This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple. or it's always a fresh start. I was just thinking that wherever you are, it's a good place to begin. Then I remembered it's income tax weekend. We have an extra day, though.

[01:02]

Let's see, right? Yeah. Yeah, so this is, yeah, well, there's the old canard that the only things that are certain are death and taxes. So Buddhism will take care of the death part, but you'll have to take care of your taxes. Someone reminded me that there's a membership, a spring membership drive happening. And so I'm mentioning that. So you can become a member of San Francisco Zen Center and you don't even have to be a Buddhist to do that. Some people think, oh, I don't know if I'm going to be a Buddhist, but you don't have to be a Buddhist to be a member of San Francisco Zen Center. You just have to have some feeling that this is...

[02:04]

Whatever's going on here is worth supporting. In fact, we actually make it a little difficult to become a Buddhist, to formally become a Buddhist. But there are some people who are doing that this afternoon. So there's a ceremony this afternoon that we call Jukai. Jukai means receiving the precepts. Or more formally, we call it zaikei tokudo, which is a lay ordination or initiation into the path of bodhisattva, the path of living your life by vow. So people usually take a while to make some decision to formally do it.

[03:10]

And then after that, we ask them to sew a robe. So people sew a robe, a smaller version of Buddha's robe. We call a rakasu. Some of you may have seen. If you look around the room, there are people with these bib-like things. A small version of Buddha's robe. So you're welcome. Everyone is welcome to attend the ceremony this afternoon, I think at 3 o'clock. And we will renew the vows, recite the vows, the precepts, which address the problem of what it is to be a human being. if that's a problem. At various times, it's a problem for people.

[04:18]

And it was a problem for Gautama Siddhartha about 2,500 years ago. The problem of being a human being really hit him. And so... He felt the fear and the frustration and the worry, worry about being human. Last night, Norman Fisher read a poem about worry, worry about people, worry about all the people that are here in the room and worry about all the people that you know who are not in the room. So maybe at the level of worry or maybe at the level of real intense anxiety. Or you may just notice that the things in your life aren't quite working so well or not working the way you want.

[05:24]

So we actually don't... try to get away from human life in this practice of Zen, we actually vow to see it as enlightenment. We vow to see what is as some evidence of some truth, some reality that we can't quite grasp but we study it. And we find ourselves willing to be immersed in it. There's a dialogue in the Book of Serenity, Case 12. Dijang plants the fields.

[06:36]

Dijang is an old Zen master and some visitors come. And one of them he talks to and he says, where do you come from? And Tsushan says, I come from the South. And Dijang says, well, how are things with Buddhism in the South these days? Sushan says, there's extensive discussion. Extensive discussion. Dijang says, well, how does that compare with me here, now planting rice, planting the fields and growing rice for people to eat? And Sushan says, what can you do about the world?

[07:39]

And Dijang says, what do you call the world? So where do you find refuge? Where do you take refuge? What do you think is the world that you live in? This very question is the addressed in the beginning of the ceremony of what we call receiving the precepts. And the first three points are Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. But Buddha, Dharma, Sangha are not things. Buddha, Dharma, Sangha are words that point to something.

[08:39]

I want to read a little bit here from Suzuki Roshi, who is the founder of San Francisco Zen Center. We're celebrating our 50th year this year of being formally organized as a Zen Center here. So Suzuki Roshi once said, it's absolutely necessary for everyone to believe in nothing. I do not mean voidness. There is something, but that something is something which is always prepared for taking some particular form. And it has some rules. or truth in its activity. This we call Buddha nature. So this is maybe surprising if you're going to receive precepts to remember that they're pointing to the necessity, he says, it's absolutely necessary to believe in nothing.

[10:02]

That doesn't mean believing in something that you call nothing. And maybe belief is not quite the right word. I like the word confidence. To have confidence in what can't be named. He says, we call Buddha nature. He says, when this is personified, we call it Buddha. Buddha. When we understand it as ultimate truth, we call it dharma. And when we accept the truth and act as a part of Buddha, or according to this understanding, we call ourselves sangha. So these three words, very familiar to many people here and maybe new to some people. Is there anyone here who's here for the first time? Raise your hand. Oh, hello.

[11:06]

Sprinkling. Okay, welcome. And my apologies for these unfamiliar terms. Buddha, he says, when this something that's true but that we can't name but has some rules and there's some activity that's happening we call Buddha nature. And then when it's personified, we call it Buddha. So when there's a person, we call it Buddha. So we might call each other Buddha. When we understand it as ultimate truth, we call it Dharma. Dharma, the word, sometimes means truth itself or ultimate reality. But it also means the words about ultimate reality, the words about what's true. So the teaching of the Buddha we call Dharma.

[12:11]

And when we accept the truth and act as part of it, or according to this understanding, we call ourselves Sangha. So together we are Sangha. And he goes on to say, even though there are these three Buddha forms, it is one existence which has no form or color. This is not just theory. This is not just the teaching of Buddhism. This is the absolutely necessary understanding of our life. Without this understanding, our religion will not help us. We will be bound by our religion and we will have more trouble because of it. He says, if you become a victim of Buddhism, I may be very happy. But you will not be so happy. So this kind of understanding is very, very important. So I want to talk a little bit more about the third part of it, particularly sangha.

[13:19]

Sangha is our relationships. And understanding that our relationships are already perfect, are expressions of enlightenment. Don't you think so? The way we see each other, connect with each other harmoniously. But it doesn't always feel so harmonious. Sometimes people experience each other as trouble, troublesome. And maybe we don't feel so completely relaxed and comfortable with each other all the time. In fact, sometimes sangha is excruciating. It's not easy to be together and feel the impact of each other.

[14:25]

Not so easy for me to feel my own composure when I'm faced with you. I want to read a part of a poem. I'm not sure if I'll read the whole poem. We'll see how it goes. This is a Robert Pinsky poem. It's from a book of poems called Golf Music. I think written or inspired by spending time in the south Gulf of Mexico area, southern part of the United States. In the poem, there's a reference to a banknote. In fact, the poem's called Banknote. This is a Brazilian banknote.

[15:29]

On the Brazilian banknote of 50 Cusados, there was a poem. So that poem is referred to in the middle of this poem. That poem is called Friendly Song. It translates into Friendly Song. And it's by Carlos Dromón de Andrade, a great Brazilian poet. so the poem of Robert Pinsky's goes like this behind profaned walls calm rituals of exile the Brazilian cleaner hums and sponges the table a civil quiet between us I will not break by chanting my gratitude in broken Polish she has the courage to be my great grandfather, Ike.

[16:36]

Thanks to his passage a century ahead of hers, I get to sit at the table. I write the check. To recite this to him through her would be foolish. Her only language for now is Portuguese, though every week she knows more English words. On the Brazilian equivalent of a dollar bill, not only a portrait of Roman de Andrade, but an entire poem by him, 19 lines. It makes the dollar look Philistine. The poem is a poem, the poem is about a poem he intends to write, about the single diamond. made of all our lives, from gluts, dearths, from markets, forced migrations, which, I don't know Portuguese, but must roughly translate.

[17:56]

Our lives, our lives. compose one diamond. All our lives. Nosas vidas. So then Robert Pinsky continues his poem. Sicilian, Archimedes could move the universe if there were a place outside of it to stand. And maybe sometimes, let me comment right here. Maybe sometimes... That's what we feel like. If only we could get outside of this situation, we'd have some leverage on it. We could protect ourselves. Maybe we could control something. That's a big if. If there were a place outside of the universe, If there were a place outside of the universe from which to stand, and then he turns back to, locked blind in the diamond, its billion cuts and facets, molecules in an obdurate equilibrium of pressures, we cannot see the shifting fire.

[19:24]

Maybe I won't read the rest of the poem. This is such a powerful statement. Locked blind in the diamond, its billion cuts and facets, molecules in an obdurate equilibrium of pressures, we cannot see the shifting fire. Except I'll read the last two lines. In the system of privilege and deprivation, the employed, the avid, fraught in the works, turning the gear of custom. So this matter of being fraught in the works Wonderful word, brought in the works.

[20:35]

Completely, completely caught. We find ourselves in an inescapable place right now. The diamond of all our lives. So we call it in... Mahayana, anyway. Great vehicle. Great vehicle of Buddhism. The totality of everything. All beings are included. All beings means everything that's a being and everything that's also not a being. We don't want to leave out something just because we can't see it or because we can't grasp it or because we don't understand. its point of view, right? It's hard to understand the point of view of diamond, right?

[21:41]

A diamond, like a jewel, and these three Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, we also call three jewels. And a diamond jewel is so intense, right? So hard. Still, it... may decompose over billions of years. I looked it up. I googled diamonds. Diamonds formed in the range of about 100 miles deep below the surface of the earth. Pure carbon. And aren't you grateful for carbon? None of us would be here without carbon. Carbon that's formed in stars collapsing at intense temperatures.

[22:46]

And then this carbon compressed and fired into diamonds, which then have to come up, have to be erupted in volcanoes. And then somebody finds a diamond. But this diamond means the diamond that's all of us. That the way we are fit together right now, at this very moment, in this room, with everything in the whole universe being precisely what it is at this moment right now, is inescapably just what it is. What do you call the world? So when we say we take refuge, actually, I take refuge in Buddha.

[23:55]

Buddha awake. Buddha aware. Buddha fully composed with what is. I take refuge with Dharma. I take refuge with the truth of what is. I give up trying to escape it. I give up the dream of having the dream of Archimedes, right? The dream of having some other leverage that somehow means that I am separate from what is and can therefore control it in some way. I give that up. And I accept my place in it as a jewel. I accept my place in the totality as this jewel, existence. With the confidence in what it is that Suzuki Rashi says is beyond or before there's form and color.

[25:04]

Before there's form and color. before there's things. Knowing that this universe that's beyond form and color is always producing what we see as form and color. And that to have confidence in this is to take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. I was thinking just now of one of the teachers. When I first came here to San Francisco Zen Center in 1972, and in this room I heard a talk a number of times, I heard talks by Claude Dahlenberg, who later wanted to be called Ananda.

[26:10]

So he changed his name to Ananda. It took a while for him to even learn it himself. People would introduce him or he would introduce himself and say, I'm Claude, I mean Ananda. So for a while we called him Claude, I mean Ananda. I still think of him that way. Wonderful, wonderful name. Claude, I mean Ananda. But he... many times talked about the value of chanting the refuges, the three refuges, Buddha and Dharma Sangha, chanting it in Pali, ancient language, which is more universal, so that this would be shared by... So that we Zen people didn't feel that we were so special, that we were just joining all the other Buddhists around the globe... And taking refuge in awakening and taking refuge in what is the truth itself.

[27:17]

And taking refuge in the inescapable as spacious. That in the intensity of the diamond there's spaciousness. There's friendliness. That every part actually fits together perfectly. I think I'll talk about one more thing and then come back to that. I thought we could end today with chanting the refuges in Pali. Last weekend, I was in Houston, and we did an installation ceremony for a new abbess at the Houston Zen Center. And in the preparation for this, there's particular documents to be prepared And Hoitsu Suzuki, who was the son of the founder of San Francisco Zen Center, came from Japan, along with his son, Shungo.

[28:33]

And I was in a room with him, and he was working on calligraphy for some documents. And after he'd finished the documents necessary for the ceremony, he continued doing some wonderful calligraphy, and then gave a little discourse. which I want to share a little bit with you. One of the, they're really paintings that he was doing, but one of them he said, this character means sitting, zazen, all alone. Sitting zazen in a room all alone. And there was some other explanation, some other kanji, which means no one knows. No one knows. Sitting alone in the room, no one knows.

[29:36]

But the moonlight shines in through the window. So we're all living in this world where we don't actually know the aloneness of each person. And yet we're all sharing the same moonlight. I was in Houston, Texas, and I called my wife in Sonoma County and said, look at the moon. It was a full moon night. Same moon, right? Except, she said, it hasn't risen yet. Then Huichi Suzuki did another one.

[30:41]

He said, this one is going and doing. So you're going and doing, going and doing, going and doing, and you come to the edge of the ocean. You come to the edge of the shore, and then you sit. You sit down, and when you sit, clouds come up and envelop you. He said, in these clouds, there is everything. Good things, bad things, delusions, enlightenment, all present in the clouds. The cloud is the mind, the mind in sitting. at the edge of the ocean. And then he left the room, and his son, Shungo, remarked, for a young monk, this is so difficult to understand. So difficult to understand the meaning.

[31:47]

So at that moment, I felt the depth of the relationships and of the value of this deep teaching that we actually can't understand, but we can continuously study. We can continue to study and study and realize how limited is our understanding. If we don't study, we may think that we know something. And then by this mistake of knowing something, we actually cause injury. Our actions based upon knowing cause injury. Even to ourselves. So if we return to the thought of something that is Not something that we can, that is something that happens, that we feel when we let go of believing in something.

[33:02]

When we let go of what it is that we know. What happens then? This is the possibility of true, free, liberated living. not caught in our small mind, selfish view. Most of our thinking is our own selfish ideas. Maybe 99%. Maybe 99.9%. But there's still always a little room for letting go of one's own idea. So I'd like to invite you to join in taking refuge in what can't be believed.

[34:05]

Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. The three jewels, or Ti, Ti Sarana in Pali means three refuges. And many of you know it, and the rest of you can hum along if you don't. And some of you might be afraid, oh, if you take refuge in Buddha Dharma Sangha, then you've crossed some threshold and suddenly you've become a Buddhist. But you can remember that you're not believing in anything. So let's do it.

[35:28]

Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you. So it means...

[36:51]

I take refuge in Buddha, I take refuge in Dharma, I take refuge in Sangha, or I go for refuge, I take a second time, Dudiyampi, a second time, I go for refuge in Buddha, I go for refuge in Dharma, I go for refuge in Sangha. Tatyampi, for a third time, I go for refuge in Buddha, I go for refuge in Dharma, I go for refuge in Sangha. So when you don't know where to turn in the intensity of the fires of your life, it might be helpful to recall, oh, I go for refuge to Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. Thank you for listening. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge

[37:54]

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 sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[38:12]

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