Good morning, it's a lovely Saturday morning the first Saturday of spring in 2017 2017 for some reason I'm thinking remember when we were remember when 1984 was in the future on the other hand now it is arrived. Um. Anyway it's a lovely so lovely spring day. It's about a month ago I think was the last time that I spoke. And when I was. That talk was really about. The attitude or the way we conduct ourselves in our practice in our practice positions with each other to some degree or to a large degree speaking to the precepts of right speech.

[01:19]

So that would be the precept of not lying. Not. Speaking of the faults of others. Of not praising oneself. And downgrading others. And not harboring ill will. There is a positive side when we when we communicate the precepts. When we transmit the precepts in our various ceremonies we also don't just speak to the prohibition but to the affirmation. So we say I resolve not to lie but to communicate the truth. That's the positive side. I resolve resolve not to dwell on the faults or mistakes of others.

[02:27]

But to create wisdom from ignorance. I resolve not to praise myself and downgrade others. But to maintain modesty putting others first. And I resolve not to harbor ill will but to dwell in equanimity. So all of this. Pertains and this was this is kind of the way I began that talk. To the refuges that we take particularly the refuge of Sangha. And in that sense the expression of that that we that we often chant is I take refuge in Sangha before all beings bringing harmony to everyone free from hindrance. So today what I'd like to do is actually.

[03:34]

Emphasize and and tease out. The mind that goes behind these affirmations. And I've been thinking about this a lot. For some reason it came up I traveled to the East Coast. And. Visited I had a sort of busman's holiday visiting different. Different groups they also got to play some music which was great but. And I was thinking a lot about. This story the following story I'm going to tell you. So Dogen Zenji. Who we talk about incessantly and some people might think that we are actually the cult of Dogen Zenji that's that's him in case you're wondering who this guy is on.

[04:37]

He. He brought Zen he brought Soto Zen or what we call Soto Zen from China to Japan. In about 1232 1233. That's that's a long time ago. And. He had a monastery in the Kyoto area and then in the early 1240s he. Picked up his entire community which was quite large at that time and moved to what was then a very remote area. To the. On the West side of Japan. And in the wilderness he set out to build a monastery which which exists to this day and flourishes it's one of the headquarters of Zen it's called a age.

[05:44]

It's a huge incredibly beautiful monastery and I know some people in this room have been there. And he had a large complement of. Of followers monks and some nuns and lay people as he established himself in a at a he. And. He died relatively young he died at the age of 52 or 53 of tuberculosis. And as he was dying. He's in 1253 he spoke to his disciples. Now his his second disciple who. We recite in the lineage that we chant we chanted this morning his first disciple was Cohen a joke who had been him with him for a very long time.

[06:53]

And the. Cohen age owes. A. Dharma brother at that time was Tetsu Gikai. Tetsu Gikai was part of one of the things that happened just before Dogen left Kyoto with this this whole school of monks called the Daruma Shu Bodhidharma school. They came over and joined his community and so Gikai was Tetsu Gikai was was one of those monks and he practiced with Dogen for for 12 years. And as he was dying Dogen called his disciples to him. And spoke to them. So you can imagine this was very powerful moment right.

[07:59]

So to Tetsu Gikai he said. Who was who was later to become the third abbot of a he monastery he said you understand all of Buddhism. But you cannot go beyond your abilities and your intelligence. You must cultivate grandmotherly spirit the mind of great compassion and selfless concern that word in Japan in Japanese is robot shin you must cultivate grandmotherly spirit your compassion must help you to cultivate your compassion. Your compassion must help all of humanity you should not think only of yourself now place yourself imagine yourself in this room with your teacher on his deathbed giving you this message it's it's pretty intense.

[09:18]

So as I said Gikai had been a member of Dogen's monastic community for more than 12 years and later he wrote that Dogen had chided him several times about his need to cultivate grandmotherly mind and this message became a kind of koan for him. Really a question that he worked with because he didn't quite understand why Dogen was singling him out for this criticism particularly at this sort of critical moment. So I was thinking about this as I observed the circumstances in other communities but also I kept asking this question of myself.

[10:40]

Do I have am I adequately cultivating grandmotherly mind. Well I'm not sure that's mine to answer but if I had to answer what I'd say is well sometimes yes and sometimes no. What I believe is that this is the mind behind the relationships that we need to cultivate ourselves. I'm thinking of my own one of my own grandmothers. My paternal grandmother grandma Jen who had been a musician and very accomplished very bright came from a family of professional musicians and she married my grandfather with whom I was very close.

[12:02]

Who was a brilliant and very accomplished businessman and engineer and she made a great sacrifice for that marriage. He was diagnosed with pretty severe hypertension high blood pressure in the late 30s or early 40s and at that point in time they really had very few treatments or remedies for this and he was given basically no medication. It took him probably a year to live because his heart was enlarged and she just gave up everything she gave up her music she gave up her outside activities her painting her social work just to take care of my grandfather.

[13:09]

Then of course he lived another 30 years. She was she was is that model of grandmotherly mind to me where the love was just wide and unconditional. It wasn't fierce. You know we chant in the Metta Sutta just as a mother watches over and protects her only child you know that kind of fierceness protectiveness that wasn't that wasn't it it was just creating this really wide field particularly for me as a grandchild to. To flourish in. So I have a model for what Dogen is speaking of here.

[14:17]

In the Tenzo Kyokun which is the instructions to the cook. Dogen spells out three minds three minds of practice that. He encourages people to cultivate. This is it's called sun shin three minds on three shin mind heart. So that character shin in Sino-Japanese has has this unified meaning of heart and mind it's inseparable where we think mind is here heart is here you know kind of heart is good mind is questionable. But no there's no separation in that in that Chinese character.

[15:27]

So Dogen speaks about these three minds. I don't want to read you a little of what he says. As I said this is in the Tenzo Kyokun instructions to the cook. So he talks at the first mind is joyful mind. Which is the spirit of happiness. You should consider that if you were born in a heaven you would be attached to pleasures without cease and would not be able to arouse the thought of enlightenment. Practice would not be feasible among the myriad dharmas the most revered and precious are the three jewels Buddha Dharma Sangha. Now we have the good fortune to be born as human beings and to prepare this is instructions for the cook and to prepare the food that these three jewels receive and use.

[16:32]

Is this not a great karmic significance. We should thus be very happy. I came back 10 days ago or so from teaching at Upaya Zen Center where I teach a couple times a year in the chaplaincy training program. And this time right across. I have a small room teacher's room and then right across there was another room and for two months there was a. Doppel took a young monk from very very remote area of Nepal in the Tibetan tradition. So Doppel took always he's like 35 he's half my age but.

[17:35]

But. Every encounter with him was an encounter with joyful mind. He had this lightness and this joy that was. That was rooted in his practice and everybody who encountered him. Got it and just you know you wanted to be around him it was. Contagious. So that's this joyful mind the Japanese word for that is Kishin. The third mind and I'll come back to the second because that's. The one I'm talking about is magnanimous mind Daishin big mind. This is what Suzuki Roshi is always talking about he's always talking about big mind the mind that is beyond this kind of.

[18:41]

Oatmeal textured stuff that's in that's within the bowl of your skull it's something bigger than encompasses everything. Daishin magnanimous mind is in its spirit. This is Dogen like a great mountain or a great sea. It has no partiality and no factionalism. Lifting an ounce it does not consider it light. Hefting a stone he does not can it does not consider it heavy. Being drawn by the voices of spring. It does not wander into the swamp of spring. Although it sees the colors of autumn it has nothing whatsoever of the spirit of autumn. It contrasts the four seasons against the backdrop of a single view.

[19:44]

As an emblem of this sameness we can write the character great. You should know the character great. You should know that the great teachers of old were alike in their study of the character great. In connection with the diverse phenomena of this world. Now too there are those who freely connect with great people and accomplish karmic conditions of this one great matter. And he's talking about training and that was subject that I was talking about in the last talk. How could abbots stewards prefects and monk in training entirely forget this kind of mind. So what he's saying is this big mind that Suzuki Roshi talks about.

[20:49]

Irrespective of season or condition is always accessible to us every moment. So the second mind in in his words to. In his words to Kikai he calls it role by shin by I think by or by his grandmother. And row is parental. So here he talks about parental mind. Roshan is the spirit. This is the second the second one of these three minds. It's the spirit of fathers and mothers. It is for example like a father and mother who dote on their child. One's thoughts of the three jewels are like their concentration on that child.

[21:54]

Even though they are poor or desperate they strongly know love and nurture that child. People who are outsiders cannot understand what their state of mind is like. They can only understand it. When they themselves become fathers or mothers. This is one of the things that that I remember when when Lori and I became parents. Actually when Lori became pregnant which is not when I became pregnant. Was that all of a sudden we were. We had been inducted into this big open secret club. But I don't think it's confined to parents. I think it also applies to aunts, uncles, people who love people.

[22:57]

All of them can understand this parental mind. Without regard for whether themselves whether they themselves are cold or hot. They shade their child or cover the child. We might we may regard this as affectionate thinking at its most intense. A person who arouses this spirit is fully conscious of it. A person who cultivates this spirit is one who truly awakens with it. And Dogen speaks to this in the context of being the cook. And there's a lot of people in here who have done a lot of cooking for sashim and for Saturday breakfasts. This attitude is how all of our tasks should be approached and how all things should be handled or used. When you handle water, rice or anything else.

[24:00]

You should have the affectionate and caring concern of a parent raising a child. This applies to people. Perhaps it applies more easily to things because things tend not to talk back. So when we're, you know, when we're handling our zafus, we don't just plop them down on the ground. When we're handling our zabatons, we don't move it with our foot to change its angle. We actually reach down because it is a part of us. It is our mind, our child. And so we handle it carefully. So how much more carefully should we act in relation to each other? After Dogen's death, Dogen's first disciple was Koen Ejo, who had been with him for many, many years.

[25:11]

And he became the second abbot of Eheji Monastery. And Gikai was there. Gikai had a lot of responsibilities. You know, he had been in that community for many years and when Ejo went away and Dogen was still alive, Dogen appointed Gikai to be sort of the temporary director of the temple. In Dogen's first practice period, when he moved to this distant remote area, he appointed Gikai as the Tenzo in kind of a really fierce winter with many, many feet of snow. So Gikai wondered, sort of, what's the deal here?

[26:12]

What is he saying to me? What is it that I need to learn? And Gikai finally, he came to realize the principle that we have, which is that enlightenment is actualized only within our activity. So sometimes we're confused about that. And some things that we read about Buddhism and Zen suggest that enlightenment is an experience. It's some state of mind. It's some great event where the fireworks go off and all the lights are blinking on and off all the time. And it's like, wow, I've got it. So this is actually something I remember from a dialogue that took place

[27:18]

between Sogen Roshi and one of my teachers, Robert Aiken Roshi. Aiken Roshi had been asked at an event, what's your most satisfying experience as a teacher? He said, when my student comes in to the Dokusan room, to the interview room, and I see in her eyes, she's got it. You know, which is pretty good. And the next day, we were having a dialogue between Aiken Roshi and Sogen Roshi. And I asked him the same question. And Sogen Roshi said, my most satisfying experience is when my student changes her life. It's like, that was the response that erased all questions in my mind about who my teacher was.

[28:25]

When my student changes his life, her life, that is enlightenment within activity. When we change what we do, so that we act in accord with the Dharma, so that we act in a way that is kind, that is thoughtful, that is helpful and encouraging to all beings. When we take the position of being grandmother to all beings. The more I've thought about this over the last month or two, because I've been thinking about it a lot, the more I feel like, the more I set that as a vow and an intention for myself.

[29:35]

The more I want that, the more I want that, the more I want that to be the way that I want it to be. I want to manifest that myself. And the more I want to encourage you to do that. And simultaneously, the more I recognize where I fall short. There are places where, where I do turn away, or where I feel tired or frustrated or just maybe lazy. And, you know, I just, I don't, I cannot remember ever seeing my grandmother be lazy.

[30:45]

I just can't. I just felt like, in a very straightforward, step-by-step way, she just did one thing after the next. Without any sense of self-aggrandizement, without calling for any recognition. So I've got this model in my life. You know, sometimes I can do it, and sometimes I can't. Sometimes you can do it, and sometimes you can't. But to hold the spirit of Grandmotherly Mind, to hold it up in front of our eyes, I think that's the, that's really something to, to aim for, not as a, not so much as a goal, but just as a way to live.

[31:52]

So that mind comes from deep within our training, on the one hand, but really it's the natural mode that, as we, as we peel back the layers of our ego and our personality, it's what naturally arises. That's at least the vision of the Dharma that we've been given. And we have this story, you know, that's been passed down to us for 763 years. This encounter between Dogen and, and Gikai happened 763 years ago, and it's still alive in this room, right? I'm telling you this story, many of you know it,

[33:13]

but it's alive because it has real meaning and give direction to us. And it gives direction to us in a, at a time when it sort of seems in short supply. And also I want to say it gives direction to the spirit. All, I've been taught that all of our, all the talks that come from this seat or that seat should be encouraging you to sit Zazen. So I have to bring it back to that. What is your attitude towards yourself? Can you be your, can you be your own grandmother? As you are sitting, can you include and encompass your shortcomings

[34:16]

and meet them with a, a directed love and a wish to do better, to do, be more open, to be kinder first to yourself. This is what we're doing in Zazen, in, in Genjo, in, in Fukan Zazengi by Dogen Zenji. He says that Zazen I speak of is not learning meditation. It is simply the Dharma gate of repose and bliss. Some of you may be waiting, you're, you're ready for the repose and bliss, you know, it's like, okay, bring it on. It's there when we get out of our own way, when we settle into our posture and our breath, we find that ease and we can take care of ourselves with that spirit.

[35:25]

If we can take care of our, we, we cannot really take care of anyone else until we can take care of ourselves with that spirit. And we cannot take care of ourselves with that spirit if there is a disjuncture between our attitudes towards ourselves and how we act in relation to all of those around us. So it works from the inside out and the outside in because there is no inside and outside. That is also one of the things that we encounter in Zazen. And little by little, our understanding comes to see this manifest in our whole lives. And we act in a way that manifests enlightened activity.

[36:26]

That is enlightenment. Enlightenment is not a thing. It's not an experience. It's actually how we act in the world. You don't get any medals or badges, but everyone sees it. You may not see it, but other people see it. You may not see that you're, you're the grandmother, but other people see it. So I encourage you to consider, hold up, reflect on this grandmotherly mind. Each of us needs it and we need this for, it's the spirit that should really infuse the practice that we do here

[37:31]

as individuals and as a community and spread from there in sort of, you know, outward ripples into the world itself. So I'm going to stop there and leave. We have a little time for question and answer and thoughts. So maybe you have something to share. So he said to Gikai, you understand all of Buddhism. Gikai was very accomplished. He was a very good scholar. But you cannot go beyond your abilities and your intelligence. You must have grandmotherly mind, the mind of great compassion and selfless concern.

[38:34]

This compassion must help all of humanity. You should not think only of yourself. It's very easy for me to picture myself in Gikai's place. You know, it's like we are all intimate with our self-regarding views. But it doesn't really help for us to beat ourselves up about it. That's not what Dogen was saying. You know, so it's a wonderful message. Thank you. Someone else? Sue? Yeah, thank you for a very wonderful talk. And I very much appreciate hearing about Gikai. I really found it very accessible. So when we work with each other on our grandmotherly mind,

[39:38]

beyond chicken soup, I think, how do we do that? Do we come to each other and say, here's how to encourage me? Or when we feel we're not encouraged, do we speak up? Do we sit with it? How do we work with this encouragement? I'm not quite sure what your question is. How do we work with which encouragement? Allowing other people to encourage us if we don't feel encouraged. Asking other people what we can do to encourage them. How do we work with this? Well, I think you can encourage you as a grandmother, which you are, right? You can encourage other people.

[40:40]

Do it privately, you know, do it personally. And the other side, which is really tricky for some of us, is when someone offers you encouragement, you should accept it and don't deflect it. Do you know what I mean? It's like if I offer you some appreciation, let it in, don't push it away. I had and still have a reflex to do that. And I realize it's really, that's not helpful because it pushes the other person away. They're trying to offer you something and you're, you know, because of your psychological makeup, you're not able to accept it. Learn to accept it.

[41:44]

Let it in. And also, correction can be very encouraging. Yes, correction. This is a big issue. You know, we have a practice that is to some degree formal and there are ways of doing things that we have in our tradition. The spirit of correction, it takes two to tango, right? First of all, if I offer you a correction, you know, and this was something I really had to work with, you know, the motivation can be, I'm correcting you because it makes me uncomfortable that you don't know how to do something the right way. That's not grandmotherly mind. That's just flat out anxiety and authority.

[42:50]

And that's not a motivation that we want to encourage. If I can do it cleanly, not publicly, you know, step aside and suggest something to you for your sake. Because I really would like you to understand that that's a spirit. Now, that's one side. The other side is you may not like getting corrected. You know, you may take no matter what my intention is, you may have a response to being corrected. And that's from our side. It's like, how do you just take the correction, you know, to somebody offers you something, whether irrespective of what their motivation is. If there's something for you to learn there, just say thank you. You know, and if you have an inner response,

[43:55]

work with it, work with it yourself, instead of perhaps having a reaction to the person who's offering it. This is very, this is complicated stuff, you know, and it's the stuff of interpersonal relationships, the stuff of marriages, it's the stuff of communities. So, we must do our best. When, unfortunately, you do have the desire to correct somebody because what they're doing is painful to you, how do you get over yourself? How do you, you said, take them in private and do something and suggest something for their, out of compassion for them rather than concern for yourself. How do you get over your, those reactions to be more compassionate? I don't know in any categorical way.

[44:59]

It may be that you actually have to own your own inner response, you know, and check it out with them. You know, to say that you may acknowledge some question about your own motivation. It's very tricky. It depends on the nature of the relationship that you have. If you have a relationship of trust and intimacy, then there's a space for that. There's a space for the ambiguity of relationship. If you don't, you know, then probably it's best to be quiet. Sometimes it's best to be quiet. Peter? Your teaching this morning made me think of a slight variation

[46:02]

of what we know as the golden rule, do unto others as you would do unto yourself. What's the golden rule again? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, right? Yeah, that's the standard formulation. Right. Do unto others as you would do unto yourself. In other words, extend grandmother, if you would extend grandmother's mind to yourself, then maybe you can do it for others. That's true. But the reason I'm talking about grandmotherly mind is that because I recognize the gaps in my own grandmotherly mind. And so it helps me to talk about stuff because then it's like, first of all, then you hold me accountable. It's like, well, you said, you know, but also I hear myself say it and it reaches someplace deeper. Yeah. Judy?

[47:04]

I'm not sure exactly how to say it. Sometimes for me it's easier to hear grandmotherly mind as a problem line because I always wonder, what about the grandfathers? What's their mind like? And sort of take it out of, you know, kind of stereotypes and stuff. But I'm also thinking, you know, like of a lot of grandmothers who were against lots of things in public spaces and that I encountered and had to deal with a lot of, you could say, creative tension because it's not popular to, sometimes to voice that mind. So I'm wondering about the fierceness of that, the capacity of the bodhisattva, the kind mind, to say no, to say stop. Could you say something about that? I actually don't think he's talking about that here. What's the distinction? I think

[48:11]

all of Buddhism is medicine. And in other words, it's any teaching that one gives to another is basically to that person as a way of rebalancing distortions or overemphasis that might be in their case. So I think that I'm sure that Gikai had plenty of fierceness. That was not the medicine that Dogen was giving him. You know, so I'm not speaking against what you're suggesting. It just seems to me that he was giving other medicine in this particular case. And in other cases, he might give that medicine.

[49:18]

So I don't deny that. Obviously, he is dealing in stereotypes or archetypes. And I'm okay dealing with that. I don't think this is the conclusive categorization of how we should be in relationship. To each other. In the Bodhisattva's Four Embracing Dharmas, another fascicle of Dogen, where he talks about kind speech. He actually there, he distinguishes. He says, yeah, it's mostly kind, but sometimes you have to speak strongly. So that's another teaching in another place. So that's what I would say. Just like every, and also you have to realize every teaching is incomplete. You know, it may be an attempt to bring us back into balance,

[50:25]

to have us on the center point, but we don't stay on the center point. We don't stay anywhere. You know, it may bring us back there and then we veer over. We move a little over to the right. And we need another, we even need another teaching that brings us back to the center and we move over to the left. So constantly, it's basically, it's like an automatic pilot. That was a metaphor that Achenbosch used. We're averaging our direction so that it comes out along the middle way. Yeah, Megan. My grandmother was a wonderful grandmother. And what I remember is she thought I was the cat's meow. She was, she was right. Well, all of us grandmothers, one thing we feel about our grandchildren is that they

[51:30]

are wonderful. Uh-huh. And so that when we approach someone to have to, you know, there's a correction that needs to be given. If it's done with the attitude, you are a valuable person. Right. And I want you to know this, it is better than I am a valuable person. Well, I had one of those grandmothers too. I'm not talking about her. And I loved her and she loved me, you know, and perhaps she was a bit narcissistic. But, um, but this is the attitude, not just of a grandparent, but of a parent. You know, it's like whatever you do, and it may be a strong action, it may be immediate and forceful, like your kid is going to run out in the street.

[52:32]

The ground of that is unconditional love, which is quite different from I'm going to stop you, Megan, because I really don't like what you're doing and you don't get it. That's not unconditional love. That's about me. Fortunately, I haven't had to do that. Well, one more question. I'm talking about driving everything back to Zazen, not being a grandmother, but recognizing what's similar between grandmothers, from what Megan just said, and Zazen is that we recognize in the children, that's part of me. Blood is mine, right? In Zazen, we have the opportunity to remove separation so we can see that everyone around us is part of me, and when that occurs, we have a grandmotherly, I would say, arising. Yeah, I think that's true. The other aspect of it that it would raise, which is that whether it's a mother or a

[53:39]

grandmother, they want the child to be him or herself, which is maybe part of me, but it's not me. It's we want that child to thrive and be who they are, which often may have some resemblance and some disresemblance to oneself. So you want both. You feel connected, but your wish, and this is our wish. This is actually our Bodhisattva wish. This is Suzuki Rinpoche's wish. You know, when you are you, Zen is Zen. So it's like, I don't want you to be like me. If you look at Mel Sojin's disciples, they're really quite varied group of people and personalities. There's something that perhaps we have in common.

[54:42]

There's something we all in this room have in common from practicing together in this way. And each one of us is unique. So it's it's the celebration of our connectedness and our uniqueness. Not one, not two. Thank you very much.

[55:00]

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