Good morning. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. We have some unusual characters in here this morning. I see Spider-Man. Oh! He has given away his alter ego. It's August. And Ron, that's a very good look for you. It's taken you years to find just the right look, and that's it. Tamar, that's who it is under there, looking very wizardly and high-tech. So today is when we are going to observe the ceremony of Sajiki, which is the Japanese ceremony of feeding the hungry ghosts.

[01:05]

Does anyone know what a hungry ghost is? Any of the kids know what a hungry ghost is? Yes? Someone who passed away? Well, they've passed away, but they have a special problem. and this goes back to a story from the Buddha's time. The Buddha had many disciples and each of his original disciples had a specific kind of supernatural power. this disciple was foremost in wisdom, and this other disciple was foremost in meditation, and this other disciple was foremost in skateboarding, and the other was foremost in shopping, and basketball, and so forth.

[02:06]

And he had a disciple called Mogayana. And Mogayana was foremost in clairvoyance, he was able to see the future, and Mogayana had a dream about his mother, who had passed away. So she was somebody who had passed away. But in this dream, what Mogayana saw was that his mother was caught in a world in a hell realm where she couldn't eat or drink. And so she was a hungry ghost because she was always hungry. But the food that she would try to eat would turn to fire when she ate it. So she had really bad heartburn.

[03:13]

And the water, when she would try to drink water, it would turn to blood. So, you know, if that was your mother that you had a dream about, and she was suffering like this, what would you want to do? Do you have an idea what you'd want to do? Feed her. Feed her? Maybe run the other way? Well, it depends on your relationship with your mother. But what the Buddha said, the Buddha told, Mogyana told the Buddha about his dream and the Buddha explained that what Mogyana was seeing was he was actually having a vision of his mother in this world of hungry ghosts.

[04:13]

And so Moggiana asked, why? Why was she there? And the Buddha said that Moggiana, when he had become a monk, had left all of his money to his mother. And he had told her to be a kind and generous host to any monks that would come by or anyone that would come by that needed food or shelter. But instead of doing that, she kept the money for herself and she bought all kinds of fancy food. you know she bought like big steaks and lobster and pizza with everything on it and fancy cakes and so she kept it all for herself and so for that reason because she was greedy she was reborn in this realm of hungry ghosts and what the Buddha advised Moggayana to do

[05:38]

was to go down there and feed her and set her free, to bring her to another realm to be peaceful. And in another version of this story, the Buddha told Moggayana to go down there and to preach buddhism and teach the hungry ghosts how to meditate but somehow what happened when the buddha went down there was when when moguillana went down there uh he opened the gate and all the hungry ghosts escaped into the world it was a big jailbreak and now some of us are hungry ghosts and sometimes we're hungry ghosts because those hungry ghosts are all around us so this ceremony is to feed them and pacify them and thereby also

[07:02]

pacifying and feeding ourselves. And in fact, when you see the altar is behind the screen, the Sejiki altar, and when you see there's an amazing array of food, which immediately following the ceremony is all going to be put out for us to consume. Don't take too much. So the last thing I want to say about this ceremony is I got this from my Dharma sister Vicky Austin who said that we started to do this ceremony at San Francisco Zen Center at the suggestion of Kobinchino Roshi many years ago and he's now passed away. But what Kobin Roshi said was, he thought it would be helpful for us at Zen Center to have a deeper relationship with the negative aspects of our lives, the difficult aspects.

[08:27]

So what he said was, this Tsujiki ceremony makes a statement about how to deal with negative things, negative happenings, negative parts of phenomena, for it is a kind of reminding ceremony, expanding your awakening to the darkness. And awareness is expanded to the existence which is unseen, unknown and unthought. Because the negative, according to Chino Roshi, the negative is another positive side. Awareness is already round and pure. So as we do this ceremony, we expand our understanding and our compassion and we include the things that are really difficult in the world.

[09:35]

and the things that are difficult in ourselves. As we are feeding the hungry ghosts, so called, we are feeding ourselves. So, I'd like to sing you a song that you will sing, which came directly out of the ceremony. It was written by this wonderful singer Krishna Das. People know him at all? He's a kirtan singer but he was visiting Bernie Glassman and together they thought it would be really good to write a song for Sajiki and a song about feeding the hungry ghosts. So I think you all have the lyrics, right?

[10:37]

I'll play it for you so you can hear the melody. Calling all you hungry ghosts Everywhere through endless time You who wander, you who thirst I offer you this bony mind

[11:40]

Calling all you hungry spirits All the lost and left behind Calling all you hungry hearts Everywhere through endless time Gather round and share this meal Your joy and your sorrow I made mine Calling all you hungry ghosts Everywhere through endless time You who wander, you who thirst, I offer you this holy vine, Calling all you hungry spirits,

[12:48]

All the lost and left behind Calling all you hungry hearts Everywhere to endless time Gather round and share this meal Your joy and your sorrow, I may admire. Let's sing it one more time, this time. Really call them, bring them out. Call it all, you hungry ghosts. Everywhere you went this time. You who wander, you who thirst, I offer you this body of mine. Calling all you hungry spirits, All of us have left behind.

[14:01]

Calling all you hungry hearts Everywhere through endless time Gather round and share this meal Your joy and your sorrow I made mine Gather round and share this meal Your joy and your sorrow, I made mine. Well, I think that's all I need to say this morning, and it's time to move into our ceremony. And we'll have time to talk and eat and enjoy each other's company. after the ceremony, and during the ceremony for that matter.

[15:07]

So thank you very much.

[15:10]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ