For these next couple of weeks, I'd like to just recite the Heart Sutra so that we can actually pay attention to the words and not so much to the sound, because we're doing the sound every day. I think, actually, just looking at this now, that part of the answer to why we chant, do we have to chant this, is that which is form is emptiness, that which is emptiness form that one way of looking at our chanting is that we have these words and it's just the form of words and it sort of goes into emptiness and that there's nothing to it and at the same time there's uh from that nothingness comes these words and all and so um your question margaret was it's kind of like who says yeah Right. For me, this sort of gives them a response to that or one way of looking at those words.

[01:07]

Right, it's connected with bowing. Yeah. What I thought was interesting is when you try and memorize this and then you try and say it to yourself, it's a completely different experience than reading the chant and being able to stay on the next word and figure out when you're going to breathe versus But then you have to think, it seems to me. Then you have to be in the experience of the story. For me, at least, I thought of it as a story. I thought of it as memorizing it. And I'd think, well, and there's, they got together, and, you know, and, oh, Shariputra, and remembering the different plots, and what was going on. So, it's just a totally different experience of reading the Chant versus remembering it. So I wasn't sure how to approach it. I'm sort of, now I'm toying with another idea for this month, which is, you know, in, again, in most traditional places that I've seen in Japan, everybody takes the chant card.

[02:19]

Whether they know it or not. Right. They always, they take, I don't know what they do with the chant card, but they take the chant card. If you were busy reading it, you didn't look around? Yeah, I looked around. How come you don't know what they were doing? Because I couldn't tell if they were reading it. It was in Japanese. Oh, but they were holding it up in front of their eyes. Yeah, right. So I'm wondering... Also, I remember when Laurie was doing a practice period at San Francisco, they were encouraging everybody for that practice period to take the chant card and follow it, whether you knew the chants or not. And I'm wondering if people have any interest in doing that for this month. Sure. I thought about that because I was raised in the Jewish tradition. It didn't make any difference whether you knew it or not. You held the book. The book was holy in itself and you followed the words to keep to take it in with your eye and your heart.

[03:24]

Uh-huh. The thing that keeps coming to my mind, we used to have the cars that had the Japanese symbols right next to the words. Oh yeah, right. Are there any of those around? I'd love to see them. Yeah, let me look and see if I can find them. Should be that far. Yeah, if they're any place, they're in there actually. They should be easy to find. Are they Japanese characters? Yeah, I think it's a Japanese word. Yeah, it's a Japanese character with a Japanese word. Why does that interest you? Just... Yeah, just connecting the different characters. And then, you know, the words to the way we've come. Can you say anything more about the prologue or the original question that triggered off this answer? Well, it's kind of interesting.

[04:35]

It just says, at that time, Avalokitesvara was contemplating the meaning of the profound perfection of wisdom, and he saw that those five aggregates, the five skandhas, are also empty of inherent existence. And then it says, then by the power of the Buddha, the venerable Sariputra said this to the Bodhisattva. How should a son of good lineage train who wishes to practice the profound perfection of wisdom? Now, you know, what comes to me right off is that, how did he know what Avalokiteshvara was practicing? What do you mean? I mean, how could he know? How do I know what, if I see you sitting in the zendo, do I know what practice you're doing? I mean, do I know what's going on in your mind? And that's why, through the power of the Buddha, he knew and he asked the question at the right time. I'm not sure what more to say about that.

[05:39]

I'm not sure that answers your question. Yeah, I was kind of getting at whether he was asking for a way to, say, do effortless meditation and, like, get around the hindrance of the mind that they talk about in here, or whether it was just a more I think, I think it's the... I think it's the more general, I mean, because what he gets is actually a very detailed analytical answer, which I think we'll go into a little more detail about, and we haven't talked about what a paramita is. There's a lot of things just to touch on briefly, and we can do it in the next couple weeks, that will give you an idea of But basically what Avalokiteshvara does is he analyzes the nature of reality and says that these things are empty.

[06:44]

How you practice Prajnaparamita is by recognizing, is by seeing, directly seeing, experiencing, not just understanding intellectually. This is where, unfortunately, my experience has to part way with text. It's by seeing directly what is empty in all of these aspects of existence. and the question I was going to ask for just the last ten minutes is what do people think is emptiness? What is your idea of emptiness? Well, I mean, of course anything you say is wrong, but it seems like it's the absence of any kind of ideas or believing in any of the ideas that we have.

[08:24]

To me, it's just the pure experience of listening. Is there something else for her? I'll stop here. Someone told me it also meant pregnant. Right. I like that.

[09:33]

And there's a nice quote somewhere about emptiness is the red of the flowers, the white of the snow, or something like that. I think it translates into... My memory is that it actually translates... This idea of emptiness translates into something like swollen or full. Light Pregnant was actually... I know where it is. It's in Kansei's translation, which... I mean, his readings are often a little nutty. I mean, not inaccurate, but not inaccurate. Did you know him? Did you ever meet him? I heard some lectures when he was here. Let me see if I can find... sound.

[10:50]

Here it is. I have written elsewhere about the etymological derivation of the word shunyata from the root swell and about its meaning. I can look up this other place that he wrote it. There's no need to repeat all this here. It is sufficient to briefly define emptiness from three points of view. etymologically, Sunya conveys the idea that something which looks like something much is really nothing. From outside there appears to be a lot, but there is nothing behind. A swelled head, as we know, is an empty head. That's what he says about it etymologically. So maybe it's not like pregnant, but maybe it is like pregnant. Swollen with possibility. That's the whole notion of being just replete.

[11:55]

I always thought of it as being very close to creation. Everything's being born all the time. I mean, you know, Genesis, there was nothing. It's always being created all the time. It's connected with the whole concept of impermanence. Things are impermanent and continually changing. There is nothing to grasp hold of and hold on to. When you grab it, it's no longer there. I don't like the notion of absence. There's also the thing of the heresies one can fall into, you know, the heresy of nullism and then that things actually do exist.

[13:32]

It's the same basic thing there. I've always thought about it in an intellectual way, but there's a point in some music where the sound actually makes the silence greater. You know, I mean, It defines the silence and the sound and the space I'll become in your world of birth. I wasn't thinking of John Cage, I was thinking of Gabriel. There's also the point which the silence makes the sound greater, that there's space around each note. And in fact, if there's not space around each note, then you're wasting... I mean, then you get some kind of effect, but... You have one long note that never ends.

[14:35]

It's all the same thing, to note the silence. There's a... Well, I'm just thinking a lot about how we resist change so much, and it seems, I mean, it's a little bit like the question of, you know, if we are enlightened, how come we're not enlightened? I mean, we do resist change, and yet everything is always changing. It's sort of like, you know, why? I mean, why do we have so much trouble with this? And perhaps the notion of emptiness is to kind of try to counteract that with a sense of negation, with a sense of taking away what we're always trying to hold on to, but essentially that's not really the point. The point is that actually we're being filled up all the time. Negation is more like something you might hear from Nietzsche or something. It's that sort of very Western linear idea. But it doesn't mean negation by any stretch of the imagination.

[15:37]

I think it is. But it is negation in the sense of seeing through the things that are... the thoughts, you know, the thoughts and ideas we have that are just thoughts and ideas. Seeing through those, seeing that they are just thoughts and ideas. Does that also have to do with the thoughts and ideas we have really, oftentimes, are not really clear because we don't see things clearly as they really are. We project, you know, so much, and many times our thoughts and views are erroneous. Well, Mel really helped me with this whole word of emptiness. I talked to him at length about this, and also with Bob Poulsen. They both said something that was very helpful to me in that, you know, looking at emptiness in the Western definition of emptiness is not what they're talking about here.

[16:48]

And basically it means empty of an individual self. So it's more talking about everything being interdependent and everything being contained within this vastness. It's not, and I get very stuck in the Western translation of what emptiness is. That was very helpful to me, was just saying that nothing can exist without everything else. Actually, I think all this stuff is right. You know, the Buddha's great discovery was codependent arising, was this... It's also dependent co-arising. It was called codependent arising in another era. But, uh... Actually, there's a wonderful story about that in the end of the Thich Nhat Hanh readings that were in this stuff where Thich Nhat Hanh and Mara are talking.

[17:50]

But, uh... It's in the end of the last part of the Thich Nhat Hanh stuff there. But I think that's where I'd like to come back to, and we should tie up. There's one more thing, which is also in the Tiger's Cave readings in here, which is Abbot Olbora talks about, every time he talks about emptiness, he talks about it as renunciation. And that's What? Think about it. I mean the part that I like about it, the part that I like actually about his writing is that he's always, there's

[18:56]

Emptiness is not like something outside of you that you are passive to, but in fact, I think what he's saying is that you have to, you always have to move to engage with what you take to be reality. So, you know, if you don't renounce it, I mean, this, we can talk about these negations, and I think that these are negations, but we have to be very careful about the language, because it's non-dualistic language, that they're not really negations. So, I think what he's saying is that, you know, the act of renunciation is the act of continual, the act of recognition of of your clinging, of your desire to hold on to something, of your desire to make something real. So in that sense, emptiness is not just the idea that these things aren't real, but it involves you too. In other words, you have to do something to actualize that.

[20:01]

So it's not such a... It's not renunciation in the form of wearing a hair shirt, I don't think. But we can argue about this. Yeah, I mean, right. But it's interesting because as you brought it up, you had a resistance to the idea of renunciation. And all these resistances pop up in all these really subtle ways. So I'd like to finish up there. Next week I'd like to discuss a little more about the technical side and also a little more perhaps from one of the readings. Is there someone who would like to make a brief, I'm talking about like a five minute, ten minute presentation on what the Paramitas are? Do we have a volunteer? Okay, do we have one more volunteer we need for next week?

[21:12]

Someone to talk briefly about the five Skandas. No, no, different household. I could give you a book to read. I'll do it. Okay. All right. I'll give you two books to read. One to look through and one to look at more closely. Good. Thanks. Now, one last thing. Remember those names? Okay, everyone take a name, and if anyone gets Joan Halvson, pick another. It just says Joan T. if you get that one.

[22:26]

If you get one that says Joan T., take another one. Don't laugh. Don't laugh. Right over there. Keep these, by the way. You need them. You need to know the names. Are you going to tell us what we're doing? Yeah, yeah. I'm going to tell you what you're doing as soon as you all get the names. Ellen, are you in here too?

[23:39]

I think so. I forget now. Does anybody have Ellen's name? I guess you're not in it. Kim, it's John. There's one left. There's one left. Did everybody get one? There's one left? I didn't take one. Then let me take one. Does anyone get Joan's name? Yes. OK. And you traded it in? No. Oh. Why don't you take that one? And that's the last one, right? Take that one. Good, well, if this works out, then I would... Are you nameless? Let's see. I guess I'm nameless. Okay, now, what I want you to do next week is Valentine's Day. So, I'd like everybody to write something brief, a brief poem or brief paragraph or something about the Heart Sutra, or not about the Heart Sutra, with the Heart Sutra as your point of departure, as your point of departure, and you can write anything that you want. If it's somebody, you know, if you have the name of someone that you know or have a feeling about, then you can

[24:46]

you know, direct it more towards that person. And if not, just do whatever you want. And what I'd like to do next week is, and make them brief, they don't have to be long, but next week, so when you've written it, fold the piece of paper, put that person's name on the outside of the piece of paper. And then next week, that person can read your unsigned work. I have a problem. You have a problem with that yourself? You have a problem. We'll deal with it. You should do each other. Yeah, we can do each other. Okay. Okay? Anonymously. Anonymously, right. Yeah. Anyway, this is a little, this is a little like fourth grade or something, but it's Valentine's Day and we're studying the Heart Sutra.

[25:53]

Yeah. Okay, great. Thank you. Want money? Has everybody signed this? What about money? Give me all of your money.

[26:03]

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