Hello All, We had a great dark, cold sesshin last week.
Temperatures stayed between 10- and 25 degrees with a low of 7 degrees one
morning. It snowed a few inches early in the sesshin and the ground stayed
white for the week. All of our systems (water, electric, wood heat etc) held up
and we felt pretty good about the work we’ve done over the years to make winter
retreats possible. Spring, summer and autumn retreats and sesshin certainly
have their own unique beauty and power but there really is something special
about sitting with fellow wayfarers in the depths of darkness lighted often
only by stars and a single candle. We stayed up until midnight on the last
night of sesshin to celebrate the enlightenment of a man, a person--not a god
or a son of a god—with a precept reading, candles, bells and vast, almost
overwhelming, darkness when all the lights were extinguished. For 10 or so
minutes there was only pure dark, dark silence and the breathing of compatriots
and the heat of bodies and…
This will be our last case from the Transmission of the Lamp
this year. We will start up again on January 18th with Case 52
(Eihei Dogen) and finish the book on the following week with Case 53 (Koun
Ejo).
Today we will discuss the opening Dogen’s teacher,
T’ien-t’ung Ju-ching, had when his teacher asked, “How will you purify what is
pure from the beginning?” Ju-ching could not respond when he was first asked
this question and he worked with this koan for more than one year. One day,
suddenly, with broad realization, he said, “I beat that purity.”
The verse accompanying this case reads, “ The wind of the
Tao blows far; / It is harder than a diamond;/ The whole earth is maintained by
it.
As many koan do, this one came right from the immediate fact
of Ju-ching’s daily life and practice. He had been with his teacher’s community
for some time, focused on zazen, when he asked to be the head of the team
cleaning the latrines. From that request came the koan, “How will you purify
what is pure from the beginning?” Once, in the immediacy of practice life, a
monk asked Yun-men, “What is Buddha?” Yun-men said, “Three pounds of
flax”. Another time he was asked
this same stock question and again he gave an unstuck response when he said,
“Dried shit.” These are only a couple examples of the hundreds of immediate,
specific and clear presentations of the great matter right within the worlds of
our lives. The koan are not puzzles or riddles but clear and precise
presentations of what is always right before our eyes. I imagine some of the responses
were tailored exactly for the one who was asking (“dried shit”—to one too
finicky and focused on ideas of the Pure Land?) or to the larger community.
These responses were not spontaneous, as in anything goes, but teachings
exactly in accord with the situation, the life, and the practice of the
practitioner(s).
Ju-ching’s teacher, Hsueh-t’ou, said in paraphrase, ‘I will
let you clean the latrines when I am sure, and you are sure, what you will
actually be cleaning’. Every job we do, each act of our lives, has its roots in
clarifying the great matter whether we are aware of that or not. Sometimes it
is fine if we are unaware of what we really are doing but sometimes it is best
if we put our conscious minds to the specific truth of our endeavor. When you
are in the garden weeding, what is your true purpose? When chopping vegetables?
When taking out the compost, what is your intention? Each situation is the best
place we can find ourselves in to wake up. There is no situation or activity
that is wasted or just a detail or just some small thing. When we think like
this—just a detail, only a little thing etc—we are implying there are other
special, important, greater things and an implication of this type of thinking
is that we are special, important and/or somewhat grand ourselves. This is the
beauty of Ju-chings request, I think. He says, ‘Please, I would like to be in
charge of cleaning the bathrooms and outhouses’. This is a wonderful teaching
in itself. Each thing is worth our attention. Each thing is important. How
often do you volunteer for the menial, the behind the scenes task? Many, I notice, volunteer to be leaders
at sesshin which is a good thing but how about chopping? Or bathrooms? Or
sweeping?
How will you purify that which is pure from the beginning?
Purity has nothing to do with sacred and holy, unblemished or tarnished,
wholesome or unwholesome. It is your original nature, which is no nature, where
nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess. This is the very Mind of the
Buddhas past, present and future and they, each one of them, are present in
this true nature of yours. You are not separate from them and they not separate
form you no matter what direction you walk. The original dwelling is the same
for buddhas and beings and it is what we continually move in. We each already
posses the pure wisdom of realization, but we need realize that for ourselves.
Only you can tell salty and sour by putting the drink to your own lips. Yet, it
doesn’t matter if you are quick or slow, dull or bright, female or male. Buddha
nature isn’t different for the wise and the not-yet-wise…and so we chant, and
chop vegetables, weed the garden and clean the toilets…moment after moment,;
lifetime after lifetime…purifying that which is pure before the beginning
because that is our nature, that is our practice.
Enjoy and good holidays to you and yours
Jack
ps My e-mail had been utterly erratic for over a month now.
It sends...sometimes. It receives...rarely. It is, so far, being worked on
unsuccessfully. It has been diagnosed with a virus, a bacteria and IBS. I hope
before the new year I will be in better shape and in better touch with you. My
apologies…
What is it that taints the purity? The disease of mental confusion, centering around the you that seeks something... call it purification from this dis-ease? Circling always inside the mental dream where the me is trying to correct or resolve. There can never be resolve in this realm. Already pure is the innate clarity when identity comes back home.
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