Good morning. Someone was confessing to me that they felt a little disappointed that it's not sunny today. And it may be that this is the first time in our memory that we've celebrated Buddha's birthday on a rainy day. So today we'll have to do some extra maneuvers to, after this talk, to change the room so we can set up and do the ceremony in here today that we usually do out on the lawn. And the children are all in the library, quite a few children I saw just coming over here in the library hearing a story about the baby Buddha. So I wanted to say a few things about that story of the baby Buddha. and a little bit about ceremony and how we venerate and praise and make offerings to Buddha, we could say, okay, who accomplished what's the greatest accomplishment for a human being, is to fully realize Buddhahood.

[01:24]

To be fully awake, to be fully... completely in full, say, exercise of the qualities of wisdom and compassion combined. So we say that this is Shakyamuni Buddha. Shakyamuni Buddha refers to the clan, the Shakyamuni. living in that part of India which was, say, North India, near Nepal. And the Buddha's was named, the child was named Siddhartha, which means something like the one who accomplishes. Accomplishes what is good. There's a sense of completion in that name already.

[02:32]

So just being born is quite an accomplishment. And his mother, Maya, came from a nearby clan, the Kolias. So this happened about 560-some years before this common era that this little baby was born. At that time, it was traditional for women who were about to give birth to go back to their former home so they could be assisted by, usually by their mother or their aunts. And so Maya was making this trip back to her family home when she went into labor and gave birth.

[03:42]

It said, some legends say standing up, holding onto a branch of a tree, a solid tree. And then she never made it all the way back to her home. This was in the Lumbina garden along the way. And then something happened. Well, let me just back up a little bit. There was, I think, there was this dream image of a white elephant with six tusks that came and visited Maya during her pregnancy or at the beginning of her pregnancy or something. So there's some question about, was sex involved? Yeah, I think so. I don't think this is the image of a virgin birth. I think this is an image of a powerful kind of energy.

[04:45]

And we say, when we sometimes refer to the power of the Dharma, of the teaching, of the reality of the Dharma, we say sometimes this is like an elephant. To have a white elephant, pretty unusual. To have a white elephant with six tusks, even more unusual. But Samantabhadra, one of the bodhisattvas, the archetypal images of Samantabhadra, the bodhisattva of great activity riding on this white elephant. So Maya gives birth to Siddhartha, and then seven days later she dies. Her sister, Pajapati, was also married to Sudhanana, the king of the Shakya's king or chief, Raja.

[05:55]

And she gave her loving care to the new baby. So then she was the surrogate mother and the one who actually raised the baby, took care of the baby as a child and throughout her life had a relationship with Siddhartha who was to become Chakyamuni Buddha. Well, because it rains, I can take a drink of water. So that's the background of the ceremony we will be doing today. And I wanted to speak a little bit about veneration

[07:00]

and veneration praise and making offerings. The bodhisattva I just referred to, Samantabhadra, has ten vows that Samantabhadra is continuously, continuously enacting. And these first three vows are to venerate all Buddhas, to praise all Buddhas and to make offerings to all Buddhas. So it seems appropriate to me today in this ceremony to consider what do we mean to venerate, which is a kind of actually lowering oneself and to take a posture of devoted love. The Latin word for venerate root for veneration.

[08:03]

Venere is the same root as the word for Venus, the goddess of love. And it comes that ven, that ven part of it has a sense of orienting towards, turning towards with a loving, attentive devotion. So we venerate in our practice with our bodies, lowering our body, orienting our body so we venerate each other when we bow to each other. Being willing to recognize what is so beautiful and valuable in each other. To say that there is say, a Buddha in each other, or maybe a baby Buddha today, say, a baby Buddha in each person, is to recognize and cultivate the quality that we have in ourselves of that awakened one.

[09:19]

So we venerate by bowing and we venerate by circumambulating. Today we'll do, in the ceremony, we'll do a big circle around the room, around the baby Buddha. So this is an act of orientation, an act of respect, placing something in the center, the center of your life, if you will, and moving around it. a way of physically practicing and embodying the practice of veneration. So if veneration is to lower oneself and orient oneself, then praise is to raise up someone else. So praising is to celebrate, celebrate qualities

[10:29]

that one admires, respect. So today we will also be considering how we, what are the qualities that we respect and honor in a baby, in a Buddha and in a baby. And then to make offerings, we offer In the ceremony we offer food, we offer drink, so we offer nourishment. We offer the water that rains down and connects us all and is in our bodies. This is a way of expressing the connection that we have. A way of expressing that what we really are offering is our own life, our own blood, our own energy. And the Buddha, the baby Buddha, I think we'll have a Buddha figure here where the Buddha figure, the little baby Buddha stands up.

[11:49]

So according to legend, this little baby takes seven steps right away, is born and immediately steps forward. And that points with one hand up and the other hand down and says, below the heavens and above the earth, I alone am the world honored one. That statement used to really embarrass me. I thought, this is, how can the Buddha be so narcissistic, be so egotistical? I feel that there is a time to be narcissistic. And for a little baby, it's really good. And it is, how can we say what the baby says?

[12:57]

When the baby, I myself was... so deeply moved seeing my daughter, Hannah, being born. Any of you who have been present, some of you may have, or midwives or something, have been present at many births. For me, it was a very rare experience to be present at a birth. And very powerful. And even though we have all kinds of technical tools these days. You know, we have sonograms where we can see, you know, what this little baby's like inside. We get some idea. But still, you don't really know until birth happens. So there's this powerful experience and miracle where there was no person before.

[14:00]

Suddenly, huh? Here is another being. Yesterday my wife attended a baby shower for our neighbor up in Rohnert Park and we gave them a card saying, be ready to welcome your new boss. So this, you know, below the heaven, Above the earth, I alone, the world honored one. This is really all contained in that, ah, that cry. I'm here, right? I've arrived. I'm alive. And breathing. This is something new, this first breath, right? This is a way of suddenly participating with the environment, stepping out of the very protective, you could say non-dual, innocent world of the womb and emerging into the world of atmosphere, a world that includes dangers.

[15:31]

So one of the qualities of the baby Buddha is this, and of all babies, and of the babies that are in us now, is this vulnerability emerging out of what's a completely protected world into the world, into the world where there's some danger. vulnerability vulnerability is a quality to celebrate to appreciate and recognize that we actually all share that we have even though you know we've learned how to cope with many things in this world as adults we still have

[16:35]

the quality of vulnerability. And we appreciate it in each other when we meet. We can't really meet unless there is this sense that there could be some harm. There could be some danger. And again, the root of the word vulnerable means wound. So having the capacity to be wounded is part of what birth means. And so with the little baby, there's this dual quality of the baby being the boss, of absolutely requiring that others

[17:38]

orient around, that others take care, that others nourish, that someone feeds and loves, supports and protects this vulnerable being. So in that, with the vulnerability then, there's this amazing sense of confidence that a baby is born with a feeling of no choice, right? No choice but to trust. No choice but to be willing to be available to receive the offering assistance and protection of others. So these are twin qualities, I would say,

[18:40]

vulnerability and confidence go together. And in our practice of zazen that we take up whenever we do in our lives, we discover that the essential heart of zazen is the heart of trust. Taking the seat, we take the seat of And notice the ways in which we feel some anxiety about taking the seat. Some concern, can I actually sit here, can I actually be here without doing anything to protect myself? To open one's own heart to this place of Zazen practice is to notice all the ways in which thoughts that I have, feelings I have, separate me.

[19:47]

That there are some habits that I've created that separate me with the idea that I need to protect something, need to protect self. So the baby Buddha is an image emblem, a symbol, a kind of an archetype image of trust and then standing up and saying, I'm here. This is a confidence. This is a faith that one is being supported by the entire phenomenal world. There's no thought even, of course, There's no thought of some separation. There's simply being, simply being. So this statement of the baby Buddha saying, below heaven, above earth, it's like saying, with the heaven, with the earth, supported by heaven and earth.

[21:05]

Supported by heaven and earth, this breath happens. Heaven and Earth includes all the elements. It includes all the, say, the evolutionary history that created the atmosphere of this breath. Everything that has happened and is happening right now is contributing to this statement of trust the statement of faith, the statement of confidence that comes with that first cry. Being completely innocent. So when we do this ceremony then, and we bathe the baby Buddha,

[22:08]

we're actually bathing ourselves. We're bathing our own hearts. We are taking a moment to appreciate our own innocence. So innocence is this quality of also of before experience. Before the experience of something other. This is the experience of non-duality, the experience that everything is complete already. Pinecone saying, okay, below the heaven, above the earth, I am a pine tree. And the next generation of pine trees comes from the launching of pine cones.

[23:21]

Do I have time for a little short diversion? I just mentioned elements. We are actually the product of all the elements of earth, air, fire, water. And a few weeks ago, before I left Tassajara from the training period, I took a walk up the Church Creek Trail looking at the big pine trees that have been burned from the fire last summer. And some of them are falling already. And I think over the next few years, these pine trees with trunks this big around will be falling. And after the fire, I was looking for any pine trees that may have survived. In that whole area, the pine trees did not survive.

[24:26]

But there is signs of new growth, new pine trees three inches tall emerging from the ground. So after the fire, there is this birth in that realm, the realm of pine trees. So this is the place that we call the pines going up the road or from Tassajara. So the qualities of a vulnerability of innocence, I think combined with this quality of accomplishment, that the name Siddhartha was given to this child.

[25:33]

The name means the one who accomplishes. What does Buddha accomplish? We celebrate various points in the Buddha's life. We celebrate the point of the Buddha's birth. We celebrate the point of the Buddha's going forth, leaving home, and investigating the source of suffering. What are the sources of suffering, of frustration, of difficulty in this world? We celebrate the Buddha's realization when the Buddha sits with the vow not to move. With the vow not to move until this understanding of how suffering comes into being and how suffering is relieved.

[26:40]

This includes the knowledge of all the interactions of life. We say of the Buddha's past lives. The Buddha is one who actually completely accepts, sees, has insight into all the past experience that arrives in one's consciousness when sitting zazen. So each person here has maybe some experience. Some of you, a long time experience. Some may be new experience. Some of you may have just come for first time for Zazen instruction this morning. In that willingness to be still, one completely accepts anything that arises. The most frightening, the most disorienting,

[27:44]

the most unwelcome, all the judgments and criticisms in one's consciousness, accepts all that without moving, without trying to fix it, without trying to avoid it, without exaggerating it, without diminishing it, simply seeing what is as it is. knowing what is memory and knowing what is now. Knowing that the memory now is different than the memory, different than the experience, the previous experience. So all of this is what a Buddha is willing to do, is willing to be completely, fully participating with suffering so that suffering can be understood. So the suffering can be clarified.

[28:48]

And the causes of suffering can be completely recognized. So this accomplishment of the Buddha, we celebrate. Usually here we celebrate it in December. We have the Buddha's enlightenment ceremony. But we celebrate it now as potential in the baby, in the baby Buddha. Because this baby is also entering the world innocent, completely willing, completely willing to be fully present and awake with whatever happens, not knowing what will happen, trusting and willing to say, okay, I'm here. Completely here. No reservation. So this matter then of birth itself is accomplishment.

[29:57]

Sometimes we say moment by moment we are born. Moment by moment you have this opportunity to arrive and be fully present now. Moment by moment your Buddha nature has a chance to be fully realized. So when we pour water over the baby Buddha, we're recognizing this capacity that we have. Sometimes I'm in touch with the sense that I have a little baby alive. Usually I have a sense of it kind of living right here, kind of in my chest. And it is helpful for me to stop and check in and see, how's the little baby doing? Wake? Sleep? Sitting up? Crying?

[31:00]

Happy? Unhappy? Sometimes needs a little attention. Sometimes needs to be bathed in the awareness that I can bring to my own body. And then this little baby can say hi to the little baby that lives in each of you. Be willing to participate, to greet, and extend some kind of playful quality of engagement with the little baby that's living in you. Sometimes little babies run into difficulty because little babies see everything as beautiful. They don't distinguish between what is put in the mouth and what comes out the other end.

[32:00]

It's all beautiful for a little baby and actually for mothers, too. Mothers are really very happy to... to know, oh, there's poop. But then at various times, you know, various points along the way, little babies get other messages. Oh, you're not so good. You know, you're stinky. You're bad. You did a terrible thing. And so then there's this division that begins to happen. So it's a part of the Buddhist practice then is to notice, to see, how those divisions arise how the conceptual mind divides things up and puts some separation between the Buddha baby in this heart and the Buddha baby in that heart so that there can be a recognition of how we're already united that the divisions that we create are created

[33:08]

that we need to take responsibility. So I take responsibility for the way in which I create some separation. To acknowledge that and see, does it still apply or not? Can that be set aside so we can meet? So this is then the ongoing, moment by moment accomplishment of Buddhas waking up to what is and waking up to each other. So we celebrate that too when we're pouring this water that connects us over the little Buddha image. We're actually pouring this water over ourselves. The sweet tea, I think it's sweet tea. The sweet tea over ourselves. and include some nourishment.

[34:11]

Okay. Keeping close track of the time today because there's much to do. So I want to thank you for listening and thank you for being willing to open up your own Buddha nature as you participate in the ceremony of venerating, the ceremony of praising, the ceremony of making offerings. So we'll do that. We'll do that formally in a ritual form here But my hope is that as we do this, we have a sense of participating with each other and that feeling of connection, that feeling that we are all connected in this, then can extend out of this room into your life so that you can continue to, as you meet others, continue to venerate

[35:38]

Praise the wonderful qualities in others. And offer your own awakened heart connection. Thank you for listening.

[35:54]

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