“I am continuing to study and reflect on the Avatamsaka Sutra, renowned in the Mahayana tradition. For our dharma talk, I will present a tiny portion of this huge sutra (also known as the “Flower Ornament” sutra) for encouragement in our lives and practice. Study of the Avatamsaka Sutra can heighten our awareness of the interpenetrating connection of all things. Our lives become richer and more skillful when we have a deeper understanding of the fragile interdependence that is our world. ” —Kaizan Doug

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Winter solstice on the 21st, a conjunction of Christmas with the beginning of Shabbos. We're on the 26th of December and we have 26 days to go. Some other big changes begin to happen. Somebody said if you had an advent calendar that you didn't use, you could start it tomorrow and it would be a big surprise on the 25th day. I think many of us are looking forward to it. It's really a reflective time at the end of the year, especially the end of this year. It's the most amazing year. I don't think any of us could have anticipated even though we'd heard it was coming.

So I'm going to talk about some things that maybe you have heard as reminders and speak to our Zazen. We come together in this common form that we use Zazen. Shikantaza, where you concentrate on the activity. When we concentrate on this activity of Zazen, we become one with our concentration. This is what Katagiri Roshi said about Shikantaza. He said, when there is no Zazen to be seen as your object and no subject, we forget. We're simply doing the pure activity of Zazen. The ego, the "I" keeps showing up. Occasionally we forget and get lost in the branches and weeds of thought. Or is it a web, like a spider web? Spider webs are sticky.

Once we settle down and we set aside our thoughts and feelings, memories, grudges, dreams of fortune, or angst of the taints we have, then Zazen becomes a clear holistic awareness. Calm and vast like the ocean. Smooth as glass, reflecting everything. The Avatamsaka Sutra, the Flower Garland Sutra, it's said that it came out of the ocean reflection meditation. I want you to listen to this definition of the ocean reflection meditation. It's a metaphor for holistic awareness. The mind is likened to an ocean which, when the waves are stilled, it clearly reflects everything at once. The flower ornament scripture supposedly emerges from this ocean reflection concentration.

So to me, this ocean reflection meditation is something we can experience in our Zazen when it becomes very settled. Now in Zen, there are a few ornaments. We have them, but there are few. And this Avatamsaka Sutra has many, many ornaments. So let me share some of them. I wonder if we're able to imagine something. It becomes something we have. And before any of us heard of atoms, we didn't know they existed. And then we heard of atoms. And it's like, wow, they exist. But of course, we can't see them directly, except the conglomeration of them. And when we hear the word enlightenment the first time we heard it, we didn't know. It's like, whoa, what could that be? And suddenly, it opens the whole universe to possibilities.

So I'm going to read from this. Maybe I'll share this screen too. These are just some selections from Book 12. And if one's body is pervasive as space, abiding at rest, immovable, filling all directions, one's actions will be beyond compare, unknowable to gods and men. Enlightening beings practice acts of great compassion, vowing to liberate all successfully. Those who see, hear, listen, accept, or make offerings, they cause all to attain peace and happiness. Where there are lands with no Buddha, there they appear to attain enlightenment. Where there are lands where the teachings unknown, they expound there the treasury of sublime doctrines.

Without discrimination, without effort, they reach everywhere in a single instant, like the moonlight extending everywhere, teaching beings by innumerable techniques. They may manifest in the forms of dragon girls or boys, of celestial dragons or titans too, down to maharagas and so on. A maharaga is a great serpent. They let everyone see according to desire. Living beings, forms, and features are unalike. Their behaviors and sounds are also countless. All of these enlightening beings can make appear by the mystic power of the oceanic reflection meditation.

Their knowledge and wisdom is independent and inconceivable. Their speech in explaining truth is unhindered. Their generosity, self-control, tolerance, energy, and meditation, wisdom, skill and means, spiritual powers and such are all likewise free by the power of Buddha's flower garland meditation. They enter concentration on one atom and accomplish concentration on all atoms. And yet that particle doesn't increase in one or manifest inconceivable lands. Of the many lands in that one atom, some have Buddhas, some do not. Some are polluted, some are pure. Some are large, some are small. Some are forming, some are disintegrating. Some are upright, some are sideways. Some are like heat mirages on a vast plain and some are like Indra's net in the heavens. What in one atom is manifest is also manifest in all atoms. This is the mystic power of concentration and liberation of sages of great renown.

So in our Zazen, we're able to experience this existence and its fullness to the edges of our imagination. What a gift. And then what do we do with this? This gift, and as I talked about, we help, we successfully bring others to the other shore. My friend and student, Ben Myers, he, this is kind of silly, but I think it's kind of cool too. He says, you know, there's this nursery rhyme, row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. How about row, row, row your boat gently across the stream?

So I wanted to share some exotic language that opens up the vastness of this practice that we all engage in. And whether we're new to this practice or have a lot of time in it, it's all still the common pool that we all engage in. It's all still the common pool that is so nurturing. It is so nurturing. So for this year and the coming year, I hope there's just deep patience with yourself to continue on this path and vast patience to help others as it's needed to bring harmony where we can.

So I'd like to hear some of your reflections on this existence of this year and what you've been doing in the past year. Some of your reflections on this existence of this year and what was meaningful this year that brought an opening of self?