Gate 94: The four elements of sociability

The four elements of sociability are a gate of Dharma illumination; for [with them] we accept all living beings and, after we have attained [the truth of] bodhi, we bestow the Dharma upon all living beings.
四攝法是法明門、攝受一切衆生、得菩提已、施一切衆生法故

What’s being translated here as "the four elements of sociability" we probably know by another name:
Bodaisatta Shishobo, or the four embracing actions of the bodhisattva.  Let’s review what these four embracing actions are and then consider the other segments of this gate statement: accepting all living beings, attaining the truth of bodhi, and bestowing the dharma on all living beings.

Dogen wrote an entire fascicle of the Shobogenzo about the four embracing actions, so clearly they’re very important in our tradition.  Okumura Roshi has also written fairly extensively about them, so I want to review the main points of what they have to say about each one, but one of the things we quickly see is that just like with so many other lists in this tradition, these four are really aspects of same thing.

Offering underlies all four.  Dogen says offering is simply not being greedy.  Yes, sometimes we can actively make something we have available to someone who needs it, but even simpler than that, we can simply stop clinging.  When we have things in our lives that need to move on, we can just not get in the way when that time comes.  That means we can offer things we don’t actually possess.  Dogen describes giving flowers blooming on a distant mountain to the Tathagatha.  We simply don’t hinder the total dynamic functioning of reality in this moment by getting stuck in our own five skandhas clinging to five skandhas.

As we know, clinging is the basis of all suffering.  We want things to be differant than they are because we have some idea of what “should” be happening.  What offering means to a bodhisattva is to be aware of the moving and changing of things and to respond skillfully to that.  It's not based on small self but on universal self.  Not only does offering benefit the beings around us, but also ourselves.  Dogen says that if we function within a community with an attitude of openhandedness, other people can settle down and feel safe,  but we also cultivate peacefulness for ourselves as well as setting in motion wholesome karma for everyone.

Interestingly, the practice of offering also includes the practice of receiving.  That takes skill too, and sometimes we’re not very good at it.  Being a recipient can feel like we’re at the lower end of a hierarchy because a giver has more power and more resources and is giving us a handout.  Or, maybe we think that of course we’re receiving tribute because we’re especially worthy or valuable.  Both of these are exercises in ego, because they’re about five skandhas clinging to five skandhas.  

Offering and receiving doesn’t have to be grandiose.  It’s a moment by moment attitude and practice.

Loving speech is about encountering all beings with wisdom and compassion.  Because of our awakening, we can see beings (including ourselves) clearly and we see interdependence.  On that basis, compassion arises naturally and we speak to others as though they were our children -- not because we think they’re immature or helpless, but because we tend to speak to children in a kindly or nurturing way.  Loving speech promotes harmony and is encouraging to others.  Dogen goes on to say that when we use loving speech with someone, not only does that person feel good, but others who may hear it indirectly or hear about it later also benefit, and it may influence their behavior as well.,

Beneficial action is using skillful means to benefit living beings.  The main points here are that we don’t pick and choose who we help, deciding whether they’re worthy or deserve help, and we don’t expect any reward in return;  we’re just motivated by the bodhisattva vow and our own awakening.  Benefitting living beings is about moving them toward liberation from suffering.  That kind of action can take myriad forms, depending on what those beings need from us and what our karmic circumstnaces allow us to offer.  Something that’s beneficial to one person in one circumstance is not helpful or is perhaps even harmful to another person in another circumstance.

Likewise, skillful action from one bodhisattva might not be skillful action from another.  Once when I was traveling to Japan, on one of the domestic legs of my flight suddenly a flight attendant appeared at my elbow, confirmed my identity and asked whether I spoke Japanese.  Well, I admitted, I spoke it at a very low level.  She said a Japanese passenger had taken ill and the crew was having trouble communicating with him.  I certainly wasn’t good enough to have a medical conversation with someone, which could be a matter of life or death.  I could have simply gone to be present with him or the family, which is probably what an American chaplain would do, but I remembered that once when I went with a Japanese clergy friend to visit his wife in the hospital, we had to make sure we didn’t look like clergy.  We wore normal clothes and I wore my ball cap to cover my bald head.  Why?  Because in Japan, clergy are associated with funerals, not with chaplaincy.  Nobody wants to see clergy in a hospital.  If I had gotten up and imposed myself on the sick person on the plane, it would completely have been for the sake of my own ego.  It wasn't beneficial action in that circumstance.

Identity action reinforces the teaching that we’re carrying out skillful action that involves and benefits both ourselves and others.  Identity action is about non-separation; we put ourselves in others’ places and see what they need or how they’re suffering.  We take care that offering what we think is good for ourselves isn’t harmful for someone else and vice versa.  Mainly, we recognize that we’re not functioning in isolation and that we what do affects others.  Identity action isn’t self-sacrifice and it's also not greed and arrogance.  We have to understand interdependence and find the middle way.  This is how we actualize "practice and enlightenment are one."

Okumura Roshi’s image for this is five fingers and one hand.  The “identity” element is the hand itself, but there’s no hand outside of the functioning of the individual fingers, and each one operates differently.  It’s the complete manifestation of Indra’s net.

I particularly like his description of how these four embracing actions are connected:
Among the Four Embracing Actions, dana (offering) is the foundation of all four practices. Loving speech is an offering that uses language, and beneficial action is a form of offering using body and mind. Identity action is a method we can use to make our offerings acceptable to others.

Making our offerings acceptable to others is an interesting thing to consider.  We can offer the best thing we have, but if others aren’t in a position to accept it, it’s no good.  That means that as bodhisattvas, our offering has to come from our ability to see what’s actually needed in a given situation, not just what we want to give based on our own ideas.  If you want to give your friend your opinion and advice but it’s not  a teachable moment, there’s no point.  You can say stuff, but it’s not going to help.  If you want to give your surplus items to your favorite charity but these aren’t items it can actually use, you’re not really helping, no matter what kind of story you’ve told yourself about how generous you’re being with your cast-offs.

When I worked at another temple, other groups would sometimes come and use the place for their own retreats.  Frequently, whoever was in charge of the cooking wanted to leave us the leftovers rather than packing them out at the end of the event and dealing with them themselves.  “We thought we’d just leave you this,” they'd begin as they were leaving, and I’d start shaking my head.  There wasn’t anyone around during the week to eat leftovers, and when it all went bad, then we had the job of composting all that stuff and washing all the containers.  It happened over and over again.  It was easy for these visitors to tell themselves a story about how it would be generous somehow to leave all that food behind for their own convenience, but when we showed them the reality of our lives there, they could see that it wasn’t actually a compassionate thing to do in that circumstance.

Next let's consider accepting all living beings.  There are a couple of ways to think about this.  One is that we see all beings and conciously or intentionally don’t turn away from or disregard any of them.  We recognize that because there is nothing outside of Buddha’s way, or this one unified reality, we have to include all beings in our practice.  We might not agree with their opinions or like everything they do, but we can’t cut them off.  We have to offer everyone the same compassion, nurturing mind and supportive attitude while they work on liberating themselves from suffering.

Another way to think about this is in the absolute sense.  Accepting all living beings is not a choice we make about our attitude or actions, telling ourselves that “today I’m going to do my best to accept everyone and keep an open mind.”  That’s still based on comparing one thing with another and deciding that even though one thing is more appealing or desirable than another we’re not going to turn the lesser one away, or deciding that two things are equal or the same.  

This kind of accepting all beings comes from understanding that this one unified reality is really one thing with multiple names.  It means we encounter each thing as absolute reality or as Buddha.  Each thing is already the same and connected with us, so we don’t need to have an opinion about it or decide whether or not to accept it.  Awakening to this kind of sameness means we already accept all beings as a part of our own life, because we and they are already completely functioning together.  There’s a good image of this in our tradition.  The ocean doesn’t reject the water coming from any river.  Water is water regardless of what river brings it in.

In the beginning we might cultivate offering, kind speech, and doing good for others as a means of coming to understand interconnectedness.  That’s one reason that living in community is an important ground for practice.  We get to engage in carrying out the four embracing actions every day with others who have the same aspiration.  However, when we see interconnectedness deeply for ourselves, then we carry out the four embracing actions because that’s what’s arising.  There’s no option to do anything else, so we don’t have to make distinctions and choices.  

The next part of the gate statement says "after we have attained the truth of bodhi."  This “truth of bodhi” is a phrase that shows up again and again in the Shobogenzo and in other places.  It means we awaken to things as they are and see reality the way Buddha sees it.  We really understand impermanence, suffering and no-self  (the three marks of existence) and we’re not deceived by the stuff we make up in our heads.

Here again, the four embracing actions are both a gateway into awakening and a manifestation of awakening.  If we understand impermanence, it’s easier to break our habit of clinging to things and instead make an offering, whether that takes the form of kind speech or beneficial action.  If we understand the nature of suffering, then naturally we want to skillfully offer something to others that might ease their suffering, and from absolute perspective we want to avoid being or creating the obstruction that prevents the total functioning of the universe and causes suffering for everybody by ignoring reality.  If we understand that there is no fixed and unchanging self, then we don’t need to speak harshly to shore up our egos.  We don’t need to worry that by helping someone else we’ll lose something for ourselves.  

The last part of the gate statement says we bestow dharma on all living beings.  The kanji used here (施) can mean bestow, but it carries a connotation of dana, so dharma itself is an offering.  Dharma as an offering shows up in several sutras.  In the Vimalakirti Sutra, someone holds a weeklong event for giving alms to monks and also to all the poor people of the region.  Vimalakirti says that’s not the way to make offerings; your event should be about bestowing the dharma, because what good are these material things in the larger picture?  The host asks what that means, and Vimalakirti gives a very brief summary of Buddha’s teaching, concluding that carrying out all of those teachings is bestowing the dharma, and that that’s real almsgiving.  If you’re giving material goods, and you’re doing it with no expectation of reward, then that also is bestowing the dharma.

The Flower Garland Sutra makes the point that teaching the dharma is an offering to all the Buddhas, but teaching doesn’t just mean giving a talk or explaining texts.  It’s also just carrying out our practice.  Doing our own practice enables the practice of others.  Moving through the world as a bodhisattva encourages others to be skillful and thoughtful themselves.  That means using kind speech and engaging in beneficial action is teaching through our own day to day words and actions.  We don’t have to call attention to what we’re doing or think about it as teaching.  By doing our practice we’re simply serving as role models of skillful activity that liberates beings from suffering, so the benefits of what we’re doing go beyond the immediate recipients to others who see or hear about our practice.  That’s bestowing the dharma on all living beings.

The Diamond Sutra says that “the offering of Dharma surpasses all other forms of offering.”  This comes after several generations of a family make offerings to the Buddhas over a long period of time.  Finally, one of them asks whether there’s some better offering than what they’ve been giving.  The Buddha of that time says that actually, practicing and upholding the teachings and making it possible for others to hear and practice the dharma is the best kind of offering.

Thus sometimes the skillful thing is to give people food or clothing if that’s what they need, or to call an ambulance when someone falls down and gets hurt.  Those are both legitimate ways of alleviating suffering.  However, sometimes the thing to do is to quietly go about your daily practice of engaging in these four embracing actions without being concerned about who’s watching and without worrying about whether or not it’s making a difference to anyone else.  We can’t predict the outcome of our unfolding karma, but we can try to set up wholesome causes and conditions and contribute something beneficial to the network.

Now let’s put all the pieces back together: The four elements of sociability are a gate of Dharma illumination; for [with them] we accept all living beings and, after we have attained [the truth of] bodhi, we bestow the Dharma upon all living beings.

This sounds to me like a good description of total dynamic functioning.  Carrying out these four actions, based on a deep understanding of offering and non-separation, allows us to bring all living beings into our sphere, if you will, and at the same time we’re also sending back out truth and wholesomeness and dharma to all those beings.  That sounds more linear than I think it actually is.  The gate statement says that after we attain awakening we offer the dharma, but we can keep in mind Dogen’s points about practice and awakening being the same thing.  Bodhicitta arises, we practice, our practice supports the practice and liberation of others, and that continues to fuel our aspiration.  We’re doing that with all beings, including and accepting them.  Our practice is a complete manifestation of thusness whether we really understand that or not, and we benefit others even without any intention to do that.

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Questions for reflection and discussion:

• How do you see both offering and receiving as practice?
• Loving speech is not just being polite or compliant.  How have you encountered the practice of loving speech when it wasn't just about being nice?
  
• How do you determine what beneficial action is in a given circumstance?  Have you ever been sincerely offered something that wasn't helpful, and if so, how did you respond?
  
• How do you offer the dharma to all beings as part of your practice?