I'm going to talk first this morning about a magic monkey. I don't know if you guys have ever heard of monkey. He was a magic monkey and he was in China a long time ago. First he was a stone. He was born out of a rock. And somehow he came alive. And he couldn't understand how he got to be alive. So he tried to learn a lot about magic because he thought maybe if he learned magic he learned how to fly and he learned how to live a really long time and he learned how to fight really well I'm sorry to say and he never really exactly found the answer to what's the point and he turned into a monkey king and he lived on the island of flowers and fruit with lots of Regular monkeys.

[01:00]

He was the king of the monkeys. But he was a jerk. He was a total jerk. And he liked to fight. And he liked to argue with people. He was not a nice monkey. He wasn't a nice person. He was a jerk. And he kept getting in trouble. And so they invited him... up to heaven where all the gods were. And they thought maybe if they had him live there, he'd do better. But he didn't. He ruined a whole... There was a big dinner party, and he went in there and he threw all the plates off. He threw the food around and so on. And he stole things. It was not nice. So he went back to... the island of fruit and flowers. And he was okay there, but he got bored, so he decided to go back to heaven and make more trouble. And he did. And he kept on being a total jerk.

[02:04]

So the Buddha finally said, okay, you come up here, I've got to talk to you. And he went up there, but he continued to be a jerk, and he was mouthing off to the Buddha, and he was just acting... He was acting very... Puffed up, very proud. And so the Buddha finally said, okay, I'm going to deal with you. And Monkey said, no, you don't have any power to deal with me. I'm Monkey. And Buddha said, all right, I'll make you a deal. If you can jump off of my, the palm of my hand, which I mean, Monkey could jump in somersaults and go all the way across the whole country like that. He was that magic. So he said, hey, okay, if I win the bet, then I get to be Buddha. I get to be in charge. So Buddha said, fine. So monkey, you have to climb up on my hand, and you have to get past my hand.

[03:08]

So monkey got up on Buddha's hand, and Buddha said, okay, ready, set, go. And monkey somersaulted and flew [...] and flew. that many times. Like all the way around the whole world. And he came to what he thought was the end of the world and he saw five pillars. You know what a pillar is? Like five big stands of things. Saw five of them. There aren't any pillars in here. Anyhow, he saw five pillars and he said, this must be the end of the earth and I don't see Buddha here. So he decided that what he'd do is is he would write his name. So he wrote on the pillars, he wrote, monkey was here, like that. And then, because he was a real jerk, he peed on the pillars. He thought, that'll show him. So then, he somersaulted back.

[04:12]

And Buddha was there, and Monkey said, so, where were you? And Buddha said, I was right here, but somebody seems to have written on my hand. And Monkey went closer, and there on Buddha's hand it said, Monkey was here. And when he got really close, guess what? He smelled monkey pee. So Buddha said, okay, that's it for you, fellow. And he took him, and he... He put him underneath, Monkey was very strong and very powerful. He put him underneath a mountain. And he said, you're going to stay under this mountain until you learn your lesson. And Monkey was under that mountain for 500 years. Long time. And then finally, one day, there was a pilgrim that wanted to go to India. This monk was going to go to India to get the Buddhist teachings. and needed some help.

[05:16]

And so Quan Yin, the bodhisattva of great compassion, she took pity on Monkey and she said, I'll free you. I'll take you out from under the mountain if you promise to go with this guy to India to get the Buddhist teachings. So Monkey said, okay. So she freed Monkey. But he was still a jerk. And he had to go on this journey. And he was fighting people that he didn't have to fight. And he killed some people. And he got in a lot of trouble. And the monk said, you have to do better. And finally, monkey got better. And they went on their journey. They went to India, which was a long way. They walked. And they fought bull kings and dragons and bandits. And the monkey learned to calm down, and he learned how to be helpful. And he helped the monk, and the monk got stronger too, and eventually they made it to India, and they got the scriptures, and they had some companions along the way, Pigsy and Sandy.

[06:29]

I wonder what Pigsy's a translation of, but at any rate, Pigsy and Sandy. And... They got up, they got to India, they got the scriptures, and they came back to China with all these wonderful teachings. And the gods in the heavens said, you did it, you did everything right, and now if you would like, you can come up to heaven and live forever after. And Pigsy and Sandy said, sounds like a good deal to me. But Monkey and the monk, they decided to just keep going on. Just keep traveling on the road and being helpful to people. So monkey learned how to fight his own demons and fight other demons and be helpful. But he could still fly. That's the story of a monkey. You guys have any questions? Okay.

[07:33]

Have fun. I think the kids are, there's somebody waiting for you over there, I think. And I bet they have wonderful things for you. It's been a while since I've lectured here on Saturday morning. What time does it usually end? 11? And usually you leave some time for questions? Right. But don't you also usually leave some time for questions in here? Am I making this up?

[08:36]

No? Not usually. I make everything up. Lou is in the dining room, I think. He's laughing right now. So I want to talk about bodhisattvas. And we'll see how far I get. But I think a lot about bodhisattvas lately. A friend and I, Julia Tanike, who many of you know, we're reading the Prajnaparamita in 8,000 Lines, and it's a lot about and their classical ways to become a bodhisattva. And you're supposed to want to be a Buddha because who can help, who can be the most useful but a Buddha? But of course, you can't be attached and you can't practice in order to.

[09:40]

So forget it. But that interested me, that notion that you should want to be a Buddha. These bodhisattvas want to be Buddhas. but you don't grab for it. You just want to be useful. But it just keeps coming back to me. So what does it mean in my life to be a bodhisattva? What does it mean in your life to be a bodhisattva? We talk about it so much. We talk about these great, amazing bodhisattvas like Guan Yin. She goes down to hell and... saves all the beings there turns around and it's full again she just does it again or that koan you know what about bodhisattva kuan yin she sees the troubles of the world and one monk says yes all over her body hands and eyes and the other one said you got eighty percent throughout the body hands and eyes well gee i'm not quite there

[10:47]

Or the story about the Buddha as a bodhisattva, he was a rabbit at the time and there were some hunters that hadn't been able to catch anything and so he jumped in the fire and roasted himself for them. Well, I don't know. Or we just, you know, you think of the Buddha himself, the historical Buddha. It just, it can seem really daunting. Doesn't seem like it has that much to do with this flawed being. And I think sometimes we can dismiss it, dismiss these exemplars or manjushri with a sword that cuts through all our delusions. We can see them as so far above us, so different from us, as we make them into gods, kind of. And then we say, well, forget it. I don't think I'm going to jump into a fire for anybody. You might, actually, if it were burning down and there were a child inside, you might.

[11:50]

But at any rate, probably not for hunters. So that's one side. We put them up on such pedestals, we make them so amazing that they don't really feel like they have much to do with our lives. And yet we say, this is a bodhisattva practice. Many of us, virtually every day, Say the bodhisattva vows. I vow to save all beings. Do all good. Avoid all evil. Purify the mind. Sounds good. So one way we kind of make them into gods. And then another side of it is sometimes I think we talk about it too easily. And we make bodhisattvas like a nice person. My teacher, Sojan Roshi, I said something about wanting to be nicer. And he said, it's not about nice. It's only he could say, if you know him, he does sort of contempt very well.

[13:00]

So I kind of got that. It may well be about being kind and compassionate, but it isn't about being nice. But we talk about it that way sometimes, I think. We make bodhisattvas, We say, oh, we're all bodhisattvas. Well, we are all bodhisattvas in some sense, but it isn't easy. It isn't easy, and I don't know that it's so useful for us to talk about it glibly, to which I plead guilty along with many others. There was a quote from the Gakudo Yojinshu, Guidelines for Studying the Way, that I liked. I put it in the newsletter recently because it seemed to me to speak to this point that we really need to practice bodhisattva-ing, that it requires some effort and some commitment on our part.

[14:16]

It's not so easy. But this is from Dogen, so he's scolding a little. He says, being old or decrepit does not exclude you. Oh well. Being young or in your prime does not exclude you. Although Zhaozhou first studied when he was over 60, first studied Zhaozhou, he became a man of excellence in the ancestral lineage. Zheng's daughter had already studied long, by the time she was 13, and she was outstanding in the monastery. This is what I want to say. The power of Buddhadharma is revealed depending on whether or not there's effort and distinguished or manifest depending on whether or not it is practiced. So that's Dogen saying. Better get off your butt, get on the cushion.

[15:19]

So it's a joy to do this practice, but it is difficult sometimes. Just in those times when we need it, that's when it's difficult. My friend Laurie Sinaki, a wonderful teacher at the Berkeley Zen Center, often says, well, if I go to talk to her about some difficulty, especially maybe I'm having a difficult time with somebody, and Laurie will look at me and she'll say, well... what's bodhisattva practice? And I'll go, because it may well be that what bodhisattva practice is that I have to apologize to somebody or I have to let some grievance, a legitimate, I have to let a grievance go. I have to look at my ego and I have to let it go. It's not easy. I'm sure you have no experience of this, any of you. It's not easy.

[16:26]

And when I do it, there's great joy. I imagine you've had that experience of letting go of the ego-clinging, yucky stuff and just apologizing. or just approaching somebody. I don't know about forgiving them, maybe forgiving them if that's what you need to do, but just letting it go. What a joy. What a joy. This bodhisattva-ing in my life is a matter of everyday practice. It's a kind of a blue-collar event. It's just working. It's putting one foot in front of the other. It's letting go of grandiosity.

[17:34]

It's not, I forgive you. It's, oh well. I have some images that I find useful. One of them is a cartoon character, a comic book character who is also a movie character called Hellboy. How many of you know who Hellboy is? Not of such a worldly audience. Have you heard of Guillermo del Toro? Have you heard of Pan's Labyrinth? Same director. Pan's Labyrinth is like the art movie. Hellboy is a comic book character. Del Toro loves monsters. Loves monsters. He was interviewed on Fresh Air, which is how I heard about this, and decided I was interested in Hellboy.

[18:37]

Hellboy is a monster himself. He's bright red, and he's fireproof, and he's, what, about eight feet tall? Something like that. Does that seem about right? He's bigger. He's not like outlandish bigger than we are, but he's bigger than we are. And he's very muscular. And he was born to evil. He was born out of paranormal Nazi magic and rescued by a scientist from the paranormal department of the Department of Defense. Now, you've never heard of this, of course, but that's because It's secret. So he and the Marines go and defeat... Who was it? He's like Rasputin. He's Mara. But I can't remember.

[19:39]

He was a particular person in the Nazi hierarchy. Anyway, he was doing evil experiments, and they went and disrupted it and attacked the scientific station and killed... sort of killed this guy that was the main evil person. And lo and behold, there was this little red being scampering around like a baby. And the scientist lures him down with a... I'm telling you too much of the story. He lures him down with a... Baby Ruth. And so the little red being comes, and it's got a tail and it's got horns, you know, little incipient horns. And... And the scientist cuddles it and then takes it back to the United States and raises it within, of course, the Department of Paranormal Studies at the Defense Department. And so Hellboy, which is what the Marines nicknamed him, Hellboy grows up there and becomes a fighter for the good, the right, and the true.

[20:44]

And he shaves his horns down so he doesn't look quite so weird, and he hides his tail. And he wears clothes. And he fights monsters. And he's kind of a mythical being in the United States because the Department of Defense denies that he exists, of course. But he goes out to the subway and he smashes monsters. What's so wonderful about him, to me, is the fact that he chooses humanity. He chooses the good. He chooses to stay with us. So that's a bodhisattva characteristic, right? Bodhisattvas stay here with us. Stay with humanity rather than taking final nirvana and flying off to the ocean of all existence or something. So Hellboy stays with us. And he fights demons. I fight demons. I have demons of anger.

[21:46]

Greed. Impatience. I have to laugh when I see Shunbo-sama. One time in Shosan, somebody right before my turn was asking something about patience. I walked up there and I said, so about this patience. And the whole room laughed. And I thought, oh. So I have certain demons. I'll stop now. There are people in the room that could give you a longer list about me. Anyway, Hellboy battles demons. The thing is, he does it matter-of-factly. That's what I love about Hellboy. He doesn't jump into the subway car and say, I'll save you. He just battles demons. You could see him with a lunch pail.

[22:48]

It's wonderful. And he has a sense of humor, which is also great. And, of course, there's a climax, and he is challenged, and that bad guy has come back. Do you remember who he's supposed to be? It's like a Nazi figure, and I can't... I think it really was... I can't either, but at any rate, it doesn't really matter. Anyway, so he's come back again and created a... bigger and better monster, and eventually Hellboy has to fight that monster, and he does, and he takes a grenade belt and jumps inside the monster, and it explodes and throws him out, and he lands, he flies across the big room and lands on his back against the wall, and he says, oh, I'm going to be sore tomorrow. That's the kind of thing. It's just so matter of fact. You'd never think that they got bruised or anything, these superheroes, but Hellboy gets beat up.

[23:59]

But in the final scene with these bad people, he... His girlfriend has been stolen and taken over to the other side, and they're telling him that if he cooperates with them and unlocks the key to great evilness in the universe, then he will be reunited with her. And he's very torn. It's very painful. And the voice of the scientist comes back to him. The scientist has died. The voice of the scientist comes back to him and says, remember who you are. Remember who you are, and he doesn't do it. And I won't tell you what happens with her, but at any rate, he does not cooperate, and instead he winds up, of course, fighting this monster. Remember who you are. That's another bodhisattva notion to me.

[25:04]

Remember who you are. You are of the nature of Buddha. What is your heart's desire? What is a bodhisattva for you? What is bodhisattva in your life? Remember who you are. We're people who practice the way. What is the way? The way of a bodhisattva, the way of letting go of that ego, the way of practicing. Here's a great definition of liberation. which is that liberation is an appropriate response. Hellboy makes an appropriate response. When he gets smacked, he says, ow. When it's time to fight demons, he fights demons. When it's time to fall in love, he falls in love. He just does, he does Hellboy.

[26:04]

And sometimes he has a hard time. We bodhisattvas have a hard time sometimes. And he escapes from the Department of the Paranormal and goes out in the world and gets a six-pack and gets drunk and talks to some kid that he meets. Tells him his troubles. An appropriate response. To me, that's a bodhisattva. An appropriate response. I don't think... One of the hallmarks of a bodhisattva is called skillful means. That the... response or the approach is appropriate to the audience. And that's part of what it means, I think. But I think there's a much deeper meaning to appropriate response. I think it's that response of, oh well, this open hand, the response that has set the ego aside, the response that arises naturally and organically when we stop figuring

[27:10]

things out. When we stop thinking about what's in it for me or what she did to me. When we just respond. That's an appropriate response. That's a bodhisattva's response. I had an experience years and years ago that is emblematic for me and useful to remember. I was at an Al-Anon meeting sitting next to a woman who was talking about something, sharing something, a very, very, very painful. And she was crying and I was sitting next to her and I kept saying to myself, you should take her hand or I should take her hand. I should put my arm on her shoulder. I should this, that and the other thing. And I just didn't. I just didn't. There was something that didn't feel quite right about it. And I kind of sat there stewing and listening to her. and not doing.

[28:12]

And then at the end of the meeting, you stand up and hold hands and say a little prayer, and at the end you say, keep coming back. It works. Well, what happened after, so I was holding her hand, and at the end of that, usually drop hands, but instead I just turned to her and opened my arms, and she just came into my arms and sobbed and sobbed and sobbed, and I just... simply held her. And I didn't think about that. I didn't plan that. It just happened. That, to me, that's an appropriate response. It just happened. And I think when we set aside the self-concern, we let go of the self-concern and all of our ideas about what should happen, then the appropriate response arises organically, arises naturally.

[29:16]

I think of that sort of thing as it arises from my gut rather than from my head. That's bodhisattva in my life. An appropriate response. I have another exemplar, another story about a... a friend of mine who represents people in dependency cases. That means cases where kids are being taken away from parents. Maybe the parents are drug addicts, or there's some violence or problem in the home, or somebody thinks there is. And my friend is a lawyer, and people say, how wonderful that you represent those poor, abused children, and that you, amazing that you do it over and over again, you walk through all that pain of those kids, and you keep working with them, and you don't get pulled off of your seat in that process.

[30:28]

Because, you know, you won't be useful to those kids if you get too tangled up in all of that pain, or you get too bound up with hating their parents and not so useful. That's true. That is bodhisattva practice. However, there's a more difficult bodhisattva practice that this person does. You know, I am HO in my humble opinion. I think there should be an I am NSHO in my not so humble opinion. Because I hold this opinion a little too tightly. However, Anyway, this person also represents parents, not in the same cases, but represents the parents that are the drug addicts or the child abusers or charged with these things. You know, it happens that people get charged with things that aren't appropriate. But at any rate, represents parents that have been abusing their children and ought not to have their children at least for a while.

[31:37]

That seems to me to be really, really, really advanced practice, really difficult practice. To represent those parents and represent them wholeheartedly. Representing them may be helping them to get into treatment or something. It isn't necessarily helping them to get their kid back next week. But still, to be with those people and to be able to take them into your heart and really represent them, Even when you don't approve of their conduct, even if you see what has been happening to those kids, the kids always have a lawyer and the parents have a lawyer, so the kids are not being abandoned. But it seems to me that that's really difficult bodhisattva practice to represent those parents. And to do both, I think, is really useful. Then you don't forget. You don't forget. I want to end with a poem that to me is completely about Bodhisattva practice.

[32:52]

And then I'll take a couple of questions. This is a Marge Piercy poem. It's called To Be of Use. I don't think Bodhisattva set out to be helpful. Helping is like pity. It separates you. Just respond. Just respond. I help people. Being useful just happens. So this is Marge Piercy's poem, To Be of Use. The people I love the best jump into work headfirst without dallying in the shallows and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight. They seem to become natives of that element. the black, sleek heads of seals bouncing like half-submerged balls. I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like water buffalo with massive patience, who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done again and again.

[34:08]

I want to be with people who submerge in the task, who go into the fields to harvest, and work in a row and pass the bags along, who stand in the line and haul in their places, who are not parlor generals and field deserters, but move in a common rhythm when the food must come in or the fire be put out. The work of the world is common as mud. Botched, it smears the hands, crumbled to dust. But the thing worth doing well done has a shape that satisfies. clean and evident. Greek amphoras for wine or oil. Hopi vases that hold corn are put in museums, but you know they were made to be used. The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real. That's my bodhisattva image.

[35:13]

Do you have any questions or comments? We have a few minutes. Is it? Yes. Marge Piercy. P-I-E-R-C-Y. Yeah. Can I read your monkey story somewhere? Oh, yes. It's a very famous Chinese novel. Monkey is a trickster figure. As you might have guessed, monkey is a trickster figure. And there's a novel called Monkey, and there are many translations of it, and plays. And that particular ending, where they both decide to keep on being bodhisattvas, was in a wonderful play that I saw years ago at Zellerbach Auditorium, and I think it was called Monkey Goes to the West or something. And it was just a great production, because it was very low-tech. Buddha was up on some stairway and he came down and he had a yellow silk train and he started down and the silk kind of just was on the stairs and then he got to a certain level and the weight of it changed and it came slithering down the stairs and made this wonderful noise.

[36:29]

Anyway, I'm sure it's in the library here and I bet it's in the bookstore. It's very common. The book that I've read, the version most recently, I think they all go to heaven. But I like the way the play ended better. So that's my skillful means. Yeah. Anything else? One, two, and then we'll stop. And we can talk about this more in the back of the dining room. in a situation to be content and respect people to help themselves and to be cold-hearted and to sit and not react. That's the hardest decision. Well, yeah. I mean, cold-hearted is not useful.

[37:32]

But getting pulled off your seat is not useful either. And there is something in between when we can be still and let go of the ego and do our homework. You know, Reb says, compassion is stay close and do nothing. And a friend of mine wrote a wonderful book about hospice practice called the same thing. Stay close and do nothing. And it doesn't just mean stay close to the person dying, for example. Stay close to this one. Know what's going on here. So then you can be useful. Because if we don't stay close right here and take the breath and know our own demons, we're in trouble. I have a koan that is death and dying. I have to be careful not to insert myself too much into somebody else's dying process. Because that's my greed. So I know that about myself, so I work with that. Which doesn't mean I don't

[38:35]

I'm not useful, I am useful, but I'm more useful because I know that. I know that particular, that's demon. So it's just a small one these days. Does that make sense? Yeah? Is the correcting of that pill away appropriate for 10-year-olds, for example? I think so. D is PG-13. Oh, all right. Well, maybe you should look at it. Or maybe it depends on the 10-year-olds. There is violence. It's cartoony kind of violence. It's not, what's his name, Tarantino kind of violence at all. And there's a little bit of, there's some kissing. There's not a lot of sex in it. I don't know about language. He's Hellboy. He's Hellboy. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[39:40]

Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you should look at them. They're wonderful language. It depends on how, you know, when I saw these kids, they're very young, and I thought, uh-oh. But I think it is. Look at the books and see what you, you know, you have to know the kid and have a sense of it, but that's... In China, they are red to kids, and they're Chinese operas. My godson is half Chinese and grew up in Beijing, and I have photographs of him with his Monkey King outfit. He loved Monkey. Yeah, this really has to be the last one. Pertaining to the Monkey King, a very good story that came out a couple of years ago was Corbin Kingdom. It shows... There's that Tibetan movie.

[40:42]

I don't know if we ever were able to get it with subtitles. That was wonderful. Remember that one where Okamura wound up having to sort of narrate it? Yeah. Anyway, so there's lots. If you Google, just say, just Google monkey, you'll find lots and lots of versions of monkey.

[40:59]

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