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 evening, and welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple. Tonight, I want to talk about the Sajiki ceremony that we'll be having this coming Monday evening. And I hope that you'll be inspired to attend. It's a lot of fun. It's about as much fun as anything that we can do in the Buddha Hall. So I'll start by... saying what the name of the ceremony means. The first syllable say, S-E, means to offer with generosity and wholeheartedness.

[01:05]

And Jiki means food. So the name of the ceremony is very simple. It means to offer food. And we do. both as part of the ceremony and for dinner afterwards. The ceremony used to be called the Sagaki Ceremony, and the word gaki means hungry ghost in Japanese. But several years ago, the Soto School in Japan that were affiliated changed the name of the ceremony because the word gaki was being used as a derogatory slang term for homeless street people. So they changed the name, but it used to be a ceremony called Feeding the Hungry Ghosts, and it still has that feeling.

[02:12]

So it's both to offer food with great generosity and to feed the hungry ghosts. A hungry ghost is a denizen of the hungry ghost realm. That's where hungry ghosts live. And in Buddhist cosmology, there are six realms of cyclic existence or samsara. or positive realms, and three lower realms, which are realms of suffering. So the three upper realms are the God realm, the jealous God realm, and the human realm that we live in. And from a Buddhist point of view, the human realm is the realm that it's best to be born into because God that kind of life is most conducive to practice.

[03:14]

If you're born as a god, it's likely that your life will be so comfortable and pleasurable that you won't have any particular motivation to practice. And if you're born in one of the lower three realms, it's likely that you'll be so overwhelmed by your suffering and misery. that you won't be able to practice. So it's considered very fortunate to be born as a human being, and we're always admonished to not waste the opportunity. It may be a long time before it comes again. The three lower realms are the hungry ghost realm, and the animal realm, which is associated with fear, and the hell realm, which is a place of extreme physical and mental torment, and particularly extreme heat and cold.

[04:28]

I've seen drawings of hungry ghosts, and you will see some next week if you're here. There's one in particular that fits the description I'm about to give. And we have lots of wonderful paintings for Sajiki that will be around the building. But a hungry ghost is often depicted as having a very, very long, thin neck and a very tiny, narrow throat, so small that nothing bigger than a grain of rice could possibly pass through. And yet they have enormous empty bellies. So they have a physiognomy sort of like a malnourished person with a very bloated stomach.

[05:32]

However, their stomachs are much bigger. So they're tremendously hungry. They're always ravenous and can't possibly eat enough to be satisfied. They always, no matter how much food is available, they can't fill themselves with the amount that they can take in. So they always are unsatisfied and just wanting more and more and more. And I think this is a psychological statement, too. I think that many people are like this. They just need more and more, and nothing is ever enough, no matter how much they have. Maybe occasionally we find ourselves in that state of mind. And in fact, I think that the six realms are...

[06:35]

states of mind in which we all spend some time. I think that Zen Buddhists see these realms as psychological states. And I also find it interesting sometimes to practice with being aware of what realm we're in and how we got there. but it's constantly changing really from moment to moment, unlike everything else. So the Sagaki or Sajiki ceremony actually, according to the story that we're told, goes all the way back to Shakyamuni Buddha's time. Moggallana was one of his chief disciples, and he was famous for his special powers. And Moggallana's mother had recently died, and he was having dreams every night about her, dreams in which he saw her intense suffering of being unable to nourish herself and satisfy herself with food and drink.

[07:56]

And the same was true of all the beings around her. So he used his special powers to go and visit her, and he took her a bowl of rice. And she gratefully accepted the bowl of rice and covered it with her hand so that the others wouldn't see it and take it from her. But when she tried to eat the rice, it caught on fire and burned her lips. And Moggallana had also brought her some water, which she desperately needed. But when she tried to drink it, it turned to blood. So she was as unsatisfied as ever. And Moggallana was in great distress. So he went back to the Buddha and asked his advice.

[09:01]

about what to do for his mother. And Buddha said that she was in the hungry ghost realm because during her life she had been greedy, not only for herself, but also for her family. So she had wanted things for her family that she got at the expense of other people, and she had a heavy karmic debt. So Buddha told Moggallana that he would not be able to save her just by using his special powers. He suggested, he said that he would need the support and of all the monks in the Sangha. So Buddha suggested that Moggallana make a meal for her of whatever food would be most palatable and acceptable and offer it to her in a ceremony of repentance and confession, our full moon ceremony that happens every month,

[10:19]

So he was to offer it at the next full moon ceremony when all the monks were gathered together. And he did. And afterwards, his mother came to him in a dream again and said that she had been satisfied and released from her suffering. So Moggallana was greatly relieved and all the monks were jubilant. that this had been successful. And so the ceremony has come down to us in the present day. In America, at least at Zen Center, and I think at some other places too, we connect this with Halloween because Both ceremonies have something to do with death and the shadowy elements of our existence.

[11:29]

So it's a good match in some ways with Halloween, and that's when we celebrate it. It was Kobanchino Roshi's recommendation that we learn to do this ceremony at Zen Center. Kobanchino Roshi was a rather iconoclastic Japanese priest and monk who had trained at a heiji. I think he had probably been ino there. And Suzuki Roshi, our founder, invited him to come and teach us Soto Zen forms early in Zen Center's history. So he came, and he wanted us to learn this form because he felt like we needed to express and integrate more of the negative side of things and ourselves.

[12:35]

He felt that particularly in religious organizations, there can be a tendency to to be kind of nicey-nice and only say nice things and only have good thoughts and only express the most positive sentiments. And he knew, we all know, that we're not all like that, that life isn't like that. So he wanted to encourage us to have a fuller, more authentic expression. of ourselves and our way of life. And I think that's really deeply in keeping with the teachings of the Buddha. We study ourself to get to know ourself as deeply as possible as we really are. And we study everything to see how things are in the world.

[13:38]

So in this ceremony, all the negative elements in the universe are invited to come and be fed and nourished and receive healing. And this takes place in the container of a Buddhist ritual where all the Buddhas and ancestors are also invoked. So once we have all the Buddhas and ancestors in the room, then we invite all these negative elements, the shadows, the evil and demonic elements. And we offer them food and dharma, and we hold them and feed them during the ceremony. And then we send them back to complete their karmic activity where they came from.

[14:45]

And in the ceremony that we do here, all of this takes place at an altar in the back of the room where Prajnaparamita is now on the red table. We set up an altar there, a special Sijihi altar, and we cover the Buddha. and the bodhisattvas, because the image of Buddhas and bodhisattvas could be too intimidating to the suffering beings that we're trying to entice to come. So we cover them up. And we make offerings of food that we think suffering beings would like. It might include soda pots, and candy and potato chips. And we put that stuff on the Sujiki altar, along with some dead flowers.

[15:45]

And then we invoke the negative spirits with a sort of eerie musical roll-down that many of you will have an opportunity to participate in if you want to. And then the Doshi says words inviting the negative spirits to come. Something like, welcome, hungry ghosts. Be at ease. The vaguely known. The unconscious and unknown. Welcome. Be safe. And so then we have the Buddhas and ancestors saying, holding the container, and all these negative elements can enter the room and safely be here. Often people come to this ceremony in costume.

[16:50]

Lots of people come in costume. And I think there's something about being disguised in a costume so that we're not sure people know who we are. that helps us let go of some of our inhibitions and express ourselves more fully. Maybe we can express sides of ourselves that normally we don't. Suzuki Roshi once made the comment that when everybody is dressed alike, for example, in black robes, and we're all doing the same activity, that it's really easy to to see our individual differences, our personalities. They really come forth and stand out. But by the same token, when we put on a costume, something that disguises us and is itself attention-getting and maybe a little outlandish,

[17:57]

I think subconsciously we know that people will be looking at the costume and not at us, so we feel a little freer. I think that being aware of... Well, wait a minute. Another feature of this ceremony... is that we read the names of everyone who has died in the past year who's connected with the Sangha, or the people whose names you give us, and also the names of anyone for whom we've done a memorial service. And it's a way of honoring the lives of those people and their connections with us. And... It can also be, and to heal our loss, our own personal loss. And it can also be a way to help settle our emotions in circumstances where our relationship with the person who has died is complicated or conflicted.

[19:10]

And that so often happens. You know, our relationships are no less... complicated and conflicted because someone dies than they were when they were alive. So this is a ceremony that recognizes life and death, positive and negative, good and evil, and invites the negative aspects to be nourished and healed and transformed. I think that being aware of the myriad parts of ourselves, both positive and negative, is an extremely important foundation for our practice, our continuous practice. And this is what Dogen Zenji means when he says that to study the way is to study the self. Lately, I've been studying Thich Nhat Hanh's book,

[20:17]

transformation at the base, which is a contemporary and accessible rendition of the Yogacara teachings of Vasubandhu. And these teachings say that we all have a store consciousness where every experience, emotion, thought, perception, sensation, that we ever have is stored in seed form. So everything we experience, either directly ourselves or indirectly, through our ancestors, our culture, or the entire universe, leaves a seed in our consciousness. So our store consciousness is both individual

[21:17]

and collective. And since we believe that everyone touches us one way or another, there's nothing left out of this store consciousness. It includes the possibility of everything that's ever happened to anyone. And what this teaching is telling us is that we contain everything. We have the seeds of joy, generosity, and kindness, and also the seeds of anger and violence and fear. And our practice, our continuous practice, is to look deeply into ourself and see all the seeds that we have. so that we can water and nourish the positive seeds and heal and transform the negative seeds.

[22:22]

We can only do this if we are really clear that we actually contain everything. If we think we are a person who doesn't have a seed of anger, then... we will mislabel our anger or say that it belongs to someone else. And if we think that we don't have a seed of love, we may make the mistake of thinking that we're unworthy of receiving love or incapable of giving love. Our central abbot, Steve Stuckey, has been studying internal family systems for a few years, and I'm intrigued by this psychological model of working with the shadow and light in myself.

[23:27]

According to internal family systems, which I'll call IFS from now on, our Internal landscape is populated with sub-personalities or parts like little people that are inside of us who play different roles, much like members of a family. And all the parts are trying to help us. but some of them are actually dysfunctional because of damaging psychological experiences that we have had in our lives. So some of the parts end up acting out dysfunctional behaviors and extreme points of view that are not helpful to our lives.

[24:31]

And IFS helps us to identify our different parts and learn more about them. And we do this by actually talking to them, having conversations with them, listening to them. That's the main thing. Listening to why they're doing what they're doing and how they are trying to help us and protect us. and developing a kind and compassionate attitude towards them, an accepting attitude towards them. We actually visualize it as inviting them all to the table. No part, however much distaste we may have for it, is excluded. We want them to all come and speak their peace and make themselves known to us. so that we can work with them.

[25:35]

So in IFS, we heal and transform these dysfunctional patterns by removing hindrances such as irrational fear. So once we hear what they're afraid of, we can reason with them. And I actually haven't gone very deep into this practice yet, but I find it inspirational and helpful just to know that when there are extreme voices in my head, they're not me. There's some part that's doing some particular thing for me. And all of this, once the parts are healed, is led by the self, which the IFS description of the self is very similar, I think, to the Buddhist idea of big mind or big self.

[26:49]

And it's helpful to me to know that all of these parts have good qualities to help me. So this Friday, we will have a Jukai ceremony, and two people will receive the Bodhisattva precepts in a lay ordination ceremony. And at the very beginning of the ceremony, the preceptor says, invoking the presence and compassion of the Buddhas, of our ancestors, in faith that we are Buddha, we enter Buddha's way. So right from the very beginning of our careers as bodhisattvas, we already acknowledge that we are Buddhists. And then, in the same ceremony, just before receiving the precepts, the ordinance recite, all my ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion, born through body, speech, and mind, I now fully evoke.

[28:01]

So both sides are included in the ordination ceremony because both sides are present in us. In our store consciousness, we have the seed of our Buddha nature, and we also have the seed of our ancient twisted karma, both individual and collective. So at the same time that we acknowledge that we're Buddha, we're also acknowledging our ancient twisted karma. Suti Center's senior staff has been working with a consultant on team building, and recently the consultant had us do an exercise where we formed dyads, with every other person in the room taking turns.

[29:07]

And in our dyad, we each ask the other person this question, what could I do differently to help senior staff function better as a team? And I think this had a sort of broader implication. It ended up being kind of a question of how do you see me and how What could I do to help, to be better, to improve? And so it was a vulnerable moment for us, I think. And yet, I think most of the people on staff felt very good about the results. And the answers that people gave were pretty honest. I certainly appreciated it, partly because I'm new in my position and I really appreciated hearing people tell me how I was doing and what I could do to be better.

[30:10]

So a couple of people told me that they wished I would express myself more fully, express both my joy and my anger, and let them come out. And I don't think they said that because they wanted particularly to see my anger. I think they said it because they wanted to see who I would be if I were fully expressing myself as an authentic person. And I think we know intuitively that if someone is always... or neutral, then something's hidden because we know that we're not like that. We know that we have negative emotions, so everyone else has them too. I think that when...

[31:24]

We don't express any negativity at all, and people can tell that something is hidden. It feels unsafe. We fear it may bite us in the dark, I think, and we want to know who's in the room and who's with us. We know that... wholeness, and authenticity are balanced and not one-sided. So the theme of this practice period is continuous practice, which to me means always bringing the mind and heart of mindfulness and awareness and gratitude to whatever realm we're in. I really appreciate that practice.

[32:29]

I want to close with a poem that many of you may know. It's an old poem, and it's actually a little dated. It was written by Thich Nhat Hanh in the 80s and in response to a particular political world. However, I think it's a beautiful poem and has much in it that's universal and helpful. So it was written during the era when the Vietnamese people were becoming boat people and leaving their homeland. And it's called Please Call Me by My True Names. Don't say that I will depart tomorrow. Even today I am still arriving. Look deeply.

[33:30]

Every second I am arriving to be a bud on a spring branch. To be a tiny bird with still fragile wings learning to sing in my new nest. To be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower. to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. I still arrive in order to laugh and to cry, to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive. I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly. I am the frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond.

[34:32]

And I am the grass snake that silently feeds on the frog. I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones. My legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant selling deadly weapons to Uganda. I am the 12-year-old girl refugee on a small boat who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate. And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving. I am a member of the Politburo with plenty of power in my hands. And I am the man who has to pay his debt of blood to my people dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

[35:38]

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom all over the earth. My pain is like a river of tears, so vast it fills the four oceans. Please call me by my true names so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one. Please call me by my true names so I can wake up. And so the door of my heart can be left open, the door of compassion. Thank you. 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.

[36:43]

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.

[36:57]

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