Offering Sand To The Buddha
Offering Sand To The Buddha
Generosity and Dōgen's Shōbōgenzō Bodaisatta-shishōbō
Below is an approximate transcript of the Dharma Talk I gave on May 5th as part of O-An Zendo’s Sunday program. You can read the transcript or listen to the live recording.
Thank you for listening, reading, and supporting. I bow with gratitude.
Two weeks ago, I spoke about the “essential art of zazen [seated meditation]” and kin hin (walking meditation), a companion to our sitting practice. I said that kin hin is an opportunity to “walk our zazen around the room” and that, with a bit of practice, we can also carry zazen into our day-to-day lives.
That might be an attractive proposition to you, however your sitting practice is at some time. If sitting is enjoyable, you may welcome expressing that enjoyment elsewhere. If sitting is not enjoyable, you may welcome other opportunities to be active with an open and expansive awareness. You may even entertain the story—it is only a story, by the way—that spending time off the cushion, whether walking, washing dishes, or weeding with awareness, will bring a change upon returning to the cushion. And it will, necessarily, as all things are connected with all things. “This is like this because that is like that,” as Thich Nhat Hanh taught us.
Will your walking, washing, or weeding bring the change you desire and hope for upon returning to the cushion? Probably not—and I am not sorry about that. What arises when we return to the cushion is not up to us, no matter how much we try to “curate our experience” with beads, candles, incense, and scarves. How we respond, however, to what arises—whether on the cushion, in the garden, or inline in the market—is up to us. From one point of view, that is what it means to “carry zazen into our day-to-day lives.” And from that point of view, zazen is a practice of generosity—specifically, unbounded generosity.
Today, I want to bring these two threads together and introduce a third. I want to talk indirectly about “service,” which means offering to fulfill a service position, whether on Sundays, during a retreat, or some other events. I also want to talk indirectly about samu (work practice), where we give our energy and time caring for the temple, our place of practice. “Indirectly” because a Dharma talk is not the place to remind you that we strike the big bell after announcing the title of a sutra, not before; that roll downs develop at a slow, steady pace; and that we play the drum during Jundo with Umph!
A Dharma talk is also not the place to inform you that we need three more holes dug for trees outside near the Friendship Garden.
What I want to talk about directly is Generosity, the spirit with which we sit, walk, and volunteer to support the Sangha (community of practitioners) and care for the Zendo (temple, meditation hall). To do these things, I want to spend time with the founder of our Sōtō Zen lineage, Dōgen Zenji, and a section from Shōbōgenzō Bodaisatta-shishōbō, “The Bodhisattva’s Four Methods of Guidance.”
Shōbōgenzō Bodaisatta-shishōbō begins with the following:
The Bodhisattva’s four methods of guidance are giving, kind speech, beneficial action, and identity action.
Our focus is the first method: “Generosity” or “Giving” (Dāna). What is “Giving”?
“Giving” means nongreed. Nongreed means not to covet. Not to covet means not to curry favor. Even if you govern the Four Continents, you should always convey the authentic path with nongreed. It is like giving away unneeded belongings to someone you don’t know, offering flowers blooming on a distant mountain to the Tathagata, or, again, offering treasures you had in your former life to sentient beings. Whether it is of teaching or of material, each gift has its value and is worth giving. Even if the gift is not your own, there is no reason to abstain from giving. The question is not whether the gift is valuable but whether there is genuine merit.
“Giving” means nongreed. Nongreed means not to covet. Not to covet means not to curry favor.
If you read even a little Zen literature or literature about Zen, you will notice a pattern of describing something “negatively.” Here, Dōgen describes “Giving” as “nongreed,” meaning “not to covet,” meaning “not to curry favor.” Non. Not. Not.
“All right,” you might say, “I got it. But please tell me something positive—meaning without a negation!” Actually, you have not “got it.” So, let us stay with the opening sentences.
What does it mean to “not be greedy”? When we say that something is not some other thing, do we mean the opposite of that other thing? Are Generosity and Greediness opposed to each other? Or do we mean that one thing is present only when the other is absent? Wherever we find Generosity, are we unable to find Greediness? And where we find Greediness, are we unable to find Generosity? Or can the two qualities co-exist? How could we tell? How does it feel when you are generous, when you are greedy? Can you experience both groups of feelings? How about at the same time?
When we “covet” something, we feel a desire for it. But what sort of desire? Must we feel it strongly, or can it escape our notice? Must it always be the same, or can it wax and wane? If the latter, for how long? Can you covet something for many months, many years?
Allow me to speak with Dōgen’s mouth: You should investigate these questions forward, backward, from the middle outward, and all at once as though you were sitting zazen on a zafu filled with red coals.
Whatever the answer to these questions, when we covet something, Dōgen suggests that we seek to “curry favor” with something—probably someone—to obtain that which we covet. The New Oxford American Dictionary describes “currying favor” as “ingratiat[ing] oneself with someone through obsequious behavior.” I trust that you are all familiar with this way of operating because you have observed it in others and done it yourself, too.
Generosity is not this. Giving is not this, which is one way of saying: It is not about you.
The examples that follow illustrate this very point.
Even if you govern the Four Continents, you should always convey the authentic path with nongreed. It is like giving away unneeded belongings to someone you don’t know, offering flowers blooming on a distant mountain to the Tathagata, or, again, offering treasures you had in your former life to sentient beings.
The examples are not chosen at random. Collectively, they form a wide broom well-suited for sweeping away even the slightest impulse toward ingratiating behavior.
Why are there Four Continents? It does not matter! What does is that your station in life is irrelevant when considering whether to “convey the authentic path with nongreed.” Do you preside over the whole world? Great. Still, practice giving. Do you preside over nothing? Great. Still, practice giving. Are you somewhere in between? Great. Still, practice giving.
We are familiar with “giving away unneeded belongings to someone [we] don’t know.” Perhaps you donate gently used furniture to CentrePeace, and though you may say, “I know the people who work there,” they may not be the same people who bring your furniture into their homes. The same applies to offering clothing to Goodwill or contributing to a food drive. You may purchase canned goods for the food drive, but this does not mean they are not “unneeded belongings.” The dollars stored digitally in a financial institution are, and your action demonstrates that they are unneeded. You use them in a way that is “not about you.”
A point of clarification feels necessary. Saying that “giving away unneeded belongings to someone you don’t know” is “not about you” does not mean that you must be unaffected when giving. Someone may express gratitude for your gift. That is all right. You may feel good about giving the gift. That, too, is all right. You will be affected by your generosity! Why? Because you are not separate from all that is. The expression “not about you” does not raise high walls designed to keep the world out; it invites passing through walls to look within.
What is your motivation for giving? Are you greedy? Do you covet something? Are you attempting to curry favor with someone to obtain that something? What causes the giving of a gift, and what sustains it? What could be a clearer expression of generosity than “giving away unneeded belonging to someone you don’t know”?
It is the same when we state our willingness to learn a service position, sign up to serve on a specific Sunday or during a sesshin, or volunteer a morning or afternoon to weed a garden bed. For some, that is the giving away of time that is not needed. For others, that is the giving away of comfort that is not needed.
The giving away of comfort? Yes. It is nice, I bet, to arrive on Sunday with everything ready: cushions vacuumed, liturgy set out in an orderly way, steps swept, and meditation trail cleared of debris; other Sangha members standing in the spotlight playing the Han, tending to the altar, or leading service—and the last, once more, with Umph! It is nice to be relatively anonymous. It feels comfortable. But is it needed? Can you give away some of that comfort to those that you do not know? If not, why?
It is like […] offering flowers blooming on a distant mountain to the Tathagata, or, again, offering treasures you had in your former life to sentient beings.
You do not need to see what you are giving to give it, nor do you need to see the person to whom you are giving that which you cannot see, someone who “has come and has gone.” Indeed, you can give that which do not possess to numberless beings, not more than a hundred of which you can even name. Dōgen writes later in Shōbōgenzō Bodaisatta-shishōbō:
To leave flowers to the wind, to leave birds to the seasons, are also acts of giving.
Honoring that which is not yours to meddle with is an act of giving.
It is not just flowers and their petals on distant mountains that can be given, though we do not see them. Traditionally, Generosity is expressed in three ways: by giving material gifts, giving the gift of the teachings, and giving fearlessness.
By now, most of us have heard Zoketsu Norman Fischer Roshi’s line about fearlessness. Still, I will share it at least one more time:
The sense that [you] matter; that [you] are respected, cared for, secure within a loving reality, and therefore ultimately protected.
How do you give this gift? Where is the sense that someone matters? Can you hold it with your hands? Can you show it to me? What about respect, care, security, and protection? And can you fathom that some act of yours today may ripple thirty years into the future when someone, remembering it, will be given the gift of fearlessness? Every action has this potential. Yet, there is a tendency to squander it by making things “about us.”
Whether it is of teaching or of material, each gift has its value and is worth giving. Even if the gift is not your own, there is no reason to abstain from giving. The question is not whether the gift is valuable but whether there is genuine merit.
Some months ago, a Sangha member told me they wanted to schedule dōkusan (private meeting) with Roshi but could not afford the suggested donation. I told them any offering was all right, even coming to work on the grounds for an hour or two. My response was dismissed—either the suggested amount would be given or nothing. If the latter, no dōkusan.
The exchange left a lasting impression, though not about this specific individual. I felt and still feel strongly about the final word: I cannot give what is suggested, so I will give nothing and miss the opportunity.
Please permit me to speak plainly: Get over yourself. It is not about you. Each gift has value and is worth giving.
A king gave his beard; someone of no rank offered a particle of dust. Another person helped launch a boat; still another assisted with building a bridge. Great King Ashoka gave half a myrobalan fruit, fed one hundred monks, and demonstrated the greatness of giving. A child offered sand to the Buddha.
If you study giving closely, you see that to accept a body and to give up the body are both giving. Making a living and producing things can be nothing other than giving.
[…]
Not only should you make an effort to give, but also be mindful of every opportunity to give. You are born into this present life because you originally embodied the merit of giving [in the past].
When I lived in Santa Barbara, CA, I practiced with several Sanghas, especially with the Santa Barbara Zen Center. As a graduate student, I could not offer the suggested financial contribution every Sunday, even most Sundays. But I could offer my time—and I did.
I arrived an hour early every Sunday and set up with Zendo with my Dharma brother, Joku. Together, we laid out the cushions, neatly tucked the sutra books, and arranged each station of the Dōan-ryo just so. We prepared the altar together and picked flower petals for the offerings during service. I stayed an hour after service, too, to help tear down the Zendo and carefully store everything in their respective large plastic bins, before returning them to the storage closet. Only then would I depart.
Others were able to give money; I could give energy and time. I could not help with each month’s rent at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, but I could ensure that the pop-up Zendo had popped and was ready for practice. I gave in other ways, too—but this is not about me—and you should see my point now.
You do not need to give in the same way as others but give. You do not need to give as much as others but give. You do not need to give as frequently as others but give. If there is any hindrance to giving, it is you—by which I mean your fixed ideas about what giving is, how it should happen, with what regularity, and in what form.
Get out of your own way. Get over yourself. It is not about you.
Since this is the case:
[…] give even a phrase or verse of the truth; it will be a wholesome seed for this and other lifetimes. Give your valuables, even a penny or a blade of grass; it will be a wholesome root for this and other lifetimes. The truth can turn into valuables; valuables can turn into the truth. This is all because the giver is willing.
Whatever it is
[…] you should rejoice in your own act, because you authentically transmit the merit of all buddhas, and begin to practice an act of a bodhisattva. The mind of a sentient being is difficult to change. Keep on changing the minds of sentient beings, from the moment that you offer one valuable, to the moment that they attain the way. This should be initiated by giving. Thus, giving is the first of the six paramitas [realizations].
Mind is beyond measure. Things given are beyond measure. And yet, in giving, mind transforms the gift and the gift transforms mind.
Thank you very much.
If you enjoyed this offering, you may enjoy the following as well:
Quotations of Shōbōgenzō Bodaisatta-shishōbō are from “Treasury of the True Dharma Eye,” edited by Kazuaki Tanahashi.