Well, it's nice to see you all this morning. It's funny how a joy and sadness, happiness, anger, so on, all human emotions mix together � this really impresses me how this is so, how our minds are always changing and how emotions rise in our heart so quickly, sometimes contradictory emotions. Sometimes sadness and joy can exist in the mind at the same time, and one can color the other.

[01:03]

When we think about our mind in a conventional way, we think that we're either sad or we're joyful, and we look for causes of these states in our immediate world, and we think, �Now I'm sad, and this is why. Now I'm happy, and this is why. Now I need to do this or get rid of that so that I can be happy and not be sad.� But actually, if you calm your mind and look deeply into your heart, it's hard to figure out how you feel and why. And we don't really know why things happen the way they do, and why our mind appears to us in the way that it does.

[02:13]

So today, we're celebrating Buddha's birthday, and this is a day of tremendous outpouring of joy, and I feel lots of joy today to see all of you and the balloons and all that. It's a great day. But also, at the same time, I can't shake a powerful feeling of sadness, too. I'm thinking of this airplane that crashed in Eastern Europe. One of the people on that plane was a friend of Zen Center, and a personal friend of mine who was an extraordinary person.

[03:29]

His name was Don Turner, and he was a builder and a visionary. But he built low-income housing, low-cost housing. And he thought that low-cost housing could be housing that people could live in with dignity, not just some projects. And he was one person who made that a reality. We don't read about it. Not many people were aware, but he created projects all over the country in which low-income people could live with all kinds of people, and property values would not go down in those neighborhoods. And he would get all kinds of business people to finance this. I went yesterday to the memorial service at Glide Memorial, full of people there out of respect for Don Turner.

[04:43]

And one thing that Cecil Williams said, Reverend Williams said, that Don Turner was somebody who could talk to the president and the secretary of housing, and the banker and the business person, and the person on the street corner in Marin City, where his company is putting up a big development for the people in Marin City. He could talk to all these kinds of people with equal concern and equal respect and equal energy. And that was true from my knowing him. You would think a big wheel like that, a person like that, would not be able to notice ordinary people, but he did. And there were many children that he took under his wing and spent time with.

[05:53]

Anyway, and there were of course many other wonderful people on that airplane. So it's just kind of sad, isn't it? That such a thing should happen. They were all on that airplane because all of them were people who had before, in the past, helped out people in need. That's why they were together, and that's why they were going to Bosnia, to see if they could find a way to help out. So that's sad. And during the week that this happened, last week, I was at Esalen doing a retreat that Esalen was very nice enough to provide for people who are infected with HIV.

[06:57]

And it reminded me again, and we are not hearing so much about this now as we used to, but it reminded me again what a terrible thing this is, this epidemic that's affecting so many of our brothers and sisters. In San Francisco, people in the gay community are really exhausted from this epidemic. There are people in their 30s or 40s who are HIV positive and have seen virtually all of their friends perish around them over a 10-year period. And they're just tired of all the grief. But today is a joyful day.

[08:14]

And even though we don't forget these things, it is a day for joy, a day to celebrate the birth of the Buddha. There are three most important days in the Buddha's lifetime that we commemorate every year. Buddha's Enlightenment Day, which we commemorate around the 8th of December. Buddha's Parinirvana Day, which we commemorate around the 15th of February. And then Buddha's Birthday, which we commemorate around the 8th of April, according to the tradition of Far Eastern Buddhism. Buddha's Enlightenment Day, we celebrate with a seven-day session where we imitate the Buddha and sit with full attention for seven days. And on the last night, some of us sit up all night, and on the morning of the Enlightenment Day celebration we go out and look at the morning star the way the Buddha did.

[09:27]

And then we have a wonderful ceremony where we circumambulate, throw flower petals, and play music, and make ourselves delirious with joy for the Buddha's Enlightenment, which is enlightenment for all of us. Parinirvana Day commemorates the day that the Buddha let go of this human life and entered nirvana without residue, without remainder, plunging into complete peace. And that day we celebrate with a ceremony with many offerings, and also the last few years with a very solemn pageant in which three of our priests enact the death, parinirvana, of the Buddha.

[10:28]

A very beautiful and quiet pageant. So these are ways that we are trying to make Buddhism part of our American culture so that we can express ourselves in our own way to appreciate the Buddha's life and teaching. But maybe the greatest of all is today's celebration, celebrating the birth of the Buddha, the most joyous occasion of all, because this also celebrates the birth of the Buddha as the birth of the whole earth in springtime. We celebrate it, as they do in Japan, with flowers, lots and lots of flowers. We feature wildflowers and other flowers in the pageant, in the processions. We celebrate the renewal and birth of the earth and the sky and the sea, and especially of children.

[11:31]

So today is a special day for children, for a renewal that is springtime and children and flowers, the renewal that is possible moment after moment, every moment of our lives. This fantastic potential and possibility that's always there for awakening, for turning around every sadness and every desire in the direction of awakening and peacefulness and happiness. The birth of the Buddha, the commemoration of the birth of the Buddha tells us and shows us that as long as we are alive, it is never too late to begin our life fresh.

[12:34]

Even at the last moment of our life, it's possible to turn around right there and begin our life fresh. And it reminds me that for our world, with all of its difficulties and sadnesses, renewal is also possible, every day, every moment. And that that renewal starts with each one of us, with our spirit, with our powerful and joyful intention that we really bring up and hold in our hearts to make this a better and a happier world for everyone. That intention, which we can cultivate and encourage and which is always possible for us, is very powerful.

[13:50]

And even though maybe we don't have a plan exactly about how we're going to do all this, and we don't have any assurances that it's going to work out in a certain way, still we have a faith and a certainty that with this intention we are empowered, each one of us, to do something strong to help our lives and the lives of those around us. And that if we all share this intention, more and more of us, we will definitely, without a doubt, make a world in which there is a minimum of suffering and a maximum of happiness. So today, in celebrating the birth of Shakyamuni Buddha, let us also celebrate this constant potential that is with us every moment of our lives, in all circumstances, in all times, this potential for renewal that is there on each moment, on each breath.

[14:57]

If you just turn to your breath and let go of your concerns for yourself, you'll find it. Shakyamuni Buddha was a great person who I admire very much. With the help of lots of good luck, as somebody might say, or as somebody else might say, good karma and much practice in previous lifetimes, he was able to rediscover an ancient and wonderful way for people to live in peace and harmony. And not only did he rediscover this ancient way, but without even thinking twice about it, he decided that he would dedicate his whole life to teaching others this way, and to setting up an ongoing tradition that would last past his lifetime, so that even today, almost 2,500 years since the Buddha lived, we can still walk this path.

[16:10]

Each one of us, today even, can still, in essence, live the way that the Buddha lived, practice the same practice that the Buddha practiced. And it doesn't matter if we're a man or a woman, a heterosexual or homosexual, young or old, rich or poor, smart or dumb, healthy or sick, white or black or yellow or tan or whatever, each one of us, in our own particular way, with our own uniqueness, can actually practice the practice that the Buddha practiced, can actually live the life that the Buddha lived. So that's why I really like the Buddha. It was very kind of him and skillful of him to be able to give us this that we still have after so many years.

[17:12]

So the Buddha was this person who lived this life and gave us this opportunity. But the Buddha was also more than a person. He was also a great myth, one of the world's great myths, a person who lives not only in the flesh but also in our imagination, in our dreams, in our language. I'm sure all of you know the myth of the birth of the Buddha. Before the Buddha was conceived, his mother, Queen Maya, dreamed of a six-tusked white elephant. And later, when she was about to give birth, she journeyed to the forest at Lumbini, and there, while holding onto a tree limb, standing up, she gave birth to the baby Buddha.

[18:16]

And the baby did not come out of her womb, but came out of her side. Very unusual situation. And when the Buddha was born, he was not an average child. He was like those people from Lake Wobegon. He was above average. So when he came out of his mother's side, rather than crying and gooing and so on, as babies will, he stood right up immediately and went for a walk. So this is really above average. He took seven steps, as the myth goes, and then he pointed with one finger to the heavens and with the other finger to the earth, and he said, above the heavens and below the earth, I am born for enlightenment for the good of all beings.

[19:25]

He said this right when he was born. So everybody was on notice this was no ordinary child and things were going to happen. So the Buddha is also a myth. And in a moment, we'll actually see this happening again in our day. And the Buddha is also more than a person and more than a myth too. The Buddha is also something more esoteric and deep and also at the same time more ordinary than either one of these things. The Buddha is the deepest aspect of life itself, of reality itself. The Buddha is the accurate and alive nature of what is, the kernel, the essence of what is.

[20:28]

And so the birth of the Buddha is actually the birth of everything that exists, of each one of us, of all plants and animals, of the sky, and all of space and time. On each moment of each life, everywhere, the Buddha is born again, moment after moment, and on each moment, enlightenment occurs. So we pick a certain day and a certain season to commemorate this and celebrate this, but actually, the true birth of the Buddha is on every moment of every day of every life. But today's the day that we mention it, so happy birthday to you. And I would wonder if you would all be willing to just turn to the person next to you, shake their hand and say, happy birthday, would you? So happy birthday to all of us. Congratulations. Isn't it great? We're all alive. What an unexpected result.

[21:54]

So I want to just quote for you a little passage from the Avatamsaka Sutra that talks about this esoteric and ordinary aspect of the Buddha's life, of the Buddha's birth. The Buddha was previous to being born in this world, living in a great heaven, and he came from that heaven to be in Queen Maya's womb. And this is Queen Maya speaking about what it was like. The Avatamsaka Sutra is written in very long sentences. It's one of the most enthusiastic pieces of writing you will ever read. It goes on for thousands of pages. This is about the middle of Volume 3 of the Sutra. Queen Maya is speaking, Upon the appearance in my body of the furnishings of the enlightening beings abode in the womb, the enlightening being, that means Buddha, together with as many enlightening beings as atoms in ten Buddha lands,

[22:59]

all with the same vow, the same practice, the same roots of goodness, the same state of liberation and the same stage of knowledge, adept at the same mystical projection, having accomplished the same endeavor, adept at the same practice, having purified the same spiritual body, able to assume an infinite variety of physical forms, expert in the projection of the endeavors of universally good enlightening beings, respectfully attended by chiefs of all worlds, descended from the heaven of contentment by the great miracle of enlightening beings, appearing to pass away from all heavens of contentment, appearing to become regenerated in all worlds from each heaven of contentment to early existence, following skill and means of developing inconceivable numbers of sentient beings to maturity, alerting all intoxicated, deluded beings, detaching from all attachments, emanating a great network of light beams, dispelling the darkness from all worlds, stopping all evils and miseries, putting an end to all hellish ways of being,

[24:01]

making all beings aware of their past deeds, rescuing all beings, appearing in the presence of all beings, he descended from the heaven of contentment with his retinue and entered my belly. Once all of them were in my belly, they walked around in strides as big as a billion-world universe, even as big as worlds as numerous as atoms in untold Buddha lands. Also, all the untold congregations of enlightening beings at the feet of all Buddhas in all worlds in the ten directions entered my belly in every moment of thought to see the miracle of the enlightening beings dwelling in the womb. The chief gods of all the heavens also came to the enlightening being in the womb to see and honor him, to listen to the teaching and hear his discourse. Yet, even though it took in all those multitudes, my belly was not enlarged,

[25:06]

nor did this body of mine become any more than a human body. Yet it received so many multitudes, and all the celestials and humans saw the various pure rays of the enlightening being's surroundings. Why was this? Because of the development of this enlightening liberation of the magic knowledge of great vows. The Buddha had taken many vows which caused this kind of magic to happen. But her body did not become any more than a human body, any more than your body or my body. So, actually, who knows how many Buddhas are striding around in every atom of our body right now. So, what we're going to do today, I'm going to tell you how this works, because it's a little different from our usual Sunday program. And the more of us who have a general idea of what's happening, the better. So, with any luck, barring sudden death or earthquake,

[26:17]

I will walk out of here in a little while. And then about 11.15, the bell will start, a 15-minute bell. From the beginning of the bell to the end will be 15 minutes. And at the end of that 15 minutes, we will begin the ceremony, celebrating the Buddha's birth. So, we'll gather in a big circle. You'll see there's altars outside. And we'll gather on the lawn in a very big, wide circle around the altars, making sure that everybody has a place to stand. And then the ceremony will begin at the end of the 15-minute bell with a procession of children and flowers. They're now working on this and getting ready and getting instructions. They'll come in with a big elephant cart full of flowers. And then when the children have come in and laid the flower carts down, the next thing will be that the procession of the grown-up children will come.

[27:23]

And we'll go to the altar and we'll offer all kinds of offerings to the Buddha. And then we'll do three bows. And then after the three bows, we will chant the Heart Sutra in English and then we'll chant it in Japanese. And you will be given copies out there of the sutra that you can read from the card. Then, after we chant the Heart Sutra twice in two languages, then the Ino will introduce, Aum Amid Shakyamuni Buddha. And then we'll all start chanting, Aum Amid Shakyamuni Buddha. Let's try it. Aum Amid Shakyamuni Buddha. Aum Amid Shakyamuni Buddha. Aum Amid Shakyamuni Buddha. So we'll chant like that. And while we're chanting like that, we'll start circumambulating the altars

[28:30]

because that's a very old practice of showing respect by circumambulating the Buddha. So we'll circumambulate clockwise with our right shoulder toward the Buddha. And we'll march around like that as we're chanting, Aum Amid Shakyamuni Buddha. And we'll really get into it. We'll just chant and march around and forget everything. Right? And then while we're doing that, there'll be a drum we'll be playing and all that so that we feel the rhythm of it. Then in the middle, there's a little special altar decorated with flowers. It's different from the other altar where the ceremony will be taking place over some distance. And in this altar, there's a little tiny statue of the baby Buddha standing like this. And that's for the baby Buddha is very thirsty and needs love. So we will gradually make two little lines into that flower pagoda.

[29:36]

And then especially the children first. And we'll offer some sweet tea to the baby Buddha by taking a dipper of sweet tea that's in a moat surrounding the baby Buddha. Take a little dipper and then very carefully and mindfully pour a dipper of tea over the baby Buddha's head, which he likes very much. So you can just approach the altar and then the way to do it is you make a bow and then take the dipper and very carefully and mindfully pouring and then make a bow and then walk away and the next person comes. And we'll just keep doing it. Everybody who can and wants to will make that offering for as long as... And we, in fact the rest of us are, Om, Am, Ic, Shakyamuni Buddha, Om, Am, Ic, right? And we just keep doing that for a while. And then after a while, probably when the drummer's arms get tired, we'll stop and we'll chant the dedication.

[30:40]

And in the dedication, we will commemorate flowers. Many flowers. And then when the dedication is over, the procession will leave. In the meantime, people can continue offering, even though all this is going on, they can just continue offering and just keep going for a while. So then, after that, we'll begin to get ready for our famous Buddha's birthday pageant, which immediately follows the ceremony. People can still be offering, but at some point we'll say, we're going to take this table away, so we'll take it away. What will happen is people will find a spot in a semicircle around the blank spot that used to be the oak tree. Many of you, I know, have been here before and you see how that works, but be very patient with us, because you may find a spot that we might have to ask you to move, because

[31:41]

we have a place for the orchestra and a place for the elephant and different places where we have to leave room. So there should be people there to help you understand where to put your blanket or picnic. And once everyone is ready and all the performers are ready, we'll begin the pageant. And who knows, maybe the sun will even come out. Maybe not, but then we'll have the pageant. During the pageant, you also have a part to play, because at the end of every stanza of the script, the performers enact what that stanza says. And after their enactment is over, we have a great big bell. We strike the bell and then everybody says, Homage to the World Honored One. Let's try that. Homage to the World Honored One.

[32:45]

Great. So chant real loud. That's part of it, because that gets the actors and actresses more enthusiastic when you chant that. World Honored One is one of the many names for Buddha. Homage to the World Honored One. And the pageant, I don't know, takes about 45 minutes or so. And when the pageant is over, we can just resume our picnic. And I think we're going to have some birthday cake. And that will be the end of our celebration of Buddha's birthday, or the beginning of it, depending on your point of view. What did I forget? That's it? So I'm very happy that you're all here to celebrate with us. It would be very lonesome without you, even though there's plenty of us here still.

[33:48]

It's lonesome without you. Oh, question, yes? Could you say a little more about bathing the baby Buddha? About bathing the baby Buddha? How to do it, you mean, or? Yeah, what's the state of mind? State of mind. Yeah, well, when we're circumambulating, it would be nice to really concentrate on this Aum Amit Shakyamuni Buddha, to really put our heart into it and let go of everything else. You know, what a relief, right? Wouldn't it be nice to let go of yourself, even? Like, you could be anybody. You could be Buddha, even. You don't even know. Everything you let go of, there's just Aum Amit Shakyamuni Buddha. And then when you approach the baby Buddha, to use the power of your imagination and of

[34:53]

your heart to actually make that into the Buddha, this little piece of whatever it is, metal or something. It's just a piece of metal. But with our heart, we can actually make it into the baby Buddha. Trying to keep our mind pure and focused on the miracle of life and the possibility of renewal of life on each moment, with that spirit, pour the water over the sweet tea over the baby Buddha's head, like that. I think that you'll feel in the ceremony, if we all practice in this way, we will create a good ceremonial concentration. And you'll feel that this is so, in the ceremony. Is that okay? Does that help a little bit? Well, thank you very much for coming today and I look forward to our joining together for the rest of the day's activities.

[35:55]

Peace.

[35:55]

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