This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. This room has been a Zen meditation hall for about 46 years. Before that, it was a hay barn. There was a hole in the floor, which you can still see outlines of it behind the altar, where people used to drop hay down through the floor to the cows down below. For those of you who I haven't seen for a few decades,

[01:00]

I'm surprised and happy to see you. Thank you for coming back to Green Gulch to visit us again and again. For those of you who are new, how many people are here for the first time? Please raise your hands. So we just did a chant. And the last line of the chant was something like, I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Do you know the word Tathagata? No? It means teacher? Yeah, it's an epithet for the teacher. Tathagata is made of two parts. One part is ta-ta-ta, which means thusness or suchness. It means the ultimate. It's a word we use to refer to the ultimate truth.

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And then the last part is gatha or agatha. We don't know which. Which means either gone or come. So the Buddha is our being. Our being when it goes back. to the ultimate truth or it's our being when it comes from ultimate truth. And this is an epithet for a fully realized being. Tathagata. This word may come up a little later in this talk. If you excuse the expression, first, a word from our sponsor.

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Our sponsor, our sponsors, are the Buddha ancestors. The Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are the sponsors of this temple. And a word from them, or a word about them. One of the things I would say about our sponsors, our ancestors, is that they demonstrate, they show us, and thereby may inspire us and encourage us to listen. to the cries of the world the Buddhas show us and may inspire us to listen to the cries of the world all the cries of all the suffering beings to listen to observe all beings with eyes of compassion the Buddhas demonstrate that in a way that

[04:34]

may inspire us to do the same, to observe all living beings with eyes of compassion. They demonstrate it and they also teach us that observing all beings with eyes of compassion creates this observation, this compassionate witnessing, creates this An ocean of blessing. And this ocean of blessing is for the sake of freeing all beings so they may dwell in peace. The ancestors also teach us that this path to peace or path of peace has no fixed form.

[05:54]

And if we are inspired to observe all beings with eyes of compassion, if we enter that practice, they give us further teachings about how to do the work of freeing beings so they may dwell in peace. The ocean and blessing that comes from this compassionate observation includes an ocean of teachings today I'd like to bring up some of those teachings for the sake of aiding those beings who wish to work for the liberation and peace of all beings and the teaching that I bring up is one way to put it is that the Buddha teaches

[07:13]

that all living beings, each of us and all of us, literally the text says, have or possess the virtue and wisdom of the Buddhas. So this is a teaching from the ancestors, from the Buddhas, that each of us and all of us fully possess the wisdom and virtues of the Buddhas. And because we also, all of us, have misconceptions and attachments, we don't realize this nature that we have.

[08:26]

We fully possess, according to this teaching, the wisdom, all of us fully possess it, the wisdom and the virtues, and we also have misconceptions and attachments which kind of... hinder our realization of the wisdom and virtues which we fully possess. So the Buddhas teach us how to work with this situation. This wisdom of the Buddhas together with I'll just use the words, and I hope it's not too shocking, together with the pollution of misconceptions and attachments. We have the wisdom of the Buddhas, which is the mind which realizes ta-ta-ta, which realizes suchness.

[09:40]

We have that, that suchness. But it's associated, and it's associated with pollution or stain, which is misconceptions and attachments, those two, we have both of those things. We're living beings. And the two together are called Buddha nature. And so another text or other texts teach that all of us, again, the original text looks like it says, All of us have this Buddha nature, which means we have the ultimate truth, and we have pollution, and they're together. Now, working with this Buddha nature, which we have in the proper way,

[10:47]

purifies the situation. Without getting rid of anything, the situation becomes purified and realizing this Buddha nature, realizing this relationship between ultimate truth and misconceptions and attachments, realizing the situation is realizing Buddhahood. And in realizing Buddhahood, we realize the Buddha bodies, the Buddha bodies. We embody the Buddha through this practice. And the Buddha has a body called the true body. In Sanskrit, Dharmakaya. And this true body of the Buddha, which comes with the realization of our Buddha nature, That is suchness.

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That is ta-ta-ta. Free of pollution. That's the realization of ta-ta-ta. So we go to that through the practice and we come from that. So then in that way we realize ta-ta-gata. We have an original, permanent nature, which is the way things really are. All of us are touched and pervaded by the way things really are. All of us are partly the way things really are. And it's permanent.

[12:56]

I am impermanent, and you're impermanent. I, a human being, am impermanent. But every moment of my impermanent life, I have this suchness, which is, I'm always that way. And every moment of your impermanent life, You have this truth, this ultimate truth. It's part of you all the time. It's permanent. And you also have a temporary quality, which is various misconceptions and attachments. Those are temporary. And those are impermanent. And by practicing with this situation, we've been told it is possible to become free.

[14:01]

And this process of becoming free is also the process of purifying this Buddha nature and realizing Buddhahood. One of the familiar and basic ways of working with the situation of being a human being, of working with our Buddha nature, is to remember stillness.

[15:09]

In remembering stillness, we can also perform the ritual of sitting still by being by sitting still and remembering stillness we get a chance to see our misconceptions and to see our attachments and to see our suffering and to observe our misconceptions and to observe our attachments and to observe the suffering which comes from our attachments to our misconceptions misconceptions that aren't attached to our mind they're just misconceptions but these misconceptions are what's the word they're they often look like and they often say

[16:17]

I'm not a misconception. I'm a truth. Like what we think of each other, it looks a certain way and then it has a little subliminal message. This is true. And we fall for it and attach to it. And this is suffering. By remembering still, And by practicing stillness, we can learn to let our misconceptions beat and not try to get rid of them or hold on to them. And in this way, the process of purification is alive. The process of purification is to observe with compassion all the misconceptions which is basically all of our conceptions to observe all of them with compassion and to observe all of them remembering stillness we learn to let them fully be we exhaust them by fully moving with them

[17:46]

and not pushing them away or holding on. This is a basic practice which we practice here. And again, there's additional teachings about how to work with the teaching of Buddha nature. Many, many teachings of how to work with the teaching of Buddha nature. Many stories about how Students and teachers worked with the words and the teaching, Buddha nature. All living beings have Buddha nature. Well, how do we work with that? So one of the Zen stories that's brought up, has been brought up for about 1,300 years on a regular basis, all over Asia, and now in Western countries, and now back to Asia, is a story of a wonderful ancestor named Zhao Zhou, a Chinese person.

[19:03]

And a monk came to him and said to him, does a dog have Buddha nature? And the ancestor said in Chinese Wu which could be translated as no or doesn't have. Does it have it or not? Doesn't have. No. That's one answer. So The student is working with the teacher, trying to understand, working with this Buddha nature teacher, does a dog have Buddha nature?

[20:07]

The teacher says, no. On another occasion, a monk came and asked Zhao Zhou, does a dog have Buddha nature or not? And Zhao Zhou said, yes. It has. So here's an example of a teaching. All beings, including dogs, have Buddha nature. And the monk says, does a dog have Buddha nature? Really? Or unenlightened people have the Buddha nature. Really? Do they really? And the teacher says, no, they don't. Do they really? Yes, they do. So it seems like the teacher is teaching people how to relate to this teaching that we all possess the Buddha nature without getting into whether we possess it or not.

[21:15]

Because possessing it, for us, we have a misconception of possessing it. or not possessing it. We have a misconception of not possessing it. So the teacher says, not. Just in case you were caught up in any idea of this Buddha nature, like that you have it or you don't, because it did say you have it. So if I tell you you have it, if you get caught up and have it, then if you ask me about it, I say you don't. Also, if you're caught up in that you have it, and that you have it, and I say you have it, I can say that to help you see if you're caught up in it. So here we have the teaching.

[22:23]

The monk is asking about the teaching, and the teacher is trying to help the monk work with their Deluded mind, which has these misconceptions about everything, including the teaching of Buddha nature. To work with the misconceptions about Buddha nature, just like you'd work with the misconceptions of your friends or your enemies. What time is it, Cynthia? 1045. if you have a dog, or if you meet a dog, it's normal that you would have misconceptions about the dog.

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And a lot of people's misconception about dogs, they think it's very pleasurable that they have a misconception of a dog because they think dogs are really wonderful. And they sometimes are attached to their idea about dogs. And they may or may not notice that they're suffering because they're attached to their ideas about dogs. And if they notice that, then that suffering, they may be able to apply the basic teaching of observing the suffering of being attached to your idea of dogs with eyes of compassion. And to learn to let your misconceptions about dogs be. And to let dogs be, too, while you're at it.

[25:07]

Give up trying to control yourself and your misconceptions and your attachments by remembering stillness, by remembering compassion towards the misconceptions and attachments. And in this way, letting them completely be, we realize that misconceptions are not misconceptions. Of course they're misconceptions, yeah. but they're also not misconceptions. They're temporarily misconceptions, but they're permanently not misconceptions. And also dogs. When we really let them be, we realize that a dog is not a dog. The way a dog is a dog and not a dog is the way a dog permanently is.

[26:19]

A dog is always a dog and not a dog. A dog is the whole universe. And the whole universe is a dog. And dogs have karmic consciousness just like humans. They have Buddha nature because they are the way things really are and they are also afflicted by attachments and misconceptions and their suffering. If we let ourselves and let dogs be, we realize suchness and the purification process is alive. You don't have to stop thinking that dogs are really adorable.

[27:31]

You don't have to start thinking dogs are really adorable. You need to observe all beings, including your own deluded mind, with eyes of compassion. And blessings will arise and you'll be able to work with your mind in a way that will help you realize that you are, you are the Buddha nature. Not that you possess it or don't, but that's what you really are. And you don't have to stop being the Buddha nature. But it would be very helpful if you would realize it. Because that would be Buddhahood. Buddhas realize Buddha nature and teach it and teach other people not only that they are that and possess and don't possess, that they are that in a way that's free of having and not having.

[28:42]

Just like, you know, you have your human nature and you don't have your human nature. That's the way you really are, human nature. You're free of having and not having it. I was talking to some people recently in another city in California called Berkeley and I was talking to them about this Zen story about dogs do they or don't they have Buddha nature and one of the people whose name is Adam says can you

[29:48]

Do you have some examples of dogs to demonstrate this? And I don't know if I said yes, but sort of I said yes. I do. I didn't go looking for dog stories, which were really Buddhist stories. I didn't go looking for them, but they were given to me. and I can't tell you all of them today because I know some of you have to go to lunch. So anyway, I'll just tell you one, really long one. This is about a dog which was given to me, a golden retriever,

[30:49]

Some kind of terrier mix. It was a female, and I named her Lara after Dr. Zhivago character. She looked kind of like Julie Christie. Anyway, I got this gift of a dog to take care of. I don't remember why I accepted this responsibility, but I did, and it was really a sweet dog, and it was a puppy, and it grew up. Under my care, it became an adult female, and then at a certain point, I noticed that

[31:54]

I kind of, it seemed like she came into what we call heat. I don't know how I came up with that, but anyway. It might have been because outside of my house, I lived in the second story of a duplex, yeah. I lived in the second story of a duplex, and outside the door on the first floor, I started to notice many dogs were outside roaming around, sniffing. And I noticed that Lara seemed to be really interested in going outside. As I remember it, I did not want her to go outside and mate if that's what was going to happen. I didn't want to have a lot of puppies. One dog was enough for me to take care of. I was a rather poor student in college.

[32:55]

Anyway, so I didn't open the door and say, OK, go for it. And she accepted my, she didn't bite me and snarl at me for not letting her out. And the other dogs were fairly, they were out there, but they weren't coming up the stairs and clawing on the door. So everybody except me was being quite kind. Anyway, one day, somehow, Lar got out and went down the stairs. And I was right there when she did. And I called her. No, I didn't call her. I don't know what I did. Anyway, she zipped down the stairs, and there were these number of dogs. And I kind of gave up, trying to control her.

[34:02]

But then my mind also started to think, actually, I give up on this mating thing, but at least I'd like to choose which one of them. But anyway, the one I didn't want her to choose was the quickest. And she accepted him. And again, I didn't want him to be my son-in-law. Is this story getting too long? Okay, so anyway, I didn't want him to be the father. of the puppies I was going to take care of. So I told my obedient Lara to come in.

[35:06]

And she came in up the stairs. But he was attached to her. So she was dragging him up the stairs. And again, I got the message to let go, to let the dog be. to let the dogs be. And that was that. And then she didn't want to go out anymore and there weren't dogs out there waiting. Something changed in the biology of the house. The heat was over. And I didn't know if that meant that she was pregnant, but little by little, I could see that she was growing abdominally and just kept growing and growing.

[36:09]

And at a certain point, she started to, in her rear parts, her hindquarters, a red fluid started to come out and drip out onto the earth. And at that point, I didn't want her to be in my bed anymore, where she liked to hang out. So I closed the door to the bedroom and told her to stay in the kitchen, which had her bed and a linoleum floor, and I could clean up that situation. One day I came home, and... Again, somehow she had gotten out of the kitchen and she was up on top of my bed, sitting on my pillows, which were kind of the color of white, or some light color like that.

[37:11]

And on top of the white material was lots of red, which I didn't want the red stuff all over my pillow. So I told her to get back in the kitchen, and she did. So then I went over to clean up my pillows and I discovered that there were four puppies on my pillow happily rolling in that red stuff. And I was really struck by the compassion of my dog to me. My kind of rude way of relating to her, she said, okay. And so then I said, okay, you can be up on the bed. This dog, before that and after that, taught me many things about my own mind.

[38:23]

But again, that would be too many stories for today. So I'll just leave you with this one, okay? about how that dog had the ability to teach me about my own misconceptions and attachments and help me move along on my path to Zen practice. This dog was a bodhisattva in my life. It was the Buddha's coming to help me through her to realize how silly I was. to attach to my idea. Not silly maybe to have such ideas, like I don't want blood and serum on my pillows, but just to be attached to it and to not be respectful of my dog. That's the part which he was showing me. So I told that story the other night, and now I'm telling you again.

[39:30]

If you're interested, Adam wanted to know, so I told the story. Then the next week, I came into the meeting in Berkeley, and next to my seat was a doll. A doll of a dog. And here's the doll. But it didn't have this... This robe on. It had a regular black robe on. Here it is. Somebody in the class between the story night and the next night, which was my birthday, made this doll.

[40:31]

Some of you might see this doll up close someday and be amazed. She made it like in one week. Well, she's a professional. Wow. And then she gently pointed out to me that there's some red stuff coming out of the bottom And I thought, oh, hmm, what's she trying to tell me? So now I'm telling you a story about a human who made a doll and then pointed out to me the red stuff. And then she said, and then, I don't know exactly what she said, but I think she said something like, if you, you know, I don't know, if you,

[41:42]

if you engage with this red stuff, you might discover there's something underneath it. Can you see? In the back? Can you see the dog doll and the red stuff? And so she said, if you could, like, feel something in there, and then you can pull the dress, the skirt down... And there you have what looks like a Buddha. And the Buddha is holding a puppy. And inside the puppy is a Buddha holding a puppy. And this puppy is each of us, of course.

[42:47]

The Buddha is holding each of us. helping us to get into being each of us and discover that each of us is not each of us. And in this discovery process, we realize Buddhahood. So this is a kind of a birthday present for me and for you. And I don't know which way is better. This way? Or this way. And I think this teaching of Buddha nature is Buddhas are not better than dogs and vice versa. Some people think dogs are better than Buddhas. Some people think Buddhas are better than dogs. Some dogs think that dogs are better than Buddhas. Some dogs think Buddhas are better than dogs. But Buddhas don't think that they're better than dogs.

[43:52]

or vice versa. Buddhas understand that dogs are the Buddha nature. And if we practice with dogs and humans with compassion, we will discover, we will realize Buddha nature, become Buddha, and then be able to work for the liberation of all beings. So we have this opportunity. The Buddhas are telling us we have this Buddha nature, which is our opportunity to be realized. And in realizing our nature, our Buddha nature, we will realize Buddhahood. And sometimes the Buddhists tell us we're all doing this in our own way, even though we may not think so. We're all in the process of learning about our Buddha nature and becoming Buddha. Carrie, thank you.

[45:16]

So, I guess you understand, right? But it's hard to do this. It's hard to learn to be... maybe once in a while it's easy but to do it moment after moment to do what? to observe with compassion all living beings moment after moment this is something we need to train at to be consistent and then to contemplate the teachings of the Buddha nature to learn to do it consistently is something we need to train at in order to be able to do that. So I think you understand now, and I hope that you are inspired to realize your Buddha nature, to realize Buddhahood.

[46:19]

I know it's awesome to contemplate realizing Buddhahood, but we had this opportunity. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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