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, Bodhisattva.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Well, I think without further ado, our dharma teacher, our homegrown Ancient Dragon Dharma teacher, the wonderful Nyozan Erickshat.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: Thank you very much. Hougetsu. Great. So we're recording this. Good morning, everybody. Thank you very much for inviting me and allowing me to speak. I hope everybody's doing well.
There are huge and heartbreaking and terrible things happening in the world every day, every moment at this moment.
What I want to speak about today in this context may seem kind of small.
I don't think it is.
I hope it won't land that way. I think it's definitely worth talking about.
I'm going to.
The reason I want to talk about these things is because I think it might be helpful to.
It's an opportunity to unpack some of the ideas and things that, you know, come up in certain aspects of our liturgy, our chants that we do, and in our meals.
And I speak only for myself, but I often tend to sort of glide over these things without giving them much reflection.
But actually, all these things that have been handed to us when we take time can be extraordinarily rich and trigger things in us, you know, and it. It's also. I will. I sort of will bring something forth in a moment, just as an instantiation of, you know, if you need proof of any kind about the way that the performance of ritual, however skillfully or unskillfully you do, that can draw forth a response, an understanding that we might not have had before.
So I had an experience the other day at breakfast, sitting there with my oatmeal, and I used the gata that I have to say, I don't want to convey the impression that at home, I'm terribly disciplined about these things. It's practicing at home without the support of sangha. Sometimes things. You do things differently. So I don't want to create the impression that I got myself together more than I do. But this particular morning, I brought forth this gata that I often use. And you will quickly see that it's a condensation of one part of our meal chant. So in our meal chant, we have. How does it go? We reflect on this food and consider how it comes to us. We reflect on our virtue and effort and consider whether we are. Are worthy of this offering.
We regard it as essential to keep the mind free of excesses such as greed.
So the, you know, we're all familiar with this. You may be less familiar with the sort of condensed virgin. And I have no idea where this comes from. It's been in my life for 40 years, 50 years, I don't know.
But you, you may know it, you may not. It, it goes, this food comes from the labor of other people and from the suffering of other forms of life.
For some reason, this hit me really hard that morning, you know, the kind of truth of that in a way that it doesn't usually occur when we do kind of our meal chants. When we're having our meals here, we're in a different frame and it's a different kind of ritual practice. But anyway, this morning it hit me really hard.
And you know, it's specifically, it's, you know, it kind of brings out what's implicit in the chant we do. This comes from the labor of other people and it comes from the suffering of other forms of life. And it's important to consider that these two categories are not exclusive by any means. There are massive amounts of suffering of various degrees, from the, from low grade bother and anxiety to the worst kinds of abuse and slavery that still exists.
And we can't stand apart from it. And it's not as bodhisattvas, it's people who are practicing the Bodhisattva way. It's important for us to not turn apart from it internally.
Anyway. So, you know, this thing kind of lodged, you know, I didn't go in like with a heavy frame of mind. It was kind of like this food, you know, but it, but I heard it and I considered, yes, it's absolutely true. None of this, you know, comes from me. I'm responsible for none of it. And then it was followed up by this other thing. It's like the realization that nothing of my life does not come from the labor of other people and the suffering of other forms of life. Now there are little corners, of course, you know, I, I, I sewed this okesa. But of course I did this with a great deal of help. First and foremost from Hougetsu. Many people put stitches in it. Kaigen Tigun gave it to me, you know, but, you know, so I did the stitches. But, you know, that needle, that thread, the material, you know, that didn't come from here. Exactly.
And you know, and we follow out those chains and you know, essentially, you know, I don't think you could ever stop if you made the effort to try to involve and identify what enables me to sit in this robe today?
And all things are like this. All things are like this. And it's not like I can say, well, I didn't. I didn't do this.
That guy did it. You know, Paula did it. You know, it came back. No, none of it works that way. It's all, you know, this. I mean, I, I won't even bother to try to figure out how it works. But, you know, it's all done.
All beings in a way, you know, there are various degrees of separation.
[00:06:53] Speaker C: Right.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: So I was thinking about this, and it made me think, you know, I was thinking a little bit more about our chant. And, you know, of course, that comes within the context of, you know, our practice of oroki. Is there anybody here who needs like a sentence or two about what that is, or is everybody great? Okay, what's your name again? Andy. So, Andy, Oroki is. And maybe you will experience with this with us here someday.
It's a formalized way to take our meals together in the zendo, using nested bowls that are put out in a. In a prescribed way. And then people come through and serve food and you receive it. And there's at least ideally, a mutual acknowledgment of the human contact of the situation. So it's, it's. And people get, unfortunately, you know, I've got experience with this, you know, sometimes get a little, you know, it's formal quote, unquote, so people get a little uptight. But this actually can be a quite lovely thing.
I think that'll be enough.
So I was thinking about the meaning of the word oroki, in which, you know, which provides context in which this chant occurs.
And, you know, I think people probably know more or less. You know, it's like looking at the kanji and how they relate exactly is not clear to me. But, you know, because there's this first O and then there's the second element, ryo and ki, and you know, the key at the end, that character standing by itself, it can just mean, essentially container is one meaning. So apparently a reference to our bowls and the ryo. Ryo comes from the basic meaning is appropriate, suitable, the O. I I honestly, I've lived all my life thinking it was the honorific Japanese O. It is not. And how it semantically relates to the others. I don't know, it's not important, because whatever, however we parse these things, the general understanding is that the meaning, really the heart of it in the second character, maybe it means an appropriate amount.
Sometimes it's glossed that way or just enough, you know, so the notion is we freely receive what we need, what we can actually incorporate.
But we try to be alert enough not to take more than we can eat. So it's this and it's is different for everybody in the room. You know, people are different sized bodies. Maybe somebody didn't have breakfast, you know, so it's not. It's not like there's some defined thing at all. It's a matter of paying attention to one's body and discerning what's appropriate. Heavy word, appropriate from there.
Seems like there's something else I want to say about that.
Anyway, from there I started to think about one of the grave precepts that we receive in jukai.
And I'll mention that in a minute. But first, a word about jukai.
This compound. So jukai, for those who don't know. It's when people.
I don't know how you'd say it, it's kind of like recognizing a process of recognizing for oneself and holding it forth to others that, yes, I've made a commitment to dharma, this will be my way.
And of course, there are ceremonies around that kind of the heart of which one receives a rakusu that one is sown, gives to the teacher who returns it to.
Howard is wearing one here.
People online know what it is.
So the word jukai itself, just the ju means to receive fairly straightforwardly. And the chi, you know, the way we think about it, the way it's glossed is to receive the precepts. But there's another element, you know, toned to the. To this chi.
I mean, taken by itself and in the.
And I think even in the context of the ceremony, it has this sense of admonition.
You're being.
Something is being put forward to you. And it's kind of this very serious and stern, a moment of an element of sternness, injunction to endeavor to live according to the precepts.
Now, the particular precept that came to mind this day, please excuse me, was the one, a disciple of Buddha does not take what is not given.
And you know, in the context of this, earlier moments before thoughts I was having about this gatta, it occurred to me that not only.
Not only are we enmeshed in a series of relations, infinite series of relations, that one, rely on the labor of other people and two, involve the suffering of other beings.
And I think there's a very real sense, you know, I'm not hardcore about this. I put it. I mean, I'm just raising it for you to consider, I think there's a way in which these two things on their own, this recognition of labor and suffering of other beings, together with this idea of not taking what's not given, would almost be enough to ground some kind of. This has been a little bit of an idea that I've never worked out before, but ground some kind of basic ethical response to just the whole phenomenon of the give and take of production and consumption and all that, and the recognition that we don't ever stand outside systems of abuse and exploitation. I mean, it's all. I'm not saying that we're necessarily abusive ourself or exploitive ourselves, but there's no way to separate ourselves, to pretend this is not happening, pretend we're not part of it. And part of our Bodhisattva responsibility, of course, is to one, recognize it and to not try to escape it, but to work within this arrangement in such a way that will foster insight and compassion. Oh, so yes, a moment ago, I spoke about the element of admonition in Zhukai. Well, this admonition, you know, Dogen talks about sometimes about three minds, magnanimous mind. Forget what the third one is, maybe I hope somebody will raise it. But the second one is we talk about it sometimes as parental mind or grandmotherly mind. The character itself just means old. It's older mind. But I love this grandmother part or the parental part because, yes, we are being guided, we're being warned by directed. But this comes out of grandmotherly mind.
The intention is. There's no rebuke.
The intention is simply to move us always in the direction of insight and compassion.
These things very easily connect to. And we, many people have heard me mentioned before and of course, others do, you know, a very important part of our shared Buddhist background not always highlighted in Zen, certainly in the Theravadan practices and in the Tibetan practices, the recognition of what we call the three poisons, passion. Well, our idiom is greed, hate and delusion, the one I initially learned many, many years ago.
Passion, aggression and ignorance. And I, for the purposes here, I prefer this, you know, because it's very clear that in our world, in our patterns of consumption, how we relate to people, there's a huge element of passion or greed.
It's cultivated not by us necessarily. I mean, I don't know what you're doing, but it's cultivated culturally and societally.
You know, just, you know, let's point to the, say, the advertising industry.
So there's a constant. There are constant appeals to our greed There.
There's also, you know, we see always that, or we don't see. That's the point. We don't see.
There's ignorance. You know, there's an ignorance has, you know, what we call delusion.
But there, when we think about it as ignorance, there are at least two aspects. There's the aspect of simply not knowing something.
But I think the more problematic one, it's very deep, is there's the ignorance of not seeing, of not wanting to see, of turning away, of ignoring.
And, you know, the combination of these two, I suppose we could say they become aggressive and hateful. Because when these things are in operation, you know, people, beings far away, close and nearby will be.
They're hurt.
And this is, you know, the Buddha. Buddha says in his first sermon, the world is burning, and in more ways than one. It's always been burning, and now more so than ever.
So what to do with this?
I guess the point is that, you know, as practitioners, we need to be aware of these things.
And in our very simple, you know, there's no escape. You know, I don't think, you know, it's not like we can create situations where we are unaffected by this, but we must swim in it and walk through it. And as we do so, it's incumbent upon us, because of commitments we've made, to do our best to minimize damage and to encourage others to. To foster intelligent consumption, to foster insight, compassion, all these things. And, you know, we don't have to go very far to see how profound some of these kinds of things might be.
I had.
Well, let me say first, is not for anybody else to determine what you receive in your bowl, right.
Or how much. It's not for us to be policing other people's behavior. Our responsibility is to be aware of our own behavior and to see when and how it falls short, which happens for me on a daily basis.
So, like I said, there's this element of, you know, there has to be some thoughtfulness and, you know, but it's compromised. And you know what? I, you know, I can't get all holy about the things I do and think, well, you know, somehow better than what you do, that's your business.
But, you know, so in these examples I bring, there's not that, you know, sort of nastier kind of admonition like, don't do that, don't do that. There's no scolding here. But for example, my Sri Lankan neighbor is coming over on Tuesday night, said, I'll bring some food, and he makes wonderful food, and he said, I'll bring shrimp. Do you eat shrimp? And I said, well, I can eat shrimp. Well, it's not for me in that context to point out that there are problems in this country, but a lot of shrimp comes from Southeast Asia and massive slavery involved. The estimates are that there are 5 million people in, in the world who are in, you know, fairly intense forms of unfree labor, and a lot of those in Southeast Asia. So this is not a decision I would ever make for myself or, you know, I probably would and forget about it and then like, you know, try to remember next time. But, you know, the point is. So he's going to bring this over and it's not for me to say ardly, you know, I'm not going to educate him on this.
I will enjoy the shrimp with him and take it in the spirit that is offered, but try to, you know, hold that in my being.
You know, another example would be almonds.
You know, a nut we can leave here and buy some on the shelf. Well, you know, it takes. It takes six gallons of water to grow an almond. Most of them are grown in California.
You know, I once calculated as I was munching an almond in somebody's kitchen in California that the 1 pound jar, you know, the water required for that would fill up the kitchen we were sitting in. You know, that might not be a problem if we were growing almonds down in my neighborhood, but we're not. It's in California. The aquifers are, you know, collapsing.
There are fires regularly. There's probably fires at this moment.
And, you know, that's a high, high price to pay for my personal gratification, you know, so what am I saying? I'm just saying, you know, please try to foster an awareness because this relates to the precept that I brought before. And this is how it comes in, you know, to this idea of appropriate amounts and appropriateness in general. Right. Figuring what, what, what is appropriate here. It's the idea of not taking what's not given.
It's very clear that the way that we live, all of us, all of us, myself included, you know, if we're not engaged in routine acts of theft, say to. With regard to, you know, Vietnamese shrimp farmers, you know, we're certainly like looking at the situation with graining aquifers. It's not only in California, by the way. It's, you know, throughout the Midwest with the Ogallala aquifers that we, you know, we need those, you know, we need that corn and soybean in the amounts that we do so that we can gratify our taste for meat. So I'm not assigning that, you know, we're all involved.
But it's clear, like in all these examples that it's not only that we might be, you know, somebody down the road is harmed, but, you know, clearly, clearly, clearly we are robbing our future.
This is a teaching that Tigan has brought forth many times over the years.
And as so often happens, it, you know, something has given me the opportunity to take something he said before and hear it a new way or with a different kind of intensity or whatever.
So, you know, I don't know. I don't really know if there's a conclusion to this. You know, I just wanted to, you know, so one, you know, there are these sort of real situations out in the world I've been mentioning, but I would also just like to encourage people to have an open heart and an open ear to these things that we say routinely enough that the significance of them might not. They might wash over. And I don't know if what I'm putting forward is the significance of these. I made this shit up. Excuse me, I made this stuff up. But I think that's legit. We take these teachings, we chew them.
It's an apt metaphor in this face.
We take them in, we incorporate them.
And I would encourage you to do that, to be just alive to the richness of the things that happen in a place like this and others that we might not notice. And I guess I don't really have a formal conclusion. I will just note. I mean, it really just occurred to me this morning that our teacher emeritus and my teacher Tigan, you know, at this time of year has made a practice of talking about Interdependence Day and, you know, highlighting this notion of interdependence. And, you know, when I consider what's been coming out of my mouth, I think fundamentally that's what I'm talking about, too, and just encouraging all of us to remember our bodhisattva commitments, even in the very simple and routine acts of our daily life that we are so often, with great deal of encouragement, able to not be aware of.
So, thank you very much, and if there are questions, please.
[00:25:22] Speaker B: Thank you very much, Nielsan.
[00:25:24] Speaker A: You're welcome.
[00:25:24] Speaker B: You brought together so many things, you know, three poisons, jukai and ethical conduct and the precepts and Codependent arising are integrated to connectedness. And the three minds. I think the third is Joyful.
[00:25:44] Speaker A: Joyful, yes.
Excuse me. I just made Hougetsu jump with my loud voice.
[00:25:52] Speaker B: So where's joyful mind in this?
[00:25:54] Speaker A: Hougetsu, where's joyful mind in this?
Made me smile. So are there other questions? I I will consider this. I I don't have a. I would be happy if you have something to say. I I. Nothing comes right away.
[00:26:10] Speaker B: So I just was looking at a book that was at a friend's house called something like let's get this Right.
And it was about younger people confronting climate change. And one of the things that I thought was really beautiful was that they were very much like, you know, do what you can do, do what is needed, and then also do what brings you joy.
And I think that there's a kind of joy in seeing things as they are and also of engaging reality as it is, as both the beauty and horror. So I guess I think, like, there's something about that, like, you know, we offer everything for the benefit of all beings. So, you know, receiving shrimp, which you probably know was, you know, cultivated at the hands of some horrible situation, you know, but they're also like, did this, you know, in that way. So that just popped up when I asked you about joy. So.
[00:27:21] Speaker A: So I forgot my paragraph or whatever would have been about gratitude because it was there one time. But, you know, you. You raised the point of people, younger people you talk to, you know, with this feeling of do what you can, you know, what presents itself to you, what's in your life. Immediately. The poet Gary Snyder has this wonderful thing. You know, Zen practice is about two things. It's about zazen and taking care of the temple. And you decide, you know, what the boundary of the temple is. Now, most of the time, you know, the temple wall is close. We attend to things close at hand. But in Gary Snyder's comment, there's a recognition, you know, that that wall, what we perceive as a wall is fluid. And so, you know, yes, we attend joyously when we can muster that, to things closer to home, but not to the.
Certainly not in antagonism to anything else. And ideally, finding a way to see.
The temple wall is embedded in the wider world to which we need also to be awake and sensitive.
I don't see any hands online. Are there any questions?
Eve?
[00:28:44] Speaker D: Yeah, when you mentioned Tigan and Interdependence Day. So I, I wrote a haiku after last night. I. I see the bright moon sailing silver through the clouds. Who needs fireworks? Because I was reflecting on the joy I was getting from looking at the moon and, and also reflecting on. There was so many Fireworks the night before.
I mean, I, I have. I went up on our roof deck and our building isn't tall, but Chicago is so flat. You know, you can see 360 degrees. And there was fireworks for hours.
I mean, after midnight and, and the air got so hazy and it, I mean, I was enjoying the fireworks, but then it made me think about, you know, people with asthma. And then I was reading about it and yeah, you know, the air quality. They have measured the air quality quality.
I mean, after July 4th around here and in the lower income neighborhoods, it's worse too.
They get more traffic and I guess it just gets compounded. But anyway, I mean, to me that's another example of sort of thinking through the implications of our, if not daily practices, celebratory practices. And there's a park near me, Winnemac park, and you know, near here too. Right.
So for years they had, you know, quote, illegal fireworks in a big display. And then they have apparently tried to come up with alternatives and they had a, like a non fireworks celebration. But I don't know. I mean, there were still fireworks coming from that direction after dark. So I don't know. But I think aside from ourselves and I think without policing other people, I think if we can inject into our, our neighborhoods, you know, considerations about the implications of our practices, that maybe that's also something we can do. I mean, I think about that because as far as food goes, you know, I live across from, from Global Gardens and, and I do get food from there and I'm able to talk to the people that make the food. And I know all the people that are involved in Global Gardens. You know, it's, it's a collective practice and collective support that we give to each other.
[00:31:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Thank you, Eve. This brings to mind two things. You, you talk about the, you know, the experience of gardening. I'm not currently doing this, but I have been quite involved with that for many years of my life at different times.
And it's important that. That collective nature of it, because with all I'm saying here is, you know, we say, well, where does this come from? And we can't point to, you know, can't connect anything to any particular people, you know, except for in a very mediated way.
And because of that, it has that nature. This also means that, you know, when we address these problems, they must be addressed collectively. This is where we are really weak. Often, however, the fact that to. We need to address things collectively does not in any way receive. Re. Relieve us of our bodhisattvic. Responsibility for much more limited response. We can't just say, well, I can't do anything. And we're invited to do that constantly.
So it's got to be both. You know, if, if the, we can resolve some of these big issues that, that are out there, it's going to have to be collective. But meanwhile we're not off the hook. You know, it Suzuki Roshi says, you know, whether the sun rises in the east or west, you know, the Bodhisattva always.
You say Bodhisattva or the practitioner always moves in the same direction. You know, in other words, you do the Bodhisattva thing, right?
And it's disconnected in some ways. I mean, of course we think about skill to means and effectivity, but in some ways it doesn't matter. You do it because that's what you do. The second thing I would like to respond to, you know, you're talking about this problematic thing of, you know, the way celebratory things can affect other people. It's very true.
I have a good friend who's an environmentalist in India and one of the things she's worked on, one of the things that she's been beaten up over many times, a couple of times, you know, for Diwali and other Hindu festivals. She herself is a Muslim. There's not an element of this doesn't play in here. But you know, for, for these celebrations, they are incredibly loud. I mean like ear breakingly loud. And it will go on for days and days and days. And the point I'd like to make is this is an Is so we can, you know, they're massively louder than they would have been 30 years ago.
And this allows me to make a very, very important point that, you know, just because we can do something, just because this or that technology becomes available to us is not says nothing about whether we should rely on them. And we seem to be kind of losing this battle right now. But I think it's important to keep that in mind.
What?
Do you have a Tigen comment? Tigen?
Do you have a tigen Mr. Comment?
[00:34:15] Speaker C: Whatever.
Yes.
Thank you for reminding us of joyful mind. Houketsu. So I want to say that a lot of us are feeling overwhelmed by the chaos and the cruelty and just one thing after another from the current billionaire administration.
But there is a joy to resistance.
So there are ways in which we can resist.
And just knowing about, just investigating on alternative media what's going on, knowing that there's a horrible genocide in Gaza and so Forth, and we can't. We don't know what to do about it. But going, you know, the people who. Everybody who went out June was it June 14, and we're in the streets protesting.
There's a joyfulness to being able to protest.
I sign petitions online.
I don't know that anybody pays attention to it. I don't know what effect it has. That's not the point.
The point is that there's also a tradition, a lineage of resistance to cruelty in our country, in the world.
And so we can, you know, enjoy that we have the power to resist, that we can resist and that these things will change.
It may take a long time.
Long after I'm gone, there will be return to cooperation and collaboration and communality.
So I just want to speak for communality and for joy, that we can enjoy speaking up, resisting, saying no to authoritarianism and so forth.
And it applies, you know, in small and large ways. I appreciated, Yozan, you're bringing up the, you know, eating shrimp and, and just, you know, what we eat, all of it, all of it is.
Are things that. Ways in which we can resist and we can enjoy that we can. We can feel joy in our ability to resist.
So that's. That's what I wanted to offer in the spirit of Interdependence Day. Thank you. Thank you.
[00:36:57] Speaker B: Thank you, Tigan.
So I think it is about time for us to end for this segment. I want to thank you very much, Neo Zan, and also Tigan, for your encouragement to do what our saucen is all about. Pay attention and explore the shape and quality of your mind and activity of your body, speech in mind.
So this is a great encouragement to us.
And it can seem hard for like, the first 10 or 20 years of practice, but then you're really grateful for being able to not be quite as just a shred less ignorant.
So may it be so.
And we'll chant the four vows, and then we will have announcements from each Eno back in the house. Welcome back, Jerry. After a little break.
I've missed you. We've all missed you. Even if you've never met Jerry before, you've missed her.
And afterwards, then we'll have a little work period, taking care of the temple and then some iced tea.
So may our intention equally extend to every being in place with the true merit of Buddha's way.
Beings are numberless.
We vow to greet them.
[00:38:28] Speaker A: Solutions are exhaustible.
[00:38:32] Speaker B: We bow to cut through them.
Dharma gates are boundless.
We now can unto them.
Buddha's way is unsurpassable.
We bow to your lives Karma Gates are boundless how to come to them?
Buddha's way is unsurpassable we vow to realize it vow to free them Delusions are exhaustible we vow to cut through them Thou gates are boundless we vow to enter them with usurpassable we vow to your.
