That's without the case. Something I just happened to have around. Suzuki Rush used to say about his glasses, these aren't mine, you know, but because you understand my poor eyesight, you let me wear them. Anyway, thanks. So tonight I wanted to talk with you a little bit about a sutra called the Vimalakirti Sutra or the holy teaching of Vimalakirti. Vimalakirti is probably the most famous lay person in Buddhist history. In early Buddhism the Buddha would ordain his disciples and then they would follow many precepts and rules and they would eat only in the morning and beg for all their food and so forth. So this went on for some time.

[01:06]

So primarily the Buddhist order for some centuries was those who were ordained into this order and followed the strict regimen. At some time later, perhaps several hundred years later, no one is quite sure, but there was something of a shift in the practice of Buddhism so that there was more emphasis put on lay practice and the possibility of lay people understanding as well or better as the monks and disciples of the Buddha. And so in this particular sutra, actually, Vimalakirti lives at the time of the Buddha and is presented as understanding and having greater wisdom and compassion than any of the Buddha's disciples. Even though he hasn't particularly, you know, it's never said that he underwent any particular training or anything, as all the monks and nuns and so on did, but somehow

[02:07]

he nonetheless is seen as being quite wise, and more so than the disciples. So this sutra is about something about the shift in Buddhism from understanding Buddhist practice as, you know, that there is a reality to becoming pure and undefiled, of getting rid of your desires, of actually attaining a perfected state. And this is presented as what the early understanding of Buddhism is, that that was all possible. And this sutra presents more of what we think of as the Mahayana understanding, which is you go ahead and practice various practices, but not as though you really could attain or perfect yourself, because it's understood in the Mahayana that there's no such person. as you yourself. So how could you perfect such a person?

[03:10]

Anyway, I mean if you think about it, doesn't this make sense? I mean the idea is that all the time we have thoughts and feelings and sensations and experiences which come and go, states of mind, and they arise and they're present for a little while and they disappear. So what could you ever hope to keep? And what could you ever hope to have? Where could you ever hope to get to? What could you ever hope to attain that you could actually have and keep? Several years ago, I read in the pink section of the Chronicle, Bette Midler said that. She said, you know, the thing that nobody ever tells you is that there's no happiness you can get hold of and keep. I thought something was wrong with me. All this time, I've been trying to get a happiness that I could have and keep. And I couldn't do it and I thought I had a problem. And now I know I'm just a human being and that's the way it is. That's the only thing wrong with me.

[04:16]

So she said, I'm much happier now. I'm not so hard on myself. Because I don't have this idea that there's something I should have and keep. So this is, you know, something of the feeling of the Mahayana. And the idea also is to understand, to have some sense that mind itself is not the object, and you yourself are not all these things that come and go. So why would you take them all that seriously, all these things that come and go, that you like and dislike, and then any particular moment we say about a moment, oh, this is pretty good, or this is not so great, or this is pretty bad, And then we think there's some possibility of making it better, improving things. You know, our particular collection of objective experience, which is going to come and go anyway. And yet, one of the things that the sutra points out is, if you decide then not to have anything to do with the things of the world, then that isn't quite the answer either.

[05:27]

So this sutra is trying to give us some instruction as far as how we might practice or understand things, from the point of view of the Mahayana. The other morning in Zazen, I said a few words while we were sitting here in the meditation hall, and I didn't hear much afterwards. Two or three people said they kind of liked it, but something of the things they said was kind of confusing, and then I heard some people thought, well, there he goes again talking in Zazen. Isn't that a perfect example? You know, if one was sort of trying to be a good teacher, you know, you'd think, well, you'd want to say something that everybody got it. And in the sutras it says, you know, that the excellent bodhisattvas and buddhas, they can say things and then people hear it in their own language and in the way they need to hear it. I don't seem to have that capacity, obviously. If any of you want to get up and walk out, I don't mind.

[06:32]

So let's see. First of all, in these Mahayana sutras, there's a wonderful setting of the scene and all the people who show up and who's in the crowd. Isn't that the usual thing you do? Like, who's in the crowd? That's really important, right? That's still going on today. Who's in the crowd? And the sutras tend to start out also, thus have I heard, at one time. The Lord Buddha was in residence in the garden of Amrapali in the city of Vaishali, attended by a great gathering. So here's who was there. Of the bhikshus, there were 8,000, all saints. They were free from impurities and afflictions and had all attained self-mastery. Their minds were entirely liberated by perfect knowledge. They were calm and dignified like royal elephants. They had accomplished their work, done what they had to do, cast off their burdens, attained their goals, and totally destroyed the bonds of existence.

[07:38]

They had all attained the utmost perfection of every form of mind control. That's the 8,000 saints. Of the Bodhisattvas, there were 32,000 great spiritual heroes who were universally acclaimed. and they were dedicated to the penetrating activity of their great super-knowledges and were sustained by the grace of the Buddha. Their mindfulness, intelligence, realization, meditation, incantation, and eloquence were all perfected. They were free of all obscurations and emotional involvements, living in liberation without impediment. They were totally dedicated to the transcendences of generosity, subdued, unwavering and sincere morality, tolerance, effort, meditation, wisdom, skill and liberative technique, commitment, power and knowledge. They had all attained the intuitive tolerance of the ultimate incomprehensibility of all things.

[08:46]

They turned the irreversible wheel of the Dharma. They were stamped with the insignia of signlessness. I want to say a little bit about this, they had attained the intuitive tolerance of the ultimate inconceivability of all things. Isn't that wonderful? Have you ever thought of such a thing? Bob Thurman, who is the translator of this, some of you may have met him. Nowadays, actually, he's kind of famous for being the father of Uma Thurman. But before that, he was famous for being a Buddhist translator. He studied Tibetan and he translated this sutra from the Tibetan primarily, but he also studied the other translations of the text from Chinese and so on. And he points out that this tolerance of the ultimate incomprehensibility of all things

[09:53]

that actually we can't finally get a handle on anything, we can't grasp anything. All of this phenomena appears and disappears, and then how would you ever, you know, think that you could manage it or handle it, or control it, or make it the way that you like, or improve it, or correct it, or fix it, or any of those things. How would we ever think, you know, any such thing is possible, but we go on thinking that. And it's really quite marvelous, isn't it? Anyway, it's considered that ultimately our life is incomprehensible. What's going on is incomprehensible. The nature of our mind and our existence is incomprehensible. And so, how would you understand this or how would you comprehend this? Bob Thurman points out, you might be able to tolerate it.

[11:00]

You might be able to have some patience with it. With things appearing and disappearing the way they do, endlessly. Things arising and passing away. Feeling better, feeling worse, happy, sad, joyful. you know, getting somewhere, not getting anywhere, you might just develop some tolerance. And so all of these 32,000 bodhisattvas were said to have developed this kind of tolerance of the ultimate inconceivability, the ultimate incomprehensibility of existence. So, In this scene here, I want to read you one other passage because it's kind of indicative of what happens in Mahayana sutras because usually to indicate that it's a Mahayana sutra and that there's something more dramatic or wonderful about the Mahayana as opposed to what is being presented as Hinayana Buddhism, there's a kind of a miracle.

[12:14]

So I'm going to read you about that. You like miracles? Anyway, there was a young bodhisattva named Ratnakara, and there was 500 lacchavi used with him, and each was holding a precious parasol made of the seven different kinds of jewels. And they came from the city of Vaishali, and each one, one by one, presented their parasol to the Buddha. They circumambulated the Buddha seven times and then bowed and then left him the parasol. This must have taken a little while, don't you think, the 500? It doesn't say how long this took. That seems like it could take a day or two right there, but I don't know. Anyway, after they'd all left their parasols in an offering, then suddenly by the miraculous power of Buddha, they were transformed into a single precious canopy so great, it formed a covering for this entire billion-world galaxy. The surface of the entire billion-world galaxy was reflected in the interior of the great precious canopy.

[13:23]

Where the total content of this galaxy could be seen, limitless mansions of suns, moons and stellar bodies, the realms of the Devas, Nagas, Yakshas, Gandharas, Asuras, Garudas, Kinnaras and Maharagas, as well as the realm of the four Maharajas, all the great oceans, rivers, bays, torrents, streams, brooks, and springs, finally all the villages, suburbs, cities, capitals, provinces, and wildernesses. And all this could be clearly seen by everyone. And the voices of all the Buddhas in all the ten directions could be heard proclaiming their teachings of the Dharma in all the worlds, the sound reverberating in the space beneath the great precious canopy." So, we're in a pretty unusual space, don't you think? No, mostly we just think, well, this is like Tassajara. It's kind of hot today. I'm tired. Anyway, when the Buddha appears on these scenes, it just seems like it takes on a different quality.

[14:32]

But Buddhas may or may not show up very often. We don't know. The other interesting thing, though, in this presentation is then the Buddha talks about how wonderful the world is, or what a Buddha field is like, where beings are becoming enlightened and realized. And someone, you know, Shariputra or Subuddhi, one of the Buddha's disciples says, you know, the world doesn't look that way to me. It doesn't look so great. I see kind of pollution and noise and trauma, and beings are all suffering. I think there's something wrong with the Buddhist description. And the Buddha says, if someone was born blind and then they couldn't see the sun and the moon, is that the sun and the moon's fault or is that the blind person's fault? So anyway, Buddhist disciples, explain to the Buddhist disciple that you see things according to your understanding.

[15:32]

If you have a refined insight, then you will see how miraculously wonderful the world is." Well, what do you think? Anyway, we're going to see what Vimalakirti has to say about this. So, in the midst of this wonderful, great scene here, before I go on, I would like to say something about what I said in Zazen the other morning. Because I think it relates to this sutra here. What I said in the other morning, I was trying to say something like what this sutra is about, because I said, I quoted a part of a poem which says, don't slander the sky by looking at it through a pipe. So the sky is large and vast, and then our mind is large and vast. Our being is large and vast. Life is large and vast. Enlightenment, we could say in this, Later on I may read you something about enlightenment, but enlightenment is large and vast, inconceivable, incomprehensible.

[16:41]

And then if you look at things through a pipe you say, this is fatigue, this is annoying, this is frustrating. This is how you look at things through a pipe. And then you say, how do I get out of this? And we're already in the midst of vastness. Our mind actually is not stained by anything that arises. Something arises, fatigue arises. And the mind itself doesn't change. The object of mind called fatigue, we can be tired or we can be alert. So tired or alert changes. Sometimes there's tired, sometimes there's alert. Mind is aware of tired, mind is aware of alert. doesn't come, doesn't go, doesn't change with the phenomena. So I mentioned that saying, and to me this was like, is also like a poem, a line from a poem I quoted, and I quoted this from a Rumi poem.

[17:47]

Don't go where you think you want to go, ask the way to the spring. We keep trying to go someplace, you know, and to make our life a certain way, And yet, that may not be what is going to ultimately refresh us. And part of our struggling to make things a certain way as though it would be a help, this effort and this struggle is actually very tiring and wears us out. And then we don't actually arrive at the spring at what is a source of refreshment. So where is the source of refreshment? This is what we're looking for. What is the way to the spring? And what I said the other morning, which confused people, and I realized as soon as I said it, it was confusing. Once you say, don't slander the sky by looking at it through a pipe, and then you say, don't go where you think you want to go, ask the way to the spring, already everybody

[19:02]

relaxes and opens up and realizes, maybe I've had too narrow a focus. I'm trying to perfect my mind as though the qualities of my mind moment after moment were really fundamentally important. Whether I saw green or blue, it's important. You know, how somebody looks at me is important. It's an indication, it's a sign. They like me, they don't like me. I'm being respected, I'm not being respected. I'm being liked, I'm not being liked. I'm being held in esteem, I'm not. You know, as soon as we see something, we hear the sound of a voice and we have all these ideas about what's what, how these people think of me, who I am, who they are, and then this becomes really important. But if you mention, when I mention this, I think people in sitting relax. And then I thought I would tell a joke. You know, after several minutes had passed by, I thought I would tell a joke.

[20:08]

Just in case you hadn't just fallen into the spring already, I said, if you don't watch out, you might just fall into the spring. And then I realized, uh-oh, they're already, most of these people are already in the spring, and now I'm telling them to be careful and not fall in. But I was trying to tell a joke. Isn't language wonderful? Anyway, maybe you had to have been there. But I was trying to tell a joke, so then I had to let it go, because then you can't sit there in the meditation hall during zazen and say, excuse me, folks, that was a joke. Why didn't you all laugh? And let me explain the joke to you. So then I had to wait a while, and then I said, finally, As long as you're in the spring, why don't you sport a little bit?" Here we are, we're actually already in the spring. Where do we think we are? Already we're in the spring. We're right in there, we're swimming around. This is the sport of being in the spring.

[21:11]

This is sporting at lecture, while somebody sits and talks and we sit and listen. And then if you want, you can do the sport of sitting satsang. You can sport about by meditating. And then you can do yoga, you can do the sporting about in yoga. And then for those things, they're like sports. And for sports, there's rules and there's regulations, and there's ways you do it. And then we sport about in it, and various stuff happens. And then that's what we do when we're bodhisattvas. And this is the sort of thing that some of us, people like different kinds of sports. What can I tell you? All right. So, here is the Buddha and all of his disciples and Vimalakirti, meanwhile, I have to read you a little bit about Vimalakirti and what an amazing kind of person he was. Here we go.

[22:24]

So what happens in the sutra is that Vimalakirti becomes sick. Vimalakirti is presented as being wise enough and compassionate enough in such a developed being that he wouldn't have to get sick, but as it turns out, he becomes sick because it's the nature of all sentient beings to be sick, and he's joining in the nature of all beings. So just as all beings become sick, he becomes sick. And if they are all to become well, he would become well. Anyway, here's a description about this amazing layperson, Vimalakirti. He lived in the city of Vaishali, and it says about Vimalakirti that he served the ancient Buddhas, and he had generated the roots of virtue by honoring them and making offerings to them. He had attained tolerance as well as eloquence. He played with the great super-knowledges. He detained the power of incantations and the fearlessnesses. He conquered all demons and opponents.

[23:28]

He had penetrated the profound way of the Dharma. He was liberated through the transcendence of wisdom." So this description goes on. And then it begins to talk a little bit more about his practice in particular. and the way he went about his life. His wealth was inexhaustible for the purpose of sustaining the poor and helpless. He observed a pure morality in order to protect the immoral. He maintained tolerance and self-control in order to reconcile beings who were angry, cruel, violent, and brutal. He blazed with energy in order to inspire people who were lazy. He maintained concentration, mindfulness, and meditation in order to sustain the mentally troubled. He attained decisive wisdom in order to sustain the foolish.

[24:30]

This is a little different, you might notice, from just attaining something. The Hinayana, or earlier Buddhism, is presented as more or less just attaining something for yourself. So this is the Mahayana emphasis of he's attaining all these things in order to help others. He's attaining his wealth to help the poor. He's attaining wisdom to help those who are foolish, and so on. He wore the white clothes of a layman. The laymen are said to wear white, and then the monks wear the darker clothes. He wore the white clothes of a layman, yet lived impeccably like a religious devotee. He lived at home, but remained aloof from the realm of desire. He had a son, a wife, and a female attendant, and yet always maintained continence. He appeared to be surrounded by servants, yet lived in solitude. He appeared to be adorned with ornaments, yet always was endowed with the auspicious signs and marks.

[25:34]

He seemed to eat and drink, yet always took nourishment from the taste of meditation. He made his appearance at the fields of sports and in the casinos, but his aim was always to mature those people who were attached to games and gambling. He visited the fashionable heterodox teachers. He had always kept unswerving loyalty to the Buddha. Isn't that wonderful? You get to go and, you know, visit all, you know, whatever heterodox teachers you want. You know, Vimalakirti did. You can join all the, you know, go see all the New Age teachers and everything. He understood the mundane and transcendental sciences and esoteric practices, yet always took pleasure and delight in the Dharma. He mixed in all crowds. yet he was foremost of all. In order to be in harmony with people, he associated with elders, with the middle-aged, with the young, and yet he always spoke in harmony with the Dharma. He engaged in all sorts of business, but he had no interest in profit or in possessions.

[26:37]

To train living beings, he would appear at crossroads and on street corners. To protect them, he participated in government. To turn people away from the Hinayana, engaged in the Mahayana, he appeared among listeners and teachers of the Dharma. To develop children, he visited all the schools. To demonstrate the evil of desire, he even entered the brothels. To establish drunkard's incorrect mindfulness, he entered all the cabarets." And so on. So I think you can have a... By the way, can you hear me all right down there when I talk normally? I think you can have some feeling of how this is a person who participates, you know, is not just thinking that the best thing to do is go and sit quietly in some, you know, off in some wilderness place, but that somehow, you know, he's practicing a way of being in the world and helping those in the world. He's participating in business, he's discoursing with people, and somehow he's able to do this in a way that benefits everyone and that people really appreciate.

[27:45]

So this is, again, what is seen as the ideal of the Mahayana. So Vimalakirti becomes sick, and the Buddha, who is some ways away across town, realizes that Vimalakirti is sick, and so he starts asking his disciples and bodhisattvas, would you please go visit Vimalakirti and inquire after his help? And all the disciples and bodhisattvas, one after another, have a very good reason not to, namely that Vimalakirti has outshone them at some point and made a fool of them and made them look like they didn't really understand how to practice. So they all say, well, I'm really reluctant to go because... And they have these very stories. Would you like a story or two? I mean, what the heck? How late is it getting anyway? Oh, not bad. I don't want to keep you up too late, but how about, let's see, maybe one story.

[28:47]

I'll give you one story. And then, this is a story about the Bodhisattva Upali. There's many, many wonderful stories here about how Vimalakirti, And every time, of course, Vimalakirti starts talking, hundreds and thousands or hundreds of people or beings or gods or angels or whatever, they're enlightened and they all conceive the thought of unexcelled perfect enlightenment and so on and so on. So it's really quite marvelous. So here's Upali. And when the Buddha asked the venerable Upali to go to visit Vimalakirti and inquire after his illness, Upali replies, I am reluctant to go to see that good man to inquire after his illness. Why? Lord, I remember one day there were two monks who committed some infraction and were too ashamed to appear before the Lord.

[29:52]

And so they came to me and said, Reverend Upali, we have both committed an infraction but are too ashamed to appear before the Buddha. Venerable Upali, kindly remove our anxieties by absolving us of those infractions. So, when any of us do something like this, you know, committed infraction, or we do something we think is good, we do something we think is bad, what do you think? Does it, you know, does it stick, or does this indicate something about you fundamentally? Are you busy trying to prove what kind of person you are, and then, you know, worried about what kind of person this might show you to be, now that people know about your infraction? Does it adhere to your consciousness? or not. Anyway, we're going to see what Vimalakirti has to say about this in a minute. Lord, while I was giving these two monks some religious discourse, Vimalakirti came and said to me, Reverend Dupali, do not aggravate further the sins of these two monks.

[30:59]

Without perplexing them, relieve their remorse. Reverend Dupali, sin is not apprehended within or without or between the two. Why? The Buddha has said living beings are afflicted by the passions of thought, and they are purified by the perfection of thought. Reverend Dupali, the mind is neither within nor without, nor is it to be apprehended between the two. Sin is just the same as the mind, and all things are just the same as the mind, not to be apprehended within or without or in between the two. Reverend Dupali, this nature of the mind by virtue of which your mind, Reverend, is liberated, already the nature of your mind is liberated, does it ever become afflicted?" And Dupali says, never. Fundamentally or ultimately it said, according to the Mahayana, the nature of your mind can never become afflicted.

[32:07]

Reverend Upali, the minds of all living beings have that very nature. Passions consist of conceptualizations. The ultimate non-existence of these conceptualizations and imaginary fabrications, that is the purity that is the intrinsic nature of mind. Misapprehensions are passions. The ultimate absence of misapprehensions is the intrinsic nature of mind. The presumption of self is passion. The absence itself is the intrinsic nature of mind. So this continues in this thing as to pointing out the intrinsic nature of mind is not identifiable, not identified with any particular phenomena that is arising or disappearing. It is here or gone. The basic nature, ultimate nature of mind is free. So you don't have to do anything to prove the freedom of your mind.

[33:19]

In the midst of desires, confusions, fatigue, awakeness, joy, sorrow, mind is already free. So I want to tell you a short poem. And probably that will be the end of my talk. But then again, it might not. We'll have to wait and see. So this is a poem I like very much. It's a short poem. And it has something of the feeling of what I've been talking about tonight. I think this is a poem that... I heard this poem originally on a tape of talks by Robert Bly. Actually, I heard him do this talk, recite this poem at Zen Center, and I memorized it by listening to the tapes of his poetry reading many years ago.

[34:31]

I think it's by a Spanish poet named Juan Ramon Jimenez. Sometimes I feel My ship has struck something deep beneath the surface and nothing moves. Nothing. Silence. Waves. Nothing happens. Nothing happens or has everything happened and we sit here calmly in the new life. Sometimes I feel my ship has struck something deep beneath the surface and nothing happens.

[35:37]

silence, waves. Nothing happens or has everything happened, and we sit here calmly in the new life. For me, this poem has a bit of this feeling, a sense of liberation or freedom from what's going on in the poem. To start with, what's going on is a feeling of being stuck. Nothing happens. Can't get anywhere. Can't accomplish anything. Can't improve anything. Can't get anywhere. And it's also, you know, incomprehensible. What could we do? And then in this poem, nothing happens or has everything happened.

[36:44]

And we appear in the new life. And we let go of what has been happening. Something new arises and appears. Even if we don't let go, whatever it was is gone. Already mind is liberated. It's not something we have to obtain. But we get to sport about. and talk about how we've got it or we don't. Well, I'm going to call it quits.

[37:51]

Thank you.

[37:51]

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