This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Can you hear me okay in the back? All right, great. I hope the online guests as well can hear me just fine. How's that sound? Is that still okay? I'm going to begin this morning with a piece of dialogue from a short story written by Russian playwright Anton Chekhov in 1900 from a novella called In the Ravine.

[01:23]

However much evil existed in the world, the night was still calm and beautiful, and there was and always would be truth in God's universe. a truth that was just as calm and beautiful. The whole earth was only waiting to merge with that truth, just as the moonlight blended into the night. Over 20 years ago, I was scheduled to give the talk here at Green Gulch. I had all of my notes prepared for the talk, and I don't really remember what I was going to say. Probably something about the Buddhist teaching, the Buddhist truth. And then on Tuesday morning, the week of the talk, I walked up to my house from the Zendo. My neighbor came running to me to say that the World Trade Center in New York had been hit by airplanes and was collapsing.

[02:30]

It was September 11th of 2001. What I remember most from that morning was a feeling of panic that set in when I found out that those planes had not been hit by accident, as one might hope. That it was an intentional act of blind hatred and revenge. I hadn't had a panic attack for a good number of years, not since I came to live at the Zen Center. But I talked to my therapist about them, and he had reassured me that They only last about 20 minutes. So I told my friend, I need to go into my house. I'll be back in about 20 minutes. And I was. So it's 20 years later, and I am scheduled to give a Sunday talk for which I was preparing once again when the news arrived that a powerful nation was attacking and killing.

[03:37]

their neighbors to the West. So again, this was not some terrible accident, as we might hope, but it's a violent, well-planned, and intentional action that is continuing as we're sitting here. And as I try again to find some way to speak, this time it's not out of a state of panic, but rather out of a state of Deep sadness. An old and enduring sadness. The sadness of nations and tribes and imagined differences of every kind. So when I looked at my notes for today's talk, the one that you won't be hearing, the title was going to be Surrender. As in letting go, releasing, Relaxing, or as Dogen Zenji said about his own awakening 600 years ago, dropping body and mind.

[04:46]

So the idea of surrender when faced by a 40-mile-long army of tanks takes on a different meaning than I think Dogen had in mind. And although surrender might be the reasonable response, it seems that much of the world is hoping. that the people of the Ukraine won't do that, won't surrender, just as the Russians themselves refused to do when faced by Hitler's massive army in 1941. So here I sit again with the challenge of saying something about what I am seeing and feeling right now, hoping in some way to resonate with all of you. and even more so to resonate with the teachings of the Buddha, whose own kingdom was attacked by an army of its neighbors, an army that he too was unable to stop.

[05:49]

I don't remember the words that I said on Sunday of September 16th following the attack on the Twin Towers, but I do remember starting the talk by saying, The cyclops has lost its eye. And so it has again. As if it had more than one eye. As if there were more than one cyclops. And so it seems to be. The eye in Buddhist teaching is an organ of vision. A vision of wisdom and compassion. An eye that sees suffering. and wishes for beings to be safe and happy. Like the eye of a loving parent for its child, or a teacher for their students, a doctor for their patients, an awakened one for everything that lives. So what I want to talk about today is what it means to see with an eye of wisdom.

[06:58]

How to see in the darkness of the night, as Chekhov describes. the calm and beauty of his precious life. Just as the moonlight blends into the darkness, and just as the whole world waits to merge with that truth. The eye which Chekhov describes that sees in the darkness of night is not the eye of the Cyclops, the singular eye which only sees its own benefit. It's the eye of an awakened one, a Buddha. that looks out at the world through the lens of the Bodhisattva vow and the Bodhisattva precepts. So it's been a while since I've talked about the precepts and the vow, so now might be a good time to do that. Many of you have taken the 16 Bodhisattva precepts and sewn Buddha's robe, some as priests, other as lay people, same precepts.

[08:02]

Same wish to remove the veil from our eyes in order to see that we are truly not separate from anything or anyone else. Just one living body on a rapidly spinning and surprisingly fragile world. World as lover, world as self. The name of Joanna Macy's book. For those of you who have already received the Bodhisattva precepts, you know that the names of the 16 precepts are what altogether make up the Bodhisattva vow, to live for the benefit of all beings. The 16 precepts are the how-to of that vow, how to protect others from harm, including the harm that may be coming from ourselves. The first three of the Bodhisattva precepts are the refuges. I take refuge, meaning I return to the Buddha.

[09:07]

I take refuge. I return to the teaching of the Buddha. I take refuge. I return to the community that is devoted to the practice and study of an awakened life. Returning helps remind us that we can never really leave the site of our own awakening. That very place where each of us is sitting right now. As Dogen Zenji says in the Genjo Koan, here is the place. Here the way unfolds. That place for each of you is the same place where the Buddha sat as he sought relief from suffering. The place of darkness that is always right here. Always right now. Always radiant. Calm. And yet for reasons that are beyond our knowing, reaching back to the very beginnings of life, we are afraid of the darkness out of which we have been born.

[10:12]

We are afraid of not knowing. And this fear is personal and local and for many crippling. We are afraid that we don't belong where we are. And then any moment now we will be cut off. or sent away. And so world-round, we living beings find ways to protect ourselves and our loved ones, to maximize our share of resources, and to erect barriers, sturdy barriers, that will keep us safe from them. For humans, this effort to find safety and accumulate resources for ourselves is called world history. From whatever angle we look at our history, there is such sadness and grief, no matter which side is said to have lost or to have won. The Mongols, the Confederates, the English, the Romans, the Greeks, the Spaniards, the Japanese, the Americans, the Russians.

[11:18]

These precepts are offered to the world as a vision of an alternative history. established on a constitution of compassion and protection for everyone. As in the prophetic vision that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. shared with us of a peaceful world that he saw from the top of the mountain on the night before he was assassinated. An intentional act of blind hatred and revenge. The blinded cyclops of white supremacy. Among the Bodhisattva precepts, the three pure precepts offer us a summary of how the world of peaceful abiding envisioned by Dr. King might come to be. I vow to do good. I vow to avoid evil. I vow to live for the benefit of all beings.

[12:22]

These precepts serve as a trellis to hold us up as we undertake this. the same journey that led to the awakening of a young prince 2,500 years ago, to that moment when he actually knew that nothing was separate from himself, not the star or the grass or the people walking by, the moment in which the three pure precepts suddenly were keeping themselves. As Zen Master Dogen said, we must come to believe that the Buddha's insight is nothing other than our own mind. The very mind that you and I are having right now and are always having right now. The very mind that is hearing me talk about precepts as a pathway to an awakened life. So I'd like to invite all of you to take a moment to relax.

[13:27]

into the space where you're sitting, whether on a chair or a cushion, perhaps you're walking about as some of the people online, guests like to do, perhaps even driving in your car. Wherever you are, settle into the rhythms that are moving through your body and find your balance right here and right now. And as you do that, begin to notice the many sounds and shapes and colors that are appearing within your senses. The many sensations coursing through your bodies. From the top of your head to the tip of your toe. Excuse me just a moment.

[14:37]

So imagine now that the Buddha's insight, as Dogen said, is nothing other than the experience of your own body and mind right now. But just this. Just this. If Buddha's insight is nothing other than this very mind, then the next question for all of us is, how does someone with the Buddha's insight be taken? What will Buddha do? So this is where the Bodhisattva Pistep comes in response to the question of what Buddha do and how does Buddha behave. These three creature of Pistep, as the entirety of the Buddhist moral teaching, are personified as a trio that are commonly seen in the Buddhist and Buddhist temples.

[16:29]

And the people see in our very own Asian art music. And the center is Shakyamuni Buddha, representing a purified mind, silence, and still. And on one side, Mahakashapa, the greatest goddess, representing do no evil. And on the other side, Sri Lanka, known as the guardian of the dawn, representing do all good. That's a trio altogether. saving all of you. You have a start for me too. That it's our only hope.

[17:33]

Okay. So. What I was mentioning now. Is these three figures. These standing figures. Shakyamuni in the center. The great ascetic Mahagashapa. To one side. Representing do no evil. The Buddha representing a purified mind. And Ananda, sweet Ananda, known as the guardian of the Dharma, representing do all good. And this trio will save all beings. So following the three refuges and the three pure precepts, the Buddha gave us ten grave precepts, which opened outward from the world of darkness and vastness and timeless connection, the world of the ultimate truth, into the world of light. The world of relative truth, where differences appear and where humans have given those differences names, ranks, and authority.

[18:40]

Authority that is always based on the idea of a self, of myself, of yourself, and of how each of us does or doesn't fit into the whole. How we do or don't belong. The ten grave precepts are a reflection of what we together have created out of differences, what we call the news of the human world, a world of right and wrong in which human hearts are often broken. The ten grave precepts, simply put, are not killing, not stealing, not sexualizing, not lying, not intoxicating, not slandering, bragging, hoarding, hating, or disparaging the wisdom and compassion of the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Each of these precepts is a view of our human life as if our actions could be divided into parts.

[19:44]

You know, over here is my anger and over there is my lust and somewhere else is my embarrassment at it all. But because we don't really come in parts, we Our many actions through the day blend into a single shape of a person. So it's useful to divide ourselves into parts in order to study our behavior in this world, in order to get a better look. The precepts can be divided into sets that help us see which of our behaviors have been activated and how, for example, you hurt me, I hate you, is an activity called thinking. I hate you, is an activity of speech, and causing you physical harm because I hate you is an activity of the body. All my ancient twisted karma, from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion, born through body, speech, and mind, I now fully eval, meaning I now fully admit, accept, recognize, and

[20:55]

And when I am ready to do so, I fully confess and repent my actions. Although thinking itself is at the root of all harmful actions, it has the least harmful outcome. Fortunately, we cannot read each other's minds. Thinking that turns into speech and then into action, such as we are seeing now, is what leads to the gravest violations of human decency. with names like genocide and warfare, torture, mob violence, enslavement, and lynching. And so for today, I'm mainly going to talk about the prohibitory precepts concerned with the activities of our minds, the activities being driven by beginningless greed, hate, and delusion. At the center of Tibetan paintings that illustrate the wheel of birth and death, the 12-fold chain of causation, there are three animals that represent the three poisons for which the prohibitory precepts are the antidotes.

[22:02]

These three animals sit at the hub of the wheel, functioning like a perpetual motion machine to keep the wheel spinning in endless rounds of suffering. The three animals are a boar, a rooster, and a snake. The boar is an image of the human mind caught by delusion. The rooster by greed and the snake by hatred. The antidote to the mind of greed is the precept of not being possessive of anything. In other words, by cultivating generosity. The antidote to the mind of hatred is the grave precept of not harboring ill will by cultivating equanimity. And to the mind lost in confusion, the antidote is the boundless dharma gates of wisdom. which include the grave precept of cultivating a clear mind by not intoxicating or by not poisoning the mind and body of ourselves or of others. We can think of these precepts as a means of reflecting on our thoughts, which in turn allows us time to make choices about our actions for the benefit of others.

[23:15]

Actions of our speech and our bodies that are prohibited by the remaining 10 of the grave precepts For the body, not killing, not stealing, not abusing sexuality. For speech, not slandering, not bragging, and not disparaging the three treasures. The Buddha was called a great physician because of how his teachings could be put to very good use in altering the course of our toxic habitual behaviors, much the same way that good medicine can alter the course of a chronic illness. So I would like to invite all of us to consider noticing our thinking during the day as often as we possibly can, especially those thoughts that separate us from others. Notice how we imagine what others are thinking, especially about us and what we are thinking about them. This is the first step in meeting what comes, which is the first and foremost meeting in what we think.

[24:23]

And then questioning those thoughts before they solidify into harmful beliefs, harmful speech, and harmful actions. Before they turn into hate. As the Buddha famously taught about hate in this ancient set of verses called the Dhammapada, what we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday. Our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow. Our life... is a creation of our mind. Those who think hateful thoughts will not be free from hate. Those who think not hateful thoughts will be free from hate. Hate is not conquered by hate. Hate is conquered by not hating. We are here in this world to live in harmony with one another. Those who know this do not fight against each other. The antidote to the poison of hatred, of harboring ill will, is the Bodhisattva practice called Shanti Paramita, meaning the perfection of patience, which, as Master Yunman says, is to sit where all Buddhas sit, in the midst of fierce flames.

[25:43]

Many years ago, I shared in a talk my own discoveries about hatred as it has arisen inside of me. I mentioned that I'd had a dream. in which I was standing in a meadow out in the wilderness, a lot like a place where I used to live in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And in front of me was a cave. And as I stood there, a very large grizzly bear came out of the cave, rose up on its hind legs, and with its enormous claws outstretched, started walking toward me. For some reason, probably because it was my dream, I was not afraid. I did notice that the bear had a huge splinter embedded in its paw. So I walked forward and reached out my hand. The bear laid its paw on my hand, and I quickly pulled out the splinter. The bear then gave a loud roar, as only such bears can do, right into my face.

[26:51]

And then she went down on all fours and ambled off back into her cave. So as I was remembering this dream, it became more and more clear at that time, as it is now, that I was quite angry. A very particular kind of anger that is a specialty for many of us called righteous anger. I'm righteously angry right now toward a man called Putin in a country called Russia. And yet that dream helped me to see how my own anger, then as now has an obvious source and that is terrible pain, terrible sadness, a broken heart. In the Buddhist teaching on the three poison, the beings who are depicted in hell are those who are possessed by anger and who are being tormented in all varieties of ways. We even use that name of how to torment another.

[27:56]

We call it bear baiting, which like cock fighting, was a horror popular as entertainment in Europe during the Middle Ages, torturing bears. Every one of us here today is sitting in the midst of flames of various kinds and intensity, and yet not a sound, and at times not even the slightest movement. Just like the Buddha sitting there under the Bodhi tree, as he experienced the excruciating assault, by Mara's vast army of pained and angry hell beings. Anger within the safe container of our practice is what enables us over time not to be afraid of ourselves anymore. In learning how to hold still through the practice of sitting, we learn how to wait as long as necessary for the waves of strong feelings to pass, for the mind waves to calm, and the dark night

[28:59]

To me, this is what is meant by the precept of not harboring ill will, not giving it a place inside of ourselves to hide and to scare not only us, but everyone else as well. Scared away from knowing who we really are, what's hurting us, and what might help to make us better. And there often is a kind help waiting outside the cave, human help. offering safety and encouragement to emerge from those dark places. And yet, much like the bear, by not clearly knowing, experiencing and trusting ourselves with our own anger, our own lust, and our stupidity, we truly are dangerous. Not only making victims of others, the ones that we have declared to be the cause of our negative feelings, but also making victims of ourselves. The experience we know as anger is like a flashing light on the dashboard calling us to stop the car and ask ourselves, what is the practice when I'm feeling angry?

[30:09]

That moment of self-reflection makes all the difference between reactivity and responsibility. And in extreme cases, the difference between life and death. Many years ago, I sat in a circle with some men at Sanquin who are part of the Buddha Dharma Sangha, who as teenage boys in almost every case had reacted out of anger and killed someone. Each of the men, in turn, gave the name of the person that they had killed, how old they were at the time, and how long they had been in prison. Most of the men were in their 50s or 60s when I sat with them. and would be spending the rest of their lives together, if they were lucky, at San Quentin, which I understand is one of the better places to be incarcerated. They were very polite to each other and to us. Mature, thoughtful adults who had missed the one chance for a different outcome to their lives.

[31:19]

A hair's breadth deviation will fail to accord with the proper attunement. Upali, the barber, asked the world-honored one, suppose a bodhisattva breaks a precept out of desire. Another does so out of hatred, and still another does so out of ignorance. World-honored one, which one of the three offenses is the most serious? The Buddha said, if a bodhisattva continues to break precepts out of desire, for kalpas as numerous as the sands of the danji, their offense is still minor. If a bodhisattva breaks precepts out of hatred, even just once, their offense is very serious. Why? Because a bodhisattva who breaks precepts out of desire still holds sentient beings in their embrace. Whereas a bodhisattva who breaks precepts out of hatred forsakes sentient beings altogether. A bodhisattva should not be afraid of the passions which help them hold sentient beings in their embrace.

[32:28]

but should fear the passions which can cause them to forsake sentient beings. Desire is hard to give up, but it is a subtle fault. Hatred is easy to give up, but it is a serious fault. Ignorance is difficult to give up, and it's a very serious fault. So for bodhisattvas, the passions such as lust and anger are considered to be fields of blessings. Walking the middle way through that field is called the path of awakening. For those who have taken the bodhisattva vow, there is an ongoing challenge to acknowledge anger as it arises and then to discover quickly what actions we can take that will be beneficial rather than harmful. It's not so easy. And yet, if we have not made the commitment within ourselves to avoid evil, And to do good, we will be very confused when anger arises.

[33:31]

We would have no real internalized basis to decide whether expressions of our anger are appropriate or not. And if, on the other hand, we have made this lifelong commitment to live for the benefit of others, the bodhisattva vow, when we witness injustice and cruelty, the light of the precepts can help illuminate an appropriate response. Patience is the antidote to anger and is also one of the primary conditions for enlightenment. Shanti Paramita. Patience doesn't mean just tolerating your pain, but actually expanding your capacity to experience it. Without either running away from it or wallowing in it. We are practicing patience when we sit upright, breathing and reminding ourselves to relax. And in doing so, the path to harmful anger. is completely blocked.

[34:33]

Tenchan Roshi mentions in his book, Being Upright, that people often say to him, it seems indulgent for us to be sitting around facing our own suffering when there is immeasurably greater suffering in the outside world. There's war and homelessness, torture, starvation, environmental degradation of every kind. His response was that, of course, that's the case. And yet we mustn't use the immense suffering of others as an excuse to avoid awareness of our own. Admitting and feeling our own pain enables us to listen more carefully and deeply to the suffering of others. And we do hear you, dear brothers and sisters, world over, who are running in fear, who are raging in grief, and who are lost in confusion. And we take as our inspiration the most renowned of all listeners, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, Avalokiteshvara, the Regarder of the Cries of the World, and Japanese Kanon and Chinese Kuan Yin.

[35:41]

Avalokiteshvara first appears among the Mahayana Bodhisattvas as a prominent figure in the Lotus Sutra in the guise of a male. And yet in the Sutra itself, the Buddha tells us that Avalokiteshvara can appear in any form. just as needed, even as a Buddha or a Brahmin or a god, as a king or a commoner, an elder, a youth or a maiden, as a dragon, as a Garuda that eats dragon, as a human or anything else that anyone needs. There are lots of stories about Kuan Yin, such as this one from a book called The Complete Tale of Kuan Yin and the Southern Seas. Guan Yin had vowed to never rest until she had freed all sentient beings from the cycle of birth and death. Despite strenuous effort, she realized that there were still many unhappy beings yet to be saved. After struggling to comprehend the needs of so many, her head split into eleven pieces.

[36:43]

The Buddha Amitabha, upon seeing her plight, gave her eleven new heads to help her keep her vow. With her new heads, she was now able to hear all of the cries and to comprehend them. But as she reached out to all those in need, her two arms shattered. Once again, Amitabha came to her rescue and bestowed upon her a thousand new arms. And since then, Huan Yin has never taken a day off. Yunnan asked Dao Wu, what does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion do with so many hands and eyes? Dawu said, it's like someone reaching back for the pillow at night. Yunnan said, I understand. Dawu said, how do you understand? Yunnan said, all over the body is hands and eyes. Dawu said, you said a lot there, but you only got 80%. Yunnan said, well, what about you, elder brother?

[37:47]

Dawu said, throughout the body is hands and eyes. I've always thought of Kuan Yin as being the Sangha itself. You know, many eyes and many hands, day and night, responding to the cries from out of our bottomless bow. And so I thank you all very much for being that. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[38:36]

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