I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagatagarbha's words. Morning. Tomorrow... Can you hear me okay? In the back? Tomorrow... Tomorrow... Can you hear me in the back? Okay. Tomorrow we begin our spring practice period with a one-day sitting, and we will be studying the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra, which we chant every day. It's our song, theme song. which epitomizes the essence of our understanding of wisdom.

[01:10]

Zen school, you know, there are 12 schools, more or less, of Buddhism. Zen school is considered one of them. It's called the Buddha Mind School. sometimes. And the Buddha mind is the mind of Prajna. We say Prajna because it's spelled P-R-A-J-N-A, but it's actually pronounced something like Prajna. One time when I was on Dwight Way, there was an old Indian man with a turban who used to come and sit. And he was very happy. You know, he was just so pleased to see that this thing was happening.

[02:15]

Couldn't believe it. And he corrected my pronunciation of Pravinia. And even though I got it right, it still wasn't quite right. but it's closer to say prajna than prajna. The J is a kind of nasal sound. This is one of the problems we have with pronunciations of Asian words, is that they're not spelled as they're pronounced, mostly, often. And sometimes it's our language doesn't the structure of our language doesn't include those sounds, so you have to intuit the sounds or listen to them, find out the pronunciation through listening. Anyway, so

[03:17]

So to understand the meaning of this sutra, I'm a little premature here because there will be a class on the meaning of the sutra. But I do want to talk about it and the meaning of what prajnaparamita means. But prajna is the wisdom of non-duality, which includes duality. It's the non-duality of duality and the duality of non-duality, the oneness of separation and the separation of oneness. But it's indescribable. It's really indescribable. We talk about it in various ways, but it's the fundamental wisdom of reality.

[04:43]

There are various kinds of wisdom and there are various kinds of knowledge. Pragnya includes knowledge, but it's not defined as knowledge. So Tseng Chau says, prajna is not knowledge. It's not identifiable as knowledge. And the way we know prajna is through practice. Even though we experience reality, we don't necessarily identify reality. because reality also includes illusions and delusions. It includes unreality as well as reality. So prajna is all-inclusive wisdom. And although reality and unreality are discriminated from each other, prajna is beyond the discrimination of reality and unreality.

[05:50]

And so it's beyond reality, because reality is just a word we have to describe something we think about as something ultimate. So we say wisdom beyond wisdom, wisdom beyond what we know as wisdom, or what we conceive of as wisdom, or as reality. So what we have to work with is the forms, form that we have. We live in the world of forms. We have our being within the world of forms and we are a world of forms ourself. Each one of us is a whole world of form. But this form includes all the forms.

[06:53]

This form of what I call myself includes all the forms of the universe, because there's no form that exists by itself. All forms, as the Sutra says, are dependent on all the other forms, which are constantly changing. So there is no form that is not changing. There is no permanent form. This is basic Buddhist understanding. There is no basic form that is not disintegrating. There is an integration and a disintegration of every form faster than we can conceive of it. When we're very young, it looks like time is going very slowly. And when you get older, it looks like time is going very fast.

[07:59]

It's just perception because of awareness of how forms are unstable. And it's a matter of how we think about things. So we create in our mind the distinction, the distinctions, and we give them names in order to have some order in our world. But we say all is one and one is all. So we have distinction and oneness. We have duality and oneness. And this is what the sutra is talking about. Duality is oneness, oneness is duality. Forms are all empty, as well as being forms.

[09:06]

So how we study this is through our activity. washing the dishes, sweeping the floor. This is the study of the heart sutra. There is a great intellectual accumulation of information, the way people have thought about this subject. The Prajnaparamita Sutra, the Heart Sutra, is only one little part of the Prajnaparamita Sutras. which came to the fore somewhere between 100 BC and 100 AD. which kind of solidified the thinking that had been going on since Buddha's time about this subject.

[10:19]

600 fascicles within the Prajnaparamita Sutras, and they're long sections and short sections, and the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra are kind of two short versions which contain the whole meaning of the 600 fascicles of the Prajnaparamita Sutra. So, there are two, you know, the easiest way to talk about I think, to talk about or think about prajna, which is ultimate wisdom, is to think about it along with the term samadhi.

[11:21]

Samadhi is a non-dualistic activity. Samadhi is a state of mind, but it's also a state of being. We hear about Samadhi as just something mysterious, but Samadhi is not something mysterious, although, of course, everything has a mysterious quality. There's nothing in the world that's not mysterious. There's not a mystery, right? Everything's a mystery, even though it doesn't look like it. We're just used to things, so we don't think of them as a mystery, but they all are. But samadhi is our non-dual state of mind, which supports prajna. So samadhi is the activity of prajna. Prajna is the source. Samadhi is the matrix out of which prajna arises.

[12:32]

That's a better way to put it. So in the Platform Sutra, the sixth ancestor talks about samadhi and prajna, that they are not two things. Samadhi is our touchstone. It's usually associated with meditation, because in meditation, There is no, we're dissociated from the past and dissociated from the future. And there's simply the present, which is non-dual. So the purpose of zazen is imperturbable, sitting in samadhi. The reason why it's imperturbable is because it's not dualistic.

[13:38]

There are no two sides. The two sides are subsumed as one. So it's non-dual. It's not discriminating. It's non-discriminating activity in which prajna arises. as a result. So prajna arises spontaneously because it's our true nature. It's the expression of our true nature. It arises spontaneously. It doesn't have to be. You don't have to do anything. It's always there. But it doesn't necessarily arise because we're always thinking in dualistic terms and acting in dualistic terms. so we don't recognize it. When the sixth patriarch we know was Daikon Eno, as we know him, was a young man, he was gathering firewood to support his mother, his aged mother, and he heard somebody chanting the Diamond Sutra.

[14:50]

The Diamond Sutra passage said you should find a thought, you should settle on a thought which is not supported anywhere. In other words, you should find, you should produce a thought which is not supported, free of causation, which is reality, prajna. And then he had a wonderful insight. That was the beginning of his practice. And when he visited the fifth patriarch, he said, prajna seems to always arise spontaneously in my mind. And the fifth patriarch said, go back in the grinding room, in the mill, and I'll talk to you later.

[15:57]

Anyway, so this spontaneity is important. The other night, Thursday night, we had a very nice meeting, which was a dinner in the community room. potluck dinner and a kind of discussion afterward. And the question came up about doing something spontaneously. We should do something spontaneously. And I kind of questioned the word spontaneous. I said, well, spontaneous has a lot of different meanings. What do we mean when we talk about doing something spontaneously? So that's kind of intruding into my talk today. Because prajna arises spontaneously.

[17:04]

There are many different levels of spontaneity. We think of spontaneous as free, right? Usually we think it's a kind of free, free action or free thought that arises without premeditation or without a basis. Although everything has a basis. Everything has a cause. So we can't say that spontaneity doesn't have a cause because spontaneity does have a cause in its variations. So there's the spontaneity of the child, which is childlike and simply responding to things without premeditation. And we really like that childlike quality because it has a lot of freedom in it. It's not jaded or, what's the word?

[18:06]

It's not self-conscious. self, yes, not self-conscious, right? And because there's no self in it. So, but then there's the childishness of spontaneity, which has a lot of self in it, because it's childish. It's like acting like a child when you're not a child, which is attachment, to an idea of spontaneity, but it's not really true spontaneity. Childlike and childish are quite different. And then there's the idea of we should always be spontaneous, which is attachment to spontaneity, in which it's no longer spontaneous because we're creating the form of spontaneity.

[19:07]

The idea that in order to be spontaneous we should be free from forms. But everything has a form. It's like letting go of all forms in order to be free of form. But that's simply a dualistic understanding. It's like separating nirvana from samsara in order to have the spontaneity of nirvana. So we have to find the spontaneity within the forms. So the idea of not having any special form is okay, but if you don't have a special form, then you're just creating the form for spontaneity. Otherwise it just becomes childish kind of spontaneity and not innocent spontaneity.

[20:13]

So the highest kind of spontaneity, so to speak, is the spontaneity of prajna when it arises, which means total freedom, which is found in not doing anything. called zazen. Zazen is the great spontaneous activity, because it's not forced, and it's not connected to the past, and it's not connected to the future, even though everything we do is determined by the past. But it's not connected in a series. So when we sit in Sazen, we have Samadhi, which is the ground of non-duality, imperturbable activity, which is total composure.

[21:39]

This is what samadhi basically is. There's various ways to talk about samadhi, but this is the way we usually talk about samadhi, imperturbability, not being moved by anything. In other words, within being moved by whatever, there's no perturbation There's no getting upset. There's no getting angry. There's no getting resentful. There's no getting scared. This is true composure of samadhi. And then prajna just arises out of that. It's like the lamp and its light. Prajna is like the lamp or the basis, the form which gives, allows prajna to arise in our life.

[22:59]

And then this wisdom is what gives us is the source of our actions. So this wisdom takes the place of a self. And this prajna becomes the center. So one is prajna-oriented rather than self-oriented. Prajna-centered rather than self-centered. Or Buddha-centered rather than self-centered. and the self does not arise. So as Charlie said, it's not self-conscious. Childlike is like innocence. So this is our basic innocence.

[24:04]

There's not grasping after anything or clutching to anything. No grasp, or self arises through attachment, grasping and clinging. When there's no attachment to create ill will or delusion, there's freedom. So what we don't realize often is through our emotional attachment or mental attachment and grasping and clinging, we bind ourself. soon as we become angry at somebody or something, then we are bound to that thing through our anger or through our resentment or our ideas or feelings. We bind ourself without realizing that that's what's happening.

[25:05]

So we may react spontaneously, but it's a lower form of spontaneity. It's a form of spontaneity which entraps us rather than frees us. So in order to free ourself, we have to continually let go. This is what practice is. This is what the life of bodhisattva is, continually letting go. When anger or resentment arises in our mind, it arises. And we see that, and we accept it. We accept everything that arises. This is called zazen. you accept everything that arises. Sometimes people say, all the time people say, why my mind is so cluttered with this stuff?

[26:13]

Oh, I never have any clarity in my mind because my mind is always thinking, blah, [...] blah. Well, that's what happens. That's the function of the mind and the feelings and the emotions is to feel and to think. But Being attached to the feelings and the thinking is the problem. Clinging to the feelings is the problem. That's binding. So we bind ourself without realizing it. And a Samadhi is to continually let go. Samadhi is not just in Zazen, it's also in all of our daily life. When your child calls you bad names, and you get angry, how do you deal with that?

[27:24]

You know, keep making it into a bigger problem or you can let go of it. This is called transparency. No pun. But it's interesting. Yeah. You know, we say, I caught a cold. Hmm, you know, we do catch things. We don't realize that we're catching things. But we can, you know, something in us holds something. And when it's held, it creates a problem. When everything passes through freely, allowing everything to come up and it pass through freely, you stay pretty healthy. both mentally and emotionally and physically.

[28:33]

So how to, this is called renunciation, how to let go moment by moment. This is the great lesson of Zazen. We can't sit there day after day in Zazen without letting go moment by moment. And at the same time, maintaining the form. Because we find our freedom through form, not by letting go of form. And the greatest freedom is through the most restricted form. This is tazen. You have this most restricted form in order to practice the most free spontaneity. Because every moment of Zazen is a moment of spontaneity and freedom, if we do it correctly, by letting everything pass through freely.

[29:45]

Everything comes up, passes through freely. But when we attach, then we have pain, then we have suffering, and then blah, blah, blah, right? Makes it hard. So we learn by facing our pain, our suffering, and our clinging and attachment that if we let go, we feel a lot better. We can actually live our life with spontaneity and freedom. So every moment should be a moment of spontaneity, ideally. It's not like there's some things we do that are spontaneous and some things that we do that are not. Every moment is practice of spontaneity, spontaneous action. We think that we come into the zendo, and this is the realm of forms, but when you just simply practice without thinking about, oh, this is the form, it's all spontaneous.

[30:53]

As soon as you think, oh, I'm just following the forms, then you lose your spontaneity. It's true. You lose it. Because you have this idea that this is just forms that we're supposed to do. Like bowing. That's just, you know, not spontaneous. So bowing, you know, is bringing form and emptiness together as one. And then it's totally letting go. This is a relief, great relief. If it's just like that, you're still in the realm of non-spontaneity. But to be really spontaneous is to totally give yourself without reservation. If you have reservations, and you do something, it's not spontaneous.

[32:01]

So, spontaneity comes through generosity, which is the first of the six paramitas, the first of the six prajna paramitas. So, we worked out the meaning of prajna through our activity. And one of the ways that we do that, one of the guidelines that we have for doing that is called the six prajna paramitas. They're usually called the six paramitas. Paramita has two meanings. One is perfection, and the other is crossing over. So when we say prajnaparamita, it means perfection of wisdom. But in the gata, at the end, where it says gate gate pargate parasamgate bodhisvaha.

[33:13]

Svaha means so be it. Svaha means done. But paramita means crossing over, in that sense, crossing over to the two shores. We think of life as this ocean, the ocean of samsara. There's this shore, which is the shore of samsara, and this shore, which is the shore of nirvana. And in Buddhism, there's often the analogy of the raft. You build a raft and then you sail across the ocean of samsara to the shore of nirvana. And then you abandon the raft because you don't need it anymore. But in our practice, the raft covers the whole ocean.

[34:22]

So there's no need to abandon the raft because the raft and the travel are not two different things. In other words, this shore and that shore are not two different places. It's all one place. And as my old teacher Suzuki Roshi used to say, when you learn to live correctly on this shore, you're already on the other shore. So they're not really two shores. So you just bring the two shores together and there's no ocean. But everything is ocean and everything is shore. Everything is delusion and everything is nirvana. It's all mixed up without being mixed up. So, um, So to study the six paramitas, or to practice the six paramitas, as Prajna, gives us a way of thinking about how to do this.

[35:34]

So here, the six paramitas, they're actually 10, but we usually think of a six, for some reason. But dana, or generosity, right, is the first one. And then conduct, which is personified by, or characterized by precepts, conduct precepts. And patience, or restraint, is the third one. And zeal, which means something like, I like to think of it as enthusiastic effort. Enthusiasm in what you're doing. and meditation, which we think of as zazen, and prajna, which is the prajna of prajna, the practice of prajna, which actually is the matrix from which all the others are related, but each one contains all the others.

[36:39]

So all of these are, when we practice them as prajna, paramita, then it means to practice them without duality, to practice them without discrimination, or to practice them without self-centeredness. So, you know, when we say self and no self, you have to be very careful. If you say there is no self, then you're denying the self. If you say there is a self, then you're not really understanding that there's no self. Everything is a koan because everything is self and not-self, existent and non-existent, real and not real. This is the basic understanding of prajna that goes beyond oneness and duality. So we look at all existence

[37:47]

from the point of view of unreal. And we look at existence from the point of view of real. But if you fall into one side or the other, then it's all unreal. It's truly unreal. So we have the term emptiness. Emptiness. I mean, nothing is real by itself, no inherent existence in anything, right? So we have to understand all of these practices from the point of view of emptiness, which is another word for prajna. And emptiness in its totality means fullness. In order to understand the meaning of any koan, which means reality, we have to understand that everything includes its opposite.

[38:57]

We are creating continually opposing forces. If you say peace, you're creating war. If you say war, you're creating peace. If you say right, you're creating wrong. If you say wrong, you're creating right. This is the trap of duality. Non-duality is to stop creating opposites, not get caught by opposites, to reconcile all the opposites. without eliminating them. So generosity or giving is the first paramita. And it's not just, it's also one of the precepts to not withhold spiritual or material aid to people or things or the world or whatever.

[40:03]

Not withholding anything. Somebody wants something? OK. Accept. If I need it, I won't give it to you. Suzuki Roshi would be saying, these are my glasses. They're not really mine. Thank you for letting me use them. But I do need them. So it's OK. Please let me use them. Akin Roshi said, you know, this is my typewriter. And it really, I'm kind of lost without it. I need it to do my work, so I'm not gonna give it to you. But basically, my basic attitude is if you want something, I'll give it to you. If you need something, you can have it. So basic attitude is that really nothing belongs to us. And which means that everything belongs to us. But I don't need everything because I already have everything.

[41:08]

If we don't feel that we have everything, then we feel the need to have things. And the most insecure people are the wealthy because they need to have so much in order to feel secure. Can you imagine having to have so much in order to feel secure? And you create this great problem for everybody else, seal the borders, you know, make a fortress. It's crazy. It's just insecurity by not realizing that we already have everything and that everyone is part of myself. So generosity or giving is what actually makes us happy. That creates the deepest happiness, is to be able to continually give. Because when we continually give, we're continually receiving.

[42:14]

The more you unburden, the more you let go, the more actually comes in because you're leaving a space. You have this great space, and when there's a space, the space becomes occupied. If you have a table, and you try to keep the table clean, in the morning you clean off the table, and in the evening, full of stuff. Because it's a place for something to settle. So, when you keep emptying out, something will always come into that space. So the more we give, actually the more we receive. It's just the law of the land. And those people who are the most generous are the people who actually feel the least desire for things. You know, sometimes people will give

[43:23]

People give me stuff all the time. And if I give you something, it may be something that somebody gave me. That's called Indian giving. This is what the settlers, the pioneers, accused the Indians of doing. They just give you something that somebody else gave them. Well, to them, they thought, that's wonderful. We're just distributing things in a wonderful way. There's nothing to hang on to. You know, American Indians didn't keep anything. Everything belonged to everybody, in a certain sense. There are some things that belong to them, but basically, things were not cherished, but meant to be distributed, meant to be flowing freely. When money is flowing freely, it's like blood. Like the blood of a nation is the flow of money. And when it's not flowing to every part of the body, then the body gets sick.

[44:30]

And that's why we have so much, one reason why we have so much mental, emotional, and physical sickness in our society. Because money doesn't flow freely, goods don't flow freely, to everybody, to every part. Some parts have a big portion, some parts have a small portion. There's a big head, small feet, and it's going to topple over. That's what topples the societies, actually, because they become unbalanced. So the same thing, each person has to have that balance within themselves. the nation will have that balance within itself. So generosity is wonderful, it's important, but receiving is also important, because when something is given, it has to be received.

[45:35]

So we have to be able to receive just as well as to give. Sometimes you say, oh no, no, no, no. But, oh thank you, thank you, oh that's wonderful, even if you don't like it. And we have to be able to receive insults that are generously given. Oh, thank you very much. This is called renunciation. No grumbling, you know. Master Joshu said to his students, it's okay if you spit on me, you know. You can drool on me, it's okay. I'm willing to give you that. No problem. So, it's a great example to be able to take all this stuff and not hang on to it.

[46:39]

Have a generous feeling. Well, there's some reason why this is happening. I don't think I did anything that caused somebody to do that to me, but it's just that you don't know what that cause is, is all. There's some reason why somebody insulted you, or some reason why they, you know, did something that you didn't like. So what is that? I don't know what that is, but I won't let something come up that attaches me to what happened. I just let it be, and then go out of your business and forget about it. So, this is also part of generosity, is allowing something to happen that you don't like, necessarily.

[47:46]

Being able to receive. It's very generous. Receiving good stuff, receiving stuff you don't like. It's all part of imperturbability. And this is how you maintain samadhi. Sometimes you get caught. We all get caught by that stuff. But then the more you practice, the easier it is to remind yourself and let go. Maybe have a question, one question. Be joined.

[48:55]

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