The past couple of months we've been talking about the Bodhisattva practices. This weekend I'm going to talk about three of them in particular, Generosity, Patience and Prajna, or Insight or Wisdom, and so I'm going to focus today on Generosity, but actually all three of them will be part of all three of them. And what I want to do is, well, first just touch on the conventional aspect of these practices, these Bodhisattva practices, but then also talk about them maybe from the ultimate perspective, or at least from the Zen perspective, and I'll offer some comments on each of them from Dogen, the founder of our branch of Zen. So today, starting with Giving, or Generosity.

[01:05]

So this is an important practice, the first practice, Generosity, and we all have some experience of that, and we all struggle with, or sometimes maybe, quote-unquote, succeed with how to give, how to give gifts, and also how to receive. So giving, receiving, and the gift itself, as we will say in the meal chant, are all part of this practice of Generosity. And actually everybody here, in one way or another, has as their work some giving. So there are teachers of various kinds here, there are artists, therapists, Dharma students,

[02:15]

Zen priests, we have a lawyer, and a doctor, and a social worker, all of you are involved in, in some way or another, giving. And it's good to give, and again, from the kind of basic perspective, you know, there's this question about how to give, there's the sense that giving in and of itself is valuable, and then there's the question of, well, do we give, shall we say, strategically, with whatever resources you have, how do you give most effectively, most beneficially? That's one way to look at giving. From the Bodhisattva's perspective also, not just giving in a way that actually benefits, but also just giving.

[03:15]

How do you, even if maybe it's not going to be so helpful, just to give in and of itself is considered very helpful. You know, the easy example, a homeless person, well, do you give to them? What if you suspect, or what if you know, maybe you don't know whether they're going to go and use the, whatever money you give them for alcohol or drugs or whatever, maybe it's better not to give, on the other hand, maybe you don't know whether they're going to use it, maybe just the act of generosity. Part of generosity is that it inspires other generosity. The gift goes around. When we give something, it inspires the person who receives to also give, and actually we

[04:19]

can't give without someone receiving, so when we receive something, we're encouraging generosity also. So this is kind of this basic practice of generosity and giving, but in the Bodhisattva context, true giving happens without expecting some outcome or benefit, and it happens in the context of non-self. So all of you, some of you in various ways are professional givers. It's very dangerous. You may think that you're the one who has all this stuff to give, and if you have a classroom of students or a list of counseling patients coming in, you may think, oh, I have

[05:23]

all this stuff to give, but actually it's a mutual event, and if you're giving just because – so this is very challenging. If you think it's my giving, well, is that really giving? If you're expecting some outcome or if you're expecting people to think, oh, what a fine person, they're giving all of this, it's a little funny. So true giving is giving up yourself, giving up yourself. It's not you giving. Now, of course, even if you think it's you giving and you have some attachment to that, still it's good to give. It's good to be generous, but on this other deeper level, how do you give up yourself? Giving is also giving up, letting go, turning yourself and turning the practice of give

[06:30]

a receiver and gift, all of generosity, over to, well, to what? That's part of the question. How do you give yourself away? Now, this doesn't mean hurting yourself, because you're part of giving yourself away is also being generous to yourself, recognizing the self-clinging that does appear in our self-centeredness. But again, true giving is giving that up, giving up our sense of separateness, giving up that it's me giving the giving. So I'm giving a dharma talk, but this would be impossible without having heard my teacher and other teachers give many dharma talks. So whenever we're giving something, actually we're passing something along. And of course, if you think you're giving something, again, if you think you're giving

[07:40]

something and you'll get something out of the giving, is that really giving? It can be very subtle. Oh, they'll all think I'm giving this wonderful dharma talk. Oh, he's a great dharma teacher, blah, blah, blah. That's not giving. That's just another business deal. And yet, how do we give? So when you're, for those number of you who are teachers, how do you give to the students in front of you in the classroom without still realizing that you're the teacher? You're the one who has to impart the lesson for the day. You're the one who has to make sure that, in some cases, that the kids are behaving or that they're receiving. So part of the job of the giver is to check out the receiving. But also, you're receiving something.

[08:40]

If you don't see that you're receiving something, there's something funny there. And yet, again, this ultimate generosity has to do with this teaching of non-self. Basically, to see through our sense of separate self. We imagine we're separate from those receiving. Or when we're receiving, we imagine we're separate from those giving. It's this totally mutual event, actually. So just a little description of this from this new book on the Six Perfections by my friend Dale Wright. The perfection of giving incorporates the wisdom of emptiness to transform the perspective from which acts of giving occur. So giving and wisdom, giving and prajna, are very much connected. So we have this circle of these bodhisattva practices.

[09:47]

And true giving must include prajna, insight, this wisdom, this seeing into emptiness that I'll be talking about more on Sunday, to transform the perspective from which acts of giving occur. When the impermanence, dependence, and insubstantiality of all things are absorbed into one's worldview down to the level of daily comportment, everything changes. So here he's talking about zazen, this practice we're doing today and this weekend. Opens us up to this, not just as some theory, but to actually feeling how we are connected. To really absorbing into one's worldview, as he says, down to the level of daily comportment, that everything changes. That we are connected to everything. That we're not separate. That this story of a self that we have and that we need to take care of this, you know,

[10:51]

we each have our separate cushion or chair and yet we're all connected. It's nothing separate. So he says a new non-self-centered identity gradually emerges, one that entails reciprocity with everything that previously seemed to be other than oneself. How do we give where we see that we're connected? How do we receive where we see that we are connected? And, again, hearing this as an idea may be important as a way of directing our zazen, but when we establish a regular practice, as all of you have, some more recently than others, but as we regularly give ourselves this opportunity to just stop and sit and

[11:53]

face the wall, face ourselves, this is absorbed yogically, physically. This identity dissolves previous habits of self-protection and self-aggrandizement, opening the self, and he quotes, to others in a connection of compassionate identification. So this is true giving. And he quotes the large sutra on perfect wisdom where the Buddha instructs his disciple Subuddhi, the Buddha says, do not imagine that the gift is one thing, it's fruit another, the donor another, and the recipient yet another. Why? Because this gift is empty of a gift, it's fruit, empty of a fruit, and also the donor is empty of being a donor, and the recipient empty of being a recipient. For in emptiness no gift can be apprehended, nor its fruit, no donor and no recipient.

[12:55]

And why? Because absolutely those dharmas, those things are empty in their own being. So, again, this is a starting point, in a way, of bodhisattva practice and awareness. Everything is turning, everything is changing. We can't hold on to anything. And it's okay that that's the case. And right in the middle of that, of course, we take care of our own space. We take care of this body and mind, brush our teeth in the morning, go and sit satsang, whatever. And yet it's not separate. So this giving is this natural kind of flowing, and there's no place we can say that's the gift, that's the giver, that's the recipient. So this deeper, ultimate level of giving is informed by this prajna, this wisdom.

[14:06]

And by the way, for those of you who will not be sitting all day Sunday when I talk about prajna, Sunday morning, the Sunday morning Dharma talk, as usual, is open, and you can just come to that. But these are all connected, and true giving depends on some kind of connection. That depends on feeling, depends on tasting and smelling that, oh, it's not just about me. And of course, you know, sometimes we give something, we feel good about giving that. And maybe the person we gave it to feels, you know, really appreciated it. That's fine. But it's not in the middle of feeling good about having given something. Well, you can also see that there's connection. It's tricky. There's this balancing, because there is this separate self on a conventional level. But we start to feel how connected we are. And we start to be able to do the ultimate giving, which is to give up oneself, to give

[15:10]

up one's sense of a separate self, to stop clinging to me, [...] me. We can do that. So, whatever you give, whenever you give, it's not just about you giving. And for all of you, in the ways you give in your everyday activity and work and life, um, you have received that capacity to make art or music, to perform zen ceremonies, to share something with students and so forth. It's this web of connection that we're part of, deeply part of. This image of Indra's Natas, you've probably all heard of, that the universe has this web

[16:15]

and at each node where the meshes, the web meet, sits a zen person or, you know, a piece of wood or whatever, a jewel. Each of them is a jewel reflecting the light of the jewels around them and so forth forever. Everything is deeply interconnected. And so, we have this as a Buddhist teaching, but when we sit, when we, you know, and when you sit all day and you feel the aches of this body and you feel the restlessness of your mind, and sometimes maybe in the middle of that, there's a kind of space of settling. And then, but then again, some discomfort may arise. How do we be generous to ourselves and give up holding on to ourselves? So, giving is about letting go, letting something go, letting something that is, that we think of as ours. Okay, I'll give that to whomever. So, I wanted to talk about, I wanted to share something Dogen says about giving.

[17:25]

This is from an essay called The Four Guiding Methods of Bodhisattvas. And the first one is giving. So, I'm going to talk about that today. The other three are kind speech, also a wonderful bodhisattva practice, and beneficial action, and then cooperation. And I'll be talking about that Sunday in terms of how that represents prajna. But giving, Dogen says, this giving means not coveting, not wanting more and more and more. We live in a society where we're taught to consume, where being patriotic means going out and shopping, that you should want all those things in the TV commercials or wherever. But real bodhisattva giving means not coveting. Not coveting is not being greedy. In worldly terms, it is said that not being greedy means not flattering. Even if one should rule four continents to provide education and civilization in the

[18:27]

correct way, it's just a matter of not being covetous. And then he says this wonderful thing, to offer flowers from distant mountains to a Buddha, to give away treasures from one's past life to living beings, in terms of teaching as well as in terms of things. And each are inherent virtues involved in giving. So, we don't have mountains and on and on. To give a view of the lake to someone else, to give some view of trees and flowers or birds or beautiful skyscrapers, to give those to Buddha is giving. What does it mean to give to Buddha? Buddha goes beyond all the self-claiming. To give away treasures from one's past life to living beings.

[19:30]

Well, most of us don't even know what treasures we have from our past lives. And yet each of you, as a generous person, has this, whether you take it literally or metaphorically, has this ancient karma. It's also twisted, but it also is full of wonderful treasures. I know that's true or else you wouldn't be here today. So each of you actually possesses in some way or has access to, maybe better, wonderful treasures. How do you just give them away to all beings, to Buddha, to the next breath, when the bell rings, to just getting up and doing walking meditation? Can you give yourself to Buddha? Can you give yourself to really enjoying the situation of the person on your cushion or chair right now, with all the complications, with all the so-called problems, with all

[20:35]

the sadness and so forth? That is also part of the treasures, just to give yourself to yourself, to give yourself to Buddha, to give away yourself. So a little further down about this giving, Dogen says, when one leaves the way to the way, one attains the way. When attaining the way, the way is necessarily being left to the way. So this isn't something we figure out or have some sudden experience and say, oh yeah, that's the way. Just let the way, leave the way to the way. Leave the Tao to the Tao. Leave this process of inhale and exhale, of opening one's heart to itself. When one leaves the way to the way, one attains the way. When attaining the way, the way is necessarily being left to the way.

[21:36]

This is giving up the idea of, I'm going to figure this out, or I'm going to accomplish this, or anything like that. Just let go. When goods are left to goods, the goods unfailingly become giving. Self gives to self, other gives to other. The causal power of this giving reaches far. Therefore, once you give even a single phrase or a single verse of the teaching, it becomes a good seed in this life and other lives. So giving is not just a matter of buying some gift for somebody. Maybe the best thing you can give to a homeless person asking for coins or paper or whatever is just to smile. To acknowledge them, to make eye contact, to say hello, and you know, whether it's a

[22:45]

homeless person or a home leaver participant in Seshain, just to appreciate the people sitting next to you. You don't have to do anything special. Just give your Zazen to the other people in the room. That's actually what's happening here. By being here, we support everyone else who's here to be here. So he talks about King Ashoka, who the story goes when he was in a previous life as a child, he saw a king, he saw a Buddha going by, and he didn't have anything, but he was making mud pies or sand castles or something, and he gave the Buddha some sand. And he didn't want the Buddha to thank him, he just did it. So the story is because of that, the Buddha actually took it and took it back to the monastery and put it with the other materials for building, whatever building was going on.

[23:48]

And because of that, he became King Ashoka, who helped spread the Dharma in a future life. Dogen says all productive labor is fundamentally giving. So all of you in your work, by giving yourself to your work, even on days when you feel crabby or somebody there is being a nuisance or whatever, just fundamentally, just showing up and doing your work is giving. He says that untrusting flowers to the wind or birds to the season also must be meritorious acts of giving. So you see a sunrise over Lake Michigan and say, ah, the sun, and you can give that to everyone just by appreciating it, or a sunset. He goes on to say, what is difficult to transform is the mind of living beings.

[25:00]

This giving is to intend to transform the mind of living beings, to transform it even as far as attainment of an awakening. So it's difficult to transform the mind of living beings. But that's real giving. It's this ultimate giving, where you're not holding on to some story or description of yourself, or the world, or anything else. Let go. And part of the way of doing that involves being generous to yourself. So feeling bad or guilty because you're not giving enough or because you're holding on to something, that's not helpful. So please be generous to yourself, too, in this process.

[26:02]

This is a long-term process of letting go, of deep generosity, of giving to Buddha, of giving to all beings, of giving to yourself, that is not separate from any other yourselves. So patience, which I'll focus on tomorrow, is part of this, too. How do we give ourself to ourselves? How do we give away our mind to realize the mind that is awake? It takes some time. It takes some patience. It takes some attention. Again, patience is not just passively waiting. It's gently, gently, generously, with attention, taking the next breath, doing the next thing in the schedule, whether it's in a day of sitting or in your life, what's the next thing?

[27:05]

How do we give this openness to ourselves? How do we receive it? So giving, again, is also about receiving, accepting. Oh, here we are. We are spending a day, sitting upright, being present. Feeling what we feel, including the aches, including the confusion or the sleepiness or the mind racing around, whatever it is. How can you receive that as Buddha's gift? Everything that happens to you and everybody else here today is Buddha's gift. How do we receive that? So it's not that there's some special way to receive that either.

[28:13]

Like, oh, I have to receive it in this way or else I'm not a good Zen student. No, it's not that. Take another breath. And we each have our own way of giving and receiving. So we're not separate. We're not individual separate selves. This is what wisdom shows us as we sit. But still, I can't give or receive for you. Each of you has to find your own way to give yourself to Buddha, to receive Buddha's gift. Over and over. And, you know, there are times when it's just there. So in the course of the day-to-day, I don't want to say for all of you because then you

[29:17]

might think that you missed it if you don't recognize that it's happening. But actually, this process of giving and receiving is happening. You're receiving an inhale and you're giving an exhale to the atmosphere of this room. Over and over and over again. And you might have a space where, oh, yeah, that's it. Oh, it feels so good. You might have that kind of space during the course of a day of sitting. But as soon as you start saying stuff like that, then, oh, it's gone. But that's okay, too. Take another breath. So about this transforming, even as far as attainment of enlightenment, Dogen says, in the beginning, it must be done by giving. For this reason, in the beginning of the six transcendent ways, the six paramitas, is the six transcendent way of bodhisattva practice of giving and generosity.

[30:19]

This is where we start, by being generous to ourselves and everything else. By receiving the generosity of ourselves and everything else. One should not calculate, Dogen continues, one should not calculate the greatness or smallness of the mind, nor the greatness or smallness of the gift. Nevertheless, there is a time when the mind transforms things, and there is giving in which things transform the mind. So when you're holding on to some idea of yourself, and you may have very good ideas, very good ideas of yourself, well, sometimes people have bad ideas of themselves. That's also not helpful.

[31:22]

But you might appreciate all the ways in which, during the past week, you were generous in giving, and gave yourself to your work, and gave yourself to the people around you, and were kind, and practiced kind speech, and that's fine. But to let go of all of the good things about yourselves, and also all the bad things that you, you know, all the ways in which you, you know, think you're not good enough, let go of all that. Buddha is here. This is the, this deeper generosity that Dogen is speaking of. And it's slippery, you know, we can't get a hold of it. What does that mean, to give yourself to Buddha, to allow Buddha to give herself to you? And yet, this generosity, this noble practice of giving and receiving is happening here and now.

[33:02]

With each inhale, and with each exhale. And it's okay, you can give away your idea of yourself. You're still going to be there, taking another inhale. So how do we be open to receiving something we haven't ever before imagined? How can we be open and flexible to some thought that never thought you before? So often, sitting for a day, you know, well sometimes there's this kind of sense of, this sense of space, and quiet, and calm, and settledness that can happen. Sometimes there's maybe sleepiness, which isn't the same exactly as that space. And sometimes there's thoughts rumbling around.

[34:08]

So as Uchi Amuro, she says, when you sit, just as your stomach continues to secrete digestive juices, your brain continues to secrete thoughts. And so in the sitting we've done so far, you know, there may be many thoughts that have happened, that have wandered by as you're sitting there. And you know, maybe if you try and think about it, you can say, oh well those are all thoughts I've had before. Or those are all thoughts that are familiar, or those are all my thoughts. But actually, can you be open to some thought that never thought you before? Can you let go of holding on to this body-mind enough that in the middle of being present in it, Buddha allows some new thought. This is this flexibility that's true generosity, this openness to

[35:12]

not being this self that you think is this self that's sitting on your Krishna chair. So this is true receiving and true generosity. And of course this applies not just sitting for a day, but when you're out and doing your work or involved in being with the people you are familiar with and so forth. Can you allow some new way of seeing things to arise? Can you be that generous to yourself and to everything else? So this sitting all day that we're doing today is a wonderful opportunity to just give up yourself and give to yourself and receive.

[36:15]

So it's possible that you might have a thought as you're sitting there that's actually a thought from somebody in the next cushion. Who knows? Or that's a thought from somebody a block away. Or that's a thought from somebody who doesn't even exist yet. Please give yourself the opportunity of just enjoying being here. Please receive Buddha's breath, Buddha's warmth, Buddha's lunch, which will come. Thank you.

[37:04]

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