Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. First of all, welcome to our Buddhist birthday party. First, I want to acknowledge and thank all the people who came early today and made this beautiful canopy to house the baby Buddha. It looks like the work of one person. Amazing. But actually, there were a whole slew of people doing this wonderful activity. I also want to thank all the people who came early to sweep the grounds and set up the zendo and do whatever needed to be done.

[01:08]

So thank you very much. So today, actually my talk is kind of a work in progress I kind of have some ideas about what I want to say, but it'll have to unravel as my mind unravels through my mouth. This canopy, of course, is covering the baby Buddha. And he's standing on a little island there, surrounded by sweet tea. And it's traditional in India, or it was, I don't know, probably still is, that when a baby is born, they bathe the baby in some kind of sweet tea. I don't know what that is exactly. There's a name for it. I don't think we have any.

[02:11]

We use red zinger. So next time you have a baby, you can bathe your baby in red zinger. Tell us what it's like. So it's traditional for everyone to bathe the baby Buddha, to offer incense and bathe the baby Buddha. As you can see, we're not offering incense. today because we don't want to fill up the zendo with incense. We could do this outside but not today. So you notice that the baby Buddha is holding one hand up pointing to the sky and one hand down pointing to the ground.

[03:14]

And the legend is that when the baby Buddha was born, after a few days, seven days, he took seven steps and he said, I and you, all together, we are the world honored ones. There's some controversy about what he actually said. As we know, babies don't talk that early. There's a question of... I remember when I was in the 30s, there used to be a cartoon series. I don't know if any of you remember this. It was called, in the paper, it was called, Heroes Are Made, Not Born. I don't know if you ever remember, any of you remember that.

[04:17]

Heroes are made, not born, and each time was a kind of cartoon. But that phrase, heroes are made, not born, means that heroes come out of their activity, not by birth. So this is a little, you know, here we have the Buddha, baby Buddha, being born as a Buddha. But actually, that's an interesting story. The baby Buddha being born as the Buddha, taking seven steps. Can you hear me? Now? Does that make a difference? Yes. Okay. I'll start all over again. So we have the baby Buddha being born as this genius child and stepping forward and saying,

[05:35]

The stereotype is, I alone am the world-honored one. But that's a little bit egotistical. There are various ways of expressing that statement. The other way of expressing it is, each one is the world-honored one. I like that better. Or, I together with all beings am the world-honored one. I think that's more appropriate and probably more correct. But we have no way of knowing. And since it's a made-up story anyway, we can make up our own story. There's interesting, you know, Buddhism is a work in progress. It's not, although there are, you know, oh, by the way, Buddha was born something like 2,500 years ago.

[06:43]

I won't go into the details of what year it actually was, but something like that. So since that time, it's been a work in progress, even though some people think that it's a fossil. The problem that people have with religion often is taking the old established traditions and thinking of them as immovable or so sacred that you can't improve on them. But I think that Buddhism should be not improving, maybe, but developing according to each generation. Our practice comes from Japan, Japanese style.

[07:47]

So we have adopted the Japanese style, which works really well. I think. But we also live in America, and so the coming together of our culture and the Japanese culture of Buddhism, Zen, are creating some kind of dynamic transformations. And there's resistance, and there's progress. that dynamic is very, very vital. It creates a vitality. So I think we have to interpret things carefully according to our understanding and the times we live in and the way we think about things. Anyway, I think that this story works better if we don't say, I alone am the world-honored one.

[08:55]

I think it works better to say, and Nyogen Sensaki confirmed this by saying, that egotistical little boy should get a spanking. He said, each one is the world-honored one. So, each one is Buddha, of course. So, the Japanese Buddhists have divided three events Buddha's birth, Buddha's enlightenment, and Buddha's demise, his passing out of the world. Those are three different events that we celebrate. But all other Buddhists celebrate all three at the same time, called Vesak ceremony.

[10:02]

and you may be invited to a Waysak ceremony by Southeast Asians or Chinese Buddhists. And I got some insight into why that happens. Suddenly it occurred to me, because Buddha's birthday by itself doesn't mean so much. What means something is the progress from Buddha's birth to Buddha's enlightenment and to Buddha's passing away. That whole story makes sense. And Buddha's birth makes sense in connection with the whole story. Otherwise, it's just somebody being born, like what has happened to everybody else. So what's significant about Buddha's being born? Well, the fact that he worked very hard to become enlightened and to understand what's going on here in this world.

[11:11]

So it makes sense to have all three together so you get the continuity of why his birth is significant. I always have trouble giving this talk because The fairy tale about Buddha's birth is okay, but somehow it's not enough. So, this is a work in progress. I'm thinking how to make it more significant. Of course, Buddha was born out of his mother's side, you know, and all this. But the important thing is that he was just like us. And his story is our story. I think that's the important point. We can look at it as a drama that happened to somebody else, but actually is the drama that's happening to every practitioner. His life is just like our life.

[12:18]

He was born in a certain place. And as he grew up, of course, our lives are all different, but his life was very protected. And at some point in his life, he went out in the world and realized the suffering of people, how all the people around him were suffering while he was living this kind of protected life of bounty and wealth, everything he wanted. So, At some point, he aroused his way-seeking mind. We give our way-seeking mind talks. We ask all the members to give a way-seeking mind talk. When did you wake up to the fact of looking for something, looking for practice, looking for something beyond material wealth and property and superficiality?

[13:36]

It's exactly the same. And then he started his practice and we started our practice. And he worked very hard to gain enlightenment. That's what I hope that we're all doing. Actually, practice is enlightenment, but that's another story. So, Buddha's a great example of practice, but one of the problems, I think, with most religions is that the founder is so exalted and idealized that we don't see the faults. Faults are never presented. And our lives are full of problems and difficulties and faults and so forth. And so enlightenment looks like this big prize that only a few people can ever really achieve.

[14:44]

So I think we have to be careful about our stories and our legends and realize that the practice that we are in the same place as all the ancestors were. The ancestors were just as we are now, all the Buddha ancestors, and their achievement is our achievement. So when we talk about the Buddha's life, we're really talking about our own life, and our own struggles, and our own shortcomings, and our own difficulties and achievements. So there's birth as a person and then there's birth as a Buddha.

[15:56]

I think that because each one is the perfect one, each one is the honored one, we are born as Buddha But we don't realize our Buddhahood until we search for it, until we arouse our way-seeking mind. And our way-seeking mind, when it's aroused, and we begin to practice, our Buddha nature begins to appear. Kadagiri Roshi used to say, let the flower of your life force bloom. That's your buddha nature. Let your buddha nature bloom. Let the flower of your life force bloom. So this is the second birth, the birth of our buddha nature. So are buddhas born or are they made?

[17:04]

Well, they're both born and made. We're born as Buddha, but we're made as Buddha when we start to practice. Each one is creating a Buddha, but only because we are Buddha. We take a piece of rough stone and we carve a Buddha out of that rough stone. That's called practice. So it's said that each one of us has a jewel. And so how do we reveal that jewel?

[18:09]

That's called practice. Hi, David. So that's my story.

[18:25]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ