I vow to chase the truths of the Tartarus words. Hi. Well, we have now a little handout, period. Does everybody have the first Xerox? Which is what? I don't. You don't. Well, that's what? Well, the first one, right? No, the first kind of complete. Okay, you want one too? Okay, now and then this, that's yes, this is, I'm sorry I didn't label all of them. This is the Lankavatara Sutra. It says the manual of Zen Buddhism and the Sutras. And that we're going to get to tonight. And then there is also the three, the trikaya, the three bodies of Buddha.

[01:14]

And I think that some people got this and some didn't. It's by Suzuki Roshi. It's fairly technical, and I wasn't sure everyone would want it, but who would like it? Well, I will just send part of it around this way and part of it around that way. But be sure that you don't lose any of it. Some of you may have it in your packages. what you what you have now you should have covered by tonight okay and then we have the next xeroxes which will be for the next three sessions is that right Alan um well at least the next week this is a start this is actually part of That table in the kitchen, people took them as they went out.

[02:27]

That's fine, please take them before you go. Let's remember that, and you remind us at the end. Why don't you do it now? Okay, and remind us to pick them up too at the end. Well, it does stop. It does stop. It stops with... The handout was the parable about the lost son. And that ends. And the handout ends, even though... It was in mid-sentence. It was in mid-sentence. That's right. But you got to the end of the parable. I couldn't end it tactfully. Perhaps we could... Tonight, what I hope is that we will... just have a little look at the Lotus Sutra and then go on to the Lankavatara Sutra and the Yogacarana School.

[03:32]

And then Alan has kindly said that he would do Bodhidharma because I was not able to do that. So by the end of tonight, hopefully we'll have looked at the perfection of wisdom or the wisdom side of our background and the Lotus Sutra, the devotional side, and the Yogacara mind only, the psychological side. It felt kind of random and strange to choose anything out of such a big pot, but it did seem to me that those three big aspects were worth pointing out. Also, they just happened to be three parts of the big scene that I very much like. I'd like us together to read this poem by Chosetsu, who was a Tang teacher, because it summarizes, I thought, what this evening has in store.

[04:46]

So we could just read it aloud together. Can most people see? The radiance, serenity, illuminates the whole universe. All beings are in my abode. When no thought arises, the whole is revealed. If the sixth sense organs move even a little, it is obscured by clouds. If you cut off your ignorance, your ailments will increase. If you look for the truth, you are wronged. Living in accord with things of the world, So as we move through the material tonight, I think we'll see echoes and echoes of that.

[05:47]

Towards the end of last week, somebody, I think it was Joyce, asked, again, what should we get out of this class? And I think that's a really very good question just to keep asking. I'm hoping tonight, and it changes as I keep thinking about it, and I'm sure it will change as Alan picks up. But I hope from these two weeks that I have some small sense of different sutra styles. Just kind of the way a little piece tastes. And some sense of the big background that our koan practice, that our Japanese practice draws on. so that we have some idea of the bigness of our own questions that we practice with. So last week we talked about the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra and we took a kind of thematic approach.

[07:10]

We talked about the Mahayana and the non-Mahayana traditions from an historical point of view And from the point of view of our own practice, not referring to them as the Mahayana and the Hinayana, trying to avoid the kind of superior note, which often is in particularly the older teachings, but really trying to see how the two sides, the effort side, the analytic side, and the intuitive, the synchronistic side, work for us. And we talked some about nirvana, the Mahayana point of view, from the non-Mahayana point of view, nirvana as the goal of practice, and from the Mahayana point of view, the relationship of nirvana to samsara, the identity of the two, how that shifted.

[08:16]

And we talked about the middle way, again a difference from the two points of view, the middle way in the Mahayana school being just that edge that we chant when we chant the Heart Sutra. No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, where we have the eyes and we have the nose and we're also saying we don't, that kind of razor edge between our personal experience, the integrity of our personal experience, the veracity of the frown, and also our sense of being interrelated. We talked about shunyata, emptiness, the emptiness of self, the interrelatedness of all dharmas, and there was the handout, the Thich Nhat Hanh, section about inter-being. We talked about skillful means, the problem of teaching when there is nothing to teach, how that teaching of nothing is conveyed in an intimate way.

[09:33]

And we talked about bodhisattvas. The three aspects of the bodhisattva There are three kind of definitions, the Bodhisattva being an enlightened being, Bodhisattvas being enlightening beings, and Bodhisattvas being on the path. All those three elements being contained in the Bodhisattva. And we read in the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra how they stand on shunyata with no dependence on concepts, no hindrances, no fears, living by intention, living by intention, by vow rather than karma as expressed by the four vows. So we kind of covered that and we will cover that again tonight. in somewhat different ways.

[10:37]

So, now we could talk about the Lotus Sutra. How many of you got a chance to read the handouts? That's good. So how many people I don't know the chapter of the Heart Sutra that I passed out, the chapter called Faith and Discernment, the story about the son who was lost. Is there anyone who doesn't know that? Okay. Okay. It's good you confessed. Now return. It's a good religion. So I haven't been saying very much about the background of these sutras and I don't intend to and they are outlined in the handout in the Dumoulin section.

[11:49]

He does it very skillfully and clearly and quickly. The Lotus Sutra was translated by Kumarajiva, a very famous translator, in 400 and came to China at that time. It would probably have been around before. And the original Sanskrit texts have been lost. For many East Asian Buddhists, the Lotus Sutra is the nearest thing to the Christian Bible, you know, the Nichiren school. treat it with great reverence. There's a tendency in the Mahayana to say that the Lotus Sutra, which was said to have been preached by Buddha at his Parinirvana, is the pinnacle, the greatest of all sutras. Now different Mahayana schools

[12:51]

see would talk about it differently but that's our point of view that it is the most important the most sublime sutra and so in our chant when in our meal chant and in our full moon chant when we when we give homage to the great bodhisattvas we also give homage to the Mahayana, Pundarika, Sadharma Sutra, the Lotus Sutra. So it's, we give it very special attention. And it's, for Sutra, it's relatively short. And it also has wonderful stories. and parables. And it's not so difficult to get around. And it's also very, very warm-hearted and friendly and optimistic.

[13:55]

So it's really a nice sutra to read. You know, one can just undertake it together in a class, maybe a couple of years together, and it was a nice, it was a very warm, friendly thing to do. Is that how long it is? That's how long it is, and it's not even this long, you know. That's hard, I don't think. These introductions of these notes and so on, so it's... It's very readable. Yeah, it's readable. And we also pay attention to it in our meal chant when we say at the very end of the meal, may we exist in muddy water with purity like a lotus.

[15:00]

So the lotus itself is an image of our practice that The lotus has its roots in the mud and the flower looks at the sky and all the activity between manifests. So what I would like to do is to read, give a kind of brief tour up to the chapter on faith and discernment or belief and understanding and then talk about that story for a little bit. and then have a little discussion on that and then move on to the Lankavatara. So this sutra begins as

[16:05]

almost all of them do. With thus I have heard and the scene is set with Buddha on top of Vulture Peak with a vast assembly. The first few pages describe the enormous assembly. And I'm going to skip all the many pieces of that assembly. and read a description about, that describes the Buddha's Samadhi. At that time, the World Honored One, surrounded, worshipped, revered, honored, and extolled by the four groups, preached for the sake of all Bodhisattvas, the Great Vehicle Sutra, called Innumerable Meanings, the law by which Bodhisattvas are instructed, in which the Buddhas watch over and keep in mind. Kind of close your eyes and just imagine this samadhi. Having preached this sutra, the Buddha sat cross-legged and entered the contemplation termed the Station of Innumerable Meanings, in which his body and mind were motionless.

[17:16]

At this time the sky rained Mahavara, Mahamandavarava, Manushaka and Maha Manushika flowers over the Buddha and all the great assembly while the universal Buddha world shook in six ways. then in the congregation of monks and nuns and upisakas and upasikas, gods, dragons, gandharas, asuras, kimaras, human and non-human beings, as well as minor kings and the holy wheel-rolling kings. All of this assembly, obtaining that which had never been before, with joy and folded hands and with one mind, looked up to the Buddha. Then the Buddha sent forth from the circle of white hair between his eyebrows a ray of light, which illumined 18,000 worlds in the eastern quarter, so that there was nowhere it did not reach, downward to the Avici hell and upward to the Akanchitapha heaven.

[18:22]

In this world were seen in those lands all their living creatures in the six states of existence. Likewise, we're seeing the Buddhas existing at present in those lands. And there could be heard the sutra laws those Buddhas were preaching. And there could be seen that there were monks and nuns and so on who had practiced and obtained the way. Further, we're seeing the Bodhisattva Mahasattvas who walked the various ways. And likewise, we're seeing the Buddhas who had entered final nirvana. and so on. So this great samadhi that Buddha goes into with the white light coming out of his forehead and the shaking of the world everywhere, everywhere, that's the center of the teaching. And then the whole sutra goes on a little bit like a mystery novel because everybody wants to know, well, what is it?

[19:27]

What's the teaching? And chapter after chapter we think, yeah, we're going to get it. And perhaps we do. So then at this time, and so this question comes right up. At that time, Maitreya Bodhisattva, Maitreya is the Bodhisattva of the future. the Bodhisattva who is right now becoming in each of us. At that time Maitreya Bodhisattva reflected thus, Now does the World Honored One display an appearance so marvelous. What is the cause and reason of this auspicious sign? Now that the Buddha, the World Honored One, has entered into his contemplation and such inconceivable and unprecedented wonders appear, of whom shall I inquire and who will be able to answer?

[20:28]

Again, he reflected thus, here is Manjusri, the son of the Law King, who has been in close contact with and paid homage to former innumerable Buddhas and who must have witnessed such unprecedented signs as these. Let me now ask him. So, as usual in these sutras, Maitreya asks Manjusri three times to please explain something. And then, as we saw last time with the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, Manjusri, with the help of Buddha, and you can't quite, it's a little unclear who's speaking, Manjusri proceeds to explain. And that's kind of the basic situation. So, after three times, Manjusri says,

[21:45]

begins. All ye good sons, in time of your infinite, boundless, inconceivable kalpas ago, there was a Buddha, there then was a Buddha styled sun, moonlight, Tathagata, worshipful, all-wise, perfectly enlightened in conduct, well departed, understander of the world, and so on. He proclaimed the right law, which is good at its commencement, good in its middle, and good at the end, which is profound in its meaning, subtle in its perfect, flawless, and noble in practice. For those who sought to be shravakas, that's the hearers, the disciples, he preached response to the law of the four noble truths for the overcoming of birth, old age, disease, death, and finally leading to nirvana. For those who sought to partake of Buddhahood, that is the people who have just learned by their own experience, he preached response to the law of the twelve independent origination.

[22:47]

For the Bodhisattvas, he preached response to the six paramitas to cause them to attain perfect enlightenment and to accomplish perfect knowledge. And there again was a Buddha, also named Sun, Moon, Light, and so on, again in the names of Buddhas. So, there are two things here. One, we're getting, obviously we've moved way away from the historical Buddha. and we are hearing about the Buddhas, the eternal Buddha, and the many different shapes that the eternal Buddha takes. The bodies of Buddha, and that, this handout, this really very lovely piece by Suzuki Roshi about the three manifestations of Buddha, the nirmanakaya, personifications.

[23:50]

And then the Sambhogakaya Buddha, the joyful, the expression of Buddha nature, the joyful expression, the teaching, the moving of the Buddha nature. And then the Dharmakaya Buddha, the aspect of Buddha that is totally in repose, just still, just perfectly seamless. So these three aspects are always interplaying with each other. And the first reference to the three bodies of Buddha is somewhere in this sutra. I can't quite remember where it is. It's quite obscure. But the particular doctrine is always tied to the Lotus Sutra. And then the other thing that we see in this passage again is skillful means. That the Buddha preached the Pali Canon, the old teaching, as he did because that was what people then were ready for.

[24:58]

But this major world-shaking eternal teaching The one vehicle teaching has been reserved and is now ready to be taught. And then, a lot of things happened, but another very major aspect is the Buddha's prediction of universal Buddhahood for everybody.

[26:21]

And one reference to that is here. At that time, the Buddha said to Shariputra, Now I declare in this great assembly of gods, men, ascetics, brahmins and others, of your, in the presence of 20,000 kotis of Buddhas, for the sake of the supreme way, I continuously taught you, while you also for long nights and days have followed me and received my teachings. By reason of my tactful guidance you have been born into my law, Shariputra, of your I caused you to resolve in the Buddha way. But you have now entirely forgotten it, and so consider that you have attained extinction." There are all these little kind of knocks at the people who think the previous teaching was really it. Now again desiring to cause you to recollect the way which you originally resolved to follow, I preach for all Ashravakas this great vehicle sutra called the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Laws. Shariputra, in a world to come after infinite, boundless, and inconceivable kalpas, when you shall have served some thousand myriad kotis of Buddhas, you will become a Buddha, whose title will be Flower, Light, Tagata, and it goes on that everybody who hears this message will become a Buddha.

[27:48]

and that the teaching has always been present. story about how the teaching has always been present later on that there is a house, a large house which is a fire burning up and the wise father and the children inside of it are so busy playing with their toys that they don't notice that they're about to be consumed with the flames. And so the wise father has to think what he can do to get these children, to distract these children from their toys in order that they may be saved. And so he constructs three different cards, a beautiful goat card and a beautiful donkey card and a beautiful bullet card and of course the bullet card is by far the most beautiful but different children select different cards and these three cards are of course the cards of the Shravaka and the cards of the Cheka Buddha and the cards of the Bodhisattva.

[29:06]

And finally, the children do leave the house, and after they've left, the Buddha, the wise father, not wanting to give any of them anything less than the most, gives them all the bullet card. And that's a kind of, that's a metaphor about the skillful means. all right so now we come to this chapter on faith and discernment which is also in an older translation called It's a very beautiful way, I think, of pondering the whole question about the gifts that one receives and can't quite tolerate and has to keep discovering and rediscovering again and again and again.

[30:54]

And how it works that we find our Buddha nature and the Buddha nature also needs us to manifest it and this kind of question and response and question and response that come. So briefly the story is that there's a young man who in his youth leaves his father and runs away and forgets who he is. and is away for something like 50 years, and in that time the father has amassed a fortune. And the son comes back and doesn't really recognize... The son is just totally adrift. The father recognizes the son and immediately perceives that the son is in such a...

[31:57]

belong to him. So there is a long succession of skillful means used in order to acquaint the son with his rightful place. And I won't go over that too much, but the father sends out helpers and the helper coaxed the son and offered the son some wages for doing very lowly work. In fact, sometimes it's said for shoveling shit. And so the son has to shovel dirt or shovel shit for many ship for many years, and little by little gets more adept at this, and little by little is promoted to more responsible activities in the palace. The father is always watching from a distance and not pushing and giving just the amount of instruction and encouragement that is needed to keep the son at the work that the son has to do.

[33:28]

So it's a slow, patient empowerment process. And little by little, the father, the son, begins to take more responsibility, is able to take more responsibility, and thereby the elder gave him a name anew, and now calls him a son, and then the poor son, though he rejoices at this happening, still thinks of himself as a humble hireling, and for this reason, for 20 more years, he continues to be employed for removing dirt. And after this period, there's a confidence between them, and he goes in and out, and then there's ease, although he still has a lowly abode, and so on, and so on. And then... Finally, the father, after a short time, again the father knowing that his son's ideas have gradually been enlarged and his will well developed and that he despises his previous lowly state of mind of seeing that his end, that is the father's end, is near, commands his son to come and at the same time gathers together his relatives and kings and ministers and when they're all assembled he thereupon addresses them saying, no gentlemen, that this is my son begotten by me.

[34:51]

It is over fifty years hence from a certain city he left me and ran away to endure loneliness and misery. His former name was so-and-so, and my name is so-and-so. And at that time in that city I sought him sorrowfully. Suddenly, in this place, I met and regained him. This is really my son, and I am really his father. Now all the wealth which I possess belongs entirely to my son, and all my previous disbursements and receipts are known by this son. World Honored One, when this poor son heard these words of his father, great was his joy at such unexpected news, and thus he thought, without any mind for or effort on my part, these treasures now come of themselves to me." So, there's just so many aspects to this.

[35:54]

So maybe we should just stop here for a bit for comments, responses. sort of lets us find our way in that. Hopefully it doesn't take 50 years, but I think maybe even biologically we have that same kind of coming to terms with our own parents, you know, fortune in this lifetime. If we can forgive our parents, we're... Yeah, I'm going through that

[37:13]

And none of us really would have started in this practice at all without some knowledge of the house, the great house that we belong in. And then how that faith is like a muscle that we just keep strengthening and strengthening. There's always a moral reservation I have with these things where it's the richest, it's the richest that's the reward. And there's some, you know, the myriads of diamonds and jewels and some sutras in this case. You know, the kingly, the lion throne and all of that. Right. And I think that our... It's not much to our contemporary taste. Yes, and I don't think it was all that much to our Chinese ancestors' taste either.

[38:51]

They didn't go in for all these flowered waters and parasols and banners. Right. But it's really interesting. Case 35. We have another one of my real favorites. Setsuo and her soul are separated. That is not a very different story. Although the place and the characters are different. Does everyone know that story? It's a koan, but it's from a Japanese folktale. I'm often conscious of time, but there is a father whose wife dies and the father is left with a daughter and he decides that she should have some company so he gets, he and they are very well-suited, they really love each other, and the father notices that and says, well, when you grow up, you'll probably be married.

[39:57]

And then Setsho becomes a teenager, and he finds her a bridegroom, and brings the man home, and the children are aghast, and Ocho, the cousin, just has to leave. So he gets on a tugboat, and is going down the canal to go to a distant country in the evening and then he hears somebody calling and he looks behind and Setso is running after the boat and she jumps on and they both go to a distant country and they have two children and then some years go by and Setso and Ocho both have this yearning to go back and they agree that they'll go back, so they do Archo agrees to go first to the father's house and he knocks on the door with some trepidation and the father comes to the door and says, oh, I'm so glad to see you, Archo. And Archo says, well, I didn't know.

[40:58]

I wasn't sure how you feel about my taking Setso away. Oh, he says, you didn't take Setso away. She's been here all the time. She's been lying in her bed in a coma ever since you left. Archo says, it can't be. So they go back and they bring Setsho from the boat and as the Setsho from the boat comes in the door, the Setsho from the bed arises and they embrace and they become one. And the comments on this, and this directly is Rebecca's question, So the question about this story is, Setsuo and her soul are separated. Which is the true Setsuo? Gateless barrier. And woman's comment. If you realize the true one, you'll know that emerging from one husk and entering another is like a traveler putting up in an inn.

[41:59]

If this is still not clear, don't rush about recklessly. When you suddenly separate into earth, fire, water, air, you'll be like a crab dropped into boiling water, struggling with your seven hands and eight legs. Don't say I didn't tell you. And then there's a little verse. The moon and the clouds are the same. Mountains and valleys are different. All are blessed. all are blessed. Is this one? Is this two? So, it's kind of our way of talking about this real devotional heart's desires. Can we have the bell even a little prematurely so we can make this great leap?

[43:02]

Now, this third section, this psychologically oriented section, which is all about what is mind, and we're going to have many examples from our ancestors on the subject of what is mind. What is the psychological experience of learning by not knowing? How do we learn when we don't know? So I'd like to just begin with reading a little bit from Case 37, The Oak Tree in the Courtyard. The story is, somebody comes to Jojo and says, please don't teach me with reference to outside things.

[44:57]

And Jojo said, I don't teach you with reference to outside things. And the monk said, what is the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West? And Jojo says, the oak tree in the courtyard. And the comment If you can see intimately into the essence of Jojo's response, there is no Shakyamuni in the past and no Maitreya in the future. Another verse. Words do not convey the fact. Language is not an expedient. Attached to words, your life is lost. Blocked by phrases, you are bewildered. Cut, cut, [...] cut. No inside, no outside. What is the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West? The oak tree in the courtyard. So, that's all pretty bewildering. The Lankavatara Sutra is nicely talked about by Dumoulin on page 51 of the handout.

[46:14]

It was said to be the most influential sutra at the time that Bodhidharma was alive. And somebody called it the sutra which is very long and obscure and loosely put together and obviously written by many different people as kind of the memoranda kept by a Mahayana master. Very loose, very obscure. And the material from this sutra was used to form the Yogacaran or the Chittimaitra or the mind only school. So, what does mind only mean? We heard that phrase? All familiar? Well, we'll hear it again from Alan, I'm sure.

[47:24]

Roughly speaking, mind only means that we, to a large extent, make the world we live in. We paint, we construct our world. As is said in the Avatamsaka Sutra, the five skandhas are like an artist who paints the whole world. He made the world we live in. So if somebody does something that I don't like, I see it from my point of view. I see that... Oh, there was a good... If you hear that a man looks at a woman, runs towards her, knocks her over, strips her clothes off and lies down on top of her, you think one thing.

[48:34]

And if I tell you that she's on fire, You think another thing. And so we're always putting our interpretation on what's happening. And that's sort of the obvious meaning. Yeah. I have a question, sort of historical. There's another school, the Madhyamaka. Yeah. It's somewhat related to this, I understand, but I'm not quite clear on it. But my question is, there's a text, I think it's called the Moolamajamaka Karikas, the 30 stanzas. And isn't that the one that's about concepts? Everything is concepts. Our experience is all just our concepts of our experience. Is that, this sort of thing? Yeah, that's this sort of thing. Well, it's a different school. Is it?

[49:35]

Yeah, but it's certainly, and I got confused about it. I took a class in that a long time ago and I had to go back and that's Vasubandhu. Vasubandhu, and that's Vasubandhu and then this is Nagarjuna? No, no. Nagarjuna, this is something else. Yeah. But is that one also mind only, the idea? They don't talk so much about mind only there. And I cannot, I am not good at describing the finer edges between these schools. Well, Vashubandhu is a Yogacara school. But as far as what, you know, that teaching and what you were studying, I don't know. Well, maybe Nagarjuna is from Madhyamaka. Nagarjuna is in Madhyamaka. Okay, and Vashubandhu is the Yogacara, yeah, right. When the doshi bows on a certain day, you know there's something. That's right. And they bow on both of those. They bow on both of those. That's right. That's right.

[50:36]

So what I'd like to do is, if we have time, they read a little excerpt from the Laka Bhattacharya Sutra and also just talk about two aspects of this Yogacara teaching which are abstract but actually they make a certain amount of sense. One is the Trisvabhava, the three ways of being or the three levels of reality. The first, Parikalpa, represents the analyzing and the discriminating mind. Just our small mind that's always picking and choosing. And then the second level of reality, Paratantra, is the consciousness that we have that actually our experience, and we have this in Zazen when we settle down a little bit, that actually our experience is just a continual flux of information from the senses that we are just on a flow and the flow is just always moving through us that is that our natures are dependent

[52:00]

But all dharmas are dependent in their nature, and this goes back to the interdependence that we were reading about. And so when we really are calm in zazen and just sitting and things are just flowing through, you know, there's no outside inside. The boundaries are not there. It's just what's happening moment by moment. which is the ancestor that says, show me your mind. I think it's Bodhidharma. It's Bodhidharma, and it happens again and again. It's Bodhidharma to the Wike. Yeah. Bodhidharma says, show me your mind, and Wike can't show him his mind, and is thereby enlightened. So it's that real sense that we have when we're sitting quietly, that there is nothing graspable. And then the third level is just the perfected aspect, the thusness of our experience.

[53:23]

Now when we chant, now we open Buddha's robe, a field far beyond form and emptiness, the Tathagata's teaching for all beings, that place. So these three levels are also compared, there's a simile of a person seeing a mirage that looks like water. So the imagining that what I see is a pool of water right here, that's the level of discrimination. Picking and choosing that actually We're not seeing a mirage. And then the second level is understanding that what I'm seeing here is not water. It's something else. And then the third aspect, the perfected aspect, is really understanding that there's nothing there.

[54:23]

No water. Emptiness. And this is said again in the koans where it talks about the man who doesn't know, the woman who doesn't know so much thinks that mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers and water is water. That's what people say. And then the person who knows a little bit more is kind of disoriented in that middle place where we often are as we begin on the path and thinks that water isn't quite water and mountains aren't water. Rivers aren't like rivers. And then the person who completely understands, again, sees that water is water. And then these three levels are kind of more fleshed out in this doctrine of eight awarenesses that we have.

[55:26]

the usual five, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind. And mind here is usually called vijnana. And the mind aspect of the senses is simply that if I look at this cushion, my eyes are giving me the black image and mind is noticing that I'm seeing them, that I'm seeing the cushion. And then there's a seventh consciousness, which is Mano Vijnana, which is like the ego. And that's the consciousness that makes our trouble, that solidifies our sense of me and you being out there and our whole subject-object relationship with the world. And then there's the eighth consciousness which is called the alaya-vijnana. And the alaya-vijnana is like a kind of both a personal and collective storehouse unconscious.

[56:42]

It belongs to me and it belongs in some way to everybody. And there aren't boundaries. And that The personal alaya vijnana, the personal storehouse, is perfumed by little seeds, bijas, that arise because of past karma, the karma that was in my past before I was born, and the present karma that I make myself, and influence the whole way that my senses perceive. and the way I behave in the world. So what happens theoretically in practice is with a lot of work one begins clearing away the interference of the seventh consciousness

[57:47]

the ego consciousness and one begins to be more able just to take the news from the sixth consciousness more cleanly without making it so much into me and without coloring the world so much by my concepts and then there's a kind of turning And the storehouse, the gates of the storehouse are open, and the personal aspect of the alaya becomes the general treasury, and our Buddha nature door is opened. And sometimes the alaya vijnana is talked about as the Tathagata garbha, or the womb of the Tathagata, or our Buddha nature. Buddha nature becomes clarified. Kind of again going back to the story that we just read about the son and the father, that we come to, we can clarify the gift that was given us at the very beginning.

[58:59]

It's another way of working that out. Ah, that's pretty abstract. It's pretty abstract. We could read just a couple of pages of the Lankavatara. That's the handout that was given tonight. And it says, Manual of Zen Buddhism, from D.T. Suzuki's Manual of Zen Buddhism. We could just read a little bit of this because it gives the local taste of what I've been talking about so abstractly. Does everybody have a copy? Okay, it looks like this.

[60:00]

I should have written the names before. From page 53. Further, Mahamati, according to the teachers of the Tathagatas of the past, present and future, all things are unborn. Why? Because they have no reality, being manifestations of mind itself. And, Mahamati, as they are not born of being and non-being, they are unborn. My people, all things are like the horns of the hare, horse, donkey, or camel, but the ignorant and simple-minded, who are given up to their false and erroneous imaginations, discriminate things where they are not. Therefore, all things are unborn. that all things are in their self-nature and are born of identity.

[61:20]

involved when the Abhaya-Vijnana is conceived of by the ignorant as grasping and grasped, and then they fall into a dualistic view of existence where they recognize its rise, abiding, and disappearance, cherishing the idea that all things are born and subject to discrimination as to being and non-being. Therefore, Mahatma Gandhi, So that's enough. I suggest that you keep these and continue to read them now and then, or refer to them as the course goes on. And there's also a section, I see that Alan has given us a section on Bodhidharma, and there's also a little dialogue between Bodhidharma and his first disciple, Wike, in the handout, which continues from this.

[62:42]

The interpretation that I like of this Lankavatara doctrine, particularly, about Galia, Vijnana, and this interconnectedness at root among all beings, and also It's kind of your choice how you nourish it. Even though it's all in your mind, it puts the ball back in your court for taking responsibility for what you want to do with these seeds.

[63:48]

You can let them lie there dormantly, or you can give them a lot of nourishment and attention which, for better or worse, might make them grow. It's very challenging, particularly vis-a-vis a Western psychological outlook. Anyway, it's an interesting interpretation based on this scene. It sounds like the seeds are neutral, and that the way you nurture them or deal with them, then they're going to manifest in one way or another, depending on that. I don't think they're neutral. I think they're, you know, they're seeds of, you know, they're karmic creations.

[64:49]

So if you have done something that creates good karma, then you've planted a good seed. a negative seed, and then that seed is just down there in the Tathagatagarbha, in the Alaya-Vijnana, and conditions cause it to flower. And, you know, it has its own nature, its own character, and it will flower. So I don't think of it as neutral. Of course, the background is that this is all just a way of thinking about it. Yeah, I think it really is. There are also, some people talk about eight levels of awareness, some about nine, some about ten.

[65:51]

And when you begin to get into the different discussions of it, it is mind-boggling. So I think it's quite fair. Mind-boggling scores. These are all wonderful metaphors of how we relate to the world. We can be very academic about it and we can also just use them. Well, things are now. I meant to pass out the papers again and have just the question, what is faith? If anyone has a response to that, they can just call it out and we can talk about anything.

[66:52]

Yeah, you can have a belief in a negative outcome. That would also be faith in a negative outcome. Yeah, your definition sounds like hope, doesn't it? It seems there's also a time element. When I think of faith, I think of it taking possibly forever. I mean, as opposed to, I have faith there's going to be a positive outcome and then, well, a week from now there was no positive outcome, so now I have to change my tune. Faith is a long haul feeling to it. But you're willing, as a son, was willing to stay there. That is it.

[68:54]

or concentration. It's an instinct in people to go for something when they're not sure what it is. And their faith is connected to that. And if I have this inborn search, questing that it must be important, I should pay attention to it, and something will come.

[70:39]

Yeah, I think that, and this is where, for me, it does move into Western psychology. I think there's a kind of drive for development that people have. And you certainly see it in children. You see it very strongly in children. Sometimes even children who are in terrible circumstances even will have this strong drive to development. And as adults, when we don't honor it, we do get into terrible trouble. We get into terrible suffering. It's like those beaches are there. You made me think of, is it Stephen Mitchell who came here, one who spoke on faith and doubt? Stephen Bachelet. Bachelet, I always get those two names mixed up. For me, faith is very much, well, often faith for me is an experience as a reaction to doubt.

[71:51]

And when you talk about the human drive for development in the Western model, it's like what children go through in the Western model is this frustration period, and then they reach a new level of development. Without that frustration period, they're not motivated to. So for me it's like that. I have a feeling without all the frustration and doubt, there wouldn't be much cause or need to practice faith. But I think faith is something that's active and needs to be practiced for me. It's not something I have. I think there's also two aspects. Faith is strengthened through more of it, have some, not using it, losing it.

[72:59]

So that's where the practice part, I guess, hits you. It's kind of like Delvin's question, what you were talking about. If everything's perfect to begin with, why should I practice? Because I'm never quite sure that I understand where faith is involved. There is faith that infuses that whole system. But I don't read that the son is practicing faith, particularly.

[74:12]

It seems like he's willing to accept whatever is offered to him. But maybe you could say something about that. Yeah, I agree with you. It's really confusing to me. He's showing up for work every day, and he's getting paid. And his father is so skillful, there's pretty little chance he's not going to show up. Right. So whose faith is it? The father's faith. I thought it was the father's faith. Well, I did too. Right, yeah. I didn't. Right. Whose sins? Whose sins? I always feel with that story like there's something incredibly simple that I'm just not getting. It's got to be simpler than I think it is. Well, I have confusion about the faith in time. I mean, there's something about all these numbers.

[75:16]

He left. He was old enough to leave home. He's gone for 50 years, right? So this young man, he's educated. He's about 70 years old. I mean, how does he have faith that he's even going to stay alive enough for There are ancient people according to the numbers. Well, how old was Jojo? I mean, people did live. Maybe they're from Hunza, you know. That's right. I kind of thought it was based on the Heart of the Sun, that the whole setup was not to be believed. And it even said that in the beginning he didn't believe that this job was for him.

[76:30]

And the father had to adjust his approach several times in order to keep him moving forward. And he sent out his agents to recruit him in the first place. Yeah, I'm surprised at the end he just didn't go like, well forget this, it's been a huge deception and I don't want all your stuff, you know? Why didn't you tell me in the first place? Yeah, I don't want all your dumb jewels, I just live in a hut, don't you know? It's big dirt. I was living a simple life. Yeah. Now what am I going to do? He wants to mess with the jewels and stuff. I'm 111 years old. I'm the world's changed. Yeah, but Kathy, I do think, you know, like the Herbert poem, I loved Ben, me welcome, but my soul drew back guilty of dust and sins. I think that's the faith response. I think that's a real human response to anything that promises to better you.

[77:41]

There's like that little kid inside that says, well, If it might work, if it doesn't, it would be very painful to be disappointed again. So I think I'd rather not try. Thank you very much. My hat's good enough for me. I sort of felt like the Father and the Son weren't really separate. I mean, is that sort of the point? I mean, there's part of ourself that is the person who goes ahead and just keeps working blindly at something, and the other part that says, no, there's something more you need to do, or there's another part you need to see. I mean, otherwise, the whole thing seemed very nonsensical to me. Yeah, well there is always a part of ourselves that's standing back and kind of, you know,

[79:15]

Well, it was just a couple of minutes. I would like to know, was this too much material? I mean, how was this experience for people? It was fragmented. Uh-huh. I wanted to tie it together somehow and pin it down to relevance. You know, what does this mean on Tuesdays at 4 o'clock? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully, it'll become a little bit more so as we move along. These themes won't disappear. I felt that way too, but at the same time, I think you've got to have a survey. You've got to have a big picture. Yes, I did. It may sound a bit hackneyed, but it was completely original.

[80:57]

Well, thank you very much. For next week, please take the two handouts and I guess what we're going to try to do next week is Bodhidharma through Puyang. I'm not sure we're going to do it. All six, huh? Well, we're going to skip a few. There are a few that we're not going to cover. Basically, we'll talk about Bodhidharma and look through the Seng Tsan's Chin Chin Mee, which is in one of the handouts, and read the brief biographies of Bodhidharma through Hui Neng. You'll have some background, some place where we can start together.

[81:57]

Are you showing us the trailhead of the race course? Where is the race course? I'm just showing you the horses.

[82:04]

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