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. Is it warm in here or is it just me? Hi, my name is Greg Feng. I'm the Tanto, which means Head of Practice, here at Tazahara. I'm very happy to be talking to you tonight. Before I begin, I just want to thank and acknowledge my teacher, Sojin Roshi, Sojin Mel Weitzman Roshi. Thank him for his teaching and guidance.

[01:01]

And I just want to say that my talk here tonight is just to encourage you in your practice. Nothing more. I have no other aim in being here tonight than to encourage you in your practice. Some of you might have noticed I always say that. I always say that. When I was... Before I moved back to... I was living here previously for some years, and I left to become treasurer of Zen Center. And in my office, Zen Center, in the accounting office, I had an assistant at one point, my assistant, Trevor Maloney, who's now the Eno at Austin Zen Center, Trevor, a dear friend and a... Big help, very helpful person. I was talking to him and I was... I had to make a presentation to the board of directors of San Francisco Zen Center, which I don't know why, because they're really nice people.

[02:16]

They're a very, very nice bunch of people. Always made me very, very nervous. I did not like talking to the board. And so Trevor was trying to make me feel better, you know, and he said, here's what you do, Greg. Just tell them you want to thank Sojan Roshi, and your talk is just to encourage them in your practice. I did not try that, but I might have. So my talk tonight is actually totally just a continuation of the last talk I gave about a month ago. which, at the end of which, Reverend Judith Randall asked a question. I can't remember the exact question, but she said, what do bodhisattvas do when, you know, whatever, things aren't going your way? What do bodhisattvas do? That's what I remember.

[03:16]

And I said, oh, that's maybe another talk. And she said, okay, so this is that talk. What bodhisattvas do? This is that talk. And it was also pointed out to me, my last talk was about bodhisattva training. I said, you know, put forward the notion that what we're doing here at Tazahara is bodhisattva training. And then somebody told me, you know, you mentioned that the Lotus Sutra says we're all bodhisattvas and we're all of the nature to become Buddha. but you never really explain what a bodhisattva is. So I'll just give you the sort of commoner garden Buddhist dictionary definition of bodhisattva. Bodhi means enlightened or enlightening, and sattva means being. So it's enlightened being or enlightening being, a being who works for the enlightenment of others, actually, is what a bodhisattva is.

[04:22]

Sometimes it's understood that bodhisattvas help to carry people over to other shore, from samsara, which is this world of suffering, to nirvana, which is perfect world, from imperfect world to perfect world. Also, bodhisattvas are well known for vowing to... delay or postpone their own personal liberation or enlightenment in order to remain in this world and work for other beings, possibly because they understand that their enlightenment cannot be separate from other beings' enlightenment. So basically, being of benefit to others, someone who has made this commitment can be seen as a bodhisattva.

[05:38]

So we live in a place called the world, whether it's perfect or imperfect, whether you see it as perfect or imperfect. This is, you know, the world. in Buddhist literature that's sometimes called the Saha world. Saha meaning endurance. The world of birth and death. I've never been around someone giving birth, but I understand it hurts like heck. That's what I've been told, that it's really painful. And I think it's... no joyride for the baby either I think it's a pretty big deal and death I have been with a number of people as they were dying and you can see this too it's a serious matter birth and death sometimes we talk about the throes of birth and death

[06:55]

being in the throes of death, T-H-R-O-E-S, wonderful Anglo-Saxon word. It comes from, the root of that word is actually a word that means suffering. So this is the world we live in, you know. Like it or not, deny it or not, when you die, you die. You betcha. And this world is a world of up and down and right and wrong, a world of causality, a world of duality, a world of cause and effect, cause and effect also known as karma, happens in this Saha world.

[08:00]

So, I have a lot of trust in cause and effect. I believe that if I jump off of the roof of the dining room dorm into Tassara Creek, I will definitely break a lot of bones. I trust gravity works. I trust that, you know, cause and effect works. That's the way things go in this Saha world. So bodhisattvas, humans, Saha world is also sometimes explained as the world where enlightened beings and deluded beings mix it up together. They can sort of join each other and kind of mix it up. So it's also the world of practice. Bodhisattvas live in this world, and they work in this place called the human world, where we make choices.

[09:12]

In the world of causality, we get to make choices. Every day we're making choices. I can choose to go to the back door or not. shall I go to the back drawer? Okay, I'll go to the back drawer. And then I'm in the back drawer, and I can say, shall I have a banana or some of these pancakes? I make a choice. Maybe the pancakes are what I really need. But I have to make the choice. We make these choices every day, all kinds of choices, every minute, constantly making choices. Someone may choose to have a drink or not. The choices we make have consequences. Choices we make have consequences. It's cause and effect. So we humans are very creative animals.

[10:15]

Very creative. Mostly we create suffering. but we create all kinds of things. And because this saha world, this world of cause and effect, this world of choices, is also a world of transformation, bodhisattvas make their choices predicated on seeing into impermanence, seeing into the interdependent nature of all existence. So bodhisattvas create liberation. Some of us have been chanting the Lotus Sutra together.

[11:22]

That's what this book on the altar is. Most recently, we chanted Chapter 8, which is a prediction of enlightenment for the 500 disciples. There's actually lots of predictions of enlightenment in the Lotus Sutra. This is where Buddha, Lord Buddha, is saying, you are going to become a Buddha in such and such a place. He starts out slow. He starts out actually with his major disciples, the four major disciples, because they're like, oh wow, Buddha's enlightened, you know, I wonder if we can be enlightened. And so he says to them, yes, actually you can be. You can do this. And then he says to this...

[12:26]

another one of his disciples, Purna Maitrayaniputra, Maitrayaniputra, Purna Maitrayaniputra, kind of overhears. And he's like, I want some of that. I'd like to be enlightened too. I wonder if Buddha's going to give me a prediction of enlightenment. He thinks this to himself. And sure enough, it comes to pass. Buddha says, Purna, by the way, by employing expedient means, has brought benefit to immeasurable hundreds and thousands of living beings and has converted immeasurable asamkhya's of persons, that's really a whole lot, immeasurable asamkhya's, that's a lot, of persons, causing them to turn toward anuttara samyaksambodhi. That's a fine... Sanskrit mouthful, which basically means unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment.

[13:31]

The ultimate. Okay, so where's the ultimate? Zen school says, right here. This is it. But that's kind of hard for us to accept sometimes. Most of the time, maybe. Kind of hard for us to accept. So he says, He's causing them to turn toward Anuttara Samyaksambodhi. I really like that. That caught me when we were chanting it. Turn toward Anuttara Samyaksambodhi. You know, that feels kind of doable. I can turn toward complete perfect enlightenment. You know, I might not be... Shoot, I don't know. So this business of prediction of enlightenment... is an example of the Buddha's skillful means. There's chapter two in the Lotus Sutra. It's called Upaya. Skill and means. Skillful means.

[14:34]

It's interesting to see how people react to the news that they are bodhisattvas. I can say this because I've actually done it. I have... practice discussion with people here, and sometimes I say, you know, you're a bodhisattva, and they're like, no, no, no, you got the wrong person, and you don't know me. So, that didn't work, you know, okay, note to self, didn't work. So, Buddha, Buddha sort of, you realize on this sort of, hoaxing, as it were. I debated with myself for some while today whether I was going to tell this story or not. I mean, because it's a cute story, but maybe you'll see, maybe you'll agree with me and see, oh yeah, that has relevance to what he's trying to explain.

[15:42]

That might, yeah, okay, I can see that maybe. I lived briefly well, for three and something years, I lived up in Portland, Oregon, and I was looking for a place to live, had three dogs, and so I was looking for a place to rent. And I found a house to rent with my three dogs, and nice landlady owned the house, and she was... nice person and she liked dogs and also her life was a little chaotic and she said oh yes you can you can keep your dogs in this house that's fine and can you keep my dog too because I have to go to Seattle right now and I can't bring my dog I'll give you money for dog food here if you're like yeah sure sure

[16:48]

What's one more dog? That's fine. We didn't mind that. So this dog was very nice. It was a very old dog. I'm not going to say the name of the dog because, you know, this talk may go on the Internet and, you know, I want to protect the innocent. But she was a very sweet old dog. But she was pretty unhappy because, like that, her owner left and... these new people and these new dogs came on the scene. And she was, you know, old and set in her ways and pretty arthritic, actually. And she was not a happy dog. She kind of froze up. She just, you know, she was still alive, but she was just kind of like frozen in a way. And we didn't know what to do about that and just sort of... letter B seemed to be, you know, she needed to adjust and have her space.

[17:51]

Definitely she needed that at the least. You know, the other dogs related to me as the alpha dog, but I had another, you know, my oldest dog always made it clear that when I wasn't around, you know, she was the boss. So then, you know, here's this new dog, and she was just like, I don't fit in, you know. And, um, So at some point, shortly after we moved in, we were just sitting in the living room and kind of loving the dogs up. We were just loving them, petting them and talking to them. You know, our dogs petting them and talking to them and just loving them and telling them what good dogs they were. And the older dog got up and walked over to us kind of stiff and arthritically and just like... Oh. I'd like some of that. Can I get some of that? And so we included her in, you know.

[18:52]

But we didn't do anything about it, you know. We just relied on the miracle of dependent origination. And I think, you know, that bodhisattvas kind of work this way. Bodhisattvas don't force things. They just... help. They help. They have this basic attitude of helpfulness and friendliness. And then, you know, beings sense that and it's just like, oh, oh, oh yeah, there's some of that love and compassion going around. I'll have some of that. Yeah. So Buddha goes on to say to Purna, about Purna, rather. He says, little by little, he will become fully endowed with the way of the Bodhisattva. So that kind of, you know, that's maybe doable.

[19:57]

That's maybe, we can handle that truth. Little by little, you know, we will become endowed with the way of the Bodhisattva. As I said before, you know, this is Bodhisattva training. If it's too much to think of yourself, it might be some arrogance to think of you. I'm also a bodhisattva. I'm going to save you. We're bodhisattvas in training. So what bodhisattvas do, among other things, is they practice the paramitas. These are the practices of a bodhisattva. The term paramita has two etymologies. two translations, they're both popular. One etymology is commonly translated as perfection. So we chant the Heart of Great Perfect Wisdom Sutra. It derives from the word parama, meaning highest, most distant, and chief, primary, most excellent.

[21:02]

And another, more creative, yet widely reported, according to a scholar named Donald Lopez, divides paramita into para and mita, with para meaning beyond, the further bank, shore, or boundary, and mita meaning that which has arrived. So it means that which has gone beyond or that which has crossed over to the other shore, crossing over to the other shore. I spoke before about, you know, samsara and nirvana. So this is how it's commonly understood, crossing over the shore from samsara to nirvana. But what does that mean exactly? I was talking once to a group of prisoners in San Quentin, and excuse me if you've heard this story before, but I love this story so much, it's, for me, kind of a modern Zen koan. This was on occasion, actually, I was the only non-San Quentin person there, and I was meeting with these men, and we were talking about the paramitas, and I talked about, you know, this etymology of crossing over to the other shore, carrying over to the other shore, and how, you know, it's commonly understood, samsara nirvana, crossing over.

[22:30]

And I asked them, I said, how do you understand the other shore? And without missing a beat, two guys, not one, but two guys point down to the earth. Or rather, they're pointing at the concrete floor. And I was like, whoa, that's pretty cool. You mean right here, San Quentin State Prison? That's the other shore? That's Nirvana? They're like... That's pretty fierce practice. I've been in most parts of San Quentin and it's pretty hellish. It's kind of the opposite of Tazahara. Yeah. It's a hell realm. This year. This is the other shore.

[23:32]

Right here. That means not separating. Not separating from what's happening. Not separating from what's right in front of you. My teacher, Sojan Roshi, says it might help if you understand you have one foot on each shore. Bodhisattvas work and live in this world of up and down and cause and effect and right and wrong. And, you know, what I do has consequences. But they have a foot on the other shore. Katagiri Broshi used to say, you just go back and forth, super speed, super speed. Absolute relative, absolute relative, absolute relative, absolute relative. Not separating. not separating from either one. So there's specific practices that are sort of advised and offered that bodhisattvas take up.

[24:44]

These are the various, it's usually understood as a list of six. There's also a list of ten when base ten math became very popular in India, but originally there were six paramitas, That's true. The sixth being generosity, ethical conduct, patience or forbearance, energy, enthusiasm, zazen, meditation, and wisdom. In Sanskrit it's dana, shila, kishanti, virya, dhyana, and prajna. these are all the practices that bodhisattvas take up to enact not separating, to enact one foot on either shore. Actually, I mentioned prajna first because I said that bodhisattvas see into impermanence.

[25:53]

They see into the interdependent existence of everything. how nothing has a separate existence. This is sometimes called emptiness. In Sanskrit, shunyata. So seeing that, practicing that seeing, letting that inform our life and our choices, that's prajna. Actually, Suzuki Roshi called the Paramitas Dana Prajnaparamita and Sheila Prajnaparamita, etc., because the practice of generosity is informed by knowing the emptiness of the three wheels, giver, receiver, and gift, as we say in our meal chant. It's not separate. So taking that up, then it's easy to practice generosity. But when it's not easy to practice generosity,

[26:54]

You know, we do it anyway, and it helps. It'll help us. Actually, generosity, making offerings, that's first on the list. Bodhisattvas, traditionally, they offer material goods, they offer the teaching, and they offer non-fear. As I was told in my chaplaincy training, sometimes the best thing you can do is stay close and do nothing. You know, like we did with that dog. Sweet doggy. It was so distressed. Shila is ethical conduct, recognizing that what we do in this Saha world really matters. That we can create suffering and we can create liberation and we have a choice in the matter. Sometimes in San Quentin we talk about the Dharma according to Charlie Manson. Most of you may know who Charlie Manson was, is, because he lives there.

[28:01]

He lives in San Quentin. He lives on East Block. And he was a person. He had some pretty powerful experiences under LSD. Under the influence of LSD, he was like, it's all one, man. It's all one. Yeah, yeah. And he had a cult of followers who were very... taken with his teaching. He said, it's all one and it doesn't matter what I do. So, we call that falling down on the side of the absolute in a very tragic way. It matters. It matters what you do. I think, after all these years, he might have come to that understanding. He's still on East Block. means patience or forbearance, and Thich Nhat Hanh also translates it as inclusiveness. So this is being able to practice with the things that hurt us, actually, and being able to include the painful things as all a part of this world and working with it.

[29:21]

facing it directly and being able to work with it, as painful as it can be. Other things, other people, and, you know, also the pain inside. And virya is exertion or enthusiasm. And as I was saying in work circle, regarding the half-day sittings that are coming up, practice of virya promotes practice of virya. The more you practice energy, the more energy you have to offer others. This great Tibetan teacher named Sakyong Mipam Rinpoche was talking about virya paramita. He said, we can exert ourselves endlessly. A bodhisattva looks up at the sky and says, after I'm done with planet Earth, I'm going to get on that spaceship and go help all those beings on other planets. bringing that attitude to our practice, you know, just, just, yes, yes, yes, all right, I'll do it, yes.

[30:34]

And jhana, you know, I said, that's zen, that's zen. Jhana means meditation. Zen means jhana, means meditation. This practice that we put a lot of emphasis on. Suzuki Roshi, our founder, he said, sooner or later we may die. Yes. Sooner or later we may die. And we will go and we will go to the same place we go when we sit. I agree. Sooner or later we may die. and we will go to the same place we go when we sit. He also said, there's no outside or no inside when you sit zazen, just one existence. So we practice this every day at Tazara, as a matter of fact.

[31:42]

We practice this just one existence, and we discover there's no way to find individual self. You might discover that. You may discover that, I should say. This so-called individual self that we are so concerned with protecting and feeding and clothing. Try to find it. And you may discover that... clinging to this illusion of solidity creates suffering. You may. Zazen, I think, will help you to do that. So, this is a big deal. It's a big commitment. It sounds like a lot because

[32:47]

It is a lot. It's taking full responsibility for our lives and then saying, how can I help? That's the deal. And we do this by the power of vow. So over and over, we recite these bodhisattva vows at the Zen Center. In fact, when we finally get to the end of this talk, we'll recite them again. And we recite them every month in the full moon ceremony. Beings are numberless. I vow, I vow to save them. This is another form of skillful means, you know. We just recite this over and over and over. Sometimes it's just words, but it's sinking in, you know, it's sinking in. It's sinking in this quality, this actual life of vow.

[33:50]

So I wanted to share an exchange that Suzuki Roshi had with a student. This is from the book Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness. Suzuki Roshi talks on the Sandokai. And the student says, you know, this bodhisattva vow, I can't get behind it. It's ridiculous. It makes no sense. And Suzuki Roshi says, if sentient beings are numberless or desires are inexhaustible, you cannot say, I vow to save them. Our promise is very silly. It doesn't make any sense. I agree with you. But still, you do it. Why? Because you don't feel so good if you don't work for others. We make the four vows, but what we mean is more than that. tentatively, for the sake of convenience, we say just the four. But I really, truly feel lucky that we have inexhaustible desires and numberless sentient beings to save. And also, that it is almost impossible to save each of them in terms of, I save you.

[34:58]

You cannot save in that way. Whether this is possible or not, whether this is Buddhist or Bodhisattva way or Hinayana way or Mahayana way is not the question. Anyhow, Do it. To continue this kind of practice is our vow. And then the student says, brave student says, when I promise to do something, it has to have some meaning. If it doesn't have some meaning, I can't say it. And Suzuki Roshi says, that is your arrogance. So, I also said it might be arrogant to say, oh, I'm a big hotshot bodhisattva. But, you know, it's also arrogant to say, oh, no, not me. You got the wrong person. That's just the other side of arrogance. we're running out of time but the good news is that's all I wanted to say the bad news is I don't I didn't leave any time for questions so I'm sorry about that I wanted to leave you with a quote from my guy Shantideva who was an Indian monk

[36:36]

Chantideva was an Indian Buddhist monk, a scholar, philosopher, and talented Sanskrit poet. He may have lived sometime between 685 and 763. This book is very famous. It's called the Bodhicaryavatara. They're loosely translated, A Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life. So, if you want to find out more about what bodhisattvas do, I recommend you read this book. So I just want to read you a short quote from Chapter 8, which is the perfection of meditative absorption. That would be Jnana Paramita, right, if you're listening. Jnana Paramita, practice of the perfection of Zazen. But the line is line 129 in Chapter 8. All those who suffer in the world do so because of their desire for their own happiness. All those happy in the world are so because of their desire for the happiness of others.

[37:42]

I'll say that again. All those who suffer in the world do so because of their desire for their own happiness. All those happy in the world are so because of their desire for the happiness of others. And the next line begins... Why say more? Truly. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma and For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[38:44]

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