Good evening. So we're going to do four weeks on part of this volume two of the Flower Ornament scripture. We're going to do the part that's called the ten stages of the Bodhisattva. And then we're going to meet once again after that. How does that sound? So the dates are today the 7th, the 14th, the 21st, and then skipping to December 12th. Yeah. And we'll go from 7.30 to 9. This is my third year studying the Sutra.

[01:05]

We started at Green Gulch three years ago with Volume 3. We read that. And then last year we read Volume 1. And then I came over here and we did a bit of Volume 1 here. And this year we're reading through Volume 2. And the way that I've been doing it these years is to just whatever chunk we're reading, break it up into more or less equal sections. And then every week I'll come in and kind of talk about the section that we were to have read. Sometimes I've gone through the whole thing, tried anyway, but through the whole thing from beginning to end, that particular section. But doing it that way So this time I think I'd like to do it a little differently, and that is look at that week's reading and maybe bring up a few points that I notice that I think are interesting, and then leave it so it can be a little more confluent and not necessarily feel like we have to go through that whole section.

[02:15]

And then, the best part is that after a certain amount of time of my speaking or us discussing, we stop all that and have a little kind of service. where we offer some incense and do three full vows, and then recite the scripture in unison for a while. And when we do that tonight, I'll show you, I have a little arrangement with bells and things like that. So I think that's a nice way of doing it, because in a way, trying to conceptually and intellectually understand the scripture is a little bit kind of beside the point. it if we don't just recite it and plunge into it, so we'll try to do both in the class. So, I don't know if you can jot these down, but I kind of broke the reading up into four parts. It's obviously not crucial that you quote-unquote do the assignment, but I'll just give you the page numbers that I'm using in my head to look at for each week.

[03:29]

This week, page 7 to page 41. Next time, page 41 to page 76. Sutra in a very good translation by Thomas Cleary. So actually just to have the Xerox copy is a great benefit. So we're very fortunate because you can't buy this right now. So I'm glad that So I kind of put the word out through Alan to mention to people to be ready to have read something for tonight.

[04:39]

I don't know if you were able to do that or not. I have lengthy introductions that I give to this sutra that go on for a long time. I'm talking about Mahayana sutras in general and this sutra in particular from many, many points of view, but I'm kind of tired of saying all that. So tonight what I thought I'd do is give a little bit of an introduction. How many of you are unfamiliar with this sutra or with Mahayana sutras in general? Did you say familiar or unfamiliar? Unfamiliar. Well, let me give a little bit of an introduction then and we'll plunge into the sutra.

[05:41]

I found that, on the one hand, this sutra is very strange and perplexing for people who aren't used to the Mahayana sutras. On the other hand, it's very attractive and seductive and wonderful at the same time. explaining away or something like that, but let me just give a little introduction. There's a famous saying of Suzuki Roshi, Zen practice is Hideyana practice with Mahayana mind. Did you ever hear that saying? Hideyana practice with Mahayana mind. And what this means to me is that Zen practice is very simple practice. Now, I'm going to be, in this context of this conversation here, using the words Hinayana and Mayana in a particular way.

[06:47]

Hinayana practice to me means very simple, unadorned, straightforward, practice. But Mahayana mind is a vast background, a vast, very colorful understanding that stands behind this really simple practice. There's an old Zen story. A monk asks the teacher, what is the Dharma? The teacher says, have you eaten your rice yet? a typical Zen kind of story. The highest, most profound question is answered with, eat your rice. But, what is rice?

[07:50]

In this case, rice is just ordinary rice, but it's also not rice, it's also everything is included in the bowl of rice. And there are many kinds of expressions like this in Zen. The famous poem by Laman Pond, My Miraculous Power, I chop wood and carry water. So again, this is just chopping wood and carrying water. It's nothing fancy. And yet, this chopping wood and carrying water is vast and deep. Zen literature doesn't say anything about it. It doesn't say, But this is the implication. This is the real meaning. So this sutra, in a way, is a kind of explication, if you want to say, of the real meaning of a bowl of rice, or the real meaning of chopping wood or carrying water.

[08:53]

This sutra is trying to express the inexpressible, convey the ineffable. to use language to describe the impossibly vast and deep worlds that you find in a bowl of rice in some water. So each thing that we encounter Each moment of thought or of activity is like a little window on everything. It involves our whole life and the life everywhere of everyone. And it also involves death, being and non-being.

[09:57]

It's inherently This life that is in yana practice with my yana mind is inherently inconceivable. This is one of the terms that's used throughout the Avatamsaka Sutra. This practice of the Bodhisattva is inconceivable. In a literal sense, it cannot be precisely understood conceptually. So it cannot be precisely understood by our ordinary human intelligence. This doesn't mean that on some level it can't be known. But it can't be known and explained in the way that we can know and explain how to run an internal combustion engine, or how the Earth revolves around the planets. I mean around the Sun. And yet, although we can't explain it conceptually, we can't conceive of it, we are it. We're in the middle of it. So, Hinayana practice with Mahayana mind.

[11:04]

Hinayana practice is some sense of measure and restraint, some ability to understand the teaching, and some culture that helps us to understand the teaching. With Mahayana mind, a vast vision of the world of causality and inconceivability. From the standpoint of the Mahayana mind, our practice is multidimensional stretching over many, many lifetimes, multigenerational, it's as if we're joining an evolutionary wave that all of humanity is participating in. From the point of view of Indian practice, you and I are cultivating our understanding and our mind, trying to improve our life, trying to take care of ourselves and understand the Dharma better. So the Avatamsaka Sutra is an explication of this vast When the Chinese received all these Mahayana Sutras almost around the same time, in the early centuries of Chinese Buddhism, it was really confusing because not only did the Mahayana Sutras seem to contradict them, they picked a whole other version of Buddhism than the so-called Hinayana Sutras did, but they also contradicted each other.

[12:32]

So the Chinese tried to make sense of this, and they created various systems of ranking the sutras and explaining how they fit together. And one of the schools of Chinese Buddhism explained it like this, and I won't go into the whole system, but the important point is, they said, when Buddha was enlightened, In the first blush of his vision of enlightenment, of his seeing how reality actually was, he just opened up and just said what it was. And that was the Avatamska Sutra. He just said, here's what it's like, folks. But everybody, when they heard him preach this, became really confused and upset because they couldn't make head or tail of it. It was overwhelming. So he realized, oh, This isn't going to work out very well. I better take ten steps back." So he thought about it for a while, and he started at the beginning.

[13:36]

And he taught the Hinayana Sutra, the Four Noble Truths, and the Eightfold Path, and all those basic teachings, and then worked his way up to more complicated teachings, until finally the Avatamsaka Sutra, the original expression, could be understood and appreciated. In the dust jacket to this, Volume 2, Cleary, our translator, refers to a saying of B.T. Suzuki, who wrote about this sutra. As to the Avatamsaka Sutra, it is really the consummation of Buddhist thought, Buddhist sentiment, and Buddhist experience. To my mind, No religious literature in the world can ever approach the grandeur of conception, the depths of feeling, and the gigantic scale of composition as attained by this sutra. Here, not only deeply speculative minds find satisfaction, but humble spirits and heavily oppressed hearts, too, will have their burdens lightened.

[14:42]

Abstract truths are so concretely, so symbolically represented here that one will finally come to a realization of the truth that even in a particle of dust, whole universe is seen reflected. Not this visible universe only, but a vast system of universes conceivable by the highest minds only. Let me give you very briefly some sort of textual historical facts. Nobody knows when this Avatamska Sutra first appeared. It probably was composed around the time of many Mahayana... My idea is, I think, from what I have been able to understand, that many Mahayana sutras were composed almost at the same time, a hundred years of each other. They just sort of burst forth.

[15:45]

And I actually feel that this spirit that created the Mahayana Sutras was alive in other religious traditions all over the world at this moment in history. For some reason, there was an overwhelming urge that humanity had at this point around the year, my guess is around the year 100 B.C., to express tremendous love instead of tribes fighting against tribes, and families against families, there's a sudden welling up of this feeling of love of all of humanity, the possibility that all people could share a feeling together. And I think that's the explanation for Mahayana movement in Buddhism, that the teaching of compassion is the single most powerful force that created these Mayana Sutras, and that's the single most important difference between Mayana and Inayana scriptures.

[16:50]

And I think it also, the same spirit transformed, there was a current in Judaism that created eventually Christianity. So anyway, say roughly about 100 B.C., Nobody knows. It was translated into Chinese. Parts of it, sections of it, were translated into Chinese by about the 2nd century, about 300 years, roughly. I'm guessing that it was 100 B.C. or so. Anywhere from 100 B.C. to the year 0. A couple of hundred years later, parts of the sutra began appearing in Chinese. And the first Chinese translation of what we now consider to be the whole Avatamsaka Sutra, which is over 2,000 pages in English, was by Buddhapadra in 418 and it was translated about 250 years later by Shukshananda in 695. Now, this vast thing that we now call the Mayana Sutra and that clearly is translated in English, does not exist anywhere.

[17:58]

The original Sanskrit text does not exist anywhere. There are only two sections of it that exist in Sanskrit. One is called the Dasabhumika section, which is the ten stages section, the one that we're going to read. And the other is called the Gandavyuha section, which is volume three of this translation, Entry into the Realm of Reality. Both these sections very likely existed as independent sutras. They were not part of the Avatamska, but were independent sutras. And it's possible, some scholars think, that that these were the only authentic, so-called authentic ones, the only ones that ever did exist in Sanskrit, that the rest of it was all made up by the Chinese, written by Chinese monks, and that it never did exist in India. But it doesn't really make any difference. So, it was clearly then put together, cobbled together from various pieces, as were other Mahayana sutras, pretty typical.

[19:09]

that the Mahayanas borrowed and changed and did all kinds of things. The textual work in the Mahayana sutras generally is a nightmare. In other words, scholars are, all the texts are different, this might have been added from here, and et cetera, et cetera. They have a field day trying to figure out how these things were put together, which is not the case with the so-called Hinayana sutras or the earlier scriptures, which had a much more of a sense of Western ideology. The founder said this, we've got to be very careful. The Mahayanas were very free and easy, I think. They really understood that the Buddha was alive in the spirit of each practitioner. And so they thought nothing of, you know, adding and subtracting and changing around. Yeah? Do you notice in your own studies that subtle or major differences between the third volume and the ten stages and other parts of the work? Well, if we assume that

[20:14]

parts were added and so on, and written afterward. They were added and written afterward with this careful study of the original, so that they do follow along pretty well. But there are lots of sort of contradictory parts. I think it all hangs together pretty well, in my view. Right. Well, as you said, the spirit of the thing is carried on. Yeah. But clearly, like we see in Volume 2 here, it begins as though it were a different sutra. It doesn't begin with the words, It lists the disciples who were there, and the setting, and the time, and place, and so on, as you would have at the beginning of the sutra. So it seems as if this section was clearly an independent text. That would be my guess. Anyway, that's all I want to... Mostly I want to talk about the meaning of the text for practice. Let's see, what else do I want?

[21:24]

Yes, one of the ideas about this sutra is that, and it'll often say in this book, after going into an exhaustive description of one of the stages that makes your head spin, it'll say, however, this is only a little bit about it, If we were to explain the whole thing, it would take an infinite amount of time. So the idea is that this sutra, even though it's thousands of pages long and really exhaustively goes into details, actually it's not at all telling you what the real teaching is. It's just a little bit of shorthand. The actual Avatamsaka Sutra This is the traditional concept. The actual Avatamska Sutra is this world, this world that we live in, all of our thoughts, all the atoms in our body, the pattern that appears before our eyes, and if we had better eyes, we could see into and through and open up into a vastness all around, every moment.

[22:42]

That's the real sutra. This is just a little indication of that. In fact, what this sutra is, is a dharani. It's actually a magical spell designed to put our minds in the vibration of resonating with the vastness of the world that we only see only a surface of. So a dharani, as you know, is a kind of a magical spell. to affect our mind. So it's not as if in reading the Avatamska Sutra we're reading a text that we can get meaning out of and understand and so forth. Rather, we're engaging in a process of changing our minds. And so there's a special power in the recitation of it. And that's why we want to talk about it a little bit and recite it also. An interesting point. Let me turn around and talk about it this way.

[23:47]

There are many important doctrinal points that the sutra makes. Inconceivability, I mentioned a little bit before. That's an important one. The sutra talks about the inconceivability of the teaching, the non-conceptual aspect of the teaching. But another important doctrinal point Sutra makes over and over again, not necessarily discursively, but in enactment, is the notion of interpenetration. It's hard to describe exactly what interpenetration means. What it comes down to, I think, is that The world is holistic, or like a hologram. Every one point of the universe contains all the other points. Huge size is the equivalent of infinitesimally small.

[24:50]

One being includes all the other beings. If you know a moment of your own thought, you know everything that there is to know in the universe. our space-time concepts and our verbal logic simply don't suffice to be able to access this world of interpenetration. So in the world of interpenetration, the Buddha is at once a human being who lives and dies and achieves enlightenment. And at the same time, the Buddha is an eternal manifestation whose entire life and achievement of enlightenment is enacted on every moment, in every place. And from the standpoint of inner penetration, these two things are not at all contradictory. They're only contradictory to our ordinary logical mind. And so we can understand in this light Dogen's very important point about enlightenment being enacted on each moment of practice.

[26:02]

So we're not practicing now in a logical sequence of temporal events leading to a future event where we will be awakened. In fact, the awakening that we experience in the future, in the inconceivably distant future, is actually manifested right now, even in our most confused situation. idea in Dogen's thinking and conditions so much that we do in our daily practice, when you think about it, has a background like this in the Avatamska Sutra. So this is important to think about. And there were schools of Chinese Buddhism that developed based on this sutra. that created fairly sophisticated and elaborate philosophical systems that influenced the Zen school.

[27:09]

The actual emergence of Zen in China as a school came after those developments. Clearly, those philosophies gave Zen the ideology and the permission to simplify and clarify the Buddhist teaching. So I just wanted to mention about interpenetration. Interpenetration also has to do with the multiplicity of doctrines and teachings in Buddhism, and the multiplicity of viewpoints on those teachings and doctrines, so that there are many ways of understanding, for example, the Four Noble Truths. And there's one wonderful chapter in the first book, the first volume in English of the Sutra, one book called The Four Noble Truths, in which the Four Noble Truths are discussed from the standpoint of a variety of universes. So it'll say, in this particular universe, here's what the Four Noble Truths are, but in this other universe, they're like this, and this other universe, they're like that.

[28:17]

So there are infinite number of viewpoints on all the aspects of the teachings. And these different viewpoints, which from the standpoint of as a religious practitioner or as a scholar, one might say, well, these are opposing viewpoints. These are different schools of sex and so forth. But from the standpoint of the Avatamsaka Sutra, they flow in and out of each other absolutely unimpeded. And in fact, no one of them explains the whole truth, the truth of the Dharma is holographically included in all of them and needs all of them for completion. So what I'm getting around to saying is that this sutra comes from the standpoint of seeing the practice of the Dharma as a gradual unfoldment.

[29:21]

So there are ten stages. going one from another. And each one takes a really long time, each stage. From the beginning stage, we say, oh, none of us are even close to the beginning stage, way far away, even to the first stage. So this is from the standpoint of many, many lifetimes. And they say, Shakyamuni Buddha practiced many, many lifetimes before he could be born as Buddha. And so we're beginning, we have many, many how I could develop infinite compassion and nothing in my mind but a constant wish to sacrifice my arms and legs and everything for sentient beings, which it talks about. That's why they call the entrance to the realm of the inconceivable.

[30:25]

So it's a gradual and very long path, and it's explicit. You do this, that, and the other thing. In other words, rather than the Zen school talking about, oh, this will take you a really long time, the Zen school approaches the Dharma from the standpoint that right now, even when you're a beginner and you learn how to do Zazen, immediately you sit down and that's it. That's the culmination of the path. So, you know, the title of Suzuki Roshi's mind, Zen mind, beginner's mind, because the mind of the Buddha is in the mind of the beginner. It's not a gradual path. And rather than being explicit, it's implicit. What is the Dharma? The answer is not 2,000 pages of description and path and so on.

[31:28]

The answer is, have you had your rice yet? This is not explicit. This is implicit. The practitioner has to understand for themselves, without words really, without explanations, what the path is. So, these are two vastly different approaches. And yet, in the world of inner penetration, you can't have one without the other. They flow in and out of each other, and one explains, So, in a way, we have to, to some extent, throw away our viewpoint as Zen students and sort of make a suspension of disbelief and leap into this world of the gradual and explicit teaching to see what we can understand. Well, I want to say, spend five minutes on telling you a little bit of something about what you've missed so far.

[32:47]

Eight hundred pages or so of what I've written on the first book, to summarize our mentions. There's a chapter in there called The Formation of the Worlds, which describes how the various universes were created. There's a wonderful chapter called, in there, the world, it's a great diagram, all these worlds pile on top of each other, all of which are rooted in these magical streams and lakes. They're all piled on top, and it even tells you where are we. Because in our world there is just enough suffering. Not no suffering and not too much suffering. Just enough. And in this world there is the existence of suffering and also the existence of patience.

[33:52]

So to tie the name of this world, you see in the sutras, the Saha world. Saha means endurance. I told you already about the chapter about the Four Noble Truths. There is one chapter called Purifying Practice which is nothing but a whole collection of verses, four-line verses, that the Bodhisattva is to say on practically every conceivable occasion of human life. You know, when walking down a straight road, he says this verse. When walking down a curved road, she says this verse. When going to the bathroom, he says this. When going, so on. So that every single mundane, so-called mundane act can be dedicated to the enlightenment of all beings. unifying the mind with this particular verse. Then, the number 10 is incredibly important in the Avatamska Sutra. I think because 1 and 0 are thought to embody all possible numbers.

[34:57]

Everything is given in terms of ten. So there's huge books on the ten practices. The ten practices is the six paramitas, and then they add four, because it has to be ten. It can't be six. And the four that they add are actually very important. And we will see this because the ten stages that we're going to be studying here are associated with these ten practices, these ten paramitas. So there's chapters on the ten practices, the ten inexhaustible treasuries, There's a chapter on the merit of the initial determination for enlightenment, which is this term bodhicitta. It's the spirit that arises in an individual, in a society, in a group of people, the spirit of urgency to practice for the benefit of others, to work really hard with the motivation that you're doing it to benefit others and not just yourself. the Buddhists.

[36:04]

So there's a whole vast chapter describing the merits of this. Anyway, the Buddha goes to various heavens and so on. The last volume, Volume 3, is the famous Gandavyuha Sutra, entry into the realm of reality, which is a pilgrimage. After all these teachings are given in the first two volumes, a pilgrim is identified who goes to visit 53 great teachers. And then there's this very complicated correspondence between these 53 teachers and the teachings and practices detailed in the earlier volumes of the sutras. So the first 10 teachers refer to the first 10 power practices, and the next 10 teachers refer to the 10 treasuries, and so on. It's very complicated. In the final analysis, the pilgrim enters into Vairochana's tower, which is the place where inner penetration is made real, and it's described in this incredible way.

[37:12]

And then finally, the pilgrim encounters Samantabhadra Bodhisattva, whose vows are given, and the vows of Samantabhadra Bodhisattva are actually the power that has created this whole vast universe strictly for the benefit of enlightenment of all beings. It's a pretty thoroughgoing sutra. So, with that, we can begin to look at the reading for tonight. Did most of you get a chance to look at this? I hope none of you were scared away. If you're not used to this, it seems pretty overwhelming. There are some sentences in here that by the time you get to the end, you've forgotten The way I read it, when I do it as a, I read it as a practice. I don't read it like I read another book, for meaning.

[38:15]

So I usually light incense and put on my raksu and chant the verse on opening the sutra that we chanted tonight, and then I read it. to the book and put it away. So I urge you to find a different way of reading. If you try to read in an ordinary way, it will be a little frustrating. So just give yourself to it and let it carry you along. I find that it usually cheers me up. I'm buoyant and happy after I spend a little bit of time with it. So I love these last three years. I only do it for a certain time of the year because after about 12 or 13 weeks of reading the Sutra, I'm ready to stop. And especially when I'm teaching at a Green Gulch, it's definitely time to start talking about something a whole lot simpler after 12 or 13 weeks.

[39:26]

So, as you see here, it begins less of I heard. Oh, it does begin less of I heard, which is the usual opening of a sutra. That's always how a sutra opens. You know that, right? Because Ananda, Buddha's cousin, was his faithful right-hand man. He was always there whenever So that's why all the sutras are actually to be in quotation marks. Ananda speaks and says, this is what I heard. And then he always says, that's what I heard. And the Buddha was in such and such a place. And it was at such and such a time. And here's who was there. And here's what he said. And then 2,000 pages of remembering. So this sutra, like all the others, begins in that way.

[40:37]

So this was the Buddha. You know, in the Hinayana Sutras, the old sutras, the Buddha is actually at a historical place. The Buddha was in, I don't know where, somewhere. In Aras or Kushinagar or somewhere. And he was talking to so-and-so. Here, where is he? He's in the heaven of the control of other seven nations. So he's not on earth. He's in one of the heavens. which of course are associated with the meditative states. So this is no ordinary setting. And his listeners were not a bunch of monks and nuns and laymen and laywomen. They were all fabulous, enlightening beings with great accomplishments. These Enlightened Beings have done many, many lifetimes of practice, so they were quite ripe to hear some excellent teaching.

[41:40]

And as it says here, this is the second week after His awakening. Then it lists the names of all of the Enlightened Beings. The Enlightened Being, as you know, is an English translation of the word Bodhisattva. It lists their names, all of which use the word matrix. The word matrix is in Sanskrit, garbha, like in Tathagatagarbha. It means the womb. There's another translation for the word matrix, it's womb. Compassion is the womb of the bodhisattvas. Sometimes they say emptiness. So one of these bodhisattvas in the assembly by the name of Diamond Matrix, Vajragarbha, by virtue of the Buddha's power, he entered into a concentration state.

[42:50]

And as soon as he went into that state, as many Buddhas as atoms in ten billion Buddha lands, from beyond as many worlds as atoms in ten billion Buddha lands, in each of the ten directions appear, and all of them were also named Diamond Matrix. So then the Buddha gives Diamond Matrix a great confidence and great power, and then rubs Diamond Matrix's head, which is something that always happens this to anoint Diamond Matrix and empower him to give some very important teaching here. Diamond Matrix is going to be the speaker in this entire sutra. He is going to be the one who describes the ten stages of the Bodhisattva, so the Buddha has to give him all kinds of goodies.

[43:52]

In a way, Diamond Matrix is kind of like the active side of Shakyamuni Buddha. In order for Buddha to do anything, he activates different bodhisattvas to do it, to work for him. Bodhisattvas are the beings who do the stuff that the Buddhas need done. The Buddha's spiritual light that causes these bodhisattvas to act. So then, he just says, well, there's these ten stages. And he blissed them. He said, well, they're called extreme joy, purity, repulgence, blazing, Difficult to conquer, presence, far-going, immovable, good mind, and cloud of teaching. What page are you on? This is on page 9. So he just says, OK, these are the 10 stages. And then he shuts up. And of course, everybody says, well, wait a minute. You can't just tell us the names. We need to know more than that. But he won't say anything.

[44:54]

So then, there's this long part here, and this happens all the time in the Atatamsa Sutra. Over and over again this happens, especially in the beginning of these long teachings. You know, the ten powers and the ten treasuries and so on, before they get going, you know, describing what they are, they usually say, oh, I can't tell you this because it's too complicated. And you say, oh, please, tell us. Many Buddhas are manifested and all kinds of activities have to occur before they very, very true to life, I think. Because that which is easily spoken of and easily told, one easily forgets and takes for granted. That which one desperately needs to hear, that which is elicited from the Buddha by virtue of the enthusiasm and necessity, really, of the listeners, is a truly meaningful teaching.

[46:04]

This is really the truth. Any teacher, I think, Dharma teacher, is only as good as the power of the students. Actually, if nobody asked them anything, they would all go around scratching themselves and doing nothing. I remember once asking Kadagiri Roshi, well, what do you do when there's no students around? How do you spend your time? And he said, oh, I take a nap. And I remember I was really surprised at that. Zen people are always doing different things. I take a nap. And he was surprised that I was surprised. But it sounded like that's really the truth. There was nobody around to teach. He kind of goofed off and laid around and didn't do anything. But when there was enthusiasm and really a desire to study and a real, then it came out of him in the same way here. So I think it's quite true that this is really So we create the teaching by the power of our need to hear it, and by the need in our own lives to understand something, we actually make it happen.

[47:12]

So that's what happens here. Diamond Matrix doesn't need to tell him this. He's perfectly happy to say nothing, but they have to ask him several times, and finally it happens. where the abbot invites the head student, will you please be the head student? And the head student says, oh no, I can't do it, it's too much for me. And then there are three times this happens. And then finally the head student agrees to do it. No head rubbing in this ceremony. No, although there are other ceremonies in Sodhus and where there still is head rubbing, believe it or not. Yes, this is the same kind of thing, exactly. And the odd thing is, I know some of you here have been head students, the odd thing is that I've heard many head students report that although this is completely staged, and it's not a real thing, they report that it's very real.

[48:28]

They actually feel this. to offer. And finally, by some magical power, when they do accept the role, they find that coming out of them is some teaching that they never expected that they could have, by virtue of the sincerity of all the students who are participating in the practice period and listening from them, by their sincere efforts of teaching. So this, in a certain way, this doesn't make any sense at all, but it seems to be true. the actual doing of it, it seems to be true. So this is just what happens here. And then finally he begins to explicate for the rest of this sutra, up until the end of that chapter, page 123, the ten stages. So let's see. If you have any questions, please feel free to raise them.

[49:33]

Okay, so the first stage is the stage of extreme joy. And this is the stage of entering the path. And in order to enter the path and have this wonderful feeling of joy and the light of Dharma, one has to have already developed many roots of goodness in past lives, done many good deeds, served many Buddhas, done all kinds of practices, had all kinds of spiritual benefactors to help you.

[50:43]

have had great determination and great zeal and strong intention, and especially have a great deal of compassion and pity for beings and want to be strongly motivated to help them. Having all this together, accumulated all this over a long, long time, then you get a chance to fully enter into the path and feel the joy of that. With this arousing of the mind, The Enlightened Being is beyond the stage of mundane beings. So at this point, in other words, having accumulated all this and heard the Dharma, at this point you no longer have any concern whatsoever, any ambivalence or concern for the ordinary mundane world. You're in the path. You're beginning. And you're full of joy because you realize that you've had complete life change. And so you're beyond the stage of mundane beings. You have entered the rank of enlightened beings.

[51:46]

You are born in the family of the enlightened. So you change your family. You actually, it's a genetic shift, which is, say, when we have our, in Zen, when we have our initiation ceremonies, they actually give you a little birth certificate. which says that formerly you were so-and-so, and now you're such-and-so, and this is your family line. It lists all the different Buddhas that are your ancestors. So now you're reborn. Born again, Buddhism. You're reborn in the family of the enlightened. You cannot be slandered by any racial slur. You've left all mundane paths and entered the transmundane path. Stationed in the reality of enlightening beings, Properly established in the abode of enlightening beings, you have attained equanimity, established in the lineage of the Buddhas of past, present and future.

[52:49]

Now it is certain that you will become a Buddha. You're on the ladder, definitely. Although, there's a later stage where you're irreversible. Nevertheless, that seems like a contradiction, but it's not. Here, you're destined to become enlightened, although you're not irreversible. Anyway, so you're in the first stage and you're really happy. All your fears are completely washed away. The important fears are the fear of not surviving, meaning not earning a living. No longer do you have to worry about that. You're supremely serene in knowing that no matter what happens, somebody is always going to feed you. You have no more fear of ill repute, that you're going to have a bad reputation. It doesn't make any difference to you what people say about you or anything like that.

[53:53]

You're no longer afraid of death. You're no longer afraid of having any kind of pain or mental anguish. Nor are you intimidated, have any fear of being intimidated by groups. That's the traditional list of fears. That's the last one. That's the ultimate one. And why is that? Because you have no concept of self. Having a concept of self is what defines the mundane path. You're worried about yourself and thinking that you have this self that you're trying take care of, as against other selves. That's the definition of the mundane path. You've given that up. So because of that, you don't have any fear of these things that would happen to the self. So, then this being in this initial stage takes a number of vows, which I won't detail, but it has to do with serving the Buddhas, asking them to teach,

[55:02]

vowing to help beings in all worlds, and so on. And then in this stage you also see this world, this mundane world, and see the suffering of the beings in that world, and understand how they got that way. not be confused by it, or disgusted by it, or freaked out by it. You really see, oh, this is tremendous suffering. I see how that is, and I'm determined to understand it thoroughly and alleviate it in the only way that it can really be alleviated, which is by completely mastering the path and offering it to others. That's the only way. Because any other attempt to alleviate it on the mundane plane will only create more suffering, or at least not reverse the process of suffering.

[56:08]

So, because of that, in the first stage, you undertake the study and learn about all the other stages. That's another aspect of the first stage. And then, in this stage, and here it starts, each of these stages, the first four stages are associated with one or the other of a list of four methods of practice of bodhisattvas, which are discussed by Dogen in one of my favorite writings of Dogen, which is translated in Muni Nidudra. I'm sure you all know about that. Muni Nidudra is a Kastanahashi and some Zen center people. translated Selection of Dogon. And one of the chapters in there, one of the little writings in there, is called Four Methods of Guidance of the Bodhisattvas. And I would recommend that you take a look at that as part of your reading for this class, because they're mentioned here.

[57:12]

The first four stages are associated with those four practices. And the first of the four practices is the practice of giving. So, in this first stage, you focus on the practice of giving of the four. And of the ten paramitas, you also focus on the first one, which is also called giving. So this sort of sense of open-hearted feeling and desire to help others is the characteristic practice of this first stage. And we'll see as we go along that each of the stages refers to a particular kind of teaching and a particular kind of practice. And so this first stage has to do with bowing, entering the path, and practicing giving. And then the format of these ten stages that you'll see throughout is the detail of what's to be accomplished and understood in the stage, the practices that are done in that stage,

[58:21]

A diamond matrix then repeats all of this in verse. So on page 23, he starts to give a verse recapitulation of the teachings that he's already explained in the prose section. And then after he does that, all the enlightened beings in the assembly become very happy about his thorough teaching. And they usually get up from their seats and begin to levitate. And while they're up there, they whip out a bunch of flowers and they start throwing flower petals all around. And they also break into song. They start singing these verses about how wonderful Diamond Matrix is and what a joy it is to hear this teaching. And then, they ask about the next stage.

[59:33]

This was really great, can you tell us about the second stage? And then Diamond Matrix goes on and talks about the next stage. So, Yes? What's confusing to me about this is when one talks about stages, it seems to me contradictory and in terms of, it seems to me that we're not supposed to strive for things, that by the very striving for things, that in itself sets up a dynamic of wanting. So how can you explain that? It's inconceivable.

[60:34]

No, you're right. And I was trying to deal with that when I was speaking before. Yes, because if we said, The way it really is, is there's these ten stages, and what we have to do, you and I, we have to start at the beginning, and within a couple of years, we should definitely get through the first stage. Then, you have four to five years to get through the second stage. The third stage only takes six months. But the fourth stage, and we had a timetable, and we were trying to do this just like we were writing in our appointment book all the different things we had to do, and we were cramming for the exam and so forth. then, of course, this would not be very helpful. This would be, just as you say, striving and very confusing. So, no, it's not that at all. Simultaneous with these stages is realize enlightenment now. So, how could that be?

[61:37]

That's contradictory. And you're right, it is absolutely contradictory. Our mind, our conceptual mind, doesn't compute the fact that at the same moment that the practice takes an almost infinite number of lifetimes to complete, it also is complete right now. That doesn't really make sense, but that's the way it is. So we do have to, in reading this, suspend our disbelief and just enter into this, and imagine this, and let it happen to us, and put ourselves in the world of the sutra. However, you know for sure that the mind that tells you, oh, these are stages, and now I feel I have to accomplish this, and now how am I going to start, and what am I going to do? That whole kind of thinking isn't it. Other things in my life. Now, applying itself to this inconceivable dharma, it is not an appropriate application.

[62:42]

It doesn't really make sense. But immediately when I see it arising, I'm saying to myself, well, that's foolish. I can't help it. It's coming up. I won't go too far with it, because it's kind of foolish. So maybe that helps a little bit. And this will come up over and over again. So I ask you, please, think about it. It's just like, at the end of the day, are numberless, I vow to save them." Well, now think of that. It doesn't say, there are a whole lot of beings, and I'm going to do my best to save a lot of them. It doesn't say that. It says, there's an infinite number of beings, and I am going to save all of them, which is an absolutely impossible,

[63:47]

beings, you know, with superpowers, logically we could not save an infinite number of beings. So what are we talking about? We're talking about an inconceivable situation. Exactly. That's why one of the most delightful things about studying the Supers, at the end of the class when you chant those vows, you really begin to understand where they come from and what the spirit behind those vows is. So, it's as if, how about this, we have an infinite boundless hope, but not hope for anything. It's a spirit, an infinite boundless spirit of compassion, but it's not limited to any particular results. Anything else? I have one other question. Will you compare I haven't read a lot of Jung, but a little bit about dreams. And have you compared the sutras to dreams in relationship to life?

[64:55]

Yeah, one of my raps about the sutra that I did with you tonight is how the Mahayana sutras are very consciously a depiction of of this sutra is conceived of as being the archetypical dream or deep structural story of every moment of consciousness. If you want to know what really happens on every moment of consciousness, what is it that happens in between the spaces of your thoughts and breaths in zazen, what's going on there? This sutra is an attempt to set forth in words what's actually happening there. So it's very much, insofar as, I mean, if you take our dreams to be the reality, you know, the reality behind, the unseen reality behind our working consciousness or the archetypical

[65:58]

The Enlightenment Matrix says the Enlightened Beings should have success to accomplish the requirements of the first stage, and see that the second stage should activate the ten mental dispositions. Honesty, gentleness, capability, docility, tranquility, goodness, When beings take this position of opportunity, one is established in the second stage of binding beings, the stage of purity. When binding beings in this stage of purity naturally become new youth in the enriched ways of acting, they avoid taking life, they abandon weapons of hostility, they have no consciousness of sympathy, compassion, and compassion for all living beings. They do not harm living beings, free them from their fantasies, much less endanger other beings by gross physical harm, with the exception of beings as such.

[69:49]

The enlightened beings also abandon taking what is not given. They are satisfied with what they have and do not desire others' possessions. Thinking of things that belong to others, they have belongings for others. The enlightened beings also abandon sexual intercourse with them. The enlightened beings also abandon false speech. speaking truthfully, according to what is told, in the manner appropriate to the time, and acting accordingly. Even in dreams they do not see falsehood with the intention to see, but by concealing what they see, community, wish, intent, or desire, do not actualize, even in dreams, much less consciously.

[70:55]

The Enlightened Beings also abandon malicious thought, and are not divisive or aligned to sentient beings. They do not gossip or tell on us here or there to cause division. They do not break up Moses' work together or increase the division of those on whom it is split. They do not enjoin disunion, do not invite into separation, and do not speak words that cause division, whether they are true or not. The enlightened beings also learn an important speech and give us the be harsh to others, all of whom they are appropriately annoying to others, all of whom are ordinary or impure, unblessed either, provocative, irritating, outrageous, displeasing, disagreeable, unpleasant, destructive, self-offering others, having enough sex with each one kind being, speaking words that are unprincipled and gentle, agreeable, sweet, caustic, pleasurable, delightful, beneficial, pure, pleasant to the ears, ingenious, liable, eloquent, and clear, understandable, oratory, not having self-desire, altruistic, meaningful, black, funny, likeable, pleasing to many people, agreeable to many people, enlightening, beneficial, and pleasurable to all beings, mentally available to purify self and others.

[72:14]

The Enlightened beings also have enemies of speech. They speak crudely, in accord with time, truthfully, meaningfully, rightfully, lies. considering the importance of speech in a court of litigation, well underway, or selected even before it's on the show, never occurs, and not expected at the end of it. In light of the identity of all sorts of counter-intuitive competences, the 1960s and 1980s brought us a world where a lot of lecturers enjoyed persuasive discussions, much less the desire to present struggle for the desire of the human being. The anointed beings also become free from the lifelessness of anger. They are kind to all beings, desire to serve God, very sympathetic, solicitous, loving, and protective of all, attentive to what is good and bad, giving up everything of the nature of delirium, shame, anger, resentment, friendliness, and opposition to attack and claim by parole and hostility.

[73:16]

Enlightened beings are not only what is beneficial to and suited to what is thought of for a right practice, but are ultimately a happiness of all beings. Enlightened beings also come to that right insight in the Father right now, that give us a divination curious about who He is, and see rightly through that practice of deception, and set their minds to the good of teaching and community. That is why I am engaging in constantly rehearsing and pre-ritualizing in both places at the same time. Whatever the rules, basics, rules, and pitfalls, successes, and sheets, all are caused by practicing un-ritualized action. So I find myself more likely to write action also to get out of this to write action. Why? Because it's possible to get out of this to write and write action as long as one does not abide in writing action oneself. The realms of knowledge, reality, and ghosthood are established by the practice of good and the ways of action. Hence it states that the humanity of the highest realm of existence are established by the practice of good and the ways of action.

[74:21]

The ten points of this definition are high on our list due to the darkness, fear of the world, and the fact that we all fall at the feet of each other. purify me and my fellow, because I'm not being led by another, because it's so hard to establish without the help of anyone, because it's so hard to live without seeking help from another, because of a lack of great passion still it leads, and because of profound understanding and conditioning of others, they develop a vehicle of individualism. purified in the higher level by conventional broad-mindedness, sympathy, compassion, absorption of spiritual needs, undertaking great vows, moderating sentient beings that are focused on the vast knowledge of Buddhahood, and making a direct practice to purify our stages of unending access to the language of transcendence. Purified on the infinite level are the pieces of the Trifecta of all the characteristics of the body, up to and beyond the 25 hours of self-realization of all qualities which are within it.

[75:24]

Therefore, by meeting through these ways and through their actions, having undertaken them all equally, efforts should be made to accomplish the complete purification of all the past, But if one is born human, then he speaks out to the opposite sex. Significantly, it leads to hell, to hell not only to hell and to the world, but it is why it is important to know that it brings about two consequences, material poverty and patterns of sexual poverty. Sexualism is found that it leads to hell, to hell not only to hell and to the world, but it is why it is important to know that it brings Lying leads to hell, to animality, to the underworld. But if one is born human, it brings about two consequences.

[76:27]

Much slander and unreliability. Divisive talk leads to hell, to animality, to the underworld. But if one is born human, it brings about two consequences. Leave a broken home and a wretched family. Harsh talk leads to hell, to animality, to the underworld. But if one is born human, it brings about two consequences. Hearing this is pleasing to every one of you. Conceive these senseless doctrines to tell of generality to the underworld. But if one is born human and crucified to consequences, one's words will not be believed and one's speech will not be heard. Compass this is pleasing to all of you to tell of generality to the underworld. But if one is born human and crucified to consequences, this is a satisfaction and a mission consequences. Falling into bad views and becoming trivial and deceitful. Thus these ten bad ways of action tend to the formation of an eventually very fantastic history.

[77:32]

So let's leave behind these ten bad ways of action and enjoy the delights of our consciousness. Having a valid reason and a way of action, to live by this and a good way of action, also leads to other things. Even if you are already a loving being, perhaps for all such a being, desire for their welfare and happiness, with kindness, sympathy, compassion, and desire to take care of them, to protect them, thinking of all beings as equals in themselves, thinking of them as examples of features. This is what it might be easy to take. Alas, these things have fallen into wrong hands, and they can't be substituted for anything strong. We're held in an erroneous past in the midst of entanglement. This should be set aside in some true way, and promoted by a society in accord with reality. Alas, these things are our cause, and we're meant to be involved in this dispute. It's always the burning of anger and hatred. We should not have to stand against ourselves and look for other good reasons. A lot of these things are sensational, but we have been through this following bad ways, and we need to look at them.

[78:37]

We should not have the security we were taught in high school, but unfortunately, these things follow the motivation of the last major revolution. Our grandmothers went into serious situations and did not succeed in these as far as we can tell. We should defend our country for all of its diseases and our own health. Held by the darkness side, severely illusioning, covered by the darkness of the universe. They have the ability to ascertain their own directions, have become far estranged from the realm of wisdom, have fallen into the great darkness, and have become all aloneness of their own existence. We should clarify our ideals and our structured wisdom, so that we should not fall into the same trap that we've been diagnosed. Alas, these days are traveling decades of confusing existence, scared of trouble, uneasy, falling to a great big fall, facing a fall into the realms of null and nullity and error. They are despaired in the dangerous net of false fears and tangled conclusions.

[79:38]

They have been bought off from the wrong road, are blinded by the guiding things of this hostile judicial system. Bought out by royals and demons, they are tamed in by their feeding sense of taste. Are blinded by their bad and hypnotic, specific demonic dispositions. Becoming far harder to tame than what they might tell other humans. We should save them from first-world hardships. We should waste them on the mundane world. We should sell them to the spiritualists. the city of all knowledge, where there is no contradiction in the name. These mystics, unfortunately, are stung in the way of this great torrent. Plunged into the lotus of fire, exist this mysterious entity, swept along by the current of the mundane world. Fallen into the river of rain, into the radiant light of the sun, able to see objectively. Going along, through the dreams of thoughts of malice and malice, caught by the demon in the view of real existence of the body. I'm a These things are unfortunately not done in much suffering as they happen in sin.

[80:56]

We should leave them to remind us to detach from the triple world. The last of these beings are recognized as sub-possessions, unable to get out of the It is a pity that the aspirations of these beings are based on their own, that lack the will for isolation. Even if they want to escape, they think of the meals and clothing and individual trouble and immigration alone. We should spend many lives celebrating the importance of salvation in the heart of what's most important to us, which is to be in a good, prosperous, and happy home.

[82:17]

Thus may it be revered as kind of a deranged perception of the enlightened beings who are in accord with the sustaining power of our morality, who have the skills of equanimity, sympathy, compassion, and kindness, who are as solicitous and friendly as all beings, who have an unadvanced attention to beings whose skills have not been accomplished unless it be done before, who are stationed in enlightenment in a state of purity, by the enlightening beings great to dream of, and by the enlightening beings who seize the equanimousness of many, and the power of their gods. Have you seen all those who did say honor and take respect and honor and treat them with love, detail, and provide them with the necessity Also, they attempt as Buddhists to accept and learn from them the ten ways of virtuous action, and never forget them as they have learned them.

[84:01]

Overcome this illness, rid it of the qualms of envy and bad behavior. They care for its purity, generosity, and morality. Just as the soul becomes more and more free from all impurities and put in vitriol, so do enlightening deeds in this stage of purity, by virtue of riddance of impurities of envy and bad behavior. Upon the security of generosity and morality, among the foreign means of salvation, kind speech is paramount in them. Among the general trends and wayways, morality is paramount. This does not mean that they will not practice the rites that they choose, but that they can have access to morality. This is a brief explanation of the second stage of finding meaning, sustainership, purity. Many of the blind beings of this stage are sovereigns, lords, and powerful able-treated beings with superior abilities to have behavior, susceptible to antidepressants, which are some of the... Whatever action you might be taking, whether it be by breathing, or by speaking, or by talking, or by speaking, [...] or by speaking

[85:29]

Those who seek to meet us are going to take it for granted. I would say give up all opportunities to go forward in teaching the Buddha. Having gone forth in a single instant, they suddenly attain a thousand concentrations. See a thousand Buddhas and recognize their power. Shake a thousand worlds. Go to a thousand fields. Know a thousand worlds. Mature a thousand beings. Live a thousand lives. Penetrate a thousand universes. of God. They are gentle, honest, mild, and capable of good will, love, self-love, loyalty, and compassion, lofty and gracious, with friends, and by name, and with sex, and age.

[86:38]

Here they appear as a courtesan, beautiful, good, affording, and taking pride, but their minds are free from maliciousness. They do not have any reason to be of interest amongst us. Their interests with us, however, are not our to be. They do not know the errors of their successions, and are not qualified to have known the deceitful mind. But the man of God is usually the leader, not the teacher, or the soldier. It pains to tell us the animal hells. From the beginning of the world, eternal, brilliant, and murderer, all our pre-described inclusions, ejected from the flesh, derived from the fruit, from birth, from the funeral, from the hell-less fire, up to the gagged existence, freed from strife, with the bliss of meditation, the vehicle of solitary illuminates, the vehicle of disciples and Buddhists, all come to you to present their paths of virtues. Knowing this, enlightened beings are always diligent, are imbued with compassion, knowingly and self-willingly they give rise to sympathy, falling into wrong views and servicing their own ones.

[87:48]

The monarchs of great anger and hatred argue, always unsatisfied, seeking objects that are more. These beings motivated by desire, hatred, and delusions should be liberated. They are covered by a great darkness, plunged into delusion, on a path of Unstuck in the darkness, they are trying to find the crucial space to work for, wrapped up in clusters to make themselves. But they say they strive to reach the center of being, and imagine that this is really all good or good, that they ain't worth getting their aspirations low. We will start to shatter down the path of knowledge and enlightenment, thus finding meaning to try out some comparable figure in God's enlightenment. In this stage, through eight stages, I have gathered hundreds of gracious students, many of whom have spent time in law-enforcement agencies.

[88:52]

Their purpose is to learn the essential rules of the Constitution, but they will not use it in this role. They are invited in meetings to become monarchs. Meetings tend to be made by such generous gracious, but all of them do it at their own expense. They will not become saviors to the world, but they should attain powers. Welcome to the United Legislative Commission, on board with the Supreme Judiciary, the NFS, full of vigor, the ADA, Supreme Constitution, and Constitution 2000. The best of age is only the second stage. It's all a little bit like 1980s. It works for the people of all the world. Thank you.

[90:48]

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