Every Breath You Take (Dharma Talks 1-99)

Form a canopy of lightFrom changeless liberation."Seeing flowers in bloom,"May all beings'Subtle perceptions of wonderBlossom forth like flowers."Seeing trees in bloom,"May all beings'Have flower-like features,And be marked with nobility."Seeing fruits,"May all beingsFulfill the consummate TeachingAnd realize the Way of Awake Awareness."Seeing a vast river,"May all beingsEnter the stream of Reality,Flowing into the ocean of Awake Awareness."Seeing a reservoir,"May all beingsWake up right now toThe truth of the seamlessness of the Buddhas."Seeing a pond,"May all beingsBe eloquent in speechAnd skillful in teaching."Seeing a well,"May all beingsHave the capacity to clarifyAnd so elucidate all things."Seeing a spring,"May all beings'Skillful means increaseAnd roots of virtue never wither."Seeing a bridge,"May all beingsbe like a bridgeand bear all across to freedom."Seeing flowing water,"May all beingsUnfold clear determinationTo wash away delusory stains."Seeing a garden,"May all beingsClear away the weeds of fixationFrom the garden of the senses."Seeing a forest of "sorrowless" trees,"May all beingsLeave behind greed and lust foreverAnd not give rise to anxiety and fear."

Seeing a park,"May all beingsFollow the ways of practiceWhich move into unfolding as Awake Awareness."Seeing people wearing adornments"May all beingsBe adorned with the Buddha'sThirty-two marks of nobility."Seeing the unadorned"May all beingsRelease elaborationAnd practice simplicity."Seeing people obsessed with pleasure,"May all beingsDelight in Reality,And be unwavering in love for it."Seeing those without obsession,"May all beingsNot incline towards fixationOn fabricated things."Seeing people who are happy,"May all beingsAlways be serene and joyous,Gladly offering to the Buddhas."Seeing people who suffer,"May all beingsUnfold knowing the essenceAnd expel all anguish."Seeing people in good health,"May all beingsEnter complete and perfect knowingAnd be without illness or afflictions."Seeing people who are ill,"May all beingsKnow the body is empty and openAnd release struggle and conflict."Seeing people who appear to be attractive,"May all beingsAlways have unstained confidenceIn the Awakened and wakeful ones."Seeing people who appear to be unattractive,"May all beingsBe free of attachmentTo any unwholesome thing."Seeing people who are grateful,"May all beingsCome to know the richness offered byThe Awakened and wakeful ones."Seeing people without gratitude,"May all beings

Not add to the punishmentOf those who are hurtful."Seeing mendicants,"May all beingsBe harmonious and serene,Training themselves thoroughly."Seeing aristocrats,"May all beingsAlways keep to pure activity,Moving past all contraction."Seeing ascetics"May all beingsBy rigorous practicesCome to the Only Condition."Seeing people who are disciplined,"May all beingsKeep clear determination in practiceAnd not wander from the path of Awakening."Seeing armoured people,"May all beingsBe armoured with integrity,And move to the state beyond learning."Seeing people unarmed,"May all beingsAlways be free ofActing out of contraction."Seeing people debate,"May all beingsBe able to counterAll inverted views."Seeing people of right livelihood,"May all beingsSucceed in right livelihoodNever needing to do what should not be done."Seeing a king,"May all beingsBecome sovereigns of Reality,Always displaying the Teaching of Truth."Seeing a prince,"May all beingsBe born in the truthAnd be children of Awakening."Seeing the elderly,"May all beingsBe able to decisively cut throughAnd not follow contracted conduct."Seeing a high minister,"May all beingsAlways practise right mindfulnessAnd all their activities be true."

Seeing a castle,"May all beingsBe strong and firm in bodyAnd tireless in mind."Seeing a capital,"May all beingsGather all qualities of virtueAnd always be delighted and joyful."Seeing someone in a forest,"May all beingsBe worthy of the honor and acclaimOf shining beings and of humans."Entering a village to beg for alms,"May all beingsEnter the profound realm of Reality,Without obstructions of attention."Coming to someone's door,"May all beingsEnter all GatesOf Awake Awareness."Entering a house,"May all beingsEnter the vehicle of Awakening as Awareness,Always equal throughout all times."Seeing those who refuse to make offerings,"May all beingsNever turn fromThe ways of supreme virtue."Seeing those who make offerings,"May all beingsForever abandonThe three contracted paths and destinies."Seeing the alms-bowl empty,"May all beingsBe open of heartAnd without afflictions."Seeing the alms-bowl full,"May all beingsCompletely fulfillAll the ways of virtue."If treated respectfully,"May all beingsRespectfully practiseAll the Teachings of the Buddhas."If treated disrespectfully,"May all beingsNot act in waysThat are constricted."Seeing people with modesty,"May all beings

Act with discretionAnd dress appropriately."Seeing the shameless,"May all beingsGo past shamelessnessAnd live with care for all."Receiving fine food,"May all beingsFulfill their aspirationsAnd be free from envy and craving."Receiving poor food,"May all beingsWithout fail receiveThe taste of practice."Receiving soft food,"May all beingsBe steeped in compassion,Their minds becoming gentle."Receiving coarse, hard food,"May all beingsBe without attachmentsAnd cut through mundane craving."When eating,"May all beingsBe nourished by joyful practiceAnd filled with delight in Reality."When tasting,"May all beingsTaste utter Awake Awareness,filled with the ambrosia of the deathless."When finished eating,"May all beingsAccomplish all tasksAnd fulfill the Teachings of the Buddhas."When presenting the Teachings,"May all beingsAttain unobstructed eloquenceAnd display everywhere the essence of the Teachings."When leaving a place,"May all beingsPenetrate Awakened experienceAnd move past the three conditional realms."Entering a bath,"May all beingsEnter the knowing which knows the nature of all knowns,throughout the three measures of time."While washing the body,"May all beingsPurify body and mind,Inside and out."

In the heat of the day,"May all beingsCast away countless afflictions,Allowing them all to end."After the heat when the cool comes,"May all beingsExperience completely RealityAnd their heat be cooled."When reciting the Discourses,"May all beingsBe aligned with the Teachings of the Buddhas,Through unwavering mindfulness."If they should meet a Buddha,"May all beingsBecome All-Pervasive Richness,Dignified and adorned with all."Seeing a memorial site of the Buddha,"May all beingsBe as honored as is this shrine,Receiving the offerings of shining ones and humans."Inspired by the sight of the shrine,"May all beingsInspire by the sight of themAll shining beings and humans."Bowing their heads before the shrine,"May all beingsMove past the perspectivesOf shining beings and humans."Circumambulating the shrine,"May all beingsAct always without biasAnd unfold knowing the nature of all knowns."Circling the shrine three times,"May all beingsConstantly see the path of Awakening as AwarenessWith attention unobscured by recoil."Praising the virtues of the Buddhas,"May all beingsFulfill all the virtuesSo continuously extolled."Praising the marks of the Buddhas,"May all beingsUnfold the body of Awake AwarenessAnd realize formless truth."Washing their feet,"May all beingsFulfill the bases of subtle perceptions,Moving as unobstructedness everywhere."When going to sleep at night,"May all beings

Calm all thingsAnd uncover the stainless mind of clarity."Awakening from sleep,"May all beingsRealize each thing as it is,Pervading the ten directions.""Child of the Awakened Ones, if wakeful ones use their intelligence in this way, they will unfold all supreme and wonderfulqualities, which cannot be shaken away by any shining beings, demons, monks, aristocrats, celestial musicians, violentshining beings, and so on, nor by any who have only a hear-say knowledge of the Teachings or those who self-fabricateenlightened states."Every Breath You Take 1: HomeDharma Talk by Ven. Shikai Zuiko o-senseiDainen-ji, November 1st, 2007EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE is the only moment that you can practise. Any practice you've done before this breath is goneforever. And relying on there being another breath in which you'll actually get around to practising is a mistake becauseyou do not know whether you will have another breath.And one day there will not be another breath. So you may as well take the opportunity of the breath that is breathing youright now to notice reality; to wake up from the rapture of fabrications, of dreams, of conditioned experiencing, to thereality of this moment of the whole bodymind breathing, seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, feeling, smelling, colours,sounds, forms, the myriad of dharmas that arise in each moment, the myriad of experiences that arise in each moment,the myriad of knowns that arise in each moment of knowing. And you are Knowing in itself.You are not a knower. There is no knower. If you notice a knower you have noticed a contraction into a sense of self that isknowing something. So all you have to do at that point is practise mindfulness of breath, feeling the breath moving thebodymind in and out, sitting up straight which is a short form for noticing the presencing of the whole bodymind, openingthe eyes, opening the peripheral vision: practising the whole bodymind in the whole moment.Now we like to think, each and every one of us has thought these things, that we are somehow special. We really don'tneed to do this practice as much as the guy or gal beside us because obviously we are vastly superior.Recognize that as a contraction into a sense of self with a habitual storyline. What you may not have noticed is that in thenext moment you just know and you are convinced that everyone in the Hatto is better at this than you are. And it is as ifthose two opposed points of view can exist in the same moment. And you start to establish a little bit of mindfulnesspractise. You start to be able to sit on the zafu for half an hour. You start to be able to wake up from time to time and seethat the thought you were following was just that, it was a thought, so you woke up for a moment to the reality of themoment. You saw a thought as a thought. You remembered to feel the breath or else you allowed yourself to notice thebreath moving the bodymind in and out. You noticed seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, feeling, smelling. You sat upstraight and for a moment that movie you were entertaining yourself with dropped away. And you could actuallyexperience the clarity of this open moment free of conditioned experiencing, free of those little clotted bits with theirstories that we call self-image.Last week and the week before I read to you from the text "The Practice of Purity: Verses from the Flower GarlandDiscourse". This is a translation which the Roshi, with a small amount of assistance from myself, did some 15 years ago. Itis a translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra. That sutra was written some 1600 years ago but it was written about and for guysand gals, and then monastics, who were just like you, and just like you, and just like you, who sat down on a cushion to lookinto what was going on, who they really were. And of course because this is difficult we like to assume that somehow orother it was easy for those old guys because they were like bigger and better, than we could ever be. But we forget thatthey were people. They sat their bums down on cushions, bunches of straw, or on a rock, and they were looking into theactual nature of experiencing which can be rough. And so stories were written about teachers and about students. The onlyobject of the story was to point out to a student something that would be useful to them in helping them cut through thecontractions of self-image that come up in different situations.Now as I said, we like to think we're very special. No one has experienced our angst. Well in a way that's true. Just as eachbreath that we breathe can only be breathed by us so each contraction that you feel, each fluctuation in temperature, eachrush of feeling tone, can only be felt by you, however, all human beings experience in the same way. The process is thesame. The content might vary and does vary but the context is the same. So when feelings come up of being somehowapart, removed from, somehow being self with everything else being other, you've recognized a moment of reality; that setof sensations is there. At the moment of recognition, feel the breath, sit up straight, open the eye gaze, practise basicmindfulness and that will open.The Avatamsaka Sutra was put together. In Book 11 is a story that Manjushri, Wisdom, was asked a question by a student.In the "Kigon-gyo, Book Eleven", Kenju, a Wakeful One, or All Pervasive Knowledge, asks Manjushri, "How should the

wakeful ones practise thoroughly unfold activities of body, speech, and mind without fault?" Even 1600 years ago asking"What can we do to wake up? What can we do to deepen our practice?"Manjushri said, "Good question. You want to practise to benefit all beings." Well he said it a little bit , the way it has beentranslated in The Practice of Purity, and in other texts, it's a little bit more detailed than that. So out of this question ofhow people could "unfold excellent, foremost, peerless, immeasurable, incalculable, inconceivable, incomparable,unfathomable and inexpressible investigation" rose these 140 verses.Verses are not prayers, although in some texts, not published by Great Matter, they have been referred to as prayers.Basically in one text it was saying that we are praying that other people will smarten up. That other people will wake up. Wepray that all beings can wake up. Well that's not really at all what we are doing here. It's exactly the opposite.You've heard at least one of the verses of the 140 if you've ever been here for closing bells. That is chanted as well everynight during sesshin:As we enter into sleep this night,"May all beingsCalm all thingsAnd uncover the stainless mind of clarity."The first verse in "The Practice of Purity" is addressed to Wakeful Ones who are at home.Wakeful ones who are at home should raise the aspiration,"May all beingsRealize the nature of 'home' is emptyAnd release its limitations."As the Roshi has said in the formal student series, "The Anatomy of Awakening" students are learning to see all of thepatterns and "realms of deep conditioning which human beings call 'home'. "And when you look into it you'll find that each of you most probably have a set of associations that come up with the word'home'. You would be quite unique if, in fact, you did not. A 'home' is not a house. A 'home' is this moment, this moment,displays everything. It displays the whole universe. Our set of feeling tones, patterns, associations about 'home' arisewithin the moment within which they are arising. When we believe that our patterns and associations and feeling tones aredefinitions of truth we often find ourselves setting out, seeking after this fabrication that we have become intoxicated with.We look for 'home'. We want to be comfortable. We want to have a set of associations. This type of concepts and yearningsoften arise for people around holidays. Around Christmas for example there may be thoughts of reconciliation that willoccur, understandings that will happen that have never happened before but yet we dream on. And of course, economiesare driven by these dreams.Verses are given and have been given so that students can give themselves another way of looking at their own experience.They're not little bits and pieces to be memorized and then chanted to block what one is actually experiencing but rathertools that one can use to look at and open up new understandings.Self-image becomes very reactive because when it hears something that seems different than what it believes it will oftenreact and perhaps even attack by saying things about "the inhuman way" in which the monks may view a student's life bysuggesting to them that their yearnings for 'home' may be just fabrications, may be something that never existed ever.Now this is not talking about abdicating responsibility. Not at all. But rather talking about recognizing that in each momentyou have an opportunity to look and see more clearly what is arising for you.The text, "The Practice of Purity", is addressed to monastics in some specific areas. Monastics are home leavers. Monasticshave recognized that the usual definition of family and home is too small and it is too isolating because for 'home' therehas to be 'not home'. There has to be self. There has to be other. And practice says there is no self, there is no other. Thereis just this moment of experiencing. There is just the benefit of all beings and what are you going to do about it? So versessuch as these, such as The Practice of Purity, can aid you, as do all the forms of practice, in seeing more completely whatarises for you in each and every moment.Next week we will look into the second verse which is about serving parents.You're quite welcome to come forward during daisan with any questions that you might have or send an email to me if youdo have questions. The text is available. You can read it. See what happens.Thank you for listening.

Every Breath You Take 2: Serving ParentsDharma Talk by Ven. Shikai Zuiko o-senseiDainen-ji, November 8th, 2007So it's this moment.You're sitting, breathing in and out.You can feel the posture,see the seeing,hear the hearing,notice thoughts coming and going,notice sensations coming and going.The instruction is really simple: when you notice anything, anything at all, any moment of experience, you practisemindfulness of breath, of body, of mind; mindfulness of the whole body in the whole moment.Teisho, Dharma Talks, interactions with teachers, practice advisors, exist for only one reason and that is to remind you topractise in this moment.Thoughts and feelings arise on their own in response to cues. In the "Avatamsaka Sutra" and "The Practice of Purity, versesfrom the Flower Garland Discourse", which is the "Avatamsaka Sutra", the question was raised as to how practitioners whohad become home leavers, who had become monastics, could "unfold the energy of knowing what is true and what is not,the energy of knowing the consequences of events, the energy of knowing the inclinations of beings, the energy of knowingthe various styles of beings, the energy of knowing the capacities of beings, the energy of knowing the destinations of allpaths of practice, the energy of knowing the obscurations, deviat

Every Breath You Take (Dharma Talks 1-99) Dharma Talks by Ven. Shikai Zuiko o-sensei Commentaries on Book Eleven of the Avatamsaka sutra, translated by Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi and Ven. Shikai Zuiko sensei Jo-gyo-bon: the Practice of Purity (Avatamsaka sutra, Huayan jing, Kegon-kyo, Book Eleven) translated by Ven. Anzan Hoshin roshi