This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Morning. A few days ago, we celebrated the equinox, the... time of the year when there is equal light and darkness. And I recited or read a poem, and I'd like to read it again, that was written by Dogen for this time of year and for all times in our life. The unspoiled colors of a late summer night the wind howling through the lofty pines, the feel of autumn approaching, the swaying bamboos keep resonating and shedding tears of dew at dawn.

[01:15]

Only those who exert themselves fully will attain the way. But even if you abandon all for the ancient path of meditation, You can never forget the meaning of sadness. Even though you exert yourself fully and devote yourself completely to the ancient path, we can never forget the meaning of sadness. This particular poem echoes for me something else of Dogen's, the writing of the Genjo Koan, where after expressing the Buddha's teaching of the one and the many or

[02:29]

unity and difference, he then says, yet in attachment blossoms fall, and in aversion weeds spread. So I feel those are echoing each other. Yet we can never forget the meaning of sadness, or even so, even though we practice and exert ourselves and devote ourselves, it doesn't mean that we will not be touched. by sadness, loss. So how do we practice in a world like that where the groundlessness is not there, the ground is not there, there's just groundlessness. If we think, oh, if I practice hard then nothing can hurt me anymore. I'll be above it all.

[03:32]

I'll be in some safe harbor. I think that's a view that is a mistaken kind of view. It might be a more lofty view, but it's trying to hold to something that will not come to be. in exactly that way. So our practice is to settle ourselves completely in this moment, in this life, in this situation, in this circumstance. Moment. moment, [...] settling ourselves deeply.

[04:38]

And we have our main practices for settling ourselves deeply, our main practice of zazen, actually sitting down zazen, and we have a whole day in front of us to settle and to notice where we're not settled in body, body, mind, emotions, and also karmic tendencies, patterns that come up that are unsettling. We have a chance when we're sitting still, very, very still, to study that, to study ourselves. And to practice not trying to push that away, nor grab a hold, nor run away, nor blame somebody else.

[05:51]

We have a chance to study steadfastly steady. So in this past week, we've had a major ceremony of priest ordination. And in that ordination, the maybe core of it, after the expression of renunciation, the transformation of what a person looks like and what a person wears and a new name. Then there's the precepts. And our practice of the precepts is also a settling, steady, finding our place in this moment practice.

[06:58]

The precepts that we have, the 16 bodhisattva precepts, historically it looks like, from what the scholars can find, that this form of the 16 bodhisattva precepts that both lay and priest receive, shuke tokudo and zaike tokudo, staying at home and attaining the way or touching the way, and leaving home and attaining the way are the same 16 bodhisattva precepts. And it looks like this originated with Dogen, our ancestor in Japan, that he formulated this way of ordination coming from, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years of other forms. And it looks like he didn't... This was not happening in China. He didn't receive that particular transmission of these precepts in that form from his teacher.

[08:08]

It was an innovation. It was maybe even a reform and a way of... Or it did separate himself from the organizational... monasteries and Buddhist headquarters of the time. And it had a huge effect on practitioners, especially lay practitioners who were able to receive the same precepts as priests. So this coming together of practice as bodhisattvas with different forms. So in the Buddha's time, when the Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, walked the earth from the accounts and the tradition as it was passed down, he didn't have a set of rules or precepts or an order that people decided to join, or they didn't know prereqs to join.

[09:22]

They met him, and were moved by his practice or were so ripe and ready that they understood his teaching. And then he just said, come, monk. That was the ordination. Come, join. Come live the way I live. And at a certain point, Ananda, I think his jisha of 25 years and his cousin and... said, but Shakyamuni Buddha, it would be good, it would be well, Buddha, if we had rules for the order, because there were other teachers at other times, and their dharma didn't last very long because they didn't have certain precepts. They didn't have precepts that people followed. So it would be good if we had those. But the Buddha did not take that up right then.

[10:24]

The way it happened, was very... It arose out of situations, very organic. Something would happen between a follower of Buddha and a layperson or another monk or nun, and that would come to the Buddha's attention. And then he would say, this isn't in alignment with the teachings. This isn't in alignment with the Dharma. And then he would say, this is not a wholesome way to act or we will not do that anymore. And human beings being who you human beings are, pretty soon there was a long list of these things, you know, 250, 320, all these different situations where the Buddha said, this is not a skillful way, this is not beneficial. And eventually...

[11:25]

a body of precepts grew and became the vinya, or the whole way of deportment and conduct and behavior and precepts. Very, very minute, some of them, you know, very circumstantial to India at that time, 2,500 plus years ago. and the way the monks and nuns interacted with the village people and each other. So these precepts grew. That was maybe the old, the Pali Canon, the old wisdom school. And then as the Mahayana developed, or the new wisdom schools, there were different emphasis, emphasis on bodhisattva practice. And also when the Buddha died, he told Ananda, it is all right if the minor rules, if you don't follow the minor precepts anymore, that's all right after I die.

[12:38]

And Ananda reported this at this council after the Buddha died. And they said, well, which ones are the minor ones? Which ones did he mean? But he hadn't told Ananda. So nobody felt they could say, well, these ones we can drop. These are minor. And so they were all kept until the next council, many, many, many years later, and certain groups said, well, we're going to not do these. And other people said, no, no. And then schools began to develop different, emphasizing different precepts or letting go of certain precepts. This began to divide the sangha into different branches. So this, just a brief history, there's a sutra called the Brahmajala Sutra or the Brahmanet Sutra, which has precepts 48 minor and 10 major.

[13:50]

This is a Mahayana scripture probably written in China. And there were monasteries and groups that took these precepts and didn't take the 250 or 320. So all these different developments and evolutionary changes and emphasizing different things. And Dogen was aware of these. And when he went to China, he hadn't received the 250 and he wasn't allowed into certain monasteries or was treated as somebody who was who hadn't received precepts, even though he had been ordained since he was 12 or 13. And he petitioned the government to allow him to be in these monasteries. So coming from all this background, he developed or landed or offered 16 Bodhisattva precepts.

[14:51]

And... these precepts start with three treasures. Part of the 16 are taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. And sometimes, and some of you in this room are preparing to receive Buddhist precepts. Some of you already have received. But each month, we do our full moon ceremony here, and there's a chance to recite these precepts. And of course, Every morning we chant Buddha, Saranam, Gacchami in Pali, which if you didn't know what that meant, it's to the Buddha, I go for refuge. Buddha, Saranam, Gacchami. And to the Dharma, I go for refuge. And to the Sangha, I go for refuge. So we do offer the chance to study this, recite this,

[15:59]

reflect on this, meditate on this, join others in taking refuge or practicing taking refuge. Maybe we don't even know when we first come here what we're even saying, what it's all about. We're just with a spirit of entering and fully exerting ourselves. We join in and appreciate being with others in this way. So I wanted to present a way of looking at the three refuges in a slightly different way than one might understand them, or a more developed way, or just studying them in a little different way. And this particular way of looking at the refuges, taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, I was told that when Suzuki Roshi presented this, and this is a traditional teaching that Dogen offers in his essay on conferring the precepts, the Kyoji Kaimon, he talks about Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha in slightly different ways than we might think.

[17:22]

And I was told when Suzuki Roshi presented this, everybody fell asleep. So I'm ready for you to all totally nod off. But I've been... And I also have had... It's like, what is he saying? What is Dogen trying to present? How is this helpful? And is it just a lot of extra or something? So I offered this as a way for us to get... a feel, maybe a different feel for the refuges, and also to come into relationship with the refuges maybe in a different way and see not as something apart from us, but as our life. Not as some kind of statue in the Zendo, but as our life, our living and breathing So the Kyoji Kaimon, if you imagine the 16 Bodhisattva precepts, and then in the center, and then an essay, the Kyoji Kaimon, this is this essay about them that Dogen wrote, is further exploring the 16 Bodhisattva precepts.

[18:46]

And then there was further... commentary on that by one of Dogen's disciples. And then in the 1800s, another commentary on that called the Zen Kaimon, which further explicates and looks at the 16 Bodhisattva precepts. And that last Zen Kaimon is... It is such a maybe... It's a way of looking at the precepts that is so hard to understand and possibly confusing that the author of it said that it should not be published. It should only be passed on to people who have been initiated through ceremonies and ordinations and dharma transmission because it can be so confusing.

[19:48]

and would be detrimental, would be dangerous even, if people read this particular work without having really studied the precepts. So the Kyoji Kyaimon offers a study of the refuges in this way. Three virtues or merits or ways to look at the refuges. The first is... as the single-body refuges, single-body. And the second is the manifested triple treasure. So single-body triple treasure, then the manifested triple treasure, and the third is the maintained triple treasure. So we can go through Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha in each of these in these three ways. The single-body Buddha, the single-body Dharma, the single-body Sangha. the manifested Buddha, manifested Dharma, manifested Sangha, and the maintained Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.

[20:55]

So it's a way of looking at the refuges in three different ways. Are you asleep yet? Really, I have gone over this material and gotten sleeping myself, but I feel it's... It's useful. It's in deepening some sense of what we're talking about when we talk about taking refuge. So the single body, the single body refuges points to, one might say, the overarching truth of what the precepts are at all, all the 16, which is that we are interconnected, empty of separateness, full of interbeing with all things, anything we can think of, all beings, all people, animals, and plants.

[21:58]

It's just a one single body unity reality. And that would be the single body triple treasure that This is what the Buddha woke up to. So when you talk about the Buddha, this truth, this awakening to this truth of the one body, this is the Lotus Sutra teaching of the one vehicle or the one body, this is the single-body Buddha. The single-body Buddha unitary dharma is the fact that it looks like there's a multiplicity of things and differences and phenomena, numberless things, and each one of them is different within this one body.

[23:04]

So this relationship, actually, of difference and unity is the single-bodied dharma. And the single-bodied sangha is the harmony. You know how we say bringing harmony to everyone is sangha? So the single-bodied virtue or the single-bodied sangha triple treasure is the harmony and the intimacy in the fact that this difference and unity is in one, is together, is not separated. There's relationship there. There's a harmony between this one single body and the multiplicity. This is the single-bodied sangha. And they don't interfere with each other. They don't make trouble for each other. Right in our own body-mind, there is...

[24:12]

Big mind, as Suzuki Roshi calls it, and small mind, or all the differences between us and yet one single body expressed in our life moment by moment. And there's no interfering. This interpenetrates without problem. This is harmony. The harmony of difference and equality is the single-bodied sangha. And I think I would say, and you could say that all the other, the three pure precepts and the ten grave precepts all come out of and are further expressions of this single body and this teaching of the harmony of difference and unity. So the unity as Buddha...

[25:13]

all the differences as dharma, and the harmony between them as the sangha. This is the single-bodied triple treasure. So the second virtue of the triple treasures is the manifested. So the Buddha, as a manifested Buddha, is Shakyamuni Buddha, or a person, an actual person, who manifests this awakening. Buddha means awakened one. So the manifested Buddha treasure is Chakyamuni Buddha or a person who has awakened. What did they awaken to? They awakened to this single-bodied triple treasure of the emptiness of separateness and the interconnectedness, the suchness of... difference and equality. A person manifests. And the manifested dharma, so now we're doing Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha as manifested triple treasure.

[26:21]

So we have a person, Shakyamuni Buddha, and then the manifested dharma are the teachings of a person, an awakened person. So the dharma... in that we, in terms of the teachings that come to us, in all the ways they come to us, are manifested dharma. And the manifested sangha triple treasure are all the Buddha's disciples, all the people who study the way, who study the triple treasure, who study the precepts, Actually, in time and space, they manifest and take up the way and practice the way. That's the sangha, the manifested sangha. And the third virtue or the third of the triple treasure ways of looking at triple treasure is the maintained triple treasure.

[27:39]

sometimes also translated as preserved, preserved, maintained. So the preserved or maintained are all the teachers throughout history and into the future who awaken. So we say Buddhas and ancestors, you know, we just chanted, Buddhas and ancestors are the same as we, we in the future shall be Buddhas and ancestors. This is the maintained Buddha treasure. All the Buddhas and ancestors that, you know, in our service in the morning, we set aside time to make prostrations to Buddhas and ancestors. We pay homage to all the Buddhas and ancestors now that have come to be through the past... are in the present and will be in the future. This is to maintain the triple treasure, maintain Buddha, awakened one.

[28:44]

And the maintained Dharma is the teachings of all those people. How do we maintain teachings? Well, they're written down. They were originally passed down orally and memorized, and then later they were memorized, copied, recited, and passed down from person to person through eyes and ears, you know, and reflected on, and then passed on again. So the maintained Dharma are the actual teachings that are passed down and then maintain Dharma as actual scriptures, books, sutras, chant books. And how do we maintain those? Well, there are practices around maintaining the Dharma in this way.

[29:50]

For example, taking good care of the actual physical teachings. that they be protected, that we have a picture upstairs up above the dining room. There's a picture on the wall near the Eno's office, and it's a monk in a library, a Chinese monk in a library. I don't know if you know that picture, but all the sutras are in these tablets that get aired out. They're in these... They're sewn. Sutra means suture, you know, sewn. These books and palm leaves were sewn together to protect the teachings, to pass them on. And when we have study hall during practice period, we carry our sutras with sutra covers, and we don't put anything on top of our chant books.

[30:50]

You know, they're... We hold our chant books in certain ways. These are all practices of maintaining dharma, taking care. And why? Because these teachings relieve suffering, help alleviate the causes of suffering, the causes and conditions, and the creation of suffering. So they are protected and maintained. And it's up to us. I think this is why I feel this is so important. Because if these teachings have been important to you, have met you, have inspired you to turn your life around, then it's up to each one of us to not only manifest these truths that we discover for ourselves and then pass on, but to maintain in all the ways that we can.

[31:52]

And the maintained sangha are all the people, all the practitioners who have practiced and cared for the teaching and taken care of temples and taken care of the teachers you know, through the ages. This is the maintained sangha. And all those who studied and practiced, and in the widest sense, you might say everything and everybody could come under this. But this maintained, to take it upon oneself to maintain these teachings, even a phrase, even a word of the teaching, to maintain it and pass it on, or take care of others who are making this effort. So this is the maintained sangha. And part of this maintenance is the release, the releasing of beings from suffering in any way that we can.

[33:07]

This is how we maintain Buddhadharma, Buddha's teaching of what? Of this single body. within the single body, all the differences, all the phenomena. So I want each of us to find our, find a sense of where we rather than the triple treasures or something apart from us or somebody's devoted to them, but I don't know what they're talking about, to see one's own, where your place is in what I've been talking about, because we are not apart from this.

[34:08]

By coming to a practice center, by taking up these particular forms of practice, all of that helps... to both manifest and maintain. And the precious quality of these teachings of awakening, non-harming, all the precepts being just one way of talking about the shape of this one body, this one mind, this one body-mind, to enter into the practice, one becomes intimate with this, becomes in relationship to this, if we allow ourselves to be truly in relationship to these teachings and

[35:16]

to the three treasures. You know, we've been, we had a memorial service at the beginning of September, our monthly memorial service for Suzuki Roshi, and there'll be another one in October, and then there's other memorial services at the beginning of October for... Bodhidharma, you know, for Dogen and Kezan, these ancestors, you know, who manifested the teachings. And so we make offerings of, you know, those beautiful offering trays of cups of sweet water, sweet tea, and food. So we, this is a, this is some way of expressing gratitude for what?

[36:17]

For the teachings that have come down to us. And there's a story of our ancestor Tozan Ryokai. Tozan is also in, that's the Japanese pronunciation for dungshan. He was a Chinese teacher, Dengshan, and his teacher was Yunnan, or Ungodoyo. But before he came to that teacher, he traveled around and studied with other teachers, and he happened to be at Nanchuan's temple right the day before they were going to be doing a memorial ceremony ceremony for Nanchuan's teacher, Matsu. And Matsu was a very famous teacher with many, many disciples.

[37:18]

And Nanchuan said to the assembly, so if you can imagine, it's like the day before the Suzuki Roshi Memorial that we have up in the Cloud Hall up in the Kaisando. The day before, they're preparing, maybe cleaning the space and getting the offering cups ready just the way we do here. And Nanchuan said to the assembly, tomorrow we'll be making offerings and having a commemoration ceremony for Matsu. Do you think he will come? Do you think he'll come to the ceremony? And the assembly was silent. Nobody said anything. And then Dungshan stepped forward. He was very new to the community and young, and he said, He'll come when he has a companion. He'll come when he has a companion. And Nanchuan said, and this is a kind of play on words in the Chinese, but he said, although this is a young man, he is suitable for polishing.

[38:35]

kind of like a rough, he's rough and kind of like a jewel in the rough, but he's suitable for polishing. And Dungshan said, don't demean the good, and this good is his second name, Dungshan Lianji, and that Lianji means good. He said, don't demean the good, or don't put me in a box, don't label me, don't praise me. Sometimes if we get praised, it puts us off track. We get like, ooh, that sounded good, let's hear some more of that. And we forget to practice. So he said, don't demean the good, or don't demean Liangji, or enslave the free. He was just relating to the situation fully and completely, and this is what he said. But other than this, the point that I wanted to... to look at was when he asked, will he come?

[39:41]

Will this teacher return and come to his memorial service? Will he come? And Dungshan or Tozan said, he'll come when he has a companion. And this companion, this relationship with others who want to practice in this way together, who want to take up these teachings, manifest them, maintain them, not allow them to be cut off, to protect and maintain and pass them on for the benefit of beings, as a bodhisattva vow, as a way to not abandon others, to be able to help beings find their place. turn their life around, let go of rigid views. You know, we have the Noble Eightfold Noble Path.

[40:43]

The first of the Eightfold Noble Path is right view, and this is not right and wrong. Right view means wise view, skillful view, wholesome view, which means not fixed view, not rigid, not holding... to our opinions and our views as right and those people are wrong. How do we have right view, which is open, flowing, not fixed, ready, not set on our view as right, as opposed to right and wrong, and everybody else is wrong? So to be in relationship with others, to have companions who have subtle, supple, not subtle and supple, minds who are devoted to beings, who want to live in a way that's skillful and includes everybody.

[42:04]

and not leaving anyone out. This is bodhisattva vow. So he'll come when he has a companion. Are there any companions? Where are the companions? We all need companions to practice in this way. This is not easy. Being in relationship to each other in a wide way not narrow, empathizing with one another, not just in the sangha, but in the widest possible way, making effort to understand one another. This story of he'll come when he has a companion was a very important, very... I heard that at this story when I first began to practice, and I had a sadness, you know, this, you know, even if you... First of all, only those who exert themselves fully will attain the way.

[43:22]

So we have to start out with exerting ourselves fully. But even so... Even if you abandon everything for the ancient path, you can never forget the meaning of sadness. And there's something about he'll come when he has a companion. Who will join me? Who will live and die together walking this path? Who will be the companion? And Suzuki Roshi, you know, in the epilogue of Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, I don't know if you know this, but... this last chapter in Zen, My Beginner's Mind, he brings this up in his own way. He's saying, you know, don't expect that everybody who practices will attain enlightenment about this mind which is always with us.

[44:25]

So waking up to this one mind that we all There's some sadness there, right? But big mind is always with us, and that is why I repeat the same thing over and over and over, says Suzuki Roshi. Everyone has Buddha nature or is Buddha nature. We must find some way to realize it. And then he says, someday someone will understand. I will wait for the island I was told is moving slowly up the coast from Los Angeles to Seattle. You know, there's that island that's moving, you know,

[45:29]

Do you know about this? What island is it? Who knows? That's coming along the coast and slowly moving over the years. What is it? It's Baja, California. So somebody told Suzuki Rush about this island that slowly, you know, inches every 10 years or something, slowly moving up the coast. And I think it's the same feeling. You know, someday someone will understand. I will wait. for that island that's slowly moving up the coast. I think this is who will be a companion. This teacher will arrive when there is a companion. Matsu will return to his ceremony when there's a companion. So I bring this forth. Let us be companions. Let us manifest and maintain the triple treasure and this practice.

[46:38]

And as the kitchen goes back to the kitchen to cook our lunch, this is maintaining the triple treasure. This is maintaining serving food, cooking and serving food to support people sitting. So I thank the kitchen. So today I sit with sadness. And some of you may be sitting with sadness. How do we find our way in the midst of any circumstance? Not dependent on...

[47:40]

things going the way we want them to go, and our preferences, not dependent on people having our views. Can we find our practice in any circumstance? So let's sit still and steady today, in this one single body which we cannot be apart from, manifesting the teaching and helping to maintain through our practice. Thank you very much. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support.

[48:57]

For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[49:06]

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