Thank you. Thank you. And I don't have to go through the rapid restatement of everything that I've said for the last half hour. This is class two in our class on the three doors of liberation. And just to review what these three doors are and also What I like to do in my classes is go back very quickly and review what we talked about in the last class. So we'll do that. Last class, we talked about liberation. In this class, we're going to focus on the first of the three doors, emptiness, which is a big subject for us. emptiness, signlessness, and wishlessness or aimlessness.

[01:09]

And originally they first appear in places in the Pali Suttas, in early Buddhism. And in those cases, and also in the writing of Nagarjuna, who was a kind of pivotal figure in the transition from early Buddhism to Mahayana, these are presented as concentrations or meditations. So the concentration on emptiness is the samadhi or the concentration in which one, examines and recognizes that dharmas are empty and that the five aggregates, which we'll talk about a little later, which we see as constituting the self, are empty and that there is no self nature.

[02:24]

The concentration on signlessness is the meditation that recognizes that all dharmas, all things, all beings are free from signs. And what Thich Nhat Hanh says, signs refer to appearances or form. And so you could consider that the Meditation on signlessness is not being fooled by appearances. Not thinking that the appearance is actually expressive of the thing. And particularly not being fooled by the dichotomy of being and non-being. And again, we will talk about that because that's also...

[03:27]

figures in the way that we look at emptiness. And the third concentration or meditation on wishlessness or aimlessness literally means placing nothing in front. So that means it's synonymous with not having plans for the future or not having desires. It's also, I think it's what we translate what we have in Suzuki Roshi and Sojin Roshi's teachings as no gaining idea. So Nagarjuna says it's the concentration in which one does not search for any kind of existence and lets go of aims or wishes.

[04:40]

And that includes, that results in not producing the three poisons of greed, hatred, and delusion. This is a review, just a very quick review of what these three doors are. And we can see them as principles or we can see them as practices. So last week we spoke about liberation. And I think that we just really sort of scratched the surface of what what traditionally is understood as liberation and also what we think of it, what we think of as liberation. So the word in Pali is vimoksha mukha.

[05:49]

And as I said, vimoksha means loosening, opening, setting free, releasing. This is the liberative aspect of it. Mukha is what gets translated as door. This is the door of liberation. Mukha literally means mouth or face or opening. or outlet or source. And again, this is going to come up as we look at some of the various meanings of emptiness. So one thing I said was that these three doors can be seen as having presenting an overlapping

[06:59]

of path and goal, which is true for all of the practices, all of the sets of practices that we have. If we think of the paramitas or the factors of enlightenment, so the paramitas also translated as perfections. These are bodhisattva practices. And for a realized bodhisattva, they are the practices that are expressed by bodhisattva. So the bodhisattva embodies generosity, morality, patience, and so forth, up to wisdom. For bodhisattvas to be,

[08:00]

which basically means us. These are the practices that we cultivate. So for the bodhisattva, the realized bodhisattva, they are manifestations of their state. And for beings like ourselves, they are the path by which we attain this kind of full realization. of our Buddha slash Bodhisattva nature. So I think of these doors of liberation as a kind of a swinging door. They're the doors by which we enter into the territory of liberation. And they're also the doors through which liberation is expressed. I think in our general sense, we can talk about liberation as being free from greed, hatred, and delusion, from those poisons.

[09:14]

It's living in that way. It has specific implications according to the different traditions that have arisen in the history of Buddhism. In the Pali suttas, the Buddha says, he asks, and then he answers, he asks the monks, what is nirvana? Nirvana is another word for liberation, meaning liberation, but also means extinction. So extinction is a goal. So he answers, here, A monk is an arhant, in other words, one who has basically put an end to the taints, which are the three poisons.

[10:17]

One who has lived the holy life, has done what has to be done, which means has sought enlightenment and realized it, has laid down the burden. laid down the burden of these endless cycles of rebirth, and utterly destroyed the fetters of existence. One is completely liberated through final knowledge, so final knowledge of his own Buddha nature. And then he says, It is the destruction of lust, hatred, and delusion. So that's a succinct expression of what liberation looks like, realized liberation looks like in the early Buddhist tradition.

[11:19]

In the Mahayana tradition, the way that's framed is that one has come to that place, the same kinds of awarenesses that are described in that section from the Pali Suttas, but makes a choice to return to this world of samsara in order to help sentient beings while still being, existing in a kind of nirvana. So the Mahayana path is seen as a kind of active, dynamic Buddhahood and not a static Buddhahood, not a Buddhahood that has ended one's cycle of existence.

[12:25]

But the motivation for this, for a bodhisattva, is compassion. It's compassion to engage in enlightened activity and to recognize also, and this is a radical step, that one can awaken, one can actually live in nirvana while being here in this samsaric world. So we go to the Zen tradition. We have Dogen's radical, even more radical perspective on liberation, which is that we already are liberated. Our nature, our nature is Buddha nature. That Buddha nature is all pervading.

[13:29]

And so... We don't practice, as you would find in early Buddhism and also in Mahayana, usually the goal of practice is to accomplish enlightenment. For Dogen, as many of us know, we have the principle of practice realization or practice enlightenment, which means simply that We don't practice to accomplish enlightenment. Our practice is an expression. It is the active articulation of our enlightened nature. And that in order to bring enlightenment into the world, the bodhisattva, each of us, has to do or say something.

[14:33]

It's that we are in relationship with all beings and that enlightenment is an activity. It's not a state. And I think this is very helpful. This is the way that we've come to see it, certainly in our Zen tradition. Suzuki Roshi said, wherever you are, enlightenment is there. If you stand up right where you are, that is enlightenment. And then Sojin said, enlightenment is our nature, our true nature that is always with us. When we say get enlightened, it's not that we actually get something.

[15:38]

It means to bring forth light, to let go so that the light can shine forth. So it's like removing the coverings, removing the veil so that the light that's within us can manifest. And Sojan says enlightenment is the beginning of our practice. Enlightenment is what motivates us. towards practice. The fact that you want to practice means that the enlightenment that is always with you needs somehow to be expressed. So again, that's emphasizing the active component of enlightenment. And so these three doors of liberation or enlightenment are teaching of how to get to the root and how to root out suffering for ourselves and others.

[16:43]

How to live in accord with these truths. So I want to stop there from just, before I go on to talk about emptiness, just see if you have any, if there are any questions or thoughts that, that arise from what I've just reviewed. You can please, you can raise your hands if you like. So we have 34 enlightened beings uh who have no question about the nature of enlightenment that's that's like actually that's like you know you read you read the uh the early sutras and the and the and the buddha is asking questions of his disciples and they don't you know basically say oh yeah we got it we got it so i'm going to assume unless someone raises their hand with the next 30 seconds

[18:01]

that uh everything that i've said has been clear so far okay we'll just take a moment oh there's a hand daniel you're muted hi um Did you have a question, Daniel? Yeah. Still can't hear you. Oh. You're probably not... Your earbuds are probably not registered as your microphone. I hear him. I can't hear you now. I'm hearing Michael. I can hear Daniel. Okay. No?

[19:03]

Oh. You could write it in the chat. I think a lot of us can hear Daniel. We can hear Daniel. A bunch of us can hear Daniel. A lot of people can hear you. You can hear him, Dave? I hear him, too. Why can't I? Somebody say something to me. Somebody else. Hi, Hozan. Hi. My glasses. Hello. Okay. I'm not hearing anything. All right. Hozan. He's not hearing anything. Hozan, are you hearing us? No? No. Hello. Can you hear me? I can hear you now. Okay. Okay. So Daniel hasn't actually said that much yet, but we can hear that he's beginning to speak.

[20:04]

Okay, try again. Go, Daniel. Okay. All right. So is it just how could it be that it could have been understood in the closer to Pali tradition that there's not like a dynamic component like while you're living? Did they just understand it as death? No, there's two. Okay, so there are two expressions of nirvana. There's nirvana with remainder, which is the nirvana that you would realize or accomplish while you are living in this body. And that is... has many of the same characteristics that I've described above, but still you feel, you think, you may have experienced pain, pleasure, all of the physical sensations.

[21:27]

And then there's parinirvana. Parinirvana is... what takes place at death. And at that point, you are liberated from the cycle of rebirth. So that's final nirvana or final extinction. And in Mahayana, there's some... I don't want to go into this too much. There's a lot of ambiguity about where the Buddha is. Is the Buddha... Does he disappear? In some of the Mahayana, you know, a lot of Mahayana suttas, he still has a kind of benign presence looking over the world. But this gets into Buddhology that, you know, we can get lost in. But, yes, there is a distinction. But, you know, as I said, I read last week.

[22:32]

At least in some interpretations of early Buddhism or Theravada, I read you this piece from Ayakema. It said, like, the person who experiences Nirvana never has an unpleasant thought again. So I don't particularly buy that. But I think they're able to accept whatever they experience and not... fall into greed hatred or delusion around it pleasant unpleasant they have some sense of equanimity patience all of the these factors of enlightened enlightenment that they apply to whatever perception they have okay yeah so is the mahayana one the same as the theravada one with stuff left over It's more evolved. It's just, it's a different, it's a more evolved budological concept.

[23:41]

And, you know, that's another, that's something else that you can study or we can study that it's, since it's not within the realm of my experience, I'm reluctant to say much about it. Okay. Okay. Let's just take a moment and breathe and put your feet on the ground, and then we'll move on. Okay. Yoni, can you just say something again to me? I want to see if this microphone is... Testing. Testing.

[24:43]

What is going on here? Ah, say something again. Testing. Testing. Ah, okay. There we go. All right. Fine. Okay. So... How... We're going to speak about emptiness today. And... What Sojan said at the beginning of his lecture on the three doors, he says, the three subjects, these three doors of liberation are really one subject. And the one subject is divided into three parts. So this one subject, this is a Buddhist understanding of what is called emptiness. I will start with emptiness, which is what the Prajnaparamita Sutra is all about. We say it's emptiness, and it's also about form. So we use this term emptiness, and the problem with the term emptiness is that it means so many other things.

[25:48]

Actually, in Buddha Dharma, there are 20 meanings for the term emptiness, but they're all related. In order to easily identify what we mean in the Dharma, it means Interdependence. So that's the bottom line. All created dharmas or things are empty of their own inherent existence. In other words, we're all dependent. There's nothing in this world that is not dependent upon everything else. That's pretty easy. The problem is, how do we actually practice emptiness? So I was asking myself, how is this a door of liberation? And I think to use Suzuki Roshi's terms, to contemplate emptiness is to see things as it is.

[26:56]

And we use this term as it is. Because it's a singularity. It's a wholeness. It's one inter Buddha nature. Which we might also call emptiness is one interdependent suchness rather than. A collection of things which we might say things as they are. And it's a practice. Because we try to bring this way of seeing into our everyday lives and into our encounters with people and things. So this is, of course, what we chant every day. We chant the Prajaparamita Heart Sutra, which begins,

[28:02]

Bodhisattva, when practicing deeply the Prajnaparamita, perceived that all five skandhas in their own being are empty and was saved from suffering. So his practice of the perfection of wisdom, Prajnaparamita, is precisely his insight into emptiness. And then in this very compressed way, The Heart Sutra then proceeds to describe various aspects or dimensions of emptiness and often describes it in a negative way rather than a positive way. So I'm interested. I'd like to... Let's take a few minutes and I'd like to ask you two questions.

[29:07]

So maybe we can, Yoni, if you could set up breakout rooms of four people, I guess it'd be a couple. Anyway, roughly four people. If you have a group of five, that's fine. And I want to ask you two questions. First of all, What does emptiness mean to you? How would you define it for yourself? And also, how do you practice emptiness? That's the second question. What is its personal meaning to you? And what is your practice of it? So I think let's take about 12 minutes to... to talk about that and then come back and harvest some of your responses. Is that okay? Okay, so let's go into the groups and you can leave me out of the groups, okay?

[30:11]

And you'll give people a couple minutes warning. Give them two minutes warning at the end. I'll let them know when three minutes are up and then six minutes. How many minutes should I give them? Yeah, three minute sections, I guess, if you can do that. Okay. Hi, Sue, do you wanna join a breakout room? Sue, would you like to join a breakout room? I think we've lost her. I'm still seeing her. She's frozen.

[31:42]

Sorry, how many minutes? So they're not going to go – they're not going to take turns, are they? So I should just give them like five or six minutes total? No, total time, 12 minutes. Okay. Okay, so three minutes per person. Yeah. Bye.

[44:37]

Okay, it looks like we're mostly back. I wonder if anyone would like to share what their definition of emptiness is and or what their practice of emptiness might be. Please raise your hand and share. Very interested in hearing. Gary has his hand raised. Gary? Now, I'm not... I'm not hearing him either. I'm not hearing him either. Okay. No, very faint. Okay, hold on a second. Keep going a little louder. Louder? Louder. Is that better? A little better. Okay. Okay, well, one definition we had was boundlessness for emptiness and inclusiveness or being inclusive for actualizing emptiness.

[46:37]

So not rejecting any side of the moral compass. Being completely open, not acting on any, not necessarily acting on anything, but not excluding anything. That was what I came up with. Good, that's very good. So boundlessness is the translation that Kaz Tanahashi and Joan Halifax came up with in their version of the Heart Sutra. And that represents one aspect of it, I think, and a really important aspect of it. And so let's come back to where we talk about that. But I think that's a really useful way to

[47:41]

So because we have this attachment, I think, in the context of the English language, that emptiness means absence or that something is missing. And that's I don't think that's the implication of the way the Buddhist understanding of. of shunya or shunyata is. And so we'll get to that. Someone else? Joel? Yeah, hi. It's kind of interesting because all of us were expressing our perplexity about finding you know, really getting out of our heads with us. You could say interdependence or whatever, and it made some sense, but it wasn't quite it.

[48:43]

And I found myself saying just, I don't know. I don't know. And then thinking that I don't know-ness is something close to emptiness. I mean, I just don't know. And a kind of sense of living and breathing in i don't know um so if you know and then practicing realizing all the times when i think i know and in fact i don't know i'm making up something i'm creating a sign um and uh and that the practice would be letting go of the sign right So I think, yeah, I think that you just, so I feel that not knowing falls into the dimension of signlessness.

[49:46]

Yeah. Which cannot be separated. You can't separate emptiness and signlessness, really. But they represent different dimensions of a way of looking. Right. Right. Okay. Terrific. Thanks. Anyone else? I can't see the raised hands. I can only see the digitally raised hands. Mira and Manuela both raised their hands. Mira? Hi. See you. Yeah. not hearing you okay got that now okay two things so um to me the emptiness um really it makes sense for me interdependence because then i see emptiness being everything is one so emptiness is the same as fullness it's it's completely full and um everything's connected

[51:03]

And one. And I really know the term boundlessness, too. And for me, that was very helpful, learning that term. And it just really changed my perspective of emptiness in a very full way. That's good. Yeah, I also think of it as fullness. I also see there's another dimension of it, but that is the interdependence, the implication that there is nothing that exists that is, and this is what Tillichan said, and this is classical definition, there's nothing, nothing exists that is not dependent upon other things, other causes and conditions. So everything that we,

[52:04]

that we are seeing, everything that we are being is full of other causes and conditions. And that is itself, you know, it's limitless, you know, it's boundless. The boundlessness of causes and conditions that make up each of us as so-called individuals is unthinkable. You know, we just can't get our minds around that. So, yeah, that's really helpful. one more, then I want to go on. Manuela? I had said that in our group that it's the insight in meditation initially that one's thoughts are not reality, one's emotions are not reality, and the sense of that larger mind that can observe that, which encompasses everything and doesn't tend to limit oneself or grab onto anything.

[53:17]

And in a way, I see why emptiness then is the ground and wishlessness and what was the other one? Signlessness is all a way of not taking Signlessness might be like that thought that's gripping you or that emotion that's gripping you. Don't take that sign as being the truth for something. And so the larger space is emptiness to me, and it encompasses all of these things and enables me to interact with myself and with others and the totality of everything that's in the emptiness. which is full of all kinds of things. So I find it a very, it's a very comforting thing to me. Right. And also, I'm going to, also I want to talk about this a little, the kind of bound togetherness of emptiness and impermanence, that if things were not impermanent, then...

[54:28]

our universe would be filled up with things. So its impermanence allows for impermanence and emptiness together allow space for change and new things to arise. Right. So I want to go back a moment. I'm trying to think this week I was thinking, what was my first understanding of emptiness? And I remember when I came to Berkeley Zen Center, shortly after I came to Berkeley Zen Center in the early 80s, you know, I heard about Tassajara and I really wanted to go there. And I went down during work period. And one afternoon during work period, there was a little student workshop given by one of the students on the Heart Sutra. Essentially, he was focusing on emptiness.

[55:32]

I just spoke to Liz yesterday. She remembers there was a family from Mexico that came and visited. Ron might remember them, actually. Came and visited. This is about 84, 85. The whole family came. I think they had a child and a father and mother. And his name was Juan. I can't remember his last name. Anyway, he gave this great presentation of the heart suture, which I had found perplexing, even though we've been chanting it every day. And what he said was, essentially, emptiness does not mean vacancy. Emptiness is really, as Mira was saying, a fullness, a fullness of causes and conditions. And the model that he used to unpack this was looking at an automobile, which is very, you know, a common metaphor.

[56:40]

You know, we see an automobile parked outside or we see it going down the road and we know what it is. We think we know what it is. But when we try to look at. what is the automobile if we look at the various it it is a it is a collection of of parts it's you know is a wheel wheels it has motor it has steering wheels it has a seat it has a body it is it has bumpers it has all of these things it has lights all of these things are components of what we call an automobile uh But you can't point to any, no one of them embodies this whole assembly of things. And what he was saying was that all of reality is like that. And this is where the Heart Sutra begins.

[57:45]

It begins by saying that the five skandhas, which is the traditional, deconstruction of the self is that is, in a gross sense, the parts that come together to make what we call a person for self. So one way of looking at emptiness is that it is a distinction between between the way things appear to be and the way they actually are. It's a distinction between appearance and reality. And that, they are very close to, emptiness and impermanence are very close together. You can't really separate them.

[58:46]

Emptiness, you could see as the intersection of impermanence and interconnectedness. Thich Nhat Hanh has a really good way of talking about it. He says that impermanence looks at reality from the standpoint of time. And emptiness looks at reality from From the standpoint of space. And that's a really interesting way to frame it. So impermanence is talking about. Talking about things from the context in the context of time, how they unfold in time. And emptiness is about. What we see as occupying space. So. No self. or emptiness is a manifestation of impermanence, and impermanence is a manifestation of emptiness.

[59:58]

So, to go back to some of the traditional perspectives, where we begin in early Buddhism, When we talk about emptiness, it's mostly talking about the self. It's talking about, and it breaks itself down into the skandhas or the aggregates. And it also then looks at the aggregates of consciousness, which is the aggregate of consciousness, which is the fifth skanda. Consciousness is manifest as dharmas. And dharmas in these terms, this is the subject of the Abhidharma, one of the collections of the Buddhist teachings.

[61:08]

The dharmas are seen as basic building blocks of personality or character or thought consciousness. And at least in early Buddhism, they were seen as the, they were kind of the smallest level of identification, the smallest level that you could point to as, shall I say, existing. And this was a way, this is what the Abhidharma, did was to systematize this analysis and to basically create a very structural analysis of what we create this illusory self of. Not to say that it's a real self, that it's still an illusion because it's a collection of these things, but these are building blocks along with form

[62:21]

which is the physical elements, these are the building blocks out of which we connected the sense of self. In the Sunya Sutta, Ananda, Buddha's attendant has said, It is said that the world is empty, Lord. In what respect is it said that the world is empty? The Buddha replied, insofar as it is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self. Thus, it is said that the world is empty. So a lot of the emphasis in early Buddhism was on the nature of the self. And in a way, this is part of the argument that That Buddhism was having with other aspects of of Indian philosophy, which which postulated an Atman herself.

[63:30]

And so it was really focused there. But there's another way that you see it. Also, even in early Buddhism, that emptiness is also a mode of perception. That it's a way of looking. that experience that adds nothing to it and takes nothing away from it. It's just the raw data of physical and mental events. So the raw data of physical and mental events is also what we would call dharmas. And that's a traditional early Buddhist analysis. So when we get to Mahayana, the perfection of wisdom teachings and the Majamaka teachings of Nagarjuna, then we begin to see a different perspective.

[64:51]

And I want to read you something. This is a really excellent book if you don't know it. called The Foundations, it's backwards, I'm sorry. It's called The Foundations of Buddhism by Rupert Geffen, G-E-T-H-I-N. And I feel like this is about as fine and detailed an analysis of Buddhism as I've found. But I wanted to read you something how he talks about It says, since we fail to see things as they really are, I'm sorry, central to the Abhidharma is the distinction between the conventional truth that people and selves exist and the ultimate truth that people and selves are ultimately aggregates.

[65:56]

of evanescent dharmas, physical and mental events. The main teaching of the perfection of wisdom is that from the perspective of perfect wisdom, even this account of the way things are is ultimately arbitrary. Since we fail to see things as they really are, impermanent, suffering and not self, We grasp at them as if they were permanent, as if they could bring lasting happiness. The cultivation of insight involves breaking up the seemingly substantial and enduring appearance of things. So what he's saying, and this is the thrust of the heart sutra, the thrust of the heart sutra is taking on... It's a critique of earlier Buddhism.

[66:57]

So perfect wisdom, perfection of wisdom, Prajnaparamita, is what sees through the process of the mind's conceptual construction and is not tainted by attachment to any view or opinion. In particular, it is not attached to views and conceptual constructs of Buddhist theory. So it's attacking in a logical way all of the premises of earlier Buddhism and saying they are empty. And so the mind can grasp at the theory of dharmas and turn it into another conceptual straitjacket. Thus, The Parajan Paramita Sutra says, there is no ignorance, no cessation of ignorance, no suffering, no knowledge of suffering, no cause, no abandoning of the cause, no cessation and no realization of cessation, and no path and no development to the path.

[68:11]

It is in this sense, Shariputra, that a bodhisattva, a great being who practices perfect wisdom, is called one devoted to perfect wisdom. Now, it's important that it's doing this via negativa. At the same time, it's not nihilism. It's not saying that nothing exists. It's simply saying that everything, including the dharmas, are also conditional. And Sojin says this in his lecture. He says, In other words, we're all dependent. There is nothing in this world that is not dependent on anything else. Another way to think of this, and this gets to when we talk about, I want to talk a little about what the practice of emptiness might be.

[69:22]

Another way to think of emptiness is to consider how phenomena appear in a dream. Dreamed phenomena usually appear as very real to the dreamer. And so we wouldn't necessarily say that they are absolutely devoid of existence because they exist in the mind. even in an impermanent evanescent way. But it's not possible to assign the quality or particular reality of existence to anything that arises in a dream. So we think about what the practice of... emptiness is.

[70:23]

I wanted to read you something. Here's a description that I like from a book by Jeffrey Hopkins called Cultivating Compassion. He talks about imagine yourself sitting by a very calm lake and looking at night and looking at the reflection of the moon in the water. Very clear, still, perfect reflection. First, gain the experience of slowly looking over the image of the reflection of the moon. Going over every part of it. Realizing that every part of it, every part of this reflection is not the moon. that the whole thing together is not the moon, that there is nothing there at all, which is a moon.

[71:27]

Then remaining in that experience of a vivid appearance of a moon, but the utter lack of a moon, view sentient beings or other phenomena and becoming like a magician, understand that the object, however vividly it appears, does not exist inherently, even though it appears to exist in its own right. Understand that phenomena arise dependent on their causes and conditions and and conditions and arise dependent on their parts such as such that they could not possibly exist in and of themselves as they seem to do. Eventually, the false appearance The false part of the appearance itself fades, leaving only the actual object through your mind's eye. Perhaps. I'm not sure about that last sentence.

[72:31]

The actual object. I mean, that brings up another philosophical question. Are we actually able to see an object since every perception is also takes shape? Through our sense organs. And through our consciousness. Nonetheless. Out of these things we construct. We construct what we call reality. So. The practice of emptiness. You could also see as just. Settling into Zazen. Allowing ourselves to see. the non-self and impermanent nature of all thoughts and perceptions of things. Not just seeing them intellectually, but experiencing ourselves as part of a oneness, not separate.

[73:41]

This is one of the experiences that we have from moment to moment in Zazen. We all have moments of this, of feeling that there's a oneness which we are the manifestation of. It's manifesting in our minds. So this is merging, if you like. And as I said, many of us, all of us perhaps, have moments and at least glimmerings of this meditative state, even if we don't live there all the time. So our Soto teachers often do not speak of emptiness in the analytical fashion that we see in Indian Buddhism, which is very analytical. But there's a quality, they speak of emptiness as a quality of mind, as this mind that is open, receptive,

[74:48]

That's broadly empty of preconceptions, of theories, of self-centered ideas. It's a much more poetic perspective. So we see this in Suzuki Roshi. In Not Always So, there's a chapter called Letters from Emptiness. He writes, although we have no actual written communication from the world of emptiness, we have some hints or suggestions about what is going on in that world. And that is, you might say, enlightenment. When you see plum blossoms or hear the sound of a small stone hitting bamboo, that is a letter from the world of emptiness. So emptiness is this broadly interconnected experience that is generally beautiful.

[76:08]

It's not intellectual. He says, I want you to understand what we are doing here at Zen Center. Sometimes it may be all right to practice zazen as a kind of exercise or training to make your practice stronger or to make your breath smooth and natural. That's perhaps included in the practice. But when we say shikantaza, that is not what we mean. When we receive a letter from the world of emptiness, then the practice of Shikantaza is working. The practice of Shikantaza is just this receptivity. It's actually... He speaks of this also in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind.

[77:11]

This practice of receptivity, you could describe as... What he says... So we say true understanding will come out of emptiness. Again, this is a letter from emptiness. When you study Buddhism, you should have a general house cleaning of your mind. You must take everything out of your room and clean it thoroughly. If it is necessary, you may bring everything back in again. You may want many things. So one by one, you can bring them back in. But if they are not necessary, there is no need to keep them. So in this sense, the practice of emptiness is the practice of emptying. It's of cleaning our minds of our preconceptions or our thoughts.

[78:16]

It's pointing. So right there, we point to... the second door to signlessness. As Joel was saying, when we empty our house, the house of our mind, of all these things, then we're not caught in knowing. We're embracing not knowing and openness. And so that's really the place that we come to in our practice of emptiness. It's not theoretical. It's not conceptual. It's experiential. So I think I want to stop there. We have a few minutes left and just see if you have any thoughts or questions as we wind up this session tonight. can't hear you can you hear me now me yeah ah okay okay yeah so um i think you said this which is um

[79:47]

You know, emptiness, the practice of emptiness or the experience of emptiness is the emptiness of self-winging or the limited self. Yeah. And I'm not sure if anyone's had a persistent experience of that. It, as you said, it, you know, my experience has been only like short bursts so i would like to know if anyone's had a persistent experience of that how about you um I think this is really hard to talk about in our tradition because what our perspective is to include everything.

[81:01]

And if we're including everything, it's including all of our sensations. It's including all of our sensations and perceptions, but not being the core teaching, Sochin and for Suzuki Roshi was don't be caught by anything. I see a lot of places where I am not caught in ways that I might have been in the past or when something comes up that wants to hook me, I can unhook very quickly. And I think that for the most part, I saw that, I think that Sojan was a really good model of that. I think that he generally lived that way.

[82:06]

He could be caught. All of us could be caught. But to be quite honest with you, I've met a lot of very strong and evolved teachers. I've never met a human being who couldn't be caught. The question is, we can't say much about all the places where they're not caught. And what we really can look at is, if we see them caught, how quickly do they let go? And I think that's a... that's a mark of practice. You know, not a kind of aloofness above it all, but just when something comes up, how can one not be caught? And I think that's our standard of practicing emptiness. Yeah, I like that.

[83:09]

So we all can work at that. Thank you. Hi. Hi. That sounds like Gimpo. I guess... One reason I struggle with emptiness as a concept is I feel like I associate it with letting go. You know, I feel like letting go of fixed definitions and fixed ideas. And often when we talk about realizing emptiness, it feels to me like there's an implication that there's something big, bigger than just, you know,

[84:12]

a bad mood that we're supposed to be letting go of. So what is that? Well, I think that this idea of letting go is very confusing. I was just speaking with somebody about this earlier today. And Suzuki Roshi said about renunciation, it's not that... we let go of things, but that things let go of us. So letting go to me is something that happens to us. And to me, the practice of Zazen, Shikantazen, Zazen, put you in a posture where that is More likely to happen. Where the letting go.

[85:15]

So the letting go. Comes from beyond us. And. I think sometimes it's a big thing. And sometimes it's a small thing. But if you posit it. As a big thing. Then you're going to get. Basically you're going to get caught by a gaining idea. If you just recognize the places where attachment isn't happening in your life, in your moment-to-moment life, then you can appreciate letting go. Because letting go just happens. Does that make any sense? Yeah. Once you objectify it or say it has to be some big thing, then... all of a sudden you're creating, you're objectifying it.

[86:19]

And emptiness is not a thing. It's really embracing this openness. It's embracing the potentiality, which is immensely creative. So, thank you. So I'm just... Hear from Mira and Gary, and then we'll close. You muted again. My question is quick. I've heard of the Abhidhamra, but you were talking about dharmas. Can you give us a specific example? You were talking about them as the smallest parts of what were made up of. Can you give me an example of what's a dharma? Every state of mind is a dharma. Anger, joy, and, you know, resentment. Every mind state is what, in an Abhidhamic analysis, is a dharma.

[87:28]

So, basically, in this analysis, there are, I don't know, 200 and something, there are different systems, 200 and something mind states, which are sort of these irreducible... elements of consciousness. Okay. So they're all mind states. When you say the dharmas, when you say the dharmas, they're all mind states. In this analysis, yes. There's different ways of thinking about dharma. There's dharma. Of course, there's dharma as the Buddha's teachings. Right. That's a different. And then there's dharmas in this very particular abhidhamic way. That's what I'm talking about. Great. No, that's really good for me to understand that. Thank you. Sometimes we'll study them. There's some wonderful, useful teachings of the dharmas from a Mahayana perspective. So that's another thing we could do. Gary. I'm waiting for my picture to show.

[88:32]

A little vain. I really like, I've heard you say this before, I really like what you say about things let go of us, okay? And would it be right to say that for that to happen, you have to relax? Into where you're at for things to let go of you. Just my armchair idea of letting go. You know, it helps, but that's not the only way. You know, I used to like really grim, what can I say?

[89:38]

Scandinavian mystery novels. I love them too. I used to read them, and I got a lot of enjoyment from reading them. And at a certain point, I realized, no, this just creates a yucky feeling in my body. I don't enjoy this. And they let go of me. You know, that's just a rough example. So it wasn't about relaxing. It was actually, it's like paying attention to what's happening. That's what I was going to say. Yeah. Relaxing is perhaps, that's what I said, relaxing or zazen is the precondition, is a precondition for paying attention. Yes, it's like being right there with it and And in order to do that, you have to drop your defenses.

[90:41]

Right. You know, you could say that, you know, a while back, I just, you know, I had this perception, I would have a glass of wine or a drink of whiskey, you know, and it wasn't a serious attachment, but I just had the feeling, I don't, When I paid attention, I felt this doesn't really feel good. And so I stopped. And it was really getting to be able to have the attention, that quality of attention that allows things to fall away of their own. And then it wasn't any problem. So thank you all, and we'll see you next week. Let's chant the Bodhisattva vows to close. Things are numberless.

[91:45]

I vow to awaken with them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. So good night, everyone, and take good care. We'll see you next week, and we'll probably see you around the Zendo in the next few days. Bye-bye. Bye. Thank you, Hozan. Thank you. Thank you, Young. Thank you, everyone. Good night, everybody. Good night. Be safe.

[92:30]

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