Well, for those of you who are new or who haven't been here, we've been sitting for seven days, starting at five in the morning until after nine in the evening. And this is called Sashin. And this is the last day of our Sashin. We started last Sunday. So, I have been lecturing on Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra, which we chant every day, our most common song. And I want to finish up today This Heart Sutra is not easy to understand because it's based on the perspective of Buddha, not from the perspective of our ordinary human outlook on life.

[01:29]

And it's written in non-dualistic language using dualistic language as a basis. So, there is no non-dualistic language because language itself is dualistic. As soon as you open your mouth, you divide the world. As soon as you say something, you discriminate. So the only way to express non-discrimination through language is by using discriminating words in a non-discriminating way. And if we stick to our discriminative way of thinking, then the heart searcher becomes very frustrating.

[02:37]

for us to understand. And it seems like it's talking in contradictions. So, to express something in a non-dual way seems like a contradiction. Yes is no, and no is yes. Form is emptiness, and emptiness is form, and so forth. So in order to really understand the sutra, we have to do some kind of non-dualistic activity, like zazen. And if we sit zazen, it makes it easier for us to understand the meaning of the sutra. because we understand what non-dualistic activity is, or at least we make that effort.

[03:46]

So I'm just going to read through the sutra and come to the place where I want to begin to talk about it. But this, I will say that we have two sides of our personality or our person, persona. Master Hakuin describes it as like ice and water. Water flows very freely and has no special shape or form. But in the winter, it freezes and becomes solid. And then in the spring, when the sun comes out and warms things up, it starts to flow again.

[05:06]

And this is like the two aspects of our life. One is like flowing, continuously flowing, and has no special shape or form, no identity. And when it becomes ice, something solid, it takes on an identity. It thinks, I am ice. And I am something solid, until the sun comes out and shows us differently. So, we have two aspects of our life. One, you could say, two personalities. One personality is centered around the I, or the ice. And the other personality has no special shape or form.

[06:09]

One is called ego personality, identity, ego identity. And the other is called true personality. True personality is a personality which is not centered around I. It includes the ego. Ego we have to include. We say cut it off or get rid of it. But ego is very convenient for us. We should be careful about how we treat it. So we have these two personalities, two sides, maybe. One is the formed side, so-called, and the formless side. The formless side is beyond consciousness. beyond our ability to reach it with our senses.

[07:12]

Senses are very limited. As we develop, as human beings develop in this world, we develop certain sensory apparatus in order to be able to find our way. When there's no seeing, no hearing, no tasting, no touching, no thinking, then what? Who are you then? But open the eyes, and we see the world. And then we think about what this world is through sight. But it's very limited. All the senses are very limited. So the idea we have about existence and non-existence, the world and the universe, is very limited.

[08:20]

But we make effort and the mind is unlimited. So it's possible to know something. But usually We're caught in our small world of limited perceptions. And our perceptions are always biased. Our perceptions are always partial. This is called dualistic understanding. So the purpose of Buddhism and Zen practice is to open our eyes to non-dualistic understanding, to see the whole picture, aside from being centered on this I, to be Buddha-centric rather than self-centric.

[09:37]

So the sutra says, Avalokiteshvara. Well, the way the sutra is presented, short sutra, is in order to be able to chant it, but it's a little bit longer. The sutra itself is a little bit longer, and that part isn't presented here. And the longer part is a prologue, which I talked about before. which gives us the scene of what's happening and how the sutra is being delivered. So in the longer version, the Buddha is giving a talk or having an assembly, holding an assembly, and many people are present, many bodhisattvas and so forth. And Shariputra, who is one of his disciples, asks,

[10:42]

How does one course in the Prajnaparamita, the perfection of wisdom? And Buddha asks Avalokitesvara, the embodiment of compassion, to tell Shariputra how to do that. So Avalokitesvara When practicing deeply, the Prajnaparamita perceived that all five skandhas in their own being are empty and was saved from all suffering. This is the meaning of the sutra. The rest is exposition. So then, Avalokiteshvara says, oh, Shariputra, he addresses Shariputra. He says, Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness. Emptiness does not differ from form. That which is form is emptiness, and that which is emptiness, form.

[11:47]

The same is true of feelings, the same is true of perceptions, the same is true of mental formations, and the same is true of consciousness. Shariputra addresses him again. All dharmas are marked or characterized by emptiness. They do not appear or disappear. That means they are not born or die. They are not tainted nor pure. They don't increase or decrease. Therefore, in this emptiness, there is no form, no feelings, no perceptions, no impulses, mental formations, 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. There is no realm of eyes until no realm of mind consciousness. There is no ignorance and also no extinction of it until no old age and death and also no extinction of it. No suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path, and no cognition and also no attainment.

[12:54]

So this is the Sutra of No, of Negation. But as I said before, if you only understand dualistic words in a dualistic way, you will not understand the sutra. In this kind of language, no doesn't mean the no that's opposed to yes. It means within this no, this no includes yes within it. This is the non-dualistic no, not the no that's opposed to yes. And also the sutra is very complex. It abbreviates all of the doctrines of Buddhism. explained, but I'm not going to explain them here.

[14:06]

Suffice it to say. So I'm going to start with where the Sutra says, with nothing to attain, there's no attainment. With nothing to attain means Bodhisattva is not concerned about attainment or non-attainment. We say one should attain enlightenment, one should attain understanding. But if one tries to attain something, in this trying to attain, one stumbles past it. There are many good koans on this subject of attainment. If you try to attain it, if you go after it, it eludes you. And if you don't go after it, you won't get anywhere. What will you do?

[15:11]

So it's important to just practice. And it's important not to practice for some special reason. Maybe if I practice, I'll become a Zen teacher. Or if I practice, maybe I'll become the abbot of the New York Zen Center. Or if I practice, I'll get enlightened, you know. We should have those aspirations, actually. It's good to have those aspirations. It'd be good to have the aspiration, someday I really want to be a good teacher. That's a great aspiration. We should all have that. But if you practice to do that, that's the wrong goal. The goal should be just to practice for the sake of practice. Then everything else will come to you as it's supposed to.

[16:17]

So even though we know that we maybe want to be enlightened, You have to forget about enlightenment. Just practice. Because you don't know what enlightenment is like. As soon as you form a picture of enlightenment, you've formed a picture of delusion. As soon as you form some picture of where you want to be, it's not really where you want to be. It's not really some place you can attain to. If you just walk the road, the road will take you to where you need to go. So it's important to trust the road, not go any faster

[17:24]

than you need to go, and not go any slower than you need to go. So, everyone needs to know what their pace is. Each one of us has different pace. If we all, you know, start out running from here to Sacramento, wouldn't that be fun? We all just put on our sweatsuits, you know, and start running up to Sacramento. What a change that would be. Some of us would arrive there next week, and some of us would arrive there next month. So we all have a different pace, and we should be careful about how we do this, and respectful of each other's pace.

[18:26]

You know, teacher kind of sometimes wants to push people. And we should push, you know, push enough, just enough. If you push too hard, somebody will quit the race. And if you don't push enough, they just never make it. So knowing how much to push yourself and how much to encourage others takes a certain kind of sensitivity and understanding. So with nothing to attain, or actually being indifferent to attainment, I would say, indifferent to attainment, the bodhisattva depends on prajnaparamita, depends on the perfection of wisdom. It doesn't depend on Ego doesn't depend on so many things that we depend on.

[19:36]

So Bodhisattva just throws herself into the path. And if you sincerely throw yourself into Buddha's world, you'll be taken care of by the world. You always have something to eat, and always have someplace to sleep, and always have a place to sit zazen with others. If you really believe that, then that will happen. Just depend on the perfection of wisdom. So at some point, we have to be able to trust our practice.

[20:40]

And this is actually enlightenment. Faith is enlightenment. If you think enlightenment is something else, you'd be chasing it forever. and never find it. There are thousands of books written on Buddhism, and you can read them all, and if you don't have real faith, it doesn't mean anything. You'd still be standing outside. So, it's very important to trust, but trust comes through not blind faith, but trust comes through. You do something, and you see that it works. That's trust.

[21:43]

You do it again, and you see that it continues to work. And when things continue to work, you begin to have faith in them. And when you see that your way, how it works, when you are sincerely committed It works. And you don't put your trust in other things. And you let go of the things that you lean on. And you lean on less and less. And you depend on less and less to hold you up until you can stand on one finger. I once saw a picture of a guy who had developed a one finger stand. And he was standing on a crystal ball. was on a table, and he was standing on one finger, beautiful. Then he says, the mind is no hindrance.

[22:51]

The mind is no hindrance. Mind is literally here thought coverings. The thought coverings are no hindrance. Thought coverings are thoughts which cover reality. In other words, any thought that you have which is expressed in words, because thoughts are expressed in words and words are expressed as thoughts, is discriminating. and discriminating mind. Discriminating thoughts are thought coverings. If you have a clear tub of water and you put a net over it, then the net will have little squares. And each one of those little squares will be like a little compartment.

[23:53]

And so you start compartmentalizing over something which has no compartments originally. This is called discriminating, making pigeonholes, dividing, which is necessary to do. You know, life is division. Life is inclining. We talk about the upright and the inclined. The upright is like perfectly still. no division, no movement. And then the inclined, as soon as something leans, it's starting to move, and then you have the domino effect, and the world comes to life, or so to speak. Movement is produced from stillness. As soon as the mind starts to move, as soon as the mind leans and starts to produce a thought, then the stillness is disturbed.

[25:09]

And pretty soon, clear mind is covered with thoughts. These are thought coverings. And discriminating thoughts obscure the clear mind. But it's important to have discriminating thoughts which obscure the pure mind. But I'll talk about that further on down. But in order to see clearly pure mind, it can't be obscured with thought coverings. That's why you can't create a picture of enlightenment because that's a thought covering which covers enlightenment.

[26:12]

So the thought coverings or the mind is no hindrance. Without any hindrance, there's no fears. No fears exist without this hindrance. fears come through thinking, actually. If you think about, what am I afraid of? There are a lot of demons and bogeys that are created by the mind. There are definitely things to be feared, you know? Like, you can't step out in the middle of the street without looking both ways, otherwise you get hit. So we should have some fear. It's important to have fear because it protects us. But there's another kind of fear, which is fear of the unknown, fear of things which maybe don't need to be feared. Fear of death.

[27:19]

Of course, we all fear death, but death is not something to be feared, actually. because it's the door through which everybody goes. So, we fear it and yet it's not something to be feared. If it was something to be feared, why would we do it? That's because we don't trust life. The reason we fear death is because we don't trust life. If we do trust life completely, then we don't fear what's next. So, difficult, and it's difficult to trust life because it's always coming up against, life is always coming up against our I, our ego. It's always coming up against our sense of self and giving us a hard time and making us fear

[28:24]

So, without any hindrances, no fears. Far apart from every perverted view, Bodhisattvas dwell in nirvana. So, what is nirvana? Nirvana is the complete I. which is not stuck in form and not stuck in emptiness. There are four perverted views. One perverted view is sometimes called topsy-turvy, upside-down views actually, is the view that everything is permanent. That's a perverted view.

[29:29]

I mean, that's pretty obvious. Nothing's permanent, except impermanence. And the second perverted view is ease, thinking that we can actually have some materialistic ease, that we can find a life of ease in this world. That's a perverted view. that we keep trying to find a comfortable, materialistic life. And the third one is that the view of self, that there actually is a self, an I, that life centers around. And the fourth is taking delight in that which is perverse. Taking delight in that which we which harms us, whatever it is that harms us.

[30:31]

In other words, indulging in desire which is harmful. So, apart from the perverted views, the Bodhisattva dwells in nirvana, not thinking that what is impermanent is permanent, not being fooled by that, and not being fooled by an easy life, not being fooled by delusion of a self, and not being fooled by taking delight in things which are actually perverse. So, not doing that, the bodhisattva act just dwells in his true nature, which is called nirvana. So in the three worlds, all Buddhas depend on Prajnaparamita. That's expressed again.

[31:32]

The three worlds are past, present and future. Nirvana, you can talk about in many different ways, but to find meaning in life just the way it is, is nirvana, another way of expressing nirvana, to find the meaning of life in the difficulties, right within our difficulties. So then the sutra says, therefore, know that prajnaparamita is a great transcendent mantra. Now, mantra is, as you know, something that's chanted over and over again. Originally, it's a kind of spell, actually. Often the mantras, which come from India, also called dharani, were kind of magical incantations.

[32:45]

very powerful words and they were never really translated as they moved from country to country because they'd lose their meaning in translation. The meaning in the mantra is the way it's expressed and the Indians had these words which they used to express certain powerful thoughts and feelings. So they come down to us in the original form, usually. And sometimes they're translated. Translation doesn't mean much. So in the Prajnaparamita Sutras, of which there are 600 fascicles, This sutra is known as the heart of the Prajnaparamita sutras.

[33:51]

It's short and it's very condensed. And none of the other sutras has a mantra. This is the only one of the Prajnaparamita sutras that has a mantra. And if you look at what the sutra is, the sutra is expounding something which is very intellectual. And the mantra is saying, put this into action. Don't just recite the sutra. Put this mantra. This mantra, it means turn the wheel. So it says, know that this Prajnaparamita is the great transcendent mantra. Transcendent means free from duality.

[34:56]

This is the mantra that's free from duality, put into practice, this freedom from duality. Mantra is something that's, as I said, as you know, chanted over and over. The mantra is here, means your daily life. The Prajnaparamita mantra is the mantra of your daily life, the way you live your life, day after day. It's not something that you mumble, but something that you put into practice. So you can say that your daily life is the Prajnaparamita mantra. How do you recite this mantra through your actions? How do you relate to the lady in the grocery store who's the checker in the grocery store?

[36:08]

How do you relate to the bus driver? How do you relate to your neighbor How do you relate to a dog on the street? How do you relate to everything around you without being self-centered? How do you serve people during Sashin? How do you bow? When you bow to the person, are you really bowing to that person? Or are you just kind of doing something because you're supposed to? Do you own that bow? Do you really connect? Are you one with that activity? If not, then it's worse than not doing it. So this Citra is about not something very abstract, but it's about every detail of our life.

[37:30]

It's about serving tea and drinking tea. It's about how you offer something and how you receive something. How you offer something in emptiness and how you receive something in emptiness, which is complete fullness. It's called having nothing at the bottom of the heart. In other words, you don't say, here's this tea. I hope you like me. Just please have some tea. I don't care who you are. It doesn't matter whether I like you or don't like you or how I feel about you. I may have some feeling about it, but I put that aside and just offer buddha nature to buddha nature.

[38:38]

And I receive buddha nature from buddha nature. There's a koan in the Shoryo Roku As Yun-Yan was sweeping the ground, Dao-Wu said, too busy. Dao-Wu was his brother monk. He came by and he says, so I saw Yun-Yan sweeping the ground and he said, too busy. And Yun-Yan said, you should know there is one who isn't busy. Dao-Wu said, if so, there's a second moon. Yun-Yun said, Yun-Yun held up his broom and he said, which moon is this? And that's the end of the koan.

[39:43]

Xuanzang later in a comment said, this is precisely the second moon. As I said before, we have these two sides of ourselves. One is the self-centered side, the side that is relating to everything from this self. And the other side is the side beyond this self, which includes this self, but is not centered on this self, which is the real self. Will the real self please stand up? This is a wonderful koan. Which is the true self? The self which is empty or the self which is full? The self which is self-centered or the self which includes everything?

[40:49]

When the self the I is no longer at the center, then the self extends everywhere. It has to. Where else can it be? When you realize this, then you realize that's enlightenment. But it also includes this little self. This little self is an expression of the whole universe. When you serve the tea, that's an expression of the whole universe. The power of the whole universe is expressed when there's no self. When I is out of the way, then it's just the whole universe serving a cup of tea and the whole universe receiving a cup of tea.

[41:56]

This is a wonderful, joyful activity with no hindrance, no thought coverings, no hindrances. Therefore, know the Prajnaparamita is the great transcendent mantra. The great bright mantra, bright means like a mirror. Mirror is a huge great, reflects a huge great light. But there was a monk Xuansha was Senpo's disciple, and Xuansha, Shui Feng's disciple, and Xuansha came up to his teacher, Shui Feng, and said, what if you stumble on a great bright mirror, what will you do?

[43:18]

Actually, it was the other way around. Anyway, the disciples said, break it into, smash it into a thousand pieces. Great bright mirror, you know, is like the totality of our nature. It's like emptiness. To smash it into a thousand pieces means don't leave it like that. You have to walk off the hundred foot pole into life, into the busy activity of life, into the crying and laughing and joy and suffering of life. And each aspect of that is a piece of the mirror. And to have that piece of mirror reflecting that light in every activity,

[44:27]

This is like serving the tea, receiving the tea. In every single aspect of our life, that it's reflected. Not by retreating into emptiness, but bringing emptiness into form. having emptiness shine through all the forms. That's the practice. That's reciting the mantra, practicing the mantra. How do you bring that emptiness, that pure aspect, to every activity? He says, the sutra says, it's the utmost mantra because it goes beyond it.

[45:33]

It's the supreme mantra because it has no equal, which is able to relieve all suffering because it's free from birth and death. And it's true, not false. Really, that's kind of dualistic. It's actually beyond truth and falsehood. To express it non-dualistically means it's beyond truth and falsehood. So proclaim the Prajnaparamita. Proclaim the Prajnaparamita. I would say court wisdom. which says, gāte gāte pāra gāte pārasam gāte bodhi svaha. That's the mantra. Gāte gāte is translated as gone, but it could be translated as go in the present rather than gone.

[46:35]

Go, go, do it. That's what the mantra is saying. Go, do it, do it, do it. And pāra gāte says, Do it. Go beyond. All together do it. And Parasamgate means all together beyond. Do it. Bodhisvaha means just that. Bodhi means awakened. Awakened. Svaha is like a great explanation. I probably do, but I don't. Gone. Gone. Really gone. Induza cruel. Oh, mama. Everyone should make up their own.

[47:38]

True. Everyone should own it and express it in their own words. So that's the end of the sutra, and I think it's the end of my talk. And the Sishin is not over yet. So I always, at this point, I always say at the end of the Sishin, Practice completely, thoroughly, all the way to the very end. Don't think, well, Sun is going to be over. That will occur to you.

[48:30]

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