I’ve heard that the path of the bodhisattva consists of three things; compassion, the selfless intention to realize complete enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, and the realization of that intention.
Compassion is the basis of it all, it all starts from love.  The path to buddhahood starts with compassion.  Bodhisattvas must meditate on this compassion and consider the universality of sorrow to which all sentient beings are inescapably subject to.  Whatever destiny, even gods, cannot escape it.  This perception that sorrow is implicit in whatever exists produces in ourselves an affect, a feeling, an emotion of compassion for our fellow beings, our friends, our lovers and even our enemies, as well as the desire to help them to become free of this sorrow.
By this feeling of compassion towards all sorts of living beings, and by the determination to help them, bodhisattvas consider all beings as equal to themselves.  Bodhisattvas meditate on and consider, moment by moment, how all beings are equal to themselves.  This one, this one, even this one…is equal to myself.  When compassion is like this, it is called great compassion.  This great compassion which has all beings included and equal to us, is the condition, sometimes called the cause, for the first blossoming of the intention to realize buddhahood for the welfare of all beings.  This intention will reach perfect enlightenment.  This aspiration to attain buddhahood for the welfare of all beings is already, in itself, very beneficial.  I’ve heard that even if this aspiration is not accompanied by practice, it is still very beneficial.  It’s like a diamond in the rough, a diamond that has not been cut and polished.  It’s still worth much more than gold.  Even a rough, unpolished diamond can free people from poverty.  So this bodhicitta, this aspiration to realize buddhahood for the welfare of all beings, even unaccompanied by practice, in its rough form, can still be a great benefit in the world.
A sage once advised a king:  “You’re busy, your majesty, but you do have this aspiration to realize enlightenment for the welfare of all beings.  Problem is, you’re so busy,  you don’t have time to practice all the time and in every way.  But what you can do, even though you don’t have time to do all the practices like giving, conscientiousness, patience, enthusiasm, meditation and wisdom, what you can do is you can think about and remember this aspiration that you have.  You can think about it while you’re eating, while you’re walking, while you’re doing all your important work.  Always remember this bodhicitta.  In that way you can continue to do your job well and at the same time bring immeasurable benefit to the entire land and all the people.”
Compassion and this aspiration to attain awakening, even without practice, are really great.  But, if this great compassion and this aspiration to attain realization for the welfare of all beings (to attain means to touch, not to possess] is accompanied by practice, then it’s like a diamond that has been brought to its full potential.
This aspiration is a seed of all the properties of the Buddha Dharma.  It has two aspects, almost like two moments.  One is the determination itself, pranidhi or prani dhana: “May I become a buddha for the welfare of all beings,” the initial yearning to do this for all beings.  The second part is setting in motion this thought, this aspiration, this desire, by actually taking vows with a teacher who has also taken these vows, with a beneficial friend kalyanamitra, or if that is not possible, by invoking or visualizing the presence of buddhas and bodhisattvas and in their presence actually making the vows that you will practice all the bodhisattva practices in order to realize buddhahood.
Even though the bodhicitta, the aspiration for enlightenment, is very helpful without practice; with practice, enlightenment can be realized.  Put it the other way – enlightenment cannot be realized without practice.  Practice is not the cause of enlightenment, but enlightenment depends on practice and enlightenment depends on compassion and enlightenment depends on the arising of this wish to benefit all beings.
OK, you’ve got your bodhicitta and you’ve got your practice – put them together and you get buddhahood.  What’s the practice?  The practice has two parts.  One part is called means, skillful means, upaya.  The other part is wisdom, prajna.  Wisdom and means together is the practice that goes with bodhicitta.   “Means” is all these practices:  giving; careful observation of everything you do to make sure there’s no killing, no stealing, no lying, all that kind of careful observation of conduct - compassionate consideration of all activity; patience; enthusiasm; concentration.  These kinds of practices, plus all other kinds of bodhisattva arts and crafts are ways to convert and attract beings to practice.  Even all kinds of charm and glamour like good carpentry, good gardening, good cooking to attract people to Tassajara in the summer.  As you know, many people became converted to Buddhism through the dining room!  Thousands of people became interested in Buddhism by eating guest meals here.  So good, and yet no meat, that’s very nice.  Little by little, more and more people are attracted by the food that is served here, by the gardens, by the paths, by the baths, by the swimming pool.  All these things we take care of are part of the charm, of the glamour that helps people move toward the Dharma.  Together with generosity, patience, and so on, all these practices help bring beings to ripeness.  This is the means.
Now you’ve probably heard and I’ll say again, that for bodhisattvas in general, means and wisdom must be practiced and realized together.  However; I’ve also heard, if a bodhisattva is abiding in transcendent wisdom, she need not resort to skillful means.  So it is possible that a bodhisattva could kind of go on vacation and enter into meditation on ultimate reality and be abiding temporarily in a state of meditation of transcendent wisdom.  In that case she may for the moment not need means.  But at that moment also there’s no progress in helping others.  In order to help others her wisdom must be joined with means.  However, means always needs to be joined to wisdom.  Otherwise, it will have outflows.  No progress is possible if one insists on only one of these.  Means are all the ways we help beings mature, all the ways we help beings develop in their practice.  In wisdom is the way we keep our eye on what is actually real.  For example, as we work to benefit all beings by doing various services for them in order to help them move towards their own realization we keep in mind the truth, namely, there aren’t any beings there to save, and there are no practices, and nothing’s actually happening anyway.  We don’t lose sight of the fact that this is all a dream.  These beings who we are wholeheartedly serving are not actually happening.  This protects the means from becoming contaminated by gain and loss, all kinds of subject–object impurities, and all kinds of gaining ideas.  All kinds of expectations and disappointments creep into the work unless the work is accompanied by wisdom.  On the other hand, to accept wisdom alone would contradict the teachings of the Buddha.
Buddha’s nirvana is sometimes called a nirvana which has no remains.  Nirvana which has no abode, no remainder, and is not definitely fixed.  Buddhas are not in nirvana.  They realize nirvana, but they don’t live there.  The life of a buddha is samsara.  Because a buddha’s nirvana is not fixed, she is always in the world of suffering beings, practicing together with each of us, whether we accept her presence or not.  Buddhas are not in nirvana and also buddhas do not stay in samsara.  Because of means, buddhas are not stuck in nirvana and because of wisdom buddhas are not stuck in samsara.
Wisdom protects us by helping us avoid the extreme of saying things exist or affirming things and means help us avoid the extreme of saying that things don’t exist, or negation.  The two together are the middle way of the buddha.  Wisdom that sees that nothing happens protects us from thinking that things exist.  Means protect us from thinking that the non-occurrence of things means that they don’t exist.  So this truth of nirvana which is taught by the buddhas who are not in nirvana is the subject of the wisdom.
Wisdom is realized in three levels of depth:  First, by listening to the teaching that everything is actually not happening, listening to the teaching that everything is empty, listening to the teaching that all your experience is a dream.  Study those teachings, talk about those teachings until you get them straight – this is called wisdom which arises from hearing, sruta-mayi-prajna.  The next level of wisdom is wisdom which comes from reflection, or investigation.  You look at the teachings and see if they accord with the authority of the scriptures of the tradition and also with reason or logic, cinta-mayi-prajna.  The last level is the meditative level, bhavana-mayi-prajna.  The first two levels are actually to understand what the teaching, what the medicine is, and the next level is to take it into your body.  This week you have a chance to meditate on the teaching and bring it into your body.   Let it be manifested in your body.  So now we go to the meditation.
Many of the texts on bodhisattva meditation present the practice as having two aspects which can be practiced sequentially or in union.  One aspect is called samatha and the other aspect is called vipasyana.  The ancestor Dai-i Doshin Daiosho (Daoxin), said something like the ways to calm the mind, the ways to pacify the mind and the ways to realize serenity of body and mind are inexhaustible but they all come from the heart.  I think a lot of Zen students would do well to remember that the Buddhist practices of tranquility, of samatha, are a heart thing, coming from compassion.  They are not something we should beat ourselves up with.  You can see it outside as compassion.  When you see compassion, compassion is teaching you samatha.  When you feel compassion inside, that is the source of your samatha.  There are many, many ways to develop serenity.   If I bring up many, many, many ways, this is not something you should use to make yourself feel bad.  These are just suggestions; consider whether they harmonize with your heart.  But you also can think of modes of realizing stability.  This is a free buddha-land.
Samatha can be translated as tranquility, serenity, stabilization, calm, pacification or stopping.  The Chinese character for samatha means stop, or rest.  All over Japan, there are hexagonal red signs at the corners of intersections that say “stop.”  Driving around you see samatha! Rest! Tranquilize! Be serene!  When Japanese people are driving the cars and come to these signs, they stop and turn the lights off.  There are various theories about the reason for these lights being turned off.  Some people think its because they’re trying to save electricity.  Other people think they’re trying to be kind to the person in front of them or the person across the other side of the intersection by not having the lights shine on them.  Other people think that they are entering into samadhi.  Short little samadhis at each corner.
I guess, from what I’ve heard, if we keep living for the rest of the week something is going to happen to each of us.  We’re going to feel like something’s happening.  We’re going to have a dream, or many dreams that something’s happening.  We will dream that things are arising and lasting for a little while, and ceasing.  Various bubbles will foam up and seem like something is happening.  Actually nothing will happen all week, but we may think something is happening.  We may think something painful is happening, we may think something pleasureful is happening.  We may think something stupid is happening, we may think something brilliant is happening.  Maybe.  I’ve heard that people do sometimes dream.  Sometimes people believe their dreams are reality, sometimes understand that their dreams are dreams.  Probably some of us will dream this week.  Bodhisattvas do not reject or disown their dreams.  They pay attention to their dreams.  Although they understand that their feelings and perceptions and motivations and consciousness and the forms, the colors, the sounds, the smells, the touches and tastes are all dreams, bubbles, illusions and so on, empty houses, magical creations…although they understand that, they don’t disown these things.  As a matter of fact they pay close attention, loving attention, devoted attention, and they serve these dreams.  They are devoted to these dreams.  They practice meditative stabilization in the face of these dreams and also sometimes they have dreams of someone telling them about ways to practice meditative stabilization.  They have a dream that someone is giving them some idea from the heart about how to have a calm mind.  So you might be having dreams like that this week.  I have a dream that you might have dreams like that.  You might even have dreams that I’m the one who is talking about all these things.  But don’t grasp these dreams as real, otherwise you might get quite upset because it is going to be a lot of dreams.  Dreams of somebody talking about meditative stabilization.  I’m going to talk about many dreams because I don’t think one is going to work for everybody.  But if one works for you then please practice it.  Then if you hear and have dreams of other ones discussed, just listen while you do the practice that you think is appropriate for yourself.
I’d like to start with a Zen teacher, Bodhidharma.  An Indian who we say was a Zen teacher.  Bodhidharma suggested that you and I stabilize our minds, realize the pacified peaceful mind with no contrivance.  With no plan and no device, realize a calm mind.  Be calm without using something to calm yourself.   Sings:  “When he gets weary, young men do get weary, wearing that same tattered robe.  When he gets weary, try a little tenderness.  He may be waiting, just anticipating, things he will never, never possess.  So while he’s stressed out, try a little tenderness.”  Can you tenderize yourself into complete rest but not sleep?  Without using anything, just lovingly be calm under the circumstances of this dream of pain and stress and complexity and contradiction.  Just stop for a second, turn your lights off.  Don’t get excited about this and say “Hey, external object!”  Don’t bring in your belief equipment and say “Ok, that’s external!  I know who you are, you’re an external object aren’t you, yeah, okay well you’re just going to be that!”  No, be a little bit more tender than that.  Around this stuff that’s called external, be quiet, cease all the activities of the mind, don’t get active around what they call external  (“they” or “I” in a dream).  This practice is a samatha practice because if you don’t make these phenomena external the mind is automatically pacified by that quietness in response to this thing which is often called external.  The ancestor said “Pacify the mind with no contrivance, no device, no plan.”  Then when objects happen, when things happen out there, be quiet, don’t stir yourself up about it, don’t grasp it as external.  So there it is, that’s one samatha practice, but it also is vipasyana.   It is also insight at the same time because you are teaching yourself, you’re training yourself, you’re bringing the teaching into yourself that there are no external objects.  And that teaching sets up the understanding that nothing happens.  This is an open-hearted way to meet the dreams, the phenomena of the moment, tenderly, respectfully – so respectfully that you don’t even grasp the phenomena as external.
This way of meditation brings the teaching into your body and mind.  The suffering being you see is not external and not internal.  If I understand that, the mind is calm and when the mind is calm from understanding that, that teaching comes into my body.  The teaching that self and other are not two.   Understanding that self and other are not two, the body becomes softer and more open and lets the teaching in more deeply.  You can see here the connection to compassion which sees all beings as the same as oneself.  And then taking that vision calms us and that calm lets that teaching in more.  First it’s compassion as a feeling and then as a teaching of truth coming in.  The truth and compassion, wisdom and compassion resonate back and forth, deepening each other.  So here again, wisdom is looking at no external objects, having no objects of thought, but means are making us able to accept that teaching, the means of giving ourselves to that practice.  The means of being careful of what we’re doing and particularly the means of being patient with the pain of still feeling that it’s external.
 In compassion we can feel that all beings are the same as us and yet still perhaps our compassion is not fully developed so we still feel they are a little separate at the same time.  We feel that they’re the same and we dream that they’re different.  In dreaming that they’re different, we feel upset.  In dreaming that they’re external, we feel anxious.  So part of us dreams the same and is calm.  Part of us dreams separate and is upset.  Part of us sees the same and is calm and relaxed.  Part of us sees different, external, and is agitated and anxious.  For the dream of externality, for the dream of separation, we need patience to stand the pain.  Mind like a wall.  No objects of thought.  Love with no expectation.  Looking at this face, feeling this pain without activating the mind around the object of the face or the object of the pain, but also without trying to get something from that practice.  To look at the face without thinking what it looks like or who it is or whether it’s yourself or other.  Without trying to get something from that loving respect.  Being patient with your own pain with no expectation that it’s going to help.  Being enthusiastic about being patient with your pain.  Being patient with your pain and therefore being able to be enthusiastic about being patient with your pain without expectation.  This is mind like a wall.  And, it is samatha practice, Bodhidharma style.  Can you practice this stabilization without making it into a device, a strategy, a plan, a contrivance?  Please try.  Give it a try.  Be Bodhidharma for a day.