This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. So Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lived from 1929 to 1968. He died in at the age of 39, and he would have been 85 years old if he had lived till today. And our former abbot, Myogen Steve Stuckey, died on December 31st at the age of 67, so that was just about two and a half weeks ago. Both Dr. King and abbot Steve brought to their words and actions what we could call bodhisattva energy, and in particular the qualities of a bodhisattva of being awake to the suffering of the world and responding to it with an open heart and appropriate action.

[01:18]

Both were committed to the idea of universal awakening, caring deeply about the wider society as well as the communities in which they lived and worked. So I'm particularly grateful to be giving this talk because Dr. Martin Luther King was an encouraging figure in my own life, as was Abbot Steve. And next week, Rosalie and I will be starting a practice period here with the theme of waking up in the midst of our lives, the bodhisattva way. So bodhisattvas are very much on my mind these days. And I see them as presences that are extremely supportive.

[02:26]

of the qualities that we may want to develop in ourselves, and we can learn quite a bit from their stories and endeavors. So just to tell you a little bit about the way in which my life was encouraged and maybe changed by the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, when I was... Well... I'll back up. This summer was the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington in August. And 50 years ago that summer, I was a college student just before my last year at UC Berkeley, and I joined a voter registration project in Greensboro, North Carolina, that was sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee. We spent two or three weeks in the basement of an African-American church, and we were a group of black and white college students, and we went out every day to register people to vote and had a chance.

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For me, it was my first time being in the South and really seeing what segregation was like in... That was the time when there were... sit-ins at Woolworths at the lunch counter, which was segregated, and seeing bathrooms and water fountains that were segregated. And it was pretty eye-opening for me, having grown up in New York. And then at the end of that time, we all got on a bus at night under police escort because it was dangerous for a group of black and white people students to be traveling together. And we went to the March on Washington. And I remember arriving there in the morning and seeing buses from so many different places arriving and people pouring out with excitement. It was a march for jobs and freedom.

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So there were a lot of people from labor unions as well as young students from freedom schools, people old and young, and the area around the reflection pool between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Monuments was so full of people. And I remember the speech that Martin Luther King gave that day, the I Have a Dream speech, which has inspired many of us, as well as hearing Joan Baez singing, We Shall Overcome. So after the march, I found some comments that Dr. Martin Luther King said, as television beamed the images of this extraordinary gathering, Across the border oceans, everyone who believed in man's capacity to better himself and herself had a moment of inspiration and confidence in the human race.

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So it was that kind of uplifting event. And it wasn't that alone, but many activities of the civil rights movement that really did make some deep changes in some of the laws... of our country and some of the ways in which African Americans were able to participate more equally, although we still have a long way to go. So back to the idea of bodhisattvas. Bodhisattvas are beings who like Martin Luther King, and I'll say more about Abbot Steve later and some of the ways in which I see him as embodying the qualities of Samanta Bhadra, Bodhisattva in particular. They support us to be fully present in the world, to be awake and responsive. So there's a wonderful book by Taigen Leighton about bodhisattvas.

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He originally called it bodhisattva archetypes and thinking of bodhisattvas as embodying qualities that are archetypal in the sense that they... They're core qualities that we can learn from and emulate. And thinking of bodhisattvas not just as figures from... The past, he calls, and I'll say some of those bodhisattvas may be familiar to you. Manjushri is one bodhisattva of wisdom. Samantabhadra is the bodhisattva of great activity and shining presence. Kuan Yin, or Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. And Jizo, bodhisattva, who has a...

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is known to be the protector of travelers, children, and parents. So these bodhisattvas are not just mythical figures. They inform our lives, and not everybody who... in whom we might see qualities of bodhisattva activity, necessarily knows that they're a bodhisattva. They may have no idea. But they may inspire others and act for the benefit of others, just as the classical bodhisattvas did. So Teigen's book then was reissued. It's called Faces of Compassion. And it has... really helpful perspectives on each bodhisattva and how bodhisattvas can inspire us and support us in our efforts to engage with some of the difficult situations in our lives and in the world around us.

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just a few words of Taigen's. A bodhisattva vows not to personally settle into the salvation of final Buddhahood until she or he can assist all beings throughout the vast reaches of time and space to fully realize this liberated experience. And the bodhisattva path is not restrictive or exclusive. It can help us find our personal path toward a meaningful, constructive lifestyle. Bodhisattvas are enlightening, radiant beings who exist in many forms and function in helpful ways right in the middle of the busyness of the world. As soon as we are struck with our own urge or intention, to take on such a bodhisattva practice, we also are included in the ranks of bodhisattvas.

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And he says we may acknowledge as bodhisattvas persons from all spiritual and cultural traditions. So each of the classical bodhisattvas, Manjushri, Samantabhadra, Kuan Yin, Jizo, are associated with a text, and often a particular geographical place, and they're each depicted in statues or paintings or drawings in a unique way. I'm going to focus on Samanta Bhadra today. Samanta Bhadra is often... paired with Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom, and sometimes on altars there's a statue of the Buddha, and on one side Manjushri, who rides a lion, and Samanta Bhadra, who's mounted on an elephant.

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And Manjushri embodies the wisdom that comes from understanding that we're all interconnected, and... that that is the basis for our activity in the world. And Samanta Bhadra takes that understanding, that wisdom, into activity and brings a tremendous amount of energy into the activity of engaging with beings who are suffering in the world. The name Samantabhadra means universal virtue or worthy. And Samantabhadra is... You can see this...

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I hope you can see this Samanta Bhadra. There's a sense of repose, of ease, of stability, riding on this wonderful animal, the elephant. And perhaps many of us have, I don't know what your associations are with elephants, but mine are very positive. I remember when I was young hearing the story, Horton hatches an egg, which maybe you know, anyone who doesn't know that story? Oh, good. I won't tell the whole story, but just a little bit. Horton was an elephant who made the acquaintance of a bird named Maisie who had an egg. She had just laid an egg, but she wanted to go on vacation. So... So she asked Horton if he would sit on the egg for her. And he agreed...

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but he never found out how long her vacation was going to be. So he sat, and he sat, and he sat through rain, and he sat through snow, and what he said was, I meant what I said, and I said what I meant, and elephants faithful 100%. So I... see that as a wonderful quality of elephants. And I have a friend who just went to Thailand to spend two weeks with elephants and went to a place where elephants are taken care of and trained by... There are caregivers that are called mahouts. And not only are elephants faithful, but these mahouts make a lifetime... commitment or a commitment to be with their elephant for the lifetime of the elephant and that kind of one-to-one relationship is very you know it's the entire focus of their lives and I also learned from her that there are many elephants in Thailand and I know there are in Africa as well that are poached that are

[15:29]

wounded that are killed, leaving their baby elephants behind. And there was an elephant hospital that my friend visited in which the person who started it seems like another bodhisattva who just has devoted her life to taking care of these injured elephants. So getting back to Samantabhadra, Samantabhadra is described in a sutra called the Avatamsaka Sutra, or the Flower Ornament Sutra. And in that sutra, there's a description of the world, or beings in the world, as connected in what's called Indra's net, where all the connecting spirits of this net are jewels and each jewel reflects all the other jewels in the net.

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And so we can think of ourselves as jewels in Indra's net and that what each of us does is reflected in every other jewel in the net. And that image of interconnectedness is one that inspires Samantabhadra and Samantra's Samantabhadra's actions in the world come from that experience or deep awareness of our interconnectedness. Samantabhadra also is known for taking ten vows. Some of these may seem a little unusual, but say what they are, venerating Buddhas, praising Buddhas, and making offerings to Buddhas. So this is a kind of devotional practice, and it's devotion. So Buddhas are... The word Buddha comes from the root Buddha, bud, which means awakening. So they're beings that are awakening.

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And by showing devotion to Buddhas and those who have actualized an awareness of... well, it would say there are, in a way, two realities, although this may sound dualistic, the conventional world in which we live and another world that, not really another world, but an awareness of this way in which we live We're part of everything, and everything is part of us, and we may not be so conscious of that in our daily lives when we have more of a sense of our own agendas. But bodhisattvas support the Buddhas and help us make that bridge to that kind of awareness.

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So Sumantabhadra also vows to confess his own past misdeeds, which is a way of acknowledging that all of us, no matter who we are, cause suffering in different ways, maybe unintentional, but that's inescapable. So we can avow our suffering or, I mean, excuse me, avow. our mistakes, just acknowledge them. And then rejoicing in the happiness of others. Samantabhadra also vows to request Buddhas to teach, request Buddhas not to enter nirvana, that is not to just be in a realm where they're inaccessible, but to... stay around to be available to us so that we can access their wisdom and energy in our own lives.

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Then also he vows to study the Dharma in order to teach it, to benefit all beings, and to transfer merit to others. So Samanta Bhadra is a mentor to others and can really see that, I think, in... both Martin Luther King and certainly in Abbot Steve, who was a wonderful teacher, both through his demeanor, his warmth, his friendliness, his humility, and his Dharma talks, his classes, and his deep connections with his students. And transferring the merit to others has to do with helping dissolve the barriers between ourselves and others. And typically here, we have a practice at the end of service every morning of dedicating the merit of our chanting to all beings, to beings everywhere who...

[21:11]

could benefit from loving kindness or from our wishes for their well-being, so that our practice is not just for ourselves, we are always offering it and turning it over to others. So... thinking about Martin Luther King as a manifestation of Samanta Bhadra. In thinking about Martin Luther King's, Martin Luther King Jr.

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's great commitment to social justice and his pouring himself into his work. We can see the kind of, I'd say, inspired activity of Samanta Bhadra. Martin Luther King Jr. was the son and grandson of Baptist ministers, and he grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, went to a segregated high school and then attended Morehouse College, which was an African-American college, and after that went to Divinity School, and then he got a doctorate at Boston University. He graduated and became the pastor at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

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and began working for civil rights almost immediately. He took the leadership of... Actually, he also embodied nonviolence and was very aware of the work of Gandhi and in all of the actions that he... political actions, civil disobedience that he participated in, he espoused nonviolence as a way to bring about change. So he was very involved in the first large nonviolent demonstration in contemporary times in the U.S., which was the bus boycott. in Montgomery, which lasted 382 days.

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And during those days of the boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was subjected to personal abuse, but at the same time he emerged from that bus boycott as one of the leaders of the civil rights movement and in 1957 was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and that group was very involved in working for civil rights all over the South. Between 1957 and 68, Martin Luther King traveled over 6 million miles and spoke over 2,500 times. appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action. And he won the Nobel Peace Prize at the age of 35.

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I think he was the youngest person to win it up until that time. And near the end of his life, he became more involved in... He was always committed to working for freedom and justice... for all people but particularly focusing on the inequities for African Americans in this country but near the end of his life he also was focusing a lot on issues around poverty and he opposed the Vietnam War and he was increasingly exposed to people who disagreed with him and violently disagreed with him including death threats, and then on the evening of April 4th, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his hotel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was going to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers, he was assassinated.

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Tygen says, Tygen Layton says that King's dream of a just and harmonious pure land in which the very mountains and valleys ring out freedom, included a vision of all people fighting for human rights with nonviolence and dignity, but also determination. The gains that have come from the civil rights movement do not yet come close to meeting Dr. King's dream, but the message of hope and freedom he shared and his courage to act and inspire others to act, endure and reverberate in the American heart. So, coming back to Samanta Bhadra, there's another aspect of Samanta Bhadra and his teaching that...

[27:37]

that really valued inanimate objects and not just sentient beings. He talked about lands that are very much alive in their functions of demonstrating and awakening beings to the luminous reality of interconnectedness and openness. The world is not a collection of dead objects. There are obvious... And so there are obvious ecological implications to Samantabhadra's teachings. And there's a group at Green Gulch, and one that started here called the Eco-sattvas. Eco-sattvas are residents of both places and in city center places. members of the wider community participate as well, who help bring an awareness of global warming, of the proliferation of plastics, of many issues that can help us be more aware of how to live our lives in a more ecological way.

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And they've helped at Green Gulch... raise awareness of the foods that we eat, where our foods come from, and how we can conserve electricity and water and just be more conscious of the resources that we use. Our connection with the earth was of great concern to Abbot Steve. I had the opportunity to sit with Abbot Steve's body after he died, and I noticed that near him was a statue of Samantabhadra. And also in the room where he had been in his hospice bed, where his desk was, there was another statue of Samantabhadra.

[30:01]

So I never heard him talk about Samantabhadra, but I think he felt the connection with Samanta Bhadra. And in his last talk, which Abbot Steve, for those of you who don't know how he died, Abbot Steve found out at the end of September that he had... that he was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, and he died three months after that. And he was very aware when he received the diagnosis that it was a diagnosis of a terminal illness. And he was only able to give one talk, which he gave at Green Gulch, about a week after he received the diagnosis. And it was a wonderful talk, a talk that you can still listen to.

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It's available on our website. And in it, he spoke about, he referred to a quote of Ehe Dogen, who was the founder of our school of Zen, our school of Soto Zen, that the entire earth is the true human body. And he spoke about parts of his body as being no different from trees and rocks and an awareness of that interconnectedness with nature and all of the growing things, the mountains, the rivers. And he spoke about what he was learning from his own body. He also, in that talk, said how grateful he was to have been able, last summer, to travel to South Dakota and take part in a long walk that was organized by a priest named Shodo... I remember her as Spring, which he has another name now.

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Shodo Spring. Shodo Spring. a woman who trained at Tassahara and then became a student of Shohaku Okomoros. And she organized this walk called the Compassionate Earth Walk along the route of the Keystone Pipeline from Alberta to Texas. And she and a group of people started walking... the length of that pipeline last summer, and Abbot Steve went to join them for a few days. And he said, my feet were sore and I was happy. So it meant a great deal to him to be able to join that walk. And he was very concerned about the pipeline which was going to bring tar sands, crude oil, from Alberta to the Gulf Coast, and asked, how do we bring attention to this part of our body?

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We don't have the organizational skill to regulate our own greed. It's hard for most people to realize that there's oil in the ground and leave it there. Can we attend to the impact of our actions? So just bringing awareness to... the difficulty that we have in really deeply caring for the earth when there's profit that's involved and not being fully aware of the consequences of our actions. He also, in that talk, spoke about growing up in a Mennonite family in Kansas, and every summer from age eight, going with his father to harvest wheat, following the ripening of the grain from Kansas up north.

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And in doing that, they passed through the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, and he became aware of the suffering of Native peoples and that reservation. And during the walk last summer, He encountered a group of Lakota people who were protesting the pipeline because it was going to go through some of their sacred land. And Steve and others from the Compassionate Earth Walk joined these Native Americans on another walk that they did. And Steve said that he was walking for the sins of his ancestors. He said, I can't solve many problems on the reservation, but I can let People know they have an ally and some support. He said that growing up as a Mennonite kid, there was a righteousness that we were peaceful people. He said, my great-grandfather arrived in Kansas and brought land from the Santa Fe Railroad, which had been stolen from the native people.

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He, like many others, plowed the prairie and shot buffalo. And Steve said when he came back from the walk, he read, bury my heart, at Wounded Knee, and commented that his ancestors were righteous while committing genocide. And then he said it's painful to know about the harm we're doing to the earth, and I imagine also to each other. And he said that was more painful than the cancer, which was very painful. So... I think that was the root of Abbott Steve's commitment to not only caring deeply about and expressing his caring about the earth, he gave at least one talk on Earth Day and was very tuned in to nature.

[36:53]

He had been a landscape architect and loved creativity gardening and plants and creating beauty and cared deeply about the wilderness. But he also cared deeply about injustice and one of the things he did in the last year and a half of his abbassi was work, he started work with others at Zen Center about addressing white privilege in this sangha. and gathered a group of Zen Center leaders to make a commitment to address white privilege over a several-year period. And although Steve died, there are other leaders now who are taking up the work and will continue with that commitment. So near the end of his talk, Steve...

[37:56]

gave some instruction. He said, be aware about what is going on in your own body and attend to the relationships around you as if they are your own body. Cultivate the practice of moving your perspective from here, outward, and then back to here. It becomes clearer how to respond, what to take care of. and how to take care of it. So I hope those words will encourage all of us. And Abbott Steve often ended his talks with a song. So I'd like to end with the song that we all sang at the March on Washington. And Dan is going to join us with his guitar. And I hope you will join as well. While he's getting out his guitar, I could tell you just a few things about this song, We Shall Overcome, which did become a key anthem of the civil rights movement.

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But initially, it was a gospel song, and it was I'll Overcome Someday. And it was written by an African-American composer, Charles Albert Tindley. And eventually it was changed to We Shall Overcome, and it was a song that was sung not only in the United States and for the civil rights movement, but it's been sung all over the world and has supported many protest movements and groups of people working for justice and equality. So... Ready, Dan? Okay. We shall overcome We shall overcome We shall overcome

[40:20]

Thank you. [...] We'll walk in the end We'll walk in the end We'll walk in the end Someday I'll keep in my heart

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We shall all be free. We shall all I love you in my heart I love you in my heart So, like Dr. King and Abbott Steve, may we cultivate our vision of freedom for ourselves and all beings.

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May our practice, our vows, and the presence of bodhisattvas encourage us to live our lives fully with open minds and hearts for the benefit of all beings. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dorma.

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