He's been practicing a big ol' long time, most of it here at BBC. When I first came, he was the person who did every session, and helped me in many, if not most of the positions, practice positions here, and was the head student, or so. 2000. 2000. He's also a family man with grown kids and parents who got on his mind. So, please make him welcome. Thank you. Can you hear me okay? I thought I turned it on. Okay. Well, thank you. I'm happy to be here.

[01:16]

This morning, I want to talk about one of the Prajnaparamitas. Sojin gave his classes during the spring practice period on the Heart Sutra, the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra. And when I asked him what I could do in the Wednesday night group to be part of the practice periods, the Wednesday night group basically was covering material that had to do with the practice period. The surgeon suggested I talk about the other paramitas and use Akin Roshi's book, The Practice of Perfection, which is out of print now, I think. But it's interesting, in the introduction, it honors or thanks Lori and Alan for their help in putting together some of the material. I thought that was really interesting. I think it was 1994, something like that. So we have a close affinity, and it's quite an interesting book. I also use a little bit of Thich Nhat Hanh's discussions of the Paramitas.

[02:24]

So let me read what they are. Let's see, I'm gonna talk about, or I'm only gonna talk about one, but I thought I'd give them all to you so you'd remember what they are. Giving, Udana. morality, or the shila, that's the precepts, forbearance, kshanti, zeal, the vaira, subtle focus or meditation, the dhyana, and wisdom, the prajna paramita. So those are the six that are mostly talked about. And let's see, today I'm going to talk about the third one, or the forbearance. Um... Recently, I was listening to a book on tape, a biography of Buddha written by Karen Armstrong. She's a former Catholic nun who's written a lot of books on religion, and she wrote one on Buddha.

[03:31]

So I said, well, this is a person who is outside of the practice who's looking in. It would be interesting to see what she has to say about Buddha and Buddhism. And I was fascinated. Yes. Okay, how's that? Good, thank you. So Karen Armstrong wrote this book on Buddhism or on the Buddha, the life of the Buddha, and she talked about how difficult it was because there really is no written documentation specifically about Buddha other than what is in the written records that were written maybe three, four hundred years later. So her construct basically comes from all the stories that many of us are familiar with. What struck me in listening to this book was the description of the Buddha's saga where he is attempting to understand how to end suffering, how to end dukkha.

[04:45]

and he first goes to and tries the intellectual approach of studying the spiritual practices through intellectual study and there he learns, according to Karen, that Greed and hate are causes of suffering. It was interesting that from her viewpoint, these ideas are out there in the sixth century BC India. So Buddha is there to receive them. Shakyamuni is there to receive them. And as he's practicing, of course, as we know the story, he leads that individual practice and goes into a much more stringent aesthetic practice. and realizes, well, this isn't working either. And he says, OK, I've got to find another way to do it. And in that process of finding another way to do it, he realizes that he needs to not only work on the negative, which is giving up hate, stop hating, stop being greedy, but also work on the opposite, sort of the shadow side of hate, which is love, and the shadow side of greed, generosity.

[06:01]

And so from that comes this idea of the Paramitas, studying the Paramitas, that it's not just a negative practice, it's also a positive practice. And I thought that was really interesting. I thought it was interesting that the timing was also prior, according to Karin, prior to the six days and seven nights, seven days, six nights, that he sat before his awakening in the morning of the 7th. So, that was really interesting to me. What I had inferred from Suzuki Roshi's practice was, come and sit and don't worry about studying Buddhism. So I've kind of said, oh, that's a good idea, I'll just do that. And it fit to my natural instincts, which is to not study. The way Karen presented it to me, I realized that indeed the study and of course the practice is also very important.

[07:04]

So that's one of the reasons that I'm talking about this. So, in the Wednesday night group we read and studied the first precept and then the third precept, and when I was reading the third precept, Forbearance, it really struck me, it really grabbed me, and so I wanted to spend some more time talking about it, thinking about it, and studying it, which is why I'm talking about it now. And by the way, the Wednesday Night Group is continuing to study the Paramitas. We're going to be studying the fourth one starting next Wednesday. Sort of energy, vigor, putting effort into the practice. You're all invited to come. Starts at 7.20 and ends at 9. and we have a 40-minute period of Zazen, we have an evening service chanting the Heart Sutra, then we go into the community room and read and discuss. We'll be reading the fourth precept out of Aiton's book. Also, many, many years ago, I read Three Pillars of Zen by, I think his name is Kapu, I'm not sure if it's Kapu.

[08:14]

you're familiar with the book and the man that's good and in that book there's a chapter on enlightenment experiences and it struck me that in each one of those enlightenment experiences the person said and I realized that I have to continue practicing which is kind of kind of struck me as interesting then and I guess I see that as another motivation for working on these Paramitas, that this is part of the continuing practice that we have to do. So, that's why I'm here. So the third paramita is forbearance, or kanchati, I think is the Sanskrit word, and some other words, inclusiveness, which is one that Thich Nhat Hanh likes to use, forgiveness, absence of hatred, resentment, repugnance, malice, disgust, and Eken Roshi puts in endurance of hardship.

[09:18]

and patience. And then Akin Roshi at the end puts acceptance of truth, which is kind of interesting. It's the only place I saw in the literature. I went on Google and I Googled forbearance plus Buddhism minus mortgages. If you don't take away mortgages, you've got a tremendous amount of credit websites. Patience was used a lot, but Ekan Roshi was the only one to talk about acceptance of truth, which I'll talk about at the end. So, in one of these websites, Buddha was quoted as saying, Forbearance is the highest observance, and Patience the highest virtue. So, I'm really glad that I picked this to talk about, this subject, since it seems to be an important one. So let's talk about this idea of inclusiveness, forgiveness, absence of hatred, resentment, repugnance, and so on and so forth.

[10:19]

Sojin talked about forgiveness, I think twice at least, the last few weeks, which is kind of interesting, in a book called, what, Forgive for Good. And it was a copy of the title page, I think, on the bulletin board, if you haven't seen it. And he liked that book. Thich Nhat Hanh uses the word inclusiveness as part of his title for the Third Forbearance or the Third Paramita. What he's trying to say is that he wants to include all of us in his practice. And so in the process of forgiving, in the process of patience, in the process of all of these things, he's including the other into himself. He presents the analogy that maybe we're all familiar with Buddha talking about salt.

[11:24]

And you take a spoonful of salt, you put it in a glass of water, and you drink the water. It's not very palatable, not very potable, because it's got too much salt in it. But if you take that same amount of salt and you put it into a big lake, like Lake Superior or Tahoe or something like that, you can't even taste the salt. So the analogy there is that as our hearts or as our minds get bigger, as we become more inclusive, the slings and arrows of outraged fortunes that come at us get much easier to bear. And if we have a big Tahoe mind, big Lake Superior mind, then they don't really have any impact. They just kind of come across. which makes us much more open to them being able to help the person who's actually injured us. Of course, they may not be trying to injure us, but there's the potential for the injury there if we've got the small mind, but with the big mind, we can stay open to the relationship and what's going on.

[12:35]

And we can try, as the way Akin Roshi talks about, instead of becoming defensive, we can attempt to make the situation a situation for learning for both of us, the hurting situation. And Akin Roshi gives some examples of some mandos, some koan-like conversations between Zen teachers and students to show how that goes on. So I asked myself, well, how do we get the Great Lake Superior Mind? And one of the things that comes to mind is something that actually I learned from Rebecca many, many years ago, where she talked about Mother, Zazen. I guess what I'm thinking of is Zazen Mother, if you will. As we're sitting Zazen, and we're letting go of the thoughts, and we're just settling into ourself, what emerges basically is Big Mama, if you will, with her arms around us, caring for us and loving us and just taking care of

[13:44]

of us. There was a student here some years ago who gave a Monday morning talk that really, I still remember her talk, where she said during Sashin's, the thoughts of her physical abusement as she was growing up as a girl, her father apparently was very physically abusive, and she was a very strong woman, a strong girl, and she would fight back and that just made it worse. And so these feelings would come up during the Sashin. And my reaction is that all of us that were there and her own Zazen mind were sort of putting her arms around her and helping support her, I think, so she could connect with these feelings and let them become less fearsome than they had been in the past. And this, to my mind, opens up the mind, opens up the heart. So Thich Nhat Hanh talks about the heart, opens up, big heart. So, you know, how do we grow our hearts?

[14:52]

That's the sitting zazen, it's really great. Another example, which I maybe have used in the past, I don't remember, but if I haven't used it in the past, I'm going to use it now, and I probably will use it in the future because it's... It's a very personal story. My wife, Joan, and I had a fight on probably a Friday night, and then I came to Saturday, and there was a one-day sitting. And so the time I came in, woke up at 4 o'clock, and I was still angry at my wife, and all this anger was running around in my mind. And I came and started sitting. I was just sitting in a seat right next to Helen's there. and I was still angry at her every time the bell would ring and we'd start to kin him, these angry feelings would come up as I was sitting, so as in anger would come up. At about 9.30, the anger stopped. It stopped coming up. It just went away. And this just amazed me. And actually, it surprised me, and I was sad, and I was grieving for the fact that I wasn't angry anymore.

[15:59]

I wanted to be angry. And as I say, it's quite an eye-opener to me. Sojin has talked in the past about being loyal to our feelings. And this example came back to my mind and I said, wow, that is so true. I mean, it was such a simple little thing. Well, it's not so simple. I just loved being angry. And in a sense, I still do. I mean, nobody wants to be angry. Well, most of us don't want to be angry. But for some reason or other, we do get angry. And then I noticed that I was holding on to that anger. And so the Zazen really helped me understand that and appreciate what was going on in my mind. And I was thinking about that in terms of the Hatfields and the McCoys and their anger and how it just kept them alive. And what's going on in the Middle East and the anger that's just keeping them alive. Unfortunately, they don't have Zazen to help them understand that it's just their own loyalty that's keeping them going.

[17:13]

So I wrote down here, story of my anger at Joan, and how it left me, and how I was disappointed that it had left, and how I wanted it to come back, and how it did not come back. Okay, so that's one part of forbearance, the paramita of forbearance. Another one is the endurance of hardship and patience. Okay, patience. I looked down here, I was trying to think, how do I talk about this? I said, well, it's really very simple. Patience is all about standing in lines, waiting in traffic. Tolerate a little old lady crossing the street. And there I am at the crosswalk. Vroom, vroom, vroom. I want to go. And she's just going at her pace. And I'm saying, go, go, go. So I need patience for that. And so waiting, I'm thinking about just waiting.

[18:28]

Just waiting to be like Zazen. And I was thinking, in fact, Zazen is just waiting. And when we're sitting there, our mind is kind of free of chaining thoughts, thoughts that go from one to the other, to the next, to the next, to the next. And we don't have a lot of energy in our feelings, in our zazen and whatnot. We're just sitting there waiting. Sojin likes the analogy of a frog. You've probably seen him talk about the frog. The frog is just sitting there waiting on a lily pad. And when a fly goes by, grabs the fly, swallows it, and goes back to just sitting, just waiting. But you know, in a sense, the frog isn't waiting. He's not waiting for that fly to come by. He's just sitting there. So if a fly comes by, then he does it, but he's not saying, oh, is that fly going to come? He's just waiting.

[19:29]

And so I'm thinking that the kind of waiting that we're talking about in Zazen, we're just there, we're just sitting. And when we're waiting in line, we can just wait without any expectation of anything happening. Like the fly doesn't have the expectation, the frog doesn't have the expectation that the fly is coming. It's just there. And so if we have that kind of an attitude, that kind of a waiting mind, when we're in line or in traffic or whatever, then that's pretty good. That's kind of nice. And I think that in a sense that's the kind of patience, the patience Paramita is talking about. So Zazen can train us to wait. And another thing as Sojin has talked about is taking refuge in our breathing. So sometimes when I find myself becoming impatient, which I do, waiting in line, I just put my attention down in my hara.

[20:40]

and just kind of try to relax my belly and just breathe and just feel the belly going in and out, up and down and whatnot. That's nice. And so then the impatience kind of just drifts away because I have this sort of counter-irritant, if you will, in relaxing. Mel's always saying Zen students should know where their breath is. say when I'm asking you I ask you where your breath is you should know where it is so when we're waiting in line you know are we waiting in line whether holding our breath or waiting in line just knowing where our breath is that's that's a good one but when when waiting becomes a real hardship you know like like when we're ill or we have a painful injury You know, one time, Maile Scott broke her arm, I think it was, and went to the hospital. And she had to spend a lot of time just waiting for her to be seen by the emergency room people, because there was a lot of activity that day.

[21:50]

And she was in a lot of pain. And they didn't want to give her any pain medication until they had actually diagnosed her problem. So she said she just sort of breathed, sort of giving her breath to the entire hospital, as I remember it, to all the people who were there. It was kind of an interesting way of talking about using breath to practice patience and to practice endurance of hardship. Another example is when we're sitting in long Sashins, you know, Laurie said that I used to come to a lot of Sashins. I still like to come to Sashins, but, um, I don't come as often as I did. But, uh, matter of fact, when I came to the Zen center in the early, in the mid eighties, I said I was going to sit every Sashin for five years, which is my, which was my commitment. And that's what I did after five years were up. I sort of say, well, I don't have to do every one now, but I still like to do them, especially the longer ones.

[22:54]

And I like the longer ones because they teach me about endurance and they teach me about patience, especially toward the end of the day, when my legs are hurting, you know, everything's getting stretched out. Um, frankly, I kind of welcome the, um, uh, the struggle, if you will, that goes on because it's about the only place in my life where there really is any real struggle for me. And it's a place where, because I'm sitting Zazen and I have all these wonderful people around me supporting me, it's a place where I can really just let it be. Just let that pain and whatnot be there. And for me, that's a great lesson, which is the only place that I get. You know, this is the place where I learned, it was in these longer sushins where I really learned the difference between suffering and dukkha.

[23:58]

You know, in suffering, we all suffer, we all have pain. When we get sick, you know, there we are, we've got it. When we're sitting zazen for a long period of time, we have pain, most of us do, have pain somewhere in our bodies, on our legs, our back. I sat in a chair for a while because I didn't want to have pain in my legs, but my back started hurting. There's just no way, really, to get away from the struggle that goes on. But, you know, Sojin pointed out, and many people point out, there's a difference between the pain and the suffering and the desire to get rid of the pain and the suffering. When we're in a sashimi and we're sitting there, there's no way to get rid of the pain and suffering unless getting up. And that's one of the rules that we have. One of the things we ask ourselves and ask each other is don't move, you know, just stay there for the 40 minutes that you're going to be sitting. And so there's really no place to go. So we can, I can say, okay, I'm going to grit my teeth and hold my breath, and I'm just gonna let this pain be there.

[25:05]

Or I can breathe, relax, and just let the pain be there. And not push the pain away and not bring it to me, but just let it be there. Because the suffering occurs when we're pushing the pain away. Oh, I don't want this pain. It's not good. But if I just say, hmm, there's the pain, hmm, and then go on with my breathing as just being there, just waiting, if you will, then I don't have dukkha, the distinguishment, in this case, between suffering and dukkha. So that's the distinguishment that I'm making. Dukkha being the Sanskrit word for what is often translated as suffering. But I'm changing things a little bit. So, that's why I like sushis. Well, there are other reasons too. But that lesson of not pushing things away, not saying, not struggling against the pain, not struggling against whatever it is, I think it's a really good lesson.

[26:16]

And that's really important to me. Let's see, at this point, I guess I could read one of the poems that Eiken Roshi has, because it's kind of an interesting poem, and it's difficult to understand, frankly. Talking about endurance or patience, suffering, just being in a place where it ain't comfortable, dukkha. Talks about Basho is a Japanese poet of earlier days. I don't know exactly when it was, 17th century. I'm not sure when, but he was a great poet and also a great Zen practitioner. And let's see. Here's a response of the poet Basho to hardship. He has taken shelter during a storm in the rude dwelling of a frontier guard while he was on a pilgrimage. And here's the poem.

[27:17]

Fleas, lice, the horse pissing near my pillow. Let me read it again. Fleas, lice, the horse pissing near my pillow. You know, horses have big bladders. And he was already tired and hungry. I mean, the very fact that he was in this rude dwelling, you know, showed that he wasn't where he would rather be. But he just says, here it is. In a sense, the way I see it, he's just waiting. He's just being there. He's not pushing it away. He's not saying, oh, isn't this wonderful? He's not saying, oh, this is terrible. He's just saying, oh, here it is. This is it. So that's Eiken Roshi's offering to endurance of hardship. And his last one that Enki Roshi talks about is acceptance of truth, which is kind of interesting.

[28:19]

This is the only place in the one I was looking at the different material where this was talked about in the neighborhood of forbearance or Kanchati, the third paramita. And I'm actually, it's this part of the Agon Roshi chapter that really struck me. And I said, this is important stuff. This is what I, this is what I need to know. This is what I need to understand. This is what I need to study. All that came before, it was interesting, but this is a, this is the one that really grabbed me personally. It says that part of Kshatriya is the acceptance that effort we make as part of practice enlightenment does require effort. In other words, acceptance of truth, he's talking about here, says that we are accepting that we have to make an effort in our practice, in our practice of life enlightenment, that this is then come free, if you will.

[29:20]

The effort includes dropping off some self-indulgent acts. maybe going to the show more often than we need to. Accepting a self-imposed limit on our appetites and avoidance of ordinary worldly distractions. So this, oh yeah, well... I guess I feel that I don't do that enough. I don't do enough of this self-imposed limits. Which is why this grabbed me. As we practice more and more, our bodhicitta mind emerges and shows us that self-discipline is important, which is probably true for me. Now bodhicitta is a word that sort of talks about the part of us that is looking for enlightenment, that's looking for the ease of understanding who we really are.

[30:24]

And as we as we practice kind of like a. spiral as I see it. We sort of start out and as we start practicing, we get more and more of this bodhichitta emphasis and energy impacts us and it gives us more and more energy to practice. So I see it's kind of that sort of thing. And bodhichitta is basically asking us, our own selves, asking us to accept these self-imposed limits on us, on ourselves. Part of the Buddha's Enlightenment saga talks about the ascetic period that he spent where he started himself and went through a lot of practices which made it very difficult for him to really practice effectively because he was so initiated. So then he created, he said, well, maybe I shouldn't be doing this.

[31:28]

Maybe I need some sort of middle way or something like that. And so he ate a little food and maybe dressed himself a little bit better so he was a little more comfortable. But he didn't dress himself in silks and go out to the bars every night. He still maintained a rigor in his practice. So he sort of, he maintained that middle way. He didn't go too far one way or the other, which I kind of liked. And Eken Roshi offers another poem to us, which I will read. So this poem, I guess, is written on a painting of Buddha. And it says this, for six years, hunger and cold pierced his bones to the marrow. Ascetic discipline is a mysterious teaching of the Buddhas and patriarchs.

[32:32]

I'm convinced there is no natural Shakyamuni. Now in the world, patch cloth robes are just rice bags. And I read that and I said, that really hit home. I think this last, especially the last sentence, now in the world patchwork monks are just rice bags. He's talking about his, the poet is talking about his generation of monks saying, well they're just rice bags, they're not really practicing very hard. They're not putting out that effort and that energy that it requires because there's no natural Shakti Muni. There's no natural Buddha. Buddhahood requires us to put a little effort into our practice. That's what I got out of that. And I really liked it. The very last paragraph here I want to read from Akin Roshi is, he says, I'm thinking of a teacher from India who makes many good points in his teachings and has made many mistakes too.

[33:41]

Paramahansa, among the latter, was this neglect of asceticism. Therefore, fundamentally, there was no practice among his followers. Practice is ascetic and asceticism is practice. So that's really interesting for me. As I said earlier, the only aesthetic part of my life is really sushins. Otherwise, I have a very comfortable, very easy life. Every once in a while, I have to work overtime at work or something like that, but that's about it. So I think that's really all I had to say today. So I'd be very happy to take questions and respond. Yes, Peter. Right, yeah.

[35:39]

I think that's... Yeah, the other comment was innermost desire, that sort of there's an energy with that waiting. It's an expected energy. You know, the frog isn't dull. The frog is... Because the frog has to know that the fly is coming. Flies move very fast, so the frog's got to be attentive as to what's going on. So I think, yeah, it does require... It's not dullness, and it's not relaxation. or although there is relaxation there, it's very attentive. I'm just using all the same word, aren't I? You're right. I'm wondering, it's like mixing metaphors, but while it's useful to think of having a big mind or a big lake where salt is absorbed and you don't really taste it, I'm thinking of the other side, where something which is sort of nourishing or encouraging or supportive, that we don't want to be too big and not be sensitive

[37:03]

I'm not sure that I understand the sweet part that you're talking about. Right, yeah. Yeah, we can become greedy. I'm thinking in terms of, with sweet, I love sweet myself, and it's very easy to be greedy. I think they talk about that in Zazen, of getting stuck in the pleasure that comes from Zazen, where we just enjoy all the good feelings that we're getting when we're sitting, and the relaxation and the comfort of it.

[38:33]

And I don't think that's what we were talking about. That's not what I was talking about when I was talking about the waiting aspect. Although, the waiting, there is pleasure in that. There is. I mean, sometimes Zazen feels really good. Sometimes it doesn't. I think we can get trapped, and I think that's why we have teachers. That's why Sojin up there tells us, don't get trapped. And other people, when you read the literature, other people are saying, this can be a problem. Don't let it happen to you. The stink of enlightenment, another thing that comes to mind, maybe that you're referring to a little bit, where someone gets so involved and they're so happy with the fact that they had this enlightenment experience that they kind of forget everyday life. Was that the... So, redemptive in the sense that we have collected karma, the bad karma, and by suffering we get to get rid of that karma.

[40:34]

Maybe. Or, you know, it's good for us to suffer. Well, yeah, maybe I was sort of leaning in that direction, some of the things that I said, but it's not, I don't see it as a punishment for crimes committed. I see it as a as a way of learning about letting go of being attached. I think Ross sort of applied, or I inferred from what he was saying, talking about being attached to the good stuff. It's hard to let go of the good stuff, but it's easier for me to learn how to let go of not wanting the bad stuff, and then I can take that lesson and I can apply it other places. So I think I'm only embracing if you will. I think I said earlier, I kind of welcome that suffering during this session. I don't think I'm welting a bit other than the fact that I can then just let go of it.

[41:40]

I like that, just letting go. Did you have your hand up? It looks like you might be needing it for your ankle. The middle way, to my mind. She's not here today. We had a woman who was deferring hip replacement for several years, and she was on medication. She would take them at night to help her sleep. And during the day, I think she didn't take it or took very little. And she also had zazen. We had a woman here who was smoking marijuana. She had cancer. She was smoking marijuana to help her with her food.

[42:43]

And she was taking chemotherapy and whatnot. But she said, I never smoked marijuana and came and come to the Zendo. But she always came to the Zendo sober, if you will, or without getting high, which I thought was pretty good. Yeah, I think that's... those are two good examples. Yeah? I have a question, which would be a little bit... I think all these questions probably are. The mind is no hindrance. Is your mind a hindrance? Well, let's see, as far as it comes before that... what was this phrase before the mind is no hindrance? I am no hindrance therefore, no fears exist. I'm sorry, say that again? Right.

[43:44]

No fears exist. Prajnaparamita. And no fears exist, right. So, sometimes my mind is a hindrance and sometimes it isn't, frankly. Sometimes I'm very comfortable just to let go of everything. And sometimes I grab a hold. And when I grab a hold, I'm in... I'm in dukkha, if you will. Well, it seems like you bring yourself to sasheen to explore that. I bring myself, yes, I bring myself to the sasheen to practice letting go. And also to to just be, you know, just be here. This waiting that we were talking about of just sitting here, not asleep, not enjoying Zazen, not enjoying Zazen, but just being here in the moment, just being here now, sometimes with pain, sometimes with pleasure, but just kind of, you know, it's just there.

[44:56]

I'm just here. And I think, you know, my practice is maturing into that kind of a practice of just being here. I also come because, like the last machine, I think there were only 19 people. And I said, you know, I got to be there to help hold up everybody else, and they can help hold me up. So that's another reason. I think we have time for one more question or are we through? After 11. Last question. One more question. It's one of the struggles.

[46:48]

If we were monks at Tassajara, it would be a lot easier for us. But, you know, the Suzuki Roshi model of way practice in the city, the way we're doing it, I think that's, for me, that's the spot. That's where the practice pain starts coming.

[47:04]

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