speaking here. There are some old friends among us and a lot of people who are new to me. My name is Hozan Alan Sinaki and I'm a priest at the Berkeley Zen Center. Just by way of brief introduction, I've lived there for a long time and My wife, Lori, has been a practitioner in San Francisco Zen Centers for many years, and now she's been living at Berkeley for 18, 19 years, I think. It goes by very quickly. It's kind of amazing. We have two children who've grown up there, and my daughter went to the junior prom last night. That was really incredible. She was beautifully dressed up, and it's like, oh, when did this happen?

[01:01]

Somebody that we encountered later in the evening said, I remember when you were holding her in one hand and saying how happy you were to be a dad, and now she's more than a handful. She's a beautiful young woman, and it was quite incredible. So we have two kids and I'm a disciple of Sojin Mel Weitzman and also for years I've been working at the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. Some of you may know me in that context and I'm still there. It's an indeterminate sentence it seems. I'm also aware that today is Earth Day and I became aware of it after I began to contemplate this talk, but nonetheless, while I may not speak directly to that, the fact of Earth Day is just kind of a mark.

[02:19]

It's like there's a story about painting a painting a mark on the side of the boat to mark the place where you caught a fish. That's the way Earth Day is. Every day is Earth Day. Every day calls for our activity to take care of the environment and planet that we live on, take care of each other in that context. It's good to have special days to bring this more sharply to our awareness. But really, we should be thinking about this all the time. I'm sort of ruminating this morning. I also think, did Linda Roos leave for Colombia today? Linda Roos and Sarah Gotts-Weintraub left for a witness delegation.

[03:25]

to Colombia, and we wish them safety, health, and we wish them and all of the people who go a productive time in the work of saving sentient beings from suffering. So this is a powerful witness that they're doing and aware of that this morning. We've been talking, Sojin Roshi has been studying and thinking for, I don't know, last month or so about the area of faith. Faith and salvation. What is it that we believe in? And I think that that's going to be what I'd like to talk about with you this morning. It's a very rich topic.

[04:31]

It's also quite loaded, as you can imagine. But I thought I would start by reading you a poem, which you might find engaging. This is by a longtime Zen person. His name is Barton Stone. Some of you may know him. He practiced with us. I think he practiced in all the San Francisco Zen Centers. He read this poem at Berkeley Zen Center during a way-seeking mind talk a few years ago. I was really struck with it. It's called Meditation on Grasping and Clinging. It's sort of in the frame of a sutra. Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva addressed the assembled beings with deep compassion.

[05:33]

Birth and death are relentless and you are right to tremble as you behold them. For all things are void of self-nature and your alkaline diet will not save you. Your workout routine will not save you. The Beatles will not come back to save you. Organic produce will not save you. Your vows will not save you. Mutual funds will not save you. Poetry will not save you. Zazen will not save you. Tree planting will not save you. Washboard abs will not save you. A clean car will not save you. psychedelics will not save you. Your teacher will not save you. Big mind will not save you. Your family will not save you.

[06:36]

Neither wit nor charm will save you. Rare gold coins will not save you. Jesus will definitely not save you. Virtue will not save you. Solar panels will not save you. Fame and fortune will not save you. Your super comfortable sharper image styrofoam pellet Zafu will not save you. Not even Constance's love will save you. Hearing aids will not save you. Expatriation will not save you. Degrees and credentials will not save you. Hope will not save you. Extended orgasms will not save you. The great mother's arms will not save you. No amounts of vitamins and supplements will save you. Art will not save you. Meditations on grasping and clinging will not save you.

[07:37]

Giddy episodes of gratitude will not save you. Antioxidants will not save you. Your grandchildren will not save you. Your reputation will not save you. The people's eventual uprising will not save you. Extraterrestrial entities will not save you no matter how high their vibrational level. Beauty will not save you. Modesty will not save you. Invisibility will not save you. Hilarity will not save you. Clever turns of phrase will not save you. The esteem of your colleagues will not save you. Green tea and flax oil will not save you. Being debt-free will not save you. Hope for one more sunrise will not save you. Many of the assembled beings on that day, hearing those words and taking them to heart, immediately attained complete, unsurpassed, perfect life as it is, trembling and all.

[08:49]

Ah. Now, if I was really a Zen teacher, I would get up quickly, flip my robes, and leave the room. Instead, I'm going to make a mistake on purpose and keep talking. But just to say, this, I think, this is online. I don't know. It's on... On the Berkeley Zen Center website, I think it's April 2000. It's either April 2006 or April 2005. I should have written it down. So, what do we think about this notion of salvation? What is it we believe in?

[09:54]

the more I've been going on this week, I've been really trying to ascertain what I believe in. And it's very difficult because I think that I do have some beliefs, doubtless you do as well, But also, since I'm fundamentally a doubt type, I discount them to some degree. And it's very difficult to find. And yet, this is a basic religious process. This process of faith. The process of belief.

[10:58]

And somewhere, no matter how we think about it, this notion of salvation, which, as I said, salvation is a loaded word. I think all of these words have a strong Judeo-Christian content for us, particularly for those of us And I would say looking around, most of us in this room who grew up in that cultural setting, not entirely all of us, but it's embedded in our education and how we grew up and the messages that come through literature and song and media. And that's not a bad thing. It's just how do we see clearly? I was asking Sojin Roshi about this and he pointed out to me that there is a chapter, a section in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind which is called Believing in Nothing.

[12:18]

I thought I would look at that a little with you and then also discuss how this affects us, how this is manifest in our practice, singing of practice in the widest sense, practice, as we sit zazen. But zazen is not something that is contained just with the act of sitting in silence. Suzuki Roshu writes, I discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is, we have to believe in something which has no form and no color, something which exists before all forms and colors appear. This is a very important point. No matter what god or doctrine you believe in, if you become attached to it,

[13:26]

your belief will be based more or less on a self-centered idea. You strive for a perfect faith in order to save yourself. But it will take time to attain such a perfect faith. I've discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. This is when the when Pope John wrote his book a number of years ago, 10, 12 years ago, he accused Buddhism of being a nihilistic religion because it believes in nothing. Because core texts like the Heart Sutra are essentially there to, they're full of negations. And he saw this as a very dangerous, it's a dangerous endeavor for a person of faith.

[14:37]

From a Buddhist perspective, I don't see it as so dangerous. What does this mean, believing in nothing? Does that mean believing in not... not having any beliefs? Does it mean turning emptiness into a thing by calling it nothing? Or does it mean believing in no thing, believing that there are no things, believing that I am not a thing, that you are not a thing, and testing out that belief in the course of our life. Testing it out very carefully.

[15:41]

In the first line of the Heart Sutra, it says, Avalokiteshvara bodhisattva, while practicing prajnaparamita, the perfection of wisdom, perceived that all five skandhas in their own being are empty and was saved from suffering. So there we have the saved activity. So looking into this co-created reality, a reality that we can't even put our minds to directly, that is something that relieves our suffering. The hazard, of course, is to turn that into a thing, which I think is the point of Barton's poem. Aside from listing all of these particular things that will not save us, in the end,

[16:57]

In the beginning, in the end, he says, you are right to tremble as you behold them. In the end, it says, taking them to heart, hearing these words and taking them to heart, immediately attained complete, unsurpassed, perfect life as it is, trembling and all. The biggest problem that I have and that I encounter is to see people believing in their thoughts, believing in their feelings, believing in their beliefs, and wanting to take a stand on them.

[18:05]

not sure that it's wise to teach in the modality of bumper stickers, but I do have a bumper sticker on my car that says, don't believe everything you think. And sometimes people accost me in parking lots to discuss that. But this is the problem that we have. that believing that our feelings are real and that they're unchangeable, believing that the ideas that I have about this person or that person, this group of people, believing the thoughts I have about my co-religionists or some other group, not allowing myself To see them as it is.

[19:16]

Not even allowing myself the opening to tremble in fear or grief or concern. But to want to pin something down. So we have these problems of faith and belief and salvation. And what came to me, we've been reading, Sojun Roshi has been having us read a book by a Korean teacher, Hye Jung Park. I think it's called Faith and Sudden Enlightenment. And it's pretty interesting. He's pretty well versed in a wide range of theology and then deeply versed in Buddhist practice.

[20:24]

He talks about several kinds of faith. He talks about, in the Western tradition, we have faith in something. This is, I think, what Suzuki Rishi is talking about. This has some real dangers for us. What Suzuki Roshi says, you strive for a perfect faith in order to save yourself, but it will take time to attain such a perfect faith. You will be involved in an idealistic practice. In constantly seeking to actualize your ideal, you'll have no time for composure. But if you're always prepared for accepting everything, everything we see as something appearing from nothing, knowing that there is some reason why a phenomenal existence of such and such form and color appears, then at that moment, you'll have perfect composure.

[21:36]

So we believe in... Anyway... this notion of faith, faith in. Believing in God, believing in the government, believing in any of the things, say, that Barton relates in his poem. In this book, they outline two kinds of Buddhist faith. What unites them, I think, is that faith is an activity. I think this is our common Thread. Faith is an activity. Zazen is an activity. Living is an activity. And salvation itself is an activity. This is why I think at the end of this talk, we're going to chant the Bodhisattva vows. And I don't know how you phrase it here, but sentient beings are numberless.

[22:45]

I vow to save them. This, to me, is the activity of salvation. The activity of salvation is not, as Barton explains in his poem, that any of these things outside myself, whether they are beliefs or objects or qualities, that any of these things will save me. But our salvation is, if in anything, in the activity of helping others. So, the activity of a bodhisattva, and helping others in the way that... even when we don't really understand what it is we're doing.

[23:46]

It's with that intention that we live our life. It's with that intention that Linda Ruth and Sarah go to Columbia. They have an intention, they probably even have some plans, but really they don't know what's going to happen there. And they don't know what the ripples of their activities are going to be that continue for miles and miles, years and years, through lives that they haven't encountered yet. We don't know these things. And yet, to do them is to act in faith. This faith itself is a subtle thing, because as he frames it in this book, which is interesting, there are two kinds of faith.

[24:56]

There's a faith in Buddhism, or doctrinal faith, which is the faith that I can become a Buddha, or Buddha, live like him, or Jesus, live like him. And there's the faith that's conveyed by... in Suzuki Roshi's teaching as well, and Dogen's teaching, of practice realization. There's a faith that I already am a Buddha. This is the faith that the Buddha communicated upon his awakening, where he said, I see that I... along with all other sentient beings, am awakened. Or I awaken together with all sentient beings. All sentient beings already are Buddha.

[25:56]

That's this other dimension of faith. And there's a tension between them. But it's a dynamic tension. This is how we live. We live... And this is, I think, the slippery and really amazing quality of Suzuki Roshi's teaching, because he wasn't willing to come down on one side decisively or the other. Because to do those would be to create a static notion of faith, a belief. And he didn't want to allow us, he didn't want to see us fall into that. He says at the end of this piece, it's really nice. It's very funny. It's in the middle. He talks about believing in nothing.

[27:02]

This is not just theory. This is not just the teaching of Buddhism. This is the absolute necessary understanding of our life. Without this understanding, religion will not help us. We will be bound by our religion, and we will have more trouble because of it. And he says, if you become the victim of Buddhism, I may be very happy, but you will not be very happy. So, you know, it might be satisfying for our teachers when they see us buying their teachings. But it's not truly what they want from us. What they want from us is to live. What they want from us is to be completely ourselves, to manifest that. When I look around, for example, at Suzuki Roshi's disciples, and I see at least

[28:11]

one of them among us here today, and they're probably more direct people who studied with him. I see each one of those disciples is a totally different person and lives in a different way, manifests in a different way. When they speak the Dharma, the Dharma is common, but their lives are express themselves in the widest variety of ways. That's tremendously encouraging. When I look at my own teacher, Sojin Roshi has also quite a number of disciples. We're all really different. Every human being is different.

[29:14]

Every human being as Buddha has to manifest exactly as they are with what they have and with what we lack. And so this is what we lack is that there's that doctrinal piece of faith. The faith that I can become Buddha. Do you know the story of the sixth ancestor? Some of you do. The sixth ancestor of Zen, I'll tell it briefly. It's interesting because there's a poetry contest, which is a kind of central part of the story. The sixth ancestor was, by reputation, an illiterate young man in China, in Tang Dynasty China. I'm not convinced of his illiteracy, but that's the legend.

[30:16]

One day he was a woodcutter and he sold firewood to support his mother because his father had died. One day he heard the Diamond Sutra and instantly understood it. He felt he had to go to where that was being taught. He left his mother and mysteriously As he was leaving, somebody gave him a pouch of gold, enough to support her for the rest of her life. So he went off to Hong Jin's temple, and when he got there, he had an exchange with the teacher as he arrived. That was in public, and the teacher saw that he had great potential, but also was worried for him. He was a lay person. He wasn't ordained. They sent him off to the kitchen to polish rice. So, you know, just you should be aware there are bodhisattvas in the kitchen whose understanding is deeper than we can know.

[31:27]

Hong Jin was the fifth ancestor or the fifth patriarch of Zen in lineage that was being established from the time of Bodhidharma. And he decided that he was going to transmit. And he had to find the sixth ancestor. And so he said, well, we're going to have a poetry contest. And he had a senior student named Shenshu, who was very smart, very well respected, quite senior monk, He was the head of practice for all the younger monks. As the story goes, Shenshu knew he was not completely awakened. He knew his understanding was incomplete. But he felt he had to write a poem because he had to make some effort.

[32:31]

So he went and painted this poem. He didn't want to fully take the chance. So what he did was he snuck out at night and painted the poem on the wall outside the abbot's quarters. And what he figured was if the poem was dissed, then he wouldn't own up to it. But if the poem was accepted, then he would humbly take credit. So his poem was this. The body is a Bodhi tree. The mind is a bright mirror's stand. Polish it constantly so no dust collects. It's actually pretty good. The body is a Bodhi tree. The mind is a bright mirror's stand. Polish it constantly so no dust collects.

[33:36]

the abbot came out, saw it painted on the wall, and he praised it. But he knew who wrote it. And he called Chen Shu into his quarters and said, yeah, pretty good. Not there. Try harder. Try to see into your true nature and write me another poem. The abbot had praised this. It was big news in the temple. People were talking about it. It got back to the kitchen. When Wineng heard about it, he said, oh, can you read me this poem? They read this poem and he got somebody to go with him.

[34:44]

He said, I have a poem. He was subject to some scorn. He said, you have a poem? You can't even write. He said, no, I have a poem. Go with me and if my poem is successful, I will take you with me to the other shore. The guy couldn't refuse that. He got someone to go with him outside the abbot's quarters and at night he wrote his poem. Let me read you the first one again, then I'll read you his again. It says, The body is a bodhi tree, the mind is a bright mirror's stand. Polish it constantly so no dust collects. Nguyenang's poem was, Enlightenment is not a tree. The bright mirror has no stand. Basically, there's not a single thing. So where could dust collect? This is a real contention of ways of seeing our practice.

[35:57]

As the legend goes, I must say, in the context of life as it is, trembling and all, all of these sutras are themselves polemical documents. This was one school contesting another, and it got played out in the Platform Sutra, which is the story of Wineng and his teachings. So he won the contest, and the abbot called him in and said, I'm transmitting the robe and bowl to you, but your life is in danger, and so... I'm going to take you across the river and you should go and practice in the woods for, I think it was 14 years or something like that. But you have to leave this temple. And so he did. So those are the two poems. And you can see how the first poem is in faith that I can become a Buddha.

[37:04]

And the second poem is is in faith, I already am Buddha. What I'd like to suggest to you, that in the activity of faith, in the activity of practice, both of these approaches must interpenetrate each other. That they live in us in a constant... vital, useful, living tension. Sometimes in tension, sometimes in harmony. So, I think Suzuki Roshi said, you are perfect as you are, and you need some improvement. That's those two views. If you look through Zen Mind Beginner's Mind and his other teachings, you'll see

[38:06]

The dynamic activity, as Dogen said, total dynamic working of these two modalities of faith. So, this faith is something that we have to put in action. Salvation is something that we have to make an activity of. just as our zazen is an activity. In our zazen, we're constantly looking at our thoughts, views, and feelings that come up. They're working all the time. And we see how sticky they are, how we want to be caught on them, how we want to believe them. And we also see, if we're sitting and breathing and returning to our attention, that kind of it loses its adhesive after a while.

[39:10]

And something that we believe just falls off. Some things are more persistent than others. But I think that this is the work of our practice. We have to help people. We have to help ourselves. In his later teachings, when Winung... took up the teaching seat many years later. He wrote his own version of the bodhisattva vows. Sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them. He wrote, sentient beings of my mind are numberless. I vow to save them. But nothing is outside of our mind. This is how we sit when we sit here in this zendo. We sit side by side.

[40:12]

We walk in a great unified circle together. We chant together. We're creating this unified mind that is larger than And yet, within it, we retain some distinctness. We retain personality. We retain our aches and pains. We tremble ourselves. Salvation is not something that we can describe as something that belongs to us. It's not a particular religious experience. It's not zazen. Zazen is an activity. Zazen is an enlightened activity, but it is something we do with our bodies.

[41:22]

Salvation is hopefully our ordinary way of life. The way we are with each other. The way we are with people that we love. The way we are with people that we don't know. The way we are with people that we don't like. I think another way of thinking of salvation is... the word, we have this practice, shikantaza, which we translate as just sitting. So I would say salvation, in a sense, is this word shikant. It's the word just. Just sitting. Just eating. Just working.

[42:24]

just taking care of ourselves, just taking care of all those that we meet. Within that, I would say, I would have to say I believe in that process if there's something that I believe in I believe in that. And I believe in the constancy of change and transformation. Things don't always transform the way I might wish. But again, in Suzuki Roshi's phrase, not always so. The essence of that is this constant change. this constant tension, dynamic tension, dynamic action between being and becoming.

[43:39]

Can we live like that? Can we live with just this endless potentiality? Can we live with it until the last moments of our life? the last breath and can we allow others to do just the same this is very it's a very simple way of looking at the world and it's really hard to do and I just wanted to thank you for taking this on, and for us being on this journey together. And being willing, you know, we're willing to fail.

[44:47]

I'm willing to fail. I fail all the time. But it's like here in this, this beautiful zendo is like an art. We're sailing through the world together. And like the inhabitants of Noah's Ark of old, maybe we're not all in pairs, but we have upon us is the responsibility to preserve and bring forth life in this world for the future, for our children and grandchildren, in honor of those who came before us.

[45:53]

So we're all floating in this arc and actually Each one of us has an oar. So let's let's row together. Thank you very much.

[46:23]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_96.21