Good morning. This morning I have a cold so I hope you can understand what I'm saying. A few weeks ago I said that I would talk about Enmei-juku Kannon Sutra. So I planned on doing that during the Sesshin. Maybe we should chant once this short sutra just to get ourselves in the mood.

[01:14]

just one time through. Han se yang ta bu bu tsu yo bu tsu u en yo bu tsu u en bu bu so en jo rak ku ga jo cho nen han se yang bo nen han se yang ren nen ju shin ki That's it. If you want to keep the cards, maybe to refer to them, you can. In May,

[03:18]

Enmei in the title means something like eternal, but eternal is not such a good word, such an accurate word in Buddhism. So something like endless dimensions of no beginning or end is more accurate. There's no word that's actually accurate, so eternal is okay, and endless dimension is okay. There are lots of things you can think of. to evoke endlessness or no beginning and no end. That feeling of endless implies in here no beginning as well as no end.

[04:27]

And jukku means ten phrases. And Kannon is Avalokiteshvara or Kuan Yin in Chinese. Kannon in Japanese. And Gyo is Sutra. So, endless dimension or you could say unlimited life, eternal life, boundless life, any of those. The next phrase explains Kanaan. So I won't explain Kanaan in this phrase. I'll take phrase by phrase and explain it, or at least talk about it.

[05:35]

So the title is Endless Dimensions. ten phrase Avalokiteśvara or Khandon Sutra. Endless dimension also has the meaning of endless dimension of dimensions of this moment. If there's no beginning or no end, then this moment has, as Dogen says, its own past and future. And this moment, this particular moment, has its own endless dimensions. That's very interesting. We tend to think of this moment as one speck of time, one fleeting speck of time.

[06:38]

But we also have to understand this moment as covering all time and all space. And extending life, meaning of extending life is the same as when we talk about no birth, no death. birth and death, and no birth, no death. And this kind of endless dimension. So each one of these ten phrases expresses are a compassionate practice from a certain standpoint.

[07:47]

So the first phrase is not really a phrase, it's just a word, kanzeo, just a shout or evocation, you could say. Not invoke, but evoke. Invoke means to create something, whereas evoke means to bring forth what's already there. So, kanzeon is, you can say, is our own compassionate heart. And in the case of kanzeon, is universal compassionate heart, not unlimited. So kan in kanzeon has the feeling of penetrating, or illuminating, or piercing through.

[08:56]

or totally understanding. Ze means world, and an is sound. So, kanzean is the one who hears all the sounds, or the sounds of the world, or the cries of the world. doesn't neglect the cries of the world. But sound here also can mean sight, or touch, or taste, or any kind of sense. So, to totally penetrate the world sound, or totally penetrate oneself, or be aware of the suffering of the world.

[10:18]

And kanzeon in this sense, sometimes we think of kanzeon as someone outside, you know. In Buddhist iconography, Avalokiteśvara is probably the most popular figure, personification, in Tibet, in China especially, and also in Japan. as Avalokiteshvara and Kanzayon and Kanna and Kuan Yin and so forth, because of this kind of human quality. I think Kanzayon personifies our humanness, what we like to think of as our humanness, as our humanness, as

[11:21]

distinct from our wisdom, but which is Manjushri. Manjushri sees with a cold eye and Avalokiteshvara or Kannan sees with a warm heart. And the balance of Kannan, Avalokiteshvara and Manjushri is Buddha. So on one side of the altar we have a little monk, Jishu, who personifies wisdom beyond wisdom, seeing everything just as it is, without any interference. And on this side we have Avalokiteshvara, who

[12:26]

personifies compassion, great compassion. And in the middle we have Buddha. It's all Buddha, all of them are Buddha. But they represent, you know, or personify the various aspects of our nature. not idols, just personifications. So we respect these aspects of our nature. When we bow, you know, we don't bow to anything in particular, but we greatly respect these aspects of our nature. So when we offer incense, you know, we invite, and when we offer incense and chant the sutra, we invite kanzeon to join our practice.

[13:39]

We evoke something from within ourself. So this is kanzeon. Sutra is dedicated to Kamsa Yama. And the next line is Namu Butsu. Namu is sometimes translated as homage. And Butsu is Buddha. So we say homage to Buddha. But homage has the meaning of lord and vassal, you know, if you say, pay homage. Technically, it has the meaning of a vassal paying homage to a lord. And that's okay, actually, to see Buddha in that way, to see ourself and Buddha in that way is okay.

[14:44]

But to say, at one with, to translate namu as at one with, is another way of expressing that feeling. Not, Buddha is over there and I'm here, but one with Buddha. We use the word, sometimes, aton. And we think of aton as being a kind of penance. I think that the word aton has taken on that meaning. But the actual meaning of aton is to be at one with, to return to, to return to oneness, or return to completion, or be at one with everything.

[15:45]

But it's what we have to do to be at one with everything that we tend to associate with the word. So the word's kind of lost its meaning, true meaning, etymological meaning. Whatever is necessary to be at one with a Buddha is what we have to do. So we can call that at-one-ment or atonement. Actually, Zazen, you know, is atonement. Why we practice Zazen is as atonement, atonement. Just forget, you don't have to apologize for anything. Just sit. So this phrase is, at one with Buddha.

[16:51]

Or, you know, we are one with The other side has music on it. Form and emptiness. One side is form, the other side is a blank piece of paper. The third phrase is yo butsu in. Yo means with, and butsu is Buddha again. And in means direct cause or absolute cause or seed cause.

[17:58]

We have in and an. In means direct and an means indirect. or supporting, but I'll come to that when I talk about in. So in means like a seed or basic cause. So this phrase has the meaning of our very nature is Buddha, directly Buddha. There are three buddha natures, three ways of talking about buddha nature. One is called ryo in busho. Ryo means to realize. It means the capacity to realize our buddha nature.

[19:04]

Sho in busho. Sho, ryo, and in in. Sho means fundamentally buddha nature. like dharmakaya, or we are that. And ryo means we have the capacity to realize it. And in-in means that through a participating or cooperating cause, we can realize it. How we realize it is through a cooperating cause, something we do. It's like, if we have a seed, a seed is like a direct cause for a plant. But, and watering, and sun, water, air, heat, so forth, are co-operating causes, indirect causes.

[20:12]

So direct cause is the absolute fundamental fact of what we are. And indirect cause is what we have to do to realize it. And in is like, kind of like your original face before your parents were born. Yorubutsu-en, and as I said, en means indirect cause. So these two phrases go together. Buddha, with Buddha, we have direct cause for Buddhahood. And we also have, also it's an indirect cause, which cooperates with the direct cause.

[21:19]

contributes, contributory cause, kind of like a catalyst that makes us realize it. We say practice is the water and the sun and the heat that makes the seed sprout. So, practice is indirect cause, or in this case, in, or doing something to, rubbing the flint, you know, to create a spark. Or we can also call it the condition. So, in-in is another term. We say ku and in-in. Ku means, it's not inness, but ku means emptiness. And in-in is the combination of in and in.

[22:29]

And it means karma. When we have some action, volitional action, which causes something to move. That's called karma, karmic activity. And that karmic activity is activity within emptiness, or ku. And So in-in is constantly creating forms in emptiness. So how we direct our effort is important. That's the basis of Buddhist morality, you know, is that you reap the fruit of your own actions.

[23:41]

If you do something unwholesome, then unwholesomeness appears. And if you do something wholesome, wholesomeness appears. So we're totally responsible for whatever we do, and we're totally responsible for the world. Some people think that Buddhism is fatalism somehow. because we don't talk about God. We don't talk about judgment, but judgment is something that you bring on yourself. We all bring on ourselves through our own activities. The fifth phrase is buh, poh, so, en.

[24:55]

And it means, this is the same en as before, meaning indirect or cooperating cause. And buh, buhp, is Buddha. And poh is dharma. So is sangha. Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, or the Three Treasures, is also a cooperating cause for understanding our buddha nature, or being one with our buddha nature. If we have Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, the Three Treasures evoke our buddha nature. cause us to be one with our original face. And the sixth phrase, jō raku ga jō.

[26:06]

Jō means, here, another word for permanent or eternal. or endless dimensions. And Raku is happiness or joy. And Ga is self. And Jo is purity. So it has the feeling of in purity we have eternal joy of ourself or endless dimensions of enjoying our self-nature. And it's, I would say, like ji jyu yu zamae, or self-joyous samadhi. When we are one with our original nature, when we let drop body and mind,

[27:11]

and become one with Truth. No matter what happens to us, we have joy in that purity. So, this phrase has the sense of pure joy in ourself. Self-joyous samadhi, which extends to everyone, not separate from everything. And the next phrase, Chonin Kanzeon. Cho is morning. And nen is an important word. It means mind or individual consciousness or our thought, conscious thought.

[28:17]

And kanzeon is, of course, kanzeon. So it has the meaning of in the morning. Put your nen thought on kanzeon. Put your undistracted thought on kanzeon or evoke kanzeon. Bring kanzeon to life. Don't neglect kanzeon. This nin, is like conscious moment, the conscious thought in this moment. There are different kinds of nen, degrees of nen. There's nen of this moment, and then there's nen, which is the thought which thinks about, which takes a step back and contemplates.

[29:29]

The first NIN is one with activity without reflection or without reflection that modifies, just direct perception. And the second NIN is when we reflect on something and try to identify it by thought or think about it. And the third nen is taking another step back and categorizing what the second nen has thought about the first nen. So all three nen thoughts are important. But when we sit zazen, we're just interested in the first nen. Just a direct perception of moment by moment. So, morning, this nen has the feeling of, in the morning, just let your thought be completely one with kanzeon.

[30:42]

And the next phrase, bo-nen kanzeon. Bo means evening. And it's the other side of the pair, with the first one. In the evening, let your thoughts be on kanzeon. Or, in the evening, don't be the same. So, between these two phrases, it's moment by moment. Don't forget or be one with. And then the next phrase, it says, nen nen. jyu, shin, ki. Thought after thought, putting these two nins together. Conscious thought after conscious thought. Jyu means to follow. So nin, nin, and jyu kind of go together.

[31:46]

Thought following thought. And shin is mind. And ki is arise. So each thought which follows upon the last is no other than shin, or the mind of the universe, universal mind, or what we can say, Buddha nature, universal mind. But in this sense, shin is used to complement thought. So sometimes we call Buddha nature mind, mind only. Sometimes we call it nirvana. Sometimes we call it There are many, many ways of expressing it.

[33:02]

So here, our small mind is like our individual small mind is not separate from the big mind and is actually being expressed as an expression of big mind. Suzuki Roshi used to say, big small mind is an expression of universal mind. not separate. And the tenth phrase, nen nen fu ri shin, it complements this phrase. And it's nen nen again, and fu means not, and ri is separate, and shin is mind again. So it's just saying it in a different way. So these two phrases go together, thought after thought, nin after nin, arises from the universal mind.

[34:04]

And then the last phrase says, thought after thought is not separate from this mind. It means kanzeon is not separate from you or I or the universal mind, the mind of the universe. So this is kind of commentary on the sutra. Do you have any questions? Do you know where the sutra comes from? The sutra comes from India.

[35:06]

I hope so. I don't know. It might come from Japan. It's Japanese. Maybe Japanese sutra. But it may just be expressed in Japanese terms. But probably Chinese or Japanese. What does sutra mean? The poem, song? Well, sutra means the word of the Buddha. But it has other meanings, secular meanings. It means suture. comes from the root sutra, Sanskrit root. A lot of our English words come from Sanskrit roots and sutra means to sew together.

[36:11]

So it means the words, Buddha's words are put together, sewn together, sutured together. But in Buddhism, a citra is the words, Buddha's own words. But that has, you know, very broad meaning because Shakyamuni Buddha And his words were not written down until 400 years after his power in Nirvana. So, it was a kind of oral tradition. So, within Buddhism, what people recognize as being authentic is not necessarily something from somebody's, Buddha's, Shakyamuni Buddha's mouth.

[37:21]

So, you know, we talk about Dharmakaya Buddha, Sambhogakaya Buddha, and Nirmanakaya Buddha. Nirmanakaya Buddha is a person like Shakyamuni Buddha, a person who is a personification of Buddha. Sambhogakaya is more spirit of Buddha. This is a very... not really a complete explanation. Sutras are kind of like an expression of Buddha as Sambhogakaya or the spirit of Buddha. The sutra itself is the spirit of... It's Buddha too, but it's not a person.

[38:29]

In Dharmakaya, it covers everything. Buddha, which is both manifest and unmanifest. So... People come to accept certain sutras as authentic, but not from someone's mouth, but authentic in that it arises from understanding of truth. We don't have too much time, so on Sesshin Day, the lecture is a little shorter, so that we can get our meal on time. I just wanted to know if you could explain, is there a difference between Avalokiteshvara and Mahayana?

[39:40]

Basically, no. Basically, no. you can talk about something in many different ways. So, you know, it's like, in order to explain the nature of Avalokiteshvara, you talk about it as Kuan Yin, or Kuan Yin, or Avalokiteshvara, and so forth. The he-she aspect. Yeah, both. Avalokiteshvara takes, is actually, doesn't have any specific sex. But when Avalokiteshvara, or Kanon, manifests to help somebody, sometimes Avalokiteshvara manifests as a man, sometimes as a woman. When you say, certainly, Buddha is a personification of Buddha, what do you mean?

[40:54]

What are you talking about? Well, you know, as an actualization, you know, personification. Are they historically two different people? Are they historical? Do they exist historically? Who? Avalokiteshvara? Yeah. Well, nobody knows for sure. If you say yes, you may be wrong, and if you say no, you may be wrong. They exist somewhere. They existed somewhere, in some form, historically. I'm not sure what form. But, you see, it's an interesting question. Kannon manifests. in any form, you know, sometimes as a prostitute, sometimes as a bartender, or a taxi driver, or a minister, or a statesman, or, you know, without calling himself Khanon.

[42:06]

This is... So if you try to pin Avalokiteshvara down to one thing, you can't do it. If you try to pin it down to one thing, that means that you're thinking of something that existed. But how Avalokiteśvara exists is by not having any particular existence. But it's just always being called forth from emptiness. So, you can say, kannan has no beginning or end, just endless dimensions.

[43:24]

With endless dimensions, then, is it correct to say that compassion should never, ever be withheld from anyone or anything? I mean, I'm aware there are different kinds of compassion, there's wrathful compassion, there's generous compassion, but is it ever appropriate to withhold compassion from any person or event? I hesitate to say never about anything. I would never say never about anything. I think that what is necessary is to do the appropriate thing.

[44:33]

And we don't always know what that is beforehand. So if you have some rule, and you always try to stick to it, you're creating a kind of prison and inflexibility. So I would say that sometimes it's appropriate to withhold it. I don't know when. Don't ask me when. It's like saying, should we never tell a lie? Sometimes you have to tell an untruth. Don't ask me when, but you'll know when. When the time comes, when the situation arises.

[45:39]

But, you know, withholding is not withholding. to withhold compassion is compassion itself. So you get your cake and eat it too.

[46:03]

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