This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. I'm going to pass some apples around and I'll tell you about them. Just keep them moving. You know, the gift keeps on giving, kind of thing. These are wild apples as far as I'm concerned. Can you hear me? Yeah, I'm good. You know, Suki, who was the gardener here for many years, and still is here in her capacity, called me up and said, Lee, you're giving the lecture on 10-10-10. Do you know that? It's 10, 10, 10, yeah.

[01:01]

And that's October 10th, 2010. This is a special day for many people who are involved in the green movement or the environmental consciousness movement. And there's been a lot of conversation, a lot of thinking, a lot of negotiating, a lot of words and efforts. It's very, very complicated and difficult. But they decided, well, we're going to have a day where we're going to do something instead of talk. And it's up to, of course, each person is going on in many countries. It's a restorative concept, you know, taking care of the earth. So I wanted you to know that, and she asked me to bring that up. The environment and Buddhism. And she said, have you seen this book, Dharma Rain?

[02:04]

It has, Dharma Rain, Sources of Buddhist Environmentalism. It's got a lot of short essays and scriptures and ceremonies having to do with that subject. It's called Dharma Rain. They took that from the Lotus Sutra. where Dharma Rain is the mist of the Dharma that settles everywhere. I'll read you part of it. It's called Dharma Rain. The rain falls everywhere, coming down on all four sides. Its flow and saturation are measureless. reaching to every area of the earth, to the ravines and valleys of the mountains and streams, to the remote and secluded places where grow plants, bushes, medicinal herbs, trees, large and small.

[03:09]

A hundred grains, rice seedlings, sugarcane, grapevines, the rain moistens them all. None fails to receive its full share. And as you may, I don't know, the Lotus Sutra, one of the themes in the Lotus Sutra is that everyone and everything becomes liberated. This reminded me of a definition of grace. I once heard when I was in church. Actually, it was Grace Cathedral. Grace is what is given right now. What's given in the present moment. What is. What is what we perceive when we are free from distraction and attachment.

[04:17]

What we see, hear, feel. Touch, think, taste. This is grace. In the perfection of being, we are what is perceived. We are it. So grace is like a universal mist. I was thinking that settles on everything. It dampens everything. Without preference. Total equanimity. Everything is given. Now sometimes the mist, the dampness will penetrate the being. Sometimes permeate the being. Sometimes it just rolls off. It's an opportunity. Liberation is constantly being offered to us moment by moment. We just need to turn towards it. As a minister, a friend of mine said, perhaps quoted,

[05:21]

you're already saved, you just need to realize it. So this mist touches all beings, sentient and insentient. Do you make that distinction in your mind between sentient and insentient? Human and tree, soil, animal and ocean, all are dampened by this mist. The ancient question here that I would bring up is, do insentient beings preach the Dharma? Are we listening to them? Can we hear them? Now, when we think of preaching the Dharma and enlightenment, we often will think and visualize the Buddha sitting under that tree.

[06:24]

It's called the Bodhi tree. Bodhi means awakening, enlightenment. Its name in Latin is ficus religiosia. I guess even if you don't know Latin, you might figure that out. So he sat under this tree during his enlightenment. And he made the great vow not to move until he penetrated and saw through suffering and the end of suffering so all beings could be liberated. Mara, the tempter, you know, that plagued the Buddha, was sitting there. And he tried every trick in the book, worked day and night. to get Buddha to move, to drop his vow. He was pretty clever, actually, if you listen in. Actually, you are listening in when you meditate.

[07:33]

But to no avail. Buddha didn't move. He kept at it. Mara finally admitted defeat. Mara may be the devil, but he's no fool. finally admitted defeat and knelt down and asked the Buddha to tell him how to act, what to think, so he could be a good subject. The Buddha said, oh no, I need you to be just exactly what you are. Be yourself. We try to make the world into our own image. the kind of perfection of our ideal. And in the case of Mara, the ideal became Buddha, as he conceived of Buddha. But Buddha showed him in live time that there was no Buddha to hold on to.

[08:44]

In this case, there was a Buddha sitting there But you couldn't hold on to him. Because the Buddha was no Buddha. He turned you back to yourself. He said, take a look. Nowhere to hide. Nothing hidden. He will not be your accomplice in trying to hide in some ideal. The request is not for perfection. It's an invitation for intimacy in the present moment. That's the request of the universe. It doesn't ask us to be anything perfect. It just wants to, you know, hold hands.

[09:47]

Now, Mara's plight was the same plight pretty much as all the Zen monks who go to the teacher and ask the question and are the subject of koans. How should I act? What is the way? What should I think? What's true? The teacher says in a million ways, oh no. I need you to be just exactly the way you are. Please show me. Now, that tree spread out over Buddha. Are those apples moving around? If you bite one, I'll hear it. I'll send Mara after you. That tree spread out over the city of Buddha.

[10:51]

Historically, it's a very important symbol and stimulated a very long discussion in India and China and everywhere about a very important issue. As Le Fleur puts it in this book, just how and where and when does enlightenment take place? Is the tree or the plants, is nature itself just an inert setting used as a backdrop for a man who one day achieved realization? Or was it rather the human's companion in enlightenment without which he would have no perfection. Does enlightenment have a context?

[11:54]

Or does it stand alone? Come to think of it, looking at the altar, early Buddhists, the first several hundred years before Alexander the Great Congress, India, did not make images of the Buddha, did not make statues of the Buddha, archaeologists. I don't know this. But when Alexander the Great showed up, of course, he brought along all his artists, and they immediately made a Buddha out of stone. And if you look at these Buddhas, they're called Kandahara Buddhas. Kandahara, is that in the news? that they unearthed these old Buddhas, and they looked just like Greeks.

[12:57]

They were at togas. Yeah, and they actually looked like Greeks. But we have one down at, one of the early ones down at Tassajara on the altar, if you go down there and take a look. Looks just like a Greek. So, just as an aside, but my point is that they had altars, but they had no image. They had no Buddha. There was just emptiness there. They would have everything surrounding it. They would have his seat, a halo. They would have images of his parents, maybe of animals. everything surrounding his life and his being, but no Buddha. In the old text, the goal of Buddhism was to save all sentient beings.

[14:06]

But it brought up the question, well, what is included in sentient? Well, how about dogs? Do you know a dog, or do you have a dog friend? Do dogs have Buddha nature? It's an old Zen koan. Alan Watts, I think it was Alan Watts, the way he handled the subject was saying, well, if it looks back at me, it's sentient. If it doesn't, I'll leave it. Then in early Chinese literature, they talked about Buddha-hood attained by plants and trees. Now, working in the Zen kitchen here, or anywhere, really, with that attitude, the practice of mindfulness and respect, the monks take great care with the vegetables.

[15:18]

for it's an offering of life, part of the web of being. Have you heard the meal chant? Let's see if I have it here. It's a version of our meal chant. It's just the first part of it. As we make ready to eat this food, we remember with gratitude the people, animals, plants, insects, air and water, fire and earth, all turning in the wheel of the living and dying, whose joyful exertion, not separate from ours, provides our sustenance this day. There was an idea of

[16:22]

Co-enlightenment. You can't get enlightened alone, I guess. Or co-dependent arising. Everything is dependent on everything else. Any one person or any one phenomenon is kind of a nexus of causation of all the other causations. So that's why Buddha didn't really need to be sitting there. on that altar, he was there, because everything else was there, and that's who he was. One of these old monks said, the man whose mind is rounded out, rounded out to perfection, knows that truth is not cut in half. and that things do not exist apart.

[17:26]

They do not exist apart from the great mind. In the great assembly, all are present without distinction. Grass, trees, and soil on which these grow, who can really maintain that thing's inanimate black Buddhahood? It's an 8th century monk. At San Quentin, we chant, we extend clear and magnanimous minds throughout space and time for the benefit of all beings. And we're not excluding anything. Our practice is radical inclusiveness. That's our effort. Find out what we're excluding. and open to it. This is liberation. It's a path it looks like. Another question.

[18:30]

Oh, let me just see here. Excuse me. I'll sift through my papers here. How could there be real peace if it is exclusive to an individual, to a group, to a nation, to anything? If anything's held out of the heart, how can there be real peace? There's an illusion, perhaps. and build a nest, a fort, but all things crumble. Enlightenment would have to be shared by all, all inclusive.

[19:36]

As the Buddha was reported to have said when he stood up from his seat, Wonderful, wonderful, all beings are of the nature of enlightenment. This is our practice, radical inclusiveness. You know, are we holding anyone out of our heart? Anything? Are we closed? Yes. How do we practice? It's a good question. I can't answer it. Maybe you can figure it out. I think it's got something to do with forgiveness. That's Zaza. Suffering begins with the delusion that I am separate from the world and need no contact, so that I can find peace.

[20:52]

by separating off things, that I can have my own private peace of mind. Wouldn't that be nice? Have your own little private peace of mind. Sometimes we can sort of do that, right? We can sort of go for a walk or something. But it's nice, and it's good to take a vacation every now and then. But we always have to come back to ourself. My own private piece of mind. My own little fort. No, it's not true, the Dalai Lama says. The Dalai Lama says, and I found it interesting, I wonder what you think. If you think of other people, if you... But to the degree you sort of find a way to be helpful and consider others, you're happy when you're doing that.

[22:04]

When you think of yourself, you're not that happy. So there's a way in. There's a kind of practice to negotiate. I mean, what is helpfulness? What is thinking of others? We all need to decide that. So be happy and help somebody or help the earth. Today, 10, 10, 10. This is a day where a celebration of effort, of helpfulness and giving and kindness. and restoration. Picking up a piece of paper, that's not going to change the course of the planet and its orbit. But it does, it is an opportunity to join with others.

[23:06]

To hold hands with all other beings. To have community. This is what we want. We want communion. We want to be ourself, but we want communion. That has to do with interdependence, has to do with negotiating the way. The interdependence, the co-creation, of all things. The guy creates the Buddha sitting on that empty altar, supposedly. Creating and being created by each other. Nothing hidden, nothing independent.

[24:16]

We learn today, and we see today, about this lesson regarding the earth. You can't really throw anything away. You can't really get rid of anything. You used to think you could before recycling. I remember years ago when I was living here and they started the recycling thing. I'm not from the recycling generation. Deep learning curve. But the young kids, that was their whole thing. I don't know, do you remember what part of the recycling was? You know those business envelopes with the windows? They went in a special thing. Now that was just the beginning of it. I completely was defeated.

[25:17]

But we tried. Now I think they've sort of made progress on that. It was kind of fun, and everybody felt, well, we were working together, and it was a good thing. We cared. Some of the youngsters were very, very motivated, and they would actually go up to the dumpster. That dumpster's where you throw things away, and then they'd go someplace, maybe some other country, I don't know. And one day I used to live up on the hill and I would look down and there were the dumpsters, I could see them. And some of these people, these youngsters, well meaning, would be in the dumpsters taking apart the plastic bags you put your stuff in and sorting through it to make sure that nothing was improperly sorted.

[26:20]

Of course, that became a great concern to the residents who really didn't want people going through their stuff that they were throwing away. So it was an interesting opportunity to discuss these issues. But really, you can't throw it away. One of the monks was in Indian therapy, as one of the... Older mugs. And she said, oh, yeah. When this came up, she said, yeah. Because she learned about the unconscious and something. And I said, yeah, we think that when we push things out of awareness down into the unconscious, sort of like putting it in the dumpster, that it's gone forever, but it isn't. You really can't get rid of it. You have to open your eyes, soften your heart.

[27:21]

get off of your tough position, and get inclusive, even about the things you might have in the past thrown away. Yeah, so use your God-given intelligence and your body today, if you want to, and do some small things, and join those who are trying to help out. Now, that tree, the Bodhi tree, of course, was in India. And they say it's a fig tree. I didn't know that. I didn't know there were figs on that tree. But that was a long time ago.

[28:24]

It was transplanted, parts of it, to Sri Lanka, Ceylon, to people of my generation. There was a great Buddhist monastery there. And it would show up in various forms and manifestations in various places. One showed up right in front of the great Jaravada Monastery. Right there. Grew right up. Did it bear fruit? Have you seen one around? Now that tree is called the Bodhi tree.

[29:27]

They say it was a fig tree. But some people think that it might have been an apple tree. And listen, the universe may be inviting you to sit down under that apple tree, conditions being what they are, to sit down and not move. To take the vow, the great vow, why not? Take the great vow not to move, to persist until the great mystery of suffering and the end of suffering is penetrated and all beings are liberated right now.

[30:29]

A volunteer apple tree sprang up right next to our little small meditation hut here near Beach, where I lived. Many years ago, carpenter monks came over one day and visited, sort of a field trip. They were building the guest house, and they came over to see how this little meditation hut was built. And they brought with them their bag lunch. And they ate the bag lunch. And they looked at the hut and we talked. And then they left. And there were apples in that lunch. And they grow apples here. I don't really know where those apples came from.

[31:34]

A little while later, after they left, an apple tree started growing right next to the meditation hut. And it finally grew to full size and fruition, right in front of the zenta. Each morning, after meditation, my wife goes out and picks a few apples and It gives them to the deer who have learned to wait early in the morning. They got all the low-hanging apples, so she's helping them out a little bit. And then she goes in and makes breakfast. And we don't know where those apples came from. That tree is different. We have other trees which are on-purpose trees. This one isn't on-purpose. I guess all the trees, there's no more apples, right?

[32:39]

I mean, have all the apples been... We made applesauce out of one set of trees, but this one tree is still producing apples. And that's what I've got here. That's what's going around. I took them off the tree yesterday. There's about 60 of them. They're small, and they have little imperfections. I have eaten one, and they're kind of tangy, but I guess I must be getting hungry. So please take one if you want, you know, after the lecture. Now, I'll give you a little apple meditation. to end with. This is called Apple Meditation.

[33:41]

You can make believe you have an apple in your hand. Some of you actually don't need a make-believe. This by Wendy Johnson. Today, the apple trees offer you their great treasure. The earth herself laid bare but the hoe's curved fang brings up the heavy apple harvest of summer's end. Take this apple into your hand. Reclaim your true liberty and courage in full mindfulness and happiness. Hold the fruit of understanding and compassion. Let your intellect, your thinking mind, float away on the back of the afternoon clouds. The apple tree calls you into the center of your garden, into your own body.

[34:44]

Gather yourself. In the heat of the afternoon, lift up your breathing and walk to the cool of the garden. With every breath in, cool breeze rises. With every breath out, coolness pervades the garden. In the center of your garden is a tree. Some call it the tree of knowledge, knowledge of good and evil. Some call it the tree of action and repose. Come call it the tree of life. Come into the center of the garden, and sit under the ancient tree. Even now, all about us, autumn is assembling. Lean back against your tree. Let your breathing join the breath of the tree.

[35:50]

In the autumn, roots plunge down into the raw mineral depths of the earth, and trees are inward. Feel secure in your stem and in your core. Turn inward. Send your roots down. Let your true taste ripen. This is the work of coming home. Sit down with others and work for deep tap-rooting happiness and the courage in our task. So the rain falls everywhere, coming down on all four sides. Its flow and saturation are measureless, reaching every area of the earth, to the ravines and valleys of the mountain and streams, to the remote and secluded place where grow plants, bushes, medicinal herbs,

[37:03]

trees large and small, a hundred grains, rice seedlings, sugar cane, grape vines. The rain moistens them all. None fails to receive its full share. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[37:56]

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