I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Do you know what the word Tathagata signifies? How many people here for the first time? So Tathagata is Sanskrit. It means, it could mean both thus gone one or thus come one. It's an epithet of Buddha. So it refers to someone who has gone to ultimate truth, which is called ta-ta-ta, and come back. So that's one of the names of, one of the epithets for the Buddhas. So we just chanted, I vow to taste the truth. of the Buddha's words, the Buddha's teaching.

[01:05]

Can you hear me in the back well? How about now? Is that good? You okay? All right. So today I'd like to talk about vows. For me, vows, or at least some vows, come from faith. And the way I use the word faith is what I think or even believe in. But in particular, what's the... what I...

[02:08]

What I feel or think is most important in life, that's my main faith in life. So when we have periods of training here in this temple, like a couple of weeks ago, a little bit about three weeks ago, we finished a period of intense training here. Another one, another period of intense training. And so I'm asking the people who are starting this training, but all of you, I'm asking you to reflect, to think, to consider what is the most important thing in life for you? What's the most important thing in your life? Based on this most important thing, some wish may arise.

[03:54]

Some wish. The wish might then grow into a commitment, a vow. Some things we may wish for but not really like vow. Vow is an intensification or expression, an elevation, a more sublime version of a wish or an intention. So my understanding is that the the teachers of the past, the disciples, the Buddhas, and the teachers of the past, they've all had great faith.

[05:01]

They all had very strong conviction in what was most important for them. And based on that conviction, on that faith, they made great vows. For example, They said things like, I vow to taste the Tathagata's teaching or the Tathagata's words. That's one vow. Which is usually recited when we open and it's usually recited three times. So we did it three times. following a tradition. It seems like each of us will have our own faith, our own vows.

[06:22]

Today I'd like to tell you about the faith and the vows of kind of an archetypal enlightening being, an archetypal bodhisattva. So on the main altar there we have an archetypal, a statue of an archetypal bodhisattva. The bodhisattva of perfect wisdom is the large statue on the altar. Manjushri bodhisattva. Manjushri means sweetness and light. And it's the, what we call, standard bearer of perfect wisdom. Behind me is another bodhisattva, called Kishtagarbha Bodhisattva, which means earth store bodhisattva.

[07:31]

And that bodhisattva is a bodhisattva of basically protecting beings. And that bodhisattva is born of great vows. And also, I'm also sitting at the feet of a female form of Buddha, Tara Buddha, she also, her Buddhahood was born of great vows and great vows. All the Buddhas were born of great vows. Vows arose in them and they practiced according to those vows and all the Bodhisattvas are born of vows and they're carried forward by vows. And their vows arise from what's most important in life for them.

[08:38]

So the bodhisattva Oh, and also on the back of the altar is another bodhisattva, a statue of another bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, the bodhisattva of also born of great vows and carried forward in the practice of compassion by great vows. I am not carried forward by me. I am not carried forward by vows on the bodhisattva path. So the bodhisattva I want to bring up is named Samantabhadra Bodhisattva, the enlightening being of universal . And this bodhisattva is like the prototype hard-working bodhisattva.

[09:50]

The bodhisattva of great activity, of great work, this bodhisattva really works, really practices. So with compassion, protecting beings, and this is the practice bodhisattva. And this is the main bodhisattva in the great vehicle scripture called the Avatamsaka Sutra. This is the main bodhisattva of this year. And in this scripture, at some point, the bodhisattva Samantabhadra, the enlightening being of universal goodness, basically says, if you want to realize Buddhahood, then it would be good to have these ten vows and there are ten vows to do ten practices.

[10:52]

So there are ten practices and ten vows to practice those practices. On a light note, when I was a kid, there was a TV show called Inner Sanctum Mysteries on the radio. And I liked the show. It was on from 1951 to 1952. And I listened to it during that period. And I'm kind of surprised that I did, but I did. And it started out by the narrator saying something like, welcome to the inner sanctum. And they had a creaky door opening. It didn't really scare me, but it was supposed to, I think. Anyway, we're now going to look at a mystery, the mysteries of the inner sanctum.

[11:53]

So inner sanctum means the inner sacred place. It's the most sacred place. or a church, or a synagogue, or a mosque. The most sacred part and usually somewhat private. So to tell you about Samantabhadra's ten vows is to tell you about the inner heart of the great bodhisattva. I hope you enjoy visiting the inner heart of this great bodhisattva. So just briefly, here's the ten vows and the ten practices. The first practice which Samantabhadra vows to practice is the practice of

[12:58]

going for refuge in the Buddhas, paying homage to the Buddhas, acknowledging the great virtue of the Buddhas. So the first practice is the practice of paying homage to all Buddhas and the vow to do that practice. Number two, to praise all Buddhas. And to praise all Buddhas. Number three, to make extensive offerings to all Buddhas. Number four, to confess and reform all of our karma. All the hint to confess and reform all the obstacles to practicing the Buddha way due to our past action, our past karma.

[14:12]

To confess it and reform it. You can confess it and say, Next is to rejoice in the merit and virtue of others. Those are the first five. Did you get them? Homage, praise, confession and reform, and rejoicing in the merits of others. Number six. Request. Request. Beseech the Buddhas to turn the wheel of the Dharma, to turn the wheel of the teaching. Number seven, to request, to beseech the Buddhas to stay in the world. Number eight, to practice with all Buddhas.

[15:21]

Or another way to say it is to practice the practice of all Buddhas, which is together with all Buddhas. Next, to harmonize, to accommodate with all beings. to be in accord with all beings. That's number nine. And number ten is transfer, to turn over all the virtue and merit that comes from doing the first nine practices. Those are Samantabhadra's ten vows. I'm just totally inspired by hearing about them.

[16:25]

I don't know if there ever was such a bodhisattva, but I think these vows are truly wonderful. And before I forget, I have been thinking about these vows for quite a while, for decades. And today I want to say to you that I see these ten vows as all included in our simple practice of sitting upright and still. As magnificent and marvelous and awesome as they may sound still, I see them as really describing the meditation practice of this when they sit, when they sit, when they sat, and when they sit, or when we sit, this sitting is paying homage to all Buddhas.

[17:38]

This sitting, which we may enjoy or not, but anyway, this sitting can be, and I wish it to be, homage to all Buddhas. I wish this sitting to be a form of acknowledging Buddhas. Buddhas sit and I sit to pay my respect to Buddha. My sitting is an act of homage and alignment with great enlightenment I just realized I probably should have said something about Buddhas earlier. I could go back and talk about Buddhas now or not and proceed through the rest of the list. Go back to the Buddhas or go down the list?

[18:43]

What? Down the list? How many people for going back to Buddhas? How many people down the list? It's kind of 50-50. Okay, I'm going back to Buddhas. About something about Buddhas. It's very, I think it's very, for me it's very helpful to remember that a Buddha and Buddhas are nothing in and of themselves. They're not existing in themselves separate from you. And there's, by the way, there's no you existing separate from Buddhas. Buddha is something that's not anything . Buddha is a relationship. And it's a relationship among all beings.

[19:49]

So that relationship is Buddha, and so Buddha is not anything in and of itself. Buddha, that relationship is the relationship of liberating beings. The relationship in which beings are liberated together is nothing in and of itself, and that's Buddha. This liberation then also makes possible free of suffering, liberation from delusion, liberation from suffering. And by the way, this liberation from delusion is liberation without getting rid of delusion. So the room, a room like this is full of delusion. And Buddha is here in this room. And Buddha in this room is the liberation of all the delusion in the room. And there's also suffering in this room which is closely related to delusion.

[20:55]

Without delusion there's no suffering. But without delusion there can be joyful living in the middle of pain. Buddhas are living in the middle of pain joyfully and serenely and they're nothing in and of themselves because they are the relationship of peace and harmony with all delusion. Buddha is also the realization that nothing is anything in and of itself. So Buddha is this wonderful process of liberation, making possible freedom and peace without getting rid of anybody. Peace without getting rid of anybody. Peace without getting rid of anything is Buddha. And that's nothing in and of itself. In order to realize this Buddha, which includes again realizing that nothing's in and of itself, we need these vows.

[22:05]

I just can't see any way to be nothing, to realize nothing in and of itself. I can't see any way to realize freedom from delusion and suffering and peace and harmony among all beings. If I skip over any of those ten vows, I think, that's not going to work. And it's going to take a while for us to discuss all ten and probably won't do it during this morning talk here. Some of you will be happy to hear. I'm not going to... But I am going to try to deal with these ten for the rest of my life. Some of you will be involved in that discussion. You're all welcome to. So I was talking about how all these ten are involved in our simple Zen practice of sitting, for example, but also our simple Zen practice of walking and our simple Zen practice of growing vegetables.

[23:17]

And all of our aspects in practice have all these ten practices included in them. But To make things simple, let's start with sitting. Sitting is an act of homage of all these Buddhas. Sitting is an act of homage and respect for liberating all beings. Like the sitting says, homage to the liberation of all beings. The sitting says, homage to peace. That's what the sitting is homage to. In other words, Then comes praise. So the great bodhisattvas, before they were Buddhas, and the Buddhas before they were Buddhas, they praised Buddhas. By the way, another word for homage is service or serve.

[24:27]

So all Buddhas before they were Buddhas paid homage to Buddhas. All Buddhas before they were Buddhas paid homage to their teachers, and they also praised their teachers. So part of becoming a Buddha is to praise Buddha. Part of being perfectly enlightened, which makes possible the freedom of all beings, is to praise freedom of all beings. So, serve it, respect it, pay homage to it, and praise it. All the Buddhas praised the Buddhas. Next, before I go into next, celebrate the Buddhas. All Buddhas before they were Buddhas celebrated Buddhas. And many people in this group celebrate Buddhas already. Next is make offerings, extensive offerings to Buddhas.

[25:36]

Like for example, before this talk we put lights on the altar here as an offering of Buddha. You came into this room and your entering this room could have been an offering to Buddha. I came here to make offerings to Buddha. I came in here to offer this talk to Buddha and to you. I came in and offered incense to Buddha, to all Buddhas and bodhisattvas. I prostrated myself as an offering to Buddha. homage, as an offering, as a praise to Buddhas. When we sit here in this room, which we do right now and throughout the day, we sit and our sitting can be an homage, can be a praise, can be an offering. I sit here as an offering, as a praise, as an homage.

[26:51]

Some of you sit other places, right? Throughout the Bay Area, in your rooms, every time you sit there's an opportunity of doing this great practice of paying homage, of praising, and of offering your life practice at that moment to the Buddhas. And again, at that time you're doing practice number eight, which is to practice together with all Buddhas. When you make your sitting practice, when you make your meditation practice an act of you're practicing with the Buddhas. When you make your meditation practice an act of praise of Buddhas, you're practicing with Buddhas. When you make your meditation practice a gift, an offering to Buddhas, you're practicing with Buddhas.

[27:59]

So these first three with respect to this Buddha, this relationship among all beings, you're doing practice number eight, which is to practice together with all Buddhas and to practice like all Buddhas practice. All Buddhas practice this by homage to all Buddhas. This is more difficult. When we sit here, Our sitting, when it's... I'm laughing because it's kind of funny to say this. When we sit, our sitting is full scale. It includes confessing our karmic hindrance and feeling sorry for it. This is a big topic, but anyway.

[29:04]

One might think, does that mean when you sit and you go like, you know, you might try to think of what karmic hindrances do I have and then to confess them? You might. But also, in the fullness of the sitting, this confession will arise. In a very good place. It'll arise in the middle of homage to Buddha. praising Buddha, offerings to Buddha. These difficult topics will arise in an auspicious arena, an arena of great vows. And it's one of them, but that's where it's going to really come up very nicely and very joyfully, even though it hurts a little bit, too. the embarrassment will arise in a full-scale bodhisattva practice.

[30:05]

Next, and it follows kind of naturally, when we are aware of our shortcomings and feel embarrassment about them, then it opens our eyes to how good everybody else is. And then we go, oh wow, and we see all this virtue and merit and others which is supported by seeing our non-virtue. And seeing our non-virtue, by the way, is a virtue. If anybody sees any non-virtue in themselves, I would say, congratulations. That's a virtue, a great virtue which great bodhisattvas have vowed to practice. What's the practice? Be aware of your own shortcomings. This protects It's very good. And also it's embarrassing. That embarrassment is also a virtue.

[31:08]

It's a little uncomfortable, but regret is a virtue when it's about . Next, in, what do you call it, a full-scale Zen practice, there is actually a wish and a vow to ask the Buddhas to teach the Dharma. That the sitting is saying, all Buddhas please teach the Dharma in this world for the welfare of this world of suffering. The sitting says, please teach, all Buddhas please teach. That's a full sitting, a full meditation. Of course, there's also smaller, like, oh, Buddhists, please just teach me. So I'll be the only one in the area who hears it. Some people might do that, might say, oh, yeah, please teach me and forget about everybody else.

[32:16]

And then the other one is, please, to request, to vow to request the Buddhas to stay. Now, where are the Buddhas? I don't know. But to request the Buddhas to stay in the world, even if you can't see any. Because the Buddhas are in the world, homage to them, they're in the world. If they leave the world, you won't be able to practice homage anymore. but fortunately there are in the world, so we can. And when we do, and if we don't, they are also because somebody else is practicing. Buddhas are in the world and yet we ask them to stay, to remain, and teach. And the next one I already mentioned is to do the practices you do. which is to practice with everybody, which is the next one, is practice with everybody, everybody, everybody, and accord with them.

[33:35]

So our meditation practice is number nine. Number nine is to accord with all beings, to be in accord, to be concerned with attuning and harmonizing with all beings. That practice we vow to do is our practice. But the previous one is too, because the previous one is to practice with and like Buddhas, and Buddhas harmonize with all beings. After doing these practices you have this huge pile of merit and virtue I want to hold on to. It's giveaway time. Now give it all away. And we've been praising Buddhas all along, and through this process, which has developed tremendous virtue and merit, the Buddhas have already gotten all these gifts.

[34:39]

Now we take, and then that makes the gifts even greater that we give them to Buddhas, and then we take all this and give it to all beings. So this is the whole cycle of practice. And then you start over again, but not really because all these practices, it says, Samantabhadra says, are done after a moment. It's a lot to do in every moment, but fortunately they all fit into a moment. They all are practiced in a moment. Every moment has room for all these magnificent, unlimited practices. And, yeah, so each category we have lots of kind of like ordinary human stories about. Number one, I'll just tell you a few stories.

[35:42]

One is, I just told you, I came into this room and this person paid homage to the Buddhas. And also, you can retroactively say that you came into this room as an act of homage. You really did. So why, did you? Yeah, you really did come in, whether you knew it or not, you came in here to pay your respects to the Buddhas. You came in here to pay your respect and to honor the liberation. You really did, and so did I. And I did it by coming in and doing prostrations. Not all of you did prostrations, right? You could have. Some people might. I don't know. Some people said, everybody's doing prostrations. If you do, it'll be okay.

[36:44]

Somebody may get angry at me for saying that, but you can do prostrations when you come in here. But anyway, I did them for you. So you didn't miss out on anything, really. I did frustrations. I did three. And three is an abbreviation of, do you know what it's an abbreviation of? Infinite, infinity. Three is an abbreviation of, it also means, three also means infinite. So I did three infinite bows for you. Is that all right? And when I leave, I'm going to do three more on your behalf. Okay? I'm going to pay homage with my body on the ground for you. And while I was bowing, I did a verse quietly to myself.

[37:46]

And the verse I did while I was bowing is, is and was, one friend, this is English, it's originally in Chinese, translation is, the one bowing, the one bowed to, their nature, vast emptiness, silence, filled with compassion. This body, my body, the other's body, not two. The homage person, the one receiving the homage, their bodies are not two. Are raising the unsurpassable intentions. returning to the realm of ultimate truth.

[38:54]

That's the chant I did when I was bowing. That's a chant which I did while I was being of service to all Buddhas on your behalf. Once upon a time in China there was a boy and he was a member of a family and their business was making cakes. The cakes they made are what we now call dim sum, which means dot the heart or hit the spot. Dim sum. So they made dim sum And there was a Zen master who lived in that area, and he lived outside a monastery called Tianwang.

[40:05]

So we call him Tianwang Daowu, which could be called awakening, the path awakening to the path, Daowu. And this boy maybe on behalf of his family, made offerings to this disciple of Buddha, made offerings to this human being of homage and offering and praise of the Buddha's. And I think maybe, if I remember correctly, he made those offerings to this monk every day? I don't know. Once a week. And he gave him ten. I'm laughing because ten reminds me of another ten.

[41:09]

He gave him ten cakes. One cake for each bodhisattva vow. And after the teacher received, he would take one cake and give it back to the boy. And after some time the boy said to the teacher, I take cakes everywhere, why do you give me one back? And the teacher says, you take cakes everywhere, what harm is there in giving you one back? Oh, excuse me. He would give one back to the teacher, and then the teacher would say, this is for your descendants. And then after that, the boy said, why? And the teacher said, well, if you take cakes everywhere, what's the harm in me giving one back to you? And the boy's mind pivoted.

[42:13]

He understood something. maybe he understood a little bit that his offering to the teacher was pivoting with the teacher's offering to him. Although he might not have been able to say it, he kind of got a feeling for how they were giving offerings to each other. So he asked his parents and he left home to practice with this teacher. And the teacher After a while, the teacher gave him a Buddhist name, which was Chong Shin, which means respect and faith. And he said, you respect me and have me give you the name respect and faith. And I will teach you about the pivotal mind or the pivot of the mind. And after some time the boy said, the young monk said, I've been here for two years and you haven't taught me anything about the pivot of mind.

[43:28]

And the teacher said, during this whole time I have done nothing but of the pivot of the mind. And the young monk said, well, how did you teach this to me? And the teacher said, when you bring me tea, I received the tea for you. You brought me food, I received the food for you. When you bowed to me, I lowered my head for you. I have never been doing anything but teaching you about the pivot of mind. And the young monk lowered his head for a moment and the teacher said, look at it directly. If you think about it, you'll miss it. And again, the boy realized this pivotal relationship of serving Buddha and Buddha serving us.

[44:42]

And then the boy said, how can I maintain this? How can I uphold this mind, this pivotal mind of the Buddha's? This liberating all beings and all beings liberating all beings. How can I realize this? And teacher said, Da Wu said, basically, whatever you're doing, remember it's whatever you're doing in your life is a good opportunity. You don't have to do anything special. Whatever you're doing is an opportunity to realize this mind. This is practicing homage with the teacher. and realizing that the teacher is practicing homage with you.

[45:53]

Practicing homage with Buddha and realize Buddha is practicing homage with all beings. I was a boy, or a young man. I served a teacher named Suzuki Roshi. I served him. I attended him. I was happy to do so. I made tea for him. He drank the tea. And I served him umeboshi. And he ate the umeboshi. And then after he ate the umeboshi, He took the pit. You know what umeboshi is?

[46:55]

It's dried and salted plum. It's often made together with shiso, a five-flavored herb, to preserve it and give it more taste. So I gave him the tea and I gave him the dried, salted plum. He ate the plum and drank the tea. And when he was done, he took the plum and then poured hot water and drank the hot water. I wish I could go back and do that with him again, see him put that Umaboshi pit and pour hot water on it. When he was young, he was poor. And if you put the the pit in the cup and pour water on it, you get another drink out of it. So all of our practice, all of our life can include this homage.

[48:09]

And that's the first of the ten practices that Samantabhadra transmitted to us. We can talk about the other nine some more in detail later. Thank you very much.

[48:26]

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