My name is Robert, for people who don't know me. I feel like I'm taking a little bit of a risk here today, especially since as This might be my only chance to talk here in the Buddha Hall this year, but a couple of days ago, I told my wife, who's here, that I was going to talk about something and reference a teacher, Zen Master Dogen, who's the founder of the Soto School of Zen, which we practice here. And she told me that the quickest way to lose an audience would be to quote Dogen.

[01:07]

Oh, read Dogen, read Dogen, okay. So I was just walking, I just took a little walk down the street, and I had my notes with me, and I realized that It's all Dogen there. So it was a little late to kind of switch tracks. So if some of you start to get up and walk out halfway through, I'll understand. But I'll tell you why I will want to... talk about Dogen, and maybe I might just read a little bit of Dogen here and there. I'll try not to, but I think it may happen. It's because I've been teaching this class on work practice for about two years.

[02:16]

Work as practice, practice as work, kind of... Practice in our activity, in the activity of our lives, which a good amount of that is our work. Even if it's just making our bed or cleaning the bathroom or it might be answering the phone or typing or doing email or something like that. This is the activity of our life. And sometimes it's not so easy to know. how to bring the practice of zazen, the practice of sitting still on a cushion, or however we do it, on a chair, sitting still and kind of looking inward, how to bring that practice into our daily life, into the activity of our daily life.

[03:22]

This can be a real... challenge for us and sometimes it can seem like it's not really possible to do that. But one of the great things about Zen Buddhism, but this is Buddhism across the board, but we emphasize this a great deal in Zen Buddhism is that we engage With our practice, we engage with our mind and with the activity of practice through the actual activities of our life. There's no difference there. That's how we do it. And then we go and sit down, but then we get up, just like we breathe in and we breathe out.

[04:23]

One depends on the other. One informs the other. One is actually essential to the other. And so I've been teaching this class for a couple of years on how to think about doing that, how to cultivate practices, you could say, that help us, support us in our crazy, stressful lives. wild lives that we have, what encourages us to live in relationship, live in harmony with our deepest intentions, our deepest desires, through every moment of the day. So I was going to talk about that today. The model for this kind of This kind of activity, this kind of person, a being who does this in the world is called the bodhisattva in the Buddhist way of thinking.

[05:31]

The bodhisattva, that being in the world who vows to live every moment for the benefit of all beings. And that's a very important kind of archetype for Zen and Buddhism. I remember I was in a monastery in Thailand when I first came to Buddhist practice. And I was reading about these bodhisattvas and everything. And they all had these powers to help people and engage in their activity. different bodhisattvas with different names. And I came to Zen Center within a year after that. And I didn't read anything about bodhisattvas. And I was getting really upset. And I thought, well, maybe this isn't the right practice.

[06:33]

They don't have bodhisattvas here. And so I went in. I talked to the teacher. I said, you know, there's no bodhisattvas. And I'm a little bit upset about that. And Mel Weissman was a teacher I was talking to. And he said something completely different. that didn't even have to do with my question. He said something completely different. And I just had to kind of sit there with my upset about there being no bodhisattvas. And it turns out, as I stuck around and I would read Suzuki Roshi lectures and stuff like that, he's always talking about bodhisattvas. I just couldn't see it at the time. I didn't see that everybody was in the activity. of being bodhisattvas. They weren't running around saying, I'm a bodhisattva, but they were just trying to help each other.

[07:38]

So anyways, I'm interested in how we manifest a bodhisattva in our daily lives, in the work activity of our daily life. So next week, maybe, even another set of classes start up. So I... I'll be doing another series of classes on this on Saturday morning. People are welcome to join if you want to, if you're interested in this kind of thing. Yesterday, I happened to get a phone call from the husband of our abbess, his name is Steve Weintraub, and he told me that he and Linda, who's Linda Ruth, who lives at Green Gulch Farm, were flying yesterday night to go to Washington to participate in an anti-war march in Washington that's supposed to be quite large and hopefully will inevitably have some impact.

[08:53]

And he was... He was excited about this. He was excited about the fact that he was going to go and they had just decided the night before. And I thought, you know, wow, that's a real-life situation of somebody deciding to put their energy somewhere and deciding how they're going to put their energy and contribute and help other beings. And suddenly I thought, does it make sense for me to talk about a work practice situation? And so I thought, I went on the internet, I realized that I'd heard, but now I know for certain that there's a march down Market Street today. And I thought it would make more sense to talk about that a little bit.

[09:54]

today than work as practice. Because actually the bodhisattva, it's not like there's work and then there's play. It's not like, okay, now I'm on the clock and now I'm off the clock. For the bodhisattva, it's just like, okay, this is what we're doing. We're living our life like this. So in some ways, When Dogen talks about the bodhisattva, he's talking about engaging in the activity right now. Right now, whatever we're doing. Just engaging in our activity with a certain kind of mind, with a certain kind of intention, with a certain spirit, feelings. So my thought was, how would a bodhisattva go down to Market Street?

[11:11]

And with what kind of feeling, spirit, mind, body, in what kind of way does the bodhisattva endeavor to So in Dogen's thinking, the Bodhisattva has four methods of realizing their vow to save all beings, to be a benefit to all beings. Four methods. Four activities. One place is translated as the four elements of a bodhisattva's social relations. There are four methods for guiding other beings.

[12:15]

Number one is giving. Sometimes translated as freely giving. Giving freely. Number two is kind speech. Number three is beneficial action or helpful conduct. And number four is translated in different ways, but I like the translation co-operation, co-operating. Also I translate it as identity, action or activity, activity identifying with all beings. So in those four ways, the Bodhisattva, by orienting, by nurturing those skills, those qualities, they step into the world and desire to be...

[13:24]

to live their vow, moment by moment. So I'd like to talk really very briefly about each one of those, giving kind speech, beneficial activity, helpful activity, and co-operating right now. And then maybe we'll have some questions at the end. And I'll try not to... Read too much Dogen, even though I have a little bit. I happen to like it. So, giving. Like I said, the quality of this giving The quality of a bodhisattva heading off the curb, stepping into Market Street and joining others would be giving freely.

[14:32]

Freely. Giving freely. Giving of our most precious gift we could possibly give, which is the energy of our life. Which is why Steve... When he talked to me, he was so excited yesterday. He was going... They don't have any special skills. They don't have any special abilities. They're just going to be one of however many thousands of people there. They weren't invited to say something or bring their robes or anything like that. They're just going to go there, and they are going to... give the energy of their life freely without requiring something in return, really. That's what the bodhisattva does.

[15:35]

They enter into the activity and they give freely without it being tainted by greed. without it being tainted by, well, if I give you this, I'll get this. Which is kind of the normal way of operating in the world, you know? I'll give you just as much as I feel okay about giving, and then I'll expect an equal amount kind of back. So the bodhisattva has a very kind of wide and long time frame for these kinds of things. The bodhisattva understands that giving now will benefit them right there in that moment.

[16:47]

In the act of giving, one benefits themselves. We can test this out and find that out to be true. Steve, when he called me, he was already giving and he was already benefiting because he was excited. He hadn't even, in some ways, hadn't given yet. He was already giving and he was already benefiting. So in this way, we benefit the moment we start giving. But to think that the bodhisattva doesn't look for a sign that what they gave is coming back to them. They understand that what they give will always come back to them without fail. So they don't worry about that.

[17:48]

And that's not part of, that doesn't, like I said, taint the giving. Even right here, right now, all of us in some way are giving. You're giving. We are all giving from our place. We all made an effort to come here this morning. And maybe we have different stories about that. But actually, when we come into this kind of space, we offer things, we do the chant, we have an opportunity to kind of let go of that story and then just be here and give ourselves, give our attention, give the energy of our life. the moment that we give in this way, at the moment that we give without condition, that's the moment that we step onto the Buddha's path.

[19:08]

That's why giving is oftentimes thought of as the first step in Buddha's practice, because actually we have to give ourselves to the activity. We have to give ourselves to the activity. And as we cultivate kind of the trust and we receive back from the universe the message that our giving is being met, then we have our own karma. So we give, we enter into practice, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. but it happens in relation to our experience of giving, giving this moment. And we should understand this in a deep way, not in a superficial way.

[20:12]

As Dogen says, the quality of our present life is a direct result of the practice of giving. It is because in the past we have given to others and have been responsible and accountable for our actions that we receive ourselves as we are today. So in some way, the entire universe is one big activity of giving. We give and we receive. We receive the universe. And we continue to enter into the activity of our lives. It's very difficult. Back to the march on Market Street. It's very difficult to change the minds of people.

[21:15]

It's very difficult. It's very difficult to have an impact on others. Sometimes we think that, well, if others just understood things differently, if they just saw life like this, things would be so much better. In the activity of giving, people are changed. In the activity of giving, the receiver, this is the kind of giving in which the giver and the receiver and the gift are not separate. So in the giving, when the receiver is just giving, No, when the giver is just giving, the receiver has a chance to just receive, and there is an opportunity for people to change there.

[22:31]

That's a place of change. There's a possibility for change there, and we can't underestimate that. We can't think of that in a small way. By starting to give, we change the minds of others. We change our own mind and we change the minds of others. At the end of this first part, this is actually in a... Master Dogen talks about this in his Shobha Genzo. At the very close of this section, he says, The bigness or smallness of mind is beyond measurement. The bigness or smallness of our actions is also beyond measurement. But there are times when our mind changes the action and there is freely giving in which our actions changes minds.

[23:36]

If anybody has to move, don't hesitate to move or be relaxed. Give yourself permission to be in any way you want to be here right now, today. So kind speech. I want to say a couple words about kind speech. Dogen says, kind speech, when meeting living beings, first of all, to have a feeling, compassion for them and then with that as the basis offer caring and loving words and then he also says something kind of interesting in this I mean he wrote this in like in the 13th century you know and he may not have even he may not he may have said it somewhere and somebody else wrote it down eventually it was recorded but he said he says as it's translated anyways in Buddhism There are the words, take good care of yourself.

[24:55]

And there is the disciple's greeting, how are you? So these are his examples of kind speech. How are you? This is the disciple's greeting. How are you? I went on YouTube. I actually wasn't on YouTube. I was on some kind of political website yesterday, and there was a link to a speech that Ted Kennedy, not really a speech, but he was up in the Senate, on the floor of the Senate, and he was...

[26:01]

talking about the minimum wage, debating with other senators about the minimum wage, the senators considering a minimum wage hike from $5 an hour to $7 an hour and how a certain group of senators seem to be introducing amendments to kind of stall the forward movement of this bill and they've been pretty effective. So he stood up and he started kind of softly and then it just started to build and build and build. And at some point he was like yelling, almost screaming, you know, What are you guys thinking? What is the problem with somebody going from $5 to $7 over two years when the minimum wage hasn't been raised in over 10 years?

[27:22]

So as I was thinking about kind speech and I was reading Dogen, he says, we shouldn't have a small view of what kind speech is. Kind speech is not like talking sweetly to somebody. That's not kind speech. That's not necessarily kind speech. It may be, but I thought, you know, that was kind speech I just saw there. That was kind speech because he was doing it with with the intention of helping others, helping others see something. And he had a good intention, I actually believe there. But that kind of speech happens when we come forward in the activity of our lives, the actual activity, and we come forward with the expression of our lives. Kind speech happens when we have the intention to be helpful.

[28:30]

When we're living in our vow, then kind speech takes many different forms and has impacts in ways that we don't even quite understand. The Dalai Lama is like a kind speech. He's out there. And now everywhere you look, there's calendars, postcards. His kind speech is making itself out through the universe in ways that he's not working on. Other people are taking his kind speech. I don't see George Bush calendars in the card stores and stuff like this. One day, I told this story before, but I'll tell it again. I had been at Tassahara, which is one of our practice centers down in the central coast in the mountains.

[29:38]

And there is a building that is kind of a founder's hall. It's a very beautiful Japanese building. It has a very small little room where the people who are called chidens go in and they... sift incense, and they clean these things, and it's a very sweet little small room, and the walls of this room are kind of like earth, tapped earth, and there's grass in the earth, and it's very beautiful, and then there's a little window in this room. It's a really small room, and it's like this wide, and there's a window in that room, and there's no glass, but there's like bamboo twigs that are crossing the space of the window.

[30:39]

It's very sweet. You can look out through the bamboo twigs and see this garden that Suzuki Roshi built, planted, set the stones in. It's very beautiful. It's right behind the abbot's cabin. And it's just if anybody's had the opportunity to do that, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's a very nice feeling to be in there doing the work, kind of Buddhist, Zen Buddhist work of cleaning incense bowls. So I was there one day and actually a student of Suzuki Roshi came into the garden. And he was with somebody else and they decided to stand like kind of right on the other side of this window for me. So I just thought I'd just keep on sifting my incense. And they were talking.

[31:42]

And the fellow he was talking to was really, you know, he was kind of... He was suffering in some way. He was having some problem with figuring out how to express himself, how to say something he needed to say to somebody else. So this Zen teacher, his name's Les K., he was on the other side of this window, and he said, well, Suzuki Roshi said, and then I put my hand down. It's like, You know, there's like, I don't know how old you are, but there was this old commercial that's like these people are in a cocktail party and thin ties and they're hanging out and somebody goes, E.F. Hutton says. And then the whole party, everybody stops, you know. So it was just me and the Blue Jays, but we all stopped.

[32:44]

And he said there's... You have to think three times before you say something. Is it true? Is it beneficial? And is it the right time? Think those things before you say something. So now, Les didn't know that I was listening. And I never told him. But now... I get to sit here and say, pass on his kind words. So we can never underestimate the power of these kinds of things to have an impact in the world. We can never underestimate the power of our kind speech to affect others and be a benefit to others. So the third one is helpful conduct.

[33:56]

Dogen says, helpful conduct means utilizing skillful means to help others to benefit living beings in high or low places by looking into the distant and near future. So here you get a theme. Each one of these, you start to see that Dogen is taking each one of these things and is saying, No matter how far or near or no matter how much back in time or in the future in time, you do something, you engage in your activity in a certain way right now and it will have an effect. It will have an impact. And Dogen is trying to, will encourage us to not underestimate That power. So I have another Tassajara story that I've told before.

[35:03]

But sometimes I like to tell. I'd gone down there after I came back from Asia. This is about 13, 14 years ago. And... I had been there for about 10 days, and it was September, and it was a work period. And I was actually walking out. I was only reserved to be there for 10 days. And I was walking out, and I had my backpack on my back. And I was actually talking to myself and saying how much I didn't like Tassajara, how much I... What a terrible time I had that I hadn't connected with anybody. I had to work really hard. And I was kind of like looking out over this courtyard and thinking, well, I'm just going to continue looking for my practice and my place.

[36:16]

And totally caught up in my own experience there, my own story. And right about the time I was walking by the zendo, one of the teachers, it happened to be the same guy I was talking to about bodhisattvas about two years later. But he comes walking by really fast in front of me and heading to the zendo. And then all of a sudden he turned around and he looked at me and he said, are you leaving? And I said, yeah, I'm leaving. I'm walking out right now. I'm heading back. And, you know, almost like Dogen was saying, we say, the disciple says, how are you, the teacher? I know he was probably busy doing something, but he turned around and he put his hands together and he bowed to me and he said, thank you very much for coming.

[37:27]

We really appreciate your help. From that moment on, the next step I took, the entire place was a different place. I walked out of there thinking, wow, what a great place that was. Man, I'm going to come back here sometime. I did go back there and ended up living there for six years and still, look, you cannot underestimate the power of these kinds of things. In some ways, the activity of the bodhisattva is to enter into the moment not knowing what is going to be helpful.

[38:33]

Asking the question, what is going to be helpful? What is going to be beneficial here? What is it? What do they want me to do? I have the idea about, I walk out on the market street and say, I'm going to be, this is how I'm going to be helpful here. Not so good. Not so good. We walk out onto Market Street or into the lobby or even just right here. What is helpful? What is helpful if we hold that question and we laugh or for somebody else or something in the universe to tell us what is helpful, then we have a chance of being helpful, truly helpful. So, how are we doing with time?

[39:42]

Okay, good, thanks. Last one is cooperation. So cooperation is in some ways kind of the basis for the other three. Giving, kind speech, beneficial action. Cooperation is operating with everything else. Operating with things as they are already cooperating. Cooperating is how things are operating right now. This is the truth of Buddhism. This is the truth of the way things are. Things are co-operating. Everything is dependent on everything else, and in that way, they're co-operating. So in some ways, I just remembered a ceremony I was at in

[40:50]

Years later, that same Zen teacher was there and somebody asked him, what are we learning? And he said, we're learning how to be in harmony with the universe. So the universe is already co-operating. Dogen says, he's quoting a Zen master, Zen master Kanshi, who says, The sea does not refuse water. Therefore, it is able to realize its greatness. Mountains do not refuse the earth. Therefore, they are able to realize their height. Enlightened rulers do not hate people. Therefore, they are able to realize a large following. The sea not refusing the water is their cooperating.

[41:51]

And this is happening all the time. When we fail to cooperate, we start to suffer. Operating doesn't just mean going along with things. It means being in relationship with things. We are already depending on each other in things. We're already cooperating. So sometimes we think that we're not, but we already are. this cooperation exists equally for all people. There's not like there's somebody's cooperating that's working better, cooperating better, and somebody's cooperating that's worse.

[43:09]

It's not like that. It's equal for all beings. it's beyond our usual way of thinking of cooperating our usual way of thinking of cooperating means well things are working out for me you know because people are cooperating with how I want things to go that's our usual way of thinking that things I'm cooperating or things are or not cooperating with me so So Dogen, he's talking about the four ways in which the Bodhisattva walks out onto Market Street with a mind and body and kind of a spirit and a vow to... that's in harmony with the universe and to live a life that benefits all beings.

[44:24]

He closes this entire chapter with a short sentence that I want to share with you. I don't know exactly what it means and why I think it makes sense. But it's a very simple sentence and he says, we should face all things only with gentle faces. do that we have to have faith. This is the Buddhist way of thinking about faith is that our actions will have results and all actions have results and we live in that faith.

[45:41]

So in this faith walking, talking with others, engaging fully in our activity with a gentle face, we will not fail to have a profound impact on others. And we should not underestimate and have a small view of what that could mean. We shouldn't have a limited view and we shouldn't limit ourselves in some way there and think that this small effort to help somebody here is not good enough. Some small effort to say a kind word to somebody that is not going to make a difference in their world

[46:43]

There might be somebody on the other side of the window listening. So maybe that's enough for me. I don't know how long I've talked, if there's enough time for any questions or maybe not. Is this about the normal time, length of time? Okay, good. Yeah. What's that? Yeah, we need to go to the march. Yeah, right, right. So actually, I was usually the person who speaks on Saturday mornings goes to the back of the dining room, and then there's a question and answer. But I thought that I think the march is at 12, and usually that happens between 11, 1130 and 12 or so. If it's okay with everybody, I thought that I wouldn't go back there because I was going to go downtown.

[47:50]

Is that okay with you, Jordan? Yeah? Okay. Okay, good. If people wanted to go walk down together, that might be nice. Right. Lee, do you have something? to march here in support of everyone in Washington. So I brought directions on how to walk from here to the Asian Art Museum, and people were interested in doing that. Perhaps people, if they wanted to do that, could walk to the Asian Art Museum together, and then everyone would join the march. Are you leaving at a particular time? I'm not sure. I think I was looking to glance at the thing to you.

[48:52]

when you might want to be here sounds good sounds good great thank you Lee okay so thank you everybody for giving your your the energy of your life giving your attention today. I appreciate it, and I'm sure everybody else in this room feels supported and appreciates your presence as well. So thank you very much.

[49:39]

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