Naro Bhikkhu was speaking this morning and we did up until Thursday when we discovered that he was coming in now rather than two days ago. So I was sort of expecting to sit in the back of the Zendo and listen to him and tear out at eleven and go to an interfaith vigil at People's Park from eleven to twelve. There's quite a turning point coming up for People's Park on November 28th. The city council is going to decide how it's going to be used, whether it's going to revert back to the university or whether it will continue to be jointly owned and what's going to happen to the homeless users. So it's a big issue. But there are surprises. So I thought that I would talk about a bodhisattva quality, identity action.

[01:08]

There's a short fascicle in Dogen about four guidelines for being a bodhisattva, giving and kind speech and beneficial action and identity action. and identity action is the manifestation of our one body practice, of our no-gap practice. So we're really stuck with a big thing here. I guess the issue of urgency has been pretty close to the front of my burner since 90, 91 since the Gulf War. How do we keep our balance as we hear the loud cries of the world?

[02:12]

How do we manage our one-body practice in the context that is so urgent? How do we keep our balance and keep our ground and maintain a generous spirit? A generous and confident and persistent spirit. I was going to go right into that but then we had this wonderful Bodhisattva ceremony this morning and it's quite a privilege to give a talk after that ceremony. The ceremony describes the basis of our one body practice.

[03:21]

Bodhisattva, it's the, this is the, sometimes it's called the repentance or the renewal service, bodhisattva service on the full moon, very ancient. It's a way for us to together in a ritualized way renew, refresh our practice. So some of us are just coming into practice and just kind of if you come for the first time to a bodhisattva ceremony it's quite an experience. bowing, chanting incense. It's really dropping into the middle of the ocean of zendo formality. And if you've practiced a while, some years, you've gotten used to things, and there's often more of a question of how do you keep the practice fresh?

[04:22]

How do you keep renewing your practice and how do you keep appreciating the enormous context that each of our practices is part of? So the Bodhisattva ceremony reminds us of this in wonderful ways. Bodhisattva, of course, means awakening being. And we shouldn't think that there are these awakening beings that sit on altars and are different from ourselves and one another. We have to think of the word being with a certain amount of largeness. That bodhisattvas are beings and they're also energies. huge energies and huge states of mind.

[05:28]

Sometimes I think of bodhisattvas as universal recyclers. That anything that comes to them, griefs, joys, holdings, whatever comes is recycled through and released and liberated. So we all have bodhisattva experiences. We can all look back at times in our lives when we felt utterly stuck and pinned down and small and somehow, maybe not so dramatically or maybe dramatically, but somehow we were released. So the order of the ceremony is very astute.

[06:33]

It's important in these ceremonies to, after you get used to the outline of them at least, to discover what your intimate relationship with them is. What your experience of them is. and how you carry that experience out. So, the first thing we say in the Bodhisattva ceremony is, All my ancient twisted karma. From beginningless greed, hate and delusion, born through body, speech, and mind, I now fully avow." Avow, of course, means acknowledge, recognize.

[07:36]

I used to think it meant discard. It's a pretty fundamental misunderstanding. So, it's just an out-and-out recognition of the total hopelessness of our situation. all this ancient twisted karma that we are set down in the midst of. And as we practice more, the somewhat painful aspect is that we become more aware of the hopelessness of the situation. And the mind that we at first somewhat could ignore, we can no longer ignore and as we are more aware of it, we see how totally unruly and totally undirected and totally delusional it is.

[08:41]

So, it's a very hopeless situation, much bigger than ourselves, and we swim in it. And in Buddhism, repentance means simply acknowledging, allowing it to come up, seeing it and letting it go. Nothing extra in the way of shame, remorse, guilt. But just being there and seeing it. Now of course, There are some things that are rather small that have happened and they can come up once and we can let them go and that's it. And there are other things that, there are other griefs, repentances that come up over a lifetime.

[09:47]

I had the experience yesterday, my youngest son called. He's a little over 30. and newly married and his new wife had just gotten into a law practice and gotten very involved in a crisis case and essentially just hadn't been present for a week and he found himself with enormous grief over her absence and realized it had something to do with his being too when I went back to school and began to work full time. And if there's any, if there's any remorse, if there's any grief in my life, it's having been a young parent. And when I hear what goes on in the Sanalki house and the patience and the appreciation, it just comes up.

[10:52]

But anyway, he and I were are able to talk about it and go over it together and acknowledge it together and drop it together and acknowledge the good things that have happened and by the end of it our hearts were open so there's something about repentance just allowing it to come up and be there and then go that has a heart opening quality. And then when the heart is open, then we can begin to redirect our karmic energy and we do the bowing, the homages in the ceremony. So this is the big turn that practice is about, moving from the karmic to the realm of intention, entering into the one body.

[12:09]

So first we offer homage to the seven Buddhas before Buddha. It's very mysterious. There's the historical Shakyamuni Buddha, and then there is also in the Mahayana teaching there is also the ocean of reality the teaching as it always was before there was any form and so we experience that most of us, perhaps all of us as children were introduced or not to some kind of religion but early on had some kind of intuition about something very true so that as our lives go on we have a kind of certainty about when we are off

[13:24]

and when we're on we sort of know sooner or later when we've slipped off and don't feel quite right and when we've come back to what we know is true that's my understanding that's what I've worked out in my little patch but it's a question all of these parts of the ceremony or a question to each of us. What do we make of them? What do they mean in the context of our experience? And then this homage to Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical teacher from whom the Dharma arose. And then in the Mahayana, there's not only the historical Buddha, but there's also the inner teacher.

[14:30]

So when we say Buddha, and when we bow in the direction of Buddha, what's going on? What is our experience of the inner teacher? that aspect in us that somehow knows what our development needs. And we'll arrange over and over again situations for us to encounter in order to complete some part of our understanding. So if you have a difficulty in relationship somehow or other, if you don't find the way out of that particular difficulty in the one relationship, it will be given to you in the context of another relationship. There's something very loyal about our troubles.

[15:36]

Our inner teacher knows how to present them very well. And then sometimes there are the abrupt teachings that come, and the myriad of small, oh yeah, little affirmations that may be very soft but reassuring that come. So what is our experience of this inner teacher who knows our path, who watches our development? and who nudges us or kicks us as need be. And then there's homage to Maitreya Buddha, the Buddha of the future. We don't talk so much about Maitreya and I've always been interested in him and noticed whatever there was, which doesn't seem to be much,

[16:44]

But the Buddha of the future in the Sutra especially the Lotus Sutra Buddha is always giving The declarations of enlightenment to be he's prophesying that Enlightenment will come will come to you to you to you not that you are but it will come You know, to have Buddha point a finger and say, you are enlightened is a bit much. Very overwhelming. But to know that there's the opportunity is very important. Somebody said it's a little bit like receiving the letter from the college of your choice that you have been accepted. Good. And now you can get on with the work. you're where you want to be and now you can do the work. So, now sometimes people say, oh Buddhism is very pessimistic, but actually it's profoundly optimistic.

[17:58]

There is this prediction and indeed our experience is that no matter how bad a spot we're in, on the next in-breath or out-breath we can always begin again. So Maitreya is with us when we recognize her. And then Samantabhadra, the shining practice bodhisattva. When he is on an altar, Samantabhadra rides an elephant. There's something very, for me, patient about Samantabhadra and the elephant. I was told that elephants when they walk have a forward foot goes and then a backward foot kicks the forward foot front. So there's always a kind of movement and then kicking, movement and kicking.

[19:02]

A kind of laborious but patient work. And I think it was Mel who recently said that the devotional aspect is the practice, our practice aspect. Our devotion is lodged in this patient persevering practice that allows each aspect to take the time it needs. It doesn't rush. along, but just allows, it takes whatever time it takes. And then there is, oh, I've forgotten, I'm too sweet with this double sword, Bodhisattva Wisdom, the sword that cuts non-duality.

[20:08]

And when I realized I was going to talk I asked some people, what is the nature of the double sword? And Rebecca said that if you're cutting non-duality, you need to go up and then down and then up, because everything tends to glop together. And another aspect is that when the sword of non-duality is flashing, sometimes it feels wonderful, sometimes it feels awful. So seeing things as they are, the slash slash of the sword, And then there's the aspect of our Bodhisattva experience which is the compassionate aspect.

[21:10]

Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva with the thousand arms and hands and the eye in the palm of each hand so that each hand knows exactly where to go to relieve the suffering. And in one of the old stories somebody asked, if Avalokiteshvara has all these hands and arms, how does he, she coordinate them? How does he, she know what's going on? And the answer came, it's like a hand reaching for the pillow in the night. So it's not, it's our ability not knowing just to always be reaching just to always be ready not to have the pillow but to have the hand that reaches towards even though we don't quite know what it's doing and then homage to the succession of ancestors

[22:31]

What do we make of our lineage? It's always been a question for me when in the mornings we chant the 50, I don't know how many names we chant, of our lineage going back from some Buddhas before Buddha up until a couple after Dogen. All men, all foreigners, What am I doing? I used to wonder. Chanting this. What brought me to this place and this moment? And so I wondered and wondered. And Maureen Stewart, the dear teacher who died about five years ago, when I asked her, she said, well, they're just all your unknown helpers. So, all the beings who have helped us through all the centuries.

[23:38]

And since then I've made an effort to chant that chant with a sense of the helpers just right behind me, sort of looking over my shoulder, really feeling their presence. And I was very moved to hear recently that Maureen Stewart has been added to the lineage chant in the Diamond Sukha Sangha, Akin Roshi's group of sanghas. They had a common ancestor, and so she's the first woman, as far as I know, who is a part of any of these long Japanese lineages. So, that's a nice turning point. So what do we make of these forms that we've signed up for and practices and culturally exotic stories?

[24:43]

How do we incorporate them? And then we come to the vows. So beginning with the repentance. the acknowledging the trouble and moving to the redirection of our energy and then we come to the heart of the matter, the vow because as soon as we chant the vows seriously we enter the Bodhisattva business we enter the one body Bodhisattva realm of activity whether we recall it or not, we're there So, beings are numberless, I vow to awaken with them. That's the kind of basic statement of our one body situation. And then, when we really take seriously the matter, the impossible matter of living by vow, then finally we come home to

[26:02]

the refuges, and we take these three refuges, the triple treasure, Dharma, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. And it's wonderful in the ceremony, the Kokyo has his, her moment, you know, and this, the long, very, rather mysterious solo. And it's a mysterious moment as we listen. And each Kokyo has a way of expressing in his, her voice something particular about this mystery. I love hearing the different Kokyos. This morning Laurie was Kokyo and you could really hear the strength and the confidence in her long practice. Just hear that in her voice. very moving, very alive.

[27:06]

So, we take the refuges and finally we come home. We come home to our place in this one body practice. And that means that no matter what is going on, whether it's a lovely day and it's a nice moment or whether the screws are really on us we are at home whether we like it or whether we don't like it we're home and our feet are planted on the ocean floor even if the ripples of the top are close to our nose, we're home So, that's our ceremony that we do together as a one body.

[28:17]

And that's the basis for this identity action. This identity, no gap action, one thing at a time action. And all that seems sort of clear when we say, no gap, one thing at a time action. But as soon as you move off the cushion the clarity ends. Particularly when you go out into the world with some sense of urgency about manifesting the one body practice. And I'd just like to read something that Tetsugan Roshi, who's Maizumi Roshi's heir now, who has the most well-developed, strongest, and most imaginative, engaged Buddhist Sangha with I don't know how many programs or training

[29:35]

and housing and service to the homeless. He writes, says about this one body action, there doesn't have to be a need to solve anything because as far as I'm concerned there is no solution. I say that I'm going to end homelessness in ten years and I believe it. I modify that to say I will end homelessness for those who don't want to be homeless. I don't want to push anybody. I have no doubt, I have to say this very quietly, that there will always be homelessness. But I still work with all my mind to eliminate it. If I fail, I fail. So, that's a very nice statement of the Bodhisattva. who goes all out for saving all beings even though she knows there's no such thing as a being and no such thing as saving.

[30:38]

So that may sound clear and then when one begins to engage in it it's very confusing. And so in these last years I've been very grateful for a Buddhist Peace Fellowship and for this Sangha's various efforts in this Sangha. This Sangha is filled with Bodhisattva endeavors, people doing this and that and this and that, quietly, but doing it. And now and then, our work together, which I do cherish. I think it's wonderful for us to be able to go out in the world and do some work together. Some of us get breakfasts at the Dorothy Day, the Dorothy Day group at the Veterans Shelter.

[31:44]

And once a month, the Sangha offers a dinner there, and quite a few people participate in that. And there is this good feeling of when you move towards suffering, there's some relief for oneself. The feeling of embarrassment and discomfort that one has on seeing somebody miserable on the street is addressed when one makes contact, when we make contact together. So, I talked too long. I wanted to say more about the BASE program, the Buddhist Alliance for Social Engagement, which began in beginning of this year and ended in September and will begin again in February and go for six months.

[32:47]

But that's a whole other story of a group of ten people that decided to engage in this new form of practice. This new form of practice that where the Dharma is studied together in a small Sangha outside of the practice center. We had a six months practice period in the world and there were a lot of adventures in that. Meeting twice a week as a group and having at least one day retreat together a month and finding out who we were in this one body of ten people as well as the one body of this hopeless and inexhaustible activity in the world. But I'd like to leave a little time for questions or responses. I guess I'd like to go back to your telephone conversation with your son.

[34:51]

I was very touched by that story, and it made me wonder what happens when the son doesn't call up and say, I realized that when you went to work How do we repent and acknowledge and avow the karma that other people don't help us by reminding us of? Yeah, and that we don't even really fully aware, are aware of ourselves, that they just come up. Yeah, I felt really grateful to have had that conversation because certainly in his marriage he is without the dense, or his, the shadows that they bring into their marriage are not nearly as dense as the shadows that I and my ex-husband brought into our marriage.

[35:55]

But, you know, we're different generations. But how does that ancient twisted karma that's below the level get recycled. I think that's one of the wonderful aspects of this ceremony that it has, it's mysterious and that it just offers us a space which is unlimited and yet has some form so that things may come up And beyond that, of course, the zazen, the hours of just sitting and noticing what does percolate up. And there's so much that percolates up, the thoughts and the insights, and then there's the whole level of just feelings that come up.

[37:06]

that have goodness knows what root but do come up and are noticed and are allowed a little space. But that's a good question. I think so much of our practice is about that. Anne? with another in which perhaps the other is coming from not so much of an open heart place but a difficult place and how to work with an encounter of that kind. Yeah, well those are our opportunities to test and find out where we're at.

[38:10]

Yeah, yeah. How do we work with the feelings that arise in us, whether they're hurt or anger or whatever, the difficult feelings that come up in us when there's an encounter of that nature? And how accepting can we be of those feelings? That really, for me, is the first stage. And can one emphasize a response to one's own evoked feelings rather than immediately having a reaction to what's being presented? It's very hard stuff. And sometimes one needs to get space first if it comes as a great assault. Luckily, I'm of the temperament where I just freeze and I don't know what's going on. I just numb out. So I thereby gain a little space as long as I come to eventually.

[39:17]

But practice does, you know, I vow to awaken with all beings and the all beings are the beings of the interior as well as the exterior. There really is no finally there's no difference and practice does help us become more and more attentive to the inner beings first. Yes. What happens if you want, you're accepting your own feelings and there's also something tied in with there is something that's going on in the outside with the person that you're having this relationship with and it's not... how do you hold that? Because there's a lot of times when it's really not just my emotional response to this, there's something going on that I don't feel comfortable with what's outside and it's hard for me to know when to just accept and be able to be with that and when to say, look I've had enough of this

[40:39]

That's right, that's right. Well, I didn't mention the precepts in the talk, which are of course the last aspect of the ceremony, the really how-to of how to do it. So this kind of encounter is an opportunity for fresh contact. It's demanding some kind of different contact. If it gets the same old contact, the same old stale response, then it's not a matter of one Bodhisattva consoling another. There's a very nice passage in the Vimalakirti Sutra that we may study, I may teach it later, about how one Bodhisattva consoles another Bodhisattva. So, if that's going on, then there is some freshness and some moving towards. And that may well involve anger, some point, an energy has come up, and how do you use right speech, right action to deal with that?

[41:49]

How do you find the right place to be? Not just retreating back, but having enough ground and enough confidence to meet it. Usually the other person, almost always, there's something in what the other person is saying. There's some grain of something that one does not want to see oneself. And so that's the kind of footage. What feedback am I getting? Is Manjushri's sword giving me that I would rather not have but is here? So some of us have rather angry temperaments and tend to move in too fast. And others have, of us, have rather frightened temperaments and tend to distance too quickly. So, how do we work with our edges there? And some of us are very good at writing letters of apology. There are all kinds of skills.

[42:55]

And they're interesting. When they're interesting, then you know that The contact is juicy. Susan. Thanks for your talk. You know, as you use that word urgency, I was thinking, in this modern version of life, that word has come to me, moving fast, and how, you know, to talk about the bodhisattvas, It just seemed like you were talking about regularity. There seems to be such a contrast between how the modern world views the word urgency and the regularity of our practice. You talked about whether you like it or not being regular. And then the reading at the end about homelessness and how it may never end, but that doesn't have anything to do with what we do.

[44:03]

I just appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Well, there is an urgent quality, you know, that we all feel that's embedded in us and it is not comfortable. Right. And I would not wish it to go away. So, how do we use it? But that quality can kind of create hysteria or chaos or Trying to do five things at once? That's right. To save a situation? That it's not one body. That it's not our one body. It's our... It's our one delusion.

[44:44]

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