the bodhisattva path. Bodhisattva has the word bodhi, which means awake or awakening. And sattva is like being, so it's an awakening being, a being that's in the process of awakening. And it is used to refer to people who are on the path to Buddhahood. So the historical Buddha Shakyamuni who lived in India was called a bodhisattva in his career, in his practice career up to becoming a Buddha. And then he was not a Bodhisattva anymore, he was a Buddha. There are beings who are on this process of evolution to become fully enlightened beings, Buddhas.

[01:18]

And at the heart of such beings is what is called in Sanskrit, bodhicitta, which means, citta means consciousness or mind. So these beings that are evolving towards Buddhahood have at their heart or at the center of their life They have a mind or a spirit or a consciousness of awakening, which makes sense. Awakening beings have awakening consciousness or have a thought or a mind of awakening. this mind arises in a living being, can arise in a living being. It may have arisen in some of the people in this room.

[02:32]

And when this mind, well, when it first arises, or its basic way is described, is that it's a wish, but a little bit more than a wish, a wish that's a resolution. A well, a well, a wholehearted wish to give one's life, to make one's life a gift. to all living beings. To wish to give one's life for the welfare of all living beings. And in order to make one's life a benefit one wishes to become

[03:47]

completely wise and compassionate. In other words, wishes to realize Buddhahood in order that beings, that all beings can be most fully benefited. The Buddhas are those who are most, who are the beings we consider, whether they're called Buddha or not, the beings that live among suffering beings who are most skillful, who are completely skillful at benefiting beings we call Buddhas, and those who wish to become completely skillful in helping all other beings, are the Bodhisattvas. They're like the children of the Buddhas. And at some point, this thought of enlightenment, this spirit of enlightenment can arise in the consciousness of a living being.

[04:55]

One can feel, oh, I would like actually to give this life. I really would like to give my life right now and in the future to the welfare of beings. And I wish to train myself so that Buddhahood will be available to help beings. Not so that I will have Buddhahood, not so much that I will be a Buddha, but so that Buddhahood, as a result of the practice, as a result of the training, that Buddhahood will be available in the world, in many worlds, to help living beings. Now if this thought has arisen, if this spirit has arisen in a living being, it's not a permanent fixed thing.

[05:59]

And even after it arises, one can get distracted from it. Even if one has a moment of experience where one feels, yes, I would like to give this life to the welfare of all beings. I would like this life to be, whenever it arises, be an opportunity to be given to the welfare of all beings. And I would like to train this life to be more and more skillful in the giving and helping of beings. Even when one has that feeling really profoundly, one can get distracted from it. in the next moment you can lose it we can lose it it's such a wonderful amazing transformative thought and yet it's also impermanent and can be lost so after it arises it actually needs to be cared for like a fragile a fragile life like a baby

[07:11]

or like a flame on a candle. We need to be ready to put our hands around it to protect it from a breeze. Otherwise it can be blown out. We need to be caring for it. If there's no breeze, we still are caring for it because a breeze might come any moment to blow it out. A breeze of... Of what? Of selfishness. A breeze of habitual inattention and so on. Many things can blow it out, so we have to take care of it. And as we take care of it, the proposal is the flame will grow and grow. And then as it grows, we continue to take care of it, and it will grow. And it gets to a point where it's not so much like a flame anymore, but more like a forest fire.

[08:20]

And then, as you know, if you blow on the forest fire, it just gets bigger. At a certain point, it just starts growing from everything that's given to it. And then it grows beyond that until it becomes... like a cosmic fire. Still impermanent, though. For bodhisattvas, for enlightening beings who have had this spirit arise in them, there are six basic precepts or six basic methods of training that protect and nurture this thought of enlightenment from its first arising, when it's like a little flame, to its finally becoming complete perfect enlightenment.

[09:30]

And complete perfect enlightenment has sort of the same name as the beginning thought. Complete perfect enlightenment is also Bodhi mind. But it's the fully developed one. So the first one and the final one are not separate. And the first one is cared for and becomes the second one. The second one is cared for and becomes the third one. And infinite numbers of bodhicittas are cared for and evolve and grow into complete perfect enlightenment. This is the possibility held out by this teaching of the Buddhas. So the six basic precepts, the six basic methods are giving, ethical study, study of ethical precepts, or study of the precepts of giving, study of the precepts of ethics, study of the precepts of

[10:40]

Patience, study the precepts of enthusiasm, study the precepts of concentration, and study the precepts, practice the precepts of wisdom. These are the six. And they're also actually called, these six methods are also called the six perfections or the six transcendences. or the six ways of going beyond. So actually they're called the giving which goes beyond, the ethical precepts which go beyond, the patience which goes beyond. And the going beyond means that all these practices go beyond any limiting attitudes we have about them. They go beyond any ideas we have about them.

[11:50]

So that because giving goes beyond any idea we have of giving, for example, we might have the idea in practicing giving that we are the giver and somebody else is the receiver and we're giving them something which is called the gift. We might have this idea of the giving process when we start practicing giving. And as we fully realize the practice, we no longer see the practice as limited by those ideas, so that we feel like a giver, a receiver, and a gift all the time. We see that we're a gift to the world. We see that we have received our life as a gift. We are a receiver, and we also give our life So by practicing this precept, it goes beyond any idea, any limitation, so that it can happen all the time, no matter what's going on.

[13:00]

So that if someone insults me, when I realize or when we realize this perfection of giving, when someone insults me, I am a recipient of a gift. When someone's cruel to me, I see it as a gift. I know it's cruel. I know they are trying to be mean to me, but I see it as a gift. And I see myself as a gift to them. And I often say that the stories that turned me to Zen were stories of people who were being treated cruelly, who responded to the cruelty as though they were receiving a gift, and who then, in response to the cruelty, gave a gift. not cruelty, but gave gift in the form of compassion back to the person who was seemingly being cruel to them. I didn't know at the time that they were practicing this perfection of giving. Now I look back and see that they were. But what I did know, what I did feel is, I want to be like that.

[14:08]

In other words, what I felt was the bodhicitta arose in me. I wanted to be like that bodhisattva. I didn't know it was called a bodhisattva. I thought it was a Zen priest, and it was. But he was actually showing the first way to protect this bodhi mind. And I had a glimmering of the bodhi mind, plus I also wanted to do the practice of protecting it. Since that time, when I was touched by that image of compassion, I have forgotten quite a few times that what's happening is a gift. Sometimes people give me things and I don't see them as a gift. I sometimes forget. But today, I remember.

[15:10]

So I'm telling you. And the precepts, the ethical precepts, the same with them. We're devoted to these precepts of compassion. They're basically bodhisattva precepts of compassion. They're teachings about how to have compassionate relationships. Like one of the ways to have a compassionate relationship is called the precept of not killing. It's not so much to keep yourself from doing the evil thing of killing. It's more like teaching how to have compassionate relationships called not killing and not stealing. These are teachings about compassionate relationship. But as we get into these teachings too, although we're totally devoted to them, not although, because we're totally devoted to them, we don't actually have some fixed idea of what they mean. we're open to all kinds of possibilities about what the precept of not killing and what the precept of not stealing mean.

[16:19]

We come to be able to see it all the time. And by seeing it, by seeing the precept of not killing and not stealing, we are more able to benefit beings. Before I go through each one, I just want to look at the six in two parts. One part is the first three. Another part is the second three. Three and three makes six. The first three are said to be for the sake of benefiting society. living beings. The first three are for benefiting suffering beings. Giving, ethical discipline, and patience are for benefiting suffering beings like ourselves and others.

[17:24]

The second three are for relieving affliction. And affliction, the definition I offer you of affliction is something that's a cause of suffering. And the basic cause of suffering in the Buddha Dharma is self-clinging, clinging to a self, believing that there's an independent person and clinging to that person. That's an affliction. And then there's subsidiary afflictions around that one called greed, hate, and delusion, and so on. There's many causes of suffering. That's the fundamental one, self-clinging, holding to self-interest, focusing on benefiting ourselves.

[18:34]

focusing on our own pleasure. These are afflictions which you may have seen some of these around. The first three of these bodhisattva training practices are to benefit people who have these afflictions. All the people walking around suffering because They have some self-clinging, or more than some self-clinging, a lot of self-clinging. For those beings, and for ourselves, remember, that way, we practice giving ethical discipline and patience with the pain of afflictions. We do that with ourselves if we're afflicted. We do it with other people who are afflicted. We practice that way with them, and we teach them how to practice giving ethical discipline and patience with their pain and with the causes of their pain.

[19:44]

We teach them how to do that. We teach them how to become aware of the causes We ask them if they're aware of these causes. We show them how to be gracious and generous towards the causes of suffering. And of course, we teach them to be patient with the afflictions and patient with the pain. And we also teach them ethics, which For example, one of the Bodhisattva precepts is the precept of not slandering. So we teach them not to slander themselves or others who are afflicted. We don't slander ourselves for our self-clinging. We don't besmirch ourselves for our self-clinging, which causes us suffering. And if we feel not so self-clinging someday and we see someone who is really heavily clinging, we practice the precept of not praising ourself, who is not so clinging today, with a super-clinger right nearby.

[20:59]

So these first three are to benefit beings who are in affliction, and the next three are to free beings from the afflictions, from the causes. practicing the first three will help us practice the second three. Because practicing, for example, practicing patience with pain gives us lots of energy, or I should say releases lots of energy, which is usually involved in trying to avoid or distract ourselves from suffering. So if you've got suffering and you're running around it, involved in many things, so you don't have to notice it, thinking of many ways to reduce it,

[22:19]

If we practice patience, we more just practice being quiet and still with it, and all these extracurricular activities drop away, and the energy which we use for them is available, for example, to practice patience, and to practice giving, and to practice ethics. But also it's available to practice meditation, or I should say concentration, because these first three are meditations too. It's just that unless we take care of our afflicted self and unless we help others care for their affliction, it's hard for us to concentrate. If we have pain and we have hysterical or compulsive reactions to our pain, it's hard for us to concentrate. Not only is the energy for concentration being devoted to distraction, but the distraction makes it hard for us to concentrate on anything except being distracted.

[23:28]

People are actually, a lot of people are really good at concentrating on distraction. You know, they're like one-pointed about practicing distraction uninterruptedly for long periods of time. And occasionally the pain gets so bad that they stop and look at the pain for a moment without moving. And then, you know, they join recovery programs like Zen. They say, oh, my God, they're suffering here. For that moment, they're like totally like right there. Whoa. Whoa. In order to practice the first three of these training methods, we do need some enthusiasm.

[24:29]

We do need some energy in order to practice them. And if we do devote our energy to practicing them, we receive, as a result of devoting our energy to practicing these first three methods of helping beings, we receive much more energy. Before we devote our energy to these first three, our vigor, our zeal, our enthusiasm is being dispersed. But as we put more and more of our energy into these first three methods of training, our energy becomes more and more concentrated. And as it becomes more concentrated, it becomes suitable for the practice of concentration. Because concentration requires a lot of concentrated energy.

[25:31]

You could say, well, doesn't being distracted require lots of energy? It does. People use a lot of energy running around being distracted. But it's hard for them to bring it all together onto something good or even on something evil to really concentrate it. But if we start with this fourth training method, the concentration, there are also ways to intensify and nurture and grow the concentrated vigor. The main thing that makes the energy grow, the main root of enthusiasm for practicing beneficial practices, beneficial trainings, the main thing is aspiration, that you actually aspire, for example, to practice giving, ethical discipline, patience, and enthusiasm, and you aspire to practice concentration and wisdom.

[26:50]

and this aspiration is joyful, that you have joy in the possibility of these practices. And the root of the aspiration is to reflect, and you've got some energy now because you've practiced patience and so on, to reflect on cause and effect. To notice to notice that somebody's talking to you, to notice that you're reading a book of meditation, and the book says, the source of all the misery of the world is to be focused on our own pleasure. You read that. And then you think, is that true of me? Does there seem to be that causal relationship between me being really concerned about me and my suffering and the suffering of those around me?

[28:00]

The other day I was really concerned in my conversation with my spouse. I was really concerned that I would win that argument, that I would be the champion, that I would be right. And since she had disagreed with me, that she would be wrong. Yeah, I was really concerned. And I thought that would be rather pleasant if my righteousness was established and her wrongness was established. Yeah, that's an example. And I was miserable. For a moment there I thought I was going to win, but still I was miserable. And then I lost and I was miserable. I was ashamed that I was spending my time being concerned about proving that I was right. I was concerned for my own pleasure, my own success. Yeah, and I could see that's where my pain comes from. When I was 13, on one Sunday afternoon, I was feeling kind of bad, and the thought arose in my mind,

[29:15]

If I would go to school tomorrow, Monday, and when I walked into school, if I would just concentrate on being kind to other people, all my problems would be gone. I could see that Sunday afternoon. I understood at 13 to some extent that the cause of my suffering was going to school, being concerned for my welfare, going to school, being concerned with my popularity. my grades, my athletic success, my popularity with certain people. I could see that that concern was my suffering. If I would just turn around and be concerned with their welfare, I could see, well, that kind of would be the evaporation of my problems. This is meditation on cause and effect, which led to an aspiration in the 13-year-old boy to go to school the next day and to practice kindness towards all the students and the teachers.

[30:27]

And I remember I went up the hill. I lived at the bottom of the hill where the school was. I opened the door. I saw the beautiful young girls, and I forgot. And I switched back to being concerned about whether they liked me, about whether I was popular with them. etc. It's hard to remember, easy to forget. But over the years since then, occasionally there's a memory that that's the point that I would like to focus on. By contemplating the disaster of getting distracted from being devoted to the welfare of others, because being devoted to the welfare of the others is the source of all happiness in the world. That's where it all comes from.

[31:30]

I mean, not just pleasure, because pleasure does still come even in the middle of misery. But the real happiness comes from being devoted to the welfare of others. By contemplating that and contemplating that suffering comes from self-concern, one may aspire to practice these methods, including the method that we're talking about right now, the method of generating happiness. enthusiasm. And now when you're enthusiastic, then you can start focusing. And you're enthusiastic because you have been focusing to some extent on giving, ethical discipline, and patience. Now you're ready to focus on the mind of enlightenment itself. Now you're ready to focus. You can focus now. You can concentrate because you aspire to, you really want to, and you have some energy so you can spend some time focusing on this thought of enlightenment itself and maybe not be distracted too often from it.

[32:43]

And two basic ways to focus on it. Well, the basic way to focus on it is remember that you wish to realize Buddhahood for the welfare of all beings. Just remember that. That's the point of this life. I remember that. I remember that. However, even though I practiced these first four training methods, there still could be some belief in me being separate from other beings. And if there is that belief, there still could be some, even though I really wish to live for the welfare of all of you, and not only that, but I wish to become enlightened so that this enlightenment can benefit you, still there might be, even in the middle of that thought or lurking around some other thought, there might be some self-clinging.

[33:52]

So now I have to focus on further meditation so that this intention to live for the welfare of others will be purified of self-clinging. So one simple method is to simply focus on others, on all beings, as yourself. Just focus and remember everybody, all sentient beings, are myself. They, all of them, are myself. Everybody is myself. Everybody is myself. Each person is myself, everybody is myself. Everybody equals me. That's what I am, is everybody.

[34:56]

In this school of this temple, one of the, sort of the standard of our meditation the touchstone of our meditation, the criterion of our meditation could be called concentration on, well, let's say it this way, self-fulfilling concentration. That's our central meditation, self-fulfilling concentration. Concentrating on the self in a way that's fulfilling, So you're concentrating on yourself in a way that's fulfilling. What's the way that's fulfilling? They are myself. They are myself. I am all sentient beings. All sentient beings are myself. Focusing on that is self-fulfilling concentration. Being concentrated on that is self-fulfilling focus.

[36:03]

This is... the way of being devoted to others and meditating on that in such a way as to, little by little, eliminate the self-clinging in this devotion. The whole universe is the true body of the self. Now, this practice of being mindful, they are myself, they are myself, they are myself, he is myself, she is myself. This practice is further developed by exchanging yourself for others. So first of all you equalize self and others, you make self and others equal

[37:08]

And the next, you exchange self and other. So whenever you see self and other, you try to find a way to exchange it. So the equalizing attenuates the self-clinging and the exchange further attenuates it. Actually, to a point where when this concentration is steady, the affliction of self-clinging is actually eliminated. It's eliminated. it then leads to the realization of what you've been focusing on.

[38:14]

So that after you are really focused on this, when you see somebody, you see yourself. At first you tell yourself, they are myself. But as you completely settle into that, you start to see that that's the way things are. So your vision actually will change as a result of this training, and this is the wisdom practice coming following the concentration practice. This leads to an understanding that the self and other, although they appear, there's no substantial separation between them. The separation is just a mental imputation. we don't deny that appearance of separation or difference. We just realize that it can never really be found.

[39:17]

And when we realize that, we realize the suchness, the way self and other really are, is that they're not separate. The way our awareness and what we're aware of really are, is they're not separate. The way the world is, is that we have a mind which is generated in such a way that it appears to itself as objects. We have a mind which appears to itself as others. We are beings which appear to ourselves as though there's others. But there's not really others. Others are actually your mind. giving itself to you as others. And again, focusing on this is focusing on what we call suchness or reality.

[40:28]

And this reality, if we continue to focus on it, not only relieves the belief in a separate self and relieves the belief that others are separate. But we see that they're not. And because of that, because of seeing that they're not separate, to see that they're not connected either because they're not separate, we're not connected, we're just interdependent. Seeing that, seeing that, we evolve, we evolve, we evolve to complete perfect helpfulness, focusing on this non-duality of all beings. This focus is the self-fulfilling focus of the Zen school It is the meditation on the bodhi mind of the universal vehicle, which includes the Zen school.

[41:38]

The Zen school is one of the types of Mahayana, of universal vehicle, Buddha Dharma, where we have this teaching of the self-fulfilling awareness, the self-fulfilling concentration, to learn to concentrate in such a way that we're constantly exchanging ourself with others, that whenever we feel a concern for ourself and the welfare of ourselves, we turn it to the welfare of others. Whenever we want to win a card game, we switch it to trying to help the other person win. I think probably we've all had moments of that occasionally where you want the other person to win, to go to a baseball game. And it's not that you hope the Giants will lose and that Oakland will win or vice versa.

[42:42]

Yeah, it's that whatever you identify with, you hope the other side will benefit. Whatever benefit you hope for yourself, you wish others will receive. So if you ever notice any concern for any benefit for yourself, just turn it. Just reverse the orientation. Reverse it, reverse it, reverse it. See others as equal and reverse the orientation of self-benefit to other-benefit. Someone might say, well, won't this be beneficial to me? Yes, it will. By the way. It will be the relief of all your afflictions. But the real joy is that when you're relieved from afflictions, you can help others. That's your real joy.

[43:50]

Now, I also wish to say that I've been speaking about how these practices care for this bodhi mind, but if by chance this bodhi mind is not living in us right now, if it hasn't arisen, or if it's arisen and we forgot it, You know, like, I remember one time I did actually want to live for the welfare of all beings, yeah. And I wanted to, I actually wanted to develop great wisdom and compassion in order to live that way, but I kind of forgot it now. It's not actually living in me now. I must admit. I don't know, something else is living there. Well, even if it can't find it, or even if it hasn't arisen, practicing these first three training methods... can set up the conditions for it to arise.

[45:13]

So even if it hasn't arisen, the very methods which care for it once it has arisen, set up the condition for its arising, make us ready for the arising. Because we do not make this spirit of enlightenment arise in ourselves. So in this sense, I would say that the particularly East Asian tradition of the great vehicle emphasized that this Bodhi mind is like grace. But it's a grace, it's a gift that we don't make happen, but also that it can't be forced upon us. We have to be ready for it. And again, the practices of caring for it will also make us ready for the gift. If we practice giving, we'll be ready to receive the gift of this bodhi mind.

[46:22]

If you don't see the gift of bodhi mind being given to you, practice giving. and you will see it, it is being given to you. The Buddhas in this tradition, the Buddhas are believed to be present in our lives now. They want to give us this Bodhi mind, but they can't actually give it by themselves. They have to give it with us. In other words, it's not the Buddhas that make us get it, and it's not us that make us receive it. It's our relationship with the Buddhas. In the relationship with the Buddhas, this mind arises. This relationship between ourselves and Buddhas is another aspect of meditating on the equality of self and other.

[47:25]

That we are not only our all sentient beings ourselves, but we are also not separate from the Buddhas. The Buddhas are with us. And opening to the Buddhas, opening to that relationship, is the situation in which this wish will arise. So we're not only taking care of our wish to help all beings, but we're taking care of our already established close relationship with the Buddhas, which gives rise to this course and sustains it all the way through. The Buddhas sustain us, we sustain the Buddhas. There's no Buddhas without living beings, and there's no living beings without Buddhas. But there are living beings who are not practicing these disciplines. There are living beings who are forgetting to practice giving. There are living beings who are forgetting to see what is happening as a gift.

[48:33]

There are living beings who forget to make what is happening a gift, right? We do forget to make what we're doing a gift. We forget that. We sometimes make what we're doing as a way to get something, This is quite familiar. But living beings can change the orientation to what I'm doing now is a gift. What I'm saying to you, these words are gifts. These hand gestures are gifts. My body and life is a gift. I can remember that. I can think of that. You can listen to me as a gift to me and to you. You can look at me as a gift to you and to me. Or you can forget that. If you remember it, this bodhicitta will arise in you. If you want it to happen and live in you, practice giving and so on.

[49:35]

And it will happen. Definitely. No question. All the questions are allowed. and we actually are going to have a questions and answer session. So, if you have any questions. I'm not saying I'll give you answers, but I'll respond. I might respond with a question. And since not all of you probably will come to the question and response session, I'll give you some questions as we come to a conclusion here. Do you wish to practice giving? Do you wish to practice ethical discipline? Do you wish to practice patience? Do you wish to live and practice the Buddha way with enthusiasm?

[50:43]

Do you wish to practice concentration? And do you wish to practice wisdom? I ask you that. Do you wish to give your life to the welfare of all beings? And do you wish that enlightenment will come to your life and be realized in order to facilitate that? I ask myself that question while I ask you and I will take care of that question. Hopefully, even if I get Alzheimer's, I'll continue to take care of that question. By dint of training, we can remember difficult practices and do them. I asked you some questions and now I invite you to give your life to the welfare of all beings.

[51:46]

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