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. I just wanted to say a few words, some things that are on my mind, wanting to bring up... the Vimalakirti Sutra, which we've been studying in a class for the month of July. So I'll be bringing up the Vimalakirti Sutra again today. Also, you know, Vimalakirti taught while he was sick, while he was manifesting this illness, and I can't help but bring up how we again are finding ourselves all over the world in a surge with the Delta variant and, you know, thousands and thousands of people all over the world becoming ill, dying.

[01:21]

It's so sad. It's so... And also with those who are fully vaccinated with this knowledge that there can be passing, transmitting the virus when you don't feel anything yourself. Anyway, so I wish you all to be safe and protected and healthy. Get vaccinated if you haven't been supporting other beings by doing so. So I just wanted to mention that. And also this will resonate, I think, reverberate with Vimalakirti and his illness and what he talks about. Also, just thinking about what's going on in the world, the Olympics.

[02:24]

I don't know if people are following the Olympics or not. I don't have a TV, but I do have internet and watch these amazing beings doing amazing things. For example, an Italian man, Marcel Jacobs, is now the fastest man in the world. running the 100-meter race, and other people who were trying to qualify that race, one person lost by a thousandth of a second. A thousandth of a second. It's like, how fast is that? But this is this other realm, this world of athletes, kind of magical even. that these are the timekeeping events, a thousandth of a second.

[03:25]

So this also was resonating with me for the Vimalakirti Sutra because Vimalakirti in this amazing sutra is a magician and trickster and brings other realms to help teach. brings beings into other realms to help teach. The first of the month at Green Gulch Farm for years, years and years, you know, we're about to celebrate our 50th anniversary next June, 2022, Green Gulch Farm. We... As Green Gulch Farm on this land will be 50 years. And for, I don't know, 47 of those years, 45 of those years, we had the first of the month. The first Sunday of the month was kids lecture where young people, if their parents wanted them to, could bring them to the beginning of the Dharma talk.

[04:42]

That would be, especially for them, about 10 minutes or so, and then they'd leave to go to the garden for a program. So this being the 1st of August, and I love giving, I used to enjoy very much giving the kids' talk, I thought I would offer today a Jataka tale that I found very, touched my heart. So, Jataka tales are, the word Jataka means birth, and they're supposedly teachings, tales, stories of when the Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, was a Bodhisattva before he became Shakyamuni Buddha. So, it's about other lives that he lived as a Bodhisattva before being Buddha.

[05:43]

And These other lives take human beings, animals, insects, all sorts of things. And these teaching stories, one can understand them, if you wish, as stories of past lives of the Buddha. There's also a way of approaching them or meeting them as teaching stories that... and share with myths and folklore from around the world, actually. So this one struck me. They're very old. They're in the Pali Canon, and they come from as old as 4th century. century BCE, before the Common Era. So very early, and then others were added later. So they're quite early teachings, and they're beloved, well-known, and are often accessible.

[06:45]

The teaching is accessible to children of all ages. So this one touched me partially because in the morning when I come back, From Zazen, and also in the evening, I see quail, many, many quail. Green mulch is home to many, many quail. And in the springtime and this time of year, there's little tiny baby quail that are running as fast. If you've ever seen a quail run, it runs. The upper body doesn't seem to be moving very much, and the feet are going so fast. and they almost like flow over the ground in groups, and the little ones go underneath things and disappear. So they're very fun to watch. They're delightful, and their sounds are wonderful.

[07:48]

So this Jataka tale is called The Baby Quail Who Could Not Fly Away. Once upon a time... A long time ago, the Buddha Shakyamuni was born as a tiny baby quail. And although he had feet and wings, he was still too young to be able to fly or to do that running that I just described. So he couldn't walk or fly. He was just still in the nest. And his loving parents fed him and brought him food and took care of him in the nest. Well, in that part of the world, as in so many parts of the world, right here where I'm living and maybe where you're living too, there were many forest fires that would happen at a certain time of the year.

[08:57]

a fire broke out. A forest fire did happen right there. And at the first smell of the smoke, all the birds in that area living in those trees flew far away. As soon as they smelled the smoke, as did many other animals, and they were able to fly away. And as the fire spread, it got closer. and closer to the tree where the nest of the baby quail was. And his parents remained with him to protect him as best they could because they couldn't carry him. They couldn't run with him. They couldn't bring him out of the fire. And the fire got closer and closer. And finally, they too had to fly away in order... that they all didn't perish. So all the trees, big and small, were burning and crackling with a loud noise.

[10:07]

And the little one, the baby quail, saw that everything was being destroyed by fire. and that it raged out of control, and he could do nothing to save himself. And at that moment, his mind was overwhelmed by a feeling of helplessness, vulnerability, powerlessness. And then it occurred to him, the baby Quill, this thought, my parents loved me very much. Unselfishly, they built a nest for me and fed me without greed. When the fire came, they remained with me until the last moment. All the other birds who could flew away long before they did. So great was their loving kindness, this loving kindness of my parents that they stayed and risked their lives.

[11:16]

but still they were helpless to save me. Since they could not carry me, they were forced to fly away alone. I thank them, wherever they are, for loving me so. I hope with all my heart that they will be safe and well and happy. Now I am all alone. There's no one I can go to for help. I have wings, but I cannot fly. And I have feet, but I can't run away. But still, I can think. All I have left is to use my mind, a mind that remains unstained, pure. The only beings I have known in my short life were my parents and my mind has been filled with loving kindness towards them.

[12:20]

I've done nothing unwholesome to anyone. I'm filled with newborn innocent truthfulness. Then an amazing miracle took place. This miracle Innocent truthfulness grew and grew until it became larger than a little baby quail. The knowledge of truth spread beyond that one lifetime. And many previous births were known by the little quail. And in one of these births, he remembered... that he had met a Buddha at one time, a fully enlightened knower of the truth, who had the power of truth and the power of wholesomeness and the power of compassion.

[13:26]

He had met this Buddha many, many years ago and practiced with him, and that remembrance came back to him. And the reality of that awakened one in his life came forth. And that great being that within this tiny baby bird thought, may this very young, innocent truthfulness be united with the ancient purity of wholesomeness and the power of truth. And other beings who are still trapped by the fire be saved and made this spot be safe from fire for a million years. And so it was. So that's the end of the Jataka tale. And my understanding of this, there's often a moral to these stories, which is truth.

[14:36]

wholesomeness and compassion can save the world. That's the teaching of this Janaka tale about the baby quail. And this baby quail, you know, united within his own teeny body, supposedly helpless and powerless, united the oldest ancient teachings of... compassion and care and being truthful with his own new baby bodhisattva, baby quail, understanding of compassion and loving kindness, which he had already generated and sent out for his parents and the other animals, even when he was facing his own death. So this uniting of the baby bodhisattvas spark of new entry into the practices of compassion and truth.

[15:47]

This uniting with the universal, the particular and the universal uniting in this baby quail. And then this miracle occurred. This is a... This is a teaching story, but this miracle, when we understand the truth of our lives and saving the world, what does that mean exactly? What is that teaching? Which kind of flows right into our teaching of Vimalakirti. And many of you perhaps have studied the Sutra of Vimalakirti. And he also performs miracles of various kinds called His Way of Liberating Beings, because that's what he's interested in doing. The Vimalakirti Sutra is a Mahayana Sutra, and it comes from around 100, before the Common Era, and between 100 years.

[16:57]

BCE and 100 Common Era. And it's one of these sutras that is beloved, especially in East Asia, China, and Japan. It was written in Sanskrit and translated into Chinese and then Japanese from the Sanskrit. And just pretty recently, the Sanskrit, we only had it in translation, but the Sanskrit was found in So this Vimalakirti is the reason I think people love it so is there's a lot of humor in it, which you often don't find in sutras where there's joking and teasing. And certain people are especially... used as a way to show the folly of human beings and attached views, etc.

[18:00]

So there's definitely a lot of humor which you usually don't find. And there's also, Vimalakirti was a layman who was really an emanation. He was a bodhisattva, but But he spoke like a Buddha, and he was with human beings in whatever state they were in. He was very rich, but he spent time with poor people, and he went into the gambling halls, and he went into sports events. He would have gone to the Olympics. He went to all these different places in order to teach. beings because he went into schools to teach children. He had many people in his house, but he didn't use them for his own purposes other than liberating them and teaching them.

[19:09]

And it didn't matter who you were. If you were a disciple of the Buddha, he didn't refrain from teaching you if he saw you needed teaching. So in the Vimalakirti Sutra, the kind of conceit or the overall setting is that Vimalakirti is ill. He's become ill. And the reason he's become ill, how he talks about it, is because all beings are ill and suffering. And so he manifests illness to feel what other people feel and to... be able to teach them more skillfully by sharing with them the fact that he knows what they feel, what they're going through. So that is his purpose for being ill. And because he was beloved in the town where he lived, Vaishali in India, many, many people came to visit him while he was ill, and he taught them.

[20:20]

This was a chance for to teach them. And the sutra has profound teachings about shunyata, emptiness, that is done. When I say profound, I mean that the words that are used are difficult to understand. His main way of teaching is to reconcile the opposites. Now someone might say, what do we mean by reconciling the opposites? Well, I would say that we think in dualistic terms. Sickness and health, for example. Pleasure and pain. Praise and blame. Good and bad. good reputation, bad reputation, light and dark, rich and poor.

[21:25]

And one might say, well, there is rich and poor. It's as plain as day. And we have this, what shall I say, attachment to seeing things the way that we see them. And this teaching does not deny the reality of the relative world, our everyday life. It's not saying that those things don't exist. That would be a big mistake in the teachings of emptiness and a kind of nihilism, however that's pronounced. So the teachings of emptiness don't negate anything in the relative world. But it does understand each thing in the relative world, illness, health, good reputation, bad reputation, all the opposites, all the dualisms, as not having a substantial separate existence.

[22:39]

This is this. Very difficult teaching. Rich and poor exist. This conception of rich and poor exists. Because there is rich, there are poor. If there were only one thing, we wouldn't say, oh, they're rich and they're poor. They dependently co-arise, rich and poor, high and low. old and young. It's relative. What's old, what I thought was old when I was, you know, 25 is, you know, totally dependent on that point of view, where I stood, what my experiences have been, and so forth. And now at an older age, I have a different sense of what's old. and what's young. So it's all things are like that.

[23:42]

They don't exist as separate, solid substrata that really exist in that way. So all of these teachings are not negating the relative things, but they just want us to understand that they're not, they don't have an ultimate existence. Their existence is empty of separate self. empty of solidness, and full of dependently co-arisen interdependentness. So Vimalakirti is playing with and using language to unstick us from our very common, very difficult to unstick, points of view, dualistic points of view. And point is, and express to us the non-dual understanding, the non-dual understanding, not one, not two, where it's both and.

[24:53]

We exist as separate individuals with driver's licenses and, you know, particular ways that we look, et cetera. And that very being comes forth and is the way we are and appears out of the interdependent arising of all things. This is very difficult teachings, I think, really difficult teachings, too. We can grasp it intellectually often, but how do we realize these teachings? Because... they actually can't be grasped with their intellectual mind or conceptually. They're talked about as inconceivable. Inconceivable liberation is one of the chapters in the Vimalakirti Sutra. So Vimalakirti is ill and is visited at first very reluctantly

[26:01]

Nobody wants to visit him that the Buddha asks. But Manjushri, the bodhisattva of great wisdom, says, well, I'll visit him even though it's difficult because he's so eloquent and it's hard to understand the teachings. And he also points to the ways in which I'm attached and so forth. So Vimala Kirti is sitting and everybody wants to come with Manjushri. to visit Vimalakirti because they want to hear the conversation between Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, and this lay person, lay follower of the Buddha who speaks so eloquently. And Manjushri inquires about his health because Vimalakirti is ill. Manjushri says, Householder, how should a Bodhisattva console another Bodhisattva Who's sick? How do we help one another?

[27:04]

Many of you, some of you are sick right now, what you would call sick. Others know of people who are sick, have visited people who are sick, or maybe haven't been allowed to. How do we console each other, bring consolation? And Vimalakirti basically He says many things, actually. I hope some of you will be inspired to pick up this sutra. He says many things about, you know, but don't tell them to do this and that. Encourage them. This is one of the things he says of how to console. Encourage the people who are sick to have empathy and compassion for others who are also sick. And through one's own illness, remember the suffering of others.

[28:05]

On account of one's own sickness, remember, oh, yes, other people are ill as well. Other people are facing this and fearful and hopeless, you know, and despairing. And to... allow a feeling of compassion through one's own illness and sickness to arise, to meet and remember others. This is working with our own consciousness to work with the welfare of living beings. This is a practice that he's offering us, one of the many, many, many practices which I appreciated. And this, you know, consoling someone in this way and advising them or encouraging them to widen their understanding of compassion to include all the many beings.

[29:17]

Manjushri also asks... what is the elimination of sickness? And Vimalakirti answers, it's the elimination of egoism, meaning belief in separate self, I, me, and mine, self-clinging, attachment to self, and possessiveness, which I can relate to, hopefully all of us can relate to this quality of me first and number one and possessiveness about our stuff and our things and our position and so forth. He says the elimination of sickness, illness, which he's manifesting this illness for our sake to teach us

[30:30]

The elimination of this is the elimination of egotism and possessiveness. Then he says, what is the elimination of egoism and possessiveness? And he answers, it is the freedom from dualism. Freedom from that is also freedom from self-clinging attachment. Then he says, well, what is freedom from dualism? And then he says something which I want to go into a little more. He says, freedom from dualism is the absence of involvement with either the external or the internal. This is Vimalakirti. of involvement with the external or the internal.

[31:38]

This is freedom from dualism. This dualism which is the cause of our suffering, you know, the cause of the deepest kind of suffering which is our attachment to a self which is not real in the way we attach to it. Not that we don't take good care of ourselves, have compassion for ourselves, and for all beings. So this is another one of the main points of the Vimalakirti Sutra is, if we see all beings as not having a substantial self, how can we generate love and compassion for them? These are some of Manjushri's questions to Vimalakirti. If we have this understanding of this wisdom, transcendent wisdom, or the wisdom of the emptiness and the non-abiding self, how can we generate great love and compassion for these beings who don't really exist?

[32:48]

This is a theme of the Sutra. So the absence of involvement of internal and external things. I wanted to stay with that because Suzuki Roshi brings up the Vimalakirti Sutra many years ago, actually, one of the earliest lectures in 1963. You know, all of his lectures are transcribed, or almost all. We found some new ones, actually, some new tapes. In this particular Dharma talk, Suzuki Roshi brings up, actually, Chapter 7 in the Vimalakirti Sutra, where a goddess throws down...

[33:55]

heavenly flowers after hearing this wonderful Dharma discussion between Manjushri and Vimalakirti and a goddess who is very versed in the teachings and a bodhisattva lives in Vimalakirti's house and throws these celestial flowers down and they stick to the disciples of the Buddha who are still holding to dualistic thinking. and conceptual thinking, but they don't stick. These flowers don't stick to the bodhisattvas. They just, they let go of everything and they don't stick. This is a kind of visual image of the stickiness of having these fixed views about the way things are that are not based on reality, but are misunderstandings. So Suzuki Roshi brings this up, bringing up attachment. And he uses this as an example of when we discriminate and have discursive thinking and hold to things, hold to I'm right, not just this is, my understanding is this, what do you say?

[35:18]

This is how I'm thinking. I'm interested in your sense of it. You know, that kind of opened, yes, this is my opinion, and I'm not tightly holding to it. And holding to I'm right, along with that, which often means you're wrong, right? Correct. People are holding to fixed views now in such a way that they can't. Powerful, incredible fixed views about. conspiracy theories and microchips in vaccines and et cetera, et cetera, and are unable to, you know, even with loved ones and people they respect. So this holding to fixed views and tight conceptual, this, in the Vimalakirti, these flowers, celestial flowers stick,

[36:26]

stick to you. So how do we put together these opposites? If we're listening to this teaching of Vimalakirti that's talking about dualism as being one of the problems are not that we don't hold our conventional world and our reality and care for it. This is the same question about if there's nothing actually there, then how do we generate love if there's no beings there? Same with the conventional world. If the mistake is made, well, then nothing exists. That's a big mistake. No, things exist. but not in the way we think they do. And they need to be cared for thoroughly, completely with love.

[37:30]

So how do we put these two things together, these teachings, and reconcile the opposites, which Vimalakirti says? And Vimalakirti just said, freedom from dualism is the absence of involvement with either the external or the internal. So Suzuki Roshi brings this up in terms of our zazen. This practice of our zazen in our own body puts together we drop our dualistic thinking. Each thing arises and flows away And it's not held to in our practice of Sazen. The first moment we have Sazen instruction, we're told, you know, our posture points and sitting upright.

[38:37]

And then do not grab things. Do not push anything away. Don't hold on to things. Allow things to come and go. Arise and vanish. Sensations, thoughts. emotions, sounds, smells, all the psychophysical events. Just upright sitting is just allow them to be without going after them and manipulating them, elaborating, grabbing or wanting to gain something and without pushing them away. and running, and trying to get away. So Suzuki Roshi is saying, this is, I would say, Zazen instruction. This is from this lecture where he brings up Vimalakirti. When one keeps their pure mind on some object or movement, leaving its true nature to the object itself, the oneness of subject and object

[39:49]

subjective and objective occur. So we're clearly aware without trying to grab it, manipulate, or push away. Just clearly aware. And then he says, in our zazen, our mind must always be kept on our breathing. The breathing should not be too long or too short, heavy or light. It should be natural. We say our exhale does not come out of the world, and our inhale does not stay in the five skandhas. This way, when we sit, we become one with the whole world. Here, the great activity takes place.

[40:51]

The absolute independence comes true. So this is Suzuki Roshi describing our Zazen practice, resonating with Vimalakirti saying, you know, freedom from dualism, the absence of involvement with the external or the internal, Suzuki Roshi is saying the exhale doesn't come from outside and the inhale doesn't stay in the five skandhas, not involved in the myriad things. And this resonates with other teachers that we have, with Bodhidharma's teacher, Hanyatara Dayosho. Hanyatara's teaching was... This poor wayfarer, he was asked why he didn't recite scripture.

[41:54]

And he said, this poor wayfarer does not dwell in the realms of body and mind when breathing in. Does not get involved in the myriad circumstances, the myriad things when breathing out. I always reiterate this scripture hundreds, thousands, millions of times, millions of scrolls, millions of scrolls of the sutra, breathing in. I don't dwell in the five skandhas, in body and mind, breathing out. I don't get involved. in the myriad things. This is Suzuki Roshi, I feel, teaching this same teaching.

[42:55]

And Bodhidharma, Hanyatara's disciple says, not breathing in, no coughing or sighing in the mind, getting all tangled up in our inner, what's going on and discursive thinking and so forth. and doesn't get involved in the myriad things when breathing out with a mind like a wall. This is a mind that practices like a wall, meaning upright and allowing things to happen, rain, sun, animals jumping on it, stones falling out, just remaining upright, not getting pushed around by that, not wishing it to be other. But as Bodhidharma's disciples said, I am always clearly aware, clearly aware.

[43:55]

This is the liberation of the reconciliation of opposites. This is the freedom of duality. And this teaching has been given to us through... many different forms, but through our Zazen practice, we need an intellectual understanding as well. And that's a Dharma door. And studying the sutras, studying the teachings until we become them, until we can draw on them as resources always. However, words do not reach it. This is inconceivable. We have to realize this for ourselves. And this teaching that's been passed on through the millennia to us of upright sitting is available to us, is offered freely.

[45:11]

offered freely out of love and compassion. The heart of these perfect wisdom teachings is love and compassion. So, feeling the connection with the sutra and our teachers who we've been fortunate enough to be exposed to all the Buddhas and ancestors. And then, as baby bodhisattvas, we can take up these teachings, just like the baby quail generated this thought of compassion for his parents and wishing for them to be safe and all the animals to be safe, and connected with that spark, that little baby spark connected with the conflagration, the great fire of vow to live for the benefit of beings from all the Buddhas and ancestors, which is not separate, non-dual.

[46:31]

That tiny spark, our Bodhisattva beginner's mind, is non-dual from... fully awakened beings. That is the Buddha nature, the limited being and the limitless being, non-duality. Well, thank you very much for your attention this morning, and I'll close now with the dedication of the positive energy that we created together by listening and reflecting on the teaching. 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.

[47:35]

For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dormer.

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