This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. I have a question for you. Is it anyone's birthday today? Really? It's your birthday? Anybody else? Not one. Oh, Frank. Great. Well, happy birthday. Happy birthday. So there's also another birthday that we're celebrating today. And it's the birthday of some very special little baby boy who was born 2,500 years ago. And his name was Shakyamuni Buddha.

[01:03]

And Buddha is a word. Do you know what Buddha means, anybody? Any of you guys? Smaller people? Do you know what Buddha means? It means awake. Awake. Did you wake up this morning? Not yet? Yeah. Well, Buddha means awake. And Shakyamuni, Shakyamuni is the name of his family. So he was the Shakya family. And Muni means a sage or a wise person. So Shakya Muni Buddha means the wise person of the Shakya family who was awake. It's a pretty nice name. Yeah. So this little boy grew up to be a very handsome, strong, and intelligent young man. But that wasn't important. Not at all. What was important was that he was very kind and soft-hearted.

[02:08]

So this is something to remember. Being strong and being handsome and being smart or beautiful isn't so important. It's what you do with that, how you behave, how you take care of yourself and of your friends and of other living things. That's what's important. So we have to use our strength and our intelligence so we can take care of all those other animals that live on the earth with us. Like what are some of those animals that we have to take care of? Yeah, what do you got? Cheetahs. Goldfish, yes. Goldfish. And cheetahs are both... What? Tigers. Yeah. Cats. How about polar bears? How about spiders? Not so much spiders. So how about skunks?

[03:10]

Yeah, skunks are... So Shakyamuni Buddha had parents like you do. His dad was a king, and his mother was a queen, just like yours. And they took very good care of him. And they dressed him in colorful clothing, and they fed him, and they taught him a lot of things that were very useful, like they taught him to ride a horse, to shoot a bow, and they taught him how to dance. All very good things to know. And they made sure he had lots of good friends to play with, like I'm sure all of you do. And he was almost happy, but not quite. Not quite happy. And he wasn't quite happy because he would get very sad when he saw people or animals being harmed.

[04:13]

And he wondered how he could protect them. So I was thinking some of you might like to grow up to be people who take care of plants and animals and people. You know, like maybe a doctor, or a veterinarian, a farmer. maybe a teacher who teaches children how to be kind and gentle, how to sing, in case they don't know. We all like to sing. So for many years, he looked for ways to protect people. He looked for ways not to be so sad. So this morning, I'm going to read to you a poem that was written by the person who was the abbot of the Green Gulch Farm Zen Center many years ago by the name of Norman Fisher. And Norman's still teaching, wonderful teacher, and he wrote this poem in 1988, which was long before most of you were born.

[05:16]

1988. And so for 20 years, we performed this poem with a large... puppets, masks, and people wearing masks. And we did it out on the lawn, which at that time was flat. And so for that reason, that it's no longer flat, and other reasons, we're not doing the pageant anymore. But we haven't forgotten it. So I'm going to read it to you. And what I want you to do, and I need your help from your parents too, and all the rest of you, is that we're going to do a verse And I'm going to have Julian, who's back there somewhere, hit the big bell. And when you hear the big bell, we're going to chant. Homage to the world, honored one. Can you do that with me? Let's try it. Homage to the world, honored one.

[06:19]

Great. Now you want to hear the bell? Julian. Julian. There it is. Homage to the world, honored one. Great. This is going to be good. I can tell. So because we don't have the big masks and so on, we're going to have to do this like a Zen poem where you just use your imagination instead. Okay? So can you all imagine a king? What would a king look like? Would he have a hat? No? What would he have on his head? A crown. A crown. Would he be wearing jeans? No. What would a king be wearing? Maybe it's hard to describe, but maybe like robes or made out of really beautiful material. And his wife was the queen. What was she wearing? A dress, beautiful dress, just like the king.

[07:23]

And she'd have on a crown too, huh? Yeah. So then you have to imagine a great white elephant. Can you do that? As big as this room. Got it? Okay. All right. And then last, you have to imagine a big birthday party. And at the party, there are dragons and elves and... Tigers and lions and giraffes and spiders and every kind of animal came to his birthday party. So you can imagine that when the time comes. And then at the end, there's lots and lots of ducks. All right. Here we go. You ready? You have a dragon doll? You have a dragon doll? You have a dragon book? Oh, that's funny. He has a dragon book. Did you bring it? We didn't. Oh, next time. Next time.

[08:24]

Okay. All right, here we go. Listen to the story of the birth of the Buddha, a story that is always told whenever beings gather together to work or to play, and even when they fight or shout. The story of the birth of the Buddha is told on every breath, in and out. Homage to the world, honored one. There was a king of the mighty Shakya tribe, Sudodhana by name, whose purity of conduct and grace of manner caused him to be loved by his people, as pens love paper, as flowers love the spring. Homage to the world, honored one. His queen was Mahamaya, whose splendor bounced from the clouds to the earth, and she was like the earth in her abundant solidity, in her beauty like a great blue heron or like a mass of willow trees at dawn, seen from a distance, seen from a truck.

[09:38]

Amish to the world, honored one, This great king and splendid queen in dallying spread open happiness like a picnic basket in May, and without any ants or spilled wine, extruded the vine-like fruit of a gestating babe. Your parents will have to explain that to you later. As concentration and mindfulness together gently produced the winds of the wisdom gone beyond. Homage to the world, honored one. Queen Maya, before conceiving, saw in her sleep a great white lord of an elephant, as big as this room, emerge from a cave and come close to her and envelop her, incorporate her in his all-embracing comprehension, like a nation state, a political movement.

[10:42]

a trance or a soothing bath. Amish to the world, honored one, this lord of elephants with the queen dissolved into a pure melody. and so she sought in all purity, piety, and joy, without illusion, a place in the sin-free forest, a valley among trees by the sea, a place suitably arrayed for the practice of meditation and birth, called Lumbini. Homage to the world, honored one, Here the queen, aware of the stirrings of beginnings and endings, amid the welcome of thousands of waiting women, on her couch, covered over with ons and leaves, gave birth without pain from out of her side, to a son born for the wheel of the world from out of her vows. Homage to the world on earth,

[11:50]

Forth he came, yet not from earth or cloud or spirit, but as if from out of the empty sky, pure of being as the breath itself, long or short, without beginning or end, fully aware. And like a brilliant sun in the summer sky, his beautiful gaze held all eyes like a full moon in autumn. Homage to the world, honored one. For like the sun, he awakened all life on earth. The trees and the children, the deer and the little fish. He woke up the stars in the night that whispered to one another. He woke up the seas and the breezes, the tall mountains that nail the universe shut, and the streams and the mountains that flow to the rivers like tongues. Homage to the world on earth.

[12:51]

And standing up straight like a mountain, attending above and below, he took seven silver steps, his feet lifted up, unwavering and straight, the strides spanning earth and heaven. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Homage to the world, honored one. And like a lion in charge of the forest, like an elephant ruling the grounds, proclaimed the truth and sang, I am born for enlightenment, for the good of all beings. Homage to the world, honored one. Hot and cold running water like jewels from the sky poured forth for his refreshment. The softest couch appeared bedecked with pears and apples, flowers, potatoes, lettuce, and pets.

[13:56]

The invisible dwellers in the heavens shielded him with their giant umbrellas. Homish to the world, honor. And the dragons of the earth and air flew and blew the air from him. And the dragons of the seas tipped the purple waves with points of silver. And the dragons of the houses flapped the houses like nightgowns, bedsheets, or banners. And animals stopped eating one another to take a look. And people stopped killing one another to take a look. And noxious creatures and ghosts stopped haunting one another to take a look. And they all looked and wept with unconsidered joy. Homage to the world, honored one.

[14:58]

For he will give up his kingdom to be a light removing darkness from all beings. And he will be a boat to carry the beings from the ocean of suffering, overspread with the foam of disease and the waves of old age and the flood of death. And the world will drink of the stream of his law to slake the ageless thirst born of affliction. Homage to the world, honored one. People are lost in the desert, baked and blistered. He will show them a trail out. People are sweltering in the humidity of desire. He will rain the cool rain of Dharma down. People are locked up in themselves. He will offer the key of awakening to open up the doors. Homage to the world, honored one. He will cool us with attractors of concentration. He will make us solid with precepts like pine trees. He will cause us to dance with the joy of the ducks of deepest vow.

[16:00]

Amish to the world, honored one. And so in this world and in the world beyond, in time and space and out of time and space, the baby steps and song ended struggles that had no end. And all beginnings and all beings were permanently disordered with delight. Amish to the world, honored one. Goodbye. I have great respect for elementary school teachers. I really do. So welcome again to Green Gulch, Buddha's birthday. I think it's pretty easy to think of the Buddha as somebody who is special. You know, like we think about Jesus or Mohammed or Benjamin Franklin, Eleanor Roosevelt, you know, special people.

[17:05]

And I think what made the Buddha special was that he was a teacher. And in the last days of his life, he said, you know, don't look at me. Don't weep for me. Listen to what I said, you know. Listen to my teaching, my dharma. Dharma is your teacher. Reality is your teacher. The truth is just passing through him, as it does through all of us. It passes through us, and we can offer it to our children and to our friends. There are lots of teachers in the world these days. I'm kind of amazed, actually, by the catalogs that I get in the mail. When I was in school, there were subjects that we studied. like history, math, science, you know. But now there are all these subspecialties, seems like endless subspecialties, hard to know a breadth of knowledge any longer.

[18:09]

But I think there was a time when people did have a breadth of knowledge. Maybe there wasn't so much to know. There's some feeling like maybe in the Western canon that you could know the great books, you could study... philosophy, history, and so on, and have some feeling of being a well-educated person. There's a wonderful book called The Founding Brothers. I don't know if any of you have read it, but it's a really interesting review of the founding of this nation by these young men who all went to the same colleges and studied the same literature. They read Cicero in Latin and they read Plato in Greek. And that's what they based this country on. It was their college reading assignments. Kind of amazing. And for the most part, they shared the same religious and political beliefs. These are the people we now refer to as the WASPs, you know, the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant males and their wives.

[19:16]

And many of those ideas that they shared and installed in our founding of our nation are under a lot of stress, as I think we all can see. A lot of stress. Don't know if it's going to hold. So I wanted to propose that the Buddha's teaching may be still interesting to us now, because, well, maybe partly because he wasn't a wasp. I think that's true. But also because his teaching resonates inside of us, in some very deep and personal way. We can actually feel the truth of it. And it feels true. It has the ring of truth, which only we can say for ourselves. That's why he said, listen to my teaching. If it's true for you, then it's true. And if it's not, you don't need to listen to it. Just take what it is that you find a value in. So what he said basically has a feeling of being common ground for humans world over, not just for some subset of us.

[20:24]

It kind of belongs to all of us. And what he said is that there's this one kind of suffering from which none of us can escape, and it begins with our birth, and it ends with our death, and then all those things that happen in between. So that's sort of the fact of life. But there's another kind of suffering that's caused by how we react to the facts of life, how we behave in the face of the facts of life, of the ever-changing conditions in which we find ourselves, conditions under which we really have no control, whether to say just one of the many things we have no control. The blessing of rain really did come as a blessing. We can only pray that it rains, right? So the second kind of suffering is the one in which we can make some choices. And that is the suffering about how we react, what we do in the face of the conditions as they arise.

[21:27]

I mean, one of the teachings my teacher said to me years ago was, I described to him some suffering I was going through. I think like most of us, kind of first world problems. was having a fight with somebody or who knows what. But anyway, and he'd say, well, those are the conditions. What's the practice with those conditions? How do you practice with those conditions? And the answer might be, well, you're patient with them. Or you might apologize for something you've done. You may try to find some way of responding that makes you feel like you can actually move and do something that's affirmative. So what the Buddha recommended that we do in response to conditions is basically three simple things. He said, do all good, avoid all evil, and live for the benefit of others. It's pretty simple. Easy to say. Do all good, avoid all evil, and live for the benefit of others.

[22:29]

These are called the three pure precepts. So in order to commit to that principle, intention of behaving in that way, it's helpful to have some understanding of reality. Understand, like, why would I want to do that? Why wouldn't I just want to be selfish and get everything I can for myself? Yeah. It's kind of how we've been stimulated to think, to try and get the most we can for ourselves and our own families, and to fence out everybody else. So what he said, following his enlightenment, is that there are a couple of things that he clearly saw, he clearly understood, that he hadn't understood before. And he said that in the long run, these things would be very helpful in overcoming this second kind of suffering, the suffering for which we have a choice. And the things he said we need to know are that two things are continuous change,

[23:37]

and no abiding self. Facts of life. Everything changes and there's no abiding self. These two go together if you think about it a little bit. So it's kind of hard to pay attention to those things because they're about ourselves. And it's like trying to look at the scenery from the back of a galloping horse. Looks like it's jumping around. So in order to study the self that we believe is there, it's very helpful to sit still, to hold still, to stop jumping around. So if you stop and reflect on your life for just a few moments, you can begin to see what the Buddha saw. It's really not that complicated. It's not so hard to understand. And we can begin, we can enter into... trying to see for ourselves, like, well, he said that. Can I see that? Can I see that there's continuous change?

[24:41]

Well, I think it's not so hard. Right now, I think if you reflect on yourselves, first of all, on your body, is there change going on in your body right now? Maybe not that you necessarily perceive, although I think you can perceive some as well, but how about the ones you know about, like your blood flowing, your heart beating, Your hormones racing around. Your nerves transferring information from your brain to your various muscles and so on. The itches and the scratches that you're responding to. Shifting your weight in your chair. A little bit of change going on in every moment. Cells are dying and new cells are being born. There's hardly anything of you left after about five minutes. New person. Then there's also the mind. If you contemplate the experience you have of your own mind, do you experience change? Is something changing? Can you even hold a thought for a second?

[25:44]

Or is it just raced on by, and another one is taking its place? Like that fast-moving express train running through the brain. Train of thought. It's amazing. It's amazing we can even walk around. given how much change is going on continuously. But we're pretty well adapted riding a galloping horse. So there really isn't much stable here, being a person. No abiding self, that's what that means. There's no steady, solid thing. We're not things. We're processes. More like rivers than roads. always moving, always flowing, always responding, transforming, continuously moving. So this is the fact of life, one of the facts of life, that you can confirm for yourself. See if you think that's so. So along with these very subtle changes, continuous subtle changes, there's also the gross changes that we've all heard about, such as aging, sickness, and death.

[26:58]

Very interesting, aging. I didn't really notice it much when I was 20, 30. Maybe a little bit 40, but boy, after 50, it's like the roller coasters hit the top of the ride, you know? It's like . Okay, hang on. Anyway, it's all good. So far, at least up until today, it's fine. So these gross changes, old age sickness and death, are actually what drove the prince out of the palace. He was only 30 years old, but it scared him when he found out about the facts of life, that he too was going to get old, was going to grow sick, and was going to die. It was shocking. He'd been protected by his parents, as we often try to protect our children. We don't want them to see death or sickness. In fact, we've gotten a little better about that. But when I was little, Things were hidden away. People with disabilities were hidden away.

[28:02]

People who were sick. I've still never seen a baby born. If anyone's pregnant and would not mind my coming, I would really someday like to see a baby born. But anyway, I know it's asking a lot. I'll be very quiet. I'll just scan it out. So basically, the Buddha was... the young prince, not yet the Buddha, was running away from the facts of life, just as many of us have tried to do. And he didn't get very far either. You can't get away from yourself, from the subtle and gross changes that are taking place continuously. So when I was thinking about the Buddha's birthday, it occurred to me that there's another birthday that takes place inside of a person when they have the thought of enlightenment. When the Buddha is born inside of you, it's a possibility for yourself. The Buddha was just an ordinary person, like all of us.

[29:04]

And then something happened. He woke up. What does that mean, he woke up? To what? From what? Well, from a dream. A dream of being separate, of being isolated, of being alone, of needing to defend himself and protect himself and get all he could. Grasping, craving, clinging. And he kind of gave up. Surrender. Maybe the last thing we think of. Surrender, Dorothy. The great scene from The Wizard of Oz and Black Letters. Surrender, Dorothy. No, never. But that's actually the way. The true escape is to surrender. Surrender your breath, your tension. your worries, self-concern. So there's a word in Sanskrit for the name of this initial thought of enlightenment. It's called the bodhicitta.

[30:05]

Bodhicitta. Bodhi means awake, like Buddha, same root. Buddha, bodhi. And citta is mind. So together, bodhicitta is the mind that considers awakening, the thought of awakening, the thought of enlightenment. And I was thinking some of you may have come here because of the bodhicitta, some awakening you've had in your life that you would like to pursue this idea of awakening, discover, deepen what that is for you. Or maybe you haven't had that thought consciously, but it's just kind of simmering on the back burner. It smells good. Wondering what that is, calling to you. So whatever that word enlightenment means to you, it probably sounds like something that you would like. So it was kind of shocking to me many years ago when Mel Weitzman, who was one of our co-abbots at the time, said to a group of us, who told you enlightenment was something you were going to like?

[31:08]

And I thought, now that has the ring of truth. I think he knows. Of course, you know, enlightenment, awakening means that you're awakening to all of it. Not just the good parts. Not just the white meat. The whole thing. So you're awakening to the facts of life. And although many of those facts are just extraordinary and marvelous, like the spring, this rain, what it's done to the plants all around us, it's just extraordinary. It's not the same place as it has been for these long drought years. My yard is just like beautiful. They're watered. They've been watered. So rain and newborn babies and freshly baked bread, these are marvelous things. And it's really hard for us not to notice what a beautiful world it is, not to realize how privileged we are to be able to see it and smell it and taste it and touch it, hear it.

[32:18]

Moment after moment, we're receiving the world We are the world. We are nothing without the world. Imagine yourself without the world coming in through your senses. Now that would be lonely. So if we just stop there, you know, at all the marvelous things, everything would be fine. Be kind of like my dog, Mac, you know. He's amazing. He's just kind of... I'm not sure he's projecting, but he doesn't smile, but somehow he's just really very easy to be with. You know, if I forget his dinner, he just stands there staring at me, and, you know, it's 4 o'clock, and he's always right. I know it's 4 o'clock, and he's staring at me. And, you know, when I'm late getting home, he's just wagging his tail. He's happy to see me. I've never had a partner like that, you know?

[33:20]

And then... Recently, when we were down at Tassajara together for the winter, and he got very sick. He ate his medicine, his pain medicine. It made him really close to dying. And I was kind of amazed because, again, he didn't complain. He just laid there, dying. And he'd get up to go outside to urinate, which Barely did. He couldn't eat. He was just really, really sick. And I thought I was so inspired by his very easy way with the end of his life. He didn't die. He's fine. But it took a lot of medical care for that to be so. About 12 days in the emergency room. But anyway, it was quite a wonderful thing. to feel that this body, too, can lay down to die. And my body's okay with it. It knows what to do.

[34:23]

I knew how to be born. I knew how to get fertilized. You know, that was easy. And out I came. But, you know, and dying, the body knows how to die. It's the mind that has some problem with that. You know, I'm worried. Worried. So... You know, we have no easy time giving up our fight with reality. We really struggle. We object. We want more light or more heat or more salt in our gravy. You know, we always want something a little different than it is. And we want maybe not to live or we want not to die. Either way, it's always wanting. And this is the source of our suffering. Wanting things that aren't there. Desiring things to be other than they are. And then we suffer. And yet today is a celebration of a human being who started out like us, but then he opened his mind to the widest possible aperture. An aperture we all have.

[35:24]

Universal. As big as it gets. Awareness. It's already like that. We've got this bubble all around us that doesn't end. It has no boundary. where it says, your awareness ends here. We can get to the stars. It's amazing. So he opened that aperture, and he looked through it. He looked at the world through it, and he saw no boundaries or barriers between himself and others. There was nothing between him blocking him from others. Others were him. No dividing line, no fence, no wall. No need for protection. And so he smiled. He smiled at that. And he held up a flower. And one of his disciples, Mahagashapa, smiled back. And these two gentlemen smiling at one another was the beginning or the birth of what we call the Zen tradition.

[36:31]

Gentle man. Wonderful old phrase. I like that. My dad was a gentle man. very high form of life. So when a teacher and a student smile at one another, down through the ages, this has been called Dharma transmission. It's transmission of the light, of this understanding, of this great aperture through which we see the world. Aperture looking at aperture. Vast. Doubtless. In the story about the Buddha's awakening, which is from a text by the very name, this very same name, Transmission of Light, it says, While the seasons come and go, and the mountains, rivers, and land change with the times, you should know that this is Buddha raising his eyebrows and blinking his eyes. This is the unique body revealed in myriad forms.

[37:34]

This is Buddha raising his eyebrows. blinking his eyes. This, right here, right now, all of us. No other possibility. Nothing to change. Nothing to want. Just this is always perfect. Just the way it is. No matter what. And although we're celebrating Buddha's birthday the same way that we celebrate our own, you know, just one day out of the year, it really is a continuous celebration of all of the various conjoinings. You know, the tigers and the lambs, the joy and the sorrow, the light and the darkness. You don't get one without the other. You don't get predators without prey. Light wouldn't make any sense if there weren't darkness. Sorrow wouldn't make any sense if there were no joy. So all of these conjoinings make and complete one another.

[38:40]

You complete me. I complete you. We don't just need each other. We really are each other. And we're all calling out to each other to respond in the best way we can. To be wise and collaborative and skillful. And maybe, you know, maybe if we do, and I mean we, We've got to do this together. Any one of us is not going to be able to make much change. But together, we ever so slightly might turn this relentless drive for power and wealth and self-protection, turn it away, turn it back, even slightly. Because as it turns out, it's also going to result in our self-destruction. We know that. We can feel it. You can feel it for the planet, for the species, maybe all species.

[39:42]

We're going too far. There's only one of us, really. We're all in this together, no matter what side of any spectrum we're on. We're in it together. There's just one supply of air, one supply of water, one supply of toxin-free soil. So that said, I wanted to let you know that when I got home from the three months down at Tassajara, which is, as we all said down there, kind of a pure land. You know, you can forget for a while. You don't see cars or drones or whatever it is that's going on. It's very quiet. There's stars. The sky is black, so the stars are like diamonds at night. And that's the rain. Wonderful rain filled the creek, the flowers and the trees, right on time, turned into spring, every day a little bit more.

[40:48]

It's pure magic, pure magic. But, you know, the usual kind that we have right now here as well, but maybe don't notice. Sometimes we forget to look around. So anyway, when I got home, I had this one urge, which was to re-watch The Lord of the Rings. I thought, that's what I've been doing for three months. In case you wondered what's going on while we're sitting in meditation hour after hour. It's the orcs and the dragons and the wizards and evil and good fighting one another. Through it all, the great... The great magician Gandalf, like the Buddha. Gandalf the white. Anyway, and then the great love for simple things and loyal friendship at the end. So I hope you all will enjoy your day at Green Gulch with the monks and the children.

[41:58]

Pretty much the same thing. It comes right down to it. When my daughter was in elementary school, they had the kids write the rules for the class, which was really sweet. And then they put them up on the wall. And so they were the usual, you know, no pushing, no name calling, no biting. And then the one I liked best was everyone can play. So when we were doing our own rules down at Tassajara, we just did them here at Green Gulch too, so we wrote our own rules. practicing together. And someone added, don't forget to play. So please, don't forget to play. Today's a great day for us all to play together here at Gringel Sharm. And I'm so very grateful that you all came. And happy birthday. 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

[43:00]

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.

[43:14]

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