GOLDEN WIND
[a provisional title of an originally untitled teisho]
John Tarrant Roshi
January 10, 1993
Oakland, California


I'm going to begin today with one of the jewels of our tradition,

an old koan from China spoken by a teacher called Yun-men

(Jap. Unmon).

     A student of the way asked Yun-men:  How is it when the tree

     withers and the leaves fall?



     Yun-men said:  The golden wind is manifesting itself.



Please sit comfortably.




The golden wind is the poetic expression, locution  for autumn in

the old Chinese culture.  Cleary, actually, has a very

interesting, tough translation of this he says, "Body exposed in

the golden wind."  It's very much that sense of vulnerability and

ruin about his translation.



The student is coming out with, I think, one of the classic

questions touching on the way everything changes in life.  As

soon as we think we've got something settled, something else

changes.  As a child I noticed this, when I noticed as soon as I

did the dishes, they got dirty again.  But there are other losses

as well that are even worse than having to do the dishes again.

We notice that our whole lives we're actually immersed in these

losses and these changes.  As we get wiser and cleverer, this

immersion still remains constant so that it is the thing that

doesn't change.  Shakyamuni noticed this and, in fact, the

discovery of this was a wonderful release for him when he

realized.  He let go and realized that life is suffering and that

was the First Noble Truth.



The student in this case when he says, "The leaves wither."

There is also that sense of somebody who has already come onto

the way.  He knows that when you orient yourself, there is a kind

of stripping away that happens often in a spiritual path.  There

are things that we cared about we know are no longer so

important, really.  Or, maybe we wish they were so important

somehow.  We lose some of the things that gave us meaning when we

start pointing ourselves in a spiritual direction.  Then we are

in a darkness because when you get rid of the things you are

hanging onto, something true doesn't always automatically appear.

There's an intervening period of confusion and bewilderment,

familiar and beloved.  Familiar to and beloved by all of us.  I

think this student is talking about that kind of state.  I think

we all know that place.



Before I go on to say more about that I want to tell a couple of

stories about the Yun-men.  Yun-men was a very notable figure.

(R. H. Blyth, Aitken Roshi always refers to him as Mr. Blyth, who

actually we owe our doing zazen in some ways to him because he

taught Aitken Roshi about zen and poetry in prison camp in Japan

during the war.  All the trouble came from that. He thought of

Yun-men as being one of those great figures like Shakespeare or

Goethe in the West, an Eastern version of that only with an

enlightened eye.)  He was a very notable person and he always

seemed gifted.  As many of you know, the moment he was

enlightened was rather odd because he broke his leg and screamed

in pain when somebody slammed a heavy iron gate on his leg.  At

that moment he became enlightened.  His teacher threw him out,

actually, of an interview and he didn't get his leg out in time

and the door slammed.  So he always walked with a bit of a limp.

He was one of those people who was in some way marked, I think,

always.



He eventually found his teacher, but he didn't inherit his

teacher's temple.  He inherited somebody else's temple, which was

quite a common thing.  He inherited the temple of a teacher

called Ling-shu (sp???).  For twenty years Ling-shu didn't have a

head of his own temple.  He would say things like, "The head of

the temple was born today."  Then he'd say, "The head of the

temple is looking after the oxen in the fields today."  Things

like that.  "The head of the temple is playing Nintendo in the

Round Table Pizza Parlor today."  He would go on like that for

twenty years and his students got to figure this was some sort of

elaborate joke or something or another.  But then he would say

things like, "The head of the temple is sitting zazen today."

And he would go on like that.  Then one day he said, "You must

strike the big temple bell and announce that the head of the

temple will be arriving today."  Everybody after twenty years was

rather dubious, of course.  But along came Yun-men limping along.

He wasn't asked any questions.  He was immediately shown into the

quarters of the head of the temple.  So he had that sort of

graced quality about him.  The person whose temple he inherited

had just been waiting for him to come and died soon after,

voluntarily, actually, just gave up the ghost.



One thing I get from this is that you don't know what might be
coming down the road toward you always.  Ling-shu did know that
Yun-men was coming toward him, but you don't always.  When we
want something, it's typical for us to doubt our capacity.
People always want something to do with wisdom or love or work or
something like that.  When we don't have something we want,
there's a voice in almost everybody's head, I think, that goes,
"Well, it's not right," and you're not meant to do it, and you're
screwed up anyway.  Another voice we know and love.  But I think
this story says, don't listen to that voice.  You may unawares be
walking toward your temple.  Or something may be coming toward
you that you don't understand properly.  What you have to do is
work on your wisdom.  Prepare your heart, your inner life for
what may arrive.  That is always our task.  If you're ever in
doubt about what your task is, that is your task.  Life is
simple.



After he broke his leg, his teacher was getting a bit old, he was
getting to be about one hundred years old, he got too old to be
braking people's legs any more, so he sent Yun-men off to Hsueh-
feng, who was very different in style.  He used humor a lot and
didn't break anybody's leg.  Hsueh-feng's story was completely
different.  He was the person who was not marked out as anything
special.  He was the person who was marked out as being rather
dumber than everybody else.  So he makes a wonderful contrast.  I
think all of us can identify, perhaps, with both these people
because there are ways in which we've been enormously graced
because we have been loved, we are alive, and we've found the
dharma.  And to find the dharma in itself is just an enormous
gift, the incomparable gift dwarfing all others.  Yet there are
ways in which we surely feel stupid if we have any integrity and
sincerity at all, we surely felt very foolish a lot of the time,
rather like made of dense material that's difficult for light to
penetrate. 



Hsueh-feng was exactly that sort of person.  He had a buddy
called Yen-t'ou.  They were famous friends.  Yen-t'ou was
actually younger.  Hsueh-feng was sort of getting along.  Yen-
t'ou was younger, but Yen-t'ou was really smart and quick and was
running rings around Hsueh-feng and everybody else in the temple.
But Yen-t'ou's great contribution was actually to help Hsueh-feng
along.  Hsueh-feng became the great master.  They were good
friends and when they were released from the temple at various
times to go out into the world and do whatever they wanted, they
were on pilgrimage together.  They came to a village called
Tortoise Mountain, a familiar story to some of you.  It was just
nowhere, really, some little place in the Sierras, and they got
snowed in this little hut.  Day after day Hsueh-feng would sit
and do zazen very earnestly and Yen-t'ou, his friend, would
sleep.  So they had this perfect relationship really.  Yen-t'ou
slept and every now and again he would wake up and see his friend
sitting very hard, meditating.  He'd open an eye and then he'd go
back to sleep again and snooze the time through. 



Then he sat up and said, "Won't you get some sleep?  Every day

you're sitting on the meditation cushion.  You just look like a

clay buddha.  What's wrong with you?"  He was getting his

attention that way. 



Hsueh-feng said, "Well, I don't dare deceive myself.  I am not
yet at peace."  So you can see that although he feels stupid and
let's face it he is stupid in his own estimation, he has an
integrity and a sincerity about him that makes you already like
him.  He says, "I can't fool myself.  I'm not at peace and
because I'm not at peace, I must do something about it.  The only
thing I know to do is meditate.  Maybe it doesn't even work, but
I can't think of anything else to do.  What choice do I have?"
He was in that place.  So already all of the leaves have fallen
for him.  You have this tree with bare twigs and nothing green
has shot out, although we don't know.  Maybe the sap is moving
below.



His friend says, "Well, that's hard to believe.  You've been
around the scene a long time." 



And he says, "Well, it's true." 



His friend says, "Well, if you like . . ."  So he asks
permission.  This is always very important if we're going to help
a friend, to ask permission, I think.  Friends don't always want
to be helped.  So he says, "If you like, you can bring your views
forth one by one and where they're correct I'll approve them for
you, and where their not I'll prove them away."  Yen-t'ou was
always very confident.



Hsueh-feng said things like, "First of all, I saw my first
teacher, Yen-kuan (sp???), up in the hall and he brought up the
meaning of form and void, emptiness and somethingness and
suddenly I gained an understanding.



Yen-t'ou said, "Don't mention this for thirty more years."



Then again he said, "When I saw Tung-shan's (sp???) verse about
crossing the river, (The teacher, Tung-shan, saw his reflection
in the river and was enlightened.) I had an insight then."



Yen-t'ou said, "If you go on like this, you won't be able to save
yourself at all." 



Feng went on.  "Later when I got to Te-shan, I asked, `Do I have
part in the affair of the vehicle of the most ancient school, or
not?'"  Do I have a part in the great matter, or not?  The affair
of the most ancient school, the eternal school, or not?  "And Te-
shan hit me with his staff and said, `What are you saying?'  At
that time it was like the bottom of a bucket dropping out for
me."



Yen-t'ou thereupon shouted.  Yen-t'ou was famous for his shout.
He said, "When I die, I will go with a great shout."  When he
died, in fact, his shout was heard for miles and miles around.
People knew he had gone.  So he shouted, but they were  in this
tiny little hut.  They don't say anything about how deaf Hsueh-
feng was afterwards, but he said, "Haven't you heard it said that
what comes in through the gate is not the family treasure."



Hsueh-feng said, "What should I do?



Yen-t'ou said, "In future, if you want to propagate the great
teaching let each point flow out from your own breast to come out
and cover heaven and earth." 



At these words Hsueh-feng was greatly enlightened and he bowed
down crying out again and again, "Today Tortoise Mountain has
finally achieved the way.  Today Tortoise Mountain has finally
achieved the way."  So even the mountain and the village and the
hut got enlightened.  It has nothing to do with the man there.



Later he wrote a poem.  He went and lived as a hermit for awhile
before he became a famous teacher, he taught Yun-men, and said:

     Human life is so hectic and hurried.
     It is just a brief instant.
     How can you live for a long time in that fleeting world?
     At first I emerged from the mountains and now I return home.
     It's no use bringing up the faults of others.
     Our own mistakes must be cleared away continually.
     I humbly report to the nobles who fill the court;
     The king of death has no awe of the golden emblems of rank
          that you wear.



He later became known for his humor and, I think, there's a sort
of generosity and largeness of spirit about Hsueh-feng that
anything you read about him will indicate.  This came from his
sincerity and his patience in the way.  He was known as the
person who was sincere and patient.  He wasn't naturally
brilliant.  And yet his student, of course, was one of the great
naturally brilliant people, Yun-men.



Please bear this in mind.  If you're not like Yun-men, be like
Hsueh-feng.  I think Yamada Roshi felt rather like this.  He was
roommates, as a very young man, with Soen Nakagawa Roshi.  Soen
Roshi went off to sit on Daibasatsu (sp???) Mountain and get
enlightened as a very young man, and Yamada Roshi went off to
make money in the world.  Later on they came back, sort of full
circle, and both became zen masters.   He had trained with a
number of very good teachers and had had various enlightenment
experiences, but it wasn't enough.  He was like Hsueh-feng.  For
many years he would go to dokusan time after time, hours out of
his way, really to get rid of all of his doubts because getting
rid of a few doubts isn't enough.  He was old by the time he got
enlightened and he didn't teach for very long, by the time he
became fully enlightened he didn't teach for very long.  But all
that gathering of effort and all those years meant that then
there was this strong burst when he did teach.



One of the things I'm saying here is if you do the work sincerely
from the inside, that is really all you need to worry about.  The
world will take care of itself.  It will give you its gifts in
whatever ways it chooses in terms of your career path and love
and all those things.  But all that is really the material of
wisdom and the material of your own transformation into somebody
who herself or himself can offer the way.  Can have compassion on
others.  The vow we all take every time we chant the great vows
is to enlighten other beings.  It's very important and very
precious.



The I Ching talks about obstacles.  In fact, there's a hexagram
of obstruction, (instruction I said.  That's a great slip.) the
hexagram obstruction which is Number 39.

     It pictures a dangerous abyss lying before and a steep
     inaccessible mountain behind.  (An abyss before and a cliff
     behind.  A perfect zen situation.)



     The image is water on the mountain.  (The image of
     obstruction.)  Thus the superior person turns her attention
     to herself and molds her own character.



     The comment



     (This comment was cooked up by the translator in combination
     with a very early twentieth century Chinese master of this
     book.)



     Difficulties and obstructions throw a person back on
     herself.  While the inferior person seeks to put blame on
     others bewailing fate, the superior person seeks the error
     within and through this introspection the external obstacle
     becomes an occasion for inner enrichment and education.





But you see it is the same thing that is being said here.  "You
must come out from your own breast and cover heaven and earth,"
is what Yen-t'ou said to Hsueh-feng.



Whenever we're sitting and whenever in life we feel like we
really are unhappy, if we begin to attend, we'll notice that that
action itself begins to bring us home.  The strangest thing about
the way is that turning toward the way brings us home, brings us,
really, to the end of the way.  It really doesn't matter where
you are when you turn home.  It is that turning itself has this
marvelous value.  So if you are unhappy and you begin to attend,
suddenly you will find that your unhappiness has started to
transform and open, become more spacious and cloudy, and you can
find your way around in it.  This is true for the most acute and
persistent kinds of unhappiness.  It is just your obstruction
that in some way you must bless with your attention for it to
transform. 



It is said in zen that you must keep your attention even if you
are alone in a dark room when nobody can see you, because you can
see you.  That is the most important one.  It really doesn't
matter what your teacher thinks of you or your friends think of
you.  It's nice if they think well of you, but is not the crucial
thing.  The crucial thing is to go into your own heart and make
the practice truly and deeply and utterly your own.  Then, you
see, sitting zazen is not an effort.  It is just a sort of
natural flow of things.  It's not something separate from your
ordinary life.  Whether you are eating or drinking, that is all
zazen.  Even if you're nodding off, that is all zazen.


I think one of the things that increases for us as we go on in
time and gathers is our integrity.  So we really do become less
interested in impressing other people and we do become more
interested in what is the true path for ourselves.  Our integrity
even makes us uncomfortable sometimes.  The more delusion you
have the more unhappy you and that is your integrity that is
making you unhappy.  So you follow that and trust that, and you
immerse yourself even in that unhappiness, that discontent.  That
is called raising the doubt, the massive doubt in traditional
zen.  You immerse yourself in the discontent you have because you
know you are not yet fully present.  You know that you have gifts
that you can give to the world, but you are not yet quite able to
give, and that is a sorrow.  I think, perhaps, one of the
greatest sorrows is not to be able to give back to the world as
well as we would love to.  And I think that is true for all of
us.  So we immerse ourselves even in that sorrow and then we find
it begins to open.  When we turn home, we find home is here.
Over and over again we must turn home, turn home, turn home.
Just like that.



When we do that, we'll find that we can take joy in what is
already here.  Just coming to dokusan and saying, "I really don't
have a clue," is in itself turning home and is a great gift.  To
be able to do that, I discovered, was a wonderful thing.  I would
come into my teacher and say, "I just don't know," and that was
perfectly all right with him.  He would just ring his bell and I
would bow and leave.  To accept that was the beginning of the
opening for me.  I think it is for all of us.  To accept where we
are and to love where we are and to take joy in it and pleasure
in it.  What a wonderful thing that is.

Here we have set aside this time to sit together.  We have
companionship like Hsueh-feng with Yen-t'ou up there sitting in
the hut snowed in.  So we're snowed in for the afternoon and we
have our companionship and we have all the space in the world to
do zazen.  So let us enjoy it.