Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: For more information on Ancient Dragon Zen Gate, please visit our website at www.ancientdragon.org. our teachings are offered to the community through the generosity of our supporters. To make a donation online, please visit our website.
Welcome.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: Dale's here.
Hope you're okay.
[00:00:23] Speaker A: Good.
So day two of our Hatsu, and I think everyone knows that we're honoring and extending Shakyamuni Buddha's awakening under the wonderful Bodhi tree, the generous Bodhi tree.
Somebody told me that they loved trees yesterday, that trees love them back.
This entire Sashin is an awakening ceremony.
Actually, I could really feel that yesterday and this morning, as we're settling, devoting ourselves to this practice.
Actually, you know, our entire dragon community, our entire Sangha, is becoming a ceremonial practice, coming together to continue the Buddha way in this time, in this place, in this moment.
This evening, we'll have a ceremony to commemorate the death of Suzuki Roshi Shinryu. Suzuki Roshi, who died on December 4, 1971, 54 years ago.
Some of you were even born then, so we can feel whatever we feel. But I would.
I feel gratitude for Suzuki Roshi's great practice and how it sprouts here in Chicago. You'd probably be very surprised to hear that.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: And here at Sachin, there are many, many small ceremonies every day.
Just moving through this entryway, crossing into the threshold of the zendo with your left foot, taking a couple steps into the Sendo and joining your palms together ceremony.
Every time we do this ceremonial threshold crossing into the zendo, we join with everyone who's ever entered this place of practice.
It takes a long time. When you feel your foot on the ground of this carpet, this ancient carpet that's so lovingly been vacuumed incessantly by our Eno and others.
Despite the vacuuming, we're leaving an imprint on this world in this dragon place of practice.
And everyone crossing that threshold is embodying their bodhichitta, their vow, your vow to become enlightened, completely enlightened, for the benefit of all beings in the great Earth.
Even if you're not aware of it, even if you don't even think you're doing it.
There's an imprint.
Some awakening rituals are obvious, like Sitting Zazen or last night's Bodhisattva ceremony, or even offering and receiving food.
Somehow, Artenzo, I saw him making some biscuits or something like that.
I was like, I wonder if he's going to make it down.
But this is. He's.
He's, you know, embodying a ritual of biscuit making to feed us.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: So as you settle into sasheen, consider each moment, each breath is wholeness and is verifying all life.
And look to see if there's even a shred of grasping or is it lacking that?
What is your breath celebrating?
Is it celebrating grasping or just breath as it is?
So last night we started our evening chanting of the Dharma Chakra Parvatana Sutra, the Turning of the Wheel Sutra discourse said to be the first discourse by the Buddha. As with anything that happened in the past, it's up for debate, but that's typically how this teaching is understood.
I've heard that Theravada monks chant it every single day in Pali. Isn't that nice?
So we get to do it for three more days if we're lucky.
This teaching, this particular discourse, as I think all of Buddha's teaching is just encouraging us, giving us a way, pointing to something.
[00:05:21] Speaker A: About considering, what is my body, speech and mind enacting or celebrating right now?
Is it delusion and suffering, or is it reality and liberation or somewhere in between or not stuck to any of it.
So as I said yesterday, throughout this Sachin, there's going to be some storytelling of Buddha's experience and teaching after awakening.
However, those are just stories.
I think it's also good to focus on your story, paying attention to your own experience and taking responsibility for your own practice.
How do you own your practice and take responsibility for it without grasping or ego obsession? I mean, someone is doing something, someone's sitting on a cushion on your cushion and it's you.
But investigate that for this Sacheen I've been.
[00:06:31] Speaker A: Just really enjoying. So I want to thank everyone.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: For offering me this opportunity to bliss out on Buddha's life story and early teachings and modern Theravadan commentaries.
You know, in Zen, sometimes people are like, oh, those Theravadans, you know, they're kind of navel gazing, self involved, trying to liberate themselves for themselves and us. You know, Mahayana people were the real Bodhisattvas. But the more I read them, the more I'm like, there's no difference.
And they're pretty amazing in their insight and generous devotion to the Buddha way. So interesting how same, same teaching is just echoing all over the place in all of these writings.
And one thing that I was struck by in almost every one of these books I've been rereading or even looking up for the first time, was that these modern Theravadan practitioners keep saying things like, you know, each person is responsible for their own practice and for their own Awakening Buddha encouraged each person to be a refuge unto themselves.
Quoting Buddha's words, you should do your own work, for the Tathagatas only teach the way.
You have to live it.
So the Tathagatas point to this continuous circle of the way, but each of us uniquely walks that way.
But be careful not to grasp onto that way and think, it's only my way, you know.
Remember, my mind is flashing with Sid Vicious singing My way, you know, I did it my way, you know, and it's such a perfect example.
I think it was even wearing, like, a hat with an American flag on it. But maybe that's just bad memory.
Ah, what is your way?
I pray that we will all keep learning that endlessly.
So, as I mentioned, Buddha had some reluctance to teach after awakening.
Some say he said these words, the ambrosial Dharma I obtained is profound, immaculate, luminous, and unconditioned.
Even if I explain it, no one will understand.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: No one will understand me.
I think I shall remain silent in the forest.
That which is free from words cannot be understood through words.
Likewise, the nature of phenomena is like space, totally free from movements of mind and intellect.
But fortunately, despite the reluctance, people noticed something different about Buddha after awakening. Kind of noticed it coming on before, kind of like a cold or something. People could sense that Buddha started to glow and, you know, gave. Brought some food. There's a lot of food involved in Buddhism. Actually.
You know, a woman saw him sitting, and it was like, wow, let me offer some food.
And then after awakening, a couple people described as merchants, local merchants, walked by and saw something different, and they actually immediately took refuge and then offered Donna food.
Isn't that great? So, you know, Buddha must have had some charisma, Riz.
You know, people notice this, and I feel a sweetness that often the people who recognize Buddha first were lay people, and they nourished and supported Buddha before and after awakening.
However, Buddha did have these five friends, five fellow, say, colleagues.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: And as you recall, they had started out practicing together these ascetic practices that were common at the time and seen as the path to awakening.
You know, like lots of times people come to Sachin and are like, I'm gonna, you know, sleep on the ground and not take a shower and, you know, eat one grain of rice or something like that.
Some people do that, actually.
Remember I went to a sachine and somebody was like, please shower during sachine.
[00:11:34] Speaker A: I was like, you know, people around you used to not shower. They thought that was better. But please do that, you know, stink up the zendo. I Was like, wow.
That was a hint that maybe the aesthetic way wasn't ours. Even though, you know, such sashines can seem very severe on the outside.
And anyway, they were all, like, roaming around together, practicing these ascetic practices of self mortification, self torment as a way to get rid of the self.
But it seemed not to work very long. Buddha was like, I can't. This doesn't work for me.
I'm gonna try something else.
Those friends were really disappointed. They're like, you're giving up the quest before we're, you know, we get there. Just if we deprive ourselves some more, you know, like, some people are like, I'll be happy if I get more and more of everything, right?
More, you know, more gold toilets or something like that. And so still doesn't seem to work very long.
Other people are like, if I just give everything up, I'll empty my house completely and, you know, never buy anything else.
There used to be these people called breatharians. We won't eat. We'll just breathe. Ever hear these Breatharians? That's a thing.
Buddha was like, I won't breathe. I'll try not to breathe at all. That's a way to get breath enlightened. Didn't work.
But after awakening, Buddha was like. When he finally was like, okay, I guess I'll try teaching.
People are requesting this. I'll try it.
[00:13:19] Speaker A: Because I think I'll go find those friends that abandoned me.
I think they're hanging out at the local deer park.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: Where ascetics hang out.
It's like. It's kind of beautiful image, right? This, like, beautiful place with some deers running around, you know.
[00:13:40] Speaker A: The friends saw him coming, like, oh, this guy's back, you know?
Well, no, he's not on this program.
So they said something like, friends, here comes the ascetic. Gotama, not knowing yet, he was shakina ni Buddha.
Here comes the ascetic who lives in abundance, who's given up his efforts and turned to a life of abundance.
Let us not welcome him or rise when he approaches, or take his robe and bowl, kind of shunning him a bit.
But then they were like, but let's put a seat here.
He will sit if he wishes. So they had some politeness. I'm like, yeah, we have an extra zafu, you know, Buddha wants to sit down.
But the closer Buddha got, they sensed this charisma.
And even though they didn't want to, they took his robe and bowl, you know, I guess that was a polite form of receiving someone like, Taking your coat, take your robe and bowl.
[00:14:48] Speaker A: Somebody even washed his feet. Very big sign of respect in a place where people are running around barefoot.
[00:14:56] Speaker A: And he says to them, you know, wait a minute, I have not given up. As a matter of fact, I am not engaged in indulgence, but I do offer a new way.
And, you know, in some ways, he was kind of like, and I have the authority. I am really enlightened. So he really had this kind of confidence.
And then they listened to this first sermon, this discourse on turning the wheel of Dharma, which we're chanting during this sashin.
The sutra teaches a middle way.
That middle way in parentheses, Eightfold path.
So that's not stuck in extremes of devotion to self mortification or devotion to sense pleasure.
And I had a great conversation with someone about this the other night who said something like, wait, the middle way isn't just some right path through the middle of things.
I'm like, that's right. It's like the path through everything all at once, you know, but it is also the Eiffel Path.
So he addressed this so called group of five.
There are two extremes which should not be followed, friends, by someone who has gone forth.
[00:16:20] Speaker A: Devotion to pursuing sense pleasure, which produces no useful result, and devotion to self denial, which is like self beating, which also produces no useful result.
Avoiding both these extremes, friends, the middle way leads to peace, profound understanding, and full realization.
So four noble truths.
You all know what they are.
Anybody want to recite them?
Numero uno?
[00:16:59] Speaker A: Suffering.
Suffering exists.
Big deal.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: Right?
We all know this on some level.
Number two, that's number three.
[00:17:14] Speaker A: Can make it worse.
Yeah, that's great. I don't think that was exactly Buddha, but it said there's a cause of suffering, which is this excessive craving and grasping. But that's how it's made worse, right? Like there's actually this term dukkha, dukkha, which is like everyday suffering, life, death, we don't always get what we want, et cetera. But then it gets revved up by a lot of other things.
Okay, so the third, yeah, there's a way out.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: And then the fourth, of course, is the way out, the path of cultivation, so to speak.
[00:17:56] Speaker A: And, you know, we don't speak this in these terms in Zen directly often, but they're implied and they're woven into. And they are the basis for all of Zen.
So I think it's nice to go back to them sometimes.
And the flavor's different in this old way, maybe, but it's the same business.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: And that first one is to really know suffering, like we know suffering, but to really know it, to know dissatisfaction, to know unease, to know grasping fully, and then to know you have to know something before you can let it go.
No, it's like a relationship, like a relationship that ends, that's really unsettled, is harder to let go of that one that you completely realize wasn't the right thing.
Sorry.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: So Zen, our Zazen is about becoming more and more and more intimate with suffering and open and kind to it, not grasping it.
And the Eightfold Path is just kind of a way of life, a way to live.
And it's kind of nice because it's, I want to say, kind of generic. Like you can apply it pretty much to almost any situation.
[00:19:32] Speaker A: And of course there are many takes on the philosophy and theory of how to do it.
But it's said that the conditions for practicing this way, this middle way that has no middle.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: There'S an internal condition which is wise attention, AKA maybe zazen, a kind of condition of honest self awareness to internally paying attention to how the eye sees something, wants to grab onto it, and then starts to make a whole story, for example, a story of wanting more or less a different vision or a better one, or I want to hold onto this one forever.
So we have this internal condition of paying this attention to our internal experience and how it works.
The other condition is an external one, which is spiritual friendship.
[00:20:39] Speaker A: Being around good friends to support this practice. So it really feels to me like we're in a great situation to practice the Eightfold Path. We're in this session, we can pay attention, everything's supporting that externally, but internally we have some skill that we're developing to support that.
And we have good friends.
Everybody here is on the program, even if they appear not to be.
Isn't that a relief to be around people who actually, like, are sharing this desire to awaken for the benefit of all beings and willing to do some work to do that, to move towards that.
And even then you'll find, you know, some reason to get frustrated with each other.
[00:21:31] Speaker A: That person didn't do, oh, the computer doesn't work. Or, you know, or you'll be like, oh, that person's so great, I want to sit next to them forever.
This is what we watch.
This awakening teaching of the Eightfold Path is often represented by eight spokes on a wheel.
The wheel. This is the wheel. So it's really great. I love Buddhist imagery, early Buddhist imagery, you know, the wheel.
And then often there's like a couple deer perched next to it from the Deer Park.
So you can remember these things?
No, this wasn't written down for centuries after Buddha lived. So they used images and repetition to carry this teaching. Think of all the people who did that, memorize these teachings, carved beautiful wheels with deer sitting next to them or Buddha's footprints, the imprint before they could actually show the face of Buddha.
That's amazing.
So each spoke on the wheel is part of a wholeness.
So it's not like I do this right and I do this right. It's this whole wheel, continuous circle.
You know, somebody sometimes rakasus have those wooden circles.
And I once asked a priest, I said, what does that mean?
He said, oh, that means enlightenment. Somebody who's Japanese said, like, they don't have any problem telling it like it is.
But I thought, oh, yeah, that circle's also the wheel of Dharma, the Eightfold Path.
This is an integrated, aligned whole way of living.
So the middle way is in between two things.
It's a way of living.
[00:23:30] Speaker A: Motoring around the world.
And it's a new way, maybe a third way, a liberated way, not stuck to inside, outside, or in between.
This is.
This is this way that's without clinging and attachment and craving, where there's none of it.
So in this sutra, it says something like this middle way that a Buddha has awakened to gives vision, insight, knowledge, and leads to peace and profound understanding.
This is this way, this alignment and integration.
Light shines everywhere.
So, you know, just to review, one way to think about the Eightfold Path is in three sections.
So nice, you know, have these, like, pretty easy things to remember as opposed to all these, like, Chinese koans and teaching stories that are burdensome.
But you can think of one group as wisdom prajna. So there's these three divisions, right prajna, wisdom, sila, conduct, ethical conduct, and samadhi, meditation or concentration.
And so right view or right understanding, right intention.
That's the wisdom category, the insight into reality category.
Then there's kind of this practical of how do we act and live with other people and impact others.
That's the ethical Sheila part. Right speech, right action, right livelihood.
This is all here, so you can check it out or talk to ChatGPT, which has been very helpful just to a few people I've been talking to lately.
And the last group is these cultivation practices that fall under the meditation or samadhi category.
Right effort or diligence, mindfulness and concentration.
So I just feel there's a lot of this, these eight sets of practices going on here in this assembly of people called Ancient Dragon on the second day of Rahatsu Sashin.
[00:26:03] Speaker A: So this is this Eightfold path. Again, just to say it is not motivated by the divisiveness of greed, hate and delusion, clinging, craving, all those suspects.
It's motivated by wholeness and caring and not knowing.
[00:26:27] Speaker A: So I'm almost out of time, so I better go to the end.
At the very end of this sutra, at the very end, someone else wakes up in the audience, believe it or not, you know.
[00:26:47] Speaker A: And.
[00:26:49] Speaker A: So.
[00:26:52] Speaker A: Maybe they serve some coffee, I'm not sure.
But said while this discourse was being delivered, an untarnished and clear insight into the Dhamma arose in the Venerable Kandana.
Thus this is in Kandana's consciousness, which the Buddha saw with the magical Buddha eye. Whatever has the nature to arise has the nature to cease.
And then it goes.
And then when the wheel of Dharma or Dharma had been set rolling by the Buddha, the devas of the earth raised a cry.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: Then Buddha uttered the great exclamation. Truly, it is the good Kandana who has understood. What a relief the Buddha must have felt. Somebody gets it and also even extended the teaching. Like Buddha didn't talk about arising and ceasing of states earlier in this teaching.
Ah.
And you know, Kundana apparently had been a Brahmin scholar of Vedic texts and before he became an ascetic in Kapalavastu. Right? Buddha was born in Kapalavastu in Buddha's hometown, apparently working in Buddha's family situation, and became the Buddha's personal attendant afterwards, before Ananda did.
[00:28:19] Speaker A: But Kandana, in this very first listening to this person, that he was quite skeptical of, right? He's like Spuddas indulging himself.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: Still listened, had the ability to listen, and seemed to have gotten that some of the roots of suffering is impermanence of conditions.
And it was only after that that Buddha's like the wheels rolling, folks.
[00:28:50] Speaker A: And I'll also say that it's interesting that Buddha brings forth this teaching in community with other people.
It's great that he sits on his cushion, but it becomes realized in relationship and in community.
And he didn't say, oh, that Kandana one upped me.
You know, I didn't say that, didn't argue with him. He just appreciated Condonna's Buddha nature and modeled this appreciation.
So I think it's really wonderful how Shakyamuni Buddha taught, how he related to the people around him and how he. He had to learn.
You know, his teaching expanded, and we're expanding that forward.
So maybe that's enough for me for today, but maybe I'll say one more thing. So I want to share this quote that I've been rolling around with that I think is really cool, too, from this old book called the Golden Age of Zen.
John Wu Douglas knows it. You know, it's like one of the first ones I read was great Tang Dynasty, you know, masters.
But this, this kind of keeps resonating with me. It says now only not only John Wu says not only the sudden perception of truth, but also an unexpected experience of spontaneous goodness can liberate you from your shell of little ego and transport you from the stuffy realm of concepts and categories to the beyond.
Wherever goodness flows, there is Zen.
And I thought, you know, even those disciples saying, well, we'll give this person a seat, you know, help Buddha offer this to us.
So that's, that's enough then for me. So I want to thank everyone very much.
As you know, there's no time for discussion at tea, so.
