I saw an article, I don't know if it was Time or Newsweek, but it was an article, the title was The Gospel Truth, and it was about Christianity, I think. Part of what the article was about was kind of looking at what sometimes is called Gnosticism in the history of Christianity. So this is like a somewhat lay presentation of Christian

[01:15]

scholarship or whatever, but I thought it was kind of interesting anyway that they talked about at a certain point in the history of the Christian church, the two principles or two issues were fairly well settled. One issue was the importance and the authority of Scripture, and the second one was the authority of apostolic succession in determining what is and what is not acceptable Christian thought. So I don't know if anyone would disagree with that, but I just thought it was an interesting idea anyway that these are two main ideas

[02:19]

or two main tenets or two main principles in what came to be the dominant form of Christianity, the form of Christianity that had the Roman Empire behind it. Again, first the authority of Scripture, and second the authority of the apostolic succession to determine, I guess, interpret the understanding of the Scripture. The Gnostic tradition, or the Gnostic movement or whatever it is, was, among other things, the part that I want to stress is that it was about exploring your own psychic process, exploring your own experience as a religious

[03:22]

exercise in accord with the teachings of Jesus. And I also read a book several years ago called The American Religion, I think, by Harold Bloom. He didn't deal with Catholicism, Roman Catholicism, and he didn't deal with Lutheranism, I don't think. He dealt particularly with Mormons, and Jehovah's Witnesses, and Pentecostal Church, and a lot of these kind of churches. And one of his points is that American religion is, especially these traditions, they're Gnostic. They have to do with people's actual experience rather than getting it from the apostolic succession about what's authentic Christianity. And I thought that was interesting. And in

[04:34]

some of these churches, you actually have to have some kind of realization before you're admitted. You have to have an actual experience before they let you become a regular member. A personal understanding, a personal revelation. And a Mormon church was set up by a revelation of Adam Smith. And still today, the leaders of the Mormon church have ongoing revelations. Not everybody's revelations are considered to be as important as other people's. There's some kind of apostolic succession there, but they have apostolic succession of revelations, of new revelations, rather than apostolic succession of interpretations of Scripture. I've heard the word Gnostic is related to the word Prajna, or Jnana. Yeah, yeah, right. Prajna, Jnana, Samna. That Jna in Sanskrit is a cognate with Jna of Gnosis,

[05:42]

Gnosis in Greek. It means knowledge. Yeah, knowledge, right. So in the Catholic Church, again, I probably shouldn't even say this, but I would say that it seems to me that in the Catholic Church, there seems to be a recommendation that people just believe that the work of salvation has been done. Jesus has saved you, and if you believe that, then you're in line with the reality of salvation. And I don't know how many Protestant churches that lines up with, too, that the salvation has already been accomplished, but you have to, like, accept that and not resist that. It's not like you have to save

[06:47]

yourself. And I wouldn't say that in the tradition of Buddhadharma you have to save yourself exactly. The Buddhists have already, in some sense, you could say that the Buddhists have already verified our nature, and so in some sense the Buddhists have already realized our salvation. Also, at the same time that they've realized it, they also understand that we don't necessarily understand that. When the Buddhists are realized, they see that everybody is realized with them, but they see that people don't get it because they're attached to their views. So they need education in order to understand that they have, by nature, a liberated

[07:48]

reality of their life. So there's some relationship there in these traditions. In the Buddhist tradition we have scripture also, and some people have faith in Buddhist scriptures, and also they have faith in the authority of the lineage. If there's lineages, some people have faith in the lineages of teachers, and so they believe that scriptures have authority and that some people have authority in interpreting the scriptures and teaching them about the scriptures. In Zen, too, we recite scriptures, and some of us have some confidence and some faith that people who are in apostolic succession

[08:52]

in Zen, that maybe it would be worthwhile to listen to their understanding of the scriptures. But it's also the case, I think, really, in the Buddhadharma, that a higher recommendation than the authority of scripture and the validity of seeing people through the eyes of the Buddha that we respect, and listening to them tell us what they think the scriptures are about, a more important mode to move into eventually is by actually reasoning with ourself, or reasoning in our own mind, and reasoning with each other, we will come to a deeper understanding than we can come just by accepting scriptures from someone else, either from the paper or from someone else's interpretation, or by commentaries. And then one step more profound and more highly recommended is direct experience. And this

[10:02]

is maybe, this direct experience part and the reasoned analysis part are more over on the Gnostic side, and you find some of this in American Christian traditions, is that they actually are in some ways into direct experience of the Divine, or direct experience of reality. However, some of the established churches don't seem to particularly recommend that for their faithful. I don't know if that's true, but it doesn't look like, I don't hear the Catholic Church recommending, I don't hear the Pope recommending that the followers of him would have direct, infallible cognition of reality. He's the infallible one. But even in his case, it's not necessarily by direct cognition, but maybe by apostolic infallibility.

[11:06]

I don't know. But there's something here for us to look at, is that part of the American culture is that even before we were subjected to the Buddha Dharma, we still lived in an environment where there was some validity in the culture for having direct experience of a liberating reality, and also a very weak strain of a reasoned analysis leading to a very clear and accurate conceptual cognition of reality. That's not so strong in America, but it's very strong in the Buddha Dharma and strong in science. And in American Buddhism there's not much, it's not real strong among people who are non-Asians, it's not very strong

[12:10]

to believe in scripture, I feel. But they're somewhat there. I don't feel that in the people who are practicing Buddhism there's a lot of belief in scripture. Like you read a scripture and you think, oh, it's true because it's scripture. Like you read a Zen text and say, well, because it's in a Zen book, it's true. For whatever reason, I think people often feel like, well, it may be true, but I don't understand it anyway, so I don't know what to do with it. So a lot of it is just so profound and difficult to understand, especially the Mahayana scriptures, that people, in some ways, aren't tempted to believe it, just because it's in the book. I think people are attracted because it rings true, it rings true with their experience. Maybe that's possible, yeah. In the Zen tradition, is the kernel of free inquiry part of that, or is it not really part

[13:15]

of the literature? Is the what? The kernel of free inquiry. Free inquiry? The speech to the Kalama people, I think it is. Is that a technical term? It's just a speech that was given about not taking... Oh, that scripture of the Buddha. Yeah, right. There seems to be a scripture that kind of denies scriptures. A scripture that denies scriptures, or a scripture that denies the word of the Buddha? Almost, no? Yeah. The inquiry is in order to not take that which is given to you as being the truth. Right. So there's a scripture called the... how do you say it? I've read it as the kernel of free... No, how do you say it in the Tapali word? Kalamaka? Kalama. Kalama, yeah. So there's a scripture where the Buddha said, don't just take what I said and believe it because I said it.

[14:17]

Check it out for yourself. Both in reasoned analysis and direct experience. But that's only one scripture, he said that. But I just want to point out the fact that it's only one scripture doesn't matter that it's just one scripture. One's enough. I've talked about this point before, is that the Buddha, I think, although I don't know if he said, I can't find where he said this, but the Buddha's words are not the Buddha Dharma. That goes along with that scripture. What I'm saying is not the Buddha Dharma. So then people say, okay, so if you hear something from the Buddha, you read something the Buddha said, don't take it as true unless you've verified it by reason and by direct experience. You also talked about wise sayings.

[15:19]

What? Wise sayings or things that sound to you, just generally in the world, anything that sounds reasonable or wise or comes from an important person, there's a whole list of things. Yes, right. So those should be verified also. Now there's some things which you cannot verify until you're completely enlightened. So some teachings, these offerings, these you won't be able to verify. But other ones you can. But this statement of you've verified for yourself, there's another statement which is that you cannot hear the Dharma unless you meet a Buddha. So the Buddha doesn't tell you the Dharma, but the Buddha talks to you. And by meeting the Buddha and talking with the Buddha, you get ready to be able to hear the Dharma.

[16:22]

So you need a Buddha in order to hear the Buddha Dharma. But the Buddha doesn't tell you the Dharma. It's just that when you hang out with a Buddha, long enough, you hear the Dharma. And I've told you stories about people who are with the Buddha, they do not hear the Dharma, the Buddha is talking to them, and they're not hearing the Dharma, and they're not seeing the Buddha. They're looking at the Buddha, they don't see the Buddha. They're listening to the Buddha, but they don't hear the Buddha Dharma. And then, they hear the Buddha Dharma. While the Buddha is talking to them, they hear the Buddha Dharma. And they needed to be talking to the Buddha to hear it. But what the Buddha says is not the Buddha Dharma, and the way the Buddha looks is not the Buddha Dharma. But you need to be looking at Buddha to see the Buddha Dharma of the way the Buddha looks.

[17:25]

So that scripture that says, check this stuff out for yourself, should not overthrow the fact that the Buddha also says, here I am and you need me in order to actually hear the Dharma. But what I'm saying to you right now is not the Dharma. Because the Dharma is beyond concept? The Dharma is beyond concept, that's right. And what I'm saying to you, you're taking in conceptually. And you need to be talking to me right now and taking this in conceptually in order to get ready to hear the Dharma, the inconceivable, non-conceptual reality. So, I also thought I might mention to you something I think is nice about the,

[18:32]

in a sense the analysis of one of the epithets for the Buddha is Tathagata. So the Buddha is, you know, he's a Buddha. The Buddha is a leader of humans and gods. The Buddha is the tamer of those who need to be tamed, the teacher of what needs to be taught, the victor over delusion and so on. And then another one of the things is, the Buddha is Tathagata. And Tathagata is kind of a neat word because the long A in the middle leads to two possible ways of splitting the word up. One way would be Tathagata and the other would be Tathagata. Tathagata or Tathagata. So Tathagata could mean both

[19:38]

the thusness, tatha, thusness which has been gone to, thusness which has been gone to. And that's Tathagata, gone to thusness. Tathagata. The other is Tathagata, thusness which has come. So the Buddha is both going to the truth and arriving at the truth. Tathata, arriving at the way things are and realizing it. But also the Buddha is Tathagata, it's the coming of the truth or coming from the truth. And I think that in Soto Zen we have both of these Tathagatas. And to me I think it clarifies what's going on

[20:41]

if you realize we have both. Tathagata, going to Tatha, going to suchness, going to the way things are, going to reality and realizing it, that's the Gnostic way. That's the way of indirect cognition and direct cognition. Those are the two types we can have. Indirect and direct. Indirect conceptual cognition and direct non-conceptual cognition. To go through direct and indirect cognition to know suchness. And the way you go there is by turning the light around and shining it back on your experience. And the Buddhas have done this. They have studied their own mind

[21:43]

and realized the nature of their mind, the suchness of their mind. So the Buddhas have gone to suchness. But also Buddhas come back from suchness and they teach. But we also are these two things. We are going to suchness through our study of our mind and our body and our speech. By studying our activity we are doing what the Buddhas all have done. This is the Gnostic process of studying ourself, learning about ourselves and learning about ourselves of our psychophysical causes and conditions. Learning about this is the path of Tathagata

[22:46]

which all Buddhas have traveled. But Buddhas are not fully Buddhas until they come back and teach. So all Buddhas are also coming back. So we also are practicing Tathagata. We are practicing as the return of truth or the coming of truth. When we sit, we are both going to suchness but our sitting is also the arrival of suchness. We are in our practice the coming of suchness. We are in our practice the coming of Buddha. Both. Which is similar to embracing and sustaining and being embraced and sustained. Similar dynamic. So we have a faith side that we give our body and mind

[23:52]

over to the function of the Buddha coming into the world. You see, here is a body that is now being used as a place on the earth where suchness is coming and realized here. I am not doing it and yet I give my body for the place for it to be done. This is not something I know. This is coming from knowing into this form. And this form is not it. But this form is the ceremony. This is not the Buddha. This is not the ineffable Dharma. This is a ceremony which is a way that it comes into the world. That is a faith statement. I offer my body as a statement of faith

[24:56]

that Buddha comes into the world. That I am sitting here is a testament to that Buddha comes into this world. That other people for some reason or other enjoy sitting still in the posture that the Buddha sat in is a testament to that they are not just enjoying it but they are enjoying being servants to the enlightenment, allowing enlightenment to be manifested in this way. They feel okay about that. And it looks like the way the Buddha did it by kind of a coincidence, a ceremonial coincidence. You can also get up and walk like Buddha walked and let the walking be a case for the coming of the Buddha. You are not trying to get anything. You are actually giving yourself over to the gift of Dharma to appear in the world through your action.

[25:56]

It is pure faith. You are not trying to get anything. You are just giving, giving, giving. You are giving yourself as a place where Dharma is received. You don't need to get anything because you don't know anything about this. It is totally inconceivable and vast and yet you are devoting your life for this to be realized in your body at some place on this planet for people to see and enjoy. Also there is this thing about but you don't get it, you don't understand necessarily at this point. The other way you will understand. However, if you never turn around and study yourself if you never learn the Buddha way and you just practice according to faith you probably someday will understand. Just by sitting as a testament to the coming of Buddha completely wholeheartedly

[27:02]

tatha agata you will become tathagata. And similarly of course if you become tathagata you naturally will become tathagata you will naturally come into the world. So the story of Buddha is he took a walk up in the mountains reached the truth and then came back. That's one way to do it. But you can do it the other way too of just sitting with no gaining idea wholeheartedly offering yourself as the coming of the Buddha as one of the ways the Buddha can appear in this world and you will go up to the mountain and realize the truth. So these really aren't separate as that's the nice thing about the word tathagata is that the comings and the goings of the Buddha you cannot separate them. In Chinese however they didn't figure out a way to play with their characters to do that so they chose one side

[28:04]

and the side they chose was tatha agata they chose the suchness coming so in Chinese they don't say thusness gone they say thusness come they don't say the thus gone one they say the thus come one ru, thus, lai, coming Sanskrit's nice that way you got both and they're inseparable. You embrace the Dharma the Dharma embraces you they're inseparable. The Dharma is trying to embrace you but if you don't embrace it you miss out. And if you embrace the Dharma without realizing it's embracing you you miss out. So you got to do both sides and lately I've been emphasizing putting a lot of emphasis on actually the Gnostic side of the practice

[29:07]

that you actually can look around and be aware of what's going on in your mind every moment in every moment something's going on and that's your intention that's your karma and that is the problem that the Buddha pointed out the problem is what's going on in your mind the activity of your mind has consequence and if you do not understand the activity of your mind the consequences are that you become hindered in realizing suchness but by studying carefully the workings of your mind the workings of your mind evolve positively and your vision becomes clear and you will eventually see that all of your activity has always been selfless there was never a self in your action but if you don't study your action

[30:09]

if we don't study our action then it will be hard for us to see that our action is selfless it will look like a self doing something separate from other selves who are doing things separate from other selves so and faith can be tested and knowledge can be tested the Gnostic side can be tested by direct experience and reasoning and faith can be tested by the way you practice by how wholeheartedly it's happening like doing a practice period at Tassajara

[31:16]

and you know following the schedule and not being too early or too late at each period and if you are too early or too late that you practice confession about your lack of faith in the practice that you didn't really believe in the practice so you thought maybe it would work better if you were a little early or a little late yes are you equating reasoning analysis with turning the light back around is that what you're he said am I equating reasoning analysis with turning the light around so before this I understood the sequence to be more reasoning analysis at the beginning which is belief then scripture

[32:16]

which is a form of going beyond logic and being at a place of faith and then direct experience you put scripture before reasoning analysis well I put it first of all I put it not so much before but rather in hierarchy of validity of the most important so scripture is somewhat useful especially about teachings which you will not be able to verify teachings about things which you can't verify either by reasoning analysis or direct experience in the early phases of your evolution but you can verify some teachings that are in the scriptures by reasoning analysis and direct experience but some of them you can't most of the scriptures it appears to me that we study have a paradoxical nature

[33:18]

that we can't get to reasoning analysis I couldn't hear you paradox I'm talking about the paradoxical nature of logic scriptures buddhist scriptures saying that that level of scripture can only be taken for me, faith is reasoning analysis you know technically speaking I don't think Zen tradition says that its records are scriptures we do call we have this thing called platform sutra but generally speaking I think Zen goes along with the thing that the scriptures are actually things that the Buddha teaches they're actually coming from the Buddha the Zen teachings are more about how to deal with scripture

[34:19]

the Zen records are about how these people dealt with scripture and the majority of them are how how they didn't get into it wouldn't get into the scriptures and anybody who was trying to get into it was an opportunity for spinning the person around from their scripture grasping habit the story we studied in the last practice period or so about the fox koan is one of the examples of a Zen story where there actually is a discussion of the doctrine of karma it's one of the few Zen stories where they actually get into a discussion of how karma works and kind of like showing it mostly they're about how

[35:20]

people are hung up on it the teachings and how to release them from it that's also in the story so I don't really consider although we treat them with reverence as though they were scriptures we're actually saying that these stories are neither inside nor outside of the scripture they're stories to help us find a transmission which is neither inside nor outside the scripture which doesn't depend on the scripture and doesn't contradict the scripture but the scriptures are actually coming from the Buddha and people can give teachings which are basically as interesting or as important as what the Buddha said but they're not scriptures because they're coming from that person rather than through the person from the Buddha so some scriptures in the tradition

[36:21]

are somebody's talking and it's not the Buddha but it's coming from the Buddha's concentration practice like the Heart Sutra Avalokiteshvara is doing the talking but Shakyamuni Buddha is sitting in his neighborhood and it's through the power of Shakyamuni's meditation that the Bodhisattva is giving the Heart Sutra some other Prajnaparamita Sutras the Buddha is actually directly talking and there's other ways that the Buddha can directly teach and then they're called scriptures but some of the great Bodhisattvas also have given teachings according to the scriptures and some of the teachings they've given have been written down and those are what are called Shastras, they're commentaries or not so much commentaries even but they're coming from the Bodhisattva not the Buddha of this tradition and some of these teachers some of these Bodhisattvas will be Buddhas have been predicted already but

[37:22]

the Zen teachings are the teachings of enlightened disciples of the Buddha but they're not really scriptures in the sense of the word of the Buddha however the tradition is I think saying that by interacting with Zen masters you can enter into a way of being so that you will actually be meeting Buddha and we're not saying that the Zen master is the Buddha but we're saying that by interacting with each other we can enter into a concentration such that we will be meeting the Buddha and we will hear the Dharma and we will realize that we're hearing the Dharma because we're meeting Buddha face to face so in Soto Zen we say we venerate the face to face transmission of Buddha to Buddha and we have the teaching that we must enter into

[38:22]

that face to face transmission in order to hear the Dharma and you can hear the Dharma in two ways indirectly and directly and if you have been reading scriptures about the Dharma before that that's fine and people read scriptures and sometimes when they're reading scriptures wholeheartedly because the scriptures do have some authority while you're reading the scriptures you can hear the Dharma and you'll hear it in these two ways indirect and direct but before you have that indirect cognition or direct cognition while reading the scriptures you can still read the scriptures and they still have some authority in the tradition and you can check one scripture against another to verify if one scripture is right or wrong

[39:23]

and you can use scriptures to help you understand other scriptures this is valid in this tradition but that level of intellectual pursuit is a warm up to a cognition you never had before which is not in the scriptures another way I thought of this by the way is that Tathagata looks at practice as like the launching pad how to launch into and Tathagata is the landing pad so one way of approaching practice is this is the launching pad, this is where we go forth into the Dharma by studying what's going on we go forth, we launch from here into the ineffable, inconceivable perfection of wisdom the other way is

[40:26]

the perfection of wisdom is going to land here this is the place it lands so in both cases we have what we call traffic control you can take off now, the other one is you can land now I don't know how that related to your ordering of the way things are done in order but I don't see them as 1, 2, 3 exactly because you can read scriptures and have both direct and indirect valid cognitions of what the scriptures were written for you can also have not, it's possible not to have read scriptures and get some kind of instruction even non- scriptural instruction so many Zen monks I shouldn't say many, but some Zen monks didn't really get much scriptural instruction they got direct instruction from the teacher and yeah

[41:27]

and sometimes the Buddha was talking to somebody again, and they wrote down what he said to them, and what he said to them was what is the scripture but what he said to them is not what they heard when they woke up in the scripture the scriptures, again the Buddha is talking to someone they're listening to the Buddha say these words and they hear the Dharma, the scripture says the Buddha said this and the person understood but some scriptures the Buddha delivered and not all scriptures end with somebody understanding many do, but not all in some sense some teachings didn't work at the time but they still wrote them down because the people writing down or the people actually remembering, I should say they weren't remembering just because somebody in the audience, who wasn't them understood so we have this, another strange thing about this tradition is that the Buddha that there was somebody in the audience of the Buddha's talks who could remember what the Buddha said

[42:27]

and that person was not hearing the Dharma is that clear? it's a rather strange historical presentation that we have a tradition where the teacher is teaching and one of the people in the audience Ananda, his attendant is hearing the teaching and remembering it but not hearing the Dharma somebody else in the audience is hearing the Buddha talk and hearing the Dharma and sometimes Ananda would be tipped off the Buddha would say, by the way Ananda, that guy woke up so Ananda would remember that too so Ananda would hear the Buddha's words remember them and also hear the Buddha tell him that somebody heard the Dharma not you, but somebody else heard the Dharma and he would remember that too so and that was not because of the scripture but the scripture was the medium

[43:28]

in which the person was meeting the Buddha but the Buddha's face was there too all the whole time but not everybody met the Buddha's face even though the Buddha's face was in their face not everybody saw the Buddha's face and realized it was Buddha to Buddha when you hear the Dharma you're in that meeting ok yes is it the case that the Buddha's words were not actually written down or it wasn't just Ananda who remembered was it passed as a moral tradition for some time or was it actually written it seems to be the case that it was oral that's why that's why when they actually got together to decide what the canon of scriptures was going to be they weren't scriptures yet they were, I don't know what you call them before they were scriptures

[44:29]

because scriptures usually mean written, don't they? they were oral transmissions which Ananda magically, wonderfully apparently remembered all the things that the Buddha taught and so there he was and they had to have him come to the meeting with all the enlightened disciples and he wasn't one of them because they wanted to hear him recite the text and they would decide whether all the stuff he said would be the canon of the Buddha's teaching and then they probably changed what the Buddha said somewhat and rendered it into verse because I don't think we're saying that the Buddha spoke in verse because a lot of the stuff was like Hi, how are you today? and that's what it said they greeted each other they exchanged amenities so they had kind of normal conversations in whatever the language was but then when Ananda told them

[45:30]

then they converted those into a kind of verse form to make it easier for them to memorize and also to make it easier for them to not not to make mistakes in the memorization that probably went on for 300 years before they started writing it down I don't know the exact agreed upon number that scholars have arrived at at this point but Is that what is referred to as the Pali canon? Yeah, I think that when they first had the meeting together I don't think it was Pali that they put it into I think Pali, it came to be in Pali when they wrote it down and it came to be in Sanskrit when they wrote it down they didn't have another I guess they didn't have other languages that had writing by the time they wrote these things down

[46:31]

they wrote them down in Sanskrit and Pali and I don't know which happened first when they started writing it down it probably happened here and there before that there were probably different oral lineages being transmitted and they may not have been Sanskrit or Pali when they were oral I don't know, we don't know what they were before they were written down or they might have said let's convert the stuff that you are telling us Ananda into Sanskrit let's start chanting it in Sanskrit or let's start chanting it in Pali but to me it seems like when they first heard it they wouldn't have done it in both languages they would have done it in something that was appropriate to the people in the group but maybe the group was already split into a wide enough diversity of disciples so that some of them would be better able to put it into Pali than others and others would be

[47:31]

better able to put it in Sanskrit than others and maybe right away when they started reciting it they started reciting it in Sanskrit and Pali but I don't know of any record of the discussion of what languages they started to say the Buddha's teaching in as recitation there's no I shouldn't say no but there isn't extensive notes on the linguistic discussions of those early meetings there was enough they were mostly interested in preserving the Buddha's teaching they were not so much interested in preserving their discussions and their methods of preserving it yes it seems then that the transmission it's not like pouring something into the disciple with a funnel it's more a process of induction we're like the yes, that's right so that in the receiver something is stimulated from within that person based upon kind of attuning to the Dharma yeah

[48:32]

it's more like what the Buddha is doing with people is to attune them so that they can let the Dharma be poured into them but the truth is coming from within the receiver not being poured into a funnel it's like the truth is being stimulated inside the receiver more than being poured in or the truth is being opened to the Buddha is helping the person become a receiver and so the example which I mentioned before is the Buddha says it's like somebody climbs to the top of a mountain and then they can see things from the top of the mountain but if they stay down in the mountain up here I can see these beautiful palm trees swaying on the beach and these ladies doing these fancy dances and they have all kinds of nice drinks down there too and the person says what are you talking about, you're crazy

[49:32]

the Buddha doesn't teach like that maybe he tried but I don't think so anyway, maybe he tried and nobody got it he walks back down the mountain takes the person by the hand and walks them up to the top of the mountain where they just see themselves so the Buddha doesn't really give it to them the Buddha brings the person to where they can see it for themselves and the Buddha does that by getting the person to look at themselves and then you can see it and hear it but you cannot you need help to get ready to receive it and that's what the Buddha was willing to do and what he said while he was doing this for people is recorded and also what happened to some of the people is recorded too and the other people got to listen to the warm-up thing he was doing

[50:34]

for some of them and it was not without some use for them it was like the warm-up to the warm-up and for some people it was the warm-up period when he finished the scripture they were done for yes? what do I mean by practice? practice is the way that you are what am I going to say now? open did you say? yes open practice is the way that you are what am I going to say now? no? practice is the way you are

[51:35]

that's practice in order to see this you need to pay attention to what you are doing now what you are doing when you first look when you first look at what you are doing you don't see this when you first look you maybe see one side of this when you first look you see a partial version of this when you first look and this by the way is embracing and sustaining practice is the way you are embracing and sustaining all beings and the way all beings are embracing and sustaining you that's practice practice is the actuality of your existence practice is the way is inseparable from the realization of the truth when you first start trying to practice what you do is you pay attention to where you are and what you see you are doing and when you finally arrive right where you are the practice occurs

[52:40]

so the practice is actually what's going on and so in some sense it's a question of practicing practicing to wake up to the practice and the main hindrance to appreciating the practice we call karmic hindrance and then there's other kinds of hindrance too but the first hindrance is karmic hindrance and that comes from not paying attention to our activity paying attention to our activity we more and more find our place and realize the practice okay? is that okay? yeah, I spoke of practice someone who lives a lay life

[53:51]

that kind of practice isn't something to do as much as someone would you speak up please? if someone who lives a lay life I don't do that formal practice as much as someone does during practice period for instance and I'd like to think that there's a way to practice well that's yeah yeah there is and the way is that every action throughout the day is done for the sake of realizing the Buddha way that's how it would be and that's how it is supposed to be in a monastery that every act the monks are doing they do for the sake

[54:53]

of the Buddha Dharma this is what he called the Tathagata that everything you do you do as an opportunity for the realization of the truth that's the way you see it that's the way you intend it that's the point of what you're doing and you're actually here paying attention to what you're doing so it's not just theoretical it's practical that what you're doing right now is the landing pad for the triple treasure and you're offering your activity as the place to realize the triple treasure whether you're inside the monastery or outside that is necessary otherwise you're missing the practice if you can do that outside the monastery, fine if you can do it inside, fine if you can't do it inside that's too bad

[55:53]

if you can't do it outside that's too bad I would say if you want to realize this and then the debate is can we actually do it without lots of support and the answer is we hope so but even with lots of support it's hard even in the monastery it's hard even here today it's been hard to be moment by moment remembering that your body, speech and mind activity is dedicated to the realization of peace and harmony among all beings which requires the realization of truth it's hard to learn to do that for everybody and then we have to be realistic about how much support we need to tune into that and stay with that and if we don't feel like we have

[56:56]

sufficient support to quietly consider the causes and conditions where we can find that support and realize that support because again it's support to realize that you're supported it's support to realize that you're supporting people support to realize the practice of remembering that you're embracing and sustaining everybody and also that everybody you're embracing and sustaining you see as a question you don't really know who this person is you're looking at that you're embracing and sustaining and you don't know who this person is looking at you and embracing and sustaining you don't know who they are you're paying attention but you don't know who they are and you're learning to be mindful of that of that suchness and we want to be able

[57:57]

to do that consistently because if we don't there's consequences and if we do there's consequences too but the consequences of remembering seem to be good and the consequences of forgetting seem to be unhappiness so as I said to someone earlier today and I've said many times now you can see you're practicing together with people I guess you can see that some people in this room maybe even now in this room can't see right now that they're practicing together with people it's possible that somebody's sitting here and saying I'm not practicing together with those people they're not practicing with me I'm all by myself here all alone these people are not supporting me and I don't want to support them some people might be thinking like that

[58:58]

unconsciously? no, consciously some people walk into Dharma Sanghas and think I'm not practicing with these people they do think that that's true how about loneliness? if you see it that way you feel lonely but it's also possible that here with this packed in here like this it's possible that everybody in this room kind of gets it oh yeah, I am practicing with people I do support these people I came here today to support these people that's what I'm here for and I stayed the whole day and supported them that was a big successful day of supporting other people to practice you may feel that way, all of you and you also may all feel yeah, and these people supported me all day I see I'm practicing together with people well fine, that's true that's ta ta ta

[60:00]

you see it now, if you go away from here and don't see that you're practicing with people then you don't see it and that's that's hard so I sometimes say you shouldn't be some place where you can't see that for very long you shouldn't spend too much time looking at the world and say, I'm not supporting this and this isn't supporting me don't spend too much time there if you can't see it, get back to some place where you can, if you can see it some place go there soon, where you can remember oh yeah, I not so much remember, but see I'm helping these people I mean, anyway, I'm trying to help these people I'm trying to nurture these people and these people are trying to nurture me and they are and I am yeah, that's what I want to see and I do see it now and if you start taking the people away and you lose it

[61:03]

well don't tolerate that for very long because once you get in that space where you don't see that you're helping people and don't see that you want to help people and don't see that people want to help you when you're in space, that space can go boom! to a month or a year because, you know, what is the end of it? well the end of it is get back in some situation where you can see that oh, here's some people that I want to help I care for these people I don't know if I am helpful but that's what I'd like to be and I think they want to help me and they are helping me and now you're seeing like the Buddha sees and that's good, I would say and once again don't go away from this if you can't see it when you go away if you can't see it when you get up on the highway if you don't think like some people came from Sacramento when you get back on the highway if you can't remember that you're helping those other people

[62:05]

you know, people are cutting in front of you you're helping them, like go ahead, I give you the place I love you, you're helping me you're reminding me of my practice by driving so selfishly if you can, maybe you should just pull over you know, pull off the freeway for a little while until you remember, ok now what is it again? I'm going out there to help those people on the freeway, I'm not just trying to get to Sacramento I'm going to practice with those people I'm going to be an encouragement to them I'm going to be polite to them and they're going to help me with my practice ok, here we go I know that might make the trip back really take a long time but you know, if you pull over you know, wait until really late at night when it's very few that makes it maybe easier just me and that one other car ok, I'm your friend

[63:05]

so that's a radical suggestion that our practice is to practice together in a group that Sangha is really part of Buddha already but if you don't see that then you need to act it out in gross terms, like with people and plants and animals you need to like do it until you get it that this is the way it always is and again, if I forget it then I have to go back into the training situation again where I can say ok, ok, here's people am I ready for them? am I up for them? no am I ready up for them? no, am I ready up for them? no, am I ready? yes, yes I am fine ok, I give up I'm devoted to these people ok, I got it

[64:12]

I don't want to keep not being devoted to these people that's no good, I don't like it oh, and they're devoted to me too oh wow, great, wow I think you've got to do that wherever you are and if you can't do it where you are and you think some other place might be helpful well, go to that place until you get the hang of it again and then go forth go and see if you can do it in a less populated neighborhood or a neighborhood where the people aren't so obviously your family your Dharma family when the Buddha appears in the world there's nobody not in her Dharma family even though they never saw the Buddha before oh, these

[65:15]

I get it actually when the Buddha first appeared he did not see his Dharma family somebody had to say no, there are people here who want to practice with you oh really? and then the Buddha could go oh yeah, you're right, there are oh yeah, oh yeah, okay I'll do it speaking of Buddha family today is the day of the month when we when we do memorial service for Suzuki Roshi would you like to do a memorial service for him? no? okay well, if you would, we can do that we know how, right? thank you very much for supporting each other today was it too crowded?

[66:18]

no no? no? well, thank you very much for your great efforts today and thank you for helping each other and accepting each other's help as far as I could tell you you had no problem with that right? is that right? it's okay with you if all those people helped you all day? you didn't mind helping everybody? is that right? did you help everybody? were you up for that? we're not used to being that open to this exchange of support and nurturing that's what we have to train for is to get ready we train to get ready for the real practice

[67:20]

at some point you don't have to think about it? exactly, at some point you don't have to think about it and even though you don't have to think about it you do so you can tell people about it so the Buddha doesn't have to think about it the Buddha is just totally immersed in it but then the Buddha realizes, oh, if I don't think about it I won't be able to tell these people who don't know they're doing this thing with me so I'll think about it how could I tell? oh, there's a truth I have four truths for you, and so on so he had to think in order to talk to people but when he went to ta ta ta when he got to ta ta ta there was no thinking necessary but when he came back he landed in the world of thinking and then talked to the thinkers and the thinkers one of them woke up right away oh, oh

[68:22]

remember that part? also I have some copies of this if you'd like a copy I'll put it on the table do I have 40? fortunately no so should we set up for the memorial service? so maybe we just stand up and try to get arranged for that purpose

[68:59]

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