Good morning. Can you hear back there? Is it okay? It's a beautiful summer morning and on a Interdependence Day weekend. I've been away in Texas for about 10 or 11 days. I got back two days ago. I was on a kind of Zen bus person's tour of Zen centers in Dallas, Houston, and Austin, which was wonderful, but I'm really glad to be back in the land of natural air conditioning. It was so hot there, but the people were warm, physically and emotionally. So while I was going about, I was kind of circling around the themes that I'm going to talk about today, which is basically a practical approach to bodhisattva action, as sort of filtered through A. H. Dogen, the 13th century Zen master who brought

[01:28]

Soto Zen, or Zen from China to Japan, whose picture is here. He's kind of our key ancestor, leading to Suzuki Roshi and to Sojin Roshi and to all of us. So maybe I should say something very briefly. I'm assuming that you know what Bodhisattva means. It means enlightened being or enlightening being or enlightenment being and this was what evolved in the in the Mahayana school even though it existed. There were Bodhisattvas you find them in the early sutras and in the Jataka tales of the Buddha's previous lives, all of the figures that preceded the Buddha were seen as bodhisattvas.

[02:42]

But in the Mahayana school this became the ideal and essentially at the end of this talk, and we do it at the end of every talk and in all of our ceremonies we chant the Bodhisattva vows. And it's kind of like the prime directive for Mahayana Buddhists. And so the first vow includes them all. Sentient beings are numberless. I vow to awaken with them or I vow to save them all. it does not tell you how to do this. And you also need to understand that you, me, we are among those sentient beings. It's not like they're all out there, they're actually all connected, and they're all in here, and they're all linking each of us.

[03:46]

So this is This is the subject of a lot of our study and it is the enactment of our practice because Zazen practice is Bodhisattva practice. Zazen practice includes everything, everyone, every thought, every feeling, every ache, the ache of the person who's sitting next to you, the sound of their breathing, everything that arises is included in zazen. And so we have this opportunity as we sit to enact bodhisattva practice seemingly without doing a lot. Actually in our practice

[04:50]

even though it's seen as practicing in stillness, there's constant, very subtle activity that's going on, and sometimes we're aware of it and sometimes we're not. We're constantly finding our balance, bringing ourselves into harmony, or falling out of balance, which is also part of it, and then returning. So what happens at the end of zazen is we get up and we move into another dimension of our life. This is our life. It's not like this is some place apart from our life here. So, usually, most sendhos, when you leave, you turn towards the altar and bow towards the altar, as if you're finishing something and beginning something else.

[05:59]

Here, our form is a little different. You know, I haven't seen it any other place. We stand at the door and we give a small shashu bow, just a small bow. not a formal vow and it's just we're moving over we're just crossing a threshold and on this door there's not even a threshold we're just moving from one room of our life into another and when we do that we have to figure out how do we practice as bodhisattvas How do we bring that forth, allow it to arise? So, for quite a long time I've been studying a fascicle of Dogens that has been really, it's important to me, in how to practice in community, how to practice in the community of myself, and I'll talk a little more about that, and how to practice in society.

[07:10]

In Japanese it's called Bodhisattva Shishobo, which I had the wonderful opportunity to work on a translation with Shohaku Okumura Roshi, and that translation is in my book actually, The Bodhisattva's Embrace, and the translation The title that we came up with is the Bodhisattvas for Embracing Dharmas. In Kastanahasi's translation of Dogen, which is also wonderful, he translates it as the Bodhisattvas for Methods of Guidance. This is an ancient It's an ancient teaching. You find it in the Pali Suttas, as the Saṅgaha Sutta, but very plainly stated.

[08:17]

You find it in many of the Mahayana Sutras, in the Parnivāṇa Sutra, the Vimalakīrti Sutra, the Lotus Sutra. But Dogen, as often is the case, has his own spin on it. So he offers, or this teaching offers, four kinds of, four practices for the Bodhisattva. And they are giving or offering, dana, beneficial speech, beneficial action, and what he calls identity action. and I'll come back and talk about these a bit. But I wanted to give a little history of the sutra, of the Dogen's teaching, because it's a little mysterious to me, and the scholars don't have a conclusive word, but what happened was that Dogen came, Dogen went to China when he was quite young,

[09:37]

in his 20s and returned from China, having met his teacher, Rujing, and received transmission from him. He returned to China in 1223. And on the outskirts of Kyoto, what's now Kyoto, he built the first formal Sōdo, practice place, in the style that he had encountered in China. And evidently it was quite beautiful. And he had a very active practice there for about 10 years. In 1233, something happened. The conjecture is that there was some kind of sectarian tension and in those days sectarian tension even among buddhists manifested itself in you know like monks going and burning down another temple things that we wouldn't

[10:52]

It's like we can't imagine ourselves going and burning down the Thai temple down the block. That's not going to happen. Or them coming up here. But they took their belief systems very seriously. They took their sectarianism seriously. So in a very short time Dogen and his community packed up and left and went to the wilds to the area that is in the far west, on the coast, which was really wilderness then, and he built what has ultimately become Eheji. This Shishobo was written, as far as I can tell, about six weeks before they left, or within a couple months. And my speculation is that he wrote this both for his community to offer them some teaching about how to accept this really drastic and painful change and perhaps for himself to find his own balance, to find the root of the teaching so that he could continue in a good spirit.

[12:21]

So that's my guess about it anyway. So these practices, giving, kind speech, beneficial action, and identity action. Today I'm just going to talk a little about the first and the last, giving and identity action. I think that kind speech and beneficial action are really very concretely how you practice giving. And that identity action kind of nails the spirit in which one acts. So giving is renunciation, is letting go, is actually renunciation in the sense not of I've got to let go of this, but it gives me joy to let go and to share with other beings.

[13:35]

And that's very clear in the text. I'll read you some little bits of it. And then identity action, which sounds kind of abstract, in earlier versions of the Sutra, it's spoken of as cooperation. Co-operation. Operating together. And you could see this as the principle of equality in action. And again, this is the spirit with which we practice in the world and here in Zazen, equality, whatever comes up, it has happy thought, sad thought, angry thought, these all have, they're all equal in their emptiness.

[14:41]

They're all equal in the fact that they are co-created out of whatever exists within us. So, for me, these principles of giving and identity action are like how, as Sochin was, actually as Carol Paul was saying in her talk last night, our question in practice is, how? How do I do this? So those give me tools or a way of viewing how to practice inequality, inequality, how to practice letting go. So this, the title of the Bodhisattva's Four Embracing Dharmas, as I've been thinking about this,

[15:47]

in Texas and thinking about the title of my book the Bodhisattva's Embrace so the Bodhisattva is embracing everything in Zazen we embrace everything but not too tightly so what I wrote was to embrace is to encircle I wrap my arms around you you put your arms around me. To embrace is to unify, to make one of two. It is an act of love. In embrace, the limits of body, skin, feelings and thoughts are all transcended. When seen at a distance, when an embrace is viewed at a distance, you see one being, not two.

[16:50]

So that's one side. What occurred to me as I think about this further was there's another side when we think about hugs or embraces. Embrace implies letting go. There's an end to it. In fact, you know, you hug somebody, you hold on too long, something awkward happens, right? And there's always a moment to let go. And that moment is not a moment of separation. It's a moment of finding yourself, renewing yourself so that you can move forward. So this notion of embracing action or embracing dharmas sometimes it means sometimes an embrace is necessary we need it sometimes that embrace manifests as walking just side by side with someone at the same pace sometimes that is the best way to have an intimate conversation

[18:16]

In that sense, you're walking together, there's a merging, and yet you're also maintaining your self, your individuality, and you're enacting both of those principles. The same thing happens again in our practice. Well, I'll read you, let me read you, because I think this is relevant to our practice. From a wonderful book, called The Gift by Lewis Hyde. He described dinner in a cheap restaurant in the south of France. The patrons sit at a long communal table and each finds before her plate a modest bottle of wine. Before the meal begins, a man will pour his wine not into his own glass, but into his neighbor's.

[19:19]

And his neighbor will return the gesture, filling the first person's empty glass. In an economic sense, nothing has happened. No one has any more wine than she did to begin with. But society has appeared where there was none before. This to me is also what we're doing here. It's amazing to me to look around and see every Saturday all of us appear in large numbers. A society just arises here in Berkeley. It arises every morning and afternoon when we sit. If you want to say in an economic sense, there's no difference between the fact of us sitting at home by ourselves or coming here except that when we come here we enact society, we enact connection and this is very strongly what Suzuki Roshi emphasized from the beginning

[20:46]

And this is really a mark of our practice is that generally we come here to sit together and to practice together and sitting next to each other society arises. So in that sense we are giving and we're also enacting equality It's a very interesting beginning. It took me a while to get this. The beginning of this section, I want to read you a little from the beginning of the section on giving. I found it puzzling until something came clear to me.

[21:50]

Giving means not to be greedy. Not to be greedy means not to crave. Not to crave means in worldly expression not to flatter. So it's like, this is a very interesting arc. This is not necessarily what I would think about when I would think about giving. And then he says, Giving is like offering treasures that are going to be discarded to people we do not know. Actually, we do this a lot here. Whatever we're going to discard, we put it out by the tree on the street. And miraculously, it is of value to someone. I wouldn't say that's a high spiritual principle. It is like offering treasures that are going to be discarded to people we do not know.

[23:00]

And then give flowers blooming on the distant mountains to the Tathāgatas. Those flowers, are they ours to give? How do we do that? Offer our treasures offer treasures accumulated in our past lives to living beings. Whether a gift is dharma or material objects, each gift is truly endowed with the virtue of giving." And then he says, a little later he says something, this is the heart of it to me. By preface he says, when the way is entrusted to the way, we attain the way. When we attain the way, the way unfailingly continues to be entrusted to the way.

[24:06]

Then he says, we offer ourselves to ourselves and we offer others to others. Boy, that's really the kernel. We offer ourselves to ourselves, and we offer others to others. This to me is how to live. How to be oneself. To be oneself completely, which is to offer oneself to oneself. And to recognize that when one does that, It helps others. It's the way of offering others to others. So this is a very wonderful principle. And a little later in this piece, he just reminds us in very blunt terms, the mind of a sentient being is hard to change.

[25:14]

Well, that's kind of duh. This is the Bodhisattva vows expressed. We begin to transform the mind ground of sentient beings by offering them material things. So we resolve to continue to transform them until they all attain the way. The reason, the way we do this is in identity action, because what Dogen writes is, again referring to that, we give ourselves to ourselves and others to others. Identity action means not to be different. Neither different from self, nor different from others. So that's a kind of clue as to why he begins with this issue of greediness,

[26:17]

because we all experience this, I experience this, and then moves to flattery. What is flattery? Flattery implies some, I don't know, some relative positionality in my mind that that person is above me, or that person is below me, If that person is above me and I want their approval or I want their favor, then the deluded way of approaching this is to flatter. It's because the notion of flattery is because we want something from someone. We want, we crave equality. we crave identity and yet because we haven't given ourself to ourself we fear we are different and so we have to play up to someone or the other side to condescend to someone not knowing that

[27:47]

When you flatter, generally the person knows they're flattered, unless they're fools. And that's not going to make you look any better. And when you condescend to someone, for sure they feel it. They feel your assertion of position. So, what Dogon did, he's going to the heart of the human predicament in this and saying, here's what we have to look at in our interactions with each other. And he's really advocating for, and this is a kind of social dimension, he's advocating for equality. And so when you get to the end of this section on identity action, all of a sudden he starts talking in a sort of social and political sense which is very unusual for Dogon.

[28:50]

First theoretically says we should know that for the ocean not to refuse water is identity action. We should also know that the virtue of water that does not refuse the ocean is also fulfilled. This is why Water is able to come together to form the ocean, and earth is able to pile up to form mountains. We should know intimately that because the ocean does not refuse to be ocean, it can be the ocean and achieve greatness. Because mountains do not refuse to be mountains, they can be mountains and achieve loftiness. Because a wise ruler does not weary of their people, he or she attracts a large number of people. Because wise rulers are wise, they do not weary of their people.

[30:00]

Although people unfailingly have the desire to form a nation and find a wise ruler, Few of them fully understand the reason why a wise ruler is wise. They are simply glad to be accepted by the wise ruler, but they never recognize that they themselves do accept and support the wise ruler. Thus the principle of identity action exists both in the wise ruler and the people. This is why identity action is the practice and vow of a bodhisattva. And then he concludes this whole piece by saying, truly and simply, we should face all beings with a gentle expression. So, it's an unusual sort of social teaching for Dogen, but beyond that, it's sort of not so unusual in the sense that this is very much a Confucian view of society.

[31:08]

But the way I hear it also is, I can think about the nation of Alan, or the nation of Ross, which consists of the head region, the arm region, the stomach region, all of these different territories of one's being, that in order, we don't think about it, right? We just walk, we eat, we talk, we do what we do, but they're all co-operating and they don't recognize that their acceptance, our acceptance of all the parts of our body, all of the thoughts that we have, everything that arises as we moves to the world and as we sit here is the expression of identity and when we realize that then we can be our true selves.

[32:19]

These are practices that are being offered. They are not just something that only bodhisattvas who are fulfilled and accomplished can do. They are actually the way we become Bodhisattva is the way we enact that. So what I'd like to do is take a few questions, comments, and then I'm going to close with a relevant song, which I like to do from time to time. But I figured, let's take the questions first and do the song last. So if you have any thoughts or questions. I'm educated to find many times that I think it's very important to your talk that I didn't get what it means to give yourself to yourself, to give others that. I think that's fundamental for your talk and I'm different of me.

[33:24]

Yeah. Well, each of us has to figure out what that means. What I think it means for me is to accept myself as I am moment by moment. If I'm cranky, if I'm happy, whatever state of mind is arising for me. Here's another way of doing it, because this is what Lori tells me. She used to tell me all the time. She sort of stopped telling me, because I think she thinks I get it. You know, I sort of get it, but I can't do it. If I'm having a hard time, what she says is, that's, you know, you're having a hard time because you want things to be different from how they are. And that's, to me, that's how, if I can see, oh, I want things to be different from how they are, and just set it aside to some degree, or recognize it.

[34:37]

then I'm giving myself to myself and I think that the essence of our practice is this is what I've learned by being here and by being in this community is that when I encounter people who are able to do that in some mysterious way I'm more able to do it myself which is how we give others to others. Does that make sense? Okay, so what I get from it is if I accept myself how I am then I'm giving myself to myself. Right. And not desiring something different. Yeah, not desiring different circumstances. At the same time, you know, that's just one side. Suzuki Roshi said, you are perfect as you are, and you need some improvement. So don't get stuck on one side. But if we can't accept ourselves, then we're not going to be able to work with ourselves. work.

[35:40]

Your comments about flattery are interesting to me. I understand what you said conceptually, and maybe this is a semantic difference between flattery and praise, but to me, praising someone when it's sincere and heartfelt is a way of giving to another human being. As parents, a lot of us are parents and either have raised or are currently raising children, it's important to praise a child and their growth. So how, I'm confused in the difference between flattery and praise. It's sort of mush to me right now. Praise is selfless. Praise is sympathetic joy. If your child or someone does something that you admire, you just express your joy by acknowledging them. Flattery is wanting something for yourself.

[36:45]

I think all of us know what that's like. We're not always aware when we're doing it. I'm not always aware when I'm doing it, but I'm getting more attuned to it. So I think that would be the difference. Linda? We often hear or cite ourselves that Suzuki Roshi statement that always gets a little laugh. It's so cute that you're perfect as you are and you need some improvement. And it's also wise indeed. Let's probe just a second an example. You say, referring to Carol's talk last night, she talked about drinking alcohol. Yes. OK. So let's say that you find yourself craving alcohol, or let's say that you are really addicted to alcohol, then you are aware of that. Like you said, if I'm cranky, I'm not trying to change what I am. I just have to accept what I am.

[37:49]

And in that space, in that very particular space, if you notice yourself obliterating yourself with alcohol, how do you enact the principle that you're perfect as you are and you could use some improvement. As soon as you notice yourself doing that, you've already moved into another moment. And then you have some choice. You notice it and you make a choice. You can make a choice to destroy yourself, which is not beneficial to you or anyone else. But if you don't have that moment of noticing, that's mindfulness. If you have a moment of mindfulness, when you have a moment of mindfulness, you have a moment of choice. So if you take the choice, you drink the alcohol and obliterate yourself. You pay the price. And then the next moment again, you accept yourself?

[38:52]

Yes. But yes, you accept yourself. And you can ask yourself, how do I want to live? Which is exactly what Carol was asking herself. You pay a price. That's called karma. So, you know, yeah, I think that's fairly simple. But not easy. Maybe one more. Ross? Thank you, Ross. What? Ross, I have a question. Yeah, yeah. As one nation to another, What's our foreign policy? I was thinking about mismatters in the newspaper, and I don't read the article, but it's there, and I'm curious about good matters, so-called good matters that we cultivate as a social interaction, and what Doug is teaching, and which also has an effect of

[39:55]

creating matters of awareness, which often are good, and what the distinction is between them, as you see. Yeah, I'm not sure there's such a distinction. Let me just read you something very briefly from the Kind Speech section, because that's very... You know this text, right? Yeah. It's very mannerly. In society, there's a tradition of asking others if they are well. In the Buddha way, we have the words, take good care of yourself. And the disciples fill your duty to ask the teacher, how are you? These are manners. I must say, when I asked Sojan Roshi, how are you, usually, He doesn't always have a good response.

[40:57]

He doesn't like that question. This is where I got the idea. But I remember, frankly, I remember coming back from school one day, from the first day of a public school, and my mother asking, how are you? Or how was it? And I blew up at her. It's like, how could I possibly stay? the entirety of what it was. But anyway, I think that Soto Zen is very mannerly. And I also think we have to figure out also, how are we ourselves? And if someone is rougher, then how do I accept that, how do I see the kindness that's coming through that, the directness, without having just some overly fussy idea of manners.

[42:09]

It's like seeing the other side of the dogon, whereas the newspaper column is just kind of how to be a particular way. And again, I think if you My speculation on the context of this was they were facing a very unmannerly situation, and his advice for himself and for Isango was, look, let's be very cool, because this is a dangerous and violent situation. Thank you. Well, I would like to stop and sing you a song. And the relevance of this song is that it's about the Bodhisattva, it's about a Bodhisattva. This is a song that was written by our friend Greg Fain and Ben Gustin in Tassajara. It's called Our Hero and it's really, it's like this beautiful encapsulation of an entire chapter of the Lotus Sutra.

[43:11]

And the Lotus Sutra is It's a text that we study. Are we reciting the Lotus Sutra? When is that? Sunday, July 24th. And it's going to be all day, the whole Lotus Sutra, right? And including this chapter in its more extended form. But it's about the Bodhisattva never disparage, whose practice is to treat everything equally, even though That's not what he's getting. So that's enough preface. Now, when we get to the chorus, I'll teach it to you. This guitar is still in Texas. It's the Unity. There's a book called the Lotus Sutra That you really ought to know about It's a holy book that has the power To remove all fear and doubt And this book tells the story of a man Who means the world to me Who could just as well have been a woman

[44:44]

Except for male hegemony So they called him the bodhisattva never disparaged or the bodhisattva never despised And I'm making it my life's ambition to see the world through his pure eyes because he says I will never disparage you or keep you at arm's length Where you won't see your weaknesses I only see your strengths I would never despise you or put you down in any way. Because it's clear to me, I can plainly see, you'll be a Buddha someday. So that's the chorus. I will never disparage you or keep you at arm's length. I will never disparage you or keep you Where you only see your weaknesses, I only see your strengths. Where you only see your weaknesses, I only see your strengths.

[45:47]

I would never despise you or put you down in any way. I would never despise you or put you down in any way. Because it's clear to me I could plainly see you'll be a Buddha someday. Because it's clear to me, I can plainly see, you'll be a Buddhist someday. Now Bodhisattva, never disparaging, lived countless kalpas in the past. In the time of the counterfeit dharma, and he was something of an outcast. Because the monks and nuns of his time, they were noted for their arrogance and vanity. And these were the folks who exercised great power and authority. But my boy, he never concerned himself if they treated him like a freak. He just bowed to everybody equally, and these were the words he'd speak. I will never disparage you or keep you at arm's length.

[46:53]

Where you only see your weaknesses, I only see your strengths. I would never despise you or put you down in any way. Because it's clear to me, I can plainly see, you'll be a Buddha someday. I love you. You think that's easy for someone from New York to say? I don't know. He never read or recited the scriptures much. He only liked to practice respect. But the monks and nuns of his time They didn't greet him like you might expect Instead they cursed him and they reviled him And they wished that he would go Because they all had self-esteem issues Like everybody else I know So they beat him and pelted him with clubs and stones Tried to drive him away He'd just run off to a safe distance And then he turned around and said, I would never disparage you or keep you at arm's length.

[48:01]

Where you only see your weaknesses, I only see your strengths. I would never despise you or put you down in any way. Because it's clear to me, I can plainly see, you'll be a Buddha someday. And so it went on for years and years he was a target of scorn and abuse. Still, our hero, he shed no tears, nor did he ever wonder what's the use. Till he came to the end of his natural lifespan and he lay down fixing to die. And he heard the holy lotus sutra being preached up in the sky. And his life was extended for millions of years. He's living to this day. And in the pages of the Lotus Sutra, you still can hear him say, I will never disparage you or keep you out of our space.

[49:04]

Where you only see your weaknesses, I only see your space. I would never despise you or put you down in any way. Because it's clear to me, I can plainly see, you'll be a Buddha someday. Yes, it's clear to me, I can plainly see, you'll be a Buddha someday. I love you.

[49:31]

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