So you just had some discussion, I understand, of course. Does anybody want to bring up anything that came up in the discussion that we can start with? Yes? Yes. What struck me and also moved me in this discussion was the development that was noticeable in the group. From the beginning to, yeah.

[01:07]

I think for myself as well as for others, this text was at first kind of like a wall and there was no access to it. And then I found what everyone said very rich and it really helped me. It was almost like a transition from the seminar on Sangha. The development of the Sangha was also very noticeable for me. Wonderful. I can retire. How many of you have never or seldom worked with koans?

[02:28]

Well, I've worked with them a little bit. Well, it does take a while to get the hang of it. I'm trying out her knowledge of colloquial expressions, the hang of it. Because when I go to America, I want you to be able to translate me. And you have to read Koans with some caution. If you don't, it's like being in a museum too long or something. Yeah, you know, your skin begins to creep. Doesn't that happen to you in museums?

[03:30]

So would someone else, anybody else want to add to what Andreas said? Yeah. The gavel of Manjushri might have something to do with pride. With what? Pride. Pride? Pride. Oh, okay. Like when we say, oh yeah, now I know what it's about, now I realize that then it's already gone. Yeah, okay. Well, it's... Thank you.

[04:46]

It's an interesting... You know, I've never tried to do this in relationship to the Mahayana before. How can I speak with you? Because I'm really interested in talking to you about practice. So how can we look at, you know, if we, there's no way, if we have this title of Vision of the Mahayana Practice, there's no way that we, you know, unless I just forget about the topic and call up Nico and say, I'm sorry. I have to somehow relate this development of the Mahayana to the stance Zen took. And a koan is particularly the case of the koans from the Shoyuroku, the Book of Serenity.

[06:07]

are a form of literature. We could call it a wisdom literature, but still a literature. They're not just a bunch of random enlightenment stories. So this is the beginning of the book. So it's going to say something related to being the beginning of a book. And the Shoyuroku and the Heikiganroku and the Mumonkan we can add. Heikiganroku, Blue Cliff Records. We can think of the core texts of Zen.

[07:22]

So it's not only the beginning of this book, It's the response to everything that came before the book. What came before the book is Mahayana teachings, the so-called Bodhidharma and so forth. As I said to you, there was this immense effort over a thousand years to translate the, I talked about it in the last seminar, to translate these Indian oral teachings and written teachings into Chinese.

[08:23]

I actually in world history don't know of any comparable intellectual effort that's comparable. Any intellectual effort that's comparable. Yeah, the only thing that could be, you know, is probably our scientific establishment, the journals and the people now working together to understand science is somewhat similar. And as science is motivated by a belief that they are studying and discovering truths for all human beings, not just one culture or something like that.

[09:47]

And they're studying these and these truths are true for all people and will be true for the whole cosmos. And the opening up of the practice and teaching of Buddhism in India and then in China and the rest of Asia. was a comparable kind of effort. They thought they were discovering truths for all human beings and truths that were true of the stuff of the world, too. So all of the intelligence of generations and generations for centuries, like for all our scientists and philosophers, really had one task, to understand the wisdom of this world.

[10:57]

Do you want some water? No, thank you. And the effort to bring it from what was primarily an oral tradition to a written tradition in a new culture, I think was a huge burst of effort and energy that the imperial government itself supported for a thousand years. Imperial court. Imperial court. You mean the reigns and everyone? No, the emperor. Yeah, the emperor. Supported. Okay. Okay.

[12:46]

Now I'm trying to, you know... What was... You could... This is more like philosophy than, this is more like science than philosophy, Western science than Western philosophy. Because Western philosophy is mostly, you can just try to understand it with your mind. But in science, you have to do experiments. And often science takes our Western world out of the various philosophical positions and religious positions because the facts of the experiment are different than the religious or philosophical positions.

[14:07]

So experiments lead you places you can't think your way to. And mathematics, too, has a similar quality. It will lead you where you can't think yourself to. Like string theory, or there's not three dimensions here, but 10 or 12 or something. You can't even conceive of that, but mathematics suggests that's the case. Now, the development of Buddhism over the centuries was similar in the sense that Die Entwicklung des Buddhismus über die Jahrhunderte hinweg war insofern ähnlich als das?

[15:30]

That you had to experiment, but you yourself are the experiment. Also insofern als dass man auch Experimente durchführen muss, aber du selbst bist das Experiment. Okay. Yeah. So the teaching, the oral tradition, you know, and this was carried by people who knew, you know, whole sutras by heart. I mean, huge amount of material. Also diese mündliche Tradition, die von Menschen getragen wurde, die ganze Sutren auswendig kannten, also ganz unglaubliche Mengen an Material.

[16:31]

And the realization of these sutras and the practices from which the sutras arose was great yogic practitioners. Okay, so how do you bring a tradition like this into China? That was the problem they faced. It's sort of like a huge Max Planck Institute over a thousand years. And... And they sent people to India who recorded all these words.

[17:41]

Or brought back texts. Some things were already written down. And then they had to find a means to translate this into Chinese. And I've commented on that in Germany there was this effort over a century or so to make German a worthy vessel to pour the teachings of Christianity, the Benedictine rule into German. And they had a similar image of how do you pour these teachings, mostly oral teachings, into Chinese. How do you develop Chinese so Chinese will contain this teaching? Bodhidharma is considered to be the semi-mythological first ancestor of Zen in China.

[19:03]

Yeah, and he represents that you can't pour the sutras, the wisdom of the sutras, into Chinese. Only they can be poured from person to person. Yeah, so he supposedly sat for nine years facing a wall, nine years of wall-gazing, and this was all he needed. He didn't need to read the sutras. Yeah, so as you know, the story is somebody came to see him and Bodhidharma is sitting there, unmoved. And the guy, to show he's really sincere, cuts off his arm.

[20:35]

And this is how... the representation of how much effort it takes to, you know... I'm not expecting any of you. Sit for nine years or cut off. And he said, would you please, my mind is still disturbing me. Will you please enlighten me? I should think, you know. And he said, well, so show me your mind, Bodhidharma said. And then he said, but I can't find it. Bodhidharma said, ah, then I've enlightened you. I've freed you. Now this seems like a cop-out. Cop out?

[21:48]

Too easy a answer. But still, symbolically, show me your mind, and you can't find your mind, and the can't find your mind is the answer. Okay, and also in the teaching, in the effort to bring all these sutras to, with these translation tanks, with, as I've said, as many as a thousand monks working in them, There was the feeling it can't be expressed in words. It can be expressed or it can be understood, but not in words. Now, I said that I was going to use, and this is the case historically, that the Lotus Sutra is, I think, the clearest turning point.

[23:05]

So I'll read a little bit from the Lotus Sutra to give you a feeling of what these practical Zen practitioners were facing. When the Buddha had finished this, when the Buddha sat with his legs crossed in lotus position, And he entered a samadhi in which his body and mind were motionless. It sounds a little like Bodhidharma, doesn't it? And when he entered this samadhi, The heavens rained down great flowers.

[24:25]

Can I see the down? It rained down. It came down. Scattering them over the Buddhas and the great assembly. We have a friend named David Chadwick, or you may know his book, Crooked Cucumber. This is just a joke, an anecdote. At Tassajara, they have these trees that have huge leaves that look like oak leaves. What is the tree? Remember the tree. I picked one of these up and I said to David, look at this leaf. David said, you should see the leaf that killed my uncle in Texas.

[25:27]

David is Texan. He's from Texas. And everywhere the Buddha world quaked and trembled in six different directions. And part of the ordination ceremony, when we ordain somebody, we say, when someone takes the precepts, the earth trembles. It comes from here. And as a consequence, the monks and monkettes and etc., and the Nagas and so forth, and the human and non-human beings.

[26:41]

And as a consequence, the monks and the monkettes, it actually says big Sunnis. And as a consequence, the monks... And the Nagas. And the human and non-human beings. And et cetera, et cetera. All of this great assembly were filled with joy. And gazed at the Buddha with a single mind. Then the Buddha, from the curl of white hair between his eyebrows, sent forth a ray of light illuminating 18,000 worlds in the eastern quarter. Only in the eastern quarter.

[27:46]

There was no place the light didn't penetrate. From whatever hells there might be to whatever heavens there might be. Now, I'm going to knock and read you all just a little more. Then the Bodhisattva Maitreya, at this point Maitreya is a Bodhisattva. Maitreya Buddha, Bodhisattva Maitreya, said to himself, the world-honored one, the same phrase, Mr. Who, has manifested these miraculous signs. And what this unfathomable event has seldom ever occurred.

[29:11]

Since the Buddha is deep in this motionless samadhi, Who shall I ask about this? Guess who he's going to ask. Manjushri. So this first koan is a riff on the Lotus Sutra. A riff. A riff. Yeah, a little... A bunch of notes, a little song. Arthur, you have to help us every now and then. Music, it's music. Yeah, music, but it's used for any kind of... Who can give me an answer?

[30:13]

Well, I can ask Manjushree. He's already personally attended and given offerings to immeasurable numbers of Buddhas. And so he says, Manjushri, why does our... great teacher from the white curl between his eyebrows, radiate this great light. And this rain of flowers and the fragrant breezes of sandalwood delight our every heart. And the rain of flowers and the fragrant breezes of sandalwood.

[31:26]

Sandalwood, worry about sandalwood. Mm-hmm. The earth is everywhere adorned and purified. We are filled with joy and delight. We rejoice in body and mind. And the earth quakes and trembles in six ways. Yeah, and he says, well, because the Tathagata, now he's called the Tathagata, is about to teach the sutra, the sadharma, pundarika, white lotus of the true law.

[32:33]

Of the true law, the white lotus of the true law. Isn't this group that the Chinese government's trying to suppress all the time, isn't it, called the White Lotus or something like that? Did the... What? The something... The White Lotus movement in... To assassinate the emperor or something. Yeah. That was a secret organization, yeah. Yeah. Okay, so I'm not quite sure what they were trying to do, but it could have been the emperor. Okay, this is the last I'll say. Which is, the wisdom of the Buddha is profound and infinite.

[33:55]

Now Manjushri has said the previous thing. And now the world-honored one has arisen from samadhi and begins to speak. The wisdom of the Buddha is profound and infinite. It's difficult to enter and to understand. Not one of the disciples or the Shravakas or the Pratyekabuddhas can understand it. Shravakas or the heroes. No man can understand this. This profound and mystic Dharma. I and the Buddhas of the universe alone can understand these things. That's a truth beyond expression, etc., beyond the realm of terms.

[34:59]

Among living beings, none comprehend it. Except the bodhisattvas, unshaken in the power of faith. Okay. So what's the message? Let's quit and go home. It's already too much. Okay. Well, among the living beings, none can understand it except the bodhisattvas. Okay. then I suppose what we have to understand is how can we be a bodhisattva so that we can understand the teachings.

[36:12]

Now, what is the first step in being a bodhisattva? To recognize, to understand that you are inseparable from the world and all other people. It fits in with our contemporary environmental and humanitarian ideals. But in this case, it's not an idea, but an experience. A commitment view that arises from and is confirmed in experience.

[37:13]

A commitment view that arises from and is confirmed in experience. So I can just say that the first step is that, you know, to really practice, you have to see if you can really take this as a practice, to understand this and gradually realize it. Understand this and gradually realize it. But if you really have this intention, it's often realized suddenly. Okay, so now let's look at the... We're supposed to stop at six?

[38:23]

Okay, let's look at the... Hold on. So what I've tried to do so far is give you a sense of the topic, the vision of the Bodhisattva, of the Mahayana teachings and practices. And how does the ordinary little guy like you and me When we sit down to practice, I mean, I've never had flowers fall. No, I mean, I just haven't, you know.

[39:30]

I have to admit it. I mean, they may have fallen, but I was all under the roof. I didn't know this. We've scattered flowers in ceremonies sometimes, and a few have landed on me. But in general, when I sit, flowers do not fall from the sky. And though I have a few white hairs here, no white light emits from it. It's one of the 32 marks of a Buddha. It's the least important one. But when I was younger, I didn't have it, so it seems to be not related to practice. It seems to be related to age. So what does a little guy practicing do?

[40:46]

I mean, I don't have all these things. When I stick my tongue out, light doesn't, you know, spark. You know, none of these things happen. I'm not pierced either. No. So how are we going to understand if you're practicing these teachings? Do you just ignore them? Or do you say there's some truth? What mind do these teachings arise? Mm-hmm. Okay. So it starts with closing the door and sleeping is the way to receive those of highest potential.

[41:46]

So show me your mind. I can't find it. I'm just going to go to sleep, close the door. So closing the door and sleeping means you're doing nothing. That's for those of highest potential. That means to realize this great potential is already, the entire being, as Yuan Wu says, is already before us. Then it says, looking, reflecting and stretching is the roundabout way for the middling and lesser. You probably already discussed these things and made them completely clear.

[43:03]

And you realized that we are the middling and the lesser. Because looking means mindfulness practice and contemplative study. And reflecting is, you know, well, looking is more like analysis and mindfulness practice and reflecting is more like contemplative understanding. And stretching means something like yoga. Okay, so why don't they just say practicing mindfulness and doing zazen yoga? Because the tendency is to say it in ordinary words, because our world appears in ordinary words, and we have to see through those ordinary words.

[44:37]

And it's seen in this word down here, saindava. When you bring it up to careful examination, Shwedo shouldn't ask for salt. How could I present a horse? When you bring it up to careful examination, when you bring it up to careful examination, This is from a story of some king asks his servant for Saindava.

[45:42]

And the word Saindava happens to mean horse, salt, water, and a vessel or container. And some say it means all the products of the Indus Basin. Indus River Basin Valley. All the products of the Indus, of the Rhine Valley, of the Indus Valley. Thank you. Okay. So if he's eating a meal and he says, I want a sandava, he might mean salt. If he says he's going outside and he says, bring me a saindhava, he probably doesn't mean salt, he means a horse.

[46:45]

So this is a classic example within Buddhism. Now remember, this is a tradition being developed for 2,500 years. So it could be a lot more esoteric than this. So it's more like an example of a word which means many things. You have to understand it from the context. That's all this means. So this is the first koan in this book. And it's establishing right on the first page. When you read this book, look at the contextual meaning of the words, not the dictionary meaning.

[48:05]

Now, when they say completely embodying the ten epithets of a Buddha, what are they pointing out? That the Buddha is an activity, not a person or an entity. Um... Because the qualities of the Buddha, like the world-honored one, is an epithet. If the Buddha is an activity, we can have that activity. So what is the activity for Buddha? What is the activity for Bodhisattva? What is the activity of being that allows us to understand the teaching?

[49:27]

What is the activity that you can engage in that allows you to answer the fundamental questions of your life? This is what this koan is trying to address. So what's the first activity? Closing the door and sleeping. We all know how to do that. But we can also look, reflect and stretch. Yeah, and then, of course, how's it bear sitting in a car with wooden seats sporting devil eyes? That's like our Buddha on the altar. And that's like a Buddha or a kind of great guru who sits there and his eyes are flashing and his eyebrows are raising and, you know, that's...

[50:36]

And you can look at the photograph on the back of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, and you'll see that one eyebrow of Sikirishis is higher than the other. And this is a teaching and an experience that people have, which is actually one eye, the left brain, right brain, one eye is in the ordinary world and one eye is in the subtle world. So it says down here, raising the eyebrows. But before you go up into the hall, before you ascend your seat, Before you leave your room, how will you attain realization?

[52:00]

So this is really responding to this immense, powerful vision of the Lotus Sutra and trying to bring it down to earth, we could say. And remember, it's Manjushri who is spoken to in the Lotus Sutra. And all the early teachings of the Buddha start with, thus I have heard. So, Manjushri strikes the gavel, which is like in a court of law. This is the law. You were a judge. Do you use a gavel in Germany? No. You don't? No, we don't. Is that true throughout Europe? The gavel is used? I don't know. I think in the British and American courts anyway, when you start and everything's supposed to be truthful from now on, you hit the gavel.

[53:12]

And the court is now in session. So one day, Mr. Who, you know, wandered around. He said, I'll climb up there today. And Manjushri was really happy. He struck the gavel and said, Clearly observe the Dharma of the king of the Dharma. The Dharma of the king of Dharma is thus. And the world owner went and said, he could have left well enough alone. I'm getting out of here. I'm sure if I came in here and Paul said, observe the Dharma, the Dharma King, boy, I'd get so angry too.

[54:18]

But he just gets down. He doesn't say anything. There's no thus I have heard. The koan says, how are you going to hear the teachings? How are you going to realize the teachings? That's the basic question of this koan. And it's the basic question that rises out of a thousand years of translating sutras. Sutra that can only be understood or realized in yourself through practice. So what we should look at tomorrow is what practice allows us to realize and to hear the teachings.

[55:21]

To hear the teachings, whatever they are that comes to you. And to realize the teachings of the Mahayana. And also to use the Mahayana as the basis for our practice. As to take on the practice of this vow that we are in a fundamental way the same as every other person. Our fundamental being or mind is the same as and related to the mind and being of others.

[56:44]

And that's also not separate from this so-called physical world. So, like in the morning we say, the same thing is reflected, all Buddha's ten directions. The ten directions are at the same level as all the Buddhas. It's not all Buddhas in ten directions, it's the ten directions themselves. Okay, let's sit for a minute. Then we can... Thank you for translating. Is this mind, this mind of Zazen, your mind just now?

[59:21]

Is this a mind to which teachings could be revealed? Is it a mind that can understand things differently and more deeply? Is it something you have to notice and decide? If it is, then how do we develop, realize this mind?

[60:25]

Alongside of our usual mind.

[60:28]

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