Good morning. Is that okay? I don't know yet. How will you know? It's moving. Can you speak? It's moving. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Well, I want to welcome all of you to Sashin. And the weather's getting more chilly, which is actually nice for Sashin.

[01:01]

And I think we'll have almost twice as many people by the end of Sashin. First few days, not so many people can come, but later, the Zendo will be full. Today, this, Cixin, I want to talk about the Heart Sutra. And about, I want to mention the fact that the Heart Sutra explained in various ways Edward Kanze, who was probably the first Westerner to make a commentary on the Heart Sutra, thought of it as a very intellectual document.

[02:03]

So he explained it in a kind of very intellectual way. But others, I haven't seen it as an intellectual document, but simply as a sutra which expresses the reality that we find ourselves in. And I've always thought, you know, I've often wondered about the fact that we chant the Heart Sutra every day when I first came to Zen Center, Sokoji, the only thing we chanted was the Heart Sutra three times in Japanese. And then later, it was Peter Schneider and, well, Peter Schneider put together a composite of translations

[03:19]

which is the present translation pretty much that we chant now with modifications later. And then we started to chant in English. And then it wasn't very long before I realized that why do we chant this every single day? It's because this is our map of practice, not a map of practice, but our understanding of what we're doing. It's not about something else. It's about what we're doing moment by moment. It's about what our lives are about in reality moment by moment. So if we understand the Heart Sutra correctly, it's about the heart of understanding.

[04:27]

Heart Sutra is the heart of understanding of reality, which is not abstract, but simply an expression. So since we chant the Heart Sutra every day, it's pretty important that we should understand something about it. When we first started to chant the Heart Sutra, or when I first, when we were chanting, the first chant cards had the characters and the Japanese, the Japanese transliteration and the English translation, all three in the same line.

[05:31]

Even though we didn't chant the English, the English was there underneath the Japanese transliteration, so we could read the English as we chanted the Japanese transliteration. And that was actually quite helpful. But since we chanted in English, we don't need the Japanese transliteration. So you glean something that way. And I've always contended that the way we chant the sutra brings forth the meaning of the sutra. It's good to understand the words, but the meaning of the sutra is in the way that we chant it because what the sutra is about is how we actually actualize our life within our activity. This is the sutra of form and emptiness.

[06:39]

emptiness and form. The form and emptiness of our lives as we live it moment by moment, or as it is lived through us moment by moment. The Sutra begins, actually, there's a short version and a long version. of the Heart Sutra. The long version has a kind of introduction. And in the introduction, Shakyamuni Buddha is in a profound samadhi. The samadhi of Well, it's called different things.

[07:43]

Deep Splendor is what we used to call it, the way it was translated, I think, by Kanze. I remember there was a matchbook that came out during the 60s that said, Deep Splendor is nothing special. Which was a kind of explanation of, or a kind of explanation expression of Suzuki Roshi's teaching. I don't know where the matchbook came from. Somebody printed it up. But it's also translated as profound expression. Profound means emptiness. Profundity means emptiness. and expression means form. So emptiness in a Samadhi of profound emptiness within form.

[08:54]

So this Samadhi of that Shakyamuni was in when he expressed this sutra was the sutra, it was the samadhi of profound emptiness within activity. Which we call Jijuyu Zamae. or Japanese call it, Jiju-zama. Self-fulfilling or self-joyous samadhi, which is what we, another name for shikantaza. It's what we experience in zazen. And it's what we, when we say, take my zazen into the world, that's what we mean, is to maintain this samadhi

[09:59]

wherever you are. There's no special thing that you have to do when you move in the world. Simply maintain the samadhi of profound activity. And then whatever you do will flow from that samadhi. Your activity will be grounded in G.G.U. Zamae or Shikantaza. So Shakyamuni is in this deep samadhi, profound splendor or whatever you want to call it, and he sets up a drama, a little play, which is very common to Buddhist sutras.

[11:02]

Vimalakirti Sutra is set up as a kind of little drama, where Vimalakirti's in his room, his hojo, his six-foot square room, and he invites all of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas into his room. And somebody says, well, gee, that's just a little space. He says, don't worry, we'll all fit in here. Everybody will fit if they just be careful. And then all of the bodhisattvas question Vimalakirti and he gives them his profound responses. So it's a kind of setup for understanding for Vimalakirti's understanding to be expressed. So here we have a setup for Prajnaparamita to be expressed.

[12:14]

Prajnaparamita, the perfection or the, perfection, okay, a perfection of understanding. We say wisdom, prajna, but it's also, you can think of it as wisdom, you can also think of it as understanding. Wisdom, Thich Nhat Hanh says wisdom is tricky because it can be a kind of immovable block, whereas understanding is more fluid. maybe not as high class, the word. Wisdom's kind of scary, you know, but understanding is more accessible. So maybe wisdom is the basis, and understanding is the activity of wisdom, I would say.

[13:23]

So he has these two characters. One is Avalokiteshvara, and the other is Shariputra. Shariputra is an arhat, and one of the 16 arhats who are depicted as Buddha's main disciples. And Shariputra is the disciple who has really good understanding. very sharp, very erudite, and most open to understanding. And Avalokiteshvara, or Kanon or Kuan Yin, however, is a Bodhisattva of compassion. It's interesting. He didn't draw in Manjushri, who is the bodhisattva of wisdom.

[14:31]

He solicits Avalokiteshvara, who is the embodiment of compassion. He sets up a little drama between Shariputra and Avalokiteshvara. It's like Buddha's the puppeteer. On one hand he has Shariputra, on the other hand he has Avalokiteshvara. So he induces Shariputra to ask a question. And Shariputra says, how does a bodhisattva course in the perfection of wisdom or true understanding? And then Avalokiteshvara says, well, it's like this, Shariputra, form is not different than emptiness.

[15:34]

Emptiness is not different from form. That which is form is emptiness, that which is emptiness, form. The same is true of feelings, perceptions, formations, blah, blah, blah, consciousness. So the prologue sets up the drama, sets up the conditions for why, this citra appears in the world. So it starts out, avalokiteshvara bodhisattva,

[16:45]

Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, when practicing deeply the Prajnaparamita, perceived that all five skandhas in their own being are empty and was saved from all suffering. So this is, Kanze divides the Heart Sutra into seven or eight parts. Eight parts. One is the prologue. The second is this particular section, and then there are more sections. So this is the first section, which is what Avalokiteshvara's bodhisattva activity and his understanding. What is he doing? Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva practicing deeply the Prajnaparamita.

[18:02]

So it doesn't say that he's talking about the Prajnaparamita. It says that he's practicing Prajnaparamita. He's practicing the perfection of wisdom or understanding. And then what is his practice? What does that mean that he's practicing this? So Avalokiteshvara is actually expressing Buddha's understanding. It's interesting that although Shariputra is asking about the perfection of wisdom, how to course in or practice, and Avalokiteshvara is responding, they're not doing this just for themselves.

[19:05]

They're doing it in order to bring out the meaning for everyone. That's why it becomes a sutra. If Shariputra's just asking for himself or for his own understanding, then it's just a kind of personal thing. So he's asking so that this can be expounded. So it's not like Shariputra doesn't understand it. necessarily. Shariputra already understands it. But he's asking Avalokiteshvara to expound it for the benefit of everyone. So there's nothing self-centered in this drama at all. And Avalokiteshvara is like the perfect balance between wisdom and compassion.

[20:11]

So wisdom is the essence and compassion is the activity of wisdom. Wisdom is the basis and compassion is the activity. And in Zen, we often talk about the essence and the function. And there are many koans which turn on the essence and the function. If you read the Rinzai Roku, or various stories of the old masters, They talk about wisdom and function. And wisdom is like emptiness.

[21:13]

Function is like the activity. So if you only have one without the other, it's not complete. So in the prologue, Shakyamuni is in this deep, profound emptiness. But in order to do something, he has to provide a function. So the function is as important as the basis. Without the function, nothing happens. You know, Suzuki Roshi used to make everybody get up when we did kin-hin. There were often people who just want to sit through kin-hin.

[22:17]

He said, no, when the bell rings, everybody does kin-hin. Because you don't want to get attached to emptiness. You have to take on the form. You have to function and not just stay in the emptiness. You can't just stay in the fundamental. You have to also perform in the actualization and the expression. So Shakyamuni has to come out of his samadhi of fundamental emptiness and perform, say something. And Avalokiteshvara has to come out of his samadhi and do something.

[23:19]

So this is a very important point. And it's a very important point for the sutra, for the meaning of the sutra. So Avalokiteshvara, the expression of his profound emptiness is compassion. And he compassionately puts forth the meaning. Then when practicing deeply the Prajnaparamita, so He's not explaining exactly, but he's practicing. When practicing Prajnaparamita, essence and function, essence and function is the practice of the Prajnaparamita. Grounded in the essence and functioning without eliminating one side or the other.

[24:30]

Form is the emptiness. Emptiness is the form. And then he perceived that all five skandhas in their own being are empty. In their own being are empty. So five skandhas, form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. So form, these are called the five streams, five rivers that interact with each other and produce what we call a person. So form is the body.

[25:32]

and all the rest belong to the mind. Feelings belong to the mind. Feelings are either physical feelings or mental sensations. I feel good or I feel this way or that way. Or my knee hurts. Those are feelings. Perceptions are cognition. what we take in through the senses and digest and create. And we used to call these impulses, mental impulses, but mental formations are good, bad, and neutral feelings or thoughts. Feelings also are part of mental formations. We feel what we think and we think what we feel, but we also think abstractly.

[26:36]

So mental formations are dharmas. Love, hate, jealousy, good works, bad works, all these things are dharmas and mental formations. There's a list of mental formations. And consciousness. There in Mahayana, there are eight levels of consciousness, sometimes we call it nine, or even more. And there are the sense consciousnesses, mind consciousness, which distinguishes between the realms of sense and things. And the ego consciousness, which is manas, and the alaya-vijnana, which is the repository of seed bed.

[27:39]

That's the seed, the repository of all of our seeds of actions. And all these consciousnesses, levels of consciousness work together. So consciousness, mental formations, the mind, perceptions, feelings, and form are the five rivers that work all together, and which we call the self. The seventh level of consciousness is the self-consciousness, which creates the sense of myself. It's called ego consciousness. So Sariputra, I mean, Avadhikita Svaru says, he perceived that all five skandhas in their own being are empty. So the first time we translated this, it was all five skandhas are empty.

[28:48]

And then later we put in, in their own being, because that's the important part. All five skandhas in their individuation, are empty. So there's, the implication is that there is no inherent existence in things. Nothing exists by itself. All these five skandhas in their own being are empty of a self or empty of a separate existence. They're empty of an individual existence because everything exists dependently. This is the Mahayana meaning of dependent origination, is that everything exists dependent on everything else.

[29:54]

So, This is sometimes called, Skanzay calls this sutra, the second turning of the wheel. In the first turning of the wheel, Buddha talked about dependent origination, the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path. And dependent origination in that way One in the so-called Hinayana understanding is that the idea of the wheel of existence, where birth depends, one thing depends on another in a cycle. And then in order to eliminate the problems, you eliminate the problems of the, you eliminate the dependencies until you come to zero.

[31:08]

But my understanding of interdependent, of the wheel of the interdependent origination is that everything depends on everything else. It's a different viewpoint. Not that it negates that viewpoint, but it's a different emphasis. There is nothing that exists independently. So the approach is that although things do exist, they exist interdependently. So nothing has its own being. Everything is a part of everything else. Everything is dependent on everything. If you take a grain of sand out of the universe, the whole universe collapses. He perceived that all five skandhas in their own being are empty and was saved from suffering.

[32:25]

So this is, you know, this first, this understanding is the whole basis of understanding the Dharma, the Buddha Dharma. If you understand this, much, all the rest is commentary. Because Buddhists understand, Buddhist message is, how do you end suffering? This is how you do it. How do you end suffering? By seeing that all five skandhas are empty in their own being, that everything is dependent on everything else. we tend to think of ourselves as independent beings, self-sustaining, independent beings. And that's what gives us a problem. That's our problem, is we don't, even though we can see, of course, we have to eat in order to survive, and we have to do various things, but we think of our survival in a certain way.

[33:41]

we think in terms of our survival at the cost of other entities. But if we understand how things really work, then there's nothing to fear because we have a certain picture of what our life is we can't conceive that letting go of it could be as enjoyable as this one. So, if everything is totally interconnected and there is no entity that is permanent for even a moment, and that everything is continually transforming into something else, that should give us some pause to understand what our life is about.

[35:03]

So suffering largely comes about by trying to preserve something that is not preservable. So the sutra goes on to explain or explicate this first paragraph. So then Avalokiteshvara explains to Shariputra. Oh, Shariputra. Form does not differ from emptiness.

[36:09]

Emptiness does not differ from form. That which is form is emptiness. That which is emptiness, form. The same is true of feelings, the five skandhas, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. So, Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness. The profound does not differ from the mundane. Samsara is nirvana. In order to reach, this is, the Heart Sutra is a kind of, I don't want to say criticism, but correction of the dualistic way of thinking, which became prominent before the first century.

[37:25]

The Prajnaparamita Sutras appeared around the first century. either one side or the other of the first century, probably this side of the first century. And Nagarjuna was the great proponent of the Prajnaparamita Sutras. And he developed what was called the Madhyamaka, or the middle way. Middle way means not always so. I've always contended that all of Suzuki Roshi's talks were about the Heart Sutra. He never mentioned it very much exactly, but all of his talks were explications of the Heart Sutra.

[38:26]

So chanting the Heart Sutra every day and then listening to his talks and practicing he was being Avalokiteshvara, expressing the meaning of the sutra. What had happened up to that point in the first century was that a lot of practitioners didn't get the understanding of nonduality. So they were separating nirvana from samsara. In order to reach nirvana, of course, you separate, take out samsara, because samsara's interfering with nirvana. You take out the impurity so you can have the purity.

[39:32]

This is very characteristic of a lot of Indian philosophies. Take out the impurity and then you have the purity. And this asceticism, this is the basis of asceticism. You take out the impure so that you can have the pure. The Indian ascetics, you know, they still do this. The austerities and so forth that people go through. Buddha did this when he left home. when Shakyamuni left home, he practiced all these austerities. He practiced austerities. He was the most austere of the, according to legend, was the most austere of all of the yogis. And he would eat one grain of rice a day for a long time and then he would grovel in the dirt and have people piss on him and do all these things to denigrate the body so that the spirit would be stronger.

[40:39]

So then when he finally realized, he sat under this Bodhi tree, right? And sat there for seven days, had enlightenment, and realized that it's not through austerities that you, come to enlightenment, even though his practice was pretty austere. It was austere and it was ascetic, leaning toward ascetic, but not in the sense of punishing the body in order to bring out the spirit. But to harmonize and balance body, mind, and breath with everything. So the Maitreya Mahayana had the realization of balance and harmony rather than retreating, trying to separate from the impurity of the world.

[41:55]

And in Zen, we say, Purity is only found within the impure. I forget who it was that said, whose answer to his koan was, it's like finding a pearl in a pile of shit. Hm? It was Dongshan. Dongshan, yeah. So we say samsara is nirvana. Nirvana is samsara in the right condition, when you understand it correctly. Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. So, oh, Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness. Emptiness does not differ from form.

[42:57]

That which is form is emptiness. That which is emptiness, form. The same is true of feelings. Feelings are empty. Perceptions are empty in their own being. In other words, they only exist dependently. They do exist. My nose exists, but only dependently. So, You know, we feel funny when somebody's head is cut off and put up on a stake on the London Bridge because it looks like it's existing independently. Horrifying. Yeah. So,

[44:02]

We have this notion about things and the way things exist, which is somewhat delusional because we kind of cover up, you know. We don't always think about the meaning of birth and death. And thinking about death is mysterious and scary, but in this understanding, which we come to later, of course, talking about no birth and no death, because everything is continuously transforming. There's only continuous transformations. And impermanence, so impermanence is rather wonderful because it allows everything to exist.

[45:05]

We sometimes think, well, impermanence is not so good because it takes us away from what we want. But actually, without impermanence, nothing happens. There's no such thing as anything happening without impermanence. Impermanence is a wonderful thing, even though we don't like it so much when we're happy. That's why we can't be attached to happiness or unhappiness. That's why attachment becomes the motive, the cause of suffering. Attachment is the cause of suffering, because it doesn't allow us to transform. We resist transformation. So in the 60s, we used to say, go with the flow, the 50s, which is, you know, people criticize that.

[46:10]

They're like, oh yeah, go with the flow, you know, hippie. But it's actually correct. It's actually the correct way. This is why Suzuki Roshi liked hippies. Because they could accept, you know, reality. Drop out, man, drop out. Accept reality. So then he says, tomorrow. Isn't that about right? 10 after 10, 10 after 11, it's one hour. So we'll continue tomorrow. I think that was right. Do you have one question or some question?

[47:14]

Yes, James. Oh, I'm sorry. No, just a vivid, you know, like something disconnected is what I was... Yeah, but we're seeing that every day. Oh, I know. That's right. We're seeing it every day. Yeah, how do we... Well... how do we deal with all that, right? Yeah, it's very hard, very hard. I think that there's several ways to deal with it. It's very interesting. We see all this suffering going on around us, and we see how unstoppable it seems, really seems unstoppable.

[48:20]

I mean, the people cannot realize what's going on is, you know, they won't, most people won't realize it until they feel the noose around their neck. It's really true. It's just going, chk, chk, chk, chk. And they're like, hey, how'd I get into this? How come I can't move? That's the way it's gonna be. That's the way it's going. Well, you deal with it the same way that you deal with the pain in your legs and zazen. How do you find your freedom within the pain of your life? How do you find that freedom without attaching to the pain?

[49:25]

The pain is there. but you move, and you exist with it without it dominating you, without allowing it to dominate you. And it can actually motivate you. You can use it in your activity. You can use the pain in your activity if you don't attach to it. It can be a strong, motivator because to do something. In Zazen, we exist in the profound stillness within our pain. And in our activity, without attaching to the pain, we can use it to motivate us. Things are numberless.

[50:47]

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