Good morning. Okay. Way in the back. Okay. So, today is the opening of our spring practice period, and this afternoon we will enter our head student, our shuso, who will share my seat, Karen Sundheim. That's the way I pronounce it. I gave Karen this name some years ago. When we were doing the ceremony, I was talking about the people who had been around for a long time and been practicing for so many years and who started on Dwight Way and so forth.

[01:23]

Karen was one of them, and I couldn't remember her name due to old age. Of course, I haven't been able to remember names since I was 30, so I don't know if it's really due to old age or not. So I gave her this name, Nyu-u-ho-sho, which means gentle rain, dharma blossom. which I feel is a wonderful name, there's a gatha by the sixth ancestor, attributed, excuse me, attributed to the sixth ancestor. When he, I don't know, when he did something, but this is the gatha. The mind ground holds the seeds which sprout when falls the all-pervading rain.

[02:35]

The wisdom flower of instantaneous awakening I cannot fail to bear the Buddha fruit, the Bodhi fruit. So this is a very classic kind of name, very classic kind of gatha, which the mind ground, the rain, and the Bodhi with them, those three elements. Mind ground, of course, is our Buddha nature. the mind is grounded in Buddha nature, our whole being is grounded in Buddha nature, which holds the seeds of enlightenment.

[03:36]

But it needs something. The seeds are held within the ground, but they need to be watered. The ground needs to be moistened in order for the seeds to sprout. So when the ground is moistened, it's called practice. Practice is what moistens the ground. And when the ground is malleable and percolates, then the seeds sprout. the Bodhi... Bodhi comes forth. Bodhi means enlightenment. So, in other words, practice and enlightenment are not two different things.

[04:47]

When we practice, through practice, this mind ground is moistened, seed sprout, and enlightenment comes forth. So, this is the meaning of her name. So, Dharma Blossom. Yes, sir. These are all just words, so as long as the word points to the thing, you can use the word. There are differences in meanings. Realization means the realization of enlightenment.

[05:55]

Enlightenment is there, but there's no realization. Shrouding the seeds is enlightenment. Which isn't necessarily realized. Not necessarily realized. In other words, you have it, but you don't realize it. This is the most common thing. So, realization comes. I think, you know, in Christianity is the word grace. which is not, you can't get it, it just appears, I mean it's like falls on you or it's a kind of realization. So this is very common in Buddha, in Zen, you know, Kyogen sweeping the ground in the

[07:00]

pebble hits the bamboo, and he has realization. He already has enlightenment, but he doesn't realize it. The stone hitting the bamboo is realization, because the mind opened up to what's there. Yeah, you prepare the vessel, of course. That's right. So that's called practice, preparing the vessel. But we don't think of it as preparing necessarily, but preparation is there. So one practices for 20 years and then suddenly something happens. But those 20 years, are also, you know, we say practice of perfection.

[08:08]

The six paramitas are the practices of perfection. Paramita means perfection. But perfection is not the end. Perfection is the process. Perfection includes the process. So, while talking about the six paramitas, that just kind of gave me an entry. We don't, in our school, we don't think about going from delusion to enlightenment, working from delusion to enlightenment. There are schools of Buddhism which which have a method of practicing from delusion to enlightenment. But as you know in our school we just jump into it and swim around not knowing what we're doing.

[09:17]

This is one of the problems with Soto Zen as we practice it. You just swim around not knowing anything. But the swimming around and the not knowing anything, within that, that soup, is enlightenment. So we can be practicing the enlightened practice, but not necessarily having realization. There's not a lot of guidelines. You have to find your way. This is the most difficult part of our practice. Not that it's hard to sit thoughts in. It's hard to practice without a lot of guidelines. It's hard to practice finding your own way. It doesn't mean finding your own way by doing whatever you want. It means finding your own way within the practice.

[10:21]

There are guidelines of practice, but not a lot. It's not like step ladder practice, when you finish, when you study this, then you go on to this. It's not like going to school. It's not like you study this and then you learn that and then you learn the next thing and the next thing. There is that there, but that's not what the practice is based on. Practice is based on finding your way moment by moment. This is what the meaning of reaching behind your head in the middle of the night searching for your pillow. You have a feeling for the principles of practice and you sit a lot of Zazen and You study about Zen and study about Buddhism.

[11:25]

You have some feeling for the principles of Buddhism. But basically, if you know too much, then you rely too much on what you know. So it's more like not knowing much and just finding your way, like climbing in the dark. It's like the blind leading the blind in the most fundamental way. It's the five kinds of blindness in Buddhism. The highest kind of blindness is not knowing anything, which is enlightenment. But if we become attached to that, you have a problem. So the other side is, you should study and maybe have some guidelines, have some way of knowing what you're doing, but without being attached to that.

[12:38]

The problem with having guidelines, the problem with having too many rules, is that you become attached to that. And then you kind of lose that freedom of spontaneity at each moment. That was my talk yesterday. So we do have a structure, and the structure kind of holds things together so that you have some feeling for what you're doing together. The formal practice takes the place of learning things one by one. It takes the place of going to school.

[13:39]

You just have the formal practice, and you just practice within that practice within that structure. And it's the practice of letting go of your ego. Everybody does the same way. Your individuality is expressed through doing everything the way everybody else does it. And then we can see who you really are. You can see who you really are up against that limitation. when you're put into a small room with nothing in it, the door's locked, then you really know who you are. Anyway. So, this is what will happen this afternoon. And we'll enter our shuso.

[14:43]

Shuso will take the front seat. And I would like to encourage everyone to sign up for the Shuso's Tees, either individually or in small groups. Get to know each other and talk about the Dharma a little bit with the Shuso. give her some encouragement and support, and she will give you some encouragement and support. She's dedicated to giving you as much encouragement and support as she can, so I would like you to do that with her as well. This is a person that does not have an easy career and has to confront many different kinds of people, different walks of life, and as a head librarian in a difficult part of town called Castro.

[16:16]

So, she has a lot of good stories and I've asked her to express the Dharma as not ... I've asked her to express Prajnaparamita as ... just as the story of her life. You know, when we studied the Prajnaparamita Sutra, The Heart Sutra, most of the commentary is very intellectualized, but actually the Sutra is about how to live your daily life in emptiness. It's not a mental construct for intellectuals. It's very down to earth about how you live your life with freedom and spontaneity.

[17:29]

So, it's important to understand the fundamentals of the sutra. and when we understand the fundamentals of the sutra, how to live out those fundamentals in our life as a guideline. So I want to be careful to save stuff for the class. I don't want to put it all on the table now. It just keeps unfolding actually, I keep finding more and more things to say about it, but at some point I will talk about the 18 kinds of emptiness. That'll be interesting, or not. But what I want to talk about now is the six paramitas

[18:39]

we know about this as one of the basic Mahayana practices, is the practice of the six paramitas, which actually are the six prajna paramitas. So when we talk about prajna paramita, prajna is emptiness, fundamental wisdom, which is beyond all kinds of limited wisdom. And paramita has two meanings. One meaning is perfection. The other meaning is going beyond. Perfection is more of an idea.

[19:42]

Going beyond is more of a movement or a practice. So perfection of wisdom is the encompassing idea about what Prajnaparamita is. And the going beyond, which is in the gatha, practice. So we have these two sides, the practice and the idea. So the sutra, as someone said, is like the head of the dragon and the practice is like the body of the dragon. So one is to understand and the other is to do. with the doing. So paramitas are the balance, six paramitas.

[20:47]

There are ten paramitas, but we usually talk about six. It's the balance between understanding prajnaparamita and putting it into action, into our daily life. So in the study of the Prajnaparamita Sutra, the six paramitas are ways to actualize the sutra. So I did talk about, I talked about dhana or generosity yesterday, but I didn't talk about the rest. So I wanted to talk about what these six paramitas are. The first one, as you know, is Dana, or generosity. The second one is Sheila, or conduct, sometimes called morality, but I think it's more like conduct.

[21:51]

And the third one is forbearance, which is patience, endurance, and the fourth one is virya, virility, I think it comes from that, zeal, called zeal, but I like to use the word It's like our enthusiasm to do something, and we do it with zeal, maybe. And then, of course, the fifth one is dhyana, or meditation, and we call it zazen. And then, of course, the sixth one is prajna, or wisdom itself, practicing. practice of prajnaparamita, but all of the practices are practices of prajnaparamita, and so prajnaparamita is the essence, and the other five are its expression in our practice.

[23:05]

compassionate means, often called skillful means, how you actually put everything into practice. And then there's a pranidhana paramita, prajnaparamita, which is aspiration, the thought of enlightenment or way-seeking mind, And the ninth one is spiritual power, the Balas, which you will find in the Abhidhamma, the five powers of faith, zeal, recollection or mindfulness, absorption, and wisdom. So, nothing special there, out of the ordinary. And then knowledge is the sixth one, tenth one, that's interesting, there's a difference between knowledge and prajna.

[24:16]

So this is paññā prajñā pāramitā. Paññā is knowledge, prajñā is wisdom, so there's a difference between the two. So I think that all of our activity can be expressed as prajnaparamita through these six or seven or eight or ten paramitas. So what makes them? different than the usual activity is that they are all aspects of prajna, which means emptiness.

[25:20]

When we have our class we'll be using the Abbott Oboro, he was at one time, I think it was in the up to the 50s through the 40s, he was the primate of the Soto school in Japan. And Trevor Leggett interviewed him and wrote this book, Tiger's Cave. If you want to get the tiger's club, cub, you have to go into the tiger's cave. If you want to get something valuable, you have to go and find it, whatever it takes. But his whole approach to the Sutra was through daily activity, so that's why I think it's such a wonderful, it's one of my favorite books, and certainly my favorite

[26:32]

because he talks about failing and all the stuff that we go through in our daily life and how it's related. He sees it all as practice. He sees everything as practice, not just what we think is good or what we think is bad, but how everything is what it is. The good, the bad, the right, the wrong, it's all there. in emptiness. All the forms are empty. So, how we practice emptiness, in what we call emptiness, and how we allow prajna to arise moment after moment, based on reality. which is also called renunciation, when we realize the emptiness of all of our, everything around us, which is sometimes called the interdependence.

[27:45]

It makes it easy to let go of greed, ill will, and delusion. So dana, or giving, generosity, is the first paramita, people give for various reasons, the generosity, we all have generosity within us, but quite often when we give something, we want something in return. And this is a kind of normal response, normal reaction. What do I get out of this? What's in it for me? There are various levels of generosity. Lower levels of generosity are tit for tat. When I give something, I want something in return.

[28:52]

Even if I give thinking that it's just freely given, somewhere in the back of my mind is, I hope they appreciate this. So, dana, true dana, true generosity is just giving and forgetting without any expectation, without any reward, without any idea of anything other than simply giving the gift and forgetting. the new meal chant that's chanted at Zen Center, the new translation, it says something like, understanding the emptiness of the three wheels of giver, giving and gift, giving, giving, giver and gift, the emptiness of those three wheels.

[30:00]

The wheels are what make things go around. or carry the cart along. So, there's no giver, there's no receiver, and there's no gift. All three are empty, even though there's a giver, there's a giving, and there's a gift. You know, this is the basis of our practice. No gaining idea. This is what Suzuki Roshi emphasized the most. No gaining idea. You simply do something for the sake of doing something. Of course, there are purposes. When I give something, it's to help somebody or, you know, to make them happy or whatever. But in the giving, there's only simply the giving. without hanging on to something.

[31:04]

There's no expectation or hanging on. When happiness arises, fine. That's all, just happiness. If we cling to the happiness, then it's tainted. If we cling to the satisfaction, it's tainted. not so easy to just have the total freedom. But we're always working with this kind of attitude. So generosity of course, encourages generosity.

[32:11]

What's wonderful about it is that it encourages everyone to be generous. And when there's generosity without self, that's the most encouraging thing for people. It encourages people to give freely without the soft thought of self involved in it. And to be able to receive is just as important, because when there is a gift, there has to be a receiver, even though the receiver is empty. So the gift comes. Thank you very much. Often in Japan, when you give a gift, mostly you don't open the gift, you put the gift on the author. And then at some time later, when the giver is gone, you open it, you open it.

[33:20]

We have this different idea. And so he goes, oh, can I open it now? And we enjoy it, you know, and all this, which is okay. I'm not saying that's bad, but it's a different attitude. And sometimes, the Japanese person would say, oh, okay. But they're shocked that we would have that kind of, I wouldn't call it greediness, but it's a little greedy. to open this present in front of the person. So there's some kind of reservation in a society that is not based on materialism. This kind of attitude is much more prevalent, I think.

[34:23]

In a culture that's based on materialism, we don't have the same kind of carefulness. So it's harder, much harder for us. So the emptiness of the gift, the giver, gift all empty. When the action is perfect, there's a real feeling of satisfaction, but it's a different kind of satisfaction. when the receiver and the person who's using the stick are in perfect sync, the sound obliterates both giver and receiver, and there's total oneness and awakening.

[35:49]

And everything that's in the mind is gone. And it's simply just this moment. This is the wonderful thing about using the Kusaka. That's why it's good to have someone who knows how to use it. I think that often in Japan, this gift of the Kiyosaku is not used well. It's used in a kind of egotistical way, but when it's used correctly, the person who uses it and the person that receives it both disappear for that moment. So, this is one of the practices that I think we need to... How we practice dana, giving, is very important as prajna, as an expression of prajnaparamita.

[37:25]

you know, when people give to the temple, then a person may or may not expect something, but it's appropriate for the receiver, which is the temple, to express gratitude. So that's a very important Being able to express gratitude and to acknowledge is very important, so that the giver knows that there is something at the other end of the line.

[38:27]

So there has to be a balance between just giving and forgetting and acknowledging and knowing how much to keep for yourself and how much to give to someone else. That's also important. So that's the balance between just giving and knowing how much to retain, and not having an expectation, but at the same time receiving acknowledgement. So the balance between those is very important. So when I give, I don't expect somebody to say thank you, but when somebody says thank you, it feels really good to be acknowledged. This is in the same way that we take care of people.

[39:37]

I don't expect, the old lady doesn't expect you to help her across the street, but when you do, she feels really good about that, some kind of extension of yourself. This giving actually is not just material goods, but it's how you actually how we give ourselves to each other, and letting do material things, just how we express ourselves with each other, how we talk to each other, how we interact with each other, it's all generosity. So we withhold ourselves

[40:41]

this, everyone has a secret, I think everyone has some secret which they do not want to have everyone know about, I think so, somewhere deep down, and it's Part of generosity is being able to hold what people have, receiving the gift of what people have to offer to us. When we're open to people, then someone can, when they feel safe, we use the word safety, it's interesting, I think the word people say, well you know I want to feel safe here, safe people don't feel safe it's a strange word to me but it's true and when people feel safe then they we open up to each other the safer we feel the more we can open up to each other and it means withholding judgment withholding criticism withholding

[42:14]

knowing how to not gossip about what you hear, knowing how not to say something that someone tells you it's very sensitive, which I feel we don't practice here very much. being able for people to feel confident in each other, that kind of confidence. That's also an aspect of generosity, giving yourself freely and receiving freely in a way that everyone feels not judged. You know, so much for me, I've actually gotten in trouble for not revealing things that someone would tell me in confidence, because I don't like to do that.

[43:33]

Whenever someone tells me I'm open without judgment, or I think I am, I try to be open without judgment, without laying a trip, or just whatever it is, I understand So I think that's a kind of generosity that allows receiving, the receiving of generosity, that side. And being able to hold that without feeling the need to tell other people about it. So this practice of generosity extends in many ways. And it's really, when there's no self in it, we simply do something for the sake of compassion, compassionate action.

[44:49]

So what is prajna? It's wisdom and it's the way it's expressed is compassion, with no self in it at all. But even though, as Abbot O'Gora says, even though we try to do this, it's almost impossible. So we have to have compassion for ourselves and for each other. And when we make mistakes, We can't come up to our ideal. We have to have compassion for ourselves and for each other. And we see that none of us can do that. We have to have compassion for each other. We're often too quick to rush to judgment. Whereas if we make some effort to see the causes behind what we all do, then compassion becomes the dominant, rather than the judgment.

[46:04]

If we really exercised compassion, there wouldn't be so many people in jail, rather than judgment. So, as we continue our practice period, we'll talk more about these paramitas. Yes? The Wednesday night group is going to be talking about the paramitas and starting in three weeks. Say that again? The Wednesday night group? Yes. We're going to talk about the paramitas. Oh, that's right. I asked you to do that. Starting in three weeks. Well, this will be a good basis. I just want to read a little bit here to take a few minutes.

[47:07]

This is a new book by Red Pine. We put together on the Heart Sutra, which he put in a lot of elements from various sources, and he talked about the Paramitas. I found this somewhere before one time, where the parameters are likened to a boat, a ship. The sixth ancestor talks about this too. the great ship that goes to the other shore, right, through the sea of samsara to the other shore. So he says, taken together, the paramitas are also likened to a boat that takes us across the sea of suffering. The paramita of generosity, according to this analogy, is the wood, light enough to float

[48:11]

thus bodhisattvas practicing giving and renunciation but not so much that they have nothing left of which to work." So in other words, not getting carried away. As I said yesterday, Suzuki Roshi said, of course these glasses don't belong to me but I appreciate your letting me wear them because I really need them. You know what I have you're welcome to except my typewriter, which I need to do my work, you can't have that. The Paramita of morality, or we call it morality, is the keel. deep enough to hold the boat upright, but not so deep that it drags the shoals or holds it back. Thus, bodhisattvas observe precepts, but not so many that they have no freedom of choice." This is the basis of Soto Zen, actually.

[49:19]

Yes, we have precepts, there are guidelines, but you have to find the precept, the reality of the precept in the living of them, moment by moment. not relying on the rules. The Bodhisattva observed precepts but not so many that they have no freedom of choice. The paramita of forbearance is the hull wide enough to hold a deck but not so wide it can't cut through the waves. Thus, bodhisattvas don't confront what opposes them but find the place of least resistance. The paramita of vigor is the mast high enough to hold a sail but not so high that it tips the boat over. Thus, bodhisattvas work hard but not so hard that they don't stop the team. The paramita of meditation is the sail, flat enough to catch the wind of karma, but not so flat that it holds no breeze or rips apart in the gale.

[50:34]

Thus, Bodhisattva is still the mind, but not so much that it withers and dies. And the paramita of wisdom is the helm, ingenious enough to give the boat direction, but not so ingenious that it leads in circles. I don't know about that. Thus Bodhisattvas who practice the Paramitas embark on the greatest of all voyages to the far shore of liberation. That's pretty cute. Someone always, when I give a talk, always offers me this glass, this cup of water, and I never drink it during my talk, but I see it there, and I think, somebody offered this cup of water, so my acknowledgement is to drink it.

[51:43]

Thank you very much.

[51:53]

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