Good morning, and welcome. So this three-day session, concluding our two-month practice period, I'm continuing talking about these Bodhisattva practices that we've been talking about. And I'm focusing on three of them, generosity, which I focused on yesterday, patience, which I'm going to talk about today, and prajna, or insight, which I'll focus on tomorrow, although really they're all three connected. And I'm trying to talk about them beyond the conventional aspect of them as bodhisattva practices, although that is very important. What is giving? How do we How is it beneficial not just to the receiver, but also to the giver?

[01:01]

How do we see that in a way that sees the mutuality of giver, receiver, and gift? And I emphasized yesterday this aspect of non-self or seeing the wider self in which our true self is really not separate from anything. So giver, receiver, and gift is a mutual interactive, interconnected event. Today I want to talk, focus on the aspect of generosity and wisdom that is called patience. The second, third paramita, patience or kshanti, often translated as, could also be translated as tolerance, forbearance. Tolerance in many senses, to tolerate the pain in your knees, to tolerate the confusion in your hearts and minds, to tolerate the difficulty of our lives and our world.

[02:17]

Tolerance also means having a kind of wider capacity, things that have a a wider tolerance, are able to include more. So as we practice, these are all aspects of this zazen that we're doing this weekend. As we sit and sustain a sitting practice over time, and as we take time, as we are today and this weekend, to settle into just being present, our capacity widens, opens, develops. Our capacity, our tolerance for being open to our life, actually, seeing our life and our world, and then also our capacity to respond. And there are many ways to respond. There's not one right way to respond, and each situation requires its own response. It gets into skillful means, but how do we develop the capacity to be present, to be patient with,

[03:22]

whatever's happening. And patience means also forbearance to bear things. So patience is not, it's easy to be patient when you're having a good time and everything is going well and you're seeing the fruits of all your work and so forth. But patience is about, forbearance is about bearing it when, you know, things are not going well or in our from our viewpoint anyway, we think things are not going well. Part of forbearance and patience is being patient with the fact that we don't always know what's really happening. In fact, that's the ultimate aspect. So I'm beyond the conventional. The ultimate aspect of patience has to do exactly with that. with, so I'll come back to this, Anutpadaka Dharmakshanti is the Sanskrit, the patience with the ungraspability or unknowability of things.

[04:33]

So as we do the Buddha work, we don't always see the result of that. We don't always know the effect. Sometimes we do, and that's wonderful. Sometimes we see something we've been making effort at and we see, oh, there's some change. And that's really wonderful. That helps support us to bear the other things where we don't see how that's working. So again, I'm trying to talk about these three and today patients in terms of the ultimate level, not just the conventional level. I've been talking about the conventional aspect, the ultimate level and the Zen level. I'm using commentaries from Dogen for all three of these this week. And by the way, for those of you who are not going to be sitting all day tomorrow, you're still welcome to come to the Dharma talk in the morning. But I wanted to start with, well, just a couple of stories from Dogen that he talks about in his extensive record.

[05:45]

And these are each somewhat complicated stories, but they have something to do with this ultimate level of patience, this patience with the ungraspability, the uncertainty, the unknowability of anything. How do we stay present and upright in the middle of not being able to, you know, hold it down, figure it out. When that happens, how do we bear that? So this first is a long story that some of you have heard me talk about maybe numbers of times, and I think it's been a while since I've talked about it, but it's a great story, and it involves the sixth ancestor, Zhaoxuan Huineng in China, who in many ways is the founder of Zhang or Zhen, and one of his great students, Nanyue Huirong. So when Nanyue Huaymarong first visited the sixth ancestor, Huineng, the ancestor asked him, where are you from?

[06:54]

Nanyue said, I came from the place of national teacher, Songshan Huiyang. And Huineng said, what is this that thus comes? One of my favorite utterances. And Nanyue was speechless. He didn't know what to say. It's a funny way of saying, who are you? What is this that thus comes? And it says here, this version of it, Nanyue never put this question aside. versions of the story, it says, Nanyue went to the Zhendo and sat like an iron pole for eight years with this question, what is this that thus comes?

[07:58]

After eight years, he told the sixth ancestor, I can now understand the question, what is this that thus comes that you received me with upon my first arriving to see you? So, you know, in these old Zen stories, you know, there's a dialogue and the teacher says something and the student says something and it looks like it's happening, you know, right there. And sometimes it is, and we don't know. But sometimes, you know, maybe the student goes away and comes back after a little while. In this case, they make a point of saying Nanyue went and sat with And in one of the, yeah, actually, in Dovian's comment at the end of the story, he says we must smile at the beginning of the story about this fellow, Byron. Can you imagine just sitting with a question intently for eight years?

[09:04]

Anyway, he came back after eight years and said to the sixth ancestor, Now, I can now understand the question, what is this that thus comes, that you received me with upon my first arriving to see you? So this question, what is this that thus comes? What is this that comes in suchness? So I want to talk today about the ultimate aspect of patience in terms of suchness, in terms of this reality. So the Sixth Ancestor, when Mehran came back, said, how do you understand it? Ananus said, to explain or demonstrate anything would miss the mark. Took him eight years to come up with that. The sixth ancestor then said, well, do you suppose there is practice realization or not? And Nagarjuna said, it is not that there is no practice realization, but only that it cannot be defiled.

[10:13]

So he used his eight years well. The Sixth Ancestor said, this non-defilement is exactly what the Buddhas protect and care for. I am thus. You are thus. The ancestors in India also are thus. So this was early on in Chinese China. China and Japan are also with us. Maybe it's too soon to say that, but anyway. So again, Nanyue said, to explain or demonstrate anything would miss the mark. Can't get a hold of it. And the sixth ancestor asked, do you suppose there's practice realization or not? And it's not... So this practice realization, Dogen often talks about, that our practice is not some method to get to some enlightenment some time in the future.

[11:18]

This... The suchness of this practice realization, each of you, in your own way, here, today, now, is expressing your realization. Now, this is not... Practice realization is not static. It unfolds. It's dynamic. Patience is not static or passive. The practice of patience is active. Patience is not just waiting for the bell to ring passively. It's paying attention. What is this that thus comes? So I invite you, for any of you who want, to just sit with this question. The questions are for the weekend. What is this that thus comes? Not going to sit for eight years. You might try a couple periods anyway. What is this that thus comes? You might have a different answer. You might have your own answer. What is this that comes in suchness? Anyway, the sixth ancestor said, then is there practice realization or not?

[12:23]

If you can't explain or demonstrate it, is... Somebody asked me yesterday, Something like, what good is the Sachs-Henner? Does it help? Is there practice realization or not? It's a real question. And Anonymous says this is a very interesting thing. It's not that there's no practice realization. Often in these stories, there's these double negatives. Yes, there's practice realization, but it cannot be defiled. So you may think that you're a bad Zen student, or you may think that you're not practicing very well, or you might think that, well, that was a bad period of Zazen. It's possible to have such thoughts. Some of you may have actually thought that, that your realization, that your awakening, that your practice was crummy, or not worth much, or whatever. And it's OK if you have that thought.

[13:29]

That's part of your practice realization. But what Nanyue said, after sitting eight years with this question, is it can't be defined. As bad as you think your practice is, you can't hurt practice realization, really. As confused as you may feel during a given period or a given weekend in Zazen, or as sleepy as you may feel, or as much as the thoughts may be whirling around, Practice realization cannot be defiled. So I offer that to you. In some ways it's comforting. No matter how bad a Zen student you think you are, this practice realization, this suchness right now can't be defiled. You can't do it. And of course you don't have to have those kinds of thoughts. that your practice realization is not good or whatever, but you know, sometimes it happens.

[14:33]

Anyway, that's the basic story. And, you know, I could talk about it for the rest of the weekend, but again, in the context of patience, of this practice of active, attentive, paying attention, not necessarily doing anything. So patience means sometimes we don't know how to respond. We don't know what to do to fix some problem. Maybe it can't be fixed. And yet, this active practice of patience, what Nanyo was doing for eight years, was holding this question with awareness, with attention. And how do you sustain that kind of intensity for eight years? Well, how do we sustain? Sustaining our attention, sustaining our awareness, sustaining our practice realization, this is the practice of patience, of tolerance, of finding a way to continue to endure.

[15:42]

We need this practice of patience, particularly in this Buddha field, because it's referred to in the sutras as the Saha world, the world of endurance. So probably most of you can quickly think of things that are hard to endure. in this world or in your life. It's available. Anyway, this is the story, and it's a story about patience. But then Dogen comments on it, and he says more that has to do also with this practice of patience. So Dogen's comment after telling the story, he said, Huining and Nanyue have spoken like this. Today, how can I not say something? Tell me, Great Assembly, do you want to understand this clearly? Well, what Dogen said is, the highest fruit of arhat practice is the new attainment of extinction through discernment. So the arhat practice is the practice of self-realization, of purifying one's own bad habits, negative tendencies, difficult emotions, and so forth.

[16:56]

This is part of our practice. But before the bodhisattva practice, the arhat practice was to completely do that, and one way to do that, one way to reach that kind of nirvana, was this, and this is a technical term in Abhidharma, extinction through discernment, to cut through basically all life and mind, and especially future lives, through understanding, through discerning the chain of causation. Prajnaka Buddhas awaken this way too, to see how greed, hate, and delusion arises, to see how birth and death arises, to see this twelvefold chain of causation, to cut through it. So this is the fruit of our hot practice. Then Dogen continues and says, Ajnata Kondinya was verified in his attainment of patience with non-arising. He was verified in his attainment with

[17:57]

from the patience of non-arising. So this person, Arjunachakundina, was one of the five people who went with Shakyamuni Buddha after he left the palace and practiced austerities with him, did all this difficult practices of fasting and just basically doing very, very difficult things, never lying down. Bodhisattva practitioners now do some of these things, too. There's just different approaches. But anyway, he did this. And then after the Buddha awakened, at first the Buddha took some nourishment and said, this isn't working. And these five, including this fellow, thought, oh, he's given up on his practice. And they were kind of upset with him. But then the Buddha went off, and he sat under the Bodhi tree, and he awakened. to the fact that practice realization cannot be defiled.

[19:00]

And they saw him, and they thought, oh, hey, what happened to him? Wow, cool. And then they went and practiced with him and became his first students. So, okay, Dogon is saying this guy was verified in his attainment through the patience with non-arising. This is exactly anapadagadharamakshanti. So this fellow's true awakening, so to say he was verified in his attainment then, he had true awakening through this really seeing this ultimate level of patience. Patience with the fact that you can't get a hold of anything. You know, so, All of you here are very bright and knowledgeable in some areas and many areas. Sons and daughters of good family.

[20:02]

Talented people. Much capacity. And yet, even in the areas that you know best, you can't totally get a hold of it. explain or demonstrate anything, totally. Can you be patient with that? Can you accept that? Another word for patience is acceptance, this kind of dynamic acceptance. So this is how... So Dogen is pointing to this patience in response to this story of what is this that thus comes. And then, after talking about this fellow who was one of the first students of the Buddha, he says, at just such a time, again, how is it? And then Dogen paused and said, we must smile at the beginning of the story about this fellow, Nanyue. He's sort of smiling about him going and sitting for eight years and not getting in and not just being able to say, to explain or demonstrate anything.

[21:10]

Anyway, that's how I hear it. But then Dogen says, upon exerting his power, his capacity, he could express 80% or 90%. So to be able to express 80 or 90% is awesome, given that we can't get a hold of anything. There's an old saying that Shakyamuni Buddha only got 50%. So anyway, this is a story about the practice of patience, to sit with a question for 80 years, to realize that you can't explain or demonstrate anything completely. If you try to, you miss the mark. And yet, practice realization cannot be defiled. So, how do we meet this reality that's in front of us? Inhale after exhale, period after period. Well, practice realization cannot be defiled. And yet, you can't get a hold of anything. Really, ultimately. And can you be okay with that?

[22:12]

Can you take on the Buddha work? Can you take on your life? Can you take the next breath? Can you get up for kin-hin when the bell rings? Even though you can't get a hold of anything, this requires some capacity, some tolerance, some forbearance and patience. This requires a kind of engagement with suchness, with this, just this, as it is. And you can't get a hold of suchness either. But still, we can practice it. We can breathe it. We can do the next thing. We can appreciate the pain in our knees. We can take the next step during walking meditation. I still have another story about this from Dogen, which is maybe even more complicated, but I'll try and help make sense of it a little.

[23:28]

Some of you are interested in Yogacara, this Buddhist traditional study of the mind. This is a story about Maybe the two greatest figures in that branch of Buddhism, two brothers, Asanga and Vasubandhu, who were really founding figures in this study of the mind from the Upacara Buddhism. So in this story, Dogen starts and says, I've heard Vasubandhu descended from the inner palace of Maitreya. Maitreya is the Bodhisattva. who is going to be the next future Buddha. So Maitreya is the master of patience in a way. I'll come back and talk about him. We don't have so many images. We have images of other bodhisattvas. The one image we have of Maitreya in our temple is in the kitchen on the windowsill, and it's the image of Hotei, who is the Japanese name for him.

[24:32]

He was the fat, jolly, laughing Buddha you see. If you've been to a Chinese restaurant, you've seen him, but there's a little image of him in the kitchen. And in China, he's considered to be Maitreya. They don't even call him by it. He was a historical Chan monk. in the 1000s, 900s. But he was very kind. So Maitreya is also associated with neta, with loving kindness. Anyway, you can have one image of him. So Vasubandhu descended from the inner palace of Maitreya. So Maitreya is supposed to be up in the heavens waiting to be reborn as the next future Buddha. And again, Subandhu and Asanga, so Maitreya is also associated with the study of mind in Yogacara. Asanga asked his brother about Subandhu when he came back from Maitreya's heaven. 400 years in the human realm is one day and night in Maitreya's heaven. He says, at one time, Maitreya led 500 billion heavenly beings to realize completely

[25:41]

the tolerance of the unconditioned nature of all things. Amitpadika dharmakshanti, this patience with the unconditioned, ungraspability nature of all things. So Maitreya helped 500 billion, that's such a large number I don't even know what it means, but anyway, a lot of heavenly beings to completely realize this. And then Asanga continued to his brother Vasubandhu, I do not understand, what teaching did he expound to them? And Vasubandhu said, he only expounded the dharma of just this, just this suchness. Hearing this, Asanga immediately had attainment. So this practice of patience we've talked about in various ways through the practice commitment period is about being willing to be present with just this. Can you be patient with the reality of whatever is appearing in your body and mind, with your body and mind, on your cushion, in any given period of samsara?

[26:59]

Just really see the depth of just this. You can't get a hold of it. You can't demonstrate or explain it, but yet we have this, our practice is about engaging with this suchness. So Dogen has a comment on this. In the past, present, and future, how are fists and head tops, pillows and lanterns, all of the different teachings, teaching vehicles, the candles, the zafus, Zen words, all the sutras. How are they the dharma of just this, of this suchness? Dogon says, a monk's staff never reaches it. A whisk is no use. Isn't this a flower opening and closing? Isn't this sweeping the ground and sweeping the sitting platform in a monk's home, so a little lady will have

[28:04]

Temple cleaning. And we'll sweep this out and clean the sabatons. Isn't this a flower opening and closing? So this suchness, this ungraspability of all things is not static. It's not dead. The practice of patience is alive. Suchness is alive. Everything is shifting. We can't get a hold of it. Just like ourselves, our ideas of self. Isn't this a flower opening and closing? Isn't this sweeping the ground and sweeping the sitting platform in the monk's hall, in the zendo?" And then, after a pause, Dogen said, The oceans in the three thousand lands completely become autumn. The bright moon illuminates and chills the coral. This is actually a quote that Dogen is making from Hongzhe, who I translated in Cultivating the Empty Field.

[29:15]

And Hongzhe adds, the bright moon and coral are cool and illuminate each other. The bright moon illuminates and chills the coral, illuminate each other. So OK, these old Zen stories may seem, I don't know how helpful they are. But I'm trying to be patient with them. I'm trying to see that for all of us our practice, realization, can't be defiled. We can't get a hold of it either, but this practice of patience is alive. How do we see the suchness of things, even when we can't get a hold of them? How do we be patient with acceptance of, tolerate the difficulty and complexity of our own lives. Oh, I was going to say something about Maitreya.

[30:19]

Maitreya is sitting up in this meditation heaven, and he's going to be the next future Buddha. Shakyamuni predicted it, and yet he doesn't know when that's going to happen. Some stories about it say it'll happen in the year 4,300 or something like that. And some say it'll happen in 560 million years. Poor guy's sitting up there waiting. And yet, he's studying suchness. He's studying how the mind works. It gave birth to Yogacara teaching. So this is when Dogen says, to study the way is to study the self. Part of this practice of patience is studying the self. Studying what it's like to sit and engage with the suchness of this period and this breath and the sounds of the person in the apartment above us. Whatever you have, whatever comes up.

[31:27]

The sounds of the air conditioner going on and off. What is this suchness? So Maitreya is just waiting, and yet he's not wasting his time. He's still a bodhisattva, helping in some way. So this practice of patience, along with suchness, has to do with time. Time is not some objective external container. even if Jeremy, as the Doan today, is watching the clock very carefully and hits the bell exactly on time, some periods of Zazen, probably all of you have experienced this, some periods of Zazen just seem to go on and on and on, and some of them go by like that. Well, maybe there's something somewhere in between, but there's a range of how we experience our presence, this suchness.

[32:32]

How do we be patient with and tolerate? Again, actively, attentively, pay attention to this quality of suchness where I feel totally pleasant and present with whatever time it is. How do I be patient and tolerate this time when I just, oh, when is the boat going? Me hurt so much. Anyway, there's various possibilities for seeing our time, for meeting suchness. So suchness is time. Dogen talks about being is time. Our experience, our being is time. But I would say also that Suchness is time, it's not static.

[33:34]

This is part of why we need to be patient with the ungraspability of things. It's shifting, it's active, it's alive, it's dynamic. So here we are talking about Asanga and Vasubandhu, who lived in, I think, the 200s. And then, oh, wait a second, there was another story. Oh, that's a different story, okay, never mind. And talking about, oh yeah, talking about the six ancestors who lived in the 600s, something like that. Long time ago. Part of all these stories is just that we here today, sitting in the middle of suchness, trying to be patient and develop a capacity for that, are connected. over a long range of time. So this bodhisattva practice, this Buddha work that we're responsible for, that we are taking care of here in Chicago today, it's very helpful to see it in a long range of time.

[34:41]

Whatever's going on in your life right now that seems very difficult, whatever's going on in the world this year, that is very difficult. The Bodhisattva practice supports us to see this in this wide range where we can practice the patience and capacity to attend to the suchness of the ungraspability of anything. Things change. We don't know how they change. We don't understand how, as Laurel pointed out recently, suddenly there are bald eagles in Illinois. In Chicago. In Chicago. It's amazing. How does that happen? Well, a lot of people, Laurel and some of her colleagues, worked very hard, and who knows what we all did to help that happen. Things change. We don't know how they change. But the Buddha work, our responsibility, you know, is to be present right now, take the next breath, and that's connected to vast ranges of time.

[35:48]

It's connected to the Six Ancestors' appreciation of suchness. It's connected to Nanyue sitting there for eight years like an iron ball. What is this that thus comes? What is this? What does it mean that it comes thus? It comes in suchness. How do I feel that? How do I see that? What is that? So Zazen, you know, develops our capacity for patience. In some ways, you know, we could say that Zazen is just about patience. We learn to sit still, relatively still. If you have to change your leg position, you know, in the middle of a period, do it quietly, that's okay, but sit, breathe, inhale, exhale, the bell rings, we get up, walking meditation.

[36:50]

One step. The next step. We learn, not just as some theory or idea, but we learn physically how it is to be patient with not being able to get a hold of anything. Of course, you know, many of you can, you know, know a lot about some things. So sometimes you can get a hold of something, maybe. But how do we, ultimately, patience is about how do we accept and keep on practicing, keep on doing the Buddha work, take on our responsibility for your dharma position, occupy your cushion. You can do that, even though we can't know what it is exactly. Can't get a hold of it. Can't demonstrate it or explain it. And yet, we can all do that. We can all occupy our lives. We can take on the situation that's given to us.

[37:52]

whatever difficulties you have, you have because somehow you have developed the capacity to accept that. How do things work? We don't know. And yet, we each, in our own way, we each have our own way of doing this satsvanas practice, of taking on the bodhisattva responsibility. We each can do this. And it takes a long time. And it's not just about ourselves. We're not just practicing for ourselves. We're practicing for people walking by Irving Park Road in 500 years, or 50 years, five years. So as Dr. King said, the arc of history leads towards justice, something like that. And it may be a struggle, and it may seem like things are difficult. Take another breath.

[38:55]

So this anutpadaka-dharmakshanti, this tolerance with the ungraspability of anything, is equated in the teachings with full enlightenment itself. It's another way of talking about total practice realization. Just to be able to meet, what is this that this comes? What is this suchness, this experience now? With all its difficulties and with all its joys. It's alive, it's changing. We can't get a hold of it. And yet, it's not somewhere outside. It's not out there on the street. It's not back there in the kitchen. It's on your cushion. It's in the next breath. So please enjoy your sitting today. Enjoy your walking today. Enjoy your serving or receiving meals or preparing meals.

[40:14]

Enjoy the temple cleaning. All of this is justice.

[40:24]

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