I vow to taste the truth of that authority. And today is the second day of our three-day Sashin. And yesterday, at the end of my talk, Paul asked a question about, he said, what about nothingness? and I gave him a cursory response. But today I want to address the question about nothingness. We have various terms like dharmakaya,

[01:13]

Kig Mind, Essence of Mind, Emptiness, Nothingness, all of these terms are referring to the same thing, but they're used in a different way according to how, which side of this gem we're investigating or talking about. So, when we say Dharmakaya, We use that term to express the essential nature, which has no special shape or form. And we use emptiness to express the interdependence of everything, of all things which have no independent nature. And we use Buddha nature to address and relate to each other as the positive aspect.

[02:28]

We say all things are buddha nature. So emptiness, nothingness are negative sounding. Buddha nature is more positive expression. So nothingness, These terms like empty, nothing, don't mean empty and nothing in the usual sense. We have to realize these are technical terms in Buddhism. So when we say empty, it means empty of own being, empty of an essential independent soul. So, empty means that each thing, instead of being its own thing, is a part of, each thing is a part of one big being.

[03:38]

an expression of one big being. One big being expresses itself in the multiplicity of things, as the multiplicity of things. That's called emptiness or interdependence. Nothingness is an expression like if you take a lump of clay It doesn't have any special recognizable form. It's just, you know, you can knead it. It's just fingerprints and thumbprints. It's just a lump. But then you take a piece and you make a bowl out of it, or you make a sculpture out of it, or you make whatever you want out of it. And so it's really nothingness. But out of this nothingness comes all these shapes and forms. It's like a lump of gold, which is, you melt it and it takes the shape of the smelter.

[04:57]

It's like water. which has no special shape or form, but it takes the form of drops, takes the form of oceans and rivers. It's nothingness. But that doesn't mean it's nothing. It's everything. So nothingness means everything in that sense. It's the basic no special shape or form. So nothing means no thingness, no special thingness. We should probably say that instead of saying nothingness, no special thingness. But we say nothingness in short because it's a technical term. So this no-thingness is the most fundamental thing.

[06:06]

Everything arises from this no-thingness and everything returns to this no-thingness. But arising from and returning are just ways of expression. So we say the Tathagata doesn't come and doesn't go. The thus come one, this is what Tathagata means. And also, we don't come and we don't go, basically. Now there's an old saying, wherever you go, there you are. But so everything arises from this no-thingness and everything returns to this no-thingness in the sense of continual transformation.

[07:11]

We never leave no-thingness even though we are a thing. So we say the reason that we are here is because we've always been here. But the shape and the form is always different. We say, well, I've been here for 72 years, but I've always been here. That's just a certain way of looking at things because of our limited view. In some shape or form, all of us have always been here.

[08:14]

We're the stuff of this Earth that's continually transforming. into various shapes and forms out of this nothingness which is something. So I want to comment on one of my favorite talks of Suzuki Roshi's where he talks about taking care of the ground. That's another term called ground of being, which is sometimes used in Buddhism. The fundamental ground, which is the same as nothingness or big mind. He likes to use the word big mind. or Essence of Mind as the Sixth Patriarch uses.

[09:21]

He says, I think most of us study Buddhism like something which was already given to us. We think what we should do is preserve the Buddha's teaching like putting food into the refrigerator. that to study Buddhism is to take the food out of the refrigerator whenever you want it, because it's already there. But instead, Zen students should be interested in how to produce food from the field, from the garden, should put the emphasis on the ground, If you look at the empty garden, you won't see anything. But if you take care of the seed, it will come up. The joy of Buddhism is the joy of taking care of the garden, and our effort is to see something come out of the ground. That is why we put the emphasis on emptiness. Emptiness is the ground where you cannot see anything, but which is actually the mother of everything, from which everything will come up.

[10:31]

This is why Dogen talks about practice, puts emphasis on practice, why Suzuki Roshi always put the emphasis on practice rather than on some beautiful flowers like enlightenment. If you take care of the practice, the flowers will bloom, will come up and bloom. But if you're only interested in the flowers, and don't know how to take care of the ground or how to take care of the earth, the fundamental thing, you just have what's called flowers in the sky, sky flowers. It's like when you look at the sky, laying on the beach, and then you see all these strange little forms in front of your eyes, like hairs, and it's called, oh, and there are some flowers.

[11:36]

That's sometimes called eye disease in Buddhism. Illusions. So we have our illusions about enlightenment. And as long as you have your illusions about enlightenment, there's no enlightenment. You just get further and further away from enlightenment. So you simply take care of the ground. When you take care of the ground, I don't know if you've ever done any gardening or farming, but taking care of the ground is the most interesting part to loosen up the soil. to put in the amendments to turn the compost over so you have a nice loose ground, which is a metaphor for our life, to have a nice loose personality, a nice loose life.

[12:44]

So many of us are compacted, really tight. really stiff, compressed. So purpose of practice actually is to loosen up the ground so that you have some percolation. And when you have some looseness and percolation, then a lot of our worries and problems tend to float up. So much are they caused by this compression. So compression exacerbates our problems and our problems cause our compression. It's a kind of vicious circle. So sometimes we say, hey man, listen up. Good idea. So he says, all of us have a Buddha nature, and the teachings which grow from Buddha nature are the same.

[13:59]

So actually the teaching of different schools of Buddhism do not differ so much, but the attitude towards the teachings is different. When you think that the teaching is already given to you, then naturally your effort will be to apply the teachings in this common world. So we have the teachings of Buddhism, then we just apply these teachings. This can be a big problem, because then we become attached to the teachings, and in other words, especially like taking the precepts literally, too literally. Real precepts are how you actually live your life. Cerebral precepts are how you follow the rules. We do have to follow the rules, but to follow the rules without taking into account the dynamic fluctuation and various circumstances of our life,

[15:09]

is like living by the letter instead of by the spirit. To think that you can take Buddhism out of the drawer and use it is to go by the letter. But actually, Zen practice is to go by the spirit. But it's not disregarding the letter, but the letter is a guideline and the spirit is how you actually live and relate. So he says, when you think the teaching is already given to you, then naturally your effort will be to apply the teaching in this common world.

[16:12]

For instance, Theravadan students apply the teaching of the twelve links of causation to our actual life, to how we were born and how we die. But the Mahayana understanding is that the original purpose of this teaching, when Buddha told it, was to explain the interdependency of different beings. So, you know, the twelvefold chain of causation is a formula that points out how a self is born and how a self becomes extinct. So this kind of literal understanding is the Theravada understanding, according to this. So the 12-fold chain of causation is that dependent on ignorance, the karma formations arise.

[17:13]

Karma formations are good and bad dharmas, emotions, thoughts and feelings created by volition. So, dependent on ignorance, the karma formations arise. Dependent on karma formations, consciousness. Dependent on consciousness, body-mind. Dependent on body-mind, the six senses arise. Dependent on the six senses, impressions. Dependent on impressions are feelings. Dependent on feelings are cravings. Dependent on craving is clinging. Dependent on clinging is the process of becoming. Dependent on the process of becoming is rebirth. And dependent on rebirth is old age and death. And then the cycle continues.

[18:15]

Dependent on old age and death is ignorance, and so forth. And then the elimination is, the cure is, take away old age and death, and there's no rebirth, take away rebirth, and there's no becoming, take away becoming, and blah blah blah, all the way to the end. So this is a kind of literal, some people take this literally, in order to, you know, the original, I don't know if it's original, but it became a kind of formula for leaving the world behind, by eliminating any kind of desire. So it became a kind of pessimistic outlook. So he says the Mahayana understanding is that all things are completely interdependent.

[19:20]

The meaning of this is the interdependence of everything, not to eliminate rebirth into this life, but to find release within this life. The Bodhisattva is not adverse to being reborn into the various states in this life. You can see rebirth in many ways. If you look at this 12-fold chain, you can see it as the birth and death of the ego. I think that's the fundamental meaning. How the ego is formed, how the ego arises, how self is perpetuated,

[20:22]

and continues to be perpetuated. And cutting off means cutting off the arising of self-centeredness, the arising of the ego, attachment to ego. And this is also Mahayana understanding as well. So when we say, what is it that is born and dies? It's the self, the clinging to self, which is the problem. Buddha says, all I'm doing is telling you how to end suffering. So when we apply this to suffering, we can see how the arising of the ego is the cause of suffering. I don't want to get into the difference between Mahayana and Theravada here because it's a big discussion.

[21:38]

But basically, that's some of the difference. So anyway, letting go of self is to not cling to any special shape or form. That's the main idea, is not to cling to any special shape or form. There was a comic book called Protoplasm Man. I don't know if you remember that. Protoplasm Man was kind of like Dharmakaya. And he could change his shape to whatever he wanted, you know, form and color.

[22:42]

He was like Superman except that, I mean, he had the same ideals as Superman, but his venue was different. He can just change the shape or form to conform to any circumstances. This is kind of like, Buddha is also given this kind of description sometimes, that the Buddha is born into this world through purpose rather than through circumstances. Buddha is born in the world in order to according to Mahayana understanding, to save human beings, or to save beings. And Bodhisattva, who has reached the highest levels, can change her or his form to accommodate any circumstance with human beings.

[23:52]

So Avalokiteshvara can become a woman to help women or to help men, or can be a man to help, or can become a, sometimes a prostitute, or become a banker, or can become, you know, any, take on any shape or form. So it's a kind of protoplasm man. and because of nothingness. Because the Buddha, or the Bodhisattva, realizes the basic nature of nothingness is not restricted to any special shape or form. But, you know, this is all kind of metaphorical. But the more or the less clinging to self we have, the more flexibility we have.

[25:05]

I think that's the important point. And the more we are able to respond to circumstances. the less rigid we become and the more malleable and able to let go of something and take up something else. As a matter of fact, monastic practice is based on the schedule. The schedule is like the wheel that turns in time. And each, it's like a clock, which has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12 hours, 12 divisions. And the monastic schedule has divisions in time. And when you're doing something, you may be totally involved in what you're doing, but when it's time to do something else, you put it down.

[26:12]

And then you take up what's next. And then when it's time to do something else, you put that down, take up what's next. So you let go of attachment to what you're doing and take up the next thing with an empty mind, which is not easy to do always. But this is the training. Training is to be able to let go and pick up without attachment to what went before or attachment to what's coming up. And if you can't do that, then you have a lot of trouble. So it's a refining process. So he says, a Buddha tried to save us by destroying our common sense. Usually, as human beings, we're not interested in the nothingness of the ground.

[27:17]

He uses this term, nothingness. Our tendency is to be interested in something which is growing in the garden and not in the bare soil itself. But if you want to have a good harvest, the most important thing is to make rich soil and to cultivate it well. The Buddha's teaching is not about the food itself, but about how it is grown and how to take care of it. Buddha was not interested in a special given deity, in something which is already there. He was interested in the ground from which the various gardens will appear. For him, everything was a holy thing, an object of worship. In Buddhism, there is no special deity. Even Buddha is not a special deity. But people put Buddha up as a special deity because there seems to be a need to have one. People need a focal point, so we say Buddha. But for Zen people, Buddha means Buddha nature, not some special person or some special deity.

[28:27]

We think Vairochana in Buddhism is the personification of the Dharmakaya. And so we accept that, but we're not attached to that. All of the services and mystique in Zen comes from some other schools of Buddhism. And Zen people have accepted those things and incorporated them. But basically, there's no special deity, no special anything. But it helps us to give shape and form to the practice, so we use them. But we have to be careful not to be attached to anything, any special idea of Buddha.

[29:33]

So Buddha said, if people are good, then a good Buddha will appear. This is a very interesting remark. Buddha did not think of himself as some special person. He tried to be like the most common person, wearing a robe, going begging with a bowl. He thought, I have many students because the students are very good, but not because of me. Buddha was great because his understanding of emptiness and his understanding of people was good. Because he understood people, he loved people, and he enjoyed helping them. Because he had that kind of spirit, he could be a Buddha." So that's a very humbling kind of remark, which I think is probably totally accurate. Last week I talked about, somebody asked a question about how do you recognize a good teacher? I think that's a pretty good explanation right there.

[30:39]

I have many students because the students are good, not because of me. Buddha was great because his understanding of emptiness and his understanding of people was good because he understood people, he loved people and he enjoyed helping them. So just helping people out of the, getting the enjoyment out of just helping people without being attached to any special person or any special way of doing things. So I think about young people in practice. And if you come to practice as a fairly young person, it means that instead of doing something else, you're doing this.

[31:45]

So if you're doing this, you're not doing something else which you could be doing and you should know why you're doing this and have a good understanding so that you're not fooling yourself. And there are a lot of lofty ideas in Buddhism. Buddha just loaded with loftiness, but actually the practice is to be very grounded. It's like water. Water is always seeking the basic level. You can't fool it.

[32:49]

Water cannot be fooled. It always goes to the lowest place and takes the shape of whatever the container is. But it ends up in the sky. So, it doesn't try to get up there. It simply goes with gravity. And gravity is called profundity. Staying with the ground. Cultivating the ground. That's all you have to do. Everything else will take care of itself. But if you try to get somewhere, you go past it. You stumble by. So, our world is coming apart at the seams because of ambition, wrongly placed.

[34:15]

So, to have people who can actually hold the ground, stand their ground, with an enlightened attitude, is really important. to give some balance to the chaos of the world. You have any question? When you were talking before about the flowers in the ground, you said we should focus on the ground. Could you just be a little more specific about

[35:22]

what the metaphor of the flowers was referring to? Oh yeah, well the flowers is what we call enlightenment or something, some wonderful result. If we focus on the results, you know, results, there will always be a result to whatever you do. If you do something, whatever you do, there's a result. So, But if you become attached to the result, then you'll always be disappointed, because you're looking ahead, instead of finding the result or working on the cause. Practice is in each step. every step. So to be in this step is already to be enlightened. But if you look for enlightenment in the next step, disregarding this step, you're not totally allowing that to come up in this step.

[36:37]

So if this step is thorough, there's enlightenment within that step. Practice and enlightenment are one. So in this step of practice, there's enlightenment. But the problem is we think, well, where's the enlightenment? Because you have an idea about what you think enlightenment is. If you just let go of your idea and totally be in this step without thinking about the next step, you may not realize enlightenment, but it's there. Paul? Thanks for nothing. Thanks for nothing, yes. Can you say something about nothing and silence? Nothing and silence? Well, silence can be a very powerful statement. We have Vimalakirti's thundering silence.

[37:50]

So we say silence is golden and silver, and peach is silver. So silence is very much appreciated. But if you get attached to silence, you have a problem. So this is the problem. We think that silence is the best thing, but it's sometimes, and sometimes it is. And we say, you know, before speaking, pull yourself back three times. But, When it's time to be silent, you should be silent. When it's time to speak, you should speak. So don't be silent when it's time to speak. And don't speak when it's time to be silent. But they both come from the same place.

[38:54]

Nothingness. They're both forms of expression. So silence is also a strong expression. They're both on this side of form. Ross? A moment ago you mentioned that a lot of young people are in practice and if they should know or be aware or be sensitive to if they're doing this then they're not going to be able to do something else. And perhaps I'm a little zealous in wanting everyone to practice, but we have older people, middle-aged people, that have various occupational pursuits and relationship pursuits. And I wonder, and we also, in our practice center, we have afternoon and morning thoughts, then sushis or not, all these various ways of expressing oneself. Then what is it that precludes one's expression

[39:59]

What I'm talking about is people who like to be priests and who go to monastic training. That's what I was referring to. People who are most devoted to just not doing anything else. But of course, yeah, we have various ways to practice. And it's not that one is better than the other. It's... But if... There has to be a confidence that this is the right thing to do.

[41:22]

Also, there are people in this practice who may take just menial jobs in order to support their practice. So they put more effort and time into doing that instead of developing a career. So, Let's stay grounded.

[42:21]

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