Good morning and welcome, everyone. I want to follow up on the talks I've been giving some of the time the last few months about early Japanese Buddhism before Dogen, the founder of our branch of Buddhism called Soto Zen. So for new people, Dogen brought from China to Japan, the lineage of Soto Zen, Saodong in Chinese. Dogen lived 1200 to 1253. And we talk often about his many writings. And he lived in what's called the Kamakura period of Japanese Buddhism, from roughly 1185 to mid-1300s.

[01:01]

But I want to talk today about Myoe, who was a monk, contemporary but older than Dogen, one of the most fascinating, colorful figures in the Kamakura period, who lived 1173 to 1232. Material from early Japanese Buddhism is rarely spoken about in American Zen. We talk often about the background of Buddhism from India and a lot from China. Dogen talks often about the koans or teaching stories from China. And we talk about the important teachers from China. But the background of Japanese Buddhism before Dogen is also very important, is influential to Dogen, and is a background for our practice as well.

[02:12]

So Myoe, a very colorful figure I want to talk about today, and again, maybe next week, lived from 1173 to 1232. He was both a monk in the Kegon and Shingon schools. So the Kegon school, that's the Japanese word for the Huayen school in China. and there will not be a test, but the Huayen school, in some ways, is the most developed of the Mahayana schools of Buddhism, philosophically. Very profound school of talking about the dialectics of Buddhist philosophy, foundational to Japanese, to Soto philosophy, and to all of Zen philosophy. And it's based on the Avatamsaka Sutra, the Flower Ornament Sutra, which is this massive psychedelic sutra, best word for it, flowery sutra, 1,600 pages in Thomas Cleary's translation.

[03:27]

And this Flower Ornament Sutra is said to be what Shakyamuni Buddha spoke right after his awakening and was too difficult for anybody to really follow. So he gave that up and talked about the Four Noble Truths and other things. I think our head Dilan and our work leader Jason are going to be starting a reading group, reading aloud the whole sutra in a month or so. So stay tuned for that. Anyway. Miyoe was a monk from the Kegon school, but also from the Shingon school in Japan, which is the Japanese Vajrayana or Tantric school of Buddhism. Similar in many ways to Tibetan Buddhism, although a kind of earlier version, and very important to the background of all of Japanese Buddhism.

[04:30]

So I'm going to return to talking about the significance of both the Kegon and Shingon school for Myoe's importance. But Myoe is very important as a background to Kamakura Buddhism. And so I'm getting into some of the history here. Again, in some ways, a background to our own practice. Myoe served as a model of a devotional monk in Kamakura period. His main temple, Kozanji, is in the mountains northwest of Kyoto, which I had a chance to visit when I lived in Kyoto in the early 90s. He also would walk down, I don't know how many miles it is, but it's quite a ways, to Toji, which is another Shingon temple. In the southern part of Kyoto, it has the biggest pagoda in Japan.

[05:34]

Dave, did you get to Toji? Yeah. It has beautiful statues of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and guardian figures built by the founder of Shingon, Kukai, or Kobo Daishi, and this huge pagoda. Myohei also spent time in Koyasan, Mount Koya, the center of Shingon Buddhism, south of Nara, quite a ways away from Kyoto, but south of Kyoto, which Dave also visited in his recent trip. Really a beautiful, one of the beautiful sacred mountains of Japan. I don't know, David, if you've visited there too when you were in Japan. So, anyway, at Kozan-ji, speaking of Myo-e's devotional practice and inspirational practice, his main temple northwest of Kyoto, Myo-e used to sit on

[06:44]

A rope seat, he called it, a rope seat up in a pine called the rope seat tree. There's a picture of him, a famous picture of him, I don't know if you can see it in the back, sitting up in a tree. So he would do Zazen up in a tree near his temple. sat on a boulder near there, which is called the Meditation Rock, Joshin-seki, which is sort of named after and based on the rock that Shuto, or Sekito, sat on And in China, Chateau is the writer of a couple of the chants we do, the Harmony of Differences, Sameness, and the Song of the Grass Hut.

[07:53]

And his name literally means on the rock. He had a big temple, a training monastery, but he also sat on this big rock that was near the temple. Anyway, so there's this cute picture of Miao Wei sitting up in this tree. And there's this poem that he wrote about sitting up in this tree. One day in the first month of the year when the snow was falling, he was practicing meditation, zazen, for a short time when the wind violently, when the wind blew violently through the pine tree gathering up the hail which had collected on his black-dyed sleeves, he stood upright on the rock and composed the following verse, comparing the hailstones on his robe to the wondrous jewels and the folds of the garment in the Lotus Sutra, the jewels that had been sewed into the robe as part of the Lotus Sutra, which we talked about.

[09:08]

So they're sewed into the robe of a visitor by a host, Anyway, it's a part of the Lotus Sutra, the poem that Yoer wrote. On black-dyed sleeves here in the boulders, moss beneath the pine, hail a string of white jewels. So he turned this incident of this hail falling on his robe to an example of something from the Lotus Sutra, one of our important scriptures. There are many other examples of Myo-e's great devotion to practice and to Buddhism. One interesting story, as a young monk, to show his devotion to the Buddha, Miao Lei cut off his ear like Vincent van Gogh. He thought that shaving his head wasn't enough.

[10:09]

At first he thought about cutting off his nose, but then he thought that he would drip on the sutras, scriptures he was studying, so he decided not to do that. But he thought if he cut off his ear, he could still hear them. the lectures, and you could hear the birds sing. So anyway, that's just one part of, he felt like the monks in his day weren't sincere enough, so he wanted to do something to prove his sincerity. Myo is also famous for a couple times trying to make a pilgrimage to India, because he wanted to visit Shakyamuni Buddha's home. where the Buddha was awakened. So this would have been a huge journey. There's no record of any Japanese person historically visiting India before modern times. So twice he tried to plan this.

[11:13]

And actually, in the understanding they had back then, of geography. It was much further away than what we understand now. But there were Japanese monks at different times who went to China, and that was already a very dangerous trip. But Myōe wanted to go to India. So there's a very colorful story about this. He made plans in the winter of 1202 and 1203, and then he went to Nara, to the Kasuga Shrine. to get advice from the Shinto spirit there, for whom he had a special affinity. And the story goes, on the way to the shrine, there were 60 deer who bowed to the ground or bent at their knees to pay homage to him. So there's a lot of the stories about Myohe that maybe not historical, but are hagiographical.

[12:15]

But the story about Kasuga Shrine, I don't know if you got to that, Dave. Yeah, it's right next to Todai-ji, which is a huge Kagon flower ornament sutra temple, which has the largest Buddhist statue. largest bronze statue in the world. It's this huge, beautiful statue, but it's huge. It's like, I don't know the total height, but I know its ears are eight feet long. Yeah, so all these curls on Buddha's head in regular iconography, even on this Buddha. And each one is the size of a Buddha's head, yeah. So it's a huge statue. It's a beautiful statue. Anyway, that's at the Todai-ji Kegon Temple, which is right near the Kasuga Shrine, which is this important Shinto shrine right next to it. And there are deer still wandering around all over the place. So anyway, he went to the Kasuga Shrine, the story goes,

[13:20]

get advice about how to go to India to see the Shinto deity there. And he asked for a sign. And one of the priestesses of the Shinto shrine there, actually, according to some stories, this woman was a kind of cousin of Nyoe's. But anyway, she suddenly leaped up onto a beam high up in the hall of the Kasuga shrine. sat there and spent three days answering all of Mioe's questions about the Kegon, or Flower Ornament Sutra. And the fragrance came from her mouth as she spoke. This is the story. And she basically persuaded him, no, please do not go to India, that the Buddha is right here in Japan. So this has a significance in terms of Well, I think in terms of our practice too, but in terms of how Japanese Buddhism often connected the native Japanese, Shinto is a kind of word that's used to describe native Japanese spirituality, and there are many

[14:44]

native Japanese spirits called kami. Sometimes that's translated as gods, but it's a terrible translation. They're powerful Japanese spirits. And in the course of Japanese history, after Buddhism came, these kami became associated with particular Buddhists and bodhisattvas. So there was this understanding of the Japanese native spirits as being manifestations of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas that originally came from India. And this incident that happened at the Kasuga Shrine, there's a very famous Noh play that's about this story by the great Noh play, one of the great founders of the Noh theater, Zayami, a little later on. It's actually a good thing that that Miao did not go to India. I mean, it probably would have been very difficult because it was a little before this that Turkish Muslim invaders basically wiped out all of Buddhism in India.

[16:00]

And it has been revived in the second half of the 20th century, so there is Buddhism in India now. Anyway, excuse me. But this intense, I mean, he had this intense feeling of wanting to go to see where the Buddha had lived, to see where the Buddha was awakened. So there are other aspects of Miao Wei's life that are very, very interesting. One of them is that he kept a dream journal for about 40 years. It's kind of very self-reflective. He includes interpretations of his dreams. And he included, along with the dreams he had at night, many visions he had during meditation.

[17:03]

So they didn't, in medieval Japan, dreams were very important. And they didn't make a distinction so much between sleeping dreams and visions that appear in zazen, in meditation, which some of you may have experienced. Many of the dreams in Myohe's dream journal included Buddhist figures, guardian figures, bodhisattvas, even Buddhas. But this... This dream journal is now very much appreciated by modern Western psychologists, especially Jungian psychologists. It's one of the first really, historically, one of the very first intentional and reflective dream journals in history. And I'll read a little bit of it later, maybe next weekend, maybe a week from tomorrow I'll talk more about this.

[18:07]

But the role of visions and of dreams in medieval Japanese Buddhism is very important. So what I want to focus on today, though, is Mioe's context in terms of the context of Kamakura period Buddhism. So Miue represented these older schools. Again, there's not going to be a test, but Kagon school. These were schools that were traditional in Japan. They all came from China. Everything in Japanese Buddhism came from China, but they had developed in Japan. very much before this period. So the Flower Ornamentry Kagon School and the Shingon or Vajrayana School were important among the early schools of Japanese Buddhism. But during the Kamakura period, again, starting with this, there was a huge civil war in 1185, a very important event in Japanese history.

[19:12]

And then during the 1200s, there were several important new schools that developed. And they are still the main schools of Buddhism in Japan today. So one of the things that was happening then is that they had an understanding that that was the age of, in Japanese, mapo, the final age of dharma. And many people, not Zen people and not Dogen so much, Other Buddhists believed that this was the final time of Dharma, the final age of Dharma, and that true enlightenment and true practice was not possible. So these Kamakura period schools tried to find simpler practices that people could do that would be helpful. And in terms of the histories of this period and the histories of Japanese Buddhism,

[20:16]

These schools are often described as specializing in one practice, some easier practice, rather than the whole range of practices that were part of Kegon School and the Shingon School and other earlier schools. So some of the main schools, the Pure Land School was founded by Honan and later Shinran founded a branch of it called Jodo Shinshu. And there were other branches too. The Pure Land School, And not to get into too much detail, but they believed in chanting the name of Amida Buddha. It's called Nembutsu, chanting Nama Amida Buddha. And they believed that if you just did that, that you would be reborn in Amida's pure land. And there were other versions of it, that that would help to see the pure land, even in this life, Shinran believed. So that was a, that's still, that's probably the largest school of Buddhism in Japan today, Pure Land School, Jodo Shinsu School.

[21:26]

But that was a very important school in Myohe's time. Later, after Dogen, there was the Nichiren School, which focused on chanting the name of Lotus Sutra, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. So both of those schools are, Pure Land School and the Nichiren School, are part of American Buddhism now. Then there were the Zen schools. And the simplistic version of this in the Japanese Buddhist history books say that Soto Zen focused on just sitting, on zazen, this practice that we've just been doing. And Rinzai Zen, the other main branch of Zen, focused on koans, these teaching stories that in Rinzai Zen sometimes seem to be described as riddles that you have to solve and pass through a curriculum of. That's very simplistic, not true. Soto, as you know if you've been here a while, includes koans, includes these teaching stories. Dogen commented on them and was a master of them.

[22:29]

But also it does focus on this Zazen sitting. Rinzai Zen also, while it focuses on koans, also focuses on Soto Zen. So I would say that Zen is not really one of those schools that specializes in one practice. Anyway, that's background for talking about Mioe's role in all of this. So Myohe again represented these traditional older Mahayana schools. Mahayana is the school, the greater vehicle school, the school of the branch of Buddhism in North Asia, Tibet, China, Korea, Vietnam, Japan, that follows the Bodhisattva idea, the idea of universal awakening. We've talked here about the Lotus Sutra, which sees various practices as skillful means to awakening for all beings.

[23:30]

So Myo-e, at some point, started strongly attacking Honen, the founder of Pure Land. And actually, Honen had teachings that he shared with his disciples, that you didn't need to follow any of the rest of Buddhism, just chant Namo Amida Buddha. And those teachings from Honen were not published until after he died. So Honen was also kind of a model monk in some ways himself. But he actually taught that you only needed to chant Namo Amida Buddha. And when Myohe heard that, he was very upset. And he talked about, the whole range of Buddhism being important and all the different teachings. And again, talking from the background of his own... So again, remember, he was a monk in two different schools.

[24:38]

And later on in Japanese Buddhism, there was a lot of sectarianism and rivalry between different schools. And to some extent, you can see that some places in American Buddhism where they think this is the right school. You hear that sometimes in American Buddhism. But I think this is relevant to modern Western Buddhism in a lot of ways, what Miao Wei was saying, that he He talked about skillful means and the Lotus Sutra, even though he wasn't a Tendai monk. Tendai was the older school. So again, I'm giving some historical background. There's not going to be a test. But Tendai was one of the other older schools besides Kegon and Chingon that emphasized the Lotus Sutra and all the different practices, all the different teachings of the Buddha, and all the different teachings of Bodhisattva practice.

[25:39]

were helpful practices to help develop bodhisattva practice, to help awaken different kinds of beings. So Nyoe emphasized that very much. And I think this is relevant to our practice, modern Soto Zen, for the most part. So I'll speak for Ancient Dragon Zen Gate, that we follow this lineage of Soto Zen and the teachings of Dogen and Suzuki Roshi, who brought this lineage to California in the 60s. But we also learn from all the branches of Buddhism, and we study the background. And I really appreciate this sangha because many of the people here, not everyone, but many of the people here have backgrounds from other lineages and other teachers and other spiritual traditions even, martial arts and some Christian traditions. And I think that's very helpful.

[26:41]

So in the spirit of Miohe, to study all spiritual traditions, all branches of Buddhism, to not be dogmatic about one particular approach, but to include many perspectives is, I think, very helpful. And Miohe himself talked about this in terms of a particular teaching. So he emphasized, in Japanese, arubekiyo. He said that what he emphasizes is that which is appropriate for a particular person in one's circumstances. This translator translates it as, do what is suitable. So to practice what is suitable in each particular context. And Myoha even talks about going beyond, entering the way of release and liberation, and on seeing what is essential in the teaching for this generation.

[27:56]

So adapting the teaching to what is appropriate what is suitable for this time and place. And I think that's part of what is the challenge for us to see how to use all the range of the teachings in our culture, in our time and place. So Buddhism has traveled and adapted to different places. So from Yohe, he tried to adapt and adopt the kegon, the flower ornament teachings, for common people. So he knew that the Pure Land teachings, for example, were using this simple mantra, Namo Amida Buddha, and he saw other teachings that were trying to find ways to adopt the teachings for common people. So he, in the Flower Ornament Sutra, there are a couple chapters where they have kathas or verses to use in particular situations. So he tried to promote that.

[28:57]

He created a mantra from the Flower Ornament Sutra. And I sometimes have mentioned using when it's needed. So our basic practice of Satsang is just to sit, to face the wall, to sit like Buddha, to be present, to see what's happening right now, to appreciate our inhale and exhale, just to enjoy taking the Buddha posture. But sometimes we need to focus, to help focus, to settle. So we can do, we can count breaths or do various things with breaths, enjoy our inhale and exhale. But also sometimes I've recommended mantras. So at the end of the Heart Sutra we chant sometimes, there's a mantra. But Nyoek created a Kegon mantra. I'll say it. Oma moga vairochana maha mudramani padma jvala pravartaya hom. So I welcome you to use that mantra, just in walking around or in zazen.

[30:00]

If any of you want me to send it to you written out, I will. You can email me, emailinfo at ancientdragon.org. So Miyoe also tried to find, to focus on, so the Shingon tradition that Miyoe was part of focuses on ritual expression. And that's also relevant to our practice. So Shingon or tantric, sometimes called Vajrayana practice, focuses on ritual expression. And to become like the figure of devotion that's formally part of that practice So whether it's the Buddha or a particular bodhisattva, that's one definition of tantric practice, actually. And in some ways, and this practice from Shingon, this Vajrayana practice, was adopted into Japanese Tendai.

[31:04]

It was not part of the Chinese Chiantai that Tendai comes from, but it was very much adopted into Japanese Tendai, and all of the new school founders from Kamakura Buddhism came from Tendai, so they all knew about this. So in some ways, this Shingon Vajrayana is a background for all of Japanese Buddhism, and it's very much part of The background of Soto Zen and what we do, so many of our ritual forms are adopted from Shingon ritual expressions. What we do with the altar, the form of the altar and our offerings at the altar, are adapted from Shingon ritual expressions. I don't know if you recognize anything from the altars at Koyasan. Yeah, and it's familiar because it was intentionally, consciously adopted, particularly by Kaizen, the second founder of Soto Zen, and is the form of Soto ritual expression.

[32:09]

But also, more fundamentally, our Zazen practice is to sit like Buddha and to express Buddha in this body-mind. And that, in some ways, is like the Vajrayana practice of expressing the form of the particular Buddha or Bodhisattva or guardian figure that a particular practitioner is assigned by their teacher in Vajrayana. But we just sit like Buddha and express Buddha in our body mind. So this is, in some ways, of the flavor of this Shingon school. So there are aspects of what Mioe was doing that are part of the background of our practice, even. But more generally, he was trying to promote, in this Kamakura period, this sense of not forgetting all of the range of the Bodhisattva practices.

[33:15]

even for people who were focusing on some particular practice. So there's a, I want to read just in terms of, you know, the sense of Miao Wei and who he was. Some of his, there's a document, a text called Final Injunctions, which are supposed to be some of the things that he gave to his disciple. And some of them are kind of interesting. And the translator says that these may not be historically accurate exactly, or historically reliable, because the disciple who wrote this down was one of the younger disciples of Nyoe, and he wrote down what he had heard, and so there's a little bit of a disclaimer. But anyway, some of these are... There's a long... translation, but this is from a book called Kamakura Buddhism, a Minor Report by Robert Morrell.

[34:17]

Interesting book on some of the earlier schools that persisted through Kamakura Buddhism. But one of them that I like is a comment by Miao Wei citing something from the Sutra on Perfect Enlightenment. which is actually a Chinese sutra. It was composed in China, we know now. But it was very, very popular in East Asia and cited by Dogen and by other people. And it talks about the four ills of spiritual practice. And I think they're very interesting. So one is trying to practice through the performance of works. of good works, thinking that you can base your practice on doing good works. Another ill of spiritual practice is practicing through cessation of mental operations.

[35:20]

This is one that a lot of Americans and people fall for. They think, if I just get rid of all my thoughts, that would be enlightenment. And as Ujiyama Roshi said, our stomach continues to secrete digestive juices. Our brain continues to secrete thoughts. So for the people who are here for the first time, you may have noticed while you were sitting in his last period, that you had some thoughts. Maybe you didn't, but it's possible. Many people here may have had some thoughts. And trying to get rid of those thoughts is not the way to practice. So that's the second of these. The third is through acceptance of things as they are. So that's another, you know, people may think, oh, if I just accept everything as it is, that that would be, you know, the way to practice. And, you know, maybe there's something to be said about acceptance, of course. But just accepting things as they are isn't quite it. There is suffering in the world. There is suffering in our lives.

[36:23]

So the bodhisattva acts to be helpful. How do we help? How do we try to help foster awakening and helpfulness and eliminate that? And then the fourth one is through the elimination of the passions. So some people think if I get rid of all my desires and all my anger and all my, that that would be the way to practice. And it's not really, that's not it either because we have desires, we have anger, we have confusion. So that's not, how do we sit right in the middle of that? So anyway, I think that's very interesting. Interesting comment, and Miyoe cites that. Another interesting thing that Miyoe talks about, he, I have mixed feelings about this, but he talks about the value of becoming a worthless fellow.

[37:35]

What should you do to become a Buddha? He always says, how should you act to perfect yourself in the way? Give up all hankering and transform yourself into a worthless fellow, acting without any thought of self. Simply eat when you are hungry and bundle up when you are cold. That sort of sounds pretty sad. He also says, what I mean by a worthless fellow is one who begins by throwing herself body and soul into practice of the way. without sluggishness of mind and without being moved by fancy to cultivate random thoughts. So their meditation is spontaneous and undisturbed. Becoming a Buddha, they do not consciously think of becoming a Buddha and do not vow to perfect themselves in the way

[38:38]

Casting aside social advancement, his great desire is to eliminate all hankering and to live having been transformed into a worthless fellow." It's kind of interesting. And then just one more from this text. It's a longer text. This is a little bit longer. By laying a small tree across a narrow stream, we act to relieve another's hardship. Although the help is minimal, our sympathy for others gradually deepens and in due course brings us to unsurpassed enlightenment. Everyone somehow feels that this is so. It is simply an example of the four universal methods of giving, kind speech, beneficial conduct, and accommodation to others. So Dogen also speaks of these four bodhisattva beneficial conducts.

[39:44]

And then he also says, just below that, for the most part, no implements are necessary for the practice of the Buddha's way. So we have a lot of fancy things. This consists simply in waking to the sound of the wind in the pines, taking the bright moon as one's friend, and being earnest in one's comings and goings. If alone in the practice hall you clear your heart, what other friends do you need? And even if you were to fall into hell through some misdeed, it seems that bodhisattvas abide even there for our liberation. And then just returning briefly to this dream diary, I was just going to read a few excerpts. And I want to talk more about this in a future talk. But just to give you a sampling of some of these.

[40:47]

So these are just, and this is really just selected at random, but, and again, some of the time he talks about meditative visions in zazen in the same way. So the whole idea of vision in Buddhism is important and I want to talk more about. But he says, in a dream on the 13th day of the 11th month of the, he says the year, I was single-mindedly sitting in meditation. And there was a single, so this is a dream. There was a single, so he dreams about doing zazen, right? There was a single large monkey who had become used to me. I taught it to practice zen meditation. The monkey followed my instructions, learned the meditation method, formed mudras, the hand positions, and sat in the lotus position. However, his sitting posture was not quite straight. Then I went into a large, went out into a large street in the capital. I was alone, however, and there was no one attending me.

[41:55]

Since I did not know the road, I guessed my way and intended to go somewhere. The place I arrived at was Kiyomizu-dera, a famous temple in Kyoto. Dave's been there. I looked about and realized that I should have known the way after all. Then there was a large mansion with a pond in front of it. The water was low and filthy. There were tiny worms in it. A house was built over the water like a fishing pavilion, but it was shaky and unfinished. The meaning of this dream is that the jewel tower will fall to ruin if I do not practice esoteric ritual methods. The pond is the pond in front of the tower. It cannot be maintained. just by sitting meditation. So this was a dream and then his interpretation of it. So anyway, I'll just read a couple more just to give you a sense of this. Okay.

[43:05]

Yeah, on the night of the 17th day of the same month and year. So he has many dreams right in a row. I dreamed about the late assistant high priest, Tochu. He was lying by my side at Myoji, a temple. He looked at the transfiguration of my hand and said, this finger is short and thick. It is a sign of a bodhisattva. It is natural that you speak of great things," unquote. I also thought that I had written of the virtues of Samantabhadra, one of the great Bodhisattvas, and sent it to the house of the late Yuasa Lei priest. So he dreams of these Bodhisattvas and of signals from other priests. Last one. In a dream on the 23rd night of the same month as the previous one, there was a large boulder with a flat surface like that of a board.

[44:15]

Slightly below the top was an outcropping. I thought the top surface of the boulder would be a good place to be. On the outcropping, a unicorn had stopped there to play. And this might actually be a Kirin, which is a kind of Chinese unicorn. Because of this, I thought I should also be there. The matter of this unicorn stopping to play was unclear previously. How in the world could such a spirit animal come to this place? After reflecting on this, I received an indication and clearly understood this matter. I decided that it was so utterly amazing, I wondered whether that indication was the same as sweet water. but I could not clearly distinguish them. So all that's in the dream. Then I awoke." So anyway, these are strange and anecdotal little dreams that he has, but some of them are very charming. So I'll talk more about that maybe a week from tomorrow.

[45:17]

So we have a little bit of time if anyone has any questions or comments about this strange character, Miroe. Or Dave, if you want to say anything about Koyasan. Could you talk a little bit about the mantra and is there a meaning to the syllables or is it? Well, you know, the mantra is the idea of mantras. So there's a Japanese translation too, but I like to use the Sanskrit versions. So all of mantras are like spells, we sometimes chant Dharanis, we chant the end of the Heart Sutra, Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhisvaha. The mantras, the point of the mantras is they're not, they don't have, sometimes you see translations of them, but the point of them is that they have some effect. So the point isn't so much the meaning as the effect.

[46:18]

That said, there are words in the mantra that we can recognize. Om Amogha Vairochana Mahamudra Mani Padma Jvala Pravartaya Aham. That's the mantra. Amogha is one of the five Buddhas in the Vajrayana system. Om Amogha Vairochana is the Great Dharmakaya Buddha, there's the statue of it, Todai-ji. Dainichi Nyorai in Japanese, that's right. Omomoba Vairoshana. Mahamudra is a practice in... In Vajrayana, it's a very important practice in Tibetan Buddhism. So it means great mudra, omamoga vairagyana mahamudra. Mani padma means that it's important in Tibetan Buddhism. It's the jewel in the lotus. So some of these words can be translated, but it's more the meaning of the whole thing. So I can email you the mantra if you're interested in actually chanting it.

[47:24]

And it didn't catch on the way Nam-myoho-renge-kyo did in Japanese Buddhism. So what Myohe was doing was talking about these early Japanese Buddhist schools that were not part of what became popular Japanese Buddhism. But those schools still survive in Japan. They're sort of minor parts of Japanese Buddhism now. And they came before Pure Land and Zen and Nichiren Buddhism. But they're still part of Japanese Buddhism. But they were too involved and intricate and involved too much. People thought they involved too much study to really become popular. But for our practice, I think the point is that it's enough to just do zazen. It's enough to just sit, face the wall, sit upright, pay attention.

[48:32]

That's enough. And so maybe that's a single practice. But the whole background of The Bodhisattva tradition, which we talk about in different ways some of the time here, is part of our practice, too. And that's what Nyoe was emphasizing, really, in his time and place. And I like it that he talks about, in this generation, how do we express it. Yes, Brian. When we talk about everything being empty, one of the phrases that sometimes has puzzled me is the Dharma itself is empty. And in the sense of fluid, and you can't pin it down to one thing, and it was really helpful to hear the way you were describing, Yoy, his approach to being a Buddhist, you know, taking the Dharma, living it,

[49:39]

in that sense, that it seemed like the way you're describing it was, for him, it was a fluid thing that could evolve and find different expressions in different places. And it isn't one thing or one practice. And we should keep in mind the bigger picture and sort of move within that. And that which, you know, if you're looking for security, it's not necessarily the most welcome message. It's like, what is it? Well, I leave here sometimes wondering, what is it? Good. But people back then seemed to have been looking for some easy practice, one practice to do. I think, well, I hesitate to say this, but maybe the popularity of the mindfulness movement now is like, OK, this is a somewhat simple practice you can do. And that's fine. That's good. It's helpful. Whatever is helpful is helpful.

[50:43]

But there's this whole range of practices and teachings that are behind it. Yes, David? Well, that's a complicated question. But sometimes, when I first started looking at writings about Japanese Buddhism, that's how it was presented. But as we get further into it, Soto Zen includes it. There's that early writing by Dogen about you don't need to do prostrations or study sutras. And that's sometimes taken as, don't do them. It just sits us in. And it's okay to just sit us in. And so in that sense, there's this, not simple, but there's this one practice that we can do, and it's enough.

[51:44]

It really is. But behind it is this wealth of other teachings, a range of teaching and practice. So emptiness teaching, suchness teaching, there's a whole range of teaching and practice that is included in it. And we do. talk about Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and we do make offerings, and we do read sutras, and so forth. I don't think that Kamakura period Zen thought of itself as these single-practice teachings. But some people may, maybe sometimes they were. But Dogen, in some ways, presents Zazen as all you need. So in some ways, yeah. But then his huge body of writings includes all these comments on the Chinese koans, all these comments on sutras. I mean, just a huge wealth of material that includes all the stuff that Yohei was talking about, the Lotus Sutra and many other things.

[52:50]

But this period in Japanese history, out of which all of modern Japanese Buddhism came, was a difficult time. So I just mentioned the civil war in 1185, and it was a very dramatic, powerful civil war. It led to the capital moving from Kyoto to Kamakura, which is a little bit south of Tokyo, and the old aristocracy being overthrown and the samurai taking over the government, basically. And that civil war, there were two main feudal families that fought and that civil war, you know, there's one of the great works of Japanese literature is called the Heike Monogatari, The Tale of Heike. It's compared to the Iliad in some ways. It's a huge, wonderful piece of literature. There's some translations. So all of this period came out of this period of

[53:56]

great civil war and there were later battles and a lot of the temples needed to be reconstructed because the temples were affiliated with various lords and there were battles. So it was a period where there were earthquakes and famines, so it was a very tumultuous period And these Pure Land and Nichiren and Zen traditions came out of that kind of cultural difficulties. Paula. Speaking of which, it's a good reminder that there are many different ways to connect with our practice. Yes. That might be more suitable at different times of our life. or depending on what the conditions are in the environment, does that resonate more? That's right. Yeah. And maybe we could talk about that in the announcements if you have some. But yeah, we have.

[54:58]

So Paul is a martial arts teacher, and that's one way that has connections with Soto Zen too. So, yeah, so partly what I'm talking about Mioe, I think, you know, we can feel that being dogmatic about just doing one tradition, you know, we can do one tradition. I've been devoted to Soto Zen for, you know, longer than some of you have been alive, but But in the same way, I can benefit from all kinds of things, including Western psychology and Western gauge practices and Western religions, as well as other branches of Buddhism and other spiritual traditions. So we don't have to be dogmatic. Any other last comments or questions?

[55:59]

We're a little over time. OK, so.

[56:04]

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