This is the sixth day, I believe, of our Rohatsu Sushin. We're commemorating Shakyamuni Buddha's enlightenment. And I've been lecturing on the Heart Sutra, which we chant every day. I must have chanted it five million times in 40 years. I still don't understand it. But I talk about it anyway. So this is the Sutra of the Perfection of Wisdom, Prajna, wisdom beyond all dualities.

[01:05]

The sutra is talking about ultimate understanding from Buddha's side, not from sentient being's side, ordinary side. Although, ultimate reality is both ordinary and empty. both ordinary and transcendent. So the key phrase in the art sutra is form is emptiness and emptiness is form. That which is form is emptiness and that which is emptiness form. The same is true of feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. So all dharmas, all skandhas in their own being are empty of a separate nature, which means all things are interdependent and only arise through dependency.

[02:15]

Nothing arises by itself. So nothing exists by itself. So everything belongs to everything else. Therefore, there is no self in things, no self nature. And even though we say yourself, myself, yourself and myself are ultimately not yourself and myself, but ultimately yourself is myself and myself is yourself. Because even though we have separation, it's only separation of oneness. Uncountable aspects of oneness. So, I'll just quickly go through the sutra and then come to the place where I will continue to talk about it.

[03:20]

So just to bring us up to date, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, when practicing deeply the Prajnaparamita, perceived that all five skandhas, forms, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness in their own being are empty and were saved from all suffering. Oh, Shariputra, Avalokiteshvara is addressing Shariputra. Form does not differ from emptiness. Emptiness does not differ from form. That which is form is emptiness. That which is emptiness, form. The same is true of feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. This scroll up here, which I got in Japan last time I was there at a flea market, wonderful flea markets, is Avalokiteshvara. talking to Shariputra about the Heart Sutra.

[04:24]

All those characters up in the top are the Heart Sutra. It's hard to see because it's so dark, but quite beautiful. Oh, Shariputra, Avalokiteshvara says, all dharmas are marked with emptiness. They do not appear nor disappear, are not tainted nor pure, do not increase nor decrease. Therefore, in emptiness, no form, no feelings, no perceptions, no impulses, no consciousness, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind. No realm of eyes until no realm of mind consciousness. No ignorance and also no extinction of it until no old age and death, and also no extinction of it. No suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path, no cognition, also no attainment. That's where we stopped. So this is the no, no, you know, mean in Chinese is Wu and Japanese Mu.

[05:30]

So this heart sutra is really the koan of Mu. Does the dog have Buddha nature? Wu. Do you have a nose? Wu. Do you have eyes? Wu. and so forth. So there is no suffering in emptiness. There is no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path. This refers to Four Noble Truths. There is no The Wu, Four Noble Truths. Even the Four Noble Truths are empty of their self-nature. And no cognition and no attainment.

[06:32]

With nothing to attain, the Bodhisattva depends on Prajnaparamita. So, cognition means knowing. I'm going to read that whole part because it all goes together. No cognition, no attainment. With nothing to attain, a bodhisattva depends on prajnaparamita, and the mind is no hindrance. So no cognition means no knowing. We think of that when we know something, that that's a good thing, of course. And ordinarily it is. But we say the ultimate wisdom is not knowing. Ultimately, the highest wisdom is not knowing. Knowledge is something that we know with our, ordinarily, our mind, our small mind.

[07:40]

But pranayama wisdom is something that we know intuitively. We can only know it intuitively. We can talk about it as knowledge, but we can only know it intuitively. Intuition means to know something without the intermediary of thinking, without the intermediary of discursive thought or discriminative thought. That's why in order to directly touch this prajna, ultimate reality, we sit sadhana. We don't think our way through it. We don't think our way into it. We just immerse ourselves in it. And then we say we understand it through our pores, not through our intellectual understanding. So experience comes first, or intuition comes first, explanation comes second.

[08:49]

So if we explain it without experiencing it, as Nyasatani Rishi once said, it's like a baby singing love songs. So, immersion in prajna, immersion to be it and not just to try to understand it. So, no cognition, no knowing, and no attainment. So attainment is to get something. The highest attainment is no attainment, because there's nothing to attain. In emptiness, what is there to attain? We come to practice wanting something. I mean, even if you don't want something, you come to practice wanting something. We come to practice for various reasons.

[09:54]

We want something. I mean, why would you do something if there was no return or no benefit? But when you understand practice, you realize that there is no attainment. There's nothing to get. So practice is a letting go. It's a non-attainment. So what we attain is non-attainment. So we say, one translation is no cognition, also no attainment or non-attainment. So it's more like indifference to attainment. If we have indifference in our life, in our effort, We're indifferent to attainment. We just practice for the sake of practice. This is enlightened practice.

[10:57]

We simply practice for the sake of practice, but attainment comes up, even so. In the most advanced student, attainment creeps in. Position creeps in. Ego creeps in. Wanting something creeps in. So we have to be always vigilant. So the teacher's job is to beat the student over the head when that comes in, when ego crops up. But it's really hard, because the teacher also has some ego. If the teacher doesn't realize the teacher's own ego, that's a problem. So the students have to point out the teacher's ego. But the teacher always has to Keep pointing out the student's ego. That's the teacher's job. There's no other job. The purpose of practice is to realize the true function of ego and not let ego dominate.

[12:03]

Not let self lead. Let prajna, wisdom lead. Not ego, not self. This is realization. And when self is leading, it causes big problems. So, indifference to attainment. If there's some attainment, okay. If there's no attainment, okay. But actually, there's nothing to attain. So practice has secondary benefits. Practice has secondary benefits. Primarily, there's no benefit. But there are these little side benefits. I feel healthy. I feel good. I like getting up in the morning. It makes me wise. I don't beat my children.

[13:08]

These are all secondary benefits. But we don't practice for those. They just come. It's OK. Whether they come or not, it's OK. So with nothing to attain or indifferent to attainment, the bodhisattva depends on prajna paramita, the perfection of wisdom, which is prajna, big mind. Depending on big mind is actually depending on nothing. It's really depending on nothing. But this nothing is really everything. There's no such thing as nothing. If you say nothing, then it implies everything. Because nothing can only be nothing in relation to everything. So it's a bigger nothing, it's a big mind that encompasses both everything and nothing.

[14:12]

And the mind is no hindrance. In other words, thinking mind is not a hindrance. But thinking mind is usually a hindrance. When we try to figure it out intellectually, when we depend on our intellect, we depend on our intellect up to a certain point. But after that point, we can't depend on it because then it becomes a hindrance. there's a point where it becomes a hindrance because we can't go, we depend on it to such an extent that we can't step off the pole and just flow into the ocean. The intellect brings us to the tip of the diving board, that 60-foot diving board. but then we have to jump off, let go.

[15:17]

So, technically it's called thought coverings. Thought coverings and discriminating mind. Thought coverings are discriminations which are a kind of intellectual safety belt. You know, we really hold on to our intellectual safety belt. What if, but, you know, all these doubts and excuses and discriminations that, I hate to say this, but ultimately it is only pure faith But in Buddhism, faith means confidence. And confidence comes from examination. So in Buddhism, basically faith is based on confidence which comes from examining and making sure that it's not just blind.

[16:38]

But ultimately, it's blind. Ultimately, it's blind. Even though we have all these assurances that, oh yeah, I can have faith in this because I understand it. But you have to have faith in what you don't understand. And that's, we hold on to our understanding as a safety belt. So without any hindrance, no fears exist. So no fears exist only when we have that pure faith. Because we realize that there's nothing to depend on and that life is a stream, not a static, what do you call it, solid state. that there's only becoming.

[17:42]

There's only becoming. Everything is continually changing and everything belongs to everything else. There's no way to get lost in the universe. Suzuki Roshi used to say, even if you kick a stone as far as it'll go, it still doesn't go anywhere. No matter how you arise and cease, you're always in the same place, just like the waves in the water. The wave is only a shape of the water. We can realize this intellectually, that a wave is only a shape, a certain configuration that the water takes. But we're all waves in this great ocean, Samadhi. and then we rise up as a wave and we're always just the ocean.

[18:48]

That we have great faith in our original nature, which is the great ocean of essential nature. So, Then it says, far apart from every perverted view, they dwell in nirvana, meaning bodhisattvas. Perverted view is one translation. Inverted view is another translation. Topsy-turvy is the original translation when I started practicing. Topsy-turvy views. Topsy-turvy is good actually because it means upside down. It's like a view which is upside down. So there are four views usually which are topsy-turvy that cause us problems.

[19:54]

One is the view that what is impermanent is permanent. These are views that cause us a problem. We think, even though we know that what is permanent is not permanent, we act as if it was. Or we cling to things as if they were. And then what we feel is ease is really difficulty. And what we view as self is really not a self. And what we take delight in is something causes us suffering. So these are four inverted views, topsy-turvy views. So far apart from these perverted views or inverted views or topsy-turvy views, bodhisattvas dwell in nirvana.

[20:59]

So nirvana is, I won't tell you what nirvana is, but even though I won't tell you what nirvana is, I'll tell you what it is. It's the ceasing of all these views. It's the ceasing of greed. ill will and delusion as attachment to those three. And the four perverted views, there are actually seven perverted views. It's freedom to flow freely in samsara. Nirvana is the ability to flow freely in samsara without getting caught. by it. It's not the separation from samsara, but how you actually engage in life selflessly.

[22:08]

So then, in the three worlds, all Buddhas depend on Prajnaparamita. Three worlds are past, present, and future, and attain unsurpassed, complete, perfect Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi, which is untranslatable and is translated as unsurpassed, complete enlightenment. And it's to find meaning in life, in our life, just as it is. to actually see everything exactly as it is, which is very hard because we usually see everything according to our dispositions and our preferences and our discrimination. We don't usually see everything as it is. So our practice is to see everything as it is, to see, as Suzuki Roshi said, see things as it is.

[23:19]

Things is dharmas, as it is, is the dharma. To see the reality of all the dharmas, the ultimate reality of all the dharmas, which is emptiness. And then the sutra talks about how you do this. What's the practice? If this is the understanding, what's the practice? So the practice is leading up to the mantra. This is the only sutra, there may be another sutra, but the only sutra that ends with a mantra. Gathe, gate, pargate, parasamgate, bodhisvaha is the mantra of this sutra.

[24:27]

So, leading up to the mantra, it says, therefore, know the Prajnaparamita is the great transcendent mantra. the great, bright mantra, the utmost mantra, the supreme mantra, which is able to relieve all suffering and is true, not false, or beyond true and false. So proclaim the Prajnaparamita mantra. Proclaim the mantra that says, gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhisattva. So therefore know the Prajnaparamita is the great transcendent mantra. Transcendent mantra, what is a mantra? Mantra is, we usually think of a mantra as a phrase or a word that we repeat over and over to help us concentrate or to help open our mind to some deeper understanding.

[25:30]

A mantra is like, Usually, we think of a spiritual act as being something quite extraordinary. Moses, you know, opened the Red Sea and everybody went through it, so that's an extraordinary spiritual act. But actually, our life itself is the mantra. Our ordinary life is the mantra. Our ordinary life of practice is the great, bright mantra. How we do something in just an everyday, ordinary way is the great spiritual mantra. I used to watch Suzuki Roshi.

[26:32]

I was always struck by, especially in the beginning, when I started practicing, My life was not very organized when I started to practice. And the idea of discipline was far from my mind. And I thought that freedom was the ability to do whatever you wanted. But when I started practicing, I saw how my teacher did the same thing every day. He entered the zendo, the little door on the side, and he came in and he offered incense and bowed, sat in the seat. After zazen, we all chanted the sutra, and then we went out. I went about my day, and he went about his day, and everybody went about their day.

[27:35]

But he was always there doing this every single day, twice a day, the same little, routine and it was totally satisfying. I could see his life was, even though he had problems, was totally satisfying. There was something about the way he would do everything in time. Settled mind, in time, without anxiety, without any need to get any place. He'd come to this place where his life was, the simplicity of his life was totally satisfying. He didn't need to do anything extraordinary because this simple style was totally extraordinary. It was the most extraordinary thing I'd ever seen, actually.

[28:36]

So I started doing that too. It's like, and then is the great bright mantra. Bright mantra is like a mirror. We say prajna is like a mirror. It reflects everything without distorting it. When our mind is like a mirror reflecting everything without distorting it and seeing it just as it is, without partiality or judgment. That's called Prajna Wisdom. But we can't stay there. We have to, you know, and Dogen has a fascicle called The Great Mirror, something, wisdom. And...

[29:38]

A Gensha student asked about the bright mirror. What do you do with the bright mirror? He said, you smash it into a thousand pieces. And each piece reflects prajna. Smashing it into a thousand pieces means all the little activities, all the small insignificant activities that you do all day long, are reflected, reflect prajna, reflect or mirror prajna. In other words, there's nothing that you do that is not practice, that is not reflecting ultimate reality. We get bored with our life. Why do we get bored with our life? because we miss the connection.

[30:43]

We're seeking something more interesting. We need to have something interesting all the time to entertain us because we're not, it's hard to stay connected to ultimate reality. Sometimes people say, well, you know, my practice, I don't know, I'm getting tired of practice, you know, just the same old thing every day. But that's because we lose our connection to ourself. Boredom comes from a gap. And... we lose that connection with our fundamental self. And we need to fill it with something.

[31:46]

It needs to be filled with something. There's always hunger that needs to be filled with something. So we all have it to some extent. But we should realize why that happens. And when we realize why that happens, then we can appreciate our practice. And we can keep refreshing, because practice needs to be refreshed over and over again. It can easily become stale. So from time to time, we need to wake up and reorganize ourself and reestablish our practice on Prajna. So then it says, it's the utmost mantra. There is nothing beyond this. There's nowhere to go beyond this. It is the supreme mantra, which means there's nothing that equals it. There's nothing to compare it with. It's very interesting, the mantra is exemplified in a story that Dogen tells about Ison and his three disciples.

[33:02]

Isan was the teacher. Kyozan, Kyogen, and Kyozen. So Isan, this is in China, in the Tang Dynasty, was resting in his room. And Kyozan came by, and he kind of looked in. He didn't want to disturb his teacher. Teacher said, Oh, don't worry, you know, you're not disturbing me. He said, what do you think, what do you think I'm thinking about? And Kyozan went downstairs and made some tea. And I'm trying to remember the full story. I used to tell them so easily.

[34:04]

And then, oh yeah, Kyogen came by, and he looked in, and the teacher said, oh, don't worry, I'm okay, you can talk to me. He said, what do you think I'm thinking about? And Kyogen went downstairs and got a towel and some water. And then, Kyogen came by, came by and looked in. And Tichi said, don't worry. What do you think I'm thinking about? And he went and got some cakes, some little cookies. So the three of them went up to his room and they all sat down and had tea. And, Esam washed his face with a towel and they had tea and cookies.

[35:08]

That's the story. This is called sandaba or sayandaba. The daba means intuition. knowing someone else's mind, being able to read someone else's mind, actually, in a very simple way. It's like there's a king who had a retainer, and when the king would say, sandaba, the retainer would know what he meant. He would either say, he meant four different things. One was water, or a chalice or a horse or some salt. And when he would say Sandaba, the retainer would know which one he meant. So this is an example of very simple life, how you know, how you blend with things, how you know something beyond thinking.

[36:23]

Prajna. where big mind knows something that small mind doesn't intuit. This is how you let big mind work for you. You just get out of the way and everything works smoothly. So, then it says, So, the Supreme, which is able to relieve all suffering, means suffering due to the problem of birth and death, basically. This is the big suffering, is we're trapped in this world, and at the same time, we don't wanna leave. So, Freedom from birth and death is also the great mantra.

[37:30]

How you live and die in the realm of no birth and no death, basically. So, proclaim the Prajnaparamita mantra That's, we chant, that means, I guess, chant the mantra, you know, every day. Gatte gatte paragatte parasamgate bodhisvaha, which means gone, gone, or going, or going. Gone, altogether beyond. Awakening fulfilled. Crossing, means crossing to the other shore. But when you realize there's no other shore, There's nothing to cross, but we call it crossing. Cross over to the other shore of realization.

[38:36]

So crossing, you know, we think of birth and death. Birth is this shore, death is that shore. But when you understand or when you intuit the meaning of being on this shore, then this shore is also already the other shore. There's no other shore, but dualistically, there's another shore, but actually, the wave just goes up and comes down. The wave doesn't go anywhere. It looks like the wave is going someplace, but energy goes. It has a direction, but the wave just rises and falls. It's called no going and no coming. Even though everything seems to come and go, there's actually no coming or going. No birth, no death, within birth and death.

[39:43]

So we talk about the essence and the function. Essence is the, means essence of reality, emptiness, which has no special shape or form. True form is no special shape or form. But function, functions bring forth the forms of emptiness. So all these forms, like the waves on the water, are the forms of emptiness. But they're no special form. They just appear for a moment, for a very short moment, which seems to us like a long time. So selfless activity is Bodhisattva practice.

[41:04]

It just simply means the practice of reality that frees us from suffering, within suffering. If you try to get rid of suffering, you can't do it. You can only be free from suffering within suffering. So suffering is a non-suffering. So this sutra is the sutra of perfect freedom, the sutra of how to practice to be free of suffering, which is Buddha's understanding. Purpose of Buddha's teaching is to be free of suffering, to have great freedom.

[42:15]

Do you have any questions? Ken? Nevertheless, at the end there, when it says, therefore, and then we're looking, OK. Because of this. It's trying to recommend something. That's right. Then it simply has this mantra. Would it be right to say that, like, where we would have expected something like, therefore, It's saying, gone, gone, completely gone. This would be like saying, let go, let totally go. Yeah, you can say that, actually. You could interpret it that way. You could say, therefore, let go, let go. I think that's a good way to interpret it, actually. That's good, I like that. Therefore, let go, let go to the other shore.

[43:26]

All together, go. All together, let go. Yeah, I think that's good. Paul? There's no, the only way to be free of suffering is within, is to be free of it within suffering. Well, I mean by, if you try to get rid of your suffering, you know, suffering still occurs. If you get, you know, rid of one problem, another problem arises. The problem isn't suffering. That's right, the problem is not suffering. Suffering is not letting go of attachments, that's when you get suffering. Yeah. So if you can, it sounds like you're saying that you can't let go, really, either. You can't really let go. Well, it's not that you can't let go. You can. It's that suffering will continue to come up. In other words, if you boast about being free of suffering, something new will arise.

[44:44]

Let go of that attachment and that suffering will go away, but then another one will arise. So the nature of suffering is, the nature of our life in this world is that suffering will happen. And if we try to avoid it, no matter how much you try to avoid it, it will come up. Yes. It seemed like you were saying that you have to think your way into faith. No, I said, think? Think or know. Investigate. Investigate. Yeah.

[45:45]

Yeah. Somehow or other, it seems to me that when I'm sitting in Zazen, Zazen is creating the faith. Yeah. Yeah. I think that the point is you should make sure that what you have faith in is reasonable, you know. But, you know, we say, people talk about doubt. What about doubt? Well, doubt is important for faith. Because doubt, if you only have faith, faith can go off in various, because faith implies optimism. Doubt implies pessimism. But doubt is kind of like the counterweight of faith.

[46:51]

So doubt is like, well, is this really the right direction? I should make sure that what I'm doing is the right direction to let faith go on its own without, you know. So the explication is to refine the understanding of the faith. Yeah, right, to make sure that at least the elements that you're dealing with are solid, are worth putting your faith in. So Buddha says, don't take it on my word. You should prove to yourself. This is my explication, but don't believe it on blind faith. You should investigate and see if it's really true. So that's the investigation. But after that, then you can put your faith in it. But there are four kinds of blindness.

[47:55]

You know, one is the blindness where you really don't see things, and then there are various gradations of blindness, but the most profound blindness is the blindness of blind faith, ultimately. Because even though you know what you know and so forth, it's gotta go beyond knowing, beyond that knowing. to where the intuition is secure. We have a ceremony that's starting five minutes ago. Will you explain about that to me?

[48:59]

After I leave? Okay.

[49:01]

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