Good morning. So it's my pleasure to be here this morning to speak about the bodhisattvas. So I'm going to be talking about what the bodhisattvas are and what they have to do with us and our practice. And I'm going to be referring to a book that just was published that I wrote called Bodhisattva Archetypes, which has a picture of this guy. So the Bodhisattvas exist as great cosmic figures up on the altar that we do prostrations to. But when we do prostrations to a Buddha or a Bodhisattva, of course we're not bowing to a statue or an image, we're bowing to that Buddha and Bodhisattva. in all of us, in all beings, and in ourselves. So the bodhisattvas exist both as great cosmic figures on altars, as forces or energies for awakening and spiritual guidance in the world, and also as aspects of our own spiritual inclinations and practice and intention.

[01:25]

So in this book, I talk about the seven major bodhisattva figures in the East Asian Buddhist tradition, which Shen is part of, and who are part of our ritual and liturgy. And so maybe I'll just name the seven to start. And then I'm going to talk particularly about one or two of them. And I hope in the discussion, maybe we can talk about more. But I wanted to go into a little detail about one of the Bodhisattvas. So the seven are Shakyamuni Buddha, whose image is there, who was the historical Buddha around 500 BC in northern India, who was the founder of Buddhism. And I don't know that he would have used that word. Buddha just means awakened one. But a Bodhisattva is an awakening being. And before he became the Buddha, before his great enlightenment, he was known as a Bodhisattva in all of the Buddhist traditions. So it's particularly, I talk about his path to awakening.

[02:32]

And I'm going to come back and talk a little more about him. The next one is Manjushree Bodhisattva, who sits in the center of all Zen meditation halls and is the Bodhisattva of wisdom, of insight, of intuitive wisdom, of emptiness teaching. One of the things about these bodhisattvas that I think is very helpful is that by looking at these seven different figures, we can get a sense of the range of Buddhist teaching and Buddhist sutras, because many of them represent particular aspects of the teaching, particular sutras, particular schools of Buddhism. So again, Manjushri represents this wisdom teaching. And then Sumantabhadra is the next one. And so Manjushri often sits on a lion and holds a sword. The one downstairs in the Zendo, if you want to look, sometimes he's holding a little sword. Samantabhadra is a complement to wisdom. because Samantabhadra is not the meditative insight from which wisdom, intuitive wisdom arises, but the applied wisdom, the wisdom active in the world, functioning in the world.

[03:44]

So Samantabhadra rides an elephant and is the Bodhisattva of great vision. He's particularly the Bodhisattva of the flower ornament suture with its lofty, holographic, psychedelic vision of the way things are and how we take care of them. The next one is the Bodhisattva of Alokiteshvara, who's the one I'm going to talk about most today, and represents compassion. And she is also a complement to the Bodhisattva Manjushri of Wisdom. So don't worry about remembering all this. There's not going to be a test afterwards. But I just wanted to mention the seven before I go into a couple of them in more detail. So I'll come back to Kanon, Kanzeon, Malakiteshvara as the bodhisattva of compassion. The others I talk about are Jizo, very popular, almost as popular as the bodhisattva of compassion in Asia and more and more in America.

[04:45]

The shaved head monk who is the guide to the afterlife, the guide of travelers and children and a protector figure who hangs out in the hell realms and takes care of beings there. Then there's Maitreya, Bodhisattva, who is predicted to be the next future Buddha, who is waiting for his time to become Buddha up in the meditation heavens, a very interesting complex figure. And finally, Vimalakirti, the great enlightened lay disciple of the historical Buddha, more enlightened than all of the monk disciples, who also represents aspects of wisdom. So one of the things I wanted to focus on was this balance between wisdom and compassion. the way these two sides of our practice, these two aspects that we need both of. And I'm going to kind of focus more on the compassion side, but I wanted to say at the beginning that they work together.

[05:45]

They're complementary. They come up together. So first I want to talk a little bit about Shakyamuni Buddha. the historical Buddha, whose image we have in this Buddha hall, and how I see him as an archetypal figure of the Bodhisattvas. So for all of these figures in the book, I talk about their iconography and their stories in the sutras, folklore about them, very colorful folklore, the aspects of sutras and schools that they represent. and which practices they do. So there are a range of bodhisattva practices that all bodhisattvas are involved in, these great cosmic bodhisattvas. And also, as beginning Zen students, we're also involved in these practices in some way. So practices, they're sometimes called the paramitas, the transcendent practices or perfections, generosity, ethical conduct, patience. enthusiasm or energy, meditation, wisdom.

[06:50]

And there's four more. You may have heard of those first six, but there's also, in some teachings, skillful means, which is one I'm going to come back to a lot. And then commitment or vow. And then power. How do we use our ability? How do we use the powers that may arise from spiritual practice to benefit all beings informed with wisdom? And then knowledge, which is not the same as wisdom. Wisdom is something that we get, that we have before knowledge even. Wisdom is something that comes up in our sitting. Knowledge is knowledge of how the world works that we use to apply our wisdom compassionately. Each of these Bodhisattvas also specializes in certain of these practices, even though they all have some relation to all of them. So Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical Buddha, The basic story about him as a bodhisattva starts with his birth and the fact that a wandering psychic saw the baby, the son of a king in a small kingdom in northern India, and recognized that this child would become either a great world ruler, a great political ruler,

[08:06]

a great spiritual leader, a great religious figure. And he told the king that, and the king, of course, wanted him to continue his kingdom and encouraged that in various ways. So the first point about Shakyamuni, I think, as a teaching for all of us, is just this choice. So even though most of us are not born into kingdoms or empires, we all have this choice in our life. Do we direct our energy to material accumulation towards worldly power? Or do we direct our attention and energy and intention to spiritual activity towards caring for the suffering of beings, towards looking at this problem of suffering that finally stirred Siddhartha Gautama, Prince Siddhartha, who would become the Buddha. So we have this choice in our life, and we have this choice each day, whatever life we're doing.

[09:11]

How do we see today this choice? Are we working for worldly power or for spiritual benefit and kindness for all beings. So the famous story about Shakyamuni is that he realized that there was suffering in the world, which apparently took him, he was in his 20s before he even had seen any suffering. He was so protected by his father. He was very struck by this and determined to leave home. So this motif of leaving home is also central to Shakyamuni as an archetypal bodhisattva and as aspects of all of our practices. So formally in Buddhism, monks are called home leavers. in the history of Buddhism in Asia, there's this sense of monks and nuns actually leaving their relationships with their family, going into monasteries, going into Buddha's family.

[10:21]

And there's a famous story about, probably some of you have heard that the Buddha, when he decided to leave his palace, looked back at his sleeping wife and child and left and kind of abandoned his family. How many of you have heard that story? So that's pretty controversial for us as American Buddhists, because most of us are householders in some way or other. Even many of us who are priests are lay priests, householder priests, as I am. So what is this home leaving? And one of the things I discovered when researching this is that the story about Siddhartha Gautama abandoning his wife and child comes from a Theravada source, a very late Theravada source, not this Pali sutra. So maybe I should go back. How many of you do not know the words Theravada and Mahayana? OK. So the Bodhisattva is the ideal of the Mahayana greater vehicle Buddhism, which is in North Asia, China, Tibet, Mongolia, Japan, Korea, Vietnam.

[11:27]

Theravada Buddhism, the earlier, supposedly earlier Buddhism is, the ideal is not the bodhisattva, the awakening being committed to universal awakening, but the ideal is the arhat, the self-awakened monk who purifies himself and gets rid of all desires. Anyway, from the Arhat branch of Southern Buddhism, there's this story about Shakyamuni leaving his wife and child, abandoning his family, going off and doing austerities for many years. It turns out that there's a Mahayana source about this story that's almost as early as the earliest Theravada source. And so therefore, it's hard to say that one is more historically reliable. We don't really know what happened. You know, there was no videotapes of it. But this Mahayana story about Shakyamuni's leaving home is that he actually made love with his wife and conceived his child the night he left.

[12:31]

And that thereafter, when he was wandering in austerities and doing fasting and the kind of spiritual practice that was part of the religious scene in India at the time, that his wife and his family in the palace knew what he was doing and actually there were people bringing messages to them. And that his wife did the same practices he was doing for those six years before his awakening and did the same fasting and diets. And part of the story even is that she had a six year gestation and the night of Shakyamuni's awakening she gave birth. to their son, Rahula, who became one of his disciples. So anyway, and also that she got awakened, too, that same night. So this is a very different kind of attitude towards this home-leaving motif. And actually, his wife and his son and his stepmother joined his order later on, and many of his cousins. We can take this home leaving literally or we can see that part of what our home leaving is about is about our connection to our family and our connection to this deeper family, this deeper homecoming of Buddha's family.

[13:47]

Our recognition of our inherent Buddha nature as sons and daughters of Buddha and So then what is the home leaving about? Because there still is home leaving. We have to let go of, depart from, examine and see through our conditioning, our attachments, our desires, our frustration and anger. And this is kind of endless process. But fundamentally, this home leaving is this deeper spiritual psychological meaning is that we let go of the conditioning and the habits that we have accumulated for years and decades and in traditional Buddhist terms for lifetimes. This is an important aspect of our practice for all of us. How do we, without leaving home, while raising good children, while taking care of our relationships, how do we, even there, see our practice as, in some way, leaving the comfort of our usual conditioning, our usual habits of how we see the world and ourselves?

[15:02]

So this is a, there are many details to all of these archetypal bodhisattvas. But I think these are maybe the main points about Shakyamuni. One of the other things I do in the book is kind of just for fun, at the end of each chapter, talk about modern culture figures who in some way represent aspects of this energy that each of these bodhisattvas express for us. So for Shakyamuni, I have great religious figures like Dogen, founder of our school in Japan, and St. Francis, who also went to austerities and founded an order of monks and an order of nuns. But also I start with Muhammad Ali, who in our own time is maybe the clearest example of giving up his title for his spiritual beliefs and showing great courage. So I see in Shakyamuni this great courage and energy and vow to find the wisdom of Buddha. And Muhammad Ali, by changing his name, by refusing to go to the Vietnam War, by saying, that's not my war.

[16:13]

when it was still not popular to be against the war. He was very courageous and gave up his, not to his choice, but they took away his world, his title as champion of the world. So this is another example of, this is a good example of how we can see this in the world today. And I think for all of these figures, I've mentioned these famous culture heroes of our time and other times, I think many people in very anonymous ways take on these different aspects of bodhisattva activity. So I want to talk mostly today about the bodhisattva of compassion, Kanon. So when you came in you may have noticed on the side closer to the door there's a tapestry and there's a picture of this bodhisattva. Her name is Kanon or Kanzeon or Kanjizai in Japanese, Avalokiteshvara in Sanskrit, Chenrezig in Tibet, Guanyin in China.

[17:17]

Very popular through all of Asia. And on the other side of the door outside, you'll see there's a picture of this fierce-looking, bald-headed woman. old Zen character named Bodhidharma, who's the founder of Zen in China. And he's considered to be an incarnation of this Bodhisattva of compassion. So we'll come back to that because it's a little hard to see that part. So one of the first things to say, well, first again, that the Bodhisattva of Compassion exists as a complement to the insight and wisdom of the fearless Manjushri Bodhisattva. So often on either side of a statue of the Buddha you'll see one side is Manjushri with his sword, the other side, sometimes Samantabhadra on his lion, activating wisdom in the world, but often also Kanon, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. So there's this complement. So we have to see what is wisdom and what is compassion and how do they work in our own lives. And for Kanon Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, one of the first things to talk about is how many different forms there are of this Bodhisattva.

[18:24]

And there's a deep meaning to that because one of the practices that she specializes in is skillful means. experiences, seeing the diversity of all the different kinds of folks and how the teaching has to respond differently to different people and to the same person at different times. So there are many, many different forms of this Bodhisattva, not just all the different names. So just to mention a few of them, there's one system of six or seven main forms. One of them is just kind of the main kanon that you'll see outside on a tapestry, often holding a vase or a lotus, vase full of nectar. Just basic kanon, shokanon in Japanese. And also, most of the time, kanon has a little image of Amida Buddha in her headdress, because she's said to be an emanation of this Buddha. Just like this bodhisattva over here, Tara,

[19:26]

is an emanation of a tear of Valakiteshvara in Tibetan teaching. So this is a female form of compassion in India and Tibet. But in China, she's one of the 33 forms of Kanon, of Guanyin, as it's said in Chinese. So many different forms. Another form is the 11-headed form of this Bodhisattva. And there's a story about that, that one time, Guanyin, Amalekiteshvara, went down and saw all the beings in samsara and saved them all, brought them all into nirvana, and looked back and saw more beings filling up the suffering realm of the rounds of birth and death of the rat race of samsara. And her head split apart in grief. And 10 times this happened. Finally, each time, Amida gave her a new head and then finally stuck his own head on top. And so there's 11 heads in this figure. And actually, many of the figures have 11 heads.

[20:30]

That's one aspect. Then there's another kind. The pictures in this book might be a little too small for you to see back there, but this one's a larger one, so I'll show you. This is a statue that's in the old Zen Center guest house, now the hospice across the street and down a little bit. This is the wish-fulfilling gem, Kanon. she holds a little gem which grants the wishes of beings. So just to give people what they want, just to hear the suffering cries and give people what they want is one aspect of this bodhisattva. Another kind is the thousand-armed, thousand-handed bodhisattva of compassion. And sometimes it's represented by 20 hands on each side. So there's this kind of web of hands. And each hand is said to represent 25 hands. And sometimes, though, you can see in Japan statues sitting or standing, these large statues with actually 1,000 hands.

[21:34]

They're very impressive. Many of the hands hold implements in them. Many, many different kinds of tools or implements. So rotuses, or sutras, or Buddhas, or the sun, or the moon, or rosaries, or different kinds of flowers, or ropes, or hatchets, or daggers, all kinds of things, each to be used appropriately to help beings in whatever way is helpful. Another aspect of this 1,000-handed bodhisattva is that each hand has an eye in the palm. So there's 1,000 hands. Each hand has an eye. So to respond to the diversity of all the different kinds of beings in whatever way is appropriate and needed right at that time is one of the points of all these different hands. And also the 11 heads is to see from different perspectives what is needed right now.

[22:37]

And there's a story. Before I come to the story about the Thousand Hands, I want to say a little bit about the name of this Bodhisattva. Kanzeon is one of the ways we say it in Japanese, and we do a chant to Kanzeon often in the morning. And Kanzeon means literally to hear or consider or regard the sounds of the world. or to hear the cries of the world. So one of the basic, the basic practice of compassion in Buddhism is just to listen. I mean, to really listen, to hear, and to hear the suffering, and to not shut out the suffering of beings. Because basically, for the Bodhisattva, for all Bodhisattvas, there's this understanding that we cannot awaken alone. We awaken together, no matter how, you know, many sutras you read, and how many hours you spend sitting in meditation, and how deep your wisdom is. If there are people down the street in misery, you cannot be completely free.

[23:44]

So with this understanding, the bodhisattva of compassion hears the suffering, listens to the suffering. So this kind of empathetic listening is the fundamental practice of compassion in Buddhism. And I think we all know how good it feels when we feel like somebody's hurt us. We all want that. We all need that. So this bodhisattva listens very well. And that's actually enough. I could just stop there and listen to you. We could go have a discussion and talk about this. But I'll keep babbling. So there's a story about the 1,000 hands. And this is actually a story about two monks in China in our lineage. And they were brothers, actually. And one said to the other, why does the Bodhisattva of Compassion have so many hands and eyes? And the other one said, it's like reaching back for your pillow in the middle of the night. Just groggy, sleeping, reaching for that pillow. So this, to me, is a wonderful description, expression of how the Bodhisattva of Compassion responds.

[24:56]

So first there's the listening, just hearing the sounds. But then there's all these hands, and each one has an eye in it to see different aspects of suffering. And there are many, many tools. So whatever is at hand, without thinking about it, without any premeditation, without any calculation, unmediated just to reach back and feel for that comfort of the pillow and share that. So this is the responsiveness, this immediate unmediated responsiveness of the bodhisattva of compassion. I was going through some of the many different forms. And there are many, many of them. There's the system of six or seven. It goes back to India and China. There are various systems of 33 forms. And a lot of them have a lot of colorful folklore about them. I'll just mention a little bit the horse head canon.

[25:58]

And he has a kind of horse head on top of his head. And this kind of represents compassion for animals, for beasts, for the animal in us, I guess, but also has this very ferocious face, this very fierce face. So I wanted to say a little bit about the wrathful figures that you also see in Asian Buddhist temples, and sometimes Right here, so these two on the sides here are guardian kings. These aren't bodhisattvas, but protectors of the teaching, protectors of the Buddha. And the point of these wrathful figures is not that they're going to threaten you, but that they're protectors. And also, they kind of wake us up. They cut through our, they say, hey, look at what you're doing. kind of awaken us. So the point of this compassion is to awaken to our connection with others. And how do we respond to others?

[27:00]

How do we reach back? How do we trust what's at hand and share it? So in Asia, there's this long tradition of calling on the bodhisattva of compassion to help. kind of like we think of prayer, praying for help. And I think that's a little difficult for a lot of us who come to Zen, kind of wanting some technique to help us through stress reduction or help us feel more connected. And of course, the bodhisattva of compassion is within us when we call on and consider the sounds of the world and consider this compassion, this compassionate bodhisattva. But I wanted to mention this other side, too, that in Asia there's this real sense of compassion being out there in the world, too, and calling on the bodhisattva of compassion.

[28:01]

And one of our sutras that's maybe the most important sutra in Japanese Zen, the Lotus Sutra, has a whole chapter about this bodhisattva of compassion and basically it says, if you're in trouble, if you're about to get mugged, if you're drowning, if you're in a fire, if you're about to get executed, if you're in prison, whether or not you're guilty, just call on the bodhisattva of compassion, Kanzeon, and she will come and save you. Just call out her name. So we might not I'll take that literally, but it's an important part of our tradition. So the story I tell in the book is, in Japan, there's the last little part of that chapter of the Lotus Sutra about calling out the name, calling out the name of compassion, is chanted daily in Zen, and Soto Zen, and all Zen temples. My first practice period at Tassahara

[29:05]

about 15 years ago, there was a Japanese monk there who had spent years at Eiheiji, the great training school of Soto Zen in Japan. And it was his first time practicing with Americans, really. His name is Akiba Roshi. Do any of you know him? He has a wonderful little zendo in Oakland. And he's actually officially now the bishop of Sato Zen in North America, the Japanese Sato Zen school. Anyway, at the end of this practice period, and I was working with him doing manual labor and so forth as first practice period students. And at the end of the practice period, I asked him, well, what do you miss most from Eheiji at Tosahara? So Tassajara is our monastery down in the mountains in Monterey, very remote, very beautiful and really a special sacred place and wonderful practice and lots of meditation and lots of hard work practice. But kind of different from the Japanese monasteries.

[30:09]

The Japanese monasteries, they sleep in the meditation hall. Well, there are various differences. So I was curious what he would say. What did he miss most from Tassajara? And without hesitation, he said, chanting this chapter of the Lotus Sutra about calling out the name of compassion. That was the thing that he missed most. So I think that's interesting and good for us to hear. So a couple more aspects of this Bodhisattva I want to talk about. First, just to share some of the folklore about Kannon. So there are many, many, many stories about the bodhisattva of compassion. Miracle stories, amazing stories. There's one story about a Chinese general who was captured by an opposing invading army. And the night before he was supposed to be executed, he had a dream of a monk who came and taught him a chant to do. And I think it maybe was the chant that we say in the morning in the Kanzeon.

[31:11]

So he chanted that 100 times when he woke up. And then he went to be executed. And three times, the executioner brought the sword down on his neck, and it wouldn't cut anything. And finally, they said, oh, well, I guess we're not supposed to kill this person. And they let him go. And he went home, and he was found on his altar, his statue of Guan Yin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, with three little nicks on its neck. So this is a story from China. There's a story from 9th century Japan about a monk who was walking around on one of the holy mountains in Japan, Mount Yoshino. And there had been this tree that had been cut down to make bodhisattva images, to make statues of Buddhas and bodhisattvas. And it had been laid across a creek to be a bridge. And this monk started to walk across this bridge and heard someone saying, ouch. and couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Finally, he went underneath and saw that this tree had been meant to be statues of Bodhisattva of Compassion and arranged for that to happen.

[32:18]

So one aspect of this is that even the fiber of the wood, once it had been committed to the Bodhisattva work, could not hold back. But also it's about this monk who could hear this cry. So there are stories in our own tradition about I'll tell a story about Dogen, the founder of our school, who went to China when he was 23. At that time, it was very dangerous to travel from Japan to China. When he was coming back after he had awakened, there was a great storm. All the sailors and all the other passengers were afraid that the ship would be capsized. Dogen was sitting on the deck calmly, and he chanted this chapter about Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion from the Lotus Sutra. And after a while, Dogen had a vision of one of the 33 forms of Guanyin sitting on a leaf floating on the ocean. And the ocean calmed, and the storm subsided.

[33:20]

And Dogen carved into the wooden planks of the boat the image he'd seen sitting on the waves of this Bodhisattva of Compassion. When I went to the temple where he landed in Kyushu when I was living in Japan, they gave out rubbings of this picture that Dogen had done of this Bodhisattva Kanon. One of my favorite stories is from about that time, 13th century Japan, there was a town, I think it's in modern Nagano Prefecture. It was then it was called Tsukuma, and they had a medicinal hot springs. And one of the townspeople had a dream. And in the dream, a voice said, Kanon is coming to your town. And he got very excited and said, well, how will I know? And in the dream, the voice gave a description of this scruffy samurai and said what time he would come. So when he woke up, the townsman told everybody in the town about Kanon coming to their town. And they got all excited. And they gathered at that point in time

[34:23]

in the town square. And sure enough, this scruffy-looking samurai rode into town. And they all started doing prostrations to him. The whole town was bowing down to him. And he said, what is going on? What are you people doing? And finally, there was a priest there who said, somebody had a dream that Kannon was coming to the town and looked just like you. And the samurai explained, no, I just fell off my horse. And I was coming to the hot springs for healing. And they just kept prostrating themselves. And finally, it occurred to this samurai, this soldier, that maybe he was Kannon. So he took off his armor and became a monk. He got ordained and had a section. So this seems to us like a very gullible kind of changing your life because of somebody else's dream. But he had come for healing, and this was the healing he found. So anyway, these stories are, again, it may be hard for us to take them literally, but this shows how this bodhisattva of compassion is seen in Asia and what the tradition of this bodhisattva and his helpful activities is like.

[35:43]

By the way, I've said his and her. This bodhisattva in India and Tibet is male. But there's Tara, there's the female aspect. In China, Guanyin is almost always female. And in Japan, it can be either. So there's a lot more I could talk about. I could talk about Bodhidharma and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who's also an incarnation of this, formerly considered an incarnation of this Bodhisattva. And I won't go into a lot of detail. We can talk more in the discussion period. But there's this tough love side to cut on, too, which is the compassion informed by wisdom. So some of you know the Heart Sutra we chant here. It starts off with Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, or Kanji Saibosats in Japanese. And this is a different name for this Bodhisattva. And this name means the one who considers liberation and this word liberation also means self-existence.

[36:46]

So it means the one who looks at the way the self is. So there's this kind of bodhisattva of compassion informed by wisdom that's part of the tradition. So I think of that in terms of the very stern tough love tactics of Bodhidharma, our founder in China. I wanted to say a little bit about some of the modern exemplars I talk about. I talk about His Holiness the Dalai Lama. And there's a story of just, well, there are many ways in which he represents a lot of the aspects, the archetypal aspects of compassion. But just one of them is the way he listens. So there's a story about a group of Jewish scholars and rabbis meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. And he was interested to hear about the Jewish diaspora now that the Tibetans have been forced out of Tibet, many of them. And one of the rabbis talked about how beautiful just the way His Holiness the Dalai Lama listened.

[37:48]

This rabbi said he was moved to tears just by the listening. And of course Mother Teresa is a very easy example of this bodhisattva. So just this immediate response, seeing the poorest of the poor responding. She's been criticized a lot recently, or maybe not so much since her recent death, but people have talked about why didn't she respond to the situations and conditions of overpopulation in Calcutta and so forth. And her response to that really fits this Avalokitesvara archetype, because she said, that's not my job. That's not what I do. I just respond to the... the poverty and the misery and the suffering in front of me, whatever I see. So in a way, the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra who rides the elephant and takes on projects in the world can be the actor, this Bodhisattva. But this compassionate Bodhisattva just responds, reaches back in the middle of the night.

[38:54]

So I want to finish by talking about another person I mentioned as a modern exemplar. And this weekend, there's a conference going on down at Stanford University about Shinriya Suzuki Roshi, who's the founder of this temple. And I mentioned in, so I thought I would talk today about Mrs. Suzuki, who's in some ways equally important to us. She lived in this building. after Suzuki Roshi died in 1971 and returned to Japan just a few years ago. And in lots of ways, she was quiet and didn't kind of, she was just here. She was just a presence. And she'd invite us in to tea sometimes when she's upstairs, or she would just be around.

[39:56]

And she tended the garden up on the roof. Just was this kind of grandmother's end for us. I remember she used to walk in the halls on the second floor and swing her arms back and forth doing her daily exercises. She was a character in a lot of ways. And she also taught tea, tea ceremony. And she definitely could do the tough love part of compassion too. She could be very strict. but also with his kindness. And she taught us sewing, sewing Buddhist robes and sewing tea garments, tea robes. So I wanted to read something that Vicky Austin wrote about Mrs. Suzuki. And I've talked about the hands of compassion of Amalakiteshvara. Vicky talks about Mrs. Suzuki's hands as small and very well kept.

[40:57]

When she picks something up, even if it's as seemingly insignificant as a pin, her hands and the object seem to know each other. The way a pin or a piece of fabric is held becomes a teaching in such hands. So she was very careful with how to take care of things. And a lot of the way of tea is about taking care of tea bowls, taking care of tea whisks, doing each thing very carefully. And she would make sure that we would do it when we studied tea with it, that we would each move, take care of each move. And anyway, she's another example of this compassionate Bodhisattva in the world. So the point of talking about all these different Bodhisattva figures, again, is not that we may see aspects of our own practice from these different figures, but then we may be encouraged and guided by these different figures to see aspects of ourselves that we can bring forth. But really, the point is to go beyond the archetypal, to see ourselves, and to use these stories to see ourselves more fully.

[42:01]

And then just to express for ourselves our own way of being a bodhisattva, our own way of expressing our deepest kindness and generosity. So I'll just close with a little passage about that. Beyond all the archetypal patterns, the life of the bodhisattva is in ordinary everyday activity, in simple acts of kindness and gestures of cheerfulness. Bodhisattvas are functioning everywhere, not as special saintly beings, but in helpful ways we may barely recognize. The bodhisattvas are not glorified, exotic, unnatural beings, but simply our own best qualities in full flower. Bodhisattvas are not merely archetypes. Bodhisattvas are great cosmic beings helping us all to become bodhisattvas. Bodhisattvas are not who we think they are. Bodhisattvas are simply ordinary beings making their way back to Buddha. Bodhisattvas appear in the nooks and crannies of your life.

[43:04]

Soon you may start seeing them more clearly. Bodhisattvas are just around the corner. Bodhisattvas are extraordinary, wondrous beings, bestowing blessings on all wretched, confused, petty creatures. Bodhisattvas are living in your neighborhood, waiting to say good morning to you. Bodhisattvas are just like you and me. Bodhisattvas are kind and gentle. Bodhisattvas are not who we think they are. Bodhisattvas are tough and indefatigable. Bodhisattvas are not limited to a handful of amazing figures or famous people. Bodhisattvas are not limited by what we say they are or are not. We are all Bodhisattvas. Bodhisattvas are not who we think they are. We cannot understand how wonderful Bodhisattvas are. We are all Bodhisattvas. So I think I was supposed to tell you that the bookstore is back through the office? through the whole way there. And I'll be in the dining room, and I look forward to comments and questions and discussion.

[44:05]

So thank you all very much.

[44:08]

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