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. Good afternoon. Can you hear me in the back? As you may know, some of us are having a study week these days on the theme of Buddha nature. So we'll have a class today and tomorrow looking into this teaching of Buddha nature. I was thinking today we could have a kind of overview of the historical process that led up to this teaching of Buddha nature and the

[01:03]

that kind of evolution of Buddhist teachings culminating in Buddha nature and practices that go along with these teachings. And tomorrow, look at the Zen take on Buddha nature. So today may be more like the Indian version. It's a topic I've been... studying and contemplating recently and really enjoying. It's like the good news of Buddha Dharma. It's very positive teaching. It's basically the potential that all sentient beings have to become complete Buddha, complete manifestation of Buddhahood. So as we go along, I'll just present for a while and we'll have time for questions, but if there's some term or something that doesn't make sense, raise your hand at any time.

[02:14]

I also find it challenging in these kind of situations to talk about Dharma teachings because there's people who've been studying this kind of thing for years and years and maybe have heard a lot of these things again and again, how to keep it fresh, and then there's people who've maybe heard almost nothing about Buddha's teachings. So this is the challenge. So if you feel like you've heard some of this again and again, the great thing about Dharma is you can't hear it too much. And even if you feel like, I know that, well, you can ask yourself, are you actually practicing it completely? And if not, maybe write it this very time. it's possible to do so. And if it feels like it goes way beyond and you don't understand what's going on at all then you can just let the words sink into your mind stream. The words discussing Buddha nature can kind of touch your Buddha nature and that's kind of the process of how Buddha nature is part of the process of how it's revealed.

[03:28]

is through contemplating words. So there was Shakyamuni Buddha, our great original teacher in India in the 5th century BC. And sometimes it's said that the Buddha taught the Dharma in three turnings of the Dharma wheel. This is a nice kind of approach to look at Buddha's teachings in terms of these three turnings of the Dharma Wheel. So the first is, in the deer park at Isipatthana near Varanasi, the Buddha set in motion the Wheel of Dharma. This is the first turning of the Dharma Wheel. And the Buddha's first teaching is called, Setting in Motion the Wheel of Dharma, in which he briefly and one page of teaching taught the Four Noble Truths.

[04:34]

Does anyone know the Four Noble Truths? Wow. So, first Noble Truth is, or you know, actually, Noble Truth is the become the generic English translation, but maybe more accurate to say the the truths realized by the Noble Ones. The Noble Ones being those who have realized liberation through understanding the Four Noble Truths. So the truths or realities realized by the Noble Ones. So the first is suffering or discontent. Not being satisfied with what's happening, which is a quality of all conditioned experience.

[05:38]

It's not quite satisfactory. It's a little bit off or a lot off. And then there's the origin of this discontent that's, we could say, grasping, holding to a a self abiding in this body and mind, or as this body and mind, that there's something more than just this ever-changing body and mind. There's some independent self. This is an illusion, but this belief that we, Buddha says, we all hold on some very deep level, even if we understand conceptually this teaching. Well, there isn't really such a thing. Still we seem to constantly act as if there is me that has to be defended and protected and maintained and so on. So quite challenging to see through this origin of discontent, this grasping.

[06:47]

And then there's the third truth of the cessation of discontent. There is There is the end. It's possible. And the cessation is defined as the cessation of this grasping. And then there's the path leading to the cessation. That's the fourth truth. The Noble Eightfold Path. So understanding how all this works and acting in accord with it. That's the summary of the Eightfold Path. And this is all in the first turning of the Dharma wheel. Also there's a big emphasis on impermanence. The Buddha taught impermanence over and over. Everything is arising and ceasing. All conditioned things arising and ceasing every moment. Body and mind arising and ceasing every moment. Which is partly why there's no abiding independent self.

[07:50]

No self is more subtle than just mere impermanence, but it's in accord with impermanence, the teaching of no independent self. So contemplating impermanence is a practice, a first turning practice. And these turnings, by the way, are not like from kind of worse to better. or like the third turning is better or something, they're equally Buddha's teaching. Buddha only taught teaching to liberate beings from suffering, so it's a completely valid and very valuable teaching. And some people might even say it's not even so helpful to practice or contemplate deeply the second and third turnings without really getting into the first turning and practicing with this and understanding this.

[08:53]

And they can all work together. They were kind of taught chronologically, but we'll hear about them all today. And it's not like you have to do one and then the other. They were taught historically, looks like, you know, according to scholars and so on, researching how Buddhist sutras evolved. Looks like they were taught in this order, first, second, third, historically, but also we have in our Buddha Dharma tradition, we say that the Buddha actually taught them chronologically during his life in his way. And again, not so much that he realized them in this order, because he was the Buddha, he realized everything from the beginning, but he was waiting for conditions to ripen to present these different turnings of his Dharma. So anyway, the first is really emphasizing impermanence. Everything's passing. And because of this, for a practitioner, time is, I would say, maybe the most valuable asset to a Dharma practitioner.

[10:09]

Time is like the greatest gift we have. You could even say it's like all we have to work with. We're just, boom, we're born onto this earth. We're going to die at some point. And in between what we have is time. It's actually, you know, from these later turnings you'll see that we don't really have time. Time is actually an illusion. It's not something that we really have, but it seems very much like we do. And from the perspective of conventional truth where time appears and we live in a world of time, that's what we have to work with. And so we can watch it pass and die and realize that we didn't use it so well to practice and realize Buddha's way. Every moment is totally precious. So this in itself is a great contemplation. So hard, I find, actually. So easy to waste time. Again, we can't really waste time, but it's like...

[11:15]

distraction or turning away from what's most vital is, with its potential for Buddhahood, this Buddha nature, we have to, you know, to not, to not release the obscurations to that is so sad. And I say this to myself, too, because I constantly and pulled into the obscurations to Buddha nature. And also in this first turning, if impermanence is one of the main teachings, one of the main practices the Buddha emphasized was renunciation. So it's a heavy-duty word, but we could also just say letting go. And partly it's related to impermanence, because when we see everything is impermanent, then we don't have time to hold on and suffer.

[12:20]

Remember, grasping is suffering, so letting go, renunciation of grasping is a practice of liberation. So for those who live here at Tassajara, you know about this, just following the daily schedule is a form of renunciation. And you might feel like It's not so much renunciation. We should have more. Or it's a lot and we should have less. But those very thoughts of wishing for more or less are something to renounce. So like the summer might look like there's less renunciation than the winter at Tassahara. But one form of renunciation is to just go along with the renunciation practice that's offered at any given time. It's kind of hard to do that. We often want a little bit more, a little less. And for those just visiting on this retreat, it might seem like a lot to not have choice over what you're going to eat or when you're going to do whatever.

[13:28]

And there's just all these signals for the next event. And you just do the next event. So just going along with the program is definitely a kind of letting go, as you probably know. Uh, we could say resistance to just going along with the next appropriate thing is grasping. I think it's in the kind of monastery schedule and practice. It's like that's a form of our grasping comes up often in terms of resistance to what's being asked or a certain way of doing something or the schedule itself or... Why do I have to bow so much or whatever? The other side of grasping would be like kind of holding on. Sometimes we can do that. I think more often it's the resistance side. But sometimes we get really into like, this is so cool going along with this schedule and like, don't make me not do it.

[14:32]

Don't tell me to do something else. And we kind of grasp the schedule. So just going along with the... the assembly and the community is a kind of letting go. And it might not seem like much but I think to really keep doing that and noticing all the kind of resistance and grasping in gross or subtle forms is a huge endless lifetime practice on the first turning of the Dharma wheel. And many stories about this, so I hesitate to tell this story because I think many people have heard it, but Hakuin and the baby. How many people have not heard this story? Oh, good, okay. I guess I've heard it a bunch, but again, it's always fresh.

[15:34]

I don't know whether this happened or not, but it's a great story about renunciation. first-turning story, even though it's about a Zen teacher, Hakuin. So Hakuin was living in his village, and one day this unwed girl in the village got pregnant, and she didn't want to get her boyfriend in trouble, so she said, well, Hakuin's this really nice priest, and no one will get mad at him, so I'll tell everybody in the town that he's the father. So that's what she did. And everyone got totally upset with Hakuin. How dare you? How could you? And so the baby was born. And they said, look, you're the father. You take care of this baby. And you're a horrible disgrace to the community. We never want to hear from you again. Hakuin just said, oh, is that so? That was his renunciate response.

[16:40]

Is that so? He didn't defend himself whatsoever. And he actually, according to the story, he took the baby and raised it in his little temple. And then, meanwhile, the girl got more and more ashamed of, you know, Hakuei. Everyone used to like him, but now everyone totally blamed him. So she couldn't stand the guilt anymore. So she finally confessed and said, Hakuin really wasn't the father. I'm so sorry. I lied about this. And the people were amazed. And they went back to Hakuin and they said, we can't believe that you didn't even defend yourself. You are like the most amazing practitioner. You are the greatest of all. We just praise you. Please be our teacher forever. And Hakuin said, oh, is that so? So... renunciation, not being concerned, maybe if not being concerned at all is too strong, at least not being overly concerned with, in this example, praise and blame, or gain and loss, or fame and disgrace.

[17:59]

He had a great reputation and he lost it. And just even basically like pleasure and pain, All day long these things are happening, but not being overly concerned with them. When we see where we're getting totally involved in gain or loss, we just notice it and humbly recognize that we're trapped by our belief in gain and loss and let go. Not because we should let go, but because that's freedom. It takes a while to kind of like practice it enough to realize that we want to let go. Even when we feel like, I can't or I don't want to. At some point we know we do want to, even though our habits are strong, so it's very hard. So that's a kind of overview of the first turning of the Dharma wheel. Taught in the deer park to the Buddha's five old friends.

[19:06]

Then the second turning of the Dharma Wheel taught on Vulture Peak in Rajagriha to a great assembly of bodhisattvas and monks and celestial beings and people of all types. And it's the Prajna Paramita, the perfection of wisdom. Sutras, like we chant in the morning, the Heart of Great Perfect Wisdom Sutra. It's a teaching of emptiness. So, more vast and subtle than just impermanence, and even more subtle and vast than no independent self of a person. All dharmas are marked by emptiness. And emptiness and also emphasis on great compassion.

[20:13]

So this is the Bodhisattva vehicle. The second turning is Buddha's promoting the Bodhisattva path of great compassion, great love and kindness for all beings, united with emptiness. These two kind of go together. As the Heart Sutra says, Avalokiteshvara, the the Bodhisattva of great, perfect, infinite compassion, clearly saw that, say, all five aggregates, body, mind, body and mind and all experience and the whole world, really, five aggregates, are marked or are empty. She saw that all, everything, the whole world of body and mind experience is empty and thus relieved all suffering. It's not so clear there whether she relieved her suffering or relieved the suffering of all beings, and it's wonderfully ambiguous.

[21:17]

From the perspective of this bodhisattva of great compassion, that's how she relieves the suffering of all beings, that's how her compassion manifests, is seeing everything as empty, seeing all sentient beings as empty, herself and everyone and everything. So emptiness is a big topic, but for now, just say it's the freedom from all fixed reference points, from all conceptual thinking. we're constantly thinking in terms of reference points, like time is a reference point, like there's yesterday and tomorrow and now are all reference points, even now.

[22:22]

You know, right, left, up and down, forward, backward, sideways. These are like directional reference points, but also like me, you, you know, chairs, floors, ceiling, walls, you know, atoms that make things up, colors, sounds, shapes, all those things that the heart sutra lists are reference points. They're a way that we find our place in the world of experience. So emptiness is emptiness of any fixed reference points. Those things are not actually fixed things. They're all in relation to us. And they're actually created by conceptual mind. I would even go so far as to say even things like colors and sounds and these really direct experiences are still in a very subtle way.

[23:30]

They don't exist out there on their own apart from conceptual mind. They're dependent on conceptuality and Everything is dependent on our conceptualizing it. And therefore, because it's dependent on us, it doesn't exist independently. Nothing can exist independently. Therefore, it's empty of independent existence. If you've never heard that before, it might sound like a strange thing or difficult to understand. And if you have heard, well, everything is interdependent, so it's empty, I think it's quite important to actually emphasize that particularly what things are dependent on is our conceptuality. Because meditating on just contemplating how everything is interdependent with everything else is true, and it's a wonderful teaching, but it's not...

[24:42]

so radical that it can cut through the fixation on fixed reference points. Whereas if we see everything is dependent on our conceptuality, there's something quite a bit more radical about that. And that we're actually creating all this stuff of our experience. And in emptiness, there isn't all this stuff. As the Heartseater says, in emptiness, there's no... form, no feeling, no perception, no formation, no consciousness. It's talking about psychological phenomena, but also physical things. There's no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch. Those things don't exist apart from our conceptual construction of them and setting them up as fixed reference points. So, vast emptiness. There's, you know, in the second turning of the Dharma Wheel, there's nothing exists in any fixed way.

[25:50]

Even the first turning, right, is the Four Noble Truths. As the Heart Sutra says, there's no suffering, no origination, it's the second truth, no cessation, no path, So there aren't any Four Noble Truths in the second turning. You could say the second turning actually refutes the first turning. Buddha taught both. So again, he taught different people at different times. So one way this is talked about is the first turning was kind of a provisional teaching. Again, provisional doesn't mean like it's not accurate or good, but we need provisional teachings. But provisional as opposed to like a definitive teaching definitive or ultimate kind of teaching that the ultimate truth is that there are no Four Noble Truths. So if emptiness is one of the main teachings, qualities, definitions even of the second turning,

[27:11]

And also compassion is one of the great practices. And again, these can go together, just like renunciation and impermanence. You could say compassion and emptiness. We can have compassion for others when we're not so caught up in fixating on our own reference points. And particularly, like, other beings are actually reference points for us. We see other beings as fixed reference points, which they're actually not. They're completely free of our ideas about them. And when we start fixating on our idea of them, sometimes that blocks our compassion towards them, right? So our ideas about lots of things block our compassion and create suffering. So a story that I think of

[28:12]

that has both of these elements that happened to me once here at Tassajara some time ago. I was assigned a summer job of working in the office, which, you know, when they start assigning jobs in the summer, it's a good time to practice renunciation. And, you know, you're just given a job. Sometimes they might ask for preferences, but often it's like, well, you do this, and if you stay long enough, at some point, you'll be asked to do something that you would not prefer, if not right away. And even if you're here for a few days, you might be asked such a thing. What a great practice opportunity. So... Looking back, when I think of all the different jobs I did at Tasa Hara, working in the office was actually a really nice one.

[29:14]

The office is like the coolest place in the summer. It's almost like it's air conditioned in there. And it was a great job. But when I first started, I think first starting any new thing, like maybe the three turnings of the Dharma wheel, it can sound overwhelming and like too much. a pain. So first working in the office, there was all this, like a lot of the jobs at Tassar are just, you know, like manual work, very simple, straightforward, which I always really liked that. I'm a very, like, I'm very into conceptual thinking. You might be able to tell from this kind of talk. So I always liked jobs where I can just, you know, turn the compost or wash the dishes or garden or whatever. So in the office I had to like understand all this stuff about how the cash register works and actually now it's all computerized.

[30:16]

At that time I didn't even have a computer. But so complicated and I felt like it was so distracting. It was filling up my mind with all this useless unnecessary conceptual garbage. And so And my teacher came down and in Doka-san I went to complain. I don't recommend this as a use of form for Doka-san, complaining, although it is a common one sometimes. But I went and said, just working in the office is ruining my Zazen. It's just, you know, just... I'm having to think constantly. And even after I'm done, I'm constantly thinking about numbers and data and stuff I have to do in there. And it's total distraction from my practice.

[31:16]

And it's just, it's a real problem. And how should I get out of it? Can I get out of it? And he was kind of like seeming to be kind of sympathetic. Like, oh, yeah, that sounds really bad. Yeah, I can see how that would totally destroy your zazen. Wow, that's too bad. And then kind of at the end, after I finished this long litany of complaint, he was like, well, that's really good that you're working there so that nobody else has to do that. It was the greatest teaching for me. Because I couldn't, what could I say, right? Oh, I'm trying to practice this Bodhisattva path of compassion. And, you know, giving myself to all beings. Somebody's got to work in the office, right? So that was an example of learning about and then I think trying to open to compassion.

[32:24]

I would do it for... for all beings who work in the office, or at least for the beings who don't have to work there. And also, emptiness teachings, of course, can apply there, just even in a superficial level. I mean, fully realizing emptiness is one thing, but even just to realize that, like, this is completely my idea. And, of course, later it changes. Everything is impermanent, so by the, you know, a few weeks later, I think I probably really enjoyed being in the office. So... anytime we're having difficulty, it actually means, I mean according to the second turning, as I understand it, from this perspective it's like we are holding some fixed reference point. From the first turning we could say we're suffering just means we're holding an independent self that we want to be a different one or something. And that's part of the second turning, too.

[33:27]

But the second turning is we're actually holding a fixed idea about the office and about what zazen and good zazen is and about what's valuable or not and all these ideas. And there is conventional truth. We have bodhisattva precepts and so on. don't kill people. So there are, you know, conventional truths like this that are good to practice in accord with. And then, even though ultimately these are, we can't find beings that are killed, for example. But these two truths always work together. If we're like, if it seems like we're falling into one side or the other, like, there really aren't any beings, so I will now proceed to kill these appearing beings. We've lost the whole point, in fact, and we've lost the unity of these two truths, which is another major teaching of the second turning.

[34:35]

So now there's, um, later in the Buddha's life, he is a third turning of the Dharma Wheel in various places like Sri Lanka. The Buddha descended into Sri Lanka, which is in Sanskrit, Lanka Avatara. He descent into Sri Lanka and taught the Lankavatara Sutra. And in Kushanagara taught the Mahaparinirvana Sutra of the Mahayana. and the Srimaladevi Sutra, where Acharya Srimaladevi was an expounder of the third turning, you can read her sutra, and in various vast celestial palaces and so on, like where the Buddha taught the Sandhi Nirmocana Sutra, the third turning of the Dharma Wheel, even more profound and

[35:42]

sometimes said to be actually the definitive teaching. There's some debate about whether the second turning is definitive or the third turning or both. But the third was his final teaching. And as the second turning is expounded in full by Nagarjuna and the middle way, intricate logic of unfindability through reasoning. The third is associated with this movement of Yogacara and Chittimatra or mind only. But it actually goes beyond that too. It's a teaching of Buddha nature. Buddha nature or Tathagadagarbha is another synonym. Garbha means like can mean like womb, but also like heart, I think is in this case more accurate meaning, like the core or hiss or heart of the Tathagata.

[36:57]

The Tathagata is another name for Buddha. So like the Buddha heart is like the same as Buddha nature. So how can you go beyond the second turning of of emptiness and without refuting it and starting to set up something that's not empty. You can't really. And yet, emptiness could be seen to be kind of limited, especially if we look at emptiness as just a mere negation Like the Heart Sutra just says all these things that don't exist. Just that there isn't any other stuff. Well then, what is there? You could say the third turning kind of answers that. What is there? We can say actually there is the heart of the Tathagata, Buddha nature.

[38:02]

And it is completely empty of any fixed characteristics, any fixed reference points. It has no, it's completely free of all conceptual thinking and yet it's not nothing because it is clearly aware. The Heart Sutra doesn't say there's none of this stuff and yet the Buddha's awareness shines clearly. This is where the third turn comes in and says everything is empty And yet at the heart of a Buddha, there is this Buddha nature that is the same mind as a Buddha, basically. The same awareness, the same completely non-dual, non-obstructed, non-fixated, non-grasping, empty, and yet clear, bright,

[39:09]

luminous, aware, manifest Buddha mind. It's like, we could even say it's the mind that realizes emptiness directly. Or the wisdom of Buddha that... in a direct, non-conceptually mediated way, is completely one with this undefined ability of emptiness. And, so that's part of it, is that it's not just emptiness, but the unity of clarity in emptiness, or awareness in emptiness. And Buddha nature also has these Buddha qualities, of like infinite compassion.

[40:11]

So it's not just like this functionless awareness. It's like a Buddha is not just like in the Mahayana the Buddha is not just someone who is clearly aware and awake. It's like they're infinitely compassionate and they have infinite skillful means to awaken all sentient beings to their Buddha nature. Therefore becoming Buddha. Compassion, vast, boundless compassion, not the way that we can even imagine compassion, because it's not compassion for sentient beings that we see as reference points, but without seeing sentient beings as reference points, it's the compassion that that inconceivably liberates them in this vast space of empty awareness and many, many other Buddha qualities and skillful means to be able to do this compassionate work in limitless ways, in vast world systems simultaneously.

[41:31]

You know, depending on how cosmic you like to get these kind of teachings, it can get pretty cosmic in the sense of inconceivably vast beneficence and freedom. So way beyond, you know, the personal end of suffering. You know, that's way before the realization of Buddhahood. The bodhisattvas, like, completely unconcerned with their you know, themselves. And then there's this, uh, progression, you could say, of becoming, um, complete, uh, Buddha. And, um, one of the important things about Buddha nature is that, and why it's important, I think, to say that it's not like a seed. Sometimes it's talked about, like, the target of Garba is like a seed of Buddha. Buddha nature is like a seed that gradually sprouts into a fully realized Buddha.

[42:34]

But that kind of implies that Buddha nature kind of is not fully here and it kind of grows gradually and becomes fully something else. But it's not like that. Buddha nature is completely perfected and fully complete from the beginning. now say, in all sentient beings. This is an interesting part too. What's the relationship between Buddha nature and sentient beings? So often it's said that all sentient beings have Buddha nature. There are such statements like in the Mahaparin Yirvana Sutra, this is said, and the Lakavatara Sutra also, and many sutras and commentaries. But what does this mean? A sentient being is like us.

[43:36]

We're these living beings. And part of the amazing thing here is that not just humans, but animals, like dogs, and ants, and in the six realms of Buddha Dharma, hungry ghosts, hell beings, heavenly beings, all sentient beings possess or have Buddha nature. is the original teaching. But this can make it seem like we have some kind of Tathagata heart inside us or something that gradually grows into a Buddha. But that's not quite right either. Because Buddha nature is unconditioned. Part of it is that, just like emptiness, it's unconditioned. Unconditioned means it doesn't come about through conditions. So if it was like this little sea that has to like sprout into a full Buddha, that would be a conditioned thing. It would depend on the conditions that make it grow, right?

[44:41]

But it doesn't grow. It's already fully grown at the birth of every sentient being. So then why aren't we fully realized Buddhas? It's because of obscurations that block this block the vision and realization of this Buddha nature. So it's not like we... The great news here is that we don't have to create Buddha nature. It's already created. It's uncreated. It doesn't need to be created. But it's fully present right here now in the mind stream of all being. But how do we access it? How does it get revealed? It's not about doing anything to it. Nothing can be done to it, actually. It's just about removing the obscurations that block it. And obscurations are like, going back to the second term, these fixed reference points.

[45:48]

In a way, it's the main obscuration to realizing it. Fixed reference points could also be called beliefs or views. I think this is actually a table. And we can, you know, do some, like, logical deconstruction to prove that it's not a table. And I think this is very valuable to do this. Because we can, through our conceptual mind, we can actually, this is particularly like teachings of, like, Nagarjuna. You can learn how to deconstruct a table. And not, you know, your rational, conceptual mind can get to a point where you can't find a table. And it's very disconcerting to the conceptual mind. But that's not enough. That's just, it's very, very helpful. Because otherwise, this can sound really abstract. What do you mean there's no table? Like the Heart Sutra can sound really like, well, we just have to take it on face or something. Like, well, there's no eyes, no ears, because the Buddha said so.

[46:51]

That's the great thing about logical analysis is you can kind of like prove to the conceptual mind that there's no table. And then, um, then you can open to, uh, through that kind of training the conceptual mind, then the non-conceptual mind can, uh, gets more and more, um, loosened up and ready to realize this directly or non-conceptually that there's no table. Yes? Could you deconstruct the table? Well, I don't want to get too into the second turning, since there's a third turning thing. But we kind of talked about it already. The basic thing is that the table is constructed dependent on this mind's conceptual imputation, you know, which has to do also with words and language.

[47:58]

Like I, you know, to me this is a table. It's not just like, you know, I might also call it like, you know, a red colored square thing. And we can deconstruct that too. But I immediately see it as a table. And I actually do think it's a table without doing any analysis kind of pre-analytically. I just come into the room and immediately assume it's a table. And someone might say some... Zen person might say, is it really a table? And we say, well, no, I know it's not really. But actually, I immediately do see it as a table. And I really, like, I think it is. Don't you? Don't you? I mean, look at it. And feel it. Look at it, feel it. I'm not going to taste it, but hear it. All our senses confirm that it's something that seems like a table. But then you can start to see, well, actually, Isn't that a word that's being imputed to a collection of parts, for example?

[49:04]

Like, we put some legs together with a top surface and, you know, a board and some legs and a red cloth on top. And then, dependent on those parts, I have an immediate conceptual imputation that it's a table. So you can see, like, oh, if we started taking the legs off, And you just have the top. Actually, I wouldn't call it that. If I came into the room and just saw the tablecloth, even the top of the table without the legs on the floor, I don't think I'd have that immediate take that, oh, it's a table. So therefore, the table is dependent on its parts, like the legs and the top. And when you put all these things in combination, it's kind of arbitrary, though. You put these combination of things together, and the mind immediately, like... Dependent on those parts, the mind, like, comes up with, effortlessly, comes up with this. I mean, we needed some language. But babies can do this even without language.

[50:07]

It's proposed. They can at least see things as objects before they have language. So anyway, we're saying that in a third turning, the obscuration to Buddha nature is... fixed reference points like table, table-ness. It's like conventionally there's a table, but I think saying table, I think there's actually table-ness in it. When I first look at it, I'm like, it's not just a collection of parts. I first look at it, it's like, no, it's not just a mere collection of parts appearing as a table. It's actually a table. That's what I mean by fixed reference points. And even though I can deconstruct it, next time I come in the room, I'll still think of the table. So over and over again, we have to keep seeing how our thinking doesn't hold up. It's totally unreliable. It's totally, it's wacky. And yet we all do this. And it's how our world works.

[51:08]

So we shouldn't stop doing it, except maybe in Zazen. Because we need to make the tables and serve the food and do all this stuff in the conventional world to help beings in the conventional world. But at the same time that we're doing that stuff, there's a potential to see that we're not really doing that stuff. All of it's completely made up by the mind. So these blockages, these obscurations to Buddha nature are like thinking that all this stuff really exists. So it's also the blockage to realizing emptiness, the same thing really, because emptiness and Buddha nature are very close. Buddha nature is emptiness. It's just that it also It's not, to use a kind of big word, it's not just a non-implicative negation. Non-implicative negation is like the Heart Sutra.

[52:09]

It just negates everything, but it doesn't imply that there's anything else. So just a mere non-implicative negation means you just empty everything out, but it doesn't imply that there's anything left. That's kind of the second turning. But Buddha nature is not just a mere non-implicative negation. It's like it is emptiness with vast qualities of Buddha and clear awareness. Clear awareness is not non-implicative negation, right? Actually, we're clearly aware right now. And so this is where Zen gets some really beautiful stuff based on this Buddha nature teaching, like saying that you hear the sound of the bird or something, and that's your Buddha mind right now. This goes way beyond what the sutras say. But it's also a little tricky. We have to be careful with those kind of teachings because while there's also a conceptual, even a very, very subtle conceptual,

[53:14]

consciousness that can hear the bird singing. So Buddha nature that hears the bird is like far beyond any concepts of even sound, not to mention the bird. And it's like all of it is just light. Was there a question back? Yeah, this is good to remember. This is all a conceptual construction. Yes. Unconditioned in what? Yes, right. Yeah. Yeah. It's not dependent on anything.

[54:14]

Yeah. Yes. [...] Thank you for that. That's a great question. The question is, if this Buddha nature is unconditioned and not dependent on anything, how can it respond to beings, like the koan says, like the moon reflected in the water, the Dharmakaya response, which we could say in this case is talking about Buddha nature, responding to beings.

[55:17]

And in a way that it points it out, like the moon reflected in the water. So another image for how... Also, so we still have this question about the relationship between a sentient being and a Buddha, and we also have the relationship between Buddha nature and Buddha. These would be good to clarify. We could say a Buddha is one whose Buddha nature is completely unobscured, and a sentient being is one whose Buddha nature is obscured. But the Buddha nature is equal. an ascension being and a Buddha. That's the amazing thing here, according to his teaching. And so how does a Buddha's Buddha nature like respond to ascension beings? It's because they share this equal Buddha nature. And so one image is like, like you have a, and for musicians, maybe someone can clarify this because I'm not sure exactly how it works, but if you tune to like two guitar strings,

[56:27]

to the same pitch, and you pluck one, does another start resonating with it? Does it have to be tuned the same, though? Or is it just any two guitar strings? Tuned to the same pitch? I guess a tuning fork maybe does that too. But anyway, if you have two strings tuned to the same pitch, and you pluck one, the other starts resonating. So if you say one string is Buddha, with Buddha nature and the other string is like wrapped up in cloth for example it's obscured by these like delusions that things really exist for example it's wrapped up in cloth you pluck this one and the other one even though it's wrapped in cloth it's so I think you could try this experiment with a guitar I think it would you know starts vibrating just a little bit not as fully as the other one but it would still there's a little vibration even through the cloth And they're not touching, right?

[57:29]

And yet, that's the way Buddha-nature... So Buddha-nature is resonating with Buddha-nature. Yeah, Buddha-nature is resonating with Buddha-nature. And Buddha-nature, the Buddha-nature, the Buddha-nature is like the whole universe is vibrating with that. And we're all these kind of individual strings wrapped in cloth. And sometimes... we feel the vibration from Buddha. So we can talk about, well, how do we feel that? And then it's a matter of gradually, you know, unwrapping the cloth. And so in Zen, we have this term Kano Doko. Maybe you've heard this, that Dogen talks about. That's like, sometimes translated as like, mystical communion between Buddhas and sentient beings. And he says that's how Bodhicitta is born.

[58:36]

The selfless altruistic wish for complete Buddhahood in an unhindered way is like born in this Kano Doko, in this out of mystical communion. It's not very literal, but it's kind of nice flavor to it, between Buddhas and sentient beings. So Buddha's not like some mystical being out in the sky who's vibrating. It's like Buddha nature is vast emptiness, and in terms of a Buddha, like the clear awareness of a Buddha that's completely unhindered, so resonating with the whole universe. So I think this thing like strings vibrating is how it can meet us. Buddha nature meets us. Also, we... It's taught that sentient beings have in our... One way to look at it is in our regular old mind stream right now, we have these pure seeds of...

[59:48]

This is for reference, if you're interested, the teacher Asanga, the founder of Yogacara tradition, taught that this storehouse consciousness is basically full of all our habitual tendencies for fixed reference points, also has It's not so clear whether they're actually in it or alongside it or what. But there's these seeds that are like wisdom seeds. Basically, it's a way of talking about Buddha nature. We have this wisdom all the time. And they're activated. These seeds are activated by, according to a sangha, hearing dharma teachings. So it's like if you're someone who comes to Tassajara because you're like interested in Dharma and practice and realization, you could say whether you know it or not, that's like your Buddha nature seeds are like contacting wisdom through your

[61:11]

through your, um, intentions to practice. And, um, but traditionally it's put like there, it comes through hearing dharma teaching. We need to hear how, about reality or else, because we're, it's so subtle and we're so obscured. So hearing or, you know, reading or, um, I think it's not limited to, to these conceptual things either through practicing also. But we hear Buddha's wisdom. So Suzuki Roshi has a saying, it is, I think something like, it's Buddha's, it's wisdom which is seeking wisdom, I think he says, it's wisdom which is seeking wisdom. I think it's the same principle. It's like, we have this wisdom we don't even know we have. It's like Buddha nature, and Buddha nature is seeking to fulfill itself. I have to be careful. It's not fulfilling itself, right? Because it's already fulfilled. It's seeking to remove the obscurations to itself.

[62:15]

Now, another interesting way that some people put this is that, you know, instead of saying that sentient beings possess Buddha nature, is that sentient beings are the obscurations to Buddha nature. That's kind of radical, and we might feel offended by that. Because you might feel like, I myself am the obscuration. In other words, the sentient being has to be removed to realize Buddha nature. So that's harder to swallow than all sentient beings have Buddha nature. That's nice to swallow. I have Buddha nature. But today I would say that I understand Buddha. All sentient beings have Buddha nature. The Buddha did teach that. I would understand that. It's kind of a provisional teaching, actually. And the more definitive teaching is that sentient beings actually don't have Buddha nature. And sentient beings don't even come in contact with Buddha nature because Buddha nature is unconditioned.

[63:26]

It doesn't come in contact with anything. And yet, we must remember, it's fully present right here now. And yet the sentient being, it's like there's two, it's like we have a split personality. We have a Buddha, a Buddha stream traveling alongside a sentient being stream. And technically speaking, as I understand that, they don't really make contact. Because if you said they make contact or like a sentient being has the Buddha nature or something like that, then the Buddha nature is... not unconditioned. So it's sometimes also said that essentially being manifest Buddha-nature. Because we can only experience Buddha-nature through this vehicle. So the question was, sometimes it said essentially being manifest Buddha-nature.

[64:30]

I don't know if, you know, we might want to look and see if it actually says that ascension being manifested, or does it say Buddha nature is manifest? Like Dogen Zenji, for example, talks a lot about manifestation, but I don't know if he ever says directly that ascension being manifested. He might. Tomorrow we'll get into Dogen's take on Buddha nature, which is quite something. But another way to look at it is... Also we might say, well, the Buddha nature is like this heart. It's empty. It's an empty heart. We might feel like metaphorically, all these things are just constructed ideas, but metaphors are what we have to work with. So we might think it's like this empty spaciousness inside us that we all possess or have. But again, I think more accurately, it's more like Buddha nature is... limitless, boundless, all-pervading. It has no physical boundaries whatsoever.

[65:31]

It's definitely not contained in a body in any physical way. So it's like Buddha nature is like the vast sky and we as sentient beings are like clouds in the sky. And the Buddhahood is like the clouds just evaporate completely. The sentient beings just evaporate and there's just a And in fact, vast clear sky is a common metaphor for Buddha nature. Like Tassajara demonstrates it very well because there's very rarely clouds here in the summer. You look up, it's just like equal blue in every direction. I mean, it has its boundaries of the horizon, but Buddha nature is like the sky... completely clear, boundless, and unobstructed, uh, and unobscured by anything. And then sentient beings are these little clouds. And the clouds, of course, don't, um, obstruct the sky.

[66:34]

Right? So, um, yes? I really started feeling comfortable with this direction when you went sentient beings and you posed this dualism. I mean, I don't understand any teaching with Hakuans that, you know, you can't have ice without water. I don't know if you can't possibly conceive. Are you conceiving of a Buddha nature that doesn't, that is independent of human beings? Well, maybe we have to define sentient being. Maybe that would be, you know, what do we mean by sentient beings? sentient beings, because that's a great example you bring up. Hakuin says sentient beings and Buddhas are like ice and water. So they have the same nature. So we could say that I think that is a beautiful metaphor. So they're the same nature, ice and water, right?

[67:35]

But yet from our point of view we actually do say This is called ice and this is called water. They have the same nature, but they take different forms. So we could say for the ice to manifest as water, actually the ice, we could say the ice has to be removed. We usually don't say the ice is an obscuration to water, but for water to manifest as flowing water, the ice actually has to be removed. So even though it's the same nature, I don't know who teaches this. It's a kind of unusual version of Buddha nature actually. Where does it come from? This particular teaching that the sentient being is the obscuration is the eighth Karmapa in the Tibetan tradition. It's unique, it's very well respected in that tradition and it's known that it's very unique.

[68:41]

many people in that tradition actually say, like, it's too wacky. We can't go with it, but some people say... I just think it can fall so easily into, you know, I mean, it just seems on the face of a dualistic teaching, and then it falls into all kinds of, you know, extreme practices. You want to remove a sentient being. Well, oh, well, I think we have to understand, well, what would be removing a sentient being? I think we... Offhand, I would say, how would I define a sentient being is the eight, how about saying, according to Yogacara, I think a sentient being would be defined as eight consciousnesses. Would you go with that? That is a sentient being. Or five skandhas. Okay. Five skandhas. I think most schools of Buddhism would agree that a Buddha actually doesn't have five skandhas. Bodhisattvas, you know, to a certain point do.

[69:44]

We're talking here about, and this is the Indian traditional sense of a Buddha, that actually, like the 12-fold chain completely ceases. So everything on it ceases. Five skandhas are there. They cease. So what that means, for you and me, this brings up big questions. What does that look like then? And what about Shakyamuni Buddha, right? He's the Buddha of our time. It looked like, according, especially to the first turning sutras, which is a look-through, maybe in here, they describe him like an ordinary person. Totally, maybe not totally ordinary, but he walked, he had a body, and maybe it was 16 feet and golden, but he walked around on the earth, and he ate food and slept, and took naps, and sat cross-legged in meditation. So, isn't that five skandhas, we might say? But I think even in the first turning teachings, I think technically when they start defining a Buddha, they say actually it's not five skandhas anymore.

[70:50]

From our perspective, people looking at the Buddha, we see five skandhas, but actually it's not really there. So it's maybe just an exploration of what we mean by sentient being, which I would say is another one of these fixed reference points. That's why it's an obscuration to be removed. Ascension being is, our idea of ascension being is even to say, well, it's not a self, it's just five skandhas, but even that is an idea. Light. Yes, so light is a, yeah. Yeah, so we can't say, it's not physical, light in the sense that we think of light. Light's a metaphor. I would not take light literally, in this case, when they say, luminosity as a quality. It's not like physical luminosity, I would say. Because then you'll have problems. It's inconceivable. It's inconceivable and yet there's these metaphors that point towards something very, very vast.

[71:57]

Another image about the Also, picking up on the sky and clouds thing. I don't know if this is mixing metaphors, if this is okay to say. Again, the sky is vast, spacious clarity, and the clouds are obscuring it, which is often our experience in the fog. We don't even think that there's a sun out there. We kind of can imagine that there is. But we really don't experience it where it's completely obscured. But then there's like a tiny little hole sometimes in the cloud, right? And you can see this blue, unhindered space. You just see a tiny little hole of it. And as a metaphor, I think it's kind of nice because that hole that you see, this could be like in Zazen or something. It's just a pinhole in the obscurations in which you're clearly aware and you're not... grasping any conceptual thinking for a moment.

[73:01]

And you're totally at peace. And if, you know, for that moment, if you could assess whether your heart was boundlessly open to compassion, you might be able to even say yes for that moment, you know, because it all goes together. And yet that little hole in the cloud is the same vast sky that you see. That's the, I think, great thing is that you can have these glimpses of Buddha nature. that are not like a lesser realization than the Buddha. It's just that they're just like, for a split second, it's not going to be like unhindered compassion for infinity throughout the universe. So we need to, you know, eventually, the process would be removing these clouds. And extreme practices is a good point, because we might think, well, let's go out and remove them then. How are we going to remove the obscurations of these clouds, um, this is our practice, right? This is, we could say, zazen and, um, precepts and particularly this bodhisattva path of six paramitas.

[74:07]

Over and over again, even when they present total Buddhahood, what is the path? It basically comes down to these six paramitas, which I think many people know, giving, continuously giving and, um, ethical conduct and patience, infinite patience, diligence, total devotion to deepening the practice, meditative concentration, and then, of course, the maybe most important in a way is this wisdom that cuts through fixed reference points, kind of united with all the rest. And when you say, well, do we need anything else besides those? In a way, I think that's the beauty is that's the removal machine. the obscuration removal machine, the ice melter, it's really, according to the Indian tradition, all you need is these six perfections. They're kind of simple practices, but they need, you know, for Buddha, they need to be completely thoroughly realized.

[75:15]

Yes? you know, you're at this little drop of water, and you think you're just a little drop of water. Nirvana, the waterfall. Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure if he was ever really, he never used the term Buddha nature, but it seems similar. Yeah. Like, I think he talked about, like, you're just... Before you're born, you're like flowing in the river. And then birth is like over the edge, this drop. And then it merges with the water again. And he talks about how it looks so sad and just kind of horrendous, this huge waterfall. And it's so quick, that drop. I mean, going back to impermanence of this life is like, yeah, the top to the bottom of a waterfall. And then that's it. Now we could say we also have this teaching of rebirth, so, you know, we might say if we go with that, then it's like there's another waterfall right below, and then there's another drop, like up at the triple waterfall, by the Tassajara waterfall, it's like one above the other.

[76:33]

But isn't the idea that the dropwater is delighted to be reunited with? Yeah, so, how would we say that's like... That's saying like at death we're reunited with the whole. It's interesting, this is a whole big topic that I don't know if you want to get into, but it looks like Japanese Buddhism has this dual understanding of what happens at death because the classical Buddhist teaching is rebirth either instantly or at the very most 49 days after death. um, there's that stream of, um, mind moments, uh, carrying dispositions, particularly carrying the disposition, um, to grasp fixed reference points, so we're born with that one, um, is, you know, manifested in a new body. And Dogen, in the Zen tradition, I'll support that view.

[77:37]

Dogen talks about rebirth in quite a few places. And yet there's also this teaching of, like, in our memorial services, sometimes we talk as if this person is, like, merged with the source. And it's kind of like mixing two different teachings, it seems to me. Now, it could be that we mean that for a moment... Well, there is also the teaching of no more rebirth. Maybe that's what it's saying, that this person... has practiced the bodhisattva path over innumerable lifetimes, and has realized complete Buddhahood at the moment of death. Maybe that is what it's pointing to. He talks about how the water, the drop, thinks it's kind of diluted into thinking that it's not essentially the same as all the other waters. Yeah, yeah. He says it's something like water is water. It's not just a little drop. Yeah. So... There's this duality.

[78:37]

Yeah, we think there's duality. About sentient beings. Yeah, yeah. We could see that image as not about birth and death so much, but as like the sentient beings, like the separate waterfall. And then there's the realization of Buddha nature while still alive. Be nice, right? Still alive. And then flowing in the non-dual stream. Yeah, it seemed like that's what he was getting at. Although I think somebody had just died that he was, as I recall in the book, yeah. Yes? When you deconstructed the table... Did you see it disappear? I deconstruct myself also. Me and the table are both results of previous causes and conditions. I sometimes conceptually have a hard time seeing the difference between sentient and innocent beings or things.

[79:46]

I'm afraid that, that said, if you don't know what a sentient being is, you don't know what a Buddha is, you have a hard time staying between right and wrong. Because... because you're not distinguishing being sentient and insentient? Yeah, all things being equal. All things being a result of the same conditions. So the right and wrong part might be like, well, life is just a construction, so it doesn't really matter. We might start losing respect for life. Is that what you mean? Right. Determinists of the past oftentimes fails to see. to recognize it. Yeah, well just in emptiness. If emptiness becomes nihilistic and it's just pure negation then that can undermine ethics for sure. So that's why the thing about the two truths always have to be united.

[80:52]

Two truths being the ultimate truth that there really isn't a table is the ultimate truth. But then the conventional truth that a table does appear we actually call a conventional truth is actually just mere appearance, but we have to be very careful not to negate the mere appearance. We live in a world of mere appearance, and bodhisattvas live in that world too. That's where they help the appearing beings, is in a world of mere appearance. So as Nagarjuna says, without being fully grounded in the conventional truth, the ultimate truth can't be realized. So we have to have that. And then he also says, without realizing the ultimate truth, liberation cannot be achieved. So we need both. And when we start getting really into deconstruction mode, we might start overlooking the conventional truth. And so that's where it is often said, it's like, if you see like it starts to undermine ethics and kindness towards others, like they don't matter because they're just empty, they don't really exist, then we know we've gone too far, we've lost one of the two truths.

[81:57]

The two truths are both truths and they're united. That would seem to be an argument against the Eighth Karmapa. Oh, how so? They're always united. I see vision as very abstract. That the sentient being is removed doesn't include the... Maybe we could see that as the ultimate truth is that the sentient being is removed. That's an ultimate teaching about Buddha nature. Buddha-made nature is said to be unconditional, so if you want to fit that in there, that's fine. I think I would see it that way, though, is that the obscurations being removed is being like there are no more sentient beings. That's like the heart scripture also would say, there are no sentient beings, right? So it's on that level. sentient beings are removed, but I think we could say, and it might be nice to look back and see if that teaching would say that conventionally speaking, there is the manifestation of a body and mind, for example.

[83:13]

Like we have a Nirmanakaya Buddha. Nirmanakaya Buddha is the manifestation body of the Buddha. It's not just a Dharmakaya formless space, Buddha can manifest actually, even according to the tradition, not just as like a supreme nirmanakaya Buddha, but the Buddha can manifest as all kinds of forms, simultaneous even, including sentient beings. Buddha can manifest as sentient beings in order to help people. So that's another, maybe that makes you feel more comfortable. I think when I heard that teaching about the Eighth Karmapa, we said that it was a very unusual way to put it, and it's not a common way because it can feel very offensive, like the sentient being must be removed.

[84:16]

Well, I think we have to just look at what a sentient being is. Is it okay to say obscurations must be removed? I think if we get too non-dual, which then sometimes is prone to, we could say, well, we don't have to remove anything because this is already it. So we have to be really careful of these kind of teachings. And Dogen sometimes talks this way. And I think by carefully, maybe it's so... But we have to, you know, what does that mean? Like, the obscuration is grasping and fixation. So it may be that, like, even to say, like, how about just being able to, like, use this table and see it as a table, but know that ultimately it's not a table. Is that like removing the obscuration?

[85:20]

That would be kind of a non-duo thing. It's like we're still, there is no table, and yet, there is actually a table yeah yeah and if I think this is um actually is uh that's legitimate Dharma but don't you just have to be you know real the depth of realizing that it's not a table has to be like to the very bottom right we can't just say like I've heard is or Nagarajan approved to me it's not a table right We have to understand, and not even just conceptually, but know in our marrow of our bones that it's not a table. And then go ahead and use the table. Or know that it's ice. Or know that it's water, and then put the ice in that cup. Kaz says something about donning the other night. He said it was free of logical thinking. So I think that's something to keep in mind as well. you know, logic is kind of a hindrance.

[86:25]

I think we get into these discussions and it's like pretty esoteric, philosophical, you know, discurses. I mean, that's a hindrance as well. At some point, for complete Buddhahood, it goes beyond all logic. But as Senjin beings, the way I would see it is like, We actually are using logic, basically, almost 24 hours a day. Even in dreams, I would say. We're using, like, very, we might not call it logic, but, like, constructing tables is kind of like, we're, I would say, in a way that our mind is, like, doing something based on, like, ideas. It's kind of, it's a faulty logic, we could say. So we're constantly, well, I'm not really thinking about anything, but we're actually, we see, like, trees and buildings and stuff. I would almost propose that's like a faulty logical mind is like constructing a world without any effort whatsoever.

[87:27]

And so using like more flawless logic, as far as logic goes, to undo our actually normal way of seeing things, which is like a totally radical aspect of Buddhadharma, I think. It's saying that everything we ever thought is basically diluted. Maybe like a tiny, once in a while I see this tiny pinhole in the cloud. But basically all day long it's like an obscuration. But then we can actually understand how it's not really the way, things are not the way we think they are. But then we can keep thinking. Well, ordinary mind is another, I would say, a synonym for Buddha nature. Yeah. In both Tibetans and traditions, they use the term ordinary mind. It's a time. So, if this created more obscurations, then I apologize.

[88:35]

And maybe some, even though it's a difficult and confusing topic, especially if you haven't heard about any of this stuff, Something like, you know, just to keep the image of the vast sky and the clouds is something to just open to. And if you have any questions, you know, or want to talk about this more afterwards, before next class, I'm happy to do so, too. Thank you for your attention. We dedicate any merit arising from this discussion to the complete removal of all obscurations that block unhindered, clear awareness of Buddha nature, the gift that we all share. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[89:36]

Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[89:58]

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