Dharma Talk, February 15, 2016: Between the Notes

This lecture was transcribed by our Dharma brother, Matthew Choinski. Thanks Matt!
             February the 15thMonday night.  Happy belated Valentine’s Day to everyone. 

            We are going to start with Master Yunmen and Master Yunmen was a very great Chan master. He was born 862 to 864 and died 949 CE. This was a little bit past the classical time period but it was a very fascinating time of period in terms of Chan and the practice. 
But before we get there, I want to talk a little bit about Chan in general in this classical age or right before Master Yunmen came. This is from this book around the 8th century, a number of masters took the essence of Buddhism and looked at them in the new and fresh way. In examining the sources we have from this period, we notice an extraordinary change in the way the Masters related to their students and vice versa. 
This is kind of an equivalent to like where there was a time when there were big bands in the 1940, that was complex music, then all of a sudden there were different types of Jazz that came in and Jazz was trying out different note. It was a little bit more reduced in the participation of big groups. With trios, quartets a lot of times. But the music was changing. It was a little sparser. It was very much in accordance with what one would call a great musicality -, an interesting tune but pared down. And Chan was a little like this where there was a suggestion of notes rather than the playing of notes and the spaces between the notes was just as important as the notes themselves. 
And that was the same thing with Chan.  There was deeper time to think rather than trying to digest. Remember this was at a time period where there were so much discussions and exchanges between different schools where people were having these discussions. Not the common people but the intellectuals, the leaders, the politicians. All these people were having these discussions and Chan just kind of backed of that and like said ‘Wait a second; when you distill this down, what are we really talking about? What is really happening here?’ Through the idea of transcendent experiences, they began to play the tune a little differently and a little bit of stranger. When people are explaining things, somebody might get whacked with a stick or shouted at or given a question that seemed to go nowhere; ‘Ask the lamppost?’  What could you do with that? And there was a difference there in term of the way Buddhism was playing. It wasn't necessary anti- intellectualism. It was trying to avoid the attachment to the intellectualism and allowing one to start with a very clean pallet to be able to work with and be able to put whatever colors are necessary there.
 Very similar to the Chinese painting at that time which were very economical in what they were doing and yet in their paintings gave a suggestions of this that certainly in their balance were incredibly beautiful, and the same thing with Chan. Chan was playing this tune in a very beautiful and economic way and not trying to play too hard. It was understood nevertheless that there had to be a foundation there. Once you had the foundation, you worked beyond that but they also understood that without that foundation, if one looked at things in the correct way, and what I mean by correct way is that not correct like correct and incorrect but in the proper practice. That the color will appear on the screen by themselves. The notes would appear simply by the fact that one was letting go and we would know that these things were there as if they were just mirroring nature, which is what the art are - just mirroring nature. And Chan in this way became the artistic side of Buddhism and very very beautiful in terms of how it was played. 
Some people kind of looked at it and thought it was too simplistic; some people thought it was too intellectual, but it was neither of these things. It was just the way to play a very simple tune. In fact there was story called ‘one- note Zen’ where one master was implored by the emperor very strictly that the master had to come give a lecture at the palace.  So he agreed. So when he went, there was an auditorium of people there waiting to hear him.  He took out a flute and played one note and left.  At great risk, somehow that note played an entire symphony to the people there.  And of course, if you keep doing that you won't be invited into too many places. If one demonstrates Chan in this way, it is quite unique and quite direct. 
So let me read a little bit more about the milieu of Chan that was happening at this time period:
'Suddenly few quotes appeared in the talks. Instead of quoting the masters of the historically remote Buddha and commenting on them, the masters themselves spoke.'
Different. There was now the spoken Chan. This is very important and I hope a lot of people are listening to this. Instead of quoting scriptures, these masters themselves spoke. This is Chan. That is why coming to a class is fresh. It is for this group. This is how Chan works. You have the faith in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, but the sangha before you that is speaking, is essential. To be able to harmonize with whatever sediment that you have going on at your minds at this point can be most effective of a presentation. Here and now. 
‘And they were not beyond hitting and swearing if the need arise. In place of doctrinal hair-splitting, they demonstrate the teaching in action.  Shouting, joking, telling stories and handing out abuse and encouragement as they seem fit.’
Sound familiar? 
                         ‘This style of Buddhist sermons gives way to colloquiums and slang and the masters of the classic age of Chan
            talk so bluntly that to some people, such as the Japanese pilgrim,  Ennin(?), the talks at the outset must have been 
            hardly identifiable as Buddhist.'
But here is our school. This is what our school does. It says ‘listen.’ Really listen. Find the way to listen in the way and find the way to practice. And this is the key in terms of doing this. Not simply to listen to somebody's words, copy and use them somewhere else to see what you can do but use them for your everyday life; bring them to life. And that is Chan. Chan is very spontaneous to the moment. It does need to be done in the moment. One can be prepared. One can have a prepared speech and do all sorts of stuff but in that moment, it is spontaneous. Sometimes, I go and give lectures and I will spend 45 minutes of the half page of my notes, just because it is so spontaneous. But that does not mean I cut off the rest of it; I just reorganize it and it comes out spontaneously. And that is the part of Chan that is very very important in this. So we are not just sitting there with a recipe and saying, ‘fold hand, cup hands, keep body erect, relax, rinse and repeat.’ 
And so it’s just this breath that we do. We follow that but that’s just our instructions of how we get there, but it just this breath, this experience. Because what we are trying to do when we are practicing is very very incredible. We have to drive the camel through the eye of the needle. We have to do that. The only way we can do that is with faith in our practice. When we think that we are so big, there is no way that we can fit through the eye of the needle. We have to rearrange what we think is thinking, what we think is consciousness, what we think is mind. Understand what mind is and understand that things don't necessary follow perceived natural principals but they are there. And there is a natural order to things but it maybe a little bit different the way we look at it. 
I have been reading a book on Quantum Mechanics that Stan gave me to review and it is very interesting. They were talking about how sometimes these sub-atomic particles, they may not have enough energy to go over the peak and get to the other side, but they don't necessary have to do that. They can go just straight through to get to the other side and instantaneously. I think they call it some type of zero-effect and the zero-effect is instantaneous. It reminded me of a story, and I have told it   here before, but its worth of telling you right now to give you an idea of what we are looking at. And remember, this is just a story; you don't have worry about if it happened or not.
 But there was a monkey called Sun Wukong, very famous in Chinese folklore. And he challenged the Buddha and said ‘whoever won their little contest would learn from the other.’ Sun Wukong was very very fast and he could go where ever he wanted to go so instantaneously. And so he decided that he was going to go somewhere and hide, to see if the Buddha would find him.  So off he went and he went to very deep, deep space till he go to this one place where there was just a mountain there with these peaks. He said 'Ahh, the Buddha is not around' so he wrote his name. And just to be on the safe side, he was a monkey, so he peed right there. When he went back to the Buddha, he laughed at him saying 'You didn't find me! You didn't find me'. The Buddha held out his hand. On the Buddha’s hand was the monkey's name with a little puddle of water, actually pee. And so the monkey was stunned. The story is useful if one goes past the folklore aspect of it. Go to the part where the mind instantaneously is capable of being everywhere. Mind is this way. It is the Buddha-eye. 
So when we are talking about this, we are no longer talking about folk lore but we are talking at it in such a way in that in science, only quantum mechanics could delve into what that meant. But when we are sitting in our meditation, as we are sitting there, we are no longer Gilbert; we are no longer ourselves. We are sitting in mind and aware of mind and you give your mind this great pasture. It's difficult until someone went to some sort of transcendence experience. You don't sit there and think you want to have a transcendent experience. You don't sit there saying, 'I want a transcendent experience, saying ‘Buddha beam me up, Buddha beam me up'’. It’s not going to work that way. You just simply suspend the laws of the known nature; the laws that govern the appearances or of what you believe to be the appearing in consciousness. And open your heart to a greater potentiality - that just maybe mind is everywhere. And when you open in this way, self becomes to naturally just drop off because it becomes irrelevant in that point. 
And that is what Chan was doing - It was just cutting through all of the dialog. ‘You know: Is it one truth? Is it two truths? Is it three-truth doctrine? They are doing going OMG, I can't take it anymore.’ There are all these different doctrines out there and all these different high flaunting things. When we just stop thinking and just go to the source, Chan is always going to the source. If you look at anything of what the master’s talk is about, they are always going to the source. What is the source? They can hear it. They can hear that music. They hear that but we can't hear that because we have a rough, very very vague feeling of the sound or truth. We don't really get it. The only way we can do that is by amplifying it. We amplify it by the proper practice and by faith. When we do the proper practice, right concentration, all the things that fit into the paramitas, and the faith that it will work. We begin to set the stage to amplify that signal. And the signal is just mind. And a couple of weeks ago I said, ‘It’s like a nipple of a baby bottle and inverting it’. It the same thing as the little sub-atomic particle cutting its way across space instantaneously and being in another place, instantaneously. There is no travel there. And in this way, we begin to understand things because that is the way that they are. 
There was another story about the Buddha talking to these Arhats and talking to them, telling them they need to visit this place. But he said ‘you need to leave right now to travel there.’ They said ‘that is very far away; it could take us weeks’. He said ‘yeah, you better start going, I'll meet you there.’ But when they got there, the Buddha was there. But the Buddha just was there, instantaneously. Again, these are folklore stories. But what is not folklore or imaginary is the potentially of mind being ever-present everywhere. And that ever-presence does not have a self. It nevertheless mind. It nevertheless has something there and we don't disregard that. In that nothingness, it is not nothingness just like that. In space, scientist have determined that space itself is not a vacuum; it’s not devoid of substance and it has the substance to it. And if you had a big enough hand, a big Buddha hand and push against the space, there would be a resulting vibration. Oh, but I guess Einstein proved that with his colliding of two black holes that recently showed these waves going through space. Those waves going through space, it there was vacuum, it would be kind of hard to do that. There is that potentiality there. When you see all these things there and they are connected, you have to use you mind to just open to the potentiality.
 I was looking at and seeing that the space between us in not a vacuum, nevertheless, of course here there are air particles. We can't see them. In space, there is still substance between us. And the scientists measured what was lacking after the big bang and realized what is in space held the rest of the matter that should have been there. Now we might call it anti-matter because it doesn't have what we would think about to have an appearance or existence but it still nevertheless there. It is just the potentiality of thing that will happen and that manifest. And we follow the laws of nature. What is a big law of nature that we follow?
Student: 'Death. That we die'
Gilbert: No, Karma, which is part of that. The idea of causes and conditions. And we know these things get set in motion. And when we see these things, it changes the way that we look at the world. We are no longer the world from our viewpoint but we are seeing a collective mind. The more we can see things as a collective mind, the less harm we can do to our neighbors and the less harm we will do to this planet because we are more clear, more responsible for things. Even though we may be just a moment of a puff of smoke, we are nevertheless matter.
And in Chan that is very very important, that it matters. Chan doesn't look at it from the viewpoint of one lifetime. It sees things not in the state of time itself, but of mind and the idea of suffering and knowing that certain things can be sent into course that will change the universe.  Not just, as a Chan practitioner, do you see it as changing the world, but changing the universe. This may seem very grandiose, and certainly not something you would expect a Chan practitioner to talk about in such a way. But it’s at the heart of what we are doing because in this way, if we are able to suspend the belief in the individual self, it gives rise to the incredible Bodhi-heart that enables us to help other people unobstructed saying, ‘I’d really like to help you, but it's ten o'clock and I shut down at ten o'clock so call me tomorrow’. No, whenever it's needed, it is there. Whatever time it's needed, it's there.
'Instead of learned discussions about this or that doctrinal problem of the past. The masters dive directly to the one thing the considered essential. Buddha being oneself. Right here and now. In the following example from the classical Chan record, we see Linji simply repeating the question of a student, where the student resorts to a physical action that seeks to show the master it’s really not an awakened teacher. However, the master quickly gets the better of the questioner, characteristically he does this, not by asking a complicated question about Buddhist doctrine, but an unexpected inquiry about the questioner wellbeing.'
OK, you be the master now. Are you ready for it? Here comes the question, are you ready? Sentha is thinking, I'm going to blow it, I know it. You already blew it from your mindset. Here we go, here is the question. 
‘One day Linji went to Ho Fu(?). Counselor Wang, the perfertoral governor requested the master take the high seat. At that time, Ma Jiu(?) came forward and asked 'The great compassion one has a thousand hands and a thousand eyes. Which one is the true eye?'’
 Come on, you are the master.
Student: Which is the true eye?
Gilbert: That is your answer? Which is the true eye? Watch this, from the mouth of babes. The master said: ‘The great compassion one has a thousand hands and a thousand eyes. Which one is the true eye? Speak! Speak!’ So your answer was correct. There is hope for you yet.
Ma Jiu pulled the master off the high seat and sat there himself. Coming up to him, the master said 'how are you doing?'
What were you going to say?
STUDENT: How are you?
Gilbert: Yeah, you have the right idea. 
Mau Jiu hesitated. The master then pulled Mau Jiu off the seat and sat upon it himself. Mau Jiu left and the master stepped down.’
When you have nothing to lose, the response are natural. Very interesting in terms of that. So it’s important because we have people that will ask you those kind of questions, very intellectual questioning and in order to respond to those questions, you can get trapped if trying to respond to it. What eye? The Buddha has this and this. But he said ‘No. Hey, if you are so smart, you tell me which one it is’. Because it is not really a question, its more or less trying to present something that no matter how you respond to it is going to not be correct. 
STUDENT: It's like 'which indeed' kind of an answer.
Gilbert: Yep. Anyway, I thought you guys would like that kind of answer. 
Collection of words of masters were treated as prized possessions in the early 9th century but this very idealization of old writings was criticized by many masters. In the records of Linji, we find the following:

‘Students of today get nowhere because they base their understanding on the acknowledgment of names. They inscribe the name of some old dead guy in a big note book. They wrap it up in 4 or 5 squares of cloth and won't let anyone look at it. This is the mysterious principal that they advert and safe guard it with care. That is all wrong. Blind Idiots! What kind of juice are you looking for in such dried up bones?’
What do you think he is saying here?
STUDENT: Live the principal, don't just carry it around hiding it. Share the principal.
Gilbert: A little bit more than that. 
STUDENT: You have to be in Chan.
STUDENT: You have to do it now. 
Gilbert: Broader than that. Listen to it. ‘They wrap it up in 4 or 5 squares of cloth and won't let anyone look at it. The advert and safe guard it with care.’ 
STUDENT: How can it be alive if it’s hidden away? 
Gilbert: From who?
STUDENT: The Dharma is only Dharma if transmitted. 
Gilbert: It goes against the nature of compassion that we don't hide this as a secret incantation. I'm going to give it to Rachel, but not to you guys. You know, provided Rachel pays me enough money for it or that it’s a secret thing that you have and you wrap it all up like that. No, Chan is to be shared.
STUDENT: Is the fact you do hide it make it dry up and go away?
Gilbert: That is part of the whole thing.  There is no value to it. There is no secret there. There is nothing. It is simply just dried up and when you hold onto these sayings like this, you hold onto someone else experiences and no matter what, you have dried up bone. It’s something that is dried up. It’s not something that is good. 
You can even take Master Sheng-yen’s admonitions and instructions on his burial to be cremated and grinded up so there will be no relics left, so people could not hold onto that and think there was some special power in the dried up bones. And people have relics all the time. These masters and they are like pearl like but Master Sheng-yen didn't want to be part of a show, going from town to town. He was saying 'That's not the Dharma'. He really lived Chan and he did not want things erected in his honor. He didn't want all these things. He just said 'The Chan was being written' the masters are saying things that help you practice. But if all you get from this is just their words, then it’s dried up words too. But if they encourage you to practice, to push a little further, then they are useful. But if you carry them around and say 'Master said such and such, then you go ‘oh please I don't want to hear that'’. Master Sheng-yen was saying this. No, you might have said that one time but he might have said something else some other time, depending on the situation that is going on. What is important is not to be putting these thing on a shelf. But to use them. Put them into practice.
'Master Linji’s harsh criticism of collecting and safeguarding the words of the masters points to the central aim of Chan teaching. Since approximately the year 10,000 the following has been used to characterize the following Chan. Chan is transmitted outside established doctrine. It does not institute words; rather it points directly to a human's heart. Whoever sees his own nature becomes an awaked Buddha.'
This is probably not a proper translation but here when they say heart, what they are really talking about is heart-mind. Of saying that heart-mind is just mind, not the conscience mind, but this mind that permeates everyone and using this kind of a way to realize this intrinsic nature. The nature that is already there. There is really no realization because what is to be realized is illusory.  Mind is just there, as it is; that which is. It’s a trick. Who is reciting the Buddha’s name? Who is reciting the Buddha’s name? Who indeed? Who indeed? LOL!!!
The central concern of Chan is nothing other than the through seeing of one own nature(mind’s own nature). 
The “one” at this point shouldn't be there because the “one” indicates self, but there is no self there. But there is the self-nature of mind that has no separate identity from anything else. 
So today, I don't expect you to get all of this. You may have an ‘ah-ha’ moment. Today what I want you to do is think about it, to work it, and see what you can do with it. But when you think about it, you have to think about it in a different way than you think normally. Normally when you think, you just sit there and go 'oh well; this, and this, and this, and this, and this comes from this'. When you think about it this way you just go."  
   [Silence ...] “See the difference? You are really turning the mind’s eye inward. 
Ok, real quick. We will finally get to Yunman and in this chapter called Corresponding to the Occasion and it says:
Having come to the Dharma hall to instruct the assembly, the master remained silent for a long time then said, 'The knack of giving voice to the Tao is definitely difficult to figure out. Even if every word matches it, there are still a multitude of other ways. How much more so when I rattle on and on.  So what is the point of talking right now?
It's very interesting. I am reading a book on this one master who’s is applying psychology and the Dharma and titled The Complete Book to Meditation. But in any case, I’m thinking ‘that is very presumptuous.’ That is really presumptuous. Really? The complete guide to meditation and training is all in this book? Which would mean that the time it finishes to the last page, including the back cover, I would be enlightened? No; No. We should not say things like that.  There are 84,000 Dharma doors -meaning uncountable ways to the practice. One should not be so presumptuous to say that there is one path. That is why they say ‘there is no path.’ The path is the no path. And when we do that, people will be there like drawing ‘Connect the dots’. Trying to connect all the dots, then I’m enlightened. No!  It didn't work. Why? Because there is this other part we have to have - the right practice, the right faith. That is not to knock his book except for the fact where any person that says they have the complete guide to that. Unless you bought Meditation for Dummies, then you are a dumby if you expect everything is going to be in that book. But they told you up front that you are a dumby. So the idea here is that we practice and there is no complete guide. We have to practice. We have to do it ourselves. If we don’t do it, it does not matter how many books we read and you have a whole library of complete guides. It's not going to work. 
I once knew this lady. She would go from master to master. Great, great masters! All enlightened masters! But she expected that from being next to them that she would become enlightened. But she did not put enough time in with one of their ways in a sincere way to do it herself. So she was moving around like Ananda, picking up this knowledge but the knowledge was not something that she had to practice. And when you ran into these masters, when you talk to them, they talk a different language. And maybe they understood and you understood their language.  It wasn't the language that was printed in a book or printed on a page. It was like see the Buddha twirling the flower. That is Chan.
"Those each of the collections of Buddha’s teachings have its specific sphere. The study of monastic discipline, the sutras, to the study of meditative concentration, and the treaties to the study of wisdom. They really boil down to just one thing, namely just one vehicle - it is perfect and immediate and very difficult to fathom. Even if you could understand it right now, you’ll still be as different from a monk as earth is from heaven. If in my assembly, someone's ability is manifested in a phrase, you will ponder in vain. Even if in order to make progress you sorted out all the Chan teachings with their thousands of differences and myriad distinctions, your mistake would still consist of searching for proclamations on other people's tongues. So how should you approach to what has been transmitted? By talking in here about perfect and immediate. By this or that? Don't get me wrong, you must not hear me say this then speculate not perfect and not sudden are it. There must be a real man in here. There must be someone in here.’  
This is an interesting aspect to this because of what it is talking about. Wait a minute, if we are saying to there is no self. And he is saying, there must be someone in here. Don't rely on some master’s statements or hand me down phrases that you pass off everywhere as your own understanding. Don't get me wrong, whatever your problem is right now is try settling it here, in front of this assembly. Whatever you problem is, settle it right now. 
Hsuan Hua(?) Master was a great master from San Francisco area and he used to listen to people's problems and Sunday’s people would have an audience with him in the temple. And finally he got so tired because the line got longer and longer and longer once the word got out that he was giving wisdom to people. So one day, he put a stand up and put a microphone on it.  He said, ‘anyone who wants to tell me about their problems, speak in the mike so everyone can hear it.’ So the line shortened up pretty quickly. 
And this is what he is saying it is very funny because it is reminds me of Hsuan Hua when he said that. He was saying, whatever your problem is right now, try settling to just right here in front of the assembly. Can you do that? Can you talk about your problems in front of everybody? Didn't think so.  The idea is giving up self. If we give up the self we wouldn't have a problem with doing that. But he is speaking immediately to you and saying. ‘Could you do this?’ No. Therein lies a problem. You are not that good of a practitioner.  You are too tied to yourself. This illusory self. Right?  And I see a few nods.  It’s kind of spooky. No. I have a microphone here we can start. We can start with myself-- No. I am honest. So the idea is that we have to work that way to practice our best.  And little by little erode that in term of what is there. 
‘At that time the prefectural governor Ho was present and preformed that customarily bow and said 'your disciple requests instruction' and the master replied 'this weed, I see no different.'’
So here comes the governor that comes in front of him and says, I want instruction. And the master says 'this weed I see no different'. What was he telling him? 
STUDENT: Let go of the self. A weed among other weeds. Nothing special. 
Gilbert: He is saying, why should I get you something? I already talked to everybody and you want some specific instruction.  And he is saying that you are no different than any other weed. 
STUDENT: And you have to pull the weed right?
Gilbert: Well he is the weed. But all the others are weeds. But he comes up there being the governor weed, so he was thinking that he would get some special treatment from all of that. Linji just then slaps him down, which is good. Probably did not make him too many political friends. 
"An official asked, 'isn't it true that Buddha Dharma is like the moon in the water?’
Now moon in Chinese culture means mind or Buddha. So what he is saying ‘Is it true that the Buddha Dharma is like the moon reflecting in the water? What do you think of that?
STUDENT: Mind is everything. The Lake is the consequence of the moon. The lake reflects on the moon. 
Gilbert: Now what you said before that, you said something else. Mind is?
STUDENT: Everything. 
Gilbert: Mind is everything. So is there a way and that way? Remember he said, people talk about this and that. And he said that isn't it.
STUDENT: It’s all it.
Gilbert: It’s all mind.  I am taking you from where you are at and tipping you into the void. Letting you even let go of this and that.  So listen to what he says, very interesting. 
‘The master replied, even pure wave has no way of penetrating through to the moon.’
 Even a pure wave, the purest wave, has no way of penetrating to the moon. It is very interesting because when one begins to practice and one gets to the point of a high state of mediation and Samadhi, there becomes a very clear mind that superimposes on everything and there is no inflow or outflow. And it is as if there is some kind of Saran Wrap-clarity there, a pure wave. But nevertheless, still a semblance of self and at the moment, one has to break through that to break through this pure wave. So one can see, one can allow the mind to have clear light without any semblance of any notion of self. Even though there is not any notion of self in the mind at the moment, there is just simply this clear veneer that is there. And so, he is saying even a pure wave has no way of penetrating through to the moon. When you get to that point, once you get to that point, boom. It’s just moon, mind is everything. This is just moon. Nothing else. The moon reflected in the water, you are correct, that is the wrong way of looking at it. But Master Linji even further in his clarification. Very very incredible response here. 
‘So then the official pressed on; ‘By what way did you reach it?’
Keep in mind the analogy I said about the moment before one transcends, there is this clearness there, but it is still the self.  And he is saying, in which way did you transcend it?
                ‘And the master said, ‘where did you get the second thought?’
So he his pointing to him again. What is he saying to him? 
STUDENT: He is saying. He is asking, what mind is, where did that come from? 
Gilbert: He is pointing right at mind. He is saying, ‘where did you get that second thought, this came from mind. Where else?’  
‘And so the official when on; 'How about my situation right now?' And the master said, 'The road across this mountain pass is blocked.'
So he just gave up, he just said ‘self, self, self, self, they all come from self.’ There is no way to get there. So when you practice meditation. Don't practice meditation with the idea of self, or yourself, or self-attainment. Don’t practice in that way; practice just the method. Let go of the self. Let go the self. Let go of the self. Just stay with the method. Self is going to arise. Let go of it. Mind will arise. To know the arising mind is the non-arising mind. Very important. Any question?