Good morning. Welcome sharks and jesters and rams and all beings. It's really wonderful to be with you this morning. So we're going to have a sujiki ceremony shortly after this. Is this good enough volume? Do I need to be a little closer here? Okay, good. So I just want to talk a little bit about the Sajiki ceremony before we do that. I want to keep track of time. So the ceremony is for feeding the hungry ghosts. So in a certain way it's resonant with Halloween and Dia de las Muertos, you know, a time when the veil between The living and the dead is considered to be thinner, the veil between the worlds. And that's why we have our ceremony near Halloween time.

[01:04]

And it has many resonances with Halloween, also in the sense that it's a very old ceremony in Buddhism to feed the hungry ghosts. The possibly mythical roots of it go back to the Buddhist time, but certainly to stories about Moggallana, one of his main disciples. But it has popular manifestations, cultural manifestations, as well as religious ones, just as Halloween does. So in Japan today, it's also a time when families will gather together, kind of have family reunions, and go visit the ancestors' graves or memorial sites. So it has many, many levels. So I mentioned going back to the time of the history is that Moggallana, one of the Buddha's main disciples, had supernatural powers.

[02:11]

All the disciples had some special thing that they did. Moggallana had these supernatural powers, and one day, due to his powers, he was able to perceive that his deceased mother was stuck in the realm of hungry ghosts. It's one of the terrible realms, the six realms of existence that the Buddha taught, the gods where everything is perfect and great all the time, the fighting gods where everything's great but they're all jealous and angry and fighty with each other, The human realm, our realm, the realm of suffering and endurance, which is the only realm in which beings can actually wake up within, is to be present with all of the world. And then the lower realms of animals, which are dominated by fear, and the hell realm, where they're all angry all the time, and then the hungry ghost realm. So the images of the hungry ghosts from the watercolors in Japan, ink drawings in Japan, they're such pathetic creatures.

[03:23]

They look like starving beings with these hugely swollen bellies and these emaciated limbs and these long, thin pencil necks, these tiny, tiny mouths. And their suffering is that They can never get enough to eat. They can never be nourished for different reasons. Moggallana, when he saw his mother, there was food, but as she would bring it to her mouth, it would turn into fiery charcoal so that she couldn't eat it. So just this terrible suffering and craving that these beings were going through. So Moggallana went to the Buddha and he said, I'm heartbroken because I see that my mother, after her death, has fallen into this realm. And what can I do to save her? And the Buddha said, even you, Moggallana, with all your great virtue, there is not enough that you can do on your own to save your mother.

[04:31]

But with the power of all the monks who have gathered here for the rains retreat, together our merit can save your mother." So they did that and Mogollana was very grateful. And I think because it was in the, I think the seventh, the story is that it was in the seventh month and the fifth day, which is like, you know, mid-summer. And I think that may be why in Japan they celebrate it in the summer as part of the Obon Festival, which is a broader time to greet the ancestors. So this is a ceremony that is widely popular throughout most of Asia. And it may have different names, but it's all around feeding the hungry ghosts. It's all around nourishing beings who have gone and may be unsettled. So as part of the ceremony, we'll read a list of the names of the people who have died in the past year.

[05:37]

And when that list has ended, you're welcome to add out loud anyone that you wish to be remembered, to bring forward at this time too, and you would just say the names out loud. I think in some ways this ceremony has kind of, like many ceremonies do, has developed different feelings and understandings, interpretations between cultures and over the centuries. So I think in the West we often talk about the hungry ghosts as not just people who have died, who have passed out of this world, but that part of ourselves, just as the six realms are considered six different ways that we can appear in the world. You know, everything's great, feeling like a god, You know, it's like, it all goes well.

[06:39]

It all looks like it's going well, but I'm unhappy with everything. The human realm where we're kind of grounded and, you know, it's like, yeah, this is our life. Welcome, thank you for coming. And... and then being angry or fearful, and then the hungry ghosts. I think so many of us can identify that part within us that just feels unsatisfied, whether it's about food or anything else. There's just this kind of itchy craving that can't be satisfied. So I think often it's, you know, we also bring in you know, warm wishes to want to feed that part of ourself that is always, always hungry, always craving, always unsatisfied, however that manifests.

[07:49]

So, this ceremony is because the belief was that you were born in these different realms, reborn in these different realms, like Moggallana's mother, because of your past karma in that recently passed lifetime. So that would be the realm if there was like excessive stinginess or holding on. And, you know, we have a more psychological understanding today than we have had in the past, and more individualistic, so it's more like working with our own karma. But I also think about, you know, when I was thinking about the image of the hungry ghosts, you know, these emaciated figures. Of course, there were also images that we see regularly now in the world.

[08:54]

Gaza, Sudan, you know, of people who are literally experiencing that. And that's not because of their karma. It's because of the karma of the people who are not permitting food in. So this is a ceremony that intends to feed the hungry by our merit, the non-separation of us from all beings in the world. So we're calling them in, all of them in, to nourish and satisfy them, giving of what we have, which is our own goodness and our own practice, because we're actually not separate. In the relative world, of course, we're very separate, we're having very different lives. But in the absolute realm, in the realm of what's most ultimately true, there's no separation. We can't separate ourselves out from the world in any way.

[10:02]

We are of the world, and the world is one indivisible whole. Even though because of our delusion, because of everyone's delusion, we behave differently. But this is really a time when we get to bring it together. And, you know, these two sides are always together. There's the complete joy in the costumes. You know, some of you are coming in. So, bring the joy. choose joy. And we can also acknowledge the suffering in the world, and we're making offerings to it. Suffering of the living, the suffering of the dead. So I think that might be a somewhat expanded view, but it feels appropriate and powerful to me to also remember and include those in the world who are not just gone but who are living lives of being hungry ghosts living in that world and they are also human and they're also loving and connected and finding moments in their lives that are beyond all suffering just as we do they're not nobody's things they're all full human beings with their own lives so

[11:32]

You know, on the... I know not all of you receive the newsletter, the listserv, but I wanted to bring in something that Laurie had sent out about Hozon singing a song to the hungry ghosts that Krishna Das had written years ago, and I wish you could hear it in the original... I'm not going to try to sing it. I'm a terrible, terrible singer. But... Actually, I'll ask. How many people here know this song? A couple? Not enough. You want to try it? Should we try singing it? I'll say the words first. The melody just repeats over. It's a very short song. You can all find it on YouTube or somewhere. The words are... Calling out to hungry hearts.

[12:40]

So pointing to, it's not just our bellies, it's not just hungry ghosts, it's our hungry hearts. Calling out to hungry hearts everywhere through endless time, you who wander, you who thirst, I offer you this Bodhi mind. Calling out to hungry hearts, Everywhere through endless time, calling out to hungry hearts, I offer you this Bodhi mind. Gather round and share this meal, your joy and your sorrow, I make it mine. Gather round and share this meal, your joy and your sorrow, I make it mine. Should we give it a shot? Calling out to hungry hearts Calling out through endless time You who wander, you who thirst I offer you this Bodhi mind Gather round and share this meal

[14:05]

Your joy and your sorrow, I make it mine. Thank you. That was beautiful. And I think that's mostly what I wanted to say. The ceremony, I think the ceremony itself says more than then I could say, oh, I do want to say a little bit about the back of the zendo, which is where the tsujiki altar will be. The altar for the ceremony is in the back. So maybe some of us can relate to the feeling that when we feel stuck in that very tight place, that we just don't feel like we can connect with all the good in the world so we're going to cover this altar actually because we're calling in all these wandering spirits from wherever they're wandering we're going to call them in we're going to feed them there's food piled up on the altar and we're inviting them to partake of this feast with us and they would be frightened they would feel like they can't come if it's

[15:25]

too lofty or something. But we have this special altar just for them in the back of the zendo, so we're going to turn around and face this way. Everything's topsy-turvy during this time. I'll be wearing my robe inside out because everything is upside down and inside out. So we'll call them in with... It will sound to them like music. It will sound... What we were just singing will be like, ah, I can't take it. But the cacophony of the sounds is their music. It resonates. Come on, think about the punk movement, the grunge movement. I'm hurting. I want music that hurts with me. I want music that feels my heart. So we're going to be with all of them.

[16:26]

We're not going to get sucked in by it either, so we're going to send them all back, fully nourish, and we're going to say, goodbye, goodbye. Thank you so much for coming. There are ceremonies, actually, in Tibetan Buddhism that are basically like doing this daily on a regular basis and like feeding these spirits, but it's also a practice of knowing how to not get lost in it. You know, like developing capacity to call it up and let it go. Call it up and let it go. I know in things like somatic experiencing, that's a whole thing about titration, you know. You settle, then you open to the woo-woo stuff, and then you settle. Don't get too far out on either way. So we're going to take a little ride. Okay. I should hold it this way, but no. Still here.

[17:26]

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