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. And welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple. I see so many faces of old friends. But I'm wondering, there's some new people, maybe. Is there someone here? If you haven't been here before for a Saturday morning talk, raise your hand. Okay. Nice sprinkling. So, most important... practice I've been talking about lately is generosity dana prajnaparamita and there really is a foundational understanding that this life is given

[01:27]

so to appreciate that is fundamental to this practice fundamental to the practice of Zazen fundamental to the practice of how we live together as human beings and how we live together with other species how we live together with the planet the biosphere how we live together with the solar system and stars. So I wanted to refer to the little discussion, very brief discussion in Dogen's Bodhisatta Shio Ho, which is now in the new edition of the Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, that's come out, translated by, well, Kaz Tanahashi modestly says, edited, by Kaz Tanahashi, but he had many collaborators.

[02:33]

So in this edition of the Shobho Genzo, The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, it's number 46. And so he mentions there are four methods of bodhisattva guidance. And some of you may not know, the word bodhisattva means to have a vow of awakening. a vow of awakening for all beings. And so what's the approach, how to approach awakening with all beings? So in this little essay, Dogen mentions four approaches. One is, the first one is dana, giving, which today I'm, I'm actually translating it as generosity. And then kind speech, beneficial action, and identity action.

[03:44]

So those are the four that he mentions. And they include, if you do those four, that's all you need to do. So to understand dana, prajnia, paramita as generosity, I like the word generosity because the root of the word actually comes from the Sanskrit, Indo-European, gen, or gen, gen. And that root actually has the sense of source. as a sense of origin and creativity. So to be generous then with this understanding is to be completely present right where you are and to understand your presence now as a creative place.

[04:44]

That your willingness to be present is actually an act of creativity. An act of giving life. Giving life. So the gens came through in Latin, generosus. Generosus, meaning of noble birth. So there's something noble about being present, being a source, being completely willing to be, say, to take responsibility for right where you are. Something noble about that. which is accessible, I think, for any of us. Any of us can have that. But it also is in the root of words like genus, gene. So this notion of generosity has point of origin.

[05:56]

and of place of creativity. So, Dogen, in his description about giving, his generosity, he says many things. You know, you can give anything. You can give a leaf, you can give a penny. You can, he says, making a living and producing things is an act of dana, prajnaparamita. But very interesting to me, he says receiving a body and releasing the body. These are both acts of generosity. So to be willing to open and receive this particular body. So giving is receiving and giving equally. So if you have some wish to have a different body, then you're not being so generous.

[07:04]

But to receive this body, and to let everyone else have their bodies, let everyone else have exactly the body that they have. And of course body, I don't separate body and mind, body, mind, heart, All together, can you now, this moment, right now, be completely willing to accept, receive, with a sense of being upright, this body? Take a moment. Reflect on that. There's a lot of advertising in our culture that's promoting some notion that your body needs to be different.

[08:15]

That your circumstances are lacking something. I saw the play, Tricky Park, a couple of nights ago, Martin Moran, and there's a lot in that play about the acceptance of this body going through life, many changes, many relationships. To accept this body right now is to accept the entire past karma, all the conditions, everything that's ever happened to produce this body, these particular cells, millions of cells changing every second, breathing in, receiving.

[09:27]

contributing to this body. Breathing out, releasing the universe. So then Dogen talks about kind speech. Kind speech. That just Cultivating some openness to someone else is fundamental to kind speech. Kind speech means that you actually see the person in front of you. Who are you talking to? Can you see them? Can you listen to them? So kind speech is based upon having no prejudice, no prior bias. It means to practice then of setting aside anything that is interfering with clearly seeing and clearly hearing who's in front of you.

[10:37]

So this is a big challenge. Big challenge. Even with someone you know pretty well, you might want them to be a little different. Even someone you love very much, you might want them to be a little different. Hard to just receive them as they are. So... Suzuki Roshi, after the war in Yaizu in Japan, the town of Yaizu was the town where Rinsoen, the temple, was his primary responsibility. So after the war, he wanted to start up the kindergarten that had been discontinued during the war.

[11:53]

So this would have been the late 40s, 1940s. Some of you may remember 1940s. Many of you think ancient history, ancient history. But 1940s, after the war, he felt, okay, the kindergarten was very important to establish, reestablish this basis of education. So he wanted to find a good person to be the head of the head teacher, and he asked around some of his friends, and someone said, I know a really good person, and they're in another town, but she's a friend of our family, and she might consider it because she's a friend of ours. So they arranged, they went, and they took this little trip, and they met this woman named Mitsu. And first time Mitsu came, and this is Mitsu's story.

[12:58]

Mitsu tells this story in the book Crooked Cucumber, which is a biography of Suzuki Hiroshi by David Chadwick. So Mitsu comes down the hall in her school. She's already teaching, and she sees these two people, one the old friend and one is a handsome monk. And she greets them, or they greet her. And her friend says, I want you to meet Shinryu. And she says, oh, is this monk looking for a wife? So she, you can tell from that, she was very, say, forward in expressing herself. And the friend said, oh, no, no, no, Shinryu already has a wife, but he's looking for a head teacher for his... for his school. And she said, well, I'm already completely busy. I have this school and I'm not interested. But at that time, Shinriya Suzuki felt this was the right person, the right person for this school he wanted to revive.

[14:10]

And so every week he would go back and visit. And she'd say, oh, there's that monk again. And she would protest and he would say, well, I really, I think you would really enjoy it. It would be good. It would be good. She said various things like, well, I'm a Christian, you know, and this is a Buddhist school. And so he would say, well, that's better than not having any religion. You have a spiritual nature and it would be good. You would be good. And another time she said, oh, Yaizu, it's a fishing town. You know, I hate fish. So he just wouldn't give up. He kept coming back week after week, and finally he said, look, I just want you to come and meet some people that are supporters of the temple and the Aizu, just to meet them. And so, okay, she didn't see how she could quite refuse that, and so eventually she did go and met these people who were...

[15:18]

I think one was a doctor and his family, and it prevailed upon her, basically, to come and take this position. So she did that. She moved, came, and right away, then, Suzuki Shunryu said, now I want you to... So every day in the kindergarten, he would come down, he would ride his bicycle down from Rinso Inn to the kindergarten, and he would... say, okay, the teachers sit Zazen for a little while, then they would do a little service, and then he would say a few words to kind of start the day, to inspire people, say, to clarify, you know, what's the work of today? What's our intention today? And so she said, I don't, you know, what's the point of sitting Zazen? I don't want to do something that doesn't have any value, you know.

[16:20]

And so he thought at that time, to give a practical answer, he said, Zazen will help you know what to do in any situation. So she thought, well, okay. Maybe I'll see. And then he said, but I want you to come and hear these talks from Ian Kishizawa, who was a great scholar of Dogen. So every month he would come and give a talk in a nearby town where he had a temple. So they would go and hear these talks, which were pretty obscure, difficult. The writings of Dogen hadn't even been translated into modern Japanese at that time. And so she, after a few of these, she said, look, I don't understand anything.

[17:23]

These talks are completely confusing. I don't understand. Can you just say what is Buddhism in a few sentences? And he said... It's to accept what is as it is and help it to be its best. So, for me, I'm kind of simple-minded, so this phrase has been very helpful to me. To remember this teaching that he gave to Mitsu. To accept what is as it is and help it to be its best. The first part is a big challenge, actually. So this is related to what I was saying about generosity. This is the first act of generosity. To be willing to be present with what is as it is.

[18:27]

To completely accept what is. And then to help. Both are creative, actually. Both are creative acts. Dogen continues and says that beneficial action will follow from kind speech and a compassionate heart. Beneficial action. Any kind of action to help. When you see someone and you're in a situation, you immediately... can know what to do. Sometimes you realize that you don't know what to do, so realizing that you don't know what to do is what to do. To completely realize, oh, I don't know what to do. That's what to do. That's the place to begin. And then we have this word upaya, which means skillful means.

[19:36]

So to cultivate that, As you become more and more attentive and more and more experienced, you may find, oh, there's ways of having a maybe more skillful response to a situation like this. So this skill is always in the spirit of offerings. offering other beings the chance to realize themselves, who they are, this chance to wake up. I recently saw a DVD of a program made on HBO of Temple Grandin. Temple Grandin becoming, I think, more well-known now as someone who is an advocate for understanding autism, being autistic herself. And a great advocate for compassionate treatment of animals.

[20:41]

Compassionate treatment of animals. She had a particular gift for carefully observing and seeing and feeling what animals need. So I recommend checking it out. You can get the DVD or see it, Temple Grandin. But she did a lot of work with cattle, understanding what cattle need and what's a humane treatment, particularly of beef cattle. Knowing that they're going to be slaughtered, they're going to be killed, still, she felt, we don't have to be cruel. We can be completely caring. And so she had a hard time, you know, being autistic. Very hard time to find a way, because people would usually not understand her, would actually reject her, because she had some kind of unusual behavior.

[21:54]

So she had to be very strong and persistent. She is still. She's a brilliant person. But if you first see how she takes care of, reacts to certain things, where she's spooked by something, she may have a very difficult time and freeze up and not know how to relate the way people usually relate to each other. So she was teased a lot and actually cruelly treated. But she offered her life, she is still offering her life to the care and humane treatment and understanding of other species. So how to accept what is as it is means to make the effort to inform oneself.

[22:58]

Who is this in front of me? What is this in front of me? What's the situation even inside me? Who is this inside me? I've read a poem, which I've been reading a couple of times. Some of you, I know, have heard this, but it doesn't hurt. to hear it again. This is a poem by Galway Kinnell. It's called The Bud. The Bud stands for all things, even for those things that don't flower, for everything flowers from within of self-blessing.

[23:59]

though sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness, to put a hand on the brow of the flower and retell it in words and in touch, it is lovely, until it flowers again from within of self-blessing. As St. Francis put his hand on the creased forehead of the sow, and told her in words and in touch blessings of the earth on the sow and the sow began remembering all down her thick length from the earthen snout all the way through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine down through the great broken heart to the sheer blue milking dreaminess, spurting and shuddering from the 14 tits into the 14 mouths, sucking and blowing beneath them, the long, perfect loveliness of Sao.

[25:21]

So this practice of kind speech, of actually Retelling each other how lovely you are. Noticing maybe one's bias. So, I've told this story a couple times, but once more. When I was about four years old, and my cousin, who was almost a year younger, my cousin Leanne, We were at her father, my uncle's farm, which had been my grandparents' farm. This is in Kansas. And we were at the fence admiring the pigs. A hot summer day. And we thought the pigs

[26:32]

really had a good idea. And we appreciated their intelligence and their beauty. And we didn't really feel ourselves were separate from them. So we took off our clothes and crawled through the fence where the pigs had made this wonderful wallow of mud, water, Excrement. Very fragrant. Which we thought, oh, this is hot day. This is the place to be. So we slid into this wonderful wallow up to our chins. And I still remember that was just the perfect place. The pigs were over there. We're over here. Maybe a little bit proud of ourselves for our discovery.

[27:37]

Finding the perfect place to be. Until we heard these screams and shouts behind us. And our two mothers came over. I kind of remember being yanked out by one arm. And had the cold garden hose water turned on me and washed me off. That was a sudden drop from a deva realm, from a heavenly realm, into the animal realm of human beings. So the fourth of these four bodhisattva methods of guidance that Dogen mentions is identity action. Identity action means to not have any difference between oneself and others.

[28:40]

To completely join, to completely participate fully and freely with others. Others, all other beings. This includes the beings that we usually think of as animals. We usually think of as plants. We usually think of as rocks. We usually think of as atmosphere. We usually think of as water. We usually think of as fire. All these beings to be willing to be fully participating without some dualistic idea. The full complexity, the full intimate resonance, This is Dogen saying, this is identity action. So sometimes it may be identity action, you know, to, if you're four years old, take off your clothes and go into the pig pen.

[30:02]

So this is an act of generosity. Being completely open-hearted and willing to participate fully. Responding. Accepting what is as it is. Helping it be its best. Helping this hot, sunburned body get cool in the mud. And at the same time, our mothers came up. And they were also doing identity action. They were imagining themselves. Imagining their children are themselves, which is true. Mothers and children, not separate, not two. Mothers don't exist without children. Children don't exist without mothers. Also don't exist without pigs. To exclude anything is to close off, to not fully appreciate the understanding of generosity.

[31:16]

So it's important to understand, okay, there's different perspectives. The mother's action of identity action and beneficial action is to wash off the child. The child's action is to be the child. So this is where we meet. We meet where we have our different perspective. And this is how we help each other. We help each other completely understanding that the more completely we understand it, the more completely we can help each other. Understanding this means that We appreciate the incomparable value, the inconceivable value of every part of this universe. That we don't get so caught up in our preferences.

[32:25]

So caught up that then we deny and we reject the other beings. So how to work with this then begins in one's own body. The practice of zazen is to bring deep awareness to breath body. So notice this body. Take time every day. Take time every day to stop adding anything extra. And fully appreciate what is. Just appreciate your own mind. Just appreciate your own wisdom that's intrinsically in your breath. You don't need to breathe. Your body knows how. You don't need to impose your own ideas or judgments.

[33:29]

But then it's good to notice. So I have ideas. I have judgments. So this is the nature of mind. Nature of mind to have ideas. Nature of mind to also be producing thoughts. Some of those thoughts are discerning. Some of those thoughts are judging. So this also means to completely include the whole aspect of mind. The aspect of mind that is continually, moment after moment, waking up. and then commenting on waking up. So right there is an opportunity to deepen your practice and broaden your awareness. Notice the tendency to get caught up in a particular narrow opinion or story or belief.

[34:33]

So to really understand identity action means that you ultimately have to let go of the attachment or clinging, a kind of stickiness or dependency. To let go of that dependency but let go of it doesn't mean that you get rid of it. It doesn't mean that it's bad and you should push it away. It just means that you should let go of it. Notice the way in which it's held more tightly than necessary. So if you're driving the car of your awareness down the highway, the Bodhisattva path, you only have to hold the steering wheel just enough. You don't have to clench it. You may have thoughts about other drivers. There may be moments where you feel that you're You lose track of the fact that we're all a community of trust and begin to have some attitudes toward other drivers.

[35:45]

Sometimes people even have attitudes about a stoplight. Oh, stoplight. When's it going to change? So this act of generosity then means to receive the green light, receive the red light equally. Receive the yellow light. That's the difficult one, the most difficult, yellow light. To receive the full flow of all the other drivers and cars moving together. So maybe I've gotten myself to the place of singing Relax Your Mind. It's been a few weeks since I sang Relax Your Mind.

[36:51]

So Relax Your Mind, some of you know that every once in a while I remember to sing Relax Your Mind. So Relax Your Mind is a song created by Hoodie Ledbetter, or Led Belly. and there's a Alan Lomax made some Library of Congress recordings I think back in the 30s of Lead Belly singing many things and commenting and Lead Belly and introducing this song said when I drive a car and you're sitting next to me I don't look at you I look right through the windshield. I don't look at you. I look through the windshield and I've driven all over this country and I never even hit a chicken. So it goes like this and then you can join in on the chorus.

[37:57]

Relax your mind. Relax your mind. Helps you live a great long time. Sometimes you've got to relax your mind. And then I change it to, now's the time. So relax your mind, relax your mind. Helps you live a great long time. Now's the time you've got to relax your mind. Oh, when the light turns green, Push your foot on and guess I lean. That's the time you've got to relax your mind. So everyone can join in now, right? Relax your mind, relax your mind. Helps you live a great long time. Now's the time you've got to relax your mind.

[39:00]

And when the light, it turns red. Put that foot down, put that brake down to the bed. That's the time you've got to relax your mind. Relax your mind. Everybody, relax your mind. Helps you live a great long time. Now's the time you've got to relax your mind. And then I learned this from Michael Winger. Oh, and the light turns. What? Don't get all confused. That's the time you've got to relax your mind. Relax your mind. Relax your mind. Helps you live a great long time.

[40:02]

Now's the time you've got to relax your mind. I had a friend. Oh, one time, you know, he forgot to relax. Crossed the railroad tracks, he forgot to relax. He lost his mind. He lost his life. Because he forgot to relax his mind. So everyone, remember... Relax your mind, relax your mind. Helps you live a great long time. Now's the time you've got to relax your mind. Thank you for listening and thank you for singing. For more information, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[41:20]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[41:23]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_95.67