Good morning. A story from the Zen tradition about the two truths. The ultimate truth and the relative or conventional truth. One day Yunnan was sweeping the ground. His Dharma brother Da Wu came by and said casually, Too busy. Yunnan replied, You should know that there is one who is not busy. Da Wu said, If so, then are there two moons, two realities, two truths? Yunnan held up the broom and said, which moon is this? Dao Wu, then, stop. There's a commentary to this case which says, good people, as you eat, boil tea, sow, and sweep, you should recognize the one who is not busy.

[01:04]

Then you will realize the union of mundane reality and enlightened reality, the two truths. In the Dongshan progression, that is Soto Zen, this is called simultaneous inclusion, naturally not wasting any time. So this really is our story from the Sokdo Zen tradition, the Sokdo Zen Dongshan's progression, the founder of our school. It's about our daily life and how we are often called on to answer to our fellow students, to our teachers, but most of all, we're called on to answer to ourselves. And to answer with an appropriate response, which means the truth. Tell the truth. But which truth will you tell?

[02:09]

Too busy? Not busy? Or maybe not busy enough? So Jungian holds up the broom and Dao Wu stops talking. So precepts are like this broom. They're for sweeping. And like the broom, they also have two aspects. There's an ultimate aspect and there's a relative or conventional aspect. So one aspect, the relative aspect, is the physical body. We heard quite a bit of information and practice about the physical body yesterday in Shuso's talk so this material body has speech it has action and thought all very familiar to us in fact that's all we know and at the same time this is the reality body holding up the broom the moon

[03:26]

When one side is illuminated, the physical side, then the other side, the ultimate side, is dark. Only Buddhas can see both sides at the same time. So which moon is this? Which side are you on? When Buddha gazed at a star, he said, And then he held up a flower and Mahakashapa said, oh, and smiled. Yunnan held up a broom. The complete truth, which is beyond doing and not doing, is always right before our eyes when we stop and when we listen and when we're quiet. There's no separate self that can be found at times such as that.

[04:38]

And yet it's very tricky in the way it seems. It's very tricky. Constant production of non-existent phenomena. The dust that the broom is endeavoring to sweep away. And I think it's pretty familiar to all of us that we are bedazzled by busyness. And so the Buddha offered us some help, some stop signs called the precepts. These are the not doing stop signs. Stop killing and stop stealing, stop lying. Stop sexualizing. Stop intoxicating. Stop slandering. Harboring ill will.

[05:38]

Stop praising yourself. Stop being possessive. Stop slandering the three treasures. And once we learn to stop, then we can go again. We can do. This is doing. So conventional truth is about doing and not doing. Ultimate truth is beyond doing and not doing. Both at the same time. In doing, we can be very busy doing good, nurturing life, being generous and ethical and patient and vigorous, concentrated and wise. Bodhisattva practices. And all of these start with a vow, a promise. Beings are numberless.

[06:40]

I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. Sometimes I think when we chant we don't listen. It's so beautiful chanting. What are we saying? What did you promise to do? Did you just hear that? Four vows. Each of these vows is a response of the Bodhisattva to one of the Four Noble Truths. The First Noble Truth is Suffering beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Noble truth number two. Their suffering is caused by delusions. I vow to end them. Number three.

[07:41]

Dharma gates leading to the cessation of suffering are boundless. I vow to enter them. And number four. The path, the Buddha's way, that leads to the cessation of suffering is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. for the sake of all suffering beings, which brings us right back to noble truth number one, an endless circle for an endless vow. When you take these vows to heart, when you do listen to them and you mean them with all your heart, you are a Bodhisattva. And yet Okamura Roshi says in his book, Living by Vow, such a practice... is like trying to empty the ocean with a spoon, one spoonful at a time. And then he says, it is certainly a stupid way of life, not a clever one. A clever person cannot be a bodhisattva.

[08:45]

If we're clever, we wouldn't try to achieve something infinite and ultimate. We'd know that no matter how hard we practice, how hard we study, and how much we help other people, there will be no end to it. And that our achievements, when compared to something that's ultimate and infinite, is virtually nothing. It's good for our humility. We have a t-shirt at Green Glotch, it says, working hard, accomplishing nothing. It's another advertisement for Green Glotch, I'm sorry. I love your laughs. So a clever person cannot be a bodhisattva. Lucky for me.

[09:48]

And yet, as Okamura goes on to say, according to Dogen Zenji, even a tiny spoonful of effort is the practice realization of totally culminated enlightenment. And just like the star and the flower and the broom and the moon is the manifestation of ultimate reality. every tiny spoonful. Traps and snares can never reach it. Once its heart is grasped, you are like a dragon gaining the water, like a tiger taking to the mountains. So maybe being not so clever isn't so bad after all. Dogen says between the doll and the sharp-witted, there is no distinction and therefore everybody gets to play. So today, this second day of our Sashin, I'm going to talk about the importance of the Bodhisattva's endless vow, which both preceded and accompanied Shakyamuni Buddha at every step of the path on the way to his own enlightenment, a vow which has not yet ended.

[11:00]

And I'm going to start by sharing the full story from the Pali Canon of the monk Sumedha, who by virtue of this vow became our founding teacher, Shakyamuni Buddha. Countless eons ago, in a city called Amaravati, there lived a Brahman named Sumedha, a son of good family. When Sumedha was still quite young, his parents died, and the minister of state, who was the steward of the family's property, showed Sumedha the wealth accumulated for seven generations. that he now had inherited from his parents. The family treasury was filled with gold, silver, gems, pearls, and other valuables. When Sumedha saw the treasure, he thought, after amassing all of this wealth, none of my ancestors were able to take even one penny with them when they passed away. Can it be right that I could seek to take any wealth with me to the end of my days?

[12:04]

Then he told the minister of state that he would give all this wealth to the poor and leave home to become a spiritual secret. He saw how a life of transmigrating within samsara, the cycle of birth, sickness, aging, and death, was suffering, and he wanted to find the path of deliverance that would lead to nirvana, extinction, no more rebirth. And he thought, Suppose a man, after falling into a heap of filth, hears about a distant pond covered with lotuses of five colors. That man ought to search for that pond. If he does not, that's not the fault of the pond. In the same way, there is a lake, the great deathless nirvana, in which to wash off the defilements of my harmful karma. If I do not seek it, that will not be the fault of the lake. So he left home and entered a forest in the Himalayas to practice as a hermit. Because he was a person of great integrity, he attained superhuman knowledge and supernatural powers.

[13:13]

He's a superhero. One day, Deepankara Buddha appeared in the world and began to teach. He taught in a town nearby where Sumedha was living in his secluded hermitage. To prepare for the Buddha's arrival, the people of the town began to fix the road which had flooded and to decorate it with flowers. Sumedha, through his powers, knew of the Buddha's visit and flew to the town, offering to help with preparations. The people were so excited because they knew Sumedha could fix the road with his supernatural powers in time for Deepankara Buddha's arrival. But Sumedha, although he could have easily repaired the muddy road, wanted to do so with his own hands instead. He started to carry the soil by hand, and unfortunately Dipankara Buddha and his assembly arrived before his work was complete. Sumedha did not want the Buddha to walk through the mud, so he loosened his matted hair, lay down on the ground, and with outstretched hands asked the Buddha to walk on him.

[14:24]

a dramatic enactment of his deep desire to take refuge in a triple treasure. This is going to look really familiar to you. Because this is the practice we do every day, many, many times. We prostrate with five points of our body, our knees, our elbows, our forehead. And then we place our hands out, stretch, for the Buddha's feet, bare feet. And then gently we lift the Deepakara Buddha, over our heads and back down again. Sometimes when new students come and they start to bow, I see them doing this. I'm like, oh no. You just flipped the Buddha. So imagine for yourselves as you do this act of veneration with your material body, you know, lifting the Dharma body up over your head. The two truths. Right there in that gesture.

[15:25]

Your hands. Ultimate reality. While lying there in the mud, Sumedha looked up at Dibhankara Buddha and thought to himself, if I wanted, I could now enter the Buddha's Sangha and by practicing meditation, free myself from deluded human desire and become an arhat. Then at death, I would at once attain nirvana and cease to be reborn. But this would be a selfish course to pursue, for thus I should benefit myself alone. I want to help all beings as Deepankara Buddha is doing now. I am determined. And then he made a vow. I vow to attain what Deepankara has attained, Anyuttara Samyaksambodhi, the complete perfect enlightenment of a Buddha for the benefit of all beings. When Deepakar Buddha saw Sumedha lying on the ground, he understood that the young man had vowed to become a Buddha. He told his assembly that in the distant future, Sumedha would become a Buddha named Shakyamuni.

[16:32]

Hearing this prediction, Sumedha was overjoyed, believing that his vow would be realized. Thus, Sumedha became a Bodhisattva, meaning a Buddha-to-be, vowing to remain in samsara until all beings, had been saved. So this bodhisattva vow is the heart of human life. Whether we know it or not, or we believe it or not, or whether we say it or not, some part of us, some part of our mind turns towards the thought of enlightenment. We are the thought of enlightenment. Whether we know it or not, believe it or not, say it or not. And some part of our body turns with the mind, as the mind, toward this image.

[17:34]

And we bow. And we hope, perhaps, that we too can become awakened beings. I think it's a natural thing for us to want something so wonderful as enlightenment, you know. I mean, what else could you possibly want that would be better than that? And I was trying to think of some things like Tesla or a house in the Hamptons. My mom used to say all she ever wanted was a square-cut emerald. Mom. I'm such a disappointment to her. And I said to you, you know, I really did. I went crying to REM down here at Tassajara one day when I was a student here because I could see that I really didn't care about anyone else at all, how they were progressing on the path.

[18:38]

You know, I just cared about myself. Hinayana mind in Mahayana clothing. And he said with a kind of gentle but wry smile, well, thank you for your confession. Now go wash your face. There's no separate self. You're just dreaming. Nightmare. And yet I think we all know that there's no place to start but where we are. And most often, if not always, we are starting from selfishness. That's all we know. It's not our fault. We were actually born like that. You know, in fact, the Yogacara teachings, the four defiled thoughts, the klishta manas, are pretty much all about selfishness. And these four defiled thoughts are what are blocking our view of our Buddhavood.

[19:43]

The first one is ignorance, which is a universal, at the top of the 12-fold chain, ignorance. The blind man with his stick walking across a log that's crossing a deep chasm. Ignorance. And the second one is belief in self. The third is conceit about that self, whether as the best or worst of all humans. And the fourth is a love for that self above all others. Your basic narcissism. And yet Right there is our first taste of liberation. When we look closely and we see how selfish we are and we admit it to ourselves, right there a precept is suddenly born. Maybe the most important precept of them all, a disciple of Buddha does not lie.

[20:43]

And this truth will set you free. I'm selfish. That's right. Did it? good for you. Because that's the truth. This is this radical candor, you know, the truth that sets us free. But please don't forget that radical candor is only allowed when you are coming from a place of love. And if you're not, it's better to remain quiet. I found a really amazing story in the Pali Canon about the power of telling the truth. a young boy is bitten by a poisonous snake, and the distraught parents stop a passing monk and ask him to use his medical knowledge to save the child, the monk replied that the situation was so grave that the only possible cure would be emphatic statements of truth. So the father says, I have never seen a monk that I did not think was a scoundrel.

[21:49]

May the boy live. And the mother said, I have never loved my husband. May the boy live. And then with that, the poison retreated to the boy's waist. Then the monk said, I have never believed a word of the Dharma, but I found it to be utter nonsense. May the boy live. With that, the boy rose completely curious. Such is the power of truth. radical candor told out of love, and yet there's going to be hell to pay. So this is the first step that we take in preparing ourselves to receive the Bodhisattva precepts. It's called confession and repentance. Repentance, atonement, confession, are intimately connected to the Bodhisattva vow. They are basically two sides of one practice. And that's because

[22:52]

Saving all beings, vowing to save all beings, it's not something that you can do. So that's our repentance. I'm sorry, I'm going to fail. Our awareness of incompleteness is in itself our confession. I can't finish this job. I promised I would and I just can't do it. Even the Buddha said this as he was dying. I'm sorry, I have to go. This old body won't carry me any longer. You have to carry on by yourself. I've told you everything. Goodbye. Or so it seemed. I think you've all seen the Enso, the Zen Master draws. There's a number of them around Zen Zen. They're never complete. This is an expression both of the teacher's personality, but also of their understanding of the truth of incompleteness. This vow will never end, will never be closed.

[23:58]

So this is the truth for all of those who undertake the bodhisattva vow and the bodhisattva practice. And while at the same time we understand that there's no way we can complete the job, still it's important for us to also make some personal declarations of our own shortcomings. I think this is a way that we kind of harmonize or... resonate with the task and the person bound to accomplish the task. Something consistent. Mel once said, saving all beings means to save all the beings that you are. I thought that was really good. Shantideva says that one law serves to summarize the whole of the Mahayana. The protection of all beings is accomplished through examination of one's own mistakes.

[24:58]

And this is illustrated in another interesting story from Pali Canon, a Jataka tale. Jataka tales are stories of the Buddha's former lives, the Bodhisattva lives that Sumedha lived through, becoming Shakyamuni Buddha. So this one takes place at the beginning of Sumedha's search for truth. in which he has to also undertake this kind of self-examination. At one time the Bodhisattva was a king named Subrabhasa, and one day he asks his elephant trainer to bring his great white elephant for him to ride, but the trainer tells him that he had escaped into the jungle, but that he would soon return because he was well trained. The king did not believe him, became furious, yelled at the trainer and told him to leave. The next morning the elephant returned and the trainer said to the king, You see, your majesty, the training was good. We have conquered his old wild ways. The king then said, Though I am a king holding great power over others, I have as yet failed to conquer what is closest, myself.

[26:09]

I was unable to control my own anger, and this will not do. So this kind of honest self-evaluation helps to motivate us and inspire us. I think it takes a lot of courage for the king to admit to his own shortcomings and then to vow to do better. I must do better. This won't do. I think, unfortunately, oftentimes we back away from acknowledging our mistakes, our shortcomings. And we... kind of lead with a bunch of excuses or justifications. I often think of it as like squidding. You gotta shoot these justifications at people so they can't really see you there. It wasn't my mistake. Somebody else did. My favorite is actually a true one. My dog ate my homework because it happened right here in Tassahara.

[27:13]

I went back to my cabin and there on the floor was the precept book I was studying, and Mac had chewed it all up. It was shredded to thousands of pieces. So it's not my fault. Although I have to pay the library for the book. Mac doesn't have a credit card. It was on. So I've always appreciated at Zen Center the practice we have of acknowledging our mistakes. I really think it's such a gift, you know, that you could just stand at the work circle and say, I'm sorry I forgot the wicker bell, or I'm sorry I hit the Han early, you know. It's kind of a relief. You don't have to go on and on about your alarm clock or, you know, your ant or anything else. Just, I did this, I'm sorry, bow, the end.

[28:15]

That's all you need to do. I was telling Heather that some years ago, our pre-script was reading the Shobu Genza. We read all of the fascicles. It took us a couple of years reading one a week. And our assignment was to write a four-verse poem for each fascicle as we read it. And then one week I was way too busy and I didn't get the fascicle read and I didn't write the poem and it was time to go to the meeting. My first thought was that I was sick. I wasn't. So then I kind of quickly read through the poem, the fascicle, and I had no idea what I was going to do for my poem. And then as I was going out the door, it came to me. No excuses. I thought, that's brilliant. So I read it and read, kind of smiled and, you know. But then I thought, you can't use that again, fortunately.

[29:19]

Just one time, like some of these tanking excuses, you know, can I do that one once? Got to come up with it. No excuses. So it's part of the Mahana position to repent, not only this impossibility of completing the task and our own current transgressions, but also our previous way of living, you know, How we've been doing up till now. Which is exactly what we chant every morning. All my ancient twisted karma. All my ancient twisted karma. From beginningless greed, hate and delusion. Born through body, speech and mind. I now fully avow. I acknowledge. I accept the truth of this. This is mine. It's mine. It's coming to me. Deep faith in cause and effect. And repentance has some very interesting historical meanings and other languages.

[30:20]

In Greek, it means a change of mind or a change of conduct. In Hebrew, repentance is represented by two verbs. One is returning, and the other is feeling sorrow, which in terms of the Bible means basically a conversion from this self-love, which is inherent in all beings, Christians, Buddhists, or whatever, and Jews, is converting from self-love and self-assertion to an obedient trust and commitment to God. So selflessness. You turn your trust toward the deity. And for Buddhists, it's kind of the same thing. It's the same sort of intention, but rather than turning our trust and commitment to a deity, we turn it to the welfare of all beings. We become... something like stewards of creation. I don't know who created creation, but we are the stewards of creation, whoever we have to thank.

[31:22]

So it's also interesting for me to note that among all of the dharmas, which these are not small dharmas that I mentioned briefly in class, the 75 dharmas that describe all of the different elements of our experience, what we are, As a person, is that kind of like an elaboration of the five skandhas? More detail. Of all of the 75 that are mentioned, only two of them are wholesome. And the two wholesome dharmas are feeling ashamed of wrongdoing and dreading the consequences of what you've done. It's also called sense of shame, dread of blame. I think this is challenging to our modern ears because many of us feel a little overburdened by shame. It's almost like a psychological illness that we would like to not be so ashamed. And I think that's right. However, I think it's important for us to look at what it means to be concerned about other people and how they think about us, how they feel about us.

[32:35]

And also to look at our own behavior. How did I feel when I acted like that? Am I ashamed? Guilty, I think, is about other people. You know, I feel guilty, but you're judged. But shame is from inside myself. I can see how it's a good thing to notice when I'm not so proud of that. You know, if you lack shame, a sense of shame, and if you lack any concern about others, the extreme form of that is a sociopath. You really don't care about what anyone thinks of them. Maybe they do underneath, or maybe it's truly an illness. There's nothing underneath. Really no caring for themselves or for others. So there's another lovely idea that I found from the Pali Canon. This is a footnote that was written by Bhikkhu, I think his name is Thamasaro.

[33:36]

Thamasaro? Anyway, he writes a lot of wonderful things. This is a footnote to the instruction to Rahula, this Buddhist son Rahula. It was given at the Mangal Stone Grove. Throughout ancient cultures, the terminology of music was used to describe the moral quality of people and of their actions. Discordant intervals or poorly tuned instruments were the metaphor for doing evil. The first pure precept. Harmonious intervals and well-tuned instruments were metaphors for doing good, the second pure present. In Pali, the term sama means even and describes an instrument that is well-tuned, even. This word sama is also the same word that's used in samana, meaning a mendicant or a monk, samana, well-tuned, even. And it refers to the quality of being in tune with what is proper and good.

[34:38]

There's a passage from the sutras where the Buddha reminds Sonakalavisa, who is overexerting himself in practice, he's going way too far, that a loop sounds appealing only if the strings are neither too taut nor too lax, but evenly tuned. The middle way. So... I think on that note I'm going to end for today. Thank you all for your kind attention.

[35:11]

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