Good evening everyone. Welcome. So a week ago we started our two-month spring practice period, and during that time we're going to be talking about several stories from the Lotus Sutra, one of the, perhaps the most important Buddhist scripture in East Asia, that Dogen, founder of Sutra Zen, was also very fond of. So we're focusing on four stories. So for those, for those of you who are formally doing this practice period, I've asked that you focus on one of them, but for everybody who's here during these two months, we'll be talking about these stories and what they have to do with, or how they can be helpful in our practice. What I want to talk about tonight is the first of the four stories, or actually about skillful means of basic Buddhist teaching for bodhisattvas. So I want to talk about this from chapter two. There are

[01:07]

actually many parables later on in the Lotus Sutra. We're not focusing on them, but that have to do with this. But I thought I'd start with chapter two and talk some about what this teaching is about, and hopefully we'll have some time for discussion too. So I'll just, I'll start by just reading a little bit. In this chapter, Shariputra, one of the disciples, is questioning the Buddha, and the Buddha said, ever since I became a Buddha, I have used a variety of causal explanations and a variety of parables to teach and preach in countless skillful means to lead living beings, enabling them to give up their attachments. Why? Because the Tathagata, the Buddha, has attained full use of skillful means and practice of insight. So this teaching of

[02:12]

skillful means is important. Just to say a little bit about it generally, it's about how to present the teachings appropriately for different beings. So we talked about sameness and difference. The Buddha has one teaching in a sense, but how to present that to different beings with different spiritual needs in different contexts is one of the major skills of bodhisattvas. Just following along in this chapter, the Buddha then says, only among Buddhas can the true character of all things be fathomed. Before that he says, what the Buddha has achieved is most rare and difficult to understand. Only among Buddhas can the true character of all things be fathomed. This is because every existing thing has such characteristics, such a nature, such an embodiment, such power. So

[03:15]

this is the ten suchnesses that we talked about a little bit in connection with Dongshan and the practice of suchness last year. But this only among Buddhas can the true character of all things be fathomed is interesting in the translation to Chinese. In the original Sanskrit it says, only Buddhas can truly fathom the teaching. And Kumarajiva translated it as only Buddhas and Buddhas or only among Buddhas. And Dogen picked up on this, the founder of Soto Zen and talked about only a Buddha together with a Buddha. So this is about the way this teaching is kind of relational. So Dogen kind of interprets it in this way and turns it in this way and uses that as a model for Dharma transmission and how Buddhas connect with Buddhas. But part of this is

[04:17]

that there's a relationship involved in really meeting and accepting and expressing Buddha's teaching, that it's involved with Buddhas together with Buddhas. And this part of this sutra focuses on how unusual and rare are Buddhas. But as Bodhisattva practitioners, how we understand the teaching, how we meet the teaching together is really important and an important part of our practice and part of our practice and practice period too in terms of having Dharma companions formally and having discussions and how we find this basic Buddhist teaching together. So there's a lot of, this is the longest of the four chapters we're looking at, so I'm just going to pick out a few things. One aspect of this is that the Buddha talks

[05:23]

about there are various categories of Buddhist students or Buddhist practitioners and he talks about these different vehicles they're called. So the Sanskrit words are Shravaka and Pratyekabuddha and then there are Bodhisattvas. So not to get too technical, but Shravakas are those who listen to the teaching, who come and hear the Buddha speak. So we're all Shravakas. We're all, you know, we hear the teaching of the Buddha. Pratyekabuddhas are those who kind of on their own completely understand the wisdom of Buddha. They understand the twelvefold chain of causation, for example, and the way that awakening works. So they're in some sense completely awakened, but they are not part of this relationship of Buddhas and Buddhas. They are kind of more like

[06:25]

hermits and they're on their own and they don't pass this along so much. And then there's Bodhisattvas, which is what Zen is part of, the focus of universal liberation, universal awakening. That we're not trying to just, we're not doing our practice just as a kind of self-help tool to take care of ourselves. When Rebecca Solnit was here a couple of weeks ago, she talked about not being merely an individual, that how we can help relieve suffering in the world has to do with how we act together. How, and in society, how various movements of people acting together actually is what makes change. But in this teaching of skillful means, the Buddha is talking about these different qualities of different kinds of followers or students of the Buddha. So another

[07:32]

little section he says, the Buddha says, why does the world, oh no, this is actually one, this isn't the Buddha, this is one of the arhats, or these are the people who have perfected themselves that are not yet doing, or they're not aware they're doing Bodhisattva practice. And one of them asks the Buddha, why does the world honored one speak so enthusiastically about skillful means? Why does he say that the Buddha's dharma is so profound and so difficult to comprehend? And that what he says is so difficult that not even Sravakas and Pratyekabuddhas can understand it. And yet at the same time, he said that there's only one principle of liberation, so that we too with this dharma will attain nirvana. So part of this, maybe I'll skip ahead to this part about the one vehicle. There's a long, this chapter has long dialogues between various students of the Buddha and the Buddha. But at some point, Sariputra keeps asking the Buddha,

[08:37]

will you please expound skillful means to us? Will you tell us what this teaching is about? And the Buddha keeps saying, no, I really don't want to say that, I don't want to talk about this now. But then finally he says to Sariputra, since you have now earnestly repeated your request three times, how can I refuse you? So this is a traditional thing, I think, in the West too, if you ask for something sincerely three times, but then the person has to respond. So the Buddha says, listen, now listen carefully, ponder over what I will say and remember it, for I will explain it to you, explain it to you for you clearly. And when he said this, and this is, you know, one of the many controversial aspects of this sutra, when he said this, immediately some 5,000 monks and nuns, laymen and laywomen, got up and bowing to the Buddha, left the meeting. Why? Because their roots of sin, in this translation, were so deep and they were so utterly arrogant that they imagined themselves to have already attained and borne witness to what they had not

[09:40]

actually attained, having such faults they could not stay, and the world honored one kept silent and did not stop them. This is interesting. So, you know, just to hear that there were people who walked out on the Buddha even, you know, so not everybody is ready to actually appreciate the practice and teaching of awakening, and people have different approaches to it. So this is, this is interesting, and the Buddha just let them go. He described them kind of negatively and said they should just go. He said they were arrogant, partly because they thought they knew it all already. So we talk in our tradition about beginner's mind, and all of us, you know, as practitioners, it's important to know that we don't know lots of things, and to be open to

[10:42]

hearing more teaching, or more awareness, or to learn from our experiences in the world, and from our difficulties in the world. So that's part of skillful means, is to be open to new possibilities. So as bodhisattvas responding from skillful means, as a practice, this is one of the practices of bodhisattvas, we have to be open to seeing that we don't really know sometimes how to respond in difficulties, and yet, if we're paying attention, sometimes we can see some new way to respond that we hadn't imagined before. So this is an important teaching. So the Buddha says to Sariputra, the meaning of the Dharma that the Buddhas preach, as appropriate to the occasion, is difficult to understand. Because we use a variety of skillful means, causal explanations,

[11:45]

and parables to teach, this Dharma cannot be well understood through calculation or analysis. So this, the Dharma, the teaching of reality, is not something that we can, you know, figure out, calculate, or analyze alone. There's something deeper than that. And then there's this very, one of the key teachings in the Lotus Sutra, he says, it is for this great cause alone that Buddhas, world-honored ones, appear in the world. What do I mean by saying it is for this one great cause, the single great cause alone that Buddhas, world-honored ones, appear in the world? The Buddhas, the world-honored ones, appear in the world because they want living beings to open away to the Buddha's insight, and thus become purified. They appear in the world because they want to demonstrate the Buddha's insight to living beings. They appear in the world because

[12:47]

they want living beings to apprehend things with the Buddha's insight, with awakened insight. They appear in the world because they want living beings to enter into the way of the Buddha's insight. This alone is the one great cause, shariputra, for which Buddhas appear in the world. And then he says, the Tathagatas teach the Dharma for the sake of living beings only by means of the one Buddha vehicle. They have no other vehicles. So and in some of the parables that happen late in other chapters, this gets developed. But this idea of the one Buddha vehicle, the one great vehicle, and how this relates to skillful means is important. But first, just that there's a single reason for Buddhas appearing in the world, and this is to help beings into awakening, help all beings into awakening. And so skillful means is to see the different needs of different beings.

[13:52]

So one of our precepts is to benefit all beings. This is a very inclusive teaching. Awakening is something that's available to everyone. So, as I've said, we don't build walls to keep certain people out. We face the wall as kind of mirrors and windows to see how we are connected to all beings. But the Buddha appears in the world for, simply for this one great cause, to help beings into awakening. And we could say to relieve the suffering of beings in the world. Otherwise, there'd be no need for Buddhas. They wouldn't show up. So our practice is about how do we help everyone to see this possibility of kindness and insight

[14:55]

of awakening. This is the only reason for Buddhas to show up in the world. So, this is maybe the most important teaching about skillful means. And, you know, part of this is that all of the, and this becomes clearer as the Lotus Sutra proceeds, that all, that there are many, there are these other different vehicles, there's other different ways of meeting the teaching through listening, through self-awakening. But all of them ultimately are part of this one great vehicle, that all of the different kinds of teachings and practices that help different kinds of beings to awaken are part of this single great cause. So this idea of skillful means can be understood in a variety of ways.

[16:06]

Sometimes it's, there's a basic part of it that feels to me very inclusive, that all beings are part of this. And later on in the sutra, Buddha says very explicitly that anybody who, you know, appreciates one line of the sutra will eventually be a Buddha. And so it's this very inclusive sense. But there's a kind of issue historically with the skillful means teaching. Before I get to that, though, I want to just read a little bit of the verse closing. So this is a long chapter, but, and a lot of the Mahayana Sutras, Bodhisattva Sutras have long verse sections that kind of repeat what is said in the prose. But I just want to read a little bit of this just because, you know, just as poetry.

[17:13]

This dharma of mine is of nine kinds. This is the Buddha speaking. I adapt it to living beings when I teach them, keeping entry into the great vehicle as the basic aim. That's why I teach this sutra. So again, how to enter into this great vehicle of Bodhisattvas. There are children of the Buddha who are pure hearted, who are gentle and bright, who in the presence of countless Buddhas have taken the profound and wonderful way. For such children of the Buddha, I teach this great vehicle sutra. I assure such people that in the future they will fulfill the Buddha way. With their profound awareness of the Buddha and because they practice and observe the purifying precepts, they are assured of becoming Buddhas. Then their whole bodies are filled with great joy. Knowing their hearts and minds and their conduct, the Buddha teaches them the great vehicle. If a Shravaka or a Bodhisattva hears the dharma I preach, even a single verse of it, without doubt they will all become Buddhas. And all the Buddha lands in the ten directions.

[18:16]

This is the only dharma, this is only the dharma of one vehicle, not a second or a third. Except what the Buddhas teach by skillful means. Merely using provisional expressions, the Buddha has drawn living beings to himself in order to teach them the wisdom of the Buddha. Buddhas appear in this world for this one reason alone, the real reason. So, you know, part of this, we can look at it historically or practically or in terms of the range of Buddha's teachings. One aspect of this is that, well, I guess Jesus was alive and teaching for three years. The Buddha taught for 40, 45 years. So there's many, many, many different scriptures and many teachings and many different versions of what it was the Buddha taught. And we don't really know, we don't have the videotapes to prove what he said. So part of this idea of skillful means is a way of understanding that there are various

[19:25]

different teachings, the Four Noble Truths, all of these wild and strange Mahayana Sutras, the early Pali Suttas, and different practices too. So Zen is one form of Bodhisattva practice. There are other practices where they chant or do devotional practices or do mantras or anyway, there's a range of practices. And the point is that for all the different beings, they can be, these different practices can be helpful. So let's say a little bit more about this and then have some discussion. Again, no single technique addresses the whole variety of individuals and their various obstacles

[20:28]

to healing and liberation. So an essential part of the spiritual work in Buddhism is the project of understanding how to assess and use the variety of approaches, the diversity of teachings and their interpretations. So this is part of Buddhist training is how to recognize the different teachings. And for each of us at different times, different teachings or different expressions may be helpful. So how do we include all of these? How do we see that all the skillful means are ultimately cooperating in this one vehicle aimed at universal liberation, allowing for the possibility, and this allows for the possibility of a non-competing cooperative approach to interpreting the teachings and the diverse viewpoints that can be seen as compatible and even mutually informing. So I often mention other various kinds of practices that we can do in Zazen that might be helpful at different times.

[21:28]

And again, the sole cause for a Buddha's appearing in the world is to help all the diverse suffering beings enter into, open up, disclose and fully realize this awakening. But historically and also in terms of different schools, this has been controversial. Sometimes in some of the different stories in the Lotus Sutra, we have this kind of inclusive feeling like one of the stories is about the universal Dharma rain that falls on everything and different plants are nourished in different ways and grow in their own way. There are more hierarchical ways of approaching and more kind of manipulative ways in some of the stories of approaching skillful means. So it's a kind of controversial teaching. In some cases, there are stories where the person who represents the Buddha in that story

[22:36]

is kind of not exactly lying but telling something that isn't ultimately true for the sake of helping those beings. So it's a tricky teaching. Sometimes it's been translated as expedient means or expedient techniques to help different beings. But I wanted to read something from a very fine American Buddhist scholar, William Lafleur, who passed away a few years ago. But he talked about skillful means as different modes. And that's a kind of more inclusive way of talking about it. And he talked about this also very much in terms of how this Lotus Sutra teaching influenced Japanese culture and Japanese literature. There's a wonderful book he did called The Karma of Words.

[23:37]

I'm just going to read a little bit from that. He says, The Lotus Sutra is unequivocal on this point. Quote, So you'll notice this as you start your reading of this. And we'll talk about this more in terms of the next story, that the Lotus Sutra is always talking about the Lotus Sutra and talking about how good it is to memorize or recite or dig the Lotus Sutra. This also implies that within the sutra there is an unmistakable philosophical move opposite to that in Plato's Republic, a move to affirm the complete reality of the world of concrete phenomena

[24:40]

in spite of the fact that they are impermanent. This is particularly important in Japanese culture where there's this appreciation for impermanence and change. And so a lot of the stories in the Lotus Sutra aren't about something else. And Dogen does this too in the way he talks about. So I'll be talking more about this. But that talking about the phenomenal world is to profoundly appreciate and uphold the empirical reality of the phenomenal world. So this liberation is not about reaching some other transcendent space. It's about really appreciating, well, the sameness right in the differences, that right within the differences of the different kinds of teachings and skillful means

[25:43]

there is this basic truth. So maybe there's not time to really go into this. Well, I'll say a little more. The self-referential or self-reflexive aspect of the sutra demonstrates the non-separation of its liberation, liberative goals from the Buddha's skillful modes. Given the non-duality of the purpose and context of the Lotus Sutra as a text that itself represents and enacts veneration of the world's liberative potential, the very sutra can become an object of veneration. That happens in Nichiren Buddhism where they chant Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, some of you may know, homage to the Lotus Sutra itself. Dogen's use of the Lotus Sutra style of self-referential discourse is directed at affirming the non-dualism of means and ends,

[26:44]

that the concrete realm of particulars is the arena of non-dual practice realization. So the point of this is that these skillful modes in and of themselves are expressions of this universal liberation. So there's a lot more to say about this. Sorry if that last part was confusing, but maybe I'll stop at this point and entertain your comments or questions. Maybe I can say more. So questions or thoughts about this whole idea of skillful modes, to use a little more fluid translation. Yes, David. I was struck by this dream for the first time. Yesterday I was in a wheelchair, and I heard the neons go off,

[27:49]

and I was sitting in the hallway, and I heard a man say, somebody was supposed to be up there, and he told me, you know what, there's 5,000 monks left, and he's going to say, this is for everybody. He's a Christian, and I was like, taken aback by that, at the beginning, because I'm saying, not much of the other, one of the skillful means, what the people who so wrap up in their own concept, to what we preach to the other, this is for the better, what we preach to the other is for the better. This is all about one thing that everybody can attend. Yes. So that's a question that comes up for many people on this, but one way to understand this, is that those people weren't ready to hear about skillful means, and about the one great vehicle, but he let them go, and at some point, they may be ready to come back,

[28:54]

and hear more of the teaching, and he says later on in the sutra, that all beings can awaken to this. There's one of the parables, so there are numbers of different parables, about skillful means. One of them is, the Buddha is like a caravan guide, and he's got a group of merchants, that he's guiding across a desert area, and they get tired, and worn out, and they want to turn back, and then suddenly they see this great, he calls it a fantastic, magical city that he's conjured, and it's kind of an oasis, and they get there, and they're very happy, and they get relieved, and at some point he says to them, and that's a metaphor for the nirvana of the arhat vehicle, he says, actually you've only gone part of the way, we still have more to go, but now that you're refreshed, let's move forward. So that's one kind of example of skillful means,

[29:58]

how to give people something that allows them to appreciate where they are on the path, and then maybe they'll be ready to go further. So there are lots of, part of the point of this though, is that there are lots of seemingly very different ways of expressing all this, lots of different kinds of stories about skillful means, and the point is ultimately that all of them are part of the one great vehicle, and eventually even those who walked out will come back and appreciate it. So it happens that people come to practice and really appreciate it, and then their life takes them into other areas, and they may not be engaged in this practice overtly for a while, and then they may come back, and this has happened for people here tonight.

[30:59]

So each one of us has our own particular way of finding our own inner spiritual caring, and part of this is to honor that diversity. So the difference isn't the sameness. There's a basic sameness to the one vehicle, and yet there are all these different ways. Each of us has our own particular way of expressing that. I don't know if that helps. Ken, I saw a question there. Okay. Is it useful to know more about the cultural background and the point of evolution of Buddhism at the time that Buddhism was written and where it was written, that type of thing? Yeah, that's a really good question, and it's a very relevant question

[32:02]

because, of course, we're talking about, and it's a question for us as Americans, as people in the Midwest who, here we are coming to this ancient practice that goes back to India. The truth is we don't know so much with certainty historically about the context in India when the Lotus Sutra was written, and actually the Lotus Sutra was written maybe over some centuries. Ostensibly, it's the words of the Buddha that were remembered and then written down, but from the point of view of historical scholars, there's different time periods. Some of the sutra is clearly before other parts of the sutra that it was compiled. And there are different theories. So the whole origin of the Bodhisattva idea in India, we can say more about how it was received in China and in Japan and what that culture was. So I was just talking about Japanese culture receiving this and being very much influenced by it

[33:04]

partly because of their aesthetics and appreciation of impermanence. In India, there's a lot of scholars now studying the beginning of the Bodhisattva idea in India and then how that came into China. And there are different theories about this, and that's sort of changing. But in terms of how scholars are understanding it, it has been said that the Mahayana, the Bodhisattva idea was developed more by lay people who were not involved in the monastic practice and wanted it to be more available. So like we are practicing as lay people, not in a residential context. In some ways, the Bodhisattva idea is very appropriate for us. How do we each in our own different way express helpfulness in the world? I mean, that's what it comes down to, and that's what's happening, and that's what each of you is doing in your own way. But historically now, it seems like actually

[34:08]

it was monks in some of the monasteries who probably were compiling the first Mahayana, Bodhisattva texts, rather than lay people. So there's a lot of... We don't know so much with certainty, but there's a lot of interesting speculation about it. And then there's also the issue of how these teachings traveled to China from India, across the Silk Road, actually through Afghanistan and across north of what's now Tibet. And also some came through southern Asia. And then how... So your question is right. How do different cultures and different times receive and understand and in some ways maybe even transform how this teaching is understood?

[35:09]

And that's something that we're doing here right now as we try and understand it. What came to mind was that the Hindus have different spiritual strategies, devotional yoga and... Good. ...selfless service, things like that. These are like, to my mind, strategies. Yes. But this sounds more tactical. For... Yeah, no, that's a good point. So, yeah, actually this, you know, and Buddhism did come out of Hinduism the way Christianity came out of Judaism. And, yeah, in Indian culture, there are devotional approaches, there are meditative approaches, there are wisdom approaches. And I think part of what this skillful means teaching is saying is that all of these can be part of how to help develop universal liberation. How do we help relieve the suffering

[36:11]

of all the different beings, not just some, you know, and not building walls to keep some people out, but really this inclusive sense. But, you know, part of what happened historically is some of the schools of East Asian Buddhism, for example, included many different teachings, but then they would say their teaching was the best. So it gets hierarchical. So it's, you know, it's not neat and clean. It's a little messy. And we have to actually understand what's the usefulness of skillful means for us. And I think in a world, in our world, where there's, you know, interfaith activity in many different religions and so much of the problems of our world have to do with fundamentalist understandings of different traditions and then having wars over that, you know, to have this as a model of a... How do we include different spiritual approaches

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with respectfulness?

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