I hear the words, set the table for a feast of Buddhadharma. And to set the table I suggest a practice or I suggest practice as enactment, embodiment, performance of visions, Buddha's visions, the visions of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. they have expressed these visions and they performed the expression of visions and then now we've heard these visions and we have the opportunity to perform them.

[01:10]

The word celebrate comes to mind. The root of the word celebrate is means to frequent or honor. So there can be a celebration of the Buddha Dharma. We can celebrate the Buddha Dharma. We can honor the Buddha Dharma. We can frequent the Buddha Dharma. And the word ceremony Again, as I mentioned before, it has also something to do with performance, its root, and also of community or communion, and also of making offerings. So we can celebrate ceremonies, ceremonies can celebrate.

[02:17]

So there's an opportunity to perform and celebrate the visions of the Buddhas. I remember when I was in college I read this book called Black Elk Speaks about a... Black Elk was a Native American who had a great vision when he was fairly young. And he went to his teacher and told his teacher the vision. And it was a vision about his people, about the whole nation, the whole Sioux Nation. And his teacher thought it was a very auspicious and potentially guiding vision for his people.

[03:20]

And he told Black Elk to perform it. And he didn't perform it for many years. Actually, he performed it after, I think, the Wounded Knee Massacre, if I remember correctly. He performed it after his people were severely traumatized. I don't know if he tried to get them to perform this vision to enact it before that. I don't know if he tried, but afterwards he really felt now is the time. And he was an older and more respected man by that time. But the people understood that they needed to enact this vision, and they did enact it. I don't know if everybody in the Sioux Nation enacted this vision, but it was a vision of the Sioux Nation. But if not everybody, many thousands, participated in this performance of his vision.

[04:23]

And in other traditions, the tradition of the Buddha Dharma being one of them, there is, we have in human history, the performance of visions of the teachers of the of what seems to be the clearest, most close to the truth visions. At noon service, almost every day here during practice period, we recite the teachings of Dogen, And we recite a vision, a vision of the Buddhas of how all beings are related and how they're working together to turn the Dharma wheel.

[05:31]

We recite that. And in a sense, reciting it is the performance of it. but it is also the vision is also that by sitting upright by sitting wholeheartedly in upright posture we can use that form also as the performance of this vision or we perform this vision in that posture and performing the vision is said to realize the vision. And so towards the end it says, in each moment of Zazen is equally wholeness of practice and equally wholeness of enlightenment.

[06:33]

Each moment of zazen is equally wholeness of practice. Each moment of zazen heals the practice. Each moment of zazen heals the enlightenment. makes it whole. It heals the asymmetry of practice between Buddhas and sentient beings. It heals the difference in enlightenment between Buddhas and sentient beings. It heals the asymmetry between the practice of sentient beings and the enlightenment of sentient beings. The word heal means whole.

[07:46]

The root of the word heal means whole. It makes the practice and the enlightenment whole. That happens in the practice of zazen. And it heals or holds the practice and the enlightenment as I was saying on Saturday, it joins the asymmetries, it joins what has been split. And the ceremony of Zazen, which we individually and together in the group perform, the ceremony celebrates this Zazen. The ceremony celebrates the zazen which unites all practitioners and non-practitioners, which unites Buddhists and Christians and Jews and Muslims, et cetera, and Hindus and so on.

[08:57]

the ceremony realizes, the ceremony honors, the ceremony performs, puts the healing into a performance, puts the vision of us practicing together into a performance. And the performance is proposed by some ancestors as necessary necessary in order to understand what's being performed. We must honor this. We must celebrate this in order to understand this. So again and again and again we fan ourselves with the story of Master Bao Chi fanning himself.

[10:01]

And the monk says, the nature of wind is permanent and there's no place it does not reach. Why, teacher, do you fan yourself? And the teacher says, although you understand that the nature of wind is permanent, you do not understand that it reaches everywhere, or how it reaches everywhere. And the monk says, how does it reach everywhere? And the teacher fans himself. The zazen that we're talking about is permanent, and there's no place it doesn't reach. But if you don't do the fanning, the ritual, the ceremony, if you don't celebrate it, if you don't honor it, if you don't frequent it, you will not understand it.

[11:03]

Even though you kind of do understand it. Even if you did understand that it reaches everywhere, you won't understand it. Unless you perform it. And I won't either. But we do perform it so we will understand it. And anybody who doesn't perform it will perform it and they will understand too. Eventually everybody will perform the way everybody's working together and then everybody will understand. And when they understand, they will understand by performing. And there's no other way. I had a nice visit today with Tetsugen Glassman, Bernie Glassman, Glassman Roshi Glassman,

[12:18]

An old friend of ours, a very warm and energetic elderly person now, getting close to 70. He was bringing his, he was bringing who he would like to be his successor to meet me and to see Green Gulch. a very fine person who's younger than him, but older than most of you. But they both have quite a bit of energy, but Tetsugen Roshi wants to retire from certain activities. Fundraising. And he wants his dear disciple to take over those things. So anyway, he came today and we were talking about, and I was telling him about the practice period and that some people around here emphasizing the performance of the Buddha way the ceremony of Zazen and he somehow he told me about

[13:32]

Quite a few years ago when he was first starting to teach, I think, down in Los Angeles, he said kind of forcefully in his endo one day, he said something like, we are not practicing Zazen for ourselves, we're practicing for others. Actually, I think he said, you are not practicing Zazen for yourself, you are practicing for others. And he said, he said, well, I said that, you know, and I kind of meant it and I understood it, but I didn't understand it. He said, but then later I had this vision, which he's told me about before, and it was just kind of a vision of hungry ghosts for whom we are doing a ceremony on Sunday. A vision of all these suffering people hungry beings. And it came to him very strongly and after that he wanted to perform something in the world.

[14:41]

He wanted to do a performance of the vision he had of these beings and how they were crying for help and how he wanted to help them. So he started to do things like street retreats and going to witness and be present and perform the witnessing at Auschwitz and places like that. And he didn't say this, but I'm saying that it's through the performance that he has come to understand what he could say thirty or forty years ago. All of us can say this now. Some of you might not be in the mood to say it, but you can all say, we are not here practicing for ourselves, we are here practicing for others.

[15:47]

You can say that, right? to perform it over and over and over and over and over to keep performing the ceremony to keep honoring the vision that we are living not for ourselves but for others our understanding will deepen. And as our understanding deepens, the realization deepens. It becomes more real in this world. And what's being realized is the healing of all these beings. So now we're all doing lots of practice. We have all these practice opportunities during this practice period. So how about making these practices to hold the world, to heal the world, to conjoin all beings that have been separated by human minds and other minds?

[16:59]

How about it? Why not? On Sunday we can do it. particularly with the hungry ghosts. We can invite them to come and whole, join any separation between ourselves and them and deepen our understanding of our relationship. So Black Elk and Bernie Glassman had visions and they both have now tried to perform these visions, to realize these visions in the world. And he's a playful guy and so he gave me a clown costume. And I accepted the gift. But then after he gave it to me, he said that there's a requirement in receiving this gift.

[18:09]

And the requirement is you have to wear it during Dharma talks at least once in a while. So I thought I'd wear it tonight. Halloween's coming up, right? So I go like this. Yes. So this is the clown costume that he gave me. It fits his nose better than mine. There's a big space here. But here it is. This is the clown costume. It's really good. One of Buddha's great disciples, Mahamadalyana Sensei,

[19:36]

had a vision when his mother died. He saw her. He was most gifted among Buddha's disciples in terms of extracurricular powers. He had divine eye, divine ear, and so on. So he could actually see his mother in her destiny. and she was in hell and she was suffering and he went to the Buddha and he said you know what can I do to help her and the Buddhist the Buddha explained a ceremony that they could perform that would help his mother and so that was sort of the beginning within the Buddhist tradition of doing ceremonies for hungry ghosts. She was a hungry ghost. People say that the Buddha eschewed ceremonies, but he just eschewed ceremonies as like the Brahmanic tradition.

[20:42]

He didn't stop ceremonies. He practiced ceremonies with his students, according to me, all the time. Whenever the students came to the Buddha, they followed a ceremonial form. He didn't say, I'm not standing on ceremony or sitting on ceremony. He sat there and let them do the ceremony, walking around him three times, sitting in a formal posture in front of them, uncovering their right shoulder, putting their palms together. Not a big elaborate ceremony and not trying to get anything. not getting paid for it, just a ceremony to realize intimacy with the teacher. They didn't do ceremonies. They did also the repentance ceremony that we do once a month. They did twice a month. They did ceremonies and In this case, the Buddha instructed his great disciple about the ceremony of how to relate to someone who is in a state of insatiable misery.

[21:48]

So that was the beginning of this performance of the vision of his mother and the vision of how to help her, the performance of it. And in the story, the performance did help her. We now, with our non-extracurricular powers, can't see this stuff, but we still perform in these ceremonies once in a while. So if you're in the neighborhood, please drop by on Sunday afternoon, and we may have the performance of a vision here. As I said, in some sense, every time we sit, we are performing the vision of the Buddha. And another thing I've often said, which I say again, that Suzuki Roshi said, our practice is group practice. But sometimes people think that they practice with a group.

[22:53]

But I would suggest that you think not that you practice with a group, but that you enter into the practice of the group, the group practice. the practice of all beings. And when we sit here, it's a perfect, not only perfect, it's an excellent, it's an above average way to perform the practice of all beings, to honor, to sit together and honor the practice of all beings. a good life which has these performances either all the time or in and around daily life. If people can't see how to make their whole life the performance of the Buddha way, maybe in the morning and some other time during the day, you do the ceremony of sitting upright to perform

[24:03]

the practice which is healing, the separation among all beings. Each moment of zazen is equally conjoining the practice of all beings, is equally conjoining the enlightenment of all beings. And we can do a ceremony moment after moment, day after day in this room to honor that, honor that process. Visit that process. Rejoice in that process. And thereby realize that process. And another vision Actually, another vision is a vision which was recited, I believe, yesterday morning during morning service.

[25:15]

It's a vision from the Lotus Sutra in Chapter 16. Did you notice that vision? Did you see that vision? Did you, Stephen? Stephen, did you see that vision? You did? Yeah, you saw a vision of the Buddha always being there. Yeah, that's the vision. The vision of Buddha always being there, including the... subsidiary twist on the vision is that Buddha sometimes makes it so we can't see her unless we really want to. But even though we don't see her, she's right there all the time with us, each of us.

[26:24]

And when we yearn really sincerely to see Buddha, Buddha will allow us to see her. So that's a vision. And also, you know, and Buddha then also has put on shows to encourage us, although Buddha's not going to show us who she really is unless we really want to see her. Even if you just a little bit want to see Buddha, which quite a few people a little bit want to see Buddha, so then they hear about the historical Buddha. A lot of people have heard about this historical Buddha who are either not too much interested or a little bit interested, or even quite interested. So probably all of you have heard the historical Buddha, right? the person who was born in India, went to preschool, and so on, and then died.

[27:33]

That story, you've heard that story. And now that you've heard that story, that story is then now... you're being told that that little show that the Buddha put on to get people's attention. Now the Buddha's going a little further and saying, I want to get your attention, so now I sent you a message that there's a real Buddha who doesn't come and go, who's with you all the time, and you get to see that Buddha if you will just wholeheartedly yearn for it. That's that vision. And one way to wholeheartedly yearn to see Buddha is, for example, to sit upright. to enact the Buddha's vision of how we're all working together is one of the ways to show yourself that you really do want to see this vision, which is the same as you want to see the Buddha. So I'm sitting, so my sitting is, I'm sitting for others, I'm sitting with others, I'm sitting to perform the visions of the Buddha, and I'm also sitting to invite, to really invite the Buddha to come and meet me, or rather to let me meet her.

[28:49]

So this is another vision you can enact when you're sitting. You can enact the vision that Buddhas are with you all the time. You can make your sitting a performance of the presence of the Buddhas. The Lotus Sutra has 26 super-duper visions like this. and all of them can be performed at the same time by sitting upright. And probably, you know, probably during this practice period there will be plenty of time for me to go into detail about all 26 stories, but you may not want to hear about it, so maybe I won't. But anyway, there's all these stories, all these visions, and they all can be enacted in sitting.

[29:59]

They also can all be enacted in walking and working in the kitchen. But anyway, you've got the Buddha's always-present story, and you've got the vision of the self-receiving and employing samadhi. You've got those two visions, which you can perform when you're sitting. When you're sitting can be the performance of those visions. And the vision of the Self-Receiving and Employing Samadhi already includes the vision of helping beings in Hungry Ghost Realm. Those beings are in that text. Those beings in Hungry Ghost Realm are also in that text. They're also like being related to and practiced with and saved in that vision. So the vision of Mahamadgaliana is a

[31:00]

is a sub-vision within the vision that's talked about in the Self-fulfilling Samadhi. And also Black Elk's vision is in that same. So all these visions are in that vision and they can all be performed ceremonially in sitting. And Again, some of you, as I mentioned last week, some of you and previous times, some of you are concentrating on concentration, trying to not be distracted from being present with what's happening. And then that kind of concentration practice, if someone was performing a ceremony, to celebrate the visions of the Buddha, being concentrated would be really kind of handy so that when you're doing a performance you could remember what the performance was about.

[32:09]

You know, like I'm sitting and what was I, what was the reason for sitting again? Oh yeah, it's for all beings, that's why I'm sitting. That's right, I remember now. And I remember again and again. This is like, cool. I can remember what I'm here for. Oh yeah, this is what my life's about. I'm here for other people. Yeah. And I'm concentrated. I'm remembering that moment after moment. This is like, great. How wonderful to be mindful of what I'd like to remember. To remember what I'd like to remember. It's very nice. I could be thinking of something else, but actually I'm not. I'm thinking about this. I'm thinking about I'm here to serve others. And also, while I'm at it, I'm here to open to the presence of the Buddhas. And I can remember that too. I can get distracted, but I'm not now.

[33:13]

So, yeah, it's a concentrated... it's a concentration on these visions. So you're performing these visions, if you want, and you're remembering to perform them, and you could remember to perform them more and more and more and more, and that would be wonderful, I think. And also if you can think of other ways of performing this besides sitting in the zendo together, please let me know. I'd be happy to consider other ceremonies. Like the ceremony that's celebrating the vision of the Buddhas in the Self-fulfilling Samadhi, the ceremony is to sit upright. That's the one he's recommending. And he's saying you don't have to offer incense and so on and so forth. But he does offer incense and so forth. But when he does offer incense and so forth, he's celebrating the same thing.

[34:17]

So all the ceremonies that are done are for the same purpose. And the visions are infinitely expandable. The Lotus Sutra has 26 main ones, 26 stories. The Abhidhamasaka Sutra has quite a few more. They all can be performed by sitting. They can also all be performed by offering incense. They can also be performed bowing. They can also be performed walking through a concentration camp. They can also be performed walking through the streets of Marin County. They can also be performed in the gardens. Everywhere we can perform these visions. This room and the upright sitting is primarily dedicated to the performance of the Buddha's vision of wisdom and compassion.

[35:26]

The Zen Center budget does not depend on us doing this practice. If we don't make any money, nobody makes any donations to us while we're sitting, it's okay. Clearly, the world wants us to sit here upright and still to heal the world. It's pretty clear that's what they want us to do. And nobody's expecting us to do anything but that when we're here, as far as I know. And they hope that that will enable us to do all and anything else that's needed. And I hope that too. Each moment of zazen, each moment of Buddha's practice,

[36:45]

is healing, is joining all beings. And our sitting can be the celebration and the performance of that sasen. May our intention equally extend to every being in place.

[37:45]

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