This podcast is offered by San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Thank you very much for having me. And I feel honored to be here in Christina's and Tova's practice period. And understand that the theme of the practice period is refuge. And so I think that's the expectation that I'll speak about this as well. And before I continue, it'd be nice to reassure that you can hear me well enough. Can I have something? All good? Okay, thank you. So I think of the practice, the experience of refuge. as being quite profound, kind of coming out of the depth of Dharma practice.

[01:05]

It certainly was something that I only discovered that had any meaning for myself after I practiced for a while. And something that I came into contact with... became important, became more important than anything else, became something to orient my life around, live my life by, kind of a guiding star, involved in intention, and something quite heartfelt, a certain kind of maybe devotion or love that all kind of are held in this concept of refuge. And I want to begin by emphasizing or discussing the verbs that are the activity, the actions associated with refuge. And maybe some of this you've heard before. In the Japanese and Chinese Buddhist tradition, in Japanese, refuge is pronounced ki-ye.

[02:16]

And the character for ki... means to return, to return home. And that's quite something to, sometimes we say taking refuge, but the literal meaning is to return home. And then the e part, the e part, the character is a character for to depend on or to be in accord with. So it's to be in accord with with returning home. And so what is that home that is our refuge? What is that returning, which is the refuge? In the Pali tradition, the Theravadan tradition that I teach down here in Peninsula, the action associated with refuge is walking, going, and walking to refuge, going, they usually say going to refuge.

[03:19]

But literally, the word literally means to walk, which has the baby, the connotations, that is something you bring all of yourself to. When you walk, you take everything along with who you are. And nothing excluded. So you walk to refuge. So in both of these Buddhist traditions, there's an action associated with refuge. And I'd like to propose that that action has two qualities to it. It has something that we initiate and do, and then something that happens in response to that. One of the... lines of the chants that we do at Zen Center that keeps coming back to me, you know, on a somewhat regular basis is the line, it responds to the inquiring impulse.

[04:26]

And the inquiring impulse maybe is what we offer, but then something responds to that. We go for refuge and something responds, something appears. So I likened it to being a host to someone who comes and stays at your home. Maybe it's someone quite wonderful. Maybe it's Christina or Tova or both of them come to your home. And you're the host. And if they came to your home for a while... you would probably engage in certain actions of hosting them. You would offer them tea. You would offer them a meal. You would make space for them. And if there's a more comfortable chair to sit in, you probably wouldn't sit in it yourself.

[05:30]

You would offer it to them. And so there's an action you do of being a host. But you're also, in a certain way, getting yourself out of the way. Your own preferences aren't that important anymore. You're kind of, for a little while, maybe even a deference to them or respect to them, where you kind of let go of yourself, maybe happily, delightfully, because of course you want to host them and take care of them in a nice way. Generosity has some of the same qualities. To be generous, the act of generosity, you have to do something. You don't just sit on your couch and pick your nose and that's your generosity to the world. Usually generosity involves enacting, doing something. In the Japanese tradition, when I was in Japan practicing there, that...

[06:35]

I learned this first at Zen Center and then more deeply when I went to Japan. To give something, to give it with both hands. There's something about bringing all of yourself into the act of giving. It's not casual, it's intentional, it's fully there. You really mean it. And so there's something you do when you give. But at the same time, there's something you're giving up. You're letting go of. You're freeing yourself from it. You're not no longer assuming this is mine and belongs to me, myself, and I. There's a letting go that happens. And in the Pali tradition, the Theravadan tradition, the word for generosity and the word for letting go is the same word. The word is chaga. And so here we have again this dual action of... doing something, and something else happens, this letting go.

[07:36]

And in being a host or being generous, it might not be the first thing that you're thinking about, letting go. If it's such a natural or almost natural generosity you're hosting, putting oneself aside, in some kind of healthy way, it's not about me anymore. It's about this thing that I'm offering and doing. And the last example that I like is the word respect. That respect also is an action that we engage in, we choose to do. But simultaneously in choosing to be respectful, there is a kind of letting go of self that happens. A kind of, I'm not, you know, it's not about me anymore. It's about sort of maybe deference to the person that you're respecting. And so, refuge is like this. And in fact, in a certain way, maybe what we're taking refuge in is the part of these actions that we do that involve a letting go of our attachments to things, letting go of our preoccupation with ourselves, letting go of conceit, a certain kind of healthy kind of freeing ourselves from something.

[08:56]

that it just feels so good and wonderful to not have it around anymore, not burdening it or clouding the situation. And so to go for refuge in this way of respect and devotion and willingness and offering ourselves, taking all of ourselves to it. And then in response or in part of this, what we're taking refuge is that freedom that comes from that. And maybe the Japanese and Chinese idea of Kia, returning home. You know, if you're far from home and lost. Recently, just today, I was reminded of the time I was lost in the woods and the snow. It was getting dark. And then I made it home. And it felt so good to be home out of the danger of the winter and the dark and the snow and being lost.

[09:57]

And so I had to do something to get home. But once I was there, there was a kind of, in the best kind of, I don't know best, but in one way of being at home, the expression, there's a lot that we let go of when we're home. We let go of perhaps our social self, the way we're trying to please people or get people to like us or to prove ourselves or apologize for ourselves. you know, be someone or something. And, you know, at home you can just kind of, some people say just be ourselves, but it's a be ourselves where it's a whole bunch of selfing that we usually do has been let go of. So in that coming home, being home, that letting go, that settling something, putting something down, there's refuge. And it's a refuge which is really great to go for, to return to, when the alternative is worse.

[11:02]

So in the teachings of the Buddha, this ancient tradition, this Theravadan tradition, it's interesting that the Buddha never instructs anyone to go for refuge, engage in the triple refuge. He approves of it. but he doesn't instruct anyone to do so. But he does instruct people to go for refuge, take on as refuge some other things besides the Buddha and the Dharma. And there's a number of very interesting things that he champions as what you take refuge in, but it's not in himself. And... So one very famous passage is a time where, near the time when he was dying, he knew he was dying and he was giving his last teachings. And you usually sit up when a teacher knows they're dying and they're giving their last teachings.

[12:09]

And he said, be a refuge unto yourself. With no other refuge. Take the Dharma as your refuge. with no other refuge. And because this is kind of saying these two sentences together, the way to kind of make sense out of them, since he says take no other refuge, is self and dharma have become the same. We become the dharma. What is that? I thought you studied it in a book. But you become the dharma. Or how do you become the dharma? What is the dharma we take refuge in? That's the self. And then he goes on to explain that it's the four foundations of mindfulness. The four ways of developing in a kind of a lucid kind of awareness.

[13:13]

That it's in awareness, the practice of developing awareness, that we... we find this refuge. And in the practice of awareness, that there's something about what we offer to become aware, and what then responds to that, what arises in that. And one of the things that kind of occurs together is that the more we offer our awareness to something, the less energy or effort or engagement goes into conceit, goes into greed, goes into ill will and hatred. Sometimes also doesn't go into fear. Something shifts. And then to the degree to those remain, when they're held with a kind of clear awareness, it changes the whole game of what it means to have greed.

[14:20]

what it means to have conceit, or hatred even, when we're not caught in it, but it's held and seen in the field of awareness. And that's a better alternative than being caught in greed, hate, and delusion, conceit, and acting around it and causing harm in the world. So if your mind is caught in... attachments, clinging, states of minds which are stressful, that diminish you, that limit you, that lead to your own harm and the harm of others, then I would propose that the better option is refuge. And if you understand something about your capacity to not live in live in hatred or delusion or in greed, not live in being entangled and caught in your experience, but know something about awareness practice, waking up practice, being fully present practice with it, then there we begin finding the refuge.

[15:42]

So when the Buddha said, make yourself the refuge, and the Dharma the refuge, and no other refuge, he was pointing to this awareness practice. It's interesting that the Buddha talked about how he had a refuge, and what he said was that he made of himself a refuge. rather than finding a refuge in himself, he wants to emphasize the action that he somehow made that refuge. And here we get this wonderful duality or this pairing up that goes on of what we do and what happens in response to that. And if certain actions that we do are freeing, Certain ways of acting in the world are freeing, and that freedom that we feel inside, that's the refuge.

[16:50]

That's the place to come home to. And when the Buddha was going to announce that he was about to die, it was time for him to die, he said, I've made of myself a refuge, and now I will leave you. What an amazing thing to say when you're dying. It would be nice for each of us, maybe, to be able to say something comparable in the face of our own death. No, there's a refuge even there. And to have somehow practiced and lived and engaged in such a way that we knew how to tap into it. We knew how to find it. We knew how to awaken that refuge. And then, you know, I'm leaving you. Now I'm dying. with confidence, with peace, and something like that. So one of the things the Buddha, and they say this, the Buddha in the Pali tradition, talked about, another thing he talked about taking refuge in, is refuge in action.

[17:58]

The Pali word is kamma, karma. But here karma means, it just simply means action. That what we do, is really important. And I think in the Zen tradition, I think there's a lot of appreciation for action. The Japanese word for practice, shugyo, has the word action in the gyo part. And I learned this at Zen Center, that when you... Sweep the zendo during soji. You really sweep. You're there to sweep. And you kind of give yourself to that activity. And as fully as it makes sense, without any stress and hurry, but just the action of sweeping becomes the practice, becomes the place of refuge, becomes a place of freedom.

[19:05]

We give ourselves over to the sweeping, and something happens. that is different than maybe what it was earlier when you were caught up in your plans for the day, your fears and anxiety of what's going to happen if we give ourselves to something. And one of the great trainings I had at Zen Center was chopping carrots when I was in the kitchen at Tassajara. So it took a while to learn that training because I didn't want to be in the kitchen. But I had learned this practice. You just give yourself over to the activity. And so I gave myself over, or did try to give myself over to the carrots. And eventually, the carrots won. Eventually, it became just me and the carrots, and the carrots won. I was there with the carrots, chopping them. And it became freeing. It became a reference point for me about how to do all kinds of things by giving myself to something.

[20:11]

But what is that giving over? What is that action that's freeing? And I'd like to suggest this dual aspect of it, of what we give, what we offer, and what, in a way that we, something inside lets go. Something inside opens up. Something that we change who we are slightly. We come home. because of the way that we give, the way that we act. So if we act like I did in the beginning of my kitchen at the time, the only thing I was contributing to the world was annoyance and disappointment and ideas like, I don't want to be here. But, you know, I don't think that helped the world much. But... as I practiced and practiced and practiced with those carrots and those onions, I learned the joy of just giving myself over to something.

[21:19]

And it wasn't that I learned to love chopping, how do I say this? It became a whole new world. You know, what I didn't like before, I don't know if that, I don't know exactly what happened, but it just became such a pleasure, such a wonderful thing, to just doing my carrots and onions, just doing that. So this action, we find it in action, and I think it's one of the strengths of Zen practice, is practice in action, in activity. And maybe we learn in Zazen, something about doing this, Zazen is an activity of a certain type. And we learn how to purify that activity or refine that refuge in the activity of Zazen. And then we discover certain letting go of things that are kind of harmful to be doing with our minds and hearts.

[22:26]

We discover there's better ways of living, better places to take refuge in, better places for our confidence to be. And we let go of the confidence that is implicit that we had maybe confidence in hatred, confidence in conceit, confidence in desires, and confidence in fear. And it gets replaced by a confidence in this kind of new way of being in the world of acting that where there's freedom, where there's a deeper coming home, The Buddha also talks about refuge in, kind of explained this way, his way, kind of taking what the refuge is, the ultimate refuge, is the ending of greed, the ending of hatred, the ending of delusion.

[23:29]

And that's the refuge. So how do we live in the world? How do we act? so that we're ending these powerful forces that cause so much harm. So we live the better alternative. How do we find that home, coming home to ourselves, coming home to the Dharma, coming home to freedom, that we recognize as the refuge? And then once it becomes the refuge, once we know it, then there's something like the vow or the aspiration or the orientation that can become sometimes the central organizing principle of a Dharma life. That the Dharma life is about organizing everything in relationship to this refuge that we discover. And then,

[24:35]

The refuge that we make, the refuge that we find, that we come home to, at some point translates into, we become a refuge for others. Isn't it wonderful to be with people who don't have a lot of greed or hatred or ill will, delusion? Isn't it refreshing to surround people who don't have a lot of conceit? It's refreshing to surround people who can act in the world and take care of things and do things, but there's a kind of freedom in how they do it, or kind of a lack of clinging and attachments and resistance and annoyance and disappointment and resentment that they're doing it. There's just this freedom and ease. we can all become that. And it is a kind of refuge for others because I think it's easier for people to come home to themselves when they're around someone who's at home with themselves.

[25:49]

And we become a refuge for others, a safety for others. I'll end with reading a passage from these early Pali suttas, from the middle-length discourses. This is after the Buddha died. And a Brahmin goes and finds Ananda, one of the Buddha's main disciples. And the Brahman realizes the Buddha has died, and he's asking about this, and he says to Ananda, is there any single monastic who the Blessed One has appointed to lead the Sangha?

[26:58]

So now that the Buddha's dead, is there another monastic? another monastic who's going to take over as the leader of the community. And Ananda says no. And then he asks, the Brahman asks, well, has the community of monastics, the Sangha, have they appointed someone to be the leader in charge after the Buddha died? And The Buddha says no. And then this Brahmin is a little bit perplexed by this. So then he asks, well, but if you have no refuge, what is the cause of your concord? If you have no refuge, how can a big community like you be, you know, in harmony? And Ananda says, we are not without a refuge.

[28:07]

We have a refuge. We have the Dhamma, the Dharma as our refuge. So I think it's a quite powerful statement that at least soon after the time of the Buddha, you know, they probably felt that he's no longer around. And they didn't see that he was a refuge anymore, maybe. And so they saw that Dharma was the real refuge at this point. Down through the centuries, many people, including us, I think, have found that there's still a way to go for refuge to the Buddha. But maybe that wasn't so obvious in the first years after he died. But the Dharma, in any case, that's what the Buddha pointed to. And maybe dharma is an action or dharma is a way of acting and being and doing, whether in zazen or sweeping the zendo floor or chopping vegetables or talking with friends or whatever we're doing.

[29:23]

Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. 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 sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[29:50]

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