Anyway, I don't think we can deal with that problem right now Should we try it one more time? Mahā-prajñāpāramitā- hṛdaya-sūtra- avokiteśvara- bodhisattva, when practicing deeply the prajñāpāramitā, Perceived that all five skandhas in their own being are empty and was saved from all suffering. Oshari-bhutra 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, impulses, consciousness. Oshari, Putra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness.

[01:02]

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, the 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 with nothing to attain. The Bodhisattvas depend on prajnaparamita and that mind is no hindrance. So without any hindrance, no fears exist.

[02:04]

Far apart from every perverted view, they dwell in nirvana. In the three worlds, all Buddhas depend on Prajnaparamita, in that they will surpass complete, perfect enlightenment. Therefore know the prajnaparamita is the great transcendent mantra, is the great bright mantra, is the utmost mantra, is the supreme mantra which is able to relieve all suffering and is true, not false. So proclaim the prajna paramita mantra. Proclaim the mantra that says gathe gathe paragate parasamgate bodhisattva. How was that? That was a lot better, I thought. I know. That we're really making good effort to

[03:05]

bring it all together. Less, and a lot of short does. If we keep that in mind, that would just kind of develop it in a way that feels good. And it's also the way that we like to chant the rope chant. Well, no, the rope chant has a certain cadence to it. Oh, you mean the English part? Now I open Buddha's door. Well, yeah. You know, whenever we chant, it seems to get longer and longer.

[04:06]

It gets stretched out. It always gets stretched out, the chanting does. And then we have to periodically, say, shorten it up. You know, it's like the Ji-Ho-San-Shi. It gets longer and longer and longer and more stretched out. So, yeah, I think so. Ji-Ho-San-Shi-I-Shi-U-Mong. And jee zom boo zom oh go zom bong. And then after a couple of months, it's jee oh zom. And the rope chant is the same. Now we open Buddha's rope, feel far beyond form and emptiness. Da da [...] da. Like that. And then it goes, now we open good and low. It's OK. But there's no end to that attrition.

[05:08]

So you can bring it back and tighten it all up again. So we should do that, yeah. Remind people to tighten it up. That seems to be a A, B, O. Oh, right. A field. It goes like that. And then we get on the end. It never stops. It's on. So, get off the thus and so forth. The same goes for the meal chant. And the, let's see, what else is it? When we do the four vows, Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Rather than putting the emphasis on the vow, we put it on the I. So, we've gone through this a long time ago, that we put the emphasis on the vow rather than on the I. Beings are numberless.

[06:15]

I vow to save them. Same in the Bodhisattva ceremony. I noticed you did a pretty nice job. You didn't emphasize The I. I vow to save them. Divisions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. So we kind of de-emphasize the personal pronoun. I don't know how much time we have left. A few minutes. I would like to talk a little bit about the meal chant. The meal chant also tends to get stretched out and, you know, it should have energy. Meal chant should have energy. All of our chanting should have energy and reflect the energy of Zazen or the power of Zazen.

[07:19]

So the meal chant Buddha was born at Lumbini. Enlightened at Pagaya, taught at Paranasi. Our meal chain is a little bit wrong, but Benares is the new Paranasi. Varanasi. Not the different place, but just a different name. And somehow I got these from Zen Center years ago, And I thought, oh well, they decided to do it this way. But they hadn't. Just somebody... Somehow that happened. But we've been doing it that way ever since. But we're going to change the meal chant soon. There are a number of changes I'm going to put. But... Buddha was born at Lumbini, enlightened at Bhagaya, taught at Paranasi, entered Nirvana at Krishnagara. Now we open Buddha Tathagata's eating bowls.

[08:22]

May all be free from self-clinging. And then we open our bowls. And the Buddha was born at the... Buddha was born... And then... The whole thing should have that kind of, you know, energy. It's not a lament. It's easy for all of us Chinese to sound like a dirge, actually. Lamentation. Huh? Lamentation. Lamentation. It's not a lamentation. If you're really hungry, you do it the right way. Suzuki Yoshi used to say that at Eheji they chant too fast because they have all these memorial services and they try to get finished so they can eat breakfast.

[09:33]

But still, we shouldn't chant it too fast, but we should chant it quickly. I'd like us to chant it quickly. See, homage to the Dharmakaya, Vairojana Buddha, homage to the Locana, Sambhogakaya Buddha. And the Kokyo, I mean, the Kokyo should end it right there so we can take a breath right on the, at the end and go right into the next one. If you wait, if it's homage to the Dharmakaya, Vairojana Buddha, there's no rhythm. You have to think about each one, but if you do it in the right rhythm, then it all, you know, one name follows the next, and very easily. But I always have to think of the next one. If that clappers don't come at the right place, then I have to think, well, what's the next one? But if it's in the right place, the rhythm carries me along, and I don't have to think about it.

[10:42]

Homage to the Dharmakaya Vairochana Buddha, homage to Lochana Sambhogakaya Buddha, homage to the Shakyamuni Nirmanakaya Buddha. So I'd like us to do that this noon. That may be a little fast, but with some lightness. I think it gets stretched out in the middle of those second names, like Amitabha, Dharmakaya, and Sambhogakaya. It's like those names get stretched out. Well, see, those syllables can still be emphasized without stretching it out. Amitabha to the Dharmakaya. homage to the dharma, kaya, vairo, jhana, buddha. It'll still be emphasized, but it doesn't take any longer.

[11:45]

Homage to the dharma, kaya, vairo, jhana, buddha. Yeah. Why are we breaking that up? Well, we're not. I'm just doing that for emphasis. Breaking that up. Yeah, well, um, It's nirmanakaya, not nirmanakaya. It's nirmanakaya. Amish to the [...] vairochana. Vairochana is two syllables. Amish to the vairochana. Dharmakaya. It's not like sambhokakaya? No. That's kind of to overemphasize, I think that's... Yeah, we don't want to overemphasize. Homage to the Sambhogakaya. Sambhogakaya. Sambhogakaya. Kaya is realm.

[12:47]

Homage to the Sambhogakaya. Dharmakaya. Sambhogakaya. Nirmanakaya. That's good enough. Nirmanakaya. Homage to Nirmanakaya. But if we keep that in mind, just, you know, keep it moving along, and to the, not to the, not to the, maybe that will help. Should we try that once? Let's try it once. Homage to the Dharmagaya Shakyamuni. Ahamedhva lochana sambhogakaya uddhah. Ahamedhva sakhyamuni nirmanakaya uddhah. Ahamedhva vaishramaitreya uddhah.

[13:51]

Ahamedhva all buddhas in the ten directions, past, present, and future. Ahamedhva anjushri, the perfect wisdom, bodhisattva. Aum, Aum, Aum. to the, there was one in there that homage to the, you have to remind me what it is, next to the last. Samantabhadra, Bodhisattva, Mahasattva,

[14:53]

homage to the bodhisattvas, mahasattvas homage to the bodhisattvas, mahasattvas maha it's like maha prajnaparamita maha prajnaparamita maha, the ma is great but it's not emphasized the great part is not emphasized maha prajna, rather ma-ha prajna. When you announce the sutra, ma-ha prajna paramita, ma-ka-ha-nya, not ma-ka-ha-nya, ma-ka-ha-nya. Sometimes the ma isn't even used. I remember when Kadagiri Roshi used to be Suzuki Roshi's assistant, he always did the chanting. He never used ma. He always said, ka-ha-nya paramita, So the ma is there, but it's not emphasized.

[16:15]

It's a little subtlety, but it makes some difference. But that was pretty good. I liked the way we did that. just had completely different feelings, like we were doing something. You know, like we were really doing something with energy. And what's important, you know, in this feeling of our practice is that we do a lot of sitting, you know, and sitting has to have vitality, and our movement has to express that vitality. Otherwise, we tend to get into a kind of lethargic way of doing things. And that's kind of the thing we have to guard against, is getting into a lethargic way of doing things. And serving should be energetic. It doesn't mean it should be fast, but it should have energy. When you're doing something, it should have energy.

[17:21]

And when you bow, you really bow to the person. You bow together. You're doing something together. Everything you meet is your practice. You can't just go around mindlessly being kind of lethargic. When you put your hands together, you do it with real concentration. When you bow, you bow with real concentration. When you're being served, two hands on the bowl. Real concentration. And when you're serving, Real concentration. So that's the spirit of Sachine and the spirit of our practice. And the spirit of our chanting should have that same spirit. Really real concentration and strong energy. Otherwise it becomes a kind of low-keyed, sleepy, you know, lethargic... Mortuary.

[18:32]

Mortuary. So, that's what... You know, Sun Zendo, the Jikido, not the person that cleans the Zendo, but the head monk goes around shouting at everybody, you know. We don't want to have to do that, but Still, you know, we should make that effort. Strong effort. Strong, quiet effort. Do you have any questions? Yes. That's one of the first times I've really heard the Heart Sutra, and I can't imagine how many times I've chatted it. You chatted it without hearing it. Because all I've been trying to do is keep that pace, you know, and I don't really think I ever heard it as a dialogue.

[19:33]

I don't really think I heard it as one of these Heart Sutras. Chanting there should be good in it. You know the Mukugyo should have good energy and not slow down And not speed up See what we the spirit is to be able to lead and follow at the same time Following means to listen and to go with things and leading means to carry it along so You're going with things, and at the same time, you're carrying it along. So, it's the balance, again, between the passive and the active. Passive is to follow, and the active is to lead. So, these two have to really combine.

[20:34]

And you can't say whether you're following or leading, but you're just right there. And everybody's just right there together, then it's a tremendous feeling. But you can't just follow, and you can't just lead. If you just follow, then everything slows down. If you just lead, then everybody's running after you. Our teaching is right within the stuff that we're doing. If we bring that to life, then the teaching of our practice is right there, just in the form. Otherwise, form just becomes formality. And there's nothing more dead than formality that doesn't have any life. You're just going through the motions, but there's no life.

[21:38]

So we have to really guard it, because our practice has this formal side, we have to be very careful that that formality doesn't just become, or that formal side doesn't just become formality. It's there to be, as a form, to bring to life. And then when that happens, when we do that, the teaching becomes apparent. Is that the barometer? The what? Barometer? So we have to be very careful that our practice doesn't become stale, which is very easy for it to do. I think that's probably enough. Thank you.

[22:33]

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