So we talked about Yunnan and Dawu and the one who's not busy and the two moons and non-duality. This one's about the Bodhisattva of Compassion, the same two characters. So Yunnan asked Dawu, what does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion do with so many hands and eyes? Da Wu said, it's like someone reaching back for the pillow at night. Yuan Yan said, I understand. Da Wu said, how do you understand? Yuan Yan said, all over the body is hands and eyes. Da Wu said, you said a lot there, but you've got only 80%. Yuan Yan said, what about you, elder brother? Da Wu said, throughout the body is hands and eyes. So this is based on the image of the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Sorry, I don't have any copies of the Bodhisattva archetypes.

[01:01]

I'll show you pictures, but maybe you've all seen them, with all the hands spread out around and with eyes in each hand. So this is about kind of the function of the one who's not, who knows. the one which is not busy. So the idea of all of the hands and eyes is that each of the hands has different implements in it, and each of the hands has an eye in it. So the expression of compassion, the response of compassion, is to see from many different angles. Also, the Bodhisattva of Compassion has 11 heads. in that same form. So to see from many different sides, to see innumerable different sides of anything, to see from different points of view.

[02:08]

So we all often get stuck in one particular point of view. Or we have patterns of how we see things and how we respond. So partly the idea of 1,000 could mean 10,000 or 100,000, but just to have many different ways of responding. So Yunyun asks, why does the Bodhisattva of Compassion have so many hands and eyes? And Dao says it's like reaching back for your pillow in the middle of the night. So partly night represents merging or represents oneness or represents, you know, usually in the night we don't see. But there's this kind of

[03:11]

This is kind of intuitive, automatic reaching back. It's not based on calculation. It's not based on some plan. It's not based on some understanding. It's more a feeling or an intuition or this kind of a mediated response. So the introduction to this says, crystal clear on all sides, open and unobstructed in all directions, emanating light and making the earth tremble in all places, subtly exercising spiritual powers at all times. At all times, tell me how is this manifested? So there's this great power actually to being able to, first of all, the Bodhisattva of Compassion's name. So some of you have talked about this before a lot, but some of you may be hearing this many times. But to hear it many times is also good.

[04:14]

It's just to listen is the point of compassion, the Bodhisattva of Compassion's name. Kamsa means to hear the sounds of the world. So there is the meditation practice of just listening to sound. So that's one side of it. It doesn't ask, why does the Bodhisattva of Compassion have so many ears? But actually, hands and eyes are also ears. We can be open to the suffering, just kind of reaching around. So the last part of this dialogue about all over the body is hands and eyes and all through the body is hands and eyes kind of seems not so important in a way or besides the point of why are they fussing about that whether it's all over the body or throughout the body but I think there's a yogic side to this it's not just the hands and eyes that we see even it's the whole body has hands and eyes so part of our

[05:17]

sitting practice, the yogic aspect of a sitting practice, is that we actually see our body and feel our body, and feel our knowledge, and see our awareness, and see all beings throughout the body. And it's not just talking about the physical body, it's also talking about the Buddha body, which is open to all beings in this kind of radically different way from how we usually think about things. So if you think about the whole body being hands and eyes, or whether it's all over the surface of the body or all through the body, it's not just talking about, it's talking about knowing in a different way. So we can think about this in terms of some of the modern yogic adjuncts to medicine and people doing healing practices by visualizing healing energy and so forth.

[06:27]

And that's now kind of accepted in the medical establishment. But it's also talking about something else, which is actually how we see the whole universe and how the whole universe functions. It's also about Sangha too. how we support each other, how we are all hands and eyes. So the Buddha body, we could say, is the Buddha body, the Dharma body, and the Sangha body. There's the body of the teaching, which has many forms and many aspects. There's the body of the Buddha, which is the actual expression of this. And there's the body of Sangha, which some people offering different things with their own hands and eyes. So we have cyber attacks. We have many different things. Each of you, each of us, offers different things. I'm up here talking, but you're each, with your heads and eyes, contributing to the event that's happening, that's happening beyond just by sitting up here and babbling.

[07:36]

As we're sitting, we're also creating Dharma. So there's the Dharma of texts and teachings, and that's important. But there's also the Sangha Dharma and the Buddha Dharma. There's the Dharma that we hear when we listen to each other while we're sitting, with ears that we're not aware of. But still, there's an energy that helps to tune us. I'm going to go into the commentary a little bit. Liao asked Ehu, I don't know who those people are, but I guess ancient Chinese ministers, what does the Great Compassionate One use a thousand hands and eyes for? Ehu said, what does the emperor use public officials for? So again, this is the idea of how do we, how do we all function as hands and eyes for the Buddha?

[08:40]

Once there was a mountain man who sold fortunes. After rain on the muddy road, he would wear pure white shoes to go into the market. Someone asked, you're blind. How come the mud doesn't sow your shoes? The mountain man raised his staff and said, there's an eye on the staff. So he was poking with his staff, and he could tell where the mud was. So this is a kind of eye, even though he was blind. The mountain man is proof. When reaching for a pillow at night, there's an eye in the hand. When eating, there's an eye on the tongue. When recognizing people and hearing them speak, there's an eye in the ears. Sue Zijan, conversing with a deaf man, just wrote, and he laughed and said, he and I are both strange people. I use my hand for a mouth. He uses his eyes for ears. The Buddha spoke of the interchangeable function of the six senses.

[09:44]

It is true without a doubt. This is actually an important point. Tongshu talks about this a lot, too, that we usually have a limited idea of our senses and how we receive the world. So in a way, the bodhisattva of compassion who hears the sounds of the world is hearing with her hands and hearing with her, as I said, hearing with her eyes. And we shouldn't limit ourselves to how we know things, how we see things, how we taste things. So to taste with your nose and hear with your mouth, not be caught by objects of the senses. So we can be present in the world and be aware without being, without grabbing onto objects of the senses.

[10:49]

Our usual way of functioning is to look for, kind of to be entertained by the senses. But actually, we can just be present. And I think this starts to seep into us through our sitting. And what the relationship with compassion is, is very subtle. Usually we think of wisdom as insight or seeing. This is the other side of, you know, there's this balance between wisdom and compassion. Seeing into emptiness and then compassion is how do we express that or manifest that for the sake of others. First of all, we have to just recognize that there are others. So in terms of the story that I told last week about the knowing there's one who's not busy, and being too busy, or being, expressing that in the world, compassion is the side of how we, the function of wisdom in a way, how we take what we see into our daily ordinary activity.

[12:10]

And yet, to talk about it that way is almost too much. It's not like we take something. It is part of our wisdom mind too. So wisdom and compassion come up together. And wisdom is not something that we have to think about either. Wisdom comes from compassion, and compassion comes from wisdom. Right in our Samadhi, in when we settle so even if you're if you think if you have a period of Zazen and you think you're very sleepy or you're confused or you know if you think it's bad Zazen what's happening on a deeper level is this alchemical process of learning about the eyes and ears throughout our body. Or not even learning about, that's too much to say. But just allowing the exercise and function of the eyes and ears throughout our body.

[13:17]

So I think in other spiritual traditions, I was listening to on the radio today, Actually there's a religious Israeli man talking about he experimented with going to pray in Christian and Islamic context and actually made this connection with this Islamic mosque and really felt how wonderful it was to do Islamic prayer. even though he was doing it as an Israeli Jew. It was a way of trying to make connections. And he was talking about feeling the prayer in the body because I guess in Islam one does prostrations the way we do or in some way like what we do. But just the physical activity of sitting upright the yogic physical quality of, you know, we could think of satsang as prayer or worship if you want to.

[14:23]

It's a kind of opening ourselves to something deeper. We can call that Buddha or the Bodhisattva of Compassion if we want to. We don't have to call it anything. But anyway, there's this quality that comes about through learning the eyes and ears throughout our body. Any comments on any of this so far? I'm just curious about which image you're talking about. Which image? How do you know which one is it? I think it's Indian. I've read stuff about the anthropology of this and how these image mythology. I think some of it maybe comes from sort of Astrianism.

[15:27]

There's a whole context in the Middle East and Central Asia that goes very far back. And so we don't really know, but there were connections between them. Parts of it comes from, you know, there's parts of it are in Hinduism. I know Sanskrit is very related to European languages, so there's all these connections. I don't know, Stephen, do you know about this stuff at all? Anybody else? Anyway, I don't know the exact sources of it, but most of these Bodhisattva figures go back to what we now call Hindu imagery. Some of the Native Indian gods, but they go back before that too. It goes back a century or two B.C.

[16:50]

But it was around that time that these images of the Bodhisattvas started developing and they evolved in different cultures. Yeah, of all the Kirtishwara. So there's different names. So Alagidishvara in Sanskrit, Chenrezig in Tibetan, Guanyin in China, Han Zeyang. This particular, so I talk about, so I'm talking about it from a Zen context here, but in terms of the Bodhisattva Archetypes book traces it, it does, You know, these evolved in the early Mahayana texts and in different cultures evolved a little bit. And particularly this figure of Alakideshvara has many, many, many different iconographic forms. There may be seven major ones, but there's whole sets of different iconographic forms.

[17:52]

And that's actually appropriate because compassion also has to do with recognizing difference. So wisdom has to do with recognizing sameness, recognizing the commonalities, seeing the connectedness or the emptiness of all distinctions. Compassion in Buddhism has to do with seeing the diversity, seeing the differences, recognizing the particularities. So to have many different forms is to recognize the different ways in which different beings may receive the Dharma or may receive help or blessings from Bodhisattvas or Buddhas to recognize the different needs. So how this teaching of compassion will most be helpful to you is maybe different from the way in which Sandra might hear it or Stephen might hear it.

[19:06]

We each have our own way of connecting and hearing these things. So partly having many different forms, having many different heads and eyes, is recognizing that. So it also means tremendous flexibility. So if you see these images with actually 1,000, there are images, huge images that I saw in Japan with actually literally 1,000 hands. Sometimes there's just like 20 on each side or five on each side. But there's this kind of whirling kind of feeling about them, this very fluid feeling, sometimes very graceful feeling. And again, it's this being able to respond with different hands to see with different eyes in different ways. So having all these different forms is really appropriate. I don't know how much you were asking actually about the history of it.

[20:09]

A lot of that's in the Bodhisattva book, or the basic outlines of it. Anyway, there were different forms that were popular. His bodhisattva was almost always female. In India and Tibet, he's male, but then there are female forms like Tara. So it changes form. Partly being able to change form is part of the different hands and eyes, too. I'm going to read a little bit further in the commentary. In Layman Wujian's record of the Hall of Great Compassion at Purple Cliff in Lu Province, he quotes the scripture of Great Compassion and the Heroic March scripture, which is the Surangama Samadhi Sutra, as most thorough and detailed. I have seen one story which says that the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion in ancient times became the Princess Miaoshan.

[21:14]

So that's a story that I'll talk about in the Bodhisattva Archetypes book. This was told to preceptor Master Xuan by a celestial being. But then again, the hundreds of millions of manifestation bodies of the 32 responses of Great Compassion are not the same according to the vision. Each goes by their explanation. Tianzhao said, a thousand hands illustrates the many-sidedness of guidance of the deluded and salvation of beings. A thousand eyes illustrates the breadth of emanating light to illumine the darkness. If there were no sentient beings and no mundane turmoil, then not even a finger would remain, much less a thousand or ten thousand arms. Not even an eyelid would be there, much less a thousand men or ten thousand eyes. All over, throughout the body, what's the necessity? Not necessarily. There seems to be shallow and deep, but really there is no loss or gain. So the point here is that if there was no worldly turmoil, in trouble, if there were no such beings, there wouldn't be these Bodhisattvas.

[22:19]

We wouldn't need to come to Sāsana. We might be sitting in Sāsana anyway, but Buddhas only exist because they are deluded suffering beings. Religions are only necessary because they're suffering, in general. Of course, sometimes religions cause more suffering, so that they keep themselves in business. What we're basically talking about is suffering for the suffering of the world. I don't feel any concern about job security, though. There's plenty of suffering, and I don't expect to see the end of it in this lifetime. Although, I believe that it can all end, and that we can all see that we're all just here kind of working out our cart run, that actually everything is okay. And yet, I can say that and see that and that's kind of the wisdom side, but if I'm not also open to hearing the way in which, you know, Stephen may not believe that and really is going through all kinds of difficulties because he doesn't, then I'm not really paying attention to the world.

[23:33]

So, we have to be open to And so that's part of the heads and eyes. That's part of the heads and eyes throughout the body. So I have an old knee injury, which has been acting up the last several days. And I don't know if I'll end up having to sit in a chair. But anyway, it seems OK tonight. But I have to pay attention to that. And what we feel and tensions in our body has to do with ancient karma and ancient sufferings from lifetimes ago. for ourselves and others, so we pay attention in that way. So, I don't know, there are times when it almost seems like, you know, there's no suffering. There are times when, I've experienced times when things felt pretty good and everything seemed to be working. Maybe some of you have had weeks or days like that.

[24:35]

But we seem to be in a world where we don't have to worry too much about suffering ending and we'll be able to continue doing Buddhist practice. They say that in Indian cosmology We live in Jambudvipa, the southern continent, which is where human beings live and that's actually a very auspicious place because there's enough suffering so that we can awaken to compassion and through that we can become Buddhists. If you are born in the northern continent, that's very unfortunate because that's a place where everybody has great bliss and is constantly being entertained. There are many people in such places, sort of like the northern county here, like in Marin, where people maybe don't have experience suffering much.

[25:38]

But there's some people in Marin also who suffer. But anyway, in this northern continent, You know, everybody's always being entertained and they don't really need to think about suffering of their own selves or others. We don't have that problem. And even though the Enron government has provided us with zabutons, they're also working at developing a world where there will be lots more suffering. And Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has said that we will persist until we have decades of war using all of our wonderful weapons of wonderful war technology, which of course will make Rumsfeld and Cheney and their friends even more wealthy and more and more insusceptible to hearing the suffering of others. I mentioned that and I meant to mention it.

[26:39]

Excuse me? And their karma. Yeah. Yeah, we'll be ministering to them in distant future lifetimes, all of us. Anyway, I actually meant to mention that when I talked about the zabatons because this happens to be a time when it's actually, by this I mean like this week and this month, when actually writing, for those of you who are so inclined, writing to or calling Congress people or senators is really relevant because of the Enron situation and the new budget, the new Enron budget that Bush has proposed for the country. There's a possibility that some politicians, maybe in both parties, might oppose that. So this is actually a time when there's a possibility for shifting how much suffering there's going to be. Yen-Ju said to his group, this is, so Yun-Yan, who we're talking about, who was the one who was sweeping the ground, and who's in this story with his brother Da-Wu, was the teacher of Dong-Shan, who founded Sojuzen in China.

[28:01]

And his student was named Yen-Ju, so this is two generations later. Yen-Ju said to his group, 20 years ago when I was living on Sanfeng Peak, Xinhua came and said, how about when a question is provisionally used as a screen? At that time, my mind and thought was slow and dull, and I couldn't say. Because he had posed the question so marvelously, I didn't dare oppose him. At the time, he said, I think you can't answer this question, O Hermit. Better to bow and withdraw. Now, as I think of that time, it wasn't worth saying what's the necessity. I say it's like letting it be gotten easily. Later, there was a preacher who came to Xingua's place. Xingua asked him, when the master on the mountain, Yunzhu, was living in a hut on Sanfeng, I once asked him a question he couldn't answer. But now he's been able to speak. Has he been able to speak yet or not? Xingua said, in 20 years, Yunzhu has only been able to say what's the necessity. I don't go along.

[29:04]

How can that compare to saying not necessary? And then the commentator on this essay says, I say he is arguing over the shortness or length of turtle hairs. Sun Sheng said, Yunju's ability to speak after 20 years still only measures up to Xinguang's half-month journey. I say he's disputing over the richness or paleness of flowers in the sky. So this is about this part about within, all over the body, or throughout the body, and whether that's significant. But this question, how about when a question is provisionally used as a screen? So part of this language of these stories that we've been sort of delving into a little bit is that how you hear these stories and how you hear these questions are kinds of hands and eyes. And it's not so much the point of that there's a right answer or a wrong answer.

[30:06]

Sometimes actually what you say or what someone says clearly reveals an expression of understanding or not, but still the point isn't to say it perfectly, the point is what does that bring forth. So hands and eyes have function. It's not passive. The hearing the sounds of the world is not passive. There's a response to it. That's what the story is about. The story is about how do we find some response. And it's not necessarily from setting up some program of going out and fixing the world. It's more about listening to what's possible. And sometimes in some situations in society and also in our own lives, There's nothing really that we can do. I'm sure you've all had situations like that where there's somebody who's causing difficulty in a minor nuisance kind of way or in a major way, whatever, and whether or not they're going to be able to hear about that's not clear, whether or not they're going to be able to be

[31:31]

to shift their point of view is not clear. And sometimes there's nothing you can do but just to listen. But it's not just to listen once, it's to keep listening. So the hands and eyes don't stop functioning. They keep looking. And at some point, there may be something that you can say to someone, or give to someone, or a hand that you can reach out. in some way, in one of the thousand or ten thousand ways, that actually will shift things. So, going back to current events, I don't know if you're all on the email list. I sent out something about the current governmental situation by Arianna Huffington. Did somebody get that? You may not be on the email list yet because your email changed and I tried to, anyway. Okay, you may not have gotten this other one anyway.

[32:41]

Maybe he just, anyway, we're trying to figure out how to reconfigure the email. so we don't have these glitches. But anyway, this is a little example, but I don't know if any of you know who Arianna Huffington is. She was a very conservative Republican, and she was married to a Republican gubernatorial candidate. But she's been actually one of the, so I sent out something, and somebody sent back something pointing this out. But she's actually been talking about the suffering being caused by the current situation, the current government, sort of from a conservative point of view, but with a lot of intelligence and with a lot of clarity and with a lot of compassion. And so I was impressed by that. And this person said, well, you know, do you know about her? And I wrote back, yeah, that I do, but that we have to believe in the possibility of people changing. And she's actually been one of the voices in the mass media that's actually been challenging

[33:46]

some of the shenanigans that have been going on in terms of the current government's, the in-run government's policies. So, you know, just because we have some label about who somebody is, it doesn't mean that they can't change. And I'm not, you know, and I'm not setting up, this isn't about political standards or Republican or Democrat or anything like that. It's about just seeing the reality of suffering and the reality of corruption and of wrongdoing. And there's plenty of corruption and good people on all sides of these things, usually in society. But we see people in a certain way. And actually, sometimes people actually shift. So one example. said back and again, this isn't the political realm, but Bobby Kennedy, who had been a real bastard in a lot of ways in his earlier political career.

[34:56]

Maybe just six months before he was killed, my sense is, and there's no way to prove this, that he actually went through this major spiritual conversion. He became good friends with Cesar Chavez. I think if he hadn't been killed, he would have done a lot of you know, had gotten elected or been able to exert himself politically, he would have, we'd be in a really different world today. So anyway, that's just an example in that realm. But if we look at how people we know or even at times ourselves, how we can shift, it does happen. And how this happens is usually a function of patiently just watching and waiting and seeing. and keeping as many of the thousand hands and eyes kind of open and paying attention and responding. So it's not passive. It's actually somebody had to say something. I don't know if Arianna Huffington is a case of this or not.

[36:00]

Somehow she heard something and it didn't necessarily change her values, but she applied her values in a different way. This is also about how we learn ourselves and how we are transformed ourselves. But how we are transformed ourselves isn't separate from how we function as to do Buddha's work in the world. So because you are Zen students, in some sense, whether or not you identify yourself in that way or not, you know, it's not important that you do. But just by virtue of sitting upright and trying to do this practice, there is some dynamic that is happening that you are doing Buddha's work in the world. That's true. Whether you're, you know, kind of trying to, you know, whether you're trying to avoid it or not, and you may be, you know, kind of resisting.

[37:03]

In fact, this often happens that over periods of practice, There are cycles of resistance and cycles of withdrawing from interacting actually, withdrawing from extending the hands and eyes. But still, something is going on. And it's going on on levels that we don't necessarily usually see. So let's see what Hongzhe has to say in his comments. I'm just going to forget now what he said. So this is the main verse comment. One whole, emptiness pervading, crystal clear on all sides. Formlessly, selflessly, spring enters the pipes. Unstopped, unhindered, the moon traverses the sky. Pure jewel eyes, arms of virtues, all over the body. How does it compare to throughout the body being it? The present hands and eyes reveal the whole works.

[38:05]

Great function works in all ways. What is taboo? So this is what I was just talking about, that the present hands and eyes reveal the whole works. It's not that we have to get some other hands and eyes. It's not that there's these special thousand hands and eyes that the Bodhisattva of Compassion has. In fact, we all already have those thousand hands and eyes. And it's not just this hand. It's throughout the body. It's reaching back in the middle of the night. It's not that we know what we're doing, and yet there's this impulse to respond. There's this impulse to see. There's this impulse to just be present with our hands and eyes. Formlessly, selflessly, spring enters the pipes.

[39:09]

Unstopped, unhindered, the moon traverses the sky. So our wholeness is... Excuse me? Uh-huh. So think about the... entering the stalks of grass and of flowers and of trees. Think about the sound of the wind and the leaves as spring starts. So we're actually, you know, in the climate we're living in, it's already, you know, there was a day a couple days ago that felt like spring, you know, it was warm. yesterday or, you know, people were out in shirt sleeves, you know. And there's something that happens that's really interesting to our practice. It's a real metaphor of our practice in the spring, because there's this kind of life that comes, that arises in everything, and we can feel it.

[40:20]

And this is the energy, this is like the energy of our practice, that is there and often dormant, and yet it's ready to arise at any time. So this is what the Heaven Eyes are about. It's about reaching back and feeling this thing arising in everything, keeping our eyes open, allowing for the possibility that as bad as things look, that there is still possibility of compassion in Buddha's work in the world. So let's close with the Bodhisattva vow. On page 8. Beings are numberless. I vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them.

[41:22]

Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. The Buddha way is unsurpassable. I vow to realize it. So a few little announcements. This Saturday is the monthly sitting at Bolinas, which you're all welcome to come to any part of. And there's still flyers posted over there for the sitting in May at Green Gulch Farm for three days. You're welcome to come to one, two, or three days. Let me know if you have questions about it. There are a few spaces for people to sleep overnight in the yurt, sort of dorm style. Or else you can commute, whichever. But if you're interested in the overnight spaces, you should register pretty soon. Other announcements? OK. Thank you all. Oh, do you happen to know, Gretchen, next Wednesday is Ash Wednesday?

[42:28]

Is it? I don't think it's today, but I bet Rose knows. When is it? Okay, is there anything, stuff's going to be happening upstairs, but not here? Okay, I better check with Mary more. Okay. That's fine. We're just finishing.

[42:59]

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