Good evening, everyone. Welcome. Good evening. Hi, Lewis. It's great to see you again. So, I want to continue the discussion we started yesterday morning with Dale Wright, who was talking about the Goddess Chapter of the Malakirti Sutra. So, we're in the middle of a practice commitment period, and the text we're studying is this Malakirti Sutra. Malakirti is a great, brilliant layperson who was immersed in the world in all kinds of venues, but also brilliantly awakened, and in all contexts, he helped awaken others. So, we're up to this chapter on the Goddess of Freedom, as Dale called her.

[01:09]

And I just want to continue the discussion and say a little bit more about the material chapters. In some ways, this is a chapter about love. So, it starts off with Manjushree and the Great Bodhisattva of Wisdom, and a dialogue between him and the Malakirti, the great layman of Buddhist times, who was ill, and that's sort of the beginning of the drama of the sutra. So, basically, Manjushree, the Great Bodhisattva of Wisdom, was asked by the Buddha to go and check on the Malakirti, see how he was. And when he did that, all of the disciples and unusual beings who were in the assembly and Bodhisattvas all wanted to go hear this, because they knew it would be a fairly stimulating discussion.

[02:20]

And we've talked about how they all fit into this little room, such a simple square room. Anyway, all kinds of strange and miraculous things happened in the sutra, as the Malakirti is expounding on emptiness and also on the inconceivable liberation. So, getting to Chapter 7 of the Dhammas, Manjushree asks, Noble Sir, if a Bodhisattva considers all living things in such a way as empty of independent self, how does he generate great love toward them? So, this is maybe the key question. Where does love come from? When we realize that everything is ephemeral, that nothing lasts, that all things are not things but expressions of all entities, all events in the whole universe and other universes,

[03:42]

when we see that, how do you generate great love? So, this is about Mahakamrta, compassion, which is the balance of wisdom, and a lot of what happens in the sutra has to do with balancing. Anyway, the Malakirti says, Manjushree, when a Bodhisattva considers all living beings in this way, he thinks, Just as I have realized the Dharma, the reality, so should I teach it to living beings. Thereby, they generate the love that is truly a refuge for all living beings, the love that is peaceful because free of grasping, the love that is not feverish because free of tashings, the love that accords with reality because it is autonomous in all times. The love that is without conflict because free of the violence and the passions.

[04:46]

So, he's talking about love for all beings, but also this applies to love for particular beings in relationships to be free of conflict, to be free of possessiveness, to see that all beings are not objects. And that actually there's no such thing as an object, because everything is a product of everything else. This is another way of talking about emptiness. They go on in this dialogue, so I'm not going to go through the whole chapter, and you can listen to the wonderful talk from yesterday morning, but I want to get to the main figure of this chapter. So, after this long dialogue between Vimalakirti and Manjushri, and part of this dialogue, just to say a little bit, Manjushri asks, what is the root of good and evil, and in Dharman's translation, Vimalakirti says materiality is the root of good and evil.

[06:12]

We could see that as equanimity, as consumerism, as being obsessed by things. And a little later, Manjushri asks about unreal construction, which Vimalakirti says comes from false concepts, and what is the root of false concepts? And to use Britten Watson's translation, boundless assumptions. So how do we get beyond our assumptions about who we are, and what the world is, and who other beings are? So, of course, we all, as human beings, have various assumptions that we've made in order to arrive here tonight, whether you're coming from Los Angeles, like in Reno, or people in this room.

[07:15]

Now, if we have assumptions, but how do we get rid of false assumptions? At any rate, they're having this wonderful dialogue, and then, thereupon, a certain goddess who lived in that house, having heard this teaching of the Dharma, of the great heroes, and being delighted, pleased, and overjoyed, manifested herself in the material world, and showered the great spiritual heroes, bodhisattvas, and great disciples with heavenly flowers. So, we've offered flowers to the Buddhists tonight. And there's a whole situation that develops about the flowers between the disciples and the bodhisattvas that Dale covered pretty well yesterday. I want to jump to, in this discussion, Jagu Jagu was one of the ten great disciples of the Buddha.

[08:25]

He was a historical figure. We don't know, maybe it's based on a historical figure, but he's thought of as more mythical, which is not to say unreal. He gives a discussion with Shariputra, who is upset about flowers on his nasty ribs. He's very attached to the rules of purism. He wants to be perfect as pure. He does not realize that, as living beings, we all have pre-game delusion and assumptions and so forth. So, the goddess challenges him on this. One thing about this goddess, Dale mentioned yesterday that she's not an ordinary human woman, the way it's written in the sutra. She's a goddess, sort of superhuman in some ways.

[09:34]

Women scholars of Buddhism have pointed out that she doesn't have a name. She's never named in the chapters of the sutra. So, this has to do with the culture in which this sutra was written and the times that they were in. There's a similar or a related story in the Lotus Sutra about the Dharma King's daughter. She's really quite a decent Dharma King's daughter, as is the Lama Kirti's father's son. She says she's been living there with Lama Kirti for 12 years. The Dragon King's daughter in the Lotus Sutra appears and demonstrates quickly becoming a Buddha.

[10:36]

This is shocking to the assembly in the Lotus Sutra, just as the goddess is shocking to Shakyamuni Buddha, because she's not quite human. She's a dragon princess. Also, maybe even more, she becomes a Buddha quickly, like this. Like we say that all of us, all of you, are Buddhas. We don't necessarily realize it, of course, or to have it developed, but anyway. The Dragon King's daughter also is not given a name in the Lotus Sutra, as Buddhist scholars have pointed out. So, this is why I wanted us to chant the names of the women ancestors tonight. Because all through Buddhism and Buddhist history, there have been great women. So, all of the names that we chanted tonight, from India, China, Japan, the West, are historical people.

[11:48]

Historical women who were, in some cases, recognized as teachers. But also known as, even if they were not formally teachers, they were all great, great practitioners and great inspirations. Many of them were formal Dharma teachers. We can talk about who they were. Great teacher Myogen was a great disciple of Dogen. She maybe didn't go to a hatred, but she was quite wonderful, as Dogen says. And amongst the later teachers, there are several who I knew myself. Great teacher Kasan Joshi was a sewing teacher who helped spread the sewing of rocks and cases to America. Great teacher Baiho Sesshin is Jodi Dixon, who, thanks to whom we have Zen Mind Beginners Month, she transcribed all those talks that Sugi Roshi gave.

[12:52]

Great teacher Myoan Stewart was a teacher in Cambridge. She was in Massachusetts. She was quite wonderful. I had jokes up with her once. I was sitting with her. She was also a concert pianist. Great teacher Kishi Rangyo was married to Bernie Klassen, who died early. Great teacher Shinpo Senke is the last one. Her name in English was Blanchard, and she was my Shisho teacher. You can look on the Ancient Dragon website. There is a description of each of these women. These were historical women. The Dragon King's daughter in the Lotus Sutra is a special being.

[13:56]

And the Goddess, the Wild Cavity's goddess friend, is also a special being. Because of patriarchy, they don't have their names. So, there's a lot here that's relevant to us, as Dan was saying. Of course, we still have patriarchy and great persecution of women now in our culture. Of some politicians. Anyway, I'll come back to that, but I wanted to say a little more about this dramatic advance that happens next in the goddess chapter. So... Well, there's one thing I want to go back to.

[15:00]

Again, this is part of the goddess's challenging charakucha. And she asks charakucha what his practices are. I'm paraphrasing a little bit what she says. He says to be free of... Yeah, this is a little further than this. The goddess says liberation is freedom from desire, hatred, and folly.

[16:01]

Which is what a charakucha says. And the goddess says to him, that's the teaching for the excessively proud, for the arrogant. Those free of pride are taught that the very nature of desire, hatred, and folly is in self-liberation. So this is a key point of this sutra. That we do not try and crush and destroy and get rid of all we hate pollution. We see through it, or we cut through it as our bodhisattva vow translation says now. But to think that we have gotten free from greed, desire, hatred, and folly.

[17:03]

Dale talked about this yesterday. That's kind of arrogance. The bodhisattva knows that they live in the middle of this world of desire, of anger, of foolishness. The goddess says whoever thinks I have attained, I have realized, is overly proud in the discipline of the well-thought-on. So our practice is not about getting rid of pollution. Our practice is to be aware and awake in the middle of pollution. To be free of obsessing about what we hate pollution. To be free from being caught by them or acting on them. But it doesn't mean that our hatred goes away.

[18:06]

At any rate, thereafter, and after further discussion, Sariputra is very impressed with the goddess, of course. And he asks her how long she's been here with the volunteer team. She says, I've been in this house for 12 years, and I have heard no discourse concerning the disciples and solitary sages who try and get rid of, we hate pollution. But I've heard only those concerning the great love, great compassion, and the inconceivable qualities of Buddha. So this dialogue goes on. And then, at some point, Sariputra is so impressed with her, and he says to the goddess, it's a strange thing.

[19:15]

What prevents you from transforming yourself out of your female state and becoming a man? Because in early Buddhism, they thought that only men could become Buddha. There was that idea, that culture. And the goddess says, although I have sought my female state for these 12 years, I have not yet found it. Reverend Sariputra, if a magician were to incarnate a woman by magic, would you ask her what prevents you from transforming yourself out of your female state? And Sariputra says, no, such a woman would not really exist. So what would there be to transform? Just so, Reverend Sariputra says to the goddess, all things do not really exist as separate entities. Now, would you think, what prevents one whose nature is that of a magical incarnation from transforming herself out of her female state? And thereupon, this amazing event happens.

[20:18]

The goddess employs her magical power to cause the elder Sariputra to appear in her form and to cause herself to appear in his form. So there's this kind of double sex change operation. It's this amazing event. And the goddess says to Sariputra, who's now a woman transformed into her body, Reverend Sariputra, what prevents you from transforming yourself out of your female state? And Sariputra, who's been trying to be this pure monk his whole monastic career, is full of consternation. He says, I no longer appear in the form of a male. My body has changed into the body of a woman. I do not know what to transform. Anyway, something like that.

[21:21]

The goddess says, if the elder could again change out of the female form, then all women could change out of the female state. So, finally, she says, the Buddha has said, in all things, there is neither male nor female. So, this is amazing, being written about 2,000 years ago, in terms of our awareness in our culture of, well, gender fluidity, of the possibilities of not holding on to some vision of male, some vision of female. The stereotypes that I grew up in with, you know, John Wayne was the ultimate male, and Marilyn Monroe was the ultimate female, and anything else is, anyway.

[22:25]

So, this is something for us to consider. How is it that things are not what we assume they are? Even gender, which is, you know, a difficult topic, and it's a major topic in our political world now, as politicians express fascist views, are persecuting women, persecuting trans people, and trying to persecute people. So, I appreciate the scholars in this demonstration she makes to cut through our assumptions about dualities like male and female. I'll just, it's a closing thing in the chapter, and then I'll open to discussion. After the goddess transforms Shariputra back to a handful, she becomes a goddess again.

[23:36]

The volunteer team, at the end, has the last word. He tells Shariputra, Reverend Shariputra, this goddess has already served 92 million, billion buddhas. She plays in the super knowledge. She has truly succeeded in all the vows. She has gained the tolerance of the birth process of things. So, I've mentioned this a couple of times. In Vajrayana Sutra, it's one of the key, in other words, key teachings of the sutra. And I love saying Sanskrit's name for it. It means patience with the, or tolerance with the birthlessness or ungraspability of things, dharmas. So, all of the things that we think are things, all of the things that we have ideas about and views about and think we know what they are, are not necessarily so.

[24:43]

This is one of the key teachings, to not see things or people or animals or lakes as objects. So, here the goddess has demonstrated the application of this to Jainism for Shariputra. So, there's a lot to think about in that. This is not the only, but one of the dramatic chapters in this sutra. Comments, questions, responses? Anybody? A couple of quick comments. I had to kind of smile inwardly when I heard a quote from Vimalakirti, where he said,

[25:49]

something on the order of love of money is the root of all evil, or something like that. And it reminded me of the Old Testament quote, where it's often misquoted as saying money is the root of all evil, but it's actually love of money is the root of all evil. Attachment to money is the root of all evil. And I had to kind of smile at that, that different cultures, different traditions can come to the same conclusions. As far as gender roles, one of the most skillful practitioners of cutting through delusions was William Shakespeare. He was always having his characters, the men, not so much the fellas dressed as women, but, well, no, he did some of that too, but men were dressed as women, women dressed as men. And they would get over in a situation, understanding the delusions and the assumptions that people would have and kind of playing with them.

[26:55]

So, and then this was centuries ago when he was already kind of seeing through all the bull crap. Yeah, thank you. Yes, the comparison with Shakespeare, some of his comedies is very apt. And, yeah, and what you said about the, you said the attachment to money or the grasping at money. Yeah. And that's the point with all of this. It's when we get caught by our grasping or our anger or confusion. It's when we get attached to or compulsive about some object of desire, rather than just expressing desire without holding on, without attachments. This is subtle, not being caught by grasping or anger or confusion. And money is neither good nor bad. It's a medium of exchange. It's a concept.

[27:58]

But our attachments to it are fierce and complicated and difficult, difficult to cut through. Yeah, and then those with lots of money, the billionaires, seem to never have enough to be more and more. So, yes. Thank you, Jim. Other comments, reflections, questions? When was this? We don't know exactly when it was written. The actual scenes from the Wall of Duty and Mime's History are supposed to be happening at the time of Buddha, 2,500 years ago. But it's about my analysis. Is it more likely something written after that? Yeah, so it was probably compiled in the first century or two.

[29:02]

We don't know exactly. History, at least, is not clear. That kind of renaissance of the attitudes and philosophy is kind of similar to the Old Testament, New Testament, and Old Testament, and New Testament again. It's kind of that emphasis on scaling back the purity and the less honorable person or whatever. Yes, so the Mahayana developed out of the wonderful Theravada teachings, but emphasized, as this chapter does, love and compassion. So, the wisdom teachings were there before. And actually, there were the compassion teachings too, but the emphasis on skillful liberative technique, as the sutra says, how to help beings and share their love. I'm David Reyes.

[30:07]

Oh, hey, David. Hi, Taigan. Thank you very much for that talk. Shariputra's question about how to generate the great love, the great love and kindness, the Mahamaitri, the Mahametta, struck me tonight as really, really a weird question. Because now that I think about it, I mean, what else would somebody feel love and compassion toward if not the ephemeral, impure passing of contingent nature of being? I guess it's not hard to understand the thing on the other side, the great love for purity, the great desire for purity, but that question is weird to me tonight all of a sudden. So I wonder if you might say more about it. Well, the whole issue of, as you talk about it in terms of impermanence or inconceivability or just the ungraspability of things,

[31:27]

it's possible that in a world where you can't get a hold of anything, some people might want to get a hold or possess other people in various ways, slavery, relationships. But the question actually shows that Shariputra is deeper than we might consider him. He's asking, how do we generate love? How do we generate compassion? So, yeah, I don't know what else to say exactly. It's, how do you turn from competition to cooperation, from do unto others before they do unto you to, you know, everybody is connected with everybody else. We're all part of the same, in the same situation in some way.

[32:32]

We each have our particular expressions and forms of that. But how do we care for all beings and for particular beings? That's the real question. And Simala Kirti's skillful, liberal technique is easy to say, but how do we actually act in a way that is helpful? This is, you know, the key practice issue. How do we function? What do we each do in the world that is helpful to beings and to particular beings and to ourselves? Many people may say it's very difficult to listen. And it's not about getting some answer to that either. It's about just patiently paying attention and seeing what can we do to be helpful, to be kind, to be caring, to love.

[33:39]

Other comments or questions or reflections? How do you respond? Ken, did you have your hand up? How do you respond? Ken, did you have your hand up? Yeah, I mean, this startling event. What responses do we have to the goddesses transforming Sharanputra? Poor Sharanputra. Yeah. I mean, did he deserve that? Poor Sharanputra. Yeah. He's trying to follow the fluid way. He's trying to be a good monk. He's trying to, you know, this is, as Luz was saying, this is a kind of ancient history.

[34:45]

Yeah, this is, as Luz was saying, this is a kind of ancient history. This is a place where the traditional, the old traditional Buddhist teachings, which are wonderful. Something's new, something new. And this is called the Bodhisattva way. And so, yeah, poor Sharanputra is stuck in a, it's like a, like I sometimes feel like a 20th century person in the 21st century. Everything has changed. It's hard when your worldview gets picked up and shaken all over and sat down, upside down. Yeah. And that can be really tough for people and they react in ways that are not as kind as how Sharanputra reacted. That's right. That's some of what we're seeing. Yeah, and that's a good way of sympathizing with the people who are actually causing harm.

[35:56]

They're upset because their worldview has, they're scared. Their worldview has been shaken up. And so, that doesn't mean we shouldn't stop the harm that is happening. But it's not about, you know, shaming the bad people because they're just caught in their own worldview. So it's, yeah, thank you for speaking up for poor Sharanputra. It's not about malice. Yeah. They're not acting out of malice. Yeah, and we... Even if it is harmful. Even if it looks like malice, it's because of their fear and because their world has been turned upside down. Other comments? Maybe not to sound like Hallmark cards, but maybe our job is to console them. Let them know it's not that bad as it might seem. This is a skillful liberties technique question.

[37:00]

And I heard a wonderful talk this morning from Rebecca Solnick, who spoke at the Ancient Dragon some time ago about climate. And she was emphasizing that despair is not realistic or helpful, that change is happening and it's possible. But I've tended to want to preach to the choir because to encourage us to make the changes that we need to make seems more possible than to try and convert people who are caught up in views that are not helpful. So that's a logical question. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Joe. Real quick, I keep thinking about this as an exemplar. The coal miners in West Virginia, we all know that we have to stop burning carbon.

[38:06]

There's no other way. We've got to do it. But folks in this region have had a tradition going back decades, a century or more, of mining coal, mainly coal. And this is part of not only their sustenance but their bloodline. And we don't always, you know, I keep thinking of Hillary Clinton who said, we're going to get rid of all the coal mines and institute solar panels. I know what she meant, but I can't help but think how that sounded to the guys in West Virginia. Well, what we need to do, what skillful operative technique is in that case, and it's a good example, is to really focus on helping retrain and reeducate coal miners to help with the work that needs to be done to install solar panels, to do the kind of reconfiguration of our whole social system.

[39:21]

That's the central norm towards a renewable energy source. And explain the situation to them and give them a reason to be proud of this new role in society. And give them training to actually be able to support their families in this way. That's the extent, that's an example of the extent of the change that has to happen in this decade, really, to prevent the worst of the effects of climate. So, yeah. And change is difficult. Wow. It's just difficult. You know, I mean, in some ways it seems like, well, we could talk about all kinds of social examples. It seems like things haven't changed so much since Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement in the early 60s. And, of course, they have, but there's still persecutions.

[40:24]

There's these two young Tennessee legislators who were expelled for being black, for carrying around gun victims. How else to change lives and minds? That's what, John. And it happens over time. Anyway, Douglas, you had something you wanted to ask, and I'll give it to you. Yeah, I wanted to point out that Goddess's train to making Charlie Puth appear as Goddess himself was the magic. It doesn't say that he's switched bodies, it says he appears as Goddess. In spite of it, this skillful means where she says, well, without saying it, she's making it with it. Oh, and by the way, this image of herself is also a magic trick. It's an illusion that your own mind has made up. It's a thing that, in other places across the situation, you can think of when speaking to the Ahads and the Bodhisattvas and so on, that you think that your body forms itself.

[41:36]

So this concept creates this sense of a stable, separate, independent self. And so you perceive it. You look at yourself. You look at other people, too. But that's just a metaphor. It's a magic trick to mirage. Never saying there's nothing there. But the way you perceive it, it's an illusion. It's your projection. So, yeah, I think Charlie Puth has missed this, but the Goddess came to him and showed the chance. Yes. Yes, we all appear as men or women. What does that mean? We're understanding in our culture now that the traditional, you know, what that means is not necessarily what the traditional stereotypes meant. Women can vote now. That wasn't true in Shakespeare's time or in Thomas Jefferson's time.

[42:41]

So what we think men are, what we think women are, is just these assumptions or these mirages. Kirsten, you were going to say something. Well, yes. I just wanted to point out that it's not just the coal miners that need to change. Most of us drive our cars here and drive our cars all around and do a lot of carbon emissions. And so we need to make our own hard choices as well. And it's easy to look and see what other people do. Right. And that's how we do it. We're all part of this. That's true. Yes. And yet things happen. Like I was also saying this morning that the Biden government is proposing massive changes in the percentage of electric cars and trucks over the next 30, 50 years.

[43:51]

So it's not that each of us is responsible and part of the situation. And it's not that we can't just, in terms of our personal, we can't all make personal choices about all these things. But it takes a village. It takes their systems. And also, I'm sorry, both.

[44:24]

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