I vow to taste the truth of that which I have heard in those words. Good morning. Good morning. Well, many of us are sitting a sashim, a one-day sitting today. And it's a lovely day to sit. We came and it was pouring rain. And sitting through the fluctuations of the weather is very pleasant. And last night, a number of us were together at the men's shelter on Center Street, cooking a dinner for about 60 men, I think. And that also was quite a wonderful activity. We're doing dinners here.

[01:04]

The Zen Center is producing a dinner on the second and the fourth Friday regularly at the men's shelter. And it's a very nice way of having contact with the men and doing something that is really appreciated. And also being together. amongst ourselves, serving together, being a cooking-serving team, is a really nice way of extending our Sangha practice. As well as cooking, there was an extraordinary array of desserts last night. The main course was a little bit on the thin side, but there was just an abundance of remarkable abundance of dessert, and it's such a nice place to have an element of abundance. It was really enjoyed. So, that leads me into what I want to talk about today, which is the Vimalakirti Sutra and the self-habit.

[02:16]

This is sort of a preview. I'm going to give a class on the Vimalakirti Sutra, February 29th. And since there are only, I think, four classes, there's more of the sutra than I can possibly talk about. So I wanted to talk today about a chapter that's a little out of the mainstream of the sutra. The Vimalakirti Sutra is a very well-known and unusual sutra in the Mahayana tradition. It's unusual because Vimalakirti is a layperson and mostly the sutras are about people who either are monks or are aspiring to be monks. The thrust of the sutra, of Vimalakirti's emphasis, is on manifesting the practice in the world, on the doing of the practice.

[03:48]

Now sometimes we talk about practice as a way of being, being peace, and other times we talk about the compassionate aspect of moving out. So the Vimalakirti Sutra is all about how to move out in the form of compassion in the world. And the plot, very simply, because there is a plot and there are characters which make it more accessible than some of the more grand sutras. The plot is that Vimalakirti, a layperson, falls ill and Buddha hears about it and Buddha asks the various bodhisattvas to go and visit Vimalakirti and try to cheer him up. And the bodhisattvas are all reluctant to go because they've had prior contacts with Vimalakirti in which their wisdom has been vested.

[04:53]

He's always able to throw a shaft of wisdom on what they say that is a little bit deeper and more profound than they were able to come up with. So, they're reluctant to go and comfort him. And finally, Buddha asks Manjusri to go and comfort Himalakirti. And Manjusri, the wisest of the Bodhisattvas, does not refuse. And when he sees, when he comes to the bedside, Vimalakirti confesses that, in fact, he, Vimalakirti, is sick with the illness of the world, that his sickness is a teaching device, actually. And Vimalakirti, and Manjusri asks how he can, what he can do to make Vimalakirti feel better, what everybody can do to help us all to enter the doors of non-duality.

[06:12]

So now a new question is posed and the Bodhisattvas indeed reassemble in Vimalakirti's tiny room which has now been miraculously enlarged to contain the whole world. The Bodhisattvas come and they each give their response about how one can enter the door of non-duality. And then Manjusri has almost the last word. His response is, there is no way, there is no position, there is nothing to enter. And then he asks Vimalakirti, what is the way? And Vimalakirti produces this famous thundering silence. which contains everything. So that's the plot, more or less. What I want to talk about today is a particular chapter which has to do with a goddess, a goddess who makes an appearance during this theater.

[07:22]

It really is a kind of Mahayana theater. What this chapter is particularly about is how we deal with our self-habit, which is an aspect of the illness that we all suffer. We all cultivate, even if we don't want to cultivate, we cultivate this self-habit which has a particular history having to do with the particular way in which our parents, our family dealt with us, our storyline, our preferences, our feelings about, I'm a confused person, I'm an angry person, I'm a good person, all the various shadowings, more or less obvious, that we have about ourselves, about the ideas that we have about our particular shape.

[08:37]

So, as we sit one period, or as we sit throughout a day, we get quite a lot of exposure to what this self habit is, both the shape and the non-shape of this self-habit. So that's really the background of what I want to say about this goddess chapter. So in the middle of these events, suddenly a goddess appears. in Vimalakirti's modest house. And the goddess asks Vimalakirti, good sir, how should a bodhisattva regard all living beings? Now, a bodhisattva is this, Uchiyama Roshi says, a bodhisattva is an ordinary person

[09:50]

who has put themselves in the direction of the Buddha. We, ordinary as we are, face the Buddha and make our intention to follow the Buddha's way, to develop ourselves and all beings, saving all beings, to develop ourselves and all beings in the understanding of the Buddha. So we too can be included in this room, in this congregation of bodhisattvas, as the goddess asks, how should a bodhisattva regard all living beings? Now Vimalakirti gives a fairly brief response which has to do with wisdom. A bodhisattva should regard all beings as a wise man regards the reflection of the moon in water, or as a magician regards men created by magic.

[11:09]

He should regard them as being like a face in a mirror, like the water of a mirage. Like the sound of an echo. Like a mass of clouds in the sky. Like the previous moment of a ball of foam. Like the appearance and disappearance of a bubble of water. Like a sprout from a rotten seed. Like a tortoise hair coat. Like the fun and games of one who is about to die. like the perception of color in one blind from birth, like the track of a bird in the sky, like the passions of one who is free of conceptualization, like fire burning without fuel, like the reincarnation of one who has attained ultimate liberation.

[12:14]

I skipped some of these. But you get the idea. The Mahayana stretches imagination. It asks us to really enlarge our experience, like the appearance and the disappearance of a bubble. Now we tend to just focus on content. And here we're being asked to open, to open to the whole scene, open the mind. We tend to just focus on the thought and not pay so much attention to the nature of mind.

[13:18]

So each one of these similes is going beyond saying it's not real, it's empty of its own nature, but it's taking a particular kind of ordinary thought and turning it around so that it's unordinary, the fun and games of one who's about to die. So, that's the wisdom side. That's the side of our lives and our experience that is empty of its own being. And it's the background It's the background of emptiness that we come from and will return to and often forget in the confines of our self-habit.

[14:27]

So then, Vimalakirti says, precisely in this way does a bodhisattva who realizes ultimate selflessness consider all things. And then, Mahamjusri asks a very important question. Noble sir, if a bodhisattva considers all living beings in such a way, how does he generate great love towards them? It's one thing to understand that everything is fleeting and passing and empty of self. But where does compassion arise? What makes us move towards one another?

[15:30]

Vimalakirti replied, Manjushri, when a bodhisattva considers all living beings in this way, he thinks, just as I have realized the Dharma, so I should teach it to living beings. And thereby he generates the love that is truly a refuge for all living beings. The love that is peaceful because free from grasping. The love that is not feverish because free from passion. The love that accords with reality because it is equanimous. He thereby generates the love that is firm, is high-resolved, unbreakable like a diamond. The love that is pure, purified in its intrinsic nature. The love that is even, its aspirations being equal. The saint's love that has eliminated the enemy. The Buddhist love that causes living beings to awaken from their sleep.

[16:35]

The love that is enlightenment because it is unity of experience. This word love is actually maha-maitri, great friendliness. Robert Thurman, who translated this, translates great friendliness as love. So, there's some mystery actually, in why it is, or this mystery to me, maybe not to you, in why it is that as our minds get more detached from, unattached to our particular self-habit, as our minds quiet and there's more stillness, Why it is that this love, this compassion arises. Somebody passed out recently some little cards, two very beaming Bodhisattva faces that says, when the mind quiets, the heart listens.

[17:52]

And I think that that is our experience that as the mind settles down, there's something that wakens in the heart. The heart becomes more informed. So all that's true, probably, and important, And then there's the question of how to do it, which is why we're here. So at this point in the chapter, we break down into more of a dialogue with the Shariputra, who's the smartest of the disciples. of the old way. So the smart person sort of has his chin out, ready for instruction.

[18:58]

And Shariputra is always being instructed in the Mahayana tradition, even in the Heart Sutra, Avalokiteshvara is instructing Shariputra. this goddess appears. A certain goddess who lived in the house, having heard the teaching of the Dharma, of the great heroic Bodhisattvas, and being delighted and pleased and overjoyed, herself in a material body, showered the great spiritual heroes, the Bodhisattvas and the great disciples, with heavenly flowers. When the flowers fell on the bodies of the Bodhisattvas, they fell off onto the floor, But when they fell on the bodies of the great disciples, they stuck to them and did not fall. The great disciples shook the flowers and even tried to use their magical powers, but still the flowers would not shake off.

[20:03]

Then the goddess said to the venerable Shariputra, Reverend Shariputra, why do you shake off these flowers? And Shariputra replied, Goddess, these flowers are not proper for religious persons and so we are trying to shake them off. The Goddess said, Do not say that, Reverend Shariputra. Why? These flowers are proper indeed. Why? Such flowers have neither constructural thought nor discrimination. But the elder Shariputra has both conceptual thought and discrimination. Rev. Shariputra, impropriety for one who has renounced the world for the discipline of the rightly taught dharma consists of structural thought. Yet the elders are full of such thoughts. Rev. Shariputra, see how these flowers do not stick to the bodies of those great spiritual heroes, the bodhisattvas. This is because they have eliminated conceptual thoughts and discrimination.

[21:05]

So the problem of these sticky flowers, the ways in which we see ourselves and rather approve of what we see, and the sticky nature of that approval, very hard to get away from it. It's a lot easier to shed what you don't like than what you like. To shed a criticism that comes from somebody than to shed a compliment that comes from somebody. There's something about our virtues and compliments that's so pleasing that they have a sticky quality.

[22:07]

So, this comment is also, this situation of sticky flowers is also a comment on the old teaching, which has very, the Theraboden teaching, which has very clear rules about what are good situations and not so good situations and poor situations and guidelines of what to refrain from and what to court. So the trouble for us in our practice is that we apply ourselves and we strengthen our intentions make a big effort to do our best and then almost inevitably get caught in some frame of what the best way is. And then we've got a sticky flower.

[23:13]

So the Bodhisattva practice is this very difficult, demanding way in which we do our best and also do our best to hang on to nothing. Also remember that our lives are a bubble emerging, a bubble passing. And then Shariputra is kind of confused and unsettled. And so the venerable Shariputra said to the goddess, goddess, how long have you been in this house?

[24:17]

And the goddess replied, I have been here as long as the elder has been in liberation. And Shariputra says, Ben, have you been in this house for quite some time? Sort of like Winnie the Pooh. And the goddess says, has the elder been in liberation for quite some time? At that, the elder Shariputra fell silent. So this small silence of Shariputra is going to prefigure the larger silence of Srimalakirti. I don't want to get into that now, but there are, as we know, silences and silences. And the goddess won't let him get away with it. Elder, you are foremost of the wise. Why do you not speak? Now is your turn. You do not answer the question. And Shariputra says, since liberation is inexpressible, goddess, I do not know what to say.

[25:24]

And then the goddess gives him a little lecture, which ends with, why don't you know that the holy liberation is the equality of all things? The equality of all things is a very hard teaching. And Shariputra says, God is not liberation the freedom from desire, hatred and folly? Isn't that what we've always learned? That it's the liberation from these hindrances? And the Goddess says, liberation is freedom from desire, hatred and folly. That is the teaching of the excessively proud. But those free of pride are taught that the very nature of desire, hatred, and folly is itself liberation. The very nature of desire, hatred, and folly is itself liberation. Now that's the hard Bodhisattva way.

[26:28]

And none of us like it. And all of us are filled with Shariputra's, but wait a minute, wait. If the very nature of liberation, the very nature of desire, hatred, and folly is liberation, what does that mean? What does it mean for our ethical stability? How can we live with it? So, this way of our ancestors is not graspable. It's not explainable. It's not reasonable. It is simply going into the midst of whatever arises with great faith.

[27:34]

and that's incredibly difficult. I just got a newsletter from Catherine Phanos in the Santa Cruz Sendo, and she is a great Dogen admirer and spends much of her time reading Dogen and poring over the texts. And I'd like to read a little piece about From Dogen's point of view, what this statement means about going into the heart of folly and hatred and greed, the equality of all dharmas. Catherine begins by saying, when I was younger in practice, when I would feel hopeless about being able to understand, I longed for someone to just tell me what to do. Like Shariputra, tell me what to do. I thought there was a way and that I just couldn't find it.

[28:39]

Now, years later, I know that practice is the process of realizing there is no way, and each of us is the way, and therein lies the mystery. In the Genjo Koan, Dogen Zenji says, here is the place, here the way unfolds. When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. When you find your way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. The precise moment of readiness is unknown. Finding your place where you are, settling deeply where you are, is the heart of the Not moving is the way. So it's difficult to sit for a day facing one's own mind, listening to the stories again and again

[30:02]

either have become sticky flowers or that one didn't want to hear in the first place. And that is exactly the way. Out of that willingness to encounter what arises, whatever it is, to deeply believe in the equality of all dharmas, whether one likes some of them or doesn't like some of them. But to have that ground of faith, that's the way. And usually, if we sit, sometimes sitting for one day isn't enough. We get tired. Usually, if we sit for three or four days, we really have an experience of that ground of practice that we never forget.

[31:17]

And because it's difficult to face what we don't want to face, the boredom of it, the exhaustion of it, the whole the whole piece, because it's difficult, we take on the difficult practice of longer sittings. And for people who are really intending to go on in this practice, the practice of longer sittings is very important. Well, there's just one more episode that I want to get to, and it's quite a famous episode. After this little event, the goddess, just to show that she really is in charge of things, produces eight miracles within Vimalakirti's house.

[32:20]

And Sariputra, although he can't grasp, he can't understand, he is unsettled, he's nevertheless very impressed. This practice is an oppressive practice, even when you don't get it. So he takes another look at the goddess and he says, goddess, what prevents you from transforming yourself out of your female state? And the goddess gives the wise answer, Although I have sought my female state for these twelve years, I have not yet found it." Reverend Shariputra, if a magician were to incarnate a woman by magic, would you ask her what prevents you from transforming yourself out of your female state? Shariputra says, no, such a woman would not really exist, so what would there be to transform? Now this is the old argument, women's practice, men's practice, you know, men are unreal, women are unreal.

[33:27]

It essentially doesn't matter. And the goddess says, just so, Reverend Shariputra, all things do not really exist. Now, would you think what prevents one's nature is that of a magical incarnation from transferring herself out of her female state? Thereupon, the goddess employed her magical power to cause the elder Shariputra to appear in her form and to cause herself to appear in his form. And then the goddess transformed into Shariputra and said to Shariputra, transformed into the goddess, Reverend Shariputra, what prevents you from transforming yourself out of your female form? And Shariputra transformed into the goddess replied, I no longer appear in the form of a male. My body has changed into the body of a woman. I do not know what to transform. And then she had pity on him and their situations.

[34:34]

But it's kind of the root of the self-habit. We think of ourselves in a certain way and sometimes are jolted, as Shariputra was jolted in a woman's form, And it is a very powerful moment when all of a sudden the self-habit sort of falls on the floor and breaks. So I'm sure that many of you have had moments when something on that order has happened at times when for one reason or another you've been quite abruptly disoriented or when there's been some discontinuity in life or great suffering.

[35:54]

I was talking to a woman who was in her forties and whose mother died very suddenly and she hadn't realized how tuned in to her mother, she'd been, mother had lived in a different city, and she was just devastated, and it really surprised her, and she said that she felt like a sonar buoy, those buoys that are out in the harbor, that have a ground, they sound, and there's a ground, and that the grounding appears in the radar and lets ships know where they are. She said, I feel as if I've lost my grounding. There's nothing that I'm bouncing out of and that I'm just pretending to live in my normal life. So that's the kind of situation that arises for us sometimes when our

[37:02]

self-habit is severely challenged. So sometimes we practice with some clarity and we work. in our zazen to keep some degree of awakeness and we notice our thoughts, try to keep our posture, sign up for sessions. All that is on the side of clarity, making the best effort as we know it. And then there's the side of confusion. when we have allowed the self-habit to disperse or the self-habit has just for some reason dissolved and we find ourselves in confusion.

[38:20]

Who is it? What is this? Everything just swirling around. Shariputra saying, I don't know what to transform. I don't know what this is. There's a story about making an effort which involves the line, when you want to move, do you beat the horse or do you beat the cart? So sometimes we make a clear effort and we beat the horse. And sometimes there's nothing to do but beat the cart, to be in the confusion. to just be in the ocean of equality of all dharmas, going round and round. And luckily what we do have is this sitting practice. We have the body, which is always present, and the posture. And our abbot, who says that what he does, all he does in zazen,

[39:28]

is to continually give himself Sazen instruction, straighten the back, lift the sternum, be aware of the belly. And that's our anchor, the never failing anchor. Thank you. So we have a few minutes if anybody has a response or a question. Thank you for your talk. You talked about when you quiet down, then somehow compassion arises in our hearts. And I was wondering if there's anything else

[40:30]

that arises. And my thought is that in emptiness, rather full, and there's some empty static quality, but there's also a dynamic part. And it seems that this compassion comes from a dynamic part. I'm just wondering if there's, is this a good way to think about it? And is there something else there? besides this love that arises? Well, that's a nice unanswerable question. For me, the most valuable aspect is just exactly sitting with that question. You know, because sometimes there is a a palpable opening and compassionate, soft quality that one feels physically.

[41:41]

And just to sit with that, when I was a teenager I loved movies and often I'd go to a movie and I'd come out And my heart would be open, just this big heart. And it was astonishing, and what to do? And I think what happens is the movie had sort of destroyed some of the self-habits. The kind of movie samadhi, one just gets drawn out. And then you come out of the theater, and in the sunrise, wow. And a heart wow response. So when one feels that, it is wonderful information. And my response to your question is just enjoy it. But maybe other people have other responses.

[42:52]

Because compassion, when one isn't put upon, or when one is at rest in the peacefulness of one's own inner world, can quickly, when it's exercised outside, be exposed as seems to me as sentimentality and then that becomes that festers that is not acceptable that confuses me those two and how they are related well I think in the Abhidhamma teaching that sentimentality is a mere neighbor of compassion

[44:10]

The near enemy, thank you, the near enemy. The near enemy, yeah, it's a sticky flower. Yeah, it's the, when the self-habit has inserted itself, then it's sentimental. So how do you know the difference? Yeah, that's the question. Yeah, yeah. How do you know the difference? You just often have a feeling that there is a flower here. It's sort of nice, and you don't mind if some other people see it, and you enjoy it a little. Now and then you can look at it and appreciate it. this something that comes up that's just a little bit illicit. Maybe not at the moment, but maybe the next day you smell something.

[45:16]

It's a little too sweet. No, I don't know. It has to do somewhat with timing. that compassionate timing is very accurate, and sentimental timing is a little advanced, or perhaps a little delayed, or not quite on the mark, because it doesn't have that open vision that the compassionate does. Well, I wonder if self-pelagicism is the theory of this conviction. that I suppose compassion in a pure state there is no subconsciousness. Yeah. Right. Right. Like the bird making no track in the sky.

[46:17]

That whole first paragraph of the wisdom that doesn't leave a trace or smells. I sometimes struggle with the question of, on one hand, when I have a compassionate state and feel that openness, really just appreciating it as it is, not identifying with it, but then another part of me sometimes feeling a need for some sort of self-identity, a positive self-image or whatever, and trying to hold on to some way of identifying myself and knowing who I am, and it's confusing. Right, right. Yeah, you feel, well, who is this that's doing it?

[47:19]

That's where the vow comes in, the Bodhisattva vow, the four impossible vows that begin with saving all beings. and the saving all beings at the same time knowing that there's no such thing as being or saving. So the vow is just this Bodhisattva just going in the direction of, just going in the direction of, and any positive, any positive element that's taken on, any virtuous element that's taken on, that drops. Any negative element that's taken on, any mistake that's incurred, that drops off. Those are not important. It's just the going in the direction of the Buddha. If anybody wants to comment on these answers, please.

[48:23]

There's a tie between sitting and compassion. Is there a connection in which through sitting, through concentration, through total immersion, that that in a way is the bridge to connecting with things and people around you? You got it. Right. Just the sitting and letting go, and letting go, and letting go, and dropping off the body and mind, and getting bored with, and letting go of the self-habit. That opens a space. A space is always available. That's the miracle, that the space is always available. Well, I want to thank you for leading us to work at the men's shelter, because that opportunity is a chance to do, to try being around a lot of sticky flowers and, you know, sort of fraught with all kinds of everything.

[49:45]

Oh, yeah. Very virtuous. Incidentality, virtue, gratitude, or, you know, It's all there. Yes. Yes. So thank you. Yes, that's really true. It's all there. Thank you. Yeah. I want to thank you, too, for the wonderful goddess of the sticky flower. And I want to know when your class is, what night, all of that. It's just a successful advertisement. Yeah. Thursdays beginning, four Thursdays beginning the 29th of February. Okay, thank you.

[50:33]

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