Good morning. I'd like to welcome Lee DeBaros, who is a priest from the San Francisco Zen Center. He's practicing at Green Gulch and offers classes at Green Gulch through the study center there. I've known him for many years. He's a wonderful person, great sense of humor, and if you ever have an opportunity to take a class with him, I would wholeheartedly recommend it. Thank you very much for being with us, Lee. It's a lot to live up to. Well, it's quite something for me to be here. Many years ago, I was a student at UC Berkeley, and I heard about this Japanese monk that was in San Francisco teaching the Dharma, which I didn't know what that was.

[01:26]

Still don't, actually. But he was teaching it anyway. Some people said we should go over and take a look, you know, so it was when Suzuki Roshi was at the, in Japan town at that. Sakoji. Sakoji, yeah. And then one thing led to another and here we are. I was at Berkeley, so I visited this Zen Center, Berkeley Zen Center. Zuki Roshi asked Mel to come and start the Zen Center over here, and sat at the one on Russell Street, or Dwight, was it? At Dwight, up in the app, over there. And that was my introduction to Zen.

[02:28]

I after that had a career and didn't sit for a while and then many years later went to Green Gulch and Mel came over and we connected up again and a number of years later he ordained me. So here I am. Although I have been teaching classes and lecturing to some degree, I've never really lectured to a congregation like on Saturday or Sunday. So this is kind of my first time doing this. Thanks for coming. Well, right now we're sort of studying the Lotus Sutra over at the Green Gulch.

[03:41]

Have you read the Lotus Sutra or know about the Lotus Sutra? Yeah, it's not that popular. Yeah. Well, I'll try to change that. You know, the koan system, these are a series of Zen stories that are involved in an interchange between Zen master and student, kind of a pithy little summary of the Dharma, kind of enlivens a critical point in Zen history.

[04:43]

And were written down for some reason and sort of made it to our day in certain kinds of collections. And one of the first ones was Joshu's Moo, it's called. It's an entry koan. And it's just simply a monk asked Joshu, does a dog have Buddha nature? So here's a monk, right? There's a talk of Buddha nature. He's asking the teacher. And Joshi says, move. So that's it. And this has puzzled people for, well, a long time, 1,000 years maybe. And it's used as a koan for a beginning koan called an entry koan, something to kind of really get you going, get you concentrated.

[05:49]

And mu, I think, is variously translated, but it means yes, maybe, or various forms of yes. And the poor monk is given his koan, and he This is especially in Renzai Zen. He's told to think about this all the time while he's meditating. Think about Mu. While he's eating, think about Mu. Always think about Mu. Always have Mu with you, next to you. And every day, you'd have to go maybe see the Roshi, what, two or three times, and tell him, you know, what you think about this koan here. And so you go, man, you've been thinking about it this way. You've been thinking about it that way. You've penetrated, you've had insights. You go in and you kneel before the Roshi and you say your understanding and he tells you to get out, to forget it.

[06:53]

And this goes on and on and this great fear and humiliation that you don't want to go anymore. The harder you try, the worse it gets. It's called the barrier of mood. Now, that was interesting, but that was, Mumon collected that one in a bunch of koans around 1250. In China, when Buddhism was in a bad slide and things were really falling apart, he decided to write all these down, and so he wrote that one down, amongst others. However, there are other collections. One was called the Book of Serenity, which is recently translated by Cleary. And if you look in there, there's something called Joshu's dog. And Joshu's dog is a little bit more, you see a little bit, moves sort of, played out a little bit where, actually what happened was Joshu's, a monk came to Joshu and said, does a dog have Buddha nature?

[08:06]

And Joshu said, yes. And the monk said, well, if he has Buddha nature, why does he take the form of this skin bag? And Joshu says, because he knowingly transgresses. He knows, and he deliberately transgresses. Buddha nature does. And then a long time later, another monk asked Joshu, does a dog have Buddha nature? And Joshu said, no. And the monk said, thinking, well, the monk said, well, but all sense of being is of Buddha nature. And Joshu said, yes, but this one still has a pulse of consciousness. This one is still driven by instincts and so on. So we wonder, while we listen to this and the monks listen to this, well, how come he says yes now, he says no then?

[09:08]

You know, I mean, is he confused? Did he forget what he said before? Is he trying to wiggle out here? What is the truth of the matter? You know, does it talk of clear nature or not? Maybe we like mood better, you know, instead of this yes and no. So what is the answer? to anything? Is it yes or no? Do you know something that the answer is yes to or no to? So, Something to think about.

[10:09]

Buddha, he was born in what, 500 BC? He left home and shaved his head and studied with the various people of the time. and exceeded them. Finally, he sat down on his own cushion under a tree with no teachers, no supporters, just with his history, his life, himself. And he vowed to sit there until he understood suffering and the end of suffering. And this was at the end of a great effort in his life.

[11:24]

And he had a transformation, I guess. And at that moment of transformation, I think maybe he said, Moo, really loud. Really, really loud. It was heard everywhere, in the future, in the past, and in the present, everywhere. He preached then immediately the Atatamsaka Sutra. You may not know the Atatamsaka Sutra, but it's the most incomprehensible, fantastic thing you've ever seen. And reading it itself is a transforming experience. It's impossible. I mean, you don't try to understand it, you know.

[12:27]

You just read it and then read it again and read it again. But he found when he preached the other time, Dr. Searcher, that everybody left the room. Because it was just too... They didn't even hear it. You know, it was so far out that it didn't register at all. So, Dr. Glunick kind of noticed this and kind of sat for a while longer and thought, I can't teach this stuff. Nobody will understand. And he sat there and Brahma, the god of gods, of course, was watching all of this go on, had great expectations for the future here with Giacomini, and asked him to teach. And Giacomini said, I can't teach. How do I? If I open my mouth, I stick my foot in it.

[13:28]

He said, oh, well, you should try to teach. And he asked three times. And finally, Jackie Mooney thought, well, maybe there are some people who I could teach something to, a little bit. So he taught. And I'll get back to that maybe. But he taught for 50 years, 250 sutras. And he died. And when he died, people were real worried. You know, Jackie Mooney's gone. What are we going to do now? They weren't quite clear on certain doctrinal points. And time went on, and they were real worried that they were going to forget exactly what he said. So they decided, well, we'll have these congresses, and we'll all get together. And we'll chant, you know, they used to chant these sutras because this is the way they told each other, sutras, and they would chant together.

[14:39]

So people would come together every hundred years, and Buddhism had spread real wide by then. They would come together and, you know, the chant, the group from San Jose would be over here, and the group from Phoenix would be over, and they'd be all, they'd be chanting the sutras. And then all of a sudden, you know, the group from San Jose would be chanting off on this other, And they say, well, hold it. What was that? And they bring it back, and then they discuss, and they try to get everybody to agree again. So they kind of move forward. And this was the effort to keep the teaching literal and fundamental. So I'm just remembering the first Freeway, it was a Pasadena freeway. And when they built that freeway, the squirrels, they built it right through a forest kind of situation. And there were squirrels that used to kind of go through that area, but now they couldn't get across.

[15:46]

And in very few years, you could tell where that squirrel was from. If you saw a squirrel, whether it was from the left side or the right side of the freeway, because it ended up breeding. immediately you can identify. If interdependence and interpenetration stopped occurring, differences start to occur and you can actually start to identify them very quickly. So they were going to try to prevent that. But what happened was The sort of formal priest class got more and more scientific and did research and went to monasteries and got very, very complicated and distant from the lay people and the way the world was actually changing.

[16:48]

So by the time the Third Congress came around, there was a tremendous argument and there was a schism. And it was the beginning of many such divisions about little points, you know, people would constellate around different points. And Buddhism stopped having its unifying aspect. The two main The one that actually came out of that that was new was what's called Mahayana, which Zen is part of. It's called the Greater Vehicle, and then there's Hinayana, which is the Lesser Vehicle. These names were created by the Mahayana. The Lesser Vehicle were composed of what's called the hearers. These are the people who hear the Buddha and do what he says. and were very good at it, and achieved a certain kind of liberation.

[17:52]

It was not complete, but they felt real good about it. And then there were Prajakta Buddhas, who were people who sort of had personal insight, didn't necessarily listen to the Buddha, but were somewhat removed from congregations, a little bit like preparing for a lecture. You know, you can sort of try to get very concrete and specific about everything and then actually memorize it and give it. Or you can think, well, maybe the spirit will, you know, I won't prepare. The spirit will move me. You get into trouble either way, right? So you've got to go down the middle somehow, have some sort of structure. So these are the two lesser vehicles. Then there was the bodhisattva vehicle which the Mahayanas liked, which emphasized compassion, helping your buddies out.

[18:58]

Don't get calm all by yourself when other people are unhappy. That's foolhardy because their unhappiness will eventually invade your frontier. So you need to have a kind of United Nations approach to the whole thing. So, okay, so there's the teaching and it sort of leaks over the Himalayas into China and the Chinese were very interested in these Buddhist monks that would come over. But the problem they were having was that, I mean, you know, it's sort of, we think of the Chinese as sort of esoteric and interesting, right? But they thought that the Indians were really interesting. And these Indians would show up with these new teachings from across the mountains. And they would all sort of take up on that teaching.

[20:00]

They would investigate that person. They would argue with that person. That person would get some sort of congregation going. A school would develop. Emperors would get involved. And then other people would come from other schools. And it became this problem where They had many different Buddhist schools, each one saying that they had the truth, their practices were the correct practices. This was a problem for the Chinese. The Chinese do not like that. I was told that harmony is of tremendous importance, to move towards harmony in such a disparate country. So this is when the great blessing occurred. The wonderful flower of the Dharma came to the salvation of the Chinese in the form of the lotus sutra.

[21:10]

Kumarajiva, this great translator, translated the Lotus Sutra from Sanskrit into Chinese, around 400, and it immediately became incredibly popular. It swept the country. Schools, the Tiandai school developed around it, which was a school which integrated all these seemingly disparate practices, all these heretofore deadly enemies. I mean, people were saying that they should drop dead. Somebody should do something about the fact that these people believe this, that they should not. This was going on, and emperors and kings would take sides, and they would have war. Anyway, they needed some help. And it was the Lotus Sutra. And the Lotus Sutra took, and the Tien Dai school, with the help of it, took all these teachings and organized them into this scheme, which basically showed that the Buddha taught appropriate to individual and circumstance.

[22:36]

So that, you know, the Buddha would sit there and speak and everyone would hear him in their own language. They would hear what they were ready to hear, what they needed to hear, what was medicine for them. So, at one time the Buddha would say, yes, to the same question that another time he would say no to. This was a little bit disturbing to people because they wanted to know. Yes or no? Where can I take refuge? Where is the security? How can I know for sure?

[23:41]

When can I stop searching? When have I arrived? How do I answer these questions that people ask me? What's the truth? And they would ask, the Buddha to teach, tell them. And then when you read the Lotus Sutra, you'll see that in the Lotus Sutra, they're always asking, for instance, at the beginning of the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha goes into his, you know, he sat like five hours a day, and he would sit there, and this huge congregation would appear, all the Bodhisattvas, the dragons, the kings, the gods, every conceivable being. bow down, show up, sit there and wait. And the Buddha and I were noticing our Buddha here, his little jewel right here.

[24:50]

Right out of that came this beam of light that lit up the 18,000 worlds. And in all these worlds you could see that there were other Buddhas. teaching other congregations. And in those worlds, those Buddhas, the beams of light were coming out of their head, lighting up 18,000, and the incredibly brilliant lit-up situation was going on. And flowers were falling out of the sky, and the earth quaked. And people wondered, well, this is really great, you know. But what does it mean? What's going on?" And they would ask. And I think Shariputra was, Maitreya and Shariputra were sort of in front there. Maitreya turned to Shariputra and said, well, you've been around a long time.

[25:57]

You've seen lots of other Buddhas. I mean, what does this all mean, and what is he going to do? And he said, well, I've seen this many times before, past Buddhas, and he's going to teach the Lotus Sutra. Well, that's great. Well, when is he going to do that? And pretty soon. I've seen it before. And he goes into this incredibly long story about how he's seen it all before. So the Buddha is about to teach the Lotus Sutra. Is he going to answer your question about yes and no? Is he going to give you that refuge, that house you can dwell in forever? How is he going to go about it?

[27:00]

And the integrating Lotus Sutra just shows that in the Tien Dai school, all these teachings, all these various wonderful teachings, the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the Heart Sutra, each has its place in the learning of the students and the history of Buddhism. And each was evoked appropriate to the time and place and individual. It was Buddhism in the form of the Lotus Sutra came to Japan and the prince at the time loved it and he actually designed the constitution of his country around it, like around 500. It immediately swept the country and penetrated all the art and poetry. Did you know that Dogen was a

[28:11]

Lotus Sutra monk, Nichiren, Shenzhen, all those guys were Lotus Sutra monks. They all studied the Lotus Sutra. Back when Dogen died, in his last weeks, months, he wrote the Lotus Sutra on pillars in a room and he chanted it and walked around the parts of it. And he called it the Lotus Sutra Hut, his room. And he wrote the Chobo Genzo, you know, it's a great work by Dovey. 80% of the illusions in there, it says Lotus Sutra. There's no way you can actually teach the Lotus Sutra.

[29:14]

But one of the reasons I think it was so popular, this is not the entire Lotus Sutra, is that it has parables in it. It has seven parables in it. People love these parables. Easy to understand. And I will maybe share one with you. We have time, I hope. I'll share a short one. It's a parable of the burning house. Once upon a time, there was a rich man. He had children. They played in this house. There were many rooms in this house. They had their toys. They were having a lot of fun, living their life, playing with their toys.

[30:19]

Totally oblivious to danger. But the house was on fire. It was burning. And the father was outside the house, saw the house was on fire, knew the children were in the house and called to them to come out. But what did the children do? Well, of course, they didn't listen. They were very involved with their toys. They played with their toys. The father called again. The children wouldn't come out. So he was faced with this problem. What should he do? A burning house, the children inside playing with their toys, they won't come out. Well, this is what he did.

[31:24]

He said, well, he knew that the children all wanted certain big toys they didn't have. So he told them, each one, that outside the house, And he called them carts. There was a cart for each. And in the story, it is told that there are three children and three carts. And there's this long description of these incredibly beautiful carts, and they're drawn by specific animals. They have bells, and balloons, and all the equipment you could imagine. So he tells the children this, and once they hear this, what do they do? They drop everything. And they run out of the house, out of the burning house. But when they get outside, what do they see? Well, there's only one cart outside the house.

[32:27]

It's a real nice cart. But they've sort of been saved. and shown that there's only one God, although they were told there were three. What does this parable mean? What do we get out of it? Early in the teaching, of Buddhist teaching. He taught the people that if they followed the Eightfold Path and penetrated the Four Noble Truths, that they would be liberated. He gave them these practices to do.

[33:28]

They did them. And they were lippering, but not completely. In fact, maybe not at all, but they were feeling pretty good about it. And they were very busy playing with their practices, you know, their toys. And he had three vehicles, you know, one for the people who like to follow rules, They did real well. Those are called the Arhats or the Shravakas, the hearers. And he had one for the people who shunned rules, but totally looked within and found, you know, personal truth. He had a vehicle for those people. You know, like, we all have moments where we sort of intuit things and see how things are going, how things are working, independent of rules completely.

[34:32]

independent of history and culture, we think. And he had a vehicle for those, and they followed those. And then there was the Bodhisattvas, you know, who were kind of probably felt a little bit superior to those two. And they would say, well, we're going to help everybody, save everybody. And they had their little vehicle to play with. I don't mean it to mean these vehicles, when I say little vehicles. That's all we've got, but these are the toys that we're playing with. And the house is burning. We don't think it's burning, but it's burning. Are we finding, are we selflessly pursuing our practices? What's motivating us? Why have we come to practice? Why are you doing the practices you're doing?

[35:32]

It may not matter so much what practices we're doing. Although it's interesting to think about it, but probably we're doing things that are sort of appropriate to who we are and where we are in our life. But there's a question, I think, And that is, what are we doing? Who are we? Are we getting hooked on our practices? Are our practices vehicles? Dharmages? Leading? Where? So the Buddha says, he told those people these were the practices to follow. And in the Lotus Sutra, he tells them, I just did that to get your attention.

[36:44]

They got really miffed. A lot of them got up and laughed at that point. If there's only one vehicle, the Buddha vehicle, all these are just versions of it appropriate to your circumstance. This is the parable of the burning house. So does a dog have Buddha nature?

[37:45]

Any questions? I read somewhere, someone wrote, greater vehicle, lesser vehicle, it doesn't matter, all vehicles will be towed at the owner's expense. That's right. That's about it. Does a dog have to put a nature? How do you feel about that? Well, it feels true for me that there's different vehicles for different tendencies that people have, what draws people to one kind of practice or another, and then the ensuing feelings of, this is better than that, and hopefully that gets worked through.

[39:28]

It's wonderful, especially in the Bay Area, where there is a lot to choose from and we can find a place to practice. I wonder about the origins of the three-in-one oil. You know, if they just... I guess I... How does that feel? It feels hopeless. The people inside escape the burning house, but it still burns. What?

[40:34]

It's just changing into something else. Well, I had the experience recently of going to Japan with 12 women and going to Suzuki Roshi's temple, which seemed to be the complete heart of the practice. And it wasn't until I'd gotten there and suffered some considerable discomfort there with my 11 other friends trying to figure out what exactly the practice was for us at that moment, that I began to see how, to what extent, I carried around a structure of what I thought the practice was, and what a burden that had been to me, and how weighed down I'd been by what I thought was a very beautiful car.

[41:43]

So, I think for me I go back and forth between inventing probably more than I realize a vehicle and then beginning to see the vehicle and disown it and falling back into the burning house, into the confusion. And then probably trying again. We do have this relationship with ourselves, of devising vehicles, trying to deal with ourselves. That's okay. The problem is, I think we constantly get into the position of kidding ourselves, thinking

[42:48]

we've found some place to land. Because the world then keeps changing and exposes the weakness of our position, our fortified position. And then we have to get out of it again. devices to get our attention and attention itself. The toys and the cards don't seem to be different. They seem to, as you pay attention, then they're all cards. It's form and emptiness. We see that true emptiness is wonderful form.

[43:59]

wonderful life. Our life are all these vehicles and parts. It's just that when we settle for one at the exclusion of another, that we start getting anxious. One of the things that I found the koan that particular koan points to, or probes, is the illusion of life, the great dream of life, the great dream life, I should say, and that what is clearly yes now can be clearly a no tomorrow, and clearly a maybe four days after that, and that everything is just a kind of made-up interpretation. And to me that's what Moo points to, is like, don't get attached to anything.

[45:05]

Hear it as clearly as you can now, but don't get attached, because it's still alive, it'll change. And in that's this kind of scariness, because then, what's learning? What is there to rely on? And we say, well, there's the triple treasure. Yeah, OK, well, what's that? That, to me, is more what that colon pokes at. What about cars to drive over other people's cars? Does anyone have a driver's permit? Well, what do we do when we're faced with moral conflict?

[46:24]

There's one nation right and the other nation wrong. One party, one position. The Buddha saw himself as a doctor providing medicine for illness. What's the healing approach? How do we find a way of including Seeing the point of view, identifying with that which we have a tendency to vilify.

[47:30]

How do we love it? History is replete with efforts to take sides and stamp out evil. How's it going? When you're in an argument with someone, especially someone you're living with, or someone, you may build up reasons and point out evidences that support your position. Justify, perhaps, punishment or hurtfulness. Take revenge. Somehow you feel justified, we feel justified. But where does it all lead?

[48:37]

Does it lead to where we want to be? Does it lead to intimacy? Does it help the other person see your life and their own, to release? I don't know. We all have to answer, you know, how to deal with that fundamental question, and it's an important one. But if someone's going to hurt someone, and you can stop it, what will you do? Well, I know what you'll do.

[49:45]

Do it. This is real different than vilifying the person who is hurting the other person. Can you, with equanimity, with love in your heart, stop someone from hurting another person? Can you have as much compassion and see the pain in the herder that you can see in the person being hurt because I think only then will karma be resolved or it won't heal. In order to do that we have to see ourselves and we have to do our homework, do our practice, own up to that we are the herder and the herd.

[51:02]

Then, when we act, the whole world Jumps for joy. Very quietly, maybe a little jump, but the whole world goes up. Things soften up. People relax. There's a release. Thank you very much.

[52:03]

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