There's a copy of the Heart Sutra and then a list of the 100 dharmas from the old Theravada school. So you can take one of each. And the fee for the class is $5 per session or $20. Are there any questions from last week that are lingering?

[01:15]

Well last week we had a historical overview and an attempt to give you all some context for where this sutra stemmed from. And we talked about the title and tonight we'll begin the actual words of the sutra. So on your sheet, and probably in your all's hearts, you know the first two words are avilokiteshvara bodhisattva. Avilokiteshvara doesn't figure prominently in the larger versions of the Prajnaparamita text. That figure is in there. But for the Heart Sutra, he is the speaker.

[02:42]

And Avalokiteshvara is the embodiment of compassion. Avalokiteshvara is the embodiment of compassion from India and it was typically a male figure. And when Buddhism traveled from India to China and then Japan, gender changed. And now we have Kuan Yin, which is a feminine aspect of compassion. As I said last time, the Buddha actually utilizes Avalokiteshvara to help Sariputra understand the teaching of emptiness. The Buddha doesn't have to do anything, the Buddha is just sitting there, and through Madhusri, which is wisdom, and through Avalokiteshvara or Kuan Yin, compassion, these are the active principles, and those are the skillful means in which the Buddha uses to help Shariputra and all of us understand.

[04:03]

Avalokiteshvara speaks in the Abhidharmic language to Shariputra. Abhidharma is a Buddhist psychology. So again, using upaya or skillful means, all of us, when we're trying to help people, we should find out where this person is at in their life and utilize a way in which they feel comfortable and they can understand what we're trying to share with them, finding a common denominator, if you will. So Shariputra was one of the Buddha's 80 principal disciples, and he was foremost in wisdom. And his understanding was good. He knew all the teaching as the Buddha taught, But for the Mahayana way of looking at wisdom and prajna, he was the one that needed to be addressed and convinced of what will become clear through this sutra.

[05:27]

So the idea is that if you get the main guy to understand it then he can in fact share it with everybody else. Bodhisattva is an enlightening being and the bodhisattvas, bodhi means enlightenment and sattva is being. For years, when this translation Bodhisattva was brought to English, it was enlightened being, enlightened E.D. being, which has a certain fixed quality to it. This person is enlightened. And I believe it was Thomas Cleary who came up with enlightening beings. Enlightened, I-N-G, being. So it's kind of an ongoing process. And a more active thing where this individual is enlightening other people simultaneously. This person's going and helping this other person and the two people together are enlightening each other. And the Bodhisattva's practice, of course, is letting go and not being attached to anything.

[06:37]

Another very important principle in these two lines, two words, I relive Kiteshvara and Bodhisattva, is that these two beings are us. there's not somebody who's going to come and help us. There's not someone who is going to save us. Now we all help each other, we all support each other in our practice, but these two terms are actually aspects of us and a way or something to aspire to in our practice. manifesting compassion and enlightening other people, helping other people. There's three kinds of gifts that were listed out in one of the commentaries I read. There's the material gifts, which we're all familiar with.

[07:49]

There's the gifts of know-how, which is dharma. And then there's the gift of non-fear. And this is Avilokiteshvara's gift to us, non-fear. when you think about our hindrances and where we're stuck and where we're suffering, if you go behind what's manifesting in that difficult situation that's arising, that's causing us not to be fully operative, most likely there'll be some quality of fear going on. So there's a certain fearlessness that will manifest as we come to understand the Buddhist teaching. When practicing deeply the Prajnaparamita, well that's what we do, we practice

[09:01]

And when we practice, we're actually doing something. I'm going to sit zazen, I'm going to cut the grass, I'm going to drink a glass of water. What Abhidharmakirtesvara is doing is purposely separating himself, itself, in in this world, in order to see the suffering of all beings. When we sit, a stillness will come forth and there'll be feelings of not being separate and sort of merging with other. And in that way, there's really no problem.

[10:08]

We're just sitting here. We're just being. We're just manifesting. When we separate out from our experience and when we see things objectively, relatively, then we start picking and choosing and seeing things. So this is what is going on here. Avalokiteshvara is practicing the Prajnaparamita. In wisdom, he's manifesting compassion. Deeply means the whole body and mind. He's not practicing kind of casually. He's fully, completely engaged in practicing Prajnaparamita. Prajnaparamita, what I said earlier, is going over to the other shore.

[11:25]

It's a practice. On the shoe rack we have a list of the various Paramitas. There's Dhanaparamita, which is giving. there's Shila, or morality or precept practice, there's Kshanti, which is patience, there's Virya, which is vigor or energy, there's Jnana, which is meditation, and then Prajna, which is wisdom. So, Avalokiteshvara was practicing deeply the Prajna Paramita, which is sort of the hub of those six Paramitas. And when he saw into that and the nature of that, it enabled him to see the other five as sort of offshoots from the center root.

[12:39]

Prajna, as I said last week, is wisdom, and it's wisdom beyond wisdom. It's not wisdom, it's not knowledge wisdom, but it's beyond wisdom, the wisdom of selflessness, the wisdom of seeing interrelatedness. So when you see, when we all see that clearly, then when we give in Dhanaparamita, we're not giving to feel good, to make the other person feel good. All of that does happen, right? It's selfless giving. That's what our aspiration should be. When we practice precepts, it's not to be good little boys and girls. It should be an expression of the interrelatedness and seeing all phenomenon and just quite naturally following the natural order of mind that just works and is a healthy way of living. When we practice patience, we're not practicing to just kind of wait till

[13:52]

you know, the light changes. We're practicing patience just without self there. Energy can be looked at as say effortless effort. You make an effort to sit, but at a certain point in your sitting practice, you need to let go so you don't get this tension in your shoulders. And then it's this thing called effortless effort, and you're just sitting there. And of course, the same is true for meditation. But we all have to see emptiness, and that's what our practice is oriented toward, seeing emptiness. And then from there, we'll be able to practice these paramitas in a selfless way. Practicing in a selfish way or a somewhat self-centered way is okay, too. Giving, practicing recepts, patience, all these things are important just for humanity to survive in a healthy way.

[14:59]

But ultimately, as Zen students, we need to drop self and practice without that self-centered idea. I highly recommend this very thin little book called The Heart of Understanding. It's Thich Nhat Hanh's commentary on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra. I'm going to read two little pages. The chapter is called Intrabeing. If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in the sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain. Without rain, the trees cannot grow. And without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either.

[16:03]

So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. Interbeing is a word that is not in dictionary yet. But if we combine the prefix enter with the verb to be, we have a new verb, inter-be. Without a cloud, we cannot have paper, so we can say that the cloud and the sheet of paper inter-are. If we look into the sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so we know that the sunshine is also in the sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it into the mill to be transformed into paper. And we can see the wheat. We know that the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in the sheet of paper. and the logger's father and mother are in it too.

[17:06]

When we look in this way, we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist. Looking even more deeply, we can see we are in it too. This is not difficult to see because when we look at a sheet of paper, the sheet of paper is part of our perception. Your mind is in here and mine is also. So we can say that everything is in here with this sheet of paper. You cannot point out one thing that is not here. Time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything coexists with this sheet of paper. That is why I think the word inter-be should be in the dictionary. To be is to inter-be. You cannot just be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with every other thing. The sheet of paper is because everything else is. Suppose we try to return one of the elements to its source. Suppose we return the sunshine to the sun.

[18:07]

Do you think that this sheet of paper will be possible? No. Without sunshine, nothing can be. And if we return the logger to his mother, then we have no sheet of paper either. The fact is that this sheet of paper is made up only of non-paper elements. Very important. And if we return this non-paper elements to their sources, then there can be no paper at all. Without non-paper elements like mind, lager, sunshine, and so on, there will be no paper. As thin as a sheet of paper is, it contains everything in the universe. That's a really sweet way of talking about emptiness. which is the third line in our sutra. Perceive that all five skandhas in their own being are empty.

[19:15]

We take in the world through the five skandhas. The five skandhas make up our personality. their form, which is of four elements, air, earth, water, and fire. Thank you. Feelings, either positive, negative, or neutral. Perception, through the six senses, thoughts about philosophy and whatnot. Mental formations, which are volitional acts, impulses. and consciousness, which is the psychological realm. Those are the five skandhas, and that's how we take in the world. And depending on how our five skandhas work within us, forms our personality. So what Avilokiteshvara saw directly was that causes and conditions create a notion of reality.

[20:26]

and that he saw that these Ganas were empty. Well, what were they empty of? They were empty of a separate existence. They only existed in relation to something else. When we chant the Heart Sutra in Japanese, there's a Oh, oh, the emptiness is transposed from the Chinese. The Chinese called emptiness ku, which is sky, because they felt that the sky contains everything. If you look up, you know, birds pass by, pollution from smokestacks goes up. So it's empty and it includes everything. Nice metaphor. Why not full?

[21:38]

What is full? Because it's empty, it's actually full of everything. So why not say full? Well, um... There's a Zen story about where this monk is very proud of his attainment and he goes to the master and the master is pouring him a cup of water and he's pouring the water and it reaches the top and he keeps pouring and it's overflowing and the student says, you know, stop, stop, stop. you are like this cup, and that is, you're so full that there's no room for anything else. So the idea of being empty connotes the opportunity to actually be filled with everything. And when something is full, there's not room for anything else. It's full of everything.

[22:44]

Emptiness is full of everything. It's full of change, full of impermanence. Well, and when you are empty of preconceptions, feelings, etc., etc., then the world just comes in, unmediated, and in this direct experience, that is what they're talking about. It is. So what's our place in being full of information which we all acquire through our learning and experience and being empty to allow the 10,000 dharmas to advance, to allow the world to come to us and fulfill us. What's the difference? How do those two relate?

[23:44]

Yes. You mentioned some time ago, and I'm not sure I heard it right, but you said something about, I think, separation. And in order to have compassion, one needs to be separate. Separate from what? If we look at other people, other things, that they need help, our way of thinking, need help, and we look at them as separate from us, then our helping them will always miss the mark, according to Buddhist doctrine. Different from us?

[24:50]

From us. We're seeing them separate from us. As a Buddhist practitioner, what Buddha teaches is that they're not separate from us. What do you mean by separate from us? That they are there and they exist as an expression of emptiness. And that we coexist together and create this room. Yeah. Well you could also think of it in terms of, if you sort of like objectify the poor, and you decide you're going to go out and help the poor, and you have all these grandiose ideas how you're going to save the poor, it's all going to miss the mark.

[25:57]

And I mean, that's kind of what has happened in a lot of programs. Whereas if you think, we're all here together, we're all part of a society, and when you know, the old notion when nobody's free till everybody's free. And helping somebody else is, in a sense, it's an extension of yourself, and they're an extension of you, and it's all part of it. And if you approach it in a different way, and like you said, you look at the person and see where are they, what do they need, what can I give, without thinking that you're going to save them. And that's sort of maybe an illustration. Right, well hopefully with the engagement of, since homelessness is a big issue now, so we all know what that's, have some sense of what that's about, if we come across someone on the street

[27:07]

We could feel separate and feel, so, compassion, some feeling for them, and then we want to give something to help them or walk by them if we don't feel that we want to give them. But what Zen is teaching is that we're not separate from them, and that their suffering is our suffering. And when we experience that, then there's not the thinking of, I need to help this person. It just arises. In our liturgy, there's this line about, as a mother watches over and protects her only child, there's this sort of visceral thing that happens. And that's what compassion is about. But it has to come from wisdom. The wisdom of emptiness, which is that we're not separate from the other person or the other thing. I didn't think we were separate.

[28:10]

I thought of this in the sense that we're all God's children. And so we're all one family. Right, we have to remember that. We have to remember that. So that's why I wondered why you spoke of separation. Right. Good question. The reason I spoke of separation was some people get into a thing called a Samadhi groove. It feels good to sit and they don't do anything. There's a sort of like centered feeling and I'm one with the universe. Well, okay. So that denies that there's suffering. Right, it's just like, you know, just, there's just, you know, this feels good and I'm one with the universe. Well, that's what we want to do in our practice. is to wake up from that, have this experience of oneness, but then say, oh, and it happens anyway, because we're not, it's not that way all the time. And then we're separate, oh, this needs attending, that needs attending, but hopefully it's coming from the space that we experienced of oneness, and then there's this merging, and it's just taking care of things moment by moment.

[29:23]

Yeah, yeah. Would it be that when we see everybody around, that's form. Taking away their outer form, then we are really the same. So we really are not separate if you take away the form. The outer form I meant. Manifested form. Yeah, yeah. I'll be talking about that in just a minute. It's form and emptiness and how the two relate. But thanks for bringing that up. In the phrase, a scientist in their own being, alright?

[31:00]

They're perceiving the world, they do what they do. Their function is to take in the world in the ways that they have been... In their own being, yes. Right, directly and all that. The problem, that's just pure seeing, pure feeling, pure tasting, pure touching, without any comment. There's nothing wrong with that. It's our ego that gets in the way, that starts manipulating and coloring all the various ways we take in the world, which causes the problems. So they in and of themselves are okay. And seeing in their own being that they're empty, that they don't have a separate existence, truly addresses the fallacy that the way we're taking in the world and the way we operate in the world is creating more suffering. They don't have a separate existence.

[32:32]

Yeah, because they are interrelated. To each other? Yes. One doesn't operate just by itself. Like, you don't just... Yes. Right. I mean, form is there, but feelings and perceptions, all those things kind of come along with it. It doesn't operate by itself. Right. Nagarjuna, who with One of the seminal figures in this Mahayana teaching said that shunyata, or emptiness, is not a theory, but a way to lead the mind to reality by restraining the conceptualizing tendency. The natural function of the mind is to think. So we conceptualize, and that's what causes separation in a negative way. But they in their own being are empty, is using the term empty,

[33:35]

Right, empty in the Buddhist sense. Shunyata, emptiness, deinterrelatedness. The two things that we have in our practice that sort of restrain the conceptualizing tendency is zazen. and koans. When we sit zazen, our mind thinks. It's just secreting thoughts and all that. But the orientation practice is not to develop concepts and dreams and just spin out on stories. Just sitting zazen is actually kind of cutting that. Bless you. And koans, the language in koans is non-dual. And that of course cuts through the conceptualizing tendency that we all have too. And was saved from all suffering.

[34:44]

For some reason this was not in the original Sanskrit, but it was added later in Chinese translations. And it doesn't mean that there's no more pain. It means that we're not going to be separate from the pain. There's a difference between pain and suffering. Pain is what arises, what comes up, what we experience, and the suffering is what we attach to it. Another really important A lot of people come to practice thinking that their pain will be ended. It doesn't end, but our suffering subsides considerably. And this feeds right into the truism that samsara is nirvana, that the phenomenal world

[35:51]

is identical to nirvana or this so-called bliss state. They're not separate. Because pain exists, pleasure exists. Not separate. Could you maybe say a little more about that? Uh-huh. Because pain exists, pleasure exists. Right, it doesn't mean that when you're having a painful experience that you're feeling pleasure. Although that could possibly happen. But this is the world, the relative world, pain and pleasure, the world of duality. In the world of the absolute, where all things are included, there's just whatever the pure experience happens to be.

[36:54]

But when we start labeling things, describing things as, say, painful, well, what does pain mean? It's the absence of pleasure. Or a less degree of pleasure. It's relative to something, which goes back to that piece of paper and all these... how these things interrelate. I derive a lot of pleasure from this cup. So... Now, pleasure is a feeling and the... The form, the solid form, and the colors, the textures, the smells, all the other things that are associated with this cup are so-called non-pleasure elements. So this is sort of an expression of emptiness.

[37:58]

This cup of water is an expression of emptiness. And it also demonstrates the relative world of how one thing exists because the other things exist. I think another way to look at it is, you know, it's just the pairs of opposites, because you can't conceptualize one thing without knowing the other one. There's no way to imagine pain unless you can also imagine pleasure. There's no way to imagine tall unless you can imagine short. So it's always inherent. In one thing, the opposite is always inherent in the understanding of that thing. Right. The misconception, though, is that they're both coming up at the same time. Yes. But when you talk about it, it is, as you say. It's implied. Right. I think that the Eastern philosophies and ways of seeing are more It's more integral with their language and their way of looking at the world than ours.

[39:04]

It is. And it's confusing for Westerners to go over there and to converse with these people, from what I've heard, because oftentimes things are a little vague and a little gray because it's not so black and white. And when you read commentaries on Dharma, even by Westerners who've been practicing for a while, their language starts kind of evoking that sort of vague, not vague as far as indirect, but but not so clear-cut one way or another, which can be frustrating at times. We want clear-cut answers, but the beauty of it is that it starts cutting that conceptualizing mind and allows us to see things in a more holistic way and not so divisive, which is what our tendency is to do. I don't know if Buddhism, if it would have started in America and gone west, it would have the same kind of effect.

[40:08]

When a person is saved from suffering, it doesn't mean that the pain goes away, but there's the experience. There's a story in the old Buddhist sutras about this fellow who is shot by an arrow and it pierces his skin. and then, which is painful of course, and then he goes into this long thing about who shot the arrow, what tribe was he from, what kind of bird's feathers were used to direct it, is there poison on it, what kind of poison, there's all this stuff which is sort of exacerbating the pain and causing a lot of suffering, and the Buddha's teaching is to just take out the arrow. The commentary, while it has a certain relevance at certain times is not the most important thing. The most important thing is lessened suffering, so you act, you operate directly, not separate.

[42:30]

Not separate. Pull the arrow out. I think when you tell that story in response to someone who's asking a question about where do we go when we die, where do we come from, that kind of thing, I mean, you're sort of saying those aren't so relevant. Probably so, I don't remember if that was a context for that line, but there are questions that he didn't answer because they weren't conducive to lessening suffering, and it seems like an apt place to put it. Fifth line, Oshari Putra, form does not differ from emptiness. This is probably the most difficult part of the Sutra to explain. We were talking a moment ago about not separate.

[43:38]

One thing exists because another thing exists. And the concept of form does not differ from emptiness, again to use a metaphor of the water and the wave. that the forms that appear, that we take in through our five skandhas, are waves on an ocean. They're various expressions and they're constantly changing. What we forget, however, is the source of these waves, which is this one large ocean. As Dogen said, you should be able to walk with your feet planted on the ocean floor, which is a poetic way of saying your whole body should be fulfilled with the source of emptiness and

[44:44]

the various waves that come up are just these expressions, but you're not lost in getting splashed up here, you're actually grounded deep down in the ocean floor. So they're not separate. Hakuin Zenji from the 17th century said, emptiness is a tissue of form and form is the flesh of emptiness. It's just another way of saying what was just previously said. What I'm trying to do is, when I was reading the commentary, different people had different ways of saying things. And it's like, we reread books and certain times we'll read a passage and it'll really hit us, and other times it won't. Or people will go to a movie and something will hit them and another person it won't hit.

[45:45]

So what I'm doing here is I'm like, I'm utilizing a shotgun, I'm like drawing things. Should we raise our hand when it hits us? Yes. But what's really important is that we experience emptiness as form. We experience various forms and as Dogen said, mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers in the first stage of practice. We see things and we describe things, we label things, mountains and rivers is just a way of saying pens and pencils or boys and girls or whatever. And then at some point in our practice, mountains are no longer mountains, rivers are no longer rivers. Things are starting to blend and things are not so clear as they once were. It's a little hazy, it's a little nebulous.

[46:46]

But there's still some sense, there's some familiarity with pens and pencils, mountains and rivers. But that's seeing directly the emptiness and the interrelatedness of all phenomena. They're not separate anymore. And from that direct experience of emptiness and interrelatedness of all phenomena, then once again, mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers, pens and pencils are pens and pencils, but they're seen in a new way. So it's a magical experience, but there's nothing gotten. There's not like some special sort of package or treat that you get when you have experiences like that. No, there's no special... There is. There's a feeling of joy. I think there is. Well, that, yeah, but that... That there's a joy... Right, but it's not a tangible thing. There's a feeling inside. And that's probably the best prize that one can get.

[47:53]

But when we come to practice, we think we're going to get something, and we have special tools, but actually what we have is just a posture and an attitude to carry in our life. And then when we have the experience of emptiness and interrelatedness and all that, then it's like ordinary mind is away. We're just sweeping the sidewalk. Nothing particularly special. Let go of all of the dramas and the this and the that and the other thing. It's just, you know, it's peaceful. You can experience an incredible, I think, joy just walking down the street and all the things you can see walking down the street if you're just looking. I agree with you. And so, sometimes when people say it's nothing, I mean, I don't, I think there is. Yes. When the suffering's gone, there is a joy. But the other thing is, I think, the other thing is, you know,

[48:55]

the drama in itself, you know, like, let's go after the joy, the bliss, and that becomes, you know, where you direct your desire. But you can't get it. There's also just the sense of communicating with teaching. I mean, this is, oh yeah, that's it. It's been in front of our nose the whole time. We are finally seeing it. That's kind of what I'm trying to get. It's nothing that's kind of brought in from the outside. We are given this body to experience that. And as Robin said, while there is a joyful feeling, we need to be careful not to be attached to that joy, even though we really need that and it feels good. There's this koan of This monk goes up to Joshu, asking him for his teaching, and Joshu says, have you eaten your gruel yet?

[50:02]

Which is, have you had, as a metaphor for, have you had your enlightenment experience? And the monk says, oh yes, I've had my gruel. He says, well go wash your bowls. Which is like, wash away the taint of, or the stink of Zen. and everything was interconnected, and mountains were mountains, and rivers were rivers, and everything was peachy, and I said something to her about, as you know, and she said, oh, that's fine, it'll pass, right? That's right, that's right. It does. It did. It reminds me of something Mel said to me once when I was complaining about a problem of mine to him.

[51:03]

And he said, well, that's where your practice is. And that, in our conversation, seems almost segregated from what we're talking about, somehow. I mean, it's not, but I just wanted to remind myself. I mean, I have those moments, too, and everything is fine. In Zen we study the three treasures, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. The Buddha is symbolized with emptiness or oneness, and Dharma is the world of form or particulars, and then Sangha is the relationship of those two, or the matrix of these two.

[52:06]

And we need all three, we practice with all three. Well, you can't say much about Buddha. It's emptiness. The nexus. Oh, the nexus. Well, Mel often says that Suzuki Roshi said that sangha is the important thing in our practice in America, sangha practice. And that's where the rocks get rubbed. That's where we get rubbed and our rough edges get kind of knocked off and we smooth out each other and we harmonize. And our practice is harmony. In the Bodhisattva ceremony, bringing harmony to everyone, free from hindrance. So, we have the world of form, we have the world of emptiness, we have the world of particulars, we have the world of oneness.

[53:14]

As Dogen said, eyes horizontal, nose vertical, when he came back from China and someone said, what did you learn? Well, that means that everything is the same and everything is different. And again, these are just dualities that we have in our life. And in every given moment, we're at the matrix of those two points. sameness and difference. And it's constantly changing as we're constantly changing. So the idea in our practice is to be awake moment by moment and not stick to prior conceptions or future ideas of how things are going to be and how is it in this moment. And that's why Mel kind of jokes around when people ask him questions. during shosan ceremony, which is a formal ceremony where there's maybe 20 or 30 people asking him. And someone says, gosh, Mel, you know, somebody, you know, ask that question already. And that was my question, and he says, and he sort of laughs and says, that's okay, ask me again, I'll probably give you a different response.

[54:18]

That's the idea of being, that's not the idea, that is being in the moment, and that each moment is new, and it might be the same response, it might be a different response, but there's no way of knowing. And that's how those two meet. Right, and an important thing to remember about the middle path, it's not an average of two extremes, but it's someplace in between those two extremes. Emptiness allows life because of change, a seed placed in the ground sets the stage for a plant to grow. If we didn't have impermanence, or change or this allowing of life, then when we would put a seed in the ground, nothing would happen. Some people feel that emptiness is static and kind of a nihilistic way of looking at life, but actually it's a very dynamic process.

[55:29]

When people look at someone sitting in the zendo, as anyone who's sitting there realizes, is extremely rich, fertile ground. There's a lot going on there when we sit. There was a wonderful cartoon of somebody sitting in a zenithal like this, and there was this massive bird balloon, filled with everything you could possibly imagine. It's pointed at their head. So, In line six, emptiness does not differ from form. That means that we must see the particulars. Emptiness is form. Form is emptiness. Water is a wave. The wave is water. We can't stick to one side or the other. So it's important to see the particulars and it's important to see the oneness of all life too.

[56:36]

Does it translate to looking at the space that something occupies or seeing the space that the cup occupies? Yeah, I was also thinking about those Chinese paintings where there's like a little like boat and someone in the boat and there's like this huge vast space on the silk. And while there's this little boat here, right, actually what makes the boat The boat is this whole space around it, and that's sort of the form and emptiness and how the two relate. Because of the emptiness, there is life of form as shown in the boat. The lines seven and eight, that which is form is emptiness, that which is emptiness form, it prevents us from sticking to one side or the other.

[57:47]

It says like, just seeing that all is one is not enough. It's important to remember both sides of this phenomenon. The same is true of feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness. And I mentioned earlier to Bert, the five skandhas are interrelated and all five are included in the same way. You can't just have one. He talks about form initially, but the other ones follow suit because you have to have all five. That's what we're made of. Oshari Putra on line 10, all dharmas are marked with emptiness. All dharmas are marked with emptiness.

[58:49]

Now, dharmas are things. That's another way of saying things, a phenomenal world. So what are these things that we take in and perceive as real? Our mind puts them together. and calls them a watch, a cup, a person. But they too are marked with emptiness. They relate to everything in the world and that's how it exists in and of itself. This pencil, before I say pencil, if I just hold it up, everyone has a different take on it.

[59:56]

Black and chrome, shiny, mechanical pencil, doesn't need an eraser, doesn't need a sharpener, all sorts of things. But actually, And while all those are true in a provisional sense, what makes this a pencil is this. It's writing, it's utilizing it, taking it up and relating to it. So, there's that, and then there's this. This is what makes it a pencil. This is a relationship I have with this pencil. And what also makes this pencil? Well, the paper that is, right? Anyone can write in the air as a sort of a demonstration, but really, it's this, right? Mel often talks about the car isn't a car until someone gets inside and drives it.

[61:05]

Same kind of thing. I was thinking, And you said that I'm sure we've all had these experiences where you see an object, but your mind hasn't made sense of it yet. I mean, and you really freak out. I mean, until you can name the thing, you know, or figure out what it is in space. And it's usually pretty quick. It's a very short period of time, typically, when we see something before we put our stuff on it. In India, there are books on the subject of the rope and the snake. Yes, the rope and the snake. But that's different in a way because you think the rope is a snake. This is when you have no name for it. You're just seeing it, which is what we're all trying to do in a way. But when that happens, it's like you don't know what to do with yourself, really. Take an example. Well, they do this with technology, with new technologies. They try to present them in a way that you could relate to it and say, oh, this is just like a...

[62:14]

a VCR, or this is just like, I mean, they talk about this a lot in this new, you know, what they're going to do to televisions and computers and stuff, and are they going to make it like a computer, or are they going to make it like a VCR? And there's this big debate, but when they introduce new technological products, they have to package them in a way that the public recognizes and say, oh, this is just another telephone or this is just another such and such. And that's how you relate to it. Otherwise, it's this. mysterious thing and nobody will have anything to do with it. Right. It's like those pictures of when explorers are going to uncharted areas, they would bring a tape recorder or a Polaroid camera and take pictures of people who had never seen these things. They're like, they just couldn't make anything out of it at all. Yeah. Well, on a very basic level, like, kids always say, are you a boy or a girl?

[63:18]

Like, you know, they freak out. I don't want to know. There's also the quality. I think in the creative process of sort of discovering something that sees things that's beyond words and then there's something in the process of being an artist that you're supposed to do something and some people will recognize your style or you're supposed to do something over and over again so that becomes recognizable. Well, besides all these dharmas being marked with emptiness, they also do not appear nor disappear. Line 11. The older original school of Buddhism felt that cause ceased to exist when the effect was present.

[64:23]

Cause and effect are... Is anyone not aware or not up on cause and effect and what that implies? How subtle is this? It's a good cause to be in. In the old sutras it said, because this happens, that happens. Because this doesn't happen, that doesn't happen. Because this happens, a dust mote arises up. Because that doesn't happen, a whole universe doesn't exist. So, in the older school, the feeling was that when something existed,

[65:31]

For instance, let's see, well, birth and death. Ross, I have a question about cause and effect. Yeah. I always hear, if this happens, then that will happen, but in life it seems like If thus and such happens, there may be 150 different possibilities or more. You know what I mean? I mean, if you tell a lie, for instance, there are any number of things that can happen as a consequence. Sometimes nothing. Sometimes you luck out. Nothing happens. Do you think that's really true, Julia?

[66:37]

No, not at all. But you know what I mean? There are many possibilities for the effect. Right. Buddhism is not talking about predicting the future. Because of a particular cause, we can predict what's going to happen. But what we can say, in all honesty, by virtue of a particular cause, there will be an effect. But if everything is completely interdependent, there is no single cause and single effect. I mean, the reason there's a zillion possibilities is that there are a zillion causes at work in a really complex way that we can't foresee. That's why they say that what you have to take responsibility for is your intention. Because life is so complicated that you can't predict the results, but you can control your own intention.

[67:38]

You can't control the outcome. We can take care of our intention. Take care of your intention, and then most of the time, Right. The three ways in which causes have an effect in the world are through body, speech, and mind. And in varying degrees, they have a greater effect. And there's no meter that's going to quantify how much effect those various things are. But mind is the world of thoughts. And when we think things, you know what happens, there's a certain response that happens in our bodies, in our being, when we think a certain thought, or when a thought arises. And then through speech, when we say things, has another effect. And then body, which maybe has the, well in some ways, the greatest effect by actually the actions that we do. But certainly we can have a great effect by what we say.

[68:40]

But those are the three ways in which we have an effect, or there is an effect in the world. And our Bodhisattva ceremony is making an acknowledgement of those three ways in which we are in the world. trying to control or just be aware of the effect that we have. So the causes that we affect in the world are more harmonious and are more compassionate and less separate from all beings. And in that way, cause and effect are not one, not two, not separate. which is the Mahayana way of looking at cause and effect. As I said, the older school felt that there was a cause and then the effect happened and the cause no longer existed. But we can see how, say a baby is born, well does that mean that the parents cease to exist?

[69:44]

Well, the parents exist. I remember Norman Fisher was talking about, you know, when does conception start? And this really addresses this point of sort of beginningless beginning. Is it when the sperm unites with the egg? Is it when the man and the woman meet? Is it when a certain thought arises where they feel that there's some attraction, how about their family, you know, predating them? So it kind of goes back further, you know, further and further. When we chant the lineage, there's the Buddhas before Buddha. There's a Vibhashi-Buddha-dayo-sho, Shikhi-Buddha-dayo-sho, Vishava-Buddha-dayo-sho. There's all these mythical Buddhas before Shakyamuni Buddha, which is the Buddha of this age. And what that symbolizes in our liturgy is this beginningless beginning, going all the way back, because things are in a constant state, a constant flux.

[70:58]

Thich Nhat Hanh talks about the five skandhas being like five rivers running through us, constantly flowing, not fixed, constantly changing. New things are going into the river, going out, involves various movement. The origin of it, because it's like, you know, firewood doesn't become ash. That thing, it's each moment just arising and passing away. When you burn a piece of paper, Does it exist anymore? Well, it transforms. Heat is created, and the heat goes out into the universe and has an effect. And there's ash from the paper, the ash goes in the ground, and a plant is nourished from whatever is in the paper, the nitrogens and whatnot that go in there, and we start

[72:02]

Nothing can be destroyed completely. We can't make nothing. Something can't become nothing. It's just constantly moving. Yes? Because this does not deny the existence of all dharmas. And it throws aside the traditional thing, saying that there is impermanent suffering and no self, and simply subsumes all dharmas and they're empty.

[73:13]

It's without denying. And I just wondered if you'd concur in that interpretation. Because it's a puzzle. It involves this whole business of one, many, Doesn't it also mean that each opposite contains a seed of its opposite? Right, that's what Robin was saying earlier. But David, your question specifically is, if all dharmas are marked with emptiness, which means they don't have a separate existence, so the question is... But it does not deny that they're there, which is a very... But it might be more extreme than that, that dharmas actually are present.

[74:17]

And they are also at the end. Because that is the final argument we're headed to. And it seems to me the essence of the sutra is carrying on. I don't know. It's a provisional thing, as Nick is alluding to. And it passed out that sheet that had the 100 dharmas that the Theravadins felt that these were real things, these were real entities and what the Mahayana is teaching that they're empty, which doesn't mean that they don't exist, it just means they don't have a separate existence. Did the Theravada theorists And they enumerated them, and they were defined by their particular marks, so you could recognize them if you... Well, they were all marked with three marks, and then there were unsatisfactoriness and stuff. Right.

[75:17]

Is that the same setting for anything? Virtually. I guess the question would be, what kind of existence do they have? Is it true that there were some early Buddhists who said that these things have some lasting, permanent existence, or is that a pre-existence?

[76:19]

I don't know about that. A long-lasting, permanent thing, huh? Some inherent quality that could be perceived and catalogued. I believe there was an early Buddhist Yeah, well, it's obvious of the hundreds that some of them, like the nose on your face, are more existent than other things. I mean, I think the point that David made about this being the essence of no dharmas are marked with emptiness is the whole thing we're struggling with.

[77:23]

Because we're faked out by form. You know, and we are attached to form being real. But what they're saying is, yes, It appears to be real, and yes, it's empty at the same time. It's empty at the same time that you can't deny that you're looking at it, but what is looking at it, and who are you? And you just keep breaking it down, and there's really nothing. Which is what they just keep saying over and over again. Right. Nagarjuna is quoted saying, since there is no element of existence, or Dharma, which comes into manifestation without conditions, which is another way of saying causes and conditions, therefore there is no Dharma which is not empty, which is devoid of real or independent existence. Could you say that again? Sure. Since there is no element of existence, which comes into manifestation without conditions. Therefore, there is no dharma or thing which is not empty.

[78:30]

And as we said earlier, emptiness means devoid, it doesn't have a separate reality. Oh, what? Define. See, there's this other thing about empty, though, you know, like we're all hung up on this, you know, the word empty becomes an object for us, too. You know, and so we want to conceptualize empty and we want to make emptiness this thing. When it is not a thing, there is no thing that's emptiness. Right. We experience it as form, but they're not separate. It's not just forms. I have a problem more with form. I've had it all my life. Are you having it right now? No, I've struggled. For example, I was very good in high school geometry. Because I could see the angles, triangles. Then as soon as math gets abstract, it's not too simple, I'm lost.

[79:54]

And that's form. And I don't know what your tradition is. I had the opposite experience in geometry. Since a point has no mass or dimension, why should we bother to talk about it? Isn't this kind of the Eastern equivalent of the medieval debates about first causes and the unmoved mover? The chicken in the egg? Well, I mean, it was in the proofs of the existence of God and Islam. I don't know about the medieval. Well, I mean, you know, in Catholic theology, you know, Thomas Aquinas, and there were all these theories about that. I can't remember this all now, he was in college, but the unmoved mover was one of the concepts, that there was something that started, but wasn't itself, you know, nothing started it.

[81:01]

And this is kind of the philosophical equivalent in a culture that didn't have that concept of God as the creator of the universe, and this is sort of They're equivalent in the form and the emptiness, and they have that same quality about it. Well, that was one of the questions that the Buddha didn't respond to and said, who created all this stuff? It's just causes and conditions that go back to the beginningless beginning. I understand that form does not differ from emptiness in the sense that a chair is a chair. There's always cheeriness in it. Yeah. That I understand, I think. But I don't understand abstract numbers. That would be to form a difference for my students. Abstract numbers, I don't know. That's the problem. When I went to high school, I didn't go into math after that.

[82:05]

Right. And they used to... Just like... thoughts? I don't think they're as abstract as you think. I mean, they're really referring to some material thing. And it's just an expression of it. Just like our bodies are. I mean, it's the same thing. I think he means like the square root of names. I know what he means, but I don't think that it's... I don't think... I think that it's referring to a concrete thing. That it's not as abstract as he thinks. It's not the subject. We're not talking about math. It isn't, but I mean, he's making a reference to it in his mind because he's having trouble with form and emptiness. I don't see where it's not related. Yeah. We have a number seven that we use and provisionally we have this understanding that we're going to use seven to describe something.

[83:11]

But I think that, as Robin says, that the square roots or whatever these numbers and all that are addressing things in the phenomenal world in some way. that I'm not versed in. We can talk about after class, certainly, but I don't want to tie it up here. But as far as the chair thing, we can stick with the chair. You understand form and emptiness, the expression of Emptiness as manifested in nothing in chair, but the reverse platonic, right? This is a chair, right? But the reverse is more difficult for you to see The empty the emptiness within the form That's not a good answer that except that it's the answer It's a religious, right? That's what it is any one I'm not worried about emptiness right now, I'm worried about a form.

[84:35]

And I understand it to mean, to be a, as Aristotle said, there is no form outside of a material object. That I understand. But I don't understand it, I don't understand the higher math. Well, that's in the sense of, it seems to me so, Right. Well, I appreciate you asking the question because it's up for you. Aristotle said, you know, there's A is A, right? Chair is chair. But what Buddhism teaches is while A is A, A is also not A. And that's kind of where our orientation is and focus is. Well, that would give us a... Like a seed without the seed being a seed, the seed evolving from emptiness?

[86:00]

Well, as Dogen says, firewood does not become ash. A seed doesn't become a... tree. There's a potential therefore to become a tree, but it's not like there's this little tree inside the seed. So it's not like a step or a progression. But the tree is contained within the seed, the seed is contained within the tree. Oh, I see what you're saying. I see. It's what the potential, I mean the potential or whatever that form is. I don't think in that form, like you say, the trees and the sea. Well, the potential is there. Yes. Potential is there. If the causes and conditions are right, then the seed will be... Right. But in this moment, what is this seed?

[87:04]

What is that? And the teacher holds... That's the thing that is through all the classic literature. What is this? I think it's not that the form evolves from emptiness, but the form is exactly emptiness. No, other than emptiness, as it says here. Not that one comes from the other, but that they are identical. They are the same. They are not separate. Well, yes, there's a way of saying things are an expression of Buddha nature, right, but we have to be careful that we don't get so attached to that it's all one. There's this sort of ground in which all things are in the universe, which I think is what you're saying.

[88:06]

On one hand you can see separation but on the other hand the middle way or the point of convergence is of course that it's one, it's all Buddha nature, it's all God. What is? It's not separate from Buddha nature or God? Right. No, that's right.

[89:38]

Those two lines tell me nothing. Well, yeah. Do not appear nor disappear. Tainted nor pure. Increase or decrease. What I had in our closing minutes here for line 12 are not tainted nor pure. Food, garbage, compost. We have things that are food, and then people look at it as garbage, and then it decomposes, becomes compost, and then it becomes this food again, and it's constantly moving around. The pairs of opposites, you know, you have Buddha, well, who is Buddha without Mara, without illusion? We have to have Mara and illusion in order to have Buddha. There's a story about that the Buddha needs Mara to take the role of the bad person so he can be Buddha. As I said earlier, the pencil needs a hand so it can express pencil-ness.

[90:46]

There's a wonderful allusion on the line 13, does not increase nor decrease, that we see the moon through its changes in the month as half crescent, all these variations as sort of partial expressions of moonness. But actually the moon is there the whole time. And sometimes you can actually see the full circle. And in Zen, the moon stands for enlightenment. It's an affirmation in support that it's there, we just get glimpses of it. We get fooled by what we can't see. Yeah, and when we have a so-called enlightenment experience, it's like pulling the curtain away and you actually see see what you didn't see before, but there's nothing special or new that's revealed, it's actually just what was already there.

[91:58]

The moon was there, we were shining a light on it. Or as Mel says, you know, you shine a light on it, which destroys the fears that we had about it, and then we're freed from our suffering. following the article which argues that the Heart Sutra, that basically, the Heart Sutra, the long version of the Heart Sutra was translated from Sanskrit to Chinese, and then the Prashnaparamita Sutra, in one of its many long iterations, was translated from Sanskrit to Chinese. from the Chinese version at the beginning, and then it was translated back to Sanskrit. And that there was never an original Heart Sutra in Sanskrit. It comes from this Chinese. So anyway, if that's Well, I did talk about how things were added and changed over the years.

[93:11]

And what we have is the Heart Sutra dates from the 7th century in China. And there's no pretending that it came from the Buddha's mouth centuries before in India. Apparently, this particular article to people who are interested in that sort of scholarship is quite controversial. But anyway, it's available. I'd be glad to bring a copy for anyone who wants to see it. Yeah, thank you for offering up. And it does sound controversial. The bottom line on all of it is, does this work? I agree. Yeah, does this work? And if it works, Right. And it's nice to study and as we learn and scholars are doing their research, we find out more and more about stuff. But if it works, then that's the main thing. I sincerely appreciate everyone's

[94:13]

thoughts and feelings and perceptions and mental formations that they bring to the group. I really do. And if I seem to be experiencing or manifesting some maybe impatience or maybe wanting to get along, it's only because I want to try to cover the whole thing in four sessions. It doesn't mean that there's no value to what's being brought up. You'll have to add two more classes, then. Well, I'll have to see how it goes. I first thought there would be enough information, but obviously there seems to be more than enough. And the concepts are pretty thick. I guess we all have to sort of strike some kind of balance of what to offer up and what maybe to hold back. And I do encourage people to bring thoughts, especially people who haven't spoken yet.

[95:22]

Maybe some people who have some ideas that they'd like to share, to bring that up in the subsequent two classes. But it doesn't mean that if you said something before, you can't say something.

[95:34]

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