Good morning. You know, the purpose of our practice is to live the life of a bodhisattva.

[01:40]

I think that we forget what the purpose of our practice is and why we have confusion in our life, why we get confused. is because we don't remember, or maybe when we talk about life of a bodhisattva, it seems too lofty. We may have heard that our practice is the life of a bodhisattva, but it sounds too abstract or lofty or up there. I agree with you. It's maybe too ideal a concept. Life of a bodhisattva is maybe something that you read about in a book about Buddhism. But there are no bodhisattvas aside from people.

[02:52]

Bodhisattva practice is our practice. That's what we should be doing. Baby bodhisattvas. We're baby bodhisattvas. And the bodhisattva's practice is to live in the world and to help improve your character, and to help other people to cross over to the shore of reality. And if you know that that's what your practice is, even though you have lots of difficulty in your life, and we live in a complex world, you always know where to come back to when you get lost or when life gets difficult.

[04:10]

You always know what you're about or what you're doing or should be doing. according to your practice. If we always keep that in mind, we find a way to do something. So when we live in the world and practice in the world, it's very easy to get caught by the values of the world. Yeah, I think this is our biggest problem, that although we have good intentions,

[05:16]

of practicing a bodhisattva practice, we get influenced to exchange our values of a bodhisattva for the values of the world. And so bodhisattva practice is selflessness and helping other beings and to create actually a bodhisattva field.

[06:19]

We talk about, if you read the literature, we talk about a Buddha field. Every Buddha has a Buddha field, which is their domain or dominion. And they uphold the law in that Buddha field. And then everyone realizes what the law is within that Buddha field because there's a Buddha there who manifests the right dharma. And as a bodhisattva, each one of us has a bodhisattva field. It means the place where you are you manifest the Dharma for yourself and for others.

[07:25]

And for a bodhisattva, there's really no other purpose in life. But in order to manifest the dharma, there has to be some way, some vehicle to manifest it through. So the vehicle for manifesting the dharma is uncountable ways. innumerable ways, which can be anything. So, whatever you have to do, whatever your field is, wherever you are, wherever we are,

[08:30]

We use the circumstances that we're in as a means to manifest the Dharma. So there's no place that you can be, or that we can be, where we can say, I can't manifest the Dharma here. Dharma can't be manifest here. There's no such place, but not all of us are capable of manifesting the Dharma in every place. It's hard enough to do it, you know, just in our immediate surroundings. But that's what our practice is. So in the midst of worldly values, in the midst of a world where we're constantly immersed in worldly values, we manifest the Dharma.

[09:49]

It means that we use worldly values to manifest the Dharma. But if we don't manifest the Dharma in worldly values, within the midst of worldly values, then we get caught by worldly values. So it's important to always keep our practice in mind. And when we forget, to have some way of remembering. because we do forget. We forget a lot, as a matter of fact. And the value of bodhisattvas practicing together is that it helps to remind us of our practice.

[10:56]

If you were just practicing by yourself, and there were no other bodhisattvas around, you begin to wonder, am I fooling myself? Is this really happening? You have to be a very strong person to practice completely by yourself without any support or anyone reminding you or checking on your practice. So I want to talk a little bit about worldly values and bodhisattva mind.

[12:07]

The biggest, one of the most prevalent kind of complaints from people is that we get very caught up in our life and there's so many things to do and so little time to do what we have to do that we become more and more frantic. There's an endless, as much as we do, as much as we put our life, our effort into what we do, there's this overwhelming amount of things that remains undone or that keeps following us. As soon as we do something, one thing, five more things present themselves. And we don't know how to keep up with it. And because of our actions or our karma, we keep creating new things that demand our attention.

[13:46]

I know that when I go to my desk, There's a pile of notices and mail and things that people want me to read. When I go to the mailbox, I open the mailbox and there are four or five or six really important things that people want me to read. And they are. Every one of them is important. Then I take that pile and I add it up with the other pile that's already there. And there's maybe 15 things that I need to read. And people are asking for money for all kinds of important things. And I feel that I should give money to each one of these important things.

[14:55]

But I don't have any money. So I can't do it. So I take the envelope from one very important thing, important cause, that's asking for my donation. I put it in the fireplace. After a while, you know, they keep piling up. And then I take the whole stack and put them in the fireplace. They don't have any money. can't do that. And so it makes me feel very heavy, kind of heavy hearted, because there's so many causes in the world that I can't respond to. And there's so much suffering in the world that I can't respond to. And the world's getting ready to blow itself up. So what can I do?

[16:08]

How do I take care of that? How do I answer to that anxiety? I think we all have this problem. We all want to be bodhisattvas. We all want to do something good for this world. But there's more than we can do. Much more. then we can't respond to everyone's cry. Even though we should manifest the heart of Avalokiteshvara, who hears all the cries of the world, we can't respond to all the cries of the world. It's one of the problems with this kind of situation is that we become immobilized.

[17:24]

If I can't be a great hero, If I can't be a hero in the world, I can't move. All of these situations are demanding something. But sometimes, you know, when these situations are demanding something, if I just move to what needs to be taken care of in front of me. It helps me. Helps me to do something. Helps me to become free from that heavy feeling. It's very easy to think about all these problems, and then sit down with my head in my hands, and then everything around me stops moving, and the floor gets cluttered, and the table gets cluttered, and the dishes don't get done, and I can't move.

[18:50]

But if I don't let that happen, and if I start cleaning up the space around me, and if I do the dishes, and if I clean the table, put things away, and start moving, and start taking care of one little thing that's very close to me, my mind becomes much more clear, and my situation becomes much more clear. And by taking care of something very close, then when someone comes and asks me a question, because I'm already taking care of things, I can take care of that person. And when I take care of that person, then when the next thing that's very close to me demands something, then I can take care of that situation. If I can just take care of one thing at a time with clarity and with some feeling of directness and sincerity, pretty soon the world around me begins to feel light and I begin to see more what's going on around me.

[20:20]

And as I begin to see more of what's going on around me, I can take care of everything as it comes up. And the more I can do that, the more I can reach out further and further. So then I realized that my practice starts with me. First of all, I have to be able to just take care of myself. If I'm not taking care of myself, then I can't really take care of anything else. So when I start to take care of myself and take care of just what's around me, it becomes easier and easier.

[21:29]

to take care of things that are further and further away from me. I've always noticed, or I noticed, that people who can take care of themselves seem to be the people who can do the most. And the people that can't take care of themselves are always worrying about themselves, find it difficult to take care of other people, or difficult to take care of a situation that's wider than themselves. In Genjo Koan, can you hear me? In Genjo Koan, Dogen says, forget yourself.

[22:35]

If you want to do something, forget yourself. But you forget yourself by taking care of yourself. And as soon as you really take care of yourself, you can forget yourself and respond to the world around you. The most difficult thing I see with Zen students, the Zen students that have the most difficult time are people who are too worried about themselves, focus their worry on themselves. and let every little thing bother them. We can have two people right next to each other.

[23:47]

One person is maybe taking care of children and working and practicing zazen and supporting a family and so forth. And another person is just a single person with no responsibilities and who just worries about themselves and can't do anything because they're so worried about themselves. For a person who is just worried about themselves so much, we emphasize doing something for others and forgetting yourself.

[25:05]

To just be focused on yourself is a kind of succumbing to worldly values. It's a kind of, even though we may have high spiritual aspirations, our spiritual aspirations just turn into a materialistic kind of practice when we just think about ourself and worry about ourself. For a layperson, a layperson should, someone who has a family or is involved in working in the world, we should have some, be able to support ourselves and to support our family and to have things which make us feel good.

[26:46]

But in that situation, it's very hard to not be overwhelmed by materialistic ideas. As soon as we have something, then we want something better, or we want something more. Bodhisattva practice in that situation is how to know how to be satisfied so that all of our thoughts aren't concerned with making money for ourselves and getting material things for ourselves. I find so many Zen students who start out practicing easily at some point get turned around by materialistic values.

[27:53]

And sometimes what happens is someone will start to practice and they have very good intentions and then the material their job will get better or they'll be influenced to work for more and more money. Pretty soon, they just turn away from practice and take on that kind of materialistic value in life. And they lose their way. There's nothing wrong with actually having a lot of money or having a lot of possessions.

[29:00]

It's not so much what you have, but how to retain right attitude. But if our mind is always on gaining something, if 24 hours a day we're just thinking about how we can make life more comfortable, or gain something more, or make more money, then our mind is not tuned in to being bodhisattva. It's tuned in to something else. And it becomes more and more difficult, and when we see the suffering in the world, it becomes harder for us to respond to it. So we have to be very careful. You know, just go this way a little bit and you become callous to the world.

[30:07]

So, what our thought should be, our practice should be, is how to maintain bodhisattva mind throughout all of our activity. And when it comes to making a decision in some way, you can say to yourself, How do I keep my bodhisattva mind in this situation? And then you can make a decision based on bodhisattva mind rather than making a decision based on greed or acquisitiveness or desire. So just sitting zazen is very important, but it's not enough.

[31:51]

Sitting zazen gives us a taste of the world of emptiness. But how we manifest that in the world, how we manifest that emptiness, non-self-centeredness, non-selfishness, non-acquisitiveness in the world is the true test of our realization. So it's maybe important to think about how you create your bodhisattva realm around you.

[33:29]

how you light up your world, actually. If, you know, we're going around in a kind of dark world, or a suffering world, it's a world of our own making. Even in the midst of great difficulties, we should still have some freedom within it. In the midst of our passions, and we say, you know, that When there's great passion and great desire, there's also a great Bodhi mind.

[34:46]

So the point is not to eliminate all the difficulties, not to eliminate our feelings, or not to eliminate our passions, actually, but how to find freedom in the midst of them. When anger comes up, how to find freedom in the midst of anger? How to be a bodhisattva with anger? How to be a bodhisattva with lust? If when you get angry, your bodhisattva mind comes up at the same time, then you have real practice.

[35:56]

How does a bodhisattva deal with this anger? So more and more our character becomes refined by always manifesting this mind, bodhisattva mind. And the bodhisattva mind and our passions and difficulties

[37:06]

that we have working together, create this Bodhisattva. Someone says, oh, I don't get angry. No matter what happens, I don't get angry. a kind of weakness, we all get angry. We all have desire. The point is how you deal with it, how we deal with it. And a person who has big desire and big anger can become a big Buddha, big Bodhisattva, So we always like people that have lots of good spirit, you know, strong spirit.

[38:15]

Not so good to have a kind of weak spirit. If someone has a weak spirit, there's not much to deal with, not much to work with. So a Zen student should have a strong spirit, even if it's evil. even if it gives everybody a lot of trouble. Troublesome people, although they make us uncomfortable, are very valuable. Not in a relative sense, but they make big Buddhas when they manifest Bodhisattva mind. So, we should try to help people who have a lot of difficulty, but strong spirit.

[39:26]

Without that strong spirit, there's nothing there. So even if someone does something which we think is pretty terrible because of their strong passions, it's pretty hard to abandon somebody. no matter what we may think of them. And if we really have bodhisattva mind, we don't abandon anyone, no matter how difficult it is to deal with them.

[40:43]

Or no matter what they've done, we feel that they've done to us. My experience is that it's not so much what you do for people or to people or something, but just what you manifest yourself as a bodhisattva. Just the way each one of us is, with sincerity, can, without thinking about changing anything, or doing anything, can change worlds, can affect worlds, just through our being, not through trying to do something, can affect, have far-reaching effect that we don't know anything about.

[41:55]

That's my experience. So first comes our practice, our own practice. How we just practice for ourself. And then how we forget ourself and help everyone. And the two really go together. But it's important for us to practice for ourself. But, you know, as Dogen says, and Suzuki Roshi used to say all the time, it's not, we don't practice for ourself or for others.

[43:02]

We just practice for the sake of practice. That way you don't get mixed up. Am I doing it for myself or am I doing it for you? You don't get mixed up. Just practice for the sake of practice. Then everything becomes quite clear. Do you have a question? Would you like to discuss something? I find it fairly continually, I'm not on that last point, trying to figure out, given a choice, whether to make the choice one way or the other,

[44:35]

And I find that a lot I don't know, I can kind of say that in sort of an abstract way, but then I don't always know what's taken care of and what's forgetting. Applying it to a particular choice. in order to, that's a kind of prerequisite, to have a real good and sound practice. But you kind of contrasted that with worrying about yourself. And I wonder how can you take care of yourself without in some way focusing on yourself?

[45:49]

Forgetting yourself doesn't mean that you forget who you are or you don't take care of yourself. It means that you merge with what you do so that you lose your self-centeredness. So you say, well, if I don't have any self-centeredness, then I can't see myself, or something like that. But that's not what we mean by self-centeredness. It means to take yourself into account, this person, but not to separate the self from everything, not to see the self just as separate from things. In some sense, the world revolves around us.

[47:18]

But if we only think that the world revolves around us, then that's called being self-centered. But the world revolves around everything. Everything is a center. Everybody in this room is the center of the universe. So yes, I am the center, but I'm not the only center. There are myriad, uncountable centers of the universe, and they all interact with each other. They all totally depend on each other. So that, if you understand that, you forget yourself and realize yourself. and become confirmed by all these things that... by everything. The problem is, you know, we start thinking about it intellectually.

[48:32]

That's why, you know, we... just to do something. Just to engage and do something is the most important thing. Just practice for the sake of practice. Forget I and other. Then whatever you do will fit with practice. But if you try to fit everything with I, and if you try to fit everything with other, you have this big problem of I and other. So I and other become resolved in to just do something. Eliminates all that thinking. But the point I really want to emphasize today is that we should feel like a bodhisattva, feel that we have bodhisattva mind.

[50:17]

And even though we may feel completely incompetent, we still have bodhisattva mind. I know there'll be someone who will come up to me and say, but you know, I just feel like an ordinary old human being, you know, with all my faults and shortcomings and blah, blah, blah. But even so, The ordinary human being with faults and shortcomings and inability has bodhisattva mind. And if you just keep that in mind, if you hold that, if you have faith in the fact that you have bodhisattva mind, and keep recalling that up,

[51:26]

you begin to see your Bodhisattva mind. And our Bodhisattva mind is developed by living by the vow to be a Bodhisattva. rather than the desire for some kind of worldly success. And if you can make that choice, then as soon as you make that choice, you have Bodhisattva mind. And the bodhisattva mind continues to develop. But you have to practice it.

[52:31]

You have to make an effort to practice it. So, I want to encourage you all to practice it. And help me to practice the bodhisattva mind. Yes. Yes. You're talking about being able to respond to suffering, and manifest in the heart of Avalokiteshvara. And a question I don't really know what to do, but it seems to be true, a blip, for me is that when I sit a lot, It seems like I maybe lose touch in some ways with suffering of the larger world because I don't, you know, in a way, I'm not experiencing suffering as much, sitting in some kind of a real bond with that in a way.

[53:46]

So, that's a question. You know, I want not to lose touch with that, and yet sometimes I feel like I sit a lot and spend a lot of time in Zen center, takes me away, takes my focus away from the rest of the world, which is a lot of pain. Well, what would you do for the rest of the world otherwise? Well, that's a very good question. I know that just sitting is a really good thing because you're able to respond more when something comes up, in particular. Yeah, you know... I don't know about, you know, what to do is a good question, it's the next step, but when I realized that I actually was touched with the suffering, that bothers me. I don't think you do, this touch with it. I think that when we know how to deal with our own suffering,

[54:53]

We don't see everybody's suffering as so significant. There are levels and levels and levels of suffering. And every person, everything that is born suffers. And each thing that's born suffers in its own way. There's nothing you can do about it. Each person, let's just talk about people, has to deal with their own suffering in their own way. And you can do a lot of things for people. You can take away a lot of the causes of suffering. But that doesn't mean that each person is not going to suffer in their own way. You can take away a lot of the causes of suffering, outward causes. But even so, each person is going to, because of the nature of life on earth, every person is going to have a life that involves a lot of suffering.

[56:11]

And each one of us has to learn how to deal with that ourself, no matter where we are. And that's no matter how empathetic we are, no matter how much we feel for it, all that. If, you know, if we think that having sympathy means to be just dragged down by suffering, you know, by everybody's suffering, if you let yourself think about the world of suffering completely, do you have enough strength so that you wouldn't be just completely crushed by it? So, we have to be able to take in, realize everyone's suffering, as much as we can, and still not be crushed by it. Still be able to move and live our own life. Otherwise, there's no way you could live your own life, or live a life in your world.

[57:18]

And no matter how much causes of suffering you remove from the world, As soon as you remove this cause, there's all this suffering over here. You take away this suffering, there's all this suffering over here. We all suffer together in the world, with everything. But, we can still feel some joy of life. If we don't feel joy of life where we are, even in our own suffering. What can we expect to do for anyone? Just to have empathy, that's wonderful, but we have to find the joy of our life that anyone can have.

[58:23]

And we can help people to have that by our practice. Just fundamental joy of being alive, even though we have lots of difficulty. You can say, I can't be happy because there are so many people in the world that are suffering. Then no one in the world can ever be happy until all that suffering is gone. And since that suffering will never be gone, there'll never be any happiness for anybody in the world, if you follow that logic. So, All we can do is to work hard at our practice and develop ourself and help other people.

[59:38]

There are many ways to do it, lots of ways, but if we don't have our fundamental understanding, no matter what we do, it won't help. you.

[60:25]

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