Good evening. I want to say two things before I forget. And that first thing is people in the practice period and dollar bills. So if you weren't here for tea, you missed a dollar bill. But there's still some left. And the idea was to do it as an exercise in dhana. The literal translation of dhana is giving. So it's a verb, it's not a line. That's the literal translation. So we thought we'd practice giving. And I thought one way to do that was, I'll give you a dollar bill, and then you give it to somebody else. And I added the notion that maybe you can persuade them to keep giving it. We'll leave these with Lucy.

[01:04]

So if you didn't get a dollar bill, there's only three there, but we'll get more. Unless Lucy has a stash of her own, we'll take us till tomorrow. But I'd like to invite you and encourage you to participate. So this evening I'd like to talk about giving and I'd like to use a Zen coin to do it. Since this is Zen, why not? It's Case Tan of the Mulan Khan. Ching Shui, solitary and destitute. The monk said to Chaoshan, I'm Ching Shui, solitary and destitute.

[02:16]

Please give me alms. Chaoshan said, Venerable Shui? Ching Shui said, yes sir. Chaoshan said, you've already drunk three cups of the finest wine in all of China. And still you say, you've not moistened your lips. What is it to say, I'm solitary and destitute? I'm lonely and needy. I'm lonely and impoverished. What is it to hear your name called and respond? Yes. What is it to say, you've already received three cups of the finest wine in China.

[03:20]

What could that teacher be referring to? And yet you say you haven't moistened your lips. What is the gift that's already been given? Okay. So keep that cooking in your minds while I read you this poem. You must not understand life. Only then will it become a feast. And let each day happen to you. Like a child who goes along and lets herself be showered with blossoms. To gather them up to save never enters the mind of the child. She lets them go from out of her hair and holds with open outstretched hands her dear young years to whatever will come next.

[04:26]

So giving, so I think the poem's self-explanatory, some kind of spirit of engagement of life But we are working with the human condition. And the Dharma is... The teachings of practice are about practicing with the human condition. So do we get over... ourselves do we get over our impoverishment become generous and then give or do we give and discover and giving some way of engaging that glimpses some sense of abundance some way of relating

[05:49]

That's not solitary and destitute. Or do we come at it both ways? You know what I mean? It's of course for the practitioner, for us in our practice as we look at who we are and what we're doing and what we're thinking and feeling. You know, we hear this poem by Rilke, you know, and each of us can think. She lets them go from out of her hair and holds with open outstretched hands her dear young years to whatever comes next. Something in us knows the wisdom of that statement and that image. And yet I would also say something in its nose, alone and impoverished.

[06:55]

So when I thought of this idea of giving dollar bills, it was the idea I was exploring in my own mind and heart. was the agency of the material world. Not to say the material world is the only agent of giving. I'll talk about that in a moment. But the material world and the mighty dollar bill is presented to us so persuasively. through our wonderful society, honing the art of advertising. So how wonderful it would be if we can sweep up in our arms as if they were flower petals on the genius of people's advertising slogans

[08:20]

So I thought of the dollar bills as a way to dabble, a way to explore the material world. How to let it be an agent of giving and how to let giving be an agent of some kind of connectedness. You know, I went to visit a friend on Sunday and, you know, listening to some of my own chatter in Dharma talks, I thought, oh, I should bring them a gift. I should give. And I'd just been to Rainbow Grocery and I'd bought these pairs. Mostly, I'll tell you the truth, I bought them because they were such a fantastic color of red.

[09:21]

It was just amazing. I thought, okay, I'll bring the purse. And then I thought, oh. And then I had a little pack of almonds that Greg gave me that were packaged by the women's prison in Chowchilla. They have an almond orchard, part of their business. So I thought, oh, I'll bring that too. And then I added in a few more things, a little chocolate and something else. Then I found a little bag to put it all in. Then I took it and gave it to the person. And then it was like a little kind of game we had. And they took one thing out and said, oh, look at this. And it was just so much fun. I mean, did this person need a little package of almonds from Chachilla's women's prison?

[10:24]

I don't know, maybe they did. But anyway, it didn't seem like it at the moment. But somehow it was a way for us to be together. It was a way for us to enjoy something together. It was like creating an us, an antidote to loneliness, an antidote to solitariness. So giving sets something in motion. Now if we give to get the payback, well then that's more like trading. That's more of a piece of commerce. I'll do this and then you will do that. Or I'll do this and then this good thing will happen and I'll be the beneficiary of it.

[11:31]

Not to say that giving still doesn't have its effect. Maybe just to say that giving for us as humans, I would say, is more than just a physical act. It's also an affair of the heart. As is receiving. It's important to remember when we receive, we're allowing someone else to give. You know what entranced me on Sunday was how my friend got into it. I mean, they didn't take that little pack of almonds, probably about, I don't know, two or three ounces, in a little plastic, funny little plastic baggie.

[12:41]

They didn't take it and say, huh, you know. They took it and they unpacked it like it was Christmas. You know, oh, Santa's come, you know. Which made it a delight. Which made it pleasurable. Which in a way gave the gift, gave another gift. the gift of gratitude. Now this con, in many Zen statements, it addresses both

[13:43]

the relative and the absolute. Or it can be seen that way. And I don't think there's a definite way it has to be seen like this or like this or both of these. It offers that. It addresses the human condition and it addresses the heart of practice. You can see it very simply. A student comes to the teacher and says, I'm having a hard time. It's kind of great when we can be that straightforward. This is where I'm at right now. Sometimes it's a relief to admit to ourselves just what is going on.

[14:51]

To just pause for a moment in struggling with it or defending against it or holding other people responsible for it or critiquing or criticizing ourselves for being in the state we're in. This is where I'm at. And it's a very interesting and sometimes perplexing place in our practice. Some ways we can extol the virtue of that straightforward, authentic expression. But sometimes it just hurts like hell. And it's hard to see any great virtue or benefit in it.

[16:01]

And maybe that's also holding the two worlds of absolute and relative of the... the penetrating eye of the Dharma and the compassion of holding our human life. And in a way, this is the challenge of our practice. Can we be incredibly straightforward and open about where we're at? Can we see it with that clear Dharma eye? And can we hold it with compassion? When they come together, and then we bring up the kaan, what is it to practice with this? They both contribute to it. If we just get lost in self-pity, if we get lost in blaming others for our demise, if we get lost in criticizing ourself, then that connection to our own suffering

[17:20]

has been soured. If we can stay upright in it and feel it, bear witness to the human condition, bear witness to what we are. So the teacher just calls his name. It's like saying, is this it? Is this what you are? Is this what's happening? Yes. Can you let go of what should be happening or what could have happened or what you resent having happened? Just this. Yes. And amazingly, this applies with the same veracity to giving.

[18:36]

Giving asks us to be present. Outside a rainbow, pretty much all the time when you go there, there's somebody selling the street sheet. And as you go out, they sort of get you. If you think about it that way, or if you just think about it as, this is life. We're always in a process of receiving and giving. You go in and you receive beautiful red pairs.

[19:40]

And then you come out and we have a different kind of exchange. That's why you usually give the person a couple of bucks. I figured with, you know, give a cost of living increase, you know, if I, instead of one dollar, give two. It's like all our costs are going up. But more significantly, to make contact, you know? To be present for the giving, you know, and to receive. have an exchange. This is part of giving. You know, and then the dharma has these rich jewels of insight, you know, where it says giving is much, much broader

[20:56]

than the material world. We can give the Dharma. We can give attention. Sometimes it's very helpful to listen carefully to someone. Just listen. Sometimes giving attention to the moment illuminates the nature of what is. Creates the realization of interconnected existence. There's a contemplation. described in the early sutras that says you know when you're contemplating your death which is also highly recommended I was reading one book and in the chapter on generosity it said well a great way to start it didn't say with a great way to start it's recommended as one of the first practices in cultivating generosity was to contemplate

[22:26]

the loathsomeness of the body. I thought, hmm. Didn't come top of my list to create generosity. And of course, it's about breaking down your attachments. But the teaching I want to mention was that In contemplating your death and thinking of giving away your treasures, your gifts, it's not so much your material wealth, but the wealth of your life, your sense of humor, your insights, these things, your sense of being present and grinded. Give these gifts away. And then in the sutras it says, the most precious dharma is the gift of fearlessness.

[23:33]

You know, that's what we give. To give that. And in a way this comes into play when from this human place of loneliness, of need, of impoverishment, we bring forth giving. If I'm already impoverished and I give, what's going to happen to me? Maybe I'll end up even worse. I'll be in a worse state. To not be caught by that fear. To bring forth in ourselves Find something. Maybe it's a kind of a reckless abandon. Just do it. That's why I wanted to give a dollar bills, because if someone said, it's like, well, when you give me the dollar bill and you tell me to give it away, it's like, it's not even mine to begin with.

[24:53]

You know, nothing's ours to begin with. Everything is just on loan. Either it's going to perish or you're going to perish or at some point you're going to part ways. It's just where you're at right now and where it's at. You're going to go to the store and give the guy the dollar and he's going to give you two pairs. And then you're going to give the two pairs to someone else and just going to keep moving. So does that leave us impoverished or does that leave us enriched? That's what this koan is asking us. What are the assumptions we're making about ourselves and our life when we say, I'm impoverished?

[26:05]

What is that assumptions that we're making when we feel that gut-wrenching yearning and sense of isolation and loneliness? What's going on? is pointing directly at that too. What is to see that with the Dharma eye? What is to embrace that with compassion? And then the paramita of giving is saying here's a catalyst Here's an agent of change that can be brought to bear that stops that from just being a static state. So I give you a dollar and you say, well, I have a dollar, but I don't really have a dollar.

[27:21]

It's just an agent of change. It's just point of connection and interaction what is not just something temporal temporary what is not an agent of change just today's point of connection and how wonderful that we have the activity of giving to lubricate that process. And I would say we have the activity of receiving. Just think what a problem it would be if everybody was going around giving away dollar bills and nobody would receive them. We'd all be desperately, frantically searching for somebody to receive it.

[28:25]

So the sutras say we can give peacefulness. We can give presence. We can give understanding. We can give fearlessness. We can give humor. We can give caring. Yeah. And then working on both sides. Working on just do it, just give. And working on what holds me back from giving. What is it to cultivate generosity? How do I work with my own sense of feeling impoverished? I remember a student of mine once said to me, he said, which he'd learned from, he told me he'd learned it from AA, but he said that he would make a list of all the things he was grateful for.

[29:54]

And then every morning, he'd read the list out loud. That was how he worked with his impoverishment. courageous willingness to be where we're at. Okay, this is where I'm at. Now, there's a whole other interpretation of the khan where the monk is actually talking about what you might even call an advanced spiritual state, where he has sort of gone beyond the world. and isn't holding on to anything. And the teacher is giving him a refined instruction, saying, be completely in the moment.

[31:20]

is the complete gift. Every moment is complete. Every moment is saturated with the suchness of what is. I would say something like this. When consciousness is saddled, that it can attend with that kind of fullness. That has an authority, that perspective. But the practice asks us to practice with all sorts of states, mental states that we're in. that we give them all the benefit of full engagement.

[32:29]

Every moment we give ourselves to it. Maybe the teacher is saying, Please go home and make a list of all the things you have. Do you have two arms? We'll put that down. Do you have two legs? Do you have one leg? We'll put one leg down then. Do you have two ears? Put that down. What is the gift already given? What is the attitude, the disposition that realizes that? And when Aitken Roshi talks about the coin, he says this phrase, the finest wine in China.

[33:44]

There's a way in which in the Chinese, it can be considered a play for emptiness. It's a bit of a stretch, but it's what he said. He said the original text quoted a winery in China. and the same term for the name of the winery was the same term for emptiness you've tasted the fruits of emptiness maybe just to know that somewhere beyond our holding back is the joy of interconnection is the joy when we feel connected when we're giving and receiving you know my six-year-old niece in Ireland she asked me about God and I said you know

[35:03]

I can't really say whether there's a god or many gods. The only thing I can say with certainty is that there's a Santa Claus. The generosity is possible. The generosity happens. that this can take a physical form. This can enter the material world. How amazing that is. I'm not sure if she bought it or not, but she seemed to appreciate the weirdness of it. So let me end with this poem about the wisdom of being a little girl.

[36:13]

You must not understand life. Only then will it become a feast. And let each day happen to you like a child who goes along and lets herself be showered with blossoms. To gather them up to save. never enters the mind of the child. She lets them go from out of her hair and holds with open outstretched hands her dear young ears to whatever will come next. How old are you to not have dear young ears? There. As I said earlier, this idea of giving, my suggestion is that you play with it.

[37:26]

Not that you turn it into some moral code, some right and wrong, what should be happening, what you should be doing or not doing. Hold it loosely. Hold it and enjoy it. Don't get grim about it. There's enough things in life to get grim about.

[38:07]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_94.6