Good morning. Wow, it's September 1st. It's just the months fly by, but it's a beautiful day out. Can someone tell me what that red flower is on the founder's altar? Does anyone know? That's not a trick. It's actually a question. It's not a rose. Might be Dahlia. When I was walking in, they were alive on the bush out there. Just brilliantly red. Just, you know, explosively red. colorful, really grabbed my attention. So a group of us have just returned from five or six days at Tassajara, so our senses are attuned to the natural world and to the beauties around it.

[01:08]

We had a wonderful time there, with a BCC, a BCC study group, and we got to study Dogan. We got to do a lot of work for half a day, do Zazen, took a lot of baths, and some people went swimming a lot. It was, and just you know, hanging out with the students. It was a wonderful time. And we just got back yesterday afternoon. And so that feeling tone lingers. And I think that there's a continuity between what we are studying today and what we studied at Tassajara. So at Dasahara, we were studying a fascicle of Dogens, which is one of my favorites called Bodhisattva Shishobo or the Bodhisattvas for embracing actions.

[02:12]

It's kind of like the principles for how Bodhisattvas act. and also how we act in the cultivation of our own bodhisattva nature. It's very straightforward but kind of endlessly deep once you look at it. Those are generosity or giving, kind speech or loving speech, beneficial action, and what sometimes translated as identity action, which sounds a bit abstract, but it just means recognizing the sameness among us. Sometimes it's translated as cooperation. I think that the Korean teacher, Sun Sinim, translated as together action.

[03:16]

And these all really fit with what we're going to study today, which is the Eight Realizations of Great Beings, or the Eight Awarenesses of Great Beings, which was Dogen's last fascicle, the last thing that he wrote. And it also happens to be, at least in some recensions, the Buddha's last teaching before he entered So we're having a study day today, a sort of study session, which goes on from, began at five in the morning, and it's going to go on till 530, I think, this evening. And keeping the container of Sashin energy with orioke meals and a fair amount of meditation.

[04:27]

Only we're moving out of the silence into study and then back into silence. And because this is Saturday, we welcome everybody into this part of the program. And then we'll have another, we have another study session this afternoon. So because it's a study day, I might go, the schedule calls for this to go a little longer. If you've had enough, you can leave. or when you've had enough, you can leave. But try to do it quietly. But I'll probably go till about 15 minutes longer than we usually do. And I want to have it, I may leave, little more space for discussion and back and forth, because that's the way I like to like to study.

[05:36]

I'm really interested in what this... I'm interested in what the teachings evoke for you, how you take it in personally, not in sort of communicating some parcel of knowledge to you. Okay? So, let me begin. First of all, this teaching is cited in the Mahayana parnavana sutra and Dogen sources probably from that. It's also found in another form in one of the collections of Pali suttas in the Aniruddha sutta, where it's not directly connected with the Buddha's death, but the principles are laid out pretty clearly.

[06:44]

And as I said, this was This was composed or the draft was finished in February, the beginning of February in 1253. And Dogen died in August of that year. But his illness, which appears to have been tuberculosis, became increasingly disabling. And he had wanted to complete a a hundred chapter volume of what he called The Treasury of the True Dharma, and he got to about 92 or 93, and this is the last one. And it was recorded and copied by his students. So just to say, here's this list of practices.

[07:48]

The first awakening is to have few desires. The second awakening is to know how much is enough. The third awakening is to enjoy serenity. The fourth awakening is diligent effort. The fifth is not to neglect mindfulness. The sixth awakening is to practice meditation or concentration. The seventh awakening is to cultivate wisdom. And the eighth awakening is not to be engaged in hollow discussions. We'll get to that eventually. There's a number of different translations. One of the translations of Dogen's that I like translates that as... Let's see.

[09:02]

Translation says, not playing around with theories and opinions. And the Pali Sutta that parallels this translates the, all the others are pretty much the same. And the eighth is one who enjoys non-objectification. So this is a little teaser, right? I don't want to get right to that. But it's interesting. So probably you recognize in this list, this is one of these list archetypes. And it has, those are, and those were mnemonic devices.

[10:07]

You'll find them in Sanskrit and Pali, and you'll find it in epic poems in Greek. It's like through repetition and through a certain kind of organization and structure makes it easier to memorize. It makes it easier. You can place each one of these in your mind palace and walk from room to room remembering which principle lives in which room. You know what I'm talking about? It's a cool way to actually build your memory. Anyway, these are parallel in many ways to other lists that we're familiar with, the Eightfold Path, and the Paramitas, and the Factors of Enlightenment, and probably others.

[11:12]

But there's a lot of overlap in each of them. principles of meditation, of mindfulness, concentration, effort, calmness, equanimity, so forth, so on and so forth. And this is just another formulation that is finding it as the Buddha's last teaching gives it a certain power in that this is in its placement there at the end of his life, it means this is what he wanted his followers to really pay attention to. And so I'm working between translations here.

[12:18]

So the beginning of this fascicle, basically the structure of this fascicle is that Dogon has a little introduction and he has a kind of afterword which we'll go into. And then he gives a kind of tagline for each one of these practices, that's what they are. And then quotes at length from the Mahaparinirvana Sutta. I mean, the bulk of this is basically the words of the Buddha. So he begins this by saying, all Buddhas are enlightened people. And because of this, we call what they discern the eight realizations of a great one. When someone discerns what this dharma of theirs is, it brings about nirvana, which is freedom from suffering.

[13:21]

On the night when Shakyamuni Buddha entered nirvana, he gave these eight realizations as his final teaching. So when he's saying eight realizations, he's saying great beings, Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, they see the world through these qualities or they cultivate these qualities in order to meet the circumstances of their life. And by doing so, that frees them, but also by being free, they are capable of seeing the world that way. The first is having few desires. This is Dogen. What he called having few desires means not chasing far and wide among those objects of the senses

[14:30]

which one has not yet experienced. In another translation it says, to refrain from widely coveting the objects of the five sense desires. And I was looking at the word coveting, which which is related to the English word cupidity. It has the same root. And then I was looking at cupidity, which of course carries for us the image of Cupid with his arrow, right? But Cupiditas in Latin basically means desire. And I think the personification of Cupid, the arrow is like, even in the Roman conception, one is wounded by one's desires.

[15:47]

You know, once that arrow is fired, you can't call it back. And when it hits its mark with us, when desire hits its mark with us, we have to bear a certain pain, a certain scarring. And so this is a way of unpacking this word coveting. When we covet these five sense desires, we're inviting a certain wound, knowingly or not knowingly. So that's the Buddha's, Dogen's text is, the first awakening is to have few desires, to refrain from widely coveting the objects of the five to sense desires is called few desires. Then he quotes the Parinibbana.

[16:50]

The Buddha said, know that people who have many desires intensely seek for fame and gain. Therefore they suffer a great deal. Those who have few desires do not seek for fame and gain and are free from them. So they are without troubles. Having few desires is itself worthwhile. It is even more so as it creates various merits. Those who have few desires need not flatter to gain others' favor. Those who have few desires are not pulled around by their sense organs or any other organ. They have a serene mind and do not worry because they are satisfied with what they have and do not have a sense of lack. Those who have few desires experience nirvana.

[17:54]

This is called few desires. One thing that was interesting, so in the fascicle of Dogen's that we were studying this week, the first of the four embracing actions is generosity or giving. And Dogen's quote, the quotation from there says, giving means not to be greedy. Not to be greedy means not to crave. not to crave means in worldly expression not to flatter. It was like an aha moment when I read that, that it's clear to me that he was drawing that non-flattering from this source. Those who have few desires need not flatter to gain others' favor.

[18:56]

So I think part of the power here is that Dogen and the Buddha are pointing out the hazards of looking outside for verification. Verification of oneself and of one's worth. that to seek for gain and fame as the Buddha talks about here is to look for a kind of verification, not even necessarily a material verification, but a reputation, a way is to want people to see you a certain way and to want to be acknowledged and recognized for that widely and that the

[20:08]

usual path to that is flattering others to gain favor. And so when we were doing our study this week, we really investigated that, just how subtle a mechanism that is, how the things that we say to a friend or to someone that we're meeting or anyone, how often and subtly we can configure those for some, again, verification or inflation of, or to, we say something because what we want mirrored back is something that I would say in an ultimate sense, it tells us that we're real, you know, and worthy.

[21:16]

And this is why, you know, this is like, I love this line here. They have a serene mind and do not worry because they are satisfied with what they have and do not have a sense of lack. So if any of you, some of you are probably familiar with the work of David Loy. At the heart of his work is this perception that we have a sense of lack at our core, you know, and that's an accurate description. What we lack is not our life, we lack, it's like we keep peeling back the layers of the self, like the layers of a bamboo, and we find at the center, it's empty. It's a space. And it's like, we want to get to the center and find the core that is true and that we can rely on.

[22:17]

And in fact, there's nothing to rely on. And no matter what wonderful things we have gotten someone to say about us, it's not gonna take away that sense of lack. So that's the first of these eight realizations is to have few desires. I'm gonna do another one and then take questions and then move on. So the second awakening which is pretty related to the first, is to know how much is enough. Even if you have something, already have something, set a limit for yourself for using it. So you should know how much is enough. The Buddha said, if you want to be free from suffering, you should contemplate knowing how much is enough.

[23:19]

By knowing it, you are in the place of enjoyment and peacefulness. If you know how much is enough, you are contented even when you sleep on the ground. If you don't know it, you are discontented even when you are in heaven. You can feel poor even if you have great wealth. You may be constantly pulled by the five sense desires and pitied by those who know how much is enough. This is called to know how much is enough. In the Pali text, which is at least a source for this, this second point is called This Dhamma is for one who is content, not for one who is discontent.

[24:21]

Thus it was said with reference, thus it was said. There is a case where a monk is content with any old robe cloth at all, any old alms food, any old lodging, any old medicinal requisites for curing sickness at all. This Dhamma is for one who is content, not for one who is discontent. Today, for breakfast and lunch, we're eating an orioke meal. And I think it was Maezumi Roshi who talked about the meaning of orioke is, and in some of our texts it says, bowls that hold just enough, just enough to sustain our practice.

[25:28]

enough to give us energy and allow joy to emerge. That's the beauty of orioke bowls. It's interesting. In some Buddhist countries, maybe you've seen the bowl is really big. And I'm not criticizing that. It's really big because people might put anything in there. But our bowls, because we're not taking them off out on alms rounds, we're just getting enough to sustain us in health and in practice. And the cooks measure it out. And they consult with the officers about what the menu is and how much of it is enough. And the lovely thing that we do is we actually offer seconds.

[26:37]

You know, so if you think you haven't had enough with the first bowl, OK. You can indulge it, that's on you. And fortunately the food is so good here that it perhaps spurs our desire and we want more. So I think these two are quite related. Let me pause for a few minutes and see if you have any thoughts or questions before I move on to the third and fourth. I think he said that in the Pali, that dharma is through our content. My sense of myself is that I came here out of some sense of discontent, and I'm wondering how you kind of bridge those. No, I understand.

[27:46]

I'm trying to look at what the context was. The context here is Aniruddha was sitting alone and he was just having, he was sort of contemplating the Dharma and in a certain way basking in it. And the Buddha comes by and reads his mind. And basically affirms him and says, yes, this is a good understanding.

[28:50]

And I think that you came here, for most of us, our discontent led us here. But in some place inside, there was some faith or yearning or all these things that, oh, maybe this is going to solve my discontent, right? And although we're still on the path, I think a lot of us in this room even though we still have discontent, and sometimes it's really painful, we come to recognize that there are moments when we don't, when we're content.

[29:56]

Yeah, I was really, I felt that very much at Tassajara in I realized I've been going to Tassajara for 35 years. I have so many memories, so many painful memories of being there. And also wonderful memories of being there, but the painful memories are not about Tassajara, they're about me. It's like I remember once in 1980, I remember looking up at the sky, walking along the path and thinking, It is so beautiful here. What is my problem? And yet there was a problem. And also yet I had faith that literally and figuratively the path that we were walking on was the only way that I could walk to begin to glimpse that.

[31:07]

Yeah, back there. Sure. The present tense of that verb, are, comes from having chosen that dharma path. In other words, you chose this particular dharma path, therefore you are perfect. And then walking that dharma path is in itself an manifestation of that contentment. Yeah, that's, thank you.

[32:13]

There's a constant tension in all these teachings, as I was saying from the beginning, it's like these are the awarenesses of a great being, but it's also the cultivating of these awarenesses is how we merge with, how we become like that ourselves. Otherwise, It's pointless. Otherwise, it's a hopeless idealization. So I take all the Buddhist teachings as medicine. Usually there's an illness or a context that comes out of, and sometimes that's relevant to one, and sometimes perhaps not, but it was always relevant in the circumstance in which it arose. Maybe one more and then I want to move on. Charles. Can you say a little more about not using it and being enlightened?

[34:04]

Okay. Ah, yes. So one of the things often positive qualities in buddhism are framed as the negation of negative qualities the absence of greed allows generosity to arise and you can think of the so the afflictions if you want to get more technical which the i think the the poly word is klesha uh those afflictions are I think the literal translation might be as coverings. So if you remove the covering, then you allow what is true to emerge. So we have in Sanskrit, you have the word Atman, which is

[35:14]

basically a notion of self, and we have anatman, non-self. And when you remove the affliction in Buddhist terms of atman, then when anatman arises, then something large and boundless can be grasped. and you know that this negation of the negation is a pretty common formula. I think it's probably common in Indian languages as a way of framing reality and it has a dualistic edge to it, but yeah, you get greed, to remove greed we have to, when we remove greed, when we don't flatter, when we feel we have enough, then our larger, a large spirit arises.

[36:21]

I'd like to go on if that's okay, because I'd like to get through this text today. The third awakening is to enjoy serenity. This is Dogen. This is to be away from the crowds and stay alone in a quiet place. This is called to enjoy serenity in seclusion. The Buddha said, if you want to have the joy of serene non-doing, you should be away from the crowds and stay alone in a quiet place. A still place is what Indra and the other Devas revere. By leaving behind your relations as well as others, and by living in a quiet place, you may remove the conditions of suffering. If you are attached to crowds, you will receive suffering, just like a tree that attracts a great many birds and gets killed by them.

[37:24]

If you are bound by worldly matters, you will drown in troubles just like an old elephant who is stuck in a swamp and cannot get out of it. This is called to enjoy serenity in seclusion. In the Aniruddha Sutta, it says, thus it was said, there is a case where a monk, when living in seclusion, is visited by monks, nuns, laymen, laywomen, kings, royal ministers, sectarians, and their disciples. With his mind bent on seclusion, tending towards seclusion, inclined towards seclusion, aiming at seclusion, relishing renunciation, he converses with them only as much as is necessary for them to take their leave.

[38:38]

Maybe he bores them to death, I don't know. Anyway, Our seclusion is what we're doing here every morning and evening. Every morning and evening we sit, turn towards the wall with each other and face ourselves. And we have that moment of seclusion which is so deeply human and so ordinary, and yet how few of us in the world make the time to do that. And so I don't take this necessarily as a direct instruction to go off to a cave, although it's kind of actually saying that.

[39:53]

And, you know, it's very interesting to go to a place like Tassajara, where there's a relative seclusion. Boy, it's really peaceful there in terms of you don't hear a plane going overhead. You don't hear traffic. You don't hear humming motors generally. You hear the birds when they wake up in the morning really clearly. You hear the crickets and the cicadas at night. You hear the other morning, uh, I was stiff from working and I slept in and I heard all the, the drums and the bells and then the magical sound of Uh, just listening to everybody chanting while I was laying in bed.

[41:02]

Uh, that was, made me want to get out of bed, but too late. So I had to, I had to listen. Um, so that's a kind of seclusion, but I think we should also realize there is no seclusion. The world is everywhere and we are making it. And those of you who have been to a monastery like Dasahara, you know that even though you're 14 miles down a rough dirt road, if something wants to follow you down the road, it will follow you down the road and you're going to have to deal with it. But in seclusion, the principle I think he's talking about is that is a place to, that's one way, one of the realizations that we do deal with what comes down the road, that we are not isolated for it, that we in fact build our capacity to engage with it and meet it.

[42:23]

It's a principle and to the extent that our lives allow, we should cultivate that. We need some time that is not just caught in the maelstrom of our activities. And I think sometimes you meet people who are who are highly evolved, who are awake, who managed to have seclusion without being secluded, who managed to have a settledness or containment in themselves that is not remote, and it's not a lack of connection, but that they have a way of connecting with themselves, I would say, as Sochin the instruction that he gave me, I'm sure he's given to many of you, I think this is one of his Dōkasan tropes, is you should always know where your feet are.

[43:40]

You know, which is really great, because if you if you can turn your attention to your feet, then right there, you are grounded and you have some awakening of seclusion and self-containment. And that allows you to, that gives you the strength and clarity to meet others. And that gets to the fourth point. The fourth and fifth point actually. The fourth awakening is diligent effort. It is to engage ceaselessly in wholesome practices. This is why it is called diligent effort. It is refinement without mixing in other activities. You keep going forward without turning back. That's Dogen.

[44:45]

Then he quotes the Buddha. If you make diligent effort, nothing is too difficult. That's why you should do so. It is like a drop of water piercing through a rock by continuously dripping. If your mind continues to slacken, it is like taking a break from hitting stones before they spark. You can't get fire that way. What I'm speaking of is diligent effort. Nirmal, so the translation I'm working for says. If the mind of a trainee

[45:47]

is often inactive and remiss, it will be just the same as making a fire by friction and blowing on it before it is hot enough to catch fire. Although your desire to train can blaze up, the fires of training are hard to arrive at. This is what I call being devoted to practice. So the metaphor here is The Paramita is to me of patience and effort that you really have to stay with what we're doing. We have to stay with the practice, stay with our effort. And it's so easy. We're so distractible. It's so easy to get pulled away. And he's saying, please don't do that. I mean, this is one of the things I think, I have to say, it's easy to praise our teacher and perhaps even to idealize him.

[47:06]

But I must say, one of the things that I got really early on in that is that somebody described his practice is just like put your head down and go forward and not be distracted. And I can't say I got it so that I can do it. But I saw, I see that's what he's doing. You know, that's what he's done. He keeps doing it in his 90th year. And it's very single purposed and single pointed. And that is a way, that's a way to live. That's a way to live. That's a way that is in harmony and resonance with what Dogen is teaching here.

[48:13]

And when I fall short, which is frequently, I, you know, I have that to bring me back. And you have these practices to bring you back. So I'm going to do one more and then open it up a little one before we end. So in pairing with this effort, The next three are just to say, the fifth is not to neglect mindfulness, the sixth is to practice meditation or concentration, and the seventh is to cultivate wisdom. All of these effort, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom, all are sort of the package of our meditation practice.

[49:19]

So the fifth, the fifth awakening is not to neglect mindfulness. It's also called to maintain right thought. This is to help you guard the Dharma so you won't lose it. It's called to maintain right thought or not to neglect mindfulness. The Buddha says, For seeking a good teacher and good help, there is nothing like not neglecting mindfulness, or there's nothing like remembering mindfulness. If you practice this, the robbers of desire cannot enter you. Therefore, you should always maintain mindfulness in yourself. If you lose it, you will lose all merits. When your mindfulness is solid, you will not be harmed even if you go into the midst of the robbers of the five sense desires. It's like wearing armor and going into a battlefield.

[50:23]

So there is nothing to be afraid of. This is called not neglecting mindfulness. Let's see this. Well, Nirman says, not forgetting to be mindful. And also he says it's keeping to. He said what we what the Buddha calls keeping to the Dharma without losing sight of it means keeping to right mindfulness, so right mindfulness is a way to look at your entire path of life. It's to see the right aspect of that means, how do you want this to work out?

[51:30]

Do you want it to work out in a beneficial way for all beings, which include yourself? or without that aspect of right it could be a self-centered activity. But we have awareness of what we do moment by moment and that's again a feature of the practice that we when we do when we sit here each day. So Let me open up again for questions or thoughts and we will, I want to do the last three in the afternoon, but we have some time for discussion. Judy. I'm so keenly aware of Dogen's privilege in making these, on the one hand, universal statements and at the same time,

[52:56]

And I'm wondering, how do I make peace as a bodhisattva, right? I think that that's a thoroughly relevant question. I have a formulation that compresses the 10 precepts into one.

[54:29]

And like all teachings, there's a unattainable aspect of it. So, you know, the 10 Bodhisattva precepts, not killing, not stealing, not lying, not misusing sexuality, and so on and so forth. to me they boil down to, can be expressed as, not living one's life at the expense of other life, which of course is impossible, but it's precept, it's a guiding principle And I think that that principle, if you apply that principle within this context, then you are on the way towards addressing privilege and addressing bias.

[55:51]

You at least, you have a way of recognizing that and recognizing when you're ignoring that, then you're not keeping that precept. And also, the Buddha's teaching was for renunciates. They didn't have a hell of a lot. That's why the first two teachings are to have few desires, and to know how much is enough. Now, you could also flip that and say, that includes knowing what isn't enough, knowing what has been withheld, seeing that and helping create a system of equality.

[57:02]

which is going to be a very – is a rocky road. You can't just make a decision and implement it but it's there. So anyway, that's – we could talk about this. We are talking about this forever and it's important to keep talking about it whether it's questions of poverty or gender or race. or one's own suffering and trauma, all of that is, this is the stuff of our practice. And it's not about an idealization into principles. The question is like, how do we unpack all these principles to live a life that is a life of benefit for all beings? Yeah, well, thank you for showing me because I'm still looking for the way.

[58:12]

I have not found the way. Linda? And then I thought, maybe we can have these principles be rewritten by voices that come from different places, you know? I think that that's a really interesting idea.

[59:38]

And I think it's a really, it's a productive idea. And I also feel like there's more groundwork that has to be laid. Because in order for that to happen, we have to have personal relationships of trust. And we have to create a context, a setting of trust, because all of this stuff is about doing something. And so there's something that has to be done. These principles arise out of action. They arise out of action. It's the languaging of what the Buddha saw happening around him. And so he painstakingly created community.

[60:39]

And I think that's the fundamental act to the extent that principles like this can help us do that. Great. And the principles are always a work in progress. But you're right. We need to hear a multiplicity of voices and perspectives, and that's you know, you get, you can also get people together in a room and say, okay, this is a project that interests us. Let's, let's try it out. It's a good idea. Yeah, Denise. I was practicing and originally when I was practicing in Korea, I had a brush with banknotes and magazines, with British copies and his own article.

[61:42]

And people were coming to my door to request my company and I heard people kissing my picture. I'm getting a little distracted here. So the thing is, is that there are people that have fame and they harm other people. There are people that have fame in Buddhism and they are not authentic. If somebody is authentic, and they have fame, they can benefit many, many people. And we see that in somebody who died recently, more than one person who died recently, and Luther Franklin, who wasn't practicing Buddhism, but was helping many beings from their work.

[62:54]

And so this reflection on, it's not just Yeah Yeah, I think that Certainly in his own realm, Dogen was famous. And I think that to me, what he's pointing at is, this is a hard position to hold. because of the projection, because of the temptations, that it's not that you can't do anything good from a position of fame, but if you seek fame for its own sake, which is very seductive, it can be a trap.

[64:09]

Some people handle it really well. You know, it was but it was really interesting. I mean, early when I was a lot younger, I I was playing music with in. Accompanying Allen Ginsberg. And, you know, in our culture, he was quite famous and it was really interesting to to watch You know, you just like sit back and see people coming up and wanting a piece of him in one way or other. He was pretty, pretty balanced. And so He could be fairly authentic and helpful to people, but it's just the amount of projection that was laid at his feet, it was very intense to see.

[65:18]

And I'd also say from my own experience playing music, which has brought me very little fame, What I saw was there were two ways to be on stage. One way was to want to get something, a reaction from the audience, and thereby trying to get a reaction from the audience. And what I found was I could do that, And it was totally unsatisfactory. And I stopped doing that. I just, I just really want to tune to the people that I'm playing with and make, just make the best music I could, whether people reacted or not.

[66:20]

And so I didn't become famous, but I played music that where I could reach, I was not losing myself. And I think that's, if you cannot lose yourself, then, and some people have that capacity even within fame. But it's pretty tricky, you know. Anyway, yeah, I think that's a valid point. Yeah. Yes. Is Buddha up for the fame? Is Buddha up for the fame? What do you mean? Uh, yeah. I think he did a pretty good job with it. Um, cause he kept saying, this is your work, not my work.

[67:21]

I've done, I'm doing my work, you know, and pointing people back to their work. Uh, you know, he wasn't, He wasn't saving them. You know, he was pointing them to how they could save themselves. So maybe one more. I have until 11. Yeah. Okay. Right. So maybe one more and then we'll call it a day. Other questions or thoughts? How does the Buddha bringing back us to do our work fit in with the four little vows that we say at the end? Like, beings are numberless.

[68:24]

We say I vow to awaken with them, but some other translations are I vow to save them. Well, that's the refiguring of Buddhism in the Mahayana. It's always there. It was there from the beginning. But the methodology that you find in early Buddhism was, I think the Buddha created a community in which people could practice. And within that practice, they could awaken. And that the example of their awakening was a powerful force for those who are around and harmonized society. In Mahayana, the vow shifted from

[69:35]

that the model of the arhat whose goal of practice was to end suffering and end the cycle of rebirth for themselves. And in a sense, it was a kind of radical individualism. in a context in which, in a context, I think a societal context in which, societal and spiritual context in which there wasn't That kind of radical individualism was not available because everything was – you were socially defined by virtue of your gender, by virtue of your caste, by virtue of your occupation. you, it was very hard for people to redefine themselves and thereby liberate themselves.

[70:42]

So that was a step, that was a big and radical liberative step. Then you had the arising very, It happened early on, earlier, now the scholars are finding, earlier than we think there was a blending of Mahayana values with early Buddhist principles and you had these inconceivable vows. you know, basically the vow to not leave this cycle of rebirth until everybody could. So from this individualist vision, which had a certain power and a certain time, you had a radical equalitarian vision that saw, oh, my responsibility is to help everyone wake up and that I will not, this gets to what Judy was saying.

[71:53]

It's like my privilege to wake up is really going to be, there's something really incomplete there unless we strive for everyone to wake up together. Does that make sense? Anyway, that's just my opinion, man. All right, so we're going to, we will, those who are in Sashin will continue this afternoon. So thank you very much.

[72:28]

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