This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Thank you, everybody. Good morning. Can you hear me okay? Thank you for coming today. So as you may have heard, it is Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to all of you mothers, to all of our mothers, to all of the mothers, past, present, and future, and near and far. Thank you, mothers.

[01:01]

Really, thank you for this body and this life. So there's an ancient Chinese Buddhist text. It's known as an apocryphal sutra in that it was composed in China, reflecting and trying to express the Dharma through and with a Chinese worldview and culture. It's called the Sutra on Filial Piety, and it lays out ten types of kindnesses bestowed by the mother on the child. And I have long been most moved by the tenth of the ten, so I wanted to share that with you this morning. So number ten, the kindness of ultimate compassion and sympathy. The kindness of parents is profound and important.

[02:13]

Their tender concern never cease. From the moment they awake each day, their thoughts are with their children. Whether the children are near or far away, the parents think of them often. Even if a mother lives for a hundred years, she will constantly worry about her 80-year-old child. Do you wish to know when such kindness and love ends? It doesn't even begin to dissipate until her life is over. Even if she lives to 100, from the moment she wakes up, worry about her 80-year-old baby. That has stuck with me for many years. It really lands for me. just the image, you know, whether or not it's true of any particular hundred-year-old mother or not, the image of that total and constant and lasting tender concern.

[03:22]

And then that it doesn't, when will such kindness and love end? It doesn't even begin to dissipate until her life is over. So when her life ends, you know, the love then just begins at that point to dissipate. Maybe some of you know what that means, that the love of the mother doesn't dissipate even with her death. So how long does it take to dissipate? The sutra doesn't say. Maybe it takes several generations to dissipate completely. Or maybe it never does. I was feeling the possibility that we are still, all of us, in the ripples, in the wake, in the warmth of that deep kindness and love and concern from our grandmothers, grandmothers, grandmothers, all the way back through that beginningless line of love.

[04:27]

So, of course, we may not all have mothers like this or be mothers like this. Our biological mothers may or may not have expressed or maybe even felt this gender concern towards us when we were young or when we were old. So what I mean by bringing up mothers and what we celebrate today isn't just a particular person or It's an energy or an archetype of loving care that whoever our mother is, the teaching is clear that we can, all of us, come to receive and to give, to find and appreciate in this very body this tender concern, constant, endless tender concern.

[05:35]

So, you know, as I talk a little bit more about this morning about mothers. If the thought of your own mother gives you access to this loving, caring, nourishing part, please do bring her to mind. And if the thought of your own mother is too complicated or distracting, maybe some other image, some other energy, a loving mentor, the great nourishing earth. What is it, what image can help you touch this ultimate compassion and sympathy? Maybe some of the great Buddhist teachers express this for us, help us to access this when we call their presence to mind. So what will help you touch this ultimate compassion and sympathy that the sutra is referring to and that our teaching says lives in your own deep heart? so i want to talk about two central practices this morning or two aspects of our practice of love in the buddha dharma and those two practices are two sides which are one side are the giving of love and the receiving of love so the practice of giving love universally to all beings and things

[07:07]

And the practice of receiving love universally from all beings and things. So often we talk in our Zen practice about Jijuyo Zanmai, the self-receiving and employing samadhi. The concentration on getting and giving this very self, moment after moment. And I feel that our practice with love is the same way. So when Juju is on my self-receiving, we receive and employ this self. So the image of that teaching is that we get a self. Here it is. And then we express that self moment after moment. We keep getting one and we keep expressing it. To express the one we're receiving fully, to express it fully is to receive it fully.

[08:13]

And of course, receiving it fully, it's expressed. So we need to express it. We need to receive it in order to express it. And we need to express it in order to get another. If we don't express the self that we're receiving, it gets stuck. The flow of receiving and offering of the self can't. gets stuck. So each moment we get our life and then fully express it, and that full expression clears the slate, opens the field for this next self to come, which we express. And when it comes, you know, we may be surprised. I love this line of Suzuki Roshi saying, here it comes, you know, fortunately or unfortunately, here comes this next self. And then that one we express flows forth. So the image, the feeling of love for me this morning is very much the same way.

[09:18]

I'm appreciating how it needs to flow into me to flow out from me. The love that I want to offer to others is not mine. No, it's not something that I have or generate or store up and then give out from some limited ration or even some large storehouse. It's about a flow. It's about the capacity of receiving an offering sort of in one moment of opening. So how do I let the love flow in? so that I can let the love flow out and through? How do I not get it stuck?

[10:26]

So first, some words on the practice. We'll take one side at a time, maybe. The practice of giving love. So when we talk in our practice about giving love for many of us at Zen Center, easily coming to mind is the line from the Metta Sutta, the loving kindness meditation. Even as a mother at the risk of her life watches over and protects her only child, so with a boundless mind should one cherish all living things. suffusing love over the entire world, above, below, and all around without limit. So let one cultivate an infinite goodwill toward the whole world. This really is like all of our meditation practices.

[11:41]

First we structurally, you know, first we focus on one spot and then we widen that spot. So we don't just jump in and say, all beings, love. We find some love and then we see if we can widen that. Just like with our concentration, we don't just roll into the Zen and say, okay, everything, all of existence. We find some concentration, some awareness first, and then we extend that, we widen that. So in this image, there's this first time focusing on this one image of love, like this mother and her one child, and then finding that feeling that then extending. So not too long ago, and some of you, I know we're here as I was reflecting and sharing during our love fest session a couple of months ago. on the four immeasurable aspects of love. By the way, and I'm feeling this again today and wanted to share it, that the love of a mother for her child is so natural, so ordinary.

[12:52]

Not universal, but totally unremarkable and ordinary. So I shared this image. which is still very poignant for me, of dropping my two kids off at school, which I do many mornings, and really registering. I'm trying to register and study and appreciate the depth of the love at that moment. And it's hard to let it all in. There's so much love in that moment, and it's so ordinary. It's just a morning. with a bunch of parents dropping, a bunch of harried parents dropping a bunch of fussy kids off at school. And yet there's this depth of love there that's completely marvelous and totally ordinary. Mothers and fathers telling their kids that they love them, using those words or totally different words. And then the kids, just their bodies, you know, expressing, showing that love in turn.

[14:02]

And thinking about this image, I was remembering this sort of snapshot I have that really was moving to me at the time, standing at Gringoldge here above the garden gate with my friend and seeing down in the garden, his daughter catching sight of him and just running up from the garden towards his arms, you know, on this image of the dad with the open arms and the daughter running, you know, a full tilt towards him. Just that total mutuality. And I thought, I want to, I want that. I want to love and to be loved like that. I think we all do want to love and be loved and sense how true that would be to love and be loved like that. You know, that image is at the surface of something that's much more broad. So this teaching, this radical teaching of the Buddha Dharma is that we can... We are actually in our deepest heart loving and loved by all beings in that way.

[15:12]

Reality itself at its core is that dad's open arms and that daughter at full run. That is the total mutuality of reality itself. This is the proposal of the Buddhist tradition. That not only can we love and be loved in such a profound way, but that there's nothing but that. That is what we are. So this infinitely deep and totally ordinary love. The love is maybe not so extraordinary, even though it's boundlessly deep.

[16:17]

It's all around us. What's the extraordinary call of our practice is that we extend it. So with a boundless mind, should one cherish all living things, you know, running full tilt into the arms of all living things and receiving with wide open arms the full run of all living things, the boundless mind cherishing all living things. So how do we give that? How do we extend that love? So first, maybe it would be good to distinguish, and again, this has been very alive for me this year, so some of you have heard me share this before. I really want to emphasize that that there's a great feeling of affection and love in this image of daughter and father. But having and sharing this boundlessly deep love for one another may not be affectionate.

[17:22]

It may not be sentimental, warm feeling. In fact, in many cases, perhaps sentimental, warm feeling, much less like falling in love with all beings, might not be quite right. It's not about sentimental affection or having a warm feeling towards everyone necessarily. It's about this deeper, deepest love that is knowing what we are and sharing what we are. So Dr. King reminds us in so many of his sermons, this great redemptive love is not eros and not philea, but agape. universal, unconditioned love. He says, when we love on the agape level, we love people not because we like them. And elsewhere, you know, in fierce and excruciating detail, he suggests some reasons why not to like some people, those seeking to destroy him, for example, and his family.

[18:31]

So when we love on the agape level, we love people not because we like them, not because their attitudes and ways appeal to us, but because God loves them in his terms. So in other words, not because of who they are, I love you for who you are, but for what you are, for that you are, is maybe how we might put it in this tradition. Loving beings for that they are, what they are. So this deepest universal love that we're practicing extending to all beings is not just affection, and it's nothing like complacency or complicity. It's just the only true thing, the only really redemptive force. In Dr. King's words, redemptive force. It's the only way, you know, of actual transformation for ourselves and each other.

[19:36]

And furthermore, as we notice when we sit in stillness and silence, when we open our heart, our deep heart is longing for this. Our deep self, our deep heart, the core of our being longs to extend this love universally. It's not just a favor to someone else. It's what we long for, to leave nothing out. So in the four immeasurables, the teaching of the Brahmaviharas or the four immeasurables, this extending of this love to all beings is the aspect of pekha, equanimity, or universality. That's the bread element, universalizing element of love. And of course we can't do this with our small mind. we need to call forth we need to rely on our big heart no views here can help us our small mind factory of views factory of separation and violence our small mind cannot help us here only our big heart our intuitive body wisdom can extend universally this deep love

[21:01]

stillness and silence of our deep heart can do it or it is done there so i've been connecting in this last week with my friends and sangha members in columbia where they're having like so many places now a difficult time it's a country the seeds of frustration and inequity, great poverty and corruption, and feeling that COVID has been really badly mismanaged, has become kind of explosive and exploded again on the streets. So some of you know San Vicky Jaramillo, our branching streams, San Francisco Zen Center affiliate temple in Medellin called Montaña de Silencio.

[22:12]

the great mountain of silence from which this universal love extends. So feeling the growing hatred and confusion all around in the Sangha and in the streets, the Sanriki called the Sangha to sit, to go near to the site of the strikes and protests and riots and police backlash, and just to sit in love and universal compassion. And doing so, he quoted, he urged the Sangha on with words from Thich Nhat Hanh that really impacted me, asking them to heed these words of Thich Nhat Hanh as they sat. Meditate until every reproach and hatred disappears, and compassion and love rise like a well of fresh water in your heart. Meditate until every reproach and hatred disappears and compassion and love rise like a well of fresh water in your heart.

[23:20]

So in the Spanish translation that Sandiki cited of this text composed by Thich Nhat Hanh in Vietnamese, it comes through as inundate, inundate. May this heart be inundated with love and compassion. I love that image. an inundated heart. So this is not, you know, what my small mind would do to give love, which is dole out rations, dole out drops. You know, you get one, you get two, you don't get any. This is the inundated heart. The small mind won't let itself be inundated. No, it will not. So that's why Thich Nhat Hanh's implying we need to meditate. It may be a while. It may take a long time until the small mind can receive to reveal this great heart that allows itself to be inundated with love and compassion.

[24:26]

And part of the power of that image, you know, of going where there's hatred, bringing ourselves to the place where the hatred in ourselves will arise as a study of the boundary of the capacity to love in ourselves. And as we practice this extending, this seems to me like the most important point or unimportant point is to study and care for what is left out. Where is that border? Where is that boundary where my love does not extend past? So where is there some place, you know, in myself or in the world that the love can't quite reach yet? And can I ask about that? Can I open that? Can I invite that to widen? So exploring that edge and trying to widen little by little that border of love.

[25:35]

Slowly, gently. Or sometimes all of a sudden, brilliantly, you know, the whole world included. What's left out of my heart? Maybe some people, some beings, and maybe to some aspects of myself. I extend this deep love to my own unclarity and hurt and grief and anger. Confusion, disconnection, ill will, self-aggrandizement or self-hate. What is left out of my love? What is left out of your love as it grows? As the waters rise, you know? What's left dry in this inundating heart?

[26:37]

And how can we help the water reach there too? And so while we work on widening in Zazen and in our daily life practice, this capacity of our, this breadth of our giving love, we also nourish the love giving through the vital practice of this love receiving. And that's the other side that I wanted to talk about. So I want to say a little bit about receiving the love from all beings so that it can flow without me even needing to be involved, can flow through. What a relief to all beings. If I can receive and just not gum it up, then maybe it can flow on through.

[27:41]

And that won't be divided. That one that's received won't be doled out. That's inundated. So our practice of receiving the love of all beings. And as you know, if this now is called receiving the love and support of all beings, then it sure doesn't feel like it. So to say that we are actually receiving the love and support of all beings isn't just like a declaration. We can't just say it's so and you should take my word for it. Even the Buddha did not say this is so and take my word for it. It's instead a call or inspiration to practice towards the possibility, realizing that all beings are in their basic nature, are loving and supporting us.

[28:44]

So do you feel that? Do I feel that? Do we feel that? Loved and supported by all beings? Not really. Not really. I was... trying to characterize this feeling I sometimes have that maybe you, maybe you have it too. It's some, it's kind of the feeling of, well, nobody's being nice to me, but I'm supposed to be nice to everyone. Or nobody's loving and supporting me, but I'm supposed to love and support everyone. Maybe mothers, maybe mothers know this feeling. I'm not getting a love and support, but I'm supposed to be giving it. So this is, this is a block. This is that, of course you can't give, in that condition, you know, with that posture. So how do I receive this love and support from all beings?

[29:48]

What do I imagine that would feel like? How do I know that I'm not? How do I know that I'm not? Because it doesn't feel like it, doesn't feel like what I think it would feel like. The teaching, the Dharma is that fundamentally, by our birthright, by having a body, we are loved and supported by everything. We can doubt this, of course, and we should doubt and question it. But the problem, you know, as we doubt and question this, is that if we use our small mind to evaluate this and have our small mind look around to see, to look for and identify the love and support, probably, what the small mind will see is a lot of non-love and non-support, and then if we're lucky, some little pockets of love and support. And that's what our small mind sees.

[30:49]

So small mind, you know, as we question this teaching, really, I'm loved and supported by all beings? We question it deeply, and seeing if we can entrust that question to something deeper than small mind. Small mind can't reach the truth of this teaching. Only our big mind, our great heart, the deep heart of wisdom and compassion can know or touch or be inundated by this. So how do we access this teaching that we're truly loved and supported? Suzuki Roshi says, Buddha will take care of us. Buddha will take care of us. Because we have lost our mother's bosom, we do not feel like her child anymore.

[31:54]

So Buddha will take care of us. Because we have lost our mother's bosom, we do not feel like her child anymore. So we don't have that warm feeling of support and nourishment and tender care. We don't feel like anybody's child. So we may feel that we just have ourselves. Nobody's taking care of me. I just have to fuck up. And of course, that attitude, that mind and heart is not conducive to the great flow of love through us. So how do we recover? How do we find that feeling that Buddha will take care of us and recover that feeling of being at our mother's bosom? And Suzuki Roshi says, yet fading away into emptiness, fading away into emptiness can feel like being at our mother's bosom and we will feel as though she will take care of us. So this idea of fading away into emptiness, which sounds so strange,

[33:09]

is for Suzuki Roshi, this most warm thing, this warm feeling of being held and nourished and nurtured by our mother, by Buddha, by all beings, all of life. So if I want to extend love to others, somehow I need to fade away into emptiness in order to feel the nourishment and love that I'm getting, to feel how Buddha's taking care of me. So fade away into emptiness. He means letting small mind fade away into emptiness. And to stop, you know, trying to live, as he says. To stop doing anything. To just stop and see what's holding us when we stop. As long as we're moving, you know. Nobody's holding us, I'm doing it.

[34:12]

But when we stop, it's the great test. Well, is anything holding me? I'm not doing anything. And there we can feel, oh, I am at my mother's bosom. Buddha is taking care of me. So here's the practice that Suzuki Roshi says is the fading away into emptiness to recover the feeling of being at our mother's bosom. and I highly recommend this practice, when your own love feels stuck, either on the receiving side or the giving side, or when you doubt or wonder, am I truly held? And many of you know, and hopefully practice this practice. So first, Practice, this is Suzuki Yoshi.

[35:12]

First, practice smoothly exhaling, then inhaling. Calmness of mind is beyond the end of your exhalation. If you exhale smoothly, without even trying to exhale, you are entering into the complete, perfect calmness of your mind. You do not exist anymore. So as an embodied practice, I like to lean towards that calmness of mind beyond the end of the exhalation, allowing myself to linger there a moment and appreciate that complete, perfect calmness of mind beyond the end of the exhalation.

[36:17]

He says, when you exhale this way, then naturally your inhalation will start from there. All that fresh blood bringing everything from outside will pervade your body. you are completely refreshed. Then you start to exhale to extend that fresh feeling into emptiness. So this is the key point. Just focus on the exhalation. Exhale completely. And of course, don't resist the inhalation, but don't reach for it. Naturally, your inhalation will start. from the end of the exhalation with no special effort on your part. We just feel that life energy coming in from somewhere outside of ourself. Not my inhalation. I didn't make it. I exhale completely and then receive it. And then we turn it back over in the next exhalation.

[37:32]

He says your breathing will gradually vanish. you will gradually vanish, fading into emptiness. Inhaling without effort, you naturally come back to yourself with some color or form. Exhaling, you gradually fade into emptiness, empty white paper. That is Shikantaza. The important point is your exhalation. So as we exhale smoothly, completely, until the inhalation naturally comes, then our breathing and our self will gradually vanish, which later, he says, is becoming one with everything or dissolving into everything. It's not that there's nothing left.

[38:35]

It's just there's everything else. There's just everything left. You will vanish. So exhaling, we let everything go, and then naturally the inhalation offers us a whole life with color and form and sound and light. So if we want to return to our mother's bosom, to feel that nourishment, that being held, we need to exhale completely. Stop doing anything, stop reaching for anything. And then allowing ourselves to be surprised by the gift. So he says, instead of trying to feel yourself as you inhale, where am I? Fade into emptiness as you exhale. Letting the inhalation surprise us.

[39:39]

Instead of trying to get something, or keep something, as you inhale, just fade into emptiness as you exhale. When you practice this, in your last moment, Suzuki Roshi says, you will have nothing to be afraid of. You are actually aiming at emptiness. You become one with everything after you completely exhale with this feeling. If you are still alive, Naturally, you will inhale again. Oh, I'm still alive, fortunately or unfortunately. Then you start to exhale and fade into emptiness. Maybe you don't know what kind of feeling it is. but some of you know it.

[40:43]

By some chance, you must have felt this kind of feeling. And if you haven't, my friends, yet felt this kind of feeling, now would be a good time to surrender to the out-breath, to exhale completely, letting it all go, and then letting the inhalation surprise us. Wow, I'm alive. Suzuki Roshi says, when you do this practice, you cannot easily become angry. When you are more interested in inhaling than in exhaling, you easily become quite angry. You are always trying to be alive. So again, this is why this practice is so important. To be knowing, to be receiving this life, to be receiving this love, letting in the Buddhist caring for us, being in our mother's bosom.

[41:58]

When we think that we're alone, you know, I'm doing this, I'm inhaling, I'm busy being alive. We're doing this being alive. It's so easy to become frustrated and angry. We're so busy being alive. You know, we think it's our responsibility and ours alone to make the inhalation happen. And so, of course, that's quite a burden. Every moment, you know, this burden of inhalation, we're preoccupied by that. Trying to stay on top of being alive here. course we become frustrated and angry. So it's hard to give the love to anyone, much less everyone, if we're more interested in inhaling than exhaling. When we're trying to be alive, we don't have any energy or space to give love. So Suzuki Roshi is asking us to just focus on the exhalation, to stop trying to be alive, as he says, and then we can't be frustrated or blocked by things.

[43:07]

There's nothing we're trying to do. It's just that we keep receiving life. He says, to take care of the exhalation is very important. To die is more important than trying to be alive. To take care of the exhalation is very important. To die is more important than trying to be alive. So this is the key to feeling ourselves at our mother's bosom. He says, when we always try to be alive, we have trouble. Rather than trying to be alive or active, if we can be calm and die or fade away into emptiness, then naturally we will be all right. Buddha will take care of us.

[44:09]

Because we have lost our mother's bosom, we do not feel like her child anymore. Yet fading away into emptiness can feel like being at our mother's bosom, and we will feel as though she will take care of us. moment after moment, do not lose this practice of shikantasa. And so if we can keep this attitude, not just when we sit, but moment after moment, keep this attitude, keep refreshing and returning to this attitude, then we will be fully receiving the support, the love that is being offered to us. Just after the end of each exhalation, immeasurable love and support is being offered to us. When we're in tune with that, then naturally we can turn over that love and support to all those around us. So, you know, we can't really say that the receiving of this love and support leads to the giving of the love and support, or that the giving of love and support leads

[45:27]

leads to the receiving of love and support. It's not divided in this way. It's just full receiving and then full giving. One peace, one flow. Just this inundated heart. this inundated heart, the mother in all of us, this inundated heart flowing in and out on each breath. So moment after moment, as Suzuki Roshi says, do not lose this practice of shikantaza. Moment after moment, let's please not lose this practice of loving, warm-hearted shikantaza.

[46:29]

So my palms together in gratitude for your sincere, kind receiving and giving today your attention. And again to all mothers, may our practice repay the kindness of you, of these endless generations of mothers. And may the love flow through us completely from everything and to everything, moment after moment. Thank you very much.

[47:36]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[47:39]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_98.4