Today I would give a post-Halloween talk. Because here we are in our first reign. And the world is tipping. Now last week we had Halloween, and then All Saints Day, and then All Souls Day. And we're moving, we've moved into Scorpio. the dark water and I was watching a leaf on a tree a yellow leaf that was just twisting on its stem and thinking of my mother who's 91 waiting in her recliner I thought of myself.

[01:03]

It was the 60th birthday coming up. And of all the children at Halloween that put on their costumes and eat candy, maybe you're a little bit scared. So We're in that time of year where we connect with the unseen. And I wanted to begin by chanting the gate of sweet dew. This really beautiful chant we chanted last week at the Sagaki ceremony, and in the middle of all the costumes and the processions and the party to come, somehow I realized I was chanting it quickly and not really feeling what it was.

[02:28]

So let's chant it again. the Gate of Sweet Dune. Homage to the Buddhas in the Ten Directions. Homage to the Dharma in the Ten Directions. Homage to the Sangha in the Ten Directions. Homage to our original teacher, Shakyamuni Buddha. Homage to the great believer of suffering, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. homage to the Venerable Avalokiteshvara, the dealer of the teaching. Giving rise to the Bodhi mind, we respectfully hold one bowl of pure food. We offer it to all the hungry ghosts in all ten directions, extending to the end of the vast emptiness and encompassing every minute particle of the Dharma realm. We sincerely hope that each and every one of you will receive our offerings, turn it over, and pass it on to all Buddhas, Arhats, and sentient beings throughout the realm of vast emptiness.

[04:01]

May you and all sentient beings together be fully satisfied. Again, we hope your bodies will be conveyed by these offerings and mantras so that they may let go of all suffering, be born in heaven, receive joy, and lay freely in the Pure Lands of the Ten Directions. We support you in producing the awakened mind, practicing the Way of Bodhi, moment by moment becoming Buddha without unresting. Again, we hope you and everyone, David and I, without end, will sustain and protect us so that our vows will be fulfilled. Thus, we offer this flute to you. We convert and dedicate the merit of

[05:02]

We turn it over and dedicate it to the unsurpassed Bodhi and all the liberating insights. We hope for your swift attainment of Buddhahood, freed from unfortunate retribution, in an all-conscious life within our morale. So this is one of our great Mahayana chants. Earlier this year I gave a class in the Lotus Sutra and this is the same kind of Mahayana enormous assembly invoking the throngs of all the living and deceased and all the different forms of life, embracing all of our experience and welcoming it.

[06:17]

In our practice we have this contrast between the very simple sitting on black cushions and this kind of baroque operatic circus. when I went to Rinzong in Suzuki Roshi's temple I was surprised to see in the Buddha hall the ornate Baroque kind of gold flowers and purple crimson hangings and all the stuff in the middle of the very plain simple and beautiful temple. So our practice has these different elements.

[07:22]

The gate of sweet dew, the name of this chant, sweet dew is a synonym, means ambrosia or nirvana, the gate of nirvana. So this morning we ate our breakfast and then the time came for us to wash our bowls and we chant as the server comes with water. We're given water to put in our bowls and we clean our bowls with the water and then we take a sip of it and then the server comes and the water is offered and we chant. The water with which we wash these bowls tastes like ambrosia. We offer it to the various spirits to satisfy them. Om Mankalasaya Svaha. So, the first time that happened to me, it seemed odd to compare dishwater to ambrosia.

[08:35]

It's quite a long space. But as I discovered, sitting, when you sit a Sesshin, particularly when you sit a multi-day Sesshin, by the third, fourth, fifth day, the water, the dish water with which I wash the bowls begins to have a very lovely taste, kind of, is a summary of the past meal. And I know that I'm really settling down as the dishwater does turn to ambrosia. So that's our practice. That's the kernel of our practice, is this enormous seeing. is eating, somehow, this enormous seeing and offering up again.

[09:50]

Giving rise to the Bodhi mind, we respectfully hold one bowl of pure food. We offer it to all the hungry ghosts in all ten directions, extending to the end of vast emptiness and encompassing every minute particle of the Dharma realm. We respectfully hold one bowl of pure food. So that's our offering mind, giving rise to Bodhi mind, just emptying for this moment ourselves. We respectfully hold one bowl of pure food, this one act Samadhi. We do one offering, one action, completely and wholly. We just sweep the floor. We just walk out the door.

[10:55]

This is our offering. To all the hungry ghosts in all ten directions, So our experience of the hungry ghosts, the hungry ghosts most literally are these beings with very large stomachs and very tiny necks who are perpetually unsatisfied and always hungry and never able to fill the big belly because of the thin neck. So our experience of the hungry ghosts is very Pervasive and intimate. You wake up in the morning and there's maybe this trace of dreams and then what thought comes into your mind first?

[12:04]

What thought from where? And the day begins. which we often think of as my day. But whose day? We think of it as my day and also think of it as the hungry ghost's day. Where do these thoughts come from? Where do the happenings that we will move through hour by hour, where do they come from? So already we put feet on the floor, walk out of the bedroom and we're immersed in this big world of hungry ghosts, demons, spirits. And so it makes a lot of sense to come to the Zen Do and sit down with a straight back and breath after breath

[13:12]

meet this big world. And that's how our practice is offering. So the hungry ghosts have an internal aspect and an external aspect. Now, as we practice inside and outside, the boundaries get blurred. But inside we are continually hosts to the hungry ghosts. There's a story about Milarepa, who was the Tibetan saint, who brought Buddhism to Tibet. Well, I'm not sure of that. Anyway. Milarepa came home one day to his cell and discovered that the demons had taken over.

[14:17]

There was a demon sitting in his seat, a demon lying in his bed, a demon eating his food. And he was affronted. Being a saint, he thought for a minute and considered what he should do and decided that he ought to preach the Dharma to the demons. So he did. And they just sat there continuing to do what they wanted to do. And so then he had to think again. And he decided that what he needed to do was to offer the demons some food. So he made a dinner and he offered the food to the demons. And at that they all left except for the worst one. And the worst one just sat in his seat and sneered and had ugly teeth. And so Milarepa thought again, what should he do?

[15:17]

And he realized that what he needed to do was to go and to put his head in this demon's mouth. And when he did that, that demon too dissolved. So, how are we hospitable to our hungry ghosts that inhabit our mind. Our first response is often to be affronted and try to slam the door. And another response is to reason with them why they shouldn't be there and why we don't like them. But our practice tells us that what we need to do is make some kind of offering. We need to give these hungry ghosts the offering of our attention.

[16:20]

We need to know who they are. And until we do that, we get bossed around by them. So it takes a lifetime probably to learn this, but little by little we learn it because it's true. Given the offering of our attention, and finally to put our heads in their mouths, to really just allow them to be there, breath after breath, what does it feel like? in the body-heart-mind. Where is the ghost in the body-heart-mind? Really allowing ourselves to embody its energy, to become that energy, put our heads in the mouth.

[17:25]

And when we're willing to do that, it's painful, but we live through it. We and the hungry ghost live through it together and there's some release. but it's hard work. Somebody said that karma is the way the world is continuously teaching us what we need to do in order to open ourselves. So if we don't learn what we need to learn today, the world is we'll almost invariably bring it up tomorrow or the next day again so we have another chance. Our hungry ghosts are very loyal. And in the next verse, the hungry ghosts are expanded.

[18:29]

We invite all deceased ancestors, the spirits of mountains, rivers, earth, and all the demons of untamed lands to come and assemble here. It's quite brave. Now, it's one thing to name these spirits, and by naming them, invoke them, but yet keep them at a little bit of a distance. But it's another thing to sincerely summon them. In the course of organizing an anti-gun vigil, yesterday I went down to the Oakland Police Department, the Homicide Office, and copied out of a large ledger the names of all the people who had been killed by gunfire since the last time I did this, which was April 1st of this year.

[19:41]

And I think that there were more than a hundred names. I didn't really count them. But I just kept copying them down, the name and the birth date, and making a little calculation about how old the person could be. Most people were in their thirties. Sort of trying to do it in a neat way so I wouldn't recopy it. And as I got two-thirds or so of the way down, I began to feel exhausted. Just wanting to go home and go to bed. A great weight. These demons of untamed lands. And as I was finishing up, I heard a couple of conversations.

[20:45]

There was a woman who was asking her boss about whether a suicide by gun should be investigated as a possible murder or not. And then there was another woman who was talking to somebody about the mother who made to drive into the lake herself. And again, I thought, demons of untamed lands, that how, what a tight knot our suffering takes. how it's very, so difficult to loosen that knot.

[21:51]

And then this morning, sitting here in the rain, I began to feel great sympathy for that mother. I have certainly done things in my life that I regret, and still feel some guilt about, and how easy it is to do something terrible, how capable of awful things we all are under just a kind of veneer, and how much we need protection. Feeling very tender about her, and how she must feel and what the world is saying about her. And in some way asking for her protection, me.

[23:08]

So we invite all these spirits and demons to come and we really make our vow to be there and to do our best and to meet them inside and to meet them outside. Bernard Glassman, Tetsugan Sensei, who is a Dharma heir of Maezumi Roshi, and is one of our, perhaps our leading model of Zen and social action, where he set up a center in Yonkers, a very multi-faceted social service center for homeless and poor people. He said that he doesn't go out and try to help people because he's a nice guy.

[24:24]

That he goes out and tries to help people because in helping people whom society has rejected, he meets the rejected parts of himself. And he saves himself. I was working the other morning with Dolly and the Dorothy Day in the shelter kitchen in the veterans' building. And there are two shifts that make breakfast every day. The first shift, you get there at 5.30 and you're done at 7, so it's a sort of Zazen equivalent. Then the second shift, people go out to the park. So we were working and this old guy comes in, whom people call Pops, old guy, he's probably my age, possibly younger.

[25:34]

He's really thin and scrawny and he doesn't have any teeth and he coughs. He has chronic pneumonia. He came into the kitchen and he asked if it would be okay if he got a cup of coffee. And it's really not. You're really not supposed to allow people in the kitchen. But he was there. And so he got himself a cup of coffee. And sort of hung out a little bit. And I was trying to make Farina cream of wheat without lumps at the stove and it was vigorous, it was lumping and it was very hot and there were huge kettles and he came up right close to me as I was stirring and he said that he'd waked up in the shelter and he'd heard people in the kitchen

[26:42]

And he thought to himself, they're not getting paid to come here. They're coming here because of love. And he said, you're standing here because of love. And where love is, God is. How fortunate I was, how protected I was to have said yes to Pops when he came into the kitchen. So with compassion and empathy we offer each of you food. And we sincerely hope that each and every one of you will receive our offerings and turn it over and pass it on to all Buddhas, arhats, and sentient beings throughout the realm of vastness.

[27:55]

So when we do make this kind of connection, when we pay attention to our hungry ghosts inside, outside, and meet the demons, There's some kind of energy that's released. That releases us, and that releases things. This total dynamic working of Kathagiri Roshi, so to say. This whole great Mahayana panorama. That when we make these small connections, there's a big meeting. A big energy. Again, we hope you and everyone, day or night without end, will sustain and protect us so that our vows will be fulfilled.

[29:07]

As we walk the way, that's our hope. The kanji for way as we walk the way, is there are two elements in it. One is the element of face, and the other is the element of feet. So our way is just our feet following our face. So we just walk our way. and we may know it or not. I never can remember these. And the Sando Kai. If you do not see the way, you do not see it, even if you are actually walking on it.

[30:14]

When you walk the way, it is not near, it is not far. you are diluted, you are mountains and rivers away from it. So we walk what we sometimes imagine is our single way, and when we forget it's everybody's way, we're diluted, and mountains and rivers away from it, but our feet are always on the way. And our job is just to keep opening. with the protection of all these spirits and demons. Because we can't, there's no way we can open by ourselves. It's no way that we can walk the way without offering.

[31:20]

St. Thomas says that the gifts, what you bring forth that is within you will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. So it's a serious business. The business of opening up. If you don't open up, there's vast suffering. If you do open up, it's the gate of sweet dew. Sometimes it's useful to To think of our karma and our face, what was our face before our grandmother was born.

[32:23]

Think of our particular place in this whole great scene. To ask, what was my assignment? A friend and I were talking about this the other night. I asked him, what's your assignment? This is a person who has come from Asia to Berkeley. He's come a long way. His life is a kind of bridge. And he said, my assignment is simply not to pass on all the difficulties that my parents gave me to my children. And I asked someone else what her assignment was. This is somebody who does a lot of generous work with prisoners. And she said, my assignment is to forgive. So it's good from time to time to ask, what's my assignment?

[33:31]

Again, we hope you and everyone, day and night without end, will sustain and protect us, so that our vows will be fulfilled. Thus we offer this food to you. We convert and dedicate the merit of this offering to all sentient beings in the Dharma realm, so they may all receive it equally. All Dharmas are equal. The demons, the benevolent spirits, our happy states, our miserable states, they're all equal. And the merit, now whenever we chant in the Sendo, we always have an echo that gives away the merit. And the merit is really just the giving away, the letting whatever goodness may have come through us to passing it on. So that we are just recycling.

[34:47]

This whole chant is a chant about recycling. And that when we really get become proficient in recycling, we can make complete offerings of our merit. Even to the point where, if we're sick, we can say, if I get sick, if I get well, so be it. If I die, so be it. It's kind of the of allowing things to go through us. Not in a passive way, but in a wholehearted way. May all conscious life of the Buddha realm be conveyed in this way quickly to accomplish the Buddha's way.

[35:58]

all conscious life. So this is our conscious effort. And I would like to end by reading a Christian take on this recycling effort. It's a story by a desert father. And it comes back to this conscious effort. What am I? Who is this? I am a monk myself. And one question I really wanted to ask was, what is a monk? Well, I finally did. But for an answer, I got a most peculiar question. Do you mean in the daytime or at night? Now what would that mean? When I didn't answer, he picked it up again.

[37:03]

A monk, like everyone else, is a creature of contraction and expansion. During the day, he is contracted behind his cloistered walls, dressed in a habit like all the others, doing the routine things you would expect a monk to do. At night, he expands. The walls cannot contain him. He moves throughout the world, and he touches the stars. Oh, I thought, poetry. To bring him down to earth, I began to ask, well, during the day in his real body, wait, he said. That's the difference between us and you. You people regularly assume that the contracted state is the real body. It is real in a sense. But here, we tend to start from the other end, the expanded state. The daytime state we refer to as the body of fear.

[38:07]

And whereas you tend to judge a monk by his decorum during the day, we tend to measure a monk by the number of persons he touches at night and the number of stars. A Sunday lecture at Ringgolz last Sunday, Norman Fischer talked about Sagatki ceremony and how Ringgolz is an image. He said that one of the nice things about Sagatki ceremony is that we're all together so that we can create a safe place and a ritual where we can invite these demons to come, and that some of the time

[39:12]

We may not want to look our hungry ghosts directly in the eye, because they can be extremely persuasive, seductive, dangerous, and we may get drawn in and pulled off course by them, and we may just need to look at them out of the corner of our eye, kind of when we're there. But in Sagapi ceremony, we can come together. And those two things go together. Those two different ideas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think it takes a lot of grounding to put your head in the mouth of the demon. And there's something wonderful about the progress of practice that actually If we are practicing with commitment and stability, and we're not extremely upset, we don't put our head into the demon's mouth until we're ready to.

[40:32]

But there's a kind of, that the internal teacher very accurately gives us what we need next to work on. But we certainly need each other's help. And sangha is what that's about. And I think our rituals give us comfort and sustenance and protection. Do you think maybe Milarepa also knew at some level that he wasn't all by himself Well, I thank you very much for this talk. I found it profound, and I was looking at my social demons and my internal demons.

[41:39]

When you talked about the mother who apparently murdered her own children, and I remember not so many years ago coming to terms with that there was a point in my childhood where my mother clearly did want to kill me, and that there was a point in my being a mother where I didn't want to kill my children, but what I was doing was denying some of their aliveness in my, you know, obsessive behavior, which isn't so unusual, but to look at that square on It really is like putting your head in the mouth of the demon. And then I also think about the social thing, especially with the election. The demons that seem to be unleashed and flying around and really strongly interacting with everyone's opinions.

[42:52]

They really are like demons. It's a wonderful way to look at that. And then I also thought about the Stones concert in this song, I Can't Get No Satisfaction, and I thought, you know, this is just the expression of our demons that we live with, with this forever dissatisfied, almost unsatisfiable way, and when you say that, that we can offer to demons. We can offer attention to these demons as a way of satisfying them. It's quite profound. What does it mean when they sit in the ten directions? I don't know. I don't know. And I wish I knew. I made a five minute search in Mel's study for that. If anyone knows. It's a Mahayana list, because it's ten.

[43:55]

Well, I do think in Aikido they talk about ten directions, and the ten directions are just eight compass points, and up and down. And it means everywhere. I see what you mean. Well, that's satisfying. We just are numberless.

[44:29]

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