Good morning. We're going to start today with a story from the sutras, the Malika Sutra. King Pasanati was on the Upper Palace Terrace with Queen Malika. The king asked Malika, is there anyone dearer to you than yourself? Malika answered, Your majesty, there is no one dearer to me than myself. And you, sire, is there anyone dearer to you than yourself? Nor is there anyone dearer to me than myself, said the king. The king went down from the palace and visited the blessed one and told him this story. The blessed one, understanding, recited this verse. Though in thought we range throughout the world, We'll nowhere find a thing more dear than self.

[13:35]

So since others hold the self so dear, he who loves himself should injure none. We've been talking about the self, it seems like forever. Self and no self. And here's the sutra that seems to contradict it all. The Buddha acknowledges in his response to the king that, yeah, there's no one who doesn't love themselves above all things. And yet there is no admonition against, you know, loving the self. But simply that one who loves the self should therefore. and you're none. Doesn't quite make sense in the logical terms.

[14:44]

But I think we know what he means. There's this deception that's created by this body and mind that has us all thinking we are the center of the world. And if you don't think that you're the center of the world, Just wait a minute. It'll come up. We fear pain and we are subject to the limits of our perception that we've been dealing with since birth, since we emerged from our mothers. That first shock of cold air after being never having experienced Being separate from someone. That sets it all off. Even in a baby brain that doesn't have these concepts of arms and legs and self and skin and world and you and me.

[15:53]

There it is. All of a sudden. Out in the world. Vulnerable. Out in this place where we're subject to you know, sensations coming from everywhere. Our eyes open and all this color and bigness and littleness and this and that and discrimination begins at once. Me and that. It's a function of this body-mind. It's the shall we say, reality of this body-mind. We're in this lonely place, and we see others, but we don't see the connections between us.

[16:59]

They're not as clear and... as the connection between the unborn child and the mother. That's why we want to be unborn. We can accept these sort of philosophical, metaphysical, whatever you want to call it. I never took philosophy, kind of connections between us in this very intellectual way, and that's kind of how we've been talking, or how I've been talking, forgive me, all this time. In our delusion, we are alone and vulnerable, even though we understand that

[18:05]

This aloneness and vulnerability to be kind of an illusion. Is it? So what the Buddha is pointing to here is that even in this delusion, we are not alone. Everyone has the same delusion. And in doing our best to follow the path, we have to accept that this is true for me. This is true for them. For that. This being and that being. We're all in this. When we forget that this is the situation in samsara.

[19:08]

It leads to violence and chaos and discrimination and wars and all kinds of weird things that we say we don't want, we say we don't like, and yet it's so easy to just fall into that trap. of not even evil, just deluded action, speech, thought. We have to be careful with each other because we are all suffering. also have to remember in this that this self is suffering and we have to be cautious and careful with this tender self because it's all beings who is all beings.

[20:27]

We have to help each other. I'm going to skip around a bit because there is a lot that I could ramble on about. Yeah. There's a little book by Shilhaku Gomora and it's called, I always forget the name of the book. The Structure of the Self in Mahayana Buddhism. Triest title. But it says exactly what he's trying to say. In this little book, he says, and this is Sharaka Okamura. In Mahayana Bodhisattva practice, we take a vow not to enter nirvana until all beings enter nirvana. Each one of us wishes to be the last person.

[21:35]

to cross the river between the shore of samsara and the other shore of nirvana. To live and work on this shore of samsara, we need the five aggregates, our actual living body and mind. We have to live with the five aggregates of attachment and use them as a device to help other beings across the river. This is the Mahayana way of transforming oneself from the way we are pulled by our karma to the way we are led by the bodhisattva vows. In our practice, we continuously work the middle way, walk the middle way, between the self as something existing and the self as five aggregates of impermanence. We walk the middle way as the interpenetration of self and no self. I watched a video somewhere that said the middle way is not a compromise.

[22:45]

I forget what it was in context to, but I just remember that phrase that the young woman spoke. Remember at the beginning of our time here, we read or we talked about Samsara is nirvana. Nirvana is samsara. That's from the Genjo Koan. And here we are again. The middle way is not a compromise. And that's it. In this particular arising, I live in samsara. In this deluded body and mind. in this suffering, and this is true. But also in this arising, I am Buddha with wisdom and compassion arising with me and with my vow to save all beings.

[23:55]

This is also true. It's confusing. How is there a self and a no self arising from these conditions at the same time. And we can go and read about all the skandhas and the aggregates, you know, skandhas and aggregates in whichever way you want to say it. Again, someone trying to explain what we're experiencing here. Very difficult. can get very convoluted. I do want to know right now what this means, self, no self.

[24:57]

But my limits, the walls that I've built, They seem insurmountable. And the Lord of Illusions greets me at the mirror every morning with more stuff to suffer over needlessly. And the world and I have to catch a plane tomorrow and I have to prepare a plan for the next thing. And yeah, the world just making demands. that I have to address as a responsible person. So what the heck have I been talking about here? What is the reality? And I think of another story in which there's a person who shot with an arrow.

[25:58]

And the doctor shows up and begins to work on her. But the patient demands to know who shot that arrow, why did they shoot it, and what exactly is it made out of? This information. And, you know, she's asking these questions and all these concerns while the doctor is trying to work on her. While trying to apply that medicine. And that skill. That could save. Her life. And yet. All these issues. All these questions. What is this? And in the midst of all this. You know. She dies. And never. She dies never knowing.

[27:02]

The actual context of this particular story of the arrow is Buddha's answer to someone asking about the origins of the universe and all these cosmic questions. And my cosmic question, how can samsara be nirvana? We can't understand this without applying the medicine. There we ask the question. But why waste time when it comes to the healing? Dogen says that to sit zazen is enlightenment. Bodhidharma says don't know. That's enlightenment. Dropping off body and mind is realization and actualization of all the myriad things. Because a bird...

[28:08]

is life. A fish is life. Life is a bird. Life is a fish. And we should go beyond this. This is the practice of enlightenment. This is the way of living beings. This is the way of living beings. Living beings in samsama with these bodies and these pressures and this suffering that we want to get beyond. Every once in a while, I try to put my ego aside and allow the medicine of this practice to work. That's all. And if I truly make the effort and try to approach everyone with the understanding that this is what we're doing here, that we are all suffering with these

[29:11]

egos and with this loneliness and this fear and trying to protect these bodies that deserve protection and consideration and health and well-being, all of them, all of us, me, I, this body, self, deserves all of that. I try to understand that if I am so dear, then all these others that seem so far away from me are also just as dear. I understand that we are arising and falling constantly and therefore cannot afford

[30:15]

To waste these leading moments. Chasing. What exactly are we chasing? It's all right here. I understand that I do this in samsara. In this relative world. In this world of illusion. Or is it? I do this so I can catch a plane. And be with my sister in the Bronx. And next week, start another session with another group. And attend some meetings. And everything. Blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah. And I try to remember that everything that I'm listening is Zazen. Everything can be done with intention and generosity. Attention. and compassion, saving all beings.

[31:19]

This is not a matter of intellect, not a matter of intellectual understanding. It's a wholehearted being, the vow. I'm being kind of silly here, but not really. You say to study the self is true. the self. To cherish the self, whatever the self is, is the Buddha way. To cherish the self is to forget the self as form and limits drop away, verifying all beings, verifying the big self as we do this practice together. It's not easy. If it was, we wouldn't be sitting here. I'm going to read this little poem again from Kazon where he says, abandoning the self

[32:44]

abandoning myself to breathing out and letting breathing in naturally fill me. All that is left is an empty cushion under the vast sky, the weight of a flame. It's not in this place, in this time, arising from the conditions. We are extremely blessed. We have received a great gift in these moments as they come, as they go. These bodies Okamura called them devices.

[33:49]

These are the arms of the Bodhisattva. These are the arms of Avalokiteshva. These are our arms and legs and brains. To be used for the salvation of all beings to get to the other shore. It is wonderful to be able to sit and read dogen and the patriarchs to play with these ideas. Ask them for meaning. They're brilliant. They're wonderful. And there will be among us some folks who can articulate this. well all of us and help us try to figure this out but it's not our not the Buddha way to just sit in the book and play with words and ideas this is

[35:16]

An opening of the heart and mind. And there are lovely things in books that can spark that opening. But the true opening comes from the effort that we put into practice. that we put into not understanding, but revealing and arising with the world of samsara and the world of nirana. This sounds so dualistic because of words, but They called it the interpenetration of samsara and nirvana.

[36:26]

There is no separation. We can draw pictures, you know, I can draw pictures in my mind of what interpenetration of samsara and nirvana is, and I can do all kinds of things, you know, and picture... you know, swirling together or whatever. And that's not it at all. That's just my mind making a concept, making a picture and making another story. And it's okay to do that. But it's all happening in here, in this practice. In here. Because it's not in. everywhere and it kind of sounds silly or whatever but playing with these words and so on as British as they are it's kind of like you know saying you want to swim to the other shore and instead of swimming you're making calculations on your paper on your soaking wet paper as you're drowning

[37:45]

You know, and the shore is right there. It's like, you know, it doesn't matter how far away it is. It doesn't matter how many strokes. It doesn't matter any of that. It's that you stroke that you put the effort in. And sometimes that effort is going to be strong. And sometimes that effort won't be so strong. Sometimes it'll be a little, you know, confused and tired. It's going to get old. But always, you know, as we come back again and again to practice soaking that fire until your eyebrows. burst into flame, and sometimes die down again.

[38:51]

And we have to be patient. We have to be patient because this is not easy. This is continuous, continuous, lifelong practice. It will not end the way you think it will. And your enlightenment will not look like what you think it will. Or what some book told you. Or what somebody else's enlightenment looks like. But it will benefit us all. As your practice benefits us all. I don't know where I am. Okay. All right. I'm trying to be careful with words most lately.

[39:53]

They can be very confusing and sometimes just not useful. But I would like to just let you know some of the resources that I used in doing these talks, so that if you cannot, weren't able to, if I wasn't able to impart what I wanted to say, there are some folks out there who are much better at it. And I'd like to acknowledge and thank Shohaka Okamura Roshi, And I used his Realizing Genjo Koen because it's one of my favorite books. And also the structure of the self and Mahayana Buddhism.

[41:04]

Also to acknowledge Chanryu Suzuki Roshi. founder of this place, and probably the most important book in American Buddhism to my mind, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, and the second book is Not Always So. Also, Bhikkhu Bodhi. His two books, well, he's got more than two, but The Noble Eightfold Path and Noble Truth, Noble Path. Uchiyama Roshi, How to Cook Your Life, the first version. There's so many, it seems like there's so many versions of that.

[42:04]

But I don't know, I have a... THAL SPOT FOR THE FIRST VERSION. AND OF COURSE, DOGEN. THE SHOBO GENZO. AND DOGEN'S PURE STANDARDS. I ENCOURAGE YOU TO PICK THEM UP. LEAD THEM. AND DO AS THE BUDDHA SAID, DON'T HANG ON THE WORDS. DON'T JUST HANG ON THE WORDS. These are just clues from someone, from people who dedicated their lives to this practice. And they're just trying to leave us a message, give us a little help, a little guidance, but not necessarily the answer. That can't be imparted

[43:12]

in that way. That's what transmission of the Dharma is about. And I'm not saying transmission of a robe, I'm saying transmission of the Dharma in the general sense. So with that, I think I'm through. And thank you all for being here and allowing me to connect with you as a community and as my Dharma brothers and sisters. And thank you for listening to me fumble through this. It was fun. It really was, actually. Not kidding. Good morning and welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple.

[47:48]

We're in the midst of a one-day sitting today. It's also the last day of Sashin, so there's no question and answer. There also are no tea and cookies in the courtyard. After the Dharma Talk, this will conclude the public program for this morning. A couple announcements for people who are here for the day. Actually, I will mention, so because we've been in Sashin this week, the temple will be in interim this coming Monday through Wednesday, so we will not have the normal morning and evening meditation. The temple essentially will be closed to the public during that time.

[48:50]

Interim will end with the Dharma talk on Wednesday evening. The Dharma talk will be given by Catherine Spaeth. and the regular schedule resumes on Thursday. And then for those who are here for the one-day sitting, we'll be heading down to the zendo next after a short bathroom break, the next period of zazen. Let me just check my watch. We'll begin at 11.15. And so it's an open period of meditation, open period of walking meditation, kinhin. Before then, you're welcome to enter the zendo at any point and just do kinhin in the quadrant that your assigned seat is in. And for those who are here for the first time, who are here, this is your first one-day sitting or you're new to the temple, our Acting Tanto Michael will

[49:57]

be leading a short question and answer session right here after this talk. So that's a chance to check in with him. So thank you all again for being here. And please help put the questions back on the racks and the chairs can all go back to the dining room. Thank you.

[50:18]

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