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. Good morning. So hello and welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple. My name is, for people that don't know me, Mark Lancaster, and my Dharma name is Virtuous Field True Spirit. It's kind of like a confirmation name, similar to a Christian confirmation name. So it's a name we work with at some point when we receive ordination or lay ordination. This is available to everybody, so you can have one of these names. if you want. I currently live next door in the next building with my wife, and we both work for San Francisco Zen Center, and I was thinking of how I would define myself an American Buddhist priest trying to figure this out, trying to understand what this practice is in my life.

[01:22]

And I just want to say, if you don't know me and you see me, and you run into me, please say hi. I'm always interested in meeting new people, and so say hello to me and ask me questions, and I might ask you questions too, see what we can learn. Beginner's mind means that you are welcome to explore as deeply and completely the practice. We call this the practice at Zen Center. When I thought of that word, I thought it sounds like a very serious TV show, the practice. You know? But what I mean is the opportunity to see into your own life how it's constructed and who's constructing it, what the material of the phenomena of your own life is. And in that process, you can become free or you can begin to experience freedom in some space in your own life. So this is the practice.

[02:24]

seeing for yourself in your lives, wherever you are, that your life and the events around them are not solid metaphysical states separate from you. They're conditioned. They're dependent. They can't sustain themselves or create themselves. They're relative. So to see into this situation in that way is the gateway to freedom. and ease. There is no other way. I believe that right now. Somebody asked me, why are you a Buddhist? And I said, well, for today I am. If there were something better, I would do that. But this is the best I can find, the best way of making this inquiry, this way of leading my life. But we should always continue to ask, what is it? How is it working? Now this insight into the situation of your life is not uncommon or rare, but it's immediately available to you.

[03:32]

So, you know, if this kind of way of looking and exploring your life sounds interesting, come on in. Come on in. And you can do this exploration in whatever job, lifestyle, or relationship that you find yourself involved in. when you when you undertake this commitment to let go and be willing to give up this belief in solidity and separation we say that you are now on the path of renunciation you've left home okay you've left home and it's a continual process of letting go our model for this home leaving or this aspect of seeing clearly and not being buffaloed anymore, is a man we call Buddha or Siddhartha Gautama. Now he's better known as Buddha, which means to be awake or wakening, maybe wakening, the activity of wakening.

[04:42]

It doesn't end. He denied any absolute states like success and failure, birth and death as being excessive conclusions. So awakening is a continuation. He described leading this life as developing wholesome fruit. Not success, but developing wholesome fruit. It's continual, this activity, this effort. When asked who he was after he was beginning to wake up, or did wake up, he said, and saw the nature of the construction of his life, actually he described it as... House builder, I've seen your face. No longer will you construct this edifice. I know you now for myself. This is done. This activity is done now. When asked who he was, he said, Neither deity nor man, but awake. The activity of being awake. And there are many enlightened acts, and I think...

[05:47]

You know, during his lifetime, there were hundreds of people that were arhats that he said had gained the same insight as he. They're all around us, these people. Many walks of life practice in this way, with wholesome activity. So don't make it too special, this state. It's accessible. Don't make it inaccessible to yourself. So we study this model, the life of Siddhartha. a human being called Buddha. And Siddhartha means, it's an auspicious name. His name actually was Siddhartha Gautama, he who hits what he aims for, he who achieves his goal. And Gautama was the clan name of his family in southwestern Nepal. So today we're going to celebrate here at San Francisco Zen Center. And then tomorrow, I think it's tomorrow in Japan.

[06:49]

I think we decided tomorrow in Japan, we're going to celebrate. Well, I have it clocked at 2. I looked it up yesterday. I think we came to 2.30 a.m. So in Japan, they're still sleeping for another, I would guess, seven hours. But it is tomorrow. Good. I wasn't sure if it was yesterday, but I had some help. In any event, Hanamatsuri is the day or celebration of flowers that's celebrated on April 8th in Japan, and we're celebrating it here today together, marking the birth of Siddhartha Gotama. And... in other countries other uh it often follows a lunar calendar so in south asia it would be the fourth to the sixth month fifth to the sixth month and in china the fourth month and then i guess in japan the gregorian calendar is used so it's fixed to our our dating sequence so we'll celebrate it on april 8th um and we're going to honor or do this celebration by

[08:02]

considering the practice, but considering the practice also in connection with a pageant. So after this lecture, we're going to walk to Koshlin Park together, and there'll be balloons, what else, green grass, laughter, flowers, parasols, bubbles. This, we say, is wholesome activity. This is how we practice wholesomely together. We choose to do this. We're not forced to do this. We choose to do this, to engage in wholesome activity. So we have fun. We have fun together, and that's okay. So if you want to, you're all welcome to stay and have fun with us at Kaushland Park. And then afterwards, we'll come back here for a lunch. As I was thinking about the talk, I thought, there's a phrase that I hear, and I just have to be honest with you, Buddha nature is not a phrase I use or actually understand.

[09:06]

So this talk will tend to lean more to the person, the conditions of this person's life. I'll talk a little bit more about what I know of Siddhartha and relate it to the different sutras that were left. Sutras are... combined or collected teachings four or five hundred years after Buddha's death that were collections of what he said, and he talked a lot about his life and the people he knew, his wife, his son, his father. So I'll kind of relate it back to these sutras. Because I don't know what Buddha nature, I'm not saying there is no such thing, I'm just saying I don't quite know what it is, but you can ask other people what it is, or you can ask yourself and explore it for yourself. okay so this is not this is a conditional saying I don't know tomorrow is Easter show this so I wanted to mention this Jesus Christ in the same breath you know both of these people so Jesus Christ tomorrow rises from the dead transcends birth and death

[10:21]

I don't want to necessarily get into drawing parallels. That's a big talk between Christianity and Buddhism. Enough to say that both of these people are what I call personal beings. They're people that have access to what we would call the absolute or the eternal sometimes, an access that they both have and at the same time they live as human beings, the Word made flesh in Christianity. or Nirmanakaya in Buddhism we need to have it demonstrated in the flesh for us right here this aspect of openness and particularity over and over again and certain people can do this like Jesus Christ in Buddha we call that kind of activity miraculous these are miracles rare flowers when they appear so I think it's a good idea to pay special attention to lives like this and see what these beings thought and taught.

[11:25]

Who were these people? Who were these human beings that could do this miraculous act, to be free in this way and live right here, not to be entangled and yet to be totally connected? So there are no reliable... I looked and I couldn't find... There are lots of records about Buddha, but no reliable historical records... But usually they begin to reconstruct this man's life. And this statue is the statue of Shakyamuni, which is, Shakyamuni is the sage of the Sakyas, is an appellation for Siddhartha when he becomes Buddha. So this is an image that is made, intended to be a representation of a nirmanakaya, or of an actual living or flesh Buddha, just so you know. He's watching over my shoulder. And so by reconstructions, the best that people seemed to be able to come up with was his birth date was somewhere between, as far as I could tell, 563 BC, maybe to 490 BC, which, as I'll calculate it, would make this his 2,575th birthday down to his 2,502nd birthday.

[12:47]

Somewhere in there probably lies the truth. So... He was born in what is now southwestern Nepal to a governor of the Sakyan Republic, probably was a governor or clan chieftain, whose name was Sudohana. And Sudohana was married to his cousin, probably his first cousin, which seems to be very common at that time, intermarriage in these clan families. And this Sakyan Republic was... part of a kingdom called Kosalia, and the king of that kingdom was Pasanadi, who I'll mention later. He plays a significant role in this story. And Bimbisara, king of the kingdom of Magda, which was a much larger and powerful kingdom. This era of Buddha's birth was rife with battle, upheaval,

[13:50]

Intrigue, generosity, philosophy, anger, kindness, birth and death. A lot like our time. Not really different. A difficult time and a time with great possibilities. There were some wealth and some ease and many philosophies were developed of determinism and materialism and nihilism. Very sophisticated philosophies and understandings were available during this time. This chief city of Kapila Vastu, I read it, said, it's on the Northern Road. It was a major thoroughfare, and I sort of imagined it a little bit like the New York City of southwestern Nepal 2,500 years ago. Very vibrant city with lots of activity, lots of travelers. Siddhartha's clan was a warrior clan, Kshatriya. There were four castes in India at that time, and the Kshatriya were dedicated to warfare and protection of the king.

[14:57]

So they would probably have sworn allegiance to Passanandi, the king of the Kosalya empire. So Buddha grew up, and I sort of imagined it as somewhere maybe like being a a push to an Afghanistani patriarchal warrior today or maybe a Scottish clans person. So he grew up probably being groomed and trained to fight and also did some study. And because this was the New York of southwestern Nepal, probably had a lot of information available to him. He's usually seen as a very curious person even as a young prince or as a young son of the governor, he's seen as very curious about things. In one story in the sutras, it says the young Siddhartha saw a Brahmin drowning, a young Brahmin, this is one of the castes, the highest caste at that time in India, dedicated to the Vedic tradition, drowning in a river, and he fished him out.

[16:06]

He got off his horse and fished him out and said, young Brahmin, how did you get into such a fix? how did this happen that you ended up in the river just after dawn drowning? And the Brahmins said, well, this is a holy river, Kshatriya warrior, and people who bathe in it become pure. And the young Siddhartha thought for a minute, and he said, well, if that were the case, then the fish and the turtles long ago would have been gods. I don't think it can be so simple. So even as a young man... He was always very curious, it sounds like, very curious about what people said and how they believed in things. So he was born in Lumbini Gardens. His mother, Maya, was on her way to her home country to give birth when suddenly she was overcome with powerful contractions and retired to the Lumbini Gardens outside of Kapilavastu.

[17:09]

and gave birth to this Buddha, or to Siddhartha. I'll read you. Nine months before his birth, it says, one day during a midsummer festival, Queen Maya retired to her quarters to rest, and she fell asleep and dreamed a vivid dream. Four angels carried her high into white mountain peaks and clothed her in flowers. Then a magnificent white bull elephant bearing a white lotus in its trunk approached Maya and walked around her three times. Then the enlightened elephant struck her on the right side with his trunk and vanished into her. This was her pregnancy. This is how it's recounted in the sutra. When she gives birth... She does it standing up painlessly after 10 months, and the gods and deities are in attendance, and then dies within the first week.

[18:25]

I sort of imagine this young Siddhartha, or Buddha, if he would have heard that story, Asking some questions. And that he's always, when he asks questions in the sutras, he always has a small smile, a very gentle smile, because he wants the best from people. He's not interested. He's not personalizing this. What's the truth? Can we inquire together in what the truth is so we can be free and not entrap each other? But I think he would have asked some questions. But that's okay. We need something heroic sometimes, as long as we know what heroic is and what it's used for. We don't get stuck. So, and in the middle discourse, which is the middle discourses of Buddha's life, it says, and this is in the Buddha's own words, telling Ananda, and as soon as the Bodhisattva was born, he stood firmly with his feet on the ground,

[19:36]

and then took seven steps north. And with a white parasol held over him, he surveyed each quarter and uttered the words of the leader of the herd, I am the highest in the world. I am the best in the world. I am the foremost in the world. This is my last birth. Now there is no renewal of being for me. So this was, I guess, within the first day. So again, a miraculous event. But Metaphor is, like language, meaningful to us, or not, if we understand how it's being used. So there is no new being for me. So this is our inquiry. What is our being? What is this life? What's it made up of? It points in a direction of inquiry. But it's okay if you want to believe in this elephant, too. I think in Green Belch, don't they have elephants? They're elephants, I think.

[20:38]

So they're actually big elephants. So if you go to Greenville's, they actually have elephants, and this represents this white elephant, which is a symbol in India of fertility and impurity at the same time. So it also had a very historical or Indian significance. So when we go to the park for our celebration, we're going to chant and walk three times around the garden, and there'll be a small flower house. This is the Hanamatsuri, the temple, the celebration of flowers. And inside, there'll be a small statue of this baby Buddha pointing at the sky. I don't think there's a parasol, but anyway, he's pointing at this. There is a white parasol. Okay, it'll be on the altar, but the baby Buddha will be pointing at the sky, and there'll be little wooden dippers, and you can, I think it's sweet tea, or just tea. Sweet tea, oh, poor sweet tea, which is very traditional. for Hanamatsuri to pour it over the Buddha. So you're welcome to do that each time as you circumnabulate.

[21:40]

So, I better get on with his life. He's only... He dies at 80, so we'll have to get out of here. We have 16 minutes. So... At his birth, Ashita is a Brahmin seer who says, you know, he's either going to be a great and powerful governor of the Sakyan clan, a conqueror of the world, maybe even bigger than that. Maybe he'll take over Kosalia. Or he's going to be a saint. He's going to give up the worldly life. So Sudhana, his father... doesn't like what he considers the darker side, that he will give up this life, give up power in the world or connection, and decides to shield him from all suffering and all difficulty to make sure this young man never sees any problems like suffering, sickness, aging, and death.

[22:50]

So you could see this as a plan with holes in it. There's a problem. But this is the story. In the sutras it says, even the flowers in the gardens of Kapila Vastu were clipped so that the aging blooms were removed and only buds were seen by the young prince. And anyone that was old or sick was whisked away immediately. Because everyone was sort of 22 or 23. I sort of imagine NBC TV. Everybody is sort of sexy and vital. And he grows up in this environment, or some version of it. So he's protected or shielded. And again, this can be a metaphor. It's a very interesting metaphor for our lives, where we often don't relate to our own sickness, old age, and death, the cessation of things. We see the arising of things, but the cessation we often turn away from.

[23:53]

And anyway, this is the situation. And then on top of it, his mom's died due to his birth, probably in the first week. His mother's sister, Pajapati, becomes his stepmother. Seems to be a nice relationship. And he eventually has a half-brother, Nanda, who is Pajapati's son, who is often depicted as sort of a playboy. He's always fooling around. This was kind of his family environment. So you can see his situation is pretty precarious as a young man growing up. He's living in this strange environment. At the age of 16, he's married to probably his first cousin, Yashodara. who was also 16, so they were married at 16, and the sutta says they were born on the same day.

[25:02]

And I'm not sure, that might be mythology again, but it could be true, because it's repeated over and over, they were born on the same day and were both 16 when they were married. And they lived together for 13 years as a married couple. So they had 13 years together. And it seems like this life was pleasant. It must have been pleasant, full of some maybe battling or training with swords. And I don't know, I can't quite imagine what a Kshatriya warrior would have done 2,500 years ago. And music, art, friendship, and feasting. In Sutra 75 of the Middle Discourses, Siddhartha is, and this is a kind of risque quote, but it gives you a feeling of the times. said, I, this is Siddhartha speaking, I have three palaces, one for the rainy season, one for the winter, and one for the summer. I lived in the rain's palace for the four months of the rainy season, enjoying myself with musicians who were all female, and I did not go down to the lower palace.

[26:07]

So, interesting life. Sounds a little decadent, you know, a little decadent and unusual. This was sort of the life he recounts he lived in, of pleasure. Then when he and Yashodara, which means the shining one, were both 29, the Buddha, it says, went on a trip and actually sees and experiences sickness, old age, and death for himself. He sees an aging person, a sick person, and a corpse for the first time. And this shattering existential experience in the sense, I'm actually going to die. I have to do something. In other words, I'm on the spot here, overcomes him totally, and he becomes frightened, becomes uneasy, and he wants to gain control again of his life. He wants to do something to fix this problem. So, it says in Sutra 26, while still a black-haired young man endowed with the blessings of youth, in the prime of life,

[27:20]

Though my mother and father wished otherwise and wept with tearful faces, I shaved off my hair and beard, put on a yellow robe, and went forth from the home life into homelessness. So he leaves. They say in the dead of night, his sleeping wife, and I forgot to mention they have a son by this time who is maybe eight months old, Rahula. So he leaves to figure this out. to gain control of his life again, to understand what's meaningful. As he says, why do I, subject to impermanent sickness, old age, and death, also cling to that which is impermanent, also subject to sickness, old age, and death? What's true here? Is this just a dream that's passing before my eyes? I have to understand this. And, of course, the situation of the way he was raised, interestingly, sets a very, this is a very charged situation for him.

[28:29]

He leaves, and he, you know, there was no psychotherapy or medication available, so this is 2,500 years before Sigmund Freud. 2,480 years before Sigmund V. So he consults with the best minds available to him. Alara Colama and, what was his name? Udraka Ramaputta, trained masters in maybe psychoanalysis of his time. And he works with these people, desperately trying to figure a way to assuage the suffering. And the best he can do, he says, is I can suppress my own fear for a brief period of time. But here I am again, subject to sickness, old age, and death, in this indeterminate situation I can't control. This isn't the answer. So he begins to mortify his body.

[29:40]

And in the... This has a similarity with the Christian tradition. I was thinking of the Desert Fathers, self-mortification, suppressing physical appetite in order to gain insight. So he practices terrible austerities on his body, saying in Sutra 36, I took little food, whether a bean soup or lentil soup. Until my body reached a state of extreme emancipation and my limbs the jointed segments of bamboo stems. My spine jutted forth like corded beads. My ribs jutted out as gaunt as the crazy rafters of a roofless barn. So he was a wreck by this time. He was in a terrible situation. So weak he nearly dies. And then an accidental meeting happens and a young cow... I guess you would say cowgirl, cowherder, sujata, sees this drowning person. He's in a river drowning, this gaunt, emaciated person, and she gives him some rice milk, and he regains his energy.

[30:48]

He regains some energy. And so this is important, you know, when we enter the practice. Don't be sure you know what you need and how you're going to get it. This sort of tells me this. Don't be sure. Munjo is the phrase we use. Maybe not so. Maybe you know exactly, but maybe that's excessive. Maybe you don't know. Don't be so sure. Doesn't mean have no idea. Don't be so sure. Be open. So, he drinks his milk, and he feels pretty good. And he says, I recall when my father, the Sakian, was occupied. While I was sitting in the cool shade of a rose apple tree, quite secluded from sensual pleasure, this is as a young boy, secluded from unwholesome states, I abided in the first jhana, which is a state of ease and absorption, and accompanied by applied and sustained thought, I gained some insight.

[31:52]

Something happened. And he says, could that be the path to waking up this balanced place of some ease and also looking carefully? not being excessive in my conclusions. In the mundane way, not starving yourself or ending up in sensual realms where you're lost, not attaching yourself to everything. So he says, maybe it's the excessiveness of my choices. And another way of saying that is, maybe there is no way out because, in a sense, there's no problem. he begins to accept the situation as it is for the first time. Once I said, you know, in Buddhism, we don't practice on the ground of success. We begin on the ground of failure, and then we practice. That's an excessive statement, actually. There is no success or failure. But in order to be in the middle there, sometimes you have to let go of this enlightenment or delusion or Buddha or human in order to actually be able to do anything.

[33:01]

have some energy or power so he has some approach now he thinks hmm this is pretty interesting maybe this is the direction I'll go in so for 7 to 49 days it's unclear how long he sits he practices in this way until he sees clearly the nature of phenomena as he said Whether I exist or not, the nature of phenomena is constant. It arises in certain ways and it ceases in certain ways. This can be known to you. Your dispositions or how you relate to this experience will confuse you and lead to suffering. This you can know for yourself, whether a Buddha is born or not. And this kind of makes sense if you think about it. If he said that phenomena were suffering, we would be stuck. This was a determined situation. It's not the case, he's saying. seeing how things come into and pass out of being and seeing what you do with that information and how you attach yourself to some parts of it leads to great suffering, great cruelty in fact, harm to other people and ourselves.

[34:16]

So he gives up this idea of an absolute entity sitting down solving an absolute problem and he begins to relate to his experience. in an undefended way for the first time. We've got three minutes now. Three minutes. What's the important thing? One thing that people often ask you is, how could he leave his wife? Did they ever meet again? They did meet again. One time, at least. It's recorded, maybe more. And whether she married again or not, it's unknown. Some historians, a man named Alexander Berzin, I found, said she remarries Nanda, his half-brother, Sundarananda, the handsome Nanda, who is the playboy. But I cannot wonder about that.

[35:20]

In any event, he comes back and meeting or coming back to the Sakyan kingdom as the Buddha, His wife sees him in the distance, and everyone is going to go meet now the Buddha, Siddhartha, and talk with him. And she says, no, I'm not going to do that. It's not fitting. If he's a virtuous man, he'll come to me. And she retires to a room, and the Buddha does come to her on the second day and talks with her. And she presents his son, who must be, I would assume, 12 or 13. So they do have a meeting face-to-face, and they have some intimate and private discussion, I'm sure, about their life. And because this is often a big biographical fact, her brother was Devadatta, Yashodara's brother was Devadatta, who also becomes a monk at some point and tries to have the Buddha poisoned, probably in his 50th year, and creates an insurrection in the Sangha,

[36:26]

And so Yashodara's father, Supabuddha, uncle, and also Devadatta, her brother, league against the Buddha almost all of his life in his ministry. And there's some, it sort of makes sense that this was considered a clan insult to leave Yashodara, to leave his wife and son that way. So there was a dark feeling, a blood feud, or a bad feeling in his life or in his relationship to his wife's family. They do meet. I was getting Gita to help me with Sanskrit. I've lost it. Eventually, due to being insulted by the Sakyan people, has the entire Sakyan race or families, a number of families, slaughtered. again, a clan insult.

[37:28]

The Sakyans presented him with a wife who was supposed to be a princess but was actually a slave. And the grave insult causes him to wage war on Buddha's clan, the Gautama clan and the Sakyan people. And it just says, many are killed. After that, he continues all through these 44 or 45 years to ceaselessly walk and never stop talking and meeting people. Everyone he met, he shared whatever information he had with. This is important, you know, to understand that all words we say are no words. In other words, sometimes we say, the truth happens, word that this practice is beyond words. It's a wordless understanding. It's a confusion. The Buddha never stopped talking, never ceased trying to explain the nature of existence and help people. So that's not what's meant in this practice.

[38:31]

It's beyond words. It's not to get attached to the end results of words as absolutes, but we use words all the time. So he teaches everybody he meets. Eventually, his wife, Yashodara Rahula, and his mother, Pajapati, enter the order. Probably in his 60s, fifth year later in his life he agrees to allow women to ordain to become part of this organization or sangha who are wandering and teaching in north and southwestern Nepal and it must have been a difficult decision he denied or decided that women couldn't live this life several times and then Ananda his cousin convinces him that Buddha didn't you say that women that all sentient beings have the ability to gain this insight so must have been a tricky time to live in with all of these kings patriarchal warriors to navigate through this place but eventually Pajapati his stepmother becomes the first nun who enters the order and then Yoshodara and an order is formed of mendicant women who also practice in the same way

[39:51]

He never ceases teaching, sharing his life, walking. He said once, it's quoted in a sutra, somebody said, well, geez, why don't you ride in a wagon? You know, you're walking, you're 70 now. And he said, no beast of burden will bear my weight on this earth. So he had an exquisite sensitivity, it sounds like, to life. You know, a delicacy with life. He didn't condemn other people, but he said, I can't do that. I can't live that way. In his 80th year, he dies. Probably, it says, pig snout. So it's either tainted pork or sometimes, my wife is here, pig snout has also cut lotus root, by the way. Unknown what he had for this last meal, but he develops powerful dysentery and dies in his 80th year. And it is cremated.

[40:58]

Ends his time on Earth. So 45 years he shared his life openly with everybody. And I was thinking, so what's the thing we have one minute now? One minute. What do I want to say to you? Don't sell yourself short. Don't be buffaloed. See your life in very plain and simple terms for yourself. He said, all dispositions, all of our approaches to things are impermanent. The way we package information is impermanent. All dispositions are suffering. All phenomena. are nonsubstantial. This is the middle path.

[42:02]

See this for yourself. And then like Buddha, on his enlightenment, he touches the ground when asked, how do we know you're for real? And he says, the earth is my witness. My very life is my witness. I know this experience. I've seen how it's constructed myself. And you're no different. So on this Enlightenment Day, remember doing that. Have fun. Have fun together. Have a good party. Nowhere else to be, we say. This is the great truth. No perfect place to be. Just here with each other. Balloons, grass, bubbles. cake. Happy birthday. Thanks. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[43:09]

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.

[43:32]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_97.11