This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, everybody. My name is Robert. And I'd like to start this morning by expressing my sincere and deep gratitude to the senior teachers here at City Center. Especially senior Dharma teacher, Blanche Hartman. An Abiding Abbot, Paul Howler.

[01:00]

Every group, no matter how kind of decentralized the group might be or even the fact that we don't all know each other, we all benefit by the efforts of a core group group of people who dedicate their lives and make strong and consistent and tremendous efforts on behalf of all of us. And that is what Blanche and Paul have been doing for a long time. And we all benefit from that. And I know I've certainly benefited from that. I'm deeply grateful.

[02:08]

How many people here in this room are familiar with a phenomenon or movement called Occupy? Some of you, huh? Anybody not? No? How many people here have participated in a Occupy event or event? have actually shown up to an Occupy gathering of some sort, of any sort. So maybe 20 people. For those listening on live stream, that was maybe 15% of the people in the room, 20% maybe.

[03:27]

going to talk a little bit about Occupy today. But just so we're clear from the very beginning, anything I say today should not be construed as an official position of the Zen Center or an official, in any way, an endorsement or an endorsement of anybody's any groups, any particular individuals, activities out there. I'm just interested for myself in exploring this a little bit further for myself, and I thought, well, this could be a great way for me to do it with others. I really don't know so much about Occupy.

[04:35]

I've never participated in any of the events. I happened to be on Market Street yesterday and a whole bunch of people came by me and they had signs and were chanting and saying Occupy and stuff like that. So that was as close as I've gotten myself to it. And I've been a bit of a late even in terms of awareness. I'm a bit of a latecomer. I was in, when the whole thing got started, I was in Nepal, and I just got back recently, and I was there in Kathmandu, and there's like people, pictures on the front page of the paper, you know, people in tents in New York City, and... I'd run into Tibetans there or other people, and they'd say, well, what's happening in America?

[05:40]

Look at this. What's that all about? And I'd say, well, I don't really know. I'm not sure what it's about. People are frustrated, certainly. And people are taking some action. But I don't really know what it's about. So I follow... a number of progressive blogs, so I come back and I kind of try to catch up a little bit, but I still don't, I still don't quite have a feeling for it. And I'm certainly not, I wouldn't call myself supporter or not supporter at this point, really. I mean, part of my, part of my, I could say my ambivalence is due to the fact that I'm kind of a shy person. I'm a very shy person, actually.

[06:42]

I don't like groups of people, really. I don't usually join things. I don't like crowds of people, and I really don't like any situation that I think is going to get violent. I really don't like that. So I guess I looked at this group of people going down Market Street yesterday, and I thought, I'm going home. That's just me, though. I'm not saying I would never participate in some kind of occupation. It's just my natural inclination is not to... you know, get involved so much. But I would like to understand what's happening, you know, as it continues to have, I guess you could call legs, or people who I know and respect and care about continue to talk about it or participate.

[08:02]

think, well, I should, you know, as my vow is to save all beings, I should understand what are people doing out there? What kind of efforts are they making to save themselves and others, even if they don't call it that? So my intention today is to use the frame or some Buddhist constructs to try to understand my own relationship to this as I would to any kind of cultural or societal phenomenon or movement. As somebody who has made a lot of effort to kind of understand life from a particular perspective, the perspective of the Buddha Dharma, the view with the Dharma eye.

[09:27]

I need to try to, I want to try to understand anything else and how it lines up, resonates, relates to that or doesn't. So the archetype there and the model, the kind of the Buddhist action hero is the bodhisattva. So I will explore how the bodhisattva might relate to Occupy. That's my intention. Before we get into that, I want to tell you a little bit about myself, though. Where I'm coming from. I realized just the other day that... 20 years ago, pretty much to the day, I'm sure it was right around, right before Christmas, I was standing in a bar that I was involved with my buddies in running in San Francisco here.

[10:55]

And like we did every Sunday, Friday and Saturday night. I was standing there and looking out over the people and there were a lot of people there. It was very loud and noisy and we'd been drinking a lot like we always did. And I'd been involved in this with these folks for about three years. And I was standing there and all of a sudden, like an internal kind of like growing energy or being or voice, something said to me, this is not what you should be doing.

[11:57]

Something said to me, this is not, Robert, how you are going to make yourself happy, even though I thought this was the path to happiness. This voice came, and from inside it said, this is not how you are going to manifest your deepest intention. This is not how you are going to fulfill your promise as a human being. And it was, even though this was kind of a vague feeling kind of thing, the message was so clear and everything was different after that moment. That was like a moment, I guess you might call it a moment of grace or... Yeah, maybe...

[13:01]

maybe insight, but I didn't know what was happening. It just occurred. So then about six months later, probably about six months, five or six months later, I was in a Buddhist monastery in the forest in Thailand. And I was walking along. And I remember both of these moments just like they were yesterday. So I'm walking along. I'm in the forest. It's like a dirt path. And this similar kind of like feeling, feeling voice image came up in me.

[14:02]

And it said, the path is right here. Your path is right here. You don't have to go anywhere else. You don't have to search any further. Your path is right here if you choose it. Now, I don't think that voice was saying in that particular Buddhist monastery or Thailand or anything. It was like I had found if I was willing to continue to take the steps that I was taking, they were in alignment with my deepest intention, with my heart, with my hopes and dreams for myself. So I stopped and I told myself, I said, as long as this feels right, I will continue to take the next step.

[15:17]

I made that, just spontaneously, I made that promise to myself. And it was general enough that I didn't have to be committing to anything. I just had to promise to take the next step in relationship to this message that the path was right here. And so my kind of engagement with that, my vow there was, I will take the next step on you path. As long as it feels right. as long as it feels right in my heart. So that was, that was, yeah, like 19 years ago, and I'm surprised, you know, I didn't know where it would lead, and I'm surprised it's led now, and I'm sitting up here and talking to everybody, with everybody. You never know

[16:24]

You never know how things are going to turn out, you know? And of course it's a path. We don't know how things are going to turn out, do we? What became in this, what became clear to me was that it was a path And as I said a minute ago, the Buddhist kind of model or archetype for the person on the path of practice is the bodhisattva. The bodhisattva, bodhi being enlightened or enlightening, sattva being being, enlightening being. Implication there is you are You have not left the world, but you are active in the world, and the bodhisattva vows to live their life for the benefit of all beings.

[17:31]

The bodhisattva vows to save all beings even before they save themselves. That's the kind of particular orientation. I will save you even before I... I will... I will support you to cross over even before I myself cross over to the other side. So I took this up. I've always been interested in being active. And this picture of a person in the world, but finding a way to live their life for the benefit of all beings really worked for me. The bodhisattva image happened to work for me, so I took it up. And it's in some ways my reference point.

[18:38]

At Zen Center here, when we enter kind of formally become part of the sangha. We take bodhisattva vows. And they're like precepts, 16 precepts. So we don't take Buddha's vows. We take bodhisattva vows. So... So I've been studying this teaching by Ehe Dogen Zenji, the founder of Soto Zen in Japan, in the 13th century Japan. And his teaching is the four methods of guidance. The bodhisattvas, four methods of benefiting others.

[19:43]

The bodhisattva as this active participant in the world. has certain tools at their disposal, certain practices, certain ways of being that help other people. And these four methods of guidance, as Dogen describes them, are giving freely, kind speech, beneficial action or helpful conduct, and identity action, or sometimes translated as cooperation. So those four methods, ways of being, are the ways in which the bodhisattva helps other beings, among other ways, but those are four that Dogen happened to see as particularly important.

[20:46]

So I study those. Now, How does this relate to occupy? So for myself, I say, well, if I were to occupy or I were to get involved in something, if I were to participate, how would I do it? How would I do it and stay in relationship, in harmony, in alignment with my deepest intention. Just in case I wanted to do it. I haven't, but maybe I might want to. Maybe even today. I don't know. I don't know. That's not so clear to me. But what would, how would a bodhisattva occupy?

[21:51]

How would she do it? Maybe that would become clear. Maybe not. So the bodhisattva's four methods of guidance. The bodhisattva's four methods of occupation? I don't know. I don't know. So the first one is giving. Giving freely. Giving freely, Dogen says, giving freely means non-greed. Non-greed means not to covet. Not to covet means not to curry favor. Not taking what is not given.

[22:59]

Not giving with the expectation that I'm going to get something in return. Not manipulating with giving. Giving freely. Giving without expectation. This is the kind of giving that the bodhisattva engages in. From the perspective of the bodhisattva, everything is giving. Everything. Washing dishes is giving. Waking up in the morning is giving. Turning a doorknob is giving. From the Bodhisattva's perspective, all things are giving all the time.

[24:04]

The trees are giving, the buses are giving, the cars are giving, the tatami's giving. This is giving as participating in the network, in the interconnected network of life. There is nothing there that's not giving. So when the bodhisattva takes up this view of all things being giving, the world is a very different place. Even those people who look like they're taking... Even those things we don't like are giving. So in this kind of world, it doesn't matter so much what the particular gift is.

[25:13]

That's not very important. Dogen says, It is of teaching or of material. Each gift has its value and is worth giving. Even if the gift is not your own, there is no reason to abstain from giving. The question is not whether the gift is valuable, but whether there is genuine giving, whether there is genuine merit. The merit being the power being in the act of giving, not in the gift. giving some, you know, so often we think, well, I have nothing to give to this situation. You know, I mean, I'm not an expert. I don't have very much money. I don't have anything that they're going to want to have. This is kind of like how we kind of strategize or develop our

[26:23]

limited frame for giving. Dogen says that the Buddha said, when a person who practices giving goes to an assembly, people take notice. know that the mind of such a person communicates subtly with others. Isn't this true? Somehow we sense, we know when somebody is giving freely. And we also know when somebody is not. You know? We know that when somebody is allowing me to be me, I know that.

[27:41]

I can feel that. That's giving. I know that when somebody is receiving what I have to give, that is their giving. Even when you give a particle of dust, you should rejoice in your own act because you authentically transmit the merit of all Buddhas and begin to practice an act of a bodhisattva. The mind of a sentient being is difficult to change. So the other day I was in a meeting and in the month before I'd made what I felt was this huge effort on this and a couple months before this huge effort on this project and it was kind of i saw it as as kind of like my a gift you know i was i was totally giving myself to this thing and i was in a meeting the other day and somebody said they weren't they weren't connecting me with that effort and they said well we're not going to do it like that and and um

[29:00]

I left that meeting, and I went to another room, and I thought, that person didn't appreciate my gift. And I got really upset about that. And I started thinking, well, how can I get this person back? Just immediately, these things, how can I? That person, they are really, that's really terrible. And I started thinking about how I was going to, what I was going to do, you know. Next time in the meeting, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to ignore this person. I'm going to do this. I want to make them feel really bad for not appreciating my gift. So then somehow I said, I noticed what I was doing. I said, I have to change my mind. So I decided to give them a gift.

[30:05]

And I went into the bag of stuff that we had just brought back from Nepal and I found this bell that I really liked a lot. And I wrapped it up and I put a bow on it and a little special thing. And I went and I gave it to this person. And everything was different. It changed. Even the moment, actually the moment I decided to give them a gift, everything was different. In that very moment. The mind of a sentient being is difficult to change. But the thought of giving is as powerful an agent as you can possibly have.

[31:14]

So the second The second method of the bodhisattva, method for occupation of the bodhisattva is kind speech. Kind speech means that when you see sentient beings, you arouse the heart of compassion and offer words of loving care. It is contrary to cruel or violent speech. Kind speech arises from a loving person. compassionate mind. If kind speech is offered little by little, kind speech expands, thus even kind speech that is not ordinarily known or seen comes into being. Isn't this true? When somebody is speaking kindly to you, You almost can't do anything else.

[32:26]

You have to respond with kind speech. There are people in the Zen Center community, they come into a room and they are so aware of the words that they use and so intent, so committed to speaking kindly. It puts a lot of pressure on all the rest of us in the room. But it really works. I mean, with that person in the room, we really pay attention to how we speak. So when one person says something kind to another person, that person responds with kindness. And then that person can say something, can pass that gift along. That's how it works. Kind speech, even when we hear somebody else using kind speech, it etches an impression on our soul.

[33:41]

We remember that. I still remember words that people said to me like when I was a kid, like my mother. You know? These words get etched so deeply and they make an impression that does not go away. This is the power of kind speech. This is the power of something as simple as how are you today? Take care. When I was at Tassajara, I was a relatively new student monk there.

[34:46]

And I was in this building that's called the Kaisando, the Founders Hall. And there's a very small room in that building where you clean things and, like... put new ash in the incense and stuff like that. And I was in this room, and I was taking care of some things. And in this room, it's a really wonderful building in Japanese style, and there's a very small window in this room that doesn't have any glass, but it has twigs that fill the space of the window, and then there's kind of a mud or earth wall around it. And so I was in this room and facing this little window, and there was this teacher, Zen Center teacher, like right on the other side of the window, and they were having practice discussion with somebody. And this is a teacher that had been around when Suzuki Roshi was alive and was a student of Suzuki Roshi's.

[35:54]

And... And I was doing my best. I mean, I was really just concentrating on my little incense thing and not listening to them, even though I could hear everything. I was just like, okay. And then he said, and Suzuki Roshi told me, and it was just like, one ear went, mm. It was like E.F. Hutton, you know. Even the... birds were listening that moment I felt. So I put my head up to the little window. I thought, okay, he's just saying something that Suzuki Roshi said. He said, before you speak, you should think three times. Is what you are about to say the truth? Is what you are about to say

[36:57]

Is what you are about to say the right time to say it? So then I went back to my cheating. So, of course, the answer to all of these questions and the answer even to the question of what is kind speech is, you know, we don't know. We cannot know. Ultimately, we cannot know what is the right time. What will be beneficial? It may not seem to the other person a benefit at that particular moment. We cannot know with any certainty or ultimately whether it's true. So we do our best. We do our best

[38:00]

And the bodhisattva does their best to always use kind speech. The third beneficial, the third method of guidance of the bodhisattva is beneficial action. Dogen says, beneficial action is skillfully to benefit all classes of sentient beings, that is to care about their distant and near future and to help them by using skillful means. The bodhisattva operates in the present moment, understanding that the present moment is related to what happened in previous moments and the present moment conditions the future. So the bodhisattva operates in this place with the intention to be a benefit.

[39:05]

Foolish people think that if they help others first, their own benefit will be lost, but this is not so. Beneficial action is an act of oneness, benefiting self and others together. So we oftentimes get ourselves kind of around this point. You know, if I just, you know, benefit others, what's in it for me? Dogen is suggesting that for the bodhisattva, the act of the intention to be a benefit is the reward in that moment. The intention to be beneficial, to be helpful, is the place where simultaneously we and others are benefited, right there in that moment.

[40:13]

There is no we benefit, and then, of course, we may benefit later from something, but right there in that moment of being a benefit, we are both benefited simultaneously and without fail. And the bodhisattva has confidence in this. They have conviction in this. And so they give themselves in the spirit of benefiting self and others. The fourth method of the bodhisattva, the fourth method of being of service, the fourth method of guidance, and now I'm trying on the fourth method of occupation. If I was to call anything I did occupy, say I did, I would want to make sure that it was in alignment with my vow to live

[41:30]

together with everybody else and not exclude anybody. This is identity action. Identity action means non-difference, non-separation, non-excluding. Not excluding myself, not excluding others. This is operating in alignment with the Buddhist, the Buddha's teaching that we are all connected, that none of us are separate from each other or anything else. Identity action is the confirmation of our relationship with all things.

[42:41]

Dogen says, the ocean does not exclude water, that is why it is large. The mountain does not exclude soil, that is why it is high. A wise lord does not exclude people, that is why she has many subjects. That the ocean does not exclude water, is identity action. Water does not exclude the ocean either. Thus being so, water comes together to form the ocean. Soil piles up to form mountains. Because mountains do not exclude mountains, they are mountains and they are high. Because human beings do not exclude human beings, They are human beings, and they can love, and they can care for each other, and they can benefit each other.

[43:46]

I don't know if I'm going to participate in an Occupy event. I may. We are very fortunate at Zen Center to have our own form of kind of Occupy. And it starts tomorrow. There's a sesheen. I mean, we're lucky, right? A lot of people have to make a big effort to go and find a group of people. So we come together and we sit down and we occupy our place. And we watch. and we give, and we practice kind speech, and we try not to harm ourselves or others, but benefit ourselves and others, and operate in alignment with the way things are.

[45:22]

Interdependent. endlessly interpenetrating everything. Today, there is an event I've seen on the internet that is being organized by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, which is a meditation, a nine-minute meditation at 12... 12 o'clock noon today. And so that's an opportunity for people to, if anybody wanted to, to sit in some kind of, with some kind of, in some extended relationship

[46:33]

with others who are doing the same and have a similar intention to sit quietly, silently together. And I've actually seen some pictures of people meditating at some of these occupied things, and it's a very powerful thing to see. I mean, you just have to see somebody sitting down. It's very powerful just to see it myself. It's very moving. So I'm not recommending that you do that. I'm just letting you know there's an opportunity to do that today. So how would, I think my question was, how would she do it? How would I do it? I hope that Whatever I said today adds something to your own question.

[47:40]

How to be in the world, how to be beneficial, how to be a positive force and in alignment with your own deepest intention. So thank you very much for your attention and have a wonderful weekend. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[48:28]

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