I'd like to say a few words about focus for our retreat this weekend. On December 8th, traditionally in the Buddhist world, the Buddha's enlightenment is celebrated. The marking of that time when the historical Buddha, Buddha Shakyamuni, decided to sit down and not move until he had come to some full realization and awakeness. Ever since the first time I went to India to go on a traditional pilgrimage in North India, and was in Bodh Gaya, which is where the Buddha sat down.

[01:05]

I have felt a special connection with this event. I remember on the winter solstice going to the garden around that is built around the stupa that has been rebuilt that marks the spot where Buddha sat down and the stupa was completely covered with little tiny Christmas tree lights and The whole garden was filled with thousands of butter lamps and this time of year beginning about now until after the first of the year is the time when many pilgrims go to Bodh Gaya. And of course along with the pilgrims there are many busloads of beggars who also hire buses and go to Bodh Gaya because the begging is very good during pilgrim season.

[02:16]

So there's this great mix of people But most of all, there is this extraordinary celebration of light in the midst of these long, dark nights. So, there's this painting, this thangka behind me, above my head, depicting that time when the Buddha was sitting on his seat under the Bodhi tree This particular painting, the leaves are very carefully drawn. You'll notice if you look at the painting closely that there is quite a vivid depiction of Mara's demons. I think of our little black dogs as members of Mara's demon army. They're all these bulging eyes and big, open, yapping mouths.

[03:23]

especially when the light's a little bit dim, what you see mostly are the eyes and these big mouths. And in the midst of this array of gnawing, barking, threatening demons, the Buddha sits with a great calmness and imperturbability. I've sometimes seen this particular scene painted where all the demons in Mara's armies are shown with these spears and various armaments poking at the Buddha. But once the weaponry enters into his sphere of influence, if you will, they all turn to flowers. So you see these big, long swords or big, long arrows. And at one end, it's this instrument of killing And then at the end, nearest the Buddha, it's this beautiful lance of flowers.

[04:25]

A great symbolism for ignorance and clinging and small-mindedness being transformed into wisdom. So I would like to have us keep in mind this great event of the historical Buddha demonstrating the possibility for each one of us to come to full awakening with respect to our true nature. And in the spirit of that I want to read those of you who are here this morning for the seminar have already heard this but I want to repeat it again This is a statement by a great teacher who lives in Nepal. But he says something about Buddha nature, the Buddha nature that exists within each of us, which I think is especially important to keep in mind and is very much what our remembering Shakyamuni Buddha's example is about.

[05:44]

He says, Buddhahood is not outside. It is not some thing that magically descends upon you and transforms you into a Buddha. The basis for awakening to enlightenment is to experience the Buddha in yourself. The qualities of an enlightened Buddha are not his qualities. They are the qualities of the Buddha nature fully manifest. We also possess that same potential but it is hidden, lying dormant. There's a very frequently described image of Buddha nature being like a piece of gold, that if it falls into the muddy roadway and gets covered over with mud,

[06:49]

you may not recognize it, you may not even know that it's there. But that quality, all the qualities, the characteristics of gold are not affected by being covered over by mud. So we might in a similar way think about our Buddha nature as that piece of gold in the obscurations of our mind stream being like the mud On the offering table over here in front of the Tara altar, there's a stone that I brought back from Alaska that's covered with barnacles. And when I first saw it, I thought, oh, this is, again, this is a good reminder about how we may not see our Buddha nature, or we may not see that potential in other people. All we see are the barnacles. This is also the 12th anniversary of Suzuki Roshi's passing over.

[08:02]

Twelve years ago, at four o'clock in the morning, he passed, just as everyone was getting ready to begin the winter retreat. So last night, Bill and Betty and I watched a film that was Suzuki Roshi's favorite film called The Harp of Burma. If you haven't ever watched it, I recommend that you look at it. It's a very, very moving story. It's a Japanese film, and the Japanese people, in my experience, are given to being quite sentimental And certainly that quality is evident in this movie, but in a way that seems completely appropriate. It's really a story against war about some Japanese soldiers who at the end of the Second World War are captured.

[09:09]

And one of their group is sent to a group of soldiers who don't know that the war has ended to try to save them. so that the allied soldiers who are in the dominant position will not have to kill them. And of course, this young soldier goes to try to convince this group of Japanese soldiers to surrender and they don't believe him. They accuse him of being a kind of coward and scoundrel and they all die. But he doesn't. And in this movie, he passes many, many corpses of soldiers who've died at the end of the war. And at one point, while a monk is bathing in the river, he steals his robes and puts them on as a way of disguising himself so that he can get back to the prisoner of war camp where his friends are.

[10:20]

But everywhere he goes, he passes corpses. And so he slowly begins making graves for each of them. And of course, in the end, he feels he has to stay in Burma and continue taking care of all those who've died, who've not been taken care of. I love remembering Suzuki Roshi in connection with this story, because he also stood up against war and killing and destruction. He was one of the few, if not the only, Zen priest in Japan who demonstrated against the war, before and during the war. So when the Allied occupation began, he was also the only Zen priest who was allowed to practice and continue teaching. I think particularly right now, because

[11:40]

the world we live in is filled with so much suffering and trouble. It's a very, very important time to remember the Buddhist teachings about how to calm the demons in our mind stream. That teachings about recognizing that what we really have to combat is our capacity for warfare within ourselves. And his great realization was a demonstration about the possibility of doing that. In 1979, a man named Bernard Berenson published a book called The Peace Book. I think it came out in this country in 1981.

[12:41]

And he reminded me a few weeks ago when I had a chance to meet with him about one page in the book where the hero talks about how if each of us will protect our neighbors from ourselves, and our neighbors will protect us from themselves that that would lead to peace that what leads to warfare is when we are trying to protect ourselves from our neighbor and our neighbor is trying to protect him or herself from us because of course we don't really know what is so about our neighbor's mind strength not nearly as well as we know what's so about our own. I know I certainly know much more about where I might be dangerous to those around me.

[13:49]

I may not like to look at it or I may not like to admit it, but I actually have the capacity to know what I need to protect those I come into contact with from. And I think that the heart of the Buddha's teachings is really about that teaming of our own mind stream for the sake of wisdom and compassion, for the sake of the well-being of the world. Rohana was telling me before we started this afternoon about an article that she heard about describing a group of people in a darkened room a room that was darkened many hours of the day did you say fourteen hours or something like that?

[14:50]

and how after everybody slept enough to recover from their sleep deprivation and then was able to sleep as much as they needed to that then the rest of the time they just cooled it meditated, rested, or quiet. I know it's not what most people think of as a way of being at this time of year, but it does seem to me that if we pay attention to what's happening in the world around us, as the nights are much longer and the days are shorter, that it is very much about a time for being quiet, resting. If you look outside, you see that the leaves have gone from all the trees that lose their leaves. And if you know enough about the plants and trees, you know that a lot is going on, beginning to go on, underground, out of sight.

[16:00]

It's a time for the root system to strengthen and develop. Everything that will lead to the hysterical blooming of the spring is being set and established now. All the energy that the plant needs for that crazy exuberance of the spring is happening now. And for us to have two days to be a little bit quiet, to settle, to be present with our mind stream as it is, with as much kindness as possible, is a great chance, great opportunity. Particularly among the Tibetans, there's a lot said about the preciousness of our human life. And in many traditions in Buddhism, there is this description of the likelihood of meeting, being born as a human being and meeting the teachings as being like a blind turtle who lives deep in the ocean into once every, I don't remember now if it's thousand or a million years.

[17:31]

It's probably, knowing the Buddha Dharma, a million years. some long time, surfaces and puts its snout through a ring that's floating connected to a piece of wood on the top of the ocean. That's how likely it is, first of all, to be born as a human being and then to encounter the Dharma and have the causes and conditions of our lives such that we actually can study and practice. So we have the blind turtle swimming up from the bottom of the ocean to remind us about noticing how lucky we are to have a quiet place where we can practice meditation, to have each other for inspiration and support, to have enough to eat and to be able to sleep

[18:35]

easily tonight and to then again in the morning pick up our practice again. This canary has been silent for two years. Apparently someone went to visit at the house where he was living who was kind of grouchy and angry and upset. And his response was silence. He likes it very much over there next to the Tara altar. So if he keeps it up so that he's a distraction, we can put him in another room. But he's enjoying himself so much I've been reluctant to put him away. When we do a visualization of the Buddha, the suggestion is to visualize him with a body the color of gold.

[19:49]

And Carl's not quite gold, he's yellow, but he'll do. Shining, illuminated body of the Buddha. And if you've ever been fortunate enough to meet someone who has some deep development of realization, commonly the quality that is referred to about such a person is that they have a kind of shining about them. I think it's completely right that we use words that are about light to talk about being completely awake. that condition of a kind of inner shining that begins to show has to do in a way with allowing ourselves to love and to be passionate to care about all beings but in a very particular way to care about

[21:08]

every being in the world as a mother cares for her only newborn child. To cultivate our ability to meet whatever arises in each moment without either aversion or clinging. The Buddha spent many years traveling, walking around northern India and parts of Nepal, teaching what he came to understand. But he wasn't talking about something that he possessed. He was talking about qualities, capacity that every one of us has. So I hope that we can use this retreat time to cultivate slowly and patiently cultivate our own buddha nature to with kindness wash away fade dissolve whatever obscurations of the mind stream that we are aware of the other inspiration

[22:35]

for the path is Tara and Tomorrow afternoon we're going to do the bodhisattva ceremony with Jenny Holland and We're going to be referencing Tara's example of the possibility of becoming each one of us of becoming a Buddha And what is so lovely in this era is that We have her example of doing it in the body of a woman, as we have the example of Shakyamuni Buddha showing us the possibility of doing it as a man. Nice to have both examples. So, please enjoy. sitting and walking.

[23:37]

Please enjoy the possibility of awareness of each of the four noble postures. Please enjoy breathing with kindness and ease. Please enjoy the practice of noble silence. Please enjoy the possibility of bringing awareness to going from sitting to moving and from moving back to sitting or doing the simple tasks of making dinner or washing the dishes or cleaning the meditation room or resting or having a cup of tea. Please enjoy going a little bit more slowly than you may be used to as you live your life out in the world. Please enjoy having some refreshment.

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So let's walk.

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