Good morning everyone and welcome. So we're a little ways into our two-month practice period here. For those of you who are doing that formally, there are four stories that are recommended to select one to focus on. I want to talk this morning about skillful means, which is an important teaching in Zen and Mahayana Buddhism, the Bodhisattva teachings. I'm not going to refer to the text of chapter two that introduces that, but just talk about it more generally. The texts themselves aren't so important as the stories and how we are inspired and use those stories to bring awareness to our practice. and to express, well, to express this zazen mind that we've just been settling into and how that gets expressed in our everyday activities in the world.

[01:16]

So just to start, skillful means as a practice, maybe we could say there's two aspects. And most of what the Lotus Sutra talks about is the skillful means for Buddha or for Buddhas. But I also want to talk about the skillful means as a practice for bodhisattva practitioners. That means all of us. So bodhisattvas are translated as enlightening beings, practitioners who realize that we are connected to everyone and everything. and that we try to act skillfully to be helpful rather than harmful in our everyday activities in the world. So, just to mention a couple of important teachings in chapter two, it talks about the one great cause for Buddhas appearing in the world.

[02:24]

And this is to share and pass along and help beings into the path to awakening, to Buddha's wisdom and insight. That's the reason Buddhas appear, period. Or we could say we could unpack that more as just to help suffering beings to awaken to the possibilities of enlightened activity and awareness in this life. So, as part of that, in chapter two, the Buddha talks about the one great vehicle. So part of skillful means, maybe the heart of skillful means, is to represent, is to recognize differences. So we could say the one great cause is about seeing the wholeness or oneness of all of us, the single great project of awakening.

[03:37]

That's what Buddha means, awakened one, just to be awakened and care about the quality of our life. But the one vehicle recognizes that there are differences. So the Buddha taught for 45 years and there are all these different teachings that he left, all these different sutras, all these different practices. And our zazen sort of includes all the practices in a way. It's just very basic. Paying attention, being upright, being present, enjoying our breath. We also recognize that even if we are united in many ways in, you know, Dogen, the 13th century founder of this branch, Japanese Soto Zen, came back from China and said that what he had learned is nose vertical, eyes horizontal. So in some sense, as humans, we are all We all share that. The One Vehicle is a way of talking, though, about the unity of all the different skillful means.

[04:43]

And skillful means involves recognizing differences. So one way that's described is that the Buddha always talked about, always gave the same teaching, but people heard it in different ways. or another, also sometimes the Buddha never said a word. But still, in terms of skillful means, there's recognizing. that each of us and each kind of being and all the different beings have different sufferings, different practical requirements, and we need different ways of approaching that. So no single technique addresses the whole variety of individual fluid obstacles to healing and to liberation. So how do we understand and assess and use the variety of approaches? And part of, so I made the distinction between Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. For a Buddha, at least in the sense of these Bodhisattva Mahayana Sutras, Buddha is kind of all-knowing.

[05:51]

Buddha sees and immediately understands the differences in different beings. and all the different, but in terms of the one vehicle, we could see all the different skillful means as kind of cooperating. as a cooperative approach to how to include different beings, how to help different beings to enter into, open up, disclose, and fully realize, as it says in the Sutra, this awakening. So how do we, so a big part of skillful means is just to recognize differences. And how that has happened theoretically and historically, it's complicated. But on one level, there's just, particularly in our context, as Buddhism takes its new forms in the West, and as we are living in a

[06:54]

a world with many different religions and many different kinds of beings, and to recognize the pluralism of skillful means, to recognize and respect the differences of different practices, different teachings, different approaches to spiritual awakening. So this idea of the one vehicle I think is very helpful in our context, that all the different approaches can be seen as helpful for this one great purpose of Buddha's, this one vehicle, just helping all beings to awaken, helping all beings to relieve suffering. So, but this teaching has been controversial in some cases, historically and in the Lotus Sutra itself. It's presented in a way that it seems like there's all these different practices, all these different teachings, and they're all part of the One Great Vehicle, but actually some of them are higher or better, and then others are kind of, well, they're also included.

[08:10]

So, there can be a kind of hierarchy, one way it's produced or one way it's represented. So, you know, even in the translation, sometimes it's translated as expedient techniques, that would be kind of the most. manipulative way of seeing that. I'm going to talk about some of the other stories or parables in the sutra, but we can also just see them as different modes of practice. So this applies to different schools of Buddhism, to different religions, to different meditative techniques to put it that way in our practice. Basically, it's not a technique. We just sit and be present and pay attention and enjoy our breath and be upright and come back to that awareness and thoughts and feelings come and we just let them go and come back to that. But even within zazen we can, practically speaking, we sometimes may listen to sounds or count breaths at the end of the exhale or do various, there are libraries full of different meditation techniques in Buddhism and elsewhere.

[09:27]

And again, to see them all as skillful means is a way of seeing the inclusiveness of all approaches to awakening. And all of them are part of the single vehicle, the single great cause to help relieve suffering, to help different kinds of beings awaken. So one way of translating skillful means is just different modes. And that's kind of a more inclusive way. You know, I like the inclusive side of skillful means, and one of our bodhisattva precepts is to benefit all beings. So how do we see that? all different beings as, you know, sometimes we can feel as practitioners like, well, we're practicing and, you know, somebody else isn't, you know. But we don't, you know, what practice is is not something we necessarily always understand.

[10:31]

So again, there's these different modes and different ways of practicing. Here at Ancient Dragons, sometimes people come and they practice here for a while and then we don't see them for a long time and then they come back again. Sometimes that's because of some injury or medical situation or some life situation, but it's always nice when somebody comes back and, John, it's great to see you again. Hi. So, you know, different people have different situations. How do we recognize that? So during practice period, for those who are formally doing the practice period, we all, you know, talk together and see how it is that our commitment and intention of intensifying our practice during this period, how that is working or what the problems are, and, you know, we talk together. For those not formally doing the practice period also, you're part of this situation of us all focusing on these particular teachings at this time.

[11:42]

So in terms of the four chapters, four stories in the Lotus Sutra that I highlighted for this, that we're highlighting for this practice period, I just picked Chapter 2 on skillful means, but I want to just take this opportunity to talk about some of the other stories, because there's a whole, after Chapter, between Chapter 2 and 11, which is the next one we'll be talking about. there's these different parables and they're part of kind of seeing what this skillful means practice is about. So one of my favorites is just the universal dharma rain. So to see the dharma and the teaching and the practices as just rain, this universal rain that falls all over the world and different plants receive this nourishment and grow according to their own, you know. Acorns grow into oaks.

[12:44]

Grasses grow in their own ways. So to see that the dharma is offered and different beings can use it in different ways, all as part of this one vehicle. So that's one story about skillful means or skillful modes. There's another story, a famous story, is of a burning house. Basically, the story is that... A man comes home to find his house in flames, and his children are just playing inside and having fun, and they don't want to leave. They're just having a good time. But the house is burning, and there's also, you know, in the sutra, all these other things that are happening, and there's poisonous snakes and insects and stuff, and the house is a mess. And the man, the father, wants to get them all out of that burning house. So this is a metaphor for our world, and obviously all the problems in our world, you know.

[13:47]

and all the things going on, all the wars and cruelty and violence. Yeah, so how do we get free from that burning house? So finally, and the man tries different things, but they don't want to come out. Finally, he promises that there will be many different kinds of carriages waiting for them outside to play with. you know, Porsches and Maseratis. No, actually he talks about a deer vehicle and a goat vehicle, which represent different approaches to practice in Buddhism. So finally they all come out because they want to see all these wonderful carriages. And they come out, and there's just this one great ox vehicle that carries everyone. So this is a model of the one vehicle. And people get hung up in the story. The story makes the point that the old man, the father who sort of represents Buddha, wasn't lying by telling them about all this.

[14:52]

He was just trying to save them. Some people get hung up on that. But anyway, that's one story. Another story, so there's the Dharmarayan story. There's that story. There's the story of the prodigal son, which is kind of another metaphor for Buddha and for all the rest of us. So just to relate that story, there's son and father, and they're separated. And the son drifts aimlessly, becomes destitute. The father moves to another city and becomes very wealthy and highly respected. Eventually, the son, in his wandering, happens upon the estate of the father. The father immediately recognizes his son and sends some assistance to bring him in. But seeing this wealthy, eminent man in front of his mansion, The son, who's in pretty bad shape, is frightened and runs away. The father understands the son's shame and his dread and sends his assistants disguised as lowly menial workers to invite the son to come and take a job on the estate shoveling dung in the fields.

[16:03]

So finally, the son is willing to do that. And after a while, and it takes a long time, the son feels comfortable with that job. And then the father has his assistance steadily give the son more responsibility. And gradually, after a very long period, the son's managing the estate. When the father is finally about to pass away, he calls for all of his friends and the nobles and citizens of the city, announces to them and to his son that this really is his son and that they were separated long before. But now all my wealth belongs entirely to my son. And then the sutra goes on to say explicitly that the very rich old man is like the Buddha and we are all like Buddha's children. So this is another way that this is talked about that we're all children of Buddha. And just the fact that you're here today proves that. Whether you're comfortable with Zen practice or not, or we have someone here for the first time, and that's great. That's good for all the rest of us. But the point is that we're all children of Buddha, but we don't believe it.

[17:10]

So, some of us, it takes a long time of working at seeing how we are worthwhile and can actually be children of Buddha. So this is another kind of metaphor of skillful means that the father in that case does. So there's a lot of these stories, just a couple more. There's a story of two old friends, and the host is, and the guest, and they're up late and drinking or whatever, and they fall asleep, and the host has to go off and take care of some business, but he sews into the robe of the guest, his friend, a jewel, very well, very expensive jewel. And then he goes off and the guest goes off and years later they meet each other and

[18:15]

And the former guest is still kind of indigent. He's having a hard time and the host is disappointed and tells him about the jewel he has in his clothing and it's still there. So he'd gone through all this suffering because he didn't know that he had this jewel. So this is another story. So there are many other, I'm not gonna tell all of the stories in the Lotus Sutra and some of them are in the other chapters we'll get to. But this is another story about how we already have this jewel of, we call it sometimes Buddha nature, this possibility of seeing the value in our lives and seeing the possibilities we each have, each in our own way. We each have our own particular interests and abilities and talents and each in our own way can express this one great cause, this one vehicle of helping the world to awaken. So that's another story.

[19:22]

One more story. There's a story of a kind of fantastic conjured city. So the story is that there's a caravan leader who represents the Buddha, who's leading a group of merchants across like a big, a long desert, you know, and trying to get to another trading town. And they all get very, worn out and it's a very difficult, arduous trip. And so the caravan leader conjures up this beautiful oasis city and they go in there and are refreshed and feel great and feel like they've accomplished what they wanted. And at some point the caravan leader says to them, well actually this is just a mirage to the city and we still have a long way to go but now you're refreshed and you can do it. This is explicitly a metaphor for the old approach of Buddhism of personal liberation, or the Arhat models.

[20:25]

The Arhats are perfectly purified. people who have practiced very hard to clear away their own greed, hate, and delusion, their own problems, and to realize personal awakening. And the Buddha explains that actually the ultimate Buddhahood is this universal liberation. So at the end of this morning we'll chant the Bodhisattva vows that beings are numberless and we vow to free them. So again, this sense of benefiting all beings, that we are actually very deeply connected to all beings. We sit facing the wall, but we don't build walls to keep people out. The walls are ways of seeing ourselves and actually ways of connecting with all beings, seeing our own deep interconnectedness. So all these stories are about Buddha's, you know, we could say expedient techniques, skillful means, different modes of helping different kinds of beings.

[21:29]

And the Buddha has this skill and understands and has this great wisdom and knowledge and knows how to apply skillful modes very skillfully. But I want to go back now to Skillful means as a practice that we can do as Bodhisattva practitioners. So, and this is one of the, we talk about transcendent practices. Sometimes there's six, sometimes there's ten, but this is one of the ten. But generosity, ethical conduct. Patience, enthusiasm or effort, meditative settling, prajna, wisdom or insight, and then skillful means and commitment and powers and use of knowledge. Anyway, there won't be a test, but skillful means is one of those kinds of practices that we can do. Again, how we think about it makes a difference. We can think skillful means and think there's some instruction manual of how to respond in different situations, but that's not really what skillful means is about.

[22:43]

Skillful means is paying attention, being patient, trying to see how to be helpful rather than harming. And it's kind of trial and error. How do we, in some situation where somebody's causing harm, whether it's out in the world or a friend or family member who's causing harm to themselves or to others, how do we help? So skillful means has to do with trying things. Trial and error. Skillful means has to do with making mistakes, even. And even for the Buddha, trying to get the children out of the burning house, try different things, and finally they were willing to come out. So, part of what we can do in this meditation practice is just pay attention.

[23:49]

And of course, there are times when things feel settled in the middle of Zazen, and we just enjoy the space of being present, the space of wholeness. But then thoughts and feelings arise. Whatever situation we're struggling with, more or less this week or this month or whatever, is there in our hearts and minds. But skillful means is the side of meditation that we can see different possibilities. So again, there's no instruction manual, but it's about paying attention, trying to see, rather than blaming or seeing problems that people are creating and calling them names or something, Okay, how can we help produce harmony? And this applies on so many levels, again, in terms of our own personal lives and in terms of how to respond to all the difficulties in our society.

[25:03]

Again, paying attention and seeing the possibilities for acting skillfully, trying things, but also patience. Sometimes we don't know what to do, and sometimes it's better not to do anything. But when we're settled and calm, when we're being patient and attentive, sometimes we can see possibilities of ways of responding. Just to say something nice to someone may be helpful. And actually there's a, somewhere in the teachings it talks about how if you say nice, say positive, nice things about people, even when they don't hear it, it helps them. So this relates to our practice of metta or loving kindness too. How do we respond helpfully and kindly? Sometimes skillful means may mean saying something that sounds like anger even.

[26:12]

Something to give feedback to someone about how they're acting or what they're saying But how to do that, again, it's trial and error. And by doing this, we learn more, we get more experience. And again, this patience, one of the things we learn just sitting zazen for a period over and over again and doing this regularly and during our practice period. People formally in the practice period are sitting at home too, doing this regularly, more than they usually do. You see, just to be patient with not being able to do anything, you know, sitting and wanting to get up and do all the other things we think we have to be doing, just stay seated, just to wait for the bell. We're sitting here.

[27:14]

just to learn to do that. And it's not passive. It's a very dynamic practice, this practice of patience and paying attention and being ready and willing to respond when we feel from a more settled place that there is something we can do that's helpful. And again, it's trial and error. And we do make mistakes, hopefully not too harmful, but we have to forgive ourselves for being human, forgive others for being human. How do we actually be helpful? So this is what Skillful Means is about, and it's all part of the different approaches to this one great purpose of Helping relieve suffering, helping beings awaken, helping the beings within ourselves as well as those around us. So maybe that's enough for me to say, but we have some time for discussion and we'll have, for the practice period people, there will be more discussion later this afternoon, but does anybody have any comments or questions or responses?

[28:30]

Thanks for choosing that story to lead off on. Yes. Yes. So thank you for bringing up that part of the story, Ken, in Chapter 2. Yeah. I think this is a helpful story on lots of levels, and there's lots of ways to interpret it. So again, the point of these stories isn't to kind of focus and understand the text, but how do we What does it mean to us?

[29:40]

How does it help us in our practice? So the story is that the Buddha is going to give this teaching on the Lotus Sutra and this One Great Vehicle, and actually he doesn't want to at first, and one of the disciples asks him to, and asks him three times, at which point he agrees to. And he starts to do this and 5,000 of the people in the assembly, so he's speaking to many, many beings, get up and walk out. And these are the people who have been doing this other arhat practice, this practice of self-purification. And they hear that Buddha's going to talk about something new, and they think they already know it all. And they don't want to hear something new. They've got their teaching, and so they get up and walk out. And the Buddha says, OK, it's good that they go. And in the sutra, he calls them arrogant or something. But the point is, one point is that we can't always help everybody.

[30:46]

So even the Buddha, 5,000 people walked out. So just to know that. But also, we don't know those people later on in the sutras. So these are the perfectly purified arhats, which means honorable ones. They're worthy of veneration because they've been working very hard at spiritual practice and really have accomplished something. but they haven't realized the wholeness of this one great vehicle. But also, you know, they may come back later. And later on in the sutras, he makes a point of various different arhat disciples who will in the future be, he gives some specific place in Buddha field and sometime in the future, there'll be a certain Buddha. So part of that story to me is that we can't fix everything. We can't fix, we can't right now take care of everyone. There's all of the issues in our world.

[31:53]

How do we take care of all the climate damage, which is really critical in the world right now? How do we take care of all the violence in the world and in our city? How do we take care of inequality in the world? all the income inequality, how do we take care of racism and this legacy that our society has of slavery that affects all of us in different ways. Yeah, 5,000 people walked out on the Buddha. We can't fix it all right now, and yet the Buddha kept trying. So part of the Buddha's commitment is to benefit all beings, to not abandon anyone. So sometimes, practically speaking, there could be somebody in our life, a family member, a co-worker, who's really acting in an obnoxious way.

[32:54]

And we don't know what to do. And sometimes you just have to let them go and not try and fix it all. But if you keep paying attention and are patient, at some point you might have a chance to say something that would make a difference and they might change how they're behaving. This is possible. So yeah, we can't fix it all. Yeah. Other questions or comments or stories? Yes, David.

[33:57]

Well, that's not very skillful, you know. So I don't know. You know, sometimes people come and ring your doorbell or are on the street trying to persuade you to join this or that. you know, particular spiritual group. Sometimes it's interesting to talk to such people, but, you know, our style of proselytizing, to put it that way, is not to go out and try and get people to come in and, you know, come and sit zazen, because it's wonderful, and you'll really enjoy it, and it'll help your life, and, you know, I mean, it does, but we're just here. People walk by and see the dragon in the window or they see us on the internet and they show up and they start doing meditation. And meditation is not just about personal liberation, but it does have helpful effects.

[34:58]

We can become a little more calm. But trying to go out and evangelize is usually not so skillful. Now, I don't know if you were thinking of this, but in the social rather than spiritual context, it seems to be true that mass movements speaking up for the climate movement or the Black Lives Matter movement do make a difference when people are actually talking about issues and trying to, it's possible to get people's attention. So how to do this skillfully is, how to do it without being too strident and, you know, pushy, but it's, that's the art, you know, so part of skillful means is kind of the, aesthetic approach, you know. What's most skillful, and sometimes that means how do you draw in different people when you're trying to persuade them to help with some project that is important, but to try and just convert people to

[36:15]

you know, to our way of thinking. Thich Nhat Hanh in his interpretation of the precepts saying we shouldn't try and convince people to be Buddhists through, you know, through browbeating or whatever. And actually part of it is, part of skillful means is, and this goes back to the question of the people who walked out on the Buddha, is to be open to hear new things, to actually listen to the perspectives of others, to try and to be open to learning. So even if we feel strongly about something, The Cubs are the best team in Chicago, or the White Sox are the best. I mean, that's a silly example, but to try and listen to other perspectives. If you're a Cubs fan, maybe there's things the White Sox fans have to teach you.

[37:20]

Other follow-up? Yeah. Yeah, but how do you respond so that they can hear you? That's skillful means. If you're just telling somebody, you know, all these great ideas or all these great experiences that you have, that's often not so skillful. So it involves listening to the other, but then, you know, if you're really listening to the other, what are they ready to hear, and how can you speak in a way that they can hear, rather than just going on about, you know, your ideas?

[38:32]

So this is very practical, this teaching of skillful means, and it's subtle, and again, we make mistakes, and it's okay, but how do you actually be effective when we don't really know what the right way is exactly, but we're willing to try things. Ogetsu, did you have a comment? Yeah.

[39:50]

Yeah, faith has a lot to do with it, and that's a very tricky word for us because it doesn't mean belief in something, but just trust and confidence that if we keep breathing and keep offering our most wholesome self or whatever, that that will have an effect. So yeah, speaking kind. So kind speech is an important part of skillful means. Being considerate and careful of others. Sometimes there's also tough love, but that's more of the Buddhist side than the Bodhisattvas, where you have to be really skillful to know how to give feedback sharply. It's harder to be effective that way. But kind speech. Yeah, Kathy. Yeah, thank you very much for that, because skillful means isn't just about taking care of somebody out there.

[42:10]

Skillful means is about our own, as you say, deepening our own awareness. So this trial and error and being willing to make mistakes is about how to try and be helpful, but then that exactly deepens our own ability to listen, our own ability to be helpful, our own ability to be kind to ourselves. So it's this ongoing process. It's not like at some point you'll reach some place where you are the perfect embodiment of skillful means. Skillful means is this endless practice where we learn to be kinder to ourselves and to others and to be more effective and helpful. And it is about It's exactly about not knowing and not knowing everything, not having all the answers, but being willing to pay attention and learn and try things. And then we see what is helpful and what isn't in different situations, and everything is changing all the time, so there's always a different situation.

[43:15]

Even for the same person at different times, different things are helpful.

[43:22]

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