When Suzuki Roshi was a young monk in Eheji Monastery, their teacher was named Kumara...no, Kumazawa. Kumazawa, which means bear swamp. And he was giving a lecture during a session one time, and he said that a sparrow landed on a torii gate. And the word for sparrow in Japanese is tori.

[01:11]

So a tori landed on a tori gate and broke it. Niwa tori. Niwa means a garden. Niwa tori means a garden sparrow. That's what they call chickens. At that time that that story was told, all the monks there in the monastery were... you know, seriously concentrating, and they just listened to that. And later, Suzuki Roshi understood that that was a joke.

[02:16]

He told us about that when he was 65. when Susie Gershwin was 65, and he said, now he understands that it was really very funny, very, very funny. But when he was a boy, he didn't understand that it was funny. None of the monks understood the joke. There's a pun in it, as you can see, right? A torii landing on a torii. And then it's also come somewhat strange that a little bird could break a big gate. But I don't quite understand myself why it's so funny. And I also don't quite understand why Suzuki Roshi brought it up at that time. He brought it up during a sashin. And so he brought up a story that he didn't understand was funny, and we didn't understand it was funny, and we didn't understand why he brought it up.

[03:30]

What? Yeah, maybe, yeah. It's possible. And yesterday I talked about, I told the story about the elephant and the butterfly. And... I really appreciate that somebody made elephant cookies today. That was very nice. Pardon? If you bite it right. I wasn't sure if those were elephants. Were they elephants? Really? Really? It's also not only do we have the story about the elephant and the elephant cookies, but also the elephant is what Samantabhadra, Samantabhadra bodhisattva rides an elephant.

[04:41]

Manjushri rides a lion. This bodhisattva of transcendent insight rides a lion, sits on a lion. And Avalokiteshvara, what does Avalokiteshvara sit on? Huh? A lion with one horn? Sometimes Avalokiteshvara rides a peacock Sometimes. Peacocks have those tails, you know, with all those eyes sort of on the end of the feathers. Just now as I was walking out of the house, Rissa, Rissa the Chu, said that a man was just acquitted by a jury, by a grand jury.

[06:13]

They refused to indict him for holding doctors and policemen at bay with a handgun while he disconnected his 15-month-old baby son from the life support system. And with the gun in one hand, he held the baby in the other while it died in his arms. One of our ancestors Our dear ancestor Yun Yen, we chant his name in the morning, Ungan Donjo Dayo Sho, he asked his Dharma brother, Da Wu, why does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion, or not why, how does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion use

[07:21]

Or what does a bodhisattva of great compassion use all those eyes and arms for? Avalokiteshvara has often, you know, a thousand arms and in the palm of each arm is an eye. I mean, the palm of each hand of each arm is an eyeball. So he said, what does he use them for? And Dawu said, it's like reaching behind or reaching back for a pillow in the middle of the night. This is about not so much how to give rise to the inspiration to benefit all beings.

[08:36]

This is more once you're already in the saddle, so to speak, once you've already committed yourself to the work of trying to help all living beings, then how do you How do you express, how do you act this infinite, this vow of compassion? How do you do it? Well, it's like reaching behind your head for a pillow in the middle of the night. We can work this metaphor too far, probably, but still, there's a lot there to think about how you do such a thing.

[09:47]

When you reach for a pillow in the night, well, I shouldn't say how it is when you do it, actually. I don't know how you do it, but Maybe the way I do it is when I reach for it, of course, I don't know where it is. I have no fixed idea about where the pillow is. Yet I am reaching for it. If you're a baby and you're coming out of your mother's uterus and you're coming down the birth canal, at that time, how do you reach for your pillow?

[12:20]

Occasionally some babies, I guess, are sort of, they get kind of, sometimes do they have their hands above their head sometimes? Does that happen? This is rather dangerous, right? Usually their arms are down against their body, squished against their body. You don't need to have arms to reach for a pillow, necessarily, this kind of reaching that Avalokiteshvara is doing. When a baby is in the birth canal, the contractions are moving the baby along. to get down the birth canal, as far as I know.

[13:32]

It's moved along by the circumstances of the contractions in the canal. The pressure is pushing the baby out. Circumstances are delivering the child into another realm. The baby does not know where it's going, and yet it is reaching, moment by moment, reaching for a new life, for a new way of living. It can't do anything, and yet what it is doing I mean, it is alive. It is living. But its life is very circumscribed by the circumstances.

[14:35]

Can a baby like that be the Avalokiteshvara? Is the baby reaching for a pillow in the middle of the night as it's being delivered, moment by moment, by all circumstances of its life, with the entire universe acting on it through its mother's body? And through its body, I propose that we, each of us in our present state, are being delivered and moved along by circumstances.

[15:40]

And if I make too strong a statement, then I myself contradict everything I'm saying. When a great bodhisattva is born in this world, it is born in this way.

[17:53]

It is delivered through a birth canal, and it can't do much about it. Does it someday start to do something? Yuen Yuen said, yes, it does. It reaches back behind its head, going for a pillow. Can't the bodhisattva of great compassion do something more incisive than that? Don't we expect something a little bit more than that of Avalokiteshvara? Perhaps we do.

[19:04]

I feel in myself and in others a feeling that a bodhisattva of great wisdom and compassion should be able to do more than just reach for a pillow in the dark. or do more than just be pushed down a conveyor belt. However, if a child tries to do more than that, or if a bodhisattva tries to do more than that, because they think they can do more than that, This is called leaking. This is called holding to some view of what you think is helpful rather than studying the mystery.

[20:17]

practicing secretly, working within, like a fool, like an idiot. I'd like to tell you that everything I've said tonight is a joke.

[22:03]

But I really don't understand that myself. So the bodhisattvas clearly, rationally, through words, make a vow to live for the benefit of all beings.

[23:16]

They actually produce a thought. which is a thought of wanting all beings to be really happy. And they are willing, they commit themselves to make unlimited effort for even one being, and then also vow to help all beings. They do that, they think that way. They make that commitment and sign that contract. But when they go to work, they don't know what to do.

[24:30]

except just walk straight ahead with all sentient beings, just walking with them, not doing anything except to stay with that commitment, never abandoning even one. step after step, with each and every living being they walk forward. They don't know what to do. If they know what to do, it's a leak. If they know what to do, they will become wearied and jaded. if they don't know what to do, did I say if they don't know what to do, they become worried and jaded? If they do know what to do, they become worried and jaded.

[25:37]

They will give up that aspiration if they know what to do. If they sit in a chair and assume that it will hold them up, they will become burnt out They walk with sentient beings step after step without assuming that the earth will hold them up, testing each step to see what will happen. And if their partner or partners fall down, they do not reach down and pull them up. Now I say that, but also I don't make that a fixed idea. Of course they can reach down and pick somebody up, but they don't.

[26:43]

Not because they have some idea that they shouldn't, but because they can't. They can't lift another person up because of their vow. Their vow pins their arms against their body and they can't do a single thing. But they are with the person who has fallen. And the fact that they're there is very helpful. They're too stupid to actually help by doing something for somebody else. But as a human being, they're tempted to leak and reach down and help the person up. Then they would be relieved, perhaps temporarily, of the suffering and the pressure that's moving them along until everybody's happy.

[28:03]

But the bodhisattva cannot reach down and help the person up. They only reach behind their head, groping. They wonder, what can I do? And then they say, oh, I can do this. I can do that. But for us bodhisattvas, as young bodhisattvas, it's hard for us to be that helpless and that childlike and that simple. We want to have some sense that we're doing something.

[29:26]

that we're accomplishing some helpfulness, that we can understand. We want this. This is a big mistake. However, even if we make that mistake, it still can be quite helpful. So I don't say don't make any mistakes like that. And when the person that you're walking with falls down and you feel you want to reach down and help them up, Rather than acting out that countertransference, I would suggest trying to understand what it's like down there.

[30:45]

How is it down there? It's close to the ground. You can go down there if you want to. That's okay. Check it out yourself firsthand as an attempt to understand what it's like for them, for her, for him. However, you may be able to understand just as well from standing posture. because it's the attempt to understand that I'm pointing to. But again, even pointing to that, I'm not exactly reaching for the pillow in the dark. So I think that's some talk.

[33:52]

Finally. Can you disagree with me? Is there anything there to get a hold of that you can dislike? What? I think it's extremely concrete and boundlessly helpful to hold hands with another human being and walk through life with them. I think it's incomprehensibly beneficial to become intimate with somebody.

[35:04]

Okay? That's what I'm talking about. And intimate doesn't mean I help you, that you fall down and I pull you up. Intimate's a little bit closer than that. If you don't know how to get up, I don't know how to get up. If I think that I know how to get you up and you don't know how to get up, then we're both, you know, kind of confused about the situation. Yes. Thank you for the word. I really didn't understand what you tried to say. Did you understand something, though, even though you didn't know what I was trying to say?

[36:35]

Not really. I tried. What happened to you? Well, I couldn't make any sense out of what you were saying. Did you try to make sense? Yeah. And you were unsuccessful. Try to make sense? Try to make the message a little bit more clear. I guess my message is that there is a kind of clear vow in Mahayana Buddhism.

[37:57]

It's quite clear. You really want everyone to be happy. Okay? That's very clear. You understand that part? Okay. And then I'm saying That after you make that vow, then to go forward to realize that vow, you don't know how beforehand what to do. You meet people moment by moment, and through the interrelationship with people, you realize your vow. But you do not know what to do to help people. No, like reaching for a pillow. It's not that you're not doing anything. It's just that you don't have a set idea about what to do. You want to save all sentient beings. You want to help everyone. That's definitely what you want to do. But you don't know how.

[38:58]

Exactly. You don't have a fixed way of doing it. You have to with what you can see and hear, but that isn't enough. Because we can only see and hear a little bit of what's going on. So you do something, but it's more like an experiment. Like you say, good morning. You're trying to be helpful and you say, good morning. You're not sure saying good morning is helpful before you say it. But you give it a try. You think maybe saying good morning would be helpful. I'll try it. And you go, good morning. And the person goes, good morning. And you're not sure what happened.

[40:01]

And you say, how is that for you? And they say, I don't know, I'm kind of depressed today. You say, what about? Is that the way you should help the person? Or should you say, you know, what should you do to help that person, to teach that person how to become free? What should you do? You don't know. We just proceed from what we have learned and from what we, from our background and from what has succeeded before, what we felt that succeeded. Even though not trying to get a complete fixed idea, but we proceed in terms of what we did before and seek to work We may proceed according to what we experienced before and what we think will work.

[41:12]

But in this case, what are you trying to work? Are you trying to help people? Okay. Have you ever helped anyone before? How did you know? Did you enlighten anyone? I don't know what's that. Yeah, I don't either. How do you actually make people free? How do you do that? Like me tonight. I'm not being particularly entertaining except for one little moment there. Am I bugging you? Well, maybe I am. I don't know. Am I helping you? I don't know. I guess what I'm trying to do is I'm saying maybe, I'm not trying to be mysterious, but I'm trying to maybe enter into the mystery of a relationship.

[42:31]

Without going into a relationship saying, well, I'm going to do something to fix it, or I'm going to do something to be helpful. And I know what it is. But more, I want to be helpful. I want to help everyone. I want to have a good relationship with people. That's my intention. But I don't know how to do it. I don't know what to do. And I like to go into relationships knowing what to do from my past experience of what was helpful. I'd like to bring my past experience with me. But I'm proposing to you that your past experience will come with you whether you try to bring it with you or not. It will come with you. You don't have to bring it in. So since your past experience will deliver you to where you are and everything that's worked and not worked in your life will be right there, I'm suggesting that since that's all being taken care of, just like a baby being delivered

[43:40]

what the bodhisattva works on is more trying to understand what's going on. Try to find out what's happening beyond his or her eyes and ears. Try to remember that we just live in a little tiny world of our own senses. But that's not the world. That's just our little world. And if we are acting based on our little world, and we know it's just our little world, then it's okay. But then you'd know you're just acting on the basis of your little world, and the chances of it working are, you know, the chances that it would be helpful in the real world. I'll just, you know, throw this up in the air. It doesn't mean I don't do anything.

[44:49]

It's just that I don't know what's going to be helpful. But I want to be helpful. I need to do that. I need to. That's my vow. That's what makes me really feel good is to work for that end. That's what I really believe in. And that's what I'm told all bodhisattvas and all Zen teachers have been concerned with is just helping people. But how do they do it? They don't have a set program. If they do have a set program, some have had set programs, but then they have been taught to let go of their set program and to spend more time listening to others and looking at people and these kinds of things, rather than acting out their own small view. And we can't get rid of our small view.

[45:52]

And we do act from our small view. But we should know that's what we're doing. And not be surprised if someone points out to us that we're totally off. And we don't understand anything about what's going on with them. Because in fact, we can't, we don't know. Is that clearer? Welcome.

[46:27]

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