no ears no nose and so on so you may recall for those of you who were attending the last few weeks that i showed you a diagram of the 12-fold chain of dependent core rising also known as the wheel of birth and death and what we call a self or a person the buddha called five skandhas so now we're getting into the vocabulary of the heart sutra five skandhas all five skandhas avalokita shvara bodhisattva When deeply practicing, Prajnaparamita clearly saw that all five skandhas are empty and thus was saved from all suffering. Okay, so these five are found in the illustration, the 12-fold chain, which is basically an elaboration on the first and second noble truth. So here it is again, 12-fold chain of dependent core rising. And I'm not going to go through them again, but it's really a good thing to maybe have a copy for yourselves you can refer to and eventually be able to actually learn them because you will see them referred to over and over again in Buddhist commentaries and lectures and so on.

[01:08]

So it's a very handy set of vocabulary for you to have and imagery too. So the 12-fold chain begins with ignorance, ignoring that we're not separate. Hearing is not separate from the hearer. Smelling is not separate from the one who smells and so on. But we think so. And there's ignorance. That's the first step, the separation. This is a blind person with a cane walking in the world. And then there's karmic formations, the tendencies or habits of mind that drive our belief system. So these are how we incarnate. And then we've got consciousness. This is a little monkey grabbing fruit out of a tree. Consciousness. And here's the one with the five skandhas. That's the boat. So this is the fourth link. the 12 links of dependent core rising so the little boat as you may remember it the boat itself is form so again we're looking at the five skandhas so there's form and the boat is floating on the ocean of conscious awareness so that's the context is the awareness itself and then the boat has these three passengers and who are always on board the boat riding on the ocean of awareness and those

[02:22]

Same three passengers along for the ride are feelings, our feelings, our perceptions, what we think we see, and our impulses to take action. So these are skandhas number two, three, and four. So form, feeling, perception, impulse, consciousness. Five skandhas. And as Avlaki Deshvara is teaching us, are empty of inherent existence. So the Buddha, in his early teaching, added the word clinging to the five skandhas. He said, these are five clinging skandhas. So this is significant. And we, I speak for myself, I am a clinger, I'm a grabber. And I am built to grab, you know, my direction of my eyes and my ears, the way my body's been made, is to go direction, is to go forward and to get something. I've got these nice two grabbers that came along with the rest of the body. So we have a tendency, and our minds work this way as well, to want to get things.

[03:27]

You know, that's how we're built, and that's how we've survived. So it's not like we want to get rid of that tendency, but we want to notice it, and we want to see when it's out of control. So clinging, in general, is not a good thing in the Buddhist teaching. In fact, it is the primary cause of our suffering. Clinging and desire are a result of how we feel, of what we feel. And in particular, feelings of wanting, or of not wanting, or of being confused about whether we want it or not. So these three are called greed, hate, and delusion. And greed, hate, and delusion are right in the middle of the 12-fold chain, represented by a rooster, a snake, and a pig. Greed, hate, and delusion drive the wheel. This is what makes it spin. I want it, I don't want it, and I'm not sure if I want it or not. Familiar to all of us. So these three are also been called by the Dalai Lama pathological emotions.

[04:32]

Again, emphasizing the negative impact on our lives and on the world and on our friends. They're also known as bandits, thieves, and poisons. Basically meaning that the notion... of a separate self invariably leads us to try our best to get things for the self, or to get rid of things that the self doesn't like. It's all self-centered, or simply to hide until it all blows over. So again, these are familiar impulses that we all have lived through our lives, either wanting things, not wanting things, or not being sure if we want it or not. Primary drivers, pathological emotions. So the most obvious tool in the Heart Sutra toolbox for uprooting the three poisons is this single syllable word, no. When we, my daughter, my family had a service dog for a while and a wonderful animal, he's passed away now, his name was Mack.

[05:36]

And Mack was incredibly well trained. He'd been trained to work with children. My daughter uses a walker, so she, when she was little, she had a wonderful, it was a wonderful thing to have this dog to be with her through the day. And the way he was trained, and very simply, was just like that, no. No, Mac, no. He knew that word very well. And we do too. You know, we have a pretty good understanding of the word no. We've been told that since we were small as well. So the word no is to our thinking and to our concepts. No. No to our hearing and to our seeing, to our tasting, our smelling, touching and feeling, all through the heart suture. No. No. And no to our sense of a separate self. No separate self. And no to our belief in any kind of solidity whatsoever in terms of concepts, beliefs. So no functions to not only pull the rug, so to speak, out from under our feet, no feet, but then it pulls the floor out from under us as well, no floor.

[06:47]

And interestingly, however, without the concepts of a self or a feet or of a floor, we seem to remain standing right where we were all the same, as if the entire show is being done by magic. And so it is. What changes for us when we stop for a while, our chattering minds, our conceptualizations, isn't much really. You know, the world goes on nearly the same as always. It doesn't mind that we've stopped minding. And at the same time, the world becomes absent of the suffering that's brought about by self-centered clinging, grasping and strategizing, at least for a while. So this relief is experienced by us in what the Buddha called nirvana. Nirvana means kind of blown out. And what's blown out? The three poisons, greed, hate, and delusion are blown out. Without those, it's kind of hard to imagine. But actually, that's what our practice is about, is finding ourselves, taking those breaks from greed, hate, and delusion.

[07:51]

To just be quiet. Know. Just know. While standing, sitting, lying down. And there's a great relief that comes from that practice. even for a while. So this text has been notoriously frustrating through the centuries, ever since it landed in the Buddhist Sangha. As Buddhist teacher Sangha Rakshita says about this Sutra, about all the Prajnaparamita Sutras, the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, of which the Heart Sutra is an example, the Diamond Sutra is an example, the 8,000-line Prajnaparamita. They're all basically doing the same thing. They're, no, no, no, no. in more elaborate ways than others. Heart Sutra is one of the simpler versions of this teaching. So he says, if we insist that the requirements of the logical mind be satisfied with the Heart Sutra, then we are missing the point.

[08:53]

What the Prajnaparamita Sutras are actually delivering is not a systematic treatise, but a series of sledgehammer blows. attacking from this side and that to try and break through our fundamental delusion. That would be of a self, a separate self. So this sutra is not going to make things easy for the logical mind by putting things in a logical form. If it were put forth neatly and clearly, leaving no loose ends, we might be in danger of thinking that we had grasped the perfection of wisdom. So along with its primary mission of deconstructing the familiar world or nests that we inhabit, the Heart Sutra is also an excellent meditation manual. It begins with naming the parts of our world and of ourselves that we have perhaps not truly looked at before, not looked at in the way that we think of when we use the word meditate or concentrate.

[10:00]

I mean, how many of us really have spent time just looking at our own hand, or at the color green, or the swaying of tree branches on a windy day, or steam rising up from hot cocoa. All day long, on and on and on, this flow of non-repeating, impermanent, selfless, and miraculous appearances. All day long. When our stream of consciousness is occupying our attention, we don't see, we don't hear, we don't smell. We don't taste. So one of my favorite sayings is, if you are not in awe, you are distracted. And mostly by chatter, mind chatter, storytelling. So there's a very simple exercise that I've tried with people over the years. It seems to go fairly well for some. I hope it does for you. So I want to suggest sometime, anytime you like, you just pick an object.

[11:03]

your house or outside it's kind of beautiful these days something particular like a flower or a tool or just something anything and then look at it for about three to five minutes just look at it just with a soft gaze yeah just look at it and you'll find that at some point you start to get a little bored you know which is normal usually we don't land on things like that we unless you're drawing if you're an artist you might know about that you do look at things for long periods of time but mostly kind of move around kind of moving our attention from one object to another so by focusing on one object you will find i i would think that you get a little bored and wish to move on so wait past that period of boredom you know there's a there's a teaching that boredom is the next step before enlightenment so In fact, that was one of the dancers that came to tempt the Buddha to get off the seat of enlightenment was boredom.

[12:08]

Isn't that boring, sitting there day after day? So you wait past the boredom and see what it is that's there. There's a Zen saying, just this is it. And maybe that'll come to mind. Just this object is it. It's all of it. It's the complete union of... of seeing and the seeing, just being, just this is it, just this very simple act of perception with nothing more to it than that. Perhaps you remember that the Buddha transmitted the Dharma to Mahagashapa by holding up a flower, you know, just this is it. And Mahagashapa faintly smiled. And that was it, that was the first Dharma transmission in the Zen tradition. So in recommending this experiment to you, I was reminded of the American composer John Cage, which I'm sure many of you know, whose biography is totally illuminating both of his music, but more importantly, for our purposes, of his serious regard for Zen Buddhism, which, in his own words, helped to free him from suffering, opening his heart to bright new possibilities of thought and action.

[13:30]

So his book, which is really wonderful, I highly recommend it. I just happened upon it in a museum, I think it was, and I was just glancing around and I saw this book and it said, Where the Heart Beats, John Cage, Zen Buddhism and the Inner Life of Artists by Kay Larson. And I thought, hmm, I had no idea that John Cage and Zen Buddhism went together. So it is a delightful book and he was an amazing human being, as were many of the artists of his generation. So one of the first quotations that I read that led me to a real fascination with John Cage, his insights and his work, was this one. He said, the first question I ask myself when something doesn't seem to be beautiful. The first question I ask is, why do I think it's not beautiful? And very shortly, I discover that there is no reason. In much the same vein, he also said, if something is boring after two minutes, well then try it for four minutes.

[14:39]

And if it's still boring, try it for eight, 16, 32, and so on. Eventually, one discovers that it's not boring at all, but very interesting. So John Cage called the revolutionary work of his contemporaries in the arts the transitory and ephemeral poetics of the here and now, or what Richard Baker, our former abbot, used to call our non-repeating universe. So the Heart Sutra, like Cage's famous four minutes and 33 seconds, which I recommend you look up and listen to, is an invitation to do just about everything with an open mind and an open heart. So this is the second way that you can use the language of the Heart Sutra as a meditation manual on reality, you know, on your own reality, you know, this very one that we're sharing right now. You have yours, I have mine.

[15:41]

Always so, always so, and always right now. So a third way to look at the Heart Sutra is as a giant koan, filled to the brim with lots of little koans. Every phrase in this sutra which begins with no, is a koan, in terms of what it relates to. So no eyes, no ears, no nose. So just like you did with gazing at an object, past the point of where it ceases to be interesting, you can gaze at your seeing, at your hearing, or your tasting. In a past where they are commonplace, familiar, and mostly ignored by us, to where the very act of chewing your food is an adventure of extraordinary discovery. So the movement of your tongue, I don't know if you've ever done this, but it, I mean, wasn't that long ago when I started to notice my tongue was doing, getting the food into my, you know, into the teeth, you know, putting it there between the teeth and getting out of the way, and then moving the food to the back so I could swallow it.

[16:51]

And, you know, it's just like, this amazing brilliance going on in there, totally unobserved by me is like, Oh, my gosh, my tongue is incredibly smart and capable and, and doing its job, you know, without that much recognition or appreciation. So you know that and then there's a moisture that which allows us to swallow. There's the tasting and the texturing and the preferencing, you know, all of it is miraculous. Once you look at it, once you begin to engage. in the miraculous appearance that we call our human life and Suzuki Roshi said everyday mind is the way and by that he meant every day in every way you know in fact Suzuki Roshi often talked about chewing rice about tasting it and smelling it and feeling how the rice becomes your body and your mind how seeing and tasting and feeling are becoming what you are, and in becoming are harder and harder to simply ignore.

[17:53]

When our founder Zen master Dongshan, Tozan in Japanese, was a little boy and being taught the Heart Sutra by his master, he said to his tutor, but I have eyes, I have ears, I have a tongue, and so on. Why does the Heart Sutra say that they don't exist? And his tutor said, I am not your teacher. And then he sent him off to find a Zen master, which he did. So when Tozan grew up and was still full of doubts about his Zen studies, he went on pilgrimage. And as he was crossing the river, saw his reflection in the water. And he said, just this is it. And he was relieved of all suffering. Just this is it. That which he had been seeking his whole life from when he was a little boy. he found in that moment of reflection of his own face in the water. Just this is it. And off he went, became one of our founding teachers.

[18:56]

So we may begin to see this very truth for ourselves when we take on this text as a meditation instruction and as a series of koans, as the many facets of the truth of emptiness begin to sprout. like those little green grasses in the spring rain which we just had by the way was that not amazing for those of you living in the bay area we got an incredible rain isn't it and lightning wind very mysterious and unseasonable and unseasonable but wonderful everything smells incredible right now and now the sun's out so there you are sprouting up like tiny green grasses after the rain so emptiness meaning that things like eyes and ears and noses and grasses and trees do not exist as they seem, as we think, but are like illusions, like magic tricks, like fantasies and fables, stories and fabrications like nightmares and like dreams.

[20:00]

You know, poof. Emptiness is the primary teaching of the perfection of wisdom, Prajnaparamita. And yet, this perfection of wisdom... as we know, is being taught by the epitome of compassion itself, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. So without that element of compassion at the forefront, this sutra would have no value for us. In fact, it would merely be dangerous for those with partial understanding of emptiness. It's often been said that emptiness is the heart of the Mahayana tradition, but that the heart of emptiness is compassion. Without developing a soft and compassionate heart, the Heart Sutra and the teachings of emptiness can actually harden a practitioner. And as Nagarjuna said to us, like a badly handled snake or like a spell that's been wrongly cast, you know, bad magic. So I wanted to go back to the text for the remainder of our time.

[21:01]

Got about maybe about 20 minutes or so. And pull out the major teachings, just kind of run through it. And again, if you have a copy with you, that would be nice for you to just read along. So as I've said before, this is basically a collection of all the major teachings, all the major propositions and proposals that the Buddha gave in the course of his lifetime. And so, you know, you can really, if you study the Heart Sutra a little bit, you can begin to see these categories and Again, it's really good, I think, as students of the way, to have some of this vocabulary and familiarity with it. So the heart of great perfect wisdom, Ma Avalokiteshvara, Bodhisattva, Bodhisattva of compassion, deeply practicing. So he's in a samadhi, a concentrated state, most likely, and I've been sitting for a while, as we do sometimes when we do one day sittings or seven day sitting.

[22:05]

So deeply practicing, Prajnaparamita, he's put aside, all other activities in order to focus. Clearly saw that all five aggregates, the pancha upadana skandhas, the five clinging skandhas, the five aggregates are empty and thus relieved all suffering. So very important, very highlighted. This is the relief of suffering, realization of emptiness of the five skandhas. What the Buddha said is makes up the self. Shariputra form the boat the picture does not differ from emptiness emptiness does not differ from form form itself is emptiness emptiness itself is form these four twists of emptiness and form are basic they're called the four profundities and they're sort of like philosophical uh tick marks you know you're ticking off some propositions that have to do with things existing So when we talk about things existing, when we use the language of things existing, we say something is or it isn't.

[23:12]

It both is and isn't, or it neither is nor isn't. So those are the four propositions. And so this text is basically saying none of those works. It's emptiness. It's not. So when you say form is emptiness, basically form is emptiness. In a way, you're saying form doesn't exist. It doesn't have any inherent existence. So that form is emptiness cuts through the idea that form exists, is. I know this is a little tricky. And then the second one, emptiness is form, doesn't let you get away. Well, then there isn't anything. It doesn't let you get away with nihilism. Well, then it isn't, right? No, no. Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. They're not separable. You can't say it is or it isn't. You can't say it both is and isn't. That's not okay either. And you can't say it, neither is nor isn't. So basically they're not allowing, this text is not allowing any of those propositions to abide, to say no, no, no to is, no to isn't, no to both, no to neither.

[24:16]

That's that line. So that's basically talking about form, the first of the five aggregates of the skandhas, form, feeling, perception, impulse, consciousness. So they just took out form And so now they're saying, the next line, sensation, perception, formation, and consciousness. So that's the rest of the five skandhas are being treated in the same way. Sensation does not differ from emptiness. Emptiness does not differ from sensation. You do the same thing with perception and with formation and with consciousness. So you do the same four things, the same four profundities are applied to each one of the five skandhas, one by one. Sensation, perception, formation and consciousness are also like this. Shariputra, all dharmas, all the little tiny elements of existence are marked by emptiness. So there's no place to hide. Everything is marked by emptiness. All phenomena, anything you can perceive with your senses or with your mind are empty of existing by themselves.

[25:20]

Emptiness means that they depend, their dependencies, they depend on everything. And everything, every single thing depends on everything else for its existence. So this object, my striker from Emokugyo, depends on me holding it, depends on the wood that it was made from, depends on someone sending it here and buying it and giving it to me as a gift, and depends on me taking care of it, depends on air and water and fire and stars. It depends on everything. And so does do all phenomena. emptiness really is fullness it's everything all together and as soon as we pull something out basically we have it's like taking a handful of water from the ocean we can't you can't take something out of reality everything's together in reality and there's a kind of an amazing way that we all swim in this one reality I sent you that film.

[26:21]

I don't know if you had a chance to look at it, but I thought it was a rather delightful illustration, the David Bohm film about this plasma, you know, underlying reality, how everything is coming out of this inconceivable. It's very much the way the Buddha talks, you know. Dalai Lama likes David Bohm. You know, they're talking in the same language in that form and emptiness. It's just the emptiness. We can't see how it all happens, but there it is, like a magic show. So this is kind of, I don't know kind of, but this is a mystical side of the Buddha Dharma. It is okay to be a bit mystical as a Buddhist and to enjoy the awesomeness of these stories. I think David Baum is very mystical in my listening to him. He seemed to be in awe. He's like, yeah, he's pretty awestruck by what he was understanding and coming, you know, putting into patterns, mathematical formulations in his mind about the universe.

[27:23]

So therefore, given emptiness, there is no form, no sensation, no perception, no formation, no consciousness. So now we're going to negate any of these as being separate from the rest. So no form really means no separate form, no sensation, no separate sense. How could your sensations be separate from the rest of you? You know, none of these parts are separate from the others. say like you know seeing with your ears hearing with your eyes you know it all happening together as a whole whole being all being is the buddha nature so so therefore given empty i said that one so those are again the five skandhas and then they go on to no eyes no ears no nose no tongue no body no mind no sight no sound no smell no taste no touch no object of mind so there's 12 of these And this is just another way of categorizing the person into more parts. So we have five skandhas.

[28:25]

Now we've got 12 ayatanas. And the next list of things are called the 18 datus. And I think I mentioned to you all before that these are really just categories, another way to take the person apart, the self apart, and look at it in even greater detail. A little surgical move here. And the first category, the five skandhas, it says in the sutras, is for people who like a simple explanation. Just five is enough for me. That's plenty. I'll learn the five and I kind of apply them to myself. Other people like a little more explanation. Could you tell me a little more? So the 12 ayatanas are for people who like a longer explanation or a middle length. And then the 18 dhatus are for people like a really complex explanation. So that's one of the reasons the Buddha divided things into more and more detail because we're like that. Some of us like it simple, and some of us like it really complicated. So those are those categories. And then it says, there is neither ignorance nor extinction of ignorance, neither old age and death, nor extinction of old age and death.

[29:34]

Well, that series is this one, the 12-fold chain. There is neither ignorance, the first of the 12-fold chain. And they're saying, nor extinction of it. You can't have it or not have it. Neither is nor isn't. So there's that. know existential question again and old age sickness and death are the last of the 12 links so now they're negating the 12-fold chain very important teaching of the Buddha they're saying there's neither ignorance nor extinction of ignorance neither old age and death nor extinction of old age and death so that's the 12-fold chain no suffering no cause no cessation no path I think you all probably recognize those four as the four noble truths. Suffering, the cause of suffering, cessation of suffering, and the path. No, no, no, no. No knowledge, no attainment. That's the fruit of the path. So after all your hard work, you're going to become, you know, enlightened or relieved of suffering.

[30:38]

He said, well, not exactly. No. Because it's already so. I mean, I think the punchline of the Buddha's teaching is it's already so. It's only your thinking that's separating you from the flower. Mahagashapa smiled when the Buddha held up the flower. We can smile when we look out the window and when we look at our friends. We don't have to do more than that. We can just realize that they're there. That flower is right there, and I'm there, and it's creating me. Right now, whatever I'm experiencing is creating me in this moment. It's amazing. And there is no separate self. How would that be possible? You can't even imagine it. How to cut yourself out from reality. So we're doing this other thing. We're suturing. This is a sutra. We're suturing ourselves back into reality where we've never been separated in the first place.

[31:40]

We just thought we were. So we're kind of putting it back together. so we've now we've taken care of the Four Noble Truths and the fruit of the path and then we have with nothing to attain everything's fine just the way it is just this is it that's again that's the punch line a bodhisattva relies on prajnaparamita wisdom beyond wisdom and thus just this is it thus the mind is without hindrance in the present moment there is no hindrance without hindrance there is no fear So that relief, when we stop the mind chatter, those moments of clarity that we experience, that freedom from this includes freedom from fear. Because fear is most often about the future. You know, usually when something frightening is happening, you know, when the tiger's chasing you, it's not so much that you're afraid, you're just moving fast. You know, you're just looking for a way to get out of there. So I think maybe you've all noticed that if something fearful has happened to you,

[32:42]

My own experience of, you know, as a young woman, like being hit in my car, getting hit, you know, that moment when that thing happens, I was wide awake. And I wasn't afraid. I was like, on, you know, now what do I do? Now what do I do? And it was later on, after I got home, I was really scared. Like, what could have happened to me? You know, it didn't. Thank goodness. So beyond all inverted views. And then it says, With nothing to attain, a bodhisattva relies on Prajnaparamita, and thus the mind is without hindrance. Without hindrance, there is no fear. Far beyond all inverted views, also known as the four upside-down views, one realizes nirvana. All Buddhas of past, present, and future rely on Prajnaparamita and thereby attain unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment. so that sounds nice i mean that's the kind of the payoff you know is that the realization of emptiness the realization of reality just as it is the realization of ourselves as just fine the way we are is the path and the path as the buddha said is enlightenment enlightenment is the path in every step of the way

[34:07]

It doesn't matter if you just started out or you've been on it a long time. Each step of the way is enlightenment itself. Therefore, know the Prajnaparamita as the great miraculous mantra, the great bright mantra, the supreme mantra, the incomparable mantra, which removes all suffering and is true, not false. And therefore, we proclaim the Prajnaparamita mantra, the mantra that says gate gate, paragate. So I just wanted to say a little bit about these four inverted views, which are pretty key or central to our familiar daily life. I think for most of us, certainly for me, very familiar. I call it the shopping model, the four inverted views. The four, it starts with the notion of an independent self, the separate self. So that's the first upside down view. there's an independent self me and the next notion is of reliable and permanent and wonderful objects so that's the other there's something out there that me can get so i'm going to get it and when i get it so that's the second upside down view there are permanent objects that will last

[35:32]

We sell things like that, right? We say, this will last. This is going to last you a long time. They're a lifetime guarantee, that kind of thing. So these objects are going to last and they're going to make me happy. That's the third upside down view that acquiring those permanent objects or semi-permanent objects is going to make me happy. And the fourth inverted view is that this is true. The shopping model is true. And I think our culture is kind of based on the belief we have that it's true. That if we can get the right amount of stuff and put it in the right kind of place and wear the right kind of clothing and all of that sort of stuff, that will make us happy. I don't think we stop very long to even question that. But I've noticed a few times I've experimented with this. I like to shop. I go shopping and I get groceries or whatever, a new shirt, and I take it home and I take it out of the bag. put it on the fridge or whatever I'm doing. And that's it.

[36:32]

I got an empty bag. I don't want it anymore. The wanting is over because it's now mine. So the shopping model has a little flaw. You have to perpetually shop. You have to go shop again. You have to go shop again in order to scratch that wanting itch. So you can't satisfy. The upside down views will never satisfy you. This is so core, you know, to our behavior, our daily life behavior, that I think it's, without judging it, I mean, that's pointless. But really appreciating how true that is, you know. Once I have things, I don't want them anymore. That's just so obvious, you know. And then watch it kick in again, you know, that kind of excitement of going to the mall or wherever we go, groceries, whatever. So the opposite is true. There is no independent. self, there is no thing called an isolated self, you belong, you are of a peace with the universe, and hopefully at peace with the universe.

[37:38]

There are no permanent objects, impermanence is one of the laws, you know, these are the three basically facts of life that Buddha taught, there is no self, that there is no permanent, nothing is permanent, and that there is suffering. There is suffering, and oftentimes the suffering is a result of our not being able to get permanent things, including our own lives, or the lives of our friends, or things that matter more to us than shopping for objects. So on whatever level we look, there's nothing permanent. There's nothing for us to hold on to. That's that rug being pulled out. But what's being pulled out is our story about that, our fear of that. It's already true. It's nothing to be quarreled about or argued with. There's no self. You can't find it. If any of you have seriously tried, and I hope you have, there's no thing. You're not a thing. You're a process, a flow of ever-changing moments and ever-changing sensations.

[38:42]

Five skandhas are always in motion, moving from one to the other. And there are no permanent objects. I think we know that intellectually. Nothing is permanent. No self, nothing permanent. And suffering is just part of what's happening in our lives. It's suffering, you know. It's the excessive kind of suffering the Buddha was teaching, the suffering of suffering. You know, breaking your leg is painful, but it's not suffering. The why me is suffering. The suffering of suffering. So what the Buddha was really teaching was the why me kind of suffering. You know, the part that has to do with wanting to be an exception to pain or to loss or to sadness. You know, all of that's perfectly normal and part of the deal of being alive. But the upside down views are basically a distortion. It's an effort that we make culturally and as individuals to basically not accept the facts of life.

[39:47]

I just refuse, you know, and that's real suffering. This is the actual suffering that we have, and it's all the time. It kind of scratches away at us. There is one true door of liberation, and that is emptiness. Through the cessation of karma, karma means actions that are driven by these poisons. Through the cessation of karma and afflictions, one is freed. Karma, afflictions, and conceptualizations all arise from elaboration, story making. Sanskrit word called prapancha, prapancha. By means of emptiness, elaboration is brought to an end. No. I think I told you all that, you know, for a number of years I just practiced Well, I've been here at Green Goats quite a long time. I used to work in the kitchen, and I would watch my little mind doing all these kind of, you know, sabotaging things about, you know, sabotaging my happiness in various ways.

[40:57]

And I just started practicing with no, no. You know, every time something, prapancha would arise, I'd go, no, no, no, no, thank you, no. Like with the dog, you know, no, no, no. You have to keep at it. Those mental elaborations are really sneaky and they're like smoke trying to get in the room. They want to come in there and distract us and pull us off, remind us of things or whatever, make us plan for the future, that kind of stuff. All of which is fine, but not when it carries us away, not when it's in charge, not when the mind and conceptualizations are basically wagging the dog, the tail wagging the dog. So gate gate paragate, parasam gate bodhisvaha. Bodhi is awakening. Svaha is hallelujah. So this mantra means go gate, go, go, go beyond, go totally beyond being rooted in the groundlessness of enlightenment.

[42:01]

So the ultimate meaning of the Heart Sutra is revealed in a place where you can't get a hold of anything. And that's just fine. There's nothing to get a hold of, you know. Everything is taking care of everything very nicely. The more we relax, the more we let go of our grip. Like Okumara Roshi was talking this last week about opening the hand of thought. That's what his teacher used to use that phrase. Opening the hand of thought. Rather than blocking or grabbing or squeezing. So that is the Heart Sutra. And I'd very much like to hear your comments or questions. And also, if you have some idea, I have an idea of something that we could turn to next, if you like. But maybe you have an idea, and that would be great. So please feel free to raise your hand, your little blue hand, or...

[43:06]

soon somebody put something in the chat maybe looks like might be a chat oh there's good thank you thank you jenny links to the heart sutra great so please feel free to we have a little bit of time there you are Oh, there's a hand. Hi, Gall. Nice to see you. Oh, and there's Bill, too. So Gall, why don't you go first? I saw your hand. And then, Bill, I'll call on you after that. Do you? I think you're on. Yes. OK, hi. Hi. Thank you so much for this class is so helpful. And it's great to have it be following. Akimoro Roshi's class because it really is just so connected. Just one kind of passing thing that was striking to me, especially given how you finished this lecture about the open hand of thought was the concept of the mudra as kind of like when you have a painting, the signature of authentication is there.

[44:28]

So kind of the authentication of sitting is the know holding a thought gently that just was a cool that's nice yeah I think it means I think it means to put a seal or a stamp yeah basically using your body to demonstrate the practice you know it's a visible like Okamura Roshi was talking about that too it's like it's an embodied presence the teaching is what you do and how you put on your clothes and how you talk and how you move. So the mudra is definitely, it's an impression. It's making an impression on you and on the world around you. It's called the cosmic mudra. I think you know that perhaps. And the feeling I've read was that of like, it's surrounded, the thumbs are at the level of your navel. The feeling of it is that you basically are surrounding the umbilical, you know, where you were born. This cosmic mudra is connecting this single body to the universe.

[45:32]

You're born of the universe, that's your parents, is the universe. And so this cosmic mudra basically is honoring that connection between the cosmos and this person, you know, as the child of Buddha. We say that, we're the child of Buddha. So it's also... very good way to tell if you've gone to sleep you're sitting because your little thumbs collapse it's like oh no so it's a lot of work keeping your thumbs up thank you call thanks yeah yeah bill where are you bill you're unmuted um I have the question from Kelly. Kelly, Kelly. You said that the Heart Sutra is meaningless without compassion. Could you talk about that a little bit more?

[46:33]

It's dangerous without compassion. Could you maybe speak to that a little more? Yeah. The Buddha taught two things. He taught wisdom and compassion. And one understanding, it's like a bird, you know, and these are the two wings. They have to be equally strong. If wisdom is strong, too strong, stronger than compassion, it can be cruel. It can be like cold, cold-hearted, you know, very calculating, intellectual. We know that. We know that from ourselves and from our friends, you know, when it's just like, well, this is just my idea about it, you know, and people can get very stubborn, like when they're just talking from their neck up. So wisdom without compassion can be actually cruel. Well, that's a good way to take care of whatever problem there is. I got a great idea, you know. What about the people? Well, that'll be fine. So your good ideas without compassion are not good ideas at all. And on the other hand, compassion without wisdom is sentimentality.

[47:36]

So if you can't discern what would actually be helpful, what might be useful in a situation? and wanting to benefit others. You know, we all want to benefit others. But, you know, you can sort of drag people across the street who don't want to go across the street or whatever. There's all kinds of ways that we can overdo it with our helpfulness without really finding out, is this helpful? Am I being of use to you? Am I just being irritating? So I think it's really important that we always kind of check in to see if we've got some balance there. And Heart Sutra is really wisdom teaching. So it's really a deconstructor. And the tradition itself got in a lot of trouble with the Heart Sutra. The monks started going, well, hey, if it's no eyes, no ears, no nose, no rules. No clock, no time. I don't have to go to the Zendo. I'm not even here. So I can do whatever I want.

[48:39]

No consequences. No path. You know, all that stuff is like, if you treat it the wrong way, like Nagarjuna said, it's like a snake, a poison snake that will create terrible problems. And it actually did. And for many centuries, there was a lot of, you know, like this stuff is not good for monks. This isn't good for anybody. It's really leading them to the temptation that comes from the Heart Sutra is the nihilism. That's the danger of Heart Sutra, is there's nothing. Emptiness as nothing, rather than it's everything. so it was easily misunderstood and uh even though the warning is on the label you know be careful be careful so uh actually the yogachara teachings which came later and were really brought forward particularly the zen school has both of these traditions deeply infused in the teachings so the mind only teachings which are inclusive of the earlier teachings, the purification teachings.

[49:42]

Yeah, it matters that you behave yourself. It matters that you're on time. It matters that you have decent manners and how you etiquette and deportment and all of that, and that you practice meditation. It's not just whatever. So they came back with a really strong reassertion of ethics and morality as a corrective to what happened with the Heart Sutra. So there are three turnings of the wheel in Buddhism. The first was the original Pali Canon teachings, eyes, ears, nose, you know, really realistic psychology. And then the Hartsuit said, no eyes, no ears, no nose. That was fun. And then the Boguchara comes along and said, oh, yes, yes, yes. You have to deal with your eyes and your ears and your neighbors and your noise and your, you know, taxes. So there was a kind of recovery. Each one was an antidote to the other. So that you get, if you understand all three together, you can see the formula, the package is pretty good.

[50:46]

But taking any slice of that and you can actually get off into some kind of, you know, being very strict with any of those turnings is lopsided. So it's good to have the whole picture and have people encouraging you not to get stuck, not to nest. in emptiness. That would be really bad. Okay. For the first and third turnings, I guess I've understood it as like the third turning just being kind of like a reinstatement of the first turning. Is that what you were saying? Yeah. But with an emptiness tail. So its head is a reestablishment of the first turning. Its tail isn't all of that that we just... Re-established is empty of inherent existence. So if you read Ben Conley's book on Vasubhanda's 30 verses, which is really a well-done introduction to the Yogacara teaching, you know, the first 15 verses are re-establishing the traditional practices.

[51:55]

Purification, you know, purification, don't do this and don't do that and follow the precepts and so on. The next 15 are deconstructing them. So the Yogacara teaching is the heart of Yogacara. It's Majamaka. So the heart of it is emptiness. But it goes about it by saying, but you have to take the path. You cannot just skip over. You can't just skip over there to, oh, I got enlightened. You have to do this. You have to be really concerned about your old habits. You have not eradicated your old conditioning. Clearly, none of us have. as we're seeing in this conversation about race, we clearly have not eradicated our conditioning, and we better get on it, you know? And we didn't even know. I mean, some of us, and that's a terrible excuse. I didn't even know how badly conditioned I was. And the more I find out, the more absolutely horrified I am at myself and my ignorance.

[52:57]

So that's Yogacara. You better be horrified. And that's good. Because that means you're motivated to do the work that is there needing to be done. So, yeah, try Ben Conley's book for a really good, thorough introduction to the yoga chart, Third Turning, if you haven't got it already. Do you have it already? No. It's really well done, really easy to read. Recommend it to all of you, actually. And, you know, we couldn't look at the third turning teachings, too, if any of you are going to be around and would like to do that. I'm happy to. It's a very lovely study. Thank you. You're welcome. Nice to see you. Heather. Hi, Heather. Hi.

[53:59]

Did I unmute you? No, I muted you again. Wait a minute. Are you unmuted now? Jenny, I'm trying to unmute Heather. I think we are both trying to do it. There it goes. We're both doing it. Form is emptiness. Yeah, that was awesome. Hi. It's nice to see you. Nice to see you too. Could you repeat something that you said about bandits? Thieves. Yes. It rang a bell from a poem by Dogen's teacher and there's a line in it that I've always been curious about and I was just wondering if it was related. Do you remember the line? Somehow we meet like tricksters or bandits of Dharma. That's probably a little more fun.

[55:05]

That's what I think. I think that's more like, yeah, you're stealing the dharma. Steal this, steal this, like, who is it, Ryokan said, when the thief took his humble possessions from his hut, and he said, oh, I wish he'd waited longer, I could have given him the moon. Okay, that's been my sort of, that's what I came up with, but I was just wondering if it was a reference to something. Yeah, no, that band of Thief and Poison is bad. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think you're talking about something. Okay, good. But you never know. Yeah. You know what, I think I have the poem. Do you want me to read it? It's short. Please, yeah. Let me go real quick. Yes, it's by Ru Jing, who is Dogen's teacher in China. And it goes, the great road has no gate. It begins in your own mind.

[56:06]

The sky has no marked trails, and yet it finds its way to your nostrils and becomes your breath. Somehow we meet like tricksters or bandits of Dharma. The great house tumbles down. The autumn wind swirls. Astonished maple leaves fly and scatter. Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. That guy. Yeah. He's just amazing. It was so lovely to be at the Genzoe. For those of you who were there, just Okamura Roshi is just such a, I don't know. He's just a, he's just a, I don't know what he is. He's just this Dogen, you know, fan club. He has so much knowledge, and it's just such a treat to be able to listen to that teacher talk about that teacher. So much history and study, and it's just wonderful. So thank you for sharing that.

[57:08]

Anyone else like to bring something up? I also wanted to ask if you all had a suggestion for something you'd like to look at, and then if no one does, I have it. possibility that I will offer. So I'll give you give you a chance to please don't be shy. There's I would love some help in knowing what you would like to look at. I give you to the count of 10. Heather says Mordogen. Mordogen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's good. There's a hand, Gal. Do you want to offer? Okay, yeah, I'm back. Thank you, Jenny. Yeah, one thing that Okamori Roshi brought up was the concept of a bodhisattva being conflicted.

[58:13]

And any thoughts that you would have, I mean, not necessarily, you know, immediately, just whenever it's appropriate. I'd like to get your thoughts on that. Yeah, that was really powerful, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah, I think it was really talking about our humanity that that's never going to end, you know, that that two sides of the insentient and sentient are always going to be in a dialogue with each other that, you know, how much we wish to be, you know, great bodhisattvas and so on, like, that this other part of us will always be there. And Anyway, I'll read through my notes and see if there's anything else I jotted down about that. But I found that to be very powerful and sobering. Of course. Of course. Where are we going? You know, who am I trying to get rid of? And she doesn't want to go anyway. You know, she's not going to leave. She's having a good time. So I feel like the incorporating these two, my wish, you know, to be something, some aspiration to escalate the very sky, as Dogen says.

[59:20]

along with your feet on the ground, you know, walking on this earth and making trouble in various ways. So, but yes, I will think a little bit about that. And well, one idea I have, I like the Dogen idea, and we certainly can look at, there's the fascicles that are in the liturgy. Like, of course, there's the Genjo Koan. That's kind of a big... Oops. Sorry. That might be a big study. But one idea I had maybe to start with and then go to Dogen is to look at some of the stories from the Transmission of Light, which if you know that text, if you don't know that text, that's fine. But if you do, it's a wonderful... I thought after looking at the Heart Sutra that it might be... interesting to look at stories of different teachers at that moment when they had their awakening.

[60:23]

What happened? And it's really, they're lovely stories. Kezan, who was, I think, fourth generation after Dogen, wrote this collection, and it's quite special. It's our Soto Zen lineage. So it's got all the names that we know well. Tozan's in there, and Dogen's in there, and Dongshan Tozan is in there. Shakyamuni Buddha. So I thought maybe I'd just pick a few of those chapters and tell you those stories. And then, you know, you can read them, of course, ahead of time. So why don't we just, is that okay? Can we do the transmission of light? And the translation I have is Cleary, is Thomas Cleary. There's also another one. What was that translation? The one that you have? Anyway, I'll send you, I'll send the information on the link next time. But if you would, and you get a copy or look at a copy of the, I think you can get online, is, oh, there's this one too.

[61:31]

This is also Thomas, oh, this is Thomas Clery, Transmission of Light. And Shambhala. I think it's online. So why don't we look at the first story about Shakyamuni Buddha's awakening. and um and then we can skip through to a few other of the major names from our tradition um and then i don't know that's a long time away time will go and um hopefully we'll we'll uh be doing this for a while i really would like to so i appreciate you all coming very much so thank you it's now a little quarter after so uh I will say good evening and wish you well. Please stay safe. Take care. You're welcome to unmute and say goodbye. The best things about Zooming. Thank you so much, Fu.

[62:32]

I'll see you next week. Yeah, good. Great. Good. Yeah, that four weeks was wonderful. Yeah. Thank you. Good, good. Well, good. One of these days, I'm going to try to capture some names so that if something happens like last week, I could shoot you an email and let you know that, you know, something's happened or I'm on vacation or whatever. But for now, let's just leave it as anarchy. I kind of like anarchy. Thank you, Fu. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Good night. Good night, everyone. Good night, everyone. Have a nice day. Thank you. Thank you, Fu. You're welcome. See you next week. Keep doing this. This is great. Thanks. Thanks, Paul. I will. As long as you show up. We'll show up.

[63:34]

Okay. Got it. Bye, everybody.

[63:38]

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