Such a beautiful, beautiful spring morning. I don't think we can get better than today. Lots of wildflowers, clear sky. Just like the day the Buddha was awakened. It was just a day just like today. So one of the things I wanted to talk to you about... Oh, before I do that, who's here for the first time? Hasn't been here. Wow. Well, welcome. I'm sitting here for the first time. I've sat in the Zendo for many years. This is where I started my practice, but I've always been facing the wall. So it's the first time I'm sitting facing all of you. Really a nice crowd, I must say. So today I thought it would be maybe an appropriate day to talk a little bit about the life of the Buddha because it's such a wonderful teaching story and it's so encouraging.

[01:13]

And he lived a long time, so we're only going to go through the highlights because we have a time limit here. Speaking of which, the Buddha's story is really interesting because he was born about 2,500 years ago, but it wasn't until about 500 years after he was born that anybody wrote anything down. So his history is oral until that moment. There's so much that's myth and legend, and so we don't know what's historically true and what isn't. But it actually doesn't matter so much because what we do know is that this teaching lets us know that it's possible for all of us to realize our Buddha nature.

[02:17]

And sort of... the story of Buddha's life helps us see that what Buddha was facing is what we all face. The same problem. We're all going to die. We're all going to lose everything we own. We're all going to get sick. Has anybody here not been sick yet? And how do we make peace with that? That we're all that this is temporary. And everything we have, including our bodies, is really just on loan. Because a loner you're in. It's free, relatively. It's just a loner. And hopefully you give it back having used it completely and fully. And gotten everything out of...

[03:20]

the life that you've been given, totally, because it's such an amazing gift. It's amazing that any of us are here at all, that there's anything here, really, when you think about it. So, my name's Marsha Angus, by the way, and one of the other things that the Buddha tells us is that the good news or the bad news is you have to do it yourself. You have to realize your own Buddha nature. And what's also true right at the same time is you can't do it by yourself. So it takes all of us helping each other. And it takes everything. Because right now, even in this talk, I have some vague idea of what I want to talk about, but what's coming out of my mouth... is not what I thought before I came here.

[04:22]

It's completely, I'm so affected by you that how I'm saying what I'm saying is the product of all of us being here together today. So we're definitely in this together. So, to get to the highlights. Before the Buddha was born, his mother had a dream about an elephant and a flower. I'm not going to go into those details, but basically it prophesied that when he was born, he was either going to be the emperor. He had the potential of being the emperor of all of India and conquering all other 15 little kingdoms that were around at the time. Or he would be a great holy man. Well, his father had really strong ideas about him being the emperor. So when he was born, his father created a very artificial life for him.

[05:28]

Being a prince of the warrior caste, he lived in a fabulous palace with every luxury. And the only dent was that his mother died a week after he was born. So he grows up in this palace with the best food. The best music, the best clothes. I mean, it's amazing. We can't imagine. We just can't. And it's so fabulous that it doesn't even occur to him to leave. He doesn't even think of leaving the palace. And his father gets him a wife when he's 16, who's fabulous, and he falls in love with her. And they proceed to have the most erotic 10-year honeymoon you've ever heard of. He has a fabulous time and has a son. And somewhere around 29, he thinks, what's outside there? I think it's amazing it took him until he's 29.

[06:35]

But at the same time, I think about my own growing up. And I really didn't, I accepted so much of what I was brainwashed to believe for a really long time. And it wasn't until I had a friend die in my arms that I even, I think I was 24, that it even occurred to me that I could really die. It was sort of a concept. I didn't get it that this was like an amazing gift and that each breath was a wonderful thing. So anyway, he goes out with his attendant, sneaks out. And he does this a few times. And the first time, since he's been very, very sheltered, he sees an old man. And he says to the attendant, what's that? Never seen an old man. Everybody's beautiful in the palace.

[07:36]

And the attendant says, that's change. That happens to everybody. This is just how it is. Wow. Comes out again with him another time, and he sees this very sick person. And he says to the attendant, what's that? And the attendant says, that's sickness. Everybody gets sick. That happens to everybody. So he's a very sheltered fellow. And this is shocking to him. And he goes out a third time, and he sees a corpse. And the attendant says, that's death. And everybody's, that happens now. No one gets out of that. And this really shocks him. It's stunning. And when I think back about my experience of first seeing somebody...

[08:44]

I was stunned. It was miraculous. It was about as miraculous as somebody being born. It's like, where did that life come from? And where did it go? What happened? It was truly mysterious and distressing. And Siddhartha Gautama is distressed. And he does something kind of radical and extraordinary. He leaves the palace. Oh, he goes out and next time, and he sees like a priest or a seeker, a mendicant kind of person. And that, he asks the attendant, he says, well, that's a seeker. He's seeking the truth and peace. Anyway, so then he decides to leave. He's got to solve this problem. He's got to come to terms with this old age sickness and death thing and loss.

[09:48]

He's got to figure it out. So amazingly, to me anyway, maybe to you too, he leaves. He leaves his son. He leaves his wife. He leaves the palace and gets some very simple clothes and starts out. And he finds a guru. And he studies very, very hard with his guru. He studies yoga, studies meditation, becomes extremely adept. But it's not solving his problem about suffering, pain. So he finds another guru. And studies with that guru for a while. and becomes adept in all the practices that that guru teaches him. Still, it's not quite getting it. It's not happening.

[10:49]

So then, he bumps into these guys, these ascetics, who are basically saying, okay, the way to transcend this body of this birth and death cycle is... to totally mortify the flesh. So basically, you starve yourself. They hang by their toes. They do everything to eradicate any kind of desire from themselves. And you've ever seen those pictures of the Buddha with his ribs hanging out and he's completely emaciated? Well, that's one of those times. And he describes himself as pretty much a bag of bones. His eyes sunken in, his arms and legs like jointed bamboo. And he's very close to death. And he starts to remember, like many people do when they're close to death, starts to remember being a boy with his father at a planting ceremony.

[12:03]

And it was a happy time. And he also remembers looking down at the ground and seeing these bugs, like a little ant farm almost, a little bunch of bugs, and realizing that when they plow to plant, that those bugs may very well die. And this makes him very sad. So he has this kind of double poignant memory of being really happy and in a joyful festival setting. and this moment of compassion for these little bugs. And he becomes sad. And so, what happens? A girl comes by, miraculously. I love how these coincidences... And she just happens to have a big bowl of rice pudding, just the kind that his stepmother used to make.

[13:13]

And she offers it to him, and she says, eat. And this is a very important moment in the Buddha's life, because at this moment, he turns away from his clinging to this asceticism as a way of getting away from... away from being alive as a human being. And he turns toward life, and he accepts this rice pudding. And this, to me, is a kind of grace that's bestowed on him by this young girl and her generous heart. And the fact that he is open to this and that he moves toward it is a big moment of realizing that it's a... That asceticism, that turning away from his experience as a human being is not...

[14:29]

what it's about. And he realizes that this woman, he accepts her and he needs her to realize himself. And that he's not doing this all by himself in one way. And that this woman's compassion for him and his accepting of it is a step towards him realizing how we're all connected and that we're all in this together. And as he's eating this pudding, he's remembering his capacity to feel joy. He's remembering a joy that is actually the underlying fabric of our lives. Philip Glass. Have you ever heard of Philip Glass?

[15:30]

He's a composer. I was watching a documentary about his life, and he talks about where does the music come from? And he talks about how he hears the music he composes. He's not making it up. He hears it. And he talks about the music as an underground river. And it's always there. And you don't know where it comes from, and you don't know where it's going. And the only difference is whether you are listening or not. So when I think of this joy, this underlying joy, this underlying peace that's within us, our capacity... our Buddha nature that's there. It's about whether we're listening or not.

[16:34]

It's always there. I'm thinking of an experiment we might try, actually. Because part of this is about peace, finding that peace within. And if we all right now just take a couple of breaths, And then just focus a minute on your breath, on your inhale. And then you'll notice at the end of each exhale, if you don't mess with your breath too much, just let your breath breathe you, you'll notice that at the end of each exhale, there's this momentary pause just before your lungs automatically begin to fill again. And that momentary pause at the end of each breath is a way to taste that peace that's always there.

[17:42]

And you can land there anytime. And if you begin to decide to meditate, you can expand that sense of peace into your life. So it's always there and you're always feeling it. So Siddhartha was listening in that moment and he remembered that joy and that peace And he realized that asceticism wasn't going to make it. And he realized also, if I'm feeling this and I'm going to pursue this experience, then I better start eating because I need to act like a normal human being and eat and drink and sleep. And he makes that decision toward life and he doesn't do it completely on his own.

[18:54]

That girl is grace. And grace comes from the kind heart of this girl. And he misses his wife and he misses his son. And he's clearly failed at the ascetic path he'd been clinging to. He took the food. And there he was with the same problem. Life is painful. Life is change. Still a problem. So his buddies that he's being an ascetic with catch him, and they're disgusted with him. Look at you, you lazy guy. Look at you. You're into wealth. You're into self-satisfaction. You're just, you know, what a drag you are. You're not really doing the thing. And so they really put him down and try and make him feel bad.

[19:58]

Or maybe they are trying to make him feel bad. They're upset with him. So this is when I read this poem to you because I think it's so, this is so great. I love this thing. Never know what's gonna happen. So he decides at that point He's going to find his own way, and he's going to try and look within to see if he can find an answer to this. Because these gurus didn't help. This asceticism, it's not outside. He's going, it's not out there, so I'm going to have to find my own answer. With the help of the girl. Give me a rise. So this is a poem called The Journey by Mary Oliver. Maybe many of you have already heard it. But one day you finally knew what you had to do and began. though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice, though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. Mend my life, each voice cries.

[21:02]

Mend my life. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do. You knew what you had to do. Everybody knew what you had to do. though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough. It was already late enough. He'd been at this for six years. He's like 35 now. And a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, The stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice, which you slowly recognized as your own. A new voice. This voice that you recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do, determined to save you.

[22:15]

the only life you could save. So when I read this and I hear her saying, but little by little, as you left their voices behind, you notice there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own that kept you company. I hear that as not her own personal voice, not my me, mine, look what I did voice. but the big mind, Buddha mind voice. That larger voice that can come through you. The voice that is similar to what you hear when Philip Glass is listening for the music. He's not experiencing it as he's making up the music. He's hearing something and writing it down. So we're talking about that kind of a voice that we begin to hear. once we get these old voices that we grew up with, where we learn this kind of negative self-talk sometimes, that kind of, sometimes we call ourselves dumb or we call ourselves lazy.

[23:29]

You have all these things that we learn to call ourselves, some of us, maybe a couple of you have that. And so we have to kind of deprogram that and we have to try and reprogram that bigger voice, that kinder, more compassionate voice. So now he's feeling better. He's eaten. He knows what he's going to do. So he takes a bath and he puts on some clean clothes. And on a spring day like today, when the moon was full, like a couple of nights ago, he decides to sit down under the Bodhi tree. And he resolves, he's going to sit there until it drives up, whatever it is. He's going to really listen. So then Mara comes.

[24:34]

Now, I didn't tell you before, when he left the palace, Mara also came. Mara is the demon of desire. Mara. has temptresses, has a whole army of scary demon-type things. And it's all about desire. And so when he tries to leave the palace, Mara comes and tries to go, don't do that, tries to tempt him and say, don't you want to be the king? Don't you want to be the emperor? And he goes, no. And so Mara fails. So this is the second time now. He's under the tree. And he's been meditating. He's been a yogi for six years. He's pretty good. at meditating. He really worked on it. So Mara comes and says, you know, here's some groovy gals. Don't you want to come and live the good life again? Anyway, Mara cannot derail Siddhartha. And so then Mara brings a whole army of scary demons and tries to scare them.

[25:38]

And that doesn't work. He's a really good meditator. So then Mara challenges Siddhartha and says, I mean, who can testify that you're worthy of attaining this ultimate wisdom that you're looking like you're manifesting right now? Who can testify that this is really what's happening? And at that moment, you've seen these pictures of the Buddha touching the earth. Ever seen one of those? That's that moment that the earth is bearing witness. And as he touches the earth, the earth shakes and some miraculous stuff happens. And he's meditated all night. And a bunch of stuff has happened. It's a whole bunch of stuff happens.

[26:40]

He remembers all his past lives. He remembers everything. And he sees that everything is happening in this moment all the time. And that... He sees how the whole universe works. And that it's all arising and his... and his peace is all coming together at once with absolutely everything in the universe. He is not separate. And as he awakens, he says, I'm awakening with everybody, with everyone. Because everything's connected. So there's no way to awaken without everybody. And he... His mind is at peace. And he says, all beings and I awake together.

[27:43]

So this blows him away pretty much, as it would probably. And so he stays there for another seven days, just sort of integrating this experience. And he realized it wasn't just him. It was the whole universe. And he realizes that he's not entering into some new thing. He has surrendered to that reality that's always there and that's always been there. The joy that's that underground river that's always there. That peace that's always there. And... And that he also realizes he's going to show up and be present regardless because he sees how everything's interconnected. And that you can't really separate birth and death.

[28:48]

That's life. And he examines this in a way that is not thinking. He's experiencing a complete surrender, a complete embrace of this miracle that we're in. And he... doesn't quite know. There's a point here, I'm trying to remember, because this Brahma god comes and wants him, realizes what he's done, and says, you've got to teach, you've got to spread the word.

[29:50]

And he goes, I don't want to do this, I can't do this. Anyway, if I try and tell them about what I've just experienced, they're going to think I'm nuts. There's no way that I'm going to be able to, you know, it's too extraordinary. And And so even though he's in the middle of this and realizing that he's in nirvana and that this is nirvana, that there's no other place, that there's just one place, we're all here in it. And it's the universe. And there's one giant moment and we're all in it. And you can't leave anything out. And he realizes that it was his ignorance that made him feel separate. It was an idea that made him think he was separate.

[30:57]

And that there really isn't any other. So... He gets... talked into trying to go teach this. And he tries to, there's one part of the story, I think he tries to teach somebody, he comes along the path, and the person, and he says, you know, I got it, I got it, I got the whole thing. And I'm enlightened, I got the thing going. And the guy looks at him and goes, I don't, you don't look very special to me. You don't look like a regular dude. And so this was actually a really good thing, because then... And we realize, too, that anybody... Buddha doesn't look like something else. Anybody... We don't even know how many people in here are Buddhas, actually. I mean, everybody's a Buddha. Some people have realized their Buddhahood. But actually, you can be a Buddha and not even realize you're a Buddha. You can have realized your Buddhahood and not even know you realized your Buddhahood.

[32:00]

So we actually don't know how many we got in here. But it feels pretty good. So maybe we got more than one. So anyway, this is a little jumpy about his life. It's not exactly seamlessly in order here. But he ends up moving on, and he bumps into these five guys, the five ascetics who are going, you know, you are eating and drinking, and you're not doing it. So he says to them, listen, you've got to sit down and you really have to dig this because I've got something to tell you. It's really amazing and it really works better than what we were doing. This is really much, much better. You're going to like it. So they are already not impressed with him. Anyway, they're pretty skeptical and they don't give him his due.

[33:01]

But anyway, he... basically then tells them what we have come to learn is his first lecture after his awakening, his first teaching, is the Four Noble Truths. And he says, this is what I discovered. There's suffering. But we don't mean there's like this dissatisfaction thing that we have. And there's a cause of suffering. which is kind of being run by desire, grasping, craving, addiction. And there's a way to end suffering, which is the Eightfold Path, which is sort of a set of recipes of how to conduct your life that is going to help cultivate this seed that's in all of us.

[34:02]

this peace that's in all of us called your Buddha nature. And this is the best part of the Buddha's teaching, I think, is that anybody who's willing to sit still long enough and who's willing to show up and be present and be a compassionate person witness and appreciation for everything you've been through, no matter what, to show up and abide with yourself, you will realize how you're connected to everybody. And this will lighten your love because we realize this is a gift. And that we can't separate our frustration from our satisfaction.

[35:13]

Sometimes I've talked about this with people. I think about two kinds of suffering. The first kind of suffering is sort of the way it is. We're all going to die. We're all going to get sick. These are the things. This isn't exactly suffering. This is just sort of what happens. There's no way out. I call it number one suffering. Then there's this other thing I call number two suffering. Number two suffering is when we start to argue with how it is. I call it do-it-yourself suffering. Do-it-yourself suffering is, why me? I want the red one. Or another example is, it's not fair. It's a whole law profession based on that. It's not fair. And when you hear that come up in you, you realize that you've already forgotten number one suffering. It's the way it is. It's the way it is. It's not bad.

[36:16]

It's not bad. And how we bring ourselves to each moment is how... how we develop our capacity for appreciation, gratitude, and realize that this moment is such a big gift. I mean, I just think, I mean, you're a gift. So, the only doorway to this experience is your own body and mind. You have everything you need. There's nothing missing in you for you to be fully alive, fully human, and awake. All the ingredients are always there at every moment. It's like you have all the ingredients for your recipe.

[37:16]

I mean, you ever try to cook something and you're always missing one ingredient? In this case, you're never missing any ingredients. You have them all the time. They're always there. And... Our job, I think Katagiri Roshi used to say, you're all ready, Buddha. All you have to do is just realize it. All you have to do. Simple. So to me, there's actually nowhere to go. There's nothing else to be. There's no destination. There's not something to aim for. To me, I just don't think, what else is there to do? What else we got to do? Everything else is on loan anyway. So why get your knickers in a twist? I mean, it's just temporary. So let's see, what else did I want to say? I got derailed.

[38:17]

Oh, the Buddhism isn't about being special. It's actually about being ordinary. And it isn't about bliss, finding some oop-dee-doo, hoo-ha state. It's about doing and being normal. And realizing that being completely showing up and being present with compassion and appreciation in each moment is what the practice is. It generates, it makes us feel generous. It makes us feel kind. We can't help it. We can't help it. The more we show up and be present, we just can't help it. And it's important to remember that any person you see might be a Buddha. So where am I? I went and talked way ahead of my notes. So the other thing about this is, too, that he does realize that it's not about getting rid of anything.

[39:24]

It's not about getting rid of your anger or getting rid of your desire. It's about how you dance with it, how you live with all these things that arise. So now it's like this. I'm angry. Anger is arising in me. That's how it is. So I have a choice about what I'm going to do. Am I with that? Am I going to let that anger run me? What is that? about. It's just arising, and it will pass. So it's not about getting rid of desire. We need the desire. We need that desire to be willing to sit here and realize our Buddhahood. So it's about how we live with being fully human. And we develop mastery at learning who we are, what our habits are that hurt us, what our habits are that generate love, compassion, kindness.

[40:33]

Really, it's like the 60s, if you remember, what goes around comes around. I think it's really true. What we generate is what we resonate with, and that's what we end up cultivating around us. And then we're contagious. So the other part of this is the impermanence part of getting comfortable with who you are. That is always changing. That there's no fixed self. And there's no self by yourself. So... once you stop centering yourself on what you're feeling, you know, and your feelings, when you stop thinking it's about you, I guess, stop thinking it's all about you and it's all happening to you, what arises really is simple compassion for your own suffering and the suffering of others.

[41:45]

So, I wanted to close with... This is a kind of wild story. Do we need to believe it? Is it important whether it's true or not? I don't think so. I think it doesn't matter. But the more we study ourselves, the more we do forget ourselves. And I don't think there's anything more miraculous than just sitting here in this room with you all. I mean, it's just, it's so unlikely. When you look out in those stars, it's so unlikely that this planet is here, that we're human. It's, you know, it's amazing. And the more we realize that, that's the teaching. So I want to leave you with just, how many, what I'm,

[42:57]

Is this about the time? Or a little... Is this just about the time? I really appreciate so much that you all showed up. And I feel so supported that you stayed here and listened to Didn't walk out. And I'm just, I'm very, thank you. I want to thank you. And I want to leave you with this last poem by Jane Hirshfield. If you don't know Jane Hirshfield, you should check her out. She has this poem called Moment. A person wakes from sleep and does not know for a time who she is, who he is.

[43:58]

This happens in a lifetime, once or twice. It has happened to you, no doubt. Some in that moment panic. Some sigh with pleasure. How each kind later envies the other who must so love their lives. How each kind later envies the other, who must so love their lives. Whichever way you wake up. Scared or, I don't know who I am. This is joy. Thank you.

[44:57]

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