Good morning. I feel like I'm on the end of a fishing line here. We'll see. Whenever I come to the Berkley Zen Center, I feel like I'm coming to a warm incubator. It's a nice feeling here. And to see the growth in numbers and in individuals is always very encouraging to me. Today I want to talk about a number of things, but I'll start off with a topic that I often bring up from the Lotus Sutra.

[01:06]

And this is the phrase, only a Buddha, together with a Buddha, can fathom the reality of all existence. Takes two, at least. Only a Buddha, together with a Buddha, can fathom the reality of all existence. So, two Buddhas are more than double one Buddha because it's the relationship, the interaction that makes it more than the sum of its parts. As individuals, we're not just noses and eyes and arms and fingers. We're those and the way they interrelate together. Also, when we do a ceremony like this morning's, we're all doing it together.

[02:27]

It's the interaction between all of us, putting our common effort together, which gives the power to the ceremony. Of course, your nose and your eyes and your fingers and your heart and your blood all doing something together also does that. Only a Buddha together with a Buddha can fathom the reality of all existence. There's you know a verse when we offer incense which In that verse it goes, bow, bower and bow to a one. There's of course appreciating something higher than ourselves or something that we would like to grow to of course is very efficacious and feels good.

[03:31]

And becoming or joining with that is even a further step, joining with Buddha in bowing. Not just some separate, separate giving. Dogen our founder in Japan, wrote a fascicle called Buddha and Buddha, just on this phrase. And let me see. And I'd like to read a passage from it.

[04:37]

Buddha Dharma cannot be known by a person. Only a Buddha and a Buddha can thoroughly master it. When you realize Buddha Dharma, you do not think, this is realization just as I expected. Even if you think so, realization invariably differs from your expectation. Realization is not like your conception of it. Accordingly, realization cannot take place as previously conceived. When you realize Buddhadharma, you do not consider how realization came about. You should reflect on this. Once you think one way or another, before realization is not a help for realization. Although realization is not like any of the thoughts preceding it, This is not because such thoughts were actually bad and could not be realization.

[05:50]

Past thoughts in themselves were already realization, but since you were seeking elsewhere, you thought and said that thoughts cannot be realization. However, it is worth noticing that what you think one way or another is not a help for realization. Then you are cautious not to be small-minded. If realization came forth by the power of your prior thoughts, it would not be trustworthy. Realization does not depend on thoughts, but comes forth far beyond them. Realization is helped only by the power of realization itself. Know that then there is no delusion and there is no realization. So you can also take this lecture with a grain of salt.

[07:01]

But this lecture is not my lecture. It's not one person's lecture. I'm doing the talking mostly, except a little bit later. But it's all of us. And it's worth noticing that what you think one way or another is not a help for realization, then you are cautious not to be small-minded. Not that what you think one way or another is wrong, but don't let it hem you in. So, if more than one person can see, you can see behind me, I can see behind you,

[08:10]

We have a slightly different angle in which we see that post, in which we hear things. Realization is not the possession of a person. Now I'd like to do it from a little different angle, what I'm trying to talk about. And this is case 10 in the Blue Cliff record, but I like it a little bit better in the Shoyuroku. And this is the case. Wang Po, very famous Chinese Zen master in the Tang Dynasty, said to the assembly, you people, you people are all slurpers of dregs.

[09:31]

If you travel like this, where will you have today? Do you know that in all of China there are no teachers of Chan? At that point, a monk came forward and said, what about those who guide followers and lead groups in various places? Wong Po said, I don't say there's no Chan, just that there are no teachers. What does this have to do with Buddha and Buddha? A little explanation of that term, slurpers of dregs. There's a story. Once Lord Heng was reading a book in his room.

[10:36]

Lun Pian was planing a wheel outside the hall. He put aside his mallet and chisel and came up and asked, May I ask what you are reading, sir? The Lord said, a book of the sages." Then Pien said, are the sages alive? The Lord said, they're already dead. Pien said, then what you are reading is the dregs of the ancients. So slurpers of dregs, if you've come here to pick up on what I've digested or read or some nice quotes from ancestors. One poem may abrade you and say you're slurpers of dregs.

[11:39]

You're not coming forth as Buddha. You're not digesting your own food. Only a Buddha and a Buddha. The whole meal is digested by both people. You know, there are... What these two things are getting at is there are two tendencies, of course. There's our tendency always to make up our own life, to always see things from our own point of view. to, when we begin to practice, just make an improved version of our habits, an improved vision of our narrow, you know, we open the vision a little, but basically we keep our narrow patterns. I've always been nearsighted. Some improved version of ourselves, which doesn't let in other Buddhas,

[12:53]

shovels, water sprinkling systems, whatever. So that's why often we emphasize a teacher. Don't just go by what your habitual way of looking at things is, what your thought about what realization is. Don't hold on to that. And having another person can help you to shatter that. Oh, you mean you can look at it that way? Or, oh, I see it all over and over how I do my same pattern. Even my enlightenment is some echo of my delusion. Do you understand? You know, it's said that a pickpocket knows everybody's pockets. And we're all pickpockets or some we tend to be focused on certain things and not see others.

[14:01]

And of course the other problem is to be a slurper of dregs. Let the person who's up here do the work. Or let them put it forward and then either criticize it or like it. Either one. either admire it or detest it. But where is your own food? So we need to let in, relate. We need to interact. Only a Buddha and a Buddha. When one Buddha talks to another, there's a lot of listening going on. And not just one Buddha is talking. I remember several years ago, Katagiri Roshi was saying, I said, at some, I can't remember the circumstance, but he said, teacher, teacher, teacher.

[15:20]

You keep saying the word teacher. I'm sick of it. It makes me sick the way you talk about teacher. Wang Po was one of the leading figures in the Tang Dynasty. He had many disciples. The Tang Dynasty was the flourishing of Zen in China. And yet, as a teaching, he said, there are no teachers in all of China, of Chan. Not that there's no Chan, When I was head student a few years ago, Abbott Tension Anderson, for my ceremony, wrote something on a fan, which is only a Buddha and a Buddha.

[16:45]

So today I thought I'd just fan that for you all, after that hot and sweaty ceremony we did. So, thank you. And I guess there's not so much time, so I'd be glad to take questions or anything else, statements, anything. How does the only Buddha in a Buddha fit into Shakyamuni Buddha's own enlightenment? Well, you know what he said is, wonderful, wonderful, I in all things have the Buddha nature. And when he talked about it, it wasn't sort of, well, it's true, it's sometimes talked about in different ways, but I in all things have the Buddha nature. Of course,

[17:48]

The Buddha, in many sutras, it's talked about Buddha's previous lives and studying under many teachers. And in the Lotus Sutra itself, it says, it talks about the coming Buddha, Maitreya, who is a famed seeker at the time, this one time of the teaching of the Lotus Sutra. But he has, through many thousands of years, practiced with many teachers. some more thousands of years, will become the next Buddha. So particularly in the Mahayana, I think that kind of large cycle is talked about. Buddha himself had several teachers, all of which eventually he left. And his last words in the Nirvana Sutra were, be a lamp unto yourself. I've given you all my teachings. So there's this interplay, and I think because we all have the tendency, there's these two tendencies, these two sides, one to just see things as echoes of ourselves, that's why we need to open up to other things, or sort of the near enemy of that is to listen to somebody else and just take their habits or their

[19:19]

as the truth rather than the interaction that's being pointed to. So at different times, sometimes it looks like we're saying opposite things, but I think it's pointing to that interaction. And as long as If a teacher tells you to do something and you don't look at it and you just go ahead and do it, sometimes that's very useful. But other times, you don't take it seriously. And if it goes wrong, you say, well, it's the teacher's fault. So it's only a Buddha together with the Buddha. I think the hard part for me has been recognizing my resistances, recognizing the Buddha nature of my resistances, and my small-mindedness, and my implicit emotions.

[20:53]

Uh-huh. Yeah. Shut them out. You know, Ed Brown, I remember a lecture Ed Brown said, you need to ordain all of your faults, not just throw them that way. You have to convert them. You have to keep them close to you. You know, in the Mahayana Vinaya, you know, Vinaya is the rules of conduct and the ceremony we did this morning had to do with reciting our intention. And often the rules of conduct are recited at the same time as this full moon ceremony. It says, desire is not so serious offense though hard to overcome because it embraces others.

[21:59]

While hatred or aversion tries to separate from others and is a very serious offense, though easier to overcome. But yes, and that means to ordain your aversion or hate and to Bring it in, not try to dispel it out. It's very hard. I know whenever I think, whenever I see one of my problems, I just want to get rid of it. But I can't do that. I'd like to. But in fact, I have to kind of thoroughly surround it and become very close to it and imbue it in order to in order for us to be Buddha and Buddha together.

[23:04]

A vehicle for furthering practice? What? Yes. Suzuki Roshi used to say that for his then student, a weed is a treasure. Of course, none of us feel that way, but a weed is a treasure, because then you have, if you have a problem, then you have a way to go. Wow, I can do that. If we have completely polished surfaces, where everything seems fine, there's not too much to work with, except that. Then you can take that and say, oh, why do I have this polished surface, and I don't feel particularly good, but I can't see. Also, one personal note, what I appreciate about this Buddha and Buddha fascicle is that it takes away some of the trepidation of giving a lecture which is only met within a hundred thousand million years.

[24:26]

In fact, it's Buddha and Buddha. It's just how you understand and bring what I say that creates this really met with, not just what I say, not just what you think, but this incubator of Buddhists. Thank you all very much.

[24:58]

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