Thank you. Excuse me.

[09:07]

If you've been here the whole week for Sashim, please know that today will be a little different and that we will not all rise and join in the vows. We'll stay seated at the beginning and end. The truth of the battle is out of sports.

[20:09]

Good morning to those of you who are online. A few hours ago, for those of you who are just joining us for the Dharma Talk, a few hours ago, those of us who've been sitting for the last seven days, or six and a half, we had a ceremony in here. celebrate Shakyamuni Buddha's awakening. And if you're wondering what a Zen celebration looks like, we walk around chanting. I know not everybody's idea of what having a good time is. But that's what we do. Oh, and we also, through

[21:20]

flower petals up in the air at each other. It was a blast. It's interesting. I find it fascinating the stories, the tales that grow up around the significant person in all sorts of fields, but in this case, Buddhism. There's a distinct story about how Shakyamuni, what his original, where he was born and the conditions under which he was born and how and when he decided that he would leave home or in his case, leave the palace and become a mendicant and devote his time and energy to awakening.

[22:29]

And there's a particular point in that that I'd like to bring up. And here's the particular point. There's two versions of, I think, what's a pivotal point in his whole process of years and years of study before he awakened. He had the strong conviction that rigorous and stringent asceticism was an essential ingredient for waking up. the story goes that he pushed himself so much in disciplined accordance with that asceticism that he pushed himself so far that he almost died.

[23:39]

And then there's two notions or two versions of this story. And one version of this story he lay exhausted on the riverbank where he'd almost drowned. And even in his enfeebled condition, he reflected on his circumstance and decided then that asceticism was not the way. And so he ate something. He restored his energy. And with that restoration of his energy, he was able to sit in a deep state of meditation absorption.

[24:46]

And in that deep state, something in how he was holding on to self, how he was holding on to his particular way of thinking about life and about awakening, it melted. It dropped away. And as the morning star rose, he completed dropping away everything, And just saw the beauty of the morning star reflected on how as humans we do cling to the notions of the self. And had a deep insight into how that clinging limits us, limits how we think, how we act.

[25:51]

There was an utter and complete transformation in his being. So here's the second version. Starting place, he grew up in a palace. That's the same as the first version. He was very privileged. But having seen death and dying, and old age, sickness and death, he had a deep wish, calling to be a mendicant, to look deeply and discover how to meet this existential dilemma. How can we live wholeheartedly when we are assured of dying? That's the same in both stories.

[27:01]

Then he left the palace. He was married. His wife had had a child. He had completed his obligations to his family. He produced an heir and he left. He practiced yogic breathing techniques, mastered them. His yogic teacher said, well, why don't you stay here and co-teach with me? But he didn't feel like he'd really come to grips with what he wanted to come to grips with. He practiced with a meditation teacher, a philosopher, and again, he mastered what they had to offer. was asked to stay and co-teach and declined.

[28:04]

And he decided that he would strike off on his own, not quite knowing where that was going to take him and not quite knowing how it would facilitate awakening. And then he carried forth, which was at his time, and in many ways still is, asceticism as an essential ingredient. So that was how he and his five companions, the cohort of practitioners, and so he pushed himself to this place of being so weak he almost died. So both stories have that. And then in the second version of the story, it goes like this. He's lying on the riverbank.

[29:07]

And a young girl, about eight years old, who's making her way to a meadow to look after the oxen. And she has her lunch with her. And for lunch, she's having rice and yogurt. And as she's walking along, she sees this person lying on the riverbank, Shakyamuni. And with compassion and kindness, she thinks, this person, this guy's in really bad state. I think he needs my lunch more than I do. And she gave him... her lunch. The story doesn't say whether she persuaded him to eat it or he just took it and ate it. It doesn't say that.

[30:10]

Maybe he persuaded him. Maybe he saw the clarity of her eight-year-old mind and thought, Why should I assume that my path of awakening is private? Why should I assume that I don't need any help? If you look at nature, there's all sorts of symbiotic relationships. I remember reading a couple of years ago, In a university, they discovered a way to introduce a certain marker into the sap that the trees pull up.

[31:15]

And what they discovered was that the trees in a cluster, even if they weren't the same kind of tree, they share with each other the sap. he ate the rice and yogurt. And in this version of the story, then having eaten, then with Sajjata's help, with the help of Sajjata's kindness, compassion, and generosity, he fortified by the food, he renewed his practice with a different demeanor. With every kind of hard determination that kept him on his ascetic path, that dropped away.

[32:29]

And having dropped that he found that the yogic concentrations that he learned were more potent. And so he sat all night and went into an extraordinarily deep state of being. And in that state of being... to the very core of his being, all kinds of clinging were dropped. And it was like there was a kind of renewal. And that renewal, and here's where the stories agree, that renewal was sparked by the morning star. And then the story continues, both versions of the story continue.

[33:40]

So in general, maybe the moral of the story is be careful before you think you know everything about awakening and how to get there. How to be it. Be careful when you think, I can do this all by myself. I don't need anybody's help, anyone's help. And so this morning, we were celebrating Shakyamuni's awakening. And maybe one of those versions are true. Maybe in some ways they're both true. Maybe in some ways neither of them are true. Still, he awakened.

[34:52]

Still, it's an inspiration. It's a guide. And maybe a cause for celebration. theme of the Sashin and the intensive weeks of dedication to practice that preceded it, the theme of that has been a fascicle by the finder of this style of Zen, this style of awakening, Dogen Zenji. And I want to start right in the middle of it. Because where else can you start a human life other than right in the middle of where you are? This notion of absorption, this notion of you're always right in the middle.

[36:07]

And Dogen says, When you find yourself where you are, some intuitive process starts to illuminate your life and reveal the path of awakening. And the catalyst for that is absorption. In the early Buddhist text, jhana was related to as a meditative practice. You sit down, you settle, you bring attention to what's happening, you release all thinking and anticipations and worries and whatever else preoccupies your being.

[37:16]

Release them all and experience a state of consciousness that goes beyond what's usually happening for us in terms of our preoccupations. And in that state, what Dogen called dropping off body and mind, although he didn't initiate the term, but he did use it. In that state of dropping off body and mind, there is a renewal of being. Maybe in more modern language we would say we reboot our biological hard drive.

[38:21]

And in that state where the filter of our preconceived ideas falls away, And we see clearly the human condition. We see clearly the condition of existence. And in particular, we see clearly the human. And then, as Buddhism developed, notion of absorption developed. And in this notion of absorption, every moment, every kind of moment, every kind of thought, every kind of emotion, every kind of interaction offers itself for absorption.

[39:36]

And this is the path of the Zen school. The word Zen comes from the very same word for absorption in Pali. Jana, Chan, Zen. And this is what Dogen talks about in this section of his koan Genjo kōn is the Japanese, and one translation is the kōn of life. A fish swims in the ocean, and no matter how far it swims, there's no end to the water. A bird flies in the sky, and no matter how far it flies,

[40:39]

There is no end to the air. All forms of life, including human, co-create their existence. When I read that breeze can sure sap. And they can also, as their leaves touch, they can transfer a liquid which seems to have particular chemical makeup. And of course, we have no idea. Are they sending each other specific messages?

[41:41]

Look, a guy with a saw is coming. Or are they just sending reassurance? Are you okay? Things going okay with you? I'm here if you need me. So when Dogen mentions fish and birds, he's using them as representative of all forms of life. And each form of life participates in creating a realm of existence. The word in Pali is Kaya.

[42:44]

So this morning we created a realm of existence called Celebration of Shakyamuni Buddha's Awakening. And then we absorbed into that realm of existence. as an act of appreciation, as an act of gratitude. And then we swept up the flower petals, went back down to the zendo, and had breakfast in a very formal style. I was thinking, you know, the meal, the formal meal, with all its chanting and serving and ritual, It lasts about 50 minutes.

[43:45]

And you get about five minutes to eat the food. It is true, after the five minutes, you were offered seconds. But I thought, 50 minutes of chanting for five minutes of eating. Yeah. Then we ate. Then we moved on to the next thing, which was taking a break, a rest period. Zen practice is this process of continually creating a kaya, being absorbed in it. Then, okay, thank you very much. next kaya, next kaya, next kaya.

[44:48]

But whose life is not like that? Before you came to sit in this Buddha hall, you were in some realm of existence with all its own particulars. And then after you leave this Buddha hall, you'll go into another kaya. Maybe you'll go to a coffee shop for a coffee. And as coffee shops tend to do now, there'll be people sitting, looking at their laptops. Looking at a digital kaya. Maybe someday we'll figure out, is that a good thing or not? Maybe someday it will have its own discipline.

[45:55]

In the world of Zen, to keep ourselves available for the arising kaya of the moment, we have certain disciplines. Like when we're sitting for seven days as we are now, today being the last day, We post a schedule. Here's the schedule of our kayas. And when this bell rings, come and join that kaya. And when this bell rings, go over there and join that kaya. And most of our lives, we move from kaya to kaya. We move from absorption to absorption. Maybe we think like Shakyamuni before Sajjata helped him out. I'm exposing my bias.

[47:04]

I prefer that version. But one way or another, Shakyamuni had a change of heart. He dropped the notion, no, what I decide needs to happen is the most important thing. You see, being absorbed in the kaya, you have to let go of the notion that what you think reality is is the most important thing. And for most of us, that's quite a challenge.

[48:07]

And the fascinating thing about it is, when we drop it, something marvelous happens. And yet, that doesn't deter us from picking up, renewing that I say what reality is. We're habituated on it. And when we when we try to dictate what reality is, we're actually creating a new kind of kaya. And as long as we keep doing that, that kaya keeps going. And Dogen describes it in this way.

[49:14]

He says, when a fish swims in the ocean, and no matter how far it swims, There is no end to the water. As long as we are participating in the co-creation of the kaya, it will keep unfolding. And then in some moment, our capacity, mostly because of our impermanent human bodies, to create the kaya will fall away. And who knows? And then Dogen goes on to say some very interesting thing. He says, talking about this creation of kayas,

[50:22]

He says, when the activity is large, the kaya is large. When the activity is small, the kaya is small. In our participation in creating a kaya, the kaya can have different qualities to it, you know. When we were chanting and circumambulating in this space this morning, about seven o'clock, throwing flower petals up in the air, we had the drum over here and someone was beating a rhythmic, a rhythm on the drum.

[51:26]

and we were walking around in a specific way and getting it wrong several times. But the feeling was celebratory, so getting it wrong didn't matter, you know? We just, somebody, someone would go in the wrong direction, then somebody else would say, no, go that way. You lose your place in the chant. Well, just listen for a few minutes and find it again. There was a kind of lighthearted joyousness. We didn't say to each other, don't ever make a mistake. That's terrible, terrible, terrible. if you go the wrong way, we co-participate in the kaya.

[52:37]

And when it becomes expansive and generous and kind and compassionate and thoughtful, the many things we know that enhance our own well-being and enhance the well-being of others. When we infuse the kaya with those, it's a different kind of kaya. And Dogen says, when the activity is large, when the activity is kind, when the activity is compassionate, when the activity is thoughtful, when the activity is mutually supportive. Okay, that's how it is. And when it's lacking those qualities, it's lacking them.

[53:43]

We can start a war. We can say the people who live on that side of the street, we're at war with them. Tonight we'll attack them and take their apartments. It seems absurd, right? It seems a little ridiculous. But that's what countries do. That's what people do. That's what tribes do. We create a different kind of kaya. And Dogen, then he adds, in relationship to the kaya we're in, in relationship to these qualities, he says, know that the water is life and the air is life.

[54:46]

The bird is life and the fish is life. This is not a theory. This is actually what all forms of life are engaging in, including humans. And in the Zen world, we try to conjure up within ourselves a sense of inclusion, a sense of taking the well-being of all forms of life into consideration. That we may, without quite knowing what we're doing, that we may be of benefit. When I read that article about the trees, one very interesting detail was

[55:54]

that even when a tree has seemingly died and is just a stump, has lost all its leaves and maybe even all its branches, the other trees still feed it sap. And the person who wrote the paper said, we're completely stumped on this one. We have no idea why that happens. Maybe that's wonderful. Maybe it's wonderful that when we look at the kayas we're creating, that there is an appreciation that this has a complexity that we have no idea exactly. And then, of course, being humans, we make up some ideas. The new...

[56:59]

telescope that's looking far into space. Apparently, it has revealed certain details that contradict astrophysicists' notion of how the world, how the whole cosmos came into being. And now we need a new story. When the activity is large, the field is large. And the finder of this temple, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, he added that this quality of not containing ourselves within what we know, this willingness to be open

[58:02]

possibilities. He said, this is beginner's mind. And may, wherever that ambulance is rushing off to, may it arrive there on time. May it minister the help the person needs. And may they be well. May they be at peace. We can do this with our minds, with our heart, with our imaginations, and with our caring. This is within our capacity.

[59:05]

And from a Zen perspective, every aspect of life offers a demonstration of what is. It offers a teaching of how to be absorbed in it. And one of the great teachings of spending a week meditating is that you get to see many, many, many aspects of who you are and what you are and what your mind gets up to and what you draw on from your past and what you

[60:13]

pull here from your future. Let me just, I've run out of time, but let me just say, let me quote one last piece. He says, when we act like this is all life, this is all possibility for absorption, this is all possibility for learning the process of awakening, it says, acting on this state, none fails to realize the limitations of every moment. And none fails to somersault freely at every place. somersault freely at every place.

[61:16]

It's a Zen term saying that when you don't create limitations, there's a lot of possibilities. It's like tossing a somersault. So whether you need sajjata, to come by and offer you her lunch. Or whether you need to pause and think of the ambulance rushing somewhere. Or look and get in touch with the ways in which you suffer. maybe to take away with you from this talk the notion that life can be an opportunity to somersault.

[62:31]

And one last poem from Pablo Neruda. It's called It Is Born. Here I came to the very edge where nothing at all needs saying. Everything is absorbed through weather and the sea. And every day on the balcony of the sea, wings open, fire is born, and everything is blue again. like morning. Thank you.

[63:45]

I thought I'd be mad at what I was saying then. Literally sharing this as I walked on a journey of subsistence to the world. I thought I'd be mad at what I was killing it then. [...] Oh, I'm going to come up. I'm going to come up. Thank you all for being here.

[65:51]

So we are in the midst of Sesheen, so we are not having our usual Q&A. There also will not be tea and cookies. The public program of the morning will end right after this talk. For people who are here in Sesheen, I didn't check the time. The next period of Zazen will begin in about 15 minutes from now. at 11.20. And if you are, if you're on the lunch serving crew today, this is not the serving crew who have been serving throughout the week, you're dismissed. The people who are serving today, we're gonna meet in the student lounge right after the talk. And then as we depart, The cushions can go back to the shelves.

[66:54]

Just this single row of chairs can go back to the dining room. All the other chairs can stay in the room. And if I could have maybe six or eight volunteers, people who are in Sishin residence, to help bring out some Zabutans that are in the front office and will quickly set up for this afternoon ceremony. So with that, have a lovely day.

[67:22]

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