Give us a little clunk. I vow to taste the truth of the topic of the worst. Good evening. Good evening. Welcome back. Welcome everybody online. I was amusing the people in the room because I'm so hyped to start on time and I'm so happy that we started on time because we've got a lot to cover. We're going to do something a little bit different tonight. which is, well, thank you very much, Ino-san.

[01:01]

I have the task of, I mean, the joy, of really go through the last six chapters of the Sutra, and thereby we can say we cover every chapter of the Sutra. Obviously, not extensively, not a deep dive into any one of them, especially, although I think we've been on chapter 2, I've got to say. Chapter 2, chapter 16. Yeah. But, yeah, we're going to do this, hopefully, in the first half of the class, and then wrap up in the second half of the class. So, without any further ado, the last class we ended with chapter 22, which we said was... actually, at one point, the end of the sutra. And it reads as the end of the sutra. It's entrustment and please take care of the sutra and pass it on to others, etc., etc. Even though it says that all through the sutra.

[02:07]

The end of the sutra is like entrusting it to us that we take care of it and preserve the dharma. And then another six chapters were added on later. If anybody knows when, Well, that would be news to me. I haven't read that. But it's clear that they are later interpolations. And they mostly have to do with bodhisattvas and the bodhisattvas who might have had cults who were especially revered. Which is interesting because some of us might not have heard of some of these bodhisattvas. But at the time, obviously, they were pretty important. So, it starts with Chapter 23, the former deeds of the Bodhisattva Medicine King. Now, the Medicine King, Bhaisajiraja, first appeared in Chapter 10, you may recall. In Chapter 23, it tells the story of a bygone time, which is a familiar trope in the Lova Sutra, where there was a Buddha called virtue of the pure light of the sun and the moon.

[03:20]

And that Buddha taught the Dharma Flower Sutra to the Bodhisattva Delight to Behold for All Living Beings, as well as to his other Bodhisattvas and Shravakas. This Bodhisattva, Delight to Behold for All Living Beings, enjoyed engaging in ascetic practices. The Bodhisattva Delight to Behold for All Living Beings was called that because all living beings liked to see him because he had the power to change his form for whatever the living being wanted to see and relate to. That was a special spiritual power that this particular Bodhisattva had. And in the Lotus Sutra it says, having thus paid homage, he arose from Samadhi and thought to himself, employing transcendent powers, I have made these offerings to the Buddha, but they are not like making an offering of my very body. Thereupon, he ingested many kinds of incense such as sandalwood, kunduruka, turushka, cloves, aloes, and liquid amber, and drank the essential oils of champaka and other flowers.

[04:32]

After doing so for a full 1200 years, he anointed his body with fragrant balms, went before the Buddha virtue of the pure light of the sun and the moon, wrapped himself in heavenly jeweled robes, poured perfumed oils over himself, and employed his transcendent power and resolve to ignite his own body. I should have said content warning. Sorry, I'm not joking. I meant to say that. There's a content warning here about suicide. The body made a tremendous light which burned for 1200 years. Light is a very traditional offering. Also, to me this reads like it could have been written in China because In China, they also had the practice of self-embalmment. That was a thing that monks or other people, Taoists, but also Buddhists, would drink various resins and have them go in their body to embalm themselves from the inside while they were still alive.

[05:39]

It was a thing. Anyway. I consider this another shadow side of the Lotus Sutra, frankly. In a sutra that is just completely full of hyperbole and exaggeration and, you know, don't take it too seriously. It's just skillful means we're talking about here. Of all things for people to take seriously, this one. People did for centuries. This has been an actual practice in China and elsewhere. Not a lot, but pretty consistently people have done this. Do you think that is a way to get attention? For various reasons, Susan. I would say mostly as an act of devotion, as the Bodhisattva Medicine King did.

[06:43]

What would be the ultimate offering? And light, as I said, you know, we have light on the altar. Light is an offering. And I think that was it. But, you know, Thich Nhat Hanh had a lot to say about this chapter because I think the most famous examples for, well, anyway, for people of my generation who were alive during the Vietnam War, there were monks. Thich Nhat Hanh's Dharma siblings, actually, it's known to them. He knew personally the monks who self-immolated as protests against the South Vietnamese government, which was suppressing Buddhism and promoting Catholicism at that point. So they were doing it for attention, and then other people have as well. Yeah. Anyway, that's by Sajir Raj. You know, even though I'm probably tearing through these chapters, I want to say they're all pretty good.

[07:56]

They're all pretty interesting. They all have something to offer and worthy of taking a closer look at. So I'm just sort of talking about some of the things that get talked about the most and that are highlighted and that I personally found interesting. Dan? This is sort of the identity of the Bodhisattva Medicine King. Is there a relation between that, the Bodhisattva Medicine King, and the Medicine Buddha? Yes. Who appears in... Yes. Who's color blue? Yes. Yes, there is. No. I only know. There is a connection. What it is exactly. Did the Bodhisattva Medicine King become Medicine Buddha? Maybe, I suspect. Maybe. But I have not researched that. I'm sorry to say. Yeah. I got interested in this because Vaisadja Guru, the Medicine Buddha, was one of the seven Bodhi beings that we dedicated merit to.

[09:08]

when we did the seven-week ceremony for Hozan Roshi. And so, yeah, I got curious about that. I talked to my friend, Jonathan Colts, and, you know, he was saying that first centuries in Japan, if you were sick or something, you would pray to Medicine Buddha. And, yeah, so I think in the past, Baisajiraja and Medicine Buddha were really, really important, really significant. And now, not so much. That's how it goes, you know. Chapter 24 is called the Bodhisattva Wondrous Sound. I understand that Sanskrit could be translated as stammering utterance. I found that kind of interesting. The Bodhisattva Wondrous Sound, again, this is taking place in another cosmic realm. a parallel universe, if you will.

[10:08]

He is 42,000 yojanas tall. Now, I did look up, I was curious, what exactly is a yojana? Well, there isn't an exact. The best I could do was somewhere between five to eight miles is one yojana. So if we take five miles, then that's 210,000 miles. 5 times 42,000 or roughly 8.4 times the circumference of planet Earth. That is really, really, really tall. He's advised by the Buddha of his realm to go and visit the people of this realm and to not disparage the irregular and rocky terrain we have here in our little old Saha world. nor to belittle the tiny Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Therefore, when you go there, take care not to make light of the Buddha and his Bodhisattvas, or treat their land as inferior.

[11:17]

Like the Bodhisattvas seen with joy by all living beings in the previous chapter and Avalokitesvara in the next chapter, he is able to manifest in any form that would best serve the interests of suffering sentient beings. So I'll just read you a little passage. Virtue of the Flower. Here you merely see a single embodiment of the Bodhisattva wondrous sound. But this Bodhisattva manifests himself in many kinds of embodiments in order to expound this sutra to living beings everywhere. Sometimes he appears embodied as Brahma, as Chakra, as Ishvara, as Maheshvara. as a great general of heavenly beings, or as the heavenly king Vaisravana. Sometimes he appears embodied as a wheel-rolling sage king, or a minor king. Sometimes he appears embodied as an elder, a householder, a local official, or a Brahman. Sometimes he appears embodied as a monk, a nun, a layman, or a laywoman.

[12:23]

Sometimes he appears embodied as the wife of an elder, the wife of a householder, the wife of a local official, or the wife of a Brahman. Sometimes he appears embodied as a young boy or a girl, and sometimes he appears embodied as a heavenly being, a dragon, a yaksha, a gandharva, an asura, a garuda, a kimnara, a maharanga, a human being or a non-human being, and so on. Thus does he expound this sutra. He is able to rescue beings in the realms of hells, hungry spirits or beasts, and all who are in distress." So I think that I find it quite interesting that the Lotus Sutra teaches on so many different levels in so many different ways that the teachings, they're going to slide right by you sometimes. You might miss it. What's going on with these three bodhisattvas who have the power, the spiritual power to appear embodied in whatever form would best serve suffering sentient beings?

[13:31]

To me, this says a lot about what Dogen called, in Kastanahashi's translation, identity action. Being able to meet someone exactly where they are, which is a skill to cultivate. Bodhisattas, you know, bodhisattas, four methods of guidance. These are skills that bodhisattas, like us, we are all bodhisattas in training. would do well to cultivate, to have the skill to try to meet whoever you meet, meet them where they are, as they are, not try to make them be something different or have some different experience or tell them, here's what you're really thinking, you know, just listen and be with them as they are. That's what I get out of that. Yeah. And bashing right along. Chapter 25, the most popular chapter of the Lotus Sutra by far.

[14:40]

Chapter 25, Fu Mon, universal gateway of Avalokiteshvara. Fu Mon means universal gateway or universal door. It means all can come through. All can come through this door and meet Avalokiteshvara. This really highlights the devotional aspect of the Luda Sutra. I remembered it this time. Soda school scriptures for daily services and practice. That's us. It's a great book, by the way. You know, translated by a guy, Folk. What is it? Yeah. Anyway. So good. But, you know, this is published by the Shumucho. So in part one, table of contents, there's all these different chants that we might do in a Soda Zen service.

[15:47]

First one. The first one. Chapter one. Fu Ma. That's the first one in the list. I'm not kidding. Today, thousands and thousands of people have chanted the verse section of chapter 25. I guarantee it. Today and every day around the world, people chant this. Not only, I mean, of course, Nichiren Buddhists and many other Buddhists, not only Soto Zen, but yes, definitely part of our liturgy because as I said in the first class, it's very important to our tradition because of Dogen. Dogen, if you cut Dogen, you would bleed the Lotus Sutra. Speaking of the devotional aspect, I really love that Suzuki Roshi tells the story about his mom.

[16:50]

His mom, putting her around the house, doing housework, would chant the first section of chapter 25 to herself. all the time. That's all. I just love that. And that the translation by Shinozaki and Company that we chanted on Memorial Day uses she, her pronouns throughout. Chef's kiss. That's so good. That is so good. Because it's Guan Yin. It's Kaze On. Everybody loves Quan Yin, you know. And although, you know, historically in India, it was a male presence. And in the Lotus Sutra, it's usually often translated as male, he, him, pronouns. And then coming east, even like in Tibet, there are like,

[17:57]

Hermaphroditic, Avalokiteshvara. They're like, intersex Avalokiteshvara. And then in China and Japan, became like, you know, revered, motherly, tender mercy, take care of us all, hold you in her arms, this big devotional aspect. Anyway, we thought it would be fun, nice, seeing as this is devotional practice. We know someone who's very devoted to Avalokiteshvara and invited her to say a few things about it. That would be our Marlee. Do you want to sit up here? Yeah, sit up here. We've got the mic, so you can stay where you are. Do you want to turn this around? Oh, that's the point. I can come over there. Okay. Not to kick you off the Dharma seat. Kick me off the Dharma seat, Marlee. Hello, friends.

[19:10]

I'm told I have about 10 minutes, so let's get into it. Thank you, Greg, for introducing chapter 25, which I love. And chapter 25, as he mentioned, wildly popular, deeply in the Soto liturgy, and also not only a practice on its own, but also... kind of the touch point that spawned a thousand different Guanyan devotional practices throughout Asia. And some of that is stuff I practice daily. But first, let me set a little bit of the scene. So chapter 25, the verse part specifically is basically about how much better your life gets when you say the name of Kansayan, of Guan Yin, of Avalokiteshvara, which on one side, obviously, people were like, wow, miracles.

[20:13]

I want some of those. Life is very hard. But I was actually reading Thich Nhat Hanh's commentary of the Otis Sutra. Very good. And he has four chapters on just this chapter. And basically, he talks about how, like, while there's obviously the cosmic visionary aspect, there's also this very down-to-earth stuff about the way compassion and mindfulness meet the world, moment by moment. And one such way is, for example, they, like, say the name of Kahnzeon, you know, the Regarder of the World Sounds, in the midst of flames and You've probably felt the flames of anger before, and that can cool down and put you into a place of relief. Or if you're overwhelmed by the waves and the sharks and the fishes, I feel like we've all had that in our mind before.

[21:14]

But the thing that people really took away is her name is a practice all on its own. the other part of the soto practice. Actually, yeah. Avalokiteshvara, Regarder of the World's Sounds, Namo Kanzeonbhosa. That's homage to Kanzeon Bodhisattva for short. Just saying that, you have all become Regarders of the World's Sounds. You have all become receptive in this way and I think this points to some of the ways in which it is a useful practice for people because this comes from a long line of what they used to call buddhanu sati, I guess they still do, nenbutsu in Japanese, where they do mindfulness of all the cool qualities of Buddha Shakyamuni and then later many of these cosmic Buddhas.

[22:25]

and very popular to chant the names of Amitabha Buddha in Japan, but Guanyin Avalokiteshwara is in the Mahayana cinematic universe supposed to take over Amitabha's pure land in a gabillion years, so there's really some equivalence there in some folks' head. Anyway, just to get the lore out of the way, What this means is that this buddhanasati, this mindfulness of Buddha or Bodhisattva, it's an admiration practice. It's a, how would you say, it's sympathetic joy. It's literally one of the standard emotions of enlightenment. It is seeing things you admire and being like, wow. And when you do that, whether in a person or some ideal or some archetype, some little piece of that resonates in you and you feel something.

[23:27]

And over time, that little spark can grow into something warmer and larger, even though, you know. So that's my intro. As far as my practices, one is... I love the anime joku kandangyo, which is also an advertisement for saying the name of Kanzayon. It's just a 10 line advertisement for saying the name of Kanzayon. And roughly the translation is Kanzayon, homage to Buddha, related to Buddha by causes and conditions, both on like an ultimate and a historical karmic level. It praises the attributes of nirvana, permanence, peace, joy, and purity. And then it kicks you straight to morning thought, khanseyan, evening thought, khanseyan.

[24:34]

Thought by thought arises in mind. Thought by thought is not separate from mind. And... Infinite compassion is a great thing to think about all the time, no matter what my personal, like, I almost don't care what my beliefs are about that. I know that that is a good way to practice for me. And it really came to me when I, right before I came back to Zen, because I had COVID, I couldn't do anything else. I couldn't sit or breathe and, but I could chant the Amejuku Kanangyo in my head. Um, and it really saw me through some, some dark moments and ever since, and especially as I've been here longer, I chant that a lot mornings and evenings, um, or as like a daily mindfulness. I love to use my feet as kind of a little makugyo when I'm taking a little walk somewhere. Or if I want to be more informal so that I'm not constantly on one rhythm, I'll do .

[25:43]

And these are just ways that I return to some of my compass points, the same way we say the four vows. And you do that long enough and you start to realize, especially since she's also the protagonist of the Heart Sutra in a lot of senses, that It's not like it's some cool being out there. It's like if you look at a person and you see them practicing, you know, the paramitas, you know, you see them being generous or practicing the precepts or being patient or any of those other good qualities, like that's all a bodhisattva is, is a bunch of good qualities and like a current towards helping people. So you see that little bit of her, of them, of him, all these different forms and all these different people a little bit. And in times like these, that's hard. I mean, sorry, in hard times like these, that is useful to me. I have one last thing I want to say, which is, oh, Suzuki Roshi had something to say about a different buddhami sati, the Nembutsu Namo Amida Butsu, that really ties this into Zazen for me.

[26:59]

It's the first essay in Not Always So called Calmness of Mind, where he almost drowns. And he's like, wow, this taught me about Shikantaza again. And he says, rather than trying to be alive or active, if we can be calm and die or fade away into emptiness, then naturally we will be all right. Buddha will take care of us. Because we have lost our mother's bosom, we do not feel like her child anymore. But fading into emptiness can feel like being in our mother's bosom, and we will feel as she will take care of us. Moment after moment, do not lose this practice of Shigantaza. Various kinds of religious practice are included in this point. When people say Namo Amida Butsu, they want to be Amida Butsu, Buddha's children. that's why they practice repeating his name.

[28:01]

And the same is true for our Zazen practice. If we know how to practice Shikantaza, and if they know how to repeat Amida Buddha's name, it cannot be different. Thank you very much, Marley. Thank you. That was great. Okay. Moving right along. We've got three more chapters. Chapter 27 is another very short chapter. Chapter 26. Oh, sorry. Boy, I'm moving way too fast. Chapter 26 is not about a Bodhisattva. Chapter 26 is Dharanis. And I used to enjoy in Tassahara when people would ask me, like,

[29:04]

So in the morning service, we chant the Shosan-yo-ki-ji-jo-durani. At Sultana's evening service, we chant the Daihi-shin-durani. What's a durani? And I would say, it's a magical spell. It's an incantation. Not the answer most people are expecting. Yeah, I'm not trying to make our practice or our tradition that we've inherited more palatable or sugar-coated. They are magical spells. Take that as you will. We don't really care in Zen what you believe, but we have these traditions. And personally, when I chant these, I take them seriously. I believe in their power. The power of Dharanis is in the sound, to see syllables, like a mantra. What's the difference between a mantra and a Dharani?

[30:05]

It's a good question. Most people would say like the length of it, that Durani's are longer. I think Kukai in Japan, I think he said that mantras are esoteric. Durani's could be esoteric or exoteric. So, I don't know. Make what you will of that. In the chapter 26, of course the Dharanis are offered for the protection of, guess what? Those who preserve, recite, and copy, et cetera, the Lotus Sutra. So it seals the deal, naturally. And lucky us, right? Chapter 27 is The Former Deeds of King Wondrous Adornment. It's another very short chapter. recounting adventures from the impossibly remote past. It tells a really interesting story about this king, wondrous adornment, who followed the way of the Brahms, so he was not a Buddhist.

[31:15]

And he has two sons who want to visit the Buddha of that time, of that realm, who is expounding, can you guess? The Vodasutra. And they want to convert their father. They have their mom's support. and she encourages them to perform all kinds of miracles, which they do. They do all these miracles. They shoot fire out of their upper body and water out of their lower body, then water out of their upper body, fire out of their lower body, then make themselves impossibly big and impossibly small. It's kind of like Marvel Comics to X-Men, I would say. They do all kinds of miracles, and Pops is convinced. Later, The Buddha who has recounted this story says in a very familiar Lotus Sutra trope. Who do you think that was? I like other translations. They say, can that person have been unknown to you? I like that version. That king, one just adornment, is none other than the Bodhisattva virtue of the flower, now here.

[32:18]

That queen, pure virtue, is the Bodhisattva attributes of shining light upon adornments, now in the presence of the Buddha. Because of her heartfelt sympathy for King Wanda's adornment and all of his retinues, she was born among them. Their two sons are the Bodhisattva Medicine King and the Bodhisattva Medicine Superior, who are now here. That's the fourth time Baisaja Raja makes an appearance in the Lotus Sutra, if you're keeping track. And yeah, that really points to, it must have been a big deal, that particular Bodhisattva. How are we doing, Linda? We have a couple more minutes before we plan to take a break. Nice. Gordon and I. I love it when a plan comes together. This brings us to the final chapter. The actual final chapter of the Lotus Sutra is encouragement from the Bodhisattva Universal Sage, Samantabhadra.

[33:23]

Samantabhadra is a big deal in Mahayana Buddhism. Over there on the altar, with Manjushri and Kansayong. He's over there, on the right, on his elephant. Samantabhadra is usually depicted riding a white elephant with six tusks. The six tusks represent the six paramitas. Samantabhadra is the Bodhisattva of action. Right action. Getting things done. engaging with the Dharma. This is his first appearance in the Lotus Sutra, which is another example of or proof, if you will, that these last six chapters are later interpolations. Somebody must have thought, what? We can't leave out Samantabhadra. So even Nichiren has an amusing story about why Samatabhadra is last.

[34:26]

And he just shows up at the last minute, because he was off in some other realm, converting sentient beings to the Lova Sutra over there. And then he shows up here, at the very last second. Kind of cute. So, of course, the Avatamsaka Sutra famously ends with the vows of Samantabhadra. And I think I said this previously, if you're not up for chanting the whole Avatamsaka Sutra, although I do recommend it, skip to the end and just chant that, the end of Book 39, the vows of Samantabhadra. For me, I think that's some of the most beautiful scripture in any religion. Chapter 28 of the Low Sutra, it's really beautiful, but it's not that beautiful.

[35:29]

I find it interesting that both of these sutras end with Samatha Bhajra. Coincidence? I don't know. I kind of doubt it. And you may know that the Avatama Saki Sutra and that part of the Avatama Saki Sutra The Vows of Samantabhadra is where we get our verse of repentance. All my ancient tango come from beginningless creed, hate and delusion, born through body, speech and mind, I now fully eval. This is formal repentance. In the Lotus Sutra, this is one of my favorite parts. I have a lot of favorite parts, but I really love this part. We plan to talk about it more on day one of Seshim. Samantabhadra gives us another way to repent. In the verse section, I'll start with the Gene Reeves translation.

[36:34]

If you want to repent, you should sit upright and reflect on the true nature of things. All sins are like frost and dew. The sun of wisdom can dissipate them. Here's the Kubo and Yuyama translation. Those who wish to repent should sit upright and contemplate the real aspect, and all their sins will vanish like frost and dew in the sunlight of wisdom. Now, the Shinazaki translation, Shinazaki and Company, that we chanted on Memorial Day, it has it as, if you want to perform acknowledgement and remorse, you must sit correctly and contemplate ultimate reality. All wrongs are just as frost and dew, so the sun of wisdom can melt them away." As much as I like the Shinazaki translation that we chanted, this bit right here I find is kind of weak sauce.

[37:38]

They say, if you want to perform acknowledgement and remorse, I think they mean confession and repentance. I don't have a problem with those words myself. And then they say, you must sit correctly, whereas other translations say, sit upright. Guess which one I like. And they say all wrongs, because the sins is too loaded, I guess. Yeah, I'm not crazy about that. Can you say something about sitting upright, your experience of sitting upright and repentance? or whatever you want to call that. Thank you, Susan. In these three translations where it says the true nature of things or real aspect or ultimate reality, in Japanese that word is jiso, which is the same term used in chapter 2 when

[38:45]

Very famously, it says, only a Buddha, together with the Buddha, can fathom the ultimate reality of things. This is formless repentance. So, in the Avatamsaka Sutra, Samadvajra gives us formal repentance, and in the Lotus Sutra, it's formless repentance. When you sit upright, contemplating the true nature of things, not picking and choosing, not grasping or pushing away, but just being with, as Suzuki Roshi said, things as it is, then you're purified. Each breath, is a brand new start.

[39:47]

Hang up your hangups. It's not like they're going away, but at that time, when you sit upright and contemplate the true nature of reality, you are, you know, tabula rasa, blank slate. Buddha, actually. He said, one minute of Zazen is one minute of Buddha. Anyway, I said I'm going to talk about that in day one of Seshin. I'm going to get into that a little bit more. And so, basically, it ends kind of abruptly with the Buddha talking about wonderful things that will happen if you uphold the Lotus Sutra. And... crummy things that will happen to people who disparage the Lotus Sutra. Classic.

[40:48]

You know, we've got to get it in there one last time. And yeah, it kind of ends abruptly and that's the end of the Lotus Sutra. We did it, all 28 chapters. So now, how do we do? Do we do all right? I'm about five minutes over. What? Okay, three minute break. Yeah, so we'll be back at like eight o'clock, maybe a minute before. Okay. It's nice.

[45:06]

Yeah. It'll be finished, but I'm wearing it. And your hats. Oh, yeah. That's fine. felt moved to do at this point in the practice period, at this point in the class, was to kind of take a look back at where we started and give like kind of a high-level overview, and I went back and reread the introductions, because it felt different this time, or it felt deeper or something. So a few more additional things to say.

[46:09]

So the Luna Sutra is we've all been saying, including Marley's, that it's been enormously influential, particularly in China and Japan. And many, many, many, many, like Asamkaya Kalpas of pages of commentary have been written about it. And yet what it means is still kind of elusive. There's this collection of stories, parables, Durrani's visual, imaginal worlds. And it's just kind of put out there without a lot of interpretation. Like really, no interpretation. It doesn't come with its own manual for how to understand the Lotus Sutra. And it keeps talking about itself. So is the Lotus Sutra, has it ever been taught? What is the Lotus Sutra?

[47:11]

It states, Buddhas appear in the world for one purpose only, and then they never are really clear about what the one purpose is. I mean, they kind of say, is that it? Did that go by? Not quite sure. Yeah, is the teaching of the message of the Lotus Sutra ever actually preached? And what I got from reading more, you know, more of these interpretations of it and their interpretations of commentary. I mean, you can talk about it as a text for sure. It's extremely literary. It's really imaginative and endlessly self-referential. And I'm just in this moment remembering when I was in sixth grade, we were supposed to write a short story and I was very proud of my story. It was like a page and a half and it was about This man driving his car out into the desert, and there's no one around, and there's mountains on one side and an open desert on the other. And he thinks he sees something off in the distance, and maybe it's approaching, but he's not sure.

[48:16]

It's just this straight road. There's nobody around. And then he runs out of gas, and the car stops, and then there's a white space. At 11, I was so proud of using white space. LAUGHTER to indicate a jump in what's happening. So the next thing is two cops come up in their police car and they find this abandoned car and footsteps going off and then disappearing. And the class talked about what it meant. And I'm like, I do not recognize anything that they are saying about this. You know, now I look back, I'm like, that's kind of a weird story. You know, you could say things about that, right? But that meant. But when I wrote the story, I just thought it was cool. You know, it was kind of interesting. Like, was it a monster? I kind of thought maybe it was a dinosaur or something.

[49:19]

So I think, you know, everybody that reads the Lotus Sutra, I think to some extent, makes what they make of it. It's what you get out of it, what resonates for you. And then, of course, if you're in a Sangha, in a community that's studying and practicing the Lotus Sutra, that will really shape the way you understand it. If you're in a bunch of scholar monks and talking about it, that will shape the way you understand it because of how you're interacting with it. But more than most sutras, the Lotus Sutra has a wide wide range of ways to interact with it, which is one kind of fitting for something that's all about skillful means, right? There are many, many ways to do this. Yes? Would you say that it appears in the form that you need it to appear in? Yes, I would say that it appears in the form that you need it to appear in. You got it.

[50:27]

I asked Greg this before class started, because I just started reading Hoke Ten Hoke, and I was like, did Dogen read the same Ludo Sutra that I read? Because for him, he's talking about the great vehicle is Zazen. And I'm curious to hear more about Zazen and the Ludo Sutra. You're going to talk some about that on Saturday, aren't you? Well, I mean, I just did. She doesn't ask me, you know, what is this formless repentance? You know, they're talking about sitting upright. Of course, that's just a small bit of the Sutra. Yeah, I could say that for Dogen, I think it was our dear friend Taigun Roshi, wrote an essay called Zazen as Enactment Ritual. Is that right? In other words, or as the Japanese would say, which I've already said once in this class, one minute of Zazen is one minute of Buddha.

[51:39]

So we take on the form and the presence of Buddha. Or in an earlier class also I quoted Suzuki Roshi trying to talk about what is Sambhogakaya Buddha? And he's saying, when we sit, when we really just sit, just shikantaza, nothing else going on. That's Dharmakaya Buddha. It's just consciousness. Unadorned, not meddled with, just pure consciousness. And then he says, but of course your heart is beating, you're breathing. Even though you're sitting very still, there's activity. He says, that's Sambhogakaya Buddha. What he's pointing to is, I mean, it's very difficult to talk about.

[52:42]

Dogen also talks a lot about Shinjin Datsuraku, dropping off body and mind, you know, putting aside the concerns, the, all of our conditioning, all of our history, all of our imaginings, just leaving them alone. They don't necessarily go away, they'll come back, but you have this opportunity to just enjoy not doing that and being Buddha in that moment. You are Buddha. So, yeah, for sure for Dogen, Zazen was the front gate to Buddhadharma, as he says in Bhandawa. Or you could maybe say universal gate. Can I speak to that also?

[53:47]

That's where he's coming from. Zazen was central to Dogen's awakening experience. with his Nichiru Jin. But he was deeply grounded in the Lotus Sutra, as was Nichiren. But Nichiren went in a really different direction, even though they lived at the same time, basically, in Japan. But for Nichiren, it was the Nembutsu. It was just this, like a hologram, like any one point contains everything. like as the universe, so if we could talk about the universe of the lotus syndrome, but any point that you could pick up, it's like there's a saying, pick up one quarter, the other three come with it. So you can't not pick up all of it, even though you might not have that language or that conception for it, and you might not look like you're doing the same thing.

[54:47]

Which also means that upright is taken out It's not just a posture, it's taken out into every daily activity. Yeah. Like when you say, be an upright person. Yeah. Yeah. That's when Susan doesn't have the microphone, I'll say. Upright is not just about, for people online, upright is not just a posture, it's being an upright person. Okay. Nietzscheman equated chanting the title of the Lotus Sutra as our dear friend, Reverend Michael McCormick. Saying, you know, that's what you practice. I mean, that's the Nangu-chu. Because, I didn't mention this, but in the final chapter, Sumatabhadra equates meeting the Lotus Sutra. He says, if you meet the Lotus Sutra, you are meeting Shakyamuni Buddha. If you want to meet Shakyamuni Buddha, just meet the Lotus Sutra.

[55:52]

kind of makes a big deal out of that. So I got it. Yeah. Didn't mention that before, but yeah, devotional. It's devotional practice. So, you know, all Buddhist traditions hold that Buddha attained complete, perfect enlightenment on the night of his awakening when he saw the morning star. I don't think anyone has much argument with that. But then, you know, and then he coursed in that for 49 days afterwards. And in the process of that, he decided to teach and very quickly realized that if he spoke from the place that made sense to him, it didn't really go over very well. It wasn't understood. So from the first time he spoke to the five aesthetics, he was using skillful means. So this has been from the very beginning. And he spoke from his own experience, and he spoke to the experience of the five ascetics, because they'd all been ascetics together.

[56:59]

So he talked about the middle way, specifically between sense desires and indulgence in sense desires. And the Four Noble Truths as related to suffering, and all the ways that you can suffer, and that it was not about, the cause of suffering was not the body itself, it wasn't to try to get rid of the body or get over the body, it was our relationship to it. And the path was not, again, asceticism, but taking up these practices, the eightfold path that helped us change our relationship to the world and to how we are with other people. Because there's other places in the Pali Canon where the same basic form of the Four Noble Truths is used, but it's not about suffering. It's about something else. But the form is still the same. And of course, there's more than just the Eightfold Path.

[58:03]

I mean, Buddha came up with the Twelvefold Chain of Causation, etc., etc., etc. So it's not about those things. It's like, I'm going to meet you now with this. the best that I can. So then that sort of means the middle way, the middle way in that context is sort of a skillful means, because that's how he was meeting the ascetics who were very skilled in an extreme. Yes, but I think it's, I mean, the middle way is between these two poles that we tend to create in our mind about a lot of things. And the middle way is not like splitting the difference between these. It's something other than either I indulge the body or I try to get rid of the body or annihilate the body.

[59:06]

It's not either one of those. It's not obsession with the body. It's changing the relationship with the body. It's softening that. It's moving into that in an entirely different way that lets go of the suffering of both sides. So the skillful means, I think, is how do you make that shift? How do you change your relationship with whatever you think is causing you problems, is leading to greed, hate, and delusion, to whatever it is? And those old karmic patterns can be really tight. And the Buddha was just amazing at being able to come up with really creative ways. The woman who came to him still carrying her dead baby that she couldn't let go of and couldn't understand why she couldn't get someone to heal, he said, go find me mustard seeds from a house where there's never been death. And she went to every house, and of course they all experienced death.

[60:07]

And she's like, oh, this happens. and she was brought back into connection with the community. So, you know, the skillful means can take any form. It's just, it's only a Buddha together with the Buddha. You know, this is how we wake up, is in some kind of exchange. I suppose a Buddha could also be, you know, for some people, a tree in the forest or an animal or whatever it is, but it's that openness. I really want to say... I think I said most of it, because I was talking about this when we were having a conversation, because it was about the commentaries. The word of the Buddha is so revered, and it can't be changed.

[61:13]

I mean, there's translations, but you can't change the words of of the Buddha. They were passed on orally for centuries, and then they were written down. And I don't know when they started having commentaries. I don't know if someone came up with a commentary that was oral. But what I've been thinking is that when the shift to writing happened, and it happened first in Gandhara, which is like parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan and Sri Lanka, that was where things were first written down. You know, the shift to writing across cultures has been a really powerful transformation. It's a different brain. And there was an article a while back in The New Yorker about people in India who still memorize the entire Mahabharata, which is like immense, and they could chant it out loud. And then lots of them started learning to read. And they thought, that's great, because then they'll have both.

[62:16]

but actually the parts of their brain that were dedicated to memorizing these long texts, they couldn't remember them the same way anymore because they now have the crutch of the written word. But that opens up, you know, other ways of being because it's written down and you don't have to memorize all of that. You know, and I think, I mean, that's so much what's happening now. We have like the world of information at our fingertips, but we're not retaining it in the same way. but we have all of this and we can make connections that were never possible before, which is creative. It's kind of inherently creative rather than almost inherently stable because you're reciting the same memorized text over and over again. You're passing on that same form generation to generation. So I'm wondering if the commentaries were like, you know, you're writing something down and then you can kind of see it and work it and it's creative.

[63:18]

And then you're probably, you know, as the monks who wrote the Lotus Sutra, they're in monasteries, they're talking to each other and think, well, it sounds like universities with professors and students and they're all like exchanging ideas and, you know, so it's really, it's creative. And then at some point they started actually writing new sutras, like what was coming out of all this kind of explosion of new new ways of relating that fit that time. And you know what I hope that we could do? We've said much of this This is great, because a lot of the things that I wanted to say, we've already said in different ways, and your questions have brought them forward, which is great. So, I thought we had just a few minutes at the end for small groups.

[64:21]

And the prompts are, how has your understanding or appreciation of the Lotus Sutra changed? over the course of the practice period, and or, what of the Lotus Sutra might inform your study or your practice going forward, or what would you like to, is there anything in the Lotus Sutra that you're like, yeah, I wanna try some of that going forward, or whatever's up for you. But we have about eight minutes left, so I think about, it'll take us a few minutes, so we'll have like, So maybe we can do two or three, and I'll ring when it's time to come back.

[65:33]

Can we go first? Well, I'm the Q180. I want you to be very frustrated. And I don't get into it. I just put the Lotus Sutra to come along and drop it down so you can understand it. And I'm sort of understanding it more as, like, not a text, but as an experience. And then I'm already sort of doing this. I'm reading, there's a book, it's in a book, and I started reading, Because I just got interested in like, okay, this was sort of like... I'm just curious about the ancestors a little bit.

[66:36]

Not just Joan and my other ancestors, it's how they relate it. Should I see the last five minutes? Yeah. Do I have any assistance? Not really. I'm sort of doing it. I'm very pleasantly pleasantly about it. Okay, I guess they just didn't try. and a student, and a student is going to write it, and he's recited the most, he's written a thousand times. And Dike on Inno says, like, even if you recite it 10,000 times, if you don't understand it, you're not able to even write it back to your ears. Which I thought was, like, what was so interesting, because I was like, but even the most interesting, it doesn't say anything about understanding it. It just says, you just have to recite.

[67:38]

So I'm like, I'm interested in it. And that interaction was great. I mean, I stepped into the poem. I've read the poem. That's a great poem. I mean, I changed the book now. The poem was very interesting. I read, you know, he... I chanted a verse, I forget, by the chapter 16, one of them, one of them. Yeah, and, you know, people had very positive reactions. And, you know, my thought, which I didn't say, which in the house is just really so instant. You know, and, you know, And he did, you know, because, you know, very interesting, like I said, you know, this is not good, but it is about, you know, transforming the ideas from a historical figure, just sort of fighting.

[68:57]

Ancestors, I'm talking to something more like, or not as a principle, which we have in Mahana all over the place, and this is something interesting for a number of years, is that there's those historical Buddha, and there are other kalpas or whatever, but then there's also Buddha nature, which is, you know, seems like, which is a very important principle. So what I think is that, You can see the birth of that transformation. You see the concept that is, I mean, it's, you know, but also it's just meant to be something very successful. I think we're going to say close to all the catalogs.

[69:59]

It's time-saving. [...] I just love that I'm always outstruck me through time. Do you want to consider this one? It's not going to be . What did you do? I wanted to be sure. I wanted to be sure that everyone had someone in their room, and they did, and that was good.

[71:02]

Anyway, everybody does it. You what? Nothing. Okay, finish your sentences and we'll come back. We'll close in 24 seconds. so they're gonna come back whether they won't do it. That's right, yes. You can do it voluntarily or you will arrive back magically.

[72:10]

They're not rejoining, yeah. Okay, so we're back, they're back, we're back. Oh, thank you. So does anyone have anything that they would brief that you would like to share? Perhaps we can pass the mic if there's anyone online. Just kind of following along the line that you mentioned about people who memorized the Lodha Sutra. I just wanted to thank you again for the chanting experience because I feel like it really engendered in me a way to experience the Lodha Sutra that was just completely different than reading it on my own.

[73:21]

Being able to sort of read it in community with everyone was also just a really great aspect in that too. So thank you. Cool. Anyone else? Anyone online? I'll just add that I think similarly for me, at the start of practice grade, I found the sutra very frustrating. I think it was because I was stuck on intellectually understanding it. and then chanting it was a great way to drop that, just to experience it. Well, we're right at 8.30, and maybe everything that needs to be shared has already been said between you, and has already been said by the leaders who said, of course. So, we'll do our closing chant. Beings are numberless

[74:25]

I vow to awaken with them. Delusions are impossible. I vow to end them. Dharma deeds are helpless. I vow to enter them. Goodness' ways is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. Thank you all so much. All of us together turning the wheel of the Lotus Sutra and being turned by the wheel of the Lotus Sutra. Thank you all. Thank you everyone. Thank you everyone. Good night. Good night. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[75:21]

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