I vow to face the truth of the Tathagatagarbha's words. Good morning. In our class, we've been studying the six perfections or paramitas of the Bodhisattva. So today I'd like to talk about the Bodhisattva path from the point of view of the Paramitas, but in a little different way. The Paramitas are usually translated as perfections, and Paramita really means something like the other shore or going beyond. But perfection is the sort of thing that we very easily kind of get attached to, and getting better every day in every way, I'm getting better and better.

[01:16]

It tends to be our American way of practicing. In Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Suzuki Roshi tells about a student writing him a letter saying that, you sent me a calendar that has on every day an inspired quote and it's only February and already I failed to live up to these wise words. And Suzuki Roshi tries to caution us against using the Dharma or the practice as a way of making ourselves miserable. We shouldn't use the Dharma or our practice to put ourselves down or to become a perfectionist. Buddhism isn't perfectionism. Buddha means awake. And so we practice to become awake to what is.

[02:21]

And our vow as a bodhisattva is to awaken with all beings. to awaken with all beings to things as they are and to save all beings from suffering and confusion. And this is just an inconceivably large job to save all beings from suffering and confusion. So it requires that we cultivate the six perfections or paramitas which are generosity and discipline, patience, vigor concentration and wisdom. But the more we cultivate these qualities, the more we find that we can't perfect them or attain them or possess them. We can only aspire to them and go beyond them. So here's a Japanese folktale which is about the Bodhisattva way.

[03:26]

This is your story and my story. And this is a story about a journey, about a long journey. It's a long story. So please become the story as I read it. This is your story and your journey. And pretend that this is actually happening to you. Once there was a young woman who lived in a fragrant pine forest. Her husband was away fighting a war for many years. And when finally he was released, he trudged home in a most foul mood. He refused to enter the house, for he'd become used to sleeping on the stones. He kept to himself and stayed in the forest day and night. His young wife was so excited when she learned her husband was coming home at last that she cooked and shopped and shopped and cooked and made dishes and dishes and bowls and bowls tasty white soybean curd with three kinds of fish and three kinds of seaweed and rice sprinkled with red pepper and nice cold prawns, big and orange.

[04:37]

She carried the food to the woods and knelt beside her war-weary husband, offering him the beautiful food she'd prepared. But he sprang to his feet, kicked the trays over so that the bean curd spilled, the fish jumped into the air, the seaweed and rice spilled in the dirt. and the big orange prawns went rolling down the path. Leave me alone, he roared. And he turned his back on him. He became so enraged, she was frightened of him. And in desperation, she went to visit the healer who lived in a cave outside the village. My husband has been badly injured in the war, she said. He rages continually and eats nothing. He wants to stay outside and won't live with me as before. Can you give me a potion that will make him loving and gentle again? I can do this for you, the healer assured her. But I need a special ingredient. Unfortunately, I'm all out of hair from the crescent moon bear.

[05:41]

So climb the mountain, find the black bear, and bring me back a single hair from the crescent moon at its throat. Then I can give you what you need. and life will be good again. Some women would have felt daunted by this task. Some would have thought the entire effort impossible. But not she, for she was a woman who loved. I'm so grateful, she said. It's good to know that something can be done. So she got ready for the journey. And the next morning, we went to the mountain. And she sang out, Arigato Zaisho. which is a way of greeting the mountain and saying, thank you for letting me climb on your body. And she climbed to the foothills where there were boulders like big loaves of bread. She ascended to a plateau covered with forest. And the trees had long, draping boughs and leaves that looked like stars. Arigato zaisho, she sang out.

[06:44]

And this was a way of thanking the trees for lifting their hair so she could pass underneath. So she found her way through the forest and began to climb again. And it got harder. The mountain had thorny flowers that seized the hem of her kimono and rocks that scraped her tiny hands. And strange dark birds flew out at her in the dusk and frightened her. And she knew that those were spirits of the dead who had no relatives. And she sang out prayers for them. I will be your relative. I will lay to rest. And she kept on climbing, for she was a woman who loved. She climbed till she saw snow on the mountain peak. Soon her feet were wet, cold, and still she climbed higher, for she was a woman who loved. A storm began, and the snow blew straight into her eyes and deep into her ears. But she still climbed higher, even though she was blinded. And when the snow stopped, the woman sang a arigato zaisho, to thank the winds for ceasing to blind her.

[07:51]

She took shelter in a shallow cave and could hardly pull all of herself into it. And though she had a full pack of food, she didn't eat, but covered herself in leaves and slept. In the morning, the air was calm and little green plants even showed through the snow. Ah, she thought, now for the crescent moon there. She searched all day and near twilight found thick cords of scat and needed look no further for a gigantic black bear lumbered across the snowfall leaving behind deep pad and claw marks. The crescent moon bear roared fiercely and entered its den. She reached into her bundle and placed the food she'd brought in a bowl. She set the bowl outside the den and ran back to her shelter to hide. The bear smelled the food and came lurching from its den, roaring so loud it shook loose little stones. The bear circled around the food from a distance, sampled the wind many times, and then ate the food up in one gulp.

[08:56]

The bear reared up and disappeared into its den. The next evening, the woman did the same, setting the food in the bowl. But this time, instead of returning to her shelter, she retreated only halfway. The bear smelled the food, heaved itself out of its den, roared to shake the stars from the skies, circled, tested the air cautiously, but finally gobbled up the food and crawled back to its den. This continued for many nights, until one dark blue night, the woman felt brave enough to wait even closer to the bear's den. So she put the food in a bowl outside the den and stood right by the opening. When the bear smelled the food and lumbered out, it saw not only the usual food, but a pair of small human feet as well. The bear turned its head sideways and roared so loud it made the bones in the woman's body hum. The woman trembled, but stood her ground. The bear hauled itself onto its back legs, smacked its jaws, and roared so that the woman could see right up into the red and brown roof of its mouth.

[10:06]

But she didn't run away. The bear roared even more and put out its arms as though to seize her, its ten claws hanging like ten long knives over her scalp. The woman shook like a leaf in high wind, but stayed right where she was. Oh, please, dear bear, she pleaded. Please, dear bear, I've come all this way because I need a cure for my husband. The bear brought its front paws to earth in a spray of snow and peered into the woman's frightened face. For a moment, the woman felt she could see entire mountain ranges, valleys, rivers, and villages reflected in the bear's old, old eyes. A deep peace settled over her, and her trembling ceased. Please, dear bear, I've been feeding you all these past nights. Could I please have one of the hairs from the crescent moon on your throat? The bear paused and thought, this little woman would be easy food. But suddenly he was filled with pity for her.

[11:11]

It's true, said the crescent moon bear, you've been good to me. You may have one of my hairs, but take it quickly and leave here and go back to your room. So bear raised its great snout so the white crescent on its throat showed. And the woman could see the strong pulse of the bear's heart there. And she put one hand on the bear's neck and with the other took hold of a single glossy white hair. Quickly, she pulled it. The bear reared back and cried out as though wounded. And this pain settled into annoyed huffs. Oh, thank you, crescent moon bear. Thank you so much. The woman bowed and bowed. But the bear growled and lumbered forward a step. It roared at the woman in words she could not understand, and yet words she had somehow known all her life. She turned and fled down the mountain as fast as she could. She ran under the trees with leaves shaped like stars. And all the way through she cried, arigato zaisho, to thank the trees for lifting their boughs so she could pass. She stumbled over the boulders that looked like big loaves of bread, crying, arigato zaisho, to thank the mountain for letting her climb upon its body.

[12:22]

Though her clothes were ragged and her hair askew, her face soiled, she ran down the stone stairs that led to the village, down the dirt road, right through the town to the other side, into the hovel. where the healer sat tending the fire. Look, look, I found it. I claimed it. I got it. The hair of the crescent moon bear, said the young woman. Oh, good, said the healer. She peered at it closely and took the pure white hair, held it toward the light. She waved the hair in one old hand, measured it with a finger, and exclaimed, yes, this is an authentic hair from the crescent moon bear. And suddenly she turned, threw the hair into the fire, popped and crackled and was consumed in a great orange flame. No, cried the woman. What have you done? Be calm. It is good.

[13:25]

All is well, said the healer. Remember each step you took to climb the mountain. Remember each step you took to capture the trust of the crescent moon bear. Remember what you saw, what you heard, and what you felt? Yes, said the woman, I remember very well. The old healer smiled at her gently and said, please now, my child, go home with your new understandings and proceed in the same ways with your husband. We won't have time to examine every point of this story. But let's look at the story as if all the components are part of the woman's personality. Actually, as if all the components are part of our personality.

[14:30]

Because our understanding is that all sentient beings means saving all sentient beings in our own mind. So the husband represents anger, rage, ignorance, and the wife represents love and compassion and wisdom. And her determination to find a cure for anger, for ignorance, to find a way to live in peace, is our vow. And the story shows that Rage and love and courage and generosity are not stand-alone items. Each carries wisdom. Each can be our teacher, and each can lead us to enlightenment. But first, ignorance acts like the husband in the story.

[15:34]

It just doesn't want to talk, doesn't want to meet with us, just wants to rail or be left alone. And it's at this critical point that we call in the healer, that we arouse the thought of enlightenment, the Bodhi mind. The Bodhi mind sees through ego irritation and aggravation, So the healer represents this mind of enlightenment. The healer represents arousing the mind of enlightenment, which is always within us. And the woman's journey is the path. So you remember the Four Noble Truths. And the way to end suffering is to follow the path. And actually in Japanese folk culture there's a quest called Nyubu which means to go to the mountains to understand oneself.

[16:56]

And traditionally Zen students and Zen masters traveled on mountains to visit one another and masters lived on mountaintops and students went from mountain to mountain to study with them. particular teacher who was generally named after the mountain. But the mountain also represents our understanding of ourself and looking inside. So climbing the mountain is following, pursuing understanding, pursuing the understanding of our deepest self. Dogen said, to study the self is to forget the self and to forget the self is to be enlightened by all beings. And that's what happens.

[18:02]

In each step of the way the learning becomes more intense, more arduous until one reaches the top or ultimate wisdom. And there we meet the bear. And the bear represents our true nature, our unconditioned nature. But before we get there, we have to overcome a lot of obstacles. Rocks in the path. Trees blocking the path. And the trees with their leaves like stars hanging over the path that need to be lifted are the Veils of Illusion. And traditionally there are seven Veils of Illusion. And the woman thanks the obstacles. She thanks the mountain for letting her climb. She thanks the trees for lifting their branches so that she can pass. Suzuki Roshi used to talk a lot about being grateful for obstacles.

[19:12]

being grateful for difficulties, because these are opportunities. And one of the difficulties is fear, and the birds fly out of it. And the birds are the spirits of the dead, who have no one to grieve for them. And these are like the hungry ghosts, the disembodied spirits And next week we'll have a sagaki ceremony, which is a ceremony for appeasing the hungry ghosts. And there's a lovely essay on the hungry ghosts and the story of this tradition on the bulletin board, which I encourage you to read when you have a chance. The hungry ghosts, the realm of the hungry ghosts, hungry ghosts are usually drawn as creatures with huge bellies and very narrow throats.

[20:22]

They're very hungry, but they can never be satisfied. They're desperate. like those of us, or those aspects of ourselves that are desperate for the Teaching but won't listen, can't listen, can't absorb it, can't let it in. And our vow is to include these. The woman prays for them. She says, I'll be your relative. You are part of my family. And this is a very important part. Because these are the parts of ourselves that we become disconnected from. The path that we didn't take, our disappointments, the parts of ourselves that we don't like. And all these are our relatives.

[21:27]

We treat as our own relatives. So she gets up to the top of the mountain and she meets the bear, the unconditioned nature, which needs to be tamed. And she makes offerings and tames the bear. And they show each other great compassion. And this is like the absolute and the relative meeting like two arrows in mid-air. We chanted that this morning. When two arrows meet in mid-air, what does that have to do with the archer's skill? So she made some effort. The bear also makes some effort.

[22:29]

And somehow they meet. And the bear gives her his white hair, and she runs down the mountain with it, not forgetting to thank the mountain and the obstacles, which are still there, even after she's met her unconditioned nature. And she goes to the healer, who acknowledges her accomplishment and throws it away. And she doesn't like that. Can't hold on to her attainment. So this journey which looks like it has a beginning and a middle and an end isn't really that sort of journey.

[23:37]

So the healer tells her to take what she's learned and apply it in daily life. So we have a lot of stories about this in Zen. Ten ox-herding pictures. The monk returns to the marketplace with bliss-bestowing hands. And there's the story about jumping off a hundred-foot pole. And the story about meeting the Buddha and killing the Buddha. These are all one story. And so every day over and over again we sit and we bring our mind back to the present very patiently offering it our compassionate attention our concentration patiently and with great energy

[24:50]

Working so hard to achieve nothing. Nothing to attain. There's nothing left. The hair is all burned up in the fire. And the woman's effort continues forever. And our effort continues forever. And Dogen says, This traceless enlightenment continues forever. This complete effort, all burned up, leaving no trace, continues forever. So that's the end of the story. Or maybe it's the beginning of the story. And maybe you have your own story to tell.

[26:03]

It's also what it says about male-female dynamics. You know, the man being vengeful about always wanting to be left alone and needing his independence. And I was going to ask you about the reverse of that, the woman being wageful about never wanting to be. How to appease that?

[27:58]

How to appease the opposite desire. So the question is that the man is about male and female dynamics and males classically wanting more independence and to be left alone, and women classically wanting more company, more connection, and not to be left alone. I think what practice says about that is that we have to always work towards balance. Whatever our main tendency is, we're always having to cultivate the other side in order to keep our balance.

[29:06]

So we tend maybe to lean this way. We always have to pull ourselves up this way. And sometimes we may fall over a little bit the other way. But I don't think that it's one way. I think it's kind of like the bear. Somebody, in this case it's the woman, but I think since the woman represents whatever that part is in each of us, That part is the part which makes some effort, is willing to take a chance and put oneself out, even though it may seem dangerous, even though one may get hurt.

[30:09]

And then even the bear may be tamed and respond. but the great courage is required on both sides because the bear is raging because he's scared and maybe the husband is raging also because he's scared. And if we get blown over by that then we're going to fall Up. And we'll never meet. Are we cooking a lot of nice meals? Cooking a lot of nice meals? The way to a man's heart is through the stomach? The way to a woman's heart? Maybe through her stomach.

[31:12]

Because, you know, traditionally that's what women have done, right? Men. And maybe women are a little bit tired of doing that for so long. A little? A lot. So maybe that may be a way of appeasing the rage about not being left alone. Being alone. It's interesting to me that you first thing you thought about was male-female dynamics because that didn't occur to me at all. And I think possibly the reason that didn't occur to me is because I'm not heterosexual. But I noticed that one thing that I did do as I was listening to the story was I was thinking about the husband and the bear as other. And you said something in your summary about

[32:16]

those actually being parts of ourselves. And I know that I had an experience not too long ago where I was dealing with someone who, what it looked like on the surface was that I was afraid of this other person's anger. And when the other person got angry, I was afraid that something awful sort of might happen. And on closer investigation, what I realized was that when I got angry, I would feel so angry that I wanted to just do something really violent, and that really scared the hell out of me. And that it was my anger flying out of control that I was afraid of. And so, I've noticed late, one of the things that I've been noticing a lot lately is the way that I project sort of onto other people these things, these sort of beliefs or attitudes or whatever, and really it's all a piece in me.

[33:24]

And that these parts about wanting to be close and being afraid of being close and being angry and wanting to be left alone, all of those things are all aspects of me and I'm not really entirely one thing or the other. And that my work, because I really can't control what anybody else does, is about integrating and finding some balance of those aspects in myself. And one of the things that impressed me about the story was that, you know, the woman is terrified of the bear. And yet, she just really, she just sort of stands there and doesn't let that overcome her. And then by standing her ground, the situation begins to subside. And that's why we practice sitting still. Very hard. The feeling in the universe, this feeling that kept coming through in every aspect, and the athlete who's listening, I was struck with a very comforting feeling of the whole movement, that her movement, despite the fact that it looks like it's just on behalf of her partner, it didn't feel like that to me.

[35:11]

And I was touched when you started reading that it was a woman's journey that you used in this particular instance. All the literature that I was steeped in, it only starts with man's question. Even though I'm aware of all the differences now, I think I was touched. And then the whole story had this quality of pervasive love everywhere, and the healer, and all the aspects. And I felt assured again. in the deep sense that the journey that we all make is on behalf and from love. And this arduous journey up the mountain with each rock, and coming back, and dealing with the action, the austerity of the healer, with so much love. The first thing that I want to say is that I was riveted by the story in a way that I have never been by any story.

[36:22]

And I think it was because it was a woman's story. And I appreciate you telling it. I feel very rich from the experience. And the other thought, which you may or may not want to comment on, but I just want to say it. than what looked like because of the loud noise and the bigness and the claws to be an anchor. And maybe it's assumed that those are always the new anchors. I tend to experience that myself. You can get it.

[37:29]

It's available. It's from this book, Women Who Run With the Wolves, which is a current bestseller. This is not the usual literature we use. I have other feelings about my father.

[38:43]

And I was related to someone's point about parts of ourselves that are really the bear and the woman are parts that are conflict. I've sat with it for years, but I wonder if you got some words about how does one deal with this when it's, when we know this is a part of ourselves so much, and we're trying to sit with, Well, I think there are two aspects to it. From a practice point of view, we just allow it to arise and watch it, and watch it without judgment, and watch what becomes of it, without trying to influence the story. But with these old personal wounds, that isn't so easy.

[39:52]

And sitting and hearing these stories stirs up that stuff, makes it more available to us. And we watch what happens. I think that psychotherapy has maybe more specific tools for working with the actual content than Buddhist practice. The purpose of which is really just to observe and to be willing to embark on the journey and to follow it wherever it goes. But there are obstacles to seeing things clearly and the obstacles often come in the form of our conditioned experiences, our conditioned way of reacting to things that's based on our

[41:04]

on our upbringing and on our personal life experience. And when we get stuck in that stuff, when it's not moving, when the same thing is coming up over and over again, and it's coming up in meditation, and it's coming up at work, and it's coming up with the people we're living with, and we're not able to get through it, we need some kind of help. And so in that case, I think, you know, that the healer may come in many forms. And we need to consult whoever can help us to untangle that stuff, because the personal stuff, this is a kind of archetypal story, but we have our own personal variant of it. So we each have to work out that stuff in our own way.

[42:14]

Yeah? Yeah, first, when you started to talk about the story, I had some difficulty with the husband-wife traditional role, or traditional ways of dealing with that. And you did help me to reconcile that with masculine and feminine. Inside of me as opposed to looking at them as female people. And that compassion for ourselves and our weaknesses and the parts of ourselves that we're not so fond of are very, very hard.

[43:20]

And it's really the starting place. You talk about having compassion for all sentient beings, but it's easy to forget we're a sentient being. And this interpretation of all sentient beings being in here, this is not a modern, this is a traditional interpretation from, I think, the time of the Sixth Patriarch. So, and I think that that's, you know, it's kind of little piece, there's these huge volumes of teaching, you know, and a lot of it's very repetitious, and then there are these, and formulaic, and then there's these little these little gems kind of hidden in there, like all sentient beings meet in here. And maybe we don't hear those because they're not repeated often enough, or maybe we don't hear them because the implication of really hearing that is quite profound.

[44:21]

Because it's interesting if we contain all of these aspects or beings. When we come to this practice, often we think we come here out of the most extraordinarily selfish, I think, that I often come here out of the most incredibly selfish, needy motives. And that in fact, I don't have compassion. I don't have these other Parishions. I come here to cultivate those things because But I essentially have just this incredible drive to achieve something, peace or whatever. But essentially what it is, is not different than the love that that wife had. I mean, it's essentially that same need. In the story, the motivation is attributed to her from the storytelling. under a lot of other ideas, peace in the family or whatever, but not necessarily moving in this pure cloud of compassion.

[45:57]

And yet, in the story, we do understand that about her. And perhaps it's really good to understand that about ourselves as well. There's that quality of love and But there's also, you know, the storyteller and this woman who has written this version of the story, of course, has her own reasons for writing it this way. But one thing that struck me reading it many times was, you know, this repetition, this refrain, for she was a woman who loved. It was the determination. really struck me, and the quality of vow, and of the bodhisattva vow, you know, to continue this practice even after enlightenment.

[47:01]

We say in the Four Nations, will you continue this practice even after enlightenment? And in the story, you know, they're married, and The implication to me is that the vow is to become whole. That's the vow to save all sentient beings, is the vow to become whole. And I think all the Zen stories are also about this. The quality of love often comes to us as it might come through our fathers, as this is a patriarchal tradition. And like many of our personal fathers, the patriarchs tend to express their love in a kind of backhanded or indirect way.

[48:05]

And you see this in the commentaries to the koans a lot, you know, where Mumon will say, oh, this old grandmother, or something like that, you know. And it sounds kind of sarcastic or just weird, you don't identify it, you don't see any kind of kind of grandmothers in the story. But, there they are. and human beings are harmless.

[48:37]

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