Prajna, wisdom beyond wisdom. Last Sunday at my house we were reading this book and we came across a story about the Paramitas which I had read before but I had forgotten and it was really It was just like a wonderful gift for me to run across this story unexpectedly. We read a chapter every time the group meets, and this was the chapter that was up for the day. And it's a story of how Trungpa Rinpoche's teacher and his experience of his teacher teaching him about the six paramitas. So, the title of this chapter is The Dharma That Is Taught and The Dharma That Is Experienced.

[01:08]

And for dharma you could substitute wisdom. So the story is that the Trungpa Rinpoche is a tulku and he was the reincarnation of somebody, some famous lama that came before him And these people are picked out as infants, usually, and taken away from their families and raised in a monastery and taught all the scriptures and whatever else kids would learn in school. And they're really raised very, very strictly from a very small age. Chagyam Trungpa was apparently a very brilliant student, and very proud of his brilliance. He was able to study and learn all these teachings. But his main meditation teacher, his master, wasn't the person who taught him most of this stuff, and he only saw him once in a while.

[02:16]

So when he was called to visit his guru, eager to impress him. And the first question his guru asked him was, tell me all you know about the Six Paramitas. And Trungpa rattled it all off with all the references and was really, really pleased with himself. And he knew what all the different teachers had said and what it all meant. And his teacher was quiet and said, finally said, what do you feel about all this? And Rinpoche was apparently very startled and said, it doesn't matter what I feel about it. This is the way it's always been taught. It's been taught this way since it was first presented, and that's how it is. So his teacher said, well, it's all very well to know it intellectually, but the important thing is how you feel about it.

[03:20]

And he wanted to know what his students experienced of generosity was, minus students' experience of discipline. So that made me feel very good about this class. I had been feeling kind of inadequate because I don't know all the references, and I don't know all the stories. And I certainly don't have time to learn all of them. And I will probably never learn a fraction But I feel like we have shared some experience of these teachings and have some intuitive understanding, which is very important.

[04:23]

So the Dharma that is taught is what has been passed down to us. And what we read in books is really what all the Buddhas and ancestors and various teachers have articulated and shared with us about both their study and their experience. And even the most intellectual treatises is done from some point of view, which reflects the writer's experience and what they think is important. But what is helpful to us and what we retain and what we use is what resonates with our own experience, what guides our own experience. And the main, really the only reason that we have these classes is to encourage everyone

[05:27]

to examine their own experience. So with that as the context, I'd like to have a discussion of Prajnaparamita, of the Heart Sutra, which is the core teaching on Prajna. And I'd like to do it a little differently. The last class I taught I talked about Thich Nhat Hanh's book, The Heart of Understanding, and I pulled that talk out of my computer and decided I didn't want to give it. And I really don't want to give a talk about Prajnaparamita. I think it's presumptuous and just doesn't feel like the right thing to do. So I'd like to try something a little different from what we've done before.

[06:30]

I'd like us to recite the Heart Sutra together. And I'd like to try it a little differently than we do it in the Zen Do. Instead of chanting it, I'd like us to read it. And even if you know it by heart, you might want to look at the page, although it's interesting you don't have to. But what I'd like to try is reading it together. And let's read it as if we understood it. And we'll stop. At the end of each stanza, where there is a space in the printing, we'll stop for a few minutes.

[07:35]

And if you have anything you want to say, or if you have any questions, we can talk about it kind of piece by piece. And we can have two kinds of parallel discussion. They're kind of questions of basic understanding, kind of cognitive questions, questions about references or what words mean. And certainly, if there's anything that you don't understand at that level, please ask, because I know there's a wide range in this room of experience with the technical terms in Buddhism. So if there's any technical terms or any words you don't understand in a gross sort of way, please ask. And then there questions about, you know, the deeper questions, what does this actually mean? And we can discuss those in whatever way is useful at this time, without pretending that we're doing some kind of comprehensive or to-the-bottom study of this.

[08:49]

So, Great Wisdom Beyond Wisdom Heart Sutra. Ready? Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, when practicing deeply the Prajna Paramita, perceive that all five skandhas in your own being are empty and were saved from all suffering. So what was he doing when he was practicing the Prajnaparamita that he wasn't doing when he was practicing other Paramitas? I've got a question. Do you think he was doing something different? Was he meditating? That's the way I've always read it, but I think he was taking a short retreat. who is a disciple.

[09:54]

I mean, he's speaking to this person. Right. But what was Avalokiteshvara telling him about how Avalokiteshvara learned? This is like how the elephant got its trunk. How did Avalokiteshvara perceive that all five skandhas were empty? He perceived it when he was practicing deeply the prajnaparamita. Well, going to Ron's question, it seems to me that practicing Prajna Paramita is without any kind of direction, that the other five have some, the intention is designated in the other five. But what's the story? the other guys got to be our huts and he sort of left out. Avalokiteshvara. You're right. Am I right?

[10:57]

No, Shariputra. Shariputra, all right. So it's Avalokiteshvara's job to sort of help Shariputra in this case. And I mean, as I understand it. And doesn't Shakyamuni And so, Avalokiteshvara is sort of vocalizing the Dharma from Shakyamuni in this giant assembly. Yeah, there's always a great assembly. Although this actually wasn't probably taught by the Buddha himself. The stories tend to go this way. This is really a much later sutra. It sounds like you're speaking to different beings. No. My understanding is that, or understood, Avalokiteshvara is an aspect of Buddha.

[11:59]

Well, that's... It's an aspect of Buddha, so it's not two different people. Well, the stories are told as if they were different people. The way we We generally think of them as that they're different people who came to represent different aspects of the Buddha. But in the traditional stories, they really are separate people. Some of them are separate people. Like Shariputra is one of Buddha's disciples. And Avalokiteshvara also? Avalokiteshvara is the Bodhisattva of compassion. I don't think he was a real character. He's a Nesbitt. Yeah, and doesn't Trukpa say that the difference between Buddhas and Bodhisattvas is that Buddhas have no view and Bodhisattvas are still trying to save all beings? What are skandhas?

[13:11]

The five skandhas are form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. They are the five heaps. That's what we're made of. Skandhas is sometimes translated as aggregates or heaps. And that's the key concept in this stanza. That what Avalokiteshvara perceived when he was practicing Prajnaparamita is that all five skandhas in their own being are empty, meaning none of these things can stand alone, that each of these things is dependent on something else, has no own being. And the rest of the sutra, most of this piece is an elaboration on what that means to him.

[14:17]

Do they correspond to anything that I would know about? They don't seem related to me. I've read several books on this and it still doesn't... Form is like arms and legs. Head, shoulders, Feelings are feelings. Feelings are feelings. Perceptions, what comes through your senses. Registering in your brain is whatever. Formations, mental formations is like impulses and ideas, thoughts, kind of the stuff that the mind secretes. And consciousness is your awareness of all that stuff.

[15:22]

Maybe part of what's confusing, I mean this whole thing is just, I just don't get it. I just don't get the idea of no self. But maybe part of what's confusing about this, on a more superficial level, is that all of those things Oh, what am I going to say? It's like they're not... We wouldn't group them together. I mean, they're sort of different orders of reality. Mental formation seems sort of like a product, whereas consciousness seems like a capability. So it's kind of like you're trying to put... and tree stumps in the same category. Well, the question is, what's the larger category? Maybe we're imposing some category. How would you divide it up?

[16:23]

What this is doing then, it's dividing up everything about a human being. Well, not just human beings. Conscious beings? But it's not even sentient beings, although we don't know about the consciousness of other things. How do we know? Maybe if we could talk to them. Susan, no, this is the worst of the story. Does the dog have Buddha nature? Maybe, but I don't know if he has mental formations. And also feelings. Maybe they have mathematics. Also instincts, but not feelings. Well, I don't know. I don't think so, because of course they have formations. They say, hmm, I think I'm hungry, and I go look around there.

[17:25]

That's an idea. Or the territory and words. It's all institutions. But also mental formations is where our karma enters in. So it's not only a description of how our present, how we operate from moment to moment, but it's also, it's suggestive of our whole past-future axis. Because we're clean. We have no car, the body and pure sensation has no past history. But when we begin to put, when we begin to act in the present, the impulses, if I move over there, that carries, or if I go over and I take the cup away, that carries a whole long history. and involves Fran and me and everybody who's watching and, you know, the whole deal.

[18:32]

And consciousness somehow contains that. Katagiri Roshi says that what we're doing all the time is taking snapshots. Every second our camera is taking a picture. And that's like the mental formations. But we only develop a very small quantity of the pictures. And so when we sit, actually what we're doing is we're developing snapshots. You know, more of the whole scene, because we don't want to see, you know, exclude. as opposed to what we're taking pictures of. So, as we said, we develop more and more of the whole scene, and the whole scene is really the whole scene. Well, Bell says the same thing. He says, it's a movie, only it's just, it's like, he talks about, he uses the analogy of persistency of vision, only it's persistency of consciousness, or whatever it is.

[19:34]

And so, if... What Samadhi does is to slow down the movie so you can see each frame. He said that many times. I mean, he likes that one. How come Charlie involves Charlie of himself? Because he has a past. There's a continuity. It's not a self, but there's a continuity that goes back to the caveman. You see that's, and now you're getting to the real core issue. See, why are these categories important? They're important because they're the thing that we identify with. They're the things we get, that we label. and identify with, and make real, and try to make real.

[20:39]

This is Charlie, but if we see Charlie when he's having a bad day and he's not here amusing us, we say, oh, that is the Charlie we know. If we see him snarling at somebody, we say, well, that's not Charlie, because we have this idea about Charlie. And we all have these ideas about ourselves, and other people, and how the world works. And those are all here. So that's why it's important that they don't have any own being, and that we need to have some experience of that. That is mind-blowing. That's what it is. We identify with those things. We think that's who we are. That is mind-blowing. I've never seen that before.

[21:44]

It's interesting, Ann's feeling is like, well, they don't seem to fit together. They're kind of like, they don't seem to fit together. They're almost arbitrary. And when I first heard about the scondas, I thought, well, they ticked five things. And she said, thousands and thousands of people spent thousands of years picking five things. So they probably had a good reason for it. And so I guess they're probably right. And I can't think of a better way of doing it. Isn't there something analogous in contemporary thought? I mean, with all of the dogma and theology and philosophy and psychology, there's got to be something that's analogous to this.

[22:52]

I heard Timothy Leary's Eight Categories of Human Consciousness. I didn't want to dwell on it too much. I didn't want it too often. But he has something similar. He just divides the brain up into eight parts and each part has a different kind of function and process. That's his way of categorizing human experience. I'm sure there's a lot. That's different from this or that's a version of... It's different. I'm sure there's... It would be interesting to put all the different systems. You could probably find 150. Well, I think that You know, if you really think about some of these, they really are very familiar. Forms is the body, and that certainly we're very familiar with identifying with the body. You know, we're born in a male or a female body, and that's one of the first things we learn about ourselves, is I'm a boy or I'm a girl.

[23:54]

And then, you know, You're tall or you're short, you're fat or you're thin, you're blonde or you're dark. These are all form things. And we identify with these very, very powerfully. And feelings the same way. I'm sad, I'm happy, I'm depressed. And identifying with feelings is a You know, that's one of the hardest things, feelings and moods and various states of comfort and discomfort in the body and mind. Those are all can be categorized as feelings or mental formations or consciousness

[24:57]

all the various states of mind that we get stuck in. We tend to get stuck in the unpleasant ones and go running after the pleasant ones. And we really do kind of focus on those things as if they were real. When the skandhas are viewed through ignorance, a false notion of a self is created. Seen through the eyes of meditation, the five skandhas are void, unstained, and clean. Okay, we're getting to that part. Let's read the next stanza. Oh, Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness.

[26:04]

Emptiness does not differ from form. That which is form is emptiness. That which is emptiness, form. The same is true of feelings, perceptions, formations, consciousness. In the longer version, they just repeat this over and over again. This is the short form, so they say, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness, meaning that they're all empty. Well, I guess we have to throw in impermanence right here. How is that different from emptiness? Good question. How do you think? Emptiness?

[27:05]

Well, I don't know. Very close. If something is empty in its own being, it is connected to everything else. Although, right at the now, be it may be distinctive as well as connected to everything else. Sounds pretty intellectual to me. Empty of a separate self. Empty of a separate self. I see it as a void or a non-existent within its own being.

[28:13]

Well, let's keep reading. Actually, I thought what Charlie said, depending on the intellectual direction myself was pretty good. But it seems to me that simply speaking emptiness is a result of impermanence is a necessary result. So things are empty of permanence. Yeah. If everything is impermanent then everything has to be empty of essence or lastingness. Lastingness for sure. I don't know about essence. But even emptiness is empty, you know, the Heart Sutra goes on about nothing, nothing, nothing. Is emptiness impermanent?

[29:16]

Well, in order to understand, now I got it, in order to understand that question, wisdom beyond wisdom must be applied. It just seems like it would be a lot easier to say everything is process. I mean, that's what it comes down to. I mean, that's the only way I can get a handle on it at all, is that, you know, that really, even though there's some process that's, you know, rapid, you know, like people in some way are slow to take it, that it's not, Just that the word process makes, seems to fit with impermanence and emptiness too.

[30:22]

There's no, you know, sort of that whole kaleidoscope notion. It's also true of understanding. It's a good way of, I think, to look at understanding process rather than something we're going to nail down and we can have it and we can wrap it all up Tidings. This is such a nice short little poem here. Looks like we could just, you know, we could just tie it now. Okay. Third stanza. O Shari-Rinpoche, all dharmas are marked with emptiness, and they do not appear nor disappear, are not tainted nor pure. Do not increase nor decrease. I think the trouble with process is it's a good, it is a useful way of thinking about it, and there's also something which doesn't change, which is fixed.

[31:27]

You're saying there's something in addition to process? There's something that is still, you know, like the center of the wheel, there's something Yeah, I think it's a process more applicable to the everything else. Yeah. See, they do not appear nor disappear, are not painted nor pure. There's this process in that, but it also is hinting that, because it's neither this nor that, that there's something that's, you know, the trace that remains forever. No trace that remains forever. Yeah, I'm nearly lost when I'm getting down. Well, you're supposed to be lost. You really are supposed to be lost. Oh, good.

[32:31]

I think T.S. Eliot says that very well about what it is. At the still point of the turning world, neither flesh nor fleshless, neither from nor towards, at the still point, there the dance is, but neither arrest nor movement, and do not call it fixity where past and future are gathered, neither movement from nor towards, neither ascent nor decline, except for the point, the still point, there would be no dance, and there is only the dance. in my experience. I mean, I might have a sense of that, and I might think that, or feel that, but I wouldn't say that that's the way it is. Or I would say that things are empty there. I do experience that.

[33:32]

But that notion of the still point, I mean, it's hard to explain. Still point is something that, I mean, I might feel peaceful, I wouldn't point to that as being something significant, necessarily, except just a feeling of stillness. I wouldn't go beyond that. Whereas my experience of everything changing, I could go beyond that in my own experience. I think my experience is something that the universe just seems to function in the same way. Why does he switch to talking about dharmas? Okay, dharmas means things in this context.

[34:36]

All things are micro-entities. That includes all forms, all feelings, all perceptions, all mental formations, all things you can see, all things you can't see. Phenomena. Phenomena is probably better than stuff. Okay. Can I just ask, get back to what you were saying. Would you, do you feel like you've observed that in Well, how do you experience, they do not appear nor disappear, are not tainted or pure.

[35:39]

I mean, that's really the middle way, right? How do you experience not this? You do experience, don't you? Not this, not that. Do you have some sense of what that is? Yeah, I have kind of a sense. But it's like something, there's like something stuck, there's something in the closet. There may be something in there. The metaphysical closet. Or maybe it's... No, actually right there. A story we used to read in the kids' club, there's a nightmare in the closet. Or maybe it's like right where they meet, it's so close that it's, well it's definitely hard to talk about, but the reason I asked you about if you observe that in nature is, I grew up on a lake and when you watch a storm come in, there's just like a split second where

[36:54]

There's before the storm, and then there's the storm, and it's a real, real quiet time. The lake just gives, like, blasts. And then before you know it, it's started. It just seems like that, you know what I mean, that kind of meeting point? I don't know what you call it, but there's some place in between where it was one thing and then it's something else. So what is that? That's what I thought of when you were talking was, oh, you see that in nature all the time. You see it when lightning hits or the wind. It's the gap between things. I mean, we just, we experience it all the time. One thing becomes another thing and this, you know, you bow and there's that gap. Or breathing. Or between breath. I mean, between inhalation. So what you're saying is that it's not phased. I know.

[38:00]

Well, Vicky, do you remember Vicky Austin's stuff here a couple of months ago? Yeah, it was good. Yeah, she talked about the breathing that way. She said, well, you know, I'm still working on taking that one breath. That breath where I just breathed, I don't quite have it right, but that was, that was the one. Where there was nothing in the way of breathing. At the end of what? Breathing. where she said, when you're finished, it's in before you know it. Right. Yeah, which is only a split second. Right. So there are two points here.

[39:03]

One is, what is your experience? And the other is, can you get into this experience and investigate what is true for you and how did the dharmas operate in your experience? And that's something to investigate moment after moment, forever. It's not that your experience is... If you have a different experience tomorrow than you did today, or a different experience ten minutes from now, it doesn't invalidate your experience right now.

[40:10]

Part of not tainted nor pure, I think, is not judged, just experienced. I think this next, this long paragraph here is the toughest one. So let's give it a go. Therefore, in emptiness, no form, no feelings, no perceptions, no formations, no consciousness, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind, no realm of eyes until no realm of mind comes. no extinction of it, until no old age and death, and also no extinction of it, no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path, no foundation, also no attainment, with nothing to attain, a bodhisattva depends on prajna paramita, and if the mind is no hindrance, without any hindrance,

[41:51]

Who was the famous ancestor that grew up, he was a little boy and he heard this and he said, but I have feelings and perceptions and all that stuff and he went to the priest and said, You know, I've got all this stuff, and the neighborhood priest said, you're too smart for me, you better go off to the monastery. It's Tozan. Tozan? Is it Tozan? Pretty sure it's Tozan. Oh, and then he went on to, when he grew up, he said, and non-sentient beings preached the Dharma. Right. Which is kind of the result. Nonsense. It's a figure of death problem. Yeah, that's just a leap of something or other. Well, that was his experience. He had his enlightenment experience by a river, watching the rocks and water.

[43:09]

That was his awakening. Can we go down to no ignorance and also no extinction? Every time I recite this, I don't know what... In old age and death and also no extinction. Can you translate? Well, I think, you know, the background of this... Remember that... The early Buddhists talked about the Four Noble Truths in a very literal kind of way. The cause of suffering is desire. You get rid of desire, you get rid of suffering, you extinguish the passions, and you extinguish

[44:16]

ignorance. And it sounds like a very clear-cut kind of good-bad distinction. You do the good stuff, the bad stuff goes away. And the Mahayana understanding is going beyond the notion of extinguishing desire. It's a transformative model rather than a linear kind of a model. So that's what they're talking about. This is partly a sectarian argument here. The extinction people and the no-extinction people. Well, it's also a reference to the dependent origination, where ignorance is the first link. It's just a summary of it. That ignorance is the first of the twelvefold links, and birth and death is the last one. So it's just a reference to that whole huge teaching.

[45:22]

Right, and it's an invitation to see it as a circular rather than a linear process. That it's continuous, it's a wheel that turns. And it's not that, you know, we're a part of the wheel. no ignorance and also no extinction of it until no old age and death and also no extinction of it that the wheel keeps turning and we're always... you don't just get off and go into outer space you're not pushed around by it. Well if the wheel turns one way it's our karmic fate And if it turns the other way, then it's our liberation. So if it turns in the way of ignorance to karmic formations, to feelings and all that stuff, then we're rolling with the karma.

[46:36]

But if we can cut the wheel and reverse it the other way, then it's all reversed and we're liberated. This whole thing is just a complete summary of Buddhadharma. I mean, it's just enormously condensed into these few lines. So, you know, this one line is reams of volumes on what karma is. There it is. Yeah, look, there, now you can get it. So, what's the point of going one way rather than the other? You still go through all these things. You end up at the same place, right? Well, actually you don't, you see, because if you don't follow desire to craving, to grasping, if you stop between craving and grasping... Between feeling and grasping.

[47:39]

Between feeling and grasping. Then you go back the other way, then you're in the feeling, just observing. And then it doesn't have to go all the way to all this other stuff that happens after grasping. So it's not the real reverses. Well, that's the way they describe it. But it's the consequences. The consequences go towards more suffering. Once you get... I think it's easiest to see between feeling and grasping, because you have this, you know, we all have that experience of grasping, and then what happens after that? The nasty little pictures up there. I'm being much too literal. I think I'm saying, well, if you don't go from feeling to grasping, then you go back to what would... Well, actually you do, you know, and that's our experience in Zazen. You go to feeling,

[48:40]

You know, and you feel something and you want to grasp, you feel something, say, uncomfortable, you want to grasp it, some comfort. And if you just stay with the feeling and observe it, then it changes, it transforms, but you are involved in, you know, trying to get something. So then you go back to where? You go back? Well, you just stay, you just stay put. And it transforms to what? Just consciousness. And just pure experience. It doesn't take on a life of its own. You know, we're always trying to come back to that, from whatever it is that we fed to the light. It just sort of dissipates after consciousness. It just kind of goes its merry way. Well, you see through it. So that's what it means to go beyond ignorance. You know, instead of ignorance, how you just see things as they are.

[49:46]

That's the turning now. Yeah, that's the turning now. You know, it's hard to... These pictures are very beautiful and they're helpful to you. I think they're very, very helpful. Again, I think that there's kind of... This is the Dharma that is taught. and your experience. On the one hand, they say, don't set up your own standards. On the other hand, do question. What is your own experience? Not necessarily in an argumentative way, but just in a really inquisitive way. What's my experience of this? And you might describe it differently. So when they say, for instance, no stopping, no calf, no origination, it sounds like it's like no wheel.

[50:55]

No. No, then we moved on. Then we're at the Four Noble Truths. Well, but that worked out. Why didn't they say no for the Four Noble Truths? Why are they saying no? No stopping, no path? Because that's the Four Noble Truths. Why are they denying that? Why are they denying the Four Noble Truths? I don't know. Why do they say, when you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha? They're attached. Because it's a concept that you're just going to hang out with when you come to Buddha. Because they're empty. They're empty? Yeah. And what are the teachings? What are they for? What are they for? Yeah, they're empty. They're empty like a boat. When you take the boat to the other shore, right? You leave it. Right. You don't carry it around with you. So I think that's why they say, no stopping.

[52:01]

Yeah. But that's why I think it's the same as saying, no leave. Yeah. Don't cling to the words. And also, I think there's something simultaneous. I think of it like simultaneous form of emptiness and being simultaneous. It's not just saying, well, none of this stuff, you know, fundamentally none of this really exists. From the point of view of this paragraph, it doesn't exist. And then, from the point of view of all those books up there, it does exist. And they both go together. It's simultaneous. It's not... It's like weight and particle.

[53:01]

We like whatever ones we can sort of hang on to. Make some mental picture that makes some sense to us. Mine is a coffee cup with nothing in it. It's a coffee cup but there's no bottom to it. It's a coffee cylinder. Yeah it's a coffee cylinder. Something to hold on to reminds me of, you know, we're trying so hard to get an idea that we can we can tolerate and hang on to. My little one, my youngest, didn't think she could walk without holding on to something.

[54:16]

She had to hold on to something. So she was always walking, carrying on to a toy or a piece of toast or something. As if it would steady her. And that's what we do with these ideas. That's a nice analogy. What does no realm of eyes mean? No realm of eyes. No object of mind. What does all that mean? This is, again, a reference to the way of studying consciousness. Eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness. No realm of eyes, no realm of nose. No realm of form. Beyond form. Beyond form. And the summary of no eyes, no ears, no nose, it's just a summarization?

[55:21]

It's a summarization, yeah. It's the short form. This could go on in great repetition, and does. There's a version of this that's a volume, There's a thicker volume. Same thing, just many repetitions and a little more detail. Okay, we're almost done. Let's, let me think here. Okay. Next one is short. In the three worlds, all Buddhists depend on Prajnaparamita. Meditate, unsurpass, complete, perfect enlightenment. What are the three worlds? Actually, someone asked that in my night group, and it's the world of desire, the world of form, and the world of formlessness.

[56:31]

But my initial thing was, well, it's obviously past, present, and future, which I think one could argue for that too, and discuss what that's about. But those are also referred to as the three times. Mm-hmm. Want to say that again? Desire, form, and formlessness, or formless form. Is that Mahayana? I don't know, it might just be basic Buddhism. I think that's part of the original description of it. I could go on. I have that at home and I curse it every time I open it.

[57:35]

What is it? It doesn't have the words of what you want. It's a Shambhala Tibetan Zen dictionary. It's not very good. No. The world of desire, here sexual and other forms of desire predominate. It includes the realms of existence of hell, humans, animals, and six classes of gods, and then the sphere of desireless corporeality or form, and that's desire for sexuality and food falls away, but the capacity for enjoyment continues. I don't like it because I can't find anything in it. I looked up sangha the other day and it wasn't in there. the sphere of bodilessness or formlessness. This realm is a purely spiritual continuum consisting of the four heavens in which one is reborn through practice of the four stages of formlessness.

[58:41]

So, for what it's worth, which is $19.00 in America. The back of the Vimalakirti book has a wonderful glossary. that lists all the things that are numbers, the four fearless seasons, and the four holy trees, and all that. What does it say about the three worlds? Same as he said, the four seasons. Those are all Indian categories. So in all those three worlds, all Buddhas depend on Prajnaparamita. I have always thought that was a really interesting sentence. All Buddhas depend on Prajnaparamita. Depend in the sense that they didn't exist without Him? Well, certainly in that sense. I think Mel talked about it once, it's almost like sustenance.

[59:45]

But also they need some sort of There's also that notion of not depending on anything in practice. And that's also depending on prajnaparamita. Because prajnaparamita is indefinable. Depending on prajnaparamita, kind of committing yourself to believing completely in the unknowableness.

[60:50]

What do you mean by not depending on anything in practice? kind of the experience of not being able to, that there's really no resting place, nothing you can depend on or count on, everything changes. some kind of formula or teacher or form, but practicing just pure awareness.

[62:07]

Depends on what you mean by that, I guess. Well, people, things, situations all change, but the teachings are there for centuries and centuries, and they don't change because they're truths. They're absolutes, like non-attachment. How do you depend on non-attachment? Well, I mean, you depend on the teachings to help you develop in those ways. Well, in some ways you can say that the teachings are just the manifestation of the truth. That's sort of what you're saying, that what is, is. And it just works out that way.

[63:24]

The word depend is a kind of tricky word, if you think about it. How often we lie. Well, that's the same. Yeah, that's the same. And I'm not sure, and that's one of the things that it means in this context, but I don't think it's by any means the only thing, particularly in the context This sort of core concept here. Can somebody explain it that way? Because when we talk about practicing all the time, we're always talking about practicing. But, you know, you could, in a way, you could say, like what Agnes was saying, you could say, well, we're always depending on And then there's a point where you can't, you can't, the big paragraph here, you can't say that.

[64:44]

But if we're going to talk about practicing, then why can't we talk about depending? What about depending on practice? Isn't that a kind of attachment that is spoken family of in the Zen school. Yeah, well, that's what I mean. The word depending, how you're using it, is kind of the key thing. Well, is part of the meaning of depend in this sense, is it something to do with faith? Seems like, is it saying that wisdom that wisdom comes through experience, so there has to be... it seems like there's a faith in experience. Does that make sense? I think it relates to the first paragraph, where depending on Prajnaparamita, and what's Prajnaparamita, that's the wisdom of emptiness.

[65:58]

And in the first paragraph, the whole thing is talking about the cessation of suffering. And by seeing emptiness, then one is saved, or free from the suffering. I think Charlie really brought up a good point about impermanence, and we can see impermanence and how things change. That's kind of like the active side of life. And then underneath all that, I think, is the emptiness, and that in whatever place things change. You know, water turns to ice, turns to steam, and it's constantly changing. We can see all that. that impermanence, but to see the emptiness of that, and that in each of those places is where we can let go and be free from it all. But so within that, where is there a sense of dependence?

[67:02]

Well, I think what it is, is that if you don't see the inherent emptiness of all phenomenon, then you're going to be bound to the world of suffering and confusion. As the echo, you know, we chant during service, that until one sees the emptiness, that's of where we have to go. And the cling to that and just... the swing to sort of the empty side of things and say, well, it's all empty, it doesn't matter, is not correct. So I think it's depending on seeing the wisdom of emptiness and then going out, like the last picture in the Oxfording picture, is going back into the marketplace.

[68:12]

It's depicted, you know, the guy, the student is practicing, and then they see it, and then they go back. And if they don't go back, then they've been caught by that just emptiness and thing. Well, it doesn't matter, you know, that's it. The Alan Watts, you know, the beats and squares and thing. I think it was called Zen or something. I can't remember. The problem was that I think when people were discovering Zen, it was a naive view that everything is empty and it's okay that you don't have to do anything but the important thing is to see emptiness and then go and do something that's sort of like you know soji but after zazen we go out and we manifest and do something. So the dependence is interdependence? I think The idea is that when one sees the emptiness, then you see the interdependence.

[69:23]

So that's sort of the morsel of the reward after the fact, or co-arising with the fact of seeing it. But there is nothing to rely on. We hear that in lectures all the time. Maybe we should change the word to interdependence. Well, that sounds like a Thich Nhat Hanh kind of a translation. Why don't you take it to the practice committee, Rob? But that point that you make, Ross, about applying it and taking the wisdom out into the world is something else that Trungpa emphasizes when he says that, you know, you have some experience of transcendent wisdom, then what are you going to do with it?

[70:23]

You go home and you're having a cup of tea. How do you apply that to your family life? It's just a great, great challenge. I remember sitting, sushing, and my children were small, and, you know, doing kind of okay. He may be even feeling good, you know, and coming home, and then it would take, you know, maybe 30 seconds, you know, for it to all be just, um... Back on the street again. So, let's finish it. Therefore, know the Prajnaparamita is the great transcendent mantra, is the great bright mantra, Prajna Paramita Mantra.

[71:24]

Proclaim the mantra that says, Well, it's always really nabbed me that after all of this, know this, know that, know this, we're told, it is true. That's always bugged me, too. It's not only true, it's the best truth. The one true perspective is when you see the flashing point in the lines. whatever it was, makes up for it with the Sanskrit. Well, how does that make up for it for you? Well, because it just, it's beyond opposites or beyond judgment.

[72:29]

Gone. Gone. Completely gone. Gone to the other shore. That sounds like escapism, sort of. It doesn't, like, take me away. You know, I mean... No, it doesn't. But you, or the power to take you, is not involved. It's just gone. I look at it differently. As in real gone, man? No, of course not. But also, it's a mantra. It's not just a description, but it's a mantra. I've never practiced mantra, but my understanding is that with mantra, you merge with the mantra. You're merging with a mantra.

[73:42]

You're not thinking about necessarily going beyond, but you're just the words. And that's how a mantra works. Right. What part is a mantra? Gaccha, gaccha, par, gaccha, pars, gaccha. And that's why we don't translate. Because it's a mantra. Edward Konza, in one of his books, devotes pages and pages, which I can't remember what his reasoning was, to why they ended with a mantra. He thinks it's really significant. And apparently this is very unusual in the Prajnaparamita literature to do this. This may be the only one that they do it with.

[74:45]

You mean the longer ones don't work that way? Only the shortest of the short? Well, none of them inwardly mantra. Well, and somewhere, somebody says that actually the briefest version of the Heart Sutra is just Bodhisattva. Well, in the Korean, are you speaking of the different schools? No. How would you describe the Prajnaparamita section of teaching? It's just a section of the literature. The Perfection of Wisdom Sutra. It's just a part of Mahayana Buddhism. It's just a hunk of the literature which contains a variety Discloses something.

[76:02]

What's Halloween? Kenneth Roshi calls it Hail Hail. Halloween is probably close. What is it you literally thought? Thank God. Thank you. That is the best Bodhisattva. Hail the light. Svaha I think means be well. It's rather analogous to amen. I think that would be good. Enlightenment, so is it. Well, thank you very much for working with this.

[77:05]

I learned a lot. I'd like to end with the Four Vows. But before that, I'd like to pass out some evaluation forms. If you have time to stay and fill them out tonight, That would be great if you want to take them home and think about them. That's fine. But be sure we get them back. You should put them in Andy's box. What's the second question? Expectations, we aren't supposed to have any, right?

[78:06]

Yes, you can answer from the point of view of emptiness. I'm going to scratch that off and say, how could you ask this? Well, this curriculum and evaluation are in the realm of That's where most of us live most of the time, and certainly it's where we deal with language and teaching. Also, if you haven't seen the latest issue of Inquiring Mind, it's about non-duality, emptiness, and all that, and it's quite a good issue. has always beautifully written. Where is that? You can probably get it at Shambhala. They have it in Shambhala. The Zen Center gets it, so there's usually a copy of it. There should be a copy around here. They have it at Gaia.

[79:09]

Gaia, also? They encourage people to get subscriptions, too. If you've given money to the Vipassana community. Anyway, it's worth subscribing to. It's quite a wonderful little magazine. Well, I just want to thank you for being such a responsive and wonderful class. It's been really fun. I really learned a lot. I really enjoyed being with you these last six weeks. So thank you. I had wanted to maybe do a whole bonus episode, but that seems like too much. But just to remind us that that's why we're here, maybe we could just chant the four vows before we go.

[80:01]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ