Changsha and Radiant Light

This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Welcome everyone who arrived today. Such a delight to welcome you to this Sashin retreat, maybe half of us sitting for the past four days. We're winding up a Zen retreat here and it's great to celebrate the culmination with all of you just arriving today. Since in our tradition we say that to study the Buddha way is to study the self. That's what we've been doing this retreat. What is the self? That's what we study. Our great beneficent, original teacher, Shakyamuni Buddha taught again and again that what we call this body, this lump of flesh and bones is not really who we are actually. It's not really our true self. It's not really our actual identity and the Buddha taught if we identify with it as our self there's going to be trouble because this body is falling apart. It's unreliable. It's a great gift at the same time and we appreciate it deeply and take good care of it but we try not to identify with it as who we really are, the Buddha taught out of his great compassion. Furthermore the Buddha taught these feelings of pleasant and unpleasant moment by moment. There's always some feeling some of you just arriving might feel a pleasant feeling of coming out to Green Gold on a typical summer day immersed in fog and you've just been walking around so your legs might feel quite pleasant whereas some people who've been sitting here non-stop for three and a half days might feel some unpleasant sensations in their legs or maybe they've gotten so used to it now that it's just fine. But if these pleasant and unpleasant feelings are fine, they come and go. We appreciate them or take care of them but they're not really who we are. They're just temporary feelings. They're unreliable if we identify with our feelings of unpleasant or pleasant as who we really are as our self then it's going to be rough, the Buddha said. Also we have these perceptions and conceptions of the world like blue and red and hot and cold and loud and quiet. We perceive and label all these perceptions and conceptions and it's essential to our life and if we identify with these conceptions we won't be able to find true ease the Buddha says. We can let them come and go but identifying with them in other words is feeling that they are myself, the Buddha said. Because the Buddha discovered he then shared this teaching that if we think they're who we are then we have some difficulty, more difficulty than if we don't. Moving into the realms of experience that seem more and more like they maybe really are our self the Buddha said. What about our habitual tendencies, our karmic formations, our habit patterns we often feel like I'm just this stuck person. I'm stuck in my patterns. I'm identified with these patterns. They are who I am and they're unworkable. These patterns are coming and going. They are actually workable because they're not who we really are. They're like the stuff of our lives. They're okay but if we identify with being a lazy person, a distracted person, a really kind person, any type of unique tendency we might have if we feel like that's who we are we get caught. We'll have our consciousness, the mind that knows things outside of itself. That's who we are isn't it? The Buddha said no. If we identify with the mind that knows the world outside of itself even though it might seem like maybe that's who we really are that dualistic consciousness is not really who we are at the Buddha says. Well what's left? Form, feelings, perceptions, formations, consciousness isn't that the totality of our human experience. I would agree. We can't really find any experience that doesn't fit into these categories of body and mind. And the Buddha tells us all these experiences are not really who we are. Well who are we? Our job is to study the self. The Buddha didn't actually say much about who we are. It seemed like he thought it was much more important to clarify what we're not. We're not any experiences of this body and mind coming and going. Conventionally we could say that's kind of like this collection of stuff is what we sometimes call a person or at least they call ourselves but it's not really our true identity. The Buddha didn't say so much who we are. That was his skillful means. Just carefully study who we're not and we'll feel more and more at ease by letting go of this identification with everything that we're at. Taking care of all these experiences while not identifying with them. But this week we have been especially studying the teachings of a great Zen ancestor in the golden age of Zen in China in the ninth century named Changsha. And it seemed like he was kind of willing to say who we are actually. Of course he agreed with the Buddha all this stuff that we're experiencing is not really our self. But what is our self. Changsha said our true self is radiant light. What's left if we eliminate form feelings, perceptions, formations, consciousness. Is there anything left? Some might say no there's nothing left. But Changsha said what remains is radiant light. Radiant light. Like the light that fills the room right now. We can't see directly and yet everything we see is illuminated by the light. But the radiant light of the self is not like the physical light in this room. It's an inconceivable, ungraspable, yet brightly radiant light ever present. One of our Zen ancestors, disciple of Dogen Zenji named Koum Ejo, he also like to talk about this light and he said something like this radiant light is not more present in Buddhas and less present in sentient beings, ordinary people. It's kind of like the same. And when we're diluted, the light is not diluted. And if we have some awakening, the light doesn't have some awakening. When we're born, the light is not born. And when we die, the light does not die. Changsha called it the radiant light of the self. It's present right now. It must be, right? And it didn't just pop into the room when we popped into the room. And it won't leave when we leave. And just to make matters even more ungraspable, Changsha said, the entire world in 10 directions, 10 directions is the old Zen way of saying everywhere, all directions. Right, left, back, front, up, down. This entire world throughout all of space is within the radiant light of the self. Just when we were thinking that maybe the radiant light of the self is within the space of the world. I don't know if you might have thought that, but it's not so according to Changsha. The whole world in 10 directions is within the radiant light of the self. And maybe channeling Changsha, Green Dragon Zen Center founder, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi said, big mind experiences everything in the 10 directions within itself. He says, small mind is related to other things, you know, outside itself. For a small mind to relate to things, things have to be outside of itself. It's a kind of a small mind, Suzuki Roshi said, but big mind includes everything within itself. He says, it's not related to anything. What a strange thing to say. Big mind is unrelated to anything. So Changsha was celebrating this week. He said, the whole world in 10 directions is within the radiant light of the self. But he also said, in the same talk, he said, the whole world in 10 directions is the radiant light of the self. Maybe the whole world within the radiant light of the self is kind of a warm up to this more radical statement that the whole world, all of this is actually itself, the radiant light of our self. We're talking about who we really are here. Who we really are. This radiant light is the entire world in 10 directions, almost like it's our identity, our true identity is not somehow within this body and this individual mind. Our true identity, our self, is the whole world in 10 directions. So we've been savoring that, saying this week, or ignoring it, not sure. So Changsha said some other things too. Very similar. Everything he said is always same thing. Sometimes I feel like that too. He said something like, a person sitting on top of a 100 foot pole has realized some entry, has entered into the way at the top of a 100 foot pole. That's what we've been doing. Some of us, these three days, we're trying to climb a 100 foot pole and pole is coated with grease. So it's slow going, which are various tricks, like nabbing pegs into it, but pegs just fall out. So this is a practice, sometimes it feels like climbing up a greased 100 foot pole with no pegs allowed. So we might feel as if we're various heights on the pole. After a few days, some of us might be seven inches, three and a half feet, or you might feel like you're halfway out or whatever. But these are just feelings. We don't actually know where we are in this pole, because it's a greased pole with no pegs in the dark. But Changsha said the person sitting on top of a 100 foot pole, this is the way the Zen ancestors talk. They've entered somewhat into the way. And I might just add a comment and say, at the top of the 100 foot pole, they have some sense that they are radiant light. I don't know if Changsha would say that. I'm just proposing it. Maybe that's where the top of the 100 foot pole is, is being radiant light. But Changsha says it's like an entryway, but they haven't yet realized the full extent of reality itself of truth. Such a person needs to take a step forward off the top of the pole. Well, if we're already radiant light, where is there to go? So a monk asked Changsha, well, how, how do we take a step forward off the top of the 100 foot pole? And Changsha said, Mount Tammapaius, the marine headlands. The monk said, huh? The monk said, I don't understand. And Changsha said, Newer Beach, the Pacific Ocean, the whole land is under the emperor's authority, we might say, if you're not so into emperors, we might say. The whole land is under the loving care of the park service. The park services is, has a big responsibility. And this is just, you know, analogies than poetic metaphors, right? Who is the park service or the emperor in this analogy? And he guesses, I heard the word us. Yeah, another word. And who is us? Who is myself? Radiant light, the radiant light of us, the radiant light of the self that was just previously hanging out on the top of 100 foot pole. Now the radiant light has, that's radiant light is maybe a fragile thing on the top of the 100 foot pole. It's just this present big mind. And so please, nobody cough, because that would distract me from this big mind. And that's kind of like an entry, but it's not yet reality. We have to step forward, not just into a room of coughing people, but all of Nantan and the whole Pacific Ocean. It's all under the authority of the radiant light of the self. Everything we experience is within big mind. Big mind is, I think Suzuki also said, big mind is the boss, the boss of Mount town and your woods and their in heavens. But not just not just the boss of that stuff, not just the boss of Mount town actually. It is Mount town, the radiant light of the self. This is wonderful, inconceivable teachings that were being offered by Changsha. So here's another story of Changsha. I heard this one from Abad Jiru. One day Changsha went walking in the mountains. Coco's footnote is, did the mountains go walking in Changsha? When he returned to the temple, the head monk asked, where have you been? Changsha said, I was wandering in the mountains. The monk said, well, where, where did you go exactly? Changsha said, first I went out following the fragrant grasses. Then I came back pursuing the falling flowers. That's where I went. The head monk was thinking, well, did you go to the Lord in headlands or Mount town? He got a kind of, a different sort of answer. And the monk said, oh, that's very much like the feeling of spring, the mood of spring, the way you express that. And Changsha said, it's even better than dew drops falling on lotus flowers in autumn. Changsha was quite a poetic guy. One might say this is just poetic expression of spring and maybe different, different aspects we could, we could imagine in this little dialogue. And since Changsha was the kind of guy who was always talking about everything being himself and celebrating the mountains and waters and the fish and dragons and so on, we might hear like he was really into the fragrant grasses and the falling flowers. He was really getting into those sights and sounds and smells and tastes and sensations of springtime. And maybe the head monk was maybe critiquing him a little bit. Could be when he said, well, that's very much like a spring mood. But maybe that's a subtle way of saying, are you sure you were just getting like distracted and indulging in the sights and sounds and smells of spring teacher? And the teacher said, yeah, that walk was even better than the subtle feeling of cool autumn with dew drops landing on a lotus leaf and they just roll off. That's fine too. That's like being really chill. That's like, that's like sashin. This is better than sashin. And so I offer the story to all of you who are about to end sashin. It's going to get better. You get to be the emperor of the airport, the Golden Gate Bridge, the traffic of San Francisco. We're trying not to get into better and worse, but maybe he felt like the monk thought that the dew drop on the lotus leaf rolling off in the chill of autumn, that's better than following some fragrant grasses and pursuing flowers in the mountains. Neither one's really better. Why? Because the whole world in ten directions is the radiant light of the self. Some of you have sashin have one more period to sit however high up you are on this greased pole. And then whether you want to take a step forward or not, you're going to be pushed off it. It's called the bell that ends the last period of sashin, is the push of a hundred foot pole. So one more story of Changsha before we finish with that ancestor. So this radiant light of the self has many names, especially in Zen, like almost any name actually could could express the radiant light of the self. But maybe some names are a particular connection to this radiant light, particularly pointing at it particularly directly, like your original face before your mother and father were born. It's another name for the radiant light of yourself, because we heard that it's not more when you're born and not less when you die. It doesn't come and it doesn't go. It's also called big mind. It's also called Buddha nature. So one time a government official was a student of Changsha, who had a kind of maybe sort of doctrinal sounding question. Or he would but might also say he's just trying to understand the radiant light. So he asked Changsha, when an earthworm is cut in two and both halves continue to move, I wonder which half has the Buddha nature? I love making the outer laugh. We might say because Changsha often called Buddha nature radiant light, we might say. It could have been asked when an earthworm is cut in two and both halves wriggle away, in which half is the radiant light? Understand the question. So we're trying to understand what is this radiant light? Is it like a mysterious substance inside our body? Is it like a life force or like a soul in the body? When the body is cut in half, which half is a soul? Is it some kind of animating principle? Is it located? If it's located, it has to choose one half or the other or divide itself. Strange question in the Zen world. When an earthworm is cut in two and both halves continue to move, I wonder which half has the Buddha nature? Which half has the radiant light of the self? Which half is the true self of the worm? And Changsha said, don't have deluded ideas. Don't be deluded. You might even hear it. Don't be deluded to even ask such a question. But the official really wanted to know, so he said, but how can we understand the movement that the both halves are moving? And Changsha said, that's just wind and fire elements that haven't yet dispersed. So wind and fire elements that haven't yet dispersed. This might be ancient Indian or Chinese biology theory or medical theory where the body is made up of four elements. Earth, wind, fire, and water. The earth is a solid. The solid bones and parts of the body. The water element is the blood and the fluids in the body. The fire element is the warmth of the body and the air element is the air in the lungs and throughout the body. So when a body dies, these four elements that are all interdependently, harmoniously functioning when we're alive, when we're dead, and at death, these four elements were understood to disperse or disconnect from each other. And the body does its thing and the mind does its thing. How can we understand the movement of these two halves? Like, where, really, tell me, where is the Buddha nature? That movement, Changsha said, that's just wind and fire elements that haven't yet dispersed. In other words, we're just talking biology here. So, of course, this got me curious about, just biologically speaking, how does this kind of work? You may be, have accidentally, I hope if it's ever happened, cut an earthworm with a shovel and felt bad about it. It happens on farms sometimes. And we see those two halves still seem alive. So I researched it a little bit. In fact, when earthworms are cut, only the head end continues to live and the tail end continues to move also, but eventually the tail end stops moving and dies. In other words, the movement of the tail end is just wind and fire elements that haven't yet dispersed. And we might say, same with the head end, actually, that keeps living, it might live for a long time. Like, this body living now, all of our bodies are just wind and fire elements that haven't yet dispersed, actually. Wind, fire, water, and air. But there is this species called aquatic flatworms. Anyone know aquatic flatworms? So these are really kind of special creatures, because if they're cut in half, the two halves do both continue to live as two new animals, because they have stem cells throughout their whole body so they can regenerate like another nervous system and so on. Each half grows a new head and tail, aquatic flatworms. So maybe this government minister was thinking that earthworms are like aquatic flatworms, but this is all beside the point. So is Buddha nature, the radiant light of the self, something that's in the body and can be divided if the body is divided or is like wind and fire or wind and fire workings in the body or in the mind, Yves. Don't be deluded, Changsha says. It's not like this. In fact, I think at one point that we've been exploring a little bit in this Sashin is, and if you can kind of open to this point, this could be one takeaway, kind of experiential takeaway to consider for the rest of this life, is that we think of our Buddha natures, who we really are, as something maybe inside the body or even big mind, even though we hear that it's really big, we think it must be in the body at the same time. We just feel, I think many people feel strongly that that's the case. And this may be because we have heard about brains, which are in the body, and that maybe big mind is another name for the brain, something like this. Don't be deluded. So the investigation you can check out is experientially what we call the body, seems to me, is, I often think of it as, it's like a field of tactile sensation. If we look at it, it's colors and shapes too, but mostly we experience our body these days, as a field of tactile sensation tingling here, pulsating there, relaxed here, tense there, constantly changing field of sensations. Isn't that kind of like a, our dominant experience of the body, when we're not like looking in a mirror or something. So these tactile sensations, are they not part of the world of experience? Are they not appearing within the radiant light of