Tomorrow is the 15th of January and it's now called Martin Luther King Day. It's the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. I heard him say one time about his dream. Have you heard about his dream? I can't remember how he put it, but he had a dream. And I share that dream. So today I dedicate, or maybe we can all dedicate, the merit of this meeting to his dream and his work of his life and the work of countless others of his brothers and sisters who worked

[01:33]

to realize that dream and dedicate ourselves to its realization too. He said that It all boils down to this, that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment. of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.

[02:43]

Spoken by a true disciple of Buddha. Did I say by? Like a true disciple of Buddha. I don't want to co-opt him. Sometimes I say, the purpose of Zen is, or the purpose of the Buddha way is, and then I say something, but I guess what I should say is, am I speaking loudly enough? I guess what I should say, if I say the purpose of Zen, I should say the purpose, I guess I should just say my purpose. the purpose of the lineage that I'm devoted to, which is just one of the Zen lineages.

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Maybe other Zen lineages would express their purpose differently, which is which is their devotion, expressing it myself for the lineage that I'm a member of, I would say that the purpose of Zen is to realize the highest happiness and peace and freedom in this world of suffering. The purpose of Zen is to release all living beings, animate and inanimate, from bondage. Every single living being, every single mountain, every single valley,

[04:56]

every pebble, every blade of grass to be released so that it can settle into its peaceful abode. In order to accomplish this great work, I would today speak of four crucial conditions or steps. Our first is to discover and clarify. Oh, before I start, this would only be how to accomplish this uh... liberation of all beings if you wanted to if that was what you wanted if you did want that if you wanted peace and liberation for all beings then i would suggest these things follow first of all you'd have to be aware that that's what you wanted so first of all uh... you have to discover that not just that you heard about this

[06:24]

but that it's actually in your heart that you want this, that you actually wish the greatest welfare for all beings, every single one. There's something like that deep inside you. So first is you have to discover that, or it has to be revealed to you from your own tissue, mental and physical tissue. And then it helps to clarify that, to be clear about it. And then it helps to express it, to say, that's what you want. This wish, this desire, in its first appearance, and as it becomes clearer and deeper and more fully expressed, this is the seed of the dream that I think I share with many people.

[07:56]

Next step is to make a commitment to eventually completely dedicate ourselves to accomplish this great purpose for all beings before ourselves. This is planting the seed of selfless compassion. Next is to work to develop this seed of selfless compassion by engaging in all practices that develop virtue and positive energy

[09:02]

merit among all beings, with all beings. This is to nurture the planted seed. And then, as it grows, we must free ourselves and show the way for others to free themselves from any kind of attachments or fixed ideas, including fixed ideas about how to realize this goal, this purpose. This is called weeding the field of virtue, weeding the field of compassion.

[10:16]

So here at Gringotts this month we have a practice period and we are studying practices which are dedicated to this purpose. Practices to develop and clarify this purpose. We're studying the six perfections of the bodhisattva and the sixteen bodhisattva precepts. It's teachings about how to live on the path of welfare for all beings from six points of view and from 16 points of view. So we have this, basically, this, in one sense, one purpose, the highest welfare for all beings.

[11:46]

And if we choose that, if we choose that as our one great concern, if that was it, then we walk around that great concern. We circumambulate that great concern clockwise is the traditional way. Walk around it with your body and mind. It says in the scriptures that the great beings whatever they're doing, and they do wonderful practices, but they're always walking around this group as one concern. The Buddha said, My teaching is simple.

[12:50]

I teach suffering. I teach the end of suffering. I teach suffering, I teach the end of suffering. In parentheses, I teach suffering and I teach the cause of suffering. I teach the end of suffering and I teach the path to the end of suffering. Always walking around suffering beings concerned with how they can be free. Always walking around the teaching of how they can be free. always walking around the way that they can be free. Now, it isn't that we never forget, but we vow to always walk around this issue. We wish to do so, and we endeavor to do so. By walking round and round and round

[13:54]

we gradually become intimate with this great purpose. Sometimes I think about, you know, I walk around and around it, and then sometimes I think, and then I find a way into it. And I think that's true that we find a way into it, but finding a way into it doesn't mean we go there and get it. Because It's not to be possessed. We are to become intimate with it, but not possess it. Not identify with it, but also not disidentify with it. Try, vow, like all bodhisattvas, vow to constantly think about, think about, feel this one concern, the enlightenment of all beings.

[15:24]

The scripture says, whatever they're doing, their thoughts are never apart from the awakening of all beings. So the tradition of Soto Zen has a formal way of entering this practice of becoming intimate with the awakening of all beings. It is a way of receiving and practicing these sixteen bodhisattva precepts. And the way, the formal way of entering the practice without

[16:32]

possessing it, or identifying with it, but becoming intimate with it, is first of all to invoke, to call, to invoke, to call from within, and to evoke, to call from without, the wisdom and compassion of all the great beings who have had this dream all of them. You don't know the names of all of them, but call them all that you know the names of and call the others that you don't know the names of. If I might distract myself and you a little bit from this program by mentioning the issue of names and a new name. Martin Luther King When he was born, his name was Michael Luther King. His father's name was originally Michael Luther King.

[17:39]

And about, I think, maybe four years or five years before Martin Luther, the person we call Martin Luther King, Jr., I think in about 1925, his father changed his name from Michael Luther King to Martin Luther King. And when his son was born, there was a mix-up at the hospital, and it got written down on the paper, Michael Luther King. And his father, I think, went back to the hospital, made a special trip back to the hospital to correct the document so his son would be not Michael Luther King, but Martin Luther King, Jr. But somehow, again, it got mixed up and the document didn't get changed. So when he came home, people called him Michael Luther King, Jr. And then, again, five years later,

[18:43]

his father changed his name to Martin Luther King on the documents. This may be turning into a major distraction, but I think it's relevant to us because I think Martin Luther King Jr. 's father's parents were somewhat ambivalent about this. I think one of the parents or one of the grandparents thought that Michael Luther King was better than Martin Luther King. And his father actually changed his name back and forth a couple times. His own name. So there was some ambivalence about this. Because it's kind of, for a preacher to call himself Martin Luther is, you know... In our tradition here, we give people really wonderful bodhisattva names when they become initiated into the bodhisattva precept lineage through the ceremony.

[19:58]

We give them names that are something like, you know, Martin Luther and, you know, Saint Francis and so on. We give them names like, you know, Diamond Courage Entering the Way, Oceanic Voice, Profound Compassion, names like that. Who, me? Well, it's not exactly you, but it's not not you either. It's what you can be. It's a new name. It means that there can be change, that there can be realization of the awakening of all beings. It's that dream.

[21:00]

It's recognizing the sacredness of everyone right now and that this sacredness can be indefinite, infinitely developed and deepened. But we have some ambivalence about that. We think, oh, is that arrogant to accept such a name and to try to live up to such a name? At one point in Martin Luther's life, Martin Luther King Jr. 's life, after one of the great moments, one of the great successes in the civil rights movement, he said informally to someone, maybe Now I've earned my name. But he never listed himself in the telephone book as Martin Luther King. He always listed himself as ML King Jr. And throughout his life around the home, he was called Little Mike.

[22:04]

And his dad was Big Mike. So Suzuki Roshi gave me a name that I'm trying to live up to. But around the house, I'm just Reb. Or sometimes some other names. So the first step in formally entering, in formally receiving and practicing the Bodhisattva precepts, the 16 great Bodhisattva precepts, is to invoke and evoke not your compassion, not their compassion, but the great compassion. To call in and call out.

[23:09]

To call it up. to say you want it and to ask for it. Sometimes people come and ask for the bodhisattva precepts, but many times they don't ask. They come and they say, I want. And I say, well, great. I would suggest if you want that you ask. It's a big switch from saying I want. First of all, it's wonderful to want. And then it's wonderful to express that you want. But to take the next step and say, will you give? May I have? Is one that people have a hard time taking sometimes. And I ask someone, what was the problem? You say, well, I feel small when I ask. I feel small when I ask to be a great bodhisattva.

[24:13]

In order to be a great bodhisattva, we must face that we're small, very small. No one's smaller than me. The next step is to practice renunciation. Renunciation means to give up what should be given up, to relinquish what should be relinquished, to leave alone what should be left alone. Renunciation means to stop meddling with your experience and just be clearly aware.

[25:20]

Now we're getting ready to receive the teachings of how to live for the welfare of all beings, how to receive these teachings with a clear, open mind. It doesn't mean we stop thinking. It just means we let our thinking be. We renounce trying to control what's happening. to our experience, which means to honor all life, to respect all life. Not to meddle with all life, but to respect all life, all life as it's manifesting right in your body and mind now. It means to renounce meddling with yourself and just clearly observe how the self, how your self, and how the other is appearing.

[26:52]

It means to renounce self-inflation and renounce self-deflation. If we can see how our self arises through interdependence with all other beings, then we don't inflate it or deflate it. At the beginning of the path, we may not be able to see how interrelated we all are. to give up personal meddling with our self leads toward the realization of the interdependent self.

[28:14]

The next step in the formal entry into receiving the bodhisattva precepts is the practice of confession. There's many things to confess. Basically, the basic thing to confess, in a sense, is this meddling with ourself, confess that we inflate or deflate ourself, which is to confess any kind of self-clinging, or as someone said recently, self-clutching. It's quite difficult to even notice self-clinging.

[29:42]

It is painful. Self-clinging is painful. Self-clinging is the basic definition of pain. So noticing self-clinging means noticing pain. It doesn't say you should have self-clinging. Just notice whatever extent it's happening. We can't really notice it without also noticing the pain. And also around self-clinging there is anxiety. So confessing self-clutching and self-clinging, confessing self-inflation and self-deflation means to notice. You don't have to confess anxiety, but it's to notice anxiety. Anxiety is not an action. Anxiety is not an action. Anxiety is the result of misunderstanding what our self is.

[30:44]

If you have an inflated self, of course, you're afraid somebody's going to pop the bubble. If you have a deflated self, you're going to be afraid of being abused and used, dominated. comes to mind is a country western song about, the guy says, when I have, you know, a certain number of beers, I think I'm ten feet tall and bulletproof. So, these basic two ways of overestimating and underestimating by exaggerating and devaluing ourself, we miss what ourself actually is.

[31:48]

When we miss what ourself actually is, all we have to do is admit it. That's enough. And we settle into what's happening. That's all we have to do. by practicing renunciation of not meddling with the self and admitting when we do meddle with the self, we settle into the self as it actually is. Not meddling with the self, the self is just sitting there, not puffing it up or squashing it down. Just let it sit still as it appears in this moment. Just let yourself be still as you appear in this moment and again.

[32:52]

And when we can stop, when we can renounce this meddling, this wiggling around with our self, and just let the self sit still as it is, at that moment we formlessly receive the first bodhisattva precept, which is we return to Buddha. We spontaneously, formlessly return to Buddha. Without doing anything, we take refuge in Buddha.

[34:10]

This is the first Bodhisattva precept. And it includes all the others. It's the first. And it is the purpose of the Bodhisattva path that all beings return to Buddha. All beings return to awakening. All beings realize awakening. If we flinch and revert to our habits of manipulating and distracting ourselves from where we are, then we practice confession and come back to where we are, simply dwelling deeply in the present moment we take refuge in Buddha.

[35:17]

We receive the first great Bodhisattva precept. In a ceremony, formally, we sometimes say, now we receive the three refuges. Now we receive the first precept of returning to Buddha. And the person says, yes, I will. and then they say, I now take refuge in Buddha. This is a formal way of doing it. But throughout the day, every time you don't move from where you are and you deeply dwell in the present moment, every time you have invoked the compassion of all beings, and settled into deeply this moment of where you are, you have received the first great bodhisattva precept.

[36:27]

You have taken refuge in awakening. But we can't sit at that place if we're not willing to confess when we go off. Because then if we go off, we stay off for an indefinite amount of time until we confess that we're off. But as soon as you confess you're off, you're on. When a Buddha is off, she says simply, I'm off. That's all. And she's back on. Someone just told me a story on the way to the lecture hall.

[37:34]

She said that someone asked her for, well, I'll just say, a gift, a favor. And one of the advantages of Zen practice is that sometimes when people ask you certain things, they ask you during silent time. So you don't have to answer the question right away. You don't necessarily have to disclose what's going on in your mind. Anyway, she was asked for this favor and she thought, well, I'd rather not. And she didn't say anything. But she settled with her feelings of not wanting to give this gift. And it was painful to not want to give this gift because part of her thought, actually we're concentrating on the practice of giving this week here.

[38:49]

That's her homework assignment. And someone came and asked her, you know, would you give a gift? And in her heart she felt, hmm, no thank you. And that was painful for her, and she settled with that pain. She wanted to be a good girl and do her homework. But that wasn't where she was at. So she had to admit that wasn't where she was at. And she did admit it. And she settled with being a person who did not want to give the gift. If she had given the gift at that time, she said she would have just been giving it in order to be a good girl, not because she wanted to get it, but because she didn't want the pain of being a bad girl. But she accepted the feeling of not wanting to give. She settled into it, and that was that.

[39:52]

Then a little while later, she saw this person again from this place of having confessed her not wanting to give, and spontaneously she said, blah, blah, blah, I'd like to give you this gift. But it didn't come from the place of trying to be somebody else. It came from having settled with the pain of not being what she thought she was supposed to be. With the pain of her self-concern, which she did have. The Buddha said,

[40:57]

Those who practice all virtues are gentle, flexible, upright, and harmonious. Those who practice this way will see me now teaching the Dharma. Practicing all virtues means to settle into your situation. How do you settle into your situation right now? Gently, harmoniously, flexibly, and uprightly. If you can settle into your situation right now, gently, not forcing yourself into this body and mind that you have right now, but flexibly, gently, skillfully settle into this experience that you're having, all the way, for the sake of others.

[42:15]

And settle into it uprightly, in a balanced way. Settle into it. without meddling with it. Just perfectly, quietly, unmovingly settle into where you are. If we can do this, those who can do this will see the Buddha teaching right now here. Natsume Soseki said at the beginning of his book, Three-Cornered World, approach everything rationally and you become harsh.

[43:27]

If I may, I would say approaching everything rationally is meddling with things. pull along in the stream of emotions and you will be swept away by the current. Give free rein to your desires and you will become uncomfortably confined. It is not a very agreeable place to live, this world of ours. When unpleasantness increases, you want to draw yourself up to some place where life is easier. It is just at the point when you first realize that life will be no more agreeable

[44:47]

no matter what height you attain, that a poem may be given birth, or a painting created. If we can just settle completely into this situation and be upright, we will witness the birth of the world. Not from outside it. We will be part of it. We will witness the world creating us. We will see the dependent core rising of our experience. we will see how everything that's happening is coming forth to realize this self.

[45:58]

This is called seeing Buddha. To see how everything is coming forth to create you right now is called seeing Buddha. how you are created by all things at each moment is seeing Dharma. This is receiving the first great Bodhisattva precept. in our self and not metal. We have to face great pain and anxiety that comes from our past

[47:07]

habits, not our past habits, our habits which have developed through past action, our habits of puffing up and deflating ourself, which causes all this anxiety. So it's very hard to sit in this place called being ourself, being oneself. All the ancestors not just of the lineage of this temple, but all the lineages of all the Buddhist schools, and from what I can tell from all other religious lineages, the ancestors have had a hard time settling with themselves. So if you have a hard time settling with yourself, moment by moment, if you find it difficult to deeply dwell in the present moment, you have lots of company.

[48:14]

Contemporary company and ancient company. All the Buddhas are there with you in your effort to settle and realize that you cannot make life better by your personal, you know, karmic effort. But you can realize happiness, peace, and freedom if you can completely settle on yourself with all beings. through all beings. I'm sorry if that was a heavy message.

[49:52]

Last night we had a gospel choir came and sang here. And the last song they sang was one that was an important song for the civil rights movement, and still is. What's it called? We Shall Overcome. And I guess there's many, maybe many verses to this song, but I only remember two. So I'm going to tell you two verses. We Shall Overcome. We Shall Overcome. we shall overcome someday. Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe we shall overcome someday. We'll walk hand in hand.

[51:09]

We'll walk hand in hand. We'll walk hand in hand someday. Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe we shall overcome someday." So it's not exactly an assignment, but it's a request that you sit hand in hand now, that you touch that sentient being near you. And some of you may know Some of you may know the melody.

[52:24]

I get maybe some of you know the melody, right? So now can you sing? Go ahead, sing. Overcome We shall overcome We shall overcome someday Oh, deep in my heart I do believe we shall overcome some day. We walk hand in hand.

[53:32]

We walk hand in hand. We walk hand in hand someday. Oh, deep in my heart I do believe We shall overcome someday I guess the next verse is, the truth shall set us free. The truth shall set us free. We are not afraid.

[54:33]

We are not afraid. The truth's important, so if you can face the truth of your experience deeply, moment by moment, The song says it will set you free. May our intention

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