I've been talking about how Zen is specifically a practice. We use this word all the time, practice, and 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. So I suppose, first of all, we start practicing because we don't make certain recognitions or we're ignorant, so we act inappropriately and

[01:31]

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, jhāna, even though it's the word jhāna, jhān, zen. It's not... Zen doesn't mean just 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.

[03:03]

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. 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.

[04:34]

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, you know. 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. 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 without developed conduct.

[06:02]

and et cetera. 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. So each of these you literally perfect because although wisdom has nothing to do with such perfection this kind of perfection

[07:39]

It's impossible to recognize... Well, first of all, to get rid of those. inappropriate way you were living, and then to, 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. So your concentration, there's various levels. 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

[09:39]

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 maybe a 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. But imagination is something unique. I described the other day how your body is some vast empty. This, you know, is not ordinary thinking. It's some imagination, but it's more accurate actually.

[10:43]

Actually, it's 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, or can't have access to them. That each thing is characterized by one sign only, which is no sign. 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.

[12:12]

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, the kind of progress from giving to morality, to patience, to knowing what your energy is, patience, into entering, giving up, trying to explain or know what you are, what's happening, is dependent on concentration. So the fifth jhāna then is the development of that concentration and finally it's giving up.

[13:34]

And with wisdom, we're talking more about what I said yesterday, the elusive practice. 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.

[15:11]

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 The deeper and deeper your concentration reaches, or the more thorough your ability to not be disturbed by distraction, the more you can see what

[16:16]

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. If your eye sees it, who is it that is seizing it? Who is trying to make something of it? So concentration, the kind of concentration I mean, is always letting go, always letting go. Nothing to be concentrated on. Something which doesn't stray.

[17:44]

something which just sees things as they are. And in any circumstance you can get the sense of that You can do that if you have the sense of that, which you may probably first get the feeling for from a Sashin or Sasan. And, of course, there are various kinds of concentrations. The one, at first, it's some great effort and then you make sure that you realize how completely this way of receiving is

[19:11]

thorough and accurate in comparison to any other way of perceiving. And then you begin to be able to play with this consciousness. 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.

[20:26]

So in all things, a bodhisattva or someone practicing Buddhism remains undisturbed, undismayed, uncrestfallen, not caught up in either end of a spectrum. 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 paramita is really an example of that. You give each thing you do its

[22:23]

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 Balasarasvati dance Each step of her it was like there were a million stops in a single movement. It's like there was Each one, if you took a picture of her, at any point, there was no point you could take a picture in which it wasn't a finished dance pose. The same is true of No.

[23:39]

in any activity, any situation. Finding yourself composed, not distracted, at ease. Then whether you do zazen or any activity, you can And the full development of this is wisdom, easily moving with everything and not based on anything. And the thing which the the thing which, in each one of these paramitas there is some preparation, you know, or some condition. And as in the fifth paramita, jhana, there is the

[25:20]

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, so the 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 perfections, practices I'm talking about, are meant to describe or circumscribe reality. What you are, what is, is your own maybe possession right now.

[26:57]

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 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, and if you can have access to it, or have access to it by giving up

[28:23]

characterizing it. So your own experience right now is the experience of Buddha. So if you can share your undistracted way, undistracted state of being with others, that is the primary practice of primary bodhisattva.

[30:25]

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. 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 it which carries everything in its great embrace and which you yourself are

[32:48]

Thank you.

[33:01]

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