Good morning, everyone. Good morning. And some of you are starting. In fact, this meeting together, so welcome for that. This is an opportunity for us to. Be together, support. So, thank you for joining. And for those of you who are not formally in the period, also, you're very much welcome to attend any of the. Talks during this time and. Virtually or in person, so. This is wonderful. I see people from Michigan and California. And different. Oh, and New Mexico. Anyway, so we're all here.

[01:03]

And the theme, the Dharma theme for. This week practice period is the. The monetary sutra, so those of you in practice period formally have access to that text, but you don't need you don't need to read any of it. Particularly. Those of you that just pretty much will be studying some part of it. But I want to give an introduction today. To the sutra. And talk some about the 1st, couple of chapters, so. The monetary sutra is an old Mahayana, Bodhisattva text. And it's about this character named the monetary. Don't worry about pronouncing. It won't be passed, but the is was a great awakened layperson.

[02:11]

Who is said to have lived at the time of shocking when he grew up. 500 years ago in northern India and. And. He was quite a dude. So, so this so. The main thing to say about him, and I'll come back to this is that he lived in in this city. Over salary and he was in the middle of all kinds of stuff in the world. He's was active in the world in lots of ways. Some of you are in Chicago or wherever you want. So, I'm hoping we'll have some time for discussion questions. But I want to look at partial chapter 2 of this. So, this, this starts off as.

[03:16]

Uh, Paul, but he's not my interest to us. I have heard at 1 time. The Lord Buddha was residents that different places here in the garden of honor, probably. In the city by shower, we attended by a great gamble with big shoes. They were 8000 all our house affected beings. 3, 4, purity and so on and that is, it goes into. This wonderful assembly that was there to hear. So, the 1st chapter is about the Buddha, not about not care to particularly. And just to read little bits of the text and we're using. Robert Jones, wonderful translation. So. So, he's talking about all of the bodhisattvas.

[04:24]

All of the bodhisattvas who were there, he says that mindfulness. This is the mindfulness intelligence realization. Meditation incantation and eloquence all were. Perfected, they were free of aspirations and emotional. Involvements with the liberation without impediments. Only dedicated through the transcendence of generosity. So, do I waver and sincere. Work and sincere morality tolerance effort medication. So these are the transcendent practices. They turned the personal wheel of the Dharma. They were stamped with the insignia of. Silence. She's one of the basic principles of Buddhism. Because I'm talking about how they had penetrated the profound principle of relativity.

[05:27]

Destroy the persistence of just instinctual mental habits. And there are all convictions concerning. Finitude and finitude so they saw how all things were related. We're not caught up in. Alternate or the meal is more in the absolute. And then at 1 point, it goes on to talk about. All the different bodhisattvas who are there are named. And this is, you know, some of us are doing the chanting monthly, the flower, and then it sucks up the sutra. And. It's actually just as many Mahayana sutras. There are names and names and names of different bodhisattvas and do this. You are hanging out sometimes games and and so forth.

[06:30]

But this will start with some of our genre, some of our genre. Some money, the garage. Dharma. Darn, I can't do and so forth along list, including. A volunteer, which is the companion of. It is great strength and others, including. Brahmachala, Ratna Dandvi, also Maitreya, and Manjushri. So anyway, notable bodhisattvas. And I mentioned that partly just to emphasize that the Mahakirti is not one of these great bodhisattvas who appears in lots of texts. As far as I know, aside from this sutra, he's mentioned only once amongst a list of people on an assembly in one of the other

[07:35]

Mahayana sutras. Not one of the major ones, or what we think of as the major ones. So the Mahakirti is considered to be not an historical person, although some people thought he was. Anyway, that's getting ahead of the story. But so there's this assembly there in front of the Buddha. And so I want to talk about Buddha kshetras. This is Buddha fields. And in classical Buddhism, classical Mahayana Buddhism, it is said that whenever a Buddha awakens, there is constellated around them a Buddha field. The

[08:36]

land itself becomes a field of Buddhist practice, filled with bodhisattvas and other wonderful practitioners. This idea of a Buddha field is very important in Mahayana Buddhism. Buddha kshetra is the Sanskrit word. So we have some sense of this from A. A. Dovindsenji, who was the founder of Shantosan, who we talked about a lot, who says in one of the things we chat, which is that sometimes in the coming weeks of this practice, there's a section called Jijiyu Zanghai, the self-fulfillment samadhi. And this is in Bendo Wa, how to engage the way it's the

[09:36]

really Dogen's first writing, long writing, about the meaning of zazen. Some of us have been looking at Fugansazengi, which is a much shorter text. And Dogen may have written that initially, but the verses we have were interviewed later. At any rate, in this Bendo Wa, I talk about inserting the way, really. There's the sentence that, once this line, a Sanskrit sentence from Dogen, the one that I've hustled over most for decades. It says, when one displays the Buddha mudra with one's whole body and mind, so we know mudras like this, or like this, or like this, but this one displays the Buddha position, the Buddha gesture, the Buddha posture, with one's whole body and mind, sitting upright in this samadhi, in this zazen practice, even for a short time, everything in

[10:47]

the entire dharma world, all the phenomenal world, becomes Buddha mudra, and all space in the universe completely becomes awakened. So this is very counter to our usual way of thinking. When a Buddha awakens, everything around him or her awakens. It's hard to see how that works. It's hard to think about that in our usual way of objective thinking. But this is what the Buddha field is. And this is a big issue in this first chapter of the Malakirti Sutra. So, it is sometimes said that there are pure and impure Buddha fields. The largest school or branch of Buddhism in Japan, and much of East Asia, is Pure Land Buddhism.

[11:53]

The Jodo Shu, or Jodo Shinshu, developed around the same time as Togen, and the schools in the 13th century. And this is based on this idea of Pure Lands. And the Pure Land in East Asia is about a mega Buddha, or Amitabha in Sanskrit. So, these Pure Land schools in Japan, the main practice, not necessarily the only practice, but the main practice is just chanting the name of Buddha, Namo Buddhah, Namo Buddhah. And there's different understandings of Pure Land, how that works. There is. But the idea is that Amitabha, when it became Amitabha, immediately postulated this Pure Land, this beautiful Pure Land. Some branches of

[13:02]

Pure Land Buddhism in Japan, they chant this as they're dying, in hopes of going there after the Passover, in this world. Or they chant this regularly, in similar hopes. So, I'm going to give away that the—this is a spoiler alert—the closing chapter of the Vimalakirti Sutra reveals that actually Vimalakirti is from a different Pure Land, in a galaxy far, far away or whatever. This is called the Buddha Land of Abhirati. And this isn't from Shakyamuni or Amitabha, this is from Akshobhya. So, apparently, according to this last chapter, Vimalakirti practiced assiduously in that Pure Land for a long time,

[14:05]

before Akshobhya and Shakyamuni's time. Anyway, that's not one of the assigned chapters for this practice, which is, you know, just for your information. So, but the issue in the first chapter is one of the Arhat practitioners, one of the disciples of Buddha, who was not formally a Bodhisattva practitioner, was concerned because Shakyamuni had created this Buddha field that we're in. So, we're all in Shakyamuni's Buddha field. And she'll talk about it, even though it's 2500 years since Shakyamuni passed away. But this disciple, this Arhat disciple in Shariputra, is one of the 10 great disciples of Shakyamuni Buddha, had a question. So, first, one of the lay people from Uchava, the young devotee,

[15:16]

asked the Buddha, what is the Bodhisattva's purification of the Buddha field? Please explain to all of us the Bodhisattva's purification of Buddha field. So, the Buddha said, noble ones, a Buddha field of Bodhisattvas is a field of living beings. Why so? A Bodhisattva embraces a Buddha field to the same extent that he causes the development of living beings. He embraces the Buddha field to the same extent that living beings become disciplined. He embraces the Buddha field to the same extent that through entrance into a Buddha field, living beings are introduced to the Buddha wisdom, Buddha knowledge. He embraces the Buddha field to the same extent that through entrance into the Buddha field, living beings

[16:19]

increase their holy spiritual faculties. Why so? Noble child, a Buddha field of Bodhisattva springs from the aims of living beings. So, this is important at all. Just Marxist, this idea of the aims of Buddha, the aims of living beings, and bodhicitta is what you've spoken of here, is the line that aspires to awakening, that is concerned with awakening. Anyway, so he goes on about this, and it's available for people who have spiritual need, but then at some point, it makes an excuse for Shariputra, who is the disciple of Buddha,

[17:26]

who is later in sutra, a kind of, in Marxist words, because of the sense of not being a Bodhisattva, but magically influenced by Buddha, it says, the venerable Shariputra had this thought, if the Buddha field is pure only to the extent that the mind of the Bodhisattva is pure, then when Shakyamuni Buddha was engaged in the career of Bodhisattvas, his mind must have been impure. Otherwise, how could this Buddha field appear so impure? So, I don't know exactly what's going on historically back then. I mean, there was obviously wars, because there seems to always be wars. They're not necessary in all Buddha fields, but anyway, and there's all kinds of things that we know are going on now, it might lead us to think that somehow this is not a pure Buddha field. So,

[18:29]

there's some Buddha fields that are pure, and some are impure, according to this. In short, we had a question about it. How could there be school shootings and assault rifles available everywhere, and how could there be people persecuted, and people of the wrong color killed by police, and so forth and so on? All the things that we see, and a massive inequality of resources, and so forth. And climate breakdown, and the tornadoes that were coming through the Chicago area last night, how could there be? Yeah, well, so enhanced by climate damage,

[19:32]

how could these things be if Shakyamuni was a pure Bodhisattva? This is the question. Why does this Buddha field seem so impure? So, Sariputra was asking this, and then this strange thing happens. So, the Buddha knew what Sariputra was thinking, because he understands these things, and he said, what do you think, Sariputra? Is it because the sun and the moon are impure that those lying from birth do not see them? Or there's a storm, we don't see the sun and the moon. Is that because the Buddha field is impure? And then there's this event. The Lord Buddha touched the ground of this billion-world galactic universe with his big toe.

[20:40]

You know, there are images of the Buddha. This big toe doesn't seem to be particularly special. I mean, other things are special about this. There are 32 physical signs of the Buddha, but I don't think the big toe is one of them. But anyway, the Buddha touched the ground of this billion-world galactic universe with his big toe. Suddenly, it was transformed into a huge mass of precious jewels, a magnificent array, many hundreds of thousands of clusters of precious gems. And it resembled the universe of the Tathagata Ratna-vyuha, which was a wonderful, beautiful pyramid. And everyone in the entire assembly was filled with wonder, each perceiving themselves seated on a throne of jeweled lotuses.

[21:49]

So this beautiful pyramid now leads to our persecution. Then the Buddha said to the venerable Shariputra, Shariputra, do you see the splendor of the virtues of the Buddha field? Shariputra replied, I see it, Lord. Here before me is a display of splendor such as I never before heard of or beheld. Then the Buddha said, Shariputra, this Buddha field is always thus pure, but the Tathagata makes it appear to be spoiled by many faults in order to bring about the maturity of inferior living beings as us. For example, Shariputra, the gods of this tristram shall heaven all take their food for single precious special, and he goes on about how it is in the

[22:55]

pure land. And then, well, let's see, when this splendor of the beauty of virtues of the Buddha field shone forth, 84,000 beings conceived the spirit of unexcelled perfect awakening, and 500 Lakshavi youths from this town of Lakshavala, who had accompanied the young Lakshavali last question, initially, all attained a conformative tolerance of alternate truth, worthlessness, which I'm going to come back to. Then the Lord withdrew his miraculous power. He lifted his toe, and at once the Buddha field was restored to his usual appearance. Oh, and both men and gods who subscribe to the disciple vehicle thought, alas, all constructed things are impermanent of deeds. So, this is the culminating event of this first

[24:03]

chapter, and what it implies is that, and this is difficult for us, and I don't, you know, I don't know if I completely believe it, but that, myself, but that it's how we see things that makes them pure. Now, of course, that doesn't help the people who are, that Sairam is moving towards, who need help. It doesn't help, doesn't fix all the things that are, that make sure there are problems in our world, but it points to this sense of our participation in this, in the purity or impurity of our Buddha field. One of the things that the Buddha mentions there is that when they saw this pure Buddha

[25:05]

field, and they saw the way that our world can be, built with gems and so forth, is their imagery, they realized the, what in Sanskrit is called, Anutpadaka dharma shanti. I love, this is my favorite Sanskrit term. I've talked about it before, somebody's heard me talk about it. Shanti means patience or tolerance. Dharma here just means all the phenomenal world. Anutpadaka means ungraspability, unknowability. So, this is the Vajrayuti's inconceivable teaching. This is an important part of the sutra, is to, is immersion in the inconceivable. And it's

[26:06]

it comes about, realizing it comes about through the patience or tolerance with the ungraspability of things. What dharma is, usually it's translated, it's plural, it's usually translated as things. It just means events. So, you know, there's no, there are not really any things in this room. All of the things we think of as dead objects are actually alive because the world is alive. So, but I'll come back to it. But this basic teaching that patience with, tolerance of, awareness of, that we can't get a hold of anything. That everything is ineffable, everything is ungraspable. This is a basic teaching

[27:11]

in the Vajrayuti Sutra. So this, so I want to get to chapter two, because that's when the Vajrayuti appears, and that's very relevant to our practice. But just to say a little more about this, about this inconceivability, this sutra combines two strands of the Mahayana, the Madhyamaka, which is study groups and people here are studying this, primarily about emptiness teaching, but also the emptiness of emptiness. So, David Redmond even announced the next meeting of that during the announcements. So the great, our great ancestor Ganesha was a great spokesperson for that. So that's a little way of the teaching of emptiness. But the other part of this sutra is that from the

[28:11]

Mahayana, of the Tamsaka Sutra, and then the Huayen, Huayen is the Chinese way of saying the Tamsaka, the Flower Alignment Sutra, which is this magical display of all the kinds of things that people saw when Buddha was talking. He didn't even have to put his whole foot down, just his big toe. And so this is this kind of amazing, miraculous teaching of the splendor of all things, and it's very much in the background of Soto Zen. Some of you like Hongxian, who I translated, he's, we could say that he's a Huayen Buddhist, and Dongxian is the founder of Soto or Soto Zen in China, was actually one of the Huayen

[29:14]

Tamsaka ancestors. But in this sutra, it puts together the sense of emptiness, the sense of nothingness. Emptiness doesn't mean nothingness, it means that there, no thing is empty of thinness, of being a separate thing. Just to say relativity, we're all interrelated, intimately interrelated. Everybody in this room, everybody who's in this room through the screen is over here in terms of not seeing it, or here, but everybody who's joining us virtually, and everybody who's been in this room, or been in this sangha, or will be in this sangha, all are intimately interrelated. This is the teaching of relativity or emptiness. And then Avatamsa, the Huayen teaching, is this teaching of inconceivability,

[30:20]

that how we think we can't conceive of how wonderful the world is. And that is not denying climate damage, and wars, and fascist politicians, and all the other ills that beset us. So this is a tricky business, and I want us to study the Mahakirti Sutra to see how we can benefit from seeing things in these ways, how that could support us. So that's a little bit about this ultimate teaching on the part of the Dharmakshanti. But I do want to get to Chapter Two a little bit, and I'll be talking about Chapter One and Two again tomorrow, and if you have questions, I will inspire where I focus on it tomorrow,

[31:23]

Monday evening, and we'll be talking about all of this, as I suggest. But Chapter Two is just introducing to the students of Mahakirti who lived in this great city of Vaishali, where the Buddha appeared in the first chapter. And so, you know, this is relevant for our Shambhala because we're practicing in a big city in this world, doing all kinds of interesting things. We have teachers, and psychologists, academics, and attorneys, and social workers, and martial arts teachers, all kinds of people here in this room. It's amazing. And all of them doing the Buddha work, all of you, and people online too, doing the Buddha work

[32:29]

in this world. This is a non-residential lay Sangha, so there's this whole issue of monastic Buddhism and non-residential Buddhism. This is one of the questions about American Buddhism. But I moved, I relocated from San Francisco Bay Area, where there were Buddhist teachers in every street corner to Chicago because there weren't as many teachers, and now we have this wonderful Sangha. And Ramachandranji is an interesting figure for us to consider. There are ways in which maybe he's not a model for us, but there are ways in which he is. So to consider how we practice in the world and help awakened beings and help unfold our own awakening

[33:37]

together in Sangha. Malachite is an interesting narrative to consider. So part of the Malachite, who he was, he was very wealthy, he was a lay person, he was immersed in the world. I'll just read a few passages here. His wealth was inexhaustible for the purpose of sustaining the poor and the helpless. He observed pure morality in order to protect the immoral. He maintained tolerance and self-content in order to reconcile beings who were angry, cruel, violent, and brutal. He blazed with energy in order to inspire people who were lazy. He maintained concentration, mindfulness, and meditation in order to sustain the mentally troubled. He attained decisive wisdom in order to sustain the foolish.

[34:42]

So, you know, we all have relationships to all of that. He entered all kinds of worlds and realms. He made his appearance in fields of sport and in casinos. But he was always there to, his aim was always to mature those people who were attached to games and gambling. He visited the fashionable, philosophical, and New Age teachers. He had always kept unswerving loyalty to the Buddha. He understood the mundane and transcendental sciences and esoteric practices. He had always took pleasure in the delights of the Dharma. He mixed in all crowds, yet he was respected as foremost

[35:44]

of all in each of them. He was honored as a businessman among businessmen because he demonstrated the priority of the Dharma. He was honored as the landlord among landlords because he renounced the aggressiveness of ownership. He was compatible with ordinary people because he appreciated the excellence of ordinary merits. He was honored as the among Indras, as the Indra among Indras, greater deities, because he showed them the temporality of their lordship. So this is some background about who this guy was. And, yeah, so the drama of the sutra that we will unfold at this, at that time,

[36:54]

out of the very skill in the Buddha's techniques, the Mama Kunti manifested himself as a Sikh to inquire after his health. The king, the officials, the lords, all, many people came to ask after his health. And and he talked about health. He says it is like a cloud being characterized by turbulence and dissolution, something about this world. Now this is about the body, the human body. His body got sick. He says this is like a reflection, being the image of former actions, just like an echo, being dependent on conditioning. It's like a cloud characterized by turbulence and dissolution.

[38:01]

Like a flash of lightning being unstable and decaying every moment, the body is onerous, being the product of a variety of conditions. So this is kind of starts the drama of this very dramatic sutra that the Maha Kunti was ill. So I didn't include in the information for the piece of the third and fourth chapter, but basically what happens is Buddha said, asked his disciples to go call him the Maha Kunti because he's ill. And when they say he's ill and sick, it means he's really ill. He's like, you know, maybe on his deathbed or something. And one by one, all of the great Bodhisattvas, all of the great disciples of the Buddha, all of the great Bodhisattvas, and this is in chapters

[39:06]

three and four that you're welcome to read, but we're not focusing on to this perhaps commitment period. They all said, oh, I don't want to go. I don't want to go see the Maha Kunti. The last time I saw him, he came by when I was giving a discourse on, you know, whatever his specialty was in terms of practice, and he just threw them away. He just, you know, shut them up. So everybody's intimidated by the Maha Kunti. So anyway, that's kind of the background setting for this sutra that we're going to be working with in this practice period. The Maha Kunti goes into all the worldly realms and is not afraid and uses his experience there to help beings, to help awakened beings. So I could keep labbing, but I think I'll stop there and cover a lot of material. And I'm going

[40:09]

to come back over it again in a sense more easily. But does anybody have comments, questions? Yes, Paul. So when you were talking about the Buddha fields, and I think this is what was said, that when a Buddha creates a Buddha field, it is pure or impure, depending on the attention of the beings within the field. Well, actually, that's, yes, that's true. But the Buddha, when the Buddha awakens, that immediately creates the field. Yeah, the awakening of a Buddha creates a field of kindness and generosity. And in each of us in our own way, as we settle into sustenance as in practice, whatever we wake up to is reflected in some way in the world around us. Not to say that it necessarily affects some persons. But yes, in the traditional teaching,

[41:14]

there are pure Buddha fields and there are impure Buddha fields. So my question is about attention, because he uses the word attention in that line. So my question is twofold. Can you swap attention with intention in that line? Can you say, depending on the attention of the beings in that field, could you also say, depending on the intentions of the beings in that field? Yeah, good. Thank you. So yes, part of the point of this is exactly that a Buddha precipitates good intentions, just like the Malakirti in the city of Vajravi. People saw him and they wanted to be like that. They wanted to help others and they wanted to be awake. So yeah, attention and intention are very related. When we pay attention to something, it actually transforms it. So again, I was talking about how

[42:20]

there are no objects, because everything is a lot. And when we are aware, so awareness itself is transformative. Our awareness of the difficulties around us, families, friends, city, you know, helps support awakening and bodhicitta and others. So yeah, so yes, they are very much related. And now that was the second part of what I wanted to ask. Can you speak a little more on the difference between attention and intention, according to Buddhist thought, or is it too esoteric? It's not that it's too esoteric. I mean, they work together. Our intention, you know, we have our intention to pay attention.

[43:21]

Our attempt produces more intention. We're counting to things. We're willing to see the suffering, the difficulties of people or animals or rivers or lakes, you know, and then that develops intention to help them. But the fundamental intention from this perspective is just how do we support, how do we give attention to beings who are caught up in what we're thinking to help them awaken. Yeah, so they're everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Other questions, comments? Hi, Eve. So when you told the story about being told and the way people visualize everything,

[44:25]

the duals, you know, you used the word psychedelic before, and as you said, it's the psychedelic of the person. What I was going to say and didn't is as we get further into the Vimalakirti Sutra, not only is he very skillful in all these different realms, he's kind of a trickster and he's kind of a magician. He kind of, he obsesses our usual sense of things. So, you know, in some sense making the Vimalakirti Sutra psychedelic, but I say that more often about the flower of the sutra. Yeah, of course, it's the psychedelics. And there's been some sort of, you know, rehabilitation,

[45:27]

out from therapeutic uses of psychedelic drugs. And yeah, and so I was just wondering if you'd comment on that and the way the text can be psychedelic. I mean, that, you know, breaking of your normal vision of the world and what, you know, what are like more or less therapeutic means of making that happen? Well, this inconceivability is the way it's spoken of in the Vimalakirti Sutra, that we, and this is about our usual conceptions of the world. And I can get into a little bit of the chemistry and physics of all this, but you know, basically, oh gosh, you know, I use the word psychedelic because before I knew about Buddhism, I had this intensive practice of using psychedelics when I was very young. And it's not that I recommend it

[46:29]

to anyone now, and I don't regret any of my experiences. And yes, I'm happy to hear that now I'm a psychologist and people are using it in a controlled, helpful way. I believe it is helpful in the same way that Sutras are helpful, and that Zazen is helpful, and that the Dharma is helpful, and practice is helpful to unsettle our usual ways of thinking, and seeing, and hearing, and speaking, and tasting, and touching, and all that. So to get beyond our conventions is part of what Vimalakirti was about, too. He had to enter all the realms, the conventional realms, and use them, and became the most skillful for the sake of waking people up. I'll take it away.

[47:31]

Ah, thank you for that, Tugning. I'd like to ask about the humor of the Vimalakirti Sutra, which is sometimes making me laugh out loud, and it's also really mean. It's really satirical, and the non-Mahayana Buddhists, or the disciples, really come in for some nasty, nasty satire. That moment at the end of the Big Toe Miracle, when one of the disciples, the disciple followers, instead of saying, Oh, now I see that the world is really a bejeweled ocean of bliss, they say, Damn it, I knew it, I knew it all along, everything is impermanent. And that really is sending up old-school Buddhist teaching in a way that's funny and also really surprising. So I wonder if you might say something about that, Tugning. Yeah. Yeah, it's a very entertaining and funny sutra, scripture. And we'll get to some things

[48:37]

soon. The Vimalakirti's goddess friend, in the chapter one, she really unsettles the disciples and does some really foreign stuff. I don't want to give any spoilers, a few money spoilers, but in some sense, you're right, though. This is, the Vimalakirti Sutra is in some sense, earlier primitive Mahayana, which is part of the why Dogen didn't like the sutra. I didn't say that to the practice when they sent this to Vimalakirti Sutra, but anyway, Dogen was not so fond of Vimalakirti. That's okay, I don't agree with everything Dogen said either. But the reason is that it is very, so the Vimalakirti Sutra is upholding the vision and view and practice of Bodhisattvas.

[49:40]

And so it's early Mahayana, and it's comparing the Bodhisattvas to the Arhat disciples who are personally awakened. And this isn't really, I don't know if this is true historically, but one way of seeing those teachings is that they were concerned with personal awakening, not with the world at large or in society. That's not true of Theravada Buddhists, that's the main form of Buddhism in South Asia, Sri Lanka, and Burma, and Thailand, and Laos, and Cambodia, and Theravada, the teachings of the elder. But in practice, those people are very kind and helpful. So in the Lotus Sutra, which is some other practice period sometime, in the Lotus Sutra, it says that all is just one vehicle, and that the Arhats

[50:46]

actually are just being Bodhisattvas, or people who think of our lives as getting into the practice. So in that sense, I could say that the Vimalakirti Sutra is earlier, you know, I don't know, primitive Mahayana, as opposed to the Lotus Sutra, which is Ekayama, one vehicle, everybody's, even, you know, but, you know, in some sense, that's true here too, because the disciples who are chastised or whatever in this sutra are examples for us. So I have to say that the Vimalakirti Sutra is, that response probably confuses you a bit more. I identify as both. It's fun to pretend to be a god and laugh at mortals, and I'm a mortal

[51:49]

shedding tears over impermanence. So it's both. Good. Other comments? I just want to see, there was, I thought I saw a hand up on the screen. Paul just raised his, perhaps he can go after Jen. Okay, and then Jeff, I think, has his hand up. Okay, Jen, and then Paul. Um, I got kind of caught when you said that Vimalakirti was admired by the rulers because he taught them about the impermanence of their position, and I don't think such a person would be admired today in the United States. Well, maybe we need to try it.

[52:51]

Well, I mean, theoretically, they know, or they, politicians, know that their positions are impermanent, but in reality, they would never let them go until they were forced. Right. So, you know, we have term limits in some realms. We have term limits for presidents, not for Supreme Court justices. Anyway, not for Chicago mayors, but there's an important election happening next Tuesday. Please, please vote for mayor. Anyway, yeah, so these are rulers who live in a realm where Shakyamuni Buddha's hanging out, so they all respected Buddha because he was, he was amazing. Everybody knew, you know, imagine if the Dalai Lama was living in Chicago

[53:55]

full time, and everybody, you know, could see his kindness and humor and gentleness and wisdom, you know, then, you know, the politicians around here might see things differently. I don't know. I can't answer that question for you, but anyway. Buddha fields are complicated. So, Paul, did you have something? Yeah, I did. I was curious, so it sounded like Shariputra was sort of raising the point that, you know, how can, how can bad things happen in a good Buddha field? And it seemed like the Buddha with the big toe kind of demonstrated like, well, we could just see, we could go into the land of, you know, gems and splendor and everything can look great, but instead, we're going to allow there to be these sort of like,

[55:02]

I guess, layers on top of that, so you can practice with that. And was the, in this case, it seemed like the Buddha was kind of saying like, you know, I, like, I could make the world a place where no bad things happen in a good Buddha field, but then how would you practice or something? And like, is that kind of, I don't know if you could draw that out a little bit, but that seems to be kind of like the first time I've heard of Buddha saying like, I'm allowing something difficult to continue when it doesn't have to. Well, another main theme of the sutra is non-duality. So the same Buddha field where there is all this cruelty and suffering is sometimes called samsara, the realm of suffering, is also, from a Buddhist perspective, from a Buddhist perspective, the realm of awakening, of reviving. So it's hard to see that, and certainly hearing that

[56:15]

satish is dangerous because you might think, well, then I don't have to bother with taking care of the realm of suffering and all the difficulties. But this is subtle, this teaching of non-duality, and there's also the idea, which I think something you said, Paul, sort of alluded to, that from some perspectives, and I've talked about this before, and I said we're talking over time, maybe there's never another time. So yeah, not so much, but there is this idea that, and this was prevalent back in Dogen's time to some other schools, and

[57:21]

I think Joanna Macy talks about this, that there are, you know, again, assuming that there are many, many Buddha fields all over, all over this galaxy, other galaxies, and we don't know how to think about this, but anyway, there are Bodhisattvas from other Buddha fields who are right now lined up, just waiting for the chance to be born here in this place and time, because this place and time is when Bodhisattvas are most needed, or they can have the most of that. So we're all lucky to be, you know, that the world is wonderful, you know. I guess it was something about Birdsong, and there's so much that's

[58:22]

wonderful in this world, and at the same time, there's all this suffering. So Bodhisattvas really want to be born here, because whatever, and so we're lucky to be here, because whatever we do that is helpful and kind can make a big difference now. So, maybe let's just leave us with that part, but Jeff, do you have a comment or question? Or is that just a floating hand? One last comment or question, anyway. Okay, well, thank you all for being here, whether you're here online or here in person,

[59:32]

link is where it's at, though, and yeah, so let's volunteer to pose this lots of questions for us, and it's a very rich literature that he's suggesting for us, and I don't think we have to take sides about whether the world is wonderful or terrible, just how do we take care of Bodhisattvas?

[60:06]

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