The Boat of Compassion

[00:00:00] Speaker A: For more information on Ancient Dragon Zen Gate, please visit our website at www.ancientdragon.org. our teachings are offered to the community through the generosity of our supporters. To make a donation online, please visit our website. First of all, thank you all for being here. It's wonderful to be with you and I'm honored, Teigen Son, that you're here at my talk. Thank you for your presence. Laurie saying I enlightened her about photolithography and bonobos and all that. From that you can determine that I talk too much. Okay. I wanted to begin. Well, first of all, I want to thank Laurie for her wonderful hospitality. And just. I have to say, it's beyond compare. I've really just been. Been able to rest in a way I haven't been able to rest in a very, very long time. So I'm grateful for that. I wanted to talk today about a particular koan. I think it's Koan 41 in the book of Serenity. Luo Pu about to die. I'm going to change my glasses. I'm at that age where the eyes are a little funny and you have to keep switching things to get everything right. Perhaps I'll begin with just a statement from Nichojima and Cross's translation of the Genjo Koan before going to this because it's relevant, I think, in the section that we normally, when we're reciting it at San Francisco Zen center, and maybe here too, the section of the Genjo Kon where says, do not suppose that what you realize. Do not suppose that what you realize will appear in your consciousness. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be distinctly apparent. Well, Nichi Jima and Cross, they have a line in there that says, realization is the state of ambiguity itself. Realization is the state of ambiguity itself. I have to switch my glasses back because I can't see you clearly with us. And seeing you clearly is important to me. So, Luo Pu about to die. When Luo Pu. And also for those of you who know Chinese, I apologize for my pronunciation. When Luo Pu was about to die, he said to the assembly, I have one thing to ask you people. If this is so, this is adding a head on top of your head. If it is not so, this is cutting off your head, seeking life. At that time, the Shi TSO said, the green mountain is always walking. You don't hang a lamp in broad daylight. This seems like a pretty wonderful statement at that moment. The vitality of life and the brightness. Why would we need such a question as Luo Pu is asking at that moment. But Luopu doesn't feel that way. He says, what time is this to make such a speech? And a certain Elder Yansan came forward and said, leaving these two paths, I request the teacher not to ask. I request the teacher not to ask. Ruopu said, not yet. Speak again. And Yan San said, I can't say it all. And Ruopu says, I don't care if you can say it all or not. And Yang San says, I have no attendant to answer the teacher. I have no attendant to answer the teacher. He's such a state, he cannot speak of what his state is. Perhaps I'm adding too many words there. Later that evening, Lu Oppu called Elder Yangcang, your answer today was most should experientially realize the saying of my late teacher, before the eyes, there are no things that meaning is before the eyes. That is not something before the eyes, not in reach of ears and eyes. Kind of complicated. You should experientially realize the saying of my late teacher. Before the eyes, there are no things that meaning is before the eyes, that is not something before the eyes, not in reach of the ears and eyes. That's the quote. Then Luo Pu says, which phrases are guests? Which phrases are hosts? If you can pick them out, I'll impart the robe and bowl to you. Yang Sen said, I don't understand. Luopu said, you shouldn't understand. Yang Sen said, I really don't. Luopu shouted and said, how miserable. A monk said, what is the teacher's meaning? Luo Pu said, the boat of compassion is not rowed over pure waves, over precipitous straits, it is wasted effort to send out a wooden goose. So at that time, sailors, when they were going out, if the seas were at all rough, or if they didn't know the path through the sea, they would throw a piece of wood into the sea, and that would tell them something of the path of the boat. And they called that piece of wood a wooden goose. Now in the commentary, it says in the instructions for sitting meditation written by Master Wuyun of Hangzhou, it says, following the flow of the ravine straits, don't get stuck with the wooden goose. So from your own practice, you can think of that you're sitting and you're trying to find your way through the through. You're trying to let things flow. Let things flow and not get struck some stuck in it. But Baupu says, the boat of compassion is not rowed over pure waves. Over precipitous straits it is wasted effort to set out a wooden goose from where I sit these are words to live by. Are we not in the precipitous straits every moment of our lives? So we have Tian Tong's Diantong's, Hong Xhiong Zhi's verse. The bait is clouds, the hook the moon Fishing in the clear harbor Old in years Alone at heart he hasn't got a fish yet One song leaving the clamor Coming on Back on the Milo river the only sober man. I'll read it again. Okay. The bait is clouds, the hook the moon Fishing in the clear harbor Old in years Alone at heart he hasn't got a fish yet One song leaving the clamor Coming on Back on the Milo river the only sober man. So this part about the leaving the clamor is a literary work. And it's a literary work by a person called Ch', Yuan, who was styled Ping, and he served King Hui of Chu as the chief of the royal families. Denounced by Genshan, he was demoted and sent to Changsha. He walked alone by the riverside. He told the fishermen, all the world is drunk, I alone am sober. All the world is polluted, I alone am pure. And he plunged into the Milo river and died. So that's the story, and there seems to be some comparison here of Chuyuan styled Ping to Luopo. You know, when we read these ancient texts, there's so much there that is a lot of it is hidden from us, because unless we're scholars of Chinese and Chinese history, we don't know so much about it. But I recently read that Qu Yuan was a person of the 4th century BC BC BCE before Common Era. 4th century before Common Era. And in present day China, there's something called the Dragon Boat Festival, which is believed to be in some way remembrance of his passing by suicide in Milo River. And he's considered a folk hero by the People's Republic of China, by the Communist Party, he's considered a great folk hero. So ordinary people in China and the government consider him a great. So it's interesting, just interesting. It doesn't have so much to do with what I want to say, but it's interesting to me. It's interesting in that when we explore these texts, we take from it, depending upon what's happened to us in our lives, what we've been taught and what we can distill from the meanings of the ancients, the way they've been translated. And we never know if the translation is what we Think it will, whether or not it accords with the original meaning. So I just want to go back over it again and read it another time, if that's all right with you, and maybe share some of the comments that were made on it. But maybe my own comments. Maybe that's more to the point. When Liu Po, when Luo Pu was about to die, he said to the group, I have one thing to ask you people. Comment is he's still talking military strategy. If this is so, this is adding a head to your head. This way won't do. If it's not so, this is cutting off your head, seeking life. Not this way won't do either. At that time, the head monk said, the green mountain is always moving its feet. You don't hang a lamp in broad daylight. If it's spoken clearly, it's all the more and more difficult to get out. So the head monk said something pretty profound. But did he really get it out? Luo Pu, what time is this to make such a speech? He lost his money and incurred punishment. A certain Elder Yang Tsang came up and said, leaving these two paths, I request the teacher not to ask. It's very intimate. Very intimate situation between the teacher and Byung San. Luo Pu said, not yet. Speak again. Luo Pu senses something there. The comment says, poems must be recited twice to see their worth. I can't say it all. The comment is letting people see it makes it all the more charming. All the more charming. I don't care if you can say it all or not. Letting a bottomless one come, it can't help not stopping. I have no attendant to answer you. It says the shadowing grass is all around him. So the shadowing grass. He's hidden. Yang San is hidden. I'm going to skip a little bit here. Which phrases the whole thing he's saying, oh, maybe I'll just. I will read it. That evening, Luo Pu called. Yang Shan, your answer today was most reasonable. You should experientially realize the saying of my late teacher. Before the eyes, there are no things. The meaning is before the eyes, this is not something. Before the eyes, not in reach of ears and eyes. When the moon sets, come and see me. Which phrases are guests and which phases are host? If you can pick them out, I'll impart the robe and bowl to you. The comment is Holding a stick, he calls the dog. Holding a stick, he calls the dog. Yang Shan says, I don't understand. The comment is, he's going to make a high mountain. I really Don't. I really don't understand. He's not bringing a single load of earth. Luo Po shouts, how miserable. He cheats ordinary people. Monk asks, what do you mean? Luo Pu says, the boat of compassion is not rowed over pure waves over precipitous straits. It is wasted effort to set out a wooden goose. And the comment here is flaunting skill. He becomes clumsy. It's the comments, you know, it's adding more ambiguity for me. The boat of compassion is not rode over pure waves over precipitous straits. It is wasted effort to set out a wooden goose. Shinryu Suzuki said something to the effect of. Again, it was a comment on the Genjokoan, one part, the Gendro Koan, I think he said, when you are completely ignorant through and through, completely ignorant through and through, and you cannot explain yourself, it is good. Thank you. Do you have comments or questions? And I want to ask Teigen in particular, because I think you might have been consulting the text. He was. Do you have comments, corrections, anything you would like to or illuminate for us? [00:15:04] Speaker B: Well, he finally says, the boat of compassion is not rode over pure waves over precipitous straits. It is wasted effort to set out a wooden goose. So setting out a wooden goose, it's like a trial balloon or something. There's nothing there actually. It's just the boat of compassion. So I don't know what to say exactly, except that [00:15:38] Speaker A: I feel not what knowing what to say is perfect, but go ahead. [00:15:43] Speaker B: Well, just Lopu is really wonderful teacher and he's giving it all up. That's all. It's just giving it all up. [00:15:53] Speaker A: Thank you. [00:15:55] Speaker C: So, Kathy, you know, I think often we want a wooden goose. [00:15:59] Speaker A: Often we want a wooden goose. Oh, yeah. [00:16:03] Speaker C: We're like, let me throw that goose out there and it's going to tell me the right way. [00:16:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, we have many beliefs, you know, if we do the right thing, things will work out in a certain way. But things work out as they work out. For me, this over precipitous straits, it's wasted effort to send out a wooden goose. So if we try, we try to negotiate life, I mean, especially, let's just take Buddhist practice. Okay. I'm a recovering Catholic. I think probably many of you are recovering Catholics, maybe. So Catholicism is very rich in rituals. And many of us, I think may, for myself at least, I felt without consciously not so much at the surface, but there's something deeply, deeply draws about the ritual of Buddhism. But there's also something else with Catholicism there's at least the way I was brought up. It's a very definiteness to it. This is the one and only true faith. And it happens like this, and it happens like that. And one can. One can take up Buddhism with that attitude. This is the one and only true way. There's no other way. There's no other way. And in a way, you know, you have to say, for me, there is no other way. But it's not what I thought was no other way. I think Hogetsu, I think he told this story that I told you at one time about the orioki bowls on top of the. Tell it anyway. At Green Gulch once. I was Reb's assistant at that point, so I would tension Reb Anderson, so I would go into his room with him in the morning. I was also the sewing teacher at that time. And I took very seriously the idea that you do not put anything on top of the okase. And yet when we came into Cloud Hall, I saw that somebody had put their orae set up on top of the rack for the okases and all of that. And so when we were in Reb's room, I said, you know, Tenchiroshi, did you see there was that bowls up on the orioki bowls up on top of the sewing rack? And he said, yeah, I saw it. So we just left it there. And then we left and we went into the zendo. And I thought he was going to take it down or do something, which of course he didn't. He didn't do anything. And we went into Sitzazen and all, period. I was sitting there. If this is the kind of Zen center that allows our yoki bowls to be put on top of the rack, I'm out of here. I'm done with it. You know, kind of rigid, Kind of rigid. So when it. Not too tight, not too loose, finding our way in the ambiguity of the situation, you know. You know, we're. Right now, we're in very politically very wild times. Very wild times. So it's very easy there again to have very fixed, solid views about right and wrong. You know, I'm part of the Rapid Response Network where I live, so we go out and we have an accompaniment program. So we go with immigrants to their appointments. And, you know, sometimes you see ice officers taking someone, taking someone away. So there's some ice officers who are facing you with cloth around his lower part of his face. What's that? What's that? How are you with that? What do you do? The Practice of saving all beings. Can you neatly say, the evil is over here and the good is over here? Is something unfolding in front of you? I would say we are very much in the precipitous straits. We don't know how to proceed exactly, but we're moving forward. There are questions or comments. It doesn't even have to be about this. Is there something you want to ask? I don't see any hands on mine. Power. [00:20:30] Speaker D: Thank you for your talk. Kathy. Can you read that? I'm not familiar with this koan. Can you read that line? That's something like, I have no attendant. [00:20:40] Speaker A: Say it again. [00:20:41] Speaker D: Oh, is it I have no attendant. [00:20:42] Speaker A: Oh, that's actually in the koan. That's in the koan. [00:20:44] Speaker D: It's in the koan, yeah. [00:20:47] Speaker A: He says, a certain elder Yang son came forth and said, leaving these two paths, I request the teacher not to ask. And Luopu says, not yet speak again. And Yang also, to tell you the truth, if you go to the book, you have to kind of flip back and forth because there's a little bit of text missing here. It's in the next page. You can see it. But Luo Pu says, not yet speak again. And Yang San says, I can't say it all. And Luo, puzzled. Lu Pu says, I don't care if you can say it all or not. And Yang San says, I have no attendant to answer the teacher. So to get an idea of what this means, there's another koan further on. I don't think I could flip through it and find it so easily. I think it's dengshan about to die or something like that. It might be where there's a discussion back and forth where the. A monk is asking Deng Shan if there's someone who is not ill. And he says there is. And he's asking him, does he attend to you? Does he take care of you? And Deng Shan says, actually, I am fortunate enough to be able to take care of him. So this is kind of guest and host or attendant and that which is attended to the profound. I think Yan Tsung's statement there is a very profound statement, but it's hidden. I think I've said enough about it. I think if I say more, I make it too concrete. [00:22:32] Speaker D: Thank you. I didn't even. I don't know what question I had, but some answer was given, and I think that works for now. [00:22:38] Speaker A: I'm sorry, say it again. [00:22:40] Speaker D: Some answer was given, and I think it works for now because I didn't know I was going to ask other than there's something strange about that statement. [00:22:48] Speaker A: So you're right in the midst of the precipitous strait and you just went ahead and plunged in. Actually, there's a comment about that later in it too, which is quite wonderful. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not sure I can find it right now. But anyway, thank you for plunging in. [00:23:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:07] Speaker E: I've not gotten into practice of reading koans yet. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. But primary the reason for it is that I have a very hard time understanding what they mean. So what is what you read to us today? I had a very hard time understanding what it means in modern world. [00:23:29] Speaker A: What does it mean to you? Thank you for that. Great question. This provides an opportunity for me to say a little bit about studying koans. I bought the book, I bought the Blue Cliff record. That was the first book of Cohen's I bought in 1994 when I first met tension Rev Anderson, because I think he was discussing something from there. And I tried to read it and I just felt just completely hopeless. Hopeless, you know, and that was what, 30 years ago? So don't think that. Don't think that. I know what this koan means. I read it. There's something underneath it. I told Laurie last night I was going to say that. For me, collections of koans are like boxes of see's candy. It's kind of a weird thing to say. It may seem like it's trivializing koans, but they're so rich. If you spend a couple of hours or even half an hour every day or once in a while with them, they will begin to speak to you from underneath. So what does it mean? To me, it means let go of meaning. [00:24:48] Speaker C: Okay. [00:24:49] Speaker A: Means let go of meaning. So I want to say something else too about them. Some of you may be writers. Are any of you writers? [00:24:58] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:24:59] Speaker A: Okay. Are you familiar with George Orwell's 14 page essay Politics in the English language? Yeah. One person is, look it up, look it up, read it. You can read it 10 times over and over and over again. He's talking about, how do you. And I'm not a writer, but I love reading this stuff. Koans are great things for writers to read because the language is very vivid. There are many, many expressions. Like for example, the elbow does not bend out, does not bend backwards, or does not bend outward. So it doesn't. It elbow bends toward the self. It doesn't bend away from the self. It's like Suzuki Roshi saying in other religions. The point is more and more angled towards something away from the person. But in Buddhism, the sharp angle is always toward ourselves. So the elbow bends toward ourselves. So I resonate with the. I mean, first of all, just the great beauty of Yang San just saying I don't understand. And we don't really know his level of not understanding. We don't know. There's no way to know. [00:26:18] Speaker E: Is the sentence about the apprehension? Because that's how I understood it to be. [00:26:22] Speaker A: I beg your pardon? [00:26:22] Speaker E: The sentence about the Howard, I have no attendant. Yeah. To me that meant I don't understand. But I don't know if that is the interpretation of that. [00:26:30] Speaker A: Well, I actually read something a little bit different into that. Something more like this may sound too grandiose. All right. But anyway, that his. The profundity of his state was unspeakable. It could not. If we talk about Dongshan and saying, you know, saying when the monk asks him, is there one who is not ill? And Deng Shan, I think I'm. I'm not sure I'm remembering the koan correctly, but I think so. And Dengshan saying, there is. And then the monk saying, does that one take care of you? And he said, fortunately, I am able to take care of that one. So here the monk is saying, I'm not able to take care of that. I'm not able to express that one's position that I'm experiencing. Something like that. Maybe. Maybe, Maybe. [00:27:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:27:23] Speaker A: Anyone else? And we're about it. We're just about five after, so maybe it's a good place to finish up. [00:27:32] Speaker C: Unless there are some. No word online. Okay. [00:27:39] Speaker A: We're okay. [00:27:40] Speaker C: Thank you very much, Kathy. And you know, we end with the four vows. So whenever you're ready, you can start them. [00:27:51] Speaker A: Okay. [00:27:51] Speaker C: Microphone. [00:27:56] Speaker A: Their intention equally penetrate everything and ways with the true myth of Beerus waves [00:28:07] Speaker C: being so numberless out to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible bound. Our magates are bound out venture bound. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to realize it. Numberless we vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible. We vow to cut through them. Dharma gates are boundless. We vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. We vow to realize it. Beings are numberless. We vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible. We vow to go through them. Torment gates are boundless. Feel how to enter them. Let us face uncertainty.