Good morning. I want to speak today about the first transcendent practice of bodhisattvas. So Zen is a practice in the bodhisattva tradition, the tradition of universal liberation. And we have various specific practices that are designated or talked about in terms of bodhisattva practice. But the first practice is called, in Sanskrit, dana paramita, or generosity, giving. There's one system of six paramitas, there's another of ten. Just to be simpler, the six are generosity, ethical conduct, patience, effort or enthusiasm, meditation, and then wisdom or insight, prasna paramita.

[01:14]

But dana is Well, we might say the beginning, the first, the starting point. They all relate to each other. So they're kind of a circle. But giving generosity, they're all challenging. They're all lifelong practices. They all seem like, in some ways, simple and obvious. They all are practices that we all have been doing for a long time in some way or another. How many of you have ever given a gift? Everybody raise their hands. How many of you have ever received a gift? Yeah, so we talk about in the meal chain, give a receiver and gift. So giving and receiving are go together. And this may seem like we've all done this.

[02:23]

But actually, really, generosity is challenging and difficult. And this is a season where this is emphasized. There's a lot of gift giving that happens around this season. And sometimes it's hard to know what to give to somebody you want to give a gift to. And sometimes it's even harder to receive a gift when it's not really, you know, something you can use or want. Or how do you receive something graciously when it's... I've received action figures. People give gifts well intentionally, but what am I going to do with that? Anyway, and giving and receiving go together. One of the practices traditionally

[03:27]

for learning generosity that Asian monks go through is called takuhatsu, which means offering the bowl. So I did this when I was in a practice period, a monastic practice period in Japan and in Kyushu, the southern island. And every twice a month, we would go out and do this Tako Hatsu practice once in the smaller village near the monastery, we were up in the mountains, and once in the larger city. And you spend the whole day, it's kind of like a session for chanting and walking. There's different ways of doing it. Sometimes you do it standing still. I did that in Kyoto, too. You just stand, like, at a public place, like at a bridge or a mall, and you hold out the bowl and you chant, like the Kansai-on chant we do sometimes. Or you walk, and you walk from door to door, chanting.

[04:30]

People in Asia are used to making donations, giving to monks, people doing religious practice, because they have this as part of their culture that when you give to someone doing strict religious practice, there is lots of merit. There's benefit that you receive by giving to them. Not so you go door to door chanting. And sometimes nobody comes out, and they don't want to give anything. That's fine. You go to the next house. Sometimes they come out, and they put money in your bowl, or they put rice or something. And you have a bag, and you put it in there. But when you receive it, you do this chant, which has to do with the giving of material goods and dharma. So I'm giving a dharma talk now. So this is a kind of giving. And practitioners, or teachers, or monks are supposed to be giving the Dharma. And then the lay people are giving.

[05:34]

material goods. And we actually, all the food we ate through the month was from what we received on these two begging rounds. And it's a wonderful practice. You have straw sandals that you wear, which are uncomfortable at first. And the first couple of times you do it, your feet bleed and stuff. But you learn to, I actually found them, after a while, very comfortable. Your toes are over the edge of the sandal, and you wrap them around your leg. And they're sort of padded. Anyway, mine are hanging up in the Dogue Sun room, because I'm not doing that anymore. So I've hung up my sandals. Anyway, but you do this chant about receiving about the oneness of giver, receiver, and gift, and about the mutuality of giving dharma and giving material goods.

[06:38]

But the practice is receiving. The practice for monks in Asia learning about generosity is to receive. And it's not easy to receive sometimes. So how do you receive? and learn to receive. And part of the practice is it's not personal. So you wear this straw hat that you've probably seen. So your face is covered. So they're not giving to you personally. They're giving to this kind of iconic monk, although the little kids like to look under it. And when they see a gaijin on Westerners, they get all excited. Anyway, so giving and receiving is part of the practice of dana paramita, of generosity. So there's a subtlety to this practice.

[07:42]

And in our lives, how do we practice generosity? And again, in this season, there's traditions of various ways of giving gifts. There's also traditions of making donations. How does one? If one has resources or whatever resources one has, how does one make donations appropriately? One can think about one's priorities. So I'm not certain, but I think the etymology of the English word donation and the Sanskrit word dāna must be similar. I know that's the case. for a lot of Sanskrit words, and I'm sure that Douglas and the board would like me to mention that our year-end letter is out now, and that there's a matching fund, and that our, I don't know what percentage, but a major part of our budget, Brian's in charge of our fundraising, so he would know.

[08:50]

Oh, and Dylan also, so anyway, the, So there's a year-end letter that some of you may have received in the mail and if not, it's out in front and everything given between now and the end of January goes to the matching fund and that keeps this temple going throughout the year. So this is an example of generosity and giving and receiving and on us receiving. So anyway, Douglas may want to say more about it during the announcements. But anyway, so there's a whole lot to say, though, about generosity. Dogen in one of his essays that deals with a different group of Bodhisattva practices, but which includes generosity.

[09:51]

He talks about generosity, including things like seeing flowers on a distant mountain and giving them to Buddha. So that's like if you go For example, if you are on the lakeshore, or even just driving on a lakeshore drive and seeing the lake, as I did yesterday, just giving the beauty of the lake to Buddha or to all beings, or giving a smile to someone. How do you, gifts aren't, gifts can be very ephemeral, but also significant. So there's the formal gift of dharma, like giving a dharma talk.

[10:53]

There's also the material gifts, like giving to keep a temple alive, or giving a physical material gift to someone who you want to give a gift to, but also how do we give of ourselves to others? This comes up when we talk about giving with, you know, what do we do about all the homeless people? in the streets of our cities, in the streets of Chicago, and the housing problem. Do you give to someone who might just use that money for alcohol or drugs? Or do you give to some charity that will help with housing? What do you do? Just giving a smile and a recognition of them as a human being may be more important than putting some money in a cup or whatever. But sometimes, you know, I will give some money.

[11:55]

And I don't have any rules about it. I don't know. It's just how do we give? What do we give? When do we give? So we could talk about giving in terms of the other haramitas, the other transcendent practices. And each of those gives us a complex way of thinking about giving. So ethical conduct, for example, each one of those combinations is very, very complex. our 16 Bodhisattva precepts in our tradition, in some ways come down to respect. That's part of it, respecting all beings. How do we give respect to ourselves, to the world, to the situations we're in, to the people in our lives?

[12:57]

So that's a kind of giving. How do we receive respect when others offer it? This may seem obvious, but we don't always feel that way. How do we give respect to ourselves when we're not feeling up to it? And we could talk about that. There's a lot to say about all of that. There's a lot to say about patience and giving. How do we be patient with ourselves or with others, especially with difficult people or difficult situations? Patience is one of the most important of these practices. And generosity helps with that.

[14:00]

But I want to especially talk about generosity and zazen. this practice we do. I don't think we could do this practice of zazen without generosity. And zazen is an example of generosity. So to just stop whatever else we have to do and sit and face the wall and face ourselves for whatever it is, 30 or 40 minutes or whatever, is kind of giving something to ourselves, giving ourselves a space to whatever we think we're doing in sasen, to just stop and be present and breathe. So some of us last week did rohatsu seshin and sat in this room for five days, some of us for less, but to do that,

[15:07]

is an act of generosity to give ourselves the space to be present and upright for that time. But it's also generous to the others in the room. So just this morning, sitting together, We are giving to each other. We are giving each other the support to be present and upright and feel how it feels to be here. And it's not about doing it correctly or incorrectly, but just to be present and be still and not move. It's an act of generosity to ourselves, to the people around us, to support them to be present. It's, there's something very deeply generous about this practice of Zazen.

[16:17]

So one of the chants we do, the Song of the Grasshuts says, Shuto Sekito, lifting the 700s, says, let go of hundreds of years and relax completely. In some ways that's the goal, if there is a goal of Zazen, is to relax completely. It may not feel like that if you're sitting for five days and you have to be generous to yourself in the middle of pain in your knees or your shoulders or your back or discomfort. How do you be generous to yourself in that situation? But really, to relax completely. How kind. How generous. And it's not just about being generous to yourself because, you know, Dogen says this radical thing about zazen in one of his first writings, his first writing about the meaning of zazen.

[17:28]

I've talked about this a lot and I think of this as, you know, this basic statement that maybe all of his other writings are commentaries on when one person sits and wholeheartedly expresses Buddha mudra, Buddha attitude, with their whole body and mind, all of space in the whole universe completely awakens. So for Dogon, And I would say for us too, our practice is not just, it's not just a self-improvement practice. It's not about just, you know, feeling better oneself, although that can happen if one does this regularly over some time. But how does this practice, this generous practice of allowing ourselves to just be present and be upright and be still and keep breathing,

[18:31]

for 30 or 40 minutes or for five days or whatever. How does that support, Dogen says, grasses and trees, fences and walls, tiles and pebbles, but also all the people in your life? This is deep generosity. How does this practice inform our generosity and allow us to feel kindness allows us to feel our deep intention that we will express through the four bodhisattva vows at the end of this talk to care about ourselves and our family and our friends and all of the beings facing difficulties in this difficult world. This is deep generosity, radical generosity.

[19:33]

So I would say that along with the obvious practices of generosity, like giving gifts and making donations, that this practice of zazen, at its heart is this radical kindness and generosity to ourselves and all beings. And inform us how to be generous. How to see our life as a possibility of generosity. And, you know, there are many ways to be generous. There are many kinds of gifts to give. There are many fine organizations to give donations to. There are many people we might want to give some gift to.

[20:42]

How do we be generous? And how do we be generous to ourselves, too? How do we support ourselves to be to be all that we can be, to borrow a phrase, to allow ourselves to appreciate this opportunity to express wholesomeness and wholeness in a fractured world, and to recognize all the fractures and to see that we have this wonderful opportunity, as I've expressed recently, that living in, for bodhisattvas dedicated to generosity, living in difficult times, as we do, is a wonderful gift.

[21:50]

Because anything we do, whatever way we are moved to respond helpfully in such times, can make a big difference. And the future is not yet set how things will evolve. how much damage climate chaos will make, for example, is not set. So how do we act to respond in a generous way from the context we have? So this is just a little bit about the practice of giving, the practice of dana, the practice of generosity. We could talk more about it, about how it's related to all the other practices. I'm interested in receiving

[22:55]

whatever generous comments any of you would like to make to this conversation. So comments, responses, questions, please feel free. Dylan. And done. or when somebody's asking about how to live a meaningful life, or what the dump is, or how to practice, let's not just do that with your friends, or when you feel like it, or when you feel like you have words readily available.

[24:48]

And I think that's a lesson from yesterday of like, you know, being, trying to be ready to receive a gift from somebody who's asking for a gift from you. Right. Thank you. Other comments? Thank you for thanking me.

[26:30]

And that even includes sometimes holding the door open on the elevator or holding the door open going inside or outside the building. Just to be that respectful of them in that way, I think it's really important. going out and looking at the sky, in a sense, respecting the sky for being so beautiful. Good. Yes, yes, yes. Little things. They're not little, but holding a door for someone, it seems little. But actually, that's an exchange of, yeah, respect, deep respect, kindness. And it's interesting how, when I do that, I'm ready to help you with this one.

[28:05]

Welcome. And I was going to mention something that Jason gave us. So this is a bit of a long story, but not so long. I spent some time living in Kyoto, enjoying very much the Zen Rock Gardens, which are these beautiful experiences of rocks and gravel and moss. And Ed, who's not here today, but he mentioned a couple weeks ago how the city had given us this wonderful event of the gravel and bricks, and he calls it his Ed Rock Garden out front. Maybe jokingly, but he was acknowledging something that was there, and I mentioned during the session last week to Jason, who's our work leader, but who's also an artist, that, you know, maybe we could make it into a, do something with it more intentionally as a Zen Rock Garden.

[29:21]

And Jason, with some help from others, a couple others, did that and arranged the bricks in a really interesting way. And then I saw this morning that a few of them had fallen over. I don't know if you noticed that. But I actually, you know, so I appreciated what Jason did, but I actually How should I say this? In some ways I really liked how it was with this, I don't know if somebody had knocked them over or if the wind did it or what, but I kind of like the way it looks with a few of them knocked over. It's sort of more, I don't know if it's accidental or what, but anyway, so this is about appreciating nature in a way. nature including all the things that happen. So anyway, I wanted to thank Jason for helping catalyze this, and Ed who's not here, this event of our rock garden out front.

[30:31]

So thank you for that gift. Brian. that relates to priorities in one's life. that one decides ahead of time to give, might represent a proportion of one's overall resources for the month or for the year.

[31:39]

And it's a way of saying, right away, I want to say generosity, because you're right in there, and it is a priority. And I'm not going to worry about how that's going to work out. A lot of times, sharing with you is remainder giving. I'm going to do that first. Of tithing you're talking about. Yeah. Or something like tithing. I'm going to do that first because that's maybe one of the most important things I can do. I will make do. I have trust that I will make do with whatever remains, whatever remains. And when I'm honest with myself, this saga, this place, my relationships with you and with everybody else here, is important to me.

[33:01]

And I think it's having an effect on my life, but also, as you were pointing out, maybe a lot of other people, too, just started this practice that I'm engaged in this saga. And I want to be generous, not just because I should be a generous person, but because And somehow or other, there's a relationship between that intention and my desire to pay my mortgage or buy groceries. There's a relationship somehow. And so I find that, to begin with, first, being a wonderful practice. Kathy. This conversation stirred up a lot of different thoughts in my mind. That comment makes me think of my parents, who tithed their whole lives.

[34:04]

And I miss them. But they were in charge of the Confidiate Church that was to take care of local people who were struggling. And what's interesting, you know, is this rural area, is that where they got that information was, you know, just from hearing from different people, maybe teachers who knew that the kids weren't showing up or showed up without coats or whatever. And so my parents, there was some funded church, and they would go buy coats, food, whatever was indicated for different families, and take it to them. There's something about that that has to do with knowing who in your community is struggling, you know, who might need assistance and that the tithing is partly tied to that was meaningful to me.

[35:05]

But I agree, I think that tithing is a useful way to think about things. I had dinner last night with a friend who has a similar business to mine and we were talking finances and She is putting her second child through college right now. And I can't imagine doing that. She's a single mother by myself. But it's like the sense of, it brings my attention to, I'm saving toward retirement, but it brings your attention to what do you do with your money? What's the impact of whatever income you have? And I am giving that more thought, especially as I get older. The other thing that Dylan's comment made me think about was my next-door neighbors are a very sweet couple with a three-year-old child. We have socialized quite a bit back and forth.

[36:10]

At times I've had the sense of, okay, they don't want me, they want some privacy, so I have not always been ready to start conversation when they're trying to leave or something. But they invited me to their house for dinner for a large family gathering recently, and and I went and it's like it was clear from their comments they really would like to talk a lot more and to know me better and so I was thinking it's helpful to understand that because I didn't before and that there is something maybe I can give to them that I don't even realize I can give to them. And so, you know, I am thinking about that in terms of ways to create opportunities for us to have talk away, you know, not chasing the three-year-old constantly. Anyway, all of those things come into the realm of generosity and it makes you think how to be intentional, how to be awake and aware of the opportunities that also present themselves.

[37:18]

This is a great conversation, you know, just how to be aware of the possibilities of generosity in just our regular, everyday life. So any other comments? Yes, Jason. This might be a little bit redundant, but I think everyone's basically said in one fashion or another. But in our rule chain, we say that an emphasis of giver, receiver, and gift. And this practice puts a lot of emphasis on the Bodhisattva practices. That makes me think who Bodhisattvas actually are. It's not just the Buddha. Oh, I don't know. Yes.

[38:51]

But that goes back to zazen as a field of generosity, just to show up and be present with others. That's sangha as gift, as has been said. David. way of looking at it. Every time I see a homeless person asking for money, they're giving me And I said that to him, thank you for your gift, because it is, it is a gift for us to be able to have that chance to realize, to stop our normal mindsets and going around and just hone in on somebody and be able to remember and be able

[40:29]

in that way because it is a gift to us by their presence to remember the gone and to participate with them and recognize them in that sense as beings who we are connected to. So thank you, Jason. Yes, this total mutuality of giver, receiver, and gift. It's this... Without a receiver, there's no generosity and vice versa. Any other comments before we close? Well, thank you all for allowing me to give this talk.

[41:21]

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