It's a pleasure to introduce Peter Overton to those of you that don't know him. Peter's on the board of Berkeley Zen Center, and outside of Sojin, he's the longest extant ordained priest that we have around here. Thank you. Good morning and welcome to springtime. It's interesting how even in California where the changes in season are rather subtle, there's a moment when you notice now it's springtime, now it's fall, and it

[01:08]

In that moment you remember the kind of special characteristics of the season. In spring we kind of enjoy this emergent beauty, the flowers, the birds. There's a kind of energy and a sense of possibility that we maybe had forgotten about. So I think it would be fitting for us to just sit here, actually, and listen to the birds expound the Dharma. But, nonetheless, I will say something. But please don't let it interfere with your appreciation of this beautiful day. I want to talk a little bit about some of the sutras that are important to us.

[02:22]

I feel that living in the West here, there is an enormous bias towards kind of root texts and sacred scriptures, which I think is probably worldwide, but here I my own limited perspective, I feel like I'm in fact somewhat drawn to coming back to these old teachings simply because that's kind of what people look to here, that's the sort of cultural bias. I don't know whether that's really any different anyplace else, but I noticed that when I was thinking about this talk. And I also think it's quite important to, especially with the things we chant every day, the Heart Sutra in particular, to come back and have a look around and see, well, what does this mean?

[03:27]

Or, you know, can we open this up a little further? Am I kind of forgetting what this means to me? And so I want to talk about that a little bit, but I actually wanted to bring up some topics from the Diamond Sutra, which is also an important sutra, particularly for Zen Buddhists. The Heart Sutra, when you look at it a little bit, is pretty strong stuff, actually. the first part of the sutra refers to, and there's a great deal of shorthand. One of the reasons why I think it's important to come back and look at it again is there's a huge amount of shorthand references to lists of categories of mental and physical phenomenon and various teachings. And again, I think in our culture there's a tendency to

[04:31]

to perhaps approach these kind of Buddhist psychological renderings or classifications of mental and physical phenomena as though they were kind of descriptive from a kind of clinical point of view. But I think the important thing to remember is that these are all developed with the mind of seeking liberation, of trying to untangle the tangle that we find ourselves in. So the Heart Sutra begins talking about, you know, no form, no feeling, no sensation. It goes on to talking about the, these are the, referring to the five skandhas, and when they say, know this, know that, they're really referring to the teaching that these things we're referring to, these names, are not referring to something that has any kind of separate existence.

[05:45]

So it pretty much goes through the litany of all the basic Buddhist teachings and reminds us that they do not have a separate and special existence. And that this is the teaching of the sutra is to kind of leaven our approach to Buddhist teaching and help us not be so fixated on practices and ideas. So it does a pretty thoroughgoing job of making sure that we understand that. And sometimes it seems a little bit over the top in terms of know this, know that, know this, know even to the point of discussing the first teachings of the Buddha, the Four Noble Truths.

[06:58]

no suffering, the suffering that you think you have, the suffering you're thinking about is not something that really exists, independent of other conditions in the world, and so on. Now, this is the teaching of what is referred to as the teaching of emptiness, which again is referring to the fact that these things we talk about are empty, so to speak, of a self-nature or an independent existence. And so, know this, know that, know the other thing, everything is empty. This can in fact seem like a rather strong and radical approach to dealing with everyday life. But then let's consider everyday life.

[08:00]

I don't know. I sometimes used to, you know, when you drive down the freeway and you don't have too much to think about, I wonder how many of you tried to not decode the billboards, not decode the street signs on the route that you've taken hundreds of times before. There's that expression, you know, a mind like a steel trap, which is really the way all our minds work, in that the speed at which we, you know, receive visual stimulus, identify what it is, and start to create meaning is so fast that what other teaching than the Heart Sutra can begin to give us a glimpse of how to penetrate that.

[09:05]

I was trying this morning as I was walking the dog to see if I could just focus on one character, you know, one Roman character or number, and see if I could not see it. It's pretty hard. We need a teaching which reminds us that things do not have an independent nature to help us find that point in which we can untangle these kind of automatic reactions. I was thinking this morning a bit of this whole problem of reading, thinking that there must be great freedom in illiteracy. that, of course there's bondage in the literacy as well, but to think that, you know, that we have trained, that we've developed these incredible skills to make our way in the world, and we are thoroughly entrapped in them.

[10:14]

So there you are. Now sometimes it seems as though working with this teaching of emptiness or the sort of, the teaching of emptiness is, sometimes it seems like it only takes us so far that there's another, it's a little bit like the problem of people talk about sometimes of, well I sat in the zendo and I felt really good and then I went out the gate and everything started happening again. And where is emptiness when I pick up the phone at work and I have someone on the line I don't really want to talk to and so on and so forth?

[11:23]

Or where is emptiness when somebody cuts me off and I'm driving? The reason why I wanted to bring the Diamond Sutra to this talk is because I think the Diamond Sutra actually starts to address some of these problems. A couple of years ago, the translator of this version, Red Pine, came here and gave a series of talks, wonderful talks, about the Sutra. He was, in fact, presenting his translation and some of the commentary, and his own commentary on it. And I was interested in coming and came and I became very excited at the beginning of this. It just seemed like he had such a gift for opening this up for us and giving us the sutra in a way. And then I waited for a couple of years before the book came out and was very pleased to get it.

[12:28]

But I remember in the beginning of this series of talks, I became aware that The sutra does not talk about, the word emptiness does not appear in the sutra. But in the very beginning, the sutra is given kind of a narrative form where they talk about, you know, the setting and how the Buddha goes into town and begs and then comes back and takes his seat. And it says here, in the first chapter, after begging for food in the city and eating his meal of rice, he returned from his daily round in the afternoon, put his bowl and robe away, washed his feet, and sat down on the appointed seat. After crossing his legs, adjusting his body, and turning his awareness to what was before him.

[13:36]

That sounds sort of like what we do here. But then later on, we find out that Subhuti, one of the disciples, is going to ask him a question, and the Buddha is going to actually give instruction about how we do this practice. So, skipping forward a bit here. I can find the right place. So, Sabuddhi asks, if a noble son or daughter should set forth on the Bodhisattva path, that is the path of someone who is committed to awakening,

[14:42]

How should they stand? How should they walk? How should they control their thoughts? In other words, how do we conduct ourselves as we go forth? So this is a very concrete question. And the Buddha says, sabuddhi, those who now set forth on the bodhisattva path should give birth to this thought. However many beings there are in whatever realms of being might exist, whether they are born from an egg, or born from a womb, born from water, or born from the air, whether they have form or no form, whether they have perception or no perception, or neither perception or no perception, in whatever conceivable realm of being one might conceive of beings, in the realm of complete nirvana I shall liberate them all. And though I thus liberate countless beings, not a single being is liberated.

[15:49]

And why not, subhuti? A bodhisattva who creates a perception of a being cannot be called a bodhisattva. And why not, subhuti? No one can be called a bodhisattva who creates the perception of a self, or creates the perception of a being, or a life, or a soul. Now, I thought that was just great, but it does create some problems. It creates a problem that's a little bit similar to the one of not decoding the words on the sign. How is it that you do not perceive a person, a self, or a being? the same kind of training we grow up with, even before we learn to read. So we still have that same problem.

[16:56]

And yet, the sutra goes on, and I think I'd like to talk a little bit about this, because this is where our practice comes into the realm of action. where not necessarily reflection, but taking an action in which this teaching is expressed. So, the next chapter actually gives a little bit of a clue about this. Moreover, Subuddhi, when a bodhisattva gives a gift, they should not be attached to a thing. When they give a gift, they should not be attached to anything at all. They should not be attached to a sight, When they give a gift, they should not be attached to a sound, a smell, a taste, a touch, or a dharma when they give a gift. Thus, subhuti, fearless bodhisattvas should give a gift without being attached to a perception of an object. And, you know, I think this kind of, this teaching is a little bit easier to kind of come to in the sense that this is something, you know,

[18:06]

Some exchange between us is something we're doing all the time. And the way we perceive ourselves in approaching someone else, in giving something or receiving something, the nature and the feeling quality of that exchange has a lot to do with how we perceive the various elements, or whether we don't perceive the various elements, whether or not the gift is given so fully that it's as though the objects involved and the people involved are not that crucial. It's kind of like that action is a full expression of not making distinctions. It's kind of emerging. Getting back to not perceiving a self or a being or a person, the thought that opened up this for me was to think about how it would be if the Buddha was sitting before me.

[19:42]

Would I be able to perceive a person a self or a being. You know, if you imagine the Buddha sitting before you, will you allow yourself to make that kind of categorization or perception? Or are you, through this experience, encouraged to just leave it open? or to kind of untangle your perceptions. Maybe most of us, and myself included, would be like struggling with, you know, is there someone here or is this really, how can I, I can't put this person in a box. Is this human? You know, that kind of real difficulty.

[20:48]

I think we've all had some experiences of that with with teachers that we deeply admire and respect. But I also would like to suggest that even the folks we hang out with day-to-day, I mean, I could ask a question, you know, if you have a spouse or a partner, I mean, do you really know that person? Is that person not kind of you know, unfathomable in some fundamental way. I mean, it's revealed, you know, even when you say, I wish, you know, she wouldn't do this all the, why does she have to do this all the time? Well, it's just a little, you don't know. Think about that. You know, we are quite ready to identify

[21:52]

people. That's true. And yet, if we just look a little more closely, that slips away. Who is this person? Is this person not the Buddha, perhaps not completely revealed to themselves or to me, and yet they are unfathomable? So I think this is what this teaching about the Bodhisattva, someone committed to awakening, their approach to encountering people in the world or other beings, is to kind of keep it open for a while, not just land on our usual categorizations. And of course, with those whom we know intimately, this is of course the secret to sustaining that long-term intimate relationship, is to not know who this person is.

[23:09]

If anyone has any comments or questions, apart from what the birds have already said, I'd be happy to hear. Yes? and giving and receiving the offering, and he goes and accepts it all, and then gives his talk, answers, or has a dialogue with Subuddhi to the use of giving and receiving him. And I had two... Two things have occurred to me.

[24:48]

One is that I'm not sure that one can know what the experience is of not identifying or having the concept of somebody or something or form unless one has the experience. If one has that experience, then one has that experience, but until you do, it's a concept that doesn't compute. Yeah, it's a concept that doesn't compute. And so it begs us to come forth somehow. But the other thing that... It's involved here is the self that we identify with.

[25:49]

And I was thinking, I have been thinking from time to time about something that the Dalai Lama said to Tibetans who were living in India. These may have been people who were in the south of India at an early time. from their escape from Tibet, and many died of hardship, change of climate, hunger, poverty, and work, you know, hard work. But he, at this, when I heard this, about this, he said, these were people who were making carpets, and they are quite, quite beautiful. But these are, he said to them, and I just received it, and he said, when you work, think of it as that you do this for all beings, an offering of this work, that you do this work for everyone.

[26:56]

And when I first heard that, I thought, this is kind of hard, this is kind of mean, I've been through so much, and yet, you know, think about others. And then, fairly recently, it occurred to me that this was a kindness that he was offering, because what one has to endure in life is all the heavier things than it is your own problem. Well this sounds like it's kind of an entry point. Yeah.

[28:06]

To offer up whatever in some small way is to get oneself out of it. Yeah, that helps. And that could be a relief of the liberation. Yeah, I think it's a good way to try that out. Yes? Maybe you could spell it out for me. The idea of no this, no that, no I's, no no's, as being indicating, as you said, no separate I, no separate no's, what the connection with that is, and no separate suffering, why is that supposed to help? So it's not separate from everything else in the universe, why is that supposed to give me any relief.

[29:08]

I still clearly, I still experience it. Why does that help? Because a lot of the suffering that you're experiencing has to do with something that somehow you could get away from this. You could escape the suffering. That's a good part of it, at least for me anyway. When I'm sitting here, legs are hurting, I'm thinking, when is that damn bell going to ring? Can I get out of this? And that's an experience of perceiving the suffering as separate from everything else I'm doing. So I think that's one point, that's one way to look at it, is that in suffering we forget the context. of what we're focused on. Okay, that makes some sense.

[30:11]

But to call that no suffering, to call that... that's sort of still confusing. If that's what they mean, why do they call it... Well, this is the problem of condensing a twenty-five thousand line sutra down to ten lines. Is it spelled out in the big sutra? Well, in the big sutra they go through many of the basic Buddhist teachings. And they say, the Bodhisattva does all these basic Buddhist teachings, and yet, the Bodhisattva does not apprehend them, does not get a hold of them, does not consider them as this separate special thing. And so, no eyes, no ears, no nose, It means that they're referring to not trying to get a hold of these different pieces and consider them as not letting yourself get fixated on them as something that's got its own special existence.

[31:30]

And if you don't think you're separate from it, then you're not going to suffer as much. You're not going to fight it as much. Yeah, there's pain. That's not what you're referring to, is it? No, that pain is, well... When they say there's no pain, there's no separate pain. Yeah, that's true. So yeah, I think I would say that that sort of fosters acceptance. So you don't have the suffering of a virgin, of trying to separate. Or the suffering of, again, there's the suffering of desire, which is trying to get a hold of. Oh yeah, when it's a pleasure. Yes, Linda? I've been wanting to say thank you for chirping. You've hit upon the great conundrum about form and emptiness.

[32:53]

Conundrum isn't even a nice word for it. One of the things that I always like about Mahayana Buddhism is that after it says emptiness, emptiness, emptiness, that it says form, form, form. And because if we're empty or, you know, this is all some idea now, but one idea we might have is that empty Peter's empty, no concept of a self. Linda's empty, no concept of a self. So the person on that cushion and the one on this cushion must be some kind of lightbulb that look exactly the same. Sounds like a bean to me. Your lightbulb and my lightbulb are ultimately identical. Some kind of empty, empty merge. You use the word merging. Right, right. Merging. So anyway, but then, you know, right away I say no.

[33:59]

Peter's lightbulb has Peter's notes. My lightbulb has my noose. And somehow this is quite important to me. Right. Who is this person anyway? Who is that person? One unfinished poem I started to write in the Zendo was that, you know, because of emptiness I'm learning this I'm learning emptiness by looking at noses in Zendo. Yeah. But when you look, what do you see? You know, that's the thing. That's the good thing. Like I see your smile. I see your teeth. Right, right. So just don't jump too to some emptiness thing.

[35:03]

Oh yeah, yeah. Or too fast, or not fast enough. I just don't know where this is going. Yeah. You? No. I hope I can go though. Laurie? I think I often, when I encounter somebody, there's a moment when I don't know what's going on. And I mean, thinking about the stops I made, you realize how there's an urgency, there's a feeling that your survival is at stake interpreting these things accurately. And that's kind of why the reading is so much harder. And we've got this extra thing to survive.

[36:05]

We have to learn to read. And what that would be like if you could still survive and you wouldn't have to learn to read. I mean, that's a whole huge thing. But I guess what I'm getting at is there's a little moment there where you don't understand and then you feel this And then, so how do you, I guess it's just, I feel like I try to make just a little more space there, so there's a tiny bit of space, and then just try to make a little more space, like maybe I can not know for five seconds and still survive. That's pretty good. And I still survive. I mean, that makes sense to me logically. I actually could survive several seconds. But it's that if you can even get to that emotional reaction, that's pretty on. Mostly we don't even get there. We don't even notice that piece of it.

[37:06]

Maybe you should, I don't know, I've never traveled to places where Roman characters basically don't appear. I know some of you have, maybe in China or places in Russia or the Middle East. But I imagine being someplace there where there's no literal literary reference that you can hang on to is an interesting experience. What occurs to me about what Laurie was saying, the difficulty is that we've got these minds that are running all the time so that to make up a story, which also has no reality. You may see something about their notes, but that doesn't tell you anything.

[38:12]

And we may construct a whole story about that person based on bits and pieces from our experience that we put together into, very quickly, this mind like a steel trap. makes a narrative. And, you know, boy, when we can keep that from happening, then we're actually really open to encountering someone's true nature. But once we make up a story about them, then we've got to kind of climb through all this shit to find out who they are and make it much harder for you. Well, not making up the story is one side of it, but living the story you know, as you see those noses. That making, you know, that's what the Diamond Sutra is talking about, is enacting that story, really what that story is, without the made-up stuff. We're not believing, somehow.

[39:15]

Yeah. Not letting yourself get fooled by your usual machinery. But somehow emerging, having the real story between you and that person, whoever it is, have that emerge instead. I'd like to close with another little story that is based on a piece in the Diamond Sutra. I just want to read the, before I tell the story, I want to read this little bit here. If I can find it, it's on this page somewhere. This is in Chapter 19. The Buddha is ending up on this chapter saying, And as many beings as there might be those worlds, Sabuddhi, I would know their myriad streams of thought. And how so? Streams of thought, Sabuddhi. What the Putsadagata speaks of as streams of thought are no streams.

[40:19]

Thus they are called streams of thoughts. I've been hung up on this language, by the way, for a long time. I've always thought that thus meant therefore. No. What I think it means is, in this way, so, and how so? Streams of thought, subhuti, what the Tathagata speaks of as streams of thought are no streams. In this way, they are called streams of thought. And how so, subhuti? A past thought cannot be found A future thought cannot be found, nor can a present thought be found. Now I want to tell again, which is a story I think most of you have heard numerous times. It's a story about Tokusan, who was a Chinese monk who was an expert in the Diamond Sutra and had many texts and commentaries and knew them all by heart.

[41:24]

And he was story goes he lives in the north of China and he heard about these southern Zen Buddhists who didn't really believe in the sutras and all that and so he packed all of his stuff on his back and walked we don't know how long but a long way with these things and at some point as he was making his way to one of these other temples he encountered an old woman who was on by the side of the road and who was selling rice cakes And he said to her, I'd like to buy some rice cakes, please, to refresh myself. And she said, OK. What's that on your back? And he says, well, this is the commentaries on the Diamond Sutra. I'm a famous lecturer on the Diamond Sutra. I know all about it. She said, well, in that case, I'll sell you some of these rice cakes if you'll answer my question. He said, fine. And she said in the Diamond Sutra, it says, a past thought cannot be found, a present thought cannot be found, nor can a future thought be found.

[42:35]

With what mind will you enjoy these rice cakes? And so I ask, with what mind will we enjoy cookies and tea? perhaps the mind of springtime. Thank you.

[43:03]

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