Talk Notes:
An unsurpassed penetrating and perfect Dharma is rarely met with even in a hundred thousand Kalas. Having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept, I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata’s words.
Well, this sounds like I have something special to offer you here. But really, I have nothing to offer that you can’t find within yourself. I have nothing special to offer.
People ask me all the time, since I am a newly ordained priest, “So, how does it feel to be a priest?” I feel like I might be disappointing them to say, it’s nothing special. It’s not. I’m still myself. And I’m still practicing Zen. “Has anything really changed?” I’ve asked myself. I do feel that my responsibilities have shifted, as I’ve settled more deeply into my vows. I’m sitting here, for example, offering this Dharma talk. I offer more Dharma classes. That’s my practice now. It may look different from the outside, but on the inside, it still feels like me practicing Zen - sometimes it feels more like Zen practicing me. Anyway, as we move life, our practice will take different forms at different time. This is form my practice takes right now. It will change again.
Today, I am going to talk about the first of the six Paramitas: Dana Paramita, considered the gateway to the Boddhisattva path.
I see it as “laying the groundwork” for the other paramita. Why? Because it requires a fundamental shift in our attitude. One of the most deeply conditioned attitudes we have is one of self-centeredness. We learned early on: I am separate from you. We believe that each object, as well as each person is a distinct entity, a separate form. Out of this naturally emerges a self-centered attitude. If I exist as a separate entity, then I have to take care of myself, attend to my needs, ensure that my needs are met - my needs for survival, comfort, pleasure, and growth, my needs to be heard, to be accepted, to be loved, to be seen, to be understood. And the list goes on. We have a saying here in America, “Watch out for #1.” In fact, we have a president who approaches international affairs with a “Put America first” attitude. Same mentality as “watch out for #1.” This self-centered attitude is not just normalized, but a deeply supported and culturally conditioned attitude we learn from an early age.
The practice of dana, generosity, confronts this learned separateness and me-centered attitude. But as Norman says in The World Could be Otherwise (his book on the paramitas), “When we sit in the lap of the Buddha, there is no separate self.” When we sit in the lap of the Buddha.”Take a minute to breathe with that. To feel that. What is it for you to sit in the lap of the Buddha? Maybe it’s to feel your Buddha body. My teacher refers to this as “Zazen body.” Sometimes I refer to it as simply as Presence or Being, completely open, aware, unencumbered with my ideas of how things are. Wow. When we sit in the lap of the Buddha. For me this also invokes the image of a child in a parent's lap, feeling connected, loved and held by something bigger. A love that includes the whole universe.
“When we sit in the lap of the Buddha, there is no separate self.” We are a wave in an ocean of being. With this recognition, there is nothing to defend or put first. My life and your life are part of an endless interconnected web of life that includes everything. How can I put myself first if, indeed, my life is your life?
When we sit in the lap of the Buddha, we feel the inherent generosity of life - and the endless gifts that life offers. Have you noticed (maybe you have since you sit Zazen) that after each exhale life offers an inhale? No effort is required. You don’t have to make it happen. This is an expression of life’s inherent generosity. It is part of the life that keeps on giving. We can lay cement over the earth, and the plants will find their way up through the crack, expressing their aliveness. We can cut open a body - even split open the sternum to perform open heart surgery, and somehow the body knows how to heal itself so it can keep living. Wow.
And what is it that enables us to recover from deep depression, addiction, trauma of terrible sorts? I bet every single person in this room has been either through or witnessed some sort of either physical or emotional trauma (or both). Maybe you thought you weren’t going to make it - to come out the other side. What got you through? Here you are. Life miraculously keeps on giving.
When we are able to recognize the inherent generosity of life, there are always new doors to open, or new possibilities - even when we have given up. There are always ways to grow and learn - and blossom - even in the hardest of times. There is the potential to heal through most of life’s challenges. Cultivating Dana Paramita, enables us to see life’s gifts, and to recognize that sometimes our role is simply to get out of the way - to allow the inhale that naturally fills us.
In Norman’s chapter on Dana Pamamita (p. 28), he writes “Life itself is generous. Life is always making more life. Life is abundant and expansive, never stingy or small-minded. It keeps on going, bubbling up and expanding wherever it has a chance. You don’t need to create life, you just need to let it in.”
This is important: You don’t need to create life, you just need to let it in.
The practice of dana paramita is fundamentally about letting go. “Dropping body and mind,” as Dogen would say. Give up self-clinging: holding fast to the idea that I’m separate and need to put myself first. Easier said than done, right? That is why we need practice.
Each time we sit down on our cushion, every time we invite ourselves back to this moment, Just This, we practice letting go of what Okumura calls the “limited, individual self.” I love his description of the conditioned self, “limited, individual self” because it is so accurate. Limited - implying a disconnection from the life that keeps on giving - a disconnected, bounded self - one I must defend and preserve. Individual self - implying that I am separate and small. For me, it comes with a feeling of deficiency. I’m never enough - can’t do it good enough, can’t be good enough, not smart enough, not pretty enough- just not enough. Do you struggle with not-enoughness? I think this is an inherent part of being identified with the limited, individual self.
This is the self that gets in the way. Dogen’s encouragement to drop body and mind - he’s inviting us to let go of the limited sense of self, our identity with limited self-concepts, small-mindedness, and the self-centered disposition that is at the heart of this identity.
But the paradox is, of course, we can’t try to let go. As soon as we are trying, we are efforting in some way - the opposite of letting go. It’s something we need to allow - like the next inhale. If you can step aside, it will naturally happen. And this, of course, is why Zazen practice is so helpful in cultivating Dana Paramita. In Zazen, we continually practice letting go. When thoughts arise, we practice letting them float by, allowing them to come and go. When feelings or sensations arise, we practice noticing them but not indulging in them, so again, they can come and go.
Zazen practice is itself an expression of life’s generosity. Something bigger than the limited, individual self brought you to practice, brings you to your cushion, and brings you to temple. Have you ever thought about that? What brought you to practice? Practice is like the breath that breathes you. Just as the breath itself breathes life into you, practice too breathes life into you. It breathes the life of compassion, wisdom, equanimity, acceptance, to name just a few examples of how practice supports our growth, our unfoldment and the blossoming of our life. We show up - and then get out of the way - and practice will show us the inherent abundance of the Being, and the endless gifts that life bestows.
When we sit in the lap of the Buddha, we see that even in the difficult moments or amidst life’s challenges - even those challenges that seem unsurmountable - there are gifts. Life is awakening. I think this is Dogen’s idea of continuous practice. Everything we do is in service of this awakening. We can’t help it. It’s unstoppable. It’s the inhale that most naturally, and absolutely effortlessly, follows the exhale, the letting go.
I remember when I wrote my Way-seeking Mind talk, when I was Shuso. My life story wasn’t an easy one to tell. A sad and lonely childhood. A depressed, unresponsive mother. My early adult years were characterized by my own depression. But in writing my talk, I could feel that my life was perfect. It couldn’t be any other way, because it brought me to this day and made me who I am. I wouldn’t be sitting here in this temple on this Sunday morning if it weren’t for each and everything that has happened in my life. Everything truly is a gift. If we pay attention, everything is saying “wake up.” If we get out of the way, everything is the expression of life’s blossoming. Knowing this is Dana Paramita.
When Nomon Tim introduced the paramitas 2 weeks ago, he talked about them as practices of “going beyond.” I think he was talking about going beyond our limited, individual self. It is not me giving to you. Ultimately, there is no me and no you. We are all part of life’s continuous flow of giving.
As we say it the meal chant, “may we, with all beings realize the emptiness of the three wheels: giver, receiver, and gift.”
