Okay, a couple, one of the kids, okay. So Bodhisattvas basically are just wonderful beings, wonderful people who, great beings who help everyone to awaken together. And there are many, many stories about the Bodhisattvas and there are a number of specific Bodhisattva figures in our tradition, in these days in Buddhist tradition, which I'm going to be talking about today. But I'll start with a story about Manjushri. So Manjushri is the Bodhisattva of wisdom and he's always in the center of the meditation hall. So if you go downstairs sometime and look on the altar, there's a little statue of Manjushri holding a sword because he holds a sword to cut through confusion. And sometimes he rides on a lion. But he's usually shown as a young person, as a young prince, because wisdom in Buddhism

[01:01]

is not something that we acquire from a lot of learning and classes and study. Wisdom is something that we have when we're children. Wisdom is something we have from the beginning. So we adults often lose our wisdom when we stop being children and we have to come and sit quietly for a long time to find out how to be children again. One story about Manjushri. Manjushri has a magic mountain in northern China. So many of the Bodhisattva figures have special mountains where they live and appear. And this mountain in northern China called Wutai Shan, many people have gone to, to try and see Manjushri. And it says, the stories say that when you go to this mountain and you climb up the mountain, sometime or other you will see Manjushri. And he may not look like Manjushri usually. He may not be riding a lion or carrying a sword or have lots of light around him like a wonderful, great, magical Bodhisattva.

[02:04]

Sometimes a lot of times he appears like a beggar, like a homeless person. So there's one story about a temple on this mountain where they were having a big feast. And one of the people who didn't live on the mountain but who was a donor, a supporter of the temple provided this big feast for all the monks at this temple. And they also welcomed everybody else to come in. But the donor didn't like it when he saw some homeless people coming in because he wanted to give the food to the monks because that way they believed in China that you would get lots of merit, you would, good things would happen to you if you helped support the monks. But anyway, some homeless people came in and one of them was a pregnant woman who was going to have a baby. And after she had her first helping of food, she went up and said, can I at least have some more for my baby? And the donor who had provided the food said, oh no, get out of here, you're just a beggar. So she started to walk to the entrance of the temple and then suddenly she changed and

[03:09]

everybody could see that she was actually Manjushri riding a lion with brilliant light coming out from her. So all the monks bowed down and the donor was very ashamed. And after that, at those temples, when they have a feast, everybody can come and eat as much as they want. So that's one story about the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. Another Bodhisattva, and there's a picture of this Bodhisattva right outside the store when you leave. If you look on the left, there's a picture of her name in Japanese is Kanon or Avalokiteshvara. She is the Bodhisattva of kindness and compassion. And she helps beings and is very kind. And there's a story from Japan, a place where they had a natural hot springs. Have any of you been to Tassahara? Oh yeah, so at Tassahara they have a natural hot springs. And this town in Japan had one too.

[04:11]

And one of the townspeople had a dream. And he dreamt that the great Bodhisattva Kanon was coming to their town. And he wondered in the dream, well how will I know it's the Bodhisattva Kanon? And in the dream they told him it would look like a warrior, like a samurai warrior. And they described him. So this man told all the people in the town after he woke up from his dream, hey Kanon is coming to our town. And at the time the dream said, at noon on the day that the dream said, all the people in the town came to the center of the town where the hot springs was. And what do you know, but into town rode a samurai, a warrior, who looked just like the person in the dream. And all the townspeople started bowing down to the great Bodhisattva Kanon. And the samurai said, what is going on? What are you people doing? And finally one of the priests who was there said, oh there was somebody who had a dream that Kanon was coming to town, and he looked just like you. And the samurai said, no, what are you talking about?

[05:15]

I fell off my horse and I came here to this town to go to the hot springs to get healed. And the townspeople kept bowing down to him, because they said this is the great Bodhisattva Kanon. So finally after a while the samurai warrior said, well, you know, maybe I am Kanon. And he took off his armor and he took off his sword and he became a monk. True story, historical story. Okay, the last Bodhisattva I want to tell a little story about is the Bodhisattva Jizo. In Sanskrit, in Indian language he is called Kshitagarbha, but in Japanese they call him Jizo. And he especially takes care of children. And he always appears as a monk. And there is a wonderful statue of him at Green Gulch Farm. If you ever go there in the Zendo, there is a beautiful statue of him. And so Jizo particularly takes care of travelers and children. And people who are having a hard time.

[06:15]

And when I was living in Japan, in Kyoto, they have a ceremony, a celebration, kind of a festival every summer called the Jizo Obon Festival. And they set up an altar like on every block or so. And all the children come and they do chanting, Buddhist chanting. And they recite the sutra, the scripture of Jizo. And the children play games and they put candy on the altar for the Jizo. So it's very, children all love Jizo. And Jizo does many things to help people. So especially along with children, he likes to help farmers and people who work in the ground. Because his name means Earth Treasury Bodhisattva. So he likes people who are close to the earth. And he likes children because children are smaller and they are closer to the earth. So there are some stories about him helping farmers. Like a farmer who had a big job of harvesting to do.

[07:16]

And didn't know how he was going to finish it and prayed to Jizo one night. And the next morning he went out and saw that a lot of the work he had to do was done. And he went to the Jizo statue, because there are lots of stone Jizo statues all over Japan. And saw that the feet of the Jizo statue were muddy. So the Jizo had been working in the fields for him. And there's another story about somebody who worked at one of the temples. On one of the holy mountains in Japan. So he worked helping out the priests there. And one of the priests said, you have to clear the snow. Because it was very cold on this mountain. And you have to clear the snow because the Jizo statue, who was in the hall there. He goes out early in the morning and helps people. So you have to clear the snow away so he can get out. So one morning this worker was shoveling snow. And he was kind of feeling grumpy. And he said, if Jizo said well, why doesn't he come and shovel the snow himself? The next morning he got up to go and shovel the snow.

[08:17]

And he found the snow all shoveled. And he went in to see Jizo. And there were wet tracks to the Jizo statue. So these are stories about the great Bodhisattvas. So anyway, when you walk around this building, if you go out in the courtyard. You may see some pictures of some of them or some statues. So thank you for giving me this opportunity to tell some stories to start with. So I hear there's tea and cookies or milk and cookies outside for the children. Thank you. Thank you. So this talk this morning is kind of an introduction to a workshop I'm doing here this afternoon

[09:20]

from one to five about the different major Bodhisattva figures. And this is based on a book I've been writing. It's now in the editing stages of the publishers about the different major Bodhisattva figures. There's only a handful or so of them in East Asian Buddhism. And often they're appreciated in the light of the kind of stories I just told. And they're devotional objects and they exist as celestial cosmic beings. But they also, I believe, can teach us, give us examples of what it means to live a spiritual life. What it means to do spiritual practice. How we come to live in accord with Buddha. So although I think you've all heard of Bodhisattvas, maybe I feel like I should mention a few things first about what Bodhisattvas are

[10:23]

before I get into talking about the different figures. So basically, Bodhisattvas are inspired with the heart of enlightenment in Sanskrit, bodhicitta. The thought of awakening and this enlightenment or awakening in the branch of Buddhism that we're from, in Mahayana Buddhism, is about everyone awakening. It's not about just one person. It's impossible for one person to be enlightened. We all do this practice together. We all awaken together. So Bodhisattvas are dedicated to working towards universal awakening, towards helping all beings, towards benefiting all beings too. We're waking together. Is that better?

[11:27]

I think what's happening... Thank you for telling me. Is that better? So should I start all over again now? Which parts didn't you hear? I thought you were saying samurai warrior, and I'm definitely a warrior. Well, some of the samurais were warriors, but there were also warriors. Warriors. What else didn't people hear? Okay, well, we'll just pretend that everybody heard everything perfectly.

[12:37]

Anyway, Bodhisattvas are dedicated to helping all beings to awaken together, to finding the way to live in harmony with spiritual awakening together. And I think we could speak of four aspects of Bodhisattvas, or four dimensions. So the first one is this dimension I was talking about, the kind of celestial, cosmic, great Bodhisattva, who in some sense is seen as out there. And throughout the history of Buddhism in Asia, people have prayed to, in a sense, or have devoted themselves to, or have chanted towards these great beings. But even in Zen, even in our tradition, we understand that there is some way in which, even though we meditate and try to study ourselves and work on our own practice, there's some way in which these forces, these energies, these great beings, exist in a sense out there. Maybe there's no difference between out there and in here.

[13:41]

But anyway, that's the first aspect of these great celestial, cosmic Bodhisattvas. And maybe I should mention the five I want to talk about today. Manjushri, I already mentioned, is the Bodhisattva of wisdom or insight. Samantabhadra is the Bodhisattva of action in the world and inspiring presence and vision in the world. And Avalokiteshvara or Kanon, I mentioned the story about, is the Bodhisattva of compassion, whose picture is right outside here. And then Jizo, the earth's treasury or earth womb Bodhisattva, is very popular in Japan. And the fifth one I want to just say a little bit about today is Maitreya, the Bodhisattva who will be the next future Buddha. So these five are revered as great Bodhisattvas

[14:41]

who can actually help us in some sense. So that's one aspect, that's one dimension of Bodhisattvas. Another dimension is that these Bodhisattvas actually manifest themselves in the world as particular great beings, as historical beings. So for example, His Holiness the Dalai Lama is considered formally to be an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of compassion. And historically, through his history in Asia, there have been a number of actual historic people who have been considered to be expressions of particular ones of these Bodhisattvas. And we might speculate as we go on the workshop today about what people in our world, who we respect in our world today, are in some sense expressions or exemplify aspects of these particular Bodhisattvas.

[15:46]

So again, these five Bodhisattvas I'm talking about today, I see as archetypes of spiritual practice, as patterns for us to follow, as guides for us to find our own individual unique way of expressing spiritual practice in the world. So that brings it back down to the third dimension, which is that in a sense all practitioners of this kind of Buddhism are Bodhisattvas. So after this lecture we will chant the Bodhisattva vows, beings are numberless, I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them. Dharma gates, gateways to the teaching or to reality are boundless, I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable, I vow to become it. This orientation, this dedication towards awakening with everyone is something that we take on when we just start to sit zazen. I know some of us come to zazen initially because we just want to feel better.

[16:51]

We're in pain one way or another and we feel like maybe we will have less stress and less worry and less worrying too. But also it's something that we actually do together. So everyone in this room, just by virtue of being here, is already in the realm of the Bodhisattvas. In some sense we are all doing this Bodhisattva practice. So how does our own personal history and personal expression of our deepest, innermost request, our own desire to help others, to help ourselves as well, to live in accord with spiritual light and awakening, how does that reflect these different Bodhisattva figures? Then the fourth aspect is that in some sense all beings are Bodhisattvas

[18:00]

because when Buddha awakened, this is a statue of Shakyamuni Buddha who was the historical Buddha 500 BC in northern India. In some sense when he awakened everything, not even just people or animals or sentient beings, everything was awakened. So everything has this quality of wisdom, this quality of compassion that the Bodhisattvas express. So that's kind of introduction to what these Bodhisattvas are. So I can only say a little bit. I could talk all day about any one of these five. I could talk for a week about any one of these five, but I'm going to say a little bit now about each of the five, just to get a sense of how they might be examples or patterns for us of some kind of spiritual activity that we might find a way of expressing ourselves. And then this afternoon we'll go into more detail about them.

[19:01]

So Manjushri, I've talked about a little bit before, is the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. So he rides a lion because he's kind of very powerful, dynamic. And sometimes he carries a sword to cut through confusion, delusion, desires, attachments. And as I said to the children, he usually appears as a young person, as a prince, as a 16-year-old, because the wisdom that Manjushri teaches, the teaching of emptiness, the emptiness of all of our ideas about who we are and what the world is, the emptiness of all things we want to hold on to, this teaching of wisdom is not something that we learn exactly. We can study it analytically, and there are lots of wonderful books about Buddhist philosophy, but this wisdom essentially is something we see when we just sit. So Manjushri appears in the meditation hall always because it's in our turning within that we find insight. So if you think about children and the wisdom of children,

[20:06]

we all have some connection to this wisdom. So my friend Stephen gave me this example of Hans Christian Andersen's The Emperor's New Clothes. So it was the little boy who was the only one who was willing to say the truth. The emperor doesn't have any clothes. So what Manjushri does is to see through all of our fabrications. He sees through all of our pretensions. So when we settle within, when we allow our fundamental insight and wisdom to express itself, we see through all of our confusion. And there's maybe long work to what Manjushri does, but this is what Manjushri is dedicated to. Manjushri particularly works with language. So in many of the Buddhist sutras, Manjushri is the person who asks the question to the Buddha. And Manjushri shows us how we get caught by our language, how we get confused by our belief,

[21:16]

our attachment to our ideas about, our notions about what the world is, and who we are, and who all of you are, and our belief, our delusion that we are separate from the world. So usually we think that our language is structured based on subject and object, subject, verb, object, and we think that we are doing something to this world of dead objects out there, or we think that we're the object who's being victimized by a bunch of subjects out there. Either way, our language separates us from the world. So Manjushri uses language, sometimes at great lengths, to show the failings of language. So I'll move along and maybe come back if there's time. The second Bodhisattva, Samantabhadra, in Japanese, Fugen, is kind of Manjushri's partner.

[22:20]

Samantabhadra rides an elephant, and it's a magical elephant. It's a white elephant with six tusks, and every time the elephant lifts his foot and places it down, a lotus grows out of the ground to meet the foot of the elephant. So Manjushri is very interesting to me. Manjushri activates the wisdom, I mean, excuse me, Samantabhadra, the second one, activates the wisdom of Manjushri. Samantabhadra is the Bodhisattva acting in the world. Samantabhadra appears in many, many different forms in the world. Samantabhadra can be a teacher or a doctor or a garbage collector or an athlete or a musician or a magician or whatever is going on in the world, Samantabhadra can take on that role and show how to express awakening and spiritual values in that situation. Samantabhadra is also the Bodhisattva of vision of interconnectedness.

[23:29]

Samantabhadra sees the way in which we are all connected. So the sutra that is the main sutra of Samantabhadra is called the Flower Ornament Sutra, and there's an image, which many of you may know, in the sutra of Indra's net. So this way of looking at the world is that the whole universe is a net, and at each place where the meshes meet there's a jewel, and each jewel reflects the light of all the jewels around it, and they reflect all the jewels around them. So if you look at any one jewel, actually the whole universe is there. This holographic way of seeing the universe is what Samantabhadra expounds. So often he's difficult to see. There are sutras where they talk about special rigorous visualization practices to see Samantabhadra in his true radiant form riding an elephant, but his expression is everywhere.

[24:30]

So I particularly think of Samantabhadra in our age as, in terms of social activists and artists, people who are working in the world to help beings in the world. So the presence of Samantabhadra too, riding this elephant with great dignity, showing an example of how to be in the world. So Dr. King not only helping support the Civil Rights Movement and inspiring it, but also just his presence and the way he was, to me, is a great example of Samantabhadra. Or this woman in Burma now, Aung San Suu Kyi, who manages to stand up to, even though she's been under house arrest and so forth, has given up being with her family, she stands up for freedom. This is, to me, one aspect of Samantabhadra.

[25:31]

But also we could see it in artists and visionaries and musicians who express this kind of vision of the world. So Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, is a very complicated figure. Many, many, many different forms. So part of compassion is that there are many, many forms. So iconographically she appears sometimes as the Chinese goddess of mercy, Guan Yin. Sometimes she appears with 11 heads. Sometimes she has 1,000 arms, and each hand has an eye in the palm to see all the beings. And each hand also holds a different tool or implement to help beings. And the name of Avalokiteshvara is very interesting. In Japanese we say kanzeon, which means to hear the sounds of the world. So this is just one of her names.

[26:35]

But this Bodhisattva of Compassion, Kanon or Kanzeon, listens very well to beings, hears the suffering of beings. So in Buddhism, compassion itself is not about going out and fixing things. It's more about just listening, just being present with all the sounds, all the cries, all the suffering of oneself and others. And then Kanon knows how to respond somehow with whatever is at hand, whatever implement comes to hand, there's some response, something to help. So in Zen temples in Japan they chant a chapter from the Lotus Sutra which talks about just calling out the name of Kanon, she'll be there. What's that Carole King song? It's like that. Just to call on the name of Kanon, to think of Kanon attentively, brings forth this energy.

[27:36]

So again, all of these figures have a great deal of complicated iconography and mythology and centuries of history of kind of veneration and cults around them. But what do they tell us about aspects of our own spiritual practice? This is what we can learn for ourselves about this. How do we listen carefully? So the Dalai Lama is considered an expression, an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara, officially considered that in Tibetan Buddhism. And there's this book, The Jew in the Lotus, that talks about a meeting he had with a bunch of rabbis and one of them said about him, he listened so well that I was almost ready to cry. Just to listen, just to be heard is something we want so much in this world. So how can we all listen to each other in this way? So the fourth one is Jizo Bodhisattva.

[28:43]

And Jizo Bodhisattva is very, very popular in Japan particularly. He's not so important doctrinally, but he's very popular, almost as popular as Kanon in Japan. Everywhere in Japan there are these little stone Jizo statues and he always appears as a shaved head monk. And part of his vow, the sutra about him, is that he vows to go to all realms, especially including hell. Jizo goes down into the hell realms and is there with the beings there and helps them, helps relieve people from the hells. So in Buddhism there's a teaching about our world that there are six realms. There's the heavenly realm. There's the ambitious, powerful god realm where they're fighting each other for power. There's the human realm where we live some of the time. There's the animal realm. There's the hungry ghost realm which most of us are trained by our culture to try and consume as much as we can.

[29:48]

And hungry ghosts are never satisfied. So television commercials are addressed to hungry ghosts. And then there's the hell realms. So anyway, Jizo vows particularly to go to all six of those realms. So sometimes you see statues of six Jizos because there's one for each realm. And he's also particularly kind of shamanic. He goes to beings who are in the afterlife and helps guide them. And he also particularly helps guide children. And there's a story in the sutra that I like which gets into another aspect of Jizo as the earth womb or earth treasury bodhisattva. And this is a story about Jizo's past lives before he became Jizo bodhisattva. And there's two different stories which are fairly similar. In both of these stories Jizo was a woman whose mother died. And the mother, for different reasons, the daughter knew was going to hell.

[30:50]

And in both cases the daughter is a very devout practitioner. And in both cases, thanks to the strength of her practice and her commitment, she saves the mother from hell. She goes down to hell and saves the mother. So it's kind of the reverse of the Persephone story where Demeter sends someone down to help to save her daughter. In this case it's the daughter going down to save the mother. And thanks to her going down to save her mother, all the beings in hell are saved. So there's a way in which even though Jizo always appears as a monk, I think of him as the earth mother bodhisattva in a sense. Or the earth daughter bodhisattva. So for me, examples of Jizo in the world today are beings who witness to hell. Beings who tell us about what that's like, who warn us about that, who witness to the beings who are there.

[31:55]

So I think of Elie Wiesel talking about the Holocaust. Or Toni Morrison writing about slavery. Or Thich Nhat Hanh telling us about the Vietnam War and how we can live in peace even in this world. And the last one I'll mention is Maitreya. And Maitreya is kind of funny. Maitreya is the bodhisattva who this Buddha predicted would be the next future Buddha. Sometimes it says 563,000 years from now. And then some other version of it says it will be in the year 4000. So we don't know. Not real soon. But there's been a history of devotion to Maitreya in Asia that includes seeing Maitreya as a kind of messiah figure. And hoping that Maitreya will come. And actually there's been one side of Maitreya devotion that's been rather political, trying to make the world ready for Maitreya.

[32:56]

So some of the Chinese revolutions and dynastic changes in the history of China came about through some Maitreyan devotees who were trying to prepare for Maitreya. So Maitreya tells us about the future. Maitreya reminds us about concern for the future. And since our practice in Buddhism and in Zen is to just be present, this is kind of paradoxical. And so we have to see that our just being present right here includes beings of the future. And we have to look at what that means. And Maitreya kind of inspires all of that. Maitreya is also the bodhisattva of loving kindness. So one of the stories about the prediction of Maitreya to be the next Buddha is that Buddha announced to his assembly that Maitreya was going to be the next Buddha in some distant future. And the monks were very surprised because Maitreya was not particularly studious or a particularly rigorous practitioner.

[34:03]

He was kind of foolish actually. But he was very kind. So this loving kindness is very important in Maitreya. And in fact, in China, Maitreya is almost synonymous with Hotai, who is a historical Chinese monk. And you've all seen him. If you've gone to Chinese restaurants, it's the fat laughing Buddha. Sometimes he's just sitting there with children around him. Sometimes he's got his hands up. That's Hotai. He was based on a historical character. And in China, they consider him a Maitreya, period. And he was very kind with children and just this kind of free, homeless, wandering monk who has expressed loving kindness. So the last important aspect of Maitreya is that the story is that Maitreya is now, even though sometimes he appears incarnated like as Hotai, he's now up in the meditation heavens trying to figure out how to save all of us, how to awaken all beings, how to become the next Buddha.

[35:10]

So there are statues of Maitreya in Japan, very delicate, sensitive statues where he's sitting with one leg down, kind of thinking about how am I going to save all these beings. There must be a picture. Where's the picture, Lou? Right across, you can't see it, but I can. In the office? Office wall. Inside the office. Yeah, that's the Koryu-ji statue. So when you go out, look into the office and you'll see a picture of Maitreya. Yeah, and he's up there in heaven trying to figure out how to save all beings. So one of the aspects of Buddhist teaching that he's particularly associated with is the study of consciousness, the Yogacara branch of Buddhism. So he's involved in meditation to study how does our mind work, how is it that we separate ourselves from the world, how is it that we kill the world and make it into a bunch of dead objects, how is it that we don't see that we are already wisdom, compassion beings.

[36:16]

So Maitreya studies this in great detail, kind of early Buddhist psychology is associated with Maitreya. So that's just a quick rundown of some of these figures, and what I think the meaning of them is to look at what are the possible ways, what are the possible styles or approaches or strategies towards practice, towards living a decent life, towards living a life that's directed towards helping everyone to, together, gradually, suddenly or gradually, awaken to how to be together in a way that's less worrying and less warring and more kind, more seeing how everything is just the way it is and how we can be here like that.

[37:19]

So we'll discuss this further this afternoon, and there will be, I guess, a discussion period in the dining room. So I look forward to your comments and questions. Thank you.

[37:33]

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