Good evening. So we're in the middle of an eight-week practice commitment period. Some of you are involved with that, but whether or not you're doing that formally, we're all studying the bodhisattva practices, in Sanskrit, the paramitas, sometimes called transcendent practices. Paramita means to carry a cross to the other shore, to free from suffering. So these are all practices that help us go beyond. And we've been talking about various of them. And tonight I want to talk about, in some ways, the heart of these practices, prajna paramita, the perfection of wisdom, which we just chanted about. So prajna is often translated as wisdom.

[01:07]

It might also be translated as insight. And it's the sixth of the ten we've been talking about, but sometimes the six by themselves are talked about as a set, and so in some sense this is the culmination. What is wisdom? What is insight in Bodhisattva way? Well, it has a lot to do with emptiness, which we've just been chanting about. And emptiness is this very dangerous Buddhist notion, just because the word Emptiness conjures up notions of nothingness. That's not what it's about, or void, or what's the original word for zero?

[02:10]

I'm not sure, I don't know. Mathematically, anyway. Emptiness is not about that, though. Emptiness is not nothing, and it's also, it's not anything at all. Form is exactly emptiness, emptiness exactly form. But it's very important, this teaching of emptiness. Technically it means the emptiness of the independent substantial existence of anything. In early Buddhism they emphasize the emptiness of self, that our idea of self is just that, that actually each of us is a combination of causes and conditions that are arising right now to create the person sitting on your Kushina chair. And actually in the Mahayana this is true of everything.

[03:14]

and forms, our feelings, our perceptions, our mental formations and habits, consciousness itself, are exactly empty and emptiness is not somewhere else outside of forms and so forth. So again, emptiness is not some thing. It's a way of talking about how things are. There's a lot of other ways of talking about this idea, this teaching of emptiness that is at the heart of prajna or wisdom. And I hope to get to talking about how and why this is a practice that we can actually take on, this practice of insight, of wisdom, of seeing through and expressing this, we could call it emptiness, we could call it, I prefer calling it relativity or interrelatedness or interconnectedness.

[04:19]

The point is that everything is interrelated. we imagine all kinds of separation. So discriminating consciousness is about making distinctions, dividing, cutting through, cutting this apart from that, making discernments and so forth. It's not that that is bad or wrong. In fact, it can be very useful and it is applied in some of the other Bodhisattva practices. But the point is that those are actually delusions that ultimately, Everything is interconnected, interwoven. And we see that in particular ways, in particular forms. Everything arises in relationship to every other thing. Some things more closely relate to the arising of other things than other things do.

[05:21]

But Prajna is this seeing into this. The other translation for prajna is insight, to see into. And I think that's in many ways a more useful translation. How do we see into, not some abstraction about wisdom or prajna, but what's happening now? What's happening here? now and here is not in some narrow category. But how is everything present in this room, on your Cushner chair, in our interactions? So how do we see into what is real or Let's put reality aside.

[06:24]

How do we see what's important? Suzuki Roshi talked about intention, aspects. What is the most important thing? And for each of us, maybe there's not one most important thing, but what's important for you this week, today? in the next breath. And this sight is often used as a kind of... in relationship to wisdom or knowledge. We see into things. Of course, we also hear reality. We can smell reality and taste it. And part of what happens in zazen is that we feel it yogically, physically. sitting for a half hour or 40 minutes or, as we will, some of us this Sunday for a day, we feel physically what's important.

[07:32]

We feel in our body, which is not separate from our heart and mind, what is happening now. How do we see what's important? This is about prajna also. And it also means to look within. There's a different perfection or paramita that I will talk about at some point in this eight-week period called knowledge, which is the tenth when we expand it from six to ten. And that's a little bit different from wisdom. We might think that wisdom is you know, having read lots of books or gone to lots of dharma talks or something like that. And actually wisdom is not the same as knowledge. Knowledge can also be important and can be used to help serve wisdom, the wisdom of seeing our connectedness and of seeing the importance of staying open to suffering and relieving suffering.

[08:47]

But wisdom is kind of more innocent than that. It may include that kind of knowledge. And so the bodhisattva of wisdom, Manjushri, who sits in the center of all zendas, traditionally, and is in the center of ours, the statue, little statue underneath the Buddha, In the back you can't see, but you can come around later. In front of the Buddha is a statue of the Bodhisattva of Wisdom riding a lion, which he often does. And sometimes he carries a sword, and in that statue he holds a teaching scepter like this. But often Manjushri is depicted as young. Wisdom is not something that requires, again, lots and lots of knowledge and study. this kind of immediate seeing into what's important now. So one of the, well, I was going to, I'm going to say something about Huineng, the sixth ancestor, who's one of the great champions of wisdom in

[09:58]

the Chan or Zen traditions, the sixth ancestor of Chan. But first I should mention Nagarjuna, since we're talking about wisdom and emptiness. He was the great teacher of emptiness and wisdom in India. And just to, again, make a caution about this idea of emptiness, Nagarjuna said that the most dangerous attachment is the attachment to emptiness. or the attachment to non-attachment itself. And he talked about 18 different kinds of emptinesses and had it all worked out. But the point is not to get stuck in some idea of emptiness. Emptiness is just the way everything is, alive and dynamically interactive. Anyway, later on in China, there was this, well the story goes that he was an illiterate woodcutter in South China, in Canton, in the boondocks of South China.

[11:06]

How many people here are from the South? Yeah, a few of you. And somehow, in many cultures, people from the South are considered lower class. I don't know why. More ignorant. But we have an Eno who's from the South, so it's okay. But in the story about Huining, he was an illiterate woodcutter and he heard a phrase from the Great Diamond Sutra, which is another of the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras. We chanted the Heart Sutra, and there are many of these Perfection of Wisdom Sutras. The Heart Sutra's a little, the Diamond Sutra's a little longer. There's one in 8,000 lines, and one in 20,000 lines, and one in 100,000 lines. Anyway, Li Neng was this, you know, illiterate woodcutter again, just this poor guy. But he heard a monk passing by, or someone chanting the Heart, reciting the Heart, the Diamond Sutra, and he heard the line, to find the mind that does not abide anywhere. And wow, that impressed him quite a lot.

[12:13]

So we asked about where this comes from, and I was told this is from the Diamond Sutra, and I wanted to know where he could go to find out more about it. So he was directed to the center in northern China, where the fifth ancestor lived. Anyway, I won't go through the whole story, but eventually this illiterate woodcutter became the sixth ancestor. There's a whole long story about how that happened and how he was recognized, even though in this monastery of Guangmei, the fifth ancestor, there were many, many very wonderful scholarly monks. But it was this illiterate guy who was chosen by the fifth ancestor, and really, We have an image of Bodhidharma on the altar too, the founder of Chan and Zen in China, but in many ways, Sui Neng was the real founder of Zen. And yet, he was just a layperson, he had no learning, he couldn't read.

[13:15]

Later on he got ordained and maybe he learned to read, but there's stories about him at some point listening to being read a sutra and because he knew from within, he could recite the next line of the sutra even though he'd never heard it, things like that. Anyway, this idea of insight as something that happens beyond knowledge more immediately than our knowing or our learning. And in the sutra about the sixth ancestor, he talks about the oneness of Samadhi and Prajna. So, Dabla spoke last, even though Ishvara is out, Dabla spoke last week about Jnana Paramita. the perfection of wisdom, the transcendent practice of the Paramita of, not of wisdom, of meditation and the technical aspects of meditation.

[14:27]

Jhana, Douglas talked a little bit about Jhana in terms of the technical aspects in India, but in China, Jhana basically just meant meditation. And another word for this is Samadhi. So this is one of, this is the fifth of these, Bodhisattva practice is just before prajna, but the point that the sixth ancestor made is that, and this is very relevant to our practice, that samadhi and prajna come together. In our meditation, insight arises. We can't say which is first, it's like the chicken and the egg. Maybe insight leads us to meditation. So each of you is here, because at some point you realized something. You realized some concern. You saw something that led you to want to do spiritual practice.

[15:28]

So, in some ways, prajna leads to samadhi. Insight leads to meditation. Samadhi is the side of meditation that involves settling, calming the mind. finding some deep space, inner space. And when we do that, insights arise. Wisdom arises. So that's why Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom, sits in the middle of the meditation hall. He's involved with both this wisdom practice, this wisdom outflowing, of insight and with the settling of meditation. They come up together. So as we're sitting in Zazen, it happens sometimes that you may have some insight, some notion, some idea, and whatever it is that has been on your mind today or the last week or the last month or whatever, some new response to that might arise when you're settled enough.

[16:43]

That's not that we do the meditation so that we'll get insights. This is a dynamic process, an interactive process, in which the more we settle, the more we're open to seeing what's important, seeing into what's happening here now. The more we see what's important to us, the more we're able to Settle down into our seat, into our inhale and exhale. Now, each of these bodhisattvas represents some combination of these transcendent practices, so I've been talking about how they're interrelated. Manjushree gives an example of that. He represents prajna and wisdom, first of all, but also meditation, and also our samadhi, and also shila, which is another one of the 10.

[17:46]

The second one, ethical conduct. So one of the things we see naturally as insights arise is that we have to take care of our lives in some way. We have to clear away that which is a moral obstruction to our being able to settle. So if we are troubled by something that we don't feel clear about or good about, we have to look at that. So the aspect of ethical conduct is related also to meditation, to Manjushri being a monastic, to focus on living a clear life. This is a challenge for all of us, of course, because we're living in the world. This is a lay Sangha, and yet it's... kind of gift that we have, that we have this process of settling in meditation and being open to insight and seeing what's important, and then how do we apply that to the challenges and difficulties in our everyday activity?

[18:54]

This is in many ways the heart of our practice. We start from meditation maybe, but then how does that come into how do we bring ethical conduct into how we take care of all of the affairs of our life, our co-workers, family, friends, all of the challenges and difficulties. So one of the places where we learn about how to Settle, you know, it may be if everything's going well in your life, it may be easier to come to the zendo and feel calm and peaceful and just enjoy breathing for half an hour or so. But if there's something bothering you, okay, that's fine. It's not that you try and bring it onto your cushion, but you also don't try and get rid of it. Here we are. You might try and put, you might put some instructions say to put it aside. It's okay, it'll still be there. But even if you put it aside, this is part of the process of ethical conduct that, you know, misgivings, whatever thoughts may come up.

[20:03]

And then you may also have insights into, oh, how can I take better care of that? So these three practices that Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, represent are intimately interrelated. And it's possible to see in the Bodhisattva, archetypal Bodhisattvas offer visions of how these different ten practices are interrelated. So that's almost as much as I need to say about this. But I, again, just to say that the practice of insight is to allow insight to arise. It doesn't arise by your trying to find it somewhere, but by actually stopping and settling and being present and upright and enjoying your breath, then we're open to that, to insights when they do arise.

[21:06]

And if they do arise in a period of meditation, you don't have to try and figure it out or take notes. You don't need to have a a little laptop by your cushion to make notes on everything, or an iPad or whatever you use. It's there, it's part of you. So, this practice of wisdom is, you know, it sounds very theoretical talking about emptiness. But actually, when we see that things are interconnected, that we're not separate from each other, We're not separate from the situations we're involved with. They are part of us, and we are part of them. Then we're looking at this from a kind of more of a wholeness context. Maybe wholeness is another word for emptiness. So this practice of prajna is practical, can be helpful, and again is involved in

[22:13]

helping us to settle, and also comes out of settling. So, questions, comments, responses, please feel free. Jeremy. Yeah. Right. And now you get rid of it. It doesn't go anywhere. You cut through it, see it's illusion, and then throw it away. Good. Yeah. So yeah, all of these different bodhisattva figures, we have numbers of them around the temple. They're depicted in different ways. Again, this one has a teaching scepter, but sometimes Manjushri carries a sword. And there is that side of meditation. where we sometimes feel like we have to be fierce in meditation, cut through all this crap, whatever's going on in our everyday stuff.

[23:23]

And so there's a side of cutting through it. But I think you're exactly right. Cutting through doesn't mean cut it away. It means cut through to see what's going on. And this idea of Manjushri's sword, sometimes they They talk about the sword that cuts into two, and also the sword that cuts into one. So yeah, this is a sword that cuts things into one. Thank you. The questions, responses, reflections on these practices. Yeah, because then we get, yeah, so the attachment to nothingness or the attachment to non-attachment, we can just, they talk about this bottomless pit, and it's a trap for Zen people, traditionally.

[24:32]

And maybe we're a little bit less susceptible living in the city, but it's more of a problem for people who are up in the mountains in some beautiful monastery. But when we actually settle into Samadhi, when we actually settle into seeing that there's not a single thing that exists as Sweeney said, nothing exists by itself. There's not a single thing that exists. When we see that, it can be very joyful and blissful. and we can get caught up in that, because it's difficult to live in this world, and we all suffer. And so we want to get rid of that, but that's not the way to get rid of it, is to be caught in non-attachment means, you know, that you just won't make, you won't take on what's actually happening in your life. So, we do have attachments.

[25:34]

Now how do we hold those attachments loosely? But we all have things that we're involved with. Family, children or grandchildren, work that we care about, or creative activities that we care about, or so forth. To take on those things, to take on those expressions of you could say expressions of wisdom in our life, is important. And attachment to emptiness can lead us to avoid everything and not be engaged. Hey, Brooks. I have a question that I think is tangential to that. That's fine. I was reading something today about emptiness being related to the concept of impermanence.

[26:39]

And there is this, like I think I have a horrible question in my life, but there is this bubble or this bit of myself that sometimes wonders, you know, like, why bother? Like, things are constantly changing. You know, everything ends. you know, someone's a baby and they're old and passing on and, you know, so sometimes it's like, yeah, I can understand being caught and attached to the avoidance and the nothingness. So... Thank you. You just demonstrated an attachment to emptiness for us. Absolutely. This is what we need. This is what we need to go beyond. So it's true that emptiness has to do a lot with impermanence. The reason that things are empty of inherent substantial existence is that everything is changing. And, you know, if we're trying to respond to all of the difficulties and challenges and horrors and corruption and wars and cruelty and the violence against women now and all of the things that are, and the

[27:58]

environmental calamities and climate and nuclear waste and there's so much and meltdowns. It's very easy to feel overwhelmed and why bother and why do anything? That's exactly what we need to go beyond. And really understanding wisdom is to see that insights do arise, that because there's change, this too shall pass. We must be, what was it Gandhi said, we must be the change we want. That what we do, how we respond, how we express whatever insights we each have in our own way, does make a difference. That's why emptiness is not a thing. It doesn't exist by itself. Emptiness is the way everything is, and everything is in the process of changing.

[29:02]

So what we do makes a difference, and how we work together as sangha in all the different sanghas we're parts of, and how we express that caring in our individual and collective lives is what will change the situation of our world. And it may get, you know, things are already pretty bad and they will probably get worse, but how bad it gets and how we deal with that will be different based on how we respond to it. And attachment to emptiness is just, you know, death and surrender. And it's not realistic. It's not what emptiness really is. Emptiness is this, again, this fruitful interconnectedness in which insights do arise and change comes. And so how do we express change, our positive intentions and insights for change? This is not easy, but this is the life and world we're in.

[30:05]

Thank you for your question. Jan, hi. Hi. I wonder if, and I don't want to say anything about this, but I wonder if a condition called anhedonia. Excuse me? Anhedonia. You know, anhedonia means, well, you know what a hedonist is, a person who seeks out pleasure. Yeah. And anhedonia is a condition that can befall a human being where nothing... I think, are you talking about antinomian? No, no. Anhedonia. N-H-E-D-O-N-I-A. Anhedonia. Oh, I don't know that one. Yeah, what does it mean? So, you know, to give you some... Oh, okay. Well, you know, a heat in this is... Right, okay, yes, I understand that. And so a person who falls into anhedonia, they want nothing. Okay. And this is an extremely painful situation for the person. I just wondered if there's any insight into that relative to what we're talking about today.

[31:16]

Is that a condition of just wanting, not having desires, or is that a condition of kind of listlessness, kind of passivity? It means that there's nothing that would There's nothing that would animate your life or that would bring something to you. Good, okay, I think I get it now. Well, on some level it could be positive to not be caught up in desires. No, but that's not... No, I understand, but what the Bodhisattva is about is being open to suffering. if we see that, if we just feel like everything is blank and there's nothing to care about, that's not what this is about. That's not really, and that's why, that would be a kind of attachment to emptiness.

[32:22]

So we're all here because we care in some way about something. So the basic bodhisattva idea is that a bodhisattva or enlightened being trying to help oneself and others, and they're not separate from, to move towards awakening and towards compassion and towards relieving the suffering of So it's very much not what you're talking about, and what I gather you're talking about sounds like a very painful state, and it might be an example of attachment to emptiness. I don't know if that responds to your question. It's okay. Okay. The part of my literature that I really like and try to constantly remind myself about is form is emptiness, and emptiness is form.

[33:28]

And I think I have to remind myself often of the second part of that. And so I think at a sort of intellectual level, form is emptiness, I sort of get. And I have to keep reminding myself that emptiness is also So I can be in my garden and see a flower and know that, well, it's the product of wind and soil and sunlight, rain, et cetera. And yet, reminding myself of the opposite, that it's also coalescing to this thing, is I think, I can do it with a flower. It's harder to do with, I don't know, the colleague who annoys me, who I can think, all right, well, he annoys me because he's responding to this. because I'm responding to that, but then the opposite is tricky. I'm like, okay, well, he is annoying me. It's manifested in this way, and I have to... And that's, everything is there. I have to cope with that. I have to address that somehow.

[34:30]

Yeah, so emptiness is not something that exists somewhere outside forms, and that's related to your question too, Jan. It's that we see interconnectedness exactly in the details of the joys and difficulties of our life.

[34:47]

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