I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Well, it's been a long time. And especially for me, I'm concurrently giving a class in Green Culture, where we're on the end of the book. I'm jumping all over the mixed up between one class and another and so forth. But I think that we had talked about the first 8 stages of the 10 stages, and we're going to wind up tonight with the 9th and 10th stages, which begin on page 89 and go to the end of the materials that you have. Before we get into those stages in this particular week's reading, I wanted to make a few general points about Sukhant, sort of winding up this session.

[01:20]

winding up three years of reading the sutra we finished last week at Green Gulch for Tuesday. So it makes me want to reflect on the whole experience and on the sutra itself. Maybe I've said some of this at the beginning, I can't remember. So the Avatamsaka Sutra, I think, in this ten stages here and throughout the whole sutra, is proposing a kind of vision of what a human being is. That's pretty different from the common sense, the ordinary view of what it means to be human. The difference lies in the fact that the world of the Avatamsaka Sutra pushes at the edge of structures of human thought and goes beyond them, so that it opens up possibilities for human beings far beyond anything that we can imagine in our usual mode of thought.

[02:56]

So, in terms of the Avatamsaka Sutra, what a human being is, what human potential is, is the potential to be a Bodhisattva on this ten-stage track. This is, although it's described, you know, cosmically in the heavens and so on, it's celestial, almost, superhuman beings, it's clearly about ourselves, about what we are capable of, and about who we can and should aspire to be. So, it's one philosophical debate throughout all cultures and all times. Are human beings inherently good, or are they inherently bad? Are human beings going to act naturally in accord with reality, or is there a natural bent to make trouble for each other and the whole world?

[04:02]

In Chinese philosophy, some philosophers say one way and some another way. Christianity has its commentary on that, and the Greeks commented on that, and so on and so forth. The Avatamska Sutra has a very interesting viewpoint on this, I would say. It seems to be saying that the human potential, not only potential, but actual track record for bad karma is infinite. The humans are infinitely capable of and have already in the past created infinite evil actions. There's almost no end to the confusion and delusion that human beings have perpetrated over and over again. The sutra talks about this. So you might say, well, the sutra says that human beings are inherently evil, or inherently sinners, or whatever, inherently creating bad karma.

[05:07]

But at the same time, by the logic of the sutra, it talks about the bodhisattvas who are also human beings, another side of ourselves as having this equally infinite aspiration to enlighten all beings and turn all that karma around. In the Bodhisattva, this desire to do that and to practice forever until this task is accomplished seems to be one of the key qualities of the Bodhisattvas. It seems to be from the very beginning of this ten-stage path, if you call it the path of joy, the stage of joy, that's what awakens the Bodhisattva to the teaching, is this tremendous welling of desire to help beings to purify themselves. So, if you read this sutra, I think you have the capacity for and you see the vision of an infinite pessimism and an infinite optimism at the same time.

[06:12]

Because you have a very realistic view that there has already been so much karma gone by for evil that we can expect tremendous bad wouldn't be surprised at all to see that there would be all kinds of nasty things occurring. So the total breakdown of human society would not appear as any kind of surprise at all to us. But we would say, of course, naturally this would happen because look what's already been done. We all have to look at ourselves to see the tremendous amount of confusion that there is in this world. So it's very natural that this would happen. But at the same time, this is not at all a problem or a source of anguish for the Bodhisattva, because the Bodhisattva, anticipating that and knowing that that's the case, puts forth this equally powerful and infinite desire

[07:17]

that will go on, you know, the scope of the Sutra, you know, beyond different world systems and eons of time and the burn-up of different galaxies and so on, to continue to make this kind of effort until eventually the beings are all purified and enlightened. So, I find this to be an incredible thing, you know, really. It's quite incredible, because one of the things about religion that can be very blinding, I think, is to get involved in the effort to be good, to see good, and therefore to avoid and not notice all the nastiness that goes on in oneself and all around. So to be able to, at the same time, acknowledge and look at that nastiness without getting discouraged by it, and at the same time have a powerful motivation to work that out, To hold both of these ideas in your mind at the same time, I think, is a very powerful, accurate view of the human condition.

[08:27]

I suppose that that is probably the number one and most powerful insight that this sutra gives us, if you read between the lines and think about it. Second, oh, maybe this is a very timely kind of idea, because I was thinking, you know, now it's this holiday time, and Christmas time, and so on. And, you know, what is a bodhisattva, actually? What is the commitment of a bodhisattva, if not the commitment to be a savior? Bodhisattvas are inherently, that's the whole point, right? A bodhisattvahood. is that one undertakes the commitment of being a saviour, dedicating the effort of one's practice for other beings, saying, I want to help other beings and I see that the best way to help other beings is to become awakened so that I can teach them this way of awakening.

[09:30]

So therefore I work on my own practice, not because I'm miserable and I want to improve my lot, but because I see that working on my own practice is the number one way of serving beings. So this need and desire to serve beings and the need and desire to awaken oneself become all completely wrapped up in each other. So bodhisattvas are the great saviors, selfless beings. And as we see, as the sutra progresses, at first there seems to be a distinction between buddhas and bodhisattvas. The earliest distinction, as you know, was that bodhisattvas were like buddhas in training. Then they became buddhas and then they left off being bodhisattvas. And little by little, in the course of the development of the Mahayana, we see a kind of reversal until it almost, in this sutra, I don't forget if we specifically pointed it out, but there are places where it's sort of purposely fuzzy.

[10:33]

You know, who's a Buddha and who's a Bodhisattva? They're almost kind of interchangeable. And in these last couple of stages, it says, you know, by the tenth stage, that the tenth stage Bodhisattva is basically, is a Buddha. So it becomes clear here that the Buddhas are just aspects of the Bodhisattvas. The Bodhisattvas are aspects of the Buddhas. So this imperative to be a saviour, not to pass away from this plane of existence so that one can continue to help other beings, is really powerful in this sutra. And that reminds me a lot of the figure of Christ. This time of year, in this whole spirit of Christmas, we can easily take over and say, this is a wonderful Buddhist expression of how Bodhisattva practice is what it's all about. The celebration of the birth of this saviour is the bodhisattva.

[11:38]

All beings who have that potential, all beings have that spirit. So that's how I talk myself into Christmas. I always did like it, actually. Partly because I didn't have to celebrate it myself. So I'd go to my friends' houses and see all the good part of it. I know a lot of my Christian friends always complain about how terrible it is and how depressing and difficult and so on. I never experienced that. I've always had positive feelings about it. Anyway, the second point I wanted to make is that this viewpoint that I'm talking about, this sort of transpersonal or translogical viewpoint that the sutra emphasizes over and over again. When I was thinking about this, somehow in my mind I began to realize how much it has to do with, how much our appreciation of that viewpoint has to do with a personal

[12:53]

understanding of and exploration of death, oddly enough, it's completely mixed in together, where you have a situation in which death is seen as the end of human life and as a personal, individual ending, and therefore we don't think about it or deal with it at all because what's there to do with it? I think this goes along with a more of a linear, conventional view of what's possible as a human being, because in a short period of time, naturally, you think about how to maximize one's pleasure or happiness in a limited sense. But if you see death as not as an end to a personal existence, but not an end to one's true existence, and you begin to take that into your life and explore that as part of your life, I think this whole kind of logic of this really opens up.

[14:06]

There are sections in the sutra that talk about, over and over again, as I said, it's based on mind only or Yogacara philosophy, philosophy that talks about consciousness and the universe as being one thing, not consciousness over here and outside objects over there, but consciousness and outside objects being a unity. And in speaking about this, they often say that being and non-being are not opposites. Being and non-being are not two different realms. So, life and death are not really two different realms. Our present life, since it is in time, and again, there are whole sections of the Sutra that will go into discussions about time itself, our present life now, because it's in time,

[15:14]

is also implicated in non-being. There is nothingness and endlessness in time. It's just that we have a concept of time, it's very linear and straightforward, and we don't think about it that way. But actually, if one were to analyze experience and time, logically and experientially, one would see that our usual kind of viewpoint of time doesn't really add up. It's just a conventional viewpoint. So, being and non-being are not different. So, death is not fundamentally different from life. The time passing now is not so different from the time that passes when one passes. And if you think about it, if you know someone who is now deceased, well, tomorrow you won't see them.

[16:17]

But yet, when they were alive, there was a tomorrow in which you didn't see them, except you didn't think about it, because you thought, well, I'll see them the next day. It's only because you think now you'll never see them anymore, that it seems like a difference. So when you think about these things, you see that it's very strange. The usual story that we have about all of this doesn't quite match the strangeness of what it is to be born and to die. It's a very strange thing. We can't really begin to figure it out. So I observe that there's a big more and more there's more consciousness now of the dying process and all that, more study about it and awareness of it, and it seems to go hand-in-hand with the kind of attitude of Bodhisattva-like attitude in the world at large, in our society at large. So that's kind of interesting. Well, I had other things, but that's enough for now.

[17:24]

Let's go to the text. Anybody have any questions about what I said or about Okay, so the ninth stage, yeah. I have to find it, so go ahead. So the ninth stage is called Good Mind. I'm on page 89 here, that's where it begins. Good Mind. So here, at this stage, Remember now that the stages are this progression from initially having the thought of awakening all beings and the joy of undertaking the teaching for that reason, moving up through worshipping the Buddhas and requesting teaching and making offerings and all that, moving up to going through a whole lot of practices and learning how to focus the mind, work with the mind,

[18:33]

and achieving real insight and so on. And then they move, in these last two stages, into tremendous effort being focused on understanding beings and being able to have the skills that it takes to help them. So here, in the beginning of the ninth stage, it talks about all the different ways that the Bodhisattva, in the good mind stage, can see through and understand the problems of sentient beings. So they accurately know the performance of good, bad, and neutral things, the performance of mundane and transmundane things, the performance of conceivable and inconceivable things, and so on. In other words, they know when they see a being's actions, they understand, oh, these are wholesome actions that people are doing, these are not wholesome actions. And they know how beings get into entanglements, how they come to do impure and unwholesome actions.

[19:34]

They see how they got that way. So that there's no more condemnation. Bodhisattvas in the United States could never condemn anybody, because they can see how they got that way. They can see the causes and conditions that created the confusion that leads people to do these kind of activities. So they understand, it goes on, the compartmentalization of mind, They know their concepts and how those concepts lead them into their entanglements. This speaks to what I mentioned earlier about the infinite badness and terrible karma of human beings. They accurately know how far-reaching their afflictions, their sins are, how endless they are. The characteristics of the good and the characteristics of the bad are neutral of all karma. They know the weakness, mediocrity and strength of the faculties. They know the weakness, mediocrity and strength of their intentions.

[20:36]

They know the weakness, mediocrity and strength of their dispositions and so on, of their willpower, of their propensities. They know all the different kinds of births that there are. in the different six realms by different methods. They also know whether their bad habits are active, and so on. All these things they can see for all beings. So when they look at ascension being, so much of what we see in another person is conditioned by our own point of view. Basically, when we see another person, we think, more or less, do they like us or not? That's the most important thing. If they like us, they're pretty good. If they don't like us, there's really something wrong with them. Then we get mad at them, and we start saying, well, yeah, I never did like that person, and so on and so forth. But they don't see that. I mean, imagine what it would be like to have absolutely no personal stake in the negative sense when we face another person, but to be able to see that person deeply without the blinders of our egotism, and to be able to understand how they got to be the way they are, what their habits are, what they can do and what they can't do, and what are the conditions and causes of their life, and to feel a positive feeling of wanting to help them

[22:02]

but doing so only appropriately because we could see how they were. In other words, you could be a goody-goody and help everybody across the street and so on, but if you really see that they don't want you to help them across the street and they'll take that as a kind of a patronizing thing, then you don't do that. So you act appropriately when you understand the different propensities of things. This is how they see people. So it's a wonderful possibility here. Can I ask a question? where we're on page 90, of the disjunction or continuity past to future. Where's that on page 90? Bottom paragraph. It's... Last paragraph, oh yeah. It's not... Well, it comes several times. It comes... Yeah, it's part of the formula. It appears in every paragraph.

[23:03]

Their disjunction or continuity pass to future, their superiority, mediocrity, and inferiority, their inextricable coexistence with afflictions, whether or not they are vehicles of liberation. Well, either karma has, how can I explain, there can be a, you can do a bad action now and you can have immediate consequences of that, or not, because there's different, karma, the philosophy in other Abhidharma texts. And it allows for the fact that there are some kinds of actions that bear immediate fruit, and there are other kinds of actions that bear fruit only after a long time.

[24:08]

That's how they explain how nasty people give good things. And they say, oh, so how come, if karma is real, how come this guy who's done so many nasty things, why doesn't he fall down and break his neck? How come he's very wealthy and happy, seemingly, while this other person, who is so good and so wonderful and practices so many good practices, gets diseases and so on. Why is that? Well, that's because, they explain, that's because the karma that this person is creating now won't come to fruit until a future lifetime for that person. So there's disjunctions. in karma. So the bodhisattvas can see this, they can understand how the activities being created now will manifest in the future, and they can understand, in looking at beings now, how past activities are manifesting in them now or not. So I think that's what it means, although I'm not really sure.

[25:12]

This formula gets applied to faculties, intentions, dispositions and wills? Yeah. Are those the four-somethings? I don't notice, I don't see that kind of list in this case. I think they're just sort of... That's what they are, the four-somethings. Four-somethings, yeah. No, I think it's just sort of a kind of, everything they could think of, you know, about how a being's propensities and... Probably, maybe there's 10 of them, aren't there? They usually try to make 10. Well, no, it doesn't, it doesn't, it isn't in the formula for all 10. Pardon me? It isn't in the formula for all 10. No, it's not for all 10, no. Well, as long as we're talking about numbers. Now we're on to, what is it, 84,000 aspects of faculties. And before, we were always in powers of tens. Yeah.

[26:12]

Does this have something to do with our Abhidharma, because it refers to the aspects of faculties and of intent? Not that I know of. 84,000 is a... It's a different number. Yeah, it's a typical... I mean, it's a number that 108,000... 108,000... 84,000... Myriads, you know, powers of ten are numbers that you find in the sutras. I really don't know why, what the significance of it is. Why they don't use powers of ten here, I really don't know. As long as we're in questions, I don't understand what stabilization means at the bottom of page 91. We have the weaknesses and all this. I sort of got an idea of what I imagined it to be, but I think it was just imagining.

[27:17]

Well, what I took that to be was a kind of concentration. A degree of concentration which is always present in the mind. So that if you were practicing, say, the five faculties without any stability in the mind, then you would be distracted all the time from them. So there has to be a degree of stabilization with any kind of practice. That's what I understood. I could see stabilization of correct views, but correct and incorrect stabilizations of groups of people? The only thing that comes to me is the degree of concentration and firmness behind a particular practice. I guess groups of people means that they can size up a community. They can size up a nation.

[28:20]

Because every nation has a culture and a sort of approach to reality. So they can see, they can sort of size up, you know, the American character. They can see where certain elements of our approach to reality are definitely weakening us as practitioners. And which is, you know, you can think about that too and come up with a lot of sort of basic things in the American ethic, for example, that are incorrect stabilizations, that we're stabilized behind that may not be actually fruitful for our practice. And because of that incorrect stabilization, we're unable to, it's harder for us to, you know, certainly a Japanese person says that. Japanese Buddhists and all these Americans, you know, they have different viewpoints about what our incorrect stabilizations are that prevent us from really understanding the Dharma and that kind of thing.

[29:22]

So that's how I Understood that but I hope I told you in the beginning that I'm not an expert I'm just reading it enjoying it and trying to think what it seems to mean to me. If the sutra is 2,000 pages long, you can imagine I'm also not reading a commentary on every word. In fact, there isn't one that I know of in English. Master Hua, I think, did talk about the sutra, but I only have 20 or so of those volumes. I don't know how many there actually are. It's probably about 200. Probably. It's just that it's not that These are the things that I understand least, but they're the things that caught my eyes. Yeah, but that's a good question. I hadn't thought about it as much as I am now, now that you bring it up. So anyway, that's what I think it means. I think the basic point of this whole section is, as I said in the beginning, this is all to say that they really can tell where people are at very deeply.

[30:32]

and so that they know what to do. In this stage, they're developing their powers to be able to do something about beings. I just wanted to say, in terms of what you were talking about in the beginning, about whether it's sort of a pessimistic or optimistic view of human nature, I thought it was interesting This is the sprouting of future becoming from the field of action, the moisture of craving, the darkness of ignorance, and the seeds of consciousness. In fact, the very condition that there is of ignorance is the perfect ground for consciousness coming into being. There are those seeds, and in fact the ignorance and craving create the Yeah, although I'm not sure that in that particular passage, I think it's more of a negative, because it's talking about becoming and consciousness, which we might see as positive things.

[31:35]

These are links in the 12-fold chain of causation, which is kind of the wheel of becoming to which we're chained, and which causes us endlessly to create more ignorance and confusion. So I think, although what you say is actually true, because there isn't any other thing besides ignorance. So it is actually so, but in that particular list, they're talking about ignorance in a negative sense, not a positive sense. Then it goes on, after it goes through all that, it then talks about the four special knowledges of enlightened beings, which basically come down to abilities, tremendous intellectual and forensic abilities that enlightened beings have at this stage, to be able to understand and explain teachings for the benefit of beings.

[32:37]

So these four special knowledges are also called four intellectual powers, and they have to do with understanding how things work and being able to translate the principles by which things operate into the correct terminology and the correct expressions. So knowledge of principles, knowledge of meanings, knowledge of expression and knowledge of elocution. These beings have tremendous, they're great public speakers. Their voices are very well modulated and pleasing. So that's the second thing. They see how beings are, and they can explain and speak. And the last thing they can do is they have command over the Dharanis, so they know all So they have this powerful ability to just utter certain syllables and remove many kinds of obstructions and problems.

[33:50]

So they can remove demons and all kinds of beings. But what's that about? Well, you know, there is... It's an element of Buddhist thought that is almost entirely absent in Zen lore, sayings, although we do chant Dharanis. And the Dharanis are, in early Buddhism and pre-Buddhism, there was the belief in the literal power of the vibrations of language. that by uttering syllables in particular ways, one could influence, we would say, influence the mind in ways that we can't exactly explain. So that the repetition of a certain formula would have a powerful influence on the mind and therefore produce certain kinds of karma.

[34:55]

So that we could have all kinds of obstacles and influences that were blocking us from the path that no matter how much effort we made, we couldn't overcome them. But these enlightened beings of the ninth stage could scope that out, and they could know what kind of Dharanis to pronounce, so that they could help us to remove those kind of hindrances. So that's what that's saying here. How useful this is to us, or how much we can actually practice with this, I don't know. There is some practical value to it. I think, for instance, did I tell you about when my father was very ill and I was very upset by hearing about this? I could go into my study and light incense and chant Adhirani, and this could have a tremendous calming influence on me and actually make me feel much better.

[36:05]

And maybe, if we want to think of it this way, create a force in the universe that would be helpful to another person. Maybe my father was helped also by that. So, without getting too elaborate or mystical about it, we could see that there might be something to that. So, these Enlightened Beings are ones who have command over these spells and so on. I'm just sort of fumbling around in the dark chanting something that I happen to know about, but I only know a few Dharanis, and I don't really know how they work. These enlightening beings, they know lots of Dharanis, and they know exactly, precisely, which kind of one to apply at the right moment. So anyway, that's what... Those are the important elements of what these guys can do. The paramita that they practice is the paramita of power, transcendent power, which basically means the power to use these dharanis and use these explanations to help beings.

[37:19]

And then it says, quite wonderfully, this is a summary explanation of the nine stages of enlightenment being taught with mind, the full details of which would take forever to tell. Forever. So we're not going to tell them all, because we'd add it forever. And then the teaching is recapitulated in verse, and one of my favorite verses in the sutra is here on the bottom of page 97. Worldly beings are developed into different dispositions, gone into the tangles, afflictions and views, beginningless, endless, never cut off, continually bound up with the mind, born together with and stuck to inclinations and propensities. Those inclinations and propensities are not real things. So that was the bad news, here's the good news.

[38:20]

Those inclinations and propensities are not real things. They have no location and are not apart from mind. Hard to know, unconquerable by the states of meditation. They can be cut off only by the diamond thunderbolt of the path. You know, I find that really wonderful saying, gone into the tangles of afflictions, abuse, beginningless, endless, never cut off. So, from the standpoint of being in the middle of that, there is no end to it. There is no way to cut it off. It is totally hopeless. There's no way. But then the bodhisattva who sees this, it's not that one goes with a broom and sweeps it up and eventually sweeps up every last bit of it, but rather one sees instantly that none of it is real.

[39:27]

None of it has any location. Here, when it says unconquerable by the states of meditation, that means like the broom. No matter how much you sweep with the broom, you will never sweep it up. But the diamond thunderbolt of the path, which is this adamantine flash of insight that is indestructible, cuts it off immediately. This reminds you a little bit of the verses that appear in the Platform Sutra. These two viewpoints, the one with the broom, where Shenshui writes a verse about how the mind is a mirror with dust on it. We should practice diligently to wipe the dust clean. That is the states of meditation, which really can't conquer this.

[40:30]

The Sixth Ancestor writes, there is no mirror, there is no mind, so there's nothing that needs to be wiped clean. That's like the diamond tumble of the path. And of course, in Soto Zen way, it is seeing both of these as complementary and even the same. So we say, let's weep. So anyway, I really like this verse. And then it ends with another verse that I like a lot on page 100. motions, imagination. Aware that being and non-being are the same in essence. This is what I was saying earlier about death.

[41:33]

Aware that being and non-being are the same in essence, they will quickly become supreme human leaders. So this is non-being and being are the same in essence, becoming fearless and unattached because of this. One quickly becomes a supreme human leader. So that's the ninth stage. The tenth stage is, of course, the pinnacle of this whole course here of study. And it begins with a fantastic scene here, which I won't talk about because I want to do my reading tonight starting here, so we'll read it out loud together. Anyway, This scene is set and concentration is entered into and many things occur so that the enlightened being in the tenth stage, cloud of teaching, can be produced.

[42:49]

Now, whereas the ninth stage bodhisattva has knowledge of beings, thorough knowledge of beings. This, Bodhisattva in the tenth stage, on page 104, knows not only the beings, but also the infinite realms of the universe. The realm of reality, the realm of desire, the realm of form, the formless realm, the realm of worlds, the realm of all beings, the realm of consciousness, the realms of the created and uncreated, space, teachings of being and non-being, and so on and so on and so on. They also have accurate knowledge of the projection of the world, projection of the cosmos, the projection of Buddhist followers, the projection of individual illuminates, and the feasibility or unfeasibility of all projections. Because this whole universe is a projection. It's a manifestation. of consciousness, although that's a little misleading because when we say consciousness we mean something somehow inside our heads as opposed to outside the world.

[44:02]

But the consciousness that is spoken of here is a union of awareness and the universe. So in terms of this sutra and of Buddhist mind-only philosophy, the idea that there could be a world without consciousness, without a mind, that perceives it and projects it, is a totally impossibility. It doesn't make any sense to say such a thing. Consciousness and the physical universe are absolutely the same substance. So the whole kind of gash in the middle of the universe that Western philosophy assumes from the very beginning, which is mind and matter. Western philosophy starts at this point in a way. It completely doesn't make sense at all in terms of Buddhist thought.

[45:05]

So this universe is a projection. and they understand, the tenth stage bodhisattvas understand the feasibility and unfeasibility of all projections. So then they know the secret matters of the Buddhas. These are secret things that the Buddhas have learned, again, in order to aid beings in their path. And this is very interesting here, as if you ways of teaching on page 105. They know all the secret manners of the Buddha, such as the secret of the body, the secret of speech, the secret of mind, the secret of consideration of right and wrong timing. These are all ways that the Buddha has a teaching, knowing when to say the right thing. So the secret of timing, the secret of giving enlightened beings predictions of enlightenment, which is a very important thing that Buddhists do. And in the course of a bodhisattva's life, there's always a prediction somewhere along the line.

[46:14]

That's a very important moment in a bodhisattva's career, when they receive the prediction. The secret of taking care of sentient beings, the secret of encouragement and censure as means of guidance, knowing when to encourage somebody and knowing when to give them a dirty look and when that will be the most encouraging thing to them. the secret of impartiality and timely admonition and instruction, the secret of establishing a variety of vehicles of liberation. They have to be, because beings are so various, certain things that you present to somebody will be absolutely not only useless to them, but absolutely make them run in the other direction from the teaching. So you have to know, present, create infinite varieties of practices and teachings so that Every being will be well-served. Only the Buddhas know the secret of how to size up somebody and give them what they need.

[47:14]

The secret of distinction of beings' conduct and faculties, the secret of penetrating beings' acts and deeds, the secret of distinction of enlightening beings' practices and faculties, and so on. The secret of showing the attitudes of standing, walking, sitting, and reclining, which are These are shown secretly. When a Buddhist stands up, it's not just some guy standing up. It's an illustration of some profound point of Dharma that's being expressed wordlessly. So the four postures are all mudras that the Buddhists are engaging in, and they're all teaching. What's a mudra mean? It's a gesture. Like this is a mudra. Just the same way I was saying a minute ago that Dharanis have a powerful influence on the mind by sound, in the same way visual objects can have a powerful influence on the mind. So there are these various gestures that the Buddhas know how to make.

[48:17]

There are specific ones that we've seen iconographically on the statue, every Buddhist statue. gesture which has a meaning and a particular influence on the mind, but here it's saying that all the Buddha's acts of posture are such gestures that influence us in our study. The secret of provision of food and physical necessities, the secret of showing speech, silence, meditation, liberation, concentration and attainment. So these are all methods of instruction that the Buddhas employ in secret ways, and these ten-stage Bodhisattvas know all that. And here I was telling you before that time is an important issue here. They talk about time. They accurately realize all the Buddha's knowledges of the interpenetration of ages. such as one age as containing incalculable ages, incalculable ages as containing one age, and so on.

[49:24]

It runs through all these variations of long times and short times that are penetrating each other. So, these are really smart bodhisattvas. They know all these things. They have knowledge penetrating the demonstration of preposterous actions and knowledge penetrating the demonstration of conformist behaviors. Sometimes the Buddhas when screaming through the streets appear as homeless lunatics raving around in order to give us special teachings. They also can appear equally as bank tellers and things like that. demonstration of knowledge penetrating demonstration of conceivable and inconceivable acts. So they have an infinite ability to recollect anything. They can rattle off the entire Buddhist canon without any trouble at all.

[50:27]

Then there are some similes given. how they're like the ocean, how they're like mountains. And they, here's where I was saying earlier that they're pretty much indistinguishable from Buddhas on the bottom of 107. The Enlightened Beings in this stage of cloud of teaching manifest all the works of the Buddha in one world, Buddhas in one world. And then it gives you the entire biography of all the Buddhas, which are all the same. All Buddhas abide in the heaven of satisfaction, they descend to the earth, they abide in the womb, they become born, they leave home, attain enlightenment, requested to teach, and so on. Finally, attaining nirvana for the benefit of beings and adhering to

[51:33]

Then more similes are given about comparing the enlightening beings in this stage to mountains and oceans again. And I really like this one on page 113. These are from old sutras. And one of my favorite sutras, and I've forgotten which one it is, talks about the which also the teaching of the Buddha has ten characteristics. The characteristics of oceans are that they become progressively deeper. All oceans become progressively deeper, traditionally it's said, just like the teaching. The more that we study and the more that we go on, it just becomes deeper and deeper. The ocean does not lodge a corpse.

[52:54]

The ocean throws up So, in the same way, all death in us, in the sense of unawareness, unliveliness, dullness, can't abide with the teaching. The teaching casts it out of us. We won't be able to maintain this spiritual deadness in ourselves if we enter into the teaching. Because other waters lose their identity in the ocean. All waters mingle in the ocean. It's one ocean. In the same way, all teachings, all phenomena of the universe merge in the great teaching of the Buddha because of uniform flavor. Wherever you stick your finger in the ocean, it's going to be salty when you taste it. If you're far away, from one point to the other, it will always taste the same, in the same way.

[53:59]

Whichever one of the Buddha's teachings that you pick up, however you scoop up one, will always have the same taste, the taste of freedom, liberation. And the ocean contains many valuables. There are lots of lore about different jewels and dragon palaces and so forth that you can find in the ocean. that contains many jewels and ornaments and so forth. And the depths are hard to reach, as the teaching is very deep and hard to reach. It is immeasurably vast, as the teaching is immeasurably vast. It is the abode of giant creatures. Great beings, only great beings, not ordinary, everyday beings, live within the Buddhist teaching. And because the tides do not exceed their bounds, so the tides, the ocean and the teaching has its ebbs and flows, but it's never reckless, it never goes beyond the boundaries that are inherent to it.

[55:06]

And because it receives all the rains and the clouds without being filled, so endlessly teaching joins teaching. Nothing is rejected and yet it never fills up, never gets over full. So these are ten characteristics of the oceans, and they are teachings like this. And in this case, specifically, these ten are applied to the Bodhisattva. So it's given a new twist from what I just told you, the way it's described in the original sutra. But here, it's given a new twist. The Enlightened Being's gradual deepening of the accomplishment of vows is the first one, and so on. It goes through all ten. which are related to the ten stages here. Each of the ten stages is related to one of those ten characteristics of the oceans. And then this book ends with, as many scriptures do, a long description of how much virtue one will accrue

[56:14]

With how much virtue do they become imbued? We'll hear the book on the way into the teaching on accumulation of the qualities of omniscience. The Enlightened Being Diamond Matrix said, As much as derives from omniscience, that much would the quantity of virtue be, owing to the objective embraced by the determination for omniscience. As much virtue as accrues from the objective embraced by determination for omniscience, that much virtue would be attained by turning to this teaching. Why? None but enlightened beings can hear this book on the way into the teaching of accumulation of the qualities of omniscience, or devote themselves to it, or take to it, or take it up, or hold it, or preserve it, much less cultivate it, act on it, apply it, foster it, or attain it. Thus it is, those who follow the way to omniscience that can preserve it. Those who hear this book on the way to accumulate the qualities of omniscience, and having heard it, devote themselves to it, preserve it, and apply it in practice."

[57:29]

So this means that in our reading of this book, we are either great bodhisattvas, or we didn't really read the book. Those are the only possibilities. must be, it says here, great bodhisattvas. If not, then we read a bunch of words and we didn't really hear what it said, so I don't know the answer to that. Probably we're great bodhisattvas. And then, finally, it ends with a bunch of verses beginning on 116, which recapitulate And on page 121, something that rarely happens in the Sutra of Prayer, the Buddha himself appears and says, this is great.

[58:34]

This has been a wonderful teaching here and I completely agree with everything that Diamond Matrix has said. Just as the Buddha's conduct, concentration, wisdom, liberation, knowledge and vision are measureless and endless, likewise is the case of those who will take up this teaching, preserve it, recite it, write it down, cause it to be written down. So, if you were a wealthy person and you got a scribe to write this sutra out, you know, you paid for them to do that, made a big donation to the temple so that they would do that, you would have had a lot of merit out of that. master it, put it into action, and fully expound it in the community. So I'm getting all the good out of this, too, by expounding, and we're going to expound it. But we'll tell it to people faithfully and respectfully with consideration of how these people might attain the lofty teaching, and get them to reflect on it reasonably. But we'll write it down in a book and have it kept. respect it, take it seriously.

[59:36]

So if you take these Xerox pages that you have there and put a cover on it and put it on a special place on your altar and so forth, this will be very, very meritorious. And honored in the home, this is the Buddha talking, right? Who will tell the glories of this teaching without envy and speak it so it may be written, told, recited, honored, and revealed, their virtue also has no end. So this is a wonderful thing. And then the Buddha, to make request of this teaching, spoke these verses. And he tells a beautiful poem about how wonderful this sutra is. And then after the Buddha said this, moon of liberation and all the enlightening beings, the celestials, the disciples and other people and the whole assembly were all transported with joy at the Buddha approving what Diamond Matrix had said. And that ends the exposition of the ten stages.

[60:38]

So I thought tonight would be fun to read on page 101 Furthermore, enlightened beings, one third of the way down the page. Are there any other traditions that have scripture that merit by virtue of having the opportunity to study this, recite it, practice it, and carry it on. Yeah, that's real typical in Mahayana.

[61:41]

Almost all the Mahayana sutras do that. And I think the reason why they do it is because when they were first creating these sutras, they were aware that they had to compete against the other sutras. And there were people who were saying, these are not the word of the Buddha. This is not at all what the Buddha said. There were groups of practitioners who had recited for generations and generations what they considered to be the original teachings of the Buddha, and handed them down for generations. And when they saw these other sutras, they said, absolutely not. That is not what the Buddha said. People shouldn't read that stuff, and they shouldn't be writing that stuff. It's completely different than other religions of the world. I don't know. I don't know about that. I mean, I don't know of any religious literature that's quite as extravagant and imaginative and far out as the Buddhist Mahayana Sutras. I mean, I'm no expert on world religious texts, but these are pretty, you know, pretty out there.

[62:50]

I mean, there are lots of poetic religious traditions, to be sure, and beautiful literature and so on, but Mayana sutras are pretty extreme. Just the enthusiasm produced by this bodhisattva spirit, it's a kind of a, it's almost hysterical, you know. A wish to keep going, you know, endlessly. Oh, let's help everybody, you know. I had a friend who was a Tibetan practitioner and he devoted himself his whole life. I say it's kind of sad because he and I are the same age and he just died last year. I was in Vancouver giving a retreat and I called my wife and she told me that

[63:52]

She just got word that my friend had died in France, where he had been living for many years, in a Tibetan practice center. He was in meditation, and he keeled over and died. It was a strange thing. He was 43 at the time. Anyway, he had that spirit. really always enthusiastic, you know, he couldn't, oh, the new teachings he heard, and oh, everything, oh boy, you know, I just saw a new guru, and a little alum, oh, it's a wonderful teaching, oh, you know, reciting and jumping up and down, he was so excited about all these wonderful things that were always new teachings, and oh, he was, he was, he would just always amaze me with his, And he was at that pitch of enthusiasm for 25 years. He never seemed to get tired of it.

[64:55]

It was just incredible. And he was steeped in this. He read Tibetan and was steeped in all these kind of texts, you know. And so I hear his voice, you know, whenever I read these sutras, that kind of... He was like almost drunk on the Dharmi, spinning around, so happy and excited. So it's kind of like that, you know. And I don't know of any tradition that goes to that excess. These were written, I think, at some literal high point in the development of the Dharma. So it's really extraordinary. Yeah, right. Saying comes out of the same. And a lot of that stuff was written at the same time, in the same spirit. You just repeat it, or copy it and give it to somebody else, and get tremendous merit. Right.

[65:55]

Yeah, that's certainly where that comes from here, on the Buddhist side. And I think a lot of that stuff was developed concurrently. Like the whole tantric spirit, which is the spirit of this sutra, was developed, I think, pretty much at the same time in Hinduism and Buddhism. It's very similar, the spirit, the style, the feeling is very similar. Okay, well let's do our final Furthermore, enlightening beings from the core of this knowledge have reached the stage

[68:31]

One called entry into the analysis and differentiation of the cosmos. One called array of ornaments of the animal of enlightenment. One called power of lights of all appearances. One called oceanic container. One called ascertainment of the intrinsic essence of all things, one called adjusting to the mental behavior of all beings, and one called appearing in the presence of all Buddhas. Beginning with these, they realized the incalculable millions of concentrations. Beginning to emerge from all these concentrations, in an unending scale of concentration, they experienced all the effects of concentration. At the end of the incalculable millions of concentrations, one realizes a concentration of enlightening beings called varying coronation by the special property of omniscient knowledge.

[69:39]

At the moment one realizes this concentration, there appears an immeasurable lotus made of the finest jewels, as large as ten billion world universes, indicated with all kinds of jewels, filled in a range of all worlds. Cosmos, beyond the range of heavens, within the jewels of Sam, a periwinkle of incomparable sandalwood, a fringe of huge emeralds, leading to the surrounding gold, its body flowering with innumerable rays of light, its interior filled with all the finest jewels, covered with an abundantly vast net of jewels, surrounded by its many great jewel lotuses and satins and ten billion gold universes, The Enlightened Being in the corresponding form stands by and immediately upon attainment of the concentration bearing coordination with its special qualities and munitions, appears seated on the Great Jewel Lotus.

[70:47]

As soon as the Enlightened Being is seated on this Great Jewel Lotus, as many Enlightened Beings as there are surrounding Jewel Lotuses come up from the ten directions The circle of that alighting being consisted of a great variety of dual forces, and each of them entered everybody into concentrations, while gazing on the central alighting being. Immediately upon everyone's entry into concentrations, all rose to quake. All ills cease. All universes are pervaded with revealing light. All worlds are purified. The names of all Buddha lands are voiced. All the lightning beings of the same practice gather. All celestial and human music and songs sound forth. All beings become blissful. The inconceivable honoring and attendance of all the perfectly enlightened ones commence, and the disciples of all the Buddhists are made known. From the soles of the aligning beings' feet emerged countless millions of light rays, which illuminated the darkened graveyards in the ten directions and extinguished the darkness of the beings in the hells.

[72:07]

From the circles on the knees of the aligning beings emerged countless millions of light From the evil emerge countless millions of rays of light which will illuminate all the ghost realms and the ten directions, and extinguish all the pains of all the beings in the ghost realms. From the left and right sides of the enlightening beings emerge countless millions of rays of light which will illuminate the humans in the ten directions and extinguish human suffering. extinguishing their pains. From the shoulder surged countless millions of rays of light, which illumine all those in the vehicle of blissness. All works of the elementary teachings in the ten directions, and present to them a way of entry into the life of the teaching.

[73:08]

From the back of the neck emerged countless millions of rays of light, which illumine all the individually awakening ones in the ten directions, and present to them a method for quiescence and concentration. From those who have just been inspired for the first time up until those who have reached the ninth stage, and presented to them the principle of wisdom and skill and means. From the top of the head emerge as many rays of light as happens in countless millions of billion world universes. Illuminating these lights is the congregation of all Buddhists throughout the reaches of the space of the cosmos, then circling the world to the right in ten ways, then stopping the sky and forming a great circular network of lights, and then proceeding to make the great offering called Blazing Light to all Buddhists.

[74:25]

That offering is such that the offerings of all the mighty beings from the first inspiration up to the ninth stage can now be added there, even to the smallest fraction of it. Furthermore, from that great circular network of lights that are waning in all universes in the ten directions, mundane roots of goodness, completing all their features and qualities, sustained by the inconceivable power of nirvana, remains the various rays of great riches tore as from a rare flower on the basis of a sense of each and every good, and whoever perceives those offerings becomes assured of purpose and enlightenment. Then the lives of many of these offerings begin to move in circles as assembly of all Buddhas.

[75:31]

Then this circle will grow into the variety of ten ways, and disappear into the souls of the feet of those Buddhas. Then it is known to those Buddhas and those enlightened beings that in this world, this time, this place, these enlightened beings follow such practices and reach the time of formation. Up to that Enlightened Being, it's a circle of Enlightened Being, making great offerings on the basis of that Enlightened Being and to their familiar concentrations. Upon the gloriously adorned thunderbolts and bolts of well-being on the bodies of Enlightened Beings, who have attained the stage of coronation, emerges a very light ray called Demon Conqueror. light rays of 100,000 higher qualities disappear, there appears an increase in the power and strength of the enlightened being.

[76:45]

the name of the Rista-Kuapa deities and the Mayan yunnis, causing all worldlines to quake in six waves, sounding all death and rebirth in bad conditions, eclipsing all of those who knew this, showing the settings of the Mayan and Guava buddhas, and illuminating all worlds throughout the cosmos to the furthest reaches of space, then returning again, circling all assemblies of the Mayan yunnis, quiet and manifesting in a desperate way, Those beams of light disappear into the dark of the Enlightened Being's head. He becomes many mighty beings in the same way, entering into the heads of the Enlightened Beings. Some will grow out of that Enlightened Being, but it always reaches the next stage, where it will obtain a million classes of relationships that they have never had. at the same time as those light beings enter into the light being's head.

[78:42]

takes the golden picture containing water from the four oceans, and anoints the head of the sun with the water, whereupon the sun joins the ranks of the consecrated rulers. Then he will be able to fulfill the tenfold path of good action, beginning in the name of the Universal Ruler, the one who turns the wheel of the law. In the same way, as soon as the Almighty Being is coordinated by those blessed rulers, the Almighty Being is set to be anointed with great knowledge. and having fulfilled the ten vows by the enlightenment of Kundalini Buddhas, the Enlightened Being enters the ranks of the truly, constantly enlightened ones. This is the Enlightened Being's longing for coronation with greater knowledge, the quest of which the Enlightened Being undertakes in even hundreds of thousands of difficult practices. Thus oriented in maturity and measurable virtue and knowledge, the Enlightened Being is said Many beings in this age have a accurate knowledge of the totality of the realm of reality, the realm of desire, the realm of form, the formless realm, the realm of worlds, the realm of all beings, the realm of consciousness, the realms of the created and the uncreated, the realm of space and the teaching of being and non-being.

[80:51]

They have accurate knowledge of the totality of the realm of Nirvana and of the afflictions created by abuse. their aggregate knowledge shows the totality of the becoming and decaying of worlds, of the practices and followers of the elementary Buddhist teachings, of the practices of the individual alumnus, of the practices of the enlightened beings, of the Buddhist powers, expertises, unique qualities of Buddhahood. are demonstration of attainment of enlightenment and turning the wheels of teaching. In some they have accurate knowledge of the accomplishment of all the different ways of access to truth. They also have accurate knowledge of the projection of the world. and the feasibility or infeasibility of all projections.

[81:52]

They also know the basis of all truly are. Also, all knowledge of the Buddhas, entering into subtle peace, knowledge of details of practice, of death and heaven and rebirth on earth, of birth and leaving home, of attainment and enlightenment, of miracles, of setting the wheel of the teaching in motion, of preaching the truth, of the full details of the teaching, of the support of life's path, of the manifestation of the body of glorified form, of the orderly guidance of all beings, of manifestation in all worlds, of observing the mental behavior of all beings, of observing the past, present, and future in a single instance, of the entire past and future, of the totality and total actions of beings in all their variety, of the inconceivable powers, expertises, and special qualities of the enlightened, of the ultimate radha,

[83:10]

that accurately know all the incalculable knowledges of Buddhism and the 20 societies, that they know all the secret matters of Buddhism, such as the secret of body, the secret of speech, the secret of mind, the secret of consideration, right and wrong timing, the secret of giving and hiding the means, The secret of distinction of beings, conduct of faculties. The secret of penetrating beings, acts and deeds. Then it also accurately realized all of Buddha's knowledges of the intertwined tradition of ages, such as one age as containing all calculable ages, incalculable ages as containing one age, calculable ages as containing incalculable ages, incalculable ages

[84:57]

in all ages We are all born with a purpose.

[86:47]

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