Good morning. I had a wonderful week this week with a concentration on study starting with Monday working with Reb and a small class he has studying a book called The Transmission of the Light which are enlightenment stories of the ancestors and we happen to be talking about Nagarjuna, the story around his teacher transmitting to him. And then the rest of the week Gary McNabb was in town and I worked with him and Reb

[01:10]

on studies related to Dharma transmission and we were looking at the notes from a lecture from last year when Narasaki Tsugen Roshi was here lecturing for the Tokubetsu Sesshin. There was a month-long Sesshin last year and he gave a series of talks so we were looking at those lectures and I was able to clear my schedule pretty much and a lot of people helped with carpool and driving and so I was actually able to concentrate for about four days on this material. So out of that study some came up some things that I wanted to talk about with you today

[02:11]

and I think the main point is illustrated for me by something that Suzuki Roshi's wife Suzuki Sensei or Oksana as we used to call her, Oksana's honorable wife, what she said once about Buddhist practice she said, Buddhist practice is just taking care of, I think she said of people at that particular time but her whole life was just a manifestation of taking care of people, objects, spaces, her own body and mind. She used to exercise every day, I think she's, is she 80 yet, this year, 85, she's getting up there in years and she used to exercise up in the Page Street, about 82, the Page

[03:14]

Street building striding back and forth along those halls, those of you who've been there, they're wings of the building that are pretty long and she would get a rhythm going, swinging her arms and walk back and forth and back and forth, nothing would stop her from getting her daily exercise and she also would slap herself and talk to her knees, I remember she would thank her knees for getting her up and down the stairs, oh, good knees, very intimate, close feeling with her body, very kind and grateful closeness, so her emphasis was taking care of people, taking care of objects, she was a tea teacher, she is a tea teacher, and just to see her handle objects and do the flowers and, you know, if you ever

[04:17]

gave her a gift, it would always go on the altar first, she would never like, oh, what's this, and rip open the paper and, you know, see what you brought her, it would be placed first on the altar for Buddha, or just including big self, it's not just for me that you give, it's giving and receiving is all not based on selfishness, so she taught this way, and also I'm finding I want to wax eloquently about Oksana, but just in her, she taught me especially in how she cared for herself, you'd see her out there combing her long hair like a mermaid sort of, she had this long, she still does, dark hair that she'd wear up in a bun,

[05:18]

she'd wash it and then sit out in the courtyard and comb out by the flowers and she looked like she was about 15 or something, you know, anyway, with unembarrassed, and a feeling of entitlement that this is how you take care of yourself, this is how one takes care of oneself, so it was very inspiring, and I do feel like what happens often is we forget this very simple thing that the secret of Buddhism or the teaching of Buddhism is taking care of oneself and others, which turns out if you take care of yourself, you do take care of others and vice versa, and all the objects of the world, plants, animals, tea bowls, and what happens often is we

[06:20]

begin to get into a way of thinking about what Buddhist practice is that's really kind of confused, and it has to do with, you know, endurance tests and looking a certain way just perfect and what else, a kind of making oneself toe a certain kind of line, toe the line, I suppose toe this line too, that is a confused way of understanding what we're trying to do, what we're trying to teach, and yet it just happens very naturally, I think, the way our mind works to kind of fall into a way of thinking that pretty much beats up on ourselves, and this to me is, and

[07:33]

usually calls ourselves names about how we're not, you know, we don't have what it takes, and maybe we should just quit while we're behind, and we're never going to be able to do this, and just a certain kind of inner patter that it's very hard to break out of unless you actually say it out loud to someone, and they can, you know, reflect it back, and then you kind of hear it, and hear how mean it sounds, and so just remembering this simple kind of thing, just taking care of things, but it's often the fact that we don't know how to take care of ourselves, or others, or people, or plants, and based on some idea about how it's supposed to be, we

[08:33]

kind of barrel on ahead. Now, Narasaki Tsugen Roshi also was saying in these lectures that I was looking at, that it's not a matter, understanding Buddha mind is not a matter of having some great ability, either having it or not having it, it's not a matter of that, it's not a matter of some great capacity, it has to do with, well I want to look at my notes so I say exactly what he said, not a matter of level or ability, small or large capacity, it's a matter of doing one's

[09:36]

best. Now, one can make that also into a way of beating yourself up, but when I heard that, it was very settling somehow, because if it is a matter of capacity, or ability, or a certain kind of level of intelligence, then if we don't have that kind of intelligence, then we're forever outside of understanding Buddhist practice or manifesting it, so it's very harsh, it's kind of a harsh sentence really, you know, and also in the Fukan Zazengi, the universal admonitions for Zazen that we chant in the morning, there's one section that says, intelligence or the lack of it, between the sharp and the dull-witted there's no distinction,

[10:41]

intelligence or lack of it, it's not a matter of that, but I do feel, I do, and I know others do, begin to think that one doesn't have what it takes, so it's a matter of doing one's best. Now, in this story that we're reading about Nagarjuna in this Transmission of the Light, it talks about his teacher, who we chant as Kabimara Dayosho, Nagarjuna Dayosho, Kabimara, it's also pronounced Kapimala, maybe the Japanese, there's a trouble with the Malika, I guess in Sanskrit it's Kapimala, and in Japanese it's Kabimara Dayosho, so he was the 14th ancestor, and he went to visit a

[11:52]

governor or a minister, and the minister wanted him to stay, but he brought up the fact that the Buddha taught that one practitioner should stay away from, not that they shouldn't teach them, but should stay away from kind of living the life of high government officials and kings and monarchs, and when this high minister invited Kabimara to come and live with him, he said no, and brought up what the Buddha had said about not living in close proximity with high government officials, so he said well what about staying in this place in the mountains, a kind of retreat, and Kabimara said that sounds fine, so he set off to this mountain retreat, and on the way he encountered this giant python, I guess pythons are like really fat, really thick snakes, I think I've only seen them in the movies, but it was right there in the mountains there on the road, and he seemed totally undisturbed by this, and just kept going, walking along, going towards it, and the python kind of came and wrapped, kind of encircled around him, and so what he did was initiate the python into the Buddhist teachings, probably gave the python the precepts,

[13:21]

and the refuges, and the three pure precepts, and the python just spooled away into the mountain vegetation, and Kabimara kept walking, walking along, and he came to this kind of a cave place, and out from there came a man, an older man dressed in a white robe, and he said to Kabimara that many, many years ago he had been a monk, and he had been practicing in a certain way in quietude, he loved quietude, and kind of bliss states, so much so that when a novice, a younger monk came and asked him questions about the Dharma, this really annoyed him and bothered him, you know, and he got very angry at this young novice coming to inquire about the Dharma, so I'll read what he said, this old man,

[14:32]

so, this is the next page here, here we go, so he told him, in former times when I was a monk, I very much enjoyed quietude, and lived alone in the mountain forests, and then this, there was a novice monk who used to come and ask for instructions, and I, feeling it troublesome to reply, produced thoughts of anger and resentment, so here's this kind of kid coming up and saying, you know, how do you do, and he produced these thoughts of anger and resentment, thought he was just a big bother, and when he died, he became a python, and lived in this cave that he just came out of, for a thousand years, and now I have a chance to meet you, and have received these initiations, these initiation teachings, and he was very grateful to Thabitmara, so this teaching story, I feel, brings up two things, one is kind of two pitfalls for a practitioner, one is to be associated with a lot of hoopla, meaning that the high government officials and the royalty, and one can be very caught up, get caught up in that, and lose one's way,

[16:11]

and the other pitfall is on the other side, which is quietude, and being very attached to bliss states, samadhi concentration states that are very wonderful, and not want to be bothered with questioners, or anybody who might disturb this quietude, so these are two, this story illustrates these two pitfalls, these two extremes really, one is totally immersed in a very worldly life, and the other is hermit, kind of hermit life, where you don't want to be bothered, both of these are problems, so in our looking at that for how that works in our life, I feel like this does come up for people where they have a chance to be involved with high government officials and so forth,

[17:20]

and it's not that you don't come and teach, I'm not saying that you don't offer Dharma to anybody who wants to hear, but it's a certain way of life that can pull you, it's very enticing, it's very seductive, so to just watch for that, if you ever have a chance to be involved, and be very clear-eyed about that, and in terms of the quietude side and the bliss side, that also is very seductive, and I feel like we do have a chance here at Green Gulch and during a one-day sitting to work with that kind of thing, and for example, when we're sitting in Samsara, we come and we bow to our seat, now I recently read in the Shingi, which is the pure admonitions for temple life, it's sort of a loose translation,

[18:29]

and in the section about how the monks deport themselves, comport themselves in the Zendo talks about when you come to your place, we come to our place, we bow to our cushion, actually what you're doing, what I found out recently, is that you're bowing to, it's not that you're bowing to this cushion, although one does feel respect for just having a place to sit, and this puffy black thing, or flat black thing, that is one's place, I think we do feel some respect and love for that, but one's really bowing to the people who are there sitting, now if there's nobody sitting there, we bring to mind the other practitioners who sit, but if there are people who are sitting there, then when you come to bow, you're bowing to your place, but actually to them, and so the people on either side bow with you, and now what sometimes happens is we don't even notice when that person who is coming to sit next to you has come, and we're just very enjoyably sort of settling in, in a kind of enjoyment of quietude, and then we, oh, gee, I wonder when they got here,

[19:54]

or sometimes we notice that they've arrived, but we just, gee, we just got settled here, and do I have to kind of get those hands up, and some kind of reticence to just bow, so this to me, this reminded me of this python guy who, you know, he's sitting down in his cave, and somebody comes, and whatever it is, whatever comes, either somebody asks you a question, how do you hold a gamashio, or whatever, and you're standing there in shashu at the service table, and you don't want to be bothered, you know, it's troublesome, this kind of mind that comes up when we feel like we want it to stay the way it is, we don't want to have to undo our mudra and make another mudra for some reason, it's a bother, or that kind of mind will come up.

[20:56]

So I'm offering this as a way to look at these moments throughout the day where there's a chance to let go of a certain state of mind, a certain, whatever the state of mind is, be it really settled and wonderful or be it irritated, to be ready to let go of that and be ready for the next thing. So we have a chance every time you sit down and your neighbor comes to be ready for the next thing. Grasping things is basically delusion, so grasping some blissful, settled state is also delusion. Grasping anything is delusion. Or when we're in oryoki, when we're eating, and then the server comes by to pick up gamashio, and you hardly have enough time to finish anyway, why can't they just pick it up and go on their way, leave me alone.

[22:10]

That kind of mind is very, well, what happened to this guy was when he died, he was born as a python, right? There's stories like that, being reborn as a fox or python. So also in these lectures from Narasaki Roshi was this description of the mind of Buddha, the mind of a Buddha. How would one describe it? So the Japanese for it is ji-hi-ki-sha-mu-ryo-shin. Ji-hi-ki-sha-mu-ryo-shin. And what that translates as is, this is a description, so get ready, a description of the mind, the Buddha's mind. And the first character ji means love, and it's the love that you have for a baby or a child.

[23:19]

Now if you can picture some child that you know, or baby, or Sabrina, some child at Green Gulcher, and the love that you have for a child that has no kind of wanting anything back or designs upon that person. It's very kind of free-flowing love, the love we have for a child. That's ji. And hi, ji-hi-ki-sha-mu-ryo-shin, ji-hi, the hi is a certain kind of, I don't want to get this mixed up, worry or concern or compassion also that you have for a child. Worry, concern, compassion, the same that you have for a child. So if you see a child who has difficulty or is heading for trouble or you just very naturally arises out of you some concern or worry or watch out for them or some compassion for them.

[24:40]

So that's hi. So we have ji, this love for a child, hi, the compassion, worry, concern, very naturally, ji-hi-ki. And the ki is joy, joyful mind, also in relationship to a child. The joy that you have when you see a happy child, or when you see, if you have your own children, when you see them happy, this wonderful vicarious joy. Now picture, those of you who know Sabrina and live with Sabrina, picture watching Sabrina laughing or smiling and the joy that you have just to see her crack up the way she does, that spontaneous joy that you feel is this element. That's the ki, ji-hi-ki-sha. And the sha means giving, but a kind of giving that's like just throwing everything away, just giving everything to someone, holding nothing back.

[25:52]

And maybe you can think of some time when you just wanted to give something to somebody, everything. And mu means no, mu-ryo means measure, ryo is measure, so it's like without measure or beyond measure, limitless. And the shin is the mind or heart mind. So the description of Buddhist mind is loving concern and joyfully giving away without limit mind, that kind of mind. And when I heard this, it had very little to do with a certain kind of mind that's exacting and kind of tight and narrow and irritated.

[27:06]

It had a very different feeling than that, this. And I also felt because of the definitions used that it wasn't something so far beyond my ken or so out there, so beyond anything I could ever even conceive of. It actually, you know, I can call up the love I have for a child or joy at seeing a happy child. This is something that I feel that everyone can be close to. This is not something way out there reserved for some being on the 10th stage of yada-ya. We know this by walking into the dining room, seeing Sabrina laughing away, you know, we feel that kind of joy. So cultivating this kind of mind is, I feel also what Oksana was talking about, this taking care of things.

[28:13]

This kind of mind is the teaching of Buddhism. Now to go back to the story of Kabhimara, after he met this python man, he said, are there any more sages in the forest here? And he said, so the man said, well, down up the mountain a piece, there's someone who's dwelling with the Nagas. The Nagas are these kind of serpent beings, and you might go and question him. So he goes along a little further and he comes to Nagarjuna, who was there dwelling in the forest. Now this is really before Nagarjuna was a Buddhist practitioner. He had a lot of different, what shall I say, practices and accomplishments in a lot of different fields.

[29:17]

In fact, a lot of different lineages, other than Buddhist lineages, looked to Nagarjuna as one of their ancestors. So he comes upon Nagarjuna and Nagarjuna came out and greeted the Buddhist master saying, the deep mountains are lonely and desolate, a place where Nagas dwell. Why have you, a great sage, a supremely honorable one, bent your steps here? And Kabhimala said, I'm not the supremely honorable one, I have come to visit the wise man. So he took a kind of very even-minded, kind of humble stand in relationship to this person that he came to visit, Nagarjuna. Now Nagarjuna thought silently, this is an interesting part of the story, he thought to himself, has this teacher attained certainty and clearly illuminated the eye of enlightenment?

[30:22]

Is he a great sage continuing the true way? So he's kind of sizing him up. I wonder, is this guy really kind of tops and is he going to test me and what's going on here? Kind of a little bit jockeying for position, who's he and who am I in relationship and who's this guy? But he thought this to himself, he didn't say it. And Kabhimala said, even though you are speaking in your heart, I already know it in my mind. Just take care of renunciation of worldly ties. Why worry about whether I'm a sage or not? So he kind of, I feel he kind of said to Nagarjuna, what is this wondering who I am and gauging, in the Fukanza Zenki it says, when you step into the Zen, you should leave behind the gauging of all thoughts and views,

[31:24]

this kind of comparative, how do I measure up according to that person or this person, this comparative gauging and having designs. Just leave it outside the door and just come in to the Zen and sit without this kind of mind. And here's Nagarjuna kind of trying to size him up and gauge, is he a true sage or is he not? And it reflects upon the python man who, the novice comes with these questions of a beginner, that was irritating and troublesome. So to drop that kind of mind and just somebody arrives with a question, you meet them. And if what's appropriate is to be silent or appropriate is to send them on their way or whatever, you do the appropriate thing, I'm not saying you have to answer every single question

[32:27]

or relate to every single person a certain way, but to meet them. If you're gauging, gee, I wonder if they've really attained something or where, that's not exactly meeting them, that's kind of trying to get a little foothold and a position whereby you can, I don't know what, have the one upmanship maybe? So meeting someone, there's not a formula for meeting, but if you're before the meeting trying to size them up, you've already missed them by a million miles. So Kabhi Mata got it, however he got it, he said, I hear you speaking in your heart. But sometimes you can be with someone and really feel what they're saying or you can catch something.

[33:33]

So I'm not saying that he was omniscient or could read minds or anything, but he had some intuition about Nagarjuna and said, don't worry about whether I'm a sage or not, just renounce the world, just be a renunciate. And after that Nagarjuna repented and became a renunciate and Kabhi Mata ordained him. And the community of Nagas also received the Buddha's precepts, so all these serpents received the precepts along with Nagarjuna. Now Nagarjuna became sometimes called the second Buddha, he became a great, great teacher. So for me this teaching story, so we have a number of things in this story. One is to not be seduced by the things of the world, the other is to not be seduced by quietude,

[34:35]

and then the third is this point about Nagarjuna, which is just drop your designs and just meet people, and don't try to mediate between, just meet. So later on, one of Nagarjuna's main teachings was about, and what he said, the definition of Buddha nature. Now I just gave this, and Nagarjuna later, this is after a while, his main teaching was to realize Buddha nature, you must first get rid of selfish pride. So in order to realize ji, hi, ki, sha, mu, ri, o, shin,

[35:40]

you have to get rid of selfish pride, and I think Nagarjuna had this kind of pride when he met with Kapimala, trying to figure out if this guy was the right stuff or not. So later that's what he taught, this is how you understand Buddha nature, understand Buddha's mind is by dropping self-pride, getting rid of your own self-pride. So many of the practices, or I should say all of the practices that are offered in a practice place or monastery have to do with dropping self-pride, and we don't like it, you know, a lot of things.

[36:41]

We don't like oftentimes having to follow the schedule or be a certain place at a certain time. On the one hand, sometimes it feels marvelous and limitless freedom within those forms, and at other times we rail against it, but all of these practices point, you know, especially when we're railing towards our self-pride and our attachment and grasping after the way we want things to be. So in order to have this, you know, be filled with this description of Buddha's mind, this loving concern and limitless giving, and joy, self-pride will get in the way of that,

[37:44]

you know, it will block us. Now, if you study self-pride, you can enter right there. So when I say getting rid of self-pride, I don't mean you try to kind of put it in a garbage disposal or something. You bring it forth and study it whenever it comes up, you know, when you don't want to put your hands up and gosh-oh, for the person next to you, you study there, right there, and you can drop it there, too. But it's not from trying to get rid of it. I don't want to make that, be confused, make that confusing. So you meet whatever comes up, and if it's self-pride, you meet that. And that's what Nagarjuna did when it was pointed out. He met it and, you know, received ordination right then and there,

[38:46]

and then taught how that was in the way. But you have to meet it first. You can't kind of skip it, go around. So I feel about a one-day sitting that this is, you know, sometimes we feel about it that, oh, it's this wonderful day to just sit quietly and kind of cool out, you know. And I think sometimes one-day sittings are like that, but not always. You know, there's irritation, there's troublesome people, there's food you don't like, there's a lot of forms that are discombobulating, and so there's all that, too. But it's this chance, you know, you have a chance, but that's all you need to do is to meet that aspect of your life. And whatever it is, whatever, be it loving joy that comes up

[39:50]

or irritation, to study it very thoroughly. So we have a whole day to do this without any other concern, really. You know, besides washing pots and serving food, pretty much that's all we need to do. Now, I have a... I don't have a watch on. How are we doing for time? Ten of eleven. Ten of eleven. Okay, I want to tell a story about... This is an Italian folktale that illustrates... It reminds me of this python man who dropped... who got so angry because he was annoyed by this troublesome novice. This is a story called Lose Your Temper and Lose Your Money. And it has to... I'll tell an abbreviated version of it,

[40:52]

but it's these three sons who received their father's inheritance and they divided it in three bags of money and the father died. And the first one wanted to set off, the oldest, kind of make some more money and make his fortune. So he met up with the... I think it was a priest in a church, a Catholic priest. Lots of these Italian folktales have priests in there. And he said, yeah, you can come and work for me, be a field hand, but listen, would you like to do a little wager? I've got some money, too, and if you... How about this? If you lose your temper, you forfeit your money, and if I lose my temper, I'll forfeit mine. Is it a deal? And the guy said, well, yeah, that's a pretty good deal, sure. I'm a pretty mild-mannered guy. So he said, okay, so you'll work in the fields. They had dinner that night with them, and he said, so you go out in the fields and you don't have to come all the way in for breakfast and lunch. We'll bring the food out to you so it won't disturb you.

[41:52]

So he said, that's fine. So he went out to the field, and he's hoeing kind of like we do early on Wednesday mornings, hoeing away, hoeing. And then it kind of got to be... Wait, dinner, but watch. It kind of got to... Because this took place a long time ago. Time for breakfast, you know, and where are they? Where's that servant? Well, he kept hoeing, and it got... It got to be breakfast. Well, all right, so I guess, you know, I can wait until lunch. And then dinner time came, lunch time, and the servant didn't show up. Nobody came, you know. Well, by this time it was hot. He'd been working all day. Where was his lunch, you know, already? Finally, evening time, he still worked, and finally he saw the servant coming. Oh, and she came with a bottle of wine and this pot of soup. Oh, I'm so sorry, and blah, blah, blah. So he tries to take the lid off the soup, and it's stuck. It's stuck like cement, and it won't come off, and he throws the soup thing,

[42:53]

and then he tries to open the bottle of wine, and that's also stuck in there like with glue, and he can't take off, and he just loses it totally and screams and brings the... comes marching back in and yells at the priest, and, how dare you? A man's got to work, and a man needs food. Like that, and he said, well, you lost your bet, and he stormed out of there and left his bag of money, and the servant and the priest just laughed until they cried. It was just the funniest thing to them. He got his money. So the oldest son came back and told his story, and his brother said, oh, I'm going to try my luck. So he heard the whole story, but he went out there, and the same exact thing happened. He was waiting for the food and waiting, and he lost all his money, too. Well, then the youngest said, well, let me try my... He said, I'm going to get back all your money.

[43:54]

I'm going to get his money and get yours back, too. So he shows up and signs on as this field hand, and that night at dinner, he pocketed as much bread, cheese, and stuff that he could, and they didn't notice. Then he went out to work, and they didn't come for breakfast, and that was all right with him. He had his little munchies with him. Then he went to a farmer nearby and got something to drink, and they didn't show up at lunchtime. I had more food than he still had, and got some more from this farmer. When they finally showed up, he said, oh, thank you, thank you. Oh, that's all right. Don't worry about me. It's okay. You were a little late. He took his hoe, and he carefully pried off the lid of the soup and drank his wine, and was perfectly happy. The servant came back to the priest and said, uh-oh, this guy told the story, and they didn't know what to do. And the story goes on, which I won't go into, but he ends up having the priest lose his temper big time

[44:58]

and got all his money and all his money from selling all his pigs, and he sold all his sheep, and he did all sorts of things, and finally the priest lost his temper. So anyway, we can, in Shantideva, it talks about, if you lose your temper, your bodhisattva vow, the vow to save all beings and realize the Buddha way and so forth, working with your desires, all that is lost in an instant if you get angry like this. So getting angry is pretty serious business, and especially if you get angry at another bodhisattva. That's very difficult. So just like this guy became a python for a thousand years because he got angry at this person who was seeking the Dharma, and we have this precept, a disciple of the Buddha is not possessive of anything,

[46:02]

and we used to say, is not possessive of anything, even the truth, meaning even the Dharma. So you don't keep the Dharma close, and you are free. Someone asks for Dharma, you freely give, you freely try to answer the questions or meet them. Giving Dharma through body, speech, and mind might be some action to meet them. So anger, especially when someone's asking for instruction or about the Buddha's way, is very difficult for the one who is withholding. So I think the last thing I wanted to say is something that just came upon this and wanted to pass it on to you. In the lunch chant when we say

[47:04]

there's a separate chant done by either the head student or the Ino or the person who's leading the chants, which is this food of three virtues and six tastes we offer to Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, and all life in every world. So I just came upon what those three virtues were. Does anyone ever come upon that before? I've always wondered what those three virtues are. And according to the Nirvana Sutra, the three virtues of this food is that it's soft, pure, and made according to Dharma. So I just wanted to get you a little preview for your lunch chant. Also the six tastes are bitter, sour, sweet, spicy. Bitter, sour, sweet, spicy, mild, and salty. So mild is a flavor too, which I didn't know.

[48:09]

So we have soft, pure, and made according to Dharma food that's come from our…

[48:16]

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