So the class that we're doing, this is the first of five weeks of this class, and we're going to study the Vimalakirti Sutra. So tonight I'm going to try and do an introduction to the whole sutra and to the character of Vimalakirti, and we'll look at some sections. Hi Kamala, are you here? I am here. Oh cool, okay. So the Vimalakirti Sutra is about this guy named Vimalakirti, who was an enlightened layman at the time of Shakyamuni Buddha. And so there are lots of aspects to who he is and what he represents, and there are numbers of really interesting parts of this sutra. What I want to focus on, maybe less today when I'm doing an introduction, but in the coming weeks, are particularly the parts of the Sutra that deal with the teaching of inconceivable liberation, and with the Malakirti as a magician and trickster.

[01:16]

But I want to give an introduction to him tonight. We'll talk about stuff from chapters one and two. Let me start with the text. There's two really good translations of this book. There's Bob. He was here. There he is. There's a few copies, anyway, of both of these available in the bookstore. There's one copy of this translation on reserve in the library here. This is The Holy Teaching of the Malakirti, translated from the Tibetan version by Bob Thurman, Uma's dad. So, this is a really good translation, and this is the one I know best, so I'm going to be mostly working from this. But there's a brand new translation by Burton Wasson, which is excellent. I haven't read it all yet, but he's a very reliable translator. And this is from the Chinese version from Kumara Jiva. So, I want to talk today, just go over the history of when this sutra's from and so forth. But anyway, both of these translations are very good. And hopefully we can kind of use both of them in class, particularly when we get into the particular chapters.

[02:23]

So. Does the bookstore have this one? The bookstore? Both? Yeah. There are a few copies of both each of these, and there are more on the way? More on the way. I just got this. I got more copies of the Thurman because it's paperback, and this is only hardback, so it's more expensive. Yeah. And that's a good reason to get the Thurman. They're both good. So this is a Sanskrit sutra that was translated both into Chinese and Tibetan. So I think what the, just to my intention for the class is that next week we'll focus on Ramana Kirti's Magical Doksan Room, which is chapter six, mostly. A little bit of this is in chapter five. The following week is the chapter on the goddess, chapter seven, And then I think we'll do chapters 10 and 12. So that may change a little bit. But those chapters particularly I'm going to focus on. And then hopefully the background material I'll fill in.

[03:25]

So I encourage you to read the whole thing. It's very entertaining. But anyway, those are the chapters I'm thinking of focusing on. So just in terms of the history, this is one of the earliest of the Mahayana sutras. So do you all know the difference between Mahayana and Theravada and Hinayana and all that? Shall I go over all of that? That's one of the issues in this. I don't know how much, some of you have more background than others, so maybe, how many of you have never heard of the word Mahayana? Come on, raise your hands. Okay, you all know about Mahayana, great, okay. Anyway, this is an early Mahayana Sutra, which means it's, In the first century CE or maybe the century before Christ, so it's one of the earliest of the Mahayana Sutras. And it's particularly kind of criticizing, it's talking about the Bodhisattva ideal and criticizing the earlier Theravada ideal of the arhat.

[04:32]

So how many of you know, so do you all know what arhats are? I know. So please ask, if I say something that you don't know what I'm talking about, raise your hand and let me explain. Good, okay. So in early Buddhism, in the Theravada Buddhism, the Buddhism of the early Pali suttas, the ideal of practice was the arhat, which is kind of the purified monk, the monk who practiced concentratedly and purified him or herself to be rid of all defilements. So this was considered the way to get free from samsara, which is kind of the round of suffering, the cycle of birth and death, and the cycle of greed, hate, and delusion, and just the endless karma. and all the terrible things that happened to us because of all the terrible things we've done in past lives and it just is endless and it's just terrible and it's horrible and it's just anyway and we've all been there right?

[05:37]

So anyway that's so the ideal of the early Theravada Buddhism was the arhat and the arhat is fully purified and in this sutra this is being an early Mahayana sutra the arhats are kind of picked up and The reason for that is that the Malakirti is talking about inconceivable enlightenment and the enlightenment of the Bodhisattva who is the one whose ideal, the ideal that replaced the Arhat ideal and the Bodhisattva ideal is to awaken together with everyone, that one can't purify oneself and get rid of all of one's pettiness and defilements hang-ups and all of that, if everybody else is messed up. So you have to do it all together. So that's the Bodhisattva ideal, which Vimalakirti is representing, which Mahayana Buddhism is about. So you've probably all heard the word Hinayana.

[06:40]

Okay, so Mahayana, Theravada means path of the elders. And the early sutras or suttas in Pali were written in Pali language, and that's the earlier branch. This is one of the early sutras in the Mahayana. Mahayana means greater vehicle because it's supposed to include everybody, everything. And in the Mahayana, in early sutras anyway, talks about the earlier Buddhism as Hinayana, which means lesser vehicle or smaller vehicle. So a lot of what we'll see in the Vimalakirti Sutra is Vimalakirti or his goddess partner picking on the monks who were kind of purified, arhats. The 10 great disciples of Shakyamuni Buddha historically were people like Shariputra and Subuddhi, and we mentioned their names in some of our chants, and they were considered arhats. They had actually purified themselves of all desire, of all anger, of all confusion. And in the early Mahayana Sutras like this one, their kind of, Vimalakirti kind of exposes their flaws in their practice, their lack of complete

[07:53]

bodhisattvic awakening. So for those of you who are busy studying the early Pali suttas, it may be not appropriate to take this class, because if you're really devoting yourself to purifying yourself, it's okay if you want to leave. But anyway, in the Mahayana, Instead, there's this ideal of the Bodhisattva. Now, I'm doing this long introduction to this because we'll see how Shariputra particularly is kind of the object of the Malakirtis. All of them are kind of picked up by the Malakirti. But in the later Mahayana, the understanding was that actually even arhats are part of the bodhisattva path. And part of the ideal of the Mahayana, of the mature Mahayana, like the Lotus Sutra, which is a late, historically not so much later, but in terms of the kind of philosophy, it's much later.

[09:05]

The Mahayana ideal later on was that all of the different aspects of the Buddha's teaching, all the different sutras, all the different schools, all the different And from our point of view, we can see it not just in terms of Buddhism, but all the different religious practices there are, are all useful for some kinds of people. And the ideal of the Bodhisattva, or the Mahayana, is to, through skillful means, to help everyone awaken together. So, in Zen temples in Japan, one of the temples I practiced at, in the morning, the first thing, in the beginning of their service, they do a half hour of prostrations to the Arhats. and around the altar there are these statues of these arhat figures. And they're all kind of real idiosyncratic and kind of, they're all characters, you know, they all look really weird and odd. Yeah, well some of them have these goofy happy faces too. They're all, yeah, they're all real weird.

[10:08]

They're all like wizards and stuff. And later on in the, So later Zen looks at them as kind of examples of purified beings in the world, and that they are actually bodhisattvas for the kinds of people who want that kind of practice. So this is kind of a later development of Mahayana. So I'm just saying that kind of in sympathy for the arhats who are going to get trashed in this book. So that's a little bit of historical background. And this particular sutra, again, also emphasizes lay practice, in a sense. So another aspect of the Malakirti as critic. So the third and fourth chapter, I'll go into the story a little bit, but the third and fourth chapter particularly goes through a list of the,

[11:12]

disciples of the Buddha, and then some of the bodhisattvas too, and shows how they have been kind of criticized by Vimalakirti. Part of that is that Vimalakirti is a layman. He's not a priest. He's not a monk. He's living in the world. So later on in China and Japan, and in Zen particularly, this sutra was particularly appreciated because it placed a value on practice in the world, mixed in with all of the events of samsara, that there was a way to do Mahayana practice in the middle of all of the problems of the world. So for Chinese gentlemen and Confucian literati, This was very popular because this was an example of how you could do, you know, intense Buddhist practice and not be a monk.

[12:21]

So the founder of our school in Japan criticized Rinpoche for this because he was into developing a monastic community. So there's various controversial aspects of this book. You three guys in the middle, maybe you can move back so we can include you in the circle. Thanks. So that's just kind of a little historical background. I'll talk more about some of the impact of this in China and Japan, particularly next week when we get to the Doksan room. But are there any questions about any of this stuff, this historical introduction? Matt. I'm not sure if it has bearing, but I realized that I don't know the difference, if there is any, between Theravada and Hinayana. Sometimes I hear the use of interchangeably, but I also pick up some sense that maybe they're not. Right, yeah. Thanks for asking, because I meant to cover that. So technically, there were a number of pre-Mahayana schools. Theravada was one of them.

[13:23]

Theravada is the one that survived. So Theravada Buddhism is the Buddhism of Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Laos, where else? Thailand. And then all the rest of Asian Buddhism is basically Mahayana. China, Mongolia, Korea, Vietnam, Japan. What were the other schools? Tibet. What were the other two pre-Mahayana schools? There were a number of others. There were like a dozen at one point. The history is... I thought you said three. No, there were three other countries. There were four. Basically, South Asia stayed with the Theravada. Anyway, from the point of view of Mahayana, all of the early ones were called Hinayana. including, and Theravada is the one that survived, my own feeling is that Hinayana is kind of inappropriate now, because it's kind of derogatory, you know, it's pejorative. But also, Hinayana just means, from the point of view of Mahayana, Mahayana is about including everyone, and how we actually have to awaken all together, universal awakening, whereas Hinayana is said to be self-centered.

[14:38]

In a way, we could talk about Mahayana and Hinayana with small m and h, applying to any school or applying to each of us. We each have Mahayana and Hinayana sides. When you're practicing because you want to get enlightened, when you want to be some great yogi, that's Hinayana. Anyway, historically, Hinayana was used for the Theravada school by the Mahayana people in some of the things you'll read. Other questions? This is kind of an aside, but I'm just curious. Practically speaking, the Mahalakirti Sutra was always just kind of an ideal for lay practice, but it wasn't really ever translated on a large scale, was it? It never became the basis of a school. Like, in early Chinese Buddhism, there were various schools that were based on particular sutras. Like the Lotus Sutra, there are a number of schools that are a lot to do with it. The Flower Ornament Sutra and the, anyway, there are many different sutras and schools, and there was never a school based on this, although probably Zen is the school that was most, was devoted to the Vimalakirti Sutra.

[15:53]

So in a sense, philosophically, it wasn't, didn't develop a separate movement, but it was, particularly in East Asia, it remained very popular. And apparently it was in Tibet, too, because there's a Tibetan translation of it, Professor Thurman translated. And then there's this other aspect of it that I want to talk today about different aspects of the Malakirti, but again, the one that I want to play with most during these five weeks is this inconceivable side. So towards the end of the Malakirti Sutra, he says that this is a branch of the Flower Ornament Sutra. So some of you maybe know about that. in Sanskrit is called Avatamsaka in Chinese Huayen, and it's very interesting, very long text. Tom Cleary translated it in three volumes. I think it's like 1,600 pages altogether. And it's the most psychedelic of all religious texts.

[16:58]

It's just amazing. It's very flowery and ornate. and full of this inconceivable holographic teaching with lots of different ways of showing how the whole world exists in that petal of that flower and vice versa. Anyway, it's about this kind of inconceivable teaching which I want to explore. Anyway, Vimalakirti says that this Vimalakirti Sutra is a smaller version of the Flower Ornament Sutra, but actually the Flower Ornament Sutra, 1,600 pages worth, is actually a very, very small version of the true Vimalakirti or Flower Ornament Sutra, which is much, much faster than that, and has yet to be compiled in human writing. in a sense that this particular text, where it fits into Buddhist philosophy, is this kind of inconceivable emptiness teaching.

[17:58]

What do you mean by emptiness teaching? That all things are interconnected? Yes, yes. So we'll get into that when we... So that's what it means. Emptiness is a technical term in Buddhism. It doesn't mean nothing. It doesn't mean absence. It means that each thing is empty of separateness. Each thing is empty of self, of inherent existence. There's no essential Kamala. Kamala is a function of everybody you've ever known or will know. And the same can be said of that marlin. Sorry. No, as great as a marlin. So, okay, the Flower Ornament Sutra, there's the simile of Indra's net. This is very ecological teaching. This is a teaching about how the world is interconnected.

[19:03]

And it's related to emptiness teaching because emptiness is the quality of each thing which through which we see how it exemplifies everything and how it actually is everything. And one example of the way this is taught in the Flower Ornament Sutra, and we'll see many more examples in the Vimalakirti Sutra, but the image of Indra's net, maybe some of you have heard of that, that the whole universe is this huge net, and at each place where there's a mesh there's a little jewel, and each jewel reflects the light of all the jewels around it, and each of those reflects the light of the jewels around them, and so on forever, so that actually each jewel reflects the light of all the other jewels in the whole universe. So this is just a simile to describe the way things actually are from this point of view, from this beyond point of view. Yes? Well, we'll see. Yeah, I don't know.

[20:13]

It comes out of that in a sense. Manjushri, OK, well, we should talk a little bit about Manjushri, who's the bodhisattva of emptiness and of wisdom. And he's the one in the middle of the zendo over here. Often he holds a sword. In the Green Gold Zendo, he holds a teaching scepter. Sometimes he rides on a lion. But he represents cutting through all conceptions, delusions, viewpoints to see the emptiness of all things. So Manjushri is one of the main characters in the sutra. So I don't know if we'll get to the description of, to the debate between Manjushri and Vimalakirti tonight, but that's one of the focal scenes in the sutra is this great debate between Vimalakirti and Manjushri. So Manjushri is as a representative of Vimalakirti's teaching. It's very much involved. Okay, so I want to try and introduce some of the aspects of Amalakirti.

[21:14]

Maybe some of the ones we won't focus on so much in the rest of the class, but we'll see them. But I also wanted to talk about Buddha's toe. What should I do first? Okay. Well, actually, maybe that's appropriate because it's the first chapter. So, the first chapter is about Buddhafields, the purification of the Buddhafield. So, for those of you who have copies of the text, you can see this in Chapter 1, that there's this assembly around the Buddha, and it's in the city of Vaishali, and that's where the Vimalakirti, who's supposed to be this great layman, lives in the city of Vaishali. But the first chapter, Vimalakirti doesn't yet appear in the first chapter, But what's introduced in the first chapter is this idea of Buddha fields. So a Buddha field is when a bodhisattva, when an awakening being becomes a Buddha, is fully awakened, which is what happened to Shakyamuni sitting under the Bodhi tree in 500 BC or so in Northern India.

[22:21]

What's created is a Buddha field. So all of the bodhisattvas who, the people who've hung out with the bodhisattva who becomes a buddha in previous lives, then become part of this buddha field. So we're all on Shakyamuni Buddha's buddha field, okay? Because he's the buddha of our age. We actually know when he lived, he lived in 500 BC or so, roughly. So part of what happens is, there's a chant that we do, do we still do the, the Jiji Samadhi chant at lunch, at noon service here? We don't do noon service right now. Oh, but during practice period. Yeah. When's the next practice period starting? October. No, so it's not going to be chanted until the fall. How many of you were here during the last practice period, have been to a noon service? So there's a chant that's done then about how, by writing from Dogen Zenji about Zazen,

[23:23]

He talks about how when one person sits, the effect of that is resonated between the zazen, the person sitting zazen, and the leaves and trees and grasses and birds and deer and raccoons, and he doesn't mention raccoons, but it's included, and just everything, and the sky and the water and the rocks, and that they also become awakened, and that there's this mutual resonance between person sitting zazen and the environment. So this has to do with Buddhafield, this idea of Buddhafield. And when a Buddha awakens, then everything awakens. So this is one way to look at this Mahayana idea. So this is kind of introduced in this first chapter. I mean, this is not in exactly the same terms as Dogen talks about it in that chant that's done here in the service, but it's the same idea. And he goes into a discussion, so I'm not going to go through the whole thing, but he goes into a discussion about the Bodhisattva's Buddha field.

[24:31]

And he talks about it as a field of generosity, a field of morality, a field of tolerance and so forth. And meanwhile, all of the great arhat disciples of Shakyamuni Buddha are sitting there listening to this talk by the Buddha. And one of them, Sariputra, who we'll come across again, has this, thanks to himself, let me see if I can find that. Okay, and it's, I don't, I'm not as, as I said in the beginning, I'm not as familiar with the Watson translation, so I'm sure you can find it in there towards the end of the first chapter, but it's on top of page 18 in the Thurman version. And he's talking about the purity of a Buddha's, the purity of a Buddha field. The purity of his Buddha field reflects the purity of living beings. The purity of the living beings reflects the purity of his gnosis or knowledge. The purity of his gnosis reflects the purity of his doctrine.

[25:32]

The purity of his doctrine reflects the purity of his transcendental practice. And the purity of his transcendental practice reflects the purity of his own mind. So describing the purity of the Buddha field that's created by a Buddha. Thereupon, magically influenced by the Buddha, the venerable Shariputra had this thought. If the Buddha field is pure, only to the extent that the mind of the Bodhisattva is pure, Then, when Shakyamuni Buddha was engaged in the career of the Bodhisattva, his mind must have been impure. Otherwise, how could this Buddhafield appear to be so impure? The Buddha, knowing telepathically the thought of the venerable Shariputra, said to him, What do you think, Shariputra? Is it because the sun and moon are impure that those blind from birth do not see them? Shariputra replied, No, Lord, it is not so. The fault lies with those blind from birth and not with the sun and moon. The Buddha declared in the same way, Shariputra, the fact that some living beings do not behold the splendid display of virtues of the Buddha field of the Tathagata is due to their own ignorance.

[26:42]

Tathagata is another word for Buddha. Tathagata means the one who comes and goes in thusness. It's a standard kind of name for a Buddha. Okay. It is not the fault of the Tathagata. Shariputra, the Buddhafield of the Tathagata, is pure, but you do not see it. Then the Brahma, Shikin, one of the deities is hanging around, one of the Brahma gods who's hanging around during this talk, said to the venerable Shariputra, Reverend Shariputra, do not say that the Buddhafield of the Tathagata is impure. Reverend Shariputra, the Buddhafield of the Tathagata is pure, I see the splendid expanse of the Buddhafield of the Lord Shakyamuni as equal to the splendor of, for example, the abodes of the highest deities. And then the venerable Shariputra, who was an honest man, said to the Brahma-shikin, As for me, O Brahma, I see this great earth with its highs and lows, its thorns, its precipices, its peaks and its abysses, as if it were entirely filled with orderer.

[27:44]

Probably most of us here tend to see the world, most of the time, like Shari Kutra does. There's kind of, there are thorns and precipices. There's cruelty and suffering and difficulties and, you know, we add in Bosnia and whatever the latest Holocaust is, Tibet and so forth, Burma and anyway, it's... Excuse me? Ordeur. Does anybody want to give me a definition of ordeur? Shit. Good, thank you. Yes. So basically, the world is full of shit. How could this be Shakyamuni's Buddhafield? You know, there's suffering in the world, and you know, politically, but also just in our own, probably even within this beautiful Green Gulch Valley, there are sometimes some people who don't, feel perfect, you know? Who have some difficulty, who don't want to get up in the morning and go to that beautiful zento, or who, you know, don't like what so-and-so said to them, or, you know, I mean, these things happen, you know?

[28:56]

And this is how Shariputra sees the world. He sees that there's problems in the world. How could this be a purified Buddhafield, you know? Is this Shakyamuni really a Buddha? So this is, and Shakyamuni is very polite and very pure and doesn't want to say these things, but he's thinking them and of course Shakyamuni knows that he's thinking these things. So Brahma Shikin replies, the fact that you see such a Buddha field as this, as if it were so impure, Reverend Shakyamuni, is a sure sign that there are highs and lows in your mind and that your positive thought in regard to the Buddha Gnosis, the Buddha knowledge, is not pure either. Rev. Shariputra, he's supposed to be this purified arhat, right? Rev. Shariputra, those whose minds are impartial toward all living beings and whose positive thoughts toward the Buddha Gnosis are pure, see this Buddha field as perfectly pure. So, I know this is kind of hard for us to believe. Then this thing happens.

[29:57]

And I want to preface this by telling a different story. Do you know the story of Shakyamuni Buddha's awakening? He sat all night under the Bodhi tree, and at some point, and Mara, who's the spirit of all demonic temptation and evil and wickedness and cruelty and so forth, tempted the Buddha and tried to get him to get up from his seat. Anyway, the final temptation was, well, who are you? to call yourself a Buddha, and Shakyamuni touched the ground with his fingers. So you've probably seen, if you've seen statues of Shakyamuni Buddha, a lot of them, he's touching his hand to the ground like this. And what happened when he touched his hand to the ground, there's different stories, but basically it says that the earth testified that, yes, this is the Buddha. In some versions, the earth goddess appeared and said, yes, I can say this is the Buddha. So Buddhism is an earth religion. It's about touching the earth. It's about getting out there and digging up the fields and being in the earth, in the ground.

[31:02]

Anyway, in this case, he did not touch the ground with his fingers. So after Brahmasikhin says all this stuff to Shariputra, thereupon the Lord Shakyamuni touched the ground of this billion world galactic universe with his big toe. And suddenly, it was transformed into a huge mass of precious jewels, a magnificent array of many hundreds of thousands of clusters of precious gems, until it resembled the universe of the Tathagata Ratna-vyuha." I looked at this part in the... So if some of you are following in the Watson translation, he gives the translations of the Sanskrit, which is sometimes kind of interesting. So... It resembled the jeweled adornment Buddha's jeweled adornment land of immeasurable blessings. That's what the Sanskrit means. Thurman just says it was called Anantaguna-Aratna-Vyuha for the Sanskrit freaks. Everyone in the entire assembly was filled with wonder, each perceiving himself seated on a throne of jeweled lotuses.

[32:10]

So Buddha touched his toe to the ground and suddenly, It's like all the trees were dripping jewels and it was just, everything was perfect and we were all sitting on these great jewel lotus pedestals and everything was obviously radiant and beautiful. Then the Buddha said to the venerable Shariputra, Shariputra, do you see the splendor of the virtues of the Buddhafield? Shariputra replied, I see it, Lord. Here before me is a display of splendor such as I have never heard of or beheld. The Buddha said, Shariputra, this Buddha field is always thus pure, but the Tathagata makes it appear to be spoiled by many faults in order to bring about the maturity of inferior living beings. For example, Shariputra, the gods of the Triasjimsa heaven. How does Watson translate that? Anyway, this is one of the jeweled heavens. These gods all take their food from a single precious vessel.

[33:12]

Yet the nectar which nourishes each one differs according to the differences of the merits each has accumulated. Just so, Shariputra, living beings born in the same Buddhafield see the splendor of the virtues of the Buddhafields of the Buddhas according to their own degrees of purity. So, when this splendor of the beauty of the virtues of the Buddhafields shone forth, 84,000 beings conceived the spirit of unexcelled perfect enlightenment. And the 500 Licchavi youths, so there were these youths from this town, Licchavi, where Vimalakirti lived, were at this assembly. They all attained the tolerance of ultimate birthlessness. So this is actually an important term, which I'll come back to, I'll finish the story first. Then the Lord, with Jewish miraculous power, and at once the Buddhafield was restored to its usual appearance, Then both men and gods who subscribe to the disciple vehicle, which is the earlier Arhat vehicle, thought, alas, all constructive things are impermanent.

[34:19]

Thereby, 32,000 living beings purified their immaculate, undistorted Dharma-I in regard to all things. The 80,000 bhikshus or monks were liberated from their mental defilements, attaining the state of non-grasping. and 84,000 living beings who were devoted to the grandeur of the Buddhafield, having understood that all things are by nature but magical creations, all conceived in their own minds the spirit of unexcelled, totally perfect enlightenment." The story is about the environment. The story is about where we live in this Shakyamuni's Buddhafield. So usually we see it as full of shit, you know, and there's problems and nasty people and cruelty and horrors. And yet what this story is about is that that's a reflection of our own mind, someone. And the way Buddha sees it is that it's all jewels. It's all pure. So. This is the introduction to the sutra before we even get to Vimalakirti.

[35:22]

Yes, I'm sorry. I mean, this seems like an almost silly story, you know, just really out of their story. But in some ways, I think we all can experience this. There are mornings that we get up where the whole world is radiant. There are moments when everything seems perfect and lustrous and wonderful. I think that we all do get that kind of experience. Right, and my belief and faith is that when, that having all, has everybody here sat zazen at least once? Somebody here has not sat zazen? Oh, we've gone to the sendo and sat on a pillow. Oh, good, okay. Well, that's good enough. Okay, so my faith is that we wouldn't be here in this room talking to each other about these silly stories if we hadn't seen this, actually. So I talk about this Mahayana stuff and it's, and I like to bring the magical into the Dharma. And I do it with the faith that we've actually all glimpsed this a little bit sometime, probably even before we ever heard of Zazen when we were kids, somewhere.

[36:30]

So yeah, this is the point, that the world is difficult and troublesome, and yet there's a way in which we're living in this pure Buddha field. Yes? I also think that our practice sort of says to us that perfection is saying things exactly as they are. Right. And not the kind of quote-unquote perfection that a dictionary would define as things being all the way we want them to be or being good. Right. So I think that's what the Buddha is saying to Shakyaputra is that things are perfect as they are with all of that. Right. Right, so it's not about that he's changing the world into some fantasy, you know, magical mystery tour where everything is like, you know, groovy. It's not, he's not changing, it's the way things are is actually, you know, this jeweled, pure Buddhafield. That's what he's saying.

[37:31]

It's not that he, he's touching his toes to the ground to show it, to reveal it. It's like stripping away the veils, you know, of all the difficulties. So, This is the vision of this sutra. This is the starting point of the sutra, that actually the way things are is this pure Buddha field. Radiant, glowing, shining. This is actually the way things are. And yet, where we practice, where we live, is this place where we see the problems. And in a sense, that's our practice. But the Malakirti is relentless about pointing to emptiness, pointing to the way in which those illusions of difficulties, of impurity, are delusions. But like, so suffering, it's not that perfection denies suffering, right? Suffering. I mean, like what you're saying, it's not that in a perfect, this kind of perfection doesn't negate suffering.

[38:35]

Okay, well, the word suffering, we need to unpack a little bit then. Well, for instance, I read the newspaper this morning and 91 people were crushed and suffocated to death in a boxcar in Rwanda. So that's radiant, maybe, but it's suffering. Well, what Buddha never promised was to get rid of old age, sickness, and death. So if we think of old age, sickness, and death as suffering, then yeah, it's not about getting rid of that. What it is about is getting rid of these other ideas about things that prevent us from seeing the jewels. So, that actually leads right into the next, maybe I should jump to the aspect of the Malakirti as invalid, because a central part of what the sutra's about is the story about somebody who's dying. about somebody who's sick. Vimalakirti is sick. This is the starting point of the sutra, beginning in chapter two.

[39:39]

Yes, Rain? Could you say that there was a shift then in the early Buddhism, from early Buddhism to Mahayana? The early Buddhist view was that actually old age against the death one day would be defeated physically, because as every being got enlightened, the whole thing would just fall apart and it wouldn't exist anymore. And then Mahayana is saying that actually this world, just the way it is, is perfect, old age, sickness, and death are somehow inferior. Right, right, yeah, the last thing you said. I don't think that early Buddhism was, that any Buddhism was ever about getting rid of old age, sickness, and death. Old age, sickness, and death is the way things are. So the word that's translated usually as suffering in Sanskrit is dukkha, and it doesn't exactly mean suffering as in pain, or it doesn't mean that you're never going to have any pain in your knees when, you know, it means, that things are a little off. It means that things are not the way we want them to be. We have things we don't want, that we'd like to get rid of.

[40:42]

We don't have things we do want. Things are not like we'd like them to be, exactly. That's kind of what dukkha means, technically. And actually, the etymology of it is from a wheel. that's slightly out of line. So we're all slightly off-center, we're all slightly out of balance, we're kind of off-key a little bit. That's dukkha, that's the suffering. In Buddhism, when they say suffering, that's what it means. It means that we're all a little bit out of line, that we need to get going, get ourselves realigned, and we're kind of always constantly off. So Suzuki Roshi talked about losing our balance against a background of perfect balance. So this is kind of the interplay. And in the Mahayana, what we say in the Heart Sutra, form is exactly emptiness, emptiness is exactly form. There is no emptiness outside of form. It's not that there's someplace else out there where it's empty. It's like this piece of paper is emptiness. The sound of it is emptiness. There's no emptiness other than form.

[41:45]

that they somehow were different? In some ways. So this is what Vimalakirti as critic comes back to again and again in the sutra, that in very subtle ways we think we can kind of get out of this. We think there's something somewhere else that's better. We don't want to actually be in line with our life, just as it is. So it's not that you have to become, so awakening and all of the things that Buddhism talks about and the end of suffering, the end of dukkha in Buddhism is not about becoming some other person. It's not about entering some other mental state or state of being. It's about just completely, truly, wholeheartedly being who we are in this world as it is. So that's kind of where the Mahayana is talking about samsara and nirvana being. Yes. So, as the Buddha is sort of... I mean, Shariputra is very antagonistic at this point in his exploration of his own views on Buddhahood.

[43:05]

I wouldn't say he's antagonistic. He's a very good monk. He's a very devoted monk. And that's what I mean, not... And he's honest. He actually... He's saying what he feels, going against what the Buddha himself is saying. What's the question? It's not exactly like Shariputra's ever criticizing the Buddha. It's just like this question. How can he say this is a pure Buddha field when I see the way things are? It's a question. This is a question we all have. So we should all see ourselves as Shariputra in the sutra, as well as maybe seeing the ways in which sometimes we might align with the Mahakirti. Other questions or comments? So anyway, this first display of the Buddha actually, the Buddha actually leaves the scene after this chapter, pretty much, and then Vimalakirti takes over till the end. And Vimalakirti is the one who then, who expresses the Dharma through the rest of the Sutra.

[44:10]

And so a couple of other aspects, maybe three aspects I wanted to talk about tonight. If you get a chance to read Chapter 2, so for next week we're going to focus on Chapter 6 about the Malakirti's room, but I want to set the scene for that tonight. So in Chapter 2 it goes into great detail about how the Malakirti lives in the world. He lives in the midst of whatever situations, difficult situations you can imagine in the world, and he is the best in each of those situations. And he enters those situations in order to liberate beings. So this is the Bodhisattva ideal of lay practice in the world, householder practice in the world. So Vimalakirti has a son, a wife, and female attendants, yet always maintained continence. He appeared to be surrounded by servants, yet lived in solitude. He appeared to be adorned with ornaments, yet always was endowed with the auspicious signs and marks.

[45:12]

He seemed to eat and drink, yet always took nourishment from the taste of meditation. This is the top of page 21, for those of you. He made his appearance at the fields of sports and in the casinos, but his aim was always to mature those people who were attached to games and gambling. He visited the fashionable heterodox teachers, so the non-Buddhist teachers, or the philosophers, yet always kept an unswerving loyalty to the Buddha. He understood the mundane and transcendental sciences and esoteric practices, yet always took pleasure in the delights of the Dharma. He mixed in all crowds, yet was respected as foremost of all." And it goes on to just describe all the possible worldly realms. He was also rich. He was honored as a businessman among businessmen because he demonstrated the priority of the Dharma. He was honored as the landlord among landlords because he renounced the aggressiveness of ownership. He was honored as the warrior among warriors because he cultivated endurance, determination, and fortitude. So he's a worldly guy.

[46:14]

He's in the world. He mixes in all these different realms. And he's accepted as the best in each of them. And in each of them, he's actually non-attached and showing the people there how to Well, it's not clear what that means. I don't know what Watson says about this. Yeah, no, it's an interesting point. Later on it talks about him going to the harems to teach the young ladies according to the Dharma. So it's not... Yeah, it's not quite a tantric text in that sense, but this is one of the earliest Mahayana texts, as I said. We'll see how Watson translates that. Anyway, the point is that he's... Well, we'll see in the chapter on the goddess and the sex change operations how it deals with the various issues around sexuality and discrimination.

[47:23]

It's profound. It's a perfect example for me of whether you're actually involved in the world or not. Well, the point is that he gets involved in the world. I mean, he has children, right? So he gets involved in the world. Oh, here, Watson's translation is maybe helpful. He says, one could see he had a wife and children, yet he was at all times chased in action. So he was able to, anyway, He was able to be in the world in various ways and yet express in some deep way a non-attachment to desire or aversion. That's the point. This particular aspect of the Malakirti was, as I said before, very popular to Chan, Chinese Zen, and later Zen, Japanese too.

[48:28]

So the Malakirti is not like the bodhisattvas like Manjushri or Avalokiteshvara, whose images are often on altars, or Jizo, who we have in the Zendo also. Sometimes you see statues of him, pictures of him. I'll bring some in later classes. There's one image of him, and it's hard to make out, but it's, oh, on the cover, let's see, in Thurman's book, facing the title page, you see him in his, it's the scene of the debate between the goddess and Shariputra, and there's Manjushri and Vimalakirti, and so there are images of him, and he was popular in Chinese and Japanese art, but he's not like a figure that would be on the altar, exactly. He's kind of beyond, he's kind of an iconoclast. And there's also, this is another statue of him that's on the cover of the Watson book.

[49:30]

So there are some pictures of him in Chinese and Japanese art, but he's not like a figure that was venerated. Because part of what he's about is that he's about dispelling kind of religious trappings. So this is the next part. So the first aspect that I wanted to mention was just who he is. He's this worldly guy who, in all these realms in the world, enters into the realms of the world. He goes into, in one place it says he goes into taverns and bars to teach sobriety or mindfulness to the... Anyway, to establish drunkards and correct mindfulness, he entered all the cabarets. So, you know, he goes everywhere. He's not like the monks like Sariputra who, you know, live in some cloistered monastic context.

[50:33]

He's out there in the world. But the next aspect of it is that he is kind of the most enlightened of all of them. So what happens, how the story proceeds is that the story starts out that Vimalakirti is ill, and the Buddha hears that Vimalakirti is ill. Usually in a sutra or an old text like this, when they say somebody is ill, it means they're really seriously ill, like he's probably, you know, basically on his deathbed. He's seriously ill. And the Buddha asks the monks, to go and call on Vimalakirti and pay your respects and see how he's doing. So this is a traditional practice of monks and priests to go, you know, kind of call on sick people and see how they're doing. And one by one, all of the monks say, well, excuse me, Buddha, I'm sorry, I'd love to go and visit Vimalakirti, but you know, I'm kind of reluctant, and I won't go through all of them, but this is in chapter,

[51:34]

Chapter 3, I guess. I'll pick some examples. The Buddha asked Mahakasyapa, who's our first ancestor in the Zen lineage, who was the disciple of the Buddha who was supposed to be the most skilled at being at austerity practices. And he says, Lord, Mahākāśapa says to the Buddha, Lord, I am indeed reluctant to go to Lechāvi Vimalakīrti, Lechāvi is like the town he lives in, to inquire about his illness. Why? I remember one day when I was in the street of the poor begging for my food, Vimalakīrti came along and said to me, Reverend Mahākāśapa, to avoid the houses of the wealthy and to favor the houses of the poor, this is partiality and benevolence. Reverend Mahakasyapa, you should dwell on the fact of the equality of things and you should seek alms with consideration for all living beings at all times. Basically he goes into this, he shows how the Malakirti, how Mahakasyapa has been kind of prejudiced in his begging.

[52:48]

So one of the traditional practices of monks and priests up through Japan was to go do these begging rounds. We can't do it really here in America because there's no model for it. a model of noble mendicants. But Mahakasyapa was doing this practice of getting his livelihood by going around begging, and he was actually, in a very subtle way, preferring to beg from the poor, because he was into austerity. And this was a kind of hang-up, and Malakirti exposes it. Remind me, I forgot to talk about Anapadika dharmakasyati. There's another example of Subuddhi. The Buddha asks the venerable Subuddhi, who was another one of the 10 great disciples, to go and inquire about his illness. Subuddhi replied, I am indeed reluctant to go to this good man to inquire about his illness. Why? I remember one day when I went to beg my food at the house of the Malakirti in the great city of Vaishali, he took my bowl and filled it with some excellent food and said to me, Reverend Subuddhi, take this food if you understand the equality of all things.

[54:01]

by means of the equality of material objects. And if you understand the equality of all the attributes of the Buddha by means of the equality of all things, take this food. If without abandoning desire, hatred, and folly, you can avoid association with them. If you can follow the path of the single way without ever disturbing the egoistic views, if you can produce the knowledges and liberations without conquering ignorance and the craving for existence, if by the equality of the five deadly sins you reach the equality of liberation, if you are neither liberated nor bound. So basically he's talking about Subuddhi's attachment to the Dharma here. It's one of the things he's talking about. Take this food, reverend Subuddhi, if entertaining all false views you find neither extremes nor middle. So Subuddhi is into purity and the Malakirti is exposing that. He's not really into seeing all things the same. He's actually got a lot of hang-ups, a lot of attachments.

[55:04]

Anyway, one by one, Buddha asks the various disciples to go pay their respects to the Malakirti. They each... Well, that's in the next chapter. Manjushri is the one who finally, to make a longer story short, eventually he goes through various of the... He asked various of the disciples, including Rahula and Ananda and so forth, and they all say, well, I'm sorry, but the last time I saw Himalakirti, he really put me down and showed how would I practice, especially in the area that I'm most noted for, is actually very flawed. And I really, I don't feel competent enough to go pay my respects to Himalakirti. Basically, that's the story again and again. Manjushri eventually says yes. After the disciples he speaks to different Bodhisattvas who also tell stories about having their practice blown apart by Dhammalakirti. So it's really their ego that prevents them from going and not just concern about their not being good enough in their practice.

[56:10]

Well, that's an interesting point. It's not clear. But basically, they each tell a story about how their greatest, the aspect of practice they were most noted for, most famed for, was exposed by Vimalakirti the last time they saw him. And they really just don't feel up to going and seeing him again. They're like confessing they had a little hesitation. Well, they confess, yes. They're reluctant, is all they say, whether it's that they're whether they don't feel up, whether they don't feel worthy of it, or whether they feel afraid of seeing him again and having him say more things is not exactly clear. Last year we studied this great koan, what is it, Maitreya's Assignments? We'll get to that. That's coming later. Isn't it about this? Well, this is leading up to that. One of the ones that I'll mention is Rahula, who is the son of the Buddha. So after Shakyamuni was enlightened, his stepmother and his son and his cousins all ended up joining him and joining his order.

[57:22]

And his son Rahula came and became one of the Ten Great Disciples. And his story, when the Buddha asked him to go call on Vimalakirti, I remember one day Many young Lechavi gentlemen came to the place where I was and said to me, Reverend Rahula, you are the son of the Lord Buddha and have renounced the kingdom of the universal monarch. You have left the world. What are the virtues and benefits you saw in leaving the world? As I was teaching them properly, the benefits and virtues of renouncing the world, Vimalakirti came there and having greeted me said, Reverend Rahula, you should not teach the benefits and virtues of renunciation in the way that you do. Why? Renunciation is itself the very absence of virtues and benefits. So here he's talking about the benefits of renunciation. He hasn't renounced those benefits. So this is a very clear example of how the Malakirti exposes the way in which these disciples have not really perfected their practice that they're supposed to be most noted for.

[58:23]

Eventually, after talking to numbers of disciples and a few bodhisattvas, not the ones, the most famous ones, but in several different bodhisattvas. Manjushri says, well, okay, Vimalakirti is a very difficult customer, but I'll go and talk to him and pay your respects. So Manjushri is the bodhisattva of wisdom and it's kind of this young, kind of fearless prince of wisdom. So he's willing to go, eventually he's willing to go and call on Vimalakirti. So that's kind of leading up to the drama of this sutra, which we're going to get into chapter six next week. When Manjushri gets there, he asks about Vimalakirti's sickness. So this is another theme that I feel on Vimalakirti is that Vimalakirti is sick. He's an invalid. And there's this chapter about the consolation of the invalid. Are there any questions up to here before we get into Vimalakirti as invalid?

[59:30]

story? No, he didn't. No, he just kind of finally he was naive. Yeah. What what he does do, though, is he characterizes Vimalakirti as he says that his his helplessness is inexorable. Yeah, unstoppably. Yeah. So Manjushri says about Vimalakirti, Lord, it is difficult to attend upon the Vimalakirti. He is gifted with marvelous eloquence concerning the dharma of the profound. He is extremely skilled in full expressions and in the reconciliation of dichotomies. His eloquence is inexorable and no one can resist his imperturbable intellect. He accomplishes all the activities of the Bodhisattvas. He penetrates all the secret mysteries of the Bodhisattvas and the Buddhas. He is skilled in civilizing all the abodes of devils. He plays with the great super knowledges. He is consummate in wisdom and liberative technique.

[60:33]

He has attained the supreme excellence of the indivisible, non-dual sphere of the ultimate realm. He is skilled in teaching the Dharma with its infinite modalities within the uniform ultimate. He is skilled in granting means of attainment in accordance with the spiritual faculties of all living beings." So this is important. The Malakirti deals with all the living beings in terms of where they're at, right? So he goes to wherever each being is at in terms of what they need to develop their own practice. He has thoroughly integrated his realization with skill and liberative technique. He has attained decisiveness with regard to all questions. Thus, although he cannot be withstood by someone of my feeble defenses, still sustained by the grace of the Buddha, I will go to him and will converse with him as well as I can. So, and Majjusri is, you know, most intelligent, most wise of all the bodhisattvas, you know, he's saying this.

[61:38]

So before we talk about Vimalakirti's invalid though, I wanted to go back, thank you for reminding me. Yeah, right, that one. The tolerance of the ultimate birthlessness. So this was one of the parts of the story about the toe touching the ground and showing how actually You know, Green Ghost Valley is this beautiful place with all these wonderful people trying to practice the way and all these fields of vegetables and hills and deer and raccoon and mountain lion and water. You know, it's just wonderful, isn't it? Wouldn't it? Yeah, yeah. So, it's perfect, right? Anyway. When they saw this, what happened when Vimalakirti touched his toe to the ground is described as these youths who were watching all attained the tolerance of ultimate birthlessness. So this is particularly, this quality is particularly stressed in the sutra and it's actually kind of a definition of wisdom.

[62:45]

So I think it's worth looking at a little bit, in the Sanskrit it's Anutpatika Dharmakshanti, the patience or tolerance with the fact of the uncreativeness of all dharmas, of all things, the non-origination of all things, the unborn quality of all things. So, what we usually, what leads to dukkha in a sense, what leads to our dissatisfaction with things as they are, which is what leads to Shariputra seeing the world as full of horrors and cruelty, is that we can't quite stand it, that there's no beginning to things, that everything is kind of totally interconnected with everything. So what's developed in this practice of wisdom that Vimalakirti is going to be teaching is this very patience and tolerance are kind of, this is the second of the perfections, shanti, or third, I mean, the patience or tolerance or capacity, but it's really this very total kind of acceptance, forbearance of the fact that

[64:13]

that we can't create things, that things, that every, each event, each thing we want in our life, whatever, is kind of bottomless, endless. We can't make, we cannot create things to be the way we want them to be. Everything is totally connected with everything else, is unborn, has no separate origination. So in a way you could say it's the tolerance of the emptiness of all things. But the way it's described in this particular teaching is that it's the tolerance of the non-origination of all things. That nothing comes into being separate and of itself. That everything has, so the second, do you all know the Four Noble Truths? Click over there. Four Noble Truths. The first is just that things are dukkha, that things are dissatisfactory, that there is suffering in the world. fact of suffering, but again it means this dissatisfactoriness of the way things are.

[65:17]

The second truth is what this is about in a way, that there is a cause for all things, or that there are conditions which lead to whatever situation there is. So things don't happen randomly, without reason, there's actually every action we take has some effect, every word we say has some effect. So it means that everything that happens has some cause, but what this teaching is saying is that we can't exactly trace that cause. There's not a single cause. It goes back to beginningless time. So the third truth is that there is an end to suffering or an end to dissatisfaction. And the fourth truth is the Eightfold Path, the way to live, such to live in a, to find, to realign ourselves with the way things are.

[66:17]

So anyway, and this particular teaching is just what they developed, what all the people in the assembly developed when they saw that the Buddhafield is actually this pure realm of jewels. and that it's only because of our own karma that we see. It's not that there aren't problems, but that we see them as problems is our own karma. So this is slippery, this is difficult. But to really be, what he's taught with the teaching here is real tolerance of the fact that we can't see how things are caused. Yes? Does Umberto Gassi translate the word tolerance to from the Chinese? Well, this goes back to Sanskrit, which is the source of this particular category I gave the Sanskrit for is a Sanskrit teaching, so it's how it was translated into Chinese, let's see what

[67:32]

What's this? That word doesn't sound neutral to me. It definitely sounds embracing or even accepting. There's a little bit of resistance, it sounds like, in the word tolerance. Certainly, I'm wondering why that was chosen. Well, that's the English word that's one... Yeah, that's the word that... Shows up in the other time. It's more like balance. We're in a very difficult situation. It's very difficult. And our challenge is to tolerate it. This is the world of endurance. Watson just says that they were able to grasp the truth of birthlessness. So he leaves out the patience part. So yeah, right. Thank you for... mentioning that. Yeah. So one of the, I forgot to mention this thing about the Buddha fields.

[68:34]

One aspect of it is that the Buddha field that we live in, that Shakyamuni, the Shakyamuni's Buddha field, it's technically known as endurance. The name for this world we live in is called endurance, the Saha world in Sanskrit. And that's because we need to develop patience, because it is a difficult place. So there's another teaching in some Mahayana texts, they talk about this Buddha field thing, and they talk about different, about pure and impure Buddha fields. So this is kind of a footnote to this part of the Malakirti Sutra about the toe-touching, that some Mahayana texts talk about pure Buddha fields, like the Amida's Pure Land, that many Asian Buddhists wish to enter. and that technically Shakyamuni's Buddhafield is an impure Buddhafield because the beings in it still see impurities. And actually the way it is is that there are lots of situations in this Buddha land which are very difficult.

[69:36]

And the virtue of this is that through developing our tolerance, patience, capacity, forbearance, steadfastness, there are various English words we might plug in there, we can develop qualities, spiritual qualities. So a lot of what the Bodhisattva teaching is about is how Bodhisattvas develop more and more deeply their awareness of, not just their awareness, but their embodiment of this truth, of this pure Buddha land. You said that we see problems as our karma. Is seeing problems karma itself? Because if you see problems, it's sort of dualistic. Not seeing problems might be karma too.

[70:38]

Yes. That's true. Isn't calling a problem a problem? Yeah, but calling it not a problem might be a problem too. So to see that everything is perfect just the way it is doesn't mean that we don't have to do something. So this is the point of calling this world endurance. We actually do need to practice. Now, how that fits into Vimalakirti we'll look at over the next four classes. Yeah, go ahead. Just sort of the idea of seeing the impurities or not seeing the impurities. It seems to me it's sort of like when you stop seeing the impurities and seeing everything as perfect just the way it is, but still we need to do something. So if we want to remove war, we have to stop going, oh my god, war is bad. This is horrible. This is terrible. We're like, well, this is just the way everything is. Let's just endure it. And war, for example, will cease to be part of our reality as we know.

[71:45]

So it's not... endurance doesn't mean that we... it means acceptance in a way, but part of the acceptance of things the way they are is that we need to act in response to the way things are. So part of the way things are is us. It's not that we're outside the way things are, looking at it as some... we are the jewels also, you know. So, this is kind of a subtle point. And how do we be in alignment with the way things are, such that who we are as part of the way things are, as part of the Buddha field, the Bodhisattva practice is about developing compassion. We've talked about wisdom a lot tonight, and the Vimalakirti Sutra emphasizes wisdom, but it doesn't make sense without the side of compassion. So what Vimalakirti does when he's out there going to the taverns and going to the stock exchange and going to the brothels and going to the, you know, hanging out everywhere, hanging out on Market Street, going to the homeless, he's helping beings.

[72:51]

So how do you help beings when you realize that they're an illusion? This is the koan of the Vimalakirti Sutra. So we are part of the illusion of impurity. So practicing in the world of endurance is to develop capacity to be present in a way that expresses Buddha nature, that expresses compassion and wisdom, right in the middle of the situation of precipices and thorns, and to see that the precipices and thorns are also jewels. So it's like Suzuki Roshi talking about weeds, and pulling up the weeds as our practice, and the mind weeds, and the thoughts that come up in zazen, and all of the difficulties that come up in zazen, we have to turn over, it becomes fertilizer for our practice. So this is the kind of Buddha field we live in. We live in this Buddha field where we actually have the possibility of doing this Bodhisattva practice, where we actually work together with all beings to help develop

[74:03]

how to help everybody awaken together, including all of the beings within us. So it's not like we're outside this stuff looking at it from some objective place. That don't exist. Right. Yeah. That's not what I was... Yeah. I wasn't saying that the objective... Sort of seeing that we are a part of it all. I don't know. I mean, I guess maybe this is getting too specific, but sort of realizing that our world is beautiful Right, that's right. So to help embody the beauty of this world is to make it more beautiful, is to give our energies and practice and devotion and wisdom and compassion to that enterprise. But how to do that is the point. And so what Vimalakirti does is he goes to all these great disciples and bodhisattvas and shows how they're a little off. The Malakirti is the one who can cut through all of it.

[75:04]

So I feel like I've covered a tremendous amount of stuff tonight, actually, and I've been trying to give an introduction to get to the magical part of the Malakirti, but we have to keep coming back to how tricky this emptiness is. The last part of what I was going to, maybe we'll start next time talking about the debate, actually the debate between Manjushri and Vimalakirti, which is a very famous Zen story. It's a wonderful story. Maybe we'll talk about it a little later, in the order that it comes in the sutra, a little bit later in the class. A lot of the drama of the sutra happens in the context of this debate between Manjushri and Vimalakirti, and what we're going to talk about next time is what happens when Manjushri goes to call on Vimalakirti. So one thing that happens is that Vimalakirti gives this teaching about his sickness, and Manjushri asks at length—this is in Chapter 5—well, how does a bodhisattva take care of another bodhisattva who's sick?

[76:17]

How does a bodhisattva console a bodhisattva who's sick? you know, sick, who's an invalid. And so the Malakirti basically uses his sickness as a teaching tool and talks about how he's sick because all beings are sick. And he's sick because of greed, hate, and delusion. And he's sick because of the greed, hate, and delusion of all beings. And so there's this wonderful passage about that. But then the other thing that happens, so as an introduction to this, when Manjushri decides he's going to go call on Vimalakirti, all these other disciples and bodhisattvas who didn't want to have anything to do with Vimalakirti themselves say, hey, that's going to be pretty interesting. And so this huge host of beings follow after Manjushri, wanting to observe this discussion that's going to happen.

[77:18]

So what I want to do in the rest of the classes is focus on particular parts of the sutra and really look at the text and go through it in more detail. I've been trying to do this huge whirlwind background introduction tonight. What happens is this huge number of disciples and bodhisattvas, and not only that but chakras, brahmas, lokapalas, gods and goddesses, All of these weird heavenly beings and beings from other dimensions and realms, all, you know, who've been observing, they all come and, you know, all these weird beings come to see when a Buddha's... Word got out, huh? When a Buddha's talking, they all come and... I'm sorry? Word got out. It definitely got out. So they were there when the Buddha was talking, but then when they hear that Manjushri's going to go talk with Vimalakirti, you know, they all go. And what happens, what I want to talk about, they all go to see, to watch this.

[78:21]

And I wanted to talk next time about Manjushri's room, because it's the kind of, it's the, it's real important in Zen, because it's kind of the model for the Dokson room. Yeah, Vimalakirti's room, thank you. So I'm gonna start, let me introduce that, and then I also want to talk about this stuff, about the individual little bit, so maybe we'll get to that. end here, maybe not. Hi. Sometimes there's reference to Baishali and sometimes to Lechave. What's the relationship between Baishali and Lechave? Baishali is the town and Lechave is, I forget, let's see. Yeah, it's kind of like the tribe that lives in Baishali. Thank you. Yeah. Okay, here Mr. Thurman has a name of the tribe and Republican city-state whose capital was Vaishali. So Lechave is kind of this little country, this little area.

[79:22]

So he is a Lechave, it's like he's a Californian and he lives in Mill Valley. In this chapter five, which we'll look at a little bit next week before we get to the main thing about the room, all of these beings follow after Manjushri. Meanwhile, the Malakirti thought to himself, Manjushri, the crown prince, is coming here with numerous attendants. Now, may this house be transformed into emptiness. Then magically, his house became empty. Even the doorkeeper disappeared. And except for the invalid's couch upon which Vimalakirti himself was lying, no bed or couch or seat could be seen anywhere. Then the Lakshavi Vimalakirti saw the crown prince Manjushri and addressed him thus, Manjushri, welcome, Manjushri. You are very welcome. There you are without any coming.

[80:25]

You appear without any seeing. You are heard without any hearing. Manjushri declared, householder, it is as you say. Who comes, finally comes not. Who goes, finally goes not. Why? Who comes is not known to come. Who goes is not known to go. Who appears is finally not to be seen. So the who who comes is not the who who we think it is. It's ultimately not this who. And then he asks about his sickness, but this, and I'll come back to that, and maybe we'll start with that next week. But Manjushree says, Householder, why is your house empty? Why have you no servants? Manjushri, all Buddha fields are also empty, Vimalakirti says. Manjushri says, what makes them empty? Vimalakirti said, they are empty because of emptiness. So here's Nagarjuna. Manjushri says, what is empty about emptiness? Vimalakirti says, constructions are empty because of emptiness.

[81:25]

Anyway, there's this long, very intricate Dharma debate that happens. And one of the other things that happens is that all these beings who have come to watch Manjushri and Vimalakirti can fit into this little room. So we're going to talk about this room next time, and we'll talk a little bit more about what it means that Vimalakirti is sick. So, other questions, comments? I think it's interesting that Shakyamuni Buddha really respects Vimalakirti, who goes into taverns and hangs out with prostitutes. You know, I mean, here his monks are so, you know, I mean, mendicants and stuff, but that he has this relationship with his lay persons. Interesting. So one of the things that I feel about Dvimalakirti is that he's also about talking about what is real religious practice and cutting through the trappings of the practice.

[82:31]

So he's, all of the all of the monks who have become so purified and are so devoted to their practice, he shows the ways in which they're not really extending their practice fully to all beings. And he's talking about what is it to really find practice for yourself, apart from the forms. So Vimalakirti is the one, the great Bodhisattva who does not take on the forms. He takes on the forms of the world and uses them as his dharma forms. So yeah, he was very popular in China because of this. Because in China, there's a historical part of this too, that in India there's this, till this day, there's this great model of spiritual practice of these wandering sadhus who go out and leave the world and practice austerities China, they were into, you know, home life and being, you know, government officials and poets and, you know, there was this whole model of being in the world, and Thimolakirti fit into this very well.

[83:43]

And Zen comes out of this, too, so it's very important to us. Any last comments? China had its own hermits, and you're just saying there's more meaning. the ideal of practicing in the world, which is really the direction of Mahayana practice, is to, if the philosophy is about nirvana is in samsara, is samsara, emptiness is form, that we actually practice in the world rather than trying to escape the world, then the logic of that is to practice as ordinary people. And actually, in a way, In terms of the history of Mahayana Buddhism, even the forms have moved in that direction. So in Japan we have, and in America we have married clergy, for example. There's not as much difference. And that's actually in accord with this kind of ideal of Amalakirti, to be in the world, not to be separate from the world. So we have places like Tassajara where one can go and actually take some time to deepen one's practice in that way, but then people come back from Tassajara and live

[84:54]

in the world in some way. So that's kind of the model that Vimalakirti kind of poses. So I think he's very important in a sense. Yeah, there's a contradiction. There are uses for it. So getting rid of all of the religious forms would be a kind of attachment to them too. There are uses for having places like Greenwich, obviously. But isn't the use in the end ultimately to make it so it's not necessary? Yes, right, when all the beings and all the homeless people in San Rafael and all the people in the inner city in San Francisco, when they're all awakened, yes, absolutely.

[85:56]

Then we won't need Green Gulch at all. Yes. No, no, no. This is what we're here for, actually. That's what Green Gulch is about. Zen Center will fulfill its role in the world when it's no longer necessary. You can just dissolve it. Well, it might not be necessary, it won't necessarily involve a mistake. Exactly, right. So we may as well be in Green Gulch doing these funny forms. And actually, that's the way it is already, but not everybody realizes it. So thank you all very much. Attention.

[86:37]

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