The vast globe of the universe is far and wide. It is greatly imaginative, even a hundred thousand billion dollars. Good morning, everyone. Welcome. This morning, I'm going to talk about the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, Manjushri. He's sitting in front of the Buddha on our altar, sitting on a lion holding a teaching scepter.

[01:10]

So Jess, and maybe you probably can't see him because he's in front of the Buddha. But first, I'll say a little bit about what these Bodhisattvas are. Zen is a branch of Mahayana Buddhism, the Buddhism of North Asia, Tibet, China, Japan, Korea. This is the aspect of Buddhism, and really it includes all of Buddhism, that's dedicated to universal liberation that's based on the awareness that we develop as we do this practice of Sāsang. We've just been doing this realization this insight that we are deeply interconnected with all beings, that we are not just practicing for ourself.

[02:14]

Of course, we do also sit and study the self, as Dogen says, the founder of this branch of Soto Zen, but this self You know, we have various descriptions of our self, various ways of identifying the person sitting on your cushion or chair, but as we actually become intimate with this self, as we study the way in which how it happens that you are here this morning, what is on your cushion or chair is a combination of innumerable other beings. that allow you to be here and that actually we are deeply, deeply, deeply interconnected with many, many people and other beings. So our practice is not just about finding our own personal inner settling and inner peace, but about how we are connected and how we are, our practice is in some deep way dedicated to

[03:25]

Helping the awakening of all beings and helping relieve the suffering of all beings, including ourself, our small self. So, in this branch of Buddhism, there are many of these different Bodhisattva figures. And I did this book, Faces of Compassion, talking about the seven major figures in East Asian Buddhism, and they're around in our temple. And I'll talk about a couple more of them, one next week and one a couple weeks later. Bodhisattva of Compassion, Kanon or Kanzeon, or Avalokiteshvara's on the sidewalls and front and around. And anyway, there are a number of them. And part of the point of talking about them particularly is that they each represent an aspect They each express an aspect of the tradition that is the background of Zen, particular schools of Buddhism, the particular teachings or sutras, the particular qualities of practice, particular aspects of practice.

[04:42]

And they exist all over Asia and throughout Buddhism on altars as objects to venerate. But they also are aspects of our own practice. So the more we see these figures, these bodhisattvas, we can see aspects of our own practice. And some of them may appeal more to particular practitioners than others. studying them, learning about them, helps us to see aspects of our own practice. So today, Manjushri is the bodhisattva of insight or wisdom, and a very colorful figure, and a very important figure. In fact, he's the teacher of all the other bodhisattvas and Buddhas. So partly we learn about these figures from seeing how they're depicted, from hearing stories about them, from seeing how they express themselves in the sutras or scriptures of Buddhism.

[05:55]

So Manjushri is fearless. He's sitting on a lion and some depictions, you know, these figures have traveled from India to Tibet to China to Japan and different cultures they're depicted in various ways and now they're part of American Buddhism. So there's a practitioner I knew in Sacramento who does porcelain figures of these bodhisattvas and she did a picture of, a depiction of, she does female versions of all the bodhisattvas. She has a Manjushri on a lion, this kind of charging, leaping forward, a very ferocious lion. So Manjushri is kind of fierce and ferocious and often carries a sword to cut through delusion. And Manjushri traditionally is the bodhisattva in the center of zendos, in the center of meditation halls, so very important in Zen. So if you go to meditation halls in Japan or China, places where we do our ceremonies and meditation here in the same, and Dharma talks here in the same,

[07:05]

room, but in larger monasteries or temples where they have a separate Buddha hall or a separate Dharma hall, they might have the Buddha in another hall. But in the meditation hall is Manjushri. So Manjushri is the bodhisattva who represents meditation. There's a lot of overlap between them. So each of all the different bodhisattvas have different aspects of meditation, you could say. But Manjushri is the one that's particularly in the Zen dome. Manjushri often carries a sword to cut through delusion. So also Manjushri is often depicted as very young and youthful. So when we say that Manjushri represents wisdom, This is not the wisdom of great learning and scholarship and study and reading lots of books and going to lots of dharma talks. This is, in Sanskrit, prajna, could also be translated as insight.

[08:13]

So, often Manjushri is depicted as like 16 years old or 18 years old, very youthful. And I don't know about any of you. Is anybody here 18 or younger? How old are you? 18. Great. So you can be at Montgomery this morning. I don't know about you, but when I was 18, I knew everything. And that's kind of how Manjushri is. Manjushri is this immediate insight into things. It's not about learning. So there's another one of the practices, another Bodhisattva who represents knowledge, and that can be used too. So the point of all these practices and wisdom is one of them, insight is one of them, is to use these for the benefit of all beings, to help awaken all beings, to help relieve suffering for all beings. But this insight or wisdom that Manjushri expresses is this kind of clear seeing, this immediate seeing,

[09:19]

So do you all know the story of the Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen? That's the story of Manjushri, about Manjushri, this little kid who sees that the emperor is totally naked. Wonderful story. So Manjushri tells truth to power. Manjushri is about truth telling and about seeing clearly, seeing immediately, this sense of insight. So Manjushri is connected with the insight that we have in meditation. The six ancestors Zen has talked about, my favorite aspect of his platform sutra is that Samadhi and Prajna are one. When we settle in our meditation, insights arise. So this is not about, again, this is not about analytical knowledge, this is not about calculating, this is about seeing clearly immediately. this wisdom of Manjushri.

[10:24]

And, you know, it's balanced by the virtues of some of the other Bodhisattvas. So we talk about wisdom and compassion as the two aspects of the Bodhisattva work. And several of the other major Bodhisattva figures represent different qualities of what we might call compassion. And there's aspects of that in Manjushri too. There's a lot of overlap with these Bodhisattva figures. Again, they exist as depicted on altars and subjects of veneration popularly. So students in Asian Buddhist countries sometimes will make offerings to Manjushri to do well on tests, for example. But these are also aspects of our own practice. This seeing clearly. So both sides. They're archetypal, psychological archetypes of our own practice. And also, energies, we can say, if you don't want to think of them as beings somewhere out there in the cosmos, there are energies in the world that can be expressed.

[11:35]

And that can support us and guide us. But Manjushri is the one who sees clearly. immediately. So, you know, Shunri Suzuki Roshi, the founder of the branch of Zen that I was trained in, my teacher's teacher who wrote Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, he used to ask his students, what's the most important thing? And I modify that because people get hung up thinking about what's my favorite movie. Some people have trouble picking one. So I would say, what's the most important thing? What's something that's important to you? And this is a question you can answer immediately. What's important to you? And it's not just what's important to you theoretically. What's important to you right now?

[12:36]

This week? Or this morning? That's like the inside of Manjushri. What's right now? What is it that we see right now? Of course, wisdom in Buddhism has to do with the universal truth, the ultimate truth, the insight into what we can call emptiness. We have some people who've sat for the first time this morning, which is wonderful. Emptiness does not mean nothingness in Buddhism, so I have to keep saying that. Emptiness is the emptiness of any particular thing. Emptiness could be translated as relativity. Everything is interrelated.

[13:38]

Everything is, as I said in the beginning, a function of many other things. Dependent co-arising, the inter-causality of all things, is referred to by emptiness. That no single thing, or each single thing is empty of inherent, substantial, isolated existence. Everything is deeply interconnected. So we could say emptiness or interrelatedness or suchness is a positive way of talking about that. Some of the other Bodhisattvas emphasize that, that other positive side of talking about it. Manjushri talks about it in a kind of negating way, cutting through all delusions. So very kind of forceful in the way he talks and speaks about this. figure.

[14:42]

Part of how Manjushri works is to talk about this. So, you know, I want to leave time for discussion, but the spirit of Manjushri is to go on and on and talk a lot about it. So maybe I'll read a little bit of the way he talks about these kinds of things, but the basic issue is that how we think, how we see the world is conditioned by our thinking and talking and that we see things in terms of subject and object. and subjects verbing objects. And so we separate the world. This is our usual discriminating consciousness. That's what Manjushri cuts through. There is no such thing. Everything is a verb. It's all just happening. But our way of thinking is to think of things in terms of dead objects.

[15:50]

or to think of verbing objects out there, or trying not to be verbed by subjects out there. So this is what Manjushri does. He cuts through all that. And he sees this immediately. So just as an example, this is from one of the sutras and this is in a place where the Buddha and Manjushri are having. So Manjushri is associated with the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, the Prajnaparamita Sutras, of which there are many. The Heart Sutra we chant here sometimes is just one example of those sutras. That's a short one. There's the Diamond Sutra, which is a little longer, and then there's one 8,000 lines and 50,000 lines, 100,000 lines.

[16:55]

Anyway, this is from one of those Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, and the Buddha asks Manjushri, how should one abide in the Paramita of Wisdom, the Perfection of Wisdom, when cultivating it? Manjushri answered, abiding in no dharma is abiding in the Paramita of Wisdom. The Buddha asked Manjushri further, why is abiding in no dharma called abiding in the Paramita of Wisdom? Manjushri answered, because to have no notion of abiding is to abide in the Paramita of Wisdom. So it cuts through any idea we have. The Buddha asked Manjushri yet again, if one thus abides in the Paramita of Wisdom, will his good roots increase or decrease? Manjushri answered, if one thus abides in the paramita of wisdom, his good roots will not increase or decrease, nor will any dharma, nor will the paramita of wisdom increase or decrease in nature or characteristic.

[17:58]

Wrote Honored One, one who thus cultivates the paramita of wisdom will not reject the dharmas of ordinary people, nor cling to the dharmas the characteristics of saints and sages. Why? Because in the light of the Paramita of Wisdom, there is nothing to cling to or reject. No dharma is to cling to or reject. Moreover, one who cultivates the Paramita of Wisdom in this way will not delight in nirvana or detest some sorrow. So this is a very important idea for all bodhisattvas. that in early Buddhism there was the idea that samsara means the suffering of the world and the rat race of trying to get this or get rid of that or even to get enlightenment is kind of part of the acquisitiveness that we're all trained in as consumerists. And so in early Buddhism, they wanted nirvana, which literally means cessation, to get free of birth and death and all of this rat race.

[19:02]

But Manjushri says that one who cultivates the paramita of wisdom in this way will not delight in nirvana or detest samsara. So in the Bodhisattva practice, we see nirvana or true peace right in the middle of being present in the world with suffering beings, not trying to escape from. So this practice is not an escape from the suffering of the world. It's about how to be present, fully present. and responsive and aware, right in the middle of the reality of this world. So for the people who are here for the first time this morning, if you came here trying to find an escape from suffering, I'm sorry, this is the wrong place. This is not a place to escape from the world. It's a place to be more fully present and helpful in the world. So, Manjushri goes on, because he realizes there is no samsara, let alone rejection of it, and no nirvana, let alone attachment to it, World Honored One, so this is the Bodhisattva, so World Honored One, to see that no thing arises or ceases is to cultivate the paramita of wisdom.

[20:16]

To see that no dharma increases or decreases is to cultivate the paramita of wisdom. To aspire to nothing, to see that nothing can be grasped is to cultivate the paramita of wisdom. So our zazen is not about trying to reach some higher state of being or higher mental state or reach some particular awareness, just to be present as we are. Furthermore, if a person when cultivating the paramita of wisdom does not see any paramita of wisdom and finds neither any Buddha dharma to grasp nor any dharma of ordinary people to reject, that person is really cultivating the paramita of wisdom. So that's kind of how Manjushri talks. But one other aspect of Manjushri that's very important is that he does sit in the middle of meditation halls.

[21:17]

He's kind of the monastic bodhisattva. And images of him in Japanese meditation halls. He's sitting on a lion. And the lion is kind of sleeping and sedate, not fierce. And he's wearing monk's clothes and he's got a shaved head. So he's a, Manjushri as a monk and he's sitting there very calm and zazen on a lion. So Manjushri also represents ethical conduct and the precepts. Manjushri represents, The various Bodhisattva precepts which start with taking refuge in Buddha. I talked about this last week. Turning to Buddha and Dharma and Sangha, benefiting all beings. seeing, including all beings, not harming, not killing, but supporting life, not taking what's not given.

[22:23]

We have a list of 10 precepts. Not misusing sexuality, not lying, but speaking truth. So, Manjushri particularly speaks truth to power. not speaking of faults of others, not harboring ill will, not holding on to grudge. How do we transform anger into beneficial action? So I think this is an important aspect of Manjushri and his insight is this seeing clearly and then speaking truth to power and standing up for ethics. So in that spirit, Manjushri, I think, calls us to speak truth to power, to speak about what's happening in the world. So our practice is about being present in our own lives and responding positively and helpfully to the problems that arise on our own cushion or chair, and also with the people around us.

[23:25]

how to be patient and respond to difficulties of friends and co-workers and family members and how to wait for a chance to respond helpfully, but also, you know, to pay attention to what's going on in the world. So it's hard not to notice what's happening in the world in terms of climate damage. How do we respond to that? Well, this isn't easy. But Manjushri calls us to look at what's going on in our world. How do we see gun violence in our city? And speak to that and look at somehow the fact that we can't have common sense gun laws. How do we respond to that and maybe speak to politicians even about common sense ethics and insight?

[24:33]

And since I'm ethnically Jewish, I meet and have distant relatives who are killed in the Nazi Holocaust. I have to say something this week about the atrocities being committed by the Israeli government in Gaza. Of course, it's a very difficult situation, and there's pain and suffering on all sides. So I don't have answers, but it's certainly clear that there's a one-sided power there. And so I speak truth to power when I talk about Manjushri. and how do we do something to encourage talking about these things, to encourage diplomacy, to encourage a response that's not based on just a knee-jerk recourse to violence. So, Manjushri is fierce and carries a sword, but it's a sword that takes life and gives life.

[25:43]

How do we cut through the delusions of our world? This is also part of the Bodhisattva practice. And this doesn't mean that we have the answers, but to see the truth and to speak from that is part of the Manjushri energy. And each of these different bodhisattvas has their own particular mode of responding to the suffering of the world on all these different levels. So a little bit more about Manjushri, and then I want to open this up to discussion. Again, Manjushri uses language to untangle the ways in which we are caught by language. So that's an important part of what Manjushri does. Manjushri, although when he's depicted on altars, he looks very elegant and youthful and very cool. But in the folklore, often Manjushri appears as a homeless person.

[26:44]

or a trap. So the Chinese sacred mountain of Manjushri is Mount Butai in northern China. And often the story goes that Manjushri appears as a kind of homeless trap to guide pilgrims going to Mount Butai. So we might consider, when we see some homeless person, whether they might be Manjushri, we discuss. Um... So all of these figures have a great complex of different practices. So for Manjushri, it's this meditation, this aspect of meditation. It's cutting through delusions. And it's not the meditation that I usually talk about here. But there is an aspect of meditation that sometimes is helpful, this kind of edge of the seat meditation, cutting through whatever delusions arise.

[27:46]

and no one just re-represents that kind of sharp energy. And also, again, this insight that arises and this truth-telling. And also, again, this kind of sense of ethics of seeing how this insight is connected with, so this wisdom is connected with an ethical response to the world. So I'll close with a story from, actually the first story in my favorite Koan collection, the Book of Serenity, features Manjushri and the Buddha, and the Buddha comes in and sits down to give a dharma talk, and Manjushri is kind of like the bell on, like Alex is today, and as soon as the Buddha gets ready to speak, Manjushri pounds the bell, which I guess they use then instead of a bell, and says, clearly observe the dharma of the king of dharma.

[29:01]

There's the Buddha. The dharma of the king of dharma is thus. Well, there's nothing more the Buddha can say after that, so he gets down and leaves. Maybe Dharma Hall. And Hongsha, who writes the first commentaries for these cases, wrote, unique breeze of reality, do you see? Continuously, creation runs her room and shuttle, weaving the ancient brocade, incorporating the forms of string. Yet nothing can be done about Manjushri's leaking. So there are a number of stories that kind of poke fun at Manjushri for going on and on about how there's nothing really to say. So I'll shut up now and invite comments, questions, responses about Manjushri or wisdom or insight or ethical response to the world or anything else. Please feel free. Taigen, do you know how is he depicted in China?

[30:10]

besides being a homeless person, if he was in the meditation? He's in the meditation hall. I think pretty much the same. He's not usually depicted as a homeless person. He appears in folk stories. There are many stories about him appearing as a homeless monk. Traditionally, and even recently, the great Master Su Yun, who lived 120 years and died during the Actually, I think maybe he was killed during the Cultural Revolution, but he lived up until modern times. But he reports going to Mount Wutai and being guided by a tramp named Wenshu, which is one of the Chinese names for Lan Zhishui. I think, let me see if I have Chinese versions of, there's pictures in the book of, and some of these are from China, but it's pretty much the same. I'll mention that Prajnaparamita is an associated figure, a goddess, Bodhisattva, who represents the Bodhisattva of India.

[31:16]

the Prajnaparamita texts as a bodhisattva and is associated with Manjushri. But this is the, you've seen the bodhisattva Manjushri, he's on the main altar at Green Gulch Farm, some of you've been there. That's from China, that's a very large figure, sitting, no lion, just very serene, and holding a teaching scepter. So it's very similar to the way he's depicted in Japan. The sword appears more often in Tibetan versions, and sometimes in China and Japan as well. Yes, Eve. I was curious about the intersection of two things you said. One is the account of the new monk who should describe his passion for bhakti our roots.

[32:20]

And then when you described the Buddhist call to action, looking at climate change, looking at gun violence, thinking about how we can stand up for Gazans, it seems like that would suggest that there's a certain attachment to life and its fulfillment and being protectors of life. Yes. It is a kind of healthy attachment that comes from Fresno. And I was wondering if you could comment on that duality a little bit. Well, I don't really see it as a duality. This is a question that a lot of practitioners have. And I think there's one understanding of practice that we should just appreciate things as they are and not do anything. And I think that's a misunderstanding. appreciating things as they are includes our own, so that kind of understanding of practice does away with Bodhisattva ethics. And I think it's a serious problem that Buddhism has had, not just in modern times, but all through history, that our practice is not about ignoring what's going on in the world.

[33:29]

see what's going on and are present with it, and what's happening in the world includes our response to when we see, you know, if Jeremy started hitting Caitlin, you know, we might say stop it, you know, and try and do something, you know? So it's not that, Our practice is being present and seeing what is, and what is includes that we want to, so the other side of wisdom is compassion, is caring. So all of you came here in some way because you care about the quality of life. your own existence and the world in some way, that caring. So that's the balance. And it's there in Manjushri too. Wisdom and compassion go together. When we see clearly, part of that seeing clearly does bring forth this other side of caring and compassion and wanting to be helpful.

[34:38]

So we can't see, when we see the deep beauty and interconnectedness and suchness and emptiness of reality, that also brings forth wanting to protect it. So now how do we do that is, of course, the big challenge. It's not, you know, I think practices of charity or generosity in our Western tradition sometimes we think we have to go out and fix things and, you know, the practice that we learn by sitting patiently on our cushions is this practice of patience where we're willing to not have the answers and not know what to do. And that means watching. And so I don't know what to do about climate damage. And yet I think there are things we can do. And I don't think, I think feeling hopeless and that there's nothing to do is not

[35:38]

An appropriate response doesn't actually fit reality, so I'm going to talk about that more in the announcements. But there are things we can do. we can do that, we can respond to all kinds of problems. I don't know what to do about the problems of the Mideast, obviously nobody does, and yet how to respond can come from a place of settledness and centeredness and seeing, again, the precept about all beings, seeing that it's not about, you know, taking sides, it's about seeing that there is suffering in all kinds of ways. But thank you for that question. That is the question. And so how do we see this from this wide perspective? Carol, you had a comment? Oh, when I was listening to you teaching, I was thinking in my own personal life that if you don't have something like freedom, because life is like ups and downs, inner peace, if you don't have inner peace,

[36:52]

at a time in your life or freedom, it gives you an opportunity to better define freedom. Whereas if you have freedom, you don't really define freedom. But if you don't have something, it gives you an opportunity to define freedom or inner peace. And you journal that. And then throughout your journey in life, if you do have, you feel like you have inner peace then you can evaluate that, you know, and it's kind of just, you know, like ups and downs, you know, my personal experience, and everybody thinks differently, so. Yeah, so we see, we find our, I'm not sure I completely got what you were saying, but what I heard, you know, in my response to it is that we find our settledness and our calm and our peace through being open to the struggles that do come to us.

[37:57]

And being willing to look at that and find what makes sense to us there. Thank you. Other comments? Jake, since you're 18, do you have anything to say for us? Perfect response. Hi, Libby. Hi. I think I was having a response maybe similar in the world of what you were bringing up then. So I was thinking a lot as you were responding to that. Because I was thinking about, you know, parts, some of what you were quoting of Magistris' wisdom had to do with like the cutting through and sort of recognizing the emptiness within what's apparent.

[39:04]

Yes. And so that feels clear, you know. And then I think, then where this truth to power idea is more complicated, which you were sort of saying sort of at the end of your response to me about, you know, you were saying in terms of like what to do, you know, and the sort of like, you know, once you start coming off the Middle East, for example, you can never end. I mean, there's so much to say and to consider and what truth is in that, you know, so it's not, it's like certainly there's emptiness at the heart of it all, but there's also something when you start coming off particulars, What is, is confusing. That's right. Right. So there's something about being willing to speak. I guess what I was thinking about was, you know, if you're sitting in a circle with people and you ask everyone, like, what's your response?

[40:06]

to what's happening, and you can just listen and learn from each other, but those responses are going to keep evolving, and the collective sense of things are going to keep evolving. Right. So there's something about speaking truth, like speaking your own truth, but recognizing that it's an evolving thing. It's not just like a one-time speaking truth. Like, you know, that there isn't really, when you start talking about how things are, there isn't sort of one way to talk about it, except that there's emptiness. Take that argument off. Yes. So one of the Eightfold Path, which is the fourth noble truth in early Buddhism, is right view. And I love the way Thich Nhat Hanh talks about it. One of his precepts, his first precept, is to not hold on to any particular view, even Buddhist ones, not to try and convince anybody of any particular view. But that doesn't mean we can't speak our truth as it is now. And I felt like I had to say that, given what I've heard and what I've seen of what's going on in Gaza.

[41:09]

But of course, it's complicated. And of course, as you said, we have to be open to all the different views and the suffering on all different sides. And the more we're open to lots of views, the more our view evolves and circumstances are changing. As the dude says, new shit comes to light. So, no, we don't know. And part of our sitting is to be, to settle into we don't know the answers, and yet we're open to new information, we're open to listening. That's the side of compassion. And yet, we have to be willing to speak our truth as well. And I think part of what was connected was because reading about Iran at the time of the Ayatollah and sort of the extremist Islamic point of view at that time. And thinking about ethics, you know, the conception of ethics in different religions and sort of, yeah, so it makes me wonder if that's something that distinguishes

[42:15]

The idea of ethics in Buddhism is that it comes from the place that you're talking about. I think that's right. I think that being open to all beings and to hearing the suffering of all beings is kind of the starting point, in some way, to benefiting all beings. This inclusivity of the Bodhisattva perspective is very important. It's not about us and them, ever. But that doesn't mean that we don't say that there are these forces, and there are people acting in ways that are very harmful, and that we can say, please, we would like that to stop. We can still do that. So, I wanna make some announcements, but Alex had your hand up, so the last comment. I was thinking about one of my favorite quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh's concept of, once there's insight, there's action.

[43:26]

Once you have an insight into the nature of something, part of the reason is not just observing that, you're a part of that system. So there's not a compulsion, but your response is then a part of you know, there's a certain degree of responsibility to that, I think, as well. And I think, I kind of think what Lily was saying too, like, If we lived in a world where everyone could speak truthfully and honestly in kind of a collective, global way, you could see, then you'd have a situation where it's like, well, clearly there's a lot of stuff going on because of this action and this action here. We all recognize that. We all see that. And there's perhaps a cessation effect for everything else. Yes, and right, good, thank you.

[44:32]

And that's an important part of the response to each question, is that to see what's going on on our cushion or in the world and not respond is a kind of response. There is some response. And actually just seeing what's going on changes it. This is true in physics, the Heisenberg principle, that actually observing something actually changes it. This is part of reality. So to see something and not do or say anything is a kind of response. And also, there are... Buddhists who have done work in terms of mediation in Northern Ireland, for example, and in the Mideast, in terms of trying to, and people trying to do work in South Chicago with gangs also, trying to foster communication, and exactly what you were trying to talk about.

[45:41]

So it's a huge job. But yeah, there are ways of responding that are constructive and that come from that place of being settled and observing. So with that, we'll close.

[45:59]

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