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. So, hello, everyone. Welcome. Welcome to all of you who are here in the Sendo, and welcome to those of you who are watching today. or listening, watching and listening from your homes. My name is Tova Green. I'm a resident priest here at City Center. And I am co-leading this fall, the fall practice period at City Center with Tim Wicks, our tanto, and Eli Brown Stevenson, our director of inclusivity and belonging. So tonight I would like to tell two stories that have to do with hungry ghosts.

[01:12]

The title of my talk is Feeding Our Hungry Ghosts. And one of those stories is from the time of Shakyamuni Buddha and the other is a story that applies to all of us, all of us, not just those of us who are here in this room today. So we had a very special ceremony this afternoon, early evening, called Sajiki. And the ceremony is about feeding the hungry ghosts. So how many of you were at that ceremony this afternoon? Quite a few. And I imagine that some of the people who were online were not at the ceremony this afternoon.

[02:12]

I'll say a little bit about it. The zendo was set up in a very different way. The main altar was on this side. The altar that we usually use was not really visible and there were banners with bright colors and most unusual on the altar there was a lot of food, sweets and fruit and many things that might be of interest to the hungry ghosts. And we welcomed the hungry ghosts with sound, some of it quite cacophonous. And then our abbot David spoke to the hungry ghosts, cajoling them, really welcoming them, wanting them to partake of the food and to be nourished.

[03:21]

Hungry ghosts have a very, I mean, there was a way in which they're depicted, but there's a sense in which there's a hungry ghost in each of us, and I'll say more about that. But when we had this ceremony in the Buddha Hall, the whole building would be decorated, and in the Buddha Hall there were these very, very large... brush paintings of hungry ghosts. What they had in common was they had a very, very narrow neck and a big belly, and they did look like they were starving and very disturbing in a way. Certainly they were suffering. And the... The idea is that hungry ghosts are the spirits, you might say, of people who have died long ago, and they are truly suffering.

[04:44]

For those who believe in reincarnation, if someone has had a very painful life or done some wrongs, they may go to the realm of the hungry ghosts after death. There are six realms, and one of them is the hungry ghosts. And also, we usually... do the Sajiki ceremony either on Halloween or close to, so Halloween is tomorrow. And the origin of this ceremony is the Obon ceremony, which people of Japanese descent usually do in August. And I think one of the ways in which we were trying to blend it with the holiday we celebrate on the 31st is to... have it in October instead.

[05:48]

And often people come in costume or wearing masks. A few people did that today. So in August of this year, another student and I attended an Obon ceremony at Sokoji in Japantown. Sokoji is the temple that Suzuki Roshi came to in 1959 when he came to the States. He was, I think, their third abbot. And the temple just had its 90th anniversary But they have a number of ceremonies during the year when they invite anyone who would like to join to come. And on that evening, you could make lanterns and float them down a river they created in the parking lot to honor...

[07:03]

loved ones who have died. An important part of the ceremony is acknowledging those loved ones who we lost in the last year. And we did that this afternoon, reading the names of our loved ones who have died. When I was there, I picked up a flyer that they had called Food Offerings to the Hungry Ghosts. And it had this story in it. the origin of Sinjiki. So I thought I would share the story with you and then tell just a little bit more about the ceremony. So the origin is, while dwelling outside of Kapalavastu castle, the Buddha's close attendant, Ananda, was deep in meditation Late at night, a horrifying vision appeared before him, a being with a bulging stomach, needle-thin neck, wiry hair, long nails, and fire puffing from his mouth.

[08:19]

It was the king of the hungry ghosts, whose name was Enku. He announced that Ananda would lose his life after three days. So Ananda was quite frightened and he asked Enku why it should be that he would die so soon. And Enku told him it was due to his evil karma. Ananda knew that karma could not be eradicated, but Enku went on to say that there was one way he could meet his karma and avoid the awful results. he would have to feed the whole assembly of countless hungry ghosts and make offerings to the holy ones and the three treasures, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. Doing this, his life would be extended and Enku would drop his form as a hungry ghost and be reborn in heaven.

[09:21]

And then Enku disappeared. So Ananda hurried to find the Buddha and he bowed at the Buddha's feet and told the Honored One about his encounter with Enku. He then asked the Buddha if there was any way that he could gather enough food to make such a grand offering to all the hungry ghosts. And the Buddha told Ananda not to worry, that he should believe in and enact a method that he had learned in the past from Kuan Yin, Avalokiteshvara, Bodhisattva. The method did not involve gathering a huge quantity of food. It involved revealing and relying on the universal impact of every act of generosity, large or small. He and Ananda practiced together with the whole assembly of monks and nuns and thus Ananda's life and that of all the suffering hungry ghosts were saved.

[10:35]

So this symbolically offering food to the hungry ghosts is what we did this afternoon. The message that was given with the story was that Sajiki is conducted for the benefit of myriad spirits, which may then be extended to our families and our loved ones. And through such rituals, we rediscover the importance of our connections with all life. So there's a universality to this idea that when we offer food, when we offer a listening ear, when we attend to someone who's suffering, we're offering a gift that radiates outward.

[11:53]

It benefits others. all beings when we can be generous and share our practice actually with others. So I want to say a little more about the hungry ghost in each of us. It can appear in many different guises and often it's felt as a sense of something missing. If only I had or if only I were something that I'm not or something I don't have. Or it can manifest as jealousy, being jealous of what someone else has or something that they got that I might have wanted. It can also manifest as loneliness, just feeling very separate from other people.

[13:07]

And these are ways in which we may feel that something is missing or lacking in our lives. So I wanted to talk about how we can welcome some of those experiences and feelings. The focus of our fall practice period is a text by Galen Ferguson, who is a He was an early student of Chögyung Trungpa Rinpoche and taught at Naropa Institute and he's written a number of books. And this one, Welcoming Beginner's Mind, is about how we can be open to the spaciousness of beginner's mind, to our curiosity,

[14:20]

to being able to experience things freshly. And Galen Ferguson decided to explore this through what are called the Ten Ox Herding Pictures. So some of you who are in the practice period have seen the first two of these pictures. they're sometimes thought of as a roadmap or a way of understanding a spiritual journey. And yet, yes, so any journey, or particularly a spiritual journey, which can sometimes feel like or be a pilgrimage journey,

[15:21]

has a quality of being at every step of the journey is equally important. It's not only about getting to a certain destination. And the first ox herding picture shows, it looks like a young person in a natural place, walking but looking back, kind of distracted, and maybe not clear about where he's going, just on this path, but really doesn't know what lies ahead. He is looking for something. And that picture and that sense of being lost and knowing that something is missing or wanting something that you don't have could be likened to a hungry ghost.

[16:39]

And when I first... saw someone meditating. I was at Esalen. I was in my 30s, and I went for a workshop on gestalt therapy. And for the first time, I saw someone sitting outside, cross-legged, very still, sitting on a rock. And the person looked so peaceful. And I was really drawn to him. You know, it That image stayed with me, and I later, when I went back, I was living on the East Coast. I found a meditation center and started going to retreats. There was something that I saw that I felt I lacked, and something similar happened when I moved to the Bay Area, and I met...

[17:44]

I went to a conference the Buddhist Peace Fellowship put on, and I met Alan Sinaki and Sue Moon. There was something about them that really attracted me. There was a kind of warmth and friendliness and yet composure. And I learned that they both practiced at the Berkeley Zen Center. So I started going to the Berkeley Zen Center. And I just invite you to think of what first led you to a meditation practice or to San Francisco Zen Center. What brought you here? Is there something that you find you're missing or that you want to experience? You may not know what it is, but that impulse can be the beginning of a journey of practice.

[18:57]

And as we explore the ox herding pictures, I think we'll learn more about the experience of coming in contact with the ox. The ox is thought to be a metaphor or a symbol of a spacious mind. And how do we develop that in our practice? So setting out on a journey can be... An adventure can be I want to use the word exciting, but I don't think it's always exciting.

[20:02]

There are often things where we may be cautious about or nervous about, but still we set out on the journey. with a sense of wonder or curiosity, we may be met by a deeper understanding of ourselves and our connection to all beings. So one of the things we're encouraging people to do in our class is to create their own ox-herding pictures or write poems. The original pictures have small verses with them or express in some other way what we're experiencing as we go on this journey.

[21:03]

And I like to sing, so I thought about a song that expresses something about this journey. And I didn't really know, when I first learned this song, it was quite a while ago, and I didn't associate it with meditation practice at all. But I think it really does say something about it. And it's a song by Malbina Reynolds, who was a Berkeley singer-songwriter, and it was published in the in 1962, so it's not a new song, but I think it's relevant. Let me know what you think. I changed some pronouns in the song. It goes like this. You can't make a turtle come out.

[22:05]

You can't make a turtle come out. You can coax him or call him or shake him or shout, but you can't make a turtle come out, come out. You can't make a turtle come out. Be kind to your four-footed friends. Be kind to your four-footed friends. A poke makes a turtle retreat at both ends, and you can't make a turtle come out, come out. You can't make a turtle come out. So you'll have to patiently wait. So you'll have to patiently wait. And when she is ready, she'll open the gate. But you can't make a turtle come out, come out. You can't make a turtle come out. And when you forget that they're there. And when you forget that they're there.

[23:06]

They'll be walking around with their heads in the air, but you can't make a turtle come out, come out. You can't make a turtle come out. So we can't hasten our walking on the path or finding the ox or any of the other things that will happen. And I think this is a... Well, I won't sing more. Maybe you have some thoughts about that song. And in closing, I want to mention that Galen Ferguson, the author of Welcoming Beginner's Mind, will be visiting San Francisco Zen Center. He's coming tomorrow. And on Saturday, he'll be giving the Dharma talk. And then he's giving a workshop on Welcoming Beginner's Mind in the afternoon from 2 to 4.

[24:07]

And it's not too late to sign up for that if you're interested. I hope you will come to the talk, and you could even sign up on Saturday for the workshop. It will be from 2 to 4 at the Conference Center. So please take good care of the hungry ghosts you encounter in yourself and in others. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[24:58]

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