Having yet to see and listen to, to remember and accept, I have gone to taste the truth of the Tathāgata's words. Well, tonight's one of those nights when I feel more nervous than usual about giving my talk, and I wish maybe I didn't have to be in business at theater improvisation, and that I would know just exactly what I was going to say, but I will find out as you do.

[01:05]

It's a little scary, you know? None of us have been in this moment before. We know what's going to happen. I did give a talk a couple nights ago, and someone afterwards said, you were going right down this highway, but then you kept going on little side trips, and I thought, why is he doing that? And then I enjoyed all the little side trips you went on, and then you kept coming back to the highway after all. Tonight I don't know whether there's any highway or there's side trips. You'll have to wait and see. So I'm doing the Reader's Digest version of the Vimalakirti Sutra.

[02:12]

Some of you were here the other night, so in two nights we're covering many pages of the sutra. So this is the synopsis version, some of the highlights, kind of like the television miniseries. Anyway, the story so far has been that the Buddha was gathered together with 8,000 bodhisattvas and 32,000 monks and nuns, etc., and they were all having a great time, and he performed a few miracles, such as creating a vast canopy in the sky, in which was reflected a billion world galaxies, and all the teachings of all the Buddhas was going on in the canopy, and it was really quite incredible. Anyway, Vimalakirti, as I mentioned the other night, is a layperson, and he's considered to personify the spirit of Mahayana Buddhism, of which Zen is one of the schools of Mahayana Buddhism.

[03:13]

And this sutra is giving some teaching of contrasting what the sutra's version of earlier Buddhism is with Mahayana Buddhism. So, for instance, there's a passage coming up where there's a goddess living in the house of Vimalakirti, and one of the foremost disciples of the Buddha, Sariputra, engages in a discussion with the goddess. And he says, Goddess, you're very wise. How long have you lived in this house? And she says, I've lived here for as long as you've attained liberation. And Sariputra says, oh, well, you've lived here for some time then, haven't you? And she says, oh, and Sariputra, so you've been liberated for a while now? And he doesn't answer.

[04:16]

And she says, well, now why aren't you answering? What do you think liberation is? And he says, liberation is freedom from greed, hate, and delusion, isn't it? And she says, one who is free from greed, hate, and delusion would be excessively proud. So, earlier Buddhism is considered to have this understanding that one could get rid of greed, hate, and delusion. And the Mahayana view is greed, hate, and delusion aren't necessarily what you think they are. And if you set out to get rid of greed, isn't that being a little, like, greedy to get rid of it? And if you get rid of hate, how do you do that without sort of having hate towards it? And if you're trying to get rid of delusion, what makes you think you could do that anyway? Isn't that kind of a confused idea? What are we going to do? So this is why some of us sit here for years and years.

[05:20]

It's either that or we just enjoy it, you know? I used to go some years. I visit my friends in Boston. They're now in Portland at a kundalini yoga ashram. And they do cross-legged sitting. And they sit facing their teacher, eyes open meditation. It's very intense. And they also do some yoga. And they have a retreat center on Martha's Vineyard. So in the summer I used to go sometimes to do one of their week-long intensive retreats. And, you know, our week-long intensive retreats are 13 or 14 periods of 40-minute periods of meditation each day. And sit for the meals and, you know, very short breaks and hang in there. As someone, we were joking last night, that's quite a ride, you know? And you don't have to wait in line for it. And you can go on this week-long meditation trip and see what happens. And it's all just kind of make-believe, right? I mean, but there you are on this trip and you can't get off of it.

[06:28]

And nobody knows what the ride is going to turn out. But anyway, you notice I'm already going on these side trips, right? So I go to Martha's Vineyard for a week-long intensive. And we get up around, oh, 6 o'clock. And we do 5.30. And we do, around 6 we do an hour of yoga. And at 7 we do some sitting. And around 7.45 or 8 we have breakfast. And then around 10.30 the teacher gives a talk. And around noon we do a little housecleaning. And 1.30 we have lunch. And then in the afternoon really you ought to get out and get some exercise, don't you think? And kind of like get some sun. And enjoy yourself. And maybe you want to play tennis or go boating or fishing. There's lots to do there on Martha's Vineyard, right? So why would you want to like sit? And that sort of thing, right? So one day we were at the... And then in the evening around 6 o'clock there's dinner.

[07:31]

No, there's the meditation around 6. And then around 7 or so there's... 7.30 there's dinner. And then maybe another talk a little later in the evening. And then go to bed. And once in a while, you know, they... They don't just... You know, we get these... They would get these big pieces of fresh tuna. We don't get that here at Tuscarora. And they'd have raw tuna and cooked tuna. And tuna cooked on one side and not on the other. And, you know... So... It's kind of enjoyable. And one day one of the students said... The teacher was giving this talk and said, You know, you don't need to sit very much. And then somebody said, What about Ed? Like, is he sitting a lot because he is, you know, really a confused person? Or... And he needs to?

[08:32]

Or, you know, do some people need to sit a lot? Or... How does that work? You know, why would Ed sit a lot and then you tell us we don't have to sit a lot? And... And he said, Ed sits a lot because he likes to. Which is about right, you know. Some of us have strange tastes. What can I say? Anyway... Where were we? Okay, so... I started out to tell you the difference, that there's this kind of difference between... You could actually get rid of greed, get rid of hate, get rid of delusion. And from a certain point of view, if you think you can do that, you know, you could, and if you actually could accomplish it, then you could become excessively proud. Then you would think, I don't have those things anymore. Then you might just be... deluding yourself.

[09:33]

Or maybe you actually got rid of those things. Until, you know, some circumstance where they showed up again. Anyway, we're not sure. Nowadays, there's many... There's many stories of, you know, monks who do 20, 30 years of meditation, then they come to America and suddenly, you know, at meditation retreats, there's women in tank tops and, you know, various things. And it's suddenly like all that training, like it just goes by the by. Because when they were doing all that training, there weren't women in tank tops and scanty clothes and things like that, you know. They were just meditating all by themselves. And, you know, with different men around or what have you. And then they got to some great advanced states and they were clear of a lot of these things until actually the circumstances showed up. So we don't know how this works exactly, but we're not aware of that.

[10:20]

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