Good morning. How's the sound? Good? Ah. So wonderful. We've had these marvelous rains come in at the end of spring. So refreshing. Apparently it was a little too refreshing for the Eno, so we're going to be doing our Buddhist birthday celebration in the Zendo instead of going across into the park. I see many familiar faces and some new faces. Is there anyone here for the first time? Welcome. Welcome. to Beginner's Mind Temple. I don't know if you knew that you were coming for a birthday party.

[01:01]

Anyway, that's what you came for. It's Buddha's birthday today. It's a special day. We're going to have a ceremony after this talk, just 15 minutes after the talk ends. And I'm going to talk a little bit about the ceremony, so I won't say more about that. There are three important days in Buddha's life that we commemorate. Buddha's birthday, which we celebrate in the springtime, which is a good time to celebrate a birthday, and Buddha's enlightenment, which we celebrate near December 8th here in this temple, and Buddha's parinirvana, his death, which is usually around February 15th. Buddha's birthday is a favorite because it is about birth, and renewal, and springtime, and flowers, and cake.

[02:04]

It's a good thing to be celebrating. And the Tens was informing me we will have a lemon bar cake. I'm very curious about that, so I'm not quite sure how that's going to be. So I encourage all of you to stay for the ceremony, stay for lunch, and have some birthday cake. You're all invited. So this week, I think it was April 4th, was the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's death, which I was reminded of in some fashion throughout the week. And it reminded me of the year 1968, which was 50 years ago. I was a graduate student finishing my master's degree in mathematics at the University of New Mexico. And, I mean, I was finishing my master's degree, but I also was quite involved with all the university turmoil that was going on at that time. Many of you are too young to know much about this, but it was a time of great cultural turmoil in America.

[03:13]

The Vietnam War was raging. The campuses were all protesting against that. The Civil Rights Movement was in full force. The environmental movement had just started. We were holding campus environmental days discussing what the fate of the planet was gonna be. There was the women's right movement. There was the anti-nuclear movement. There was hardly any time to study mathematics. And then Martin Luther King's assassination sort of struck to the core of our optimism And soon after that, I think Bobby Kennedy was running for the presidency. And Bobby Kennedy had been a force in the civil rights movement and also one of the leading people to come out against the anti-war, in favor of the anti-war movement and against the Vietnam War. And he was a real voice for that.

[04:14]

And he happened to come to the University of New Mexico and give a speech just before going to California and being assassinated. And I was so inspired by his speech, I said, yes, we could elect him president and we could turn this thing around. I remember, I think this is, I'm not sure if this is a quote from that speech or another one. He said, I don't think that we have to shoot each other, to beat each other, to curse each other, and criticize each other. I think we can do better in this country. And that is why I'm running for president of the United States. And then he was assassinated about a week later. And it sort of threw me, you know, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy. I mean, it had only been four years earlier that Jack Kennedy, the president, had been assassinated. And I was just, what do we do? What do I do? So I spent a couple of years investigating

[05:16]

pondering that question about what kind of a life one should leave. How can one be helpful in the midst of all of this chaos? And that basically landed me at Tassara in the summer of 1970, and I met Suzuki Roshi. And I was looking for an authentic way to live a life in the midst of the turmoil of the world. And I now believe 50 years later and came to believe there after spending four years living at Tassara that practice is essential to developing the character needed to live a helpful life. To have some composure and some joy in the midst of this turmoil. And to act out of compassion for the suffering of others. So... I think the world needs more love, to put it simply.

[06:18]

And I don't think the injustice and violence will end in this world until there is more compassion and love for each other. And this is the teaching of the Buddha. And I believe it's as relevant today as it was when I first took this path 50 years ago. And at the same time, in the midst of a world that is filled with war and violence, oppression, natural disasters of all sorts, we still need to find joy in our lives and celebrate our lives together. In the midst of our suffering and difficulties, our practice is to touch joy, to express joy. Suzuki Roshi was a man of great joy. And so... I think we should have a joyous birthday celebration today.

[07:20]

And that was probably too serious an introduction to a birthday celebration, but I felt it was appropriate. They party with balloons, flowers, and cake. So the name Buddha means the awakened one. It comes from the root Buddha, to awake. So Buddhism is the practice of being awake and fully present in our life. When Buddha attained enlightenment under the bow tree, he said, I and all beings on earth together attain enlightenment at the same time. Enlightenment is another translation of the word bodhi, again meaning awakening.

[08:23]

After he spent 49 years teaching, never staying in seclusion, he taught at over 360 assemblies and then entrusted the treasury of the Eye of Truth to his disciple Maha Kishapa, and its transmission has continued to the present from India to China, Tibet, Southeast Asia, Korea, Japan, Europe, and America. So this is a celebration of a teacher who taught how to be awake and lived an awake, compassionate, and ethical life. And his first realization and fundamental teaching is that each one of us has the nature of an awakened life. That in our core, compassion is our response to the world, our deepest response to the suffering of the world. We may not feel that. or understand that, or always be in touch with it, or believe it.

[09:25]

But awakened nature is our birthright. Through our practice, we express and fulfill our awakened life. So in some sense, this is our birthday too. It's our birthday also. So happy birthday, everybody. Ah. So this ceremony is a chance to honor our own true awakened nature. And we do this not just on our yearly ceremony, but we do it basically almost every day. Each morning when we offer flower petals at this altar and bow with this beautiful statue of Buddha. And what a marvelous presence he, she has. such a sense of peace as our birthright, such a sense of capacity to sit upright in the midst of our difficulties.

[10:35]

So having a beautiful statue like this resonates with our own awakened nature. So in Japan, Buddha's birthday is celebrated on April 8th. Hana Matsuri, flower festival, practically a national holiday in Japan. All the temples open and people pour sweet tea over the baby Buddha. And it usually coincides with the blossoming of Japan's many cherry trees. It's supposed to be quite a party. I've never been there then, but eventually maybe I'll find my way to Japan at Hana Matsuri. Here at City Center, we celebrate Buddha's birthday on the nearest Saturday to April 8th. which is today, April 7th. So I'm going to talk a little bit about the ceremony. So we'll gather outside of the Buddha Hall 15 minutes after the lecture ends, and we'll process down to the zendo and circumambulate around the baby Buddha statue, which will be in the center of the zendo, and we'll be chanting the Heart Sutra.

[11:42]

The baby Buddha will be under a canopy of flowers, and as we pass, we will ladle some water on him as an act of purification and renewal. The baby Buddha will have one hand pointing up to the sky and one hand pointing down to the earth. As you ladle sweet water on him, take a look at the baby Buddha. I'll say more about that mudra or that posture that he has later in my talk. because it's one of the things I want to talk about. But first I thought a little bit I'd talk about circumambulation, because I kind of got interested in it. You know, circumambulating temples and deity images is an integral part of Hindu and Buddhist devotional practice. I think it's in all the other religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam. In fact, we sort of reenact that kind of idea of a circumambulation every morning here in this temple.

[12:45]

We call it a jundo. So it's a ritual circuit. The doshi starts off on the second floor and visits four altars on his way to the zendo, the kaisando, where Suzuki Roshi's room is, is an offer to our founding ancestor, come down to the Buddha hall, we go to the kitchen, the hallway altar, the Buddha hall, and then we end up in the zendo, and then the doshi does the circumambulation of the entire zendo, greeting all of the students in the morning. It's a wonderful way to start a day. kind of mutual acknowledgement of our practice together. So, you know, I was thinking, we're pretty early on in figuring out how to celebrate Buddha's birthday here in America.

[13:51]

I mean, it was like only 50 years. And I looked up, and in 1965 on April 8th in the California Bay Area, the first circumambulation of Mount Tamalpais to celebrate Buddha's birthday was conducted. Hundreds of individuals participated, some sleeping overnight in Muir Woods, to enable an early start up the Dipsy Trail. The session was led by Gary Schneider, Alan Ginsberg, and Philip Whelan, a person who eventually became a Zen priest here at Zen Center and lived out his whole life here. It involved chanting at different mantras at every station in a clockwise circumambulation 15 miles of Mount Tam. One of my neighbors in Mill Valley has led the circumambulation apparently 140 times since that event. He really got into it and wrote a book about it as a ritual walk.

[14:53]

Gary Snyder was inspired to do this when he was in Japan and learned of monks that did 1,000-day circumambulation practices of 20 miles per day around Mount Hiei. John Stevens coined the term marathon monks. Apparently, at the early days, circumanulation was a practice that was in India in early times and assimilated from Vedic tradition by the Buddhists who, before speaking to Buddha, walked around him three times with their right side towards him as a sign of veneration. Later, it became a common practice to circulate the stupas which were raised over Buddha's relics. In time and through the influence of pantheatic folk traditions, mountains became the... Thank you, Sarah. get excited when I think about circumambulating mountains.

[15:59]

But isn't it interesting, you know, you started by the idea of you would circumambulate Buddha as a sign of respect and then you would circumambulate temples that were the place where Buddhist practices can, and then for some reason mountains became a symbol of that same kind of temple iconic practice. And I've circumambulated a lot of mountains. In fact, when I was writing this, I thought, wow, what was the last one I did? And it was the Tre Cime in Italy. It's these beautiful three towers that sit up there, and it's a six-mile walk around it. It's in the Dolomiti area of Italy. If you ever get to the Dolomitis, make sure that you circumambulate the Tre Cime. Do it in autumn when it's not so crowded. and the air is clear. That's circumambulating a mountain or any circumambulation is recreating the quest that Buddha went on in search of truth.

[17:09]

It's a physical recreation of that effort to climb to a life of wisdom and compassion. So, Somehow, when we are in our very crowded window circulating around, imagine that you're recreating that quest in your life for awakening, for renewal, for finding your authentic life. So, maybe I should say a few words about Buddha's birth, since it is his birthday. Most, the sort of The common age for when Buddha was born is 563 BC, and in the dedication that we do at the end of our ceremony downstairs, we will use that number to say how long it has been since Buddha was born. You know, there was no written documents back then, and so later historians have claimed, no, it was really 450 BC.

[18:18]

And then other... people have said, no, it was 485 BC. And so I would say, you know, plus or minus 100 years, we're in the right category. And of course, what can one know about his actual life, given that there wasn't anything written, there was no writing for 300 years until after he died. So there's, you know, various historical versions of it. And then there's legends. So I'm gonna give you just a few paragraphs from a legend because that's sort of more fun than the dry speculation about what his life was like. So apparently this legend was called a poem, an epic poem, The Buddha Karita or Acts of the Buddha, which was written by Asva Gosa around 100 AD, apparently over 600 years after he was born. and it was translated by E.H. Johnson in 1936. It's amazing that anything survived from something that was written that long ago.

[19:27]

Apparently it was written on some sort of palm leaves, but enough of it survived and enough of the palm leaves were translated into Tibetan and Chinese that we actually have a pretty good translation of that poem. So just a few things. Buddha's father was the king of the shakyas. And as you can imagine in such a legend, he was, quote, pure in conduct and beloved of his people and as beloved of his people as the moon in autumn. This is the kind of father we all want to have. And Buddha's mother was Maya, whose splendor corresponded to the might of Sudhana, to the father. So she was as splendid as he was mighty. and they wanted to have a child. Of course, this is a legend, so before she conceived, she saw in her sleep a white lord of elephants entering her body, yet she felt no pain. In various other renditions, that was portrayed as a six-tusked white elephant that entered the side of her body.

[20:35]

That's how they got impregnated back then. When she was near birth, she set out to give birth at her father's house, and along the way she saw a beautiful grove called Lumbini, full of trees of every kind. In that gorgeous grove, the queen perceived that the time of her delivery was at hand. From the side of the queen, a son was born for the wheel of the world without her suffering pain or illness. He appeared as if he had descended from the sky. He was born not ignorant, but fully conscious. At his birth, the earth nailed down as it was with the king of mountains, trembled like a ship struck by the wind, and from the cloudless sky there fell a shower perfumed with sandalwood and bringing blue and pink lotuses. With glory, fortitude, and beauty, he shone like the young sun descended upon the earth.

[21:51]

When he was gazed at, though of such surpassing brightness, he attracted all eyes like the moon. Maybe this is what all babies look like, really. I think that's what most mothers and fathers tell me upon that event. He did have this extra special quality, though. Unfurled with a lotus sign in high relief, far striding, set down with a stamp, seven such firm footsteps did he then take. So he got up and took seven footsteps, obviously very permission. What is he? Talented? Precocious, very precocious young walker. And he put his hand, one hand up, pointed to heaven and one hand down and pointed to the earth and says, above the sky and below the earth, I alone am the world honored one.

[22:58]

Not only could he walk, but he could talk. So you wonder, well, this is a little presumptuous, possibly, to make that statement. But I'm going to talk a little bit about what I think is at the core of that statement. And I'm going to do it by sharing a few thoughts from a Suzuki Roshi talk. This talk is titled The Teaching is Just for You, and it's in that book called Not Always So. Quote, we have this idea that our practice will improve day by day and it will help our health and our mental condition. This is true, but it is not a complete understanding. You have that idea, don't you? That your practice will improve day by day and it will help your health and mental condition?

[24:04]

And this is true. It will. You will feel better if you practice. If you sit zazen every day, if you have a sangha that you can meet with once a week that will encourage you, and if you can maybe once a year do a longer retreat to deepen your practice, you will feel better. Your life will go better. Things will be better. That's my opinion and my recommendation. But Tzu Kriyashal says, We also do zazen with the understanding that the goal is not reached in one or two years, but is right here. Here is the goal of practice. When you practice with this understanding, you take care of many things and you remain concentrated, completely involved in the practice you have right now. You know, the various forms we have around here in the temple help us with this. Your awakened mind is here right now.

[25:09]

Isn't this a wonderful idea? This comes from a Dogen, which he expressed beautifully in the Genjo Koan, the koan of everyday life. Koans, you know what koans are. They're all those famous Zen stories that don't make any sense. But it's basically a Zen meditation object that will illuminate us if we stay with it. So the Genjo Koan is the koan of our human life. The koan of every moment that arises. Every moment that arises, there's a koan. There's a question. A question about what is going on here. What is going on in this moment? There is more depth and mystery in each moment of life than we can possibly understand. here and then it's gone. And then it's here and then it's gone.

[26:12]

Whatever problem we have or issue thorny relationship aging body and mind troubled heart strange almost unidentifiable unidentifiable longing whatever is chewing at our lives that is what you practice with Suzuki Roshi this is one of my famous sayings many of you have heard it before but I love it so much Suzuki Roshi used to say to us he would look at us and say sometimes I think you think your problems are more important than the fact that you are alive Sometimes I think you think your problems are more important than the fact that you're alive. Don't you think that sometimes?

[27:17]

Oh my God, I've got this horrible problem. I've got to solve this problem. Then I can live my life once I get through this problem. No. No, this problem is your life at that moment. And if you go into the depth of that problem, you will find everything. you will find that your problem is not just your problem. Your problem is a human problem. It is the problem of all human beings. And when you can get to the depth of that and understand that, you will live a life that is helpful to people. And you will make every moment of your life alive and full. Turn toward every moment like that is the essence of religious practice. So Sikuroshi goes on and says, you may say my practice is not good enough to feel the goal or the full meaning right now.

[28:24]

But even though you say that your practice is not good enough, there is no other practice for you right now. Good or bad, it is your practice. This is your life, whether you like it or not. And it is just what you need. I think people sometimes say, oh, you've practiced a long time. I think practicing a long time gets you to the place where you can accept the karma of your life. Each one of us has a karmic life coming from the first reptile that crawled out of the water onto the land through the culture we were raised in, through the parents that raised us. And that is our life to live. And the first step is to accept that. Sikhi Roshi says, to approach perfect practice, there is no other way than to accept yourself.

[29:30]

To say your practice is bad does not help your practice. To say your practice is excellent does not help your practice. Your practice is your practice. You are talking about it in various ways, good or bad, that is all. We have so many comments in our head about our practice, don't we? Oh, it's so good, it's so bad, it's so whatever. It always has almost nothing to do with your life. I remember one of my, my teacher that gave me transmission, when he was getting transmission from his teacher, Mel Weitzman, he said to Mel, I'm doing this just to sort of finish something, Mel. I'm never going to teach at all. Soon after that, he and I got together. We founded Vimo Sangha in Mill Valley. He ended up teaching, ordaining five people, giving transmission to three people. Later on, he ran to Mel and said, Mel, you know, I told you I was never going to teach. And he said, oh, I never listen to what people tell me. You know, it's true, you know.

[30:34]

Young people, I met I met a guy, I'm not going to have a child. I'm not a father type. Not for me. Two years later, he's carrying around this baby all sappy-eyed, just goo-goo, you know, life, you know, just gone, you know. We don't know, especially about the important things, the really important things. Our thinking almost has nothing to do with what's going on. Just a comment there about a certain amount of skepticism one needs to have about your thinking and especially that you're thinking about what your where your practice is and what where it's going so so gracious says even though your practice is not so good it is perfect practice just sit truth is always here the truth of your practice is always here is a little bit of a long quote, but I'll read it because I think it is really beautiful.

[31:39]

But just to say so when you're not actually practicing the truth is what we call a painted cake, a picture of a cake that you cannot eat. Various ancestors and great sages of Buddhism have said, Buddha left this teaching just for me, not for anyone else. If that side is forgotten, the Buddha's teaching is nothing but waste paper. Just for me is not arrogance. It means you have full appreciation of the teachings as your own. That is the spirit we need in our zazen practice. Because I practice zazen, there is Buddhist teaching. You realize that you are the only being in this world and no one can take over your position. No one can live your life for you. This is true. All the teaching is just for you. If you don't practice Buddhism, Buddhism doesn't get practiced.

[32:42]

But whatever you say about yourself, you are the only one. You cannot escape because the whole world is yours. That is direct from Suzuki Roshi. You cannot escape this fact. You're alive and you have been given a human life. And it is your responsibility to live it. That's what he meant when he put his hands up and said, I am the world honored one. You are the world honored one. You are the one who needs to live your life. This always happens to me. I don't know why. I'm too ambitious, I think. I had a whole koan to tell you about the world honored one, twirls of flower. But I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to get to it. So, when you pour the sweet water over the baby Buddha statue, this is a moment in your life.

[33:56]

Think about it. Remember, you're the only one that can renew your life. That you can turn your life around. turn your suffering into happiness and joy. I might make a quick comment about the Heart Sutra. You'll be chanting the Heart Sutra as we circumambulate around. And of course, for many of you, you've spent years studying the Heart Sutra. The Heart Sutra is a very concise summary of a very large wisdom sutra text. 8,000 lines or 80,000 lines of different versions. I spent an entire practice period at Tasara sort of deconstructing that sutra, that one-page sutra, the Heart Sutra. But in summary, it's the summary of the wisdom teaching of emptiness or the boundlessness of our life.

[34:57]

And when you can come to touch with your being, or understand with your being the boundless nature of your life and of reality itself, you can free yourself from your suffering. And you can be helpful to people in the world. So for you that have never chanted the Heart Sutra, just chant it. Just listen to it. Who knows what you'll think about it? Enjoy it, whether you would understand it or not. It's a good thing to chant. And I will save the world honored one twirls a flower for my next talk. And I invite all of you to, I can't, I still have five minutes left, I believe. Since I have five minutes left, I'm just gonna just sort of wave my hands at this.

[36:03]

I mean, it is Buddha, right? There's only about three koans that feature Buddha as the central character. This is one of the most important ones. Here it goes. Once in ancient times when Buddha was on Vulture Peak, that's where he taught from, he twirled a flower before the assembly. All were silent. Only Maha Kashapa broke into a smile. Kind of like Allison's smile. Buddha said, I have the eye treasury of the true Dharma the subtle heart of nirvana, the true form of no form, and the flawless gate of this teaching. It is not established upon words and phrases. It is a special transmission outside the tradition. I now entrust it to Mahakashapa. Beautiful. That's what Buddha said to Mahakashapa, and that was, this story is considered the first of the transmission of the teaching from

[37:05]

the teacher to a student and has continued on to this day to here in America by Suzuki Roshi. So this is... Buddha's teaching has been passed down warm hand to warm hand to us here in this room and to much of the world. This is freely given to you to ease your suffering and awaken your heart. So that's the first... element of that story. The second element is the story of authority. How do you get authority? So in our society, you get authority by getting your degree from a university, getting a title at a company. There's all kinds of ways that we get authorized. And yet, I think in many ways, we don't quite feel authorized enough Do we really feel like we have the authority to run our life?

[38:10]

Isn't there some kind of nagging that all those certificates, all those degrees, all those sanctions by other people have not quite satisfied your need for authority? We need to be the authors of our own life. authentic and feel authentic. And we're willing to endure a lot of hardship to get there. And how do we feel that authority in our own life? So this story is an instance of the conferring of real authority, not by Buddha to Mahakashapa, but between Buddha and Mahakashapa, reality conferring authority on itself. Between them there is a trust, the kind of trust that begins and ends with each of us recognizing the suchness of our existence and standing on that ground, coming out to meet another.

[39:23]

So it is again... There is just my life and my willingness to see my life as it is and meet it moment after moment. Unless I am willing to meet it and be met, I have no authority at all. Do you understand what I'm saying there? Just your life. Just you as you are. Be in it and be willing to reveal yourself and meet another person. That's all the authority. So, I made it. Thank you very much. Usually one can give an entire lecture on that koan, which I will at some point in time again. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[40:26]

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.

[40:48]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_95.05