This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Six down and one to go. I can smell the she's so dinner. How about you? Not quite. We'll all be there with you. Thank you. You're welcome. A saying by Zen Master Wumen, you say you're innocent while clutching the lute. So this is the title that Zenju Earthland Manual and I gave to the Spring Practice Period at Green Gulch earlier this year, as some of you know who were there, clutching the lute. I just wanted to let you know that she has successful surgery, by the way, on her hip, and she's doing well and walking and happily recovering in Emeryville.

[01:04]

So any of you who know her and would like to send greetings, I'm sure we could get Catherine to make us a card. So what this teaching about clutching the lute refers to is how ignorant we are of our unconscious conditioning, the bag of lute, so to speak, that we unknowingly carry around, the one I talked about yesterday that the Yogacarans name Alaya, the storehouse consciousness. As a result of our ignorance, we think of ourselves as innocent of all kinds of things. In particular, the more subtle forms of killing and stealing, lying, slandering, and sexualizing, all of which arise from how we have been taught and how we have chosen to behave in the past. And what's more, due to that other aspect of our mind, the seventh consciousness, manas, the lover, our thinking is indelibly linked to ignorance, to self-view, to self-pride, and to self-love.

[02:17]

The one I call... on the one hand self-love is necessary during the developmental stages of a healthy human being you know human first children first and on the other hand once we are grown-ups so to speak self-love leads to that dreaded sense of separation from others and in extreme cases to a kind of toxic narcissism resulting in all types of unwholesome behaviors employed to bridge what turns out to be ultimately a non-existent gap. It's just a story, a story that in many cases is ruining people's lives. So therefore, our community, the big me, has begun to study the story in earnest, not only through the mind-only teachings, but others as well, to see how these teachings might be useful in addressing the destructive nature of the gap.

[03:19]

and all of its myriad cultural forms, including those that we talked about in our DEI meetings, racism, gender, and class. But also to study how the sense of a separate self affects each of us on a personal level. Apparently, the greatest epidemic on this overcrowded planet at this time in human history is loneliness. People in megacities are lonely by the millions. If we begin our study of separation at the personal level with self-reflection, we can begin to see how each of us has been conditioned from birth, as were our parents before us and their parents before them. Conditioning that tells us who we are as separate individuals and where in the world we belong, if anywhere at all. That's also an epidemic of mega proportions, homelessness. What makes the Buddha so unusual and valuable as a teacher is the clarity with which he saw how the human mind works, thereby freeing himself from captivity to his own conditioning and then bringing that teaching to others as well.

[04:36]

One such method for teaching a pathway to freedom is the tradition we've been looking at these past few weeks, Yogacara or mind only, with its focus on the notions or ideas that we have about the world and about ourselves what are you thinking the focus of mind only theory and practice is on taking care good care of our consciousness of what we are aware of in each and every moment this focus draws us away from our usual tendency to spend our time and perhaps our entire lives trying to grasp and control what appear to be external things things outside of ourselves, reminding me of those chocolate croissants the day before sashim, you know, very hard to resist. How many did you eat? I think I had two. The Yogacara view of such things, of externality, is that ultimately we do not know what is out there.

[05:44]

in the apparently external world. We only know what it is that we are consciously experiencing in the present moment, such as right now. You know, where is it that we are right now? And who are we? And who is asking you the question? And who will answer? To which our famous ancestor Bodhidharma replied, don't know. And he was telling the truth. Both of them. The Yogacara teaching focuses on a two-fold model of practice and understanding that begins with studying how human consciousness operates. That's the model that I was talking about yesterday. Finding a model for studying reality, which led invariably to his own mind, was the very thing that the Buddha was doing in his silent meditation under the tree, looking for a pattern. And then, once having gained a basic understanding of the clockwork of his mind, he turned his conscious awareness onto the nature of the phenomena itself that he was aware of, the objects of his awareness.

[06:59]

In other words, to that very moment where the gap between oneself, me, and the world, you, appears. Subject, Buddha. Object, Mara, the evil one. And just like a flash of lightning in the dark sky, he witnessed how his mind split the sky in two. It's very swift. So today and tomorrow, I'm going to talk about the Buddha's awakened insight through the mind-only teachings of Vasubandhu, the 4th century Indian master in the form of his 30 well-crafted verses. which in turn have been forwarded to us by Zen teacher Ben Connolly and his excellent book called Inside Vasubandhu's Yogacara, which I know many of you have been reading. So for those of you who have been reading his book, you can see how the theories and practices of the mind-only school and that everything that Vasubandhu describes in the first half of the 30 verses, such as...

[08:03]

the eight consciousness model that I talked about yesterday, he then refutes in the second half. First, he teaches us to be intimately aware of our numerous afflictions or defilements as they are arising from our unconscious conditioning, our bag of loot, such as anger and hatred, envy and guile, lack of humility, sluggishness, laziness, carelessness. and all the many forms of rapacious desire. And then, in the second half of the teaching, he exposes us to the depth and completeness of our delusions, including those very afflictions that we have been so busy analyzing. Our bag of loot has been emptied of inherent existence. A thief has stolen everything from a thief. Verse 20. Whatever thing... is conceptualized by whatever conceptualizations, in other words, whatever you've got in your mind, is of an imaginary nature.

[09:08]

It does not exist. In that being so, the magician and his trick both suddenly vanish. You know, what loot? There must be a hole in the bag. You know, what bag? And so on to the very core of existence itself, which is pretty much Nothing at all. Setting aside the question of does it exist or doesn't it exist, the benefit of seeing into the workings of the mind that is conjuring a self and a world leads human beings, the conjurers, to a humility about it all, as well as, ironically, an empowerment. For example, in the light of concept only, one can come to realize that I know a lot about chemistry might better and more accurately be said as a lot about chemistry seems to be known. In the dropping off of I, me, and mine, Manas, the self-maker and self-lover, dissipates, just as Mara vanished when the Buddha knew who he truly was.

[10:21]

You are my self-deceiver. leaving this newly awakened one sitting happily alone in a lovely meadow in which he was by a river that was blue and looking at the flowers that were red, which is the time that he got up to go look for some friends. And what's left over once the self-maker drops off is and always was just a story, a conceptualized projection of our karma conditioning. We are children born of delusion through no fault of our own. There is no own. Once we realize that, we are no longer children. However, we mustn't stop there. Having once seen that all that we are and all we have done is a result of our karmic conditioning, karma meaning actions that are intended, we can now do our best to cultivate wholesome things intentional actions in every moment, beneficial seeds destined to sprout as beneficial projections.

[11:27]

An imagined future, just another story, and yet perhaps a bit nicer. So as His Holiness the Dalai Lama has said, my religion is kindness. So without the taint of kindness, there is nothing that we do here at the Zen Center that ought to be sold to anyone. or even given away. As Ben Connolly quotes from the Five Remembrances, I am the owner of my actions, my karma. I am the heir of my actions. Actions are the womb from which I have sprung. Actions are my relations. Actions are my protection. Whatever actions I do, good or bad, of these I shall become their heir. a committed meditator may eventually come to see the busy mind beginning to slow down, shamatha, and then through a close observation of the five universal factors, gain insight, vipassana, into just what's going on in here.

[12:34]

Those factors are sense contact, such as a sound, focused attention, I hear the sound, feelings, I like the sound, perceptions, Is it a bird? And volition, action, karma. Meaning, what are you going to do with that thing out there that you like or don't like or you're not sure about yet? What's been recommended for us by the Buddhas and ancestors is don't move. And while we are sitting there or standing there immobilized, allow ourselves to see how the loom and shuttle of creation, all on her own, with no help from us, is making a me, a bird, and a world, in which all of them fit perfectly together, without a gap, like box and cover joining. And this is true love. Not one, not two.

[13:37]

At least for that one luminous moment of perfect freedom. especially for the bird who has already flown away. And then without the slightest sound, the mind and mood will shift, one moment enraptured at the beauty of it all and in the next at the sadness of its passing away. Gotta go. Part of our conditioning on entering this Saha world, the world of endurance, is to feel annoyed when we don't get what we want. when things we love fly away, and when things we hate arrive. Annoyance, discontent, is what is blocking our view of the better half of our existence. That great mystery which cannot be had and cannot be known is unproduced, unconditioned, and at all times perfectly free. Not something that I or anybody ever truly wants.

[14:39]

in that there is nothing to want, only this, full and complete, just as it is, and hardly worth talking about. Or if you must say something, as Reb was fond of saying to all of us a few years back, thank you very much, I have no complaint. Really? I wondered. Bodhisattva precepts number six and seven. I vow not to slander, I vow not to praise myself at the expense of others. In other words, to simply take it or leave it. Until we clearly observe and recognize our trickster mind and how it works, it will not be possible to overturn our karmic conditioning that is grinding us down with dis-ease. According to both the First Turning and Third Turning teachings, The key to unlocking our minds from their self-made imprisonment is the seventh of the eightfold path.

[15:43]

Mindfulness. In particular, mindfulness of how you are feeling. Feeling, as I hope you recall, on the wheel of birth and death, the 12-fold chain is one short step away from desire, the primary cause of suffering. Noble truth number two. Vasubandhu is well-versed in the psychological precision of the early Buddhist approach to practicing with unwholesome karmic tendencies. The Four Noble Truths includes the cessation of suffering through the letting go of self. But it also includes how the projection of a self that is appearing right now when seen through a critical lens of ethical deportment and mindfulness is behaving itself. or not. The Eightfold Path. Yes, it's all an illusion, but at times a very sad illusion, how we behave, with the pain of that mostly back on us.

[16:49]

In the practices of the first half of the 30 verses, we are called on to know our anger, lust, envy, spite, and laziness. to know that they are ours alone and can't be cared for or transformed by anyone else, no matter how much they love us or how hard they try to force us to change. Just think of your parents. And what's more, to know that neither we nor anyone else can force our anger or our lust to stop. That would only recondition our old habits of hostility, control, and violence. We can, however, hear the arising of our afflictions as a call for compassion from our own aching hearts. You know, poor me again. In that way, the imagined self, just like the good wolf and the bad wolf, can be a useful tool in creating a healthier sense of who we are until that day that we are ready to let go of our clearly imaginary, and by the end perhaps,

[17:56]

More kindly, canine companions dropped body and mind. Body and mind dropped. From the 30 verses, manas, the self-maker, the lover, is not found in enlightenment, in the meditation of cessation, or on the bodhisattva path. And yet, ironically, in order for the karmic process of transforming the self to work, We need manas and the twofold grasping of self and other, at least for the time being. And as nice as it would be to skip some steps, to just forget about those afflictions and jump right over into enlightenment suddenly, it doesn't seem to work like that in a kind of once-and-for-all way. It's certainly not in the Yogacara teachings. What seem more like high mountain travel, We go up from the weeds to the summit and forever back down again.

[18:57]

We go up and down, up and down. This cycle of learning enlightenment and then returning back into the weeds to benefit others has its beginning in delusion, but it has no end. At least not until everyone in the entire universe has been saved. And so there is no need for us to rush. There's an old saying that everyone wants to talk about enlightenment, but nobody wants to talk about the sweating horses, you know, the trip up the hill. Although the slow work of transformation takes place in a flash, as does each and every step, there are many steps to be taken on what has been called the 10,000-mile-long iron road of continuous practice. Left foot, right foot. The same way they get up. to the top of Everest. So I'm wondering if all of you, for a moment, could once again conjure the model of the mind that I put up on the board in our last class, the one that I talked about yesterday, the Eightfold Consciousnesses.

[20:08]

So a quick review at the bottom is the Bag of Lute, the unconscious transmitter of our karmic conditioning, the Alaya, Eighth Consciousness. Above the dotted line is our conscious life, consisting of the six sense consciousnesses, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and number six, our awareness of those five things. And then hanging out all on its own, transmitting thoughts and preferences from our unconscious mind to our conscious mind is number seven, manas, the lover, the self-maker, the master of illusion. And to what does manas, the self-maker, cling? Manas clings to the content of the six senses, taking them for other. That sound is out there. That taste is in my mouth. That feeling is your fault. And that sight and that smell and so on is external to something I think of as me.

[21:12]

From the point of view of myself, all things are arriving from somewhere else. And therein lies the trick of how we split the sky in two. My hand, my friend. My house, my car, meaning not yours. So then whose is it? All that stuff. The loot being carried around or boxed up in storage. And who's going to pay the price for all of this stuff? Well, not me. Not me, I say. And yet, once again, we begin to accept, as we can intellectually, that there is nothing whatsoever outside of ourselves. We can begin to grow softer toward the feelings we experience of either liking or disliking whatever it is that we think is over there. In early Buddhism, as well as in the beginning steps of the mind-only teaching, Emphasis is placed on the realization that there may be suffering, but there is no one who suffers.

[22:15]

Therefore, simply avoid the causes of suffering, such as women or men or fast cars or money. The Mahayana, on the other hand, places emphasis on uprooting delusions themselves through the surgical efficacy of the emptiness teachings. No, no, no. wherein not only the sufferer is gone, but so too the suffering. As the Buddha says of such a perfect outcome in a perfect world, Seclusion is happiness for one contented, by whom the law is learned and who has seen. And friendliness toward the world is happiness, for one that is forbearing with live creatures. Disinterest in the world is happiness, for one that is surmounted sense-desires. but to be rid of the conceit I am. That is the greatest happiness of all. So freedom from the self-other split, from the conceit I am, takes place when the other is recognized as the contents of your own mind.

[23:25]

So I want to return just for a moment to this verse 20 of Vasubandhu's text. Whatever thing is conceptualized by whatever conceptualization, is of an imaginary nature. It does not exist. So as I hope you might recall from our last class, the two fingers drawing that was over on this side of me, on the wall, represents the three characteristics of all phenomena. Two fingers, three things. which the Yogacara tells us is the exact place where the mechanism of our misperceiving reality is taking place. So this is the hard drive of delusion making. The first finger is the imputational nature of phenomena made up of our projections and beliefs in the form of language. I call it a cat. You call it a ukulele. He calls it an orange. It's these imputations that act like lenses through which we view the fuzzy world of dependent core rising, which is the second finger.

[24:36]

Making it, the whole of it, look like something perfectly clear. That's what lenses do. That is a cat. And that is a ukulele. And for sure, that is an orange. Whereas what we are actually seeing is in fact this second characteristic of phenomena. It's other-dependent nature, the conscious experience of the present moment, wherein not a thing, a separate thing, can be found. The other-dependent nature is very fuzzy and unclear, and it makes us nervous. The other-dependent nature of phenomena is simply a miraculous appearance resulting from infinite causes and conditions, or as Mr. Einstein famously said, this universe doesn't actually exist. It's just that it's very persistent. The third characteristic of phenomena, two fingers, three characteristics, is called its completely realized or thoroughly established nature.

[25:43]

This is the big insight. And that being the realization that reality itself, the universe itself, is beyond all dualistic views. body and mind dropped off, dropped off body and mind. And yet, as it so cleverly says in the text, the third characteristic is not the imputational characteristic, it is not the other dependent characteristic, and it is not other than them either. Two fingers, three characteristics. It is not some third thing out there beyond it all. Just this is it. So here's a simple experiment on reality viewing that you can try for yourself either right now or later on today, as you wish. Just look at something close at hand, you know, like your hand, or like a leaf, or like the floor, and then keep on looking past this place where you get bored.

[26:52]

And that's the secret to this experiment. Some of you may know that three temptations sent by Mara in female form to coax the young prince off his seat were named craving, lechery, and boredom. Verse 20. Whatever thing is conceptualized by whatever conceptualization is of an imaginary nature, it does not exist. So back to the first characteristic. imputational nature of the object that you've chosen is whatever name you are giving to the object. So, for example, hand or floor or leaf. I don't know why I keep thinking of leaves. There's something about that. Anyway, so a leaf, for example, has many characteristics that we know and understand. It has color and shape as a name. It fell from a tree. and so on. It is itself distinct and appears to be separate from all other things.

[27:56]

That's its imputational nature. In terms of the mind-only teaching, it is the conceptual working of your unconscious conditioning taking place in the bag of loot that has constructed the leaf as a concept and then presented that to you as valid, as many of us will agree with that. Of course that's a leaf. Of course that's a Swede or a woman or a cat or a squirrel or an enemy. Duh. We agree. So the imputational character. The second characteristic, called the other-dependent nature of the leaf, on the other hand, is made up of all the invisible elements that the so-called leaf is dependent on in order to appear, such as rain, seeds, Soil, time, sunlight, trees, your perception, the universe, none of which can be seen in the leaf that you're holding in your hand, nor in the hand that's holding it.

[29:01]

Just where did that cute baby go off to? The third characteristic, the completely realized nature of the leaf, is beyond any conceptions whatsoever, and yet... excludes nothing including conceptions the vast inconceivable source can't be faced or turned away from it is like a mass of fire turning away and touching are both wrong so enlightenment is not somewhere else it's right here in your hand it is your hand it is the leaf and it is all of us all around you you know hey you Guishan asked Yangshan, if someone suddenly said, all sentient beings just have active consciousness, boundless and unclear, with no fundamental to rely on, how would you prove it in experience? Yangshan said, if a monk comes, I call to them, hey you.

[30:03]

If the monk turns their head, I say, is this not the immutable knowledge of all the Buddhas? I then ask the monk, what is it? What is your Buddha nature? If they hesitate, look to be at a loss and run away, I say, Is this not the fundamental affliction of ignorance? The verse in this case says, One call and she turns her head. Do you know the self or not? Vaguely like the moon through ivy, a crescent moon at that. The child of riches as soon as she falls. on the boundless road of destitution, has such sorrow. So this experience of truly seeing and believing what's right before your eyes is in Dogen's phrase, meaning ever intimate, an intimacy that plants a seed of presence for future ripening, for future experiencing of intimacy with all things, all thoughts, all sensations.

[31:11]

I alone am the world-honored one, the world-honoring one, as the baby Buddha once declared. Insight into the true nature of reality does not mean that things don't exist. It means that we cannot conceive of them. We cannot know them other than as concepts by naming them. All we know comes through the filter of our conscious conditioning. Here's a story that Suzuki Roshi told about himself. I know, I know, I found it, said the young boy who had set about finding a salamander that he and his classmates had been looking for out in the forest. We're not looking for you, Suzuki, said his teacher with a gentle scowl. We're looking for the salamander. So unfortunately, most humans are completely mesmerized and often driven by the imaginary nature of phenomena. Even if we come to realize that it's all just a story... Still, we must stay in relationship with the relative truth, which is both beyond grasping, ultimately true, and always right here and now within and as our relationships.

[32:23]

Otherwise, we would simply starve to death, being unable to recognize our food. Therefore, as we seek to taste the ultimate nature of ourselves and of reality, we need to watch for directional signposts along the way. A monk told Joshu, I have just entered the monastery, please teach me. Joshu asked, have you eaten your rice porridge? The monk replied, I have eaten. Joshu said, well then go wash your bowls. So the problem isn't in the relative truth being the relative truth, it's that we need to take it seriously, to know what it is and respect our human tendencies to get carried away and then break all the rules. such as thinking that the impulse to buy a new car or get a new partner or find ourselves unworthy of love is true. Knowing that these things are merely conceptualizations and unconsciously conditioned and therefore imaginary allows us the space and the possibility to relax inside the dream.

[33:30]

And even like little Suzuki's teacher, to faintly smile at what I'm sure was an adorable little boy. In the 8,000 line Prajnaparamita Sutra, a monk asks how a Bodhisattva responds to realizing that life is just a dream. And the answer is with compassion, the heart of perfect wisdom. Reminding me somehow of a saying that I saw on a bathroom wall on a trip through Mendocino a few years back. Zen is what happens after the lecture. Thank you very much.

[34:31]

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