Adventures Of Sariputta & Mogallana 11: Guidance To The Cook

You are listening to The Adventures of Saraputa and Mogulana.

I'm your host,

Morris Sullivan.

People often come to me with questions about different schools of Buddhism and wonder if there are best practices and things like that.

Truth is there are numerous Dharma gates,

Many ways to enter into the light offered by the Buddha's teachings.

All the gates may look very different,

But the light is always the same.

At one time the Buddha and several of his most advanced monks,

Including Saraputa and Mogulana,

Were staying in a forest of sala trees.

Sala trees,

Or sal trees you might see them called,

Are very significant in Indian spirituality because they have these brilliant flowers and they're very fragrant.

One evening while they were there Mogulana decided that he would go sit with Saraputa and talk about the Dharma.

And he asked Kasapa if he wanted to come along and pretty soon they were joined by Ananda and Aruta and Ravada.

These were all venerable monks,

Very advanced practitioners.

And when they arrived where Saraputa was he welcomed them.

And they were sitting there together and Saraputa said,

You know this forest of sala trees is wonderful tonight.

There is a full moon,

The trees are in bloom,

The night is perfumed by their heavenly scent.

And then he asked a question of Ananda.

He said,

What kind of monk do you think could illuminate this forest?

In other words,

Was there a monk who could,

With his level of realization,

Add even more luster to this beautiful evening?

Ananda answered that a monk who had learned a lot,

Had assimilated what he had heard and could teach clearly,

That was the kind of monk who could light up a sala tree woods.

Saraputa then put the same question to Ravada.

And Ravada answered that a monk who diligently meditates and is devoted to serenity,

That monk could brighten the forest.

The question went around from monk to monk.

Anuruddha thought a monk with a purified divine eye would bring light to the darkness.

For Kasapa it would be a forest dweller who preaches contentment.

For Moggallana it might be two monks engaged in a discussion of the Dharma,

Much like the one they were having.

As for Saraputa,

He believed that a monk who has mastered his mind and could abide in any refined mental state that he wished,

At any time at all,

Would illuminate the grove.

Well,

After having this conversation,

They decided that they'd go see the Buddha and tell him what they had been talking about.

When they related their conversation to him,

The Buddha was very pleased with what he had heard.

He said,

Ananda should speak just as he did,

For he has learned much and he teaches the Dharma clearly.

Anuruddha delights in solitary meditation and possesses insight.

Anuruddha surveys a thousand worlds with his divine eye.

Kasapa is a forest dweller who has attained freedom from suffering.

Moggallana discusses the Dharma impeccably,

And Saraputa wields mastery over his mind.

Each of them had spoken well,

He said,

From his own realization,

From his own abilities,

According to his own nature.

A while back,

I talked at White Sands Buddhist Center about several influential Japanese Dharma teachers whose spiritual search started at the same place and then led them to teach and practice in different ways,

Each in alignment with his own nature.

I didn't say anything yet.

Why are you applauding me?

We're glad you're here.

Oh,

Okay.

Well,

I'm glad I'm here too.

In fact,

The place has a really nice vibe today.

I was feeling really energized during chanting this morning.

So I'm glad you're all here.

So I was talking several weeks ago to one of the inmates and I can't remember what question he had asked me,

But I was answering it and as I was talking to him,

I realized that my answer involved mentioning several teachers from different schools of Japanese Buddhism.

It occurred to me as I was talking to him that these guys had all gone to the same monastery in Japan and around the same century and they had studied the same type of Buddhism and then they'd all left and started their own schools of Buddhism.

And I thought,

This is really interesting.

And so I decided I would kind of look into the history of this a little bit more.

And I found it significant spiritually that this had happened.

And so,

You know,

A lot of times Americans come to investigate Buddhism and they find out that there's a bunch of different kinds and,

You know,

What kind should I be?

What kind of Buddhist are you?

You know,

Those kinds of conversations happen.

And so I thought I'd talk a little bit about this in the context of those particular people and then give you an instruction that was written by one of them for the cooks in the food hall.

Okay?

So there's a bunch of different kinds of Buddhism.

And one of the sort of main categories of Buddhism is Tantric Buddhism.

So Tibetan Buddhism,

What we think of as Tibetan Buddhism usually is Tantric Buddhism.

And I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about that,

But there's a,

But basically then in this particular type of Buddhism,

There are esoteric teachings and esoteric practices.

And so there's this one monastery in Japan.

It's on a mountain top.

It's Mount Hiei.

And it's a Tendai monastery.

So Tendai is the school of Japanese Tantric Buddhism.

And they're kind of famous for some of the practices that they do there.

They have these,

There are these people that they refer to as marathon monks.

I don't know that the monks themselves refer to themselves that way,

But one of the practices that they do is very long periods of walking meditation around the base of the mountain and stuff like that,

Walk many kilometers a day.

And kind of one of their main teachings there is the Lotus Sutra.

And a lot of us are familiar with the Lotus Sutra.

You know,

The core teaching of that is the understanding of Buddha nature.

And so between the 12th and 13th centuries,

There were several people who went there,

Ordained there,

Or spent time training there.

And then for some reason decided to leave there and go off and do something completely different.

And some of them are very significant people to meet.

And in Japanese Buddhism,

Probably kind of the key figures in Japanese Buddhism,

But because of the way Buddhism spread through the West,

You encounter these names a lot in Western Buddhism as well.

And so one of them is a fellow named Shenron.

And he was born at the close of the,

When there was a lot of political change in Japan,

So 1173 or so AD.

And so Buddhism had been in decline in Japan at the time,

But it was beginning renewal during this period.

And he ordained at age nine.

And he spent 20 years as a monk at this monastery at Mount Hiei.

But he started to feel some doubt.

He had learned all of these esoteric practices,

But he didn't feel like he was getting anywhere.

And so he decided he would take a long retreat.

And so at dawn on the 59th day of this retreat where he was practicing very intensely and doing a lot of meditation and stuff,

He had a vision during meditation.

And in this vision,

The Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara appeared to him and told him to go speak with a teacher named Honen.

So Honen was older.

He was about 40 years older than Shenron.

But he was also a former Tendai monk.

And while he was out at Mount Hiei,

He devoted himself to trying to find a method of practice that would allow everyone to become enlightened.

So this was kind of a common thread through these stories.

The idea with some of these tantric Buddhist practices is that you almost have to ordain.

You have to have a real close student-teacher relationship.

You have to do these things that not everybody can do and all of that.

And Honen said,

I really would like to find a way to practice that everyone could do so everyone could achieve enlightenment because that's what Mahayana Buddhism says is supposed to happen.

And so as he's doing this,

He found these writings of this Chinese master who was teaching a fairly simple practice of reciting the name of Buddha Amitabha.

So you hear in Vietnamese,

You'll hear Vietnamese people saying Adidafat.

That's the Vietnamese name for the Buddha Amitabha.

And in Japan,

You'll hear Namo Amida Butsu,

Which is the,

You know,

I revere Amitabha Buddha.

That's what that means.

So what this Chinese teacher had written was that if you only said this,

If you only say the name of Amitabha Buddha with all your heart and you do this a lot,

Whether standing or walking,

Sitting or lying down,

Never cease the practice of it even for a moment,

And this work will unfailingly lead you to awakening.

And so reading this,

Honen awakened.

And so he left Mount Hiei to form the Pure Land School of Buddhism in Japan.

And so worldwide,

Pure Land Buddhism,

Which originated in China and spread out from there,

Is one of the most commonly practiced forms of Buddhism.

So Shenron did what the Bodhisattva had instructed him in this vision.

And he went and found Honen.

And under his guidance,

At age 29,

He attained enlightenment through Amitabha's vow,

Through reciting the name Butsu,

The name of the Buddha.

And so he had come to believe that it wasn't possible to achieve enlightenment through normal monastic practices,

That the world had fallen too far into decline.

And so he felt the only means to awakening was to seek rebirth in the Pure Land.

And this is what he later said about this.

He referred to himself as the bald-headed fool,

Shenron.

He says,

I,

The bald-headed fool,

Abandoned forever the provisional path of manifold practices and good work,

And turned to the true path,

The basis of virtue and good,

And gave rise to the aspiration for birth in the Pure Land that is difficult to comprehend.

But he even went beyond what Honen said a little bit.

He said,

I've converted to the ocean-like vow singled out by Amitabha Buddha.

So he felt that the real moment of awakening happened when you entrusted yourself to this idea that awakening is possible just through belief in this vow.

He said,

If you can attain that degree of surrender,

Even for a moment,

Then that's assurance of rebirth in the Pure Land,

Right there.

So and he went off and he founded another school of Buddhism,

Jodo Shinshu,

Which means true Pure Land.

It's not true Pure Land because it's the best or the one that you should follow.

It's true Pure Land because the mechanism of awakening is true and trusting,

Really surrendering your ego to faith in Amitabha,

Which you can see as the embodiment of oneness.

So once this state of faith is bestowed,

One is assured of rebirth in the Pure Land and ultimately enlightenment.

So earlier we recited the Maha Pranayama Paramaita Sutta,

Which is when where the teaching on emptiness comes from,

Right?

And the teaching on emptiness and the teaching of oneness are very closely linked.

And so you could say that to really let go of your ego in order to entrust to the vow of Amitabha is very much like realizing emptiness the way Avalokitesvara talks about in that sutra.

It's not obvious,

But if you work with it a little bit,

You'll find that.

Also I suspect,

And I'm no expert in Abrahamic faiths at all,

But this is kind of what I think.

And I think this kind of faith as surrender to an ideal like that is the kind of faith that causes transformation in Christianity,

For instance.

That the belief in Christ is not just,

Oh yeah,

I believe that,

I've heard it and so I think it.

It's really believing on that deep,

True and trusting level that will cause a spiritual transformation.

So around the time that Shinran was awakening via Amitabha's vow,

There was another young man who ordained and eventually became a Tendai monk at Mount Hiei.

And this monk,

Dogen,

Also came to have some reservations about what he was being taught there.

And he became fascinated by a particular conundrum that's talked about in relation to the Lotus Sutra.

There's this Tendai concept of original enlightenment that presupposes that all human beings are enlightened by nature.

And given that,

It would follow that the idea of achieving enlightenment through practice is unnecessary.

Because if you're already enlightened by nature,

Why would you need to practice,

Right?

And I imagine he must have wondered by extension why these Tendai monks bothered doing these esoteric practices that they were being taught at Mount Hiei.

And he couldn't find an answer there on the mountain.

And so he also kind of became disillusioned with the politics.

There was monasteries or bureaucracies to it,

And all bureaucracies are political.

And he was getting kind of burned out on that.

And so he left in search for an answer and eventually began to study Zen under a person by the name of Myouzen,

Who was the founder of Renzaizen in Japan,

Who had also,

By the way,

Studied at Mount Hiei.

He was an orphan,

And he was sent there to be basically taken care of and educated when he was a child.

And so Dogen accompanied Myouzen to China,

Continued to study under Chinese masters.

And one day,

His teacher was scolding a monk who was falling asleep during meditation.

Ever done that?

So the teacher was getting on his case,

And he said,

The practice of zazen,

Of meditation,

Is the dropping away of body and mind.

What do you think dozing will accomplish?

And overhearing this scolding that this monk got,

Dogen suddenly became fully enlightened.

He suddenly understood that zazen is not just sitting still,

But is opening up to a direct experience of non-dualistic reality,

Of oneness,

Right?

So he said mind and body dropped off.

And later on writing about this,

He said,

This state should be experienced by everyone.

It's like piling fruit into a basket without a bottom,

Like pouring water into a bowl with a pierced hole in it.

However much you pile or pour,

You can't fill it up.

When this is realized,

The pale bottom is broken through.

But while there's still this trace of conceptualism,

Which makes you say,

I understand this,

Or I have this realization,

You're still not living with this reality.

So in other words,

As long as you're trying to get this intellectually and not experiencing it directly yourself,

You're missing it.

So back in Japan,

Dogen founded the Soto School of Zen,

Which is the largest Zen school in Japan.

And in the West,

It's probably one of the most influential schools of Buddhism,

Largely because of some teachers who came to the US after the Second World War,

Like Maizumi Roshi and Suzuki.

Happens to be the order that I'm ordained in.

There's another key figure who spent some time at Mount Hiei that I want to mention,

And then I'm going to come back to Dogen for a minute.

So Nisha Ren was 22 years younger than Dogen.

He started his Buddhist studies at a different Tendai monastery and then ended up at Mount Hiei.

And in his case,

He was also looking for a path of practice that would lead to awakening for everyone,

Not just monks.

And he kind of checked out Pure Land and Zen and then went back to Mount Hiei.

And by then,

He had reached the conclusion that the Lotus Sutra manifested the highest level of Buddhist teachings and that awakening was possible merely by repeating the Sutra's title,

Nam-Yoho-Renge-kyo.

So literally,

This means something like reverence to the wonderful law of the Lotus Blossom.

So it's not obvious,

But this idea is that this practice of doing this reflects the conviction that we have for the ability to transform any suffering we encounter and that that ability is there because of our Buddha nature,

Because we have innate Buddha nature.

Our being is aligned with the law of absolute reality.

So I think it's interesting,

All these teachers came from the same place and probably developed a good foundation in understanding the Dharma by doing something,

A practice that eventually they sort of transcended.

They all studied the same stuff and then said,

I want to do something different.

But they had this foundation first.

And so I think that shows that if you have a good foundation in the Dharma,

That you can awaken even if that awakening doesn't necessarily happen the way you expect it to happen or look the way you expect it to look.

So there's a common thread to these things,

Even though they took different forms.

Hounen said the way to liberation is through rebirth in the Pure Land by repeatedly reciting Namo Amida Butsu.

Shen Ran said the way to liberation is through true and trusting,

Really surrendering to this vow.

Nishiren said the way to liberation is through expressing your faith in the truth of Buddha nature.

Dogen said the way to liberation is through sitting in meditation and letting go of self-identity,

Allowing the body and mind to drop away.

And they all found kind of unique ways to all pretty much do the same thing.

At their core,

They all got the self out of the way so they could experience reality,

Buddha nature,

Amitabha's love,

The Pure Land,

Directly without the filter of dualism.

And Dogen later wrote this,

Which is very famous.

He wrote,

To study the Buddha way is to study the self.

To study the self is to forget the self.

To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe.

To be enlightened by all things of the universe is to cast off body and mind of the self as well as that of others.

And then even traces of enlightenment are wiped out and life with traceless enlightenment goes on forever and ever.

So your question now is,

So what?

What do I do?

Is there something that I can practice that will help me experience that dropping away of body and mind so that I can connect to this ground of reality?

And I wish I could say,

Okay,

We'll do this and push this button and this will happen.

But it doesn't work that way.

You could say Namo Adidifat if you want to.

You could sit in meditation a lot if you want to as long as you're still clinging to the self.

It's gonna be beneficial,

But the benefit will be somewhat limited.

So doesn't mean no benefit,

But unless you can de-identify with the self,

You're not gonna experience that being enlightened by all things of the universe.

So this sounds very mystical,

But let me share something with you that I think will give you a foundation that you can build your practice on and that will help get you there.

So Dogen gave this talk to one of his monks and it's later compiled as instructions for monks in the kitchen hall.

In other words,

Instructions to the cook.

So in a Buddhist monastery back then,

And probably a lot of them today,

The second most important person in the monastery is the head cook.

And Abbot's number one because without him there's no monastery,

But the head cook is number two because without him or her nobody eats.

So this is a very important person.

And so he wanted to make sure that the monks recognized how important that person was and also that they recognized how important this relationship was.

And so he started this way.

He said,

The method for training for monks who are responsible for preparing meals is this,

Make reverence your underlying principle.

So he's talking about people working in a kitchen and he says the number one thing you have to do is make reverence your underlying principle.

So think about this,

You're peeling potatoes,

You're washing rice,

You're grooming vegetables for cooking and stuff like that.

Reverence is your underlying principle.

Imagine if whatever you do for a living you've made reverence your underlying principle.

We practice this here when you come in here,

The first thing we do is we stand up,

The bell rings,

We do opening offerings to the Buddha,

We bow to teachers and so on.

Dogen says that to be enlightened is to be enlightened by all things in the universe.

So why not be reverent to all things in the universe?

He then points out that offering food to those who study the Buddha's teachings is a practice.

He says kings and leaders in the Buddha's day gave offerings to Sakyamuni Buddha and for thousands of years since people seeking the Dharma have offered alms.

He said we should treat every food we receive with awareness of its spiritual significance.

We should personally receive the authentic transmission of polite acts and respectful words from those who serve in the kitchen hall of our temple.

This is how those in lofty positions as well as ordinary folk have pursued their study of the Buddha's Dharma.

That's really profound when you think about it.

We think we study the Buddha's Dharma by reading sutras and by saying words and all of that.

He goes no,

By giving and receiving food,

This is how we practice the Buddha's Dharma.

So he says while cooking,

One should practice this reverence by even respecting tools and utensils.

And he said something that I said in a meeting in Dolan the other night,

I wanted to have tattooed on my chest and somebody,

I think it was you,

Suggested having it put on t-shirts to sell in the gift shop.

He said disrespect invites calamity.

It is never accompanied by anything meritorious.

Disrespect invites calamity.

It is never accompanied by anything meritorious.

I suggest we print out one of those t-shirts for everyone in Congress and in that.

And send them to them.

They're little souvenirs from White Sands.

I mean think about if society worked according to that principle,

How much more smoothly things would work.

So Dogen says that when even walking past the place where meals are prepared,

One should bow with your hands and gosho,

You know,

This.

And he gets some other instructions that reinforce the idea of being respectful to the food,

To the process of cooking and to those who do the cooking.

And he ends his instructions to the cook by saying these are the lifeblood of Buddhas and ancestors and the eye of patch-robed monks.

In other words,

The source of wisdom for those who ordain.

He said non-Buddhists don't know this.

Celestial demons can't endure this.

Only the disciples of Buddha had been able to transmit them.

Oh you who are senior officers in the kitchen hall,

Discern them well and do not let them be lost.

So if you want to make spiritual progress,

Then I suggest when we go to lunch that you think about that as an opportunity to make reverence your underlying principle.

Thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you for joining me for episode 11 of the Adventures of Saraputa and Mogulana.

I hope that you have come up with some ideas about how to develop your own dharma superpowers in accordance with your own nature.

By the way,

I've been putting some guided meditations and things like that on Insight Timer so if you're on there,

Look me up.

Now go save the world.