Last week we looked at a very, very early Buddhist teaching and it was both inspiring and disgusting, and a little disturbing. But we could see the roots of Buddhism in it. If not the Zen that we understand, we could see the evolution a bit. Roshi wanted to jump ahead a couple centuries to the Tang Dynasty around eighth century, ninth century time, where we see the succession of incredible Chinese teachers, which is the sort of Zen that we recognize. So we have Baizhang (Baizhang Huahai), his student is Guishan (Guishan Lingyou), and Yangshan (Yangshan Huiji), extraordinary teachers. And this is also during a time where we get this evolution of the koan coming out.

Roshi wants to correct a misunderstanding about koans. In a lot of books that many of us have probably read about Zen, people will say—and these are often people that are Westerners that try their hand at koans—and they’ll often say that the purpose of a koan is to kind of destroy one’s brain sort of the rational perception of the world so that we can let through a more intuitive instinctive honest perception of our life in the world come through. They’ll describe that experience. That’s not the purpose of the koan.

If you’re working on your first koan, the koan mu, that is going to be your experience because it is so massive and challenging. It will scramble your brain for years to come. So that’s an understandable experience, because bou’re grappling with something that is so foreign to the way that we have been conditioned. And a number of the koans that come after that will probably have the same effect, where your brain is just rattled and there’s no way to intellectually, rationally, figure it out. And this more instinctive understanding of our nature emerges. Again, that’s the experience of doing koans, that’s not the purpose of doing koans.

The koans are like any classic scripture, has the same purpose. Whether it’s the Torah, Quran, or the Gita, the purpose of it is to have this kind of sanctified venerable teaching that we study, we sometimes chant, we sometimes memorize. We keep going through it on some repeated basis. So that it becomes a part of us, and we start to live through it. That’s the purpose of any liturgy or holy teaching. And in the early Buddhist teachings, what we saw is the typical way to transmit these teachings. There’s through storytelling, and the occasional lecture. And then we see this modification during this Tang eighth, ninth, 10th century in China, where they start to modify the teachings and say there’s probably a new literary device that we can create that captures that teaching paradigm. So they use these, rather than long stories, these very short stories. And they use these exchanges and these conversations. And it was very exciting at the time. And still it’s interesting, all these centuries later, it’s still a really fascinating, unique way to teach the dharma, to teach any religious teachings that he doesn’t think you really find in many other traditions much.

But the purpose was never to shock your brain, to say, “I’m going to fool you and I’m going to screw with your brain.” It was always about, here’s a way to transmit the dharma in a way that helps us live. And as we talked about before, our job, if we focus on just becoming enlightened, it’s really, really challenging. Our real job is to focus on priming ourselves for enlightenment. Living in such a way and studying the scriptures in such a way and making that part of our life in such a way that when these teachings come, we’re ready for them, and we can become enlightened. And that’s what we see in all of the koans is that exchange happens between usually a great teacher and a student that’s been primed. So that that teaching, that ‘turning phrase’ as we say, just helps them realize the deeper teachings in a very real vital way. Again, it’s not to make their heads explode. They have primed themselves and just enough to open it up that they can enter the path, the Way.

Roshi is hoping that when we talk about koans in here that the way we do the explanation is kind of an on-path, on-boarding if you will, that makes them seem actually quite rational and reasonable, after you kind of break it down. You go, “Oh okay, that makes sense. When I first heard it it was bizarre. But now that you break it down, okay, that kind of makes sense. I get it.” And that’s the Zen practice that many of us are comfortable with. So this week he wanted to visit this period and share a couple of these really beautiful simple koans that really edify and exemplify our Zen teachings.

Of those three masters that he mentioned, we’re not supposed to have preferences, and he tends to kind of always lean towards Zen Masters whose practice in the monasteries centered around the kitchen. He just relates to that. And of those three, Guishan was the Tenzo, he was the head chef his whole life. So he kind of leans towards Guishan a bit more because anyone that can grow a carrot, cook a carrot, serve a carrot perfectly, that’s his teacher, and that was Guishan. So he wanted to share just a couple of very short koans that he’s sort of at the center of.

So here’s one. And he was born eighth century, 771 is when he was born. So Guishan is talking to his student in this one, Yangshan.

Guishan says to his student Yangshan, “What is the seat of enlightenment?”

Yangshan replies, “Freedom from artificiality.”

Then Yangshuan asks back to his teacher, “What is the seat of enlightenment?”

Guishan replies, “The vanity of all things.”

So it may seem a little puzzling, but we’ll break it down so it seems perfectly beautiful and natural. So when Yangshan says, “Freedom from artificiality,” it’s really funny that now, a century ago, many centuries ago, human beings have always struggled with this idea of what is their authentic self. We all do. We have these kind of images in our mind. I want to be this, or I want to be that, or someone told me this is the right thing, or that’s the right thing. And we make decisions every single day based on these concepts that we have been conditioned to believe. That aren’t actually who we are.

And as a result, most of us aren’t happy. That’s not who we are. We’re basing all these decisions every day on something that’s artificial. So to become enlightened, to become truly liberated, is to let go all of these things that aren’t our true nature. They’re not real. They’re not who we actually are. Right? We want to be a good daughter or son. We want to be a good husband or wife. We want to be a good friend. We want this. We want to be a good worker. We want all these things. And we act according to those concepts, which by the way, culture to culture, generation to generation, they’re all different. This proves how artificial they are. We spend so much of our time making decisions on how we live our life based on these artificialities. So his student Yungshan says, to be enlightened is to liberate ourselves from all those things that aren’t our true nature.

So then he reverses the question on his teacher and says, tell me teacher, what is it to be enlightened? And his teacher Guishan says, “The vanity of all things.” Interesting phrase, the vanity of all things. So all of these things, he takes it to a much deeper level. Why are we basing our life and making these decisions on these artificial things? It’s all for vanity reasons. What’s vanity? Vanity is things that make us feel good, make us feel right. It’s about me. What I’m comfortable with, what I’m not comfortable with. Why do you have that feeling? I don’t like it. Why do you fear death? It makes me uncomfortable. Why are you happy with this thing? Because it makes me feel whatever way. It’s all vanity. All of these attachments are vanity.

So he goes really much deeper. And that’s the core of the ego, the desire, the vanity, the self-centeredness. If we can relieve ourselves of the self-centeredness of all of our decisions, and the way we conduct our life, the way we define all things, if we could liberate ourselves from that, that’s enlightenment. It’s really kind of simple and beautiful, like it’s not complex.

Roshi was just thinking about that in his sit this morning, like why he is angry at that person? Yeah, they behave terribly. But the fact of the matter is, like by any definition you would all agree they behave terribly. But that’s not the problem. The problem is it’s our vanity of knowing they behave terribly, judging them as someone who behaves terribly by their behavior. It’s our vanity that’s making us angry, that we’re caught up in. If we want to be enlightened, we’ve got to get over that. The rest doesn’t matter.

He thinks that’s one thing that we like about Zen, that it’s so precise, so clear. And he appreciates that it’s not too theoretical, he can always hook right back into this stuff. And on self, Dogen often says, “Zen is is looking at ourselves.” That’s our practice. We look at ourselves. Become aware of ourselves, conscious of ourselves. That’s our practice. So to have these koans that enable us to put ourselves under a microscope so simply, he always is so deeply appreciative.

So here’s another one. Actually, all these are between Guishan and Yangshan, his student who also becomes a great Zen Master.

Guishan says to his student, “Of the 40 scrolls of the Nirvana Scriptures, how many are the Buddha’s talk and how many are the devil’s talk?”

To which Yangshan, his student, says, “They’re all the devil’s talk.”

To which Guishan replies, “Hereafter, no one will ever be able to do anything to you.”

Yangshan then says back to him, “But, as a temporary event, where do I focus my action?”

Guishan then says, “I just want your perception to be correct. I don’t tell you how to act.”

So the first part, probably clear. And in other religions, their scriptures are sacred. Zen has always had this tradition, particularly during this period, with a sense of humor, tongue in cheek, of being disrespectful to those things. The most common phrase in all these books and your first books that you read about Zen is, you always see that expression, “If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him.” That’s a very common thing. And that really starts to come forward in this period. And we see this here where they say, “It’s all the devil’s talk.” Again, with the idea that as soon as you make this thing sacred, and that’s the most important thing and not your life, it’s the worst possible thing to come into your life. Objectifying or intellectualizing or making it anything other than the sanctity and integrity of your life?? It’s the devil! It’s the worst thing can happen. We saw that that last week in the story. When Mara sees this person coming and they say, “This is a potential Buddha, and I have to stop this person because once they become enlightened, they can enlighten other people, it’s, it’s awful.” So anything that keeps us from our enlightenment is the devil’s talk, is the devil’s work. To which his teacher basically says, “If you really believe that, it can really follow that, no one can do anything to you anymore.” There’s nothing anyone can say to you, do to you, treat you, that will ever make you react in a negative way, because you’re not attached to anything.

Roshi remembers really an awful story. He only tells it because a Rabbi told him the story, a rabbi that studies Zen. They were talking about this idea of sacred texts, and a Rabbi and a Zen Master were sitting together, and the Rabbi was somewhat offended with the fact that Buddhas are considered sacred, we bow, and do all this sort of stuff. And he says, “You know, we don’t believe in idols, and we don’t believe in that kind of stuff.” And the Zen Master said, “Oh, we don’t either.” The Rabbi said, “No, no, no. There is gold, you have incense.” To which the Zen master picked up a little Buddha there, opened the window, and threw it out the window, smashing it to pieces. The Rabbi was kind of shocked. And then the Zen master said, “Now, are you willing to do that to your Torah?” Unheard of. When you think about all the things that we think are sacred in all these faiths, you would be kicked out of that faith permanently, and sent to jail.

But the fact that he can say, “Yeah, there’s nothing sacred, just my life,” that frees you. No one can ever do anything to you. You’re bulletproof if you can get to that state. But then he comes back and he says, “But as a temporary event, we live in this world. Where do I focus my actions?” And again, sometimes you go to the clergy, we go to a holy person, and we have a question, “What are we supposed to do? What decisions should I make? Should I do this or should I do that?” And any great teacher that’s not manipulative, they can’t say anything to you! It’s your life. All they can do, and what he says here, is, “All I want is for your perception, your way of viewing yourself in the world to be correct. If you get that right, all of your other decisions will be correct. If I tell you how to act prior to that, I’m doing a disservice to you, and you’re not making any progress at all. So what decision you make, I have no interest in. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m just interested in our practice together. Where is your consciousness? How do you understand yourself in the world and your life?” And that really has always been the tradition of Zen Masters. So if you’re looking for some advice, and they give you advice, go some other place. That’s not going to be a good teacher for you.

We have time for one more.

Yangshan says to Guishan, “When hundreds and thousands of objects come at us all at once, then what?”

To which Guishan said, “Green is not yellow. Long is not short. Everything is in its place. It’s none of my business.”

And Roshi thinks this one, really, we can all relate to a lot. We’re all dealing with a lot of crap in our life. Personally, socially, politically, economically, everywhere you turn, it is bad news. And he says, “When hundreds and thousands of objects are coming at you, what are you supposed to do?? How am I supposed to live with all this? It’s nothing but challenges. It’s nothing but bad news.” Can we relate to that to some degree? Again, he’s coming to Guishan like, “I want some advice here. Please help me figure this out. It’s too much.” To which Guishan says, “Green is not yellow, long is not short, everything is in its place.” The world is the way it is. It simply is. If you are ill, you’re ill. It’s the karmic bundle that brought you to this. It had to, it could be no other way, because that is the way it is. Wherever your life is right now, it could be no other way! It could be no other way. It is the way it is supposed to be. What are you going to do about it? Your job is just to manage where you are now. Your karma has brought you to this place. We ruminate with, “If I had done this,” or, “If I had done that.” “I could’ve…” Doesn’t matter!! That’s not what happened.

You are where you are. We are where we are. If your sunburned, your sunburned. If you weren’t smart enough to put on lotion in the sun all day, that’s what happened. Hopefully you learned your lesson. You can’t go back now! There’s nothing you can do to go back. There’s nothing you can do to change it. Your life is perfect the way it is now because karma acted perfectly in our lives. If you’re unhappy with something, perfect! That’s exactly what was supposed to happen karmically.

Then what? “Everything is in its place.” Okay, and? And?? “It’s none of my business.” It’s none of my business! It’s your business. It’s your life. It’s no one else’s business but yours. This is your life. It’s perfect. It brought you exactly where it is. Now we use our consciousness and we’re going to deal with it! Best we can every day. We’re going to make mistakes. We’re going to do things right. We’re going to do things wrong. And if we do things right, perfect. We do things wrong? Perfect. If the cake turns out great, perfect. If we burn the toast, perfect. The karma is always going to be perfect. It’s no one else’s business but yours. That’s our lives, right? And we’re just going to work with it every day, and not get caught up in what could have, what should have, what passed, etc. That’s a waste of time.

So when we walk out here and go, “It’s all perfect,” now what are we going to do with it?? It’s my business, my job. All right, roll up our sleeves, get some business done. As Elvis used to say, “Just taking care of business.” These things work really well together when we say, “It’s perfect, but why am I not happy with it?”

These are three examples, very short, sort of the Chinese seventh century version of TikTok, very short, to the point, gets in your head, and it’s there for us to benefit from. They’re gorgeous, and he is always so grateful that we can have these little things. He won’t be here the next two weeks, so he’s going to leave it to us to figure out.