Well, good morning, Bodhisattvas. That's how Nyogen Senzaki, one of the first real Zen teachers to teach in the United States, used to address his students, his Western Zen students, at the floating Zendo in Los Angeles in the 40s and 50s. Bodhisattvas. That's the fundamental point of what we're doing at the end of this talk and discussion. We'll chant the Bodhisattva's vows and the fundamental vow is to save all sentient beings and that includes oneself. and all of the sentient beings that inhabit your body and mind.

[01:07]

And sometimes that means beginning with oneself, sometimes not. Sometimes it means beginning outside oneself. But it's a point that we come back to again and again. And I'm going to try to speak very briefly today just to set some kind of context for thinking about how we save all sentient beings, how our Dazen practice is a vehicle for saving all sentient beings, and actually how our formal practice, which is pretty unusual, But the forms and the style of our practice that we have here is a vehicle for saving all beings. Because for some of us, for all of us, sometimes this notion of formal practice is a bit perplexing and confusing.

[02:19]

That's aside from even whether we think we're doing these forms so-called right or wrong. Just the idea of it is not always so clear. So I hope that we can open up a pretty wide discussion and that Grace would chip in with her thoughts and some of the others, Dolly and Ross and others who might have thoughts about it might also add some comment to questions that arise. So the Zen practice that we have is kind of a container for our life. It's a vessel that our life is cooked in. And if we didn't have this container, kind of the natural thing that would happen is that our life just kind of spreads out like water, like water over a kitchen floor.

[03:32]

And it just It just takes over, and we're pulled in that way we go. We seek our own common level with the water. So, we're pulled by our desires or by conditions, and the pull is strong, and it's not to be ignored. You have to make decisions. I went upstairs for this last Kriyadarsasana to try to work on the words I was going to say here, strictly since brevity is not always my best quality, so I wanted to keep it brief. And when I went up there to do that, all of a sudden, I had these blood spots all over the floor. First I thought, well, I didn't think it was blood. Then I said, gee, this looks like blood.

[04:36]

And then, oh, it is. And so who's bleeding? And so we had to track that down because there were four kids upstairs and found out that Alexander had somehow cut himself on a piece of glass. And so This got set aside and we had to focus on taking care of him. It was nothing serious. It was just blood. Kind of a clean cut. And he wasn't fussing about it until we started to try to fix it. Which is... sometimes also like our lives, that we may think everything is going along just fine, until we or somebody else points out something that might need fixing, and then all of a sudden we discover that it hurts. It would have been better if, please, you could have left me alone, I could have just bled all over the floor.

[05:42]

But anyway, So, these conditions are strong and they need attention, but we can keep them within this container of practice. Our practice here, there's lots of different Buddhist practices, our practice here is kind of like those nesting babushka dolls. Our practice here is contained within the forms of our practice within the zazen, within sitting upright and following our breathing, and within the ways that we bow, within the energy that we put into chanting, within all the various forms that some of us know about and do automatically and others are confused about and worry about whether we're right or wrong.

[06:48]

So that's another container for this. But the point of all this keeps coming back to this Bodhisattva vow. It keeps coming back to what I've spoken of before, a notion of kind mind, or in Japanese I think it's called Roshin. It's sort of kind mind and it's close to parental mind, to the same way that when you see a child or you see someone close to you suffering or doing something dangerous or just crying out, you respond instantly and instinctually without a notion of protecting yourself or guarding or, you know, sometimes not weighing the, you know,

[08:00]

the positive and negative about whether you should do something, you just do it, because it's calling out right there and it's very clear. And that mind arises in all of us, but we need some kind of process for seeing it, for identifying it. the kind of zazen and the formal practice that we do brings that up. I was listening to... I was at a conference this weekend and Blanche Hartman, who's one of the senior teachers at Zen Center in San Francisco, was saying the way she always understood the Zen Center practice, which is really our practice, is that the students practice together and sit together, work together, do things together, and are constantly rubbing up against each other.

[09:11]

And over a period of time, we see each other very clearly. We see what each other's strengths are and each other's weaknesses. We see how each of us bows, how each of us sits, how each of us nods to sleep on our seat, how each of us cuts vegetables. And we see each other so clearly. we are seeing ourselves so clearly that sooner or later we might as well see ourselves. You know, you become adept enough at seeing how other people carry themselves in the world and ultimately it's kind of unavoidable for you to see yourself with the same clarity and let that self drop away, letting the attachment to particular ways of doing things, or particular likes or dislikes, particular hangers that one puts one's robes on.

[10:29]

For some of you who were here yesterday at Ray Grace's talk, you've let all that drop away because it's not important, and it doesn't help you save your own sentient being or other sentient beings. So we practice this kind mind, this very soft and flexible mind, and of course that's only half of it. The other side is that we practice it with intention, and energy and kind of complete commitment at each moment to the thing that we're doing. And that is the expression of this kind mind. So sometimes actually the kind mind is not

[11:33]

You know, it's not the mind of a Pollyanna. It's not like this everything is wonderful and groovy and I'm great, you're great. Sometimes, particularly if you think of it as parental mind, if you think of that as the model for those of you who were at least fortunate to have good parenting, that Kindness includes some kind of toughness, that there are rules and boundaries and just ways that don't always seem so immediately kind, ways of teaching, ways of things that you have to do that are hard, but that still to me that's still included in kindness.

[12:44]

It doesn't mean that anybody should take any abuse from anybody. And usually we know when we're being insulted or abused or taken advantage of. Our inner sense will tell us that. But it means considering what comes in the way of correction in the way of pain in our knees. And so that's kind of the balancing side of this kind mind, that to express it, to be truly gentle, means at times you have to experience and express the steel that is also in your body, things that you know to be true, and do it.

[13:51]

So, we have a lot of forms in this practice. And the reason we have them is because our teachers and our teachers' teachers passed them on. gradually, that's shifting. And in a generation or two, we'll probably find that some things look quite different in the Zendo, and ways that things are done are different than, say, Mel taught them to us, or Suzuki Roshi taught them to Mel. But still, we keep We keep a lot of the forms, and for some people coming in here, this looks like a very Japanese practice, a very American practice, or non-Western practice. And even though it's a constant process of evaluation, weighing,

[14:56]

And over a long period of time, actually, one can perceive a slow shift in the way things are done. Still, it has that aspect. And it has that aspect because that's the way we learned and because we have respect and love for how we were taught and how our teachers were taught. we try to find the most honest way and the most appropriate way of acknowledging that affection and that respect and balancing our expression of that, our expression via these forms, balancing short of mimicry.

[15:58]

If it's just mimicry, if it's just doing something because some Japanese teacher four or five hundred years did it, and we're doing it because somebody told us we should do it, that's pointless. That's completely empty, and I don't mean empty in the Buddhist sense. It's empty practice, devoid of any meaning. So we're trying to find ourselves in each of these forms. And in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, Suzuki Roshi talks about it. we have these forms, each of us, we bow, and I could show you how we bow, and we serve food a certain way, and we do things in these certain ways, and there's a form or a container for it, and yet, each person in this room, even if they did their best to bow in the prescribed way,

[17:17]

would have their individual, does have their individual style of bowing, their individual bow. Probably a lot of us could stand up right at this moment and show you just how Grace bows, or how Ross bows, or how I bow, or how Quan Lam bows. We've seen each other enough, we know just how they do it. It's also a vehicle for this other quality, both the quality and technique of the Bodhisattva, called identity action. I don't know about you, but over the years, I've tried on a whole bunch of different vows. I can picture Nails bow, I can picture...Kagiri Roshi.

[18:19]

I can picture from my first Seshin, there was a student, Tom Lomax, who used to bow. We'd spend about seven days Seshin sitting across from each other, like where Kuan Lam and Grace are. And, you know, you bow to that person many times a day as you're getting up and sitting down. And pretty soon, you see exactly what their body is doing. And then you make a kind of leap, or at least, I mean, I can speak for myself, and I said, well, try that out. And you find yourself bowing like that person, which is very interesting. That's identity action, becoming, seeing oneself in another, and seeing another in oneself. And it happens with other with other aspects of our practice, and sometimes it's conscious, sometimes it's unconscious, and we just find ourselves doing it, which is pretty interesting.

[19:23]

There's all kinds of bowing that happens here. So, I think that's actually about all I want to say, but what we have an opportunity to do now and then later in discussion at tea, it's just to bring up any question that you have relating to form or how things are done here or why, and just have an informal discussion about it and figure out what the style is. And there's lots of us that have been trained, and we can discover in this discussion that we have different ideas about it, too, from time to time. So I'd like to open it up.

[20:29]

And as I said, this is very wide open. It does not have to be theoretical. It can be very practical. detailed, particular, about things that confuse you, or that you're uncomfortable with, or that you'd like to know about. And you can direct it to me, or Grace, or anyone. Maria? I really like the image about the kitchen being like water. Life being like water that spills out of the kitchen. morning, an hour late, and I was sick last night. About a year ago I came to a session, maybe it was a year and a half ago, I got up early, got here on time, then my radio got stolen and my window got busted and I was so shocked by the experience that I had.

[21:34]

This is the first session, the little session that I've come back to since then. It happened while you were, it happened in your car while you were sitting here? Yeah, right. It was really horribly upsetting and I think it was strong enough deterrent to sort of keep me awake without thinking about it. It was very, very upsetting. It's upsetting. It's really hard and there are other people, it happens from time to time in this neighborhood. It doesn't happen It doesn't happen an awful lot, but it does happen. I'd like to say that shouldn't keep you from coming here or practicing here, but that's really your work. And we try to make the place as safe as we can.

[22:42]

Where is the safest place to park? Today I did it in the Safeway lot, the abandoned Safeway lot. I don't know if that's safe anymore. Does anyone understand this? I mean, just because it's not being used. Right. On Sunday, you could certainly use the B of A lot, which is where the people from the Thai temple are supposed to park. So there'll be other cars there and constant coming and going. Weird. It's on the corner of Epstein and Edelweiss. But, you know, you can do that. But in fact, there's no safety. And it's not just a matter of this neighborhood. There's no safety in our lives, ultimately. Now, it's, I don't know what to say about it.

[23:48]

My brother parked for a medical test outside, pretty close to, out the base. And by the time he finished the test, he actually, this was about a year or more ago, he had a heart attack. And he was in the hospital, and he's fine now. But then I had to go pick up his car, and when I went to pick up his car, the window was broken, the radio was stolen, and he had a ticket. So it's like, there's safety, and then there's safety. And what do you do? So I paid the ticket and didn't tell him. And we replaced the radio and the window. He had to do that once he got better. But mostly he had to get better. That was the important thing.

[24:49]

He had to work on his life. I hope you'll be here at lunch. Is there any significance to any of that? To some of it, yeah. But it's, well, some pieces of it are our style, like San Francisco Zen Center style, and some of it are Soto Zen style, which be completely unrecognized out of the Zen world.

[25:50]

But I can tell you very quickly, mostly people who get lay ordination have Here, people sewing for lay ordination sew a blue rapsid. And that's just Zen center family style. It actually doesn't bear any relation to the colors. Black or blue don't signify anything in Japan. Mostly because very few people have lay ordination. Some people have lay ordination in Japan and you get it when you die. And they buy a raksu and they put it on your corpse and you're given a Buddhist name. So here, we do it a little earlier, so it's more of a help for us before we die. people, priests tend to wear black, black raksus. People who have had priest ordination, or actually some people who've been to Japan, like Grace has a black raksu that she was given by Koichi Suzuki, and there's really no difference between black and blue.

[27:03]

Lately, actually, I've started wearing The blue one, again, because my black one is getting kind of scuzzy, and I like the blue one. I made it by hand. The other one, even though it has Suitsu's writing on the back, which is precious to me, I bought it in a store. So, it doesn't matter. Brown, in our tradition, and this is also true of Soto Zen throughout, brown signifies that you've had Dharma transmission. So, one tends not to wear colored raksus until after you've had dharma transmission or you're an abbot, you know, you have some marks of attainment in the outside world. Like for me, even though I have priest ordination, what it really means is novice priest ordination. And in our school, the period of being a novice is a real long time.

[28:08]

In Japan, you go to AHE, you go to one of the training monasteries, and you go through this course, and you do it in three years, and you get your brown robe, and you go home and you take care of the Tiananmen Temple. Well, we don't have very many family temples, and we need a lot more cooking. So, you know, people usually don't have dharma transmission until they've been practicing for 15 or 20 years. In fact, until 10 years ago, there was only one or two people who had it. Now it's happening a bit more. So that's, other than that, We just sort of try, generally, not to wear bright, distracting color. Does that get it? Thank you. Yeah. Some of the wrappers have rings on them. Well, those are mostly kind of the store-bought kind. And Ross might know about that.

[29:11]

You sewed yours, right? In 1999 it came around. is sort of the vestige of that. It's kind of a clasp, a fastener. Right, so the ring is, because the Rokkasu is like a mini Okesa, so it kind of ties that design feature in. Right, I saw there was a Vietnamese monk at this conference and the Okesa that he wore, that was bright yellow, had use that, the ring, you actually tie the other end of the corner through the ring.

[30:11]

I think that's probably what it is. David? I had a question for Grace. Yesterday, when I came before you, you talked about displacing the spirits from our cushion and bowing to them. That's one thing to bow to. Who else can we bow to? Well, that particular expression was what Suzuki Roshi said when he taught me to sit. He described the bowing to the cushion, and because there may be some spirits there, I'm going to sit up, and he'll moan when he sits down. I think for myself, and I think the bow is really personal, When I'm bowing to my cushion, I'm just really grateful to have found it in lots of ways. And so that's one thing.

[31:13]

And I'm grateful also to the people who put it here, all male included. And I'm sure that you have some people you bow to as well. Well, to me that's also part of this kind mind is to treat everything with the respect that one would want to treat oneself or would want to be treated. And so we talk about saving sentient beings, but actually It's not just sentient beings. You never know where there's going to be a sentient being. It's just taking care of all things, everything that we handle or that we sit on or work with in that way. Sort of like the way you take care of a musical instrument. Exactly.

[32:14]

Exactly. We take care of it with... We use it. We take care of it with love. You know, and we use it fully, but we take care of it. We put it, you know, leave it carelessly leaning against the wall. You know, when you're not using it, you put it in its case, so that it's safe. I have a question about something in the meal chant. Every time I get to it, you know, what was it? The, are we worthy I was thinking that the compassionate thing would be, we're all worthy of the food, or what is, I'm not sure what that means, I guess. Well, I think it refers to, I mean, did you have to say something?

[33:16]

I think it's, let us consider whether our virtue and practice deserve it. Right, but it's the line before this. Receiving this offering. Right. And it's in center, what they've been doing. one of the chances to do is receiving this offering, the suffering of many forms of being, or receiving this offering, the work of many beings. So I think that the implication is that the food has been offered to us and that in order to, when we get it, beings have died to give it to us, and also other beings have worked. every bean that we have, we have green beans, somebody's had to cut off both ends of it. Every piece of lettuce, it's an incredible amount of hand work that's not automated that goes into it.

[34:17]

So it's acknowledging that work and the fact that for our life to go on, other lives pass away. It's a koan. It's not that every being isn't worthy, but it's just like thinking about it. thinking about this circle of life that includes death for us to live at every moment, and that will ultimately include ours as well. I think, you know, she says something very interesting along these lines, that if all we do is eat and produce manure, it's not That's all you are.

[35:25]

It's a creature that eats food and produces what you are. You really ought to think about what your life is. Go on. I'm often wondered about that question. I hope that's a good question. Whether our virtue and practice deserve it. Receiving this offering, we should consider Well, virtue is another word for, it's kind of used synonymously with merit. And this is an aspect of practice we don't talk about very much.

[36:29]

I think a lot because it's uncomfortable for us coming from a Judeo-Christian background. In every Buddhist tradition I can think of, the practice generates merit. Sitting, offering, receiving, chanting, all these things generate merit. And in our practice, and in most of these practices as well, yeah, there's this virtue. But then we give it away. and we give it away. Actually, every time we do service, we give it away. The words become kind of automatic. but thus we offer the merit of the Bodhisattva's way, or the merit of this chanting pervades everywhere.

[37:32]

We do that in the afternoon. So there's virtue that's accumulated. There is one of the other One of the other aspects, two of the other aspects of the Bodhisattva's methods of guidance, kind or right speech and beneficial action, those have the power to help sentient beings. So it's generated by our practice and then we give it away. We don't claim it for ourselves, for our own power, for our own enlightenment. But it's not entirely comfortable. So we're considering the fact that we've accumulated some merit. We should consider whether our virtue and practice deserve. Then at this moment as we receive an offering of the food, take a moment to consider.

[38:36]

Right. How have you been acting? How have you been speaking to people? then the tricky part is, have you given it away? Another underline is, deserve it. Right. In other words, that's a tricky, sticky word. Right. I mean, do I deserve anything? Or, just everything's there, so. Again, it's that Judeo-Christian thing. In the language, yeah. But I think it's a pretty, that's a pretty good translation of what the meal chants are in Japanese. They don't have the same, they don't have the same kind of overlays, cultural overlays. They have different ones than we do. But I think no matter how you cut it, there is a challenging question there for you. And that challenge is always useful. And just that challenge is what we're doing.

[39:41]

That's part of the practice. What are you doing right now? Where is your intention? If there's any merit that's accrued, what are you doing with it? Where is your heart and mind? I think that's what that question is. It reminds me of a lecture that Mel gave about a month ago on the six kinds of tainted men is one kind where you can be in the practice, you can even be in a monastery, and the practice is just fine, but year after year passes, and it's a great lifestyle, and you learn how to pass, but you don't generate something which enhances the practice of the other people around you. You're sort of just off in the corner by yourself, doing the practice. So when I think of, consider whether your virtue and practice deserve it, it's related, the virtue is related to the what you're giving back to the community.

[40:48]

Because your practice is taken care of. You're getting up in the morning, you're eating, you're bowing, you're chanting. Is this something extra? How do you actualize this in your life to save all sentient beings? I think it's time for one more question. I just wanted to say that I think it's a really important term. When you first come, you know, usually people are really needy, and they come in and they begin to practice, and it's about, ah, I'm getting so much better, my life is getting better, and then at some point you look around and you see that there are other people here, and you realize that you're not practicing for yourself anymore. that your practice is an encouragement and a support for everyone. That's why I was saying earlier that I think for most of us the Bodhisattva vow has, you know, these sentient beings that we're saving, they have to start with us because mostly we need it.

[41:57]

And when you do a traditional, even the Theravada tradition, when you do a metta practice, You begin metta, metta is the practice of loving kindness. You begin with yourself and those who are nearest to you. I mean, partly it's skillful means because Well, in this culture maybe it's not so skillful news because sometimes it's the hardest thing for us to do to extend loving kindness to ourselves. It's easier for us to fix somebody else. But really, in the Absolute, you deal first with those that you love or are closest to, and then extend outward from there. So that's very traditional practice, in a different tradition, a tradition that doesn't have the Bodhisattva vows, but still has the Bodhisattva spirit, has Shakyamuni Buddha's spirit.

[43:09]

Well, we can continue. I hope that you'll ask questions about any matters of form that come up for you. We'll have another chance to talk during tea, another open discussion. And sometime today, because there are a lot of new people, Maybe I'll show you how and when we carry the fearsome stick, which some of you may have heard about and wonder about. So I think we should do that in a kind of open way so you can see what it's about. We'll do that this afternoon. And otherwise, just keep sitting, enjoy the day, and put some effort and attention in what you're doing. What? Does everyone know the four vows? Beings are numberless.

[44:12]

I vow to awaken with them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. We can't change that for a while. He's our Memphis!

[44:39]

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