October 18th, 2001, Serial No. 00474, Side A

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you very much good night for for classes during this aspects of practice program
and ah
i've realized that we have two new denizens of the zendo i don't know if you've seen them up there on the author you should go check them out a mill brought back
two carved wooden
body suffers from ah
is china trip and stuff
samantha bhadra
riding an elephant on
the far side and the
bodhisattva of ah
ah strong practice and then manjushri
riding a lion on
the bodhisattva of
wisdom
ah
over here so you might want to check those out they seem seem to fit space three nice
i'm
one
also matter of small business and i'd like to do
ah
i'd like to circulate this evaluation forms and it would be really helpful if you can fill one out and put it back in my box and you can sign it or not it doesn't matter but they'll just help us
we use the feedback
as we're trying to evaluate
how this aspects of practice period worked
procreate that you can do it any time over the next couple of days
ah and also to say that tomorrow evening
ah friday afternoon zazen
we'll have a very small ah
kind of closing of of this period and will have zazen as usual and and service at the end of service will i think we'll dedicate the merit of the practice that we've been doing for this
last four months and bow to each other for four weeks and bow to each other and
close it and then continue
with our strong practice again the next morning
with a session
so the practices continuance
anyhow what we've been doing
in these classes has been to
try to touch on some
fundamentals and some issues ah
and things that people might have questions and want to talk about and it's interesting we've been working ah
i realized the other day we set of and working backwards chronologically in a few have take a certain his talk have you restarted with suzuki roshi and then ah we went to ah
kind of teacher student relationships ah which touched some the lineage and then raul went further back in the lineage new zen lineage last week and now i'm gonna go further back and talk about
the heart sutra
for this class
the heart sutra is something that we chant
every day it's chanted everyday in zen centres this is very in in temples is just very traditional coming out of the chinese and japanese ah ways of practice and often where were encouraged just to chat
did not necessarily to think about it but just to put your whole energy into the chat
and
it's a very it's an interesting texts because it functions on a on an intellectual level
but it also functions as an incantation
and as a in the end of it has this mantra that we don't translate ah but it's actually the whole thing
is a mantra
it's taken has one piece
when did any view you know the story of a monkey of going of swansong who are chinese market went to india and then came back with
just hundreds of mahayana and caravan attacks mostly mahayana texts anyway
the story the legend of monkey
is kind of the story of the protectors of his travels but he was actually real historical being and as a story goes when he was traveling through the gobi desert
he chanted the heart sutra continuously
to protect him from storms and hardships and bandits and he didn't just chant the mantra he chanted the whole thing
ah and we do it kinda on every occasion we have a wedding which shared the heart sutra you know if somebody dies we chant the heart sutra
it's it's one of our just kind of mainstay
ritual items
and so i said
talk a little about the contra where comes from in the content of it and then maybe have a discussion
exploring some of what it's about
ah seeing what you think would i think
and kind of opened it up a bit ah
with the idea of being able
when it's opened up a bit maybe we can put more of our hard in the heart sutra as we're doing it ah yeah there's no
it's not necessary
just to chanted without understanding there's no mere no points for that
you know so understanding that i think is is helpful
anyway in sanskrit word sutra means i'm going to say a little about the the content of it in in ah
probably throw a lot of stuff like you in a short amount of time and you know unsafe sex throwing stuff against the wall some of it will stick and some of will fall fold-down don't worry about it
but
whatever needs to stable stay
incense with the word sutra means or string or thread
and some suture was a sort of a garland of of sayings or words
the or practices that are strung together this is something
they actually predates buddhism the in the romantic tradition they also had sutras and you find suitors in in many of the the indian traditions harm
the sermons or the sutras of the buddha's are
estimated it to be about eighty four thousand i think that's just a big number
like one hundred and eight
and they're connected they're they're collected in a the sutra basket the sutra peterka of the tribeca you have the sutra peterka sutra basket the vinaya which is the monastic rules and then this very ah
lindsay and dense a material called ib done which is a commentary
and then these were collected into
volumes and we've got actually bunch of them in the library
and you should read them
yoga sutras were assembled at the time was the first buddhist council which immediately followed the buddha's death some wherein four eighty five hundred bc
and at that time ananda
i was asked to come to the council ah and recite called the words of buddha he had repeatedly a photographic memory and new all of the words of the buddha
my heart ah
although it's interesting he had to be invited in because unlike all of the other
four hundred and ninety nine our hearts he was not an r hot he had not actually
attained enlightenment but he still had this really terrific memory you know he he had it all in there and so they it's what they did instead of tape recorders in those days they just brought and to everywhere
but be that as a way the heart sutra itself as probably composed somewhere between a hundred and fifty one fifty and and three fifty a d
and it's crossed the costs related to there's a whole literature that of that evolved at that time called the pressure power meter literature
and if you read there's the you know there's the project upon me to the
in in eight thousand lines which some viewers may have read ah
and then there are other a
more or less elaborate formulations there's eight thousand ten thousand eighteen thousand all the way up to one hundred thousand lines ah and
according to tibetan scholars all of these persian army the sutures were
spoken simultaneously
ah so that's an interesting to to imagine and there's also
the perfect wisdom in one line which is just the syllable ha
and ah that has the that has it all cyst
tell you need to know
but the version that
we have
ha
the rise from
the chinese translation chinese translation the indian texts by
probably a kumar jiva in maybe the fifth century i know also was a translation done by swansong when he came back in the early seventh century and then it got translating it to dry into japanese
ah and
that's what's been handed to us new various translations that
we've been using i think the one that we use is probably pretty close to one it was done by edward kanzi in the fifties is that said right better
david
okay are

when i first came to a brick is and center
ha
in the late sixties
there was a really long before i had any dedication to practice but i had a certain calling
i remember lining up for service in the attic of way
and we chanted this
strange rhythmic syllables in japanese
ha and a kind of light
the chanting
but the whole notion of what we're doing was a was not comfortable to me
it reminded me very much of and of jewish liturgy that
i had when i was growing up were there was something in it that called to me something
rhythmic something about just the sound of it
and yet the the meaning was never
are disclosed and that was not
she was not something i was comfortable with
ah thank now actually have very different feeling about it we chanted in english so i know what the english words are ah
and i live
chanting and in japanese
ah just feeling the the so the syllables and in the rhythm and the voices together
rumbling through my body
i really i enjoy that
a tomatoes
it has a more compelling flavor actually than the than the english but i'm glad to know the english
ah
so he could that's part of the
this again we relate to the devotional side this side of the heart sutra that is just this incantation
ah
and we do it
beyond our understanding we do it beyond whether we exactly like it or not ah and we do it beyond
or even the doubts that we may have
and i think that's as good with which
that mail is communicated to us
is which we we face the the heart sutra

so want to talk about what is in this sutra hum
he goes through a blockchain you know i'd like to do first is chanted
ha
you can hit up the chapbooks fruit for those people who need one

played with them with the hearts
due to
ah
really sad when practice a day
by me to see that all fires got those in there are no empty to say some are safely no side putra does not deserve an emptiness emptiness that is not differ from
the which is found as emptiness that rages emptiness or same is true the ravens perceptions formations variations consciousness child who dramas are marked with them did his who do not appear or disappear
the latitude know if you're a dude i will increase nor degrees
emptiness no no feelings perceptions of formations the gouges this
is no no no time and nobody though my no knows thou knowest now a days no doubt no object my
the rise and
oh my god yes no
and are no extinction i read and
age and death zone or extinction are the those every know region asia those that they know that though cognition also know attainment not nothing to obtain bodies that by depends on
and the mind is no remains without any hindrance no theories exist apart from every early view on dwellers in nirvana natsumi roads on but as the can dan brown
meta and the trade on the bass complete perfect enlightenment
know that the
the meat is that way trends and in mundra is the gay pride in bandra
most mantra is the subway map address it is able to relieve suffering and is too loud fast okay
in that
amit mom
proclaim
the mantra that says god
ah
that the very ah

who invokes his ah
him to emptiness in the middle of all the things that are going on in this world
the sirens
the emergencies the sorrows and joys
and i actually just realized this we were chanting it it ends on ah
odc baja
and with that are we just let everything go

citing of this
text is kind of it's like a crash course and mahayana buddhism
i cannot objects tell you about some what's in here and really stop me if you have questions if i'm going to faster but i'm saying doesn't make sense hum
so we called the great wisdom beyond wisdom heart sutra or maha prisoner by meta retire sutra
which may be little more accurately translate says that
the great wisdom gone beyond power meter gone beyond
a heart sutra and that gone beyond also echoes the the got a got day at at the end ha and so did the title hechos that mantra to some extent
and it begins in woking are located by our bodhisattva ah
a of loki dish bar is a
one who sees the suffering of the world i in japanese and chinese as can or quanyan and one who hears the suffering of the world the world in bedded in the name
ah
i think far is perceives and loca
is the word for world it's the sanskrit word word for world
can i always think about as talking with lori i think about
that image of have loki dish fire ah
cuz perceives the world and looks around
so ah attentively and so passionately that are head splits into eleven step right
ah and so there these images of of located fire with
hence in each faces in each direction so that she can be completely attentive
huh it's also it's interesting that in the whole a power meter literature there's there's a couple things that makes this project permitted text really special ah
and the first thing is that in the whole parch apart meet literature this is the only appearance of of a low-key dish borrow
which is you know it's unusual she's invoked for a reason here and
the the project power meter literature is very far out but it also tends to be a very intellectual and here even though there's an intellectual framework
it's not essentially with this text is about
ah so other kitaj fire when practicing deeply the prize near power meta so that's the power meter of
of understanding of wisdom
power meter that by me to we generally translate is perfection
ah but it's just sort of the going beyond
and so it's the ah
ah
it's the going beyond its the understanding that goes beyond our ordinary understanding it goes to the heart of things it ceased things as they are
how we practice of
in we talk about their their six power meters of which project is kind of the the final one is a quick the climate of generosity or donna of morality sheila
have patience shanty
effort via
meditation jonna and then project which is the summation of all of them
saburo dish fire practices deeply the project by meta and perceives that all five scandals in their own being are empty so the sky does how are the kind of
aggregates are heaps that out of which we fashion being ah and their uniform feelings perceptions formations consciousness which are invoked later in this text in
all of our lives are made up of justice scandals which themselves are fluid and changing
ah so our akita's five perceives that all five scanned is in their own being are empty and was saved from all suffering
ah empty is obviously the key word for this whole text and this is what i want to come back and
talk about but ah
the room for empty
that we translate his abuse his junior outta
emptiness or empty is
maybe it's just a kind of
a provisional translation it's not a real good one
and because in english when we think an empty we think of just
kind of
ah zero
lack of something
but that's not what's implied here
in fact what's interesting as at the root
of this word
shunyata
actually there's some it's connected in some way to ah
the notion of something being ah
swollen or swelling almost i thought about it as almost pregnant
so it's not just ah devoid
of ah
what's not devoid of format will get to but it's a it's more pointing towards something else so to think of it has has swollen or as pregnant used to think of it as ah
related to becoming to this constant unfolding
rather than to ah
some
nihilistic proposition which is what
that's way they sometimes try to characterize buddhism from the outside as as nihilistic and one can sort of understand that from ah
you know as we go on and text because this text involves a tremendous number of negations
sorry we perceive that all five scandals in your own being are empty and was saved from all suffering
o'shea putra form does not differ from emptiness
now shy putra is one of the our hearts and is usually
the described as the ah hot who was
unsurpassed in wisdom ah you know i just have the perfect student of abi dharma of interpretation ah
and but here ah
it's his kind of a foil
his kind of like he's not hot which is very nice and we respect them you know but isn't quite get it you know that's why avalokiteshvara has to cana set him straight
you know he's understanding is very good but it only goes so far so this is part of the ah
this kind of far
my yada hinayana ah a dialectic attention that
you often see in prickly in his early my on texts ah you don't see so much in the i still stuck in a take them bottle with that bad huh
here sharing putra is or
you know he's the person who's who's getting has understanding straightened out and o'shea putra form does not differ from emptiness emptiness does not differ from form
that which is form is emptiness that which is emptiness form
ah and will come back to that
ah saying
ah
he saying some important things about the nature of reality ah and it's very slippery it's hard for us to we it's time for us to get our minds around it conceptually
but the whole form of this text is ah
advising us
urging us not to get our minds not to try to get our minds around it conceptually can be done but just to do this you know just to chant this just to to practice it and realize it directly
ah so the average is a penis damages form is emptiness that which is emptiness form the same is true of feelings perceptions formations consciousness set means emptiness his feelings emptiness is perceptions appurtenances format
oceans emptiness consciousness so their forms feelings perceptions formations consciousness you have the five skylanders kind of spelled out
oh putra put your all dharmas are marked with emptiness they do not appear nor disappear are notated nor pure do not increase nor decrease
here we have our
the beginning of this whole series of negations on and in this case ah
pavlo kitaj bar is talking about
through the conventional hobby dharmic view of the dharmas if any of you have studied hobby dharma
you know abu dhabi is just kind of it goes categorically through
the dorm is which are through the constituents of her being of consciousness
they're the elements through its kind of like a
a really very thorough going early psychological system
and they're are wholesome dorm as an unwholesome dharmas and neutral dharmas their dharmas of mine dharmas a form of they're categorized in all of these ways and interrelate in complex ways and the way they talked about what you really get into this you know their top
oct about you begin to think all these are real you recognize them actually you can begin to recognize them as as states of mind as as states of body
you recognize him in yourself ha and is a certain
feeling that they are real
because you recognize them and because the way they're put there there's sort of construed as a as as elements
you know as like ah
ha
adams have some primal material ah and
what he's saying erasing the marked with emptiness ah is that they're actually interdependent that these atoms are composed of a
interacting subatomic particles and these subatomic particles and these atoms themselves are interacting with each other and in that sense
that's some of the sense of what empty this means the autumn as are marked with emptiness they do not appear or disappear corner tainted new a purer do not increase very good decrease
therefore an emptiness no form no feelings no perceptions know formations no consciousness so that's no scanned us and then he goes on no eyes no ears no knows no tongue nobody
the no mind
the color serves as a
those are the senses the six senses eyes ears nose tongue body
touch and mind as consciousness or and then ah no color no sound no smell no taste no touch no object of mind so those are the
those are the objects
of ah
of the senses
so you have
you have the the senses
the organs of senses and the objects of those senses and then you have no realm of eyes until the realm of mine consciousness which are the the consciousness is that relate to all those senses so this is
very standard rb dharma you have the
the twelve a in which are the six senses in the sixth objects and then you have the eighteen tattoos or realms which are ah
each other since fields plus the six consciousness consciousness is so
all of them are negated here in as in a sense
ah
but it's not that they don't exist it's that they don't exist
of their own
ah in their own being ah
all five scandals in their own being are empty which doesn't mean that all five scandals don't exist it means that they have no independent existence that i have no independent existence you have no independent existence we are all
the in the interdependent action of
so many countless things including each other
so i think that's part of what's at the at the heart of this
these negations nikos on know ignorance and also know extinction of it
until no old age and death and also know extinction of it in in other texts in it's translated as know ignorance or
hendo extinction of it and so on until no old age and death
ah the negation of the twelve fold chain of causation
which goes around from ignorance to old age and death and back to burst ah and the action of clinging ah
is are clinging to
our sense of self
brings the suffering that drives us around this wheel again and again so good it's a negating that and then why were added less negate the four noble truths so no suffering no origination of suffering those stopping of suffering
and no path to the end of suffering
let's be very thorough ah
and then what we're talking about the path we may as well negate and there's no cognition or insight and there's no attainment with nothing to attain
ah a bodhisattva depends on pricing up our meta
and depending on project up our meta
the mind is no hindrance
ah without any hindrance no fears exist
so this is another key point where of loki dish why is really giving is not just this notion of emptiness
but the gift of non fear
which is something that
ah
we all really need
ha
so the hindrances com
our mail has lectured about them and the number of us electorate about them
notice after demands on pressure pupae me to end the mind is no hindrance and then without any hindrance no fears exist so that means that your freed if you'd rare and pressure up our meta if you see into the tonight nature of things in your free from the
these hindrances or soft coverings sensuous desire ill will slice or torbert restlessness and worry skeptical doubt
and you're also free from fear and those fears of course they belong to there's not a list of them traditionally a fear of death fear of pain
to fear of the loss of your reputation
fear of loss of livelihood
and last on which is pretty interesting is fear of speaking in public
is true
so you're you're free from your free from all these fears
and i guess you can go out and speak in public
far apart from every perverted view
one dwells in nirvana
so these perverted views are doing as permanent
what is not
ah
feeling as
desirous or as is full
in what is bound up with suffering
viewing has suffered in what has no self
and finally delight in what is repulsive
which i see probably means your body
so in the three worlds
all buddhas depend on pressure per meter ah and those worlds are the words of desire the worlds of form and the formless world it's also translated as
the three times which just be past present and future
so industry rewards are buddhists depend on pressure upon meta and attain unsurpassed complete perfect enlightenment that's the goal freedom freedom from fear
freedom to be completely oneself
therefore no the pressure primate is the great trend the up our meta is the great transcendent mantra
ah is the great bright mantra she's the utmost mantra is the supreme mantra which is able to relieve all suffering and is true not false so it's saying in this language is that the project upon me to itself is the mantra that in my
mantra is ah his a sound
it's a liberating sound but it said
seeing into reality
is this sound that this sound that frees us all i think in yeah it brings to mind are you know
the profits in in the earlier in the early biblical era the profits or heard god speak directly and in that sound
ah were free in this case there's not a deity involved
ha
although pressure per meter
it's also a that being on the altar the mother of the buddhists sir she gives birth
two awakening and i think we're like about this is a what
what gives birth is the sound the sound of this mantra the sound a project or a meta ah
a self proclaimed the pressure upon meet mantra proclaim the mantra that says gotti gotti paula de day some got de bodi spot which
translates as in a couple ways as
gone gone gone beyond completely gone both perfect enlightenment or
crossing oneself
ha
which is the hinayana view crossing for others which is the mahayana view
crossing to nevada the other shore
which is just transcending
altogether completely transcending everything expressing
it's enlightened nature
actually my favorite translation of this i'm trying to get the exact wording i just remember it in part when i remember the end of my favorite translation us from the from phil whalen poet and he didn't do that he didn't translate the whole sutra but he translated the gotta and it's something like
egg
god really gone beyond gone totally gone oh mama
accessible like that that can see something else entirely
i'm
so
ah
so that's some of what's in here in in a really quick way how and so maybe that loomis
ha
yeah cause i also ah and
yes
right where i think has been emotion generally to to do more for chanting in english in a language where people understand it and you know some was like that some was don't like it get we have some factions here ah
but i'm not gonna share my view
when i'm curious is coming from los angeles we get an english version arts you check on you'll say yeah and yet here we don't use it
instrument we used to do that when i first came here we used the mercutio and we chanted like a bolo de de barra de da da went back is being deeply the
read and sounds like was just like it was japanese and at a certain point mail said you know he just didn't like it you know and so then we did it with academic audio and moves to r borrow e g days by but and he said will want we tried
in ah
know in phrases and clauses and take our breaths where the natural natural punctuation breaks are and so that's you know that's how that's how it sort of evolved here but it seems like the thrust of that era is
for as well well it it does but i think it seemed it to him and i kind of agree that it doesn't japanese but an english and when a champion in english how we may as well understand it you know we music english has its own rhythms
yeah are located by bodhisattva when practicing deeply the prajna power meter received at all five candace so it has you know it's
it's actually of this is terrible
it's actually like what frank sinatra did good popular music which was instead of putting it into metrical units to having the breaths for with the meaning and so that's what hiding that's what mills idea
was to to have to take the breads where where the roger
breathing places are in in the line
the
right he did it his way
atlanta
earlier on and you spoke about
the heart sutra and sound as an incantation parts
show and
well i went to say more about them about the mysterious sound that's sort of beyond
mean that's the other unusual thing about this about this sutra
in the two things that are unique in the persian empire me to literature is one that otro broke to abuse her and to that there's a mantra at all
because they are not muslims in the persian part me to literature on and this is one thing this
really wonderful article in one of the one of these books by d t suzuki about this where he says this is what's really unique about
about this as a liturgical ah peace and i think that the sound is really
that's i wanted to hear what people said i find the sound of this all kinds of emotion that arises on the sound and to do it wholeheartedly for that moment or the moment after feels really freeing it's a really good when we
when we were chanting it earlier this evening
the chanting was really strong and ha
it was very hard to speak
after that you know it was like ha
you felt like what we chanted okay we can go home now
you know ah but we have to speak we have to go on with what we do but this is i think this is the power of chanting ah and
that these
some of these texts have a power i really believe the and despite a devotional side as well so i some people like this stuff and some people don't ah
and some of us have mixed relationship to the devotional tradition
but ah
it's around in ourselves is just giving ourselves up to something that is outside of and larger than ourselves and it's something that we do together also which is one of the unique wonderful things about this and traditions that we practice in this room
we practiced together
you know we can't practice at home by and we can practice by ourselves but our habit or you know the usual thing is to come here and do this all together in the same thing is true with chanting and in that chanted and sang together we are
while allowing and opening to something
larger and outside ourselves
one more question pm about the other side
nerds
so we chant together and
there is an awareness of connection interconnection
check their hands language explains emptiness from the side of interconnection injuries that song
it's a wonderful explanation
as far as goes
but the but the others the it's not a other side maybe the other side's reflect
not warm and fuzzy feelings about been together right but being completely alone
answer this tree is that in fact that the awesome is that
and how how does a so how does the heart sutra
a point to or or that fist that's it
slightly chilly less popular say empties i think it does that in in the negations
you know because it's taking away every prop
that we have every easy
every concept every way that we have of habitually
plugging into something plugging into a system of thought plugging into a practice and it's saying you know we we do this together but actually each person is also doing is completely independently
but that independence's were never completely alone
you know because we're always made up of these non self were made up of non-self elements and yet we have to use our effort
to bring the sound force
you know no one can speak through our voice ah and no one can attain realization for you this work has to be done by you buy one but it's something that one does also
even if one is in a cave that one is doing in relationship to the universe and the universe is is helping you by giving you a body by providing substances that are that feed us and you yourself have to give that boy
back and that's the bodhisattvas
effort is to is to get backpack is that to speak to a bit is good was time to and thank you very much
we'll see you tomorrow evening if you can make it