Good morning. And happy Enlightenment Day. So 2,500 years or so ago, actually it's usually celebrated December 8th. Today's the 7th here, but in China and Japan this is the 8th. So anyway, 2,500 years ago, Shakyamuni Buddha, sat up all night under the Bodhi tree and in the morning saw the morning star and awakened, became the awakened one, the Buddha. So we celebrate this as Enlightenment Day. So I wanted to talk today about enlightenment. And usually In the tradition I'm trained in, in Suzuki Roshi's lineage, we don't talk so much about enlightenment, because it's kind of a dangerous word, because you might think there's such a thing as enlightenment, but enlightenment isn't a thing.

[01:22]

Maybe it's a verb. Anyway, Dogen says in Genjo Koan that deluded people have delusions about enlightenment. So having heard this word, you probably all have such delusions. This is very natural, that we have delusions about some wonderful realm of enlightenment that exists someplace If we could only, whatever. So we think we need, we hear this word enlightenment and we think we need to, that there's something that we need to get or that we need to get higher or that we need to be somebody other than who we are. And when you think that, that's actually an enlightened thought because enlightened people are enlightened about their delusions. as Dogen says, so when you are sitting and aware of your restlessness or fidgeting or sleepiness or wanting to be somebody or someplace else than where you are on your cushion, that's this basic delusion and that's what we need to be enlightened about.

[02:51]

The ways in which we are not what we think enlightenment is. So actually the initial word in Sanskrit, bodhi, just means awakening, just means to wake up. And Buddha is the one who awakened. But then we think that when we hear that, that we might think that there's a state called awakening, as opposed to some state called sleeping, or dreaming, or confusion. So if you're sleeping or dreaming, please completely be awakened about your sleeping and dreaming. So again, it says in one essay that Buddhas and ancestors awaken in a dream.

[03:52]

and all of Buddha's wonderful talks are merely talks in a dream. So please enjoy the dream that you are in. Please be present in your dream. Study your dream carefully. Sometimes we may even find ourselves in the same dream for a little while. Now, I don't know if that's my dream or your dream, or Buddha's dream, or Chinua's dream. But anyway, whether we think it's the same dream or a different dream, please just enjoy and be completely present in this dream. So this is a tricky business because this realm of awakening, this realm of completion and wholeness, this realm of enlightenment, is not something we can know.

[05:10]

You know, we're all pretty much more or less middle class American white folks here. So we like to know things. So you should know that you have a hang up about wanting to know things. Study that too. So in this essay, Only a Buddha and a Buddha, that I want to talk about a little bit again today, Dogen says, Buddha Dharma cannot be known by a person. He begins by saying, Buddha Dharma cannot be known by a person. Sorry. So inasmuch as we are human-type beings, people, good people, sons and daughters of good family. We cannot know Buddhadharma because our knowing is this realm of delusion.

[06:24]

It doesn't mean it's bad, but you should know that you can't know. Or if you know that, then don't know that either. He says, for this reason, since olden times, no ordinary person has realized Buddhadharma. No practitioner of lesser vehicles has mastered Buddhadharma. Because it is awakened by Buddhas alone, it is said in the Lotus Sutra that only a Buddha and a Buddha, only a Buddha together with a Buddha, can thoroughly master it. Only a Buddha and a Buddha can thoroughly fathom the depths of this wonderful awakening. So, if you'll forgive a little history here, actually in the Sanskrit Lotus Sutra, so I have my lotus with me today, in the Sanskrit Lotus Sutra, it just says only Buddhists can know this, can thoroughly know this.

[07:35]

But Kumarajiva, the great Central Asian translator of sutras to Chinese, he lived in Central Asia. Maybe he was from Afghanistan, I don't know. Anyway, somewhere in that area. He said only Buddha and Buddha, or together with. So since then, in China and Japan and East Asia generally, And maybe not just because of that translation, although as a translator, I like to think of the power of translation. But anyway, in East Asia, maybe more than in South Asia and India, this practice, we emphasize doing it together in relationship. So student and teacher or student and the teaching, the Sutra, the Dharma. So we awaken to something, but then we have to check it out with Buddha, with someone a little more experienced.

[08:47]

So our practice is something we do together. In the Bodhisattva way, the way of awakening for all beings, we don't... Actually, it's not possible to awaken by yourself, for yourself. We actually awaken with people, even though people cannot know Buddhadharma. But when a person and a Buddha get together, then there's just Buddhas. So there is part of all of us sitting here, you couldn't be here, you couldn't be doing this practice, you couldn't be, you wouldn't have even been interested enough to show up today if you didn't have some relationship to this reality that Buddha awakened to. And as a person you can't know it.

[09:52]

This is kind of a problem for us, but I'd suggest also that it's okay. That this is actually the way things are and that we can study this awakening and see the deluded people that we are and be very careful and aware of that and also kind of step out of the way of the Buddhas who are also talking together here. How do we consult with each other about this reality? So, you know, there is talking together, but there's also just how do we do this as we're sitting on our cushions silently next to each other, breathing in and out. This is also Buddha and Buddha. This is part of Buddha and Buddha.

[10:55]

So it also says in that section of the Lotus Sutra on skillful means that Buddhas appear in the world because they are suffering beings. The Bodhisattva of Compassion is the one who hears the suffering of the world. who is willing to look and hear and feel that. So without suffering, there wouldn't be any Buddhas. Wouldn't need any. They wouldn't bother to show up and turn the wheel and open up this possibility of awakening to something deeper than what we can know. So for people who, there are certain beings who don't know about suffering, or for whom it's difficult to know about suffering. Maybe they live in fancy places, I don't know, like Tiburon or someplace.

[12:09]

Probably there are Buddhas in Tiburon too, I don't know. But anyway, most of us know about suffering. We have difficulties and we read the newspapers and we know something about the pain of the world and of ourselves and our own hearts and our loved ones and friends. And so this is actually, you know, wonderful because it allows us to come in contact with Buddhas. It allows us to be Buddhas with Buddhas. And yet, it's beyond our knowing. So Dogen goes on, when you realize Buddhadharma, you do not think, this is enlightenment just as I expected. Even if you think so, enlightenment invariably differs from your expectation.

[13:10]

Enlightenment is not like your conception of it. Accordingly, enlightenment cannot take place as previously conceived. When we are awakened to Buddhadharma, we do not consider how awakening came about. We should reflect on this. What you think one way or another before enlightenment is not a help for enlightenment. So this awakening is beyond our ideas and conceptions of it. And yet we have to confess and admit the ideas and conceptions and delusions that we have about enlightenment, or whatever you think will solve all the problems, or whatever you, you know. We all have some idea about enlightenment. Maybe we have a very good, very refined, very well-honed idea about enlightenment. It's possible. It may be that your idea of enlightenment is very close to enlightenment's idea of enlightenment.

[14:19]

Still, that's not enlightenment. Suzuki Roshi once said, you know, you might get enlightened and not enlightened. So I don't know, he was kind of a funny guy sometimes. He also once said, the problem you have right now, you'll always have. So I don't know, some problems seem to go away. A month or so after I started sitting, I actually stopped smoking. It's true. So some problems you have might go away, but that's not the point. If enough of your problems go away, others will come. Or somebody else will show up and give you their problems.

[15:25]

Enlightenment is not a quick fix and it's not even a slow fix. It's not about that at all. And you know, most of what Dogen says and most of what can be said is about what it's not about. He goes on that although enlightenment is not like any of the thoughts preceding it, this is not because such thoughts were actually bad and could not be enlightenment. So awakening includes all of your ideas about it. It's just that they're not awakening. So this is actually true of anything. Nothing happens exactly. Don't think this is enlightenment just as I expect it. Even if you think so, enlightenment in a variable differs from your expectation. Is there anything that doesn't differ from your expectation?

[16:30]

This is certainly not the Dharma talk that you expected, if you did have such an expectation. It's not the one I expected either. So, here we are. So this is just about being, you know, alive. Like, present in this life with these problems, with the particular confusions and greed and anger and frustrations and outrage and so forth that we have in this world. And, you know, I can go on saying, reading some more about what Dogen says, it's not I also want to see if I can say something about what it is. What it is. I was once at a baseball game and the center fielder made a great catch and somebody near me said, what it is.

[17:39]

Here we are. Just this. So, it's okay that we have confusion and delusion and all of this stuff. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try and make it better. Doesn't mean we shouldn't try and help. Doesn't mean we shouldn't write to our congresspeople or whatever. But, um, You know, this is the world we're in right now. Strange as it is. And it's not like out there. It's not your idea of it because it's not something out there that you can have some idea about. So, you know, in Buddhism in Asia, you know, they mostly talk about emptiness.

[18:49]

I talk about cutting through delusions. I like to talk about connectedness, and I heard a Buddhist scholar say that that's really an American Buddhist teaching. I don't know, that was interesting to me, because I think about emptiness that way, that we're all connected. And it's there in Hawaii and in other parts of East Asian Buddhism, but, you know, I think it's helpful for us to think about emptiness in that way, that we're all connected, that everything is connected, that everything that happens, you know, this ecological sense of enlightenment. So, you know, my ideas about enlightenment that aren't enlightenment, you know, are like the, what is that butterfly that is flying and it changes everything? What's that story? Do you know what I'm talking about? One butterfly fluttering its wings somewhere in Asia has an effect all over the world.

[19:51]

Everything that we do actually has an effect. So the world is not out there. We are it. Or we are not it, but it is us. So it's not separate from us. It depends on us. George Bush couldn't have stolen the last presidential election if enough people didn't say, well, it's OK, go ahead, George. What happens in the world depends on us. It's connected to us. It's not outside us. What happens in the world is... And then, of course, there are many worlds, so our idea of the world isn't the world either.

[20:56]

Whatever we expect to happen in the world isn't the real world. And yet, here we are. This is it. Enlightenment Day, 2002, and you are there. So it doesn't depend on our ideas about it, and yet It couldn't exist at all if any one of you weren't right here, now. It wouldn't be what it is. So Declan goes on, it is worth noticing that what you think one way or another is not a help for enlightenment. Then you are cautious not to be small-minded. If enlightenment came forth only by the power of your prior thoughts, it would not be trustworthy. Enlightenment does not depend on thoughts, but comes forth far beyond them.

[22:00]

Enlightenment is helped only by the power of enlightenment itself. No, but then there is no delusion and there's no enlightenment. So, Tenzin does give some practical, I think very practical kinds of suggestions, instructions here, so that's why I wanted to read some of this. He says, when you have unsurpassed awakening, you are called Buddha. When a Buddha has unsurpassed wisdom, it is called unsurpassed wisdom. Not to know what it is like on this path at this time is foolish. What it is like is to be unstained. To be unstained, you know, it doesn't mean that there isn't suffering and foolishness and craziness in the world.

[23:03]

It just means that it's unstained, it's undefiled. To be undefiled does not mean that you try forcefully to exclude intention or discrimination or that you establish a state of non-intention. So if you try and get rid of your ideas about how things should be, that's not it. One common available delusion about enlightenment is that just to get rid of all of our delusions would be enlightenment. just as it is right now. How can we actually be here in this world, in this way? Darwin says, being undefiled cannot be intended or discriminated at all.

[24:08]

Being undefiled is like meeting a person and not considering what she looks like. Can you meet a person and not consider what he looks like? Can you actually meet a person? If you can, then maybe you can also meet a Buddha without considering even appearances. Also, it is like not wishing for more color or brightness when viewing flowers or the moon. Can you imagine some people might see a flower and want it more color? Can you enjoy a flower that's kind of pale and pasty? Spring has the voice of spring. Autumn has the scenes of autumn.

[25:11]

There's no escaping it. When you want spring or autumn to be different from what it is, notice that it can only be as it is. When you want to keep spring or autumn as it is, reflect that it has no unchanging nature. So the unchanging nature is that it's constantly changing. I think this is good news, especially considering how terrible things are these days. It's going to change. And we're part of that. Now, this is accumulated is without self and no mental activity has self. The reason is not that one of the great elements or five skandhas can be understood as self or identified as self. The form of the flowers or moon in your mind should not be understood as being selves, even though you think it is a self. Still, when you clarify that there is nothing to be disliked or longed for,

[26:17]

then the original face is revealed by your practice of the way. So this is the practice of emptiness. When we see that actually there's nothing to dislike and there's nothing to yearn for, we can be right here in the way. And part of that is that we have to know what it is that we do just like, and what it is that we do here and for. So, again, enlightened people are enlightened about their delusions. So you don't have to study this enlightenment business, you know. Just keep seeing what your confusion is. You don't have to get rid of it even. Some parts of it may go away. Some habits just drop away. We no longer want to smoke a cigarette, or whatever.

[27:21]

Long ago, a monk asked an old master, when hundreds, thousands, or myriads of objects come up all at once, what should be done? The Master replied, don't try to control them. So actually we can't control all of the greed, hate, and delusion of the world. We can't even control all the greed, hate, and delusion that goes through our own thought stream. Try it sometime. You might get a headache. But how can we be present in it? How can we be awake to it? How can we be willing to be helpful, to be kind to the greed, hate and delusion and each other?

[28:35]

So when the Buddha awakened and became the Buddha 2,500 years ago, today or tomorrow, more or less. That was not the end of Buddhism. It was the beginning of Buddhism. So enlightenment is not some goal to achieve or attain. That's just the starting point of our practice. So the practice you are already doing, each of you, That practice is the expression of your awakening right now. It's exactly the practice being practiced by the awakening that is you, beyond your conceptions and knowing. Dōgen also talks about Buddha going beyond Buddha.

[29:48]

This enlightenment, this awakening right now is endless. It's vast as space and time. So we have a lot of work to do, obviously, each of us, and together. And yet it's all right here now. Don't try and get some enlightenment. Enjoy the enlightenment that is right here. Be awake to the awakening that is right here, instead of your delusions about it. This is the practice we do together. This is the practice of Buddhas together with Buddhas. And it's beyond. our human consciousness. It really is. That doesn't mean we should get rid of our human consciousness or conscience.

[30:51]

But don't get in the way of this other dimension that's going on right in our human world. Our human world needs it. So there is work to do and we don't know how to do it. and yet something's going on and we don't know what it is. So just by, you know, sitting and settling into our cushion and connecting to this deep, unfathomable reality, this place, you know, that we're all in some way channeling, This is the Buddha work. And I can't tell you how to do it, except that it's happening already. And each of us has our own particular way of expressing it.

[32:03]

Some of us may express it by playing the piano. Some of us may express it by gardening. Some of us may express it by going to demonstrations. Some of us may express it by writing poetry or riding horseback or going for a walk or enjoying a sunset. So we need to share that expression of what we don't know. Does anybody have any comments or questions to share? Okay. The word opening comes to mind for me that there's this process of being in a position of receiving.

[33:14]

So it's like opening of a lotus or a flower. And it's about receiving, yeah. It's about being receptive. It's about paying attention. It's about hearing each other and hearing the suffering of others and of ourself. So yeah, opening. But it's not passive. It's kind of responsive opening. We can hear each other's sadness and say, oh, I'm sorry. Or, can I help this way? Or just to say, yes, I hear you. Arlene. If this can happen, it can happen. Okay.

[34:20]

I know that there are actually meditation groups of people who work in the Pentagon. We don't know how it's happening. We can know that there are some pretty terrible things happening. If we look at that level of what's happening in the world and preparations for war and the plunder of the planet that's going on, for the profit of a few people. So this is suffering and we should know it. And yet we don't. I don't know what to do about it except to keep paying attention. And also it's not necessarily what we think it is. So our paying attention to what's going on makes a difference. If we just say there's nothing to be done or if we just feel overwhelmed or if we retreat in fear because our constitutional rights have been eroded and so forth and they can put us in jail if we speak too loudly or effectively.

[36:07]

I think it's important not to be afraid. So part of awakening is to be just willing to not know what to do. And I think there are probably, you know, I know there are good people who, on some level, who mean well, who work in the Pentagon. And actually it's, there are high-level people in the Pentagon who keep saying we shouldn't be going to war with Iraq. It's politicians who are pushing that. So it's, you know, it's complicated. And it's not even anyone, you know, it's not if we got, if we could put Cheney in Rumsfeld and pick any Condoleezza Rice and Ashcroft in prison, that wouldn't be enough because part of what's going on is this this idea that we could cut down all the forests to make a profit, the incredible delusion which is somehow pervasive enough that the media and enough people go along with it.

[37:25]

So those ideas, those delusions are the problem equally with any particular group of 3 or 5 or 10 people. So I don't know what to do. Anybody have any ideas? A friend said, send pink light. And I think that's like paying attention, but also being active. Mm-hmm. That's what I was thinking of. And I'm not saying that we shouldn't do any of these things. We do have to do all of them. But I guess part of my question is, Yes. I don't know how to say more. Well, I think it's a really important point because we can think of it in terms of good guys and bad guys and good ideas and bad ideas, but in some way, my delusion about Buddha's perspective is that from Buddha's viewpoint, it's all just the unfolding of karma.

[38:55]

Not in some predestined, static way, but that, you know, just like we can feel flowers opening and we can see, when we see practice working in individual people and our friends, it's like flowers opening, you know. But the whole, the whole world, you know, this particular planet of human-type diluted beings, you know, has its own unfolding. So, this, these events that have happened, you know, I think it's a coup anyway. The thing that's happened in the last couple of years in our government is part of the unfolding of a society that's in a culture that's built on Africans being brought over and enslaved for hundreds of years and native peoples being almost exterminated and thrown off their land and so forth.

[40:02]

I mean, there's a karma, a lawfulness, a process. So how could we, you know, when I was younger protesting the Vietnam War, we thought we could make a good society, you know, and it could happen pretty soon. But given the, you know, centuries of what's been going on, it's not going to happen that quickly. So I think we have to be patient and vigilant at the same time. We have to keep paying attention. And really, it's important not to be afraid. And there's good reason to be afraid, and that's why it's important not to be afraid. My friend Joanna Macy, I was talking with last night, is trying to set up a rough weather network for activists to understand their rights, the rights that are left in the Constitution, and what the police can do or can't do if they come into your house and stuff like that. and what the police can and can't do, you know, if you're at a demonstration and so forth. Anyway, it's easy to become afraid because, you know, the people who have this power seem to be pretty reckless and ruthless about it.

[41:13]

So I don't know if, you know, you asked me this question, so I'm saying all this. But it's really important not to be afraid and to keep speaking out because there's a lot of people who actually see through what's going on. But if we're all too afraid to talk, then it'll get worse. And maybe it'll get worse anyway. But it's not going to help anything to be afraid. Gary? Yeah, I was going to add that I read an article on the internet this week We're approaching it at the rate of 4,000 miles a second. So we think we have problems now. It happens to be the sun will compress to the size of a grapefruit and a mountain will be the size of a futon.

[42:26]

Nancy? I think it's important to keep our compassion alive by recognizing that the seeds of everything are in ourselves, that the violence is in ourselves, the dreams are in ourselves. You know, there's a question, I don't know, sometimes they don't want it to be violent. In other words, be aware of it. So maybe it's a matter of ignorance. I mean, I have these thoughts. I have these thoughts of revenge and violence and greed. And if I were more delusional than I am, maybe I would decide that I need to act on them.

[43:29]

And if that would be good, that would bring some goodness to the world. You know, the illusion that you could eliminate evil or control. So those are all, I feel like, All these processes that I can look at the administration and say that's what they're doing, that they have the illusion that they can control, that they can put goodness here and badness here, and all of that, I feel like, I mean, I can find that in myself also. I can find all that bad stuff in myself also. Yes. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't respond to it going on in the world around us, but yes, I think we should have... I think self-righteousness about those are the evil people and we are good, that's a problem.

[44:32]

It's a story of many, many hundreds of years old. It comes out of Tibet. It's a story of a Shambhala warrior starting to go into the halls of darkness. And with these two weapons, she was told that the weapons are one contention, and the other And those are our actions. Thank you. I'm very interested.

[45:59]

I don't know if you have a story or something that comes to mind. Well, I was just there for a week in October, and I was just in Beijing, and then one trip a little bit outside Beijing to see the Great Wall, which is very impressive. If we brought that along the Mexican border, it still wouldn't keep out all the Mexicans, just as the Great Wall in China didn't keep out all the northern barbarians. But there might be less of them. Well, there may be some people working on that.

[47:05]

There's a whole prison industrial complex just waiting. But I don't know that I have much insight to share. I mean, I wanted to thank you, Pam, for that story, that image, because I think, and I just wanted to add one thing to it, and I'll come back to China, but just that this idea of courage also has to do with our idea of faith. So in Buddhism, faith is not, you can say courage, or you can just say willingness or trust, or we keep going. We don't hold back from saying what we need to say, from seeing what we need to see, from trying to respond, from being present in it. Here, now. So I think that's really important. And if it helps you to call it courage, please. One of the great images of courage of the last century is the fellow standing in front of one person, standing in front of a tank. So I did go to Chenamen Square and there's nothing to see there now.

[48:10]

It's this big open square and there's... I'm sure I didn't bring with me my Mao lighter. I did find a red lighter with Chairman Mao's image on it, and you flick it, and there's the anthem of the Chinese Communist Party, and this red flame comes up, and it's so cool. But I didn't bring it with me, I'm sorry. But anyway, that's one thing I brought back from China. But I did go to Tiananmen Square, and there was nothing to see, really, except that I knew that, you know, I don't know how many thousand students were massacred there. It was in 1989. So I stopped and silently chanted the Enmei Jagu Kanonkyo and just felt them as much as I could, and then went on and looked at the Forbidden City, which is lots of old palaces of old emperors, you know, impressive in its own way. But, you know, that fellow standing in front of the tank, that's really impressive, you know. You've all seen that picture. So he may have ended up getting killed in what followed, or maybe not.

[49:15]

Who knows? He might be out there somewhere in China. I don't know what to say. It's a big, big booming economy. Huge skyscrapers, construction everywhere in Beijing. It's just a huge booming economy. When When our empire is finished, hopefully soon, they're going to take over. Anyway, it's a huge big economy, very modern, McDonald's and Starbucks and everything you might want. And then there's the Lama Temple there, which is a Tibetan Buddhist temple that was one of the main temples in Beijing, the jail on Lai Say from the Cultural Revolution. And it's filled with beautiful old Buddhas and monks. And some of the people I was with thought they might not be really monks. And one of them looked sort of like he had an eye on things, was more like a police or something, but most of them were really monks.

[50:16]

They were chanting and lettering sutras and looking, as they were sitting there, you know, to the side of these halls that tourists were coming through. They were monks, I was sure. So, I couldn't talk with them, I don't know how to speak Chinese. So there's something going on even in the middle of that. I think I vaguely remember reading that Dalai Lama said it was important that Chinese leave Tibetan Buddhism, and that that was where it might go. Yeah, well, actually, that was the main form of Buddhism in China over the last, or one of the main forms over the last few centuries, because the Manchus and the Mongol, the tribes that took power in the last few centuries, actually, they were more interested in Tibetan Buddhism. So it's complicated. And actually that temple there, it was a Golukpa temple. And they had, for those of you who know about Tibetan Buddhism, they had, the exhibit was focused on how the 17th, 18th century Chinese emperor had actually saved Tibetan Buddhism.

[51:29]

And they had the urn out of which they choose the Panchen Lama. And anyway, it was very much of a propaganda piece about how Tibetan Buddhism was really something that the Chinese had at least preserved, if not abandoned. But still, there were these amazing statues, and there were these real monks. So, again, we might feel like it's hopeless to have courage and be fearless, But right in the middle of, you know, paved over parking lot, blades of grass can sprout out in the middle of the concrete. So life is very tenacious. And it's going to take, you know, part of the Bodhisattva idea is that When this planet enters the black hole, there's other planets where there are other people doing this practice too. And maybe we've been there before and we'll be there after.

[52:31]

You have to have a long view at the same time that we should be concerned about the immediate possibility of George Bush announcing that no matter what the UN inspectors say, we have proof that we're not going to tell you that the Iraqis are bad and that we have to bomb them. And that might happen soon. And there are people who are planning to appear and demonstrate when that happens. And maybe we should organize about that, too, for those of you who are interested. But I think we can get crazy just feeling overwhelmed by what's happening right now. And we have to see that there are black holes all around it. Terry? Through a lot of the discussion this morning, the ideas of self and other seem to fit really well. If we are self-righteous and we see others as doing evil or being evildoers.

[53:35]

Or if we're afraid, we may be wanting to preserve self. And if we have the faith connection of no-self than the idea of preserving self. Yeah. Or we should preserve the self that includes everyone. We are connected. What happens to Janine, what happens to Terry, what happens to other Terry, matters to me, and vice versa. So I actually wanted to close with some announcements. Maybe first let's chant the Bodhisattva vows, and then I have some announcements.

[54:27]

@Transcribed_v004
@Text_v005
@Score_87.72