T’aego Addresses the Great Assembly of Dragons and Elephants

A Ten Thousand Films Production 2011

This is a teaching given by the great Korean Zen adept known as T’aego Bou 太古普愚 (1301–1382).

The teaching begins: As T’aego went to the teacher’s seat, the head monk of the temple struck the gavel and announced:”O great assembly of dragons and elephants to the Dharma meeting! Observe the supreme truth!” To bring up the general guiding principles, T’aego said…

Full text of the teaching and film is here

Many Thanks to: PARTICIPANTS: All those who participated in the filming in London, Cairo, Siwa Oasis, Louisville, Furnace Mountain and San Francisco; TEXT: “A Buddha from Korea – The Zen Teachings of T’aego” Translated by J.C. Cleary; MUSIC: Ahmed Mouneimene for Korean Kayagum Sanjo Variation (가야금 산조), performed by Hwang Byeonggi (황병기) 1966; IMAGERY: Terje Sorgjerd for Milky Way galaxy footage tesophotography.com cc by-nc 3.0

“Ten thousand things return to the one; where does the one return to?”

“If everything is gone, nothing moves.” 圓覺經

“After breaking through the solid gate, the clear wind blows from the beginning of time.”

This is the complete text of the teaching chapter entitled
‘The Supreme Truth’ from the T’aego book. The film
containing the same text is here: “Master T’aego Addresses
the Great Assembly of Dragons and Elephants.”

As T’aego went to the teacher’s seat, the head monk of the
temple struck the gavel and announced: “O great assembly
of dragons and elephants to the Dharma meeting! Observe
the supreme truth!”

To bring up the general guiding principles, T’aego said:
“The one road of transcendence is not transmitted by the
thousand sages. But tell me, what is it that`s not transmit-
ted? Here, if you get entangled the least little bit, you go
wrong by ten thousand miles. Those who know now to ask
are given thirty blows, and those who don`t know how to
ask are given thirty blows.”

[Some questions and answers went unrecorded.] T’aego
then said:

“Old Shakyamuni said, ‘The enlightenment of all the
buddhas is far beyond all words and talk.` So how could
the work in our supreme school’s vehicle use doings or
words? Contrived doings are playing with the spirit. Words
are the dregs. As for the true correct way of showing [real-
ity], all the buddhas of past, present and future ‘hang their
mouths on the wall’ and all the generations of enlightened
teachers hide their bodies in the weeds. Linji shouted when
they entered the gate; Deshan hit them: what child’s play!

“Knowing early on that it is like this, I was forced to take
my empty hands and wander like a cloud over the world
seeking teachers and inquiring after the Path. It was like
putting a head on top of a head. It also attracted suspicion
from people. Looking back on it coldly, it embarrasses me
to death. In the past in my native land I hid myself in the
mountain valleys and did not sell the Buddha Dharma
cheap to worldly people, or bury the wind of Zen [in
worldly concerns]. I have just gone on this way, totally at
ease, expansive and free, independent, happy, alive.

“My whole life an empty reputation has lingered
[around me]. Today I go too far by accepting another
invitation from the king of the realm. I ascend to this seat,
and look out on a sea of faces. I don‘t know what to do
about you, I can only chatter on. All of you will think,
‘Today an enlightened teacher appears in the world.’ What
a joke!

“When I talk like this, it’s already sleep talk. Why are all
of you sleeping with your eyes open?”

T’aego brandished his staff and said: “This happy as-
sembly was convened by [our patrons], the Source of the
Myriad Transformations, Mother of the Myriad Virtues,
Whose Virtue Covers Countless Worlds, Whose Capacity
Encompasses the Universe, Sage Among Sages, the Great
Yuan Son of Heaven, and Worthy Among Worthies, the
King of this land. Their benevolence flows on for ten thou-
sand generations, with the Path as their deep concern.
They are like the moonlight in the sky, with humane con-
cern for their fellow men as their governing policy. The
white sun is at high noon. At precisely this time, the in-
cense billows up from the golden censer, slowly seeping
into the jade palace. How can I, T’aego, a minor monk,
salute them?”

He brandished his staff again and said: “When the Path
[the Dao, the moral orientation of society and its members]
is secure, the orders of the emperor do not need to be
transmitted. When the era is one of purity, they stop extol-
ling utopia.”

[Later at the same session T’aego said:]

“In the old days the emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty
received the enlightened teacher Bodhidharma with full
ceremony. Then he asked: ‘What is the highest meaning
of the holy truths?` Bodhidharma said: “Empty, without
holiness’ The emperor asked: ‘Who is the one facing me
now?’ Bodhidharma said: ‘I don’t know.’

“This is the model of the first communication of the
message of Zen in the eastern lands. Today the king of our
country has invited me, a minor monk, to talk about the
vehicle of the Zen school. I salute His Imperial Majesty,
Her Imperial Majesty, the Imperial Crown Prince above,
the great assembly of humans and devas in between, and
the officials and commoners below, for bestowing the great
gift of the Dharma. I have not said a word, and Their
Majesties have not asked a word, Has it been the same as
or different from the questions and answers between Em-
peror Wu and Bodhidharma? If you can tell, I’ll allow you
one eye. If you cannot tell, listen to a verse:

“The high ancient’s voice is closest
Too bad the season is spring when the blossoms fall
I urge you to drain another cup of wine
At the gate where the sun rises in the west,
there are no old acquaintances”

A meditation on the themes of love of the Prophet, veneration of holy sites, grace and symbolism. This film tells the story of the meeting between the Prophet Muhammad (Peace and Blessings be upon Him) and a Christian monk named Bahira. The meeting happened in the shade of a tree.

Fourteen hundred years later that same tree was discovered still alive in the northern deserts of Jordan. The only tree alive in hundreds of square miles of emptiness. This tree is a link to the life of the Prophet and a place of pilgrimage today…

Those interviewed for the film include:

His Majesty King Abdallah II of Jordan
H.R.H. Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad
Shaykh Dr. Muhammad Sa‘id Ramadan Al-Buti
Shaykh Al-Habib ‘Umar bin Hafeeth
Shaykh Al-Habib Ali al-Jifri
Prof. Seyyed Hossein Nasr
H.E. Shaykh Dr. Ali Jum’a
Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad

Testimonials:

‘”The Blessed Tree has a fruit, the seed of which plants a new branch of Iman (faith) in the heart. I literally felt my Iman increase while watching this film. There are parts which would reduce even the hardest of hearts to tears.”  – Hamza Yusuf Hanson

“A warm and remarkable witness to one of history’s most symbolically crucial religious encounters. The meeting of a devout Byzantine Christian hermit with the future Prophet of Islam in the Syrian desert, is conveyed in a deeply convincing feat of historical reconstruction.” - T.J. Winter

Quotes from the film:

“In this place, we pray to God to make our hearts containers of the love of the Prophet (Peace and Blessings be upon Him).”
Shaykh Dr. Muhammad Sa‘id Ramadan Al-Buti

“The Prophet sitting under this tree, and its reacting to the Prophet makes the tree the only living terrestrial witness to the Prophet , what we would call in Arabic a sahabi.”
H.R.H. Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad

“This tree was blessed with the touch of the Messenger of God (Peace and Blessings be upon Him).”
Shaykh Al-Habib Ali Al-Jifri

“That thing that deserves to be loved most is that which brings forth from the depths of our spirits the recollection of the Divine Name. The title of the Holy Prophet of Islam is Habib Allah, the Beloved of God. This hub, this love for the Prophet could be described as the great transformative emotion of Islam.”
Abdal Hakim Murad

“You have to be able to apply a symbol in a wise way, from one domain of reality to another. There is, in a sense, a vertical dimension that goes through our heart vertically through our head and up to Heaven. The line of transcendence. This is the inner tree. The roots of it are actually the roots of the Divine reality in our hearts. For most human beings this tree has dried up because they are not aware of its roots. It is virtually there but not actually; and the spiritual life means the reviving of this tree within us by sinking the roots of the Divine once again in our hearts.”
Prof. Seyyed Hossein Nasr

A New Ten Thousand Films production 2010

Directed and Produced by Mustafa Gouverneur
Edited by Matthew Dixon
Co-produced by Yasin Salazar
Cinematography by Richard Terry
Music by Musa Kala Dieng

DVD Distributors - Order online at:
Fons Vitae Press – USA & North America:  Fonsvitae.com
ZamZam Film Distribution – UK & rest of world:  Zamzam.tv
Invoke Media – Australasia:  Invoke-Media

Saturday, October 9 · 7:00pm – 10:00pm
Al-Ghazzali Academy
1021A Canterbury Road
Lakemba, Australia

About the film:

A Ten Thousand Films production 2007

ST THEOSEVIA CENTRE FOR CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY
OPEN STUDY DAYS IN MICHAELMAS TERM 2010
An Ecumenical Centre for Christian Spirituality in Oxford
at St Theosevia House, 2 Canterbury Road, Oxford OX2 6LU
www.theosevia.org
Saturday 6 November, 10.30am – 4pm
Drawing from the Wellsprings of the Desert
with Sr Dr Benedicta Ward SLG, Dr Elena Ene D-Vasilescu,
and Revd Dr Liz Carmichael

Hermits in Egypt and Anglo-Saxon England;Orthodox monastic spirituality in icons;
Pilgrimage ancient and modern in the remarkable documentary film

‘The Baptism of Jesus Christ: discovering Bethany beyond the Jordan’
(Ten Thousand Films 2007)

St. Theosevia Newsletter 2010

A New Ten Thousand Films production 2010

DVD Distributors
UK: zamzam.tv
Australia: invoke-media

A Ten Thousand Films production 2007

Lǚ Dòngbīn (呂洞賓) is the patron of Ten Thousand Films, and appears on the film company logo.

More information here 呂洞賓

Although in the dream, eighteen years had passed, the whole dream actually happened in the time it took his millet to cook. The characters from his dream were actually played by Zhongli Quan in order to make him realize that one should not put too much importance on transient glory and success. As a result, Lü went with Zhongli to discover and cultivate the Dao/Tao. This dream is known as “Dream of the Yellow Millet” (黃粱夢 Húang Líang Mèng) and is described in a writing compiled by Ma Zhiyuan (馬致遠 Mă Zhìyǔan) in Yuan Dynasty.

The Pavilion of Ancestor Lu Dongin

The cave opens to transmit the Dao for 10,000 generations,

one thousand years,

The mountain remains blue, the water green;

From the four seas and the five continents

guests come and students learn,

The bamboo remains green, the lotus red.