Good evening. Walking... to the zendo, just now there was an achingly beautiful sunset that almost at the moment of appreciating it, it began to fade. Impossibility of holding it, grasping it, keeping it there, even for tiny moments. like our life has always been and will always be.

[01:04]

Today we celebrated the vernal equinox, the evening out of the light, the beginning of spring, and this is also the anniversary of the day that my mother died. She died on the vernal equinox. And, you know, I realized, I think it was 2006. Yeah, 2006. And I was leading the practice period here. Liz Valazzo was the chuseau. She had been head of the farm. And I think I was gone for two weeks. or so in the middle of the practice period and she and everyone carried on with the practice period. But this particular day has such a combination of that joyful spring coming and the letting go and sadness.

[02:21]

And it To me, the myth, the Greek myth around this springtime is the... It's a story of love and separation and grief and reunion and... which really embodies all these feelings that I feel at this time. So the myth you probably know, Demeter and Persephone. Demeter was the goddess of the earth, is a Greek and Roman series, goddess of growing things, series like cereal. So this particular goddess embodied all of life's abundant growing food, plants, the earth. And the story is that she, Demeter, and her daughter, Persephone, loved each other very much and they would spend time together and go off into the hills and gather flowers and enjoy each other's company and romp with the other Greek women and young girls and one day,

[03:53]

Persephone, there's two versions of this myth. Persephone went further gathering flowers, wildflowers, and she, the Hellenistic myth, the later myth, a crevasse, a big opening in the ground came before her and out came Persephone. the god of the underworld, Hades, in a chariot, and he took her way down into the underworld to be his queen. And she made the mistake in the underworld of eating pomegranate seeds. And once you've eaten in the underworld, then you belong to the underworld. You can't, you know, you can't escape pomegranate So Demeter, up on the hills, is looking for her daughter and calling for her and looking all over and realized what has happened.

[05:03]

And she goes into the depth of grief that could not be consoled, could not be consoled. And she wouldn't do her... activity of allowing everything to grow and flower. And nothing grew. Everything withered and died. And she roamed around, half-crazed, really, looking for her daughter that was lost. And the world, there was nothing that would grow, no food. And finally, one of the gods intervened with Hades and said, you've got to send back her daughter because the world is being destroyed by this grief. And so that was the arrangement that was worked out, that she would, for six months of the year, come up to the earth to live on top of the earth, join with her mother and others, and the rest of the year

[06:18]

The other six months, she would go back to the underworld. So this springtime, and this was celebrated with many rites, mysteries, lots of mysteries of women's rights in Greece, that it's not really known exactly what they did. But this time when Persephone comes back up out of the underworld and meets Persephone, and is reunited with her mother and the whole world, you know, then again bursts into flowering green and plants and all the life, all the life forms that depend on this interconnected world of growing things came back to life. So this is the myth, the earlier pre-Hellenic myth She wasn't snatched away by Hades. Persephone was drawn to the underworld in order she wanted to go there because she wanted to help beings who were suffering there.

[07:32]

So it's a very different quality. Her own compassionate heart drew her to go and meet Persephone. suffering beings and help them. So very, very different qualities to those two myths. However, the separation and the loss and the grief and reunion is the same. The... The funeral home sends out every year a reminder that the anniversary, in case you might forget, is coming up so that you can commemorate it. And they included this prayer. This is coming from a Jewish family. This comes from the funeral home. And it's a prayer pun, lighting a candle, a candle that burns for 24 hours.

[08:38]

And so I read this, you know, and it really struck me. At first I thought, well, this isn't my kind of words. I wouldn't say this exactly, but I was struck by this. I won't read the whole thing, but it references God, eternal God, as I... Kindle this candle on the anniversary of the death of my beloved mother, Miriam Cutts. The memory of her life passes before me. I reverently recall the moments we shared together. Time cannot efface the measure of her memories. I shall ever be grateful for the sacrifices made in my behalf. with affection and understanding. She stood by my side to guide and encourage me when I needed help.

[09:40]

And then it brings up the Ten Commandments and so forth. But anyway, she encouraged me when I needed help, and she made sacrifices on my behalf. And I think that's true. I have an image of her almost going like this, sort of like Demeter, looking for me one night when I had sort of run away. And I was hiding, and she was looking for me in the night. And she was walking by the Mississippi River, kind of like Demeter, like... I had that image of her as I was thinking of that myth, you know, that it mattered, that I was missing. So this care for one another and loving minds and gentle and patient

[10:58]

making sacrifices for one another. Sacrifices to make sacred, so to do something that may be hard or disagreeable in some way, but use. You do it because it's a sacred offering born of your relationship. And this happens between parents and children, between friends, between couples, between teachers and students, that we We make sacrifices because of the deep bonds and affinity that cannot be grasped, that are mysterious and ever-changing, but affect us at the same time. The Lotus Sutra class has been turning different parts of the Lotus Sutra.

[12:08]

We haven't read it straight through. And I wanted to come back to the chapter that we were working on or studying this last class, chapter 16, the eternal lifespan of the Buddha or the revelation of the enduring lifespan. And for those of you who haven't studied the sutra, and as a refresher for those of you who are studying it, at this point in the sutra, this is the pivotal chapter. This is where it's a kind of critical turn of the Mahayana as well as of the Lotus Sutra. And in this particular part, the whole assembly of bodhisattvas who have gathered from all corners of the universe from lengths, you know, from directions that are immeasurably long and far away.

[13:11]

All these Buddhas and bodhisattvas have been called together because there's a visiting Buddha called Abundant Treasures, or Many Treasures, who's come to hear the Lotus Sutra being preached. And this Buddha arrives in this, many treasures arrives in this stupa that is huge, 500 yajanas high. Yajana is some measurement which, if you work it out in our measurements, it's half the diameter of the earth is in this stupa going straight up into the air. And you can hear the voice of many treasures saying, he vowed... to come whenever the Lotus Sutra was being taught. And not only that, all these Buddhas, whenever this happens, come back from all these directions with their retinue of Bodhisattvas also to hear. And the Buddha, Shakyamuni, is up there talking with many treasures.

[14:13]

And all the Bodhisattvas down on the Vulture Peak, which Shokuchi told me she visited Vulture Peak, is very small. It's like... It's just a small space, but there's gazillions and trillions and millions, uncountable, immeasurable numbers of bodhisattvas and other beings, celestial beings of all kinds and animals that are all there. This is kind of the inconceivable lotus. Anyway, Shakyamuni's talking way up there in the stupa and the people, everybody on the ground said, we want to see this Buddha up there. We want to see many treasures. we want to see him, can we? And the Buddha, and this is kind of a famous part of the Lotus, has everybody rise up, [...] and they're all floating in the air and up there so they can see too and hear better. So this is the scene. And just to say a little bit more, at this point, after they've been talking up there and the

[15:22]

abundant treasures moves over and invites the Buddha to come share his seat. So the two of them are up there in the stupa side by side. And then it's time for these bodhisattvas to go back home and they say to the Buddha, we really want to help you teach the lotus and help, you know, spread the teaching, the Buddhadharma, and we'll help you. And the Buddha said, no need, you don't need to, I have plenty of help. And then at that point, out of the ground comes these incredible bodhisattvas, giant bodhisattvas, many, many uncountable bodhisattvas. And the Buddha says, these are my disciples. I've been practicing with them. And nobody can believe it, because they've never met them before. And they've been practicing with the Buddha the whole time. So these are images, this is the imagination of the Lotus Sutra and the stories that paint a kind of inner world of what's happening in our practice life and what the teaching, how it's unfolding in a new way.

[16:36]

And in the 16th chapter, this question of how these Buddhas who lived under the ground, where have they been and how have they been studying with the Buddha, because we've never met them before, how it came to pass. And then the Buddha reveals, in this pivotal chapter, he reveals, Shakyamuni reveals that he's been teaching for eons and eons and eons, and he's kind of an ever-present, ever-enduring, awakened nature, really, Buddha, the awakened one. And his dying in Pari Nirvana was a kind of show, a kind of appearance to really encourage people to practice because he wouldn't be around all the time. You might take someone for granted if they're always there and always going to be there. You may not practice so hard.

[17:38]

They're always there. Later. Later I'll get around to it and they'll be there. And that attitude he felt, he wanted people to take responsibility for their practice. And so he, in this Nirmanakaya Buddha, the emanation body or the transition body lived and died. But in this chapter he basically says this was an appearance arising and vanishing. This arising and vanishing takes place in the context of or in the middle of one life, one ultimate life that neither comes nor goes nor rises nor falls, no birth, no death, no Buddha, no such and being. And yet in order to help beings, I have this, it looks like I'm coming and going.

[18:46]

So this story is a little hard to incorporate or swallow, you know, understand. And there's a tendency to think of you know, somebody saying, I've been living for innumerable eons and will continue to live, that it's almost like some kind of God figure or something, or some omnipresent, omniscient something that we don't understand as... the teacher that lived and walked this earth and taught disciples and passed on admonitions and ways to relieve suffering. Somehow it doesn't go along with our Shakyamuni that we bow and dedicate merit, our merit to this teacher and the other Buddhists.

[20:01]

Buddhists and ancestors, somehow, what is this enduring, everlasting lifespan of the Buddha? What does it mean? What does it mean to us? Or is it something that has nothing to do with us? And the more we study it and the commentaries, and also Dogen brings this up in a number of places. He brings up the Lotus Sutra, all over his Shobo Genso. It's the most quoted of the sutras. But he brings up this 16th chapter, this lifespan of the Buddha, timeless lifespan of the Buddha, in different places. And I wanted to share with you in one fascicle what he talks about. This is the fascicle of arousing hotsu, arousing bodhicitta, or... bodhi mind, or you might even say way-seeking mind, or the aspiration for enlightenment.

[21:08]

And this arising and arousing of bodhicitta is the beginner's mind of the bodhisattva's way. And I know from many of you that This is not something you read about in books. This arises in our own life stream. This thought, another translation of bodhicitta is citta as thought, the thought of awakening, the thought of bodhi, arousing this thought is this chapter. And this bodhicitta is the wish-fulfilling, that's this jewel that Jizo is carrying. Jizo, Bodhisattva behind, is carrying this wish-fulfilling gem. This is bodhicitta. This is the wish that all beings, without exception, will awaken to Buddha's wisdom.

[22:13]

And the vow includes, may they all, may all sentient beings go first before me. This is the way the bodhicitta is formulated. And it's, may I wake up in order to help beings to take up this vow to live for the benefit of all beings. And this vow awakens in people. This is not fantasy, you know. And sometimes to people's surprise, you know, like, but wait a minute, wait a minute, I was going this other direction. I got plans, I got things to do, but somehow wanting to live for the benefit of others becomes more and more a central organizing feature of one's life.

[23:18]

It's where the Dharma position, where we take our stand, So this fascicle, rousing the aspiration for enlightenment, awakening, bodhicitta, this wish for the benefit and living for the benefit of all beings, is talked about by Dogen. You can't make it happen. You can't stop it from happening. It's neither originally existent nor does it emerge all of a sudden. It's neither one nor many. It's neither spontaneous nor formed gradually. It's not in yourself nor are you in it. I think Dogen, with his way of words, talks about it in such a way that you have no place. It's like a sheer cliff or something with no little handholds, not even for just your fingernails. It's like, what is this? He doesn't give an inch, which is...

[24:22]

actually how we are, how we exist. There is no little handholds that we can get a hold of. However, he says, yet this bodhicitta, in response to affinity between the teacher and the student, the aspiration for enlightenment arises. So you can't, the only thing you could say is it arises within, and in Japanese this is kanodoko, spiritual communion, or resonance of awakening, or this is called affinity, this affinity between teacher and student, or between the Buddha and student, between the awakened one. There's some communion, some exchange of or resonant energy, your own why or how is that?

[25:24]

Because our nature is awakened nature. And when we are exposed and shown and it's demonstrated, we begin to resonate and awaken to this. So this affinity is our is our birthright. Yet in response to affinity between the teacher and the student, the aspiration for enlightenment arises. It is not given by Buddhas or Bodhisattvas, and it is not created by herself. The aspiration, bodhicitta, arises in response to affinity. Thus it is not spontaneous. So there's causes and conditions here. There's this affinity, affinity with one's own nature that we see at first as outside ourselves as Buddha or a teacher or a spiritual friend.

[26:34]

And then we practice. Then we can really practice. There's the bodhicitta. There's two kinds. One is we aspire to practice. We want to practice that way. And the analogy is like planning for a trip, getting our stuff together, making the reservations, getting the plane tickets. We aspire, and then we actually take it up. That's the second part of bodhicitta. And that's like actually going on the trip, heading off. So in the same fascicle, Dogen brings up the 16th chapter, this lifespan of the Buddha. And he says, the Lotus Sutra says, and this is the last verse in chapter 16, where the Buddha's talking about his vows with all the beings.

[27:43]

He says in this translation, I am always thinking, how can I lead all the living to enter the unexcelled way and quickly perfect their Buddha bodies? This is in the Buddha's endless lifespan chapter, that he or she, the awakened one, is always thinking. I remember when I was... practicing in the 70s. I went on vacation. I think I was Zen Tatsu Baker's assistant at the time, and I was going on a hiking trip, I think, and Zen Tatsu Baker said to me, think about Zen Center and how to help Zen Center, which was kind of the farthest thing from my mind when I was going on this hiking trip. I was like, I wanted to sort of leave all that behind, but this was the admonition as I was heading off.

[28:43]

Think about Zantziner. And what it reminded me of was this verse. I am always thinking about how, this is Kaza's translation, I always hold in mind how to help sentient beings enter the unsurpassable way and immediately attain Buddha bodies. I'm always thinking about this. This is the Buddha's mind. I always hold in mind, this is of utmost, in the forefront, the most important thing, always thinking about it. And this is our bodhisattva vow to be, when we vow to live for the benefit of others, or our bodhisattva vows that we chant and will chant soon, saving all sentient beings. This save was translated in another time as awaken all beings, or liberate, free.

[29:52]

This is how we save beings, liberating and allowing them to step into freedom. We can't do it for them. So then, right after he quotes this, he says, after this quote, I always hold in mind how to help sentient beings enter the unsurpassable way and attain Buddha bodies. This attain is also, well, quickly fulfill or realize, realize the Buddha bodies, the sentient beings to realize Buddha bodies. Then he says, this is exactly the timeless activity or the... the endless lifespan. That's how it's translated here. The Tathagata's lifetime. This is exactly the timeless activity of the Tathagata in his aspiration, practice, and fruit of realization.

[30:58]

So, in thinking about this huge eons and eons of time that the Buddha's although it doesn't say forever, it's within a time span, but it's a huge time span. What is that huge, everlasting life of awakened one? It is the bodhisattva vow of bodhicitta. I always am leading beings. I'm always holding in mind. I'm always thinking how... to help beings completely enter Buddha's way. This vow. This is the eternal lifespan of the Buddha. This ever-present wanting to show beings the way, lead them to waken up and become Buddha bodies. So this statement is

[32:05]

the Buddha's lifetime itself, this life, this huge lifespan, is this vow, and it comes right immediately down through the ages. The Lotus Sutras, you know, 2,000 plus years ago. This vow is our vow, as I know, and we'll have a precept ceremony this coming Saturday, Two more baby bodhisattvas will publicly and openly with witnesses take these vows to live for the benefit of others, to save all sentient beings, to become the Buddha way. This is the eternal lifespan of the Buddha right there. And each of us, it's really up to each of us that this awakened one, this awakened life goes on. and on through the ages and through space and time.

[33:14]

This is exactly the timeless activity of the Tathagata. So I wanted to say a little bit more about Dogen and this connection of this chapter where the Buddha said, I've been around for eons and eons and I will be, and I actually don't come and go. And out of this, also this chapter, comes the teaching of the three bodies of Buddha, the one that comes and goes and lives and dies, the Nirmanakaya Buddha, the practice body of the Buddha, which arises and then doesn't die, it's born but doesn't die, the Sambhogakaya Buddha, practice body, bliss body, that we can experience, you know, when we're, this, the Dharma bliss, you know.

[34:29]

This morning I recited some poems from Okusan Suzuki Romitsu, Suzuki Sensei's new haiku book, and one of the ones I didn't read was, see if I can remember, Temple Bell, Bathing the Baby Buddha, Dharma Bliss. This Dharma Bliss, you know, she's, for Buddha's birthday, there's the practice of bathing the baby Buddha with ladles full of sweet tea, which we'll do when we do our ceremony. The baby Buddha is standing there pointing to the heaven and earth, and you get to pour water over the top of his head. And she's doing this practice, and then she says, dharma bliss. This is the haiku. This dharma bliss of our practice together is Sambhogakaya Buddha, the Sambhogakaya flowering mountain valley, mountains and valleys of our practice together.

[35:34]

that we can touch, you know, that we can live out. And then there's the Dharmakaya, the truth body of the Buddha, or reality body, which neither is born nor dies, the truth body, the reality of the body, reality body of the Buddha responds to being suffering and takes form, takes form as Chakyamuni Buddha, for example, or Suzuki Roshi. It takes form, or any form, just like Avalokiteshvara, anything you need, which we've been chanting at noon, if you, that chapter has, if you need this help to come in the form of a business person, it'll come in the form of a business person and teach the Buddha's way, any form. This is Dharmakaya taking form to respond to sentient beings.

[36:35]

This is the reality body the Buddha doesn't, neither in the pure body of Dharmakaya, there's no coming or going, no increase nor decrease. So we have this triple trikaya, the triple body of the Buddha. And here in this chapter 16, there's this they call the revelation, where he says, there's these secret ways that I come to be. But to me, it's not so secret and esoteric. And, you know, it comes down to our practice and our zazen. Each one of us maintains this everlasting body of the Buddha. And Dogen, this inconceivable lifespan, is what is an inconceivable lifespan? It's this intention to live for the benefit of beings.

[37:38]

That's where its aliveness comes from, and that's where it's, you know, from one person to another through the ages is reborn over and over again and animates our practice. And... where we joyfully and enthusiastically take up what's difficult. All this together, all of us together create this everlasting life span of the Buddha, this inconceivable life span of the Buddha. All together we do this as one Buddha body in all these forms. As long as, you know, there will be a time, you know, when the Buddha Dharma, when this teaching of the Buddha will come to an end.

[38:46]

This is the Buddha's teaching that all things are impermanent. What comes together must part. And so until that time, you know, we, if we're enlivened and animated and... loving the practice, then we practice single-mindedly and with a wholeheartedness. And that in itself resonates with others who begin to practice. So we become these bodhisattvas that spring out of the earth, these incredibly beautiful bodies beings, they all have the 32 marks of the Buddha and they come out of the earth to teach. That's no different from each one of us coming forth from this world, from this earth, to live for the benefit of all beings.

[39:55]

This is the inconceivable lifespan of the Buddha right there. one thing it says in this 16th chapter is that on Vulture Peak, people are wholeheartedly and concentrated on Vulture Peak. And Dogen takes that in another fascicle and calls this Vulture Peak Mind, this wholeheartedly wanting to take up Bodhisattva vow, basically in the Bodhisattva way. Vulture Peak Mind, which I kind of appreciated that. But this vulture peak mind is an undivided, wholehearted, and it's the same as when Dogen talks about wholeheartedly, just wholeheartedly sit and thus drop away body and mind. So our zazen itself is wholehearted, undivided, vulture peak mind that is there listening to the lotus and not only listening,

[41:07]

but helping the Lotus Sutra be taught to beings and carrying out this inconceivable lifespan. So our asasa in itself, when we come to sit, you know, I really appreciated Shoguchi's talk last week about deep relaxation in Zazen. And just to say, when we sit wholeheartedly, we may find discomfort, numbness, pain, a certain kind of churning of thought, and... this admonition to, with all our hearts, to sit and pay heed and honor what the body is revealing to us.

[42:21]

What this wisdom body, you might say this isn't wisdom being numb or in pain, but this is our body communicating and letting us know something that we need to pay attention to. And I remember when Suzuki Roshi was sick, he had pain in his stomach area, abdomen area. And I remember this very, very strongly, him saying the fact that he felt pain was good because it's when you don't feel anything and there's just... nothing, that's when it's even worse, you know. And I think that was, you know, with pancreatic cancer, with Miogen, for many, many months, he didn't, there was nothing. You know, this happens where people here finally get a diagnosis after not having any symptoms and it's already too late.

[43:24]

So to have discomfort, to have something you're working with, this is, this is something that this is a benefit to us to pay attention to. And the deep relaxation, it's not a mind like, relax, relax. It's a turning our attention to areas of our body with a different kind of mind that senses and feels and stays with whatever it is, be it a stronger pain, or an aching, or a feeling of blockage, or numbness, or to take care of that thoroughly by bringing our breath and attention wholeheartedly. And often what we do is tense up around that, and the tenseness creates a situation where we think very quickly and fast and churning.

[44:31]

So coming back to and asking, what is relaxation in Zazen? The Dharma gate of repose and ease is Fukanzazengi. Repose and ease, ease and joy, anraku. and the tensions that we carry. I was listening to NPR. Maybe some of you heard it. It was an interview with an opera singer who sings at the Met on Terry Gross on Fresh Air, and she was talking about singing, and she teaches singing, and how to get the voice to come out, and she was saying people have... It was such a zan thing. People tense up, she was saying, all these different parts of their... their mouth and their tongue and their throat and their body and their stomach. And you just need to... It's like anything about golf.

[45:36]

You just need to relax, you know? And she said when she realized this, she said to her singing teacher, you mean all I have to do is just open my mouth? And her singing teacher just like put his head on the piano and just like... could believe it, you know, that she was saying, that's all I have to do after probably months and months of working with her to get to the place where she understood in the body. Anyway, this relaxation, the tensing things that do not need to be tensed, certain muscles need to be firm and contracted to some degree, but way more muscles are involved sometimes in our sitting. Shoulders that are way up around our ears, and heads, necks, and stomachs like steel traps. I know, I can speak from experience. And legs that are clenched, and toes that are curled up.

[46:43]

Anyway, we're about to go into Sashim pretty soon, and... You know, this is a chance to honor what the body is telling us and work and in a new way, in a new way with breath, bringing our breath consciousness to these areas and explore and discover wholehearted relaxation which is none other than the inconceivable life span of the Buddha embodied Buddha body. I always hold in mind, I always am thinking how to help sentient beings enter the unsurpassable way and immediately fulfill, immediately realize Buddha bodies. So this particular chapter is unfolding for me, which is why I wanted to bring it up again tonight after the class.

[48:15]

There's a parable in this chapter that's a kind of odd parable where in order to help his children take their medicine, the physician is in this story. Some of them took the medicine, but others wouldn't take the medicine. They'd been told, and they had taken poison. They had been doing things that were not conducive to freedom and to patience and generosity and to living out their life. So he sent word, this physician, that he had died, and they kind of They were sobered up completely and thought, I want to take my medicine like he wanted me to, like when he was alive. He gave this to me to help me, and now I'm going to take it.

[49:15]

And that was this skillful means that in the parable that happened there. So we are lucky enough to have received all these medicines The medicine Buddha, you know, the medicine Buddha, that's this lapis lazuli blue Buddha, carries a Buddha bowl. And in the Buddha bowl, if you look in the Buddha bowl, there are three mountains. Basically, the whole world is being held in this mudra. It's got the whole world in his hands. And this medicine is freely offered, freely given. And we have the great good fortune of living in this Sambhogakaya valley with just enough suffering that we can handle it and that we can get help and practice with it in order to awaken our bodhicitta and walk the bodhisattva path.

[50:24]

Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[51:04]

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