This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. This morning, I was reminded about the practice of gratitude and a number of things welled up at me that I'm grateful for. One is that my health is trending towards well-being. I'm grateful for that. I feel enormous gratefulness, gratitude for the quiet, the deep, deep quiet that we have. I've been grateful for the temperature, not too cold, not too hot.

[01:05]

Slightly chilly, very good weather for sitting warm up in the Zando. I've been grateful that the flies are less. They're still here, but nothing to speak of. A couple right here. I've been enormously grateful for the dark night and the waning moon and the bright stars. And for the brown and gold leaves scattering the earth, which look like a brown robe, kind of a brown and gold robe for the earth. reminded me of Peter Pan who I think Wendy sewed him an outfit out of leaves later on in their relationship.

[02:13]

He wore leaves. I was picturing those brown leaves being sewn into a crunchy kind of robe. And I've been grateful for the rare, really rare in the world, I think, pretty rare, feeling that we can walk around in the night, in the dark here, without fear. I would feel comfortable walking anywhere. And maybe many of you feel comfortable just walking a Tassar in the night. This is just so rare, the possibility of being enveloped in the darkness and feeling okay.

[03:25]

I want to To bring up a couple things, night sitting, we haven't talked about night sitting. It's offered Yaza, night sitting. Meya's name is Meya, luminous night, Yaza, night sitting. This is a different feeling in the zendo than during the day. If you face out in the zendo, taking responsibility for the Zen Dome. For night sitting, you face the wall. You can take a little more relaxed posture maybe than you usually take during the day. And I haven't come to night sitting yet, but my usual practice is have a hot drink, then get all washed up, brush teeth, completely ready for bed, have the bed all ready, maybe put on a little more warmth, and then come into the zendo, which is also dark.

[05:07]

And eyes cast down so I don't check out who's here and who's not. Just take my place and completely relax. And if I get sleepy, then get sleepy. But just continue sitting in the cool dark of the Zendo. So if you haven't done it or can't imagine why anybody would want to come back to the Zendo after that last bell, I mean, really, you might try it one night just for the, hey, let me try this. Or you can do night sitting in your own bed, all ready for bed, in your night clothes, your water bottle's all ready, and just sit up in bed for maybe five minutes and then clunk. You could try that as your own personal night sitting.

[06:14]

In the Lotus Sutra, it talks about stepping into the room of the Buddha, wrapping yourself in the robe, of the Buddha and sitting on the seat. And then it further says, stepping into the room is the room of compassion. There isn't some special room. Step into compassion, the room of compassion. Wrap yourself in the robe, and the robe is gentleness and patience. So wrapped in gentleness and patience. in the room of compassion, and then we sit on the Buddha's seat, which is the seat of emptiness. We sit in emptiness, wrapped in gentleness and patience, within compassion itself. And I think we can think of this

[07:30]

If you want to, this room stepping into the zendo as the room of compassion and whatever clothing you have, just imagine yourself wrapped in gentleness, gentleness with yourself, with others, with everything you see and touch and hear, and patience. We need patience to practice with what's coming up. physical discomfort. Even if it's in the human realm of suffering, meaning we can work with it in the realm of the humans, there's just enough suffering, there's enough to really, we can practice with it. It's not the hell realm where we can't even deal at all. That's a different realm. So we need patience to practice with pain, emotional, physical, psychological, suffering and pain, and gentleness.

[08:41]

Not some kind of harsh criticizing how we're not doing what we should, but gentleness and patience. And then sitting on the seat of emptiness, the seat of the mind of no abode, the no abiding self connected with all beings who also have no abiding self. I am wanted to bring up the story of how the Buddha, the original, how Shakyamuni in a past life began to search for the way or start to practice.

[09:43]

And it had to do with Shakyamuni. He wasn't Shakyamuni at the time. He was a king in this former life named Suprabhasa. King Suprabasa, and he recognized a mistake he had made, and that was the turning point. And I just wanted to say something about mistakes, you know, what we call mistakes. I think nobody likes to make a mistake. We get very upset with ourselves, and maybe other people get upset with us too. We should have known. We should have done this. Why weren't we thinking? I've told you a hundred times. Can't you get it through your thick skull or whatever? We have these ways we've been spoken to when we made a mistake. But everyone makes mistakes.

[10:47]

Our life is filled with mistakes. And Dogen, you know this famous saying, you know, one mistake after another. One continuous mistake, I think Suzuki Roshi calls it. So how is it that we plow our mistakes, you know, compost our mistakes so that they become the rich soil of our thriving practice instead of some sour way that we kind of stop in our tracks and retreat. There's a quote from Uchiyama Roshi. Uchiyama Roshi, many of you know, was Shohaku Okamura's teacher and a student of Koto Sawaki and Joshin-san's teacher at Antaichi. Uchiyama Roshi said, the problems we have...

[11:49]

And the mistakes that we've done are our, I think he used the word, I'm not sure what it was in Japanese, but resource or capital or, yeah, our resource, our assets for our bodhisattva practice. So problems, mistakes, difficulties, all this is... is what we use and what helps our bodhisattva practice. If we recognize them as mistakes, if we just say, well, that's me, who cares, or some kind of casual cavalier, but to see, oh, that wasn't very skillful. I see that, and I don't want to do that again. I want to learn from this. Then it becomes those very mistakes when we practice confession and repentance, meaning acknowledging, admitting, seeing that it wasn't skillful, then that becomes dharma.

[13:02]

And that becomes the compost and the way that we help other people, because we made that mistake too. We did that very same thing, or something very similar. and understand how it didn't work, so then we can help with others from our own experience, something real and alive for us. Blanche said about the sewing room that she's made so many mistakes in sewing okesa and raksu that when people come to her with their rocks and say, you know, I don't know how I got here, she understands because she made that mistake too. So she can know how they got there and how to undo it and how to, you know, put it back in accord with the tradition of sewing.

[14:04]

So it was, her mistakes that she made were essential. to be a good teacher of sewing. And I think that's the same with all of us. To be a good person, we have to make our mistakes, learn from them, acknowledge and admit, and understand how that wasn't useful. And I think in Suzuki Roshi's where he talks about burying the weeds, you know, taking the weeds and burying them, composting them, saying this is the most important thing, which of course we know he says a lot. But this secret, I think he says this is the most important, this is the secret of our practice. So please allow our mistakes to be, you know, the rich gold,

[15:12]

of compost. It's called black gold. That material that fertilizes and nourishes soil from our own, what we throw away, right? Compost. What was unedible would make us sick if we ate it. Went sour, is overboard. We compost that. Those are our mistakes. You don't want to eat the compost. You have to wait until it takes that form. That can be helpful. So this story about a past life of Shakyamuni Buddha, this is from a Jataka tale. And the tale, King Suprabhasa was king, And he called a servant to him who was an elephant trainer, and he said, I'd like to ride my great elephant, his special elephant.

[16:26]

And the trainer said, I'm sorry, Lord, but that great elephant has run off into the jungle. But, said the elephant trainer, it will return. because it is very well trained. And the king didn't believe him and didn't want to listen about this. He just wanted his elephant now and he lost it and he got really angry and he started yelling at the elephant trainer, his servant, and shouting at him and kind of set him away with a lot of anger. lost his self-control, lost his composure completely. Well, the next day the elephant trainer came back and said, Your Majesty, the great elephant has returned from the jungle.

[17:29]

The training was good, he said about the elephant. And King Suprabasa heard this The elephant trainer said, his training was good. We have conquered his old, wild ways. And when the king heard this, he thought, though I am king over this country and have enormous power over other beings and things, events, I... as yet have failed to conquer my own anger. This will not do, said King Suprabhasa. And this is said to be the origin of Shakyamuni Buddha's vow to search for a way to practice with and study the self.

[18:35]

So he saw his mistake, his losing his temper and lashing out and thought, this will not do. I have not conquered my wild ways, even though it looks like I've got a lot of power over all those things out there. How about this very self? So I like that story about Shakyamuni, pre-Shakyamuni. It doesn't even say when he was a bodhisattva. Sometimes they say when he was a bodhisattva. This is just this king who saw something, recognized something, and said, you know, I'm ready. I want to change this. And we know what happened to King Suprabasa. Buddhas and ancestors of old, whereas we, we in the future shall be Buddhas and ancestors

[19:39]

So please lighten, be light with one another and yourself. Light means gentle, I think. And yes, acknowledge and learn from and confess and repent by chanting. And not just chanting and mouthing, but bringing up, I want to make it change here. This will not do. But with gentleness and understanding and patience and compassion. Otherwise, it's just one more way to beat oneself up, which we already know how to do. And it doesn't work. It really doesn't work. So, skillful means So now I want to attempt to talk about something which is really impossible to talk about.

[20:57]

But I vow to bring this up. And since we're sitting a lot, we have a chance to turn this together, and I have a chance to turn this with you right now. And this is Chapter 2. Lotus Sutra, only a Buddha, where the Buddha says, only a Buddha together with a Buddha can fathom, is one translation, can fathom the reality of all things. Another translation is only a Buddha together with a Buddha can thoroughly penetrate the true reality of all beings. Only a Buddha, together with a Buddha, can study thoroughly, can reach completely the true reality of all beings.

[22:02]

And in Japanese, this is yuibutsu, yobutsu, gojin jisō shishō. So yui-butsu is, yui is only, butsu is Buddha, only Buddha, yo-butsu, that can either be and, only Buddha and Buddha, or only Buddha together with Buddha. And this go gene, the go, is thoroughly investigate, study, and also reach, like reach a mountain. and is able to, is able to, only a Buddha, together with Buddha, is able to thoroughly study, fathom, reach completely, penetrate, study thoroughly.

[23:02]

All these words kind of circle around this goal. Can thoroughly study or reach completely. reality of all beings. And these two characters, or these characters, the sho-ho-ji-so, sho is various, many, the ho is the ho of dharma, but in this case it's the many dharmas, meaning the myriad dharmas, the things or beings, translated as the reality of all things, the reality of all dharmas, the true reality of all beings. And the jiso is real form or beings or things as it is. So this is a very enigmatic, you know, what is this right there in pretty much the beginning of chapter two.

[24:11]

And then it goes on to say, Only a Buddha together with a Buddha can fathom the reality of all things. That is the suchness of form, the suchness of nature, the suchness of embodiment or body, the suchness of energy or potency, the suchness of function, the suchness of causes, the suchness of conditions, the suchness of result. the suchness of recompense, and the complete, from beginning to end, sameness of all those nine. That's this part of the Lotus Sutra. And then the Lotus Sutra says nothing more about it. We're left to the commentary, and Dogen takes up both yuibutsu, yobutsu, in its own fascicle, and Shōho Jisō as its own fascicle.

[25:13]

He takes this one sentence of the Lotus Sutra and goes in deep, [...] deep to what this is, what the Lotus Sutra is trying to bring out and present. So I want to talk about it as best I can. Because without talking about this, the second chapter of the Lotus Sutra kind of gets lopsided. We've been reading all the Buddha's teachings that come about skillful means, what the Buddha had been doing before, and now he was going to unadornedly just speak the truth that there's just one vehicle. I want everyone to open and be the same as me, open to. I want to demonstrate and show and have you enter and realize the same Buddhas and ancestors are the same as we.

[26:22]

We in the future will be Buddhas and ancestors. This chapter 2, the Buddha brings this out. Why or how so? just like we've been reading, there's suffering beings. I see suffering and I want all beings to know this, that you too are of the Buddha nature and will become Buddhists. You know, there's this prediction, that last one that's on the last page, you know, the joy. And of course, This is very difficult. But if we, I think this earlier part in the Lotus Uta preps us almost, even though it doesn't comment on it, for these teachings that the Buddha gives later on, that everything you do is within the true reality of all beings, the sho-ho-ji-so, even, you know, distractedly drawing or

[27:34]

You know, sho-ho-ji-so, the true reality of all existence or all beings, of all dharmas, is our nature and is Buddha's. Buddha, only Buddha, and Buddha's, together with Buddha's nature. We are all beings. These all beings they're talking about is none other than our true nature. In Only Buddha and a Buddha fascicle, Dogen brings up, you know, what you're thinking, you know, what you're thinking one way or another isn't a help really one way or the other. You already are within this net of true reality.

[28:41]

You can't stand, we can't stand outside of it and look at it in some objective way. Our very thinking itself is it. Now you might say, my thinking, you know, you've got to be kidding. You know, my thinking or way of speaking or, you know, expression is just my... karmic consciousness, you know? It's not the true reality of all existence. It's not Buddha. One might think in that way, which is... And, you know, we know that we have a limited... We live in a circle of water, right? We can only see as far as our eye of practice can see. We can't see the whole thing. We have to admit that.

[29:43]

It looks round to us when we go out in a boat. That's because to a fly it wouldn't look round probably. Who knows what it would look like. Like a kaleidoscope or something. It wouldn't look like a round circle. But to us, with this karmic body, with this body of suchness, with this suchness body, with our unique form and our unique nature and personality and our unique body or embodiment and our unique energy and ability to see and how we function, it looks like that. It's a circle of water. But we know the ocean is neither round nor square. Its features are infinite in variety. We know this.

[30:46]

But that's what it looks like to me. So how could how I relate to the world or see the world with my limitations and my obscurations and... you know, all sorts of difficulties and upsets. How could that be the reality of all existence? The reality, the true reality. So this is, this is, we're kind of caught there because of the way we think. We think I'm over here, true reality's over there. our grammar and the structure of our language and our usual way of thinking is very, creates our way of talking and thinking and acting.

[31:53]

It's that structure that is very hard to break down. And of course, Dogen tries valiantly by using words to turn it upside down so we have some glimpse. So how do we work with this dilemma? We hear these teachings, only a Buddha together with a Buddha can fathom, can realize, can study thoroughly, reach completely the true reality of all beings, all beings, each and every being, that means us. And in Shohaka Wakamura's commentary on this, that sentence structurally sounds like subject and a verb and an object.

[33:02]

Only Buddhas... that's the subject, can penetrate or study thoroughly the true reality of all beings, as if it's subject, verb, and object. However, Dogen, in this commentary, turns it all upside down and tries to break down that structure of subject, object, and verb into the inconceivableness of our life. And the... So only a Buddha together with a Buddha is the true reality of all beings. And this only a Buddha together with Buddhas, what does that mean? So... One...

[34:09]

understanding of this is that the Hinayana, or old, excuse me, old wisdom school, had just one Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, and the Lotus Sutra, you know, kind of breaks this down as well. One Shakyamuni Buddha in this eon, and the next Buddha will be Maitreya. This is old wisdom school. And the Mahayana comes to say that there are many Buddhas that Shakyamuni Buddha was near Manakaya Buddha, was an emanation or a... Is the kitchen going already? Shakyamuni Buddha is a transformational appearance of Buddha. that takes form and lives and dies.

[35:10]

But there is many other Buddhas, Buddhas and ancestors, many other Buddhas. So this only a Buddha together with Buddhas is a Mahayana teaching that there are many, many Buddhas, not just Shakyamuni, not just only Shakyamuni, but Shakyamuni and all the other Buddhas. together are the reality of all existence, or the reality of all beings, the true reality. So Buddhas are true reality, true reality is Buddhas, were true reality, were Buddhas And we can't get outside of that formation.

[36:14]

So this is very confusing, maybe. And what do we do? Well, what our teachers, what the Buddhas and ancestors have said and what Dogen has said is just sit. Just sit. Just sit on the throne, on the seat of emptiness. Wrap ourselves in gentleness and patience, in compassion, and just sit. That in itself is already expressing truly the reality, the true reality of all beings. Last night we chanted self-receiving and self-employing. It says the zazen of even one person at one moment. The sky turns into enlightenment.

[37:23]

This understanding of just sitting or this teaching of what just sitting is always feels like, whoa, you know. How can they be, how can Dogen be teaching this about my little old sasen practice, you know? Barely drag myself to my cushion and the whole sky turns into enlightenment and, you know, the unremitting and relentless, unnameable, unshakeful, I'm forgetting the words, Buddha Dharma. And all this is going on outside of perception because a deluded mind doesn't reach it. However, the teaching is that that is the true, that is our true body.

[38:28]

It's like that. Not even like that. It is that. And this is Ekayana, the one vehicle, the Lotus Sutra. We're all on this one vehicle, a Buddha vehicle, the Buddha vehicle. So this is, you know, this is only a Buddha can fathom this. That's why it's not human beings who fathom this, because of this delusion. However, human beings can just sit and express completely with body and mind this reality. Whether we believe it or not or can say anything about it or not, as my poor attempt to try and bring this out, it doesn't matter because we already are it.

[39:34]

Each moment of zazen is equally wholeness of practice, wholeness of realization. This is not only practice while sitting. It's like a hammer striking emptiness. It's what is going on all the time, unrelentingly. This is actually the true reality of all beings. So when we try and speak and express ourselves completely, we talked a little bit about what is true expressing, what is expressing ourselves completely, our expressions are the expressions of the true reality of all beings. how could they be other than that?

[40:42]

There is nothing outside of that that we could be bringing forth. How could one bring forth anything outside of the true reality of all beings? So, to... You know, whatever we say, whatever we do, whatever our actions are, you know, when they're, you can say, well, what if when I do unskillful things, when I do unwholesome things or say unwholesome things, is that the true reality of all beings? And I would say that is the manifestation through our five skandhas, through our psychophysicalness, which is ten suchnesses.

[41:42]

You know, the uniqueness, complete uniqueness, and also connected through everything that is or was or will be. And it took that form of being unwholesome. When we study that, when we study how that came to be, and the causes and conditions of that, that becomes Dharma. Even unwholesomeness. That's the second ancestor to Bodhidharma. I have done very unwholesome things. I have very bad karma. And Bodhidharma says, show me. Show me your... And he says, I can't show it to you. I have relieved you of it.

[42:46]

I have pacified you. It can't be pulled apart. It can't be pulled apart from Dharma, Dharma, Dharma. From the true reality of all beings, even our unwholesomeness. When we study it and learn from it and compost it, that karma becomes dharma. Katagiri Roshi wrote a book called You Have to Say Something, I think it's called. You Have to Say Something. So this, you know, attempt at saying something, gathering my understanding of these teachings and pulling them together today to support our sitting practice, to support just sitting, to sit on this seat of emptiness and just sit with confidence.

[44:04]

that we are not outside of Buddha-nature, Buddha-dharma, of the true reality of all existence, of all beings, the impossibility of being outside. And even our separateness, when we feel our separateness, when we admit that that the delusion of our separateness, when we admit that, then we're in accord, you know, with Buddhadharma. So when we speak to fully express ourselves, To fully function, to be fully functioning, we have to be as wide as we possibly can.

[45:16]

Not some narrow band, but the wideness. Can that be in our words, in our actions, in our thinking? So please take, bring it all, take it all, bring it all, and sit down on this seat of emptiness. And allow yourself, let's allow ourselves to breathe, allow ourselves to breathe in all directions, you know, when we breathe in zazen.

[46:18]

We were like a kind of opening up of a balloon or a sphere in all directions, not just sort of frontal, but our back and our side bodies and our neck all the way around. Our whole body breathes front and back, sitting there allowing ourselves to relax completely. And I don't know about you, but last night when chanting, the pain shifted, you know, somehow the, maybe this happened for you too, but the pain kind of moved and moved through and shifted. So exhaling fully, exhale, the exhale, As I mentioned last, Sashin of the Dai Friend, relaxing and going back to its dome shape, pushing the air out, is a relaxed movement.

[47:28]

All is right with the world as we exhale. Allow ourselves to enjoy that gently as we fully express the true reality of all beings. our being and all beings. No better way. But anyway, is a way. You know, I sounded like I was privileging zazen there over each activity as zazen. this excellent method allows us to understand how each and every word, action, and thought is the true reality of all existence.

[48:31]

So we start there. So let's return to our seats. ready, soft, forgiving of our own mistakes, and when we're ready for the mistakes of others, no hurry. And just settle ourselves completely. Thank you very much.

[49:48]

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