I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. This morning, I want to talk about the fifth prajnaparamita, which is called dhyana. This word dhyana is a Sanskrit word which has the counterpart of the Pali term jhana, J-H-A-N-A. And in Pali terms, jhana referred to a specific meditation practice, a sequence of practices called the four dhyanas of the form realm.

[01:21]

and the four jhanas of the formless realm. And those jhanic practices were derived from yogic practices in India in the day of Buddha, time of Buddha, in early pre-Christian times. They formed a... Buddha and the Arhats used those practices and developed a strictly Buddhist type of meditation out of that until we have today what we call Zazen. Jhana became Dhyana in Sanskrit,

[02:22]

and then it became Channa in China. And when Buddhism came to Japan, Channa was transliterated into Zen, Zenna. So, Zen is a kind of short form of Zenna, and Chan is a short form of Channa, which means Dhyana, which means jhana. So the jhanas of the Theravada school do have, form the basis of our Buddhist approach to meditation. But those steps, those eight steps, or two sets of four steps, are not strictly followed. and you can read them, you can study those.

[03:26]

In most meditation texts, or texts, Buddhist texts that deal with meditation, you can see what those steps are. Ron talked about them in his talk on Monday. The sixth patriarch, in China, Huineng, defined dhyana as imperturbability, imperturbable mind. And he equated it with prajna and with samadhi. So when we talk about dhyana, We also have to talk about prajna and we also have to talk about samadhi. So when we talk about dhyana as a paramita, it's prajnaparamita of dhyana.

[04:37]

Dhyana is prajnaparamita. A meditation which is not concerned with Prajna is not the concern of Buddhism. So in Buddhist meditation, or dhyana, it must be the dhyana of prajna. And prajna is very difficult to define, but for our purposes we can say that prajna is the expression of the essence of mind.

[05:46]

or Buddha nature, what the Sixth Patriarch calls essence of mind, and what Dogen and other people call Buddha nature. And Buddha nature, of course, is what we call true nature. So the purpose of dhyana or purpose of meditation is to reach or bring us to where we can realize our true nature. Why we meditate is to gain access to our fundamental self. And Samadhi is what the Sixth Patriarch calls the quintessence of Prajna.

[06:57]

And he says, it's like a light, a lamp and it's light. Samadhi is like the lamp and prajna is the light and without samadhi you can't talk about prajna and without prajna you can't talk about samadhi and dhyana is the access So we call it zazen. We call our meditation zazen. The access to essence of mind, or access to prajna, true mind, or true being, fundamental being. And when prajna arises,

[08:02]

in our essence of mind, we call it samadhi. So, zazen, dhyana, is the zazen of prajna. And when we sit, we sit in samadhi. And this samadhi, you can recognize samadhi when you feel very close to things, when you feel very close to the objects around you, or people, or your own feelings, your own self. you can recognize samadhi.

[09:09]

When we sit session, we can easily recognize samadhi. But in our activity, daily activity, we don't recognize samadhi so easily. And we don't recognize dhyana so easily. or prajna so easily. It takes a lot of astute practice to know that. But prajna arises in all activity. It's the essence of all of our activity. how we maintain dhyana, or meditation, in all of our activities, so that we're constantly in samadhi, is how we should practice, what we should be practicing toward.

[10:23]

So our training is how to do something very simply, how to be completely involved in some very simple activity so that we can become aware of these factors. And zazen is like taking a magnifying glass and looking. When we sit in zazen, it's like the sea becomes very calm. And if the sea is very calm, we can see all the way down to the bottom. That's zazen. When the sea is very calm, we can see all the way down to the bottom. And with dhyana as imperturbable mind, when the waves come on the top of the sea, on the top of the water,

[11:52]

even though there's a lot of choppiness, we can still see down to the bottom because we don't mistake the waves. We don't get pushed around by the waves. So, as our mind becomes more and more clear in zazen, we actually become less disturbed by pain in our legs or some problem in our mind. So without ignoring something, you know, without ignoring our activity or without ignoring what's happening, without ignoring pleasant or unpleasant circumstances, we're always secure or based in the samadhi of imperturbable mind, which is what we call Buddha nature, true nature.

[13:15]

And when we step out into activity, this is our meditation practice, how to maintain that same imperturbable mind through all activities. When some circumstance causes anger to arise in your mind, it doesn't disturb your essence of mind. Even though you may have some agitation on the surface of your mind, in your deep mind, you still have calm tranquility. So the same goes for any kind of feeling or emotion. fear, jealousy, love, delight.

[14:47]

Both good feelings and bad feelings. Both happy states and unhappy states. Pleasant and unpleasant. Right states and wrong states. No matter what kind of changing state of mind or activity you are engaged with or involved with to be rooted in buddha nature or to be rooted in the samadhi of prajna. Under all circumstances and conditions If you can do this, then you can be said to have some measure of enlightenment. And if you can have that awareness,

[15:56]

in your daily life, that awareness itself and the effort to maintain that awareness will teach you, will become your teacher. That's called practicing Dharma without ceasing. There was a story in the early days of, one of the stories about Buddha's disciples in Buddha's time was about someone who didn't know how to practice.

[17:08]

He was not, his mind was so constituted that he couldn't remember anything. When he'd hear the teaching, He would just go in one ear and come in one ear and go out the other. And he couldn't remember anything. So every time Buddha would say how to practice or what Buddhism was about or what the Dharma was about, this guy would just not be able to do anything, no matter how much he tried. So Buddha asked him, he said, well, look, just walk up and down. and with a broom sweep the grounds. The only kind of practice that you need to do is just sweep the grounds. So he gave him a broom and the guy every day just swept the grounds. But he swept the grounds with such intent, such diligence, just doing the one thing that he could do completely.

[18:15]

And after two weeks he became enlightened. I think this is a true story. This kind of understanding, you know, doesn't depend so much on our knowledge but really depends on sincerity and our willingness and mindfulness and not letting anything stop us.

[19:19]

If you have this kind of attitude, there's no way that anything in the world can stop your practice. Someone may say, well, you know, I'm too busy now, or I have a lot of things to do and so forth before I can practice. But if you understand what practice really is, there's no situation that you can't practice in. And if you think that there is some situation that is outside of practice, that's a misunderstanding of practice. The Sixth Patriarch goes on to say that we shouldn't be caught by attachment to anything. He says non-objectivity is the basis.

[20:32]

And what he means by non-objectivity is when in contact with objects, not to be attached to objects, to be able to have all necessary kind of interaction with objects without being attached to any object. People feel that if they don't have contact with objects, that they won't have any problem. And this was a kind of extreme side of practice that led to a dualistic attitude in Buddhism.

[21:47]

If we don't pick anything up, then we won't have any problem with anything because we won't be mixed up with things. That's a kind of logical way of thinking about things. That's why Buddhism has to go beyond logic. Our logical mind says, well, if we don't do that, if we don't pick things up, then we'll be safe. But there's no safety. That kind of attitude of not dealing with things just leaves us in a state where our mind is dwelling on right and wrong and good and bad, far from prajna. Prajna is essence of mind. Our prajna is like Buddha nature. It's like our total being. total round being. And it's like our body, you know, with a left hand and a right hand.

[22:57]

And if you favor the left hand and try to leave out the right hand, it looks logically okay. But the right hand belongs to the body also. So Buddhist practice is to bring the right hand and the left hand together. One hand, right and wrong, good and bad, up and down, belong to the one body. So we always put our hands in kasho. This means everything. This is the whole essence of our dharma. That's why we're always bowing. We over bow maybe, bow too much. But if you understand what bowing is, you can't bow too much. Our whole life should be one bow.

[24:06]

So this is imperturbable mind. This bow, putting our two palms together, symbolizes imperturbable mind, or dhyana. And sitting up straight in zazen symbolizes imperturbable mind, or dhyana. I say symbolizes, but it's far beyond just a symbol. The point of Buddhism, the point of our practice, the point of sitting zazen or meditating in daily life is to bring together in oneness all the duality, to understand the oneness of our dualistic life. And so how we check ourselves, you know, how aware we are of our activity, to do something with mindfulness.

[25:37]

So mindfulness is the basis of meditation, always. Mindfulness means that we don't do something without being mindful of what we're doing in a sense of connectedness with our essence of mind. That's why Buddha's disciple could just sweep the garden, just sweep the path as a practice. And with complete mindfulness and oneness, with the activity. No separation between the person who's sleeping and the sleeping. When we go out into the world, into activity, and go to work or school or whatever we do, we're putting ourself into a situation

[26:56]

constant discrimination, setting up things as objects against ourself as a subject. And so we have our world, my world, and there's an infinite horizon in 360 degrees around me. And each one of us has that world, my world. and all these spheres intersect each other. Each person's individual sphere intersects every other person's and thing's sphere so that there are countless halos or spheres intersecting constantly. But we say that all these spheres belong to one buddha nature, our expression of one buddha nature.

[28:12]

And then we say all those spheres is myself. So our meditation, dhyana, is to focus on Buddha nature. And when we do one thing completely, it's connected with everything. You know, Gutei's one finger. Whenever someone asked Gutei a question, he raised up one finger. What is this one finger?

[29:22]

It doesn't have to be one finger, it can be one toe, or it can be anything. But how do we see this one finger? One finger, just one finger by itself? So in Kute's expression of one finger, when he holds up one finger, the whole universe comes up with that finger. The finger is independent, so we can call it a finger. But that one finger is the whole universe.

[30:27]

You say, well, I think it's just a finger. So how we meditate, one very good way to meditate in our daily life, to bring Dhyana into our daily life, is to treat everyone as Buddha. When you have some interaction, you treat everyone who you meet as Buddha. then you have to find out who Buddha is and what the oneness of duality is. And you have to deal with all of your feelings and emotions and thoughts. The Sixth Patriarch says, thoughtlessness

[31:37]

is also the basis of meditation. What I mean by thoughtlessness, he says, is when you have a thought not to cling to any idea, not to be attached to any idea that you have, and not to link up your thoughts in a series of past, present, and future. This is a very difficult one, not to link up your thoughts in a series, past, present, and future. If you do that, if you only see time as past, present, and future, this is time moving, things moving in time. But meditation, or dhyana, or zazen, should focus us on just now.

[32:48]

Everything happens just now. All past and future happens just in now, as well as now. Suzuki Roshi always was talking about, don't sacrifice your present life for some idea you have, for some future idea, idea in the future.

[33:57]

Don't ignore the future. We can't ignore the future. And we shouldn't ignore the past. If you ignore the past, you can't really settle on the present. And if you ignore the future, you don't know how to prepare yourself for what's next. But to sacrifice our present life for some idea, as a habit, you know, we never can settle. If we do that, we never can settle on the present. And so our life goes on and on, but we don't meet it. We don't connect with it. We don't express it.

[34:59]

So dhyana, or meditation, is to bring life to life in each moment. It doesn't mean that you don't have some idea of the future, some plan for the future, or build something from the past, but you bring this moment to life. So, essence of mind, you know, is always, or Buddha nature, is described as, usually, as the ocean. And our individual activities are described as the waves and the ocean. This is the usual explanation, the ocean and the waves.

[36:05]

The waves, even though they look independent, are not separate from the ocean. So each wave is an expression of the ocean, the ocean's activity. But deep down, the ocean is very still, very calm. So calm, imperturbable mind. is our basic mind, which is very still, at the bottom of our existence. So when we sit Tsanzin, we express that basic stillness and imperturbability that goes along with that stillness. And when we are familiar with that, or really at one with that, so that we don't lose our essence of mind, then without trying too hard,

[37:56]

Without trying to do something, just by being, we help people. I don't mean that we shouldn't help people anyway, otherwise, but by being connected in that way, Just by that alone, we help people. So it's called Buddha work.

[38:57]

The work that a Buddha does is to be one with Buddha nature and help other people to recognize their own nature and help them as much as possible to do that. So how to have a calm mind and to do everything easily and in time is also part of meditation, part of dhyana or samadhi.

[40:08]

Someone asked Uman, what is samadhi moment after moment? This is a story in the book of records. What is samadhi moment after moment? And Uman said, rice in the bowl, water in the pail. He had those kind of cryptic remarks, you know, famous for his short remarks, short answers. When you eat, you know, during sashimi, the food, the rice in your bowl becomes very ricey, you know. This is really rice. This is really a bowl. This is really eating. And when you see water in the pail, this is really water, this is really a pail.

[41:23]

Some recognition of things as they are. When we have samadhi, things become plain, clear, very clear as to their nature. much more clear. The nature, we recognize that essence of nature which we have ourself, which is not separate from things. And then we learn how to take care of things and how to treat everything. Dogen was very particular about this, how to take care of everything as ourself. And little by little, first we learn to take care of ourself, and then we learn to take care of the things around us. Then we learn to take care of the world.

[42:28]

And this practice starts with ourself and extends infinitely, as far as we can extend it. Do you have any questions? Kurt? I was thinking when you were talking about my red truck and how it's got Buddha nature, when you were talking about the essence of mind and stuff, then when you said that thing about water with the pail and all of the rest, I thought, oh, that's what I was thinking about with the red truck. It has Buddha nature. I was thinking about a car. Does my car have Buddha nature? We usually associate buddha nature with people, strictly speaking, but our buddha nature extends to car and dogs.

[43:37]

Well, is it our Buddha nature that extends to car, or does car come to us? What happens? How do insentient beings preach the Dharma? I'll answer that in a minute. I know that Lars had something to say. I want to see what Iko has to say. I was glad you brought up about the waves and the ocean. It seems like that a lot of times when we come to practice, you have some idea about having to stop the mind to quiet the thoughts and that an imperturbable mind often manifests itself as a busy mind and I think we often get into struggling with that as if somehow we should calm that busy mind but actually that busy mind is an expression of, can be an expression of, but actually always is, an expression of a deep, imperturbable mind.

[45:01]

It's a matter in practice of, I was going to actually ask you, as a question, the difference between repressing thoughts, desires, wishes, and experiencing Yeah. Lars? Could I hear again what you had to say about mindfulness? Attention to... I think I said attention to Awareness? I don't remember exactly what I said. What did I say? Was it the doing what you do, understanding its connection with all things?

[46:08]

You can't understand what you do, the connection of all things with what you do. You can only understand what you do. That's the thing. This is connected with all things. That's the kind of idea you have when you're sweeping the garden. My truck has Buddha nature. How do I express that? With compassion. you know, if you treat everything with compassion. The truck is not a person, but the truck, you know, we invent the truck and we make it a truck. A truck can sit on the street for four billion years without being a truck, but when we have a key and we unlock the door and we put the key into the ignition and we turn it on, then it's a truck.

[47:20]

And we created this truck, even though the truck is there. It's not a truck until we do something, until we activate it as a truck. I said, my car is sitting out there on the street, but it's my idea of a car sitting out on the street. But when I go out and drive it, get it, step into the car and sit down and drive it, then it's more of a car. And something's happening actually. And so what we do with how we interact with things makes things what they are. And this is called creating. We create the universe. Dogen's example is there's a boat. and the man steps into the boat and hoists the sail, turns the rudder. That's what makes the boat.

[48:21]

The man steps into the boat and starts to sail, creates the boat, and the boat is in the man's time and the man is in the boat's time. So that's how we... narrow the gap between subject and object. The things that we use are objects, but when we start to use them, they become subjective. They become part of us. They're objects on a shelf we call dishes. But when we start to use them, they become, we interact with them, and they become, they really become dishes, and we're really What we do with them, they become ourself, makes them ourself. So how to interact with things, how to use them and be used by them.

[49:23]

When we can share ourselves with everything, then we're using and being used by. And that's kind of no subject, no object. or subject and object are interfused. But as Steve said, busy mind is also essence of mind. And to think that we have to still our mind or stop our mind, stop the activity of mind, is not meditation, is not zazen. And if you read the Sixth Patriarch's Sutra, he says very clearly, meditation does not mean to stop the mind and to have some idea of

[50:34]

purity and some idea of no thought, vacuity. Sometimes, you know, Zazen is described as not thinking, no thinking, no thought. But it doesn't really mean to not have thoughts. It means all thought is directed toward the subject. And even though we have busy mind, extraneous thoughts, Zazen is very generous and allows us to have all that.

[51:36]

But what we want to do, you know, is to have our thinking down, refined. Not gross, but refined. So our effort is to more and more to refine our mind and refine our thinking and refine our Samadhi. And so we practice over and over. And when you don't, when you're not watching for it, something wonderful happens. The second part of Steve's question about the difference between, let's see, concentration of your mind and repression.

[52:51]

Yeah, I'm not saying it exactly the way that you want. It's a real subtle kind of point. Well, I think that most people have found that it's better to emphasize turning away and concentrating your mind on what you want to do with it, rather than stomp the things that you don't want to have in it. Sometimes you have to do a little of both. To say, never repress a thought, I think that's too extreme. And to say, always repress your thoughts is too extreme. So mostly, and in Zazen, we talk about just let go of distractions. When you find that you're distracted, just turn away from the distraction and bring your mind back to this, to the subject.

[53:55]

And generally, that's our attitude. Otherwise, we set up a kind of dualistic attitude where we're trying to get rid of something. As soon as you start trying to get rid of something, you're setting up a distinction between desirable and undesirable, and good and bad, and so forth. And not that there aren't desirable and undesirable things, and good things and bad things, but within this particular realm, You don't want to set up dualistic anxieties. So just let go of things and bring them back. And the more you do that, you may do it for a long time, and then at some point they just fall away. But they may never fall away. You have to be prepared for them never falling away.

[55:00]

And it's okay. It's just the way I am. It's just the way things are. Very important. And even though this is all I can do, I'll do it. I was thinking about physical and mental and the relationship, the two of them. You said before that there's some schools of Buddhism that pay more attention to physical and some that pay more attention to mental. But physical and mental are inseparable.

[56:03]

So what I was wondering about is since the mental could do anything it wants to and become a martyr and egoship and toss questions back and forth in duality. And so, in other words, my mind is confusing when I listen to it. But my body always seems truthful, like I never catch it lying at all. And if they're inseparable, how come my body seems truthful and my mind seems like it lies, and how do we express ourselves with our body outside of our posture? Because I can think about Buddhism, but I can center myself better and quicker if I pay attention to my body than if I try solving it with my mind, because I make up a lot of excuses with my mind.

[57:04]

Well, what we call our mind is Very untrustworthy. So your mind also has to have some posture. So you should set your mind upright with your body. And so training of your body is also training of your mind. And in the same way that the thing that makes your body sit upright is your mind. So while your mind is training your body, your body should be training your mind. And so, let your mind follow your body and let your body follow your mind. It's just like putting your palms together.

[58:07]

Thank you.

[58:11]

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