I'd like to talk again about something that I have been talking about here for a few weeks. And that is eyes of compassion. Am I speaking okay for the people in the back? I mentioned also before that when we do a ceremony to place a figure, a statue, or a painting on an altar or even put a rock on a memorial site, we do a ceremony to wake up

[01:18]

the figure, to make it live for us. And when we do that, we chant a, what's called a mantra. Some words, some words, some true, some words of truth or true words or We chant, and what we chant on that occasion to wake these figures up is we chant seven times, first quietly, and then finally by the seventh time with maximum intensity, we chant, eyes of compassion, observe sentient beings. assembling an ocean of happiness beyond measure.

[02:23]

Eyes of compassion observing living beings assembles an ocean of happiness beyond measure. And beyond measure means not just that it's really big, this ocean, but that it could be very, very small. We say that in its fineness, in its smallness, it fits into spacelessness. And in its greatness, it is utterly beyond location. And so what are these eyes of compassion?

[03:39]

Where do we get them? How do they wind up in our skull? And perhaps it is that before we fully realize what these eyes of compassion are, If we observe living beings, perhaps these eyes will be born in our life, in our head. It's good for a Zen practitioner, I think, to remember that I don't know anything about Zen and nobody knows any more than me.

[04:52]

That Zen practice, Buddhist practice, is not something that I can do by myself, and it's not something that somebody else can do for me. I cannot get these eyes of compassion by myself, and no one can give them to me. I can't put them in my skull, and no one else can put them there. somehow through this process of observing living beings. So by walking around, circumambulating,

[06:05]

walking around all living beings, walking around these eyes of compassion, again and again, step after step, we search for, we look for, we're ready for these eyes of compassion. We try never to turn away from them. We try never to turn away from sentient beings. We try never to turn away from these eyes and we also try not to get a hold of them. Turning away from them is incorrect. Grabbing them is incorrect. And yet moment by moment we do enact something. We enact posture after posture.

[07:12]

Posture after posture we enact. And even that no one does for us and we don't do all by ourselves. In fact, it would be extremely tiring if we had to sit up straight or bent all by ourselves. and it would be, I don't know what to say, if somebody else was doing it. Maybe some people would feel tortured if someone else was doing it. Maybe some people would feel relieved that somebody else was doing it. But anyway, I suggest that we enact posture after posture, moment after moment. That I enact this posture with the help of all of you, and you enact your posture right now with the help of all of us. I speak now not on my own and no one else is doing it for me.

[08:24]

To walk around the way my speech actually arises to observe this is to observe a sentient being. When the observation is appropriate, eyes of compassion are born. So how can we realize these eyes of compassion. I thought this morning a story I heard about Suzuki Roshi's wife. Today in San Francisco we're going to do a memorial service for Suzuki Roshi, the 22nd year memorial service, and his wife will be there.

[09:39]

This will probably be the last, this may be the last memorial service she will attend here in San Francisco because she's planning to go back to Japan next year. She was the principal of the kindergarten which was associated with Suzuki Roshi's temple in Japan. Once she was asked, what is the most important thing to teach the children? And she said, teaching them to join their palms and bow. When a living being finds the eyes of Buddha, naturally that living being, upon meeting another living being, will bring the hands together and bow to the other.

[11:10]

This is the normal this is a normal response, not the only normal response, that someone who has eyes of compassion will find happening upon meeting another living being. And throughout the day, beings who have these eyes of compassion meet various other beings and their hands come together and they bow. From these morning and evening greetings between beings arise the Buddhist teaching.

[12:17]

Arise expressions like eyes of compassion, observe living beings, and assemble an ocean of happiness beyond measure. And then hearing this expression, one asks, well how does one find these eyes of compassion and observe living beings and assemble this ocean of happiness? And then the instruction is, join your palms and bow to every person you meet. every living being you meet. Now, sometimes it may not be convenient to do that, or even it may not be appropriate.

[13:19]

For example, if you're driving a car, it may not be appropriate to let go of the wheel and join your palms. But the feeling could be there. when you're driving and someone tries to cut in front of you or does cut in front of you, the feeling of joining palms and observing the sentient being, this living being, trying to get in front of you, that feeling could be there even if you don't actually join your hands. Also, you could observe the sentient being in your body who's driving and the feelings that arise in him when this person cuts in front of him. Perhaps some feeling of anger would arise.

[14:22]

Or, I'm not going to let him butt in front of me here, I'll speed up. Even there, there could be a joining of the palms and bowing to this impatient, competitive, a person driving your car. If you can bow to this competitive person you maybe could bow to the one in the other car too. In your heart I heard that now in biological studies a new understanding of evolution is developing.

[15:32]

The old idea of evolution was something like one of the key ingredients was survival of the fittest. a feeling of competition for the resources available for life. That many small, that many things need to be born and die in order for there to be the appearance of something new and wonderful to happen. That by competition and death there emerges a wonderful new adaptation, a wonderful new life form. That's the old idea. Or another way to put it is that there is this editor.

[16:42]

this editor called death which edits and it always edits the same way namely no and that editor by this process of editing no no no something many many times saying no no no something new and wonderful arises perhaps an eye that can see something it never saw before But the proposal now is that the eye of competition or the spirit of competition and the spirit of things dying in order for new possibilities to arise is wrong. That that is the editor, that competition is the editor and the editor eliminates ineffective

[17:48]

and makes room for new possibilities. But that this competition is not the author, it's the editor, not the author of new forms. The author of new forms, the emerging author of new forms is cooperation. Observing living beings with eyes of compassion is cooperation. Or actually, observing living beings in cooperation produces a new kind of eye. An eye which sees something truly new and meaningful. an eye which sees the wondrous, miraculous possibilities of human life and great happiness as a result of that or in conjunction with that.

[19:02]

We're looking for A new I, an I which sees rather than what I do or what I can do maybe even to help in this world, to see what kind of cooperation is coming together to create this life. And yet they say that the most important thing to teach the children is to join the palms and bow. So there needs to be some...we need to look for the place where what we seem to be doing, because we do seem to be doing things. We still do seem to be doing things. How can we look at that spot, at that place where we seem to be doing things moment after moment and see that that's an act of cooperation or that's a cooperative event?

[20:25]

How can we see that shift? Even as I speak to you, in one sense I feel responsible to give this talk to you, to give a talk in this room. And when I look at it that way, it's, well, sometimes it might be okay. But it has a kind of oppressive, heavy quality. And my experience is that nothing, that new possibilities don't seem to come up from that point of view of, I have to do this. But if I shift, or if, not even if I shift, but if there's a shift to the point of view that this talk is a cooperative effort, then some new possibilities

[21:36]

some truly new possibilities, some truly new forms can appear. Each of us individually cannot willfully find the eye that sees Buddha everywhere. And no one else can give us this eye which sees Buddha in each person. Where do we get the eye that sees Buddha in each person?

[22:41]

Where does that come from? I have these new glasses. So I put these glasses on now and I can see everybody in a sense more clearly. Now when I put these glasses on, can some of you see my eyes more clearly? Probably not, right? Is it less clear because they're reflecting the light? Isn't that funny? I put these on and I can see you more clearly, but some of you can see my eyes less clearly. But I can see your eyes much more clearly. It's interesting. It's interesting. Now that I can see your eyes more clearly, I could take a break and let you see my eyes, those of you who are having trouble because of the glass in the way.

[24:03]

How are we going to work this out? I'll put them back on now if it's okay. Okay. Now when I think about these eyes, in some sense, when I meditate on these eyes, in some sense I feel two big holes in my skull. Holes that are yearning for these eyes. Now what, am I yearning to see Buddhas before me instead of living beings?

[25:38]

Is that what I'm yearning for? Would that be nice? And yet Eyes of Compassion doesn't say that Eyes of Compassion observe Buddhas. And yet Eyes of Compassion see Buddha, Eyes of Compassion see Buddha, and yet they observe sentient beings. They see Buddha and they observe living beings. And living beings are... the definition of a living being is someone who doesn't see Buddha, but who has some idea about Buddha. And beings that have ideas about Buddha are suffering. So the eyes of compassion are eyes that see Buddha and at the same time observe people, living creatures, humans and others, that are suffering.

[26:54]

I don't know if that's true, but I just said that. And I'm not blaming you or me. Again, I'm saying that it looks to me like eyes of compassion are not eyes that are looking at Buddha only. Eyes of compassion look at sentient beings, look at suffering beings. And eyes of compassion looking at suffering beings assembles an ocean of happiness. But these eyes of compassion are also seeing Buddha. So eyes of compassion aren't just seeing suffering beings, they're also seeing Buddha. If they just see suffering beings...

[28:04]

They will, I propose, stop seeing suffering beings. They will start looking somewhere else because they won't be able to stand seeing suffering beings only. Nice idea, but maybe it's not possible. But to see Buddha does not mean to see something. To see Buddha means to get dirty. It means to walk into the mud in order to help people and get dirty. It means to get wet in the water in order to save people who are drowning.

[29:13]

That's what it means to see Buddha. Seeing Buddha is not something you see out there. Seeing Buddha is when you join your palms and bow. It's when you join your palms and dive into the mud. Simultaneously, the eyes which see the mud, so they know which direction to dive, that's observing sentient beings. There's a book and in the book there's a picture and the picture is, that I have in my mind, is a picture of one of the Zen teachers.

[30:16]

His name is Dogen. He's one of the ancestors of our temple here. And when this book came out, a friend of mine looked at it. And it's a picture where it looks like one of his eyes is looking up and one of his eyes is looking down. And my friend said, it looks like he's looking at Buddha with one eye and a hamburger with the other. So Dogen says, anyone who practices all virtues and is tolerant, peaceful, upright, and stable will see my body. And all virtues means getting dirty to help those who are stuck in mud.

[31:25]

or getting wet in order to save those who are drowning. That's called practicing all virtues. This is seeing Buddha in mud and water. This guy has one eye on Buddha and one eye on a hamburger. And again, Buddha, the eye that's on Buddha is not looking at something out there or in here. The eye that sees Buddha is the one that gets involved in the mud. And getting involved in mud is joining your palms, for example. It may not seem to be extremely muddy to you, but it is mud. It's a kind of willingness to have hands. and to put them together.

[32:30]

Like if you leave here now after this talk's over, some of you, I don't know who, will probably, when they run into somebody outside there, will join their palms and bow to the other person. It's fairly likely that in a large group like that at least one person will do that. For example, I probably will. But I'm used to that, but some of you, if you aren't used to doing that, you might feel self-conscious doing that. And what most people do when they feel self-conscious is they feel like, well, something's wrong with that. I probably shouldn't do whatever is making me feel self-conscious, so I won't join my palms. Or they might think, well, it's good to be self-conscious, so I will join my palms. Or I'll be a better person, so I'll join my palms. Or I'll join my palms... you know, and so on, for various reasons, and getting involved in that kind of activity, that kind of thinking, that's actually, in some sense, well, not, that's in some sense as bad as it gets.

[33:41]

Now I know there's different concoctions of that kind of stuff that seems more intensely bitter and painful than perhaps that example, but basically that's how you compose suffering is by thinking in various ways. You can also walk by somebody and without joining the palms also experience that you're meeting somebody and that you don't know what to do. that you don't know actually how to bring them joy by the way you look, by the way you stand, by the way you talk. The question is, do I want to bring joy to this person I'm meeting right now? Do I want to ease the pain of this person I'm meeting right now?

[34:48]

And if I do, how can I do that? Well again, I can't do it by myself and nobody else can do it for me. But I can join my palms and enter into the mud of that interaction with the hope that some joy will come. with the intention to bring joy through this, you know, confusion, self-consciousness, silliness, perhaps even self-righteousness, like, well, now I'm going to do something good for this person. I heard a description of a monk, a self-righteous monk. A not-so-self-righteous priest said he has the eyes of a bat, fierce, unblinking, and blind.

[35:58]

So Dogen Zenji, this guy who has this set of eyes that look at Buddha with one and sentient beings with the other, he says, you've got to have these eyes. That's the most important thing, is to have these eyes. These eyes that see Buddha. And again, I think now you got it, right? What seeing Buddha means? What does it mean? According to what I said, anyway. What does seeing Buddha mean? Get into the mud in order to help beings who are in the mud. But again, it isn't that Buddha walks into the mud and pulls these people out of the mud. You don't reach down there and pull them out of the mud. That's not how you help them. Buddhas don't do that. Now, there are some really wonderful people who do do that, you know, like these guys who drive those trucks, right?

[37:26]

Those tow trucks, they pull people out of mud. That's a good job. It's very kind of them, you know. I really think so, but that's not exactly a Buddha activity. Buddha activity is just to walk, is to get out of your truck and walk in and get stuck in the mud with them. But in order to save them, so instead of pulling them out like the tow truck would, you go in there and get down there in the mud with them, and you just stay in the mud there with them, for the moment anyway, until you ascertain the situation. So you say, well, here we are in the mud. It is up to our whatever. Knees, waist, neck, eyeballs. How is it? How is the mud? This time of year it might be cold. How are you feeling? Well, I'd like to get out of this mud. You would? So would I. You got problems?

[38:29]

So do I. Got to have these eyes. that walk into these situations. Actually, we are in these situations anyway. So it's the willingness to be in them that is seeing Buddha. And then once we have these eyes, then we also observe sentient beings. So the eyes that see Buddha in the mud and enter the situations of life and observe them How is it now for living beings in this situation? This is called, strangely enough, happiness beyond measure. It's a happiness which reaches every little tiny moment of being stuck in this particular mud bath.

[39:32]

And it's a happiness which does not just limit itself to the feelings of being in this particular It goes beyond location, and it also can fit into the tiniest little experience. So the eye that sees Buddha gets us into situations. And once we're there, this eye of compassion, which let us get into the situation, then the eye of compassion just watches what's happening. And this altogether is what produces happiness. And of course it isn't the observer by herself that does it, because if you don't have somebody to observe, you can't do it. So it's not just the observer, it's also what is observed that gives rise to this happiness. And also the happiness is not just the observer, because the happiness is that when you're in the mud with somebody,

[40:37]

Your willingness to be there is encouraging, plus you're watching them and enjoying what you're seeing is encouraging to them, and also your difficulty in seeing what you see is encouraging to them. That's the mud again. This is the process which the mantram says assembles an ocean of happiness beyond measure. Very simple, very difficult, because if you don't have eyes of Buddha, how are you going to get in the mud? Well, just put your hands together, and you're in the mud. Particularly if you put your hands together not to get something, but just to have your hands together. You don't go in the mud to get something. You just go into the mud to be in the mud. This is what helps people. expecting no other result.

[41:40]

If you expect some other result when you enter the mud, you're not really entering the mud. You're entering the mud with, you know, some reservation. I'll enter the mud if such and such happens. So to enter the mud in order to help people does not mean that you have some agenda other than entering the mud because if you do, you won't help people. as much anyway, you'll help them a little bit probably, at least to have company. But to enter the mud with no other agenda, this is really helpful. And then when you get there, don't just, that's not the end, then you observe what's happening. And so this is, again, an unusual, surprising description of the way to happiness. It's kind of an unusual way of talking about it. So again, the example would be you're walking along with somebody.

[42:47]

They fall down, and you stay with them, and you don't lift them up. You stay with them and let them get up on their own. This is what the Buddha does. Usually. I'm going to make an absolute rule about it. And you don't fall down with the other person just to show off, but you might fall down in the process. But you stay there and let them get up. They have to learn that the place that they get up is where they fell down. But to have company makes all the difference in the world. It isn't that it makes it easier. It isn't that it makes it harder. It just is essential. Because if you're alone and you get up without the other person, you don't know that if they were there, they wouldn't have helped you.

[43:58]

Perhaps if they were there, they would have pulled you up. The fact that they were there showed you couldn't have done it without them, and they didn't do it for you. It's a cooperative effort. cooperative effort the poem about that Chinese poem while my hair was still cut straight across my forehead I played about the front gate pulling flowers he came along on bamboo stilts playing horse

[45:05]

He walked around my seat playing with plums. And we went on living in the village of Chokhan, two small people without dislike or suspicion. At 14, I married you. I never laughed, being bashful. Lowering my head, I looked at the wall called to a thousand times, I never looked back. At fifteen, I stopped scowling and desired my dust to be mingled with yours forever and forever and forever. Why should I climb the lookout? At sixteen, you departed.

[46:13]

you went into Far Kul To Yen by the river of swirling eddies. And you had been gone for five months. The monkeys make sorrowful sounds overhead. You dragged your feet when you went out. By the gate now, the mosses have grown. The different mosses, too deep to clear them away. The leaves fall early this autumn. In the wind, paired butterflies are already yellow with August. Over the grass in the west garden. They hurt me. I grow older.

[47:19]

If you are coming down to the narrows of the river Jiang, please let me know beforehand, and I will come out to meet you as far as Choufu Sa. All right, didn't you?

[47:51]

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