Good morning. And I have an opportunity to wish you a happy new year. It's great to see all of you. So as we start this year, I've been thinking about refuge for a variety of reasons. For most of November and the first couple days of December, I was in India. in Burma, and I'll sort of fold that in, and to see what the practice means to people in those places in really challenging circumstances of life. And at the beginning of the year, I think it's appropriate to look at both what we take refuge in, what we rely upon, and what is reliably unstable, which is our world.

[01:09]

So one of the practices that's been handed down to us in the Zen tradition, that often a Zen monk or nun at the beginning of the year, writes their death poem. So, just in case, you've got it covered. They're big on that. Actually, one of the traditional things that a monk or nun would carry in their backpack as they're going around begging They carry a small packet of money, along with their poems, so that if they die, they have their expenses covered for a funeral. I don't do that.

[02:11]

But I was inspired to actually write a poem this year, which is private. You know, it was a wonderful practice. And it's a practice because, you know, as I saw in India, and as I saw in Burma, and as I see when I look, you just look, turn on the TV, you open the news, or you listen to your friends. You know, this is not a safe place to be. And I've been thinking about that as well in light of the death of our friend Nancy McClellan. So it's no matter what you do, what you might try to do in the best will, you know, it's not a safe place for Zen gardeners.

[03:19]

It's not a safe place for Muslims in a Buddhist-majority country in Burma. It's not a safe place for young African-American men. It's not a safe place for satirical cartoonists. It's not a safe place for a polar bear who is discovering that the ice pack has melted. It's not a safe place for my friends in the Dalit or Ambedkarite community in India, particularly young women. So we know all of this. This is one of the conditions of our existence that the Buddha talked about. He talked about three marks of existence.

[04:22]

the first being that things are impermanent, they go away, they also come up, that there is no fixed self, that the self that we count on is provisional and it's conditional. It's based on other things. It's based on, as Thich Nhat Hanh says, the self is constructed out of non-self elements. And the third is often translated as the mark of suffering. And I think I prefer actually thinking about it as things are unreliable. or they're not safe. And that actually gives us some play, because in certain early Buddhist interpretations, that's construed as suffering.

[05:32]

And in other Mahayana texts, that third mark is interpreted as nirvana. It's all a question of what's our attitude towards suffering, rather, towards impermanence and non-self and unreliability. If that's okay with us, then we can be free. If we keep looking for that safety, we will look forever. And yet, understandably, we yearn for it. There's a wonderful quotation from Suzuki Roshi that Every year when I actually, each time I finish a journal, I have a few quotations in the start of the next version of that journal.

[06:44]

And this one sort of gets copied out from year to year. So it says, life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink. You know. We do this in all different, you know, it's fun to go sailing, you know, and it's like, yeah, it's gone async. So, you know, usually in Buddhist, kind of in the Buddhist way of thinking, we're looking for the other shore, the shore of nirvana. But you might consider that that the true refuge is not, and true freedom is not the other shore, but maybe it's at the bottom of the ocean, where things are still quiet.

[07:49]

And the question is, can we walk there? and somehow, maybe with our heads above the waves, breathing in some clean ocean air. So, this act, taking refuge is what I'm getting around to here. We take refuge in the three treasures, in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. And this is sort of the fundamental act of expressing a Buddhist identity. Every Buddhist tradition that I know of, regardless of its cultural trappings, regardless of whether there are precepts or not precepts or other particular teachings or practices, they all share these three refuges.

[08:53]

I go to refuge, I go to refuge with Buddha, I go to refuge, I go to Dhamma in refuge, I go to Sangha or community in refuge. And there are various, the Chinese word I think, or it's a compound word, is Guiyi. And I may not be pronouncing that correctly. And in Japanese, it's kie. And those of you who have sewn robes know this, with every stitch, we say namu kie butsu. It's like, wow, I'm returning to Buddha. each stitch or plunging into Buddha. That kye or kwe means return or rely on or be in accord with or go home.

[10:09]

And that's what we're doing in the refuge. So I thought before I go a little further, I'd like to invite us together to chant the Pali refuges. If you know them, I'll teach them to you. And so the words are, buddham saranam gacchami. Saranam is refuge and gacchami is return to or take. And so it's Buddham, Sarnam, Gacchami. dhammam saranam gacchami dharma sangham saranam gacchami and then traditionally dating back to the buddhist time this was this formula was repeated three times we do a lot of things in threes in the buddhist tradition just to because once is not enough you know by the time you've done it three times you sort of imprinted it so the

[11:18]

The second one is Duttyampi, second time. Duttyampi, Buddha Amsara and Amoghacchami and so forth. Then the third one is Tatyampi, third time. And this was the formula that one would recite even back in the Buddha's time to actually join the order, to take refuge. So I'm going to do a line and you can do it after me and then we'll do the the second and third in unison. Budham sarnam gacchami. Try that. Second line is, Dhammam Sarnam Gacchami.

[12:21]

Dhammam Sarnam Gacchami. Sangham Sarnam Gacchami. Beautiful, together. Dutiyam viyi gurugam saranam gacchami. Dutiyam viyi gurugam saranam gacchami. Dutiyam viyi gurugam Namo'valokiteshvaraya Dakyamvi sangham saranam gacchami

[13:48]

Now if I were a real Zen teacher, I would just get up and walk out. It was quite beautiful. Instead, I'm going to talk some more. So I've been studying for the last week, thinking about this. And I've been reading Suzuki Roshi. and the Pali Suttas, the early teachings, and the sixth ancestor of Zen and Thich Nhat Hanh. I'll sort of bring that to bear. But first, what do we think about Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha? Buddha is our own enlightened nature.

[15:04]

And you could also think of it as the universal activity of enlightenment. So we think of this act as I take refuge in Buddha. It's like I merge or I unify or I, you know, Buddha, live like him. But one of the things that There's some interesting things that are common to these people that I've been reading, that I discovered as I was reading. It's like, Suzuki Roshi says this, and Thich Nhat Hanh says it also. Suzuki, basically they say, when you take refuge in Buddha, Buddha takes refuge in you. So it's not a one way, activity, it's actually the expression of a mutuality. If there were no other beings, there would be no Buddha.

[16:11]

And if there were no Buddha, we would be missing something in our lives, in our reality. When the Buddha was born, he took six steps and said, I'm together with all seven steps. awakened together with all beings. Yes? Well, I just remembered the gesture to heaven and earth. He pointed when he was talking. Yes, he pointed. One finger up, one finger down. Two different things. Yeah. There's seven steps.

[17:15]

Right. But then he said between heaven and earth, I alone am the Holy One. Right. Right, that's right. He took seven steps into Islam, and actually what I'm thinking of is not his enlightenment. He said, now I am awakened again with all sentient beings. And all sentient beings are enlightened with me. The dharma, to take refuge in dharma means, dharma has a variety of meanings. We see it as the teachings of the Buddha, the scriptures, if you will. It's also sort of like universal law, the way of the universe, things as it is. And dharma also is our moment by moment experience as it unfolds, that each experience, each moment has a dharma characteristic.

[18:27]

And so to take refuge in dharma means to enter reality moment by moment. but it's also to enter the teachings and it's also to enter, as it is in, it's to enter the systems of dharma, the teachings in the sense, you know, you have these dharma, ways of framing the dharma, the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the Six Paramitas, the Factors of Enlightenment, the Four Brahma-viharas, each one of those is a way, a set of practices that we can take refuge in. And then Sangha in the broadest sense means the community of all beings, means the community of practitioners. Sometimes it's spoken of as the fourfold Sangha of

[19:35]

monks, nuns, lay people, lay men, lay women. But to me what is significant is it means that there has to be an element of our social reality for awakening to happen and that we can take refuge in this community. Even if the community is not entirely safe, we do our best to make it so. And we appreciate each being. But what I noticed, what's really interesting, and it goes from the very beginning, in the Dhammapada, The Buddha says, he talks about this question of safety.

[20:42]

He says, driven only by fear, people go to refuge in many places, to the hills, woods, groves, trees, and shrines. Such indeed is no safe refuge. not by resorting to such a refuge is one released from suffering." And then he teaches the refuge in the three treasures. But in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, which is the sutra which speaks about the Buddha's last days, he says to his attendant, Ananda, therefore, Ananda, be islands, he's speaking to Ananda and all the monks, therefore, Ananda, be islands unto yourselves, refuges unto yourselves, seeking no excuses,

[21:50]

with the Dhamma as your island, with the Dhamma as your refuge. And this is a famous, the expression in Pali is atadipasaranam, which means taking refuge, saranam, in the island, dipa, of self, ata. Atadipasaranam. And this is echoed again and again. Suzuki Roshi says, taking refuge is not a good translation. Taking refuge is to protect yourself in Buddha's home, maybe like that. If you know how to protect yourself, that translation may work. But to take refuge in Buddha looks like to escape from this world and go to Buddha.

[22:54]

But that is not actually so. To be one with Buddha, there is no special home for Buddha or for us. The home is always within us. So it's not to go to Buddha, to find our Buddha nature within ourselves is to take refuge in Buddha. He goes on, Suzuki Roshi goes on and says, so even though Buddha passed away many years ago, we are Buddha and we are disciples of Buddha. We should not lose his way, so we have to behave. and we should know what he would tell us when he is with us right now. With this kind of attitude, we should bow to Buddha as if you help your mother and father.

[23:58]

Thich Nhat Hanh says, the Buddha taught that there's a very safe place we can come back to, no matter where we are, at any time we want. That place is the island of our true self. Within ourselves, there is a safe island we can come back to where the storms of life cannot shake us. And he writes, Elsewhere, I was really struck by this. If I am ever in an airplane and the pilot announces that the plane is about to crash, I will practice mindful breathing while reciting the Three Refuges. When you receive bad news, I hope you will do the same.

[25:20]

But don't wait until a critical moment to go back to your island of self. That's why what we're doing, we're, I've said this again and again, we're training ourselves. We train ourselves in Zazen. We take the training that we experience in Zazen into the world into our daily life so that when the heat gets turned up, we have something to do and a place to go to, so that we can find our center and so that we can be a center for other beings. At the end of this talk we'll chant the Bodhisattva vows and To be a refuge for yourself, for myself, is also to provide shelter for all beings.

[26:25]

That's why you have to understand that awakening, which is Buddha. You have to understand the practices which have been taught, which is Dharma. And you have to put this forward as practice in the world, which is Sangha. And I was also taken, I've been taken for many years by the section of the Platform Sutra of the sixth ancestor, Wineng. It's a section on repentance, which is basically like our ordination ceremonies. And he has a twist on it that's in line with what the Buddha was teaching about taking refuge in yourself.

[27:30]

The Sixth Ancestor is, all of his teachings are framed He's talking about what he calls the essence of mind, which can be perhaps a little obscure. But when he talks about the Bodhisattva vows, we'll recite the Bodhisattva vows. Beings are numberless. I vow to awaken with them or save them. So I vow to awaken with all of you, and you vow to awaken with everyone else in this room, everyone else in this town and world. The Sixth Ancestor's expression is, I vow to awaken, I vow to save all the sentient beings in my mind. And that has a, all of his teachings on

[28:37]

on these vows flow from that in my mind. And that includes me when I'm upset, when I'm scared, when I'm angry, when I'm happy. All of those he's expressing or he's articulating as sentient beings of one's mind. But it's also true that You know, as I look out in this room, one could say, all of you are sentient beings of my mind, and I'm a sentient being of your mind, because we are interacting intimately, just being in this space together. So he talks about this in terms of In terms of the three treasures, the six ancestors, he says, to let our mind take refuge in enlightenment so that evil and delusive notions do not arise, desire decreases, discontent is unknown, and lust and greed no longer bind.

[30:08]

let our mind take refuge in Dharma so that we are always free from wrong views. For without wrong views, there would be no egotism, arrogance, or craving. And to let our mind take refuge, it's interesting, it translates Sangha as kind of interchangeable with purity. Let us, let our mind take refuge in purity so that in what circumstances it may be, will not, what circumstances it may be in will not be contaminated by worrisome sense objects, craving and desire. This is the noblest quality of mankind. In other words, to take refuge in this, what he's calling purity, is what binds, what what can bind our human nature together. And of course, and then later on he says, the sutra distinctly says that we should take refuge in the Buddha within ourselves.

[31:27]

It does not suggest that we should take refuge in other Buddhas. Moreover, if we do not take refuge in Buddha within ourselves, there is no place for us to retreat. So, I bring this up because, as I said, this is an unreliable world that is not safe. At any moment it may seem safe and at the next moment things can happen fast. So how do we create this refuge in ourselves? How do we express it in a way that other people can experience and feel that confidence for themselves? This is what you know, this is what sort of mysteriously spoke to me when I walked in here many years ago.

[32:34]

Just I had an intuitive sense looking around the room that I still have that there were people here who had something that they knew how to rely on. And I didn't think, and I still definitely now do not presume that they were born that way. They develop that way, we develop that way. Everybody in this room can develop that way through practice. And that's the activity that we're sharing, and that's the activity that we're supporting each other in. So this function of refuge, traditionally it's seen as resting on a foundation of faith.

[33:43]

But this is not a leap of faith. This is not faith as belief in something. This is faith as an activity. This is faith as something that is nurtured and grows by virtue of our action, our practice, our training, if you will. In faith, we begin to see what we can rely upon and what What that means to me in the context of practice is really what can I return to? When I get bad news from the doctor, when I hear of something

[34:52]

shocking or terrible that's happening in the world. Do I have a place to return that I am cultivating, tilling, working over daily? That's our practice. We practice it here, but it's not something that is somehow mystically confined to the zendo or to sitting cross-legged, that's a good way to cultivate it. But really, if it's confined to that posture and that place, it's worthless. It has to be a way to live completely. And That's what I saw when I came here.

[35:57]

These people that I felt some respect or appreciation for, actually my experience of that was not in seeing them sit in Zazen. It was in how we connected and interacted with each other. when we were in our activities in the world. So that's why I talk about training. We can only do what we're trained to do. So if you don't train yourself in refuge, you won't have a place to go to. But if you do train yourself in it, then there's a calm center, even in the middle of the maelstrom.

[37:06]

And we bring that with us. And people appreciate that, whether they even know what they're appreciating or not. And that's what I see, I really see this when I go to India and I'm working with young people there from a rural background which is full of oppression, violence, alcoholism, poverty and they're brought to this school that I work at and that I've been supporting and that school is a refuge but it's only a refuge because they create refuge for themselves

[38:23]

Twice a day, they sit two hours a day. And they're like 16 to 22, 23. And from out of the difficulty and anger, fear that they experience, sitting two hours a day, day in, day out, and learning how to teach that, how to teach the method to each other, they're giving the instruction in the meditation hall, they are actually co-constructing their own refuge. And I mean, I could go on and on about this, but I won't. But what I would say is It's just really inspiring to see that because it reminds me if they can do that in those circumstances of life, of course, so can we.

[39:33]

And I do think, you know, obviously I'm preaching to the choir and I'm also, I'm just acknowledging what I already see happening here. And I know, because I know it from myself, that I can, in any given moment, lose sight of the refuge, lose sight of the calm, because the world is unreliable and keeps throwing challenges at us. leave time for a few questions or comments. I just feel like I want to say well may the world go. Laurie?

[40:36]

I couldn't help but be struck by the phrase island of self which in a way sounds on Atman, no self, you know. I have a place, you know, a way to understand that myself, but I wonder if you have any comments about that. I like much better if you take refuge in Buddha, but that's such a really different image than the island of self. It is a different image, but what I like about, what really struck me in reading reading Suzuki Roshi and Thich Nhat Hanh and the Buddha and the Sixth Ancestor is their common emphasis on this. But the self, I think, that they're talking about is not an unconnected self. And this is what I think of the self that I see when the Sixth Ancestor is saying, save all the sentient beings of your mind.

[41:42]

The sentient beings of my mind are you know, they're patterns of my own psychology and mind, but they didn't just appear. They're co-constructed. And so I see in order to interact properly with the world, I need to have reference. return to, rather than take refuge? Yeah. In the ordination ceremony, I remember Maizumi Roshi used the term, now I return to Buddha, now I return to Dharma, now I return to Sangha. So you're always returning to your true self, which includes your small self, but it's a big self, that's what you're talking about. But the island is your small self.

[42:43]

But the small self is simply an expression of the big self. So it's not like island is iso-related, but it's through by taking care of each other, or taking care of the whole, or taking care of the parts, we take care of the whole. But, you know, it's all theoretical. But it's also very practical. We take care of what's right in front of us. And sometimes what's right in front of us is very close in and small in particular. And sometimes it's very big. And the thing is, to me, the essence of the Zazen training is to allow that complete flexibility. But I like return to actually better than I think it's a more accurate translation, at least, of the words that we have. But when we talk about Buddha, take refuge or whatever in Buddha, it's Buddha nature, not Shakyamuni as a person.

[43:53]

We have to make that decision. We don't worship a person. What is worthy of worship is something worthy. is Buddha nature, which everyone shares. Right, and this is what Suzuki Roshi is saying when he says, he really is hammering home that you are, when he says you are Buddha, means you have, you are an expression of Buddha nature. And, you know, we should strive to express that. It's kind of interesting and paradoxical that we cross the ocean of perceived sense of separation to the island of self, and there we find the elixir of everybody's blood, the combining of everybody's everything. And we have to act in faith at that point, not to re-identify with, oh, now I'm the one who's found it.

[44:54]

not in the island, not in the perceived world or ocean of separation. Right. And it's also, this is not in contradiction to John Donne, saying no man is an island. No. And every island is connected. Islands are not just floating, you know, they have to have a root someplace. They're connected. Yes. Oh, I see. Yeah? I wanted to ask you to say a little bit more about Queen Aang and the beings in my mind because one of the things I love about the vow to awaken with or save all beings is that I think of it as really talking about the beings outside of my mind that are all around, all the millions and millions of to just, even though it's impossible, you're gonna try to do it anyway, and it's just the beings in your mind, it's kind of like, well, this is what you're imagining in your mind, or what?

[46:26]

I don't quite get the sense of the beings in the mind, it seems. Well, it's not, to me, it's not qualified by the word just the beings in your mind. No, there are beings in your mind. What about the beings that are outside your mind? There's nothing outside your mind. There is nothing outside your mind. If, you know, when your eyes close in death, there's no more world. But we're not. Before we're dead, we are walking around. That's right. But it's everything that I do in relation to other beings is also completely in relation to the beings of my mind. It's in relation to my mother, it's in relation to my father, it's in relation to my teacher, it's in relation to Suzuki Roshi, that none of my actions are independent of those beings.

[47:40]

So I see a complete permeability And to me, and just remember that every teaching, no teaching is a categorical expression. Every teaching is a medicine and there's a reason why, there's got to be very clear reasons why the Sixth Ancestor expressed it this way, as a remedy for perhaps some other formulations that were used. Also, in another context, I would say completely, the thing about the Bodhisattva vows that we're about to recite in about a minute is that they're totally vast, inconceivable, and there's a built-in contradiction or conundrum in every one of them. Sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them all.

[48:41]

Can't do it. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Can't do it. And so on and so forth. This is great. This drives us on. But I also, if I'm doing that, if I'm thinking globally without acting locally, it's not going to work. That's the kind of way I think about it. One more. Yes. Link in our small.

[49:45]

for example yes that yeah it's true and also we have to remember there are hungry people and so we let that vow we let those vows lead us they're only good if they lead us into our action in our lives in our interaction with others kind of great cosmic ideas. We'll have to stop there, we can continue at tea, and please enjoy this crisp winter day.

[51:22]

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