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. Good evening. Can you hear me? I'm in the middle of co-leading the Yoga Zen Retreat with Patricia Sullivan, who is somewhere. It's right over there. And the name of the retreat is Stepping Back, Stepping Forth. And we've been enjoying our time of stepping back and this retreat of stepping back.

[01:01]

The word retreat itself means to go backward, to go back. And some of the things we've been working on in subtle and more unsubtle ways are habitual tendencies, our habitual tendencies of holding ourselves, of walking, of sitting, of finding ourselves in space, and to There can be some discomfort as we check out and move into new ways of being, ways of walking and using muscle groups and strengthening and relaxing different parts of the body. And of course, body-mind. So as we work with our habitual tendencies of body, we also work with letting go of ways of doing things and thinking of things

[02:03]

as we might know, these habitual ways of doing things can lead to harm and suffering in the body and in our whole life, actually, not just aches in our lower back, but how then we, what our state of mind is, what our attitude is. Patricia is also staying on for a few days and will be presenting the Vimalakirti Sutra puppet show on Saturday. Those of you who will be here will, I'm sure, enjoy this marvelous, magical event on the stage, on the big stage at the retreat hall. And I wanted to talk tonight a little bit about, this is my plan. something about the Vimalakirti Sutra and practicing with habitual tendencies of thinking, gender issues, the International Buddhist Conference of Women, Sakyadita, compassion, altruism, and maybe something about bees.

[03:33]

LAUGHTER So we'll see if that happens. I also wanted to just mention that I'm very happy that old friends Richard Jaffe and Elaine Masner are here. Where are you? Are you here somewhere? And we were at Tuss Heart together in the 70s, and I remember that Richard and Elaine had a subscription to the New York Times. Yes? Is that true? I don't think so. No? Somebody did. I associate them on my day off reading the New York Times, but maybe you didn't have a subscription. We used to get it on Sundays or something. Yes. That was our source of view. Yes, a week late. So Linda Gallion, the director of Tassar, and I spent about two weeks in Indonesia participating in

[04:37]

Sakyadita, Daughters of the Buddha, International Buddhist Women's Conference in Yogyakarta, Java, region of Java. And this was quite a marvelous event. The next one will be in Hong Kong in 2017. And there was about a thousand people there, mostly ordained women from Asia, many, many countries, Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Mongolia, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and then Western scholars and ordained lay and priests or nuns and lay, and some men also presented and monks and scholars were there. And we... practiced together in harmony in Indonesia, which is a country I knew nothing, very little about, very little about where it was in the Buddhist world, ancient Buddhist world, where it figured, and also that it's the fourth most populous country in the world.

[05:57]

I was quite ignorant, I admit, about where it even was on the map. And Linda and I will be doing a slideshow about that in the next time I'm here, a week or so from this retreat. So the Vimalakirti Sutra was a very early Mahayana Sutra. probably written around 100 CE, Common Era. And it is unusual in that the central protagonist, rather than being Shakyamuni Buddha in a sutra, is Vimalakirti, who is a layman, who is an enlightened bodhisattva lay person, and he speaks with non-dual wisdom and compassion all the time.

[07:05]

and plays with people who are stuck in their habitual tendencies of thinking and of holding to the teaching and of rigid views. And the sutra, those of you who haven't studied it or read it or aren't familiar with it, has a lot of humor in it and magic and playing around with categories and flipping things topsy-turvy and taking people off guard. with this teaching of non-dual wisdom. And a kind of synchronistic thing is it takes place in Vaishali, India. This is where Vimalakirti lives. And Vaishali is a town where the Sakyadita Conference of a year and a half ago was held. And the reason it was held there is because This was the place where the Buddha's foster mother followed the Buddha when the Buddha had refused to ordain her and her 500, so-called 500 followers of women who wanted to ordain.

[08:19]

And the Buddha said, no, this is not beneficial. And they all shaved their heads and walked barefoot after him. And in Vaishali, this town, He relented with the help of, with Ananda's, his cousin and attendant's intervention, and also just with the truth of the Dharma, which there's no difference between men and women in terms of understanding the Dharma. And being able to be awakened himself. to one's true nature, awakened. So in Vaishali, there was this ordination, and the nun's order was established. And the Buddha did a lot of teaching in Vaishali, and this is where Vimalakirti lived. And when the Buddha died around that area too, it says that he turned like an elephant and took one last look at Vaishali.

[09:24]

I think he had some fond feelings maybe for Vaishali. So in this sutra, Vimalakirti is very ill. In one part it gets to, he's ill, and he's in his room, which is a small room. It's called, in Japanese, that room is called the Hojo, which is the name given to the abbot or abbess's room, and also to the abbot or abbess themselves. They are known by this term Hojo, which refers to Vimalakirti's very small room, where he was sick and where the Buddha, he was wondering, I'm ill and the Buddha isn't sending word to ask how I'm feeling. And the Buddha, through his intuitions, understood that and said to his disciples, his ten closest Shravaka disciples, please, he would say to Magdalena or Shariputra, please go.

[10:32]

to Vimalakirti and inquire after his health. He's ill. And they said, no, no, I really, I must decline. And how come he must decline? Well, the last time I met Vimalakirti, he really... I was very embarrassed about how much I didn't know, and he's a formidable character, I just can't go. And every one of the Buddhist disciples said, no, I'm sorry, and told a story about how Vimalakirti just nailed them, you know, one after the other, on their rigid views, inflexibility, holding to fixed views, and he comes in with non-dualistic wisdom, emptiness, and kind of cuts through there. And it was very difficult for them. So then the Buddha turned to the bodhisattvas, so the closest disciples in this sutra are the arhats, who have practiced for themselves to awaken, and none of them will go.

[11:42]

So he turns to the bodhisattvas, and the bodhisattvas have made vows to help all beings and to... become a Buddha for the sake of all beings and live for the benefit of all beings, very strong and deep vows. And they also say, no, no, I really decline. I just can't go see Vimalikiki. And then they tell their stories about, you know, I was sitting in the forest and he came up to me. So all of the bodhisattvas also declined. So finally the Buddha gets to Manjushri, who's sitting right there. on our Zendo altar, as well as with the Buddha and other figures, but Manjushri is the one who cuts through delusion, perfect wisdom, Bodhisattva, and Manjushri says, okay, I'll go. And everybody was like, ooh, we've got to see what this is going to be like, Manjushri and Vimalakirti, what's that conversation going to be like? So they all followed along. And they got to this small room where Vimalakirti was, and it was empty,

[12:45]

except for his little bed. And they all piled in there. And many, many more. In fact, there were like 32,000 bodhisattvas who may all fit into Himalakirti's room, the Hojo, and proceeded to speak about the Dharma. And Manjushri asked about his illness and said, what is your illness? What is the matter with you? And he said... His illness was, the illness that I have is because all beings are suffering and are ill. And therefore I suffer and am ill. And they are suffering from ignorance. And it goes on from there. And he not only talks about this love and compassion for beings who are suffering in ignorance, but also... what love is, and what the four immeasurable states of compassion and equanimity and compassion, sympathetic joy.

[13:55]

It's beautiful, actually, how he talks about his love for beings as a bodhisattva and what this love really is. And it's not, you know, romantic love or... It's a deep... identifying with all beings as non-separate and wishing for their happiness, wishing that they be happy and have the causes of happiness, and wishing that they be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. This is his deepest wish, and this is what he teaches about, and he's ill because beings are ill. In the same way, he says, as a parent, if their child is ill, they feel ill until that child is better. And we'll do anything to help. And this is how we feel about our parents, our friends, our family, our fellow brothers and sisters. So beings are suffering because of ignorance.

[14:59]

And this ignorance is not just they don't know a bunch of stuff, but it's a particular ignorance of not understanding the way things really are, not understanding the reality of our life, which the Buddha Dharma is teaching about. And the main kind of thing that we're ignorant of is that we have a non-abiding self, that our self is not a separate substantial entity, and we are ignorant of the fact that we are not separate from all beings and things and appearances. And based on this ignorance, we do things that are based on something that's not reality, which causes more suffering and harm and comes from this ignorance and fixed views and habitual routinized thinking.

[15:59]

And all the afflictions flow from this. So I wanted to say something about, you know, he does have... and how he expresses the compassion is to teach about Dharma. That is, I mean, there's many gifts that we can give to release suffering in the material realm. You know, someone needs to be fed before they can hear Dharma often because you're too, you can't concentrate and hear anything if you're not, don't have enough food. So there's certain material things we give and the gift of fearlessness. is a gift that bodhisattvas give, and the gift of dharma is really the gift that touches these deepest sufferings. One way of talking about this kind of ignorance is that we have, there's three

[17:08]

characteristics of phenomena, each appearance, each thing, has three characteristics. This is one way of talking about reality. And the three characteristics are the imputational, which is the paritalpita, or the imagined, the paratantra, or the other dependent characteristic of appearances, and the third, parinishpana, the thoroughly established, characteristic of phenomena. And each thing has all three. So the imputational is when we, and we do this all the time, non-stop, I would say, practically, is we impute, we place on top and project on top of anything, you know, each other, ourselves, items, a kind of separateness and a self- that's separate and an essence, like there's some essence here from the side of this piece of paper, that it has a reality that's by itself.

[18:18]

That's what's called the imputation and the imagining, these conceptual imaginings. And it's a kind of a dream because what we imagine someone to be as separate, or having certain characteristics, good or bad or in between, doesn't really touch who we are or who that being is or what the object is. It's we create that object with our imputations, which are false, always. Because each thing, and this is the second characteristic, are other-dependent or other-powered, other-dependent meaning Each item, this piece of paper, for example, comes together from a vast incalculable array of causes and conditions, just starting with that it's paper and trees and the papermaker and the sun that made the trees grow and on and on and on until there's nothing in the entire Buddha-verse universe that is left out from this piece of paper.

[19:32]

It doesn't exist by itself, even though we can pick it up and tear it and do things. But it comes because of codependent arising or other dependent. It's dependent just the way we are right this minute, dependent on one another for what's happening right now. You're creating me as a lecturer, as a Dharma talk giver, which without you, it would be very strange to be sitting up here talking by myself. So you create me. And I'm creating you as Dharma Talk listeners or audience. And that's just one eensy-beensy way we can talk about how we are creating one another. And we're all dependent on things other than we are not self-produced. And those causes and conditions are vast and inconceivable. And each thing has that characteristic.

[20:34]

This is the paratantra, the other dependent. And the third characteristic is called the thoroughly established, the parinishbana. And the thoroughly established is defined as the lack of imputations in the other dependent. When we impute things on this vast array of causes and conditions, it becomes afflicted with our own views and karmic understanding and often fixed views, habits of mind and then add greed, hate and delusion in there and grasping and aversion and all sorts of stuff. We put that, we impute that on the mysterious other dependent arising in each moment which is not under our control and is this mysterious So when there is an absence of the imputational in the other dependent, it's called the thoroughly established.

[21:46]

And the thoroughly established is, you know, another name for that might be suchness. It's beyond words, really, what that is. So this imputational mind, we impute all sorts of things on one another great ill effects, I would say. And we can become more and more and more aware of our unconscious bias in all different areas of our life, which are kind of gross, really, down to imputing essences and selves, which are more subtle. So in the Vimalakirti Sutra, in one of the chapters... which Dr. Thurman, Robert Thurman, entitles goddess, goddess chapter, Vimalakirti is talking with Manjushri, and a goddess who had been living in his palace, actually, he was very wealthy, but he was down to this one room for this occasion, had been living there, and she kind of appears, and has these flowers, and she strews flowers, because she's been listening to Dharma, Vimalakirti, and the others, Manjushri, and she scatters flowers, and they

[23:04]

go on top of the bodhisattvas and just slide right off. But when they hit the disciples, they stick to their robes, and they can't get them off. I think this is a great image for how we stick to our habitual way, whether it's beneficial or not. At least it's familiar, so I'm going to hold on. And Shariputra, who's foremost in wisdom, by the way, and teaching, He doesn't like it. We'll get to see this in the puppet show, I think. He's trying to get these flowers off. And then he and the goddess have this conversation where she, with nondual wisdom, really plays with his fixed ideas and flips him around in various ways. And then he says this thing to her. Why don't you transform into a male body? And this is referring to an androcentric idea that Buddhas appear in a male body that you can find in the sutras.

[24:12]

And she says, you know, I've been living here for all this time and I haven't been able to find a female body, you know, to transform. And they have this conversation about really the emptiness of characteristics. the emptiness of distinguishing characteristics and no abiding self, I would say. And then she, in a great show of power, switches places with him and Shariputra becomes the goddess. And she becomes Shariputra. And then she asks, why don't you transform yourself into a man? And he can't, you know. And is quite ruffled, you know. And then she switches back. Anyway, it's playing. And this is This sutra comes from 2,000 years ago, literally 2,000 years ago, where in this Buddhist sutra they're playing with some of our most basic imputational and fixed views around such a thing as binary male-female and gender and what is gender.

[25:22]

So I want to come back to that in a minute, but the last thing that Vimalakirti says in praise of the goddess is that she had fulfilled her vows, she would be free to take rebirth anywhere, and that she had attained anupalabdhi dharmakashanti, which is the, there's a couple translations of this, but the tolerance for the birthlessness of things, or the patient acceptance of dharmas, meaning elements of it, a reality which failed to be produced. This understanding how things are other dependent, how they come together not as separate things, and having calm and tolerance for those who don't understand it and try to teach this. How am I doing for time?

[26:28]

so coming back to the Sakyadita conference there was a paper that was given by a professor Chinese I think she was from Taiwan Xiao Lan Hu and she teaches at Temple University in gender studies and also in in religious studies. And her paper that she gave was called Avalokiteshvara's Embrace of Diversity, Empathy, and Respect. And I wanted to try and bring together this, what I've been saying about imputations and also something about the compassion and something about gender and our effort to create dharma places in Tasara that is open and friendly and safe for everyone.

[27:42]

So this paper talks about Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion, or Guan Yin, the Regarder of the Cries of the World, who listens and responds to the cries of the world. And in the Lotus Sutra, Chapter 25, Guan Yin talks about, if you need me, if you need compassion, I will take any form that you need. And they talk about like 33 forms, but really it's myriad forms, it's immeasurable forms. Whatever kind of form you want compassion to come in, infinite compassion will come if you need it in the form of, then they list. And in this particular list, in later translations, the list has not only men, different kinds of men. If you need me to come in the form of a monk, I'll come in the form of a monk. If you need me to come in the form of a king, I'll come in the form of a king, of a tradesperson, of the wife of a minister, of a nun, of a householder, of the laymen, laywomen, a child, whatever form you need.

[28:55]

call for compassion, ask for help, and I will come in whatever form you need. And not only are there sort of male-female binary beings in this list, but there are also a list which turn up in the sutras many, many times. They often come as protectors of the Dharma, and these beings are Sanskrit or Pali words. Gandharvas, Kinaras, Maharagas, Yakshas, Garudas. And these are not human and not animal. They're like the Kinaras, our celestial musicians. And the Gandharvas, let me see, I've got a whole list of them. They're woodland sprites. The maharagas are subterranean great serpents who lie on their sides and rotate in the earth and protect the dharma.

[29:59]

All these different beings. And the yakshas are nature spirits, caretakers of the earth. Garudas are giant birds with big wingspans. All these beings. The bodhisattva has infinite compassion. If you need me to come in the form of a horse-headed, you know... or bird-headed, half male, half female, half, I'll come. Just call on me. If that's what you need, I'm going to come. Any form, any form. And this particular professor in her presentation was saying that, and I found this to be very helpful, these, she was conjecturing, kind of, What was the wisdom of including all these different kinds of beings that you couldn't quite put in sort of male-female or some kind of binary checklist? And in terms of gender, you know, gender is an internal sense of it's not based on biology, it's not based on the sex that you were assigned at birth.

[31:10]

If you were assigned a sex at birth and you have that same internal experience, that's called cisgender. And I think there's some new words for what that's called. But there are people who their assigned gender at birth does not go with their internal experience, whether assigned sex and gender. And it's neither male nor female. It's something maybe other or a combination. And this list of the maharagas, the kinaras, the yakshas, these beings, she was postulating a kind of wisdom and compassion, really, of noticing and including all beings in as coming, as taking the form of compassion. Compassion doesn't come in just the forms that we might be used to or think we're comfortable with, compassion comes in any form that we might need.

[32:13]

Now, basically the fact that compassion takes any form kind of shows that there is no fixed identity or substantialness to compassion. It responds to the needs and it changes. It's not like... Then Avalokiteshvara, Gwanyin, the Bodhisattva, then reverts back to her real or his real form that looks like this. Absolutely, whatever form you need, it's a moving, fluid, responding and alive compassion. And whatever is helpful for you. So, we're not able, the way Avalokiteshvara is, to... necessarily change our outward appearance in that way. Or maybe we can. However, through, and this is part of the name of this paper, was empathy and respect.

[33:20]

Through our own compassion and feeling the feelings of others, responding to having affective resonance, meaning an emotional resonance, with beings, whether they're happy or sad, actually, and having empathy as a kind of royal gate to compassion and relieving of suffering. I think empathy is necessary there. In that way, by empathizing with one person after another in all the different ways, or sympathetic joy, also, that we can rejoice with others, join in their lives. This, in some way, is how we transform according to the needs of others. This is avalokiteshvara transforming, even though it's not, you know, turning into something totally different. It's our heart transforms as we resonate with each being and their needs. The danger sometimes in talking about non-dual wisdom and things like differences or gender is that

[34:35]

you can come in with, well, there is no such thing as, you know, there's nothing real or substantial about your particular way you're appearing. However, this can be seen as cruel, you know, or someone who's in a minority kind of situation or marginalized or not recognized, to say to that person, well, it's all empty anyway, you know, you... that is not helpful, and that's not our bodhisattva way. We respond, it might be something that would be helpful at some point, but you have to find out. You can't just cut through somehow with emptiness and think that's going to be helpful. Someone has to be ready to hear those teachings, and before those teachings are offered, we go to the particular, not the universal, but what

[35:36]

What form do you need me? What form of empathy and respect and care can I be responsive to you? Rather than it doesn't really matter because there's no such thing. That's kind of using emptiness, can be using it cruelly. Unless someone's really ready and you know they're ready, then you, you know, cut through. So these issues are not easy. And I think we're, around gender in particular, trying to... We have a binary setup, you know, with the baths, but we've made some changes. In the baths, we have... The small tub rooms now have showers, so we have other choices than the public spaces...

[36:39]

only on the women's side but we will we will do it yeah and other work on you know dormitory spaces and in the sakya dita when we filled out the registration it said what gender do you wish to be known as you got to say rather than there's just two choices you are you chose what it was, and there were choices, you know, you got to choose. So we can see about, we can feel our imputations and our habitual thinking and our ways in which we are stuck around some of these issues, and to open practicing with these, with compassion, that's really the, There's nothing else we can do if we're going to realize our Buddha Dharma, the Buddha's way.

[37:41]

So the time is up. I didn't get to say anything about the bees. But next time. Thank you very much. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving.

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