I've been talking about how Zen is specifically a practice. We use this word all the time, practice. It doesn't make so much sense when you view Zen from the point of view of wisdom. But when you view Zen from the point of view of the first five paramitas and especially the fifth one, samadhi or jnana, it's clearer what role practice has.

[01:06]

So I suppose, first of all, we start practicing because we don't make certain recognitions or we're ignorant, so we act inappropriately we experience the inappropriateness and not knowing what to do about it. You either meet someone who seems to know what to do about it or you end up intuitively or by example doing sazen. So you start to practice, but we don't. Zen is, since for Zen school, the Zen school doesn't mean just the fifth paramita, jhana, even though it's the word jhana, chan, zen.

[02:21]

It's not, zen doesn't mean just that, it means that Well, if you don't have a practice like zazen, yesterday I said there need to be certain recognitions before you can enter real concentration or samadhi, like that all times are one time, past, present and future, space and time. Or the power of knowing that each action is all actions, includes all actions. or to recognize changing itself, not the form it's coming from or going to. And some schools have practices, sort of philosophical practices, based on that kind of perception or recognition. So if you do such and such, if you do such and such a ritual, if you remind yourself in such and such a way, you will achieve this.

[03:32]

And then one of their practices is jhāna, specifically to develop concentration. But in Zen, it's quite clear that we do not emphasize jhāna, zazen, as specifically to develop concentration. This is one of the problems people who try to study Zen get into because they want to measure some state of mind or something. We're interested in how fast you can learn it. And I'm afraid in Zen we're interested in how slow you can come to it. Concentration itself, you know, unless it includes everything, like concentration in Zen means is more like a clear lake

[04:33]

not concentrated on something, just a clear lake. But even that is still an idea of some concentration which can be disturbed. So we practice the paramitas. In a way I'm speaking about them to give you an idea of practice. the paramitas of giving and morality or conduct and patience and energy. And I've tried to make clear certain things like how you can't know your real energy until you have developed patience. That you mostly experience your energy as tired or energetic when there's some big loss or excess.

[05:42]

But that energy which makes us cohere, the energy which we are now, we can't recognize without developing patience. And patience we can't develop, you know, without developed conduct. etc. So from this point of view that I'm speaking, it's not even... to develop your concentration isn't necessary to be... isn't limited to zazen. In every way we develop our concentration. So all the paramitas, the six paramitas are called the vehicle of the Bodhisattva, how you can recognize yourself, recognize that you are a Bodhisattva.

[06:58]

So each of these you literally perfect because although wisdom has nothing to do with such perfection, this kind of perfection, It's impossible to recognize... Well, first of all, to get rid of those... inappropriate way you were living.

[08:17]

And then to, and it's difficult for me to say, recognize what reality or what actually is happening. Which we have some deep desire to do so, some deep feeling to do so. Okay. So your concentration, there's various levels.

[09:23]

Each time I've gone through them, I've changed the level of the paramita. Now I would say, for example, that the practice of giving, which I described yesterday or the day before as non-possession, is as is everything you do you are giving when you walk you're giving it to others when you think thought you're giving it to others when we practice in this way we're entering the realm of imagination and imagination is the maybe higher vehicle of practice because your thought is limited to what your senses apprehend or can conceptualize. It's limited mostly to what your senses can duplicate.

[10:23]

But imagination is something unique. I described the other day how your body can be some vast empty. This, you know, is not ordinary thinking. It's some imagination, but it's more accurate actually. a more accurate description of what you are. The sutras say the dharmas are hard to know and so the Tathagata doesn't fully know them. The dharmas are unthinkable because thought can't reach them or ought not to reach them can't have access to them, that each thing is characterized by one sign only, which is no sign.

[11:28]

Each dharma is characterized by no dharma, no nature. So, each of these practices of giving, giving everything away, giving inward and outward things away, patience, etc. Now you're practicing without basing yourself on anything. More and more you find that as there's nothing to concentrate on, there's concentration itself which is the closest thing you can come to some real experience and that itself is nothing you can base anything on, yourself on So the progress, kind of progress from giving to morality to patience

[12:50]

knowing what your energy is patience into entering giving up trying to explain or know what what you are what's happening is dependent on concentration so the Fifth jhana then is the development of that concentration and finally it's giving up. And with wisdom, we're talking more about what I said yesterday, the elusive practice

[13:52]

So simply, as you practice zazen you get more and more able to first be not disturbed by distractions and second to see that distractions are not something with any kind of nature that can be disturbing and that kind of attention you can find in whatever you're doing but Zazen or Sashin is a specific time to develop that ability to be completely undistracted and by... with that

[15:43]

the more the deeper and deeper you can your concentration reaches or the more thorough your concentration or rather put it the other way ability to not be disturbed by distraction the more you can see what people are doing, what is happening. So whatever your eyes see is not something which you seize. Whatever your ears hear is not something you seize, etc. Who, if something, if your eye sees it, you know, who is it that is seizing it?

[17:02]

Who is trying to make something of it? So concentration is, the kind of concentration I mean is always letting go, always letting go, nothing to be concentrated on, something which doesn't stray. something which just sees things as they are and in any circumstance you can get the sense of that

[18:08]

You can do that if you have the sense of that, which you may probably first get the feeling for from the Sashin or Zazen. And of course there are various kinds of concentrations. at first it's some great effort and then you make sure that you realize how completely this way of perceiving is thorough and accurate in comparison to any other way of perceiving. And then you begin to be able to play with this consciousness.

[19:33]

And then you are able to bring other people into it. For it's a kind of practice which its full development is not you going from so distracted you can't know what's going on to quite to someone who's quite undisturbed by anything. Development of this doesn't end there, it continues until other people are undisturbed. So in all things, Bodhisattva or someone practicing Buddhism remains undisturbed, undismayed, unquestionable, not caught up in the end of a spectrum.

[21:13]

The sutras characterize such a person as easy to serve, easy to be with, easy to take care of, easy to talk with, and yet in a crowd, somewhat alone, apart. And the dharmas are described as isolated. one thing can't disturb another thing. So, mission, whatever you do, I mean, conduct, the second primate is really an example of that.

[22:17]

You give each thing you do its complete characteristics. You don't compromise something in relationship to yourself. You treat each thing in its own rhythms. I think I talked here about how the Japanese that the very very good Japanese carpenter how he each step of the process making a joint he finished and beveled and planed and then cut again right into what he just finished and beveled and planed so each step was complete watching Balasara Svati dance each step of her looks like there were a million stops in a single movement like there was

[23:19]

Each one, if you took a picture of her, at any point it was like a... There was no point you could take a picture in which it wasn't a finished dance pose. Same is true of no. Some... In any activity, any situation finding yourself composed not distracted at ease then whether you do zazen or any activity you can enter it and the full development of this is wisdom, easily moving with everything and not based on anything.

[24:27]

And the thing which And each one of these paramitas, there is some preparation, or some condition. And as in the fifth paramita, jhana, that you need the space of the four boundless feelings, sympathetic joy and compassion and friendliness and even-mindedness. For wisdom you need a freedom from fear, fearlessness. To actually be based on nothing at all is fearful.

[25:38]

So, perfection of wisdom is based on fearlessness. And fearlessness is impossible as long as you have some sense of possession, possessing your own nature, possessing your thoughts. So we practice giving each thing away. But none of these none of these perfections or practices I'm talking about are meant to describe or circumscribe reality What you are, what is, is your own maybe possession right now

[26:53]

and it's not something you should think of as attainable only after I've practiced the six paramitas. Buddha's was great because he knew his own experience and described it in his own way. So you don't have to be limited to the six paramitas or any particular kind of vow. You can make up your own practice as situations arise. These are only suggestions. And if you can, and you have your own experience right now,

[27:56]

and if you can have access to it or have access to it by giving up, characterizing So your own experience right now is the experience

[28:56]

So if you can share your undistracted way, undistracted state of being with others, that is the primary practice of, primary Bodhisattva practice. For us today it means to just sit here, unconcernedly, with the direct experience of whatever comes to us through our senses, in our senses.

[31:25]

but without being concerned at all about what it is and through that no concern you will find that undisturbed flow, calm, quiet flow of concentration which makes everything which carries everything in its great embrace and which you yourself

[32:34]

Thank you.

[32:47]

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