Well, I'm really delighted to be here once again. More than 30 years ago I gave my first Dharma talk at Zen Center at Bush Street with Suzuki Roshi. This is really an exercise in nostalgia for me. And I'm happy to be addressing the children this morning for the first 10 minutes. You know I live in Hawaii. and you know where that is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and in Hawaii we have special jokes and special words and just the same way that you and your family have your own special jokes and

[01:26]

special words that nobody outside your family understands. Isn't that right? Yeah. Because we're all by ourselves out there, although there are a million people living in Hawaii, still we're by ourselves. And so we have a lot of these special words and special jokes. that people coming from outside don't understand right away. And some of the words we use, everybody knows everywhere, but we use them in a special way, like you do probably in your family. One of those words is stink. Stink eye, for example. You know what stink eye is? Stink eye. That's a dirty look.

[02:27]

Don't give me stink eye, they say. Another way we use the word stink is when we say, don't talk stink. What do you think talking stink means? Yeah. don't say bad things about other people. Don't talk stink. Well, it's about talking stink that I want to talk about this morning. When my son was seven, no, eleven, he went off to to boarding school on the big island of Hawaii.

[03:30]

We live on Oahu. And he went, you know, like 200 miles away to another island to go to boarding school. And he was worried. He didn't know how he was going to be able to make new friends. And I said to him, do you know the way to get people to like you Well, he said he didn't. I think he did, but he said he didn't. So I said, don't gossip. Keep quiet. And when people know that you're not talking about them, then they'll like you. Why do you suppose that is? When people know that you don't talk about other people, then they know you're not going to talk about them.

[04:37]

And so they trust you. And so they want to be with you because they feel comfortable with you. I've forgotten that I told him this. And then more recently, he's all grown up now, and he is a school counselor himself. We were talking about kids he was working with, and I reminded him. And he said, oh, yeah, I remember, but I didn't do it. I said, why didn't you do it? He said, well, it was fun talking about other people. So this makes me think about what fun is and when it isn't funny, so to speak.

[05:53]

When is fun not funny? Yeah. No, I think fun is not funny when it hurts other people. Yeah. Yeah. Well, when... If you decide that you want to be a Buddhist when you grow up, then you take the precepts and you wear a rakusu like this. And one of those precepts is, don't talk stink. And so that's the practice. of grown-ups.

[06:54]

And when you are little, you don't feel like doing zazen. You don't feel like sitting for 35 minutes at a time with your back straight, not doing anything. It's not really made for little children. That's the adult practice. But the adult practice is also not talking stink about other people. And this is a practice you can follow too because it's a way of being yourself, being yourself and keeping to yourself all those thoughts that might hurt other people if you send them. And when you find that you are able to keep those thoughts to yourself, you take another look at them, and you find, wow, maybe other people have those thoughts about me, and they're not saying anything.

[08:11]

So this is a way that kids can practice. What do you think? Thanks for your attention, kids. I'm very grateful to Michael Wenger other Zen Center leaders and all of you for your hospitality. How are we doing? Okay. I'm really delighted to be back among you and I feel kind of overwhelmed that so many of you should come. I had a talk all prepared.

[09:20]

Maybe I'll give part of it but I'm thinking about it talking with Michael and Norman Fisher last night I thought well maybe I should wing it and I told Michael this morning and he said well we'll fly with you so I hope you will and that we can get discussions going even though there are many of you because I don't want to talk about stuff that you're not interested in for the whole period anyway. I had occasion recently to write the foreword to the new edition of a Buddhist Bible, which is which was reprinted last month by Beacon Press.

[10:25]

A Buddhist Bible was first brought out by Dwight Goddard in 1932 and then republished in an expanded edition in 1938, and that's the edition that we have today. a very durable book of translations of texts, most of them used in Zen Buddhism, but also including Theravada and Vajrayana texts and even part of the Tao Te Ching. So by way of introducing my theme today, let me read part of that introduction.

[11:28]

Most intellectuals can look back to a first book that gave coherence to their interests and set them on their life's course. Fifty years ago, R. H. Blythe's Zen in English Literature was such a book for me. D. T. Suzuki's Essays in Zen Buddhism, first series, was such a book for the youthful Gary Snyder. Students of Zen Buddhism come to me with a variety of first books in their past, and among them, with some frequency, is Dwight Goddard's durable anthology of translations of Buddhist Bible, originally published in 1932 and so on. As the first book for Jack Kerouac, a Buddhist Bible had direct influence upon the American Beat Movement of the 1950s, and thus upon the New Age movement that followed, with its efflorescence of Westerns and Buddhism in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

[12:46]

Allen Ginsberg wrote of Kerouac, He went to the library in San Jose, California, and read a book called A Buddhist Bible, edited by Dwight Goddard, a very good anthology of Buddhist texts. Kerouac read them very deeply, memorized many of them, and then went on to do other readings and other research and actually became a brilliant, intuitive Buddhist scholar. He introduced me to Buddhism in the form of letters, reminding me that suffering was the basis of existence, which is the first noble truth in Buddhism. In Jack's book, Barry Gifford and Lawrence Lee expanded upon the importance of a Buddhist Bible for Kerouac. In its 700 pages, he found concepts of historical cycles so gigantic that they dwarfed Spengler's.

[13:51]

he found as well the notion of dharma, the same self-regulating principle of the universe that he had proposed in the closing pages of Dr. Sachs. Using his sketching technique, Jack converted the texts in A Buddhist Bible into his own words. This translation, began a creative process of Americanizing Buddhism that manifested first in Kerouac's San Francisco Blues and flowered in the Dharma Bumps, which itself became a first book for people growing up in the 60s. In that era, I met many people whose ruminations echoed those of Ray, the Kerouac himself, and Jaffe, Gary Snyder. So Kerouac, cross-fertilizing with Snyder, Ginsburg, Philip Whelan, and others who are still engaged in Americanizing Buddhism in their own ways, helped to establish a culture in which the San Francisco Zen Center could grow and flourish in the mid-1960s.

[15:11]

A number of Zen Buddhist centers in San Francisco and Berkeley have emerged in the generation that has followed. When I visit and give a public talk in one of those cities today, I find that I can, without watering anything down, use the same Sanskrit and Japanese terms and Buddhist concepts that I do in my own classes with my own students. Everyone is following along and even getting ahead of me. The Bay Area is Buddha land. And there are similar Buddha lands, less obvious perhaps, across the country and across the Western Hemisphere. So here we are. I noticed that Paul had left a copy of the 25th anniversary edition of Wendell on my desk in my room, 1984.

[16:18]

Suzuki Roshi came to San Francisco and established the Zen Center in 1959, in July. And Diamond Sangha was established the following October. So we are a full generation on. And more. Perhaps it's time for us to look at ourselves as Buddhists. and reflect on our past and our present. Look closely in the mirror. Any pimples there? Any egg? Recently

[17:29]

I attended the sixth biennial seminar on Buddhism and Leadership for Peace, which is co-sponsored by Daiwansha Temple in Honolulu. Actually, it's the Korean temple which is just down the road from our new Palolo Zen Center. the Buddhist studies program at the University of Hawaii. And at that seminar, Stephen Heine read a paper on zange. Zange is repentance. And you recite the Zange in your Sutra service. Your translation will differ from ours, but ours goes, ìAll the evil karma ever created by me since of old, on account of my beginningless greed, hatred, and ignorance, born of my body, mouth, and thought, I now confess and purify it all.î So you recite something like that, Iím sure.

[18:55]

and you're familiar with it. His thesis was that the Japanese nation as a whole has not really done its zange about its role in World War II with the rape of Nanking and the use of Korean comfort girls and so on that you've read about. And that this even is true of Japanese Buddhists. And he takes up a discussion of Kyoto school, a philosophical school of Buddhism in particular.

[20:02]

He's very careful in his scholarly way not to be condemnatory and not to be harsh and to make generous allowances, which is quite proper. So I began thinking about all this, egg on my own face really, because I am a product of Japanese Zen Buddhism, recalled that when I was at Ryutakuchi, the temple near Mishima, Japan, 1950 and 51, I was presented with a sutra book which was prepared during World War II.

[21:04]

And I found that the colophon declared that this sutra book was issued with the prayer for victory in the greater East Asian war, with the name of the old teacher there at Puyo Takuchi, Yamamoto Genporoshi, who was the teacher of Nakagawa Soinboshi, and who was the teacher who first gave me the Kohan Mu. I venerated him and I continue to venerate him. And I had sort of put that with other similar tidbits to the back of my mind. After reading Highness Peace, I set to work

[22:12]

on a long paper which I will read in its ultimate draft at a Buddhist-Christian conference in Switzerland this summer. And I found myself quoting Dr. D. T. Suzuki. And it's here, I warn you, that I'm going to stop, because I think we should have some discussion. Maybe I'll have more words, but I would like to hear your thoughts too. This is from Dr. Suzuki's Zen and Japanese Culture. This is the second edition of that book. The first edition was called Zen in Japanese Culture.

[23:18]

This is the quotation. Zen has no special doctrine or philosophy, no set of concepts or intellectual formulas. except that it tries to release one from the bondage of birth and death by means of certain intuitive modes of understanding peculiar to itself. It is, therefore, extremely flexible in adapting itself to almost any philosophy and social doctrine as long as its intuitive teaching is not interfered with. It may be found wedded to anarchism or fascism, communism or democracy, atheism or idealism, or any political or economic dogmatism.

[24:26]

It is, however, generally animated with a certain revolutionary spirit. And when things come to a deadlock, as they do when we are overloaded with conventionalism, formalism, and other cognate-isms, Zen asserts itself and proves to be a destructive force. the spirit of the Kamakura era was in this respect in harmony with the virile spirit of Zen. Do you have a comment, anybody, or question?

[25:31]

Yes. I think if one thinks that Zen has somehow not Zen Buddhism, that statement is more cogent than it practice of Zen in the context of Buddhism. Yes. Lance's comment was, if you think of Zen as isolated from Buddhism, then it is a cogent statement. But in the context of Buddhism, it may not be accurate. What about the Diamond Sutra? The Diamond Sutra declares that all concepts self-destruct.

[26:39]

Even the concept that all concepts self-destruct. What is the basis for this statement by the Diamond Sutra? For me, in the absence of concepts, there is still the human heart. That is Blanche's opinion, you see. What is the Diamond Sutra rationale for saying that all concepts destroy themselves? Anyone?

[27:45]

Yeah. Letting go of concept or idea about how it is. Then what's left? Myself. Don't let them laugh you down now. There is a knowing within myself. That's true. Who else might have one? Yes. Reality is no self. Reality is no nothing. Nothing. That's the point, you see. That's the justification for the Diamond Sutra saying that the Buddha is not,

[28:54]

identified by any of his 32 marks. It goes on to say, therefore, we call him Buddha. That's the interesting point. And in commenting on that, I say, I understand this to mean, in other words, because the Buddha has no characteristics, we use the expression, characteristics of the Buddha. I understand this to mean that the vast and fathomless emptiness that is essential to our being is itself a certain unspecific quality which we call Buddha nature. So there are several places we can go from here.

[29:55]

Let me read you one place. This also is quoted from Dr. Suzuki's Zen and Japanese Culture. And it's a very familiar quotation. I'm sure that many of you know it. A letter from Takuan Zenji to samurai this is 14th century advice on going into battle do not get your mind stopped with the sword you raise forget what you are doing and strike the enemy do not keep your mind on the person who stands before you They are all of emptiness. But beware of your mind being caught up with emptiness itself. That's one place that emptiness can take you.

[31:07]

In the Mealtime Sutras, I don't know how you translate it, But in the original, it says the three wheels are empty. The three wheels are the action and the thing acted upon. And we translate it, we and this food and our eating are vacant. The sword, the swing of the sword, and the person being killed are all vacant. So I quote this in The Mind of Clover and ask about the wails of the widow and the children and all the blood. I think that's egg on our face, really, as inheritors. Of course, not egg on your face so much as it is on mine, because I have a bit more Rinzai in my heritage than you do.

[32:16]

But my sense is that the Buddha was right. He looked up and saw the morning star. We can assume there, because of what he says later, that he knew at that moment, wonderful inexpressible vacancy. But he cried out, wonderful, wonderful, now I see that all beings are the tathagata itself, himself, herself. Only their delusions and preoccupations keep them from testifying to that fact. That's the basis of his teaching. And that's the basis of our own practice, it seems to me.

[33:29]

From that grew the Four Noble Truths. From that grew the Eightfold Path. From that grew the practice as we know it today on our cushions and in our everyday life. an accomplished Zen student said to me recently, the experience of emptiness is itself the experience of concussion. And I could only, yes, say, yes, yes, that's true. And that was the Buddha's own experience. the tathagata coming forth, as it is, as she is, as he is, by nature ephemeral.

[34:45]

That ephemerality, that transitory nature, is itself Buddha nature. With that recognition that I am temporal and you are temporal, all are temporal in this multicentered universe, we find this compassion, this suffering together, which is, of course, the meaning of compassion. out of that same tradition, that same Rinzai tradition that produced Takuan Zenji, that produced what we know as Samurai Zen today, came other teachers. And let me read

[35:52]

This is from Tode Zenji. Tode Zenji was a disciple of Hakurin Zenji and was the de facto founder of Ryutakuchi, the same temple I spoke of earlier. When I regard the true nature of the many dharmas, I find them all to be sacred forms of the Tathagata's never-failing essence. Each particle of matter, each moment, is no other than the Tathagata's inexpressible radiance. With this realization, our virtuous ancestors, with compassionate minds and hearts, gave tender care to beasts and birds. Among us in our own daily lives, who is not reverently grateful for the protections of life, food, drink, and clothing?

[37:09]

Though they are inanimate beings, they are nonetheless the warm flesh and blood, the merciful incarnations of Buddha. For purposes of literary expediency, I divided this quotation in two parts here. We can be especially sympathetic and affectionate with foolish people, particularly with someone who becomes a sworn enemy and persecutes us with abusive language. That very abuse conveys the Buddha's boundless loving kindness. It is a compassionate device to liberate us entirely from the mean-spirited delusions we have built up with our wrongful conduct from the beginningless past.

[38:11]

With our response to such abuse, we completely relinquish ourselves. and the most profound and pure faith arises. At the peak of each thought, a lotus flower opens, and on each flower there is revealed a Buddha. Everywhere is the pure land in its beauty. We see fully the tathagata's radiant light right where we are. May we retain this mind and extend it throughout the world so that we and all beings become mature in Buddha's wisdom. This is Thoday Zenji's Bodhisattva Chah. Yes. It kind of reminds me of that discussion between the brothers Ivan and Anusha

[39:14]

Yes. I remember a child being punished. Going out, being punished outside in a cold, rushing river for separating any gun. And the child was Yes, certainly the Dostoevsky in that book is in tune with Todai Zenji in this passage and in many other passages in Brothers Karamazov.

[40:32]

What happens when you take loving-kindness to the extreme, and of course this is what motivated Dorothy Day, isn't it? Dorothy Day took that particular book to heart. It was her first book. And the Catholic Worker and its many, many offspring, you know, and daughters and sons, Thomas Merton among them, are the very, very evident manifestations today. What happens when you take loving-kindness to its extreme? This is a theme that

[41:39]

that Dostoevsky loved. It comes out in The Idiot, too, doesn't it? Yes. Yes. I'd like to make an exception with Reverend Kerouac. Reverend Kerouac? He wouldn't accept that. Jack Kerouac, yes. I don't think that existence is based on suffering. perhaps we can explain the noble end of the teaching upside down. Suffering is based on light. Light is something that we are given. Okay. This is a very important point, and I agree with the thrust of your argument. Remember that 99% of the translations of Dukkha are suffering. almost everybody translates dukkha as suffering.

[42:43]

The Buddha said, dukkha, dukkha, all is dukkha. In other words, suffering is everywhere. That's the way most people translate it. But a few people, like Rahula, for example, take exception to that, as you do, as I do. So I do not translate dukkha as suffering. Because when you look at the word suffering in the dictionary, what does it mean? It means to endure, to allow, to permit. In the King James English, you know, we have, suffer the little children to come unto me. Let them come. So suffering and life are the same thing. We are living it. We are enduring it. We are permitting it. We are allowing it.

[43:44]

The Buddha was not trying to get rid of suffering. He was trying to get rid of the anguish we have on trying to get rid of suffering. Now, you can't expect Kerouac coming in cold with only this one reference to catch on to this right away. Yeah, he did very well. I agree. But this is a really important point. So for the last 10 years or so, I've been translating dukkha as anguish. When you translate it as unsatisfactory, it makes this combination of emptiness of action and the action causing suffering to others understandable.

[44:59]

Yes. We have to translate it as a noun rather than as an adjective, and so Rahula suggests unsatisfactoriness, which is a word that I could find only in the OED. I didn't even find it. I just couldn't even find it in my unabridged dictionary. It's not a satisfactory word. But I see your point. It is anguish because we are not content with the fact that we're going to die. We're not content with the fact that we can't be independent and have to bother about others and that we depend on others and so on. You asked the question, how can the killing take place? in emptiness when the widow and the children are going to suffer.

[46:00]

When it's all in your head. It can happen when it's in your head. When that emptiness is not experiential, then you can say there is no sword, no swing of the sword and no killing. When it's experiential, I got you, when it's experiential, then you recognize that all beings are in this same situation. And there is this natural compassion. We're all in it together. Go ahead. Thank you. Grace is a wonderful accident. Yes. [...] I practice that leads to realization, to enlightenment.

[47:05]

So therefore, why should we practice? Realization, he says, is an accident. So why practice? He said, well, Practice makes us accident prone. I'm not advocating that's a way of life, but it seems to me that the flip side of the statement that you made about the pillaging, the whatever, if everyone is in the same situation, and even if we understand that clearly, why not kill your enemy and This is true intellectually and can be defended philosophically, but it cannot be defended experientially.

[48:19]

And I don't want to take an esoteric position here, you know, that I've got to see and I can tell you, but it's true and everybody will tell you. I remember standing and lying on one occasion, which I won't go into, with a woman and a little kid. And the little kid was looking at the sidewalk and he said, look, a little bug. And his mother said, step on it. So he did. and he unlearned something that we're going to have to un-unlearn, you know. His experience was another life there. That was a valid experience. I felt terrible.

[49:26]

So it boils down to experience. And when these people can say these awful things, you know, I could read other stuff here. It's all in their heads. Yes. Yeah. I'm saying that from an intellectual point of view, right from the initial point of view. Gee, you know, Dr. Suzuki was my teacher and and I and I love him dearly and I revere his memory. But it's something I want to talk to him about. I can't. But I hope to. Or at least I can dialogue with him as though he were here. And in fact, he is here in a lot of ways. But yes, I have to say that he's caught up, you see, Zen in Japanese culture.

[50:44]

He's caught up in his own culture here, where Shotoku Taishi at the beginning in the seventh century declared as one of his 17 principles which became the Japanese Constitution that the purpose of Buddhism is to support the imperial line. So the Japanese priests could feel quite comfortable being drafted to go to war and so on. There are many, many examples. There is this cultural, call it intellectual if you like, but cultural component here that he didn't quite recover from for all his Western ways, I think. I've never said this before. And incidentally, we've gone way over time, haven't we? Just walk out when you want to.

[51:50]

In this context, I... Yeah. Oh, okay, okay. So we'll wind it down and then... Yeah, because, you know, dinner and everything. Go ahead. No, just... I think these points are very well taken, but what I'm thinking of is we have now Zen in American culture and we have to concern ourselves with Sangha. And you bet. And what does Sangha mean for us? You know, this is a question. And how are we going to use Sangha-like experiences in Western culture as models? Oh, zange. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, that's right.

[52:55]

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. The gate to all ethical thinking is zange, that experience of repentance. And what we have done, you know, to our own land, to our own indigenous people, Yes, exactly. One more. We'll take it up in a minute.

[53:23]

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