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. Good morning, everyone. And thank you to the practice leadership here, Abbott, Ed, and David, and Wendy, and Tova for inviting me. to give this talk this morning, right in the beginning of the practice period. So thank you all. How many of you are here for the very first time? Welcome. This feels like it's falling off, but you can hear me okay? Yes. The practice period is studying something called the six perfections.

[01:03]

The six perfections. And in Sanskrit, that's the six paramitas. And so I was asked to speak about, to take up one of those six perfections and bring it up for discussion and for your reflections. And the perfection that I chose was In Sanskrit, it's the perfection of virya, or virya paramita. And virya, I found just a score of translations for the word virya in English, and I'll just give you a bunch of them. Effort, energy, enthusiasm, exertion, perseverance, zeal, joyous effort, joyous energy, vitality, rising forward and moving, rising up energy, uprising energy. So I think all those words kind of circle around this, the meaning of what this perfection is for us in slightly different ways, but hopefully you have a kind of feeling for the word, the Sanskrit word, viryam.

[02:22]

And it's the same etymological connection with vitality and virility. So that's from the Sanskrit root. And when it was translated into Chinese, they chose a term that means the advancement of single-minded spiritual vigor. So I don't know if you can feel the energy rising as we begin to... look at this together, the advancement of single-minded spiritual vigor. We chant a text or a teaching called the Loving-Kindness Meditation, and right at the beginning it says, let one be strenuous, upright, and sincere as a, you know, this is a

[03:24]

teaching how do we practice together, let one be strenuous. So I think this strenuous is the same kind of feeling, something that can be single-mindedly sustained over a long, long time, or maybe forever, with joy, not with a grim, determined soldiering on with our practice, but the energy of joy. And along with that comes... in the face of difficulty, still there's a joyous way of facing that. So in bringing up this paramita, it comes, there's the first three, giving morality and patience, and the last three, this joyous effort or enthusiasm, exertion, and... concentration, and wisdom. And the teachings around virya are you need this, we all need this kind of energy and effort to be able to continue with our practice.

[04:38]

And the ways that it's countered often are by habitual patterns, habitual energies of despondency and thoughts that I'm not good enough, I can't do it, I'm not okay, other people are better. This kind of mind is the exact opposite, you might say, of virya. And in the traditional, one of the traditional texts about these perfections, which are part of the bodhisattvas way of life, they talk about these They use the word in this translation, laziness. But there's several kinds of lazinesses. One is indolence. Indolence meaning no dolore, no pain. I don't want to feel anything. Just I want to be comfortable so we don't go to our edge maybe of stretching into areas that are maybe just not so comfortable or new, a frontier for us.

[05:50]

So that's one way of thinking about how it is that joyous effort doesn't arise, because we stay very tightly in our comfort zone with other people, with situations we're in, and with our practice itself. Another way in which virya doesn't get activated and released, really, because I think this is part of our birthright, you might say, is we get distracted and attached to things that are not so wholesome for us. And I think the range of things that may not be wholesome is quite extensive, and we all know maybe what those things are for us, whether it's frittering away our time on the Internet or in activities that we don't feel so... happy about what we do in any way, or being with people that are not influencing us in a wholesome way.

[06:55]

There's all sorts of ways in which we get attached to distractions. So this, in the text, this is called lazy. One might know what's a wholesome way, and yet we get distracted and attached to other ways. And the third is a kind of despondency and tiredness. I can't do it. I just don't have what it takes. I just, you know, this kind of thinking. And one might think, well, maybe that's true. I am too tired. And yet, how do we, if there's something we really want to do and we're tired, like really want to meet somebody somewhere or see a movie here and we're kind of tired, we'll go forward, you know.

[07:56]

So how does this get in the way of our joyous effort and full exertion? Now I realize that I have a kind of lecture that I've given many times, actually some of you have heard at this particular way of talking about Virya, which has to do with this children's book, The Little Engine That Could. And I thought, well, this time I won't tell that story. And immediately what popped into my mind was the story of the cowardly lion. Now the reason it did is because part of what happens when there's this joyous effort and exertion and enthusiasm is we have courage. Courage is awakened in us. And this is a kind of courage to meet our life that's not just bravado or being brave.

[08:58]

That's part of it. But just like in the Cowardly Lion story, if you remember, does anyone not know the Wizard of Oz? A couple of people don't know that. story that became a motion picture in the 40s, I think. And just briefly, in the story, there's four main characters, actually five with the Wicked Witch of the West, who's really a bodhisattva, but that's another story. These four characters who really want something, they feel that they lack it. One is lacking being able to go home, because she's in a... a strange place. Another feels they don't have the brain power to really be respected. Another feels they don't have emotional strength, heart power. And the cowardly lion felt he didn't have courage and he was afraid of all the other animals in the forest.

[10:07]

His own tail, you know, he was afraid of his own tail. So each of those characters by facing their fears and by loving one another, actually, and being goaded on by the wicker rich of the West, they actually found these capacities within themselves. They didn't come from outside. The family jewels do not come in through the gate. They found them within themselves. And the cowardly lion, who felt he lacked courage, those of you who know the story, It was out of compassion and love for Dorothy, one of his companions, that he just went forward and did what he needed to do. It wasn't that he wasn't afraid. In fact, as you remember, he said, talk me out of it. But he just went into the Winky's castle to find and save Dorothy.

[11:09]

Toto had escaped already. Sorry. LAUGHTER Anyway, so the courage, the cowardly lion, it is completely connected with compassion for ourselves and others. And virya, I feel, is also. We can't just keep slogging through with our practice life, repeating it, even though repetition is the soul of spiritual life and constancy. Still, there's something else that has to be activated in us. which is caring for others, caring for our environment, caring for the world and justice and having compassion, out of that will come virya, joyous effort, even in the face of problems and difficulties that we may never be able to see the end of, actually. We may die long before. Still, there's joyous exertion and energy and enthusiasm that arises

[12:13]

over and over, fed by or nurtured by or in league with, like DNA, with compassion, just like the cowardly lion. He was able to do what he had to do. So I wanted to connect this with a koan that may not seem like it's connected with Virya, but I gave the talk last Sunday at Green Gulch talking about this koan and knowing I had to bring up Virya for this talk, I actually saw that the koan really was about joyous effort as well, and a deep kind of effort that's not our usual, ordinary kind of effort. So I wanted to bring up this koan with you, which is both in the Blue Cliff Record, a group of 100 koans, And another group of 100 koans called the Book of Serenity.

[13:16]

And it's case 3 in the Blue Cliff and case 36 in Book of Serenity. And maybe you know this koan, this Zen story. It's called Master Ma is Unwell. Master Ma is Unwell. Master Ma was a great teacher. He didn't write very much, but he had many, many, many enlightened disciples. many schools flow from his lineage, and his dates are 709 to 788. I love to tell stories about beings who lived thousands of years ago, a thousand or more years ago. He was a big, imposing person physically, supposed to be very tall, big physique, and Suzuki Roshi tells that his tongue could cover his nose, which is an interesting image.

[14:17]

So Master Ma is unwell. And it's a very simple story. Master Ma was unwell. The superintendent of the temple, maybe the director or one of the leaders of the temple, came to visit him and asked, Master, how is your venerable state these days? And Master Ma said, sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. That's the story. That's the Zen koan. So it's very simple. As I said, Master Ma said, while probably lying in his quarters, lying down, and one of the administrators said, comes and says, it's translated some ways sometimes, how is your venerable health? But this translation, how is your venerable state?

[15:18]

So he didn't even talk specifically about his health, but more, how are you? In a big sense. And Master Ma said, sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha is a reference to a scripture called Buddha Named Scripture. And in that scripture, which I've never read, but I think they name all these myriad Buddhas, hundreds of them, and one of the Buddha's names is Sun-Faced Buddha, and that Buddha lives for 1800 years, 1800 years, long-lived Buddha. And another one's name is Moon-Faced Buddha, and Moon-Faced Buddha lives... for just a day and a night, just one full day, that's all. So, Master Ma is unwell. How is your venerable state these days?

[16:20]

Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. Now, the connection with joyous effort and full enthusiasm and exertion to our last breath. Maybe that's why it's connected for me. He's unwell. He died, actually, it says three days after this story took place. So he was really on his deathbed. And however that is for beings, and it's different for everyone, when asked, he taught. And he taught And for years, for decades, you might say, I had a certain notion of what that meant, sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. I think my sense was whatever arises, and maybe this is still part of my understanding, but sometimes it's sunny and lovely and good, and we want it to last forever, and

[17:34]

That would be some-faced Buddha. And moon-faced Buddha, sometimes it's hard and difficult and painful and not happy, sad, you know, sorrowful. And that both of those somehow are okay and that that's the quality of our life and we practice with each one. I think some sense of that. And I think... within this koan, I think that may also be part of it. And then I felt there was more to it. And Suzuki Roshi comments on this particular koan. And he brings up, when he talks about this koan, he had just been sick in bed for a long, long time. And this was maybe his first lecture coming out of this sickness.

[18:36]

And he talks in this lecture that basically it's okay if I'm sick. It's all right. I know who I am. Don't worry about me. And even if I die, it's okay. This very wide, very, very settled, very... No problem here, folks. There isn't a problem here. How come there isn't a problem? Because I know who I am. Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. And in reading this again, I realized that it wasn't that sometimes it's sun-faced and sometimes it's moon-faced, but that our life is more like sun-faced Buddha hyphen moon-faced Buddha, Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha is one thing that is how our life appears.

[19:42]

It's not sometimes this and sometimes that, and we need to get used to it or find a way, but it's one life of suchness that's like that, that has appearances that come and go in a day, in a moment, in a breath, within the context of or held within sun-faced Buddha, which is not separate from moon-faced Buddha. It's one life, one life that's thus. So Suzuki Roshi says about our practice that we have to make effort. In fact, in the index of Suzuki Roshi lectures, under the word effort, which I looked up, there's a whole long list of lectures where he brings up effort and write effort.

[20:46]

What is this joyous effort? It's necessary. We need to make effort. And in talking about what kind of effort and thinking of Master Ma being unwell, He says, the effort we need to make is not the ordinary effort. And that, when I say ordinary effort, I mean we kind of grit our teeth, we're going to get through this, we make our timeline, we get to the end, we did it. And that's kind of our ordinary effort, which is necessary too, to complete a project or whatever. So there's something difficult and we go at it and we find a way. That's a certain kind of effort, kind of our ordinary effort. And Suzuki Roshi brings up the extraordinary effort that we need to make. And this kind of effort is an effort that we can't actually meet or find out about with willpower.

[21:59]

with our, somehow, our willpower or our soldiering way, which we need, we do need sometimes, but this extraordinary effort comes from an understanding that we are some face Buddha, moon face Buddha, always. That we are Buddha nature. That is our nature, is Buddha nature. So... in this what he calls special effort or extraordinary effort, we can't just accept our usual way of thinking of things, our usual way of being sick is not good, being well is good, being young is good, right, youth, being old is not good, and judging and setting up all these good and bad in comparison mind, and then kind of negotiating that somehow with effort. That's different from this kind of effort that we need to find within us.

[23:03]

And this effort flows from understanding and wisdom and compassion of who we are in this world, how we are connected with one another inextricably. That is our nature. And when things are flowing from that, the effort is different than our grit the teeth type of effort. Now Suzuki Roshi and many other teachers have helped, well how do you wake up that effort? How do you understand that and have it begin to flow and rise up? So one thing is when we begin to practice there's a kind of thought I have about this that the more we practice, the more we practice. The more we practice, the more we can practice and do practice.

[24:08]

There's something that begins to enliven us and rise up actually of joyous effort when we practice and continue our practice. So That's one thing, this constancy or continuing. A number of people have talked with me about their 12-step work and I know a number of people who have done 90 meetings in 90 days as a way to really enter deeply right from the start. And it's difficult. Just like sitting daily or having a regular schedule of sitting is difficult. However, the more we practice this and ask for help, actually, the more we, something else wakes up in us to continue with joy, not with taskmaster feelings.

[25:18]

And when we're sitting to slowly, slowly let go of our reactivity and patterns of thinking and habitual ways of hearing things and reacting to things, this effort, joyous effort to just let it be, not try to control, understand more deeply what just happened. This brings joyous effort as well. The other, this isn't a trick exactly, but the other point that I wanted to bring up around this joyous effort and virya is our clear, wholehearted actions of body, speech, and mind. where we completely, thoroughly, fully enter into our actions.

[26:31]

Now, you know, in the kitchen and in other, doing tasks, very simple tasks, we can find out about this, shopping and making beds, and if we can throw ourselves into that activity without judging it, this is menial labor, this is below me, this is above me, I want to do something else. Why did they get chosen? That kind of mind that kind of gets in the way of just wash the lettuce, just sweep, just clean the bathrooms. Whatever it is, I'm thinking of certain kinds of temple jobs. But at home, we all have these jobs too. Just wash the dishes. Just do it. Right in that activity. Everything is there. Some face Buddha, moon face Buddha is completely there. Nothing's left out. And our Zazen practice is like that as well.

[27:41]

Completely enter without judging it, comparing, comparing with ourselves. It was better yesterday. I'll never get this. This is this despondency. I'm not good enough. Everybody else understands. I don't understand. To enter fully, and it's a body practice, and I think part of this virya is both mental effort and physical effort. These two go together. And in fact, the mental is thought of even stronger. To have our intention clear is really stronger than what we think of as our physical confidence and prowess, although that's important too. So this very basic teaching in Zen of when you're doing something, just do it. You know, the more I practice and the more I study, I see that the things I heard about the exact first day or first months of practicing are

[28:51]

Nothing has ever been hidden. They were offered and given from the get-go, from the start. Just do it, just... And then you might think, but I'm too tired and I don't wanna. Do I have to? No, I won't. No, I won't. Yes. This is something where our sangha can help us, where we can think about and understand our practice, not just for ourselves alone, but for the sake of everyone. This is part of this effort and joyous effort, and we'll cut through and get to those habits of mine. So there's these verses which usually come along with these koans that our different Zen teachers take kind of on the koan in poetic form.

[30:18]

So In the Blue Cliff Record, the verse is, this is after this Master Ma is unwell, Sun-faced Buddha, Moon-faced Buddha. The verse is, what kind of people were the ancient emperors? And in China, the emperor was all-powerful. What kind of people were the ancient emperors? And then it says, for 20 years I have suffered bitterly How many times I have gone down to the green dragon's cave for you. This distress is worth recounting. Clear-eyed patch-robed monks should not take it lightly. So here's this Zen teacher in relation to this sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha, is bringing up this effort

[31:21]

that he's made, this exertion, this zeal, this rising mind, how many times I have gone down to the green dragon's cave for you. And right within there is compassion, facing what needs to be faced. The green dragon, by the way, in East Asian iconography and in Buddhism, is wisdom, you know, an act of wisdom. the dragon has a pearl, a pearl of wisdom that she carries under her chin, flies around, goes down into the cave in the water with this pearl of wisdom. So this teacher is saying, for 20 years I've suffered bitterly. This is not easy. Practicing continuously over the years through all the different parts of our life, our loss, our sorrow, our joys, our sadness, the loss of, you know, when we look around, the pain we have in seeing what's happening to our environment, to different people, marginalized people, oppressed people, the wars, wherever we look, we see sorrow and sadness.

[32:53]

Injustice and laws, right? If we don't see that, if we don't see that, we're not looking, you know. And in facing that, where does this joy I suffered come? For 20 years I have suffered bitterly. He doesn't go into that, but we have too. All of us have. how many times I have gone down to the green dragon's cave for you. This distress is worth recounting. This is something we can share with one another, how difficult it can be to practice continuously. And it takes courage. But we go down to the green dragon's cave for that wisdom, for each other. out of compassion. And that in itself, we receive energy from that.

[33:58]

I just want to take a moment before I read the other poem to say something about self-care and burnout. Because what I just described, you might say, I can't go on, you know. However, this compassion piece, caring for others and wishing them you know, protection, that they be safe, that they be free from suffering, free from the causes of suffering. This kind of wish and then acting according to our mind, thinking of this and then acting and speaking in this way brings us energy and is actually combats or is an antidote to burnout. there were these, you maybe know about this, these tests done, neurological tests done with meditators and being hooked up to these machines for imaging, brain imaging, and they asked him to, this particular teacher, to meditate on empathy.

[35:13]

Empathy is feeling another person's pain, right? And often wanting to act to alleviate and so while he was meditating they're looking at the screen they said no no not compassion empathy and in compassion he and he was trying he said Tibetan practitioner he was trying to okay empathy not compassion but he in his training he would go to compassion which in imaging the entire brain would light up in a in a different way than empathy feeling someone's pain and what the studies have shown is that for healthcare workers can lead to burnout if there's just empathy for their situation. And that you want to do something and can't help. They are going to die no matter what you do or whatever. This can lead to great burnout, which is a big problem for many activists and

[36:18]

healthcare workers and social workers. And when compassion brings a different kind of energy and actually joy, offering people, even in our minds, may you be free, may you be free from suffering, may you be safe and protective. Thinking in this way brings up this energy. So for 20 years I've suffered bitterly how many times I've gone down to the green dragon cave for you. And we'll keep doing it. Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. It's worthy to recount. This is not, this effort is not our usual effort. Don't take this lightly. those self-care and a balanced life where we include ourselves in our care, in all the ways that we care for each other and the earth and caring for ourselves.

[37:36]

Without that, we tend to lose sight of appropriate responses, actually, and we may try to get care from others, get something from others to gratify ourselves or take care of ourselves because we're not taking care of ourselves. And all sorts of power abuses and all sorts of things happen when that's not in balance. So part of this joyous effort and perfection of virya is self-care. Compassion for others, compassion for self has to be one. completely bound together in one life. You know, people ask me sometimes what happens after enlightenment or they've described to me a very strong experience of opening and then it's kind of like what next?

[38:47]

And of course the answer to that is practice the way the Buddha practiced. And what did the Buddha practice? He practiced the perfections. He practiced giving and morality and patience and this joyous effort and concentration, meditation and wisdom and all the perfections. They need this wisdom to be practiced as perfections. We start with making effort and doing our best or with giving any of the perfections and the way in which they become perfections is when we see that there's nothing outside of ourself that's not completely connected with us and interconnected. There's no subjectivity and objectivity. That's the perfection of these perfections. That's the wisdom that runs through all the perfections. So the joyous effort is, the culmination is when

[39:49]

within effort, there's no kind of goal at it, trying to attain even joyous effort. It's just flowing from a compassionate and wisdom and compassion in your own body. So this other verse from the Book of Serenity says, sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha, stars fall, thunder rolls, the mirror face form without subjectivity. The pearl in a bowl rolls by itself. Don't you see before the hammer, gold refined a hundred times, under the scissors, silk from one loom. So just to make some comments on that verse. The sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha has one thing.

[40:53]

Not either or, but within sun-faced Buddha there is moon-faced Buddha. Within moon, moon-faced Buddha is the appearance of sun-faced Buddha in this form. It's one thing, which is this image of a pearl in a bowl rolls by itself. If you picture this bowl with a pearl, rolling around in this bowl. And it rolls, it can roll because the bowl is shaped like a bowl. And the two of them together make this event of a pearl rolling in a bowl. Some face Buddha, moon face Buddha. You can't pull them apart in this image. And the mirror, when a mirror faces forms, when it faces our face, or all of our faces, or anything in a mirror with no subjectivity, like I'm a mirror over here, and I face you over there.

[41:58]

It's just mirror faces. It's another image for this same thing. No subjectivity. It is how we are. It is our nature. And then these last two images before the hammer. Gold refined a hundred times. So gold, the hammer makes the gold into all sorts of beautiful objects and trinkets and earrings and chalices. But it's just gold that's made into all these different things. Myriad objects partake of the Buddha body. And the silk from one loom, the scissors, Under the scissors, the silk from one loom. So out of this silk that's woven come all sorts of garments and curtains and outfits.

[42:58]

But it's just silk from this one loom. These are these images. Some face Buddha, moon face Buddha. So within all of our differences, there is the oneness of us within our differences. And within oneness, with differences there are the oneness, there's oneness. Within oneness there's differences. Once this is realized, actualized, joyous effort is rest in each moment of activity.

[44:00]

So, I think that was mostly what I wanted to say and share with you. I did bring another poem, but you know, I think Too much of anything is not too good. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost 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. May we fully enjoy the dormant.

[44:57]

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