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 morning. I'm not used to chanting the Hotsugamon. Um... especially before lecture, so I'm always caught by surprise. But that's what I'm going to talk about today in some way. I had a talk kind of formulated, and then when I went back to my room after breakfast, I spied what I really wanted to talk about, which is... the ten powers of a bodhisattva.

[01:03]

As you may remember, during class, it came up in one of the talks about the ten powers. And I said, there are a lot of different versions of ten powers, which there are. And I wasn't prepared to talk about any one of them. because I didn't have the information. And our sweet chuso, Sarah, asked Charlie Percorni to send some versions, and he sent three versions. And two of them are beyond our reach. But one of them is totally within our reach. It's all about... our practice, the ten powers that are totally accessible to us in our practice. Suzuki Roshi, you know, when we have the, in our service, we talk about the six powers of the arhats, maybe always with us.

[02:21]

This is a little different translation, but it's the same meaning. We pay lip service to the six powers of the Arhats, which are sort of magical powers. You know, the ability to walk in the air and walk through buildings and know what everybody's thinking and knowing the karma, everybody's past karma from beginning to beginning. But Suzuki Roshi said the most valuable, real power and the most valuable pertinent power is the power that every one of us neglects and it's just right there accessible to everyone it's called the power to change our karma in Buddhism when Shakyamuni was trying to understand

[03:24]

reality there were many teachers and many of the teachings in his day were about fate fatalism or determinism that your life is determined there's nothing you can do about it you just have to act out your life because everything is determined and you're just filling it in that's called determination karma, in a Buddhist sense, is not determination. It's indeterminate. In other words, you're making it up as you go along. You have the power to make up your own karma, your own life, and you have the power to change it. So our life is being created. We're self-creating. creatures when we meet circumstances in time and space we have choices and the choices we make the choice itself is the karma the act itself acting out through our choice we have a dream and then the dream is also karmic and then

[04:54]

we put that idea, that thought, into action. That's also karma. And then what happens, the action meets circumstances, and then something is created. And then we tend to keep recreating the circumstances or the actions that create the result that creates the action, that creates the result, that creates the action, and that's called habit. And then we get caught in the habit. And we bind ourselves through our persistent inability to stop the action, which creates the result, which creates the action. So they're good actions depending on good karma, good actions.

[05:56]

They're bad karma, bad actions. And then there's the result, bad result, good result. But the ability to change the bad karma is possible because the bad karma is created by greed, hate and delusion. So last night we said all my ancient twisted karma From beginning with green hate and delusion, I found it now fully allow. So we recognize it, even though we don't say what it is one by one. We don't say what our actions are one by one, or that I repent of those. You can do that. Because it's freeing ourselves from both good and bad karma. So we have the ability to... start our life all over again this is like AA it's like you know you put yourself in a position to start your life all over again so Buddhism is the same thing that's why AA and Buddhism are a lot alike because they're both geared toward starting our life all over again and

[07:20]

basically it's like starting our life all over again moment by moment. If we know how to start our life over again moment by moment, then it's easier to let go of the big problems. Just let go of each problem as it comes up. Or the... before the problem becomes a problem. So knowing how to let go is our practice. Letting go moment by moment. We're still always creating karma, but we know what the karma is that we're creating. And then we know, well, shall I continue this or shall I stop this? Is this beneficial or is it not? Am I going to get caught or not? So Suzuki Roshi, you know,

[08:22]

very innocently always said, don't get caught by anything. Don't allow yourself to get caught by anything. Don't become attached. But it's not that we become attached to things so much as we become attached to our desire about things. So it's not that we have to change things. It's just that we have to deal with our desire. Things will always present themselves that we want. So desire is neither good nor bad. Desire is just desire. Without desire, you can't do anything. Sometimes we read in the books, we say, cut off desire at the root. Well, it would be better to say, how do you use desire rather than having desire use you?

[09:31]

That's the problem. Desire is fine. It's necessary. Just like ego is necessary to cut off ego. You can't cut off ego. How do you transform ego? How do you transform desire? So it takes a different form. It takes a different direction. So my way of expressing it is when desire is turned toward way-seeking mind, it's no longer called desire. It's called practice. Because you're not trying to get something. Your effort is to be yourself. So that's my introduction.

[10:37]

So I'm going to read to you the ten powers of the Bodhisattva according to this list. So the first one is devotion to the Buddha's teaching and and no attachment to anything. And the second one is increasing one's devotion. These two really go together, right? They're two aspects of the same thing. And the third one is the expedient ability to instruct people and alter their conduct. I don't like the way that's worded. So I said, the expedient ability ability to instruct people on how to alter their conduct. In other words, I'm not going to alter somebody's conduct. You have to alter your conduct. It's not my job to alter your conduct. But I can suggest to you that you alter your conduct. Please don't say that.

[11:42]

Don't do that. You are the one that has to not do it, not me. So the fourth one is understanding what people think. And the fifth one is satisfying people with what they want. That's a little controversial, but it takes some explanation. The sixth one is no cessation of exertion. The seventh one is including all vehicles without abandoning the Mahayana. And the eighth one is the mysterious power of showing the appearance of the Buddhas in every world in each pore of the body. That is mysterious. And the ninth one, making people turn toward the Buddha's teaching and leading them to perfection.

[12:43]

I have a different wording a little bit. Influencing people rather than making them turn toward the Buddha's teachings. and leading them to perfection, whatever perfection means. The tenth one is satisfying all kinds of people with even a single phrase. You can use a single phrase, but you may not satisfy all people. So I'm going to go back to the beginning. The first one is devotion to the Buddha's teaching and no attachment to anything. Some people don't ordinarily think of Zen practice as devotional practice. We think of Nembutsu as devotional practice. Nam-myoho-renge-kyo is devotional practice.

[13:52]

but actually Zen practice is totally devotional. It's not that you're devoted to Buddha as a deity, but you're devoted to practice. You're devoted to the practice that has been handed down to us, ancestor after ancestor. And it's devotion to truth and reality. So, devotion also means faith. I would say devotion to Buddhist teaching is an act of faith. And increasing one's devotion is an act of confidence. Confidence... engenders faith and faith promotes confidence if we don't have it you can't practice you can practice but you can't go very far in practice it's hard to continue without that without total devotion to one thing here's the problem one of the problems that we have in our society we have so many choices when I've started practicing

[15:24]

There weren't very many choices. And I stumbled into this practice. But after studying with my teacher for seven years and observing other practices, I felt that I stumbled into the best one. I always could trust my teacher. And the way I knew I could trust my teacher was... because he was totally devoted to practice without showing off. And he never asked for anything. He never wanted anything. He only wanted us to find our own way. If you find yourself with a teacher who wants something, you should leave. So faith, which is devotion, has to be balanced because faith wants to go.

[16:42]

Faith is a leader. It's an energy that leads and finds a direction, always looking for direction and going forward. That's why it's so wonderful and powerful. but it always has to be balanced it has to be balanced by reason faith has to be balanced by reason and it also has to be balanced by doubt I like to think of it as an airplane the engine is pulling the plane along and the tail is giving a direction the tail is a kind of drag and the flaps a kind of drag and you have to pay attention to the tail which is the drag or doubt is maybe not the right word but circumspection I came upon the word circumspection and reason in order to have faith in

[18:03]

be powerful, find its power. It has to be connected with reason and some doubt. The doubt or circumspection, is this right? Is this really right? Sometimes comparing, am I going in the right direction? But once you find the direction, once you know and have confidence in what you're doing, then just do it. So that's the power. The power of devotion is that once you give yourself totally with nothing left out, then the whole universe opens up to you. Why does the universe open up to you? Because you've opened up to it, of course.

[19:03]

This doubt has several aspects. One is beneficial. The other is not. The part that's not beneficial is skepticism. Skepticism is like standing outside and looking in and saying, not so hot. Oh, I don't think so. You guys are all doing this stuff. That doesn't work. You should go somewhere else. So totally give yourself. So I've proven this to myself. That's why I know how it works. If you totally devote yourself and give yourself without adding anything extra, you will always be supported. And if you really work at your practice, everything that you need will come.

[20:15]

Everything that you, whether you think you want it or not, will come. It will all come to you eventually. So I've proven that. Increase in devotion. Isn't this what the Chondromon is talking about? Exactly. Increase in devotion. So we have more and more confidence in what we're doing. And confidence leads to faith, and faith leads to confidence. And people say, how are you? And you always say, I'm okay, no matter what's happening. because you are okay. You are always okay, no matter what's happening. So the third power is the expedient ability to instruct people about how to alter their conduct.

[21:32]

In other words, you read people's minds. We're always reading people's minds. It's not actually so difficult. Aren't we? Yeah. When someone talks, we're reading your mind. If you talk to me, I'm reading your mind. But we think of reading your mind as, without talking, what am I thinking? But we know what people are thinking. Not everything, but enough to to know how to deal with them. We know enough about each other to know how to deal with each other. We're always teaching each other about how to deal with us. We say, oh, that guy, I'm not going to say this because I know how she's going to react or how he's going to respond. Or we say, well, this person is really very open. I can say anything I want. And this person is teaching me that I can say anything I want.

[22:36]

And this other person teaching me is, don't get close to me. Don't ask me those questions. Don't tell me what to do. So, okay. So we're always teaching each other. And we're always reading each other's minds. But there is a reading ability to instruct people as to how to alter their conduct by reading who they are. But this ability also comes from single-minded practice. All of these abilities come from single-minded practice. And the less you have, the more you can read. Because being empty of stuff, your mind is more open to accessibility. When we have Shosan ceremony, the teacher sits up there and gives a little talk and then asks for questions.

[23:47]

But there's nothing in the teacher's mind, the teacher's mind totally without a thought, totally blank. It's not like, well, I'm going to say this to that one. No, that doesn't happen. It's just simply question and response spontaneously so you know we give a lot of there's a book about forgiveness and by a psychologist at Stanford and he talks about renting out space in our mind. Our mind has so much space and then we get angry or we have resentments and these resentments just keep going on and on in our mind and we just rent out this space. It's like an airplane circling the airport but it never can land because there's no space for it to land.

[24:56]

There's just too much stuff stored. So how do we let go of this stuff in our mind? Well, through forgiveness. That's really important. Otherwise, we're always stuck. There's a place where we're always stuck, and we can't proceed any further. So forgiveness is a big key for unburdening our mind. Why do we want to live there, you know, when we could live somewhere else? But there's a part of us that loves the drama. It's really true. We love the drama of our resentments. And we just eat, chew on them. It's great food. Just eat that one. Freedom. So our resentments are our attachments.

[26:00]

And we can't find our freedom. And then we get so used to it, so used to it, that it feels funny to not have it. And that funniness is a fear of breathing freely. We can easily have a fear of breathing freely. We breathe in our chest when we have anger, resentment, all these negative emotions. our breath comes up here. When we're calm and don't have any resentments in our mind or fear, then our breath goes down to our abdomen. And then big breath, which pervades our whole body and refreshes our blood. We have to keep refreshing our blood all the time. So we should always breathe here. All the time. It's not just .

[27:02]

I was going to give a talk on breathing, so I'm including that. I come up to a Zen student and I say, where's your breath? And he say, I don't know. You should always know. That's your job as a Zen student, to know where your breath is at any moment, if nothing else. because this is the solar plexus. I talked about that last time, I think. The solar spot, the sun spot, and that needs space to permeate and allows everything to work wonderfully. Inhaling, it expands, exhaling, it contracts. And when we sit in zazen, We watch the rising and falling of our abdomen as our breath. The books say, look at your nose, your nostrils, your ears.

[28:08]

That's okay. I don't contradict that, but the way we were taught was watching like a saw. When you saw, you don't watch the end of the saw going. You watch where the saw and the wood beat. So it's like this. You don't watch the breath coming up and down. You just watch slowly. And if you're having trouble, you know, sometimes we can't find our breath because we have a lot of pain or something like that. So in order to reestablish our breath, you push down silently. Silent. And then that sends the oxygen through your body, calms you down, gives you energy. You can do that from time to time. It's not breath control, but it's kind of controlling your breath a little bit.

[29:09]

When you know how to deal with yourself, then you can instruct people. They'll listen to you. You have authority. So I ask people, when you sit zazen, every single time, give yourself zazen instruction. How would you instruct somebody else in zazen instruction? So you do that every time. That's what I do every time I sit. I give myself zazen instruction. Back straight, teeth together, mudra, and go over the body during zazen all the time. to make sure, because it's always changing. Your body's always changing, even though you're sitting still. There's no such thing as sitting still. We sit as still as we can, but there's subtle movement going on all the time. Sometimes I'll ask people, I'll say to someone like, well, adjust your posture, you know, from time to time during zazen.

[30:23]

And they'll say, but that's moving. Of course it's moving. Don't move means sit still as you can. Don't change your posture. But if you have to change your posture, change it. And if you change it, don't think you're a bad boy or a bad girl. Oh, God, I have to change my posture. Just change it, and okay. But make a good effort to sit still. feel your own confidence, then you have the power to deal with other people. The expedient ability to instruct people in how to alter their conduct, not just in zazen, but in life. And then understanding what people think, that's number four. Rather than what people think, it's like,

[31:28]

I think, where are they? Where is somebody? A teacher asks a lot of students and then, where is so and so? An experienced teacher, mature teacher, can tell where somebody is just the way they walk, the way they hold themselves, the way they use materials, the way their eyes are. But we all can see that in each other. So when we have the ability to see where people are, which includes what they're thinking to a certain extent, then we know how to deal with that person compassionately. If we can't see that, then we tend to get angry. As a teacher, you should be careful not to get angry at your students.

[32:34]

But you can use anger as an expedient. But you can't get caught up in the anger that you use as an expedient, because then you're caught by your anger. And then anger is controlling you. So this is very tricky. Because sometimes we do get angry or we get disgusted or something like that. And we can use that as a tool, but never as a personal reproach. A teacher has to be able to take everybody's shit and transform it into flowers. use it as fertilizer. I don't know what time I have to stop.

[33:37]

Oh yeah, 15 minutes. Okay. So then the fifth one is satisfying people with what they want. I would say with what they need, which may be what they want. If someone You know, we have what we call sympathetic joy, the four Brahma Viharas. Sympathetic joy is the third Brahma Vihara. But it means sympathetic joy with someone's progress in practice, not with their material obsessions. Like, well, I just got a brand new car, you know. Oh, I'm so happy for you. It's like when somebody really understands or makes a big effort to practice, that brings out the joy in the teacher.

[34:43]

The only reward you can give a teacher is your practice, is your own satisfaction in practice. You're not satisfying the teacher, you're satisfying your own desire in practice. So satisfying with people what they want, but they don't always know what they want. We don't always know what we want, but we have a direction even though we don't know where it's going. Suzuki Roshi talked about it as the Zen noodle, the endless Zen noodle. There's no end to the noodle. And then the number six is no cessation of exertion. Continuous called Gyoji in Japanese, continuous practice.

[35:53]

There's no end. to continuous practice. Sometimes they call it zendo practice. Oh, this is their practice. Genjo Koan, as Suzuki Roshi characterized it, is your life as it unfolds as you leave the zendo. So we sit zazen, which is totally letting go of everything, and in the realm of emptiness, and then taking on the activities of our life as they unfold, which is continuous practice. Going back and forth, zendo practice, and then work practice, zendo practice, work practice, or whatever.

[36:57]

that's continuous practice, the power to do that, the power to find yourself and your practice wherever you are. So wherever you are is the extension of the zendo. The zendo doesn't end at the doorway. It's like, you know when you have your computer and you've got this little thing, this little project, and then you take the corner and you drag it, and it fills the whole page. That's kind of how I look at the extension of our practice from the Zendo. We just keep dragging it out. So number seven, including all the vehicles without abandoning the Mahayana. So our practice is characterized as Hinayana practice. with a Mahayana attitude or mind.

[38:04]

So what is the Hinayana practice? Hinayana, of course, as you know, was a derogatory term by the Mahayana to the mostly Theravada monks, but it's not Theravada criticism. It's monks who were only interested in their own salvation. Whereas the Mahayana opened up to the salvation of the Bodhisattva practice, which is the Mahayana practice of waiting till everybody else gets on board before you do. That's really a great practice, waiting for everybody else and helping everybody else to get on board before you do. On board means. Nirvana. Not just worrying about your own salvation.

[39:09]

It's like the captain of the ship who goes down with the ship, so to speak. You make sure everybody else is fed first. You make sure everybody else is taken care of. And then that's how you're taken care of. So what is the Mahayana practice? The Mahayana practice was exemplified by the Lotus Sutra. The Lotus Sutra came out and the message of the Lotus Sutra was to not so much focus on Shakyamuni as the main Buddha, but So the Mahayana created the trikaya. Bhairachana, Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Nermanakaya.

[40:18]

So the three bodies in Buddha, not just Shakyamuni, although Shakyamuni is included. Dharmakaya is your nature. Sambhogakaya is your wisdom or your the place where you actually practice you as a practitioner and then Nirmanakaya as the transformation body of Shakyamuni of numerous Shakyamuni Buddhas which means everybody who practices is one of those Shakyamuni Buddhas in the realm of transformations or the place where everything changes the place of practice, the body that you have with which you practice. Sambhogakaya is the mind with which you practice, or the wisdom. And the Dharmakaya is the Buddha nature, which covers everything.

[41:24]

So instead of focusing on the person of Shakyamuni, we focus on the essence, the wisdom, and Shakyamuni. So it's not all about celestial creatures. It's about you. You are the trikaya. Each one of us embodies the trikaya. It's our wisdom, our essence, and our practice, our transformations. And this is our vehicle. So including all vehicles without abandoning the Mahayana. So if you know what your practice is, if you have faith and conviction in your practice, then you can study all the other practices of Buddhism.

[42:28]

There are 12 schools. Just after Buddha's time there were 18, but now there are 12. And you can study all 12 of those schools, and you should. Then you have a broad example of how each school looks at the Dharma. And then the Dharma becomes this jewel with 12 sides. And each one has its own way of looking at the Dharma, which is great. And we can use all of those. Zen has no special sutra. or no special teaching. But we use all those teachings. They're all accessible to us. We're not stuck in one. And they enhance our understanding. So it'd be really good sometime to have a class where we study all the 12 schools of Buddhism.

[43:32]

So we don't have to abandon our practice in order to study all those other schools or even participate. But the dangerous thing is to think that we should get a little bit out of this school, a little bit from that school, a little bit, and then we put them all in our basket and try to put it all together to create a practice. The main thing about our practice is to just practice one practice thoroughly. Instead of collecting a lot of stuff in our basket, just take one practice and practice it totally and thoroughly. And then, instead of putting a lot of information and various ideas into our head, we mine.

[44:42]

the most fundamental thing that's what makes them what it is is one to practice one practice thoroughly without adding anything and mind the deepest part of ourselves day after day which we think of as repetition we have a lot of repetition, but in order to survive the repetition, we have to see everything we do has never happened before. Every time we bow, we've never done that before. This is the first time. Every time we lay out our bowls, this is the first time. Then our practice can be fresh and new. on each moment, even though we do what seems like the same thing over and over again.

[45:44]

That's the so-called secret of repetition. Never do the same thing twice. Every time it's fresh and new. That's why I think I like it when we bow slowly, make sure everybody's ready, and we're not just kind of... doing everything as fast as we can, and people are all scrambling. I don't like that. So then, 9 is 8, is the mysterious power of showing the appearance of the Buddhas in every world, in each pore of the body. Okay? Well, I think what it means... to me, is we teach through example. Whatever it is that we embody is what we project. Without trying to project, whatever it is that we have, we're always projecting.

[46:51]

Everybody's projecting what they have. So, and my old teacher said, we practice our... What we practice is what we get through our practice, we get through the pores of our body by doing something over and over. So if we have faith, then that's what we're projecting. And we're also... expressing our Buddha nature, and we're seeing our Buddha nature in everything. When we mine our own Buddha nature, when we're aware of and have faith in Buddha nature, then we see Buddha nature all around us. And then that's what we project, and then that's what people see. So number nine.

[47:54]

Oh yeah. Making people turn toward the Buddha's teaching and leading them to perfection. I would say influencing people to turn toward the Buddhist teaching and leading them to perfection. And I would say by example. The best way to teach is by example. We have talks, lecture, so forth. Example is the best way. And then satisfying all kinds of people with even a single phrase. Well, as... As it was said of Buddha, whenever he gave a talk, there were different kinds of Garudas and Gandharvas and so forth and Bodhisattvas and Narhats in this assembly, and everybody heard something different. Whenever he said, everybody heard what they needed to hear. But it was all different, according to the person. And I find anybody who gives a talk will find that that's true.

[48:58]

Not just Buddha, but whenever you give a talk, everybody will hear something different according to how they process and what they need to hear. And some people will say, God, that was terrible. So the powers. I just want to say one more thing about powers. I asked Suzuki Roshi one time in Doka-san, I said, what is power? And he said, don't use it. It was a great koan, good koan for me. Don't use it. What does don't use it mean? Power is one of the most corrupting elements in our basket. A person who becomes attached to power, that's one of the hardest things to turn around.

[50:06]

Once we have it, it's one of the hardest things to turn around. And very few people survive it. Survive stepping down from power. If you look at what's happening in the Mideast, all these potentates are having... who had power for years and years, they have to kill them off because they can't step down. But in our practice, we have to be very careful about how we use or misuse the power that we have because the power of practice, you know, we take it all for granted, kind of, you know, it's like, this is our everyday life. But when you step out and people look at you, people come here, and they see that you have, that there's some power in people, we have to be very careful not to misuse it or use it.

[51:07]

We have to be very careful not to step up and strut around like for somebody. Matter of fact, the more power that you have the further back you have to step. Just about right, huh? So I'm going to let the kitchen go before I Thank you very much, Kitchen. One of my admonitions for people after they have Dharma transmission is, don't strut around like the cock of the walk.

[52:22]

Yes. As if you know something. So I think those are reasonable ten powers. And they fit right in with our practice. I think they're all just what Suzuki Hiroshi taught us. So thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge 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 sfzc.org and click Giving.

[53:23]

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