Good morning. I'd like to speak a little bit this morning about... Is that too loud? Sounds too loud to me, but anyway. A little bit about the Buddha's teachings as they appear in the Diamond Sutra. And the Diamond Sutra, along with the Heart Sutra, which we chant every day here, is one of the most important Mahayana texts which are looked to in our tradition, the Mahayana and Zen traditions of Buddhism. I first fell in love with the sutra, I would say, it was only three or four years ago, actually. I was aware of it, I'd read it, and found it somewhat impenetrable. And then a few years ago, a man named Red Pine, who had translated this text, came and gave a series of talks here at the Zen Dojo.

[01:01]

And I found myself extremely excited. He seemed to have understood the sutra in a way in which it was a whole and not a a series of disembodied verses that sort of refer to this and that or the other thing. And I found myself, well, I'll tell you later, but, you know, thinking, oh my goodness, the Buddha's actually going to tell us how to do this. I can't wait till the next chapter. Anyway, I wanted to read a few portions of the text and say some things about how this is a teaching of the Middle Way, a teaching of how to conduct your life while avoiding the extremes of attachment or denial or cynicism. Often when I'm preparing for a talk like this, it frequently happens that I'm sitting in Mel's office, which is sort of carpeted with interesting things on every horizontal surface.

[02:29]

And later, I wish to read a... I've been looking for this book for a long time. For some reason, I'm not able to connect with it. It's Stephen Batchelor's Verses from the Center, which are translations and commentary by one of our ancestors named Nagarjuna in India, and there's a little poem in here I want to read later. Every culture which has encountered Buddhism, or Buddhism has encountered, I don't know which way to put it, eventually comes up with a unique expression of the Middle Way. And the Diamond Sutra may be tradition, along with the other Mahayana sutras and other teachings that originated there in Buddha's time, or shortly thereafter.

[03:34]

We're all familiar with Chinese Zen and Tibetan Buddhism having developed unique and interesting expressions of the Middle Way, and Japanese Buddhism as well, along with Southeast Asian traditions. We haven't really quite found, at least we don't know, maybe we have, but we don't know, a unique American expression of the Middle Way. Maybe our ancestors will know when, not our ancestors, Those who come after us will understand what was and what wasn't a unique expression of American Buddhism. I'd just like to see if I could offer such a unique expression, a sort of condensation of this teaching into a kind of soundbite.

[04:40]

Alan Sanaki recently reminded me of a bumper sticker that I've seen around. I think most of you have seen it around. He was looking for one and he was asking people where he could find one. It reads, don't believe everything you think. I've always liked that one, you know. In some way, this is something that the Diamond Sutra reminds us of. So I'm going to just plunge in here and read something. from the sutra itself. This book is wonderful. This is Red Pine's translation and it includes commentaries, both translations of traditional commentarial text as well as contemporary people like Thich Nhat Hanh and some Chinese teachers who are alive today. And I'm not going to, by the way, as a little plug, we are going to meet several times, coming up soon, to discuss the sutra, a short class in which we will explore much more thoroughly, well, we'll explore the sutra in more detail and attempt, hopefully, to grapple a little bit with the teachings, but I just want to

[06:19]

I set the scene here by reading just a paragraph at the beginning. It says, and this is the context for how the sutra opens, One day before noon, the Bhagavan put on his patched robe, picked up his bowl, and entered the capital of Srivastava for offerings. After begging for food in the city and eating his meal of rice, he returned from his daily round in the afternoon, put his robe and bowl away, washed his feet, and sat down on the appointed seat. After crossing his legs and adjusting his body, he turned his awareness to what was before him. As Red Pine pointed out, and I may even discuss this here, I can't remember his commentary at the beginning, but the Buddha is paying attention to what is before him.

[07:22]

In other words, this is a teaching about what is before all of us in this moment. In the course of things, Subhuti, one of the Buddha's disciples, approaches the Buddha and asks for teaching. And the question that he asks, if a noble son or daughter should set forth on the Bodhisattva path, how should they stand, how should they walk, and how should they control their thoughts? So this is pretty straightforward. How are we to take ourselves through our daily life as practitioners of the way? And it couldn't be a simpler question. And the Buddha responds, Subhuti, those who would now set forth on the Bodhisattva path should give birth to this thought. However many beings there are in whatever realms, the being that might exist,

[08:25]

whether they are born from an egg or born from a womb, born from water or born from air, whether they have form or no form, whether they have perception or no perception, or neither perception nor no perception. In whatever conceivable realm of being that one might conceive of beings, in the realm of complete nirvana, I shall liberate them all. And though I have thus liberated countless beings, not a single being is liberated. So the Buddha's simple instruction is to save all beings and yet recognize there are no beings to save. And, you know, I think it's quite, it's, you know, each piece of this is somewhat, is not so hard to understand. We exist in a way in which we do not see ourselves as disconnected from others.

[09:34]

In such a way, we understand both our own suffering and other people's suffering. Those two ideas are connected in a sort of fundamental way, as the way things are, and yet it's very hard to hold those two ideas, the idea that the highest truth which is there is no particular thing that we can name as having some inherent existence and the very fact that we feel and think and suffer and we understand and are aware of and feel the suffering of others and their joys and so on and so forth. So how are we

[10:36]

to work with this teaching. The Heart Sutra is, I was reading the introduction, Edward Kanze, who is a well-known translator of this literature, the Prajnaparamita literature, I was reading the introduction of his translation of the perfection of wisdom in 25,000 lines. It's called Large Sutra. The Heart Sutra is sort of a condensation of that. What we chant every day is more like 25 lines. So this book is about a thousand times bigger. But he says, well, it really comes down to the fact of fearlessly holding these two ideas in mind that I will aspire to the highest enlightenment. And that implies, in fact, because we are not disconnected from our fellow beings, that implies that I aspire to the highest enlightenment for all people, all beings.

[11:48]

And, in fact, there are no beings that have some kind of separate existence that we can put our finger on. And keeping those two things in mind fearlessly is what the Buddha is teaching and what the Buddha is trying to point out here as the way to practice. Like I say, it's not so hard to go one side or the other, but to hold them both as you go through your daily life, as you consider the implications of the next election, as you, you know, struggle with your family members over seemingly you know, petty things as you enjoy a cup of tea. The next chapter, the Buddha starts off saying, moreover, subhuti,

[12:55]

When bodhisattvas give a gift, they should not be attached to a thing. When they give a gift, they should not be attached to anything at all. They should not be attached to the sight when they give a gift, nor should they be attached to a sound, a smell, a taste, a touch, or a dharma when they give a gift. Thus bodhisattva, thus the buddhi, fearless bodhisattvas should give a gift without being attached to a perception of an object. And why? Now this gets a little interesting. And why? The body of merit of those bodhisattvas who give a gift without being attached is not easy to measure. And then goes on to explicate that, the measurelessness of that merit that is the result of giving a gift without attachment. I want to say a little bit about merit because it's not a concept that is sort of ingrained in our culture, so we have to talk about it so that we don't get real confused.

[14:03]

To make some very simple analogies, when you do something nice for somebody, there's a kind of nice result that occurs. Sometimes you notice a feeling, that sort of lightness or a kind of, you know, there's a kind of, there can be a kind of liberation that takes place, a kind of loosening up. And, you know, often when you do something nice or do something good, which you think is good, practice diligently, give to people who have no money, give to organizations who are doing things you really believe in, give money to them. There's sometimes a little bit, just a little holding on, like, you know, yeah, I did a really good thing there, or I'm feeling good about myself today because my practice was really strong.

[15:11]

There's something there. After we sit, you know, we do service. And an important part of that service is to listen and give back that feeling. We dedicate the merit of this recitation. It's not just the recitation, but the merit of what we have attempted to embody in Zazen. Get that back. Give it away. Of course, the problem is when we give something, when we give it away immediately, when someone says something nice to you and you say, oh, thank you, just to give it back, that creates even more merit, a better feeling. And what do you do with that? Well, you have to give it up. That's why the body of merit, which is the result of giving something without attachment, is not easy to measure, because it just keeps going and going and going.

[16:18]

I wanted to refer to one passage, and I think I've talked about this before here, at some point in time. There's a famous Zen story about a teacher, a monk who studied the Diamond Sutra for many years, and studied all the commentaries of the Diamond Sutra, wrote his own commentaries. And when he heard about the Zen masters in the south of China, he decided to put all these texts on his back in a big backpack and travel to the south and find out what those people were really talking about. And, um, He came upon, as he was traveling, and, you know, people walked great distances in the old days before there was more convenient modes of travel.

[18:07]

He came upon an old woman on the path who was selling rice cakes. And he sat down, took off his pack, and he said, will you sell me one of those rice cakes? And she said, well, yes, but I'd like you to answer a question for me first. And he said, OK. Well, first, he kind of got himself caught by, she asked him, well, what's in the bag there? He says, well, this is the Diamond Sutra and all the famous commentaries of the Diamond Sutra. That was his first mistake. So she asked about this particular passage in the sutra. I'll just read the very briefest piece of it. Subhuti, a past thought cannot be found, a future thought cannot be found, nor can a present thought be found.

[19:14]

She says to him, so there's this line in the sutra, which mind, the way it's often said, a past mind cannot be found, a present mind cannot be found, nor can a future mind be found. And she says, well, you know, that's what it says in the sutra, so with which mind will you enjoy these rice cakes? And he has nothing to say on the subject. It's always tempting to give advice to people who are now dead, but the mind that holds those two ideas of ultimate liberation of all beings and the non-existence of all beings in this very moment is perhaps the only mind with which those rice cakes can be enjoyed.

[20:21]

I mentioned the long sutra on perfect wisdom. One of the things that struck me about it when I first read it was I was, for some reason, I don't know why, we were reading a passage, you know, in the Heart Sutra we say, know this, know that, and you know, there's many references to basic Buddhist teachings in which the Heart Sutra gives a kind of, points to a kind of further implication that these things don't really exist unto themselves, that these are not real, these ideas are not real. And in the in some of the older descriptions of the basic Buddhist meditation practices, meditation on the body, meditation on the breath. These same practices are brought up in the Mahayana literature, and in particular the Sutra.

[21:30]

It gives an almost verbatim description of these practices, and then at the end it says, and none of this is apprehended by the Bodhisattva, In other words, the Bodhisattva, the practitioner of the Middle Way, does not try and get a hold of this teaching. And this is kind of what the beautiful thing about the Diamond Sutra is, that it prevents you from getting a hold of the teaching. It makes it impossible to understand by taking one side or the other. It says, it brings it up and it's, you know, it says, it is difficult, but it brings up the question of, it's all here right now and you can't slip off on one side or the other. That the middle way is really the middle way between extremes.

[22:33]

That is not a denial of our deep commitment and strong feelings about various subjects, whether they be personal, whether they be political, whether they be about our community, whether they be about anything, about our children and how to raise them or how our children should behave. It is not a denial of that. It is simply a gift for how we can navigate our very life by this gift of showing us a path towards going through our life without grabbing onto it. and essentially making things worse and grabbing on and being pulled off the one side of say, you know, denial and cynicism, or on the other hand, just sort of wildly losing our way in our

[23:43]

emotions and obsessions, or whatever they might lead to. So again, it's not like any of those things I've just talked about, those extremes, go away. It's really about the path in the midst of all these phenomena and these truths. I think I'm going to read this little poem in here and then I'd like to open it up for discussion.

[24:53]

This is by Nagarjuna. You are not the same as or different from the conditions on which you depend. You are neither severed from nor forever fused with them. This is the deathless teaching of Buddhas who care for the world. Sure. You are not the same as or different from conditions on which you depend.

[25:54]

You are neither severed from nor forever fused with them. This is the deathless teaching of Buddhas who care for the world. This is the deathless teaching of awakening of those who care. I'm going to say something else, which might be a little off topic, but as I was reading this, I was thinking of a, uh, I kind of like this way of looking at self, uh, I was listening to somebody talk on the radio about this and I don't know, I can't remember who they were or why they were talking about it. It was about, you know how people take nouns and turn them into verbs? It's really common and it keeps happening more and more. Anyway, he was talking about selfing.

[26:58]

and saying that this is what human beings do, is they self. And in fact, selfing is a kind of dynamic activity in which that activity, you know, it just goes on all the time throughout your entire life. And in fact, this is a way of understanding how our self is never the same and is always changing, because we're constantly responding to Rawr! Rawr! changes in time in our body and mind and responses to, you know, those things outside our body necessarily, but maybe they're not so outside. But this is a, I thought, a really nice expression of impermanence of self, as a kind of, you know, understanding impermanence of self as a kind of dynamic, in terms of us as a dynamic organism. Sorry, Ron.

[28:08]

Does anybody want to give birth to a thought? Yes. Could you maybe give us sort of a personal example about how you Yeah, how I kind of approach that. And how you sort of come back to the middle way. Sitting here in front of you. everyone else, is a situation where it's very tempting to go, to try to be liked, to try to be, to appear knowledgeable, you know, to do something that people will like, that will make me feel

[29:30]

confirming about, you know, who I am. It's also a situation where I can go very... I can go off into a sort of fear and denial reaction. You know, like, what can I say as quickly as possible to get myself out of here? How can I actually even begin to think because I'm so paralyzed? And then on the flip side of that is to kind of go into my feel-good mode. I also struggle with communicating with my children insofar as that I will sometimes want to keep things really light and not bring up any uncomfortable topics.

[30:49]

At other times when I want to bring up uncomfortable topics, I'm extremely uncomfortable and I bring to them as their problem all of my anxiety and ferocious fears about whether they're going to survive and be successful and so on and so forth. So, somehow, when I come back to this thought of, well, let me say something about that. This is a little bit of a diversion, but I'll come back to that. The problem with this teaching is that they're, one way of looking at the problem, how to approach this is to kind of break it down into how am I going to understand this? And there are three, you know, Buddhists have thought about this and they actually have names for these different stages of different types of wisdom. There's the wisdom in which you actually hear the teaching and you kind of, you know, you sort of understand the words and you kind of hear it and you go, wow, that's great.

[31:54]

And then there's a further development of that into kind of reflection on what this means and what are the different pieces, how are these different pieces of the teaching related to each other? You know, how is the concept of emptiness perhaps related to the concept of there not being a separate existence of any beings? Kind of, you know, kind of just sort of thinking about it lightly, back and forth, trying to kind of sense, you know, just how this works. make sure you understand the words as well. Understanding the words is a huge deal for us because these concepts, often they're translated into words which don't really have the intended meaning in English that they had in the other culture. It's going to take a few hundred years, but hang in there. And then there's, after reflection, there is embodiment of the teaching. I know the teaching, I'm going to sit down and I'm going to practice this way.

[33:01]

And so sometimes I can get to that place when I'm dealing with a difficult emotional situation or something I'm really anxious about is to try and embody this teaching. It's not as though that stuff goes away, but it gives me just a little bit of space to say, okay, I can, you know, I can get through this. I can relate to my anxiety as my anxiety, not just, you know, not as, you know, me. In other words, there's a, there's a few, there's some options here as I, I am not totally bound by, ah, by what has come up for me. I don't know if that answers your question or not.

[34:03]

Yes, Linda? I'll try to remember what this thing was that came up when you were first giving the key phrase about, you know, saving all beings and knowing that there are no beings to save. And fearlessly standing, tell me if the words are right, fearlessly standing in the midst of that, those, should we say that or those two? Take your choice. Well, I'm on stage one, wow, that's great. But, no, forget but. Then the thought arises that fearlessly stand, what are, it's actually sort of a crazy idea.

[35:11]

that we're going to save all beings and there are no beings to save, or whichever way you express those things that appear to be two things. How would anybody decide to fearlessly stand there? It's a crazy idea. It doesn't make any sense. On what ground would you stand? Why would you decide to fearlessly stand there? because it's the only way to avoid the extremes. The only way to avoid and pass through your suffering is to take a path, take the middle path. It's emblematic of the middle path, these extremes, and to accept that they are there and not turn away from them. Accept that and act, act, carry on. Just carry on with that acceptance. Your life doesn't stop.

[36:15]

We can't really... Yes, I say yes to that. We can't really explain this to anybody. We can't explain that there are no beings to save and yet we care. The Buddha cares about the living beings. I just want to read something here. Well, I can't find the passage I'm looking for, but that's funny because it appears so often in the Sutra.

[37:22]

But it's about how they give the example of how if you were to give, fill the universe with gifts of gold and silver and precious stones for many eons, and many, many, many, and many, many, many eons, that would be, that would create a lot of merit, wouldn't it? Do you think you might get kind of a bad attitude after trying to do this for a little while? But no, this is, This is a big thing. And yet, what's even greater merit is to understand just four lines of the Sutra and bring it forth to others. This crazy idea that it can't be explained. They say, the text says, grasps four lines. Well, we're not supposed to be grasping something, but anyway.

[38:24]

To offer this, offer, you know, the body of the Buddha to other people. And to offer without attachment. So, yes, this is a, it's a crazy idea. And yet, that is the diamond that cuts through delusion. And your life doesn't stop. You have to carry on with this crazy idea forever. Is there anything else? Yes? Where? Oh, go ahead. Yeah, right. You can just imagine a situation. I can just imagine a situation walking at the sidewalk. You come upon somebody, a stranger, lying on the ground, writhing in pain.

[39:28]

Is it so crazy to know that this person has no core self and yet want to help the person because they're in pain? That's not crazy. Not at all. No, maybe it's not crazy either. You wouldn't say, you don't really have a self, don't worry about it. No, I don't think any of us could be caught doing that. And yet, knowing that they don't have a self, does that make it easier to help them? Holding that idea, that crazy idea, does that not make it easier to help them? It makes it more immediate. It makes it more immediate and perhaps it helps you get through some of the stuff that comes up for you in the middle of that situation.

[40:35]

And we all know there's a lot of stuff that comes up in an extreme situation like that. Usually we forget the crazy idea, you know, I got stuff to do here, forget it. But it all comes back to, can you remember to remember? Can you remember the teaching when you need the teaching? No. He says the Bodhisattva... He doesn't say why. Like in the first chapter I read, he's asked, how should we set out on the path?

[41:41]

Yes. And the Buddha says you should aspire to save all beings. Okay. I mean, we can go into kind of a philosophical explanation about that, but I think the point is that it's... He says, why about all these other things, but he doesn't say why about that. Oh, he says, how so? I don't think he says why. I don't think he says... I think it's more like a... It's more like an explanation as opposed to a kind of offering of a, well, you should do something. Like, I think what you're asking is what? Let me ask you this. Are you asking me, when you say, why should you save all beings, is there a should underneath there?

[42:45]

Definitely a should. Okay. There's the should. Yeah. Well, in the beginning of the sutra it doesn't explain that. But, you know, that's why those who set out the path, if they take up a piece of the sutra and explain it in detail for others, maybe this is what you should do, is to explain why, how that is. Investigate that. That would help us. Yes? Well, I'm kind of grappling with, if every being has Buddha nature and every being is already enlightened, then what is it to save them? Then what? Then what is it to save them? How do we do it?

[43:47]

we have Buddha nature and we're already enlightened and yet we still suffer. Do we not? I mean, we can acknowledge that as kind of one of the facts of our life. And then if you step back a little bit and you say, well, am I really suffering? Do I really, you know, then you start getting into questions about liberation. When you start asking those questions, when you start thinking about those teachings of I'm already enlightened. I have Buddha nature. But in fact, in the first instance, we come to this practice and this teaching because we have a problem. And we come to understand dealing with that problem in a certain way, and yet there are lots of different ideas, a lot of different Buddhist toys out there for helping us. I'm just talking about one of them, which I like a lot.

[45:00]

Well, I guess I was trying to think about that in terms of there being no means to save, that if they are already in some sense saved, because they already have this. But then where does that take you? Does that take you to feeling like, oh, I guess I don't have to do anything? No, not necessarily. I can be with other beings. Yeah. And share their motivation. Right. I just wonder if it's a kind of energetic place or is it a... Yes. Yeah. Sounds good. Yes. And? We have Buddha nature, and we're enlightened, but we forget. We sure do. We forget all the time. Most of the time.

[46:01]

Yes. And so it's a question of ourselves awakening, oh yes, I have Buddha nature. And I'm off the path. and then get back on. And same is true of other beings. They all have Buddha nature and they forget. And the urge to save all sentient beings, it's an act of compassion if you understand that you have Buddha nature and so does everybody else. It's an act of, then, of compassion to awaken them to their Buddha nature, but if you're, at least as I understand it, if you really wake up, you realize there is no self.

[47:03]

And so in the act of saving the other sentient beings as well, they have no self. That's an even greater gift. Right. But that's ... I don't know if that makes sense, but that's kind of ... Yeah, that's it. So, again, if we can remember that thought and that aspiration, we give ourselves a little bit of space to act without totally being caught. How are we doing on time? I don't know what that means. Thank you.

[47:58]

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