Well, it's nice to see everybody. I feel like I've been away a long time, and it's nice to be back. And today is a great day, a day for celebration and joy and fun, a day when we remember the birth of Shakyamuni Buddha, our teacher. So mostly today what I want to talk about is Buddha and to appreciate his birth and to appreciate with you what a great person Buddha was and how much he's given us. But life is such that somehow always mixed with our joy there's some sadness, and mixed with our sadness there's some joy. So before I get into the joyful part, I want to talk about something a little sad with

[01:07]

you, just simply to evoke and appreciate another great bodhisattva, spiritual warrior, who we lost this weekend, the poet Allen Ginsberg, who as many of you know passed away late Friday night, early Saturday morning. And in a way, kind of suddenly, he was only 70 years old. I'm sure that when we look back over the history of Buddhism in America, we will certainly acknowledge the importance of the so-called beat writers. And of course, Allen among them was the great promoter and PR guy and perhaps the strongest

[02:17]

writer of all of them. Somehow, historical circumstances were such that these people, these writers, were able to see in the middle of their strong and accurate criticism of America and of Western civilization, dharma as a corrective, as a way out of the dilemma. So really their work and their effort as cultural reformers set a ground for dharma to develop. I think we all owe them a debt of gratitude for our practice. Allen really was a great poet, a great bodhisattva, a powerful and outspoken champion of justice.

[03:26]

He probably went to more protests against everything wrong than anybody. And at those protests, he was very vocal and visible and often chanted and meditated and was an advocate for peaceful nonviolence. He had a bright, sunny and funny personality. He was also a singer and a songwriter. And not many people know, he was a serious photographer, and many exhibitions of his photographs were mounted and there were books published of his photographs. He wrote essays and political speeches, journals. He wrote almost every day. There are many, many, many volumes of his journals that will probably be published for the next 10 or 15 or 20 years.

[04:28]

There are so many of them. And on top of all this, he was a wonderfully kind person and a supportive friend. The people who were closest to him he was very loyal to, and throughout all their trials and tribulations he was there with moral support and financial support in every way. He helped found a school and taught poetry all over the world, and I think there are thousands and thousands of writers and students of poetry who met him and were influenced by him and felt his warmth. And he really was a sincere, sincerely devoted practitioner of the Way for 30 years or more. Alan had a huge, prodigious appetite for life, for experience of all kinds.

[05:39]

He wanted to go everywhere and do everything, and he practically did that, you know, almost. He was zipping all over the world all the time, even during the last couple of years when he wasn't well, somehow his travel schedule hardly abated, and he would walk into restaurants anywhere in the world and tell the chef, these are my dietary restrictions, can you make this for me? And they would. And when all of his activity from time to time got too much for him, he would return again and again to his practice, to silence, to zero, to his teachers, to the teachings. And he was very humble about his practice. I think he considered himself, even though he studied for really about 30 years or more,

[06:41]

very much a beginner. But he had a lot of devotion and a lot of faith. I don't think anyone could surpass him in his love for the Dharma and his faith in the Dharma. So, as a tribute to him today, I'll read a poem of his that Wendy showed me yesterday. This poem is about the Buddha. Not about the Buddha's birth, but about the time in the Buddha's life that's often depicted and titled in pictures, the Buddha coming down from the mountain. And this stands for the time in the Buddha's life after he had tried asceticism, nearly killing himself with deprivation, and decided that he would give that up and pursue a more

[07:45]

moderate path toward enlightenment. And apparently, Alan saw a picture of Shakyamuni coming out from the mountain that was a Chinese painting that he probably saw in the New York Public Library in 1953. This is a 1953 poem, inspired by a picture of Buddha. And I think it, this poem really shows how he understood the relationship between bhitt-ethos and what the Buddha meant. Shakyamuni coming out from the mountain, Liang Kai, Southern Sung, he drags his bare feet out of a cave under a tree, eyebrows grown long with weeping and hook-nosed woe

[08:51]

in ragged, soft robes, wearing a fine beard, unhappy hands clasped to his naked breast. Humility is beatness, humility is beatness, faltering into the bushes by a stream, all things inanimate, but his intelligence stands upright there, though trembling. Arhat, who sought heaven under a mountain of stone, sat thinking till he realized the land of blessedness exists in the imagination. The flash come, empty mirror, how painful to be born again, wearing a fine beard, re-entering the world, a bitter wreck of a sage, earth before him his only path, we can see his soul,

[10:01]

he knows nothing, like a god, shaken, meek, wretch, humility is beatness before the absolute world. So, the last time I saw Alan was just about a year ago, and we were at a dinner to celebrate the completion of Gary Snyder's Mountains and Rivers Without End, and there were a whole bunch of old cronies there, and I had a camera, I was taking pictures to record the historic occasion, and Alan had a camera too, except I never saw a camera like this before in my

[11:05]

life, it was this gigantic, it looked like a 35mm camera that a giant would use, you know, it was like about this big, click, the giant, I never saw, it was odd looking, and I said, and so he was going around snapping everything, and he seemed, you know, pretty good spirits, and I said, where did you get that camera, you know, I never saw a camera like that, and he said, well, Annie Leibowitz came over and took my picture, and I said, gee, that's a nice camera, and she said, well, here! That's how we talk, kind of, you know. So, that's how I will always remember Alan, with a big camera on reality, big camera. And, I don't think we're quite ready to have him go away, it's a little soon for us, I think, but at least we have many, many words that he left behind, so that we can meet him

[12:13]

for a long time to come. So, homage to Alan Ginsberg. So, today, we have a big celebration, and Alan would enjoy this celebration, and he would be dancing with all of us today, to celebrate Buddha's birthday. And, there are three days, special days, in the life of Buddha that we commemorate. Buddha's birthday, today's celebration, and Enlightenment Day, celebrating Buddha's awakening, and Parinirvana Day, celebrating Buddha's passing from this world. And so, for each of these special days, we have a big commemoration, here at Green Gulch,

[13:18]

for Enlightenment Day. We have a seven-day ceremony, seven days of silent sitting, in imitation of the Buddha's sitting under the Bodhi tree. And then, at the end of the seven days, we have a ceremony where we play music, throw flowers, and circumambulate the image of the Buddha, until we become delirious. And, for Parinirvana Day, the last few years, we've been doing a very quiet, also a pageant, an enactment of the Buddha's passing, that is very beautiful, here in this endo, in the evening, by candlelight. And that happens in February, mid-February. Some of you perhaps came this year to see it. And, for Buddha's birthday, a big festival. And I think it's very important that we have these festivals, so that we can really make

[14:27]

Buddhadharma something of our own culture. We can express Buddhism in our own way. And so many of us are working on this expression, this uniquely Western expression of our appreciation for Buddhism. And of all the three days that we commemorate, I think that Buddha's birthday is the most wonderful of all, because it is so full of joy. It celebrates the Buddha's birth. It also celebrates spring, and children, and especially flowers. And it celebrates the renewal and the possibility that is embedded in each and every moment of our lives. No matter what happens, it is never too late to begin over again.

[15:31]

Even at the very last moment of our lives, there is a potential, a possibility, to open out and begin over again. So, this celebration reminds me that for our world, with all of its difficulties, which sometimes seem so drastic and so dramatic and so threatening, renewal is also possible. And it starts with our spirit, with our powerful and joyful intention to make the world better, to make our own lives better, and to make the world better. We don't know how we'll do it. Maybe we don't even have a master plan for how we'll do it. But we have a faith and a certainty that we can and that we will do it.

[16:34]

And if we work together peacefully, we can do it. So, Buddha was a great person, I think. More and more as I practice, I appreciate what a really great person Buddha was. With the help of good luck, as somebody might say, or good karma and past life effort, as somebody else might say, Buddha was able to rediscover an ancient, wonderful wisdom way for people to live in peace and harmony. And not only did he rediscover this, but he determined that he would dedicate his entire life to nothing but teaching this way to others.

[17:37]

And thinking of the future and setting up an ongoing way of practice so that even after he was gone, all the way up to the present, 2,500 years since the time the Buddha lived, we can still walk this path. We can still, any one of us, live the way that the Buddha lived. And we can practice exactly the same practice that the Buddha practiced. And it doesn't matter if we are a man or a woman, heterosexual or homosexual, young or old, rich or poor, smart or dumb, healthy or sick, white or black, Asian, Western, Native American, any one of us, in our own particular, unique way, can practice the practice that the Buddha practiced,

[18:45]

can live the life that the Buddha lived. So, I really appreciate this wonderful skill and dedication and kindness of the Buddha to help us out in this very, very fundamental way, I think. So, the Buddha was a great person. But he was also more than a person. The Buddha was also a great myth. Not a real person, but a mythical person. A person that lives in our imagination and in our dreams. I'm sure that most of you know the myth of the life of the Buddha, especially the myth of the Buddha's birth. How, before his conception, his mother had a dream of a six-tusked white elephant. And later, when she was about to give birth, she journeyed to the forest at Lumbini and gave birth there.

[19:52]

Not from her womb, but from out of her side. Amazing, huh? And unlike the good children of Lake Wobegon, the Buddha was not an average child. He was far above average. Because as soon as he emerged from his mother's body, he could immediately walk and talk. And he took seven steps. And pointing with one hand to the heavens and with the other hand to the earth, said, I am born for enlightenment for the good of all beings. And Buddha is more even than a great person and a great myth.

[20:55]

He is something more esoteric, and at the same time, far more ordinary than either one of these two things. The inner sense of the Buddha's birth, the inner sense of who the Buddha is, is the deepest aspect of life itself, of reality itself. A Buddha is most truly the accurate and alive nature of what is. And so, in celebrating the birth of the Buddha, we celebrate the birth of everything, moment after moment, of each one of us, of all plants and animals, of the sky and all of space, all of time. On each moment of each life, the Buddha is born again. And on each moment of each life, enlightenment occurs,

[21:59]

parinirvana occurs. So, although we pick a certain day and a certain time, and we say, this is time for Buddha's birthday, really, every moment is Buddha's birthday. And every one of us is the celebrant. So, happy birthday to everyone. And why don't you turn to the person next to you, and look at that person and say, happy birthday. So, happy birthday to all of you. So, what I want to do now is just explain a little bit about how the morning will go. Because lots of different things happen. Lots of transitions, and it's good if we all know a little bit what to do

[23:04]

so that there's not crowd control problems. So, as soon as I'm done talking, which is going to be very soon, or pretty much after, I mean, as soon as possible after I'm done talking, the bell will start, the big bell in the back will start a 15-minute pattern. When the bell starts, that means that the ceremony, the traditional Japanese Zen ceremony to celebrate Buddha's enlightenment will be starting 15 minutes. So, when the bell starts, you know, 15 minutes, and people should begin to gather out on the lawn. You'll see on the lawn there's a big altar and a smaller altar, and you kind of gather in a big circle around the periphery of the lawn for the ceremony. After the 15-minute bell is over, the ceremony begins with a lovely, lovely procession of children

[24:06]

marching in, carrying an elephant cart full of flowers. And parasols, and they'll march around the circle and place the flower cart and the parasols, and then they'll march off. And when they're gone, there'll be some bells and a procession into the circle, so we'll leave a little space over by the part of the circle nearby the office there, so that the procession can walk in through the circle to the altar. And then we'll have a brief traditional ceremony. The ceremony will have some, the priests in the middle will do some bowing, and then there'll be the chanting of the Heart Sutra in English, and everyone, I think, will get a copy of that. So, the Eno, in a strong voice, will introduce

[25:11]

Great Wisdom, Beyond Wisdom, Heart Sutra, and a bong, and then we'll all start chanting. Avalokiteshvara, in perfect unison. This is the amazing thing about it. How we can do this every year, all these people who really have never done this before, don't know each other, can chant in perfect unison is amazing, but it happens every year, doesn't it? Avalokiteshvara, so we'll chant together, and you listen to other people chanting, so that you can not run ahead or slag behind. So we'll chant all that, while we're standing there, reading it from the cards, Avalokiteshvara, so forth, till we get to the end. Then when we get to the end, the bell will stop us, and then the Eno, again, will introduce to us another chant, which we don't need to read, because it's very short. And it goes, Om, Amid, Shakyamuni Buddha,

[26:11]

and then there'll be a bong, and then we'll all join in. Om, Amid, Shakyamuni Buddha, [...] Great, see? Easy. So while we're chanting, Om, Amid, Shakyamuni Buddha, at a certain point, soon after, when we get into it, then it'll be time to do the traditional circumambulation, because in the early sutras, it always said that when someone came to meet the Buddha, they would walk around the Buddha, with their right shoulder bared in the direction of the Buddha, so you walk around clockwise. So there'll be a Buddha on the altar, and a little baby Buddha in the pagoda, so we'll walk around then in a clockwise fashion,

[27:13]

again, in perfect, smooth, and graceful unison. How we do this every year, I'll never know, but somehow we manage to walk around there as if we were Buddhist monks, and have been doing this many lifetimes, just smoothly, perfectly going around together. Om, Amid, Shakyamuni Buddha, really getting into it, you know, remembering how great the Buddha is. Om, Amid, Shakyamuni. Well, as if all this weren't enough, on top of this, while we're doing that, some of our ushers and helpers will start bringing people in from the circle, going around, toward the little flower pagoda. And you can't see it from the distance, but when you get close up, you'll see that in this flower pagoda, covered with wildflowers and everything, inside there is a little statue of the baby Buddha going like this, pointing to the heavens and the earth. So, um, also there are some,

[28:16]

there's sweet tea. He's standing there surrounded by a moat. Sweet tea. So, when you come up to the baby Buddha, you make a bow, you take the ladle, you ladle up some sweet tea, and very mindfully, and with great respect and dignity, you pour a little bit of sweet tea to bathe the baby Buddha, and then put the ladle down, and bow, and step aside, and the next person comes. And we'll all take turns, kind of coming out from the circle, which is still going around and around, but with sweet tea. And there'll be a drum to give us timing as we circumambulate around. And this will go on for a while. I don't know how long, but a certain amount of time. And then, when it seems like it's been long enough, we'll stop. And even though you haven't had a chance to offer the sweet tea, even though we stopped, you can continue quietly. And then we'll chant a dedication,

[29:17]

we'll leave as it came in, with a little bell. And people can, throughout all this, keep offering the sweet tea. And that'll be the end of the ceremony. And after people, everybody who wants to, has had a chance to offer sweet tea, we'll remove everything out of the way, because then we're going to have the pageant, where we will actually, before your very eyes, you will see that you were actually born. It's true. It's marvelous. So, there should be, if everything goes according to plan, around the periphery of the lawn, these parasols, kind of marking an area. And you want to be on the other side of those parasols, because people will have picnic stuff. Maybe you'll stake out a place for yourself on the lawn. But we may be patient, so it's behind the line

[30:23]

of the umbrellas. But in case we have to move you around a little bit, please be patient with us, because we have to set up, we have a whole monastic orchestra. Oh, you should see. It's fabulous. They all have to set up, and all the actors and costumes and masks all have to get ready. So, that'll all be happening after the ceremony's over, and you're getting ready to go on the lawn. You have a part to play in this pageant, because at the end of every little vignette of the Buddha's birth, Martha's going to strike the big gong, and then everybody chants together, homage to the world-honored one, which is another epithet for the Buddha, the world-honored one. So, after, there are 18 stanzas of the poem and 18 vignettes, and after each one we all say, homage to the world-honored one.

[31:25]

Let's try that. Homage to the world-honored one. So, every time they strike the big gong, homage to the world-honored one, with feeling, you know. Homage to the world-honored one. And in that way, the whole thing will proceed flawlessly, no doubt. And then, when it's over, well, we don't know exactly what happens after that, but at some point it may be over. We don't know. So that's what we'll do today, and again, you know, please be patient and alert, and I think it'll be a smooth time. I think somewhere in there we'll serve a birthday cake for Buddha. Are we going to do that? Serve a birthday cake, yeah. So there'll be a birthday cake

[32:26]

and some drinks, but we can't make lunch for everybody because too many people. So I hope you brought a lunch. If not, everybody will be willing to share their lunch, so you can always get something to eat. I don't think you forgot anything. Okay. So that's about it. So, again, I'm really delighted to see all of you, and I'm glad that you're here. And I can't think of a nicer group of people to celebrate Buddha's birthday with. And thanks for your attention this morning. Thank you.

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