This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, everybody. So I hope you haven't been counting the days of Sushin. It's a little bit of a futile effort that... It might actually be better were you to imagine that sushin will never end. And at some point, you're going to have to give up all your ways of trying to negotiate and make it work and get through it and just surrender. Just surrender to right here. Because nothing is going to save you in the end. Give yourself over.

[01:06]

There's no other place to be. Just right here. And just right here is Nirvana. Do you believe me? I don't think so. Look at you guys. What's he talking about? Well, let's see. Maybe at the end of my talk, you'll... Be a little bit more open to that suggestion. Well, since Buddhism began in ancient India, rivers and waterways and ferry boats have figured prominently in the mythology and stories of the era. And there are many parables and analogies. offered as metaphors for our understanding of our progress on this spiritual journey. And here is one such story to start us off.

[02:12]

One day, a young Buddhist, on his journey home, came to the banks of a wide river. Staring hopelessly at the great obstacle in front of him, he pondered for hours on just how to cross such a wide barrier. Just as he was about to give up his pursuit to continue his journey, he saw a great teacher on the other side of the river. The young Buddhist yells over to the teacher, Oh, wise one, can you tell me how to get to the other side of this river? The teacher ponders for a moment, looks up and down the river, and yells back, My son, you are on the other side. So almost two months ago, many of us started on a journey across a wide river known as the winter 2018 practice period.

[03:12]

And Wendy, Tova, and I have had the honor of serving as your ferry boat captains. And the name of the ship that we have been sailing on together is called the Six Perfections. And... A number of us, however, only came on board recently for the last leg of our journey, known as Sashin. So welcome aboard, those of you who joined us in this last week. And regardless of when and where we came on board, we launched from one shore, hopefully, and to eventually be arriving on another shore. And for some of us, the name that we gave to that distant destination or shore may have been the far side of the practice period or the far side of Sushin, which we imagine is a magical land in which once we've crossed the expanse and reached the other side...

[04:23]

we will have finally left all our problems and difficulties behind. So in this new land, it's exciting. This is a land of continuous prosperity, happiness, beauty, ease. Everything's good in this new land. And we want to be there. Other of us who started on this journey actually didn't know what to expect. where exactly we were going. Or we were just more worried about getting on the boat in the first place, packing up and just trying to get here and get on the boat and not have it leave us behind in some way. And regardless of your individual reasons for embarking on this particular journey, we are finding ourselves as shipmates together on this voyage. And we're all a little bit unsure where it is we're going to land.

[05:28]

So maybe by this time in the stage of our journey, we begin to imagine that we can perceive an end. Even maybe glimpse the shoreline, a little sliver of this distant land and land. fabled place called the end of Sashin. I see it. I think I see it. It's over there somewhere. And so we might be getting a little excited. Or maybe a little restless. And we might even be already making plans about what it is we're going to do when we finally arrive on land again. What kind of foods we're going to eat. What movies we're going to see. the friends we're gonna catch up with, and everything we're gonna tell them about how wonderful, terrible Sushin was, and everything else that we've been missing the whole time that we've been on this particular cruise together.

[06:34]

Or, some of us might be feeling a little wistful, lamenting the fact that this journey is coming to an end, and wishing it would continue a little while longer. And some of us might even imagine we could do this forever. Anyone want to do this forever? Only one taker in the whole audience, okay. And some of us, maybe a good deal of us, are somewhere in the middle, both wanting it to continue and also a little sad that it's going to come to an end at some point. Once we touch land again and arrive at our destination, in this case what we're calling the end of the winter practice period, we will also be arriving at the end of Sushin. And for us human beings as narrative-making creatures, it's very important for us to mark the beginnings and endings of journeys.

[07:41]

And so we're going to be doing that tomorrow. We're going to start our arrival celebration with a tea here in the Buddha Hall together. We'll have some time to refresh ourselves after the long journey, maybe ask each other some inquiries about how the journey went or some sharings about what we discovered. And then we'll have a closing ceremony and circle. And then as all good events here at Zen Center, we will have a feast to mark the occasion. So I'm looking forward to having that together with you all, participating together with you all. So this morning, I want to share a few thoughts on paramiti. And those of you who have been on this journey of the six perfections from the beginning, recall that the word perfections, as in the six perfections, is a translation of a Sanskrit word, paramita.

[08:49]

Param, that part of the word means the other side, and ita means gone. So basically paramita literally means crossing, having crossed over or reached the other shore. And it also can mean transcendence or perfection, which is why we use often the perfection for the six perfections. And I had mentioned in the first talk that I gave at the beginning of the practice period that the Theravanan monk, Tenisaro Bhikkhu, mentions two etymologies for paramitas. He says, one, they carry one across to the further shore, the param, And they are of foremost, parama, importance, in formulating the purpose of one's life. So, again, the perfection serve as a raft. They serve as a raft to cross over from the shore of samsara, which is the shore of suffering and anger and depression and conflict.

[10:04]

the other shore, which is the shore of peace, non-fear, and liberation. And we're to understand that practicing the perfections will enable us to eradicate self-attachment and to abide in harmony and good relationships. Now, we generally understand perfection as something that has gone to the other side, that has gone to the end of what's possible. So now it's perfect. And the word perfect itself means excellent or complete beyond practical or theoretical improvement. Also thorough, pure, and without flaws or shortcomings. So in a way, perfection is impossible. So for those of us in this room who are perfectionists, that's a little frustrating.

[11:09]

Because we think we can get it right at some point. If I just make a little bit more effort, do a little bit more, I'll get it right in the end. And usually we just wear ourselves out because once the target we see here, we get to this point and it has moved. The horizon keeps moving. And so we just keep chasing horizons after horizons sometimes, never arriving at perfection or our idea of perfection. So we could say then that from the beginning, the six perfections, as well as the Bodhisattva vow, are impossible to attain. They are impossible to accomplish and we can never truly reach their shore and we can never truly save all beings in this sense. So that means in terms of the six perfections, none of us can perfectly practice the paramitas of giving or morality or patience and so on, perfectly at all times.

[12:21]

And yet, we still take up the spirit of the perfections. And just do our best to reach beyond our current understanding and expression of them. And as we do this, in time we might recognize that each of the paramitas, as practiced, is the other shore already. The other shore is right here, right there, Inside each paramita, inside each paramita is perfection. At last, we don't know this from the outset of our journey. So when we embark on the perfections, we are not aware of this particular fact. And we can only discover it by setting out, setting out on the bodhisattva path,

[13:26]

setting out on training in the six perfections, cultivating our character by intentionally wholeheartedly engaging in these particular practices. So in order for them to be realized, they have to be lived. They're not a conceptual concept that we can just take in as knowledge. It has to be digested. They have to permeate our being in the very activity of living them. So we can think of paramita and its meaning of crossing over. When we think of it, we should think of it in terms of the fact that the word crossing over is an action. It's an activity. And so it's something we intentionally need to do. And so we practice the perfections, we practice crossing over in every moment, every activity that we do.

[14:26]

becomes practiced in this way. Engaging our bodhisattva effort with the intention that regardless of what the outcome that we can perceive, having faith that they will be of benefit at some point to someone. So it's not for us to keep or retain. It's to constantly give away. our actions are done for the service of all beings, not just us. So we need to recognize that there's a difference between taking action with the intention of liberating ourselves and others from the realm of ignorance or samsara and taking actions just to make selves a little bit more comfortable with the current conditions. rather than really making an effort to create beneficial, lasting change.

[15:32]

As the Dhammapada reminds us, few are the people who reach the other shore. Many are the people who run about on this shore. A little bit like chickens running around, right? So as this verse points out, some of us might be less interested in crossing over to the other side, then we might be in rearranging worldly conditions in order to suit our preferences. Anyone have that tendency? I know when I get really anxious or agitated, the best thing for me is to reorganize my house. I clean it up, I rearrange things, and once everything's in place, I feel like, okay, I'm okay now. Things are in order again. But of course, what's going on inside is probably still a mess, but I have the perception that the world is in order, and I feel a little bit more secure and okay. So it's okay, I can do that. But I know, the part of me that knows underneath, don't fool yourself, David.

[16:38]

So we might rearrange the furniture in the house, or we might actually try to overlay new ideas and concepts. in order to cover up that which is the scary truth for us. And all of this is kind of futile, according to the Buddha. Or it isn't, just kind of. It is futile, according to the Buddha. It's like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. You're still on a sinking ship. And no matter how much you redecorate, it's not going to save you in the end. Think about this when you're sitting zazen during sushin, right? So what we're actually asked to do is find a new vessel. Rather than staying on the ship that's sinking, find a new vessel. And of course the Buddha offered us a vessel, a very seaworthy, dependable, reliable vessel known as the Dharma.

[17:44]

And that vessel also includes the six perfections or paramitas. So many people throughout history have fled from one shore, crossing rivers, seas, and oceans in search of another shore for a variety of reasons. And a significant number of those reasons have been because of suffering or dissatisfaction of some sort, because of dukkha. Some fled seeking better conditions for making a living in another part of the country or another part of the world. Some fled religious or ethnic persecutions. Others have fled famine and war and various forms of oppression. And many were forcibly taken from their homes. and their native lands, and then sold into slavery, and then put onto ships to foreign lands.

[18:51]

And many people never survive the journey. Or if they did, their life on the other side was a soul-crushingly difficult experience. So we can't take this idea of crossing over lightly, because for many that has been literally a matter of life and death. Back in the old days, many monks stepped on a boat or a ship, leaving behind their homes and traveling to China in order to learn Buddhism, only during their passage to have their boat sink. And... if you were serious about learning and practicing the Dharma, you had to take great risks and even risk your life. And apparently this phenomenon of monks dying in passage was such a frequent event that there was a Japanese term for it that kind of translates along the lines of suicide on water for Buddha Wei.

[20:07]

Suicide on water for Buddha Wei. So imagine. Imagine that despite all these scary stories that you've heard about what happens once you set out seeking the Dharma, you've decided to courageously embark on a voyage of practice and self-discovery in a now crossing an unfamiliar ocean. In the Genjo Koan Dogen Zenji offers us Dharma Voyagers a bit of counsel. When you first seek Dharma, you imagine you are far away from its environs. But Dharma is already correctly transmitted. You are immediately your original self. When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind,

[21:11]

You might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. When you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self. So Dogen uses this analogy to address our usual belief in a fixed, unchanging self, emphasizing the difference between looking inward and looking outward. He says, when you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. So turning our attention to the boat, and for the sake of a knowledge, let's say the boat is our self and our sense of body and everything that makes up for our sense of self, particularly a fixed self. And we see that this self, this boat is rolling with the waves and is not at all a fixed entity when we look closely.

[22:19]

And we might also notice that the shore is moving as well. For nothing, nothing at all has unchanging self. Not just the boat, but the shore and the water and the sky and the clouds and the birds. But the shore is not moving the way we think it is, since we can see it only from the vantage of the boat. That means we can only see things from our limited, self-contained perspective, from our particular Dharma position. Our goal is not to get rid of the boat, or the self, or the body, but to pay close attention to the way that the boat, the sea, and the shore all are constantly changing and all are inextricably interconnected. And doing so in hopes that eventually we will no longer be controlled by either the illusion of a self-separate boat or the capricious waves of life tossing us about.

[23:34]

Okay. So let's say we're doing our best to follow Dogen's advice, practicing watching the boat and not trying to get too attached to our sense of boat self-ness. And regardless of the reasons, the conditions under which we began our journey, we might begin to find that within a very short period of time, a number of obstacles appear. They appear along the way to obstruct or distract or discourage us from our course, from staying the course. So, in Sashin, for example, we might notice that some of these obstacles have the shape or the appearance of endless waves of thoughts that just swamp our boat continually. And we end up getting a pail and bailing them out, And then more thoughts come right back into the boat again.

[24:43]

And we seem that we just spend a whole period of zazen bailing the boat, trying to get rid of all the water that keeps coming in. Also, we might get tossed about by waves of emotion. We might be affected by the searing noonday heat of sexual fantasies. We might have dark storms of judgments and resentments and irritations visit us. We also might be attacked by the sharks of body pain and anger. And finally, there might just be plain old sleepiness and boredom undoing us. And sometimes when encountering certain types of obstacles, we might feel... stuck somehow and unsure of how to proceed, particularly if all the options that we've tried so far are failing to help in any way or bring us any sense of relief, right?

[25:48]

Or we see that the options that are available are actually not to our liking, and we really kind of don't want to go in that direction, even though we probably should, but we don't want to, so we're not going to. So we're just going to pretend it's not an option. Other times, we might feel that a situation has arised in which we are suddenly off course, you know, or perhaps we have just become stagnant in the water and our boat is wandering adrift because we've lost our rudder, you know, or we've lost the wind in the sails, or we've lost virya, the energy to continue going in some way. And so whether we've encountered an obstacle, or we simply find ourselves off course, we might decide, it might be good to ask a practice leader about what I can do here in encountering this situation. Maybe we're going to ask our ship captain to help us.

[26:53]

And we'll see if they have any pointers to help us to address this particular situation. So here's some Dharma counsel from one particular ship captain, Dharma captain, Sojin Mel Weitzman, who's also my Dharma grandfather. This is what he's offered in terms of counsel on how to work with the capricious ways of our experience. He says, the ocean is like a metaphor for Dharmakaya, or the Dharma body of reality. Emptiness, Buddha nature, or the absolute. The waves are an expression of phenomenal life, the way things arise out of emptiness. Each one of us is a wave on the ocean of emptiness, and we roll with all the other waves, and we live out our wave lives, our wavelengths, on the ground of the great ocean.

[27:57]

So it's hard for us to see where we come from when we are all just waves. It's like... not being able to see the forest for the trees. We can't see the ocean for the waves. We get lost when we lose sight of the great ocean and forget that the waves are all members of the ocean people family. They are interdependent with each other and with the ocean. So when a wave thinks, I am a wave forever, or I am a permanent wave, it gets lost. Just like us, when we attach to our individuality, we get lost. So it's important to realize that waves are an expression of the ocean. Sometimes the ocean is very calm, like zazen. In zazen, waves subside. Even though there are waves there on the surface, but our awareness goes all the way down to the bottom of the ocean floor.

[29:00]

Dogen expresses it as a fish lazily swimming by at the bottom of the ocean. In Zazen, consciousness deepens and we settle on the endless bottom. The waves are still there, but they no longer bother us. It's like swimming on the surface while walking on the bottom. When we sit, we are often concerned about the waves in our mind. When I began practicing Zazen, All the time I was sitting, my mind was wondering, is it worth it? Have any of you had this thought so far in Sushi? This is the most common comment on Zazen, other than, my legs hurt. And I've heard that one a few times already. My mind is always racing, is another one. I'm making up lists while I'm sitting and thinking about this and that, and I can't help it. Maybe I shouldn't sit Zazen. So how quickly we give in to excuses to not sit.

[30:04]

The main thing is not to worry about the waves. Waves here, of course, means the thoughts. The waves will always be there. The nature of the ocean is to have waves. If you think that you can always keep the waves still, then you have a big problem. Sometimes in Buddhist books we read, stop the movement of the mind. Even Dogen says, stop the movement of the mind. which is very idealistic. That's right, stop the movement of the mind. But stopping the movement of the mind does not mean that you don't have thoughts. Thoughts come up by themselves. It is simply the nature of the mind to create thoughts. We call it bubbling. Thoughts are bubbling up. Some teachers call it mind excretions. The mind is relieving itself. Now that's an image, huh? When there is nothing to think about, the mind relieves itself of its accumulation of mental gases. So that's what that smell has been in the Zen, though, for the last few days.

[31:07]

So don't worry about it. Let the mind do its thing. Don't try to suppress thoughts. So some very wise counsel from our dear Reverend Mel. Now, sometimes we might see a practice leader, and they're going to go so far as to actually tell us that to be truly free of the waves and their impact on our boats, we need to jump out of the security of our boat and dive deep into the waters of the ocean itself, going against all our rational instincts. As Korean Zen master Song Song said, if you want to cross the ocean of suffering, you must take the ship with no bottom. Shin Uyo Suzuki said in a similar vein, life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.

[32:13]

So in other words, you've got to be willing to enter the water and become absolutely and thoroughly wets and submerged. And once we boldly jump overboard into the ocean around us and begin swimming, we may discover something very amazing, and perhaps even a little strange. In his Shobo Genzo Fasako, Kai In Zamai, the Ocean Seal Samadhi, Dogen Zenji says that when you swim on the surface of the ocean, your foot touches the bottom of the ocean. Speaking to this fantastical plane, Dayan Katagiri Roshi wrote, In common sense, this is impossible, but it is really true. The surface of the ocean is the human world in the stream of time, the huge world we create through our memory, imagination, ambition, hope, and plans.

[33:18]

That surface of everyday life is rooted in the absolute reality of the bottom of human. Your foot already touches the bottom of the ocean. You are already walking there, but you don't believe this. You don't believe that our life is walking on the bottom of the ocean because we are always living on the surface, hanging on to the past, present, and future. We think the bottom of the ocean is something other than daily life. But we cannot ignore the fact that our life in the stream of time is constantly changing. It is constantly changing because it is manifested from the moment to moment at the pivot of nothingness. So if you want your life to really work, then whatever you do, dance, art, painting, photography, or sitting zazen, your life must be swimming on the surface and simultaneously it must be rooted walking on the bottom of the ocean.

[34:20]

This is living wholeheartedly. So in other words, our Dharma journey is not just one of crossing over, but of also crossing downward and inward. We need to see the way in which we simultaneously are touching both the relative surface nature and appearance of things, the waves on the ocean, and the ultimate reality, the foundation of life, the bottom of the ocean. And this is how we live, traversing both the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the ocean of life, of our vast being, sometimes moving on the surface, sometimes crawling along the bottom of the floor. And we can't stay on either level, otherwise we might find ourselves whipped about, by the storms on the surface, the storms of samsara, or lost in the dark depths of emptiness.

[35:24]

Regardless of where we are, we can still remember that it's all water, which is my cue to take a drink of water. So here we are, Bodhisattva's on a journey, and perhaps we've come to a place in our journey where we have bravely let go of clinging to our boat, and we are now swimming in the water. And for some of us, this might be a scary experience, very unfamiliar. For others of us, it might be invigorating and enjoyable. And I wonder why we didn't do this much sooner. But unless we plan to drift aimlessly in the water, for a long, long time, it would be good to remind ourselves of our original intention and purpose for setting out on the journey and crossing the ocean in the first place.

[36:30]

So we might want to remind ourselves of our desire to be free of suffering and perhaps of our Bodhisattva vow as well if we've taken one to support others who also want to cross out of suffering. And I think we can all, all of us who have some familiarity with Buddhism, are familiar that the ultimate destination for Buddhists is the fabled nirvana. And nirvana is generally described as a transcendent state in which there is neither suffering, desire, nor sense of a self. And the subject, me, is released from the effects of karma and the cycle of death and rebirth. However, just to make things a little bit more complicated, in Mahayana Buddhism, there apparently seems to be more than one kind of nirvana. In fact, in his book, Living by Val, Shahaka Ogamora says there are three kinds of nirvana.

[37:35]

There is, first, uyo nehen, in which one fully awakens but remains in physical form in this life in order to continue teaching. So this is the form of nirvana that the Buddha, upon his awakening, took, manifested in order to keep teaching. Then there is myo-yu, mu-yo, ne-han, or peri-nirvana, which means perfect nirvana, in which at the moment of death one becomes free forever of rebirth. And then finally there is mu-jo-sho, ne-han, which is a nirvana for bodhisattvas. And on the meaning of this third nirvana, Shohaka says the following, Mu means no, and Jusho means place to live or stay. So Mujosho thus means no dwelling or no place to stay. This type of nirvana is one in which the bodhisattva doesn't stay in samsara because of wisdom.

[38:42]

They have clear insight. And they don't remain in nirvana because of compassion for others. A bodhisattva always practices in this world of desires and helps others, but never dwells on either side. It is said there is a river between this shore of samsara and the other shore of nirvana. And a bodhisattva operates the ferry, traveling freely between shores, but not abiding on either. This kind of nirvana is the basis of our practice. We don't practice to reach the other shore. We always practice on this shore. In fact, we don't separate this shore from the other shore. Both shores are right now, right here. If we separate this shore from the other shore, we generate dualism and contradiction. There's no way to escape this shore and attain the other shore. In reality, there is no separation. We practice in this world, in this society, to carry out the bodhisattva vow, to walk with all living beings, to help and support each other.

[39:54]

Then we can find nirvana right here within samsara. We vow eventually to transform samsara into nirvana without escape. Maizumi Roshi underlines this point. when he asked, what other shore? If everything is right here and now, what other shore exists? Some people think that the other shore is nirvana, the way we think things should be, the way we wish our life to be. But nirvana is already here. Having gone to the other shore, we confirm that this life right now is the treasury of the true Dharma eye and the subtle mind of nirvana. This life is the most precious treasure, the unsurpassable way, the way of true realization. And finally, Suzuki Roshi adds that the other shore means to return to our true nature or to find out or realize our true nature.

[40:55]

But this realization is not awareness or some experience we get by thinking or by feeling or by five or six sense organs, including clinging to the boat. By direct experience, if you will, by swimming in the ocean itself, we will know what it is. That direct, genuine experience is the experience before any thinking activity or feeling activity arises. In other words, when you just sit, you have this feeling. So as we return to the zendo shortly, and continue our practice of zazen, of just sitting. Remember that we don't need to make a great effort at rowing a boat or swimming a great distance. We just need to stop struggling. Stop trying to remain on the surface of things and flailing about like a drowning person.

[42:00]

Or trying to hang out on the bottom of the ocean in that realm of blissful emptiness. Instead, we can let ourselves gently float in silence and stillness amidst the great, unulating waves of dancing light and darkness. So on one level, the period of bodhisattva training, known as a practice period, and the journey within the journey known as the sheen are never-ending. And on another level, the journey of the winter 2018 practice period and the sheen will both end very shortly. Both are simultaneously true. In either case, don't forsake the journey yet. Stay focused on your deepest intention, and to giving your full attention and effort in every moment to your direct, genuine experience and to your true self, which is vast, deep, and a boundless ocean.

[43:14]

So we can think of the end of the sheen or the practice period as just the appearance of another wave on the ocean of being that has arisen just for a very brief period of time. and now is folding back in and on itself once more into the great body of life. And when you leave here, if you ever do leave here, and return to the waves that you call your home and your normal way of life, remember to frequently touch the bottom of the ocean. When you do this regularly, then wherever you are in your passage, you will realize, as Thich Nhat Hanh is fond of reminding us, that you have already arrived. So I'd like to close with a poem, and I'm going to say this writer's name, and I want to thank Diego and Paula for helping me, but if I get it wrong, please forgive me.

[44:21]

The poem is by Juan Ramón Jiménez. How did I do? Did I do okay? Please forgive me. Forgive my bad Spanish. So he is a Spanish writer who received the Nobel Prize for Literature, and he eventually immigrated to Puerto Rico. And so the poem is this. It's titled, Oceans. I have the feeling that my boat has struck down there in the depths against a great thing, and nothing happens. Nothing. Silence. Waves. Nothing happens? Or has everything happened, and we are standing now, quietly, in the new life?

[45:30]

I have the feeling that my boat has struck down there in the depths against a great thing. And nothing happens. Nothing. Silence. Waves. Nothing happens? Or has everything happened? And we are standing now quietly in the new life. Welcome. Welcome. 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, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[46:38]

May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[46:41]

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