My name is Hozan Alan Sinaki, and I'm a vice abbot of Berkeley Zen Center, a priest there where I've been living with my family for 24, 25 years, long enough for my daughter to have left for college this year, which is kind of amazing. I've always really grateful to be here at Green Gulch and to speak here. I realize there's a seshin beginning today, is that correct? Can you hear okay in the back? I'm hearing a slight ringing up here. So it's wonderful to see all of you here the day that seshin is... Ah, that's better. The day that seshin is beginning, Arohatsu begins next Sunday in Berkeley, so we're trying to stagger them with Green Gulch and San Francisco.

[01:09]

I'm aware also that this is now two days after Thanksgiving, so I thought it would talk about giving, receiving, gratitude, And I would begin by looking at what Suzuki Roshi says in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. We just had a practice period in Berkeley, and we studied Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. And I expect many of you have read that, right? And I read it and read it. and then didn't read it and then picked it up again about two years ago and have been sort of studying it myself and studying it with various groups that I go to and with women in prison where I teach.

[02:20]

And it's like picking it up anew. So I'm really enjoying coming back to it. The kind of open, inviting spirit and language of Zen mind, beginner's mind is so, it's very refreshing and very inviting and encouraging. But this time when I read it, it's like, oh, this is really hard. This is tough stuff. He's like, did he really say that? You know, what did he mean? You know, after 25 years, oh, I don't think I'm capable of that. But to let it push you is quite wonderful. So, you know, you can read it. I think it's the best-selling Buddhist book in the world. So people are getting things out of it at virtually every level.

[03:25]

But as a template for really... rigorous and yet completely open-hearted practice, it's a wonderful goad. So there's a chapter, it's called God-Giving. And the epigraph for that chapter is, to give is non-attachment. That is, just not to attach to anything is to give. And so the chapter begins. Every existence in nature, every existence in the human world, every cultural work that we create is something which was given or is being given to us, relatively speaking.

[04:28]

But as everything is originally one, we are, in actuality, giving out everything. Moment after moment, we are creating something. And this is the joy of our life. But this I, which is creating and always giving out something, is not the small I, it is the big I. I, the letter, right? Even though you do not realize the oneness of this big I with everything, when you give something, you feel good. Because at that time, you feel at one with what you are giving. This is why it feels better to give than to take. So... Giving is the natural energy of the universe.

[05:40]

It is like breathing. We receive oxygen. We take it in in our lungs. We use it. We offer it back to the atmosphere. Having respirated, it goes out as CO2 and H2O, et cetera. And then this is taken up by the plants. They receive the gift we have received, processed, transmitted back. They receive as a gift, processed, and transmitted back to us as oxygen. so that we can sustain a completely circular pattern of existence in the realm of life on this planet.

[06:46]

So at a certain point, if you see, as Suzuki Roshi says, but everything is originally one, and we are in actuality giving out everything. This is the big I. The big I is the universe, the planet of sentient and insentient beings that's completely involved in this circle of giving to the extent that it becomes impossible upon really close examination to distinguish what is giving and what is receiving. So we just had Thanksgiving. My body is still processing what I ate.

[07:48]

We had a bountiful, and I must say, I confess, non-vegetarian meal. But whether you had turkey or tofurkey, tofurkey, is that right? Or nut loaf or whatever, many of us here in this room, I suspect, ate too much. And we are working on that. And we were very grateful. We had a wonderful gathering of friends. And we were also very aware of those who do not have all that they need in this world, who do not have a bountiful table. We were aware that, we were aware, and kind of people spoke and said,

[08:57]

said things about what they were grateful for. I do not presume that everybody in this room voted the same way. I do not expect it, and I don't even think it's a good idea if we all did, but I'm very grateful for the outcome of the election. I know that there's some of us who went and worked on the election, who did telephone calling or precinct walking, et cetera. And I think this is part of what we have to understand is that if I'm grateful for the outcome of an election and I give thanksgiving for that, It wasn't something that was just given to me or to us.

[10:01]

It was because a lot of people, actually on both sides, threw their energy into this activity that it had a certain outcome. So I'm grateful for receiving that and for the promise and possibility of what may come next. And I felt that very acutely. I just got back from being in Asia, in Japan mostly, and at a Buddhist gathering, the World Fellowship of Buddhists. And so many people came up to me to, from all over, mostly all over Southeast Asia, but some from Europe, you know, just... happy about the change that they, the possibility of change that they saw in this country.

[11:03]

So that was encouraging, I'm grateful for that. I'm also aware that, I mean, I watch our dwindling bank account and many people all in this country and all over the world you know, are watching whatever monies they had put aside for old age or retirement or for their children or for themselves. They watch that just ebb away. It's hard to be grateful for that. But what is... I mean... playing in my mind as I was sitting this morning, what is the distinction between gift and opportunity? There is an opportunity here.

[12:07]

If I get caught by it and just feel angry and frightened, as happens sometime, or think about what the repercussions may be for some for my family, but really a lot for people who have even much less than we do, it's frightening. And I see in the neighborhood, I live in a, I live in Berkeley Zen Center, and it's kind of in the middle of a relatively funky neighborhood in Berkeley. in the flatlands, which is sort of partially gentrified and partially kind of has a lot of poor people. And every time we get into one of these economic downturns, you literally see more car break-ins, more home break-ins.

[13:18]

So The other day, after I got back from Europe and was terribly jet-lagged, I was so tired, I accidentally left my bag in the car. It was gone the next morning. With wallet, cell phone, and camera. It's like, okay. So the first day, I found it very hard to think of this as a gift. And yet, and you have this When you receive gifts, they're gifts that you think you want, and they're gifts that you wouldn't want at all, right? And those gifts, you want to kind of roll back the film. Let's roll it back, let's roll it back in time, and start over, and I'll take my bag out of the car. But you don't get to do that.

[14:21]

It only goes in one direction. Your mind goes in all directions. But time flows in one direction. So I kept thinking, you know, I had to, so you have to deal, cancel all the credit cards, go down to DMV, get a new driver's license, actually, you know, try to get a new cell phone, the one thing that was irreplaceable were the photographs that I took in Japan. That's kind of the thing that bugs me most. But by the next morning, when the gnashing of teeth had ebbed somewhat, I realized, oh, I'm not diminished by this. Nothing truly has been lost.

[15:22]

And it doesn't bother me so much right now. There was some inconvenience, but actually the inconvenience was relatively small compared to the kinds of things that people have to live with who live with war, who live with cyclones, earthquakes, hurricanes, who live with the fires that have been raging throughout California. So it wasn't so bad. So Suzuki Roshi goes on and says, we have a saying, Dana Prajnaparamita. So these are the paramitas, the six perfections or the six crossings over paramitas. I thought this was very interesting. I don't know about this saying.

[16:29]

Do you, Steve? Dana, Prajna, Paramita? Usually we see the Paramitas, so it's just to say it's Dana, which is giving, generosity. Sheila, which is morality or ethics. Shanti, which is... patience, forbearance, or as Thich Nhat Hanh puts it, which is very interesting, inclusiveness. In other words, being large enough to include whatever happens to us. So perhaps my coming to terms with losing that stuff was the practice of Shanti, trying to include that as the reality that I was living in. Virya, which is effort or energy, zeal, then meditation and wisdom. So wisdom is prajna. Each of these includes and implies the other of the six of these perfections.

[17:33]

These are the practices of bodhisattvas. And the practices of bodhisattvas are the practices that as humans, as human bodhisattvas, we have to cultivate. and they're the practices of crossing over to the other shore, the shore of nirvana. And Suzuki Rishi talks about this. So combining them, dana, prajna, what that means is the wisdom of giving as a transcendent practice. Our life can be seen as crossing over as the crossing of a river. The goal of our life, of our life's effort, is to reach the other shore, nirvana. Vrajna paramita, the perfection or the practice of wisdom, the true wisdom of life, is that in each step of the way, the other shore is actually reached.

[18:42]

So... Yesterday we had my Dharma brother, Greg Fane, who some of you know, who is one of the people who goes out regularly every week to San Quentin to the Buddha Dharma Sangha. They were talking about the Paramitas and talking about nirvana and what he related was... And he asked some of the men in a study group they're having, well, where is this other shore? And two of them went, right here. Right here in this crumbling prison called San Quentin for them. That was the other shore.

[19:46]

There was no place else to be. And in that moment, they were grateful. They were grateful for being able to practice. They were grateful for having the Dharma brought to them. To reach the other shore with each step of the crossing is the way of true living. In this giving, dana, we give and we receive, in usual Buddhist understanding, there are three aspects of it. The first is material giving. So the giving of, in Japan,

[20:50]

you know, everywhere you go. It's very interesting. It's a gift economy. Even though it's a market economy, it's very much a gift economy. So in all the railroad stations and towns and airports, there are these huge stores full of omiyagi, mostly food gifts, which are seen as, I think omiyagi is maybe souvenirs, it translates as, directly. Does anyone know? But usually some kind of local food. I hear that the omiyagi now that are very flourishing in there's a town in Japan called Obama. So they have these they have these cakes, which are very common. You bring a local cake with a little picture of a temple or a local Buddha, so they've got, and Obama, they've got these local cakes stamped with photographs of Obama. Not photographs, kind of embossed, cookie embossed Obamas, you know.

[21:57]

So there's always something being given. I was, I visited Rinsowin, Suzuki Roshi's temple. And, you know, when you come as a guest, you're supposed to bring things. I brought a CD of some music that I had made. It's not so usual that the hosts shower you with gifts, but it's pretty usual at Rinsoin. So they, you know, Hoitsu Suzuki's, Roshi's wife, Chitose, brought out, I was there with another person, they brought out these beautiful malas in, you know, all in their boxes and everything, and she just, she laid out for them and said, please pick. And it was impolite not to, but it, you know, it's like, oh, we don't conduct ourselves this way. Here. Here.

[22:58]

So, the other, the other, thing that struck me was on Friday night, we'd been doing in Berkeley a dinner for the homeless men at the Berkeley Men's Shelter for must be 15 years now, twice a month. And we were cooking our usual lasagna and chicken wings and salad and garlic bread and just the day after Thanksgiving. Men really liked it. It's a good meal. Even though some of them, I guess, were new, we've been going regularly, they said, who are you guys? There's something about the way you're doing it. They had some Christians in earlier in the week, and they were not so comfortable with how the giving was done, which is not any kind of derogation of Christianity on my part, but just they were noticing something about

[24:02]

the way we cooked, and we had kids there, you know, we were all doing this together in our kind of zen way. So that's one aspect, material things. The second aspect, which is interesting, is what's given in the bodhisattvas' practice of giving is, the second thing is fearlessness, which wouldn't necessarily be the first thing that came to mind, right? But this is, I think this is something at the heart of Suzuki Roshi's teaching, even though I'm not sure he ever talks about it. When we chant the Heart Sutra, it says, without any hindrances, no fears exist. So what does fearlessness mean?

[25:03]

It may not mean that anxiety doesn't arise. It may not even mean that what we conventionally know as fear doesn't arise. I think what it means is that we have freedom within it. We see the nature of our emotions. We see the nature of our clutching or pushing things away, and we are not caught there. We're able to continue. We're able to move forward. We're able, fearlessly, to move towards whatever it is that is really daunting to us. And I think this is the quality in Suzuki Roshi's teaching. It's the quality of zazen. The quality of zazen is to keep turning towards whatever arises in your mind and body, but without being stuck on it, without clinging to it, and without pushing it away.

[26:24]

Noticing it, noticing, oh, this is what's arising now. Oh. I'm scared, I feel this terribly unsettled feeling in my stomach or this tightness in my chest or this pain across my shoulders because I'm holding anxiety. Can I not push that away? That, to me, is a quality of fearlessness. The third quality, the third element of giving in Dhanaparamita is giving of the Dharma. So when you meet a suffering person, when you have fed them or given them clothing or some shelter, when you've allayed their fears,

[27:29]

and they're relaxed, then you can begin to share the Dharma with them, not necessarily in the form of preaching, but in whatever modality is appropriate. The Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara has this remarkable transformative ability to meet each being as they need to be met. This is an aspiration, I think, for many of us. How do I meet a person? Really look them in the eye. Really be present with them. Because, as Suzuki Roshi says, we're actually all part of one reality. You don't turn away from yourself, neither would you turn away from others.

[28:36]

Dogen Zenji talks about this in this wonderful fascicle Bodhisatta Shishobo or Bodhisattva's Four Embracing Dharmas, he begins, giving means not to be greedy. Not to be greedy means not to crave. Not to crave, in worldly expression, means not to flatter, which means... We flatter because we want something for ourselves. Then he goes on and he says, it is like offering treasures that are going to be discarded to people we do not know. We give flowers blooming on the distant mountains to the Buddhas.

[29:48]

We offer ourselves to ourselves and we offer others to others. The causal relation of giving has a power that pervades heavens above and the human world below. This is because in becoming a giver or receiver, we establish an affinity with all beings in the entire world. In the early Buddhist stories there, in the Jataka tales, some of which are pre-Buddhist, you have again and again the story of the Buddha to be giving up his body to feed a hungry tigress or to save others. And Dogen writes, when we carefully study the meaning of giving, both receiving our body and giving up our body, our offering.

[30:54]

Entrusting flowers to the wind and entrusting birds to the season may also be the miracle.

[31:04]

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