Every morning I come into the room and see the Great Assembly sitting. And then I walk around to greet each person. This morning, more than before, I was struck by the beauty of this Great Assembly. I think everyone was here, sitting so... silent and still. I didn't control you into doing this. But I was very happy to see the way you're practicing. Yesterday at the noon service, as you may remember, we chanted a text which is titled Self-Receiving and Employing Samadhi.

[01:17]

Do you remember that? That's one possible title for it. Another title for it is Bodhisattva Samadhi. For me, that text is a description of the Bodhisattva Samadhi. Of course, the other text, the Precious Mirror Samadhi, is also a description of the Bodhisattva Samadhi. And Chapter 3 of the Sutra is a description of Bodhisattva Samadhi. And the part that struck me was right at the beginning where it says... From the first time you meet a master without engaging in incense offering, bowing, chanting Buddha's name, repentance, or reading scriptures, just wholeheartedly sit. Remember that part?

[02:20]

We'll chant it again today. From the first time you meet a master without engaging in incense offering, bowing, And then I thought, perhaps that statement needs some commentary. Because the first time you meet a master, you probably will offer incense and bow. I'm pretty sure that's the story of Dogen. When he met his master, his teacher, he offered incense and bowed. And then they had this wonderful face-to-face transmission. First meeting, he offered incense and bowed and his teacher said, the Dharma gate of face-to-face transmission of Buddhas and ancestors is now fully realized.

[03:28]

Again, he's saying, once you meet the master, then you can go right to work. But before you meet the master, you probably would have gone on a long journey to get there. And in fact, I've heard that Dogen went all the way from Japan to China And when he got to China, he did a long pilgrimage all around, not all around China, but a long walk. And then he finally met his teacher. And then he just sat. But his sitting include him creating a whole new school of Buddha Dharma in Japan and building lovely monasteries and having wonderful students.

[04:49]

That's his just sitting. That's all just sitting. The other song, the other samadhi song, the precious mirror samadhi song, is written by one of our Chinese ancestors named Dungshan Liangzhe. And he went on a pilgrimage too before he met his teacher.

[05:53]

when he was quite young, I don't know how young, seven, eight, nine, I don't know, he was with his teacher and they were chanting the Heart Sutra. And when they got to the part of the Heart Sutra when it says no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, I don't know if he interrupted the chanting, but anyway, when it got to that part, he said, I have an eye, I have ears, I have nose, why does the hard suture say no eyes, no ears, no nose? And the teacher was struck by this sweet boy and his penetrating question. And I guess he felt like he should send him to another teacher. who could deal with him.

[06:59]

So he did go to another teacher and I don't know how many teachers he went to but after a certain point he visited a teacher and at that point his visits became history. So when he was still quite young he met another teacher who was quite famous and It seems that he had not yet received the transmission of the teaching of thus. And when he met this other teacher whose name was Nan Quan, and Nan Quan was one of the most appreciated Zen teachers in history, he got to meet him. this pilgrim got to meet this great teacher in that great teacher's great assembly.

[08:06]

This boy who's on pilgrimage. This boy who's wondering, what is Buddhism? What is the Dharma? Why does it say so strange things? So he somehow finds his way into this big assembly, with this great teacher, and on an occasion, which was the night before the memorial service, for, if you can excuse me saying, even a greater teacher, the teacher of the teacher. So Nan Chuan's teacher was Master Ma. On that trip to China I told you about, we visited Master Ma's temple, our group. It was a nice temple. But it was just a little, what do you call it, a minor remnant of the way the monastery was when Masa was there.

[09:17]

It was a nice big monastery. And next to the monastery was a lovely shopping street. full of stores selling Buddhist statues and Buddhist robes and rosaries and scriptures. It was like a Buddhist shopping mall. And I bought a beautiful, old, decrepit Avalokiteshvar with a thousand arms. And somehow that got back to the United States and now it's in a little temple called Noabode. And the arms are starting to fall off. Anyway, we visited that temple of Master Ma and we were told that at the time of Master Ma, the monastery was much bigger. It was so big that it took 15 minutes for a horse to ride around it. He had thousands of students and then he passed away.

[10:24]

And his students, perform memorial services for him. And it's traditional to do a ceremony before the day that the person dies and on the day. The evening before and then the day. So the evening before, they were doing the evening before ceremony. And the teacher, Nan Chuan, said to the group, I wonder if Master Ma will come tomorrow for the memorial ceremony. And this boy, this young monk, came forward and said, he will come if he has a companion. And Nan Chuan said, Although he's young, he deserves carving.

[11:29]

Actually, yeah. In other words, he deserves training. This boy deserves training. And then the boy said something like, don't scratch or don't carve on what's good. Because his name is Good Servant. So basically the boy said, don't praise me in front of all these people. But he survived. And then he went and visited other teachers. Other great teachers. And then one of the great teachers, after this wonderful interaction, which I'm not going to go into right now, was named Guishan. And Guishan was the disciple of one of Nan Quan's Dharma siblings and they had this Guishan and the boy had the good interaction and then but the boy didn't understand and so Guishan sent him to another teacher and he went to the other teacher and the other teacher turned out to be his teacher who transmitted to him guess what

[12:57]

the precious mere samadhi. And then he later wrote a song of it. And this great ancestor, Dungshan, in a way, he took the teaching of the Avatamsaka Sutra and transformed it into this song about bodhisattva samadhi, which we have. Right? We're so fortunate. We have this text from this wonderful pilgrimage. Would you move that mat that way about four inches? A little bit more. A little bit more. Thank you. And as you know, you know pretty well now, three days, it starts the teaching of thusness. intimate communion of Buddha ancestors.

[14:03]

This is the beginning of the song. It's a samadhi, an undistracted awareness of the teaching of thusness. Remember that part? And then Dongshan says, now you have it! You have this transmission. Take care of it. But some of you at least probably are wondering, I have the transmission. What is it? Or even, I would like to take care of it. Thank you so much. But what am I taking care of? Where is it? Is it to the right, to the left? Is it in front or back? Is it up or down? Where is this? teaching of thus. Is it everywhere?

[15:05]

How do I take care of something that's everywhere? One might wonder. Do any of you wonder that? I just thought of a joke. The smart ones are wondering. I don't know what the teaching of thusness is. Who said that? But I understand that it has been given, it has been transmitted to us. And I want to take care of it. I do. Do you? One person, two people, three, four, five. Maybe many people here want to take care of this. precious mere samadhi, which has been given to you. But does anybody know what it is?

[16:09]

Can anybody get a hold of it? Do you want to try to take care of something that you can't get a hold of? I do. That's the beginning of the song and who's going to sign up for taking care of their inheritance. And if you sign up for this, Again, you're signing up to take care of something that you don't really know what it is, but you're totally devoted to something you don't know what it is. It's like being devoted to a teenager. You don't know what they are, but you can still be devoted to them. And actually, if you think you know what they are, that will undermine your devotion because they won't be that. And you'll feel frustrated. Can we take care of a mystery? We can. If we want to. That can be our life. Taking care of this mysterious precious mirror samadhi of the bodhisattvas.

[17:18]

And the end of the song says practice secretly. like a fool, like an idiot, who devotes her life to taking care of something, but she doesn't know what it is. This is mature practice. Taking care of something. Foolishly taking care of something. And in various cultures, European culture, for example, They have also pilgrimages. Have you heard about the pilgrimage in European culture? And the person who goes on the pilgrimage is sometimes called a pilgrim. And the pilgrims are often characterized as fools. Dumlings? Do you have that term? Is it German? Dumling? Huh? Yeah. What does that mean a fool? Yeah.

[18:25]

So the fool, and sometimes it's a boy, the fool, like Percival, The fool goes on pilgrimage, and they don't know what they're doing, and it's really sweet and funny. And, yeah, difficult, because he doesn't know. And on the pilgrimage, the fool gets lots of help. The fool is a fool. He gets lots of help. And even though he gets help, he's still a fool. But he becomes a sage through his devotion. So the beginning is this amazing thing, this practice of the bodhisattva is given to us freely, just as it was given to Dungshan. And then he passes it to us, which comes through many generations.

[19:26]

So he was... He was 38, and now with me, we're at 92, 91. So not quite 60 generations since him, we have this samadhi transmitted. And we can foolishly take care of it with our whole heart. And again, if you don't take care of it with your whole heart, maybe you're a little less of a fool. I didn't really try to practice that, because I didn't know what it was, so I just did it a little bit. So nobody would say I was a fool. I didn't spend my whole fortune on this Samad. No. The fool doesn't hold back. She practices it wholeheartedly, and if anybody asks her, she says, well, maybe you should ask somebody else about that. I'm trying to practice it, but I really can't tell you. It's just too much.

[20:29]

And then the next thing it says is if you can achieve continuity, this is the host within the host. So it says practice like a fool. Take care of this magnificent practice which you have been given and don't know what it is. It's not that you don't know anything. It's just that you don't know enough because there's no end to it. And then if you can be continuous, if you can do it at immigration, if you can do it at the passport office, if you can do it on the way to the airport, if you can do it here in this retreat, continuously, that's what we're working toward. We inherit it immediately. And then we try to be continuous, moment by moment.

[21:32]

And it's hard to be continuous. We can get distracted. And here's the great sutra, which is quite heavy to weak people. This was brought to us by the kindness of this person. Thank you so much. And I wanted to go, I've told you about this before, now I want to go to the last book which is about a pilgrim, a boy who has face-to-face transmission with Manjushri Bodhisattva. And by the way, in this sutra, the great translator has chosen to translate bodhisattva into English.

[22:37]

But please remember that all the hundreds and thousands of times in this sutra, definitely thousands of times, the word enlightening being appears. The original is bodhisattva. So one way to translate bodhisattva is enlightening beings. The Tibetans translate it as heroes of enlightenment. And I would recommend, it's not a very good translation, but I'd recommend fools of enlightenment. Zen fools. Someone who I love very much refers to her family members as fools. May I read to you a little bit of this sutra from the 39th chapter?

[23:44]

So Sudhana has now met Manjushri and he's so happy to meet Manjushri. Yeah, he's so happy. And after this transmission, or I should say, part of the transmission is the following. Then Manjushri, gazing like an elephant, said to Sudhana, the pilgrim. It is good that you follow spiritual benefactors, having set your mind on supreme awakening, that you should think and inquire into the practice of bodhisattvas. And then Sudhana says to Manjushri, Noble one, please give me full explanation of how an enlightening being,

[24:57]

how a bodhisattva should study and practice the practice of bodhisattvas, how bodhisattvas can accomplish it. And he asked many wonderful questions. And then Manjushri praises him in verse. And then the last line of his praise is, behold, millions of beings, who are happy to hear your vow, who seek awakening by the knowledge of universally good, which could also be said the knowledge of Samantabhajra. Then Manjushri, having uttered these verses, said to the boy, Sudhana, it is good that you think, having set your heart on supreme awakening, that you should find out the practice of bodhisattvas.

[26:00]

And he says, you should indefatigably seek spiritual benefactors. You should go south of here to the country called Ramavaranta. There is a mountain called Sugriva where a monk named Megashri lives. Go to him and ask how bodhisattvas should learn the conduct of bodhisattvas, how to apply it, how one to fill it, how to fulfill it, purify, enter into and carry out the bodhisattva way. That spiritual friend, Megha Sri, will tell you about the sphere of Samantam Hadra, universally good.

[27:12]

Then Sudhana, pleased, pleased, enraptured, transported with joy, delighted and happy, cheerful, laid his head at Manjushri's feet in respect and circled Manjushri hundreds, and thousands of times. And looked at him hundreds of thousands of times. Manjushri says, go see Megashri, and he's so happy to have received this assignment. But before he goes to Megashri, he walks around Manjushri hundreds of thousands of times with love and respect for his spiritual friend. unable to bear, not seeing him anymore, with tears of streaming down his cheeks as he wept and left Manjur Sri.

[28:18]

He's transported with joy, enraptured, and crying at the same time. And then he goes to see Megha Sri. It takes him a long time to get there. And all the way along, he's so happy to be going to see the teacher. Just like I was so happy to go see the sixth ancestor. Or at least see his temple. Did I see him? I don't know. But I think maybe my seeing, maybe my seeing the sixth ancestor was 108 Baos. Maybe that's the way I saw. I was so happy to give this gift to the teacher. I was so fortunate to be able to give those Baos in China to the ancestor.

[29:33]

I was so fortunate that before I died, I got to give somebody something. Like a fool. Look at that. Look at that guy. What a fool. But really, it's quite simple. I just wanted to pay my respects to my ancestor. But that is kind of foolish. Now how to have continuity, that's the challenge. How to bow like that to everybody. Again, the person who says just wholeheartedly sit is somebody who went on pilgrimage and this just wholeheartedly sit is coming out of this meeting.

[30:42]

which we have already had. So when we sit, we're expressing the transmission of this teaching. We're doing a great service in this world to sit so the Dharma is alive. And also Dogen said, there's a chapter called Dharani, You know the Dahishindarani? There's a chapter called Dharani. And in that chapter it says, when somebody in the world is bowing, the Dharma is alive. And when nobody's bowing, the Dharma perishes. And he could have said, when somebody is sitting in the presence of Buddha, the Dharma is alive. So we sit to take care of the Dharma.

[31:46]

We can sit for that reason. I'm sitting now to keep the Dharma alive in the world for the guidance of beings. What a great job I have. And you have this job too if you want it. It's available. You're hired if you want it. So that's book 39. And book 39 is about 400 pages. Because he visits 50 teachers. And some of our Zen ancestors, one of the greatest, visited 80. So you probably understand now what I was trying to tell you, right?

[32:51]

I'm not telling you, Dungshan said, now take care of it. I'm not saying take care of it. I'm saying Dungshan said take care of it. But I'm asking you, do you want to take care of it? Do you want to accept this assignment? But I'm not telling you that you should do it. I'm asking you, do you want to? And by the way, is it really a very high priority wanting? Is it like one of the things you most want to do? You don't need permission to come up here. But you do need desire.

[34:07]

You have to want to come up here. Do you want to come up here? Yes. Welcome.

[34:14]

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