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. How's the sound? Good? So welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple. I've always liked that name for our temple, Beginner's Mind. It should make those of you who are here for the first time feel welcome. How many here are for the first time? Oh, quite a few. Well, welcome. So you've got just the right mind for this morning's talk. I worry about the ones that have been studying for 20 years.

[01:01]

They still have their beginner's mind. So Suzuki Roshi used to say, the most important thing is to keep your beginner's mind. In fact, his wonderful book, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, the prologue is an essay on a beginner's mind. And what is a beginner's mind, you might ask? He would say a ready mind, an open mind, a soft mind, kind of like the mind of a child, a baby, a baby's mind, perhaps with a little bit more emotional composure than a baby has. Picture it there. And our temple at Tassara, deep in the Big Sur Mountains, is called Zen Shinji, which is... Zen mind temple. Shin actually means mind, heart in Japanese, so it could be Zen heart temple, Zen mind temple.

[02:08]

So this is beginner's mind temple. Tassara is Zen mind temple. And is there any difference between a Zen mind and a beginner's mind? Actually not. So there we go. Both temples are the same thing. So we sort of think of a Zen mind as a mind that's a wise mind, a mind that's not wise in the traditional way of scholarship, although there's tens of thousands of books on Zen that you can read in Buddhism, but a mind that is awake to what's going on in the present moment, alive, awake, and connected to what's going on in the present moment. And that's wonderful. I mean, I came to Zen because of that sort of wisdom idea. You know, be a person who really knows what's going on in the present moment. But one of the things that Suzuki Rishi said soon after, he said a ready mind, a soft mind, he said, the beginner's mind is the mind of compassion.

[03:18]

The mind of compassion. So what's the connection between being awake you know, soft and live in this present moment in compassion. So that's what I'm going to talk about this morning. And I'm going to use, partly because I think the theme of Paul's practice period here is awakening and engaging the world, traditional Zen in contemporary life. And so there's a marvelous sutra called the Holy Teachings of Vimalakirti, Vimalakirti, it's a Mahayana sutra that's quite beautiful. And the wonderful thing about this sutra, what I like so much about it, is Vimalakirti was a layman. He wasn't a monk. He wasn't a priest. He was a layman. He was a disciple of Buddha. And he was considered to be Buddha's wisest disciple. And so I think that's kind of encouraging for all of us who are laymen.

[04:22]

And basically most of us really are laymen. I mean, even... Even though we live in this modern American world, and I have a wife and a house along with this place, and so I'm kind of a layman in the traditional Buddhist sense, and that this practice can be relevant for all of us lay people living busily in the world, doing our software programming, our management techniques, etc. So Robert Thurman, in this translation, refers to this as a masterly faceted diamond refracting the radiance of all the other Mahayana scriptures, beaming them forth in a concentrated rainbow of diamond light. So he liked this sutra a lot. You got that idea. But it wasn't just Robert Thurman who translated this sutra who liked it.

[05:25]

It's become a favorite. all through India, China, Korea, Japan. It's one of the most widely read and studied sutra in the Mahayana tradition. And I think partly because it is about lay life and there's all kinds of people who are... More people are laymen studying Buddhism than there are monks studying Buddhism. And the passage I want to investigate today addresses a core question for a student of Buddhism. If, as the Buddha taught, the nature of self and of other beings is insubstantial, impermanently impermanent, and fundamentally empty of own being, then why and how should we care for each other and love one another? So, I'm going to read a little bit from this sutra. And one of the things you're going to find interesting about this sutra, it's probably one of the most kind of... crazy wild sutras in Mahayana Buddhism.

[06:27]

First of all, Vimalakirti was a politician, the best of the politicians, a very rich businessman. He had a family, a house. He was a warrior. He did everything, and he always did it really well, but he always did it with the idea of teaching the Dharma wherever he was. And the whole setup for this teaching is that he's sick in bed because he's feeling the sickness of everybody in the world. And he's sort of one with that sickness. And Buddha says, because this is one of the traditional things you do if you're a Buddhist monk, is he says, well, you should all go visit Vimalakirti because he's sick. But nobody wanted to go visit Vimalakirti because every time they went and met with him, he always kind of stood them up, made them realize how inadequate their... practice was finally manjushri the bodhisattva wisdom said okay well i'll go if nobody else will go and because modi uh manjushri went manjushri went all these bodhisattvas decided to go all 35 000 of them to visit vimalakirti which and he was in his room which was a 10 mat by 10 mat room you know 10 feet by 10 feet and of course he fit all 35 000 of them in the room

[07:49]

And it's a very funny section where Manjushri says, well, there's no chairs. So Bhimala Kirti goes to the world of where the biggest, most wonderful chairs in the world are and brings them all down. Everybody sits in marvelous 35,000 chairs in this 10 by 10 room. So there's a little bit of kind of, you know, it's wild. It's a wild thing. You'll get a little bit of the feeling of it because I'm going to read some of it this morning because it's a sutra and we should read some from a sutra. So after they all get settled in the room, then Vimalakirti does some teachings. And this is the chapter on the teaching of compassion. So Manjushri, the crown prince, addressed Vimalakirti, Good sir, how should a bodhisattva regard all living beings? And Vimalakirti replied, Manjushri, a bodhisattva should regard all living beings as a wise man regards the reflection of the moon in the water, or as a magician regard men created by magic.

[09:06]

He should regard them as being like a face in the mirror. like the water of a mirage, like the sound of an echo, like a mass of clouds in the sky, like a previous moment of a ball of foam, like the appearance and disappearance of a bubble of water. I'm going to go back a bit. Like a previous moment of a ball of foam. Isn't that great? There's a little bit of humor in all of this too. But anyway, have you ever... I mean, you all have. I sat by a stream where there's a little waterfall, and you watch all the bubbles as they're foaming up. They live for such a short time, and then another one comes along. That sense of the changing nature of things, especially streams with those sort of waterfalls, that feeling like everything is just changing, and you can never grasp it. Or if you're watching clouds, we all used to lie around in our summer meadows or gardens or lawns and look up at the sky and the clouds seem to form and disform, always changing, never staying the same.

[10:21]

That sense of impermanence that is such a part of our world. There's a famous moment, I think, down at Tassar, where David Chadwick, who is a One of the early students of Suzuki Roshi wrote the book Crooked Cucumber. Suzuki Roshi was probably, I think, lecturing on the Sandokai or something totally impenetrable. And partly because the Sandokai is somewhat impenetrable and because Suzuki Roshi's language wasn't so good. And David just said, Suzuki Roshi, please just tell me one thing about Buddhism that I can understand. And everybody laughed like, you know... And Sugerishi got kind of serious and said, everything changes. This is a truth. It's a fundamental truth about our life. Everything changes. And this isn't just true about the bubbling little bubbles of water or the foam at the bottom of a little waterfall.

[11:24]

It's true about you. Any of you who, I mean most of you, if you're sitting in this room, if sadsasin long enough to notice what's going on in your mind, all the, it's just like always changing. Your consciousness is always something new, something different is always going on. So, I'm going to continue on with this sutra. So he's talking some more about what is the nature of beings. They're like a core of a plantain tree, like a flash of lightning, like the existence of desire, hatred, and folly in a saint. Of course, you know, a plantain tree, those are banana trees. They have no core. Like most trees have bark, and inside there's a hard core, but plantain trees are all, you just keep

[12:26]

unwrapping them and there's nothing in the center. So that's what we're like, like a plantain tree with no core. Or I love this one, you know, what was the last one? A saint? The existence of desire, hatred, and folly in a saint. Well, hopefully, at least our understanding of saints is they have no desire, hatred, and folly. But anyway, we'll take that as it is. to continue, like the flash of lightning. Isn't that a beautiful image? Our life like a flash of lightning. Just one flash of lightning after another. Sikuroshi used to say, our way is to live in each moment of time. That's our way, to live in each moment of time. And then he said, but a moment is too long. Even in a snap of your fingers, there are a million instants of time. Millions of instants of time in a snap of our fingers.

[13:30]

We should exist in each instant of time. Catch each instant of time and exist in it. Then he sort of throws out one of these things. Then your mind is very quiet. Wonderful. Be present in each instant of time. Catch each instant of time and be present in it. We're just wandering along through his descriptions. Like a track of a bird in the sky. Like the bird flies by, is there any track left? Seems like there's a track, but maybe not. Like dream vision seen after waking. You know, that mind when you first wake up and there's some kind of dream there, but you can't quite catch it. So... I've excerpted about a third of the descriptions that Vimalakirti had for what beings are like, but we're going to move on. So then, precisely thus, Banjushri, does a bodhisattva who realizes the ultimate selflessness consider all beings.

[14:40]

So this is what Vimalakirti says. A bodhisattva who realizes the ultimate selflessness consider all beings. Hold that in your mind, what it's like to not be so selfish about your life. not always having to make sure that everything is going your way, because it's never going quite the way you want it to go. So we're going to give that up. If a bodhisattva realizes the ultimate selflessness, that's how they consider all beings, like this foamy water. So then Manjushri goes on further, Noble sir, if a bodhisattva considers all living beings in such a way, how does he generate great love toward them? This is the question we're addressing. Everything is just a ball of foam. How do we have great love toward them? And Vimalakirti replied, Manjushri, when a bodhisattva considers all living beings in this way, he thinks, just as I have realized the Dharma, so should I teach it to living beings.

[15:43]

Thereby he generates the love that is truly a refuge for all living beings. This sutra just gives us one sentence. So we're going to study this a little deconstructive. Just as I have realized the Dharma, so should I teach it to all living beings. Realize the Dharma in this sense means realize reality as it is in this moment. The footnote to that sentence that Robert Thurman has is the following. Manjushri voices the pressing question about the great love and compassion. Seeing living beings as non-existent, how can we feel and have compassion for them? As Vimalakirti indicates, the bodhisattva's love is not merely commiseration, but a spontaneous overflow of his great joy and relief in realizing the radiant nature of reality. The bodhisattva's love...

[16:46]

is a spontaneous overflow of his great love, his great joy and relief in realizing the radiant nature of reality. You get that? Does that make sense? If you actually are present in the moment and you actually wake up to what's going on here. I mean, this is actually real. It's a very short time where this... amazing thing called a human being in this incredible world, which is probably even more phantasmagoric than 35,000 chairs fitting in a 10 by 10 room, the number of galaxies floating around. If you actually wake up to this reality and feel the great joy in realizing this radiant nature, that's where your great compassion and love comes for other people.

[17:47]

So then he goes on, he being empty of himself is utterly sensitive to the oppressing gravity of the living being feeling of others, and his love is an outpouring of his awareness of their true nature. So now we're back to that part where he talked about the selflessness. The way you feel is is you've got to give up all your self-centered concerns and open up to what's going on. Open up to what's going on around you. And when you do that, you feel two things. It says, the living feeling of others and outpouring of the awareness of their true nature. You see that they are just like you. In the connection you have to them, you see that they are Buddha, your Buddha, you share this marvelous present moment. But you also notice that they're a little bit caught up in their suffering.

[18:58]

And so you have some desire to help them. Another sort of famous famous Chinese teacher Wang Bo talked about enlightened patriarchs effacing themselves so that the true contour of the situation comes to disclosure in them. Effacing themselves means they wipe out their own self-centeredness so that the true contour of the situation comes to disclosure in them so that what's going on around the contour, the nature of what's going on around them becomes them. They become the world. This is that connection, that feeling of connection to... Well, let's just make it simpler.

[20:02]

That feeling of connection to another person is what makes compassion, kindness, and love flow. And that feeling... of connection comes from relinquishing our self-centered desires. Opening their own minds and will, the larger context of the situation becomes manifest through them. That's when you relinquish your self-centered desires. I have a very long, wonderful paragraph from the Vimla Kirti Sutra to read you about all the different ways love is going to come forward. And when I was talking about this particular lecture with David Zimmerman yesterday, he said, Ed, that's wonderful, but that's a seven-course lecture you're going to give.

[21:02]

I'm on page two of ten pages here. So we're going to start editing out as we move along here. But I'm going to dive in a little bit just so you get the feel for this. So here's Vimalakirti on love. The love that is peaceful because free of grasping. The love that is not feverish because free of passions. The love that accords with reality because it is equanimous in all three times. The love that is without conflict because free of the violence of the passions. the love that is non-dual because it is involved neither with the external nor with the internal, the love that is imperturbable because totally ultimate, imperturbable love. I like that one. Thereby he generates the love that is firm, its high resolve unbreakable, like a diamond, the love that is pure, purified in its intrinsic nature.

[22:05]

The love that is even, its aspirations being equal. The saint's love that has eliminated its enemy. The bodhisattva's love that continuously develops living beings. The tathagata's love that understands reality. The Buddha's love that causes living beings to awaken from their sleep. That's a nice love. The love that helps beings awaken from their sleep. The love that is spontaneous because it is fully enlightened spontaneously. The love that is enlightenment because it is unity of experience. I'm going to talk about that a little bit more later. The love that has no presumption because it has eliminated attachment and aversion. That's another good one. The love that is never exhausted because it acknowledges voidness and selflessness. The love that is giving because it bestows the gift of Dharma, free from the tight fist of a bad teacher.

[23:08]

I'm going to read that one again. The love that is giving because it bestows the gift of Dharma, free from the tight fist of a bad teacher. Let's stay away from tight-fisted bad teachers. Anyway, he goes on and on. This is just wonderful, and one can read this. read the last three. The love that is without deceit because it is not artificial. The love that is happiness because it introduces living beings to the happiness of the Buddha. Well, love is happiness. That's nice to know. Such Manjushri is the great love of the Bodhisattva. So I thought what I'd do is take just two of these 50 descriptions of love and... talk a little bit about them and just so that we could sort of get into a little bit and leave the rest for you to study on your own.

[24:12]

A love that is enlightenment because it is unity of experience. You know, we say basically we're two things. We're basically completely, totally unique. There's no one quite like us. We're completely alone, separate from everything. That is true. and we're at the same time connected to everything. This is a kind of Zen paradox. How can you be totally unique, totally separate, and completely connected? So that's unity of experience. That's a sense of our deep connection with other people. And that's love is enlightenment when you feel that unity with everything. We feel the love that has no presumptions because it has eliminated detachment and aversion. No presumptions. No preconceived ideas about what's going on.

[25:16]

It's kind of an interesting study. We get to study it when we said zazen, but you can study it in your daily life how often in any given situation you have an idea about what's going on before what's going on happens that prejudices what you experience in that moment. Everybody gets that, right? So it's like you're taking a bite of food, it's just a little too salty. Can you actually eat a meal without critiquing it? It's not possible. Weather is nice today, but still a little damp. If it was a little cooler, I didn't bring along a jacket. So-and-so is nice enough. I had a friend who would only date people with a certain kind of shoulder. That was her thing, a friend's kind of shoulder. Wonderful person, brilliant, you know, great heart, but not the right kind of shoulder.

[26:25]

It's just... We laugh, but this is our life. This is what's going on in our head all the time. It's very understandable. My therapist friends say it comes from our pathogenic beliefs. When we were young, we formed a description of the world that was required for us to have attachment to our caregivers, our parents, and that description of the world we hold on to, and we have certain beliefs that come out of that. I could never love anybody, I'm this kind of person, I'm that kind of person, all these beliefs, these preconceived ideas about who you are and who other people are, completely colors your ability to be in the present moment. It creates what we call aversion or attraction. You either say, well, I really like that, I want more of it, therefore crushing it right in your hands, or you say, I really don't like that, I want to get as far away from it as it is. But unfortunately, This is the moment, and this is what you're experiencing, and if you can let go, as it says here, of these preconceived ideas, then you can love.

[27:38]

You can actually see what's in front of you and have a feeling of love for it. So I'm going to move on to the next one. Love that is wisdom because it causes attainment at the proper time. Love that is wisdom because it causes attainment at the proper time. I picked this one because it's kind of an odd one. What does it mean, causes attainment at the proper time? There's a little example. You have a very good friend, you know, and this very good friend you know has this particular problem, which if you point it out to them, you're sure their life is going to be better because they... Right? You're sure. You're their good friend, so you immediately point it out to them. And they hate you forever. That's not choosing the right time to help a person with their problem.

[28:43]

So there is a proper time to help someone. And I'm going to tell a classic Zen story about a time when a Zen friend helped a Zen friend. So... and Yantu, these were two Dharma buddies, they were just Dharma friends, were on pilgrimage. I love pilgrimage stories. And they were on pilgrimage to a monastery, but they got caught in a bad snowstorm, and they retreated into a nearby hut. And Shenfu was a very diligent, serious Zen student So he was in this hut. He sat zazen day and night. He was going to use every moment to improve his practice. His friend, Yen Tu, was opposite. He slept, he woke up, made himself a little food, maybe sat a little bit, went back to sleep.

[29:48]

That was him. Two completely different personalities. One would say... Shen Fu's problem, this sitting hard day and night, was, as one of my friends said, problem number 235, which is trying too hard to do it right as if there was some way to do it right. Yet that's problem number 235. We've all had that problem from time to time. Maybe Yen Tu had problem number 236, which is goofing off, not trying hard enough. because he doesn't know that there is a way to do it right. But actually, it turns out that Yantu does not have that problem. He's actually a pretty good student, and he's the elder of Shenfu, and actually can be very helpful in this situation. So anyway, Shenfu's sitting Zazen, and Yantu's sleeping away, and Shenfu says, elder brother, elder brother, get up. Yantu says, what is it?

[30:51]

What is it? Is there a bear outside? And he says, Shenfu, don't be idle. Monks on pilgrimage have profound knowledge as their companion. This companion must accompany us at all time. Be here today. All you're doing is sleeping. But here today, all you're doing is sleeping. That must be hard to have profound knowledge as your companion all the time, right, that you have to take care of. Yentu is very busy sitting, and I mean, Shenfu is very busy sitting. He's complaining that a Yentu is sleeping, and what does Yentu go? I mean, he's just been woken up, so he naturally yells back, just eat your fill and sleep. Sitting there in meditation all the time is like being some clay figure in a villager's hut. In the future, you'll just spook the men and women of the village. These two were great friends.

[31:52]

They'd been practicing together for 20 years. They'd practiced under a great teacher, Deshan, in his monastery. And there's a great koan, Case 13 in the Mumong Khan, about Deshan carrying his bowls through the kitchen, and Shenfu is the tenzo, and he tells him to go away because it's not time, and there's a little sort of theatrical act going on because... Still at that time, Shen Fu still had this problem of being too serious, trying too hard. So Yentu has been pretty familiar with this aspect of Shen Fu. So Shen Fu points to his own chest and said, I feel unease here. I don't dare cheat myself by not practicing diligently. And Yentu said, I always say that someday you will build a cottage on a lonely mountain peak and expound a great teaching. yet you still talk like this. I always say that someday you build a cottage on a lonely mountain peak and expound a great teaching, yet you still talk like this.

[33:01]

So a friend that doesn't have enough confidence in his own practice, And his other friend is always telling him, you're going to be a great teacher someday, but you keep blabbering on about this unhappiness, anxiety you have. And Yen Fu says, I am truly anxious. And Yantu said, well, if that's really so, then reveal your understanding. This is an actual koan in a case, so I'm kind of reading it to you. If that's really so, then reveal your understanding and where it is correct, I'll confirm it for you. Where it is incorrect, I will root it out. So he's going to help him. Then he goes on to tell many interesting experiences he's had with his past teachers that were...

[34:09]

enlightening to him and various things he learned. And Yantu kind of makes comments as they go on that. And I'll skip that because we're running a little bit short of time. I'll go to the last one. So Shenfu then said, later I asked Deshan, his teacher, can a student understand the essence of the ancient teachings? He struck me and said, what did you say? At that moment, it was like a bottom falling out of a bucket of water. Yanto said, haven't you heard it said that what comes through the front gate isn't the family jewels? What comes through the front gate, everything that you're taking in from the outside, that isn't the family jewels. That's not your treasure. And Shen Fun said, then in the future, what should I do? And Yanto said, in the future, if you want to expound the great teaching, then it must flow forth from your own breast to cover heaven and earth.

[35:20]

So... So the teaching, the understanding that you want, that you're looking for, already exists. in you. You have nowhere to look. You don't have to go listen to many different dharma teachers. You just have to find your own heart, listen to it and express it. And finally, Fen Fen got it. He finally was unburdened and saw that he had the treasure already. So why did it take 15 years for this to happen? Why was this the moment that finally his friend could help him pass a particular problem he had?

[36:24]

Who knows? Any moment would have done. Maybe this was the... But having his friend had the right time, the right sense, the right moment to open him up. So that's one of the kinds of loves that Vimalakirti is talking about. The trouble with these kinds of enlightenment stories is they all sound so wonderful. There's this magical moment where you get some great insight and from then on everything is okay. And I mean, I think that's true. Sometimes we have some kind of breakthroughs, some big moments where we... kind of get things straight, sort of get a sense of our existence here. But I've always liked our Soto Zen style. As Zizhikarishi would say, when you walk in the mist, you don't know you're getting wet.

[37:25]

But when you come inside, you see your robe is soaked through. If you walk outside in one of these foggy beautiful beaches, and you don't have that nice... Windbreaker on. It doesn't seem like you're getting wet, but after walking for an hour, if you get in your car, you're just wet, soaked through. That's Soto Zen practice. It takes a long time. You just keep walking along in the mist, thinking nothing's happening. But at some time, you'll realize you're soaked to the bone. We just hang around together. do some zazen, eat some food, clean the temple, go out to work, see a movie. Eventually, you'll be wet. Fox says it's 10 o'clock.

[38:41]

Is that what those bells were? I think so. 11? Okay. I think I'll end with one little story. I was down at Tufts, I think it was 1970, and I was just a new student there. So I was just digging ditches and moving rocks. A good thing for a person who's working on their PhD at college, which is what I was doing, should be doing when you go to a monastery. Anyway, there was a staff meeting where the staff were complaining about all the guests and probably the guest students, and Suzuki Rishi got mad at them, I guess, which he didn't very often do, but he could be angry. And so that night when he was giving the lecture, he gave a very short lecture and says, well, I expect there may be some questions.

[39:43]

And so one of the students raised his hand, one of the senior staff members who had been kind of, you know, put straight, said, Sukiroshi, I've been studying here for five years and, you know, still I can't be kind all the time. And, you know, back in those days, five years was a long time. We had this idea that we would study Zen for about three weeks and get enlightened and then go off and do the rest of our life. We didn't have... And... Suzuki Roshi said, Five years is nothing. You don't know how hard it is to love some people. And there was something in the room. It was very quiet after that. And it was like, I mean, there were probably 60 or 80 people sitting in the Zendo that night.

[40:45]

And you had that feeling that every person in that room had been touched by Suzuki Roshi in some way that they had never been touched by anybody else. And we were a pretty divergent group of people. I mean, to say the least. And he was a Japanese guy from... and we were all these American wild people, and somehow he had been able to do that. And that's when I was certain that the whole point of studying Zen is to be kind, to be compassionate, to love in the sense of this broad way that you can love people. 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.

[41:49]

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.

[42:04]

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