BLUE CLIFF RECORD CASE 42by John Tarrant Roshi

Layman Pangs Good Snowflakes

Master Engos Pointer

Bringing it out unique and alone is still dripping with waterdragging through the mud When knocking and resoundingoccur together (its still like) a silver mountain an iron wall

If you describe and discuss you see ghosts in front of yourskull If you seek it in thought you sit beneath the blackmountain The bright shining sun lights up the sky The purewhispering wind circles the earth

But say do the Ancients have any obscurities To test Imciting this old case Look

The Main Case

When Layman Pang took leave of Yao-Shan Shan orderedten Chan travelers to escort him to the gate The Laymanpointed to the snow in the air and said ldquoGood snowflakes They dont fall in any other placerdquo

At the time one of the Chan travellers named Chuan saidldquoWhere do they fallrdquo The Layman slapped him once Chuansaid ldquoEven a layman shouldnt be so coarserdquo The Laymansaid ldquoThough you call yourself a Chan traveller this way theKing of Death still wont let you gordquo Chuan said ldquoHow aboutyou Laymanrdquo Again the Layman slapped him and saidldquoYour eyes see like a blind man your mouth speaks like amuterdquo Hsueh-Tou said besides ldquoWhen Pang first spoke Ijust would have made a snowball and hit him with itrdquo

Master Hsueh-Tous Verse

The snowball hits The snowball hits

Old Pangs ability cannot grasp it

Gods and humans do not know for themselves

In eyes in ears absolutely clean

Absolutely clean --

Even the blue-eyed barbarian monk Bodhidharma would findit hard to discriminate

I picked this koan for todays discourse because Layman Pang is one of thecharacters in Zen history often used as a model of lay practice Wersquoll look atwhat the history offers us in terms of lay practice what we have createdhere at Zen Mountain Monastery and then we will examine this koan in

depth Mahayana Buddhism makes a point of defining itself as completelynon-discriminatory characterized by the bodhisattva spirit and vow itsemergence marked the opening of Buddhism to women and laypractitioners Yet when we examine the actual history itself we find that itsinclusiveness has been largely only lip service The teaching indicated thatthe opportunity to practice and realize the Way was not the sole province ofmale monastics yet in actual fact women and lay people were given verylimited access and support Perhaps some examples were simply lost inhistory because the keepers of the records were men within monasticinstitutions In terms of lay practice we have only two primary examplesLayman Pang whom we meet in this koan and Vimalakirti a contemporaryof the Buddha

The Buddhism in China prior to the arrival of Bodhidharma was establishedin the major cities and received great support from the power structures ofthe day But eventually the powers changed Buddhist monasteries weredestroyed and many monks were killed Many of the those who survived hidout in the mountains and there a very different style of Buddhist practicebegan to take place There evolved an active hermit practice away from thecenters away from the power places Royal patronage could no longer becounted upon The techniques of begging that were used in India were notpossible in the remote hills of China So a different kind of model wasborn

In the several generations after Bodhidharma Zen lineages evolved withdistinct teaching styles The third ancestor in China Sekito author of theFaith Mind Sutra was actually a lay practitioner when he came toenlightenment He later became ordained and set up a traditional Taoist-style monastery But his original practice and his training was as a laypractitioner Several generations later the first distinctly Zen monasteryevolved unique in and of itself different from any other forms ofmonasticism Records show that there were numerous eminent laypractitioners studying at the various mountain monasteries though nonebecame successors in the lineages For a lay practitioner to engage thisform of monastic-based training required making a long journey into theremote mountain wilderness Obviously after making such a pilgrimagethey would stay for extended periods of time often several years Most ofthe lay practitioners who did this were among the upper class of China Many of them were inspectors or the equivalent of senators or supremecourt judges In spite of these men we have some records of and the otherlay practitioners we can deduce were probably training during this time nolay lineage emerged We do not know of any successor to Layman Pang orhis wife or daughter Lauchow Layman Pangs daughter who was alsoconsidered very enlightened probably even more so than even her father ormother Han-Shan is another famous lay practitioner the famous ColdMountain poet He too didnt leave any successors

Its kind of interesting when you look at Layman Pangs life you realize thatPang was more of a monk in a sense than many of the monks A lot of themonks in China at that time were very close to the aristocracy They hadlots of wealth and ambition and freedom They were hardly people who hadtaken vows of poverty and were living alone on a mountain Layman Pangon the other hand came from a wealthy family and was a very successfulmerchant himself Even very early in his life in spite of the fact that he wasa successful merchant on the piece of property that he owned he had ahermitage that he used to go to and spend most of his time He had a wifeand two children a boy and a girl He spent a lot of time in his hermitagestudying Buddhist texts and meditating and then at some point he startedvisiting a couple of monasteries He had an enlightenment experienceunder Sekito He stayed there for a short while Then he went to visit thegreat Master Basso had a deep experience with Basso and stayed there acouple of years received the transmission of Basso so there was aprecedent right there he actually received transmission And after hisenlightenment experience with Sekito Sekito asked him Will you now dyeyour robes In other words will you trade in your white robe of the laypractitioner and become a monk And he said he had no intention of doingthat He wishes to stay as a layman He also spent seventeen years withYakusan its said Thats this case right here So he got an incredibleamount of training from Yakusan and thats in our lineage by the way theSoto lineage that came out of Yakusan

At one point in his life he sold his house gave his house to the village tohave it made into a temple is actually what he did He took all his worldlypossessions and rowed them out to the middle of a lake and sank the boat

People wondered why didnt he give them to somebody who needed them He really felt that possessions material wealth polluted the mind andcreated delusion and he didnt want to give that to anybody So he justsank it It doesnt say very much what was going on with his wife what shehad to say about this whole thing The account is basically about LaymanPang and you hear a little bit about his wife and daughter His daughterused to defeat him all the time in dharma combat The three of them wouldsit around the kitchen table having dharma combat There are a couple ofkoans that appear in Koans of the Way of Reality that deal with that Hemade his living selling baskets and made enough money for food He wasbasically a wanderer He wandered from monastery to monastery Whenhe needed money hed sell a few baskets and buy some food He had noworldly possessions and if anything is cloud and water the description of amonk Layman Pang fits that description

So when you look at the history of lay practice in Mahayana Buddhismalthough we speak of it a lot essentially there isnt any The history of laypractice is being born in the West It never existed before And when youlook at whats happening in the West in terms of lay practice most laypractice centers are based on and built around the Zazenkai that is eveningsittings and periodic sesshins If theyre in a Rinzai lineage theres koanstudy and face-to-face teaching with the teacher If its Soto lineage theresnot even any kind of specific training other than zazen and theres no intentto transmit In the Rinzai lineage there is the intent to transmit Its possiblefor a lay practioner and there are examples of them to receivetransmission just like Basso and Layman Pang To date probably YamadaRoshi who was a modern lay practitioner before he died he wasdirector of a hospital and took over Yasutani Roshis Zazenkai hesprobably transmitted to ten lay practitioners and among them are severalpriests in the Catholic church What was transmitted was the lay lineagethat he received from Yasutani not a priestly lineage So theyre stillCatholic priests but theyre Zen masters One of the people he transmittedto was Aitken Roshi and Aitken Roshi by now probably has transmitted toabout seven people and is still teaching Koryu Roshi who is in ourlineage my dharma grandfather was a lay Zen master and he transmittedto four or five people one of them Maezumi Roshi

But the basic form has remained that kind of skimpy zazenkai periodicsitting and periodic sesshin and study with the teacher When we came intoexistence here the question came up how to deal with lay practice One ofthe things that needs to be considered when you look at lay practice is thetime element People have to travel to get here People have homeresponsibilities People have families a limited amount of money to doretreats and travel great distances Taking that into account you have achoice of diluting the training in other words make a training thats less thanyou would normally do in order to accommodate the people who cant domore and thats basically the form thats in existence or you can take themost rigorous and extensive training program that you can design andcreate methods for making it accessible to people who dont live close to themonastery or dont have the amount of time What you need to do in orderto do that is create support groups and methods and systems in order toconduct the training and of course the training is going to take a little bitlonger than if youre doing it full time every day If youre doing it part timeand away from a center and a teacher the amount of exposure to koanstudy and so on is less with less time available

What weve evolved here at Zen Mountain Monastery over the last thirteenyears is in its maturity now and is probably the most comprehensive laypractice program in existence anywhere And it has absolutely no precedentin history Theres nothing in history we can look at and say okay lets usethis form like we can in terms of monasticism for instance look at Yakujoand say lets use this form Its new its unique and its got an integritycompletely its own Its not based on anything other than its own integrity Those support systems that are specifically designed so that a laypractitioner can practice include things like training advisors trainingmanuals for the different stages of training The existence of the differentstages of training the different areas of training And keep in mind thatthose areas of training all of them with the exception of face-to-faceteaching can be conducted at home Its possible to continue ones traininga hundred different ways at home For example academic study Thestudent who takes a course in Buddhism at a local college is doingacademic study and thats included in their training record The studentwho is studying a martial art or other body practice through some kind ofsystematic training that goes into their training record A student who isstudying any of the traditional Zen arts away from the center thats included

in their training record You do the precepts at home you do liturgy athome you study at home you do zazen at home The only thing you cantdo at home is the face-to-face teaching and believe me were working onmethods of doing that

As the incredible communications media expands it may be possible to dodirect face-to-face teaching privately one to one When it happens welltake advantage of it Basso would have taken advantage of it if he had it He would have had video tapes and audio tapes Weve created the Societyof Mountains and Rivers sitting groups around the country so that wherevertheres a group of students theres usually a sitting group that allows them tocome together Weve set up non-resident student training retreatsspecifically designed for non-resident students Training in home practice isa regular thing that were doing every year now The eight gates trainingthe liturgy training body practice art practice workshops that go onconstantly There are twelve sesshins every year half of them areunrestricted In addition to the twelve there are six weekend sesshin tomake it available to people who can only come on weekends Theresresidential training available anywhere from a month to several years forpeople who want to intensify it for periods of time And a resident teacher We carry on an incredible correspondence 150 to 200 phone calls andletters every month that are directly practice related How do I do this What do I do when this comes up Does my left leg go on top of my rightleg And so on It takes four of us to handle this correspondence to saynothing of the training advisors and their interaction And of courseprobably the most important thing that weve done is created a corporationwhose major function it is to provide media support for people who live awayfrom the Monastery So books journals tapes videos whatever Wehave students in Israel New Zealand France California Montanta whocant get here People in prison Those media support items are of vitalimportance to them You wouldnt believe the impact is has on their livesand their practice

So theres no question that the history of Buddhism of Zen has given lipservice to lay practice And that for the first time in its 2500-year historyhere in the West there is beginning to emerge a real lay practice It doesntexist not really in Japan or China or Vietnam or Korea There what laypractitioners do is dana Thats not what we do Lay practitioners practice And most of whats going on in the West to date is not much more thansitting and working with a teacher No integrated or comprehensive programof training And also whats unique is that here at Zen Mountain Monasteryand the Society of Mountains and Rivers there are parallel ways ofreceiving the transmission There is going to be a lay transmission as soonas one of the lay practitioners does it and it corresponds almost identicallyto whats going on with the monk practitioners So we have lay shusos andthe next step after shuso is what Myotai already did called adept When thefirst lay practitioner accomplishes that they will do the same ceremony thatshe did and also receive the raksu as she did and have that recognition The next step after that which is something shell be doing soon is dharmaholder Dharma holder means having received the intent to transmitbasically having completed koan study except for the precepts Well bedoing that soon Having received the intent for dharma sanction is what alay practitioner would get and they would be a dharma holder Exactly thesame way The next step for a monk practitioner is to become a priest Thenext step for a lay practitioner is to become a dharma minister This allowsthem to do liturgical stuff that normally lay practioners dont do But some ofour lay practitioners are interested in doing it If theres a certification by arecognized religious group this would be recognized by for exampleprisons and hospitals and so on So that a lay practitioner who hasreceived that training can minister along liturgical lines as well as a monk Its different what they do and how they do it but each has an integrity of itsown Theyre co-dependent theyre interrelated And finally thetransmission itself Dharma transmission will go to monks and will go to laypractitioners Theyll each become teachers in their own right Lay studentswho have received the transmission will eventually head centers Theyll bethe spiritual directors of centers

And I say all of this to encourage those of you who are lay practitioners to doit Theres the same route available whether your track is the Buddhist trackor the clerical track the same kinds of possibilities exist The difference isthat the lay practitioners life takes place in the world and is doing all of thiswith world responsibilities and the monk practitioners life takes place in themonastery with the responsibilities of the monastery

One of the things that this is all based on the relationship between monk andlay practice and Ive talked about it a hundred times Its a dynamicrelationship and its the same kind of relationship that exists with anyduality Its based on the five ranks of Master Tozan One of these dayswell do a book on that Its a dynamic interaction just like the interactionbetween any of the dualities Its based on the four dharmadhatus of Hua-yen philosophy Its image is the diamond net of Indra Its a co-dependentmutual causality co-origination dynamic One is dependent upon the other

This didnt exist at the time of Pang Pang was unique in history held inincredibly high regard by all of the places that he visited His biography waswritten by a government official who was responsible for the deaths ofhundred of monks I remember back in the old days when I was a laypractitioner I was very anti-monk I caused all kinds of difficulties for themonks at the place where I was practicing I was very proud of my whiterobe and my beard and my long hair I challenged everything that themonks did And if anything that they did was different than what the laypeople did Id complain and have it changed I used my power as vicepresident of the organization to get these things done I wanted to basicallydestroy monk practice

Well this guy was worse He just ordered them killed He paid a bounty onbald heads He was a lot worse than I was And hes the one who wroteLayman Pangs biography which is kind of incredible He came torealization under another Zen master and then became a student of LaymanPang and was so taken by him of course he stopped killing monks Hebecame a Buddhist disciple and supported Buddhism until his death Andone of the major things hes done for the history of Zen is to write thebiography of this eminent layman

When Pang called on Matsu he asked Matsu What person doesnt keepcompany with the myriad things In other words is there anyone who isnot at unity with the ten thousans things Matsu (Basso in Japanese) saidWait until you can swallow all of the water in the West river in one gulpthen Ill tell you At that point the account here says the layman emptiedout in great enlightenment and he made up the verse saying

The ten directions are common gathering Everyone studiesnot doing This is the place where buddhas are chosen Minds empty they return successfully

Then later after studying for a couple of years with Basso and receiving histransmission he went to visit Yakusan Yakusan held him in very highesteem When he was getting ready to take his leave after his long staythere he had ten of his monks accompany him out to the main gate as agesture of his importance As they were walking out the gate and of courseat this point Pang is definitely a teacher and here he has these ten monks intow and its reminiscent of Vimalakirti playing with the monks that theBuddha sent when he was sick ldquoGo to Virmalakirtis house and see howhes doingrdquo Vimalakirti just played with them The whole sutra is thatplaying with of course the dharma coming out Pang does the same thingTheyre walking and the snow is falling and Pang points to the snow andsays ldquoBeautiful snowflakes They dont fall in any other placerdquo One of themonks says to him ldquoWhere do they fallrdquo Pang immediately turned and hithim The monk says ldquoEven a layman shouldnt be so coarserdquo Pang hit himagain When he hit him the second time the layman said ldquoThough you callyourself a Zen practioner this way the king of death wont let you gordquo

In other words his answer reveals his question reveals that he has nosense of what Pang was talking about when he said ldquoBeautiful snowflakesfall no place but hererdquo Where do they fall Where are they falling here He doesnt see it Snowflakes are falling So Pang hits him And themonk says ldquoEven a layman shouldnt be so coarserdquo Pang hits him againand says ldquoThough you call yourself a Zen traveler this way the king ofdeath still wont let you gordquo This monk was a trained monk and he wasused to dharma combat and he knew Layman Pang and probablyencountered him many times in the monastery came right back at him heturned the spear around and poked it at the layman and said ldquoHow aboutyourdquo Again Pang slapped him and said ldquoYour eyes see like a blind manyou mouth speaks like a muterdquo

The footnote calls this a conciliatory statement the reading of the verdict byhim Setcho said when Pang first spoke I just would have made a snowball

and hit him with it What does he mean ldquoBeautiful snowflakes they fallnowhere elserdquo Is it snowing on the other mountain or is just snowinghere Is snowing in Woodstock or is just snowing here What does itmean ldquoThey fall nowhere else but hererdquo And what does the monk meanwhen he says ldquoThen where do they fallrdquo So when he said this it is not thesame question When he asked this it wasnt that he did not understandwhat Pang was getting at but the problem was that rolling out and rolling inwere not in accord There was a statement here in the pointer ldquoWhenknocking and resounding occur together it is like the silver mountain aniron wallrdquo In other words it fills the whole universe Knocking andresounding the echo when you call or when the national teacher callsldquoAttendantrdquo ldquoYes Masterrdquo ldquoAttendantrdquo ldquoYes Masterrdquo ldquoAttendantrdquo ldquoYesMasterrdquo ldquoAttendantrdquo ldquoYes Masterrdquo all along the Master said I thought Ihad my back turned to you now it is you who has your back turned to meapproving When Mahakayashyapa said ldquoAnandardquo and said ldquoYesMasterrdquo it was the same thing knocking and resounding occuring togetherSo what is the sound (Hello) and the echo (hello) One reality Thatreality fills the whole universe Rolling up and rolling out are not the same Rolling out is also expressed as lifting up and pushing down letting go andholding back one is an expression of phenomena and differentiation in theworld and the other is the expression of unity the absolute oneness Letting go the world Holding back the absolute And if the disciple isgoing to be in accord with that it should be in relationship to each other Itis like a beautiful dance That is when they are in accord That is the silvermountain an iron wall It is impenetrable it reaches everywhere So whathe ended up doing was falling into this trap of the layman ldquoThe king ofdeath will never let you gordquo Not being free of life and death And not beingfree of life and death you are sticking everywhere in all the dualities If youhave resolved the dualities if you can see Vimalakirtis non-dual dharmayou see it in all One corner is experienced all four corners are revealed What about the Layman Where was he sticking Again he hit him ldquoYoureyes see like a blind man Your mouth speaks like a muterdquo After he hithim he had he grandmotherly compassion to explain the reason that he hithim Where is the monk sticking What is the point of this koan What isthat Layman Pang is trying to reveal Feel Zen mountains all taken by thesnow nothing remains Is this the point of layman Pang or is this the pointof the monk Or perhaps it is neither Which is it How would yourespond Ill tell you ahead of time throwing snowballs will not reach it ItsOk for Setcho So how do you respond to Layman Pangrsquos beautifulsnowflakes they fall no place but here To ignore it doesnt do it to throwSetchos snowball doesnt do it where do they fall obviously didnt do it Sohow do you respond Remember the pointer ldquoIf you describe and discussyou see ghosts in front of your skull If you seek it in thought you sit beneathblack mountain The bright shining sun lights up the sky the purewhispering wind circles the earthrdquo Why does Setcho say in his verse ldquoAllPangs ability cannot grasp it Gods and humans do not know it forthemselves In eyes and ears abolutely clean not a speck of defilementabsolutely cleanrdquo He says it a second time And Engo says ldquothe arrowpoints meetrdquo Absolutely clean ldquoHowrdquo The commentary says Wherewould you see Layman Pang and Setcho Then ldquoEven the blue-eyedBarbarian monk Bodhidharma would find it hard to discriminaterdquo In thiscleanliness in this purity Thats the dharma the virtue of purity spotlessimpeccable Why It fills the whole universe there are no edges there isnothing outside it there is no place to stand to observe it so there is noplace to see it to know it There is no place to put this gigantic body

[Part II side I]

So with all of yesterdays discussion out of the way we are ready to chewup this koan And chewing up a koan is the only way to work on a koan There are many superficial ways of working with a koan you can just dealwith some key point and zip on through but a single koan is so rich and hasso many layers and facets to it that is like nibbling at a full course mealingrather than sitting down and enjoying it and consuming it And I underlineenjoying it because that is part of what makes it work Each one of thesekoans has a lot of zen history as part of it it also deals with the key points ofthe dharma This particular koan also deals with the depth and clarity of thepractitioner that is involved in this dialogue Recently with the availability ofEnglish translations of some of the major collections modern Zenpractitioners have a storehouse of information available that I didnt havewhen I was working on this case There was nothing available in Englishexcept an in-house translation that had been mimeographed originally There was no extra information at all But in addition to the main casewhich is the most important part of the koan the Blue Cliff Record MasterEngo has added a pointer to it Basically what he is doing in the pointer is

telling you about the koan Its like a prologue to a book which prepares youfor the book Each koan has a pointer And then the main case has almostline by line footnotes And the footnotes come from master Engo who is inthe same lineage as Secho who collected the koans Its like having anadept at your side whispering into your ear on every line Then there is alsoa verse written by the collector of the koans Setcho In the verse he is alsotelling you about what is going on in the main case This is the guy whoselected the koans in the first place and he is telling you what he thinks ismost important Then there are footnotes on the verse added by Engo Again the adept giving you one-liners to help make it clear Then if thatwerent enough he has also added a commentary a discourse on the maincase and a discourse on the verse And to that I add my bucket of Zensewage and that is the problem why there are so many Zen practitionersand successors everybody is trying to confuse you The fact is the truth ofthe koan is something that only you yourself can realize It cannot be told toyou It cannot be explained to you It can be explained but what you haveis a concept of the koan an idea of what the koan is aboutintellectualization of the koan And if you want that you can get threecredits for a course on koans but that is not going to transform your life inany way or transform your way of perceiving yourself and the universe Theonly way to do that is to chew it up and make it your own One of the waysof chewing it up and making it your own is really put yourself into it beintimate with it see it feel it be it What was it like at that time in China What was Yakuzanrsquos relationship to Pang and to Basso You learn a littlebit about the teachers and their different styles All these teachers werevery very different Some were eloquent and their words were enough toilluminate the student - teachers like Ummon and Joshu They never usedto hit or shout Rinzai on the other hand was very powerful and used theshout and the hit to make a point Other teachers used poetry othersgestures You will find what we call family style in different schools Usuallyit went back to the very thing that had awakened the master when he was astudent

So in this particular case Pang you already know about his history that hefirst went to Sekito Ino the sixth ancestor was a layman also He was alayman when he became enlightened he was a layman when he receivedthe transmission from the fifth ancestor who told him to stay in hiding forsixteen years because the fifth ancestor was afraid he would be killed Hewas illiterate had no education he was not even a Buddhist and hebecame the sixth ancestor of Buddhism and a pivotal key figure inBuddhism Later he became enlightened and started teaching He hadthree major successors One was Seigen and Nagaku Nagaku was theteacher of the great master Basso and Seigen was the teacher of the greatmaster Sekito Sekito was the root of both the Soto and the Rinzai lines And Layman Pang studied with Sekito

When with Sekito he said to him What person does not keep companywith the myriad things In other words Who is independant of the tenthousand things of all the Dharmas Now while he was still saying thiswhile he was talking Sekito covered up his mouth and stopped him Thatgesture caused an awakening in Pang He wrote a verse

My everyday affairs are no different only I myself naturallyharmonize no place is grasped or rejected nowhere do Igo for or against who considers crimson and purplehonorable The green mountains have not a speck of dust Spiritual powers and their wonderous functioning carryingwater chopping firewood

Crimson and purple were the colors of robes worn by royalty He rejectedthat Everyday affairs were his dharma He stayed with Sekito a while andthen went to Basso in the other lineage And again he asked the samequestion What person does not keep company with the myriad things Basso says Wait until you can swallow all the water in the West river inone gulp then I will tell you The layman experienced again anenlightenment experience And again he made up a verse and the versesaid

The ten directions a common gathering everyone studiesnot doing This is the place were Buddhas are chosen Minds empty they return successful

He visited monasteries all over China and eventually ended up visiting

Yakuzan a successor of Sekito the person that he first experiencedenlightenment with

Yakusan was a successor of Sekito the person Pang first experiencedenlightenment with And when he was getting ready to leave Yakusan whothought very highly of Pang ordered ten of his monks to accompany Pangto the gate Now you can bet your life that it wasnrsquot an arbitrary choice andthat Zenkaku the monk that asked the question didnrsquot just happen to beone of the monks that went along There was a good reason that Yakusansent who he sent And the footnotes that Engo adds to this help clarify a lotof whatrsquos going on Let me take it line by line for you When Layman Pangtook leave of Yakusan - and the footnote says This old fellow is actingstrange Taking leave of Yakusan - why is that strange Why would it bestrange taking leave Where would he go Yakusan ordered ten of hismonks to escort him to the gate And the footnote says Yakusan does nottake him lightly What realm is this - that he sent ten monks to escort himto the gate Only a patched-robed monk who knows the whole thing couldgive Pang this treatment What treatment He asked ten people to escorthim to the gate What was the treatment So obviously something is goingon Right off you know something is going on This is not a casual - Letrsquossay goodbye to the guests Therersquos dharma unfolding here dharma dramaunfolding

While theyrsquore walking out to the gate it happened to be snowing So anygood teacher worth their salt is going to take advantage of whateversituation they can Irsquom sure Yakusan knew he knew that Pang was going topull something and he knew that one of these monks Zenkaku probablywas the kind of guy that was going to challenge it and that all these nineother monks should witness this It would be good for their practice Andso Pang sees the snowflakes and he stops and they all stop and look atthem Now this is somebody that their teacher thinks very highly of sohighly that they were sent to escort him to the gate This is an importantteacher And this is somebody that had studied with their dharmagrandfather and was enlightened under their dharma grandfather And notonly that he was enlightened under that great master Basso from the otherlineage and carries the transmission documents of Basso Irsquom sure they allknew this So you see the plot begins to thicken as you know all of thesefacts Itrsquos a very exciting thing a koan

So he points and he says ldquoBeautiful snowflakes They donrsquot fall in anyother placerdquo And the footnote to that says He stirs up waves where therersquosno wind Of course what that means is everything is perfect and completewhere it is but what teachers do is they create complications Thatrsquos part oftheir job creating complications So we call it gouging out healthy flesh orstirring up waves where therersquos no wind Creating problems where therearenrsquot any problems Then it goes on to say The finger he points with haseyes In other words this is a the finger that hersquos pointing with is anenlightened finger Itrsquos not a casual pointing That is itrsquos a dharma pointing And then he goes on to say Therersquos an echo in this old fellowrsquos words Inother words therersquos something thatrsquos going to reverberate when he openshis mouth and says something Itrsquos not over It doesnrsquot just fall flat ordissolve into the woodwork It echoes bounces back and forth again andagain Well itrsquos been echoing for over a thousand years It comes rightdown to us here in America I mean Pang didnrsquot know we existed at histime Itrsquos still echoing and will echo for generations to come

Then the next line - so ldquoBeautiful snowflakes They donrsquot fall in any otherplacerdquo At this time one of the monks by the name of Zenkaku said ldquoWheredo they fallrdquo Now there are a couple of ways to ask that question ldquoWhere do they fallrdquo or ldquoBeautiful snowflakes They donrsquot fall anywhereelserdquo ldquoWhere do they fallrdquo ldquoThey donrsquot fall anywhere elserdquo ldquoWhere dothey fallrdquo Or ldquoWhere do they fallrdquo I think theyrsquore written the same waythose two things wouldnrsquot they be Just those words with a question markright Therersquos no other way to know it But therersquos a big difference betweenldquoWhere do they fallrdquo and ldquoWhere do they fallrdquo Itrsquos kind of - it can be takena number of ways If Pang started explaining it would be shame on Pang If Pang said ldquoThey fall hererdquo or ldquoThis is where they fallrdquo he would have lostit It would have been the end of it And what the footnote says on that ndashldquoWhere do they fallrdquo The footnote says On target He comes on followingafter Pang Of course he climbed onto Pangrsquos hook is what it says Imean whenever yoursquore going to teach you gotta put your head out there You know You always in order to even start teaching opening your mouthand creating waves where there is no wind you always run the risk ofdealing with an adept and immediately having your head chopped off Like

Pang when he was with Sekito Is there any person that does not(missing in turning over the tape) And he says before that Bringing it outunique and alone Therersquos no one else on the face of the earth and youbring it out itrsquos still dripping with water dragging through the mud Therersquosno way to avoid it The minute you bring it out itrsquos covered with mud Itrsquosdefiled Thatrsquos what Layman Pang did when he brought it out Thatrsquos whatBuddha did when he brought it out Master Keizan said ldquoFrom beneaththree feet of snow a single plum branch extendsrdquo That single plum branchis the Buddharsquos enlightenment In time itrsquos covered with brambles Thebrambles are the teachings We transmit brambles from generation togeneration Therersquos no way to avoid it To teach is to create brambles Butyou need to understand that if you realize it from those brambles the plumblossum lives and continues generation after generation

When knocking and resounding occur together nothing could be morebeautiful than knocking and resounding I talked about that yesterday Orcalling and answering ldquoAnandardquo ldquoYes masterrdquo The sound and the echoone reality one source one thing And what he says ndash ldquoWhen knocking andresounding occur together itrsquos still like a silver mountain and an iron wallrdquo How is it a silver mountain and an iron wall This is where you eventuallyneed to get to with this koan Itrsquos wonderful ldquoBeautiful snowflakes They fallno place but hererdquo But we need to understand that thatrsquos only half of it Whatrsquos the other half And when you realize the other half know thatneither completely embrace the whole truth

So when he hit him what he was showing him is the whole universe comesdown to just this It wasnrsquot a punishment He was showing him something It wasnrsquot ldquoOh you bad monk Donrsquot you know betterrdquo He was revealingsomething Therersquos a kind of hit that is a punishment and therersquos a kind ofhit thatrsquos a teaching And therersquos a kind of hit thatrsquos both Clearly the monkdidnrsquot get it by his answer The Layman tried explaining it The monkbacked off a little bit and said ldquoHow about yourdquo He had to hit him again He had to respond to the imperative He had to show - how else could heshow him ldquoHow about yourdquo How else could he show him about intimacy You could explain it You can go on explaining it forever But as Irsquove said ahundred times we mix up the words and ideas that describe reality with thereality itself We think because we can name something wersquove got it Theword is an abstraction of something The word ldquoshoutrdquo is an abstraction of areality ldquoHuuuuhrdquo is the reality Therersquos a big difference when you sayldquoshoutrdquo and when you experience ldquoshoutrdquo You donrsquot need to translate theexperience Everybody understands it - dogs cats people But the word isa different thing It creates all kinds of mental images that are different fordifferent people

Thatrsquos what Pang was trying to show him that intimacy whole body andmind intimacy And no matter how much we explain itrsquos still always anexplanation and yoursquove got to take it that extra step Yoursquove got toexperience it for yourself So I say ldquoBe Murdquo and you say ldquoWhat does itmean to be Murdquo And I say ldquoEvery thought is Mu every breath is Mu everyaction is Mu Mu sits Mu walks Mu talks Mu drinks Mu sleeps Mu works Mu fills the whole universe Self is forgotten Just Murdquo And still you lookfor a meaning Whatrsquos the meaning of Mu Whatrsquos the meaning ofmeaning It has no meaning whatsoever Just be it

Yoursquove got to give something up to be it Yoursquove got to give up your ideasabout what it is Yoursquove got to give up yourself Yoursquove got to in fact forgetthe self to do it Through the 2500 years of the evolution of this incredibledharma every conceivable skillful means that could be used has been usedAll for one purpose - to get us to realize that which is there thatrsquos alwaysbeen there - that intimacy Theyrsquove used shouts and sticks and holding upflowers and locking legs in a door and throwing somebody off a bridge andholding them underwater and explaining and analysis and computation anditrsquos all for one purpose all the upaya All the liturgy the Precepts the sittingthe face-to-face teaching the work practice the art practice the bodypractice lay practice monk practice - all of it one purpose and one purposeonly - to realize where it all comes home

In the verse he says ldquoThe snowball hits The snowball hits Old Pangrsquosability cannot grasp itrdquo Of course it canrsquot be grasped Yoursquove got to beseparate from it to grasp it There needs to be two things the grasper andthe thing thatrsquos grasped How could he possibly grasp it The next linesays ldquoGods and humans do not know it for themselvesrdquo Canrsquot know it Therersquos no place to stand to separate yourself in order to know it To know ityou need a knower and the thing that the knower knows This incredible

dharma is not about knowing understanding believing Itrsquos about intimacyrealizing ldquoIn the eyes in the ears absolutely cleanrdquo Spotless Thatrsquos thedharma The dharma is the virtue of purity Why do we call it the virtue ofpurity It means that the dharma is the entire universe Therersquos nothingoutside of it Impurity is something that doesnrsquot belong It all belongs Therersquos not a speck of dust not an atom not a molecule thatrsquos outside ofthis gigantic body that Layman Pang was pointing to when he pointed to thatsnowflake And just in case we didnrsquot hear it he says it again ldquoAbsolutelyclean Even the blue-eyed barbarian monk Bodhidharma would find it hardto discriminaterdquo I would say ldquoWould find it impossible to discriminaterdquo There is no separation No matter how hard we try to live our lives as if wewere separated from everybody else the fact is there is no separation

And Ummon said ldquoWhen you donrsquot see a single form you shouldunderstand this is half the issuerdquo Thatrsquos what I was saying about this koanRealize it Realize it completely Realize Mu Realize it completely Andthen understand thatrsquos only part of it Therersquos more So throw it away andkeep going And ultimately yoursquoll get to that place that all of the buddhasand ancestors speak of - annutara samyak sambhodi And when you getthere thow that away and keep going This dharma is endless Therersquos noplace that it stops

So what you need to look at in this koan is how would you be an activeparticipant Put yourself in the place of Zenkaku There you are walkingold Layman Pang out of Yakusanrsquos monastery He points to the snowflakesand says ldquoBeautiful snowflakes They fall no place but hererdquo What do yousay What do you do Letrsquos say you were stupid enough to say whatZenkaku said ldquoWhere do they fallrdquo and Layman Pang hit you How do yourespond Letrsquos say you were dumb enough to ask the question a secondtime and he hit you a second time Again how would you respond Whathave you got to say about Setcho and his comment ldquoI would have hit himwith a snowballrdquo What ultimately is the point of the whole thing What is hesaying Why did Setcho include this as a koan Why do we include it as akoan

What is it that I would love for you to see when you see this koan What isthe other half and what is the whole thing that comes together On oneside the absolute and on the other side the relative What is it where thetwo arrow points meet

If you can see the bright sun shining on the snow if you can feel the icywind blowing across the face of the earth then what more can be said What more can anyone add Layman Pang Dogen says ldquoThree feet ofsnow over the whole universerdquo Nothing remains Thatrsquos the intimacy of thiskoan See that intimacy Make it your own Then throw it away and keepgoing Ultimately every single thing you do in this practice has to resolveitself into the moment to moment reality of your life Everything you doevery breath you take every action you make

Its an incredible gift to have the opportunity to practice this dharma to evenknow that it exists Millions upon millions of humans have gone from cradleto grave without ever even knowing that itrsquos possible to put an end tosuffering that itrsquos possible to manifest their life in a way thatrsquos in harmonywith things that nourishes rather than poisons The fact that we have theopportunity to realize that - we shouldnrsquot take it lightly We should accept itwith gratitude and practice it with the whole body and mind And repay theefforts of all the buddhas and ancestors that have preceded us by giving lifeto the buddha And you do that by making it your own