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. Happy birthday, Buddhas. Good morning. So today, April 8th, is when we celebrate the birth of Shakyamuni Buddha into this age. Just a little bit of historical background. Most Mahayana traditions celebrate on the eighth day of the fourth lunar month. So it moves around in relation to our Gregorian calendar. However, in Japan, They adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1873, so April 8th is the day that we celebrate.

[01:06]

Other Buddhist traditions, the Theravada traditions, and I think the Tibetan traditions as well, they celebrate Vesak, which is a kind of all-in-one Buddha's birthday, Enlightenment Day, and Pari Nirvana. passing away, all in one day. I think we in Zen like to have ourselves a good ceremony. So maybe we have three different occasions where we mark these moments in the Buddha's life. So today, as the birthday, traditionally, in many different traditions, there are some commonalities of how the celebration goes. And I'll say a little bit about how we celebrate here in this tradition. So oftentimes, Buddha's birthday is marked by, number one, going to the temple, whether in person or virtually in this age.

[02:16]

Going to the temple to make offerings, to congregate with others, to hang lanterns, decorate. put out beautiful arrays of flowers have a parade with streamers and parasols and sometimes making a flower pagoda and erecting the statue of a baby Buddha who is standing in a bowl of sweet tea and then we all gather and chant together And we ceremonially, we circumambulate the Buddha, and we bathe the Buddha in sweet tea while chanting. We are going to do all of this today. And then also, another important element, I think, is getting together and sharing a communal meal with one another.

[03:18]

And because we're in America, maybe, we often have a birthday cake. And I don't know if you sing happy birthday here, but I've definitely seen that done as well. Oh, and then another aspect of celebrating Buddha's birth is to retell the legend of the Buddha's birth, to tell the story. I wonder how many of you have never heard the story before? All right, a few people have never heard the story. Well, I'm going to tell the story. I'm going to read the story. It's a shortened version. As you can imagine, there are different lengths of the version of the story. But I'll read the story first, and then I will try and add some comments afterwards to contextualize what it means for us in our practice here in a Soto Zen temple.

[04:19]

And then afterwards, after this Dharma talk, we will all leap up and process over to Kaushan Park to reenact what happened 2,500 years ago, plus, in Lumbini Grove when the Buddha was born. Okay, so here's the legend. About 3,500 years ago, the Bodhisattva White Banner resided in the most splendid palace in all of Tashita heaven, in which there was nothing out of place and no distress at all. Music and the scent of flowers soothed and eased everyone, everywhere. After some time, a proclamation was made by the Deva guardians that the fearless Bodhisattva Mahasattva, White Banner, would descend into a mother's womb and take final birth and enlightenment in this very Saha world of ours. All the Devas rejoiced, glorified,

[05:24]

and consecrated the Bodhisattva, singing, Now is time, let it not pass unused. When the Pratyeka Buddhas learned of the upcoming birth of the future Buddha, they flew up into the sky like meteors and entered the fire of nirvana immediately. Then, when Bodhisattva White Banner considered the appropriate time, country, explained the 64 kinds of perfection of the family, into which he would be born, together with the 32 excellent qualities of the mother, the Devas realized that the Bodhisattva would be reborn into the womb of Queen Maya, wife of Shakya King Sudodhana. After revealing the family of final birth, Bodhisattva White Banner returned to the Crystal Palace to teach a last teaching on kindness, forgiveness, acceptance, and patience. skillful means and calm abiding, aspiration and freedom from pride.

[06:26]

When finished, the whole realm of Desita heaven was showered with petals. Removing his crown and placing it on Maitreya's head, Bodhisattva White Banner said, Behold the Bodhisattva Maitreya who, after me, will attain the most high and perfect wisdom and will instruct you in the clearest of teachings before becoming the future Buddha. Sitting on the lion throne adorned with a stream of ripened merits, the Bodhisattva White Banner drank the essence of creation from a lapis lazuli bowl and left Tashita Heaven to enter the womb of Queen Maya. Meanwhile, during the seventh night and full moon of the Midsummer Festival in Kapilavastu, The queen fell asleep in her royal chambers and dreamed a vivid and peculiar dream. In it, four angels carried her high into the white mountain peaks and clothed her in celestial flowers.

[07:30]

From the north, a magnificent six-tusked white elephant bearing a white lotus in its trunk approached Maya and walked around her three times. Then, with its trunk, it struck her on the right side and vanished into her. graceful of motion and with limbs strong as diamonds. When Maya awoke, she described the dream to the king, who summoned 64 Brahmins to interpret it. Together, they declared that Maya had conceived a son who, if taking up the life of a householder, would become a world conqueror. However, were he to leave home, he would become a Buddha. and remove the veil of ignorance from this world. Within the queen's womb, a jeweled pavilion appeared in which Bodhisattva White Banner sat with cross legs and all-encompassing serenity. During the next ten lunar months, everyone in Kapilavastu feasted, rejoiced, spoke kindly to one another, and gave gifts of great generosity.

[08:39]

When the queen felt herself far along with child, she decided to return to her hometown of Devadaha to give birth, as was the custom. The king ordered the route cleared and stocked with salt supplies, a palanquin carried by a thousand courtiers, prepared, and Queen Maya left the kingdom. On the way, the procession passed through Lumbini Grove in all of its spring glory. the hum of bees, songs of peacocks, and cuckoos, where the flower blossoms spread their clear and radiant bliss. Entranced, the queen had her courtier stop, and she left the palanquin to enter the grove. As she moved from the shade of one tree to another, a magnificent fig tree, moved by the power of the Bodhisattva's glory, bowed down to salute her. And as she stretched out her right arm to take hold of the branch, Emerging from her side, the Bodhisattva was born, fully formed with both memory and knowledge.

[09:44]

Dancing Naga kings bathed him with sweet perfume tea and flower blossoms and wrapped him in a silk garment of gold and silver thread. The newborn, to be named Siddhartha, one whose goal is accomplished, descended to the ground. Lavish parasols and divine fans hovered unsupported in the air, as the bodhisattva took seven steps in each of the cardinal directions, a lotus flower springing forth with each footstep. Pointing his right hand to the sky and his left to the earth, he declared, Between heaven above and earth below, I alone and the world honored one. And the whole earth trembled and shook. Flowers rained from the sky and celestial music filled the air. Ah. They returned to Kapilavastu, but as it has been with all Buddhas, the Bodhisattva's mother, Queen Maya, died on the seventh day after the great birth and was instantly reborn into Sita Heaven, where she watches over and protects this world.

[10:56]

Her infant priest was nursed and raised by the queen's sister. Pajapati. On the slopes of the Himalayas, the great sage Asita perceived the supernatural occurrences of the Bodhisattva's birth, transformed himself into a swan, and flew to Kapilavastu. After paying his respects, he said to the grieving King Suddhodana, The prince will attain the highest and most sublime of perfect wisdoms, and he will turn the great jeweled wheel of the peerless Dharma. Twenty-five hundred years ago, Our original teacher, Shakyamuni Buddha, descended to be born in the Park of Infinite Light at Lumbini, and every year, at this time, we recreate Lumbini's Grove. Together, we acknowledge and actualize this wondrous birth by bathing the baby Buddha in celebration of his seven steps and cry, I alone am the world-honored one. Quite a story.

[11:58]

I don't know about you, but when I hear this story, or when I heard this story, first, I don't know how many times that I heard it, there was something odd about the statement that was made to me. This I, this I alone am the world-honored one. It's funny because sometimes in other sanghas, I've heard them do this ceremony where they change the translation. They say, I and all beings am the world-honored one. And so looking into this question, this question that lies at the heart of all of our practices, what is this I? For each of us, what is I? What is self? This, you know, maybe even think of it, me. What is me? And what is the Buddha saying when upon being born, I alone between heaven and earth and the world honored one?

[13:16]

A little bit of digging finds that this I... It's a strange translation of the word that is used as I. It's translated as I. But there are different ways to conceive of this I. In Japanese, the word is jiko, the word for I. And in secular, everyday, conventional Japanese, jiko can be used as the individual I, like me, you know, just speaking about myself and my experiences and my history and my plans. and what I like, and what I don't like, and so forth, at the individual I. However, in Buddhist terminology, there's a different I, the I which is the universal I. And that I, perhaps, is why several of these Sanghas that I mentioned would kind of re-translate it as I and all beings.

[14:22]

to bring in that feeling of universality. This Jiko refers, in this sense, not to an individual consciousness, but to something much, much greater that we all participate in, a kind of life energy or life force. Maybe you can even consider it something like an Ilan Vital, some creative energy. that all of us have within us. Usually we conceive of ourselves as existing through time, that we can conceive of time as like a stream that bubbles along and flows from some beginningless past to an endless future. And then the conception is that we are born into this stream of time, we exist, we appear, we live our lives, and then we die, and then we disappear.

[15:29]

Yet, our teachings say over and over that this conception is not the true reality. Or maybe it's a partial reality, but it's not the true story that the actual experience of time and life and birth And death is not quite like this. There's a passage in Genjo Koan that talks about life and death. I'll read this passage. It's out of context because I'm not going to go through the whole Koan. But in Genjo Koan, Dogen Zenji, the founder of Soto Zen in Japan, talks about firewood and ash. In it, he says... Firewood becomes ash, and it does not become firewood again. Yet, do not suppose that the ash is future and the firewood past. You should understand that firewood abides in the phenomenal expression of firewood, which fully includes past and future, and is independent of past and future.

[16:42]

I'll say that little bit again. you should understand that firewood abides in the phenomenal expression of firewood, which fully includes past and future, and is independent of past and future. So maybe this is why in Vesak, all three events are celebrated as one. The birth, the enlightenment, and the passing away of Buddha, all as one, because in some sense, when one happens, When you have birth, inevitably you will have death. You cannot have birth without death. Dogen continues, Ash abides in the phenomenal expression of ash, which fully includes future and past. Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, you do not return to birth after death. This being so, it is an established way in Buddha Dharma to deny that birth turns into death.

[17:47]

Accordingly, birth is understood as no birth. It is an unshakable teaching in Buddha's discourse that death does not turn into birth. Accordingly, death is understood as no death. Birth is an expression complete this moment. Death is an expression complete this moment. They are like winter and spring. You do not call winter the beginning of spring, nor summer the end of spring. So in this passage, he's talking about a, there's some kind of a continuation, right? One is contained within the other, and yet it's not really a continuation. And when we think of ourselves as being born and going through adolescence and teenagehood, and middle age, and so forth, what is it that is constant? Is there anything that remains the same throughout? And yet we think of this, our life, as being one continuation.

[18:52]

The baby Shakyamuni Buddha, when he emerged out of Queen Maya's womb, was that the same Shakyamuni that became enlightened under the Bodhi tree? Interestingly, when you look at the enlightenment story of the Buddha, we are told that after he left the palace, after seeing the sights of human suffering that his father had wanted to hide from him, after he left and practiced diligently, he practiced various ascetic practices to the point where he was quite emaciated and collapsed on the side of a road or side of a side of a road. Maybe he was even feeling like this isn't, you know, he had failed in some way.

[19:55]

At least he understood this is not the way. So what did he do? At that moment, he righted himself up and recalled a time in his life earlier when he was around six. He recalled a time when he was left to his own devices, sitting under a rose apple tree, watching his father preparing the fields for their spring plowing. And in that recollection, he remembered, it is said, he left himself to himself, or left himself alone, and then opened to himself and to not doing, not planning, just allowing what is to be what is. In that moment, he experienced an unconditioned joy.

[20:57]

You can think of this, I think, as we've all experienced this at some point, some unconditioned wonder at just life itself, just our very own being, with no expectations, no past, no future, just this, in this moment. In this moment, for him, in this childlike wonder, maybe the namesake of this temple as beginner's mind, he resolved to stay open to this. And at that point, he found himself, the Bodhi tree, sat underneath it, and vowed to sit, unmoving, staying open to just this moment with pure resolve and open awareness. After his long sitting and enduring a number of different things that kind of came up, you can call them karmic winds, feelings of fear, of lust,

[22:03]

doubt, but sitting with resolve through all of these, early one morning he saw the morning star and woke up. Interestingly, what he said at that time was I and the great earth and all beings simultaneously achieved the way. So again, this I, in Kazon joking, his story of this enlightenment experience in the transmission of the lamp, he says, the so-called I is not Shakyamuni Buddha, and Shakyamuni Buddha also comes from this I. Not only does Shakyamuni come from it, but the great earth and all beings also come from it. If you want an intimate understanding of enlightenment, you should get rid of you and Gautama at once and quickly understand this matter of I. So what is it to quickly understand this matter of I?

[23:26]

Sometimes when you go in to see a... A Zen teacher, you sit down and they may ask you a question. I remember when I was, before I became a resident here years ago, coming in to see my teacher, Paul Haller. I sat down, I did my bows, sat down, and before I could say anything, I think maybe I had some look on my face, I was about to open my mouth. He looked at me and said, what is your original face before your parents were born? And I'd never heard this koan. This is a koan. I'd never heard this before. And I was taken aback and thrown into trying to think about what is he talking about? And I'm going through my process, my mental process, trying to understand how to conceptualize what is being asked of me. And I couldn't say anything in that moment. That was a long time ago, and I struggled with those kinds of questions and still do.

[24:38]

Why is that? Because I'm in those moments when I'm trying to come up with the right answer. I'm stuck, and I'm not flowing, and my life is not flowing. And yet, at any moment, any of us can just... Sometimes it's called taking the backward step. Instead of going forward to answer, taking the backward step, moving backwards, turning the light inward, illuminating what's happening in this body and mind at this breath, in this moment. When the Buddha passed away, his final words, after asking his assembly of monks if they had any questions before he passed, They declined. But he said this, All things have the nature to be impermanent. Practice diligently and be lamps unto yourself.

[25:43]

So again, what is this I? We think of it as being fixed and real and solid and independent. And yet, when we look for it, we might find ourselves in confusion. this question of an original face. What is your original face before your parents were born? What is this original face? When we look ourselves at our faces in the mirror, we may think of ourselves and all of our instantiations of our lifetimes, or we may just see what's there appearing in that moment in the, Mumonkan, a collection of koans, case 23, there's a story that recounts a famous Zen story in the Platform Sutra of our sixth ancestor after Bodhidharma, Hui Nung.

[26:50]

In this story, I'm not going to tell you the whole story because it's quite long, but in the story, Hui Nung, who was an illiterate woodcutter, after receiving the robe and bowl of Bodhidharma from his teacher, was chased by jealous, angry, upset monks of the temple who felt like he didn't deserve it because he was a lay person who didn't know how to read, even though their teacher, Hongren, had verified his understanding. One of the monks, who used to be a general and was quite fit, was the first one to kind of reach him as he fled into the mountains after his transmission. His name was Ming. And when he reached Huineng, Huineng put down the robe and bowl on a rock and basically said, you know, it's not worth it.

[27:53]

Here's the robe and bowl. Ming ran to it and tried to pick it up, but he couldn't lift it. He could not lift the robe or the bowl off the rock. Ming trembled and shook and said, I came for the Dharma, not the robe. I beg you, Lei brother, please open the way for me, Huy Nung said to him. Do not think good. Do not think bad. At this very moment... What is the original face of Ming, the head monk? Instantly, Ming awakened. Sweat ran down from his body and tears fell as he made his bows to Hui Nung, saying, Besides these secret words and secret meanings, is there anything else of further significance? Hui Nung replied, What I have just conveyed to you is not secret. If you...

[28:54]

Reflect on your own face. Whatever is secret will be right there with you. To which Ming said, Though I practiced at Huangmei with the assembly, I could not truly realize my original face. Now, thanks to your pointed instruction, I am like someone who drinks water and knows personally whether it is cold or warm. Lei brother, you are now my teacher. So again, in this story, what is this I? When I was a teenager, I used to keep a journal, and I remember being really kind of caught up in identity. Like, who was I? And I remember writing lists, like, oh, I'm a sister, and I'm a daughter, and I'm a student, and I'm from this culture, and I live in this place. I'm not sure what I was doing, what I was up to, but I think just trying to find my place in the world to have some kind of a context in which I could maybe thrive in and to see if there were any impediments to this context so that I could strategize and work with them to overcome them.

[30:18]

All very human endeavors. Who doesn't want to take care of their future self by arranging their lives in the present? And Buddhism is not about not doing that. However, it's illuminating another way, something beyond or maybe underneath or besides or around it, than this strategizing that we can do to be safe. to be accepted, to thrive, and not suffer. However, this thinking mind that tries to conceptualize, often that is the very thing that gets in our own way to really being able to just be, to allow this life to come forward.

[31:20]

So, in this story of Huenang and Ming, when Ming says, Thank you for your appointed instruction. Now I am like someone who drinks water and knows personally whether it is cold or warm. Such a subtle, subtle teaching there. Like when we read that story, we might think, well, of course you know if it's cold or warm. But oftentimes... When we think of this kind of knowing, it's the kind of knowing that happens when someone asks the question and our mind turns on and thinks about it, which is a very different kind of knowing than the knowing that happens beyond words, the knowing of experience itself, without having to put it into any kind of concept. So maybe this I, the I of this universal life force, this life energy, that exists in all things, all things, even maybe inanimate objects.

[32:25]

When we walk out of this room and across the street, as we're taking each step, I invite you to ask this question, who is this I? What is the I of each step placed? What is the I of the asphalt beneath? What is the eye of the trees above and the wind and the leaves? And opening ourselves to our senses, not letting our concepts get in the way, opening beginner's mind. What is this? And then, after we do that, that walk over, to feel the chanting in our body, to feel it in our breath as we celebrate the birth and life, which includes the death of Shakyamuni Buddha.

[33:31]

Now, to close, maybe there might be some time for questions, but I'd like to end with reading a poem that was written by Uchiyama Roshi. It's one of the poems that he wrote when he was getting older, oftentimes called a death poem. This poem is called Just Live, Just Die. The reality prior to the division into two, thinking it to be so, or not thinking it to be so, believing it to be so, or not believing it to be so, Existence, non-existence, life, death, truth, falsehood, delusion, enlightenment, self, others, happiness, unhappiness. We live and die within the profundity of reality.

[34:34]

Whatever we encounter is Buddha life. Just living, just dying, within no life or death. Thank you all very much for being here and for celebrating the birth of our great teacher, Shakyamuni Buddha. 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. 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 Dorma.

[35:20]

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