Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] 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.
[00:00:18] We looked at, we just kind of touched, lightly touched, the practice of Sasmith.
[00:00:26] If you remember, Cheng Lu said, before you sit down, generate the wish of great compassion and benefiting all beings, not just moi yourself.
[00:00:41] And then we looked at the Emejuku Kannongyo, which is this dedication and invocation of keeping it in mind, the great Bodhisattva of Compassion, day and night in mind.
[00:00:57] All those hands up there have, have implements to care for, heal, support beings. And I think those hands have little eyes to see what people need.
[00:01:10] Keeping this in mind.
[00:01:12] And today, well, we have kind of a whopper, you know, big whopper of the Avatam Saka Sutra, the Great Flower Adornment Sutra, called the Flower Ornament Scripture goes by many names in translation and been translated up and down Asia and flew over to us.
[00:01:41] The full name in English is something like the Great Extensive Buddha's Flower Adornment Scripture.
[00:01:48] And we're going to focus on just one tiny chapter, but a famous one today, chapter 11.
[00:01:55] It's called purifying Practices and don't let that freak you out. But it's also called Pure Conduct.
[00:02:03] I'll talk about purity just a tiny bit, but always from the stance of non dualism.
[00:02:12] So this is not a kind of purity that shames what we talk about in Buddhism. It's a purity that liberates.
[00:02:20] So this collection, I've always, you know, many times I've thought, what's up with this?
[00:02:30] Like, how did this come to be?
[00:02:33] Who was writing this?
[00:02:36] By candlelight or oil lamp or, you know, together with many people tripping on some kind of hallucinogen. I don't know, I don't know. Nobody seems to know.
[00:02:50] But it seems to have found its way, you know, from India, you know, maybe 500 or so years after Buddha's birthday.
[00:03:01] So like, I don't know, 2,000 years ago, I don't know, long time ago.
[00:03:06] And then it got sort of crafted over time, and then it plopped down here like a spaceship, you know, it landed in our laps thanks to the great translator Thomas Cleary, who many people will argue with. But he's written something in this translation that inspires many people, even if it's not always to the letter.
[00:03:33] Maybe that's my middle name. Not always to the letter.
[00:03:36] Little, little deviation.
[00:03:39] Always from a Non dual perspective, I hope, but can never fully achieve.
[00:03:47] So this is about embodying the awareness and activity and action and relational qualities of someone called a great Bodhisattva or a being who awakens for the benefit of all.
[00:04:05] This whole thing is about that. It's a Bodhisattva Training Manual, Part 0001. Like, it's just a tiny little droplet of teachings that support awakening for the benefit of all beings.
[00:04:23] There's some other good ones that are like smaller whoppers, that are available, that are teachings given to us, and we make it alive in our own practice with each other today.
[00:04:39] So that's my little preamble. It appeared in China around the 5th century in translation.
[00:04:48] And, you know, this flower garland, you know, I think of like a Hawaiian lay, you know, like flowers strung together. But these flowers are adornments of Buddhist teachings. And these flowers are flowers that recede and grow on our cushions.
[00:05:06] And when they grow on your Christian, somebody like Hogetsu comes along and snips them and puts them on the altar.
[00:05:13] Something like that.
[00:05:16] So coincidentally, soon, but maybe not soon enough for you, we will celebrate Buddha's birthday, which is known as serendipitously. And this wasn't planned by me, but as the flower festival, Hanamatsuri in Japanese, in Japan.
[00:05:37] And it's celebrated in different ways all over the place. But we, in our family style, we celebrate Buddha's coming into the world, awakening, being birthed every moment with flowers.
[00:05:55] So, you know, you saw us fussing around, several of us hovering around the altar, putting flowers on there. There's some flowers from the garden, some of those hyacinths, I forget. But anyway, from. Do you know what those are, Wade? Those white ones, Their hyacinths, right? Yeah, just senior moment here.
[00:06:17] But those. Those come from the garden. They're very fragrant. The other flowers were offerings from Jewel, the jewel store down the road. Not to be confused with the other jewels in the jeweled necklace of the Buddhist teachings, which are also symbols of the wonderful adornments of the Buddha.
[00:06:43] And these flowers, you know, represent blessings, blessings of gratitude for the Dharma. And this isn't Dharma or teaching, just limited, in my opinion, to Shakyamuni Buddha. But the Dharma, the teachings we offer each other from being in community, the teachings of this native land that were supported by and of many places that help us return to our true nature, remember who we really are, despite who people might have told us we are or who we tell ourselves we are.
[00:07:21] These are flowers of homecoming.
[00:07:24] They also traditionally represent unique Buddhist practices.
[00:07:29] So in this vast world of emptiness, the phenomenal world, flowers expressing Buddha nature, Buddha ness.
[00:07:39] And so they represent this splendor of the phenomenal world from the viewpoint of boundless non duality.
[00:07:48] So it's just fine to experience wonder, joy and splendor.
[00:07:54] Now look at these beautiful, you know, adornments we have at this little old Chicago 2 flat.
[00:08:03] It's okay to experience that even kind of good, but don't crave it or grasp it the minute you want more or less of it, of anything kind of stuck, stuck in quicksand.
[00:08:21] So the flowerful joy of Buddhist teachings and practices is not graspable. They're not graspable.
[00:08:31] But our practice is to offer adornments and blessings to all beings to free them from suffering.
[00:08:38] And of course we're included in that all being category.
[00:08:43] So I think it's really quite nice to open up this flower adornment avatansaka teaching today on Buddha's birthday that Bodhi likes it, who gets who likes it.
[00:08:56] And you know, our practice in this cloud, on this ground, in this assembly is a Bodhisattva flower garland. Isn't this wild how we're like all sort of in this garlandy shape, can't quite make a circle online, but I can imagine this oval, oval.
[00:09:21] And I think that I will never be able to appreciate how much these teachings of the Flower Ornament Flower Adornment Sutra influences our family style of Soto Zen practice and the philosophy, the massive philosophy of Hua Yan, or Flower Ornament teachings are baked into almost everything. We do remember that verse, the unsurpassed, profound and wondrous dharma said to originate from Empress Wu in China, in Japan, the seventh century, as she was being taught the Flower Ornament Sutra and had a teacher who was a Y N teacher, she spoke these words of praise for that teaching.
[00:10:16] This has 39 books.
[00:10:19] And you know, every one is a cornucopia of different paths, practices and meditative awarenesses available to Bodhisattvas starting from like pre bodhisattvas, maybe all the way up to like level 10. It's like video game. You level up your Bodhisattva game, but just the fact that you're here is already enough Bodhisattva practice. So this book 11 has a setting assembly of Bodhisattva peoples listening and all sorts of celestial people. And whatever shows up, I guess, is listening to the Buddha teach at some kind of like cosmic site of awakening. The Bodhi Manda, which is the site of awakening. But this Bodhi manda in this book exists as some kind of multiverse. You know, it's all over the place, everywhere, all at once. Buddha's teaching to these assemblies.
[00:11:23] So it already asks us to imagine and go beyond our limited thinking.
[00:11:29] I'm not saying it asks us to believe in some woo woo stuff, but I think this encouragement to be like, no, things aren't quite what I always think they are with my grasping brain already invites us to do that.
[00:11:43] So what's happening at the beginning of this is the Great Bodhisattva of Wisdom, Manjushri, who usually sits on our altar on a lion, but is hanging out someplace else right now because we have baby Buddha. The altar gets crowded. But Manjushri, the Great Bodhisattva of Wisdom, is in conversation with another bodhisattva called Chief in Knowledge, Chief Chief Knowledge, or Foremost in Wisdom.
[00:12:13] And they're. They're continuing a conversation that they had a previous chapter.
[00:12:19] And I love the fluidity in this sutra. You know, at one minute there's Buddha, but then somebody else is.
[00:12:26] Is kind of Buddha. And then they switch roles and somebody else's asking questions and answering this kind of fluxy thing. This Dharma inquiry between Manjushri and this Chief in Knowledge, and this is unparalleled, ironically, will be.
[00:12:45] She's. So we'll have a dharma inquiry ceremony for Shiseau Jerry, and we'll be able to ask her questions just like what goes on in this sutra. So I'm going to read the beginning because I think it's great to think about the context of this. And it begins with a page and a half of questions from Just to get warmed up, you know, it says, then the Bodhisattva Chief in Knowledge ask Bodhisattva Manjushri, how can Bodhisattvas attain faultless physical, verbal and mental action?
[00:13:24] How can they attain harmless physical, verbal and mental action?
[00:13:30] How can they attain blameless physical, verbal and mental action?
[00:13:37] How can they attain vulnerable physical, verbal, verbal and mental action?
[00:13:43] I'll just stop and comment here by being completely vulnerable, completely open.
[00:13:50] But the questions go on.
[00:13:53] You know, how can they attain unpolluted physical, verbal and mental action?
[00:14:01] How can they attain physical, verbal and mental action that's guided by wisdom?
[00:14:06] How can they attain birth in appropriate places among good people, physically complete with full mindfulness, understanding, completeness in conduct, fearlessness and awareness?
[00:14:20] It's already kind of saying, think about who you hang out with and who might support this kind of way of being.
[00:14:32] I'm fast forwarding a little bit, but I'll just say some more.
[00:14:39] How can they attain skill in analyzing the psychophysical elements and organs, skill in analyzing interdependent origination, skill in analyzing the realms of desire, form and formlessness, and skill in understanding the past, present and future?
[00:15:02] And then it goes on to say some things kind of familiar to us, to some of us at least. How can they attain emptiness, signlessness, and wishlessness?
[00:15:14] This is, of course, almost like semiotics or something, but like, you know, not being stuck in our ideas and concepts and reification of things.
[00:15:29] That's just one quick gloss.
[00:15:33] And here's another. How can they fulfill the means of transcendence, generosity, precepts, patience or tolerance, effort or energy, meditation and wisdom? So these are the six parmitas. I think you'll recognize these.
[00:15:51] And then they come to how can they fulfill kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity? These are the four measurables, the Brahma Viharas, sort of loving, kindness, practice.
[00:16:05] That's what they're referring to here, is kindness.
[00:16:09] I love this one. How can they attain the power of knowledge and what is so and what is not?
[00:16:16] The power of knowledge of the consequences of past, present and future acts.
[00:16:23] How can they always gain protection and support of celestial kings, dragon kings, et cetera?
[00:16:31] How can they be a reliance, a support, and a supreme benefactor for all sentient beings? So this question's, you know, and I've kind of edited a lot of it, but it's like, teach me. There's already somebody who's been practicing, you know, incalculable eons.
[00:16:54] And Manjushri says, to Chief and knowledge, excellent child of Buddha, you've asked this out of the desire to benefit many, to bring peace to many, out of care for the world, to gladden celestial and human beings. And celestial might mean like tree spirits or star spirits or moon spirits, I don't know.
[00:17:22] So that they can remain on the path of the Buddhas of past, present and future, cut off all evil and fulfill all good.
[00:17:32] And then he ends with, so how? How can they use their minds so as to attain all supreme sublime qualities?
[00:17:43] So that's Manjushri bringing forth that question, right?
[00:17:49] And what follows are pages of four line verses called gatas that are these verses of basically wishing well being to all, loving kindness to all. But we actually now, I brought the official Soto Shoe Manual just to show you how baked in these are these verses.
[00:18:14] So remember this gatha that we chanted given to us by Empress Wu who's kind of Avatamsaka. Adjacent was four lines. It's a very common way. But here are lines from the sutra itself.
[00:18:31] I take refuge in Buddha.
[00:18:34] May all beings embody the great way resolving to awaken.
[00:18:40] I take refuge in Dharma. May all living beings enter the teachings.
[00:18:46] Wisdom like an ocean.
[00:18:49] I take refuge in Sangha or community.
[00:18:52] May all beings support harmony in the community for free from hindrance. Is that familiar to anyone? Where does that come from? Where do you hear this?
[00:19:03] So when we.
[00:19:05] When we.
[00:19:06] Somebody else have. What did you say? The morning we chanted?
[00:19:11] Yeah, so we chanted. We begin our service on Mondays with the repentance verse, and then we chant the refugees.
[00:19:19] Did you have a comment, Wade?
[00:19:21] So I take refuge in Buddha bong before all beings, immersing body and mind deeply in the way. Ding. Awakening true mind. We also chant it when we chant, when we do the Bodhisattva precept remembrance ceremony. It's a slightly different translation.
[00:19:46] And I like the Soto shoes because we say before all beings, but this is may all beings, and it's just slightly different in this sutra. Let's see what they have to say.
[00:19:58] But it's, you know, may all beings this wish that no matter what we're doing, offering incense, stepping into the sendo, changing a diaper, baking cake, interacting with a computer, it is all this blessing and offering.
[00:20:19] That's the Bodhisattva practice.
[00:20:22] That's a different mind state, right, Than like yelling at somebody when they cut you off on the road.
[00:20:30] Unless you offer that. The benefit of all beings.
[00:20:34] Sincerely? Completely.
[00:20:36] I'm sorry, but I need to say this to you to get your attention.
[00:20:40] Get out of my way. Something like that. But I'm sticky. Got away from it.
[00:20:49] So I say this because we chant and we sometimes we chant very little here, but when we do some of these things repetitively, chants and verses, we often don't know where they come from. But how. You know, we think Dogen is the only source of Soto Zen. But it's so vast and amazing, and the sutra is so vast and amazing.
[00:21:13] So I was just going to look and see what they say about the.
[00:21:20] Oh, yeah.
[00:21:22] Here the verse is translated. Taking refuge in Buddha. They should wish that all beings.
[00:21:29] So this other translation is may all beings.
[00:21:34] This is a Bodhisattva, should wish, should desire, should vow. You could say that all beings continue the lineage of the Buddhas, conceiving the unexcelled aspiration.
[00:21:47] Then it goes on and says, taking refuge in Dharma or taking refuge in the teachings. They should wish that all beings enter deeply into the scriptures and their wisdom be as deep as the sea.
[00:22:02] So like, that all beings includes someone who might not appear to have much wisdom at this point, like maybe somebody running our country, but we still wish. May they enter deeply into the true teaching and may their wisdom be as deep as the sea. Taking refuge in the community.
[00:22:22] Bodhisattvas should wish that all beings order the masses.
[00:22:29] That's an interesting phrase. All becoming free from obstruction.
[00:22:34] So that's helping people get it together. That's how I would getting together people.
[00:22:41] And then this goes on, you know, and on and on. And I don't want to bore you and I know everybody wants to offer some flowers to the baby Buddha and drip some water on his beautiful head, but it just goes on like when entering the meditation hall.
[00:23:02] Bodhisattva should wish that all beings cause all good principles to bloom and see their true character sitting up straight in zazen.
[00:23:15] They should wish that all beings sit on the seat of enlightenment, their minds without attachment, sitting cross legged or in a chair or on a cushion. They should wish that all beings have firm and strong roots of goodness and attain the state of immovability.
[00:23:36] This is not a state that you don't move during zazen, but when you move, it's the movement of benefiting all beings without disturbing a speck of dust.
[00:23:48] And it goes on when putting on your clothes, when going to the toilet. They should wish that all beings reject greed, hate and delusion and clean away evil.
[00:24:01] When taking up a bowl could be the begging bowl.
[00:24:04] They should wish that all beings perfect the vessel of truth.
[00:24:09] Seeing ugly people.
[00:24:12] They should wish that all beings be able to know the blessings of the Buddha and enlightening beings.
[00:24:19] Seeing good looking people.
[00:24:21] They should wish that all beings always have pure faith in the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
[00:24:27] If they see a king, they should wish that all beings become kings of the truth, always expounding beneficial, upright teaching.
[00:24:39] Seeing people with conscience.
[00:24:43] They should wish that all beings act with distinction. I think they mean with modesty and cover their organs.
[00:24:51] That's interesting.
[00:24:53] So this, you know, is really pretty amazing.
[00:24:58] And soon we're going to circumambulate.
[00:25:01] And it says circling the shrine or the stupa. They should wish that all beings act without offense and attained perfect wisdom.
[00:25:14] Circling this shrine or stupa thrice.
[00:25:19] They should wish that all beings diligently see the Buddha's path without indolence of mind.
[00:25:26] So this purification is about what our minds and attention and awareness, what Is the shape, state and color of that you might see, say, think of your mind when you contemplate things like this, when you go to sleep and when you wake up, when you interact with a device, when you talk to your partner or to the grocery store person, support person, when you walk your dog and think of other options.
[00:26:00] When our mind is filled with a lack of abundance and fear and delusion.
[00:26:10] This says, you know, when going to sleep at night.
[00:26:15] These bodhisattvas should wish that all beings attain physical ease and undisturbed minds and just, you know, oops.
[00:26:25] You can see there's a lot going on.
[00:26:28] This book's been seen better days.
[00:26:31] But just to read a couple more that are the verses.
[00:26:39] So this is when you live in a monastic setting. There's signs around like, you go to the bathhouse. If people have been to Tassajara, go to the bathhouse. You take your shoes off and you offer incense.
[00:26:53] And there's a little picture of monks bathing. It's a great story of monks being enlightened in the bathhouse.
[00:27:01] But this, this verse that you chant, you offer incense and it is bathing the body.
[00:27:07] May all living beings be clean in body and mind, pure and shining within and without.
[00:27:16] So every day and you go could have a little altar by your bathroom.
[00:27:21] And before you step into the shower, wish that holding the toothbrush.
[00:27:28] May all living beings attain the true dharma and be naturally pure and clean.
[00:27:35] Brushing teeth in the morning. I vow with all beings to care for my teeth that bite through afflictions.
[00:27:45] Washing the face.
[00:27:47] I vow with all beings to attain the pure Dharma gate and be forever undefiled by my selfishness and my pettiness and my tendency that's in the body to divide everything into binaries or this and that, useful or not, I want to just not have that anymore.
[00:28:10] Wash that down the sink and. And the great earth will compost it for us.
[00:28:15] But I'm just wanted to give you a little bit of a taste of how deeply this is embedded in our practice in Sodo Zen and also offer it as a possibility for you during the practice commitment period.
[00:28:34] We've been gifted by Kelly and if you haven't gotten one yet, if you're in the practice period, these beautiful journals, handmade.
[00:28:44] Isn't that amazing? This is like an adornment on our practice period. And the Shu Sew and Benji are distributing them.
[00:28:53] So.
[00:28:54] Too late to sign up though. Maybe. Maybe let a couple squeakers in. Maybe.
[00:28:59] But we have, we have. We can make our own verses up, our own Gothas 4 line, 20 line, 1 line, 1 word and practice them every day. I would suggest starting with when you wake up in the morning and then when you go to sleep. Those are great times that your mind is a little open.
[00:29:21] And just one more. Oh yeah, I would just want to finish this, maybe with reading from this.
[00:29:28] By the way, there were people at Ancient Dragon reading the sutra aloud with each other every Friday, once a month for years. And they just finished it. Right? David Ray, did you do that?
[00:29:40] Yeah. So they finished it, but I've never finished it.
[00:29:46] I mean, I've read it.
[00:29:48] Huh.
[00:29:49] Yeah, I was going to say, I just keep starting over and now I'm studying it with a teacher where if we get through three paragraphs per session, that's a lot.
[00:30:02] But this says child of Buddha, this is how it ends. If enlightening beings, bodhisattvas, that means us. If we use our minds in this way, we will have supremely wonderful qualities which cannot be dislodged by gods, demons, monks, Brahmins, beasts, or any other religious fanatics or ice or. Or whoever.
[00:30:31] So this is a powerful practice too, and encourages us to own our wholeness, goodness and agency and also our humility.
[00:30:45] So thank you very much for listening to all this.
[00:30:49] Some things are going to happen in a minute. Isn't this beautiful? Like the Soto shoe. See how they bind these books and they're like this accordions, you know, adorned.
[00:31:03] So sadly, I think we'll just not have any discussion so we can get the show on the road and.
