Good morning. Every day we have a chance to wake up. maybe a kind of responsibility, actually. Responsibility to wake up to be an enlightened Buddha body. I think we don't feel so good unless we are actually doing that. Maybe we don't feel good in the sense of being complete.

[01:01]

So this waking up is a willingness to be completely what this is. Now we're beginning of Rohatsu Sashin. So Rohatsu just means the eighth day of the twelfth month. So sometime people decided, when should we recognize Buddha's awakening? And they said, let's do it on the eighth day of the twelfth month. I don't know how they decided. But that was going on for some time in China and Japan. Then there's another day, Vesak, which is in the southern Buddhist countries, Thailand and Vietnam and Sri Lanka and so forth.

[02:20]

Vesak and also actually China is both, I think. Vesak is sometimes, it's the big day for all three of the big events. Buddha's birth, Buddha's enlightenment, and Buddha's parinirvana all in one day. And that's celebrated on different days because different countries have different calendars, but it's the lunar calendar, the full moon in the spring, fifth month usually. And it's interesting, in the years when there's a blue moon, you know, there's two moons in the same month and different countries have different days. And so Buddhists around the world have some different calendars. So here at Tassajara we have our own calendar. So yesterday was the eighth day.

[03:25]

Well, now it's... Since Japan shifted to the Western calendar in the Meiji era, then it's been December. December the 8th. So yesterday was Bodhi Day. And I hope you all had a good Bodhi Day. And now we will have our Tassahara Bodhi Day a week later. a week from now, after we sit this sashin. And the sashin is, in a sense, it's an homage to the Buddha's sitting and waking up. So we are respecting that. We need, we kind of need to respect that. we kind of need ways to remind ourselves of who we are.

[04:30]

At least once we realize that we're not who we think we are, then we really need help. So to have this Rohatsu Sashin is a great gift. And I feel very grateful to all of you being here. sitting, each being awake independently and all of us being awake together as one monk, as we've been saying from time to time. So here we are as one monk waking up. And this is how, this is one way to do it. So I wanted to share a little bit.

[05:31]

There are various stories of the Buddha's traditional Shakyamuni Buddha's awakening. And so I took some notes from the Mahasakasutta, which is in the old Pali canon. The Mahasakasutta is one of numerous versions In this case, Saka was a lay person who came and asked the Shakyamuni Buddha about what it's like. What is it like to be an enlightened person? And the Buddha said some things about it. And then Saka asked him, how did you get to be enlightened? And the Buddha said, well, you're kind of rude.

[06:34]

You're really not being very courteous, asking me such a question. But still, I will say something about it. So in the first part, he says that, he talks about being developed in body and in mind. Being developed. So this notion... This is a translation... Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation. So he uses the word developed. Becoming developed in body and developed in mind. And so he explains it a little bit here and he says, When a pleasant feeling arises in a well-taught noble disciple touched by a pleasant feeling one does not lust or continue to lust after pleasure. That pleasant feeling ceases.

[07:40]

With the cessation of the pleasant feeling, painful feeling arises. Touched by that painful feeling, one does not sorrow and become distraught. When the pleasant feeling has arisen, in one, it does not invade the mind and remain because the body is developed. And when that painful feeling has arisen, it does not invade the mind and remain because mind is developed. Anyone in whom in this double manner Arisen pleasant feelings do not invade the mind and remain because body is developed. And arisen painful feelings do not invade the mind and remain because mind is developed, is thus developed in body and developed in mind. So we might say, well, this is simply imperturbable mind.

[08:49]

We know a lot about it. That when pleasant feeling arises, that it does not remain. But what is this key point here is touched by pleasant feeling, one does not, here he uses the word lust. Kind of a, maybe a troublesome word maybe. But it does not... So pleasant feeling, one does not continue that, say, to hold, we would say, to maybe to be attached to, to take hold of and build on that pleasant feeling. In other words, we have this practice of not adding and feeding... desires about that pleasant feeling we simply note that pleasant feeling as a pleasant feeling and then when painful feeling arises we simply note oh this painful feeling arises and we don't have some desire that it not be there and we don't get all involved in feeling distraught here

[10:17]

So this is just basic practice. Then in this sutta, Shakyamuni goes back and says he had tried various other things. He said, I had tried to crush the mind. I had tried to crush the mind with the mind. And that was really torture. Really gave him headaches. He was really unhappy. and failed he realized after a while that this that this was bound to fail actually that the mind could not crush the mind and you think about it you realize oh the mind that crushes the mind has to be stronger than the mind that's crushed right so you're continuing to develop the mind that keeps crushing the mind you can really wear yourself out but I think some of you might be trying to do that You might be trying to get rid of something.

[11:22]

You might be trying to get rid of some mind that you think is your mind. Or something that you might not think is your mind, but is your mind. And you want to stamp it out. I want to get rid of that. So the Buddha, before his waking up, tried various things. He also tried to stop breathing, he said. He tried to stop breathing. He couldn't stop breathing, even though he was a great yogi. And then, as we know, he attempted not eating. He thought, all these troubles come from this body, and so what about... So he tried to get rid of the mind. Then he tried to get rid of the body. So he started eating less and [...] less until he was emaciated.

[12:30]

Very, very weak. And at some point along the way, he wondered whether this is really... Is this really the way? It says here, until his belly touched his backbone and his hair fell out. So he was in pretty bad shape, physically, to say the least. But he wanted to really give it a shot. Give it a good... Kind of a stubborn person, it sounds like. And then he says, whatever recluses experience painful, wracking, piercing feeling due to their exertions, this is the utmost.

[13:44]

There is no painful, wracking, piercing feeling beyond this. But by this wracking process of austerities, I have not attained any superhuman states. No distinction in knowledge or vision worthy of the noble ones. Could there be another path to enlightenment? And then he says, I recall, I recalled that when my father, the Sakyan, was occupied, while I was sitting, In the cool shade of a rose apple tree, quite secluded, not involved in sensed pleasures or unwholesome states, I entered and abided in the first jhana with mindfulness, sustained concentration, rapture, and pleasure born of seclusion. Following on this memory came the thought

[14:48]

This is the path. So this is... He's in a quiet, cool shade of a tree. I think the tree is important, actually. The tree is important for him in this experience. And then, of course, we have his decision after this. Then he decided he needed to take nourishment And then he found a place to sit. Under a tree. Next to a tree. So we call it the Bodhi tree. So you can't really have a Buddha without a tree. Fortunately, we have trees. Which to me also relates to the breath. We can't breathe. We couldn't breathe without trees and grass and algae purifying the air so that we have oxygen giving it back to us.

[16:05]

So he found this peaceful place and saw this was the path. And then receiving nourishment, his body became strong enough to sustain sitting. So it's good, as we say when we do our meal chant, that we receive this food to support the practice of enlightenment. So for him to receive this food was necessary for him to practice this way of enlightenment. And then he said, in this particular sutta, he said, he found a place to sit and concentrated his mind. His mind became malleable, so malleable, not rigid, but flexible, steady, and imperturbable.

[17:12]

And then he said, with his mind concentrated, malleable, steady, and imperturbable, he recalled his past lives. To me, this is always very interesting, recalling past lives. You might have some recollection of past lives sitting, sasheen. So what is the practice of recollecting past lives? My own experience is that this is sometimes when one is concentrated, one actually has some insight into the significance of your past lives, your memories. Sometimes something that you haven't really understood in your life, your past life, your past lives, becomes clear.

[18:19]

And becomes clear in the sense that one is no longer troubled by whatever that past life is and all of the elements of it. So one is actually becoming say, coming to terms with, and at complete peace, and with some insight into any experience of your whole, all of your possible memories. So, my sense is that it's things arise when they need to. Things arise when they are either helpful in the present or in the sense that they are, I'll say, unfinished, unresolved. So in that sense, they're also helpful in the present because this is an opportunity to see.

[19:31]

This is an opportunity to see what happened. So one time when I was sitting after some years of a sitting being a much slower student than the Buddha I had a recollection of a past experience that I'd forgotten and I've told this story once or twice but it was when I was maybe 10 or 11 years old I think I think I was 10 and maybe yeah makes sense that it was ten because when I was nine my father said okay now you're now you can take some responsibility so he did two things he bought me a tractor now you have your own tractor and then he bought me three pregnant ewes sheep this was his idea

[20:44]

for my education and I had not expressed any particular interest at all but he signed me up for 4-H 4-H club and so this was a project to have a project so we went out and we visited someone who had hundreds of sheep and They went running by and said, we're going to buy some sheep. So they went running by and it was astonishing to me because the farmer who had the sheep said, I'll sell you that one. And there's a sheep running by. And that one I'll sell you. Later on I understood he was picking out his... Worst sheep. Maybe they were okay. Maybe they were not his worst.

[21:45]

They were not his best. But maybe for a 4-H club project, he wouldn't necessarily give you his worst. But they were definitely not his best. I had no idea. I couldn't. So then later on, we had these three sheep. So this was in the fall. And then in January, in the coldest nights of January, they started having lambs, right? So I had to become a midwife, you know, on the spot. And so it wasn't actually, things went somewhat well, and most of the lambs survived, and I think they all survived that first year. And then the next year, we got more sheep, you know, And there was very special. My dad decided, well, we should buy even a better ewe.

[22:49]

Because my sheep had done very poorly at the county fair. I had no one teaching me. I was just fumbling along, and I realized I was in a 4-H club that was mostly in people in town, and there wasn't anyone who was really knowledgeable, so I didn't have much instruction. And when I got to the county fair, I realized, oh my God, my dirty, scraggly lambs don't look anything like they're supposed to. It's very embarrassing. But then the next year we had this other, so we bought this expensive you and then she so there was all this excitement about her lamb being born and when her lamb was born unfortunately it was deformed and it had this had an opening its skull and part of its brain was coming out or something and it couldn't stand up it couldn't nurse it was just kind of flopping around and it was a cold January night and I didn't know what to do and I was all by myself and so I

[24:08]

I thought it was merciful. So I took it out and I just put it out in the snow for the coyotes or whatever. But I was deeply, deeply troubled by birth and death. Deeply troubled by that. And I wondered about my own life. How is it that this life, how is this life happening and that life is dying? That life didn't happen. And then about the same time I had a younger cousin who died of leukemia. And so I went on for weeks and weeks with this kind of, now I would say a koan.

[25:09]

But I would just say that I was just kind of consumed by this troubled question about why do some things live and some things die? How is it that, you know, how can I come to terms with my own death? When am I going to die? And all I can say is at some point, so I was sitting Zazen, this all came back to me, recollecting this past life. It came back to me. And I was walking. Some morning, this was maybe a couple of months later, walking over the little rise and down toward the barn. And... And all of my troubles just fell away.

[26:15]

Like, oh. It was like everything became luminous and almost like just a voice saying, you will just live as long as you need to. So I had this realization, oh, okay, I'll just live as long as I need to. And I'm not in charge of that. I'm not in charge of deciding how long I need to live. The universe is in charge of that. And I realized that I didn't produce myself. I didn't produce my own life. And when I completely realized that at that time, there was no longer any problem. work with things living and things dying. However, then I became a teenager and I forgot all about this.

[27:23]

I got all confused and took up many more troubles. Became very busy and angry, more angry again about things and And so it wasn't until, you know, years later, after years of sitting zazen, that I recalled this realization, say. And what I had learned at that time, oh, it just made sense. It came back into place. So I feel a little bit like, very fortunate, like they... like the Buddha sitting under the rose apple tree only mine was cottonwood tree big cottonwood tree with the wind blowing through the leaves any of you know the sound of cottonwood leaves they're kind of leathery leaves and they make a particular sound when the breezes blow through the cottonwood tree so to me that's like the Bodhi wind

[28:40]

Wind of Awakening. So our practice is to appreciate the Buddha's practice but also not to be caught by it. So Suzuki Roshi here says, that our way, our way is the original undivided way. So the original undivided way you might think is something. But this is not something. So many people, I think, misunderstand Buddha's enlightenment and think that it's something that can be conceived of. These are Suzuki Roshi's words.

[29:42]

This means we should establish our practice where there is no practice or enlightenment. As long as we practice Zazen in the area where there is practice and enlightenment, there is no chance to make perfect peace for ourselves. In other words, we must firmly believe in our true nature. Our true nature is beyond our conscious experience. It is only in our conscious experience that we find practice and enlightenment or good and bad. But whether or not we have experience of our true nature, what exists there beyond consciousness actually exists. And it is here that we have to establish the foundation of our practice. This is very striking teaching. We should establish our practice where there is no practice or enlightenment.

[30:50]

So this is what we're doing here. Not holding on to some idea of enlightenment. Not having some idea of practice and enlightenment. Even though we're respecting the Buddha's Bodhi Day. And we celebrate it. This is not so easy to understand. And I'm deeply grateful to Suzuki Roshi. And while I was thinking this morning about my gratitude for Suzuki Roshi, then I was also thinking about my gratitude for the Shuso coming from Britain. And then I thought about Suzuki Roshi's teacher who came from Britain. So maybe you all know the story, but I retell the story of Suzuki Roshi's teacher, Nora Ransom.

[31:53]

I was feeling very grateful for Nora Ransom this morning. And so Nora Ransom, a very unique person, and without her, we probably also wouldn't be here. But she... I don't know. Who knows? But when she was in her mid-30s, after being a school teacher in England and in Scotland, she somehow hooked up with the British consulate in China and came to China and was teaching the... I guess the... the children who were a part of the consulate, the British concession there in China. This was in the 20s. This is a difficult time in China, and it's also the time that Japan was becoming more militaristic and setting up bases in China, right?

[33:04]

So at some point, the emperor and... There's an interesting relationship also with someone named Shigeru Yoshida who was the Japanese consul in China who helped the emperor leave Beijing, I think, when it became too much dominated by the Japanese military. So he was the Japanese consul but he actually helped... the Chinese emperor kind of escaped. And also Miss Nora Ransom then also became a tutor for the Chinese emperor and his family for a little while. But then in 1927 she came to Japan and in Japan this

[34:13]

Japanese consul Shigeru Yoshida also helped her get a job at Komazawa University in Tokyo. So Komazawa University was the place where Shinryu Suzuki was a student at the university, second year, 20 year old student and he'd been studying English since he was a little grade school kid and And so he was actually one of the best students in her English class. So she was teaching English at Komazawa University, which is the Soto Zen University in Tokyo. So one day, Chinmue stopped by to see her. And she asked him if he might... be willing to be a sister in various ways, like run errands and do some, because his English was pretty good and her Japanese was non-existent, that he could do some interpreting for her.

[35:25]

So he actually moved into her house and lived in her house, wonderful kind of stately, But Japanese, of course, house. And so there are many stories. But Suzuki Roshi was only like 4'11". And Miss Ransom was almost 6 feet tall. He was 20 years old and she was 40 years old. And they must have made quite a sight. Like going shopping or something, right? Walking down the street. And... you know, the late 20s, completely traditional Japanese culture. And here's this giant gaijin woman, foreigner, and this little student going around together doing errands and things.

[36:34]

But... Suzuki Roshi really got into a situation where he was learning a lot because she had many visitors, sometimes important people and people from all kinds of foreign countries visiting. And so he would be involved in studying English, hearing English conversation, translating to Japanese, translating Japanese back into English. So this was an opportunity for him to really not only learn language, but also learn how to work, how to relate to people from different cultures. Now, there was one thing about the house that disturbed him. In a Japanese home, traditionally, there's an alcove called the tokonoma. Many of you know tokonoma.

[37:37]

And usually it's not exactly an altar, but it's usually a place for a cultural aesthetic appreciation. So usually there would be a scroll with calligraphy and a flower arrangement and something that would be changed almost every day, freshened up, cleaned, and and fresh flowers would be put in there, and then the scroll would be changed seasonally, so there'd be some poem or something that would relate to the season. So a tokenoma is not something that Miss Ransom understood, but there was a tokenoma in her house, and the emperor of China, as a parting gift, had given her a Buddha, a little carved wooden Buddha figure, and so she'd thought, well, where to put it? So she put it in the tokonomo. But then she also put her shoes.

[38:39]

She'd take off her shoes coming in and use it kind of like a shoe rack as well as the Buddha figure sitting in there. And so this kind of bothered Shinryu Suzuki, you know. And he didn't quite know what to do. So for him, this was a challenge of skillful means. So one day, because she would usually have her morning tea and he'd be there and he'd say goodbye or something and go off to his classes. But one morning he came in with his own cup of tea. But instead of Drinking his tea, he went over and he raised it, and he placed it in front of the Buddha and bowed. And then he started kind of moving her shoes to the side, keeping them very neatly placed, but over as far as he could.

[39:54]

So he started doing this every morning. Every morning he'd come, he'd come, and then she started teasing him, like, no, what are you? And sometimes she would have guests over, and she'd point to the teacup sitting there in front of the Buddha, and she'd say, Shinryu is being a naughty boy. Fooling around, putting this teacup. This went on for weeks. And during this time, he also studied. He thought, so this was kind of a cold war. She actually was annoyed that he was making a fuss about this Buddha. And she teased him about it. But he thought sometimes she might actually want to ask about it. So he started studying exactly what he would say. And he wrote out kind of a whole little essay. And he went to some of his other at the university and discussed various terms in English that would be ways of translating the understanding of Mahayana Buddhism.

[41:06]

So he was working and preparing himself. And at some point, one day, one kind of rainy day, there was... When neither of them had obligations, she didn't have a class and she didn't want to go out. It was raining and so she sat there and she said something like, Shinryu, you seem to be a pretty reasonable person. So why on earth are you making this fuss about this superstitious kind of behavior you have toward this idol? this image sitting here in the Tokanoma. And he was prepared to, he gave her a whole little talk, explaining about Buddha nature and that the figure of the Buddha is not something that is some, they have some superstitious power in the figure, but that the figure of the Buddha reminds us of our own true nature.

[42:21]

what we call Buddha nature. And that because we're human beings, we don't always remember our true nature and we need reminders. And he explained to her about the three bodies of Buddha, the Dharmakaya and the Sambhogakaya, Nirmanakaya Buddha, that there is an understanding of Buddha as universally present and beyond our conceptual mind and also that there is a historic Buddha and also that there is a cultivation of Buddha nature that people actually can't cultivate and that Buddhists take up various practices like sitting meditation and like making offerings and bowing Miss Ransom actually had been raised as a Quaker, in a Quaker family.

[43:32]

And she somehow felt, I think, in his talking about Buddha nature, that there was some resonance with the sense of, you know, Quakers have a notion of inner light. And somehow his words And his demeanor resonated with her. And she thanked him. And actually confessed that she was quite impressed with his ability to communicate. And so shortly thereafter, she stopped putting her shoes in the tokenoma. And she asked him for some instruction and actually began sitting zazen.

[44:35]

So this was a huge realization for him, for Shinryu, Suzuki, to realize that he himself was capable of communicating something to about the true understanding of the Buddha way to someone who had no preconceptions about it, no understanding about it. And he began to feel that this was, he suddenly realized this was possible. He really got excited about that. And so he thought, and there were some other things that happened too from one of the other teachers at Komazawa was someone who during that next year or so left to come to Los Angeles at Zenshuji Temple and helped found Zenshuji Temple in Los Angeles and so he knew that person so he also had that kind of inspiration so then when he

[45:55]

graduated from Komazawa, he asked his teacher if he could go and go to teach Buddhism someplace, like America. This would have been 1929, and he graduated from Komazawa. Thank you, Kitchen, for giving us the Buddha's nourishment. So in 1929, he graduated from Komazawa, and he thought he would like to go to America. So he talked to Giyoko Jinsola, his teacher, and said, I would like to do this. He told him all about the experience that he had with Miss Nora Ransom. And he knew that he could be... So he had a sense of being on a mission, right?

[46:55]

And his teacher said, no. And then he said, maybe Hawaii? The teacher said, no. And he said, how about Hokkaido, which is a North Island? There are people on the North Island who are pretty rustic and don't know much about Buddhism. his teacher at that point said stay here and slammed his fist down on the table or the floor or something he was very yogaj and so on was a very big forceful person so at that point Shunriya said he completely gave up any thought of going any place and yet he'd had this experience of seeing that this kind of communication was possible and that he actually could express Buddha Dharma in English.

[48:15]

So this whole experience turned upon Nora Ransom, Miss Nora Ransom being able to hear. If she had been someone who had just been a closed-minded person, she wouldn't have heard Shunryu's talk. So there was a point, but also it was at the point where she was receptive and he was ready. So this is a coming together of someone who is prepared and has some skillful means. both in language, I'd say, and in a kind of character of being patient. He wasn't trying to force anything. He was just kind of waiting for the time, and he waited for her to ask. But he was also kind of giving her this little nudge, being this annoying person who would go and persist in offering tea and maybe sometimes incense to this

[49:25]

wooden figure, this wooden idol, as she thought. So by that action and by his sincerity, something piqued her curiosity. So trying to picture this to me is kind of a valuable story. How did these things happen? How is it that we're here today? This is one little element. And it hinged upon him being ready and her being ready. Her having an open heart. And then being willing to actually receive instructions from a 21-year-old kid. Whereas she's the teacher teaching at the university, right?

[50:31]

And for her to be willing to receive some instructions from this young student of hers turned their relationship completely around. Later when he finished, and since he couldn't leave the country, he finished his training at Komazawa and became abbot of a temple. He prepared a room for her to come and stay. So she would sometimes come and visit and spend time at Zohin, which was the temple that he first became abbot of. again, when he became abbot, when he was 22. And he still hadn't even done his monastic training at a hegi.

[51:35]

So I won't go into all that. But anyway, just this very interesting story is also part of recollecting our past lives, recollecting our past lives, the past lives of this practice place here, of this body of Buddha right here. It's important sometimes to know that this past life of awakening turned upon the Bodhisattva encounter of Shunryu, and Miss Nora Ransom. So please, in sitting this week, take up this practice of realizing your own true nature. Realizing that this place is the Bodhi seat, wherever you're sitting.

[52:45]

This is the seat of awakening. There isn't any... need to move one iota in space and time from this present moment this place right here so wherever you are sitting breath by breath please recognize this is a kind of freedom a path of freedom and also a path of responsibility that you're actually taking full responsibility for who you really are not who you think you are so let's continue this great way creating say creating enlightenment where there isn't any

[53:52]

Right here. It's not something that's say freeze dried and ready. It actually is something that comes with each moment. Waking up. Waking up. Right here. Thank you for listening. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving.

[54:44]

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