lectures may have been a little, given you too much to think about. So I'd like to, on this third day, give you a more direct feeling, if I could, about tazen. But I have to say something, probably, or we might as well sit on the tongue and sit together again. So we have this time of something different than Zazen, so I'll say something. And coming back to Bodhidharma again, now these stories and the various versions of them and in the transmission of light are all not exactly, you know, they're semi-historical, but they're realization stories.

[01:18]

They're meant to give you a story in a kind of capsule, half myth, half history. Because we're half myth and half history, too. So that it will work in you. So anyway, to go back a little bit, to speak again, because I'm enjoying sitting with this Bodhidharma statue and the image of Bodhidharma. Not the sort of Santa Claus version that's common in Japan as a popular figure, but somehow the practice side of the Bodhidharma story has always touched me. Even not more than just, as in the koan, some feeling of

[02:19]

of this, Bodhidharma is some kind of friend. Anyway, he was supposedly, his father was, you know, all these guys seem to have kings or something, his fathers. I don't know, but probably a king of Crestone or something like that. Anyway, and he had two sons, three sons who were princes. And One of them, the youngest, was Bodhitara, later to be Bodhidharma, like Prajnatara. And his father supposedly was a Buddhist, and he knew and admired Prajnatara, and he gave Prajnatara a beautiful jewel as a present. At some point, Prajnatara showed the jewel, just telling you these stories, showed the jewel to the three boys, and the two older boys said that it was truly a beautiful jewel, and only such an amazing person as you, Prajnatara, would be given such a jewel.

[03:33]

In this way, they were subtly praising to their father, who gave Prajnatara the jewel. But the younger son, Bodhidhara, said, it's the mind that sees the jewel that's beautiful. Very Zen. Clever lad. But you know, it's true. It's the mind that sees the jewel, which is the jewel. And he said, so the jewel has no special value. It's the mind which is the truth. And thus, in a sense, praising his father through the wisdom of the son. But Prajnathara was, you know, knew Bodhidhara had some capacity and he didn't...

[04:38]

Didn't say anything though. He wanted to wait until the time was ripe. And at a later point he asked him the question I suggested you contemplate last night. But I, you know, I said, what is formlessness? But actually he said, among things, what is formless? Among things, what is formless? This is a rather a tricky question. And this young man said, non-origination is formless. So among things, what is formless? Non-origination is formless. Now, this kind of statement is based on Nagarjuna and Yogacara teachings. And if I ask you to contemplate non-origination as formless, because I said we are shaped by many things, by hopefully good people in your life and by the terrible things that happen to us and the good things too.

[05:58]

But we're also shaped, not just by these circumstances and by karma, by mind itself. not the objects of mind, or the objects of experience. Oh, the thing I forgot, I said experience means to perilous or danger and to try, to learn through trying, and it also means to lead forward or press forward. So it's a word which means, you know, that this is known through yourself. Now, after saying non-origination is formless, sometime later Bodhidharma's father died and he sat by the coffin and involuntarily went into a trance. It says for seven days, but I don't know. Maybe so we can trace the history of Sashins to this trance.

[07:02]

So during this time, the meditation itself taught him many things. And when he ended, the trance ended, he decided to ask Prajnatara to take the precepts. And he went and Prajnatara felt the time was ripe and gave him the precepts and began teaching him. And again, Bodhidharma, they say he lived to be 150. He must have, if all these things happened to him. I read about an old French woman who lived to 120. There was a Japanese woman who lived to 120, but she died in 1986, I think. Anyway, they asked her on her birthday to say something. She said, I took pleasure when I could. It's great. And she said, let's see what else she's saying she's in.

[08:07]

I always said what I meant to something like, I always said what I meant and didn't lie and I was clear. I'm very lucky. Something like that. They asked her what she sees in the future and she said, short. Yeah. So anyway, Bodhidharma served served Prajnatara supposedly for 40 years, and then Prajnatara died, and then he taught for 60 years. Anyway, a long time. And he became quite well known in India, and then he went to China.

[09:17]

And Prajnatara had predicted, or suggested, that he'd go to China and said, China is vast. China is vast, but there is a road, there is a way, and you will need successors. And I think it's not so unusual for children, some children, maybe precocious children, but anyway, children to have some wisdom like Bodhi Tara. But they, at least the point of this story is they need a Prajna Tara to recognize it or it's soon lost in the mishmash of one's life. So I suppose I feel that Sashin is also a time where we rediscover what we know and can give validity to more subtle

[10:23]

feelings and recognitions that we have. And maybe find the courage to act on them in our life. So anyway, he went to India. I mean, he went to China and And there he just decided, even though he was an eloquent and quite famous by the time he left India teacher, supposedly, he decided just to sit and allow his sitting to further mature his practice and understanding and to be the condition of his path and his successors. Now, non-origination is among things, what is formlessness? Or what is formless? Non-origination is formless.

[11:29]

Now, I think we talk a little too much about... I mean, that's not what I mean. I mean, we can talk too much about emptiness, but we have to talk some, not perhaps as much as Nagarjuna, but we have to talk some so that we hold this... Because many of these things that we hear and study and feel cannot really be understood and should not be understood, or you shouldn't even try to understand them, but you should hold them, feel them in your activity. The Dasa Bhumika Sutra says that the body is a body of acts, A-C-T-S, and that's just a teaching of karma. But when we practice, we hold a teaching in our many acts.

[12:31]

And the subtlest and truest teachings aren't really graspable by the mind. So the mind is used to maybe put yourself in front of the practices, in the midst of the practices. And for example, when I said this experience of what we could call a taster of Dharmakaya, we don't call extraordinary experience We say it's ordinary experience of meditation because we don't want to say extraordinary to compare it to ordinary because then you tie it, the word extraordinary ties it to the ordinary. So the contemplation of non-origination is formless. I mean, you can practice that by seeing each thing. You know, before we do the meal chant, before we eat, we, in a way, honor or offer the room, as we've talked about.

[14:00]

And then before we, and then the servers acknowledge each other. When we chant the ten names of Buddhas, we just chant the names. There's no explanation of who they are or what they are. We just chant the name. So it's this, to see each thing without any comparison, without anything that accompanies it. And that's the sense of where these ceremonies are rooted, to just, okay, there's the room. We walk in the room. It's such a mystery, this room. Or any room, of course. And then, somebody else is serving with you. Bodhidharma was, Bodhidhara was also asked by Prajnathara, among things, the second question was, among things, what is paramount? What is beyond everything else?

[15:03]

He said, self and others. It's obvious stuff, you know, kindergarten stuff. And so you walk in and there's somebody else serving with you, so you... And then you... And then when we eat, we make a chant of offering and then we actually hold up the bowl. And then, you know... So carrying this feeling into your practice is very important. To just see each thing in its own state or in no state at all, not originated, nothing accompanies it, not even interdependent. Sashin gives you a chance to do this and in Zazen it's to bring as much as possible the fullness of your body, mind and energy to the sitting, to the posture itself.

[16:19]

So you discover the body and it takes a certain form. you wash your face, you discover your nose. When you sit, you discover your nose and shoulders, but you begin to discover a body that doesn't just fit into body, the image of your body that you have from mirrors and from others. So to really Just sit. You have to let go of your body image and discover your body and discover your energy. Where is it? Is there any left? Etc. And you're mixing with full consciousness or full awareness.

[17:28]

body and energy and mind. And just doing this you may find the objects of mind drop away and the clarity of mind whence nothing originates. although things appear or disappear, it's not a source of origination. We sometimes call that original mind. Then you can't distinguish mind, body, energy. But the gate to this practice of non-origination among things what is formless.

[18:31]

Non-origination is formless. The practice of this is to, not just in Zazen, but during these next four days you're over the hump now into Sashin. You allow each thing its own just as it is, without any sense of it being originated, without any sense of the categories of existence or non-existence. This is a kind of Shikantaza-like practice. But this is deeper or extended Shikantaza practice. to see each thing as non-originated. And in your Zazen practice, as much as possible, as I said, let your thoughts disappear into your mind, like water into sand, and your mind into your body, and your body into the Dharmakaya, or into the phenomenal world.

[19:55]

And if you can do this and hold within yourself the feeling of this, the taste of this, in your activity, not talking much, and if you do talk, talking in a way that you don't leak, you'll find this practice, the practice itself here, your practice, your nirmana practice starts to teach you. It starts in itself, teaches you. The Buddha was not enlightened from reading a sutra. Buddha was enlightened through this practice, this practice, his practice, your practice. The sutras came later and the sutras are very helpful, but you need to read yourself as text.

[21:16]

The Buddha was not enlightened from reading a sutra. So you have everything you need. Thank you very much.

[21:38]

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