This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Thank you for coming to the meeting. May I tell the story? May I tell the story? This is one of the family stories of the Zen tradition. It's a Zen tradition story about the Buddha tradition. So in this story, the Buddha was living on a mountain, I think.

[01:07]

And he was sitting with a group of students. And he raised up a flower. and twirled it, and winked. And one of the people in the audience, named Mahakasipa, smiled. And the Buddha said, I now, in trust, transmit the entire true Dharma-I treasury to Mahakashapa, thus inconceivable mind of nirvana.

[02:23]

The Buddha was face-to-face with the assembly And he winked. And one of the people smiled. And that one met him fully. And in that meeting, the Buddha transmitted the entire true Dharma I treasury. In Japanese, we say shobo genzo. Let me start by suggesting that we have in this story a meeting. And in the meeting of the Buddha with

[03:35]

his successor, in that meeting, the Dharma, the true all of the Dharma, is awakened to and given. So now I'm suggesting to you that in meetings like this, or in such a meeting, is where the Dharma is realized and transmitted or realized as transmission or realized as a meeting. In this temple, frequently, we chant some poetry, which is in English something like this.

[04:44]

The teaching of suchness is intimately transmitted by Buddhas and ancestors. So does that sound familiar to the residents? I think that it actually says the teaching of thusness. The teaching of the way things are is intimately transmitted by Buddhas and ancestors. Okay? That line, well actually, and I'll just say the next line, the next line is, now you have it, so please take care of it. In that translation, I think it's a fine translation, but when I look at the Chinese, not being very knowledgeable about Chinese, when I look at the Chinese, what I see is teaching of suchness, teaching of the way things are.

[05:57]

I see that. Then I see intimate transmission. Then I see Buddhas and ancestors. A Chinese person says, well, of course, that's not a sentence. Really, it means that the Buddhas transmit the Dharma. But when I look at that sentence, what I see is, not a sentence, but I see three different ways of saying the same thing. Teaching of suchness, teaching of the way things are, is the same as the truth of the way things are, is the same as an intimate transmission, is the same as Buddhas and ancestors. It's not that you have Buddhas and ancestors over here transmitting a Dharma over there. The Buddhas are the teaching of reality.

[07:02]

That's what Buddhas are. The teaching of reality... is Buddhas and the teaching of reality is the meeting of for example us and the Buddhas when we meet the Buddhas wholeheartedly that is Buddha that is the teaching of suchness rather than the Buddhas transmit the Dharma. The transmission of the Dharma is in both directions simultaneously. It's not from the Buddha to the sentient being or the sentient being to the Buddha. It is the meeting of sentient beings and Buddhas.

[08:03]

The intimate meeting is Buddha. Reality is meeting face to face. Buddha is meeting face to face. And of course meeting face to face is meeting face to face. Since I've been here, some people have told me something like, I guess basically told me something that they want.

[09:12]

Some people have told me something they want, sometimes indirectly. Like one person indirectly said what she wanted by telling me what she was afraid of. She told me she was afraid that her relationships, in this community were not deep. She was afraid of that. And I thought, good. It's not so good to be afraid, but if you're going to be afraid of something, it's good to be afraid that things, that reality is not living. Be afraid that reality is dead. So negatively, she's afraid that she doesn't have deep relations. Positively, she wants deep relations. Is that right? Is that what you want? Is that what you want?

[10:21]

Yeah, you want. You want deep relationships, right? That's what you want. And you don't want not deep relationships. Well, I shouldn't say you don't want. Take that back. You want deep relationships. And that means you want reality. Reality is you have deep relationships. All your relationships are deep. So if you want them, you want reality. Somebody else told me he feels a lack of support in his study of the teachings. or he feels a lack of support in his practice. Again, put it in positively, he wants to be supported in his study and realization of the truth. He wants to be supported in his practice.

[11:23]

He wants reality. In reality, you are supported by everybody. In reality, you are supporting everybody. In Buddha, you are supporting everybody. In Buddha, you are intimately meeting and supporting everybody and everybody is meeting and supporting you. Our eyes cannot see how we are supporting everybody and how everybody is supporting us. We cannot see that. Our eyes are not adequate to the task of seeing reality. Reality cannot be seen with our eyes. And yet we are reality and we are supporting the whole universe.

[12:31]

And the whole universe is supporting us to be ourselves. And another way to say that, that's the teaching of suchness, another way to say it is, we are meeting profoundly and fully and intimately with all beings. And they with us. again the teaching of suchness the teaching of the way things are is the teaching that you include everyone and you are included in everyone and that is realized by face to face meetings

[13:44]

We have this expression in this temple, a bodhisattva vow. It's kind of an inordinate wish to live for the welfare of all beings. It is to live for the welfare of all beings with no exceptions. A few years ago when I said that, most people would say, great, fine. But about 10 years ago when I said that, people said, well, yes, except for. And now people also say, yeah, well, except for. There's some people now, some Zen students are having trouble not accepting from that vow. The bodhisattva vow arises from accepting the teaching of suchness.

[15:05]

Everything arises from the teaching of suchness. Everything arises from... I mean, you arise or you come to be by including everything in the universe. That's how you come to be. And everything in the universe comes to be by including you. That's what's going on regardless of whether you accept that teaching or not. But if you accept that teaching, then the bodhisattva vow arises. If you accept the teaching that everybody is included in you, the vow to save all beings arises. If you accept the teaching that you're included in everybody, the vow to save all beings arises. In you, as you, of you, near you, on you.

[16:08]

It's not yours, but it's coming up in your life. Once again, everything... or everything that arises arises from the way things are. The bodhisattva vow arises from accepting the way things are. It arises from accepting the way they are and it realizes the way they are. So the bodhisattva vow arises from accepting the teaching of the way things are and it realizes the way they are. The bodhisattva vow arises from accepting intimate transmission intimate transmission again is the way everything is but accepting it gives rise to the bodhisattva vow to realize it and does realize it and similarly Buddha is the way things everything is but accepting Buddha gives rise to the vow to realize Buddha and it does realize Buddha

[17:14]

As we say, now you have it, so please take care of it. And if you don't want to, fine, but you have it anyway. You cannot get away from it because it's been given to you. Now, things are a little bit more complicated than that because although the reality of our life is that... The reality of our life is profound, intimate communion. That's reality. But that's the profound truth. But there's also a superficial truth. In other words, sometimes it looks like we're not intimate with some people. Sometimes it looks like we don't have deep relationships. These shallow relationships, your eyes are sufficient to see. you can see shallow relations.

[18:20]

You can see some people being really nice to you. But you can't see everybody being really nice to you. And you can see yourself being nice to some people. Right? Most of you can sometimes see yourself being nice to somebody, right? Yeah. You're nice to your baby sometimes, right? Yeah. And she's nice to you sometimes. You can see that. We can see that. And we also can see ourselves being nice to her sometimes. Like since I've been here, she's been in a good mood the whole time. I heard this a couple weeks ago. She was crabby because she was teething, right? I didn't see that. So anyway, I got to see me... having nice thoughts about this really relaxed baby. I can see it.

[19:21]

But I can't see how, I can't see, and of course I can see how I really have nice feelings for all of you. I can see that. That's easy. But I can't see how I have nice feelings for everybody. I can't see that. I can't. And I'm okay with that. And I can't see how everybody is supporting me. But the teaching is that they do. That's the teaching. The teaching is not that some people are supporting you. But it looks like some people are and some people aren't. You can see that. So, if you get stuck in that view, it might be a problem. Problem of what? Problem of accepting the teaching. Like if somebody looks like they're not supporting you and or you don't want to support them, if you believe that, that might make it hard for you to believe that actually you are totally supporting them and they're totally supporting you.

[20:30]

Does that make sense? I can say it over a few times if it doesn't. Does that make sense? That if you say, I don't support that person, that might make it difficult for you to realize that you do and that they support you. Once again, the teaching of satsanis is not that you support some people, a few, or even many. It's that you support the whole universe, and the whole universe supports you. Because of that, you are totally free. And because of that, if you accept it, you realize freedom, and you realize the vow to save all beings. It arises in you, and you realize it. So what do we do with this appearance that we are totally devoted to some people but not others? What do we do with this sense of I'm not totally committed to the welfare of this person?

[21:33]

What do we do with that? So that it doesn't hinder accepting the reality of face-to-face transmission with the Buddhas where we will receive the entire true Dharma treasury. What do we do? We practice compassion with the delusion that we are totally devoted to some people and not others. We don't deny the appearance that not everybody is our friend. We don't deny it. We admit it looks like that person is not my friend. We practice generosity towards the appearance of not friendliness.

[22:39]

In other words, we practice friendliness with not friendliness. We practice ethical discipline with the appearance of not friendliness. or we practice justice with the appearance of injustice we don't kill injustice we don't try to get something other than injustice when injustice is in meeting us we do not misuse sexuality in relationship to unfriendliness we do not lie about it we do not deny it we do not numb ourselves or go to addictions to deal with these superficial appearances of what? Of not being supported by everyone and not wanting to support everyone and so on. We practice being very careful of all of our actions in relationship to the appearance of a not deep

[23:42]

not intimate, not mutually beneficial relationships. These things appear, they are illusions. But if we don't practice compassion towards them, we will get stuck in them and they will make it difficult for us to accept the teaching of suchness. If you have accepted the teaching of suchness, and the bodhisattva vow has arisen in you, then that vow can help you practice compassion when the appearance of not the teaching of suchness comes to visit. And we then also practice patience with the appearance of not Buddha, not being supported, not being intimate, not being deep.

[24:51]

We practice patience with that. And we practice diligence with that. And we practice concentration with it. And then we can see that Lack is not lack. Superficial is not superficial. Unfriendliness is not friendliness. Not being supported is not not being supported. What time is it? 9, 10. You're supposed to stop in 10 minutes? Okay. I saw an emphatic yes. So, um... Oh, another way I'm talking about this is... Well, in a sense, I would say the teaching of suchness is that our life is infinite.

[26:04]

that we are infinitely supported and we infinitely support. But in a way the teaching of suchness is also that our life is limited. That it has a beginning and an end and it seems to not support everyone and not be supported by everyone. And these two versions of life are inseparable. There's no infinite life without a finite life. There's no infinite life where we support all beings and all beings support us. There's no life like that without a life where it looks like we support some people and we don't support others. So we have the illusion of partial support Or some people feel like I'm totally unsupported, like complete not support.

[27:08]

But anyway, that's kind of partial support. You have partial support and complete total support and they're inseparable. You have partial friendship and complete friendship. They're inseparable. And in order to realize the complete... reality we must completely accept the partial reality by fully exerting our limited life our finite life the door to our infinite life opens and then we can enjoy our infinite life and enjoying our infinite life helps us again fully engage our finite life which again opens to our infinite life and these two which are never separate, now start meeting each other.

[28:12]

And in this meeting, and conversing with each other, that's where the teaching is realized. And we have all these compassion practices to deal with our finite life, to deal with having just a few friends or like no friends and having just a few people who care about us and only caring about a few people. We have compassion practices for such a miserable life. It's a miserable life not to care for everybody. And we've got such a life available. And if we practice compassion with it, it won't get in the way anymore. without getting rid of it, without squishing it or puffing it up, leaving it just like it is, miserable life, right there with infinite, peaceful, joyful life.

[29:12]

They're always together. But we must fully exert this one in order to open to this one. And once you open to this one, then you can use this one to fully engage with this one, to show other people how to fully engage being miserable. and really without trying to get rid of it. If you're trying to get rid of it even a little bit, you're not fully engaging it. So I have foolishly committed to come back here and be here for about three months this fall, and I'm going to be miserable. But I vow to fully engage my misery. And I believe if I can do that, the doors to my infinite life will open again and again. And I can go running around in my infinite life and then come back again for another dose of misery with more enthusiasm and more wholeheartedness.

[30:18]

And then again and again. Round and round like that. I want to. Wanting to comes from accepting this teaching, this amazing teaching I just told you about. I do accept it, and I want to realize it, and it helps me be willing to fully engage my misery. Which is, again, simply, I don't know, like... Again, over here there's this mother, and the way she cares about her baby is like where it's at. But to only feel that way for one baby rather than all babies, and to feel that way for all babies but not all adults, is misery. And a lot of people accept babies being foolish little creatures, but they don't accept adults being foolish big creatures.

[31:20]

That's misery. And we've got that. So I wish to fully engage. If I ever don't accept an adult fool with the same adoration as accepting a baby fool, I want to fully engage that. And I believe that's where it's at. Okay? So now it's probably about 9.20, right? 9.17. Ah, three minutes. Okay. Well, I have two songs. One's what you call a standard for this time of year, and the other one's a new one. I mean, not new, but it's really about older than most of you, but it's new for Tassajara's summer.

[32:23]

Do you want to hear it? You know that it would be untrue. You know that I would be a liar if I were to say to you, Buddha, we can go no higher. Come on, Buddha, light my fire. Come on Buddha, light my fire. Try to light the night on fire. The time to hesitate is through. No time to wallow in the mire. Now we have a chance to choose. We can join the Buddha's choir. Come on, Buddha, light my fire. Come on, Buddha, light my fire. Try to light the night on fire.

[33:33]

What time is it now? It's 9.30? 9.20? 9.19? Ah, time for one more. That's another one that I changed lately. Summertime And the living is easy Fish are jumpin' And the cotton is hot Your daddy's rich And your mama's good-looking So rest, little baby

[34:44]

Even while you cry One of these mornings You're gonna rise up singing You're gonna spread your wings And you'll take to the sky Until that morning There ain't nothing can harm you With all daddies and mommies Standing by Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[35:45]

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, visit sfcc.org and click giving.

[36:01]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_96.47