Good evening. Hello everybody. So I appreciate that all of you are here this evening and that the microphone is working so well. I appreciate the opportunity I've been given to offer a talk tonight. And I want to say a little bit about that fact. Because in order to prepare for saying these words tonight, I have had to study and consider quite a bit more than I'm ever going to possibly be able to say this evening. And after this talk is over, many things... about my preparation for the lecture will be left behind within me.

[01:06]

And really directly, I understand that for me, this opportunity to give a talk is beneficial because this chance to speak tonight, in some ways it doubles back and enriches me further. So in this way, my opportunity to speak tonight is a gift that I've been given by all of you. And I'm going to say this again slightly, maybe somewhat differently, but just what is interesting, I think, is how any gift however small or modest, or maybe grand, how any gift moves and how it multiplies and has the potential to become a benefit for others.

[02:18]

And even a gift, however small, has a chance to be... to grow and affect and be a gift to someone who wasn't even there at the original point when it began. So I make this point about the benefits of giving because today I want to talk about how life and opportunity of our practice is a great gift. And I want to speak to the extent I can about how this gift of our practice life is delicately supported by understanding that this is something we share. The gifts that we receive are something that we share and they are not for ourselves.

[03:26]

Not at all for ourselves. In a way, having this perspective is an example of how the bodhisattva's vow is brought forth. This is in some ways a kind of manifestation of the bodhisattva's vow. But tonight I don't want to talk other than to say that one point about the bodhisattva's vow. I want to instead talk about giving and receiving. And maybe even, though I'm not sure I'll use this word, love. I just used that word. There is, of course, in Buddhism a strong tradition of encouraging charity, of encouraging generosity. There is an encouragement to charity and generosity which

[04:31]

It starts from the very beginning of the Buddhist tradition. And one reason for this is that the earliest students of Buddhism, nearly all of them, were monastics. And as a part of their vow to do no harm, they also made a sort of vow to not produce material goods, goods that might have a market value. And so, in order to survive, they relied on the support of the laity. Many acts of charity, of giving, of what in Sanskrit is called dana, were essential to the Buddha Dharma being established and being kept alive to this day. These are perhaps practical advantages or results of charity, of giving, of generosity.

[05:43]

But the merits of giving are not just practical. While we can maybe easily see or imagine some of the reasons why giving can be positive or a good thing, There's also something else I want to say, which is that when we become established in a generous heart, then jealousy and ill will have a harder time taking root. When we become established with a generous heart, although this is not maybe, we don't set out with this goal, but nonetheless, we more easily earn the and appreciation of others. People, well, I, enjoy hanging around with such a person.

[06:44]

Well, this is another way that, this is another true thing to say about giving, but actually the story of generosity of giving is a complicated one. And in some ways it's complicated, I think, especially at this, if I can, maybe this is, anyway, if I can say at this time, in this culture in which we live, where there's an almost a glorification of a personal agenda and our personal lifestyle, which we see modeled in media and in many ways, and we think that we deserve that lifestyle. So right now I want to tell you something about generosity, the development of my understanding about generosity, which is complicated.

[07:54]

Because it's about something I learned when I was a kid. When I was young, there was an insult that I learned, which was to call someone an Indian giver. And if somebody would give me something and then later on expect it back or maybe want some other thing that was equal value, I would say, oh, come on, don't be an Indian giver. And in my little play circle, my childhood friend circle, This was actually kind of like a, this was an unkindness to say about someone. And I would think something like, well, if they would want it to be a gift to me, then why do they think that then I have to give it back to them?

[09:06]

That's what a selfish way for them to be. And I think that the spirit, this kind of like... Don't be an Indian giver. Maybe, I don't know if others have had that, learned this or had that in their life. But I want to go back, I want to go back a little bit, a little bit means I want to go back to the earliest days of when this country began. an Englishman, let's say, a Puritan, one of the first settlers from Europe, of this amazing land, a Puritan settler enters into an Indian village in Massachusetts, you say. And the Indian hosts, wishing to make their guests feel welcome,

[10:14]

ask him to share a pipe of tobacco I think something like this would happen and the pipe itself was carved of stone and had been handed from lodge to lodge for many years circulated among the local Indian community sometimes in one community sometimes in another as a symbol of peace and of the shared interconnection they felt with each other. So these Indians, as is only polite, when the Puritan settlers left this powwow, offered the pipe, which was taken back to the settlement. And the pioneer thought, well this is neat.

[11:17]

What a thing I have now. Maybe I can send it to the National Museum in London or maybe I can put it on my mantle. And in this way the pipe became a personal asset of the person who received it. Well, time passed. Maybe not that much time. And the leaders of a different nearby village visit with that same settler. And what a surprise it was for him to find it to hear from the translator that this other village expected the pipe to be passed on to them. It was like a shock because he had already made it his own item. And In response to this, at this early time, a phrase was created, an insulting phrase, which was to say, to describe people with such a limited sense of private property that they were called Indian givers.

[12:31]

And the opposite of an Indian giver might be, in fact, something like a person who keeps the gift. Or maybe called a capitalist. And maybe called a person who keeps a gift or a capitalist, which means someone whose instinct is to remove property from circulation, to put property into a bank or a warehouse. And I think that these pioneers, these people who've encountered this Indian giving tradition, perhaps even saw their way as superior, which was perhaps also hard to refute because they had the ships. They had the private property and private land ownership, and they were clearly winning some battle.

[13:38]

But I want to say, in fact, that this Indian giver... was the one who really understands that the best, the fundamental property of a gift is to keep it moving. And that whatever we are given is to be given away again. And hopefully given away in a way that is received, grown, and then passed on So it's larger. And I think that this lesson, this sort of guiding spirit, that the gift we receive is not held but passed on, is underpinning of what makes our Buddhist community stay alive. What makes it vital.

[14:42]

in all of this also there is a kind of complication in giving because when we receive a gift we don't just receive the item or the cash or the food but we also receive a relationship we also create a connection and the Japanese I understand the Japanese word for thank you arigato means the more literally, I have difficulty. And tagaku? What does arigata mean? One way to translate, I have difficulty? Yeah. So, in other words, when embedded in the saying thank you is also some flavor of saying your good action creates a difficulty for me because I have to respond with equal grace. Sometimes when we think about giving, if we think about giving, we might imagine a scenario where there is a giver and there is a receiver and maybe a gift.

[16:19]

And we might say that these different parts of the puzzle are unique and stand-alone. But this is not how we understand it in our Zen tradition. There is no quid pro quo, this for that, with the giver and the receiver. But as we say with our meal chant, may we with all beings realize the emptiness of the three wheels, the emptiness of the three wheels, giver, receiver, and gift. So this is not true just in real practice. This is not an understanding we only have at dinner time. This is how we understand all of the gifts we receive with our friendship, gifts of friendship and gifts of Buddhist teaching. When I consider what I think is special about the San Francisco Zen Center, and yes, I believe that there is something special and good about our life and commitment we take on at San Francisco Zen Center.

[17:49]

So when I consider what is special about our life together and this Sangha, what I come to is a feeling that All of us together here, all of us in this room and all of those people who practice here together at this temple are interdependently co-creating a field of merit. Creating a space where practice in its extravagant uselessness and with all of its noble intention manifests in a way that can be shared with the whole world. Whoever walks in it. without prerequisites. And also, when I consider what I think is special about San Francisco Zen Center, one thing I feel is that it is also very, very fragile. And proceeds through decisions that sometimes may not seem

[18:59]

exactly sensible. For instance, it might be efficient for us here at the Zen Center to realize that, for instance, after a head cook spends a year in the position, or that they become more talented in that job and that it would just make sense for them to do it for another four or five years. Because maybe the ordering would become more efficient and Maybe manual planning would be regularized. So, in some ways, Shen Do, you know, there might be a sort of sensible way to see, oh, this is working well, let's just continue this. This calculation of efficiency becomes a problem in other ways. And I think that if Zen Center should, as it goes forward, choose to use a calculus of efficiency, that it risks losing something which is important and subtle.

[20:28]

In the sweet tradition of Buddhism, in the sweet, lovely tradition of Buddhism, there is embedded a view of selflessness. There is embedded a lifestyle, a lifestyle, a shared community lifestyle, which in some ways is founded on the idea that all of our work training practice is a gift. And this gift is a generous offering towards the creation of excess which is immediately spent as Dharma. And when we organize ourselves in a way that our community effort creates less of a generous excess, there is something less available for Dharma. when we change the calculus of decisions to one which gives credit to efficiency.

[21:38]

At this time, San Francisco Zen Center is engaged and is developing, actually is in a planning stage and maybe even close to not just having it be planned but actually out there a capital campaign and this fundraising is needed deeply needed it will be really useful to the temple but also has the potential of creating a challenge to what I might think of as the ecology the ecology of our work practice training. This is maybe what I'm about to say might make sense to some of you and less sense to others. But let me say that over a long period of time there has been mostly upheld a value to the rotation of jobs at the Zen Center.

[22:55]

A rotation of the head cook. position. I read a paper once. It was delivered at a conference at Gringold's Farm in the 1990s. A Rinzai teacher, I cannot think of his name, but he was here actually a few weekends ago when we had the 50th anniversary symposium. Maybe Sogen Hori? Maybe? And he described how in his temple in Japan every six months all of the positions changed. And, you know, I found it was remarkable, and I actually asked him about it. I read this ten years ago, and he confirmed it at this training temple. They had this practice where at the six-month point, they would read out in the morning, so-and-so was Tenzo, so-and-so was Jisha, so-and-so was Eno, so-and-so was guest manager, and there was no training. There was no overlap.

[23:56]

This was... There was some sense that you were kind of like observant and ready. Well, this is not an efficient way to run a temple. Maybe they don't even do it that way now. Who knows? But there is something noble about that effort, that quality of going wide, of going horizontal, of not investing in... specialization at its end center. So this, what I feel like in my training has been a historic tradition of an emphasis on horizontal dispersion of training opportunity. Everybody gets a chance to be work leader. Everybody gets a chance to be treasurer. If you hang around long enough, everybody gets a chance to do these different things.

[24:59]

Might be actually sometimes at the expense of what might seem like a short term to be useful. There is an American teacher of Theravadan Buddhism, a really respected teacher named Tanasaro Abhiku. Tanasara Roche, I would think. He was a deeply experienced student of Theravada Buddhism, and he wrote an essay called The Economy of Gifts. The Economy of Gifts. And this describes in this essay, which is several pages long, and worth reading, if anyone's interested. He describes giving and receiving as a He describes giving and receiving in a way that respects and reflects Buddhism over many years.

[26:01]

And one small bit of what he said in this essay about giving. He said that periodically throughout the history of Buddhism the economy of gifts has broken down. Usually when one side or the other gets fixed on the tangible side of the exchange and forgets the qualities of art that are the reason for being. And, periodically, this economy of gifts has been revived when people are sensitive to its rewards in terms of the living dharma. By its very nature, the economy of gifts And I think in Economy of Gifts he's describing the way a temple is supported through its donors, laity, and life effort. By its very nature, the Economy of Gifts is something of a hot-house creation that requires careful nurturance and sensitive discernment of the benefits of it.

[27:16]

I, and this is Thanasara Bhikkhu saying I, I find it amazing that such an economy has lasted for 2600 years. It will never be more than an alternative to the dominant monetary economy. Largely because its rewards are so intangible and require so much patience and trust and discipline to be appreciated. Those who demand an immediate return for specific services and goods will always require a different system. And then he says, he said, sincerely, the students, however, have the chance to play an amphibious role. And I think that word amphibious is kind of really special here. You know, like, what is amphibious?

[28:19]

Is it fish or fowl? You know, neither. Neither. It's a kind of a bridging role. Engaging in the monetary economy so far as to maintain their livelihood, but contributing to the economy of gifts whenever possible. So, anyway. I think, I felt that much of what Tahasar Bigu said about giving and receiving was worth considering this excerpt and his other words too. So maybe perhaps a real question for us here at Zen Center to ask is what makes for a successful Zen Center? What is a successful Zen Center? And Zen practice is finally something Mysterious, I think.

[29:21]

And Buddhist training is not the same as one plus one equals two. There is a poem by Cechlo Miloš. I hope I said his name right. Cechlo Miloš. He said, you received gifts from me and they were accepted. But you don't understand how to think about the dead. The smell of winter apples, of frost, and of linen. There are nothing but gifts on this poor, poor earth. Again, you received gifts from me. They were accepted. But you don't understand how to think about the dead. the smell of winter apples, of frost, of linen.

[30:29]

There are nothing but gifts on this poor, poor earth. And here at the San Francisco Zen Center, we are beneficiaries of enormous gifts from our Sangha. Gifts that enable this community to continue on gifts that enable us to paint the walls to feed the students to keep the lights on and the zendo but what is the way we can keep these gifts moving how can we take the gifts of all of our students effort and our donors money and how can we take these gifts and make them multiply and rebound back as a benefit to the entire world Again, I ask, what makes for a successful Zen Center? How do we measure this question? Find the answer to this question.

[31:34]

As we try to take, as we try to make the San Francisco Zen Center sustainable, make our training available to everyone, what is the step forward? And what is this step backward? And when is the backward step the way to proceed forward? This question, I think, has been answered in the past and needs to be answered again in the future. What is essential is that the gifts that we receive be grown from so that they can be given back. Given back as a response to the needs of this world we live in. And in this process, the fundamental imperative is that the gifts must always move, must never stick with us.

[32:49]

It may be that only a few people in this room or in this city, only a few people might have the resources to make what's considered to be a significant material gift, a donation. But every one of us has a capacity to make a gift of our life, to make a gift of our life towards the benefit of all. beings. And this gift of our life exceeds anything, exceeds by far anything that the Federal Reserve Bank might have in its vault. Because I think I want to say really the only thing that we have to offer is our life, our energy, our intention and really with our life the only thing we can do is make it a gift make it a gift freely given sending it out in all directions throughout all times even though we might not understand what that means and we do this so that we in our hearts

[34:23]

and understand how to think about the dead so that we can in our daily life have space to appreciate the smell of winter apples so that we can all see the simple the simple fact that there are nothing but gifts in this poor poor earth Nothing but gifts.

[35:16]

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