Our fingers is independent. Our hands are independent from our arms. Forearm is independent from upper arm. Your arms are independent from your body. Legs are independent. Toes are independent. your head is independent. When we sit, we harmonize all these independent parts so that they work together and support each other. Be careful not to fuse them all together as one piece.

[01:02]

like a statue. When you recognize the independence of each small part of your body, then you have good flexibility. So doing zazen It's important to remain loose and flexible. So while we're sitting, with your attention, go over all parts of your body and feel the independence. of each part.

[02:06]

Morning. take a comfortable posture, whatever's comfortable for you. Before I start, I'd like to ask, how is the eating together working? Do you think it's a good idea? It seemed rather scattered to me this morning. Yes? show our reservation need to be larger, because other people don't really sit down and they get seated and we don't want to make them do that.

[03:09]

It's been difficult for me to continue because I have so many people to relate to and sometimes I have to eat with somebody else during meal time. So, it's not that I don't want to participate, but sometimes I'm obligated to do something else. I also want to mention that this evening, is it this evening? This is Wednesday. Thursday. Wednesday. Yeah, today is Wednesday. You had me worried for a minute. Thursday night we have Bodhisattva ceremony. Tonight we have Bodhisattva ceremony at nine o'clock and so Bodhisattva ceremony is kind of repentance ceremony where we acknowledge our karma and renew our intention to practice.

[04:16]

We do a lot of bowing, and you're all welcome to come to that. You might just want to do it to see what it's like. And we're going to have a rehearsal. I'll explain it more during the 3.30 talk. meeting. And also the other students will come in here. So we'll do that in Zendo this afternoon, just have the rehearsal and explain it. We only need a rehearsal one time so we can know what's going on. So I want to continue my talk on the hearts of children. I'll go over what I talked about yesterday.

[05:21]

Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, when practicing deeply the Prajnaparamita, perceived that all five skandhas, terms, feelings, conceptions, mental formations and consciousness, the five skandhas, in their own being are empty and were saved from all suffering. O shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness. Emptiness does not differ from form. That which is form is emptiness. That which is emptiness, form. The same is true of feelings, conceptions, formations and consciousness. O shariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness. We didn't get to that. We stopped at right there. And the next part would be where he addresses, where Avalokiteshvara addresses Shariputra again. And he says, O Shariputra, all dharmas are also marked with emptiness.

[06:27]

They do not appear nor disappear, are not tainted nor pure, do not increase nor decrease. Therefore, in emptiness, no form, no feelings, no conceptions, no formations, no consciousness. You get it? That's the third time he's talking about the skandhas. 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, no tail, no realm of mind. This is the sutra of no. Or mu. Did you ever hear of mu? A monk asked Master Joshu, does a dog have the Buddha nature? Joshu said, Mu. Mu, literally, literal meaning of Mu is no. But no on a relative level is the opposite of yes.

[07:31]

But on non-dualistic level, no includes yes. Yes includes no. So when Joshu says no, he doesn't mean no in distinction to yes. As a matter of fact, one time, another time, a monk asked Joshu, does the Buddha nature, does the dog have Buddha nature? He said yes. So it's on this level that the sutra says, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. Because if someone says, you have no nose, all you have to do is grab them by the nose and twist it. Ouch! So you can't say that you have no nose, but you can say that this nose is not a nose.

[08:40]

So I want to talk a little bit about what Sutra means by dharmas. He goes on to say, all dharmas are marked with emptiness. So dharma is a word that has various meanings in Buddhism. It's a Sanskrit word and Dharma with a capital D means the law or the way things really are. And it also means Buddha's teaching. But Buddha's teaching is about the law or the way things really are. So that's the same thing. And there are many meanings of the word dharma, but the two that we're interested in in Buddhism is that one.

[09:57]

And all the elements of existence are called dharmas, with a small d. But Buddhism is not interested in all the elements of existence. They're only interested in a human being, dharmas, human dharmas. What Buddhism is basically interested in is not scientific discovery, not molecular physics, but how a human being behaves in relation to reality. So, the Buddhists is interested in dharmas or the elements that human beings are concerned with, like the element of form, feeling, conceptions or discrimination, mental formations and consciousness.

[11:10]

And so the Buddhists limited their study to the study of the human being and the elements of existence that constitute a human being. And the major categories of Ascandas form feelings, conceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. And those elements, the specific elements, are called dharmas. The elements that they study are called dharmas. So I thought I would read you a list of some of the dharmas. There are various dharmas in different schools of Buddhism who study the dharmas, and they have slight variations. But generally, I'll just read you this list. 50 dharmas which are called mental formations.

[12:22]

The fourth skanda is concerned with these mental formations which are volitional mental formations which produce karma. Remember I said that karma means action, volitional action. And volitional action is the realm in which our karma the result of our karma takes place. I can talk a little bit about karma, but not right now. So in this list, this list describes the fourth skandha. And these are elements, dharmas, which belong to the fourth skandha, mental formations, okay? I'll just read them. There are eleven general formations, and five primary ones belong to all states of consciousness.

[13:24]

No matter what state of consciousness is present, these five belong to Earth. Mental impression, volition, vitality, concentration, and advertence. And then there are six secondary ones, which are not in all states of consciousness but are in many states of consciousness. Thought conception, discursive thinking, determination, energy, interest, and intention. And then there are 25 lofty or wholesome primary dharmas. These dharmas appear in wholesome states of consciousness. This is a judgment. that the Buddhists make, wholesome and unwholesome states of consciousness. Faith, mindfulness, moral shame, moral dread, greedlessness, hatelessness, these negative positive states, these negative positive states, because there's the absence of greed and the absence of hate, which are

[14:44]

positive states. Greedlessness, hatelessness, equanimity, tranquility of spirit, tranquility of consciousness, agility, elasticity of consciousness, adaptability of spirit, adaptability of consciousness, proficiency of spirit, proficiency of consciousness, uprightness, of spirit and uprightness of consciousness. And then secondary ones, which are not in all lofty consciousness, abstinence from wrong bodily action, abstinence from wrong words, abstinence from wrong livelihood, compassion, sympathetic joy, and knowledge. And unwholesome formations are delusion, lack of moral shame, lack of moral dread, unrest or restlessness, hate, envy, stinginess, worry, greed, evil views, conceit, torpor, languor, and skeptical doubt.

[16:01]

So these are some of the dharmas that the Buddhists worked with in order to study the alleviation of suffering. And Buddhists, the early schools of Buddhism realized that there is no such thing as a person behind the dharmas. and that all these dharmas together, in combination, according to causes and conditions, are what we take for ourself. So when we say myself, we have some feeling about that, but our feeling is just another dharma. So, it's sometimes described as if you have an automobile,

[17:11]

or a cart. And you say, are the wheels the cart? Is the axle the cart? Is the chassis the cart? You keep taking away all of the elements in which we recognize a cart. And when you take them away, there's nothing. But when you put them together, you say, this is a cart. So in the same way, all things are constructions of various elements. So the first skanda, which is form, is physical, and the other four skandas are mental, belong to the mind. And our mind constructs a sense of myself, a sense of self. And this sense of self has some reality, but it's not inherent reality.

[18:22]

That's the big difference. Inherent reality means that if a thing appears and it has its own inherent reality, that means that it will never disappear. Something that has its own inherent reality will be here forever. If this time had its own inherent reality, it would be here forever. And if each one of us had our own inherent reality, we would be sitting here forever, never moving. everything moves. The first law of reality is that everything moves, even when it's sitting still. And everything changes.

[19:26]

So in order for everything to change, its basic mark or quality is emptiness. So that's what the sutra is talking about. For anything to exist, it has to exist as emptiness. Otherwise, there's no space for anything. This morning, I was talking in Zazen, during Zazen, and I said, please become aware of your body, how it's made, put together, little pieces, and each piece is independent. All of the joints in our fingers are independent. Our hand is independent. Our arm is independent. Our legs are independent. Our head is independent.

[20:28]

And they're held together, sewn together in some way, kind of like a rag doll, or like a puppet. And you pull the strings, and the parts move. And the puppeteer gives the commands and says, sit up, and all the parts. That's exactly what we're doing in Zazen or in our daily life. There's a command from the puppeteer and everything follows. But the puppet is not one solid piece. Puppet is a collection of parts. And the word skanda actually has literal meaning of heap. Five heaps. It's a little derogatory, isn't it?

[21:31]

But five collections, you know, of are like five streams, actually, that meet and intermingle. The stream of form, the stream of feelings, the stream of conceptions or perceptions or discriminations the stream of mental formations, of which I read you this list, and the stream of consciousness, various states of consciousness. Consciousness, according to the Buddha Dharma, needs an object and a mechanism

[22:38]

like the eye, in order to produce what we call seeing. So the object is somewhere and is seen through the eye and recognized or cognized through consciousness. So consciousness is the awareness. And without all three of these, there's no consciousness. So consciousness depends on something for its existence. Consciousness doesn't spring up without an object and an organ. So we have eye consciousness, ear consciousness, tongue consciousness, feeling consciousness, and the consciousnesses which are springing into awareness through the doors of perception.

[23:41]

And there's mind consciousness, which is imagination. So we're constantly, various new states of consciousness are constantly arising, depending on what is seen, heard, tasted, felt, touched, smelled, and thought. These states of consciousness arise through combination. They don't arise all by themselves, but always through combination, an object, an organ, and consciousness itself, or awareness. So the sutra says, all dharmas are marked with emptiness.

[24:46]

So I want to say something about what a mark means. A mark is a thing's main characteristic. So the mark of fire is heat. The mark of water is wetness. And so each element has a certain characteristic, which is its mark. But here, the sutra says, the mark of all dharmas. In other words, dharma has a very specific sense. The dharmas with a small d have a very specific sense. And at the same time, all things are dharmas. You can say everything is dharma, a dharma of some kind.

[25:49]

And the main characteristic of all things is its emptiness. That's what the sutra is saying. The main characteristic of water is emptiness. Even though we say its main characteristic is wetness, from the point of view of non-duality, its main characteristic is emptiness. So this is a level which touches everything. This is the level of equality of all things, which is very important. When we compare each thing, each existence, we can say, you were 5 feet tall and 24 years old, and you're a man or a woman, and you have these characteristics. And these are the marks or characteristics of your independence.

[26:55]

And we say that about everything. Everything has its marks, which characterize its independence. And that's our dualistic understanding. Our non-dualistic understanding is that each thing is marked with emptiness. and it's completely equal. In a non-dualistic sense, everything is completely equal to everything else. So we need to understand from both points of view. Mostly, our understanding is from a comparative point of view, or dualistic point of view, where we set a subject against an object. From a personal point of view, which may or may not be dualistic, but from a personal dualistic point of view, I am the subject and you are the object, or everything outside of myself is an object.

[28:02]

From a non-dualistic point of view, everything is myself. Yes? Dharma only applies to dualistic thinking? Dharma with a big D is the law or Buddhist teaching. Dharma with a small d are the characteristics attributed to each element or to each thing. From a non-dualistic point of view, small dharma and dharma are not different. But from a dualistic point of view, capital dharma and small dharma are different. So there's difference and there's also the same.

[29:09]

So in a vertical way, everything, each dharma or each thing, has its own characteristics and independence. From a horizontal point of view, everything is the same. Everything belongs to everything else. But within that equality is each thing has its own manifestation and difference. But if we only relate on a vertical sense of value, then we only see our differences. And if we only relate on a horizontal level, we only see our sameness. So we need to encompass both within our understanding. So the sutra is pointing out that in emptiness, the true mark of everything is emptiness, or no characteristics.

[30:29]

Because nothing stands by itself. So here again, the meaning of emptiness. One meaning of emptiness is interdependence. Everything depends on everything else. Everything is a part of everything else. And everything is affected by everything else. Zazen is a kind of microcosm of the whole of existence. And when you assume your zazen posture, posture is like a blanket or a piece of cloth. If you pull one corner of the cloth, all the other corners are affected. So you have this piece of cloth, and you want to straighten the piece of cloth out so that all the corners balance.

[31:40]

And when you assume your posture, You want all the corners to balance, but one corner feels like it's being pulled out this way, one corner feels like it's being pulled out that way, and then the whole body is affected. When you first learn how to sit zazen, if you move a quarter of an inch, you know, it really affects you. The whole body is affected. And you realize the subtlety of how Each part is balanced with each other part. That's why this morning I said, please realize that each part is independent. And each part is independent and floating and moving with every other part. And if you were to point to who am I at that point, where do you point to? Where is the you?

[32:44]

Is the you in the parts? Is it the sum of the parts? Is it some main part of the parts? So when we talk about ego in Buddhism, it has a little different meaning than ego in psychology. We say there's no ego, or no real ego, meaning there's no real thing there which you can point to as ego. Yet, on a psychological level, each one of us has ego, which is our feeling of myself. That's more psychological. The feeling of ourself is ego enough. enough ego. But real ego, that persona, only exists from moment to moment, like any state of consciousness exists from moment to moment.

[33:56]

And our states of consciousness are constantly changing. In this amount of time, our states of consciousness have changed imperceptibly many, many times. So when we sit in zazen, we can allow ourselves to see, to recognize how consciousness arises, how states of consciousness arise and disappear. A state of consciousness arises and disappears, arises and disappears, moment by moment. And even what we think of as a long state of consciousness is moment by moment renewal. sustaining, to sustain a state of consciousness over a period of time is actually moment by moment renewing that state of consciousness so it looks like one long line.

[34:59]

It's like the motion picture screen or the projector again. One frame after another, moment by moment, is its own lifetime. Each moment is a state of consciousness, a different state of consciousness, and in a sense is its own lifetime, as Doug and Zenji says. Each moment's state of consciousness has its before and its after, its own history. Yes? Is the environment we use to apply to the moment you're speaking of? You can talk about a dharma position. Each moment is a dharma position. Which is, on any one moment, we have our dharma position.

[36:12]

and to realize or recognize or actualize ourselves on that moment's dharma position is our practice. There are two ways to view our life. There are many ways, but there's two. One is to have a goal, a purpose. And we orient our life toward this purpose. And so we call that going or doing something, doing. And the other aspect is the aspect of being, which is more like pure existence. It has no other reason than existence itself. Doing often takes precedence over being.

[37:33]

So we say, what is the purpose of my life? We think of doing. Within the concept of doing, we find the purpose of our life. But we don't often think of the purpose of our life in terms of being. We don't always think that way. Being, just existence itself, is its own reason for being. So doing is on the level of discriminating consciousness. And being is more on the level of horizontal or equality, non-comparative existence. But our life of practice takes place in both realms, both doing and being. So at the same time that we're doing, we're conscious of the quality of being, pure being.

[38:38]

So Zen training is, although we're doing something for a purpose. The main purpose is to recognize and bring forth a quality of being, a quality of pure existence. So sometimes we wash the windows even if they're not clean, I mean even if they're not dirty. Suzuki Roshi used to talk to us about that. We don't wash the windows because they're dirty. We don't sweep the floor because it's dirty. The floor is not dirty. We're just sweeping the floor. We're just washing the windows. When you get up in the morning and wash your face, you don't wash your face because it's dirty. You just experience the quality of being which is involved in washing face. But we easily get lost in our tasks.

[39:44]

in the quality of doing, you really get caught up in the comparative life of comparison or life of duality. So in practice we emphasize, we don't emphasize anything especially, but we emphasize or we become aware of the quality of our being. And this is how we practice zazen and extend it from the zendo into all our life. So if we're really practicing, then zazen is what we're doing all the time. It's not just sitting cross-legged. But it's bringing out the awareness of our fundamental life, the quality of being, which is not dualistic. It includes duality. It includes yes and no, right and wrong, good and bad.

[40:48]

But no also means yes. This nose is a not-nose. Washing the window is not washing the window. I don't know what it is. But at the same time, it's washing the window. There's washing the window and just washing the window. There's sweeping the floor and just sweeping the floor. There's eating and just eating. During practice period, we eat sitting like this, in a very formal way, and we have bowls. Most of our meal consists of chanting, and putting out our bowls, and the servers come in, and we eat in a very formal way, as you might imagine.

[42:02]

You can't imagine this if you haven't done it. And each bowl, you know, the server fills the bowl, bow, very formal for each bowl. And then we handle our eating implements in a certain way. And at the end, the servers come in with hot water, and we wash our bowls with the hot water. So everything is done right here. All of the serving, eating and washing is done all in this very same place, in a very neat and wonderful, the most wonderful way to eat. cereal and fruit, you know, and nuts, this way. And then you eat them at the table.

[43:03]

It's a completely different experience. They're both eating, but this is just eating. How did all these rituals evolve? I don't know. That's enough. That's a good answer. Yes. Speaking of just eating, is it possible to have a meal without breakfast or whatever is easiest for you with just eating? Sure. I mean, if you want to. It's pretty hard in the dining room because you're surrounded by eating. And not by just eating. But you can do that. Or even tea sometimes. Just tea. We're going to have tea, actually. I have a schedule here. Tomorrow morning at this time, we're going to have

[44:17]

what we call choson, morning tea, and it's formal, fairly formal, where we sit here and we serve the tea, everybody's pretty still and quiet, and then we drink the tea together, maybe a cookie, and we use the time for questions. So it's quite nice. And we'll do that also, or maybe we'll do it in the Kaisando, the Founder's Hall, which is not quite finished. Next door, you know that new building? Near the, in the Abbott's Garden, over there, that building, in the back, it's not quite finished. You haven't seen it? Well, you'll see it when we have tea. And then we'll also do that the last morning.

[45:21]

We won't be able to wash our dishes. You know, it won't be real formal. Just be quiet and conscious. And then we'll end together. See what that's like. If anybody wants to do it. So we're not all sitting at the same table, but I think there's going to be more of an effort to put us at the same table. Bigger sign that says reserved, so that people will know that. And then we consider our tables. We'll just do that for lunch. Some of you may have bagged lunch. I don't know. But we'll sit there at the lunch, and we'll serve each other. And then bow. And just eat. And at the end, bow. And that's it. but eat mindfully. So the sutra says All dharmas are marked with emptiness, and that is that they do not appear nor disappear, are not tainted nor pure, do not increase nor decrease.

[46:59]

Now see, all these terms are referring to something, they're referring to some kind of Buddhist understanding, how things appear or don't appear, are not tainted nor pure, purity and non-purity is referring to something, increase and decrease, therefore in emptiness, with emptiness as the mark of these characteristics, there is no form, no feelings, no conception, no formations, no consciousness. Those are the five skandhas. So it's negating the five skandhas. The thing moves. Skandhas. No skandhas. But it means that this nose is no nose.

[48:00]

This nose, although we call it a nose, this nose does not exist independently. We just call it a nose. You know, if you look at a mountain, You say, there's the top of the mountain, there's the peak, here's the side, there's a cave, but the top of, tip of the mountain is not the tip of the mountain. We just call it the tip of the mountain, or the top of the mountain. We just call this a nose, but the top of the mountain doesn't exist independently of the mountain. And when we look at our world, we say there's the mountain, there's the valley, there's the ocean. But if you go very deeply, the ocean, the valley, and the mountain are just characteristics on the surface.

[49:11]

They're just little bumps on the world. and they don't exist independently. But we tend to think of ourselves, of our characteristics, as existing independently. This is my nose. This is my ear. They do exist independently, or they do exist as characteristics, but they're not independent. So, this nose is a no-nose. We only call it a nose. We only think of it as a nose. And it functions in a certain way. No nose, no breath, no breathing. No ear, no hearing. But all these characteristics, or these dharmas, go together and operate dependently. It's easy to realize this. It's not difficult. But it's more difficult to see how all life operates dependently.

[50:15]

just in the same way that this body operates dependently. When you take away all the pieces, it's empty. Everything is empty. The deeper meaning is that the main characteristic of all things is emptiness. And so we say it's really impossible to kill life. We may kill, we may take away certain characteristics, but life is impossible to kill. And even life and death belong to each other. Life and death are just... In Buddhism we say there's no life or death. No birth, no death. That's ultimate understanding.

[51:17]

No birth, no death. Even though, yes, there's birth, yes, there's death. In a dualistic sense, in a non-dualistic sense, no birth, no death. Nothing was ever really born. Nothing ever really dies. If nothing was born, then nothing can die. But on another level, yes. We're all born into this world and we all die. But where's the beginning? And where's the end? Something comes from something. If everything is dependent on everything else, then where's the beginning of this dependency? So, Life is moving, constantly moving with itself, or what we call existence.

[52:20]

It's constantly moving with itself, and the various forms are constantly being produced. But it's all part of one being. We're all part of one being. Everything is part of one being. So, even though we lose our characteristics, we don't lose our life. This is Buddhist understanding. Fundamental, real life is not lost. And so we always talk about to have faith in our nature, faith in nothing, our nature which is no special thing.

[53:31]

It's called buddha nature. It has no special characteristics, but all characteristics are its expression. So the Heart Sutra goes on to talk about various other doctrines of Buddhism and how they are also all empty, which means full. Emptiness means fullness, and fullness means emptiness. And the most difficult thing for us is to maintain a non-dualistic understanding.

[54:41]

We're always slipping off into this or that. It's got to be this or that. So this afternoon, we'll have our practice of what we call Bodhisattva Samadhi. And I'll talk a bit about that, which also includes what we call precepts.

[55:21]

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