Good morning. First of all, an admission. Over the last number of weeks (including 4 weeks in Mexico), I've taken some notes and done some readings in preparation for this talk. Friday night after getting back from a short trip with friends, I sat down to put some order to these thoughts and inadvertently hit a button on my keyboard. My files disappeared and for whatever reason the switch for automatic save hadn't been triggered. All my notes, Poof! Great lesson in Patience. So I'm going to make this presentation today with some of the thoughts I had in mind to address but forgive me if, at some points there may be some discontinuities, or, as they say, leaps of faith. The realm of Kanzeon and generosity is boundless and timeless -of incomprehensible depth and width. I will only hint at glints of that light this morning.
I'd like to try to connect some of the thoughts and investigations that Raizelah, Talus, Ken, Desiree, and Hannah and others have brought to this discussion of the Paramitas, with a focus towards Dana or generosity. We each chose our topics independently, and certainly not with any ordered intent. Ken’s comments on Buddhist lists of ten and their inherent inability to linguistically evidence their reflections and interpenetration is front and center with these 6 (or 10) paramitas They are certainly not a step by step process or hierarchy, but more akin to the image of the Net of Indra, in which each element reflects the other and illuminates each in multiple ways and directions
What I'd like to try to do today is connect the idea of Dana, the Paramita of generosity, with its embodiment in our lives and in the framework of our Zen Buddhist practice through the great Bodhisattva of Compassion Avalokiteshvara, “She/he who Sees the Suffering of the World.” She is the exemplary practitioner of Prajnaparamita, great wisdom, whom we embrace when we chant the Heart Sutra and who so generously offers the Dharma and all its embodiments (and simultaneously removes those assurances) to manifest in each of us. With thanks to Nomon Tim’s talk last month on the Heart Sutra with reference to John Blofield’s story of asking a Guanyin statue of her reality and hearing a clear response: “Look not for my reality in the realm of appearances or in the Void. Seek it in your own mind. There only it resides.” How do we recognize, find and train ourselves to cultivate this and the other perfections in our lives?
Avalokiteshvara, Kannon, or Kanzeon in Japanese, or as Guanyin in Chinese, is regarded as ‘the mother of all buddhas.’ And in Japan, Kwan yin is considered to be a Buddha. We recognize him/ her in our meal chant as the 9th and final Bodhisattvas mahasattvas when reciting the Buddhas Ten Names. And, as Reizelah reminded us in her introductory talk on Dana: “When we sit in the lap of the Buddha, there is no separate self.” Sitting in Buddha’s lap, Kannon’s lap, sitting on our cushion in the Perfection of Meditation (Prajnaparamita), there is no separate self, nothing to hold on to, the inherent generosity of our interconnected beings always provides “oryoki’ or just enough. The meal chant also includes the fundamental principle that “Giver, Receiver, and Gift are One.” The name Avalokiteshvara is translated as “the one who sees the cries of the world.” She hears all painful cries for help and has the wonderful ability to forgive and help all beings in danger and misfortune. According to one prominent legend, as he was looking down at the suffering of the world her head literally blew apart from the pain of absorbing all the suffering. Her spiritual father, Amitabha Buddha put the pieces of her head together as 9 new heads and his wish to help all beings caused the body to grow 1000 (an unmeasurable) arms, with an eye in the palm of each hand. With her many eyes and her hands each holding a helpful instrument, Kanzeon both perceives the suffering of all beings and can then act to free those suffering without limit.
Taigen Dan Leighton, in his primary text Bodhisattva Archetypes, briefly summarizes this vast toolbox:
Many of the hands hold tools and implements including Dharma wheels, lotuses, buddhas, jewels embodying the sun and moon, as well as ropes, axes, swords, mirrors, rosaries, vases, conches, books, willow branches, bows, and arrows. These thousand hands and eyes represent Avaloketishvara’s practice of skillful means, compassionately assisting beings by whatever methods could be effective using whatever comes to hand, as needed in that particular moment.
I'd like to begin this presentation with a little story about my personal interaction and relationship in Kanzeon and making him/her part of my daily breathing life.
Before I formally started practicing Zen, maybe 14 years ago, I spent a weekend in San Francisco. On Saturday, I visited the San Francisco Zen Center for the first time. Over tea, I met a monk, Joan Amaral, who had just completed a 7-year stay at Tassajara. Hearing my background in farming and construction, she invited me to come to Tassajara. I had no background or experience of Zen or focused meditation. But when I got home I decided I'd return to the Zen Center for a few day mini-residency to see how it felt to enter practice. Three things happened during my subsequent four-day visit: On the 1st morning I woke up and responding to the booming han, sat for services in the Zendo. I felt at home, which was a remarkable experience since it was just a little plywood cubby in the basement. Then, during morning practice and at other regular services, I experienced the chanting of the Enmei Juku Kannon Gyo, the 10-sutra chant for protecting life. I was really taken by the drumming on the ritual mokugyo drum and the pace of the presentation, puzzled why it got faster and faster towards the end. Next, during one of the evening dinners, I sat with an older woman who I hadn’t met before. It turns out it was Zenkei Blanche Hartman, the primary Zen sewing teacher and subsequently the first female Abbott for the Zen center. During that dinner she asked me where I was from and I told her the Skagit Valley. She said “Oh, you must go visit the Red Cedar sangha in Bellingham,” which I subsequently did and have been coming back ever since.
The third thing that happened, apropos this morning's offering is one afternoon I saw Monk Joan. She asked if I'd like to sit with her and Zenkei Blanche (her teacher), in the Buddha Hall, and chant the Enmei Juku Kannon Gyo with the magical mokugyo, which we did for some period of time. I do know it was more than 7 times, it was probably more than 21 times, but I know we chanted for a long period of time. I can report that I felt the spirit of that sutra deeply entered my body. I am startled in retrospect when I realize that this experience preceded my formal practice that began after I came to Red Cedar. That foundational moment was then cultivated with services at Forest Street that included services that include this sutra. At a certain point I volunteered to be Kokyo where I had the joy to lead this devotion that furthered my interest and embodiment of its message. I began to chant it to myself, in many different circumstances, whether it was out hiking in the forest or climbing a set of stairs or standing in line at the grocery store until it has became part of my daily life without prompting or schedule in the mode of Dogen’s “continual practice.” For a period, I also led a 21-times repetition chant following Friday zoom morning meditation. One day, hiking on Mount Erie, 4 lines crystallized in a rhythm that echoed the Sino-Japanese:
Cho nen Kanzeon
Bo nen Kanzeon
Nen nen ju shin ki
Nen nen fu ri shin
Dawn thought Kanzeon
Dusk thought Kanzeon
Thought thought in mind rises
Thought thought same as mind
My little traveling alter kit includes a small Buddha amulet gifted by Shuko Edie Norton, a Japanese small bronze dragon from Japan, and a small wooden Kanzeon found at a junk store in Honokaa, Hawaii, that fits perfectly inside a San Francisco Zen Center incense box - a small wooden, slightly curved, delicately balanced image that unless set perfectly straight won't stand up. She/he is with me whenever I travel. At home I have other figures of Kwanyin to accompany my meditation. On my home alter I have this four-armed figure who represents one of the images of Kwanyin - the 1000 armed (arms without limit) Kanzeon holding a few (and by implication many many) tools of appropriate means (Upaya) to address the infinite suffering of the world. Kwanyin is with and in me constantly. With her presence I am continually reminded of the opportunity to offer assistance in many different ways in the moment by moment circumstances which arise in my life and, in that sense, arise in each of our lives with each breath we take.
The others who have preceded me in this series of talks about the perfections 6 perfections: generosity, morality, patience, energy, meditation and wisdom have presented various personal views of how one or many of these perfections have entered their lives. One of my readings in preparing for this talk was: The Six Perfections: Buddhism and the Cultivation of Character by Dale Wright. Wright proposes that if there's a purpose to our practice or a philosophy of practice it's the deliberate shaping the kind of life we wish to live and shaping how we respond to the opportunities each moment presents in this life. It is continuous training, in the way we use the word practice, say of a physician, as a continuing effort, constantly encountering new challenges and ways to understand the thusness of the moment.
It's very helpful that he looks upon the word “Perfection” to remind us that our studies and considerations are not goals to achieve or ideals to reach, but rather they offer various ways and opportunities of training ourselves to be more open receptive and patient in response to the suffering and needs we encounter at each moment -- whether they are external or internal. The ultimate aim of these practices, particularly giving, is to cultivate and encourage our compassion, what Wright calls “a particular form of human excellence.” Without constant attention and diligence, our tendencies toward “greed (possessiveness), hate, and delusion will distort our awareness of and relationship with our interpenetrated, flowing reality.
Consistent with Suzuki Roshi, Wright proposes that our training in practicing generosity, for instance, is enlightenment. Practice is the path and the path is enlightenment. Just moving along this path of self-cultivation by developing the six paramitas is the very meaning of enlightenment. But this is not “self improvement” in the consumer-based cultural way we are bombarded with everyday. This is not making ourselves better in some image of who we think we are or who we think we could, should or ought to be. No this is a practice directed towards more finely honing ourselves to help others, assist others across, in small or perhaps “large” ways, to the other shore of non-obstruction, a recognition of our impermanence moving along this path of bodhicitta that requires constant effort -- there's no final outcome, no moment where “ah, I've gotten there” nor does it allow us to forget that our path is continually evolving, changing and responding to the moment at hand.
One of the characteristics of Buddhism is that it provides us numerous images whether of the Buddha, Manjushri, Samantabadra, Avalokiteshvara, to provide a physical sense that these Perfections occur in this physical Samsara world. For us in Zen Buddhism and in Buddhism generally, the most prominent bodhisattva image is of Kanzeon. she who sees the suffering of the world, the figure of compassion and in that sense of generosity: non-judgmental unqualified, unlimited and boundless -whether for the infant child or the most hardened criminal is accepted with all his or her faults.
In our Zen literature there are collections of pithy stories called koans with commentaries and accompanying verses That help us appreciate, in our own ways, our understanding of selflessness, impermanence, emptiness and the interpenetration of all phenomena. A koan about bodhisattva responsiveness and skillful means (Upaya) occurs in three of these volumes in which the texts are essentially the same : The Blue Cliff Record, Case 89: Ungan’s “The whole body is hands and eyes”; The book of Serenity, Case 54, “ Yunyan’s Great Compassion”; and in Dogen’s 300 Koan collection, “The True Dharma Eye,” Case 105, “The Hands and Eyes of Great Compassion.”
This koan has two characters: Yunyan and Daowu, who, depending on the story, were senior and junior teachers or brothers, but certainly close Dharma companions.
Yunyan asked Daowu, “How does the bodhisattva of great compassion Avalokiteshvara use so many hands and eyes?” Daowu said, “it's just like a person in the middle of the night reaching back in search of a pillow.”
Yunyan said, “ I understand.” Daowu said, “How do you understand it?”
Yunyan said, “All over the body are hands and eyes.” Daowu said, “What you said is roughly alright. But it's only 80% of it.”
Yunyan said, “Senior brother, how do you understand it?’
Daowu said, “Throughout the body are hands and eyes.”
Two key issues. First, the effortless and thoughtless reaching for the pillow. No thinking, no consideration of effort. Unimpeded, unobstructed action. In the same way, when we reach out to offer dana, whether actively or passively, there is no exertion, no effort. How can we “see” in the dark and know where the invisible is located? One of the characteristics of a practitioner in the bodhisattva way is to operate with in a universe where the five senses operate as one entity. Eyes and hands- are there any other organs? There is no obstruction and hindering among the sense receptors. Some commentators assert “all over” or “throughout are both mental constructs. Giving is an open tube. How can we train ourselves act beyond a divided body?
One commentary says: “if your whole body were an eye you still wouldn't be able to see it. If your whole body were an ear you still wouldn't be able to hear it. If your whole body were a mouth you still wouldn't be able to speak of it. And if your whole body were mind you still wouldn't be able to perceive it because the activity of the bodhisattva of great compassion is her whole body and mind itself. It is not limited to any notions or ideas. Yourself or others asking the question in the 1st place is 1000 miles from the truth. Answering only serves to compound the error.”
This is reminiscent of the line in The Heart Sutra that in the perfection of Wisdom, there is no knowledge and no attainment. One aspect of viewing this koan is that if we are thinking about hands and eyes, if we are thinking about compassion, then we are still removed from its deliverance – true dana is free of obstruction, free of mental processes (mentation), free of self-consciousness. Buddha’s teaching has always recognized that the senses defined as individual senses are an illusion and that all of our senses are constantly working together in one body and one moment to respond to what arises. I've always been fond of a line by the poet Charles Olson where he says “we do what we know/ before we know what we do.” An outcome of our practice that we can experience is that our body is capable of doing things before thought enters into the equation; that our bodies respond before we know that our bodies are responding when we avoid say a splinter coming towards our eye or when driving we turn away from a pothole before we think through that we need to turn away from that pothole because it will hurt our tire or cause an accident. This is doing what we know before we know what we do and this notion of hands and eyes either as external elements as it were or internal driven by internal elements is still in the realm of thinking about and not allowing our response to organically address the situation at hand. Who is grabbing that pillow?
Giving empty of the thought of giving is not an aspect of our being in samsara, it is fundamental to our being alive, it comes from our deepest core, Dogen’s marrow, when giver, receiver, and gift are one.
The Other Sides (Mel Weitzman)- two reflections
A curious fact about our vocabulary and understanding is that when we hear the word “dana” translated as “generosity,” we immediately imagine something given to another, whether it’s food to address hunger, money to address poverty, a shoulder to cry on, or the Dharma to address one’s spiritual needs. The Buddha tells us: “Do give gifts! For poverty is a painful thing. One is unable when poor, to accomplish one’s own welfare, much less that of others!”
In the iconography, each of Kannon’s tool bearing arms has an eye on the palm (and implicitly an ear, tongue, and nose as well). Wright makes an important point addressing how to use skillful means for meaningful and effective generosity. He proposes that the first skill for generosity is an effective practice of receptivity. This is certainly evidenced in the multi armed presence of Kannon. How can we know what another needs unless we listen to, hear, and see their needs? And how can our response address that need, in turn, most effectively? This is where our growing instinct and training towards generosity merges with the perfections of wisdom and patience. Kannon’s open arms are Invitational and also capable. Our ability to manifest generosity is really a function of how open we are to others’ situation and needs and how we communicate our openness to them. In the realm of dana, reciprocity is a key dynamic. Our generosity expresses our sensitivity and opens our minds to the possibility that someone may need our assistance. In turn they may signal their appreciation for this gesture towards them (or not). Our offer is never contingent or dependent on expected positive feedback.
There is another side of dana we don’t often address. The poet Alan Ginsberg, a deeply devout Buddhist, wrote a Kannon-inspired poem called “Who Be Kind To?” So many suffering, so many in such need. Just as Kannon finally thought he had overcome suffering, he realized it kept continually emerging from our human condition. His response was that his head blew apart and was reassembled with 9 faces crowned by a three-faced with a Buddha on top to continue her effort. With so many in need, who should one be kind to? Ginsberg’s opening response is: ”Be kind to yourself, it is only one/ and perishable/ of many on the planet, thou art that/one who wishes a soft finger tracing/the line of feeling…..” In our dedication to others’ well being, we can neglect to maintain our own ability to offer our dana in a full-hearted and focused way. A quick story. One evening speaking to a Zen colleague Struggling with her daughter’s profound problems with alcoholism which had been going on for some time, these lines from Ginsburg popped up. She had really hit a wall and was clearly burned out from her continuing efforts to assist and her continuing mindfulness about what she might or could possibly do to change the outcome of her daughter’s addictive illness. It struck me that this question was really an important one to ask her. Really, how can you help your daughter if you've totally exhausted your own resources and don't have the ability to arise from your bed in the morning and continue in the most effective way? What is the most appropriate way for you to try to support her daughter and also protect and nurture herself to be of service ahead? For her, this was a kind of breakthrough, a recognition that she had to take care of herself in order to respond skillfully. If not, then she couldn't offer her fullest gifts of compassion and concern to assist her child’s path toward stability and recovery. And in telling this story, I realized that my dana of advice lead to a renewed generosity towards herself and her daughter that might not have manifested otherwise. Each gesture of generosity furthers the stream of non-obstruction and openness. It’s kind of the Buddhist version of a perpetual motion machine.
An important note in Zoketsu’s daily Generosity exercises in “The World Could be Otherwise” is “Do something everyday for your health and well-being - meditation, exercise, healthy diet.” So remember. “Be kind to Yourself.” Your best efforts are needed, each breath!!
Taigen Leighton’s book reminds us that we experience Bodhisattvas and their selfless generosity on at least 3 explicit levels: the mythic presentation such as the 1,001 Kannons (Sanjusangen-ji) that John, Hannah, and I experienced in Kyoto, each different, each fully embodied. Or the 15’ tall single tree cypress Kwanyin at Hasadera, carved, it is told, in one night, her big toe smoothed to a mirror finish by generations of loving fingers. The second level are those living humans whose pictures grace the book’s cover and who we all recognize as exemplary beings who selflessly gave their lives fully to alleviate suffering in the human universe: Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Albert Scwetzer, and Mohammed Ali. The third level are those ordinary humans who succor suffering, build community, and forge beneficial relationships that endure long after their last breath. You don’t have to be a “Buddhist” to be a bodhisattva.
I’ll finish these comments with an excerpt from remarks I offered early in February at my cousin Herman Rose’s memorial service. In 1995 he was recognized as Rhode island Philanthropist of the Year. He provided a significant contribution for the building of Sansuiji as well as to Skagitonians to Preserve Farmland and the Skagit River Poetry Festival. We chanted his name this morning in our Memorial portion of the service. I’m honored to recognize his selfless character:
In Buddhist teachings there's a constellation of values or Perfections that we try to bring forth in our day-to-day life as compassionate humans. The first of those perfections is Generosity. Many teachers believe that all the other character values, from energy to wisdom to patience, are contained in and are furthered by Generosity: the spirit of open giving and responding to the ills, misfortunes, and joys we continually live within. Herm had a profound and quizzical understanding about the transience of all of this and approached it all, right to the end, with a measured equilibrium and a whimsical chuckle.
He gave prudently, strategically, and thoughtfully. But giving wasn't something Herm did as a responsibility or as a way to assuage guilt or heal some moral lapse. No, Herm didn't “do” giving. He was giving - right down to the marrow. It flowed through him naturally and in his Boy Scout fashion, he tried to leave a place better than he found it. Never seeking recognition, quietly and simply getting the work done. Leaving things better for and between all kinds of people and for the places they live, work, and raise their kids.
Thank you, Herm, for your intelligent heart and the open-handed life you so graced us with. The ripples will continue to spread and make all of our lives richer because of your seen and unseen offerings.
Gassho.
Now, let us enter the spirit of Kannon/Kanzeon and chant together this dharani-like sutra for Protecting and Sustaining Like:
ENMEI JUKU KANNON GYO
Chant 7 Times
MAY OUR INTENTION EQUALLY EXTEND TO
EVERY BEING AND PLACE
WITH THE TRUE MERIT OF BUDDHA’S WAY
BEINGS ARE NUMBERLESS….
Questions to Consider-
How can I get out of my own way to offer Dana without reluctance or fear?
What do I hold on to when the opportunity for Dana arises in my life??
At what point am I uncomfortable with offering something of “value? What would be the harm to myself? The benefit to another?
