Good morning. Welcome. We're talking this week about the Dharmakaya Buddha, the ultimate reality Buddha, that is, everything as Buddha, and that in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra expresses this unexpected teaching that we chant regularly in the short sutra for protecting life of the Bodhisattva of Compassion and Medjugorje. constancy or permanence, joy or bliss, self and purity.

[01:08]

Contrary to the expedient teachings of impermanence, dukkha or suffering, non-self and impurity that the Buddha taught to free people from their usual way of seeing the world. Joraku ga-jo. This ga is, it's the, it's the character that's used for Atman, or the self as this, in Indian teaching and Hinduism, this ultimate self. It's also the character that's used in Japanese for Watakushi, just the simple I. It's our usual way of seeing me, I, this subject, verbing objects.

[02:12]

And the Buddha says that this is the true reality. Speaking from this ultimate truth as the Buddha is teaching, giving his final teaching in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra before passing away into nirvana. This is not to make fun of the Buddha, but it's sort of funny. It's sort of, you know, he's giving this teaching of the ultimate, dharmakaya, as he's getting ready to pass away. as a nirmanakaya as an incarnate human buddha and at the same time in the Mahaparinirvana sutra he uh... also uh... they talk about the inconceivable life span like in the lotus sutra where the uh... that we've studied a couple years ago and a year before that where the buddha says that uh...

[03:22]

Actually, he's been around a very long time. And the Nirvana Sutra seems to go even beyond that. The Buddha is, or the Dharmakaya Buddha, the Buddha that is the reality of all things. The Buddha dhatu, the Buddha realm. the suchness of all things, is informed by this Buddha awakening. So, in the sutra itself, he defines all this, the Buddha speaking. I think this is one of the places where he's speaking to this bodhisattva named Kashapa. not to be confused with our ancestor Mahapashapa, but this Bodhisattva who appears in this sutra. He says that, blinded by defilement and ignorance, sentient beings, human beings in the world, create misconceptions in the form of inversions in their thinking.

[04:41]

What is self, they reckon as non-self. What is constant or permanent, they reckon as impermanent. What is pure, they reckon as impure. And what is joyful, they reckon as painful. because living beings are deluded by defilements. Even if they recognize these as errors, they still do not comprehend what this means, just like that intoxicated person who perceived something to be spinning when it was not. Self is what Buddha means, he says. Permanence is what dharma body means. Dharma body is the dharmakaya, this aspect of Buddha that is not the incarnated Buddha, but the ultimate Buddha, the ultimate reality, the truth body of Buddha, the aspect of Buddha that is everything, the whole universe. And he says bliss is what nirvana means.

[05:45]

Purity is what dharma means. Oh monks, why do you say to have any perception of self reflects arrogance and pride and leads to transmigration and samsara? With attitude, when any of you declare I cultivate my perception of impermanent suffering and non-self, these three types of practice will have no real meaning. So this is really challenging sutra. This is at the end of his life, the Buddha. We could say, well, is Shakyamuni Buddha a nirmanakaya Buddha? That's how we usually think. But this is the Shakyamuni Buddha. Or maybe Shakyamuni Buddha is also some bhogakaya Buddha in the Lotus Sutra. Maybe he's also dharmakaya Buddha in the Lotus Sutra. Of course, in this Nirvana Sutra, maybe we can get rid of all those categories completely and just say, Buddha, Buddha is everything.

[06:55]

He says in the next page, these errors are known as inversions, and it is by means of them that written letters may function in the world, yet their true meanings remain unknown. And what are those meanings? Non-self actually denotes samsara. Self denotes Tathagata. the Buddha, the thus come one. Impermanence denotes Sravakas and Pratyekabuddhas, those who study without really fully practicing the Bodhisattva way. Permanence denotes the dharma body of Tathagata, that's the dharmakaya. Pain or dukkha, suffering, dissatisfactoriness, denotes all other paths. Bliss or sukha, joy, denotes nirvana itself. So this is a different meaning of nirvana. As I said yesterday, Nirvana is contrasted with samsara in early Buddhism.

[08:05]

Samsara is the round of suffering, the rat race. all of the world, the world of competition, the world of fame and gain. And in early Buddhism, nirvana was the freedom from that, which was cessation. Literally, it means cessation. It means checking out of birth and death. Nirvana is the unconditioned. Nirvana actually only happens when you die. So, as I said, a few months after I started practicing regularly, daily, I asked my teacher then, Nakajima Sensei, the Japanese Seto Zen priest on the Upper West Side of New York, Well, how do I get to nirvana?" And he said, die. So, you know, nirvana is when you die. You can become a Buddha in that way.

[09:05]

But that's not our Bodhisattva way. And here, in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, he says, joy denotes nirvana itself. How do we find our joy in this world? So the bodhisattva way is that nirvana is right in the middle of samsara. They're not separate. The dharmakaya is not separate from the nirmanakaya. It says impurity denotes created dharmas. Purity denotes the true teaching of Buddhas and bodhisattvas. So yes, there is this aspect of Buddha that is particular living beings. So we will chant the names of Buddhas and ancestors and the names of women ancestors in our midday service. And yes, we could say these are nirmanakaya Buddhas. These are particular historical people. Some of the history is a little nebulous, but still.

[10:10]

These are people who kept alive in their generation this practice that here we are, somehow in the 21st century, doing this ancient practice of sitting upright like Buddha, being present, facing ourselves with all our particular condition, grasping and anger and confusion from our ancient twisted karma, as individual particular specks of dharmakaya. So yeah, there's that aspect of all of us keeping alive this practice. Maybe that's nirmanakaya. Then there's this wonderful, wondrous Sambhogakaya, which I won't go into today. And then there's Dharmakaya, which is all of it.

[11:15]

The Buddhadhatu, that's another way of saying it, the Buddha realm, the very fabric of reality has awakened. Of course, the fabric of reality is full of greed, hate, delusion, of corruption, of atrocities, and genocide, and climate breakdown, and so forth. stepping back, there is this possibility when we sit in our presence, in our upright, and in this practice of sesshin, of gathering up the mind, we can commune with something much deeper, buddhadhatu. The nirvana of the Buddha is eternal, pure, blissful, and endowed with self, a primordially existent reality that is only temporarily obscured by the defilements.

[12:27]

When that nirvana and Buddhadhatu are finally recognized, Buddhahood is then achieved. The Buddha reveals the existence of this nirvana in Bodhisattvas because the Buddhadhatu, the Buddha realm, is present within all sentient beings, not just people. within trees and grasses, tiles and pebbles, octopuses. Because the Buddhadhatu is present within all sentient beings, these four qualities, jo, rakha, gaja, are therefore found not simply in the Buddha, but in all beings. This implies, therefore, that the Buddha and all beings are endowed with self. In direct contradiction to the normative Buddhist doctrine of no-self or anatma, In this sutra, the teaching of no-self is described as a conventional truth. When the Buddha said that there was no self, what he actually meant was that there is no mundane conditioned self among the skandhas, or aggregates.

[13:28]

The Buddha's true teaching, as revealed at the time of his nirvana, or just before he passed away into nirvana, is that there is a great self, or true self, maha-atman. which is the Buddhadhatu in all beings. To assert that there is no self is to misunderstand the true Dharma, the doctrine of emptiness, sannyātā. This comes to mean the absence of that which is compounded, suffering and impermanent." So this is not, this, you know, we could say that this is talking about maybe suchness instead of emptiness, but it's not, it's actually not separate from the teaching of emptiness. So that's also here in this section of the sutra. So the Buddha addresses the

[14:43]

Whatever doubts you may have about monastic discipline, you should, because at this point in the story about what's going on as the Buddha is getting ready to pass away into nirvana, there's various things happening. There are various beings who come and want to make the final offering to the Buddha, because they think that that will give them great merit to be the last one to make an offering to the Buddha. Finally, this humble guy, Chunda, does that. Anyway, there's a whole series of things that go on, and there's also them asking for their final teaching. And there's also, even though they know that the Buddha is this wondrous being, all his disciples are just, you know, distraught, or a lot of his disciples are distraught and they're just pleading with the Buddha not to pass away in nirvana. They want him to stay in this literal nirmanakaya form. Anyway, he says, whatever doubts you may have about monastic discipline, you should ask me now and I will explain things to bring you joy in satisfying your concerns.

[15:51]

Having long since absorbed the fact that the original nature of all dharmas is empty, I thoroughly understand this." So the original nature of all dharmas is empty, he says. On the other hand, do not say that the Dattagata cultivates only the practice of emptiness as the original nature of dharmas. So there is the emptiness of all dharmas. That doesn't contradict what he's saying here, which is that the nature of all dharmas is also joyful. and characterized by this alternate self and constant and pure. So, he also, the monks ask, you know, they want to know how

[16:56]

Well, this is from Kashapa, the Bodhisattva Kashapa, who's asking questions. How does one gain long life and an adamantine, indestructible body? By means of what causal principles does one attain such solid power? How can this sutra bring us to the ultimate, to the other shore? We beseech the Buddha to reveal these secrets for a wide range of living beings. How does one achieve something so grand that he becomes or she becomes a spiritual support for other living beings? So they're all around the Buddha talking about this Dharmakaya. There are all these beings who are seeking answers, wanting to know what to do. How do they partake of this? And one of the things that the Buddha says is that, This lifespan is like the eight great rivers that all flow into the ocean.

[18:02]

Kashapa, the Buddha says, the lifespans of everyone, humans, gods, even those out in space. even all the extraterrestrial beings, all eventually flow like great rivers into the ocean. That is the lifespan of the Dattagatha. That is precisely why the lifespan of the Dattagatha cannot be measured." So, what does that mean? How do we understand that? You know, one aspect of that, to me, is that all of us are part of this dharmakaya. I mean, that's sort of obvious, that if dharmakaya is everything, if this is talking about the ultimate nature of the Buddhadhatu, the Buddha realm, that is the fabric of reality itself, then we're all part of that. How could it be otherwise? So all beings, even Klingons and, you know, other strange beings are part of this lifespan of the dharmakaya.

[19:18]

So, again, as I said yesterday, this is the fundamental question. What is Buddha? We sit upright and relaxed, period after period, enjoying our inhale and exhale, sitting in this formal posture, with our mudra and whether we're sitting cross-legged or kneeling or in a chair, sitting like Buddha. We do this practice of sitting upright and relaxed like the Buddha so that our body partakes of the body of Buddha. Which body of Buddha? Well, maybe it doesn't matter, but our bodies on our seats become, well, when we take refuge in Buddha, we're actually taking refuge in Dharmakaya, in the Buddha that is the Buddhaness of everything.

[20:52]

The Buddha that springs forth from the ground, from under the ground in the Lotus Sutra. The Buddha that is not just some wooden statue in the middle of the room, or not just some guy who lived in India 2,500 years ago, but this, well, this question, what is Buddha, so many of the koans are about. Jaoja once asked, what is Buddha? And he said, the cypress tree in the yard. So we sit like Buddha to allow the Dharmakaya to be present. on our seat. How do we practice that? How do we, you know, we have this weird, humans have this weird particular kind of thinking capacity, discriminating consciousness, so we want to know how do we engage this.

[22:07]

We want to find a way to think about this. And, you know, in some ways it's inconceivable. We can't get this by figuring it out. We get taste of it. We can smell it out of the corner of our eyes, maybe, as we sit period after period. But... In this sutra, the Buddha does give some hints of this, so I'll just read this passage that maybe gives some help. to appear in the world and thoroughly explain to living beings the ordinary worldly teaching as well as the extraordinary transcendent teaching it would enable bodhisattvas to follow him and preach these things on their own once those bodhisattva mahasattvas obtain that most excellent wisdom they would go on to bring an incalculable number of other living beings to where they too obtain the unsurpassed timeless ambrosia of the dharma that is

[23:17]

the permanence, bliss, self and purity of a Tathagata. This is what I mean when I say that the Tathagata is permanent and immutable, which is not the permanent dharma meant when a common, ordinary or ignorant person refers to Brahma or other deities. When someone invokes permanent dharma in the way I am speaking of here, it calls forth the Tathagata and not any other dharma. Kshapa, you should understand to talk to the body in this way. Good men and good women should always focus their thoughts on cultivating understanding of these two words. The Buddha permanently abides. What does that mean? Well, as I was just saying, it's not that we're, you know, worshiping some guy who lived 2,500 years ago. We're practicing, we're sitting like the Buddha that permanently abides. It's not just the dude who abides.

[24:21]

Or maybe it's the Dharmakaya dude who abides. The meaning of my nirvana is none other than the dharma nature or natural condition of all Buddhas, the dharmata. You should cultivate a notion of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha as all being permanent. These three Dharmas are not different notions, they are not impermanent notions, and they are not notions that change. There will be no foundation to the three pure refuges of someone who regards these as different. So this is actually a pretty traditional teaching. The Buddha said that to regard the Dharma as the body of Buddha and to regard the Sangha as the body of Buddha. So here we are practicing Buddha together and all Sanghas we take refuge in as we take refuge in the Dharmakaya.

[25:26]

all the restrictions and precepts observed will not remain with them, and in the end they will be unable to realize the fruits of bodhi on the paths of the Sravaka or the Pratyekabuddha if they see these Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha as separate. If, on the other hand, one can incorporate this inconceivability into their cultivation of this notion of permanence, then this refuge will be genuine. Sure. If, on the other hand, one can incorporate this inconceivability into their cultivation of this notion of permanence, then that person's refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha will be genuine. So we can't get a hold, we can't grasp

[26:37]

how wonderful Buddhadharma and Sangha are, and how they are totally interconnected, and how they abide and sustain each other, how they abide eternally. Okay. So there's a lot of material on this in this section of the sutra, and I'm kind of ending up going through most of it today.

[27:56]

And for those of you who are here for all five days, I'm just going to keep repeating this. But that's part of the point, is that we need to hear this again and again because it permanently abides. So he says the body of a Tathagata is a permanently abiding body. He also says the Tathagata body, so Tathagata again means just come one, it's another word for Buddha. It's a body and it's not a body, he says. It cannot be destroyed, damaged, removed or cut off. It does not come into existence and it does not go out of existence. It does not dominate and yet is not dominant.

[28:58]

It is not being and it is not non-being. So, something that is not existent and is not non-existent. is you know we can't that's by definition that's something we can't conceive of it's like not it's not in the realm of how we think okay and yet it's the nature of everything it is not realized and it is not observed we can't see this or hear it and we can't even realize it, he says. It cannot be put into words, and yet it is not non-linguistic. There's a line in the Song of the Jalmera Samadhi that's kind of like that. It cannot be put into words, and yet it is not non-linguistic. So there's, you know, this is this new translation by Mark Blum of volume one of the Mahaparinirvana Sutra. I don't know if there's going to be three or four volumes, but this one is, aside from all the notes, this is 337 pages, so three or four times that.

[30:16]

So it can't be put into words, but it's not non-linguistic. So here's all these pages about this. It is neither definite nor indefinite. It cannot be seen, yet it is clearly visible. It is without any location, and yet it is located. It is without any residence, and yet it resides. It is without darkness and without light. It has no quiescence, and yet it is quiescent. It possesses nothing. It does not receive and it does not give. It is pure and without stain. It has no disputes, having cut off disputation. It is neither a dharma nor a non-dharma. It is neither a field of merit nor not a field of merit. There is no exhausting it. It cannot be exhausted, and it is totally separate from all ways of being exhausted. It is empty, and yet dissociated from emptiness.

[31:23]

Although it does not permanently reside anywhere, there is no cessation of its thought stream. The body of a Tathagata accomplishes merit that is thus beyond measure. There is no one who fully understands this, yet there is no one who does not understand this. So we can't understand this and yet it's available to us in some way that we can't understand. There is no one who sees it, yet there is no one who does not see it. It is neither created nor uncreated. There was one place, I have to find it, where he gives very specific instructions that are surprisingly practical.

[32:41]

I want to find that just to give you something to cling to. Oh, here it is. Let's see. He talks about four practices. Let's see if I can find that. Oh yeah. So, this is talking about this long life and If bodhisattvas desire to obtain long life, they must protect all living beings just as if those beings were their own children. And they bring forth, he mentions, four traditional practices. Great sympathy, maitri, so we'll be chanting the metta sutta about that later on. Great compassion, karuna. Great sympathetic joy, mudita, and great equanimity. So these are four traditional practices of bodhisattvas. A bodhisattva bestows upon them the precept against killing and teaches them how to practice what are the wholesome dharmas.

[33:48]

So, if you want some specific practices, great sympathy, great compassion, great sympathetic joy, and great equanimity. And as I said yesterday, and I want to come back to, Practically speaking, for us in Sashin, just to hear that there is this aspect, you could say body, but you could also just say this aspect of Buddha that is the very fabric of reality, that is the Buddha we take refuge in when we take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha.

[35:05]

And that has to do with self. not the self that we identify with personal history and our identifications with address and email and social security number and all of the ways that we define this particular conditioned event that's on our seat, but this greater self that we are also, not just part of, that is us in some real way. Choraku Gajo. And Dogen says, to study the way is to study the self. Which self was he talking about? Well, maybe it's all of that. Yeah, it's the self we forget.

[36:07]

Yeah, so we forget, but we can forget the other self too. We can forget our personal self. We can settle deeply in zazen, in zazhin, into something that goes beyond. Into the clear circle of brightness that Hongzhi offered us. So, the practice of sasana is just to gather up the mind, gather up the self, settle deeply, sit like Buddha. Which Buddha? Buddha is here.

[37:10]

She's trying to let us know. And it's not separate from, this ultimate self is not separate from our grasping little self that wants to be rid of all of our anxiety and the pain of our yearning for something else. It's right there. It's right there. Buddha's under the ground waiting to come forth. So we sit and settle into the ground.

[38:01]

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