I see that quite a few people are here for the first time this morning. Welcome to No Abode. And I'm concerned for you and for the people who have come here before, because various causes and conditions have brought me to a place where I wish to start talking about an inconceivably wonderful Buddhist teaching, which I have been studying for some time, and which I have been discussing for some time. But I now feel that I should come back and start over again, and at least go through

[01:20]

the beginning parts of this magnificent scripture again. And I feel that maybe this is a good venue for it. So one person says, bring it on, but I'm aware that some other people, as they see it coming, they may say, wait a minute, I'm not ready for this great teaching. I feel it might be good to prepare the ground for the planting of these seeds, and I have the intention to continue to talk about this sutra until we get through chapter four.

[02:24]

The name of this sutra in Sanskrit is Arya Samdhi Nirmocana Nama Mahayana Sutra. Often people say the shorter version, which is Samdhi Nirmocana Sutra, which can be translated into English as the scripture revealing or untying or unlocking the intention, literally, the scripture unlocking the intention. And the intention is, in this case, the intention of the Buddha when teaching.

[03:27]

So this sutra is trying to show us what the Buddha is intending to do when the Buddha speaks to people. And so that's the name of the sutra. I heard about this sutra for about 15 years before I was able to read it in English. I heard it referred to, and I sensed that a lot of the things I was interested in the Buddhist teaching, in the tradition of the Mahayana, a lot of the teachings were inspired by this text, but it wasn't in English yet. And then I found out it was in French, so I was starting to make the arrangements to have it translated from French into English. And then it was published in 1995 in English. And actually then, quite soon after, it was published in English twice more.

[04:32]

So I think between about 1995 and 1997, we got three translations of this sutra, so we studied these three translations for a number of years. Again, I feel like I'm wanting to prepare the ground, and the ground I'm wanting to prepare is the ground of your hearts. I want to talk with you and interact with you to test whether your hearts are open to this teaching. I don't want to offer it to you until your hearts are open to it, because I don't want

[05:37]

you to miss the first word. However, I may not be able to satisfy my desire. I may have to start discussing the sutra before everybody's heart is open to it. We'll see. So part of this would be for me to explore with you this issue of what is the relationship between what we call Zazen, sitting meditation in the Zen school, what's the relationship between that and the sutras, the Mahayana sutras in particular, the great vehicle teachings for Bodhisattvas. What's the relationship between Zazen and that? Well, one relationship that Suzuki Roshi has spoken of is that Zazen is the key which opens

[06:38]

these great teachings. That if you go to these teachings, sort of with a Zazen heart, they open for you. That's one way to put it, that he spoke of. Our Zazen or Zen practice is the key to these great teachings. In other words, the practice, particularly our sitting practice, prepares us to receive these teachings and let them enter our life. He also said that Zazen is, he said something like, Zazen is a tenderizer.

[07:42]

Zazen tenderizes us. I have that experience with myself and other people, that if we sit together, if we sit still and quiet for a while, we become more and more tender. I often say that at the beginning of a long sitting, if I would check people's postures, sometimes I find their backs are kind of resistant and hard. Their backs almost tell me sometimes, don't touch me, or I don't want to move, or leave me alone a little bit. Or, you know, I can't move, I got to stay in this position, otherwise I won't be able to survive. There is kind of toughness, I feel, at the beginning of the sittings.

[08:45]

But after several days, I feel the backs, the bodies of the sitters, of the meditators, have become tender. Kind of like, okay, okay, you're welcome. I often also use the example of, if you go to a dry plant and you pour water on it, particularly a potted plant, you pour water on it, the water beads on the surface or runs off. But if you spray it with some water, in just a little bit of humidity, it moistens the surface and gradually the surface becomes moist. If you do it again, it becomes more moist. And after it gets quite moist, if you pour the water on, the water just goes right in.

[09:46]

So I'm trying to moisten the ground here. Auspiciously, you have been sitting for a number of hours already, so you're probably a little tenderized by the sitting. You may be even tender enough to be open to me talking about you becoming more tender. Auspiciously, someone came to talk to me this morning and I asked her how she was feeling and she said she was feeling tender. And when I opened this sutra a day or so ago, I found this piece of paper in it from previous

[10:57]

notes I had in the sutra. The notes were from a time when I went to Texas and talked about this sutra. And the heading of this page of notes says, Ways of Tenderizing Texas Tough Guys. And I'm looking at the way I spelled tough guys. Oh no, not tendon tough guys. Ways of Tendering Texas Toughies. Not to say people in Texas are more tough than other places, but most places people are a little bit tough. People, you know, in this world of suffering, people kind of like put on some leather or something, some protection. Like when we walk on the ground, we wear leather on our feet sometimes.

[12:01]

But we sometimes do that with our heart too. We sometimes put on some leather or, yeah, put on some leather. There's a friend of mine, actually a friend of mine, who was actually ordained as a Zen priest. And I talk about him in the book Being Upright. After he was ordained as a Zen priest, he sort of took off his robes and stopped practicing and he became a drug dealer, dealing cocaine, among other things. And he also started using the cocaine. And I watched him, I watched his skin turn to leather. I could just see him getting harder and harder.

[13:04]

More and more protected from the suffering of this world. He even started wearing leather jackets too, but they were like a symbol of his suffering. It was what had happened to his heart. His heart had gotten like tanned and hardened with the drugs and with the selling the drugs. Hardening himself and selling other people things to harden themselves to this world. So, I wrote a little note here, like years ago, I wrote these great vehicle teachings

[14:18]

for the Bodhisattvas. When we read them, when I've read them, they actually help me get in touch with my resistance or my toughness. It seems like in a way, you know, it's like in some sense you can think they have a teaching, but in some sense the way they're conveyed is kind of like, well, are you trying to get anything out of the scripture? Are you reading this by any chance to get anything? Because if you are, well, we'll give you some stuff, but probably not what you're looking for. And do you want to keep reading if you're not going to get anything? And if you do keep reading, we're going to keep offering you the chance to keep reading without getting anything, just to make sure that you're not trying to get anything. You want to keep reading some more and spend some more time not getting anything?

[15:25]

Well, no. See you later. Close the book. See you later. And I did that with a number of Mahayana scriptures. They don't literally say that, but they gave me some stuff which I wasn't looking for and which I did not find interesting or informative. So I just thought, this is not very interesting. I'm not getting anything out of this. This is like boring. Boring is a form of resistance to what's happening. This is boring. But in my case, I closed the book, some of these Mahayana sutras. I closed them, and I didn't close them like, I'm never going to read this again. I just closed them. I didn't force myself to keep going because I was resisting. I didn't say, keep going even though you're resisting. Again, how was I resisting? I was resisting by being bored, and I was also resisting by trying to get something, and I wasn't getting anything.

[16:28]

So I wasn't interested. But I had the kind of intention, well, I'll come back later, maybe. Because some of these scriptures I've heard were so important that I thought, eventually I'll probably come back. And in all cases, I did come back. And sometimes when I came back, I read a while and closed it again. And then sometimes I came back again and opened them, closed them and came back again. And then when I opened them, the time came when I wasn't resisting anymore. The resistance, I'd become tender. I became ready. And the Sutra took me away, and I took the Sutra away. We went away together. But I didn't push myself against my resistance to continue.

[17:38]

I honored my resistance, and I didn't resist my resistance even though I was resisting the Sutra. But I did keep coming back again and again. When I was talking to this person about tenderizing, I thought, tenderizing, I couldn't remember, what's the opposite of tender? Well, it's tough, right? So like, with meat, if it's tough, it's hard to bite into it. When you tenderize it, then it's easy to bite into it. And since some of you are vegetarians, I won't go too much further on this image. Maybe I could use collard greens. So we had collard greens at Green Gulch the other night,

[18:43]

beautiful organic collard greens grown at Green Gulch Farm. And they were tough, in a way, because you couldn't actually, it was very difficult unless you were really, what's the word, I don't know, unless you really bit hard and energetically, it was hard actually to bite through them. They were not exactly like leather, but sort of. Like thin leather. And someone says that if you cook them with lard, they get really tender. But we don't usually use lard at Green Gulch. So there we are with the tough collard greens. Now the advantage of tough is that you get to chew a lot. So it's not, you know, toughness is not a bad thing, it's just something to tenderize by chewing, in some cases.

[19:45]

Or other case, dip it in lard. Another case, massage it. Or pour olive oil on it. A lot of possibilities, right? Or cook it more. Heat and time. So, here we have time. Time is being offered to tenderize you, to get you ready for this sutra. And I'm sprinkling oil on you. And I'm giving you heat to see if your hearts can become so tender that you're ready for whatever. Another policy that I often recommend is

[20:52]

if you don't understand something or if you're still resisting some teaching, memorize it. You can still be resisting it, but memorize it. And as you learn it by heart, oftentimes your heart will open to it. When I read poetry myself, usually I resist poetry. In other words, I don't understand it. Somehow I'm just not able to just walk up to a poem, usually, and just, like, let it in. But if I memorize it, in the process of memorization, my heart opens to it. The time when I can sometimes hear a poem the first time and open to it is when somebody reads it, particularly if the author reads it. Then I sometimes, the first time I hear it, my heart opens with the aid of the author.

[21:53]

Wouldn't it be nice to hear Shakespeare read his plays to us? Thank you. The morning breeze caressed the trees tenderly.

[23:11]

The trembling trees embraced the breeze tenderly. Then you and I came walking by and lost in a sigh. Who are we? What did you say? Tell the truth. Tell the truth? What do you mean? The response is so full of music. Okay. She made the teacher stop singing. Oh, homage to all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

[24:17]

Thus I have heard at one time the Bhagavan was dwelling in innumerable palace arrays with supreme brilliance of the seven precious substances emanating great rays of light that suffused innumerable universes. These palaces were well appointed, well proportioned, into distinctive sections by architectural genius. It was limitless in reach and unimpeded mandalas.

[25:29]

The sphere of activity completely transcending the three worldly realms arisen from the root of supreme virtue that transcends the world. This palace was characterized by perfect wisdom, the knowledge of one who has mastery. The abode of the Tathagatas was attended by a community. of innumerable Bodhisattvas. It was alive with unlimited numbers of Devas. Unlimited numbers of divine beings. Nagas, Rakshas, Gandharvas, Asuras, Garudas, Kinnaras, Mohuragas, humans and non-humans.

[26:33]

These were in the assembly around the Buddha. But aren't Asuras sort of hostile? Yes, they are. The Buddha was attended by a community, a very big community. What was in the community? Well, innumerable Bodhisattvas, great, beneficent, compassionate, wise beings, innumerable ones were in the community. What else was in the community? Innumerable divine beings. What else? Nagas. What are Nagas? Nagas are snake-like beings who live in the realm of the water. So, when these Buddhas are talking, when these Buddhas are teaching this sutra,

[27:43]

in the community around them are serpent-like beings who dwell in the realm of water. Also, Yakshas are around them. What are Yakshas? Yakshas are powerful beings, sometimes beneficent, sometimes malignant, who live in the earth and in the air and in lower realms. The community that's around these Buddhas has these Yakshas in it, powerful beings. Do you know about the powerful beings that live in the air? Sometimes beneficent and sometimes malignant. Viruses. For example, viruses living in the air and in the earth.

[28:48]

Do they live in the air and in the earth? Apparently. Are they beneficent? Sometimes. What we are, we humans here today, we have viruses in our genetic code. They're called retroviruses. AIDS is a retrovirus. But we also have other retroviruses that have become part of our code and reproduce, and make us what we are. Part of what we are is because part of our genes are old-time viruses, ancient viruses that are in our bodies, which no longer live in the planet except in our bodies. And they make us what we are. We are built on viruses, which the beneficence of the viruses has made us able to hear the Dharma. There are, however, other viruses, both regular and retro, that are malignant to us,

[29:56]

that can kill us. However, if they're smart viruses, they will not kill us off because we are their host. So we are surrounded by some malignant viruses who keep us around, and others that are kind of like suicidal viruses. They live in the air and in the earth, and they're in the Buddha's community. There are innumerable types of powerful beings living in the air and in the earth that surround the Buddha's teaching. The community around the Buddha is big. The Buddha welcomes everyone to the Dharma. Just like we welcome retroviruses into our body to cause our evolution. Maybe they make us sick for a while, but then we evolve positively. They make us able to be better bodhisattvas. Gandharvas. Gandharvas are celestial musicians who live in the air.

[31:02]

Gandharva means, I believe, smell eater. They eat smells, and they play music for us when we're in celestial moods. And also, according to certain mythology in India, and Buddhism picked this up, in the process of being reborn, human beings get involved with Gandharvas. They are part of the way we imagine ourselves into birth. They're part of the imaginative process of the birth consciousness. You can read about this in the Abhidharmakosha, chapter 3.

[32:12]

Are you serious? I'm serious, yeah. When the mother and the father, the male and the female get together, Gandharvas are there hovering above the birth, choosing, being interested in the sexual process, and having a preference for one parent over the other, and then that causes the birth consciousness. And that form of relationship, of being in touch with the birth opportunity, is sometimes called a Gandharva. And there are right now Gandharvas floating around this room. But nobody seems to be offering the opportunity right now. So they probably should go to some other abode. No, the Gandharva stops being Gandharva and takes human birth.

[33:19]

Only human, not animal? If it's over male and female animals, then they would do that, yeah. This is a story. Next is Asuras, which Atlantis said, aren't they hostile? Asuras are sometimes called fighting demons or fighting gods. They are, what do you call it? They are opponents of the gods. They wage constant war with the divine beings out of envy for the bliss of divine beings.

[34:22]

The generals, like Julius Caesar or something, Julius Caesar I would say maybe was like an Asura, but I don't know exactly. But some people are envious of the bliss of divine beings and they are very powerful and they actually almost get there by power. Instead of getting into divine realms, which are usually the way you get in, is by practicing ethics and concentration. That can give rise to divine forms of existence. And our founder in history, Shakyamuni Buddha, was able to actually enter those realms and teach divine beings. And after realizing the way, realizing the Dharma, in the evening after the human monks went to bed, he would receive divine beings and teach them Dharma. And there are some beings who are actually opposing that route

[35:43]

and trying to attain, based on envy, the bliss of these beings. They are in the Buddha's assembly. According to the scripture, which you may be starting to develop some resistance towards. Next comes the Mohuragas. They are large-bellied demons, shaped like boas, who are lords of the soil. I got this image of this person who is in one of the early Star Wars pictures. He looks like a huge, fat... What's his name? Jabba the Hutt. Something like Jabba the Hutt. He is like the lord of the soil, isn't he? The lord of the underground. Something like that, Jabba the Hutt. They are in the Buddha's assemblies. Lords of the soil. There was also this movie many years ago about this huge underground worm

[36:47]

that would come up out of the ground. What is that called? Dune. Dune, yeah. Like those things in Dune. But the animal wasn't called Dune, right? No, it was Sandworm. Yeah, Sandworms. You know, Sandworms... Yeah, Sandworms are the sides of trains, you know. So, they are in the assembly of the Buddha, too. Coming to hear the Dharma. Big assembly. These are Mohuragas. And then Kinnaras, what do you call the animal, the Greek animal that is half man, half horse? Centaur. Centaur, yeah. So, there were Centaurs there. I don't know if they went from Buddha's assembly over to Greece or came from Greece for the talks. I don't know. But anyway, Centaurs. And then there were non-humans.

[37:50]

Non-humans, I think, refers to, generally speaking, ghosts. The ghosts come to Buddha's talks. And what are ghosts? Well, I would suggest to you, ghosts are things that dependently co-arise. All these things I mentioned are things that dependently co-arise. But I didn't mention the dependent co-arising. Well, actually, I did sort of mention the dependent co-arising of Asuras. Asuras are powerful beings who feel envy of divine bliss. Who feel envy of the bliss of yogic attainment. And don't want to practice yoga. They just want to get the bliss. And they think that they can use power. So that combination is a dependent co-arising of the phenomena called Asura. Now, the dependent co-arising of a ghost is when there's an experience that you don't fully live.

[38:56]

I'm not saying every single time, but when we have an experience, like right now, for example, and we don't fully experience it, that could be the conditions for the arising of a ghost of this experience. If you do a period of meditation and you don't practice it wholeheartedly, it gives rise to a kind of ghostly specter of an unlived period of meditation. So, in that sense, we are haunted by a history, by our history, of the moments we haven't lived fully. And the Buddha's assembly welcomes all these ghosts, who are representing our unfulfilled experience, our unfulfilled life. Welcoming them to come to the Dharma so that they can be fulfilled and released. And then there's malignant spirits. That topic I'll talk to you about later.

[40:04]

But anyway, all these beings are in the assembly for the Buddha's teaching of this sutra. And innumerable of each type. Steadfast due to great bliss and joy in the taste of Dharma. Now, who is that, that's steadfast? Is this the Buddha? The Bhagavan is one of the epithets for Buddha. There's ten traditional epithets for Buddha. One of them is Bhagavan. Which means something like... What does it mean? I think it means a person worthy of respect.

[41:11]

Because they have destroyed all illusion and been rid of all defilements. That's a Bhagavan. So this Bhagavan, I think, is steadfast due to the bliss and joy of tasting the truth, the Dharma, the teaching, the law of the universe. I want to join the Buddha in Dharma lunch. Tasting the Dharma, the bliss of Dharma that sustains us to be steadfast.

[42:17]

Okay, now also this Buddha is enduring, enduring, enduring in order to bring about the welfare of sentient beings. Enduring, enduring the world of suffering. Enduring the pain that the Buddha feels for our pain. Because the Buddha loves us and endures that pain happily. The Buddhas live in order to bring welfare to all sentient beings. And they endure in order to do so. And they are requested to endure in order to do so. Free of all harm, of defilements and of afflictions. Completely free from all demons who are in the assembly and welcome to be there. Surpassing all patterns,

[43:24]

arrayed through blessings of the Tathagata, emancipated through great mindfulness, intelligence and realization. They are support of the great state of peace and penetrating awareness. Entered through the great door of liberation, entered through the great doors of the liberation, emptiness, signless and wishless. Or emptiness, signlessness and wishlessness. They enter liberation through these doors. This pattern is adorned with boundless masses of excellent qualities and with great sovereign jeweled lotuses. We are tuning in now to the Bhagavan,

[44:34]

who we are paying homage to at the beginning of this sutra. The Bhagavan was endowed with a mind of good understanding and did not possess the two behaviors. And the two behaviors are the behavior of being obstructed by defilements and being obstructed to omniscience. To have no obstruction, no resistance to omniscience. Perfectly adorned with the teachings of signlessness, abiding the way a Buddha abides. This Bhagavan at the center of this teaching scene

[45:40]

is abiding the way a Buddha abides. What is signlessness? Signlessness? It's the way that the signs of things do not reach the thing. It's the way although you can't experience something without a sign. That's the way we are built. You meet somebody and your mind makes a sign of them and you apprehend the sign in order to perceive them. You make things that aren't objects into objects so that the objects can be of your subject.

[46:44]

You make things into objects so you can be a subject. And you can't be a subject without objects, so you don't just sit here in the universe without any objects. You make the universe into a wide variety of subjects. And in that process your mind puts signs on things and the sign you put on things is the main point you use to get a hold of this thing as an object. This is our normal process of perception. In order to perceive, we have to distort the world a little bit. Now the world is asking us to do that so it can have a relationship with us. Everybody is asking you to do that to them so they can have a relationship with you, even though there's a problem because you're putting a sign on them so you can get a hold of them and bring them into your consciousness, which is called perception. So it's a way for us to relate and we're doing that. But now, now that we're able to do that, now we have to understand how these signs

[47:47]

are not the person that we made into an object by putting a sign on them. So once we're engaged, then we have to give it up. Now that we're engaged to be married, we have to give up our spouse. Because holding on to the sign distorts the relationship. Holding on to the sign, we tend to think that the sign is actually the person. So people are not actually objects. People are perfectly good people. But they're also perfectly inconceivable and ungraspable, which is kind of useless to us. So we make them into objects through signing them. And then we can engage with them and know them in this perceptual way which involves this distortion.

[48:50]

From then on, we start working to relate to them like Buddhas do. And that's why we're hearing about Buddhas. So we can learn how to be absorbed in the teaching of signlessness. And when we hear the teaching of signlessness, we might have some resistance to it. And we can talk about the resistance to that teaching. That would be nice. But I also want to mention that the next, it's not even a semicolon, it's a comma according to this translation, perfectly absorbed in the teaching of signlessness, abiding in the way a Buddha abides. And of course, how does a Buddha abide? You all know that, right? A Buddha abides by not abiding. The abode of the Buddha is no abode. And again, as someone said to me this morning,

[49:53]

it's good to have no abode. And I said, yeah, it is, isn't it? It's good to have no abode. And if you can abide by not having any abiding, you're abiding like a Buddha, and that will help you be absorbed in the teaching of signlessness, and the teaching of signlessness will help you abide the way a Buddha abides. Because Buddhas are absorbed in the teaching of signlessness, and they do not abide. And in this way, they can really help others. And since we have a tendency to abide not in signlessness, to be not absorbed in signlessness, but to be absorbed in signs, that's our tendency, to be absorbed in signs. And I say tendency, but it's a pretty strong tendency.

[50:54]

It's almost like the way things usually are. Almost like the way things almost always are. It's kind of like, yeah, suffering. So, even though abiding in signs is suffering, and affliction, which we read about earlier, even so, we resist the teaching of signlessness, because it's unfamiliar, and what will happen to us without signs? I'd rather not find out. I might turn into a, what is it? Some of the other people in the assembly. What is this thing called again? That big, the worm? Sandworm? No, not sandworm, the other guy. Jabba the Hutt? Jabba the Hutt. You might turn into Jabba the Hutt. And then you have to go to Miami to get liposuction. So, you know. Who knows what will happen to those who actually open to signlessness.

[51:56]

To the teaching of signlessness, which allows us, if we open to it and are absorbed in it, to abide the way a Buddha abides. How do they abide? No abiding? I have resistance to that too. What will happen to me if I don't abide? What will happen to me if I don't dwell in my friends? And my enemies? What will happen to me if I don't dwell? I don't know. I might not be able to have lunch. Well, I think this is an excellent place for me to stop. With remembering, me remembering, and you remembering, that the Buddhas are absorbed in the teaching of signlessness

[53:02]

and they abide the way a Buddha abides. A Buddha abides by not abiding, which is the same as absorbing the teaching of signlessness. Surrounded by a great assembly of beings who are heavily into signs and are coming to learn from the Buddha how to receive the teaching of signlessness and abide together with the Buddha in the way a Buddha abides. This is a good place to stop and remember this precious teaching. And then we can continue indefinitely discussing what is the teaching of signlessness and what is no abode. What is it? What is no abode? Some people think it's Eight Friars Lane. Is it? This is what some people think. Some people think it's a non-profit

[54:04]

Buddhist temple. Some people think it's the way a Buddha abides. But no matter what anybody thinks, all those ways of thinking are just mental projections onto the most wonderful thing of no abode. And so now we have a chance to have lunch at no abode. Isn't that great? Anybody who doesn't think it's great is welcome to stay anyway. And also it's a basic principle of Buddha Dharma that there's lunch before and after enlightenment.

[54:58]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ