Good morning. Good, good morning. So nice to see everyone. I love it when the sendo has people in it. So. A monk asked Dasui, when the fire at the end of an eon rages through and the whole universe is destroyed, is this destroyed? or not?" Dasui said, destroyed. The monk then said, then it goes along with that. And Dasui said, it goes along with that. A monk asked Longji, when the fire at the end of the eon rages through and the whole universe is destroyed, is this destroyed or not? Long Zhe said, not destroyed.

[01:04]

The monk said, why is it not destroyed? And Long Zhe said, because it is the same as the universe. OK? I'll go on. So these conversations between teachers and monks of long ago are somewhat timely given what we have been going through here in California for the past few years. I heard someone describe what's happening here as the beginning of the Pyrocene, the age of fire, during which year after year these fires will persistently devour vast acreage of our precious land and our human habitations world round. Because of our shared experience as residents of California, for those of you who are, who are you? Residents? Uh-huh. Many. OK. So I was looking forward to talking with all of you today, particularly those of you here in Marin who experienced together this shutdown of our electricity a few weeks back.

[02:17]

Do you remember that? Kind of amazing, wasn't it? So one reason I was looking forward to this conversation has to do with the opportunity to discuss basic Buddhist principles, such as impermanence, no self, and suffering, also known in Buddhist circles as the facts of life. However, before those thoughts had fully formed into lessons in my mind, Two of the children who live here provided me with an alternative perspective on what had seemed to be nothing more than a justifiable source of irritation and anxiety. So without minimizing how utterly devastating these fires have been to our neighbors in the north and certainly our neighbors in the south who've lost their homes and their possessions, the story that I want to tell this morning is more about stories themselves.

[03:18]

and how our stories may or may not be related to reality. And what's more, how a very simple shift in the narrative can turn us away from kind of gloomy and excessive sobriety to the frontiers of humor and play, such as this shift did for me. So here it is. So during the recent blackouts as I was going about the valley and formally checking in on some of the residents, one of the moms told me that evenings in her home had become utterly delightful. How so? I asked. And she said, as soon as the sun went down, her two kids, both under the age of six, would get their owl lanterns down and gleefully prepare for an evening of playing Power Outage, their new favorite game. There were lots of rules and imaginary helpers, but the basic game had to do with not having electricity and all the things that not having electricity no longer allowed them to do.

[04:27]

For example, no TV or lights, no hot showers or refrigerators, no heaters or washing machines, no electric automobiles, grocery stores, clothing stores, toy stores, restaurants, gas stations, and for some of us, most importantly, no toast. So then she told me about another of their favorite games called earthquake drill, which they had just learned in preschool. So they would take all of their tiny little play people and make a great big house for them, and when everything was in place, they'd shake the house yelling, earthquake, until everything fell apart. So coincidentally, or maybe not, our senior Dharma teacher, Tenshin Roshi, spoke to our community during the outages about that very unpleasant human emotion called fear, something I know we grown-ups are well acquainted with when faced with the very dangers that those kids had turned into a game.

[05:33]

Reb talked about how common the experience of fear is for our species. I'm sure you've all noticed. Awake or asleep, we are ever vigilant. in defending ourselves from the inevitability of an attack. Some part of us just doesn't ever go to sleep, but maintains a watchful guard against all those bumps and tiny scratches in the night, those night crawlers and vampire bats. And because of our fears of an attack, we grown-ups have devised various methods for preparing our own children to become grown-ups like us. although leaving out much of the gory detail of what might actually happen to them should our defensive systems fail, as they seem near to doing these past few weeks. I think maybe we can all remember the types of drills that were visited on us as children. For those of you who, like me, went to school back in the 1950s, during what was euphemistically called the Cold War,

[06:44]

The drills we practiced for were in preparation for atomic bombs. We would get under our desks, face away from the windows, shield our eyes against the light that would cause us to go blind. No one told us what would happen next, after the fire at the end of the eon had raged on through. Is this destroyed or not? Well, having had a dear friend who was in grammar school in Nagasaki when an atomic bomb did go off, that part about what happens next, the part that my friend saw as he walked alone through the city, was not something we would want to share with our own young children, or anybody, really. And best if such things never happen at all, as we all continue to wish and to pray. as if.

[07:48]

So back to children's games. I feel that the opportunity we had to think more deeply about our homes and our valuables truly was a lesson in Buddhist teaching, the one having to do with the suffering that comes from our attachments to our objects, to other people, and to our own precious lives. Attachments that have both a healthy and life-sustaining aspect, and an equally unhealthy and death-denying aspect. In my experience as both a practitioner of Buddhism for many years and now as a teacher, this term attachment and its conjoined twin, detachment, are often misunderstood to the point of generating a kind of nihilism, from the Latin for nothing or meaninglessness. or who cares, which in turn can lead to a belief in the possibility of simply running away from it all, of finding a safe place for oneself at a safe distance from the mayhem surrounding us, as if from the one true and omnipresent fire called our own mortality.

[09:04]

For the young Prince Siddhartha, who became a Buddha, had done just that. He ran away from home. hoping to escape from what he had learned was the fate of us all. Old age, sickness, and death. And ironically, it was running away from home that brought so many people to California in the first place. The rush for gold, the rush for jobs, and right in their wake, the rush to work and to play, and to build our dream houses on hillsides made of fire starter. But then, as my therapist used to say to me, so what's a girl to do? What are our choices, really? Do we play through or do we quit? And they've both been tried. I'm sure all of us at some point in our lives have tried these different ways. Or perhaps we can try something entirely different. The very thing that the young prince eventually discovered. We can sit still. We can calm down.

[10:09]

and we can help each other as best we can. And if nothing else, we can console one another. I don't know if you all remember that amazing scene from, I think it was Toy Story 2, when all the toys were trapped in this downward spiral at the recycling center, remember that? And soon they would be melted down and perhaps reshaped into something entirely new, or so one might hope. They're in the theories of reincarnation. Well, as these toys were trying to escape from the fire pit, they realized that there was no way out. And so they stopped struggling. They looked wistfully around at one another. They smiled sweetly, and they held hands. All together now, not destroyed. Why, the monk said, is it not destroyed? because it is the same as the universe. Now, needless to say, there was a rescue of the toys that took place right at the end, for those of you who didn't see the film.

[11:17]

And that was very nice. But that's not the part of a story that touched my all-too-human heart. It was their recognition of themselves as the one, the one and only precious life. So here's another story about fire that I find useful in orienting myself to the challenging situation we are all finding ourselves in simply being alive. The word fire itself is a common metaphor in Buddhist teaching to indicate not only the transient nature of reality, but also the transient nature of words themselves as we use them in an effort to make sense of reality. And how is that going? There's a Zen saying that words don't reach it. Words don't reach it. And that being so, as words fail us, we may even try to stop reality itself from changing in the ways we don't like, to stop aging and sickness and death, to stop the loss of our reputations or of our livelihoods or our loved ones or of our sanity.

[12:31]

And when all else fails, to rage against the rising seas and the dying embers in the dark, dark night. So Zazen is modeled on the example of the Buddha himself who sat upright in the midst of flames, the ones he called impermanence, watching quietly as all notions of the world and of himself continuously melted away like snowflakes on a hot iron skillet. Observing reality in such a way without complaint is basically what is meant by being Buddha, being awake. And as I mentioned before, when I asked my teacher during a long session of meditation, what do I do with the fear I have about transiency, meaning death, meaning my own? And he responded, you have to get used to it. the true nature of reality and the inalterable facts of life, which might give one the impression that Zen can provide a quick fix for whatever is troubling us.

[13:43]

Get used to it. And in many ways it does, but the quick fix doesn't last either. Fear, just like the seasonal wildfires in California, will always return. But until it does, it is not unusual to imagine that we can abide right there, at those moments in which the present moment, for a moment, is sparkling and clear. We've all had such moments where there's utter contentment, you know, utter translation, which the word nirvana can be said to mean contentment, whether sitting in the zendu or by the ocean or whether gazing into a fire itself. Nirvana. And it's at those moments that we might imagine that this very mind is Buddha. Which it is. And that is the truth. The ultimate truth.

[14:44]

And yet there is another truth, a relative truth, that is always partnering with the first. And that's what I'm going to talk about now. It's one of my favorite stories that I spoke about a few years ago when Santa Barbara was on fire. This is case 7, a koan from the Blue Cliff Record. A monk named Wei Zhao said to Fa Yan, Wei Zhao asked the teacher, what is Buddha? Fa Yan said, you are Wei Zhao. I remember many, many years ago when a car of very senior monks arrived at Tassajara for our version of a graduation ceremony called the Shuso Ceremony, in which the head student of the practice period, who for us this fall, by the way, is Ted Brown, who is somewhere. Where are you, Ted? Ted! Wave! Ted usually is sitting here on my right. Anyways, way in the back waving. So Ted Brown has been sitting here quietly for the last many weeks and will be for a few weeks more

[15:53]

Anyway, as the seniors were getting out of their cars and heading into the center of Tassajara, one of the larger male priests burst through the crowd yelling, you people are holding me back. And we all laughed, of course. We're still laughing. And because you people are holding me back, right? That's really other than you people that's getting in the way of us realizing our deepest wish, our wish to awaken to our own true nature. to the true nature of reality that is, as the Buddha said and saw, always right here before our very eyes. According to the Buddha's teaching, the greatest impediment to awakening is our unconscious conditioning, that we are children of riches who have temporarily fallen into poverty. It says that in the Lotus Sutra. meaning that we have simply wandered off and forgotten who we really are and what we are here on this earth to do.

[16:57]

And although we all arrived here on the planet unscripted, we were soon given lines and language and various clues to our social standing, to who we think we are. Clues based on such things as hair and skin color, wealth, our apparent gender, or our parents' ownership of property. And those clues, in turn, created our social conditioning, which is collectively reinforced through our lives by systems of education, health care, the entertainment industry, civil law, and, when necessary, by the police. So conditioning, as we are becoming more deeply aware, has resulted in generations of injustice for the many and privileges So this we have been studying and will continue to study for the rest of our lives, not only for our own sake, but for the sake of generations to follow.

[18:02]

It's the children who are the most vulnerable to the limitations of social conditioning, which invariably flies in the face of their childhood dreams, whatever they might be. I'm wondering if any of you can remember what she wanted to be when you were a child. And how did that go? Did you get there? Are you there now? Have any of you realized what you wanted to be? Maybe if you have, did any of you dream of being Zen monks? I certainly didn't. Great surprise. But I have met a few children like that, you know, and I wonder where they are, if they made it, if they're here, if they're coming. Or maybe you were disappointed as you grew older on discovering the limitations of your gender, your family name, your lack of wealth, your athletic prowess, or simply because those other people are holding you back. So how many years did it take before another possibility arrived, such as the image of an awakened one, a Buddha, and the teachings of awakening, to re-inspire our dreams?

[19:15]

Buddha is a shorthand for whatever we imagine to be the wisest and kindest and happiest human form possible. And for a Buddhist, that's the top of the mountain. It's a character. It's not a thing. It's a quality of a person. Who we admire is a good indication of how we are planning to get there, to the top of the mountain. A good indication of our aspiration, or as may be true for you, as for many, of having no aspirations at all, of having no one that you truly admire. I propose that along with the other big questions to be asked about this precious life, who is there left to admire is a very good one. And yet as our own founder, Suzuki Roshi, cautioned us, keep looking, keep opening, and don't settle on anything or anyone until questions themselves have come to an end. And even then, be suspicious, not only of those people, but especially of yourself.

[20:22]

If there is the slightest discrepancy, the way is as distant as the heavens are from the earth. Still, it is hard not to grow impatient as living beings when faced with the fact that we have been offered the deepest truth about creation by the Buddhas and ancestors, an all-inclusive truth from which none of us will ever escape or be abandoned. And that one truth is the one that's happening right now. That this very place and this very time is the top of the mountain. This very mind is Buddha, is awakening itself. Which is very easy to say, and I just said it. But I know and you know that there's a catch. that something supremely subtle and ominously near is blocking our view of ourselves and each other as Buddha, which is exactly what drove the question that the monk, Wei Chao, was asking of his teacher.

[21:29]

What is Buddha? I don't see it. The teacher responds, understanding his student's pain. You are, Wei Chao. And yet in answer to Wei Chao asking what is Buddha, Fayan doesn't say you are. He says, you are Hui Chao. And what do we make of that? You are Hui Chao, in my way of understanding this story, is connecting the monk, the human being, with all of its karmic conditioning to his true identity as Buddha, like the left and right foot in walking or like arrow points meeting in midair. Ultimate truth and relative truth... It's in moments like that when Buddha's and sentient beings conjoin as one. What is Buddha? You are Hui Chao. Or I'm being read a slightly different way. What is Buddha? You are Hui Chao. Therein lies the power of language to pivot and thereby to either trap us or set us free.

[22:36]

which brings me to the other teaching story that is recounted in the same koan by a monk by the name of Tse, also a student of Zen master Fayen. Tse has been staying at Fayen's monastery for quite some time, but never asked to enter the teacher's room for special instruction, what in Japanese is called dogsan. So Fayen asks Tse that very question, why haven't you come to enter my room? And Tse replies, don't you know, teacher, when I was at Ching Lin's place, I had an entry into the true nature of reality. In other words, I realized that I am Buddha. Fai Yan said, well, try to recall it for me. So it says, well, I asked the teacher, what is Buddha? And Master Lin said, the fire god comes seeking fire. So Fai Yan says, well, good words, but I'm afraid you've misunderstood. Can you say something more for me? So Tsa says, well, the fire god is in the province of fire, and he's seeking fire.

[23:41]

Likewise, I am Buddha, yet I went on searching for Buddha. Fayan said, sure enough, you have misunderstood. Containing his anger, Tsa left the monastery and went off across the river. Fayan said, this man can be saved if he comes back. If he doesn't return, he can't be saved. So out there on the road, Sa thought to himself, Fayan is a teacher of 500 people. How could he deceive me? So he turned around and he went back again to call on Fayan, who said to him, just ask me and I will answer you. Thereupon Sa asked, what is Buddha? Fayan said, the fire god comes seeking fire. At these words, Sa, was greatly enlightened. So what's going on here? It sounds like the student and the teacher are just going around in circles.

[24:45]

But is that all there is? I would propose that what Se has done is to attach himself to the ultimate truth, that he is Buddha. The ultimate truth is true, but what he's turned away from is the relative truth, the truth of his own limited human form. And as with all of us here, our limited human form is the only means by which Buddha can be seen, heard, or known by us or by anyone else. Just this person. Just like that. Just like this. Just like each and every one of you. Understanding our dual nature, on one hand, we are Buddha, and on the other hand, you are Hui Chao. is to have arrived at the summit of the mystic peak, the place where human beings and Buddhas come to play. And where is that place? asks the teacher. Don't know, replies the monk.

[25:47]

Well, says the teacher, since not knowing is nearest, perhaps it's right here beneath your dancing feet. So this all-inclusive miracle, from which none of us has ever arrived or left, the very miracle that is happening right now, where the river of itself is blue and the flowers of themselves are red, where this very mind may never notice that it is Buddha, until and when, as if from out of nowhere, the one true thing is heard, as in this poem by our founding ancestor Dogenzenji. This slowly drifting cloud is pitiful. What dream walkers we humans have become. Awakened, I hear the one true thing, black rain on the roof of Fukakusa Temple, the very rain that we, right now, are waiting for.

[26:49]

Thank you all so much. Attention equally extend to every...

[27:03]

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