Last week we talked about the phenomenon of emptiness which pervades all things. It's a very difficult concept to grasp and there's probably some residual effects from trying to find out what exactly emptiness is. And perhaps as we go through these last two classes, it will become a little more clear. Emptiness itself is something that is ineffable. It's something that's felt. But the way we talk about it or describe it is through the world of form. And that, in fact, was the beginning of this whole discussion around emptiness, where Avalokiteshvara tells Sariputra, form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form.

[01:14]

We're on line 14 this evening. After Prabhupāda has told Śāriputra that all dharmas are marked with emptiness, he is about to go into a sort of a destruction of all the things that we as Buddhists hold dear and that are real, namely the skandhas and the twelve causal links and the four noble truths. The line 14 and 15, therefore in emptiness, no form, no feelings, no perceptions, no formations, no consciousness. That's a list of the five skandhas.

[02:21]

And in emptiness, Avalokiteshvara is telling Shariputra and all of us that there is no form, no feelings, no perceptions, no formations, and no consciousness. So what is it that we are using to take in the world when we know that we are just a heap or a bundle of scandas? So the key word here is no. And it's not no in the sense of a dualistic no as opposed to yes. It's the no that includes yes. It's the no that is expressed in the first koan in the Mumonkan, does a dog have Buddha nature? and Joshu says mu, which literally means no or negation.

[03:25]

But what that no in fact is, it includes everything. It's no as an expression of emptiness. It's no as just the sound, no, he could have said fly, he could have said tree, he could have said any one of a number of things, but he said mu, or wu in Chinese, which is no. And what this addresses in our practice is when we are engaged in the world, before concepts come into play and start dividing up the world, there is just

[04:32]

the activity of whatever is at hand. When we sit in our zendo, it's called shikan taza, which is just sitting. Taza is sitting, and shikan is the just part. And the shikan is another way of saying move. Just sitting. which includes everything that comes up when we're sitting zazen. All the forms, all the feelings, all the perceptions, mental formations, and all the consciousness that arise, all that is included in shikkan haza. In koan study, the first koan that I just was talking about, the student uses mu as a Sort of like a mantra, a constant in one sitting, breathing in, breathing out.

[05:43]

Moo. Moo doesn't have any charge to it. Moo keeps our brain occupied without anything to hold on to. Basically, Mu is a tool or a skillful means for us to be present without concepts and without the gap between us and the world. Did you say that now in lines 14, etc., Could you have yes there instead and have it mean the same thing every time it says no? Because you said it was not no in the dualistic sense. Right. Well, what this is doing, we have to remember that this teaching is addressing Shariputra, who was a student of the Abhidharma, who analyzed all the dharmas that were considered real, that had a reality.

[06:55]

Avrilakshmi Tashfar is sort of pulling the rug out from under him and said, no, there are no feelings, there's no perceptions, no mental formations. If he said yes, then there's the danger of making these things which are fundamentally empty appear more real. So by saying no, it's a way of kind of taking it away. So when Mel talks in lecture, he talks about we're using non-dual language, and we tend to think in dualities. So he could have said yes, but the record is no. And what it helps us to do is to undercut our usual way of thinking, which is sort of what the teaching is about here. Because in non-duality, no, yes, fly, tree, as I said earlier, any word could be used because there's no distinction between them.

[08:08]

But for the sense of skillful means and teaching, no has certain associations, which is this negation. On line 16, there's an enumeration of the sense organs, which is what we use to, again, take in the world. No eyes, no ears, no tongue, no body, no mind, no nose. And then the the distinctive phenomenon that these sense organs take in. Eyes are associated with color, ears with sound, nose with smell, tongue with taste, body with touch, and mind with objects of mind.

[09:12]

And then in line 18, no realm of eyes until no realm of mind consciousness. These are the six consciousnesses. So there's eye, the physical eye or eye organ. There's the object, solid color green. And then there's a consciousness that is there that puts all, puts these two together. So without eye consciousness, there's nothing that can be cognized or conceptualized. So we have to have subject, object, and then a consciousness associated with it. So these are the 18 dhatus, they're called. And Trungpa Rinpoche called his practice centers around the country dharma dhatus. And these are 18th sense elements is another way of calling them.

[10:22]

So you have to have a subject, an object and this consciousness in our mind that puts it all together. So when you're just sitting and just being in emptiness without concepts There is no eye, no ear, there's no sound. There's just the pure experience. This is what that music critic was alluding to in the first night I was talking about. He says, when I listen to this music, it feels like I'm just one large ear just taking in the music. There's sort of a merging of this thinking and consciousness, and then the sound, the music, the record player, and all that. It's just this ear organ perceiving everything. And that's why during Sashin, typically, or after Sashin, everything appears magnified and more real.

[11:31]

Everything is heightened because everything is stripped away and there's more purity, there's more pure experience in the various things that we're calling this life and my relation to this life. Tozan lived back in the 800s in China, and there's a famous story. As a young monk, he went to his teacher, and when he heard the Heart Sutra being chanted, he says, but I do have a nose, I do have an ear, and all that. And the teacher says, well, I'm not the teacher for you. You have to go and find another teacher. And that sort of began his sort of quest for truth.

[12:32]

And of course if you go to any child and say this, well there's no eye, no ears, they'll give you the same response. So what do you do with that? You know, I do have a body. I do have an eye, I have an ear, a nose, but before our concepts around all that, there's just a pure experience. And that's in that realm of emptiness where we were talking last week about there's this ocean of reality and the various waves that come up that we experience as green cup or friction on the carpet, the sound that we hear. maybe a smell, a physical feeling on the cushion. Before our concepts, there's just that pure experience. A really important teaching with regard to this breakdown of experience, these eighteen dhatus, is that because

[13:46]

there is no inherent separate existence of the watch, the cup, or as I was saying the other day about the pencil isn't a pencil until it's actually utilized as a pencil. There are these stories of Suzuki Roshi saying, he was holding up his glasses and saying, I'm borrowing these glasses. These glasses are not mine. And Mel often talks about money, that he doesn't have money, that money is sort of going through him and being circulated through him off to some other place. From a practice place, what this helps us do is using selfless language as a reminder that we don't own anything, and that things are in a constant state of change or flux, and we're participating in that, in this world of emptiness.

[14:53]

These waves are coming up, we're sort of going with the wave, going with the flow, so to speak, and things are constantly changing. So by using this language of, this is actually not mine, I'm borrowing these glasses or I don't really have any money and it's just passing through, it reminds us that we're selfless and we're just participants in this realm of emptiness. Things are on loan, so to speak, and For me it's become really clear as I've gone through major sort of changes in my life where I thought things were real and I was taking them with me wherever I went. I realized at a certain point that nothing lasts in fact and things come and go and someday I'll pass away and all these belongings and things that were mine will just kind of be there for

[15:58]

you know, whoever, whatever, for the next life. So, we actually are, we're kind of on borrowed time, even though that sounds somewhat pessimistic, or like, you know, there's something determined, or we're just, it's borrowed time, but that's a good reminder. It makes us, at least it makes me appreciate that much more the things that I'm borrowing for now. You know, you said after Sashin we see everything more clearly. Often. Yeah, which I've always felt. But at the same time, I've heard or read or both, that if we're really purely hearing, we don't even identify what we're hearing, we just hear. That's right. So I'm in the Zendo, and I've never been able to, I've never been able just to hear, and not identify what it is that I'm hearing. So there seems to be a contradiction between that heightened awareness that Sashin brings, and kind of the admonition that we're not even supposed to identify what we see or hear or taste.

[17:01]

You see the contradiction? Well, I'm not an admonition about that we shouldn't do that. Maybe admonition is the wrong word, but if we're purely hearing, we won't say, well, that's a plane and that's a bird and that's Alexander. We'll just hear. Right, but there is the experience before you and everyone here, myself, jump in with the various labels that we associate with it. There is a time there, and it's kind of tricky, it's sort of like, you know, I'm going to catch my thumb, and I can never, you know, catch it, right? Because I'm using the same hand to catch my thumb, you know, the mind is We only have one mind, and that's the mind that's trying to catch this sort of non-dual mind. It's very slippery. Um, and also I think it's a, um, this, uh, absolute and relative, uh, eyes, horizontal nose, vertical matrix, where there's just the pure seeing and, and, uh, hearing.

[18:04]

And then there's this, you know, sound that we hear and read the light is either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. And that's the point that we're, we're at, but we have to remember before. associations that there's just a sound overhead before it's the jet and hopefully it'll, right? And yet, Aptis, Siddhi, and Goswami, we're that much more attuned to exactly what it is. Yeah, as Dogen said, you know, mountains, before practice, mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers. During practice, they're no longer mountains and no longer rivers, because it's just a pure experience. And then afterwards, they become mountains and rivers again, they become airplanes and teacups again, but with a different, our relationship to them is a bit different. Is that? Well, in those states too, The thought, that's Alexander, is on the same level as the noise of Alexander before the thought of Alexander.

[19:06]

I mean, it isn't charged in the same way. You're right, in a sense you're right, when it's just noting, that's Alexander. And then I just let it go. Right. But it's not pure experience because it's still this label on it. Well, maybe it isn't even in words. Maybe it's just, it comes to mind, maybe a child playing, you know, or... A familiar association. It's not just like when the airplane, every Saturday at lecture time, there's planes going overhead, and so there's this familiar sound, and after a while we don't even... It registers, but it doesn't have the same kind of associations or distractions. And there might be some personalization, but even that is... There's a... can be just taken in and let go of after a while? Hopefully so. Hopefully it will be let go and we return back to that ground. There were some tests of these monks being hooked up to experience and given stimulus and their brains were registering the stimulus

[20:17]

just as high as a non-meditator. And then after a period of time, and then they would of course go back to sort of flat when there wasn't a stimulus and they were just sitting. But after a while, the people who weren't meditators, the same stimulus, it would sort of bottom, it would flatten out and it would become habituated. And they wouldn't really experience the stimulus anymore. Whereas a meditator still had the experience of whatever the stimulus happened to be, but they would return back to that flat. So it's definitely not tuning out, it's really tuning in, but not getting caught and distracted. Which makes the difference between us and my beloved dog, his brain, or someone with an IQ of 10. There's a difference there, yeah. Yeah. There's a difference. Isn't there? Yeah.

[21:30]

Well, I wonder. I do seriously wonder about my dogs. I'm closer to her than anyone. Well, yeah, they say that animals are closer, just sort of pure experience. But I also, thinking further though, I know that she's also thinking food and different things on a deep level that are, you know, Perhaps so, yeah, I don't know how animals think. They're a little more basic. Yeah. It doesn't mean that they are higher than us. No, no, higher or lower. Sometimes I think so, but I've decided no. Good. Moo. No. Right. Is there a hand up? Yes. In a sense, when you say heightened awareness, and say, in a sense we could say that we are complete or our mind is complete at that point. So, do you think, I mean, do we recognize that heightened awareness?

[22:34]

Because if we are only the music or only, you know, whatever we are in at that point, if our mind is complete, so, is there, how can, is there a part of our mind which will recognize that fact? I mean, you know what I'm saying? How do we know later that, oh, we were at heightened awareness or we were at full awareness? because we were only that or we were only the music or we were... I think there's a feeling when one is truly engaged in the activity and When one's truly engaged in the activity, the... You can feel it.

[23:44]

Do you feel more alive? Yeah, I'm just thinking to myself, you know, I'm doing my own sort of inventory of moments when I've had sort of a heightened awareness of just tasting a glass of water that, you know, it's just water, but for some reason there's a certain, there's a quality to it which is very different. And I think it's one of those things that can't be translated. We all have those experiences to them. We have experiences of that. And in Zazen, it's important not to, in a Zen practice, not to grade it and say, well, I'm looking for heightened awareness. And when my mind is dull and all that, I'm not having heightened awareness, so I'm not a good practitioner. So we don't talk so much about getting heightened awareness and these sort of altered states. But it does happen through sitting practice, because as we settle down, there's just less filters, and we experience the world differently. It does in fact happen.

[24:46]

And while we're experiencing it, there's an aliveness and a richness in our life. And then I think with the discursive mind, the mind that sort of grades our practice habitually because we're always kind of grading how we are on this continuum, there's something that's felt. As the metaphor goes, it's like walking through a fog. You don't think you're getting wet, and by the end of the walk, you're really soaking, but you don't feel the water droplets on you. I think it's somewhat like that. And sometimes I get a little burst of lightning and a little rainstorm. But if you say to yourself, oh, I'm just a musician, I'm having heightened awareness, you've lost it. Yeah. Exactly. Right. So what is noted It's noted. I'm having heightened awareness, you know, and... I don't think you can even note it. Well, but that happens.

[25:49]

We notice some sort of subtle... we notice some subtleness, and then that's... that's the place. Now, what are you going to do with that? Are you going to go back to just sitting and just experiencing, or is it tripping out and developing a more, you know, embellished ego and feeling some kind of power and all that? And that happens. It's certainly a trap. And as the... the koan that I was talking about last week about go wash your bowls that was addressing that very thing that this person to have a taste of that pure experience or heightened awareness and the teacher told him to go wash his bowls which is you know go back and you know burn off that that attainment I just feel that um you know like awareness is heightened My awareness, say, I feel heightened when I don't even know that it was heightened at some point. You know what I'm saying? Like, even if I'm not practicing or just, say, I'm listening to music, you know, but I don't ever think back that, oh, my awareness was heightened then.

[26:56]

That's good. And we don't have to be sitting cross-legged in order to have experiences of heightened awareness. It just happens. So that's what I thought. Because if I'm sitting and I'm like, oh, is this heightened awareness or is this isn't? If I'm listening to music and maybe if you get lost or whatever, you feel that maybe those are the moments that there is heightened awareness. Well there should be awareness when you're sitting Zazen. Just awareness of breath and posture and all the things that are going on in one's mind. The beauty of Zazen practice is that it gets right down and strips away everything. So what happens is your enlivenment and awareness of this life becomes a much broader spectrum. And it's not just reserved for the world of music. Some people are very auditory, so their experiences of heightened awareness might be just in the world of music or visual with art and whatnot.

[28:02]

But with sitting, it seems that more comes up to the surface. And I think due to sort of karmic tendency, if we do find certain affinities for the visual world, auditory world, or some other sort of sense pleasure, even if they all are empty, still there's some, in some sense, that's where we, where our life kind of really gets juicy. Paul, did you want to? Yeah, I was thinking that, though I didn't think of it as a heightened awareness at the time, remembering a time in a sashimi when I was just eating some salad and I remember it was a very intense experience. I really tasted all that salad and it was like it almost made me cry because it was such a strong experience and I think that was probably a heightened awareness. And I was aware of it, and I was going, wow, whoa. So I wasn't complete.

[29:03]

I was doing two things at once. I had a partial, it wasn't like 100% awareness, because I was also thinking. But it was very strong. So you recognized the experience. At the time. Because it's a matter of degree. You can have a little bit of heightened awareness, I think, and then be thinking about it, too. But you're saying, if you have all the way, you're not thinking. What's happening in the cases like during Sushi and eating meals and things are more alive is the experience of emptiness and interrelatedness and that you are engaged in something without the separation of Ross or Paul or this is a ball, I'm eating the salad or whatever. There's just the activity and that very alive place, which is what emptiness is about and the interrelatedness.

[30:05]

I mean, if you think about the most engaged activities that you've had in your life, it's most likely the times when there wasn't much separation between you and what was going on and just emerging. I think it's the contrast. You know, you consciously know it, like when people bow to you, serving you, and it's like, wow, it was, you know, it's, it's, um, usually, you know, you think people give you, you know, people give you these things, you know, like, it was just like, it's just throwing, you know, just having these around, you know it, right? I don't know if you call it heightened awareness. Well, it sets a tone. The practices that we have and the forms that we have sets a certain tone for being more awake in the zendo, certainly. I really feel that that's the importance of a lot of the forms that we do.

[31:07]

It's certainly unusual, people bowing to you and talking to you. Let's move on to line 19. No ignorance and also no extinction of it until no old age and death and also no extinction of it. This is a destructing or addressing the 12 links of causation, which is basic Buddhism, the early teaching of the Buddha. And this is, again, as I said, basic Buddhism. It's in the basic Buddhist tenets that we have on the shoe rack. And it's a way of talking about how things come into existence. And through basic ignorance or fundamental ignorance, there's volitional action.

[32:15]

And actually, above the telephone, there's a wheel of life that's a Tibetan thangka that has on the outer ring there 12 links. And that's a visual depiction of what I'm talking about now. So from fundamental ignorance, there's volitional action. And then from volitional action, there's consciousness. And from consciousness there's name and form. Naming and forming leads to the six senses. And from the six senses there's contact. And once there's contact, then there's feelings, and then thirst, and then grasping, then becoming, and then birth, and then old age and death. And this is the cycle of creation of suffering that is talked about quite often in our practice. And what this is saying is that there, in fact, in emptiness, there's none of this. So, yeah.

[33:22]

Well, I was reading a lecture, part of a lecture in an old newsletter, BBC newsletter, by Suzuki Roshi, where he he said to his students, very few of you are really doing Zazen, you know, and you should all leave. But he also, in the same lecture, said, you know, you are Buddha, whether you're monkey mind Buddha, aching back, sore knees Buddha, you know, whatever, as well, which is... I was really going to make that comment before you said, let's move on, but it also reminds me of this one, because there's such a contradiction in the line there about no old age and death and also no extinction of it.

[34:26]

So it's two coins in that sentence. One coin or two coins? Well, there's the coin of of ignorance and then old age and death. Well, it's one coin, it's one circle of causation that the Buddha described as how things are in this world and that habitually we, through ignorance, we have a volitional action and this sort of leads to the various creations that are called Ross's life or Nancy's life, okay? What our task is in practice is to try to reverse the movement or to stop going from one link to the next. The description of these 12 causal links is a skillful means, a way of describing, it's a provisional teaching on how things are in the world.

[35:33]

and because it's uh... words describing something uh... can only go so far and this is what uh... uh... i think it is far as saying that in emptiness these things don't exist it's just what's going on you start labeling it we say whether the six senses uh... and then with all the senses i come into contact with something this cup and then i you know, grasp the cup, oh this tastes good, and then this whole drama develops around that. So what many practitioners try to do is to stop this movement before there's contact, which is pretty near impossible to do. Because as soon as there's contact with something, we're just caught once again. Um, for instance, if you're trying to quit chocolate, you can't just like have a little bit because as soon as there's contact, this thing develops.

[36:41]

Um, or say you're trying not to talk during session or something, you say something and then it develops and then you want to talk more. So it really shows how these 12 links are quite vital and quite real to us. Now in emptiness, there in fact is just what's going on without the labels. And there's just drinking water, as Mel says, you know, just drinking tea. There's just that feeling. Does that necessarily continue on in creating more suffering? Well, all this tastes really good. Then we separate it. And then we want more tea. And then that causes the problem. So, strictly speaking, when we sit zazen, we aren't creating karma. We're just sitting zazen. But we can't do that all the time. We start acting and doing things out of fundamental ignorance, and that causes this wheel of suffering again.

[37:45]

Did you say that Buddha said that all volitional actions come from ignorance? All? Yeah, that's the second link. There's a fundamental ignorance, which is not absence of knowledge, it's like blindness. We do something. There's volitional action, and that's what sort of starts it. Actually, the way the 12 links work is it can go, one can start anywhere, but traditionally it starts at fundamental ignorance. I don't think so. I think it's... Supposing you're the monk in the story who comes to the stream and carries the woman across. You're the monk and you simply walk up to the stream, you see that there's somebody who needs something, you respond, you do it, you move on. Right. And there's no karma created. And there's somebody who's not acting out of ignorance.

[38:49]

Right, but there... I mean, that's not as compared to the other monk. Not as compared to the other monk, good point. But there is karma created. You're there and you do it and you move on. Right. But there is karma created. by the action, even because the other monk feels something, the woman feels something, there's the effect on the ground as he walked across, there's all these things that are happening there, but it's minimized. If his action or her action is with non-dual mind, just seeing where there's a need in doing something. The separation is where the problem comes and the karma gets created. But if we're acting with dualistic thinking, that's the realm of karma.

[39:51]

action, even if it's selfless? Well, in the purest sense, the way I've heard it is only in Zazen is no karma created. That's an action too. Well, it's a sort of non-action. way. Well this is, it starts going off into speculation, I don't want to go into that, but I just, and that's a whole other class as far as karma and the 12 causal links. But it's a good point. There's different kinds of karma, I bet. There's the karma having to do with walking on the grass, actions based on self, or volitional acts, which are those, right? And that's a much different kind of karma, I think.

[41:02]

More significant, that's the kind of karma that causes suffering. at the risk of going off here. When you say suffering, it's suffering of individuals. You know, we're acting selfishly and something happens and people are affected by it, but there's suffering in even those things that are sort of walking on the grass because all life in fact is suffering, right? It's fundamental. But in a way, the grass is suffering selflessly versus human suffering, which often is tainted with self. In line 21, these are the Four Noble Truths which are being restated.

[42:24]

No suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path. Now the Four Noble Truths we learn as life is suffering, or there's anguish, and there's a cause to it, it originates somewhere, and there's a way of stopping it, and the way to stop it is following the Eightfold Path. So this is a restatement that's saying that in emptiness there is no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path. What do people think is being said here? I think it's also saying, you know, when the heart is open, when we're engaged, none of these things exist.

[43:30]

But there is still anguish, yes? and there's a cause to it when our heart's open? I thought at some point there was no suffering. I'm leaving. Well, what it is, is there's no pain I'm sorry, there's not suffering, there's just pain. In the first Noble Truth, when there's ill or anguish or suffering, when Avalokiteshvara saw the beings that were suffering, he didn't see individual suffering. He just saw this conglomeration of empty aggregates, form, feeling, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.

[44:46]

It wasn't individual suffering. So it was just that collection of aggregates that were provisionally called David, or Ross, or Table, or what have you, that Avalokiteshvara saw and that that was fundamentally empty. So, in empty... He was saved from all suffering. He was saved from all suffering, and as the Six Ancestors said, that with regard to the four vows, you know, I vowed, you know, beings are numberless, I vowed to save them. His interpretation was, you save the beings in your own mind. that you're not saving anyone out there, you're saving the beings in your own mind. And that's a real tricky place because we have feelings around our friends and our loved ones, and when they're going through some kind of pain or anguish, we don't typically think of them as this heap of scoundrels that's crying or convulsing in pain, we think of them as our dear loved ones that are going through some anguish.

[45:52]

And, you know, like, you just sell, you know, water. You know, like that scientific kind of talk, like, you're using everything to, just, units, you know, carbon units, whatever. Is it the same thing? I don't, I don't, I don't know. Like, just making people impersonal, like, this is just a heap of something, you know. Right, well, that's tricky because we want to be engaged with the individuals. We don't want to think of them as impersonal. We have to see them for what they are, which is... It might look impersonal, but it's detached in a way that's... Gives it some perspective? I think it's like a movie. We have a movie and we think it's real, but if we get some perspective, we actually remember that it's just celluloid, you know, frame by frame by frame. And that's actually what we see.

[46:58]

And that's what we're experiencing, this movie called life. So through sitting, we slow down and we see the movie more clearly. And that's how we can, in fact, say that there is no suffering. There's just what's going on. You know, we sit Zazen, there's lots of pain in our legs or in our back or whatever. And at a certain point, if we're going to get through that with less suffering, which is what our practice is about, right, or seeing suffering and lessening suffering, we have to go into it. And when we go into the pain, it's just the pure experience of pain without our labels on it. And that's when it doesn't mean that the pain goes away, but it's transformed.

[48:01]

And we're still very alive. It's not impersonal at all. It's a very, you know, a real feeling. which is a different angle on what we're experiencing than before. The second noble truth about craving or grasping to say that there's no craving or no grasping that's because we're using the skandhas to take in the world and the skandhas in fact are empty then there's nothing there that can crave. There's the illusion of I really like that green cup and that's the cup I want but when you get down to it and we see it it's just this very changeable feeling of affinity for a green cup. And with stopping, since nothing ever really existed in emptiness, how can we stop it?

[49:14]

If it never really started, it was just a pure experience. There's nothing to stop. Wasn't that stopping referring to the cycle of causation, or independent origination? They're related, but it's because the twelve causal links is the cycle of creation of suffering, and the Four Noble Truths is that life is suffering, there's a cause, cause is grasping, and there's a way of ending that. that grasping, because the pure experience is just the pure experience, it's the grasping and developing the drama that's causing all that pain, so they are related. And then the line where it says, no path, the last two words on that line, that goes back to the title of the sutra, the Prajnaparamita, which is the

[50:22]

the shore of wisdom, having gone to the other shore, and we all have heard that the other shore is no other place than right here. And so when we really experience the other shore being here, in this place, and that the first step on this path is right here, then the other paramitas come right in line, and the other three truths fall into place. saying, not only is there no suffering, etc., that the concept of no does not even arise in the Bodhisattva, and even the concept of that concept not arising does not arise. I mean, you finally arrive at an even greater sense of refusal to admit the reality of dharma.

[51:33]

Here they seem to think they're working against in with what you're saying completely. Well yeah, ultimately there's just that pure experience and I think as we practice we're always letting go and kind of fine-tuning that realization that we have. And the no's become a little less important. There's just that experience. In line 22 and 23, no cognition, also no attainment, with nothing to attain.

[52:54]

We talk a lot about in our practice about no attainment and no merit. And once again in emptiness, there's no separate existence of cognition, no separate existence of attainment. And this actually goes back to your question about the sort of heightened awareness and having a this experience of heightened awareness and yet you don't experience anything there's just the experience of whatever is going on and the mind trying to catch that and to quantify that in some way is sort of echoing this no separate existence it's just what's going on even though habitually we try to grade things and say oh that was a good period as I was in that was not such a good period as I was in or I was distracted and in line 23 where it says, with nothing to attain, that's talking about cause and effect and that they in fact are

[54:30]

so intimately related that there's no way of really saying, because I did this, I got that. That cause and effect arise together and that's what the Buddha taught that our life our life is just a series of causing conditions things coming together and things falling apart and then a new configuration moment by moment. Now When Bodhidharma went to China, he met the emperor there, and the emperor wanted to know what kind of merit he had received by building all these Buddhist temples, you know, propagating Buddhism and supporting this religion. And Bodhidharma said, you know, no merit. Now, that's essentially echoing no attainment.

[55:35]

Sorry, emperor, you don't have any attainment there. It's a hard, it's a difficult, as paradoxes are, it's difficult to hold both those sides. That of course supporting, supporting the practice is a, is a good thing. So propagating Buddhism, which is helping others, hopefully lessen their suffering, is a good thing. But the attachment to that is where the problem is. And that just creates a self, and it sort of solidifies something that ultimately is not going to be so helpful to the person who is creating all these wonderful temples. So in order to undercut that, Bodhidharma says no attainment, no merit. Now we can look at the causes of the emperor.

[56:48]

Now he was in a particular position to build temples in China. there weren't the average person there, the average farmer couldn't build temples, so certain cause and conditions created this individual and he for whatever reasons felt, I want to do this thing and he built temples and supported the religion and the practice. So that's Oh, well, I guess causes and conditions must be real and there is some attainment here, there is something going on. Why do you say that? Why do you put that and on there? Causes and conditions exist. And there must be some attainment? There must be some attainment. Well, I'm thinking as someone who is doing something with the intention of helping others.

[57:52]

Oh, there is something here, right? I thought that his motivation was different from that, and that's what the problem was. The problem was? He was trying to gain merit. which is a very selfish reason. It's greed-based. I thought it was a simple... There's many levels to this maybe, but the level I understood was that if you do something in Buddhism for the sake of getting something, then you can't get it. But if you do it for its own sake, then actually, you do. In a sense, if you're helping others, if you think you're helping others, that's merit right there. if you think that you're helping others, you know, it's... that's kind of like generating karma. It's kind of something that came up. Like, I helped this guy. You know? I may not know, but I thought it depends on sort of why you're doing it.

[58:54]

Like, ulterior motive. You can help somebody because it's going to make you feel good, or you can think you're enlightened because you helped somebody, and then you just completely get no merit. But if you genuinely want to help someone, Because you have a feeling. Who's giving all this merit? No person gives merit. Merit is created by conditions. Not according to this. But how do you know, how do you quantify merit? I mean, are you going around measuring something? I don't know the answer to that. Well, something happens. Yeah, something happens. And while the motivation to build temples, for instance, might not be so pure because he wants to be recognized and all that, the fact is there are all these temples and the potential for people to sit and study the Buddha way. So there is something that goes on there. But the merit is extra, and as Robin was saying, who is this person that's getting merit?

[60:02]

Well, presumably, a selfless kind of act would have, there would be an awareness of the interrelatedness of life, and by doing such an act, you're helping yourself as an organism, Because you don't see yourself as separate from the person in need. And there's nothing wrong with that. If it touches your entire being, then help me. And I think we all have taste of that. We all experience that from time to time where there isn't any separation and there is not any idea of gaining any merit. It's just a vehicle. Just a vehicle, right. And the way to be a vehicle is to be empty. If we're full, then we have ideas of merit and should I be doing this, should I not be doing this, or what am I going to get out of it, and all that sort of stuff.

[61:09]

But if we're truly empty, which is before concepts arise and the empty nature of the five skandhas, then there's a certain flow and feeling where there's just that pure activity. We can still make mistakes doing that as well. Mistakes can be made. In one sense, and then another sense, it's just what goes on. It's like being one with the universe or being empty doesn't mean that you walk out in the middle of the street and get hit. So there is an awareness of emptiness within the world of form. Form and emptiness are It's the same body of water, it's the same expression. I'm just thinking of times when you have to make a decision to act, to do something.

[62:14]

You're at a crossroads and you have to make a decision. And either one of the decisions, they're both out of selflessness, saying that one may be better than the other, but you don't know. In one sense, one may be better, but in another sense, it's just all it is is activity. It's just activity, but what we habitually want to do is make the right choice, do the right thing, do the thing that's going to help the most people or benefit all beings and all that. But until the action takes place and then new causes and conditions arise, then that will determine where this particular action goes. It's like Mel said when he set up the Zendo, that his determination was he was going to show up for Zazen every day, no matter who showed up.

[63:15]

He would be there. that was his way of going on a particular road. And then sometimes people came, sometimes they didn't. And then when they came, there was a certain effect and relationship between he and the other people. And then 20 some odd years later, Berkeley Zendo is what it is. But it came, it originated from that original action of of sitting there without worrying whether people would come or not. It's that thing of wanting people to come where someone over here said that you're not going to get what you want. Right. I was thinking of actually the lecture Saturday, Grace's lecture. Were you there? Oh, right. She had to make a quick decision and it turned out happily. Very well, like nada. Right, it's a time you don't know. Right, that's all.

[64:17]

So it's don't know mind, right? Yeah, that was some crossroad there that she was at. Hey, Bert. Yeah. It's very serious. This practice? Yeah. It's not lighthearted at all. No. We should practice with some lightness. They have parties with sweets. Yeah, we have parties with sweets. We should practice with some lightness, but also it is very serious. It's true. Yeah, but the more I practice, the more I know. I mean, the more funny they seem.

[65:24]

What is it that's making you laugh? The lightness that comes from practice. Is it taking things maybe not as seriously? Not in a bad way, but not as... Not as seriously and just feeling kind of like I'm spiritually losing weight. You know? So you can feel more buoyant because you have less weighing you down spiritually. I'm gaining weight coming here, by the way. It's like Judy Garland, when I went out to ask her out, she told after the divorce, and she says, oh, about 225 pounds lighter. Well, that's the mental baggage that we carry around that causes so much suffering. And I think as we sit, we lighten up, you know, metaphorically and sometimes physically. But there is something that is emptying out and lightening up and letting things move more easily that we feel as a, not as an end to practice, but certainly as a byproduct.

[66:26]

Well, I think what makes us serious is being attached to ourselves. It's not the practice that's serious, but it's our attachment to ourselves. As we become less attached to ourselves, we become less serious, and everything, in a way, becomes less serious, without becoming silly, but just a whole lot less serious. So, in a way, I think it's a very unserious practice, if you know what I mean. The words are serious. This reads very seriously, indeed. But there is discipline here. Well, yeah, there's discipline and there's form that we go into, that we follow a particular formula, form is formula, but ultimately it's to open up and let go. It's not a form that keeps us sort of closed down and not experiencing things and getting more and more serious and dry, but actually through that form and stripping down and not allowing our ego to get caught by things,

[67:32]

wearing it down more and more and more, we open up and things become lighter. And typically, that's what happens. People who've been sitting for a while, there's a certain sparkle in these Zen teachers' eyes. And they giggle a lot. Yeah, there's lots of laughter. I think it's just a shift in what you take seriously. What's shifting from what to what? Well, you know, there are things that one might take seriously, like worrying what other people think or worrying about whether you have enough money or worrying about this or that, that after practicing for a while, I think one learns not to worry about a lot of things and to just, you know, let it happen.

[68:36]

See what happens. Don't worry about what's going to happen in the future. Just, you know, try to live moment by moment. Don't spend time agonizing about what if and all of that. But then if one tries to live by the precepts, then you have to think about things that you might otherwise have just gone by habit. And, you know, you get in the habit of taking things lightly, that maybe, you know, maybe gossiping, for instance. I mean, you know, in the Bodhisattva ceremony, there's that part about, You know, and I find myself sitting with a group of people and they, you know, they start chit-chatting about, you know, this person, that person, and I think, no, have her talk.

[69:37]

You know, we can take part in this. So what, so you're taking, so what you're taking more seriously is, is the precepts and that practice and what you're taking less seriously. And watching what I say and watching about being, being being thoughtless and things like that, and then I take less seriously what people think of me, or what might happen in the future. Things that are really out of your control. It's like in the moment, you can practice a certain way of speech, or a certain attitude. I can decide whether to join in the gossip or not, or even say something about it. So that's what I mean, it's a difference. you do take seriously, but other things you don't. It's a shift. It is a shift, and everyone arrives at that shift at a different time. I think one of the greatest attributes of a teacher is their patience, because they've already realized

[70:44]

the futility of all these things that we're trying to predict and that's causing more suffering and all they can do is keep giving lectures and keep encouraging people in some way, but ultimately we have to find out for ourselves that we don't need to take these things so seriously and that there's certain basic things that we can do that can help us along and lessen our suffering. You know, one funny thing that reminds me of this talking thing. It worked the other day, and I laugh about it when I think of it. The supervisor puts his arm around me, and he says, you know, I've only heard one real And he says, you know, I've turned to religion.

[71:54]

He says, I go to church now. And what he was saying, I think, is I want to know what's going on with you. I want to know about the spiritual kinds of things. I think that was beneath what he was saying. And that was his way, I think, of trying to find out. Yeah, I think when one engages seriously in a practice like this, it doesn't mean we talk less, but our words hopefully are chosen more carefully. And on the average, out there in the world, people are not doing that, so it appears that we're not talking so much, we're not talking at all. You become more meditative in your work. Yeah. And it's very hard to maintain that sort of attitude in a situation where the support is otherwise, to really kind of stay focused.

[72:57]

I mean, amongst friends, you know, if there's some sort of engagement of gossip and all that, well, your silence is really well noted, and people hear that. And either they start feeling uncomfortable and say, don't you have anything to say? Or hopefully they would think, oh, and maybe stop. And I think by example, that's what our practice can do, is by maintaining ourselves in a certain way, we can have an effect without actually doing anything. It's that sort of non-doing again. But conversely, I agree with what you say. If a perception arises that oneness with other people and those barriers that does put a, should we say, good reins on the horses?

[74:03]

But you know, if we practice awareness, it's almost as if we don't need the precepts. I mean, I know we do. But if you start gossiping and you start saying nasty things about someone, if you're practicing awareness, Even if you didn't have the precept, you would realize what you were doing and you'd realize of your own free will that this is not very good. Based on what though? Well, because it's a harmful thing. I mean, I think we know, the more aware we become, the more aware we are of words and actions that cause harm or may cause harm. Maybe we realize after we've done it, but at least we realize it, and then maybe the next time we won't do it as much. So there's sort of an inherent morality already in our society. Well, I think there's an inherent morality in human beings. I certainly think things like the precepts help, you know, because it codifies it and puts it into words.

[75:14]

But I think that we all have kind of... Not everybody. you know, sometimes the gossip that you are maybe a part of or in a group and you know it just might strike you that you understand how this person might be thinking and what had led to whatever he did and what maybe people are criticizing about him about something and you just tend to realize that all these things happen to all of us and you know they're They are not really actions on somebody's part that they did in a view to harm somebody. It's just more understanding of... The cause and conditions that brought the person to do that. Exactly. I was... before you... Before you articulate what you were about to say, I was looking at the headlines of the paper today about this guy that was found that killed himself, and he was a guy that killed these people.

[76:21]

Of course, all sorts of reactions come out with different people. Well, whatever reactions come up, but what came up for me was, you know, what caused this person to, you know, to do this? And, of course, he gets the, and this is happening all the time, he happened to kill a famous person, so it makes the headlines. And, you know, what was their interaction like that caused him to go there. And when we slow down and see it, we become less reactive, and we actually see that they were all contributing to this person's suffering. In a sense, we are too, because if everything is interrelated, then in some way we are contributing to it. Yeah, there is a reason why he did that, and we all are a part of that. That's a hard one to hard one to tell people, but it's true. What were you going to say?

[77:22]

Nothing really. Julia said that she thought everyone had some sense of morality about them. I'm not so sure that's true, but then again it may be. Certain children who haven't been raised, You have no parents. The cause and conditions. Right. Children who've been studied, orphans, who've never had any touch. It's very, it takes a lot of work to get them to relate to other people. It does. That's why we're here. That's why we're here in Berkley's M Center. I mean, in some way or another, we all, we haven't been touched right. Right. Enough, you know, and we're all here trying to, you know, get touched and to kind of work through that. But as the Buddha said, fundamentally, we all have Buddha nature. We all are okay as we are. But it's the various causing conditions of an individual that where that suffering is and where that person sticks out and goes out, you know, killing people or causing some greater degree of suffering.

[78:26]

There's the awful question. Does Andrew Kahneman have what it needs him? Yes. Of course. Especially, of course. It's just a strange problem. I think that the key to that is awareness. Once you've gone hard and broke the precepts that are taken by disorder, it's aware of the suffering caused by whatever I vow to do Yeah, a reminder is true. But they're there to help remind us. Yes, Suzuki Roshi said that he would hope one day that he wouldn't, that the world would not need Buddhism, that there would just be this awareness of living the right life and it would just be naturally harmonizing and being okay with one another. But because it's not happening, we need Buddhas.

[79:28]

Yeah, it's like that man's suffering was profound. He probably never found that within himself. He had all these things outside. Right. That appeared real. And not seeing interrelatedness because he wouldn't kill someone if he felt that interrelationship. The first comment from his mother that comes in the media is, Well, I don't know. I've lost contact with him. He's a male prostitute. You know, just sort of like passing him off that way. Right. That was all you needed to hear. Right. Yeah, that's right. That's all you needed to hear to get a whole composite of what that rearing was like, must have been like. Yes? Is there any particular Zen Buddhist position No position. But anyway, provisionally, yes.

[80:35]

So here I am, a male prostitute. I've just learned that I'm positive for AIDS. And I know these guys, you know, I've got a list. And I go out and I kill them. Or I don't. One person going out and killing a list of people who are HIV positive? No. These are male prostitutes. These were his customers. These are the people, the fellow that had the boat. It was a big shot in Las Vegas. resented because of his becoming positive HIV.

[81:42]

So he went and he bumped them off. Was he thought he got it from them? Essentially. Well, that was one theory. Actually, it was never... Right. It's not necessarily true that he was HIV positive. that came out. They don't know that. They'll find out. Hypothetically. So he goes and he bumps them off. It's perfectly understandable. From his point of view. Or he doesn't. And I'm asking you. I'm not a moralist in the sense that the Buddhists are. And I would like to get some insight into Buddhist morality on this issue. Sure. Well, the first precept is not taking life. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, not taking life. And the sort of classic question is, you know, if someone bumped off Hitler, all these people would have been saved, essentially, right? Yeah, sure. But there's still the karmic effect of the one person that kills Hitler.

[82:49]

I don't quite get that. He might kill himself. Right, even though there's millions of people that would be saved if there's still a karmic effect of killing someone, according to Buddhism. So how do you not violently take life, but control the situation to save all beings? So that's the paradox. Yeah, that's the paradox. It's like with the Iraqi thing. People wanted to go in there and get Hussein. And there was another group that wanted to have the blockade to not take life, but put pressure on. And the second one would be the more compassionate way, or more, if we'll degrade it, more Buddhistic way of dealing with the situation rather than going in and killing. What about just plain self-defense? Is that also a violation of precepts? Well, it's like the Tibetans eating meat.

[83:54]

I mean, sometimes there are situations where, you know, where where you do what you think is right. Well, you have to eat right. You know, whether it's a carrot or whether it's a yak, you know, something has to die. And if you're in a place that doesn't grow vegetables, then if you're going to have a practice, you eat meat. Right. And depending on the situation, I mean, do you allow yourself to be killed In this question of self-defense that Manohar brought up, yeah. Or do you protect life? Or do you protect life by protecting your own life? And it depends on who's depending on you and what would happen to them if you allowed yourself to be killed.

[85:01]

I think that's where the whole thing of martial arts came up. There are ways of evading an attack without killing. Yeah, when it was more direct with people. My teacher in New York used to say, you know, please lock your door, roll up your windows, and don't leave valuables in your car because you don't want to tempt someone to break the precepts, to steal. It's not protecting your stuff, because we're just borrowing everything anyway. But it's to protect the other person from breaking the precepts. Robin? Class is almost over, but I'm struggling to connect everything that's been happening, maybe. Please. In the past 40 minutes with where we are. Right. You know, I don't know where we left off, and I feel like we've digressed somehow. Not that it wasn't valuable, but

[86:03]

trying to get the gist of the sutra. I think we stopped somewhere around no suffering, no origination, no suffering. No attainment. That's right. Well, we're at line 24. Uh, four. We haven't begun line 24. We haven't, not begun line 24. We were talking about nothing, nothing to attain. Nothing to attain. Right. And then we, uh, talked about, well, there's nothing to attain, then what are we doing? And then we were talking about the paradox of, um, um, doing things with the idea of, uh, helping others and that fundamentally they're empty and there's no one to save. In other words, the, the discussion sort of went down the path of, of people performing certain actions with the hope of obtaining something. That happens, yeah. And so how do we practice? We came through the gate hoping to lessen our suffering. And the Heart Sutra restates the Four Noble Truths saying that there is no suffering and no origination, no stopping and no path.

[87:14]

So how do we wake up to that there is no suffering when we're feeling something. Well in emptiness there is no suffering. And then I was talking about during longer sittings or even shorter sittings there's pain in the legs or pain in the mind and at a certain point we need to just allow that to be and then in fact once we've allowed that to be then there's no suffering there's just a pure just pure experience and the pure experience is is from taking is through the experience of the five skandhas being fundamentally empty without concepts of, this is real. Because as soon as we feel or experience discomfort in the legs, but then when we get caught and say, oh my, this really hurts, when's the period going to end? Then we started that 12th causal link of suffering once again.

[88:20]

Yes. Right. Well, I was purposely holding off on line 24 until next week, because lines 1 through 23 describe the nature of prajna, which is the nature of wisdom, the nature of emptiness and the interrelatedness. And the next week, from line 24 on down, it's describing the function of a bodhisattva. which is our practice, but we have to know the nature of what this Prajna stuff is that we're operating with or using to enrich our lives and lessen suffering. So, tell me again the meaning of Prajna. I had a plan, it was a plan, here we are. You wouldn't let us get to the best line. Sorry? You wouldn't let us get to the best line. Which is the best line? Twenty-five is the best line. And the mind is no hindrance. Yeah, that's my favorite.

[89:32]

Is it really? Don't be attached to a Jew. I am attached to a Jew. What is part of... Paramita is having gone to the other shore. So it's the wisdom of going to the other shore, not the wisdom of a bunch of knowledge. So wisdom beyond wisdom is prashna. Paramita, right. And dana paramita is giving beyond giving, giving without self. Virya Paramita is effort, but effortless effort, effort without self. So Parashara Paramita is wisdom beyond wisdom. Right. Great wisdom beyond wisdom, Heart Sutra. That's what we chant. Oh. Great wisdom beyond wisdom. Seeing interrelatedness. Seeing interrelatedness, yes, that's what it is. But then it proceeds to deny that there's any form in which anyone can go there.

[90:34]

Right. You know, it's very Zen. I knew I was in the right place. Can I ask a question? One more question? Oh, sure. See, at the end of this, in the chant, you have to say, may the bearer of this practice pervade. Pervade everywhere. Oh, I just did that. You have a pious feeling? I mean, I didn't have it until that person said it. Right. Oh, good. That's really good. Well, that saying that is a reminder that for anyone who happened to feel pious during the chant, they should transfer the merit off to other beings. That's the piousness I was thinking about. Like, I didn't even thought I created anything, and then they say, oh, there's something, you know. Well, it's tricky. The Buddha claimed that by reciting these various sutras, a lot of merit would accrue, and it was a good thing.

[91:38]

And one way of looking at that, it was just sort of... Skillful means. It was skillful means, right, and just a way of perpetuating this practice, which we should try to do to help all beings. But the trap is, of course, if we think we're getting merit by chanting, we're going to hold on to it, and we want to transfer it over. So that's why we say the echo. The echo is literally transferring the merit over to other beings. other people, other things, so we don't hold on to it ourselves. Of course, when we see the interrelatedness of all beings, if other people are doing that, then in fact we're receiving something. And that's what we should try to see, that if in fact all people are doing it, then it's all just going around and around. The reason we don't give to somebody on the street is because we don't think we're going to get anything back. See, I had you speak to, like, you know, like, you know, you and, you know, Abby, you know, and Temple, somewhere, and you're praying for the world, and stuff.

[92:41]

Well, you know, we recite the Metta Sutta, which is suffusing loving-kindness throughout the world, so we do, we do do that. We do put that out there. You're going way over. Yes, thank you, Robin. Good, very good points that you brought up, and we can talk about it some more next week. Thanks. There it is.

[93:07]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ