Yesterday we had some questions about desire and about Manjushri and Samantabhadra. It's rather difficult to answer questions like these thoroughly. Best way is, as you encounter, by your sincerity, deeper your sincerity,

[02:17]

the deeper your recognition of the way, the only way, the more you'll come across these questions. as an intrinsic part of your life, and then we can, in doksan, meet with them, discuss them. But to talk in general like this about it is rather difficult. So, one reason is it requires quite a lot of familiarity with alternatives and Buddhism, and the ability to keep your attention on it. If you can't keep your attention on it, after I talk a few minutes you'll wander off, what is he talking about?

[03:47]

The reason Buddhism goes into such detail, or we can talk about these things in such detail, is that Zen Buddhism and Buddhism as a whole is not so interested in just enlightenment, or satori, or kensho, but is rather interested in enlightenment that everyone can trust. There are many people around now who have some kind of attainment, shall we say, and the sutras speak about such vehicles, sravaka and pratyeka, et cetera, people who have realized freedom from desire or some blissful experience. That comes from being free of the past and future. Not so uncommon, in fact, some people, it's such an impact and not so hard to attain, actually, to experience it.

[05:30]

And many people are building whole religious programs and study groups around their experience. And they give people a very good feeling. But usually there's something not entirely credible about it, not entirely believable for everyone. Everyone doesn't trust it completely. There's some self-interest in it, or some... just another way to acquire something. Sometimes looks like an escape. sometimes looks like a way to increase your ability to do things well.

[06:45]

So a great deal of Buddhism deals with the pitfalls, not as many provisional practices, but the pitfalls of practice. So Manjushri and Samantabhadra are... much of it are aspects of this. It's important in this kind of discussion to Remember that everything is provisional. Buddhism is provisional. Monjeshri is provisional. Samantabhadra is provisional. The reason we love Buddha so much, if you don't know you love Buddha so much, it's because he is provisional. Most of us can't deal with the fact that we love Buddha, some stone statue. You'll find out that you love Buddha. One of the ten vows of Samantabhadra is to praise Buddha, to honor Buddha, to make moral offerings to Buddha, to turn the wheel of the Dharma, to keep Buddha in the world, to try to talk Buddha into staying in America.

[08:47]

like we used to try to talk Suzukiyoshi into staying. Don't go back to Japan. That is one of the ten vows of Samantabhadra, to talk Buddha into staying around, not entering nirvana. So we talked Suzukiyoshi into staying around, and now he's gone, but still we're talking Suzukiyoshi into staying around. we would do anything for Suzuki Yoshi. But now, when you understand Suzuki Yoshi, you would do anything for Buddha. So, I'll change topics for a while and talk about desire. Most desire is not so difficult to cope with. The desire to be warm when you're cold.

[10:24]

if it's cold in the zendo and you wish it was summer, that desire is not so difficult. Or the desire to eat when there's no food, that desire is not so difficult. Such a desire is counterproductive. It doesn't get any food for you, doesn't produce a summer day, and it just distracts you. We don't have time for that. So eventually you quit fooling around and give up such desires. This is part of Buddhist conduct. The recognition that you don't have much time and you quit fooling around. But sexual desire is not so easy because desire itself is productive. In other words,

[11:54]

If you don't have any food, and you desire a meal, it doesn't help. But if you don't have a boyfriend or girlfriend, but you see one, and you desire him or her, your desire will help produce the result you're interested in, unless you're overly desirous. Usually, if you're too desirous, you'll scare everyone away. So most successful people are desirous and detached. They have some detachment. You've all, of course, seen this in your own observation, and if some of you have read Proust, there's an incredible courtship description, I don't know, in the fifth volume or sixth volume, somewhere, I forget, quite powerful image of courtship.

[13:31]

So Dana's example of Ulysses. I imagine our Ulysses tying all of us up to trees, and all of our dakinis walking back and forth, or vice versa. But usually when we know each other, pretty well, we can get rid of fantasy. Or you can experience the difference between the state of mind before a desire and after you've accomplished your desire. You sometimes may wonder, why did I get involved? Now some even state of mind is necessary which is able to understand the mind before desire or during desire and the mind after desire. It's not so easy. One of, in, you can find in the Maha Prajnaparamita

[15:11]

literature, sections called Aids to Penetration, and they describe how you produce an evened mind towards someone, first stage, and produce weak heat, and then you produce a thought of benefit for people. We're talking about compassion now, not passion. And a thought of benefit And finally, of kinsmen, of mother, a father, a brother, a sister. These are correlated with weak heat and medium heat and great heat. This is rather esoteric teaching, which is just hinted at in this Maha Prajnaparamita literature. And if I talk about it too much, you will, by comparison with passion, you will think you understand it, but you won't. First of all, you have to genuinely be able to have an even mind.

[16:40]

which knows any state of mind, knows the state of mind before, during and after desire, so you know what you're doing, so fantasy is removed. There's no moral problem about sexuality in Buddhism. but there is the general problem of fantasy or deluded, inaccurate behavior. Detachment eventually means that even mine." Equanimity. So we're talking about some practice that's very thorough, much more thorough than most of you contemplate, and takes quite a long time to acquaint yourself with

[18:03]

the possibilities and pitfalls of practice. By this even state of mind, you can actually make a vow. You can vow. Talking about vows, I think it's pretty difficult for us to understand vows, why we make vows, and how constricted we feel after making a vow.

[19:30]

But say that your parents, for instance, each of you, each of your mother and father, has had a particular life. Say that your mother or father, instead of just leading the life they did with the various particular things they did, had made a vow to lead that life in the beginning. Their experience at first might have been very constraining. I can't go to the Caribbean, or I can't have a fling, or I can't do such and such. I can't have three children, I can only have two. Some vow they made. But when they looked back, they didn't go to the Caribbean, they didn't do this or that. But they lived their life with those possibilities. What would have been the force of their life if they had realized from the beginning those possibilities were not

[20:57]

Interesting. Now that's too simple but the point of a vow is of course we can't be perfect so we take a vow by some guess or intuitive feeling but the point of a vow is when you see by your even-mindedness when you see what your life will be or what is the only course of life, you take a vow to do that. Now it doesn't mean you vow in such a way as in Zen we don't vow in such a way that we have hundreds of rules which define what we do. Actually, we can go to the Caribbean any time. We could all buy tickets today by telephone and leave tomorrow. We could tuck the treasure into it. I don't know what we'd do in Gatling. We could go.

[22:21]

probably we'd want to come back. But this understanding of the vow also comes about when you have realized the finality of everything that happens, which has not yet happened, but that happens. And most people realize this, if they're lucky, on someone's death. Dogen, sitting by his mother's bedside and watching the twin trails of incense smoke. Have you ever noticed how from a stick of incense, it's usually a twin trail? as his mother died. But you can realize it from anything, a person going crazy, or anything that's out of your control. When you realize your relationship with someone is out of your control, you have to just hope they like you. You can't actually manipulate someone to like you.

[24:04]

Anyway, when you realize the finality of everything, and also when you realize the frailty of us humans, that we're all corruptible, that given the right circumstances, almost everyone will sell out their mother or something. if you push someone hard enough. This is the meaning of suffering, actually. So we don't need Manjushri and Samantabhadra, just the recognition of death and suffering. That we suffer because we're corrupted

[25:10]

So the result of this recognition is some deep understanding, hopefully, of how things are put together, how things are held together, how things are maya, how things are an illusion. So the bodhisattva turns away from birth, from making things, from making it. Most desire is to make it with something, to make something lasting. But even without making something lasting, there's some sense of creating something. The bodhisattva no longer has this feeling to make something. So he's turned away from birth. But he understands how things exist. He understands how corruptible we are, how frail we are. So he creates he or she. Creates, Bodhisattva is literally saying, so I should say he, she, but sounds like ishe.

[26:52]

Anyway, he, she realizes how frail we are and so creates the conditions that practice is good, avoids evil, creates the conditions of strengthening people, of benefiting people, of benefiting yourself. So at this point we talk about the existence of a will body. A will body is the ancestor of the nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya, dharmakaya bodies. Because we experience that we will our body, not to make something or create something or continue something, but that's just how things exist.

[27:55]

And this is intimately related with the Yogacara school, which emphasizes Samantabhadra, fugen in Japanese. In this school, Yogacara school, and in earliest Tibetan Buddhism, the Adi Buddha, Bhairavacana, the cosmic Buddha who is everything all at once, is Samantabhadra. And then Vajrapani or Vajrayana takes Samantabhadra's place. That's not important, but Samantabhadra comes to represent something slightly different. Manjushri also can be an Adi Buddha, but usually Manjushri is known as the first Bodhisattva that appears in the sutras. So, to try to distinguish Manjushri and Samantabhadra, Ulysses asked, how are the practices of Samantabhadra and Manjushri united? First of all, they're both provisional. Everything is provisional. But to ask that is quite similar to asking,

[29:30]

When are we alone and when are we with others? You know, you can't give a clear answer when you're alone and when you're with others. Sometimes when you're with others, you're alone. Sometimes when you're alone, you're with others. So you can't answer clearly. Manjushri practices such and such and Samantabhadra practices such and such. The practice of you alone Self-realization. Emptiness. And in the Tendai school, practice of Monju is just to sit 100 days Sashin with no thought. Practice of Samantabhadra is to chant Durrani's mantras, to Kinghin, chanting of various kinds. in the realm of Manjushri there's not a thing. Our practice is space itself. But the realm of Fugen or Samantabhadra is what you create in that space by your will body. So in the practice of

[31:00]

I don't know if this is interesting to you, but in the practice of Samantabhadra, it's raising one finger, scrunching up the eyes, gazing, shouting, practicing with snails and fishes who don't talk. In other words, it means entering the world, but entering the world through your will body, which you don't need to speak. So it's maybe the practice of signs. So in this kind of practice, although you are But compassionately just being with people in San Francisco or some city or in any circumstance, washing dishes, working in an office or being in a city zendo, whatever the circumstance.

[32:21]

The practice is to just be with them, but your real practice is, you know, your stomach speaking, the surface of your eyes speaking, your will body speaking to their will body, their not yet awakened will body. This is the practice of Samantabhadra. So the practice of Samantabhadra is rather... it's not so lofty, perhaps, as Manjushri, but it comes after, usually, the practice of Manjushri or emptiness. Because until you've eliminated, eradicated the many assumptions of your thinking, You are not produced by your will. You're not produced from the empty, from the signless, wishless, and emptiness. You're not produced by Buddha, you know. So will-body is connected with mind-only type school. Yogacara emphasizes mind-only.

[33:52]

Majamaka emphasizes emptiness. And they're no different, you know. You know, actually, they developed as two different schools in early Japan, Heian period, and in China and India. And then Huayen school, like Dharma C.C. Chan's book, Buddhist Philosophy of Totality, Huayen school, and which in Japan is known as Kegon, and Kegon becomes a large element in Tantrism and in Tendai. These schools try to unite Madhyamaka and Yogacara in one school. So Huayen is the attempt to philosophically put these two together. And Zen masters were doing the same thing. Zen masters developed their way of teaching at the same time as development of Huayen, and they tried to teach, sometimes using mind-only approach, sometimes using emptiness approach. So, since all of Buddhism is provisional,

[35:19]

There's no such thing as Buddhism. If everything is maya, if there's no reality to be seen behind appearances, what is Buddhism? So you don't have to take it too seriously. What is mind only or what is emptiness? Just use them as it's convenient. Sometimes we practice mind only. What can it mean that generations of men and women posed such a idea, the world is nothing but mind. You know, unless you think that they were off their rocker, you know, or just foolish, something must have been going on. What was it? What did they mean when they said, this is mind only, nothing else? Sometimes they said a twirling firebrand, which is pretty much like modern physicists say. Do you remember I, in Alan Watts' funeral ceremony, and in Suzuki Yoshi's funeral ceremony, I liked, symbolically liked the pyre, but I do it with

[36:47]

And that has many meanings. So the will body or desire body, we can even say, It's something that you will realize when you give up your usual desires, when you have cleared away, swept away your assumptions, erroneous assumptions.

[38:46]

So the first paramita is giving and receiving, letting go of, stopping outflows by giving everything away. And second is conduct. Conduct ultimately means realizing the will body. You may notice when you feel off base, when you've lost your Buddhist conduct, when you feel out of sorts, distracted, out of touch. Today I didn't do anything. Today I didn't seem to be present. Yesterday I accomplished a great deal, but today I can't remember doing anything.

[40:34]

Well, today I didn't feel good about myself. Usually we take that as weakness or some distraction. But understood from the point of view of Buddha or Buddhism, it means that we missed an opportunity. That we were ready to recognize our real body. And because we miss the opportunity, we become distracted. Same way as when we tremble because something frightens us, that trembling is the upsurging of strength. And yet, because we can't act with it, we become fearful. So trembling is the beginning of strength, not the beginning of fear. But we don't know that. Most of us don't know that. Very few of us have ever had to really face something fearful as our ancestors were designed to do by somebody. So we never have to pass through trembling and feel it make us. One. Two.

[42:06]

to ride that tremble. And the same is true of every distraction, out of sorts, etc. When we've lost our conduct, it means that we had an opportunity and missed it. the will body can reach things. The will body, what you think becomes actuality. You don't think things that aren't possible. So this is a whole different realm of desire. If you desire something, that desire and your thought are one realization. So it's very difficult to talk about

[43:25]

desire and such things until you understand this practice pretty thoroughly. But for you, each one of you, you don't have to worry so much about all this stuff, because all you should be concerned with is what now is the obstacle in your practice? Why aren't you right now enlightened? Or are you already? Why are you divided against yourself? Why are you divided against others? So, when you practically see, ah, this is where I find my practice now. This problem I will overcome.

[44:44]

You don't need to worry about all the other problems, just that one. If you can do it thoroughly, that's all problems. One of the ten vows of Samantabhadra is to rejoice in the merit of others. That doesn't mean you No, I'm now a bodhisattva practicing in San Francisco, and because I'm so good, I can rejoice in the merits of others. It means right now, all those people who you're jealous of, to begin to rejoice in their superiority. It's not when you're superior, then you rejoice in their merits. That would be no practice. That would be too easy. Samantabhadra has no perception of himself as superior to anyone. No perception of himself as enlightened or not. So right now, stop having any perception of yourself as not enlightened or enlightened.

[46:13]

This is the realm of practice. Sometimes we recognize space, in a way which is no recognition, and sometimes we provisionally create some form which is provisional in nature so someone looking knows it's provisional Zen Center is some provisional form which by your will bodies you are maintaining, actually, sustaining the illusion of Zen Center for the benefit of all beings.

[47:29]

So what do you sustain? A bodhisattva sustains that which is clearly an illusion. Manjushri, Buddha, Samsara, Samantabhadra, ourselves. And by that illusion, myriads of illusionary beings will come to enlightenment. That's what the sutra says, and that's what it means. Is there something else I could say about desire and Manjushri and Samantabhadra that I missed? Yes. What about this place?

[49:24]

Sometimes they're necessary. Well, first let me repeat for people what you said. Then I want to ask you why they're necessary so we can think about it. He said, what about desires for the future or for something that you imagine that is going to happen an hour away or so? and sometimes such desires are useful. Can you give me an example of when they're useful? I don't think, what he said was, okay, suppose you want to stay here at Tassajara and you have to get a job, and so you apply for jobs, and one of them is one you especially want, perhaps, and then you start thinking about it, will I get it or will I not get it, and what if they don't pay me enough? He didn't say all that, but anyway. And I can't save it because I blow it, you know, in the summer.

[51:02]

I can't come back to Tassara. Whatever, you know. Well, you know, what you can act on in the present, you know, if you want to stay here, and you have to get a job, you try to get a job. I don't know, it's rather useless when desire starts getting involved. If you don't get the job, you apply for another one. Zen Center wants to have Green Gulch grow a lot of vegetables this summer, but if there's no rainwater, looks like maybe there will be now, and we can't grow any vegetables. So, we do something else. We make some provisional plans. Oh, well then you have to, that's practice. What do you do when it keeps distracting you? Well, you remind yourself of the unreality of it. You put your mind in your ahara.

[52:29]

What good does it do? So you just stop. And if you can't stop, you wonder, why can't I stop? Then you seek the root of why you can't stop. What idea of self or delusionary idea is there that keeps that going? How can you separate the object of desire from the experience now? get rid of the object of desire. Just have the desire and revel in it. It doesn't go anywhere, you're just sitting there. You know, by that kind of process you can finally purify our mind or empty our mind. It takes usually some revulsion and then action. Some feeling like you've been force-fed

[53:55]

And you thought it was good and you realize suddenly it was not. And then you create yourself. Yeah? Very often during a meditation or a yoga, the mind is speeding very fast. The movements are still going pretty slow. Again, there's a feeling of not being able to do it. It's a fuzzy emotion. I'm getting water. I'm getting water inside my hand. So, depression always comes up. And I try to... breathe. Slow my breathing down.

[55:20]

But you'd have your bowls all folded up before the water came. And lick them thoroughly. Yeah.

[56:28]

I have some image of you, I have some image of you eating your bowls very fast and starting out the back of the Zen Dojo and all of us turning around and concentrating on you and you'd back up like in those movies, movies going backwards and you'd back up and undo your bowls. We'd say, there he goes again. That's what we see sometimes when we look at you, something like that. All of us see something like that, of each other. Well, there's two ways to practice with something like that, that I think are useful. to do something like slow your breathing down or bring your thoughts back to what you're doing, apply your thoughts to what you're doing. This is some decision you make. Many of you have trouble in zazen, I see. If you just at that moment consciously slowed your breathing down, your movement and various things would be changed. Not always, but often.

[58:00]

But another way to do it is to return your mind is to not try anything. But what I mean by that is to return your mind to the realm of not trying. You don't slow your breathing down, you don't do anything, but you return your mind and body to the place where you don't do anything. That is maybe deeper practice. Don't do anything, but you're already doing something, so you return yourself to the place where you're not doing anything. If you do that often enough, in circumstance after circumstance,

[59:02]

you'll one day, suddenly, one eternity maybe, instead of one day, be reborn from that place where you don't do anything. When that's complete and no trace, then everyone can trust you and can perhaps realize this for themselves. I'm sorry I have to go to Green Gulch today. Tonight, Green Gulch One Week Sashin begins. It looks like it'll be pretty big session, maybe 60 or so, 65 people have applied. And I don't know how many we'll accept, 50 or 55. And some of the center partitions from San Francisco, Zendo, which we aren't using now, remember we used to have four center sections, now we have two.

[60:30]

I think one of those longer ones is being brought to Green Gulch in the middle.

[60:35]

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