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. Yesterday I brought up frivolous talk, idle chatter, and hollow discussion internally, and also brought up another story from, or sutta, from the Pali Kana, where the Buddha admonished the monks and basically said to the monks after hearing their discussion, which wasn't going anywhere, you have two duties, Dharma talk or noble silence.

[01:09]

So the question is, well, what is Dharma talk? And can seeming chatter be Dharma talk, or is this a fixed thing? I don't think so. So as we know, each thing, each phenomena, each appearance is Buddha Dharma. We've heard this teaching. So why can't idle chatter be Buddha Dharma? Or how do we understand Dharma talk and the phenomena? a vital chatter. So I've been turning this over, and I think yesterday was looking at all the ways that this kind of speech, internally or externally, scatters the mind, distracts, dissipates energy,

[02:25]

But what's the other side of that? Is there another side of that? So I wanted to tell a story, a teaching story that's a contemporary teaching story about a Thai monk. And you could say idle chatter and what happened to this Thai monk. And I think last session I brought up this... fact of the open canon of Buddhism, that things, you know, seem to be, can be added and become part of the teaching body, become part of the vast literature and stories and teaching examples and become part of the canon. So this story is a

[03:29]

A true story, actually, about a Thai monk who was during the rainy season, so he was in a practice period, three-month kind of rainy season gathering. And his teacher, I think he had a couple of teachers. They were both not in the monastery at the time, and he was becoming very... maybe disillusioned, discouraged. How could I go on? He was kind of, and began thinking, well, maybe I shouldn't be a monk anymore. Maybe I should give up my vows and return to lay life and just forget the whole thing. And his mind began wandering about all sorts of things he could be doing and seeing and dining on and all sorts of things. And while he was doing walking meditation, I'm not sure what the compound was or what all, but he overheard a woman who was walking somewhere singing a little song, singing a little improvised ditty, just a little song.

[04:45]

And her song was, I've seen, I don't know what the tune was, but I've seen the heart of the Tai Tai bird. Its mouth is singing, Tai Tai Tai. but its heart is looking for crabs. So this is this little song that she was singing as she was maybe on her way to market or something. And this monk who was kind of in the midst of a despondency and grappling with his life, he heard this little song, this little frivolous song. And it came in very strongly. He thought, she's singing about me. Here I am. You know, this tai tai bird is singing tai tai, tai tai, but his heart is somewhere else looking for the next meal. And that's just like me. He said, it's you she's singing about.

[05:47]

Here you are, a monk, trying to practice virtue and follow the precepts and all this, and your heart is somewhere else and going all over the place. And right then he had a kind of regathering of his energies and re-consecration to practice and to practice hard. So he connected with his deepest intention. How was that, you know, this stranger singing a little song, you know, that... came in as Dharma. That's what he said. This was Dharma, this little frivolous song. And, of course, the stranger, the lady on her way to market, had no intention of, you know, I'm going to, you know, get this monk back on his feet, you know, on the road, on the path, just singing a little song, which is fun to do.

[06:55]

Is this frivolous? What is frivolous talk? What is Dharma talk? Anything can be Dharma talk, I think, when we have the heart and mind to hear it as Buddha Dharma coming. So we also know the story of our own Daikan Eno Dayojo, sixth ancestor Huenang, And you might remember he was illiterate. Woodcutter happened to be also in the marketplace. Marketplace, a good place for waking up, I think. And he heard someone reciting the Diamond Sutra. And whether they were reciting it in sort of a rote fashion or really teaching it, I don't know. But he was just, you know... going about his business, but he heard this.

[07:58]

He was ripe and ready to hear this teaching that came in. And there's many stories like this, you know. To see forms and hear sounds, fully engaging body and mind, we grasp things directly. That line from Genjo Koan refers to the seeing of those peach blossoms and the sound of the stone hitting the bamboo, when we see forms and hear sounds fully engaging body and mind. So those were, you know, sweeping away and a stone hits bamboo. A stone hits another stone. There's a ping, there's a sound. Or we see something. So, I don't want us to kind of write off or categorize something like frivolous talk and idle chatter.

[09:10]

When we have the mind of the way, when we have grandmotherly mind, each thing is practice, each sound, each activity, each visual, tasteable, touchable. can be teaching us Dharma. Each thing is Buddha Dharma. Are we engaging with them in that way? Or are we being swept up, caught up, scattered and distracted? So this little story that I read about the time monk seemed so apt to kind of what what we're looking at, and also what came to mind was, you know, the sound of the creek. We can hear it now. Some years, when there's been the drought, and the creek's been so low, and the rains haven't come, it's very silent at Tuss Harbin.

[10:15]

Now, we have the sound of the Valley Stream, whether we're aware of it even or not, but we have... the accompaniment to our daily activities. Some sleep right on the creek side, really hear it, others less so. But there it is. And is the creek gurgling along, idly chattering? You know, frivolously burbling? Or, like, happened to Dung Po in Mount Lu, you know that poet, who was walking in the night and in the mountains, Mount Lu, with the streams, and he heard the valley streams, he heard that sound, and he was greatly enlightened, it says, and you probably know the poem, Dogen has a whole fascicle about it,

[11:23]

say, the sound of the valley streams. And the poem is translated different ways, but either valley sounds or sound of the valley streams is the long, great tongue, meaning Buddha's speech, Buddha's sound, Buddha's language. The color of the mountains is the unconditioned body. is the Buddha body, the unbindishing body, the Dharmakaya. And then Li Po said, 84,000 verses are heard throughout the night. What can I say about this at a future time? Rali sounds

[12:26]

are the long, broad tongue. Colors of the mountains are the unconditioned body. Eighty-four thousand verses are heard throughout the night. What can I say about this in the future? It reminds me of, you know, upon the Buddha's awakening, you know, I can't, how can I teach, how can I talk about this? Li Po also. How can I, how can I share this? So we have the sounds of the valley stream. We have the colors of the mountains. We have each moment is ripe and ready. Are we, where are we? And Dogen in commenting on this poem said, the speech of the long broad tongue of the Buddha does not take a break.

[13:39]

The ongoing speech, teaching, Dharma of the Buddha doesn't take a break. So last night during the last sitting, I brought up Shakyamuni Buddha making a strong resolve to sit, to sit on the seat of awakening the Bodhimanda under the Bodhi tree, and this steadfast vow to sit, and his vow was, you know, not get up until... strong resolve.

[14:42]

And what I mentioned last night was that Mara King and that strong resolve, that strength of that constellates Mara, draws Mara, you know, brings Mara. If the Buddha was sort of wishy-washy, well, I'll sit here for a while. We'll see how it goes. And then, I don't know, I'll try something else. But it was too late. He was completely steadfast. And that's when, in our own lives, when we are clear, something will come to test that. So you say you're clear. Okay, how about this? Can you work with this? How about this person? How about this illness? How about this chronic malady?

[15:45]

How's your resolve now? And in that encounter, you know, Mara is, I'll say a little bit more about Mara, but in this encounter, we find our way, you know, we find our deepest resolves, maybe even deeper than we thought. And we encounter more doubt and more difficulty in that facing of Mara. And we need that. We need that in our life. I think in sports, you know, or competition, to have a noble opponent, to have a real, you know, a good match, that's when the beauty of the, whether it's chess or running or swimming or whatever, fencing, you know, debate, to have a real noble opponent that opposes.

[17:10]

is when we find out, really find out. And we are, and we grow, and strengthen, and in ways we can't on our own, going along with just our strengths, but never really meeting something that's equal. And we get, I'm going to mix my metaphors here, we get forged. You know, that's like making horseshoes, right? You have to forge this heat. And then the iron gets malleable, you know, and gets shaped. The mix was, I was going to say forged in the crucible, but you can't forge in a crucible, I don't think. So there's the forge itself. And the heat, and then there's the crucible.

[18:13]

That's another image. In the crucible, you heat up and you separate out, you know, the dross, I think is the word, from the metal. The impurities get burned off, you know. These kinds of images are apt, I think. So Mara is a very... We may know the story of Mara from the Buddha's Enlightenment story. And in the Pali Canon, there's many instances of Mara, not just that one on Buddha's Enlightenment night. Mara shows up in different ways. And also, what I was saying about open canon... there's Mara described in a certain way, and then Mara described other ways, Mara with Mara's armies, Mara's daughters, Mara's hosts, and that poets and artists took it even further, you know, and embellished and added, and in this open canon you can do that to one's heart's content, you know.

[19:31]

Imagine Mara. in different ways. And there was one picture I saw, this was pretty early on, of Mara's coming to attack or attempt or, you know, being drawn to the Buddha's strong resolve. And it was before the Buddha was depicted as a human. You know, for hundreds of years the Buddha was either a tree or footprints, You know, they didn't show a human figure of Shakyamuni Buddha until 500, maybe. I'm not sure. 500 years after death. I'm not sure how long, but pretty long. But this was in about 200 B.C., and it was a picture of a throne under the Bodhi tree. I think it was in stone, yeah. And on the throne, it looks like two Zafus, actually. There's one...

[20:32]

to sit on one for like a backrest, and there's just a throne and two cushions, but where's the Buddha? You just imagine the Buddha sitting there, and then Mara and the hosts are coming to annoy and tempt. So artists, and then, you know, very dramatic depictions of Mara. So... There's different kinds of maras. Mara means or is translated sometimes as just death, you know, sometimes translated as the evil one. Also, Mara is, in some areas of the polycanon, thought of as like the god of love, like a deity, equal to... other deities, similar to, like, who's the arrows or something, with bow and arrow, and Cupid is kind of a reduction of the archetype, really, I think, of arrows.

[21:48]

God of love. So Mara is seen as, you know, over the central... reigning over the central realm, and anyone who wants to curb that or modify that or have that not just take over one's life is seen as a threat to Mara's power and dominions, you know. So there's that aspect to Mara and death, just samsaric life, you know. Also, Mara is thought of as the kleshas, the afflictions, the different things like delusion, jealousy, self-doubt, sloth and torpor, moral conflict, all these kinds of things are, you know, kind of come under this umbrella of Mara.

[22:51]

So Mara visits the Buddha in different times. And one time that Mara visits was when the Buddha was going through his ascetic time. And if you know the story, I'm confident that people know the story of the Buddha's great departure, seeing old age sickness and death. seeing a religious person sitting after he had this encounter with seeing for the first time sickness and old age and death and realizing, even though nobody told him that, asking his charioteer, is this just this person there? This is going to happen too? Is this happen to everybody? And the charioteer said, oh no, Lord, you know, everybody. Everybody has old age, sickness and death.

[24:04]

And the Buddha feeling Shakyamuni, Siddhartha being Gautama, Siddhartha being very despondent. And then the next time he goes out of the palace, he sees this religious person sitting in calm. And he remembered a time when he was a young boy, really, and had gone out, in the springtime, the early spring, to watch the plowing and the planting of the seeds on his father's estate and seeing the plows with the oxen probably pulling the plows through, making the furrows, and realizing and having a felt sense of all the animals that were being cut by the plow and killed by the oxen and walking through and and the kind of pain of just life and death. And he sat under the rose apple tree.

[25:04]

It's kind of a foreshadowing almost of later in the teaching legend. Sat under the rose apple tree and just sat upright and went into a kind of very, very calm state after this... painful kind of grief and shock at all these animals being killed. And he could settle and quiet himself. So upon seeing this religious person, he remembered that time and thought he had a feel for what he had to do. And he decided to leave the great departure, it's called, leave his home life. And in the earliest stories, he doesn't leave his wife and child. He just... leaves his crying parents as he sets off. Post-canonical story, he leaves his wife and child. That was the one that was taken up by the Western Buddhologists as like the primo story to pass on and was told and retold.

[26:11]

And there's other stories where he didn't have a son, but in the night, Yasodhara, his wife, wakes up. She had a terrible dream. and she tells her dream to Siddhartha. Her teeth fell out, and various things happened in the dream, and he calms her and reassures her, and they make love that night. And then he leaves, and she conceives that night. So that's another story in the canon. At any rate, he takes his leave of the known, the familiar, those that he loves and sets forth and meets up with others who are on the religious pathway, path, and they study with various teachers and he is able to really understand and do the practices that these teachers offer him, different yogic things, jhana practices, different trance states.

[27:21]

to master these pretty easily, and they want him to be their successor and carry on, but he doesn't feel satisfied. His heart isn't at peace. These are wonderful practices, but I'm not at peace. So he continues on and meets with the five companions, and they practice, as you remember the story, ascetic practices. And those ascetic practices include not eating very much, one sesame seed a day, I think. The other day I was thinking, maybe at Tassara, the most, one thing that we eat the most of is sesame seeds. You know, we... I remember my first practice period this year so admonished me for eating so much komashio. I was just like... whoop, [...] whoop.

[28:45]

And he experienced terrible pains, racking strong, sharp pains as if he was being torn apart. I mean, just terrible in this ascetic times. Well, during that time, Mara came to visit him and basically said with kind words, in quotes, let's see, where is it? Here we go. Mara approaches the Buddha who's, you know, starving really to death. You've seen maybe that sculpture of the Buddha in the ascetic period where it's just like a skeleton with a thin, it's a, well, a relief, I think, but it's a sculpture with just, you know, the ribs all showing and very, very thin. So Mara comes up to him and approaches with kind words, ''Oh, you are thin and you are pale.''

[29:50]

and you are in death's presence too. A thousand parts are pledged to death, but life still holds one part of you. You know, he was on the brink of dying, really, I think, in these ascetic practices. So that's when Mara came. Live, sir, live. Life is the better way. You can gain merit if you live. Come, live the holy life. Pour libations on the holy fires. I think this was like, come, just be a... be a priest in the Brahmanic maybe lineage, and there's merit there. You know, you can do those practices. You don't have to die, you know. There's a world of merit to gain. What can you do by struggling now? The path of struggling is difficult and rough and difficult to see. This is Mara's kind words, kind words, but basically the Buddha saw through it. and realized this was Mara trying to dissuade him.

[30:53]

Like, oh, you poor thing. Oh, you don't want to do that to yourself? Come on, we'll do this. We've got practices here for you. You're going to be just fine. But the Buddha was very conscious of Mara's hidden agenda, which was to keep him under his sway, you know, of samsara. Basically, the Buddha just recognizes what this is. Now, the Mara, I think, in the Pali Canon, as well as for us, can be seen as, you know, deity, this image of a being that comes, or also in a psychological way, the Maras that arise in our mind. that whisper sweet nothings of all kinds, to dissuade us from, you know, like the ego saying, I'm on thin ice here, this person, I don't have control over them anymore, so what can I do to stop them from practicing, you know, fully, thoroughly?

[32:05]

So the Buddhas, whatever the Buddhas said, Mara, and this happens many places, Mara, disappointed, goes away, you know, as the Buddha sees through it. So the hosts of Mara, the hosts, this is an unusual way of using the word host, or maybe the earliest use of the word host, these, the kind of henchmen and women of the helpers of Mara And the names of them are boredom, sense desires, hunger, thirst, craving, sloth and torpor, malice paired with obstinacy. That's an interesting one. Malice paired with obstinacy. Not only have a lot of ill will, but you're also really stubborn.

[33:08]

Those two together is a... hard one to work with probably, gain, honor, renown, ill-won notoriety, self-praise, denigration of others, and these are the squadrons, these are the hosts, the armies of Mara that come, right? They have you. Seen any of them around? A little sloth and torpor here. How about sleepiness? That's good. So we can see these as... How do we see these? Maybe that's the question. As, okay, now I'm working with boredom. How do we work with boredom? Do I just... be suffused with boredom?

[34:15]

Do I examine it? What is boredom? Is that an occasion to take up? What's boredom all about? How can I practice with boredom? Or sloth and torpor, you know. Someone was asking me about laziness. What is laziness? And laziness... or sloth and torpor, but there's different kinds of lazinesses. There's the one we usually recognize, indolence. Indolence is no dolore, you know, no pain. I don't want to feel any pain. Indolent. And I associate it with couch potato and just lying around eating comic corn, eating comic corn, and just... Not want to move or do much because it sort of disturbs. That's a kind of laziness.

[35:16]

Not wanting to feel any discomfort or change in temperature, even. I tend towards that, by the way. This just popped into my mind when I was eating. I remember thinking, oh great, I don't have to change clothes all day. I could just wear robes. And the reason is I don't like the change of temperature when you have to take off something, put on something else. You know, there's that moment of being a little chilly, and it's disturbing. It's unsettling, just one temperature all day long. I think it's indolence, not wanting to feel any, even a little bit of pain or something. Anyway, all about laziness.

[36:17]

So there's indolence. Sorry, I'm losing my train here. Indolence is one, that laziness, but there's also other kinds of lazinesses. One is being attached to unwholesome activities. Even though we know they're unwholesome and not so beneficial, we choose those. That's called laziness. knowing but still choosing to do various things that are beneficial to us. That's a kind of laziness. And the third one is a state of mind that says, I just can't do this. I just, I'm really, it's all too much. It's too much. That's a kind of enervated, you know, just... at facing our life. And that's in one way of thinking about laziness as well.

[37:21]

These are three different kinds. So these can all be Mara. These can all be Mara's visiting. And how do we meet that? And what happens to us when we meet that? And the Buddha says tomorrow, this is what, and the hosts, you know, this boredom and notoriety and obstinacy and all these different things, the Buddha says, I have faith and I have energy and I have wisdom. And that's what I bring, you know, a body of faith. And that they can't get a foothold, you know, they can't get a hold. The nails, you know, is slippery. There's something there to hold on to, like a sheer, smooth cliff, you know.

[38:29]

And the Buddha also says that he sallies forth To fight. And he uses, you know, the Buddha was trained, or Shakyamuni was trained as a warrior. He uses these images of fighting. You know, this is not unusual. In the Palakian, he sallies forth to fight that I may not be driven from my post. They're trying to unseat him. All these, you know, renown. How about some renown? You want fame and gain? We got that for you. And come on, that's one way. Another is just basic ill will and anger and fighting on hatred. That's more of Mara. And sensual fantasies and rewards. That's another Mara. These are all the Maras. So the Buddha meets it with faith. And the word faith in Sanskrit is shraddha.

[39:31]

And it is a... Etymologically, in the Indo-European language, shradha is connected with the word in Spanish, corazón, in Italian, core, heart, shradha, the DHA, is connected with, and I can't trace a few exactly, but it's, so I always think of faith not as some belief in something like, oh, if I just believe strong enough, then, but it's a body of faith, it's wholehearted. wholeheartedness, that shraddha, the Buddha has wholeheartedness, this resolution and energy, virya, you know, this iron person and wisdom to meet. So all of us, you know, meeting Mara.

[40:33]

You know, I think Mara, we can't separate ourselves from Mara. This is the whole, the wholeness. We have these ways in which it looks like negativity, but it's a way that we can be forged, you know. And we often might think, if only, if only I didn't have all this then. But I think that's pie in the sky, that's a kind of dream, that it's samsara dreams. If only I didn't have these troubles then. That's the grammar of samsara. And we are fooled, I'm fooled by that, you know, over and over again, which is another mara, you know. So rather than if only we are our own, you know, our bodhicitta, our vow to live for the benefit of others is not created by our self alone sitting on our own cushion.

[41:48]

It's in relationship, in relationship to others, in relationship to our problems. Suzuki Roshi said, you know, the zendo is... The problems are our Zaza. You know, these difficulties is all, can't be somehow if only I didn't have them then. That's, having them is how we come into our own. There's another instance of Mara after the Buddha was enlightened. You know, Bara watched the Buddha for six years to see, is he going to slip up? Is this the real deal? Or is he, you know, can I find a little loophole in there to get him? You know, so in the stories, he watched him for six years, like a hawk, probably. Anyway, one day, the Buddha had this injury in his foot, a bad injury.

[42:54]

It's wonderful that the stories include back aches, the Buddha having back trouble, and foot injuries, and you know, food poisoning and all sorts of things and how many practice with it. So he was lying down and Mara said, ah, there, now I got him. So he goes up to him and says, what, are you stupefied that you lie down or else entranced by some poetic flight? Are there not many aims you still must serve? Why do you dream away intent on sleep alone in your secluded place? Can you imagine if you're resting, you've got an injury, and this sort of being comes and says, what are you doing, gold-bricker, lying there in your little cabin all by yourself? What about your bodhisattva, huh? Aren't you supposed to be out there teaching?

[43:55]

Anyway. So that's Mara. But that kind of, I mean, if you think of that as an internalized voice that says, we know about this voice. You should be following the schedule. You're not really sick. You're faking it. Is it as bad as you, you know, it's like, anyway, the Buddha's answer to this was something like, out of compassion for the many, I take my rest. You know, I know what I'm doing, Mara. I know how to take care of myself. I've got, you know, don't bother me really with your... Or maybe the Buddha would say that. Don't bother me. It's like, out of the compassion for the many, I take my rest. That's what I'm doing. Leave it at that. You can bother me all you want, actually, probably. And, you know, Thich Nhat Hanh's story of the Buddha has Mara and the Buddha's best of friends. They meet up.

[44:55]

They have tea together. This is his kind of life of the Buddha and fictionalized additions, Thich Nhat Hanh additions. And the Buddha basically, I could have done it without you, Mara. Thank you. Nine bows, infinite bows. I could not have, you know, realized what I needed to realize without your help. Thank you. I can never repay you, Mara, my friend. And Mara, you know, is the Buddha's friend. Thank you for giving me some good work to do. It's very creative, this work, coming up with the different ways to try to entrap us. So I like that, them having tea together and treats. And Mara also visited Kisagotami you know, one of our Achayas, and Kisa Gotami lost her child and became a nun and was practicing alone in the forest.

[46:06]

And Mara comes and says something like, Oh, what a tear-stained, sad face you have, Kisa Gotami. Oh, and you've lost your child. What do you need? Maybe you need a lover. What do you think, Kisa Gotami? And she also says, you know, I know what I'm doing. Please. I've got, I'm sitting here. I'll see you later. So she's very clear. Mara keeps meeting these people who are very steadfast in their resolve. So if you meet Mara, give them my best. Because I know that they're helping you and me to find their way. Yeah, red flags can show us the way. So as the days go on, I'll continue with the Buddha's story.

[47:25]

I had something else I wanted to bring up, but right now it feels like I'm complete. And I want to leave us with this reflecting and kind of contemplating Mara and how Mara functions. You know, Mara, we could say, oh, that's just one of the forms of Avalokitesh Mara, the thousand-armed one who takes any form that we need. any form, speaks any language. So I won't bring up the koan that I wanted to bring up, but we'll start that tomorrow. And I want to look at, with you as we continue, our practice of silence, noble silence, and how the Buddha with silence and other teachers. And when silence is complete meeting, and when silence might be avoiding something, hiding, yeah, that kind of device to get away.

[48:52]

So we'll take that up tomorrow. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[49:22]

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