Podcasts about sixth patriarch

This is part 9 of the “Zen Buddhism” series on Buddhist Books Podcast. In this episode, we'll begin reading "The Platform Sutra" of the Sixth Patriarch of Zen (Chan) Buddhism, thought to have been composed around 780 CE.

Selected passages from the "The Sutra of Hui-neng, Grand Master of Zen" (Platform Sutra), using an amalgam of translations.Hui-neng (638-713) was a seminal figure in Buddhist history and is one of the most beloved and respected figure in Zen Buddhism. An illiterate woodcutter who attained enlightenment in a flash, he became the Sixth Patriarch of Chinese Zen, and is regarded as the founder of the "Sudden Enlightenment" school. He is the supreme exemplar of the fact that neither education nor social background has any bearing on the attainment of enlightenment. The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, which is said to be a record of his teachings, is a highly influential text in the East Asian Buddhist tradition.

Continuing with our theme: the importance of independent thought and interdependent action to the future of Zen in America, we must define the design intent of our program in the current context of uncertainty. The accelerating pace of change, including geometrically expanding attractions and distractions in the secular and now digital world, gives our task a certain urgency. As we touched on last time, from Master Dogen's record of live teachings late in his career, Shobogenzo Zuimonki: Even in the secular world, it is said that unity of mind is necessary for the sake of maintaining a household or protecting a castle. If unity is lacking, the house or the castle will eventually fall. Similarly, Honest Abe declared that “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” The great unifying principle underlying Zen, then, is this “unity of mind.” But it begs the question of what precisely we mean, by “mind.” Usually our mind – the “monkey mind” anyway – is anything but unified. It may indeed be unified against all comers; or unified in its stubborn clinging to its own opinion; but it is not unified in the sense that I think Master Dogen meant. And it is not the mind characterized by dependent thinking and codependent action, as in “we are of the same mind,” or “like-minded people.” As in the past, the future of Zen comes down to the transmission of this unified mind, which cannot be transmitted directly. Transmission of the method of unifying the mind – which is one meaning implied in the Japanese word sesshin, an intensive, extended retreat – is where we can focus our attention, and plan the design intent of our process around it. In a present and future world increasingly transformed by digital technology and virtual engagement, we may need to rethink the traditional parameter of face-to-face transmission, honored as the most efficacious pedagogy in the history of Zen. However, when we can meet in a virtual room from virtually anywhere in the world, the face-to-face connection becomes one of interfacing video screens. This option was not available in the history of Zen, to belabor the obvious. Objections to an argument that this kind of transaction may suffice to transmit the Dharma include that the perceived teacher-student environment may be colored by such tinkering as phony backgrounds and visual enhancements of lighting and filters, along with stage-setting and costuming designed to play to the camera. In the context of direct Dharma transmission, these amount to additional layers of delusion heaped upon the underlying distortions of conscious perception and conception built into the monkey mind. What is missing in the virtual world is the rest of the story, what transpires behind the screen – the day-in and day-out mutual observation of behaviors and attitudes under less-than-ideal or challenging circumstances – wherein transactional exchanges of personalities and communication in the real-world dynamic of the teacher and student relationship enables “coming to accord” with the teacher's worldview, which is hopefully “Right View.” In Dogen's Jijuyu Zammai – Self-fulfilling Samadhi, he points out the importance of this relationship and its hoped-for outcome: From the first time you meet a master, without engaging in bowing, incense offering, chanting Buddha's name, repentance or reading scripture, you should just wholeheartedly sit, and thus drop away body and mind. Along with establishing the secondary supporting role of Zen's protocols, rituals, and the written record, he goes on to declare that this “dropping off” of body and mind is tantamount to Buddha's insight, and that it completely transforms your world: When even for a moment you express the Buddha's seal by sitting upright in samadhi, the whole phenomenal world becomes the Buddha's seal and the entire sky turns into enlightenment. Later in the same passage he profiles the transition that occurs when the student becomes the master: Those who receive these water-and-fire benefits spread the Buddha's guidance based on original awakening; because of this, all those who live with you and speak with you will obtain endless buddha virtue, and will unroll widely – inside and outside of the entire universe – the endless, unremitting, unthinkable, unnamable buddha-dharma. The telling phrase is “all those who live with you.” A compelling question for lay householder Zen practitioners today is, Do we need to actually “live with” a teacher, or within a residential community, in order to apprehend the true Dharma? And if so, how do we go about implementing that design intent, within the practical constraints of maintaining a household, holding down a job, and raising a family? Or do we all have to become monastics? In which case, Zen is just another program for a privileged few. Dogen's effusive celebration of awakening to the truth of Buddhism as received wisdom includes – and is implicitly dependent upon – your relationship with your teacher. In Dogen's narrative, he must be referencing his lived experience with Rujing in China. But it raises the question of exceptions to the general rule, such as the example of Shakyamuni himself, or Huineng, Sixth Patriarch in China. The case that one absolutely must have a teacher cannot be made – any more than it can be proven that one absolutely must practice zazen – in order to experience the insight of Zen. In research circles, we hear phrases such as “participant observation” to define this kind of intimate, all-embracing investigation of another person's world and approach to coping with it. The adage about walking a mile in someone else's shoes captures the difficulty of getting far enough beyond ourselves, to be able to truly understand the worldview of someone else. In the martial, plastic and performing arts and crafts, as well as trades, guilds, and other apprentice-journeyman-master modes of learning, we see parallels to that of the Zen master and student, where the craft is transmitted mainly through nonverbal observation, closely following the approach of the trainer until it becomes second-nature to the novice. But in the complex society that we encounter today, the possibility and potential payoff of living together, in order to effect a transmission of mind-to-mind seems more and more a pipe dream of a past reality that may no longer apply, and in fact may never have been the norm. Garnered from such collections as “The Transmission of the Lamp” from Song dynasty China, anecdotes from the millennia-long history of Zen begin to look like a mixed bag of long-term and short-term encounters and exchanges between masters and students, and master to master, as well as between students. The resultant impression is that handing down the Dharma from generation to generation was largely a matter of monastics living in large and small communities, but also hermits living in isolation, being visited by other monks and nuns on pilgrimage, and occasional lively set-tos with lay people, women in particular. Notable exceptions to the monastic model include influential lay practitioners such as Vimalakirti in Buddha's time, and Layman Pang and others later in China and Japan. A line in the seminal Ch'an poem Hsinhsinming says, “For the unified mind in accord with the Way, all self-centered striving ceases.” The operative phrase here might be “in accord with the Way.” The “Way” being the Tao of Taoism. Which is a catchall phrase for the natural order of things, with which we want to come into harmony. This unified mind is the Original Mind, capital O – capital M – which we rediscover in our meditation, after sitting still enough and upright enough, for long enough. So the central focus of our practice in the personal sphere has not changed, and our marching – or sitting – orders remain the same: hie thee to the cushion. With or without a teacher. Secure in the assurance that when the time is ripe, your teacher will appear. In due time, you may even find yourself in the unenviable position of being regarded as a teacher of Zen. Further on in the Shobogenzo Zuimonki, the great founding Master talks about what it takes to herd the cats: 5 — 17There is a proverb, “Unless you are deaf and dumb, you cannot become the head of a family.” In other words, if you do not listen to the slander of others and do not speak ill of others, you will succeed in your own work. Only a person like this is qualified to be the head of a family. Although this is a worldly proverb, we must apply it to our way of life as monks. How do we practice the Way without being disturbed by the slandering remarks of others, and without reacting to the resentment of others, or speaking of the right or wrong of others? Only those who thoroughly devote even their bones and marrow to the practice can do it. Thank you, Dogen, for your candor and real-world practicality. It certainly resonates with my experience. If we read between the lines, we can see that Dogen's life, and that of his monks, was apparently not always as ideally serene and transcendent as we may prefer to imagine. People are people, and were the same hot mess in 13th century Japan as they are today. Maybe even worse. In the next segment we will continue with past as prologue to present, and present as perhaps prescient for the future of Zen. Your comments and response are, as always, welcome and encouraged. You know where to find me.* * *Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Shinjin Larry Little

Bright on Buddhism Episode 59 - What is the 3 bodies doctrine in Buddhism? What role does it play in ritual and doctrine? How have understandings of it changed over time? Resources: Radich, Michael (2007). Problems and Opportunities in the Study of the Bodies of the Buddha, New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 9 (1), 46-69; Xing, Guang (2005). The Concept of the Buddha: Its Evolution from Early Buddhism to the Trikāya Theory. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0-415-33344-3.; Collins, Steven (15 July 2014), "Reflections on the Dichotomy Rūpakāya/Dhammakāya", Contemporary Buddhism, 15 (2): 261–2, doi:10.1080/14639947.2014.932481, S2CID 143200561.; Thrangu Rinpoche (2003), Pointing Out the Dharmakaya: Teachings on the Ninth Karmapa's Text, Shambhala, ISBN 978-1-55939-857-2.; Williams, Paul (2009), Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations (PDF) (2 ed.), Oxford: Routledge.; Namdak, Lopon Tenzin (1991). Vajranatha (ed.). "The Attaining of Buddhahood". Retrieved March 18, 2009.; Yampolski, Philip (tr.) (1967). "The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch" (PDF).; Fiordallis, David (20 September 2008). Miracles and Superhuman Powers in South Asian Buddhist Literature (PDF) (PhD dissertation). University of Michigan. Archived (PDF) from the original on 23 April 2017. Retrieved 22 April 2017.; Jigme Lingpa; Longchen Yeshe Dorje; Kangyur Rinpoche (2013). Treasury of Precious Qualities: Book Two: Vajrayana and the Great Perfection. Shambhala Publications. ISBN 978-0834828575.; Thondup, Tulku (2011). Incarnation: The History and Mysticism of the Tulku Tradition of Tibet. Boston: Shambhala Publications. ISBN 978-1590308394 Do you have a question about Buddhism that you'd like us to discuss? Let us know by finding us on email or social media! https://linktr.ee/brightonbuddhism Credits: Nick Bright: Script, Cover Art, Music, Voice of Hearer, Co-Host Proven Paradox: Editing, mixing and mastering, social media, Voice of Hermit, Co-Host --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/brightonbuddhism/message

 Huineng and Questions - Dharma Talk on June 13, 2022 by Gilbert GutierrezMany thanks to Lay Hui Tan for transcribing this lecture and to Rick Cabrera for editing it.Lecture audio: https://riversidechan.org/lectures/Dharma_Talk_20220613.mp3Lecture video: https://youtu.be/A0Et4GTSgvkLecture material: The Sixth Patriarch's Dharma Jewel Platform Sutra, starting p109 (p147 in the PDF) Notes:-   

Bright on Buddhism - Kōan Series Episode 3 - Huìnéng asked Hui Ming, "Without thinking of good or evil, show me your original face before your mother and father were born." Hello and welcome to a new type of episode of Bright on Buddhism, called the Kōan Series. In this series, we will read and discuss real Buddhist kōans to try and better understand them. We hope you enjoy. Resources: Episode 6 - https://anchor.fm/brightonbuddhism/episodes/What-is-non-attachment-and-the-Middle-Way-e17gp0u Episode 10 - https://anchor.fm/brightonbuddhism/episodes/What-is-Zen-Buddhism-e1a2sm2 Episode 18 - https://anchor.fm/brightonbuddhism/episodes/What-is-the-Buddhist-philosophy-of-speech--language--and-words-e1dgqu9 Episode 32 - https://anchor.fm/brightonbuddhism/episodes/What-are-kans-e1j5scl Episode 33 - https://anchor.fm/brightonbuddhism/episodes/What-is-emptiness-e1jc31i Hori, Victor Sogen (1999). "Translating the Zen Phrase Book" (PDF). Nanzan Bulletin (23). Hori, Victor Sogen (2000), Koan and Kensho in the Rinzai Zen Curriculum. In: Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright (eds)(2000): "The Koan. Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism, Oxford: Oxford University Press Shimomissé, Eiichi (1998), THE GATELESS GATE Heine, Steven (2008), Zen Skin, Zen Marrow McRae, John (2000), The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch. Translated from the Chinese of Zongbao (PDF), Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research Bielefeldt, Carl (2009), "Expedient Devices, the One Vehicle, and the Life Span of the Buddha", in Teiser, Stephen F.; Stone, Jacqueline I. (eds.), Readings of the Lotus Sutra, New York: Columbia University Press, ISBN 9780231142885 Kotatsu, Fujita; Hurvitz, Leon (1975), "One Vehicle or Three", Journal of Indian Philosophy, 3 (1/2): 79–166 Lopez, Donald (2016), The Lotus Sutra: A Biography (Kindle ed.), Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0691152202 Lopez, Donald S.; Stone, Jacqueline I. (2019), Two Buddhas Seated Side by Side: A Guide to the Lotus Sūtra, Princeton University Press Pye, Michael (2003), Skilful Means – A concept in Mahayana Buddhism, Routledge, ISBN 0203503791 Watson, Burton (tr.) (1993), The Lotus Sutra, Columbia University Press, ISBN 023108160X Patrick Olivelle, trans. Life of the Buddha. Clay Sanskrit Library, 2008. 1 vols. (Cantos 1-14 in Sanskrit and English with summary of the Chinese cantos not available in the Sanskrit) Stone, Jacqueline Ilyse (2003), "Original enlightenment and the transformation of medieval Japanese Buddhism" (PDF), Studies in East Asian Buddhism, University of Hawaii Press (12), ISBN 978-0-8248-2771-7, archived from the original (PDF) on November 5, 2013 Hakeda, Yoshito S., trans. (1967), Awakening of Faith—Attributed to Aśvaghoṣa, with commentary by Yoshito S. Hakeda, New York, NY: Columbia University Press, ISBN 0-231-08336-X Jorgensen, John; Lusthaus, Dan; Makeham, John; Strange, Mark, trans. (2019), Treatise on Awakening Mahāyāna Faith, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780190297718 Do you have a question about Buddhism that you'd like us to discuss? Let us know by finding us on email or social media! https://linktr.ee/brightonbuddhism Credits: Nick Bright: Script, Cover Art, Music, Voice of Hearer, Co-Host Proven Paradox: Editing, mixing and mastering, social media, Voice of Hermit, Co-Host

Norman gives his talk to the EDZ December 2021 All Day Sitting on Case 58 of the Book of Serenity "The Diamond Scripture's Revilement".  In this koan the Commentary of the Sixth Patriarch is paramount to the meaning of the Koan. https://s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/edz.assets/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/02173032/Book-of-Serenity-Case-58-_The-Diamond-Scriptures-Revilement_-All-Day-Sitting-December-2021.mp3

Selected passages from the "Sutra Spoken by the Sixth Patriarch on the High Seat of the Treasure of the Law." Hui Neng (638-713) was a seminal figure in Buddhist history. He is the famous “Sixth Patriarch” of the Chan or meditation tradition, which is better known in Japanese as “Zen”. Music: Language of Silence by Deuter

“Bowing…can be considered a technology for changing one’s consciousness.  How will the world be better if I don’t change myself?” About a year after being ordained a Buddhist monk at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Talmage, California in 1976, Reverend Heng Sure undertook a walking pilgrimage along virtually the entire length of California’s coast, together with then-fellow Buddhist monastic Dr. Martin Verhoeven (formerly Heng Ch’au). The walking pilgrimage the pair embarked on consisted of taking “Three Steps, One Bow” throughout the 800-mile coastal journey on California's Highway 1, progressing at the pace of one mile per day. Maintaining a vow of total silence and eating only one meal a day, Rev. Heng Sure’s knees endured more than a million bends in the 2 years and 9 months of the journey, even bowing to gun-wielding men in three separate instances.  Much like the California landscape he encountered, the inner terrain traversed included both defilement and divine insight. The pilgrimage opened a humbling space of vulnerability and sensitivity where Heng Sure could closely observe how the microcosm of the self influences the macrocosm of the world, leading to a heightened awareness of how what he generated in the mind directly led to what manifested in the world -- how the more peaceful he became inside, the more peaceful the treatment he received from people on the outside.  Yet the pilgrimage never ended, initially extending for 3+ subsequent years of silent circumambulation of the Buddha Hall at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in the same three-steps-and-a-bow format, and then becoming a template and compass for a lifelong practice of inner and outer transformation that radiates through all he does -- across music, interfaith dialogue, vegan advocacy, Buddhist text translation, and lectures, seminars, and retreats around the world. His monastic name could be translated as “Constantly Real” or “Fruition of Truth”, and it's impossible to meet Rev. Heng Sure without feeling the living vibrancy of its meaning. Whether humbly and disarmingly sharing how his teacher chose his name, or strumming his guitar to a folk ballad he composed, his words often land as simultaneously light and deep, both precise and expansive at the same time. Now more than 45 years in robes, he’s the most senior western monastic disciple of the late Venerable Chan Master Hsuan Hua, though his journey to Buddhism began much earlier. Rev. Heng Sure was born Chistopher Russell Clowery to a Scotch-Irish Methodist family in Columbus, Ohio, growing up squarely in mainstream American culture "playing baseball and watching Mickey Mouse Club and gunfighter shows on television." At age 13, his aunt gave him a catalog of a Chinese painter’s exhibit, and the Chinese characters caught his eye, almost as if he’d seen them before. This sparked an interest in the Chinese language, which he was fortunate to learn in high school through one of the three such language programs in the country at public schools, which happened to be in Toledo where he lived. He soon happened upon the Sixth Patriarch’s Dharma-jewel, Platform Sutra in bilingual, Chinese-English translation, and realized that his heart was tuned to a Far Eastern faith tradition, not the Middle Eastern, Abrahamic stories of his parents’ generation. Following the Chinese language all the way through university, he received his Master’s degree from UC Berkeley in Oriental languages, which set the stage for meeting his teacher after a short collegiate career as a theater actor. A fortuitous call from a former college roommate encouraged him to cross the Bay Bridge to Gold Mountain Monastery in San Francisco where the abbot was lecturing on the Avatamsaka Sutra. Passing the threshold of the monastery doors, his doubts and fears about his political anti-war activism, academic career, and folk musical inclinations all melted away. He distinctly heard a quiet voice saying, “You’re back. Go to work. You’re home.” Master Hua, his eventual teacher, was a strict disciplinarian who taught Buddhism from its ethical foundations, emphasizing the importance of how you are as a person is equally important and in fact the very source of how you practice meditation. Inspired by the clarity and rigor of the teachings, as well as the example of other teachers in Master Hua’s lineage, Heng Sure asked for permission to go on a bowing and walking pilgrimage. Master Hua assented, but asked him to wait until his ‘dharma protector’ arrived. A year later, a martial artist named Martin Verhoeven arrived. Heng Sure recognized Martin’s desire and affinity to the pilgrimage, and took novice precepts and vows as a monastic to fulfill his role, armed only with the four weapons of a Bodhisattva: kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. “If either of you fights -- or even indulges in anger -- you will no longer be my disciples,” said their teacher before they began. Thus encouraged by his teacher to see everything as a test, Heng Sure recognized that if he could transform his own greed, anger, and delusions, then perhaps he could do something to make the world more peaceful. In essence, the bowing practice boiled down to cleaning up the part of the unpeaceful world that he could control: his own thoughts and words. It was a pilgrimage for world peace, starting with his own mind. The pilgrims maintained a written correspondence with their teacher where they intimately shared their experiences and insights, which were later compiled and published as Highway Dharma Letters: Two Buddhist Pilgrims Write to Their Teacher, a remarkable spiritual diary of the modern era. Rev. Heng Sure is the Managing Director of Berkeley Buddhist Monastery and an adjunct professor at Dharma Realm Buddhist University. He lectures worldwide on Buddhism, Buddhist texts, translation, meditation, interfaith dialogue, and plant-based eating. He serves as President of both Dharma Realm Buddhist Association and the Buddhist Text Translation Society. He’s fluent in Mandarin Chinese, French, and Japanese, and regularly leads lectures, seminars, and retreats around the globe including at the Parliament of World Religions. He’s a founding Trustee of the United Religions Initiative, a long-time trustee for the Interfaith Center at the Presidio, and on the core faculty of the Institute for World Religions. He also teaches Buddhist Philosophy at Bond University in Queensland, Australia. He earned a Ph.D. from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. A folk singer and guitarist who integrates his penetrating insights of reality with his “mainstream American” roots through the vehicle of song, Rev. Heng Sure has published three albums of original Buddhist folk music. His music and podcasts can be found at Dharma Radio, with his lectures available at DharmaRealm Live. His photography of the natural world can be found on his SmugMug site and Instagram @Rev.Heng Sure. A monk with many far-reaching talents, Rev. Heng Sure has been known to draw upon his puppeteering ability as skillful means to drive home fine points of the dharma. Join Nipun Mehta in a special conversation with this remarkably humble and insightful pilgrim.

“Bowing…can be considered a technology for changing one’s consciousness.  How will the world be better if I don’t change myself?” About a year after being ordained a Buddhist monk at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in Talmage, California in 1976, Reverend Heng Sure undertook a walking pilgrimage along virtually the entire length of California’s coast, together with then-fellow Buddhist monastic Dr. Martin Verhoeven (formerly Heng Ch’au). The walking pilgrimage the pair embarked on consisted of taking “Three Steps, One Bow” throughout the 800-mile coastal journey on California's Highway 1, progressing at the pace of one mile per day. Maintaining a vow of total silence and eating only one meal a day, Rev. Heng Sure’s knees endured more than a million bends in the 2 years and 9 months of the journey, even bowing to gun-wielding men in three separate instances.  Much like the California landscape he encountered, the inner terrain traversed included both defilement and divine insight. The pilgrimage opened a humbling space of vulnerability and sensitivity where Heng Sure could closely observe how the microcosm of the self influences the macrocosm of the world, leading to a heightened awareness of how what he generated in the mind directly led to what manifested in the world -- how the more peaceful he became inside, the more peaceful the treatment he received from people on the outside.  Yet the pilgrimage never ended, initially extending for 3+ subsequent years of silent circumambulation of the Buddha Hall at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas in the same three-steps-and-a-bow format, and then becoming a template and compass for a lifelong practice of inner and outer transformation that radiates through all he does -- across music, interfaith dialogue, vegan advocacy, Buddhist text translation, and lectures, seminars, and retreats around the world. His monastic name could be translated as “Constantly Real” or “Fruition of Truth”, and it's impossible to meet Rev. Heng Sure without feeling the living vibrancy of its meaning. Whether humbly and disarmingly sharing how his teacher chose his name, or strumming his guitar to a folk ballad he composed, his words often land as simultaneously light and deep, both precise and expansive at the same time. Now more than 45 years in robes, he’s the most senior western monastic disciple of the late Venerable Chan Master Hsuan Hua, though his journey to Buddhism began much earlier. Rev. Heng Sure was born Chistopher Russell Clowery to a Scotch-Irish Methodist family in Columbus, Ohio, growing up squarely in mainstream American culture "playing baseball and watching Mickey Mouse Club and gunfighter shows on television." At age 13, his aunt gave him a catalog of a Chinese painter’s exhibit, and the Chinese characters caught his eye, almost as if he’d seen them before. This sparked an interest in the Chinese language, which he was fortunate to learn in high school through one of the three such language programs in the country at public schools, which happened to be in Toledo where he lived. He soon happened upon the Sixth Patriarch’s Dharma-jewel, Platform Sutra in bilingual, Chinese-English translation, and realized that his heart was tuned to a Far Eastern faith tradition, not the Middle Eastern, Abrahamic stories of his parents’ generation. Following the Chinese language all the way through university, he received his Master’s degree from UC Berkeley in Oriental languages, which set the stage for meeting his teacher after a short collegiate career as a theater actor. A fortuitous call from a former college roommate encouraged him to cross the Bay Bridge to Gold Mountain Monastery in San Francisco where the abbot was lecturing on the Avatamsaka Sutra. Passing the threshold of the monastery doors, his doubts and fears about his political anti-war activism, academic career, and folk musical inclinations all melted away. He distinctly heard a quiet voice saying, “You’re back. Go to work. You’re home.” Master Hua, his eventual teacher, was a strict disciplinarian who taught Buddhism from its ethical foundations, emphasizing the importance of how you are as a person is equally important and in fact the very source of how you practice meditation. Inspired by the clarity and rigor of the teachings, as well as the example of other teachers in Master Hua’s lineage, Heng Sure asked for permission to go on a bowing and walking pilgrimage. Master Hua assented, but asked him to wait until his ‘dharma protector’ arrived. A year later, a martial artist named Martin Verhoeven arrived. Heng Sure recognized Martin’s desire and affinity to the pilgrimage, and took novice precepts and vows as a monastic to fulfill his role, armed only with the four weapons of a Bodhisattva: kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. “If either of you fights -- or even indulges in anger -- you will no longer be my disciples,” said their teacher before they began. Thus encouraged by his teacher to see everything as a test, Heng Sure recognized that if he could transform his own greed, anger, and delusions, then perhaps he could do something to make the world more peaceful. In essence, the bowing practice boiled down to cleaning up the part of the unpeaceful world that he could control: his own thoughts and words. It was a pilgrimage for world peace, starting with his own mind. The pilgrims maintained a written correspondence with their teacher where they intimately shared their experiences and insights, which were later compiled and published as Highway Dharma Letters: Two Buddhist Pilgrims Write to Their Teacher, a remarkable spiritual diary of the modern era. Rev. Heng Sure is the Managing Director of Berkeley Buddhist Monastery and an adjunct professor at Dharma Realm Buddhist University. He lectures worldwide on Buddhism, Buddhist texts, translation, meditation, interfaith dialogue, and plant-based eating. He serves as President of both Dharma Realm Buddhist Association and the Buddhist Text Translation Society. He’s fluent in Mandarin Chinese, French, and Japanese, and regularly leads lectures, seminars, and retreats around the globe including at the Parliament of World Religions. He’s a founding Trustee of the United Religions Initiative, a long-time trustee for the Interfaith Center at the Presidio, and on the core faculty of the Institute for World Religions. He also teaches Buddhist Philosophy at Bond University in Queensland, Australia. He earned a Ph.D. from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. A folk singer and guitarist who integrates his penetrating insights of reality with his “mainstream American” roots through the vehicle of song, Rev. Heng Sure has published three albums of original Buddhist folk music. His music and podcasts can be found at Dharma Radio, with his lectures available at DharmaRealm Live. His photography of the natural world can be found on his SmugMug site and Instagram @Rev.Heng Sure. A monk with many far-reaching talents, Rev. Heng Sure has been known to draw upon his puppeteering ability as skillful means to drive home fine points of the dharma. Join Nipun Mehta in a special conversation with this remarkably humble and insightful pilgrim.

Zazen is the bomb,the essence of essential.Without it, no Zen.* * *You can’t spell “zazen” without “z-e-n, zen,” and you can’t practice Zen without zazen. Some who should know better may disagree, but Zen cannot be separated from Buddhism, and Zen is founded exclusively on the insights that come from zazen. Some might argue that they do not have to practice meditation in order to “get” Zen, to adopt its worldview, and enjoy the benefits thereof. I say good luck with that.While working on my graduate degree in design, I had a roommate sharing an apartment on the north side of Chicago, a jazz pianist who would come home from the gig, toss his hat at the hat rack, and declare “My Zen thing is working!” — or not — depending on whether he missed, or not. For some, Zen is just that simple. We are either in the flow, or not. In the moment, or not. When we are, that is Zen. When we are not, it is not.This particular stereotype may stem from Zen’s Taoist heritage in China. Taoism stresses being in harmony with the Great Way, and offers some parables on that theme, including a shaggy dog story about the Taoist’s sympathetic neighbor, who loudly laments when his only horse runs off, then celebrates its return, followed by a whole herd of horses. Next, he laments the Taoist’s son breaking his leg while taming one of the wild stallions, then celebrating the fact that the army does not conscript the son, and on and on, with the pendulum swinging wildly, day after day. Meanwhile the Taoist himself responds only, “I don’t know, could be good, could be bad…” with each reversal of fortune.This tale, which begins to sound like a standup routine from the Borscht Belt, certainly has a grain of truth in it, like any good stereotype. It offers a shortcut way of thinking, so that we don’t have to take its message too seriously.But seriously, folks… life gets tedious, as grandma used to say. There are endless, and unrelenting — and not only technical — circumstances beyond our control — beyond anyone’s control — that intrude at the most inconvenient moments. Like the current pandemic. Or the impending election. But no worries — we won’t go there.Where we will go is back to zazen. It is the “bomb” — or more accurately, “da bomb” — which the dictionary defines as “an outstandingly good person or thing.” That such a hipster colloquial expression would be given space in what used to be the pages, now the computer screen, of what used to be the somber, sober, primary authoritative tome on English vocabulary usage — the dictionary — is both refreshing, and disturbing. Purists lament such liberal laxity of language, while laissez-faire anarchists celebrate mocking what used to be “the king’s English.”Which brings us to the repeat references to language that you may stumble across, if you are not careful enough to avoid the Soto Zen liturgy, especially those gnarly missives from China, three major teachings that we chant, from the early Chinese transmission. The first, second and third hail from around the 600s, 700s, and 800s CE, respectively, almost exactly a century apart. I will read the Japanese version of the Masters’ names, the Chinese pronunciation being more challenging:Hsinhsinming / “Faith Mind”(Jianzhi Sengcan/Kanchi Sosan d. 606)Sandokai / “Harmony of Difference and Equality”(Shitou Xiqian/Sekito Kisen 700–790)andHokyo Zammai / “Precious Mirror Samadhi”(Dongshan Liangjie/Tozan Ryokai 807–869)The first is by the third Ch’an patriarch after Bodhidharma, usually referred to as Sengcan, and is the longest, at a bit fewer than 1,000 words in English translation. The second is the shortest, at just under 300 words, and the third is in-between, at just under 500. That translates roughly into three pages for the first, one for the second, and two pages for the third. A factoid that, 100 years apart, these three Masters felt moved to comment on Zen at radically different length. Do you suppose that they imagined that we would be reading these, over 1,000 years later?What they have to say about Zen, and our compulsion to translate experience into words and concepts, is instructive. The first, Hsinhsinming, starts out challenging our very preference for preferences:The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferencesShortly thereafter, he points out that this applies to all dimensions of practice and daily life, without mentioning meditation, including our preference for passivity over activity, for example trying to suppress the monkey mind, which in Zen is a losing proposition:When you try to stop activity to achieve passivityyour very effort fills you with activityAs long as you remain in one extreme or the otheryou will never know OnenessWe should note that while both extremes are to be avoided, the gist of the poem points to nonduality of reality, where even emphasizing “oneness” as a thing can be misleading:Although all dualities come from the Onedo not be attached even to this OneAnd later, toward the end,When such dualities cease to exist, Oneness itself cannot existNonetheless, we dance with the idea of duality versus nonduality as we work our way through the Master’s analysis:Those who do not live in the single Way fail in both activity and passivity — assertion and denialTo deny the reality of things is to miss their realityto assert the emptiness of things is to miss their realitySo even emptiness, the holy grail of Zen, can be a case of over-thinking. Further:The more you talk and think about itthe further astray you wander from the truthStop talking and thinking, and there is nothing you will not be able to knowThat is pretty brutal, but compassionately so. Talking and thinking do not necessarily help. They can even get in the way of knowing, in the deepest sense of the term. From the second poem, Sandokai, we hear more comments about language from Sekito Kisen:…revered and common, each has its speechHow many times have we heard, and recoiled from, that holy-holy sort of tone of voice, preaching in stentorian resonance, or hush-hush whisper — indicating that what is being said is really special, apart from the ordinary, so listen up — but which often comes off as somewhat strained, even phony? Attempted eloquence slides into artificial cadence.But according to Master Dogen, in his first manual on meditation, “By virtue of zazen, it is possible to transcend the difference between common and sacred.” It is said that there is no “stench of holiness” in Zen. The down-to-earth, earthy and pithy comments of great Zen masters of the past, such as Dogen — who recognized the importance and rarity of encountering and hearing the “true Dharma,” but considered it nothing out of the ordinary — are downright refreshing by contrast. Sandokai also includes comments on the nature of language itself:Darkness merges refined and common wordsbrightness distinguishes clear and murky phrasesHere the reference to darkness versus brightness may be Ch’an symbolism, but I think a simpler, more direct interpretation is in order. Refined or revered speech includes the vernacular, when considered from the standpoint that there is no daylight between the common and sacred in Zen. The brightness of Zen’s direct, experiential insight allows us to sort through the phrases of the ancients, no matter how clear or murky the syntax.Toward the end of Master Sekito’s poem, we find another zinger on language itself:Hearing the words, understand the meaningdo not establish standards of your ownWhile Zen is the ultimate in do-it-yourself as a practice, there is something to be said for listening to others who have been there and done that, and to not be fooled by the words themselves, or our preconceptions of their meaning. Perhaps the most famous phrase from Zen, one that everyone seems to think they know the meaning of, is “The finger pointing at the moon.” Do not be taken in by either the finger, or the moon. The standards that have been handed down from the ancients — who were no slackers, after all — are what Dogen was interested in finding out, in China. Which he demonstrated, when asked what souvenirs he had brought back, by holding out his empty hands.Master Tozan, the founder of Soto Zen in China, begins the third poem with the stunning assertion:The dharma of thusness is intimately transmitted by buddhas and ancestorsNow you have it; preserve it wellWe have to wonder who he thinks his audience is. Is he implying that we already have the Dharma? “Thusness” is a tricky word here, pointing to the “as-it-is-ness” of reality, the ineffable truth that is fully in front of our face, but totally beyond expression, like the moon that can only be pointed to. If we “have it,” it must have somehow already been transmitted to us, in this intimate fashion, so intimate that we may be totally unaware of when and how it happened. Again, Master Dogen has got you covered (Jijuyu Zammai “Self-fulfilling Samadhi”):When you first seek Dharmayou imagine that you are far away from its environsBut Dharma is already correctly transmittedyou are immediately your original selfSo we don’t have something else to worry about acquiring, this Dharma. It is innate, our birthright. Yet we are charged with preserving it, and doing that well. So we have to at least have some idea of what it is that we are preserving, and how. Not to mention who, exactly, we are preserving it for. We understand that it cannot be transmitted in words, so in what kind of language is it communicated? Master Tozan, the “To” in Soto, drops a clue in the next stanza:The meaning does not reside in the wordsbut a pivotal moment brings it forthThis “pivotal moment,” of which we have heard much, seems to be the ticket to what is missing. As Master Dogen reminds us some 400 years later, in the same tract:All this, however, does not appear within perception, because it is unconstructedness in stillness, it is immediate realizationIf the Dharma were an object of perception, in other words, it would by definition have to be a mental construction. He continues clarifying this point, the difference between appearance and essence, in the Genjokoan excerpt from Bendowa, the first chapter in Shobogenzo, his comprehensive collection:The boundary of realization is not distinct, for the realization itself comes forth with the mastery of Buddhadharma. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent. Its appearance is beyond your knowledge.So we cross some sort of boundary on this journey, but we cannot be aware of crossing it. I have to add my usual caveat that, just as we do not master Zen, but it masters us, the same may be said for Buddhadharma. It is more a process of surrendering to this truth, the “compassionate teaching,” than mastering it, as if one had taken up the challenge of actually reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace or James Joyce’s Ulysses cover-to-cover, and actually assimilating its meaning. Dogen seems to belabor the obvious, that the inconceivable, being inconceivable, would necessarily not be in any way, shape or form, apparent. So within this realization, we must enter into a new dimension of reality, in which nothing is as it appears. Like Alice in Wonderland.Zen has been said to be about the pursuit of the understanding of meaning. But that particle of meaning that can be translated into language is regarded as just the tip of the iceberg. And the truism from communications design, that the message is not that which is sent, but that which is received, holds true for Zen. As the poem relates further:Just to portray it in literary form is to stain it with defilementThis defilement is the attempt to reduce the profound essence of Zen to words and concepts. Because we are human beings communicating with human beings about Zen, we find that there is no exit from this trap. But we do not have to be confused, regarding the efficacy and precision of language, whether written or spoken. It is the best we have to work with, in all its inadequacy. But Master Tozan goes on to assure us that the effort, nonetheless, is worthwhile:Although it is not constructed, it is not beyond wordsAnd then he follows with an attempt to put his dharma where his mouth is, with the title stanza:Like facing a precious mirrorform and reflection behold each otherThis conjures quite an image. The mirror is mentioned as a repeat trope, or theme, in Zen, so we should give it due consideration — but as an image, rather than a concept. Like Alice going right through the looking-glass to the other side, or Einstein, engaging in thought experiments beyond thinking, and at the speed of light, the dharma gate begins to open just a crack. We can just barely see the light leaking through. Master Dogen captures this same spirit in another visionary passage from the same Genjokoan:When you see forms and hear soundsfully engaging body and mindyou grasp things directlyUnlike things and their reflections in the mirrorand unlike the moon and its reflection in the waterWhen one side is illumined, the other side is darkTaking the analogy of the mirror to new heights, or new depths. What we are actually seeing — in lieu of an actual mirror — is like a mirror, but radically different. In order to see something reflected in a mirror, or on the smooth surface of a body of water, both sides have to be illuminated: that which is reflected, and its reflection. Otherwise, nothing can be seen on either side, like a mirror reflecting an unlit, underground vault under a pyramid.However, our usual condition of seeing reflects only one side of the totality. Behind the eyes, so to speak, and on the other side of the objects in our field of vision, lies the dark. This velvety dark extends throughout the universe. We even suspect that there is a preponderance of dark matter, and dark energy, throughout. But as the poem reminds us, grasping this truth can be taken as an example of personal, perceptual relativity, illuminating the limits of our “eye of practice” (Master Dogen’s coinage):In darkest night, it is perfectly clear; in the light of dawn, it is hiddenSomething there is that comes out at night, but recedes in daylight, recalling the phrase, “How bright and transparent, the moonlight of wisdom,” from Master Hakuin’s poem, Zazen Wasan, “Song of Zazen.” This begs the question: if this light in darkness is not coming from the sun, the moon, or the stars, then where does it come from?In Sandokai, this same point is touched upon some 100 years prior:The spiritual source shines clear in the lightthe branching streams flow on in the darkHere the reference to the single source becoming many streams may be a trope for the five houses of Zen carrying the light of enlightenment into the ubiquitous darkness of ignorance characteristic of civilization. Bringing it down to the personal level once again:In the light there is darkness, but do not take it as darknessIn the dark there is light, but do not see it as lightLight and dark oppose one anotherlike the front and back foot in walkingThe direct experience of light under the intense glare of zazen reveals a vacillation characteristic of all sensory stimulus and sense-data. There is no darkness without light, and no light without darkness. And there can be neither without the observer.Matsuoka Roshi once made the startling declaration, “The light by which you see things comes from you.” In zazen, we begin to witness the nonduality of our so-called internal, versus external, lighting. It seems to originate on both sides of the sensory interface. Further, there is something timeless about it, as reflected in the “Precious Mirror”:Within causes and conditions, time and season, it is serene and illuminatingAnd even further, it is not really dependent upon our understanding of it, or lack thereof:Now there are sudden and gradual, in which teachings an approaches ariseWhether teachings and approaches are mastered or not,reality constantly flowsThe reference here is to the so-called Northern and Southern schools in China after the advent of Huineng, the famous Sixth Patriarch of Ch’an Buddhism, also known as the “gradual” and “sudden” schools of enlightenment, respectively. Of course, sudden and gradual comprise another binary dyad, which dissolves in the nonduality of reality. If there is such thing as enlightenment, it must be both sudden and gradual, simultaneously. The main point is that the reality that Zen points to is constantly flowing, outside of and independent of our ideas about it. It doesn’t care what we think.The earliest poem, Hsinhsinming, seems to verify this same finding:All is empty — clear — self-illuminating, with no exertion of the mind's powerThat this level of insight is not really accessible through ordinary exertions is easy to understand. But that does not mean it is entirely out of reach. It is some comfort to know that whatever the truth — the Dharma — is, it already is true, and that no amount of mental effort will make that any plainer.Lastly, it should be mentioned that the ancient masters did not suffer fools gladly, but they were willing to appear foolish themselves, if need be. In the last line of the third poem, Master Tozan gives us some friendly advice:With practice hidden, function secretly, like a fool, like an idiotJust to continue in this way is called the host within the hostThe “host” reference is to a Zen teaching model using the “host and guest” analogy as a foil to examine the relationship of self to other, mind to body, subject to object, et cetera — all the binary pairs of seeming opposites the discriminating mind may conjure. The host within the host is the “inmost” reality, in which the apparent separation between inside and outside — a fundamental dyad — disappears. What is left is not one, exactly, but definitely not-two. In society, we can function in this reality without making a big deal of it to others. We can be in our milieu, but not of it, like a fool, like an idiot. And we can continue in this way with no regrets. Please just do your best, on the cushion and off. I bow in gassho to you.* * *Elliston Roshi is guiding teacher of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center and abbot of the Silent Thunder Order. He is also a gallery-represented fine artist expressing his Zen through visual poetry, or “music to the eyes.”UnMind is a production of the Atlanta Soto Zen Center in Atlanta, Georgia and the Silent Thunder Order. You can support these teachings by PayPal to donate@STorder.org. Gassho.Producer: Kyōsaku Jon Mitchell

(Chinese) What is the true offering? Why can a true spiritual practitioner benefit a thousand people and feed a hundred people without doing anything? What’s the meaning of the phrase “there is originally no karma?” It’s written in the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch that “When one has neither good thoughts, nor bad thoughts, one is with the Tao.” How does it relate to the teaching of “cultivating oneself, controlling the family, governing the country and pacifying the world?” What’s ...

Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, Huineng M. C. Owens Introduction to Zen Buddhism Recorded at San Francisco Dharma Collective May 13, 2019

A Dharma talk by Genno Roshi March 16, 2018

A Dharma talk by Genno Roshi 3/18/18

This talk begins with a summary discussion of the four noble truths and the four practice principles before moving onto a commentary on the story of the Sixth Patriarch and his poem about the mirror.

We continue from last time's passage of the Xin Xin Ming ... Live neither in the entanglements of outer things, nor in inner feelings of emptiness. ... As long as you remain in one extreme or the other you will never know Oneness. Those who do not live in the single Way fail in both activity and passivity, assertion and denial. To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality. to assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality. Neither entangled in things, nor a captive of sweet emptiness. Rather, encountering each as one ... stillness in motion ... the sweetness in the bitterness ... the silence speaking assertion and denial ... the things of the world as a dream, as real ... This echoes other chants and writings ... The Heart Sutra ... Form is not other than emptiness, emptiness no other than form ... The Identity of Relative and Absolute ... To be attached to things is primordial illusion; To encounter the absolute is not yet enlightenment. ... The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch ... reminds of how to live with Wisdom in a word of good and bad, beautiful and ugly .... Do not throw them aside, nor cling to them or be stained by them ... Do not sit with a mind fixed on emptiness. If you do you will fall into a neutral kind of emptiness. Emptiness includes the sun, moon, stars, and planets, the great earth, mountains and rivers, all trees and grasses, bad men and good men, bad things and good things, heaven and hell; they are all in the midst of emptiness. The emptiness of human nature is also like this. Self-Nature contains the ten thousand things..." "Although you see all men and non-men, evil and good, evil things and good things, you must not throw them aside, nor must you cling to them, nor must you be stained by them, but you must regard them as being just like the empty sky. ... Seeing through-and-through this dusty world, even as we live and roam this dusty world. Today’s Sit-A-Long video follows at this link. Remember: recording ends soon after the beginning bells; a sitting time of 15 to 35 minutes is recommended

A discussion on the seven types of meditation. Full talk: Part 2 of 3 --- Continuing with this discussion on the seven types of meditation, you’ll encounter the following Sanskrit terms: Tathagatagarbha, alaya-vijnana References are also made to Mahākāśyapa, the Flower sermon disciple, and Hui Neng, the Sixth Patriarch of Zen Buddhism. http://www.planetdharma.com/

The Sixth Patriarch

The Sixth Patriarch

The Sixth Patriarch

The Sixth Patriarch

The Sixth Patriarch