May I reiterate the context? Can you hear? No? May I reiterate the context? Can you hear? Can barely hear? The context, you can hear that, right? The for our effort depends on our motivation. And if one has the motivation of the Mahayana, the great vehicle, then one is involved in this project of saving all beings from suffering.

[01:23]

And this project entails being rooted in great compassion, and based on, grounded in great compassion, then there arises at some point an aspiration to attain authentic enlightenment help all beings most completely. And then the third aspect of this universal vehicle is realization of Buddha's wisdom. Buddha's wisdom is

[02:28]

emptiness. Buddha's ultimate wisdom is emptiness. Buddha also has conventional wisdom simultaneously. So these three can be combined to an ultimate view or an emptiness that has a compassion as its essence. That's the sort of point of the Mahayana, the ultimate point. an emptiness whose essence is compassion, or another way to put it is, which is purified of all belief in inherent existence.

[03:54]

In order to get from great compassion that is still not purified to great compassion which is purified, there needs to be the aspiration to purify it by realizing Buddha's wisdom. So that makes the two turns into three. The compassion and the wisdom also have the aspiration to bring wisdom to compassion. And it seems that it may be so that wisdom must be rooted in compassion, that you can't realize thoroughly selflessness without from compassion.

[05:22]

Someone might try to do that, but it seems that one will not succeed in realizing Buddha's wisdom without being grounded in compassion. Buddha taught the middle way, and the middle way is the... I mean, the middle way is emptiness, is this lack of inherent existence, but also the middle way is instruction, words and teachings about this middle way of emptiness. The middle way is teachings about how to relinquish all views.

[06:24]

And the relinquishment of all views is emptiness. Fundamentally, the middle way is the relinquishment of the view of inherent existence, the person and things. And conventionally speaking, the middle way is teachings about how to realize giving up those views. In the last meeting that I attended here, the process of giving up the grasping of the view of inherent existence, we talked about the necessity

[07:39]

or at some point anyway, to become aware of the view of inherent existence that we're grasping. So, it may be the case that each of us is grasping a view of inherent existence of this body, of our body, It may be that each of us is doing that on an ongoing basis. It may be that each of us is grasping a view or a philosophy that our person is an inherently existent phenomena. It may be the case. Matter of fact, it probably is, I would say. It seems like it is. that most of us are grasping such a view and that we've been doing so since early in this lifetime and maybe even from beginning that we've been holding and grasping this idea of the inherent existence of this person.

[09:07]

And also, it may be the case that we're grasping the view of the inherent existence of others and things. That we go around holding these views. So, last time we talked about can you become aware of this view and the activities, the actions of body, speech and mind which are based on this view. In other words, are selfish activities. And so I asked you to look for it and see if you could become steadily familiar with this view. And I understand that Leslie gave a talk about it. And I heard that she encouraged you to be kind to this situation. of selfishness.

[10:12]

Be kind to this person who seems to think that she inherently exists. Be kind to the person who has the view that she inherently exists. Did you say something like that? Yeah. That's a good idea. Because again, this whole project is based on compassion. So it is appropriate to be very kind and gentle, and tender with this poor, twisted person who believes that she inherently exists. Kindness to her will help her relax. And if she relaxes, she may be able to her attachment to this view and all the attachments that are based on this view. And I also understand you had a A mando, and the topic of the mando was to face this grasping view of inherent existence with instability, something like that.

[11:31]

Is that right? Something like that was kind of the topic of the discussion. So, you've been working on that. I appreciate that you're doing this. I think that this really helps the whole world that some people are facing the music. Today we're going to do a ceremony probably. And I left here to go to San Francisco and to instruct people on how to do a big complicated ceremony.

[12:37]

So I want to... give a not exactly a bigger, but it might look like a bigger perspective on this concentration on the view of inherent existence that we're focusing on here. So we're kind of focusing on a very important condition for human suffering. OK? We're here in the mountains focusing on a very important condition for our dis-ease in life, a very important condition for all our inappropriate activities.

[13:45]

Is that clear? That that's what I'm asking you to focus on? The root of inappropriate conduct, sometimes called evil conduct. To remember that evil is live spelled backwards. Evil is the inappropriate way to live. And Turning evil around is real living. So evil is based on this misunderstanding of our selfhood, misunderstanding of our person, and misunderstanding of things. So we're focusing on the misunderstanding. We're trying to surface this misunderstanding and living. and make it available for further study and forgetting.

[14:49]

We're trying to surface this condition for evil, for inappropriateness, so it can be to such an extent that it no longer grips us, nor do we grip it. Does that make sense? Does it, Noah? Does that make sense? That's the kind of a focus we have here. Focus, by the way, is pretty much a Latin word. It's a Latin word, basically. It means hearth. It's the fireplace in a Roman house or in a Latin, in Roman and pre-Roman times, they called the fireplace the focus.

[15:56]

So our focus is this misunderstanding. All right? But around this focus, I would just like to draw some context. The context is, again, great compassion and the aspiration to attain Buddhahood for the welfare of all beings, is surrounding, is all around this kind of obnoxious focus. We're focusing on pettiness, in a sense. We're focusing on small-scale views. But not just small-scale views, but fixation on small-scale views, too. So we're talking about facing our sense of isolation and independence and also our tightness around that.

[16:59]

Somebody has to look at this, and we're the ones who are going to do it. But there's this big context of love, and aspiration for enlightenment all around this tight little thing we have to face that's not in our heart, that's not in our mind, that we need to look at. But I want to again reiterate the context and color it in a little bit now at the beginning of this seshin. So you don't get tight about looking at the tightness. So you can be big about it. So again, as I said, we've been doing these ceremonies up in the Bay Area, and today we're going to do some ceremonies here. And sometimes if you're like focusing on

[18:05]

on a meditation like I've just described, you may say, what are we doing making, offering incense, you know, and offering, making other offerings to Buddhas and bowing and... What's the point of these ceremonies? These ceremonies are reminding us of the big context of our little focus, of our sharp focus, The great bodhisattva, the bodhisattva, you know, what is it, the great, what is it, manjushri, great practice, I mean, great wisdom, avalokiteshvara, great compassion, samantabhadra, great activity. So, samantabhadra is the main teacher in... that in the last big chapter in the Avatamsaka Sutra, a young man, a young, actually kind of a boy, goes to Samantabhadra and asks him, you know, for teaching on the Bodhisattva course.

[19:32]

And Samantabhadra teaches him his own ten vows. ten vows are to pay homage to all Buddhas, to praise all Buddhas and their virtues, to make offerings to all Buddhas, to confess one's evil deeds and hindrances or resistances to rejoice in the merits and virtues of others, to beseech Buddhas to turn the wheel of Dharma, to entreat Buddhas to remain in the world, to teach, to be zealous, to be a zealous follower, to be enthusiastic follower of Buddha's way at all times.

[20:33]

I would say, to imitate Buddha at all times, to accommodate and serve all sentient beings, and then finally, to dedicate the merit and virtue of all these things that we just mentioned to the welfare of all sentient beings. These are the ten vows of Samantabhadra. Great goodness, Bodhisattva. And these ten vows surround, uplift, sustain, nourish the hard work of realizing Buddha's wisdom, which entails the hard work of doing what the Buddha did.

[21:39]

done this hard work of facing the belief in self, of facing that belief and the anxious and obnoxious surround of that belief. But they didn't just go and face this devil, this demon. Unarmed, unprotected, they were supported by these other practices of paying homage to Buddhas, of praising Buddhas, making offerings to Buddhas. They were sustained by the invigorating practice of confession and repentance of their own misconduct. They were sustained and upheld by the encouragement of rejoicing in the merits of others' virtues. were encouraged, but also did the work of beseeching the Buddhas to teach.

[22:47]

And asking them to stay around when they started to get shaky about being here. And then to do all the, including the wisdom practices, to do all the practices that all the Buddhas have ever done. and to be enthusiastic about doing the same practices that the Buddhists have done. And to serve and accommodate every living being. And then finally to take all this merit that would come from such practices and vows and give it away. This is the surround of this hard work. So this afternoon, and last night, and this morning too, and every day actually, but particularly today, we do some heavy duty praying, paying homage.

[23:53]

Today we will pay homage, not to all Buddhas, just to one. And then, from that one, you understand we pay homage to all Buddhas, and we will pay homage to all Buddhas, all the Buddhas, but this afternoon we will pay homage to one Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, our local hero. Pay homage to Shakyamuni Buddha. At the time, thinking about the time when Shakyamuni Buddha passed away. We will also praise Shakyamuni Buddha today. We will also make offerings to Shakyamuni Buddha. Again, I feel we sometimes forget

[25:01]

about paying homage, praising and making offerings to one Buddha, to all Buddhas. These practices surround the simple practice of with a mind like a wall, studying the Self. Also this morning, We confessed all our ancient twisted karma. But actually the work of surfacing and becoming aware of this belief in our inherent existence is a confession practice. It's a confession practice. Every time you find that and recognize it, you are basically confessing that you have such a view. And also, when you actually look and sit upright and contemplate this view, this evil view that you're all cut off from causes and conditions, when you face the force of evil, which is your view of your inherent existence,

[26:25]

When you face it uprightly, that is repentance. That is the formless repentance. That is ultimate repentance. To face this thing, to not try to get rid of it, to not try to blame it on somebody else, to not hold on to it, dislike it, but just to face it, that is repentance. So confession is to notice it and admit it, and repentance is to face it uprightly without moving. This is our confession and repentance. And based on awareness of how selfish I am, I start to notice, little by little, unselfish things that other people do. Even before confessing my own self-centered, small view of myself as an independent being, even before I faced that, I'm able to notice other people's selfishness.

[27:28]

People who know nothing of their own evil deeds are somehow capable of noticing other people's evil deeds, isn't it? How smart they are. How you can be so dumb about one thing and so smart about another. So uninformed of my own evil and so minutely and sharply aware of other people's. Have you ever noticed that? No? One person noticed it. That's good. Three people. Anyway, self-righteous people, at the moment of being self-righteous, when a person is self-righteous, in other words, they feel right, they often notice how much problems and unrighteous other people are. That's one of the characteristics of self-righteousness. You notice how much they have problems. When you start noticing how unselfish, how not self-righteous, when you start noticing how righteous you're not, when you start noticing how you're not righteous, this is called not righteousness, you start to notice how righteous other people are.

[28:39]

Very nice that Samantabhadra first confesses her delusions and actions based on that and then by becoming settled with this view of yourself you start to notice that other people have some merit when i remember the things that i've done and admit the things i've done and then again face them don't freak out and get all excited about it, just calmly face what a rat you've been, cruel you've been, how cruel I've been. I, then, it's pretty hard to settle down with that. But if I finally settle down with that, then I start to notice a wonderful thing, that other people are not, are sometimes do unratty things. Sometimes you just start noticing these little tiny things

[29:43]

And you start noticing more and more. And as you notice more and more, you feel more and more joy. And you start rejoicing big scale, big time about how... about the merits of others. Doesn't mean others don't have any problems. They probably do. But you're not noticing those so much. You're noticing their virtues. And then... And then comes number six. We beseech Buddhas to turn the wheel of Dharma. So again, today, right here, we will have a nice big ceremony to pay homage to Buddha, to praise all Buddhas, to make offerings. Today we hopefully, I hope, we all work on confession today. Formally in the morning and in meditation throughout the day to be able to of our selfish deeds. I hope we're working on that.

[30:45]

This is part of the work of being a great bodhisattva. And also, maybe you'll be able to notice the virtues of one or more things in this valley. Okay? So these are practices which actually can be done right along with this with this study of the Self. And right along with developing calm abiding. Okay? Does this make sense? How this all works together? And then the next one is beseeching the Buddhas to turn the wheel of Dharma. And in San Francisco, last weekend, we actually did that practice of beseeching the Buddhas to Dharma. We had two ceremonies.

[31:46]

One was a ceremony called Stepping Down, where Abbot Norman Fisher stepped down from the teaching seat. And it was a little bit of a ceremony because probably Many people at Zen Center will not see so much of him anymore because he'll be mostly outside Zen Center more and more. He'll still be around for the next year quite a bit, but gradually in other circuits. So I think there was a feeling of sadness that he was going away, a feeling of happiness at the great job he did as abbot, but a feeling of sadness that he won't be around Zen Center so much. You know, in some sense, he was asked to ascend the seat and teach five years ago, and now he kind of come down from the seat, and in a sense he's being asked, would you teach someplace else besides on that seat?

[32:58]

And something a little bit sad about that. I myself had the opportunity to speak at that ceremony and, you know, I was a little worried beforehand. I was worried. I confess I was worried. I was worried about whether I would be able to say something good enough. I felt like if I couldn't, that wouldn't be good. But if I could, that would be good. And I saw in the program that I was the last person to speak, and I thought, well, everybody else is going to, like, say all this good stuff, but what will be left for me if I repeat what other people said about being good?

[34:01]

Plus, they're already bored to hear the same thing over and over. So I was pretty worried that I wasn't going to be able to say much good. I thought, well, maybe I could read Lee Boa's poem, The Road to Shu is Hard. But then people would say, yeah, he was just hiding behind Lee Boa's poem. What was really in his heart? But anyway, when it came to be my turn, I said about, uh, about 29 years ago, uh, I went to, uh, I took a class in Berkeley, the university. I was allowed to audit it. I wasn't a regular student. I was just a monk at Zen center. But they let me in to these classes.

[35:07]

And one class was a class on Yogacara Buddhism taught by a great Japanese . And in that class, one of the students in this class was Norman Fisher. And one night after the class was over, we walked. home together and he had his car near the university so he gave me a ride and you know I couldn't remember whether he gave me a ride or I gave him a ride but we gave each other a ride and then we got to a place where I think my car was so he stopped to let me off by my car it was kind of night time And he leaned over to say goodnight and did say goodnight.

[36:13]

And I looked at him and I thought, what a sweet guy. You know, all these years since that time, I pretty much never forgot what a sweet guy he is. Because he is. And that was always nice for me to remember that first time I saw him. And that he really is that way all the time. And then since that first class, we took about, we were in class about, well, maybe 500 times more. Or, you know, many, many classes together, he and I, studying many things. Classes and lectures. And also we sat in zendos together many, many times. I sat in zendos with him when we were both just regular students.

[37:16]

I sat in zendos when he was Eno, when he was Tonto, when he was Abbott. And, you know, I did actually notice many, many times that he was actually like putting into practice the teachings which he that he not only studied and liked to study but he would put into practice these practices he actually practiced and seemed to like it he sometimes pretended to like it But he did like it. He kept thinking, well, I'm not really a Zen student. You people are Zen students, but I'm not really a Zen student. But he was there acting like a person who liked to study Zen and practice it, and he did. And I said that five years ago, when he was asked to be abbot and asked to turn the wheel of Dharma,

[38:31]

and ascended the seat, I felt that that day was a healing moment, that Zen Center was through that ceremony. And after the ceremony, I said that to him. And he said, yes, that's why I accepted this job. In other words, there would be healing too for him to become abbot. And I felt that on many occasions over those five years there were other moments of healing that occurred. His devotion to practice and intention and determination to work for the healing of the wounds in the community were successful on many occasions. I said that.

[39:35]

I think it's true. And I concluded, I think, by saying the world will little note nor long remember what I just said. But it will never forget the practice of this wise and kind bodhisattva This is a ceremony to rejoice in the merits of another. This is a thing we do as Bodhisattvas. Ceremonies to rejoice in the merits of others. Ceremonies don't have to be ones with programs and announcements. You can do this ceremony informally. here and there, throughout the day, you can pray homage and rejoice in the practice of others.

[40:45]

After practicing this way, one is more ready to roll up your sleeves and face your view of yourself and forget it. And then the next day, we did kind of the reverse. Linda Ruth Cutts, to become Abbess, she was asked to do it. And then she was asked, for example, by Leslie, to teach. Please teach. Many people said, Please teach. Please teach. Please turn the wheel of the Dharma. She was beseeched to do so. And she did so.

[41:52]

So now you have a new life at the Dharma wheel. A new bodhisattva life who's been asked to turn the great Dharma wheel, as seems appropriate moment by moment. But part of the bodhisattva practice is not just to turn the Dharma wheel, but to beseech someone else to do so. And then the next one is to entreat Buddhas not to leave. So you should entreat Norman not to leave. But to keep wherever, someplace in the world.

[43:05]

Okay? And then comes... to be zealous followers of the Buddha way. No, I don't know exactly if I copied this right from but it says Buddha's way. the way I copied it. And Meg showed me something from what is it, the Zen Mountain Center on the East Coast. And Dido Lurie makes the distinction between Buddha's way. And the distinction he makes is there's this big Buddha way, but there's also Buddha's way. In other words, the way Shakyamuni Buddha practiced.

[44:09]

So... I think the apostrophe here, I don't know if this stylistically means what he said, but it does mean that to be a follower of the way of a particular Buddha or many particular Buddhas, to practice just like they practiced. So actually to find out how Buddha practiced and to actually practice the same practice so you can realize the same realization of emptiness, of selflessness. And in some sense, that's what we're focusing on. Surrounded by all this positive energy, all this praising and homage paying and offerings and rejoicing and beseeching the Buddhas to teach us, now, for nine days, you can actually enter into the core practice

[45:13]

of compassion and insight. And this will help us further accommodate and serve beings. Of course, people here are already accommodating and serving beings. To follow this schedule accommodates and serves beings. accommodates and serves beings, to prepare the meals accommodates and serves beings, to serve the meals accommodates and serves beings. All the different things we're doing here can be understood as things we do to help each other. Please don't miss seeing what you're doing as an opportunity to intend, to make the intention that what you do is as an accommodation and service to the rest of the people here. Coming to the zendo and sitting in your seat definitely serves the other people.

[46:21]

It encourages them. Being on time encourages and serves beings. All the things that they're doing this week encourages and serves beings what you do during work period can be something that serves beings but help if you actually want here Samantabhadra talks about dedicating the merit to sentient beings they need it sentient beings need the merit sentient beings are those who have not yet understood what's going on and are suffering as a result of incomplete understanding And incomplete understanding is a euphemism for not much understanding at all, or like zero understanding. So anyway, sentient beings need us to dedicate the merit to . So how can we dedicate the merit to the Buddhas who don't need it?

[47:23]

Well, it turns out, the strange thing that I've heard is that when you dedicate the merit Dedicating merit to sentient beings is meritorious, by the way. And dedicating larger amounts of merit to sentient beings is more meritorious. But dedicating merit to Buddhas who don't need it is much more meritorious than dedicating it to sentient beings. Dedicating it to those who don't need it is more meritorious than dedicating it to those who need it. Isn't that weird? So what you do is you dedicate it to those who don't need it. You take this large amount, this certain amount of merit and you dedicate it to those who don't need it. And the merit of dedicating that merit to them is much more than the merit you dedicated. Plus it's more than if you gave it to somebody else. So then you generate all this huge merit to those who don't need it.

[48:24]

And then... after you multiply the merit by giving it to those who don't need it, then in the end, you take all that merit and give it to those who need it. They're at the end. The last thing on the list is the people who need it. And to all sentient beings. But first of all, you jack it up. inconceivably jack it up by giving it to those who don't need it. In other words, by tossing it away to the Buddhas, and then at the end you give all that to sentient beings. So, with the aid of the Buddhas as our recipients, we make our merit infinite, and then we give the infinite merit to each and every poor little suffering being. Samantabhadra's vows are, each one starts with one must think.

[49:33]

Samantabhadra said you must think like this. If you want to be like these Buddhas, you must think like this. You must actually think like this. You must think like this. must have your thinking like this you must think i want to give something really good to buddha and i understand good to give something good to buddha and i want to give that really good i want to give that to each living being i want to i'm think that way i think that way when i go to these services i think that way during these services One must think, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So we can think. We can think.

[50:35]

We are human beings. We can think. Now the question is to use our thinking, make our thinking like Samantabhadra's thinking. Supposedly, this is how Samantabhadra thinks. And if I say to you, can you imagine thinking like that? I'm saying, can you imagine thinking like Samantabhadra says she thinks? To adopt the thinking of a celestial bodhisattva, it has been translated into English now. You can hear it and you can hear what a Buddha, what a Bodhisattva who's practically a Buddha, how they think.

[51:36]

You can think that way. We can think that way. We can act that way. It's not impossible. Isn't that something? It's not impossible. This afternoon you can say homage to Shakyamuni Buddha. You can actually say that. Or you can not say it. You can be quiet and not say anything. Say, I don't want to do this ceremony. You could do that too. Or you can say, with deep faith and understanding and by the blessed power of Samantabhadra's vows, I see all the Buddhas as though face to face in the past, in the present, and in all the ten directions throughout the realm of Dharma, the realm of space.

[52:46]

The infinite universe is equal to the total sum of dust motes in all Buddha fields. With all the virtue of my body, voice, and mind, I shall pay sincerely to them without cessation. In each and every Buddha land, I shall transform countless bodies, and with each body, I shall pay my veneration to incalculable Buddhas throughout infinite Buddha domains and the total number of dust moats therein. My homage will be ended when the realm of space is ended. But since the realm of space is boundless, so will my homage to Buddha. Likewise, where beings are ended, the karmas of beings ended, and the sorrows and passions of beings ended, my homage will be ended.

[53:51]

But as these two are endless, so will be my homage to all Buddhas, moment after moment, thought after thought, without interruption, in bodily, vocal, and mental acts, without weariness. I said that. I can say that. I can think that. Samantabhadra says, Sudhana... You must think like this if you want to be like me, Samantabhadra. Because this is how I think. I don't just think, but when I think, this is how I think.

[54:38]

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