We vow with all beings from this life on throughout countless lives to hear the true Dharma and so forth. This Ehe Koso Hotza Ganmon is an instruction and it also might be described as one way to express the Bodhisattva's vow. And that's what I would like to talk about today is the Bodhisattva's vow. But before I talk about the Bodhisattva's vow, a few days ago when I spoke, I mentioned Dante's Inferno and how the hero, if that's who he is, awoke in the dark wood, found himself lost, truly lost, And then, in order to find himself, descends into hell.

[01:02]

And I have a map here of Dante's hell. And it's amazing, proving, I think, the unity of all religious spirit. Because it's in small... I actually drew kind of an arrow to... Maybe you can see where there's a little arrow I wrote on it, pointing... That says where... the hell for people who talk about the sixth day of Sashin. So I really am going to be careful not to be one of those persons and say a word about the fact that this is the sixth day of Sashin because I've been warned. Okay. great that we don't have to figure everything out for ourselves. So, a bodhisattva's vow, another expression of it is, beings are numberless.

[02:18]

I vow to save them. Delusion's inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates boundless I vow to enter them Buddha's way is unsurpassable I vow to become it in this week we've heard another slight different translation so the word bodhisattva is actually kind of like a technical word it's a vocabulary word that you that you learn at a Buddhist temple, in particular at a Mahayana Buddhist temple, even though you might hear it at any Theravadan or Mahayana location. And a bodhisattva is someone who has made the commitment to make an effort to understand their life in a way that

[03:21]

makes their life useful to other people's lives. And many background reasons for that decision and instinct a person might have. But the consequence of that is that a bodhisattva is someone who makes an effort to take care of others with the same sense of urgency that they feel about taking care of themselves. A day or so ago, someone asked me a question. So excuse me for recounting it, because in a way, it was a kindness they expressed to me, embedded in the question.

[04:24]

They said something like, how come I wanted to live my life with a dedication to be open to others? And I thought, well, may it be so. I hope so. But also, when I heard that question, almost immediately, I... had the response to thought, which is, well, the reason I want to be open to others is because I'm selfish. And I'm selfish because through trial and error, a little bit of trial and maybe a bigger bit of error, I have discovered that this is the way, actually, I can feel better about how I... spend the day. Being in relationship to, connected to, and making the effort to be helpful to other people is really a wisely selfish way to orient yourself.

[05:27]

And I read a quote from our friend His Holiness the Dalai Lama who said almost exactly this, that a bodhisattva is someone who was wisely selfish. And I think there's some quality of this wise selfishness that is an aspect of sitting zazen for a week, focusing on our own state of mind. You know, in the zendo, we really don't do anything except Turns out we do things in our head.

[06:29]

We sit still, we breathe, we sit still a little bit longer. And if we notice that we're doing something, well, like if we notice that we're having a thought about the sixth day of Sashin, well, we try to actually come back to the moment. And this is, you know, it might be possible that this could be faulted by someone looking at what we're doing and thinking that it's rather self-absorbed. And it kind of is. But the purpose of it, the intention of it, is actually not to have particularly personal experience that then we create as a new possession of ourself But the purpose of it, if I can say what the purpose is, is to soften ourselves up so that we are able to really be with other people.

[07:40]

And another thing that happens in the rampant failure of Sashin is that we might develop compassion for other people, recognizing as The Chan Master Lung Ya said, enlightened people today are exactly as those of old. And before Buddhas were enlightened, they were the same as we. So, Bodhisattva vowed. and to focus the issue, I want to say, and to focus it and bring it to, this is a Rohatsu Sashin, a sashin that celebrates the awakening of Buddha. In our tradition, we have a story that 2,500 years ago, someone who was an individual who was born of parents sat down for a week,

[08:53]

in that week sometimes had doubt, sometimes was in hell, and at the end had an experience of waking up. A pretty deep, it seems pretty, it seems really obvious that he must have had a very deep experience of waking up because the echoes of it are still felt, the reverberations of it are still palpable. And the story is, one of the stories is, that after this waking up Buddha for some period of time, just simply sat and stayed in the place of his awakening with the pretty certain feeling that what he had understood could not be communicated so well. And he doubted that he could talk about it. And then... He had a vision, which maybe he really didn't, you know.

[10:00]

Then he had a vision. Actually, Brahma appeared to him and showed him a lily pond, or a lotus pond, excuse me, a lotus pond. And in the pond there were some lotuses that were below the water, some just peeking through the surface of the pond, and others standing above and free in the air. And Brahma said to Buddha, just like these lotuses, there are some people who were the people of different aspects. And there are some folks who, hearing your teaching, will blossom like those lotuses. And so he set forth. He took a walk and met some friends. And that setting forth is, in a very real way, the bodhisattva's vow expressed. And I believe, I think, that in a very real way that this desire to not just have a personal experience, but to have a experience that helps and encourages other people is what it means to be, is at the essence of being human.

[11:23]

And this instinct to pass on knowledge and help other people is no special. Buddhism has no monopoly on it. It is universal. Universal instinct. I read a study about kids. I didn't read it. It wasn't so complicated. It was a story about being helpful. And it was with the camera on kids just passively recording them. It noted what they did when, for instance, an adult that they did not know who came into the room with both hands full of things and then approached a door that needed to be opened.

[12:33]

one-and-a-half, two-year-old kids would instinctively go over and open the door. It's a small thing, but it's being helpful. It is a small thing. It is an expression of a deeper desire. So I want to... tell you a non-Buddhist story. I want to use an anecdote from a Christian that I believe is a beautiful expression of the Bodhisattva's vow. And I'm going to read this paragraph and then I'm going to re-read it and say some things about it. It's from a woman named Simone Weil, who, it's a W, but I think it's pronounced V. She died in the 1940s.

[13:45]

She was extraordinary. Really, someone special. In the context of where she was, living in France, And in the Judeo-Christian sort of framework, she used God a lot in her effort to express her understanding. But this is not the anecdote I'm going to read, but in this book, you can open it at any pay place and find what I believe, what I feel are kind of like things that you really chew on. Like God could create only by hiding himself. Holiness should be hidden too, even from consciousness. Holiness should be hidden in the world. And, well, actually, maybe I'll read what I want, my quote I had in mind.

[14:52]

Okay. Her writing is kind of dense. The title that this, the essay that this came from is titled Forms of the Implicit Love of God. That's kind of a handle. Forms of the Implicit Love of God. And she says, the beauty of the world is the mouth of a labyrinth. The beauty of the world is the mouth of a labyrinth. The unwary individual who on entering... takes a few steps, is soon unable to find the opening. Like Dante's hero who gets lost in the wood, unable to find the opening. Worn out with nothing to eat or drink in the dark, separated from dear ones, separated from everything we love and are accustomed to, we walk on without knowing anything or hoping anything, incapable even of discovering whether we are going forward or...

[16:04]

merely turning around on the same spot. But this affliction is as nothing compared with the danger threatening us. Excuse me for this long reading, but anyway, the quote. For if we do not lose courage, if we go on walking, it is absolutely certain we will finally arrive at the center of the labyrinth, and there God is waiting to eat us. Later, afterwards, we will go out again, but we will be changed. We will have become different after being eaten and digested. Afterwards, we will stay near the entrance so that we can gently push those who come near into the opening. So she says that the beauty of the world is the mouth of a labyrinth,

[17:04]

and the unwary individual who on entering takes a few steps soon is unable to find the opening I think sometimes a period of zazen is like a labyrinth we sit down we follow our breath we know where we are we know why we're there and pretty soon we're just lost we're gone you know who knows where we are but we've forgotten that intention that we were trying to express And I think that also it's not just a period of zazen that is like a labyrinth, but also our life, our entire life. You know, we're born, we go to school, we go to college, we get a job, we don't get a job. And at some point we're wondering How did we get to this place?

[18:07]

How did we get to this job or to this house or to this apartment and to this relationship? And Greg, would you come over and join me? There is a song by The Talking Heads that's just about this. It's called Once in a Lifetime. And it's a longer song. But it's about how did we get to this place. And we're going to sing it together. Just a little bit of it. Trouble is, it's actually not sung. It's kind of spoken. With the music in the background, you have to imagine. And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack. And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile. And you may find yourself in a beautiful house with the beautiful wife.

[19:13]

And you may ask yourself, well, how? How did I get here? Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down. Letting the days go by, water flowing underground into the blue again. After the money's gone, once in a lifetime, water flowing underground. And you may ask yourself, how do I work this? And you may ask yourself, where is that large automobile? And you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful house. And you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful wife. And it goes on. So... we step into the labyrinth you know and we step into our beautiful house our beautiful life you know our beautiful car and at some point we wonder is there any way out of here is there any way out of here because we're worn out

[20:25]

We're in the dark. We're separated from our dear ones, or separated from our dearest hopes and dreams. And we walk on. We walk on. We don't really know if we're going forward or backwards, or we don't know if we're kind of just turning around in the same spot. And how come the bell hasn't rung yet? It's been a long time. Don't fall asleep. Thoughts arise. You know, if you... People get lost in the woods. This is something that happens. People get lost in the city, but people get lost in the woods and... Being lost, they tried to find their way back to where they began, and after walking for an hour or two or three, they might suddenly think, is this the clearing I was at before?

[21:37]

Am I walking in circles? And this also is, I think, sometimes what we feel in Zazen, what we have the chance to become intimate with in a longer sitting, like a Sashin. Haven't I been here before? Is this the way out? But the teaching, what Simone Weil says is, if you don't lose courage, if we keep on walking, and in our case we might say, if we keep on sitting, we will finally arrive at the center of the labyrinth. And one attribute of the center of the labyrinth is that it is not apparent when you've gotten there.

[22:38]

And another attribute of the center of the labyrinth is that it is the spot we already are. This is the spot where our heart blossoms, where our heart breaks. And this is the place where we might have a taste that this very mind is Buddha. It's tricky to say things like success in practice. But nonetheless, I'm going to say that there is a secret to success in practice, which is a simple one.

[23:43]

The secret is to continue. In order to find the center of the labyrinth, one has to simply continue. And in our continuing, in order to have the heart that allows us to continue, we have to have faith. But not blind faith. Nonetheless, we have faith, we have to have some sort of faith and courage. Simone Weil says that when you get to the center of this spot, God is waiting to eat us. And this God that she's at the center of the labyrinth, I really believe is nothing more than knowing without any equivocal doubt that this very mind, your very mind, our very mind is Buddha.

[24:50]

Buddha. Knowing this is the same as being eaten by God in one bite and then not even chewed. So she says later we go out again. Later we go out again, but we will be changed. We will have become different after being eaten and digested by God. And this is true, we will be changed. But actually, the challenge of our practice life is the fact that also we won't be changed. That we're going to continue. I'm going to continue to be Jordan, or whatever that means. Blanche is Blanche. Piper is Piper. And it's not exactly that we're stuck with who we are.

[26:02]

It's more like who we are is not just exactly who we might think we are. Afterwards, we will stay near the entrance so that we can gently push all those who come near into the opening. Afterwards, we will help gently push those who come near into the opening. And this is the Bodhisattva's vow, to reach the center of the labyrinth and then not leave it. to stay in the vicinity and to help steer folks into it and through it.

[27:08]

And in that steering process, one of the unfortunate, important pieces of it is that we also, we need to let people get lost in the labyrinth a little bit. People need, people, ourselves, others, our friends, need some some tips of how to get through, but they need to then make those tips their own experience. It doesn't work to take someone's hand and walk them through the labyrinth. It's a kind of working. Sometimes it's useful, but really when practice is alive is when people navigate it themselves, discover it themselves. things that you might discover in Sashin is that your cushion, your spot in the zendo is both hell and heaven.

[28:28]

And It may always be so. The beauty of the world is the mouth of a labyrinth. The individual who on entering takes a few steps is soon unable to find the opening If we do not lose courage, if we go on walking, it is absolutely certain that we will finally arrive at the center of the labyrinth, and there God, or Buddha, or fill in the blank, is waiting to eat us.

[29:38]

Later, we will go out again, but we will be changed. We will have become different afterwards. we will stay near the entrance so that we can gently help those who come near into the opening. This is one way Bodhisattva's vow is described. So thank you very much.

[30:09]

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