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. Welcome to Green Gulch Farm, Green Dragon Temple, on a perfect day for dragons, I think. liking moisture. So let's see, what time is it? It's at almost autumn equinox. A couple of days until the equal days and nights. And I think a day after that is full moon, right? So the the waxing moon, harvest moon.

[01:06]

So it's a time of year. People here at Green Gulch Farm have been working very hard in a farm and garden for the past many months, six months or so, particularly. And so I've been harvesting. And was there a party here? Harvest party? Yeah? Okay. I'm sorry I missed it. So this has to do with nourishment, our connection with Earth, with plants, connection with the energy from the sun that We are connected with plants, of course. We wouldn't be here without them since we can't photosynthesize direct energy from the sun.

[02:10]

So this nourishment is very important and it's good to celebrate it, to recognize it and to know that a good bit of our energy and attention goes into taking care of our bodies. Our practice is being attentive and respectful and considerate and responsive to our bodies. And I want to talk a little bit about nourishment for our spirits. nourishment I think everyone's here in this room for some profound and wise reason to be here recognizing that you yourself are in a place of nourishment generating spiritual nourishment

[03:24]

This afternoon we have an ordination ceremony called Home Leaving or Shuke Tokudo for three young women to become priests at San Francisco Zen Center. Some of you may not know Green Gulch is connected with San Francisco Zen Center in the city and with Tassahara. down in Monterey County. So we have three practice places. And so one of the people came up from Tassajara and the others are living here at Green Gauch right now. But the ceremony of ordination involves receiving the 16 bodhisattva precepts. Bodhisattva precepts offer some nourishment. The word bodhisattva may not be familiar to everyone here.

[04:34]

Are there people here for the first time? Raise your hand if you're here for the first time. Welcome. Forgive me if I use some terminology that's unfamiliar, but I'll try to catch it. Bodhisattva. Bodhi, the word bodhi means awake. Bodhisattva, sattva means being, so a being that is awake. But Bodhisattva is devoted to the awakening of beings, devoted to the true Buddha nature of beings and supporting the realization of true nature in all beings. The first three of the bodhisattva, of the 16 bodhisattva precepts, have to do with taking refuge in Buddha and taking refuge in Dharma, which is true being, truth itself, and taking refuge in Sangha, which is a community of people practicing together.

[05:40]

And the next three I'm going to focus on this morning are called the three pure precepts. But to me, in my own practice, the three pure precepts have been very nourishing. So we have this story that many of you know, but the story of a bird nest monk, someone who was very diligent in practicing trying to stay awake so making his practice to sit up in a tree may help you to stay awake if you're sitting up in a tree so so for years that would be his practice sitting up in the tree and various people would come and so one time someone got to know him I think a local official

[06:51]

This was probably 8th or 9th century in China. This local official would come. So one time he asked Birdnest, he said, what is the most essential teaching of Buddhism? And Birdnest, monk, said... Refrain from evil. Do what is good. Keep the mind pure. Thus have all the Buddhas taught. And the questioner was unsatisfied. He said, well, you know, any five-year-old child knows that. And I was asking for what's, you know, most profound. And Murdenest monk said, a five-year-old child may know that, but even an 80 year old elder may not be able to do it.

[07:56]

So pointing to this as practice, maybe not so much emphasis on what you know, but what you actually cultivate, what you actually do, how you actually conduct your life. So refrain from evil, do what is good, and keep the mind pure. Now this matter of keeping the mind pure was understood differently at different times. And in Mahayana, the great vehicle Buddhism, the mind is understood to be undefiled. undefilable, always pure. That is, mind as the totality of things.

[09:02]

So usually, I think, we think of purity, a usual way of thinking of purity is to kind of get rid of impurities. if there's some particular element or some particular material, and getting rid of everything until what's left is pure. So that may be a usual understanding, but our understanding here is that everything together is pure. That pure means not to exclude anything. This may be a little difficult, too. to understand, but something to understand, to work with in the context of the bodhisattva vow. The bodhisattva in this great effort, this great work of awakening with all beings, sometimes we say saving all beings, but I'd say

[10:18]

It's helpful, I think, to think of awakening with all beings. May, over time, begin to realize that nothing can be left out. So, this struck me when I first read the Diamond Sutra. Many years ago, the Diamond Sutra begins with... Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical Buddha, taking a seat, sitting. And then one of the members of the gathering, Subhuti, approaches and vows and asks the question. And the question being, what is, first of all, saying thank you for all of your support for the bodhisattvas. But can you give some more guidance to bodhisattvas?

[11:21]

Can you give some guidance as to how bodhisattvas should conduct themselves? How bodhisattvas should organize their minds? How bodhisattvas should proceed on the path? And the Buddha, the Tathagata says, a bodhisattva should... arouse the thought of bringing all beings into liberation. That is bringing beings that are born from a womb, beings that are born from eggs, beings that are born from moisture, beings that have consciousness, beings that don't have consciousness. All these beings, the bodhisattva, vows to bring to complete liberation.

[12:21]

And at the same time, the bodhisattva realizes that there are no beings. There are no beings to be brought to liberation. And to have a notion of a being is to oversimplify things, to reduce things into separate, discrete elements. and make substantial what is actually not substantial. That there is a totality of being which is impossible to accurately say is divided into separate individual beings. That everything is completely dependently arising. So interdependently arising. Some people say this is interbeing. So the notion of purity then is to include that this is a total, completely interconnected universe.

[13:36]

And the bodhisattva vow is to not leave anything out. To see everything that arises in mind everything that arises in one's awareness as a part of this pure nature. So the first two parts, though, still exist. So this is, say, the third of the pure precepts, to awaken with all the many beings. But the first two precepts of the pure precepts still exist. The precept to refrain from what is harmful, what is evil, or what is simply not to be done. So to practice this refraining, sometimes we say renunciation.

[14:39]

Renunciation is to give up whatever is harmful. Whatever is interfering the bodhisattva's capacity to wake up with all beings. So you may consider what is, when you meet someone, is there anything that interferes with your being able to meet them? Anything extra that's in the way of meeting them? I was flying on Tuesday. I flew from Chicago here. I was in Chicago. I gave some talks at ancient Dragon Zen Gate, a little Zen group on the north side, Tiger and Leighton, some of you know, has moved. They used to live here many years ago. Moved to Chicago. But on the way back, I got on the plane at O'Hare Airport, and...

[15:44]

came to my seat and sat down, and the young fellow next to me looked at me and said, you look like, you look a little bit like some of those people I think of as Buddhists. I was wearing my Samway, you know. I said, yes, I am a Buddhist. He said, I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I didn't know that. You look America, right? It turned out he was from Vietnam. He'd been going to school in Alabama. I guess in Alabama he hadn't encountered any American Buddhists. at the University of Alabama where he got his master's degree in structural engineering.

[16:48]

He was going back to Saigon to spend the rest of his life working on buildings in Saigon and around there. In fact, he said, I'm never coming back to America. My English still isn't very good and I'm tired of having to talk English. But then he said, I have one question. Why do Buddhists, why do you shave your heads? So I said something about cutting attachments. Something about renunciation. So we talked a while about that. Then he said, okay, that made some sense to him. That actually made some sense to partly to cut attachment to one's appearance.

[18:00]

Some people pay a lot of attention to hair. One of my daughters is a cosmetologist and I know People care a lot about their hair and are identified with their hair. So it's a big deal, maybe, too. And maybe a little more for women than men. I don't know, because men often can't help but going bald anyway. So I know hair is very important. So just to cut hair itself is cutting some attachments. But the meaning of it really is to be willing to let go of anything that interferes with what is wholesome, what is helpful, what is supporting clear seeing, anything that interferes with seeing clearly.

[19:06]

So this is... Reminder to me, when we have the three pure precepts, the first, refraining. Refraining from anything that's extra is another way to say it. And then to cultivate what is helpful. Cultivate what is good is the second of the three pure precepts. So there is an effort to correct one's tendencies to be mistaken, one's tendencies to be biased, one's tendencies to be deluded or lazy. So I saw a DVD just recently of Temple Grandin.

[20:12]

And this was produced by HBO, and I guess it's out now. And I recommend it to people. For those of you who don't know, Temple Grandin identifies herself as autistic. She was diagnosed at an early age as being autistic. But then actually the most interesting thing, I listened actually to the DVD just yesterday with her commentary. There's a commentary. There's the movie, which is a movie version of her life, which is pretty accurate. But then there's her commentary along with the director and so forth. And she credits her mother with really pushing her to go beyond her fears. And she herself had to really practice to restrain her own tendencies because she was misunderstood so much.

[21:23]

When she was in school, she was tormented. She was teased. People were constantly making fun of her, and she didn't understand why. She didn't get the usual kinds of conversation going on among people or the usual signals that people have with facial expressions and so forth. None of that really registered for her. So she had to accept that even though this was all bewildering and that people were making fun of her, that she still could not lash out at them. So she had to absorb that. And then she worked very hard to cultivate her own understanding of things. And began to be very creative and understanding how her own mind worked.

[22:23]

And how she could take care of herself even though the way she could take care of herself didn't really make much sense to other people. So One summer, she came out to, I think, Colorado or somewhere to live with her aunt and uncle who had a cattle ranch. And she noticed that they were bringing these cattle into a chute, or into a kind of a little metal cage, and then they'd push some levers and it would squeeze the cow. and its head was held through the stanchion. They would squeeze him. And then they were giving him vaccinations. And she noticed, though, that the cows, most of them, after they were in there for just a couple seconds, they would become calm. There was kind of a struggle to get them in there, but as soon as they felt this pressure on them, they became calm.

[23:31]

So there's one scene in the film which she said is very accurate where something really upset her. Something had changed in her room. There were things that were disorienting and she had this panic attack. And this panic attack, she ran out there. She ran into the corral where this squeezed chute was and got in it herself and begged her aunt to pull the lever and squeeze her. Her aunt actually was kind of distressed at doing this, but she did it. She pulled the lever and squeezed her aunt. And then she felt herself calm down from this panic attack. Very interesting, I thought. I thought it's a little bit like Zazen. That we take up this posture. of sitting.

[24:34]

Some of us may need to actually be kind of forced. But then to take up this posture, at first there may be some resistance, but then when you realize it's actually okay, you don't have to react. It's actually okay just to sit. And the more you put the attention into taking up this posture yourself, the more you notice that your mind can settle. Your mind can become calm. It doesn't mean that you don't have distracting thoughts or emotions that flare up, but it means that you can still be present with those thoughts and those emotions that flare up. And even though you may sometimes feel like running out of the room, you don't have to run out of the room.

[25:38]

Actually, the body, the wisdom of the body has the capacity to include all of those thoughts and all those emotions. And as you are able to be present with that, you may... Begin to know yourself more completely. By not turning away from what's arising, you begin to know yourself. Know your own tendencies. Begin to see the root of the tendency that you have. Begin to see the root of it. Appreciate that it is not something foreign, although you may want to get rid of it. You may feel that some impurity in yourself. But as you sit with it, you begin to realize it is yourself.

[26:40]

It's not your whole, not the whole picture. Because the big mind includes all of these arisings in awareness. So then Temple Grandin, when she went back east to go back to school, she built herself a squeeze box. And then there was a lot of controversy about that because they wouldn't let her. It freaked people out. She had it figured out so she could pull the lever herself and squeeze herself, manage that. She could go get in this. And she had to really battle with the principals of the high school or whatever that to let her keep it and so anyway eventually she was able to convince people that this was her practice it actually supported her it actually nourished her and I didn't see it in the movie but in the commentary she said that she would basically put herself in this every morning every day

[27:56]

I thought, okay, this is like Zasana. It's good to do Zasana every day. Later she, actually she did a scientific study of other students where she invited them to come into this squeeze box and then she She interviewed them afterwards and got their response. Most of them actually did experience relaxation. But the pressure of holding the body, if you imagine if you're like a little baby, thrashing around, how good it is to be held. So for her to be held by a machine... She couldn't stand the intensity of being held by another human being. That was way too intense, way off the charts.

[28:59]

But with a neutral box, that kind of holding was just right in the range of what was actually supporting her. So then she became scientists studying cattle, studying them, and felt she's done a lot of work to support humane treatment of farm animals and other animals. So I won't go into all that, but anyway, that's... And she becomes a spokesperson for people who are autistic from her own experience She's been able to point out how many of the, say, the scientific community and the therapeutic community had very mistaken ideas about what it's like to be autistic and how to help work with and support people who are autistic.

[30:13]

So the third, so she was exemplifying, I'm saying she's exemplifying both the restraint, that was funny, she went back, after she graduated from college, she went back to her New England family for a weekend or something and there was this gathering and some of her parents, friends introduced her to this to their son, who she went to school with when she was in grade school or high school or something. Now they're all grown up. So here's Jack, and she says, oh yeah, Jack, he used to spit in my Jell-O. She loved Jell-O. But she didn't have the conventional, like social sense of, oh, well, one doesn't actually say it. Oh yeah, good to see you again after 10 years.

[31:27]

You're the one who used to spit on my jello. But this practice of restraint and this practice then of cultivation that she actually worked very hard to cultivate understanding of her own tendencies, of her own mind and how to put that to work to benefit others. And she wanted to benefit other beings and realized that she had a particular gift for benefiting animals that she could actually understand what animals were reacting to how they could be taken care of more humanely so she published many articles and now I think has a couple of books out and so forth I also want to mention another person who I just met this week at San Francisco City Center.

[32:35]

His name is Martin Moran. Martin Moran is an actor. He wrote a book called The Tricky Part. The Tricky Part. He did a one-person show on Thursday night. This is something sponsored by San Francisco's Insider in the city. And a wonderful, wonderful performance. But it's an exploration of his own experience of a relationship that started when he was 12 years old with an older man who was thinking about camping and so forth. And then they had a sexual relationship that went on for some years, which was, of course, a secret. Martin went to a Catholic school.

[33:41]

He didn't know how to compute this. He couldn't tell his parents or anything. Very difficult for him to understand the mix of feelings. So this he presents in this, so there's a book, the tricky part, and the stage production that he does. I bring it up because this whole matter of what's pure. This whole matter of purity is not so simple. I appreciated that he, in his performance, was very vivid and at the same time not so attached to a particular fixed view. He wasn't denying the damage, actually, the impact on his young life.

[34:44]

And at the same time, he wasn't just blaming the person who was, say, taking advantage of him. And at the end, after there was a question, someone asked a question, have you presented this to other victims of sexual abuse? And when he received the question, he turned it. He said, yes, I have. I have presented it to folks who have been involved in these kind of experiences. So I noticed that he didn't use the word victim. Not that he wasn't a victim, but that he also did not want to just be identified as a victim. That he didn't want to identify someone else

[35:50]

as the culprit, that he actually had a more complex view, realizing that there was complexity in the relationship. There was love involved, and there were boundaries that were crossed, boundaries that were violated. So, This matter then of bodhisattvas, being willing to wake up, is not so simple. It's actually very difficult. It means being able to not turn away from everything that is arising, from every experience that one has, from every feeling that one has, from every thought. from every little subtle wish to kind of get away from the intensity of one's experience.

[36:57]

The effort that most of us make to separate what we want to be our identity from what is also part of us internally that separation is right at the place where bodhisattvas begin working. To be willing to sit still and wake up with whatever arises. That is, not to turn away from whatever arises. This is deepening confidence, cultivating a deeper and deeper confidence in what is. deeper confidence in the true nature of the totality of things and being willing to be fully present with that, whatever it is. So this is purity, not excluding the three pure precepts.

[38:20]

So again, it doesn't mean that you gloss over it. That means you don't gloss over something. You don't pretend something is something other than what it is. So this is a very, I say, strict practice, actually. Very strict. Things are very precisely exactly what they are. I have a little prayer in my sleeve that I'm learning. Someone just gave this to me yesterday. This is a short poem by Galway Kinnell, and it's called Prayer. Very short, but it's not easy.

[39:21]

Here it is. Whatever happens, whatever what is, is, is what I want. Only that, but that. Hard to hear, there's three is's in a row. I'll read it again. Whatever happens, whatever is, is, is what I want. Only that, but that. So this is a prayer for deepening your confidence in the true nature of things.

[40:28]

Whatever is, is, is what I really want. So this is a fundamental sense of integrity, of sincerity, of not selling things short, of not giving up on things, of moment by moment accepting the totality of things and saying, okay, whatever is, this is what I want to see clearly. This is where I accept everything and step forward. So this means being able to forgive everyone and everything that ever happened in the entire, say, sequence of generations, the entire evolution of life.

[41:43]

Everything that's been from one side unfair or cruel or some kind of mistreatment or misunderstanding. To completely accept what is. How that shows up right now and shapes this moment. Accepting that and the pain of it. To say, ouch, oh. However deeply you feel it. Bringing some sense of compassion to it. Some sense that, okay, I'm willing to open my heart to this. So that's what makes it pure precept.

[42:49]

Nothing left out. What is real needs to be seen as real. And what is seen as real is also recognizing that it's not fixed. It's actually flowing and changing. What closely you look, the way you see that having a particular view of it is one-sided and at the same time necessary. The limitations that I have are the limitations I have. The limitation of this body is the limitation of this body. It cannot take... It can't survive without nourishment. And it won't last.

[43:58]

It already hasn't lasted. So please consider the teaching of bird-nest monk Seeing what is not helpful, refrain from that. Seeing what is helpful, do that. Don't turn away from all the many beings. Support each being for its own liberation, for the sake of its own liberation. Whether those beings are internal or all around, So this is our harvest time. Thank you for listening. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[45:03]

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 SF zc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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