This afternoon I want to talk a little bit further about the heart sutra. I have no idea about getting to the end of the sutra. Just talking about it some more. So I will read up to where I was last time, just to get us into the sutra. It says, Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, when practicing deeply the Prajnaparamita, perceive that all five skandhas in their own being are empty and must save from all suffering. O Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness. Emptiness does not differ from form. That which is form is emptiness.

[01:02]

That which is emptiness, form. The same is true of feelings, conceptions, formations, consciousness. O Shariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness. They do not appear nor disappear, are not tainted nor pure, do not increase nor decrease. I didn't talk about that last part, about they do not appear nor disappear, are not tainted nor pure, do not increase nor decrease. So I explained a little bit about emptiness. Actually, we can't really... Emptiness is inconceivable, but we have to find some words to talk about it. So one way of talking about it is as interdependence. since no, what the sutra is saying is that since no thing, no created thing has its own being, has its own inherent existence,

[02:29]

it's dependent on everything else for its existence. So there is no real thing in itself. I always enjoy Thich Nhat Hanh's way of talking about emptiness. or interdependence, or how a thing is myself, how something that looks like an object is actually myself, is not apart from myself. So usually our way of seeing is to set ourself up against the world, ourself as a subject against the world as a number of objects. and to relate to everything, to things as objects, from the point of view of our subjectivity.

[03:35]

But emptiness, in emptiness, everything is ourself. So he'll, if we, Catherine asked about this post yesterday, she said, I think it was yesterday, she said, how do you see that post as yourself? Thich Nhat Hanh would describe it as, this post was once called a tree. And he would say that this post is made up of non-post elements. We call this a post, but what this post is made of is non-post elements. This postal is once a tree, and the tree is nourished by the ground, is part of the air.

[04:49]

In order for the tree to grow, there's oxygen and water in air, and in order for the water to come to the tree, there has to be clouds and air and oxygen and all of the elements within the earth and the atmosphere in order to produce this post. But each one of us is produced in the same way. Mostly we're water. If you analyze the human being, we're human being is mostly water, like the tree, like a tree trunk holds thousands of gallons of water. So all of the elements and causes and conditions that make up this post, what we call this post,

[05:56]

are elements which you don't see in the post. But if you look at the post, and if you really see into the post, you can see the clouds, and the water, and the air, and the earth, and countless contributing causes which make this a post. And yet, we just call this a post. It's not really a post. It's just called a post, A, and this is called a beam. But it's just our idea. So, in our mind, we give form to things, and we differentiate this from that. But this form is actually empty, has no own being. It's a product of many, many causes and conditions.

[07:02]

And it doesn't stand by itself, even though it's contributing to holding up this so-called building in which these so-called people are so-called sitting. So, all of us are made up of non-human elements. All of us humans are also made of non-human elements, in the same way the post is made of non-post elements. But if you look at each one of us, and very closely, all those elements are there. So, this interdependence of all things, From the point of view of emptiness, everything belongs to everything else, and is equal. Everything is equal to everything else. This is a horizontal level. Everything is equal. On a vertical level, everything is different.

[08:09]

If we only look at the differences, then we have the world of comparison, or the world of value, So we give everything a value, depending on how it's useful in the world of comparison. But in the realm of emptiness, everything has equal value. And we can realize everything as our true self. Our true self is the realm of equality. So the Sutra says form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. The realm of comparison, or the realm of form, is an expression of emptiness.

[09:18]

So there's some value to comparison. We would rather eat an orange than a mouse. Not all of them, but mostly. We make some distinction between things. And in order to live our life, we have to always make some kind of comparison, and we're always making decisions. We get a little bit lost when our decisions are only based on evaluation. And we lose sight of the true world of equality or emptiness. And the sutras are always talking about five skandhas.

[10:23]

form, feelings, conceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. And these mental formations, or these five skandhas, are a kind of covering of our true self. They represent an individualization of our true self. And they're a kind of covering for our true empty self and make it difficult to see things as they really are. Because when each one is singled out, we think that we exist independently. are pretty hard to see things as they are because of our partiality.

[11:25]

We become very partial. We become partial to ourself, and then we discriminate between right and wrong, good and bad, and make value judgments on everything. And then we judge everything according to these values that we place on it. So some people we think are really wonderful, and other people we think are terrible. that actually everyone's equal. But it's very hard to see that. Even if you're a very highly evolved being, it's very hard to see that. You still like some people and don't like some people. But even if you don't like them, it doesn't mean that you necessarily value them any less. Everyone has their likes and dislikes, but our likes and dislikes are not necessarily a platform for judging, for judging absolute value of things.

[12:36]

It's just a standard that we set for ourselves, based on our partiality. So it's pretty hard to see things as they really are and to live in accordance with So our life is always a little bit mixed, always a little mixed. And even though we may want to see things as they are, or act in accordance with reality, our ego is very strong, and our sense of self is very strong. And no matter how enlightened we are, it's still pretty hard to act in accordance always with reality. Because our ego, our skanda self, always wants some kind of preference.

[13:37]

So, the biggest hindrance for us is our self-centeredness. The biggest hindrance for human being is self-centeredness. It's also our self-consciousness in which we realize that we're a person and it allows us to think. That's a wonderful human quality. But our most wonderful human quality is also our worst quality. Our best quality is also our worst quality at the same time. Because what gives us our ability to be a true human being, our consciousness as a human, also allows us to destroy each other when it's turned a little bit.

[14:43]

It's pretty hard to maintain to live always in our reality. So the sutra says, all dharmas are marked with emptiness. I talked about that yesterday. Dharmas, in the wide sense, means all things. that in the realm of comparison, all things that can be compared are marked with emptiness. The mark means that's their true mark, is that they don't exist independently. Nothing exists independently. The mark of something means it's characteristic. So the mark of water is wetness, and the mark of fire is heat.

[15:54]

So everything has its characteristic mark, but here it says, the characteristic mark of everything is emptiness. That's the one characteristic mark that everything shares. And it's like, each one of us has a name, but, or everything you can name, and everything has a characteristic. But whatever you point at, point to, you can say, that's it. You can also say it for everything. But yet, everything has an individual name. So what everything shares is it. It is shared, is a name for everything. And you can talk about anything in the realm of it and point to any particularity as it, but it is Mary and Joe and the post, and the floor and the ceiling.

[17:08]

So it is emptiness or reality or the characteristic that everything shares and yet everything is individual and has a name and a certain characteristic, which is unique to each thing. But each thing doesn't have its own individual being, but is always changing and depends on everything else for its existence. So this is form is emptiness and emptiness is form. That which is form is emptiness, that which is emptiness form. Then it says, all these dharmas are marked with emptiness. They do not appear and disappear. It looks like things appear and disappear. Things do seem to appear and disappear. One moment something is appearing and the next it's disappearing, not appearing.

[18:14]

But that which appears, if it were real, If it had any substantial reality, it would not disappear. So something is appearing and disappearing. But that which appears and disappears only has momentary reality. And there's nothing that can be grasped. Even though we seem to grasp after something, if you look at our life. We're always grasping after something. We're always reaching for something. If there was something that we could really grasp, we wouldn't have to reach. But we're always reaching. Always moving, looking, reaching. If you look at birds, they're always going like this with the ground, you know. And you say, oh, look at those birds, you know. They eat three times their weight every day in order to stay alive.

[19:16]

It's true. Most birds eat three times their weight every day in order to stay alive. So they're out pecking. And that's their life, you know, pecking. But if you look at our life, it's not so different. We're always pecking in some other way. Always reaching for something, looking for something, going somewhere. The birds, they're flying around here. We're always roaming around. And it's really hard to sit still. When you sit inside, then you realize how hard it is to just sit still. Because we're always needing something. We need to move, or we need to eat, or we need to sleep, or we need something. Always needing. Because we don't have anything substantial. And so we have to find the meaning of our existence on each moment. Each moment we have to find the meaning of our existence by doing something. And if we sit down somewhere, then we have to start talking to each other because something has to happen.

[20:32]

We have to make something happen. We have to find some meaningful excuse for our existence in each moment. Which is okay, you know, human life. But it's, birds' life is always The dormant says, with emptiness, are marked with emptiness. They do not appear nor disappear, are not tainted nor pure. The real life, our real life is not a life of appearing and disappearing. Only on the surface do things seem to appear and disappear. Our real life, It doesn't come or go.

[21:33]

It doesn't come from some place or go some place. We're very much bound up with the idea of time and coming and going. We just take for granted that time passes without thinking much about it. in a painting or when you're working, when you're doing something in which you're really involved, you don't have the feeling of the passing of time. There's just the activity itself, which has a timeless quality to it. When you're sitting in Zazen and not waiting for the bell to ring, at one with this activity, there's no sense of time, just existence.

[22:43]

But time exists. Time, everything is time. When everything is completely time, there's no sense of time. But when we're out of time, we're not completely one with time, then we can say, that's one o'clock, that's two o'clock. by, because we're standing outside and time becomes an object. So when we're just one, just separate from time, then time is us and we are time and No special time, but it's the time of now. So now is always here. We're always now.

[23:46]

But we speak of past, present, and future. And if things are coming this way, then we experience them and then they go. Kind of like as if they were movement this way or that way. But things just appear in time. Everything appears all at once together. on any one moment. And moment after moment, everything is appearing together on each moment, and differently. This moment, everything has just appeared differently than the last moment, even though it looks a little bit the same. Everything's changed a little bit. So, everything is changing altogether. It's old now, but we think about it in different ways, in strange ways, funny ways. And then the sutra says, the dharmas, which are marked with emptiness, are not tainted nor pure.

[25:01]

We're always dividing things up into tainted or pure. which again is our value system. We say that pure water flows from the mountains, and then as it gets down near the ocean, by the time it gets near the ocean, it's pretty tainted. And sometimes you drink tainted water, you die. always pure. No matter how tainted the water is, if you take out the elements, the impurities, then water itself is always pure. So, basically, water is always pure.

[26:02]

And our lives are always this purity of our life is always present, but it gets covered over with various coverings that obscure the purity of our life, basic reality of our life. But even though we may feel like scum at some point in our life, life is made impure in an absolute way. So impurity is part of purity. Impurity is part of... Impurity and purity are really the same thing.

[27:08]

But then, again, when we divide, we say, oh, this is impure and this is pure. The pure is to be found within what's impure, and the impure is to be found within what's pure. I can understand why we consider non-duality is important, but when I think of the way we are in everyday life, duality is very important. Discrimination is very important. We have to have, I think, we create and use dualities to get things done, just to survive.

[28:31]

So why is it important to understand or appreciate that duality? The realm of duality is our life. The point is, what is our dualistic life based on? What is it based on? Yeah, what do we base our dualistic life on? What is the basis of our dualistic life? Well, the fact that our existence is limited, for one. Or we believe it to be limited. That we need limits in order to define who we are. So we have to put some kind of limitation on our life in order to find our life.

[29:40]

This globe is not made up of rooms and not made up of kitchens and bedrooms and workplaces and so forth. But we make those compartments. We create compartments in our life, in our mind. in order to give order to our life so that we can have some definition. If there was nothing, it would be pretty hard. Although some people do live nowhere, a particular place, and eat lizards as they walk along. But most human beings need to compartmentalize their life in order to find some definition. So we discriminate and compartmentalize the world in our mind. That's necessary, but if we lose sight of our undivided life, then that's what we call duality. So we're always dividing up the world in a dualistic way, but that duality should be based on the understanding of oneness.

[30:56]

If the duality is not based on the understanding of oneness, then it's just duality becomes divisiveness. Duality is expression of oneness. Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. It's not that I'm trying to make something up. It's just we have to get down to looking at how things really are. That's what the sutra's about. It's saying, look at how things really are. Not, this is the way I'd like them to be. Or, this is just some idea. If you look at the way things really are, you have to look at them this way. Well, you can use those as metaphors.

[32:05]

Or space and object. Or figure of ground. You can't have one without the other. That's right, you can't have one without the other. In order to have objects, you have to have a ground for objects. But the ground and the objects are not two different things. That's the point. If we make a painting, it's easy to think of the buildings or the mountain as an object against space. But the shape of the sky is also a shape that is as much a shape as the buildings are a shape. So there's no background as background is itself. a shape. And there are many analogies. One analogy is you have an empty screen, and then you project a movie onto the screen.

[33:13]

Before the movie is projected onto the screen, you see the screen as a screen. But when the movie is projected onto the screen, you don't see the screen anymore. All you see is the movie. but the movie doesn't exist without the screen. So most of the time we're looking at our movie and we don't take into account the screen or the ground of emptiness upon which everything is moving or taking its shape. So that's a pretty good analogy. Empty space. Space has several meanings. One is we look at the sky and we say that's empty space, or empty. But that's not really empty because sky is a substance. But the other way of thinking about empty is just space that things fit into. So the value of this kind of study or investigation

[34:23]

helps us to realize our selfishness or self-centeredness. That's the most valuable thing about this thing. It's to realize that when we help others or take care of what's around us, we're taking care of ourself. The best way to take care of ourself is to take care of what's around us. And so, that's the basis of our practice. It's very simple, actually. Not complicated, but pretty difficult. Would you say something about two uses of the teen at the very end of the Heart Sutra? There's nothing to attain if there's no teen. The end of the Sutra, Um, it says, um, it's, you know, we went through the nos.

[35:45]

The moos? The moo nose. Moo, yeah. Moo consciousness, moo eyes, moo ears, moo nose, moo tongue, moo body, moo mind, moo color, moo sound, moo smell, moo's taste, moo's touch, moo object, and so forth. Um, and, uh, until no old age and death, and also no extinction of it, no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path. This refers to the Four Noble Truths. This language is so condensed that you don't recognize the thing, the objects that it's talking about, or the subjects that the sutra is talking about. no origination, no stopping, no path, no cognition. And also, no attainment. With nothing to attain, the bodhisattvas depend on prajnaparamita, and the mind is no hindrance.

[36:53]

Attainment, you know, in Buddhism, the goal of Buddhism is to attain enlightenment, or But strictly speaking, that attainment is a non-attainment. If you try to attain or run after enlightenment or nirvana, you can't catch it because it's not a thing. So it's like the eyes. your eyes will never see your eyes. Your eyes will never see themselves. When you look in the mirror, what you see in the mirror is a reflection of your eyes. So, we know what our eyes look like, but the eyes never can see the eyes. So, in this way, if we want to attain enlightenment, enlightenment is like

[38:08]

The eyes can't see the eyes. It's not a thing that you can grasp. You can do it, you can be it, but you can't see it. So attaining enlightenment is letting go of self-consciousness and being one with everything. realizing your empty nature. But that's not an attainment. It's a non-attainment. It's the attainment of letting go. So it brings you... It's not something you go out and get. It's something that... It's like just being completely right here, in absolute sense. So your path, and you may have to take this long, devious path, but you end up right here.

[39:20]

And the hardest place to be is right where you are. The hardest thing to do is to sit still and zazen. But, you know, that has certain connotations too. You speak of, let me go on, self-consciousness, but it occurs to me that the same analogy of the eye not being able to see itself is sometimes an image for the impossibility of, we could say, of a complete self-consciousness as such. Well, self-consciousness, there are two ways to look at self-consciousness. There's the self-consciousness, which, if you're walking a tightrope, and you suddenly say, geez, you know, I'm walking this tightrope, then you have to start all over again, and you have no confidence, because you're conscious of ego.

[40:26]

But there's the other self-consciousness, which is the consciousness that everything is myself, and so you feel settled. because you're not outside of things. Where you are is your home. You feel okay, even if things are not so nice and nice. And that's the release? Yeah. Okay. Conscious. Yeah, conscious. Different than conscious. Self-conscious is is feeling your individuality without connection. That's the self-consciousness of separation. But the self-consciousness of belonging or just being is like a wide path. So that wherever you are, you don't lose yourself.

[41:40]

Because you've already lost yourself. States of mind are constantly changing.

[42:50]

But what about the consciousness of them changing? Awareness. Yeah, okay, awareness. Awareness of constantly changing states of mind is awareness. And that doesn't change? Well, our awareness, we may or may not be aware of our changing states of mind. Okay. But the most constant A conscious state is no special conscious state, because states of mind are constantly changing. And if we try to maintain a certain state of mind, or say, a certain state of mind is enlightenment or something, then you're already trying to create something that you can hold on to. that you can hold on to. There's no state of mind that you can hold on to. You can keep renewing states of mind, or creating new states of mind consciously.

[43:57]

But that's moment after moment. You have to recreate that, even though it looks like you're holding something. So we have to make a decision all the time. So, sometimes our states of mind are voluntary, sometimes they're involuntary. So when you see this as in... So, states of mind are constantly changing, and we're constantly making an effort to maintain a certain state of mind. But whatever our state of mind is at any one moment is our state of mind. And to be able to to go with each state of mind without grasping it or rejecting it is emptiness. To be able to flow, to let states of mind appear, allow life to live itself

[45:07]

But we also participate in life, and we create states of mind. But there's not a special state of mind, which is the It state of mind. And when we... Emptiness has no special shape or form. I was saying that. But it's not a thing. It's not a thing. No thing. And everything. But if we say that the five standards of my self, that's too limited.

[46:22]

So true self is no special self, but is that no is yes. No self means whole self. No special self means whole self, complete, entire self. So our life is the life of the universe. Universe is just a word, right? Our life is. But five skandhas gets a little bit fearful. What about my consciousness? What about my awareness, my conscious awareness? That's why conscious awareness is a little bit limited stop thinking and we stop attaching to thought and stop attaching to desire, then we can go beyond consciousness and realize the depth of our life.

[47:44]

But as long as we're stuck in thinking and desire, we hold on to that and we don't want to lose it. that it is going to affect my state of mind, but what you just said about there is no special state of mind, that makes sense too, I'm not sure. Yeah, right. That's right. In other words, you know, when we sit zazen, we feel that we should have a certain state of mind. It should be clear and we should be focused. But what actually happens is all kinds of thoughts come to your mind, and you lose your concentration. And you think, well, that's not something. But actually, what's happening right at that moment is the important thing, not the ideal that we have.

[48:49]

What's really important is how we're living our life moment by moment, and not missing that moment of life. We like to feel that the good moments of our life is the best part, and the worst moments of our life is not worth living sometimes, but actually it's all equal. So, any moment of our life, the worst moment of our life is equal to the best moment. This is what I mean by no special state of mind, not clinging to any special state of mind. then it's much easier to live our life within the reality that actually exists, because our life is not always one way or another, even though we make some effort to make it one way or another.

[49:53]

We want to level all the roads. But actually, if we level our mind, we don't have to level all the roads. In the Suryadama Sutra, there's a story of a bodhisattva who, kalpas ago, heard about this ancient Buddha who was coming. And this guy's job was to level roads. Actually, he's a road maker. So he said, well, I'm going to meet this Buddha and make the road level for him. So when the Buddha was coming, he got up there and was digging away at the road, trying to make it smooth and level for him. And I can't remember.

[50:54]

I'm paraphrasing a lot. When he finally met the Buddha, he told the Buddha what he was doing. And the Buddha said, never mind leveling the road. Just level your mind. So, a little while ago we were talking about not meeting some arising with rejection or grasping. Don't we also have to meet those arisings of grasping and rejection at the same level? Well, you know, we can make a decision. Something comes by. and we taste it.

[51:56]

And we can either swallow it or spit it out. We make those decisions. Suzuki Roshi used to talk about the frog sitting on the rock and the fly goes by. The frog just sitting there without moving. Once in a while, the fly goes by. And then as soon as the fly gets here, the tongue goes, The frog, just very patient, not chasing, and not condemning. Just, if it tastes okay, eat it. If it doesn't taste okay, let it go.

[52:58]

Why is it that if the mantra at the end of the sutra is utmost and transcendent and supreme, etc., that we don't use it? It's not a mantra that's... At the end of the sutra, the mantra says, Why don't we use that as a mantra? Instead of all this other chanting that we do, for example, I mean... Well, how can we eat carrots and peas as well as potatoes? But we don't say that... Well, I mean, it seems to make such a big deal out of this particular mantra at the end. But the mantra is how you conduct your everyday life.

[54:37]

The mantra is not some words that you say to yourself. The mantra is how you conduct your everyday life from moment to moment. Your life is a mantra. The way you walk, the way you talk, the way you eat, the way you interact, is the mantra of this sutra. So the sutra as a whole, the idea of the sutra is... The sutra is a koan. And the mantra is its expression in your life. Even these words, gattei, gattei, look, this is the great mantra. It's referring to your life. Wow. I took it literally. That's good. Sometimes I'll ask somebody, somebody says, I have a lot of trouble doing something. I say, well, just recite this mantra sometimes. That's our mantra, really.

[55:38]

Not just some words, but how we move, our pattern of life.

[55:44]

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