futile but doing the dance. We are going to be defeated but the spirit won’t be defeated.
 
 
 