Yesterday I said that there's a fairly ancient Chinese Zen monastic manual that has a brief instruction on practicing sitting meditation. At the beginning it says, Bodhisattvas who wish to practice prajna, wisdom, need to first of all arouse compassion, make extensive vows, and cultivate samadhi. Vowing to save sentient beings without being concerned for one's liberation alone.

[01:09]

And I talked about this practice of vowing some new friends have come to me and told me that, in one way, they're slow. They feel that they're slow to warm. These teachings of the Bodhisattva, extensive vows,

[02:11]

One friend said, this teaching feels like a lot of pressure to have such vows. And I said, yeah. No, she didn't say pressure. She just said, the teachings feel, create a sense of pressure. And I said, you mean like these extensive vows and all sentient beings, those kinds of things? And she said, yes. So I feel blessed that when people feel pressured by the teachings, that they tell me. I really appreciate that feedback. I don't mean to force the bodhisattva career on you.

[03:18]

I don't mean to pry open your mind and heart to get everybody in there. The message in the text is, arouse the body, the mind of great compassion. And that might sound like you're supposed to arouse the mind of great compassion. So I wanted to say a little bit about the arousing of the mind of great compassion. It's not something that I do or that you do or that, yeah, or that I don't do and you don't do. It's something in our relationship with all beings.

[04:26]

It's something that arises in our relationship with great compassion. In the communion of great compassion and living beings, in that communion, this thought, this mind of great compassion sometimes arises. And if it's cared for, it creates the bodhisattva. It creates the with nothing to attain bodhisattva. And then if it's cared for, it becomes the nothing to attain Buddha. And I also talked yesterday about maybe at the beginning of every period of meditation, arousing the mind of great compassion.

[05:41]

And throughout the day, arousing the mind of great compassion. This morning I want to just emphasize that, yes, let's arouse the mind of great compassion, but don't feel that you're doing it by yourself. all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to come and practice with you. And when they come and practice with you, the mind of great compassion will be aroused in your relationship, not in them or you, but us together. In our practice, mind arises, this heart arises. a noted Buddhist scholar who some of us knew back in the 70s, Lord Kansa, observed the different forms of Buddhism in the world.

[06:46]

And, for example, he observed the Vajrayana tradition, which, you know, grew up in India and now is transferred to Tibet and China and Mongolia. And then the Zen tradition, he observed that the Vajrayana monks sit in meditation and they say, om mani padme um, om mani padme um. They say that mantra and they say, which means, avalokiteshvara bodhisattva, come practice with me. Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, please manifest in my body, mind. Use me as a vehicle for great compassion. Use me for, in your work, of relieving suffering.

[07:53]

And he said, but the Soto Zen monks, they just sit in silence. And their silence Their silence is their invitation to Avalokiteshvara. He said, Soto Zen, but no matter what kind of Zen, it's the silence that really invites. And there can be words there. So I've been practicing since I got this feedback, I've been practicing to the Buddhas in ten directions, homage to the Sanghas in ten directions, homage to the Dharmas in ten directions, homage to the great compassionate reliever of suffering, Avalokiteshvara.

[08:57]

My friends to come and practice here, so that the mind of great compassion will be aroused. I'm not trying to arouse it by myself. I'm inviting the relationship. In response to my invitation, in response to my request to these great friends, the thought of great compassion, the mind of great compassion may arise. I understand that I need to make this request. The request is actually going on. actually all day long, I am actually requesting this relationship. And I responded to, but if I don't think it, I may miss it.

[10:06]

There might, if my practice doesn't enact it, there might be a little bit of a separation between what I'm thinking and an intimate relationship. I try to line up my ordinary karmic consciousness with this relationship. But I understand that if I say something, people may feel some pressure, like you're supposed to think this way or think that way, or you're supposed to have this kind of mind or whatever. I actually don't mean it as pressure, I mean it more like as an invitation. I'm inviting the Buddhas to come and practice with us. I'm inviting Avalokiteshvara to come and be here. She's already here, but I invite her anyway.

[11:10]

And I invite you to come into the place this is occurring, which is in this relationship where we're doing the same practice and the same enlightenment. Please come into this relationship. You're invited, but you're not pressured to come. And of course you're already there. And someone also asked me, what do we need this great compassion for? And I say that we need great compassion for great perfect wisdom. And what do we need great perfect wisdom for?

[12:13]

To liberate beings from suffering. Before all the world's problems are solved, in case they're not solved today, Before they're solved, it's possible to liberate beings from suffering. And the beings who are liberated can continue to work on solving all the problems. If they don't get solved, we can be liberated before they're solved. The horse can arrive before the donkey leaves. So we need this perfect wisdom. It's what liberates. Avalokiteshvara's perfect wisdom is what liberates. And we need big compassion for perfect wisdom. If our compassion is limited in any way, if there's anyone we're not wishing to practice friendship with, that closing off anybody closes the door to some extent on wisdom.

[13:20]

We must open the compassion in order to open the wisdom. We must welcome everything and all beings in order to welcome the limitless perfect wisdom. People who are astoundingly compassionate but still they cling to their idea of compassion. And that clinging, even though they're amazingly compassionate, that clinging hinders the full realization of their wonderful compassion. They're stressed because there's some clinging in their compassion. And they sometimes, you know, they're so kind, they're also so stressed, and they sometimes you know, get discouraged and tired out. So in order to have unhindered compassion, we must also not attach to the compassion or to the beings for whom the compassion is devoted.

[14:36]

This perfect wisdom we need Avalokiteshvara's practice of zazen. And we've been chanting the zazen shin translation, and there's several translations. But they all start out quite similarly, the translations, and also the original starts out very similarly. What is the essential function of every Buddha? Well, maybe it's the liberation of all beings. Maybe it's the perfect understanding of reality in which

[15:45]

all beings are liberated. Or maybe the Buddha's essential activity is understanding the true Dharma, and understanding the true Dharma is liberating all beings. Maybe the essential function of Buddhas is to manifest the body, and the manifesting the body is to wake people up and liberate them from suffering. Maybe that's the essential function of every Buddha, And then the next line is the functioning essence of every ancestor. The functioning essence of every ancestor is, I would say, the same function of the Buddhas. the essential function of Avalokiteshvara, the functioning essence of Avalokiteshvara.

[16:52]

Again,

[16:54]

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