I'd like to introduce this morning's speaker, who is Raúl Montalvo. Raúl's Buddhist name is U Mo Den Khe, which means, suchness, field of blessings. And Raul has been practicing here for a really long time. Thank you, Peter. So good morning, everybody.

[01:01]

And I actually I said Chilean-American because it describes the best of my, I was born and raised in Chile. My father was Chilean. My mother was from New York. So that's the Chilean-American piece. And I'm bilingual. I actually retired from working in the mission with the Latino community for a long time with the city of San Francisco in a clinic in the mission. And I retired from that job. about a year ago. And now I'm just doing a private practice and halftime, so I work halftime. And I'm enjoying it, doing what I like now. And my kids are grown, so I don't have to worry too much about supporting other people, although I still do.

[02:07]

So I have more time and finding how to use time rather than be used by time. And it took me a while, you know, to have more free time and see how to practice with that. And so anyway, So today, I also, I had been traveling for a while now, mostly here, although I travel once or twice a year, and mostly to London. And I've developed a kind of a relationship with the English or the British, which is really a kind of a multicultural nation to a greater extent perhaps than the U.S., but now they're fighting that out over there with the Brexit.

[03:17]

And I hope we're not going to end up like that over here, but it's sort of in the cards as well. And my mother died also in the past year. I mean, she died in February, so I went through that as well in this past year. So now both my parents have passed, and I feel... I feel kind of free with respect to them. I don't feel the sense of the parental kind of critique or superego or admonishment or something like that. And I just feel their love. And I felt like that's where we ended. That's what they left me with. And they're part of me as me now.

[04:20]

But, you know, we still have other parental figures around. I just got admonished, you know, right before starting because I bowed to him while he was still, you know, settling with his robe. this question of admonishment, how we practice with admonishment is a good one. And one of the things I want to talk today about is, I've been studying the Samdhinimochana Sutra, which is the main Yogacara text, Yogacara Sutra. And I'll say more about it in a second. But there are some teachings here about how to practice with admonishment and whether we should admonish or we should not admonish. And in general, I recommend not admonishing.

[05:26]

Sorry about that. But, if you are admonished, then you're also instructed to practice with that, not reject the admonishment. So you accept the admonishment, even though it may produce feelings, and that's one of the ways the sutra looks at feelings. meaning what the other, the feelings that the other causes in you or in oneself. And then we are, then it differentiates from emotion, which is how we would respond to admonishment with emotion or get upset because of being admonished So the admonishment gives us an opportunity to practice with our feelings and recognize our feelings, and at the same time, not transform our feelings into this definition of terms, right?

[06:44]

You can call feelings or emotions in different ways, but not to act out the feelings in the form of emotion. So that's sort of how, right now, where the rubber kind of hits the road in the here and now, just as we start off. Anyway, so I've been studying this text, which I recommend. It's a nice read. It's short, and it's called Buddhist Yoga. And Reb Anderson, was the other lineage holder of Suki Roshi, a peer of Sojon, wrote a book on it, which is also quite good, which I recommend. But this is considered a Mahayana Sutra.

[07:46]

And so these are considered the words of the Buddha. And it's the teaching of the Buddha, Sambhogakaya Buddha, which is the aspect of the Buddha that involves teaching in words. These are all the words that are pointing to the practice, which is beyond words. We practice silently. But then we also discuss the Dharma, discuss the words of the Dharma, which we are encouraged to consider as if we're medicine, sometimes bitter medicine, perhaps. We may like or not like what it says, or we may or may not like studying or studying sutras to begin with. And there's a whole story and background in Zen about that, because Zen is Chinese and Japanese, and the sutras are from India. And India is a more intellectual culture than Chinese, at least traditionally Chinese and Japanese culture, you know.

[08:56]

And so there's a difference in culture there and in style. But, you know, Zen wouldn't be there without Bodhidharma, and Bodhidharma was a practitioner bringing over the practice. but he was also a scholar and he wrote and used, it is said that he used mainly the Lama Lankavatara Sutra to teach, or it's one of the sutras that's associated with Zen. So there's always this kind of, it's just these two aspects of the teaching and I think the danger of just study without practice is that then we cling to the words or the concepts with ourself or with our ego and then we get into arguments and counter-arguments and a lot of them driven by clinging and by emotion.

[10:02]

But that's more how we relate to the words of the Buddha. rather than necessarily the teaching itself, although the teaching itself is also a form of skillful means, meaning that we use words and concepts to go beyond words and concepts, because words and concepts also come from the source, which is beyond words and thinking. But to realize that, we have to have the practice which is the practice of yoga. So in this sutra, Zazen is referred to as a form of yoga, which it was. It was one of the postures of yoga that Shakyamuni Buddha used to meditate in. So there is that continuity also with Indian culture, with Hinduism, even though

[11:10]

We claim lineage from mythological Buddhas before Buddha, so in some way that makes us a lineage independent from India and from Hinduism. But historically, it came out of Indian culture, the teaching of the Buddha. And the language that the Buddha spoke when he gave his sermons was something like Pali, sort of a dialect of Sanskrit. And so then we have the Pali sutras, although I don't think Pali is a living language other than a language used to study the Pali sutras. But these are the Mahayana sutras, which are more from the turn of the century. I mean, that were expounded at the turn of the century, and perhaps were recorded by people in the assembly of the original Buddha, or perhaps not. Some people think that the two main teachers that are part of our lineage too, that come from India, are Nagarjuna and Vasubandhu.

[12:21]

Nagarjuna from around the same time of Christ and Basubandhu about two or three centuries after. And some people think that they actually, that Nagarjuna wrote the Heart Sutra, the actual sutra, not just the commentary. And some people think that Basubandhu actually wrote this sutra. It's possible, we don't know for sure. but they are two pivotal teachers. These teachings are embedded within the practice of Zen and what we recognize as Zen teaching, although it's not always explicitly so. And so the Yogacara is this school of mind only and the Madhyamika of the middle way is the teaching of Nagarjuna of emptiness.

[13:34]

We know that because we chant the Heart Sutra every day. But some people think that, oh, Nagarjuna was just a scholar, you know. Nalanda University was just a a university, wasn't really a monastery, but that's not so clear either. Apparently, Nalanda University had a whole array of Buddhism and Buddhist practice, different types of Buddhism for monks, for laypeople, for married monks, for celibate monks. for scholars, for women, for lay people, and sort of covered the whole spectrum. I've heard that too. Other people think, oh, they weren't really doing Zazen, they were just studying. But that's not so clear either. So we always have this kind of tension within Zen. about the proper place of study and the intellect and is the intellect wisdom or is it the intellect?

[14:41]

That's another one. In Japan you have the meditators, the dogen, the meditators who follow dogen and the scholars, the school of wisdom that follow dogen. And which again splits into meditation and scholarship. And then in the U.S., you know, you have the scholars of Buddhism, which are in the university, and then you have the practitioners. And that has to do more with, I believe, a split within American culture. Because you have the academics and then you have the practitioners. And the practitioners are not academics. And the academics are not practitioners. So then this duality kind of emerges. And that happens in the professions, too. People, oh, that's academic. Or, oh, that's just, you know, just practical.

[15:47]

But most of the founders, you know, have been both in all fields. is the disciples that then get into this parceling out of the teaching. So I don't know how much I'm going to get through today. Actually, this is sort of a topic, more a topic for a class that Sojin has been encouraging me to teach, if there's interest, of course. I mean, I love this stuff anyway. Suzuki Roshi, sort of to put this, the context in the context of Zen teaching, although as I said, Reb has been teaching this sutra for a long time as well.

[16:56]

But, so I want to begin by reading a little bit from Suzuki Roshi from the Sandokai lectures. where he's talking about re and G. I don't know if you were there. So you heard this talk. Well, I'm sorry, but I'm going to use the unedited version. It doesn't matter, okay? Because the unedited version sometimes, you know, this is not just in Zen, but when you have an oral teaching, then you have the unedited version where you get all the pauses and ha, ha, hmm, and you know, kind of thing. And then you had the edited version where the editors kind of make up the text to some extent or establish the text properly.

[18:08]

a way of saying it's establishing the text. But the establishment of the text and the unedited text are not exactly the same. So there is some, and I found that to be the case, that I found that there are things in the unedited text that are not there in the edited text. But I'm happy to be proven wrong on that point. And so this lecture was from June 1970. So I was 15 years old at that time, had my first girlfriend. But I started practicing eight years after that. At age 23, I started sitting with Sonia Roshi, and now I'm 60. So it's a whole entire life of good-for-nothing Zen. What a waste of time. Good-for-nothing Zen is the title of a book of a Zen teacher.

[19:21]

What's his name? I can't remember. I think he was the teacher of Taisen Deshimaru Roshi. So he always talked about good for nothing Zen, meaning it's the same thing as non-gaining Zen, right? Non-gaining ideas and beginner's mind. It's all part of the same. No, he just said it, huh? you know, famous quotes. Uh huh. Yeah. Good for nothing. Yes. And yeah. Um, so, all right. So, um, so Suzuki Roshi says, uh, last night I explained re and G. So essentially he says, I explained,

[20:26]

Because, you know, the sutra also talks about this whole question about explanation or not explanation. Which is, you know, sometimes the teacher says, don't explain anything. You know, particularly in the shuso ceremony, you know, when the shuso is asked questions, don't explain anything. And yet at other times, teachers explain. So it says, last night I explained re and ji. And so this sutra talks about that, about the place of explanation in the Buddhist teaching and the place of non-explanation. So the bodhisattva is to neither explain nor not explain. Again, that kind of non-duality between those two. And I think even though Sojourner Finn says, don't explain, he often explains things to us. But just each one, you take one of that, one piece at a time, right?

[21:36]

So first you take the don't explain, and then you take the explain. You say, well, why do you say one time you say explain, and the other time you say don't explain? You get slapped. Okay, so it says unusual person stick to G. So mostly we live in the world of G. which is the phenomenal world. That is quite, you know, usual. And characteristic of Buddhist, Buddha's teaching is, you know, to go beyond things. Quote unquote, things means the various being and various ideas we have and we think. So beings and ideas. Even though we say truth, quote-unquote truth, truth usually means something we figure out, something we think.

[22:46]

That is truth. But this truth as a something which we can figure out or think about is also ji in Buddhism. So truth is also ji. It's not ri. When we go beyond subjective and objective worlds, which is G, so both the subjective and the objective is G, we come to the understanding oneness of everything, oneness of subjective objectivity, oneness of inside and outside. So things here, what do things here mean for Roshi? means beings and ideas. But this being is not capital B for being. Who we are like who we are in Zazen. So these things are words and representations we have about beings and things and objects and words and names and concepts, numbers, et cetera.

[24:04]

That's all re, all g. So the things in themselves, aside from all the words and names and concepts of who we are, or truth is beyond G or discrimination. So whenever we speak, we're only saying half the story. So G, although it's necessary that we need language to communicate and so on and to think, we need to discriminate, it also creates hindrance. Because in the dual world, which is the world that we live in, Anything you say has its opposite. So if you make an assertion of some kind, the opposite assertion, somebody will contradict you right away. You will always have your nemesis.

[25:04]

There will always be this kind of opposition because everything has its opposite. If you say something is good, well, maybe that's not so good. bright and brown, you know, are always arising together. So how do we practice with that? Within the world of duality. So, truth can only be half said. So in language you only say one half side of truth. And the complete truth is something real or empty or whatever word we want to use for it. Because whatever word we're going to use for it is also G. So sometimes people get upset when we use words like absolute or emptiness or any of those big words which are part of Buddhist teaching because they're all on the side of G rather than ri.

[26:19]

and yet they're also used by the Buddha. So he says, so various being, by the way, Ron, if I'm not putting you to sleep yet, could you let me know when time is, I want to leave some time for questions. Thank you. So various being which we see, which we hear, is the things which is interrelated. And at the same time they are, each being is absolutely independent and has its own value. I said value right now, that value means ri, you know, ri. Re is, you know, something which makes something, you know, meaningful. So this is, I think, probably actually the way he spoke.

[27:27]

And I'm not sure how much he was understood, but he says that. You know, something which makes something meaningful is ri, you know, which is not theory or anything in particular. Hmm. Then he said, this is rather difficult to understand, you know, ri. It may take time. Then he laughs. You know, I don't know how much he laughed for a long time or a short time. Before you understand ri, ri, you know. So it takes a long time. to understand. But we put that burden on us rather than on the teaching. You know, because sometimes people want something that's really right away you can understand, you can put it on a PowerPoint and you have the five points of this or the five points of that. And Buddhism also has that, especially the Pali teaching.

[28:28]

But the Mahayana Sutras or Dogon or Nagarjuna take a long time to understand and so you have to have the patience to be not understanding for a long time and go to a talk sometimes and understand just a little bit although you know we're supposed to give talks to encourage people to practice not really to exercise their intellect. So hopefully, you know, the words that we speak encourage people in some way, because the only way to discover the meaning of this is through Sazen. So if you sit, if you sit Sazen, then after 20 years, maybe you can open a page of Dogon and understand it. But if, when you were just starting, if you pick up Dogon, you don't understand the thing. Hmm. say, well, this is just really ridiculous, right?

[29:34]

That's one. What is the word, gobbledygook? What's the English word that people use for it? Gobbledygook. This is gobbledygook stuff, you know? This is ridiculous. Dogon is for the birds, right? Or you say, oh, that wonderful teaching, I don't get a thing of what he's saying, but maybe, you know, there's something here that I don't get. And maybe, you know, after a long time, then I'll get it. I'll be able to read it and understand it. So we So the way to practice with that is that there's the not knowing of ignorance. Or people think it's a matter of being clever or not clever. And it's not a matter of being clever or not clever because no matter how intelligent you are, if you pick up Dogon and you only practice a very little time, you won't get it no matter how clever you are because it's not a question of cleverness.

[30:39]

So it's a question of wisdom. And wisdom is not cleverness, because wisdom is born by practice, realization. But we'll feel stupid, you know? It's like when we read Dogen at the beginning, you know, we feel stupid. Same happens, you know, in my field, because I follow one of the French psychoanalysts, Lacan, I don't know if you've ever heard of him, but you open a book, you know, it's like, what's this? What is he talking about? So some people just put it down and say, oh, that's stupid and ridiculous, you know? Let me just go back to what I know. But other people say, well, maybe it's me, maybe there's something to this. And then eventually, if you practice, because you need to go through your own personal experience, your personal analysis, and that also opens your mind, you know, you have insight. That's the aspect of insight, which is not, is realization, it's not intellectual.

[31:45]

is something that's embodied also in your emotional experience and your own relationship to your own desire and your objects of desire and how we relate to other people and so on and so forth. So I think that this is, in some way, what Suzuki Roshi is saying here is kind of hard to follow also. Maybe, maybe not. For some people, maybe very easy to follow. because of their maturity or intuition. But he says this is rather difficult to understand, you know. It may take a long time before you understand. And when he says here, you see how he says interdependent? He says interrelated, so various being which we see, which we hear is the things which is interrelated, which is interdependent.

[32:49]

So that also follows from Vasubandhu and the Sutra, because there's the teaching of the three aspects of the self nature, the imagined, the interdependent or the other dependent, and the real. And so interdependence is also, it's a construction. This is part of the concepts that we use, which is like language. But it's not language also, it's not inherently real. So the concepts or the names that we use are not inherently real. real so where we find our independence is in the real not in the interdependence although we also realize there that we all are interdependent but interdependent comes from in the Pali Sutra comes from the teaching of dependent origination which is how everything is conditioned by cause and conditions so that also is what bind us together

[34:05]

So he says, maybe I should read a little bit more of what he says before elaborating. So we have the forms of practice, right? We come into the zendo, we call it a zendo. Somebody built this building, that's a construction, right? carpenters who built this, including Sojin and other people in the Sangha. And then we have the different parts of it, you know, where we sit, we have safus, we have sabotans, we have altar and so on. That's all part of interdependence. And then we have, we're brothers and sisters, we have a teacher, we have our relationships, we have our names and so on. And then we come and practice together. And then when we're sitting, we have all the stuff going on in our head, right? All the objects of mind and all the feelings that we have.

[35:15]

And so-and-so said this, and I feel that. And I think this person this, or I think this person that, or I want this, or I don't want that. All that's going on in our minds, which is the delusion. That's the imagined nature that also comes from interdependence. But this that we create here is the magical city. So we create this kind of situation where we practice and where the teaching of the Buddha manifests. But we find our independence in the actual practice. When we're sitting, in the experience of sitting, in a direct experience of sitting, then that's who we are. and then we're completely independent. So he says, when you are you, then Zen is Zen. Okay, so I think I should stop here.

[36:21]

There's a lot more to say and a lot more to, that Suzuki Roshi says that it's very interesting and interesting things to discuss. Thank you very much. So questions, comments? Yes. Thank you, Genki. Words can be so confusing, especially Dharma words, especially for me these words, independence and interdependence. There was something when you said the word value and practice. And so I'm wondering, like, just right here now, this reality, What would you say, basically, is the value of practice that could encourage me? Where you find yourself beyond all the confusion. You know, whether you like these words or you don't like these words, or they point to something real or they don't point to something real.

[37:27]

That's the place where you get confused. But practice is a deeper place where you're grounded in yourself. And you have to find that place. And then from there, relate to everything else. Is that interrelatedness? It's both, right? It's, I guess as Sugiroshi called it, independency. Yes? This, the ri and ji, I always understood the ri and ji to be the phenomenal and the transcendent. And the ri is in the ji and the ji is in the ri. Yeah, he doesn't use the word transcendence, he uses the word noumenal. Noumenal. Noumenal, yeah. Because some people say we don't transcend anything, you know.

[38:33]

Right. Well, I guess for me that's an easy word, but that's my go-to word to make that distinction. Okay. So, is that related to practice and enlightenment? common activity and having a numinal experience in common activity? Well, practice is not, I mean, it means undivided activity, right? Because there are different kinds of practice. I mean, you could be washing your car with divided mind. It should be a divided activity or you want to wash your car because you want to have a shiny car so the neighbors all say, oh, what a wonderful car so-and-so has or you have such a shiny car and then you can feel good about your car and so on. That's a different kind of practice. That's more of a goal-oriented practice. This practice or practice realization is undivided activity. That's why the activity has the stillness and the real in it.

[39:37]

Have you had such an experience where you're working with something common and you withhold attention and the reed has entered the G? Sure. It's like, you know, it's like you say you're playing the guitar or you're playing the piano. And, or like jazz musicians say, you practice the scales. And practicing the scales kind of can be monotonous or mechanic, but at some point you just play and it just flows. And we're always going, you know, things are always falling off from symmetry into asymmetry, you know, from G to re and back. So we're always bringing ourselves back to that at some point. The activity, whatever activity you're doing may become tedious because of the way you're relating to the activity.

[40:42]

So we try to kind of refresh our mind and our activity by bringing the re into the ji. Yes, sorry then. Okay, you first. Sorry. I heard the words, in our Zazen we find our independence, when you were speaking, and I wonder if we also find our interdependence in the way you were using that word in our Zazen. Yeah, because that's everybody's self. So that's the place where we connect with everybody, with compassion. So there we find our sameness, but it's unmarked. You know, it's not like, okay, we find our servants because we're all Americans, or we're all from North Americans, or we all speak English. That's not that kind of sameness, right?

[41:45]

That's a marked sameness, or a defined, constricted one that defines you in some way. The other one is one that doesn't constrict you in any way. So it's your universal sameness with the whole universe. One more? The word understand. Yes. Makes me uncomfortable. Yeah, so is the discomfort in the word or is it discomfort in you? Is the word giving you an opportunity to work with the discomfort, for example? And what would happen if you're comfortable with the word? Maybe then the word would acquire a different meaning for you.

[42:48]

So understanding is like we stand under. We stand under. So that's like don't know mind, which is not, oh, I don't get that, or I'm ignorant, or oh, I feel so ridiculously stupid, or something like that, right? Which we all feel at times. That's different don't know. This don't know standing under is just open. Being open is how you understand. I'll say I understand right now. Okay. Are you comfortable or uncomfortable? Comfortable. Thank you very much.

[43:52]

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