This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. I'm happy, happy to be here. We're making a bit of a fuss today. It's a beautiful day to make a fuss about baby Buddha. So I've been instructed to keep the talk short. Then we can all go across the street and have a ceremony to recognize Buddha as an infant.

[01:00]

Maybe there's an infant Buddha in each of us. Might be helpful to think, oh, yes, baby Buddha sitting right here. So there are many legends and stories about this Buddha. We're recognizing, I'd say, strictly, we'll call it a Nirmanakaya day. strictly really emphasizing the historic Buddha of this particular age. Not so long ago, the Earth was formed. But for human beings, that's a long time ago. Maybe about 4,600 Is that right?

[02:05]

A million years ago? So I don't know whether this is the age, the age of this particular era for this particular Buddha. As human beings, we tend to be kind of self-centered, and we tend to think of ourselves as being particularly what it's all about. And that's kind of a problem for us. So I was thinking, you know, what's the big deal? Why is Buddha so great? And the brilliance of Buddha's realization to me is in the understanding of the interconnection of all things expressed as dependent arising or dependent co-arising. that there really then is not a particular privileged position for human beings.

[03:15]

So to realize that was maybe first thing, the first aspect of Buddha being so great, to realize. Not a particular privileged position. To realize that each moment of this life is completely supported by and interdependent with an entire web of the phenomenal world. But maybe the next thing for us that the Buddha did is maybe more important in the sense that it's useful, practically useful for us to have a way of living our life in accord with that. So to offer teaching of sangha, to offer teaching of dharma, to offer precepts for how to live, even though most of us most of the time say don't really understand the inconceivable, don't really understand the inconceivable world that we are in, still we have to live in it.

[04:34]

And so how to live in it with some spaciousness and sense of harmoniousness. Someone asked if I would say something about calamity in the world. You know, there's so many people have, so thousands of people have just died in Japan. And of course, people are dying daily in wars. So some of this is human suffering, which comes about just by being beings with a body. As a being with a body, we take up a residence someplace, and then if the Earth gives a shrug, it's huge.

[05:45]

If the Pacific plate shifts under the American plate and there's a jolt, that's huge if we just happen to be there. It's hard to accept that that is our fragility. that our lives are so tenuous. Very hard to accept that. And then we also create a lot of suffering for each other. Often because we can't stand the pain of seeing how fragile we are, of seeing how dependent we are. So we tend to attack anything that we think may be a threat. And usually really make things a lot worse. So one of my friends at Green Gulch was looking at the interrelatedness of all these things and said, well, we need to dedicate ourselves, have a ceremony dedicated to the unfathomable, infinitely generous, irreplaceable, and sensitive living web

[07:02]

of earth, air, fire, water, which our whole universe is composed, to tens of thousands of plants and animals that are unsettled and harmed, some of it through our own actions as humans and some of it through just what happens. The earth shifts. So this was always going on, and so... About 2,574 years ago, there was an event in that part of India, close to Nepal. We say there was a king of the Sakya tribe, Suddhodana king, and he had a few wives, actually. One of them, Queen Maya, was pregnant, and she set out to go to visit her family, which was a good place, you know, to go back to her family to give birth to her baby.

[08:16]

And on the way, they stopped in the Beanie Garden, and there, Queen Maya gave birth. Giving birth, it's always an amazing thing. And if you've been present, at a human birth, either giving birth, which is beyond my comprehension, or being present, which I have experienced, and it's really awesome. But suddenly, oh, it seems sudden, there is a whole human being. It wasn't there before. So Queen Maya gave birth. In this case, there were all kinds of amazing signs that this was particularly auspicious. At the time of her conception, she'd had a dream about a white elephant coming in and circling around her, round and round.

[09:27]

Can you imagine having a big elephant circumambulating you? three times, touching you. Must mean something. And then when this baby was born, there were dragons that appeared in the heavens. And they released streams of water, hot and cold. Warm water and cool water. But they came down as kind of a mist, gently bathing this baby. So that's a natural thing, to bathe a baby. Usually we don't have it happen with dragons. We don't think of ourselves as dragons bathing the baby, but here's dragons bathing the baby. And this baby didn't

[10:32]

didn't wait too long before he got up and said, oh, here I am. Usually it's kind of like, ah! In this case it was like, oh, heaven, earth, here I am, and I'm here to save all beings. I'm here to accomplish everything that can possibly be done. To realize everything that can be realized. So this also, not so unusual, right? This is what babies do. Wake up. Take everything in. They don't always, we don't always have the words for it right away. And then stood up and take seven steps.

[11:37]

Each step, where each step was, there was a lotus blossom that sprung up out of the ground. Seven steps maybe for the seven directions. So north, south, east, west, up, down, and here. So we recognized that this was very significant because of then the life that followed. Maya died a few days later. Her sister, Prajapati, took over the care of the baby.

[12:42]

So we're very grateful to those who are caring for a baby Buddha. So in this... We have to pick a day. And it's kind of interesting. Most of the Buddhist world recognizes one day for the birth and the enlightenment and the pari nirvana, the death of the Buddha, all at one time. Besak. Besak is traditionally celebrated on the fourth lunar month. of the calendar, which would put it in May most times, at the full moon time of the fourth month. But we're a little early. During the Meiji Restoration in Japan, there was a shift to the Western calendar, which is not the lunar calendar, the Western calendar.

[13:57]

So the fourth month and then Pick a day, okay, well, the eighth day. So that was yesterday. So many people associated with Buddhism, Japan, and I think Korea as well, maybe parts of China too, recognizing Buddha's birthday at this time. However, I think Tassajara did it last week. And Green Gulch is going to do it May the 1st. So you're all invited to come out to Green Gulch on May the 1st. And I think Green Gulch is going to do a pageant, another revival of a whole theatrical dramatic presentation of some of the things that I've just been talking about. So

[15:00]

I made a statement that some of this, well, I'll read this statement actually when we do our ceremony across the street, but I thought people may not all hear it there. I'll read some of it now. We venerate, praise, and make offerings to the child born 2,574 years ago who was named Siddhartha, the one who accomplishes all good. So that said, Siddhartha means the one who is eminently successful, the one who actually accomplishes what is good, who grew to mature his bodhisattva vows and became our original teacher, Shakyamuni Buddha. In venerating a helpless infant, we honor both the tender fragility and sustaining tenacity of life. each of us being independent and also interdependent with others and with all living beings and so-called non-living elements of the phenomenal world.

[16:12]

Yeah, everything's vibrating a little bit. Even rocks. But we think our notes are non-living elements. So we salute Buddha's father, Suddhodana, and offer deep gratitude to his mother, Mahamaya, whose death seven days after giving birth left the baby's care to her sister and surrogate mother, Mahapajapati, who lovingly nurtured this most auspicious child, Tathagata. Oh, Shakyamuni. Shakyamuni means the wise sage of the Shakyamuni clan or tribe. Oh, Shakyamuni. Now we today at Beginner's Mind Temple are born with you. Together with all beings we share your unobstructed life. Not obstructed by mountains or rivers. Not obstructed by birth or delusions about birth.

[17:19]

Not obstructed by fears or prejudice. All beings in the entire universe are born together with the Tathagata. And each can say, above and below heaven and earth, I am the world honored one. Taking seven steps in the ten directions, this is the lion's roar and a baby's crying. What can we say of such a manifestation? Is anything left unsaid? So we have the ceremony of bathing the Buddha. And this is bathing the Buddha is not that the Buddha is dirty and needs to be cleaned.

[18:21]

We're actually bathing our own hearts. So I suggest, you know, when you approach, in the ceremony, when you approach the baby Buddha, that you, with your bow, when you bow, you have the thought of acknowledgement or confession, acknowledgement of my own misdeeds. And then bathing with a little dipper. Do we have little dippers or something? Okay, we have little dippers. With a little dipper, then, when you pour it over the baby Buddha, this is a blessing. So a vow to conduct, let's just say, simply a beneficial action. A vow to do beneficial action.

[19:27]

And this... Bathing itself is beneficent. So this is the notion of pouring beneficence, kindness, over this image, which is also over yourself internally. So while you're pouring it over the baby Buddha, you're actually internally bathing yourself in kindness. And then you put the dipper down and then bow again, and that bow is offering to all beings, to include all beings. Someone told me that at Green Gulch, maybe a couple of weeks ago, I think it was attention, I don't know, Rabbi Anderson was giving a talk, and he, just like this, and he bowed, and it was a children's day, and there was a little boy sitting right in front, cross-legged, and then Reb turns around and bows, and the little boy said, was that bow for everyone or just for the people in the room?

[20:47]

So this third bow, this bow, bow for everyone. So this is, I'd say, echoing the three pure precepts. There are various ways of expressing pure precepts. The first pure precept is to refrain from evil, to refrain from evil or to sustain what is actually given as a healthy life. Second is to do what is good. And the third is to save all beings. The third fear precept earlier on was more... conduct oneself and keep your own mind pure.

[22:01]

But in the Mahayana tradition we say the third precept is to benefit all beings. To realize that your life actually is completely interconnected with all beings, naturally you want to take care of everyone that you meet and everything that you touch as yourself. So Buddha offered these precepts and Buddha offered the presence, the teaching of presence, or the practice of presence, which we say is our zazen. Our sitting of zazen is actually the presence of awakening. So zazen is extending

[23:03]

this life, this insight, this vow of Buddha, the vow that was made, maybe made at birth. And we incorporate that and recapitulate that. In our sitting, when we sit, we realize there's nothing to be done except Wake up. Everything follows from that. Waking up. Waking up happens right now. So it's not a matter of something, you know, study. There are many teachings, but that's not where the Buddha's life is. Buddha's life is right now in each Each person.

[24:04]

So I thought in closing we should sing happy birthday. So three times I think maybe it'd be good to first sing happy birthday thinking of all the people to the right of you. But not just in this room. And not just people. But all beings to the right of you, right? And then the second time, you can sing it to all beings to the left of you. And the third time, sing it to all beings right here, including everything above, everything below. So we have this simple ditty, the birthday song that's caught on. So people know it. So which is to the right of everyone. It's that way, right?

[25:13]

Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, all Buddhas. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, O Buddha. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, O Buddha. Happy birthday to you and many more.

[26:14]

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 sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[26:44]

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