Good morning. Today we're commemorating Shakyamuni Buddha's power and nirvana. Parinirvana is another term for Nirvana, but it means complete Nirvana. Nirvana is a word that has a lot of discussion attached to it. What does Nirvana mean?

[01:02]

But simply, Nirvana is true state with reality, true state of reality, free from greed, ill will, and delusion. There are a lot of people who are free from greed and ill will but who still live in delusion. So Buddha's nirvana Some people feel that nirvana is... there's a... we use... the Buddhists use the term extinction, but extinction is not quite right, actually.

[02:15]

Any term you use is not quite right. If you say extinction, then everybody gasps. You say, you mean... extinction? But completion is a maybe better term. Extinction is the negative side. Completion is the positive side. So we don't say that Shakyamuni Buddha was an extinct person. We say he was a complete person. Again, extinction and completion, neither one is quite right. Hits the mark. Somewhere between extinction and completion. Nirvana includes both extinction and completion.

[03:20]

As life is a becoming, a never-ending becoming. When we talk of a person, we talk of a process. So when we speak of parinirvana, Buddha's parinirvana, we talk about his great decease when he died, when he's no longer his body and mind are no longer present on this earth. But as you know, Buddha continues to exist in this world. And parinirvana means nirvana, but it also means nirvana in which the person is no longer existing in the world. nirvana with remainder, meaning remaining in the world, living in the world, and nirvana which is dying, which is a more thorough completion.

[04:49]

There are various Buddhist sutras which are the Nirvana, called the Nirvana Sutra. There's a Mahayana Nirvana Sutra which is quite long, and there's various other sutras which are quite short. And I don't know what sutra this is from, but there's The eight aspects of the enlightened person, which we discussed a long time ago, were supposed to be the last words of the Buddha before he died, before he completed his parinirvana. So the Dogon commented on the eight aspects of the enlightened person. And this is actually Dogen's last fascicle in the Shobo Genzo.

[05:58]

His last talk before he died was on Buddha's Eight Aspects of the Enlightened Person, before he died. So I want to talk a little bit again about the Eight Aspects of the Enlightened Person, since it seems to be Buddha's last word. before he died. These eight aspects are a little bit like the Eightfold Path and a little bit like the Seven Factors of Enlightenment, kind of like a combination between the Eightfold Path and the Seven Factors of Enlightenment. I think we should really pay attention to them because they help us in our practice. The first one is called being free from greed.

[07:02]

That's the first one. To practice freedom from greed, greediness. Greed is like a trap. If we're caught by greed then we have no freedom to move and we become compulsive and obsessed and our mind is no longer settled. This idea of our mind being settled is the most difficult thing to achieve. And every one of these aspects deals with that problem, deals with the problem of settled mind. The first one is being free from greed.

[08:08]

And the second one is Not, thinking of a way to express it, to be satisfied with what is presented. That's a very difficult one, too. They really go together. To be satisfied, easily satisfied, or satisfied with what comes to you. we're always looking for something better or something more. And whenever we get something better, something more, then we want to look for something even better and something even more.

[09:13]

And this is, of course, human progress. Without this kind of desire, we don't have human progress. But we usually get caught by something better and something more. I think part of the reason we get caught by this is because we think of ourselves as permanent. As human beings, we just pass through this world and we come to think of this world as our home. But actually, it's not our home, even though we may feel at home here from time to time. We may feel at home, but it's really not our home. Exactly. But while we're here, we like to feel at home here.

[10:17]

We do. But we get lost. We get lost in the idea that it is our home and that when we're rather young we feel that life will just go on and on and that things are here to stay but after a while we come to see that that they're not that way at all and then when we get older we come to a point where you see that even though there hasn't been any big accident happening to us that's cut off our life, we may only have a few years left. So, not so much time.

[11:20]

So how do we have some freedom in this world to live in this world and also freedom to leave it. The more that we're caught by this world, the less freedom we have to leave it. Not that we want to leave it. We're not trying to leave it, exactly. But we know that we will leave it. It's a certainty that we will leave this world. So learning how to leave this world is the same as learning how to live in it. Same thing. And for Buddha, living and dying are two sides of the same coin.

[12:25]

And both are going on simultaneously. So we can acknowledge and accept this world. If we want to live peacefully and happily in this world, then we must accept it as it comes to us. Then we can live in this world and even enjoy it. But if we try to do too much to it, we make ourselves and everyone else quite miserable. And we never find satisfaction. We keep looking for satisfaction in the things of the world, but they don't satisfy us. And the more we try to get satisfied, the less satisfaction we have. So to

[13:30]

not be attached to desire. Having few desires is the key to this one, but it's something that we have to consciously deal with, cultivate, because our desire is very strong. not wanting too much and knowing how to be satisfied may be the most difficult thing. And then the next one thing that he talked about was to persevere in practice to not be lazy.

[15:08]

If you want to do something, then you have to make a big effort to do it. And if what you're doing is not consistent with the way the world goes, it's even more difficult. It's very easy to be discouraged by the ways of the world in your practice because the world goes in the other direction. toward greed, toward anger, toward delusion. In your practice you're going the other way, up the stream, against the current.

[16:09]

So it takes a lot of conviction and constant watchfulness and effort. If you slacken for a while, it's easy to just get lost in your effort. And the next one That's called diligence, to be diligent. To never really slacken your pace, your endeavor. And the next one is not forgetting what you're doing.

[17:15]

Those two go together very well. To not forget what you're doing. and to make the effort to do it not forgetting means to always keep reminding yourself, why am I doing what I'm doing? What's the source? What am I doing? And if you remind yourself, then you don't forget what you're doing. It's easy to forget, especially in our daily life, where we're constantly being involved in a world that doesn't care

[18:21]

about your practice, or doesn't care about your values, or doesn't care about Buddhism, or Zen, or Zazen, or truth. To always remember the truth yourself, to always remember what you're practicing at any moment. Mindfulness over lack of greed, lack of ill will, watching the dharmas as they come up, It's really important.

[19:27]

I think, you know, if you're a priest, then you can always say, well, I should act like a priest in any situation. What does that mean? You know, that helps. If you have some, or vow, then it really helps in your daily life to remind you of who you are and what your life is about. So, vow is important, not vows that you can't keep, but a vow that, you know, every day, ordinary vow, we say, the four vows.

[20:29]

Keeping those four vows in mind is like knowing what you're doing, knowing what your life is about fundamentally. So that's remembering or recollection. And then there's Samadhi, cultivating Samadhi through meditation. Samadhi and wisdom are the next two. And Samadhi is described as building a kind of fortress, the fortress of Samadhi. Samadhi comes about through direct perception and concentration. and to have a strong concentration so that the water is like a dike.

[21:37]

It's described as a dike in a country that's full of water. And samadhi is like the dike which keeps the water of wisdom from leaking out. That's the way Dogon describes it. Samadhi is like the dike that strong, powerful, structure of your mind which keeps the water of wisdom from leaking out. We need some kind of power to keep wisdom, to keep some form for our mind. And the Sixth Patriarch describes samadhi and prajna, samadhi and wisdom, as the lamp and its light.

[22:45]

Samadhi is like the lamp and wisdom is its light. And the two go together. And you don't have one without the other. And then he talks about, he says, the last one. There's one I left out. Actually, the third one I left out. I'm trying to remember what it was. But I'll remember it. The last one is not giving in to idle chatter. Isn't that interesting? Not getting carried away with idle chatter. That's important enough to be the last one. Not babbling on about speculation and theories.

[23:54]

not non-mindful talking. Non-mindful talking or mindless chatter drains the wisdom out of your mind. It's like the hole in the dike. Inconsequential talking is okay, you know. We should all... If you're too silent and too meaningful in everything you say, then you become... you maybe smell of sincerity. But there needs to be room for idle chatter in your life.

[25:16]

But what he's talking about is constant is... One aspect is giving in to whatever is in your mind you just say. Whatever comes to mind, you see something and you have to say something about it. Or you can't help talking. Or if you don't talk, you feel like you're alone. Or if you don't talk, you don't feel like you're alive. There are a lot of situations like that. But also, what he's really talking about is not standing on some point of view and spousing off your point of view, or getting lost in some theory, but to study reality directly.

[26:37]

In Buddhism, even though Buddhism is very simple and direct, there's a lot of Buddhist philosophy and a lot of Buddhist speculation. Buddhist philosophy is incredibly deep and complex, but Buddhism itself is rather simple. But if you study Buddhist philosophy, you come to the realization that Buddhist philosophy is as complex and as penetrating as it is. In the end, it brings you to the point where you leave philosophy behind. where you leave all points of view and all speculation behind.

[27:51]

Nagarjuna's great philosophy was created in order to cut off everyone's tongue. Actually, There's no one that could argue against Nagarjuna. There's no argument that holds up against Nagarjuna. And it's the argument against all arguments. So what Buddha is talking about is to see reality directly. by moderation through our senses.

[28:56]

And I remember the third one now. The third one was to be peaceful, to cultivate peacefulness. Most people have a difficult time just being in a peaceful state. We're very restless. Human beings are very restless. And even though we talk about peace, it's almost impossible for us to be peaceful. It's like looking at an opening up an anthill and asking the ants to stop, to calm down. we say peaceful and we talk about peaceful and when we're peaceful it's okay for a minute but then we have to start doing something again and that's human nature but actually finding satisfaction in peacefulness very difficult and that's what our Buddha is talking about

[30:17]

how to find satisfaction in peacefulness. So that's why we sit tzazen. We sit tzazen in order to find satisfaction in peacefulness. It's very hard to do otherwise. Very hard to find peacefulness otherwise, real peacefulness, that is, deep peacefulness. And then at the end, just before he died, Buddha said, everyone has to work out their own salvation for themselves with diligence.

[31:27]

And if you want to see me, follow the Dharma. If you follow the Dharma, then you will see me. If you want to see Buddha, follow the Dharma. Anyway, we talk about peace, but how many people really want to be peaceful? That's a big question. Maybe everyone, and maybe not so many.

[32:33]

And maybe everyone does. But to get to it is really hard. To see reality as it is, And in the face of seeing everything as it is, to find real peacefulness, there's Buddhadharma. Without any illusions. That's the work of our practice.

[33:37]

And when Buddha died, everybody's wailing and lamenting, because when he was around, people felt that way. So we have to stumble around on our own. But we just have to do the best we can. given who we are. So, we have to help each other to do that. Anybody have a question?

[34:38]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ