Well, thank you for being here, joining us this week. Joining us, I guess joining each other this week. And thank you for coming down from the north to translate. And thank you for coming down from the north to translate. I don't usually speak about the historical background of Buddhism. Usually if you came here to practice you could just do zazen and hardly know anything about Buddhism. Except that we have this kind of, yeah, what I called in the seminar we just finished, this yogic space that we enter when we practice here. Yeah, a way of doing things that's outside our usual habits and is some choreographed with others.

[01:18]

And this is a way to do something that is outside of our normal habits. And also a choreograph with others. Yeah. Like choreograph is to teach how to dance. Yeah, like... Choreography. Yeah. And this is also a choreograph... With others. And, you know, I kind of, when I say it like that, I feel, oh, geez, it sounds artificial. But in fact, all of our movements in a particular culture are choreographed, in fact. Yeah, I get off the plane in Zurich and get on the moving sidewalks, conveyor belts. And even if people aren't walking Just looking at their bodies and faces, clearly not in the United States.

[02:57]

The shape of the faces, the shape of the bottoms, it's all European. True. So this is some kind of... So Zen's view and Buddhist practice views change this choreography in the Sangha. So we do it more with others and in a way that's not our natural habits. And I shouldn't say natural habits because it's actually cultural habits. They become natural, but they're natural because we're relaxed, you know, spontaneous and things.

[04:03]

Yeah, so you just come here to sit, but you actually come into a tradition expressed in the details of the life here. That's just expressed in the details of how we live here. So once you get used to it or annoyed by it, whatever, yeah, then they're just here doing Zazen. And eating in a new way. Now, is this Buddhism?

[05:24]

Not necessarily, but let's say it's Buddhism. But still, you can practice here for years and hardly ever hear anything about the historical Buddha. Mostly once you get used to the posture and the postures built into the life, You can pretty much think this is just contemporary meditation practice with a little yogic detail thrown in. But is that the case? Or are we reflecting a basic change, a basic, are we expressing a basic development within Buddhism itself?

[06:45]

Yeah, but of course I'm implying the latter. Yeah, but the former is also true. Because the teaching of the latter, in other words, the teaching of the tradition, how can we make this practice our ordinary life? Okay, now what is the shift and how did it come about? And, you know, as I said, I rarely speak about the historical development of Buddhism except with the most beginning students and the most advanced students.

[07:56]

Everybody else doesn't need it. In fact, I do expect anybody who's practicing for a while to inform themselves about the basic teachings and the historical tradition of Buddhism. But as I said, it's unusual for me to try to do it myself, and I'm only going to do it a little bit. But somebody thought up this title, The Vision of Mahayana Practice. Aber irgendjemand hat sich diesen Titel ausgedacht, die Vision des Mahayana. I think it was Nico Aldag, who's not even here.

[08:58]

Ich glaube, das war Nico Aldag, und der ist noch nicht mal hier. I'm stuck with this title. You are too. Because I agreed to it. Also stecke ich jetzt mit diesem Titel hier fest, und ihr also auch, weil ich ihm zugestimmt habe. So the historical Buddha lived, and was such a real person, about 20, as far as we know, as far as we can tell, 2,500 or so years ago. And it's the people who heard the teaching and the descendants of those who heard the teaching. It was the early period of Buddhism. Now, nobody really knows why the Mahayana developed. It seems to have developed more or less several places at once and slowly kind of came together as a distinct school.

[10:14]

And it's, you know, Yeah, it's partly as simple, I think, as that after 400 years, because the Mahayana developed about 400 years after the death of the Buddha. I'm sorry. It may be as simple as... That while the Mahayana developed 400 years or so after the death of the Buddha... And it may be as simple as that after 400 years you can't hear it very well. So in any case, people began looking for other sources of the teaching than the historical Buddha. As you yourself might also look for sources of the teaching in our contemporary life.

[11:35]

And your personal life. As I said this morning during Zazen, really these teachings can bear fruit for us, in us, when we already are asking ourselves these questions. These fundamental existential societal and psychological questions. Maybe a Buddha came to the door. So we should put it, I mean, these kind of dates, it's good to put in your own historical time frame.

[12:59]

It's good to put dates like this into one's own historical time frame. Yes, so since I'm supposedly an American... And Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. I only remember it because I know. So let's say 1500. So the Mahayana, if the Buddha lived at the time of Columbus, then the Mahayana developed about 1900. So in America and Europe were quite different in 1900 than they were in 1500. But still, there's not, you know, we still know, but it's not so long.

[14:17]

It's, you know, two or three or four, well, extended generations. What I mean by that is, you know, if I think of you guys, the younger ones of you, will live to 2050 or later, much longer, I hope. And I know my grandmother knew people back into 1850. My great-grandmother. Was it the Buddha we heard?

[15:18]

Atmar? No, her neighbor. What does he look like? So, I mean, I have some sense of familiarity with, you know, 200 years. And what people said and did, not really much different than now. They didn't have email, but, you know... I barely had email. Yeah, so certainly there's letters existing and stuff like that. Yeah, I even have a bill for... Somehow I discovered in a book from 18-something that was written to one of my grandmother for some wood he purchased. Yeah, so really 400 years isn't very long.

[16:34]

And 400 years after that, well, within around the turn of the... of the time of Christ, the Lotus Sutra seems to have been composed. And its definitive or its most influential and beautiful translation was Kumarajiva's and that was in about around 400. of the common era or Christian era. And probably in the Lotus Sutra we see more of the transformation of views or the new views that represent the Mahayana.

[17:44]

And in the Lotus Sutra we find the new views that are characteristic of the Mahayana in the Lotus Sutra. Or we see, I put it both ways, we see the transformation of views in the Lotus Sutra. And, yeah, and almost anybody who studies Buddhism for more than 15 minutes or even 10 knows that the Mahayana emphasizes the Bodhisattva path. to a degree that the Theravadan or the earlier schools of Buddhism did not. Now, it... Yeah, the idea of the bodhisattva exists in earlier Buddhism, but really the bodhisattvayana, the real path of the bodhisattva, is emphasized in the Mahayana.

[19:22]

I don't think I said the bodhisattva ideal, but that's the common way it's expressed. She translated his Bodhisattva idea. I can recognize a few words. Okay. So how did they deal with these new sutras? although they're situated as if the historical Buddha is saying them. Sometimes in these Mahayana sutras, Person hearing the sutra, you know, they often start, thus I have heard, the earlier sutras start.

[20:39]

So, yeah, thus I have heard. And usually it's a nanda or some disciple has heard the sutra, heard what the Buddha said. But sometimes in Mayan sutras it's not identified who's the one who hears it. And sometimes it's a bodhisattva who hears it. What's being implicitly presented here? These are teachings that weren't heard at the earlier time during the Buddha's life or couldn't be heard because they were too subtle for ordinary hearers.

[21:45]

So they're implicitly or explicitly secret teachings. If I'm sitting here talking to Manjushri and other bodhisattvas, not you, we could call this a secret teaching. So they're sometimes kind of presented as if, well, they were presented by the historical Buddha and the disciples were there hearing it, but they really didn't understand it. Or the Buddha hid them among the Nagas, the serpent powers, and they could only be brought out later. They got very imaginative about what was going on. serpent powers, Adam and Eve's problem.

[23:08]

They were hidden in the Garden of Eden before Adam and Eve appeared. Or there was some idea that there was an ever-present Buddha that we could tune into, channel, and the suttras came from some place like that. Or they were realized through the great wisdom, the perfect wisdom, realized through the perfect wisdom of the teaching, which then could be extended in a wider sense. That could then be extended.

[24:20]

Or they were realized through the meditative powers of great practitioners. But still, even then, written down and clearly of a later time, centuries later than the historical Buddha. Yeah, they... they were still presented as often as dialogues with the historical Buddha. Now, I think nowadays we'd consider that plagiarism or dishonest or something like that.

[25:24]

But I don't think they felt, for the most part, anything like that. There was a very different sense of time than we have. Time was a kind of continuous present and it was just a long present ago that the Buddha lived. Time was measured by the reigns of the rulers and things like that, but every area had different rulers and different reigns, and so there was no kind of sense of a common time. So the effort was just to find a way to really make these teachings and what people felt were answers to the questions that they asked, were asking themselves.

[26:27]

How to present these teachings so that they had credibility. And... The Tibetans keep this tradition alive today. What do they call it, terma or something like that? They still find things stuck in a cave somewhere and say, well, only great teachers can find things stuck in a cave. And they say, oh, this was a teaching hidden by so-and-so, you know. So as there was this emphasis on the bodhisattva path, And the Bodhisattva path is really a kind of connection with the Buddha.

[28:01]

It's one who is almost a Buddha and could be a Buddha. But really commits him or herself to this usual life. Okay. So then, the bodhisattva is one aspect of the Mahayana. Another is a kind of glorified body of the Buddha or transcendent Buddha. And again, this is particularly presented in the Sadharma Pundarika Sutra. In Sanskrit, the Lotus Sutra. I think it's literally something like the Sutra of the White Lotus, something like that.

[29:09]

Anyway, and the other aspect of the Mahayana was that the Abhidharma was transformed by understanding it through the teaching and experience of emptiness. Okay. Okay, now, there's some contradiction between this transcendent Buddha, glorified Buddha, and the Bodhisattva. who's kind of us, or could be us, committed to the practice. Then we need something in between, so we have Maha Bodhisattvas, like Manjushri and Avalokiteshvara.

[30:27]

And there's a white Avalokiteshvara over there. And I think the white Avalokiteshvara is the iconographical ancestor of the white Tara. And we have this ancient, this, excuse me, this Avalokiteshvara here on the altar behind us. Yeah, I find she has tremendous, she, she's kind of mostly a she, has tremendous power.

[31:33]

I think she's the founder of the ancient, most ancient chapter of the women's lib. I think she is the founder of the oldest chapter of the women's liberation movement. And then we have our Buddha here. Amida Buddha. Amitabha. And then we have a kind of Buddha and disciples and Sangha on the other altar. So what's the connection for us in practicing? How do we practitioners deal with all this? So if this is a secret teaching and I can only perhaps give it to bodhisattvas, perhaps how are you while I'm speaking to you a bodhisattva?

[32:42]

In other words, maybe you're not just an ordinary hearer, maybe you're hearing with the third ear or something like that. So this transformation of the Mahayana, transformation that was the Mahayana, How did Zen make it its own practice? Because often Zen is said to be the most Theravadan or Hinayana or early Buddhist practice and teaching within the Mahayana. And it's simultaneously historically put in about the same historical development as the Vajrayana. And Mahamudra and Dzogchen especially are very similar to Zen practice.

[34:15]

Mahamudra and Dzogchen are very similar to Zen practice. Okay, so you guys are here sort of practicing Zen. What are we actually doing? How does Zen Buddhism practice the vision of the Mahayana? Wie praktiziert der Zen Buddhismus die Vision des Mahayana? Wie unterscheidet sich der Zen Buddhismus vom frühen Buddhismus als Ergebnis der Entwicklung des Mahayana? Now, I gave you the, or somebody gave you, I believe, the first case of the Shoyuroku this morning for a study. Is that right?

[35:26]

Were we able to give it German as well as English? Oh, wow. We're prepared. And you've all memorized it? Or read it, I hope. You didn't read it, Andreas? In the kitchen? Well, the tenzos are given lots. You didn't understand. Well, some may not have understood, and for some it may have been too familiar. So all of this was sort of an introduction to this koan. And I happen to have it right here, thanks to Ottmar. And I should stop soon as well. But let me help you to some extent, if I can, with the reading of it.

[36:37]

Okay. First of all, the world-honored one ascends the seat. Ascends the seat. This means you start to teach or you present something. And if you're talking to several people, I mean, it just helps to have a little platform or something because you can see everybody. So this is ascending the seat. It's no more complicated than that. But it also represents... the Mahayana shift to where you're really teaching and practicing with others.

[37:43]

Now, the basic vow of the Lotus Sutra In Japanese it's Myoho Renge Kyo. In Japanese it's Myoho Renge Kyo. is that the basic vow is that the Buddha vows that he will realize equality with every other person.

[38:44]

And this gets sometimes loosely translated, or another version of it is translated as the vow to save all sentient beings. But I think it's better to say to realize the equalness of all beings. Yeah, now in our contemporary age, we... most everyone agrees that somehow there's a common humanity.

[39:50]

And through, you know, limited and political, I mean, in limited ways, we practice it. But the individuals seldom actualize it. Seldom do we actually feel it with each person we meet. That's more the point of the Lotus Sutra. Okay, so it can be understood two ways. One is, I want everybody to be, if I'm pretending to be the Buddha, I want everyone to be awake the way I'm awake.

[40:53]

Now that's a view where everyone needs to be transformed. But the Mahayana really isn't saying that. The Mahayana is saying something more like we're already transformed. or we're already realized. So the vow more powerfully stated, how do I realize how we are already equal? And that wider understanding is part of the Mahayana, shift to the Mahayana.

[41:56]

Okay, so the world-honored one, why is he called the world-honored one? Yeah, I call him Mr. Who, W-H-O, world-honored one. Yeah, so Mr. Who ascends the seat. Now, why is he called the world under one and not the Buddha? Well, why do I call him Mr. Who? Or better, Mr. What? Because he could be any one of you. Because down here it says, embodying the ten epithets of the Buddha. Like an epithet is the rosy-fingered dawn. Rosy-fingered dawn. Oh, it sounds all right. Or the great translator. Great in this case is an epithet. I'm embarrassing you.

[43:21]

You see his rosy cheeks. Okay, but if it's the Buddha, the ten epithets, we can be rosy-fingered. I told you to hand up to a light bulb. We can be whatever. We can have these qualities. And so the one who could be anyone ascends the seat. And what do you have to do to receive this teaching? Well, that's the first section there. And what does the world-honored one, what does Mr. Who do when he gets up on the seat? He doesn't. He just gets back down. So where is thus I have heard?

[44:22]

So we can understand this koan as the whole thing is a play on what the Lotus Sutra is presenting as the Mahayana. So this afternoon we can look at it a little more carefully. And I think you will see that it really does relate to your practice. You will see it, I think. I promise. Okay. So, I think it's time to stop. Thank you.

[45:34]

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