January 19th, 2002, Serial No. 01112

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reminisce
good morning good is is working can you hear me yeah yeah okay let's see who's here

ah

great thank you all for coming there's a lot of faces i don't recognize which is good or are some who knew like have never been here before raise your hands
oh good good because no sam talking to you today the rest of you can follow quietly asleep
as long as he don't snore
i will not be speaking extemporaneously

i'm oddly nervous normally there's nothing i like better than getting up in front of the group and showing off but for some reason i'm a little nervous this morning so excuse me if i if that shows so good morning welcome greens hello thank you all for coming when i was invited to speak this
morning i was reminded though i didn't really need a reminder that this week we celebrated the birthday of martin luther king jr
on tuesday and on this on monday we'll be celebrating it as a holiday
and i was asked to address some of my comments to his life this was very easy because although i had already started working on my
talk today since i was going to talk i'm going to talk about the bodhisattva path
it was easy to include martin luther king because shorn of the sort of mythological glamour that we give it the bodhisattva path is very well illustrated by dr king's life
this was a life guided i believe by the twin disciplines of great suffering and great love
and great suffering and great love are the hallmarks of the bodhisattvas training
though was long practice they are transformed into wisdom and compassion
and this transformation is in all aspects of buddhist training the most important thing wow what buddhists training is about what the bodhisattva path about is about his transformation not erratic eradication not suppression the transformation
one
and i'll have more to say about this transformation compassion and wisdom in a little bit so the bodhisattva i'll talk a little bit more about that explain that a little bit more but the booty is one who's vow is deliberate all beings from suffering and delusion and she has as her goal
freedom
and like martin luther king she sees with a clear knowledge that her own freedom can only be achieved by freedom for all
for just as martin luther king saw that freedom must include not only his own people not only the african american descendants of slaves but the descendants of those people who believed they could own these enslaved others and he saw the well races and binds the victims police
stickley economically socially spiritually
he saw that at no less than slaves the privileged class classes
as well with fear and was delusion
so with that as an introduction and with on the reverend dr king as a wonderful exemplar i'd like to talk a little bit more about the bodhisattva path as we understand it and buddhism the word bodhisattva itself is constructed of it's a compound word a san
script there's bodhi which can mean is translated in a number of ways awakening awakened enlightenment enlightened and saatva is being as in human being are sentient being or something like that so
so bodhisattva in this context for today i like to think of the bodhisattva as an awakening being a being who is in the process of becoming awakened and encouraging others to become awakened
in the older sense and the older literature which is associated with the terror of art and school of buddhism a bodhisattva south as one who is on the way to becoming a buddha so in the literature shockey mooney the man sidharth the gautama the historical buddha fellow up on the altar is called the booty safa before his enlightenment
and the buddha afterwards but eventually over time the sense of the word expanded and became more nuanced and we in the zen school in the tradition of the mahayana the so-called great vehicle understand the bodhisattva as one who has taken the vow to work tirelessly for the awakening
in and the salvation of all beings not only his or her own from suffering
so here is one formulation of the bodhisattva vow this comes from the diamond sutra
the lord said the lord of course being the buddha here's the booty somebody being one of the disciples someone who has set out in the vehicle of a bodhisattva should produce a thought in this manner as many beans is there are in the universe of beans comprehended under the term beans
he's a born born from a womb moisture born and miraculously born with or without form with perception without perception and was neither perception or non perception as far as any conceivable form of beings is conceived all these i must lead to nirvana into that realm
nirvana which leaves nothing behind so this is a rather
grandiose perhaps formulation of the body sought the idea
and it continues in the same verse
and yet although innumerable beans have thus been led to nirvana know being at all has been led to nirvana and why is in a bodhisattva the notion of the being should take place he could not be called a bowtie being and why he is not to be called a bodhi being buddhist
saatva in whom the notion of a self or of a being should take place or the notion of a living soul or a person
so i'd like to return to this saw in a few minutes but bear in mind
so in the buddha's buddhist tradition
the scope of the body stops as work is said to encompass unimaginable length of time whole cycles of the universe from the big bang to the collapse if collapse it's going to be culpas is the word that we use in buddhist literature whole culpas of time the bodhisattva perfect
which make her better to become a refuge for others which lead eventually to buddhahood
so the vow of the body starts for then is to refrain from his or her own final salvation entry into nirvana as long as there's one being who remains to be saved
of loki tissue vara is the bodhisattva of compassion and his name means the one who hears the cries of the world
and the story is that of located fara when first looking down upon the suffering of the world was so distressed by that suffering that his head exploded and amida buddha who's the standing buddha behind me
put back those fragments of head into eleven heads so that they are obligated for i was able to see in all directions at once the suffering of beings and of located far as a thousand arms to reach out and in each of those hands there's that i so
i've looked for sees and hears and reaches out to each one of us as the bodhisattva of compassion and delays her own entry into nirvana
so this is the body of the condition bar is also in japan and china where he has become female taken on female form is known as kwan in er kunnen cons a on the goddess of mercy on usually in the west perhaps she may
manifests as mother mary
who's also a great bodhisattva
so this is the cosmic or the mythological is the dream time version and vision of the bodhisattva in and the bodhisattvas task
but you know that seems very far removed from you and make so what about us does it really mean this bodhisattva vow that in taking this foul i will be reincarnated innumerable times to be of use to suffering beams does it really matter that i have to come back does it really mean that i have to come back
at over and over and over again into this realm of suffering too
do whatever i can
it doesn't matter
it doesn't matter if this is a literally true vow or not it doesn't matter if we're going to come back again and again and again it may be metaphorical maybe karma and continuity are much more complicated than we can understand easily formulate but what the bodhisattva as about the bodhisattva vow is about
is the true or not we are willing that it should be if indeed it means by taking the bodhisattva vow that we are
committing ourselves to coming back for ever
this is what the bodhisattva vow is
we may get lucky and find out that we don't have to
but we have to be ready for it
so it means that we're willing to show up in this world full of suffering again and again over and over be it for one lifetime or for a million million lifetimes
but of course on the other hand we only have to show up and show of completely one moment at a time one empty moment at a time i often say this so if you've heard it before excuse me one of the episode on epithet epithets that's not the right word one of the titles
most of the buddha is to target ha and it's what he often calls himself in the literature and to talk it it can be translated in many ways often we translated as the one who is thus com i like to translate it is the guy who shows up
so you know that togheter you know here's the world here such togheter she shows up for her life
each moment each empty moment
and the fact that each moment as empty as what it makes conceivable what makes it conceivable
and usually the language we use about the bow or any vow is that we take a vow but i'd like to suggest today that in the bodhisattva vow we think in terms of giving ourself to the vow without reservation without holding back we pray to give ourselves completely to the bodhisattva vow
and in doing this to the best of our ability however
imperfect that is when we give ourselves to the bodhisattva vow we become willing to be changed by the vow changed from who we think we are
changed from that person into whomever or whatever the vow requires us to become to be of service so we're willing to be changed not knowing what the outcome will be but to be changed for the sake of all beings
let me read you a poem that reminds me about this
discipline by allen ginsberg you may have heard of him
it's called shockey mooney coming out of the mountain shakyamuni as you recall as the historical buddha and this poem is based upon a painting an old chinese painting it's wonderful and i wish i had to show you that i don't so i just read the poem
shockey mooney coming out of the mountain he drags his bare feet out of a cave under a tree eyebrows grown long with weeping and hook nosed whoa in ragged soft robes wearing a fine beard unhappy hands clasped to his naked breast
humility is beatrice humility is beaten us faltering into the bushes by a stream all things inanimate but his intelligence stands upright there though trembling are hot who sought have an under a mountain of stone sad thing
king till he realized the land of blessedness exists in the imagination the flash com mt mere how painful to be born again wearing a fine beard re-entering the world a bitter wreck of a sage earth before him his only path we can see his
soul he knows nothing like a god shaken me gretsch humility is beatrice before the absolute world
i love that poem
so as this poem implies what happens when we take the boat stuff about when we are willing to be changed by it
doesn't mean that it's going to end up like what we'd hoped for or what we thought or what we'd looked for in the beginning we may end up being of service in the world in quite a different way than we had a plan for or wanted it may not look as glittery as we thought
or even the way we thought
so this happens when we give ourselves to the vet when we practice devotion to the bow and i like this word devotion because the word vow and or devotion of course had the same route so we practice devotion to the vow
the obvious question at this point of course is how can we possibly follow such a course and more to the point why would we want to
at first glance you know it sounds about as attractive as a root canal but so let's look at why first okay so i really believe really truly and deeply i believe that each one of us in the room today is here because we've already had a glimpse of bodhicitta the thought of enlightenment
the that flash the things could be different our lives could be different and we could understand
and so no matter what reason you think you're here you know maybe your boyfriend or your girlfriend dragged you hear or it's new year's resolution to learn how to do meditation and or whatever i'm convinced that some flash of possibility of awakening is the real cause
and you know we we build on that sense of awakening that sense of the possibility of the potential for awakening and at first knew that sense of possibility that leads us to seek out practice is about really is likely to be about at least relieving our own suffering he's gaining some peace of mind stilling the cravings that keep us from keep
a still in the world of suffering i mean very very few people if you ask them and they answer honestly will tell you they came to zen center to practices and because they were having a good day
i think it's not true you know it's it's about suffering kids

however
after we have practiced for a while
spend some time doing meditation and investigating our minds and the way things work and perhaps being exposed to some more of more the explicit teachings about this it begins to dawn on us that we are not who or what we thought we were
the boundary of the perceived self shifts we begin to see the we are contingent upon all that has gone before us to create us parents and ancestors culture and climate in history the physical world all the way back to the big bang and beyond
stanley it's kind of a fun game to play about thinking about you know what made me
so it's a sort of the game
excuse me but as we really internalize this way of understanding by studying the teachings by practicing by watching exactly how body and mind have come to be
and make a part of our response to our lives it takes on an emotional and spiritual reality the sense of who we are expands to include the entire world self covers all
and we realize that our isolation is an illusion and one of the most painful and then on the very deepest level of our interconnectedness
our interconnectedness with each other's absolute the we're all points along the same continuum
and given the reality of this even when we only get a glimpse of that every now and then the question of why we should want to pursue the bodhisattva path becomes a non question
we literally cannot abandon beings to their suffering and seek out our own separate peace because as long as there are beings who suffer we suffer to the hand cannot forget the foot
and so we driven perhaps against our will at first to accept more suffering into our lives as we open ourselves you know that's what we do
as we as we end the isolation that keeps us keeps the boundary of the self small and tight and constricted as we open that we actually do receive into our lives more suffering at least at first and the suffering of the hitherto other
so it doesn't sound like a very good idea a doesn't tell like a very good idea deal
so because of this because we are initially inviting and accepting more suffering rather than an indian suffering which is what we thought we were going to restart some users and you know all that stuff this requires a great deal of face and a great deal of courage and tremendous generosity and so it's not for nothing nada
ana parramatta the perfection of giving the professional generosity heads the list of the six perfections that we talk about in terms of the bodhisattva path
and so the sense of who we are what we are the sense of the self changes and the self becomes no longer a product a commodity or a project but rather a vehicle for communication communion and service and by the way the practice of the bodhisattva path is a radical political statement as
well because it's about as far as being you can't get much farther removed from consumer culture than that you know from the culture in which each person indeed is a product and a commodity and and and in which we gain value only by our ability to produce and consume
you know this is the this is the
self as commodity
but sitting zazen like poetry makes nothing happened
so so radical political statement
so having come to this point or approached it or big com willing to approach to it or having been dragged to it against our will and better sense how do we proceed
how can we stand to be in the world for the sake of others and how can we practice you know once we have come to accept the necessity or the inevitability and begun to accept the suffering of others into our lives than what how do we go how can we practice how can we do it for today at least i'd like to suggest that there are
are three components of the path to the path on my own terms for them are cultivation surrender and the understanding of emptiness this can also be considered in terms of the three traditional divisions of practice which in the basic literature which are sheila which is morality or
ethical conduct samadi which is meditation and pranayama which is wisdom
so the path of cultivation is where we undertake those practices which allow our lives and our minds to settle into some semblance of calmness this is what we were looking for it the beginning remember when we first came to practice so the good news is that does actually where to get there you can get there from here
and these these this path of cultivation is what what develops our characters as men and women of the way that's what the big w
so some of these cultivation practices
our right speech right livelihood right conduct practices of loving kindness gratitude and generosity these some of these are actually meditation practices summer practices that we do throughout the day so in some degree these practices practices can be seen as antidote will
in that they are behaviors of body and speech and mind which we deliberately take on to counteract our native inclination to speak and act from selfishness anger and confusion so these are antidotes and this is cultivating were making changes through decision through will through
no new year's resolutions whatever it takes to get you there
and we do this because in order to be able to practice meditation or insight with any efficacy our minds must have a certain degree of calmness which will only be possible if our lives are in some objective order so it's very difficult to practice calm abiding if your hands on the till are few cheating on your spouse or forgetting
drunk every night so hence the attempt to the best of our lie ability to live according to the precepts
which are usually articulated as the following ten
i vow not to kill i vow not to take what is not given i vowed not to misuse sexuality i vowed to refrain from false speech i vow to refrain from intoxicants i vow not to slander i vow not to praise self that the expense of others i vow not to be avaricious i vow not to have
burial ill will and i vow not to abuse the three treasures for three treasures are buddha dharma and sangha so cultivating this sort of life these sort of mental attitudes is the strong foundation for our practice and specifically for our zazen our meditation and fortunately buddha
as and gives many clear and precise suggestions about how we might go about this
so this is a brief
take on the path of cultivation so let's look at the path of surrender
so this can be understood in a couple of ways in meditation for example there's a form of surrender you know we we turn ourselves over to the reality of the moment breathing in breathing out and noticing without attempting to control our breath
our thoughts our emotions sensory input
neither holding onto them are suppressing them
neither judging them nor making up stories about them so zazen
oh for those of you who are news us and just means sitting meditation okay zen the and you know that just means meditation za means sitting zazen sitting meditation so you know zazen right okay
thousand so thousand is sort of a form of radical allowance we allow ourselves to be just as we are well given minute and loving attention the kaleidoscope of our bodies in our minds
so that's one sort of surrender the kind of surrender that we actually practice where we're sitting on a cushion are sitting on our chair are doing whatever we do when we practice meditation
but what i'm most introduce interested in talking about today is a different kind are slightly different kind of surrender and this is the surrender to the bodhisattva vow as such so as i said earlier you know this is about a willingness to be changed and it's beyond cultivation
cultivation is an exercise of the will it serve a positive form of willfulness
but this is something else the surrender his willingness it's to allow that which we think of as are solid self to see that that's actually fluid and to make a conscious decision to subordinate that self and that sense of self to a larger form of organization
and on different principles and with a different agenda than the desires of the self for gratification
okay so we're we're allowing ourselves to be radically re-organized as beans are through the agency of the bodhisattva vow
so it's a loving surrender and that we trust ourselves to it
to an outcome that is unknown and unknowable to us as we would trust in trust ourselves to a lover or to a god
in giving ourselves over to the bodhisattva vow we don't even know exactly what we're interested in ourselves to
it cannot be rationalized or deceptive
but this vow is what carries us in our practice from moment to moment it's a form of grace
the more we give ourselves over to it so i'm you know it has a positive feedback
and so of course also the the surrender that i'm speaking of is ideally one without resentment or bitterness
and that's really a tall order i remember many years ago a friend of mine saying to me i could die tomorrow and not feel cheated
you know and i thought at the time and i still think what a wonderful thing that would be to feel that way i could die tomorrow and not feel cheated on i hope she's still feels that way but this is why i'm talking about this kind of surrender to our life and to the vow and where it will take us and that is a really tall
order for me at least
and i think it will take our whole lives to practices and that's the good news okay because the it means that we never come to the end of the dharma resource you know it's an inexhaustible treasure and also i think it's worthwhile to remember the when we're looking
at the bodhisattva vow in our practice of it and buy it we're looking at progress rather than perfection
and we want to give ourselves to it with the gift of patients and generosity that we try
as best we can to give to others so this patients and this generosity we should give to ourselves and our practice and are inevitable failure and our practice and are inevitable failure again and again
and you know what i want i think of this kind of surrender i'm i'm reminded that really wonderful song on the shakers that gift to be simple
the last part of which goes i will spare you my singing voice but it goes advocacy when true simplicity is gained to bow and to ben we shall not be ashamed to turn into turn will be our delight till by turning and turning we come down right or come round right
so this is the kind of surrender that i'm talking about joyful joyful and i'm willing
so finally i'd like to talk a little bit about the understanding of emptiness which is prime yeah which is wisdom
so i remember reading about it and i started reading about buddhism or young just a child and i really liked it and sometimes have some time in my was a teenager
i came up upon my on first mention of emptiness i guess i've been reading somewhat more sophisticated literature by then
ever heard me and i remember
feeling intense sense of joy reading about emptiness and maybe even a sense of relief and release and you know i still cannot read or hear or speak about emptiness without a lifting of the heart
so you know emptiness as we understand it and buddhism is not some sort of nihilism it's not nothingness or a product of blank despair but it's freedom
so each day here at since and we chant the heart sutra which begins like this i've located for a bodhisattva when practicing deeply the proud new part of me to perceive that all five scandals in their own being are empty and thus relieved all suffering so as you recall off loki dish barra
excuse me is the bodhisattva of compassion and so what this means he has a translate a little bit is that as avalokiteshvara was practicing the perfection of wisdom the proud new parramatta she realized that all scanned as all constituent parts of reality are impermanent and without abiding so
self in other words empty and this in itself was to relieve for for suffering
so you know an understanding of emptiness
is the definition of wisdom and yeah
freedom from suffering
so you know are passionate experience
you know all of our concerns and tom
and are clings know break again and again on the shore of this emptiness
and it's not that are hurt or that the heard of others is magic to way but rather we see by close attention to the present with calmness of mind that all things rise and fall according to causes and conditions and that because there is no abiding self
liberation as possible and because all things and all beings or without substance or essence because of that we can remain in the world except in each moment is that arises and passes away
so suffering is real
but it just not absolute reality
and we live in this world of suffering and desire we've created this world of suffering and desire but because of emptiness we don't need to stay here
so you know the time that we have remaining
unless i want to go over the time that i said i would which i don't is fairly short
and you know the subject the the concept of emptiness is so radically simple that it would take a very very long time to explain several lectures at least the length of this one so rather than
continue with my understanding your lack of understanding just like to read a couple of quotes and the and so the first one is from suzuki roshi
suzuki roshi for those of you who i
are quite newest the japanese and teacher who founded the center okay this is his book available in the bookstore
there's a new one coming out to
in the prime your of me to sutra that is the heart sutra the most important point of course as the idea of emptiness before we understand the idea of emptiness everything seems to exist substantially but after we realize the emptiness of things everything comes becomes real not sub-state
anshul when we realize that everything we see is a part of emptiness we can have no attachment to any existence we realize that everything is just a tentative form and color thus we realize the true meaning of each attention to the existence when we first hear that everything is a tentative existence most of
this are disappointed but this disappointment comes from a wrong view of man and nature it is because our way of observing things is deeply rooted in our self centered ideas that we are disappointed when we find everything has only a tentative existence but when we actually realized this truth we will have no suffering
the sutra says bodhisattva avalokiteshvara observes everything is emptiness thus he forsakes all suffering it was not after he realized this truth that he overcame suffering to realize this truth is itself to be relieved from suffering so realization of the truth is salvation itself
we say to realize but the realization of the truth is always near at hand
it is not after we practice thousand that we realize the truth even before we practice zazen realization is there it is not after we understand the truth that we attain enlightenment to realize the truth is to live to exist here and now
services the roshi and i'll finish with a short quotation from the diamond sutra which is what i read from at the beginning
this this is the last on lives with the diamond sutra
as stars a fall division is a lamp a mock show dewdrops or a bubble a dream a lightning flash or cloud so should one view what is conditioned thus spoke the lord enraptured the elders said booty the monks and nuns the pious blame and
les women and the bodhisattvas and the whole world with it's god's men osher and gandharva as rejoiced in the lord's teaching
so that's about all i have to say today
which is good because we've just about out of time and
so thank you all for coming and letting me talk to you i really enjoyed being here
it does me a lot of good to be a have to think about these things that write them down on paper and say them out loud to remind myself of all the wonderful practices that i usually forget to do
so if i have said anything that is useful to you today please accept it as a gift and if i said anything that has disturbed or confused her irritated you please forget it as quickly as possible and forgive me thank you
me