The other day I was talking to someone and having a practice discussion And we were talking about mindfulness. And this person was saying and talking about how she tries to be very mindful in all of her activities. You know, putting the key in the lock and opening the door, to be very mindful of the body and the act. Unlocking the door as an example of mindfulness and It occurred to me that when we think about mindfulness We think about mindfulness in a very narrow sense The

[01:24]

narrow vehicle teaching about mindfulness is bear attention between the subject and the object. Bear attention on the act of, in process. And it occurred to me that there has to be something more. There's something more than just bare attention in mindfulness for our practice. And that something more is our Bodhisattva vow to save all sentient beings. which actually brings our mindfulness to life and gives our practice some purpose, which is a greater purpose than just seeking nirvana or enlightenment.

[02:51]

When we do an act, an activity, we do it with the intention of just focusing on that act, just being one with that activity. And that's the wisdom side, belongs to the wisdom side of our practice, our activity. But there's also another purpose, a purpose to our acts. Why do we do something? What do we want to accomplish by doing something? If we open the door, you know, it's because we want to get to the other side. Why does the chicken cross the road to get to the other side? But aside from that, there needs to be some deeper meaning to our life.

[04:03]

Why, ultimately, are we doing something? And so that's a big question. For Bodhisattva, why we do something is to save all sentient beings. purpose of a bodhisattva's life is to save all sentient beings. So every day we make this vow to save all sentient beings and it becomes a kind of routine, you know, sentient beings... but actually that vow is very deep and it has a lot of meaning even though we don't understand it. The vow itself is more than we understand and we say, well I don't know how to save all sentient beings or how can I do that, so it's a big koan for us.

[05:16]

Of course you can't understand it, But somewhere deep inside of you, you understand it. But because your rational mind, you can't justify it in your rationality, you tend to doubt the feasibility of such a vow. But deep down, you accept it. Even though you don't know how that's possible, because that's your wish, that's our wish. I know I can't do that, but that's my wish. So, we accept the vow as our wish, not as, I know I can do that, or I know I'm capable of that, but that's our desire. So we have many purposes in life, many divergent purposes in life.

[06:33]

We can think of a lot of reasons for being alive. Just being alive is enough, actually. Just the fact itself is enough. But we always need some justification and we need to have a purpose in life. There must be some purpose in life. Otherwise, we do this and we do that, but it doesn't add up to anything. There's no conclusion or nothing to follow. If there's nothing to follow, then we just wander here and there. Now, some people feel that this wandering from here and there is a purpose, or okay, you know. We just wander here and there. There is a kind of purposeful wandering. Actually, if you're a monk, your life is a kind of purposeful wandering because you know there's no place to settle.

[07:36]

And now most of us want some place to settle. And the purpose of most of our lives is to find that place to settle and make ourselves comfortable in this life, give ourselves some way to feel that we're out of the rain, so to speak, out of the wind, out of the rain, and safe and secure. So we take several paths, and there are a lot of paths that are very popular and make you very secure in a certain way. But if you investigate pretty thoroughly, at some point you realize, well, these paths, although they offer some security,

[08:48]

In the end, they're not really secure as goals. They're byways. And in themselves, they can provide a vehicle for our life, but there has to be more underneath them to really sustain a person. a really satisfying way. So that's why people go to church, you know, frankly. There's some need for something deeper than there's a need to investigate our lives in a deeper way and to find some truth or security in more than just our material way of life.

[09:58]

So, in Buddhism, Buddha's Buddhadharma. I want to talk a little bit about the history of Buddhadharma. Ancient Buddhism, it's hard to tell exactly, you know, what the real seeds of Buddhism were that produced the various forms of Buddhism that exist. But some of the main trends were the monk's way of life, which was to leave behind the world and attain nirvana, and the lay person's life, which was to live in the world and yet have some religious security through practicing good deeds.

[11:15]

And Those two ways of practice were two ends of a polarity, two sides. And sometimes the lay people practiced with alongside the monks on certain days, certain periods of time. the lay people would practice alongside the monks and do a monk's practice. And there are various ways of doing that. But the monk's practice was considered superior. Leaving behind the world and attaining nirvana was considered the superior way. And the monks would never do the lay person's practice, but that lay people were allowed to do the monks' practice.

[12:20]

And the monks would take 250 vows. Here we take a few. Major precepts and minor precepts. And lay people would take five precepts. And when lay people would practice with the monks, they would take eight precepts which were a kind of precepts they would add to the five some precepts which would allow them to give up the world for a little space of time while they practiced with the monks whenever they would enter into a monastic practice for a period of time and then in some countries They developed the practice of all the men and women could go into the priesthood for a certain period of time and then return back to lay life.

[13:26]

That's practiced today in Southeast Asia. You become a monk for a certain period of time, you shave your head, practice for three months or something like that, or a year, and then you go back to lay life, and you do that periodically. That's an interesting way. But through the history of Buddhism, especially in China, in Japan, they developed the Bodhisattva practice, which at first was more on the side of the lay practice. The monks were always monks. But the lay people more had the Bodhisattva ideal, some monks too, some priests. But as time went on, the Bodhisattva practice ideal became more and more prominent, and lay people and monks could both participate in that kind of practice, which is a different set of precepts, slightly different set of precepts.

[14:41]

than the monks' precepts, the Hinayana, what we call the Hinayana precepts, 250 precepts. And it was a lot more flexibility. But even in China, the monks would take the Hinayana precepts the Shramanera precepts, which are novice precepts, and the Bodhisattva precepts. A lot of precepts. A real hard practice of precepts. But when Buddhism came to Japan, the Japanese dropped the Hinayana precepts. and just established the Mahayana precepts, the Bodhisattva precepts, just the Bodhisattva precepts.

[15:51]

So, Japanese Buddhism, the general trend in Japanese Buddhism is Bodhisattva practice. Not so much monks' practice or lay people's practice. What I'm saying is not absolutely true. I'm just... I want you to get the spirit rather than the letter. The spirit is a bodhisattva practice which anyone can enter into and is a way to practice as a bodhisattva whether you're a priest or a layperson. And in America, we still have this dichotomy of the priest's practice and the layperson's practice. This polarity. And what Suzuki Roshi tried to do was to include everybody in Bodhisattva practice.

[17:06]

That's why he didn't make a distinction between priests and laypeople. Everybody practices the same and takes the same precepts. Sixteen major Bodhisattva precepts is when we have both priest ordination and lay ordination, everybody takes the sixteen Bodhisattva precepts. And it's very interesting because you can take the sixteen Bodhisattva precepts as a priest and then you're a priest. Or you can take the 16 Bodhisattva precepts as a layperson, and you're a layperson, but the precepts are the same. And there's always a distinction between priests and laypeople, which is more a distinction of career. But the practice for everybody is the same.

[18:11]

It can't be the same. So what we have to develop is really bodhisattva practice, bodhisattva mind. Leaving aside, or not emphasizing so much, priest and lay practice. But what is bodhisattva practice? I really feel that that's what our intention needs to, that's where our focus needs to be. Because we don't practice exactly as lay people in the usual sense. We don't do that. Lay practice doesn't include zazen, strictly speaking, the way we practice. And priest or monk's practice is usually more secluded. So this in-between where we have both wisdom practice and compassion practice is pretty unique.

[19:37]

And it's Bodhisattva practice. And so we need to know, what is a Bodhisattva? What is that? And how do we practice as a Bodhisattva? Whether we're a priest or a layperson is not the point. So, coming back to mindfulness, she said, well, I practice mindfulness practices. That's how I keep myself thinking my practice in my daily life. That's very good. That's the wisdom side of it.

[20:41]

the nirvana side of practice. But what's the purpose? So bodhisattva practice is like to dedicate all of your actions to saving all sentient beings. That's bodhisattva practice. You dedicate all of your actions to saving all sentient beings. So when you do something, even though it's insignificant, you open the door. But you dedicate opening the door to saving all sentient beings. It's not, is it? But yet you do it. You don't know what the effect of your vow is, or of your action is. You can't judge the effect of your action. but it's how you put yourself in that place and fulfill that vow.

[21:55]

So when we talk about how do we practice in our daily life, how we practice in our daily life basically is through mindfulness and to offer our mindful practice to all sentient beings. Another thing that came up was that we sit zazen. How is zazen helpful to all sentient beings? It's very significant that after zazen we have service. And what service is about is offering the merit of our zazen to all sentient beings. That's what service is about.

[22:59]

Why we bow and why we chant is to offer the merit, so-called merit or whatever it is, the spirit of our activity or actions to all sentient beings. So if you listen to the echo, echo is not like what comes back. Ikeo in Japanese means the dedication. We always dedicate the sutra to all sentient beings or to all Buddhas or to some particular Buddhas. In the end we offer to ten directions, past, present and future, up and down. So that's the spirit of our practice. We do our mindful activity, or whatever it is that we do, and then we offer it.

[24:06]

So our offering may seem insignificant, whatever we do, but if we keep that constantly in mind, then our life will take on some significance. And our practice will take on some significance. We may do something very small, It doesn't matter whether it's small or big. When we were at Tassajara with Thich Nhat Hanh, actually not when I was there, but just before I was there, when he was at Tassajara, as you remember,

[25:18]

he had the students make gathas. And the gathas were a way of developing a mindful practice of how you offer your activity. reminding yourself that you're always offering your activity to the universe. And we talked about it for a little while, but then we dropped it. But I want to kind of renew that spirit And I want to read some of the gathas that the people of Tassajara made up, created for this little booklet.

[26:38]

I think some of you have it. Remember when we gave it out? Sometime I want to have a gatha-making party. so that we can think about our own gathas, make our own gathas, and use them. So, I just read a few of these. This It was divided into various subjects, which are interesting subjects. Sections. And there are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 sections.

[27:39]

One focused on life as continuous training. That's a very good subject. Life as continuous training. And the second one was cleaning. And the third, sensing. And the fourth was eating rice and drinking tea. And the fifth, communicating. And let's see. The sixth, a modern life. And the seventh, dropping off body and mind. And the eighth, walking, standing, sitting, and lying down. So in the realm of life as continuous training, the first kata is forgetting ourselves in this activity, establishing this Zen mind temple for the benefit of all beings.

[28:51]

That's called maintaining the practice place. Cleaning the toilet. Cleaning the toilet, preparing the Bodhi Seat, shining and bright. Cleaning the toilet. That's a good one. It's a Bodhi Seat. Working with a chainsaw. In the midst of noise and violence, May I remain calm and may the wood I cut be used to benefit us all. And working on a septic tank. As we work on the sewer system, may we appreciate this matter. When pumping out septic tanks, working on sewage and other unpleasant thoughts, may we appreciate this matter.

[29:54]

That's, I guess, a second one from this. Those are all very good. And trimming a candle, if you're a Chidin, you can use this kata when you go to trim a candle. Just like this candle, all beings from the first are profoundly illuminated. But because of their accumulations, they do not show their flames. I trim this candle. so that all beings may cut through ideas that separate. This is when I'm shoveling.

[31:02]

shoveling earth from one place to another, mindful that nothing really is moved. And setting a trap. In Tassajara, there are gophers and flies. And it's impossible to have a garden without getting rid of the gophers. And it's impossible to eat your food outside without getting rid of the flies. So there's always this choice that had to be made. Do Buddhists kill flies or gophers? It's always a difficult choice, you know.

[32:08]

But Suzuki Roshi said, yes, we have to kill the flies. And I don't remember about the gophers, but people used to kind of really question it deeply about flies. Should we kill flies just because they bothered us? Is that a Buddhist thing to do? We can't continue unless we kill the flies. But when we kill the flies, we should apologize. Not just to kill them, but show some feeling for the beings that you're killing. So here's a gata somebody made up. who apparently is sitting trapped. Sitting a trap, setting aside ill will, I beg forgiveness.

[33:12]

And then here's the next section of cleaning. Washing the hands. Washing my hands, I hope that all people may hold up the world with strong, clean hands. Washing the face, washing away all greed, hate and delusion in this great ocean, may all beings discover the shining original face. Now, combing the hair, May I help all beings untangle this tangle." Then on sensing, rocks and trees preach the dharma. You can hear it preached by pillars, walls, and hedges.

[34:51]

Actually, that comes from the sutra. Hearing the birds, in this sharp call, I can hear the whole world. Thus may each living being fully know sweet, sudden joy of boundlessness. Here's a poem by Robert Frost. Somebody stuck in here. May we choose something like a star to stay our minds on and be stayed And eating rice and drinking tea. Drinking tea that the warmth of Dharmakaya suffused body and mind. Serving tea. This cup of tea is my wish for you.

[35:55]

And eating. Eating this food may all beings have food to eat and strength of mind to free each other. And drinking coffee. Now I am drinking coffee. May all beings be stimulated to pursue the path of diligence and care. And on communicating. Using the telephone, I wish that living beings should free themselves of doubt and prejudice in order that communication between them be readily established. And reading the newspaper. This newspaper reports so much sorrow. I want all beings touched by these events to be freed from confusion and suffering. All these beings are Buddha. All these beings are me. And modern life.

[37:10]

Filling a car with gasoline. From numberless ancient living beings has this energy been distilled. May it burn for the benefit of numberless present and future beings and not be wasted. And driving a car. Behind the steering wheel, mind attentive, body alert, I vow to drive for the benefit of all beings. Parking this car, carefully, attentively, I vow to help all beings to their resting place. As I spend this money, I vow to refrain from all action that creates self-cleaning. Looking for a parking place. As I look for a parking place, I remember with all beings that no dharma has an abiding place in this world. and dropping off body and mind.

[38:11]

These are mostly dropping off body and mind, mostly seem like priests. Walking to the zendo, on my way to the zendo, I wish that all beings may realize this precious opportunity. And going to dokusan. May we freely speak the truth and scare all devils in the ten realms. And this is walking, standing, sitting and lying down. When exercising, may all beings constantly exercise the healthy state of body and mind. And walking up and down the stairs, may all beings exert energy and ascend to the highest perfect enlightenment.

[39:15]

May all beings look down with compassion and descend to help those in distress. And standing up. I like this one. Like standing on one's feet, I hope that everyone's mind may stand free, peacefully founded on the level of imperturbability. and beginning to walk. As I begin to walk, I wish that all living beings may step out of the ocean of birth and death, well equipped with all wholesome spiritual powers. Oh, here's one on making love. Two brought to one, uniting all duality. And another one. Now, as we begin to make love, may all beings be happy and warm within and without And the last one is sneezing. Thus may we be at one, body, speech, and mind on each occasion.

[40:18]

True. Anyway, there are lots of gathas in here, at least quite a few. I don't know, you know, if it's possible to do, to actually say a gatha every time you do something. But if you have some few gathas which mark certain activities in your life that spirit can carry through all of your activity. But I really feel that that's very valuable practice. and is a kind of key to our direction. So anyway, I would like to see us put some thought into this and make our own gathas and set aside some time to do it.

[41:39]

together or separately, both, and really put this into practice. When Suzuki Roshi was with us, We printed a little book of gathas from Soto Zen practice. I'll show you that little book. We actually have lots of gathas ready. This is a little book called the gatha book. And it has the rope chant, which we chant every morning, which is different But this is one on waking up. It says, this morning as I wake, I vow with all sentient beings to attain awakening to everything without throwing off the world.

[42:49]

That's a Mahayana vow, you know. And through the verse of the Al-Qaisa, which of the robe, the robe chant that we do in the morning, is a little different translation here than the one that we do now. And I'll read you that translation because it's very interesting. It says, how great is the robe, or the kesa, a virtuous garden far beyond form and emptiness. I will wear the Tathagata's teaching, Buddha's teaching, and save all sentient beings. But it's a virtuous garden. And it's interesting because a while ago that word came up, a garden.

[43:51]

Cultivating a garden. Cultivating a place. that is your abode. We like to live in a garden. We like to live in some place that is like a garden. There's no reason why we shouldn't do that. But it's that place, you know, is where we carry that garden around with us. And it's the environment that we carry with us wherever we go, even if it's only

[44:59]

are the place where we exist. And this is the vowel, the gata that we used to use in informal meals at Zen Center. We don't use it anymore. There's one for before the meal and one for after. If you have tea together, you'd say this gata. Or if you had some coffee cake or something, See this katha, informal meal. Now as I take food and drink, I vow with all sentient beings to partake with the pleasure of Zen and to fully enjoy the dharma. It's a very nice vow. People say, what? The pleasure of Zen? You know, the legs hurt a lot. What? Pleasure of Zen. And then after that informal meal, we used to say, now I have taken food and drink, I vow with all sentient beings to be full of pure practice and filled with the ten powers.

[46:21]

And everybody would say, what's the ten powers? There is a list of ten powers, which are the ten powers of the Tathagata, Buddha. So those are some of the gathas. And before the lecture, that's a gatha. After the lecture is a gatha. Four vows are a gatha. And here's one before going to bed. Tonight before I sleep, I vow with all sentient beings to still all things and to clear the mind of confusion. So I hope that by studying these gathas, that we can give ourselves some way of constantly reminding ourselves that we are practicing.

[47:28]

And by practicing, we're always offering our activity to, constantly offering it up. Do you have any questions? I much like the one about this cup of tea is my wish for you and also the one that you read about reading a newspaper and the thought that came to me is that all sentient beings is such a huge concept that just saying every gatha all the time for all sentient beings for me would lose its, it would get stale and I was thinking is it appropriate in these things to think of offering the gatha to some special person or groups or your parents who've gone or some kind, certain friends or you know to keep them alive by offering

[48:44]

You can't do that. It's more limited. The thing about all sentient beings, maybe there's some other way of expressing that, some alternative way of expressing that that doesn't become stereotyped. But I think the unlimitedness of it is, even though it seems unthinkable, it is kind of unthinkable. When you say all sentient beings, it's such an unthinkable concept that it becomes difficult to grasp. So you don't have to use that concept exactly. But it's okay to use it. Because there are other ways of expressing that, I think, that are universal.

[49:55]

And maybe feel pressure, you know. So I think maybe we need to think about that, how to do that. You have big questions there, we have two more minutes. So I just want to say one thing about four vows. Four vows are a response to the four truths. The first truth is life is subject to suffering.

[51:08]

Everything that lives is subject to suffering. And the second truth is that the main cause of suffering is basically desire. And the third is that there is a way to end desire, or to deal with desire, or to deal with suffering. See, the first two are the problem, suffering and its cause. And the second two are the answer, or the antidote. There is a way, and the way is the Eightfold Path, or the various practices of Buddhism. And the response, that's what the response is. Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them from suffering and confusion. desires, which is the cause, are without end.

[52:10]

I vow to do something about it. The dharmas are boundless. I vow to master them, that there is a way, and that's the various Buddhist dharma. In this case, it means teachings. And the fourth is, the Buddha's way is unsurpassable and out of attainment, which is the eightfold path. Whatever it is that you practice, or whatever, anyway, Buddha's, not Buddha's path, you know, your Buddha path. Well, when we talk about desire, see, you're taking it very literally. You can't, desire is okay, but what we're talking about when we say desires is excess of desire.

[53:17]

That desire which is not wholesome. It doesn't mean all desire, otherwise you'd just be a piece of protoplasm. You have desire, we understand that. That's a given. You can't do away with desire. So it's a kind of koan, you know. It's like, you have to think about it, feel it. Desires are inexhaustible. It's those inexhaustible desires. So, but the desire that we're talking about is not desire in itself, but what it's turned toward. So you don't eliminate, you eliminate selfish desires by turning yourself toward unselfish practice.

[54:28]

which is to constantly give away the fruits of your activity. So that's turning desire, but we call it eliminating desire. It's called getting rid of desire, but in reality it's turning desire. So from selfishness to unselfishness. I just wanted, as I was listening to you read the Gathas, I was thinking of a famous haiku by Basho, where he says, seeing the lightning flash, how admirable is he who thinks not life is fleeting. That's nice. Thank you.

[55:40]

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