Hi, good morning. My name is Mark, and I'm the newest, if not the youngest, senior student here. And before I begin, I've got to tell you, we're all invited back later this afternoon. We have a couple of members, Jeff and Grace, who are taking Jukai this afternoon. So they've sowed one of these Roxus, and they're making a commitment to take refuge. and the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, to observe the precepts, to put practice at the center of their life. And it's so encouraging and inspiring to us to have these two wonderful people make a decision like that. And I'd also tell you it's a good decision. And the work you've put in today will be auspicious. I hope you enjoy. There's a three o'clock ceremony here.

[01:02]

You can join online, too. And there'll be refreshments afterwards for anyone who comes. You know, I've been hanging out in religion all my life, and you notice there's a couple of stages in our religion. And the first stage, there's this inspiration. around a path of liberation, a door of salvation, a gate of enlightenment. And this enthusiasm, well, here it is. Here's God, here's truth, here's freedom. And in a way, it's all arbitrary and contrived, because God and truth and freedom are everywhere. but we fall asleep in our dream of separation and stress.

[02:05]

And so to help remind each other, we come back and say, it's here. If you're not sure where you can bring your whole self, bring it here. To stand in front of a path of liberation, a door of salvation, a gate of enlightenment, is terrifying because it's a mirror to the infinite. And so, to pass through that mirror, you'd have to let go of every hope and every fear. This is Jesus saying to the disciples, sell all you have and give to the poor. There's no security on this razor's edge. And so then there's a second stage. Not a path of salvation, a door of liberation, a gate of enlightenment, but a painting commemorating some time in the past when people walked a path of salvation or stood before a door of liberation, a gate of enlightenment.

[03:23]

And the community not trembling before a door of liberation or a gate of enlightenment, but curating a set of rare and precious antiques. And that feels as safe as a museum. We're a wealthy tradition here. We maintain two gates. Dharma gates are boundless. If we made no effort, Dharma gates would still be boundless, but... To pass the time together, we maintain two gates. One is the gate of Zazen. We do 18 periods of Zazen a week in this temple. Not a path to liberation, but the expression of liberation itself. The second gate is the Heart Sutra, which we chant.

[04:27]

a dozen times a week in an ordinary week. I'd propose to you though that the Heart Sutra is a little bit hidden as an antique. And I want to take you through a reading of the Heart Sutra that expresses what I mean by that. The Heart Sutra is like a book. It has a front cover, and the front cover is the title, the five Sanskrit words. And that's one face of the sutra. The text is a second face. And then the sutra has a back cover, and that's the mantra. And these are three sides, three faces, that reflect each other. The word maha is translated as great from the title, and it's easy to look past it as rhetoric.

[05:41]

But if we have faith in the tradition of liberating wisdom that began when Shakyamuni was enlightened in Moggaya, has been practiced and developed for a hundred generations by the most sincere and compassionate people. This Maha attests, it's like the burning bush saying to Moses, take off your sandals, you walk on holy ground. The word prajna, it's astonishing. It's the same word as the Greek word prognosis. And in prognosis, over a long period of time, we've taken measurements and we've recorded data.

[06:51]

And we've analyzed the data. And because we've gone through this process, When somebody presents with a set of symptoms, we can pre-know what the course of their illness is. We have a prognosis for how long they're going to live. An astonishing power, a whole civilization, a whole way of life in this one word. Prajna, not... not knowledge before, but before knowledge, a faculty of wisdom, an orientation of consciousness, before understanding, before knowledge, before concepts. Well, how can you even indicate wisdom before concepts? It can seem with the Heart Sutra that we're trying to piece together this subtle philosophy and understand it.

[08:09]

But the treasure of the Heart Sutra is not opened up by understanding what it means. Understanding the Heart Sutra is like holding a jewel up to the light and trying to catch the reflection. We could do that for a long time. Understanding the Heart Sutra is like talking about recipes late into the night and being confused about why we're still hungry. The treasure of the Heart Sutra is not opened by understanding what it means, but by meaning what it says. Paramita, sometimes translated as perfection, but the para in paramita is the same para in the mantra.

[09:17]

Paragate, parasamgate, it's beyond. This wisdom, is before knowledge and beyond wisdom. And so this is a very radical thing. This is not advice. This is not seven habits of mindfulness to keep it together when your country's gone full fascist. This is beyond my experience to validate or confirm. And so I'm invited into a disposition of faith with the Heart Sutra. And it's something that we could just come in and say something radical like this Heart Sutra. It's kind of surprising.

[10:20]

Hridayam I'm going to tell you that the Sanskrit word hridayam and the English word heart share a complex map of meaning. It means the organ. Not a figure or a Valentine's Day metaphor, but a location on our body. It means the seat of emotion. the seat of sincerity, the seat of courage and compassion, all this complex stuff. And it means the most essential or characteristic part. I want to tell you there's no word in Chinese or Japanese like that, so there's a lens into the Heart Sutra that becomes more lucid in our time.

[11:22]

The word sutra traditionally thread, meaning it was written down by Ananda as a saying of the Buddha or in the presence of Shakyamuni Buddha. Our understanding is that this Heart Sutra was written in the second century by someone familiar with Madhyamaka and Sarvastava and Buddhist philosophy. I'm going to tell you that the word sutra is not used to deceive us with borrowed authority, but to include us in the true context of this dialogue between Avalokiteva, the bodhisattva of infinite compassion, and Shariputra, the right-hand student of Shakyamuni Buddha.

[12:28]

This dialogue traditionally took place on Vulture's Peak. Of course, in my mind's eye, I've been to Vulture's Peak. After college, I traveled through India, and I went to Rajgir, which is this rural town in India. In the 80s, actually, some Japanese businessman built a chairlift to the top of Vulture's Peak. And this was a supply-side kind of thing. He built it and endowed it. There weren't more than a handful of people I saw go up at any day, but it rattled up to the top of the hill. And Vulture's Peak, I'm going to tell you, is about the size of Mount Tamalpais. And like Mount Tamalpais, it's the only hill... in the neighborhood, so you kind of have this wraparound, 365-degree view. Like Mount Tamalpais, it's a rock, right?

[13:45]

There is no gift shop on Vulture's Peak, no museum. The only infrastructure was the outline of a building one brick high. a small brass plaque when I was there saying, this is the site of the last building on Vulture's Peak, a Buddhist vihara from 12th to 14th century. Okay, 12th to 14th century, but that's the only flat place in the whole hill. That's the only place where you could sit and gather. And the outline of this building, to me, is about the size of this room here You know, and we were reading about the Lotus Sutra last year. Listen, you know, we talk about the heavenly host of billions of beings, but on the Lotus, on the Vulture's Peak, there's room for about 36 people.

[14:50]

Well, this room is rated for 37. So in my mind's eye, it's a setting somewhat like this one. And the Heart Sutra begins with a one-sentence prologue. Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, when practicing the Prajnaparamita, perceived that all five skandhas in their own being are empty and was saved from all suffering. Oh, this is astonishing because this is the sutra of wisdom. And we have a bodhisattva of perfect wisdom, Manjushri. And who could be surprised if the moment that Manjushri sees the conditions of greed coming together...

[16:06]

his sword of discriminating wisdom comes out and he slices it down before the seed can germinate because he knows from the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha that the fruit of that is suffering. Who can be surprised? At the moment the conditions of hatred come together, the sword comes out and cuts it down before the seed can germinate because he knows that the fruits of hatred is suffering. And who can be surprised when the seeds of indifference come together? Manjushri's sword of discriminating wisdom cuts it down because he knows from the teaching of Dakimuni Buddha that the fruits of that indifference is suffering. And who could be surprised when Manjushri Bodhisattva represents the third noble truth.

[17:09]

The cessation of greed, of hate, of indifference is the cessation of suffering. And he turns and shares his findings before going to nirvana. But that's not who introduces the perfection of wisdom. It's Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. the bodhisattva of infinite compassion, who hears the cries of the world, who sees and meets the ocean of human suffering. All the fear, all the anxiety and worry, all the anger and cruelty, all the despair and loneliness, all the pain. All the terrible pain in the homeless shelters and all the terrible pain among the wealthy.

[18:17]

All the terrible pain in prisons and among the powerful. The pain in Gaza and in Israel. The terrible pain from the centuries of racist violence that marks the history of our country. All of it. She's free from suffering. How is this thinkable? How is this conceivable? We can't even face our own suffering or struggle to do so without complaining, being a victim, blaming, addicting ourselves, numbing ourselves, but she faces this entire catastrophe and is free from suffering. She's practicing deeply the Prajnaparamita.

[19:21]

When it says Prajnaparamita, it means three things. It means this text here, this Heart Sutra. It means the mantra at the end of the sutra. And it means the figure represented by this statue. created by our Dharma sister Rebecca Mayeno some time ago of Prajnaparamita, the mother of the Buddhas, the womb of the Tathagatas. These are three faces, this mantra, this text, and her. Since she's practicing deeply the Prajnaparamita, The mantra may be in the forefront, but it means these two other things at the same time.

[20:25]

There's a line that is missing in our version and appears in the Tibetan version of the Heart Sutra. Avalokiteshvara has this realization. There's some... change in atmospheric pressure. She's illuminated, perhaps. Everybody turns and looks at Avalokiteshvara and is in awe at this transfiguration. And it's Shariputra who breaks the silence. Avalokiteshvara. How does a son or daughter of a noble family practice the perfection of wisdom? And if Shariputra is known as the best student, here it is.

[21:33]

Everyone else is wrapped with fascination at what they see. Shariputra. He says, how can I be accountable? How can I bring this truth that I see into it, into the world? And then second, bless him, even ancient Shariputra included women. He didn't get that wrong. I was a son or daughter of a noble family. And then third, you know, the commentators will all say, when he talks about being a noble family, he doesn't mean aristocracy, he means a good person. Which misses how the aristocracy talk about themselves. Shariputra, the firstborn son of a Brahmin family,

[22:39]

powerful expectations that he was going to continue his family's property and traditions. And he abandoned that. He gave that up and redirected to dedicate his life to kindling the flame of Buddha's dharma. His father doesn't appear in the story, but his mother was upset. Upset at Buddha, upset at Shariputra until he went back and reconciled. But Shariputra's not just telling Avalokiteshvara his identity, he's sharing his wound. How does the son or daughter of a noble family practice the perfection of wisdom? And the rest of the Heart Sutra is Avalokiteshvara's reply to Shariputra.

[23:58]

O Shariputra! O Jeff! O Grace! O Marley! O Carol! O James! O Peter! 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, formations, consciousness. You know, it can seem like this is a vocabulary list and maybe you didn't study the words. These are the five skandhas.

[24:58]

And it's worthwhile to investigate them. It's encouraging to know how long human intelligence has kind of worked all this stuff out. But it's not quite necessary to... study the skandhas or understand all this, however that people have divided up our experience, however angles you want to look at our experience, there's nothing in it that is graspable, that you can cling to, or hold on to. And there's also no one who could grasp or cling or hold on to or hold on. Seeing that truth let go of everything in our experience.

[26:11]

And it's by means of this poverty that Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva is able to see and meet the ocean of human suffering while being free from suffering herself. That seems pretty complete, but, you know, if we were really stubborn about being philosophers, we could say, well, you know, there's nothing in our experience to hold on to, but... Surely that's something. Avalokiteshvara continues. Oh, Shariputra. Oh, Daniel. Shoray. Anna. Oh, Karen. Oh, Linda.

[27:13]

All dharmas are marked with emptiness. They do not appear nor disappear, are not tainted nor pure, do not increase nor decrease. Nothing in our experience to hold on to, to grasp, nothing that can hold on or grasp, nothing also in the whole world that you could cling to or hold on to. And it's by means of this poverty, that Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva is able to see and meet the ocean of human suffering while being free from suffering. Avalokiteshvara continues,

[28:16]

I'm going to offer this not as a philosophical negation, an argument, a philosophical argument, but as an expression of renunciation and dispossession. These are the things Avalokiteshvara renounces or gives up. No form. No feelings. No perceptions. No formations. No consciousness. No eyes. No ears. No nose. No tongue. No body. No mind. No color. No sound. No smell. No taste.

[29:17]

no touch, no object of mind. There's some complexity here, you know, because Avalokiteshvara is undoing both the world and the teachings of the Buddha. But there's no realm of eyes until no realm of mind consciousness. No ignorance and also no extinction of it until no old and age and death and also no extinction of it. And then she continues... to erase the whole Buddhist path. No suffering, first noble truth.

[30:21]

No origination, the first second. No stopping and no path. There's nobody to suffer and no suffering. And Shariputra, who disappointed his mother to seize this opportunity of giving his life to something meaningful, what we've all done here. Even this Buddhadharma, there's nothing, nothing to hold on to, nothing to cling to. Even your dreams are like, oh, you're going to become enlightened. There's no cognition, also no attainment. all this poverty, all this dispossession, so that Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva can see and meet the ocean of human suffering.

[31:39]

With nothing to attain, a Bodhisattva depends on Prajnaparamita. To me, this depending, this one is paramount, this mother of the Buddhas, this womb of the Tathagatas. And it's a mystery because this is a dark place that they've arrived in. This is the darkness of the grave. And it's by some grace, some mystery, that the darkness of the grave is also the darkness of this womb of the Tathagatas. It's a creative place where things are reborn as Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. But it's quite something you have this statue of Buddha and Kuan Yin and Samantabhadra and Manjushri.

[32:46]

They're depending on Prajnaparamita. I don't know, this all seems mysterious to me, like something's hidden. The creative grace of Prajnaparamita continues with the mysterious creation of a mantra. that is Prajnaparamita. And here it comes to a conclusion with this devotional text about the mantra.

[33:47]

It's the great transcendent mantra, the great bright mantra, the utmost mantra, the supreme mantra which is able to relieve all suffering. I don't want to put much weight on any one translation, but these are the same epithets for Buddha and Prajnaparamita because this mantra is Buddha, is Prajnaparamita. So proclaim the Prajnaparamita mantra. Proclaim the mantra that says, It's been my way to practice this mantra about three years now.

[35:02]

I've said it every day. and counted it too. When I last had the opportunity to talk about this last year, I had a habit of counting it 2,000 times a day as a discipline. And I haven't done that in many, many months. It's more, less structured, more casual, but I still do it every day. And I've gone through a lot of, you know, what does this mantra mean? And the mantra means the text, if it has a meaning. But all this is a sign that is signlessness. The text, the mantra, prajnaparamita, are all signs that are signlessness.

[36:04]

They're all concepts pointing to beyond concepts. So if we say the sutra, we are saying the mantra. And if we say this mantra, we're saying the sutra. Now I'm going to bring it to an end there and invite you, if you have any questions or responses, to bring them. Jeff, hi.

[37:25]

Thank you for the talk, Mark. I feel like you talked a lot about form does not differ from emptiness. I wonder if you could speak to emptiness does not differ from form. The ordinary is not different from the sacred. The sacred is not different from the ordinary. And so they're both coming and going. You can't distinguish between them when you've really realized or integrated yourself. Both sides are present. Ross? Good morning, Mark.

[38:37]

Ross? You spoke about antiques at the beginning of your talk, and I'm wondering if you could say something about what is an antique... How long does it take for something to become an antique? And can antiques be useful in our practice? We have powerful emotions about antiques, yes, and a powerful relationship with antiques. An antique is an image of the past. And holding up a fixed image of the past is what we are. doing what our purpose is, that's where the value is in these precious antiques which are back then. So how do we bring these to life in the present? It's just always our challenge, our task or difficulty to

[39:47]

How do you bring those antiques to the present? You have to let go of the past. Thank you. Marley? Hi, Mark. Thank you so much for your talk and your really moment-by-moment, in-depth exploration of this beautiful sutra from so many very down-to-earth angles. I really appreciate your bringing up Shariputra and what's his place in all this?

[40:54]

Because it's easy to see him as just the one who doesn't get it. Sort of the straight man in the comedy routine. As a comment, I'm going to bring up that we, in fact, chant one more bit of the Prajnaparamita every week, the hymn to the perfection of wisdom. Right. I didn't say that. I was going to call her the lovely, the holy, saying the whole world cannot stain her. I mean, it's such a rare key. in our tradition, this devotional expression. And it comes up with her. And it does. And the one thing I'll add is, do you know the speaker of that hymn in the Prajnaparamita in 8,000 Lines? Thank you, I don't. Shariputra. After having had his mind blown by a lot of other explication, that comes out. So... given him his moment.

[41:56]

Thank you for pulling that circle. But anyway, much appreciated. Others have questions. We've got Maria on here. Hi, Maria. Hi, thank you very much. I really, really appreciate you bringing this topic because I remember the first times I was... going to the Sun Center in San Francisco, the first time that I was being there, and I wanted to watch from far, but then they invited me to the town, and I was there doing all these weird things. But then it was like mind-blowing, this, this, no mind, no, no, no, no, no, what? I think I have been in crisis ever since. Like all this changing what I was thinking and so certain of everything.

[43:00]

And wow, it has been really a sutra that has affected me a lot. And I wonder if you can comment also in the last part that is still when we say it again, it still makes me like, what? At the end, it falls into this And it's true, it's not false. So would you tell us a little bit about that? Thank you so much. All of these epithets of the mantra are epithets of Prajnaparamita and Buddha. So it's picking up this other tradition of praise, of devotional language, and applying it to this mantra because the mantra is Buddha. The mantra is Prajnaparamita. And I tried to offer a reading where I didn't try and put too much weight on any one particular word or translation and tried to get kind of a softer picture of this is a moment where they're coaching us in devotion towards this practice.

[44:12]

Another word that we can also, I don't know, put into dialogue or doubt? Doubt. Well, we're undoing concepts. We're so... Doubt is still in the dialogue of concepts. You're moving through doubt as a way of dissolving all concepts and coming back to them in a way that is free. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mark, for your very lucid talk.

[45:20]

There's a lot of power and compassion and wisdom, so thank you for pointing at that so well. Quick question, or not quick. I was struck by you saying that you, at one point, less so now, more casually now, but you said at one point you were practicing the mantra up to 2,000 times per day. I think I caught that in your talk. And I'm very curious about how that showed up for you. Like, is it psychological? Is it ritual? Or is it just verbally saying that mantra? Because I did the math. That's quite a bit every hour. It's a couple hours. And I could do it all walking or all waiting for anything. I mean, I just fit it into my day. And then I stepped back from having that standard. If I were to talk about Zazen, I could not also tell you about these deep experiences of absorption or quiet.

[46:34]

It seems really rather even tedious. I'm just going through the motions of both Zazen and the mantra. And still, I can say with confidence, oh, you know, this habit I have of Zazen, this habit I have of the mantra, it does help me, you know, set down my neurosis more quickly. It has a healing effect that I can't quite tell about you in any moment, but I have this sense of the power of the habit in my life. Yeah, expanding the mind and heart. That's kind of what the expansive. Thank you for your talk. Thank you all for being here, Sangha. James?

[47:34]

Thank you, Mark. That was a beautiful journey that we took with you. I really appreciate the way you walk this very purposefully and clearly through the Heart Sutra. My question is about bodies. I really felt your talk was very embodied, and of course the Heart Sutra is a little bit about bodies. And I'm going to leave that just as a very open question. Could you talk a little bit about the body and the sutra? Well, form is not different from emptiness. And that has such a huge... Form is wealth and security. Form is health and comfort, our body. So, pleasure. So those five positive things we're kind of looking for. Wealth and security and pleasure and comfort and health. None of that...

[48:40]

is the answer. None of that can be held onto. None of that will make us happy. And so we let go of those things. Not that we reject them or push them away, but we know that's not the path. And so when we chant or sit, which we refer to as a bodily practice, what is our stance with regard to that embodiment? Well, for me, it's thinking, feeling, and body, these three things, these three dimensions. More than the five skandhas, there's thinking, feeling, and sensing. And so this...

[49:42]

lifelong challenge of how do we find balance among those three. We're all 95% in our head and searching for the other two pieces. That's why embodied practice is our way and not just thinking, not just philosophy, but we're trying to integrate it all the way down to our toes. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Mark.

[50:46]

Can you hear me? I can, yeah. What breaks your heart open? Does it not seem open? Are you sure it's not open? Well, you said during your talk, it almost sounded like, you know, a little, I don't know whether to call it lighthearted or dark comedy. Something about what happens when your country goes full fascist. What breaks your heart in this embodiment right now? Well, maybe I need to let my heart be broken more and I protect it.

[51:47]

Of course, we all do. And I tune out things that might be too dangerous to my heart, news that is too upsetting. What's the danger? The terrible suffering and confusion that people are lost in. What about you? I'm lost in it too. Thank you.

[52:15]

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