This is the week in which we celebrate the enlightenment of the Buddha. Shakyamuni Buddha Sarasvakottama, about 2500 years ago this week, was greatly enlightened in northern India. And this is in Zen traditionally a time for intensive sitting, so we just finished last evening three days of sitting all day here in honor of the Buddha. So I want to talk a little bit about some of what I talked about this weekend. Some of you were there for some of it. So, What does it mean that the Buddha was enlightened? What is Buddha anyway?

[01:04]

This has been the fundamental question of Buddhism. What is this awakening? So Buddha just means the awakened one. What does it mean that he awakened? And what is this practice we do of awakening that has continued since then? So, one of the various responses to that question from the Avatamsaka Sutra is that when the Buddha awakened, when he became the Buddha, he saw that all sentient beings everywhere fully possessed the wisdom and virtue of all the Buddhas, of all the awakened ones. This idea of Buddha nature, that all beings, everywhere, fundamentally are endowed with this capacity and reality of awakening and kindness.

[02:14]

And this idea has been developed through the history of Buddhist practice and awakening practice since his time. So the founder of Soto Zen in Japan, Dogen, said, all sentient beings, in their wholeness, Buddha nature, our Buddha. This is part of the nature of reality. But the Buddhists, when he awakened, also saw that all sentient beings, because of their false conceptions and attachments don't realize this capacity. And seeing this, he was saddened. He saw that everything was awake, and yet there was this folly and delusion that prevented all of us from seeing it. So he decided that he would, eventually decided that he would teach the path to help us abandon illusion and attachment forever, so that we could perceive the vast wisdom of the Buddhas within our own bodies and be no different from the Buddha.

[03:29]

So this is one basic description of what it means that Buddha was awakened this week. the Buddha saw this fundamental wholeness of the way things are. He also, of course, saw that because of our deep affliction of ignorance, we, of course, are caught up in the human legacy of greed, hate, and delusion. This is where we live. This is how we live. We live in the world of conditioned conventional reality where things can get pretty corrupt. And we are all hurting in some way.

[04:32]

This he also saw. One of the ways to talk about this is that what the Buddhists advocated, what the Buddhists saw was possible, is non-separation. That we don't have to see the world and all the things in the world as separate from ourselves. We don't have to make, you know, we can see the conventional distinctions between old and young and, you know, men and women and all kinds of, left and right and all kinds of ways in which we can see differences. This is how our consciousness works. But fundamentally, we're not separate. This is what the Buddha saw. And yet, we are deeply caught up in the world of separation. We, because of our language, see the world in terms of subject and object.

[05:34]

We see the world, so-called, out there. We see other beings and all things in the world as things to manipulate to get what we want, or to get rid of what we don't want, or we see things out there as dangers that might manipulate us. So this separation of subject-verb-object, we get caught in the world of separation. The practice of awakening, the practice of seeing non-separation, is to study this separation. to confess, to acknowledge to ourselves that, yeah, we do get caught in craving and anger and confusion. In fact, one of the ways this is described is that and also from a commentary on the Flower Ornament Sutra, that the fundamental affliction of ignorance itself is the immutable knowledge of all Buddhas.

[06:45]

And the writer said, this principle is most profound and mysterious in the extreme, difficult to comprehend. It's hard to see that our basic ignorance is itself the place where we can awake. Dogen said, to study the way is to study the self. So, he also said that deluded people have delusions about enlightenment. Buddhas are enlightened about their delusions. So, to realize non-separation, we're willing to sit with all of the ways in which we feel separation, to see through them. to see how we can become intimate with ourself, become friendly with ourself, accept that we are human beings with these problems. And right in the middle of those problems, right in the middle of the difficulties we have in this world, is the place where we can awaken, is this possibility of wholeness and non-separation.

[08:02]

I can say this, and it may seem very theoretical and abstract and irrelevant to you. Suzuki Roshi talks about it in terms of mind weeds. We see the weeds growing in our thinking. And just like in gardening, when you take up the weeds, you can use them as compost. In our sitting with this self of separation and subject and object and things out there, when we are willing to just be with them and see that there is a way in which we can be okay with this, and a way in which we don't have to act on our patterns of grasping and anger and so forth. we can start to have confidence in our practice. We can start to trust that actually being the person you are right now, the body and mind sitting on your chair or cushion right now, this is the place where Buddha's awakened.

[09:10]

So this fundamental affliction of ignorance is this ignorance about subject, verb, object, this ignorance of separation, this idea. This is the first chain of the 12-fold chain of causation. There are other places where you can break the chain of suffering, but the deepest place is to see through our ideas of separation, to see this possibility of non-separation, to study how we make ourselves into objects. How we separate parts of ourselves and there's the good Taigen and the bad Taigen or whatever. We can make up stories like that. We can dislike parts of ourselves and maybe like other parts of ourselves too much maybe, we can get confused about the wholeness of reality, the wholeness that's available.

[10:21]

And for people sitting in the last three days, this practice of zazen is challenging, and even doing it for one period. And some of us sometimes do it for longer, and it sometimes seems that what's difficult about that is some pain in our knee or our back, some prompt, something like that, but really just to be willing to, with our body and mind, with our upright posture, study this self, be with this self. This is where we awaken, in this willingness to be ourselves. This, of course, applies on the cushion and off the cushion. How do we find the way to bring our lives to life. How do we find our energy? So the point of Buddhism is not to study a bunch of old Buddhist stories or learn about a whole bunch of Buddhist scriptures.

[11:23]

The point of Buddhism is, how do you find what is energizing and enlivening and helpful in your life? What's important to you? How do we find our way of expressing this sense of wholeness that we kind of touch on in this sasana practice. So this sasana practice is very powerful because it gives us a kind of access point to this deeper quality of wholeness. We don't necessarily realize it. And yet, being willing to be present and sit facing the wall for 30 minutes or three days, whatever, thus give us this chance to find peace and intimacy with ourselves, to be willing to be ourselves, to see how we want to use the opportunity of this life.

[12:31]

So just getting some understanding of this wholeness isn't the point. The point is then how do we express it and enact it in the world. And each of us has our own special way of doing that, or many ways. What's important to you? How do you find what's of interest to you? What you're good at? Those may be different, but how do you bring your life to the Buddha work? So we don't... Buddha 2,500 years ago or some wooden piece of Buddha on the altar isn't what's important. how Buddha's awakening is about, how is your life here this week in Chicago? And of course, we have confusion and grasping and anger sometimes and frustration. And we live in an extremely difficult world and a very, very corrupt and violent society.

[13:38]

And even when we want to not pay so much attention to that because it's frustrating and overwhelming. It affects us. We have to admit that. That the world we live in is connected with us. We're not separate. And yet, each of you is here tonight because you care about the quality of your life. Because you wish to come and commune with Buddha in some way, whatever that means. And so by celebrating Buddha's enlightenment, we keep Buddha's enlightenment alive in the world, in our lives, each in our own way. And it's a process, a path. Buddha didn't, you know, zap, didn't go around zapping people. Now you have, you know, the great magical Buddha wisdom. No, it's already there.

[14:40]

It's already there. How are we willing to meet ourselves? How are we willing to express the Buddha work for ourselves and for each other together? So, a number of people commented this weekend that sasheen, this kind of intensive sitting where you sit for a day or two or three or five or seven, and people all over the world are doing that this week, that's something that's pretty hard to do by yourself. But we have this structure and this form and this temple now where we take meals here in the meditation hall. We have people helping with various aspects of that. We all work together cleaning the space. Together we can do session. Session means to meet the mind, to gather the mind. And together we can have a space for Monday evenings to commune with this possibility of awakening. So some of you were here during the weekend and may have more to say about this.

[15:49]

I do want to talk about a story from just a very short talk by Dogen that I talked about this weekend, The Endless Shoots of Zazen. To me, this gives some feeling of how our practice expresses this awakening of Buddha's 2,500 years ago. So this was something that Dogen said late in 1251, towards the end of his teaching career. He didn't know it at the time, but anyway. What is called zazen is to sit, cutting through the smoke and clouds without seeking merit. Just become unified, never reaching the end. In dropping off body and mind, what are the body and limbs? How can it be transmitted from within the bones and marrow? Already such, how can we penetrate it? Snatching Gautama's hands and legs, one punch knocks over empty space.

[16:55]

Karmic consciousness is boundless, without roots. The grasses shoot up and bring forth the wind to the Buddha way. So that's the whole talk, so just to say a little bit about it, and then I'd like to have some discussion. and hear what you all have to say. So what is called zazen, this practice, this is our way of expressing Buddha. There are other ways, by the way. There are Buddhists who primarily chant or do other practices as a way of expressing Buddha. But in Zen, our basic practice is just a zazen practice, a sitting meditation. But Dogen talks about it in a particular way. that's the style of our branches in. He says, what is called zazen is just to sit, cutting through the smoke and clouds without seeking merit. So this idea, we dedicated the chanting we just did to Buddhist ancestors, to all sentient beings, to the spirit of Rebecca that's just passed a week ago.

[18:08]

We dedicate our merit. This is part of the Bodhisattva way. And we chant at the end of the evening, we'll chant the four Bodhisattva vows, expressing our offering of the energy we create by coming together. to benefiting all beings. So, if you're seeking merit, if you're trying to, if you come to do spiritual practice, Zen or whatever form of spiritual practice, to get merit, well, that's a little funny. It doesn't really work. If you're trying to give of yourself in order to get something for yourself, that's just you know, what Trump or René Boucher called spiritual materialism. We just sit, you know, for all beings, for each other. So we, when we come together and sit, we're supporting each other to be here and be willing to be present and upright in the midst of this body-mind.

[19:14]

It's not about something else. Now, it's true, this is tricky and sometimes confusing for we Zen people, that there is a purpose to our practice and there is a transformation that happens by doing this practice. It's not that it's pointless. But if you come to Zen practice wanting calm or peace of mind or great enlightened energy or whatever, well, that's fine. You should admit that that's what you're doing. You should be aware of your delusions about enlightenment. The transformative function happens beyond that, or outside of that, or not based on your expectations. By being willing to be present and be yourself, our life can come alive.

[20:22]

And sometimes it doesn't seem like it. Sometimes there are periods of practice where it seems kind of boring. It's the same stuff. there is a way in which this willingness to just show up in your body and mind and be present and be upright and witness it and pay attention to it without trying to make it into something else, without trying to be somewhere else, without, as he says here, seeking merit, that power allows us to more fully express ourselves. It connects us in all of our everyday creative activities to this deep wholeness and non-separation. So he says, just become unified, never reaching the end. Maybe I could just talk about that sentence and that would be enough. Just find your wholeness, just become unified, just find the non-separation here in your life, on your cushion here tonight.

[21:30]

never reaching the end. It's not that you get it and then, oh yeah, that's it. There's no end to this. Or, you know, maybe when you die, you know, so in some sense, Rebecca is now a Buddha, you know. In Japanese Buddhism, we say when somebody dies, oh, they become Hotoki, a Buddha. So when we, you know, and Buddha's power, nirvana, his total passage into nirvana was when he died. So if you're trying to get to nirvana, you know, I don't recommend the Japanese practice of harakiri. There's a sense of, in Japanese culture, of the nobility of suicide as a serious option that comes from the samurai, spiritual warrior tradition. But even then, never reaching the end, So I actually trust that Rebecca will come back and create more bodhisattvas in her own way.

[22:34]

Just become whole, never reaching the end. So wholeness, non-separation, is not a dead, static thing. We're not talking about things, even though in our language, of course, we use nouns. This whole dynamic process of wholeness is alive. Meeting the wholeness, the non-separation, on our own cushion. Still, you know, tomorrow something new might happen in your life. It's possible that tomorrow you will meet someone you never met before, for example. It's possible. Happens. Sometimes. Has anybody in the last week actually met someone they didn't know before, you know, been introduced and found out their name. Has that happened to anyone? Yeah, generally, okay, a few people, okay. So, we're alive. And the wholeness that you can realize tonight, you know, we'll find a new way to be in the world tomorrow because it's a new situation.

[23:45]

The weather will change a little bit. Maybe it'll get colder, we don't know. But anyway, just become whole, never reaching the end. Just drop off body and mind. So I'm not going to read all of it again, but already such, how can we penetrate it? Already we are in touch with this suchness. So I believe that all of you are here tonight because you have in some way tasted this possibility of wholeness, of reality as it is. just this, this non-separation. And maybe you don't quite see it, or maybe it's, you know, anyway, maybe this way of talking about it doesn't work for you. That's okay. But already there is this somehow in your life, or you wouldn't be here. So, Dawkins says, already such, how can we penetrate it?

[24:46]

So part of the Buddha work is just to, you could say, study this mystery. How do we find this wholeness? How do we share and express this wholeness? There is more to penetrate. there's more to experience, there's more to find. Our practice, you know, sometimes again it seems dull, sometimes we feel sleepy when we're sitting, sometimes we feel like nothing's happening, but by just being present and upright in this body-mind, something, some process, some organic, alchemical process is available. So he says, the grasses shoot up and bring forth the wind of the Buddha way. That which is growing calls for a response from non-separation. That which is shifting, that which...

[25:50]

There maybe are not many new grass shoots now in Chicago, where we have instead snowflakes and ice piling up. Still, in our own life, don't stop the grass shoots from growing up. Don't stop your own sense of wonder and questioning and confusion and frustration. maybe fear or maybe some upset or anger or some desire. All of those are like the shoots of our life growing up. And pay attention to them. See how they cause separation. See how they bring a response from non-separation. Again, the problems you have are the place where you can awaken. the people who give you difficulty in your life. It's easy to say, but that's right where there is some possibility of something, some awakening.

[27:02]

And we don't have to have problems to feel the wholeness. But anyway, don't turn away from the sadness. Be willing to be the person you are. This is all the shoots, grass shoots, arising from the Buddha's awakening 2,500 years ago. So I could talk more about this talk by Dogen, I could talk more, and you know, this is what I do, is talk about this Buddha stuff. I think I will stop, hit the pause button, and invite you all to add your comments, questions, responses in honor of the Buddha's awakening. So please, feel free. Serena.

[28:13]

It's been really interesting listening to this discourse on separation and non-separation. And I really, I find it helpful, but then I separate from that, and then I'm like, oh, but I still have to make choices all the time. Sure. And it's really hard because Sometimes the choices are like it is by, you know, being critical. Not, you know, but like you have to be critical to make decisions. And so it's really hard to like stay integrated with the non-separation in those times because, you know, that's, you know, like that's part of life, this taking care of business. I don't know, and that is very separate from Zen practice.

[29:18]

Well, no. But that's a wonderful question. So non-separation does not mean that you have to become stupid. It might be okay to be stupid and feel non-separation, but you still can use your discernment, your discrimination. The point is to create the Buddha work in our own lives, to express this. We do need to make distinctions. We do need to make decisions. We need to pick one from column A and two from column B or whatever. We need to act and express this in our life and the world. That's why I was talking about See what is important to you. So there are lots of ways of making decisions, and it's not that there's one right way all the time for you.

[30:22]

Your decision about something in Josh's might be really different, and that's okay. But the point is that when we have this taste of non-separation in the background, that becomes kind of the background sponsor, and we can reach back and touch that. And when we're acting from that place, then our decisions have a little more space and have a little more... aren't caught up, aren't determined so much by our particular habits and patterns and conditioning. We have a wider capacity to respond to the world. And it's not that there's one right. Sometimes people come to me and say, well, should I do A or B? And it's usually not that the point is that you have to make the right decision between A and B. There's usually other options. There's C or D. Or it might be that A or B is the right decision.

[31:22]

Still, we do something. So yeah, right, that's a good question. But the practice is, how do we act in the world, how do we make decisions, coming from this place of non-separation? Yeah, it's hard when other people are involved, for sure, because it does seem like there's, like with my partner, he expects me to be a certain way, go to Zazen, practice Zazen all the time. He wants me to be all Zen all the time and sometimes I'm like I can't be that way. So he wants you to be his Buddha? Is that... He should come and sit with us and talk to us. Well, that's good. He's your teacher. He's expecting you to be Buddha. That's good. He wants me to be like the good Buddha, and I'm not. He wants you to be like what? The good Buddha.

[32:24]

Sometimes I'm like, you know, super... So then you're his teacher. Cranky, yeah. Cranky Buddha. Yeah. So, well, it's just as hard, you know, like, because, you know, there's like expectations of other people, like, they're like, well, you're working on yourself, and you, like, you should be nice all the time. You know, it's really hard, because I would like that very much, but I can't do it. Does anybody here is nice all the time? I think you've got a good... a country song there. Good luck. I don't know. I'm not up for the challenge. I'm kind of like... I'm sure you are. It's disappointing, you know. Well, that's okay. Be non-separate in the middle of disappointment. I'm not disappointed.

[33:25]

I'm disappointing. I'm burping. But, you know, it's hard because it's getting things. I feel like I would like to know when I'm doing it right, and I never know when I'm doing it right. And that's part of the problem. You missed one bell tonight. But not bad. Other comments, responses? Yes, Josh. I've been thinking about this quote that my teacher used to say all the time, especially with the winter, this idea of unifying I have a lot of trepidation about the winner, because the last winner was pretty hard. And this has been kind of running through my head, this idea of unifying with things.

[34:27]

I can't remember the koan, but the answer was, when you're hot, let the heat kill you, when you're cold. The Dong Zhang, founder of Sutra Zen in China, was asked by a monk, Where can I go so I can escape from hot or cold? Yeah, yeah. And Dongshan said, yeah, when it's hot, let the heat. When it's hot, burn to death. When it's cold, freeze to death. Yeah. Or when you're hot, you're hot. When you're not, you're not. Yeah, so I was thinking about this unifying thing with what you were saying. And sometimes letting the cold kill me And then sometimes that's just kind of like... There's all sorts of ways to let the cold come in. Yeah, and also please get a warm coat and a warm hat and earmuffs.

[35:31]

I've been grateful for my earmuffs the last couple of days. Well, you know, the one way around that is just not to let anybody know that you're a Buddhist. But then, you know, people, if you do that, you know, I've known Zen students who've tried that approach to escape from being expected to be nice. But then, you know, in some mysterious way, people start, you know, coming to ask you for advice or they, you know, they notice something. So you still might get, you know, some people wanting something from you.

[36:38]

This is a problem. And you might be more comfortable just kind of being a homebody and hiding away and not having to deal with all these people. But part of what happens when we're willing to be friendly and intimate with ourselves and feel what we're feeling, and not be separate from that, is that we are more open to actually the requests of the world, and that can be painful too. The ways in which this is not an easy practice are not obvious. The ways in which it seems obvious that this is not an easy practice are not that hard, actually. This is challenging because you're willing, just by being here, to care about whether you're disappointing others, to care about the quality of

[37:38]

you know, whether you react to being called a jackass or not, you actually are paying attention to what it's like to be the human being sitting on your cushion or chair now. And, you know, I just want to say, great, you know, I just want to say how much I respect each of you who is here, just because you're willing to try this on. You're willing to be yourself. in some way, and we're still, all of us in some ways, at times we might try and run away from ourselves. And it's okay to take a break, and it's okay to be nasty to your boyfriend sometimes, just to see what that's like, or whatever. More of any thoughts, comments?

[38:41]

And I had a great relationship with a perspective student for a few years. I think meeting you and being cranky when you want to be cranky, because that's just the way you feel. It's like you're teaching them something. Yeah. Make it real. Yeah. Yeah, so, you know, the idea that all Buddhists should be nice or whatever. Those are the delusions about enlightenment. That's like the merit thing, hey? Yeah, exactly. That's happening about like, oh, I do all this stuff and so on. I need people to think I'm nice. Yeah, or whatever you think you think you should be, you know, or somebody else thinks you should. How do we just find the way to be ourselves? But also pay attention to it. And if you don't like it when you're being cranky, if you think, I don't really want to treat my boyfriend that way, then maybe you might shift how you do that.

[40:22]

But you have to feel what you feel. I mean, part of me would like to be super nice all the time, but I can't do it. That's sweet. Is there anybody else here who would like to be super nice all the time? There are a few people who would like to be nice all the time, and that's very nice.

[40:45]

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