Good morning. Some of you are aware of a great tragedy, a horrific tragedy that took place. Some of you maybe are not aware. I opened my computer to do some research this morning and came upon the news that 50 people were killed at a club.

[01:06]

in Orlando, Florida, in a shooting, and 53 people were wounded. And I feel very moved, kind of cracked open by this. I think you can read or not about the details, One of the points that was made is that the club was a gay club in Orlando, and so I've been reflecting on the consequences of hatred, bigotry, delusion, confusion, and the actions that flow from that state of mind. that way of thinking, and fixed views, and then add into that all of the causes and conditions of ability to get an assault rifle, et cetera.

[02:21]

All of that combining to make this terrible, tragic situation So I just wanted to take a moment to turn our hearts and minds towards the victims, their family and friends, the survivors, and to not exclude the perpetrator whose deluded mind brought into being these actions. Our actions follow from our thoughts and our speech follows from our thoughts. Mind, speech, and body, these are our karmic activities, our voluntary actions.

[03:26]

What I wanted to talk about with you today, and I think it follows maybe from what I just brought up, is faith. What is faith in Buddhism? How do we understand faith? And the word faith in Sanskrit is, or what's translated as faith in English, comes from Sanskrit shraddha. And... This character in Chinese and Japanese, the kanji for shraddha or faith, is quite interesting. The definition of faith would be conviction, loyalty, belief. And the kanji for the character is made up of two parts, which is person next to the other part of the character, which is word.

[04:43]

So it's a person who stands by their word. The image, not necessarily the definition, but the image, when you see it, is someone who stands by their word. And this is faith, or stands by, not necessarily their own word, but stands by the word. In English, this word faith conjures up many things for people, and it might have a negative connotation for you, especially if you were, as a young person, were made to accept things on faith, because I said so, or because it said so, and memorized the things that you needed to believe in, and it may not have worked so well.

[05:48]

And I think this is not what we mean when we're talking about faith, shraddha, or faith in Buddhism. It's more of a confidence confidence and understanding. This faith is necessary for many different parts of our practice, including the first two of the Eightfold Path, right view and right intention. It said that one needs faith in order to have right, and when I say right view and right faith, this right is upright and complete understanding, a completeness rather than right and wrong, uprightness. So along with this faith is a kind of relaxation almost and open-heartedness.

[06:58]

in our practice. There's a story of Sultrim Alione, the Tibetan lama who took a group on a pilgrimage to Tibet to visit some holy site. And they were hiking and trekking, actually, to get to this place. Right before they got to where this shrine was, there was a river, and it was like a raging river, and they realized it had been a wonderful hike up until then. However, now there was a lot of fear in the group. If we're going to get there, we have to cross this river. And there was a realization that this was dangerous. How are they going to cross this river? And Sultra Malioni, some of you know she is, she's an American, said that she decided to relax completely and to allow this particular bodhisattva, I think, whose shrine they were visiting, or teacher, to help us.

[08:21]

And if that meant just staying in camp and not crossing the river, fine. So she understood, and this is what she wrote, I saw that faith is a form of relaxation. And this turned out to be one of the most powerful realizations of the pilgrimage for me. Faith is taking things one step at a time, relaxing and trusting. It is moment-to-moment opening in the wisdom of things. So when we're talking about faith, it's more this, trust, openness to the way things are, and responding from there, rather than having faith in something outside of ourselves. Faith in some... object or some idea even, but a state of being.

[09:28]

And she coupled it with relaxation, which I found very helpful. This open and relaxed way that accepts, if it means we're not going to get to the shrine, so be it. Then we'll camp here. And that that's okay. trusting that what unfolds, there's something there to be learned and understood rather than a mistake. In our liturgy and in various ceremonies, we use the word faith, for example, before an ordination. The person who's officiating says, invoking the presence and compassion of our ancestors, in faith that we are Buddha, we enter Buddha's way.

[10:37]

And then flows from there this invocation, this calling forth. But this phrase, in faith that we are Buddha, we enter Buddha's way. In faith that our... the true reality of our existence together is awakened nature, is Buddha nature. Buddha meaning Buddha is awakened and Buddha the awakened one. So each one of us having in faith that we are Buddha, in faith that we are awakened nature ourselves, we enter Buddha's way. We take a step in Buddha Dharma, Buddha's teaching. Another place where we use faith is our 13th century Japanese teacher, Dogen Zenji, who was the founder of this particular school of Buddhism in Japan, which came from China to Japan and then to us through our founder,

[11:51]

there's something he wrote which is called The Vows of the High Priest Dogen. And at the end of this piece, Dogen says, he brings up the body and mind of faith. And the last, this is the final kind of lines of this piece. talking about confession and repentance, meaning acknowledging and admitting that we may not be trusting and relaxing in the practice and following the teaching. So this is from these vows. Confessing and repenting in this way, one never fails to receive profound help

[12:54]

from all Buddhas and ancestors. By revealing and disclosing our lack of faith before the Buddhas, we melt away the root of transgression by the power of our confession and repentance. This is the pure and simple color of the true mind of faith, of the true body of faith. These last words from that, this... expression of his vows is basically saying by admitting that we have a lack of faith, that we do have a lack of trust, and our actions and thinking and speech may express that or follow from that lack. By admitting this, acknowledging this, the phrase is confessing and repenting, which basically means fully acknowledging and also saying, I want to let go of that.

[13:59]

I want to live in a different way from this trust in mind and heart, this kind of faith. By revealing and disclosing the lack of faith, one melts away the root of transgression. So the root of transgression is having a lack of faith in the Buddha's teaching, not following it, not going along with the teachings of wisdom and compassion and ethics and patience and giving and loving-kindness and all the teachings to turn from that and act in a different way. So admitting this, we melt away the root of these actions that are unwholesome. by revealing and disclosing our lack of faith. So it's pretty important in this particular teaching from Dogen around admitting our lack of faith and melting away the root of transgression.

[15:11]

And then this itself, this is the true and simple color of the true mind of faith, of the true body of faith. So it connects our admitting who we are, admitting our humanness, our tendencies, our unwholesome thinking and acting by admitting that. That itself is some expression of faith, expression of trust, confidence. And then one becomes the body and mind of faith. So it's not like we have to kind of get rid of our lack of faith, but it's admitting it, taking full responsibility that we then enter the body and mind of faith.

[16:13]

It's kind of beautiful that way, that it's the wholeness of it, rather than get rid of this stuff, rather totally admit this, and there we are. body and mind of faith. I wanted to share with you some thoughts I had of the wonderful experience this week, yesterday, was it yesterday, the day before yesterday, of Muhammad Ali's funeral. I don't know if some of you listened to this on the radio or tuned into it. I also, by mistake, happened to turn on my computer and there was live coverage of this funeral of Muhammad Ali. And I hadn't planned to watch it or listen, but I couldn't turn it off.

[17:20]

I actually listened for three hours. It was a three-hour funeral. And I was so moved and so inspired. So just a few comments about it. I didn't know about the life of Muhammad Ali this thoroughly. I knew some things. I knew he was a great and beautiful athlete. heavyweight champion of the world three times, and I knew he had spoken truth to power during a time when he risked everything. He risked his title and his ability to continue boxing by refusing to be drafted for the Vietnam War, and his clarity in understanding

[18:21]

completely the situation he was in and speaking that truth on behalf of everyone and the fact that that woke up so many people and the dignity. So those are some of the things I knew, but I heard about it more in depth, how it affected people, how difficult speaking people and how fresh it was speaking in that way. It still is fresh. And his knowing who he was and naming who he was, including his own beauty. I had seen Muhammad Ali one time when I was traveling. He was on an airplane flight with me, just a regular person in economy class. I think he had Parkinson's disease at the time and walking slowly, but he was by himself.

[19:23]

And people began to recognize who he was and ask for autographs. And he was very gracious to everybody, you know, kind of bothering him, or maybe he didn't consider it bothering, but coming up to him while he was traveling. And even seeing him as an older person, not well, but not in full health. Still, the charisma, the kind of presence was very clear. So that first half of his life I knew about. The second half of his life, which people spoke about, was new to me, the amount of terrible work he did and supporting people in unseen ways. donations and traveling places and feeding the hungry and creating the Muhammad Ali Center for young people, just so many things.

[20:26]

And this service itself was an interfaith service. And when I bring up the word faith, he was called many times a man of faith during this funeral, that Muhammad Ali was a man of faith. in this service which he planned himself over many years, actually, down to the last detail, who would speak and who would be on the dais, on the podium. It was an interfaith service. There was Muslim, Jewish, two rabbis spoke, Mormon, Christian, Native American, and Buddhist. clergy and religious people spoke, and the Buddhist, two people from the Buddhist religion were peace pilgrims, people who chant as their main practice.

[21:31]

They chant the name of the Lotus Sutra, to the Lotus of the Wonderful Law, and walk, and I don't know if you've met Peace Pilgrims or been at demonstrations where people have been there chanting with drums, and they chanted for a long time, actually, quite beautifully, just homage to the Lotus Sutra. And the Native American speakers were one spoke in a Native American tongue, which I wasn't, I think I missed which language it was, and then it was translated, and such dignity and also the cadence of the language was, it was a slower rhythm of speech that really drew

[22:38]

me to listen carefully and to stay with those words. One story that I wanted to tell, which Billy Crystal told, comedian Billy Crystal, who was asked to speak, had to do with being with Muhammad Ali at the Olympics. I'm not sure if it was the Olympics where he lit the flame and came out slowly and kind of shaking with Parkinson's to light the flame, or if it was another Olympic Games, but he came to the boxing match and the American boxer beat the other young man, and I don't know what country that person was from, and there was a big celebration, Star-Spangled Banner, the flags flowing.

[23:41]

Muhammad Ali met him and shook his hand. And in the middle of this great celebration that USA won, Muhammad Ali said to Billy Crystal, I want to see the loser. I want to go see the loser. And Billy Crystal was like, the loser? It's like nobody's thinking about the loser, whoever that was. He said, I want to see the loser. So they asked the Olympic officials where the locker room was and all, and they went down to this locker room, and there was this young man with, you know, kind of towel over his shoulders and his head in his hands, and just nobody was there, nobody was with them. He was the lowest point, losing this fight in the Olympics, and just, and Muhammad Ali comes into the locker room, and he tells him, you did great. I really saw you had some great moves. I saw you did this and you did that. And pretty soon this young person, he said, you're going to go far.

[24:45]

And he began sparring with them and stuff. And he watched as this loser, so-called loser, Billy Crystal said, just became animated and filled again with his own confidence and that he'll try again next time, you know. That particular story was so, it was such a small thing, really, in a life. But it showed the heart of this person that he would even think, where's the loser? I want to see the loser. And then care for him in this way. I was... this legacy which many people spoke about, of this kindness. And if you only knew the first half of his life and the bragging and poetic name-calling and all that, one wouldn't know the fullness of this person, the fullness of their way in the world and in a kind of hidden way.

[26:01]

without caring for people. So it was really, really inspiring. And this legacy of truly compassionate care for beings in a hidden, not so... It doesn't matter if anybody sees it or not or knows it or not. In fact, that was one of the other stories that was told about... him trying to pay this person for these Bibles that he gave him, and the person refusing the money. And Muhammad Ali is saying, take the money, I want to get into heaven. And the guy said, I want to get into heaven too, I won't take the money. And the two of them were kind of, who could be more self-sacrificing? And then Muhammad Ali left the money hidden under a plate or something as he left.

[27:07]

Just little stories, you know. But, you know, they were told to the audience at the funeral. It was a stadium. It was 15,000, 20,000 people there. 15,000, 20,000 people lining the streets of the... of the funeral, I can't remember the word for it, the parade, not a parade, the funeral procession through the streets, and then how many thousands and thousands listening to it, and you hear a story like that, a little story like that, and that's what can inspire us to change our life, to do the work, the kind thing when we have a choice. Because it is a choice. Kindness does not just happen willy-nilly.

[28:11]

This is voluntary action. This is karmic action to practice loving kindness, to say the kind word, do the kind action, live from compassion, until we ourselves become it, until who we are is loving-kindness, compassion, generosity. So when we hear these narratives, these stories, we can be taught. This is from the Lotus Sutra, Chapter 10, teachers of the law, or the dharma really, translated as law sometimes, teachers of the dharma. And in that chapter, Medicine King, Medicine King Buddha, which is interesting that it's the Medicine King Buddha who's teaching this. What is the medicine that we need, that we want to hear, that we need to continue to live upright and with faith and with confidence and trust?

[29:23]

Medicine King teaches that. anyone can be a teacher of the Dharma and that anyone can be taught by anything or anyone else. So we can be teaching someone and not even know that we're teaching by our actions. We didn't set out to teach somebody. We were taking care of what we just felt response to, responsibility for. But someone else seeing that can be taught and see it as dharma. When we're ready, the teachers will come. The teachers are all over. Both animate and inanimate objects can teach. The most, you know, overhearing something in the marketplace, that's one of the stories of... one of our ancestors overhearing someone reciting the Diamond Sutra, just kind of wrote, you know, just reciting and overhearing that and being struck.

[30:34]

And there's a story of a Thai monk who overheard a woman chanting or kind of singing a little ditty about something or other and those words came in very strongly at a time when he was struggling with his practice life. And he heard this little children's song and realized, I can't remember the words of the children's song, but we can hear things. And if we're ready to hear it and write, that can go in very strongly and turn us around. So each of us can be a teacher, whether we know it or not, and we can be taught by anyone. So in this tenth chapter, Medicine King Buddha says, for the teachers of the Dharma, and he names, you know, men, women, lay, priests, ordained, not ordained, it doesn't,

[31:45]

doesn't matter, and probably he could add young, old, and what one needs to do is to enter the room of the Buddha, or the Tathagata, it says in the Lotus Sutra, Tathagata, Sanskrit, for the thus come one, the one who has thus come, that has appeared out of suchness or thusness, right now, the Thus Come One, it's an epithet for the Buddha. So you enter the room of the Tathagata, or the Buddha, you put on the robe of the Tathagata, and you sit on the seat of the Tathagata, the Buddha. And the Medicine King Buddha goes on to say, stepping into the room is stepping into Great compassion. The room of the Buddha is great compassion for all living beings, for all beings.

[32:50]

Putting on the robe, wrapping yourself in the robe. The robe of the Buddha is the robe of gentleness and patience and forbearance and tolerance. This is the Buddha's robe. Anyone can wrap themselves in gentle kindness, patience, forbearance. It's not reserved for ordained or not. We can wrap ourselves in this role of kindness, gentleness. And then we sit on the seat. And the Buddha's seat is the seat where we contemplate the emptiness of all phenomena, or the emptiness of all things, all dharmas. And one might say, what do you mean, emptiness of all dharmas? What are you talking about?

[33:52]

So just briefly, and I think this is very core Buddhist teaching, that all phenomena, all appearances, no matter what they are, they may look, very substantial, but if you study deeply what it is, what this piece of paper, these pieces of paper are, we see that they are made up of many, many, many, many, many, many causes and conditions, including, this is paper, what is paper made of? So we have trees, we have what makes a tree grow, earth, and rain and sun, and who planted it, how did it get planted, and the woodcutter, and every single thing that went into paper. We call it paper for short, but it's actually empty of whatever we think of as paper and full of every single thing actually in the entire universe, Buddha-verse, as Robert Thurman calls it.

[35:08]

That's sitting. And not to forget that and to, you know, in faith that we are Buddha is sitting on the seat of contemplating the emptiness of all things. This is how we teach. This is how everyone can be a teacher of the Dharma, chapter 10. So Buddhism is very diverse in this way. It doesn't say, only these people, and they're the ones, and they have special prerogatives. And actually, to be open to the valley streams and the mountains, it's a very famous poem by Li Pu, walking in the Chinese mountains and hearing the sound of the valley streams.

[36:10]

and seeing the mountains and saying, writing a poem, the sound of the valley streams is the Buddha's great tongue. And the color of the mountains is the body of the Buddha, the form and color of the mountains being taught by inanimate, supposedly inanimate objects as well. And then Li Po in this poem says, If somebody asked me about this, this insight he had about the sound of the valley streams and the color of the mountains, he would say, he said, hundreds and thousands of scrolls of scriptures are being taught. So all things can teach, and we ourselves can teach whether we know it or not, and be taught by. In faith that we are Buddha, we enter Buddha's way.

[37:11]

So I wanted to hear what Suzuki Roshi, our founder, had to say about faith. And there's a number of, there's an index for his transcribed lectures, and there's a number of them where he brings up faith. And it's It's very, he has a hard, feels like, I shouldn't say he had a hard time, but he uses the word faith and then he says, I shouldn't use the word faith. And I think it's because there's a misunderstanding and people think faith in something outside oneself, faith in an object outside. And that's not what Suzuki Roshi's talking about in terms of faith. He's, bringing up faith in something, and this sounds very Zen, I guess, you know, he says, something that has no form or color and is completely surrounding us, and to have faith that you are supported by this, always, and yet nobody can understand this.

[38:34]

It's like, have complete faith in this, and nobody can understand it. So then one might think, well, how can I have faith in something that I can't understand? And not only that, nobody can understand. And basically, that's what he's trying to say, that because you are it, who you are, who we are, is already it. How we are is it. So to put it outside ourselves is already going too far or making a big mistake. So I wanted to read just from this dialogue he's having with the student about this, where he's kind of... The student says... Well, Suzuki Roshi starts off by saying, the most important point is to have conviction, to follow the truth.

[39:37]

That is, in other words, faith, or to trust in truth. Whatever happens to us, that is our basic attitude, the basic attitude of human life. And then the student says, why do you mean evince the strength of great faith towards the Dharma of the Buddha? How do you acquire... strength of faith. How do you acquire faith? And Suzuki Roshi says, yeah, actually, it's only one way we know. We put emphasis on faith. If you put emphasis on faith, you may feel strange. I shouldn't say faith. You know, belief. I'm trying, he says. Actually, there's no other way to... I think in all religions it's the same. And then he describes faith. And he says, eyes cannot see eyes, you know?

[40:42]

Although eyes can see many things, eyes cannot see themselves. How eyes will know themselves is to put faith in it. And that is not to be involved in some dualistic idea. Don't be involved in a dualistic idea. Don't be involved in subject and object. And there's more. But this point and this image of our eyes cannot see our eyes. He uses this image a lot, actually. You can get a feeling for it, that how can I see eyes? So this image of we can't get it because we are it.

[41:43]

There is nothing to get, nothing to grasp after, nothing to attain, nothing to have, because in truth we are it. This is non-dualistic teaching. And then he tries to go on with this. He picks something, this book, and when you see this book outside yourself, it's your mind. It's big mind. And big mind is everywhere. Everything you see is mind. And there's a poem, a Chinese poem, called Faith in Mind. or belief in mind, or the inscription of belief in mind. And at the end of that poem, it says, faith and mind are not two. Non-duality is faith in mind. So coming back to this very difficult teaching of not two, not two, not one.

[42:55]

And then Suzuki Roshi gets going with this, talking about essence of mind and big mind, and that we're in it, it's not outside us, it is us, and it's everything we see. And then he says, what was the question again? And the student says, it was about faith. Oh, yeah, how to acquire faith, yeah, faith, faith. That kind of mind, you know, is not the mind which you can take as a face of an object. That mind is on everything or in everything. That mind is everywhere. Do you understand that mind? That kind of mind, to understand that kind of mind is just to, that is it, you know? No need to explain. But because you have always to think or believe in something, great or small, right or wrong, you must say something about it.

[44:08]

But this is the ultimate truth that we should accept. Basically, what he was trying to say is, this is it, which is just the teaching of thusness. What can we say about that? and eyes cannot see eyes because you are thus. We are thus. Anyway, it goes on with this student, and it finally ends up with this student saying, okay, so if we had faith, In the Lotus Sutra, we could trust the Lotus Sutra. Yeah, says Suzuki Roshi. Or if we had faith in our mother, we could depend on our mother. Yeah. But from what you say, it doesn't sound that way. No. The student says it has to do with the state of mind rather than trusting on something.

[45:12]

Suzuki Roshi says, yes. But what that state of mind is, is not very clear. Not clear. No one can make it clear. That was kind of like... That's it. It's like... And then students said, the word faith is not a good word, maybe. And Suzuki Rish said, no, no, not at all good. So I don't like to use the word faith. Anyway, it goes on. But I think the main point here is that this trust, faith or shraddha, trust in mind, trust in heart, trust, confidence, relaxed trust that, oh, at the end there, then the person is saying, whatever happens is Buddha's teaching is skillful means.

[46:14]

And Suzuki Roshi says, yes. And the student says, if I fell down and broke my leg, then that's also Buddhist teaching? And Suzuki Roshi says, yes. And should I have faith in it? Not faith, yeah. But feel that it is Buddhist teaching. Even though you die, there is Buddhist teaching. So this kind of confidence... what appears in our life can be a teaching for us, even dying, even terrible things. This is not condoning terrible things. This is when things happen to us, how can we find the trust, the confidence, the faith, the wholeheartedness, you know, the word shraddha, the Sanskrit shraddha is connected etymologically with the Latin for creare, to believe, and that's also connected with core, heart, core, corazón, the early Indo-European, way back, there's a shared root syllable in there,

[47:44]

D-H-A of it. So I like to think of this faith as wholeheartedness, complete and with heart, doing things with heart, entering each moment with heart. So don't misunderstand me, you know, this... in this tragedy or something, oh, that's Buddhist teaching. No, that's cruelty and the consequence of deranged hate, fixed ideas, and unwholesomeness in its worst. That's not an instance of Buddhist teaching. Where Buddhist teaching comes in is how do we respond? whatever happens. Do we hate?

[48:45]

Do we continue and have more fixed views? Do we respond with the robe of the Buddha, of gentleness, forbearance, patience, step into the room of great compassion, that nobody is outside of that great compassion, and contemplate sitting on the seat, contemplate the emptiness of all things. So that's the way in which each thing can be teaching, where we find how to respond in accordance, in alignment with the teachings. And at these worst and difficult times in our lives, to find, to repent and confess, you know, that we have lack of faith and practice. And then we're refreshed and start again as the body and mind of faith.

[49:52]

Thank you very much. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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