So we've invited you to what may be our last seminar to talk about three next questions we're going to answer, or two, or I guess whatever. Any questions? Okay. Why the last? Isn't there time after the session? I think there may be one more, but I'm scheduled for certain ones. Oh. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Certainly wonderful to chant the Heart Sutra in front of Lakita Shvara. So I don't want this to be a lecture. We might as well have had a lecture. Maybe someone could sum up what the seminar is, where you've been so far in the seminar. Well, we've gotten through the first three paragraphs or stanzas.

[01:14]

So we last time ended with the third, oceanic withdrawal, dynamism, and life in emptiness. Do not increase nor decrease. So that's as far as we've officially gotten. But, of course, when you came, you did, as far as I was concerned, a full view of the whole thing. So we are steeped in it, I would say, at this point, the whole thing. But in terms of line by line, that's as far as we've come. Okay. And are there any points that you've gotten bogged down or stuck or something like that? you haven't gone very far, so you must have got stuck a few times. Though, if we were Chinese, we would not be past the title yet.

[02:15]

They discuss each syllable, you know. Well, we got quite interested in talking about dharmas last week, where it says, Oh, Shariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness, because that means many things. Trying to figure out how that related, what exactly it meant. Anything else? I think the perennial question seems to be, what do we do with this information, or how does it relate to our practice? How do we somehow transmute it from dry abstraction to something we can use? And I think for most of us, these technical blues terms are

[03:17]

not something that we're deeply familiar with. So even if we have some experience, which we all do, it takes a certain kind of shift to see our experience through these terms. Darwin's, for example, I think, sort of... This fundamental term sort of stopped us last time. We went through dictionaries and sort of looked under our vest, but... It took a while before anything that seemed familiar emerged through the terminology. Yeah. And I found it somehow surprising that all these people, including me, who are practicing for years now Buddhism, have difficulties to say something to Dharma. Me too. And there's a kind of reservation, or I don't know if that's the right word in English, a kind of... There was a lot of contradictions between what scholars thought that dharma was and what somebody else thought that dharma was.

[04:28]

They contradicted each other. Yeah, but, yeah, okay, so anything more on that? Yeah, maybe I would like to know, maybe you could say something to the importance or to the meaning of this, of studying Buddhism, this point, because I have difficulties to go in this. To study? To do it. Yeah. Although I studied a lot during my lifetime. But with this I tend to... You've studied Buddhism a lot? Or you've studied various things? Various things. And never had this kind of resistance or something like this. Tending more to like a real zazen, more sitting, more practice and not this abstract stuff again. somebody complained during these seminars about mind-fucking and we should maybe better sit and do the seminars and... We might have a baby Buddha!

[05:36]

So I emphasize what Randy said and this kind of shift necessary So why do you think that you've been doing Buddhism all these years and you don't know what a Dharma is? Maybe we should all pack up, shop, close down. Well, there's just many definitions. Yeah, but... But, so what? It's you doing it. The definitions are irrelevant, pretty much. I've defined it quite clearly a number of times.

[06:39]

No one remembers. I mean, as clearly as I can, anyway. Well, we spoke about your practice definition of Darwinian units. The way to practice with the sense of elemental constituents of experience, and how to see that experience, that feel, that practice at a more elemental level. And I think that Everyone who sits on a cushion is doing that. Now, whether they speak about it in terms of Dharma units, whether that's helpful. Yeah. Okay, something else, someone else.

[07:45]

Well my feeling is that this sutra kind of over a period of years enters through the back door of your mind and you feel it differently or understand it differently and that sometimes to get stuck in trying to figure it out in a rational, intellectual way is Don't know if it's so useful. Yeah. Someone else? I think it's useful to reflect about all these things that we are singing. Because if you are only singing, also if I feel something with this, I have also to understand what I'm doing.

[08:54]

And therefore I would like to connect to Frank the question of studying Buddhism. We are doing, in some way we are doing, because we are listening to your teachings and we are reading a lot, but it's still some pieces and maybe someday it will Kamalite, I don't know. That's optimistic. But I think you're right. It also said that over the years I was away from Zen Center and not practicing formally, that I didn't think a day had gone by where some part of this sutra had not, that there hadn't been something I was reflecting on in some way for some period of time. For example, I can remember for several months just the line, "'And his mind is no hindrance.'"

[09:59]

And I would think, what is hindrance? What is hindrance in my mind? Yeah. I also have been thinking these days, about the view that we bring to the sutra. And also, in a way, the sutra is also a tool for working on our view, to move our view towards the view embodied in the sutra. And I think, for me, one of the reasons why maybe dharma is sometimes slippery is that I don't... look at my life in terms of these kinds of constituents that I have a habit, of course, of looking at my life in a other conditioned kind of way. And so especially I was thinking of how Forrest Lever's trip, when we have the word emptiness, or you see this

[11:05]

A succession of no feelings, no perceptions, no form, no impulses, and so on. This meaning unreal, and how we let real follow after this, and true follow after this. So I've been thinking and was hoping maybe you would say something about conventional as well as absolute reality and how the view of those two things behind the citra, embodied in the citra, can be seen and how having that view and bringing that view to the citra also helps us to understand and practice. Yeah. Okay, somebody else? I haven't been thinking about it because I haven't been here.

[12:14]

Shame on you. I don't know, sometimes maybe that's... It doesn't sound so difficult in a way because I don't think about it. It's just every time you come, it's different. And you just kind of... It's kind of like it mixes with me, and then something appears, an understanding appears, and then that's not difficult. Now, whether that's the understanding, well, that's not it, no. But it's a understanding. And it's neat because every time it kind of like combines, like you're cooking or something, and you're putting material together, and on one material, and it's another material, and then something happens every time. And I guess... It's the same, and I come, and I'm different every time. So I get a different bread out of the baking process. And it doesn't seem difficult. I know it's not going to be the answer, but it always speaks something.

[13:16]

That's a nice feeling, it speaks something. And like right now, the emptiness, it just... Form is emptiness, and emptiness is form. It's on a very simple level that I feel that, I guess, but it feels good. It's just like when my mind is empty and stops, and that's the emptiness, and then there's the form there, and the form is the emptiness. There's no difference between the two. It's a very simple understanding, but it's a nice reminder just to stop and just to see the form, and it's the emptiness at the same time. And right now, that's just what I haven't been thinking about. Yeah, I understand. Well, I don't want to go say anything until I hear at least something from everyone. John?

[14:24]

Nothing's coming up right now. Well, at least I heard your voice. And I'm here, I guess. No, I don't like the guest part. Okay, so... If I might part, I can say... I recited a lot of time this Heart Sutra, but I recited only. And sometimes you said something, and then I understand a part, but I forgot it again. And when we are talking about this, so some remembrance come up, but it's still in my my feeling, that I have more to know about the philosophical idea or the view which these guys who put this up, right?

[15:37]

Because if I understand also this from the intellectual view and from the feeling view, I think then merge something in my body. I have this feeling, I don't know. Yeah, I understand. When I had the Dhamma, I remember it was three years ago, and when I took my precepts in, the precepts would take refuge in the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha. And now, speaking about the Dhamma, I see that I took refuge to something I don't even know of yet. Well, it's not knowing on one side what it means, the Dharma, but it's a kind of faith in the Dharma and it's a kind of faith in the practice and knowing that it has to do with the Dharma and it has to do with Buddha and it has to do with all of us practicing together with the Sangha.

[16:45]

And so all this is enough for me. For me, most clearly in this practice period, I'm beginning to feel the differences between how I can understand this when I'm sitting, for example, or in a very quiet space, and when I then leave that and get up and start moving through space and also in relationship with all of you. And there's something about the... the feeling tone of not understanding it, which is beginning to reflect the understanding of it, if that makes sense, or at least it's putting me in the dilemma

[17:50]

of penetrating more into the understanding when I recognize that I'm not understanding it, or I'm not somehow available to it. So there's a quicker shifting around with it that I recognize is happening very directly through this practice. Okay, good. Thanks. I have some difficulties to study this interest in that way because for me I put the practice in the front and I'm just reciting this. Sometimes I feel something, I feel that I understand a little bit of it, but with the repetition, the dis-understanding changes also.

[19:02]

Sometimes I have the feeling that I get to from different ways to one aspect, perhaps emptiness and so on. And when I'm studying it in a concentrated situation, I always have a little bit of feeling that we are sticking to definitions and to have the the goal to to keep it and to find a form of this and so now it's for me it's the story it destroys also some liberty just to feel what's coming up it's rather difficult to express in such a point time point understanding of it so I don't really want to understand it in a study way in that kind of form

[20:14]

But I also must say that it was also good to look at it in this way because I don't do it a lot of time in this kind of study. kids to practice to an understanding just coming from the text. Don't have the feeling to have understood in the intellectual way. Yeah, I understand. I appreciate that. I feel awe for this sutra on several different levels. On a level in terms of the study of Buddhism.

[21:24]

In the short sutra, there's an analysis many different Buddhist practices, from the Bodhisattva practice of the Paramitas, to the Four Noble Truths, to the Eighteen Dattus, to the way that it courses in all of the different teachings of the ancients that are given to us, and I feel a real, in its compensation, a real appreciation. If I can understand this, know Four Noble Truths, the idea of cognition, wisdom in Theravada Buddhism, attainment in Theravada Buddhism. In my trying to study it, I got drilled beginning with the mahala part. And I remember my first summer at Tassar, I went to Suzuki Roshi. I told him that I thought this sutra was magic.

[22:30]

And he said to me, you know, they hit these stuff, magic. And I said, no, because it's the only thing I say every day that's really true. He said it? That's really true. Yeah. And it's such a rare opportunity to say something that's true. And also it's a direction because Kanji's eye is practicing deeply the Prajnaparamita. It's different than Kano. who's offering something from above regarding with compassion. Kanji's eye is seeing the nature of things. And so it's both an opportunity direction for me to practice and also to regard carefully the precision of what the ancients have given us to work with. And I feel a bit overawed by it in terms of fully understanding what's there.

[23:31]

I feel very grateful for it. Yeah, thank you. He must be necktinkered. I can say I understand the Heart Sutra without words, with no language. I understand it better than talking about it. But for me it was very interesting to have this experience in this group and to see all the different perspectives. I feel more and more attracted to the Heart Sutra and I feel it's a kind of protection for our daily life.

[24:31]

I got mixed up the last time because it was more and more dry and abstract and so our language is based on dualism and it was rather dry than full. When I remember what Ben said, he mentioned that this heart sutra, I don't know whether you know this, it was meant for somebody or for a bodhisattva who died. And he brought this to this bodhisattva, so I tried to imagine I'm lying in bed and I'm dying, and you tell me all the stuff from the last time you're now meeting.

[25:48]

I would die immediately. Well, I'm glad I wasn't there. I might not be here now. It was that bad, it nearly killed you. I survived. Okay. What I like very much about the Heart Sutra is this kind of radical wisdom which echoes no to any kind of experience I'm bringing to it. And I remember I was only here for two of these seminars, and I liked them, and found them fertile and productive, even if I don't like them. I remember a time where I was kind of desperate to get this kind of echoing, as if someone would tell me all the time, no, not this.

[27:00]

And I had nothing to kind of hold on. And in this practice period I feel that this attempt to get something, that my mind wanted to figure something out, that it is exhausting. My mind is exhausting and that I am surprisingly receiving something. which is not an answer. And what is very important for me that within this kind of negation it's also included the Four Noble Truths. This really struck me that a system or a doctrine includes itself into that kind of process.

[28:02]

This gave me a lot of trust. Mostly in our meetings I noticed the inability or the laziness or the sloppiness of my mental process to get some sort of precision and to break these down. And last week was a perfect example something that I noticed I had a lot of resistance to breaking up dharmas and articulating them with that precision. And this is also a mirror of just what I've been going through in this whole practice, giving it that kind of clarity. So as we've been marinating in this,

[29:09]

Again and again I notice I tend to just drop there and listen to the sounds of what people are saying. To try and somehow be right in that space simultaneously while we are attempting to wrap our minds around something that is a wrappable, a roundable. And the mantra has the gate gate I feel I'm permeated with that without being able to speak about it.

[30:21]

And it arises a lot. So you're marinated and permeated and he's cooked. I think the tenzos work in our mind here. We must teach in time. Anything come up for you? Well, I don't know if it makes any sense, but I guess... Well, none of us have done too well at that point. Just join in. You know... Form does not differ from emptiness. Emptiness does not differ. For most of us, I guess, it comes up the most for me when I'm away from the suture itself. I guess the most difficult part for me in practice period is that I think David, or I'm not sure somebody mentioned it, is the difference between on the cushion and off the cushion.

[31:29]

I think Randy said once to me, anybody can sit on a cushion, but when you get off the cushion, that's when all hell breaks loose. I have constant experience of that. When you get off the cushion, that's when all hell breaks loose. Randy didn't say this, but I'm using it. I don't want to discredit him. We could tie you down. Anyway, so I guess if I were going to draw some parallel, which probably doesn't make any sense, the tranquility and the steadiness in the zendo relative to walking around. out of the Zendo is the most jarring thing for me. So in a sort of gross way, emptiness versus form in a crude sense. So I think maybe I am, as I see the mirror more and more, I am trying to figure out how to

[32:40]

realize this emptiness in everyday situations as some way of moving like a cloud over or through obstacles rather than always butting up. So I guess that's something. Yeah, okay, good. Thanks. Wasn't so bad. Okay. Kanua? Oh, she's holding your tongue. Well, actually, everything you've said to me makes quite a lot of sense. And the question of why, I think, if nothing else, if we recognize through the seminars the difficulty we have in studying the Heart Sutra or studying sutras,

[34:10]

And we confront that. We wonder about that. That's a pretty big accomplishment of the seminar, I think. And it is rather peculiar. I had a conversation with Ulrike about it the other day. Because as you know, most of you, she's a very accomplished chemist and has studied and knows an immense amount of stuff about chemistry. And she's interested in studying psychotherapy. She's read a lot of books, but she doesn't study Buddhism. And I sort of bug her about it every now and then. I said, what's wrong with you? I said, if you studied Buddhism as effectively and with the kind of effort and time you've put into chemistry, I mean, heck, I could retire. But people don't put in that kind of... She finds no problem putting that kind of effort into chemistry. Why doesn't she put it into Buddhism? It's a rather interesting question. I don't know the answer, but I can kind of muse about it with you.

[35:20]

But it would be wonderful if I could... if we could discover how to study together, how to study individually and together, it would be a big accomplishment. And I think part of it is just a view we have that intimate things, we don't study how to be in love. We would think that would interfere with being in love. I mean, there seems to be an awful lot of magazines in the grocery store that tell you how to be in love or something equivalent to that. Some facsimile. But on the whole, we don't want to study things that are too close to us. And in particular we have the view that because we've grown up in a theological society that this is some sort of grace or heartfelt thing or something like that.

[36:41]

So I think we're predisposed not to study in a way some things that are most important to us or intimate to us. And there's that view about religion Spiritual life, it's not something you study, something you are. So we've got to dispel ourselves, dispel that, dispel that spell from us. But I think also it's, and I think most of us can see through that view. But I also think that if we were, can die, Buddhists say, or we were in a university studying Buddhism, not practicing particularly, we could probably study Buddhism quite well. But I would imagine, I'm fairly certain, that if a scholar who was studying Buddhism began to practice Buddhism, he would then have a hard time studying.

[37:48]

that it would actually find some kind of difficulty in studying because it would interfere with his experience. So if that's the case, then we have to discover how to study so it doesn't interfere with our practice. So maybe we have to study in a different way than the way we're used to studying in university or college or something like that. Now, I think that what Atmar and Dennis said is the closest to the view you need, which is that if you're practicing, you can just assume you're already doing this. And if you don't have that assumption, it won't open up. So you've just got to assume you're already doing this.

[38:55]

I didn't get that. Doing what? You're already doing Dharma, Buddha, Sangha, the Four Noble Truths, etc. You know, there was that soap when I was a kid called Doze. And they had a mantra, Doze does everything. And it was one of those advertisements. Anybody know? Remember Doze does everything? You're the only guy even possibly old enough. What happened to Doze? Tides in, dirts out. Remember that one? Tide, that was more, came after. But does, does everything, you know. Once you've heard it a few times, particularly on the radio before TV, it does, does everything. You know, you buy it and it washes your dishes. You hardly just stand there and watch. And then you come across this, does, does nothing.

[40:03]

But... I would guess in my generation, everyone in America knew the phrase, does, does everything. And these guys who created this Heart Sutra, actually I think, and it's too bad advertisement has taken over all this kind of stuff, but created a phrase which nowadays you could almost, very much, almost anywhere in Europe or America, to someone who's moderately educated, you could say form is emptiness, emptiness is form, and they'd heard something like that before. That's pretty remarkable. It wasn't true when I was 25, but it's probably true now. And if I gave a lecture to a public audience somewhere, said form is emptiness, emptiness is form, or something, or referred to form and emptiness, or referred to the word emptiness.

[41:12]

They probably know the word emptiness. They know the word emptiness, they know this form emptiness relationship. That's a remarkable achievement. Just that so many people now in our culture have heard of this phrase. Even if they don't understand it, it stirs up something. Now, So we have this phrase, first of all, this is kind of like a hypodermic needle or something, which has injected this phrase, form is emptiness, into us and into our society. Mysterious pill. And... And so Thotmar said he just assumes he's doing this. As Dennis said, he feels that some understanding comes up.

[42:16]

He's some kind of, this is one ingredient and this is an ingredient, and what comes up, here's some, you know, that's... Does that make sense? I mean, I should be able to say to you, that's wrong. And you say, fine, okay. But if psychologically you're demolished, then you're not practicing, really. Because you're sitting in front of me. I can say, you're wrong. That doesn't mean anything. It's just two words. Three words, a contraction. You're sitting there. If I say, you're wrong, and you say... You're not practicing Buddhism. You're in some kind of psychological state, you know, who you are, etc. So it's one reason the teacher traditionally says, no. Every time you come in, they say no. If you can't handle it, go away. But most of us can't handle it.

[43:21]

We get all involved in it. The fact is, you know, we're here. How can anything I say contradict that? You should know that with your body. You know? And the emphasis in our practice and in the whole yogic culture is we make things concrete. We do physical practices. You turn an idea into a sound. You turn it into something you repeat. It's not just ideas floating around. You make it something. See, you really need to trust that what comes up is it.

[44:28]

You may not understand how what comes up is it. But still, what comes up, you can have the faith that what comes up is it. If I ask you, or someone asks you, you may not be able to say anything about it. If you can't say anything about it, present it. If you present it, it's right. If you say something about it, you may not have the skill to say something about it, but you can present it. Now, again, what Atmar said is, like the five skandhas, everything that you see is in the five skandhas. There's nothing outside the five skandhas. That, by definition, is what the five skandhas are. So anything you see, think that it has to fit into the five skandhas somewhere.

[45:30]

There's nothing left out. By definition, that's what it is. It's something which includes everything. And also, so does Buddha Dharma Sangha. Anything you see is either Buddha or Dharma or Sangha. There's nothing left out. And this avantamsaka, wayan teaching, everything interpenetrates. Every teaching interpenetrates every other teaching. That's why you teach one teaching, because one teaching includes all the teaching. Everything penetrates a single pore. So, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. But Dharma is also Buddha and Sangha, and Sangha is also Buddha and Dharma, and so forth. So, you have that view. So, in a way, you don't have to worry about whether you exactly understand Dharma. You're right. And what Retta said, she's feeling more that the not understanding is part of the understanding.

[46:33]

This is a wisdom teaching. This is truth. We know, we know that truth is not fully understandable. We're just part of it. We're just an object in this thing. I mean, it's amazing how much we do know But we can't know everything, but we are everything. So you have to assume this is the truth, but the truth can't fully be known because then something would be left out. Does that make sense? If you know it, if you know what a flower is, then it's no longer a flower. No matter what, there could be a flower here, and we could talk about it. It's got this, and it's got molecules, and it's got color, and the color changes. But you can never quite say everything. Even a flower is going to surpass any knowledge or definition of it. So then what we should do, and what would be very good if we're doing in seminars, and I really wish we could get there, is we learn how to develop a common way of talking about practice together, a common understanding of how you study.

[48:17]

So Coco can talk to John and John, to Molly to Retta and Retta to Atmar and so forth. Now, I've been doing this a pretty long time. I can remember Sukhirashi saying, um various times you have to expect to the two of us in the tasar in the early days um you have to uh you have to do if you do this for one or two years everybody was you know in those days in the 60s you know when you're 20 something you think one or two years that's a very long time but you know yes we do did accomplish something one or two years but

[49:26]

This has been almost forty years for me and I'm still fumbling along. But you do get some proficiency or skill after a while. You know, Eliot, P.S. Eliot, lots of you from Europe may not be familiar with Eliot and Pound, but they're the two major directional poets who gave a direction to poetry in the century in English, I would say. And Eliot attempted to... I didn't speak about this the other day. I was thinking about it. I just mentioned Pound. Eliot attempted to find language... for inarticulate feelings, inarticulate psychological feelings.

[50:40]

And one very famous line from his poem, the women come and go talking of Michelangelo. You don't know quite what that means, but you have a feeling for the women come and go talking about Michelangelo. He doesn't say what it is, but he conveys a feeling, something you can't spell out exactly, but we catch it. Now, Pound attempted to get out of his... to get out of his language... political influences. So in his early... and he tried to translate like... He didn't translate so much because he wanted to translate poems, but because he wanted to try on other voices. Now, Pound's politics and personality were somewhat warped at times in his life, but what he tried to accomplish and how he's a precedent or ancestor of practice for English speakers is immense.

[51:55]

Both Gary Snyder and I came into Buddhism through Ezra Pound, for example. Not that that makes the influence immense, but it just means that a lot of people that in those days, Gary's age is five or six years older than I am, and myself, there wasn't much in our society. You could be interested in Asia, but what in your society led you into Buddhism? So Pound translated the way Ivan Illich said that he was going to study Chinese or Japanese or Indian languages, but he found Indian languages too Europeanized already in their paradigms and concepts, to get as far a perspective as he could so then he could look at Christianity and Western culture. And Pound, so he translated all kinds of different things so he could look at his own language

[52:59]

So he tried to get Swinburne out of his early translations, etc. And it took him many years, but he felt, and he had the word logopoeia, which means playing the play within words. So, in a way, I'm very much a child of Ezra Pound in the sense that I've been trying to get out of my language Western influences since the 50s. And it's been a... It's been a very long time for me before, I don't know if I can give you, this is a little bit off the point, but something that might be worth sharing, is I would say that when I was in my 20s and 30s, somewhere like that,

[54:24]

if a number of words appeared to me, or two or three words appeared to me, the way those words could be connected to other words, maybe there were a thousand possibilities, there were 500 possibilities, but they were definite. I didn't have a way, I didn't have one more than those 500. I could make certain combinations, but the words tended to stick together, and this word implied this kind of thing, and this word... I would say I was in my late 30s or 40s before I could just look at a word that could just sit there, open to any possibility, and didn't have to be... I could put it next to a word where I never would have thought of putting it next to that word. I mean, there's nobody to put it against it.

[55:26]

It would have jarred before. It wouldn't have occurred to me. This was an effort on my part, a conscious effort on my part, to shake my language free from the predisposition of views. Now, I mean, it's a little bit like a kind of cubism in that, you know, many, many centuries go by and everyone draws faces pretty much the same way, Chile, etc., even. But then you have Braque and Picasso and Wangri, and they suddenly put the nose this way. Well...

[56:27]

That took something, some loosening to say, well, I can take the nose, I can draw it this way on the face. We don't usually do that, and no one did it for centuries. So once you do it, this is a big, this is something different, you know? Or when you look at a painting and you see that really a painting, excuse me, I'm just searching for examples. So you look at a painting and my impression is that good paintings usually have all the same brushstrokes. In other words, you don't use one kind of brushstroke to paint the tree and another kind of brushstroke to paint the person.

[57:33]

The house, the tree, everything's the same brushstroke. There's a kind of rhythm. And you carry that rhythm of the brushstroke into the tree or into the barn or into the face or into the whatever. So someone noticed that or began to feel the beauty of the brushstroke itself and they just moved the brushstroke and didn't have the barn or didn't have the face. where they noticed that that sort of area between the tree and the thing, which was just color, was quite interesting. Just so abstract painting was created. And just by noticing something that's there and saying, oh, let's just do the brushstrokes. And we don't have to use the brushstrokes to delineate an object. So in some way like that, I've had to take my language take the brushstrokes of it out, and hold it out, and then put it back onto my experience to allow the language to reflect my experience.

[58:37]

Because you are now in a different century than your parents, probably now a different century than you were when you were just, were in a kind of different century than a decade or two ago. And I think that your language probably doesn't reflect what you're perceiving, that your perceptions don't fit your language. And so I think it behooves us not to give up study, but to really attempt to see if we can bring language, discover a way. I mean, first you have to have the faith, Dennis, to say, what I experience is it. There's this ingredient, this ingredient, etc. But then you begin to have to have the skill to say, does the when I think about it, does it interfere with it?

[59:45]

Does it change it? Does it kill it? If it does, it's a problem that you haven't brought your language in line with your practice. This is a real serious error. Because if you don't bring it in line, as soon as you're back, off your cushion, all hell will break loose. Because you'll start thinking resonantly and lovingly with others, and their language will open, bring back up your old language to you, and you will then have lost your practice. Basically, you will lose your practice. If you don't make your thinking coincident and coextensive with your practice, you cannot maintain your practice in ordinary society. Unless you isolate yourself or You know, somebody talks to you, you say, talk to my aura.

[60:51]

You know, but at some point that doesn't, you know, it's horrible. So this effort of making our language to find a language that actually expresses what we experience is real fundamental to us if we're going to be germinating seeds in our society. And I sure want you to be. I mean, I believe that, I really believe that this society, I think we're in real bad shape. Real bad shape. And I think that what we're doing is one of the good things. Excuse me for saying so. And I think even though, you know, there ain't much of a career in this, you know, there ain't much money in it. But somebody's got to go out there and say, I'm just going to go out there and be this germinating dharma seed.

[61:58]

and have the confidence to say, I would rather present the truth in my own life and in our society than have some kind of thing that makes my family happy, or makes somebody else happy, or to find some way in whatever you're doing to become that germinating dharma seed. This kind of heroism or shiroism is necessary. We can't have just heroes, we have to have sheroes. What's a shero? A shero is a female hero. Molly puts her hand up. This is already, she's chalked one up for the sheroes. So I've, you know, done this work just because I was, to practice, I was thrust into a society and a situation which there was no support for practice.

[63:29]

So I hope that the work I've had to do to free my language, to look at the brushstrokes of my own language, so I can paint a different picture, I can paint what I'm actually seeing. I know what I see in practice. I know what I see in Zazen. I know what I see, but I cannot use language in the usual way to talk about it because it paints a different picture. And if I say it, they don't understand what I mean. or they understand it the way they want to understand it, or it's customary to understand it. As I've been saying, I'm making a distinction between inward-outward consciousness and an interior consciousness. Now, if you use the language of inward consciousness, inward consciousness, the language it describes, if you try to describe an interior consciousness, Most people will say it's an inward consciousness. And an inward consciousness is confirmed through outward consciousness.

[64:32]

So it'll become what everybody thinks an inward consciousness is. An inward consciousness is not interior consciousness. But even making a distinction between interior and inward is rather... I mean, that's something, you know... It takes us some effort, it takes us a mental hara effort to hold this possibility of a distinction between interior and inward. A consciousness that's not confirmed through others or through exterior consciousness. So I hope this work I've had to do because, you know, there weren't many Buddhists around when I started, practicing Buddhists for sure, is... will make it easier for you that some of this ground has been plowed

[65:45]

and together, because we're a Sangha, as a Sangha, we can begin to share and develop a language that reflects what we actually experience. Now, when you begin to have your language reflect your actual experience, when your language can accurately reflect your practice, when you can talk to yourself, think to yourself accurately about your practice, your practice jumps a whole level. It won't get there just by practice. Because if you just practice and you don't make your language correspond to your actual experience, the inertia and momentum of the world we live in, which is all around us is semantic, will drag our insight down.

[66:53]

The semantic quality of our culture, everything is a, you know what I mean, is a word, a kind of word. So you really need, and so there's three mysteries of body, speech, and mind. And they're mysteries Because they can reveal something to us. There are secrets in body, speech, and mind. And they reveal something to us when we are in touch with body, speech, and mind. Now, we chant this. One of the reasons we chant this is just to do the physical act. Not to think about it. The physical act. If you can't be in touch any other way, be in touch by chanting it. Now, what I would really like you to do, if we had a long enough seminar, I was going to suggest it earlier, but I would like you each to write your own Heart Sutra.

[68:01]

If you were going to write this, what would you do? What would you say? And I don't see any reason why you shouldn't each write your own Heart Sutra. See, would it become the same? If you wanted to save this, what would you say? How would you say? So please each write your own heart sutra. I mean, we have the permission. You're a Buddha. Don't think it's back there. Someone did this. We can do it. So first of all, this is, as we talked about last time, is an inventory. It's just an inventory. And you may just want to practice, you know, but still, you really ought to know what the jnanas are. And you ought to really consciously, intentionally, consciously practice with each jnana separately and put them together like a piece of chamber music.

[69:08]

Yeah. You can begin to work with just your, just here. And you should really work with hearing the object, the sound, what happens, the joining of the sound. And it's, this seems to exist and this seems to exist, but really they only exist through their relationship, the sound, but the sound is not graspable. So it's empty. So the only way these things really exist is in their interactions, but the interactions have no substance. They have karma, but no substance. So you really want to study. You want to hear sounds that way. You want to see sights that way. If you do that, it will really open up your practice. So the basic things you really want to know five skandhas.

[70:11]

You want to work with this perceptions, feelings, consciousness, etc. form. You really want to get good at the five skandhas. And that's partly an intellectual thing. You have to understand what the basic idea of the five skandhas is, what the distinctions are. But then you want to start playing it, like music. You really want to get good at the five skandhas. You want to get good at the vijnanas, And you want to get good at the four elements of earth, fire, solidity, fluidity, etc. I mean, again, there is nothing outside this system. There's no creator, etc. There's nothing outside this system. Everything you see occurs in the five or four elements. So where's Buddha? In the four elements. Where's Bhairavacchana Buddha?

[71:12]

In the four elements. Where's everything? In the four elements. You are the four elements. These are you. These are your ingredients. You just mix them a little differently and you're a Buddha. Marinate them, cook them, you know. So what appears... Whatever is, is in these elements, and you see it one way, but it can be felt and known other ways, but... Okay, so... We discussed this looking into a mirror. I think, don't we all agree that you can't see what's seen? We all agree? Then you should have no problem with the idea of emptiness. You can't see what's seeing. You can see your nose, you can see eyes, you can see... But you can't see what's seeing.

[72:15]

So, what's the problem with emptiness? There's all these things here, but you can't see... You can only see this kind of aspect of it. So there's always going to be some dimension that's not... understandable, or graspable in the usual sense. Now, Mark asked me earlier what a Dharani was. He wanted to ask about Dharani, but you haven't asked what a Dharani is. No. What's a Dharani? Thank you. Okay. A mantra is a Dharani. A mantra is a compressed Dharani. Dharani means to hold, or it's a container, something it holds. Everything's changing. How do you hold something? So practice is this thing about everything's changing, but actually, perceptually, things are held so we have a sense this room's here.

[73:25]

I mean, we're all falling in space at the same speed. You can think of it like that. We just happen to be, luckily, falling at the same speed. The room's falling, the rug's falling, we're all falling. But actually, they're all falling. In fact, they are. I mean, a comet, you know, all that stuff, right? We're just all falling at the same speed, as these parachutists who kind of catch each other's hands. We're on these parachutes. And we can see it, and it makes sense because it's all the same speed. The speed starts getting different, and we start having trouble making sense of what's going on. And the speed is actually always a little different. So Dharani, so what holds, what allows us to all be at the same speed is the idea of a hold, a container.

[74:45]

So everything's changing, but there's this sense of a container. Now, a Dharani is also a kind of prayer, a non-narrative prayer. and a non-narrative offering. So it's an offering, a prayer, but it's not narrative. If it's narrative, it falls into our ordinary thinking. So it's got to be like some kind of poem blown apart, or five or six poems all mixed up. And so this line is this way, and that line's that way, etc. And in a way, this is like that, because it's got to, when you read it, it can't look like, well, the statue's there, and the thing is there, and it's got to say, well, the statue's there, and the thing is there, but it's empty. Because if it just describes, it's like Pound's translation's turning out like Swinburne, or Rossetti, or something like that.

[75:56]

Or, you know, you understand. So, some teaching like the Heart Sutra has to be written in a way that it doesn't fall into your usual habits of thinking. So, it's not going to be... So, if you understand that it's intentionally outside your habits of thinking, then it makes it easier to study. You have trouble studying it because you're trying to force it into your habits of thinking. So I would suggest if you want to study something, if you want to learn how to study Buddhism, and we can see that in the... koan stories, how some people were experts or knew some sutra very well, etc.

[77:06]

And of course there weren't many books. You were very lucky to have a book then, or you're just loaded with these things. If you had a copy of the Diamond Sutra, you had a treasure. there's no printing, you know, things like Korea really developed the first printing blocks, but even there are these immense blocks to print a sutra. You had a room as big as this with blocks, you know. To make a copy was a big deal, you know. If you take some sutra that you say to yourself, if I'm going to be practicing Buddhism, I should know this sutra. Why not? You have to... And I would suggest you read at the speed that you can realize it. Read at the speed at which you can practice it. If you can't read at the speed you can realize it, at least read at the speed you can practice it.

[78:08]

And after you've really tried and you can't practice it, then go on to the next sentence. But literally take a sentence or two a day And just stay with it all day. And the next day, move to the next sentence. And if you don't feel comfortable, stay with that sentence. It might take you one or two years to get through a sutra. But if you do that, other sutras will open up. So you've got to read at the speed at which you can realize or practice. And don't go further till you've practiced it. You might be stuck in one paragraph for a long time. Who knows? When you feel you've, at this point, used all your resources, all your provisions, your walk-in is overheated and empty, then go on to the next sentence. So as Paul said, you know, maybe just stay with Maha.

[79:22]

Maha. It's a good thing to stay with. Everything you look at, you can say Maha. Atmar says, we've got to paint another room today. And you say, Maha. Atmar would like that. He would give you a brush. Maha. Prajnaparamita. Radaya. Radaya. And practicing deeply. So you've got to feel your way into this. Now this sense of, this practice is to, in the sense of body, speech and mind, the mysteries of body, speech and mind, is to stay in touch with your body. to stay in touch with your speech, to stay in touch with your mind. If you're in touch with your speech as you're speaking, fully physically present in your speech, with your mind attentive to your speech, then you're practicing speech.

[80:30]

If you're talking, so you say, okay. You're not then practicing deeply. So you want to work with practicing deeply? Be in touch with your body as much as you can all the time. When you can't do it, but you can make an effort. Then you're studying a sutra. Because you've got to study it with body, speech, and mind. You've got to stay in touch with body, speech, and mind and bring this sutra into searing it, searing yourself with the sutra. So you can't study, you've got to study as practice. Does that make sense? Not done with your head or something like that. Now, you can get quite good at this, you can get more skillful at it. So you can, like you'd read a koan and you can feel the koan, physically feel the koan.

[81:34]

And that's usually quite clear, it pops up. But first you have to do it with some sutra. First you have to do it with some text to learn how to do this so that you can be physically, mentally, and your language, how you describe yourself to yourself. Speech just doesn't mean my talking. Speech means the semantic capacity of human beings, which is always present. Like we say a stove, but we know a stove is hot. So stove is a symbol, it's a semantic designation, it's not the fire itself. But until our speech, our semantic capacity is coincident with our practice, our practice is not very deep. So body, speech and mind are in touch with each other and each is independently,

[82:42]

in touch with whatever's going on. This is how you study a sutra. Then form does not differ from emptiness. And emptiness does not differ from form. Otherwise notice it's an idea. Am I making any sense? Waxing incoherent here? What I understood you to just say then is that the study itself, if this is how we're studying, is the realization of the sutra. Yes. And every stage of your understanding is the realization of the sutra. And you have to trust that it may be an inarticulate realization, but it's still a realization It may be an incomplete realization in the sense that you haven't brought all body, speech and mind together yet, but still it's a realization.

[83:50]

So what's the problem? You're always in a state of realization. This is great, you know. The bodhisattva depends on prajnaparamita and nothing else. It really means that. Not on some other thing in your insurance policy. I mean, you don't have to put yourself totally out on a limb, but maybe it's good to put yourself totally out on a limb. But at least you really understand it depends on, with nothing to attain, with nothing to depend on except emptiness. It's true, not false. So proclaim the prajnaparamita nitya. It means proclaim it. It means you, if you understand this, your responsibility is not to proclaim it, to be that germinating dharma seed.

[84:58]

So you're not just understanding it, your understanding is also proclaiming it. You know, Sukhyoshi told me when I was ordained, He gave me the robes and he said, now you have to wear your robes for at least one year in every circumstance. He said, if you're going to be ordained, I want you to proclaim your ordination. And if you have a raksu and you're a lay person, really, your commitment if you have a raksu is whatever you're in a dharma situation, whenever you're hearing a lecture, no matter if you're with people who would be totally embarrassed that you're doing it, you put on your raksu And you say, this is me, I'm proclaiming, this is where I'm at. That's the commitment to having a raksa. Doesn't mean you have to wear it in the subway or something like that, you know, or the movies. But if you're in a dharma situation, either meditating or talking about the dharma or hearing the dharma, put this on.

[86:03]

Because it's a physical act. And you connect what you do with physical acts. That's the sense of this practice. And that's why we have this physical object. I don't know what happens to me. I'd better... I'd better only give Teisho a much milder name. But I really want you guys to do this. You know? Okay, thanks. May I ask? Yes, sure. Why are we doing the lecture, reading in the morning? We are reading books. We could bring them to the dump. Why are we not reading a sutra? No, no. What are you doing there? If I were in the study, I'd be taking some sutra and reading a section of it over and over again.

[87:06]

So I'd be doing the study, or I'd be out here doing the exercises. But I think we have the study because we need a break. I think actually study is a break, and we want to use our mind in the ordinary way because it's a form of relaxation. Well, that's why I think we're studying. It's a form of break. What? I don't need a coffee anymore. Yeah, you need a coffee. You just sit in the room and there's a fire. And if I could, I've almost several times brought you all a pair of slippers and a pipe. Yeah. So you can enjoy yourself. I mean, I want you to enjoy yourself. Something else? So we have not to intellectual study?

[88:06]

If you can't do anything but intellectual study, please do intellectual study. But it's necessary to do a certain amount. The intellect and logic covers the whole of Buddhism. Buddhism is profoundly logical. So a certain amount of study is necessary to get familiar. And then when we're talking, but really the trick is, the essence is, to find how to join practice and study so your intellect or your study doesn't interfere with your practice. It's not to give up the intellect. It's to find that subtlety where intellect and practice are the same. And so we're talking together, and you have these seminars because you're trying to discover, basically, you're not really studying the sutra. You're trying to study how to study together and how to begin to talk to yourself and talk to others in a common language.

[89:16]

Because we cannot do this alone. I can't do this alone. I need all of your help, and you need each other's help, so we've got to develop a way to do this together, which includes the semantic reality that we share, and that will be the most powerful way you affect others. Now, Bodhidharma sat for nine years. That was his way of doing it, and maybe in a sense we have to do that too.

[89:45]

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