This is the last class in the Summer Sutra Study Session with Bill Powell who has led us in examination and discussion of:

Red Pine, The Platform Sutra, The Zen Teaching of Hui-neng, Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2006;

Taigen Dan Leighton, Just This is It, Dongshan and the Practice of Suchness, Boston: Shambala, 2015 ; and

William Powell (trans.), The Record of Tung-shan, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986. 

Powell is a retired professor of Chinese religions, having spent his 30-year professional career at the University of California Santa Barbara. He earned a B.A. in Philosophy at the University of the Pacific, an M.A. in Chinese language at the University of Hawaii and his PhD in Buddhist Studies at the University of California Berkeley. He spent three years affiliated with Kyoto University as a research scholar, studying early Chan Buddhism and Song period discourse records under the generous and infinitely patient tutelage of Professor Seizan Yanagida. He began Zen practice in 1965 at the Diamond Sangha in Honolulu under Robert Aitken, Katsuki Sekida and Yasutani Roshi.

Full Transcript

And Bill, I'm going to spotlight you. Maybe I'll pin you. It doesn't hurt. And as soon as you're ready, we're ready. So yes, it's been a roller coaster. And here we are today. Definitely, Susan, we're thinking of you. Your comments are always to the point. Appreciate everything you've said. So thank you for your presence through all of this. And we're thinking of you.

I'm not going to say too much this time. I just want to get the ball rolling. Let me start with a few framing comments. The question we started with back six times, actually 12 weeks ago, if not more, was how do you teach when you're not supposed to talk? And then, of course, the irony comes up that Zen Buddhists talk all the time. I think the discourse records and encounter dialogues explain why that happens. Because if we understand how those work, then we can see how you can talk without talking. And that's the paradox. But it's an ingenious, seems to me, development that didn't continue too long as an act of practice.

The classic stories all come from the Tang period, mostly. Most of the dialogues are eighth, ninth, tenth century dialogues. And then comments come on through the next four or five centuries, and those get picked up in some of the later collections. So it was a particular style of teaching that seems to me very effective.

There's an interesting article by Robert Scharf, who is presently a professor of Buddhist studies at UC Berkeley. The title of the article is "How to Think in Koans." How to think in Koans. How to think in that discourse records. In other words, not what do they say, but how do we think with them. And that was partly connected to the notion, I think, that others have mentioned and I mentioned last time, that these are precedent cases. These are skeletons on which, over which are draped the experiences and events of people at later, teachers, students at later times.

I was talking to Bob and Joel and a few other people and music analogies are very useful to some of this. I was talking to a jazz musician recently, a friend of mine. And he said, yeah, Coltrane had a basic form that it was a structure. But once you got very far into what he was doing, you kind of lost where the structure was. It was still down there. It was somewhere in there. But he was reacting to this basic skeletal form.

And skeleton is an interesting way to characterize that because we've talked about function and substance and function. And they're just two sides of the same coin. Substance is the one truth and the function is the way it manifests itself in phenomenal reality. And the Chinese character for substance, it's an ideogram that contains two sub-ideograms. The sub-ideogram on the left side is the ideogram for skeleton. The term actually, the term originally just means body. But the ideogram on the left side is skeleton. The ideogram on the right side is a sacred vessel. And that's the body.

So it kind of suggests to me, I'm not sure this is the invent, the people who developed this particular ideogram had in mind. But that we have a skeleton in these discourse records. And the important thing is to see how it works and how one thinks with these discourse records that were so vital to so much of the Zen and Chan tradition for so many centuries. How does it work to think with it?

Well, Leighton is very thorough. I wish I'd read him before he translated this. He brings in a lot of commentaries from different teachers, including Suzuki Roshi, which I think is a complete shift from what many of the other commentaries had been. So here, 10, 11 centuries later, Suzuki Roshi said, well, here's my reading of this. And I'll leave it to you to figure out what he was saying. Or we may come back to that once we talk about the particular anecdote. And then of course he gives us Dogen's reading of it. And that's different than what other people had said. And then we have his reading of it. And I was working on Professor Yanagita's reading of it. Many of my interpretations were influenced by Yanagita Seizan, who was my teacher in Kyoto.

So the question is, how do these work? And one of the things that emerges very early in our study of the Platform Sutra was that practice and principle are united. They're just two sides of the same thing. They're not something separate. Practice is principle seen from a different side. Principle is practice seen from the other side. And so I thought of Marshall McLuhan. The medium is the message. Many of the later teachers said sitting straight, breathing, is not the end, it's the beginning. And it is the end. It's the result of the end. So in our end is our beginning. Or in our beginning is the end is probably the way to put that start on the Sutra.

And so many of the teachings are already available to us in nonverbal form. And many of these principles that get enunciated in the early period are already there. So if you there are many ways to there are many different styles of discourse, anecdotes, and what I described in my introduction to the review of the last section that we dealt with two weeks ago only represents one.

And so I also think of the different styles that could be used in the style of teaching and Bob recently sent me a copy of something that Jiro at Jikoji, a passage that he had presented for them to do calligraphy with, which was the purple mountains fade off in the distance. I can't remember the exact line. And it was a commentary on Rinzai, Rinzai's four positions, four practices. That particular poetic line that they copied in their calligraphy session or practiced with was from the four practices and the four practices of Linji or Rinzai, where first, I take away the self and leave the environment. The second one is, then sometimes I take away the environment and leave the self. And the third one was sometimes I take away both environment and self. And the fourth one is, and then sometimes I take away neither.

And whether that's progressive or not is never made clear. But some people have suggested in taking away the self, which is the first of his four, is the kind of beginning position, all that's left is the environment. By removing the self through let's say meditation or any other practice, all that's left is the environment.

So there are many ways to that these discourse records work sometimes it's a straightforward Dharma lecture. What's interesting about Dongshan is he gives almost none. Rinzai gives five or six fairly extensive Dharma lectures in his collected records. So there's clearly a different style in these two and clearly between Rinzai and Soto. As you know, if you've read many of the Rinzai records.

So, these are pedagogic styles that were obviously very effective at a certain time. And I would suggest that no one of these discourse records makes this assertion. Or maybe they do. But what I read in this is that the dialogue itself is not an explanation of the Buddha mind, it's a manifestation of the Buddha mind. It's the ability, and Leighton picks up on this as well in the section we're going to deal with today. It's the ability to move freely between the two poles of the pairs that come up again and again, substance and function, form and emptiness. It's the ability not to get trapped in either one of those poles, and to move freely back and forth. And then the next day change your opinion and move back the other way. In other words, both of them are present at the same time, which was Linji's final phase. Both components, both poles of the paradox are maintained in one's practice.

Now the other thing that the Platform Sutra seemed to emphasize was it's zazen. When Huineng is talking about meditation and zazen, he makes a very strong point that it's not limited to the cushion. It's walking, it's standing, it's sitting, it's lying down. So I tend to see these discourse encounters as manifestations that take place both on the cushion, but off the cushion. And it was a way of getting out of the separation of silence and talking that was evolved through a period of centuries actually into the, its height in the 12th and 13th century. This is when it seems to have been most vibrant, this particular system of dialogue.

So with that as a background to the, for our two weeks ago, and my second point is that even though the medium is the message, the message is also important, and it's not just the medium. A topic is introduced. And in the case of the sentient beings not, sentient beings preaching the Dharma, not just hearing it, manifesting the Dharma, but teaching the Dharma. There's no argument on that. People at the time these, this discord record was available to them, they already knew that argument, that discussion, whether it's an argument or not, need not be our concern. So it was a discussion, it was common. It wasn't common for us.

So I was thinking reading Leighton's commentaries. He was talking about Stevie Nicks. You have to be old to know Stevie Nicks. And, and then of course Dylan comes in. Now Dylan still has a little more purchase on people today but I'm not sure Stevie Nicks does. And so a lot of these discourse records are introducing topics that everyone was familiar with at the time. And the point wasn't to repeat that, to bring it back to one's attention. It was to perform with that in a way that showed manifested the non obstructed nation of the nature of the mind.

And linguists call this performative acts, linguistic acts, actions. Often, the words we use are actions, and not expressions of meaning. So for example to say, it's not raining today. That's a clear statement of a fact. But if one were to say, oh it's not raining today. It means it is raining. And I don't like it. So that's a performative statement to say when one gets married, I do. Who knows what I do. As a statement of fact, doesn't mean much but in the context of a marriage ceremony it means a lot so it's an action. And that's what I mean by performative. When I put that into the explanation, it's a performative action.

The dialogues are performative actions that require commentary by later people not only require it they demand it. They're open discussions they require people to interact with them. So, they were used in Dharma talks by later teachers. Doug uses them very effectively. I love the fact that he's using Dongshan but anyway he's used them several times. Thank you Doug. And they're used for Dharma, they require that kind of engagement.

So, I would suggest to you, even though this is a way out of the trap that we didn't get to the last chapters, go ahead and read those and use those and engage in those in your own terms. I think once we go through these two that we're talking about now, or these, these two sections that we're talking about today. You'll have the basic format and the approach that one can take to most of these discourse records.

So that said, I also added the comment by Nanyang Huizhong, the master who taught non-sentient beings teach the Dharma and he gives a little bit of an explanation there, and he relates it to the Avatamsaka sutra, which I think is interesting. For two reasons one, the teachers and the students at this time knew the sutras, sutras that they're disputing or bringing they're not disputing, they're bringing them into into consciousness, were literate by the Song dynasty by the 11th and 12th century, it was a requirement for monastics to be literate, you couldn't get your certificate from the government if you didn't show in public monasteries, if you weren't literate. So these people were literate, who are engaging in these discussions, they had read these stories and were clearly interacting with them.

And so the irony is that when Huizhong is asked how he knows this, he quotes a sutra. And this is a teaching outside of words, right? But he brings words in. Of course he does. How can you say anything without bringing words in? So how do you bring your words in without getting obstructed and falling into traps? So that's where we're going. That was the background to today.

So now, Pamela, if you could bring up. Oh, let me as you bring that up, let me ask if anyone has any comments or questions on that introductory sheet that I sent out the first part about the last section. Any any issues with that any questions any comments?

So I hand someone. Yeah, I'm not sure where the in what you sent with your translation and Leighton's translation. I have a whole bunch of sort of questions about Chinese words and work, but I don't know if that's exactly what you're asking.

No, no, not right now. Yeah, in fact, when we read this, my contribution will be to say something about the terms and that you interpret it from there. I'm going to leave it open at that point. I'll say something about the way it's being. Okay. Language is being used.

No, I'm talking specifically about non sentient beings teaching the Dharma and the medium is the message. Does that make sense to everybody? Do you have issues with that? If so, we could have a Dharma discussion. And if not, let's move on to and bring it in later if something comes up in terms of those. I'll just mention one thing if I can.

Yeah, in terms of what you were talking about, the framework of how this has been laid out, it's my feeling that education in general is to create a framework of emptiness for the students to inhabit. So if you know that you're going to have a discussion with words, but the words are empty, and you have this place of emptiness, it's imperative that the student has to walk into the door. You can frame it, but the student has to enter it. And that's where we come in. That's where the educated people in the past came in. So I want to thank you for making that clear.

I think about going through the gate, and going through the gate is going through the gate of the traditional teaching. It's fairly clear that in the Song dynasty, when a lot of these records were being recorded and talked about in great detail, the monks had gone through the door. The monastics had gone through the door, they knew the sutras. And therefore, once they knew them, now you have to deconstruct them.

I love the story of Milarepa, the Tibetan sage, who, with his teacher - I think it was Marpa - was told if he really wanted to learn the Dharma, he needed to carry these stones up a very difficult mountain and build a retreat for his teacher. So it took him years to do this, he had to carry one stone at a time up to the top and build this hut for his teacher. And finally, when he finished it, he was so proud he'd arrived, he'd done all the hard work. And the teacher said, "Now deconstruct it, take one stone down at a time." Once he had built up this thorough-going, or this complete wonderful little meditation hut, he was told to deconstruct it.

That seems to be the pattern in a lot of Chinese Buddhism and Taoism as well - to build up a significant structure of confidence and belief, and then saying, "Well, okay, now realize that what you did isn't permanent, and you need to deconstruct that." That's stage two. So yeah, you have to go through the door. As difficult as some of these sutras seem, I think, sometimes, if you're in the right frame of mind, they're quite important. It's an important gate to go through in order to understand how these work.

As Westerners, we come to this with not as much of this background knowledge. It's only after we've gained a modicum of knowledge of the tradition that these begin to make more sense. So that's part of what Leighton is doing for us - he's providing some of the background, and that's incredibly valuable for understanding what the issues are, what the textual issues were involved, and the sutra issues that were involved in these stories. So yeah, I think there's a responsibility to go back to words, and then deconstruct the words once you get them there. That's what I see as the gate. Thank you.

What we're going to take up today is particularly anecdote number nine. But Leighton in his entry in chapter two begins by pointing out that there was a discussion that took place before anecdote nine, in number eight. When Dongshan announced that he was leaving and going off on his own. So here's the everyday situation, or the common monastic practice of the student finally separating from the teacher, and going off to find his own place and to begin to teach. It's clear that Yunyan has transmitted his teaching to Dongshan. So that's the context.

If you see at the top of the handout, which you received in the mail, we'll get to the other parts later. The interesting line: when Dongshan had completed his training and was preparing to head off on his own, Yunyan asked, "After your departure, will it be hard to meet again?" Dongshan replied, "It will be hard not to meet." And that's the setup from number eight. In number nine, because they write in the poem in the verse, we see that particular point picked up.

Let's keep that in mind and take a look line by line, section by section at anecdote nine. I will make a few comments about what I see is going on in the language and maybe some of the background, and then please feel free to bring something up and to question what's going on.

So it begins with: "Just before departing, Dongshan asked, 'After many years, if someone should ask if I would be able to portray the master's likeness, how should I respond?'" I think Leighton gives some context for this, I give some context in my footnote. It's a difficult section, the part that I underlined "portray the master's likeness." It's a difficult use of language at that point. It uses the term "zheng xiang" or "true appearance." That was confusing to me when I first saw it. But by going back into some of the older uses of the term, it was clear that this was a tradition for students of a particular master who were no longer transmitting the robe of Bodhidharma to each other - that had ceased with Huineng, the sixth ancestor. This was another way of certifying the transmission. You would be allowed, or I suppose anybody who wanted to make a portrait of their teacher could do it, but if it was officially allowed by the teacher, him or herself, then that was a way of legitimating the transmission.

But of course, what's going on here is something much more important. What is it that's being transmitted? And how do you paint a picture of that? If you notice in Zen monasteries in Japan, and this is true in China as well, there are a lot of portraits of former masters there. It's a tradition that seems to have carried on well into the modern period of having a picture. Now remember, there are no cameras, and most people haven't seen the people that transmitted these teachings. So, it would - today it's easy to see pictures of anybody. You put it online and the world has it. Right now all of you are online, and many millions of people - well, millions are flocking to this discussion, of course. But the pictures are available - this wasn't the case then. So it meant something to do in a kind of official way. But of course, this is just the setup for the dialogue. This leads to a much more important discussion about what is being represented in the transmission.

So this is the next part. That's the story behind doing the likeness, or the representation of the master that I can contribute to this discussion. Does that make sense? Does anyone have any comments on that? Otherwise, we'll go on. It gets more interesting. This is where Yunyan re-situates what I call re-situates the question. It's not just about how do you go about doing this, but what is being represented.

I'm going to stay quiet for a moment. Yunyan said, and this is a very difficult three words, it's three words in Chinese: "Just this person." Yanagida, my teacher's translation - and well, actually that's my translation, "just this person," but Yanagida says in his translation, starts with "outside," meaning "beyond" - "Outside this is not," or "am not." Could be either one, "is not" or "am not." So he's outside, is this. And this is - there are two demonstrative pronouns, as in most languages, "this" and "that." And the first Chinese word here is "zhi," which means "that," "just," "only." "This is the present person" is what's right here at this moment. Not "look at that."

[Technical interruption omitted]

Yanagida points out in his reading of a text that had just been discovered sometime in the '30s or '40s in the Dunhuang caves, that the earliest form of this response was "Just this person of Han." Han was the dynasty, it meant Chinese. "This person who's a member of the Chinese people." And it was a formal expression of guilt in a court of law. "Just this person of Han." That was changed in the Song dynasty to "Just this is," or "Just I am," whichever way you want to take this. That was modified. But again, we come back to the notion that these are public cases, legal cases that are models for the way Chan began to talk about their own practice.

So there are "just this." Not that, it's not something else. It's not something other. That's all we have in the record of Dongshan. And of course, Leighton translates, puts the "it" at the end - there's no object in the original sentence. So to make sense of this, he adds "that." And he has a very useful discussion of why he adds "that," and also notes that it could mean a number of other things. So he's very clear about the fact that's not the only way to translate this. As we'll see when we get to the verse, there are many other ways that it's interpreted - well, three or four different ways, not many different ways.

Does anyone have anything they want to add to this or a question about this?

[Dialogue with students omitted for brevity]

And so he's taking this traditional, as I point out the way these things are set up usually you ask some question about conventional monastic practice. I'm leaving and going off on my own now. And it's traditional to have take a portrait of my master. So you start with this very mundane traditional everyday monastic practice and immediately flip it into a different area.

One of the things that I thought about when I was translating a lot of these is that the setup is often a lead in. It's a trap for the master. It's a trap for the student if the master asked the student. Not so much a trap. It's a challenge. How do you deal with this? If you're really being clear about what non duality is. How do you deal with this, this mundane practice. It's part of the phenomenal world. How do you bring it into what Pamela is talking about is the empty or even Bob emptiness. The non dual world. And then how do you not get trapped in the non dual world. You've got to come back into the phenomenal world again. So that that kind of comes out in the verse a lot. So yeah, at least I think that's that's right. I think that's what he's he's kind of setting up the master to go where he's going with it. And the master comes across Joel.

Yeah, briefly, it seems to me maybe Yunyan is challenging Dongshan in the first part after your departure, it will be hard to meet again. I think you know, knows the reply and the reply is what maybe he wanted to to get in the sense that, you know, I mean, the hard to meet again be mundane world and stuff is you're going to be away. But having, yeah, with he knows he can portray the master's like likeness he's transmitted and he's going to go out and teach on his own. So Dongshan said naturally, he says it will be hard not to meet because they're always going to be right there in some sense, as he conveys the master's teaching.

So when you were saying that the challenge, I was thinking that that beginning part of the story is Yunyan challenging Dongshan. So that's just, that's just that. That's kind of the gist of museum counterdialogues is there's always a barb in there waiting to hook you if you get and to learn something from that book. Yeah, and to verify that this student knows that they can't separate. Yeah.

Okay, let's go to the next sentence. Dongshan was lost in thought. So finally Yunyan said, "Chia Acharya, having assumed responsibility for this great matter. You must be very cautious." Another translation is thorough going. We're very careful and I incidentally as I read my translation. And then I look at Leighton sometimes say, Wow, Leighton got it right. I wish I'd used that word instead of the word I use. And then I think about both of them and I, and I come up with a new one. So this, this, I'm pulling back the curtain on translation. It's a dicey process. Again, don't assume that I've captured what was originally being said in this in this text. A lot of a lot of translation is interpretation. What context you want to put it in. So don't trust the word don't trust words but particularly don't trust the words of the translator. I think you could be wrong. And they are, in many cases, it's a modern world we're in a different situation.

So, be very cautious. Lately I've come up with the thing is thinking of what he was telling Dongshan to do was to be aware. It's what Pamela's brought brought up in some form previous discussions as be aware of what's going on. You've taken this great matter, this transmission, be aware of where you are and what you're doing all the time. Not just on the cushion. When you're crossing a river when you're doing other things. When you're washing dishes, whatever. So that would be my recent translation of that, that particular phrase, be cautious, be careful.

To assume responsibility is a legal phrase to admit to acknowledge one's And the great matter was the crime, or the transcription in the legal in legal term, the Chinese terms for the great matter are are very specific and not the standard term for great matter, it's a legal term. It's a legal term that became understood as this great matter. So that's just putting it back into the legal context that the Chan Buddhists were using as a form.

So the next line, Dongshan remain quietly perplexed. I don't know if I changed that was my original one or I changed it. But anyway, I like the notion of being perplexed. He's just he's challenged me. Be careful. What does that mean? Be cautious. Be thorough going. I think that was Leighton's translation.

So we move to the, the, what I what later commentators called a great pivot, the point at which there's a pivot, a change, something happens. You see that in Leighton's commentary later on it's the commentary by another teacher, Wei Chun his student, who calls it the Jade pivot. And a certain thing happens that completely flips the world and flips the nature of the conversation.

So, he was perplexed. And when he was crossing the river, he saw his image reflected in the water and experienced a great awakening. And that's the familiar word, Satori. And actually I would change that translation as well. I like the way Red Pine translates it as understanding. I can't tell you exactly why that because we used to translate that simply as enlightenment. Most of the translations were enlightenment. And this is the only time, by the way, that in Dongshan he uses this term, Satori, or Wu in Chinese. The term is Wu. So, he experienced an overwhelming understanding, a great understanding of what the previous exchange meant. This is a minor amendation I would make there if I were retranslating that. This was a 40-year-old translation, so it's time for a change.

So, the gatha comes, the verse. Now, first of all, if you can, you can see this on the screen. The center column are the Chinese terms. And one thing I'll point out to you, just in the Chinese terms, and then as we read through it, be aware of these terms. In line one of the verse, he said, Ernest and Lloyd seeking him without the word, the Chinese word for him is Ta, which is the standard everyday word for the third person. And it also is what separates you from Wu, which is the first person. So, think of that in terms of separation, because he uses a different word for him later on in lines four, five, and six. Why has he changed the word for him? We don't show that in the English. All the English translations don't show that. That was important in Chinese. A Chinese person would see that immediately. There's a shift. When we go to lines four, five, and six, he's using another word for him, Chu.

Secondly, notice that you doesn't exist. It recedes far from you. So you doesn't occur in either. We, Leighton and I use you. But it doesn't occur up here in the Chinese text. Lest it recede far is essentially what the Chinese text says. We see it and I like, I think Leighton's is a useful translation. It's a little more explanatory to be estranged from himself. He's talking about Ta, third person, indefinite third person pronoun. What was the first person pronoun? And those two terms separate one from the other. Linguistically, it works. That's in English. It works that way. So it works that way in Chinese as well. So then, as I said, Chu is a unique term. That doesn't, I had never seen it before it appeared in this context. When I looked it up in the various dictionaries, it was clearly a third person pronoun.

So let's go through the eight lines and see what we come up with. Bill, can you read that in Chinese first so I get a feel for how it flows? I don't have the Chinese in front of me right now. Oh, it's not just these words. Okay. Sorry. And Bill, were you saying in there that Ta, the first him, that that actually describes a space? Is that what I heard? Like it also, I mean, I understand it can be describing him. But did you say it describes a relationship that is different than the other him? I think, yeah, I think that's the implication. I don't think it says that. No, that's so interesting. I think this may be what a Chinese person or a person who's aware of those two terms picks up. So it creates, kind of identifies this space, right? Is what you're saying. A Chinese person would hear that as identifying or delineating a separation. Yeah, initially once we actually there's a separation there. That is really cool. Third person and first person. Yeah, but differently than the other way. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, I think that's where he wants to go. And I'm not a ninth, tenth or eleventh Chinese. I'm wondering what the denotations of Chi are that I'm not aware of. But I suspect it stands out. It would stand out as a distinction. One's reading the verse. Thank you.

Notice that the Chinese does use the word I and often that doesn't appear. Chinese can very easily drop out the word I and it's assumed that I is the one making the statement. But here, Dongshan clearly uses the word I. First person. It's in the Chinese wall. You're asking about Ta again, Pamela. I think Leighton did an interesting thing by making by othering it, by making that separation. It clarifies that there is a separation rather than just Ta, someone right here that I'm with. So lest it recede far from self. Today I am walking alone. And the word for alone is du zhe. And du means alone. And zhe means self. So the self is alone. There's no companion at that time. Remember in one of the earlier stories, and Leighton brings this up, Dongshan is asked if Ma Zhe will appear for the final memorial. He's dead and there's a memorial being done for him. And Dongshan says he will appear if his companion is here. And so the fact that Dongshan here emphasizes the fact that he's walking alone. At this point, this is taking away the environment and leaving the self. That's my reading of that. You can read it anyway you want, but it seems to me that's what he's doing at that point.

Line four, everywhere meet him, is what the Chinese has. Everywhere meet qi. This different third person. Qi can mean it, her, him, he, she. It can mean any one of those in English. So there is the translator's perplexity. We have to choose one of those and put it in the translation, but the Chinese know that it could mean. Incidentally, ta and qi are not gendered. It could be she or he. Him or her, or it. All of those work for qi and ta. So, Leighton also makes this clear that it could be him, the qi, but he chooses to translate it as suchness. He, qi, or it, is now no other than me. He's now me. I got more elaborate about it. Leighton very nicely is, he's picking up some of the rhythm of the Chinese by keeping it short and to the point. But I felt obligated to ignore the versity and the preprosity and to include as much of the original sense of the term as possible. And he clearly says not other than me. And that kind of connects with line one, ta, not other than me. But I am not now him. And the Chinese uses the word now. I am not now him.

Line seven, it must be understood in this way. We're together on that one. And Leighton is one must understand it in this way. And then is, I use the passive and Leighton uses the active. And that's, I think that's useful. I think both of those are useful, by the way. In order to merge with or accord with suchness. To merge or accord with suchness, if one understands it in that way. Okay, I'm going to leave it up to you to make sense out of these eight lines. And I think each one of them is important. You could work through each one of those.

Yeah, Joel. Yeah, I'm very interested about the now. It now is me. It's a very different statement than it is me. Like, it's more maybe expansive. I mean, each statement includes the other is kind of, I think, kind of obvious in a way. Which one is more expansive, Joel? Well, the now, because if it's like at this moment, I now am it. It's different than I am it. Like, it's more inclusive. In a sense, without the now, I am utterly it. But I am it at this moment implies within itself, the next line. I am not it now. Like, and I love the now. Is that now? I mean, not that I know what being time is, but it's so evocative. Is his now the being time of Dogen? Oh, yeah, go to Dogen. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, now being time, it's both being and time. I'm sort of bullshitting this. I don't know what Dogen means, but it evoked Dogen for me. The use of the time. What does anyone else pick up with the now? Does that mean any change any of the way you think about this? From Leighton's. I'll jump in. And I know Doug has. Monica, yes. Yeah, the now seems more dynamic to me. That it's a experience of flowing with the now-ness and thus-ness of being instead of solidifying it.

And I think that's what Joel was maybe getting at with "I am utterly it" or, you know, that seems very static. The "now" seems much more dynamic and flowing with the constant changing of space and time and thusness and how that is presenting itself in this moment.

Yeah. Doug?

Yes. I'm gonna wander a little bit here. Pardon me. Because I wanted to do... You're not wandering alone. Go back to, okay. We're wandering together. Yes. Going back to anecdote eight on "after your departure, it'll be hard to meet again," Yanyan says. And there's a common notion that Zen masters are hard to pin down in where they are, where they're at. And on the one hand, when an accomplished being heads off into the world to spread the Dharma, to meet experience, it's hard to know wherever he will be. And it will be hard to meet again, partly by the fact that the Dharma needs to be spread and the work is vast. And so to actually meet up again may be tough in physical terms.

And Tungshan's reply that "it'll be hard not to meet," of course, is that "it's hard to meet again. It'll be hard not to meet," of course, brings it back to "it is us, we are not it."

The second thing I wanted to tag along is I really appreciate you enunciating in anecdote nine about the assumed responsibility. But Bill, I wanted to ask first, you had some other phrases that you use to define the great matter. You said it's a legal term. And there seemed to be some, I don't know, could you repeat what those terms were for the great matter you used?

It was assumed, in fact, the great matter was the transgression.

Oh, transgression. In a court of law. Right, the transgression. I like that because maybe everything we do are transgressions and felonious, and we better be careful. But when Tungshan walked over, he's this idea of the assumed responsibility of the great matter. He's carrying it with him like, what? And he sees his reflection. He sees who is carrying this great matter and it hits him. Who is hitting, who is carrying this great matter? And the responsibility and the caution on the breakage in the next step that can happen maybe hits him and he's awakened. And it's box and lid fit. Form and substance merge.

And it's, the words we use are, I guess, the words we use to me are like residue of the actual experience. And I just have, you know, words are so essential, but they're only a small part of it. And in reading through these words, it's just, I guess what I'm getting from you, Bill, is that it's really important to flesh out the experience that's behind the words. And if you don't understand kind of the setup and the experience and the context, it's kind of hard to make out what's next. But it really requires some imagination to fill out the moment.

So back to in recognizing the great responsibility that he carries in being a teacher and he also sees the interconnectedness of himself with all of the things that he's doing. He sees the interconnectedness of himself with all things. And it's in this moment that you experience it. The now, that's the only place for it. So that's all I'll say. Thank you, Bill.

That's very helpful. I think that's true. I like your focus, coming bringing us back to transgression, to think about what one is doing when one's teaching constantly as, in a sense, a transgression, because you can't talk about experience. This is the man hanging by his teeth from the branch. If he answers the truth, why Bodhidharma came from the branch, the truth, why Bodhidharma came from India, he falls to his death. If he doesn't answer, he doesn't convey the Dharma. He doesn't teach. So teaching is required, but it's a transgression. And to understand that it's a transgression is to be able to flow back and forth between the two poles, it seems to me. Yes, it is a transgression, but I do it at the same time. I recognize the impossibility of conveying experience in simple words, it's not now.

And the other thing, let me ask this, in the way the dialogue takes place, is that a very now phenomenon? This kind of dialogue, it swings back and forth. In other words, is it an experience in itself? Does it induce an experience in itself? Should it induce an experience in itself? There's three questions there.

Yeah, I have a question to go along with your question. And I've been waiting to find the right time to ask this question. It refers back to our previous reading when he speaks about synesthesia. Synesthesia being a kind of where the senses kind of cross-link. And he mentions, what is it, dharani? This is, I guess, an ancient practice of chanting in ways that would clarify the body. That this, I know there's a Greek, ancient Greek precedent for that as well, but it seems that in the reading of this, and the later ones especially, but this one as well, there seems to be this, it's hard to describe.

So you have this very tight structure. I mean, if I could see the Chinese, you can see there'd be a strong architectural form to the structure of this piece. At the same time, it does this, for me, a transgressive thing where there've been whole religious hierarchies built on the afterlife. And this seems to refute that by saying that when he says, "it now is me, I am not it," that brings it right into this moment.

But one thing that gets me about this is that this has to do with the synesthesia. Like when Bob was playing the flute and speaking the verse, well, speaking the verse and then playing the flute, it seems like there's, I don't know what you call it, maybe there's a word for it when you play an instrument. I've heard, I've experienced this with jazz music, where the repetition of a certain motif, it sounds like someone is talking.

Yeah. So there's an aspect of these verses that it's really kind of confounding. There's the words, but there's also this other sense experience of what's going on that is kind of confounding. But I think that's, when you were talking about the dialectic, dialectical rhetoric, that's part of this intention, no? That it's not just a straight, and I assume part of the challenges of translation is that with poetry, there's always a song aspect to it.

Yeah, the translation of poetry is a bigger, it's a huge problem in Chinese, from Chinese. There's so, well, in any language, I think translating Greek poetry into English probably is complicated. But the structure of both these translations, it shows the strength of the original. I mean, the difference between the him and it, for me, the it seems more expansive, more outside of the realm of just the language, more of what I say, a synesthesia. Maybe that's the wrong word for it. I don't know what the word is.

Well, the it, Leighton is clear about this. He relates that to suchness, and he's not the only one. This goes back quite a ways as an interpretation. Many people have tried to understand it as suchness, the it. The suchness of the relationship between teacher and student, the suchness of the relation to the environment that Pamela was talking about, or the self-separating from, and that relationship is a suchness relationship. So it's a good place to jump off, to go towards suchness.

Yeah, and I say it's confounded, but it's a good place to jump off, to go towards suchness. It's a good sounding, but at the same time, it's quite real. I'm thinking of the bird's path. I don't mean to get ahead of things, but I read the bird's path, and I read it again, and then I read it to my wife. And the second time I read it to her, we both broke down in gales of laughter. I don't mean that in a derisive way. It was like a key in a lock, just unlock something. So that's what I mean, the synesthesia aspect of it. I don't know how to, I don't know really how to qualify that, but it's refreshing.

Well, I think the fact that they're talking about portraits and images that are not so much seen is heard. In some cases, a portrait, well, you're seeing it, but you're also hearing some of these things as well. So there's a lot of sense, movement of senses going back and forth.

Yeah, there's an aspect to the structure too, where, I don't know, years ago, I read Freud on the structure of jokes. And he said, basically, there's a repetition and a repetition that builds up. And then at the end, there's a twist. I have Jewish friends who look at life as a kind of joke that builds up repetition and repetition at the end. It was a funny twist. And I get that in some of these, particularly that, as I mentioned, the bird's path had that twist on the end.

I've been requested to ring the bell, so I will.

Okay. Doesn't that mean we're just beginning?

Yes. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yes. Well, that, I guess, gives everybody an opportunity, who needs to leave, to think about that. But I hope we can just continue a little bit longer, because I have a hand up, Monica has a hand up, and we also wanna take a few minutes at the end to just kind of have a kind of an online closing circle about this incredible experience we've shared. So I don't know who asked you to ring the bell, but I did not. That was not I.

That was from earlier in the day when I said.

Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, I see it. It was you, but it was at 9, 11 a.m.

Yes. I was trying to get a little bit more time then.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't see it then. I mean, I just did it.

Okay, so here we are. Thanks.

Sure. Tim, were you done?

Yeah, thanks. Thank you. Thank you.

Can I jump in just quickly? I have a couple comments, questions. I'll try to be brief. The first one is just on the question of translation itself, and maybe this is a longer answer than, but I remember reading a book years ago called The Geography of Thought, and it was about how the structure of language affects how we relate to the world, and different cultures have different approaches, including, and Bill, please correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm just trying to remember what I read, but Chinese and Japanese are structured more relationally, so that a noun can have different meanings based on how it's structured in a sentence or in relationship to other things, whereas our language is kind of constrained by the subject-object duality in the way we structure our language and writing, and I was wondering for you, I mean, as we've just seen in our conversation, one character can mean vastly different things based on the other characters in the sentence or in relationship to how it's being used, and that can, so we have these gathas, we have these stories, we have these things that are coming to us from China and Japan that have built into them these multiple layers of meaning, and we're trying to take that and translate it into our Western language, which is subject-object, and it's almost necessitates us choosing one of those interpretations over others, and that seems to leave a lot out and also kind of forces us to, if we really wanna dive into the teachings, we have to kind of take it upon ourselves to explore the multiple meanings there, whereas like you were saying with one, one character can mean so many things, it's right there on the page, and we are, in order to really engage with the teachings, we sort of have to do extra credit homework to kind of dive in a little bit more deeply, so that's one thing, and I know that's a big thing, and I just wanna say that and get your response, and the other thing is just a comment that I find delightful that both your explanation of kind of the legal formal language of just this person of Han and the great matter are very humbling, it's saying the great transgression and just this person is an expression of guilt, so it's like there's this transgression, and yes, I am guilty of this transgression, and it's kind of a twist on the teacher-student relationship in that it's a humbling position saying, yes, I'm guilty of this great matter, it's not elevating the expression to, I know more than you, I am more important or whatever, so I find that really that kind of play with the words really delightful, so I'll just end there, but I'd like your, just your comments or your experience with the translation problem, conundrum.

Well, okay, you said you need to do extra credit, so the next seminar will be Chinese language, we'll study Chinese language for a while, so you can... no, that's an exaggeration. It's a problem the Chinese had when the Sanskrit text came into China, and that's why I think Chinese Buddhism is clearly Chinese, even though it has deep roots in India, there's no doubt about that. But it becomes very Chinese because they had a language that is radically different from Sanskrit, and translating Sanskrit was an incredible problem for them. They adopted a lot of native categories in order to translate what were non-native concepts coming from India.

So we're doing the same thing, and I think that's the nature of suchness. We exist in a different space and time, and we're forced to come up with terms for these things. It's hanging... I'm transgressing every time I translate a line of Chinese, because I'm hanging from this branch and opening my mouth and saying this is what it says. No, I'll tell you I'm right most of the time, never mind.

I think a lot of what we have to accept humbly that what we're doing and commenting on these or translating is that it's, well first of all, that it's a humbling experience, to know that when I was translating this, I began to feel guilty. I knew that I was making decisions that weren't necessarily the only way to decide those things. Look, this is gonna be printed, people are gonna be reading this, I've got this incredible burden of guilt on my back right now. I put that out there, and incidentally, so I welcome this opportunity to confess my guilt in this great matter, with people who've now read my translation. I've never been able to do that before, but anyway, thank you for that.

But it's a useful problem, it's a constructive problem, and I like, when we were talking about transgressions, recently about host and guest, I can't remember when that was, but we're talking now about teacher and student, and I think we could read this entire verse as a commentary on teacher and student. Suzuki Roshi says, yeah, Suzuki Roshi says, it's a comment on self, the object is self, I see myself, and he goes, he takes off on that tangent. So there are all these different ways to read the poem, but I think we're condemned to interpret, and that's reality, that's suchness. Thank you, Monica, that was helpful.

Pamela?

Yes, and just finding these little threads that you've dropped on the path crumbs today, and picking each one up and ingesting it and finding them quite delicious, so I wanna say that first. But I'm noticing in this particular gatha that it follows in some way the Rinzai pattern you talked about earlier, although maybe not in that order, but it definitely follows it. And I thought that was pretty interesting, you know, that the self is present, then it's absent, then the environment's present, and then it's absent, and then they're both gone, and then it's all back together, so I think that's interesting.

The other thing that really strikes me is these two lines remind me so much of the one, the other sutra that I really love, the host within the host, Jumira awareness. It reminds me so much these two lines, "he is now no other than me, but I am not now him," is just like "you are not it, it is actually you," remember? And it strikes me that it's kind of a little bit of a, encouragement, I think, maybe, is the way I would say it, or foreshadowing of encouragement, that we can actually have this with us all the time. You know, that there's this, I don't know, for me, this little sense that, especially when you read the thing about the grasses and the obstructions, that we can both exist in this place where we are merged with suchness with all the grasses and obstructions as well, you know, that it's all together now, as the Beatles would say, and by the way, Layton also mentioned Joni Mitchell, just got to get that in there, so very much time and space.

So anyway, I really appreciate all of these threads, and I know that there's a relationship, it must be, this is the beginning of Jumira awareness, this is like its birthplace, right, because it's right there, at least for me, it's screaming at me, so that's what I wanted to say, thank you.

Looking forward, Bill suggested that we, our next one is on learning the Chinese language, but piggybacking on Monica, if you really want to learn how something is translated from the Japanese, we have to learn Japanese, to pick those words apart and all the obvious differences, but then you have to go from the Japanese back to learning the Chinese to learn what the Chan word is, Chinese to learn what the Chan were doing, and then you have to, as Bill said, we have to go back to the Sanskrit. And I'm feeling like I'm running out of time, how much I have left on this earth, at least in this time, and so I'm just gonna pick and choose somebody that I like, and Bill's one that I like his translation, so I'm gonna say, I'm gonna accept what you've said and use it how I see fit, so thank you again, Bill.

I have to say, when I got to graduate school and they told me, I said, I'm here to study Chinese, that's my field, I'm here to study Chinese, and my advisor said, well, okay, start with Sanskrit, and after you've done, and this is, I'm in my late 20s at this point, start with Sanskrit, are you kidding? And then go on to continue your Chinese, I'd already been Chinese for a while, and then realizing that so many of the commentaries are in Japanese, and I was going to Japan to work with the Anagitas, so then they said, learn Japanese, and I was in my 30s, and I said, I didn't have time then, I don't have time for all this, in my 30s, so I sympathize with you, I even feel it more now, than before, thank you.

You don't have to learn Chinese, I think there's enough grist, yeah, you can thank me for that later, you don't have to learn Chinese, I'm being generous, but I think with an understanding of how these worked, you look at the different interpretations throughout history, through a thousand years of history of these stories, and you see how differently people read them, but they're all getting close to something that they share in common, I think, I sense it there, but I can't put my finger on it, but it's a mode of teaching and learning that I find very helpful, it's a way of teaching, and I think that's what I'm trying to do, that I find very helpful.

It's not simply straightforward explanations of what truth is, the only way it's gonna happen is when you experience it, and part of engaging in this dialogue, whether it's in English, or Japanese, or Chinese, it's the way you engage with the dialogue, it seems to me, that leads to the experience. And by the way, you're the one to talk about synesthesia, and what always occurred to me when you play the shakuhachi now is that I hear the four vowels, just in the music, when you just do the music, so there's sound carrying a different understanding of it, because I put them together, I've experienced putting them together, not because it automatically happens to me, so that's what will happen with our English understandings of these things as well. So just bear not, just feel guilty.

So, as you see, there's so much left to talk about in these things, or just to keep going back to. I think it's not something just to study, it's something to actually engage in, to perform. And I don't mean perform in the superficial sense, but to actually do this in dialogue, not just sitting on the cushion, but engaging actively. And that's one of the things I think Leighton said, I really liked about Leighton's later commentary about how dynamic this is and how you have to be, even though we're using words, it's not the words that are per se, that are it, it's the way you use the words and are able to flow within the words and not get hooked up.

There's the main transgression, I think, is that one gets hooked up to emptiness and say, that's it, that's the meaning, or to particular, that's it. As soon as you're stuck in any one of those, I think you're stuck. And that's what Wei Neng said, you're estranged. He says that, I forget in which passage, but anyway, it goes all the way back to Wei Neng, and even earlier, I'm sure. So I will leave it at that. If anyone wants a capping phrase on this, please go ahead, but I'm out.

I was just thinking that you could have a tattoo that says, know this, know that.

I hope everyone can take just a couple more minutes and hang out. And at the end of this, Hsieh, we have a little closing circle and go around and express our experience. And just maybe a sentence or two, because we're running late. If everyone who's left would like to do that, and I will start by saying deep, deep bows, though just incredible teaching. And I so appreciate your effort and your loving attention to every word and teaching us. It's just such an incredible privilege, really, to sit at your feet. I know you're embarrassed by this, but really it is such a gift. And I am forever grateful. I mean, you really are the person, I experienced all those sutras for years before I met you. And then you are the person who let me unwrap them differently. And I'm just forever grateful to you. So thank you.

I wanna just follow on that and just echo what Pamela was saying. Thank you, thank you. And I just wanna circle back to something that you said earlier, because I feel like that's kind of embodying this whole group is like, these exchanges are now. They're an experience in the present moment. And that's what we're having together here. And that this has helped come to life for me in a way of, it's not some message coming from the past, through time, it's something that's happening right now too. So thank you. And I need to sign off. So thanks to everyone too. Bye bye.

Thank you, Monica. I just wanted to say, Bill, thanks for being such a great guide. These texts would have been opaque for me to approach them on my own. And speaking of a student and teacher, you were a great guide and opened this up for me so that I feel like I could go and read these books on my own now. I was trying to remember the number of the piece that was in our reading today, where the student says something to the effect that it was like he had found a pearl amongst the shit. Thank you.

Hello, everyone. Oh, hello. I can't get the, I'm on my iPhone. I don't usually use it for this process. So I don't have my laptop. So I can't see everyone at once, but I have just speaker view here, but I'm very touched to see everyone and hear the final class. And I'm doing well and I'm gonna find out if I can get out of here today. So this was really impactful and meaningful, brought so much together for me of lifelong experiences. And I'm really thankful that we've had the opportunity to be together with you, Bill. And I won't ask you to let go of the limb any further because you do it in your being all the time. So then Pamela, I don't know what the process will be because I can't see everybody now. So how are we doing in our circle at this point?

Well, one thing I wanted to do, I'm glad you're still here, Tova, is that the board of Santa Barbara Zen Center, and I know that other people want to speak, but while I still have Tova on the line, the board wants to make a gift to you, Bill. And it's sitting behind me. I had to go to Tova's house yesterday to get it because she was going to make this presentation and because she pulled it together for us. So Tova, would you like to speak to this while I unveil it? Can we do it?

I will hope to speak here. Okay, here we go. There is something right behind me and I will show it to you. Yee-hoo! So I have to put this back into Pamela's lap because she decided that it was important to give you a tree. So we went on around to figure out, this is actually a tree, everybody. This is a sambucas, this is an elderberry tree bush. And it's because you are our elder that we finally decided on this one. And it took a little finding to get this particularly. But I hope that you have a place where this might grace your life and that it will help you see how it bears fruit for all of us. And it does go dormant, which is an interesting way to be and not be. And I don't know what it's going to do on your side, so it's an honor to be able to present this way. Thank you.

I have an elderberry up in the cabin in the mountains that's been there for 10 years. And it's wonderful how it's rooted out and expanded and spread all over the place. And it has these wonderful elderberries in the season. And I haven't made wine out of them yet. Enjoy the berries. So I'm very happy to be an elder.

Now, we got you an elderberry, not only because you're an elder, but also because you're a berry, because you're a sweetheart and the teachings are sweet as well. So thank you, Bill.

I just want to add here, Bill, thank you so much. Many, many warm deep bows, dear friend. I am really pleased with the selection of the tree because not just of the tree analogy, but the whole six weeks and all the work Bill has put in. There's an old saying that Bill is the type of person who plants a tree under whose shade he shall never sit. And you have spread your shade over all of us. And I think it's going to bear fruit.

As far as I'm concerned, I do have to say you had me at John Coltrane. And so I'm still there. But what I'm realizing is every day I practice scales and octaves. I don't like practicing scales and octaves, but I have to so that when I perform, it comes out properly. And I realize I don't like these book studies. I don't want to read any more books, but I have to if I'm going to understand emptiness, if I'm going to walk through that framework and the door that you've presented to us, then I have to do that. And thank you for forcing me, but I do appreciate it, but I don't like it. It hurts me more than it hurts you, Bob.

Bill, thank you so much. I know so many years and energy levels have gone into this presentation. It's really wonderful. And speaking of shade, I want to thank Pamela for recording everything so that we can once again go into the shade and experience that and maybe have deeper understandings. My deep, deep gratitude. Thank you.

You know, I like the image of the tree because the other idea of that was that the roots reach out and connect with each other underground, right? And the trees come together. And I think that's part of what sessions like this do, whatever we're talking about, the roots are still growing underneath that are connecting us in an important way, I think.

Well, those of us who are left, can we do the vows together? Just since we're closing, I'll give a bell. And Bill, do you want to chant them? Okay.

Sanjain beings are numberless, I vow to save them.

The desires are inexhaustible, I vow to put an end to them.

The dharmas are boundless, I vow to master them.

The Buddha way is unsurpassable, I vow to attain it.

Chujo muhan sei gandho,

mono mujinsai gandham,

omu ryo sei gangaku,

gutsuro mujo sei ganjo.

Sanjain beings are numberless, I vow to save them.

The desires are inexhaustible, I vow to put an end to them.

The dharmas are boundless, I vow to master them.

The Buddha way is unsurpassable, I vow to attain it.