I vow to teach the truth of the Tathagatagarbha's words. Good morning. Yesterday I talked about the three bodies of Buddha, the four wisdoms, and the eight levels of consciousness, the aspects of consciousness, and how This is how they work together. And this is the so-called backbone of the Lankavatara Sutra. This is pretty much what the Lankavatara Sutra is talking about.

[01:02]

This sutra was supposedly brought to China by Bodhidharma and then the sixth ancestor used the Diamond Sutra which apparently superseded the Lankavatara Sutra because Although the Diamond Sutra is very difficult to understand, the Lankavatara probably is even more difficult. So people often say, well, what is the Lankavatara Sutra about anyway? They hear about the Lankavatara Sutra as being a very important sutra in Buddhism. And what is that about?

[02:04]

Nobody knows. But mostly, the Madhyamaka philosophy of Mahayana Buddhism is what is most popular. And Madhyamaka philosophy is the philosophy of emptiness, which is exemplified by the Prajnaparamita Sutras. So we chant the Heart Sutra, which is a kind of quintessential part of the Prajnaparamita Sutras. The Heart Sutra epitomizes the whole body of 600 volumes of the Prajnaparamita Sutras, and it's about emptiness. And Yogacara teaching, which appears in the Lankavatara Sutra, is

[03:15]

is the teaching about form, about synthesis. So when we think about Buddhist philosophy, we mostly think about emptiness, the doctrine of emptiness. And the Yogacara school their doctrine is about synthesis, about how everything exists. So these two schools seem opposed to each other, but actually they complement each other. But the philosophy of the Yogacara school is not so well understood or so brought forth in translation.

[04:25]

But little by little it is not so popular. But it's important to understand this because it really is a foundation for the Zen's understanding of the Zen school. both the Madhyamaka, which is the doctrine of emptiness, and the Yogacara, which is the doctrine of synthesis, how everything is one being. Synthesis meaning everything is one being, one big being. So it's very important for us. when we think about who is Buddha, when the Buddhists, when the Mahayana Buddhists were thinking about, well, who is Buddha, it's hard to say that this historical person is Buddha.

[05:42]

We say, well, who is Buddha? What's the true body of Buddha? Well, the true body of Buddha was this historical person who lived 2,500 years ago. But if the Buddha is just this historical person who lived 2,500 years ago, that person's already dead. It's already gone. And Buddha has to be more than that. It's not enough to just have something coming out of a person emanating. Where does Buddha come from? What is it that Buddha represents? What is it that this person represents? So when the Buddhists were thinking about this, they realize that this Buddha, this person, represents infinite consciousness.

[06:52]

Not just the ideas of a person, but infinite consciousness. And so the true body of Buddha is not just this personal body, but the entire body of the Dharmadhatu. The Dharmadhatu is the Dharma realm. The Dharma realm, in this sense, includes the universe, but is infinite, far more infinite than the universe. And this is what Shakyamuni Buddha represents as his teaching, the infinite consciousness of the universe, of the Dharmadhatu.

[08:01]

So they said, well, the true body of Buddha is actually the whole Dharmadhatu. is a representative of that, of that body. The small body is a representative of the entire body. And then that wasn't quite enough either. So there has to be something in between the entire body and the manifested body as a person. So they came up with Sambhogakaya, which is the truth body, a reality body, which is manifest. So Dharmakaya, although Dharmakaya includes Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya, when we speak of the three bodies,

[09:09]

The dharmakaya is put in the position of potential and sambhogakaya is actualized. So dharmakaya is stillness, you might say, and sambhogakaya is activity of stillness. or the wisdom of stillness, the great potential put into activity. So Sambhogakaya and Dharmakaya really are two sides of the same thing. One is the inactive side and the other is the active side. And Nirmanakaya is the embodiment. as a person, the personification of dharmakaya and sambhogakaya.

[10:26]

And as the sixth ancestor says, these are just the dharmakaya of our own, the three bodies of our own true nature. They're not out there. They're not something out there. They are what we are. So each one of us is the three bodies, dharmakaya, sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya. So when we read about the three bodies in the meal chant, it seems like some distant Buddhas, distant cosmic Buddhas out there somewhere. But Sixth Ancestor brings it right back to you. He said, no, this is not some distant Buddhas, cosmic Buddhas out there.

[11:32]

This is your nature. We're talking about your, each one of your very most personal nature. not some abstract idea, but the reality of your personal nature, your subjective nature. So your true body is Dharmakaya. That's our true body. Each one of us, that's our true body. And our true body is also Sambhogakaya, which is the truth itself, or the universal wisdom. And it's also Nirmanakaya, which is just the embodiment of this person.

[12:34]

So three-in-one, as Sokheon says, like three-in-one oil. You can't separate the three. We talk about three bodies, but they're really three in one. It's like in America, you have three in one oil. It's like that. So, sambhogakaya is kind of like in between nirmanakaya and dharmakaya. It's in the middle. And you could say it's like the link between our sambhogakaya nature is like the link between our dharmakaya nature and sambhogakaya nature.

[13:38]

I mean, nirmanakaya nature. between heaven and earth, you might say. Christianity has this very similar, the trinity actually, very similar thing. I don't want to explain the trinity because I don't understand it intricately. But if you're born Catholic, you probably understand it. Or you may know about it, whether you understand it or not. You may not understand it, but you know about it. But it's very similar. Dharmakaya is like... Buddhism steers away from God, from talking about God. You can use that word, as long as you're not attached to it.

[14:45]

You could say Dharmakaya, it comes close to being like the idea of God, but it's different. And Buddhism doesn't like to And Sambhogakaya is like spirit, and Nirmanakaya is like the person, representative. But we don't say that we are a representative of God, you know, each one of you. Each one of you actually is Dharmakaya. There is no separation between dharmakaya, sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya. There's nothing outside of you that you should seek.

[15:50]

I think that's quite a difference. And a lot of the time, Christians Fundamentalist Christians will accuse Buddhists of claiming that they're God. Which you could see how people could construe it that way. Each one of us is Dharmakaya. Without being separated from Dharmakaya, So, if we use the term God, it means that God is our self, not something outside of our self, which we seek. So, what we seek is our self, if we seek anything.

[17:01]

So we have these three bodies, in a similar way that Christianity has the three bodies, but the meaning is not the same, quite. And I think that the most fundamental thing that's different is that dharmakaya is not something outside of ourself. In Western religion, I think that God does not have to be outside of ourselves, but people construe in a dualistic way. I think if we understand Western religion fundamentally, God is not something outside or distant or separate.

[18:12]

That kind of dualistic way of thinking, I think, is not true Western religion. So in many ways, in some ways, Buddhism and Western religion actually come together. And I think that it's possible to make all kinds of distinctions. But it's also possible to see to not make those distinctions. So, each one of us embodies the three bodies because dharmakaya, sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya are nothing more than the three bodies of each one of us.

[19:31]

So when we sit zazen, nirmanakaya is sitting zazen with sambhogakaya and dharmakaya. When there's no separation, and the barriers of duality are lifted. Sambhogakaya is reflecting Dharmakaya, like two mirrors. When a mirror reflects, it reflects everything just as it is. And when two mirrors reflect each other, there's nothing in between. Just whatever passes in front of the mirror is reflected on the big screen of the mind.

[20:44]

So, Nirmanakaya Buddha, the sitting zazen, as Sambhogakaya Buddha, right in the midst of Dharmakaya Buddha. So Sambhogakaya is like a mirror, like the truth with a mirror on each side. One mirror reflects Dharmakaya without anything in between. There's nothing in between. So you don't see anything. And you say, well, where is Dharmakaya Buddha? I don't see anything. What is this body? This body has no shape or form. So we get bored. And the mind doesn't have anything to grab onto.

[21:50]

So on the other side, Sambhogakaya is reflecting nirmanakaya, like two mirrors. And the stuff that keeps coming up in consciousness passes across the mirror of Sambhogakaya. And it just is reflected as it is. without modifying it in some way. So, to be able to see everything just as it is, without coloring it or modifying it, without saying, I like it or I don't like it, or it's good or it's bad. This is the truth, the mind of truth.

[22:53]

Sambhogakaya body seeing everything just as it is, on the nirmanakaya side. So, when we sit, sambhogakaya is facing dharmakaya, like two mirrors, and sambhogakaya is facing nirmanakaya, and reflecting everything that passes in front of its other side of its mirror without judging. So the mind is like a great mirror when we sit true zazen. Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Nirmanakaya, all present.

[24:04]

Three in one. So when we sit and reflect Dharmakaya, there's nothing there. Nothing to see. Nothing to get interested in. And it's very boring. So what's interesting is the stuff that's coming up from the nirmanakaya, from bubbling up in consciousness as thoughts. And so it's okay, you know, to just observe. just observing, just letting everything come up as it comes and go as it goes.

[25:09]

So then yesterday I talked about the four wisdoms. Yeah, the four wisdoms. The mirror wisdom, which corresponds to dharmakaya. And the equality wisdom, which corresponds to sambhogakaya. And the all-discerning wisdom, which corresponds to sambhogakaya. And the perfecting of action wisdom, which corresponds to nirmanakaya. And when the consciousness is no longer dominated by ego, it's called wisdom.

[26:29]

We refer to, we no longer talk about consciousness, we talk about wisdom. when there's no ego, when consciousness has dropped its self-centeredness. But these four wisdoms and three bodies are not something to be cultivated. You can't go out and get them. This is what the Sixth Ancestor says. You cannot go out and cultivate these wisdoms or these three bodies. You can only manifest them. When we eliminate unwholesome thoughts from our mind,

[27:37]

wisdoms and three bodies manifest by themselves. They're just expressions of our true nature and can't be cultivated. They can only be expressed. So, he says, the way to practice is to always think wholesome thoughts. It's very simple. He has a very simple message. It says, when you think unwholesome thoughts, then unwholesome actions follow, and your mind is obscured. True nature is obscured. When you think wholesome thoughts, wholesome actions follow, and your true nature is manifest. That's actually the basis of his whole message. because the three wisdoms, the four wisdoms, the three natures are inherent, are already inherent within us.

[28:57]

And they're not something we can get, but it's something that is already there and only needs to be. unhindered in order for them to manifest. So, he says, when you eliminate self-centeredness and egocentricity, the eight levels of consciousness turn and become the four wisdoms. And we speak of wisdom instead of consciousness. So, this is Zazen.

[30:02]

But, it's fine, Zazen. But, harder to have that manifest in our daily life. So this is what I was talking about yesterday, and I wonder if you have any question about it? Is it something that's clear? Or wholesome thoughts? Yeah. Like precepts? Well, precepts are wholesome thoughts, but anger, jealousy, avarice, greed, delusion, all of these kinds of thoughts are what obscure essence of mind.

[31:16]

As soon as These kinds of thoughts create a sense of self and bolster and shore up our ego. And then ego takes the place of essence of mind. It obscures essence of mind. So this is what we're always working with. As long as... As long as we indulge ourselves in this kind of feeling and thinking, the essence of mind is obscured. This is just basic Buddhism. I do think that there is that the idea that the basic Buddhist tenet that you think unwholesome thoughts and unwholesome effects ensue, that's there.

[32:32]

And there's a difference between our 20th century Western sense of self and the sense of self that was operating then. Native Americans in the 1990s. And the issue of, so when disagreeable material comes up, a more traditional Asian person can just, I think, dismiss it without... But for us the whole issue of repression comes up. And so how do you handle this difficult material? Yeah, the difference is, Living by karma and living by vow. Living by karma is to be involved in the world of circumstances where

[33:52]

were continually a comparative world, comparative world of good and bad, right and wrong, and advantage and disadvantage, whereas living by vow, is means that your life is dedicated to living by the four vows. So whether you're living a karmic life or living a life of four vows, you still have feelings and thoughts and emotions. But the effect of feelings and thoughts and emotions is not the same as when you're living karmic life.

[34:59]

So most people are living karmic life, means self-centered life. Karmic life means self-centered life. And when we're living karmic life, or self-centered life, then we need We're more prone to have the kinds of problems which demand psychiatry. If we didn't, the psychologists are looking skeptical. because of the way we live our life. It's a very materialistic life, a materialistic karmic life where we're continually creating karma, continually creating conditions which cause us pain and cause everyone else pain, even though people think that they're getting something substantial.

[36:18]

So karmic life is worldly life of gain and loss, basically. Gain and loss. And aversion and grasping. This is karmic life. So, to some extent, everyone is involved in karmic life. Grasping and aversion are its two major polarities. But living by vow is not living by karmic life. It's not involved with grasping and aversion. So you don't have the same problems that come up. I don't say that someone who is enlightened or who lives by vow doesn't have psychological problems, cannot have psychological problems. But most of our psychological problems take place in the arena of karmic life. So it's very difficult to apply the same values to both sides.

[37:37]

I'm not looking so skeptical. Okay. I just, I think that... I see people having problems living by vow. Other way, too. Yeah. I think we make it worse, you know, if we live out our karma. We what? We make our problems worse. Yes. If we live out our karma. Yeah. If we live in that karmic way, we make our problems worse. I think what I heard Millie asking about was even when we're not, to just not accept unwholesome thoughts can not feel quite right. I'm not saying you shouldn't... No, I know. I thought I heard her say something. Right. But yeah, we have to accept whatever comes up in our mind, right? When we have unwholesome thoughts, we have unwholesome thoughts. But we know these are unwholesome thoughts. And we work with unwholesome thoughts.

[38:52]

So it's not like unwholesome thoughts never appear. It's just that your direction is to deal with, to make some effort to not keep perpetuating the cycle of unwholesome thoughts or unwholesome actions I mean, it's a conscious effort. So living by vow means conscious effort, conscious life. It doesn't mean that unwholesome thoughts never appear. They appear all the time, you know, to everybody. But they're not acted out in the same way, hopefully. Or, nor are they squashed down and hit under a rock, I think. That's the action of repression that Meili says that we, as Westerners in this part of the time, have learned not to do.

[39:54]

Don't do that. Don't suppress them or try to hide them. Deal with them. Deal with them. That's right. So conscious life, or living by vow, means conscious life, not repression. I was trying to explain it in a kind of roundabout way. But it means that when an unwholesome thought arises, this is an unwholesome thought. This is basic Buddhism, to observe the workings of the mind in the mind, the feelings in the feelings, the consciousness in consciousness, and so forth. Yes? Isn't there, as well as the consciousness, isn't there also the aspect of intentionality which is the action part, like not only is the thought labeled, but there's a road map.

[40:59]

Yeah, there's also a map, a little path, yeah. And you get time. Time. You have time, you don't You take time. Right, it's less, there's a notion that it's not just reactive. It's not reactive. Yes, that's right. So it's responsive time rather than reactive time. You take the time to be responsive rather than being reactive. That's an important point. So, living by intention. You know, vow is a very strong word, but another word for vow is intention. So, living by intention. Well, it's the same as when you're doing exhaustion and your mind wanders. It keeps coming back. Right. It keeps coming back.

[42:00]

Right. to indulge in the thoughts and not pay attention, and that's possibly creating karma while sitting zazen. But zazen, strictly speaking, is the time in your life when you're not creating karma. The term repression, I mean about anger, coming up and observing it and the difference I think between calling it repression. I think if you, my feeling is in a sense it is repressed in that we just sit and watch and let it pass. But I think the current thinking that one should express it just means that if you practice in anything, including anger, you get better at it rather than Well, yeah, anger begets anger.

[43:06]

Sometimes, you know, it's good to let something out. You know, and then we say, well, it's gone. That's possible, but that sometimes happens. But it's too easy to... Anger is addictive. And any of those emotions are addictive. And we get certainly addicted to anger. We get addicted to jealousy. We do. We get addicted to all kinds of feelings and emotions. So it's not that we want to stop them. It's good to feel any of those emotions. They all have meaning. They are meaningful, but attachment is the problem. So even attachment to good states, you know, is attachment.

[44:13]

So the sixth patriarch says, when we're no longer attached to either good states or bad states, then we have our essence of mind. So, good states of mind can also be a hindrance to essence of mind. Both good states and bad states can be a hindrance to essence of mind. And when we're concerned with neither good states nor bad states, then the essence of mind shines forth. So he says attachment is the problem. And we see that in Zazen.

[45:19]

When you become attached to a good state of mind, it gives you a big problem. And when you get attached to a bad state of mind, it gives you a big problem. And when you are above both good states and bad states, then essence of mind is right there. You were talking about people in other religions perceiving us as separate or calling ourselves God. I've been thinking about this and actually Lori, something in her lecture last week made me think about it again.

[46:20]

She said we have this difficult practice here because we need to put some effort in and remind ourselves that we're doing something. But actually, much of the Buddhist world has a very different notion of Buddhism. We don't talk about it so much because a lot of us who have come here have come walking, running, crawling from God. But there is the reality that the whole universe is helping us sit zazen. There's something tricky about the notion of our practice, one's own practice.

[47:29]

We don't say this is my practice. We do say that, but this is Buddha's practice, actually. The thing about being I don't like to say we're not God. But strictly speaking, that's so. Which? That we are. I don't like to say so. I don't want to say so. But this is God's practice. It's not my practice. But Dick Alpert said once, long ago, I read, when he was becoming Baba Ram Dass, and came back to Long Island and met all his former family, Jewish connections and what have you.

[48:33]

They were looking at him askance, and one of them accused him of this. Somebody said, you think you're God? He said, doesn't that make you crazy? He said, no, he said, because I think you're God, too. I think each one of us is God. And that's the difference. And people can't accept that any better than, you know, or not very well anyway. So to say so makes it look like you're standing out in some way. Like the idea of the Dharmakaya is that the whole thing Yeah, dharmakaya is the whole thing. Is God. Is Buddha. Right. I mean, any piece of it that you take is complete. But also there is the whole thing.

[49:37]

But in another sense, dharmakaya is self-sufficient. Completely self-sufficient. Non-dependent. So every piece is complete? Well, every piece is complete as... what? As Dharmakaya, as a reflection of gourmet. It's the whole piece, right? The whole and the part? If you take the building here, and you say, those are the beams, and there's the ceiling, this is the pillar, and that's the floor, those are the parts, right? But when you point to it, you say, there's the house. And you can point to the floor, and you can say, that's the house.

[50:45]

So, any part you point to, you can say, well, there's the house. Well, I was thinking of genetics now. The completely mind-blowing fact is that any single piece of DNA will reproduce the whole. If the Dharmakaya is complete and self-sufficient, why is it said that Buddha needs us to manifest? Who said that? You want Buddha to say it? Buddha needs us in order for Buddha to manifest? Buddha. Buddha nature needs us. Well, another way of saying it is, if the Dharmakaya is complete and self-sufficient, then why is there a Sambhogakaya? Well, because Sambhogakaya is the active principle.

[51:50]

So, it's three in one. There's only one body, but it has three aspects. Well, I like to think the Buddha needs us. To add to that, I think maybe it has to do with our viewpoint. Yes, it does. We already realized our mood in this, that we would need to put names around it. That's right. So these are provisional names. We have to realize that they're all provisional names. But in order to say something, we, you know, We divide it. It's not really divided. But in order to say something, we analyze it in a certain way. And in order to analyze it, you say, this is this part, this part, this part.

[52:56]

But they're all provisional names. Even God is a provisional name. But, you know, we take it to heart. attached to it in an emotional way, which is okay, but even so, we should be careful. Could we call it DNA or energy? Yeah, that's right. You can say, right. So, there may be 10 trillion names It's nearly time to go, but I must know what's in that green cupboard that Richard has carried back and forth. The Three Bodies of Buddha. Are you going to share? Yes. So this is actually the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Ancestor. And the reason I bring it is in case I want to read something.

[54:08]

flavor of, you know, 17 different kinds of sin and, you know, that kind of an approach is familiar too. And so when I hear you talk about, you know, four kinds of wisdom that transform, I start to twitch. impediment to practice? Well, I think the biggest impediment is when we don't understand it. I find that people are brought up in a certain religious mode and the way they're taught is not very accurate and is very biased and incomplete and so they naturally

[55:35]

and not very deep. So it doesn't touch them and they, you know, it gives them the willies and understandably so. But a lot of times people will study Buddhism and then begin to see what they didn't get from their religious upbringing, parts that they didn't understand, and those parts become more clear. So I think that there is a way to understand it that maybe wasn't brought out, doesn't get brought out in most training. And when I see what passes for religion, Locally, it's pretty appalling what people are made to believe.

[56:43]

For me, these things are very interesting. They help me to think about and help me to focus. When I study these things about Buddhism, they help me to focus on what Buddhadharma is about. Also, another factor is that true religious practice will give everybody a problem. It really gives you a problem because it goes against a lot of our natural tendency. It goes against what we want to do and how we want to

[57:56]

be. And so that gives us a problem also. And so we revolt. But I don't see any reason why, for me, this doesn't give me the willies, or make me nervous or something. Because it wasn't something that I was taught as a kid, and I can see it much more clearly, because it seems to make sense. But I can see that if you're taught something as a kid, it really can hinder your desire. Put a crimp in what you want to do and the way you think. So I think religion should be taught to kids, not as doctrine or something like that.

[58:59]

They should learn that stuff later and should learn simple understanding of religion first so that they can enjoy it. I don't know, it seems like religion shouldn't be something that represses us. It should be something that helps us understand our relationship to the universe. And if it doesn't, why doesn't it? So it's not easy to teach. It's not easy to understand. And people don't understand it. And then they teach it. So the kids get something that they don't like. They get a mouthful of mush.

[60:00]

So how can you teach it to kids without them getting the wrong message? So religion becomes a destructive force in the world because people don't understand it, what they're teaching. I really think that's true because religion is like fire. And you can either use it to cook your food on and warm the house and have light, or you can use it to burn up civilization. So it has these two aspects. It can really be destructive if it's not understood in the right way. And, you know, the Catholic Church is losing a lot of its people.

[61:12]

You know, they're selling off all these buildings and churches in San Francisco because there's something off. You know, there's something about this getting missed. Fundamentally, it points to truth. but there's something missing in the way it's being understood and the way it's being transmitted. So, anyway, religion goes through these phases.

[62:26]

But how does that apply to us, is what I hear in Joe's question. How might some of these, all these dharmakayas and sammukayas and all that's being used as doctrine to repress us? And how do we not do that? Well, it's to free us. If it doesn't free us, then we're... Throw it out. Throw it out.

[62:54]

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