So, good evening, everyone. Welcome. Good evening. Hi, Lewis. It's great to see you again. So, I want to continue the discussion we started yesterday morning with Dale Wright, who was talking about the goddess chapter of the Mahakirti Sutra. So, we're in the middle of a... practice commitment period and the texts we're studying is this, the Malakirti Sutra, Malakirti being this great, awakening, brilliant lay person who was immersed in the world and all kinds of values, but also brilliantly awakened and in all contexts, he helps awakening others. So, So we're up to this chapter on the goddess, the goddess of freedom, as Dale called her.

[01:09]

And I just want to continue the discussion and say a little bit more about material chapters. So in some ways, this is a chapter about love. So It starts off with Manjushri, the great Bodhisattva of wisdom, and a dialogue between him and Vimala Kirti, a great layman of Buddhist time, who was ill. And that's sort of the beginning of the drama of the sutra. So basically, Manjushri, the Bodhisattva, was asked by the Buddha to go and check on the monk, to see how he was. And when he did that, all of the disciples and unusual beings who were in the assembly

[02:15]

And what he saw for us all wanted to go hear this because they knew it would be a really stimulating discussion. And so, and we've talked about how they all fit into this little room. Anyway, all kinds of strange and miraculous things happened to Sujit as the Malkirti is expounding on. emptiness and also the inconceivable liberation. So getting to chapter seven of the goddess, Manjushri asks, noble servant, if a bodhisattva considers all living things in such a way as empty, as separate, as empty of independent self, how does he generate great love toward them? So this is maybe the key question.

[03:18]

Where does love come from? When we realize that everything is ephemeral, that nothing lasts, that all things are not things but expressions of all entities, all events in the whole universe and other universes, when we see that, how do we generate great love? So this is about karuna, compassion, which is the balance of wisdom, and a lot of what happens in this sutra has to do with balancing. Anyway, the Mahakirti says, Manjushri, when a bodhisattva considers all living beings in this way, he thinks, just as I have realized dharma, reality, so should I teach it to living beings. Thereby, they generate the love that is truly a refuge for all living beings, the love that is peaceful because free of grasping, the love that is not feverish because free of passions, the love that accords with reality because it is equanimous in all times.

[04:41]

the love is without conflict because free of the violence of the passions. So he's talking about love for all beings, but also this applies to love for particular beings and relationships to be free of conflict, to be free of possessiveness, to see that all beings are not objects. And that actually, there's no such thing as an object, because everything is a product of everything else. This is another way of talking about emptiness. So this is, and they go on in this dialogue, so I'm not gonna go through the whole chapter, and you can listen to, wonderful talk for us today morning, but I want to get to the main figure of this chapter.

[05:47]

So after this long dialogue between Vimalakirti and Manjushri, and part of this style, just to say a little bit. What the magistrate asked, what is the root of good and evil? And in Durbin's translation, the molecule he says materiality was the root of good and evil. We could see that as positiveness, as consumerism, as being obsessed by things. And a little later, He talks about, the monastery asks about unreal construction, which in all purity says comes from false concepts. And what is the real false concept? And to use Burton Watson's translation, boundless assumptions. So how do we get beyond our assumptions about who we are and what the world is and who other beings are?

[06:58]

So, of course, we all, as human beings, have various assumptions that we've made in order to arrive here tonight, whether you're coming from Los Angeles like me now or people in this room. We have assumptions, but how do we get rid of false assumptions? At any rate, they're having this wonderful dialogue, and then Thereupon, a certain goddess who lived in that house, having heard this teaching of the Dharma of the great heroes, heroic Bodhisattvas, and being delighted, pleased, and overjoyed, manifested herself in a material body and showered the great spiritual heroes, Bodhisattvas and Vittasattvas, with heavenly flowers. So we've altered flowers to the Buddhas tonight, as well as in Samson, right?

[08:02]

And there's a whole situation that develops about the flowers between the disciples and the Bodhisattvas. Fidel covered pretty well yesterday. I want to jump to, in this discussion, Charuja, who's... was one of the 10 great disciples of the Buddha. He was an historical figure. The Mahakirti, we don't know, maybe was based on a historical figure, but is thought of as more mythical, which is not to say unreal. Gives a discussion with Sariputra, who is upset about flowers. on his monastic words. He's very attached to the rules of purity. He wants to be perfect as pure. He does not realize that as living beings we all have predated delusion and assumptions and so forth.

[09:10]

So the goddess challenges us. And, you know, one thing about this goddess, Dale mentioned yesterday that she's not an ordinary human woman the way it's written in the sutra. She's a goddess, sort of above, you know, sort of superhuman in some ways. And... Women scholars of Buddhism have pointed out that she doesn't have a name. She's never named in the chapter of the sutra. So this has to do with the culture in which this sutra was written and the times that they were in. There's a similar or a related story in the Lotus Sutra about the Dharma King's daughters. And she's really quite amazing, the Dragon King's daughter, as is Lama Kirti's goddess friend.

[10:19]

She says she's been with him there with Lama Kirti for 12 years. The Dragon King's daughter in the Lotus Sutra appears and demonstrates quickly becoming a Buddha. And this is shocking to the assembling a lotus sutra just as the goddesses shall get to share Buddha because, well, she's not quite human. She's a dragon, a dragon princess. Also, maybe even more, she becomes a Buddha quickly, like this. Like we say that all of us, all of you are Buddhists. We don't necessarily realize it or have it developed, but anyway. The Dragon King's daughter also is not given a name in the Lotus Sutra, as Buddhist scholars have pointed out.

[11:25]

So this is why I wanted us to check the names of the women ancestors tonight. Because all through Buddhism and Buddhist history, There have been great women. So all of the names that we chanted tonight from India, China, Japan, the West, are historical people, historical women who were, in some cases, recognized as teachers, but also known as, even if they were not formally teachers, they were all great, great practitioners and great inspirations. Many of them were formal Dharma teachers. So we can talk about who they were. Great teacher Ryōnen was a great disciple of Dōgen. She was, well, she maybe didn't go to any heiji, but she was quite wonderful, as Dōgen says. And in the, amongst the later teachers, there's several, Ryōnen himself, great teacher Kasabjōshin was

[12:34]

a sewing teacher who helped spread the sewing of Rox's cases to America. Great teacher by her session is Julie Dixon, who, thanks to whom we have said my beginner's mark because she transcribed all those talks that she gave. Great teacher Myon Stewart, was the teacher at Cambridge. She was, came to Massachusetts. She was quite wonderful. I had Doug Sutton with her once, you know, sitting, Malte sitting with her. She was also a concert pianist. A great teacher, Jishu Angio, was married to Bernie Glassman, who died early. Their teacher shouldn't post anything It's the last one. Her name in English was Blanchard, and she was my Shisho teacher.

[13:38]

So you can look on the ancient dragon website. There is a description of each of these women. So these were historical women. The dragon king's daughter in the Lotus Sutra is a special being and The goddess is also a special being, and because of patriarchy, they don't have their names. So there's a lot here that's relevant to us, as Dan was saying. Of course, we still have patriarchy great persecution of women now in our culture, of some politicians. Anyway, I'll come back to that, but I want to say a little more about this dramatic event that happens next in the goddess chapter.

[14:46]

So let's start this on. Well, there's one thing I want to go back to. Again, this is part of the goddess's challenging chariputra. And she asks Shariputra what his practices, and I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but she says, he says to be free of delusion, discipline. Yeah, this is a little further in this.

[15:56]

The goddess says, liberation is freedom from desire, hatred, and folly, which is what Shara Kutcher says. And the goddess says to him, that's the teaching for the excessively proud or for the arrogant. Those free of pride are 12th at the very nature of desire, hatred, and folly. We hate delusion. Is it self-liberation? So this is a key point. of the suture, that we do not try and crush and destroy and get rid of all predate pollution. We see through it, or we cut through it, as our Buddha sets about translation says now. But to think that we have gotten free from greed, desire, from gaiting, from folly, that's, and Dale talked about this too yesterday, that's kind of narratives.

[17:11]

The bodhisattva knows that they live in the middle of this world of desire, of lust, of anger, of foolishness. Whoever thinks I have attained, I have realized, is overly proud of the discipline of the well-taught. So our practice is not about getting rid of delusion. Our practice is to be aware and awake in the middle of delusion. To be free of obsessing about we hate delusion, to be free from being caught by them or acting on them. But it doesn't mean that our ancient twisted karma goes away. At any rate, thereafter, and after further discussion, Shara Gupta is very impressed with the goddess, of course.

[18:23]

And he asks her, How long she's been here. She says. I have been in his house for 12 years. And I have heard no discourse. Concerning disciples. And solitary sages. Who try and get rid of. We hate. But I've heard only. Those concerning the great love. Great compassion. And the inconceivable qualities. Of Buddha. So I think this dialogue goes on. And then at some point, Shariputra is so impressed with her that he says to the goddess, this strange thing. What prevents you from transforming yourself out of your female state and becoming a man? Because in early Buddha's method, only men could become Buddha.

[19:28]

There was that idea in that culture. And the goddess says, although I have sought my female state for these 12 years, I have not yet found Reverend Sharda Gupta, the magician who incarnated a woman by magic. Would you ask her what prevents you from transforming yourself out of your female state? And Shariputra says, no, such a woman would not really exist. So what would there be to transform? Just so, wherever Shariputra says the goddess, all things do not really exist as separate entities. Now, would you think what prevents one whose nature is that of a magical incarnation from transforming herself out of her female state? And thereupon, this amazing event happens. The goddess employed her magical power to cause the elder Sharipuja to appear in her form and to cause herself to appear in his form.

[20:32]

So there's this kind of double sex change operations. It's this amazing event and The goddess says to Shariputra, who's now a woman, transformed into her body, Reverend Shariputra, what prevents you from transforming yourself out of your female state? And Shariputra, who's been trying to be this pure monk, his whole monastic career is full of consternation. appear in the form of a male. My body has changed into the body of a woman. I do not know what to transform. Anyway, something like that. The goddess says, if the elder could again change out of the female form, then all women could change out of the female state. Well, So finally, she says, the Buddha has said, in all things, there is neither male or female.

[21:42]

So this is amazing being written about 2,000 years ago in terms of our awareness in our culture of, well, gender fluidity of the, possibilities of not holding on to some vision of male, some vision of female, the stereotypes that I grew up in with, you know, John Wayne was the ultimate male and Marilyn Monroe was the ultimate female, anything else is, anyway. So this is something for us to consider. How is it that things are not what we assume they are? Even gender, which is, you know, a difficult topic, and it's a major topic in our political world now, as politicians expressing fascist views are persecuting women, persecuting trans people, and persecuting, trying to persecute

[23:00]

How should we treat people? So I appreciate this goddess and this demonstration she makes to cut through our assumptions about dualities like men and women. I'll just put the closing thing in the chapter and then I want to open this for discussion. After the goddess transforms Shariputra back to his real form, she becomes a goddess again. Vimalakirti, at the end, has the last word. He tells Shariputra, Reverend Shariputra, this goddess has already served 92 million billion buddhas. She plays with the superknowledges. She has truly succeeded in all her vows. She has gained the tolerance of the birthplaces of things.

[24:02]

So I've mentioned this a couple of times in Rajiv's sutra. It's one of the key, another of the key teachings of the sutra. And I love saying the Sanskrit name for it. It means patience. with the tolerance, with the worthlessness or ungraspability of things, of darkness. So all of the things that we think are things, all of the things that we have ideas about and views about and think we know what they are, are not necessarily stones. This is one of the key teachings, to not see things or people or animals or lakes as objects. So here the goddess has demonstrated the application of this degenerate for chariputra.

[25:09]

So there's a lot to, Think about that. This is not the only, but one of the dramatic chapters in this sutra. Comments, questions, responses? Anybody? A couple of quick comments. I had to kind of smile inwardly when I heard a quote from... Vimalakirti? Am I pronouncing it right? Vimalakirti? Vimalakirti. I'll get it. Where he said something on the order of... uh love of money is the root of all evil or something like that and it reminded me of the old testament quote uh or where uh that it's often misquoted saying money is the root of all evil but essentially love of money is the root of all evil attachment to money is the root of all evil and i had a kind of uh

[26:18]

smile after different cultures, different traditions can come to the same conclusions. As far as gender roles, one of the most skillful practitioners of cutting through delusions was William Shakespeare. He was always having his characters, the men, not so much the fellows dressed as women, but, well, no, he did some of that too, but men were dressed as women, women dressed as men, and they would get over in a situation understanding the delusions and the assumptions that people would have and kind of playing with them. And this was centuries ago, and he was already kind of seeing through all the bull crap. Yeah, thank you. Yes, the comparison with Shakespeare, some of his comedies is very apt. Yeah, and what you said about the... You said the attachment to money or the grasping at money?

[27:21]

Yeah. And that's the point with all of this. It's when we get caught by our grasping or our anger, confusion. It's when we get attached to or compulsive about some object of desire rather than just expressing desire without holding on, without... This is subtle, not being caught by grasping or adding to a confusion. And money is neither good nor bad. It's a medium of exchange. It's a concept. But our attachments to it are fierce and complicated and difficult, difficult to cut through. Yeah, and then... Those with lots of money, the billionaires, seem to never have enough. They need more and more and more from all the rest of us. So, yes. Thank you, Jim. Other comments, reflections, questions?

[28:28]

When was this? We don't know exactly when it was written. The actual scenes from Vimalakirti and Manjushri are supposed to be happening at the time of Buddha, 2,500 years ago, more or less. But it's about Mahayana, so is it more likely something written after that? Yeah, so it was probably compiled in the first century or two of the common era. We don't know exactly. The history of these things is not clear. That kind of renaissance of the attitudes and philosophy is kind of similar to the Old Testament, New Testament, not the Old Testament, New Testament again, but it's kind of that emphasis on scaling back the purity and the less honorable person or whatever. Yes, so the Mahayana developed out of the wonderful Theravada teachings, but emphasized, as this chapter does, love and compassion.

[29:45]

So the wisdom teachings were there before, and actually, you know, there were the compassion teachings too, but the emphasis on skillful liberative technique, as the sutra says, how to help beings. and share their love. Yes, wait. I'm David Reyes. Oh, hey, David. Hi, Taigan. Thank you very much for that talk. Shariputra's question about how to generate the great love, the great love and kindness, the Mahamaitri, the Mahameta, struck me tonight as really, really a weird question. Because now that I think about it, I mean... What else would somebody feel love and compassion toward if not the ephemeral, impure, passing of contingent nature of being?

[30:53]

So is it that... I guess it's not hard to understand the thing on the other side, the great love for purity, the great desire for purity, but that question is weird to me tonight all of a sudden, so I wonder if you might say more about it. Well, the whole issue of we can talk about it in terms of impermanence or inconceivability or just the ungraspability of things. It's possible that in a world where you can't get a hold of anything, some people might want to get a hold or, you know, possess other people in various ways. Slavery, relationships, you know, but The question actually shows that Shariputra is deeper than we might consider him.

[31:59]

He's asking, well, how do we generate love? How do we generate compassion? So, yeah, I don't know what else to say exactly. How do you turn from competition to cooperation, from do unto others before they do unto you to, you know, everybody is connected with everybody else. We're all part of the same, in the same situation in some way. We each have a particular expressions and forms of that. But how do we care for all beings and for particular beings? That's the real question. And Kamal Kirti's skillful liberal technique is easy to say, but how do we actually act in a way that is helpful?

[33:01]

This is a key practice issue. How do we function? What do we each do in the world that is helpful to beings and to particular beings and to ourselves? Many people, he says, have great difficulty with that. And it's not about getting some answer to that either. It's about just patiently paying attention and seeing what can we do to be helpful, to be kind, to be caring, to love. Other comments or questions or reflections? How do you respond? Ken, did you have your hand up?

[34:05]

No, I don't believe you. Yeah, I mean, this startling event, what response is to the path to the goddesses uh transforming sharaguja Poor Shariputra. Yeah. Did he deserve that? Poor Shariputra. Yeah. He's trying to follow the monastic way. He's trying to be a good monk. He's trying to, you know, this is, as Lewis was saying, this is a kind of engine history. This is a place where the traditional, the old traditional Buddhist teachings, which are wonderful, um, Something's been something used to me. And this is called the Bodhisattva Way.

[35:07]

And so, yeah. He's stuck in that. It's like, like I sometimes feel being a 28th century person in the 21st century. everything has changed. It's hard when your worldview gets picked up and shaken all over and sat down upside down. That can be really tough for people and they react in ways that are not as kind as how charcuterie should react. That's right. Some of what we're seeing. Yeah. And that's, that's a good way of sympathizing with the people who are actually causing harm. They're upset because their worldview has, they're scared. Their worldview has been shaken up. And so that doesn't mean we shouldn't stop the harm that

[36:10]

is happening, but it's not about, you know, shaming the bad people because they're just caught in their old world view. So it's, yeah, thank you for speaking up for Bush Harry Goodrich. It's not about malice. Yeah. They're not acting out of malice. Yeah, and we... Even if it is harmful. Even if it looks like malice, it's because of their fear and because their world has been turned upside down. Mm-hmm. other comments. Maybe not to sound like Hallmark cards, but maybe our job is to console them, let them know it's not that bad as it might seem. This is a skillful liberative technique question. And I heard a wonderful talk this morning from Rebecca Salma, who spoke at ancient dragon some time ago about climate and she was emphasizing that despair is not realistic or helpful that change is happening and it's possible but uh

[37:27]

I've attempted to want to preach to the choir because to encourage us to make the changes that we need to make seems more possible than to try and convert people who are caught up in views that are not helpful. So that's a logical question. I'm sorry. Go ahead, John. Real quick, I keep thinking about this as an exemplar. The coal miners in West Virginia, we all know that we have to stop burning carbon. There's no other way. We've got to do it. But folks in this region... have had a tradition going back decades, a century or more, of mining coal, mainly coal. And this is part of not only their sustenance, but their bloodline.

[38:35]

And we don't always keep thinking of Poor Hillary Clinton, who said, we're going to get rid of all the coal mines and institute solar panels. I know what she meant, but I can't help but think how that sounded to the guys in West Virginia. What we need to do, what skillful liberative technique is in that case, and it's a good example, is to really focus on helping retrain and re-educate coal miners to help with the work that needs to be done to install solar panels, to do the kind of reconfigurations whole social norm towards renewable energies. And explain the situation to them and give them a reason to be proud of this new role in society.

[39:39]

And give them training to actually be able to support their families in this way. That's the extent, that's an example of the extent of the change that has to happen in this decade really to prevent the worst of the effects of climate. So yeah, and change is difficult. Well, it's just difficult. I mean, in some ways it seems like, well, we can talk about all kinds of social examples. It seems like things haven't changed so much since Dr. King and the civil rights movement early 60s, and of course they have, but there's still persecution. There's these two young Tennessee legislators who were expelled for being black, for caring about gun victims. How to change hearts and minds, that's our job.

[40:39]

And it happens over time. Anyway, Douglas, you have something you wanted to ask, and then Gershwin. Yeah, I wanted to point out that the goddesses making Shariputra appears as a goddess himself with a magic trick. It doesn't say that he switched minds. It says he appears like a goddess. It's part of a theme. This skilful means where she says, well, without saying it, she's making it with it. Oh, and by the way, this imaging of herself is also a magic trick. It's an illusion that your own mind has made up. And it's a theme that in in other places across the Suchin, the Maotuki, thanks for speaking to the Ahads and the Bodhisattvas and so on, that you think that your body forms itself, and so you get this concept creates the sense of a stable, separate, independent self.

[41:45]

Right. And so you perceive it when you look at yourself. You get it in people too, but that's just a metaphor from Magic Trip to Mirage, and things like that. Never saying there's nothing there, but the way you perceive it is an illusion that you have projected upon what's really there. So, yeah, I think Shri Krishna has missed this, but the goddess came in with a chance to restore it. Yes. Yes, we all appear as men or women. What does that mean? You know, and we're understanding in our culture now that the traditional, you know, that what that means is not necessarily what the traditional stereotypes meant. Right. Women can vote now. It wasn't true in Shakespeare's time or in Thomas Jefferson's time or whenever. What we think men are, what we think women are, is just these assumptions or these mirages.

[42:54]

Christian, you were going to say something. Yes. I just wanted to point out that it's not just the coal miners that need to change. Most of us might drive our cars here and drive our cars all around and do a lot of carbon emissions. And so we need to make our own hard choices as well. And it's easy to look and see what other people should do. Right. And that's how we do. We're all part of this. That's right. We are, yes. And yet I think that things happen. Like I was also seeing this morning that the Biden government is proposing massive changes in the percentage of electric cars and trucks over the next three or ten years. So it's not that each of us is responsible and part of the situation.

[44:03]

And it's not that we can just in terms of our personal, we can all make personal choices about all these things, but it takes a village, it takes their systems and also apply both. So.

[44:26]

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