I bow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Jyotirmayi das remembers In speaking tonight, I would like to issue a caveat or two about what you were about to hear.

[01:08]

My first lecture, which was indeed my first lecture, was about something I knew fairly well, i.e. my own life. Beginning with this lecture, I am to begin spouting the Dharma. So what I want to talk about tonight is something that I have been thinking about a great deal and practicing with for quite a while. And I hope that my expression does not run too far behind. So, with that in mind, I beg your indulgence. Many years ago, more years ago than I care to admit, I lived in St. Louis and worked in a madhouse, literally. And I used to, during those seasons that the weather permitted, ride my bicycle from my house to my place of employment.

[02:10]

It wasn't a particularly pleasant ride in that I went through some rather ugly neighborhoods, rundown houses, factories, plants, things like that. There was on the way an orthodox chicken butchery. I guess that's what you call it where you kill chickens. And I remember seeing a line of chickens hanging by their feet, sort of like a wash line going from a truck into the house where they were killed for food. Which reminds me, as an aside, the writer Isaac Bashevis Singer once said when asked about why he didn't eat meat, whether it was for his health or not, said, No, it's not for my health that I don't eat chickens. It's for the chickens' health.

[03:14]

At any rate, it was not a particularly pleasant ride. But one thing that I always enjoyed when I wrote and one thing I looked for was one tree. It was a big maple tree. And it was in the corner of, I guess, what was an industrial park. And it was just beautiful in all seasons. In the spring when it was just coming out green, in the summer when it was leafy and dark, and in the fall when it was on fire. And even in the winter when it had a certain architectural beauty. So anyhow, I would greet this tree every time I drove past and looked forward to it. And it was sort of like my friend. It sort of blessed my eyes each time I came back. And one day I was riding my bicycle and I happened to look at the tree. And I had rather an unusual, or at least at that time, unique experience. As I looked at the tree, and I believe it was in autumn, I have a memory of it being quite colorful,

[04:21]

I had this sudden understanding, realization, imagination, call it what you will, that my perception of the tree was as much a part of the total reality of it as were its leaves, its roots, its branches, its sap. That I was involved with the tree and it was involved with me. That through my perception, through my senses, through its being there, there was a marriage of sorts, an identity. I saw the tree and my seeing of it was part of it. And the tree, because I saw it, was part of me. And at that time I didn't really have a way of thinking about this too much, or a conceptual framework. But I think of it as an experience that links up very closely with my understanding of Buddhism.

[05:29]

Skipping ahead several years, I had a somewhat similar experience once I had moved to San Francisco and made what I believe was my only visit to the San Francisco Aquarium, which I found essentially rather distressing because of all of the critters boxed up. But I was going from hallway to hallway or looking in tanks and I happened to see one fish who caught my attention and I don't know why. I can't even describe what it looked like. I think it was rather plain. I think it was the only one in its tank. And I looked at it very closely. I think we were about eye level. And I had this sudden feeling of what it must be like to be that fish, to be a consciousness trapped in a body with dim senses and a feeble body and no real intellect to make sense of that existence. Once again, experience, realization, imagination.

[06:34]

But as I looked at the fish and the fish turned facing me, I suddenly felt as though something had dropped away. And what had dropped away, I felt, was the boundary between Jeffrey and Mr. Fish. I felt as though I experienced it as though there were only one consciousness looking out of that small body and limited intellect and looking out of this larger body and also limited intellect. It was very intense. It was an experience of, I don't know, what, one mind? And it stayed with me for a long time. It stayed with me, well, until now. And it's this kind of experience, this kind of dropping away of boundaries, this understanding of self and other that I'm trying to get at tonight.

[07:39]

And I think that we can practice this. I think this can be a deliberate practice for us if we wish. And I think there are ways that we can touch this and develop it in ourselves. First of all, we can begin with our intellect and with the teaching. And a way that I thought about this, or an example that I'll give you, is sitting in the zendo in the morning at the beginning of zazen, listening to the bell as it rings again and again during the first period of zazen. And so as I listen to the sound, as we listen to the sound, where does it come from? You know? It comes from the bell. It comes from the hammer. It comes from the hand and the arm and the muscles of the person striking the bell. It comes from the mind of that person and his or her intention. And it comes from the hundreds of years of tradition

[08:45]

saying that the bell should be struck at this time and in this way. And sound, I think... Well, let me back up a little bit. So we can take anything in our experience, any object or sense experience, and use it and trace it back intellectually this way. You know, where is the sun? Is it 93 million miles away? Is it all that distance that the light travels? Is it reflecting on my body? Is it in my body? Is it in the plants that it makes grow? And we can do this with many things, with anything really. And this is a consciousness that we can develop, I think. And it takes some effort, it takes some practice. And at first it is an intellectual thing. But then we can begin to experience it within our bodies.

[09:47]

And Zazen is a good time for this, especially if we're doing lots of Zazen, say, during a one-day sitting or during a Sashin. And one of the things that I like to do, or that I do do, during Zazen is pay a lot of attention to sound. As I said, I use the expression, the bell. And I think sound is a very good example of what our existence is like. One sound does not block out another. A sound spreads in all directions. Sounds interpenetrate. Sounds arise. Sounds go away. And because they are so fluid, they're an easy thing to relate to, an easy thing to think about, to experience in this way. When actually, I think, I experience, and I believe that we are taught

[10:51]

that all things are like this, interpenetrating, arising, falling away, not interfering with each other. And so, in our Zazen practice, we can grasp this directly. And I think that this is what Dogen is talking about when he says, in the Genjo Koan, to carry yourself forward and experience myriad things as delusion, that myriad things come forth and experience themselves as awakening. When you see forms or hear sounds fully engaging body and mind, you grasp things directly. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind, as well as the body and minds of others, drop away.

[11:51]

And in the Hokyo Zamai, it says, You are not it. It actually is you. So, when we experience things this way, the barriers are let down, and we realize that self and other are points on a continuum. The foreground and the background collapse into each other, or perhaps we can just see that they are on a single plane. I think maybe this is what Yunmen meant by body exposed in the golden wind. And so, as I said, we can develop this in Zazen, intellectually at first, and then through our experience, and we can carry it with us through our daily life

[12:56]

as a practice. But I want to point out that what I'm talking about is not some special state or exalted state, not some special kind of mind that we grasp for, but rather that it's our everyday mind with just a little bend, just another way of looking. And in a way, I think we can call this ecstatic practice. The word ecstasy is from the Greek. It means to cause, to stand forth. And this kind of practice that I'm talking about causes us to stand forth, body exposed in the golden wind, without that barrier between ourselves and the world.

[13:57]

But when I say ecstatic, I don't necessarily mean completely joyful. I'll get to that in a few minutes. And so the question, of course, perhaps arises as to why we want to cultivate this sort of mind. Should we? Does it make any sense? Are we doing it just because it feels good, it's kind of an up? But I don't think so. I think there are other reasons. The other day in evening service, we stood in the zendo chanting the Heart Sutra, which I have chanted many, many times over the years. And for some reason, for the first time, as I chanted the beginning, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, when practicing deeply the Prajnaparamita, perceived that all five skandhas are empty and was safe for suffering, it finally occurred to me to wonder, now, why is it Avalokiteshvara who's practicing the Prajnaparamita? Avalokiteshvara, as most of you probably know,

[15:03]

is the Bodhisattva who in Buddhism is generally associated with compassion. And Manjushri is the Bodhisattva who is associated with wisdom. So I would have expected, had I thought about it before, that it would be Manjushri who is practicing the Prajnaparamita. And so I thought about this, and a couple of days later, I remembered to ask Paul Haller, because I know that he had studied and taught the Heart Sutra. And his answer was one that I actually should have figured out for myself. He said, Avalokiteshvara is the one practicing this because in the Mahayana, compassion is primary, even before wisdom. And that made sense. And it reminded me of something that I had heard many years ago. The Dalai Lama, once when he was in the States,

[16:05]

stayed at Greenville for a few days, which was really wonderful, and gave a lecture for Zen Center people, and I was lucky enough to be there. And I don't remember much of what he said. He spoke in Tibetan, so there was a translator. It was hot, I was tired. But I do remember that he said that wisdom arises out of compassion. And that really blew me away, because I always presumed that it was the other way around. You know, I was going to sit a lot of zazen and get enlightened, and then I would turn in automatically to this wonderful, compassionate being that I'd always wanted to be, and then I would be, you know, really great, dispensing wisdom and compassion to all of you lesser beings. But when he said that, it made a lot of sense, and I've continued to think about it. And what I believe is that wisdom is different from knowing.

[17:13]

Blanche, the other week, quoted Dogen in his Guidelines for Studying the Way as saying, Old man Shakyamuni says, Avalokiteshvara turns the stream inward and disregards knowing objects. And disregards knowing objects. It's because objects cannot be known. Only subject can be known. And to know subject, for all things to be subject, this is the kind of practice that we develop. When we are no longer discrete particles moving through empty space, but when we are part of the continuum. So the knowledge

[18:20]

that we're talking about is more like wisdoming, intuitively grasping, like a hand reaching behind you for a pillow in the night. So, we have this connection, we have this letting go of boundaries, we have this ecstatic practice, and it's very nice. I like to take a walk in the morning before I come here, and I found a little garden, a little community garden that I like to visit, and it's really beautiful. There's, you know, roses and gladioli and anyhow, it's just wonderful. Going there and stopping there even for five minutes really refreshes me. And it's at times like this that, you know, this kind of practice of dropping away boundaries,

[19:22]

of realizing the continuity of self and other is pretty ecstatic. You know, I mean, a beautiful rose in your hand. But there's a downside. If, as Buddhism says, there is no self, then, of course, there is no other. And realizing this, experiencing this, we not only open ourselves to the beauty of roses and the great joy of connection, but like Avalokiteshvara, we open ourselves to the seemingly infinite suffering of the world. When your friend is in pain and the boundaries are dropped, you feel that pain. When you're angry and you're looking at the person that you're angry at, you feel that pain.

[20:24]

When somebody hurts you and you realize that there is no separation, maybe that's even worse because you can't objectify the person that has hurt you. And so, we have a choice. Or maybe we don't. Maybe if you, if we, stay with this practice, that's what happens to us inevitably, that we, that we see that we don't have a choice. And when you get there, what do you do with it? What do you do?

[21:31]

So, as I warned you at first, I've been rambling a little bit. If anything that I have said this evening has been or can be useful or whatever, I hope you will use it and keep it as your own. If anything that I have said has confused or discouraged you, please forget it, if you can. And I guess I could go on, but since I don't have anything else to say, maybe we'll just say good evening. Good evening.

[22:12]

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