Tomorrow night we have a ceremony planned, which is a ceremony which is called tokudo or attaining enlightenment. It's a ceremony of attaining enlightenment. It's a formal way to enter into the path of enlightenment, into the path of becoming a Buddha. The ceremony has different parts, and it has a certain context. In a sense, the context of the ceremony

[01:11]

is not explicitly mentioned. It's called, we say the word bodhisattva precepts, or precepts for bodhisattvas, but we don't spell out that a bodhisattva is someone who wishes that beings would be free of suffering, that the world would realize peaceful relationships among beings, that they would realize a way to help each other and really enjoy helping each other and being helped by each other, and that in order to fully facilitate such a helpful relationship among all beings, one wishes to become supremely skillful in promoting peace and harmony.

[02:18]

In other words, to become a Buddha. So bodhisattvas are those who actually are like wishing to be Buddhas, and wishing to be Buddha, then we are considered to be Buddha's children. We are actually, from Buddha's point of view, all in Buddha's family, but some people do not wish to be in Buddha's family even though Buddha thinks they are. Those who want to be Buddha's offspring and realize Buddhahood are called bodhisattvas. So what is not mentioned specifically or very emphasized at all in the ceremony is that the ceremony is sponsored by the wish to benefit the world and the wish to become enlightened

[03:23]

so that we could benefit the world. Not that we can't benefit the world somewhat prior to realizing Buddhahood, and we wish to do all kinds of benefits, but we also wish to be free of any hindrance to the joy of helping beings become free of suffering. When I say we do, what I mean is that such a vow can arise in a person, a person can feel such a thing. Some people actually enter the ceremony, like the one we're doing tomorrow night, and they might say before the ceremony that they do not really know if that vow lives in them yet, but they still would like to receive the precepts of those beings for whom

[04:30]

the vow has arisen, hoping that the ceremony and the practice of the precepts over their lifetime would help them learn, would help create the conditions for the arising of this vow and the living of the life of the vow to save all beings and become Buddha in order to do so. So if you go to the ceremony, you may not hear this talk, but I'm contextualizing that vow. This morning we did a repentance ceremony, a confession and repentance ceremony, which is also part of the ceremony tomorrow night, and during that ceremony we did recite the Bodhisattva Vows, the vow to help all the infinite number of suffering beings,

[05:34]

the vow to become free of all affliction, the vow to learn all kinds of teachings that help beings, and the vow to attain unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment. We pay homage to many great Buddhas and enlightening beings, and paying homage means not just venerating these great beings, but paying homage means we align ourselves with them. We say, I pay homage to you, Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion means I align myself, I want to be on your team, I pay homage to the Bodhisattva of Infinite Perfect Wisdom, I want to be aligned with the Bodhisattva of Infinite Perfect Wisdom, and so on. We wish to join their efforts and be in their work. But again, actually we do actually, at the

[06:39]

beginning of the ceremony tomorrow night, we will again align ourselves with these Bodhisattvas at the beginning. We will invite them to come to the ceremony, invite their presence, and also align ourselves with their qualities of compassion and wisdom at the beginning of the ceremony. At the beginning of the ceremony, we will invite the Buddhas and great Bodhisattvas, and lesser Bodhisattvas too, to come and be with us, and to practice with us, and we say, homage to you, we say, we align ourselves with you. And I wonder, again, can we do that more often than just tomorrow night? Can we do it from now for the next 24 hours? Can

[07:41]

we spend some of our precious life energy aligning ourselves with the best that beings can be, the kindest and wisest that we can be? We may not have yet realized our full potential, but we can contemplate being lined up with it, being close to it, being respectful of it, vowing to live it. This is the beginning of the ceremony, so in a sense the ceremony began this morning and continues now through the night, and hopefully beyond tomorrow night. We will all continue this practice if we wish. And actually, I hope you wish. I hope you find the wish, I hope you find it in your heart that you would like to be like these

[08:46]

great beings. I hope you find it in your heart that you would like to be like these great beings. I read stories about Zen monks when I was in college, and when I read those stories, I didn't say, I pay homage to these Zen monks, I didn't say, I pay homage to you, but I did say in my heart, I said, I want to be like them. I heard about the way they responded in the world to the meetings with other beings, and I thought the way they responded was, really the way to go. And I wanted to be like that. I didn't know how that could possibly happen, and then I heard that there was a training program to be like that, so I sought out the training program. And I'm still in training to be like these great Zen Bodhisattvas

[09:51]

that I heard about. Maybe they weren't really as great as the stories say, but I don't care. I want to be like the stories. I think people can be like that. I think that's why some of us want to be that way, because it touches something that's really the way we are. After paying homage, after aligning ourselves, if we wish, as much as we can, open our heart to the best that beings can be, commit ourselves to that as much as we can, then the next part

[10:52]

of the ceremony is the part called about renunciation. Renunciation means letting go of anything that hinders this path to great wisdom and compassion, letting go of anything that hinders it. And we had a ceremony a couple weeks ago, like the one tomorrow night, and it was also a ceremony of attaining enlightenment for two people who wish to receive the Bodhisattva precepts in order to practice as Bodhisattva priests. And the first part of that ceremony also was renunciation, and the renunciation in that case was ritually enacted by shaving

[12:00]

the heads of the two women who became priest trainees in that ceremony. It's the, as my teacher said, the ultimate haircut, cutting the hair off, cutting it all off, as a symbol of cutting off all attachments and setting us free to our path to Buddhahood. Tomorrow night we're not going to do the ultimate haircut, we're just going to cut a little hair. The people in this case are not yet becoming priests, but they wish to become Buddha's children. They wish to become Buddha's, but they continue to practice outside, to some extent, the priest

[13:04]

training mode, somewhat outside, somewhat inside. I think the day after the ceremony, the abbess Linda Ruth Cutts gave a talk and she spoke about the ceremony and about the two people that attained the way, and she said that both of them were really, I think she said something like they were really devoted to their families. I think she said that she felt that they gave up their families, gave up their attachments in order to better serve their families. Is that somewhat, does anybody else remember saying something like that? Is that kind of like how it was? I think that that's what the renunciation is about. We renounce the world in order to better help the world.

[14:09]

Excuse me for saying so, but a thought comes to my mind. She so loved the world that she gave her only begotten son. And when Linda Ruth was talking about how these people are giving up in order to be better mothers, more, [...] skillful mothers, at least symbolically giving up. We'll see later if they really did. But anyway, we'll work to help them really give up anything that interferes them with them being really good mothers, really good spouses, really good wives, and also really good friends to all of us. And I also thought when she was talking that when I left Minnesota to come to San Francisco to get training so I could be like those Zen monks I read about,

[15:21]

I left my heart in Minnesota. And maybe we just talked, but I really felt, and I told my friends, I'm leaving you so that I can be a better friend. I don't say that I am a better friend to them now, but maybe I am. I can't say, really, but that's why I left. I wanted to be a better friend to my friends who I left. I wanted to be a better son to my parents than I was by leaving and coming to practice at Zen Center. I'm still not too good, but I think it would have been worse if I hadn't come here. When I went home after being at Zen Center for quite a few years, I think my parents

[16:27]

thought I was, at least, they thought I was nicer to them. So, we renounce the world for the sake of the world. We don't renounce the world for our personal advancement and fame. I mean, hopefully we don't. So that's the renunciation part. Another part of the renunciation part is followed by actually receiving a new name, a Dharma name, and receiving a new costume, a Buddha robe to wear. And then that part of the ceremony is followed by receiving the precepts, and the first part of receiving the precepts is called confession and repentance, which was referred to in what we just chanted. And I

[17:32]

just thought I might say that we could say confession and repentance, or we could say reflection and resolution. Confession of and reflection on our past selfish activity. Confession of and reflection on the things we have done based on belief in the past. And our independent existence. We confess and think about that. And then we repent or we resolve to be entirely devoted to the Buddha Dharma, to the teachings of selflessness, in hopes that thereby we would be able to enter into activities with beings that are

[18:39]

not based on selfishness. And then comes the precepts. And now, another context I'd like to present to you, which I've brought up off and on over the years, and I want to do it again, and that is the concept or the idea of what we call renunciation, or the renunciation of the past, or the renunciation of the past, well, the mystical spiritual communion between practitioners and the Buddha's teaching,

[19:40]

or the interaction between unenlightened beings and enlightened beings. This term in Japanese is called Kano Doko, which literally means stimulus-response crossing paths, or the mutual interaction between stimulus and response. We, beings who seem to exist as independent living creatures, we who, when we practice, we in our practicing activity are a stimulus to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. We stimulate them through our practice and they respond to our practice. But it's a mutual kind of

[20:50]

resonance back and forth. It isn't just one directional. In the discussions, in some discussions, of how this, for example, this thought, or this vow, or this wish to live for the welfare of other beings, this vow, this wish to live for the welfare of other beings, to realize enlightenment for the welfare of other beings, the Zen Master Dogen says that this vow, this spirit, this wish to become a Buddha for the welfare of the world, does not come from the practitioner, does not come from us, and does not come from Buddha. You don't make it happen yourself. You don't make it happen by yourself.

[21:54]

And nobody else does it to you. This vow, this seed of Buddhahood, arises in the world, not from me, not from you, but in the communion between us and the perfectly enlightened beings. It's in that deep, inconceivable, mutual interaction that this wish arises. And then, also, when Dogen is talking about the ceremony of receiving the precepts, he quotes another text which says that the actual merit, the actual virtue, the actual beneficial

[22:54]

function of the ceremony of receiving the precepts occurs through this resonance between stimulus and response. It's in that same context that the full virtue of the precept ceremony is realized. We had a rehearsal today for the ceremony and it was kind of informal and light-hearted in a way. People were conscientious and paying attention, and I think I don't want them to be so, I don't know what, I don't want them to be tense about the ceremony.

[23:58]

I want them to be relaxed so they can enjoy it. But I also thought I might mention that part of what stimulates the response to set up this symbiotic resonance between our efforts and supreme enlightenment is that we very carefully and sincerely, very sincerely, practice the forms of the ceremony, and that we practice them wholeheartedly. That's how we provide a very clear stimulus in this world. We completely give ourselves to being here in this form, completely present so we can realize the selflessness of this presence, so that, and in that realization

[25:08]

we don't do that by our own power. The Buddhas help us realize the lack of inherent existence of this presence which we have so wholeheartedly given ourselves to. So both the arousing of the Buddha's presence and the efficacy of receiving the Bodhisattva precepts occur in this environment of resonance. Originally the term was just stimulus and response. That was the early way that the term appeared in the Buddhist literature in China. And that referred to how when the Buddha met someone, the Buddha would adapt her teachings to the

[26:08]

nature of the audience. And actually the Buddha could teach a number of people who had different potentials and different natures, teach them simultaneously in different ways. And how the Buddha would respond appropriately to the different people was the response from the stimulus from those beings. But in China, the next part of the phrase was developed which isn't just stimulus and response, but it's a mutual thing, so that the living beings stimulate the Buddha and the Buddha responds according to how they stimulate. This enlightenment reaches them in relationship to the particular stimulation and then it resonates back from the person to the Buddha, and from the Buddha to the land, and from the land back to the

[27:09]

Buddha, and from the Buddha to the mountains and the rivers, and from the mountains and the rivers back to the Buddhas, and from the mountains and rivers to the beings, and the beings back to the Buddhas, and to the mountains… This is the context in which the actual functioning of these formalities is realized, and the formalities rituals are ways for us to stimulate. It's kind of like, I get this image of people swimming in some difficult circumstances, like in water, drowning in water, or burning in fire, and of course Buddha would like to help us, but we have to cry, pointedly, to touch the Buddha.

[28:12]

Then the Buddha can respond. If we don't express ourselves wholeheartedly, and say, I vow to embrace and sustain all beings, the Buddhas can't hear us so well. We have to put ourselves out there, and then the Buddhas can respond. We have to put our face out there and say, here's my face for you. Then their face comes to meet us. I say that, what I mean is that I am proposing this to you as a possibility. This is something which the Zen teacher Dogen talked about a lot, and his predecessors did too. The funny thing about this teaching is that there's no book on it. It's all over the place in the literature, but they don't bring it out and have a chapter on it. And I wonder,

[29:17]

you know, why not? Why don't they just lay it out there? And I've never done that either, I'm just sort of giving you a little bit of it now, and you won't hear from me about this for a while again probably, unless you stimulate me. But this ceremony stimulates me to bring it up. When even for a moment you express the Buddha's seal in the three actions of body, speech, and thought by sitting upright, you sit upright, you stimulate the Buddhas. Being sitting upright is very poignant to Buddhas, it penetrates them, and they go,

[30:23]

somebody's sitting someplace, where are they? Oh, there, [...] oh wow. When even for a moment you express the Buddha's seal by sitting upright in samadhi, the whole phenomenal world becomes the Buddha's seal. When you sit upright, wholeheartedly, wholeheartedly sit upright, the response is the whole world becomes the Buddha's seal. When you enact the Buddha's posture wholeheartedly, it touches the Buddha, and the whole world responds to sitting upright. And the entire sky turns into enlightenment in response to your stimulation of your wholehearted sitting, or your wholehearted saying, yes, I will receive these precepts, yes.

[31:28]

Because of this, all Buddha Tathagatas as the original source increase their Dharma bliss, and renew their magnificence in the awakening away. Because you sit, because I sit, because we sit, because you bow, because I bow, because you say, yes, I wish to practice these precepts, yes, I will practice not killing, not stealing, and so on, yes. Because of saying that, all the Buddhas increase their Dharma bliss, and renew their magnificence in the awakening of the way. That's what it says here, according to the Zen teacher, Dogen. Furthermore, all beings in the ten directions in the six realms, including the three lower realms of woe, hell, hungry ghosts, and frightened beings, all at once obtain pure body and mind,

[32:36]

and realize a state of great emancipation, and manifest their original face. At this time, all things realize correct awakening, myriad objects partake of the Buddha body, and sitting upright under the Bodhi tree, you immediately leap beyond the boundary of awakening. At this moment, you turn the unsurpassably great Dharma wheel, and expound the profound wisdom, ultimate and unconditioned, because such broad awakening resonates back to you, and helps you inconceivably, because you stimulate the enlightenment, and it resonates back to you and helps you. When you sit in Zazen, you will unmistakably drop away body and mind, cutting off the various defiled thoughts from the past, and realize essential Buddha Dharma. It says you will, but it's really not you, not the Buddhas, it's the communion,

[33:40]

it's the resonance, but we have to provide an opportunity, moment by moment, for this resonance to live. Do you give yourself, are you the stimulus to the response which realizes the Dharma? Do you wish to give yourself, moment by moment, do I wish to give myself? Thus, we will raise up Buddha activity at innumerable practice places of Buddha Tathagatas everywhere, and cause everyone to have the opportunity of ongoing Buddhahood, and vigorously uplift the ongoing Buddha Dharma. Because grass, trees, walls, tiles, pebbles all engage in Buddha activity, those who receive the resonance of the benefit of the wind and water caused by them are inconceivably helped by the Buddha's guidance, splendid and unthinkable.

[34:44]

And awaken intimately to themselves. Those who receive these wind and water and Buddha benefits which come to you in response to your gift of your life, those who receive these benefits spread this benefit, spread the benefits of this guidance based on original enlightenment. Because of this, all those who live with you and speak with you will obtain endless Buddha virtue and will unroll widely inside and outside of the entire universe the endless, unremitting, unthinkable, unnameable, unstoppable, unbeatable Buddha Dharma. All this, however, does not appear within perception. All this, however, does not appear to your dualistic consciousness. This is not the working of your dualistic consciousness. However,

[35:49]

you can use your dualistic consciousness to initiate yourself into this process. Cool, huh? Inconceivably cool. This is from a text, this is called the self-fulfilling samadhi. This is a samadhi of receiving a self and using it. All things give you yourself, and then that self which is given to you, then give it away. That's what it's like. So this is a kind of context for our little theater we do here at Green Gulch and in San Francisco. Our little activities we do, our little activities that we do, our little activities that we do, hello, goodbye, our little things we do, stimulate this process, and we get a response,

[36:58]

comes back to us, and it resonates off to us as our next activity, and back and forth. This is the realm in which the real meaning and value of this is fully realized. It's actually going on. And actually right now, through you right now, the Buddhadharma is working right now. It's working, and it's working in you in such a way that you are stimulating it to come and work in you more. It's being given to you for you to express it, and it's actually happening. This is the samadhi you're actually in. This is the criterion of our practice, the self-fulfilling samadhi. A monk came to the Zen master Tsa Shan one time and said,

[38:07]

Oh no, that isn't how it goes. I think it went like this. Tsa Shan was talking to one of his friends, I forgot who, another one of those Zen monks, and Tsa Shan said to him, The true body of the Buddha is like space. It is inconceivable, and yet it responds, or yet it manifests in response to beings. So the Buddha, the actual body of Buddha is like space, but that spacious body of the Buddha responds to us. It manifests in response to us. When we say hello, every time we say hello, every time we say goodbye, every time we sit up, the Buddha responds to that, and manifests in response to that.

[39:14]

So he said that to one of his friends, and then he said to his friend, I think he said, How would you demonstrate that? How would you demonstrate that? Or how would you put it? And his friend said, It's like a donkey looking into a well. And Tsa Shan said, Very good, you got 80% on that. And the guy said, Well, how would you put it? And Tsa Shan said, It's like the well looking at the donkey. It's both. If he had said the other way around, if he had said, It's like the well looking at the donkey,

[40:25]

he would have said, You got 80%. You really only got half, but half's really very good, so he gave him 80%. If he had said, It's like the well looking at the donkey, he said, You got 80%. And the guy says, Well, what do you say? I say, It's like a donkey looking at the well. But from our point of view, it starts with the donkey looking at the well. But the well responds and looks back. And so on. Then the resonance starts being realized. In that way, the Buddha, the true body of Buddha is manifested in this world. So we have our little forms that we do, and without getting tense about it, I hope that we can find a way to do them

[41:36]

with complete sincerity, complete wholeheartedness, and enjoy that relationship we actually have with the Buddha Dharma, so that we really feel, and really realize, and can really verify, and prove, and demonstrate for ourselves and others that the Buddha is here with us. Somebody just came to this talk. I hope you enjoyed the end of it.

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May our intention equally penetrate every being and place.

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