This morning I'm going to talk about refuge. When we have ordination ceremony or any kind of ceremony from time to time, chant the three refuges, take refuge in Buddha, take refuge in Dharma, I take refuge in Sangha. So this is the basic understanding of the meaning of being a Buddhist, that we take refuge in the three treasures, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. But when we do that, what do we think about when we do that?

[01:02]

What does that mean? What does that mean to take refuge in Buddha? How often do you think about that? We just do it, right? Do you really think I'm taking refuge in Buddha? Do you really think I'm taking refuge in Sangha? Do you really think... I mean, Dharma. Do you really think I'm taking refuge in Sangha? It doesn't matter. We need to understand what those three are. So, the Mahayana Buddhists thought hard about this, and they came up with the three bodies of Buddha. Of course, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha are the three bodies of Buddha. It's not just three separate things, but they're all one thing.

[02:03]

They're all one piece. There's a saying, something like, three people are holding hands and lying down in one bed. Sounds sexy. We say homage to the ten names of Buddha. The first three are the Dhammakaya, Varocana Buddha, the Sambhogakaya, Mochana Buddha, the Nirmanakaya, Shakyamuni Buddha. behind the three refuges. So the Dharmakaya Buddha is our basic nature, our essence of mind or consciousness, which has no shape or form.

[03:26]

You know, when we sit in zazen, people say, I'm bored. Yes, because your mind cannot encompass the dharmakaya. It has no shape or form or nothing to attach to, nothing to think about. It's just the most omnipresent, not a thing, but it's what is most omnipresent is the basic consciousness of the universe, which is common to everything. We call it sometimes Buddha nature or emptiness, essence, many different names. But all those names are simply ways of allowing our mind to think about this.

[04:28]

Dharmakaya is epitomized by a figure called Vairochana. In the esoteric schools we have these mandalas where Vairochana is in the middle. Vairochana is the Buddha of Radiant Light. So, Radiant Light is another name for Dharmakaya. Radiant Light, of course, includes darkness. Darkness is actually a form of Radiant Light in its understanding. There's some koans connected with this. Sambhogakaya is our wisdom, Buddha's wisdom.

[05:44]

So, Dhammakaya is... there's no access to Dhammakaya. It's beyond our thinking or experiencing, actually. Except that, everything we experience is it. So, sambhogakaya is our wisdom mind, Buddha's wisdom. You know, we have three minds, or three bodies. Kaya means body. Before we take our vow, our three bodies are me, myself and I. This is usual. Three bodies, me, myself and I. So we trade in the three bodies of me, myself and I for Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. So Sambhogakaya is Buddha's wisdom which is not explainable until I talk about Nirmanakaya.

[06:55]

Nirmanakaya is our transformation body. Transformation body is the body that is always changing. So our body and the body of the world and the universe is always in constant flux. So change is the most common thing. Change and are the two most constant constants. So what we conceive of as our life is in the realm of transformations. This is the world of transformations and this is where we have our experience and all of our thoughts are contained in this realm of

[08:00]

and we base our lives and our activity interacting with all these changes. So Sambhogakaya is the middle body, the wisdom body, the middle body. And sambhogakaya is like a body with two mirrors. One mirror faces the dharmakaya, which is total emptiness. And the other mirror faces nirmanakaya, which is form. And so sambhogakaya is a non-dualistic understanding in the Heart Sutra, which we chant two times a day, every single day except Sunday.

[09:13]

Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. And it's Sambhogakaya which understands this. Without Sambhogakaya, we just think that form is form, which it is, and have some vague idea about emptiness, which we don't understand. the wisdom of Sambhogakaya, which helps us to understand that form is emptiness and emptiness is form. This is our non-dualistic understanding. So in the realm of me, myself and I, everything is dualistic. suffering. Because we don't understand reality, we suffer. We suffer anyway.

[10:17]

But there's a difference. There's something saying that ordinarily, when we see mountains and rivers, mountains are just mountains and rivers are just rivers. Plain to see. Wet is wet, height is height. When we begin to practice, we let go of all that dualistic understanding, and mountains and except that we understand it. So, how do we access the Dharmakaya, the body, the true body of Buddha?

[11:24]

Through Zazen. In Zazen, we let go of all discriminating thought, we offer our body and mind to the Dharmakaya. So this is called faith or trust. We trust ourselves to reality. We can't trust ourselves too much because everything is changing. We can only trust ourselves to that which is not changing. Even though everything is changing, But in the dharmakaya there is no time and no space. That's our true body because our ephemeral body, our dualistic body, is an expression of our true body.

[12:28]

All the forms come out of this emptiness. Without emptiness there is no form. Without form there is no emptiness. Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. Form is just form. Emptiness is just emptiness. This is how we practice the Heart Sutra. How we practice the understanding of the Heart Sutra. The Heart Sutra is not just an intellectual, scholarly document. It's a way to practice with understanding. So in the Dharmakaya, everything is just as it is. All the animals act in accordance with that. Human beings have a different perspective because of consciousness, human consciousness.

[13:35]

tree consciousness, flower consciousness, horse consciousness, which you call horse-sense. They used to do it when they had horses. Dog-sense. Everything has consciousness and uses it in a certain way. They were so surprised at how much intelligence birds have, because they have this little peen for a brain. Isn't that interesting? This little peen for a brain. But that's all they need. to bring in the whole universe, to access the whole universe through that little pea of a brain. Our brain is pretty big. It keeps growing, unfortunately. And it's a blessing and a curse, just like religion. Religion is a blessing and a curse. there are no sides.

[14:48]

So there's no problem. There's only problems when there are sides. And so we live in the realm of sides. I was looking last night, thinking about this talk, and I was looking at my dog. And we look at each other, you know, like we scare each other. But I saw down the middle, he has a beautiful white chest, and there's a line. And the line divides the two sides. I said, yes, two sides. We call it left and right. And then I looked up, and he had two nostrils, one on each side. And then I looked up his nose, and he had two eyes, one on each side, and two ears, one on each side. So this is like, but he's one piece. He has these two sides, but the two sides are one piece. So to live in this world of ours, we all have two sides.

[15:54]

Everything has two sides, at least. And everything is dividing itself in order to make more of ourselves. And how we balance the two sides is called our life. So how do we balance the various sides of ourselves? Because one side is pulling one way and the other side is pulling it in another way, plus all the other sides that are pulling us in various directions. And how do we balance that in order to stay in reality? People talk about hell, heaven and hell, but heaven and hell are not up in the sky or down below, they're right here in our mind.

[17:07]

Our mind is either a hell realm or a heavenly realm, or a fighting demon realm, or an animal realm, or a hungry ghost realm. There is the human realm also. The human realm is the way to balance these other five realms. Because these are all realms of our own worlds, of our own making, in our own mind and actions. So we can't take refuge in the heavenly realm. We can't take refuge in the hell realm. We can't take refuge in the fighting demon realm, although we do. But it's not a place to take refuge, really. Sometimes we think that it is, but it's not. And then there's the human realm. We don't want to take refuge in the hungry ghost realm, but we're all hungry ghosts.

[18:12]

And we all experience hell. Sometimes heaven. These are called the realms of transmigration. and we do this. We transnigrate from one to the other every day. One moment we're in a hell room because we lose something and then we find it and then we're in the heaven realm and sometimes we're at peaceful and then somebody bumps us and we're in the fighting demon realm or something delicious goes by and we celebrate And it just goes from one to the other. It continues moving from one to the other. So what's our salvation? Buddhism is a religion of salvation. That's what makes it a religion, I think. Buddhism is not a God-based religion, and so people don't think it's religion at all.

[19:35]

You know, we have Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Nirmanakaya, and then we have Maitreya, the future Maitreya Buddha, as part of the jam. So who is Maitreya? Maitreya is the Buddha of salvation, just like the Jewish one, Messiah. Messiah and Maitreya are very closely sounding. And so Maitreya sits in the Tushita Heaven and will come down in some kind of millennium from now. But actually, you are Maitreya. You are your own salvation, Shakyamuni says.

[20:40]

You are your own salvation. How do you find your own salvation? How do you allow Maitreya to come down from the Tushita Heaven of your mind and manifest in your life? So, this is Mahayana Buddhism, actually, to find your own salvation and help others to find theirs. That's what practice is about. So, what is salvation? What does that mean? Save yourself from delusion and suffering. That's what you save yourself from. That's what you save yourself centrally. sentient beings from his suffering and delusion. That's all. So this is why the Buddhists developed this understanding of Dharmakaya.

[21:45]

Because when you say, I take refuge in Buddha, 2500 years ago. That's not it. You can't take refuge in a person. That doesn't make any sense. You have to take refuge in the Dharmakaya of your own mind, of your own being. The true aspect, the fundamental mind of your own being, which is all there is. So most religions will say, don't take refuge in false deities. And Buddhism says, don't take refuge in any deities.

[22:49]

So Buddha is not a deity, and Dharmakaya is not a deity. At the same time, we often use those terms. We say Buddha or God in order to get some kind of picture. But God is not a Buddhist term. But sometimes we borrow terms. In Zen, there is no special sutra, no special In our services, we borrow all the services from other aspects of Buddhism, from other schools of Buddhism. All the sutras that we chant, that's mostly from other schools of Buddhism. And we can use anything we want, but we don't need anything.

[23:51]

But these are helpful. So sometimes it's helpful to use the word God as a kind of crutch to lean on. But dharmakaya is sometimes equated that way. It's the ultimate. It's that which is always omnipresent. It will never get lost in the universe. He said, don't worry about yourself. After you die, you'll never get lost in the universe. So, Kadagiri Roshi talked about religious security. He used that term, religious security. And he always, of course, equated that with Zazen.

[24:56]

Zazen is not just some yogic activity to make you strong or give you some good health or something like that. It's to let go of illusory mind and let go of everything and become one with Dharmakaya. It's not the only way we experience Dharmakaya. without any interference. So Zazen is let go of all interference. I was reading a short excerpt from Suzuki Roshi's talk. He was talking about peace of mind. He said, peace of mind is a kind of trap.

[26:01]

you may sit as in to attain peace of mind, so because you're not attaining peace of mind, everything is an interference. Everything else is an interference and a problem, because it's blocking your peace of mind. So peace of mind is not the absence of all interferences. Peace of mind is the acceptance. of all things as not being interferences, which is dharmakaya. True satin is experiencing pure dharmakaya without any interference, which doesn't mean you should try to get rid of all the flotsam and jetsam that's floating through your mind. Flotsam and jetsam will keep floating through your mind as long as you are still here.

[27:11]

You cannot get rid of it. The problem you have with flotsam and jetsam is the problem you will always have with it and it will keep getting worse the longer you live. So, we like excitement. because we're so bothered by all this flotsam and jetsam that runs through our lives. But when we have it, we don't want it. We say, I'm bored. Pure Dharmakaya is boredom. Unless you don't want anything. When you don't want anything, it's Boredom is like a gap.

[28:17]

It means there's a gap. There's an abyss. So there's nothing to fill, no blocks and ejections to fill your mind. So you're bored. It doesn't matter what's going through your mind. It will be of interest cling to it rather than nothing. We cling to all the stuff floating by. We're shipwrecked, floating in the ocean, but we'll reach out for anything that helps us to float. So, Dharmakaya is like a refuge, basically. Sambhogakaya is the wisdom that is, when Sambhogakaya recognizes Dharmakaya in Nirmanakaya, that's called realization or enlightenment.

[29:45]

I'll say that again. When Sambhogakaya, which is in the middle, number two, recognizes Dharmakaya, which is number one, in Nirmanakaya, which is number three, which is our basic dualistic activity, that's called realization. In other words, you can see the Buddha nature in everyone. one that's waking up. When you allow your own essence of mind to direct, to be the director, when you give up me, myself and I, and allow actually Sambhogakaya to lead Sambhogakaya is actually the leader. When we say, let big mind, Suzuki Roshi used the term big mind, to never stray from your big mind.

[30:56]

Everything is included in big mind. The Sixth Ancestor used the term essence of mind, never stray from your essence of mind. This is taking refuge. So Sambhogakaya is what we experience as Buddha. Because Sambhogakaya is the wisdom of Dharmakaya, which is expressed in nirmanakaya, in our actions. So this is important. Thank you.

[32:09]

There was something you said about trust. Yes. Like trusting yourself. About three quarters of the way back, I think. Yeah, I remember that. So this whole taking refuge and trusting yourself, they seem pretty linked somehow for me. But just one thing that you said that kind of I would say red flag, but I don't quite understand what you're meaning. It's something like trusting yourself in a large sense, but you can't really trust yourself to things that are changing a lot. Do you remember that? It's like, how to trust yourself. That seems like a key. You have to know what is yourself first. What is yourself? When you say, I trust myself, do you trust your little self? Do you trust your medium, middle-sized self?

[33:11]

Do you trust your big self? What trust is this, right? So when you give yourself over to dharmakaya, when you allow sambhogakaya the wisdom of Sambhogakaya to be. That's what you trust, really, is Sambhogakaya. Because Sambhogakaya is your honesty. Sambhogakaya is your nirvana, actually, your nirvana mind, which is your honesty, basically. total honesty. And what else can you trust but your total honesty? What else is there to trust? We trust our thinking mind, but that's deceptive. It's very deceptive.

[34:15]

It's good to trust your thinking mind. It's good to trust your feelings, but they're deceptive. Because thinking mind, isolated from compassion, turns to cunning. Because it can't. Because it doesn't have... See, we live in the human world. The dharmakaya includes the human world, but it's bigger than the human world. Right? Even though the human world can't extend. Everywhere. human, not world, but human body. We say the true human body is the whole universe. When you can extend it that way, then that's what you trust. That's how you trust the universe. So like a distinction would be, kind of watching yourself, trusting is, what if you're doing something for your own personal good, which you do need to do to some extent, right?

[35:25]

with you, then you're able to trust yourself more. Yeah. Katherine? This began to clear up. What I was remembering, the way you expressed it, was trust yourself to the Donatino, or trust yourself to. And I was hearing in trust, like It's not that you put your trust in, it's that you turn yourself over and you know you're okay. You know you're basically safe because you are in this complex thing. It's also very simple. So I just think that entrusting yourself to something is expressed for me what I mean when I'm taking refuge. It's that surrendering, not being like I'm in charge. That's right, yeah. We fight, you know, and at some point you just have to give up.

[36:41]

This is like what happens in Sashin. When we're not used to, when we're learning how to say Sashin, we're always fighting. And then at some point, you just let go. And it's just all, you don't know, you don't think, well now I trust her. It's just that you do. But Buddha means, the Dharmakaya is, Sambhogakaya is teaching through Zazen. Because we can't sit there and do that unless we turn ourselves over, give up, and then we can be quite comfortable. Somebody in the back had their hand up. Thank you, Sojin.

[37:45]

I was speaking with someone the other day who is someone who has a great deal of faith in his practice and a great deal of trust in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. And this person had had something happen that was very startling, stunning, kind of knocked him off balance. And he felt like practice had failed him. and didn't understand. Yeah, he didn't understand. He failed practice. Could you say more about... We're always blaming the practice, you know. There must be something wrong with the practice. Yeah. You know, you have to test the practice out all the time. Everything is a test. I remember Master Hua, when he was called I remember him saying, everything is a test to see what you will do.

[38:46]

So you use the practice as a, what do you call it, as a bar. And then it's not like wanting to bring the bar down to your size. You have to keep coming up to the bar, instead of blaming the bar for being so high. So that's how you practice. The bar is up there, and you have to keep coming up to it. And you fail all the time. And the failure is important, because failure is what helps you to continue. I think that when some people have this taste of practice and how salvific it can be, how helpful, they expect that it's going to be that way for them under all circumstances.

[39:52]

That's right, too. And then faith gets shaken. Could you say more about how to understand that experience? Well, I remember, you know, Shinsuke Hiroshi also would say something like, When there are certain circumstances where practice doesn't help you. And you have to know that too. Whatever that means. We said when Zazen doesn't help you. He didn't say when practice doesn't help you. He said when Zazen doesn't help. But often we say just sit Zazen. And it calms us down. find equanimity. But there's some circumstances where it doesn't help. But that doesn't mean that the practice is not there.

[40:54]

So if we really turn ourselves over to practice, then every circumstance is a circumstance which is called practice, and not just outside it. If it's outside of practice, within what we call practice, then there's no limitation. And then you trust that. I've been doing it for 50 years, so I trust it. I mean, over and over and over, I can't tell you. My trust has just been strengthened. Even when things go awry, mostly, I can't believe the miraculous salvation Actually, yeah. You speak more about failure. Well, yeah, failure.

[42:01]

Do you have a question about it? I want to welcome it, but I fight it. Yeah. Well, yes, you have to. You know, it's like we're born into the world, this is one way of thinking about it, and then we grow up, you know, and then we get old and then we die, right? So everything you're doing is vain, in vain. But we keep striving, keep striving, right? And then finally we die. And so we all have unfinished business. Older people can come to the point where they have no unfinished business, but everybody has unfinished business. But it's not the goal that's the important thing, it's the work that's important.

[43:06]

So failure and success, failure and success. is failure. The person who has to work the hardest, who has the least talent, so to speak, and is just always, you know, bumbling, but just keeps working, keeps working. That's real practice. So failure and success are just two sides of activity. But because we're human, we have our rules for human beings, which is is unique to humans, which is success and failure and all this psychic stuff. We create so many rules for our lives and rules of law, and we need to do that, but it's because we're

[44:11]

you know, the mountain doesn't care. I remember Bob Rosenbaum when he was up in the Himalayas and he had a stroke and he had to be called down by a Sherpa and he said that what really struck him was, you know, this is a big deal for me but the mountains couldn't care less. So in our human world we care a lot about our feelings and our hopes and thoughts, but it's just the human world. So dharmakaya is just as it is. So nirmanakaya is how we feel about everything. Sambhogakaya is the balance between the two. So we live in the Sambhogakaya.

[45:25]

We have our feelings and our human life and rules and so forth, but basically it's all just the way it is. You're sitting up there teaching us? Is it in vain? Yes. Why are you doing it? Because I love you. Did you say that because you knew I wanted you to? What do you think? It's a test. Yes. It's a test.

[46:07]

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