I want to stress that it's important to study the text in between the classes, because if you do that, you become familiar with it. It's too long for me to study the whole text, so I have to do it in pieces. And you fill in the pieces yourself. I mean, you fill in what I'm not seeing, because you've read the text. So it's a little bit of a... My preference would be to just read the whole text from beginning to end, but there's no way I can do that in this length of time, because one thing leads to another. So I have to select the various things I talk about in the text.

[01:03]

So given that, we'll continue. Does anybody have any questions from leftover or rediscovered or discovered during the week that you would like to ask about what we've studied last time or what we're going to study? You don't have to look for stuff. It's just something that has come up for you. Oh, is it on? You want to turn up the sound? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, what? Sorry. What? I'm not getting a good horse. Man, I hope I'm not being a dead horse. You might be. Because sometimes dead horses come to life.

[02:08]

There's three horses and then there's the smallest and then the really slow. Last week, you said that emptiness has no characteristics. There are no special identifiable characteristics that you can point to and say this is emptiness. This is what emptiness is. What kind of characteristic would not be special? That's form.

[03:17]

Various forms have no O-V, no inherent existence. So you're talking about forms. You're not talking about emptiness. Even though form is emptiness and emptiness is form, we talk about them separately in order to discuss it. It's beyond anything. If it was not beyond anything, then it wouldn't be emptiness. If it was not beyond anything, we wouldn't have to... the world would close in on us. ones in emptiness and something other than form?

[04:26]

There is only form. Okay. Show me something that's not form. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, but nothing is form. All forms are without form. What about an idea? Ideas are just... They don't have form? No. Ideas are form, but they have no basis. They have no substantial basis. So, form includes conceptual forms? Conceptual form is simply conceptual form. Here is a little book called The Heart Sutra, Ancient Buddhist Wisdom in the Light of Quantum Reality. Well, it's good. In the light of quantum reality, by a man named Musong Sunim, who was a And it's all about that. It's all about quantum mechanics. There's nothing, when you get down to it, as you keep looking for the, what is it called in Japanese?

[05:39]

Gokumi is the smallest thing. But the Gokumi still isn't a thing. And so the more you keep dividing, the more you keep looking for the basic thing, the more it keeps dividing into others, and there's no end to that. Because everything is empty, meaningless. the smallest thing is still dependent. So we talk about those forms which seem to be non-dependent, but they are dependent.

[06:52]

The phenomenal manifestations of the mystical void, like the subatomic particles, are now coming into being vanishing in one ceaseless dance of movement and energy. Like the subatomic world of the physicist, the phenomenal world of the Eastern mystic is a world of samsara, of continuous birth and death, or no birth and death, being transient manifestations of the void. The things in this world do not have any fundamental philosophy which denies the existence of any material substance and also holds that the idea of a constant self undergoing successive experiences is an illusion." So, I don't want to go there.

[08:10]

We went there. But that's kind of a... not characteristics but meanings according to how you view it. So basically you can get some understanding by realizing And that's the permanent thing. So actually, emptiness is permanent, even though that's a mistake to say. It's impermanent because it's always changing. Because its manifestations are always changing.

[09:14]

I think a good book is... I take Matt Hodden's little book called The Heart of Understanding. Short. So, I wanted us to study from the tiger's cave. Now, the preamble to the tiger's cave is If you want the tiger's cub, you have to go into the tiger's cave. That's the secret of practice. The tiger is there watching the cub. You have to put some effort into it, and dare to do the practice.

[10:24]

So, in Chapter 1, the meaning of the title. And I'm assuming you read that. But he says some interesting things. We're not going to get too far here tonight, but the main thing to grasp is the formula, a form is emptiness, emptiness Before that, the sutra says, Avalokiteshvara is of course sitting in the course of Prajnaparamita and he looks perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.

[11:40]

Everyone should know this. I want us in unison to say, the five skandhas are Who doesn't remember what Prajna is? It's okay, you should raise your hand if you don't, because... Good, thank you. I need an excuse to say, we say wisdom, but it's wisdom which is different than our usual kind of wisdom. It's the wisdom of emptiness.

[12:45]

Thich Nhat Hanh says, we usually use the word wisdom, but then we have an idea of what wisdom might be. So he says understanding might be a better term, because we don't know what understanding is. And so there's always more and more to understand. And maha means great. Pragya means, in Maha, Pragya means by the knowledge of ultimate emptiness, to make all things emptiness. Through the power of great wisdom, which makes absolutely everything emptiness, and across over to the other shore, which is Pragya Paramita. The other shore means liberation. This shore means being bound. So if you think about our life, we're in a kind of bondage.

[14:03]

You want to die? No. No you don't. So we're bound to this shore. That's bondage. You don't realize. You want to be free? Everybody wants to be free. This is the land of the free, the home of the brave. But we don't want that. So, do we really want to be on the other shore? Maybe. But what is the other shore? It's freedom. Freedom from bondage. So, Thaiso Eka, who was Bodhidharma's disciple, came to Bodhidharma and he said, I really feel that my mind is bound.

[15:09]

I feel captivated by my mind. And Bodhidharma said, well, show me your mind. So what our mind advises us is called, basically called, our ego, our self. So the sutra is about Although this is how we feel, it doesn't really mean that that's what we really are.

[16:17]

So we build all of our castles on the basis of this self which is unstable and has no actual foundation other than an apparent foundation. we try to make our lives stable, it's always going like this. Although we count on certain things, we can't really count on things. Because even though we have made some successes, they're just temporary. And so it's really difficult to count on. That's the way it goes.

[17:29]

And the reason why this can happen is because everything is empty. Without emptiness, nothing works. So emptiness is what makes everything work. So he says, when it is said to make everything emptiness, what is meant is human life, our actual life in society, with our crying and our laughing, our elation and our sorrow. In Buddhism, this life is called the world of birth and death. Buddhism is the desire to make this world emptiness and to live as far as may be possible our ideas and our hopes and our whatever, which are based on shifting sands. To seek to do that, is to become like that, and to, I'm sorry, to seek to do that, to become like that, is the manifestation in the heart of the power of wisdom, the power of the knowledge of ultimate emptiness.

[18:50]

Yes? this kind of language has a danger in it, that it has a kind of coolness to it, that suggests that we shouldn't hold anything dear or devotional, and I think it's talking about not holding it in your personal heart as something that you're attached to, but to hold everything equally, with equal... That's true, and he brings that up. It's not like he's talking about, as a matter of fact, he puts that, he says there are three, in the sutra, he talks about the three animals, the hare, the horse and the elephant. And he talks about them in relationship to the Shravaka, So the hare just kind of skips over life, you know, bang, bang, bing, bing, bing, without... I mean, this is metaphorical.

[19:58]

It's nothing about the hare. We're not criticizing the hare. The horse swims halfway in the water and halfway out of the water when it goes across the stream. The elephant goes all the way down to the bottom. of the river, stream. And so the elephant is the Bodhisattva. The hair is a symbol of taking life as the body.

[21:04]

Such thinking is always escapist. It is the psychology of the shirker. The shallowest view of life is to consider it something which can be evaded. To think that one can escape by moving from here to there. In other words, changing your equipment. I don't like this. I'm going to go over there. and you keep changing and changing to looking for the right thing and you never get deep enough to really find yourself because you're always hopping around from one thing to another. This was a kind of criticism in the 60s and 70s of people who are hopping and of course when from all these different traditions.

[22:08]

So this is a superficial attitude. He says, I have my own role in life, which may be a coolie or a cleaner. My allotted part was that of a priest. Each has his own. To be a religious is also a role. And I sometimes wonder whether the role of a religious person is not rather an unworthy one. So, look at that. Among religious people, I am of no account. But even so, I always seem to be getting pushed into things by flattery. All the time, one is being flattered. No one but you need a reverence. Please, may we have a few words from you? One gets caught, and there's nothing for it but to of being pushed into things. Oh, to find some way to give it up and retire, buried snugly in a temple in the country. He's talking about himself.

[23:10]

Such thoughts may come, and yet those who refuse to follow the flatteries, they are aquatrellos too. The fact is that everyone does act at the instigation of others. Even such a great person as Psycho was flattered by others into doing things. And to follow the flattery and try to do what they want is all right, In any case, however flattered, we don't escape our role in life. Sometimes I think about the Indian tradition, the untouchables, and the merchants, and the warriors, and the upper classes, and their so-called karma. to find yourself where you are.

[24:12]

That's the hardest part, and that's called practice. So to switch from role A to B, from B to C to D, in the hope of peace and happiness, is an attitude of evading responsibility. Not liking the life of a priest, let me have a go at business. And if I don't like that, I can try a government job. So I try to get out of my obligations. The one thing I don't want to do is my allotted role. Evasion and responsibility is the most shallow attitude of life. And so that's the rabbit. The second attitude is typified by the horse. Here the idea is to reduce life to a void, which is what you were talking about. to emptiness, whereas the first attitude was to run away from life, from the responsibilities and inconvenience of family and so on, the second attitude goes somewhat deeper. They think that if this unsatisfactory human life can be reduced to emptiness, it can be done away with and got rid of altogether.

[25:20]

In Buddhism, this is called the way of the second vehicle. Those who practice the Inayana, or the small vehicle called the together emptiness, and nirvana is the state of literal annihilation. Not to be born again, not to come back to this world, to annihilate the individual completely. A literal annihilation of body and mind is the state of nirvana. The second attitude to life is that the sorrows and joy of life The third is the bodhisattva view, evasion and escapism with the attitudes of the ordinary person who always wants to get out of their allotted role in the world. They think that if they can get out of the present condition, there will be satisfaction just over there.

[26:23]

But the third view of life is to find the meaning in this life. Nirvana state. Escapism is the first attitude. The second is to think that emptiness means neither to weep nor smile, nor do anything at all, but life is not like that. We set ourselves not to weep, but life brings us toward tears. rising to life. I was so appreciative of my teacher, because when I was first learning to do Zazen, I had terrible pain all the time.

[27:26]

Really hard pain. A lot of people just kind of float through it, but I was one of those people. The teacher just said, don't move. I had to penetrate deeply into that heart of pain and suffering in order to come out the other end. So. So then he's talking about not leaving a trace, not leaving any traces, but how we actually practice emptiness within form.

[29:13]

When we exhale, form is emptiness. When we inhale, emptiness is form. We exhale and let go of everything. We inhale and take up everything. Inspiration, expiration. Life, death is in one breath. So we talk about how many lives have you lived? Well, if you count from the day, from the moment you appeared in this world, and how many breaths you have been taking every day. Can you count how many breaths you take every day and then you multiply that by the number weeks and months and years.

[30:31]

There's countless breaths, countless lives that we've lived in this particular sphere. One taking up and letting go is one lifetime. We experience in many different ways. We think of our life existence in many different ways. Birth, youth, middle age, old age, and death. And we think that is one lifetime, but we live millions of lifetimes in one span of that particular lifetime. Not only that, those are just moments. within each moment, our lifetimes.

[31:35]

There's a Buddhist technical counting, I don't know how to count this, but there's so many instances in an instant, so many micro-instances in an instant, and I'm sure there are some, just they're hard to count. Somebody could probably count them, So what do we mean by birth and death and life in every single existence? Every single existence depends on every other single existence, even though all existences are coming together and coming apart. So in a sense you might think of each There's the ocean, and then there's the movement. And each one is a kind of whirlpool.

[32:38]

And in the whirlpool, you know what? Alibaba and the 40 thieves. He rubs the lamp. I think that's Alibaba and the 40 thieves. Yeah. And a genie comes out of the bottle. And it's a little wisp. And then he turns into a genie. We're kind of like that. as we are, because we all have genes. He says, consider our life... I know I have to do that. Consider our life with its crying and laughing. There is in each case a trace left.

[33:41]

Of crying, it's a trace of crying. And of laughing, a trace of laughter. Our living leaves these traces. What I emphasize always is that even when it is laughter, we should laugh with a truly empty heart. But we never do so. Cold today. This is like the way we greet each other. When we greet each other, we have these euphemisms. Cold today. And we'll, how are you? Remarks which have no point. poured out like oil and accompanied with a little laugh. No real laughter of pure enjoyment, because even in our laughter the heart does not become empty of its burdens. The thing called the eye is in the breast and the laughter is centered around that eye. It is laughing because things seem well to the eye and the crying is of the same sort. With each step the track is left. In this way of life is the world of birth and death, the life of illusion, The tracks left by joy or grief are footmarks.

[34:44]

In religious terms, Zen master Dogen calls them the heavy burden of ignorance, the root of evil. Though I die, the roots of the evil I have created are not annihilated. When he calls it a load, he means that all the time in our progress through life, there is a great burden which is more than we can really bear, and shouldering it, we are drenched in sweat until finally our human life ends. we long somehow to put it down, by some means to lighten ourselves with a weight of perceptual thinking. But to do so, we have to be earnest seekers. If we are not, there's no religion. The quest for inner lightness, to be able to cry, but with an emptiness within the heart, to laugh, but with the same emptiness. So we say, when laughing, just totally laugh. You know people, I know people, They smile, but it's not a complete smile. They laugh, but it's not a complete laugh.

[35:48]

They're sad, but it's not a complete sadness. So in Zen we say, when laughing, the whole body laughs. When crying, the whole body cries. When sadness, the whole body is sad. The whole body lying. But then it's gone. And then something else is there. This is called letting go into emptiness. To not hold on to something. To do something totally and completely and not hold on to anything. If we do something totally, whatever we do, totally and completely, then the next activity is totally complete. And the next activity is totally complete. And so we're always entering and letting go. up from one breath, living one breath at a time, living one feeling at a time, one emotion at a time, even though we have mixed feelings and mixed emotions.

[36:54]

So we always have that freedom. So the letting go is moment-to-moment. So we don't get carried burdened under the... Shakyamuni said, lay down the burden. That was his thinking, lay down the burden. So it's hard to lay down the burden. This is what Zazen is about.

[38:03]

It's about letting go moment by moment. Not getting caught by right and wrong, like and dislike, good and bad. It's just now this feeling, now this feeling, moment by moment, one breath at a time. Not holding anything. All the thoughts come. Emotions come, feelings come, and they just come and go. They just come and go. And you may think, well, where's the life? Well, because you're letting them go, the life is there. The life appears when you let go. Yes? A poignant example from Suzuki Roshi that I read, when he was diagnosed with cancer, he said one of the students, I have a new name. It's cancer. Well, that's right.

[39:12]

He just accepted that. I agree with what you're saying. I think for some emotions and feelings, it's going to take longer. It's obvious, but it's not always stated that it's not just a matter of letting go, letting go, letting go. Well, it is. I'll tell you why. moment by moment your emotion is renewed. We think it's continuous. The feeling is that it's continuous, just like everything else, but it's renewed moment by moment. But that doesn't mean that we just easily let something go, right? That's true. Sometimes emotions are so important to us, and feelings, that we can't let them go.

[40:14]

That's true, of course. But if you practice letting go all the time, then when those emotions and feelings come, you'll know how to handle them better. Sometimes people say, you know, can you tell me how I can control my anger? I get very angry all the time. How can I control my anger? I can sell you how you control your anger, but that doesn't mean you can control your anger. You have to practice dealing with your anger. When you can practice, so if someone asks me that question, I have to say, just practice with it. Practice with it all the time. Letting, you know, not being attached or caught by it. I agree, but I think there are cases where Some people need more than Zazen to work out.

[41:19]

So we just need to have that state of mind. Yes, sometimes nothing helps. That's true. So when I'm talking about an attitude, I'm not talking about what always works. I'm not talking about something that will fix you every time. I'm talking about an attitude that you have. And when you have this attitude, Yes. You spoke once about that one of the ways that you practice letting go is to make more space within. Yes. Can you speak more about that? Yes. You know, when something happens and it causes an emotion or a feeling, we have a reaction or we have a response.

[42:21]

Reaction means that you don't have space. The reaction fills the space, whereas when you step back, you have the ability to have a response which gives you the space and then you can make a decision. So, that's what I mean by letting go. Letting go means you have the reaction, the reaction comes up and fills the space, but instead of sticking to the reaction, you step back. Stepping back is always the safest place. And then, that's not escaping, it's holding the feeling with space so that you can make rather than reaction.

[43:28]

Reason rather than reaction. Does that make sense? That's the space. That gives you space. And it's called letting go, actually. Because reaction has you. Some reactions are important and necessary. But basically, reaction is a hook. And if you unhook yourself, you can step back and have space. I'd like to say a word about mindfulness. Yes. Right in what you're talking about is also paying attention. Yes. Simply paying attention. Yes. And letting what you're paying attention to guide you, if you're really paying attention, which is different than a kind of knee-jerk reaction.

[44:35]

But if you're caught, paying attention to being caught is paying attention to that in itself. So the mindfulness is important in either case. So mindfulness is, oh yes, I'm caught. And then you can step back. But that takes practice. Unless we practice it all the time, when it comes up, you don't think of it. Because so much, we're caught by reaction. So in this chapter, he says, to sum up, we are to pass We are to pass over to the nirvana state, which leaves no track. By the power of the ultimate emptiness of the prajnaparamita wisdom, the way to do it is set out in the Heart Sutra.

[45:41]

The practice is to cross to the world of nirvana by the power of wisdom and to train the heart to do it. To train the heart to do it is what the Heart Sutra teaches. So that's the message of the sutra, is to train the heart to do this. So, it's like, Heart Sutra is a practice. It's telling us how to practice and what to practice in order to have our freedom. To pass over, you know, it looks like there's a river, and on this side is samsara, and that half is nirvana. But actually, samsara and nirvana are one thing. rather than the duality. That's the trick. That's the practice. Yes? So, you mentioned negating. What does it mean by that? No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no color, no sound.

[46:46]

Negating means to see the true form. So, the true form of the The true form of the I is emptiness. There is this form, which is form. Form is form. Emptiness is emptiness. But form, this form, is emptiness. Emptiness is this form. So negating means to see the other side, to realize the side of emptiness. as well as the side of form. When we realize the emptiness of all things, then we can appreciate the forms. So it's the sense of form, no form, rather than a sense of denial. Right. It's not denial. It's the true form.

[47:47]

And of course Ron will say... But you said there was no... Well, it's the denial of the concept. Denial? Well, yes, it's a manner of speaking. It's a manner of speaking. It's a concept. Yes. But it's also an act. So denial, you know. Denial is not denialism. It's just seeing the true form. So in order to... You know, the Heart Sutra is really the koan of Mu. Mu is when... I've said this over and over.

[48:51]

So she says, Mu. We just said, Wu. That's Chinese. But Mu is Japanese. So we say Mu. Does the dog have Buddha nature? Mu. Means something like no. Something like denial, actually. Does the dog have Buddha nature? No. Denial. And then another monk Of course. So which is it? Yes or no? Yes. Yeah. But yes includes no. Form includes emptiness. Emptiness is form. Form is emptiness. Does the dog have Buddha nature? No. Well, Joshu's no is not the same as the monk's no. I don't know.

[50:01]

So this know is really important word for Zen practice. Mu. Mu eyes, mu ears, mu nose, mu so forth. It's a negative affirmation. It's a negative affirmation. When he was a young boy, a young man, he went to the priest who was his teacher and he said, you know, the Heart Sutra says, no eyes, no ears, no nose, but I have a nose, I have ears, what's he talking about? So this is not a new question. This is the question that all the ancestors dealt with. Yes? I was just going to say, it really cuts to the chase of dualism. You can't have denial without affirmation.

[51:03]

You can't have affirmation without denial. In the world of duality, it's not the same. That's right. So what's hard to grasp is the non-duality of the duality. That's what's hard to grasp. In this context, I thought in another contract's form, it implies emptiness. You know, there's this airplane going, so you have to reach. Form implies emptiness, and emptiness implies form. Is that right? Well, you can say implies, but that's not quite right, because emptiness is form. Form is emptiness. So there's no... implies is a little hedging, because it sounds like they're two things, that one is implying the other. You can say that. I understand what you mean when you Then it's not dual.

[52:03]

So the sutra is saying, is, so that there's no gap. There's no possibility of a gap. It's beyond your thinking. If you say implies, that's thinking. So implies is a kind of dualistic term. That's what I thought, was that it was that form. Is. It's very radical. It leaves no space. Not a hair could get in there. It's another way of saying what Moo was getting at. What you're talking about here is no idea of no's, no idea of It's the diamond sutra, too. No idea of what, whatever. That's right.

[53:05]

So we, you know, the best way is to not say anything. But since we have our thinking minds, and they need to be satisfied in some way, we talk about it. And so in order to talk about it, language is dualistic. That's why Joshua says, move, no. He's saying, he didn't say yes, no, or something like that. But the no includes the yes, and yes includes the no. That's what makes it a koan. Kanze, when he's talking about this, he says, he's a kind of sexist guy, so I don't want He said, it's a woman's answer.

[54:06]

Yes. Don't blame me. I mean, it's both. It's like, yes and no is one thing. Politicians. Yeah, politicians. Yes. So he says. So he says, if we go deeply into the question whether this I is after all really existent, we shall find that it is not. The conviction of an existent I, a superimposition of what is really non-existent, is something imposed. Skanda actually has a meaning of something covering or imposed.

[55:09]

That's one meaning of skanda. The five skandhas are called the five heaps, literally, but it means five streams. The five streams become one whirlpool. And so skandha means something covering. And the eye covers the reality. So, the conviction of an existent I, a super-imposition of what is really non-existent, is called in Buddhism, clinging illusion. Once having taken the non-existent as existent, on top of it we construct the world. this system that's going to last a thousand years.

[56:21]

He said a thousand years. It didn't last that long. On the foundation of a non-existent I, there are laughter and tears, joy and sorrow, and this is the basis of all error. This is hard stuff. So the true form of emptiness is no-form. The true form is no-form. The bodhisattva of freedom realizes the form of no-form in everything. And this bodhisattva realizes the no-form, the principle of ultimate emptiness, particularly in sounds. So he is often called kanan or kanzeyan, namely one who perceives the sound Avalokiteshvara is the one who is talking about all this and is letting us know what Prajnaparamita is. And he listens and hears the sounds of the world. He hears all the cries and the suffering.

[57:24]

And so he is giving this teaching. He said, if you want to understand how all this arises, I'll let you know. It's called the five skandhas in their own being are empty. Emptiness of the forms. So, Kanan Bodhisattva is a being who has emptiness within the heart, whether crying or laughing. On a happy occasion, it is felicitation from the bottom of the heart, but within, it's emptiness. We wretched people don't do that. On the lips are congratulations, but in our heart, curse you. We have no freedom of sound, no spontaneity in our words. Holy Kanan has always emptiness in the heart, whether in joy or sorrow. And so it has freedom of mind. It is the power of ultimate emptiness.

[58:26]

In the negative sense, it is emptiness. But in the positive sense, it means that in our crying or laughing, body and mind are one. It's complete. This is the true spontaneity of speech. when our words are directed to freeing others and freeing ourselves, the grace of Kanan will be in that place. Then he talks about the three animals, which I just did. There's so much wonderful stuff here. So he's talking about... Let me get to... Oh, here's an example. Even those called good are good worlds,

[59:38]

You're talking about good and bad. Good and bad are simply opposites. Sometimes we do good, sometimes we do bad, but we can't always count on it. So the worlds are created and they are self-created. He says, our present state has been raised up by each one of us on the delusion of the mind called and they are self-created. The six worlds are upheld on the delusion that something exists which is not existent. I don't want to go into the six worlds, that take too long, but we are self-creating beings because our karma, our actions, karma means our purposeful, willful actions, create our life.

[60:40]

One step creates the next. And so that's called the wheel, and it's really hard to get off the wheel because we are impelled by our actions to continue our actions, unless we make a big effort to change. We can do that. We can change our karma. That's the main thing about Buddhism that's different, is that we can change our karma. So he says, even though it's called good or good, good are good worlds, but still based on sticking attachment to self. Even though we do some good, it's still sticking attachment to self. Good and bad are alike. Good and bad are alike.

[61:42]

which is based on attachment to selfhood, is a state which still leaves considerable track of impurity. And, of course, evil leaves a great track of impurity. While illusory clinging to self is not completely destroyed, the worlds of illusion, whether good or evil, are upraised on them, thereupon. So that good is not completely good. It is all with the idea of getting something out of it. If I do this, then I shall get this. If I do that, then that. It is in the expectation of results. It is good, but with oneself at the center. For example, I set out to take some cakes as a present to a neighbor, which is a fine thing to do. All would be well if I made the heart empty and forgot the fact that I am doing a good action, but I won't do so. Here I am carrying sweet cakes, and by and by, there will be a return.

[62:53]

Somehow. That's the way the thoughts go. People these days talk about sacrifice, about self-denial, about service, but as it is all based on attachment to self, quite soon they are expecting to see some result. So, is the meme impure good? Although good, it may be called. After all, then, and what to say of the evil which leads to the evil states. Until attachment to self at the center melts, while the heart diluted by an eye is not completely negated, good itself is an illusion and evil also. While the illusion remains unbroken, the so-called good, founded on self as it is, only by chance does anything feel good. You do some good by accident. Suppose in the role as a priest, one is teaching people.

[63:54]

Because the role in which he finds himself happens to be good, he's doing some good. We say he does the good, but in fact, because of the part he's in, he has to do good, whether he wants to or not. That may or may not be true. I don't know. Totally by that. Again, they will say of a religious man that he's contentious, conscientious. But that conscientiousness of his is nothing. It's just that the part requires it, and so he has to do it. Well, yes, but. So he says, we are driven by the force of our previous actions. Our whole life is a code, and yet karma. Suppose I go to the house next door, determined to keep calm and exchange a friendly greeting.

[64:59]

But I find the neighbor's attitude insulting and shameful. And finally, the karma bubbles up, and I become angry. Where does it bubble up from? However I try to suppress it, I can't. That great force is a life moved in each instant. Someone presses a banknote on one. Go on, take it. not to take it, but in a poor priest like myself, there is a little impulse to stretch out the hand. The karma of receiving bubbles up. All of this is from the heart. On the heart are constructed the worlds of good and ill, and the karma, which has built those worlds, past and present, is moving them. However I resolve not to be greedy, my greediness appears. However I resolve not to be angry, my anger arises. Our human life is such that however

[66:02]

is to find the truth in each step of it, in anger itself to see emptiness, in the very complainings over our lives to know the profound Prajnaparamita. That's the practice of Prajnaparamita, even though we are ordinary beings, we are also Buddha. And I like to think of it We are ordinary beings with all of our karma and all of our instincts and all of our not wanting to be a certain way, but we are. And then these things come up and we are all the same. when these emotions and karmic feelings come up to see them for what they are and not to

[67:27]

Emptiness is Buddha, form is myself, what I consider myself. But emptiness is more myself than myself. In Western religious terms we say, it is closer than hands and feet. You can say in Buddhism, it, meaning emptiness, is closer than hands and feet, because it is the real self. It's not the illusory self. It is closer than hands and feet. do with whether you throw all your goods in the ocean. This is the ultimate emptiness, the ultimate renunciation.

[69:01]

This is the ultimate renunciation, is turn it all over to Buddha. And you find out that you actually sustain We're always trying to sustain ourselves from the form side, but if we let go, we're sustained by the empty side, and that's the true liberation. So, we go through our mechanics, our machinations, you know, that are trying to make everything work, when all we have to do the emptiness, so-called, and let that, our true self, do the directing. So, you know, a monk depends on the generosity of people for sustenance, but people sustain

[70:10]

by letting people see how depending on emptiness, or on the true form, works. Of course, if there were no lay people, the monk would starve to death. Because somebody has to fill the bowl. That's a question I think about sometimes. That's why in China, in India, the monks all begged for their food. And if people felt that they weren't practicing, they'd starve to death. But in China, the monks went to work in the fields, cultivating their And the young men were out going to the monasteries, and people said, you know, we need them to cultivate the fields.

[71:27]

So people went to work. So we have to adapt to the circumstances. We can't go out begging. Suzuki Roshi, So the Heart Sutra is the method of training by which we can see emptiness in each of the steps. At present, we keep doing the same things over and over in the endless round of mundane good and bad built up on the ego illusion. We may happen to do good. We may happen to do evil. How could such a great man do something so strange?

[72:30]

How could such a man do something so wrong? This is all part of the round. You know this one? This happens all the time in politics, in religion. How could such a wonderful person do such a terrible thing? So, step by step, retreading the same paths, impelled by the deep-rooted karma such as our life, the spirit of Mahayana Buddhism is discovered to discover life's real meaning. So that's the big question, isn't it? What is the meaning of life? Oh! Against our will, anger arises, to discover in the very midst of the world of light, is the meaning of the phrase, the passions are the bodhi. Profundity means technically to penetrate to the real form under the illusion, the truth in all the lives. And when the true character of the self is realized in a religious sense, that is the knowledge of ultimate emptiness, a fire to negate everything.

[73:37]

So the profound prajnaparamita negates itself. In Zen, negation means to drop, to throw all away. By this power of renouncing, the power of the knowledge of ultimate emptiness, we complete a trainee which carries us across the nirvana. Master Dogen says, just discard every dead body and mind and throw them into the abode of the Buddha. Then following the movement of the grace of the Buddha, without the use of force, Right within birth and death is nirvana. Birth and death is itself nirvana. The important thing is to see right through to the reality of the illusory self. And this is why body and mind are to be discarded and forgotten. The Zen way of meditation is renouncing. Renouncing itself has to be renounced, and so it is no renouncing. Religion is not something imposed.

[74:41]

The effort to throw off body There is no renouncing. Not renouncing and yet not without renouncing. That is the real renouncing. It is not something done at the instance of another. So, this is the koan. You kind of get it, whether you get it or not. So, to look through to the real form is to penetrate to one's reality. trying to throw away, and yet throwing away all the same. When we can gaze steadily at our ignoble self and understand this, this is itself the principle of renunciation, like what Ryan said. When we look at it, when we see it, that's renunciation. To change our condition from this to that is not When there is complete realization of the true character of oneself, there is a feeling of throwing the self away, and that is the principle of renunciation.

[75:51]

When we have penetrated to the bottom of this illusory self, not without negating, and yet not negating, there is the power of the knowledge of ultimate emptiness. The self is dropped, not thrown aside, dropped. there can be a change to a state which leaves no track. When self has been thrown away, then when the discipline matures, the earth is crossing to nirvana. This is the method of the practice of Bodhisattva Karnan. So, my own teacher would say, your problem is your practice, or your treasure. And he said, usually, quite a lot of people, what they do is just keep changing their equipment. instead of looking at their self. We just keep changing. If one thing doesn't work, we try something else. Instead of really penetrating deeply, staying in one place and penetrating deeply.

[76:55]

That's the hard thing to do. Just staying in one place and penetrating deeper. That's what Sachine is. So I want you to stay on your seat. Here's an example for him. He talks about being circling and circling in our life through our karma. He said, what thing is our life of endless circling? It may be the mind arising beautiful as heaven. It may be the mind springing up as a hungry ghost, but both equally uncertain because we still have to circle in the worlds of good and evil. I am asked to speak before a congregation.

[77:58]

I make my address just like a Jizo Bodhisattva. By the power of the knowledge of ultimate emptiness, I speak in the nirvana state, with nothing in the heart. And those who listen also are in the nirvana state, with nothing in the heart. They are like kanan bodhisattvas. And yet, this jizo of mine and those kanans of theirs are surprisingly unreliable. One day, when roused by some association, this jizo becomes furious and looks like a hell mask. and those canons put on the face of hungry ghosts. Life is so uncertain. Where can we find a firm footing? Human life is always quivering with uncertainty. When the circumstances are good, we do a little good, and when they are bad, we do anything. Painfully and uncertainly, our life is born in upon one. For some three weeks out of each month, I am away from the temple.

[79:04]

I'm not up and home. And so when I do come back, I send a postcard two or three days beforehand saying exactly what time to the minute I shall be at the tram stop. Then I anticipate that I shall be met. The day comes. In the train, I have a pleasant feeling with nothing in my mind. And in the tram car, too, there's a feeling of emptiness, my mind clear. Someone will be meeting me. I descend to the stop and look around. not a soul, and where has gone the pleasant feeling? Where has Jizo gone? Where has faith gone? Where has Satori gone? I hardly ever get home, and I told them the exact time, and however busy they may be, surely someone could meet me. These ignoble hell feelings arise. This is the simple truth. However I try to suppress them, they will not be suppressed. Such is the truth of one's delusion of self.

[80:07]

manifestation of what we are. Having done a little spiritual training in my life, I scold myself for leaving all this fuss in my heart over nothing at all, and pick up my bag and walk back to the temple. As I come up to the gate, someone comes out. I was just coming to meet your reverence. We got your postcard with the time, but there was an emergency suddenly, so please excuse us. And greeted by his smiling face, I feel completely happy and content. The heart resolve evolves endlessly. Suddenly angered, suddenly at peace. Where can one find a firm foothold? Going in I call, a cup of tea please? Why yes, we have been expecting you and the water is on the boil. I feel more and more pleased. Nowhere like home. But perhaps it isn't like that. When I get to the gate, no one comes out. More and more annoyed, I go Again, my voice is a bit louder.

[81:19]

Still no answer. Now I am shouting, aren't you bringing that tea? Isn't it pathetic? As I have shouted, so now there is a shout back. It is a row already, in that coming are a million shades of meaning. While the cat's away, we were getting on nicely, and now the old man suddenly comes back, and as usual, there'd be a fuss over every little thing. one word calmly. Suppose the poem was bad, yet is not the relationship of teacher and pupil most close? A relationship that cannot be severed? And in the homes of the world, isn't the parent-child relationship similarly close? Though the children answer rudely, though the disciple answers rudely, ought we not to be unmoved by it? I preach Am I then so pitiable I cannot swallow one word without an upsurge of anger?

[82:23]

When I am brought to penetrate the truth of that I, which is the truth of myself, when I realize what the self really is, then renunciation appears of itself, and there is already freedom from the body and heart. By the profound prajnaparamita we penetrate to the bottom of life and know the truth of ourselves, and then we cannot help renouncing Nirvana, by that renunciation, I see the world of liberation is already there. So I can remember just myself coming into Oakland Airport, and I know that person coming to pick me up. Where is he? Oh, I'll be coming soon. So I have to make a phone call. Hill, Raleigh Durham.

[83:27]

You can't imagine. I wanted to go into the trouble that was to wait for an hour and then making phone calls when somebody wasn't home. What am I going to do? So, dealing with all those feelings, you know, dealing with all those feelings and not getting Watching the anger come up and not letting go. Watching the feelings come up and letting them go. Not letting them take over. That's the power of something happened to me yesterday, which I won't tell you about. But I could have gotten really angry and resentful. I just drop it. to just drop it and go to the next thing. It's our practice not to hold anything in the bottom of the heart.

[84:35]

That's called the bucket, the bottom of the black lacquer bucket falling out. It's not only a translation, but it's a kind of read. The author is taking down what the abbot is saying, and then putting it into English, and then using these terms. So partly, you have to allow for that. But you're right. Suppressive is a term used in, actually, in Buddhism. which I would say drop, not suppress. Sometimes we have to suppress, but when you do suppress, you don't hold the suppression.

[85:43]

You might initially suppress and then let go. So it's like you want to throw up, you suppress. or sneeze, rather than blow it out. So suppress has its function. But you're right. I mean, I agree with you. I don't know whether you're right or not.

[86:21]

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