Good morning. I would like to preface my talk this morning with a request that you all think positive thoughts about my vocal cords. I don't have complete confidence that I'm going to have a voice continuously. I'm not actually impersonating Tallulah Bankhead. What I'd like to talk about this morning is this business of picking and choosing, having preferences. And I'd like to speak about this activity which we all seem to engage in happily and unhappily by referencing a first quote from Dogen, the 13th century philosopher and meditator and founder of the Soto Zen School in Japan.

[01:12]

whose great work, Shobogenzo, includes some essays, one of which is sometimes titled Birth and Death. And in that piece, Dogen talks about how very easy is the way to becoming a Buddha. And he then proceeds to make a list. And on that list... He includes not feeling aversion or longing for anything. I love these statements about how, you know, it's easy, a small thing. In that same essay, he says something about in facing birth and extinction, don't reject, don't long. When we have no aversion or longing, only then do we reach the heart of the Buddha.

[02:22]

I think that this instruction or advice is very easy to misunderstand and that often what happens for us when we think about dropping preferences or having an opinion or whatever is the particular way we speak to ourselves about this matter, we end up having some idea that the world we live in should be flat, that everything should be the same, some confusion like that. And in fact, my experience when I have been with people who seem to have cultivated the way within themselves, what I notice is cultivation of capacity for great joy and delight and spontaneity and in fact an ability to be present with the particularity of each thing.

[03:37]

I think sometimes we get frightened when we move from generalization to the particular I know for myself, I sometimes have some sense of wanting to keep some aspect of my experience or a situation at a distance. And as long as I keep it at a distance and think about whatever it may be in general terms, there's a way I'm in fact not touching. Something that may be difficult or may not be. And over and over again, I have the experience of things being vastly more possible when I get close up, when I begin to attend to each moment in particular, and that my fears tend to arise in the face of the generalizations and not the particulars.

[04:41]

All of our conditioning in the way we respond to various things seems to be where our fears abide as well. And it is in this conditioned response to the world that we run into self-imposed limitations. I think that this great teaching, this tradition which we are considering and to the best of our ability trying to follow and understand in our practicing meditation and studying texts and doing whatever we can imagine doing to be more mindful and awake has to do with dropping, letting go of those self-imposed limits. But that's in fact what we mean when we talk about being open, being present in this moment right now to whatever is in front of us, to whatever the reality may be that arises within us.

[06:05]

A week or so ago, I was grazing through some books that I have on Zen practice, looking for various poems that might be useful in daily practice, poems or verses that help keep me awake a bit more. And here are several that I came upon. The great round mirror has no likes or dislikes. The great way is not difficult. Simply cut off all thoughts of good and bad. When I read that one, I kept looking at this word simply because, of course, it's not simple to do that. But I keep coming up against these exhortations

[07:15]

about just doing it. Don't spend a lot of time figuring it out or thinking about it or imagining it as something one might do next week. Just do it. What does that mean to cut off all thoughts of good and bad? When they arise, notice them and immediately let them go. Salt is salty. Sugar is sweet. These are certainly expressions about noticing the particularity and are not expressions encouraging us to flatten out the world that we live in so that there is no distinction or different character between the mountains and the valleys. I'd like to tell you a story which I think brings up something that I'm trying to look at this morning.

[08:29]

There's a figure next to the altar on this, as I'm looking at the altar on my left. It is a compassion figure, compassion bodhisattva called Jizo. And this figure is often thought of as representing that capacity which we have for compassion and protection, in particular for travelers and for children. So Jizo Bodhisattva is often used for people who are sick, for people who are dying. You will often, for example, in Japan on the side of the road, where there's been a fatal accident, you may find a small shrine with one or several stone, roughly carved stone figures of Jizo Bodhisattva. Always depicted with the shaved head in monk's robes, usually holding a staff, the kind that a monk would use going out on begging walks.

[09:41]

and always the face with some simple, sweet expression. I have a great fondness for Jizo Bodhisattva, which may be why I like this story so much. So Nakagawa was the abbot and teacher at Ryutaku-ji, a very beautiful temple in Japan. And he spent a good bit of time in the latter part of his life teaching here in the United States. So there are all kinds of great stories about Sohn Roshi. He was a quite fine calligrapher. And the essence, the quintessence of spontaneity. Sometimes his disciples would respond if one of us would say, when someone was visiting, oh, I understand you're going to Seattle.

[10:44]

When do you think you'll get there? And the attendant would usually shake his head and say, I have no idea whether we'll get there. Because, of course, Son Roshi was quite used to getting on a train, and maybe he would stay on it until... his destination, or maybe he would get off sooner or stay on longer. He would just suddenly decide to do things. I remember one Thanksgiving when he was visiting and he decided, wouldn't it be great to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, which we did at a very robust pace. And he then decided we should go walk down Market Street. And we sort of slid into Manning's for Thanksgiving dinner. It's great. It's a very up Thanksgiving, even though we were in the midst of Market Street and all of the suffering that Market Street seems to contain and a lot of people who were at Manning's not as their first choice.

[11:53]

So to be there with So and Roshi and have that be his first choice was quite delightful. Anyway, he was a playful and delightful and fine teacher. And as I said, a fine calligrapher. He loved to do calligraphy. Elsie Mitchell, who lives in Cambridge and has written a book called Sun Buddhas, Moon Buddhas, tells this story actually in her book. She has spent over the years quite a bit of time in Japan and became quite good friends with Soen Roshi. And she was visiting him at Ryutakaji one time in the 60s, and he brought out some sheets of rice paper with tiny little drawings of Jizo Bodhisattva on them, a hundred or more on each sheet. And he showed them to her and he said, here, here are some drawings of the compassion Bodhisattva.

[12:55]

And if you look at them at a glance, they all look like they're exactly the same. The first time I saw one of these sheets, I actually wondered if they hadn't been done with some kind of a stamp, because there is sometimes that practice of carving an image and then stamping it many, many, many times. And these figures all looked so much alike that at first glance, that's what I thought they were, stamped images. But then when you look more closely, you see that each figure is unique and particular from every other figure. So and then told Elsie the story about these sheets of rice paper with Jizo on them. He said that a family who knew him asked him to please come and see their young daughter. She had planned to be a ballet dancer. This is a Japanese family, but she was quite taken with Western-style dance and had some real talent.

[14:04]

And in the midst of her kind of blooming youth, she came down with some terrible disease which left her crippled. And she was at the point that the family came to see So and Roshi basically a kind of vegetable. And they asked him if he would please come and see their daughter and try to help them figure out what they might do. And he said, you know, I couldn't imagine what would I say to this young girl. But he did go to see her. And as was usual for him, he took with him some rice paper and a calligraphy brush and some ink and stone. And as he sat with this young girl, he drew some Jizo Bodhisattva figures. And as he drew the figures, he noticed that her eyes were on him continuously. And so he thought, well, she seems to have some interest in what I'm doing.

[15:08]

So after a while, he then reached over and took her hand, and he took her finger and just drew it around the image as he had drawn it, and he just kept doing that. And he would repeatedly go and visit this young girl and do that with her. After a while, very slowly, she began to be able to hold a brush and to make these very simple outline figures of this compassion bodhisattva. And he kept encouraging her, telling her that what she was doing was fine. And as she was able to do more and more figures, he encouraged her. He would say, today I want you to do 25 figures. And then the next time he would come, he would say, oh, what you've done is fine. These are fine. Now I want you to do 50 Jizo Bodhisattvas.

[16:11]

And I want you to do them every day. So gradually, he encouraged her until she was doing 100 or more And she would do something between 100 and 150 on a sheet of paper, about like so. And after a while, she was able to do hundreds of these figures every day. He also told her, please pay attention. Take great care with each figure. And I want you to count every Jizo figure that you draw. I want you to keep counting. Each one is very important." So by the time he was telling this story to Elsie, this young woman had been making these Jizo bodhisattva figures for some long time. She would give them away to people.

[17:14]

And as Soen put it, the jizo bodhisattva, the compassion bodhisattva, had come to live, had come awake in her heart. And what she began to see was that the compassion bodhisattva lived in other people's hearts, but they might not yet know that. And so maybe in giving away her drawings, she would help them begin to feel or sense or see that compassion aspect within themselves. In 1972, Elsie gave the manuscript for her book to a friend who was going to Japan with instructions to go to Ryutakuchi and to show the section about Soen Roshi and his temple to Soen to have his permission. Was this all right? And Elsie's friend came back with the following story, that this woman had just passed the two millionth mark.

[18:22]

And when she got to the two millionth Jiza Bodhisattva, she drew it on a very large piece of paper. She made a very big Bodhisattva. And so one was busy having it translated into a rough stone image so that it could be in the garden at Ryotakuchi for people who came to visit to be reminded about what was possible. I think that this... Oh, the other piece of the story which she may gather kind of in the scenes is that this woman in fact regained some kind of life which was joyful and happy for her, that she actually had some real talent in drawing.

[19:25]

And although she continued doing these Juzo figures, she also then began doing many other kinds of figures. And she was, in fact, although physically limited with what she could do, not ever able to be the ballet dancer she had imagined she would be sometime earlier, she came into a very full life, which was helpful for herself and for those around her. The thing that I love about this story and about seeing the images of Jizo Bodhisattva these little tiny figures, maybe half an inch high at most, is how much of a reminder they are about cultivating our ability to see each thing as it is, each thing in particular, in the moment. and to allow the fullest possibility, to allow ourselves to be surprised when we're in our lives, in each moment, in a way where we haven't fenced ourselves in with expectation of how it's going to be.

[20:42]

It helps me when I'm in a situation, especially with someone that I've known for a long time, whom I've come to think of as being such and such a kind of person. where I have them locked in to a particular description of what they can or more likely what they cannot do. And certainly I might consider this attitude towards myself, where I will expect that I cannot do something. And in fact, my experience is that if I will stay as awake as I can be in the moment, I'm repeatedly surprised by my own capacity, by the capacity of those around me, and by the abundance of the world that we live in. The minute I slip out of this moment and begin to generalize, all kinds of things come up which are a kind of fence around my perception of what is possible.

[21:55]

I also find this story about these bodhisattva drawings very interesting because they're actually a kind of physical mantra. And I find myself very drawn to those activities which we do over and over and over again, which help us stay present and open and awake. Some of you have heard me talk about the practice of the half smile, where you lift the corners of your mouth slightly and keep them lifted for the space of three breaths. And I find with that practice, if I do it over and over and over again, it also has a kind of mantra quality to it. There's a certain kind of repetition, but there's also a way of doing that practice or of drawing a simple Jizo figure of just noticing the breath on the inhalation and the exhalation.

[23:06]

No matter how many times I do any of these things, there is a way of doing them so that this is the only time that exists right now. Sometimes I think we have to trick ourselves into allowing that way of being in our lives. But I think whatever our means for doing it It's worth the effort. We have a custom about coming into and out of this room, this wonderful meditation room that we have here. And the custom includes not stepping on the door jamb. Now, if you come into the room and you step on the door jam, there isn't some creature that lurks under the door jam that's going to reach up and grab you by the ankle or some voice that's going to say, no, no, no, you did it wrong.

[24:10]

You have to go outside again. It's simply an agreement that we have about how we will enter and leave the room. But I do notice that every time I walk across the threshold and I remember, I notice that to step over it, I'm present in that moment in a way that I find very helpful. And that, in fact, I can do that when I go through every doorway. Is it possible to do that so that each doorway we walk through is a very particular doorway that we're going through just now in this moment? I wonder what keeps us from allowing ourselves to live our lives this way. Sometimes I think it's because we're afraid we're going to miss something. And of course the paradox is that there is a kind of liveliness that comes with being present in each moment that is quite unbeatable.

[25:23]

If we see each thing as it is in itself, this seems to be what the texts are describing as the real Buddha heart, the heart of the Buddha. And when we do that, when we have those moments, when we're able to do that, we can acknowledge our own Buddha heart and see that in each other. I found one other verse as I was grazing around in the books I was looking at this last week or so. Shouting into the valley. Big shout. Big echo. Small shout. Small echo. Thank you very much.

[26:33]

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