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. Thank you for coming. For how many of you is it your first time at Greenbelt? Okay, lots of people. The first time, well, welcome. Well, for the young people, I have a story and maybe a song, we'll see, and a question for you. I was wondering how many of you have a special stuffed animal, a stuffy? Yes? Or a blanket, a special blanket? Yes? Yes. I bet the adults in the audience also had a special stuffy.

[01:05]

Well, I had one too. Would you like to see mine? This is my stuffy from many, many years ago, and his name is George. How old do you think George is? Any guesses? How old? Four. Four. That's a good guess. Any other guesses? Yes. About 60. About 60. That's pretty close. One more again. What? 50 something. Well, George is 70 years old. That's great. Right, George? And George... was my companion, slept with me in bed. I took him on trips. He would fly out the window when we were driving places.

[02:11]

And I never knew whether it was a lamb or a dog. I still don't know. You think it's a dog? And listen, it has in its tail a special belt. So I'm going to tell you, George and I are going to tell you another story about a special doll, actually a special, special, special doll that was owned, that was being taken care of by a little girl. So this is a legend. This is called the Legend of Blue Bonnet. Do some of you know the Legend of Blue Bonnet? Well, I'm going to tell you this story. Long, long time ago, in a place that we call Texas now, there was a tribe of Native Americans, probably the Comanche, the first people named the Comanche.

[03:14]

And they lived in a country where it didn't rain on a regular basis, so it didn't rain for a long, long time. And when that happens, the grasses don't grow and then the animals can't find things to eat. It's called a drought. And we in California have droughts also where there's not rain for sometimes years. And this is what happened to this tribe. And because nothing grew and the animals couldn't eat, there was... not enough food for the for the people and many people died of starvation and because they didn't have enough to eat and there was a little girl in the tribe and her parents and her grandparents died and her little brothers and sisters so they gave her the name she who is alone that was her name she who is alone and she was all by herself the only thing that she had

[04:25]

was a doll, a special doll that her grandma had made for her, I don't know, grasses and cloth, and there were beautiful blue feathers stuck in her dress and in her hair. Beautiful blue feathers from the blue jay bird. You've seen the blue jay? Beautiful blue feathers. The tribe was becoming very, very desperate, and the elders of the tribe were praying for rain, and drumming, and dancing, and really wanting rain to come, and nothing worked, nothing happened. So they finally went up to a higher place, to a mountain, and prayed to the Great Spirit for rain. And they spent all night up there asking for rain and asking for help to help the tribe.

[05:27]

And in the morning, they came down and they told the people, the Great Spirit has spoken to us and told us what we need. We need to sacrifice. And the word sacrifice means let go of something. That's really important to us, but let go of something and give something. that will help for the rain. And it must be a very precious thing, the elders said, something important. So please, they said to the people, go home and think about what the Great Spirit is asking for. What's the most important thing? So people left the gathering and one man said, I wonder what the Great Spirit wants. It probably even that new blanket that I just got that's so... Wonderful. No, couldn't be that. Must be something else. And another lady walked away and thought, it couldn't be my jewelry that I have, the silver that I have.

[06:29]

I wonder what it could be. It must be something else. And everyone was thinking. But she who is alone, the little girl, she said, I know what the most precious thing is. It's my doll. My doll that my grandma made for me and that is the only thing I have left for my family. It must be, that's the most important thing. That's what the Great Spirit wants. And she thought about this and that night in her dwelling, in her place where she slept, she got up in the night and went to where there was a big ceremonial fire, a special fire on the mountain. And she brought her doll with it that she loved so much. But she knew this was going to help her people. And so she took her doll, said goodbye to it and how much she loved it, and tossed it into the fire. And the doll caught fire and burned and burned.

[07:35]

And she lay down beside the fire, she who is a lamb, and fell asleep. And during the night, the fire was out and she took the ashes, the burned ashes of the dawn, she scattered them all over and went back home. And later that night, what do you think happened? The rain came. The rains came down and they went all over the land and it rained and rained. And when she woke up in the morning, there were Beautiful blue flower, just the same color as the feathers of her doll's hair that were all across the hills and the mountains. And this flower is called, we call it lupine, lupine flower. And that will be coming up pretty soon in the springtime. And it's also called blue bonnet in Texas. And the tribe came to her and they realized what she had done.

[08:39]

that she had let go of it. Such a love doll that meant so much to her, but she let it go to help her people. And they named her, they renamed her. Instead of she who is alone, they named her she who loves her people. That was her new name. And she became a great teacher and wise woman for all her people and the tribe. and many other people around. So that's the story of the legend of Brubana. Now, I want you to just think for a moment about all the people that you love and that are very dear to you and that might be needing some help. Maybe someone is sick. Maybe your grandma's not well. Maybe somebody you know has lost a home mud flight or a fire. And let's all close our eyes for just a second and take a breath.

[09:46]

Take three breaths and imagine that person. Everybody close your eyes and think of somebody you love. Maybe it's your pet. Maybe it's your dog or your sister or brother or parents or a friend. And imagine them in your mind and send them Love, send love to them, okay? And that their wishes will be fulfilled. Okay, let's do that for just a minute. Imagine this love person and send them love from your own heart. Send it out to reach them. Well, thank you for sending love to your family or friends or your pets.

[10:55]

And I wanted to close with a song, which maybe some of you know, and it's about sending out love, actually, and sending out happiness. And the adults, please join in. That will help, I think, because there's so many adults, and you can help with it. So the first line, you can sing it after me. Happy days to all those that we love. Happy days to all those that we love. Happy days to all those who love us. Happy days to all those who love us. Now this next part is, you can just follow it. Happy days to all those who love them. love those who love them, who love those who love us. Okay? This is the last line. It's kind of one long line. Happy days to all those who love them, who love those who love them, who love those who love us.

[12:06]

I tried from the beginning. Happy days to all those that we love Happy days to all those that love us. Happy days to all those who love them, who love those who love them, who love those who love us. Do you think that's all the people in the world? I think so. Okay, well, it's time for the young people to go off for your program in the garden. And before you go, I have a gift for you. I have a heart for sending love. You can have a heart sticker. You can put it right on your heart, okay? So come and get them, and off you go into the garden. I need to walk for my brother and walk for me.

[13:08]

All right. We lost our lights at this time. So thank you all. Today was Suzuki Roshi's memorial service. Every month we chant and make offerings of food and tea and water at our Founders Hall, right in the Cloud Hall back there. Can't hear.

[14:09]

Okay. How's that? Better? Yes? If you can't hear, raise your hand, and we'll try to work it out. He'll be right back. The Eno will help. So today was Suzuki Roshi's monthly memorial service, which we have on the evening of the 3rd and the morning of the 4th. And so on Suzuki Roshi's memorial, and often when I give a lecture, I like to look at a lecture that Suzuki Roshi gave, especially the ones that I was there for, and see if I can remember the lecture from being there. Today is also the day of something called the Super Bowl. Have any of you heard of it? I had a story that I thought I'd tell.

[15:14]

brief little anecdote of, it was in the 90s sometime, maybe 91, 92, and I was leading a small group in Coal Valley in San Francisco that took place at the Tassar Bread Bakery, which is no longer there, on Sunday evenings, and we were sitting, I gave a Dharma talk, and all of a sudden there was this shouting and honking and blaring of horns and chanting outside, and I said, what's going on? And I think the 49ers had just won the Super Bowl. But from, this was true, I had no idea about that the Super Bowl was that day, or who was playing, or what it was all about. And that wasn't that long ago. But the fact that it was the Super Bowl today And I always wondered why they're called bowls. And the bowls have to do with the stadium, the shape.

[16:18]

It started from the Rose Bowl and the stadium that the Rose Bowl was played in. And also Yale, I think, had a bowl-shaped stadium. So they all became bowls. But that word bowl reminded me of an image that from our Zen stories and Zen commentaries and Zen literature of, and this was the image, a pearl rolls in a bowl, rolls of itself in a bowl. And this image, it's one of these images that has spoken to me, but in a language that I couldn't understand. But that image and imagining this pearl rolling in a bowl, and I picture the sides of the bowl not too steep, and this pearl rolling, what could that possibly mean?

[17:20]

What is it all about? Why would that be an image that a teacher would offer to us to help us to understand and to live our lives? So I... looked at the story that it is a commentary, is part of the commentary for this story. And the story is a Zen koan, or a Zen story, called Master Ma is Unwell. Master Ma is Unwell. And this story, as sometimes happens, has been collected in different collections of Zen stories, so... There's a famous collection of 100 stories called The Blue Cliff Record and one called The Book of Serenity. And Master Ma's Unwell is in both of those collections with different commentaries, different verses that help to understand or open to the story.

[18:24]

So basically the story is rather simple, rather short. The case, it's called the main story. Master Ma was unwell. The monastery supervisor came to him and said, How is your venerable state or how is your venerable health these days? A very simple question. How are you? How is your venerable state these days? And Master Ma said, Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. That's the case. That's the story. And with many of these stories, the commentary is very helpful. Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha is a reference from a scripture called the Buddha...

[19:36]

name scripture in which there are thousands of names of Buddhas. And one of the names of the Buddha is Sun-Faced Buddha, and the other is Moon-Faced Buddha, better listed. And the Sun-Faced Buddha is said to live for a long, long time, 1,800 years the Sun-Faced Buddha lives. And the Moon-Faced Buddha lives just a day and a night, just one full day. So the superintendent asked the teacher, Master Ma, how is your venerable state these days? And Master Ma said, sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. Now, for years, many years, decades, that had a certain meaning for me. But when I picked it up,

[20:37]

to prepare for this lecture, I heard it a different way. And I will do my best to express that. And whatever you receive, whatever you hear that resonates or doesn't resonate even, that's for you. So the way I always heard it was something like, and I think we can understand it this way too, sometimes there's sunny days, you know, happy times, good health, things are going well, it's hunky-dory, our families are doing well, etc., kind of sun face. And I used to think that the moon face meant You know, and then things don't go so well, and our health is, things are rocky, or there's real difficulties in relationships, and that those two things are just, you know, sometimes it's this way, sometimes it's that way.

[21:56]

I think that was kind of my understanding of Sun-faced Buddha, Moon-faced Buddha, and that Master Ma. was just acknowledging, you know, I'm not feeling so well now, and sometimes things go well, and sometimes they don't go so well, and that's the truth of our life. Some idea like that, which, that's okay, I think. But this time, when I looked at it, what I heard or read or felt or saw was that what Master Ma said was just the name of really one Buddha, one Buddha, sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha, is just one suchness, one life of mysterious inconceivableness. And he called it sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha.

[22:59]

And that such as or mysterious inconceivability that each one of us is living out right now, we can study it. We can enter into it. We have entered into it. We are it. We can open to it, open to this truth. So even though the punctuation in the story is sun-faced Buddha, comma, moon-faced Buddha, I saw it as a hyphen, you know, sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha, one. It's just one inconceivable life that he, Master Ma, who, by the way, he lived in the 700s, 709, you know, a long time ago, and He was a big person, it's said.

[24:07]

He was very big and tall and kind of a big presence and robust. And he also, this is one interesting little detail, he had a tongue that could cover his nose. You want to imagine him. And his name means, I think, horse ancestor. So here is this full of life being. And to the last breath, he's a full-of-life being, as always he was. Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha, always like that. Never just the sun-faced, even in what we call the prime of our life, or, you know, when everything was many, many students, etc., etc. It was always like this. It is always like this for all of us. So in the verses that go along with both of these stories that are collected in the two collections, there's images that are brought up at certain times, maybe during a long sitting, which when we have been quiet and still, certain images can come in very strongly

[25:40]

or we resonate with them in a way we can't when we're in our day-to-day activities, or busy, or distracted maybe. So the verse in the Blue Cliff Record is, sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha, stars fall, thunder rolls. The mere face forms without subjectivity. Excuse me, this is from not the Blue Cliff Record. This is from the Book of Serenity. Book of Serenity, Shou Yoroko, Book of Serenity. Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. Stars fall, thunder rolls. The mirror faces forms without subjectivity. The pearl in a bowl rolls of itself. Don't you see before the hammer, gold refined a hundred times?

[26:47]

Under the scissors, silk from one loom. Well, these are many images there. Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha, as oneness, one-suchness, one-thus-ness. And this... you know, the poetic expression of the mirror faces forms without subjectivity. There's no one, no one who's the subject with the objects in front of them. It's subject to object, mind of object, mind of subject to object. Mind equals subject to object. So when we see what looks like is in front of us, we're seeing ourselves. No subject there, no object there.

[27:51]

The pearl in a bowl rolls of itself. So this image for me is the bowl that holds, that holds the pearl is, you might say, the bowl and the pearl are together. The pearl rolls because the bowl is the shape that the bowl is, holding forever and ever the actively rolling and swirling pearl. But the pearl never leaves the bowl. The pearl's activity and functioning is the bowl's shape. And the height of the sides and the way the bowl is means the pearl rolls. So bowl and pearl are really one fully working and functioning suchness, which is what our lives are, what looks like all the activity,

[29:10]

that we have all the concerns and it's all held, it's all within the bowl, Buddha's bowl, you might say, Buddha mind bowl. It is the pearl and the bowl is how it works together. And we can't get out, the pearl can't get out, and why would it want to? It's within this loving, I think of it as loving bowl of... that creates it, just as the pearl creates the bowl. These are my thoughts on this image. the pearl in the bowl rolls of itself.

[30:14]

And then these two other images of this poem of the hammer and the refined gold and the loom and the scissors, silk from one loom, and to me those images are other images of one loom, one long loom of silk, one bolt of cloth, and out of it comes the myriad things. the myriad garments. All types, all shapes, all sizes, all colors from one bolt of cloth, one loom. All patterns. So myriad things partake of this one loom of cloth. And the same with the refined gold and the hammer. creating out of this beautiful gold all the objects, all the necklaces, all the adornments.

[31:20]

So when we're looking at adornments and necklaces and pearls, we might forget about the unrefined gold. Or when we're looking at the clothing and the separate things that look separate, we might forget it's out of one... bolt of cloth. So how do we remember? How do we remember that what may look like myriad objects and different, many, many, many different things, that it's within one suchness? All of us, everything, not just us, but everything that we see, hear, think, So I experienced this verse and this image as compassion just flowing from the ancestors, flowing from the teachers to say it, to write it, to collect it, to pass it down for us to awaken to this through poetry, through image and poetry narrative, which helps us so much.

[32:40]

The other verse, which has also a wonderful image from the Blue Cliff Records case three, Shoya Roku's case 36. Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. What kind of people were the ancient emperors? For 20 years I have suffered bitterly. How many times I have gone down into the green dragon's cave for you. This distress, this distress is worth recalling, recounting. Clear-eyed, patch-robed monks should not take it lightly. So, for this, you know, one of the images, and this question, how many times I have gone down or how many times I have gone down to the green dragon's cave for you.

[33:49]

It's surprising, right? This is for you. That's for you. And in the green dragon's cave, there's the green dragon and the green dragon has a pearl. Our dragon at the back of this altar that our bodhisattva of infinite compassion is standing with and feeding has a pearl in its mouth. So this dragon of wisdom and great wisdom has this pearl of great wisdom, but one has to find a way to come close enough to receive that. How many times I have gone down to the green dragon's cave for you. That means out of compassion for myself, beings, all beings.

[34:52]

I go down bitterly. This distress is worth recounting. Twenty years I've suffered bitterly. This is not an easy road. This stream of compassion or road of compassion is not an easy road. It's hard to find our way. And we suffer bitterly in our effort. How many times do we have to go down into that cave? It's scary in there. The dragon, even though the dragon is wisdom, it is breathing fire. So this total activity, the full working of our life, is not so much, sometimes it's sunny, sometimes it's blue moon, lunar eclipse, but it's always sun, face Buddha, moon, face Buddha, at the exact each moment.

[36:12]

And how we relate to the ups and downs and the colors and the, you know, Master Ma was unwell. He was sick. He died actually three days later after this conversation. How is your venerable health, your venerable state? And he spoke from the middle of this total activity of his life and our life. This wasn't just how his health happened to be that day. in his sickbed or deathbed. This is how it is, he was saying, out of compassion for us. And Suzuki Roshi, in his lecture on Sun-Faced Buddha, Moon-Faced Buddha, was sick, I think, at the time. It was in summer of 71, I think. He talked about it here and there. And when he talked about his illness, it was, if I die, it's okay.

[37:17]

It is okay. That may have been hard for people around him to receive that teaching, but one might have said, but it's not okay. It was okay with him. In all the teachings during that time, with people in grief around him, he would say, I know who I am. This fullness of awakening is gifts for us, gifts of compassion for us to also make our effort, though it be bitter and difficult, to not sidestep it and to continue to remember.

[38:27]

And maybe these images will help a pearl in a bowl rolls of itself. Another teacher, Ran Wu, wrote, the bowl sets the pearl to rolling and the pearl rolls in the bowl. The absolute within the relative and the relative within the absolute. Those also can't be separated. I wanted to end with a poem that was a very, very, very important poem to me when I first started practicing called Colors by Yevgeny Yevtushenko.

[39:39]

Maybe some of you know it. I used to know it by heart. And actually when I read it again, I thought, not some doubts, but I thought I remembered where I was when I loved this poem so much. When your face appeared over my crumpled life, at first I understood only the poverty of what I have. Then its particular light on woods, on rivers, on the sea, became my beginning in the world of colors, in which I had not yet had my beginning. Maybe I shouldn't read this. I feel like it's not going along with the lecture anymore. Well, I'll finish it, and you can think of it as the early years of my practice. Actually, as I'm reading it, I realize I am so frightened.

[40:42]

I am so frightened of the unexpected sunrise finishing, of revelations and tears and the excitement finishing. I don't fight it. My love is this fear. I nourish it. Who can nourish nothing? Love's slipshod watchman. Fear hems me in. I am conscious that these minutes are short and that the colors in my eyes will vanish when your face sets. If I could do a whole commentary on how I don't, this doesn't quite accord with me anymore. So there it is, colors. I think what doesn't accord is I don't feel frightened of things finishing

[41:49]

and of particular people's faces setting and then the colors go out of my eyes. Yeah, it's closer to, it's okay. Thank you all very much for your kind attention. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[42:48]

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