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. So yesterday I talked about some of the basic issues teaching stories from the Buddhist tradition, along with some vocabulary that those teachings were given in, particularly the noble truth of suffering and the noble truth of the path to the cessation of suffering. And then I mentioned the faceless one who we just might like to meet, maybe. So, I'm going to begin today with a story from the first turning teachings in which the Buddha gives a very simple instruction to a monk by the name of Bahiya of the bark cloth.

[01:06]

I think some of you might know this story. It's really quite popular at Zen Center because it sounds a lot like Zen. In this teaching, the Buddha's offering the monk a simple remedy for not only reconnecting his body to his mind, but also his seemingly small life to the entire universe. So here's a little back story about Bahia. Bahia was greatly revered as a teacher in the town where he lived. Then one day a woman of great understanding visited the town and candidly said to him regarding his claim to liberation that he was not. Being an honorable man, Bahia dropped what he was doing, stopped teaching, and set off to find the Buddha, who he had been told was truly liberated and who taught a path leading to liberation. When he arrived at the place where the Buddha was staying, Bahiya was told that the Buddha had gone into town to collect alms, so he raced into town to find him. And sure enough, there he was, serene and inspiring confidence, calm his mind at peace, having attained the utmost tranquility and poise, tamed, guarded, his senses restrained, a blessed one.

[02:22]

So Bahiya threw himself on the ground, begging the Buddha to teach him. The Buddha replied kindly, this is not the time, Bahiya. We have entered the town for alms. So a second and then a third time, the monk begged for the teaching, saying, but blessed one, it's hard to know for sure what dangers there may be for the blessed one's life or what dangers there may be for mine. Teach me the Dharma, O blessed one, for my long-term welfare and bliss. So the Buddha then said, Bahiya, you should train yourself thus. In the seen, there will be just the seen. In the heard, just the heard. In the imagined, just the imagined. In the cognized, just the cognized. That is how you should train yourself, Bahiya. And when for you there will be just the seen in the seen, just the heard in the heard, and just the imagined in the imagined, just the cognized in the cognized, then bahiya, you, in connection with that, will not exist.

[03:34]

You will not be found in this world, or in another world, or some place in between. This, just this, bahiya, is the end of suffering. Through hearing this teaching from the Blessed One, the mind of bahiya was right then and there released from the toxic belief in a separate self. Once having exhorted Bahiya of the bark cloth with this brief explanation of the Dharma, the Blessed One left. The next day, Bahiya was attacked and killed by a cow with her young calf. When the Blessed One returned and heard the news of Bahiya's death, the monk said to the Buddha, Bahiya's body has been cremated, Lord, and his memorial stupa has been built. What is his destination? What is his future state? To which the Buddha replied, Monks, Bahiya of the bark cloth was wise. He practiced the Dharma in accordance with the Dharma and did not pester me with issues related to the Dharma.

[04:41]

Bahiya of the bark cloth is totally unbound. And then to help them further in realizing the significance of that, the Blessed One exclaimed, Where water, earth, fire, and wind have no footing, there the stars don't shine. The sun isn't visible. There the moon doesn't appear. There darkness is not found. And when a sage, a Brahmin, through sagacity, has realized this for themselves, then from form and formlessness, from bliss and pain, they are free. So what the Buddha is talking about in this teaching is the experience of awakening itself, in which the mind is no longer seen as separate from the body, and this place is no longer seen as separate from that place or from any place. And most importantly, your suffering is no longer seen as separate from mine.

[05:44]

The non-dual realization of the true nature of reality is so simple to say. And as in this story of Bahia. And yet, what is happening inside of us that makes it so hard to understand and so difficult to practice? The answer the Buddha gave has to do with the very things that he had seen inside of himself. Fantasies, stories, narratives, daydreams, projections, mental elaborations. and in the most tragic of cases, the extremes of pathological thinking, the extremes of greed, hatred, and delusion, which fill our news cycles each and every day. The metaphor for the human mind common in the Buddhist tradition is clouds covering the moon, the clouds being our delusional thinking, and the moon being the clear light of awakening.

[06:50]

In the scene, just the scene in the moon just the moon and in the clouds just the clouds as we focus our awareness forever we are so although directing our attention to the mind itself as it is appearing in the present moment will not create a world according to our desires or preferences it probably is the only way to create a kinder and safer world for all of those living in it that may come in contact with us. Yesterday I talked about some of the classical teachings which were given to help us to turn our attention onto our bodies, our speech, and our thoughts. In the early mindfulness teachings, for example, the four foundations of mindfulness, once a meditator has settled into concentrated awareness, you know, samadhi, Particular attention is given to the smallest details of consciousness.

[07:52]

And it's there that the very seeds of our discontent, in particular the poisonous defilements of greed, hate and delusion, can be found hard at work. He beat me. They robbed me. She cheated me. As it says in the Dhammapada, those who think such thoughts will not be free from hate. She beat me. He robbed me. They cheated me. Those who think not such thoughts will be free from hate. For hate is not conquered by hate. Hate is conquered by not hating. So the method for clearing away the obstacles to awakening in the Zen training program is through practices of the six paramitas. There's generosity, giving, ethical conduct, including truthful and kind speech, patience, enthusiasm, focused attention, and wholesome endeavors of every kind.

[08:59]

As the Dalyama said, my religion is kindness. That's really all we need to remember. And then as we recite in the Bodhisattva initiation ceremony, in faith that we are Buddha, we enter Buddha's way. So that's the very first step on the path of liberation, which we, in all of our sincerity, have long been seeking. This word faith, in Sanskrit shrada, is really close to a Latin word for heart. And so it's with a faithful heart that we return again and again to awareness of our intention, our posture, our breath, and our thoughts. And most importantly, our awareness of one another, mindfulness of others, until at last there are no others to be seen at all, just this person, all-inclusive, spacious, and free, free to respond to whatever might be needed next.

[10:08]

So I have some poems to share with you from a really lovely book. called The First to Free Women by Maddy Weingast. This is a collection of contemporary adaptations from the Terragatta, Verses of the Elder Nuns, which is the earliest known collection of women's literature in India about 2,000 years ago. So Maddy Weingast has been criticized for taking liberties with these translations, but I think he did a very good job. So I'm going to share some of the poems that he wrote. obviously inspired. So these stories are of actual women's liberation, actual freedom from not only the cultural conditions that brought them such unimaginable suffering, prostitution and rape and bondage and the loss of their children, as each of these women had experienced, but the even greater freedom from suffering that is key to the Buddha's teaching of liberation for all of us.

[11:12]

This first one is dedicated to the non-mitakali, which means friend of the darkness. I was always smart. If the path was good, I figured it would make me even smarter. One night while meditating, I watched my thoughts piling themselves up all around me. My mind built a house out of all those thoughts, and then filled that house, and soon it was a whole city, a whole world. Oh, my beautiful, beautiful thoughts, who will look after you after I'm gone? I swear I could weep. I could weep for all of you. My sisters, do you really want to be free? Are you ready to leave behind all your precious little houses and make your home everywhere? It's not as hard as you might think. First, stand up. Then, walk out the door. And this one is in honor of a nun named Anya Tara.

[12:16]

I was young when I left home and for years I rambled around, my practice sitting, walking, and hoping. At first everything was new. I didn't notice that my skin was drying up or that my hair was turning gray. And then one morning there I was, an old woman. Where had I gotten in all those years on the path? That night I slept out in the wild and it rained. I felt like I belonged there, miserable and alone in the mud. In the morning I went to the nearest monastery and I threw myself down. A nun took me in and taught me this body, this mind, this world, where they come from, where they go, what they are, what they are not. That night I went out to sit in the field and it rained. I felt like I belonged there. Every drop of water telling me I was home. Don't worry, my sisters.

[13:18]

When the road reaches its end, you'll know it. So here's one more. This is maybe my favorite one. It's really hard to say. They're all quite wonderful. This one honors the non-chita, meaning heart. Somehow I kept climbing, though tired, hungry, and weak. Old, too. At the top of the mountain, I spread my outer robe on a rock to dry. I set down my staff and my bowl, took a deep breath and looked around. It was windy up there. As I was leaning back against a large gray rock, the darkness I had carried up and down a million mountains slipped off my shoulders and swept itself away on the wind. So if we were followers... of right concentration, samyak samadhi, as presented in the Noble Eightfold Path of the Old Wisdom teachings, such as these nuns were doing, we might, after a time and a great effort, enter into a sublime or transcendent discernment called prajna, or wisdom.

[14:30]

Such a state was believed to put an end to suffering once and for all through disjunction from impure dharmas. The actual living of that transcendent discernment is called nirvana, as in unbound, or blown out, or in a translation that I really like, utterly content. When a person has been blown out, they become arhats, or noble ones, destined never to return to the endless rounds of suffering, samsara. Arhat is another one of those epithets for the Buddha. And although this accomplishment of becoming an Arhat is considered extremely admirable within the Buddhist tradition, it is not viewed as equivalent to the full, complete, perfect enlightenment of a Buddha. Anyu, Tara, Samyak, Sambodhi. So when we're chanting the Heart Sutra in the morning service, you might notice at what verse the word nirvana is mentioned.

[15:33]

Without hindrance there is no fear. Far beyond all inverted views, one realizes nirvana, at which time I bow at the altar. And then it says, all Buddhas of past, present, and future rely on Prajnaparamita and thereby attain unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment. Anyutara Samyak Sambodhi, at which time I bow again. So these verses are followed by extensive praise for the mantra at the very end of the sutra. Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone utterly beyond. Awakening. Hallelujah. So whether the Buddhist practitioner has an aspiration to be an arhat, to leave samsara, and enter nirvana once and for all, or the aspiration of a bodhisattva to remain in samsara until all beings have been saved, which in the Zen tradition means by the bodhisattva ideal over the arhat ideal, by staying until everyone has also arrived at freedom.

[16:52]

So there's another subtle way that we indicate this bodhisattva ideal over the ideal of the arhat. and i don't think you've noticed but you might and when the doshi is when the kokyo is reciting the sixteen arhats on the noble path as they did this morning the doshi does not do a full prostration just a standing bell you know great respect for sure but there's a little holding back there and the reason for that has to do with some very old disagreements among our ancestors about the path and its destination. In one of the earliest teachings of the Buddha, the Buddha said enlightenment is the path and the path is enlightenment. So those disagreements were not insignificant. The primary disagreement has to do with the two major barriers to awakening. A Buddha is said to have destroyed both of these barriers.

[17:57]

The first barrier is called the barrier of afflictive obstructions klesha avarana and the second barrier is obstacles to omniscience yeah avarana so our hots have destroyed the first category of defilements or hindrances the klesha avarana which include greed hate delusion slothfulness restlessness and corrosive doubt and they are now free to go The obstacles to omniscience, on the other hand, are way more subtle, serving as the underpinning for all of the afflictive obstructions that are polluting our lives, like the dark basement of our unconscious conditioning where all those creepy things that we have been taught and have come to believe are hiding out. These unconscious conditionings are a product of culturally pervasive misunderstandings about reality based on the affliction ignorance so being that the Buddhist enlightenment or true knowledge is right understanding of the true nature of reality without right understanding our view of reality is severely limited by how we have been conditioned to see it for example as Dogen says as a circle of water it doesn't look any other way so one way to understand omniscience

[19:27]

which may otherwise sound just way too daunting, is not that you would come to know everything. That's just not possible. But rather, you would come to know how everything works, especially the formation of illusions themselves. As when the Buddha said to Mara the evil one at the time of his own awakening, Deceiver, I know who you are. You are myself. You are my own mind playing elaborate tricks on me. at which time, appearing sad and disappointed, Mara, the evil one, vanished. What remained in the clearing with the newly awakened Buddha was silence and stillness, fully illuminated inside and out, along with some trees and grass and flowers and a gentle woman strolling past with a jug of water on her head. Are you thirsty, young man? She asked. To which the Buddha declared, I and all beings are enlightened at the same time.

[20:33]

The non-dual realization of the true nature of reality. So it's around this distinction between the arhat and the Buddha that the path of practice within the Buddhist tradition begins to diverge. Track one, toward the personal liberation of the arhat. And track two, the Mahayana, meaning the great vehicle. which values itself for being headed toward the universal liberation of a Buddha, based in the Bodhisattva vow. The vow to never enter nirvana, to never enter extinction, until all beings have been saved from suffering, meaning awakened. In the Mahayana Sutras, there's even a description of the extreme effort... a meditator must make to avoid slipping off the bodhisattva track by mistake and onto the arhat track toward final extinction. The image given for that effort is of a master archer shooting one arrow after another into the shaft of the previous arrow before it can hit the ground.

[21:37]

Sounds like Legolas in The Lord of the Rings. This metaphor clearly implies that the gravitational pull of extinction is very powerful and that the vow of the Bodhisattva must in turn be exceedingly strong. I promise I will not leave you. A great deal has been written about the rise of the Mahayana tradition within the Buddhist monastic communities of ancient India, much of it having to do with this perennial effort to return to some imagined purity of the Buddha's own lifestyle. and practice. So fundamentalists, like us here at the Zen Center, endeavor to model the posture and clothing and deportment of the young mendicant. And for that reason, I often see what we are doing here is a kind of performance art, the lighting and the costumes and the behavior, and hopefully all of it for the good, which may only be for the good

[22:41]

if we don't take ourselves too seriously. This is a big point that Suzuki Roshi made to his students when he was still living here among us. In fact, when someone asked Suzuki Roshi what Zen masters did when they got together, he said, we laugh a lot. And yet we also need to take ourselves seriously enough, as he and his friends did, to make the great effort it takes to recognize unwholesome behaviors and ideations. to acknowledge and accept the ways that we harm each other through our racial conditioning, our gender conditioning, our wealth and our class privilege, and so on and on and on. Our ancient twisted karma. I don't think there's anyone in this room who is free from remorse, not only for the things that you yourselves have done, but also for the seemingly insurmountable degree of suffering that is taking place right now on this precious planet. Species are vanishing, people are vanishing, lies and hatred and theft, none of which, according to the Buddha's teaching, is in any way separate from us.

[23:52]

I know for sure that I cannot help you, and I know for sure I cannot help myself either. We each walk this path alone, and yet somehow I can and I have engaged my life with this practice. And somehow, as if by magic, I have found these teachings and I have met a great number of inspirational teachers, young people and old people, animals and plants who have shown me a way to live and who are walking alone with me, side by side. There is suffering. There is no suffering. And yet suffering has a cause. There is no cause of suffering. And yet, why do we feel so sad? You know, what is it? Although we all know the first noble truth by heart, we may need to try even harder to understand the cause of our suffering, and even harder still to find relief for ourselves without abandoning the world.

[25:02]

And then, bhavanamaya prajna, we will be able to offer that medicine to others. So that said, I thought maybe a little good news might be nice to balance out the sad news. And I think many of us have been feeling sad for a few days, a few years, maybe our entire lives because of these pervasive upwellings of greed and hatred and delusion. So the good news is that alongside the various defiled aspects of human consciousness, the akushala dharmas, there are also wholesome qualities within our minds, the kushala dharmas, namely, non-attachment, aloba, loving-kindness, maitri, and wisdom, prajna. It's been said that the principal aim, if not the only aim, of Buddhism is to cultivate these and all related wholesome qualities. When Okamura Roshi taught at Zen Center a few years back, one of the things he said about Soto Zen was,

[26:10]

is that the emphasis of our practice is on keeping very busy doing good so that we don't have any time left over for doing bad. So I don't know how that's working for all of you who work so very hard while you're here, but it's not the worst strategy that I've ever heard. Yet I still wonder just what it means, you know, doing good. Maybe it's not so obvious. Maybe because doing good... Avoiding evil and saving all beings is not simply what I happen to think. And yet as we all learn more and more how thinking works and how the pieces all fit together, we may become more skillful with choices that we make in the present moment. Meditation helps us to concentrate. Mindfulness helps us to know what aspect of our body and mind is disturbed or asleep. Effort gets us out of bed and onto our seats. quite simple, and yet it's not so easy.

[27:13]

So at this point in our practice period, I've mentioned most of the major ingredients from the classical tradition, as recorded in the Pali Canon, the Buddha's first teaching, including the Four Noble Truths, the Middle Way, the Eightfold Path, the Twelvefold Chain, the Four Inverted Views. And so for over 500 years, great faith in these practices has produced real monks who real laypeople and real temples throughout what became a real Buddhist world. But not only long ago, I also can remember thinking as a young priest that these lovely things that I was reading were completely and utterly true, including the many stories of our Zen ancestors, perhaps edited slightly over the centuries, but nevertheless true, true stories. and my teachers could be completely trusted. And then came along the impact from the Heart Sutra, Prajnaparamita, wisdom beyond wisdom, which was and is a sweeping attack on everything we hold most dear, our troubles, the world as we know it, even the teaching of the Buddha itself.

[28:32]

So not only challenging our sense of goodness and purity, but the very notion of liberation itself. No suffering, no cause, no cessation, no path, no attainment with nothing to attain. So in the weeks that are ahead for us, I'm going to be offering some more of those emptiness teachings that in a very real way took down the house. And then there are other teachings based on the Avatamsaka Sutra, which again I hope you'll take a chance to looked through a little bit, and the Lankavatara Sutra, which is now also on the reference shelf, that built the house back up again, and yet without any need to call it a house. So each of these teachings reflecting as best they can what the Buddha himself said at the time of his own awakening. Seeking but not finding the house builder, I traveled through the round of countless births, Oh, how painful is birth ever and ever again.

[29:36]

House builder, you have now been seen. You shall not build the house again. Your rafters have been broken down. Your ridge pole is demolished too. My mind has now attained the unformed nirvana and reached the end of every kind of craving. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[30:22]

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