This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. As always, welcome to everybody to this wonderful temple. And in particular, Welcome to looks like about 20 teenagers. You're all teenagers, right? Some 12? No, 13? 14? Yeah. Teenagers, 13 and 14. One really wonderful adult I know who is now just a wonderful person in the world and a great mother, told me that when she was 14, she was insane.

[01:09]

It's really a big time to be a 14-year-old. So here you are, and today is going to be a ceremony for you and for your... family and for the community a ceremony to celebrate the completion would you say maybe I don't know the are you using the word completion completion of the coming of age program so we have a program at Green Gulch called the coming of age program and it's been going on for 10 years would you say More than 10. Yeah, so for maybe 15 years we've been having coming-of-age programs. The process of coming-of-age is, you know, mostly not a program.

[02:14]

And the process of coming-of-age is not going to be completed today. But we're... We're celebrating the conclusion of a program that you've been in for about nine months, right? With your leader, Cynthia, and your mentors, four mentors, two male and two female mentors, who have been with you during these nine months. And I've been asked today to speak to you before your ceremony. Maybe this is part of the ceremony. I've been somewhat aware of your being here in this program. I was particularly struck one night when the boys were having their overnight.

[03:25]

How many overnights did you have? Two? So one of the boys' overnights I was struck. I was washing dishes on Saturday night. And you boys brought your dishes to me to wash. And I was struck by the way you gave me your dishes. You were very polite. I don't know if somebody told you, when you give the dishes to the dishwashers, be polite and say thank you. But you did. I was really touched. And I also observed the girls when they had their overnights in the dining room, and I was struck by how much fun they seemed to be having with each other at the table. One girl, I don't know which one of you, was very good at making spoons stick to her face. LAUGHTER

[04:32]

It was suggested to me by the mentors that I speak about vowing, making vows and affirmations. So I understand that you have been discussing vows and that today you might make an affirmation of... Yeah, of some intention. And two particular, I heard the expression, two particular prompts for your affirmation. One of them is, in my life, I stand for, and then each of you will say, what you stand for, what you want to stand for, what you aspire to stand for, what you vow, what you commit to stand for in this life.

[05:49]

You might do that later this morning. Another prompt is I wish to give the gift I wish to give to the world is... And then each of you will say what you want to say. So again, I distinguish between the gift I wish to give to the world, to my friends and my family, to my parents and teachers, the gift I wish to give is such and such. I wish. And there's a somewhat difference between a wish, an aspiration, and a commitment or a vow.

[06:54]

And so today you... You could say, the gift I wish to give is such and such, but you could also say, I affirm or I vow to give the gift to the world of such and such. So there's, again, a distinction between an inspiration, like wanting to do something, and aspiring to it so we're given an inspiration we breathe in a wish and then we breathe out or breathe into an aspiration I wish in my life to stand for such and such and I aspire to stand for such and such

[08:00]

And then one more step is I commit, I vow to stand for such and such. On some special occasions, we publicly announce our confirmation of our intentions. We publicly announce our commitment to our intentions, like today, like when you get married, like when you take public office. And here in this temple we have ceremonies where we commit to practice the ethical precepts of enlightening beings.

[09:09]

And today we're not expecting you to make the commitments... of the Zen tradition, which someday you might wish to do. We're actually going to witness you making your own personal public announcement of your own personal wish and your own personal commitment, each of you in your own way, which may lead you to other commitments like marriage vows and things like that in the future. I just thought, you know, when a mother delivers a baby into the world, it's a really intense time and mothers don't necessarily say, I vow to take care of this baby.

[10:24]

But sometimes they do say, I vow to take care of this baby. I want to take care of this baby in this world. But I think many of them deeply feel it, so deeply, that they want to take care of this little person and protect this little person from harm and help them grow up and be healthy and happy. when they feel that, then they realize what their mother must have felt, which they didn't notice before. And then when they have their own baby, they realize how much their mother loved them. Before that, they didn't know. Well, I was told to talk to you for about ten minutes. And it's been ten minutes.

[11:27]

And you have sat like people who are on the verge of growing up. Last week we had a program for younger people than you, and they were not able to be as present and still as you. But still, I was told 10 minutes, and it's been 10 minutes, and I wish you well. as you express your wishes, as you express your commitment to your deep wishes in this life. And congratulations beforehand. Thank you very much. choreography.

[12:51]

Can you see that? Since I could only speak for 10 minutes to the teenagers, there's some things I couldn't tell them about.

[14:59]

But if it's okay with you, we can go on for a little bit longer to talk about vows. At the beginning of this meeting this morning here, we said, I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words Tathagata is an epithet for the fully enlightened being it means one who has gone to the way things really are which is in Sanskrit called ta-ta-ta or in Pali it's nice it's da-da-da it's a word for the way things really are. And the fully enlightened person has gone into the way things really are and also come from the way things really are.

[16:04]

And these fully enlightened beings speak. And we have this vow to taste the truth of their words. They're teaching. It has been proposed that there's various things that make it possible to successfully perform, publicly announce our intentions. Again, when we publicly announce our intentions, they can become vows. And one of the criteria for this is a certain level of cognitive development which these teenagers, I think, have, which is a sense of the concept of the future, the ability to remember a vow, particularly your own, a sense of the passage of time,

[17:30]

Young people have very good memories for certain things, but they don't necessarily remember what they have said. But at a certain phase of our development, we can remember that we did say that we commit to something. And this is a level of development that is appropriate before we make a vow. Another element of it is... that we have a sense that this vow we're making is important to somebody. And that somebody could be ourself. But important to ourselves or others, that's another element of when we make a vow, that it's important to people. Another element in it... is that the announcement be witnessed by someone who we respect and honor.

[18:59]

Could be our parents, our teachers, but that this public announcement is made in the presence of witnesses that we respect. And if there isn't that element of a witness that we respect, it's also sort of another way to put it is that we sense that there will be some painful consequence if we do not follow through on our vow. So today, I think these teenagers And again, I don't know whether to call them children, adolescents, or adults. These beings who are in the process of coming of age, they will be witnessed by people that they honor and respect.

[20:08]

And the other element which I was having a little trouble remembering was the awareness that when we make a vow, there is at least one conflicting intention. So I don't know what vows the children will make today, but for example, the vow to taste the truth of the Buddha's teaching, that vow will be more effective if you're aware that you might have conflicting, some conflicting intentions. And related to that, you might have conflicting intentions is the awareness that for others to have some doubt about your intention, your vow, is reasonable.

[21:17]

Like if you say, I vow to be kind to everyone, someone might doubt that you're going to follow through on that. And their doubt is somewhat reasonable. Because most everybody that vows, that wants to be kind, sometimes does not want to be kind. And even at the moment, when they really commit to being compassionate to all beings, at that very moment, they also have other intentions. And some of them are in accord with that vow of compassion. and some of them contradict. And that's a normal situation, which is part of the reason we make the vows. Because without the vow, as T.S.

[22:20]

Eliot says, we have undisciplined squads of emotions. Our emotions are, generally speaking, going all over the place. And there's a pattern, but it's sometimes... the pattern is really confusion. So the vow is made in the middle of lots of emotional giddiness and excitement to promote the realization of this thing which we aspire to. And we invite, and our awareness that there's conflicting intentions to our vows makes us more mature in our vow making and makes us more accepting that others might have a question about whether we're gonna follow through. In other words, yeah, I think an immature being might make a vow and be quite surprised if anyone would have any question or doubt about their following through on it.

[23:21]

And so when people do make vows to solemn vows to practice goodness with witnesses, one of the witnesses who might be leading that ceremony might invite the witnesses to give feedback to the vowing person if they don't understand why they're not following through on their vow. So if someone says, yeah, I vow to be compassionate to all beings, then, and as witnesses, the witnesses may be invited, and I sometimes say, do you invite the witnesses to support you in these vows? And if they see you acting in ways that they feel are not consistent with your vows, do you welcome them to question you about what you're doing?

[24:31]

And usually in the ceremony, adults say, yeah. If you see me not acting, if you think I'm not acting in accord with my vows, please question me. I'm putting my aspirations and my vows out there for you so you can question me. This is, I've heard, this is a really hard thing for teenagers to do. for people to question them about what they're doing. How was your day at school today? Fine. How are you doing on your homework? It's fine. Most of us sometimes have difficulty being called into question. But without being called into question, we cannot become enlightened.

[25:43]

We cannot fully practice ethical precepts unless we're called into question by others. By ourselves, too, but by others. I wonder if I'm really following my commitments. my vows, my vows to my family, my vows to my community. I wonder if I am. That's good. But we need others to question us too. And they might not question us if we do not express our vows in their presence and also let them know we invite them to question us. So I didn't say that to the coming of age people today because I only had 10 minutes. But this is a possible thing to bring up with them later.

[26:51]

You made these affirmations and we witnessed them and you want us to question you about how it's going. And they might say, no thank you, or they might say yes, or whatever. But anyway, it's a possibility to assist them by questioning them on what they said they wanted to do and their affirmation of their intentions, the kind of gifts they want to give, the kind of things, values they want to stand for. And are you standing for what you said you wanted to stand for right now? May I ask you a question about what you're doing? Are you giving the gift you want to give to the world right now? May I ask you that? Do you want me to ask you that? And they might say, no, I'm not ready for that.

[27:53]

It's too intense, especially from you, who I respect so much. You're so important. When you ask me a question like that, I just can't deal with it. But perhaps they can. And even if they can't today, they might be able to do it next year, maybe when they're 18 or 19 or 26 or 45. Eventually, they might be able to tolerate the vitality of letting others question us about what we tell them we want to do. The power of the vow comes from making it, and we don't make it all by ourself. Others help us. Then the exercise of the vow also isn't done by ourself.

[28:58]

We cannot wish to make the vow by ourselves, We cannot make the vow by ourselves and we cannot fulfill the vow by ourselves. The aspiration, the word aspiration means to breathe into. The aspiration follows inspiration. The aspiration is something which is given to us, which we breathe in, and then we breathe out. And then we have the opportunity to formally, publicly announce the aspiration. This whole process we're actually doing together with other beings. So in the Zen temple, we often speak of the aspirations of enlightening beings.

[30:10]

Somehow they experience an inspiration that they wish at some point to become truly enlightened in order to benefit all beings. That inspiration happens to people, but they don't make it happen to themselves. I don't make that happen to me. After this inspiration occurs, then I can feel, yeah, I aspire to that. And then again, I can publicly announce that I aspire to authentic understanding in order to help all beings. But this inspiration arises in a relationship, in a communion. The other doesn't make it happen to me. I don't make it happen to myself. But in my relationship with others, including all beings and the enlightened ones, in that relationship, in that communion, this inspiration arises in us, can arise in us.

[31:24]

And we can witness it. And then we can say yes to it. And then we can publicly announce it. And of course, the public announcement cannot be done by ourselves. We have to do it with others who are willing to be with us and witness us. In a few minutes we will recite what are called the four great bodhisattva vows. So what I said before was sort of like the fundamental bodhisattva vow is the commitment to realize Buddha's awakening Buddha's Buddha

[32:36]

for the welfare of the world. And then that basic wish is sometimes expressed in four different ways, which we will recite. First is the vow. Sentient beings, living beings, are numberless. I vow to save them. Delusions, afflictions, are inexhaustible. I vow to end them or cut through them. Dharma gates are boundless. Gates to the truth are boundless. I vow to enter them. The Buddha's way, the Buddha way, is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. So that's a fourfold version of I vow to become Buddha for the welfare of all beings.

[33:42]

And one of our ancestors who was giving these, who was reciting these four vows to the community after reciting them, She said, living beings are numberless. I vow to save them. This does not mean that I save them. What saves living beings is their nature. The way they really are is what saves them. And I will save them means the way I really am will save them. And the way I really am is that I'm really you and you're really me.

[34:52]

That's the way I really am. And that way I am is what saves me and saves all beings. And that's what, again, the way all beings are is what will save them and me. Our nature is that we're including each other and included in each other. When we don't realize that, we need to realize that. When we don't realize that, we have afflictions. So then we vow... cut through those afflictions or we cut through those afflictions by realizing what those afflictions are what those delusions are we meet the delusions with the way we really are which is that we include all the delusions and we're included in all the delusions this is the way we really are we don't make the delusions all by ourselves we do it together with everyone

[36:08]

That's the way we really are. That's what cuts through the affliction. All afflictions, again, are calling for us to save them, to meet them with compassion. And when we do, we say they drop away without getting rid of them, They drop away. What drops away? The misunderstanding that they're existing separate from us and that we exist separate from them. And that other people's delusions and afflictions are separate from us and we are separate from them. We drop, we let go of that misconception. We open to the way we're working together. And then these afflictions drop away. And then we see that Dharma gates are boundless.

[37:12]

then we see that every being, every person I meet, every pain I have, every confusion I have, every delusion I have, are all calling for compassion. And in responding fully to that, everything awakens me everything is a door to the truth when I let go of affliction which is the affliction of ignoring that all beings are showing me who I am that all beings are calling for compassion that all beings are me by ignoring that I suffer by letting go of that I see that all beings are showing me the Buddha's teaching and then when everything is teaching me and I am a teaching for everything then I become the Buddha's way which means that I become

[38:41]

really, really humble and really respectful of everyone and everything. I become humble in the face of my own afflictions and other people's. I become humble in the face of everything. And I have reverence and respect. for everything. This is becoming Buddha's way. And I vow to become Buddha's way. I vow to become deeply humble and deeply respectful of all things. Because all things are teaching me, I'm so grateful and so respectful. And they're teaching me because I let go of my delusion that things are not me.

[39:50]

So I'm not doing this by myself. I'm doing it together. Therefore, I make these vows in public. And now we can make these vows in public if you want. The four great vows of an enlightening being. and we can witness each other while we make them. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit S.F. zc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[40:48]

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