[8/10/23, 5:30:08 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Actually nowadays in practice i dont really have much designations or referents.. its oceanic and boundless whether in sitting or movement. In a sense its similar to infinitude of universe like AF except there is no solidity.. its just dependent origination and emptiness in action like when you move the whole infinite net of indra reflects accordingly. The dependent origination its not like
inherent cause and effect.. In moving its not like body interacting with environment but like infinite reflections in total exertion, like the whole universe is the movement not i moving. When sitting there is no me or body mind sitting like out of body into boundless and oceanic but there is no sense of a self expanding outward, just natural and spontaneous presence like whole universe is sitting. Gapless distanceless without boundaries and radiant but nothing there.. no seer, no seeing, nothing seen and also no universe to ground in.. i dunno if im skewing to radiance but i seldom engage in analysis nowadays. Or its good for me to do more analysis
[8/10/23, 5:40:53 PM] John Tan: Quite good. But still skewing towards radiance. Try to balance with space-like nature. And don't talk about natural state, still far from it.
[8/10/23, 5:41:46 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Oic..
[8/10/23, 5:42:51 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Maybe i should do more dzogchen sky gazing lol
[8/10/23, 5:43:02 PM] Soh Wei Yu: I like to sit outside in nature, beach and parks
[8/10/23, 5:43:12 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Usually weekends i always do except only yesterday too hazy
[8/10/23, 5:43:26 PM] John Tan: Dunno what is that. But meditation on open space is crucial and helpful.
[8/10/23, 5:43:39 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Oic..
[8/10/23, 5:43:58 PM] Soh Wei Yu: quotes: (
[21/7/19, 8:46:47 PM] John Tan: The inner develope must include the ability to b contented in oneself.
[21/7/19, 8:47:31 PM] John Tan: When I sit in silent listening to meditation music, I was like being "there".
[21/7/19, 8:47:50 PM] John Tan: This I have told u.
[21/7/19, 8:49:26 PM] John Tan: U should look at the wide sky
[21/7/19, 8:50:10 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Oic..
[21/7/19, 8:50:53 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Like sky gazing dzogchen meditation haha
[21/7/19, 8:51:17 PM] John Tan: I do not know what they do
[21/7/19, 8:51:19 PM] John Tan: Lol
[21/7/19, 8:52:55 PM] John Tan: The reason nowsaday I don't want to talk to u abt experience is because u r already attached to experience.
[21/7/19, 8:56:22 PM] John Tan: Elena wrote something about getting "real". U know what that means?
[21/7/19, 9:02:28 PM] Soh Wei Yu: “
4) Sky-gazing
Sometimes called "mingling the threefold sky" or "namkha arted." This is an important Dzogchen practice to enhance one's released shiné. Basically, one mingles one's consciousness with the infinitude of the sky, thereby actively undoing the subject-object duality.”
[21/7/19, 9:02:38 PM] Soh Wei Yu: image omitted
[21/7/19, 9:02:38 PM] Soh Wei Yu: image omitted
[21/7/19, 9:02:39 PM] Soh Wei Yu: image omitted
[21/7/19, 9:02:39 PM] Soh Wei Yu: image omitted
[21/7/19, 9:02:40 PM] Soh Wei Yu: image omitted
[21/7/19, 9:03:09 PM] John Tan: Then it is the same...lol
[21/7/19, 9:04:38 PM] Soh Wei Yu: image omitted
[21/7/19, 9:04:38 PM] Soh Wei Yu: image omitted
[21/7/19, 9:04:39 PM] Soh Wei Yu: image omitted
[21/7/19, 9:04:50 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Oic lol.. the book by namkhai norbu
[21/7/19, 9:05:30 PM] John Tan: Mingling one's consciousness with the infinitude of the sky undoing the subject-object duality...I din know that is the purpose of sky gazing
[21/7/19, 9:06:36 PM] John Tan: Allowing the infinitude to dissolve whatever traces that is left...
[21/7/19, 9:07:35 PM] John Tan: However one should not b attached to blissfulness of non-dual.
[21/7/19, 9:08:29 PM] John Tan: Rather what u should learn is if u were in ur sis place, having all those issues, how r u to heal urself.
[21/7/19, 9:08:37 PM] John Tan: That is more important...
[21/7/19, 9:11:55 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Oic..
[21/7/19, 9:12:27 PM] John Tan: Tell me what "Elena" meant by getting "real"
[21/7/19, 9:13:46 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Like this? “Rather what u should learn is if u were in ur sis place, having all those issues, how r u to heal urself.”
[21/7/19, 9:14:26 PM] John Tan: What is this "healing" abt?
[21/7/19, 9:18:05 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Recovering from the various physical and mental conditions
[21/7/19, 9:18:33 PM] Soh Wei Yu: But i dunno about it myself
[22/7/19, 12:13:37 AM] John Tan: Anatta allow u to experience non-dual naturally and effortlessly in the six entries and exits
[22/7/19, 12:15:06 AM] John Tan: What will enable u to engage in market place fully and without duality?)
[8/10/23, 5:44:35 PM] John Tan: Even sitting in open park, with hot and humid weather under a tree, I can quite enter into samadhi.
[8/10/23, 5:45:25 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Nice.. ya im now at a park lol walking
[8/10/23, 5:45:30 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Just sat a little just now later i sit more
[8/10/23, 5:45:44 PM] John Tan: But I try not to sit in open nature now coz attracted school kids...lol
[8/10/23, 5:45:54 PM] John Tan: Maybe in the morning in park
[8/10/23, 5:45:59 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Lol i see
[8/10/23, 5:55:33 PM] John Tan: Do u know what is dharmadhathu?
[8/10/23, 5:59:52 PM] Soh Wei Yu: I think i see you and kyle mentioned before, something like dharmadhatu is the emptiness of all phenomena while dharmata is the emptiness of a specific phenomena
[8/10/23, 6:09:06 PM] John Tan: U must learn to write ur own experiences in small lil thing like what yin ling did. Nothing about quotes but just simple daily stuff, so direct and simple and u directly see the depth of insight for example "ignorance" in that post.
[8/10/23, 6:10:56 PM] John Tan: No words from dharma, from the 7 phases of insights but just some simple descriptions u see the engagement and authentication of insight on "ignorance", on the hypnotic spell.
[8/10/23, 6:12:55 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Oic..
[8/10/23, 6:17:17 PM] Soh Wei Yu: U know ven jinmyo osho the zen teacher
[8/10/23, 6:17:25 PM] John Tan: Dunno
[8/10/23, 6:17:29 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Her lineage is always talking about space
[8/10/23, 6:17:32 PM] Soh Wei Yu: But its very much anatta
[8/10/23, 6:17:45 PM] Soh Wei Yu: She also always talk about space
[8/10/23, 6:18:33 PM] Soh Wei Yu: 1: The Sky Sits Up Straight
Presented by Ven. Jinmyo Renge sensei
Dainen-ji, Saturday, August 24th 2019
Anzan Hoshin roshi has said to me, "The sky is always sitting up straight above, around, and all the way to the ground. The sky envelops the earth with atmosphere. As the atmosphere fades, the space of the sky extends to the sun and past, enveloping the galaxy and all stars and worlds galaxies to the edges of the universe. But people are focussed upon whether the sky is cloudless and blue, or clouded and grey."
The other day, Roshi once more pointed out to me that "Clouds are magnificent atmospheric sculptures standing in the sky, far beyond the talents of any sculptor, formed of air and water."
Clouds forming and reforming, sometimes massive and imposing, towering and billowy; sometimes displaying as wisps and curls and waves, as fish scales or solid sheets of pewter. It is art being created moment to moment and it’s all free.
In the Buddhadharma, the sky has often been used as a metaphor for complete and utter Awakening, the Dharmakaya or the context of Awake Awareness. Within the context of the sky, within the Troposphere, the band of atmosphere closest to the earth, vapour congeals into water or ice droplets, forming clouds and these have been used to represent the congealing of attention into content within context.
In “Six Verses in Leisurely Solitude”, written by Eihei Dogen zenji, one verse entitled “The True Person Displayed Throughout The Ten Directions” says:
The true person is
no one in particular.
Like the deep blue
of the vast sky
it is everyone, everywhere.
Breathing in, breathing out, we breathe the sky. No matter what we are doing, regardless of how we feel about what we are doing, we are always breathing the sky.
On a clear evening if you are able to see the Milky Way, what you are seeing is about 200 billion stars and the universe says, “Do you know how ancient I am, how beautiful I am, how vast I am?” And you recognize this because you are made of stardust and so you are what those 200 billion stars are, and you and they arise together in the same space. “It is everyone, everywhere”. You see the light of stars that are 100,000 lightyears away or more, and although you can’t touch them, their light crosses vast space and time and touches you.
What you are able to see of the sky, and of space beyond the sky, is only possible because of light - the light from the sun, the light reflected by the moon, and the light from objects far from the earth. Right now, facing the wall, you are seeing space lit by daylight and electric lighting. You are seeing sky. And the space of the sky is always available to you.
What we’re talking about is context. The open space of the sky is the context. Clouds within the sky refer to content within context. In this series of Dharma Talks we will discuss how to open the clouds of states you create by opening to context.
At any moment you notice a contraction, by simply feeling the breath and the body and opening to the space around the body, there is a loosening of the contraction. All contractions are simply knots tied in space.
Contraction is the result of grasping and clenching and recoiling and refusing the openness of reality. Self-image continuously sorts experiencing into what it likes (passion, or grasping), what it doesn't like (aggression, pushing away and struggling), and then everything else, the 99.9% of experiencing that it can't be bothered with (ignorance) because it doesn't fit into the categories of liking and disliking. Self-image wants to hide, to lose itself in states.
The space doesn’t bend to your likes and dislikes. It doesn’t care about any of your states or storylines. And yet, it envelops all of them with an intimacy that is closer than any relationship you could ever have and always has space for anything that might come up.
In a collection of poetry called "The Sky Itself" published in 1986, Roshi wrote:
the wisdom-sword of Monju
takes no sides
it cuts
leaving no trace
it cuts cutting
it cuts Monju
right edge cuts left
left cuts right
but leave all this behind
and cut into THIS!
this moment, this sound
autumn rain falling
in the midst of darkness
the sky itself
this breath
As the Roshi says, “The three klesas or three poisons of passion, aggression, and ignorance are self-image's three fundamental options towards anything that arises: run to it, run away from it, curl up in a ball and ignore it. But all that is known points to the open space of Knowing.”
We too, can sit up straight, as does the sky that is always around the clouds. And even clouds are just forms of the sky. Whatever comes and goes, whatever clouds form and dissolve, sit with this breath as the sky that you are breathing in and breathing out.
2: Five Heaps and Three Poisons
2: Five Heaps and Three Poisons
Presented by Ven. Jinmyo Renge sensei
Dainen-ji, Saturday, October 19th 2019
I have spoken about the open space of the sky in order to represent the open context of our Experiencing, and clouds within the sky to refer to contents arising within this context.
In order to talk about the various kinds of content that students became clouded by, we should address what these ‘clouds’ or entanglements are, and how they happen. And to do that we need to begin with the traditional Teaching of the three kleshas of passion, aggression, and stupidity because they are the currents that stir together as all of our ‘entanglements’. They make up the basic style through which self-image relates to experience.
So, what are the clouds? Self-image, the image one has of oneself and the rest of the world comes about through a process of contraction. To understand the three klesas it is helpful to understand the play of the “five skandhas”. Now, don't be scared by Sanskrit terms. We chanted the Heart Sutra, the Maha Prajnaparamita Hridaya Sutra just a few moments ago.
In translations from the early Pali texts the five skandhas are often referred to as the "five aggregates of clinging”. They can also be called the "five heaps". The five skandhas have been translated by Anzan Hoshin roshi as "form, basic reactivity, symbolization, habitual patterning and consciousness". When the Buddha originally presented his Teachings on this, he piled up five heaps of different grains to represent these categories of impermanent phenomena.
The five skandhas can be discussed in many different ways, but they are primarily used in the Abhidhamma and the Abhidharmakosa to describe body (rupa) and mind or nama (with the categories of vedana, samjna, samskara, vijnana) as a collection of various kinds of things instead of being one solid thing, like the heaps of grains that the Buddha showed his disciples.
Instead of just describing body and mind as various kinds of things, the five skandhas can also be used to describe how perceptions and cognitions occur as a consequence of self-image. To illustrate this, I’ll quote from a passage in the “Development of Buddhist Psychology" series of classes presented by Anzan roshi in 1990:
“An example I use quite often - which of course is not at the level of mind moments, more at the level of mind-hours, mind-weeks or mind-years, but is something that we can use to understand how subtler processes happen - is to draw an example from something that almost everybody has experienced.
You walk into a room and there isn’t anybody there and you know there is nobody in the house, but there is somebody there and (sharp inhalation) you feel shocked for a moment.
And then you look and you realize it is a mirror and it is just you.
So you walk into the room and all of a sudden there is “HUHHH” – there is just “Something is there!” and everything becomes frozen. Everything becomes form. There is a big split that comes in so that you are there and what you are experiencing is out there, very definitely out there, but so much so that you cannot get any kind of focus on it.
At first it is just “HUHHH”, just panic and then feeling. You go “What is it? What’s wrong? There is somebody here. There is somebody here.”
And then perception, the third skandha comes in and you go, “There is a person in here and they are about this tall and they are”…so on and so forth.
And the next skandha, the fourth skandha comes in, in which you kind of rummage through and see if what you are experiencing now has a precursor, that is to say, if it is similar to something you have experienced in the past.
And you go, “Well, that’s me.”
Then the fifth skandha, or consciousness skandha, “Oh! It’s a mirror.” And sort of cluing into what is actually going on.
So the five skandhas can be looked at as simply a way of clarifying what we are experiencing. However, the way in which that happens tends to have an awful lot of contraction to it.
First of all, this sense of “this”, “that”, “self” and “other”, something out there – has a quality of panic to it. Not just in that example, but in the way in which self-image functions as nama rupa in the arising of mind moments, there is a very frozen, crystallized quality to it.”
According to the Abhidhamma and the Abhidharmakosa, attachment to feelings is developed through the second skandha of basic reactivity. And that brings us to the topic of the three Kleshas.
In the Pali Canon's discourses kilesa is often associated with the various passions that "defile" bodily and mental states. In the Pali Canon's Abhidhamma and post-canonical Pali literature, ten "defilements" are identified, the first three of which – passion, aggression, and stupidity – are considered to be the "roots" of suffering. The Sanskrit word klesa refers to mental states that temporarily cloud the mind's nature. They are referred to as "the three poisons" in Mahayana Buddhism. The kleshas specifically refer to the subtle movement of mind (citta) when it initially encounters a mental object. This is the second skandha of basic reactivity.
So at this point, the three klesas are as yet very subtle. They are orientations rather than actual emotions or feeling-tones and storylines. They are like predispositions rather than the stirring of states. But if this becomes amplified through the following skandhas of symbolization, and then habitual patterning, it becomes a state within consciousness.
It is through following the direction of these predispositions that we become lost in the poisonous clouds of the klesas. Unless our practice is deep and subtle, we will only very rarely recognize the basic reactivity of the second skandha. But through opening up around how the three klesas of passion, aggression, and stupidity have clouded our experience in the fifth skandha again and again and again, we become more and more capable of releasing these states earlier and earlier.
When we chanted the Heart Sutra this morning, it kept telling us that the five skandhas are empty, or sky-like. They are not solid, not fixed. They are like air and moisture and various causes and conditions mixing as clouds while all around the clouds is the already open sky.
When our world seems covered in clouds of passion, aggression, and stupidity, and we are coughing and hacking at the consequences of identifying with them, the truth is that our world is actually already open like the sky. We do not have to follow through on our pre-dispositions, our compulsions, our clouded states.
The open sky is available to us in the spaciousness of our actual bodily sensations, our ability to sit up straight and to walk upright through the spaces around the bodymind. As our practice deepens and opens then we can realize the five skandhas as the five wisdoms and the three poisons as the numberless gates to the Dharma that we can move through freely.
I will talk about the shapes of these clouds of passion, aggression, and stupidity soon. But, right now, let us sit up straight and walk upright.
Receiving the Dharma Seal
Hekiganroku Case 2: Zhaozhou’s “The Vast Way is Without Difficulty”
Dharma Talk Presented by Ven. Jinmyo Renge sensei
Dainen-ji, Sogaku O-sesshin, Thursday May 20th 2021
On this day, in this moment, I sit before the students gathered in the Hatto, having just received Inka, or the Seal of Authenticity as a Zen Teacher, from my Master, Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi in a face-to-face and mind-to-mind private ceremony in the Hojo, or Abbot’s Quarters. Having been a successor to his Dharma through shiho, I now have been entrusted as his Dharma-heir through inka and can Transmit it to my own students.
And so, the Lineage of Awakened Ancestors is continuously alive, being passed on from Teachers to students who themselves can become Teachers who then pass it on to their own students.
I can never repay the Roshi for his instruction, encouragement, his humour, and sometimes his fierceness in his insistence that I practise realization and follow through, that I make as much use as I can of rich resources that are available, the Dharma Gates that are open in all directions right now. In speaking with the Roshi, every situation, no matter what it is, is a lesson in how to embody the Way, in how to fulfill the Four Great Vows. Whether through instruction in formal practice, or providing guidance about how to respond to a student or a situation, or explaining something about literature or history or Linux, he is continuously pointing to the spaciousness and Radiance of Experiencing, continuously asking us to open past our states and beliefs so that we can see what he is pointing to. He is always Teaching, in word, deed and gesture. His commitment to all of his students, the depth and breadth of his knowledge and understanding of Dharma and the entanglements that students experience, his foresight in creating volumes of Teachings for those who will follow, all of the effort he has made to ensure that we have the best possible resources - for all that I have mentioned and so much more, I am grateful beyond words.
I am also very grateful to the late Ven. Shikai Zuiko osho-ajari whom we honoured as O-sensei. She was my Dharma-sister and together with me had received shiho as a successor in Anzan Hoshin roshi's Lineage. I am grateful for the instruction she gave me when I was a new student, and then for always being available to consult with over the years.
Our Transmission from such Masters as Eihei Dogen to Koun Ejo, to Tettsu Gikai, to Keizan Jokin, Sogaku Hakukaze, Anzan Daiko, Mushin Daie, from Joshu Dainen to Anzan Hoshin, and now from Anzan Hoshin to me, is the practice of Vast Openness that is without a centre or fringe, and has no beginning and no end.
The whole point of the Lineage is to protect, maintain and uphold, and to continue the practice of realization, so that it can be passed on to coming generations as completely as possible. It’s not something that can be owned by anyone - although people will try to rope off areas of Zen practice and try to sell them off in various forms - those can only ever be scraps and husks because these fragments do not have actual Transmission behind them. But though the practice can’t be owned by anyone, it can be upheld and passed on.
I often explain to students that since what we are practising is Vast Openness, within that some ‘markers’ are needed - a structure with clear signposts along the way so we don’t just wander about aimlessly and fall into ditches and bumble in the brambles. In an open field you could just wander around and around in the closed circles of self concern. Without touchstone and markers, we could very easily just “wander in delusion”.
And yet the structure that we use in our Zen practice is very simple. The forms are part of that structure: bowing practice, how we take our seats, how we handle our zafu, sitting zazen, walking kinhin, the kata, oryoki, koan practice, Mikkyo practices, samu, the structure of training itself, with the various training posts - minor and major - these are all markers within Vast Openness that show us clearly what we need to do now and what we need to do next.
But people tend to want to make them into things, into signposts that they can hold up and say “Look, I am here! I’ve arrived! I understand! I’ve GOT IT, for once and for all”. But they are not ‘things’ that you can take hold of and own. They are more like gates that open out into larger and larger spaces.
Some of you may be familiar with the game of "Weiqi" or in Japanese “Go”, which is likely the oldest board game. It originated in China and is thought to be about 4,000 years old. According to legend, the game was created by the legendary Chinese Emperor Yao as a tool to teach his son how to rule. Anzan roshi and I played many games together, especially decades ago when the Sangha was at our old monastery Zazen-ji. It is played on a flat board marked with a grid. The blank board is open with possibilities, but so many that it is not until the pieces - which are actually small stones - are placed on it that you can begin to see the shapes made by stones as clear possibilities. The stones do not just squat on a square but are set on the interstitial lines so that the four directions open out from them and can form relationships with the other stones. The stones are set and rest and interact rather than squat and then jump to take territory. There are more and more possibilities as more stones are added but this is not a matter of building actual structures out of the stones. The board and the stones together merely represent various possibilities of interaction. And if you narrow and focus attention on some little area, some strategy you’re letting yourself become preoccupied with, you’ll miss what’s going on with the rest of the board. In the games of Go that Anzan roshi played with me there was no winning or losing but only playing with possibilities until they became too certain to be interesting. Then the game was over.
In the same way, the forms, the practices we do are not about building structures and rules. They are about opening attention, not narrowing attention, and they all point to the Vastness in which all of this is occurring. But because self-image is so habitually contracted, so territorial, it will lock onto fragments of experiencing and try to hold them, freeze them, so that it can feel that it is finally clear, finally certain about something. This is what is going on when people take bits and pieces of our practice out of context and try to sell them off. Self-image wants to use meditation, spirituality, anything that is at hand in order to be better at being itself. It wants something isolated from everything around it, in order to "justify" itself, or make itself seem more "real". This is self-image practicing itself, and what it will produce is self-image. This is the exact opposite of our practice.
But, of course, the Teachers of our Lineage know all about this and there are many Teachings that address it, including many that became koan. So this evening I would like to raise with you one of my favourite koan, Anzan Hoshin roshi and Joshu Dainen daiosho's translation of the Hekiganroku or Blue Cliff Records Case 2: Zhaozhou’s “the Vast Way is Without Difficulty”.
Yuanwu's Pointers:
Heaven and earth are flattened; the sun, moon, and stars go out. Even if blows from the stick fall like rain and "katsu" shouts roll like thunder, you still stop far short of the furthest truth. Even the Buddhas of the three worlds can only know it for themselves, and even the successive Lineage of Awakened Ancestors cannot exhaust its depths. The vast treasury of the sutras cannot wholly expound its meaning and even keen-eyed rag-robed monks cannot save themselves. At this point, what will you do? Saying the word Buddha trails mud and water. Saying the word "Zen," your face should redden with shame. The best students don't need to be told. As for late coming beginners, just get down to it and investigate it.
Through the process of narrowing and congealing into contraction, self-image flattens seeing, hearing, bodily sensation. It blocks out the world in order to sustain itself and the states that seem to justify it. Yuanwu says that “Even if blows from the stick fall like rain and “katsu” shouts roll like thunder, you will stop far short of the furthest truth. Unless you practise the instructions and follow through, it doesn’t matter what anyone else tries to do to try to encourage you to open attention to experiencing as it actually is - not as you ‘want’ it to be. No one can ‘give’ you the Treasury of Dharma.
Yuanwu also says that “...even the successive Lineage of Awakened Ancestors cannot exhaust its depths”. So this tells you that the Dharma is limitless, boundless, without end. So how could you take hold of any part of it and say “This is it”, or think that you could possibly be ‘finished’ in your practice and study when even the successive Lineage of Awakened Ancestors stretching back 2600 years, stretching forward for as long as students are able to uphold the Dharma can never exhaust its depths?
And then Yuanwu says very plainly, “Saying the word "Zen," your face should redden with shame”. The Buddha himself didn’t want to Teach. He didn’t want people to look to him as someone who “knew” everything. Self-image would love to find someone who ‘knows everything’ so that it can pick their brain and take their understanding and then itself be the ‘one’ who knows. Teaching students to practice isn’t about any of that - quite the opposite in fact. So if you find yourself in online chat rooms straightening other people out about how they understand “Zen”, or trying to ‘share’ your understanding of practice with your friends, you should just stop. One should never do anything that might later cause them embarrassment and you will be embarrassed by having done this if you deepen your practice. I almost made this mistake as a beginning student, but I was forewarned by the Roshi that this could come up so I avoided it. This is why all students are told that they should not discuss their practice with other people - to discuss it with a practice advisor, a Dharma Teacher or a Teacher.
The Koan:
Zhaozhou said to the assembly, "The Vast Way is without difficulty. Just don't accept or reject. With a single word, there may arise picking and choosing, or there may arise clarity. This old monk doesn't abide in such ‘clarity.' Do you still hoard any treasures?"
The moment you think you have “clarity” should be the moment you choose to actively question what is being experienced. The same is true of a feeling of ‘difficulty’ - that should be a prompt to question what is being experienced. When Zhaozhou said “The Vast Way is without difficulty. Just don’t accept or reject”, he gives us no choice but to go into this questioning with the whole body.
Xuedou's Verse:
"The Vast Way is without difficulty."
The direct word directly said.
One with many,
non-dual in two.
At the horizon, the sun rises,
the moon sets beyond the hills.
High mountains,
cold waters.
A dried skull has
no consciousness, no joy.
The withered tree
sings tirelessly in the wind.
Difficult, difficult!
"Accepting and rejecting"?
"Clarity"?
See for yourself.
Xuedou knows students so well. He says “The Vast Way is without difficulty, the direct word directly said. He’s really giving you no choice. If what you are practising IS in fact the Vast Way, then you cannot justify a sense of difficulty. Self-image continuously generates a sense of difficulty and this is what students spend so much time roiling about in - in their lives and even when they are sitting on the zafu. Xuedou won’t let students do that. He points to the choice you need to make moment after moment when you are sitting - to release the sense of difficulty, by opening attention to what is actually being experienced in this moment.
Xuedou says, “One with many, non-dual in two”. This is another way of saying “no opposites”. Or “nothing in opposition”. To use an example from your practice: When you are sitting and you open to the visual field, allowing the seeing to open to peripheral vision instead of peering at the wall, the wall isn’t obstructing the seeing. The seeing of the wall is part of the seeing. When you allow attention to open to seeing and hearing and bodily sensation - as many sense fields as you are able - none of these obstruct each other - they all provide information about the whole of your experiencing. Seeing does not obstruct hearing (non-dual in two); opening to all of the sense fields allows attention to open more and more completely (one with many).
Xuedou says,
At the horizon, the sun rises,
the moon sets beyond the hills.
High mountains,
cold waters.
Both of these verses speak of things as they are. At the horizon, the sun rises. You don’t do anything to make that happen. And how you are won’t stop that from happening. There is space for you and everything else and still the sun rises at the horizon and the moon sets beyond the hills. When there are high mountains, there is cold water (water comes from glaciers atop mountains). When there is cold water, there are high mountains.
Stop struggling. Experiencing unfolds as it actually is. Open attention to this extraordinary play of experiencing and - as the Roshi would say - enjoy yourself. Thoughts come and go, feelings come and go, sensations shift and change. Birth, old age, fresh bread, stale crackers, bird song, the sunlight on your skin and the smell of new flowers in the spring. Each thing is in its own place; each thing is taking its own time. Stop struggling.
Xuedou then says,
A dried skull has
no consciousness, no joy.
The withered tree
sings tirelessly in the wind.
Again, he’s speaking about things as they are. A dried skull has no consciousness, no joy. This is obvious on the most basic of levels. But also, if you are sitting there on your zafu, trying to be hollow, trying to be “no-one”, trying to be any way at all, you are like the dried skull with no consciousness, and no joy.
Meanwhile the withered tree isn’t trying to be a ‘something’. It isn’t trying to make a sound. And yet, because it is what it is, and because of the way it interacts with the wind, because both of these things are exerting themselves as they are, there is a song. If you have ever heard a withered tree singing in the wind, you’ll know how beautiful that sound is.
Zhaozhou Congren zenji was speaking from what Eihei Dogen zenji called Before Thinking and Koun Ejo zeni called the Treasury of Luminosity, pointing past the ideas about confusion and clarity held by students.
As Anzan Hoshin roshi said in the series “Without Difficulty: Commentaries of Jianzhi Sengcan’s Xinxin Ming: Words on Trusting Awareness”,
Quote:
"In the absence of picking and choosing, there might arise clarity. But if it is a clarity that depends upon the absence of something then it is merely another state of mind. Like all states it will come and go, like mist and fog and rain and light and dark within the sky. To be truly without difficulty, we must not settle for merely the opposite of anything let alone try to hoard it as if it were a treasure. Instead we must sit, walk, stand, and lie down as the sky itself, always already before and beyond the conditions of body and mind that gather and disperse like weather. There is nowhere to abide, nowhere to dwell, nothing that can be grasped”.
End Quote.
Ryoko Jikaze's Comments and Questions:
Old Zhaozhou confounds the monk. I think the monk confounds Zhaozhou as well, otherwise he would have just beaten the monk into Vimalakirti's silence, wouldn't he? Or is this some kind of dim-witted compassion, letting oneself get entangled in all of this talk of "picking and choosing," "clarity," and "difficulty, no difficulty"? Is there someone to be entangled? Perhaps that's the point after all. Still, there has to be a clearer way.
Ryoko Jikaze doesn’t mean that Zhaozhou doesn’t know how to respond to the monk. But when a student asks a question, the Teacher is tasked with finding a way to respond in such a manner that the student will understand. That can be quite difficult, especially if the student has already taken up a firm stance. Ryoko Jikaze points out that Zhaozhou could have just “beaten the monk into Vimalakirti’s silence.” And although that would have let Zhaozhou off the hook, he chose to help the student understand instead. He’s being a bit tongue in cheek, a bit humorous when he says “Or is this some kind of dim-witted compassion, letting oneself get entangled in all of this talk of "picking and choosing", "clarity," and "difficulty, no difficulty"? Is there someone to be entangled? Perhaps that's the point after all. Still, there has to be a clearer way”. He’s asking students to look into what is being spoken of here, so that they too can understand what Zhaozhou is pointing to.
Zhaozhou said, "The Vast Way is without difficulty. Just don't accept or reject. With a single word, there may arise picking and choosing, or there may arise clarity. This old monk doesn't abide in such ‘clarity.' Do you still hoard any treasures?"
For the Dharma to be Transmitted, it must be given and it must be received. There can be no "holding on" or hoarding. What can be held? This is the true meaning of what people call "renunciation". What can be held? What can you hold reality with? Where could you take a hold of it?
This old monk right here does not abide in such clarity and hoards no treasures. This is how this old monk has received the Dharma Seal of her Master, yet another old monk.
Please, keep your practice open and straight.
[8/10/23, 6:18:58 PM] John Tan: Space as in descriptive language, not as ontological substance.
[8/10/23, 6:19:30 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Oic..
[8/10/23, 6:19:55 PM] Soh Wei Yu: I refer ppl either to malcolm or her
[8/10/23, 6:20:13 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Cos they are the only teachers i know who accept overseas online students that i think have quite clear insight lol
[8/10/23, 6:22:47 PM] John Tan: More experiential, Malcolm is more academic.
[8/10/23, 6:24:37 PM] Soh Wei Yu: I see.. yeah
[8/10/23, 6:24:46 PM] Soh Wei Yu: William also think malcolm too chim or something
[8/10/23, 6:24:55 PM] Soh Wei Yu: So i told him look for ven jinmyo osho
[8/10/23, 6:25:40 PM] John Tan: Once the view is pointed out, then we must see all the teaching everywhere. When u walk in the park, when u hear the kids laughing and crying, when u see boy and gal quarrelling, ppl shopping or when u see monks meditating. All these can be use to described dharma in action.
[8/10/23, 6:28:41 PM] John Tan: Driving into carpark or whatever. If ur mind is immense, u see everything as immense. If u see total exertion exertion, u write like teacher Thich Nhat Hanh. U see flower, u see the universe. U touch the earth, u feel its age, everything is deeply connected though only conventional.
[8/10/23, 6:29:37 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Oic..
[8/10/23, 6:30:02 PM] John Tan: So when u write, u must write out it's heart...when u write with a pen, u feel the pen itself on the paper. Coz u r the pen.
[8/10/23, 6:32:56 PM] John Tan: So there is no need to quote thusness or passerby or even Buddha, dharma is living in u and u r expression of dharma. When u practice, u see where exactly is ignorance. Feeling someone behind the head, someone entering a mall, an ambulance sirening ...practice become u, every endeavour is practice.
[8/10/23, 6:33:26 PM] Soh Wei Yu: Ic..
[8/10/23, 6:33:29 PM] John Tan: Get it?
[8/10/23, 6:35:22 PM] John Tan: Then ur heart is like space not because it is just nothing, it is continuous blossoming, space-like appearances is alive and dynamic.
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