Good morning. The amazing composer and Zen teacher John Cage said, when I see something that I think isn't beautiful, I ask myself, Why do I think it's not beautiful? And pretty quickly I come to realize there is no reason. There is amongst a domain where there is no earth, no water, no fire, no wind, no sphere of infinite space, no sphere of nothingness, no sphere of infinite consciousness, no sphere of neither awareness nor non-awareness.

[01:02]

There is not this world. There is not another world. There is no sun or moon. I do not call this coming or going, nor standing, nor dying, nor being reborn. It is without support, without occurrence, without object. Just this is the end of suffering. This is from the Udana 80 from the Sudha Pitaka of the Pali Canon, teaching by the Buddha. So these last two days I've been sharing with you teachings from the first turning of the wheel of the law, or basically what's known as the Buddha's first sermon. And this sermon was given at a place called Deer Park in Isipatana. probably a small village near Varanasi. And we chant the word Varanasi in our meal chant.

[02:06]

So this is the first teaching that the Buddha gave. And his audience was the five ascetics, the very same five who had accused him of reverting to luxury when he started to eat solid food. When I first came to Zen Center, I went to some lectures and Eventually I moved into the building, Page Street, and I went to some more lectures and some sashims. I think it maybe was about two years into that residency that I began to wonder what they were talking about. There didn't seem to be any common ground to the lectures. People would talk about just about anything. I mean, it was all nice, it sounded like very nice and encouraging words, but I couldn't tell what the structure was of the Buddhist teaching, you know, the curriculum. Personally, I kind of like timelines, you know, something started over here and then that happened and so on and so forth.

[03:16]

This and that narrative. So I actually remember going to the library downstairs in Page Street, and looking for the first sermon. So I was wondering how many of you have read the Buddha's first sermon? Interesting. About five hands. I mean, that's not a criticism. It's a critique. So what I think might encourage you by knowing about the first sermon, which now you're going to get to hear, is that it is foundational to everything that followed. So here it is. Set in rolling the wheel of the law. Ikshus, monks, there are these two extremes that ought not to be cultivated by one who has gone forth. What to? There is devotion to the pursuit of pleasure and sensual desire, which is low, coarse, vulgar, ignoble, and harmful.

[04:22]

And there is devotion to self-mortification, which is painful, ignoble, and harmful. The middle way, discovered by a perfect one, avoids these two extremes. It gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to nirvana. And what is that middle way? It is this noble eightfold path. That is to say, right view, Right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. That is the middle way discovered by a perfect one, which gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to nirvana. And then the rest of the sutta, which I'm not going to read, elaborates on the Four Noble Truths. So this first sermon, which is a pretty simple narrative, it's only about two pages long, contains virtually all of the elements of the Buddhist tradition.

[05:34]

There's the middle way, which in Sanskrit is the word majamaka, which may be familiar to you from the famous teacher Nagarjuna, who's called the second Buddha, and he's the founder of the middle way school of philosophy, majamaka. One of two. There's also Yogurtara, mind only, and Majamaka. And those both are foundational to Zen. Probably when you're hearing a lecture at Zen Center, you're hearing someone speaking from one of those two major schools. The Heart Sutra is the Majamaka, is the basis for the Majamaka school, the emptiness teachings. It's primary. So along with the middle way, there's also the teaching of non-duality. Avoid the extremes. either is nor isn't. Luxury or asceticism are extremes, and in the sort of basic extreme is that there is something or isn't something. It's very important for the philosophy of Buddhism.

[06:39]

And then there's the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. So, for 2,501 years now, according to our... Kokyo and the Nenji ceremony. We have been, as a tradition, producing commentaries and schools and styles of teaching. There's poetry and calligraphy and philosophy and psychology and so on and so forth. All of this growing out of this first sermon. We also have bread making and beekeeping and gardening and on and on and on. We're not done yet. inspired. And then there's also just Plain Old City, sort of what we specialize here in this school, the Zen school. And Plain Old City was actually the last resort that the Buddha attempted in his search for freedom.

[07:43]

He tried everything else, and so he sat down under a tree. with a great determination. It says in the suttas that as though there were thunderbolts bolting him to the ground. I will not move until I understand the cause and the cure for suffering. It was his vow. And in fact, it was this sinning that allowed him the time and the space, this containment, in order to rediscover the ancient path to freedom. So after his first sermon to the five ascetics, one of them, whose name was Kondana, in Kondana there arose the spotless, immaculate vision of the Dharma. And then he declared, all that is subject to arising is subject to cessation. And the Buddha said, Kondana knows, Kondana knows.

[08:45]

And as a result, venerable Kondana was named Anatta Kondana, meaning Kondana who knows. And this was the Buddha's first enlightened disciple. So now there are two enlightened beings, Buddha and a Buddha. And the tradition begins there. And with that, the earth deities cried out, At Banaras in Deer Park, a perfect one, accomplished and fully enlightened, has set rolling the matchless wheel of the law, which cannot be stopped by monk or Brahmin or deity or Mara or divinity or anyone in the whole world. Oftentimes when someone asks me about ordination, the question I ask them is, can you be stopped? Can you be stopped? Only you know. As the news traveled throughout the earth and throughout the heavens, the 10,000-fold world element shook and quaked and trembled, while a great measureless light, surpassing the splendor of the gods, appeared in the world.

[10:02]

So this is the universe's reaction to kondana, having the transmission of the tiji, receiving the Dharma, first Dharma transmission. The whole universe shook in a great light, brighter than the gods. I don't think they're underestimating the value of what's happened in this moment of transmission. When someone other than the Buddha has come to the same realization, you know, that it can be passed, something that can be learned. And until that time, the Buddha's accomplishments were really of no significance to the world. You know, he could have remained out there in the forest, another bright-eyed yogi, living off the alms of those who work for a living, and we wouldn't have heard anything about it. But he overcame his reluctance to share what he'd discovered, and he was, he was reluctant to teach. He said, this will be a vexation to me, to try and explain this.

[11:05]

And later in the sutras it says, indeed it was. It was very vexing to him. particularly toward the end of his life when he was an old man, he would kind of shake his head at the young ones. And then also with the success he had in transmitting the law, you know, he was, so to speak, on a roll. The wheel of Dharma was turning. And after Kandana had settled his uncertainties, and had gained perfect confidence in the Buddha's Dharma, he requested the full ordination as a Buddhist monk, the first monk, first ordained monk. He said to the Buddha, Lord Buddha, I wish to go forth under the Blessed One and receive the full admission. And the Buddha said, come be good. That was it, come be good. The law is well proclaimed. Live the holy life for the complete end of suffering.

[12:08]

And that was his full admission. So after that, the Buddha and Kondana started to work with the other four ascetics. And actually, they tell the story of Kondana goes off to town to bring food back. So the Buddha keeps talking to them and explaining to them and working with them. And one by one, over a period of time, each one of them also comes to the same realization as the Buddha. Their names are the Venerable Vapa. the venerable Bhadiya, the venerable Mahanama, and the venerable Asaji, after which, having liberated their hearts from the taints of self-clinging, each in turn asked and received the full admission. So now we have the completion of the triple treasure. So we have the Buddha, Buddha's teaching, and now we have a Sangha. There are six fully enlightened beings on the earth. And the Buddha then says to his Community of five.

[13:09]

Seclusion is happiness for one contented by whom the law is learned and who has seen. Friendliness toward the world is happiness for one that is forbearing with living beings. Dispassion in the world is happiness for one who has surmounted sense desires. But to be rid of the conceit I am, that is the greatest happiness of all. So from this point on, it's fairly well known that the community continued to grow. More and more men and women came to the Buddha asking for ordination, and the Sangha grew, and then based on case-by-case instances of problems that arose, the Buddha began to create some rules or some guidelines for practice, the Shingi of his time, and some of them were quite quaint. Like one monk came to him saying that his ropes had blown off in the wind and the village people were laughing at him.

[14:15]

And so the Buddha said, well, put ties on your ropes. So that became a part of the shingi. I have ties on my ropes so they don't blow off in the wind. There's also a regulation not to hop into a donor's house. I thought, well, that's interesting. And then at one point I was thinking, Well, these were probably children. A lot of them were very young. The lifespan in those days was about 30 years. So a lot of these people who came were out of the forest. They hadn't been trained in deportment or etiquette. They were very young, probably teenagers at best. So not hopping into a donor's house has made a lot of sense to me. Don't grab food out of your neighbor's bowl. Don't sit with your legs sticking out in front of it. These are all part of the early vinya, the rules of deportment. Etiquette. And then the Buddha, at some point in his time, of his lifespan, he had established the fourfold sangha of monks and of nuns, of laymen and laywomen.

[15:26]

Mikus and Miksunis, Upasaka and Upasika. Property was donated and methods for acquiring food were established, a begging bowl. And the prerequisites for ordination were also set, the three of them. You need a robe, you need medicine, and you need eating bowls. So among the many teachings that the Buddha gave in the course of his life to the Sangha, The ones I want to share with you are probably most relevant for those of us who choose the path of sitting, the primary practice of sitting. I think we've all heard by now and know pretty much by heart the Four Noble Truths, suffering, cause of suffering, cessation of suffering, cause of the cessation of suffering, which is the Eightfold Path, as I mentioned in the first sermon is where it can be found. It's the right view.

[16:28]

right intention, right speech, right conduct, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditation. There was an amazing older man at Zen Center when I arrived. His name was Ananda Dahlenberg. Probably Leslie among us knows him. I don't know very good. Anyway, he was Ananda. He called himself Ananda. His name was Claude. It's not quite my dad. That's my dad's name. But he used the name Ananda. And he said it was because Ananda was the last one to be enlightened. Anyway, Claude taught us, I mean, Ananda taught us how to remember the Eightfold Path. He said, very easy. Visclem. So now you know. Visclem. V-I-S-C-L-E-M-M. Visclem. Right view, right intention, right speech, right conduct, right effort. Right meditation, right mindfulness. Yeah, that's it.

[17:31]

Right life is good. So as funny as I thought it was at the time, it really works. You can remember the Eightfold Path. So the first three truths of the Four Noble Truths are basically concerned with Buddhist theory of suffering. Suffering and its cause. This is like looking at the mind and how it creates suffering. And then cessation as the goal. the cessation of suffering. So these are the theoretical foundations for the tradition. The nature of the human problem and the cure. Some of you may know that the Buddha has also been called the great physician for diagnosing our illness and for prescribing a way to heal ourselves. The fourth noble truth is concerned with how. This is the prescription. how to end suffering and how to lead our daily lives in such a way in order to realize the Buddha's freedom and joy and gentleness.

[18:35]

So the way of practice begins with the recognition that the human mind craves things that it likes. I think that sounds kind of obvious. Our mind craves things that it likes, not just humans, all living things. plants and animals, they head toward the light, they head toward the water, they head toward shelter and for food, craving things that they like. The humans have come up with something a little in addition to that, as far as I know. It's maybe unique to us that we also believe that we can find some permanent things that we like that we could have and possess as our own. We call it ownership. belongs to me this is mine these are mine and many of our contracts between each other are based on ownership marriage contracts to have and to hold property rights you know bill of sale we really believe we can hold things and own things as our own you know national boundaries this is my country

[19:49]

And we based our entire life and cultures world round on this belief and it's just mine. I own it. Belongs to me. So it's a great regret for us when we realize over time how because things are always changing that we can't hold on to anything. Whatever we think we have goes. It either dissolves, it breaks, it disappears, it dies, it leaves us. Finds another husband, another wife. I mean, what do you have right now up your sleeves? Probably not much. We don't have any pockets. We can't carry things around with us. So we always are leaving all of these possessions, you know. For some of us, locked up. I remember hearing about the Bushmen, this kind of sad story of the Kalahari who were basically lived by walking from water.

[20:51]

You know, they'd follow the rain. They'd hear the rain or see the rain clouds and they would head toward the rain. And they carried only staff and ostrich eggs to carry water. And they'd find food along the way. They were hunters and gatherers. And then these other people came and gave them trunks and buildings to live in. In order to claim their territory, they had to lock them into a place. So they basically live in destitution. They've lost their way of living lightly and easily with the sound of the rain. So our happiness does not come from possession. It actually comes from release, from relinquishing. And this is the first and second noble truth. Suffering is caused by this grasping after that which cannot be held. It's ignorance that grasps.

[21:52]

I want it. It's going to be mine. I'm going to get it. You know, like golden with a ring. Precious. We know what happened to him. Poor guy. So the Buddha's third truth, based on his enlightened insight, proclaims that true happiness lies in stopping that craving and putting an end to craving, an end to grasping. You know, since we can't get them anyway, it's kind of a peaceful letting down or putting down that energetic reach, both mental and physical. And also rooting out this inherent and impassioned preference we have for one thing over another. As John Cage says so wisely, you know, if I look for a while, I realize there's no reason I like that more than that. But we're all full of preferences. I mean, just go into Starbucks and try to order a cup of coffee. You can't. Anyway, it's amazing.

[22:56]

So, unfortunately, we're such good masters of craving that we even can crave not to crave. And we can desire not to desire, which is craving for nirvana, for extinction. It's kind of ironic. That we really want this thing that will put an end to this thing that we want. Which is wanting. Like a snake has its own tail in its mouth. That's the circle, samsara. Endless circling. So nirvana might sound like the greatest trophy of them all. It's called the golden chain. Samsara is the iron chain. The iron wheel. The golden chain is this desire we have to achieve liberation. It's much harder to break. So in the later teachings of the Mahayana, the emphasis on the teaching is placed on the non-dual and empty nature of phenomena.

[24:04]

This is an effort to help us to see through what it is that we're after really has no inherent existence, and neither do we. But these truths are somewhat tricky. And because they not only say that objects have no inherent existence, that all concepts have no inherent existence as well, including what I just said. And including the Four Noble Truths. And including the Path, as we chant in the Heart Sutra. No Path. No Buddha. Magdharjananda The second Buddha says, those who misunderstand this teaching of emptiness are doomed, like ones who mishandle the poisonous snake. So it's for this reason that when the Buddha first began to unveil his teaching, the concepts that he used to articulate the Dharma were given in such a way as to lead his students to believe that he was talking about real things.

[25:07]

You know, it gave them something to support their practice, something to rely on. And it seems like this is, you know, a very necessary step called skillful means. You know, this question in the Lotus Sutra whether or not the Buddha was lying when he said some of the things he said. He said, no, this is skillful means, you know, to support these young plants while they grow big enough to support themselves. So, you know, it does make sense that you wouldn't begin by telling people that there is no path and no knowledge, nothing to attain. No attainment and so on and so forth. Except, you know, you could just do it and see what happens. And I think that's what we call Zen. That's why you haven't read the first sermon. Or anything else. Why bother? No sutras. It's beyond words.

[26:09]

And I was like, okay, there we are. Looking around out there. So, Rep tells a story on himself. There's a teacher named Tara Toku who came to Zen Center. I remember him. He was an amazing Tibetan teacher. And he was so knowledgeable about the teaching. Like listening to Dalai Lama, you know, they just know everything. They're like, you know, doctorates of every single part of the teaching. And... He met with Reb, and he was very polite, and he said, so what do you teach your students? And Reb said, oh, there's no path, you know, there's no steps and stages. And he went on saying the usual things that we all say around here. And Tara Tokla nodded, and he said, that's very interesting, because, you know, that's very advanced. And then he says something like, I've been talking to some of your students, and they don't seem to know anything about Buddhism at all. And, you know, Reb went, oh...

[27:11]

So, he's been doing a lot of studying since then, and I think there's a deepening conviction that maybe we really should study, might be good for us, you know, to learn how we got here. Where did Zen come from? I highly recommend a book to you called Seeing Through Zen. And if that doesn't disturb you, nothing will. So, the Four Noble Truths. The first, excuse me, the Eightfold Path, Right Intention. which is the second of the Eightfold Path, sets the direction of our lives toward desirelessness, friendliness, and compassion. Well, the first thing I was saying, all that thing I said before, right intention, that was all about right view. Right view, the four novel truths. Okay, so that's the first of the Eightfold Path, right view. Second, right intention. The next three, right speech, right action, and right likelihood, are basically reminders to us, as we step out into the world, that we've made a commitment to right view, poor noble Jews, and to this intention to live in accordance with the Buddhist, Dharma, compassion, friendliness, and so on.

[28:27]

Insight. So it's challenging when we go to work, when we go, as people say, bring lunch over the hill, you go to town, you know. I think we all have this experience of thinking that's a whole other world. My mom used to call, I used to call her on the phone here, and she'd say, honey, when are you coming back to the world, you know? And I'd be leaning on a tree and say, mom, I'm in the world. I assure you, this is the world. But, you know, we don't think like that. My mom doesn't think that way, and I think we tend not to think that way either. So... It's important that we hold our practice as dearly as we hold it when we're here together. It's so easy to practice here. I got to tell you, I can't wait to get back to Green Gulch and tell everybody, you really should go to Tassajara. It's much easier there. Everything supports you to practice here. So the last three folds of the Eightfold Path, right effort, right mindfulness, right meditation, have the most important role because

[29:32]

They basically support the other five dimensions, effort, mindfulness, and meditation. And these three are basically what determine our underlying emotional state, or what we call our attitude. Some years ago I was waiting in my friend's office, she's a Presbyterian minister, I'm part of the Marin Interfaith Council, and she had a book there that I had heard about, but I hadn't read, called Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. And I just started to read it, the beginning of it, and I was kind of blown away because I didn't know so much about Viktor Frankl, but he had been a physician and a wealthy, good family living in Germany when the Nazis came to power and he was not allowed to practice medicine, his property was confiscated. And then eventually he was sent to a concentration camp. And they were treated horribly, as we all know.

[30:37]

And he said that he realized that the only thing that was left to him, because they'd taken his identity, shaved his head, given him, you know, these striped clothing to wear, tattooed his wrist. He said what he had left was his attitude, and they couldn't take that from him. They couldn't take his dignity. And he said if he hadn't been able to maintain his dignity, he could not have emerged from that experience as a human being. So for us to proceed on the Buddhist path, you know, it's clear that we need to also find this way to transform our character, you know, the way we live our lives in such a way that we too feel as though that's the thing that will never be taken from us, that dignity. That attitude. Right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditation. And I think that's the reason we all sit here. We do have faith in the transformative power of this practice.

[31:41]

That if we do make an effort, and we are mindful of our practice and of each other, of our hands and our spines and our feet, and how we touch things and how we treat each other, that we will come to a realization. And we will change into the... the person that we really wish to be, which for all of us here, I think, isn't so far away. So tomorrow I'm going to talk about a teaching from the Pali Sutta called the Mahasati Bhattana Sutta, which is a little more detail of how to meditate, how to enter into meditation practices, and it's called the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. And I'm also going to tell you some of the teachings from the Samana Fala Sutra, the fruits of a homeless life. But before I end today, I wanted to bring up another body part to offer some instruction or some suggestions to you. And I thought today, since I mentioned the spine yesterday, that I would mention your head.

[32:44]

That amazing globe that sits on top of your spine, on top of the C1. is about 10 pounds of, you know, what is it? It's an amazing thing. You can pretty much lose the use of most of the rest of your body, but your head, there you are. The person we believe we are has a lot to do with our head, particularly our face, you know. So much in Zen has to do with face, face to face. You know, how we use our face. I was thinking about all those emoticons, you know. You can pick a lot of different faces to have. And we all have a lot of different faces. One thing about dogs is they can read human faces. They know what's going on with us. If we're sad, if we're happy and so on. They really look at our faces.

[33:47]

And we can too. And it's fast. We know when someone's unhappy or when they're happy or when they're angry and so on. Those emoticons. It doesn't take much. A little eyebrow, a little frown, a little wrinkle. It's all there on the face. So that's one realm of practice, is facing one another. What do you bring? What kind of face are you bringing into the mirror? Because you can't see your own face. I have no idea what I look like right now. I mean, I've tried. Sometimes I look in the mirror and then I step away really quickly, see if I can remember. I can't. I have no idea. And so when I'm looking at the world, that's my actual face. This is my face. The one I know, the one I see. So when I'm sitting with another person, you know, we're reflecting like the Jolmira Samadhi. We're giving each other a face. I'm borrowing that face and they're borrowing mine.

[34:49]

And this is where Dharma transmission happens, face-to-face transmission. Back and forth. It's two ways. So our relationship to the world comes through all the various sense organs that are located in the head. You know, almost all of them are there, right? Eyes, ears, nose, tongue. Body, sensation. Part of the body. And the mind. You know, the control. Command central and the entertainment center is up here inside the skull. So this is a very important, clearly very important part of our practice is how we take care of the head, how we use the head, how we use the face. So one instruction I wanted to offer is that when you're sitting, of course, you find maybe greater ease in your posture when you balance your head. Ten pounds is a lot of weight.

[35:51]

If you're slumped forward, that weight is hanging off your shoulders. It'll hurt. So you want to see if you can get your spine, get those curves nicely rounded, I mean curved, and then put the head on top. You know, it reminds me of the image of Chinese acrobat spinning a plate on a pole. If your head is balanced, it's virtually weightless. And you can try finding that weightlessness by leaning a little too far back or a little too far forward. And right there in the middle is like a plumb line. ears in line with the shoulders, nose in line with the navel. But the other thing, so I think sitting, we've gotten that instruction often, but I think the place where I want to bring up with you is this, I've been watching you, and sometimes I step out of my room before we're all doing this endo, and I watch you go up the path, and it's not just you, everybody does this.

[36:56]

I watch on the Green Gulch too. So the Han's going, and the closer it gets to the end, between the first and second round, the faster the people are going by, you know, hurrying to their meditation. So people, when they're hurrying, really look like they're hurrying. If we were doing a play and we said, okay, now hurry across the stage, that's what you'd look like. Your head would be way ahead of your feet, and you'd be leaning this way, like if your head's going to get there ahead of your feet, right? So this is not the posture that we're hoping to learn and to practice in our practice life. So I'd really like to recommend, and this is not required, but I'd like to recommend you consider leaving your cabin a minute earlier, or two minutes even, and leisurely walk to the Zendo upright with your head balanced on your spine.

[37:57]

and your ears in line with your shoulders, and your umbrella, like this, upright. If you've ever seen the Burmese or the monks walking along, they're walking slowly and mindfully and calmly. So I invite you to enjoy that. It's enjoyable to walk that way. And I know it does mean giving up something else on the other end. I'm not sure what it is. But if you're willing to engage in that practice, I think you would find it to be actually quite delightful. So, yeah. So a lot of the emphasis in traditional Buddhist practice is on this sense organs that I mentioned that are located in the head. And in Zen, too, we emphasize the sense organs, but a little differently, like poetically.

[38:58]

So the sound of the valley stream. And, you know, the color of a ripe persimmon. We're called poetically to use our sense organs, not to just count the objects of awareness, but to be with them, to, you know, to tune with the sounds and the sights and the smells. wonderful smells that come from the kitchen. You know, to really allow yourself to become your sense organs and what they perceive. This is the transmission that's coming to you all the time, every moment. Call and response. So please, please enjoy your day. Thank you so much.

[39:45]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_93.16