This morning, the first part of our talk is for the kids. Hi, kids. What's your name again? Yeah. David. Matthew. What's your name? Leif. Actually I know everybody but I never remember anybody's name. When you come to this place, what do you call it? When you come here, what do you call this place?

[01:09]

When you say, I'm going to the Zendo? Zendo? Is that what you call it? Okay. So this morning I'm going to read, tell you a story. And this story, I won't tell you the title of it. I'll just read the story. Ready? David? Okay. Pay attention. David was very quiet at the lunch table. Father looked at him and asked, how was the Zendo today, David? Oh, it was OK, answered David, who seemed to be deep in thought. What are you studying now at the Zendo, asked his father. About Shakyamuni Buddha and his life.

[02:11]

Oh, I see. Daddy, Shakyamuni Buddha was a very kind man, wasn't he? Our teacher told us that he never showed anger in his whole life. But I was wondering, was he a brave man? Do you ever get angry, David? Do you ever get angry? You know what angry means? It makes you mad. It makes you mad, that's right. So, do you remember what I just said? Buddha was never getting angry in his whole life. But I'm wondering, was he a brave man? Are you brave? I don't know. Is that what's bothering you? asked his father. David, you have to pay attention to me. Not him, me.

[03:13]

You have to pay attention to me. You see, the teacher said, the teacher told us a story about the townspeople who insulted him. I would have fought with those people, but the Buddha just ignored them and walked through the street without paying any attention to them. It doesn't sound like a brave man's actions, does it? David, which is harder to do, to get angry with a person who hates you or to love that person?" asked his father. I think it's harder to love people who hate you, replied David. Yes, it's easy to get angry, but to love anyone who is mean to you is very difficult, and that takes much courage and power. The truly brave man does not get angry or use his power to suppress others. Instead, he loves everyone and tries to win others by his love and wisdom.

[04:17]

Buddha was such a person. Do you remember the story about Shakyamuni Buddha and the huge snake? Ask his mother. What is the story about? You know what a snake is, don't you? Yeah. Well, after Buddha was enlightened under the Bodhi tree, he traveled widely to spread his teachings about truth. He met all kinds of people, kings, princes, knights, and wise people all came to learn about his teachings. One day, the Buddha was passing through a mountain pass on his way to visiting a neighboring country. He had to climb many steep hills, and before long, darkness set in. The Buddha looked around for a suitable place to spend the night, very dark. I wouldn't sleep in the mountains. There are too many tigers and leopards and wolves, said David. Did he build a tree? Did he build a fire? He was about to do that when he saw a speck of light flickering in the distance through the trees.

[05:25]

Yeah. He thought that there must be a house or that some people must be there. So he walked toward the light. Who was it? Bandits? You know what bandits are? No? Do you know, who knows what bandits are? Bandits are people that rob you. Do you know what robbing means? They take something from you, right? No, but there was a house and many people were gathered around a powerful looking wise man. They were worshiping a god of fire. The Buddha asked them to let him stay for the night, and the wise man stared at the Buddha with thoughtful eyes and somehow knew that this gentle, kind-looking man was not just an ordinary person. But being a proud, self-confident man, he was sure that he was wiser and more powerful than the Buddha. So he asked the Buddha to come to the center of the group and began to ask him many difficult questions.

[06:27]

Why did he do that? Oh, he wanted to show his men that he could outsmart the Buddha and to embarrass him before them. But the Buddha answered every difficult question easily and so clearly that everyone was amazed. The wise man became jealous of the Buddha's wisdom and calmness, thinking that his students might turn to follow the Buddha as their new teacher. Angrily, he directed more difficult questions at the Buddha, one after another, till he could not think of any more questions to ask. then it was already quite late. So the Buddha thanked the wise man for an interesting discussion and asked him for a spare bed to sleep in. The wise man refused to spare a bed but charged, changed his mind after a while. With a wicked smile he let the Buddha, led the Buddha to the cold dark cave behind his house. You know what a cave is? The wise man dared the Buddha to sleep in the cave but warned that there was a huge snake in there somewhere.

[07:31]

The Buddha thanked the wise man politely and bade him good night and entered the cave very calmly. The wise man said, I hope I shall see you in the morning. And he sighed and chuckled to himself as the Buddha walked into the cave. Did he carry a lamp? No. The wise man did not give him a lamp. The cave was dark and the floor was uneven, but the air was rather warm. After a while, the Buddha found a flat spot where he sat to meditate. Do you know what that is? Can you meditate? Show me. Can you do it for five minutes? Do it for five minutes. Did the snake come out?

[08:36]

Yes, it did. The Buddha felt a stream of hot air blowing on his face, so he opened his eyes slowly. Oh, there was a huge snake right in front of him, flicking its tongue and staring at him with cold, merciless eyes. It made a strong hissing sound and opened its ugly mouth, revealing two sharp poison fangs, menacingly, and jerked back its head to strike. The Buddha sat still and looked steadily into the snake's eyes with warm love and kindness. The snake swayed back and forth, back and forth many times, but it did not strike at the Buddha. Soon it coiled itself, lowered its head, and fell asleep.

[09:37]

The next morning, the wise man and his students came to the cave to see if the Buddha had been killed by the huge snake. They couldn't believe their eyes when they saw the huge snake coiled up harmlessly beside the Buddha. The Buddha stood up slowly and thanked them for the restful night. Then he gently spoke to the snake, telling it not to hurt anyone, and the snake disappeared into the darkness. The people realized now what a great and brave man the Buddha was, asked him to allow them to become his disciples. The Buddha was very happy to have them all as his disciples. 500 of the wise man's followers became the Buddha's disciples. Now, do you see why the Buddha was so kind and gentle? yet he was a very brave man. I'm glad you told me the story, said David. Now I know that the Buddha was really brave and strong. Do you think the Buddha was brave and strong? Why?

[10:40]

Because he made his way past me. He could be very gentle and very brave at the same time. So, he made a friend of the snake instead of an enemy, and the snake didn't have to bite him. You think that's a good idea? Okay. Thank you very much. Bye. Now it's your turn.

[11:54]

Well, as I was looking through this book called Buddhist Stories for Young and Old, I ran across a very nice one called The Nun and the Stars, for lack of a better name. You recognize this person. It says, once upon a time, Making it into a fairy story, but actually it's not. Actually, it's not a fairy story. Once upon a time, many centuries ago, there lived a very learned, wise, and holy nun in one of the northern provinces of Japan. Her name was Rengetsu. You're probably familiar with Rengetsu as we chant her name every morning as one of the teachers, great teachers.

[13:19]

Certainly she was gifted with unusual beauty. I'm sorry, her name was Rengetsu and she was reputed to have been of noble birth. Certainly she was gifted with unusual beauty and her literary talents were held in high esteem even at the imperial court. one day the thought occurred to her that in all her life she had never known discomfort and at once she resolved to make a pilgrimage on foot. So that's pretty interesting, but it sounds just like Shakyamuni Buddha who said I've never had any discomfort in my life so he left the palace to find his fortune, so to speak. She'd never known discomfort, and at once she resolved to make a pilgrimage on foot. A short time later, she was on her way. Frequently, she had to put up for the night in rude inns of remote villages far away from any temples.

[14:24]

The food was usually coarse and unappetizing, but she made no complaint. Each morning, she started out at dawn, and being of sound health, she managed to walk many miles each day, stepping stopping to pay her respects at every temple, no matter how small, and at every wayside shrine. There came a day when she realized that she had taken the wrong road. Night was coming on, and she could see no sign of even so much as a charcoal burner's hut. At last, as darkness fell, she found to her great satisfaction that she was nearing a solitary farmhouse. But immediately she thought of a hot cup of tea, a meal, and a warm bed. But all her anticipations were short-lived. The owners of the house were inhumanly cold persons and roughly ordered her to be on her way. There being no other houses within sight, she resigned herself to spending the night in the open and began looking for a sheltering tree.

[15:29]

When Rengetsu had found a small tree to afford protection from possible rain, she settled herself on the hard ground and was filled with a sense of Sadness and self-pity. Then she looked upward and her face brightened. Within a few moments, her mood had changed. A feeling of gratitude came over her. The moonlight made it possible to see, and she got writing materials out of her pilgrim's rucksack, and this is what she wrote. Oh, how grateful I am to meet with unfriendliness. Now I appreciate the deep value of friendship. How happy I am to have the privilege of seeing a spring night in all its beauty. I never before realized how wonderfully brilliant the stars are. How fortunate I am to be hungry.

[16:32]

In future, I shall be truly thankful for whatever food is placed before me. What a favor was done me by the householder who refused me a night's lodging. Now I know that comfort is not just something to be taken for granted. Before going to sleep, Nun Rengetsu recited the holy name of Amitabha 108 times as a token of her gratitude for having to spend a hungry, shelterless night under the stars. When she returned to her temple at the conclusion of her pilgrimage, everyone marveled at the change that had come over her. She was wiser and more understanding than ever. Moreover, her gratitude for and appreciation of even small comforts was an inspiring example to all who know her. Nung Rengetsu's experience called to mind a poem by the great monk Shinran, and its meaning is approximately as follows. Had I not been banished to Echigo, Shinran was actually banished because he

[17:36]

Well, he lived at the same time just before Dogen, and he was the founder of the Jodo Shinshu school, where people recite the name of Buddha as their main practice. And he also allowed himself to be married which as a monk was not something that was condoned at that time. So he was banished from the capital to Ichigo, which is kind of a barren place, I think. Had I not been banished to Ichigo, how could I have known how to treasure family and friends?

[18:41]

Had I not been compelled to sleep in the snow, how could I ever have appreciated comfort? Had I not been exiled to the remote provinces, how would they have heard the message of universal salvation? Then Shinran, like Nun Rengetsu, recited the holy name of Amitabha, and gratitude for hardships. An ancient Chinese adage tells us, hardships are a clever teacher of the wise. They only cause groans of ignorant anguish from the unwise. So that's a wonderful lesson, actually, about adversity. You know, we say that hell is just another place to practice for a Zen student, and my teacher Suzuki Roshi always talked about difficulty as being our treasure, and those people who have the most

[19:56]

continue to practice, get the most out of practice. So that was always very encouraging to us when I was beginning to practice, because for me, practice is so difficult. I always had so much pain, and it was really hard. My teacher was always encouraging me to practice with the difficulty. Matter of fact, I think that was probably his main teaching, if you could say such a thing. But difficulty and adversity always has that side. And I remember also Master Hua used to print the Vajrabodhi See, which was Master Hua's publication when he was teaching in Chinatown.

[21:07]

one of his newsletters had the heading, everything is a test to see what you will do. So, we often, you know, and we do, we try to avoid problems as much as we can. we try to make our life as easy as possible, except that something's always upsetting the apple cart. Something's always upsetting the apple cart. As much as we try to do some good, it often turns out bad. And as much as we want things to turn out a certain way, they go another way. So, how do we negotiate, how do we move through this world of difficulties?

[22:15]

Sometimes I look at this, our world, and when I look at the insect world, Insects are always eating each other, you know, that's what they do all the time. Spiders spin webs, fish swim around, and the bigger fish eat the little fish. This is the world of problems, if we think about it that way. Everything is eating everything else, everything is being devoured, and the energy is transforming, constantly transforming from one creation to another. That's the way things work. And we want things, because of our human sensibilities, we want things to go a certain way, but they rarely do. The pendulum swings, and we think everything's fine over here, and then pretty soon it swings bad over here.

[23:26]

So we go swing between good and bad all the time and then we find ourselves in various worlds, various positions. So our practice is actually a practice of gratitude. For an angry person, person who gets easily angry at adversity, I've often given that person, that type of person, a koan, which is, whatever happens to you, to bow and say thank you for everything. no matter what it is, toothache, or pain in your legs, or tragedy, some great tragedy in your life.

[24:30]

We think, you know, this is your human sensibility, like and dislike, good and bad, right and wrong, A person like Rangetsu who, when a person becomes a monk or a nun in that way, is working at leaving the world of right and wrong, of good and bad, and adversity and pleasure, and simply being with whatever is present without judging it. When something good comes along, that's fine. When something bad comes along, okay. Whatever comes along, this is it.

[25:40]

It's very difficult because of our desire Really hard, really hard practice to simply see things as they are, or see things as it is. Very hard practice. And to be grateful, to see the other side. To see what seems like adversity as opportunity. Every moment is an opportunity, every incident is an opportunity for practice, for a maintaining practice which is continuous and is not simply sitting on a cushion, but in every aspect of our life, to appreciate whatever happens.

[26:49]

most difficult practice. That's why I remember Siddhagiri was saying in the very first talk, I think it's his introduction to Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, he said, practice is difficult not because of the pain in your legs, as we usually think about it, but because it's hard to maintain practice of non-duality. Well, next he said, to keep our practice pure, is what he said. It's hard to keep our practice pure. And by purity, he meant non-duality, not falling into good and bad, right and wrong, like and dislike, but simply to maintain an even-mindedness through all circumstances. And he also called it composure. to maintain composure.

[27:52]

In other words, not to fall apart, to be composed. You know, we have the Daruma doll, Bodhidharma doll in Japan. You've seen those little Daruma dolls. They have a weight in the bottom, in the round bottom. push the doll over but it springs back up. So when you fall off of practice you spring back up, when you fall down you spring back up. Dogen says, when you fall down to the earth you use the earth to help you back up. That's a great statement. Whatever it is that is the problem, you use the problem instead of being used by the problem. Master Joshu said to the monk, you're used by the 24 hours, but I use the 24 hours.

[29:06]

This is what Suzuki Roshi means by, you are always the boss. Not that you boss everybody around, but you use the 24 hours, not being used by the 24 hours. You use everything that happens to you rather than being used by what happens to you. So Rangetsu was feeling sorry for herself. out at night under a tree, nobody would, you know, she was driven away from the house really bad. But then she realized, well, I could appreciate the beautiful sky, you know. I can appreciate what's happening to me. I can appreciate that because I'm rejected, how wonderful it is to be accepted.

[30:10]

When you feel you're rejected, you can practice accepting others. So when we suffer, as we do in this world of transformations where we can't hold on to anything very long, including our own lifespan, we can appreciate what we really have moment by moment. No need to run after things.

[31:18]

but there's so much happening right here, right now. When you really focus on what's really happening right here, right now, you can come back to yourself and not so much need to amuse yourself with so many things. So, do you have any question? Yes. We're compassionate to others and strict with ourselves.

[32:40]

You're not giving somebody else a practice opportunity. It's your practice opportunity. No thanks for the opportunity. No thanks for the opportunity. So, I think that, I hate, I don't like to say this, but in Judaism there's the shlemiel and the shlemazel. I don't know too much about this, The schmuzzle is the one that's always spilling some. No, it's the other way around. The schmuzzle spills stuff on your lap. It spills the soup on you. And the schmuzzle is always the one that gets the soup spilled on his lap. It seems like, and I don't know if it's maybe partly because of democracy or something, that yes, when something bad happens to me, I find this teaching very useful, but looking at the bigger picture of bad things happening to other people and people in general and just bad things

[34:19]

What's not enough? The teaching that we just turn that into a great practice opportunity. That everybody can just turn that into a great practice opportunity. Yeah. Say... Like, for example, we know somebody who's an unsent Quentin on death row, and his teacher, his Tibet teacher, told him, don't blame others for your difficulties. Yeah. And that's really powerful teaching for him. But yet, we have Maybe so. But, you know, what would you suggest? That's why I'm asking. I think that we should try really hard to not make sure that hardly anybody has practice opportunities, and then know that when we do, then we'll deal with them that way.

[35:31]

I'm not sure what you mean exactly, I kind of know what you mean, but each one of us has our own destiny. And when you get all the way down to the bottom of your life, then you have a great opportunity, because that's where you die. But until we get down there, we have these little deaths of a thousand cuts, so to speak. But when you're all the way down, then you have the opportunity. So a tragedy is also an opportunity. But we each have our own ... The message of Shakyamuni Buddha is, find your own salvation. You cannot depend on anybody else. Not that we can't help people and so forth, but in the end, it's just you. So, we can be kinder to people in death row or I don't know.

[36:42]

I think that we have this problem of not being able to rehabilitate, so to speak, for lack of a better word, people in prison. Not to mention even the unfairness of the way people get put in prison. Well yeah, I mean the whole thing is, arguably, the state makes more money by the more people, the whole thing is a kind of scam. But, it used to be called the penitentiary. people would be penitent, you know, and there's something to that, you know, a real criminal to be penitent, but we have a punishment, it's like, you know, you did this, you're going to get punished.

[37:55]

That doesn't work, because sometimes it works. Anyway, that's a whole other thing to deal with, is how you treat prisoners. But whatever way we or whoever it is treats prisoners, in some way, right? How do we find our salvation when we're all imprisoned? That's the Buddha's message. We're imprisoned in this body, in this time, in this space, in this circumstances. How do we find our freedom within that? And that's what Satsang is about. How do you find your freedom within this confined, totally confined position where you can't move? Lots of hands.

[39:01]

Who was first? Who's on first? You were. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Right. the effect of rejection of producing appreciation for acceptance. This is somewhat related to the thing about prison and the effect of punishment versus rehabilitation. A lot of people who are rejected are unable to take from that the appreciation of acceptance and instead carry with them then the expectation of rejection. Yes. Yes. You know, rejection is one of the most difficult things to deal with.

[40:08]

Very difficult. Because we all want to be accepted. And so rejection is one of the most difficult things of all. And in some churches, shunning is like, whoa, you know. So it isolates you. But it also has to be an opportunity, otherwise what are you going to do? So this is the hand that you're dealt, and then how do you deal with that? So when we look all over the world, we see people suffering in different ways, and some are very obvious, hunger and murder and wars, those are obvious suffering spots, but there's also the suffering spot of complacency,

[41:18]

a boredom of ... it's just different venues, people are suffering all over the world, even in this wonderful California, the garden spot of the world, people are suffering here as well. in just different ways. Millionaires, billionaires suffer. Otherwise, how could you be a billionaire and not suffer? Yeah, it is time. Anyway.

[42:03]

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