This talk was given on April 7 — the day before Hanamatsuri, the traditional celebration of the Buddha's birthday.
I'd been sharing a video that week of newborn lambs at the ecovillage where I live, jumping around within minutes of being born. Nearly everyone said the same thing: it's amazing how much they can do right away. People don't do that.
Except — maybe we do.
The story of the Buddha's birth says that after he was born, he stood up immediately, took seven steps, pointed one hand to heaven and one to the earth, and declared: "Under the heavens and on the earth, I alone am the world honored one."
My teacher always said that was a refined translation. The original was simpler: the cry. The first cry any life makes when it arrives.
This talk explores what that declaration is actually pointing to — not a claim of separation or specialness, but the opposite: the recognition of a fundamental nature that belongs to all beings, all tables, all blades of grass. Not something to acquire. Not an edge to gain over others. A ground to be realized.
The teaching of pratītyasamutpāda — interdependent co-arising — explains why: this whole cosmos arises together, the way all the waves of an ocean rise together. A wave comparing itself to other waves, trying to take more water from its neighbors — it's absurd. They're all ocean.
And at the close: the declaration offered as a koan. Something to walk with.
The Living Zen Podcast arises from my teaching work with Zenwest Buddhist Society, a Zen practice community on Vancouver Island.
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Thank you for listening. Thank you for practicing.
