This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations by people like you. Welcome to Indoors on a beautiful outdoor day. I myself was tempted by just to keep walking. And there are many flowers blooming, plum blossoms, magnolia, wild iris. And birds are at work or play. So I see we have passed out the enme juku kano gyo.

[01:04]

And we'll get to that in a little bit. I wanted to talk a little bit about compassion. at the tipping point. A few weeks ago I talked about tipping point in terms of what happens when things reach a certain kind of point of no return. And then someone told me there's a book, The Tipping Point, which was... Malcolm Gladwell's mostly looking at social trends. I'm particularly thinking about tipping point in terms of environmental situations.

[02:12]

And I think it's hard for us to actually be present when we see something is going out of our control. So it's actually pretty difficult and takes a lot of courage to be willing to be present. So usually what we tend to do is avert our eyes, look the other way, become tense, procrastinate. If possible, blame someone else. And... And underneath all that is our fears, not knowing what's going to happen as things shift. And so what can we call on to nourish ourselves and find our strength in the situations that we face that are like that?

[03:22]

So lately we've been studying here, we've been studying mountains and rivers, the Mountains and Rivers or Mountains and Waters Sutra written by Dogen, Zen Master Dogen in the 13th century, talking about the nourishing power of the image of mountains. And I wanted to read a little bit from Dogen. Although mountains belong to the nation, Mountains belong to people who love them. When mountains love their master, such a virtuous sage or wise person enters the mountains. Since mountains belong to the sages and wise people living there, trees and rocks become abundant and birds and animals are inspired. This is so because the sages and wise people extend their virtue.

[04:26]

You should know it as a fact that mountains are fond of wise people and sages. Many rulers have visited mountains to pay homage to wise people or to ask for instruction from great sages. These have been important events in the past and present. At such times, these rulers treat sages as teachers. Disregarding the protocol of the usual world, the imperial power has no authority over the wise people in the mountains. Imperial power has no authority over the mountains, actually. Wise people, sages, mountains may all be seen as one. And this is the authority of what we might call wild nature.

[05:32]

The Earth, Sun, entire universe of which we are human beings. Just a tiny part. And pretty hard, actually, to accept how tiny we are. since we are so important to ourselves. But eventually, and really at all times, and right now, we are answering, always answering to this big power or this authority of the mountains. And actually, You know, I see each of you sitting here and think, I'm sitting among mountains. Each of you with your own imperturbable Buddha nature. So, to understand what doge means and to understand mountains as mountains and mountains as your own deep nature is...

[06:48]

takes a kind of courage and a willingness to face strictness. By strictness, I mean just the truth of the way things are, while we're wishing they might be otherwise, to be willing to put our wishes aside and see what actually is in front of us. So, So a couple of tipping points that come to mind right away are the matter of global warming, which in the last year or so has become maybe common currency. At least people are talking, many people are talking about global warming. And we may have already reached, and people are debating, have we already reached the tipping point where there will be

[07:51]

say, dramatic changes in the environment. Climate change that we as humans have contributed to creating, and we can't stop it. Even if we stopped all of our, say, carbon-releasing activity right now, the consequences of it would continue. And in Buddha's teaching, this is understood as karma, that when you set some activity in motion, the consequences play out over time. And we have a wonderful network or complexity of causes and conditions creating a karmic result that we can imagine, but we don't know. We don't know. And at the same time, we're realizing that we're so dependent up on fossil fuel.

[09:00]

And I just in this last week on the radio heard someone blaming OPEC for the price of a barrel of oil. And I thought OPEC should be releasing more oil so that we can keep the price down. without really addressing the fact in this news story, they were not addressing the fact that actually there's a limit to oil. And we may have reached it. Most people seem to think we have already reached the peak. And so the available oil is It's going to decline. And then we have to be much more creative and flexible in how to stay present with this big change.

[10:02]

Zen practice usually emphasizes wisdom. Prajna. And we're seated here in the presence of... Well, so many. So many examples of wisdom. So many expressions of wisdom. And we have Manjushri Bodhisattva, the big figure on the altar, is the archetype of wisdom. And you might say of clarity, of seeing things exactly and precisely. and profoundly, not just as what they appear to be, but also as they are in totality. Seeing things as myriad phenomena and at the same time as a totality in which the individuals vanish into their interconnectedness.

[11:13]

Behind Manjushri is another figure Avalokiteshvara, or Kuan Yin. And today I want to actually invoke Kuan Yin, Kanoon, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. In my experience, invoking means to call upon some power or some energy. And at the same time, it evokes, it calls forth the power or energy of compassion in each of us. So it's not as though that there is some special power in that little figure behind Manjushri. Or in Tara, sitting Tisthara, it's another manifestation or another expression of Lakiteshvara.

[12:22]

But in chanting, we actually activate our own compassionate energy. So in Buddhism, we say there's the wing of it's like two wings of a bird, the wisdom wing and the compassion wing. Both need to work together to for the. Buddha bird to fly I think of compassion maybe a better word is compassion seems in a way maybe it tends to get kind of neutral in tone but I think right now I'm thinking open hearted is a better word for me right now open heartedness so Suzuki Roshi talked about this open-heartedness or compassion using the Japanese word jihi.

[13:34]

He says, the Buddhist way is in one word, jihi. So this is Suzuki Roshi. Jihi means to encourage people when they are feeling positive and also to help them get rid of their suffering. That is true love. It is not just to give something or to receive something or to observe precepts that we practice our way. We practice our way with such things as they naturally occur. Going with people, suffering with them, helping to relieve their suffering, and encouraging them to go on and on. We see something, but we do not see something. We always feel the oneness of the subjective and objective worlds, the oneness of eye and form, the oneness of tongue and taste. So we don't have to attach to something in a special way, and we don't have to feel especially good because of our Buddhist practice.

[14:39]

So it's very interesting. He's talking about this kind of love is to help people and also to see something and not see something. To see someone as a thing, as a person, but also to see that they're not a thing and not a person. So how do you help someone who is a person and also realize that you are already one, one totality, not separate from them? So I'm wondering about this. I had a very interesting request came to me in the mail yesterday. A very unusual request. I received many requests sitting in the abbot's chair. This was a letter from someone who is another dharma teacher from another lineage.

[15:42]

I met him, but I don't really know him very well. But he asked me, if I would donate a kidney to a friend of his. They have little paragraphs. And I thought, well, that's very unusual for me, a request for me. I wondered also, did he send out 100 letters to two different people? I don't know. I thought, you know, I know a little bit about donating kidneys. I have a cousin who's diabetic, and now he has received one kidney from one brother, and then I think 10 years later he received another kidney from another brother. And so I thought, okay, that made sense to me.

[16:44]

I thought, I can see that. And... Now I think it's very interesting. I'd be helpful. I need your help, actually. Your consultation, you know. What's the best use of... As far as I know, I have two kidneys that are working pretty well. What's the best use? Is it for me to continue to have two kidneys or to give up a kidney? I really don't know what to do. But I notice that I feel... I don't feel so inclined, actually. My first thought is, you know, who is this person anyway? Does that make a difference, you know?

[17:48]

You know, is everyone equal? Well, I have to acknowledge I have a feeling of affinity for someone and maybe a little less affinity for someone else. And for someone that I've never met, who's a friend of someone that I met once, right? Well, there's some hesitation anyway. I didn't immediately say, of course, you know. But it's challenging me, right? It's challenging me to consider. What is compassion here? And I thought, well, I wonder how much time it takes. It's not like I thought, it's probably not just being able to walk in and drop off a kidney and walk out. It's like, does it take a whole day?

[18:54]

Would it take a whole day out of my calendar? So I thought, well, I need to investigate this a little more. So maybe some of you know, maybe someone in the room has, has someone in the room donated a kidney? Yes, you have. How long does it take? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Oh. It took me to a spiritual path, which is a blessing.

[20:05]

So having only one kidney has been a blessing. And it's also a blessing for me. I'd like to make a sense for this, but it's a blessing for me to hear that you are considered donating me. Thank you. I noticed I just had a kind of a stingy thought, and I thought, maybe I can give just a piece of one finger. And have it grow like yours, eh? So this is my confession.

[21:09]

Part of our practice is confessing our limitation and being willing to meet the limitations of others with open-heartedness. So maybe now would be a good time. I think maybe we could chant the Enmei Juku Kanong Gyo. Many of you know it, but I thought, well, not everyone here would know it. And let me just say a little bit about it. On the sheet that was passed out, it says Enmei Juku Kanong Gyo. And then underneath, Kanze On, Namu Butsu, Yo Butsu In, Yo Butsu In. So that's what we'll chant, and we'll chant it.

[22:13]

We'll start out slow, and Jiryu will keep time tapping on the little Mokugyo. And then we can pick up the speed a little bit as people become a little more comfortable. Yes? What is it? How about we chant it first, and then I'll say what is it. Maybe it takes special courage. You may be chanting something that you don't want to chant. Find out later. So you'll have to trust me, but I will go into what it is. So let's try it. Now let's do it nine times, if we do it by the time, when we get to the third, fourth, fifth time, it'll become more familiar.

[23:21]

So I'll just, you don't all have to be in gassho, you can chant with your hands in your lap, that's okay, but I feel compelled to do this, to introduce it. Butsu en Bupo So en Chorak Ga Jocho Nen Kan De On Bo Nen Kan Nen Nen Ju Shin Ki Nen Nen Furi Shin Kan De On Namu Butsu En Butsu En .

[24:25]

. [...] ... [...] Thank you.

[26:18]

. [...] Jusin ki nen nen puri-shin kanze on namo-bhatsi-yo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-bhatsi-nyo-

[27:25]

Kanzeon is the bodhisattva of compassion. Kan means perceives or listens. Kanzeon is the one who listens. The one who regards and hears and perceives all the sensations, all the experiences, all the cries of the world. So this is the image of complete open-heartedness, of being open and willing to receive all the sounds and all the experiences and all the knowledge and the information and the without bias, without judgment.

[28:33]

And then a response. The first response is to maintain awareness, actually. To continue to be aware of what is arising. So the response of not turning away is... the first and actually most important. And so when you cultivate the spirit of Kansayon inside in your own being, you first may encounter a tendency to turn away from things that are even inside yourself. So how to stay present and not turn away from what's inside yourself. And when you begin to look at what's inside yourself, you notice, well, the boundary between what's inside myself and what's arising in my whole field of all my senses is not so clear.

[29:46]

So we don't exactly say that, okay, we're just paying attention to what's inside or what's outside, but to see that inside and outside are intimately interwoven. When you hear the sound of your friend's voice, when you hear the sound of a baby cry, you hear the sound of a bird calling, where is it? Where is that sound? When you see something right in front of you with your eyes, where is that image, actually? You can't exactly say that it's out there, and you can't exactly say it's in here, because it's a meeting of the two. It's the meeting of what's inside and outside. So kanze on is the... So we say that spirit, or that capacity, and the willingness to then take it all in.

[31:02]

And respond in a way to appreciate and support and help the full maturation or the full development of whatever it is or whoever it is. Whatever it is that comes into awareness, whoever it is who comes into awareness. So in this, this Enmei Juku Kanagyo, Enmei translated various ways means, sometimes it's translated as long life, sometimes it's translated as prolonging life, sometimes here in this version, it's timeless life. So this is actually the... the moment of existence that includes all moments of existence.

[32:11]

This moment of existence that reaches to infinite past and infinite future is the complete open-heartedness of Kansayon. And so, sometimes this is chanted as an offering to the life, to the moment, rising moment of the life of someone whose well-being you want to support. So sometimes here we have a dedicated service in which we chant this particular ten-line verse for the serenity of mind and of well-being, physical well-being of someone. Kanzeon has the qualities of compassion, and compassion, completely understood, includes some other qualities, particularly that quality of listening, that quality of awareness, being willing to be present.

[33:26]

And also within that is this quality of generosity, of being willing to give Completely. Give full attention. And also has a quality of skillful giving. Understanding the situation and giving what is appropriate to the situation. Some of you may be familiar with a book that's out now. The book called God Grew Tired of Us. story of a Dinka man from the Sudan, John Bull Dow, one of his names. And in the story of the conflict in the Sudan, growing up in a very peaceful tribe,

[34:34]

for the first few years of his life he was very happy and but then when I think he was 12 or 13 years old something then the troops came in from the north and attacked his village and he was saved by his father who this was in the night and they were running in the dark and his father grabbed his arm and said come this way and And they stumbled off to a place where they could hide and eventually crept away and then had many, many difficulties. But the next day he discovered that the person who he thought was his father who had guided him away from the danger was another person, another man in the village. And it was actually days later that they were escaping that he found out that the

[35:36]

that this man who had saved him knew that his own family had already been killed. And it's a very powerful story of many, many difficulties and many challenges. And eventually they spent a lot of time in a refugee camp in Ethiopia and then were attacked again there, and then they fled into Kenya and spent a lot of time in a refugee camp there where he actually had some chance to study and go to school. He began, I think, first grade when he was 18. And then later, due to some benevolent people, came to America came to Syracuse, New York.

[36:44]

Many huge changes in his life. But I was struck by the...

[36:53]

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