Extinction refers to conditioned co-production and the wheel of becoming, and also the wheel of extinction, going the other way. No suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path refers to the four noble truths. So all of the major doctrines of Buddhism are presented here as they refer to emptiness. What's the most stopping? Is that like the cessation? We'll get to that. the way suffering originates and the way suffering is stopped.

[01:05]

So that's within the Four Noble Truths. Suffering is the first one, and how suffering originates is the second one, and how suffering is, that there is a way out of suffering that's called stopping. And then path means a full path. So, and no cognition and no attainment. In other words, no knowing. It's very interesting. No cognition, also no attainment. But I'm getting ahead of myself if I talk about that, so I'm going to go back. In the Tiger's Cave, Amitabha talks about what's called the Pratyekabuddha view.

[02:30]

Of course, you know, these 18 idhanas are very much a part of Buddhist doctrine. But Mahayana, you know, doesn't, sees them in a different way. rather than paying attention to the causal conditioning of how things arise in a cycle or circle, Mahayana talks in a more general way about how everything is co-conditioned. So the text says, no suffering, no origination, no stopping, and no path. So here he says here, hitherto we have been speaking from the standpoint of the ordinary person under illusion.

[03:42]

Even in the midst of the stillness, it is possible to discover, I'm sorry, even in the midst of the illusions, it is possible to discover the world of emptiness. It has been said that even while we are being pulled along by life or by karma, we can experience that lightness of life when seeing leaves no trace and hearing leaves no trace and there is absolutely nothing in the heart. That experience is the joy of the wisdom of ultimate emptiness. Now we pass on to the attempt to experience the true world of emptiness in the twelve causes and the four truths. Okay. It is the attempt of those of the Hinayana path who are called Shravakas and Prancakabuddhas. Shravakas are a term that's used, you know, in the Lotus Sutra, if you read the Lotus Sutra, there's a very famous story about the burning carts.

[04:45]

And the house is on fire, and the father sees the children inside playing with their carts. He says, I got to get the children out somehow. They're distracted. So he gives them a choice. He says, I have a goat cart and a deer cart and an ox cart, I think he says. And one is the Pracheka Buddha, or is the Shravaka cart, and the other is the Pracheka Buddha cart, and the other is the Bodhisattva cart, or the Buddha cart. So this is how he lures the children out, giving them some expedience, expedient kind of vehicle to give them something to, take their tent, lure them out of the burning house.

[05:53]

So these are the three vehicles. And the Shravaka vehicle is called the vehicle of the listeners or the followers of Buddha. But I think sometimes it refers to the arhats. And the Prachekabuddha vehicle is, Prachekabuddha is like an independent realized person. We call it an independent Buddha. One who is not, who has realization for themselves, but they don't have any motivation to share that or to awaken other people. So Dogen talks about this when he talks about enlightenment and bodhi mind. Bodhi mind and enlightenment are the same, but they're also different.

[06:59]

Enlightenment, in that they're both enlightened mind. But bodhi mind is the mind of the bodhisattva, with the intention of saving all beings and not pursuing their own enlightenment until all sentient beings have been saved. So this is more like Bodhi mind. Of course, when you give up seeking for enlightenment in order to work for the benefit of all beings, that of course is enlightenment itself, the highest enlightenment. So, putting off enlightenment is gaining enlightenment, whereas to partake of Buddha simply enjoys their enlightenment without sharing that with other people. That's the kind of simplistic way that it's usually explained.

[08:05]

So, he says, whereas the Mahayana Bodhisattva spirit would find the true form in the ordinary person's delusions, the practice of those of the Hinayana who are called Pracheka Buddhas is to annihilate completely all love and grasping and to negate completely human life. Their ideal of nirvana is utterly to destroy the individuality. From love and grasping arise the various illusions. And if those two are completely annihilated and made void, there will not be any illusions." So this is actually a kind of dualistic separation. So the technical term for this annihilation of individuality is Extinction of existence and feeling. Body and mind are altogether negated, and this is said to be the Nirvana ideal. The true release from birth and death is, they say, to be born no more.

[09:10]

So this is like a never-returner. There's a stream-winner, a once-returner, a sometime-returner, and a never-returner, meaning extinction, never-returning. Being born and dying is pain, and the destruction of existence and feeling altogether is their ideal state, which they call nirvana. So this is the state of nothing. One is no longer creating any kind of karma that continues existence. But this is also part of Buddhism. It's not just There's also something about this that's also part of Mahāyāna. Then the text says, no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path. This is the Four Noble Truths. These terms belong to the Śrāvakas. So, the Twelve Links of Causation is what the Pacheka Buddhas advocate, and the Four Noble Truths is what the Śrāvakas advocate.

[10:19]

It's not strictly speaking so. because all of this is studied by everybody. But this is what they based their understanding on. So these terms belong to the Śrāvakas, who also followed the Hīnayāna, following the Hīnayāna, have as their final goal the annihilation of life, but the method of practice differs slightly. Hinayana, as I said before, there's no school called the Hinayana school. Hinayana is a kind of attitude. Mahayana is a kind of attitude. We talk about Mahayana schools and Hinayana schools, but there's no strictly speaking Mahayana school or Hinayana school. These are attitudes that are kind of at odds with each other. The Pachinko Buddhas go into the principle of twelve causes in order to extinguish birth and death.

[11:30]

Those called Shravakas are said to go into the principles of the four truths in order to bring about the same objective. The twelve causes are referred to in the phrases, no ignorance and no extinction of ignorance, nor any of the rest, including age and death and extinction of age and death. The second set of phrases, no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path, refers to the Śrāvakas who by the practice of the Four Truths aim likewise at extinction of life. What follows is a little technical, but please listen. I first propose to set out the Buddhist doctrines of delusion, karma action, and pain. So those are three, Buddhist delusion, karma action, and pain. and then to discuss the Hinayana view. The triad delusion, karma action, and pain is the Buddhist view of life in both Mahayana and Hinayana.

[12:33]

Delusion means deluded grasping at something. It is sometimes called passions. In Buddhism, the delusion is the deep-seated conviction of an I where there is no I. In other words, the delusion of hanging on to the I. So that's basically the basis of delusion. Hanging on to a false sense of self. On this arise in the heart the forms of the passions which thus are simply the mental functioning on the basis of deluded grasping. Though there is no self, the conviction that there is one leads to desire to satisfy that self by a search which can never come to an end. So we're always looking for something more, right? And it's endless searching, endless. We may like that, but we don't, because we're driven by it, we don't think of it so much as delusion.

[13:37]

But every once in a while, we see the delusion in it. We think, what am I doing? Why am I doing this? What am I getting? So, though something pleasant is encountered, the greed for more goes on without end. When something unpleasant is encountered, anger arises. Greed is first, and anger is second. Third is folly, and it is failure to understand the nature of things. One does not see the chain of cause and effect, that if one does good, that there is good, and if evil, then evil follows. When we hear people grumbling all the time, we tend to think that they are just talking nonsense. But in fact, their foolish talk is a sort of justification of themselves. It is the delusion of self-justification. It means that having done something wrong, we want somehow to make it out to have been right.

[14:38]

And how often do we do this? We keep blaming and blaming and blaming. And when we do do something wrong, we tend to justify ourself. Instead of simply saying, oh, I did something wrong. That's the hardest thing. And we want to put out our best face and hide our worst face. It's really hard to to actually allow our fault face to be present. So what we do often, not always, we do this, but often we, in order to save face, we make excuses. And then the excuse needs to be reinforced.

[15:42]

And then as we keep reinforcing our reasoning, we keep stepping deeper into the hole until we don't really know what we're doing. Yeah. So is this desire for approval simply a way of hoping that the other person's approval will give you Well, that can happen. We all like approval. We all want to be approved. Why? For various reasons. It's a big subject, why we want approval. That's a big subject for various reasons. because we want to be recognized by each other.

[16:47]

We are social beings, and in our social milieu, we want to be liked by people, by the people around us, and we want approval. But sometimes, we want more approval than we deserve. That's when we have a problem. When we feel that we're not getting approval, we're not getting recognition, then we do something in order to do that, to get that, like just a minute. So we try to make everybody happy in some way, so that people will say, gee, you're very nice, you know, and so forth.

[17:49]

So sometimes we manipulate in order to get approval. But if we're not getting approval or if we're not getting recognition, why is that? I think that gives us a kind of clue as to how to look at ourself, how to investigate ourself. What am I doing that people don't, you know, I don't get that. Sometimes people say, nobody loves me. People just don't love me. I don't get any love from people. There must be something wrong with people that they don't love. This happens a lot. But, you know, it's like, well, what are you doing to, where's your love for people? Or, well, I'm always doing things for people and blah, blah, blah, but how are you doing that? I mean, what is the reasoning behind what you're doing? Are you simply doing, expressing your helping people in order to get recognition?

[18:56]

Or, in other words, and as long as there's something that you want, You're not going to get it. But as long as you keep giving without needing to want anything, you get a lot back. That's the way it works. Yeah. I think on a reasonable level, yes. Then would there be a difference in the way you relate to those desires? Yes. Difference from what? From how you relate to them when you do strongly believe in your separate self.

[19:56]

This is academic, you know. I would say When you're doing, you know, Oboro talks about not having anything at the bottom of the heart. This very important, this is probably the most important thing that he's talked about in this book, is not doing something without anything at the bottom of the heart. In other words, there's no self motive. You simply give and forget. You simply do something and go on. But what we do, we say, well, I did something pretty nice for you. And even though you don't want to, it creeps in. To actually be able to do something and totally let go and just leave no trace, that's without self.

[20:59]

Who's rights? You should stand up for your rights. That's okay. That's all right. If it's right. If it's right. You should not let yourself be bullied. You should not let yourself be stepped all over. Although, there's a time when it's okay to do that. The thing is, there's a time and a place and a circumstance for everything and it's not always the same. No, it's just not always the same. Circumstances determine, that's why it's so hard to talk in generalities. You know, oh, okay, I always should stand up for myself.

[22:06]

Sometimes you should just take a back seat and let things happen. And if you allow them to happen, then instead of you standing up for yourself, everything will come to you. So there are different ways of justice. There's no such thing really as justice. We just like it. We like the idea of justice. But as much as we want to get justice, we don't get it. We get just as is. Just is is what we get. So just, you know, like retribution for crimes is justice. No, it isn't. It's just retribution for crimes. It's not justice. We like to think of it as justice, you know.

[23:08]

People will beat me up upward, but there is no, that's not justice. Revenge is not justice. It's just revenge. As long as we want justice, then we have a big problem, because it makes us very angry. You know, I remember one time I was in the park with my dog. This was a long time ago, I had a different dog. And a woman was in the park, and we were talking to each other, and the dog just came up and bit me on the finger. And I like dogs, and if they bite me on the finger, I don't care. But if they bit you on the finger, or bit somebody else on the finger, they would want justice. They would sue the lady because her dog bit her. That's not justice. That's just getting out your rage.

[24:10]

You know, how you approach something, people approach in different ways. I was at St. Park and my dog peed on a guy's leg. He thought it was a post. He said it was okay, I didn't have to pay for having his pants cleaned and all this. But I would have, it was very embarrassing. Maybe it's justice. Which part was that? It was in San Francisco. But we bring all these criminals to justice. No, we bring them to jail. And when we talk about electrocuting somebody, justice, before he finally, the family they offended, finally brought him to justice.

[25:28]

No, they just killed him. But you feel justified. but it's not really justice. Because one thing doesn't equal the other. So we have to find the reconciliation through forgiveness, actually, and in ourself. Because an eye for an eye is not justice. It's just plucking out eyes. So, he says, when we hear people grumbling all the time, we tend to think that they are just talking nonsense, but in fact, their foolish talk is a sort of self-justification of themselves. It is a delusion of self-justification. Self-justification is justice. Justification. justify.

[26:31]

It means that having done something wrong, we want somehow to make it out to have been right. Suppose one gets up early while it's still dark, and on the way to the bathroom one stumbles against a water jar on the ground and breaks it. How clumsy of me! And the wife replies, it wasn't your fault. I thought I ought to have put it away. There's no foolish complaining because each side is looking at its own fault. But we don't do it like that. Instead, we attack the other party by saying, who's the fool that left that here in the dark? And the retort comes back, who is it that goes blundering over it and then complains? And the wrangle is on, all the same, trying to make oneself out to be right is the sin of folly. Well, indeed, if we could just sweep away all these poisons of delusion in the heart, but those are delusions, these are delusions, cannot be ended just like that. They manifest themselves in every action of ours, and this action is what is called in Buddhism, karma.

[27:36]

Word or deed or action is karma, and in it, the movement of our mind infallibly reveals itself. He who outwardly invades against anger finds himself a murderer. The inner state is revealed in words and deeds, and such are called in Buddhism, karma actions. Good or bad, there is the action, and I can never evade responsibility for it. With the action, an energy is implanted in me. The aggregate of the energies thus accumulated is also called karma, or karmic force, and it never becomes extinct until it has produced a result. At some time, it must bring about its result. Delusion and karma are like planted seeds, the fundamental causes of the results which we are bringing on ourselves. For instance, when a seed is planted, the seed itself is the direct cause in the alaya consciousness.

[28:37]

But by itself, it will not sprout. There is the rain and the soil and so on, and only with these associated causes will it sprout. Then in a sowing, which brings about the pains of life, the fundamental causes are delusion and karma action. So delusion, karma action, and pain. to partake of Buddhist view. The fact that however much we try to act rightly, we are unable to act absolutely rightly, is the result of the karma of our past delusions and action. However we try to give up evil, we cannot altogether give it up, and this is the effect of the karma energy of our past. Our life of 50 or 60 years suffering, and it must be called suffering, is just living all the time driven by karma through smiles and tears on the wheel of birth and death. delusion and karma action, considered as the causes of suffering in life, are again analyzed into twelve. These are the twelve conditioned co-productions.

[29:42]

And the method of practice of the Pratyekabuddha is to perceive them in tranquility, concentrated in the center of the heart. The Barchaka Buddhas meditate on the 12 channels through which delusion, karma, action, and suffering are the causes of human life. And here is the list of the 12. It starts with ignorance. It's a circle, but it starts with ignorance. Actually, you can start anywhere on the circle, but you start with ignorance. Ignorance, the impulse to live, consciousness, name and form, that's called Nama Rupa, the six organs of sense, including mind, contact, feeling, desire, grasping, intention, birth, age, and death. These are referred to in the Heart Sutra in the words, no ignorance and no extinction of ignorance. In other words, it starts with ignorance and ends with no extinction of ignorance and leaves out the middle, just in order to mention these 12.

[30:51]

Ignorance means the passions. The heart which hangs on to self is the heart of passion. Delusion, action, and suffering are all ignorance. Impulse to live is karma. These two are the causes in the past, seeds which have been sown in previous births. Now, what did I say about previous births? You can see that in various ways. You can see that many lifetimes ago, or you can see it as we all live many lifetimes within this present lifetime. I've had five or six past lives, all of which have a beginning, a middle, and an end. And I probably do too. But our actions in the past, our past life, which could be 20 years ago, it is producing fruit in the present.

[32:16]

So delusion and karma created in former lives being the cause of present life is the result. and it is classified into five. Consciousness, name and form. Nama rupa means, nama is names, but it also refers to mind. And to say name is kind of misleading. It's mind and form. In other words, form-form mentality, just like the five skandhas. The first one is form, and the rest are mind. The rest are conscious, are mind. So, nama-rupa, it's not, where am I? Mind and form. The six sense organs, contact, desire. Consciousness means the moment of, so now he's talking about this in the sense of how one grows up.

[33:24]

Like, see, if we go back to the way most Buddhists accept in the past, have accepted rebirth, is that when someone leaves the body, the alaya-vijnana, the storehouse consciousness, and manas, the ego consciousness, are released, and the rest fall away, because the senses fall away with the body. And mind consciousness, I don't know what happens to that exactly, but alaya-vijnana and Manas, the ego consciousness, somehow coalesce and continue. And there's this kind of extreme concentration, and it's called ignorance.

[34:32]

Because it only knows, it has no mind to think, but it's like You know, if you think about the sperm and the egg, these little wigglies, you know, they just somehow go and find this thing, right? So it's kind of modeled, I think, modeled after the sperm and the egg. This is like 2,000 years ago, people were thinking this, right? Where'd they know this from? Anyway, so, and it looks for its parents. And this is called total ignorance, but it's ignorance which is highly, you know, it's like beyond thinking. And it finds the parents somehow and is born within the combination of the sexual act.

[35:36]

then that ignorance is, somehow, this is where it starts, with ignorance. This is where the circle starts, is with ignorance. So, he says ignorance means the passions. In other words, the passion to stay alive, to continue, Interesting. Okay. So, we'll stand up for a minute. So, anyway, this ignorance is a highly refined form of knowledge. It's like true knowing. You know, we say true blindness is to be able to see everything as it is. This is Buddhist talk.

[36:41]

So when he says, so ignorance means the passions. I think it means desire. Passion, of course, is a word that means basically suffering. But we use the term to mean desire. High desire is called passion, passionately. But truthfully, it means suffering. So if we talk about the passion of Christ, we're not talking about his high desires, we're talking about his suffering. Thank you. And compassion means to suffer with.

[37:50]

or to, in some form or another, to empathetically, empathy. So anyway, ignorance means desire. And the heart which hangs on to self is the heart of desire. Delusion, action, and suffering are all ignorance. impulse to live is karma. These two are the causes in the past, seeds which have been sown in previous lives. So according to my explanation, you can see how that fits. So delusion and karma created in former lives being the cause, our present life is the result. So in Buddhism we say that we are self-creating. There's no deity which is creating us, but we are self-creating. Because through our actions, we are continually creating karmic result.

[39:04]

And this determines the direction of our life as we meet circumstances. So, consciousness, mind and form, the six sense organs, contact and desire. Consciousness means the moment of the first throb of life in the mother's womb. It is the mental consciousness which is there at the first moment of life. As a matter of fact, in Buddhism, there is never mental consciousness without a body. But here, the stress is laid on the mental side, so the technical term is consciousness. Then comes mind and form. Form is the physical thing to which mind is attached, and it means the body. The first is when consciousness settles in the first thrall of life. The second period is gradual development of mind and body in the mother's womb, but as yet without the senses.

[40:08]

Then there is the next stage of the sense organs, eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, surface, and mind, considered as the sixth. Contact is one or two years after birth. The child stares and listens. There is just contact with what is before him, but he does not yet know about good and bad. It is just physical awareness. The time of what is technically termed feeling is when, having taken in what is before him, he now begins to go over it all in his mind again and again. The condition of the mind where things are deeply gone over like this is technically called feeling. This is said to be the period from 5 to 6 up to 14 years. These five consciousness, name and form, the six sense organs, contact and feeling, are the five-fold karma effect in the present. Now, desire grasping in existence, we come to the point when in our life, which is a karmic effect, we come to produce passion and karmic action. Consciousness, name and form, sense organs, contact and feeling are neither passions nor action.

[41:15]

They create no sin. The child just touches the objects before him and then up to 14 he just takes them in. Up to feeling there is no sin whatever. But as the human being develops, according to one sutra, from 14 to 15, up to 17 or 18, the thoughts of desire and grasping begin to arise. Thoughts of desire for sexual relations and accumulation of wealth and property. Grasping, the next in order, is when the thoughts of acquisition go deeper and deeper until the pursuit of them is incessant. The manifestation and action of desire and grasping, which are thoughts of clinging to self, is what is technically called existence. It is another name for karmic action. As desire and grasping become strong, they appear in our conduct, and then a karmic energy, which will produce its results in the future, comes into existence. The time of creation and conduct, good and bad, of the karmic energy is technically called the stage of existence.

[42:18]

Desire and grasping are passions. Existence is karma, so that they form the pair, delusion and karmic action. There were the five effects in the present, consciousness, name and form, sense organs, contact and feeling, and now desire, grasping and existence are the three causes in the present, which lead to the two results in the future, namely birth and decay and death, or old age and death. The present spark of consciousness in the womb marks the future birth. The effect of mind and form and the others is, in fact, age and death. Age and death is not in just the ordinary sense of something living which goes. It means to change around. It means mutability. For instance, the way in which our destiny has brought about the changes of the five effects now. So from the past to the present, and the present to the future, changing, delusion, and action, the causes, and age and death, the effect, eternally we pass through the three worlds of past, present, future, without ever reaching an end.

[43:27]

Ignorance leads to impulse, and impulse on through the others to age and death. So it is called a circle. Because there is the passion called ignorance, there is action, and from karma action comes about decay and death. If the fundamental ignorance were cut off, there would be no action, good or bad. And if action, good and bad, were annihilated, delusion and karma action would cease to exist. If delusion and karma action ceased and there would be no more incurring of the suffering of life, there would be no more. If ignorance is annihilated, impulse is annihilated, and so right up to the age of death, this is the view of the Vajrayaka Buddha. In other words, you keep eliminating the causes and finally you come to nothing produced. And one thing is the basis of another in production. This is the cause of the next step. Grasping or attachment is the cause of grasping, and grasping is the cause of clinging, and so forth, until old age and death.

[44:32]

And birth is the cause of old age and death. So when you're born, you know that you're going to die, because the cause is in the first moment. But actually, the cause is far before that. We only think in terms of birthday and death day, and so that's what we call a life. It is, it's a life. But birth and death are just continually happening in some form or another. So we say, no, actually no real birth and death. this continuous becoming. So, these Pracheka Buddhists mean it quite literally. First, making passions void, they go on annihilating to become free from birth and death.

[45:36]

And the annihilation of life is their ideal of nirvana, because when there's no more life, there's no more death. The nirvana of Hinayana is literally a void, nothingness. Their view is complacency and escaping from life. It is a selfishness which is satisfied with personal release from birth and death. So it is called the Buddhism of hermits and recluses in mountains and forests. Their nirvana is the annihilation of life. Those others, called Shravakas, see into the four truths to obtain nirvana and nothingness. These four truths are said to be what is certain and without error. In the Sutra of the Last Teachings, it is said of the Buddha, the moon may become hot and the sun cold, but the four truths taught by the Buddha will never change. Heaven and earth may be overturned, but the principle of the four truths will not be shaken. The four truths stand on the doctrine of delusion, action, and suffering already discussed. It comes down to this.

[46:37]

Everything is delusion, action, and pain. The present life is a result. which has been incurred by delusion and action in past lives, and the doctrine of a power which brings about the result in the second truth, is the second truth. The second truth is that delusion and action in the past are, taken together, the fundamental cause of pain. They speak of the path as the practice by which the fundamental causes have to be extinguished in order to extinguish suffering. To be free from birth and death, the causes, delusion and action must be destroyed and the appropriate practices turned away, there being 37 auxiliaries." They're talking about the 37 wings of enlightenment as meditation practices. By the way of practice which destroys delusion and action, there is attained realization in nirvana called extinction. Extinction is nirvana. Extinction means that there is nothing.

[47:37]

The extinction truth is realization of a nirvana in which life has altogether ceased to exist. So the practice of śrāvaka is to absorb the four truths into the mind in the expectation of becoming free from life. To sum up, both Pracheka Buddha and Shravakas think that our desire and grasping are things to be done away with. If they can be completely done away with, we become like empty snail shells. Their nirvana is in thinking that they have completely done away with the causes of life. In that way, in that, they believe they have realization. This view, which would extinguish what is not to be extinguished and which thinks it has been extinguished, is a shallow one. Shallow indeed, the nirvana is an empty void. Nothingness as such, it has no meaning for life." So this is the criticism of these practices according to the Heart Sutra. The Bodhisattva spirit is different.

[48:39]

In the midst of desire and grasping, which we cannot do away with, however much we try, in the midst of our deluded thoughts and ideas, we are to discover the world of release. Day by day, our desire and clinging make us alternate between joy and sorrow, laughter and tears. If there is something within reach, I want to get it. But for all my efforts, I can't. In this state of desire and clutching, let me discover the true world of release. It is through the existence of this very desire and grasping, or rather through the gradual coming to see that the character of this desire and grasping is the character of myself also, that I can come to discover release, and having discovered it, to taste it, and then to continue practice in faith. This is the spirit of the Bodhisattva. So instead of eliminating all defilements, the practice to find the freedom within the world of desire.

[49:53]

is Mahayana practice basically, although our Zen practice is Hinayana practice with a Mahayana attitude. We don't actually discard that side, but we also don't there is a basis of truth in that side, but it falls short of the highest truth. In the Lotus Sutra, Buddha is talking about the magic city, you know. He said, there's this magic city, and just keep coming and you'll see it. But it's a kind of, come on, you know. And so he gives a sermon, and there are 500 arhats attending the sermon.

[51:07]

And when he talks about, from the Mahayana point of view, about what is nirvana, the arhats all look at each other and stand up and leave. They don't want to believe this. It's interesting. So, what is he saying? He's saying that samsara and nirvana are not separate, that nirvana is to be found within samsara, not by separating from it. So the life of desire and clinging is that all the time, though I think I will not get angry, anger arises. I think I will not say stupid things, yet they come out. It is possible for us to see every moment in the deep passions which are the basis of life, our own true form.

[52:14]

The deeper the desire and grasping, the more deeply can be experienced the absolutely unconditioned." This is basically what most koans are talking about. If you read the Blue Cliff Record, Mumonkan, you say, this is crazy. What are they talking about? Well, the passions of the bodhi, nirvana, is to be found within samsara. The spirit of the Bodhisattva is to find life at the heart of desire and grasping, not for himself alone. She jumps into the blood-stained wheel of clinging to life in order to rescue all living beings. Unlike the shallow sramakas and vajraka Buddhas, the Bodhisattva seeks the true meaning of life.

[53:19]

Contemplating in silence, this is the conviction I have reached. If I may be forgiven the personal reference, I may say that I find there is a meaning in the lowliest station. Whether it is the true spirit of the Bodhisattva, I know not. But I find that so long as there is security and health and the environment is not too disturbed, I have attained peace. My present state is secure. There is no great disturbing passion. There do not seem to be karma actions inspired by passion, and yet the desire and clenching for life is a terrible thing. I catch a bit of a cold and go to bed. Someone says, come now, you're in bed with a cold. How about thinking of the grace of the Buddha? My head is throbbing with pain. What do you mean? This is no time for thinking about the Buddha. My head hurts and I have nothing left to think with. When we face the moment of death with the convulsions and clutching for air, can we then sweep away the desire and hang on to life?

[54:20]

It is said that a certain priest at the moment of death gave the traditional cry of Zen illumination, khats. But then another one is reported to have said, I don't want to die. I don't want to die. Someone has well said on this, I suppose it's OK for a Zen priest to go out playing his part right to the death. But for myself, I find the I don't want to die has more human flavor about it One may be able to die when they're caught, or one may not, but after all, in the, I don't want to die, I don't want to die, is the very thought realizing that the character of the desire is the character of oneself also. And that last thought, I verily believe that there is a world of release. So it's interesting, it's like, instead of trying to change yourself into something, some great ideal person. You find yourself as you are to just be who you are and to find your self-realization in exactly who you are.

[55:39]

with what you have. Isn't that a big relief? But if you become complacent, oh, this is who I am, that's not right either. I remember somebody asking Suzuki Yoshi about that, he said, As you know, you're okay just as you are, but you could use a little improvement, which means more than that. The Arhat ideal has some wonderful energy and effort within it. And the Mahayana idea is to be yourself, just as you are.

[56:46]

But there's something, yes, be yourself just as you are, but you must continue to make some effort. You continue to make the effort through practice. But it's not the effort to improve yourself. It's the effort to be yourself. We put a lot of judgment on people. You know, he's not acting right or she's not doing right. But in other places, they accept people the way they are. More. I sometimes have a problem accepting people the way they are. And we expect everybody should be a little more this way or that way or change or something. And we have a lot of criticism.

[57:49]

But people are the way they are because they can't help themselves, mostly. We're the way we are because pretty much we can't help ourselves. I mean, we can't help being the way we are. But if we cling to that, that's not right either. So he says, my own small faith and experience is that the Bodhisattva spirit is not reducing life to nothingness and trying to escape completely into some nirvana world, but finding a meaning in this futile seeming life as it is.

[59:26]

And that is the real nirvana. by the Prajñāpāramitā to reach nirvana. What is that state of nirvana? It is not reducing life to a void. It is the feeling of life in the unburdened heart, of leaving no tracks behind, which is the real nirvana. That is the attainment that is the highest nirvana. When it is said there is no ignorance, nor extinction of ignorance, nor any of the rest, including age and death, it means that from the standpoint of emptiness there is no ignorance to be cut off, to be taken away. In Mahayana, if there is ignorance, it is no obstacle, and so with the rest. If there is age and death, it is no obstacle. There is no extinction of ignorance and no extinction of age and death. The true nature of ignorance is Buddha nature. The passions are the bodhi. So it is not a question of extinction of ignorance. Birth and death is nirvana. So it is not a question of extinction of birth and death. There is no suffering, cause of suffering, extinction of suffering, nor way.

[60:27]

There is no suffering, no cause to be reduced to nothingness. So there is no way by which we put them away. Still, lest need there be some world of nothingness called nirvana. no wisdom, no attainment. In Hinayana, the highest wisdom is realization of the cutting off of delusion and karma action, but there is no such wisdom and no realization, attainment of some nirvana nothingness in which everything ceases to exist. We have to experience the world of release at each step in life. and live lightly without leaving a track. There is still the present world of ignorance and age and death, the world of pain and the causes of pain, but they are no longer impediments. Rather, it is just through them that we get the deep experience of being unburdened." And this is the secret of the repetition of the words, no, no, no, no. So then the sutra

[61:32]

talks about with nothing to attain, means indifferent to attainment, basically. The Bodhisattvas depend on Prajnaparamita, and the mind is no hindrance. Mind is no hindrance, meaning the mind of non-discrimination. And Mentality is not a hindrance. Does need not be a hindrance, actually, because realization goes beyond. Mind is called thought coverings. By our thinking mind, we put it, the more we depend on our thinking mind, we put a thought covering on top of our head, like a hat, and then we lose our intuition, our intuitive understanding, the content.

[62:48]

So when we sit Zazen, we take off the thinking cap, the mind cover. Hopefully, the mind shatters away, you know, but it's not a thought covering. and we simply let the mind expand. So the mind, without any hindrance, there's no fears. Form and emptiness are mutually supportive. Nothing to fear, really. Is there something, you know, we fear death. Basically we do, because we like life. So we cling to life and push away dying. But life includes death and includes birth. So I always talk about birth and death rather than life and death because life is something other than birth and death.

[63:51]

Birth and death are included in life as aspects of life. But life itself has no coming or going ceasing. But you know, interesting thing is that everyone who has been born has died. Everyone. And no one who has been living over a certain age that hasn't done that. So what does that mean? That's a natural step. Just a natural step. So yes, we do fear that. But on the other hand, if you think about it, what is that? What does that mean, to fear that? It just means that everything that we experience, our experience, doesn't prepare us for that.

[64:56]

But our practice should. So the mind is no hindrance, and without any hindrance, no fears exist. Far apart from every perverted view, one dwells in nirvana. Actually, they're really inverted views. Inverted views, meaning upside down. Inversion. The inverted views are what we think is, what we usually think is permanent is impermanent. What we think is ease is really not ease. What we think is self is not self. And what we take delight in is really something that is not delightful.

[66:00]

Those are the four inverted views. So in the three worlds, all Buddhas depend on Prajnaparamita and attain unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment. Unobstructed Anantara Samyak Sambodhi. So it talks about attainment. In the three worlds, all Buddhas attain unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment, which is a non-attainment. It's an attainment which is a non-attainment because there's nothing to attain. So therefore, know that Prajnaparamita is the great transcendent mantra. Transcendent mantra means middle way, transcends all opposites. And it's what is called an empty heart, which transcends all opposites, like dropping off body and mind.

[67:06]

It is the great bright mantra, like a mirror, which when one breaks the mirror into pieces, each piece reflects the whole. It's like two drops in the grass. They're reflecting the moon. It is the utmost mantra, nothing beyond it. It is the supreme mantra. It has no equal, which is able to relieve all suffering, meaning it's free from birth and death. The meaning is, if you catch the meaning, it means freedom from birth and death, which is central to Buddhism. It just depends on which way you want to understand it. It is true, not false. It is actually beyond true and false. So proclaim the Prajnaparamita. Proclaim the Prajnaparamita.

[68:09]

Proclaim the mantra that says, gatte gatte parasamgate bodhisvaha. Go on, go on. Go on beyond, altogether beyond, awakening fulfilled. So this is the only sutra that has a mantra attached to it. And I think that this is not, it's a sutra, but it's not, it's a dependent sutra. It depends on the rest of the Prajnaparamita sutras. So it's just a condensation. So it's not a sutra, it's not its own sutra. although it's independent in a sense, but it belongs to the larger set of 600 volumes of the Prajnaparamita Sutras. And so, it's kind of, you know, somebody stuck this mantra on it. So the sutra is kind of like an explanation, you know, it's expressing the understanding, and then the mantra is like saying, go, go do it.

[69:15]

You know, don't just think about this sutra. Practice it. Go and get to the other shore. When you get to the other shore, you realize there is no other shore. When you know how to practice on this shore, you're already on the other shore. But it means practice. Svaha means go get it, go do it. Alboro talks about the mantra being your daily life. Daily life is like a mantra. And I thought about that. I gave a talk about Suzuki Roshi's daily life was very much like a mantra. The way I saw him practice was everything he did was, you know, he had his habits, his rhythm.

[70:20]

The rhythm of his life was just like chanting a mantra. Very consistent, everything was consistent. And it was always, you could feel the energy coming out of his normal, unassuming practice. And the essence of his practice was drop your ego. Basically, don't be self-centered. Let go and be yourself. See, what is myself? Be yourself. Well, sometimes the worst thing we can say to somebody is be yourself. But Find out what's real. That's the end, so far.

[71:23]

There's a lot more, but we have to end there.

[71:27]

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