Good morning. Welcome to Green Dragon Temple. My name is Rosalie Curtis, and I'm a San Francisco Zen Center priest, and I practice and live at City Center. And I don't get out to Green Gulch very much, so this is the first time I've seen it in the throes of all this construction activity. And I suppose it creates, for the people who live here and visit here, some disruption and inconvenience and messiness.

[01:08]

But I know that the work that's being done will be a big improvement for Green Gulch. And I'm happy about that because, to quote... Our founder, Suzuki Roshi, Green Gulch is perfect just as it is, and it could use a little improvement. So this morning, I'd like to talk about generosity. And particularly about generosity as... about practicing generosity as a way to awaken. And recently I've been studying various sets of guidelines to living as a bodhisattva, including the six paramitas,

[02:17]

So paramida is a Sanskrit word that we usually translate to English as perfection, so the six perfections. And I've particularly been fond of the book Shantideva's Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva recently, which is an 8th century written in verse form that is based on the Paramitas. And it has a lot to say about generosity that I find quite interesting and compelling and new. So I want to share some of that with you this morning. I want to make sure that everyone knows what a bodhisattva is. So the bodhi in bodhisattva means enlightenment or awakening.

[03:25]

And sattva means being. So a bodhisattva is an enlightenment being or an awakening being. Someone who wishes for their own enlightenment and that of everyone else. and devotes their life to working for that, to working for universal enlightenment. And someone who has the intention to live for the benefit of all beings. So it's a life of cultivating selflessness and beneficial action. And I want to say a little about the six paramitas as a foundation. These are six qualities that an aspiring bodhisattva cultivates as a path to awakening.

[04:33]

And the six are generosity, morality, patience, diligence, concentration, and wisdom. And these qualities are cultivated by practicing them, practicing enacting them and bringing them to life in one's own life. So we practice generosity by giving and letting go of our attachments. And traditionally, the six paramitas are thought of as a progressive training where you start with the easiest one and move on towards the ones that are more difficult. And generosity is first, so it's the entry point. But of course, life isn't linear.

[05:39]

And so situations in our lives present themselves, and we respond with practice. And so we practice them all at the same time, and they all actually support each other. So the goal of this training in the Paramitas is wisdom, which is the capacity to see... clearly the truth of things as they are, things as it is, with eyes of compassion. So generosity is very important, of course, for practical reasons. It helps charity, helps others, and alleviates a lot of suffering in the world. But I actually want to talk today more about how doing the practice of generosity can help us to awaken.

[06:50]

I think that practicing generosity... and letting go of our attachments helps us see and feel and experience in a direct and personal way that we're not separate from anything, that there's actually nothing to own or to want or to get because we're already completely connected with everything and everyone. During Oriyoki Meals in the Zendo, we chant this verse. May we, with all beings, realize the emptiness of the three wheels, giver, receiver, and gift. So what do we mean by the emptiness of the three wheels, giver, receiver, and gift?

[08:02]

Emptiness is a word that we use in Mahayana Buddhism to talk about some of the qualities that life has. One of them is impermanence. So everything is always changing and arising and passing away and moving and flowing. Nothing stays the same. So we can't count on anything being the way it is now. And everything is completely interdependent with everything else. So everything is a cause and condition of everything else. Nothing exists all by itself. And that means that there's no self that's fixed and solid and lasting, that we exist in contingency with everything else.

[09:15]

So we don't have the control over our lives, even our bodies and minds, that we might think we do. And I think this is the... I want to go in a little bit to the giver, receiver, and gift being part of the meal chant. So I think this harkens back to the time of Buddha when lay supporters donated food to the monks. And the monks, in return... gave teachings for the lay supporters. So everyone benefited by this. It was mutually beneficial, and both sides gave something of value, and both sides received something of value.

[10:19]

And the gift was equally flowing and shifting. The food was eaten and taken into the bodies of the monks, became part of their bodies, part of them. And with the energy and nourishment from the food, they offered teachings which were taken into the minds and consciousness of... the lay supporters, and became part of them, became something that influenced their thoughts and actions and how they were in the world. So you can see that this is completely enmeshed the giver, receiver, and gift. You can't separate them or find any boundary between them.

[11:26]

the gift spreads very widely. You can't draw a line around that either. So I think that's what's meant by the emptiness of the giver, receiver, and gift. Shantideva, in this way of the bodhisattva, teaches... two different ways of practicing with generosity, one at the very beginning of the book and one at the end of the book. So they're sort of the alpha and omega of his generosity teaching, I think. So the first practice that he suggests to us is making offerings to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. and asking for their support. And this is not original with Shantideva.

[12:28]

Actually, this is a traditional bodhisattva practice. And the last practice at the end of the book is dedicating the merit of our beneficial actions to others. So I'll talk about the first one first. How does making offerings to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha work for us? How did it work for Shantideva? It's a practice of giving. that gets us used to giving, gets us in the mindset of generosity, and helps us cultivate the habit of letting go and giving to others. And it's easy to do in the case of giving to Buddha, Dharma, and Sana, because we revere and are devoted.

[13:37]

to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and we want their help. So the offering is a supplication, a request for their help and assistance in following the way. So it's an easy way to start the practice of giving. And it reminds us at the same time of our devotion, to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and our gratitude for our lives and our many blessings. So I want to read a little of this text aloud, these verses, because they're so beautiful and... instructive and present some new ideas that I think are useful. And I'm very aware of the possible pitfalls of reading out loud in a Dharma talk, the main one being that you might fall asleep.

[14:47]

And I really don't want that to happen. But my justification for reading this is that it's actually traditional to read this particular text out loud so that small children playing nearby or small animals, insects, mice, rats that might be in the room... now and hear me might take in this teaching and absorb it and store it in their consciousness and at some future time when the right conditions come together it will enlighten them. So that's why I'm doing this. So The first thing I'm going to read is in Shantideva's voice.

[15:53]

He's offering, he's making offerings to Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. I offer every fruit and flower and every kind of healing medicine and all the precious things the world affords with all pure waters of refreshment. Every mountain rich and filled with jewels. All sweet and lonely forest groves. The trees of heaven garlanded with blossoms. And branches heavy laden with their fruit. The perfumed fragrance of the realms of gods and men. all incense, wishing trees, and trees of gems, all crops that grow without the tiller's care, and every sumptuous object worthy to be offered.

[17:02]

I hold them all before my mind, and to the supreme Buddhas, So what I find interesting about this is that Shantideva is offering things of the natural world that actually no one owns, no one can own. And he calls to mind these wonderful things, has them in his mind, and then offers them to the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. And so he creates it and then gives it away.

[18:06]

And in doing that, there's more. So I think that's a theme throughout this text. When you give away, there's more. You create more. It's not like there's some amount of stuff and you can give it away and then it's gone and you don't have anything left. So I think that's really an idea that we can apply to all our giving, not just to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. I think if you experiment, you'll find that that is true. in the world as well. And that's actually quite impossible. So I think what we're giving away here or giving here or sharing here is our experience of these beautiful things. And haven't you had that experience? You see a beautiful sunset or a beautiful sky with fluffy clouds and you want to share it with someone. You want to have someone with you to enjoy it with you.

[19:10]

And it would actually be completely impossible to give away our experience or to take our experience and divide it and share it with someone. But we can offer it to others and hope that they enjoy the same thing. And that's the spirit, I think, of this instruction. And it really points to the fact that there's nothing that we can actually... own or hold on to. I'm reminded of a picture that I've seen of Suzuki Roshi holding up his glasses. It's a picture that's pretty famous. I've seen it on fundraising cards, so maybe some of you know it. And he gave a Dharma talk about the precepts, and he was talking about the precept of not stealing. and how you actually couldn't steal because we don't own anything.

[20:17]

And he used the example of his glasses. He said, actually, everything in the world belonged to us. For example, my glasses. They are just glasses. They do not belong to me or to you, Or they belong to all of us. But you know about my tired old eyes, and so you let me use them. So those of you who, I have this fear that this is going to fall off. Those of you who wear glasses know that they can break and they can get lost. But even if that doesn't happen, after you have had your glasses a few years, your eyes will change and the glasses will no longer work for you and you'll need a new pair.

[21:22]

So I think that's an example of how things shift and change so that there's no point in trying to own something or hold on to it. You might as well share it and give it away while it's alive and useful. And then, of course, ultimately, when we die, we give up everything. So we can hope that we've been generous before that time comes. So then Shantideva takes another tack and offers things that he imagines. So in this section, he's imagining a bathing chamber that he's going to give to the Buddhas. A bathing chamber excellently fragrant with floors of crystal, radiant and clear, with graceful pillars shimmering with gems, all hung about with gleaming canopies of pearls.

[22:33]

There, the blissful Buddhas and their heirs, I'll bathe with many a precious face, a brim with water, sweet and pleasant, all to frequent strains of melody and song. With cloths of unexampled quality, with peerless perfumed towels, I will dry them. and offer splendid scented clothes, well-dyed and of surpassing excellence. So since these things are imagined and we can do the same thing, there is no limit to how much we can give. It's limited only by our imagination. And I think you can see that Shantideva is having fun here, imagining these things and imagining that he's spending time bathing the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, which I'm sure would be an activity he would treasure and want to have.

[23:51]

So again... Just like in the previous exercise, we create what we give away. We create it, and then we share it, and then there's more. Where there was nothing before, now there's this stuff that we can give away and share and get used to the idea of giving and enjoying giving. I think that's the biggest point. So some of us have a pretty easy time giving things, but it's harder to give of ourselves in various ways, and especially our time and energy, which can seem so precious and so limited. So, for example, it may be really easy to send a card or a present to our mother on Mother's Day. But maybe what she really wants is a long phone conversation or a visit or to have you help her clean out her garage.

[25:03]

And that's more of a commitment and maybe something that you're reluctant to do. So how can we stretch ourselves on... to do the things that are needed, to offer the things that are needed and wanted in the world that would be really helpful and beneficial. In the same way that we stretch a muscle to make it more flexible and serviceable, can we do that? So Shantideva has some things to say about that too. In these verses, he's imagining, or excuse me, he's offering himself to be whatever might be needed in a situation. He's looking for people who have a need or a request.

[26:08]

And you know, sometimes we put up some kind of barrier to people coming and asking for things. consciously or unconsciously. So in these verses, he's opening himself to try to be whatever would be helpful in the world. May I be a guard for those who are protectorless, a guide for those who journey on the road, for those who wish to go across the water. May I be a boat, a raft, a bridge. May I be an aisle for those who yearn for landfall and a lamp for those who long for light. And for those who need a resting place, a bed. For all who need a servant, may I be their slave. So these are just examples.

[27:11]

He goes on and on for page after page of situations where he sees that people need help and he wants to provide it. And I think it teaches us that we are boundless. We're not a particular fixed thing. We can be other things. We can offer ourselves in lots of different ways. through lots of situations and needs. And that's an exploration that's worthwhile when we're cultivating generosity, I think. So recently, I've been involved with an affinity group for people who are over 55. And one of the questions we've been considering is, what do you want to do with the rest of your life? But that's a question you don't have to be over 55 to think about.

[28:14]

And in fact, the sooner you do it, the better and the richer the options are. But it's a way of thinking about what we can give, what we have to offer, what our capacities are, what our strengths are, what other people, what we have that could benefit others. And some of us who are Zen students or monks don't have much in the way of material resources or wealth to offer to anyone. But we all have love that we can give to others and respect, and we can cultivate respect for everyone, and that's a wonderful practice for us. Everyone wants admiration and appreciation, and we can give that to people.

[29:21]

If we listen to someone with interest and engagement in their lives and circumstances, that's a real gift. And sometimes people want advice, and sometimes we can give it. But I think the biggest gift, the thing that most people want, is connection and recognition, being seen as they are and noticed. And I notice that this comes up for me in relation to panhandlers in San Francisco. So there are lots of homeless people. in San Francisco, and if you walk through certain parts of the city, you will be asked for money. And you can think about how to handle that situation, and it's not so difficult.

[30:26]

But what's difficult for me is actually feeling and wanting to feel a connection with the person. If they're dirty, and drunk and maybe kind of unpleasant or not, I feel a barrier between myself and the other person. How can I dissolve that barrier and actually want to have a conversation with them or see something about how their lives are? Often there's, not often, but sometimes there's someone sleeping on the front steps of Zen Center when I go to Zazen in the morning. And I find that I think, I hope that person doesn't wake up and ask me for something. So that's, you know, it's the connection and the humanity that I think is hard and that I want to learn how to do.

[31:30]

Another thing that we can give is human kindness, which I think is seeing people in a positive light, seeing their good qualities rather than their faults. And there is a wonderful story in a book by Diane Rossetto that's about the precepts. And she's giving kind of a way-seeking mind account of how she came to practice. And she tells the story of she was a high school dropout and she had babies and a failing marriage. And she went back to school and got her high school equivalency so that she could get any kind of job, but she still couldn't get good jobs. She had been on welfare and wanted work. And she saw an ad in the paper for a legal secretary.

[32:37]

She did not have those skills. But she applied for the job and got a friend to give her a reference and back up her story. And she got hired. And After a little bit of time, it became pretty clear that she couldn't do the work and was making kind of a mess of the office. So one day, the attorney who hired her called her in and sat her down and said to her, I don't want you to tell me why you misrepresented your abilities to get this job. what I want you to tell me is what you'd like to be doing five years from now and what you have to do now to make it happen.

[33:40]

So can you imagine how that would have felt? She was just floored, so surprised and so happy in a way and grateful. And she went away and thought about it and came back and said, I want to go to college and be a schoolteacher. So the attorney called some contacts that he knew. And in a couple of months, she was enrolled in college at night, taking classes and working at the same time, taking care of her kids. And a few years later, she had a bachelor's degree and a master's degree. And all because someone didn't look at her flaws and think about his own prerogatives and convenience in the situation, but looked at what he could offer, at the good he could do in the world, and did it.

[34:50]

And I think it's important for us to realize that we all have that power. We can make a difference in the world. We have choices, and we can act for the benefit of all beings. And it can look like that, and it's very inspiring to me. So I was teaching a class recently in which I asked people to do the exercise of every day giving something to someone, and I did it too. And it was very interesting because it directs your focus outward to what other people want and need and would find helpful. And I suggested that on two days of the week, We all give our gift to somebody that we have trouble with, that we don't really get along with, that we don't like.

[36:01]

And that was another interesting element in the exercise because it involved looking at what those people like or want or would help them and what motivates them. And usually we would find that their motivations are exactly the same as ours. They want to be happy. They want to be healthy. They want to be safe. They want to be free from suffering. It's almost like another kind of loving kindness meditation to think about what you can give to people. And it's hard. It's really challenging. But when we see that commonality, then we can have compassion. We can see that we're all alike, that we're all just doing our best. So how are we doing? So the omega of Shantideva's instruction about generosity is dedicating the merit of your good actions to others.

[37:19]

I think merit is kind of a strange concept to Westerners, at least it is to me. I looked it up in the dictionary without much confidence that I would find anything that related to the Buddhist idea of merit, but it's actually pretty close. It said, and to ensure future benefits. So if you're a certain kind of Buddhist, you might feel that those future benefits might be a fortunate rebirth or something like that. But if you don't believe in literal rebirth, then it's interesting to watch the world around you and see if that seems to be true.

[38:24]

Does doing good things create benefit? And does it create benefit for you particularly? And of course there's no guarantee, but I think that it absolutely mostly does. I think good generates good. And... doing good things. Every time we do something good, it's easier to do the next good thing. It becomes a habit, and the habit becomes character. So another way of thinking about merit, I think, is to think of it as your good qualities, your good reputation or status or prestige, your fortunate circumstances, your comforts, all the things that you would find it very hard to deliberately give away that you would not want to lose.

[39:31]

But the truth is that they slide out from under us. We lose them anyway. We learn in the Four Noble Truths that our lives will inevitably alternate between pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and disrepute. We can't control it. We can do good things and hope for the best, but we're going to have our fair share of both sides. of those things. And we could argue about fair share. I hadn't thought about saying fair share, so I don't know. We can talk about that later. So where am I going? Oh. So I want to share a little bit of Shantideva's offering of merit to others.

[40:39]

And he's offering the merit of writing this book which I would think would be a considerable amount of merit. May beings everywhere who suffer torment in their minds and bodies have by virtue of my merit joy and happiness in boundless measure. So boundless measure. He's not eking it out or meeting it out. He's just putting it out there for everyone, hoping that everyone will benefit. So it's the opposite of scarcity mode. Again, it's the more you give, the more there is to give. Love is like this too. We respond to love with love. So in the next verse, he's offering the merit of writing this book to hell beings.

[41:46]

May those caught in the freezing ice be warmed. And from the massing clouds of Bodhisattva's prayers, may torrents reign in boundless streams to cool those burning in infernal fires. So the assumption I have about beings being in hell is that they may be people who've done really evil, terrible things. They may be people that we would say are despicable, that we might want nothing to do with. And yet, Shantideva is offering merit and relief from suffering to those people. And I think it's based on the insight that... There are lots of causes and conditions for the things that people do and the circumstances that they end up in. And the beneficial circumstances which he is offering, he's offering improved circumstances, are always helpful.

[42:59]

Suffering simply begets more suffering. And having good things in life is apt to beget good things. It's a more extreme version of the story of Diane Rossetto. If you can overlook or forgive, not condone, but forgive the things people have done and help them on their way, that helps the world. And it also helps us to cultivate forgiveness and compassion, which compassion is one of the wings of enlightenment. The two wings of enlightenment are wisdom and compassion. And the more we see of the circumstances of how people became the way they are, that's both wisdom and compassion. So he continues offering merit to others.

[44:10]

And may the blind receive their sight and may the deaf begin to hear and women near their time bring forth like Maya Devi, free from any pain. May those who put to sea in boat or ship attain the ports that they desire, and may they safely come to shore and sweet reunion with their kith and kin. May children and the old, the weak, protectorless, bewildered in the wild and pathless wastes, and those whose minds are dulled and all who are insane, have pure celestial beings as their guardians. So it's traditional, especially, to offer merit to people who are suffering.

[45:13]

But you can offer merit to anyone. And again, he keeps thinking up people to offer merit to. He seems to be thinking of every... person in every circumstance he can possibly imagine, and sending them the merit from this book. But you don't have to write a book like this to have inexhaustible merit. You know, nobody, there isn't an account where you have so much merit, and that's how much you can give away. You can give away merit all day long from everything you do. That's good. So I hope you will. And finally, he offers spiritual well-being. This is the last verse. May all attain the human state and be possessed of wisdom, faith, and love with perfect livelihood and sustenance.

[46:23]

May they have mindfulness throughout their lives. So he clearly wishes for all of us to be happy and to be enlightened and to have good lives and to spread the love and joy and freedom and enlightenment to others. So to close, I want to... Thank you for coming and offering me the gift of your attention and presence this morning so that I could in turn offer the gift of my Dharma talk and my study, which helped me. So that gift helped me. I hope it helped you. I think this is a good example of the unity of giver, receiver, and gift.

[47:28]

So I'd like to end by just having a moment of silence in which we all dedicate the merit of our good activity in coming here today to whoever you'd like to dedicate it to. Thank you. 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 sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[48:23]

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