Layman P’ang 1

Jeff

This is the first of three talks I gave at our weeklong sesshin, held from August 24-30, 2025, at Providence Zen Center, a monastery. Our theme was “Chop Wood, Carry Water”: Everyday Form and Formation on the Householder Path. A recording follows the text, which is edited for clarity and conciseness.

During this sesshin, we are going to be exploring the theme of form and formation along the householder path of Zen. This is the reading we’ve chosen as our launchpad for exploring this theme. It’s the second story—one could call it a case, and I’ll say more about that in a minute—in The Sayings of Layman P’ang. It’s titled “Subtleties of Daily Life”:

One day, Shih-t’ou said, “I’ve come to visit you. What have you been doing?” 

The Layman said, “If you’re asking what I do every day, there’s nothing to say about it.”

Shih-t’ou said, “What did you think you were doing before I asked you about it?”

The Layman made up a verse:

“What I do every day is nothing special.

I simply stumble around.

What I do is not thought out.

Where I go is unplanned.

No matter who tries to leave their mark,

The hills and dales are not impressed.

Collecting firewood and carrying water

Are prayers that reach the gods.”

Shih-t’ou approved saying, “So, are you going to wear black or white?”

The Layman said, “I will do whatever is best.”

It came to pass that he never shaved his head to join the sangha.

This little book I’m reading from, The Sayings of Layman P’ang, which I expect many of you are familiar with, is a classic in China, even to this day. It’s one of the most revered texts in Chinese culture. It is a collection of sayings of Layman P’ang—about whom I’ll say more in a moment—but probably not all of them. We think there were more. These were collected within, let’s say, 10 years after his death. 

P’ang lived in the late 8th century and the early 9th century. He died, I think, in 808. And he made quite an impression on people. This little book is really our first collection of koans—of stories about teachers. P’ang became a teacher. I’ll say more about that in a minute, too.

This collection of anecdotes, of koans, about P’ang and his encounters with monastics, was compiled before the first compilations of koans that we’re familiar with. Even today in China, most people aren’t going to be very familiar with the koan collections centered on monastic Zen teachers. But they are still familiar with The Sayings of Layman P’ang.

So who was P’ang? He grew up the son of the governor, of a provincial governor, or—we’re not sure—maybe the son of an official who worked for a governor. That’s a little murky. But it’s safe to say he grew up in privilege. Likely with some affluence and access and education.

When we meet him in this story I’ve just read, which is the second story in the book—I’ll say a little bit about the first story in just a second—he’s probably in his 30s. He’s married. I guess we can’t know whether he’s had both of his kids, but he does eventually have two kids, a daughter and a son. 

And, apparently, he had been something of a scholar of Confucius thought. By the time we meet him, he’s probably wandered around quite a bit. We know he had encounters with Taoist teachers. So he’s steeped in Confucian thought and Taoist thought, which were the two big schools of thought in China that predated the emergence of Zen.

And when we meet P’ang, he’s meeting some of the earliest Zen teachers. Towering figures in the history of Zen. It is the heyday of Zen in China during P’ang’s life. He lives during the Tang dynasty, which was a time of real prosperity and cultural flourishing and relative peace and stability in the rocky history of ancient China. 

Shih-t’ou, the teacher he encounters in this story, is one of two towering figures who live in the area where P’ang is living. (Shih-t’ou authored the Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage, which we just read.) He is the Dharma Heir of Huineng, the sixth ancestor of Zen, who was himself a layman when he entered the monastery, and for some time after he became a teacher. The sixth ancestor made a sort of scandalous progression from kitchen boy who cleaned rice to head of a major monastery. Shih-t’ou is the person to whom we trace the Soto Zen school in which we practice.

P’ang will go on throughout this book to meet many other local Zen figures, including the teacher to whom we trace the Rinzai school of Zen. So he’s really making the rounds at the foundation and formation of the Zen tradition. He’s exploring the emergence of Zen as Zen is exploring itself, so to speak. He develops a close relationship with not only these two major teachers I’ve mentioned, Shih-t’ou and Ma-tsu, but another 15 or 20 more monastics who live in the area. 

When we meet P’ang early in this collection of sayings, in the story I read, the second case, it’s not his first encounter with Shih-t’ou. They have had at least one other meeting we know about. It is the subject of the first story in this collection. It’s a famous story. In that story, P’ang is visiting Shih-t’ou, who, at that time, probably lives as a hermit in the area in which P’ang lives. P’ang brings Shih-t’ou his genjokoan, his life koan. This is what genjokoan, which Dogen later writes about, means, by the way. Many of us walk around with a burning question, like “What’s the meaning of life?” Mine was “When can I stop sitting?” When can I stop practicing? That question ate at me for years, years ago. 

The genjokoan P’ang brings Shih-t’ou, the burning question P’ang asks him, is, “What about someone who has no connection with the 10,000 dharmas?” This is P’ang coming to a teacher and actually declaring something. I am a person who no longer has any connection to the 10,000 dharmas, to the 10,000 things, to the world of form. 

What does Shih-t’ou do? He covers P’ang’s mouth; silences him. And P’ang has a great realization.

So, in our case, the second case, Shih-t’ou is coming to check in on P’ang. He says, “I’ve come to visit you. What have you been doing?”

Well, you know, this is a Zen teacher. So, as always, this could either be an innocent question or a not so innocent question. Maybe he’s asking. “Hey, P’ang, I’m wondering: Are you still stuck in emptiness?” Or, has that realization you had in our last encounter really begun to sink in. Do you know, as we chant in the Heart Sutra, that form is exactly emptiness, and emptiness is exactly form? Do you know that as more than an idea? Do you know it in your bones? Do you know it so completely that you’ve forgotten it?

The Layman said, “If you’re asking what I do every day, there’s nothing to say about it.” That’s a promising response. It seems P’ang may be returning Shih-t’ou’s double meaning with a double meaning of his own. It seems perhaps P’ang realizes his ordinary life is validating and expressing the inexpressible. That he’s realized the 10,000 dharmas speak for themselves.

Shih-t’ou says. “What did you think you were doing before I asked you about it?” A joust to P’ang’s parry! This is a checking question. Shih-t’ou is saying, “That’s a nice response, P’ang, but I’m still wondering: Is it just for show? Is it just for me, or do you truly get it for yourself?”

The Layman made up a verse, “Truly, what I do every day is nothing special.” 
The ordinary is extraordinary. I’m not trying to put a second head on top of my head anymore. 

“I simply stumble around. What I do is not thought out. Where I go is unplanned.” What is this “I” that P’ang repeats three times? That I is now in its place. P’ang now experiences small mind as situated, at ease, and at rest in Big Mind. Small mind has given up its pretense of control, its control project. Even while I’m goal directed, I stumble around. Even as I chatter to myself, direct myself, what I do is not thought out. Even when I’m executing on my best laid plans, where I go is unplanned, P’ang is saying.

“No matter who tries to leave their mark, the hills and dales are not impressed.” I (Jeff) have for a long time planned to write, and have been working on writing, a couple of books. It’s gone much slower than I would like. And that bothered me a lot for a long time. It still bothers me, but not quite the same way as it once did. It used to bother me because I was so sure the world needs these books.

Don’t get me wrong, I think I’ve got something to say. If I do complete them, I hope they’ll be good books that people find useful. And yet, I realize and have come to accept, that if I do complete these books, and even if they’re best sellers, they don’t have the ultimacy, the extra ultimate importance, that I once invested in or imagined of and for them.

Last weekend, I was on sesshin with another community that I’m sort of loosely connected to. At one point on a break, I was sitting in the library of the retreat center, where this sesshin was happening. I looked over to my left, and I saw a book by someone I knew; one of my early teachers, the Trappist monk, Thomas Keating. I got up and I wandered along the bookshelf, which was quite long. At the other end of it I saw a book by another one of my teachers, the adult developmental psychologist, Robert Kegan. Keating is now dead. Kegan is alive but retired. 

I saw lots of books between these two, by people I don’t know. I had never heard of many of them, many of whom presumably are dead. Keating and Kegan and their books matter a lot to me. Yet, no matter who tries to leave their mark, the hills and dales are not ultimately impressed.

“Collecting firewood and carrying water are prayers that reach the gods.” Maybe you didn’t know that one of the most famous phrases in all of Zen originates from this householder, P’ang. It’s usually expressed as “chop wood, carry water,” and it’s been popularized in many ways, by many people. It’s been in the title of books. It’s in the lyrics of a Van Morrison tune.

Every day: sacred. Life as prayer. Our actions as prayer. What we do is continuous practice. And this is what our Zen practice is about. It’s about discovering ourselves, washing the dishes, as the universe’s meditation.

Shih-t’ou approved, saying, “So are you going to wear black or white?” No more checking questions. 

“Are you going to wear black or white?” In those days in China monks wore black and householders wore white. Notice I’m not saying priest and layperson. I won’t go off on that riff here. You’ve heard it from me many times before. But, you know, in those days, there was a kind of normativity around monasticism. The Buddha had given the example of leaving home as what it meant to step on the path of spiritual development. That’s a simplification and too hard a binary, of course, because there were householders who were respected members of the Buddha’s broader network, like Vamilikirti. But becoming a monk was thought to be extra special.

Apparently, P’ang has confided in Shih-t’ou that he thought about leaving home; becoming a monastic. Maybe Shih-t’ou, having seen the depth of P’ang’s insight and commitment, had raised that possibility. From our present-day perspective, that seems almost unthinkable. P’ang is married. He has kids or kids on the way. What? Really? Would he leave? Apparently, it was a live question for P’ang at this point in which we meet him on his journey.

The Layman said, “I will do whatever is best.” In other words, I’m still thinking about it. I’m still in a process of discernment. I’m not sure. What is my karma? What is my life to live? I don’t know. I don’t know yet. 

What do people imagine? What do people imagine today about leaving home and going to live in a monastery, or to live as a hermit? Did you think that’s what we need to do to be “spiritual”? To be holy, live a holy life. What was P’ang imagining?

“It came to pass that he never shaved his head to join the sangha” Well, as you know, in the Buddha’s day, and really throughout history, even to the present in most Buddhist streams in Asia, “sangha” means the community of monastics. But we use that word more broadly and think of ourselves, we householders, as part of the sangha. But that is not how people have primarily thought about it within mainstream Buddhism in cultures beyond the West.

In fact, Zen teachers in Japan—because in modern times they tend to spend very little time in training monasteries, and they live in local temples with their families, where and they eat meat and drink alcohol—are not regarded by monastics in other parts of Asia as real members of the sangha. Even the founder of the White Plum lineage in which we practice, Taizan Maezumi Roshi: he was, much revered by Tibetan teachers and Burmese teachers and Sri Lankan teachers, but, at events at which they all gathered and spoke to Buddhist practitioners, I understand Maezumi Roshi was not always, maybe not even most of the time, invited to sit up on the Diaz with these other teachers. Because the way Japanese teachers practice is not considered pure, or right, from their perspective. So they’re not really part of the sangha.

Okay, spoiler alert: I’ll tell you a little bit more about what comes after today’s story. P’ang continues to wander to meet Zen teachers and other monastics. He soon meets Ma-tsu, who I mentioned earlier, to whom we trace the Rinzai Zen stream. P’ang goes away at one point and lives with Ma-tsu for a year or two. But he eventually leaves. His karma became clear, his path became clear. It came to pass that he never shaved his head and joined the sangha.

To this day, even in the West, when you meet somebody who uses the word “priest” to identify themselves, what that really means traditionally is that they went through the ritual of Shuke Tokudo, which is the ceremony for entering a monastery. It’s about becoming a monk, not becoming a “priest”—historically, traditionally, anyway. They shave their head, and they take some vows, as they move into a monastery. The vows are pretty much the same vows we take at Jukai. 

P’ang decided not to shave his head and enter a monastery. It’s lucky for us that he didn’t, because his decision, his example, reverberates and resounds throughout history. He was eventually acknowledged as a teacher. He received transmission from Ma-tsu. So early on in Zen history, we see all the supposed rules being broken.

P’ang didn’t leave any successors as far as we know. But along the way, his wife and kids, it seems, became inspired to practice. The family took all their luxury goods at one point out into the middle of a lake, on a boat, and sunk the boat. They supported themselves from that point forward by weaving and selling baskets.

I really commend this book to you. Basically, it’s a bunch of stories in which P’ang goes around one-upping all the local monastics. Or, as the British would say, taking the piss out of them. It’s all very amusing, in addition to being very wise.

P’ang is quite something, and he needs to be centered more on the path that we walk, because his life is our life. He clearly appreciated his life in the world. And he provides encouragement to us. Singing in an a cappella group. Caring for a loved one with dementia. Taking kids off to college. These are prayers that reach the gods.

Let me close with a reading from our Sutra Book. The lovely poem by Judith Collin, titled The Layman’s Lament: 

Shame on you Shakyamuni for setting

the precedent 

of leaving home. 

Did you think it was not there – 

in your wife’s lovely face 

or your baby’s laughter? 

Did you think you had to go elsewhere 

to find it? 

Tsk, tsk. 

I am here to show you 

dear sir 

that you needn’t step 

even one sixteenth of an inch away – stay 

here – elbows dripping with soapy water 

stay here – spit up all over your chest 

stay here – steam rising in lazy curls from 

cream of wheat 

Poor Shakyamuni – sitting under the Bo tree 

miles away from home 

Venus shone all the while

Layman P’ang’s Dialogue with an Oxherd

Jeff

I gave this talk on August 6, 2025, at Full Moon Zen’s Sunrise Sit. A recording follows the text.

This is Case 49, Where the Path Leads, in The Sayings of Layman P’ang:

One day the Layman saw a young boy herding oxen and asked him, “Where does this path we’re following lead to?”

The boy said, “I don’t know where it goes.”

The Layman said, “Aren’t you herding the oxen?”

The boy said, “They live in these fields.”

The Layman said, “What time of day is it anyway?”

The boy said, “It’s time to take the oxen to pasture.”

The Layman laughed heartily.

Let’s take this wonderful story line-by-line.

One day the Layman saw a young boy herding oxen and asked him, “Where does this path we’re following lead to?”

P’ang is an acknowledged Zen master and his question is the sort of coy one you’d expect from a teacher. One of those questions that seems ordinary and innocent enough but is probing the depth of your insight (and your sense of humor). But is that really what’s happening here? P’ang is the trickster who knows all the holier-than-though monks in the region and takes great pleasure in one-upping them. I’m inclined to think he’s in unfamiliar territory, is innocently asking this young stranger for directions, and is about to get beaten at his own game.

The boy said, “I don’t know where it goes.”

The boy’s opening line reminds me of something my eldest, who’s now 20, said when he was four or five. Esther and I were in our bedroom and one of was griping about something a parent or sibling had done. As I walked out of the room, I said, “Well, you know what they say: You can’t choose your family.” 

We didn’t realize our son had been just outside listening the whole time. Without missing a beat, he lit up and exclaimed, “Yeah, and you can’t even choose yourself!”

Wisdom from the mouth of babes. Does anyone really know what this is, who we are, and where we’re going?

The Layman said, “Aren’t you herding the oxen?”

Now we begin to sense P’ang knows he’s bumbled into a trap and may have met his match. “Okay, little sage, so seemingly self-possessed, surely you imagine you’re in charge and leading the way here?”

P’ang’s second question is anything but innocent. It’s a joust to the boy’s parry. The boy is herding ox, but will he recognize and has he tamed the ox I’m talking about? 

Has he discovered his wandering small mind situated in and as Big Mind , as we see in Zen’s famous Ox Herding pictures? Has his small mind been weened of the illusion that it’s the center of the universe and locus of ultimate control?

The boy’s response?

The boy said, “They live in these fields.”

Touché!

There’s a footnote in the text which says, “The sense of this statement is that the oxen know where they are going.”

Indeed. Let me read you a short passage about dealing with distractions in meditation that makes the boy’s point more explicitly. This is from a wonderful new book, Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism, by Bret Davis, an American Rinzai teacher and philosophy professor who has extensive practice experience in Japan. Drawing inspiration from Shunryu Suzuki, founder of Tassajara Zen Mountain Center and the San Francisco Zen Center, Davis writes:

Another teaching Suzuki Roshi gives in this regard goes even deeper and wider. He says: If you want to control your mischievous mind, don’t try to control it. Don’t try to pin it down or confine it to a mental jail cell. Do the opposite and give it a wide-open space in which to roam. Using another vivid metaphor, he says: “To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him.” That wide-open pasture is an image for what he and other Zen masters call “Big Mind.” All the thoughts and distractions of our small minds take place within a wide-open and non-judgmental field of awareness.

The Layman said, “What time of day is it anyway?”

P’ang, still fancying himself the teacher, hasn’t yet admitted defeat. We get another checking question, but who’s checking whom?

The boy said, “It’s time to take the oxen to pasture.”

Enough of this stuff about emptiness, Old Man. Bye, now. The cows and I are hungry. It’s time to eat.

The Layman laughed heartily.

May we all learn not to take ourselves too seriously and come to laugh this cosmic laugh with Layman P’ang. 

Nothing Worth Begrudging II

Jeff

I gave this talk on July 9, 2025, at Full Moon Zen’s Sunrise Sit. A recording follows the text.

Today I planned to talk a bit about householder Zen—this old-new turn of the Dharma Wheel we are developing through our practice. I’m not going to do that. The readings Rick offered at our morning sit yesterday and our discussion following were so rich and deep. I want to stick with the themes we took up yesterday.

Immediately after our sit I recalled a line in Bodhidharma’s Outline of Practice that I want to use to clarify and amplify something I said in our discussion yesterday. Bodhidharma is the first of the six so-called Zen Ancestors. He’s the Indian sage who, legend has it, brought the Dharma to China, where the Zen tradition developed. This reading that’s attributed to him is very resonant with Thich Nhat Hanh’s poem “Call Me by my True Names,” which Rick read yesterday. I’ll read the whole thing, which is rather long, and then I’ll lift out just one phrase and say a few words about it.

This is Boddhidharma’s Outline of Practice, as translated by Red Pine:

Many roads lead to the Path, but basically there are only two: reason and practice. To enter by reason means to realize the essence through instruction and to believe that all living things share the same true nature, which isn’t apparent because it’s shrouded by sensation and delusion. Those who turn from delusion back to reality, who meditate on walls, the absence of self and other, the oneness of mortal and sage, and who remain unmoved even by scriptures are in complete and unspoken agreement with reason. Without moving, without effort, they enter, we say, by reason.

To enter by practice refers to four all-inclusive practices: suffering injustice, adapting to conditions, seeking nothing, and practicing the Dharma.

First, suffering injustice. When those who search for the Path encounter adversity, they should think to themselves, “In countless ages gone by, I’ve turned from the essential to the trivial and wandered through all manner of existence, often angry without cause and guilty of numberless transgressions. Now, though I do no wrong, I’m punished by my past. Neither gods nor men can foresee when an evil deed will bear its fruit. I accept it with an open heart and without complaint of injustice. The sutras say, ” When you meet with adversity don’t be upset, because it makes sense.” With such understanding you’re in harmony with reason. And by suffering injustice you enter the Path.

Second, adapting to conditions. As mortals, we’re ruled by conditions, not by ourselves. All the suffering and joy we experience depend on conditions. If we should be blessed by some great reward, such as fame or fortune, it’s the fruit of a seed planted by us in the past. When conditions change, it ends. Why delight in its existence? But while success and failure depend on conditions, the mind neither waxes nor wanes. Those who remain unmoved by the wind of joy silently follow the Path.

Third, seeking nothing. People of this world are deluded. They’re always longing for something — always, in a word, seeking. But the wise wake up. They choose reason over custom. They fix their minds on the sublime and let their bodies change with the seasons. All phenomena are empty. They contain nothing worth desiring. Calamity forever alternates with Prosperity. To dwell in the three realms is to dwell in a burning house. To have a body is to suffer. Does anyone with a body know peace? Those who understand this detach themselves from all that exists and stop imagining or seeking anything. The sutras say, “To seek is to suffer. To seek nothing is bliss.” When you seek nothing, you’re on the Path.

Fourth, practicing the Dharma. The Dharma is the truth that all natures are pure. By this truth, all appearances are empty. Defilement and attachment, subject and object don’t exist. The sutras say, “The Dharma includes no being because it’s free from the impurity of being, and the Dharma includes no self because it’s free from the impurity of self.” Those wise enough to believe and understand these truths are bound to practice according to the Dharma. And since that which is real includes nothing worth begrudging, they give their body, life, and property in charity, without regret, without the vanity of giver, gift, or recipient, and without bias or attachment. And to eliminate impurity they teach others, but without becoming attached to form. Thus, through their own practice they’re able to help others and glorify the Way of Enlightenment. And as with charity, they also practice the other virtues. But while practicing the six virtues to eliminate delusion, they practice nothing at all. This is what’s meant by practicing the Dharma.

In a moment I’ll invite you to highlight anything in this reading that particularly spoke to you, but phrase I want to elevate is this: “that which is real includes nothing worth begrudging.” For me, this phrase seems to convey an essential point of Thich Nhat Hanh’s poem.

Yesterday in our dialogue I observed how Thay’s poem seems to be calling us to see and embrace and resolve seeming polarities: generosity and greed; peace and violence; beauty and terror.

Today I just want to revise or qualify the word “resolve.” If it’s even fair to present these features of reality in a dualistic way, as polarities, I’m not sure we’re called to resolve them exactly, or that we even could. We’ve been endowed both with love and with anger; gentleness and strength; separateness and togetherness. We need both. We are both.

I think the goal isn’t so much to resolve seeming polarities, but to harmonize them. To reduce the amplitude of our swings between them. To see and integrate the whole reality. Nothing worth begrudging. To stop oscillating among extremes. To moderate. To find and to walk the middle way.

My “Nowhere to Go” Mantra

Jeff

I gave this talk at our Full Moon Zen Thursday evening sit on July 3, 2025. A recording follows the text.

This is Case 171 in John Daido Loori’s translation of Dogen’s compilation of 300 koans, The True Dharma Eye:

Dizang said, “Where are you going, Reverend?”

Fayan said, “I am wandering on a pilgrimage.”

Dizang said, “What is the purpose of your pilgrimage.”

Fayan said, “I don’t know.”

Dizang said, “Ah! Not knowing is most intimate.”

Straightaway, Fayan had great realization.

We return to this cherished koan repeatedly. We tend to focus on Fayan’s not knowing and Dizang’s declaration that not knowing is the most intimate.

But what is it that Fayan doesn’t know? He doesn’t know where he’s going.

Fayan was a senior monk at another monastery. He had some sort of transformative experience that prompted him to take a group of monks on pilgrimage, presumably in search of something—learning, a site for a new monastery, or whatever. Along the way, they took shelter in Dizang’s monastery during a rainstorm, and so we get this case.

In his encounter with Dizang, Fayan realizes he doesn’t know where he’s going. In this encounter he comes to realize more profoundly there is nowhere to go.

Knowing we’re ultimately nowhere—nowhere knowable in the small and constraining way we’ve been seeking to know—paradoxically is the most vital, alive, liberating way to be present to our own life, to others, and to experience. Knowing there’s no ultimate goal or magical end state we can reach—giving up the game and the ghost—frees us to be here, now as the goal. Knowing this deep in our bones—so deep we forget it—allows us to live with ease. To avoid layering the kinds of suffering we can avoid over the kinds of suffering we can’t avoid, like sickness, old age, and death.

I have long understood all this conceptually, and I’ve long professed it as a Zen student and teacher. But, honestly, it’s still sinking into my bones; not yet set in them and forgotten. My present experience is somewhere between Fayan’s and Dizang’s respective experiences as recounted in this koan, if we allow ourselves to idealize a bit about Dizang’s experience.

I know this by observing and being honest with myself about the ways I show up as if there’s someplace ultimately important to go, and as if I know where it is and I’m headed there.

How many times am I rushing to get to our Thursday night sights, driving a bit faster and more aggressively, and with more tension, anxiety, and anger, than I would have if I had left myself more time to get here? That would require doing less, being less busy, and that would require me to see some of the things I’m doing and goals I’m pursuing as less ultimately important than I seem to think they are. You know what? Many of the things I’m doing, perhaps most or even all of them, are less important than I think they are, ultimately speaking, and even viewing many of them solely from Zen’s relative perspective.

The other day I left my home for my office soon after Sunrise Sit. I had just meditated, and yet now I was mired in the start of an overly programmed day, rushing to make my first meeting. I came to a rolling “stop” at an intersection and made a right turn into traffic, apparently leaving the driver in the oncoming car to little space. He became angry with me, zoomed around and past me, pulled in front of me almost causing a multi-car accident, and then slowed down to taunt me. We started exchanging unpleasant words and gestures. Our days and the days of those around us got off to an unpleasant start.

What good is this? Where do I think I’m going that’s so important or desirable to get to that I’ll let it ruin my own present experience and the experience of others?

Since that experience I’ve taken up a new mantra: “Nowhere to go.”

When I’m walking from the elevator to my office and I pass the person who always wants to stop me to chat, even when I’m rushing to log onto Zoom for a meeting, and I bristle because I feel I just don’t have time for it?

Nowhere to go.

Conversely, when I’m asked to do something worthy, by someone I respect, and I feel guilty about saying no but realize saying yes will detract from other commitments and add avoidable stress to my life?

Nowhere to go.

When I’m inclined to close my office door reflexively, to create a supposed sanctuary for myself, a barrier between me and a world that sometimes seems to expect too much?

Nowhere to go.

When someone walks through that open door with a need or concern, or just a desire to connect, diverting my attention from a project or a pleasant distraction in which I’m immersed?

Nowhere to go.

Nowhere to go.

Action

Jeff

I gave this talk at our Full Moon Zen zazenkai on June 14, 2024. A recording follows the text.

Impermanence was the theme of my last talk, which I gave at Sunrise Sit on June 4th. I opened it with this case from the Blue Cliff Record:

A monk said to Dasui, “When the thousands of universes are altogether and utterly destroyed in the kalpa fire — I wonder whether this perishes or not.

“This perishes,” said Dasui.

“If so,” persisted the monk, “does it follow the other.”

“It follows the other,” said Dasui.

As you can see, we’re serious about the idea of impermanence in Zen. Even emptiness is empty. It dies with form. Don’t think of it as the ultimate ground of reality, at least if you’re imagining something that exists apart and persists forever.

I said at the end of that talk that I would connect the observable truth of impermanence, of change, to action. I’m making good on that promise now. 

Let me open this talk with another koan, a brief story, from the record of Dogen’s teaching, together with his brief commentary on it:

Mayu, Zen Master Baoche, was fanning himself. A monk approached and said, “Master, the nature of wind is permanent and there is no place it does not reach. Why, then, do you fan yourself?”

“Although you understand that the nature of wind is permanent,” Mayu replied, “you do not understand the meaning of its reaching everywhere.”

“What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere?” asked the monk.

Mayu just kept fanning himself.

The monk bowed deeply.

Dogen’s commentary:

The actualization of the buddha dharma, the vital path of its authentic transmission, is like this. If you say that you do not need to fan yourself because the nature of wind is permanent and you can have wind without fanning, you understand neither permanence nor the nature of wind. The nature of wind is permanent; because of that, the wind of the buddha house brings forth the gold of the earth and ripens the cream of the long river.

Here we meet yet another monk who has gained some insight—and who is stuck in emptiness. He thinks the nature of wind somehow exists apart from wind. He thinks he’s grabbed the lion by its tail and caged it. He’s not yet become the lion.

We know the wind as it beats against us. As we move the fan. We know the lion as it roars. As we roar.

The nature of emptiness can’t be expressed as an idea (even this one): Emptiness is only ever actualized, enacted. Emptiness is expressed as action. The action of the wind. The action of my hand moving the fan.

Action is motion. The best definition of life I’ve ever heard, from a biologist, is movement. Living things are moving things. And everything is alive, even supposedly dead things. Corpses and logs are expressing a form of life we call decomposition. They’ll eventually spawn forms of life that appear to be moving faster for a while, until those life forms “die” and decompose.

Motion is change. Impermanence.

What does it mean to say the nature of wind is permanent? What does permanent mean here?

Change. Wind moves as wind.

In my last talk I also said another core tenet of Zen Buddhism is that our default mode is to resist the reality of change. We cling to whatever evokes pleasurable feelings. We’re averse to whatever threatens to take away pleasurable feelings. We remain willfully ignorant to the reality of impermanence; to our inability to avoid change. We seek a safe haven in which nothing changes, and in which we needn’t change.

Mayu is demonstrating a more viable path. The path of activity beyond ideas. The path of becoming a Buddha. Dogen said, “Buddha-nature and becoming a Buddha always occur simultaneously.” The nature of wind and wind always occur simultaneously. 

Our ideas also are activity. We must permit them to change. I never get myself into more trouble than when I cling to a misguided viewpoint or idea about some situation and myself and others in relation to it. 

It’s 90 degrees out. Mayu is hot. He fans himself. An appropriate response. 

I’ve taken offense at what someone else has said or done. My blood is boiling. I fan the flames. An appropriate response? Likely not.

How are my preexisting, fixed views conditioning the experience and my reading of it? Can I let my views be susceptible to change? Can I remain open to newness and possibility, including newness and possibility within myself? Can I remain truly present and curious? If so, perhaps I’ll use my fan to cool the room, or even to extinguish the flames, rather than fanning them.

Zazen—our practice of sitting still—is activity. It’s the activity of becoming a Buddha; of learning to act as a Buddha acts. Finding the still point on the crest of the wave of impermanence. Maintaining our balance there. Knowing how precious this passing moment is and how precious those with whom we briefly share it are. Knowing this in our bones. Moving as the wind, roaring as the lion, to enact that knowing.

Even This Perishes

Jeff

I gave this talk at our Full Moon Zen Sunrise Sit on Wednesday, June 4, 2025. A recording follows the text.

This is Case 55 in The Blue Cliff Record:

A monk said to Dasui, “When the thousands of universes are altogether and utterly

destroyed in the kalpa fire — I wonder whether this perishes or not.

“This perishes,” said Dasui.

“If so,” persisted the monk, “does it follow the other.”

“It follows the other,” said Dasui.

Sleep. Morning dew. The chill in the air. Feeling happy. Feeling sad. This day. Tomorrow. This life. All life.

Impermanence is a core tenet of Buddhism. Why? Because it’s observably true. How can we deny the reality of change?

Another core tenet of Buddhism is that our default mode is to resist the reality of change. We cling to whatever evokes pleasurable feelings. We’re averse to whatever threatens to take away pleasurable feelings. We remain willfully ignorant to the reality of impermanence; to our inability to avoid change.

This koan probes the furthest reaches of Zen Buddhist notions of impermanence. The monk accepts that the morning dew, and even our whole universe, will vanish. But what about this?

We Zen types are always point to this. Just this. But what is this? Is this permanent?

No, the Dasui says. Even this perishes. It perishes with the tea and the teapot. With the moon and the stars.

As usual, the answer to the koan is in the question. The monk divides the world into this and that. Destroyed and not destroyed. 

And, as usual, the question is about oneself. The monk has some insight into the Great Matter. He’s seen into emptiness—and has become identified with it.

If emptiness is not destroyed, might I live on?

Just as form is no other than emptiness. Emptiness truly is no other than form. When all the many universes are destroyed in the kalpa fire, their moons and stars with them, emptiness perishes with them. And you and me with them. This is no thing.

This koan is about as close as Zen gets to dogma on physics and metaphysics. As physics and metaphysics, this perspective undoubtedly is debatable. But we know the Buddha declined to engage in metaphysical speculation. I don’t think Dasui is engaging in metaphysical speculation either.

The monk is still looking for something permanent to hold onto. He’s searching for the ultimate and equating it with permanence. Dasui is channeling the ancients that preceded him, and foreshadowing the ancients that will follow him, like Dogen, who tells us that hitting the mark—finding what we’re seeking—is knowing we never have another nest than this fleeting moment in this fleeting life in this fleeting universe in which to settle.

Dasui is advising the monk, and advising us, that, whatever perspective you may have on physics or metaphysics, it’s best to live in accord with the observable reality of change, including the ways we ourselves, and our own perspectives, are susceptible to change. Orienting ourselves in this way invites and enables, in turn, a particular orientation toward our actions, or activity, another key Zen theme that Dogen emphasized in his teaching. It opens us to newness and the possibility of an appropriate response to what’s arising here and now, rather than to our prior, fixed and, quite possibly, misguided views on ourselves, others, and the situation in which we now find ourselves–views on which we may have a death grip and which we may layer over our immediate experience, strangling the life from it. I’ll return to and develop this theme in my talk during our upcoming Zazenkai.

I’ll close by reading our koan again . . .  

Crossing the Flood

Jeff

I gave this talk at our Full Moon Zen Sunrise Sit on May 21, 2025. It’s based on the poem “Calm” by the early Buddhist nun Upasama:

How do you cross the flood?

You cross calmly—one step at a time, feeling for stones.

How do you cross the flood, my heart?

You cross calmly—one step at a time,

or not at all.

Gatha of Atonement

Jeff

I gave this talk a short while ago at our Full Moon Zen Sunrise Sit. A recording follows the text.

Last Thursday we began using a different version of the Gatha of Atonement during our sutra service. It’s Version 3 in our Sutra Book. We’ve been using Version 1.

Here’s Version 1:

For all my unwholesome actions since olden times,

from my beginningless greed, hatred, and ignorance,

born of my body, speech, and thought,

Here’s Version 3:

I now fully atone. 

All harm caused by me,

because of my greed, hatred, and ignorance,

through my conduct, speech and thought,

I now deeply regret.

I thought I’d comment this morning on a few of the noticeable differences between these two versions of this important verse that’s chanted daily in Zen communities. Let’s take them line by line:

For all my unwholesome actions since olden times (Version 1)

All harm caused by me (Version 3)

The first line in Version 1, which speaks about “my unwholesome actions,” seems entirely focused on, and primarily concerned about, me as the person reciting the verse. At the same time, the phrase “since olden times” introduces one theme of the first version: my actions are entangled with events that precede my personal history. In this verse we’re looking at my actions from the perspectives of oneness and relatedness, or interbeing, which is important and beautiful, and which also raises challenging questions about the degree to which I’m even responsible for my actions.

The first line of Version 3—“All harm caused by me”—seems laser focused on how my actions have affected others and seems to place responsibility for them on me.

The second line in each version also highlights these distinctions:

from my beginningless greed, hatred, and ignorance (Version 1)

because of my greed, hatred, and ignorance (Version 3)

Version 1 seems to suggest my “unwholesome actions” somewhat mysteriously arise from my “beginningless” greed, hatred, and ignorance, Buddhism’s three poisons. I do appreciate the reference to mybeginningless greed, hatred, and ignorance. It conveys a both-and quality that implies I have a responsibility for all that is, including the consequences of unskillful actions throughout history that precede my personal existence. Version 1 of the gatha seems to let me off one hook to a certain extent by acknowledging that my personal karma is entwined with all karma, past and present, but it also tells me I’m on the hook regardless.

Once again, Version 3 is simpler, more direct, more focused on my responsibility. The harms to others I’ve caused: I’ve caused them because of my own greed, hatred, and ignorance. This is because I ignorantly imprison myself and others in the delusion of ontological separation and horde more for myself and/or burden others with what I don’t like, including my own projections (that is, what I don’t like in myself).

Ignorance is something we should talk about more in Zen circles, especially our tendency toward ignorance by choice, or “motivated ignorance,” as psychologists call it. This is a key strategy humans use to cling to partial narratives that provide false security and comfort.

born of my body, speech, and thought (Version 1)

through my conduct, speech, and thought (Version 3)

I must confess that “born of my body” seems far too exonerating to me. I get that we don’t choose our lives or bodies, at least initially, and that we don’t control our impulses entirely. I get that, depending upon things like the color of our skin, disabilities, or gender, some of our bodies are read by others in society in ways that are unfair and hurtful. Still, for purposes of this verse, I prefer the third line of Version 3. The harm I’ve caused because of my greed, hatred, and ignorance—and most of us have caused at least some harm, whatever our circumstances, causes, and conditions—is caused through my conduct and speech and the thoughts (or thoughtlessness) that motivates them. My body—my limbs, vocal cords, and brain, to the extent I have them or they function in typical ways—is an instrument. And most of us do have considerable agency with respect to its activity.

I now atone for it all (Version 1)

I now deeply regret (Version 3)

I like the word “atonement” for its layered meanings. At-one-ment provides a view of our broken world and interconnected selves from a relational perspective and of our neither-perfect-nor-imperfect universe from the perspective of the Absolute, of oneness or wholeness. Version 1 of the gatha uses the verb form of the word: atone. This suggests I must do something, whether just acknowledging my unwholesome actions or trying to address their consequences somehow.

Yet it also feels to me like there’s something lacking, or at least not sufficiently acknowledged, in the word atonement—something affective, something emotional—that’s captured in Version 3. It calls upon me to “deeply regret” the harm I have caused. To turn toward it, see it, understand its conditions, causes, and consequences, fully own all that, and deeply feel others’ pain—and my own. To deeply feel the weight of our own responsibility. I see that as a prerequisite to genuine atonement. If you’ve ever received an apology from someone who claims to get the harm they’ve caused but is defending themselves against deeply feeling the weight of it—or you’ve offered one yourself—you know that apology is not clean and will land flat.

Each of these versions of the gatha is beautiful. Each shines light from a different angle. Both are true. Neither is best. Version 1 may feel more approachable and palatable for many of us in the West, having grown up in traditions, or in family cultures, that may have been punitive and shaming. The first version can feel like a welcome corrective to that. Yet we can take that corrective too far. Version 3 of the gatha can help us accept responsibility maturely, without deflecting or defending against it; without succumbing to crippling shame if we’re prone to it. It’s nice to have and be mindful of both versions. 

Shikantaza and Mindfulness (or Zen and the Other Mindfulness, Take 2)

Jeff

I gave this talk at our Full Moon Zen Sunrise Sit today. A recording follows the text.

I gave a Thursday evening talk earlier this month about Zen and what I called “the other mindfulness”: the work of Harvard psychology professor Ellen Langer, whose research has revealed the surprising power, and many health and other benefits, of simple awareness—of paying attention. You can find that talk on my blog if you didn’t hear it.

Langer describes her work as the study of mindfulness, but she chose that term without knowing about Vipassana meditation, which is more commonly called mindfulness meditation. She sees no connection between the two. In fact, she thinks mindfulness meditation can be mindless. She says mindfulness is what might happen for meditators after they meditate, and that you don’t need to meditate to experience it.

Langer’s disclaimers haven’t stopped people from making connections between mindfulness meditation and Langer’s research about the power of noticing. They’re all wishful thinkers from Langer’s perspective. But all the comparisons are made between her work and Vipassana meditation, which is very different than shikantaza, Zen’s approach to meditation.

I think there are interesting connections between Langer’s take on mindfulness and shikantaza. Those of you who heard my earlier talk will recall that I asked an AI tool, Claude, to help me explore possible connections. Here’s what it said, which I think is quite good:

1. Non-goal orientation: Both Langer’s mindfulness and shikantaza emphasize process over outcome. Langer critiques mindless pursuit of goals, while shikantaza explicitly avoids meditation as a means to an end.

2. Present-centered awareness: Both approaches value immediate experience rather than abstract analysis. Langer emphasizes noticing novelty in the present moment, which aligns with shikantaza’s open, non-discriminating awareness.

3. Rejection of rigid techniques: Langer’s approach doesn’t involve formal meditation techniques, and shikantaza is considered the most technique-free form of meditation.

4. Creative engagement: Langer emphasizes creative engagement with one’s environment, which has some resonance.

So, this morning I want to say just a bit more about what’s going on in Zen’s approach to meditation in my experience, and why I do think it supports “the other mindfulness” (Langer’s version), whatever may or may not be happening in other forms of meditation. 

Here are some of the key functions of Zen meditation and how they help us cultivate the presence of mind and being—presence to experience, to life—that Langer studies:

  • Capacity to cope. When many of us begin to meditate, we fear we won’t be able to sit still for 25 minutes. That we won’t be able to tolerate the discomfort. That the sky really will fall if we don’t respond to that email now. Maybe we fear just being with our thoughts and feelings. One of the first things meditation does is simply increase our confidence that we can bear experiences we’d cast as unbearable. This reduces adventitious suffering: the extra suffering we tend to layer over suffering we can’t avoid, like an injury, or that we choose to endure, like a surgery to repair an injury. Meditation—all or most forms, I imagine—develops our capacity to cope, and this helps us become more at ease with life, with ourselves, and with others we find challenging.
  • Inclination toward noticing. This is Langer’s territory. It’s what she studies. Shikantaza truly is the most technique-free form of meditation. We just sit. There’s nothing more to it. So all that’s left is being. All that’s left is noticing, receptivity. What do we notice? We notice leaves rustling and sirens getting louder, then quieter, then gone; we notice our stomach growl; we notice our noticing come and go. We notice impermanence. Change. The river. 
  • Nonseparation; identification with it all. The river’s water works on the stone that we are, or at least that we’ve imagined ourselves to be. It smooths it, softens it, makes it porous, dissolves it in time. The distinction between stone and water becomes less clear. We feel less separate; more part of it all. More attuned to context, because we experience ourselves as woven into the fabric of our context. Sometimes we forget ourselves—in a good way.
  • Comfort with no-thing. The more we sit and notice, the more we know and don’t know. We know our experience more intimately, but confidence in our capacity to contain it conceptually declines. Our best concepts and constructs remain useful, but we see their limits. We no longer hold them so tightly. We develop comfort with not knowing and not being able to contain or control everything.

These are some of the fruits I feel Zen meditation practice, and Zen practice more broadly, offers over time. They seem very related to and supportive of the qualities in which Langer sees such value, including genuine curiosity and the capacity to get out of our own frame to consider others’ experience. Ultimately, she’s all about creativity: our capacity to respond freely and appropriately to life in the moment; to be creatures that co-create creation. I think Zen’s all about that, too.