pay homage to the Dharmakaya Vairochana Buddha, and the Sambhogakaya Lochana Buddha, and the Shakyamuni Nirmanakaya Shakyamuni Buddha. These are the three bodies of Buddha, called the Trikaya, three bodies. in order to express the deeper meaning of what is Buddha, the old Buddhist Mahayana came up with the three bodies of Buddha. Dharmakaya is the great potential which is both form and emptiness.

[01:09]

But it has no special shape or form. But all forms are the forms of emptiness or dharmakaya. So dharmakaya is a great energy potential and source. but it's indescribable. And Vairochana is our conscious embodiment or way of thinking about our personification. There's an act called Adi-Buddha, which was a Nepalese or Tibetan conception more, or Indian, actually Indian conception.

[02:23]

It means primal Buddha. So it's primal nature. And Vairochana is more Chinese, Japanese aspect, also Indian, of this primal Buddha, our primal nature. So Vairochana Buddha seems very remote. and is always usually pictured seated in meditation, and doesn't move, but radiates this energy. Actually, our zazen posture is the posture of Vajracana Buddha. If you see, when you see pictures of Maharajana Buddha, especially by the Tibetans who like to pictorialize everything, Maharajana Buddha is seated in Zazen, in this mudra, this cosmic mudra, because he's the cosmic Buddha.

[03:48]

So, in answer to the question, the Sixth Patriarch, Huineng, in the Platform Sutra says, Dharmakaya Buddha is our nature. He simplifies it. He says, Dharmakaya Buddha is our nature, meaning essential nature. So, when we sit in zazen, we're actually expressing vairagyana. We are vairagyana Buddha. Vairagyana Buddha is the nature of everything. So, of course, it doesn't mean that I am creating the universe as vairagyana Buddha. Vairojana Buddha is my nature and I express the nature which is Vairojana Buddha.

[05:09]

Dharmakaya, Vairojana Buddha. But this is hard for us to realize because of our discriminating mind. which sets us apart from our nature. Sanbhogakaya is what Huineng Sixth Patriarch calls our wisdom. is our Buddha wisdom, personified by Lochana.

[06:14]

Now, Lochana, some say Lochana means Amitabha, but I think that Lochana is the feminine aspect of Akshobhya Buddha, the second of the Dhyana Buddhas, I don't want to go into that system, but I think locana is a feminine aspect, which is wisdom. Wisdom, prajna, is a feminine aspect. So sambhogakaya has various meanings. It means the enjoyment which is prajna. And nirmanakaya shakyamuni means our existence.

[07:29]

When we say nirmanakaya shakyamuni, it means the embodiment of Buddha as a person. So there's Buddha as nature, there's Buddha as wisdom, and there's Buddha as a person. And of course these are all one embodiment expressed in three ways. So each one of us is dharmakaya, sambhogakaya, and nirmanakaya. Nirmanakaya is our embodiment as a person, Buddha as a person. So we say we're Buddha, but not necessarily realized. And each one of us is potentially Shakyamuni Buddha.

[08:38]

Each one of us has the nature of Shakyamuni Buddha, but we haven't necessarily realized our Buddha nature. So when we sit, we sit to express our nature. We sit to express our nature as dharmakaya and sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya, these three bodies within our own body and mind. We don't try to imitate Varajana Buddha when we sit. the pictorialization of Vairagyana comes from the sitting posture, not the other way around.

[09:50]

But when we sit, if you think about what we do, we just sit and emanate pure energy, pure effort, pure non-discriminating energy, non-discriminated energy, and we actually become vehicles, in a way, for this energy. So, often we think of ourself as being concentrating, you know, and going inward. But, actually, when we sit with the whole body and mind concentrated, in zazen,

[11:02]

our energy is radiating this way as well. We're actually broadcasting something. Meaning, casting this dharmakaya energy abroad, in a broad way, in all directions. So, another name for In order for us to have awareness, we have to have consciousness.

[12:10]

And for a human being, we have various levels of consciousness. And the level of consciousness which conceives or goes beyond the conception actually, is called the alaya consciousness. Alaya vijnana means storehouse or receptacle of consciousness. Alaya consciousness is the piece of dharmakaya which is awareness in each person. And it's the consciousness which has the potential for awareness of Dharmakaya.

[13:27]

all of the actions and thoughts that we think during our lifetime are deposited in this alaya consciousness. And the alaya consciousness accepts both good and bad actions and thoughts because all it does is register them. Sometimes it's called the subconscious mind. And this subconscious mind doesn't really belong to anybody. It's just consciousness, pure consciousness, which doesn't have any say in things. It doesn't have any judgment. It just receives everything. and receives all the impressions of a lifetime.

[14:34]

All the impressions of a lifetime are deposited in the alaya consciousness. And when there is a need or a cause, they're deposited as seeds which sprout when there's a cause. So it's the basis of our habitual way of acting. And it's also the basis of our conscious life. As our life is, as we're reborn and die moment by moment, The seeds of consciousness are continually sprouting from our past actions. This is called karma, karmic activity.

[15:39]

Our present actions deposit seeds which sprout previous seeds which continues to make our conscious life seem continuous. And I've talked before about the eight levels of consciousness. The alaya consciousness is the eighth level. And the seventh level of consciousness is called manas, which is discriminating consciousness. or ego awareness.

[16:45]

The seventh level of consciousness is the consciousness which is aware of ourself as ourself, as a separate entity, distinguished from all other things. So sometimes it's called false consciousness, but it has a purpose. And this purpose is to discriminate. And the other six consciousnesses are the consciousness of, starting from the bottom, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, and thinking. And the first five are the doorways, the doorways of perception.

[17:59]

And the sixth consciousness is the one consciousness that thinks, called mind consciousness. And this seventh consciousness is constantly bringing messages from the doorways of perception through the discriminating mind by the seventh consciousness, which is constantly going back and forth between the alaya vijnana and the other consciousnesses. So our ego consciousness is constantly in action, discriminating. Mind consciousness and ego consciousness that work together, they're both discriminating consciousnesses. But all eight consciousnesses are really one consciousness, with eight aspects.

[19:11]

And when he sits us in, the seventh consciousness, which is ego consciousness, consciousness of awareness of me and mine, possessiveness, and the false sense of who we are, creates a false sense of who we are, becomes less active. So that the alaya, can become more prominent. There's also a ninth consciousness, and a tenth, and so forth. But I just want to use eight. So, Dogen says, dropping body and mind Zen practice is to drop body and mind.

[20:19]

Dropping body and mind means to turn the activity of the seventh consciousness from its delusion. So, these eight consciousnesses are doorways of awareness. A laya consciousness is unlimited because it's our nature, and our nature is unlimited. It has no boundary or shape. And the six consciousnesses, which includes thinking mind, are our touching of the earth, how we operate on the earth.

[21:38]

And this is our way of feeling ourselves along in the earth. We look at bugs, you know, and we see their antenna, you know, and their various feelers. Cats have whiskers, you know. And we do the same thing. We just have our feelers, which are our eyes and ears, nose, taste, touch. And our feelers give us some impression of the world. We know the world through the feelers, but we don't really know the world entirely. We only know what our limited feelers can tell us about this world. We're just like those bugs, in a way, feeling our way along with this information

[22:46]

So the mind, consciousness, takes the information and creates a story about the world. And each one of us has a different story about the world. There are many things that we agree on. There are many things that we don't agree on about the world. And we say, this one is right and this one is wrong. But they're just impressions, actually. And the seventh consciousness is the one that makes the judgments. The others just gather information. The seventh consciousness makes judgments based on certain kinds of information. It creates like and dislike.

[23:53]

It creates the sense of liking and disliking, wanting and not wanting, grasping and aversion. When we think of who am I, we think of all of the manifestations of the Seventh Consciousness. This is all the working of the Seventh Consciousness, and it's what we call our life, actually. This is what we think of as the flavor of our life, what's created by the Seventh Consciousness. But it's a story. It's just a story. And the story has some truth to it, but it's just a version of reality.

[25:17]

And we cling to our version. And this is the cause, the direct cause of suffering is clinging to our version of reality. The made-up story by the seventh consciousness So, when Dogen says, drop body and mind, he means, turn the ego consciousness into wisdom. When the ego consciousness is turned into wisdom, all the other consciousnesses are also turned into wisdom. So, on the one hand, we talk of consciousnesses. In an ordinary sense, we talk of consciousness. When the seventh consciousness is turned, then all the other consciousnesses are turned into wisdom.

[26:23]

And that's called wisdom, rather than consciousness, called prajna. And there are the four prajnas. four prajnas or four wisdoms. The mirror wisdom, which is the alaya-vijnana, dharmakaya buddha, viruchana buddha. Mirror wisdom receives the good and the bad without judgment. just mirrors everything as it is. So when alaya is left, is brought into, is allowed to arise without interference, then it's just a mirror. And our mind is just a mirror which sees everything as it is.

[27:26]

What is the purpose of practice? The purpose of practice is to see everything just as it is. That's Buddhism or Zen. To just see everything as it is. See things as it is, as Suzuki Roshi used to say. So the mirror wisdom shines forth when And when like and dislike are suspended. And when good and bad are suspended. And just see clearly. Without distorting. And when the seventh consciousness

[28:39]

sees the equality. This allows the seventh consciousness to see things equally, because dharmakaya is, in our true nature, everything is one being. And when the Seventh Consciousness realizes that all things are really one being in their essence, in their dharmakaya essence, then the Seventh Consciousness turns into the great equality wisdom. which is sambhogakaya.

[29:43]

And then mind consciousness, which is also a discriminating consciousness, sees very clearly into discriminating mind. and becomes the wisdom which sees everything in its own individuality, clearly. So, to see everything horizontally has no hierarchy. And to see very clearly everything in its vertical aspect hierarchical. And where these two cross is reality. We tend to either see things, mostly we tend to see things hierarchically.

[31:01]

And that's just called judgment. The world of comparison. Hierarchy is the world of comparison. And in the world of comparison, we have all the hierarchies, and the plants, and the minerals, and the human beings, and animals. So it's important to be able to see that very clearly. Yes, that does exist, but at the same time, everything is comparative. Yet we each manifest as a different persona. And the perfecting of action wisdom manifests as the first five consciousnesses, the sense consciousnesses.

[32:09]

seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and touching become wise actions rather than getting us into trouble. And this is nirmanakaya. So in order to explain the three bodies of Buddha, We talk about them in connection with the Eight Wisdoms, with the Eight Consciousnesses and the Four Wisdoms, because they work together in our explanation. So, when we sit zazen, we allow the consciousnesses to turn into the wisdom, the eight consciousnesses turn into the four wisdoms by dropping, suspending judgment.

[33:37]

In other words, very practically, stopping liking and disliking, stopping aversion and grasping, very simply. So that the alaya vijnana, the mirror wisdom of the alaya vijnana can see things just as it is. So there's some feelings in the That's the first judgment. The second judgment is, it hurts. The third judgment is, I don't like it. The fourth judgment is, I wish I was someplace else, or I wish that I was in a different position. This is a very practical basis.

[34:42]

to just see as it is. This is some feeling in the legs. Without going any further, actually. But your mind does go further. There's risen habit energy of our mind. The seeds of the light are continually sprouting. And the habit energy of our mind is saying something. Oh, I know this feeling. Oh, I remember that. I've had this before. You've never had this before. This has never happened before. But the seeds of consciousness are creating stories. It's very hard to just be in the present. Really hard. to be in the present continuously and just experience the experience of the present.

[35:56]

It's not that we're in the past. It's that we bring to the present the experience of the past, which isn't altogether bad, of course. We have to do that to some extent. But how to experience the present just as it is? So even though the habit energy comes up, and the seeds of experience are continually sprouting to give us information, do not let that bother you. Take it for what it is, but not let it influence the awareness of the present moment too much. So our mind is always continually unraveling something. So when these feelings come up, the feelings are, in zazen, mostly feelings are coming, either pleasant or painful or neutral feelings, but not to grasp them.

[37:23]

to just let them come without grasping and see how you can just let it be. And instead of naming it, to just kind of question it as, what is this? What's that? Instead of knowing what it is. Oh, I know what that is. That's the feeling I don't like. That's the feeling I do like. So we can't get rid of ego, and we shouldn't actually get rid of ego. But ego is not necessarily the boss.

[38:31]

If ego is not the boss, then who is the boss? That's a koan, actually. If ego is not the boss, who is the boss? So if we let go of ego, what will happen to us? If we turn to ego, what will happen? This is mostly what our fear is. Sense of I. If the sense of I, me and mine, So, in sitting, just be aware of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, without anybody hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, or touching.

[39:46]

Or thinking. Not, I am thinking this, but there are these thoughts. There is this feeling. There is this sight. There is this sound. There is this taste. But try to refrain from naming the taster, the toucher, the seer, the thinker, the feeler. Just painful legs are sitting on a black cushion. painful leg. And someone is sitting with full body mind attention to this act, activity.

[40:56]

Because right now there's nothing else

[41:05]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ