I have to confess, I'm a little shocked at so many people. I'll adjust. We here in the city center are in the first week of an intensive. Is that light enough? Yeah. Is it light enough back there? Yes. Okay. We're in the first week of intensive on the Sandokai, a Buddhist poem, a Zen poem. And I've been remarking that in fact, indeed it is a poem. Whether or not we want to think it's a scholarly treatise or anything else. with regards Zen, Buddhism or practice, it's also a poem.

[01:04]

I intend to talk about the first couplet in that poem. The mind of the great sage of India is intimately transmitted from west to east. common English translation, the one we use here. I intend to talk to it by referring to part of another poem. And here's the other poem, part of another poem. Pablo Neruda wrote a series of poems on the sea. And someone turned him into a lovely book. And this is the last part of a poem called Forget About Me. Maybe that's the mind of the great sage of India.

[02:12]

Let us look for secret things somewhere in the world. On the blue shore of silence. Or where the storm, like a rampaging train, has passed. As part of this intensive that we're having, we have a class each day. And one of the things we intend to do, and start it today, was invite. Teachers from different traditions. And this morning, Jodo Shinsh, priest, bishop, as he's called in his church, came. And his name is Bishop Agui, and he also happens to be, I don't know if you'd call him a disciple, a close friend, a...

[03:26]

Suzuki Roshi or a fellow clergy. He was Jodo Shin and Suzuki Roshi was Zen in Japan time in the early 60s. He certainly thought of Suzuki Roshi as a mentor, a support, a guide, an inspiration. So he came this morning and he and I and Jordan had tea in typical Japanese fashion. And then before he went into the dining hall to give his presentation, he said, oh, let's visit Kaisando. And he and I went up to the Kaisando, which is the finder's hall, the place where we memorialize the finder, Suzuki Roshi. But as he approached it and entered it, it was like he was talking to Suzuki Roshi without words.

[04:37]

And even now when I think of his demeanor, I have a deep feeling. It was more of like, oh, oh. I've been thinking, you know, that Suzuki Roshi is my Dharma grandfather. And he's like one of my grandfather's best friends from the old days. And that's the kind of feeling it had. You know, it was like he was coming to visit an old friend. And he was really moved. It was a special treat. And him being moved moved me. And the whole thing felt very alive and very heartfelt and deep.

[05:47]

And he did do the usual formalities. He offered incense and did three vows. But somehow the guttural, incomprehensible signs that he made were an extraordinary expression of love, homage, friendship, devotion. And the incense and the boughs were, well, that's what we do here. So let's do it. And I thought of how really our practice is about

[06:57]

Some mysterious kind of deep feeling. Deep feeling of connection. Deep feeling of appreciation. Of gratitude. Of reverence. Not reverence in a way that here's a holy thing, let's be reverent and pious. But more like... As Pablo Neruda says, let's look for secret things somewhere in the world. The world is amazing. As Bishop Agui talked about his story, coming to LA when he was 23, and pretty much screwing up, By his description, he came as a newly minted and newly ordained Jodo Shinshu priest.

[08:05]

And he didn't fit in very well. And he had a very serious car accident. And he ended up in hospital. And they thought he was kind of like a little bit nuts. And so it was a toss-up between sending him to San Francisco or sending him back to Japan. And he was too... embarrassed to go back to Japan because they made a big deal and give him lots of gifts when he was leaving and he just was too embarrassed to be humiliated and be go black. So he went to San Francisco. Take that Zen guy called Suzuki and things looked up from there. But Think about, can the Dharma, can the way we hold it, can the way we look and engage a human life, our own human life and all human life, can it be bigger than just some narrow definition that says, okay, this is a failure.

[09:27]

This is an insurmountable failure. And even more than that, can we go even further and say, this is a teaching. There's a wonderful line from a poem by Antonio Machado where he says, and I dreamt. And in the poem he says, each time he says, I dreamt. He says, magnificent mistake. I dreamt that honeybees were making white honey in my heart out of all my old failures. Can we hold our life like that? That our own failures, so-called failures, who calls them failures? We do. And maybe other people. Laughter

[10:33]

But I think most especially ourselves, because really, if we think that was terrific, it won't matter so much that everybody else saw it differently. But can we hold them in a way that they sweeten and turn into honey? And so when Bishop Agui was talking about that time in his life, This is his story. He was pretty screwed up. It was not going according to plan. It was not going well. But he held it so, now he holds it so lightly, so sweetly. It's like, look at that. Isn't that amazing? This young kid from Japan. But it's in a ride in San Francisco.

[11:37]

He was working in the bookstore. And this guy named Suzuki came in. And in his second visit said to him, you need to come over and sit, Zazen. I think Amida Buddha would support that. Let us look for those secret things. What kind of looking is that? With what kind of eyes? What kind of teachings come alive in the world? And how are they transmitted to this person who's so filled with concerns and fears and yearnings? and confusions and anxieties and resentments.

[12:41]

How are those secret things transmitted that brings a release like a storm passing? It's very interesting if you think about it, is that do we need this storm to have the release? bang your head against the wall to find out how good it is to stop banging your head against the wall. How do we discover this sense of open appreciation for our human life? In my mind, the way my mind puts all this together, this is directly relevant to the fact that this is a poem.

[13:57]

Because a poem has a beauty. It has an aesthetic. It's not simply saying, here's an idea. It's saying, when this idea, when this concept, when this communication is crafted in such a way, it becomes a thing of beauty. And a poem also goes beyond what it says. And this is the Dharma. The Dharma may be crafted in certain words. Like one book says this phrase comes from a phrase which translates as the Dharma eye of the right storehouse. But you know, we can get hung up on that in a way that makes us front.

[15:08]

But I think the Dharma is asking us to hold it in a way that we appreciate. Quite naturally, something in us softens. You know, when you start to appreciate a warm midsummer evening, where we still have light at eight o'clock, Something we can conjure up in an appreciative way. That can hold the ways in which we experience the world as not enough. Not enough of what we want and too much of what we don't want.

[16:23]

Let us look for the secret things. It's like it's a mystery to us. How do you get beyond not enough and too much? It's like we've been reciting that mantra since we were about 18 months. We've recited it until we've become a virtuoso. We can take any situation and fit it into it. We can look at any group of people. Each person is utterly amazing. Each person has gone through some extraordinary combination of events. I was reading an article recently by a biologist. And he was reciting the odds against this moment being exactly the way it is.

[17:31]

So many trillions of trillions, so many things had to line up for this moment to be exactly the way it is. And yet given that, Glance at it and go, not enough. It's like we have refined that mantra so well, we can bring it up and we can find good reason for it in every situation. So much so. That just this is enough is like a secret thing. That just this is enough becomes the esoteric, it says intimately communicated, esoterically transmitted.

[18:36]

It's the esoteric, mysterious, secret transmission of the Dharma. Just this is enough. Prabhupada Narada says, let's go look for those secret things. And the Sandokai says, that is Buddha mind. Actually, the word is shin, heart mind. That is Buddha heart mind. That way of engaging, that way of being, that way of non-being. a human being do that.

[19:43]

It's a mystery. It's an esoteric teaching. You know, we can learn in the Zen school, you know, we can learn the forms of posture in Zazen. You know, and the more you engage posture, the more you discover The subtleties. No. Let your thumbs touch ever so lightly. So when your hands are in gaisho, rather than think of pressing them together in isometric exercise. What's the word? Isometric. It is isometric. Isometric exercise. Think of them as. As if they're just kind of stuck together and you're very gently pulling them apart.

[20:51]

And then I would say, look for the secret things that happen between your shoulder blades. Our body is an endless resource of secrets. The placement of the hips. Opening the front of the body from the groin to the throat. So that the whole abdominal region from the solar praxis to the groin becomes engaged in the body breath of Zazen. So that the mind body, the body breath of Zazen flowers. into this appreciative disposition that any thought and every thought expresses the secret of Dharma. Just this is enough.

[21:57]

We can turn it into words so easily, but they're nothing. nothing until they're taken in, embodied, they're breathed, they're actualized. And what's the alchemy that inspires the human heart to give itself to that activity? It's a mystery. It's the mind of the great sage of India. It's the heart mind of the great sage of India. And that's what's transmitted. It's transmitted from a Zen guy to a Jodo Shin guy.

[23:10]

Who by his own recognition and definition is a bit of a problem in the sect. But oddly enough, the guy who's a bit of a problem is now in charge. He's now the top guy in all of the United States. How does that happen? Why did they elect a guy who's a bit of a problem to be the tough guy? So we look for secret things in the body. We look for secret things in the breath. We look for secret things in them. The flowering of mind, of heart, that perfumes the world with appreciation.

[24:25]

You know, sando kai. The kai can translate as inquiry. To inquire into something. We have to let go of the mantra, this is not enough. But we also have to not know already what it is. We have to be available to life. Translation of Sandukai, the inquiry is not exactly synonymous, but the meaning is close to harmonizing.

[25:30]

Because awareness, awareness that arises from inquiry in of itself brings about harmonizing. the intrinsic healing of the Buddha way. As we bring awareness to the heart-mind that says not enough, it is healed of its illness, of its distress. And as it's healed of its illness and its distress, the very same mental content becomes a teaching. When we sit settled in the body breath of Buddha shin, of Buddha heart, of the mind heart of the great sage of India, when we sit in that, the mind

[26:51]

Thought content is no hindrance. Just as it says in the Heart Sutra. And the mind is no hindrance. And the secret becomes an open secret. And the transmission occurs. It's not that I was lacking something or that the situation was lacking something. We discover that the insistence upon lacking which made such compelling, convincing sense to us was misguided.

[28:05]

Seemingly, Bishop Agui had to run into this little Zen guy in the bookstore where he was working because they thought he was a bit of a flake. And this is about all they were willing to trust him with, was selling books in the store. Was that the great accomplishment of his life to that point? Or was it indeed the confirmation of his incompetence? And of course, when we can look at it with the big mind of 45 years later, it was 45 years ago.

[29:23]

of those assessments make any sense. It had nothing to do with success or failure. It just had to do with the process of a human life. And it had something to do with things are always moving and being influenced Always a movement from west to east. From L.A. to San Francisco. From a Zen guy to a Jodo Shin guy. There's always something happening. Each day. we have the full array of amazing experiences.

[30:33]

Each day, we recite the mantra, not enough, too much. And like, as Pablo Neruda says, It's like a storm raging like an express train going along. And then somehow, in some mysterious way, there's a pause. the art of being available for the pause. It's to discover between the inhale and the exhale, there's a pause.

[31:46]

And between the exhale and the inhale, there's a pause. It's to discover that between this thought and that thought, there's non-thinking. It's to discover that in the midst of having this experience and reciting the mantra not enough, and having this experience and reciting the mantra too much, there's a moment of just experiencing. And our practice is letting those moments reveal. The so-called secret things. The secret that just this is enough. That the pause and the traffic noise is directly related to the traffic noise.

[32:56]

our grasping that reveals releasing. It's the contracting of a karmic life that teaches us how to release. That's the realization of the heart of the great sage of India. And the contraction transmits it to the releasing. The west transmits it to the east. The person transmits it to the person.

[34:13]

You know, Bishop Agui goes in and, you know, we never talked about it. I have no idea what was going on in his mind and heart when he was relating to the Kaisando. But I sure as heck felt deeply moved. I got a lot out of it. I got some kind of Dharma teaching. Something was transmitted. Was it just that? product of my own imagination. Was it how he moved?

[35:23]

Was it how he carried his body? Was it the expressive side Was it the seeming appearance that in that moment he just forgot who he was and remembered how much he loved that person, that good friend? Was it that in that moment all that transpired into a state of deep deep appreciation that way beyond something personal between the two of them that reveals something about the magnificence of the human capacity that selfish as we are

[36:40]

We have this extraordinary capacity to drop it. And to let the world be embraced with deep appreciation. Who can do such a thing? It is the workings of the mind and heart that enable such things. It's a secret. As Rumi would say, it's an open secret for anybody who wants to know it. It's a secret that we explore with every breath in Zazen. We explore with every moment of mindfulness.

[37:42]

With every interaction, with every exchange. We explore with every contraction and every expansion. And somewhere in all of that exploration, something's transmitted. And can we grasp it with our mind? Do we know exactly how it's transmitted? Suzuki Roshi, no, I'm going to tell this guy, come over to Zazen. And 45 years later, he'll be sitting in the dining room in Zen Center saying lovely things about me. Or did he just walk in there looking for some book and look up at this guy. And then without even thinking, saying, hey, you, come on over.

[38:44]

goes beyond the contrivance of human endeavor. That's why it's esoteric. It's a humble expression of existence, that reality is more than what I think it is. And it's expressed through the very life force running through me and giving birth

[39:58]

And feelings. And opinions. And the mantra, not enough and too much. And that's what Buddha teaches the Buddha. That's what West teaches the East. And here's the rest of Pablo Neroda's Sandokai. Interesting bending of reality. Let us look for secret things. Somewhere in the world, on the blue shore of silence, on the blue shore

[41:00]

I got the Spanish over here. Interesting how some words get translated. Or where the storm, like a rampaging train, has passed. There are faint signs left. Coins of time and water. Debris. Celestial ash. the irreplaceable rapture of sharing in the labor of solitude and the sand the irreplaceable rapture of sharing in the labor you know we practice strain.

[42:05]

But it's just a giving thanks. It's just an offering. It's just saying that this human life is just a stick of incense offered on the altar of existence. That's our enactment of our bound.

[42:50]

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