sort of mechanical stuff that... Is there a sign-up sheet? Great. I'd like also, while I was circulating, everybody to... How many of us are there? Okay, I have enough. I'd like everybody to write their name on one of these slips of paper. And then fold it up, please. Just write your name. Oh, how many times? Fold it just once. And then someone, maybe Ross can collect them. I want them all here. I'd just like to say a few things about how I'd like to do this class.

[01:02]

I'd like it to be very participatory. This first class in particular will have, there's just some background and things that I'd like to cover. I suspect that most of you, some of you have probably studied the Heart Sutra before. Is that right? And some people haven't. And even when you studied it, I've been trying to study for a while here, and today I felt just completely awash. in the material. So there's always a new perspective and a new way of looking at it. But today, I think I'll probably cover some background material. But I'd like to say that a lot of my understanding of this, in some degrees, you might consider technical, and in other degrees, not.

[02:06]

But to me, my technical grasp of the material is not so deep. And there's a lot that I don't know. And the most important thing about the Heart Sutra is, and what's being said in it, is experiential. And sometimes I think all of us will be talking from our experience, and sometimes I think we'll be talking from what maybe we know of Buddhism, But maybe we don't know in our bodies and minds so clearly and that's okay, you know You know what I'm talking about And I just didn't make it clear that that totally includes me that they're there realms of experience that are being discussed here that I don't know about so We can sort of help Help ourselves help each other to to know about it

[03:08]

And so if you have questions as we're going on, I'd appreciate it if people would just ask them, you know, let's not wait for a time necessarily. If there's something that you would like to understand, you don't understand, or it's not clear, let's just kind of ask as we're going along. Sharon is going to attend mindfulness bell this evening, and maybe that's something that many of you haven't done before. Sometimes we have it in classes and sometimes not. It is something I think that was introduced pretty much by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese teacher, and so maybe every 10 or 12 minutes for a moment, we'll just breathe.

[04:19]

Just come back to let go of whatever was being said. Hopefully, we won't be cut off in mid-sentence. But we may be cut off in mid-thought. And come back to whatever, come back to your breath, and come back to your posture. And take a couple breaths, and then we'll bow, and then just continue on. And it's a really good way to remember what your purpose is. And also, in kind of more heated kind of circumstances too, it can turn the flame down just a little bit so that you can get some perspective. And again, please. I don't think this is filmed. Yes. It can just calm things down when things get intense. I don't know how intense it's going to get.

[05:20]

And lastly, are there people who still need copies of this handout? Let's see. This one's mine. I think they are all gone at the moment, but I will make how many? How many are needed? Just one? Two? I'll make a couple more tomorrow, and you'll be able to pick them up. Or you can call me or pick it up. I'll put them out on the porch again. Another thing that I'd like to do in the course of uh... on the next couple weeks i realized that uh... four weeks is a very short time there's endless discussion and mostly what i think we'll try to concentrate on on discussion not so we're not a concentrate on and these there's a lot of very technical analysis of the heart suture that can be done because you read uh... say that tibetan tradition uh... which is

[06:38]

pretty much beyond me. I mean, I'm not really that interested in it, and it gets into just a very careful analysis of almost every word and of the Buddhist doctrine behind everything. But I'd like to talk among ourselves about how we can practice with the Heart Sutra and what it means to us and how it helps us to live a life that is more filled with compassion, the compassion that flows from wisdom and compassion that flows from not clinging to your thoughts, your feelings, your fears, your ideas, and the things that you think you see around you.

[07:43]

So I think we're going to try to come at that from different angles. And I like to come at it very much from people's experience. And so we'll have, hopefully, a lot of opportunity to talk about that. But I also would like a couple, when we get around to it, perhaps for the next class, there are some possible areas that maybe a few people could do a little bit of study and research on their own and report in. I was thinking particularly about going into a little more detail about the five skandhas and Later it comes up in the Heart Sutra, the chain of causation. And those are both pretty large topics. And rather than just presenting it, I thought it would be good for a couple of different people to take that on, to maybe do some study on their own and come back with something to offer that we can discuss among ourselves.

[09:02]

makes it a little easier for me. So, we'll see when we get to that, towards the end of the evening, people can think about if there are people who want to do that, that would be great. And lastly, as a practice for this month, I'd like people to try to practice the uh... mantra at the end of the Heart Sutra Gathe Gathe Paragate Parsamgate Bodhisvaha uh... and I suspect everybody knows it uh... and we will talk about it uh... a little this evening and it's just if people are inclined to to try to do it uh... just try to carry that mantra around with you for this month and see what happens, see what circumstances you feel it's appropriate, where it helps you, what kind of things you feel coming up as you're practicing with it.

[10:26]

It's just something to try. when I started doing a class in Santa Cruz, I found myself doing it just on my own, and we actually didn't do it with the class, but I just thought it was interesting and I've come back to it, that if in fact it is the utmost perfect mantra, then maybe it's useful in some way. in some way that is perhaps beyond words. So you don't have to do it if you're not inclined to and I'm not suggesting actually you spend your time in zazen doing this mantra. I'm more suggesting you spend your time just as during the day you would come back to your breath and your posture at different points to center yourself

[11:29]

and to remind yourself of where you are in those moments for this time, you can also try recalling this mantra, just saying it to yourself one or two times. Does that interest people? Good. Is it useful to know what the mantra means? Well, not necessarily, but we'll talk about it. One of the things about mantras and dharanis and that's one of the unique things about the Heart Sutra that's actually unusual in relation to the other Prajnaparamita Sutras is that it has this mantra that most of the other sutras do not include something of this kind of magical nature and so you can know what it means or you can have an idea You can know what the words literally translate to be, but that doesn't necessarily make it any more useful to you.

[12:39]

And that's one of the things around the whole sutra. We can talk about that a little more. OK. Any questions before we press on here? OK. Well, I thought I would say something about sutras in general and about the history of the Heart Sutra. The word sutra means string or thread and I think that the image is of the words of the Buddha strung together.

[13:50]

The sutra is like a thread that runs through these words that are strung together like a garland of flowers. And actually it predates Buddhism. earlier Hinduism and Brahmanic religious practices also had sutras. It's not just a Buddhist tradition. But reputedly, all of the sutras are the actual words of the Buddha. And they fall into a couple of different periods. It's said that there were 84,000 sermons. And what, when the Buddha, none of these were written down, this is all an oral tradition. And when the Buddha died, you know, when he lived, they had this, just this perfect illumination and teaching to be around.

[15:01]

But when the Buddha died, the disciples said, well, what did he really say? And fortunately, in their midst, they had one of the disciples, Ananda, who remembered every word that the Buddha could say. And it seems that he remembered words that the Buddha didn't even speak directly, but that the Buddha meant to say. That's a pretty good memory. But interestingly enough, Ananda was not enlightened at the time. In the morning, we chant the Buddhas and ancestors, and we chant the seven Buddhas before Buddha, and then we chant Shakyamuni Buddha, then Maha Kasyapa, and then Ananda. So actually, it wasn't until after the Buddha

[16:02]

had died, that Ananda attained enlightenment. And in fact, in the first Buddhist councils, there was some controversy about whether they were going to let him in, because all the other arhats were gathered there, and they were all enlightened beings, and he wasn't. But he was the guy that remembered everything, so they had to let him in. from fairly early on there were these sutras and there also developed what was called the Tripitaka which means like three baskets and you had the Sutra Pitaka which was the teachings that were in the form of sutras, the direct words of the Buddha And you had the Vinaya Pitaka, which was the rules for monastic life, which in the Southern Buddhist tradition were very numerous.

[17:10]

There were many rules that defined how you lived if you were an ordained monk. A little different than the precepts or rules that we take. or in a way a distillation of those, but it doesn't go into as fine a regulation of monastic life. And there are reasons for that, but there's no need to go into that right at this point. And the third basket is the Abhidharma, which is more the commentary and detailed analysis, psychological analysis of the dharmas, of the things that were laid out in the sutras and that were analyzed in very, very minute fashion about how our minds and bodies and how all of reality works together.

[18:22]

So those were the the three baskets that gradually became known as the great storehouse, the great storehouse scripture. And, let's see, where, there, a bunch of it is here, those white volumes, I forget where they are, they might be, oh, they've sort of turned brown. over Greg's head. It's all, yeah, a lot of it. And on those two shelves are a bunch of it. We don't have a complete set. You know, and monks and followers would study the Tripitaka. And they would sort of turn the Dharma by studying. In fact, in Japan, It finally got down to, you turn the dharma by actually, all of, they would have a tripitaka on this big wheel.

[19:29]

And once a year, they'd go in, the monks would go in, and they would just turn the big wheel with all of the books on it. And I suppose it saved a bunch of reading. Anyway, the oldest sutras were assembled around the first Buddhist council which followed the Buddha's death about 480 BC. And that's theoretically when they all date from, but it's likely that the Heart Sutra and the Prajnaparamita Sutras, which the Heart Sutra is one version of, were composed somewhere between 100 and 350 AD. And there were a number of different forms of these. These Prajnaparamita Sutras are the central sutras in the Mahayana school of Buddhism. And they dealt a lot with the Bodhisattva ideal and the Bodhisattva way.

[20:37]

And I guess the seminal one is the The Prajnaparamita means wisdom and Paramita is translated as perfection or from the other shore. sort of crossing over, so it's wisdom from the other shore, the perfection of wisdom, and the basic seminal Prajnaparamita Sutra is the perfection of wisdom in 8,000 lines, and from there it blossomed up to the perfection of wisdom in 100,000 lines, and then there were virgins in 25,000 lines, 8,000, 10,000, and then you have the in a way the essence of the Prajnaparamita Sutras. And you finally got down to where you had the perfection of wisdom in one syllable, which was just ah.

[21:44]

And I assume that there were probably groups that practiced that. But the version that we're chanting was from a Chinese version. There were several versions that were brought by China. An earlier one was supposedly brought by Bodhidharma to China in probably about 500, 550 A.D. from India. But the version that is mostly used was brought by Suan Chang somewhere around for around 650 AD during the Tang Dynasty. And he went to India and brought back many, many texts. He translated something like about 1,300, 1,400 texts into Chinese from Sanskrit.

[22:50]

I think from Sanskrit, yeah. a lot of those texts actually haven't even been translated into English yet, and some of them are lost. But that is the version that is mostly used by us, is his version, or the translation from Chinese into Japanese and then rendered into English. Actually, there's there's a compendium, I think we have it in the library here, there's a Heart Sutra compendium which has some commentaries and has many different translations of the Heart Sutra, but they're all pretty close and related. So actually what I'd like to do before we plunge into the Heart Sutra itself

[23:52]

looking at things that it's about, is I'd like to chant it together. I'd like to recite it together. And I think we'll do that in every class. maha-prajna-paramita-hrdaya-sutra. Avalokitesvara, a bodhisattva, when practicing deeply the prajna-aramita, perceived that all five skandhas in their own being are empty and was saved from all suffering. O Sariputra, form does not differ from emptiness. Emptiness does not differ from form. That which is form is emptiness. that which is emptiness form.

[24:55]

The same is true of feelings, perceptions, formations, consciousness. O Sariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness. They do not appear or disappear, are not tainted nor pure, do not increase nor decrease. Therefore, in emptiness, no form, no feelings, no perceptions, no formations, no consciousness, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind, no realm of eyes, until no realm of mind consciousness, no ignorance and also no extinction of it, until no old age and death and also no extinction of it, no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path, no cognition, also no attainment.

[25:55]

With nothing to attain, the Bodhisattva depends on Prajnaparamita. and the mind is no hindrance. Without any hindrance, no fears exist. Far apart from every perverted view, one dwells in nirvana. In the three worlds, all Buddhas depend on Prajnaparamita and attain unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment. Therefore, know that Prajnaparamita is the great transcendent mantra, is the great right mantra, is the utmost mantra, is the supreme mantra, which is able to relieve all suffering and is true, not false. So proclaim the Prajñāpāramitā mantra. Proclaim the mantra that says, gāte, gāte, āra gāte, ārasam gāte, bodhi sphāha. Now, there are

[26:58]

There is another version of the Heart Sutra, which is essentially the same, but it includes a prologue and an epilogue, and I just thought I would read you those parts. Thus did I hear at one time the transcendent victor the Buddha, was sitting on Vulture Mountain in Rajagraha together with a great assembly of monks and a great assembly of bodhisattvas. At that time, the transcendent victor was absorbed in a samadhi on the enumerations of phenomena called the perception of the profound. Also at that time, the bodhisattva, the mahasattva, the superior Avalokitesvara, was contemplating the meaning of the profound perfection of wisdom. and he saw that those five aggregates, raskandhas, also are empty of inherent existence. Then by the power of the Buddha, the venerable Shariputra said this to the Bodhisattva, the Mahasattva, the superior Avalokitesvara, how should a son of the good lineage train who wishes to practice the profound perfection of wisdom?"

[28:13]

And then the sutra begins. So actually that's the sutra that we chant. is the answer to a question that goes unsaid in this version, which is, how do you train to practice a perfection of wisdom? And then, in the end, the mantra of perfection of wisdom is stated, gathe gathe pargate parsamgate bodhisvaha. Sariputra, bodhisattva mahasattvas should train in the profound perfection of wisdom in that way. Then the transcendent victor rose from the samadhi and said to the Bodhisattva, the Mahasattva, the superior Avalokitesvara, Well done, well done, well done, child of good lineage. It is just so. It is like that. The profound perfection of wisdom should be practiced just as you have taught it. Even the Tathagatas admire this. The transcendent victor having so spoken, the venerable Shariputra, the Bodhisattva, the Mahasattva, the superior Avalokitesvara, and all those surrounding and those of the world, the gods, humans, demigods, and Gandharvas were filled with admiration and praised the words of the transcendent victor."

[29:32]

So the scene that's being set is that actually when the Buddha goes into this meditation his words, his meditation is the means by which this whole sutra is presented. What I mean is that he's offering us, the Buddha is offering us this sutra and gets Shariputra to ask of Avalokiteshvara, well, how do you do it? And they have this dialogue which serves the Buddha's purpose. So in that way, even though it's the words of Avalokiteshvara, it's also the words of the Buddha. Now, a couple... Can I ask a question?

[30:38]

Yeah, sure. The thrust, the presence, the import of this is non-dualistic. I mean, it's words beyond words. So, the real wellspring of this is the Buddhist presence. That's what's embodied in these words. I draw a very rough parallel from my Christian upbringing. the blood of Christ. Buddha's presence to me is like the blood of Christ. Do you understand what I'm saying? I understand what you're saying. I'm not sure that the wellspring, I feel that the wellspring is actually beyond the Buddha, too. Right.

[31:40]

That the wellspring is emptiness, which just exists. And the Buddha, well, Avalokiteshvara is practicing Prajnaparamita. In other translations, the translation is coursing in Prajnaparamita, which is a really descriptive word. To me, that's like a boat on a river or something that is just there's nothing being practiced, it's just going along with this flow that's already existing. So to me that's kind of the wellspring of it. I don't know how, kind of my skeptical side

[32:42]

doesn't always know how to deal with the formalism of sutra language, but basically I just try to accept it and not hold it to some standard of historical accuracy. I don't know how other people feel about, are there other people who are uncomfortable with that kind of language? It's too much like Bible stories or something. What kind of language? Well, like the language of the prologue, where you have invariably in a sutra you have they set the scene they tell you where where the buddha was and uh and what meditation uh he was practicing and uh who was there right who was there how many bodhisattvas how many mahasattvas how many arhats and then there's always this like this well done well done child of a good lineage uh that that kind of stuff uh which

[34:03]

I have some trouble with kind of the religious paraphernalia of that language. Especially again on something like the Lankavatara? Yeah. That's against the Diamond Sutra. I always think of that language as being essentially Indian. I needed the Chinese to put it right on the ground, and that was done. if that's what we did here, but we don't. One of the things that the characters in the Heart Sutra, Avalokiteshvara, it's actually very unusual in the Prajnaparamita literature for Avalokiteshvara. Avalokiteshvara doesn't appear hardly any place else in the Prajnaparamita bodhisattvas and other characters who appear more often.

[35:07]

And I don't think that Shariputra also appears very much in that literature. Now, Shariputra was also one of the disciples and he was the one whose practice was most the practice of Prajnaparamita, but he has somewhat the feeling, of course he was, they were both set up to it by the Buddha in this, but he has somewhat the feeling of someone who has very great powers of mind and is very, really able to understand things and to take them apart and see how they work, but that's understanding, but that's not the prajna that's being talked about here. So he has somewhat the feeling of somebody who's very smart, but doesn't quite get it, but wants to get it, which is why he'll ask the question.

[36:20]

Isn't part of that the Greek influence that came through Gandhara, and that sort of dire Probably, yeah. Particularly at this point. I mean, if it was actually composed between 100 and 350 AD, I'm sure that it has a lot of that influence. You might spell that out for people a little more. I don't think people know. I'm not sure everybody knows what you're talking about. that there was some interchange with the Greeks in Gandara. Part of it was on the Silk Route. Right.

[37:21]

So there was, there were people coming through in both directions. So the Hellenistic period is the furthest east that Alexander got. Right. So they took along, you know, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle went Yeah, yeah. The Buddha. The flowing roads, the articulated limbs, as opposed to, well, in the Buddha's mind, this is more historical. The Buddha, there's a lot of, we don't have any right here, there are a lot of Buddhas that are from that area. The Buddha at Tassajara is a Gandharva, and it's very, It really has this much more Western kind of feel. There's some books with pictures of it.

[38:22]

Anyway, there was a lot of interchange there, although I think a lot of it is what actually happened, what that interchange was, is very speculative. But I suspect that some of the dialogue, that's right, some of that came from there. So the basic question that's being asked is how do you practice Prajnaparamita? And the sutra is the answer to that question. And the basic thing that's being offered is that you don't cling to ideas, conceptions, that you don't cling to anything that boils down to form is emptiness and emptiness is form. And I think that's kind of a point of departure for us because the difficulty is that we always want something to cling to.

[39:34]

That you want, you know, you might want to cling to this text or you want to cling to your idea of yourself or you want to cling to your body or somebody else's. And the Heart Sutra itself is a series of negations, saying, well, you can't cling to this, you can't cling to this. There's actually a series of eight negations where different different aspects of your mind and body are put forth and saying, these are empty. But still, it's very hard to keep from clinging. It's hard to keep from clinging to a feeling. Today, last night, I was in a parking lot and got a Denver boot put on my car.

[40:37]

What? What is that? It's this big metal thing. Yeah, it was clinging to my wheel. It was, you know, it was a private parking lot. And this is, of course, while I was at a Buddhist Peace Fellowship event, you know, and I was in a church parking lot and I didn't pay the money because I thought I was in a slot that said Trinity Church. And I came out and my car was immobilized. It's a big clamping metal device that locks on the wheel and you don't go any place with it. And I was really annoyed, really upset. But I said, okay, I'm going to just let this go. I'm going to go home because I can't deal with this now. And somebody gave me a ride home. But it was just with me when I woke up in the morning and said, well, I'll try to deal with this. And I went to the church and talked to the woman at the office of the church.

[41:42]

And she was very friendly. But I couldn't tell whether she was going to. You see, if she vouched for me, then I wouldn't have to pay the $60 to get the Denver boot taken off my car. And at every stage, I kept trying to just put forward a position, a reasoned position, and actualize the possibility that I wouldn't have to pay the $60. And finally, I just had to do it. And I was really angry. And I'm still angry. But I had to go and literally deal with somebody who was basically the parking lot attendant. And he was the head of He was also the head of security, but he didn't make the policy for the company. And it boiled down to, so finally I gave him the money, and I was really upset about it.

[42:42]

And I had one of those thoughts that went through my mind. Well, what do I do? How do I finish this interaction with him? Do I thank him? And just like every fiber of my body did not want to thank him. Although in actuality, he wasn't doing anything to me. He was doing, he was performing his job. I mean, it was not evil what he was doing. He was performing his job the way according to the guidelines that he had. And he was actually dealing with me in a a fairly respectful way, even though he wasn't giving an inch, and he could have. If he wanted to, he could have. But he might have had to answer to somebody else. And so I didn't want to thank him.

[43:45]

I was standing there watching him take this boot off my car and thinking, well, what am I going to do? And I realized, Why not thank him? What does it cost me anything to thank him? In fact, maybe it's a good idea to thank him, because I could just feel that I wanted to hold on to this anger. And what that holding on to the anger meant to me was that I wanted to make sure that he got some of it. I wanted it to have an effect on him. So the inclination was to be not rude, necessarily, although I could imagine being rude, but just cold and not give him anything.

[44:47]

And I thought, well, why not? Do I have something to lose in this situation by just thanking him? And so I did. And I felt better for doing it. And it wasn't like the end of my clinging for that particular moment. But I think it's like a small way of not validating, not saying, well, this anger is a real thing. This feeling is a real thing. And if it's a real thing, then what I really need to be doing is paying respect to it. To saying, my anger is more

[45:52]

a real thing than this person who's doing his job and actually treating me in a respectful manner. That the anger was more real than the person who was in front of me. And I realized I didn't particularly want to do that. So in this circumstance, I didn't. I think it was maybe the first time in my life that I ever did that. It doesn't have this great transformative quality, but it felt like a little gain. And I feel like it's because I've been spending the rest of the day trying to study this stuff. It helped me. But I also could use uh... my study of the heart suture i was also using that as a pretext for being angry uh... that was that's the other side of it i kept thinking about my car and this boot and sixty dollars and thinking well i can't really concentrate on this stuff now because i'm distracted by uh... by this other these other events that are going on in my life and uh...

[47:18]

you know, boy, it really pisses me off. So you can cling in a lot of different and very subtle ways, and you can even use the Dharma to cling to. So I'm not sure there's a point beyond beyond that, but this clinging is very subtle and very pervasive. And I think that the help of the sutra, the point of it to me is to try to find, try to look at the ways that we cling and try to find a way not to do it. Well, I mean in almost a very kind of mechanistic way.

[48:22]

That I was studying, I was trying to study the Dharma to prepare for the class. And so I was angry that this situation at the parking lot was keeping me from studying the Dharma. and that fed into a kind of self-righteousness. You know, so I'm supposed to be studying the Dharma, you know. Do you understand? What? Yeah, right. So we're always trying to clear things out of our way. You know, and we can always find some you know, we can always find some excuse for why we don't practice the perfection of wisdom.

[49:29]

Does anyone else want to answer that? Could you say it again? Well, there's a line that says, all Bodhisattvas depend on the Prajnaparamita, and it just occurred to me, if I'm depending my whole self And as I recall, what he was saying was it was sort of that the Dharma was sort of this sustenance for Bodhisattva practice and depending on it was kind of like we depend on the air and food and whatnot in order to maintain ourselves. I think you have to remember also that all of the language in here and we're the language is just

[51:38]

an approximation. It's non-dualistic language and it's dealing with non-dualistic concepts. So when it says depends, it doesn't have the same force of dependence that we would think of. And it's really hard because we're used to, we have idea about what words mean. So, to use words to get to questions and matters that are beyond words is very difficult. And in fact, that's what, when the sutras have a life of their own that's beyond the meaning of the words. And when we chant them, I mean, every day we chant this sutra. And there's some people who come, and they find it really difficult.

[52:58]

I don't know, are there people here who, if you're, will admit to not liking service or chanting? I find it difficult because it's kind of mechanical. A little bit mechanical at first. I mean, I remember when I first came to the Berkley Zen Center, which was a really long time ago, I mean, it was still, like, all in Japanese, and I didn't know what I was chanting, and at the time, nobody talked to you. And I was really... What? No, it wasn't just me. I read in the book, it wasn't just me. And I was really uncomfortable with it. I was uncomfortable because there's a devotional side of chanting.

[54:00]

And what our teachers always say, they say, just chant to chant. Just do it. And what I discovered when I returned to it years later was that actually I really liked to chant. that I just like the feeling of it and the feeling of everybody's effort coming together to blend. And when you're chanting, you're not supposed to be thinking about the meaning of the words. So it is, in a sense, it's mechanical. I'm a singer. In the same sense, when I'm singing, If I'm thinking about the meaning of the words, then I'm apart from the song that I'm singing at that moment. There are other times to think about the meaning of the words.

[55:01]

If you're actually rehearsing something, if you have to figure out how to breathe it and how to move the notes. Of course, we don't have too many notes in our chanting. There's other times, like here, to think about the meaning, but in chanting, in the zendo, it's just chanting. Who says that? Is that written somewhere? That it should just be chanting and you shouldn't be thinking about the meaning of it? Is it written somewhere? I don't know. Is it written somewhere? I've said it an awful lot of times. I remember when Mel said we could be chanting peanut butter, peanut butter. In the Hindu literature, there seems to be two different opinions. One is that you just repeat the magic sounds of Sanskrit. You kind of get the benefit just from the sounds. You don't have to know the meaning. And I've heard the other opinion that if you don't know the meaning of the mantra, it's called Jada Mantra, or is there a stone or dead mantra? And it doesn't have any good effect. So which of those sides do you believe? I think there's a difference between intellectual understanding and meaning.

[56:07]

I know when I sing a song, for some odd reason, the phrase, when bombs bursting in air, when you think of that image, when you sing a song, I think of the image of those fireworks going off when I sing the song. So I do have some meaning that comes through there. I don't know, I'm sorry. There's a difference between intellectual understanding of something and just truly understanding the thing itself. And when you're chanting, the thing itself is the chanting. But I think there's an interaction between the two, because to somehow hold the meaning and go beyond the meaning and just into the rhythm and not either or, but kind of both. that you don't know in a chanting mind that you do know. So when there is the language there, you can't help but have some association, interpretation of it.

[57:12]

But if you can hold it to a balance, I think it's the most effective. It's really interesting to hear people's different experiences of chanting. Because when I was doing like bagpipes, like wah, There's a way in which I prefer chanting in Japanese. Because it's much more the sound. It's a syllabic language that breaks down in a different way than English. And English would be neat if it were more melodic, I think. English lends itself to more melody. But we just do it how we do it, and actually it changes.

[58:14]

I mean, Mel has changed the way we chant the Heart Sutra pretty considerably over the last five years. Because we always used to do it with the Mokugyo and chant it as we would chant the Japanese, like, A-Va-Lo-Ki-Te-Sh-Va-Ra-Bo-Di-Sa-Tva. And that's actually kind of weird. because that's not the way our language is. So there is this constant effort and work to find the appropriate way to do this chanting. But it's really interesting because it is still, however you cut it, it's essentially a devotional practice. And so we have this devotional practice in the midst of our sitting practice, which we maybe don't see as a devotional practice. And in fact, a lot of people, myself included, thought they were running full tilt away from devotional practices of other religions.

[59:20]

I mean, I always thought I didn't like that. And now I find or maybe I do like that, and gradually see that there's a way in which the devotional practice of chanting is just like zazen. I mean, in zazen, you're returning to your breath and your posture. When you're chanting, you really have to pay attention to your breath. And you're very aware of when You can be very aware of when you're running out of air, when to take a breath, and if you do this every day, you learn a way to do it and a way that you have to pay attention. And you also realize, just like in Zazen, that when your mind moves, when your mind takes a thought in the middle of chanting, you're off.

[60:26]

And even if you've chanted this thousands of times, you can lose your place in just an instant. And then you return in the same way that you return when you're sitting. And so I think these practices aren't so different. And actually, in the Chinese and Japanese tradition, in almost all of the various Buddhist traditions in those areas, they would always do this whole variety of practices. There would always be devotional practices. There would be no such thing as pure zazen, where you would just practice meditation without doing any chanting.

[61:22]

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