For a missionary, it's okay to see, to cognize, to connect, to understand. But, you know, there's no way to understand it. And there's no way to attain anything. The reason why there's no reason to attain is because everything is already attained. That was a man's dream that I had in the end because I never came to do it.

[01:09]

Why is that? Because it doesn't do things. Anyway, that's a story. In other translations of the Heart Sutra, I've seen no attainment and also no non-attainment. that if there were any of these terms, the opposite is also true. No eyes, no ears, no tongue, means there are eyes, and there are ears, there is a tongue. So, the negation emphasizes presence.

[02:16]

So, because of emptiness, all can even exist. It's not that emptiness takes away. Emptiness is the cause of everything's existence. Except that everything is empty. But everything is everything, right? So attainment and non-attainment. There's no way you can attain And there's no way we can not attain. To put it this way, the Buddha couldn't, didn't attain what he did not attain. There's no way to attain. But we do attain. That's what our practice is about.

[03:24]

Our practice is about attaining what we have. It's about a long path leading to where we are. The hardest place to be is where we are. I would say the marker Restlessness. We're on the rocks. Don't do me like this. Restlessness. Really hard, even though we are. We always have to get up and move. So, as soon as you get comfortable. It's a great question.

[04:36]

How do you stay comfortable when you don't feel comfortable? You have to dissolve it to develop it. So then, the sutra says, I have a realization, indifferent to a criminal. So the sixth section is nothing to attain, indifferent to attaining. A bodhisattva depends on prajnaparamita. It doesn't depend on anything else but the perfection of wisdom, which is to see, to realize the suchness of all things.

[05:36]

thread that runs through everything. And the mind is no hindrance. The mind, the thinking mind, is not a hindrance. In other words, you can't think through it. You can't think it through. You can't get there by thinking. You have to come to yourself beyond And then, thinking mind is a way of rationalizing itself. So, first comes the thought, which is partial. Then comes the activity or practice, which is total. And then comes thinking again, which is not partial. As I said before, in Zen literature, teachers use dualistic terms in a non-dualistic way.

[06:51]

Whereas before, we used dualistic terms in a dualistic way, which means partial. And after you have understanding, then you use the same language, but you use it in a different way. One time I was like, yes, Joshu, does the God have good in nature? He said, yes. So you can say either yes or no means the same thing in Joshu language. In Joshuese. Because either statement is using a good So the mind is no hindrance.

[08:02]

In other words, big mind is not covered with thought coverings. So thought coverings are language which is discriminatory, discriminating language. Anyway, as soon as you start speaking, different pieces. So that's discrimination. So language is necessarily discriminating. So he said, don't speak during sesshin. Don't talk during sesshin. As soon as you start talking, you start dividing your mind. And during sesshin, sesshin means to unify or allow the mind to be unified, or allow the original unity of mind to be present.

[09:04]

We're not discriminating it with our thoughts. Our thought thinking is always going on, of course, but we're not using it. We're not, you know, we're just passing through. It's like bubbles. You know, you feel like you're in a play and sometimes you have these bubbles coming through. But they're just passing through. The thoughts are just passing through. They're not discriminating. They're not taking them up and thinking about them. They shouldn't be. So, without any hindrance, and the mind depends on Prajnaparamita, and the mind has no hindrance, no discrimination, no thought problems. Without any hindrance, No fears exist. No fears exist, because when it's free, there's a lot of things we can do.

[10:10]

So we have, I'd say, two levels of fear. One level of fear is the fear of whether I'm going to eat or whether I'm going to get to work on time. You know, whether I'm going to find a dream that grows, or whether I'm going to grow from those dreams. You know, these are surface fears. You know, deep fears. Which is, am I living in a palace someday? What does that mean? And so that kind of anxiety sometimes is very deep-seated, and it doesn't come up all the time. But it's still always there. And what has to be resolved is the deep fear.

[11:13]

It has to be faced and resolved. In other words, all these other fears should be resolved. So when you resolve this one down below, then these other ones aren't so important. So the kind of dealing with this deep fear and dealing with these fears, sometimes we allow ourselves to let go of all this surface fears and get down to the bottom of this fear, this whole practice. And when that's resolved, then it's not a hindrance. Living and dying is not a hindrance.

[12:16]

So far apart from every primitive view, one dwells in Nirvana. So in Buddhism there are four primitive views. Everything is delineated. Thinking that what is impermanent is permanent. That's a perverted view. To think that anything is permanent is a perverted view, no matter what. And then to mistake what is suffering for what is not. In other words, to mistake what is suffering So we don't always realize what suffering is, actually.

[13:25]

And Buddhism sometimes goes to the extreme by saying that life itself, every aspect of life is a form of suffering. But we don't realize that always because we think we're enjoying our life through our feelings. And we are. Life is both suffering and enjoyment. It's a mixture. But the oscillation itself is a kind of suffering. And the illusion that we can live a life of enjoyment that we're always trying to live inside of enjoyment, and minimize the suffering. And so it can often just pull us over, because we don't want to face it or deal with it. And it's hard to deal with it. But it's kind of always there on the surface.

[14:29]

Even in our enjoyment, it's always on the surface. And if we look around us, of life around us is maybe not in, so many people are not enjoying their life in the life of suffering, even if we are not. But that's also our suffering. If we really realize, if we feel connected to everyone else, everyone else's suffering is also our suffering. And we were sitting sashimi. And something came up about the feeling of trying to enjoy sashimi, which you don't enjoy.

[15:33]

But it's not the kind of activity you do in order to enjoy it. But Han Suzuki was just saying, how can you think of yourself as trying to rejoice when everyone else is suffering better than you. It's not that you should be suffering, but you should realize that the suffering you're having is also the same suffering that everyone else is having. The problems you're having, trying to feel good. Maybe you are sitting in isolation trying to feel good, but everybody else in the world is going through a lot of suffering. Trying to help us realize that sashimi does not involve trying to feel good.

[16:40]

We're trying to reach some kind of euphoric state. kind of escape from the world into some kind of euphoric or ecstatic state. But to just sit there would be like everyone else. Anyway, the third one was to mistake what is not a self And the fourth one is to mistake what is repulsive for taking it slowly. But we do.

[17:46]

Isn't that beautiful? But it's actually depressing. But this particular, you know, the early Buddhists made up this list. And they had a cemetery meditation. For people, they had an antidote for all types of people. And so the lust type, the lust type will go into the cemetery and contemplate all kinds of stages of decay in the human body. And I think it's not a cemetery, but a carnal ground. You know, people have spent a lot in India, their bodies And you sit there and meditate on the process of various things, you know, that have always been there.

[18:59]

In order to realize the destiny of the human body, which you think is so wonderful. And we don't do that here in America. But that there is a Buddhist contemplation, for those who are filled with dust. So, then in the sixth section it says, in the three worlds, all Buddhas depend on Prajnaparamita and attain unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment. Three worlds. are all the past, present, and future. All good is dependent on Prajnaparamita and attain unsurpassed contemplative enlightenment. Amitāra samyak sambuddhi.

[20:00]

So that's a statement. And then, in section 8, therefore, the Prajnaparamita is the great transcendent mantra, the great bright mantra, the utmost mantra, the supreme mantra, true, not false. There are commentaries on each of these supporters. Mantra, you know, is something that, as you know, we recite, some of them recite over and over again. And the peculiar thing about this sutra is that at the end there's a mantra. Because the mantra is kind of like a spell, actually.

[21:09]

It's like a great leap. The mantra says, so proclaim the Prajnaparamita mantra. Proclaim the mantra that says, Gathe, Gathe, Paragathe, Parasamgathe, Nidhi Svaha. And the mantra, you don't translate. Mantra is kind of like magic words. Words that have some kind of power invoked into you. But I haven't got that far yet. Therefore, I know that the Trident of Parameetha is the great transcendent mantra. Now, transcendent means here, goes beyond. So I didn't go into that much detail, but I just wanted to see what you think about the mantra.

[23:15]

The mantra, as it has in Parinirvana, is not something that Not like some weird, it's not, even though it says gathe gathe parasam gathe, parat gathe, gathe gathe means brahman, and brahman, brahman, brahman is beyond. Altogether beyond. Awakening fulfilled. And then, svabodhi svabhamsa, that kind of explanation. So, what does it mean to be on the island?

[24:17]

To be on the island means actually going to your own shore. When you know how to live your life on this shore, you're already on your own shore. There's not some other place to go to. So the mantra is your practice. Your practice is actually to climb and climb and climb and climb. Each one of us is practicing this mantra all the time in our practice. How to unify ourselves. That's the mantra.

[25:31]

And so I was always practicing this mantra, all the time. I remember I used to watch my teacher, you know, Suzuki Watanabe. Every day I would listen. I never seen anything like the way he practiced. Because I never wanted to repeat anything in my life. And so when I first came to practice, every day he would come out of his meditation and And every day he would do the same thing, no matter what I was doing. He had a kind of dedication to practice in this very simple way, and really seemed very happy. And I realized his life was like a mantra. His life had a certain rhythm and steadiness to it.

[26:39]

And it was like repeating the same actions same activities day after day after day as a mantra. And his life was reduced dramatically to this simple activity. Of course he did other things in the day. But in the day he was doing this. And that was the most impressive thing about him. And then I started doing it too. I still do it. And my first comment to him was, what's your problem? I have to tell you, when you chant the Heart Sutra, you have to think about a few things. Actually, to really understand the Heart Sutra, to really make the Heart Sutra effective, is to just chant it with your whole, totally, never mind that it's, don't worry about it, just chant the Sutra with your whole body and mind.

[27:51]

Uh oh. Uh oh. Nityananda das remembers that which is spoiled is emptied. of feelings, perceptions, formations, consciousness. O Sariputra, all dharmas are marred with emptiness. They do not appear nor disappear, are not tainted nor pure, do not increase nor decrease.

[29:19]

Therefore in emptiness no form, no feelings, no perceptions, no formations, no consciousness, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mine, no realm of eyes until no realm of mind, consciousness, no ignorance, and also no extinction of it until no age and death, and also no extinction of it, no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path. So no attainment with nothing to attain, how Bodhisattva depends on Prajna. For any tired mind is no indolence, without any indolence no bliss exists.

[30:22]

Far apart from every perverted view, one dwells in Nirvana in the three worlds. All Buddhas depend on Prajna. Therefore know the Prajna Paramita is the great transcendent mantra, is the great bright mantra, is the utmost mantra, is the supreme mantra which is able to relieve all suffering. proclaim the prajna parinita mantra proclaim the mantra that says jayate jayate paragate parasamgrate buddhisvam

[31:23]

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