This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. So nice to be here this morning. This is new. I've never had this apparatus. I was told by Rosalie and Tova that the practice period has been studying the bodhisattvas, different bodhisattvas, and I wanted to talk about the practices of a particular bodhisattva and combining that with the study that the practice period at Green Gulch is doing on the Lotus Sutra.

[01:05]

So we have a class on the Lotus Sutra, and we're turning that teaching. How many of you are familiar with the Lotus Sutra, have read it? Actually, the chant that we just chanted that focuses the mind before a Dharma talk kind of comes from the Lotus Sutra, this teaching that... It's rare to hear the Dharma and focus and pay attention, listen. And there's many things from the Lotus Sutra that you may not know or from the Lotus Sutra that you're familiar with already. So the Bodhisattva I want to speak about is the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. Also... We know that Bodhisattva by many different names. In Japanese, Kanon or Kanzeon or Kanji Zai from the Heart Sutra.

[02:17]

In Chinese, Guan Yin or Guan Shi Yin Pusa. Kanzeon Bodhisattva, Guan Shi Yin Pusa. And in all different languages, there's the name of Avalokiteshvara. And the name means one who regards or sees deeply either the sounds, sounds of the world, or the cries of the world. The regardor of the cries of the world is the name of this bodhisattva. So this bodhisattva is sometimes depicted as male, sometimes as female. And whatever form this bodhisattva takes, the main practice is listening.

[03:18]

Listening and responding becomes one thing with this bodhisattva. So in the Lotus Sutra, for those of you who aren't so familiar with it, this sutra... was written or put down over many, many years and was finally in completion. The last chapter was added in about 500, maybe, in the 500s. But it was pretty much complete by about 200 A.D. But the Lotus Sutra, maybe more chapters will be added because it lends itself to further unfolding in our lives. And the kind of main teachings of it are, I would say, number one, the only reason that Buddhas appear in the world is out of a vow to help beings, to open beings to the teaching, to demonstrate the teaching, to help beings to realize and enter Buddha's way, the awakened way.

[04:31]

That's why Buddhas appear in the world. And the Lotus Sutra proclaimed this, that there's just one reason Buddhas appear, and it's this vow to help beings. And the second, maybe most important teaching of the Lotus Sutra is that the Buddha, the awakened ones, help beings with skillful means, upaya. Skillful means are skillful modes. And these skillful modes can look like, well, the Buddha is saying one thing to one group and another thing to another group. That's confusing. But the teaching of the Lotus Sutra is all the Buddha's teachings are skillful, meeting the needs of that audience, that gathering, those people at that time, at that phase of their practice. And when they're ready, there will be other teachings that will be given. So skillfully being attuned to what people need and teaching that teaching rather than having an agenda and just going down the list and the person has to be ready before certain teachings are given.

[05:55]

So... In Suzuki Roshi gave a series of lectures in 1968 and 69 about the Lotus Sutra. I don't think he got past Chapter 2. But there's many lectures. But it's okay that he only got to Chapter 2 because Chapter 2 is called, whatever translation you look at, either skillful modes, skillful means, tactfulness, it's translated as expedient means. And the skillful means is not some secondary way like there's the real thing and then there's skillful means. Skillful means is the way we teach, the way that the teaching happens. You can't actually say the ineffable, unnameable, unconceptualizable

[06:58]

Buddha Dharma. So we use concepts, we use words, we use stories, parables that meet someone to help them to open to the teaching. So skillful means is not a kind of secondary provisional thing waiting to get to the real deal. Skillful means is the way, is the Buddha Dharma way. So the one great reason Buddhas appear in the world, skillful means. And I guess another great teaching of the Lotus Sutra is the one vehicle. I think you know that there's the Mahayana, that means great yana is vehicle, and that whole school or movement came out of... a response to the way the old wisdom school had been, had developed, and in a kind of derogatory way, the Mahayana is called the old wisdom school, Hinayana, or small vehicle, but it had a kind of derogatory quality to it, a little bit of denigration.

[08:16]

So I like to call the old wisdom school, or Thich Nhat Hanh calls it source Buddhism, the earliest, Buddhism before it split into many, many different schools. So when the Buddha died, right before he died, he said to his disciples, you may want to dispense with the minor rules, and that's okay. You can dispense with them if you like. But he didn't say which ones they were, which were minor. So when they got together afterwards at a council, they realized they didn't know which ones he meant by minor, so they kept them all, until much later, when they met again, and the elder way, the Theravadan way, said, we're going to keep everything, we're not going to change a thing. And the Maha Sanghikas, kind of a more progressive group, thought, we're going to change some things. And then there became 18 different or more schools...

[09:21]

And out of this Mahasangika progressive school, probably from lay, from the lay practitioners, came the Mahayana. So all these different splits and schools and who's got the real teaching and which is better. And in the Lotus Sutra, all this comes together in a wonderful reconciliation. And the teaching is, there really is just one vehicle. the ekayana, the Buddha vehicle. There isn't small and large and all these different ways. That was just skillful means. That was just the Buddha taught in this way to these people until they were ready to know that there's just one vehicle, one great big ox cart vehicle, which is one of the parables, and everybody's on it. Everybody's on that one vehicle, and that vehicle... brings you to Buddhahood. And everybody, without exception, will fully manifest Buddhahood.

[10:29]

And the teaching of Buddha nature and so forth flowed from this. So those are maybe the three main teachings of, but there's more of the Lotus Sutra. The Lotus Sutra is, if you start reading it and find that it's not to your taste, close it respectfully and put it back because you may not find it. As someone asked Suzuki Roshi, why is the Lotus Sutra so fancy? There's all these stories and world systems and colors and robes floating in the air and parasols and pearled canopies. It's kind of like that. He said, why is it so fancy? Suzuki Roshi said, It's not fancy enough. So the teaching that the Lotus Sutra is revealing the unnameable, ungraspable, inconceivable Buddha Dharma.

[11:30]

The Lotus Sutra gives a good college try to try and, you know, reveal this. But as Suzuki Hiroshi said, it's not fancy enough. It's beyond, you know, our ability. But sometimes it's not to our taste. But this is, many Zen teachers have lauded and revered. Dogen in particular, the founder of this school in Japan, loved the Lotus Sutra, quoted it more than any other sutra, and advises us to make a copy of it in our lifetime. So chapter 25 of the Lotus Sutra is called the Universal Gateway of Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. And this chapter has been treated almost as its own sutra by itself called the Kwanin Sutra or the Kanon Sutra. And it's chanted daily, actually, in Japanese monasteries.

[12:33]

And we're chanting it for noon service at Green Gulch now. the verse section of it. And actually, this 25th chapter has marvelous, marvelous works and marvelous deeds of Avalokiteshvara. This bodhisattva, the Avalokiteshvara is the bodhisattva of infinite compassion. Everyone is enveloped in this compassion And you don't have to be good. You don't have to be anything except who you are. And there is compassion flowing to you. This is this teaching of Avalokiteshvara. And it's not just compassion. It's a combination of wisdom and compassion completely together, but expressed as compassion.

[13:37]

listening to the cries of the world and responding to the cries of the world. So we're in this particular chapter 25. There's all these deeds of Avalokiteshvara. And some of you know Akiba Roshi. When he was at Tasara for a practice period, I think a three-month practice period, he was asked by someone, what were the differences between being in a Japanese temple and being at Tassahara. And, you know, what did you miss? And the person thought he might say, oh, I miss the way the monks in Japan all live together and eat together and sleep and everything all in one room or something. They expected him to say something. But what he said was, I miss chanting Chapter 25 of the Lotus Sutra every day. That's what he missed. And it does grow on you that... this chapter, the universal gateway.

[14:45]

It's a universal gateway to what? What is a gateway? What are we opening up to? What are we going into? And it's universal, meaning everybody can enter, without exception, the gateway to liberation, freedom, peace, compassionate action, This is a wide, wide gate, and it's universal. This is the universal gateway of Avalokiteshvara. And what is that universal gateway? It's compassion. It's a compassionate response to whatever comes up. It's universal. We can always take up compassion and love in whatever situation. Even when, and that's what this chapter 25 says. For example, even if someone with harmful intent should push you into a fiery pit, by mindfully invoking Avalokiteshvar's power, the pit of fire will turn into a pool.

[15:54]

Now you might say, wait, we hold everything. I don't like that. This is... And you can... My way of working with this particular chapter is both, you can do it literally, and I think literally it might work, but also metaphorically, who can push you into a fiery pit? And I think the fiery pit can mean the fire of anger, resentment, rage. Has anyone said something where your response is like, All of a sudden you're in a fiery pit and you're in there. How are you going to get out? And what do you do when you're in a fiery pit? Do you retaliate? Do you bring anger up and yell back or hurt somebody? What do you do when you're in a fiery pit? Chapter 25 of the Lotus Sutra, by mindfully invoking Avalokiteshvara's power.

[16:57]

What is that power? The power of compassion. and listening, and understanding. This is the power. This is power. And that pit of fire will turn into a pool, a kind of cool pool of water. You can, like, bathe yourself in compassion for yourself, for being so upset and hurt and frightened, to call on Avalokiteshvara. Call on infinite compassion. for yourself, for another. And the pit of fire will, the fiery pit will turn into a pool. Now, this is the power. This is why it's a universal gateway. It doesn't say you don't become angry or don't fall into fiery pits. It says, call for help. Call on compassion to meet you there.

[17:59]

And what will you find is, a kind of freedom to move. In the fiery pit, we don't have that many options. It's pretty narrow. And often we get hurt and others get hurt. So the universal gateway of compassion, there's freedom there. We can find our, you know, come back to ourselves, find our calm, our composure, peace, and then move from there. So this particular, chapter 25, Suzuki Roshi talks about his mother. He learned this by hearing his mother chant it when he was a little boy. She would be in the house, which was the temple, doing work or whatever she was doing, and she had a rather hard life, Suzuki Roshi's mother.

[19:01]

It was at the time when... in the Meiji period when priests were first pretty much, I don't know what the word is for, and joined, strongly directed to marry, but the lay community hadn't quite accepted it. But for political reasons, the Meiji government wanted priests to marry and to break up certain power structures. So this is a very big, cultural change, and it wasn't really accepted by people. So they had kind of a hard time. The temple, the wives of temple priests at that time knew, and they were very poor. There weren't that many donations. And so she had a hard life. And Suzuki, she said their house was so poor that they couldn't fix the roof, and they had to have umbrellas inside the house. The rain could come in on the tatami mats.

[20:03]

So she would chant this, you know, hearing the name or seeing the form of Avalokiteshvara with mindful remembrance is not in vain, for the woes of existence can thus be relieved. And she would chant this. And he didn't like this. He thought his mother was superstitious. Why is she chanting, you know... if pursued by evildoers down from Diamond Mountain by mindfully invoking Avalokiteshvara's power, they could not harm a single hair. You know, there's verse after verse of things that can happen to you. And if you think of it literally, bandits coming with swords drawn to strike. Anyway, he thought as a little boy she was superstitious and was calling on some supernatural power to help her deal with her life.

[21:05]

But later, when he grew older and understood her suffering and what she was facing, he understood how she called upon Avalokiteshvara for solace, for help, for peace. calling on compassion. And this calling on compassion, you know, I want to be clear about this. There's the personification of infinite compassion which has been, you know, many, many images have been created throughout the ages of what compassion looks like. And many of the images are, well, like Tara Buddha, here is a compassionate image, you know, this calm, open. This one is with her leg ready to step down. So Tara Buddha, this is green Tara, very similar to Avalokiteshvara or Guanyin Kanon.

[22:12]

When you call and ask for help, she's not sitting in full lotus. Her leg is undone, so she's ready to go fast, quick, fast. to come and meet you so you can imagine these images and they can be practice images for you to conceptualize what does infinite compassion look like it does take form it takes form and it can take any form that you want so for his mother to call upon this kind of help he understood later And if we call upon, by mindfully invoking the name, mindfully invoking the image, imagining infinite compassion filling us, animating us, that we speak from infinite compassion, that we have the capacity to be infinite compassion.

[23:20]

This is not a bodhisattva floating around in heaven or something. This is, Avalokiteshvar takes form in each one of us. And this is part of chapter 25. There's a long list for you, which says, if you need, for those who need someone in the body of a Buddha, Avalokita Kanon and Kwan Yin will manifest in the body of the Buddha and teach the Dharma for them. So the Buddha is this Bodhisattva too, if you need it to be. For those who need someone in the body of a lay woman, Avalokita Shvara will take the body of a lay woman and teach the Dharma for them. For those who need... someone in the body of... And then it lists 33 different things.

[24:24]

Human, inhuman, dragons, boys, girls, laywoman, layman, a wife, a minister, whatever you need, whatever you need compassion to take that form, Guan Yin, Kanon, will take that form and teach the Dharma to you. That's this teaching that... Compassion takes any form that you need, and you can call upon it. You can call out. This is one of the vows in the Avatamsaka Sutra that Avaluki Teshvara makes, that if anyone calls my name, I will come. I will respond. Just call. Now, if you think of that literally, it's like, wait a minute, wait a minute, I don't like this. It sounds like a fairy tale or something. But in actuality, when we get to the place where we need to call on compassion, help, please help me.

[25:31]

Many of you know, I know, when you get to that place where you call for help, there is a response. And it will take the form. It could take any form. The most unlikely form. You know, someone that a stranger that you hear talking about their life, perhaps, you will be met, you will be transformed. So this is the inner meaning of this. And, of course, in popular culture in East Asia, in particular China, and Kanon, Akwanyin, is the most popular bodhisattva, more than Chakyamuni Buddha. the devotion and the number of images and the way when people ask for help, they ask infinite compassion and trust that compassion will meet them. But compassion takes the form of anything.

[26:35]

So if you need it in the form of a Buddha, it'll be a Buddha. If you need it in the form of a dog or a cat or a little baby or you name it, But part of the practice is that we ask, that we call. That's our embodying of our own listening for ourselves in our own heart. When we need help, are we listening to ourselves? This is infinite compassion's practice. Do we hear our own cry? The cries of the world. our self and other. So when we call for help or ask for help or call on compassion, we are actually embodying the regarder of the cries of the world, which is God's name, God's name, hearing the cries of the world, hearing our own cries.

[27:38]

So the practice of listening to oneself is calling. You can't really... Separate that. Call and response come up together. So just, you know, remembering whatever you needed. And this is also skillful means. Bodhisattvas practice skillful means. So whatever someone needs, they'll speak that language, wear that outfit to be able to be accepted. They'll blend in. in order to skillfully be heard, be accepted, be ready to be part of. This is a wonderful way to practice with situations. So...

[28:44]

So I wanted to read a little bit more of this chapter 25 for you. And I wanted to talk about fear a little bit. This is one of the verses. If you meet evil creatures, poisonous dragons or various demons, by mindfully invoking Avalokiteshvara's power, none will dare to harm you. If surrounded by raging beasts, with sharp fangs and dreadful claws, by mindfully invoking Avalokiteshvara's power, they will quickly scatter in all directions. Often, a lot of fear comes up, and sometimes when we begin to practice, we are surrounded by raging beasts or poisonous dragons, our own inner... population of demons and dragons and inner speech and harsh language, critical language, that's like fangs, you know.

[30:04]

People sometimes, when I'm in Doksan, I'm sitting in front of a... This angle is... Sitting in front of a person sincerely practicing, a beautiful person, not... I mean beautiful because of the sincerity of their heart, and they are telling me what a loathsome and horrible person they are, you know? And it's like, you know, that kind of speech, that inner speech, like fangs, sharp fangs, and poisonous demons, you know? And how do you, you can't say to somebody, stop it, you know, just stop thinking that way, that doesn't work, you know? But to listen, And, you know, call on mindful, mindfully invoking, calling on infinite compassion. And, you know, eventually people slowly, slowly can call on it themselves.

[31:14]

And the... it will scatter in all directions, this kind of inner demons and so forth. Or, at the sound of your voice, they will turn and depart. That's another one. By mindfully invoking avalokiteshvara power of infinite compassion, this kind of inner dialogue will return to, you know, will turn and depart at the sound of your voice. The voice, what kind of voice? The voice of compassion, rather than getting caught in that. So these are practices for embodying our own calm, clarity, and compassion, starting with ourselves and then allowing it to spread to everyone we meet and allowing everyone we meet, which is also Lotus Sutra, to be...

[32:18]

Avalokiteshvara for us. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dormer.

[32:50]

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