Good morning, everyone. Welcome. So some of us have been sitting here for three days and
some of us have been, many of us have been doing a practice period for the last couple
of months or so, focusing on some stories from the Lotus Sutra, one of the main scriptures
in East Asian Buddhism. So just to review a little bit from the last couple of days,
I talked about skillful means. How do we find our way to be helpful rather than harmful?
How do we find our way to balance within all the various different needs of all the various
different kinds of situations that we see? And how the Bodhisattva of Compassion has
a thousand different hands and eyes to look at all the differences and respond appropriately
from the single great purpose of trying to help relieve suffering and provide joy.
And in our Dzogchen, the starting point for this is just to find our balance of settling
our focus, calming, breathing, many different techniques to find our settledness. And then
also openness and spaciousness, how to find our flexibility and openness from which to
respond helpfully. So this is an ongoing lifelong practice, how to find our balance in this.
And then I talked yesterday and we'll talk more today about how our Dzogchen and our
practice on and off the cushion is a matter of, well, we could say celebrating just the
possibility of being present here, responding, seeing the depths and settling further and
further into the depths of this amazing reality of this world and multiple worlds that are
present right here. And the Lotus Sutra and the founder of this
tradition, Dogen, emphasized just proclaiming this, expressing this, being present.
Not about, this isn't about explaining something or figuring out something, but just how can
we be present in this deep reality and share it with others and see this as a way of expressing
the possibility of joyfulness. But again, using this to help relieve suffering.
So today I want to talk more about this, how we can uncover the depths of these realities,
use these stories, how we can allow the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to be present in our bodies
and minds, how we can share this. So one of the stories we've looked at is this
very strange story about the fertility of the earth itself as a resource for awakening
and caring and helpfulness. In the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha, Shakyamuni,
who lived 2,500 years ago, more or less in what's now Northeastern India, keeps asking
the Bodhisattvas and disciples and various strange beings gathered around, who will come
back in the future evil age and share this teaching, share this dharma?
And all these, and eventually some of the Bodhisattvas who've come from some distant
Buddha field or maybe it's a distant Buddha field from another solar system or galaxy
or maybe it's a distant Buddha field from some dimension, some other dimension of reality
that's actually in this room, but we don't know it anyway. They say, oh, okay, we'll
be here. We'll come back in the distant future evil age. And the Buddha says, no, you don't
need to do that. And suddenly, from out of the open space under the earth, spring force
thousands and millions and gajillions of great, ancient, quiet, peaceful Bodhisattvas who are
always there, available to help us. So this is one of these wild stories that, if you
want to take it literally, fine, but it's about something very deep. It's about the
earth itself as a resource. And we know the earth itself is in deep trouble now as well
as all of us and each of us. Some of us have deep troubles anyway. What does this have
to say about the earth and space and time itself also as a resource for us? So this
obviously is something that's not something we can figure out or manage or control. And
this is just like our zazen. We can't control this reality. So one of the things I want
to try and say today is that reality is beyond our control. There are some things we can
control. The Doan, if she's really paying attention to the clock, can hit the bell on
time according to clock time. Maybe she can manage to control that. But Bodhisattvas coming
from under the ground and then the story that comes after that, just to leap ahead, we've
already, many of us have already heard the story, so there's no spoiler alert needed.
The Buddha eventually reveals that actually he is the teacher of all these great ancient
Bodhisattvas and is actually, you know, when his regular disciples say, well, how could
you have taught all of them? We know your story and when you left the palace and so
forth. And the Buddha says, well, actually, since I first started teaching, since I first
started sharing the practice, since I first became a Bodhisattva, it's a long, long, long,
long time. And there's this amazing astronomical description of how long a time it's been.
And he says, and then I'll be around as the Buddha for twice that long in the future.
So, we have this strange story about the vastness and depths of the earth and space and time.
Okay, what does this have to do with supporting our practice? What do all these aliens coming
from distant space or time have to do with, you know, the practical stuff of our life?
The everyday stuff of how to be helpful in this life? So, I want to share some perspectives
on that today. And reference some of what Dogen says about this.
So Dogen says, you should know that it is not that the lifespan of the Bodhisattva has
continued without end only until now, and not that the lifespan of the Buddha has prevailed
only in the past, but that what is called the vast numbers of years he's been practicing
is a total inclusive attainment. What is called still now, where he's practicing, is the
total lifespan. Even when he says, in the past I practiced, that in the past I practiced
is a solid piece of iron, 10,000 miles long. It hurls away hundreds of years vertically
and horizontally. Therefore, this practice realization is neither existence nor beyond
existence. Practice realization is not defiled. Even if there were hundreds and thousands
and myriads of practice realizations, where there is no Buddha and no person, practice
realization does not defile actual active Buddhas. So this inconceivable lifespan for
Dogen, who was the founder of this tradition in the 13th century, this represents our
ongoing present time of practice. It's not an abstract time frame, not some esoteric
realm of Buddhas. There's some way to see this long time span as the reality of this
active practice in our concrete present context. How is this vast time dimension here, in our
walking today, in our activity? Dogen also says, although everyday activities of actual
active Buddhas always allow Buddhas to practice, active Buddhas allow everyday activities
to practice. This is to abandon your body for Dharma, and to abandon Dharma for your
body. This is to give up holding back your life to hold on fully to your life.
So these stories about the resources of the earth right under your seat now, and the vastness
of time right in the next breath, are just to encourage you to give up holding back
your life. How do we let go from holding back our life? How do we allow ourselves to
hold on fully to your life, to give your life to your life? To give up trying to control
your life and just give your life to your life? Give your life to Buddha. Give Buddha
to your life. This practice is not about figuring out something, or getting some explanation
or understanding, or having some special experience even. You know, those experiences happen,
but that's not the point. How do you allow your life to express Buddha?
Without trying to control it, without trying to have some description or explanation of
it, just Buddha. So what does it mean that Buddha has this long lifespan? Well, you know,
one way to see it, and there are many, many, many, many, many and so forth ways to see
it, is that somehow since Shakyamuni Buddha 2,500 years ago, in every generation, people
have been sitting around like this, doing this practice of sitting upright and breathing,
and trying to talk about how do we do this, what is it, and how do we share this, and
how do we help people, how do we take care of the world, and showing others how to do
this, and don't forget to breathe, and in each generation people have been doing this.
And somehow, you know, here we are, a long way from India, a long way from China, a long
way from California, here in Chicago, so Dogen says about this, although this moment
is distant from the sages, you have encountered the transforming guidance of the spreading
sky that can still be heard. So somehow, the spreading sky, we can still have heard this
through this spreading sky. So there's a place in the sutra where it talks
about the Tathagata's whole body. Tathagata's a way of talking about Buddha, it just means
the one who comes and goes in suchness, it's a way to translate that, right in reality.
This is one description of a Buddha. Dogen says that the sutra is the whole body of the
Tathagata, the mark of reality of all things in the present time is the sutra, is this
teaching, which, you know, we don't really even know what it is, it's not about something
else, it's just here we are sitting. And in this essay about this, Dogen says,
for countless eons, oh he quotes from a chapter in the sutra, for countless eons, Shakyamuni
has practiced difficult and painful practices, accumulated merits, and sought the way of
the Bodhisattva, and thus even though he is now a Buddha, he still practices diligently.
So you know, the Buddha woke up, became the Buddha, he sat under the Bodhi tree, the story
goes, and he saw the morning star, and then everybody said, oh yeah, that's the Buddha.
And he touched the earth, and the earth witnessed to it. Some versions said the earth goddess
appeared and said, oh yeah, hey, Buddha. And Dogen says about this, the long eons of
difficult and painful practices are the activity of the womb of Buddha. So the point is that
after Shakyamuni became the Buddha, he kept practicing every day, he kept awakening every
day, he didn't stop, that wasn't the end of the story, it was just the beginning of
the story, and we're continuing it today. But Dogen says the long eons of difficult and
painful practices are the activity of the womb of the Buddha. You know, this isn't easy.
I think yesterday the people sitting had a hard time. You feel a lot of effort. Maybe
not everyone. Some of you, you know, maybe you just breezed through it, I don't know.
But you know, it takes a lot of effort to just, to do something as simple as just being
here, and being here all day, you know. It's work, in a way. So Dogen says the long eons
of difficult and painful practices are the activity of the womb of the Buddha. When
it is said that these practices have not ceased even for a second, it means that even though
he is perfectly enlightened, he still practices vigorously, and he continues forever, even
though he converts the whole universe. This activity is the whole body of the Tathagata.
I want to talk about this activity of the womb of the Buddha. This is a phrase that's
really kind of important in terms of thinking about what all this means. In Sanskrit it's
Tathagata Garbha. Tathagata is Buddha. Garbha is this really strange word in Sanskrit. There's
nothing like it in English. It means womb, so it's saying here that this activity is
the womb of Buddha. So out of this activity, out of this practice, Buddhas arise. But it's
also that out of this, this word also means embryo. So it means both womb and embryo.
I mean that's a weird concept. It's something that is both the womb and the embryo, and
it applies to the earth. So just like out of the earth the Bodhisattvas come, and just
like the Buddha touched the earth to confirm that he was the Buddha, part of what the story
of the Bodhisattvas coming out of the earth is about is that basic early Buddhist teaching
is that when a Buddha awakens, they constellate, they create a Buddha land, a Buddha field
sometimes we could say, Buddha kshetra in Sanskrit. This is the basic basis of pure
land Buddhism, which is the most popular form of Buddhism in East Asia actually, more
than Zen. And we're in Shakyamuni Buddha's Buddha field, one way to say it. So the Buddha
is an embryo, a womb, I'm sorry, the Buddha is a womb for the embryo of the land. So this
space by our practice becomes a Buddha field. But also the land, the field, is a womb for
the embryo of Buddhas. So a Buddha field gives rise to embryonic Buddhas. So people coming
into a space like this, and I don't know, is the space just this storefront temple or
is the space, does it reach out to Lake Michigan? I don't know. If you go to a place like Green
Gulch Farm or Tassajara, where there's a wider space, you can feel the energy. I don't
know what the physics of this is, but anyway, there's this womb and embryo and the field,
the land, gives birth to embryonic Buddhas. And so the space itself is conducive to Buddha's
arising. And part of what Zen priests are trained to do is to create a space that is
conducive to Buddha practice, to Buddha's arising. So while you're sitting there, struggling
with the pain in your knees or your back or all the problems in your life, and just sitting
and breathing, and anyway, this word Garbha is puzzling. Are you creating, are you creating
the womb? Are you the womb creating the field of Buddha energy in this room, or is the room
the womb creating the embryo of Buddhaness in the body-mind on your cushion? Hard to
say. Or maybe both at the same time, or I don't know. I don't know how this works. Nobody
knows how this works. Nobody can say how this works. Something's happening and we don't
know what it is, and yet here we are.
So the other aspect of this is this time span, this long, long, long, long time of the Buddha's
life. And again, the Buddha says that in that chapter in the Lotus Sutra that he, which
we've been chanting in our midday service, that for some people he was born and he left
the palace. He supposedly had this very fancy upbringing and affluent life and didn't even
know that there was such a thing as death and sickness, and he had to leave the palace
in his protected upbringing to even imagine that there was such a thing as suffering.
And then he found that out, and then he went and wandered around and did all these strenuous
practices and finally just sat down and said, I'm going to sit until I figure this, until
I see how this suffering comes about and resolve it. And he did. He saw the morning star, he
awoken, he became the Buddha, and then he taught for 40 years, and then he taught the
Lotus Sutra and he was going to pass away. And then he told them, well, actually, it's
been this really long time, and it's this really, really, really long time.
And so, we all have problems. So we can see things in terms of this long dimension, 2,500
years, that's a long time. Or just going back to Bodhidharma in China in the 600s, or Dogen
in the 1200s in Japan, or Suzuki Roshi back in the 60s, a long time ago, in California.
Part of our practice and our teaching is to see this range of time. This is kind of a
helpful when we look at the problems in our life. So, some of the people sitting here
this weekend have particular personal problems, facing particular life decisions. They have
to choose between one path and another. So, Dr. King talked about the fierce urgency
of now. So there's also that. It might be helpful to see things in a wide time frame,
but there's also these immediate decisions, life decisions that people have to make sometimes.
And sometimes, we need to make choices. I was telling Haksho from Sweden about Yogi
Bhara. Is there anybody else here who doesn't know who Yogi Bhara was? Haksho never heard
of him, because he's from Sweden, and they don't have baseball in Sweden. But anyway,
Yogi Bhara said, if you come to a fork in the road, take it. And if you have to choose
between A and B, sometimes we feel like we have to make the right choice. Oh my gosh,
what if I choose wrong? And usually, there's also choices, C, D, E, F, Q, Z, Y, anyway.
And sometimes, you could choose, whichever one you choose might be right. Whichever one
you choose, there'll be good things, there'll be bad things, it's okay. Flip a coin, or
flip a coin and you get one answer and you decide, no, I don't want to do that. Anyway,
come to a fork in the road, take it. And there's so many, there's so many things
Catholics or ex-Catholics here, sometimes people think. People come to me asking, wondering,
asking me to tell them what to do, or they think that there's somebody sitting up there
in a cloud with a white robe who knows the right answer. Anyway, there's the fierce
urgency of now. I think it helps that we have this sense of a wide time span, a very wide
time span, and that all those times in some ways are right now. And of course, for all
of us, for humanity, for America, there's the fierce urgency of now. We have choices
to make this year. It's a very difficult year. It's a very difficult time. It's a wild time.
And I'm thinking of Muhammad Ali. We'll do a memorial service, midday service, and I'm
not just about him, but many things related to him. So, you know, there are lots of decisions
to make. There are lots of encouragements towards fear and hatred on many sides.
I do think that having some sense of the depths and range of time right now is helpful
at the same time as we see the fierce urgency of now. And I'd like to give you a little
pep talks that despair and hopelessness is not helpful. It's not realistic even. We don't
know the outcomes. I like what Joanna Macy says about hope, that hope is not about having
some hope for some right solution. It's just to act on our best hopes, along with the fear
mongering on many sides and all the terrible things that are happening in lots of ways.
There's lots of positive things happening. There are lots of, you know, I don't know,
change happens. It's clearly happening. This is maybe as tumultuous a time in its own ways
as, you know, when Muhammad Ali was really the first major public figure to come out
against the Vietnam War. Great man. And we don't know how things will go, but, you know,
I don't think that changes happen because of, you know, elected political leaders or,
you know, economic leaders or whatever. But there are lots of movements of people that
are making changes. And I've talked about this and, you know, some of you have heard
me, but Black Lives Matter movement has made lots of changes in our discourse. Climate
change movement, you know, there's so much to do and our political leaders are blocking
it, but it's made changes. The gay rights movement has made huge changes. There's more
to do.
So, there's the fierce urgency of now on many levels for many of us individually, for
our world, and yet we don't understand how deep and complex reality is. And yet we don't
sitting us and gives us a sense of that. We can't even control our own minds. You know,
you can do that. I mean, you can really focus. You can do yogic exercises to push away all
the thoughts. That's not the point of our practice. Our practice is to learn to settle
and to be present and open and responsive in the middle of the chaos of our own hearts
and minds of all the things going on around us.
It's not to create some perfect idyllic space, you know.
So Yogi Berra also said, if the world were perfect, it wouldn't be.
Here we are.
And this practice, doing this practice regularly, gives us tremendous power to just be here
and be present and pay attention.
And we can respond.
We have the ability to respond and try and be helpful.
Skillful means isn't about knowing exactly what to do, it's using whatever tools we have
at hand, extending a hand, so we can be helpful and try not to do harm.
So Sangha is about we all do this together, each in our own way, and it makes a difference.
And this Zazen practice and all the other things we do, walking meditation, the way
we try and be mindful about eating our meals in the Zen Dojo and so forth and serving meals
and chanting and bowing, you know, it just, they're ways of expressing our respect for
this body-mind in our life, in our world together.
So, I want to close again with, so again, this expression
of the purpose of all this, he says, the family style of all Buddhas and ancestors is to first
arouse the vow to save all living beings by removing suffering and providing joy.
Only this family style is inexhaustibly bright and clear.
So, this is our custom, our tradition, and amidst the fierce urgency of now and this ancient,
ancient practice that we're renewing here, each in our own way and together, how do
we relieve suffering and provide joy?
And this is our challenge and puzzle and effort together.
So thank you all.