Well, it's a wonderful late summer morning here in Berkeley. It's nice to see you all. It's Labor Day weekend, so I hope on Labor Day weekend you can set aside a lot of your labors. We have our program today and then we actually have a study sitting tomorrow, which I'll be leading. The study sitting, the subject is going to be Hakuin Zenji's Song of Zazen. It's a catchy title. So wonderful piece that is chanted frequently in Rinzai lineages and temples. And we'll study it, I think that there's, There are many resonances that are in accord with our understanding of zazen.

[01:09]

It's not like it's something radically different. There's an emphasis in Song of Zazen in Hakuin's school, an emphasis on enlightenment. But in this Song of Zazen, he talks about it something very much like what we talk of in what Dogen Zenji talks about as practice realization. That's really at the heart of our Sazen practice. The frame for practice, which is saying, unlike many spiritual Buddhist and other spiritual traditions. The goal is not to somehow become enlightened or to have an experience of enlightenment.

[02:11]

The Dogen Zenji's understanding tells us we practice because we are enlightened. So to take this posture, to sit facing ourselves side by side with others, is actually the expression of our enlightened nature. And so I've been thinking about, that's one of the things I've been thinking about. And what that suggests is that whatever enlightenment is, which we can't ever fully articulate,

[03:16]

or even get our mind around them one way or another, to me, it's not particularly an experience. Because if it were an experience, then you could put it in a box and then you could sell it, which actually some people are trying to do. There are a lot of people trying to do that. And they put it in a box and they say, well, you do this and you'll be enlightened within a week or within a weekend. And that's all very well and good. It might even work. The fact of the matter is, what does that mean if we are already enlightened? So the question to my mind is, what is enlightenment?

[04:23]

What is it good for? Absolutely nothing. And I was inspired, so the other chain of thought that I'm bringing to this, I'm trying to let my mind ruminate in a few different directions, is what do I want to do when I grow up? So I'm in my 68th year, which I can hardly believe, although sometimes I can really believe it. And I'm aware that I'm at another I'm at another point or another, I'm much further down the track of my life than I'd like to imagine, but it's actually true.

[05:29]

And I can feel certain, there's certain limitations, certain physical limitations, and the, I'm aware that I'm so grateful for whatever physical and mental abilities I have with the constant awareness that they could disappear in a flash. Things could change in my body or things could change in the world. So what do I want to do? And that's not a separate question. You could say, what do I want to do with my enlightenment. What do you want to do with your enlightenment? Because if I'm enlightened, you're all enlightened too. We're all of us. This is the climax of Hakuin's Song of Zazen, the last line is, in the last lines it says, this very body is Buddha.

[06:42]

So what are you gonna do? Now I've been thinking about this, sort of speculating on a perception of age that I have. And also, as I spoke about several, I guess last month, inspired by the example of Pope Francis And then not so, two weeks ago I just returned. Some of you know I teach at the Upaya Zen Center's Chaplaincy Program. And so I go there twice a year. I've been doing that now for four years. And really inspired by the people there, the students who are doing difficult work. work with people who are dying, work with people who are suffering in all kinds of ways, work with people who are struggling with the environment.

[07:53]

They're trying to figure out how to bring their enlightenment to the world. And one of the sayings that came out We were receiving, we had a teaching from Roshi Bernie Glassman, who some of you tablists know. And he was quoting the ninth century Japanese Buddhist teacher. His name is Kukai. or his posthumous name which also people know him as Kobo Daishi and he was more or less the founder of the Shingon school of Buddhism which is one of the large schools at that time in the Nara period of early Buddhism in Japan you had

[09:06]

a couple of very large schools. The Tendai school was probably the largest, which was essentially a pure land school, and Shingon Buddhism sort of emerged to some degree from that. And there were other schools. There was the Kegon school, which was rooted in the Avatamsaka Sutra, in these kind of cosmic teachings. And all of these kept evolving, and there are elements of it in our Zen tradition. The Shingon school was, in many ways, It was what they call an esoteric school, where it depended upon, its practices were rituals and mantras and mudras and what we call esoteric secret practices.

[10:12]

And that, so one of the sayings of This founder, Kobo Daishi, that has immediate relevance here is, the way you can tell the depth of a person's enlightenment is by the breadth of their service to others. The way you can tell the depth of a person's enlightenment is by the breadth of their service to others. Whether he actually said that or not, I like it. It really resonates with me. I spent about two hours digging around. You know the way you can dig around on the internet for a source. I need to find somebody who is really on teaching because when you dig around for a source on the internet, you often discover that it's kind of circular.

[11:29]

Oh, you find this quote, and then you try to track it back to the next one, and the next one, and you find they're citing the first place you found, and it just goes around. So I can't tell you that this is not apocryphal. whether he said it or not, it's pretty good. You don't know, Soju, do you? Well, I think a lot of people have said it. I don't think it's unique to the Koho Daishi. Well, they've said it either before or since, yeah. I think it's a rather common understanding. Right. So, one of the things, one of the interesting things about Shingon, this is kind of a digression, is that I've been reading about the development of Japanese so-called religion. There was no Japanese religion as such until the West arrived and called whatever they did religion.

[12:37]

But a lot of the Shingon, a lot of rituals were for In a petition to the emperor, Tokai Kobodachi petitioned the emperor to carry out some of his rituals and he said, they were said to enable the king to vanquish the seven calamities and to maintain the Four Seasons in harmony, to protect the nation and the family, and to give comfort to others. So there was a very broad scope to Buddhist practice, which included benefiting the whole society and the whole nation. And this is very common in Japanese Buddhism. So, we have to take this in our way. to measure the depth of our own enlightenment by the breadth of our service to others.

[13:47]

So in that sense, to me, the nature of our enlightenment is not an experience, but it's an activity. It's enlightened activity. And sometimes that enlightened activity is just coming to this end up. Sometimes it's cooking a meal in a homeless shelter. Sometimes it's protecting the air and the ocean and the mountains. And it puts me in mind of, uh, Well, we have this very deep study in the Zen tradition of what Deng Xiang, the ancestor Deng Xiang called the five ranks, which are various positions of so-called guest and host.

[15:00]

And in a sense, I think that The position of serving others is to see oneself as the host and to recognize that one is not, that one is simultaneously a guest. We take the host, meaning we take care of the whole world that meets us. And this is resonant with, we had a talk on Monday morning, wonderful talk by one of the, a BCC student, Dave Rutschman, and he quoted a fascicle of Dogen Zenji's which is particularly also resonant with me, said, you give yourself in the context of giving, you give self to self and you give others to others.

[16:23]

So how do we do this? How do we serve others? How do we give ourself to ourself? And how do we give others to others? Is that ours to give? A few months ago, I remember a talk that, you know, a talk that Satchin Roshi gave was a discussion, actually, that we had, I think, maybe it was during Seshin, where a question came up, if I'm remembering it correctly, and you may remember it more accurately, what are we doing by sitting upright facing the wall? you know, what I remember you saying, what I got from this was, you know, we have to face ourselves, we have to touch this deep source of silence, deep source of steadiness, and then inevitably we go forward from that spot.

[17:51]

So it's not just that It's not simply that the activity of sitting and facing the wall is the summation or the entirety of our lives. But it is, to me, that it informs our life in a deep and in a way that Well, in a way that I certainly didn't know before I did it. You know, if I think about my life before I came to Zazen, I felt incredibly restless and almost, you know, kind of writhing around inside my skin, looking for what to do, what am I supposed to be doing? You know, I don't want to waste my time in this life, but I really do not know.

[18:59]

And it was actually that kind of, that was the impetus that when I, when I read about Zen, particularly when I read Suzuki Roshi, I felt, well, I have to try this, because there is nothing else to do. And I did, and it wasn't easy. For quite a long time, not easy to sit still. But there was also, I recognized, I think, in myself, I had the wish to serve others. I didn't have the clarity of perception to see that I was one of those others, as each of us is.

[20:13]

You know, that not only did these people so-called need attention, need help of whatever sort it might be. But I was one of those. So I didn't get that. But through the process of sitting and literally facing the wall, I began to realize that there was not a separation there. So to give self to self and to give others to others, to give self to self is to recognize the non-distinction of self and others. And to give others to others, as it gradually has become clear to me, is

[21:17]

sort of multifaceted, that there's the notion of sort of imperceptible mutual influence, where the very fact of our sitting here influences those who are around us in ever-widening circles. But there's also, and we see this influence on in our lives. I'm sure that some of you have had the experience. You may catch it directly or indirectly, but you have friends or family members who may think, oh, that person is sitting zazen or doing Buddhism. What's that about? And as we continue our practice and deepen our practice, what that's about is not something that you can explain to people and that they may not even ask you.

[22:47]

But they see there's something happening. And they're they're curious and also that something happening allows them to feel some confidence in your steadiness. That has an influence that allows them to be, that allows others to be themselves. So I'm not sure how much I have to say about this today. But I'd like you to know that I'm thinking about what is the function of my practice, even at the same time as I just do it without

[24:09]

I don't have any gold for it. It's an interesting conundrum. I've been doing it a long time. When I'm here, I maintain my schedule. And I don't know if I will ever have You know, you read these, I've been reading biographies of Hakko in biographical sketches in preparation for tomorrow, you know, and when you read these hagiographies of the great Zen masters, you know, they all have these big experiences. you know, earth shattering, you know, it's like I was, one of the things I'm reading today is like, well, it was as if I were a sheet of ice, 10 miles thick, expanding in all directions.

[25:23]

Now, I have never had that experience. Not even an inch thick. And I don't care if it happens. Whatever happens, happens. And sometimes it may not happen until the last moment. The great Tolstoy story, The Death of Ivan Illich, have people read that? This poor guy is suffering horribly and his enlightenment experience comes in his last moment of consciousness.

[26:26]

Now, of course, how the hell did Paul Stein do this? But it may happen then, it may not happen, but what I see in this community is just people who are in the process of revealing their enlightened nature has not separate from our completely wacky human nature, where we have our foibles and our shortcomings and our crankinesses, but the general drift is to be of service to others. And there's so much generosity here And I feel that that generosity is not just turned inwards. It's towards the world and towards our lives.

[27:31]

And I think that that's how we are shaped by the Zazen that we do. And I really feel like it, in that respect, it saved my life. So I think I'm gonna stop, I have a song and then we'll have time for some questions or discussion. Hang on a second, I need a drink. So this, some of you know, there's so many great songs out there and so I've been hesitant in my life to write many, because I like the old songs, but what I've been doing is rewriting some of the old songs.

[28:33]

So this is... I rewrote an old song from the blues tradition, and I'll sing two verses of it so you get the idea of where it's coming from, and then you'll see where I went. And this was recorded by Big Bill Brunzi of Nike It's called, his version's called, All By Myself. I'm on my way all around the world. When I get back, I'll have diamonds and pearls all by myself. All by myself. I don't need no one to help me, I can do it all by myself. This is another verse. I like this one. This is the story of my life here. Got a house full of women. They're all full of pep. I can take care of them. I don't need no help.

[29:35]

All by myself. All by myself. I don't need no one to help me. I can do it all by myself. Now here's where I took it. On your way around the world, you don't need no diamonds and pearls, not by yourself. Not by yourself. You want to be a bodhisattva, you can't do it all by yourself. Try that chorus. Well, not by yourself. Not by yourself. You want to be able to suck, but you can't do it all by yourself. Don't worry that your brain's too small. That big, true mind belongs to us all. Not by yourself. Not by yourself. You want to be able to suck, but you can't do it all by yourself.

[30:35]

When I turn my life around to see just what's there inside of me. You know I'm not by myself. Not by myself. I want to be a Bodhisattva. I can't do it all by myself. You gotta serve somebody, Bob Dylan sings. The boat is out to talk about the same old thing. Not God or the devil, generals or kings. You gotta serve all the suffering sentient beings, not by myself. Not by myself. You want to be a voter's son, but you can't do it all by yourself.

[31:41]

You can have all the gold Donald Trump can find, but that won't buy you a peaceful mind. Not by yourself. You want to be a Voting Sop, but you can't do it all by yourself. Sing it one more time. Well, not by yourself. Not by yourself. You want to be a Voting Sop, but you can't do it all by yourself. So we have a little time. Do you have any questions or thoughts? I remember Bernie also talking about how do you bring everybody to the table, the seeming opposites, from bearing witness retreats to social activism. How do we do that? What did he say?

[32:42]

Didn't he have the answer? Include everyone. But how? How do you do that? I don't know that I can. The motto or slogan that I have for myself is I will not abandon anyone. And that's very tricky because that doesn't necessarily mean that I have the capacity to give people what they think they want. I can give what I'm capable of and what that means to me in a fundamental way is I will not stop thinking of them.

[33:44]

So in a way that means I will not stop thinking about How can we all be sitting around the table together? What about Donald Trump? Where does he fit in? I don't know. As a political figure, in a political sense, I'm completely opposed to him. In a personal sense, I know that he has... I know he's suffering. whether or not he's willing to intentionally or unintentionally cause suffering from others, he's suffering. And when I see, you know, Donald Trump or Dick Cheney or others, you know, it's like, I don't feel that they're beyond my understanding or can as a human being.

[34:52]

I had a dream It's a very weird dream. A couple of years ago, I remember it, of sitting across from Ronald Reagan. And he was old and he had some degree of dementia. But I felt, I was looking into his face and I felt a deep compassion. And I felt this is not someone who is not human. So I really try to find that. That's the best I can do. Whether we're capable of sitting down together, I don't know. But what I do know is that I know that my capacity has expanded over the last 25 or 30 years. And I believe that. I believe in that process.

[35:54]

Thank you. Yeah. An image came to mind. You were trying to describe the practice and how we bring it to others. And my sitting, I often come like in the middle of a storm and it's like overhead for imagine. And then during the sitting maybe it opens up and there's light. Yeah. And I'm in the light. And then that light reflects off me onto others and there's no intention of doing anything for myself or others, but I am bringing that light by reflection to others. And so I feel like I have a great faith in my practice. What I do, sitting, bringing that clarity and letting it shine, maybe I'm self-absorbed, maybe I overvalue myself, but just that shining is enough for the work. And so bringing others to others, bringing self to self, actually occurs without any recognition that somebody needs it. Or that I am needed. Or that there's one or the other.

[36:56]

Thank you. What is the source of that light? It's the absence of the clouds and the storm that I bring or carry around with me. It's just the absence of the clouds and the storm. So it's the light that shines from you as well? I beg your pardon, but no. It's the light that shines everywhere and when the storm clears that is my thought or separate self, then it just shines off of me and through me and around me. But that action of sitting and bringing the clarity is actually this bringing self to self and self to others in the way I think that he was getting out of your gut in my mind. Good, that sounds good. I also remember just in a very practical sense You know, we sit for 40 minutes, and he used to come like every afternoon, you know, and that storm would be there for me for like the first 37 and a half minutes.

[38:04]

And then he started, I could start to feel it like, and then the bell would ring, you know. But it's not there all the time now. Sometimes it is, because we can't avoid that. But the light is also always there. Yeah, Ross. Thank you. That old guitar sounds quite beautiful in the young hands of a boy from Great Neck. It is an old guitar, by the way. I know. 1934. 1947. Vintage. Oh, a young boy. Yeah. So I had this vision of this young boy in Great Neck on a hot humid summer day getting a shaved ice and disappearing in that ice. Is that any different than being that multi mild sheet or block of ice that you spoke of earlier?

[39:06]

Not in that moment, it's moment by moment. In that moment it's just settling and merging. And I think that if we really look at ourselves, we all have moments like that. Wouldn't you say? Yeah, I think when we read it in a book, there's a tendency, I have a tendency to project that this person is living a life that's completely all the time this block of ice. No. And I think it's different. Right, and it's also actually, we'll say, we'll talk about it more tomorrow, it was that he basically had a nervous breakdown. But we didn't have shaved ice. Did you have shaved ice when you were young? In Virginia, we did. We had the good humor man who came around. Did anyone have the good humor man? Yeah. I lived in the suburbs, and he came around ringing the bell every summer evening.

[40:09]

And you'd run out to the truck and get an ice cream. It was great. Someone else. Yeah, Megan. And if you got a lucky stick, you could get a free good humor. But I never met anybody who ever got a lucky stick. I got a free stick. I got a lucky stick. I got a lucky stick. It gives me free good humor. I think I met somebody who had one of those. It looks pretty hard to lick though. Come over here. Anyone else? Lori?

[41:09]

You know, when you said the quote from Koko Daishi this time, for some reason I really heard the word breath, and I thought, what does he mean by breath, do you think? I mean, I tried to think about that for myself. But what do you think? I guess one breadth would be everybody from you to global warming. You know, the breadth of an individual to a global problem. Another kind of breadth might be people who were, for me, might be people who feel really easy to help and people, up and to people who feel really hard to serve. I mean, I could go different ways with it, I guess. I think that the vision, his vision and, you know, the vision of many of these early Japanese Buddhists, Dogen,

[42:14]

Nichiren, Shinran, Honen, very wide. I mean, I heard the thing about making sure the Four Seasons, like that was really prescient in a way. Yeah. Making sure the Four Seasons are going, like, that's my job, making sure the Four Seasons are going. Right. Well, Dogen was prescient also, and he said, in that same vasca, he said, give flowers blooming on the mountainside to the Tathagata. You know, it's like, well yeah, this stuff just rolls along, but now it doesn't roll along. What are we gonna do about that? What's our responsibility? One last question and finish. Someone else. Or not. Yes, what's your name? Renee. Renee. I was thinking how Sitting allows us to settle somewhat and have a little spaciousness within ourselves.

[43:18]

And in terms of giving back somebody to themselves, I think in our busy everyday lives, there is often a lack of reflection. Because people are so busy, and they have dialogues, and they can't quite take in somebody fully. And I think when you take in someone fully, you create a certain ease within them, hopefully. at least they feel recognized and seen, and that's an important part of giving somebody back. I think so, and I really feel like all the strong teachers that I've encountered, to me the strength of their teaching has been that people feel seen by them, which is not really not such a rare human quality. It's an ordinary human quality, but ordinary in the best sense of the word. And that when you feel seen, it valid.

[44:24]

When I feel seen, then I go through my own activities with more certainty and confidence. Yeah, it gives you a certain clarity. Yeah, yeah. So thank you very much and I'll see some of you tomorrow and enjoy the weekend.

[44:44]

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