It's been, I spent the winter. I spent January, February, March, and a little bit of April down at Tassajara. And so it's been some time since. And then I came back and it was interim week anyway. So I feel like I'm somewhat out of touch with the rhythm of the lectures and talks here at City Center. So I'm very glad to be here tonight. And thank all, I appreciate all of you being here too. So I want to start by wondering, by asking, what brings us to this place? What brings us to this room here snuggled into the wild streets of San Francisco?

[01:06]

And what has moved us all to live in such a way that we're here tonight to listen to this Dharma talk. What lesson might we want to learn? What lessons maybe do we hope to teach about life that brings us here tonight? So in my imperfect way tonight, I want to try to talk about how I understand these things. And the first thing I want to say is that we're all here tonight because we're bodhisattvas.

[02:09]

We are all here tonight because we're practicing the way of liberation of all beings, whether we know it or not. And so tonight, amongst other things, I want to talk about bodhisattva's vow, this word bodhisattva, and this vow to benefit all beings, which is a commitment that... students of Zen, students of the way, make to dedicate their lives towards the benefit of others as well as themselves. But quickly, it gets complicated because in order to talk about the Bodhisattva's vow, I feel I want to also say some things about Sazen. And I want to say some things about living in sangha. And in order to talk about zazen and to talk about living together in community, somewhere in there I feel I would need to say some words about shila, harmida, the practice of ethics, which is in a very real way the foundation

[03:40]

Chila ethics, the foundation of Zaza. Anyway, so here I go. We are all of us, this thing called human. And our human life has a rhythm, has a kind of like a river that starts in the mountains and runs to the ocean, has a flow. We were born. We discover we're independent. We discover we can make choices.

[04:41]

We make choices that we believe are towards our satisfaction. And at some point we might wonder where we are, how we got into this predicament. Maybe we won't, but at some point we might. In this river that flows from our birth to our death, there might be a point where we find ourselves uncertain how we're doing, where we're going. We might even feel that we're lost.

[05:50]

And this feeling that we wonder how to make our way from the place where we are, this is actually not a bad thing. I'm going to recite or read a quote from a woman named Simone Weil who wrote something about our life and how we find ourselves lost and then find ourselves found. And I think her words are very, coming from a different tradition than Buddhism, are a very deep statement of the Bodhisattva as well. So I'm gonna read them right now.

[06:53]

She said, in an essay she wrote, I think in the 1930s, the beauty of the world is the mouth of a labyrinth. What a lovely sentence. The beauty of the world is the mouth of a labyrinth. The unwary individual who, when entering, takes a few steps, soon is unable to find the opening. Worn out, with nothing to eat or drink, in the dark, separated from our dear ones and from everything we love and are accustomed to, we walk on without knowing anything or hoping anything, incapable even of discovering whether we're really going forward or merely turning around on the same spot. merely turning around in the same spot. But this is as nothing compared with the danger threatening us, for if we do not lose courage, if we go on walking, it is absolutely certain that we will finally arrive at the center of the labyrinth.

[08:11]

And there, God is waiting to eat us. She uses the word God. We could say at this very moment, There, God is waiting to eat us, and later we will go out again, but we will be changed. We will have become different. Afterwards, we will stay near the entrance so that we can gently push all those who come near into the opening. So that was her quote. That was her paragraph. And yes, The beauty of the world is the mouth of a labyrinth. And once we step into this labyrinth, once we select one of the branching streams which flow on in darkness and in light, once we select one of these branching streams, we have no choice but to continue.

[09:19]

To continue on until we find ourselves And when we find ourselves, it's when we recognize that we are living in the center of our life. Living in the center of the labyrinth. And at that moment, at that moment when we find ourselves at the center of our life, at the center of our breath, at the center of the labyrinth. We will have our breath. We will have our body. We will have our concentration. We will have our intention to wake up, to ground us. There was a great Chinese Zen master, a great Chinese teacher, one of the enormous ancestors of Zen.

[10:32]

His name was Matsu. He said, when he was asked, what is Buddha? And he said, this very mind is Buddha. This very mind is Buddha. And there once was a person named Shakyamuni Buddha, who 2,500 years ago set in motion the wheel of Dharma under the bow tree and at Varanasi when he taught Four Noble Truths. And at the moment of his great awakening, as he sat without moving, he said, everyone without exception is the Buddha. And there was... or 400 years ago, Zen Master Hakuin, who said, apart from human beings, there are no Buddhas. Apart from Buddhas, there are no human beings.

[11:38]

And there is, in the Genjo Koan, which we chant every week here at Zen Center, this sentence which says that when Buddhas are truly Buddhas, they do not necessarily notice that they're Buddhas. However, and they are actualizing Buddhas, go on actualizing Buddhas. These words, these may be noble facts, mystical truths, utterances, these words that come from me tonight, that also come from the heart of our tradition, can't really nourish you on their own. They don't really mean that much, they're just words.

[12:44]

Until, they're just words, until you can Say them with your own voice until you can feel them with your own heart, until you can know them as truth, unshakable truths in every atom of your body. One day during period of Zazen Suzuki Roshi said, it doesn't get better later. And on another occasion he said, People don't know how selfish they are.

[13:50]

I heard an anecdote about a Zen American Zen teacher named Bernie Glassman, Tetsigan Bernie Glassman. I didn't hear Bernie say this himself, but I heard that he said this, and knowing him a little bit, I can believe it. And what I heard was that at such a moment as this in another time and another place in front of some other people when it came time for a Dharma talk, he began by saying, my name is Bernie and I am addicted to myself. And that's true of so many of us. My name is Jordan and I'm addicted to myself. And people don't know how selfish they are. And I don't know how selfish I am.

[15:07]

I don't want to say this in a way to make everybody feel bad about themselves. It's kind of like the good news. This isn't the good news. I'm not sure what the bad news is. Anyway, this is the good news. The good news is we acknowledge and notice and wake up to this fact. That's what's the good news. Simone Weil, who authored those lovely words about the labyrinth on another occasion in another place, she wrote, what we love in others is the hoped-for satisfaction of our own desires. We do not love them for their desires. And maybe that's not always true.

[16:08]

I hope that's not always true, but it often is. And the beauty of the world is the mouth of a labyrinth. It opens itself up to us, this world in front of us, and we step into it. And soon we find ourselves lost. And I say, we find ourselves lost, but we're not really lost at some level, in some way. Because what we need to know is right here, is right with us. When Shakyamuni Buddha woke up under the bow tree after a week of hard effort and a week of what might be what he felt was first failure, not able to wake up, he didn't

[17:13]

He didn't at any point get up and go someplace else to get more information or to learn something else. He just remained sitting where he was and found, finally, the center of the labyrinth of his life and of our life. So everything that we need to know in this way is available to us is right here. Which is one sort of truth. There are other truths. I mean, one simple truth is that the sun rises in the east. But is that really simple? No. Another simple truth is we get dressed in the morning, put on clothes.

[18:16]

Where do those clothes come from? Is that a simple thing? Not really. But here's some simple words to guide our life, which also are not simple. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them. And Buddha's way is unsurpassable, I vow to become it. These words are the Bodhisattva's vow. This is the life view, this is the life statement of someone who understands that it's necessary to take care of others with the same sense of urgency that we take care of ourselves. Why? Because we're selfish, and we understand that our selfishness is best fulfilled by taking care of others, by being connected to others.

[19:28]

And yes, the word bodhisattva, which is a kind of specialized technical word that perhaps some of you hadn't even heard before tonight, I don't know. It's a word that you might hear if you hang around a Buddhist temple. But Buddhist practice, Buddhist training, is in some ways the learning of a new vocabulary. Buddhist practice is a kind of a commitment to look with fresh eyes at everyday moments, the everyday moments that fill our life and to see how even the simple things that happen to us and that we take part in have a significance, have rebound through our life.

[20:36]

How many of you have ever had a first kiss with someone? Is there anything more fraud, more lovely, more complicated than that simple moment. Our whole life is a first kiss with every second. And in the Zen tradition, in this way of practice that we find ourselves There's something we call Zazen, Zen meditation, which is one of the ways that we face our life, one of the ways we face our life and one of the ways we wake up to our life.

[21:50]

And we do Zazen. we do this Zen meditation down in the Zen Do, the Zen hall. And we can also do it in our living room, our bedroom, our living room Do, our bedroom Do. But here at the temple, we do it in the Zen Do. And when we sit down to do Zazen, we really don't do, by some way of understanding, we don't do anything at all. We sit still. We breathe. We sit still a little longer. And if we notice ourselves doing anything, if we notice, for instance, that we're planning our shopping list or thinking about our sweetheart or feeling like, oh, God, this is boring or whatever, if we notice ourselves in that moment, then we bring ourselves back to something very simple, which is our breath, to dropping that thought.

[22:51]

to dropping that activity, to sitting upright in the midst of activity without being moved by it. And somehow, paradoxically, if we're able to pay attention to ourself in this fashion and in the smallest, smallest parts of our life and our breath be still, Perhaps paradoxically, to the extent that we're able to be so tinily focused, our hearts and minds open up wide, broad, big. And every moment becomes charged with the significance of just that moment, nothing more. Just that wonderful moment. So why would somebody want to sit zazen or practice meditation?

[24:00]

The reasons maybe are varied, and we all might have our own, even in our own life, in our own practice history, we might have our own reasons. And one reason might be that we want to have us realize a special state of mind, a kind of sweet place in our heart for ourself. But actually, that's okay. Good luck. Best wishes, if that's so. But another way, another reason to sit and practice meditation is in order to find out how to live our life in a helpful way so that we can be helpful to other people. A bodhisattva is someone who realizes that their own selfish interests is furthered by benefiting others and being useful to others.

[25:12]

And in the course of that action, in the course of that exercise of helping others, The part which begins with our own selfish interests sometimes just kind of like fades away. The practice of Zen, the practice of Dharma, the Buddha Dharma, the practice of waking up is found in intimate friendships, in intimate relationships. It's found in the moments that arise between you and other people, between students and teachers and friends and strangers. And this practice of Zen, this practice of waking up is nothing more than what's already happening all the time.

[26:23]

The bonds of connection, the sense of interconnectedness, interdependent co-arising connectedness that we develop within our Buddhadharma, Sangha practice. It's not just helpful, it's essential. These are necessary supports for our practicing Buddhism, for our practicing the way of awakening. And in this effort, Buddha is awakened one, and Dharma is the teaching of awakening, and Sangha is the community of practitioners, of people, of everyone who wants to wake up. And in this Sangha community is a miracle that unfolds and envelops our life in a gift that we give ourselves. Being connected to this is a gift we give ourselves.

[27:28]

And practicing in sangha is stepping forth in a major way into fulfilling the bodhisattva vow. And sangha, the connections we make, are profoundly, amazingly mysterious. I know fairly well a person named Norman Fisher, who is a former abbot of the Zen Center. and an all-around nice guy. And Norman once told me and a few other people that he was walking down the sidewalk in San Rafael. He was walking down the sidewalk in a part of town, an industrial area near where the orchard supply hardware store is. It's kind of the flats towards where that bridge that goes over to Richmond is.

[28:32]

And it's also where the Golden Gate Scavenger or whatever, where the Marin County garbage and recycling area has a storage plant. It was a gusty, windy day when he was walking down the sidewalk and he saw some papers fluttering in the distance and the wind fluttering. blew them toward him and one of the papers came down the block and stuck onto his chest and he took the paper off his chest and looked at it and it was a letter written from Japan to Marin County by one of his Dharma students a love letter that someone in Japan had written to someone in Marin County He knew both of them. Now, you know, it's a mysterious connection we make.

[29:40]

And he didn't know that they were in a relationship. What a mystery the first kiss is when we take it, when we make it. What connections are unleashed when we walk into a Zen center, when we say hello to somebody. I didn't want to talk too long tonight for various reasons. It's getting to 8.30 and I still have more things to say and I'm going to try to just make it short. So, Sangha is a mysterious connection that we all feel.

[30:52]

And one of the mysteries of sangha is that it's not just a walk in the park. It's not just sweetness and light. We have a hard time with people, with our friends. Sometimes I think, Sometimes I think we have a harder time with people who are closer to us than we do with people who are, you know, there's some people at the Zen Center who I'm probably 99.99% sympathical with, but that little one-tenth of one percent of one, you know, it just drives me crazy, you know. And there's folks I meet in the day who I'm diametrically opposed to, but they don't bug me because it's just another world system, you know. Those people we're close to. are sometimes the toughest people we have to get along with. And as Thomas, if you, one of the, all of you have various gifts remaining in your lifetime.

[31:59]

And one of them might be, if you take on the reading of Thomas Burton's journals about his, not his other writings, but he wrote a number of books of journals about his life in Gethsemane Monastery. And in one of them he said, talking about troubles with people. He said, we are really helped by, quote, making mistakes individually and as a community. We must learn to profit by our own mistakes and by the mistakes of others because, as usual, the trouble is no trouble at all, close quote. As usual, the trouble is no trouble at all. So in this life we lead, it's very good, very helpful to find people, like-minded folks that support us in our waking up. And when we have a hard time with them, it's very necessary to not turn away from them, to not give up on them, which is the same as giving up on yourself.

[33:13]

And in this effort, one help we can have in our life is the practice of meditation, the practice of zazen. And zazen begins with a simple moment. We sit down, we turn around, we face the wall. And in that effort, we face the person we are. It's pretty simple, but also not doing zazen. And one thing to know is that while zazen is an event that happens during the time of a period of zazen, so zazen is something new to be described of as there's a bell that reigns,

[34:33]

and it starts the period, and then there's another bell that rings ding, or ding, ding, ding, or something, that ends the period, and zazen is in between. Well, really, actually, the real place zazen is measured, the real place that zazen is tested and is known for its value, is when we stand up from zazen. It's about how we are when zazen is over, and our so-called life resumes. And in this moment, not just moment, but in these moments and days and weeks and months, when zazen period ends and we stand up and we walk away from the zanda, we walk into our life. Well, this is why navigating ourselves in this realm is why the practice of shila, of practice of ethics, the practice of benefiting others as well as ourselves is so important.

[35:39]

A committing, making a commitment of ourself to live in accord with All beings, which in other words, for instance, in this room might be making a commitment to live in a way which is sympathetic to the desires and hopes of everyone in this room, or even everyone in our family, or something even smaller. But anyway, committing ourself in this way is not as hard as it might seem. It might seem like a stretch, but it's actually so simple. We take refuge in Buddha, which is awakening. We study the Dharma, which is teaching of awakening, and we take refuge in Sangha, which is the community of practitioners. And as Chagrim Trangpa said about this, doing this is not only simple, it's economical. It's actually, it is. We accept that there is a path of practice that's been laid out.

[36:52]

There might be better paths. There might be, who knows, you know, it's modern world we live in, there's new books being published every day, maybe there's something better coming around the corner, but meanwhile, this is good enough. And in fact, doing this, doing these simple things, dedicating ourselves to waking up, dedicating ourselves to living in harmony with the community of people around us. Doing this has no end. It only gets deeper and deeper and deeper. And this discipline of taking refuge in the precepts, it's not just surrender. It's more like a virus that infects us, that remakes our muscles and body and heart and mind.

[37:54]

And leaves us... It's sort of like, what's that movie? Some movie, Invasion of the Body Statures. It's not really true, Invasion of the Body Statures. But we kind of, we look like we used to look, but we're not exactly the same as we used to look. We're perversely sweet. in the midst of adversity. Or goddammit, we're not sweet in the midst of adversity. But whenever we try to come back to the heart of being connected and finding a helpful moment. Because as we know, all of us know, The beauty of the world is the mouth of our labyrinth.

[38:59]

And the unwary individual who on entering takes a few steps soon is unable to find the opening and worn out with nothing to eat or drink in the dark, separated from our dear ones, our loved ones, and from everything we are accustomed to. We walk on without knowing anything. incapable even of discovering whether we're really going forward or backwards or turning around on the same spot. But this is as nothing compared to what faces us. For if we do not lose courage, if we do not turn back, if we go on walking, it's absolutely certain that we will find the center. And there, This very mind, his Buddha, will eat us, will devour us, will chew us up in one bite without any separation of time.

[40:09]

And we will become changed, we'll become different. We will soon exit the labyrinth and wait near the entrance so that as others pass by, we can gently urge them where is the entrance.

[40:36]

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