What it is, it's no, which is a non-dual no. By the same token, one could say yes. Oh right, I remember that, but somehow that wasn't what I was thinking. Right. the skillful means or purpose behind the use of no in the sutra is the negation and sort of taking away concepts that you have of what eyes are, what ears are, what consciousness is, what birth is, what death is. It's before concepts. So no eyes, no ears, no nose. That was sort of the gist of it. It wasn't a dualistic no as opposed to yes. Would it be equivalent to say without, without eyes, without ears?

[01:00]

Well, as long as you don't get caught thinking that it's something else, that it's another sort of thing there. Well I know it could just as well be yes, that I know. The Chinese use the word ku which means sky for emptiness and in the realm of life without concepts it's a tasteless taste. It's like the pure experience of taste or the pure experience of consciousness without a sense of separation. Like, boy, that food really tastes good, which has a real feeling of separation, right? You know, the menu, the cook, you know, all this preparation, that tastes good, whereas the actual experience of tasting is no taste. It's just the whole rich experience.

[02:08]

So, Tonight we're on line 24, which is the beginning in the sutra of describing the function of a bodhisattva. Up to this point, the sutra was describing the nature of prajna, prajna wisdom. And now that we have a thorough understanding of that, we can now go on to what someone does with this prajna wisdom. So line 24 reads, a bodhisattva depends on prajnaparamita. For me, I would prefer a word, instead of depends, is supported by or affirmed or nourished by prajnaparamita.

[03:28]

Depends sounds too dependent and too attached. And again, as we started off in this class, words are always sort of missing the mark and they're charged with all sorts of associations. So while there is a certain connection and dependence on things, utilizing words that don't have that sense of attachment but still translate into an important Connection is something that we're kind of looking for I think throughout the years as various teachings get translated and re-translated. Some years ago Mel said that Prajnaparamita was food for Bodhisattvas. The Bodhisattvas utilized this food for their life and practice. And why wasn't it translated, a bodhisattva is nourished by, or something like that?

[04:31]

Is nourished by prajnaparamita? Well, because the... Because I just translated it that way, and I wasn't in the original translation committee. You know, when one travels to other Zen centers and reads the Heart Sutra, there's some similarities and some differences. And if you read commentaries like the Thich Nhat Hanh book, the Edward Kahn's translation, you'll see different words that are being used to convey the meaning. So, I mean, it depends. It's certainly okay. But I like, and Thich Nhat Hanh I think was where I got the supported thing in the middle, as I said, mentioned thing food and sort of as nourishment. So. Does it like. You can use many words. Consume. No more prajnaparamita? It's consumed with prajnaparamita? Well, it's a way, yeah, you'd be completely gone, because prajnaparamita means having gone over to the other shore, so actually when one is completely nourished and consumed, there is no separation between the bodhisattva and this prajnaparamita.

[05:47]

And the next line, and the mind is no hindrance. My favorite. Yeah, David Abel was disappointed that he wasn't going to be here tonight for the translation of that, or the comment on that. Well... But doesn't line 24, I mean, the whole sentence, doesn't it start on line 23? Well, it starts at the beginning. It's sort of seamless, you know, there's no... I mean, OK, so the punctuation here is arbitrary. Yeah. I mean, it's... Well, it's not so arbitrary, but it's... just as it's broken up. I mean, we ended with 23 last week, so it starts on 24. But... It's sort of beginningless beginning, right?

[06:52]

With nothing to attain, therefore we have a bodhisattva that's going to be working on practice. So the mind is no hindrance. Now the hindrances are listed on the little cheat sheet on the shoe rack. there's a list of five hindrances which are lustful desires, ill will, hatred or anger, sloth and torpor, restlessness and wary, and skeptical doubt. So these are things that hinder us in that they get in the way of pure experience. Essentially, there's anxiety, there's various sort of mental states that arise with these five that cause a separation from a pure experience.

[07:57]

So if one has actually gone over to the other shore, which is being completely consumed with Prajnaparamita, as Marianne suggested, then there's no hindrances that we're having this pure experience of this very life. Are those things that you listed all considered mind, like lustful desire? Well, yeah, mind and body are connected. It's mind produced, but the body is intimately connected to that energy and charge. Sloth and torpor is a mental state, but how does the body respond in sloth and torpor? It's a sort of physical manifestation of that, right?

[09:03]

So the bell rings then? In the Zen Dojo, they always ring the bell on that line. Uh-huh. Is that to wake you up? Does it wake you up? Yeah. Well, I guess it doesn't. I thought they rang the bell for Prajnaparamita. That one, too, though. Yeah, the bell comes at a few places. Oh. Yeah. Yeah, it comes at, uh... Well, yeah. Well, it's good to listen to the Heart Sutra and see where the bells come, because they actually come at pretty important... points in the sutra. Rather than examining the liturgy and the bells, I'd rather like to kind of stay with the commentary. So with the realization of prajnaparamita, which is sort of the hub of the six paramitas, what happens is a transformation. The six paramitas, the first one is dana paramita which is the paramita of giving and as I said paramita means other shore so if there's giving from the other shore or selfless giving

[10:18]

it's an opportunity to let go through zazen. So as a practice of giving we're actually offering ourselves up in zazen and constantly letting go. As thoughts arise we let go. As tension arises we let go in our body. So it's a constant letting go. Next paramita of shila or sila is discipline which is an aspect of enlightened life and following the precepts is another opportunity to practice, practicing with the presets, which is pretty central to our practice here. again as one has arrived at the other shore and seen or is living the enlightened life as it said the precepts are a natural extension of that and the life of precept is what we naturally would be living.

[11:21]

The next paramita is kshanti or patience and of course it takes a lot of patience to practice and things seeing things as they are one has to be patient by definition when we if we're not patient typically what's happening is we may see something we don't fully accept it as it is we want it to be something else we become impatient wanting it to change we want it to be different we want to change it and so shanti or pure patience, we're accepting things as they are. Again, a real central place in our practice. It doesn't mean that things aren't going to change or that we might want things differently, but initially we really have to accept things as they are, that first step, and then we can relate to it in a more full way, in a selfless way, as it and you change.

[12:27]

The next paramita is virya or effort and Avalokiteshvara is exerting effort by doing. As we started off the class we talked about Avalokiteshvara as the bodhisattva of compassion being separate yet seeing life, seeing the people suffering, seeing that these people actually are a collection of skandhas or heaps, and exerted effort in doing so. Because if you just sit there, there's no effort being brought forth. As in zazen we have to make an effort to sit upright and through that effort of sitting upright we sit as Buddha and we hopefully also will see that we are just a conglomeration of skandhas or aggregates and we're constantly changing constantly in a state of flux and inherently empty.

[13:43]

After virya comes samadhi which is concentration and needless to say all these aforementioned paramitas require a degree of concentration in order to practice them fully and to really penetrate them. So these are the six paramitas and just to reiterate once we have realized prajnaparamita the other five parameters follow right along with it. And that's why the mind is no hindrance. Right? Now without any hindrance, no fears exist. Well, that's sort of giving us hope.

[14:50]

It's the natural order of mind, seeing things as they are, there's no fear. But it's also trusting, it's that sense of trusting that the world is just there and you're not in charge of it, you're not responsible for the whole thing, you can just relax and the world is there and everything will be alright. Fundamentally and basically everything is as it is and the world is what it is and things are okay. When we feel that things are not okay there's a degree of anxiety and when anxiety arises then there's going to be separation. So seeing things as they are and accepting them wholeheartedly as they are we have no more fear.

[15:57]

So where does the recognition of suffering fit into this picture? of seeing things as they are, and if everything is good as it is, and accepting it, where does the suffering come in? Well, um... It's like if you're ill, and you're really ill, and you're in pain, but you accept suffering yeah the pain doesn't the pain doesn't go away but the suffering uh subsides no i mean when they talk when you talk about a bodhisattva recognizing that everybody is in suffering or uh the true nature is suffering or that you know all sentient beings are suffering where does that not not suffering like physically

[17:03]

Well another translation for suffering is anguish or discomfort. You're just talking about where does basic, where does the basic anguish come in? No, what I'm talking about is When you talk about a bodhisattva, you talk about a bodhisattva recognizing that all sentient beings are suffering and he's not only worried about his nirvana or whatever. He wants nirvana for all the sentient beings. Because he recognizes that in that state where they don't recognize the emptiness or the skandhas, they're suffering. So where does that fit into the picture when we say that everything is going along well and everything is great and we just have to accept life the way it is and flow with it. So how do we, how are we lessening the suffering? Are we lessening the suffering by just being that way? Well no, if we just sit there and say everything is okay and that's just the way it is, then that is not being compassionate, not engaged in life.

[18:26]

And what we do quite naturally, if we truly are Bodhisattvas, and we truly see emptiness, then we're not going to see ourselves as separate from another being. So when another being is suffering, we're going to feel that. And so quite naturally, we respond in some way. Meili once said to me that the Buddha great breathing in the suffering of the world? Is it sort of this sense of breathing in the suffering of the world and transforming it and then breathing it out as compassion? Yeah, that's a nice metaphor. Yeah. Yeah, breathing in is like a metaphor for taking it in, taking the world in and experiencing it through eyes, ears, all the various skandhas, and then breathing out compassion, which is the active principle in our practice.

[19:36]

If you think about in your own life, when you have experiences of compassion and wanting to help someone, there's probably a relationship between how less separate you are to the individual. So while there's no body or nothing that needs saving, we still save. we still help people, we still encourage people, and it's really slippery territory. But with nothing to say, what they're talking about on line 21, the Four Noble Truths are restated as there's no suffering, there's no origination, no stopping, no path, that's talking about the emptiness of all phenomenon, and if things then there's not an individual person that's suffering.

[20:46]

It's just in the universe there's this anguish that's being experienced through a baby crying, for instance, or a bird, a hungry bird chirping. So if you kind of if you have prajna or if you get wisdom I guess compassion I mean I don't think they're separate they kind of go along wisdom and compassion they do right so so bodhisattva then naturally as he sees or he or she shades into the emptiness of all skandhas of all the things is that so it's naturally he's compassionate he's naturally alleviating the suffering of the world is that or you know i i get confused about Or does he have to go out and be helping people?

[21:49]

Well, that's a really good point. Between going out and helping someone, and we talked about this the other week about getting merit. If we're not truly empty and selfless, is anything gained in the practice of picking up a baby that's crying, for instance? what Meili was alluding to about the Buddha breathing in the pain and then transforming it and breathing out compassion, what that's about is being truly empty. That means there's no self here separating from experience. So we breathe in, we see, we hear through the five skandhas without commentary and there's a pure experience of suffering through whatever phenomenon happens to be arising, that there's some kind of anguish that is being experienced. But because there's no separation, the response immediately is compassion and it's just naturally taking care of what needs to be taken care of without selfishly thinking, oh, I'm going to go take care of this.

[22:59]

person, even though that arises from time to time, the pure helping is selfless helping. My teacher in New York used to talk about the one body and that there would be like me as one body and two hands. And that if this hand gets cut, this hand goes over to cover it and to take care of it without thinking. So that's sort of a metaphor for this no separation. And iconographically on the altar we have the Buddha in the middle and we have wisdom on one side and compassion on the other. And they're inseparable. And the Buddha is this balance between wisdom and compassion. If you have too much wisdom and not enough compassion, it becomes a very sort of cold practice. If you have too much compassion without wisdom, it becomes very soft and really not seen clearly. It becomes more maybe like a moralistic helping and not really truly seeing the interrelatedness of all beings and helping in that way.

[24:06]

So there has to be a balance between the two. happen or yes it happens it happens already isn't that inseparable inherent yeah I mean all this stuff is inherently with us we're not getting anything there's no merit there's nothing that's gotten but we have to see it we have to see truly see it and then we function more selflessly with no eyes, no ears, no nose, reinforcing the reality of no concepts, and then the natural expression is just taking care of the next thing. When you get up off your Zafu, without thinking, you fluff it up, you might pick off a piece of lint, you center it, you just take care of that little space. And that's a direct experience of compassion from seeing the connection between oneself and the cushion.

[25:18]

So being compassionate doesn't necessarily mean helping animals and people. It can be, and it is, so-called inanimate objects. The world insists, Hollywood insists, that there's some bad seed inherent evil. I don't think so. But is it just what I think or you think? That we all carry a bad seed and there's evil? Not carrying bad seed. No, I think there's good and evil in everything. We're all carrying good and evil. We're all carrying these various dualities. And inherently, we're Buddhists. And somehow or another, we're working on a way to see that. And the only way that there can be good is with evil.

[26:21]

The only way there can be pleasure is the reality of pain. It's just a world of dualities. Yeah, so I brought it up. involved in finding a fundamental compassion in our emptiness. I don't understand your question. That's my problem. There have always been, in the West, people who thought the man was inherently good. Others who thought he was inherently evil. Others thought there was a balance of one sort or another. And others yet thought there were different distributions and different people. And my question is in terms of do I understand to be spontaneous compassion here?

[27:31]

whether we are denying the Hollywood conception of the bad seed, somebody who's out there being evil, the more empty they get, the worse they are. Well, it's causes and conditions that are causing an individual to act in a way that's not life-supporting. That's basic Buddhism. And when we we take care of something, that's the natural order of mind according to Buddhist teaching, that we naturally take care of things, and if there's someone who is not doing that, there's causes and conditions that are arising. that are bringing that about, just as there's causes and conditions that are bringing on compassion acts of loving kindness.

[28:35]

So it's, as I said earlier, the world is dual, and when we talk there's dualities, there's good and bad, right and wrong, and when there's just taking care of the cushion, or just taking care of the you know, falling petals from a flower arrangement or what have you. It's beyond good or evil, right and wrong. It's just taking care of the next thing. And when Mel's teacher died, The next thing he did, the first thing he did around that event was to go and polish and clean the leaves of this jade tree at Zen Center. There was all these leaves and I just had this vision of him just taking care of life. Just cleaning off the dust from each leaf in the plant. Now, I mean to me that seems like

[29:41]

this, you know, compassionate act and just taking care of the next thing without going on and looking at, well, is that the right thing to do? Or the sadness and evil that goes on with the loss of a teacher, you know, all that. But there's no way of knowing what's going to be happening in the next moment, how we're going to respond. But the idea in our practice is that what is going to happen and what we aspire to is compassion. And compassion is co-passion, which is being with or suffering with, being with the person, the cup of tea, the piece of paper. You know, in the biologists, they would say, like, you know, when you, you know, they argue about whether there is an altruistic instinct, but the, you know, like, not just, like, something that you have to give up, like, they would say, like, if you stroke an animal, or, if you yourself feel better,

[31:02]

You know, the nurse, they had these tests, like nurses do therapeutic touches on patients, and now when patients get better, the nurses feel better. So we are wired into, biologically, so it supports that it's beyond the mind. Yes. It seems that way. And if we look at people who are not acting in that accordance, there's probably a good chance that they weren't stroked so much. Yeah, because this fear, it's easy to do it with animals and babies because they don't say, you know, you can't touch me and stuff. It's just with bigger people and it's just fears or whatever. Yeah, there's lots of karma, lots of baggage there that keeps us separate from experiencing that compassion act. Yeah, I think there is something wired in there. So without any hindrance no fears exist and the fear or anxiety or discomfort is centered or based in the three poisons which are greed,

[32:21]

which is wanting, grasping, ill will, which is pushing away, and delusion, which is just being mixed up and confused whether you want something or you're pushing it away. And when no fears exist and there's just being, what happens is there's a transformation of these three poisons and greed is transformed into giving. ill will is transformed into metta or loving kindness and delusion is transformed into just seeing. I've had experience of being kind of greedy and I realized you know, what am I holding on to? And when I've let go a little bit, what happens is I just want to help and give. And you can only hold on so much, you sort of get tired of that feeling of holding.

[33:28]

And it will be a little bit more difficult to deal with when I have sort of some feelings of ill will towards someone or something, to sort of consciously try to transform that into loving-kindness is difficult. We do that on Monday morning, we chant the Metta Sutta or recite the Metta Sutta, which is suffusing love over the entire world. And when the time is right with practice, with sitting practice, it comes from the heart. Those transformations actually happen. When we're feeling, when we have ill will towards someone who's done us wrong or whatever, it's kind of artificial to sort of to conjure it up and to try it, to try to do that. But it does happen. And of course, when we have times of being mixed up and are in delusion, we have moments of clarity and seeing and that again is another transformation which takes place.

[34:37]

And in other words, I've written down here, the wave sees itself as water and we're not separate. And what that means is that if we look at the metaphor everything is just one big ocean which is emptiness and the forms that come up are the waves and that's what catches our attention. We have some anxiety that comes up about the formation of this wave or that wave and then we get so attached to that wave we get all wrought up and we get real greedy or we have lots of ill will or we just are all confused. What happens is when we actually see the source of the wave as an expression of the interrelatedness of all phenomena then What's there to have anxiety about? We can actually have some peace and we can see things clearly, but it doesn't mean that we just sit back and just say, well, everything is blissful. It's just one big happy ocean. We see the interrelatedness of things.

[35:43]

We see how things affect one another and we respond. So a person who you don't like could be an example of this way. You could see that person as an expression of... Well how could they not be? Well yeah, I'm just trying to translate it into an example. So if you know someone that is causing you some grief, they are nothing other than an expression of this unfathomable ocean. Yeah, well I think something happens and that's stuff that we can talk about but you can't quantify it.

[36:54]

I remember when I was going through a real difficult time a friend of mine said, we should offer incense to the Jizo Bodhisattva out there and all these various things. I said, I'm in such lousy shape I'll do anything. And actually what happens is you're giving yourself over to something bigger than yourself. that if you really take faith and stock in Buddhism and what these various symbols represent, there's some power in there. We don't talk too much about having power in other things other than ourselves, but actually these various symbols, Jizo Bodhisattva being one of them, is just an expression of ourself. It's a symbol of ourself. and things do happen, but there's no way of saying it's because I offered incense that my life changed. I just, you know, but we all need help of some sort or another. I've had that experience and been helped almost instantly.

[38:00]

As an example, really loathing someone or just so, you know, and having that just be lifted and being able to see you know, the suffering that they have in their life, and just getting a lot of wisdom. My question is, with me, it goes away. I have to stay in a constant state of prayer, or something like that, to keep, to sustain that wisdom about that person. And I don't have time. What else are you doing? It's true. We all have, we have time. We have time to be in a constant state of prayer. It doesn't mean that we're sitting cross-legged 24 hours a day, but in our heart we have an opportunity to do that. And that's what we, it's imperative for us to do that. I agree. We have time.

[39:00]

One reason I'm drawn to Zen Buddhism's discipline is I hope that I can get some strength, I haven't yet, in that department. So that I can realize that it is a way to live. It is a way to live. breathing. We don't do it just when we feel like it, it's this constant thing. And in order to really be transformed by this practice and be turned by this practice, it's imperative to remember where we're at moment by moment. And the easiest reminders are the physical attitude, posture, and breathing. It doesn't mean that we're chanting all the time, and we have to do whatever we're doing in our livelihoods and relationships, but given the experience you had of this transformation with this person, it would be who, you know? I have them regularly, because I have a lot of people.

[40:03]

Yeah, yeah. Doesn't it, at the same time, you have to understand, like I talk about problems with people who, if granted, you could just say, Like, that's because that person, you know, I have some kids, like, they are not raised right by their parents and stuff, you know. But then I still get into, like, I don't like the society who don't have, you know, the priorities right. Well, that's a bigger thing that we can't do anything about alone. So what we have to do, but it's still true. The society doesn't support you know, or much of society doesn't support, you know, compassionate behavior and all these things that we need to do. That's why we have Zen centers. people come to Zen centers or other spiritual communities to learn techniques in order to deal with and counteract and respond to the suffering of the world. I mean the Buddhist time is basically the same thing.

[41:04]

So what can we do in our square inch, within our environment? Well, we practice Prajnaparamita and it permeates out. especially if we're doing it 24 hours a day, the effect is felt. And everyone's response to the suffering of the world is going to be different. Some people may take a more visible social action path and be out there doing political work to transform the society, which is not terribly sensitive to the issue. And other people might just be sitting Zazen and and being very quiet about it. And they're both legitimate paths of manifesting compassion in a world which desperately needs it. Yeah. Yeah, it can be very discouraging the way society is.

[42:08]

It can be very discouraging. So we pray along with that kind of understanding or with action? Do we pray along with that action? Prayer is a very charged word. For me, what that is, is practicing the precepts. Breathing, maintaining some equanimity, and practicing the precepts. And the precepts are pretty much the center of our life. And if we're practicing the precepts, there is an effect from that with the people that and things that we come around because the precepts are basically you know supporting life you know not taking life and all the precepts go back to that very first one and when there's a problem we can trace it back to there's there's there's a smothering or stifling of life in this situation and how can we practice in order to lessen that suffering.

[43:17]

But isn't it sometimes a compassionate act to end a life? Yeah. I mean I'm thinking of this because I had to with pets and stuff, yeah, and people. I mean, it's a little more complicated, but yeah, my father was a veterinarian. As a kid growing up, I used to see lots of animals being put to sleep, and we do that. And if an animal is really ill and suffering, then it's not life-sustaining to make it suffer because you don't want to take the responsibility of deciding that what this animal is really saying is... Yeah, well it's sort of an ethical issue which is difficult to sort out and everyone I think has a response to that.

[44:20]

You know, Christian scientists have a response to pain and suffering and we have, and other people have other responses so it's kind of, we're left to our own devices to in the moment, what is the most compassionate thing to do? I don't know. But I have seen lots of animals put down, and horses, I've heard stories, Grace has all these stories of her horses that have broken their feet and ankles and whatnot, and that she had to have them put down. It's pretty painful. But that can still be the compassionate thing to do. Yeah. Less painful in the long run. For the animal. For the animal. Yeah. There's a Buddhist prayer out of Hawaii that women can use when they have had to make an abortion on themselves.

[45:23]

And I saw it some years ago. I flipped it. Yeah. So actually the point is, here you are. After an event like that, what do you do? And there's apparently a compassionate approach to one's own suffering. Life taken away. Okay, line 27. far apart from every perverted view one dwells in nirvana. Now there's four perverted views and before enlightenment there's a belief in permanence, a belief that we can find bliss, a belief that there's an I that exists, and a belief that we can find purity.

[46:32]

And after realization, then there's a belief in impermanence, and the belief or the realization that existence is painful, and forget about finding bliss, that there is no I or no self, and that there is nothing that is pure. So those are the perverted views. And when one is free, then one's dwelling in nirvana, which is... But belief in impermanence, or the realization of impermanence, isn't a perverted view. I'm sorry, that was... Yeah. It's actually the nature of life.

[47:37]

The first one, the first set of perverted views about the purity, would you read that one and then the view on purity for the enlightened person? As a perverted view, there's this idea that one can find purity. And then with realization, one realizes that there is nothing that is pure. that things in fact are as they are, so to speak. What would be purity if it exists? The Aryan nation. Right. Well, yeah, what Suzuki-oshi said, you know, we have to find purity within the impure. Well, some people say that. Well, you know, I think it's purity without the idea of taint, without being caught by taints.

[48:44]

That, you know, that things, as we were talking earlier, that there's, in order to have purity, what has to exist is impurity. I think it's the notion, right, that there's such thing The notion of purity is what needs to be dispensed with in the first place. I mean, it seems like a relative thing. And what is it? It's like good and evil or anything else. It seems relative in a way, depending on your social context. I guess I need a concrete example. Something which ideally would be pure. Something which would be tainted. What is anything that's tainted? Like the bull. It's pure. What? The bull. You know, like goodness. I think it has something to do with goodness. Like a lot of people think that the Pope is pure. Pope. P-O-P-E? The Pope. Yeah. He's pure and without sin.

[49:46]

Right. Because that's what the Pope would be doing here. Right. And he's sinner. Pure experience of purity would be like sitting Zazen and not creating any karma, just sitting pure, just sitting Zazen and being on that moment. There's no karma created and that would be, for this discussion, a manifestation of purity. But we aren't like that all the time. So as soon as we do something, there's impurity as far as a taint or a relative act that goes on. And then someone could say, well, that's tainted by your choosing right over left or some other kind of duality, right? But strictly speaking, you know, completely centered zazen is pure.

[50:50]

But it's a... Are you saying we're never that way even for a moment? No, I think it's in our practice we're transcending dualities of purity and impurity. And that's the world of the wave. That's the world of seeing things as a complete interrelationship and as they are. But we can't talk about that because as soon as we talk about it, then we start talking about purity and impurity and all that. This is like Nagarjuna's arguments. The story you were telling about Bodhidharma going to China and he talking about Peru. To me, purity, that story comes into mind. In what way? When he asks him that he built all these temples and he spread Buddhism.

[51:53]

I guess he had this feeling that he was pure. It's like, it's nothing. It's not a big deal. Why are you even thinking that you're doing something? As long as you're thinking you're doing something and that you did something pure or something good. Well, he did that as a skill for me to take away the attachment. I mean, the idea of building temples and spreading Buddhism is a good thing for our religion and practice, but in a sense of helping others. But whether it's a big temple or a little temple, the emperor, according to the story, is getting very proud of this fact of establishing things. So as a skillful teacher of Bodhidharma, said no, no, no, and took this away from him so he wouldn't be attached. And that way then there would be purity, that there would just be what's going on.

[52:58]

More slippery territory, which at 830 is dangerous, yeah. I do want to try to end it nice. So far from every perverted view, one dwells in nirvana. In nirvana, a bodhisattva becomes a Buddha. A Buddha, as I mentioned some weeks ago, doesn't have to do anything. A Buddha is just sitting there. And the expression of the Buddha is compassion. That's the active principle. So in nirvana, there's a sort of an extinguishment or the dualities are extinguished and the person is just there.

[54:02]

So there's just sitting there. Now the bodhisattva is postponing their entry into nirvana. And that's how they remain a bodhisattva, by postponing their movement or practice in nirvana. Ross, why is a bodhisattva postponable? Because they want to help everybody. And they want everybody else to go in first. They open the door for everybody else to go in. The Bodhisattva ideal was a Mahayana concept, which was the latter school of Buddhism. The original school of Buddhism, the ideal practitioner was the arhat, who had done away with all the defilements and was kind of free from all that. I'm sure they helped people in that path of practice, there wasn't the idea of helping others first.

[55:08]

It was more of taking care of oneself and a little bit more self-serving according to Mahayana, the Mahayana school. the feeling is to help others first. And as Marian was saying, you know, when you help others, you feel good yourself. So it's not just like helping others and not being taken care of. Actually, you see that relationship. Well, no, you know, this whole thing about postponing enlightenment, is it really postponed? I mean, in a way that's just a concept. It is. Because it has to do with people thinking that once you attain nirvana then you're in some other space and you're above everything and so therefore you don't involve yourself with the mundane when actually it's happening all the time and there is no separation. And there's nothing other than mundane. Yes, what else is there? Right, there's just the mundane. I think it's addressing the attachment to enlightenment.

[56:10]

The attachment to enlightenment. And that the Mahayana practitioners felt that these arhats still had, there were five so-called taints that they still had, that they were still subject to lustful desires, they could still be helped by other people. And these were things that showed that they were still dependent on and could still be helped by other beings, that they weren't completely free of help. And so it kind of shows that we're all in this together. And so they propose this model of practice where in fact we all are helping each other, we all are together. Line 28, in the three worlds all Buddhas depend on Prajnaparamita. The three worlds are the worlds of past, present and future.

[57:13]

and past, present, and future is us. Line 29, and attain unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment. Now unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment is Anuttara Samyak Samodhi. In Buddhism, at least in Mahayana Buddhism, the feeling is that the Shravakas, which are those people who became enlightened just by hearing the words of the Buddha, and the Pracheka Buddhas, which were the practitioners who were solitary and hermetic and became enlightened, while they I woke up to reality. It wasn't this complete perfect enlightenment and one could say that as Robin was alluding to, that these are concepts.

[58:22]

What is complete, perfect enlightenment? The stories that no one will ever realize what the Buddha realized, which is sort of the ultimate enlightenment. Again, I think it's a response to people who are just practicing for themselves, and that there actually is something there that's bigger when we all wake up together. It seems to me there's this historical aspect to this because it has to do with people going off to caves and leaving society behind. And not helping others. So I really think that's in there. There's a reaction to that. And people today think that people have to do that and people think that we're doing that when we go to the Zen Do and meditate. Why aren't you out in the world? You're not doing anything. You're just self-consumed and staring at a wall. So there is an aspect to leaving the world and practicing, but as bodhisattvas, we're going back into the world and helping others.

[59:31]

And we're in the mundane world, even when we're in zendo, sitting, as anyone who's been in there sits knows, it's no different than outside, really. It's set up a little different, but it's not so different from outside the gate. And we talk like that all the time, you know, we're going back into the world. Sometimes we have a sashim, I'm going back into the world. Right, well I think it's a comment on, and again this is somewhat like what Marion was alluding to, it's a comment on how different society is outside the gate and how it doesn't support what we do here. So it does feel like we're going out into the world, we're going to another place. But I've never been to a Buddhist country, but from people who've been to Buddhist countries, they say the feeling of this sort of interrelatedness and all that sort of permeates the culture, and you feel it a lot more. You just don't feel it here. You feel it when you go inside the gate, or when you go to Green Culture, you have the Zen Center.

[60:32]

It's the feeling of... When you go down the block. Down the block, right. Yeah. We have the car deities out there. The ultimate vehicle, right? Yeah, when Blanche became abbess of San Francisco Zen Center, her husband gave a really wonderful acknowledgement of her practice, saying that when we were courting, and they'd been married 50 years, this is like way long ago, Blanche used to drive a car with a rumble seat in the back. He said that she used to pick up people on the street and give them rides, and it was sort of this manifestation of the greater vehicle. In a way, only that Lou Hartman could tell, it was quite cute. In line 30, which is on our chant sheet, the last sort of block of words, we're talking about a mantra. Therefore know the Prajnaparamita is the great transcendent mantra, the great bright mantra, the utmost, the supreme.

[61:37]

Now the mantra... Yeah, and on and on and on. Hi. Yes, what's up? I'm sorry to interrupt. Excuse us. Locked your bike, like the sign says. It's a smaller vehicle. Smaller vehicle. Is that a comment on critical mass? It's really brown. It's going on getting everybody's attention. Most of the time we don't slam that gate, though. I do occasionally by accident. Whoever just went by slammed the gate. it may have been them dusted for fingerprints.

[62:38]

Now the mantra was not in the longer version of the Prajnaparamita literature. The mantra, kate kate, which is paragate parasamgate bodhisvaha, came later. And this is incorporating the tantric elements of this sutra, which is a later development, 7, 8, 900 A.D. And a mantra is a transforming word or syllable. We chant mantras in the Zen-do besides gate-gate. We do the shosai-myoko-chijo-durani and the daihishin-durani. And the Mejuku Kanagyo does have a translation, but it's the power of those words that actually have a transforming quality to them, and we're transformed by chanting them. As Mel says, mantras are used to penetrate to the essence of the teaching.

[63:44]

And the Heart Sutra, in fact, is a mantra. This is going back to your comment about wanting to memorize or knowing that you memorized the Heart Sutra. Now, the Prajnaparamita literature is thousands and thousands of lines. And over the years, it's gone through different expansions and condensations. And what we have here dates from the 7th or 8th century or so AD in China is what exists And this is a mantra because it's short enough that we can memorize it and that we can recite it or chant it on a daily basis and we can be transformed by it. And if anyone has chanted it with their full being, they've had a taste of that oneness that we are practicing with. And if it's punctuated with the Mikugyo beat, which we used to do with the English Heart Sutra, we now only do with the Japanese, it's even further emphasized.

[64:50]

There's a certain feeling there when we chant it. So this, in fact, this whole thing is a mantra. I like to think of our breath as mantra, that the breathing is constant and when we tap into our breath, we in fact can be transformed and that we're touching the essence of our life. Again, this is something you can feel, and when Mel talks about, and you hear people who do martial arts, when you come from down here, the breathing center in our life, then your life is enriched and that much more vital coming from down here. I want to read to you a lecture that Mel gave back in 83 on, it's called The Heart Sutra and the Mantra of Our Life. Can I ask a question? Yes, please. Well, there's people that believe that just the first letter A, Avalokiteshvara, that that's the mantra and that's the essence of the teaching right there, that you don't even have to go any further than that.

[66:33]

And when you breathe, that's Prasanna Paramita, that's going to the other shore and just being completely free. Prajnaparamita by these various ways. Right. And a visualization of Prajnaparamita is up here. And there's practitioners who meditate on images of Prajnaparamita. All this is quite far from any idea I have of emptiness. Yeah, well if you're looking at that as a really pretty image and all that, that's kind of getting away from the essence, if you start looking at it as a piece of art. But Tibetan practice, which I don't do and don't know anything about, they use visual symbols as... It's a visual mantra.

[67:39]

Yeah, a visual mantra, thank you. Emptiness, they use something to... Yeah, it's a symbol of emptiness, just as form and emptiness. So the form is not necessarily just a word, the form is a statue. Where's the microphone? Or, this is really great right here. Let me read this. This says it all. Perfect timing. So, this is Mel speaking. I used to think of Suzuki Roshi's life as a mantra. We tend to think of a mantra as a phrase which we repeat over and over again. Sometimes people ask, can you give me a mantra? Something to repeat over and over in order to evoke or to maintain a certain concentrated or pure state. But when I observed Suzuki Roshi, it seemed to me that the way he lived his life as a mantra, the way he lived his life was a mantra.

[68:41]

His life had a very obvious form. Every day at the old Sokoji Temple at Bush Street, I would see him enter the zendo from his office and light the incense, and sit zazen and do service. Every day he did the same thing, which was amazing to me. I had never seen anyone do that kind of activity before. His life was devoted to sitting zazen, bowing, lighting incense, and the various other things that he did. When there are so many other things to do in the world, here was this person simply doing these things over and over again every day. And he had been doing them over and over every day for most of his life. I never thought of myself doing anything like that in what seemed like such a narrowly disciplined way of life. So I was impressed by it. After a while, it occurred to me that his life was a mantra. Every day he had these tasks that we would do. He was always concentrated and went about his activity in a light and easy manner.

[69:46]

Somehow it was not just repetitive. It was a dynamic that was always producing light. One way to produce energy is to have something going around in a circular path. If you hook up a conductor to that energy producer, the energy flows from it as a dynamo. That's why he had so much spiritual power. So this is a newsletter. It absolutely transformed me when I read that. And I put it up in my kitchen. And that's what made me get up and sit at home every day. Really? Yes. Far out. Because I read that and I thought about it and I realized if you don't get up and do it first thing every day, it doesn't happen. And that was sort of the thing that made it happen finally. Which one was that?

[70:49]

It was the beginning of the year. Yeah, I think it was. Yeah. So this is giving us a... It's sort of expressing or justifying the forms that we do here and the things that we do every day that we sort of take for granted. When you really get into it, something happens. Something happens. In lines 31 through 35, these are just adjectives talking about how great this mantra is. And again, I think it's somewhat political as far as pushing this thing forward and promoting it, which is what it is. It's a hard sell promoting the teaching. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they back it up they back it up so and similarly in the when you

[71:59]

When we hear commentary on the Blue Cliff record and other koans, there's this engo, there's this individual who gives a little story and he's telling people to listen now, here comes the case. It's called a pointer. It's someone there that is like presenting the teaching for the reader or for the listener or for the person in a live situation. There's a koan about Manjushri who is, I think it's I'm pretty sure it's Manjushri, and he's there, and the Buddha's about to speak, and he starts talking about, OK, everybody, get ready. Our teacher is about to speak. And the koan, while it acknowledges that this is an admirable thing to do, that get everybody's attention for the teacher who's about to speak, the essence of the koan was how that actually is extra, that he didn't have to make a big deal about it, and that it's just kind of layering on the Buddha's teaching.

[73:17]

Um... So it's just something to work with. We have all this praise and setting things up and getting all primed up ready to listen. Is it really necessary? Well, it's necessary for some people if they're not listening and not necessary for others. And the way the koan was is that if you're doing koan study and you're practicing sincerely, you don't need someone to tell you, hey, the Buddha's about to talk. You're going to be awake and ready for it anyway. That's just an aside, really. uh... in line thirty nine okay the uh... mantra gathe gathe pargate parasamgate bodhisvaha literally is uh... gone gone completely gone everyone's gone over uh... to the other shore and then bodhisvaha is bodhi is awaken and svaha is uh... one way of translating that is hallelujah uh...

[74:20]

In the tantric system of the teaching, Svaha is reserved for addressing a female deity, which is kind of in response to the Prajnaparamita statue. So what's gone? So we've gone from suffering to liberation. We've gone from forgetfulness to mindfulness. We've gone over to the other shore. And everyone has gone over because of bodhisattva practice and everyone is coming over. And of course the other shore is no other than right here. What did you say bodhi was again? Awakened. Like bodhisattva is awakened being or awakening being. Because in reality we're going back and forth all the time. I mean there is no awakening. you make a one-way trip and that's it. That's right. And this seems a little misleading perhaps, that you finally get that one-way ticket and you're home free, you know, and in reality you're always going back and forth.

[75:28]

Right, in that moment you're home free and all we have is this moment. So what this teaching, what the whole sort of teaching is about is seeing the emptiness of all five skandhas and being free from suffering. So we have times of seeing the emptiness and being free, liberated. We're dwelling in nirvana. And then what happens the next moment? Well, we get caught by something. And then we think this is real, this wave is real, and we suffer. And then we're not at the other shore. We're in this crazy mixed up world. So that's why the practice is a constant practice and we constantly wake up and we constantly fall off. And our physical practice of maintaining upright posture is a response to our mental drifting off when we get caught by things and we begin to suffer that we fall off, we bring ourselves upright.

[76:29]

So our life is constantly bringing ourselves upright, and constantly remembering that the five skandhas are empty. Well, something I wanted to ask before, and if it's off the subject, let me just say so, but about anxiety. You mentioned anxiety before. And to me, there are situations that are just incredibly anxiety-provoking. Definitely. So I have difficulty fitting that into the wave concept. I mean, it's almost like more than a wave. It's like a tsunami or something. How do you, with all of these concepts that we have through practice, if you are in the midst of a highly anxiety-producing situation, how do you deal with it? Just the same old, same old. Well, everybody deals with it differently. And the amount of the wave is going to relate to the amount of the anxiety.

[77:33]

And whether it's a little bit of anxiety because it's getting close to nine o'clock and I want to sum up to a lot of anxiety about the bigger issues and all that, it doesn't really matter how big it is. It's just anxiety, which is some level of discomfort. and we all have to deal with it the best way we can. As my friend says, it's like a rollercoaster. You have to grit your teeth and just hold on. Another friend says, offer incense to Jizo Bodhisattva and keep sitting. So what the Sutra is teaching is seeing all things as what we make, what these waves are, inherently empty. And while that might not alleviate your anxiety or my anxiety, ultimately, that's what has to be seen. I mean, what it is, it's a guarantee for lessening suffering.

[78:37]

But the only way that the guarantee becomes valid is if you realize it. And there's no guarantee that that will happen, right? But we're just practicing. We're all practicing together, supporting each other to do that. But there's no formula for lessening anxiety other than not trying to, accepting, seeing the world as it is, and sitting Zazen. And thinking, you know, are you anxious about might happen, or are you anxious because, you know, there's a bear standing in front of you? Something that might happen? You know, is he going to come toward you? It seems to me that the problem is seeing something wrong with anxiety. You know, maybe anxiety is supposed to be happening in that moment. You just accept that anxiety is happening. Anxiety is good. You cannot put a judgment on whether it should be there or not. Right.

[79:38]

I think what you're talking about is that sort of extra anxiety, like the anxiety that sort of is the energy within us that gets our attention when there's a situation that needs to be responded to, like there's a car rushing through a red light. They have anxiety, I'm going to get hit. Well, that's anxiety that's life-supporting and that's good for us to have that anxiety, whereas anxiety about you know, remember you're going to have a meaningful life. Get out of the way of the speeding car and then you'll have a meaningful life. But we all have that, we all have levels of anxiety. We all have our stories that we could tell about the varying degrees of anxiety, and a lot of it is fabricated, as Robin said, not wanting to have the anxiety, which is sort of the first problem.

[80:41]

Because when you don't want it, that's three poisons, greed, ill will, delusions, pushing away. Or what do you get in place of it? I don't have time to practice all the time. I don't have time to pray all the time. What do you have left? Well, you're going to have a lot of suffering because there's going to be all these feelings of things that are arising. So it's really, it's not for the squeamish. It's a relentless practice. It's a relentless practice. I think it's important to realize that, like you said, anxiety producing situation that, you know, it's not really the situation which is producing anxiety, but our minds which generally produce the anxiety and the suffering that goes with it. And some amount of anxiety is, you know, it's there. The extra suffering that our minds generate is the problem. there's anguish about something.

[81:44]

I might get hit by a car, or my lover has left me, or I can't deal with this job. I mean, there's that level of anguish and despair. And then what do we do with it? And everyone deals with it differently. And I heard Nelsey once to someone, don't take it so seriously and at first I had a reaction to that like what do you mean don't take it so seriously and then I realized what he was getting at which was don't take it so seriously don't take it so seriously right and if you think about when we have anxiety when we feel restricted in pain and then when it's released and when there's actually less suffering Most likely it's when we haven't taken it so seriously, when we've let go. It's when we take things too seriously in that real heady way where we get caught up and it just exacerbates that situation.

[82:48]

We put our fingers in the finger trap and then we can be released from suffering. But all that seriousness and tension just is worse. It's the continuation of practice and sitting every day, as Anne was saying, that cuts that cord of pain. It's the constancy to wear it down like water, wearing down, and then things soften up, and then we don't take things so seriously. We take them seriously, but we don't take them seriously in the way that's debilitating. And we have to have that constant practice and breathing in and then letting go. Breathing in and letting go. And it's always going on. And it really works. I mean, it doesn't seem like it'll work. Just breathe, you know. Just breathe and it'll be okay. The alternative is much worse. Yeah, holding your breath, right?

[83:48]

And it's also living in the present. I mean, that's one of the little monikers I use when I'm worried about what's going to happen. You know, I think, but wait, in the present moment, I'm perfectly safe. Right now, nothing bad is happening. And 99% of the time for me, that's true, or at least a very large percentage of the time, right now, nothing bad is happening. Yeah, and to be right on that point is very difficult because we fall off. And it's like when we're sitting, there's a certain place in our posture where we're not having to exert any effort. It's effortless effort, just sitting just on that point, kind of like a fulcrum and a seesaw. There's a certain point where everything is okay, and that's that present moment. And then we get off, then we have to do something.

[84:49]

or emotionally. Speaking of that, when occasionally someone comes along and adjusts my posture, I mean I appreciate the attention, but sometimes I'm adjusted in a way that is not my right way. And so I try to I don't know what that's about. What it's about is we think that we're sitting upright and because of some abnormality like we carry a heavy bag on one shoulder and we're twisted. We think we're sitting upright when in fact we're not. So the physical adjustment of pushing lower back and straightening one out is as the monitor sees sort of that more or less perfect upright posture, and it probably will feel a lot different. Well, it doesn't feel a lot.

[85:53]

I don't even know whether we should take this becoming precious time now, discussing. I mean, it's just always a minor adjustment. I must say, once Mel adjusted my mudra, and it was interesting because I glanced down and I couldn't even see his hands. I could just see my own hands. getting in the proper position. It was. I actually looked down and I could see my hands moving and I couldn't see his fingers. He did it so lightly and so quickly. Anyway, it was interesting. And, you know, another sensational kind of thing. Yeah. All this is mundane thing. You know, you're just getting your hands taken care of and then it's actually transformed. And he did it so efficiently. It's mainly why I believe that it worked that well. He was so efficient and deft at it. Right. He's been doing it for about 30 years. Yeah. And I do believe it stayed with me, too.

[86:55]

Hopefully so. Unlike the past, right? Yeah. When I came out here I used to sit like this and I thought this was upright. But it felt like this is how you sit, right? And I remember this first adjustment I got, it was like I was going to be falling off the ton. It was like this. It was bizarre. If I've learned anything from being at Berkley Zen Center, it's posture and upright, because there's really a lot of attention on that. And it does make a difference, because what that is, is being upright and meeting the world completely, versus this, which is so... Vulture pose. Yeah. Let's see, we have a couple of minutes, why don't we sit for a couple of minutes, sit Zaza and then... Ding ding.

[91:16]

Thank you all very much for your participation and I learned a lot studying this and I hope you all too were able to get a grasp on this teaching and that as we chant the Heart Sutra throughout the years in our zendo, that it resonates even more and helps support our practice together.

[91:46]

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