Good morning. It's a beautiful morning, the first weekend of autumn of this year. It's really, really nice out. So today we're having a fundraising event right after this lecture, which will have food and wonderful music and a variety of activities, and a raffle, and salient raffles, and a tour of one of our remodeled apartments. And all of this is the arising of dana, or generosity, in this community as it arises in our practice and in our life. And as it's a core, it's one of the perfections, the first perfection of the Bodhisattva, dana, generosity, the paramita, or as Suzuki Roshi put it, dana prajna paramita, because this act of free giving is suffused with wisdom.

[01:29]

with selfless wisdom, unselfcentered wisdom. So I'm going to talk about that a little today. And at the same time, I feel pulled. I don't feel like I can sit here in this seat and not acknowledge the the police killings of Terence Crutcher in Tulsa and of Keith Lamont Scott in Charlotte, North Carolina. And then it seems this morning there was a mass shooting in Burlington, Washington of still undetermined course. And I think that the the gunman is still at large. So this, obviously, there's fear and there's violence that is deeply imprinted in our society and it's deeply imprinted in each of us and I'm no exception to that.

[02:54]

And I don't have any effective systematic idea of how to transform that. There are various approaches that I think would be useful. And quite frankly, I think the most useful thing would be just get rid of guns. Because all of us have afflictive emotions, fear, all of us have violence within us. And when there's a gun at hand, it's going to get used. So I'm not going to expand on that much. but it's certainly something I think that each of us needs to be talking about.

[04:03]

In our day-to-day life, we need to be talking about that as a question as we decide whom we wish to vote for in the upcoming elections. And what we need to do is to turn this inside out It's not that we're going to get rid of the fears that we have. But the action of giving, which involves the identity of the giver, the receiver, the gift, the mutuality of receiving and giving. That has, to me, that's a context for transforming our behaviors, transforming what we do in the world so that when we give, we give as Buddhas rather than giving as

[05:26]

deluded beings. So I just felt that, yeah, I could not sit here and not acknowledge that that's happening. And I'm also hoping having, you know, kind of opened this really painful subject, I'm also, there's room for, there's room for joy, there's room for celebration, there's room for community. And to me, community, in the widest sense, our recognition of our mutuality is, the best remedy I can think of, the best antidote I can think of for the more negative sides of our society.

[06:35]

So we're going to have, hopefully we'll have a good time this afternoon, this morning and at a certain point I'm going to steal away to the park behind City Hall because there's an old-time music festival going on this weekend. There's a contest, which I'm expecting to lose. But we'll play old-time music. So this word, Donna. You find it in Sanskrit and Pali, and we translate it often as generosity or giving. It also means letting go, relinquishing. But in that, at the essence of dana is

[07:45]

the creation of relationship. So I've often talked, in the past, I've, I come back to a book that some of you may have read by Lewis Hyde. It's called The Gift. Has anyone read it? Yeah. It was one of our Dharma sister Meili Scott's favorite books. And it's a, it's a kind of, a view that includes anthropology, it includes spirituality, it includes psychoanalysis, it includes literature, and it looks at the way giving and receiving shape the world that we encounter as individuals and as a community. So in Buddhist terms, there's constant flow of giving.

[08:55]

On the most basic level, there's the giving of material things, of food, medicine, shelter, clothing. And then there's also the giving of the teachings, which is partly what we do here every Saturday. We share the Buddhist teachings. And interestingly, in the conventional interpretation of Dhana, there's also the giving of fearlessness. that that's one of the highest and deepest gifts and that's actually, it's not separate from the teaching of Dharma because this fearlessness is at the heart of our aspiration to be able to meet each circumstance, each moment as it arises from this moment right now

[10:11]

to the last moment and last breath of our life. And on the highest level, by the way, they're having a ceremony down the block at the Thai temple. I think it might be the end of the rains retreat, I'm not sure. Does anyone know? Anyway. within this act of giving his connection and relationship. And so, Lewis Hyde talks about this. There's a story that he tells about having dinner in an inexpensive restaurant in a village in the south of France. He writes, the patrons sit at a long communal table, and each finds before his plate a modest bottle of wine.

[11:21]

Before the meal begins, one person will pour wine not into his or her own glass, but into his neighbor's. And the neighbor will return the gesture, filling the first person's empty glass. In an economic sense, nothing has happened. No one has any more wine than they would have if they had poured their own glass. But society has appeared where there was none before. Relationship has appeared. This is very much, you know, If you visit Japan, the custom is to pour tea for the person you're next to. And the same thing with sake.

[12:25]

So it's all within this context of building a relationship. And if we're looking at things through an economic lens, well, That doesn't make any sense. You could just as well have poured the wine for yourself. But there's something different going on. And that is dana prajnaparamita. And so it's this circular activity of, it's a living ritual. ritual, not in some dry sense, but in a beautiful, warm human sense. Often when you Google these Buddhist or Zen topics,

[13:27]

It's often not surprising that what comes up is some lecture by Sojan. That's because, well, they're really good lectures, but it's also because for years, we used to post our lectures, we used to post, and we still do post excerpts of lectures online, and that's all searchable. And, you know, there may be more of your lectures than most other people. That's a good thing. Yeah. That may be, you know. But there's a lecture that from Chapel Hill Zen Center that I came across this week. about Donna and Sojourner Roshi says, pure Donna is giving beyond any special purpose or attachment.

[14:38]

Giving for the sake of giving itself. Says we donate money or we give someone a present and we look for feedback. Can you put my name on a plaque? Or did you like it? There's generosity there. He says there's generosity there, but it's easily tainted. There are many levels of generosity. Pure generosity is simply giving and forgetting. We say the emptiness of the giver, the gift, and the one who receives. So with an empty hand, I offer an empty gift to an empty receiver and pure gratitude arises. Simply giving is enough. Sometimes it is beneficial to give a gift anonymously. But even if we give a gift anonymously, we should be careful about pride.

[15:47]

All of these tainted aspects are dualistic. Ultimately, the greatest gift is a free offering. For a bodhisattva, for a zen, I'm still quoting from this lecture. For a bodhisattva, for a zen student, the gift of dharma is most important. Dharma is freely given without any thought of return. Throughout the year, we give zazen instruction to people, but never expect anything in return. Is there anyone who had zazen instruction this morning? Okay, wow, great. Welcome. We don't expect you to get your checkbooks out. Not necessary. But your being here really feels good. We simply give the gift without any expectation because giving without expectation is an expression of our inmost nature.

[16:57]

When we come to practice, this is ideally, but it's also actually. When we come to practice, we bring our ego and we lay it at the foot of the Buddha. Sometimes we may not be aware that that's what we're doing, but that's what we're doing simply by coming to practice and sitting zazen. We bring our ego and we lay it at the feet of Buddha. My old teacher used to say that we are half ordinary being and half Buddha. But when one finally comes to practice and has a realization of what that is, one can offer oneself to practice freely giving, even though problems arise. Sometimes we resist that. We have a resistance to the difficulties we experience. But nevertheless, even though there is resistance,

[18:02]

We freely give ourself without expectations. And little by little, our ego becomes absorbed by Buddha. Given time, I let Buddha lead and I follow. I think this is a really helpful teaching. I want to go back to something in that first paragraph and touch back with another piece by Lewis Hyde. So Sojin says, so with an empty hand, actually this is my favorite sentence of the whole thing, so with an empty hand I offer an empty gift to an empty receiver and pure gratitude arises. So this question of gratitude, this is part of the whole process of giving.

[19:12]

Gratitude arises, the ability to give can bring forth gratitude in a pure way in the giver. and it can bring forth gratitude in a pure way in the receiver. And so what Lewis Hyde says and says, the language is complicated, but I'd like to share this. I would like to speak of gratitude as a labor undertaken by the soul to affect the transformation after a gift has been received. Does that make sense? It's complicated. I would like to speak of gratitude as a labor undertaken. So it's the inner work that is not even necessarily consciously done.

[20:18]

It's the inner work. It's something that happens within us after a gift has been received. And I think it happens within both parties, the giver and the receiver. So then he says, between the time a gift comes to us, so somebody gives me this cup of water. And the time we pass it along, so I may, if you were all thirsty, which you may be, I would pass my cup to you. But between the time the gift comes to us and the time we pass it along, we suffer gratitude. That's a really interesting expression that's using the word suffer in a very broad sense. Like in the, I think it's a biblical line, suffer the little children, yes?

[21:24]

It means allow, that's right. So we allow gratitude, but there's something very subtle in the language that Luke Hyde is using here, I think, because there can also be this slight coloration of suffering, because we're aware that the gratitude is going to fade. The gratitude is of this moment. It's alive when the gift is being given. And then its moment will pass, which is actually fine. We can suffer. We can use suffer as allow. And if we're caught on ourselves, if we're caught in this matter of pride, as Sojourn Roshi was talking about, then we're going to suffer.

[22:32]

Because the good feeling that we have in the giving or in the receiving is only momentary. And the act is to keep this in circulation. So between the time a gift comes to us and the time we pass it along, we suffer gratitude. Moreover, with gifts that are agents of change, ideas, teachings, medicine, if you will, it's only when the gift has worked in us that we can give it away again. In other words, if we receive a teaching, until we have embodied that teaching, really taken it in, really digested it, we're not effectively going to be able to pass it along.

[23:42]

But if we have really taken it in, say, If you've been sitting, like today, I think that Courtney was a Zaza instructor. Right, so Courtney's been sitting here a long time. So she's let, she has suffered gratitude and let the gift, excuse me for, you know, I don't want to put you on the spot. But you know, you've allowed that gift to work on you so that you can freely offer it back to other people. Then it's free giving. So when it's with gifts that are agents of change, it's only when the gift has worked on us that we can give it away again. And passing along, he finishes this paragraph saying, passing along the gift is the act of gratitude that finishes the labor.

[24:46]

I would say passing on a gift is an expression of our gratitude that completes it. So if you think of the monastic, the Buddhist monastic tradition, if you go, you can still see this in South and Southeast Asia, Every morning, the monks and nuns go out on alms rounds. So they carry a big bowl. Sometimes it's just a big old metal bowl or lacquer. And they go from house to house. And at each house, where someone is able, they will put some food in the bowl. So they begin with by carrying around emptiness. You know, this empty thing which in a way is the embodiment of who we are.

[25:59]

And food is put in this bowl and they go back and they receive it gratefully because that is actually the food that they eat. And they eat, they're nourished, and then what they're doing is they're offering their practice back to the community. because they're offering their practice and because people see that these monks and nuns are practicing for everyone, people are happy to support them and give them food. And so this circle of giving begins or continues. Dogen Zenji, who we talk about endlessly here, spoke of Dana in a fascicle called the Bodhisattva Shishobo, the Bodhisattvas for embracing dharmas.

[27:29]

And it's very interesting, the beginning of this teaching, he says, giving or offering means not being greedy. So it means like not holding on, not wanting things, to hold onto these things for myself. And then he says, not being greedy means not to covet, not to want what others have. And then he goes to a really interesting place. He says, not to covet commonly means not to flatter. So he moves from this Bodhisattva principle of giving to what gets in the way for us in this practice of giving And then he sort of pinpoints it to, he zeroes in on how we relate to each other.

[28:44]

When you flatter someone, it's usually because you want something from them. In fact, I think it's invariably because you want something from them. You may want a word or phrase, you may want a material thing, you may want a verbal thing, or even just an attitude, but basically, he's saying that we should treat everything and everyone as a gift. And we should be freely in this cycle of giving and receiving and to be grateful for whatever is given to us, even when it's not given to us directly. And there's this beautiful line in this, again, in this first paragraph where he says, we give flowers blooming on the distant mountains to the Tathagata, to the Buddhas.

[29:56]

So we have the ability, because we are part of everything and everything is part of us, we can give what even doesn't seemingly belong to us. We can appreciate that and give it along and give it with gratitude. And this has the ability to return to the environment of fear that we encounter. Dobin says, when a person who practices dana, generosity, comes into an assembly, other people watch that person with admiration. we should know that the mind of such a person quietly reaches others.

[31:04]

And then he gets very practical. He says, to launch a boat or build a bridge is the practice of dana paramita. When we understand the meaning of dana, receiving a body, our body, and giving up our body are both offerings. Earning a livelihood and managing a business are nothing other than dana. Trusting flowers to the wind and trusting birds to the season may also be the beneficial action of dana. And then he has this zinger. It says, the mind of a sentient being is difficult to change. Well, duh.

[32:10]

It's like, we're really stubborn, which is a great quality, but it's difficult for us to change. And he says, we begin to transform the mind of living beings by offering material things, and we resolve to continue to transform them until they attain the way. The vastness or narrowness of mind cannot be measured. In other words, we can't say what's small or what's large. We just, we dedicate ourselves to this act of giving. And the greatness and smallness of material things, which can be given, cannot be weighed. But there are times when our mind turns things and there's offering in which things turn our mind. Those things are also, they're not just the things that are given, there's the,

[33:16]

the beings that are given, giving, and the act of giving itself. And that is transformative. So I'm going to stop there. I had promised to keep within a reasonable time today because we're supposed to go outside. But I wanted to create some, to offer some context for what we're doing here today. And it's not just we're doing this because there's a fundraising event. It's like we're giving and receiving every moment. Every breath is receiving and every exhalation is giving forth. And if we keep that in mind, we can suffer gratitude again and again.

[34:20]

Breath after breath. So if you have any comments or questions, we have a few minutes. Ross. Yeah, well, often that's words, right?

[35:31]

Words and thoughts, yes. Yeah. Often what happens for me is that I'll hear something that I perceive to be of that nature, and I have a reaction. And my practice is to watch that reaction and then to try not to be reactive, not to give that back. But I'm pretty much able at this point to, once I step back from the immediate neurotransmitters making me feel like I'd like to get a gun, which that doesn't happen.

[36:36]

But you want to have a retribution, perhaps. I sit with that, and I literally ask myself, what is the gift here? Is there something true? There's always something that I can learn, even in something that seems really off the wall or really painful. So I trust that. Yeah, I sort of play it by ear. I mean, thank you. If you can think thank you and say thank you, that's good. And in whatever the interaction is, thank you might be a provocative expression.

[37:42]

So I just play that by ear. But I also, I really do, I don't stop thinking about it. It's like, it'll stay with me until I have figured What is a nugget of truth in this? So I'm great. That's really, I think, something that comes with practice, I think. Judy? How would you say this connects to these very common phrases we have of giving in, giving up? Something about, I always say, when someone sits in that seat to say an encouraging word, I don't think, I mean I think that those words are quite ambiguous. I don't think that, I think there's a distinction between acceptance and resignation.

[38:49]

You know, giving in or giving up may be acceptance. It also may be resignation or just allowing yourself to be defeated. You know, allowing yourself to be oppressed. And, you know, I don't recommend that. And in order to, this is why we have Sangha. We have Sangha so that we have friends who have hopefully wholesome values. When the question comes up, am I letting go or am I giving up? There's a difference between those. But sometimes I can't see that With total clarity myself, I need the help of friends. Yeah, Laura. So I encounter in my daily life and work individuals, organizations, institutions that are pretty driven by greed and there's some ceiling that goes on.

[40:05]

How do I express and I think, you know, I go back to something in a sermon by Martin Luther King that I've spoken of before. You distinguish between the individual and the action. What Dr. King says is you love individuals, which does not necessarily mean like them, right? but you clearly take a position in relation to actions. So, I mean, I think in a practical way, it means not turning away from any being, not rejecting the person,

[41:21]

But sometimes, it's like in the song that I sing, Our Hero, about the bodhisattva never disparage, there's a great line where it says, he just runs off to a safe distance. Then he turns around and says, I will never disparage you. It's like, yeah, you have to have some boundaries. You have some distance. you have to be careful, but still recognize, even in these greedy beings, there's the workings of Buddha. Not what their actions are, but who they are. So, if that makes sense. I think we need to end, but thank you very much.

[42:14]

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