This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. While we were waiting, I must confess, I scrolled through the different screens. somewhat surprised and somewhat delighted by how many people I recognized. And as I would recognize them, I'd think, oh, this wonderful person, you know, who for reasons best known to themselves has set up a small book press, you know, which will never make them famous or rich, but it's what they love. And this person, who, for reasons best known to themselves, is a clown and has an organization, if you can call it that, called Clowns Without Borders.

[01:15]

And they go to refugee camps and put on climbing performances for the children in refugee camps. They said to me that when you make the children happy, the parents are happy. And many more beautiful histories. Leaving me... deeply grateful that there is something in our lives asking us to bring forth the best we've got. And in my own foolish and limited way, that's what I'm going to try to talk about.

[02:24]

But first of all, I want to I apologize to those of you who thought you were going to hear and see a talk by Leanne. Leanne has had internet problems. She can't make... Her internet is not working, so her Zoom is not working, so she's not on your screen. And I was asked to fill in which I must confess is something I'd like to do. There was a renowned Tibetan teacher, renowned for many reasons, I must say, Chogam Trungpa. And he would, when he was extraordinarily popular and

[03:31]

charismatic teacher. But he had a habit of in the middle of a talk, he would ask one of his students to stand up and give a spontaneous talk. And sometimes the person would talk and then they'd be finished and then he would say, no, keep talking. Each of us is in the midst of who we are, what we are. And if that isn't the unfolding of the Buddha Dharma, what is? It's this way to pause, as Dogen Zenji, the founder of Soto Zen in Japan, said, when you find yourself where you are, practice occurs. actualizing the fundamental point. So for a moment, imagine that I was going to stop talking and you were going to start.

[04:48]

Yes, you should laugh, Marianne, one day it'll happen. So, in a few weeks, I'm going to teach a course with Gil Franz Do in Fu Schrader called The Harmony of Vipassana and Zen. And so... it has left me thinking about, what the heck are we talking about? What do we consider? Sometimes, I hope this term doesn't offend you, Zen or Buddhist converts, most of us, almost all of us, if I may generalize on our collective behalf,

[06:00]

come to these teachings, we weren't born into them. And so this notion of what is Zen and what is Vipassana now, are we talking about what it was in the time of Bodhidharma, the time of Shakyabuni Buddha, or are we talking about this Saturday? in late March of 2021. Here at City Center of San Francisco Zen Center, we started the day with meditation, and then we had a full moon ceremony, which in Japanese is called Rako Fusats. A ceremony that goes back to the time of Shakyamuni Buddha and probably goes back before then.

[07:07]

On the full moon, renewing our intention, renewing our vow. And then we do it now in a particular ritualistic way. So you might think, well, that's what you do at a Zen center. You meditate and then you do your time-honored rituals expressing something about the spirit of practice that can't be turned into concepts and ideas. But then here at City Center, after that, well, we had breakfast, but then after that, there was a meeting of the residents at City Center about racial justice. And then after that, we have a Dharma talk.

[08:13]

And then this afternoon, there's a workshop on the wife that Shakyamuni left behind. I wonder when Dogen find Soto Zen in Japan if he thought, well, in a mere 800 years, they'll be talking about Shakyamuni's wife and how he left her behind. Have we strayed here at city center? Have we strayed from the pure Dharma realm of Soto Zen? Or have we turned it into contemporary adaptation that's relevant to the lives we're living. I think it's a worthwhile question.

[09:15]

Not simply as a thoughts that then will translate into a class, but for each of us. What are my belief structures? What do I think I'm doing when I engage in spiritual practice? And then how is it to live my own beliefs, my own admonitions, values? What is that? Somehow the title of this teaching we're going to do in a couple of weeks, that's what it came down to for me. And then one of the questions that came up for me, which I didn't like, was, does modern so-called contemporary, maybe it's more modest words, is our contemporary expression of Buddhist practice?

[10:27]

does it have a social obligation? No. The fact that now we would offer our students a series of workshops on a broad sense of racial justice. And I mention it because when that thought first came to mind, I thought, you know, I don't like that. It's so complicated. It's so close to the interpretation of American history, of social structures, which are always complex and multifaceted. You know, it's so much, you know, I think of us now,

[11:30]

Certainly for me, and I don't know if this is the consequence of the age of COVID or just that I'm spending too much time looking at a computer screen. The turmoil of the world, you know. I read one article that said, well... Have they returned to normal with mass shootings? I find it a painful, confusing, somewhat annoying consideration. But it reminded me of the ferocious challenge of living in the world we're living in.

[12:32]

And we don't have an alternative. The Dharma talk you would give is the full expression of your being, your spirituality, and how you're actualizing that spirituality. But I think of the full moon ceremony we do in Sotosan and the way it's been crafted over centuries and centuries, adapted from what Shakyamuni did. I had the good fortune when I was young to be ordained in Thailand in the forests and do a full moon ceremony. It didn't look anything like what we do now. in Soto Zen in San Francisco. But in some ways, it carried the resonance of spirit that's within each of us.

[13:44]

And to my way of thinking and feeling and acting, This is what Soto Zen is inviting us and challenging us to do. Can you get in touch with how spirituality, its imperatives, have touched you, have moved you, have quieted you, have brought you into action? All of these things. What helps you get in touch? What helps you stay in touch? And then what is your place in this great complex world? So as I pondered that, and I would encourage you, you know, I'm going to offer you my words, but please don't take it as some kind of orthodoxy, you know?

[14:57]

Maybe if you ask me to... give this talk a week ago, I'd have said something different. So this is what comes up for me today. Actually, the last two or three days. It was an acknowledgement of what was percolating in my mind and heart. And yet, even though it has that coincidence, It also, for me, it touches back in some ways to who I think I've always been since I was a child. Since I wandered in the dark inner city streets to church early in the morning and sat there

[16:00]

in the darkness, in this vast space. So what it's brought me to today, it's brought me to a particular Buddhist teaching. It's called the Bodhisattva Vows. Even the notion of bodhisattva has a variety of interpretations as to its origin. And I'm not going to belabor that point, but rather try to say and describe how these vows what the genesis of them in the original language is like, and then offer you my own notions.

[17:13]

And I would hope and offer you my notions that would stimulate you to consider your notions as to how they apply to your life. I would offer you this notion rather than thinking, oh, these ideas... or something different from what I think, I would offer you this notion. Try on, these are exactly what you're thinking. And as these vows point towards action, try on, oh yes, and this is expressed in my life. So I hope something in that makes sense to you. In the inquiry in Zen, we have a notion of inquiry that's called the turning phrase.

[18:21]

Sometimes it's challenging us to think in a radically different way. As if to say, the bodhisattva vows is exactly what my spirituality is about. Let me explore that notion. The bodhisattva vows are what I'm doing every day. It's what I'm living. It's how I'm influenced. The first one is, in the Chinese, there isn't personal pronouns. The way we usually say it is, beings are numberless. I vow to save them. But that I is a construct within the English language to try to make it make sense.

[19:30]

If we said beings, numberless, vowing, crossover, that would be a more literal notion. Beings, numberless, vowing, crossover. And then what do we mean when we say beings? There's a delicious ambiguity in the language. It can either mean beings, as in all beings, beings of the sky, beings of the earth, beings of the sea, or it can mean sentient beings. more like we're addressing our relationship within the human race. And I would offer you this question.

[20:39]

Are these two totally separate? Are we not discovering that the welfare of the beings in the ocean and the welfare of the beings on the earth and the welfare of the beings in the sky is interwoven with the welfare of the human species. Can we attend to, can we be of service to one part of the array of beings and ignore others? The disposition of the bodhisattva vows, in a way they're saying, pay attention, notice how it is, and live your life as an expression of what you noticed.

[21:51]

And then this notion of crossing over, it's an ancient Buddhist notion. And the notion simply is saying, or maybe not simply, but it's saying, moving from the sense of isolation, separateness, moving from the sense of what really matters is what works for me. To heck with all the other beings. I'm in this for me. Moving from that and crossing over into, you know, which our ecology, our science, you know, the very biomes that flow through our being, you know, what's happening in our gut is a seething process that is, the more we learn about it, the more extraordinary we are, we discover it is.

[23:13]

So moving from separate, isolated being to this intrinsically interconnected ecosystem of being. This is simply how it is. And can we attune to that? Can we let it influence how we hold our perspectives, our judgments, our analysis, of what's going on within us, what's going on within our society, what's going on within our world. Some of the slogans that have occurred to me over the years are... I remember going back to Northern Ireland where I grew up, where we were a divided community.

[24:23]

We were all from... We were all Christian, but we were from different Christian sects. And since we were from different Christian sects, we held each other with great suspicion and often animosity. And the notion that came was, there's only us. There is no us and them. There's only us. And as we look at these tragedies tearing us into different groups, politically, socially, now in the United States and actually in many parts of the world, how us and them is such an appealing proposition for us as humans.

[25:26]

But I'd offer you that notion as the first bodhisattva vow. There's only us. Them is just an interesting variation of us. Whatever their race, whatever their sexual orientation, whatever their nationality, whatever their ethnicity, whatever age, whatever class structure, social structure, they're just an interesting part of us. In my own simple mind, this is how I think of the first bodhisattva bow. It's just us. endlessly diverse, innumerably diverse.

[26:31]

Every single one of us is a unique wave on the ocean of existence. Somehow can we let that Can we let that in so deeply that it's almost like to use that delightful English expression, we have a change of heart. That us becomes as relevant, maybe even more relevant than me. It makes me think of hearing the wonderful civil rights person, John Lewis, saying, I'm in this for the long haul.

[27:37]

And I thought, ah, now wouldn't that be the Bodhisattva well? I'm in this for the long haul. There's a wonderful... implication in how the bodhisattva vows construct the challenge of being alive it's a they offer a kind of enormity to the challenge and then vowing to do it us is enormous enormously diverse I will vow to promote, to live as if, to support the delight of its interbeing.

[28:43]

What's more delightful than to walk in the woods? and listen to the birds and the wind blowing through the trees and to see the different creatures running around. Something in us comes alive when we open to that. And the sky and the ocean, each with their delights. We give, we receive. All beings turns us and we open to being part of all being. So this is the first bodhisattva bow. And then the second bodhisattva bow is somewhere in our restlessness, in our notion of competition.

[30:00]

in our notion of, but it's either you or me, it's either us or them. We can't all thrive. Somebody has to be on the end of suffering and someone has to be on the end of privilege. And within Buddhist teachings, that creates within us an afflicted state of being. It's a distressing state. You better be careful because they're going to get you. You better stay safe. Maybe you should attack first. The second Bodhisattva vow says afflictions endlessly arise, vowing, and then I'm taking a liberty here using this term, vowing not to get hooked.

[31:14]

Maybe more literally it would say vowing to abandon. Abandon the implications of the competition between us and them. these afflictions, that impulse will endlessly arise. Don't be shocked. Don't be surprised. Or if you are shocked and surprised, hold it close to you. Let it teach you the pains that us and them, competition and aggression, pain it creates. And in your compassion let your heart soften.

[32:19]

Let something release. Let something go. Beings are numberless. The afflictions that arise within the human being They're constantly there as a challenge. And the third bodhisattva vow is that all this can be a teaching. Whether it's a teaching of the wonderful goodness because I was looking around and I was thinking, oh, and this person with their wonderful career in Washington, D.C., and yet this part of them that's an utterly devoted Tai Chi practitioner, and this person who

[33:41]

has this successful career, and along with it, has spent their whole adult life practicing the way of compassion and awakening. Something in us wants to be such like that. Maybe the bodhisattva vow is simply saying, please remember, this is your heart's desire. This is who you truly are. And as a bonus, this is what will alleviate your afflictions. This is what will... bring joy.

[34:44]

This is what will fill the world with beauty. This is what will leave you in a state of gratitude. That being of service to this interbeing is a win-win situation. It's like as far as from, it's as opposite to us or them, you or me surviving. It's as opposite to that as can be imagined. And the Buddhist term is Dharma gates or Dharma upper teachings, opportunities. or teaching opportunities, learning opportunities. Suzuki Roshi, the founder of San Francisco Zen Center, he liked to use the term beginner's mind.

[35:53]

We're always available to learn. Always available to learn. And then the fourth one is... Buddha way, unsurpassable, vowing, become. Buddha way, unsurpassable, vowing, become. We might trip up on the notion of unsurpassable. Okay, the Buddha way... not the Christian way, not the Muslim way, not the Jewish way. The Buddha way is unsurpassable. See, we're the top dogs.

[36:56]

It's not what it's saying. It's actually saying the spark of the divine is everywhere and in everyone. That's what makes it so unable to be quantified. It cannot be trapped within some dogma. It can't be trapped within some fixed way of thinking. It doesn't fit within some trite admonition. Everywhere you turn, it's expressing itself. Everywhere you turn, the expression of it is a teacher. Everywhere you turn demonstrates its interbeing.

[37:59]

And something in us yearns to be just that. that abundance of interbeing. And we have a tendency to mistake it and try to turn it into a dogma. We have a tendency to somehow in the midst of our afflictions, attempt to express it through aversion or desire or even our anxieties and confusions. So the Bodhisattva way is offering us a gift and a challenge.

[39:15]

of this radical interbeing that can alleviate with deep compassion the human afflictive tendencies, that can illuminate how the human condition and how we're living it is offering us endless teachings, and it can inspire us to have this change of heart that can move our way of being. To me, you know, these ideas As I say, these are my ideas.

[40:25]

Make up your own. And I would just say to you, but let them guide your heart. Find within your own workings that which draws forth your heart and mind, that inspires you. that enthuses, that which will prompt you to call you to action. Not because you should, not because you're trying to meet someone else's demand or you're trying to look good in front of somebody else, but because something in you feels like This is how to live a life. And even if you think, oh, well, you know, that guy sounds like he really means it, but I think what he's saying is, you know, BS.

[41:43]

Fine. Make up your own. As Mary Oliver said, there's a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the earth. And let me close with a piece of a poem. Why am I doing that? I have no idea. Other than it... To me, it says something. To me, it's like Shaktamuni holding up a flower and saying, everything I'm trying to communicate, this flower does a better job at that than I do.

[42:50]

The poem is called Everything is Waiting for You. It's by David White. I'm just going to read the last piece a little bit. The stairs are your mentor of things to come. The doors have always been there to frighten you and invite you. The tiny speaker in your phone is your dream ladder to divinity. Put down the weight of your aloneness. Ease into conversation. The cattle is singing, even as it pours you a drink. The cooking pots have left their arrogant aloofness and seen the good in you at last. All the birds and creatures of the world are unutterably themselves. Everything is waiting for you. Thank you. For more information, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

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May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

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