Good morning, everyone. Welcome. We've been talking this session about the teachings of the Dharmakaya from the Mahaparanirvana Sutra. In this new translation, fairly new translation of, it's called in the Translation of the Nirvana Sutra, the first volume of Mark Blum's fine new translation of this very important sutra. I've been waiting for it a long time. Mark now teaches at the University of California at Berkeley. I first started nagging him about it when he was still teaching at State University of New York at Albany when I knew he was starting to do this translation. The Mahapanirvana Sutra is important in our Sotosan tradition. It's important in East Asian Buddhism, as the Tendai, Chentai, or Tendai system evolved, it held the Lotus Sutra, which we've talked about, and its importance to our Soto founder, Dogen.

[01:10]

It held that as foremost, but also the Mahaparinirvana Sutra equally. And in the material we've been looking at about the Dharmakaya, the idea of the inconceivable lifespan of Buddha that the Lotus Sutra, that's kind of at the center of the Lotus Sutra, and which is important in Dogen's teaching, is also part of the Mahaparinirvana Sutra. The Mahaparinirvana Sutra is also not the only, but maybe the primary source for the teaching of Buddha nature. which is very important in well, it's important in Dogen's teaching, it's important in East Asian Buddhism and when this sutra was translated into Chinese it overthrew the idea that only certain people have Buddha nature and as that

[02:11]

idea evolved in Chinese Buddhism before Dogen even it came to be understood as all sentient beings and even eventually the whole fabric of reality was an expression of Buddha nature and Dogen turned that around in the beginning of his Buddha nature essay where he quoted the Mahaparinirvana or Nirvana Sutra, which is usually understood as all sentient beings without exception have the Buddha nature. Dogen just said all sentient beings in their wholeness, to paraphrase, Buddha nature. So Buddha nature is not some thing that we have. Buddha nature is the nature of all. And this, the part of this, the teaching in the sutra that I've been talking about is also important in our teaching, in our liturgy.

[03:15]

We chant, and we've been chanting the enmei jugu kanongyo, the uh... short sutra to the bodhisattva of compassion, kanon, kanzeyan, avalokiteshvara, important in uh... for all bodhisattva practice and that has the line, jo raku gajo, so that's what I've been talking about this sasheen, so I want to do a review of this uh... and a little bit for new people and then I want to talk about Dogen's comments on material that's relevant to this teaching. So just to give a basic overview of what this Mahaparinirvana Sutra says about this, Well, first of all, jo rakuga jo, which is part of that kanzeon chant we do somewhat regularly, means permanence or constancy, bliss or joy, self, and

[04:32]

purity. And the Buddha, in this section I've been citing from the Nirvana Sutra, says that this is the true teaching, his true teaching. And in the context of this, he's getting ready to pass away into Parinirvana. His disciples are asking him to stick around and keep teaching, even though they know that the Buddha continues in some sense, and he keeps telling him that. And then he says, and he says it somewhat strongly, but as I've been saying, we do need the original teachings of impermanence and suffering, or dukkha, and non-self, anatman, and impurity, which these, what he's saying are the true teachings kind of refute, but we need these teachings of impermanence and suffering and non-self to get over our misunderstandings of self, our misunderstandings of permanence, our misunderstandings of joy.

[05:55]

The usual idea of joy and happiness and frivolity celebrated. in the consumerist holiday that will occur this month. You know, that's not what the Buddha is celebrating when he talks about the bliss of the dharmakaya body. So the material I've been talking about refers to the dharma body or the dharmakaya. It doesn't exactly refer to this, Again, this is all part of a review, but the trikaya, the three bodies of Buddha, is a teaching that developed a little bit later, but it's relevant to what the Buddha is saying here, that there is the incarnate body, the nirmanakaya is the Sanskrit word, that there are Buddhas who incarnate, who are living as human and other beings,

[06:56]

potentially, like Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical Buddha who lived 2,500 years ago, more or less, in what's now northeastern India, and other manifested beings. That's called technically nirmanakaya. And of course, this is about the question, what is Buddha? The question that's central to many if not most of the Zen koans. What's Buddha? And our practice is to sit like Buddha. Our practice is to sit upright, relaxed. Settling, inhaling, exhaling. To allow Buddha to manifest on our seats, we become or allow a body of Buddha to manifest. This is the heart of our practice of zazen.

[08:01]

uh... that we're doing here uh... so you know all of this uh... philosophy is not about having some understanding of some doctrine it's about supporting our our actual practice our actual expression of these buddha bodies but anyway nirmanakaya is the expression of that there's also sambhogakaya which is the uh... reward body of buddha the spirit expressions of buddha that are uh... helpful and uh... That's for another time. But the Dharmakaya is what is really referred to here in Buddha's last teachings in this Nirvana or Mahaparinirvana Sutra, the Mahayana version of this, of his passing away. And it's the Dharma or reality or truth body of Buddha, which is the whole universe, everything. the whole fabric of reality, all of space, as the Buddhadhatu, as the Buddha realm, as awakened.

[09:15]

So one summary I've read of that from Donald Lopez and Robert Buswell, fine scholars, talks about the right views of suffering. It's referring to this section of the sutra that I'm talking about. The right views of suffering, impermanence, impurity, and no self are proclaimed to be erroneous when describing the Buddha, his nirvana, and the Buddha dhatu, the Buddha realm, These are instead said to be, in fact, blissful, permanent, pure, and endowed with self. The Buddha did not pass, therefore, into nirvana, for his lifespan is incalculable. The Buddha's nirvana, referred to in the sutra as the great nirvana, the maha nirvana, or the great final nirvana, is different from the nirvana of the arhat who seeks cessation from the rounds of birth and death.

[10:22]

The nirvana of the Buddha is instead eternal, pure, blissful, and endowed with self. primordial existent reality that is only temporarily obscured by the defilements. When that nirvana and Buddha realm are finally recognized, Buddhahood is then achieved, and what's really important to us is that the Buddha reveals the existence of this nirvana to bodhisattvas, and because this Buddha realm is present within all sentient beings, these four qualities are therefore found not simply in the Buddha, but in all beings. the Buddha and all beings are endowed with self in contradiction to the usual Buddha's teaching of no self. When the Buddha said there was no self, what he actually meant was that there is no mundane conditioned self. The Buddha's true teaching as revealed at the time of his nirvana is that there is a great self or true self, which is the Buddhadhatu in all beings.

[11:25]

So this is talking about the nature of reality. So this is a kind of review of what I've been talking about the last few days. And this is part of what, you know, Dogen talks about the study of the way, to study the way is to study the self. So this is about, I would say studying the self both as non-self, the non-self of our usual egoistic conditioned self, the self that is our personal, self that's separate from other, the self that's the subject to objects out there. And then this other true great self that the Buddha is talking about, just to give you a sample of how the Buddha talks about it in the sutra.

[12:35]

Again, this is all just a review in a sense, but the Buddha says in the sutra, blinded by defilement and ignorance, deluded beings create misconceptions in the form of inversions in their thinking. What is self, They reckon as non-self what is constant or permanent, they reckon as impermanent. What is pure, they reckon as impure. And what is joyful, they reckon as painful. Because living beings are deluded by defilements, even if they recognize these as errors, still they do not comprehend what this means. Just like intoxicated persons who perceive something to be spinning when it's not, self is what Buddha means. This is not our usual understanding of the word self. Permanence is what dharma body means, and dharma body is the dharmakaya, the reality body.

[13:43]

Bliss or joy is what nirvana means. Purity is what dharma means. To have any perception of self reflects, so he says to his monks, why do you say to have any perception of self reflects arrogance and pride and leads to transmigration and samsara? So there's a lot of material in here, and I've been reading a lot of it. But he says, a non-self actually denotes samsara. Self denotes Tathagata or Buddha. Impermanence denotes the Sravakas and Pratyekabuddhas who are just starting to study and not really practicing. Permanence denotes the Dharma body of Tathagatas, the reality body. Anyway, so what this dharma body is about is the... nature of reality itself, the fabric of reality.

[14:51]

And as a kind of metaphor for this, I also read a little bit from this modern physics paper about consciousness in the universe being, and I'm not gonna go over it, but just that it's that, that consciousness can be defined as a state of a semi-stable system that is developed in a cooperative and cyclic operating mode so that it has become causally self-observant. But there's an even wider context for consciousness in which our individual mind is seen as a part of a larger universal consciousness being instrumental in the entire fabric of reality. So this is a modern kind of physics expression of something that's at least analogous to what the Buddha is saying in this Mahaparinirvana Sutra.

[15:53]

So what's at issue here is, what is the nature of reality? This is not about self in the sense of personal psychology, right? From the point of view of personal psychology, non-self is a teaching that helps us get beyond sense of separation and alienation. But what is the nature of reality, this dharmakaya, this truth body of Buddha? And how can we practice with this? What's the point of this? So, of course, hearing about this does not, hearing about this philosophy, beyond hearing about this philosophy, there's also the aspect of our practice of Zazen, and maybe particularly of Zazen when we settle into Zazen for a day or five days or however long, where we

[17:13]

start to have some sense of something deeper, something that goes beyond. It's not that we can actually perceive or conceive of the Dharmakaya. So the sutra says very clearly that it's in the realm of what is inconceivable. Our limited human consciousness can't get a hold of this. We can't put anything I say, anything the Sutra says even, even what the Buddha says, doesn't really capture it. So this isn't something to define or figure out or calculate. And yet, as we study the self and study the way and just sit like Buddha and enjoy our inhale and exhale and sit upright and relax into what is going on on our seat.

[18:18]

We have some sense of something deeper that has something to do with this fabric of reality of the Dharmakaya, the reality body of Buddha. I'm exploring this with you, this session, and I think it's somehow useful, even though it doesn't negate the fact of the difficulties of our life and the suffering in the world and all the terrible things that are happening in the world and the mass extinction of species and climate breakdown and the dangers of nuclear war and so forth and so on. and our own personal sadnesses and loss. The First Noble Truth is just to face the sadness. This doesn't negate that. But as Suzuki Roshi said, our practice is constantly losing our balance against the background of perfect balance.

[19:29]

So this Nirvana Sutra, this Mahaparinirvana Sutra is presenting, Buddha in his last teaching, presenting this background of perfect balance for us. And I think this is part of our, this has to do with our practice and our tradition. So what I want to do today, all of that was a review. is talk about some ways in which Dogen and his Zen teachings kind of refers to this issue. And I want to do that in some of his references to space, which is another way of talking about Well, we say sometimes the 10 directions, but it's multiple directions in all directions.

[20:40]

It's the 10 directions of each of the 10 directions. It's immeasurable. And what does this have to do with our practice? So first of all, Dogen's very first teaching, maybe he did a version of Fukanza Zengi before it, but in Bendowa, the section, Jijizami, the self-fulfillment samadhi, which we chant sometimes, there's this wonderful sentence, which I've talked about a lot, and it's, In some ways, I think all of Dogen's writings is a commentary on this sentence, and it's... I'll give you Norman Waddell on the so obvious version of it.

[21:44]

Yeah, when even for a short period of time you sit properly in samadhi, in sasana, imprinting the Buddha seal, the Buddha mudra, in your three activities of deed, word, and thought, then each and everything throughout the dharma world is the Buddha seal, the Buddha mudra, and all space without exception is enlightenment. and I translate it as something like, when one person sits in zazen, even for a little while, displaying Buddha mudra in body, in the body, speech and mind, then all things throughout, then all things throughout the world, all space awakens, all space becomes enlightenment. And what does it mean? spent a long time trying to feel what does it mean for space itself to awaken, to become enlightenment.

[23:07]

So this is the starting point of Dogen's teaching. And I think this is about this true self of the dharmakaya, all space. So he says that this happens through as a result of zazen. So I have a question here. What is the relationship between our practice and the Dharmakaya? It's not just that the Mahaparinirvana Sutra presents this as the reality that Buddha is encouraging his disciples to hear. And this Dharmakaya is the aspect of Buddha that we take refuge in. When you take refuge in Buddha Dharmasambha, you're taking refuge in not the particular person who lived in northern India.

[24:18]

I mean, he's wonderful. And we chant the names of all the Buddha. We've been chanting the names of all the Buddha ancestors in our lineage, and all the women ancestors also who've kept this tradition alive generation after generation, and they're all wonderful, and we are continuing that. But this space that Dogon says becomes awakened when one person sits for a little while. Sometimes people come to me and say, well, I've only been sitting like 10 minutes at home or 15 minutes. I feel like I should be sitting longer or something. Anyway, Dogen says, just fully displaying Buddha mudra with one's whole body and mind, all of space awakens. So that's one perspective on it. OK, another aspect from Dogen that I think is relevant is from another Shobo Genzo essay called One Bright Pearl.

[25:29]

And he tells the story, he comments on a story in which Xuanzang, one of the great classic masters, says, the whole universe is one bright pearl. And there's a dialogue between him and a student about that saying. But Dogen's comment on it is, the uttering of all the universe is one bright pearl first appeared with Xuanzang. Its essence is this, the entire universe is not vast and large, not minute and small, or square or round, and not the mean, not right, not the lively vigor of leaping fish, not unbared and distinct all around. Moreover, because it is not birth and death and not coming and going, it is birth and death and it is coming and going. This being so, it is the past gone from here, it is the present come from here. As for its ultimate negotiation, who is there to ascertain that it is fragmentary or perceive it as immovable?" So, to talk about the whole universe,

[26:34]

This is what the Dharmakaya is about. I don't know what the current theory in physics is, whether there are other universes outside this universe, but this means not just this partial universe. It means everything. It means the universe is before the present Big Bang or whatever. the dharmakaya. So Swanshah just said the whole universe is one bright pearl or one bright jewel. And Dogen says about it that it's not categorized, it can't be categorized in terms of large or small or any of these categories. He also says in that essay a little later, hence the reality and beginninglessness of the bright pearl are totally beyond grasp.

[27:39]

All the universe is one bright pearl. We do not say two pearls or three pearls. Your whole body is one authentic Dharma I. So he's bringing it down to you. Your whole body is the real body. The real body is the Dharmakaya. Your whole body is the real body, the true body, the Dharmakaya. The whole body is one expression. Your whole body is a radiant light. Your whole body is mind in its totality. When it is your whole body, your whole body knows no hindrance. Everywhere is round, round, turning over and over. Since the pearl's merit is manifested in this way, the Bodhisattva Kanon or Kanzeon and Maitreya are here and now seeing forms and hearing sounds.

[28:40]

So the pearl's merit. So there's, and the sutra also talks about the merit created, the merit that is part of this, that the Dharmakaya accomplishes immeasurable merit. the dharma body accomplishes a measurable merit. So here, Dogen says, the pearl that is the entire universe, pearl's merit is manifested in this way so that the bodhisattvas, Kanon, Kanzeyan of Alokiteshvara, and Maitreya, who is the next future Nirmanakaya Buddha, according in our world system, are here and now seeing forms and hearing sounds. So thanks to the Dharmakaya, bodhisattvas, are present in our world, helping out. Old Buddhas and new Buddhas are bodily manifested, expressing the Dharma, expressing the truth.

[29:46]

So this is another of Dogen's expressions of how, I would say, of how this, dharmakaya, dharma body, truth body, reality body, that is all of space is relevant to our practice, to our expression, to the bodhisattva work that we care about, that brought us here. to do this practice of sitting and settling and expressing Buddha in some way on our seat. So when Dogen talks about space, I feel like he's talking about

[30:53]

the dharmakaya, and as Howard said yesterday, that's where the sutra ends up going, talking about the dharmakaya as space. So, a couple more. There's one Shobogenzo essay which is called, it's called Koku in Japanese, which means space. You know, we don't really understand what space means. We think of it as outer space or the final frontier or somewhere, you know, like the space between me and Paula. That's space. It's empty space, right? That's our usual understanding. So there's this funny story that Dogen begins his essay on space with. There's these two teachers, and this happens in the 800s, this classic period of Tang Dynasty Chan, Shigang Huizong and Sitang Zhezong, his younger dharma brother.

[32:04]

And the younger The older teacher, the senior teacher, asked the other one, do you know how to grasp space? And the younger brother said, yes, I do. And the older one said, how do you grasp it? And so Zhe Zhang stroked the air with his hand, maybe something like this. And the older teacher says, you don't know how to grasp space. And Zhizhong asked, how do you grasp it, older brother? And Zhizhong grasped his younger brother's nose and yanked. The Chinese might even be rendered that he stuck his finger in the younger brother's nostril before pulling. And Zhizhong yelled in pain, you're killing me. You tried to pull my nose off. And Zhizhong declared, you can grasp it now. Space is not just the space between things. Space is the space right between my ears.

[33:07]

The space between my butt and the top of my head. The space of that altar. The space of each thing. His space. All of space. Includes this fabric and the whole fabric of reality. Space is not just an empty container. That's maybe our conventional idea of space and of time. But space and time is the whole fabric of reality. So Dogen says, commenting on the story, it is not the space and other space reached out together with one hand. No effort was needed for grasping space. There was no gap in the entire world to let space in. But this story has been a peel of thunder in space.

[34:11]

And Dogen adds, you have some understanding of grasping space. Even if you have a good finger to grasp space, you should penetrate the inside and outside of space. You should kill space and give life to space. You should know the weight of space. So I don't know if he would say you should kill the dharmakaya and give life to the dharmakaya, but maybe. You should trust that the Buddha's ancestor, Buddha ancestors endeavor of the way and aspiration practice and enlightenment throughout the challenging dialogues is no other than grasping space. So how do, how do we hold this reality of the ultimate self in our practice? How do we give life to space? How do we give life to the Dharmakaya?

[35:16]

How do we recognize its omnipresence and its potential for support right in all the forms we engage? So, one more. reference to space from Dogen, which somehow has to deal, deals for me with this question of what is the relationship between Zazen and Dharmakaya? So I'm not sure if space in Dharmakaya is exactly a synonym, but there's something there. So this is a story from Dogen's extensive record when he was still in Kyoto.

[36:33]

And actually, there's an essay in Shobo Genzo also that references the story, but it starts with a quote from Shakyamuni. The world honored one said, when one person opens up reality and returns to the source, all space in the 10 directions disappears. It's a strange saying. When one person opens up reality and returns to the source, when one person clarifies the Dharma body and returns to the source, so it's talking about the source of what? The source of this fabric of reality? So there is this talking about the source in Zen. That's in the Harmony of Difference and Sameness, it talks about the source also.

[37:35]

And this is a quote from the Surangama Sutra, which, not from the Mahaparinirvana, and in the Srebrenica essay, Dogen says that that sutra is, probably apocryphal or spurious, and modern scholars say the same thing, that it was written in China, so Dogen somehow knew that. But then, because there are comments from a bunch of Zen masters, he says, but because of that, it's now his actual dharma. So, then he gives some references to this quote. So, Teacher Wuzhu of Mount Faoyan, who appears in Hei Xingyi and Dogen's He's a figure in the stories about temple administrators. He said, when one person opens up reality and returns to the source, all space in the ten directions crashes together and resounds everywhere. This is interesting.

[38:48]

What happens when one... So this is kind of like when one person sits zazen and displays the Buddha mudra and body and mind. And G.G. Azamai Dogen said, then all space awakens. Here he says, the saying is when one person opens up reality and returns to the source. So have any of you done that yet in your zazen this week? When one person opens up reality and returns to the source, Shakyamuni said, all space in the ten directions disappears. Now why would Shakyamuni say that? It all just goes poof. Usu Fayan said, all space in the ten directions crashes together, resounding everywhere. Okay, then there's Yuanwu Keqin of Xishuasheng. Yuanwu is the guy who wrote all the commentaries in the Blue Cliff Record, and he was a wonderful poet too, and I'm starting to more and more appreciate Yuanwu.

[40:01]

Anyway, he said, when one person opens up reality and returns to the source, in all space in the 10 directions, flowers are added on to brocade. Well, that's kind of lovely. Some high priests in Japanese centers then have brocade cases with all kinds of fancy decorations. This is adding more. I don't know if this is gilding a lily or whatever, but flowers are added onto brocade. There's a phrase about ornamenting the dharma ground of the Buddhas, anyway, one of the sutras. So that's another version. Then Dogen quotes Fuxing Fattai, another teacher, I think in the Linji lineage, who says, when one person opens up reality and returns to the source, all space in the 10 directions is simply all space in the 10 directions.

[41:11]

I like that one. What happens when we open up reality and return to the source? Then Dogen refers to his teacher, Chiantang Rujing. My late teacher Chiantang Rujing said, although the world honored one made the statement, when one person opens up reality and returns to the source, all space in the 10 directions disappears. This utterance cannot avoid becoming an extraordinary assessment. kind of a little wild, that space in the ten direction would disappear. So Dogon's teacher said, Jantung is not like this. And then he said, when one person opens up reality and returns to the source, a mendicant breaks his rice bowl. So, no more begging, or no more need for the Buddha bowl. I think it's going to have quinoa at lunch, but anyway.

[42:15]

OK, then Dogen says, the previous five venerable teachers, the ones he's just quoted, including Shakyamuni, said it like this, but I, Ehe, have a saying that is not like theirs. So here comes Dogen. He says, when one person opens up reality and returns to the source, all space in the 10 directions opens up reality and returns to the source. That's like saying space itself awakens or becomes enlightened. Okay, so I wanted to bring this dharmakaya stuff back to some Zen teaching. I don't know if that helps at all, those of you who've been resisting the dharmakaya. OK, well, OK, if you don't like Joe Rakugajo, you can skip that line when we chant the kanzeon.

[43:43]

Well, OK. And I say that Joraku Gaja doesn't negate, even though it sort of says that in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, but it has to include. So constancy, joy, self, true self, and purity have to include that we have seen through. the conventional ways of seeing those things, and that we understand impermanence, dukkha or suffering, sadness, non-self of our ordinary stories about ourself, and the impurity that is everywhere in our ordinary world.

[44:44]

So, again, our life is constantly losing our balance against the background of perfect balance. Sashin is an opportunity to settle deeply and commune with this ultimate background this ultimate reality of everything that is on your seat too. And then, you know, when we get up from sasheen, how do we express that in our difficult world? So thank you for your practice.

[45:41]

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