Peace. Excuse me.

[16:17]

In the surpassed penetrating and perfect Dharma, it is rarely met with. Even a hundred thousand million help us, adding it to see and listen to. emotional. This is the first time we've been in here, so many of us, for sesheen in more than two years. There's about 27 of us in the Zendo and there's another 40 online this morning.

[19:18]

Can you hear me okay out there, by the way? Yes, good. I think this is the first time I've come into the Zendo through the Abbot's door. It's also the first time when I came into the door, I didn't bow to this seat because Sojin was not here and because it's now my seat. And all this is just very, feels very deep. It's a beautiful morning, and we are having this Sishin, which is also the opening of our 32nd BCC practice period, which is another occasion, a joyous occasion.

[20:26]

And it will be also the installation of our 30-second shuso. So that's what we're going to do right after this lecture, is we're going to open the practice period formally and welcome Ensan Chotoku, Gary Arden, as the shuso, and show him to his seat. His name means round mountain, clear, genuine. And he will be the head student guiding us through this practice period. And this is also long delayed. Gary was invited in 2020 by Sojin Roshi to serve as you so. And the pandemic intervened. And only now are we really able to fulfill Sojin's invitation.

[21:32]

So another momentous occasion is actually the renewal of this ancient practice. So the word for practice period in the Zen tradition in Japanese is ongo. Anko means peaceful abiding. So in China or Japan or at Tassajara, in a monastic setting, this would be a three-month intensive in which all the practitioners would be settled and abiding in that place and not going anywhere, not doing any business, just sitting, working, eating, settling themselves on themselves.

[22:41]

And of course that this practice in China and Japan has its root in even earlier times in in India and also you find this currently in, if you go to Thailand or Burma, they'll have, or actually down the block to the Thai temple, they have what they call a rains retreat, which usually took place during the rainy season. And it would be an ingathering of monks who the rest of the year would be wandering about, but can't really wander too effectively in the rain. So they would come to the temple and they'd sit together, and that would be the rains retreat. And actually, when you look at monastic biographies, what you see is that they're measured by, from rains retreat to rains retreat, your seniority is measured by

[23:55]

how many range retreats you've sat consecutively. So Dogen Sanji talks about this. He talks about Ango in the practice period. Ango in, I'm sorry, in his A.A. Koruk, in his record of casual talks, or actually they're not, they're a record of formal talks. that he would issue from the teacher's seat. They're usually very, pretty brief. So Dogen held up his whisk and drew a circle in the air. And he said, practice period goes beyond this. Practice period goes beyond this. So our practice period, we hope for each of us will go beyond this.

[25:08]

You have to figure out what that means. But usually we have our practice period in the spring, and that's when the circle of life turns towards renewal. And the growth of things is in ascendance. So this is an opportunity to rededicate ourselves to the practice of living an enlightened life. To renew our beginner's mind. And we know, as we talk about this all the time, that what Dogen Zenji's Zen speaks of is practice realization. And actually, this is in a sense what we will be studying in our class.

[26:12]

I'm going to be focusing on some pieces from the Lotus Sutra, which I'll talk about more later. But everything in the Lotus Sutra that you read is actually practice realization. It's not so much aiming at the goal of awakening, but actually expressing our enlightenment. The enlightenment that is always right here, right here, available to us. So practice period and sishin today involves sitting, walking, chanting, cooking, serving, eating, working, resting, actually all of the normal activities of our life.

[27:17]

Except there's something different. It's framed as enlightened activity. So all these activities are woven into the whole cloth of zazen. So for the next five weeks, please bring forth your practice. I'd like to encourage you to clarify an intention for yourself for this time. You know, really articulate it for yourself. What do you want to be doing? not necessarily accomplishing, but how do you want to practice for these five weeks? What do you want to be working on? So I encourage you to take the time to think about this and I would really appreciate it if you talk about it with me or with one of the other practice leaders.

[28:25]

That's a really good thing to do because just to get the words and get the thoughts out of your head so that you can actually give voice to your intention and plant the seed of your intention in fertile ground. Speaking of Doka-san and practice discussion, there's some small bit of housekeeping. There are a lot of people signed up for Doka-san with me this morning, for today, but it's more than I'm going to be able to see. So I'm going to try to see the newer people or people that I'm not so familiar with or not so familiar with me. And the other people, let's talk. You can feel free to sign up on the... The Calendly link, which is under the teacher tab on the website.

[29:30]

And also I've actually posted a calendar to see people during Zazen in the mornings starting Wednesday, I think. And that's right outside the door here. Feel free to take one of those slots and also feel free to call. I think there's a list of emails, I don't know, phone numbers of the practice leaders also outside the door, and please call on any of them. Good to talk to more than one people, more than one person. So, meanwhile, Gary will be here to help you. to model the practice of a bodhisattva in daily zazen. And also in his lectures, he'll be starting to lecture.

[30:32]

And his first talk is going to be Monday morning. We see him in my talk. And I think, are you talking, are you next week or week after? Next week. Next week, okay, yeah. He has his hands. So, and then he'll have teas, which are, being arranged by his Benji, his attendant, Nancy Sue. Thank you. And you can sign up for those. I think the sign up is online. So he'll be supporting you and the support should be reciprocal. As he supports us, we can support Gary in his efforts. So let's just take a breath for a moment. I want to talk a little about the Lotus Sutra by way of introduction.

[31:42]

So the practice period is going to focus on seven important parables that are drawn from the Lotus Sutra. And these parables are, Lotus Sutra is famous for these parables. And it has a wonderful, Sutra has a wonderful kind of narrative vernacular tone, and the parables make it really accessible. I have assembled two collections of the parables, two translations, and some of you have it. I'm going to make sure that it's posted in a link under the practice period on the website. It's not there yet. And it'll be really fun in our classes and in some of the lectures to explore these stories and see how they apply to our practice. So to start down the road, I want to give a little background about the Lotus Sutra, because you may not all be familiar with it.

[32:52]

It's considered, you know, the most revered and widely read of the Mahayana Sutras. The full title is The Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law. In Sanskrit, this is the Sadamapundarika Sutra. The earliest versions date back to first or second century of the Common Era. And the version most commonly read by us was translated from Sanskrit into Chinese by the great translator Kumarajiva in 406. And that's really the recension that we use. And then it was translated into the first translation into a European language was by Eugene Bernhoff's French version in the 1850s.

[34:01]

So Lodosuchu is a principal text in a number of East Asian schools. In Chinese, the Tiantai. In Japan, the Tendai, which evolved from the Tiantai, and Nichiren schools. and has profound influence on Zen Buddhism. And Dogen refers to it frequently. I'm forgetting the name of the book, but Taigen Leighton has a book about Dogen and the Lotus Sutra that's very interesting. And, you know, one Buddhist scholar writes about it saying, For many Buddhists in East Asia, the Lotus Sutra contains the final teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha, complete and sufficient for salvation.

[35:06]

So the final teaching or the highest teaching in those doctrinal terms. And as I said, the famous parables illuminate the key principles in the Sutra. And these principles themselves are a radical development of Buddhist doctrine. So I want to just, let me just kind of highlight them so you kind of know what some of the context is. So earlier Buddhist schools and texts proposed a number of different models of awakening. You have the Shravaka model, which is basically monasticism. Shravaka, I think, means hearer. So it's monks who were gathered in the monastery, hearing the teachings and practicing the monastic discipline.

[36:14]

And the Shravaka's goal was to become an Arhat. Parhat is basically a being who has become enlightened and is going to leave the world, leave the cycle of birth and death. The second model is the Prachika Buddhas, who were seen as spontaneously enlightened. and did not teach. Often in their enlightenment they were arhats also, so they would not be reborn. But they did not teach, they lived in a kind of isolation. And then the third model that we have is the bodhisattva model.

[37:19]

And the bodhisattva model is often seen as practicing in the context of the six professions or the six paramitas. So what the Lotus Sutra proposes radically is that all of these three vehicles are skillful needs for right there. The Lotus Sutra is where you have the the clearest and strongest articulation of this idea of skillful means that the Buddha and bodhisattvas use skillful means to awaken beings who are receiving the teachings. And so they come, they visit the world, they visit beings in the form that is most likely to wake up the person they're engaged with.

[38:22]

And what they say, and you'll see in the first chapter, that first parable we're going to look at on Thursday night, is that it's not that these three vehicles were lesser vehicles, but that they were all part of the one vehicle, which is the Buddha vehicle. And the one vehicle has many manifestations. So you have this idea, this principle idea of the one vehicle that includes all of the others and of skillful means of using whatever tools are at hand to awaken people. So you have the image of the thousand-armed Avalokiteshvara, you know, with each hand has an eye in it, and each hand is holding a particular tool.

[39:38]

It's like the ultimate cosmic Swiss army knife. You know, and that tool, each of those tools is a skillful means to awaken people. You know, it's like one's got the can opener to like pry out our enlightenment from the can and so forth. So we're going to study this. This comes up frequently in these parables. The second key teaching in the Lotus Sutra is that all beings, without exception, can become Buddhist. And this, they touch on this again and again in the sutra. And this is, this itself is also a, is a radical element from earlier Mahayana schools, which posited that they were

[40:45]

classes of beings who were too defiled to awaken, called Ichantakas. And basically, the Lotus Sutra is saying, no, there are no Ichantakas. Nobody is beyond awakening. And that Buddhahood is available to monks, nuns, laymen, laywomen, non-human beings, even enemies who do harm to us. So one of the examples is the Buddha's cousin Devadatta. Devadatta in earlier texts is, usually he's kind of a foil for the Buddha. He has strong spiritual powers

[41:46]

And at a certain point, he tries to take over the Sangha. You know, he advises the Buddha, why don't you go ahead and just kind of, you know, shuffle off this mortal coil and go to power nirvana and I'll take over. I'll do it for you. And the Buddha's not ready to do this. And so in other stories, Devadatta then tries to help the Buddha along into Paranirvana, some assassination attempts. But in the Lotus Sutra, Devadatta, these stories are not told, though they're common knowledge to everybody who has familiarity with the Buddhist canon. And Devadatta is assured of his awakening, of his Buddhahood. So the third radical principle is that the Buddha's lifespan is immeasurable, that he did not perish at Paranirvana.

[42:59]

And also he didn't, he wasn't born in the palace of his father and mother, but he's been present for eons before this, practicing and teaching, and he will continue. He continues to be present in our world, in this world. And we can rely on him. But the Buddha in his presence manifests as bodhisattvas. manifest, so the Buddha is manifesting actually in each of us. And so Gene Reeves, who, and I've cited Gene, Gene Reeves' book, which is recommended, I really like it a lot.

[44:06]

I think it's called Stories of the Lotus Sutra. And it's a It's a wonderful collection. It goes chapter by chapter, not just in the parables, but in all of the many stories. But Gene Reeves writes that the fantastically long life of the Buddha, in other words, is at least partly a function of and dependent upon his being embodied in others. So this long life of the Buddha is not because there's this divine figure sitting up there in heaven watching over us, but it's actually us. We are actually manifesting the Buddha. So these key principles direct our attention to some further points. And I sort of alluded to it, that Buddhahood is

[45:10]

manifested by activity. And the fundamental activity is the activity of teaching. So we look at the history of Buddha. He was enlightened under the tree in Bodh Gaya. Some of you may have actually even been to that tree. Or whatever is the latest incarnation of it, whether it's the actual tree or not. It's a pretty cool tree. And he sat there for 49 days and basically sort of came to the conclusion that this stuff that he realized was too complicated to teach. And so he wasn't going to teach it. And the Brahma gods beseeched him to teach it. He said, There are people in this world who have just little dust in their eyes, and they could understand this.

[46:18]

So really his being a Buddha didn't begin until he got up from that tree and began to walk to Sarnath. And there he met and instructed his old friends. And that's the first turning of the wheel. So that action is walking, is journeying, is teaching, is the active expression of Buddhahood. The fundamental activity of a Buddha is to teach. This is not just in words, although there are a lot of words. As most of us know, you know, I would say So much of the teaching that I feel like I received from Sojin was not so much in words, but actually in his actions, in how he was in relationship to people, to animals, to the things around him, to treat everything

[47:35]

with respect to treat everything. As he said, don't treat anything like an object. That's a fundamental teaching of Buddha. And actually that's the teaching. That's our attitude towards ourself in Zazen. Not to treat ourselves like an object, but to just open and manifest ourselves. The other point that Gene Reeves makes that I think is essential in the Lotus Sutra itself is that although there are countless worlds and Buddha fields in this kind of psychedelic panoply that were given in a lot of the Mahayana Sutras, the Lotus Sutra is focused on this world. and on becoming Buddha, becoming the Buddha that's indwelling within us through our practice here.

[48:49]

Not some other realm, not heaven, you know, not a realm where people are enlightened by hearing celestial voices or by being blessed with a rain of magnificent Dharma flowers or drinking sweet nectar, but actually here we were enduring the difficulties of this world. So it's difficult to live here. But one of the things that the Lotus Sutra offers is a simple practice. In chapter 10 it says, whoever hears even just one line from the sutra will attain Buddhahood. So this teaching involves, often this is the way it's practiced, is accepting, embracing, reading, reciting, copying, explaining,

[50:05]

propagating and living in accordance with the teachings. Those of us who are living in accordance with the teachings and sharing that, we are messengers of the Buddha. We should honor each other as if We are Buddhists. So just to conclude this background, I want to just give you some taste of the introduction. It's really quite wonderful. This is from the introductory chapter. So there's a gathering of everybody, you know. monks, arhats, bodhisattvas, enlightened monks and nuns, laymen, laywomen, and these various celestial figures, the devas, the nagas, the yaksas, the gandharvas, and so forth, kings and noble emperors, all of them

[51:33]

just sitting down on Vulture Peak. Together, I've never been to Vulture Peak. Has anyone been to Vulture Peak? Yes. Yes, go ahead now. Yeah. I don't think it's so big, right? Yeah, I mean, it's like, you read this, it's like hundreds of thousands of people. It's like, this is like bigger than Woodstock, you know? gathered there on a vulture feet. So it's, you know, it's, you have to imagine it. And they're all there, and they're all, it's filled with joy. And their palms pressed together, gazing attentively at the Buddha. And in that moment, the Buddha emits a light of ray from this tuft of white hair that is between his eyebrows. And nobody's ever seen this before. They didn't even know that, you know, they didn't know about this light. And it illuminated all 18,000 worlds in the East.

[52:38]

It went down as far as Avicii Hill and up as high as the Akanista Heaven, which is where the devas and divinities live. And to all the six worlds and so forth, And seeing this Bodhisattva Maitreya, who was one of the major Bodhisattvas and we know as the future Buddha-to-be, he says, the Bhagavad has now manifested the sign of great transcendent power. What's the reason for this? The Buddha has now entered Samadhi. So he's entered Samadhi, so I can't ask him about it. And he says, who should I ask about this wonderful marvel? Who would be able to answer my question? Then he thought, oh, Manjushri, the prince of the Dharma, has closely attended and paid homage to innumerable Buddhas of the past.

[53:49]

He must certainly have seen such a sign before. I should ask him. To make a long story short, Maitreya asks Manjushri about the meaning of this ray of light, and Manjushri offers an extended response in prose and in verse, and he finally says, I have seen Buddhas in the past who have shown this marvel and have taught the great Dharma immediately after emitting a ray of light. Therefore, you should know that in that very same way, the Buddha has now emitted this light and has shown this marvel in order to cause all sentient beings to hear and understand the Dharma, which is difficult to understand. Therefore, I am certain that today the Tathagata will teach the Mahayana Sutra called the Lotus Sutra, the instruction for bodhisattvas and the treasured lore of all Buddhas. So Manjushri has seen this before in a previous birth in another age.

[54:56]

And he says, okay, the Buddha is going to teach the Lotus Sutra. Well, I encourage you to read the Lotus Sutra. And it's interesting because it's kind of a mysterious process. So from the first pages, the narrators, various narrators is talking about the immeasurable wisdom and enlightening power of the sutra and of the Buddha's and Bodhisattva's preaching of it. But there's no point in the text where somehow this sacred word, you see the sacred word is spoken, or no mantrams or dharanis or spells. There's no, you're not seeing somehow the distillation of Buddhist wisdom that you can probably, oh, this is the Lotus Sutra. It's like, you know, and you see reading through this text, turning page after page, and you get to the last page and you say, well, wait, where was the Lotus Sutra?

[56:12]

So this is like our style of zaza, or like our life. many approaches to meditation offer very specific objects of concentration. Goans, mantrams, visualizations, yogic positions. But in our school, in Soto Zen, the instruction is, in a way, Concentrate on everything. Which, of course, is kind of a contradiction in terms. But what it really means is just open your mind. And in the context of Lotus Sutra, what that means, the way I understand it is like, oh, the whole book and all of the activities that are described in this are the sutra.

[57:18]

The sutra is manifest in the living of it. It's not condensed into some pithy articulation. So just open your senses when you read this book and open your senses when you sit here for the rest of this day. Open your mind and your thoughts and receive what comes and let it flow. And that's the attitude that I recommend for, by which you can study the Lotus Sutra. And I think that's where I'm going to end and take a few, just take a few questions. I'm looking at, just to say, to those of you out here in radio land, I'm looking at your raised hands, if you have questions, and I'm going to sort of alternate between

[58:19]

the zendo and the online. And I'll repeat the question. So, please, if you have a question or a thought, share it. Let's start in the room if there's anyone. Yes, Heiko. You said, I'm not sure if I remember it by now, but that bodhisattvas are those who are embodying the way. And I wonder if... You might correct that by saying they're striving to embody the way, or how would you distinguish the behavior of the human bodhisattva as the way of the bodhisattva? Both. Both, actually. The thing is that this is, in our understanding, and this is, sometimes I'd like to do this, I borrowed this from Nyogen Senzaki at the beginning of his When he would give a Dharma talk, he would say, good morning, bodhisattvas, to everyone in the room.

[59:25]

All of us are bodhisattvas, but we're both manifesting Buddha nature and bodhisattva nature at the same time as we are cultivating it and aligning ourselves with it. I think it's a process of alignment. Does that make sense? Don't worry about it too much. Just do your best. And, you know, we try to align ourselves. Yeah. Thank you. Sue. Thank you for your talk. I have a question about speaking or understanding and intention. I find myself becoming, although I'm speaking now, less able to talk about what I understand or my thinking. It seems like that's a really important part of our practice is to express it.

[60:30]

So, I don't know if you could hear that very well out there. No. No. Okay. Sue Osher was asking about expressing your practice in words. and asking about the importance of that, and saying that she seems to be having even a harder time doing that. Is that right? Right. So don't worry about words. Just, this is, you know, when I was in Japan in 1988, we were being uh, sort of, we were, we did a practice period, a short practice period at Rinsowin, at Suzuki Roshi's temple, and we were guided by Paul Disco, who had been a, who was a student of Suzuki Roshi's. And, uh, I really, I remember something so vividly.

[61:33]

So you, we would have some time off, you know, once a week or twice a week, and you go down, you go down the road from Rinsowin, And there's a little crossroads and a bridge and a little convenience store in the village of Sakamoto. This is about a half mile down the road. And he said, when you go down there next time, watch the old ladies who meet sort of by the bridge. You just watch them. And they come together and they're like, They're like those drinking ducks, you know, they're bowing to each other. And, you know, they're asking very, it's like, how are you? Or, you know, what do you think about the weather today? Nothing, nothing consequential, but he said, just watch their bodies, because their bodies are connecting.

[62:35]

So that is the teaching. They are manifesting Buddha nature by just how they are with their bodies. So that's the fundamental teaching. If you can put it into words, great. And some of us get too lost in words. So just doing it with our bodies, which is actually what we do when we sit in Zazen. There's not a lot of talking. You know, there's just sitting and using our body to meet our body. So I just want to make sure, is there anyone out there who has a question? I can only see your digital hands, but I'm not seeing any. While you're contemplating anyone, any other

[63:40]

Ross. Thank you. With regard to Sue's question and your response, I'm thinking about etiquette and courtesy, with Paul Disco's reminder to look at the women. So what do you see the difference between being nice and courteous, like in a finishing school way, that you learn the etiquette of society, and beginning school, or beginner's mind? How do you see this too... Well, I think that you can you can observe a physical form and be completely absent. I think what Paul was pointing out was these women were completely present. Those were wholehearted activities. They weren't just they weren't just empty forms.

[64:42]

We know that we can do the forms in a empty, not a Buddhist empty, but kind of spiritually lifeless way. Looks like good. Yeah, right. Looks like good. That's a really wonderful expression of Suzuki Roshis. Looks like good. You know, it's like, oh, can you imagine if he'd said that to you? But I think somewhere deep inside us, we know when something's authentic and when it rings false, right? So we have to, this is where, you know, Sotan Roshi was very, he was a very intuitive person. And, you know, he was, Whether I liked it or not, his intuitions were often right about he could see things that I was feeling that I didn't know I was feeling.

[65:54]

So we have to cultivate our intuition. And everyone can do that. It's not just like some special thing you're born in. The more you learn to attune to yourself, the more you can awaken your intuition towards those around us. Judy. Going from that, I was thinking about when I mistake my own unseen biases or intuition. How do we work with looks like that? I think that's where we need Halyana Mita. We need good spiritual friends. Intuition is, you know, intuition sounds a magical thing. Intuition is based on deep and sort of subtle perceptions that we may not even be fully aware of, but we can become more attuned to, but we can also be deluded.

[67:13]

We can fool ourselves. And so we need, and it's true, you know, we need friends to keep us clear and honest. But, you know, honestly, you can see whole societies that fall into delusion. So, you know, we have to really, this is why we're looking for Dharma friends. So if we trust the Dharma, then we can, you know, the Dharma will, and our friends who are really living it are more likely to give us good information. So I'm going to take one more. I'm still inviting someone from out there to ask a question if you wish. Anyone else here?

[68:17]

Okay. Well, so we're going to conclude lecture and then move right into the opening ceremony, I believe. So let's conclude with the four valves, and are there, Blake, are there announcements that, are you making announcements, or Rob, are you making announcements? Blake will make announcements. Blake will make announcements, and then we'll, and then Hannah, Hannah's not here. Hannah's in the community room. Oh, Hannah's in the community room. We'll have a short on the door. Okay, great, okay. Whoops. Okay. Meetings are numberless.

[69:25]

I am out to waken with them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I am out to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to become it. He is all. to awaken with them.

[70:46]

Delusions are inexhaustible. I've outrun them. Karma gates are boundless. unsurpassable, I vow to become an A few announcements, and then we'll do some outdoor Kenan.

[72:05]

And those of us online will wait or do Kenan at home. This coming Monday morning, our Shuso, Gary Artem, will deliver a Way-seeking Mind Talk. This Thursday evening, we will have a class from Hozon on the Lotus Sutra Parables. Visit our website for more information. Next Saturday, Gary Artem will give the lecture. Next Sunday, we'll have a half day sitting in person. BZ students and members are strongly encouraged to meet and develop a relationship with the teacher and practice leader. Please visit the BZC website, teachers tab for contacts and for information about practice interviews. To make a donation to support BZC, including paying for session, please visit our website and go to the Generosities tab.

[73:06]

If you've been attending for a while and are interested in practice about membership or information about membership, there are links for that in the recurring activities and The link for the recurring activities is now in the chat. Thank you. I guess we'll wait now. You can probably unmute yourselves, but maybe stay online. I think we're going to be presenting the Shu So entering ceremony. I'm inviting everybody, but maybe it's like exclusive to people that are in just session. But for those who are online, please stay online if you'd like. If not, have a great day. And for those who are in session, please do King Hen for, I think the official time is... that we're gonna start the SHUSO entering ceremony is 1120, which we're already behind. So maybe 1130 we'll begin. Thank you very much.

[74:15]

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