I recently returned from a trip to China and I've been grappling with a serious case of jet lag. I was up for over 24 hours and then I slept for 15 and then I was up for 23 hours and then I slept for two and then I was up again all night. Anyway, let's see, what was it last night? About five hours or so. So just to let you know, I'm in a kind of state of sleeplessness, and it's made me very sympathetic with people who have insomnia, actually, and are dealing with this all the time and having to continue to work.

[01:01]

So I just wanted to mention that to you. I wanted to say a little bit about the China trip and some of the thoughts that came from that about our practice. The trip was mainly to visit my son, Dave, who's teaching English in China, who's in Xi'an, which is Xi'an of the terracotta warrior fame. It's really on the tourist map to go and see those thousands of terracotta warriors. And Xi'an itself as a city is very, very old. 200 or so B.C. was the imperial capital for 11 dynasties. Xi'an in that area was the imperial capital of China through the Tang Dynasty.

[02:10]

So there's a lot of history there, enormous amount of history. And although we did see a lot of sites and visit things, I think the main thrust of the trip, the main purpose was to visit a family member and be shown around by a family member. So we weren't tourists really. And it was the first time, this is my third time to China, the first time I wasn't with a big group, with a big tour. So it was just the four of us mostly and some of Davy's friends. And we went to teeny tiny restaurants and his various haunts near the school. And it was fascinating, especially because he's speaking Chinese. And so he could show us around, order food, get taxis and have conversations.

[03:17]

And of course, that's always the best way to travel with somebody. who knows where they are and can show you around. Just a couple of the high points. I don't want this to be a travel log minus the slides about my recent trip to China. But we did see in Xi'an there's the, I think a couple weeks ago here, there was a play about monkey coming from the West. Maybe some of you saw it. And that's the story of a Xuanzang who, not Xuanzang, Huangshan, who went to India and brought back to China sutras, many, many Indian sutras. And in Xi'an, he built a pagoda. They call it a pagoda or a kind of stupa building to house these sutras. And it's still there, a very tall pagoda.

[04:21]

There's two called the Small Goose Pagoda and the Big Goose Pagoda. And that's where all these sutras were kept. So that was kind of exciting. That was in, I think, the 700s. And we climbed to the top of one of these. There was also a large temple that was Tibetan. They call it a Lamaseri from the 1700s. And in that temple, there's a Manjushri, which is the future Buddha, and the Buddha of Love that was, well, it was in meters, so I don't know in feet, it was 54 meters high. So when we walked into this room, we were at about the level of the calf, you know, and then this figure rose up into the sky, basically, this Maitreya, a Maitreya Buddha. Oh, excuse me, did I say Maitreya?

[05:22]

Maitreya Buddha, the future Buddha, huge, one piece out of a tree. And the effect of seeing a Buddha figure that large was, or any figure that large probably, but in particular this Buddha of love, was very, very strong. There's also a large Muslim quarter in Xi'an with all sorts of treats, sweets and street food. And there's a particular minority called the H-U-I Hui, the Hui minority, supposedly descended from Arab warriors who were in China in one of these centuries. And there's quite an interesting part of the city wandering around those streets.

[06:25]

And after Xi'an, we went to Beijing for about five days, and I think because Daivi didn't know that city quite as well, and it's so huge. Xi'an is huge too. Xi'an, although it feels small, is 10 million people, right? And Beijing is like 14 million or 15 million. So these are gigantic cities, but Xi'an felt smaller because of these different historical neighborhoods in the Muslim quarter. But in Beijing, we did go to the main sites, one of which was Tiananmen Square. I'm sure many of you in the room have traveled to China. Tiananmen Square is the largest piazza, the largest square, public square. And the last time I had been there, I was with a large group. of over 30 people and we just walked through it on the way to the Forbidden City. But this time it was just my daughter and Sarah and Davey and Steve, my husband and I, just in Tiananmen Square at dusk and not so many crowds.

[07:38]

The tour groups were gone and we just sat there and felt the power of that place and what happened there. And in fact it's been It was 1989 that, in May, that thousands of students and workers gathered, thousands and thousands gathered there and built, as you would call, the statue of the Lady Liberty and made these requests for democracy and camped there. So we just sat in silence. as a pilgrimage really to that place, remembering actually June 2nd is when the government lost patience and came in with the tanks. It's unknown how many people, hundreds for sure, maybe thousands of people were killed.

[08:38]

And being with my children who are young people and active and activist imagining that spirit of youth that was there coming into their own and workers coming together in this spirit of harmony and expressing themselves. So we had a chance and I wanted, I remember the last time I visited, feeling, wait, wait a minute, let's not just walk through here, let's touch this ground kind of, you know, this hallowed ground, like Gettysburg or something. But, you know, we had a schedule to keep, but this time we were on our own schedule, so we just sat there. And then we did our own memorial service. We chanted the Daishin Darani, which is the Great Compassion Darani, or chant.

[09:47]

recited that and dedicated the merit so we had a chance to actually have a memorial service which really felt appropriate. So just a couple other things that I wanted to mention. One was Davy was particularly encouraged and struck by how elderly people in Xi'an especially, but also I'm sure all over China, had a life of, had real life together and he took us to where the old people, you call them the old people, probably not that much older than I am, but the old people were dancing and they danced every night on the street, a folk dance with bands and scarves and percussion instruments and just dancing away for hours, this wonderful exercise, but for the sheer joy of dancing together, this folk dance.

[10:53]

Also, there were these little groupettes singing, it's a precursor to Beijing Opera, a kind of older form that started in Xi'an, and little groups singing and playing instruments with people listening and then another person's turn, kind of like like a karaoke kind of thing, maybe just out on the street and not just one group but scores of people, little groups of just two or three and larger groups and just out on the street along the wall. Xi'an is a walled city. The walls are intact and it's wonderful to walk along the walls. And then other groups of older people playing mahjong on the street and checkers and other kinds of games. And then we noticed they had bird cages, songbirds that mostly I think older men have songbirds.

[11:58]

They bring them out and there's cables kind of in the trees and they hang their songbirds and then play mahjong all afternoon. with the rest of the gentlemen who also have their birds. So you walk along and there's these birds just singing their hearts out while games are going on. It felt very sane and very kind of like a wonderful retirement, I think, activities. And it was fun to have him appreciate it and show it to us. So I've been meditating, you might say, on old age and there's a fascicle in Dogen, the Zen master, the founder of this school in Japan from the 1200s who wrote a fascicle called Continuous Practice.

[13:09]

It's a very long you know, essay or chapter in his masterwork. And it's about various people who have practiced and continued their practice in the face of difficulty. And he mentions in this many teachers who were quite old. One was his teacher, Ru Jing. And Ru Jing is quoted as saying, you know, I'm 65 years old, which is... I know it's the new 45, but I think You know, at 65, there is no such thing as 65. We feel whatever it is we feel at that age. But he was saying, I'm gray-headed and my bones ache, and still I sit every day. I cover the cushion, you know, with his bottom, right? I cover the Zazen cushion every day. And one interesting thing he says is, I don't understand zasek, but still I get up in the morning and sit.

[14:16]

I was quite appreciative of that from Dogen's teacher, who he received Dharma transmission from, his teacher saying, I don't understand zasek, but still I have continuous practice. I continue to sit. That kind of spirit. was very encouraging to me. We might have this idea that we need to get it, whatever the it is, or understand exactly what it's all about, and then that will... And unless we do, why should we continue practicing? But this teaching is we just continue our practice, and that spirit and that effort is the expression of continuous practice. Continuous practice is to continue our practice, whether we understand it thoroughly, totally, or not.

[15:22]

There are other stories in there about an 80-year-old teacher who, actually this story must be a because it said he was in the womb, his mother's womb, for 60 years. And I thought, whoa, you know, that must have been problematic. So he was born, and he had long gray hair when he was born, and then he practiced for 20 years, and then he continued practicing until he was 80, so he was very old. And he... continue to sit no matter what. So I've been feeling, and maybe many of you in the room are feeling this, you know, I get up in the morning and I have aching bones, you know, or muscles are being stiff.

[16:28]

And not only just getting up in the morning, but throughout the day and various other problems, hips and neck. And we can become discouraged by this, by these kinds of physical difficulties. And also in this continuous practice fascicle it says, when our ruddy cheeks are gone, they will never come back again. This kind of blush of youth and chi and blooming, when that time is over, that will never return again. And how do we practice then? Is our practice dependent on us feeling healthy and genki, genki meaning full of life force, or is it not dependent on anything in particular?

[17:39]

For those of you who are in the flush, the bloom of youth, this may seem not so relevant. Although everyone in all ages has difficulties and things that we have to accept, meet, and the pains of our life, emotional, physical, mental pains, no one's exempt. I have right now two friends who are undergoing chemotherapy. And to listen to the details of that which, on the one hand, you know, they asked me, you don't have to hear this, do you want to? And I said, I'm open to hearing this, I do want to hear this. And the descriptions of, and the inability to really find the words to describe what the feeling is like being pumped full of poison, you know.

[18:58]

The descriptions have been, you know, the meaning is not in the words, but I get a bodily feeling of it even though the words can't describe it completely. One person described it as the cells are like, the cells themselves are like breaking apart. What does that mean exactly? What would that feel like? I don't know. having to face this with continuous practice and undergo this, or feeling a tiredness that they have never experienced in their life where they can't move. And how does one have continuous practice through these difficulties? If we think our continuous practice is based on us being able to even sit upright, that may be too narrow a definition.

[20:01]

Can we practice, you know, curled up in a ball? And what is our practice then? In Xi'an, we went to I have foot massages. And the place where we went, where Devi took us, were blind masseurs. And they're very, very skilled. They're expert master masseurs. And I think most of the people in the office there, if you could call it an office, it was in the Muslim Quarter down this funny little street. Anyway, are blind and very, very skilled. And the card, you know how sometimes you read English translations of Chinese, no, English translations, Chinese translations into English of directions and things.

[21:13]

Sometimes they're very amusing to read, you know. There were some very funny signs like one in granite at a park, incised in the granite with characters and then English which said, Do not stampede. Which I thought was really a great one. We took a picture of that one. Do not stampede. Anyway, at the blind masseur's place, they had a card, and on the card it said, in English, it's very hard for me to remember this English, so I wrote it down. We would like the hard left to their own health to you. I read this card. It's like, we would like the hard left. No, it's not about a hard left. We would like the hard left to their own health to you. We would like the hard left to their own health to you. Anyway, in repeating it over and over, it kind of cracked open the way a koan does.

[22:18]

And they were saying, we would like the hard life because of their blindness, of their health, this hard difficulty, we would like that to be turned over to your own health. We would like the hard left to their own health, to you. Anyway, the meaning is not in the words. But it responds, responds to the inquiring impulse. And you did feel that this was their their deep practice to help others, you know, and they not only do massage, the foot massage, they could tell, you know, from working what other parts of your body were needing attention, you know, because the foot, all the different meridians and so forth end up in the feet and you can tell what organs are, et cetera, et cetera.

[23:23]

They could tell and give, like, diagnosis. And then Steve and Davey went back the next day. They had full-body massages, then they had foot massages, and then they had cupping, you know, with the people. You may know this from going to the acupuncturist. But all done with, you know, without the visual sense faculty, but with enormous devotion and... their hands, you know, and their vow, I really felt, we would like the hard left to their own health, to you, was a kind of vow and turning their life over to helping others. So, so when we have our own difficulties This spirit of having the heart left to our own life turned over to all beings is a kind of continuous practice of our vow.

[24:31]

In the midst of our own difficulties, can we find the way in which we connect with others through our suffering? Not, oh, I can connect with others when I'm feeling good, when I'm feeling on top of it, when I'm not so jet-lagged, then I'll connect, and then I'll be there for others. But in all the states, in all the different problems of our life, physical and otherwise, those sufferings others share, and through those difficulties we can connect with others and offer ourselves. Yesterday and today, I received two phone calls. Actually, in the day before that, a package came in the mail.

[25:34]

And I'll just mention the package. The package was a shawl from someone who is in Burma doing human rights work. And the shawl was made from the fibers of the lotus plant. And it's a woven shawl. I didn't know that lotus fibers, I think they open the stem and then inside are some fibrous material that's been made into yarn or thread and woven. So it was kind of wonderful to put on this shawl which was a lotus plant. The lotus being, you know, synonymous with Bodhisattva vow and practicing compassion in Buddha's, you know, thought teaching. Various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are standing. These two behind me are standing on lotuses. The Shakyamuni is sitting on lotus.

[26:35]

So this is wisdom and compassion. So here's the shawl of a lotus to wrap oneself in. That was very wonderful to receive as a surprise. And one phone call that I received was someone who I don't know actually very well, I know somewhat, and a person who's come to Green Gulch, and from what I could ascertain, they were just asking for help, they were just reaching out, and they had my number. And it was like, and they were asking Dharma questions. And it wasn't that I had to think, now who is this person? I knew who it was, I'd never spoken with them one-on-one, but this call came. And one of the things they said is, how do you take refuge in the Buddha?

[27:36]

What is taking refuge in Buddha? It was a long-distance call. I don't know what they were going through, this person, something, obviously. And the question that came up was, how do you take refuge? What is taking refuge in Buddha? So I responded as best I could. And what came up for me was the first time I saw people bow and do full prostrations in a service. And I was very surprised by the whole room sort of dropped to the floor. So I went along with it, but I thought, whoa, wait a minute, where am I? This is very scary. I don't know what people are doing, bowing down to idols and so forth.

[28:37]

So I asked the director at City Center, happened to be Reb Anderson, I said, what are people bowing to? And he said, you're bowing to your own true nature. And I said, oh, well, that's why I'm here. So, okay, that's fine with me. Never had another problem with it forever after. So that story came to meet me with this phone call, this person saying, what is taking refuge in Buddha? And this time with this person at this moment, I said, you know, to take refuge in your own true self. go for refuge, go home to your true self. What is the true self? It's awakened nature. The Buddha means awakened one, and you're not separate from that.

[29:39]

And when that true nature is personified, we make figures, you know, or say Shakyamuni Buddha, or Maitreya Buddha, giant images, take your breath away. But it's not taking refuge in a wood figure, a metal figure. The meaning is not in the wood or metal figure. The meaning comes from our own devotion, or not even devotion, just wanting to take refuge is enough. And just saying it, I take refuge in Buddha, I take refuge in Dharma. I take refuge in Sangha. One might say, I don't know what those words mean. And the meaning is not in those words. What is your feeling? What is it that's animating you to say, to even ask the question, what is taking refuge?

[30:47]

Or I want to take refuge. Or I'm longing for something. So right there, it's already there. So there's a tendency to substantialize that into a thing like Buddha nature. I have Buddha nature as a, sometimes we hear it talked about like this, as a seed or something within us that will eventually become Buddha. And maybe that can be comforting sometimes, but I don't think it's quite accurate. There's the Lotus Sutra story of the two friends A parable, it's a parable teaching story of the two friends who are having a lovely time and they're drinking wine and one of the friends becomes very, very sleepy and goes to sleep.

[31:50]

It's probably inebriated. I think it even says that in the Lotus Entry. And his other friend has to leave on a business trip or something, but he takes a jewel and he sews it into the hem. of his friend's robe, his friend's outfit, so that he has this, will have enough money. Well, the friend wakes up, has no idea about this jewel in his hem and goes off and has all sorts of difficulties and gets poorer and poorer and sick probably and old and creaky and limping and back aches and chemo. and all sorts of difficulties. Years later, he shows up at his friend's house in a very sorry state after wandering and not making a very successful life in terms of his health. His friend said, oh my goodness, what's happened to you?

[32:55]

He looks like a mangy old mammal. And his friend told him about all his hard luck and difficulties. And he said, but his friend told him, but didn't you know you had this, I gave you this jewel. It's right in your robe all along, didn't you know? Been carrying his riches with him all along, right? A child of riches. But walking on the road of poverty, you know. How sorrowful. to fall down on the road of poverty when you're actually fully endowed, but we don't know it. Now that story is a wonderful parable, but it might lend itself to thinking that it's a thing, like a jewel, like a thing, that we either have or don't have. And to widen that story, our

[33:58]

Awakened nature is not a thing that we have. It's what we are. Buddha nature, all things, whole being, whole being, all beings. Buddha nature is how Dogen talks about Buddha nature. whole being, all beings, Buddha nature, which is not a thing you can get a hold of and grasp. It is actually our own true nature of how we are functioning right now, how we are in this room together, in our lives together with the creaky bones and difficulties. So our kind of default is that we want to get a thing.

[35:07]

We want to get something. And we go searching for a thing. Maybe like that friend who went off searching his fortune when he already was it. He already was fully endowed. Abundantly endowed. So this you might say, I might say, I don't understand this. This is a mystery. This is a mystery. And in that mystery we take refuge in the mystery maybe of Buddha nature, whole being, all beings, Buddha nature. I just wanted to say one more story, actually. When I'm in China, the last time I was in China, I was on a pilgrimage, a Quan Yin, or Kanon, or Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, on a kind of pilgrimage to visit the sacred sites to Quan Yin.

[36:24]

And at that time, Huan Yin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, popped up in all different forms and ways as figures, finding figures, and as the group itself of 32 women and how they treated each other and harmonized together and took care of each other, and people we met, serendipitous events, synchronistic events. The figure, when you leave the Zendo, if you go out the back, the back of this large figure here, which is a wisdom figure, the back is a Kuan Yin figure that we found in China during this trip, and in some ways I could say it found us, or we were looking, we were looking for a Kuan Yin for the boot, for the Zendo here, and there were many, many, many Kuan Yin figures, and this particular one, it was like,

[37:26]

Look at her. And she fit exactly in that spot. You can take a look at her. And not only does she fit behind the altar there perfectly, she looks like she's made of the same wood as the altar. Plus she's pouring out her vase of compassion into dragons who are coming up from the ocean to be fed with compassion. And they have a pearl in the mouth, the jewel. This is this jewel. It's in the mouth of the dragon. is pearl or jewel. So that bodhisattva who hears the cries of the world, Kuan Yin means the regardor of the cries of the world or hearer of the cries of the world. So I thought this trip I would be looking for Kuan Yin's too and see if they chose me. And there were many near the temple, a couple temples, and some were charming, but nothing particular.

[38:32]

And then in this one shop in the historical street of Xi'an, with all these other fake terracotta warriors and other kind of souvenir type things, behind this other figure of a camel or something, I saw this little face peeking out and I thought, I think that's a Kuan Yin back there. all dusty, all covered with, you know, hadn't been moved for years probably. They got her out. I should have brought her. And there she was, the Bodhisattva of Compassion ceramic with this glaze that was, I don't know if you've seen the camels, actually camels and horses, Chinese kind of a brown and green, drippy kind of glaze. It's that glaze. I'd never seen anything like it. And her vase is bright blue. It sits in the front. And her face, she looks like the Virgin of Guadalupe, actually.

[39:36]

She looks Mexican, like a Mexican aesthetic, and yet it's definitely Kuan Yin. Anyway, there she was. And we haggled, which seemed sort of blasphemous to be haggling over, you know, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. But, you know, it's... It's part of the deal. And it was very reasonable, more than reasonable. Anyway, we brought her, hand carried her home and had begun to offer incense and appreciate one more personification of compassion. That was one. And then the other one that I found, the last night we were in Xi'an, The last night we were in Beijing, I was in a funny little store, and the same thing, I saw something behind something, and could I see that one back?

[40:39]

Filthy, it was all dusty, it was little. And they brought it out and kind of cleaned it off, and I said, it's fish basket kuan yin. Now, because she's carrying a basket. Now, fish basket kuan yin is a Chinese version of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, and it comes from the story of Quan Yin takes any form that's helpful, any form that you need, that's, the Bodhisattva of Compassion will come in that form if you need animate and inanimate objects, whatever form. Well, in this case, Quan Yin took the form of an old, there's many stories about Fish Basket Quan Yin, I'll just tell you one. Fish Basket Kuan Yin was selling fish in the market, an old woman, and nobody paid any attention to her. So she transformed herself. This may be a... I hope it's not offensive.

[41:41]

It's just one of those stories. She transformed herself into a beautiful and useful fishmonger, fish seller, and had a basket with fish and, you know, selling fish. Who will buy my fish? And... many people, probably men and women, totally fell in love with her. She was so comely and so attractive, selling the fish. And many people, men and women, both asked her to marry her. And she said, I'll marry the one who can memorize the 25th chapter of the Lotus Sutra, which is the chapter on regardor of the cries of the world, the how to, when you need help, to call on the bodhisattva compassion in any kind of difficulty, whether you're in jail or sick or whatever, you call on her. So about 20 people memorized it in one night, the entire chapter.

[42:43]

So then she had to make it a little more difficult. Okay, then you have to memorize the Diamond Sutra, and about 10 people memorized the Diamond Sutra completely. Okay, well, who can memorize the Lotus Sutra, the entire Lotus Sutra, 28 chapters. And there's different stories. One is that she set up a study tent where people came and studied the Lotus Sutra, but other stories is that only one was able to do it in three days, Mr. Ma. So she agreed to marry Mr. Ma. But on the day of her wedding, she got very, very sick and died. And then there's more to the story. Actually, under her fish, in her fish basket, was the Lotus Sutra. She was carrying the Lotus Sutra with her in the marketplace. The upshot was a traveling monk said he thought it was his cousin, the fish lady, and he said he wanted to pay respects to her body and she was exhumed and her bones were all connected with golden chains.

[43:50]

And then she came alive and she and the monk rose up into the sky. Anyway, there's... And it was Quan Yin, you know, and everybody knew. And that was her skillful means. How are you going to get people to study the Lotus Sutra? People don't like it. She found a way. So anyway, so back to Xi Yan, right? So there it was, fish basket Quan Yin, a little one carrying a little basket. I was very happy because I don't see them that often. You see her pouring out her vase and other forms, but fish basket Quan Yin. Actually, we have one in the garden. You know the bodhisattva right by the, on the way down in the garden near the nursery? You know that bodhisattva? That's fish basket, Quan Yin. Notice her. She's quite lovely and she's carrying a basket. So we have one here. I don't know where you can, maybe you can buy that at a garden supply store, I'm not sure. So we found her and the two gentlemen who own the shop

[44:56]

Sarah and I were buying her, and we didn't have Davy with us, so we tried to haggle over fish basket guanyin, and they wouldn't have any, they knew we wanted her, they could tell. We were at a disadvantage because we went, oh, fish basket, you know. So we couldn't fool them, and they told us what it was, and I wrote down something, no way, you know. We went away for a while, okay, no way, they wouldn't change. But I had a very good feeling. They were happy to sell it to us. And then he wanted, turned out later, he wanted Sarah to work in his shop. Yeah, yeah. So where was I? So the taking any form, compassion taking, any form to help us, and it doesn't matter what, if we're in difficulty, then you can ask for help, like this phone call.

[46:07]

You just call out, or in any form that takes for you, calling a friend, writing to your teacher, just going out to dance with your other old friends with fans and scarves, you know, getting a foot massage, coming to a Sunday talk, studying, taking good care of yourself. These are ways to call out and to help and to take refuge. And it can take any form. So the... The benefits of travel are infinite, widening one's own narrow, provincial, self-centered, country-centered view, to go someplace new and fresh and be open to different customs, different sounds, different habits.

[47:21]

very broadening and helps us not be so stuck. Thank you very much.

[47:47]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_96.78