is the modern Mandarin, which is very far from ancient Chinese. So a lot of Asian peoples, pre-Aryan peoples, too, believed in this myth of Purusha sacrificing the body. So the Buddha is sort of responding to this idea because, of course, the self, the idea of some entity being real is at the heart of all Buddhist practice and how we approach the reality of something which can be real. So the Buddhist response is to offer up this teaching as the body. So we see these themes running throughout these verses and I just thought I'd remind you of this alternating theme of the sacrifice, renouncing of the body and yet the acquisition of the body, this incredible body of merit one acquires as the result of this teaching. And this body of merit is sort of this amorphous, ambiguous body which is sort of equivalent to the reward body basically presented in that light but as we get on later on with the Sutra there the way the Buddha talks about it it's the same as his Dharmakaya as well and again it's the Dharmakaya projects these other two bodies anyway.

[01:17]

So you have one body you have all three bodies you don't get one without the I'll get into this sutra and I think, I don't know if last time if I talked briefly, if I mentioned the origin, we don't know anything about the dating, the date of the Diamond Sutra, scholars who like to do these things. think the Diamond Sutra is a rather late example of the Prajnaparamita teachings, and they like to date it. Now the consensus is the 2nd century AD. They used to think it was the 3rd century AD, now they're saying the 2nd century AD. And this type of teaching, this Prajnaparamita teachings, they think probably began around the 2nd century BC. with the first scripture being probably the sutra, the perfection of wisdom in 8,000 lines, which Kansi also translated and published in English. But these are just hypothetical dates and no one really knows for sure.

[02:22]

I don't much care for the dates because in the earliest of scriptures, the one in 8,000 lines, Subhuti knows everything about this teaching, and yet in this last of all teachings, in the Diamond Sutra, he doesn't know anything. So just based on that sort of development of Subhuti's education, one would think the Diamond Sutra is the progenitor. from which all the other teachings came because in all the other teachings whenever Subhuti appears he's quite knowledgeable about this teaching. In any case we The sutra was translated six times into Chinese and we still have all those six Chinese translations. When I publish this I'm going to be talking about, I'll mention differences that occur in each line of the Chinese as to whether they say something different. We also have a Tibetan version which was based more or less on the second of the Chinese translations, so it doesn't... Yes? So there are no Tibetan versions that are translated directly from Sanskrit?

[03:25]

Apparently not, because we can see the Tibetan mimics. If Kumarajiva was the first translator into Chinese around 401 B.A.D. and about 50 years later Bodhiruchi improved Kumarajiva's version, just tweaked it just a tad and we can see that the Sanskrit largely or the Tibetan largely reflects Kumarajiva's versions. If Kumarajiva omits something and Bodhiruchi doesn't include it yet the other Chinese versions will include it. We can see that the Tibetan version wasn't translated until after all the Chinese versions were made. But Kumarajiva was so popular that people revere him. There was a legend in India when Shrenzong visited India that Kumarajiva was reborn in every world to translate the sutras of the Buddha.

[04:29]

So he's this special cosmic translator and not prone to mistakes, and so everybody relies on his translations. I'm not going to comment on his mistakes, but in any case, we have a Tibetan version made about 700 A.D. or so, and then we still have some Sanskrit versions that are floating around too. Of course, two of them were unearthed on the Silk Road and so they're fairly early, but no earlier than the 6th or 7th century A.D. in terms of actual piece of paper. Of course, they were based on earlier versions, and when Kanzi and Muller did their versions, they compared four or five different Sanskrit versions that exist today in different libraries. There are differences among the different Sanskrit versions. On Muller, the one Muller uses, and the one Kansa uses, and then we have these two Silk Road versions, the one found in northern Pakistan called the Gilgit version, and then there's Oral Stein's version found on the Silk Road called the Stein version usually.

[05:38]

They're not complete. The Gilgit version doesn't start until Chapter 13. The Stein version just skips chapters throughout. We can look at them and I'd say at least 90% is identical in all the versions. But the 10% can be quite interesting. I'm not going to talk about the differences, but I thought I'd let you know exactly what a person does when they translate this sutra. Those are your options. And my technique that I use in translating is I do a composite and I sort of go with my best light, so I don't try to be scholarly in terms of saying, well, this is the best version, therefore we should always stick to that. I sort of skip around. But I follow Kansi's version fairly closely. But Kansi will often... He published the Sanskrit of the text he compiled, and he also produced a composite, but he sometimes does not even translate a phrase in his own version.

[06:43]

So you can't just tell by his English what his Sanskrit version was. So, that was a long digression, and I'm sorry to have taken so much time, but I thought I'd say a couple things. So, today we're going to start with 9, and I'm going to try to get through 16. I'm just going to read today the chapters and then comment as I go along. is concerned about subuddhi and subuddhi's understanding of this teaching and also his understanding of the nature of buddhahood. Subuddhi seems to think as he says at the end of chapter 7 that buddhas or sages he says come from the uncreated from asamskrita dharmas and asamskrita means non-created dharmas and of which there are three there's the space nirvana and Sabuddhi is especially fond of space and nirvana, we know, because he's the person who best understands emptiness.

[07:48]

And in chapter 8 the Buddha said, no, the Buddhas don't come from the uncreated, they come from this teaching. So the Buddha's idea of Buddhahood is that it's sort of this active rather than this passive thing. It's activity and not simply something that comes out of space or the uncreated. So he's got to go back and try to recapitulate Subuddhi's own training to try to prod him into a greater awareness. And so he begins at chapter nine with the entire Hinayana path. during the Buddhist day there were these other stages of realization where people thought that if they reached this particular stage that was the ultimate stage and as time went on they built up this concept of these four stages and if you see most translators probably 99% of them in English will translate, well not translate, but transliterate the names of the Sanskrit stages.

[08:54]

I've translated them because the meaning of the words is very important and the name of the stages is Srotapanna. which means to find the river and then it's Sakrad Agaman, one more return, Anagaman, no more returns and then Arhan. Arhan has about six different meanings and the meaning that's relevant in this context is no more rebirth which follows from one more return, no more return, And I'll talk about these as I go through this. So the Buddha says, tell me, Sabuddhi, to those who find the river. who become Srota Upanis think I have attained the goal of finding the river and of course the river is the river of impermanence it's that awareness of the dependent origin of that everything is empty that everything is impermanent and dependent on its neighbor whether it's a physical or temporal dependence

[09:58]

and once one realizes that everything is impermanent one realizes that nothing has it any self-nature of its own and this is sort of the first realization from which buddhism begins its path certainly the hinayana path emphasizes this so the buddha says ask this question and subuddhi says no indeed bhagavan those who find the river do not think i have attained the goal of finding the river and why not bhagavan Thus they are said to find the river. They do not find a sight, nor do they find a sound, a smell, a taste, a touch, or a thought. Thus are they said to find the river. Bhagavan, if those who found the river should think I have attained the goal of finding the river, their attachment to a self would occur, as would their attachment to a being, their attachment to a life and their attachment to a soul. So this is pretty much essentially what the Buddha talks about in chapters 3 and 4 about what a bodhisattva is too.

[11:02]

if a bodhisattva is attached to any of these concepts, these four concepts of self, being, life or soul, they also don't qualify as bodhisattvas and subhuti is aware of this and says naturally these people on the hinayana path also do not have these attachments because if they did there would be an attachment to a dharma and of course the make it impossible for them to advance any further on the path because a dharma is just another highfalutin word for the self, one's own mind. The Buddha said tell me, subhuti, as he progresses and incidentally the Buddhists have developed this concept of karma and they've actually come up with the idea that karma only lasts for seven a srota-apana you're down to seven lifetimes your karma that is the karma you have acquired will only last for seven more lifetimes and so when you realize the impermanence of all things when you find the river

[12:16]

the quality that underlies this discovery is the no more creation of karma, there is no more karma created, no new karma created by the Srota Upana, but you're still subject to those seven more lifetimes, so you're going to be reborn seven more times. So the Buddha says, well and he goes on, well he skips the next six lifetimes and says, tell me, think I have attained the goal of returning once more." This is the Sakhard argument, one more return. And of course it means by one more return it means you go up to heaven for that last rebirth in heaven and then come back down as a human once more. So it's actually technically it's one more round trip rather than one more return. It's like a return trip ticket. It's both ways. So know indeed, Bhagavan, those who return once more do not think I have attained the goal of returning once more. And why not? Bhagavan, they do not find any such dharma as returning once more.

[13:19]

That's what they said, to return once more. So it just goes on like this. Tell me, Sabuddhi, to those who return no more, that is, that is, they just a person who returns no more buys a one-way ticket they don't come back as humans anymore they they have one more rebirth but it's in one of the heavens and they don't so they don't return again and is that a goal or have they these people to think they have attained that goal No, indeed, Bhagavan, those who return no more do not think I have attained the goal of returning no more. Why not, Bhagavan? They do not find any such dharma as returning no more. Thus are they said to return no more. and the buddha said tell me subhuti how about you because subhuti has become an arhan to those who are arhans arhan i've translated here is free from rebirth to those who are free from rebirth that is the reborn nowhere once they die they are not reborn again not even in heaven think i have attained freedom from rebirth and subhuti replied no indeed bhagavan those who are

[14:28]

do not think I've attained freedom from rebirth. And why not? Bhagavan, there is no such dharma as freedom from rebirth. Thus are they said to be free from rebirth. If Bhagavan, those who are free from rebirth should think, this is what we've heard before, I have attained freedom from rebirth or any other goal, their attachment to a self would occur as would their attachment to a being, their attachment to a life and their attachment to a soul. Of course again anytime you see these numerical lists like this, these are four concepts and of course they perfectly fit these four stages of the Hinayana path too. It's the person who finds the river lets go the self and the person who is reborn once more lets go the concept of being. the being who is reborn no more lets go the concept of life and the arhan lets go attachment to a soul because a soul represents rebirth, arhan is not further reborn.

[15:36]

And Subuddhi asks the rhetorical question, and why is that? why am I an Arahant free from my birth and not unattached from all these concepts. Bhagavan, the Tathagata, the Arahant, the fully enlightened one is declared that I am foremost among those who dwell free of passion. Other translations usually translate this dwell free of contention but passion is definitely the idea in this particular context and again I've translated these because the buddha is making a pun here or subuddhi is actually because arhan means no rebirth free from passion is arana and they're basically the same term in terms of sound the arhan and the arana you're an arhan because you're arana because you are free from passion And Bhagavan, although I am free from rebirth and without desires, I do not think I am free from rebirth and without desires.

[16:42]

Bhagavan, if I thought I've attained freedom from rebirth, the Tathagata would not have singled me out by saying, foremost among those who dwell free of passion is the good son, Sabuddhi, for he dwells nowhere at all. thus is he called a dweller free of passion who dwells free of passion but again this is as far as as subhuti can go and this is what the buddha wanted to bring out is that subhuti can't be a buddha there's no compassion in this path the hinayana path all there is is no more rebirth the Buddha wanted to emphasize and sort of remind Subuddhi that his path does not lead to Buddhahood. The Bodhisattva path does because it's a path based on compassion. So he reminds Subuddhi of this series of stages and that's why chapter 9 is inserted here in the Sutra. Do you have any questions on this particular

[17:45]

the Buddhist purpose in bringing the this idea of no more passion ergo no more rebirth and again this is the Hinayana path no more desires no more passion thus no more rebirth but no more rebirth means you can't you're not in a position to help anybody or to help liberate anybody if the best you're going to do is not be reborn so I'll just keep going So now the Buddha contrasts the Bodhisattva path with the Sravaka path, the Sravaka being these four stages. Sravaka is another name for means to hear, to hear above the din, to hear the Buddha's teaching and the early followers of the Buddha were called Sravakas and these four stages represent the stages of the Sravaka path and so the Buddha is now going to contrast the Sravaka path with the So, hopefully, Sabuddhi will see the difference. The Buddha said... Yes?

[18:50]

Why is it the Shravaka path instead of the Arhat path? Well, because the Arhat is simply the goal of the path. and Sravaka would include the three stages prior to Arhan. But the Arhan is the goal of the Sravaka path and I suppose you could call it the Arhan path. It would mean the same thing. Yes, it means to hear and it has this meaning to hear above the noise, to hear above the din. The dictionaries give the meaning to hear above the din. and again the Buddha's followers who personally heard the Buddha were called Sravakas because they actually heard the teachings. it's from the root shruta which means to hear and it's the first expression in the sutra is evam maya shrutam thus have I heard and so this shruta shravaka is from that and it means those people who heard the buddhist early teachings and thus it represents the shravaka path is just a name for these four stages culminating with the arhat and again arhat

[20:03]

Arhant and the reason I've chosen Arhan is because of this mnemonic connection between Arhan and Arana which is brought out by keeping Arhan. If I had Arhat it wouldn't be so obvious that Arana is almost the same term and sort of a pun on Arhan. Anyway the Bodhisattva path it goes like this. So the Buddha said, did the Tathagata obtain any such Dharma that is any such goal in the presence of Dipankara Tathagata the Arhan the fully enlightened one. So the Buddha asked Subuddhi to recapitulate his experience because Subuddhi has experienced the entire Sravaka path. including its final goal. So the Buddha uses himself now as an example. So in previous chapters the Buddha has talked about Bodhisattvas who are sort of at the first stage of the path. A Bodhisattva who sets forth should do this or that.

[21:06]

Now he talks about a Bodhisattva who becomes a Buddha, namely the Buddha. So he says, �Did I obtain any such dharma in the presence of Dipankara Tathagata?� The significance of this meeting between the Buddha when he was a Bodhisattva and Dipankara runs throughout this sutra. It was at this meeting that the Buddha, as the ascetic whose name was Sumedha, realized this eighth stage of the Bodhisattva path, the forbearance of birthlessness. This is what the Buddha realized when he met Dipankara. thus realizing the eighth stage he also realized the full extent of his reward body or his body of merit which underlies this teaching as well and so the Buddha did realize the reward body and this experience this traumatic experience of no birth the birthlessness of all dharmas

[22:11]

but he asks Subuddhi and Subuddhi says, no Bhagavan, the Tathagata did not obtain any such Dharma in the presence of Dipankara Tathagata, the Arhan, the fully enlightened one. And of course, the Buddha had already practiced as a Bodhisattva for many, many lifetimes prior to this meeting, so he'd already begun the Bodhisattva path. upon meeting Dipankara he made this final realization and the Buddha continues now with the two primary, what should I say, the concomitance of Bodhisattvahood when you reach this eighth stage of Bodhisattvahood when you become a sort of a full-fledged Bodhisattva because the last two stages don't really matter much in the the 10th stage is Buddhahood itself and the 9th stage is sort of this transitional stage, it's sort of like the 8th stage is sort of like when in November you're elected president, but you don't become president until January, it's sort of like that.

[23:23]

Once you're at the 8th stage you've been elected and there's no turning back, you're going to be a full Buddha in just two more months. So it's rather insignificant that and this is the full realization of Buddhahood really. Yes. I don't recall there being any. I don't know if anybody's ever actually made that connection. I translated the Doctrine and Covenants pictures once and I didn't know about the ten Bodhisattva stages when I translated that so I never compared the two. It's hard to say. The reason that you see a lot of tens in Buddhism is because the decimal system arrived in India rather late. You don't see any tens early on in early Buddhism.

[24:25]

It was only, I think it was around the 5th, 6th centuries AD when the decimal system, when the Arabs brought the decimal system in. Merchants, you know, and so forth brought the decimal system in. You start seeing the six paramitas suddenly become ten paramitas. and there were no ten stages. There were earlier sets of, and there were eight stages early on, and then there were some other, the Eightfold Path was not the Tenfold Path. And so the Chinese, I think, their take on the ten maybe has a different origin, because they had ten also rather early on. Around the time of Christ, they started using the word ten, but again, with the Chinese, ten was They've never used 10. I mean, in the I Ching, it could be 3 or 8, 64. In Taoism, it's usually 81 or 9. 3, 9, and 81 are the big Taoist numbers. 10 is an odd number, and it definitely reflects the decimal conception.

[25:29]

But honestly, I don't know. That's an interesting idea, the connection between the Bodhisattva stages and the ox-herding pictures. But anyway, there are these two things that happen with the Bodhisattva. And so the Buddha mentions them because, of course, he wants to, yes, his point is to point out that Bodhisattvas also don't realize anything, but they actually realize a lot more without realizing anything. And this is what they get that the Arhat does not get. And Buddha said, so Bodhi, if any Bodhisattva should thus claim I shall bring about the transformation of a world, this is what happens for someone who reaches the Bodhisattva realization. A Bodhisattva transforms the world. The term here transformation is sometimes translated the purification of the world and sometime rather mundanely as the adornment of the world. But it means that when a person reaches this stage, suddenly there's an enlightened being in the world who suddenly makes a difference and teaches others and actually creates a Buddha world, a Buddha land, and so transforms a world.

[26:48]

but the Buddha wants to emphasize the non-attachment to realization, so he says, his claim would be untrue. And how so? The transformation of a world, Sabuddhi, which is, again, an arhat does not transform a world. The transformation of a world is said by the Tathagata to be no transformation, thus is it called the transformation of a world. So in a sense he's also saying top that. Therefore, Sabuddhi, fearless bodhisattvas should thus give rise to a thought. And this is why, this is where a bodhisattva gets their power and where an arhant does not practice this. This is why a bodhisattva realizes the eighth stage of bodhisattvahood and is able to transform the world because they give rise to a thought that is not attached. And of course that thought is the thought of liberating all beings. And they do not give rise to a thought that is attached to anything. They should not give rise to a thought attached to a site. Arhats cut off all thoughts.

[27:49]

bodhisattvas give rise to thoughts, thoughts that are focused on the liberation of all beings, nor should they give rise to a thought attached to a sound, a smell, a taste, a touch, or a dharma. Subhuti, and then this is the second aspect of realization that a bodhisattva acquires, it would be like a cosmic being with a great and perfect body whose self-existence was like that of Sanskrit here it would be like Purusha he says imagine Purusha it would be like Purusha the Bodhisattva is just like Purusha of course and everybody in his audience knows whose Purusha was or still is if he's still making that sacrifice and so becoming a Bodhisattva is just like You acquire this great and perfect body whose self-existence is like Mount Sumeru, of course this infinite big mountain in the middle of the universe and of the world and of course a Bodhisattva is the middle of the world.

[28:58]

Just like Confucius said, someone who practices the Tao is like the North Star, all the other constellations revolve around it. and the Bodhisattva is the same. The Bodhisattva creates and transforms this world in which a Bodhisattva liberates beings and becomes like Mount Sumeru with this huge perfect body which is just like Purusha's because Purusha made the offering of his body. Well, so does a Bodhisattva offers his own self-existence in infinite worlds, in infinite time, in infinite space, to liberate all beings. So Subuddhi replied, it would be great, Bhagavan, such self-existence as Purusha's would be great, Sugata. Why? Because self-existence, Bhagavan, self-existence is said by the Tathagata to be no existence. Thus is it called self-existence. because, Bhagavan, it is neither existence nor no existence, thus it is called self-existence. So Subuddhi, by his answers we can see, has acquired a full knowledge of the teaching of prajna.

[30:04]

because this is neither existence nor no existence is sort of this ultimate application of this dialectic which Subuddhi has now become proficient at but he still doesn't see what the Buddha is getting at here because he's just simply denying the reality of what the Buddha is talking about in terms of the Bodhisattva's realization. Still this all is going to sink in and Subuddhi is picking up on but so in chapter 9 we see the arhan path and chapter 10 we see the bodhisattva path and of course both the Buddha and subhuti are careful not to present it in such a way that we might become attached to any realization on either path. Do you have any questions? Yeah. I'm sitting on the formulation which comes up quite commonly here and elsewhere then we can call it this, which comes up again and again in these, say, you know, because ... Rick.

[31:18]

A is not A, thus it is A. At the beginning of the Sutra, Subuddhi doesn't make this connection. He simply says A is not A. the attributes of the Buddha are not attributes therefore we cannot see the Buddha and the Buddha corrects him and says but we can see the Buddha and the Buddha says it's no attributes, it's by seeing the Buddha's attributes as no attributes that we can in fact see the Buddha. So the Buddha wants Subuddhi to realize that Subuddhi has sort of thinks of emptiness of not a as being not a and that's just sort of the end of things. Well, things are impermanent, there's no self-nature and once we're free of self-nature and our karma runs its course then we've extinguished our fires. But the Buddha keeps asserting this and now Subuddhi has become adept at it too and he knows what the Buddha is getting at now.

[32:23]

This is what the Buddha means by in chapter 6 the Buddha says you should not be attached to dharmas how much more so no dharmas but you should dharmas are like a raft you have to have a dharma and he says that's what I mean by Buddha dharmas and so the thus something which does not exist we call it whatever we call it a we call it a mountain a and that's what the Buddha's point is, is having realized the impermanence and emptiness of things now you have to put those non-entities to use in the liberation of other beings and not simply just think that you've extinguished the universe and become an arhat free of rebirth. all I can say about it is simply that the Buddha is trying to present non-Dharmas or no-Dharmas as Dharmas and saying that no-Dharmas are still Dharmas, we still call them Dharmas, we still talk about them in our teaching.

[33:29]

I know that sounds puzzling and that's the best I think I can do, that's all I understand. would be great. Sugata, does that have something translated? Yes, it does. Su means well or good and gata means to go, so it means well gone, well gone, and it's sort of another version of tata gata, but tata has this ambiguous quality of thus gone or thus come, because agata and gata can be taken different ways, but with sugata there's no ambiguity, it's simply well gone. Well, it seems to me that, again, it's the background of the, well, it's really a Hindu, Vedanta, Vedas background. Yes. This is coming out of, and I think that's what, I don't know, that the Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, I don't know whether he really believed in these entities, or Purusha, or the gods Indra, or any of those.

[34:39]

Well, he doesn't. And yet, I've often, you know, you often read human being so what I'm saying is there's some difficulty from you knowing it depends on who he's talking to well he's talking to these arhans and whenever he mentions to think that these 32 qualities or attributes uh well they come from an earlier tradition and then they seem to think of them as physical attributes you can identify balloon or on the next Dalai Lama or whatever from these external thing and it's just that those seem to be taken very much I mean that what you're telling is it's all taken very much for granted as this view as this myth right view of of the way things are that uh-huh yes and and so but the buddha is trying to to turn this around in some way yes for subduing absolutely by using these images

[35:47]

Again, this sutra is about bodies and whenever he talks about Purusha he always uses the phrase, imagine, suppose, it's like. He says, it's like a cosmic being or imagine a cosmic being, well that's how I translate Purusha, imagine a Purusha. So Purusha has already sacrificed his body and created the world, but the Buddha is trying to give him an image of what this body of merit is like. So he says, imagine, think of Purusha. And so he's just using it as an example because he knows everybody in his audience knows about Purusha. By thinking of stages of attainment and so on, you're really still holding on to some idea about what it really means to be fully enlightened. And is he trying to get Subhuti to let go of the whole idea of attaining something, anything?

[37:04]

yes yeah that is the teaching of the sutra but to liberate all beings and not just let go of everything it's the crux of the sutra and it's the the puzzling contradiction in the sutra because exactly right but you make the vow nevertheless where the power of this Sutra comes from, from this making this vow, but he knows that Subuddhi and all his people in this audience can understand this body of merit idea better if they think of well it's like the first being in the universe who creates the whole world out of that body by making an Yes, yeah, exactly, that's exactly what the Bodhisattva does and that's how a Bodhisattva sort of tricks the self, trying to get rid of the self, well getting rid of the self just creates another self, so the Buddha introduces this idea, well instead of trying to get rid of the self, how about we liberate all

[38:28]

in the Bodhisattva path there's this sort of generates the body of merit. Yes. And does that then sacrifice the body of merit to this sort of what we do in our in our liturgy is we you know we offer this body of merit. Right and that's why the book right because beings are limitless and therefore the body of merit has to be limitless and that's that's why this myth of Purusha works very effectively with in the background of this. Did you have a question? Returning to this question of neither-nor, you used the term dialectic to describe that, which really surprised me. It's kind of the core of my problem of not understanding this sutra, because I understand dialectic actually to be a resolution of contradiction. And this seems to be more about accepting contradiction. So I don't... Was that... your use of the term dialectic, did you have something in mind there? No, I wasn't thinking Hegelian or anything just because in Hegelian dialectic usually the synthesis is usually a new reality which is neither A nor not B and in the Buddha's use of the word it's neither nor

[40:07]

nor both, nor some new entity either. It's more like putting the last unit of the last part of the dialectic, making it equivalent to A. A and not A are not different. It's in a way the negation of the dialectic. seemed to be opposed to the dialectic, so I thought the term dialectic would not apply to what is being said here. Yeah, but he knows that this is where Subbuni has gained his understanding of emptiness from the application of this and so he and also there's another reason why he does this I think is because Prajna, this teaching is about Prajna and Prajna, another name for Prajna is Shunyata, emptiness, and the Buddha really seems at pains to avoid that term in this Sutra. The Sutra is about emptiness, sort of underlying, going through it, but what the Buddha does is he introduces this, I'll call it that, this logical dialectic in place of it, so it's this dialectic which is in fact Shunyata.

[41:24]

but not in a word, in a logical technique. The Buddha is trying to do by the application of this self-negating dialectic what the word sunyata could also do if rightly understood, but he also knows that subhuti is hung up on emptiness, on sunyata, but it's this hinayana view of emptiness and so rather than trying to teach two versions of he avoids that word and I think that's why he uses this dialectic, negating dialectic, just instead of saying it's empty. If he just said it's empty, well then subhuti would be, would feel very proud of himself. So the Buddha, rather than do that, the Buddha says, yeah, and thus we call it, not a. you know, because we have certain linguistic and mental notions of what's empty, you know, think of like the space in a can, you know, an empty can, and I think that that's what he's arguing it is not.

[42:48]

Right. co-created every moment. So the Buddha, the Arhat, the Supreme Mentor, all those bodies do exist but they're conditional. Yes. And is he or have you not gotten to that? Well we haven't really gotten to that but there are these different interpretations. Last week Michael Wenger gave me a an old wind bell that Suzuki Roshi was talking about the bodies of the Buddha. So his understanding and this may be that of the Japanese tradition is slightly different from the one I'm familiar with and I've just been reading Chinese sources is that the sambhogakaya and the nirmanakaya of the Buddha are conditional and they are impermanent and when a Buddha enters nirvana

[44:03]

and according to Suzuki Roshi it's the Sambhogakaya and the Dharmakaya remain and so I can't possibly get into this because I really I don't I've never I didn't even know about these bodies till about a year ago. I'd heard about all these three bodies but it was only when I started translating and I realized I had to translate that I realized that this body of merit had to be one of the Buddha's bodies and I started trying to learn about these bodies of the Buddha and I have to admit I'm still learning about them. So I don't know, when you talk about Buddha, there's certainly an aspect of the Buddha that can be called conditional. Certainly, the teaching, the 32 aspects body is definitely conditional. It's not here. obviously there are two different views of whether the Sambhogakaya, the body of realization, is conditional or not and I can't say anything about that.

[45:12]

Anyway, this dialectic or this idea of emptiness runs throughout this Sutra but again I think the reason the Buddha wanted to not talk about it was because he was worried about And especially if this is a late teaching, then it is taking a very more sophisticated view, because a lot of the earlier Prajna teachings have no compunction about talking about emptiness. But certainly this might be said to represent a more sophisticated view of trying to deal with that concept. Can we take a five-minute break? Okay, yeah, and how many people need a copy of this, of the text? Two people can use a copy? Three? And four? Maybe if somebody in the interim, Michael and Xerox, are going to move on, but yeah, the Sutra is worth going over.

[46:16]

Of course, you find after you've gone over the first half of it, the second half goes much faster because all these initial concepts would seem so disconcerting or new, at least require more talk and I've digressed about a lot of things I wouldn't But yeah, certainly if we were going to go over it all, I think we would need probably another three sessions, probably something like that. But today we'll see what we can do and then keep going. Last week when I was at the Page Street Center, they suggested I just skip a half a dozen chapters. And so that's what I did. I skipped a half a dozen. and I tried to choose those that weren't too important but they all are sort of important. So we're still in chapter 10 and where are we? No, we finished it. Yeah, we finished 10, right, right. Okay, well and so Sabuddhi has heard the Buddha has presented this difference between the Arhan and the Bodhisattva and

[47:23]

the idea that the Bodhisattva does have some sort of realization even though it's not exactly what we'd call something one can when it wants to say is it one is attached to. So let's get into chapter 11 and see what as a result of not acquiring anything you don't realize anything you don't transform any world and you don't have any even you have no self-existence either. even though you do, you don't. So in chapter 11 the Buddha said, Sabuddhi, what do you think? If there were as many rivers as there are grains of sand in the great Ganges, would the number of sand in all those rivers be great? The Buddha is always using the idea of grains of sand in the Ganges because of course that's where he taught all the time in that area and everybody knew the Ganges which the sand of the Ganges is not like the sand on a beach it's more like the sand in a big river like the Mississippi it's more like mud it's so fine it's like mud but you wouldn't speak of grains of mud so the Chinese commentators say that it's like flour

[48:39]

the sand of the Ganges so it's really fine sand and so if there was many rivers as there are grains of sand in the Ganges with the number of grains of sand in those rivers be great the number of rivers would be great Bhagavan how much more so their grains of sand And then the Buddha says, well, I'll tell you, Sabuddhi, how much more so, because I don't think you really know. And so he says, if some man or woman filled as many worlds as there are grains of sand in all those rivers with the seven jewels and gave them as a gift to the Tathagatas, the Arhats, the fully enlightened ones, Sabuddhi, what do you think? Would the body of merit produced as a result by that man or woman be great? manasabuddhi says, it'd be great, Bhagavan, great indeed, Sugata, the body of merit produced as a result by that man or woman would be immeasurable and infinite. And then the Buddha said, Sabuddhi, if then a man or woman filled as many worlds as that, with the seven jewels and gave them as a gift to the Tathagatas, the arhans, the fully enlightened ones, as many worlds as there are grains of sand in the Ganges or rivers, whatever, a big number, and there was a good son or daughter who took but one four-line gatha of this dharma teaching and made it known and explained it to others.

[50:02]

The body of merit produced as a result would be immeasurably, infinitely greater. Well the Buddha in the chapter 11 here introduces again this idea of the body of merit and this is because he's just in chapter 10 he's just gone over the idea that a Bodhisattva doesn't realize anything and doesn't transform anything and doesn't gain any self-existence that they can therefore sacrifice. Well if this is true then why should one practice? And the Buddha reintroduces the idea that the only way you can gain that realization of the Bodhisattva that is no realization is through the practice of merit. And again the Mahayana teaching puts equal emphasis on merit and wisdom as sort of the two legs that we use to walk down the Bodhisattva path. You have to have both. and so that's why in this sutra in this chapter the Buddha reintroduces this body of merit and also has this body that he these offerings the offering of all these jewels is an offering to Buddhas and this offering of this little piece of scripture is an offering to beings

[51:19]

So these are two different kinds of offerings. Well the first is not only a material offering it's an offering of something to someone who doesn't need it and whereas the second offering is a spiritual offering and it's an offering a very significant offering to those who do need this offering and it's the offering of the shortest possible unit of measurement in ancient Indian metrics, poetic metrics, was the gatha, the four-line gatha. And you can understand it as a particular gatha or just four lines from this sutra or any other idea. Vasubandhu says it's the idea that there's no self, no being, no life and no soul. but anyway you get this huge again the Buddha says you do acquire something you get this great big body of merit that's infinite infinitely greater than than something that is already infinite and immeasurable and so in chapter 12 the Buddha continues this idea of making this offering of the teaching in chapter 11 he reintroduces the idea that the bodhisattva

[52:32]

and therefore does acquire something, this body of merit, and makes this offering of this teaching to other beings. And in chapter 12, and we'll pause a second after chapter 12, furthermore, subhuti, wherever but one four-line gatha of this dharma teaching is spoken, so you can pick any four-line gatha, and wherever that gatha is spoken or explained, that place is like a stupa in the world of devas, humans, and asuras. how much more so shall they be remarkably blessed sabuddhi who memorize, recite, master this entire teaching and explain it in detail to others. For in that place sabuddhi dwells a teacher or one who represents the guru of wisdom. And I have a little comment here, I may as well read it because it's so short. This teaching is the true body of the Buddha. Before concluding the first half of the sutra, the Buddha once more tells Subuddhi about its power. Wherever even a single gatha of this teaching is found, that place shall be venerated as if it contained the relics of a Buddha.

[53:35]

In fact, these words do contain the relics of a Buddha. But if dead Buddhas are deserving of such respect, how much more so living Buddhas? In this regard, the Chinese Taoist Zhuangzi once compared studying the words of sages to picking up dried turds. And Chinese Zen masters demanded living words from their disciples. Hence, when we study and explain this teaching to others, we should not restrict ourselves to the text. Only if we discover and make known its true meaning can it become an eternal lamp whose light is passed down from one generation to the next. So in this chapter, in chapter 11, the Buddha reintroduced the idea of what a Bodhisattva does. A Bodhisattva teaches others by offering this teaching. and this teaching is in fact the body of the Buddha and therefore it's likened to a stupa. The word that actually he uses here in the Sanskrit is not stupa but the word chaitya. Chaitya means sanctuary.

[54:40]

The Buddha often stayed in sanctuaries, and it could be the place around a sacred tree, a sacred spring. It was only later on that the word stupa became confused with chaitya and that stupas were also thus called chaityas. And so, but when the Buddha uses the word chaitri here he definitely means stupa. That is, that which contains the relics or the actual body, the essence of the body of the Buddha. And it's honored by devas, humans and asuras because those are the only beings who can understand this teaching. because those three beings are relatively free from suffering. The other three sets of the six forms of existence, the hungry ghosts, the animals, and the sinners in hell endure so much suffering they don't have time to pay attention to this teaching. That's why he mentions Devas, humans, and Asuras.

[55:43]

And anybody who takes the Buddha's place and memorizes, recites this teaching will also take the Buddha's place. And again, taking the Buddha's place, therefore you share one of the Buddha's bodies, and I'm not sure which one it is, but certainly one of the Buddha's bodies. we'll call it the Sambhogakaya, the reward body of the Buddha, because that's what the body of merit seems most closely to be similar to. Any questions so far? Yes? When you were, you said sort of in general during your explanation of Chapter 11 that the Buddhas, I mean the Bodhisattvas actually don't transform any worlds, they don't and they don't have any realization Yes. And then you said that in order to have those things they have to generate a body of merit and then they can have realization. That they don't have. They can have realization that they don't have?

[56:44]

Right. Yes, it's true. That's very different from how I had read it. I thought it was the transformation of the world that they actually do is no transformation. Yes. That sounds very different from saying that they don't transform the world. Well, they do transform. Yes, exactly. Yeah. And they do realize enlightenment that is no enlightenment. And no realization. Yes. Right. Okay. Well, I didn't mean to say that. It's definitely a positive, upbeat teaching here. It's true. But it's easy to get caught in this dialectic and figure and say one thing and yet mean another. In fact, near the very end of the Sutra, the Buddha actually says that. He says that the Bodhisattvas don't get anything. Buddha says that.

[57:45]

Bodhisattvas don't get anything. And so Buddha says, but wait a minute, don't they get something? And the Buddha says, yes, they do. You're right. They do get something. They just don't grasp it. No, he doesn't say it there. He says they just don't grab it. They don't clutch it. They don't become attached to it. So even the Buddha is playing this game that he himself gets caught into and has to explain his way out of occasionally. Because again, he's using these terms just for their medicinal value. He thinks Sabuddhi needs a little instruction in getting rid of the emptiness thing, but anyway it's true they do realize enlightenment that is no realization, but so far what we end up with here in the first half of the sutra is that Bodhisattvas teach their body of merit comes from this teaching in chapter 8 the Buddha said Buddhas come from this teaching enlightenment comes from this teaching and thus Bodhisattvas also their body of merit comes from this teaching by teaching is teaching because the teaching is the Dharmakaya the teaching is the Dharmakaya the realization of the teaching is the Sambhogakaya and the teaching of the teaching is the Nirmanakaya

[59:10]

And again, any of these can be negated at any particular point just to make sure that one's not attached to it, grasping it. They have that sort of built-in fail-safe thing. Control-Alt-Delete. Yes? So, I think you said last time that the four-line gatha that Four-Line Ghata is, right? That's correct. It's embedded in this text, perhaps, but it's never articulated. Right. And in the same way, we're talking about the teaching without The teaching is the holding up of flowers.

[60:16]

Yeah, right, exactly. It is really rather unique, isn't it, that the whole Sutra talks around the teaching. Well, but the Lotus Sutra is like that also, you know, it keeps talking about the wonderful Lotus Sutra and if you look it's like peeling the onion. Well, what is it exactly? You never get to something that is called the Lotus Sutra, it's the whole text. Well the core of the teaching for me so far is the teaching in Chapter 3 where the Buddha says to give rise to the thought of enlightening, to liberating all beings without being attached to such a thought. I think that encapsulates the teaching, the specific teaching of this sutra. background. Well that would be yeah a good example then. Maybe you know it seems like the Siddhartha is trying to explain you know somebody could have asked how do we practice emptiness or something you know how do we understand that.

[61:17]

Well the response would have been somewhat similar. That's true and in fact this teaching is this teaching of the Prajnaparamita. Now Prajna means wisdom but when we hear the word wisdom in the west we always think like you know we think of information as being wisdom whereas insight is closer to it or intelligence the ability to see rather than any actual sight so this teaching of Prajna is just the teaching of an ability rather than the teaching of actually doing anything because you have to put it's like the Prajna Paramita is a Paramita that is charity is the one they talk about all to adfinitum in this sutra they keep talking about charity because that's what implements prajna and but prajna is the teaching of the sutra but he never talks about prajna in a way that we would say well there's a definition of prajna he shows prajna in action and we just sort of have to like you say we see the flower and

[62:29]

Chapter is teaching and how should we remember it is how should we keep it in mind and of course remember in Sanskrit means the same thing as remembering in English we remember the dead through funerary observances so to remember something doesn't just mean in the mind it means also in the body through our actions we remember something. So the Buddha told the venerable Subuddhi the name of this dharma teaching Subuddhi is the perfection of wisdom. Now in the four of the six Chinese versions it says the diamond perfection of wisdom the diamond Prajnaparamita in four of the six Chinese texts, but it doesn't have the word diamond in any of the Sanskrit texts, and the title of the teaching is mentioned again in Chapter 24, and in that case all six of the Chinese versions do not have the word diamond.

[63:44]

in it. So it seems that the word diamond and calling this the Diamond Sutra was a late addition, a way of distinguishing this particular version of the Prajnaparamita. There's an old title that goes with the Sutra too, it's called the Perfection of Wisdom in 300 Lines, suggesting that what we have today and have had for the last 1,500 years is the prose version of an earlier verse version, and that may be true, but certainly we don't have the perfection of wisdom in 300 lines in a verse version, we only have this Maybe that's why people decided, well, let's give it the word diamond. It's also, in the Chinese, when they give it the word diamond, they give it the diamond two different ways. The Sanskrit they say is Vajracchedika. Well, Vajracchedika means diamond cutting, but in Sanskrit you can read the modifier in this compound two different ways.

[64:53]

The sutra cuts diamonds or it's the diamond that does the cutting. And so if you do want to read this as the diamond sutra and it's the sutra that cuts the diamonds then the diamond commentators say the diamond is our ignorance, it's our self, really hard to cut through. or you can liken the Sutra to a diamond that cuts through all things. The only other place I found in the scriptures where the Buddha likens Prajna to a diamond is in the Nirvana Sutra where he says, Prajna is like a diamond, it cuts through all things. So the chances are, as a metaphor, the word diamond Sutra means the Sutra is able to cut through ignorance. Well, you know, the Chinese have a facility for translating backwards into Sanskrit and they have done that. occasion. There's a work of I think one of Vasubandhu's works has been recreated from Sanskrit.

[65:59]

There are a number of scholars say the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana, Ashvagosa's work is a translation back into Sanskrit from the Chinese and there's a little bit of proof that that was in fact the case. So the Chinese do have this facility. It's not maybe the Chinese, maybe it's the Indians, their colleagues who are helping them out here too, saying, well, what would be a great title for this in Sanskrit? how about Vajrachetika? So I don't know, I like the word Diamond Sutra and I plan on using it when I publish the book, it's a beautiful title, very appropriate because if you call it just the perfection of wisdom, well there's lots of perfection of wisdom texts, but in this case the Buddha just calls it the perfection of wisdom, thus should you remember it. how so subhuti of course the buddha says what the time shows the perfection of wisdom in action what the tattvagata says is the perfection of wisdom that the tattvagata says is no perfection thus is it called the perfection of wisdom so is that clear um that's the perfection of wisdom subhuti what do you think is there any such dharma spoken by the tattvagata

[67:18]

No, indeed, Tathagata, there's no such Dharma spoken by the Tathagata. Of course, the night when the Buddha was entering nirvana, Manjushri asked the Buddha about the Dharma he had spoken and the Buddha asked him, or told him in fact, he says, I taught for 49 years and I didn't speak a single Dharma, so do not be attached to what I'm speaking. And so that's the Buddha's point here is there's no such Dharma spoken by the Tathagata. So the Buddha then sort of appears to go off on a tangent here but he's actually talking about something very important. The Buddha says, �Sabuddhi, the teaching I'm teaching is the perfection of wisdom and how does it apply? What do you think, Sabuddhi? Are all the specks of dust in the billion world systems of a universe many?� Sabuddhi says, many Bhagavan, the specks of dust are many, Sagada. And how so? Because, Bhagavan, what the Tathagata says are specks of dust, Bhagavan.

[68:21]

The Tathagata says are no specks. Thus are they called specks of dust. And what the Tathagata says are world systems, the Tathagata says are no systems, thus are they called world systems. He introduces the material world, the largest and the smallest entities of the material world and applies the perfection of wisdom to the material world. And of course they don't have any reality because the billion world system is made up of specks of dust, thus it's not real in itself. because it depends upon specks of dust. And the specks of dust make up the billion-world system, therefore they also are not real because they compose some larger entity. And thus, this is the Buddhist sort of shorthand for saying nothing in the material world is real, viewed from the point of view of the perfection of wisdom. So, okay, we've checked out the material world, what about the Buddha world, the spiritual world?

[69:26]

The Buddha said, �Sabuddhi, what do you think? Can the Tathagata, the Arhan, the fully enlightened one, be seen by means of the 32 attributes of a great cosmic being, of this great parusha?� Sabuddhi says, �No, indeed, Bhagavan. The Tathagata, the Arhan, the fully enlightened one cannot be seen by means of the 32 attributes of a great cosmic being.� And why not? Because Bhagavan, what the Tathagata says, are the 32 attributes of a great cosmic being. Bhagavan, the Tathagata says, are no attributes. That's what they call the 32 attributes of a great cosmic being. And so he does to what we might perceive of as the Buddha world, He does the same thing as he did to the material world. The Buddhist body is made of these attributes, therefore the body can't be real. And the same with the attributes, nor can they be real because they are the attributes that compose something larger. the Buddha then said, furthermore Subuddhi, if instead of renouncing this self-existence, their self-existence every day as many times as there are grains of sand in the Ganges, so the Buddha talks about the Mahapurusha's self-existence, this huge body that is sort of like a Buddha body in terms of being able to imagine it,

[70:45]

and if we take an ordinary person's body their self-existence and they try to emulate Purusha by renouncing their self-existence every day just like as if they're chanting with those finger beads that people chant the name of the Buddha and if they every time they finger a bead they renounce their self-existence and they do this as many times as there are grains of sand in the Ganges and renounce their self-existence in this manner for as many kalpas as there are grains of sand in the Ganges. And a man or woman understood but one four-line gatha of this dharma teaching and made it known and explained it to others, the body of merit produced as a result would be immeasurably infinitely greater. So despite applying this teaching of the Perfection of Wisdom to the material world and the spiritual world as well as we can imagine it, the Buddha still leaves us with this huge body of merit. He still sort of leaves that, but if you practice this teaching you're going to get this big body of merit.

[71:51]

he still doesn't want subhuti to think that just denying the reality of everything leaves you with nothing. He still wants subhuti to practice this teaching and therefore he leaves ends the chapter with that body of merit again that the reward body And then I'll go right into the next chapter which we'll take probably quite a few breaks as we go through it. Suddenly now, by the force of this Dharma, Subuddhi's heard everything he needs to hear now. He's heard the teaching, he's heard the name of it, and he's heard the teaching in a nutshell, which is chapter 13, sort of the teaching in action. By the force of this Dharma, the Venerable Subuddhi was moved to tears. This is a very unusual statement in a Buddhist sutra, this is very rare. We see that the teaching is understood not by logical reasoning but by emotional impact.

[72:58]

By the force of this Dharma, Subuddhi understands this teaching and he wipes his eyes and says to the Buddha, how remarkable, Bhagavan, how most remarkable, Sugata, is this Dharma teaching with which the Buddha speaks. Again, the Buddha speaks this teaching for the benefit of those beings who seek the foremost of paths. So this teaching is also an offering. The Buddha is making his own offering for the benefit of those who seek the best of paths. And from which my own awareness has now sprung forth. So Subuddhi now feels he has he understands something he has not understood previously. Bhagavan, I have never heard such a teaching as this. They shall be the most remarkably blessed of Bodhisattvas, Bhagavan, who hear what is said in the sutra and give rise to an idea of its truth." And why? Bhagavan, an idea of its truth, is no idea of its truth. Thus does the Tathagata speak of an idea of its truth as an idea of its truth. Still, Subuddhi has this lingering wall of understanding.

[74:06]

Simply put here, no idea. no idea of its truth. Hearing such a Dharma teaching as this Bhagavan, it's not remarkable that I should trust and believe, but in the future, in the final epoch in the Dharma-ending age, Bhagavan, those beings who understand this Dharma teaching and memorize it, recite it, master it, and explain it in detail to others, they shall be most remarkably blessed. Moreover, Bhagavan, they shall not form the idea of a self, which is sort of the defining characteristic of the Bodhisattva, of someone able to teach this and understand it, nor shall they form the idea of a being, the idea of a life, or the idea of a soul. They shall neither form an idea, nor no idea. And why not? Bhagavan, the idea of a self is no idea. So Sabuddhi understands that these things that were keeping people from becoming bodhisattvas, these ideas, are in fact themselves no ideas. So no problem here.

[75:08]

Likewise, the idea of a being, a life, or a soul is no idea. And why not? Because Buddhas and Bhagavans are free of all ideas. But this still is as far as Subuddhi gets. Freedom from ideas. So it's just, it's still sort of reminiscent of freedom from rebirth. So the Buddha's point, as he'll tell us shortly, is that Freedom from ideas is not the goal. Subuddhi thinks it's the goal when he says Buddhas and Bhagavans are free of all ideas. Freedom from ideas is the means and not the goal. Bodhisattvas take those no ideas and put them to use. So this having been said, the Buddha told the venerable Subuddhi, so it is Subuddhi, so it is. Now, when the Buddha is saying so it is, he's not necessarily referring to what Subuddhi has just said, at least not the last part of it, but to the first part of it. Those being shall be most remarkably blessed, Subuddhi.

[76:09]

who hear this and believe it. In fact, they'll be blessed if they simply aren't frightened to death and distressed by what is said in the Sutra. And again, the Buddha's point is that the true understanding of the Sutra is an emotional one. Finally, in its final form, it's an emotional one. It's at the core of your being. that you shall understand the sutra and not through a logical understanding of some form of a dialectic or some concept, some super concept. And why, Subuti, what the Tathagata proclaims as the best of perfections, which of course is the Prajnaparamita, perfection of wisdom, is in truth no perfection. Moreover, Sabuddhi, what the Tathagata proclaims as the best of perfections is also proclaimed by countless Buddhas and Bhagavans. So even though this is no perfection, all Buddhas proclaim this no perfection. They don't simply stop proclaiming it because it's no perfection. Thus is it called the best of perfections.

[77:12]

And having gotten to this point now, the Buddha now puts sort of flesh on this no perfection again. So too, Sabuddhi, is the Tathagata's perfection of forbearance, no perfection. And the reason he mentions forbearance here, of course, forbearance is also one of the six paramitas, one of the six perfections. In the list of six, it's the number the third. there's charity, morality, forbearance, vigor, meditation, and prajna wisdom. So in this sutra the Buddha uses one, three, and six, but the reason he mentions forbearance here is because of the trauma. Sabuddhi just experienced that trauma and the Buddha himself said if you're not traumatized by this teaching you shall be rare need to practice the perfection of forbearance, of being able to withstand and accept the ramifications of this teaching.

[78:15]

That's why he mentions this forbearance here, this perfection of forbearance. Of course, forbearance can also be understood as just the flip side of charity. If you practice charity, you have to forbear the giving up of what you're giving away. So the charity and forbearance So too, Subuddhi, is the Tathagata's perfection of forbearance, no perfection. And how so? Subuddhi, when King Kali cut off my limbs, my ears and nose and my flesh, at that moment I had no idea of a self, of being a life and a soul, or a soul. I had neither an idea nor no idea. King Kali was this king who lived a long time ago when the Buddha was living one of these prior lifetimes as an ascetic by the name of Kshanti. Kshanti means forbearance or acceptance and he had been set up for 500 lifetimes and he was meditating in the forest and King Kali went out hunting with all of his harem of concubines and after doing some hunting they had a meal and King Kali decided to take a nap.

[79:27]

Well the women in his harem went wandering in the forest to pick some flowers. and they met Kshanti, they saw Kshanti meditating under a tree and they were very impressed with his serenity and they lay the flowers that they had gathered before him and asked him what he was doing and he told them he was practicing the perfection of forbearance. and started talking to them about the dharma and the women just stayed there listening and then the king awoke and then asked, where are my concubines? Of course, they weren't there and so he went wandering in the forest and found them and then asked this guy who he was. and this Kshanti said, I'm Kshanti and I'm practicing the forbearance of the perfection of forbearance and King Kali says well we'll just see about that and took out his sword and started cutting off different body parts and when King Kali had cut off his nose and ears and his arms and legs

[80:30]

King Kali asked, well so are you still practicing forbearance and Shanti said, yes I am, I have no idea of anger because what you just cut off doesn't really exist. And he told King Kali, he says, if I had an idea of anger then my body parts will not re-manifest themselves before you. And instantly his body was made whole again. and that's the story of Kshanti, at least his 500th life, and King Kali. And so he says, why not? At that moment, Subodhi, if I had had the idea of a self, at that moment I would have also had the idea of anger. Again, this emotional attachment, the Buddha is connecting now logical categories with emotional categories. Or if I had had the idea of a being, the idea of a life, or the idea of a soul, at that moment I would have had the idea of anger. and how so? Sabuddhi, I can recall the 500 lifetimes I was the mendicant forbearance and during that time I had no idea of a self, nor did I have the idea of a being, the idea of a life, or the idea of a soul.

[81:43]

Therefore, Sabuddhi, fearless Bodhisattva should get rid of all ideas in giving birth to the thought of unexcelled perfect enlightenment." The Buddha says, don't get rid of all ideas, but get rid of all ideas when you give birth to the thought of unexcelled perfect enlightenment. That thought should itself get rid of all ideas. It should be so expansive. They should not give birth to a thought attached to a form, nor should they give birth to a thought attached to a sound, a smell, a taste, a touch, or a dharma. They should not give birth to a thought attached to a dharma, nor should they give birth to a thought to no dharma. They should not give birth to a thought attached to anything. And why not? Every attachment is no attachment. Thus the Tathagata says that Bodhisattvas should give gifts. Now we're back to charity. Give gifts without being attached. They should give gifts without being attached to a form, a sound, a smell, a taste, a touch, or a dharma. Any questions so far?

[82:45]

This is a long chapter, I thought I'd take a break. So, he had an idea of anger. He didn't have an experience of anger. Yeah, I think that you could say that. Well, he had to have an idea of anger, otherwise how could it even have been discussed? Yeah, how could he have known that he had no idea of anger? Right. That's true. But what you're saying, what you said, as you were talking expanded to ... I mean it basically filled up the space that anger ... there was no room for the experience of anger because the experience of forbearance was occupying that space. So anger then just became an idea, something to look at but not experience. Right, or it was just an essential part of forbearance. forbearance of something?

[83:47]

Yes. Exactly, yes, right, and it's just like the Buddha says toward the end of the sutra when I just mentioned where he says that you don't realize anything and somebody says, oh but come on, we do realize something don't we? And he says, okay you do, you just don't grasp it. So the Buddha is true, he's got has the idea of anger, it's just he's not attached to that idea of anger, it's just a it's part of the process of forbearance of practice. You said that the Buddha asked if his body could be seen by the 32 attributes, and Subuddhi's answer was no, you could not. However, earlier, it says in the sutra, a few chapters earlier, that you could see the body of the Buddha by way of the attributes of the body of merit. Well, the Buddha ... Sabuddhi earlier says no, but the Buddha says yes.

[84:50]

Right, so Sabuddhi is still saying no. Oh, he's still saying no, yeah, but there's going to come a point when he'll start saying yes. Yeah, there's a development, you can see the progression in the subuddhi's understanding. Because the Buddha taught him the teaching right in chapter 5 when he asked him, �Can you see my body?� and subuddhi says, �No, because your body is no body.� And the Buddha says, �But if my body is no body and no body is not an illusion, You can see my body by the fact of no body. If you can see no body as my body, then you can see my body, which is hard to get, admittedly. I'm not sure I understand it. Subhuti certainly didn't get it and that's why he keeps saying, no, you can't see the body of the Buddha. I'll finish Chapter 14 and we'll pause again. Moreover, Sabuddhi, Bodhisattva should practice charity in this manner for the benefit of all beings.

[85:52]

Again, an essential part of this is to not only practice unattached but to practice for the sake of all beings. And how so, Sabuddhi? The idea of a being is no idea. Likewise, all the beings of whom the Tathagata speaks are thus no beings. And why? Subuddhi, what the Tathagata says is real. What the Tathagata says is true. It is as he says it is and is not other than as he says it is. What the Tathagata says is not false. Moreover, Subuddhi, in the Dharma realized, taught, and reflected on by the Tathagata, there is nothing true and nothing false. Of course, there's no standard to judge it against. You can't judge whether it's true because there is no standard for truth, it is the teaching. And the same with falsehood, there's nothing to judge it as being false. So, Buddhi, imagine a person who enters a dark place. cannot see a thing he is like a bodhisattva ruled by objects like someone practicing charity ruled by objects now subodhi imagine that same person with who has eyesight who has eyes at the end of the night when the sun shines forth who can see all manner of things he's like the bodhisattva not ruled by objects so the bodhisattva not ruled by objects can still see lots of things all manner of things

[87:09]

but they're not attached to those things. They're practicing charity, not ruled by objects. Furthermore, Subuddhi, if a good son or daughter should understand this Dharma teaching, memorize it, recite it, master it, explain it in detail to others, the Tathagata will know them, Subuddhi, by means of his Buddha knowledge. Again, this is because of the body of merit, which the Buddha can see because it's his own body. It's that Sambhogakaya, that reward body that the Buddha also acquired. And the Tathagata will see them, subhuti, by means of his buddha vision. The Tathagata will be aware of them, subhuti, for all such beings produce and obtain an immeasurable, infinite body of merit. Okay, we'll pause right there. We still have time, don't we? Yeah, it's about five minutes. Okay. Well, we can either stop here. We might get a little further, but let's see. What questions do you have about this? This is certainly not easy to understand, I know.

[88:09]

Most of the concepts are those which we've already introduced and the important one is that sort of this last point the Buddha makes is that by practicing this teaching it's sort of like you're on the Buddha path. As Ashvagosa says, you get the body of merit and you get the reward body of the Buddha the moment you give rise to the or the thought of liberating all beings. You just don't realize the full extent of that body of merit, that reward body. And so that's why the Buddha knows you, sees you, is aware of you, because there are no two bodies of merit. The Buddha can see all Bodhisattvas. So that's the concept here, at the very end here. in Chapter 3.

[89:15]

Yes. You know, how can this be so that, you know, how do we dwell and control our thoughts and you just sort of lay it down like that and then it goes on. Yeah, you keep giving rise to that thought. Right, yeah, it's true. The Sutra really was finished at pretty much at Chapter 3 and most commentators say after Chapter 5. When the Buddha said he could see his body Subuddhi says, �No, you can't see the body� and the Buddha says, �Oh, but you can see my body if you look at the right place� and that's really the end of the sutra, the teaching. And the rest of the sutra is just a redevelopment of what happens in the first five chapters or you could even say in the first six chapters at the most. But again, the sutra is about the education of subhuti and somebody suggested last time that subhuti was offering himself, making an offering of his own ignorance for our benefit.

[90:19]

And so that's also kind of like explains what it means to take one for langata and explain it in detail. Yes, that's what I guess what we're doing here in a sense, we're explaining it in detail. No, the detail would be my 300-page commentary. In fact, I've got to get rid of some of that. It's really getting cumbersome now. Whenever I make a change, I've got to go through so many things. I have commentaries in Chinese that are 1,000 pages. There are hundreds and thousands of people who've written commentaries on this sutra because everybody sees something different. It is like a diamond, different facets. It's the same diamond, people see different facets, but there's a lot here and I'm amazed. Every week I think I understand it and I see something different.

[91:21]

Any other questions before we stop today? I have one. I'll see if I can be succinct about this. You were making a connection between Savodhi's experience of ... Savodhi had the good experience. He got it. It was by emotional force. There are other things that could have happened. Yes. But then he goes directly into talking about forbearance, and it's an experience of Buddha, and Buddha's experiencing someone who is not in a state of forbearance, and creates some harm in Buddha's life, so to speak. And so I'm just, it's sort of an interesting, I'm curious what else is being said here possibly about forbearance, and in other words, there are times when saying anything at all, like before lying down, isn't going to do much good for somebody like King King Kali? Oh, it did. It did. All these previous lifetime stories of the Buddha have all these ramifications and the one about King Kali, in fact, King Kali is, well, of course, this ascetic shanti forbearance is reborn as Shakyamuni, right?

[92:39]

You become Shakyamuni. Well, King Kali becomes Kaundinya. Kaundinya was the Buddha's first disciple. The very, very first disciple, one of the five people who was with him for a while and then rejected him when he chose the middle path, and then Kandinya became his very first disciple. So that's maybe also being said here but you would only know that in the 300 page commentary or actually there are people who write maybe a hundred page commentary who'd include a note like that, but it's true, these things all do have these things that are underneath because they're being spoken to an audience that lived 2,500 years ago or at least over 1,500, 1,800 years ago. and they would pick up on the word Purusha and they would know the story of Kali becoming Kandinya. That's all I could say about that in terms of the forbearance. It's just important to remember though that forbearance and charity have this very intimate relationship.

[93:43]

and that forbearance is a crucial element in this particular sutra because the final realization of the Bodhisattva requires the most forbearance you'll ever need, the ability to forbear and accept the birthlessness of all dharmas, that nothing is ever born. Again, these are the two different paths. The Buddha is comparing the arhan path of no rebirth, which the goal of the arhat is no rebirth, the goal of the bodhisattva is no birth. They're totally different. The arhat dams the river, the bodhisattva finds and transforms the spring. there's no birth nothing needs to be brought to an end because nothing ever came into existence or nothing ever will come into existence and this is for those who experience it it's they use the word forbearance and regarding it.

[94:45]

There's no other way to describe it, they say. It's the acceptance or the forbearance of the birthlessness of all phenomenon. Therefore, that's why he brings forbearance in here, because he knows that the ultimate, that final bar is not logical, it's traumatic, it's emotional. Questioner 6 It seems that there's, by implication, at least in the commentary, there's strong notion of a karmic connection. You know, if you're connecting Kali with Kandanaya, then the karmic connection between Shanti and Kali is a transformative one that then transforms into Buddha and the first disciple, which actually affects us. hostility, anger, opposition has a deeply transformative possibility.

[95:55]

It's a neat story. It is and I think that's why it's brought in here also because as we'll see later in the next coming chapters Buddha will say one thing he'll say that you know you're going to meet a lot of this teaching will meet a lot of opposition and he's sort of I don't know what it is anymore. There's too many of them. I think it might be 14. It's either 14 or 16. And anyway, in one of these next couple of chapters, the Buddha says, by suffering contempt on behalf of the sutra, you eliminate all your bad karma. which is a very radical revolutionary statement, and so he's sort of preparing us for the idea that to teach this teaching, and if this teaching was in fact taught, it had to be received with contempt, because it was being taught to Hinayana monks, whether these were Hinayana monks in the Buddha's day or whether they were monks who lived in 200 AD, there was still an audience that thought that

[97:07]

realization was this Hinayana practice of no rebirth, acquiring freedom from passion and thus freedom from rebirth. Anyway, I think I'll stop right there today and we'll do this again next week and we'll get as far as we can and it's always possible that later on We can have additional get-togethers on this sutra if it's convenient for all of us. If I can do it and you can do it, we can certainly talk about that, given the scheduling of the zendo here. But in any case, we'll just keep going and good luck.

[97:52]

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