I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. So this is the third day of Seshin, and we're beginning to get into it. Actually, it's been quite smooth, Seshin. When I came to Cixin the first morning, I had wondered about my knee. For the last couple of weeks, my knee was kind of painful, and then my thigh was kind of painful.

[01:06]

and, you know, kind of sore and up into my butt and then my lower back. And I was wondering what was happening. And when I would sit, I would be very stiff to getting up, you know, and walking for a little bit. But, you know, when Sashin came, I was wondering how that would work out. But I didn't think any further than that. And as I began to sit, during the day it became less and less till it was totally gone. Usually we have the opposite. That's very interesting. And then yesterday was the same thing, like the first period was somewhere like that, but then as the day went on it just disappeared and became very, you know, no trace at all.

[02:15]

And this morning it was a little more sore, you know. That's kind of interesting. I usually don't dwell on this kind of problem. It's always been my attitude that this is just something that's happening now. And I don't think, well, I don't think what will happen to me or will I ever be able to walk. I just kind of go through it. This is what's happening now. It's exactly Zazen. This is what's happening now. That's all. Then the next moment, this is what's happening now. So that's always carried me through. That's why I've always had this very deep faith in practice and in Zazen, that whatever is happening, it's only happening now.

[03:25]

If I can carry it into the future, and I can make a future out of it. We're self-creating persons. According to Buddha Dharma, we are self-creating. There's nothing fixed. So we create our present and we create our future. And we can create it in various ways. It may be that at some point my leg will fall off or you know who knows but then that's what will happen at that time. But I have to say that we do create our suffering. When something comes up the way we deal with it or respond to it makes all the difference in how it manifests or how it manifests in the future.

[04:43]

One of the hindrances is called worry and flurry. of worrying something, you know. You can worry something and create something out of what we worry about, how we approach it, how we worry it, or how we flurry it, how we fan it, you know, make it into something. So as we sit through Sashin, through seven days of Zazen, we're going to have various difficulties. We may have the same difficulty all the way through. But the difficulty itself can help us.

[05:50]

Because when there's something there, that looks like a painful problem, we can either expand to include it or close down to try to avoid it or try to fight it or try to push it around in some way. But really the only way to deal with it is to totally open to it. This is Prajnaparamita. It's the Heart Sutra. If you have an opposite, you have a problem. The problem comes when we have pain because we want pleasure. We want the other side. As soon as you want the other side,

[06:54]

What you have becomes a problem. So the second noble truth is desire is the problem. Wanting what you don't have and not wanting what you do have, that's the problem. So that's why Zazen is the great teacher. It teaches us the middle way. Middle way means the way beyond opposites, not getting caught by duality of opposites. That's why we talk about it as non-dualistic, not clinging to good or bad, right or wrong, like or dislike, want, not want. We have to transcend or synthesize the opposites

[07:57]

So, within pain, there's pleasure. Within pleasure, there's pain. If we only want the pleasure and not the pain, then what we end up with is the pain. It doesn't work the other way though. It does. It ends up only the pleasure. Then the pleasure becomes the pain. If you only have the pleasure, you can't stand it. You end up with the pain, because the pleasure turns into pain. As soon as we get ourselves as comfortable as possible, it's wonderful. And then, a little while later, what's comfortable becomes uncomfortable. So middle way, just don't create a duality.

[09:06]

That's what we mean by non-discriminating. Discrimination is to cut into pieces. To discriminate is to divide. So non-discrimination means not to divide. When there's pain, there's total pain. And when there's total pain, and no opposite, then it's no longer pain. It's only pain when there's the idea of pleasure. So it becomes something else, some sensation. It's this sensation. And when you can open, totally open to it, this sensation, it's not good or bad. and you can accept a lot. So this is a practice of non-duality, a practice of oneness of duality and non-duality.

[10:23]

And neither Non-duality nor duality. Anyway. I talked about the prologue to the sutra, which was the stage setting where through Buddha's manipulation, Avalokiteśvara is explaining how to course and how to practice And then Avalokiteshvara talks to Shariputra.

[11:37]

Well, then Avalokiteshvara is practicing the Prajnaparamita and seeing that all the five skandhas in their own being are empty and were saved from suffering because he saw the emptiness the five skandhas. Emptiness in this case meaning the non-duality of the skandhas. And we save from suffering without falling into one side or the other. So and then he talks to Shariputra. Oh Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness. That which form is emptiness, and that which is emptiness form. The same are true of our feelings, our perceptions, our mental formations, and our consciousness. And then yesterday, I started with, O Shariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness.

[12:42]

I talked about that, that the mark of all dharmas is emptiness. And a mark means a characteristic, the main characteristic. of all things is emptiness. As I explained before, after Shakyamuni passed on, the monks, the tendency the understanding of the monks was, excuse me, dualistic, became very dualistic. And so people like Nagarjuna and the Prajnaparamita Sutras created the second

[13:49]

Shakyamuni's teaching back to the understanding of non-duality. So this is, it's not exactly a criticism of, it looks, you know, people say, well, the Heart Sutra is a criticism of the Hinayana understanding. of dualistic understanding, correction of the dualistic understanding, which is so easy to fall into. I mean, that's the easiest thing, is to fall into understanding things in a dualistic way, because we live in a dualistic world. It's like we're in this dualistic hole, and we see things from this discriminating point of view. So for people who see things only from a discriminating point of view, Shakyamuni or Buddha emphasizes emptiness or non-duality.

[15:09]

For people who fall into the view of oneness, he emphasizes duality, brings the teaching of duality. and for people who can understand the oneness of duality and the duality of oneness, he brings forth the Prajnaparamita, the middle way. So it's easy to fall into emptiness, without realizing that one is everything. In other words, to simply dwell in non-doing. The middle way understanding of non-doing is

[16:19]

that non-doing is within our most intense activity. This is the understanding of the oneness of duality. So it's so easy to fall into one side or another. That's why it's like walking the edge of a knife blade If you can walk without falling into one side or the other, you're saved. No falling into one side or the other. So, O Shariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness. The true form of all things is no special form. They do not appear nor disappear. we talked about that yesterday, are not tainted nor pure.

[17:22]

So this is where we start the day. All dharmas are not tainted nor pure. So in all religious practices, purity is the most important thing, to have pure practice, to have a pure way of life, and to let go of defilements. to not accumulate defilements. But this is a dualistic way of understanding. The meaning of purity, according to Prajnaparamita, is non-duality. Purity means non-duality. In Suzuki Roshi's introduction to Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, he said, the main thing about practice, what makes practice so difficult is not the pain in your legs or getting up early in the morning or whatever it is, but maintaining pure practice.

[18:47]

Pure practice means the practice of not duality, not falling into duality. That's the hardest thing to maintain. So, pure and impure. We think of, water as being pure. And when it's muddy, we think of it as being defiled. And in a mundane sense, that's very true. You know, all this garbage, all the chemicals are going into the water and defiling it. Pretty soon, we won't have any pure water. I think that's a fact. that it won't be long before we have no pure water.

[19:52]

And if you want to take that further, the water is being controlled. All the water in the world is being controlled by the corporations. And you're going to have to pay dearly for it. In Stockton, California, The mayor and the board sold the water rights to a private corporation. They had a big, you know, it was a big deal. So there's no more public water. And the water bills are gonna go. The news, anyway, that's not what I wanted to talk about. But water actually is pure, even though it's defiled. Water is always pure, even though it's defiled.

[20:57]

Water goes through a system, even though it rains down acid and so forth. Water is not pure or defiled, actually. Pure and defiled, we have viewpoints about what is pure and what is defiled. So when we are pure or impure, actually it's simply a matter of perception. When we eat They're pure food, but when we throw the garbage away, they become stinky and impure. But that's only from our point of view. From the point of view of the maggots, it's wonderful stuff.

[22:07]

They couldn't think of anything more pure than garbage. So garbage, the purity of garbage goes back into the ground and becomes food for the plants. And the energy comes up through the plants and produces food for humans, called apples and oranges. And then it becomes stinky and impure, so to speak. So what is purity and impurity? And from a certain point of view, for a certain reason, we use those terms. But those terms are actually quite empty. They're empty of their own nature. They have no own nature. We only assign a meaning to them.

[23:11]

everything in the universe, everything in the world is eating everything else. All objects are fair game as food. So it's all pure, and at the same time it's all impure, and at the same time it's neither pure nor impure, and at the same time it's both pure and impure. So the sixth ancestor says, there are those who are always looking for the form of purity. Don't do that. The pure is within the impure. We have to find the purity within the impurity. We have to find the pure aspect of life within our defilements. So to try and get rid of one side in order to have the other doesn't work.

[24:28]

It works, but it's not complete. So we want to have pure practice, but we're always doing something that's not doesn't come up to that standard, so to speak. But if we know how to purify, to realize that all of our activity is sacred activity within practice, and to pay attention to the details of our life, then we can include the pure and the impure in a larger purity, more encompassing purity.

[25:45]

It's like, If a teacher likes good students and rejects the bad students he doesn't like, then that's kind of selective. You want the good people. But you have to have the good people and the bad people. And within each good person is something bad, and within each bad person is something good. So there's no way of judging what's good or bad. work with everybody equally, because there's no pure or impure. And even though somebody does something bad, it's only bad in comparison to something good. So, bodhisattva doesn't enter nirvana until all beings are saved.

[26:49]

Entering nirvana would mean the cessation of all suffering. So we enter the impurity of the world and that creates pure practice. So then the sutra starts talking about the form of emptiness. Therefore, in emptiness, there is no form, no feelings, no perceptions, no impulses. This is an old translation, no mental formations.

[27:51]

no consciousness, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind. This refers to, well, first, no form, no feelings. First, he's talking about the five skandhas. In emptiness, there is no form. no feelings, no perceptions, no impulses, and no consciousness. So I'll talk about that first. This is where the no's start. The Heart Sutra, from my point of view, is the koan of mu. The no is mu. Mu. Mu again, k, no, ko, mu, [...] right? Mu is the koan. And when we say no, when the sutra says no form, no feelings, no perceptions, no mental formation, it's saying there is no this.

[29:07]

So this is yes, no is no, and this is yes. Feelings is an affirmation. Perceptions is an affirmation, and so forth. And no is a negation. So no is negating the affirmation. So there is an affirmation. If you say no no's, you have to say, well, the no no's that you're talking about is the no's that's there. Right? Sometimes it's neither yes nor no. It's both yes and no.

[30:09]

And it's not yes and it's not no. And it's yes and no. Nagarjuna's four propositions. So, the koan mu, you know, if you say, if you think that the koan mu is no, the koan mu, yeah, it is no. Does the dog have the Buddha nature? Mu, no, or wu is what he said. because he was Chinese. But that's a dualistic. If you see it as a dualistic, in a dualistic way, then you say, Moo, the dog has no buddha nature. Joshu said the dog has no buddha nature.

[31:13]

Don't dogs have buddha nature? It has nothing to do with the dog. It's about non-duality. Another time, the monk asked Joshu, does a dog have Buddha nature? He said, of course. That's another dualistic way of thinking. But the dog has Buddha nature, but it's a no Buddha nature. The dog has no Buddha nature. no is not the same no as the dualistic no, which is the opposite of yes. Within no is yes, within yes is no. If you say no form, no feelings, you have to include the forms and the feelings because the reality is that there is a no, there is a form, there are feelings

[32:16]

because they're felt. You have to be careful about language here, because I feel them is the mundane way of speaking about feeling. The emptiness way of talking about feeling is there are feelings in this body. There is a feeling in this body. There is a thought in this mind. But as soon as you say I, you've created a person. You've created a self. So when we speak of self, it means that imputed container. that we feel is my self. It's a computer container.

[33:19]

We need a container. We need something to bind it all together, you know, in our mind. My this and my that. But it's just our idea about it. But it's necessary. So if we say there's no self, well, it means there's a self. And if you say there's a self, it means there's no self. So there's neither a self nor a not-self. And there is both a self and not a self. And there's just a self and just a not-self. You have to see it in all those ways in order to understand it. There's an interesting passage Sometimes the Buddha speaks of self. Other times they speak of no self. All phenomena are in reality neither self nor no self.

[34:23]

So when we need to talk about a self, we talk about self. When we need to talk about no self, we talk about no self. But in reality, there's neither a self nor not a self. That's the koan of Mu. This is what we used as the title for Suzuki Roshi's book, Not Always So, because yes, sort of. Yeah, kind of. Fuzzy logic. Well, yeah. Well, no. Depends on what you want to emphasize. Because it's neither. It's the same way with birth and death. If you talk about birth, you also have to include death.

[35:35]

Is it death? Well, yeah. It also has to go to the other side. So, it's very interesting. Thich Nhat Hanh was talking about a branch. If you have a branch, and you want to, the branch has a left side and a right side. And if you want to cut off part of the branch, On the right side, you cut it down, but it still has the right side. And then you cut it again, and it still has the right side. And you cut the left side, and it still has the left side, even though you cut it down. Just a new left side or a new right side. So you can't get rid of the opposite, no matter what you try to do, unless you see both sides as one piece, or the oneness of both sides.

[36:40]

The branch is the oneness of both sides. So no form, no feelings, no perceptions, no impulses. You can't cut them off. But yet they have no self nature. They're empty. And their emptiness is their fullness. And their fullness is their emptiness. So all dharmas are empty in their own being, means that the emptiness is their nature. So Sutra goes on to say, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, Ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind are internal sense organs.

[37:52]

Color, sound, smell, taste, touch, object of mind are external sense organs. Well, are the functions of the sense organs. realm of eyes until no realm of mind consciousness are the outer objects of the senses and consciousness. So you probably know all this, but when the eye sees something, the eye is simply a mechanism for seeing. and it sees something at a distance, which is an object. In order to cognize the object, there has to be consciousness. So, eye consciousness cognizes the object that is transmitted through the organ called the eye.

[39:05]

So we have six eyes, six organs of sense, includes mind and six objects or objects of the six senses and the consciousness. If one of them is missing there's no cognition. So this is a process of divided elements. Consciousness has a seat somewhere in the dividing point between the inside and the outside, so to speak, and the object is outside. So it's all working with stuff that's at a distance. We don't touch those things, but through these vibrations we create a world of sense, and we understand the world of sense through our

[40:10]

And we agree on what we decide, so that we all have the same understanding. And it comes pretty close. People from other parts of the world understand things differently and the same, but often very differently. And we want everybody to understand everything the way we understand it. It's very interesting. So we want to conquer these people so they can understand everything the way we understand it, and then we can sell them all our junk. and have them be our slaves. But it's a process. The eye is empty, consciousness is empty, and the object is empty of its own being. So we say, I see you, which is this complex of activities, uncountable activities that are moving so quickly that we see it all as one activity.

[41:21]

I see you. But there's all this stuff going on, all this mechanism going on that creates this image, and then we create the idea about it. So we may look at something and think that we all see the same thing, In some way we do, but we all see something a little different as well. You look at Van Gogh's painting and we say, that's how Van Gogh saw the world. That's not the way I see the world. But we have different visions, you know, and then we get used to the painting and we identify with it because we can identify with, but we have to kind of learn to identify with things that other people identify with. We don't always do that. So we create our ideas about things and our understanding is very limited.

[42:24]

Limited because of limitations of sense, cognition, and consciousness, and how we interpret interpretation. So, you know, science is wonderful and it deals with certain aspects of our life which are, you know, important and revealing, but it's still limited according to our idea about the world and the structure of the universe. But the nice thing about science is that it's always careful. Scientists are always careful about their conclusions and know that their conclusions are not always complete.

[43:33]

Our practice is based on intuition. And intuition is accurate, but sometimes off. So that's why intuition is kind of suspect in a way and needs to be proven. So our intuition needs to be proven and Buddha says, you should prove it. You should not just, you know, faith in Buddhism means confidence, which means that whatever it is that you have faith in or confidence, should be examined, and should be examined so that you don't make mistakes. Because intuition means, faith comes from intuition, and it means touching directly without the intermediary of discrimination, necessarily. Without the intermediary of discriminating thought, you directly know something. But that knowledge has to be proven.

[44:37]

So no eyes, no ears. An eye is only an eye when it's functioning with other cooperating causes, cooperating functionaries. There's no such thing really. There is an organ of the eye but it's only an eye when it sees. The boat is only a boat when it sails. There's the potential of a boat called a boat, but through its function it becomes a boat. So the I, through its function, becomes an I. So the I is dependent on consciousness, and it's dependent on an object. And consciousness is dependent on the I, and dependent on the object. is dependent on our understanding of it.

[45:55]

Otherwise, it's just what it is. But we name it, we create something out of it. That is not a pillar. It's not a pillar. It didn't come from a tree. It's just what it is. But I call it a pillar. And I cut it down a bit, kit-kit-dizzy. Brought it down here. We put it up. We call it a pillar. We call this a house. It's just a name. I don't know what it is, to tell you the truth. So no realm of eyes until no realm of mind consciousness. Realm is like a world of know, our understanding. The realm of eyes is the realm in which seeing occurs and hearing occurs and feeling occurs and mind consciousness reaches to.

[47:07]

So, Danny talks about no ignorance and no tomorrow because that's the 12-fold chain of causation which is more than five minutes worth. So if you have a few questions, one or two. Yes, Joel. Yeah, okay. The mundane truth is that the water is defiled. And so, you know, we should stop that defilement. We should, you know, reinstate the super fund for cleaning up, you know, it's outrageous.

[48:19]

you know, things that allow that to happen. We should work really hard to do that, you know, to stop the defilements, because in a dualistic, in the mundane sense, it's defilement. In an overarching sense, there's no purity or defilement. Well, water also becomes purified through its process, right? But except that, the contamination is so great that it doesn't get really processed. So we have to see this in a larger sense, right? It doesn't mean that there's no purity or impurity in mundane sense. There is purity and impurity in a mundane sense.

[49:20]

Well, at the opposite of impurity. To purify something, you know, like you have a water purifier on your, well you have a water purifier and you purify the water. But, you know, purity would be that there is no defilement in the water, right? But if you look at water, there's no water that's really pure anyway. There may be a pure water, but nothing can live in it. So we say in order for fish to live, they have to live in, they can't live in pure water. But we can drink pure water and it's good. But these are similes or metaphors for something. the problems of contaminations we can take up some place, but... Well, I mean, how would we respond to it? Because a lot of the responses we come up with seem to be pretty dualistic.

[50:31]

I mean, we say, you're that corporation. Oh, yes. Well, that's right. So, yes. That doesn't seem to work very well. No. And the more you attack somebody, the more resistance they have. So that's a problem. And yet, how do you work with the opposite in order to bring some understanding? So the understanding is not, you know, they know that the contamination is happening, they're making it happen. They know that. So what I think we have to bring to them is the understanding that greed doesn't help you. Greed is and carelessness, and indifference, indifference.

[51:55]

Yeah, yeah. Well, but somebody has to understand that what they're doing is harmful to themselves. But they have to understand. What they're doing is harmful to themselves, and to their children, and to their family, and to, you know. And how do we begin to try to bring that understanding to them? Well, meet them. Meet them and talk to them. If they would see you. Who knows? Talk. Talk. Yeah, so Nature Conservancy is a good example.

[53:08]

So if you want, you know, the more that people can support these organizations that are actually trying to do that, you'd be, you know, good idea. So even though there's no purity or defilement, we have to protect the earth from defilement. I agree. Yeah. So everything's a co-op.

[54:00]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ