Good morning. Yes, turn those lights on. I like those lights in the hat. And we have some visitors from Hogwarts, it looks like. Is that correct? Good. Well, in a little while, after we finish this, this will be a short talk, we'll rearrange, we'll have this talk and then rearrange the Zendo briefly and then celebrate together the ceremony of awakening and nourishing all beings. which is also called Sijiki. That's what it's called in the Soto Zen Buddhist school. And I thought I would say a little about what this ceremony means so you know why you're participating in it.

[01:05]

And maybe the kids have heard it. Some of you have heard it before. it always helps to remind ourselves of what we're doing so that the rituals we do and the things we do together in community have a shared meaning. So traditionally, in this ritual, we feed the hungry ghosts. People know, do you guys know what hungry ghosts look like? So the image of a hungry ghost is usually a being with a very big belly, really swollen, like sometimes you see people who have malnutrition, strangely enough their bellies are really swollen. really big swollen belly and a neck that's like thinner than this stick, maybe about as wide as a pencil.

[02:09]

And they're always hungry. But because their necks are so thin, the food can't get down. So they live in this state of always being hungry, which that's not very pleasant, right? Even if you know what it's like to be a little hungry, can you imagine what it's like to be hungry for an amount of time that we can't even measure? So that's the realm of the hungry ghosts. So in this ceremony, we feed the hungry ghosts, and in a sense, these hungry ghosts might be ourselves. who are always feeling a little undernourished, who always feel like there's something, whether it's in our belly or in our minds, that we want, and if we could just get it through,

[03:15]

this little thin opening, then we'd be satisfied. And sometimes we go through our whole lives like that. So it's not just about the spirits in another world, it's also about the spirits, our own spirits in this world. And I'm sure many of us, I know what this is like, because there are plenty of times when all of a sudden I'll notice, oh, Right now I'm a hungry ghost and I haven't the slightest idea what I could eat or what I could do or what I could think that will fill this hunger that I have. So this is a very painful way to live and I'm sure all of us at times feel that way. So we feed the hungry ghosts who might be ourselves, and we honor the spirits and energies of all those beings who have left this world, this world that we temporarily inhabit.

[04:21]

We honor those that we love and miss, and we remember and feed those spirits who may no longer have any connection in this world. No one to remember them. How painful and sad that must be. But today, we remember them. And we give them, Paul has cooked all kinds of wonderful things to feed them. I think stuff for every appetite. Is that right? And food and drink. Right. And then I think what happens is we take this outside afterwards and we get to eat some of it. Is that correct? All right, so you don't have to worry about that. So traditionally, Tsujiki is part of a Japanese ceremony festival that's called Obon, which takes place usually in the summer. Obon is a time for honoring our ancestors and the families go and they clean up the family grave sites and the cemeteries and then they have a big party with food and drink and communal dancing.

[05:39]

Has anyone ever been to Obon? been? The kids been? It's great. It's just wonderful dancing and energy and drumming. So that's the way they do it in Japan and in some of the Japanese American communities here. We've moved Tsujiki to a date that's closer to Halloween, which is a Celtic tradition in Europe and now here in the West. And it's kind of a mythic tradition, I mean some people probably believe in it very literally, that conveys a sense of this liminal, this kind of threshold moment when the spirits in the other world can contact this world. But actually to me, Sajiki is more like the Latin American Day of the Dead. than Halloween. It's not just like, oh, the spirits of the world can contact us.

[06:42]

It's also recognizing, as in the Day of the Dead, that death and passing on is actually a continuation of life in another form. So, it's a day when joy and sorrow come up together. And this is kind of the way we practice Zen is how do we sit with seemingly contradictory energies and feelings that come up together and how do we recognize that that's the incredible nature of being alive. So, this word Oban is a shortened Japanese version of the Sanskrit word Ullambana, which means something like the suffering of hanging upside down in hell. That would not be fun. I mean, first of all, just being in hell would be bad enough, but to have to sit, to have to be there and be hung upside down, you know, forget it.

[07:51]

So, the Sanskrit word is Ullambana and there's a Mahayana Sutra, the Ullambana Sutra, and in that Sutra, one of the Buddha's disciples, Moggayana, who was the disciple that was known for having the most developed supernatural powers, he is really upset because he has this dream about his mother, who has died, and he sees her, because in some ways she was selfish, he sees her caught in this realm of hungry ghosts in the afterlife. So he goes to the Buddha and says, I don't know what to do. This is really terrible. I need to help my mother. And the Buddha instructs Moggayana to make a series of offerings, and I think they'll be offerings very much like the kinds of offerings that we're going to make today, and then to go down to that realm and rescue his mother, which is, you know, that takes a lot of nerve.

[09:16]

So Moggayana's rescue mission, he takes on this rescue mission and it's a success. And when he sees his mother, what arises for him is this feeling of love and a burst of understanding about the true nature of his mother's generosity. and all of the sacrifices she made in her life, all the things she did while she was living for him, that allowed him to be a thriving boy, young man, that allowed him to become a disciple of the Buddha, and that he owed everything to his mother who he was rescuing from this realm. He takes her arm in arm and they dance for joy, just like in the Oban dance, which is a big circle dance.

[10:29]

It's very natural, just dancing for joy. And on his quest, though, Moguiana also happens to, you know, as he's going down, he's going through all these gates, right? All these passageways that you have to go through, like at Hogwarts, all these doors and special places that you have to go through. And while he's going through these gates, it happens that he breaks the locks to the gates to all of these hell realms. You know, whether he did that intentionally or not, I don't know. But he breaks the locks to these gates and this frees all the hungry ghosts and spirits to wander about through our world. And you know, I don't know how many of you, some people believe in these spirits.

[11:33]

I remember when Alexander was a little boy, he could make a quite convincing case that he was communicating with certain beings who were around. Some of us feel that when we're children and lose that ability. Some of us still feel it now. But however it is, Mogyana breaking the locks having these spirits wandering about through this world, it actually makes a pretty substantial job of work for Bodhisattvas like ourselves. And so, we have to feed them. And while we're feeding them, Moggayana is making his own vow to practice as a And so he set up shop there for life after life and presumably he's doing that today and if by misfortune you happen to end up there,

[12:48]

you know, you can stop by and he'll help you and say, you can say hi from me, okay? And we all need his help and we all can do this work. So this is the myth of Tsujiki. It's the story of Tsujiki and these stories have a power that's beyond our understanding. And even if we can't exactly or literally hold on to this emotionally or believe it. A story like this and a ceremony like this has a real truth that can affect our lives. But it's funny because like water, it just slips freely through our hand of thought. But I really believe that... I don't necessarily believe a myth, literally.

[14:04]

And you guys need to think about this. But I do believe that these stories work in some mysterious way in me, in you, and in the world. That's the functioning of story, which is very close to the functioning of faith, I suppose. So, let's enact this myth, let's feed the hungry ghosts, let's commune with all spirits in every world, let's satisfy ourselves, and let's rejoice. Thank you very much. Beings are numberless.

[14:53]

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