Good morning. Well, today we are celebrating Shakyamuni Buddha's Parinirvana, or his so-called Great Decease. We were supposed to do this two weeks ago, but we forgot. Somehow it slipped by, but today is good enough. In the Southeast Asian tradition, and in some places in China, they celebrate a Buddha's birthday, his enlightenment, and his Parinirvana, all in one ceremony.

[01:05]

in May, April or May, called Waysak. So it's not such a bad thing to observe it when we observe it. Everybody does it a little bit differently. So maybe we'll start a new tradition based on our forgetfulness. But parinirvana, nirvana, parinirvana is a synonym for nirvana, but it has a little different meaning in that it means final or the end. Nirvana is not exactly definable, but we can still talk about it. And literally, nirvana means to put out or blow out.

[02:14]

But actually, there's a misunderstanding about nirvana. The historians, when they started reading or learning about Buddhism, they thought nirvana meant extinguishment. In other words, extinguishing into nothingness. But nirvana means letting go of greed, ill will, and delusion. The extinguishing of greed, the extinguishing of ill will, and the extinguishing of delusion. And it's kind of mixed up with the Arhat or the Buddha does not return, does not have a rebirth because there's no more karma to cause an extended life.

[03:26]

But for all practical purposes, We think of nirvana as the extinguishing of greed, ill will, and delusion. And it's, of course, all mixed up with desire, because desire is the basis for greed, ill will, and delusion. So Buddha's message was the Four Noble Truths. Human beings have a big problem called suffering in its various forms, and the cause is desire. And the three roots, three evil, or the three unwholesome roots of desire are greed, ill will, and delusion. And that there is a way to

[04:34]

get free. And so, Buddha's message is, how do you get free? How do you... Buddha's called the physician. He diagnoses the problem, which, oh, you're suffering? Well, you're ill at ease? You have dis-ease? The cause is your desirous mind, or over-stimulated desirous mind, which is rooted in, or appears as, greed, ill will, and delusion. And then, of course, the way to deal with it, or the way to find this freedom, is by following the Eightfold Path.

[05:47]

So, Buddha lays out the way for us. So, we're very fortunate that Buddha found this path for us. But I'll talk about this a little in a minute. The fact of what Buddha did for us and what we need to do for ourselves. So, well, I'll talk about it now. Well, I'll talk about it in a minute. As we know, Buddha was brought up as a prince in a wealthy household.

[06:53]

And his mother died when he was young, and he was brought up by his mother's sister, his aunt, and family. And his father wanted him to be a monarch, and he pampered him terribly. And he gave him everything that you could possibly want. He had everything. He had it all. He had more than he wanted. He had a harem, and he had musicians and teachers and everything. But his father wouldn't let him outside the palace. because he didn't want to get tainted by life. He didn't want to be unhappy by looking around. In India, you can get very unhappy if you just look around you. I don't think it was quite as bad in those days as it is today, but I don't know.

[07:58]

But Buddha was, he got restless. Well, he did go out one day And he saw a sick person, and he saw an old person, and he saw a dead person, and he saw a monk, a traveling mendicant. And so he came back and asked about all this. And he found out that there was death, he found out there was sickness, and he found out that there was old age. And he'd never known about that, strangely enough. I don't know how he wouldn't know, but he didn't know. Dad told him about it, what happened to his mom. Yeah, Dad told him about it. Anyway, it's a two-dimensional story.

[09:06]

So he finally left, of course, and went on to seek the truth about life. And he became an ascetic. He studied with some of the best teachers of his time, and finally surpassed them, and he had to find his own way. He became an ascetic, and then One day, after six years of asceticism, he sat under this tree at his old home. And he said, you know, the weather was nice. And he said, gee, this is really nice. What am I doing, you know, doing all this hard ascetic practice? And then this nice lady came over and gave him a little drink of milk.

[10:23]

He said, I think the extreme way is not the way. The extreme ascetic way is not the way. And then he proceeded to go to the boat tree and sat for seven days in a very extreme way. I said, I'm not going to get up until I'm enlightened. Then after seven days, in the morning, he saw the morning star and realized his enlightened mind. And then, I'm making a long story very short. Someone, he met his old brothers, his old Dharma brothers, and they were awed by him. He knew he had something to teach, but he thought it wouldn't be too difficult. So then he was asked by someone he met to teach three times.

[11:28]

If someone asks you to teach Buddhism, you should wait till I ask you three times. It's a kind of tradition. And the third time he said, OK, I'll try. So then people started coming to him. And he taught for 40 years, I think, until he was about 80, in his 80s. And then he had his par nirvana, which is his great disease. So I started out talking about nirvana, There are two kinds of nirvana. There's nirvana with remain-here, and then there's nirvana without remain-here. Nirvana with remain-here means that one is free from greed, hate, greed, ill-will, and delusion. One is totally freed from greed, ill-will, and delusion.

[12:38]

In other words, there's no ego. There's no self. It's not quite that simple. One is totally liberated. in this body. And parinirvana is without remainder, which means that the five skandhas are no longer there, which means you're dead. So that's the great nirvana. And for Buddha, there's no returning. There's nothing, no karma. being generated that would cause a return of some kind of being to this world. But that's a whole other topic, what that means. Buddha never, although we say Buddha died 2,500 years ago or so,

[13:40]

Actually, the true Buddha has never left. It's interesting that we're still speaking about Buddha, remembering Buddha, teaching Buddha, influenced by Buddha, and constantly bringing Buddha to life. Continuously. And Buddha himself said, I didn't do anything. I didn't really invent Buddhism. I just discovered this old path. It's like, you know, you go down this path every day and you don't notice this little side path that's covered over by brush that was once used. And then one day you stop and you look at it and you say, I wonder where that goes. And then he started following it along and clearing the brambles. And this is how he described his discovery.

[14:54]

Of course, he worked very hard for it. He didn't just stumble on it. And so he said, well, I uncovered the ancient path of all the Buddhas of the past. I'm just one of the Buddhas There's a sutra of the names of various Buddhas, thousands of Buddhas' names. This is to give us the understanding that there are countless Buddhas of the past, one for each era. When he got ready to pass away, pass into final nirvana, Ananda, who was his cousin, but also his very close associate and monk, said, well, asked him, well, what should we do when you're gone?

[16:08]

Who's going to be our teacher? And I said, you should be a lamp unto yourself. I'm not going to appoint any special teacher, although there are a lot of good teachers, but you should pay attention to the Dharma, and pay attention to the Saga, and find your own way. With the help of the Dharma, the Sutras, and the practice. Just practice the practice. And the implication is that when you practice the practice, that various teachers will appear. This has always been an understanding in Buddhism.

[17:10]

When there's a strong desire to practice the practice, and when that's happening, teachers will appear. your teacher will appear. In the Zen tradition, we say that Mahakasyapa was Buddha's successor. And after Buddha passed away, they had a council. They had two councils, actually. And they got all the arhats together to decide, well, what was it that Buddha actually said? and to get the story straight. And Ananda, who was his attendant, was well known for his memory and that he had actually, you know, could rattle off all of Buddha's sermons and the circumstances surrounding them. And

[18:12]

But when they convened this assembly of 500, or maybe 300, I don't know, they said, well, we should invite Ananda. But then they said, but Ananda, although he knows all this stuff, is not yet enlightened. So we have this story of how Mahakasyapa, enlightened Ananda. Mahakasyapa was chosen to be the leader of the assembly. There's a koan in the book we've written about how Ananda was enlightened by Mahakasyapa. Because according to the Zen legend, Mahakasyapa received Buddha's robe and bowl.

[19:26]

So Ananda asked Mahakasyapa, what did the Blessed One give you besides the robe and the bowl? And Maha Shabba said, Ananda. Ananda said, yes. And he said, lay down the flagpole at the gate. That's the story. And then Ananda was enlightened. So then Ananda was allowed to come into the assembly, and of course, When you read the sutras, the sutras usually start out saying, thus have I heard. And that's Ananda saying, thus have I heard. It could also be other people, but it's usually attributed to Ananda in a legendary way.

[20:36]

So Then Ananda said, shall we keep all the precepts? You know, like for monks, there were 250 precepts. And there were major precepts and minor precepts. And the major precepts were very severe, very strict. And the minor precepts were more, they're gradations of minor precepts. You know, all the way down to how you should hold a bowl of rice when you eat it, with your fingers. And many precepts would just pertain to certain localities. So, he said, do we have to keep all the precepts? And Buddha said, no, you don't have to keep them all. And then later, when he was at the assembly, he was asked, Ananda said, well, I asked the Buddha if we should keep all the precepts, and he said, no, not necessarily.

[21:53]

And they said, well, which ones do you not have to keep? He said, well, I didn't ask him. And then Mahakasyapa said, well, in that case, we just keep them all. So that's why in the Theravada tradition and also in Mahayana tradition, priests or monks have 250 or more precepts which they have to pay attention to. It's been shortened in Japan. We shortened it to 16 precepts. 10 prohibitory precepts. Pretty good. But those 10 precepts, or 16 precepts, include all of the other precepts. All the minor precepts. So, I want to get back to where the moral of my story.

[23:01]

The moral of this story is that each one of us is Shakyamuni Buddha. And each one of us has our quest for spirituality. Or, who am I? What's reality? You know, in America especially, if you're a Buddhist in America, you don't have, unless you're Asian, you don't have a family tradition of Buddhism. So in order to study Buddhism, you have to leave the family. Just like you don't have to leave home, you know, but in a way you're abandoning the family practice. and searching for meaningful practice.

[24:07]

If you're in an Asian country, you have an inherited practice, mostly. Like in America, people are Christians, or Jews, or Mohammedans, or whatever. And there's a kind of family tradition, a family practice. You don't have to work for something. It's handed down to you. But in order to be a Buddhist in America, you have to abandon something. You have to leave something. Because you're searching out something which you don't have yet. And you have to find your own way. And we find it in various ways. We go through various trials and searches and it's not something that's just given to us. Suzuki Roshi used to say, Buddhism is not some nice package that you can put in the drawer and then when you want it, you open the drawer and there it is.

[25:24]

Not like that. You have to discover it. moment by moment. You have to practice it moment by moment. You can't just have this neat little thing that you put in your pocket and take it out on Sunday. And each one of us actually has the same practice and same trials and tribulations and difficulties as Shakyamuni. It's Shakyamuni that his practice, his life is a kind of archetypal example of what everyone who practices goes through in some way or another. That's why the story of Buddha's life is so important to understand.

[26:26]

Each one of us has to find it for ourself with the help of each other. The tradition, there is a tradition, and the tradition gives us a base and a structure in which to practice. But the tradition and the structure is a kind of foundation. But on that foundation, we have to find our own way. A teacher cannot give you the way. A teacher cannot give you some, you know... Teacher, teachers, or teacher, teachers, can point the way.

[27:29]

But as we say in Zen, don't mistake the finger for the moon. Suzuki Roshi, I remember saying, when the student comes to the teacher and they establish a relationship, then the teacher should send the student away. Not literally, but now it's up to you. Okay, you want a relationship? Good. Now it's up to you. What will you do? How will you find your way? It's like a little fish, like the salmon swimming upstream. They have to find, they have to really get there, they have to really work hard to get up the stream.

[28:43]

And they know where they're going, and yet they don't know. They know. And yet they don't know. There's something very strong driving the salmon. And they know they're going somewhere, but they don't know at the same time. And every moment is vital in that quest. So we should be very careful not to just lay back and be complacent, thinking that we have something. You have it, but you don't have it. It's okay to be where we are, but there's also someplace else to go. I remember when we used to go to Tassajara, before the highway was built, going through Gilroy, bypassing Gilroy, we used to go through Gilroy, and the road, and there was a little coffee shop called the Buzz Inn.

[30:06]

It was a truck stop. And so we'd always stop at the Buzz Inn and have coffee. And Ziggy Roshi gave us an example. He said, when we go to Tassajara, we stop at the Buzz Inn. But don't think that that's where you're going to stay. You can't. Don't relax too much. Have a cup of coffee and enjoy it. But don't stay there. You have to get back and continue down the road. So we have to keep making progress in our practice. But even though there's no progress to be made. Even though wherever you are is where you should be, but you can't stay there.

[31:11]

Every place we are is the right place to be, but we can't stay there. When our final hour comes, we should let go, be able to let go. Buddha's last admonition to his students was, everything that appears does not last. Nothing lasts. changes, and without exception, what appears, disappears. What becomes compounded, comes apart.

[32:16]

And this process is our actual life, and our actual And when we understand it totally, it's beyond life and death. To understand this process, to understand that what is born is not really born, and what dies does not really die, is to have true peace, emancipation. So all of our troubles and trials, you know, each one of us is put into this world in a certain place, within certain circumstances, with certain advantages and certain disadvantages.

[33:34]

And right there is where our practice turns. How do we deal with the circumstances of our life just as they are and just as they've been given to us? Some people say, well, I was very lucky in my life, you know, because I was born into certain circumstances. And yet, why do I have so many problems? Someone else is born into really disadvantageous circumstances and yet transcends them. Sometimes to have an advantage is a terrible disadvantage, and sometimes to have a disadvantage is a great advantage.

[34:53]

When you have to really work hard at something against all odds, and face the challenge and respond to it, your character is developed to a much higher degree than if you don't have anything challenging you. A Zen student who has a very difficult time, if you stay with it, it becomes a great advantage. Your difficulty becomes a great advantage. That's very true. You may look around and say, oh, geez, you know, compare yourself with other people.

[36:09]

Whenever we compare ourselves with other people, we say, oh, they're doing it so well. And I'm so bad. She said, I wish I could sit like that. I wish I didn't have so many troubles like so-and-so. But everybody's got their own troubles. And you should be happy that you have your troubles. I'm very happy that I have mine, even though you may think I don't have any. But I can assure you. They're mine. They're my problems and my little treasures. And they keep me nudged all the time. I have to think about them all the time. And sometimes, even when I think they're bringing me down, I have to struggle, make big effort,

[37:18]

to do what I have to do in spite of them. So when I first started sitting, I had a very hard time. I couldn't. My legs hurt so much. And it took me a long time before I could actually sit through, you know, long sittings without moving. It was very painful, very painful for years. But I was determined to practice. So read that Difficulty and determination, the combination of difficulty and determination is what stimulates realization.

[38:29]

So, if Buddhism or Zen or our practice was something that was just handed to us, It wouldn't be worth much. Cheers. Sometimes something can be extraordinary because it's natural.

[40:07]

If I can imbibe a little, it's a big deal. I mean, I don't think everything needs to be, everything is valuable. I've always argued against Marxism and that they're a thing that labor and difficulty and necessity always creates things. I think Percy Bessie Shelley said, from the best and happiest mind, Yeah, that's good. I agree. You may see a conflict, but the other side is good to be totally lazy. That's what Zen is, total laziness, because there's no goal. Just be. And let it be confirmed by the 10,000 leaves on the other hand.

[41:14]

But it's true, you know, that You can work too hard, you know. It's very true. But if you don't do anything, even though you are a prince of this universe, and everything will come to you, you may get tired of it. So in the end, what is it that you depend on?

[42:37]

See, a Buddhist monk depends on Alms, right? A Buddhist monk, no work, right? Just, if you do your practice, you'll be fit. But if you only sit around, you won't be fit, even though you are like the birds. The birds of the field eat three times their weight in food every day in order to stay alive. That's really hard work. It looks like birds are just picking up little bits of this and that, but they're doing it continuously all day long. You know, everybody's story is different.

[44:20]

But the framework, the pattern is, you know, you can't compare yourself and say, well, it's shocking when everybody's like this and I'm like this. Of course not. But the fact of leaving an unsatisfactory situation and finding your way, that's the same. Whatever that situation is. His was unsatisfactory because it was so wonderful. Yours is unsatisfactory because it's so awful. But does it matter? You have to leave both the good and the bad and find reality. He thinks it's time to remember us.

[45:29]

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