I vow to taste the truth of the Sabbath's words. Good morning. It's my pleasure to introduce our speaker this morning, Peter Overton. He has been practicing for many, many years, probably over 30. He was ordained, he spent a good portion of his practice years at San Francisco's Ed Center. He was ordained, I believe, in 1977. And a lot of those years I was at San Francisco Gen Center, too, and he was kind of several steps ahead of me. He had his shoes sewn at my first public experience in 1983, which was also the eve of the apocalypse, so it was a critical time. And then moved back to Berkeley with his wife to raise his family. And since, you know, in the last few years, once his kids, I think, got older, we've had the benefit of Thank you.

[01:02]

It's always nice to be here, having fallen way behind in the meantime. Thank you. When it became clear I was going to give this talk a couple of weeks ago, I was a little nervous because I wasn't sure what I would talk about. And then, as usually happens, I find myself remembering how obsessed I am with the way we talk about our practice, the kind of language we use. And so the wheels started turning. And I've spoken about these kinds of things before. This time, To give you an example, there was a period a year or so ago when I decided that I would not use the P word. I would not speak it for a certain period of time, that is practice, because I wasn't sure what it meant or what any of us meant by it.

[02:12]

So I stopped using it for a little while and now I'm a little more comfortable with the term. But I'd just like to sort of jump in and go right to the jugular here and talk about emptiness. We all hear this word, particularly when we're here for service, we hear it at least seven times, or some variation thereof, every time we chant the Heart Sutra. There's a great deal of Buddhist teaching which is sort of meant to explain and elucidate this term, and we work on it ourselves quite a bit. But I think it's sometimes great just to kind of pull out these old things, you know, and kind of dust them off and throw them on the counter and beat them up a little bit and deconstruct them and then put them back in their place and see how they might, after that process, see what happens. So, now, the term that, the Sanskrit term shunyata is customarily translated as emptiness, and I think there's probably some good reasons for that.

[03:23]

Other people have often said, well, maybe it really means fullness. I think we have a problem with the word emptiness, and the problem has to do with its English connotations, which are very much in the way of evoking a nihilism or a sort of extreme skepticism or a sense of a great void. And so fullness is sometimes thought, well, maybe that's sort of an antidote to that. And in fact, I think each of them have their place. You know, fullness is a kind of, well, I'll come back to that in a minute. I guess there are a couple of different ways in which we look at these words. And one is to think of it in terms of how it is that emptiness is about, or the way we explain it to ourselves is it's about how things we think are different things don't really have some kind of independent existence and that they always arise with other things.

[04:35]

We are always, you know, A broom, for instance, makes no sense outside of a human body, to use it. So there's that kind of technical deconstruction of the term, elucidating the meaning that has to do with how things arise in relationship to each other, and how, as they arise in relationship to each other, They don't really stand apart from anything. The other side of it is a kind of evocative, poetic imagery that's sort of evocative of liberation, and that's where the idea of emptiness as a great void, or fullness as something, if you consider fullness in the sense that it's evocative of everything that you could think of as existing now,

[05:39]

in the past or in the future. All of that is present here. So there's nothing outside. So nothing has an independent existence because there's nothing outside of this moment. This is sort of the void and the sort of idea of fullness, emptiness is a great void, is sort of a reference to a kind of absolute reality. But in our practice, I think it's almost a little more engaging to consider emptiness as implied by the details of life and how they come up together. Just by paying attention to what's really going on and looking carefully at what's happening, you see that we don't really stand aside from what we're actually involved with. So in the Heart Sutra, it starts off with Avalokiteshvara perceiving that all five skandhas are empty was thus saved from suffering or something to that effect, and then it gets into form is not different from emptiness, and emptiness is not different from form,

[07:04]

and so on, and I sometimes think it might be good to mention some of these other neglected skandhas. The Heart Sutra is sort of, you know, if you say the whole thing, when you get through with form is emptiness, then you go on to form is feeling, form is not different from feeling, feeling is not different from form. And in fact, the, so the word form is really specifically referring to our sensory world, you know, connected with our organs, eye, ear, nose, tongue, your body, And the problem with the word form is that it kind of lacks connotation. Emptiness has the opposite problem, but form kind of like, well what is that? When you go on to consider the other skandhas, it gets a little more interesting. You could say feeling is not different from emptiness. Emptiness is not different from feeling. And that's kind of a little more juicy, but actually what's referred to as feeling is sort of your kind of base response to things, you know, I like it, I don't like it, or whatever.

[08:10]

But it may be that if you consider form is not different from consciousness, emptiness is not different from consciousness, consciousness is not different from emptiness, that's kind of interesting too. something to consider to sort of unpack the Heart Sutra a little bit when you think about it and not just kind of get stuck on the formulation, because the formulation actually refers to a whole lot of other things. It just gets really long when you do it all. So, form is not different from emptiness is the kind of shorthand that appears in the Heart Sutra, you know, referring to form as inseparable and not different from emptiness because it forms inherent contingency upon other phenomena and form and feeling, and it does not stand alone in its own right. So sometimes we think of form is not different from emptiness or form is emptiness as a kind of, you know,

[09:21]

presenting polar opposites and how they imply each other and therefore they don't really stand by themselves. And, you know, I think that's okay, but I think it kind of leads to a misunderstanding of emptiness that you sort of slide into the idea that emptiness becomes the opposite of form or It's like nothing is the opposite of something and you almost slide into the problem of emptiness becoming kind of a thing. The next thing is to maybe move on to a more intimate meaning that has to do with the relationship between that emptiness implies that something's always in relationship to something else.

[10:28]

Thich Nhat Hanh talks about this in various of his lectures and books and talks. He's quite eloquent. He says, look at some simple thing like your hand and consider where did this come from? Think of the things you're eating and where did they come from? We say when we chant, when we have formal meals in the Zenda, when we begin the meal, we chant, one of the things we chant is, innumerable labors brought us this food, and it's, you know, thinking of, to remember that the sun and the rain and the people working in some fields you don't know where, but some place, some particular place produced this food that somehow was processed to the point where we could buy other people and actually cooked in the kitchen over there and somehow it arrives here. There's just an endless chain and an endless chain of relationship between one thing and another.

[11:33]

So my oatmeal has no independent existence apart from me eating it, apart from it having been cooked and produced. It's easy to see this kind of thing in social relationships. The thing you think of as you is this sort of endless stream of thoughts and actions and both arising internally and externally. And we don't often stop to think, oh well, I'm here and this is over here, with probably good reason because the line between those things starts to become very arbitrary. I want to tell a story about Last weekend I went to the fundraising dinner for San Francisco's Inn Center.

[12:38]

It's held annually and they have it at Green's and it's kind of a wonderful party. If we could get that many people to come over here with that much money and have a good time, we'd have no problems fundraising. It's a great party, a reunion with old friends and so on. And Abbess Linda Ruth Cutts offered some remarks at some point introducing and honoring, well, there was a great many people who spoke, but she offered some remarks about to the assembled throng. She said, I'd just like to paraphrase it. She said, there is no such thing as the Berkeley Zen Center. It doesn't exist. She said this three times. And it was a wonderful thing to say in so much as that it only exists because of each one of us with our own kind of wild ideas of what the Berkeley Zen Center is and our deeply deluded emotional attachment to it, that somehow

[13:55]

We come here, and here it is. But it doesn't exist. There's no Berkeley Zen Center apart from the co-arising of all these people here today. So, congratulations. So many Zen Centers, and none existing. Anyway, her expression, it was a great thing to say at a fundraising dinner. It was right on point. And she was trying to make the point that the Dharma will not just go on without each one of us making some commitment to engage with it deeply. This creates kind of a problem though, I think, that the more successful we are at continuing the practice here and strengthening the practice here and enthusiastically taking care of things and engaging in the Dharma.

[15:03]

The longer that goes on, the more deeply deluded we become about the fact that there's a Zen center here. It's that good karma that kind of makes us think that Oh, it's really happening, because it's so intense and so good, and just, you know, I went to Telsahara, I went away for a while, and I came back and it was still here. So, but of course it could suddenly disappear too, so we should remember that. I'd like to go on by talking about a sort of proverbial expression, which I think is sort of fun to play with in the sort of deconstruction of emptiness, which is that expression, is the glass half-empty or half-full? Which, of course, is meant to indicate whether or not you're a pessimist or an optimist.

[16:07]

And our cultural bias, of course, is that the glass is half-full. Or if you say it's half-empty, there's something wrong with you. But perhaps it's better for the glass to be half-empty or completely empty, because then it could be full of emptiness. Of course, this is one of the kinds of things we do, is we think, if we could just fill ourselves up with emptiness, then things would work. Things would be better. But I guess what I'm going to suggest is that maybe the way to work with this is to go precisely in between half full and half empty. I guess, in some sense, disregarding this so-called problem or question that's been raised and to just take what we might call the middle way.

[17:11]

right in between, precisely, as they say in the song of the Juhl Nir Samadhi, hair's breadth deviation and you're out of tune, so precisely in between half empty and half full. As I was getting ready to leave Mel's office, Mel's office is just delightful. It's just a total mess. It's beyond. But everything is so interesting, you know. I was really inspired. There was a little poem he'd read, I guess, at Tassajara, the Parivarnana ceremony. I should have kyped it and brought it here, but I can't remember it. A little poem he'd read for that ceremony, Buddha's Parivarnana. You probably remember it, Richard. Don't remember it, oh well. At Tassajara, this was very nice.

[18:13]

Anyway, I was thinking about kind of a more basic point as to why we even talk about our practice, because it's so confusing. We lead ourselves so far astray. But in fact, because we talk, I guess, we have to find some way in between half-full and half-empty to talk about this. Suzuki Roshi had a number of expressions which I think are really great. They're a great expression of emptiness and they're famously the title of this latest book of lectures that he has published called, Not Always So. Sort of like Yes, but not always so. Sort of half there. Or another expression that he uses, not two, not one. Bekaroshi, when my wife Susan and I got married at Zen Center, in the ceremony he brought this up, not two, not one, as a way how to practice in marriage to not be too separate or too together.

[19:36]

again, precisely in between half empty and half full. I'm going to try and talk a little bit about this other piece of emptiness. Now, Thich Nhat Hanh also brings this up as this, you know, it's the sort of flip side, or not the flip side, but kind of an antidote to this depressing connotation of emptiness, which is that things being empty, whatever thing you think of, whether it's a big thing or a tiny, tiny little thing, it's the kind of, what we're trying to do here is to kind of like unstick from fixation.

[20:44]

And this view of things as just empty is this sort of, what he's trying to evoke is this sort of sense of freedom, of unhindered liberation. And like, I was just fixating on such and such, fixating on the war in Iraq or fixating on the argument I had with my son yesterday and thinking if you could turn that and say, oh, that doesn't really, you know, the way I think that is is not really the way it is. There's something, you know, I'm really stuck on that. Maybe that's just empty of that. And it's, oh, okay, there's this kind of, I can just go my way. I don't have to fixate on that. I can just go my way. As though that barrier boundary has just evaporated.

[21:55]

Maybe this brings up another question. Are there no boundaries? Are there no barriers? Can you just do what you want because everything's empty? And to that I respond, well, in understanding emptiness as the co-arising of everything around us, everything kind of, all that kind of holds us. It's not necessarily a barrier, but it kind of holds and supports us. So it's not as though this emptiness is just total freedom, but it's a freedom from sticking to the things that come with us, that come up with us. It's like a big party where we're all having fun. Dogen's

[23:03]

formulation or what he says in the Genjo Koan kind of illustrates this. To study Buddhism is to study to self. In other words, to study the way, to think about what we're doing, about actualizing our intention to practice, is to pay attention to the actual details of our life and to see how they arise. along with everything else, in relationship to everything else. To study the self is to forget the self, is to see that because everything is related like this, there's really no reason to fixate on anything in particular, that it's okay to let it all go. That's the kind of sense of freedom of, yeah, I can go my own way. To forget the self, is to be actualized by all things. Again, to let go of that is to be supported and actualized by everything around you in relationship to you.

[24:12]

And then to be actualized by many things. When doing so, your body and the bodies of everything else drop away. And this this actualization of freedom disappears completely and disappears endlessly. Forever. Disappearing forever. So, I think I've gone on far too long. And I would like to, because I've probably said one or two things that are sort of annoying and confusing, I would like to allow you to respond. Please. So, I've been trying to understand shunyata for a long time, and there's two sort of explanations of it we get, and I'm trying to reconcile them.

[25:23]

One of them is a sort of intellectual explanation of things like what you said about looking at your hand, a piece of paper, and being consciously aware of how that is dependent on so many other things. And that's a very scientific, material, factual kind of understanding, which makes a lot of logical sense to me. And I think, boy, if we could just maintain that thought throughout our lives, that would change a lot of the way we interact with the world. But then there's this whole other explanation which basically says it's beyond consciousness, it's beyond sort of rational thinking mind, and you can't grasp it. And those two sorts of emphases seem very different. Well, on the one hand, looking at your hand or a piece of paper, it's not really necessary to think about it. You just look. What is this? You don't have to think about it, and it takes you one step, two steps, three steps.

[26:28]

This is what Thich Nhat Hanh recommends as this meditation on unemptiness, is to look carefully, and without, not stopping thought, but without trying to figure it out, and seeing connection, this connection, that connection, and doing so, you find that it is inconceivable because it goes on forever. but miracles and accidents are what can actually be spoken of.

[27:38]

And so that's what we speak of. And I don't know, something about the way you were talking about that just made me remember that thought. Yes? I heard Kaz Tanahashi talk about, he translated emptiness as boundlessness. And he also talked about how we can't live in a world without boundaries. But what comes to mind when you talk I noticed when I meditate on boundlessness, the patterns in my mind break down, but human consciousness creates the forms, but it's also human consciousness that imagines the formlessness. So both are dependent on human consciousness. It is true that we think of things, but then there's a question is, can we really imagine boundlessness?

[28:45]

We imagine something, but it's almost as though in order to imagine it, it has to be formed. And so we can we can expect experience boundlessness by always going beyond that. Oh, I'm thinking of it this way, but that's not quite it. Oh, I'm thinking of it this way. So to study the self, to study the ways, to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self. In other words, to go beyond that. And in fact, Dogen's That piece of the Genjokan is a wonderful way in which he's taking even one more step, one more step, and you're thinking, oh my God, where is this going? Yes? Do you know Star Trek Deep Space Nine? No, I've not been there.

[29:47]

There's a character called Bodo, who's one of the founders. That's a good place. And then, you know, he just completely won with the fiery lake. Who wouldn't be? I'm sorry, he had something. The thing about looking at your hand and saying, what is this? Another Zen master with whom I've studied Sansanin says, what is this? And the answer is, don't know. Rather than, you know, it's blood, it's skin, it's this and that. So, I mean, I just wrote it down.

[30:47]

You say, what is this? But you don't have to come up with an answer. You can't. If you go through, if you look carefully, that's where you end up. I don't know. Linda? So, on the line of Berkeley Zen Center doesn't exist, would you say that Peter Overton doesn't exist? I have trouble believing it, but I think it's probably true. That it only exists, that my existence at the moment is inseparable from you. So what if what appeared to be me reached out and hurt what appeared to be you? Physically? Yeah. Any other way? So what? I mean, you don't exist. I don't exist.

[31:48]

That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. What is hurt? Yeah, what is hurt? It's not so hard to know what it is when it happens. It happens. And then something else happens. And you are, you know, it's perhaps a transforming event. But it ... It's still within the realm of self, me, you. But it sometimes feels like it's something else because it's so outside of our habits of mind, perhaps. I had a very unusual experience. A few years back, I was getting ready to go to the San Francisco Zen Center to give a lecture, and I was lying in bed.

[32:48]

My wife went out to the garden, Susan went out to the garden to do something, and she came in and said, Peter, I think the garage door is open, or something to that effect, or did somebody steal your bicycle? And I jumped out of bed in a nightshirt and ran out to the backyard and saw that somebody, in fact, had broken into the garage, stolen my bicycle. And whatever she said, it sounded like it had just happened, even while she was out in the yard. And I jumped into my car in my night shirt barefoot and drove around the neighborhood looking for my bicycle and ran into this guy or in a sense met him at the intersection of Ashby and Adeline where he was riding his bike down to the flea market spot to sell it. And I was like, okay, I want my bicycle. I am going to do, I wasn't even thinking, I was doing whatever necessary to bring that about.

[33:54]

Whatever necessary. Honk, honk, yelling, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Everybody going, huh? What's this guy doing out in the middle of the intersection in his car, you know? And so this gentleman on the bike sort of takes off in some other direction, which I couldn't drive. And then I drove, and I thought, I know where he's going. I go down to this other neighborhood. There he was again, you know, driving up and down the street. And it was like, who was this guy? Me. In this situation where I had impelled myself through my own karma to meet this person in my role as a person who had been stolen from. And I was going to respond. And it was like I was behaving in this completely untypical way. Completely.

[34:57]

And then some other untypical things happened. At some point there was this kind of shift. Like he knew I was out of my mind. And I knew that he could be violent if I pushed him too far. And he didn't really know what was going on. I didn't really know what was going on. But then we got the bike, we put it in the car, he got in the car, and I drove home. And I gave him some money, and I took him someplace, and then I went home with my bike. And it was kind of like we agreed. Suddenly there was an agreement. Okay, this is over. We're just going to do what we can to get out of this situation. And it just happened. Now the police were really infuriated with me. But it was like suddenly all of this, suddenly we were on completely opposite sides.

[36:09]

And I was aggrieved and furious and totally out of my mind. And then suddenly we were on the same side, and we were just going to get this done with and go on. So, I'm not quite sure how this relates to what you're bringing up, but when something extraordinary happens, you arise, the self that arises, arises in that situation. Whatever that self is, that's the self that arises. You know, if your children are driving you crazy, you sometimes lose it. That's the self that arises in a situation where, you know, causes and conditions, you aren't making boundaries, you aren't doing this and that and the other thing, they're walking all over you and suddenly, you know, everything falls apart. that self arises.

[37:11]

So, anyway, do you want to get into it? We're really running out of time, that was kind of long, but is there anybody else who has a question? Yes? I had this experience when I was five years old, and it was not intellectual, and it was stunning. I've never forgotten it. I can't do it now. Oh, yes you can. I haven't been able to so far. But I'd like to hear how. Hear how. Let's see. Well, listen. Carefully. Okay.

[38:15]

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