So good evening, everyone, beloved friends in the Dharma. It's a joy and an honor to be with you all once again. And I think it's important to begin my talk tonight by first acknowledging that we are still, you could say, making our way out of the birth canal of a historic election. We're still in many ways in the tunnel of don't know, being squeezed by anticipation, maybe getting a glimmer of what may lie ahead, perhaps finding ourselves restless with all kinds of fears, hopes, anxiety for what's on the other side, for our country, for our planet. I don't know about you, but I am. This is how I'm feeling right now. And regardless of the final results of the election, there will be some serious work ahead for those of us who are dedicated to manifesting a compassionate society, one which I think of as structured for the benefit, welfare, and liberation of all beings, without exception.

[01:41]

And while we may be experiencing a degree of stress and uncertainty at this time, hopefully we're also drawing on our Dharma practice and the support of our fellow Sangha members to help guide us through these days and the days to come. How do we meet reality with courage and resilience? no matter what lies before us. From my experience, when we open our hearts and practice being present with our direct experience, we find that we're able to meet the next moment, and the next, and the next moment. We can practice reaching out when we need support.

[02:48]

And being present for others when they need us too. So maybe let's just take a moment to connect. The first connect to our body, to our sense of being present. To be grounded in our bodies. To be grounded in the earth. And then to connect with the breath. Awareness of the flow of in and out breath. And just, just coming to rest for a moment. Coming to rest in a friendliness towards ourselves, towards each other, towards the world. A wishing of well regard for all beings. Resting in a compassionate presence.

[03:53]

Compassionately presencing with ourselves and with each other as we share this time together this evening. And now, moving on to other news of the world, something besides an election is happening at the moment, believe it or not. And at Beginner's Mind Temple, we are in the midst, or you could say, past the midway point of a 10-week practice period. And the theme of the practice period is fierce compassion, enacting bodhisattva principles in a troubled world.

[04:58]

And for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, a bodhisattva is an awakening being, one who has taken a vow to live for the benefit of all beings and to continue serving beings until all beings have been liberated from suffering, have awakened to their true nature. And so each week we're focusing on one of seven classic bodhisattva archetypes. exploring their development, the iconography associated with them, the particular qualities and principles they represent, as well as how it is that we might ourselves enact their way of being. How we ourselves can be bodhisattvas and Buddhas in training for the benefit of the world. So this week, we're taking up the study of Avalokiteshvara, bodhisattva, known as the Bodhisattva of infinite compassion, and on whom I'm going to share some thoughts tonight.

[06:05]

Suzuki Roshi, the founder of Beginner's Mind Temple and San Francisco Zen Center, said that the beginner's mind is the mind of compassion. When the beginner's mind is compassionate, it is boundless. So a compassionate mind... is boundless. Another term for a beginner's mind is don't know mind. And don't know mind, you could say the mind of a beginner, is compassionate because it allows the space for all possibilities to exist. A don't know mind doesn't have or cling to onto expectations or ideas about how things should or shouldn't be, but rather courageously and honestly meets reality just as it is, sees things just as it is.

[07:11]

And this is said to be clear seeing. Seeing clearly is a compassionate activity. Because when we understand the causes and conditions for how this present moment has manifested itself, then we can better discern what may be skillful means to work toward beneficial change. So we can ask ourselves, how is it for us? How are we able to recognize our own capacity to be compassionate and rest in don't know mind? to connect to and manifest a boundless beginner's mind. In English, the word compassion derives from a Latin compound, compasio, meaning with suffering, the ability to be with suffering.

[08:17]

It doesn't mean suffering with or taking on the suffering of another. It means opening to a capacity to abide with suffering, my own and that of others. To be a bodhisattva, a compassion, I first have to develop the ability to be with my own suffering. So first of all, I have to know that I'm suffering. And this we learn on our cushion by attending to everything that arises in meditation. In Zazen, we sit down. We become still and quiet. And now everything to rise and be recognized, to be seen. All our obsessions, all of our fears, our mental gymnastics, all of our hopes, all of our anguish, all of our suffering. And maybe, maybe for the first time, we notice that we're actually suffering.

[09:23]

Instead of the usual way of dealing with it, distracting ourselves, trying to numb ourselves out, instead we sit with it. Instead of reacting, we just sit in stillness and be with it. Just sit there and breathe. Breathe with our suffering. Making space for it to be acknowledged and respected. no longer separate from our suffering, no longer trying to escape it or manage it or push it away in any way. And we begin in noticing our own suffering to notice that others are suffering too. And then, in fact, everyone is suffering. Have you ever met anyone who isn't in some form or another? I've heard it said that another word for enlightenment is intimacy.

[10:36]

So this is the way in which suffering becomes our liberation. Through the intimacy of awareness. In the great space of awareness, of noticing. compassion resides. That ability to be with suffering is inherent in awareness. Just noticing and being with is compassion. By just being awake and being with experience, by attending to the suffering of the self. We paradoxically step out of the self-centered dream of the ego and taste liberation.

[11:41]

Now, it's understood in Mahana Buddhism that wisdom and compassion are foundational and inseparable aspects of Dharma in practice. Although sometimes it's said that in Zen that we don't talk so much about compassion. That's a criticism that's sometimes kind of made of Zen. And yet, if you look at it, all the teachings, all the koans and the stories flow from the compassionate, Bodhisattva vowed to live and be of service to all sanded beings. So in Zen, wisdom and compassion go together. We particularly see their core rising in the form of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva who hears the cries of the world and responds with a loving recognition and embrace. Avalokiteshvara's Mercy can take many forms, all of them considered appropriate response to needs.

[13:08]

So there are many names and forms of the Bodhisattva of infinite compassion. There's Avalokiteshvara, Kuan Yin, Chenrezik, Kanon, Kanzeon. And it's said that Avalokiteshvara is protean. gender fluid, appearing as male, female, androgynous in various texts and depictions. And one particular characteristic of this bodhisattva, in one of their more unique forms, is of having a thousand hands and arms. And on each hand is an eye. According to legend, Avalokiteshvara vowed never to rest until he had freed all sentient beings from samsara. But when he realized and tried to comprehend the magnitude of suffering of so many in the world, his head splittered, it's said, into many pieces from the pain.

[14:21]

And Avalokiteshvara's teacher, Abitabha, seeing his students' plight, took the pieces and made Avalokiteshvara eleven heads stacked on one of each other. And sometimes three, three, three, and one, one. And eleven heads with which to increase his capacity to hear the cries of the suffering. But then when Avalokiteshvara tried to reach out to all those who needed aid, he found that his two arms also shattered into pieces. So he asked Avitaba to invest him with a thousand arms with which to aid the suffering multitudes. A thousand here points to the myriad, 84,000.

[15:21]

And we say in Buddhism sometimes, meaning innumerable. or countless ways that a bodhisattva can help. The Lura Sutra talks about the 33 forms of Avokiteshvara in order to, the Avokiteshvara takes 33 forms in order to be of assistance. And all these forms signal that compassionate action uses whatever means to be of help. And that compassion action can take any form. So whatever you need, the sutra says, compassion will come to your aid in that particular form. Avalokiteshvar, who is featured in the Heart Sutra, which is chanted every day in Zen temples, is described as the sovereign observer. the one who observes from his own dharma seat the truth of reality, of things as it is, it's said.

[16:28]

And in Japanese Buddhism, Kamsayan is another personification of Avokiteshvara. And it's said that she embodies wisdom and love as a single virtue. And the word Kamsayan means one who perceives the sounds of the world. one who sees the cries of the world. So Kanzayan is a form of synesthesia, which is a figure of speech in which one sense, in this case hearing, is described using terms for another, seeing. So Kanzayan doesn't just hear the cries, she sees them. and with great compassion holds and responds to the cries by offering mercy. There's a well-known and often referenced koan about Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion.

[17:47]

And here is... Case 89 from the Blue Cliff Record. It's titled, The Hands and Eyes of the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion. This is one of my most favorite comments. Jung Yan asked Da Wu, how does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion use so many hands and eyes? Da Wu said, it's just like a person in the middle of the night reaching in search of a pillow. Yunyan said, I understand. How do you understand it? Da Wu asked. Yunyan said, all over the body are hands and eyes. What you said is all right, Da Wu said, but it's only 80% of it. Yunyan said, I'm like this, elder brother. Or in other words, this is my take.

[18:47]

How do you understand it? And Dawu said, throughout the body are hands and eyes. And Kaz Tanahashi's translation of that last line, throughout the body are hands and eyes, is wherever the body reaches, it is hands and eyes. Wherever the body reaches, it is hands and eyes. And the main point of this khan is that the bodhisattva of great compassion, with her profound vision and insight that is beyond our normal limited human seeing, as well as with her manifold hands, able to execute any skillful means using a multitude of tools and instruments. So if you ever see the image of a thousand hands, all those thousand hands often have many tools and instruments.

[19:48]

So she's able to spontaneously respond to any form of human distress and alleviate it. The tension in this particular koan pivots around the question of whether there is a difference, and to what degree, between the type of seeing and responsiveness that comes with having hands and eyes all over the body, but one that comes with having hands and eyes throughout the body. From where does true insight and responsiveness come? I read an article several years ago about new extensive scientific evidence that our bodies are covered in photoreceptors, and photoreceptors are specialized light-detecting molecules that are outside of our eyes.

[20:58]

They're actually on our skin mostly, but also within our central nervous system, and even, it said, lining some of our internal organs. In other words, cells throughout our bodies essentially have eyes of their own. although they're not telling our conscious minds about what they're seeing, at least not directly anyway. And they apparently have an impact on affecting the regulation of alertness, body temperature, and even moods. So perhaps we actually have the proverbial third eye, that mystical concept that proposes the existence of an invisible eye that's capable of providing us with perception beyond ordinary sight. And perhaps, perhaps we also have a fourth eyes and fifth eyes and eyes all over the bodies that are affecting our intuition in all sorts of unexplored and mysterious ways.

[22:12]

In other words, your whole body is like the perfection of wisdom, is literally an organ of vision. Isn't that amazing? How does the bodhisattva of compassion, of great compassion, use so many hands and eyes? It's just like a person in the middle of the night reaching in search of a pillow. How do you understand this? All over the whole body is hands and eyes. That's 80%, right? What do you say? Throughout the whole body is hands and eyes. Who is the one reaching in the night in search of a pillow?

[23:16]

in search of comfort, in search of the alleviation of some form of jukka, of suffering, distress, disease. And how might we understand the very act of reaching? I would propose that the profound impulse to reach out of the radiant, indiscriminate darkness, to reach out in the night, to alleviate disease and suffering, is itself the Dharmakaya, the whole body of awakening. In Mahayana Buddhism, the Dharmakaya constitutes the unmanifested inconceivable aspect of a Buddha, out of which it said, all Buddhas arise, and to which they return after their dissolution.

[24:28]

Dogen calls it the Dharmakaya, the parent of all Buddhas. So in other words, the Dharmakaya is the Dharma body. Kaya means body. It's the universal body. You could say the body of wholeness, complete perfection. The Dharmakaya is one's own body, and it is the very body of the universe. We are the entire reality body of the universe. We are the arm that is reaching in the night, and that which is being reached for it. and we are the very act of reaching itself. All of this, this whole unfathomable activity, is simply the universe manifesting itself as the body of reality.

[25:36]

So when the Dharmakaya manifests, its form is, it's said, in accordance with beings. All beings are the body of the universe. Birds, trees, rocks, clouds, this person and that person. As well as this computer, this desk, this light. In other words, everything is the true reality body manifesting as form in accordance with beings. Everything appearing is the universe. as an expression of this mysterious, compassionate reaching. So we are all the Dharmakaya, calling out and responding to itself. All over the body, hands and eyes. But as Dawu says, this is not quite it.

[26:44]

It's 80%. You're there, but there's still another step. According to Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the French author of The Little Prince, he says, what saves a person is to take a step, then another step. It is always the same step, but you have to take it. A bodhisattva vows to stay in this world of samsara until all beings are saved, one after another, one step at a time, one reaching out to meet them after another. So in the realm of living beings, there is no end to the activity of reaching out to offer sakura, to alleviate suffering, to heal diseases such as greed, hate, delusion. to bring an end to the diseases of racial and gender violence and discrimination, of economic disparity, of war and genocide.

[27:54]

As long as there is dukkha, there is compassion. Compassion doesn't exist without suffering. There'd be no reason to have compassion. They arise together. illness and medicine manifest as one complete expression. That's 80%, says Dao Wu. But there's still another step. What is that step? Throughout the whole body is hands and eyes. And with this, suddenly, there's no problem. There's no situations. Suddenly, there is no Bodhisattva of great compassion who is saving sentient beings. And there are no sentient beings to be saved. What we have, as the Zen teacher Albert Lowe says in his commentary in this koan, what we have is a universe, which is a universe of salvation.

[29:11]

It is one world, a living, loving world. It is one mind. So meditation practice and bodhisattva practice is not a practice we do in order to gain merit or come to awakening even. It's not even a practice to save all sentient beings. We practice because throughout the whole body is hands and eyes. So with a kaleidoscopic one eye of infinite compassion, which endlessly reflects all beings, just see yourself in all beings. Allow all beings to see themselves in you. Just see yourself in all beings.

[30:17]

And allow all beings to see themselves in you. That is help enough. In the pointer introduction to this case, as it's presented in the Blue Cliff Record, a Zen teacher, Yuan Wu, asked the question, Now, leaving aside whole body for the moment, if suddenly you had no eyes, how would you see? Without ears, how would you hear? Without a mouth, how would you speak? Without a mind, how would you perceive?

[31:22]

In other words, how would we know the world without our sense organs? Is there a form of seeing and knowing beyond reliances on our senses? And how does this particular seeing and hearing give rise to a compassionate and skillful response? Every time I encounter this particular con, I'm reminded of the remarkable life story of Jacques Lusserrand. And Lusserrand was a French underground resistance leader during the Second World War who had lost his eyesight in an accident when he was eight years old. And at the age of 16, he formed a resistance group with his school friends in Nazi-occupied France. And his special skill that was of particular value to this group was his ability to see.

[32:26]

A blind man with the ability to see whether new members were trustworthy or not through what was described as his inner vision. Eventually, however, Luceron and his comrades were betrayed to the Germans. There was one time, one time, that he couldn't quite tell someone that they were talking to to discern whether or not they invite them, whether or not that person was telling the truth. And that person betrayed them. And so Lusoran ended up spending 15 months incarcerated in Buchenwald concentration camp. And by the time he was freed, 15 months later... He was one of only 30 people to survive from an initial shipment of 2,000. Luson recounts his life story in his autobiography titled, And There Was Light.

[33:35]

I don't know if anyone's familiar with this book. besides being an inspiring story of a bodhisattva, I particularly appreciate the book because I think it has some very strong Zen elements to it, particularly the chapters in which Luceran describes how after he initially became blind, he learned to see again, but without his physical eyes. A few days after he lost his sight, he realized that by looking inward, he could see what he described as a as a radiance, light rising, spreading, resting on objects, giving them form, and then leaving them. And he was able to navigate the world and live in this stream of inner light, which, like outer light, illuminated objects and people, giving them form and color. So it's fascinating. In the book, he describes how he

[34:37]

just walking down the street. He could see trees, not as objects, but kind of this internal light presence that came to him, right? He didn't need a walking stick because of this. But he said there were times when the light seemed to fade or disappear. And this was only when he was afraid or hesitated, doubted, or began to calculate. He said, what the loss of my eyes had not accomplished was brought about by fear, he writes. It made me blind. Anger and impatience had the same effect, throwing everything into confusion. The minute before, I knew just where everything in the room was. But if I got angry, Things got angrier than I. They went and hid in the most unlikely corners, mixed themselves up, turned turtle, and muttered like crazy men and looked wild.

[35:50]

As for me, I no longer knew where to put hand or foot. Everything hurt me. I find this to be an amazing description of how we literally lose our sense of inner composure or inner wisdom whenever we let our emotions and unwholesome mental formations get the best of us? How often do we become blinded by anger or fear or worry or our sense of, our clear sense of judgment becomes clouded by mental agitation or grasping? Only when we choose to be happy and meet things with a kind regard does the light of wisdom and compassion come forward again. Lusran also began to understand that there was a world beyond the ordinary auditory senses, where everything had its sound.

[37:00]

It's often said, people who are blind, their other senses become much more acute, and this was the same for Lussara. He described these sounds as neither inside nor outside of himself. Rather, it was as if they were passing through him. He knew the sound by the vibrations passing through him. And similarly with touch, which a whole new world of complex, differentiated and interacting pressures kind of opened up to him. Lussoen writes that touching things fully is seeing them as fully as eyes can see. But it is more than seeing them. It is tuning in on them and allowing the current they hold to connect with one's own. like electricity. To put it differently, this means an end of living in front of things and a beginning of living with them.

[38:12]

An end to living in front of things or to things as objects or separate and a beginning of living with them. Never mind if the word sounds shocking. For this, he said, is love. There was only one way to the inner light, he said, love. For this inner light, which is life, is love. So what Lusserlund discovered after becoming blind was that to find one's way around the world, All it took was a certain training and attention. Christopher Bromford, in his introduction to one of Lusran's other books, said that the crux of Lusran's insight was that attention is not only attention.

[39:18]

It is the way we turn toward that inner light, which he says is life, is love. so that it can come forward and touch us. It is the part of a relationship to reality, we'd say in Zen, Buddha nature, that depends on us. It is what connects us to reality. Another word for it would be presence, being present, wakeful, active, receptivity. wakeful, active receptivity. And anything that disturbs this presence must be avoided. One must strive for what the ancient monks called apathia, detachment, and what the German mystics called galassenheits, letting go.

[40:27]

We must become blind again and again. And the one who is seeing what Luseron calls the essential power, our link with the principle, or what we would say in Zen with Buddha nature, the original mind, can be present. So as you can see, this is why I think Luseron was a Zen teacher in disguise. emphasize the primacy of attention and presence, a wakeful, active receptivity. And one that asklessness asks of us not just radical receptivity, but also renunciation and letting go. I think that's very Zen. this is how the bodhisattva of invoking compassion alleviates suffering.

[41:36]

By fully being presence. By being wakeful, active receptivity. Avalokiteshvara manifests as an unconditional, compassionate presence. A luminous knowing that sees no separation between the false dichotomy, dichotomous appearances of self and other, or subject and object. And this is particularly important when nothing can be done in the face of suffering. Even though Abha Gautista has all these tools and instruments and tries to do whatever she can to alleviate suffering, there are some times when nothing simply can be done. that can be offered in those moments is wakeful, active receptivity, compassionate presence.

[42:42]

And this is something that those who work with the dying, the chaplains, know that that's, in the end, the only thing that can be truly offered. A challenge, of course, is how to be this not only for others, but particularly for ourselves. When we can offer ourselves this form of unconditional presence, then in time we naturally find that it's easier to offer this wise, compassionate, and luminous presence to others. Our whole being wants to be seen, to be recognized, received, realized and illuminated by the light of wakeful knowing, awareness, so that there are no dark corners or shadows, no place for fear or distress or doubt to hide.

[43:52]

This is the power of Avalokiteshvara, to see, witness, listen to, and hold with loving awareness the entirety of our experience, and in particular our suffering. Meditation, you could think of as insight, is the practice of turning our sight inward, to bring into sight that which is innermost. to bring into focus and simply rest in that inner light, that luminous awareness, in which that which is seeing is none other than that which is seen. This is Zazen.

[44:58]

The fundamental activity of Zazen. The study of the self is to study what obstructs the light of compassion. What gets in the way and throws shadows or blocks out the love or inner illumination that's already there. Even when we get blinded by our emotions and ideas and karmic obstructions, the light of awareness is always present. never leaves. We leave it. Our minds turn from it through our lack of attention and presence. And so we endeavor to attend. Attend. Attend.

[46:01]

To give attention to such a degree to all phenomena that There is no longer any perception of self and other, subject or object. No separation. Just the dharmagaya, the whole being, the whole body manifesting. There is just a field of luminous presence. Some call it love. I think that the dharma, like Luceron, is telling us that essentially everything we see, you could say, is light. Everything we see is nothing more than the modulation of awareness, of a luminous knowing. All matter, all experience, the whole body of the universe is nothing more than a dance of boundless, compassionate light.

[47:06]

Buddhism teaches that in order to transform our world, we must transform ourselves. We must cultivate the capacity to be generally concerned about the welfare of others. Compassion is the touchstone of such genuine concern. From a Dharma perspective, the purpose of politics, just like ethical standards or or the precepts that are adopted by both individual Dharma practitioners and Sanghas, is to help create an awakening society. A collective of peoples whose vision it is to have a world in which the cries and needs of all beings are equally heard and regarded. That we can create a system that has the capacity to offer skillful means. to as many people, to support them to be awake, happy, healthy, safe, and sufficiently resourced.

[48:32]

So the question before us now is, in this time of uncertainty, in this time of social unrest, and you could say deep questions about the viability of our culture, and our way of life. The question is, can we reach out to each other? Can we reach out across the aisle, across the hallway and the fence, across the modes of our beliefs and cherished ideologies? Can we reach out across the borders of our hearts and connect to something deeper, in all of us, to call forth to each other, and then to stay open, to stay present, and to listen unconditionally.

[49:32]

May we each manifest the practices of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of infant compassion, at this time and all time. So I've seen I've gone longer than I intended. I want to thank you for your patience and your kind attention. And I wish you all well-being and ease. Intention equally extend to every being and place With the true merit of the Taoist's way Beings are numberless, I vow to save them Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them

[50:43]

Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable, I vow to become it. I'd like to just add one more thing, kind of a parting gift for all of you this evening to help you keep going. in this time of uncertainty, this morning I received an email from a friend of mine with a video of a song that I found encouraging and touching and also joyful. And it's called the Keep Going Song. And it's by a husband and wife musical team, Abigail and Sean Bengson. And I'm going to put it in the chat field. I think I can do that. I'll put the link in the chat field. And I welcome you, if you're interested, to copy the link.

[51:48]

And when you have a chance to watch it, maybe before going to bed tonight, or maybe tomorrow as you get up at some point. And I hope it brings you some kind of delight and ease for you as we conclude this day and the days ahead. It starts out a little bit funny, but as it goes on, it gets very touching. Thank you, everyone. Please take good care of yourselves. Thank you, David. Good night. Thank you, David. Thanks, David. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, David. Thank you, David. Thank you, as always. Thank you, David. Good night, everyone. Thank you, David. Good night. Good night. Good night. Good night, everyone. Thank you. Be well. Good night, everyone.

[53:07]

Take care. Good night.

[53:10]

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