This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Welcome to the Great Assembly. Welcome to all of you who are here at this meeting. During the last, I think, four or five talks, I've had a theme that I've been looking at with you. And the theme is a kind of simple picture of the practice of Buddha.

[01:11]

the practice of awakening. And this simple picture is of each of us sitting at the center of all beings, sitting at the center of all suffering living beings. sitting at the center of all suffering and sitting there at the center practicing giving which is practicing giving receiving and being a gift giving receiving and being a gift are called tri-mandala, tri-mandala, which means three wheels or three circles.

[02:28]

When this giving practice of the Buddha, of this giving practice of awakening is mature, these three wheels are totally interpenetrate each other and are not separate. This is called the purity of giver, receiver, and gift. And this purity of the three wheels of giving I've been suggesting is practiced by the awakened being at the center of of all living beings. And all living beings are participating in this giving. They are being given gifts and they are giving themselves to the center. And the center is giving itself to them. However, many beings are not aware of this practice of giving.

[03:38]

And so the giving is for their sake to help them wake up to the practice. So this is again the simple picture of practice. Sitting at the center, practicing giving. Receiving and being a gift. This can be called Zen. sitting at the center of all beings, practicing giving, is Zen. I propose that. I give you that gift. And I have received that gift. And I am that gift. And so are you. I have some contemporary examples of this practice of sitting at the center and being in the middle of generosity.

[04:59]

And also I have some ancient examples. And I've been wondering whether to start with the ancient or the modern. And I feel like usually I start with the ancient and work up to the modern. But today, I think I'd like to start with the relatively modern. And then, if there's time, bring up ancient examples. And I might not get to the ancient examples. There may be only time for the modern, contemporary one. But just in case I don't get to them, I just want to mention that this view of practice that I'm presenting and that I'm trying to remember myself, is really what I see going on in all the Zen stories. I see in all the Zen stories that the people in the stories, you know, and especially the teachers who are aware of this, are sitting at the center practicing generosity.

[06:07]

So the contemporary example is... involves the house I'm sitting in right now. I'm sitting in a really well-built house at Green Gulch. You can see the beautiful doors, the beautiful closet doors behind me. Aren't they lovely? So I'm in this lovely house at Green Gulch Farm. And around this house, is a beautiful garden. And around the garden are mountains and a farm and other houses and zendo and so on. His house is at the center of the universe. And so is yours.

[07:14]

And in particular, I'd like to bring attention to the yard, the garden around this house. I moved into this house with my spouse and my daughter in 1987, in the summer. So 34 years ago, I moved into this house. It's been a blessing to live here. And around this house, there was not a garden. It was kind of the remnants of a construction site. It was a new building. The ground was dirt and rocks. However, there were four And, yeah, there were four saplings around the front of the house.

[08:24]

Japanese maples. And to the side of the house, there were two Himalayan cypress trees. And they also were little. I have taken care of these cypress trees and I have taken care of these maple trees for 34 years. And now the maple trees are just, you know, almost unbearably lovely. Many of the people of Green Gulch have come and sat under these trees with me. And I hope many of you can come and sit under the trees with me. In the summer, the maple trees make a lovely, canopy, a lovely and cast a gentle, cool, protective green umbrella over the whole yard, which protects, again, the whole yard from burning up in the sun.

[09:37]

So I've taken care of these trees. Also, I have planted bamboo all around the house. And I planted grasses. And over the years, the grasses under the trees in the shade have turned into moss. So around the house, around part of the house is grasses that I planted and grasses that have volunteered and also beautiful carpet of moss. I confess that I did not consciously think of the thought that I was practicing generosity towards this garden and that I was practicing generosity towards these trees.

[10:49]

Now today I see that I was donating myself to their growth and protection. Also, at the base of the maple trees right now and every spring for the last few years, there are thousands of baby maple trees. Thousands. They're just like one inch tall or so and they will most of them will pass away. But on the edge of the umbrella of the trees, some of them grow taller. And when they grow taller, I have transplanted them into pots. And then I've watched them grow. And when they have gotten to be about two or three or four feet tall,

[11:58]

I have taken them over to Noabode Hermitage and planted them there. And now, over there, there's about 10 maple trees, which are the offspring of these maple trees. Some of them were eaten by gophers, but there's 10 that have survived, and one of them is 10 feet tall now. So these trees around the house, each tree is sitting at the center of the universe. Each tree is sitting at the center of all beings. And each tree has given itself to me. And I have given myself to each tree. Each tree has taught me about generosity.

[13:03]

from its place at the center of the universe. This has been like pretty much 99.9% easy to see that the trees are my teachers and the trees have been generous with me and I have been generous with the trees. Now, also around this house are animals. And the animal which I have struggled with for 34 years is called a gopher. The gophers are mammals like me. And I can only see them when they come out of their holes and show me their little head.

[14:11]

And I can also see the results of their tunneling activity in the form of fairly large mounds of dirt and rocks on the surface of my lovely garden. For 34 years, I have been struggling with these gophers and I confess to you that I have not been mindful of being a gift to the gophers and that the gophers are a gift to me. I have been sitting at the center of the universe but my practice with the gophers has not and very mature. I have tried to do something to encourage the gophers to stop wreaking havoc in my lovely little garden.

[15:28]

In a sense, they wreak havoc. But their havoc, of course, is a gift to me. Now, after all these years recently, I have had the thought, finally, I am almost, I have almost completely surrendered to the Gophers. Almost completely surrendered. Of course, I'm much bigger than the gophers, right? They probably don't even weigh up. Maybe they weigh a pound. I weigh a hundred or more times more than they do. I confess that I have tried to... Control the gophers.

[16:34]

I have not been focusing on practicing generosity with the gophers. With the trees, okay. But with the gophers, I have not been focusing on being generous with them. I've tried to get them to move to another neighborhood. People have given me various devices which are not lethal. For example, people give me these, they're like a cylinder that on a rhythmical basis goes beep. And you can take these cylinders and put them in the ground and it makes this beeping sound. And it's supposed to make, I guess, the gophers not want to be in the neighborhood. But my gophers, my friends, they don't seem to mind the beeping. I also tried rock and roll music.

[17:46]

Didn't seem to bother them. They stayed around. Someone also gave me rabbit urine. Because gophers, I guess, are afraid of rabbits. And I tried the rabbit urine, but the gophers kind of worked around it. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I guess fortunately, I have not killed any of the gophers in these 34 years. But I confess to you... That if anybody, if the cats wanted to kill the gophers, which I think maybe they did sometimes, because they are very, they're much more skillful than I am at catching gophers. I think maybe the cats actually caught some of the gophers. I'm not sure. But I do find the remainders of some kind of animal around the yard sometimes.

[18:50]

And I don't know if it's gophers or rats. I also have rats around the house, but the rats don't disturb the situation as much as the gophers. The rats also have problems with them, but I'll get to that later maybe. Anyway, finally, I am happy to report to you after many years of really low-quality generosity practice from me towards the gophers. Maybe the gophers have been really generous with me. I think they have, but I have not been very generous towards them, and I confess that to you, and I'm sorry. But now I've finally pretty much surrendered to them, and instead of kind of trying to coerce them out of the yard, out of the garden, now I am there pretty much, you know,

[19:53]

I'm their servant. I tidy up after their work. I rake their mounds, the mounds they make. I rake them out level to the ground and take the big rocks that are in the mounds and place the rocks in a rock pile around the house. So there already was rocks all around the house and now there's a lot more rocks around the house. The rocks around the house originally were kind of nice-looking granite. Now they're covered by just these dirty old rocks that the gophers have given to me. So again, now I finally have, through this 34-year struggle, I have finally reached a place where I'm no longer fighting the gophers, where I'm now in a... pretty mature generosity practice.

[20:58]

They give themselves to me, you know, they're just working really hard to survive, making their mounds for me to clean up after them. And I'm doing it and I have, yeah, I've given up trying to get them to leave the garden and just adjusting to them being here and that my job, if I want the garden to be, you know, something you can walk on, And enjoy, I need to, every day pretty much, I rake up their mounds and take out the big rocks, rake up their mounds, pick up the big rocks. So this is my story of how sometimes practicing generosity is a struggle. Sometimes we try to get rid of something rather than being generous towards it. If someone said, would it be hard with you if the gophers left?

[22:07]

I don't know what I would say. And someone might say, do you wish they would leave? And I might say, I don't want to go there. I don't think they're going to go away. I think they're... think they're going to stay here because this is a really nice yard for them to live in and they're hard workers boy they work so hard so another quality of this garden is that this garden is underneath the garden are many many many tunnels And so sometimes when I'm walking around, my foot goes through the ground down into the tunnel. So it's kind of a spongy, what do you call it, undermined.

[23:15]

It's undermined. The whole surface is undermined by their tunnels. So if I walk around, I'm walking on this surface, which gives way as I walk. So that's another aspect of this relationship I have. with the gophers. I live in a world where I'm surrounded by suffering gophers and I'm practicing generosity with them. Now, what about with people? What about with people who seem to be digging up our yard, giving us mounds of dirt and rocks to deal with? What about people who are frustrating our plans for a nice quiet place?

[24:17]

Can I say that I've almost completely surrendered to the people who are offering me something like mounds of dirt and rocks. I won't say I have completely surrendered to all the beings who surround me. I won't say that. But I might say I've almost surrendered to all the beings that are surrounding me. Almost. I'm almost practicing generosity with everybody. with all the beings around me. Almost. Now, an ancient example of what?

[25:43]

Of what? Of sitting at the center of all beings. This is where Zen sits. Zen sits at the center of all beings. So here's an example of sitting at the center of all beings and practicing generosity. So hold on to your seat because I think maybe several stories in a row are going to come now. Seven ancient stories from the classical era of Zen history. The Tang Dynasty, China. Today is a day which a lot of people call Father's Day.

[27:02]

And Father's Day and Mother's Day and Parent's Day are very close to the heart of Zen. Zen is at its heart deeply concerned with caring for offspring Zen is devoted to caring and nurturing for the next generation of caring and nurturing for the next generation it is a very it is in that sense a parental reproductive practice So sitting at the center practicing generosity is for the sake of taking care of the next generation, of sitting at the center practicing generosity.

[28:11]

And Zen stories are about this caring for the next generation. So there was a Zen teacher, a Zen teacher you could say, Anyway, a Zen student, also you could say, whose name was Bai Zhang. And Bai Zhang was the teacher of a great monastery. But she hadn't been giving talks for a long time. So the director came to the teacher and said, teacher, you haven't given talks for a long time. Would you, you know, the monks and nuns would like to hear you. please come and give us the teaching. So Bai Zhang went to the hall, ascended this teaching seat, got up in the seat, sat down, and then immediately got down and went back to her room.

[29:17]

The director then went to the teacher's room and said teacher why did you just get up in the seat and then get down and Bai Zhang said the teachers of the scriptures teach the scriptures the teachers of the of the commentaries teach commentaries Please don't, you know, give me a hard time for the gift that I gave. So I comment that he was giving a gift not teaching people about books. He was teaching people in order to reproduce.

[30:24]

the practice. And he did it in that way. He gave a gift in that way. And he received a gift in that way. On another occasion, the monks had assembled in the hall and she went up to the hall and she had a walking staff and she went into the hall And then she started swinging the walking staff, big walking staff, started swinging at the monks. And the monks ran out of the hall. And when they got to the door, she called out, what is it? This was the way, this was the gift. When he swung the staff, they ran.

[31:30]

What is it? And... Just a second. And he had many great disciples and one of his disciples was named Wang Bo. And Wang Bo once went into the hall to give it when the monks had assembled. And Wang Bo had a staff, a big staff, just like his teacher. And he started swinging it at the assembly, but they didn't run away.

[32:32]

They didn't disperse. They froze. And then he said, you people are dreg slurpers. How do you expect to have today if you practice like this? Don't you know that in all of China, there are no teachers of Zen? He gave them that gift. First of all, he gave them the gift of a charging teacher with a swinging staff. But they couldn't receive it. They froze. Then he said, you are dreg slurpers. You're drinking the dregs of our tradition.

[33:37]

You're not able to respond to today. Don't you know that in all of China, there's no teachers of Zen? In other words, don't you know that Zen isn't me, separate from you? The monks did not realize the purity of the three wheels. So he called them dreg slippers. In other words, they were just receiving the tradition. They knew the story about Wang Bo's teacher, and they froze. If you're like this, you won't be an offspring. You've got to give back. So finally, one of the monks came forward and said, you said there's no teachers of Chan, of Zen, in all of China. What about all these monasteries where people have gathered?

[34:38]

What about all these great assemblies where people are practicing? And Wang Bo said, I didn't say there's no Zen. I just said there's no teacher of Zen. It's not that there's no giving. at the center of the universe. It's not that there's no giving, receiving, and gift at the center of the universe. It's not that there's no Zen. It's just that there's no teacher of it. You're not the teacher. I'm not the teacher. The generosity of our relationship is Zen. And there's no teacher there. But there is the... brilliant liberation and awakening of generosity in which the three wheels are pure. one of the Dharma siblings of Bajan was named Nanjuan.

[36:13]

And Nanjuan said, Buddhas of the past, present, and future do not know. Cats and cows, No. Buddhas and ancestors of past, present and future do not know it is. Cats and cows know it is. There is Zen, but the Buddhas don't even know it. Cats and cows do know it is. Commenting on this story, an ancient teacher later commenting on this story wrote a verse.

[37:27]

And the first two lines of the verse are something like, limping, And limping and palsied. Disheveled and ratty. And this refers to another story about another one of the ancestors who was reading some scriptures. And another teacher came by whose name, this teacher who was reading the scriptures was named Yao Shan. Yao Shan was reading scriptures. And a monk named Bai Yan came by and said, you're reading scriptures?

[38:34]

You should stop trying to fool people. And I would comment by saying Bayan was saying you should stop going to the scriptures and just teach directly not relying on any scriptures. And Yashan rolled up the scripture and said, what time of day is it? And Bayan said, it's noon. And Yashan said, oh, that pattern still exists. And Yashan said, And then Bayan said, I don't even have nothing.

[39:50]

You've heard, I got plenty of nothing. Bayan said, I don't even have nothing. I don't have something like the scriptures. Plus, I don't even have nothing like not the scriptures. This is really pure, right? And Yashan said, you're too brilliant. Once again, Yashon reading scriptures, Bayan said, you should stop fooling people. Yashon rolls up the scriptures and says, what time of day is it? Bayan says, it's noon. Yashon says, oh, that pattern still exists? Oh, there's still that? You know, you still have that?

[40:54]

Noon? You still have noon? You're stuck in that pattern? What time of day is it? It's noon. Are you stuck in that pattern still? And then Bayan says, no, no, no. I don't even have nothing. And then Yashinan said, you're too brilliant. And Balayan says, I'm just like this, how about you? And Yashinan says, limping along, ungainly in a hundred ways, awkward in a thousand, and yet still I go on like this. We can join in this limping along at the center of the universe with the ancestors who don't even have nothing but also aren't attached to not having nothing and are just limping along in this way at the center with all beings practicing giving.

[42:18]

with the trees and the mountains and the people, the humans and the gophers, struggling to find the pure practice of giving, the pure practice of awakening, limping along the pure path of awakening. Thank you very much. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[43:25]

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