This podcast is offered by San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. As some of you may know that I have one of the There's three teachers in a chaplaincy course. It's a year-long course. And one of the students who's taken it this year wrote me an email and said, I'm utterly intimidated by the notion of being a chaplain for someone at their bedside when they're going through all sorts of difficult things.

[01:00]

And I'm utterly intimidated by trying to be a chaplain to people in prison. I've never been incarcerated. I've had a privileged life. And similarly, if I was a chaplain for homeless people, I don't feel... In many ways, I feel ill-equipped to take on this challenge. And they've already signed up for the course and they're two months into it. And I thought about it and I emailed him back. And I said, well, it's like when you're starting second grade. You know, you're starting second grade and you really don't know what you're in for because you're just a kid.

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But there you are. That's how it is. And it's somehow or another If you did know everything that happened in second grade and you'd learned it all, maybe you'd be better off going to third grade. But starting second grade and not knowing what it's all about, you're right on plan. You're right at the right... you're at the right point. Practice is a little bit like this. We're taking up a practice that we've inherited from Asia.

[03:22]

Japan and China and India before that. And it has developed and matured over 2,500 years. And there's extraordinary teachings within the Buddha Dharma of that 2,500 years. And here we are in our culture. Maybe we're in second grade. Or maybe we haven't even started first grade. Or maybe we're in sixth grade. But we're faced with the same concept, the same dilemma. What is it to awaken?

[04:25]

How is that How is that developed? And then each one of us trying to unpack who we are and how to relate to who we are as we're learning it. And so for the theme of this practice period, I've been trying to call forth the heritage of the Genji Okon, a fascicle by Dogenzenji, finder of Soto Zen in Japan, and the six paramitas. I remember looking once for, well, how did they end up six?

[05:34]

In early Buddhism, there's ten paramis. And they became six. And the author of the book said, well, I can't really figure that out. But we ended up with six. And so far, we've been looking at the first... I find myself this afternoon calling the first one, which is generosity, calling it mutual benefaction. This way in which... So many times people have said to me when they've been engaging in chaplaincy and other aspects of caregiving, they've said... You know, yes, I did go there and I gave.

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I was generous in being of service. But really, I received much more than I gave. I think the very act of giving opens us to receiving. It's kind of a mutual benefaction. It's like... The place in our meal chant where we say, giver, receiver, and gift. They move together. May the three wheels move together. And then the second paramita... what we might call virtuous conduct. The guidelines that support our practice.

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And then in a more subtle way, we could call it responding to the request of practice as it appears for us. And then the third one is patience. And in some ways, you could say, well, each one of those is quite dualistic. You practice patience to get over your impatience. You practice generosity to get over your stinginess. You practice... sila, virtuous conduct, to not get stuck in harmful conduct. Whether you harm yourself or harm others or both. That notion it reminds me a little bit of

[08:57]

There's one of Dogen's other fascicles, Zazen Shin. In the middle of it he introduces a Zen story. The monk is trying very diligently to achieve something. And then the teacher illustrates that that's not the point of Zazen. And then the monk, Basso, asks the teacher, well, what is the point? How do you engage Zazen? And then the teacher says, well, if the cart and the horse won't move, do you beat the horse or do you beat the cart? Well, And of course, the smart answer is, well, of course, you beat the horse because the cart is just inanimate circumstances.

[10:12]

The horse is the motivation, the intentionality, the follow through of the paramitas that you bring into your life. that perfectly fine answer and turns it on its head. And he says, you beat the horse, you beat the cart, you beat the sky, you beat the earth. You make wholehearted effort in every way you can. How do you really learn how to do second grade?

[11:14]

You just give it your all. You go to school every day and be in second grade. You give practice your all. And generosity teaches you about stinginess And stinginess teaches you about generosity. It's like we learn from where we're clinging. We learn from that how not to cling. of it has its own functionality too.

[12:20]

It's good in a straightforward way to explore how to go beyond your stinginess however that might appear. reluctance to make eye contact with the cashier in the store and thank them for serving you. The marvelous thing about the paramitas is that in some ways they're quite straightforward. in terms of the human condition, they're extraordinarily capable of getting at our deep issues.

[13:28]

There's a way in which exploring deeply the constructs that make up our way of thinking, our way of feeling, our way of behaving, they are illuminated by the paramitas. And in that illumination, we can really see, if we look carefully, we can see how that is for us. You know, there's There's a way in which practice is trying to teach us how to attend to how we exhibit and express what we are, rather than judge it and get busy fixing it.

[14:40]

And of course, the practice of generosity would seem like, well, isn't that just tailor-made for fixing yourself, for fixing your stinginess? But as we start to explore the deeper workings of the self, like often in the Dharma, it will say, well, lack of generosity is linked to fear. It's the fear of scarcity. Sometimes it's even the fear of intimate interaction. And in a way, we can see our relationship to intimacy.

[15:47]

We can see our relationship to scarcity or abundance. And as we see it, we can learn about it. We can also learn if we pay close attention, oh, over here I'm generous with this sort of expression of generosity. That comes quite naturally and easily for me. And in this kind of generosity, it doesn't come easily for me. And part of the challenge of practice is Rather than identify your lacking, what you're judging as lacking, and then fix it.

[16:56]

It's saying, can you learn from it? Can you learn about your own particular way of being? Can you learn about the human condition? Can you learn about how to go beyond fixed behaviors and attitudes, both mental and emotional, that are woven into your being. In the Genjava Koan, Dogen says, to study the way is to study the self. In the Paramitas, will help us to study the self. But if we assert into that process some fixed notion of the self, then rather than forgetting the self,

[18:16]

It's like we reinforce the self. And then we can feel bad about the negative aspects of the self we are asserting. We can feel arrogant about the strong aspects of what we're asserting. We can look at we discover the impossibility of fixing the self. We are the product of countless lifetimes. And they're woven into the fabric of our being. This is the nature of what we are.

[19:22]

And yet, when we take on the paramitas and we practice generosity, virtuous conduct, and the impatience and patience of it all, when we take them on and study them, We might think a rational way of thinking about it would be that we move in some progression. But actually Dogen offers the notion that we forget the self. We don't fix it. We don't improve it. Rather we the whole activity

[20:26]

of engaging wholeheartedly is transformative. And in the process of the paramitas, these first three can be thought of as they ripen us. They prepare us to take on the next three. which are dedicated effort, absorption into the experience of each moment, of each situation, of each aspect of our being and each aspect of our life. And then this ripening wisdom that comes from that. Reminding ourselves that it's an experiential process.

[21:33]

That it's the doing rather than somehow creating an awareness that can calculate what should happen and what should not happen. that has its place but the doing and the taking on the influence of the doing shifts something within us. Over the years I've led many sashins and one thing that I've noticed is that on a seven day sashin about the fifth the sixth day people are more likely to be amused by something disruptive like if an incredibly noisy truck comes down Page Street they're more likely at that point to be amused than to think oh no you know that nasty truck

[22:57]

There is a way when we give over to the Buddha Dharma that something happens. We can take these dualistic steps but we need to remind ourselves that giving over is not a calculated process. That the immersion, whether it's in second grade or in the sensations of the moment, or the open-heartedness with which we engage our world, that immersion has the potency

[23:58]

of transformation. And when we can remind ourselves that imperfection and perfection, in a way, are the two surfaces of the same thing. Like the two hands of the gashaw. If we think imperfections, we bring up imperfections. When we think of patience, we bring up impatience. And the challenge of our practice is to be intimate and explore them both. So as a practice, you know, when we find ourselves being patient with something, we can pause and literally open to feeling it.

[25:11]

How is it to just be patient? You know? The other day the Tanta went to the DMV and... I was saying to him, well, what time do you go? And he said, I went at 11 a.m. And I said, no, I think 3.30 is because they close at 4. So most people would never think of going. It's renowned, our DMV, how long it takes. And the tanto. in his wonderful way. Yes, I went there and I was finished by three. But I did manage to do what I needed to do in terms of my license.

[26:13]

I went to the DMV a couple of years ago and there was a woman who was doing crowd control. When I got up to her, she said, what do you want, honey? And I said, to renew my license, she said, honey, just go over there. And I turned to her and I said, can you really keep that up all day? Like just sit there and say, honey, darling, sweetie, what do you want? And she said, makes the job a whole lot easier. The willingness to take on our situation. The willingness to bring patience to impatience.

[27:22]

And Dogen calls that, he says, to study the way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. Of course, in one way we could say, oh, when we're immersed in the phenomena, the sensorium of the moment, when we're immersed in it, there is no self active. If we interrupt it to say, I'm hearing the signs, then we've interrupted hearing the signs. We can think of it that way. And then we can also think of standing in line at the DMV is annoying and bothersome.

[28:38]

And the quicker it gets over, you get through the line and get out of there, the better. Or you can forget That attitude. And you can listen to some quite lovely person calling you a honey. Like you were best friends or something. And when we can forget the self, Lovely. And when the self persists, can we be patient with that too? Can we be generous with that too? When you're at the DMV and you're noticing, okay, my number is 157,

[29:49]

And they're calling out 134. So I have 23 more people before I get seen. Can that be the Buddha Dharma? And we watch. Does something in us tighten in a restless way? Or is there something, some capacity to loosen and be patient? And the peculiarity of the Buddha Dharma is that it's not saying, oh, And that's the right thing.

[30:52]

And the impatience counting the numbers. Okay, 134, 136, 150. It's not saying that's right and that's wrong. It's saying they're both the Buddha Dharma. They're both teaching you about the nature of your own habit energies. They're both teaching you the nature of the human condition. In another part of the Genjo Koan, Dogen talks about, almost at the very start, leaping over Well, that's one translation.

[31:57]

That's Kazmahashi's translation. It's not so much that we transcend or leap over. It's more that somehow by fully engaging it, it teaches us how not to just get caught in the habit energies of self. That we can learn. Dharma gates are boundless. We can learn from any and every situation. And as these three paramitas ripen us, the generosity, the ethics, and the patience, as they ripen us, we become attuned to picking up the next three.

[33:08]

The dedication, the energy, the willingness to engage that can arise in our humanness. we've purified it. Because of how we're relating to it. You know, it can remind us that we can enact this just in the simple act in Zazen of being aware of whatever's happening and not obliging ourselves to change what's happening to be what should be happening.

[34:09]

Like what if we carry this in, in a pervasive way, into all of our being? Maybe we can call it forgetting the self. But another way we can say, and the self is not a problem. inevitably, unavoidably, we're a self. And yes, certain dualistic, so-called dualistic practices can help get us in touch with what the self is putting together. Then can we immerse in it?

[35:17]

Can we be taught by it? The fifth paramita, you know, absorption. And the wisdom, you know, Dogen Zenji says, And the enlightened continue to be enlightened, even though they may not even know they're enlightened. Like when we're in the moment. You know, chaplaincy training is really quite simple. Just go and be fully present. and respond from your heart to what you're meeting. It's the universality of caregiving.

[36:19]

In a way, it's the lubricant that loosens us up, that facilitates our interactions. We are intrinsically wired to care-give. This is the great compassion of the Bodhisattva way. This is the expression of forgetting the Self. And when we forget the Self, Dogen says, the myriad things come forth. Then what's happening in the moment vibrates in its own aliveness.

[37:34]

all that wisdom. We can call it equanimity. We can call it the bodhisattva vow. We can call it just responding to each person by calling them honey. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

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