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Hyakujo and a Fox, Part 4

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12/12/2022, Furyu Schroeder, dharma talk at Tassajara. December sesshin series at the Tassajara fall practice period on cause and effect.

AI Summary: 

The talk discusses the significance of the Bodhisattva precepts, rooted in the teachings of cause and effect, as illustrated in Case 4 of the Book of Serenity and Dogen’s fascicle "Deep Faith in Cause and Effect". The precepts guide practitioners toward ethical living and spiritual practice, emphasizing the interconnectedness of all beings and the importance of face-to-face transmission in understanding and embodying the Dharma. This relational transmission is compared to familial lineage, flowing both from teacher to student and back, underscoring the vital role the precepts play in nurturing the collective Sangha and individual awakening. The talk concludes by reinforcing the foundational nature of the triple treasures—Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha—in Zen practice, positioning them as the core sanctuaries of refuge that illuminate the path for practitioners.

  • Book of Serenity, Case 4: Illustrates the theme of transmission and the significance of embodying teachings, highlighting the direct relationship between pointed instructions and the practice of the precepts.
  • Dogen’s Fascicle "Deep Faith in Cause and Effect": Addresses misconceptions about causality in Zen practice and emphasizes the critical understanding of cause and effect in realizing the Dharma.
  • Nagarjuna: Referenced as affirming the significance of accepting causality; rejecting it negates foundational Buddhist teachings.
  • Hongzhi: Cited from the "Book of Serenity" and contributes a verse on "The Wild Fox," which underscores the pitfalls of overlooking causality.
  • Ketchum Yaku: Mentioned as a document representing the lineage of precept transmission, emphasizing the cyclical nature of teaching flow within Zen lineage.
  • Leonard Cohen’s Song: Serves as a metaphor for the elusive nature of remembrance and understanding in Zen practice.
  • The Prajnaparamita Literature: Provides a context for understanding the breadth and simplicity of the Dharma, ranging from extensive text to the single letter "A".

AI Suggested Title: Interconnected Paths: Awakening Through Precepts

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Transcript: 

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. Good morning. These are reading glasses, so you just become blurs. Oh, they're blurs. Sorry. Case 4, Book of Serenity. The World Honored One points to the ground. As soon as a single mote of dust arises, the whole earth is contained therein. With a single horse and a single lance, the land is extended. Who is this person who can have mastery in any place and meet the source in everything? As the World Honored One was walking with the congregation, He pointed to the ground with his finger and said, this spot is good to build a sanctuary.

[01:04]

Indra, emperor of the gods, took a blade of grass, stuck it in the ground and said, the sanctuary is built. The world-honored one smiled. So I've started to talk about the steps or preliminary steps that we take in order to enter fully into a life of practice as a bodhisattva. So the first step is this wish to live for the benefit of others, something that maybe we've had since we were very small. The second step, confession and repentance, all my ancient twisted karma, which I now fully avow. fully acknowledge and then the third step is the Bodhisattva precepts themselves so today I'm going to start talking about the 16 Bodhisattva precepts which are basically Buddha's answer to how we can stay out of big trouble as we transmigrate through the six destinations on the wheel of birth and death

[02:11]

So even so, bodhisattvas are also those beings who are willing to continue transmigrating in order to be a benefit to others, those who've gotten stuck there somehow, like Hyakuryo did as a fox for many lifetimes. So in some of the illustrations of the wheel, there is a little bodhisattva in a cloud playing a lute in each one of the six realms. And I think the point there is that they're trying to get the attention of the penitents who are kind of stuck in a mind state, and get them to turn toward a pathway of liberation. So turning them away from the selfishness that got them stuck there in the first place, and perhaps even offering them some practice discussion, you know, on the side. So while undergoing the initial training as bodhisattvas, human beings, like us, will practice the precepts initially out of concern for the consequences to ourselves from our past actions. We're very careful and determined to get it right by not killing and stealing and sexualizing and lying, intoxicating, slandering, hating, and so on.

[03:23]

Meticulous care. So in being careful, in making our best personal effort, we come very close to fulfilling the literal meaning of the precepts. And yet we continue to be living in a world of right way and wrong way, good actions and bad actions of me helping you the world of relative truth so by practicing diligently in the relative world we will experience firsthand the law of karma how our wholesome actions are rewarded and our unskillful actions are not and in this way over time and as I said yesterday time is one of the features of the conventional world we develop deep faith in cause and effect. And then, what happened to Mu? What happened to cutting through? So I found this fascicle that Dogen wrote quite wonderful.

[04:27]

He wrote a fascicle called Deep Faith in Cause and Effect, also translated as Identifying with Cause and Effect. And he begins with the story of Hyakhojo and the Fox. I hadn't read this fascicle in a great many years, so I'd sort of forgotten about it. So Yakujo and the Fox, he says, is basically a story of what happens when a teacher gives a wrong answer to a student. And then he says that many people of this time, meaning the 13th century Japan, consider themselves as students of Zen. However, they deny causality. So I'm going to read you a little bit of this fascicle by our founding ancestor. The most serious mistake made by those who studied Zen in China was to believe that a person who practices completely does not fall into cause and effect. What a pity. There has been an increasing number of those who deny cause and effect, even though they witness the Tathagata's true Dharma being transmitted from ancestor to ancestor.

[05:30]

So I think the point that Dogen's making here is that cause and effect doesn't only determine the negative outcomes, you know, our fate in the six destinations, but it also helps us to understand how the Buddhist teaching arrived here in California. Cause and effect. There's a cause for the appearance of the Dharma, which is the face-to-face transmission from teachers to students for over 2,500 years. What Kezan Jokin calls the transmission of light from warm hand to to warm hand, living teacher to living student. Dogen then says that the point of Bai Zhang's words, do not ignore cause and effect, is that we should not be ignorant of causation. Thus, the very important word that pulls us right back into the present, thus, he says, the significance of practicing cause and effect is clear. This is the way of the Buddhas and ancestors.

[06:31]

And then he quotes Nagarjuna. If you deny cause and effect in the worldly realm, as some people outside the way do, you negate this present life as well as your future life. If you deny cause and effect in the realm of practice, you reject the three treasures, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, the four noble truths, and the four fruits of the Shravakas, those who have heard the Dharma. And then Dogen goes on. Whether we live a worldly life, the life of a monk those who deny cause and effect believe that this present life is unreal like a dream and that our true nature resides in enlightenment such of you will drive them to seek a pure mind that is separate from this impure body and there's others who believe that when they die they will simply return to the great ocean of enlightenment no longer subject to the consequences of their harmful actions in this lifetime so This view, Dogen says, is nihilism, nihilism being one of the two extreme views that the Buddha had warned us against in his first sermon, the other one being a life devoted to transient pleasures.

[07:43]

So Dogen, holding up a very high standard for practice realization, says that we need to have faith and to pay deep respect to the compassionate teaching of ancestor Nagarjuna. He then includes in his fascicle a verse, On the Wild Fox, it was written by Hongzhi, who's the author of the Book of Serenity. Hongzhi is one of Dogen's favorite teachers, and he quotes him more often than anyone except for Ru Jing, his own transmission teacher. Hongzhi writes, A foot of water, a fathom of wave. For 500 lives he couldn't do a thing. Not falling, not blind, they haggle as before, entering into a nest of complications. Ha, ha. Do you understand? If you are clear and free, there is no objection to my babble. The spirit's songs and the shrine dances spontaneously form a harmony, clapping in the intervals, singing li-la, li-la.

[08:45]

And Dogen then says, the fox who struggles with not falling nor blind means not falling is itself not blind. And on the obvious other hand, falling is ignoring cause and effect. You know, oops. After each fall, we have an opportunity for yet another confession and repentance. I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing and I am very sorry that I stepped on your foot. I'm very sorry that I dropped my chopsticks and I forgot the wake-up bell and so on. Just another opportunity for us to exercise faith confession and repentance and then Dogen says by denying cause and effect we generate outrageously crooked views and cut off our wholesome roots after all causation is self-evident there are no exceptions those who act in unwholesome ways decline those who act in wholesome ways thrive if cause and effect had been ignored or denied Buddhas would not have appeared in this world and Bodhidharma would not have come from India to China

[09:56]

and sentient beings who would not have seen Buddhas or heard the Dharma. So, with these admonitions from our founding ancestor, I think it's a good time to turn toward this one great cause for entry into the Zen gate, and that's the Bodhisattva precepts. which is what it says at the bottom of the Ketchum Yaku. For those of you who have received the precepts, you also receive a document called the Ketchum Yaku, meaning the blood vein of the ancestors. So all the names of the ancestors that we chant in morning service are written out by the person receiving the precepts. And then at the bottom is the new precept receiving person, and above their name is the teacher's name. And then the red line, the blood vein that runs through all the names, goes right back up to the top, to the enlightened nature of all being, big round circle at the top. So this is the Buddha body, the whole Buddha body. The one great cause for entry into the Zen gate is the Bodhisattva precepts.

[11:00]

It also says at the bottom, below all of the names of the ancestors, that these precepts were passed down personally from Buna through successive generations to the present teacher, thus mutually flowing both ways, eldest to eldest. So this means that the precepts don't just flow down. It's not just downhill. They also go back uphill. So when your teacher transmits the precepts to you, then you transmit them back to them. back to their teacher and their teachers so on all the way to shakimuni Buddha you know the source and then it comes back down again so this is like the blood vein is the circulating system and what's circulating are the bodhisattva precepts so in this way we are giving to the ancestors lineage our most precious gift the one gift we have that we can give that doesn't cost us a thing we can give our life And even though it may seem kind of small from our own point of view, the lineage from the top of the chart to the bottom can only come alive through us.

[12:10]

We create the one body of Buddha from its head to its toe, you know, with our warm hearts and our warm hands. So as we know from the teaching of dependent co-arising, the teachers, the teaching and the students have all appeared together in the only place there is. which is right now and right here. Thus. Each moment is thus. Have you noticed that? There's no getting out of it. The present moment is all you will ever have. And sometimes it's in the sound of rain or creek, Kabarga Creek. That's a good one. Or the bell or a biscuit in the shape of a cowboy or a lost gray mitten. So all of these things are what make this shape-shifting appearance that we call tasahara, moment after moment. And although that's what we call it, it is not what the Buddhas and the ancestors call this.

[13:13]

They call it a jewel mirror in which each of us is reflecting and being reflected by each other throughout the entire universe. Jewel mirror samadhi. When the Buddha saw the morning star, he knew that he was being made by it and by all things, by the grass and the butterflies and by this lovely young woman who was walking by with a jar of water on her head. Face-to-face transmission is what is always happening. It's always right now. It's always right here. Making and being made by the presence of one another and by everything that surrounds us, whether we are thinking about it or not, noticing it or not, or whether we care about it or not. Are they being violent? Violence is face-to-face transmission. And waking up to the cessation of violence depends on cultivating wholesome roots.

[14:18]

So every one of us has both wholesome and unwholesome roots from our karmic inheritance. And nourishing wholesome roots is the job of the Bodhisattva precepts. I think some of you know the story of Angulimala. Angulimala means a thousand fingers. So he had 999 human fingers on his necklace. I'm going to tell you the whole story tomorrow. But for now, this mass murderer had face-to-face transmission with the Buddha, who was his next victim. And the Buddha said to him, stop. Through the power of meeting the Buddha face to face, Angulemala woke up from the darkness of his delusion and he understood the reality of cause and effect. And later on, as he was being killed, the result of his past actions, he knew that his death was a consequence of his past evil actions and his heart was finally laid to rest.

[15:22]

So Buddhist ethics, precepts and morality means to stop doing unwholesome things. Stop doing is a condition for realizing face-to-face transmission. For example, among the precepts, the Buddha taught nonviolence. If you don't practice nonviolence, then you are not my disciple, he said. Reverend Angel told us on an earlier visit to Zen Center that we cannot act or speak against racism as Buddhists except from the seat of love, from the seat of not hating. And someone asked her, well, how do you find the seat of love out there on the streets? And she said, again and again and again, we find it. There is no static position for or against anything or anyone. Hating and killing is not what you want to do, is a message that's coming to us from the Dharmakaya, the place of face-to-face transmission.

[16:26]

It's a transmission to our karmic consciousness. which might be tempted to think, but I want to kill the killers. We may all have thought that at one time or another. When the roots of our karmic tendencies receive messages from the Dharmakaya, this is the pure source. And those messages are asking us, how? How are you going to include those frightened and aggressive human beings who are spewing hateful speech and advocating violence without becoming hateful and violent yourself? And the answer is the very same way that we include our own fear, our own aggression, our own lust, and our little worried thoughts as they call out to us for compassion. Not just from ourselves, but from everyone. Compassion doesn't belong to me or to you. It's ours. All of ours. And if I can't find a way to be kind or generous to those challenging situations that occur in my life, then maybe you can.

[17:35]

You can do it for me. Our practice is to continuously study the workings of our karmic conditioning, the internal clockwork of aggression, of avarice, and of ignorance. And to do so both as individuals, but also as members of the multitude of collective identities. I think right here in this room, I'm going to see how many I get right. We have Germans, Americans, Canadians, Australians, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, males and females, neither and both, young and old, white, black, Asian, gay and straight. Did I miss anything? Danes! Thank you. Of course. One deigns to forget. I'm sorry. Anything else I missed? Old.

[18:36]

I said old, didn't I? Did you? I did. Yeah, I did. Don't you worry, Heiko. That's one I won't forget. Yeah, yeah, right there. Young and old. So right view is an endless study of ourselves and of this world through the lens of the vow to live for others. And as we study ourselves more and more deeply, we forget ourselves, as Dogen tells us, and we awaken to all things. This is called taking refuge, flying back to our true nature for the sake of all living beings. So as I've said, the first three of the 16 Bodhisattva precepts are the refuges. I take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. Taking refuge is the building of the sanctuary, even from a single blade of grass. Taking refuge in the triple treasure is the first step in becoming an official member of the Buddha's Sangha. I take refuge in the Buddha as the perfect teacher, in the Dharma as the perfect teaching, in the Sangha as the perfect life.

[19:45]

So these are very powerful words and we chant them together nearly every morning in our near... perfect life here at Zen Mountain Monastery. And although we all have some unique feelings about what these words mean, I think it's very helpful for us to turn the words and wonder deeply about what role they play in our understanding of Buddhist practice and our community together, how we live together here. Long ago, when the Buddha, the perfect teacher, had set in motion the wheel of the law, there was a moment in time that I imagine, of near perfect stillness. Like when someone shouts into a canyon and then waits for that familiar human voice to echo a reply. You know, hello? Which in turn reminded me of this very sweet moment a number of years ago. I was staying in a cabin. It was a lot like Tassajara cabins with my young daughter and about six other children.

[20:52]

as part of a school outing. I was the chaperone. And so for many of them, it was the first time they'd ever spent away from home. These were little kids. And while I was trying to get them to quiet down and off to sleep, which took quite a while, finally there were a couple of uneventful hours, which I, too, was able to go to sleep. And then I heard this muffled cry from out of the very dark room. Is anybody awake? So this poor little boy had turned himself upside down in his sleeping bag, and he couldn't figure out how to get out. And I thought he did very well under the circumstances of not panicking. I think I would panic upside down in my sleeping bag. But anyway, it was kind of amazing under the circumstances. Is anybody awake? Unfortunately for him, we all were. So this is the cry into the silence.

[21:55]

The awakened one calls out, and then hopefully, to the great relief of us all, there's a response that comes at last. In the case of the Buddha, the response came from Kondana, whose name means the one who knows, declaring his understanding and requesting the full admission as the Buddha's first disciple. Lord Buddha, I wish to go forth under the blessed one and to receive the full admission. And with that request, the triple treasure was manifest in the world, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, giver, receiver, and gift. So here's from the Pali Canon. At that moment, at that instant, the news traveled right up to the Brahma world, and this 10,000-fold world element shook and quaked and trembled while a great measureless light surpassing the splendor of the gods appeared in the world. So this request by Kandana to take refuge in the Buddha and the Dharma was in the form of a call and response, which is a form that we continue doing in our community.

[23:03]

We call it a number of different names. There's practice discussion, questions and answers. There's doksan. Doksan means a private meeting with a teacher. So then Kandana says, Lord Buddha, I wish to go forth under the Blessed One. And Lord Buddha responds, Kambikshu. Your understanding of the Dharma is well proclaimed. Live the holy life for the complete end of suffering. So without the Buddha, his teaching, and without the people who came to study with him, there would be no Buddhism. I mean, that's pretty obvious. And as a result, none of us would be here in this room today. There would be no us, there'd be no it, there would be no way of life. So taking refuge in the triple treasure, as Suzuki Roshi says, means that you adore the Buddha, you adore the Dharma, and you adore the Sangha, and that you, for you, taking refuge is an act of adoration.

[24:06]

So I think before declaring your adoration for the triple treasure, if you haven't done that already, it's good to consider what each of those means. What does each of those terms really mean? So the first one is the Buddha, a word that literally means to be awake, Buddha, awake. As in that story I've said, I've told you about the wanderer who approaches the Buddha on the road and says, you know, are you a god? He says, no. Water spirit? No. A demon? No. A human? No. What are you? I am awake. This is a quality. It's not a person. It's a quality that people have. So there are lots of things that can be said about the Buddha. In fact, we use this word all the time. You know, we bow to the image of the Buddha. We wear the Buddha's clothes and we offer fragrance, sweet tea and food as gestures of gratitude. We endeavor to act like the Buddha and we spend a lot of time listening and talking about the words that the Buddha said and his descendants also as well.

[25:14]

And this kind of sounds like adoration. At least it's a form of it. But one understanding that we in the Zen school have about what it means to take refuge in Buddha is to take refuge in who we really are. And that who we really are is already Buddha. The word refuge literally means to fly back, to come home. In other words, we fly back to our true self, to our whole self. which is limitless ungraspable and inconceivable therefore Buddha is not something we can change or produce we can't destroy it or bring it about by any kind of effort there is nothing to add and there's nothing to be taken away and as frustrating as that might be it's something that we all have already noticed about reality reality always wins So perhaps the shortest expression repeatedly given in answer to who we really are is thus.

[26:22]

Or as Domshan said when he saw his face as he crossed a river, just this person, just this person. Refuge, flying home. Which echoes back to the story of the Buddha holding up a flower at which time Mahakashapa smiled. Just this flower, just this person. just this moment of joy that we call awakening. Not much to it. In the first case of the Book of Serenity, the collection of koans written by Hongzhi, 11th century, there's some serious clues about who the Buddha is and who the Buddha isn't, and where to look for him or her or them, as the case may be. One day the world-honored one ascended the seat. Manjushri struck the gavel and said, clearly observe the dharma of the king of the dharma. The dharma of the king of the dharma is thus.

[27:25]

The world honored one then got down from the seat. So if you've read this case, you know that it goes on from there to ask some very excellent questions about what we imagine a Buddha to be. So it says, well, how can a Buddha, meaning the whole of reality, bear to sit? on a carved wood seat, sporting devil eyes. How could a Buddha bear to sit on a carved wooden seat, sporting devil eyes? So that's the seat I'm sitting on right now. Carved wooden seat. I don't know about the devil eyes because I can't see them right now, but this definitely is a hot seat that I know. And since that's true, it probably is where the devil ought to sit. Which is why I like the part further on in this koan where it says, getting down from the seat and out the door as fast as you can.

[28:29]

So if you don't know what I'm talking about, try reading the history not only of the San Francisco Zen Center, but of almost every Zen Center in the Western world and in Asia as well. There's a... Amazing book called Shoes Outside the Door, the door right over here. And there's Zen at War, and then there's The Red Thread. So each one of these is truth-telling about the dangers of human beings sitting on the hot seat, seemingly unaware that they are sporting with the devil's eyes. And fortunately, another one of the questions from Case 1 turns the heat away from the teacher and on to the assembly of monks. Before you people come to this teaching hall, and before the teacher has left her room, when will you attain realization? In other words, what are you waiting for? Christmas? Easter? Your 90th birthday?

[29:33]

So what I like about these two questions is that it's pretty clear that we're all in this together. Whether you are asking the questions or answering them, our karmically conditioned radar will find out pretty fast who are the guilty ones. And there's also this lovely verse that's added to the first case by Zen master Wansong, who has collected Hongzhi's teaching stories and compiled them to what we know as the Book of Serenity. The unique breeze of reality. Do you see? Continuously, creation runs her loom and shuttle, weaving the ancient brocade, incorporating the forms of spring. But nothing can be done about Manju Sri's leaking. The unique breeze of reality, do you see? Continuously, creation runs through loom and shuttle, weaving the ancient brocade, incorporating the forms of spring. But nothing can be done about Manju Sri's leaking.

[30:38]

So this verse connects us to the two truths. Can you see it? The unique breeze of reality? That would be the ultimate truth. And the answer is, you can't miss it. Continuously, creation runs her loom and shuttle, weaving the ancient brocade, that's dependent core rising, to which we say, oh, spring, the relative truth. The truth that we layer on top of the unique breeze of reality by giving it a name. Spring. It's so easy. You know, even Milo and Mira and Milo have learned how to do that. The three M's. And then on top of it all, Manjushri dares to point at what appears to be a person sitting on a carved wooden seat. Clearly observe the Dharma of the king of the Dharma. The Dharma of the king of Dharma is thus. As though he could actually point at awakening or at thus or at the whole of reality.

[31:41]

which is when one song says nothing can be done about Manjushri's leaking and that's right because we have to point and we have to speak and we have to try our best to explain and to understand but to explain what and to understand what reality awakening life and death love well maybe at least we have to try Or do we? I'm not so sure. You tell me. This reminded me of a song, Leonard Cohen, one of my great favorite singers. I was listening to this song coming down to Tassajara several years back. The lyrics go like, I can't forget, I can't forget, I can't forget, but I don't remember what. And then it goes on the next stanza.

[32:46]

I can't forget. I can't forget. I can't forget, but I don't remember who. So these days, this seems very familiar. The feelings are really there. The love is there, but I can't remember for what or who. It's kind of great. So these are the classic Zen conundrums or koans, meaning questions mostly asked, most likely for the teacher's amusement. Is a person of the way subject to cause and effect? Is the flag waving or is it your mind waving? You know, what is Buddha? Does a dog have Buddha nature? Moo. And yet as enjoyable as koans may be, I think most of us are not very amused when we can't find answers to questions that appear to be driving our lives, even down here at the monastery. Like, should I ordain as a priest? Who is my teacher? What am I going to do for a living if I stay here too long?

[33:47]

Why am I always so angry? Will anyone ever love me? Not so funny. So that's why nothing can be done about Manjushri's leaking, because the Bodhisattva of wisdom is trying very hard to help us. And the best he can do at the time is to point at a seated figure that looks very much like a Buddha ought to look. like that one. So maybe even the stone carving of the Buddha in this magical place can help us to figure out a better way to live our life. Clearly observe the Dharma of the king of the Dharma is thus. And yet each and every time Manjushri points his finger at him or her or them, the Buddha gets down from the seat. You know, now you see them and now you don't. And so it is that whenever we place the Buddha outside of ourselves, we are lost. We cannot find him or her or them, and we never will.

[34:53]

When I asked Reb years ago, somewhat irritated, as I could get, where are the women teachers? He said, try looking under your nose. I had no response. thought he was making fun of me. And he was. Being a Buddha, being awake, means being unattached to your ideas about who you are. Whether you think you're rotten or you think you're fabulous, not grasping those thoughts is Buddha. Ironically, being a person who has such thoughts is a prerequisite for being Buddha. Step one, this very mind is Buddha. Step two, no mind, no Buddha. In either case, imagining that you can run away from who you really are is simply delusion. It's the delusion of running away. Seeing that is insight. It's called returning to Buddha, taking refuge in Buddha.

[36:00]

To return to who you really are, including all of your delusions, is taking refuge in Buddha, the truth of reality, the truth of our human life, which is not one, and it's not two, and that is the truth. The second of the triple treasures is taking refuge in the Dharma, what the Buddha taught. And as he said to Ananda at the time of his death, Ananda, you may think that the word of the Buddha is a thing of the past. Now we have no more teacher. But you should not regard it so. The Dharma and the discipline taught by me are your teacher after I am gone. The law I have taught has no secret version. There is no teacher's closed fist about the good things here. Now I am old, Ananda. My years have turned 80. Just as an old cart is made to carry on with the help of makeshifts, so too, it seems to me, the blessed one's body is made to carry on with the help of makeshifts.

[37:01]

For the blessed one's body is only at ease when with non-attention to all signs and with cessation of certain kinds of feeling, he enters upon and dwells in the signless heart deliverance. So Ananda, each of you should make of himself, herself, an island with no other refuge. Each of you should make the law your island with no other refuge. Either now or when I'm gone, it is those, whoever they may be, who make themselves and the law their islands, and no other refuge, who will be the foremost among my disciples, of those, that is, who want to train. How could it be, Ananda, that what is born comes to be, is formed, is not bound to fall, should not fall? That is not possible. And then the Blessed One addressed the monks thus. Indeed, monks, I declare this to you. It is in the nature of all created things to dissolve.

[38:05]

Attain perfection of wisdom through diligence. This was the perfect one's last utterance. So part of our understanding of these teachings is that the Buddha was not a person, but the teaching itself, which has continued right on up until this very day. And in this way, I think we are very fortunate not to bear the problems of deification. although we do sometimes get a little carried away with all of our signals and our robes and our whistles. But I think if we continue to appreciate that the statues and the offerings we make in our homes and here in our temples are truly gestures of gratitude being made by those of us who are alive today, the living Buddhists to those who have gone. Without us to remember and honor them, there can't be any ancestors. And there can't be the teaching of the Buddha unless we carry it within our own living bodies. Which is why those who teach the Buddha's wisdom are called vessels of the Dharma.

[39:10]

And so what is the Dharma? Well, that's a very good question. And either it's a very long answer or a very short answer. Such as the Prajnaparamita literature, which has been transmitted in two extreme versions. One version is a hundred thousand lines. from beginning to the end. And then another version is the letter A. So basically the Dharma is the truth. And it really is up to each of us to find the truth and live within the circle of what our eye of practice can reach. And then as for the Sangha, well, we know. That's us. this community of Zen comrades who have gathered together to study the teachings, to listen to the teachings, to chant together, to be together, to care for each other. The Sangha is alive. And that's what's lived for 2,500 years.

[40:12]

It's the Sangha. So thank you all very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[40:37]

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