for the train and perfect dharma is rarely met with even in a hundred thousand million kaphas having it to see and listen to remember and accept I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words good evening everybody Everybody, I assume, knows what this is all about, right? In San Francisco today and other parts of the world, I'm sure, but especially in San Francisco. Friends of ours, in fact, some Sangha members, I mean, some staff of Tassajara have gone up to San Francisco to celebrate LGBTQ. pride weekend.

[02:38]

So, um, in acknowledgement of that and, um, in, in, in, uh, kind of in celebration, uh, I'd like to start tonight's talk with a, uh, something of a, of a wish, a Buddhist wish, Buddhist prayer for all beings. So, um, If you'd like to join me, please join me. You can put your hands in gacho if you'd like. May all beings be happy. May all beings be joyous. May all beings. be free to express their Buddha nature.

[03:44]

May all beings be free to love and make commitments to others. May all beings happy and free from suffering whether weak or strong in high or middle or low realms of existence near or far born or to be born may we sit here with all beings and may we dedicate the merit of of our practice tonight to freedom for all beings. Thank you very much.

[04:52]

I'm here with my wife. My name's Robert. I'm here with my wife, Samantha. We're co-leading a yoga and zen retreat with 19 bodhisattvas and one bodhisattva in the oven, so to speak. And it's great to be at Tassajara. What I wanted to do tonight was share a few stories of my practice. with you. I don't know a lot of you, even the people I come back here to see on staff. Every year there's fewer and fewer of us that I actually know or practiced with as it becomes a longer time since I was a resident student here. But I have some stories of my practice I'd like to share with you.

[06:06]

it all started about 16 years ago for me. And I was in a forest in Thailand and I really knew nothing about Buddhism. I had no real interest in Buddhism through a bizarre set of circumstances that included a near-death experience. I ended up in this forest with some brown-robed monks. And four things happened to me in that short time I was there practicing with these monks. Number one, I was touched and moved and deeply affected by the kindness and compassion of these beings. their soft nature and the way they took me, a person who was suffering greatly at the time, and I just basically walked in there and said, please take care of me.

[07:22]

And they took care of me. They had a small library there. And the second thing that happened was that they gave me a little hut in the forest. But I would make my way to the library almost every day. And I read something about something called a bodhisattva. I didn't know what it was. I barely knew what a Buddha was. I mean, I didn't even know that. So I read bodhisattva. Awakening beings. Awakening, courageous, active being. And I said, well, that's interesting. And the Bodhisattva vows, I had really no idea what this meant at the time, but the Bodhisattva vows to not become a Buddha until all beings in the world are Buddha.

[08:36]

They'll be the last one on the boat across the shore. I thought, hmm. So, number three. In this library, there was a book called Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. And I checked this book out. And I had this book in my little hut. And I don't even remember if I read any of the book. But I looked at the back cover. And I was reading this, I saw Bodhisattva, and I looked at the back cover, and I was connected immediately to something about the picture of Suzuki Roshi. So, number four. About three days before I was leaving, Actually, they asked me if I wanted to stay and ordain as a monk.

[09:41]

I'd been there for a couple months and seemed to be getting along well in the practice and could do the simple chores and get up early in the morning finally after resting for a while. And I said, I don't think so. I don't think I'm ready to become a celibate monk. But I wasn't sure yet. I was still thinking about it. So one of the chores during the day was delivering water around to these various... Do you remember that, Loomis Owl? We would put big jugs of water on a stick, on a pole, and we would carry these things around and place water around the forest for some reason. I can't remember exactly why. And one day as we were dumping this water into this other... big drum, one of these monks looked at me and said, I'm going to Japan.

[10:43]

I said, really? And he says, I'm going to Japan to study Zen. And I said, oh, Zen, what's that? And he said, that's mind-to-mind transmission. And he looked at me like I had any idea what that meant, right? And I just looked at him and I said, okay, good. Good, so he left like the next day to Japan, mind-to-mind transmission. So that fourth one, I still have no idea what's going on with that one, but that's Zen, mind-to-mind transmission. I left and I was on a search find out what it was to become a bodhisattva. What kind of training, what kind of people are out there who are bodhisattvas?

[11:47]

Are there real bodhisattvas out in the world? Still? Now? So eventually, within the next year or so, I made it to Tassajara. I came back and... I found myself here at Tassajara. And I was still looking for bodhisattvas. And I was just sure I wasn't seeing bodhisattvas here at Tassajara. You know, I was just sure. This isn't the place of bodhisattvas. You know, I was having to work so hard and do this and then that. And then, you know, I didn't understand what it was to just sit down. So I'd go to my teachers and I would say, I would like some training in bodhisattva-hood. And they say, well, pay attention, moment to moment, what you're doing.

[12:54]

And that wasn't big enough. That wasn't really... It couldn't be that. It couldn't be just this. It couldn't be just me paying attention as I was washing the dishes or cleaning the toilet or something. I don't think that's it. So I was quite frustrated. And then I stayed here. So this was going on for a while. And I was here for like two years. And I was like... I hadn't quite... gotten on the Bodhisattva track yet. So we were studying. The person who would become my teacher was leading a practice period, and this is about 14 years ago or so, 12 years ago. And we were studying the life of the Buddha. So by this time, life of the Buddha, I was like frustrated. I went into a practice discussion with him. I said, am I training to become a Buddha?

[13:56]

Is that what I'm doing here? Is that what we're doing? And he said, well, in our lineage, it's like this. We always say Buddhas and ancestors. We're in the lineage of Buddhas. When we say Buddhas and ancestors, we mean Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Which he said means Buddhas and are same as real people. Buddhas and real people. Real people just like me and you practicing. Not some beings out in the heavens somewhere, but actual real people practicing.

[15:04]

We always say Buddhas and ancestors. Ancestors are the real people who practice, and they pass the practice down from one person to the next. since the time of the Buddha. These are real people practicing with their real suffering, helping other beings all the time. I said, so like real people like me? Yes, just like you. Exactly like you. So at that point, I couldn't blame somebody else. I couldn't blame Tassahara. I couldn't blame really anybody else for me not finding the bodhisattva practice right here in this moment.

[16:15]

I decided to kind of take responsibility for that situation. Okay. I'll try. I'll try it on. Me as Bodhisattva. So there's three things that... Three causes. Three... aspects of mind, you could say, that actualize bodhisattvas in the world. One is the mind of compassion. This is the mind that acknowledges, sees, understands that people are suffering. There is suffering. This is the first noble truth.

[17:24]

There is suffering. And vows to turn their life towards that suffering and to help alleviate the suffering of others. Sometimes we say save all beings, save others from their own suffering, protect others from suffering. So that's one fundamental cause for bodhisattvas to appear in the world, the mind of compassion. Without the mind of compassion, there's no bodhisattva. The bodhisattva starts with the mind of compassion. The mind of compassion, it's said, is good at the beginning, good in the middle, and good at the end of practice. At the beginning, it plants the seeds for all good actions. In the middle, it waters those seeds, fertilizes them, and they start to become actualized trees, actualized action in the world.

[18:35]

And at the end of practice, that mind of compassion is the fruit of our practice, is the effect, is the powerful impact of a compassionate response. So the second cause of a bodhisattva is awakening. Non-dual awareness. It is what happens when we sit down in zazen and we let go of our attachments and views. And we recognize our fundamental, our fundamental ground, our fundamental being, our Buddha nature.

[19:42]

fundamental ground in which we recognize is marked by emptiness, a lacking of any particular material, a lacking in any permanence, and that has the quality of space, vast space. The second aspect of that ground which is recognized is mobility. And this has the aspect of air. And so the mind is completely flexible and mobile. The third aspect of mind which is recognized in zazen, sitting down and seeing directly, is clarity. And this has the aspect of fire.

[20:54]

This is the clarity of our original light, of our original Buddha nature. The fourth aspect is a continuousness or a continuity. And this has the aspect of water. like a stream flowing continuously, thoughts arise continuously in the mind. We see this when we sit and observe calmly. And the fifth aspect of mind which we see and which we recognize and gain some intimacy is stability. And that has the aspect of of the quality of Earth. This is the fundamental ground, the ground of our being from which everything arises.

[22:08]

So that recognition, that awakening to our awareness or basic Buddha nature is the second aspect of a bodhisattva. The third, and I'll talk a little bit more about this one tonight, is called bodhicitta or bodhi mind or as Suzuki Roshi called it, way-seeking mind. One person, I went to see Mel one day, when I was a new student. He's a senior. He was a student of Suzuki Roshi's. And I said, how come Suzuki Roshi didn't talk about bodhisattvas? I mean, I was still on the bodhisattva thing, right? And he said, well, he talked about way-seeking mind, and I didn't even get it. You know, it didn't make sense.

[23:09]

But this is a third cause of a bodhisattva. And the way-seeking mind is the mind... that seeks the way, not for themselves, but for the benefit of all beings. Awakening, compassion, and actively practicing for the benefit of all beings. That is the way seeking mind. Finding the way in each moment, to benefit all beings. So, Tazahara is a great... I'll say this for the people who are here right now, working and practicing. Tazahara is a great place to practice being a bodhisattva. It is really a tremendous place to do that.

[24:15]

going to offer you three practices, bodhisattva practices, that we offered in our retreat, that I'll offer them to the group tonight. And I'll tell a little story about my own practice in relationship to those three practices. The first one is... And all three of these practices are in the form of a question. Oftentimes in a Zen story, there will be a rather confusing, more or less understandable question at some point. And then somebody will respond and there's something that happens there. Not sure what. So I'll give you some examples from my own life here at Tassajara. I was... I had been here a few years, and I went in to have Dokkasan.

[25:23]

It was during the winter, and across the creek here, there's an abbot's cabin, and the person who's leading the practice period sits in the cabin, and at about 4 o'clock in the morning, you go over there in the cold and dark, and you sit in a room until they ring the bell, and they ring the bell, and then you can go into their little room, which is oftentimes nice and cozy and warm. and you can have a very intimate one-on-one conversation with this person. So I was called over there to have one of those conversations. It was pitch black in the morning, freezing. I'm sitting in the room, and I'm getting a little bit agitated about my upcoming interview with the teacher. I was sure that it needed to go a certain way, And I wanted to be able to impress the person completely. So I was sitting there.

[26:23]

Reb rings the bell. I pop up from my seat. And above me was a kerosene lantern hanging in this room. And I knocked against the kerosene lantern. It flipped out of its little holder and turned and fell all over me. And I was like drenched with kerosene. And I'm standing there. Oh, my God, I couldn't believe it. This is not going well. And I went into the room. I had to go, you know. So I go in the room, I sit down, and I'm just shaking. And he's, of course, he's absolutely still. And eventually he opens his eyes and he sees that I'm in quite a state. And he says, how are you doing? I said, I am so irritated right now. He says, oh, you have some irritation?

[27:27]

And then he sat with me there for about three minutes and neither of us said anything. We were breathing. That's about it. And he said, How is it now? So this is a great question. This is a question that any of us can ask at any time during the day, any moment. It works. There's not a moment during the day that that question is not going to work. How is it now? So he gave me that gift. Of course, I walked out of there defeated, but I still have that gift.

[28:45]

I then started to see that bodhisattvas are dedicated to helping others. And so I was trying to help others. I was trying to be beneficial. But I could see that my idea of what was helped for somebody was not always their idea of what was helped. And in fact, as I sat more and thought about my life, I could see that my idea of how to help myself was oftentimes not even a very good idea. It was limited. It was limited. It was sometimes very small and kind of self-centered. So I decided somehow that I was going to allow other people to tell me what was helpful, what was beneficial.

[30:01]

And Tassajara is a great place for that. You get a lot of opportunities. And I remember very clearly walking out on this, right above the courtyard here one day, and I said, I'm going to put this into action. I'm just going to start showing up and be available. I mean, that's quite a simple thought, and I'm sure all of you are already doing that practice, but it was a big deal for me. I said, I'm just going to be available for somebody else to tell me what's helpful, and I'm just going to respond, and I'm going to let them determine for me what is beneficial in this situation. And it's not going to be my idea. Pretty scary, but I'm going to try it. So I recommend this practice.

[31:05]

This is a great bodhisattva practice. What is beneficial? You can ask that question any time during the day, any situation. Anybody wants you to do anything. you can ask that question. What is beneficial? I mean, you can ask it of yourself, you know. You can ask the question and you don't even have to have an answer. You can just let the answer kind of arise. But you've oriented yourself. You've oriented yourself. Remember we said something about the mind of emptiness? You've oriented yourself with that mind of emptiness, that mind which is dependently co-arising with everything in the universe right in that moment. You've suddenly aligned yourself with that completely by asking the question, what is beneficial?

[32:11]

And sticking around for the next moment and letting it show you. So that's a great practice that anybody can do all the time. if you remember. So the third practice here I want to talk about, and this will be the end of my talk tonight. One day I was walking to the bathhouse and I was with The guy who told me about Buddhas and ancestors, he eventually became my teacher and I established a relationship with him and I did an ordination with him and he gave me robes and a lot of support and some good jokes and everything. So anyways, I was walking down this path towards the bathhouse with him.

[33:15]

And we get to the bathhouse and we're at the altar and And it's summertime. It's summertime, by the way. And he's down here and we're spending some time together. So we come up to the altar. We're kind of together there. And he starts doing a full prostration at the altar. And I'm like, we don't do full prostrations at the altar, even though I didn't say that. I'm thinking that. We do standing vows at the altar. But he did a full prostration, and I did a standing bow. And he did another full prostration, and I did a standing bow. This time I'm getting a little bit aggravated because he's putting me in a bad position here. Is he going to do another one? He does another full prostration, total bow, and I do a standing bow.

[34:17]

I'm going to stick. This is our practice here. We do standing bows at the altar during the summer. say anything. So we go in and I'm slightly aggravated about the whole situation. I only give that example because he has given me the teaching that what I should do in each moment is treat everything and everybody as Buddha. No exceptions. But that takes an open, flexible, ready to respond mind.

[35:24]

If you have the mind that this person, this person, I know who this person is and they are not Buddha. You're not going to see them as Buddha. Or I have an idea that this should be a certain way. I'm not seeing the Buddha there. can't see the Buddha there. When we bow, we pass each other on the path, we bow to each other. And we're seeing each other as Buddha. So this is a third practice, which you can do any time during the day, nighttime, daytime, weekends, early morning, while you're eating, while you're cleaning the bathroom, talking to your mother, talking to your child, talking to somebody you don't even really like,

[36:58]

somebody who actually you think might be trying to undermine you in some way, you can ask the question, what is Buddha? And at that moment, we align ourselves with our deeper, a deeper intention our deeper intention to benefit others and to live our life for the benefit of others and to free all beings from suffering. All we have to do is ask that question and then we can allow whatever to show itself to us and we can just sit back. and let Buddha show itself.

[38:01]

So on behalf of Samantha tonight, I'd like to thank the staff and everybody who's helped make our short retreat possible. I wish you could all do it and maybe that could be possible someday. I'm very relaxed right now. I've been doing lots of lying down with cushions in various places in my body and Bodhisattva practice. It doesn't look like any particular thing. It really doesn't look like any particular thing. But it takes a lot of work

[39:29]

And it's not so easy. It's not so complicated, but it's not so easy. And you have to be, you have to have a lot of patience and you have to be ready. Oh, I forgot. There was one other, when I was, when I was sitting there, covered with the kerosene in the room, I said, I am completely humiliated right now. And the person across from me said, if you stay with this practice, there will be much humiliation. I almost forgot that one. Yeah. So good luck to everybody. bodhisattvas, mahasattvas.

[40:35]

Thank you very much.

[40:45]

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