My name is Fran, and hopefully, as we go along, I'll get to know all of your names. This class is going to be, this is the first time I've taught this class or any class, so this is a little bit of an experiment. I'd like to ask that as much as possible, if we could please actually be ready to start at 7.30. What I'd like to do is start and end each class with a very brief period of Zazen. So it would be nice if we could all kind of start together. We will end promptly at 9. I'll try to come a little bit early and stay for a few minutes after each class if you want to ask personal questions or particular questions. But I'd like to clear out the community room completely and have it locked up by 9.30 because residents have to do night watch and it's not fair to keep them up.

[01:01]

So let's really try and keep to the schedule. If you absolutely can't get here, don't feel you can't come. But please make an effort to get here by 730 so that we can try to make an effort to have the format of the class mirror the material to some extent. So before I go over the outline of the class, why don't we just and sit up as straight as you can. Let your bottom really sink into your chair or your cushion. Feel the support of the ground underneath you. Let your trunk be straight, but not stiff.

[02:20]

Let your belly be soft and loose. And invite your breath into your belly. And just be aware of your breath. as the rise and fall of your belly. So really that's the whole teaching.

[03:47]

Class could be dismissed right now. But from time to time, randomly, someone will ring this bell. And that will be a signal to return just to where you've just been, just to your breath and your posture. Then at the end of the class, each time, we'll do a little meditation which may be guided a little bit differently each time. I'd like someone to just ring this bell, kind of at random intervals. Today, Ron, do you want to do that for me? Just one of you. A few times during the class. things first. Anyone who hasn't paid should pay Ross at the end.

[04:53]

The class is $30. The book is $9. You can write your check to go to the Zen Center. This is the outline of the class. The book I'm asking people to buy is this classic, What the Buddha Taught. We'll read virtually the whole thing. The two other texts that we'll be using are these more recent books, Seeking the Heart of Wisdom by Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein, and The Experience of Insight. You don't have to buy these. I will be Xeroxing some chapters. They're worth owning if you can afford them and find them. might want to buy them at some point. But I will be, the handouts that are referred to in the outline are mostly from these two books and I'll be getting them to you in advance. on Saturdays.

[06:03]

I don't know if we have, do we have copies of the supplementary books? No, that's the whole inventory right there on the top shelf. I don't think there's any. OK, so we don't have a bunch of copies of these. But they're readily available both at Shambhala and at ordinary bookstores. They're real popular, real accessible books. Black Oak. Black Oak, yeah. A lot of the bookstores carry these. You'll notice that For next week, the assignment is to read chapters 2, 3, and 4. Chapters, unless otherwise noted, are in this book. When you read this stuff, many of you, I know, are familiar with this material. If you're not familiar with it, if this is your first time through this material, read it slowly. Give yourself some time to absorb it. If it's confusing, read it out loud. What this author's tried to do is to present what the Buddha taught in the Buddha's own words as much as possible.

[07:12]

And what we'll be doing in this class is going over what the Buddha taught, the concepts and the ideas that the Buddha taught that are accepted by all the schools of Buddhism, the basic foundation for all the schools of Buddhism. The different schools have lots of different ideas about how to practice, but the basic core of Buddhism is the same for all the schools, and that's basically what we're going to cover. So just take a look at the second page of your outline, because I think that's sort of important. Maybe somebody could read this out loud.

[08:17]

I'm recovering from the flu, so I'm going to save my voice as much as I can. We have a whale volunteer. I don't have a clue. This class is to introduce students to the basic concepts of Buddhism. After completing the course, the students will understand the technical terms most frequently used in contemporary as well as traditional Buddhist literature and in Dharma talks. Since the class is being taught in the context of a lay practice center, the emphasis will be on applying what we are learning to our meditation practice and everyday life. The conceptual framework of Buddhism will produce a sort of road map of the territory we call practice. But we will be mindful of the fact that the map is not the territory itself. So although there will be reading assignments, texts, and even some material to memorize, the primary purpose of the class is not to accumulate knowledge for its own sake,

[09:25]

In this sense, it is not an academic course. The format of the class will be approximately 40% lecture, 40% discussion, and 20% experimental. Each class will begin and end with a brief period of meditation. Each meditation period will include some instructional guidance connected with the topic of the day. concepts as presented in the assigned reading and offering examples from her own study and practice. The lecture will be followed by a discussion period of approximately equal length, during which students will be encouraged to ask questions and to offer their own understanding of the concepts. Throughout the class, at random Ideally, I'm going to start this class with talking about the life of the Buddha.

[10:47]

The life of the Buddha and the Buddha's search is really our life and our search. Ideally, if the class were smaller, I would like to hear everybody's story about how they came to be interested in this in Buddhism, but I don't think we'll have time for that tonight. So I'm going to start talking a little bit about the life of the Buddha. The Buddha, as you know, was a historical person who lived around 2,500 years ago. There's some controversy about exactly when and where he lived. I'm going to read you what because he says it better than I can. The story of the Buddha's life is both a personal story and a universal story. It's a story of a specific person, a specific life, and it's a story of mythic proportion.

[11:59]

It's an archetypal story. It's a universal story. The so-called historical facts of the Buddha's life were regarded as of so little importance that up to the present day, it is impossible to ascertain the exact year of the Buddha's birth. Even the century in which he lived is a matter of controversy between the various Buddhist schools. They don't even agree with regard to the name of Siddhartha's wife, or whether his son was born before or after he left home. In what they all agree, however, is that the Buddha proclaimed the same eternal Dharma preached by his spiritual successors in this world cycle as well as eons ago, and that this doctrine will be preached again by the future and the last of five Buddhas of this Kalpa, namely Maitreya, whose advent is announced by Buddha Shakyamuni's prophetic utterance in one of the sutras. In a similar way, he frequently speaks about the Buddhas of the past and compares their lives and actions to his own.

[13:05]

In fact, it is only in this connection that we learn about the main events of his life. The names of the Buddhas of this and previous times are known to all Buddha's traditions. In other words, more is known and said about Buddha's spiritual lineage than about his descent, though in fact he came from a royal or at least noble family. and his lineage should have been quite accessible since lineages were kept. This shows clearly that his spiritual lineage, which might rightly be called his universal background, was regarded as being far more important than the historical and material one. The universal nature of Buddha's lineage or the universalness of his story is important because the assumption in Buddhism is that enlightenment is a quality that's inherent in all of us.

[14:13]

It's a quality that we all inherently have and can manifest. It has to come to maturity. and it comes to maturity when the causes and conditions are right. So the Buddha's story is a story of how the causes, how his enlightenment manifested when the causes and conditions of his life became right. There are lots of stories about the previous lives of the Buddha, and they're collected in the Jataka tales, which are often written as stories for children. I think probably the most famous of the Jataka tales is the story of Sumedha. Aeons in the past, when Gautama the Buddha, in a previous existence, was an ascetic called Sumedha, he met the Buddha of that age, Buddha Dipankara.

[15:31]

In each age, there's been a Buddha. There's always some awakened one. Buddha means awakened one, somebody who's fully awake. It's a title, it's not a name. And as he beheld the majestic personality of the Buddha, a transcendental urge stirred him to seek to become a Buddha. And that's always how it starts. You meet a teacher, you have some experience that arouses the thought of enlightenment, that is an inspiration, that makes you aware of something in you, something in that person arouses something in you that wants to manifest. As he beheld the majestic personality of the Buddha, a transcendental urge stirred him to seek to become a Buddha. His feelings about that exalted state are described in a verse from the Story of Sumedha, which serves as an introduction to the Jataka Tales, which is the collection of stories about the previous existence of the Tama of the Buddha.

[16:41]

And this is the verse. There is, there must be an escape. Impossible there should not be. I will make the search. and seek the way which from suffering finds release." So, because of his compassion, Sumedha abandoned his personal release from suffering and dedicated himself to the welfare and deliverance of all beings. he bowed at the feet of Buddha Dipankara to become a supreme Buddha himself and to solve the riddle of life for all beings, mundane and divine. And that bow was a pledge to fill the ten perfections required of a bodhisattva, that is, one who aspires to become a Buddha. And the ten perfections of a bodhisattva are something that we'll be talking about more.

[17:43]

So after having spent countless lives fulfilling these ten perfections, Siddhartha, or the Buddha, was born for the last time as Siddhartha. Siddhartha was born, as the meal chant tells us, in Lumbini, which is near Kapilavastu. He was born in a family of nobility. His father was the head of the Shakya clan, and his name was King Suddhodana. King Suddhodana had longed for children. He had several wives, but his favorite wife was Maya, and apparently it took them a long time to have any children. So when Siddhartha was born, they named him Siddhartha because that means wish-fulfilling, and they had wished for him for a very long time.

[18:54]

It was customary in those times, when a child was born, to call in the astrologer, the royal astrologer, to make some predictions. And the predictions of the astrologers upset Siddhartha's father a good deal. And the astrologer, the noble royal astrologer, took one look at this kid and said, uh-oh, looks like a Buddha to me. There are certain marks that are characteristic of a Buddha, certain physical marks. And the astrologer said, this boy is likely to become a holy man if the causes and conditions are right. And it was, of course, a tradition in India at that time for people to become wandering ascetics, to look for enlightenment.

[19:57]

The life of renunciation and spiritual search was an established thing in the culture, but it wasn't part of the mainstream. You had to leave the mainstream in order to do it. And of course the reason the king Suddhodana had wanted a son was to continue his line and to continue the family name and to keep the kingdom running. So the prediction was that if Siddhartha saw suffering and saw what the world was really about, that he would be moved to renounce the world and live the life. So his family tried to protect him from seeing suffering and from seeing how the world really was. And they tried to keep him comfortable and happy so that he wouldn't need to go out seeking.

[20:59]

Well, things didn't go right from the start. Maya, Buddha's mother, died when he was a week old from complications of childbirth, as must have been quite common in those days. So, the king's second wife, Prajapati, took over, I think she was actually Maya's sister, took over the care of Siddhartha, and she had a couple of kids of her own. And it wasn't until Buddha was ten years old, actually, that he learned the story of his mother's death, and learned that it was really his aunt that was raising him. And that may have been his first clue, that things weren't quite the way his lovely life appeared. The king and the household were apparently quite worried that the predictions of the astrologers would be true because Siddhartha was quite inquisitive as a child and he didn't have the awe of authority

[22:20]

and particularly he wasn't in awe of the religious authorities of the time. He didn't apparently like the Vedic rituals and the Brahmins and the religious rigmarole that the castle or the kingdom demanded his participation in. He was interested in justice and morality and he was very sensitive and he wasn't much interested in running the kingdom, and he wasn't much interested in finding a wife. So these were not considered to be very good signs of a future monarch. He was educated in all the things that a young nobleman should know.

[23:25]

And he was very smart, and he was good at all those things. But he was a little too serious. And here's a story of how when he was a boy, he saved a swan. that his cousin had shot down. He and his cousins grew up as siblings in the royal household. His cousin, Devadatta, had shot a swan. The beautiful white bird fluttered at his feet when he was playing with a playmate in the palace garden. He lifted the frightened creature and tenderly pulled out the arrow and rubbed some healing herbs on the wound. The bird lost its fear and became quite tame. After a time, when the prince was going to release the bird, Devadatta, the would-be killer, demanded it, and was refused. Then, in the full hearing of the court, there ensued a lively debate as to who should get the bird, the killer or the savior.

[24:29]

Buddha's superior pleadings, it is said, won the hearts of all. Thus, even at that tender age, and in spite of the rigid surroundings of the palace, He clearly and surely manifested the mission that was his, and for which, through long eons, he had been preparing himself. Well, when he was 16, it was time for him to marry. And there are various stories about how they found him alive. There's a great story in this book, which is written really that claims to be very historical but is really written like a novel, of the way in which his father and his aunt and various other people sort of did a little matchmaking and spying around to see who might possibly, what woman they could possibly interest Siddhartha in marrying.

[25:35]

So they married him to somebody who whose name in many books is Yasodhara. And she was apparently very bright and very beautiful. Now to give you an idea of what the household life was in Buddha's time, you know, it wasn't like our household life. Household life in modern times is very complicated. And we often feel that our life is so fast-moving and complicated that it's difficult to practice. And that's the way people felt in Buddha's time, too. But if you were in a royal household in the time of the Buddha, you didn't just have a wife. If you were a nobleman, you had several wives, and you had a whole harem, in fact, of women. And the more powerful a man you were, the more women were in your household.

[26:46]

And of course, the women all had maids, and there was an enormous staff of people to take care of everyone. And really a large number of women in relation to the number of men. I'd like to read you this description. This is Susan Mercotte's description, which explains the context of women who wanted to leave home and join Buddha. But I think it's helpful also in understanding the context of Buddha's life and why he felt the need to leave home. Gautama, besides leaving a wife and child, left a harem of women. And, as we'll find out later, about a dozen of them later joined him, asked to join him.

[27:48]

We don't have much information about who these women were, but we do know a little bit, she says, about marriage and class. in that era. And there are some legends about the Buddhist harem and the structure of the harem. According to the early Buddhist doctrine, married life was considered inferior to the homeless life of a monk or a nun. At the same time, it was acknowledged that not everyone was at the stage of development where she or he could follow the strict celibacy So marriage was recommended, monogamy was the ideal, but polygamy was really the fact. And extramarital affairs were the practice of rich and powerful men, Buddhist or otherwise. Such men might be kings, whose harems could be especially large, or they might be wealthy merchants or bankers. There's a legend about the origin of Gotama's harem.

[28:55]

At a special event held on a certain occasion, the young hero Siddhartha was said to have displayed such impressive feats of strength that all the Shakyans, everyone from the clan, sent a daughter to his household, the total number coming to 40,000. Though this is surely a legend, it was no doubt told to show how powerful Siddhartha Gautama was, even in his youth. It was a powerful man's privilege to marry and or keep more than one woman. For example, Gautama's father, as we know, had two wives. The Buddha's patron and contemporary, King Bimbisara, had 500, which means a lot. And the other kings of the time also had a number of wives. Another legend, though it has a misogynist cast, Susan Mercotte says is worth recounting and shows another motivation behind Siddhartha's renunciation and may highlight one stage in a man's psychological journey to maturity.

[30:04]

There's the usual legend we know of how one day Buddha left the palace and saw an old man, a sick man, and a corpse, and an ascetic. And I'll talk more about that story in a minute. And those sites are said to have driven him to question the meaning of existence. But another part of the legend tells of his last night in the palace, when for the first time he sees the so-called real nature of women. and his disgust is so thorough that he decides to leave that very night. So this is the legend. Though the king had heard the determined prince, who was anxious to seek deliverance, he said, the prince must not go. The king was trying to keep him from leaving.

[31:09]

He ordered additional guards around him and provided him with the most pleasurable of entertainments. The loveliest of women waited on him. But even music played on instruments like those of the celestial beings failed to delight him. The ardent desire of that noble prince was to leave the palace in search of the bliss of the highest good. Whereupon the gods who excelled in austerities, noting the resolution of the prince, suddenly cast a spell of sleep on the young women, leaving them in distorted postures and shocking poses. One lay leaning against the side of a window, her slender body bent like a bow, her beautiful necklace dangling. Another, with loose and disorderly hair, lay like the figure of a woman trampled by an elephant, her ornaments and garments having slipped from her back, her necklace scattered. Another, of great natural beauty and poise, was shamelessly exposed in an immodest position, snoring out loud with her limbs tossed about.

[32:16]

Another, with her ornaments and garlands falling off and garments unfastened, lay unconscious like a corpse, with her eyes fixed and her whites showing. Another, with well-developed legs, lay as if sprawling in intoxication, exposing what should have been hidden, her mouth gaping wide and slobbering, her gracefulness gone and her body contorted. Seeing this, the prince was disgusted. Such is the real nature of women in the world of the living. Impure and loathsome, but deceived by dress and ornaments, man is stirred to passion for them. Thus arose in the prince a determination to leave that night. The gods understood his mind and opened the doors of the palace. Is that book you're reading? This is Susan Mercutt's story of the first Buddhist women. This is just recently published.

[33:19]

These are the Enlightenment poems of the women who were Buddhist contemporaries. So the other legend that's more common is that one day he left the palace and some angels arranged for it that he see a corpse, an old man and an ascetic and that that was what aroused in him the desire to question the meaning of life and to leave home and try to get to the bottom of it. So he left home.

[34:29]

That's where that story is. I've got too many books here. He said that four heavenly messengers, celestial beings, appeared to him as he rode throughout the city. The first messenger appeared to him as an old person, stricken with age, feeble in the senses. The second messenger appeared as a person suffering greatly with disease. The third appeared as a corpse. Each time, the prince was startled because he'd never before in that life come in contact with sickness, old age, and death. Seeing these aspects of life for the first time touched him deeply. Each time he questioned his driver about what he was seeing and whether everyone was subject to this fate, the driver replied that it is the inevitable fate of all who are born to grow older, get sick and die. The last of the heavenly messengers appeared to the prince as a wandering monk.

[35:34]

Questioned again, the charioteer answered that this was someone who had renounced the world in order to seek enlightenment and liberation. These four heavenly messengers awakened within the Bodhisattva the energy of countless lifetimes of practice. They awakened within him both the deep sense of inquiry, what is the nature of birth and death? What is the force that sustains it? How can the suffering of conditioned existence be brought to an end? And the recognition of the possibility of freedom. So each of us has maybe some heavenly messenger in our own life that has helped us to question, to get to the point where we're interested in something like Buddhism, to question what the meaning of our life is, what it's all about.

[36:40]

And in that way, our story isn't really different from Buddhist. The practices that were available to Buddha in his time were ascetic practices of various kinds. There were wandering ascetics who lived in the forest, sometimes in small groups, sometimes alone. He visited the various teachers of his time and practiced the various austerities which were practiced. He was a very adept student and it's said that he learned meditation very quickly from the meditation master and he went on to fasting practice and became so thin that when he touched his belly he could feel his backbone. And he wasn't satisfied with any of his practices.

[37:44]

He didn't feel he was getting the answer to the cause of suffering, or how to get out of it. And so, one day, when he was half dead with starvation, a woman came along and offered him some milk rice, and he ate it and got stronger. and decided that he was going to have to figure it out for himself, that he'd practiced with many teachers, and he'd talked to a lot of people, and he'd tried all these extreme practices, and they weren't working. So he decided to try moderation. He decided that he would eat enough to sustain his strength.

[38:51]

And that he would sit under the tree until he got it. So there's... I'm not sure if I want to read this version of it. I guess I will. This is Joseph Campbell's a description of Buddha's enlightenment. Buddha sat under the tree for some long period of time, six years, six days, something.

[39:54]

He placed himself with firm resolve beneath the Bodhi tree on the immovable spot and straightaway was approached by Kamamara, the god of love and death. The dangerous God appeared mounted on an elephant and carrying weapons in his thousand hands. He was surrounded by his army, which extended 12 leagues before him, 12 to the right, 12 to the left, and in the rear as far as the confines of the world. The protecting deities of the universe took flight, but the future Buddha remained unmoved beneath the trees. And the God then assailed him, seeking to break his concentration. You know this guy, right? Whirlwind rocks, thunder and flames, smoking weapons with keen edges, burning coals, hot ashes, boiling mud, blistering sands, and fourfold darkness. The antagonist hurled against the savior. But the missiles were all transformed into celestial flowers and ointments by the power of Gotama's ten perfections.

[41:03]

Mara then deployed his daughters desire, pining, and lust, surrounded by voluptuous attendance. But the mind of the great being was not distracted. The god finally challenged his right to be sitting on the immovable spot, flung his razor-sharp discus angrily, and bid the towering host of the army to let fly at him with mountain crags. But the future Buddha only moved his hand to touch the ground with his fingertips, and thus bid the Goddess Earth bear witness to his right to be sitting where he was. She did so with a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand roars so that the elephant of the antagonist fell upon its knees in obeisance to the future Buddha. The army was dispersed and the gods of all the worlds scattered garlands. So this is a kind of flowery rendering of the Buddha's struggle with difficulties.

[42:18]

But each time that we sit down and try to meditate, of course we are assailed with great difficulties. So don't belittle them just because sometimes they're described in fancy words. The effort that we make, Joseph Goldstein reminds us, is a really heroic effort. So the final stage in this journey, after the call to destiny, the renunciation of old patterns, the great struggle with the forces of delusion, the final fourth stage is the great awakening. So in the first watch of the night, the night that the Buddha attained enlightenment,

[43:34]

he surveyed with his power of concentration the succession of births and deaths through countless lifetimes. He reviewed all his former lives in the first watch of the night. And that led him to understand impermanence and how insubstantial existence is. he saw the long-range, the huge long-range perspective of life and death and saw, understood how life comes and goes and changes and how small our individual life is and how unimportant our preferences are in the great scheme of things. In the second watch of the night, he contemplated the law of karma.

[44:43]

He saw how the karmic force of past actions propels and conditions beings through successive rebirths. Karma is something we're going to be talking more about. But basically it's karma's direction. Things start moving in a certain direction. and keep going in that direction. When you're going in the direction of ignorance and delusion, ignorance and delusion keeps building. In the third watch of the night, he contemplated the Four Noble Truths and the Law of Dependent Origination. And that's what we're going to spend the next five weeks talking about. He saw how the mind becomes attached, how through attachment there is suffering. And he understood the possibility of deconditioning that attachment and coming to a place of freedom.

[45:51]

It is said that just at the moment of dawn, when the morning star appeared in the sky, his mind realized the deepest, most complete illumination. After attaining the great enlightenment, the Buddha uttered this verse in his heart. I wandered through the rounds of countless births, seeking but to find the builder of this house. Sorrowful indeed is birth again and again. Oh, house builder, you have now been seen. You shall build the house no longer. All your rafters have been broken. Your ridge pole shattered. My mind has attained to unconditioned freedom. Achieved is the end of craving." This is the commentary. The Buddha saw that in this world of samsara, of constant appearing and disappearing, being born and dying, there was great suffering.

[46:59]

Craving, the builder of this house of suffering, mind and body, was discovered. The defilements of mind, which are the rafters, were broken. The force of ignorance, the ridge pole of the house, was shattered. And thus the Buddha realized nirvana, the unconditioned. It is said that the path to nirvana is a silent vehicle. like a chariot that drives smoothly and gracefully without any squeaks and clatter. The people who ride on this chariot, however, may be quite noisy. They are noisy in their songs of praise for the vehicle and for the completion of their journey." And in this book there are lots of those songs of joy accomplishing what needed to be accomplished. Achieved is the end of craving is a line that recurs again and again in Enlightenment poetry.

[48:10]

All Buddhist practices essentially aim at recreating the experience the Buddha. That's what all of them are about. They all aim at helping us to have that experience for ourselves. And Buddha spent the rest of his life, after a period of some hesitation, teaching other people what he had learned. At first, the people who had practiced asceticism deserted him. They were real disappointed that he gave up fasting.

[49:22]

They'd been doing this with him for a long time, and they thought he'd sold out. But after they heard his first sermon, they decided to follow him. And this is kind of the core of the first sermon. There are two extremes. One is excessive sensual indulgence, and the other is self-mortification. Both are vulgar, ignoble, and profitless. Avoiding both these, the perfect ones, teach the doctrine of the middle path, which leads to the comprehension of higher knowledge and insight." And he then expounded the doctrine of the middle path, the Four Noble Truths, and the Eightfold Path. The monks accepted this and each one, it is said, soon attained higher wisdom and became a saint and free of having to get on the wheel of birth again and have to be reborn.

[50:50]

I'd like to read one more teaching story. There are lots of these stories. But this one describes very well the Buddhist attitude, and it's the attitude that I'd like us to cultivate as we study together. Buddha was asked by a village people known as the Kalamas how they could know which among the many different religious teachings and teachers to believe.

[53:40]

And the Buddha said that they shouldn't blindly believe anyone, not their parents or teachers, not the books or traditions, not even the Buddha himself. Rather, they should look carefully into their own experience to see which things lead to more greed, more hatred, more delusion, and abandon those things. They should look to see which things lead to greater love, generosity, wisdom, openness, and peace, and cultivate those things. So the Buddha's teaching always encourages us to take responsibility for our own development. and to investigate directly the nature of our own experience. When he was 80 years old, the Buddha became quite sick, and knowing that he was going to die, he lay down between two trees.

[54:48]

The legends say that the trees were flowering out of season, symbolizing the Buddha's final release into the unconditioned. And even on his deathbed, he shared his understanding. In his final words, he exhorted those who had gathered around him, and all of us, saying, all compounded things are impermanent. Work out your liberation with diligence. And then he passed away. So that's sort of the outline of the Buddha's life, and the details, or the basic framework of his teaching, is what we're going to be spending the next few weeks discussing.

[56:04]

I mentioned in the introduction to the class that there would be some things to memorize. And I was thinking about how the Buddha's teaching was, how his disciples memorized his teaching. Of course, they didn't write it down. Buddha talked and everybody listened and tried to remember it. And it wasn't written down until at least a couple of hundred years after his death. And how they remembered the teachings was by chanting them. So the way we remember the life of the Buddhas in the meal chant. Every time we eat in the Zen Dojo, we chant, Buddha was born at Lumbini, enlightened, at Bodhgaya, taught at Paranasi, entered Nirvana at Kusinagaraha.

[57:15]

So, let's just do it. I'll chant one line and then you can repeat it, and people who know it, help me out here. Buddha was born at Lumbini was born at Lumbini, enlightened at Pokhaya, enlightened at Pokhaya, taught at Paranasi, taught at Paranasi, entered Nirvana at Kusinagara, entered Nirvana at Kusinagara. If you don't know that, try and learn it. It's in the Zen Do on the Meal Champ, so sometime when you're here for a meal, you can copy it or I'll try and

[58:28]

So that's the main thing I wanted to talk about today. I think we do have some time to meet each other and find out how we became interested in studying about Buddhism. We can start anywhere. Just tell me your name. Maybe a minute or two of how you got interested in this. Yes, sir? Sure. My name is Bob Cliff. A little louder. My name is Bob Cliff. I've always been interested in, as long as I can remember as a kid, not so much a religion, but what it's all about, I guess. Not per se. I was involved in a few different churches as I was growing up, but I always rejected them.

[59:47]

It's not getting at the real heart of what I was interested in, which wasn't dogma and ritual and that, but more of an inner satisfaction about that. So I've explored a number of things over the years. because my wife gave us a trip to the Tassajara Center in Santa Cruz Mountains. We spent four days there. We had a wonderful time, really enjoyed it. Ed Brown was doing cooking classes, so we appeared to like cooking. But I found a real kind of spiritual sort of thing that was interesting, just tasting food and really tuning into that. We both have had... In fact, my wife is going to come tonight, but I had something else, so she'll probably be here next time. But we both had an interest in just pursuing and finding out more about this, and that's why I'm here. It is why I'm here.

[60:51]

I'm Joyce Young, and it's hard really to say why I'm here. It seems like a good idea. I'm Sue Ocher and I guess I'm here because of a lot of different things that sort of came together but I think that doing YES Training about 10 years ago got me interested in Zen No, it was longer than that. It was 1977. And my husband kept talking about it. That's all the phrases that I think I hear here. And I became disillusioned with the religion I was born in, Judaism.

[61:55]

I just found it to be just wrong. What I was hearing couldn't sit there anymore. So I thought I'd try this out. It suits me. I don't know if it suits my back. I know it doesn't, but I'm trying to work that way. My name is Charlie Ware and I met not one, but two teachers.

[62:57]

I seem to be here because I can't not be here. I've been sitting on and off for many years, at times more off than on, and keep coming back to it. So I think I'm... I can't really say why that is, I think I've just, for the time being, My name is Greg Henrichs, and someone in the Zendo the other day said that practicing is like salmon swimming upstream. And you don't really know quite why you're swimming over that particular stream, but that's the way it feels like practicing here. It's just the stream, and so it's a bit spiky.

[64:21]

My name is Sharon Jobson, and I guess for years I've been interested in Buddhism since I was maybe 14 or 15 and med student in high school. And then seemed to be attracted to other readings and seeing that poets or thinkers that I found interesting were Buddhists. Things kept pointing that way. Also, I just have a feeling, a felt sense that this is right. I feel it in my body and I feel it. Things just click. It feels right. in Zen through reading Alan Watts.

[65:27]

I remember traveling through Europe in 1968 and my pack sack was full of Alan Watts books. That's about the only thing that happened in Europe for me. My name is Stan Dewey, and I also read Alan Watson in the 60s, and then put it down for 25 years or so. I don't know, things other people have said have resonated to me, but also in the last year, today is the anniversary of the beginning of the that there was the Buddhist Peace Fellowship gathering to mark that.

[66:42]

And I felt a lot of compassion and collective attention being paid to that, that I respected and that was moving to me. And so I wanted to be with other people that were feeling that. That's part of the reason. I'm Carol Armstrong. I probably read about it in high school. I think I got to Greenbelch. I read Suzuki Ueshi's book at some point, probably first, before I went. At one point I went to Greenbelch and I read On Again, Off Again. I can relate to all the On Again, Off Agains. On and Off is awesome. I don't know. I'm not exactly in the stream yet, but I'm more, and I have less resistance. At one point, I must have gotten quite serious on an internal level, and I decided, this is ridiculous, I can't be a Buddhist, and I decided to be a Catholic just a few years ago.

[67:50]

And I went steaming into it. It's a great relief with my friends, extremely. It didn't work. I tried really hard. I even went to the first ride and it just didn't work. But I think all religions do the same. Why do you believe this? And it's called Christian stuff anyway. But it wasn't, so I gave up. And now I'm here more on than off. Well, I'm Agnes Kaji. I was born and raised in a Buddhist family. And I guess from a very young age, I've always loved and enjoyed hearing about the Buddha's life and his teachings. It just makes me smile. I just really enjoy it. Probably all the legends, many legends that I heard before. But it was in a different sect of Buddhism.

[68:54]

And I just arrived in the Zen center a year and a half ago. And it's amazing, but I really feel that what I've learned here feels very good. So I've changed since. I'm Judy Smith, and I was actually introduced to Zen through martial arts. And it was a real relief when I found it, because I grew up in the mountains in Colorado with horses, and I spent a lot of my time alone with the horses, out in nature, and thinking a lot. And I was raised Catholic, and I always had the feeling a mom would drag me, kicking and screaming to church. I always had the feeling that they just weren't getting it. There was something really important that they were missing. Actually, when I got hurt, my mother really got mad at God, and we stopped going to church.

[70:00]

It was really interesting, and so I didn't have to do that anymore. And then I found this, and it was just like slipping into something that fit, absolutely. And it just made sense, and it was very much in line with how I'd been grown up thinking as a kid, but never had any support for. And I can't really remember when I first got interested in Buddhism. I think I started going to art school at the Art Institute of Chicago when I was about nine. And I'd walk through the halls with these really great Buddhist statues. and a lot of other Japanese art that wasn't necessarily Buddhist, but sort of that visual impact was the first thing for me, then followed by reading and poetry.

[71:07]

My husband and I started to sit alone, and then good friends of ours found the Berkeley Zendo about 23 years ago. It just didn't make any sense to me that you should go sit with other people because it was such a personal thing. And I didn't have any idea of the sangha. But under a lot of pressure, I was dragged to the attic of Dwight Way for instruction. And I went every day for seven years. And then I stopped for many years and kept the on and off. I really want to meet everyone tonight. It might make us a few minutes late. My name is Kate Caldwell. I think my pattern is somewhat similar to yours, although I wasn't born into a Catholic family.

[72:10]

But as a young person in elementary school, I was put into a Catholic school. My family was completely areligious. And I have a very strong memory of feeling that something very ... I don't like to use all these words, but I don't have any of the words yet to call these feelings, but something very holy in me was being crushed and frightened and lied to by this particular form found to be untrue to my mind. And that turned me off. And from then on, it was as though that quest for something spiritual was... I had to repress it and keep it to myself for a long time, but it was always looking for avenues. So then I went into a period of exploration of many different forms of spiritual practices, and came finally into Al-Mu'at as an intro

[73:22]

to this form and this one began to speak to me in a way that was freeing and opening and sensible. And the sensibility of it is the part that I, it just makes sense. And it doesn't deny my intellect, it doesn't deny my feelings, it doesn't deny me the, what do you say, that we had to go and find out for ourselves what we're about. And that's what I've been about, My name's Andrea and tonight's answer, today's answer is I think as a child I had a pretty heavy rejection experience with my family, sort of pushed out, so I had to, at a very young age, so I think I had to, I just

[74:23]

something else. And so I think today's answer is I'm here for song. What's next? My name is Merrill Collette. I grew up as a kid on a farm in Oregon and I sent Zazen the first time when I was four years old with a goat. So my name is Guanlan Longan.

[75:41]

I was born in Canton, China. My first memory in life was my grandmother carrying me to be touched and blessed by a Zen priest, a high priest in Canton. It was a horrifying experience. And since then I've spent my first half of my life wandering, wandering literally and spiritually all over the place. And being here feels like a completion of a circle for me. Sitting at the Zandor here is home for me. And I have one wish right now, that is to go back to sit in Canton and my ancestor village.

[76:50]

Sometime soon, maybe sometime this year. My name's Charlotte. I guess I started bleeding a lot, you know, about three years ago. And I tried to sit by myself, but I somehow, you know, sort of wanted to go that way, but I couldn't quite. I wasn't really ready. I went away, and the funny thing was, I really, I sort of decided there was no answer, and I kind of went the opposite. really far away from any kind of spiritual quest and decided to just party and have a good time. I did a lot of that. And then this August I was in Mexico and the first night I arrived this really dramatic scene happened and my friend who I was with lost all of her money and I met a guy who had fell from my eyes and I just really felt like I saw how wrong my life was and I really needed to follow a spiritual path and that's what I wanted to do.

[77:59]

So I came back in September and came back in October and it felt really good so far. I'm Margaret Watkins and I thought if I sat real straight maybe I could take a second. Path here has been real Lots of different angles and things have brought me here I feel real lucky that I did I didn't have a I came through from a tabula rasa blank slate family that we only went to church just for occasional amusement and So Long path met a lot of different people who were Finally what got me to actually practice was living three blocks away from here and knowing that this was here and checking it out and feeling that it was just really right. My name is Pat Cannon and I guess I relate to what everybody else said.

[79:09]

sort of roundabout, and was sort of forced to do something about it by illness. And it was a pretty shocking experience. But I can relate to the Art Institute store, because I'm from Chicago, and I used to walk by the Buddhas. And in Toledo, Ohio, and being interested in art, I'd always go into the Japanese art. And so I guess I feel at home here or feel connected because of the Japanese culture and architecture and Frank Lloyd Wright and knowing people in Chicago and things like that and just being attracted to, ever since I can remember. And also saw a lot of movies. I'm an addict. I don't want to be like that. And then when I got sick, I had a friend. He said, here, read this. And that was a much better way of looking at things than I was being punished for being a sinner.

[80:12]

I didn't think I believed it until I got sick. And then I went, I volunteered at a place called Mandana House and Bob Folson was there. And I went and sat with him and he was very kind and he said these sort of zingers, these sort of zen things to me. And he said, this might turn out to be the happiest time in your life. And he was right. Although at the time I went But he smiled, and I smiled back in the midst of that whole chaos. I also want to say that I have this sort of burden in the bowl kind of thing all my life. I just wanted people to leave me alone. I've been a loner. I've been a wanderer. I just want to sit under a tree and smell the flowers and forget everything. So I sit alone a lot, and coming here is very uncomfortable for me, especially since I'm still ill. I always had that image as a child that I really related to that story. And so now everything I read, I can see it just fits.

[81:14]

It just fits. My name is Peter Carpentieri. I was first introduced to Buddhism through books also, and also Alan Watts, and the experience of insight, and then Suzuki Roshi's book. I think it was a combination of reading those books and I've been doing a lot of reading, and people have mentioned that Watson is very influential, so I did listen to his tapes, and read a lot of his books.

[84:05]

Gradually became more and more interested in reading about Buddhism, and I guess I wanted to have my understanding be a little bit more grounded, or organized in some way. That's why I wanted to take this class. That's why I'm here. My name is Marian Lamb, and for many years I've had pretty much what you would have to call a phobia of organized religions. And I have tried to avoid them at any cost, but I'm married to somebody who's very much a spiritual person who's next to me. And so with a lot of trepidation, I kind of agreed to come to the Zen Center on Saturdays, because I said, it's really good, you'll like it. And I do sort of like it. So I've been having a pretty good time with coming on Saturdays and thought a class would be good because it would be a chance to sort of get to know people on a different level and get a little more comfortable with being here. Watch out for those husbands, Jack.

[85:09]

That's how I got here. My name is Sachiko. I was born and raised in Tokyo. My family was a good Buddhist, Goldman, but I mean, in Japan, I mean, religion isn't really a big deal like here, so I mean, it wasn't much. I guess it was like an A, I guess. And when I was a child, I did Japanese calligraphy, and I think I got into to the Buddhist Zen without that, in retrospective. But one thing I really hated in Karigaraki was the sitting part, because the meditation part I hated. So that was a block for me to come here for a long time, I think.

[86:09]

And what connected me to Zen, really Zen account which I remember was when I was in graduate school and I was studying Japanese feminist writing on the 1930s and this woman was talking about her experience in spending lots of money in Zen temple and what that experience was like. That really left me an impression. Then later on I read a lot of books and yoga, I took up yoga. And also, as a child, I also went to Methodist church in Tokyo. That's how I came. And then when I came to the States, I was in work somehow, and ended up in Episcopal church. So, through yoga, I did it seriously, but didn't stick with me after about a year and a half.

[87:20]

But meditation, I always liked it, and I always thought that I wanted to take up that. But it was such a long block to get here, even though I got here off and on. And then finally, it was Charles Jokerbeck's book. He already got me and said, I want to do it. So I started. It has become regular bath this evening, so I thought maybe I'd better run by the basic stuff. The basic stuff. My name is Ron Yester. I just wish that the Zen Center had been here when I was in high school.

[88:26]

I really could have used it. It would have been great. It would have been tremendous. When I was in my early 20s, I just felt really confused. I didn't know what I was going to do the rest of my life. I didn't have any particular ideas about it. And so I thought meditation was one way that I could investigate that without having to swallow something that somebody else said that I should believe. And I was just really impressed with the precision of meditation, just how direct and simple it was. And Zen was just the format for that that seemed to be the most straightforward or daily kind of grounded routine. So that's why I was interested in it from the very beginning. And so I've had a lot of experience with this sense, entering and sitting, but I've always avoided, I never, it's always had a hard time with the information of Buddhism.

[89:34]

It's just always seemed too dry to me and not intuitive or moving enough as the experience of sitting is. So now I feel at a point where I can approach that, and I really aim to make that information mean something to me, and not have to avoid it. So for the first time I really look forward to information, but in a way sort of transforming it into something that, having both the information and the underlying Well, that's kind of the purpose of study in Buddhism is to help your practice, not to add something. So maybe for our final brief meditation, we could just sit for a few minutes with our breath and contemplate the many past lifetimes

[90:43]

Everyone has described many past lifetimes, lifetimes of effort to get here. And please appreciate the tremendous effort that you have made over such a long time. Because we've all made such a big effort over such a long period of time in this lifetime, we can reach understanding.

[92:01]

And as we just found out, our story is, it's all the same story. It really is a universal story. And Buddha's story isn't really different from our own. And I hope we'll find that. language that the Buddha taught in is not really a foreign language either. We'll describe our own experience. Thank you very much.

[92:38]

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