Good morning. I'd like to give a warm welcome to our speaker today, Peter Overton, who started sitting at the White Way Window in 1970. He was ordained by Richard Baker Roshi sometime thereafter and served as shuso, or head student, at Tassajara during the practice period in 1984. He was one of the early bakers of Tassajara Bakery on Cole in the coal valley of San Francisco. And later, after he left Zen Center, he was a baker at Acme Bakery. So you can see a picture of a young Peter in Baker's Lights down on Cedar in San Pablo. The black robes of our tradition. He's married and has two children and is a real estate appraiser for livelihood. and he serves on the board and in many ways is a pillar in our community.

[01:01]

Thank you, Peter. Thank you, Ross. Now I won't have to say as much. Good morning. I was thinking of talking about a couple of things today, and I don't know that I'll get to both of them. But I want to start off talking about the Heart Sutra. Can you hear me back there? Yes, okay. As you know, we chant the Heart Sutra daily, and as most of you know, probably, the Heart Sutra can be seen as a kind of condensation or you know, the shortest possible version of the Prajnaparamita literature, which is voluminous and includes many really large sutras. And this Heart Sutra is just, you know, kind of small.

[02:04]

It's said that, I've heard that Annie Somerville, who is the Chef at Green's described Reggiano Parmesan as this much Parmesan, this big. And that's kind of how I feel about the Heart Sutra. You've got this much perfection of wisdom, this big. But what I want to talk about is about the last line of the Heart Sutra, which to me is this much Heart Sutra, this big. It's the line we recite in Sanskrit. And there have been various translations. It's a mantra. And some people hold the view that talking about translating the mantras you know, transliterating the mantras or saying them other than the original language they were given to us and actually takes away their power.

[03:19]

There's something not quite right about that and we recognize that to some extent and it's part of the reason why we recite this mantra at the end of the Heart Sutra in the Sanskrit. However, I'm going to go on and talk about what these words mean in English. Actually, the part of the, where it says Paragate, [...] Para is in Paragate and Parasamgate is also included in the name of the sutra, the Prajnaparamita Sutra, the perfection of wisdom which has gone beyond. Gate, gate, Paragate, gone, gone, gone beyond. gone completely beyond. Oh, what an awakening. Hallelujah. I actually want to read a couple of things. One is some comments by

[04:31]

Richard Kahnze that are included in his translation of the Sutra. Edward Kahnze is interesting. He says something about mantras, which I won't read in full, but he says, mantras are incantations which affect wonders when uttered. According to the Sadhana and Mala, there is nothing they cannot achieve if applied according to the rules. But the rules are, of course, hard to come by. And then he goes on to say, some latras give miraculous protection in adversity. And then he says, my great predecessor, and I can't pronounce this name, this Chinese name, Sui Tong, does anybody know that? Mark here? No. Okay. who brought many sutras from India to China and crossed the desert, you know, back and forth. He refers to him as his great predecessor because Edward Kanze, who was known to be a little bit

[05:37]

Self-aggrandizing also translated a great many sutras, and we do owe him that debt. My great predecessor used the Hirudaya, the Heart Sutra, in this manner when in the Gobi Desert he encountered all sorts of demon shapes and strange goblins. When he recited the sutra, the sounds of the words, they all disappeared in a moment. Whenever he was in danger, it was this alone that he trusted for his safety and deliverance. Actually, I just remembered that I was coming into Hong Kong on a plane once, and it was very windy. It was very windy. It was before they built a new airport, so you're coming right down in the middle of the city. And just as we got to the ... We were just about to touch down, and it was blowing and blowing. The pilot, for whatever reason, decided, no, this isn't it. And that's when I recited the Heart Sutra. Oh, I forgot to read Kanze's. So, what Kanze says about the word beyond, he points out, the para occurs, as we saw, in the very name of the Prajnaparamita Sutra.

[06:46]

Anyway, he refers to Well, I'll read this. It's a little abstruse. But as a technical term, it is opposed to a not beyond, which comprises suffering, its basis, the round of births, the place where suffering takes place, that is, the skandhas, and its cause, i.e. craving and other bad states. The unwholesome states are compared to a flood or a river in full spate. We are on the hither shore, beset with fears and dangers. Security can only be found on the other shore. beyond the raft, beyond the flood, which has to be crossed by means of a ship or raft of the Dharma. In other words, the Dharma is the means. And this metaphor kind of corresponds to the Buddha's first teaching of the Four Noble Truths, that is, you know, we are here suffering, there's a cause to that suffering, which is this great flood of unwholesome states we're dealing with. There is an end to the suffering, there is another shore, and the means to get to the other shore is the raft of the Dharma.

[07:57]

And of course, when we get to the other shore, we have to kind of let the raft go, but that's another problem. So, but I also want to read from Thich Nhat Hanh's commentary on the Heart Sutra. And I'm going to read from a part at the end where he discusses this gone beyond a bit. But there's a very sweet paragraph before in which he He actually evokes what is, he's trying to give you a sense of what the meaning of mantra, the power of mantra is. So, bear with me. When two young people love each other, but the young man has not said so yet, the young lady may be waiting for three very important words. If the young man is a very responsible person, he probably wants to be sure of his feeling.

[08:58]

and he may wait a long time before saying it. Then, one day, sitting in the park together, when no one else is nearby and everything is quiet, after the two of them have been silent for a long time, he utters these three words. When the young lady hears this, she trembles, because it is such an important statement. When you say something like that with your whole being, not just with your mouth or your intellect, but with your whole being, It can transform the world. A statement that has such power of transformation is called a mantra. Then he goes on. Avalokite's mantra is, gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhisvaha. Gate means gone. Gone from suffering to the liberation of suffering. Gone from forgetfulness to mindfulness. Gone from duality into nonduality. Gate, gate means gone, gone.

[09:59]

Paragate means gone all the way to the other shore. So this mantra is said to be a very strong way. Gone, gone, all the way over in parasamgate. Sam means everyone, the sangha, the entire community of beings. Everyone gone over to the other shore. Bodhi is the light inside, enlightenment or awakening. You see it and the vision of reality liberates you. And svaha is the cry of joy or excitement like welcome or hallelujah. Gone, gone. gone all the way over, everyone gone to the other shore, enlightenment, svaha. Sometimes when we're chanting the sutra, I feel like when we get to this part of the sutra, we're sort of like, kind of starting to wind down a little bit. And I kind of wonder whether or not, you know, it should be more like, yes! Right at the end. So, I want to talk a little bit about going beyond.

[11:12]

I think the metaphor that we talked about of crossing the river to the other shore is actually a pretty practical and fairly accurate description of our dilemma faced with this overwhelming flood of emotional states and pain and confusion. And there's also another analogy that crops up in literature about the other shore rivers in the Hermann Hesse's novel, Siddhartha. There's a piece at the end, which I haven't read in a long time, where Siddhartha is contemplating the river as he sits next to the river with the ferry boatman. It's an analogy about, or a simile of a river is the mind that is constantly changing and constantly flowing and being able to let your mind and body go in that way.

[12:15]

But to me, taking a simile, I mean one way of looking at it, taking that and going beyond with it is to sort of imagine yourself as the water. you're not sort of observing the water flowing, you're just flowing with the water and just awake and aware for whatever comes your way as you're moving through your life without hesitation. But I think that sometimes we struggle with the problem of how we how we practice with these kinds of ideas without getting caught in sort of a, you know, when we're talking here, we're in the dualistic world, and yet we sometimes want to turn to a kind of non-dualistic approach, a direct approach to the meaning of the teaching.

[13:24]

And so I sometimes find it useful to kind of deconstruct the words a little bit. And so I ask myself, well, beyond what? And how is one to go beyond if you don't know where you're starting from or something like that, you know, some question like that? And so, well, where are, you know, where's the what? you know, where are my feet right now, and what, and how, you know, do I go beyond this? Is that sort of silly, or what, you know? This is, but I remain fairly convinced that starting from the zero point, where I am now, as I can understand and perceive that, is the only place from which to perhaps go beyond.

[14:27]

And so, if that's the case, then is it just a question of being where you are without really, I mean, consciously being where you are in each moment without, you know, seeking the other shore, so to speak. You know, the problem with the other shore is it's out there, you know, like, when's the next plane? Can't I just skip over this stuff, you know? So, you know, kind of an antidote is, well, okay, let's just see where we are first here, and then maybe something else will happen. But first we have to have our feet on the ground and be inside our own skin. Very quickly, you know, you just can't stand it. How can you stay where you are moment after moment?

[15:42]

Not that it's the same place, but where you are moment after moment. This is a great, you know, there are a dozen or so different schools of Buddhist philosophy that have different ideas about time. And so moment after moment is one phrase we use to sort of evoke continuity or, you know, continual practice. Dogen says, one continuous mistake. Anyway, however you think of moments as sort of, you know, lasting half a day or, you know, barely perceptible, moment after moment, how can we just be who we are in all our glorious confusion and joy and suffering? I recently have been

[16:45]

leading a group on Wednesday evenings, meets here Wednesday evenings, and we read Suzuki Roshi's lectures. And one of the recent talks in the book we're reading, he talks about being kind to yourself. And I found this is, maybe this is how I can stand being who I am. It's not as though being kind to myself allows me to kind of just sort of like, okay, it's, I don't get away from being who I am, but I can, I can actually approach and sort of accept my, my uncomfortableness. and continue to accept it, and just say, yeah, yeah, it's okay, you can feel bad, you know, it'll pass, you can feel bad, or you can feel great, you know, that's good too.

[18:04]

But there's, in paying attention to being kind to myself, I was really surprised to find how much I'm averting from some kind of feeling or just turning myself off when I don't want to, when I think I might be uncomfortable looking at somebody or speaking to them. I just find that kindness leads me past my fear. when past the anxiety I feel with who I am, moment after moment. So, going beyond takes care of itself.

[19:09]

Just being yourself here, now, paying attention to your breath or whatever, noting your feelings and thoughts, staying with that without averting or getting excited about it necessarily. You're going to go beyond. You can't stop it. You just have to stay with it. And it changes, it's not the same next moment, but somehow there's a feeling of staying with it. Yes, I will do this again, and I'll do it again, and I'll do it again. Well, I think I'm going to actually talk about the second thing that I wanted to talk about, and in a way I wanted to connect it with this

[20:15]

ideas that I've been talking about. But this is really kind of out from left field. How are we doing on time? It's 10.40. Oh, okay. Perfect. You know, I've been practicing long enough to have forgotten almost everything, all the teachings I've heard. But occasionally you remember them, and occasionally you actually say, oh yeah, that's what that was about. I was at an event. My wife, Susan, is a member of Sufi community that meets in Walnut Creek, and they celebrate the teachings through theater and dance and this was a little sort of cabaret kind of event where there was dinner and then we had a show with music and dancing, kind of vaudeville-ish.

[21:25]

So this particular group, Sufi group, is devoted to Meher Baba and so they These events are about working with the teaching and the theme of this particular, there's a lot of lightheartedness, but the theme of this particular thing was cancer and how we work with these real life things. What kind of little games we're playing with it and our dramas around this whole business of death and dying. In the middle of this, this phrase came to mind that I thought, oh yeah, that's right. But of course I could not remember where this was from. And I thought about it and thought about it and looked through books and I got on the Internet and I couldn't find it. It was a very popular phrase, but it got me nowhere because it's all over the Internet.

[22:30]

Nobody wants to reference a source. And so then I emailed Tigann Leighton, who's kind of my helper in this regard, and he said, oh yes, you should read about this in the Blue Cliff Record Case 45. I'm not going to actually present the case, but I just want to, it's very short actually, as they often are. A monk asked Jiaozhu, who is also referred to as Joshu, famous Zen master, the myriad things return to the one. Where does the one return to? This is the phrase that stuck in my mind. And I thought, oh, oh yeah. Jiaozhu says in reply, when I was in Jingzhu, I made a shirt. It weighed seven pounds. This is a beautiful answer.

[23:37]

So I feel like what's going on here for me is a little bit like coming from the other side of this discussion about going beyond. The myriad things return to the one. Where does the one return to? The myriad things go beyond, just everything just goes. But where does it go to? When you get to the other shore, when you've gone beyond, what then? You know, what do we do now? Well, Zhao Jie is pointing to something that, you know, hey, you know, I made this shirt, it weighed seven pounds. It's wonderful. But where does the one return to? The return returns to right where we are. In all its particularity, all the myriad things, just burst forth.

[24:52]

Could be standing in line, eating stale crackers at the Berkeley Bowl, could be making a shirt that weighs seven pounds. It must have been awful cold where he lived. Dang. I've got a coat that weighs seven pounds, but I only wear it when I go to Chicago in the winter. But, you know, there's this, you know, partly what this is about is, you know, this idea of returning to the source, and then what? you know, returning to the Source and then the Source bursts forth. Where does the Source return to? It returns when you open your eyes. The next thing you hear, it's returning to you. So in a way, you know, going beyond is kind of the intentional side of our practice.

[25:56]

Just be right here, moment after moment, going beyond. And yet, the beyond is always returning to us right here, moment after moment. I'm going to stop before I get into real trouble. Anybody want to say anything? Questions? Yes? Given what you said about feeling that the last line should sort of end with something like, oh yes, there's two other translations of that last line I want to share. Sure. The first is from the Rinzai practice I originally started doing several years ago. They chanted the Heart Sutra in English with the Mukugyo. Gone, gone, really gone, totally gone.

[27:33]

Whoa, mama. That's pretty good. Anybody wants to know who that was? Is it Phil Boylan? Oh, OK. I think you did touch on this, and as you were speaking, I wondered about how you might see how the Heart Sutra relates to the Metta Sutra. Well, right, I mean the Metta Sutra is a you know, a meditation on loving kindness, about kindness. And it is all-inclusive, it is embracing all beings.

[28:41]

And so I was kind of turning that around in the sense of embracing your whole, you know, huge being inside and without you know, without pushing it away, letting it be, letting it be happy, letting it be whatever, you know, holding it tenderly. Is this helpful or skillful means towards rowing? Well, when you get tired or when you get nervous about whether your boat's going to sink, you know, crossing to the other shore is a little bit like boarding the Titanic and hoping the crew is a little bit better this time. which took years.

[30:04]

But in the Gobi Desert, he did chant the heart sutra. And as I remember that incident, oh, there were storms. There were pirates. There were desert djinn and all. But the worst thing was thirst. And so, I mean, they were very close to dying of thirst. He had this horse. They just didn't know where they were. There was no source of water that they could find. And he chanted this sutra, the Heart Sutra, He really, you can imagine, put his whole being into that.

[31:09]

And shortly thereafter, the horse fell off the water. So he had a good horse, as well. But that's how he survived. Yes? One time Mel said that rowing the boat wholeheartedly is the other shore. Yeah. Wholeheartedly. Right here. Well, you can't leave anything behind. If it's not the whole enchilada, you're not growing the whole enchilada. You're going to have to go back and get it. And so that's the one catch, is that you've got to be all there for it.

[32:22]

Yes? Thank you. It feels like in studying the Heart Sutra in our meditation practice that we're examining our habit energy and looking at the source of that, and then at the end we go beyond. We're kind of bursting through, but as you said, it's a holy gelada, so it's still us. We haven't gone anywhere. How do you perceive the ongoing practice of the habit energy that we've had all along? How are we transforming? Yeah, it's a question about transformation. Going beyond is bringing up this question of transformation. Right, because I think people feel that once this transformation takes place, there's none of that residual stuff anymore, yet we still seem to carry... Well, maybe we haven't quite really felt what it is yet.

[33:33]

I mean, in some way, what I'm suggesting is that the transformation occurs when you really live totally. I mean, you have your habit energy about certain things you do. You know, I always have an apple after breakfast. Always. I remember Steve Weintraub asked Baker Oshie about this. He says, is there something wrong with this? You know? Toss a heart. And he said, well, maybe you should try not having the apple, see what happens. On the other hand, there is, you know, what's happening here, you know, as I reach for the apple, you know, as I think about, as I become aware that I'm stepping towards the kitchen to go get the apple, what's really going on? I mean, am I really, we call it habit energy because we don't know what's going on. And to cut through that, we just have to know what it is we're doing.

[34:36]

Really know. Really be aware of our action. Then at some point in there, there's a little choice to make. Do I want to do this or not? But with habits, it's as though you have no choice. You can sometimes suppress the habit a little bit. But you kind of know in the back of your mind, going right back there. But to really work with that, it just means finding out really what it is. Go ahead, Linda. You're such a subtle observer. Did I raise my hand? It came up about an inch. Well, it's kind of like Ross's question, and it's kind of a more dumb version of it, but here it goes.

[35:43]

When you said, you can't leave anything behind, that's the catch. And I thought, catch 22. Because these unwholesome states are kind of defined by the inability to not leave anything behind. Now, I think you just explained the answer to that. I'm saying something about habit energy, and you're saying forget defined. Who's defining? Well, yeah, I mean, it's an interesting point that the nature of the habit energy is that, you know, it's clinging or something. And yet, what I'm saying is, to go beyond that, let's really cling now.

[36:48]

You know, let's just see. So you said the unwholesome states, we have to be completely Yes, yes. And then we can't leave anything behind. So that's the little crux there. You know, the nature of an unwholesome state is that I must leave things behind. That's why it's unwholesome. I mean, because you want to be gone from that, gone beyond that. Yeah, that's what's unwholesome. I guess I'm going to come back to going beyond takes care of itself. That if you If you can, in fact, be there for your unwholesome state completely, then you can transform. I am an unwholesome state. You cannot be there because that's my nature.

[37:50]

You can't be there. So it says, but it's just trying to fool me. Yeah, it is trying to fool you. Yes. You want to come back to that? But really, I think what you're saying is, really look at your habit energy and where is it coming from, and really looking at the unwholesome state. It loses its power. When you see, when you really look at it, the habit energy loses its power, because the habit energy is about not looking. Yes. Now we're getting very wound up. One more, yes. Okay, yes, go ahead. It's a funny thing, a very subtle distinction, because a lot of habits are us recognizing exactly who we are, exactly how we're embodied, and being in tune with that, and being in harmony with that, and that's a kind of

[39:01]

You say a lot of habits are... say that again. For example, someone eats an apple after breakfast every day. That can be a recognition that physiologically the body is better off for having that little bit of fruit. You might find that out. You might find that out, but sometimes even something like that that has some basis which you consider to be true and important or useful or something like that, can become a sort of, can become embedded in a sort of habit energy. You know, so you might find out, well, yes, I am going to continue eating an example, but now I know why. Leslie? Well, this was making me think of this ceremony we did earlier. and habit energy that's all tangled up.

[40:05]

So is, when we avow our ancient, twisted, tangled karma, that's looking at it first? Yeah. I mean, confession is a very powerful tool for getting things out on the table, so that we can sort of say, yes, this is happening, and if that's all I can say, that's fine. Yeah, I'm not shutting it away. Are we running out of time? I'm never sure. Okay. Yes. I just wanted to add to the apple eating thing. It seems that even if you find on occasion that eating an apple is good for you after you eat breakfast, it's not always good for you. all the time. Yeah, it's true. Well, I think it's time to go beyond this event moment.

[41:19]

Thank you very much.

[41:21]

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