Good evening and welcome. So last week we started this spring practice period talking about the major bodhisattva figures and the bodhisattva practices. And tonight I'm going to talk about the first of the major Bodhisattva figures. Yesterday morning we had a Buddha's birthday celebration, so I talked about Shakyamuni Buddha a little bit, who's kind of the example of all the Bodhisattvas, the Bodhisattva who became the Buddha. But Manjushri, the great wisdom Bodhisattva, is rightly the first of the bodhisattvas we're talking about. He's sometimes spoken of as the teacher of all the bodhisattvas.

[01:05]

He's the bodhisattva known as the bodhisattva of wisdom or insight. but he's also the Bodhisattva. Well, his practices also include meditation and ethical conduct. So he is usually in East Asia in the center of meditation halls. This is both a meditation hall and a Dharma hall and a Buddha hall, but he's seated in front of Shakyamuni, in front of the Buddha in our Zendo, so those of you in the back can't see him, but you'll see him when you're in the front. He's seated on a lion holding a teaching scepter. Often he's seated on a lion. In India and Tibet, sometimes in East Asia, he's holding a sword to cut through delusion. So he's the bodhisattva who represents wisdom, but wisdom not in the way we necessarily think of it usually.

[02:12]

It's the wisdom of insight, seeing ultimate reality, the immediate seeing of ultimate reality. And it's connected with emptiness. So we chanted the harmony of difference and sameness, sameness and difference. These different bodhisattva figures represent a kind of balance seen all together. So sometimes we talk about the balance of wisdom and compassion. Manjushri is the starting point, though, because he teaches, we might say, sameness or emptiness. He's the bodhisattva who represents seeing into the heart of things. penetrating into the fundamental emptiness, the universal sameness and true nature of all things. So the name Manjushri in Sanskrit means noble or gentle one. He sees into the essence of each phenomenal event.

[03:15]

So I'm reading from the beginning of that chapter on Manjushri and Faces of Compassion, the book I did on these bodhisattvas. And by the way, for those of you in the practice period or not in the practice period, if you don't have the book, there are excerpts of these chapters in the back hall under the shelves, and you're welcome to take those. But the essential nature that Manjushri sees into is not is that not a thing has any fixed existence separate in itself. So this is what emptiness is about. That there is nothing that has any separate existence. That nothing is independent from the whole world around it. So the work of wisdom that Manjushri teaches is to see through the illusory self-other dichotomy. our imagined estrangement from our world.

[04:22]

So emptiness also could be spoken of as relativity, that everything is interrelated. Studying the self in this light, Manjushri's flashing awareness realizes the deeper, vast quality of self. the ultimate self, liberated from all of our commonly unquestioned fabricated characteristics. So Manjushri sees through our usual way of seeing the world as separate. particular things. He sees into the sameness of all things. So one way of talking about this is in terms of sameness and difference. Manjushri represents the cutting through of all differences into sameness. So in terms of the aspect of meditation, it's cutting through delusions, cutting through our ideas of separateness. So with his relentless commitment to uncovering ultimate reality, seeing ultimate reality in each thing, Manjushri represents the transcendent practice of prajna, the perfection of wisdom.

[05:36]

both as a practice and as the body of sutras named after Prajna. So there's each of these different Bodhisattva figures we're going to be looking at is identified with particular schools and particular sutras. And Manjushri especially, he appears in many of the sutras. but particularly is related to the Prajnaparamita Sutras. So the Heart Sutra, the Diamond Sutra, there's a whole accordion of Prajnaparamita Sutras. Prajnaparamita Sutra in 8,000 lines, in 100,000 lines, and all in between. So these Perfection of Wisdom Sutras Also, emptiness teaching is associated with the Madhyamaka branch of the Mahayana teaching. So there's a handy chart, which is available in the front of the entryway in the Zendo, which goes through each of these different bodhisattvas in which schools and sutras they are connected with.

[06:38]

But part of our studying this is to see, so I've asked the people who are formally participating in the practice commitment period, but even if you're not doing that, just hanging out here these two months, you can relate to these different figures as aspects of our practice. So for all of us, as Zazen people, Part of our practice is this perfection of wisdom, seeing into the heart of things, facing the wall, facing ourselves, cutting through all of our sense of estrangement to see what is important. As Suzuki Roshi said, what is the most important thing? To see more and more deeply into the ultimate, into reality. So he's, Manjushri is prominent in many of the Mahayana sutras. And one of the earliest bodhisattvas, he was, he appeared in, he was popular in India by the fourth century, if not earlier.

[07:53]

So this wisdom or insight, it's about seeing into the fundamental. It's this energy of pulling wisdom out of the depths of oneself. It's not about some external learning. It's about this wisdom that is right here. that's on your seat right now, that is this, you could say, intuitive insight that is always available. Manjushri represents that channel for awakening of Buddhahood that expresses itself through this clear seeing. It's not from external knowledge or accomplishment, but this concentrated inner vision It's not about analysis or calculation, although that can support it. But when we can use intellectual analysis after the fact of seeing clearly to help support it, and that can be used to help

[09:09]

others to see it, but Manjushri sees something that has a wisdom that's not acquired, but is a kind of fundamental endowment, always available. And it's related to meditation because as we settle, it's available. We can uncover this deeper awareness. So this is the wisdom that Manjushri represents, this insight into emptiness, or we could say sameness. a wider perspective into the non-reality of all of our distinctions and our cherished views and objectives. And as a relief from the pressures of the world of striving and desire to see something deeper. So Manjushri's wisdom is It's not some other thing. It's seeing into our unexamined ignorance.

[10:19]

It's seeing into the way in which we cut up the world into pieces. It's seeing wholeness. That's another way to put it. Seeing the sameness of all things. Seeing the oneness of all things. uh... so all of all of this is uh... ways of talking about emptiness teachings so manjushri so all of these different bodhisattva figures that we're going to be looking at are combinations of different qualities they're you know they're archetypal in a sense that they represent different uh... qualities we can see different aspects in the way they've been depicted in different cultures. So again, Manjushri often rides a lion. He sometimes carries a sword to cut through delusion. He often has a scroll, a Prasanna Paramita, the Perfection of Wisdom Teaching Scroll. He's often very youthful.

[11:21]

So one of the aspects of Manjushri is this kind of youthful wisdom. I think if you think of youthful prodigies, Mozart or Einstein are brilliant young people. Again, it's not wisdom in the sense of accumulating lots of learning. There's a different transcendent practice, knowledge, which is other than wisdom. Knowledge is all the learning we might acquire that we can use for the bodhisattva purpose of helping relieve suffering. But this insider wisdom that Manjushri represents is this immediate, unmediated seeing into what's right here now. So I think that's why Dogen can say, the first time you sit, zazen, and display Buddha mudra with your body and mind, all of space awakens.

[12:25]

It's this immediate seeing into the heart of things. And it's not that we necessarily recognize that immediately, but it's something that's available. So there are many aspects of Manjushri. And there's stories about Manjushri's youthfulness. One of my favorites is from the Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersen. You probably, most of you know this story about the emperor's new clothes. It's kind of relevant these days. So in that story, as you know, the unaffected child is the only one who sees through the vanity and emptiness of the emperor's illusory garments to the naked truth that the emperor has no clothes.

[13:34]

And the child is not timid about declaring what he sees. So part of Manjushri is not just that he sees through all the delusions, but he also talks about it. Manjushri talks a lot. part of his name, one of the meanings of his name is Manjugosha is another name for a melodious voice. So Manjushri is one who is in the sutras often is the one who asks questions of the Buddha or sometimes he's the one who speaks on behalf of the Buddha. So Manjushri is associated with speech quite a bit. He talks a lot, and this becomes an issue in sort of a way in which in Zen he's made fun of, and I'll come back to that, but he not only sees into reality, but he proclaims it. And that's also part of his youthfulness. But going back to, these other practices besides the practice of prasanna or insight, the practice of meditation that he, they asked, so the different bodhisattvas we'll look at, each, a number of them have different aspects of meditation that they represent.

[14:51]

Manjushri though is this kind of focus, this focus on what's essential, this cutting through, cutting through delusions. It's the aspect of meditation that, You know, that we can do sometimes in sasa, that we can do, maybe we can do most effectively in a day of sitting, where we just, instead of allow, just cut through all the thoughts and feelings, just what's in front of you, just facing the wall, just focusing on whatever it is, breath or just this or the posture. It's cutting through delusions. So that's so also. Manjushri represents kind of the discipline, the focus. So Manjushri is also associated with the monastic schools, the disciplined schools. He represents ethical conduct because he sits in the center of the meditation hall.

[15:58]

So in the Ritsu school, it's called in Japanese, the monastic school, he represents the precepts. doing things properly, focusing on proper conduct. He's also associated with that aspect of the transcendent practices. Coming back to language, Manjushri talks about language. He uses language to cut through our usual sense of language, to cut through the usual way in which we use language to separate ourselves from the world out there, differentiate things, to make things into separate, to make differences.

[17:01]

So again, in terms of sameness and difference, cutting through differences. So, our language is, just our grammar in English and in many languages, is subject-verb-object. And we objectify things out there. We see a self as separate. So, Dao Gan talks about studying the way as studying the self, which means studying the self as separate from other. And Manjushri focuses on using language to cut through the way language separates us. So Manjushri is associated with poetry because poetry is a kind of language that dissolves that ordinary kind of language. Manjushri is associated with koans in terms of the way they cut through that sense of separation. Manjushri talks in a way that cuts through, that uses emptiness language to cut through that.

[18:09]

So one of the things to say is that Manjushri is the teacher of all the bodhisattvas because emptiness is the starting point. And so we chanted the harmony of difference and sameness. There's this complementarity, there's this harmony, this integration of sometimes as we say, wisdom and compassion, that's necessary for the fullness of bodhisattva practice. So the Harmony of Difference and Sameness says, according with sameness is still not enlightenment. we need this balance. Sometimes they talk about the two wings of wisdom and compassion. So the other bodhisattvas we're going to look at in some ways are balances to Manjushri's wisdom. So Samantabhadra is often paired with Manjushri on either side of Shakyamuni. Manjushri riding a lion representing this insight and wisdom and fearless cutting through and Samantabhadra riding an elephant representing action in the world.

[19:18]

So this polarity of wisdom and insight and then active practice in the world. Sometimes Manjushri is paired with Kanon, who Aisin is going to talk about next Monday night, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. So wisdom and compassion. And in some ways, Jizo, who represents witnessing to suffering, amongst other things, and Maitreya, the Bodhisattva, who will be the next future Buddha, who represents loving kindness, also are aspects of balances to Manjushri. Each of these figures is complicated and has lots of different aspects. So I don't want to simplify them. But Vimalakirti, who's the last one we'll look at, is the enlightened layman, more enlightened than all of the Buddha's great disciples. In some ways, also represents emptiness, but also part of the magical kind of interconnected

[20:27]

inconceivability that Samantabhadra represents. Manjushri talks about, again talking about cutting through dualities, there's a famous scene in the Vimalakirti Sutra where Manjushri challenges all the many great bodhisattvas to say how they each saw through duality. how they cut through duality in their own practices. And they each give wonderful examples of seeing through various kinds of dualisms. And then he, Manjushri, points to Vimalakirti, this great enlightened layman, and Vimalakirti says, And then Manjushree goes into a great speech about how wonderful Vimalakirti's thunderous silence is. So yeah, there's all kinds of interesting performances that happen in the stories of these Bodhisattvas.

[21:33]

So I want to say just a little bit about, so amongst all the other things that we can say about these different Bodhisattvas, there's a whole folklore about each of them. And, you know, in these talks, we're not going to get into all of the things that are in the book. And then in the bibliography in the book, there are sources for each chapter about other places you can look. But just some of the stories about Manjushri, as I mentioned, partly because of his youthfulness how much he talks, how he talks a lot. There's sometimes stories about where people make fun of Manjushri, but there's a lot of stories about Manjushri. One of the things about these bodhisattvas is that they each are associated with great sacred places in China and Japan and in India and Tibet too, but Mount Wutai in northern China is particularly considered a sacred place for Manjushri.

[22:35]

And there are a number of stories about Manjushri appearing as a beggar, helping lead pilgrims to Mount Wutai on their way. There's one story, though, that I like. Let's see if I can find it. Again, kind of representing sameness, there was a great feast offered by a wealthy patron at a temple on Mount Wutai. Manjushri emphasizes the sameness of all beings and the emptiness of class distinctions, amongst other things. So these monks opened the feast to the public. But this openness was annoying to the donor, who wanted to gain personal merit by feeding only the monks, not the poor and homeless who arrived. When a ragged, pregnant beggar woman asked for a second helping for her child, the patron indignantly refused, whereupon the woman said she would eat nothing and departed. As she exited the hall, the beggar woman was suddenly transformed into Manjushri, surrounded by bodhisattvas, filling the temple with radiance.

[23:42]

All those at the feast fell to their knees and wept in repentance. Since then, temple feasts at Mount Wutai are always open to the public, and nobody has refused a second serving. So there are all these kind of stories of great, wonderful events happening around these different Bodhisattva figures. But Manjushri particularly, there are stories that sort of poke fun at him. There's one story, for example, on Mount Wutai of Atenzo, the head cook in the monastery who was trying to cook the lunch for the monks. And Manjushri kept appearing above the soup pot and distracting the Tenzo, and finally the Tenzo had to smack Manjushri with a, with this, with a ladle and say, get out of here, you know, got to, got to, got to cook for the monks. Then there's the, the, one of my favorite koans is, actually the poem to this koan is from the first case in the Book of Serenity.

[24:44]

So Shakyamuni got up to give a talk in the lecture hall, and Manjushri was like the dowan, and he pounded the gavel to announce the lecture, and then he said, clearly observed, the dharma of the king of dharma, that's Shakyamuni, the dharma of the king of dharma is thus. And there was nothing more for Buddha to say, so he got up and left. And the verse comment on that from Hongzhe, who collected the Book of Serenity, says, the unique breeze of reality, do you see? Continuously, creation runs her loom and shuttle, leaving the ancient brocade, incorporating the forms of spring. But nothing can be done about Manjushri's leaking. So yeah, Manjushri keeps on leaking, keeps on spouting forth about this wisdom.

[25:49]

Anyway, there are many other stories about these figures and associated figures. And in the book, I don't want to emphasize this because I just did this sort of, as a way of illustrating this. But these are, these figures, these archetypal figures, we can see it, we can associate with culture figures or people we know. So I imagined exemplars in our culture who represent these approaches to practice. And part of how you might work with this is to think about people who you know, people you know personally, or people in the culture who in some ways represent some aspects, maybe not completely, but some aspects of these figures. So in terms of using language to cut, to see through, to see more deeply into reality, I mentioned Gertrude Stein and James Joyce, or to see more deeply into reality,

[26:56]

Einstein and Margaret Mead and Dylan. So, you know, we can see culture figures or people we know of who seeing these different figures as approaches to practice. And then also, I've asked the people in the practice period to take one or two of these figures and look at them more closely as aspects of your own practice or aspects of something that you might aspire to as part of your practice. So these are stories about Bodhisattva practice. And we can use just the visual aspects of their iconography, we can use the qualities of which practices they emphasize, we can use the teachings they emphasize, and the folklore about them as ways of looking at each one of expressing a kind of approach to

[27:58]

how to take on Bodhisattva practice in the world, how to take on the practice of trying to support universal liberation, and imagine how that might work for us. So what we have are the stories from Japan and Korea and China and go further back, Tibet and India. But these are, as archetypes, they're living, stories that, you know, now we can see maybe how they might apply for us and in our culture. So maybe I'll just stop there and see if anyone has comments or questions or thoughts about responses about Manjushri. So, please feel free. Brian. There are several.

[29:12]

He appears in the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras. He appears in a lot of them. He appears in many, many, many of these sutras. There are sutras specifically about Manjushri, some of the smaller sutras. I don't have the particular names, but I can find them, or if you look in the bibliography, there are. but he's prominent in the Vimalakirti Sutra. In the Vimalakirti Sutra, we'll talk about Vimalakirti, but Vimalakirti is ill, and the Buddha asks all of his students and monks and great bodhisattvas to go talk to Vimalakirti, and they all say, no, I can't do that, because the last time I saw him, showed me up in this particular way, and none of them will talk to Vimalakirti, but then finally Manjushri said, oh, okay, I'll go and talk to Vimalakirti, because he's fearless and he's, you know, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, and then everybody wants to go and hear this discussion, because it's Manjushri and Vimalakirti, and so, and it's this tiny room about a quarter the size of this room, if that, that Vimalakirti is sick in, but they somehow all fit in.

[30:31]

You know, if you think that sometimes we cram this room. So, anyway, there's lots of places where Manjushri appears. And there's some particular sutras about Manjushri, talking, focusing on Manjushri and his appearance in the world. Jimmy, you had your hand up. Yeah. Good question. Yeah, so Manjushri has both. Manjushri has this side of discipline and focus, But then there's one story about Manjushri going off in the middle of a practice period and hanging out in casinos and brothels and then coming back at the end of the practice period and they all rebuke him and he says, I don't care.

[32:00]

So there's this focusing side of our practice, but there's also a playful side. So when you're sitting Zazen, you're performing Buddha. You're doing improv. You're improvising. You're sitting like Buddha, facing the wall, facing yourself. And your thoughts and feelings are, you know, you can focus them really intently, which Manjushri does. That's part of his meditation. But there's also a side of, we sometimes, Hongsha talks about romping and playing in samadhi. We talked about Hongxue last practice period. So to just allow everything to arise, and then how do you perform Buddha in the middle of that? So there's a playful side of Zazen too. Not to put you on the spot, Bo, but as an improv person, how do you see the playful side of Zazen?

[33:06]

We're all playing at Buddha. It's very serious. But yeah, it's a good question. It's the right question. Other comments or responses? Dennis. I think you've really already hinted at it. It's kind of the idea of what you were beginning to say. I just wondered if you could imply a little bit the relationship between the faithfulness of the wisdom inside the emptiness of the body and proper thought

[34:16]

Yeah, so we have all these forms that we use, even in this, this is a very informal you know, just non-residential storefront little zendo, but we have some forms here, but even in a residential monastic context, there are lots of forms that are used. When we do all-day sittings, we have formal orioke meals and so forth. So we have forms. We bow to our cushion, we turn clockwise and bow to the room, we sit down. and so forth. But the forms aren't, it's not about doing them perfectly. It's about using the forms to express something, using the forms to be mindful of something. They're a kind of play, they're a kind of performance art, they're a kind of way of, it's not about being, you know, it's not about

[35:40]

The point isn't to follow the forms correctly. Don't worry about getting it right. We have a handout out front. I think we still have it out front about the basic forms for the meditation hall. So you should look at that and see what the forms are. But it's not about doing it perfectly, because it's impossible, actually. to do all the forms perfectly. Because there are, you know, fine points to all those forms that aren't even written down there. So, you know, it's about how do we harmonize sameness and difference together? How do we work together and flow together? So it's not about, it's about the spirit of trying to express the Bodhisattva way together. How do we create something that is beautiful and that is supportive and that helps us to be aware and awake together?

[36:48]

I heard something attributed to Suzuki Roshi once where he said, what we are doing is so important that we shouldn't take it too seriously. And I think that encapsulates some of that feeling. I was thinking while listening to people's comments about play and when am I playing and when am I not playing. And I was thinking about when I'm, I know I'm not playing when I'm so stressed out that I'm ready to snap at people who are taking it a little more lightly. And then I was thinking about one of the things that we sometimes chant in our service is the Song of the Grass Hut, and one of the lines is, let go of hundreds of years and relax completely. And that is also what we're trying to do with zazen and with the forms. We can do the forms in a very tense way, where we're constantly like, am I doing it right, am I okay?

[37:54]

Or we can relax and let mistakes happen. Or do them perfectly and enjoy them in a relaxed way. In a relaxed way. Or enjoy our mistakes. Yeah. Yeah, so the point of this practice is to relax completely. Some of you didn't know that. Any other? Yes, David. Yeah, some of them were okay. So, thank you all very much for joining in this Bodhisattva way together, and it's important to make mistakes.

[39:03]

We have to enjoy our mistakes. So mistakenly we will chant the four bodhisattva vows three times.

[39:15]

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