I have vowed to taste the truth and not to tell it to others. Good morning. Today is the last day of summer, and tomorrow is the autumn equinox, which is the first day of autumn. And this is the time of year when there is an equal amount of light and dark. Actually, on the equinox they're in perfect balance for just probably a moment. And I always feel that kind of calm, settled feeling of being in balance at this time of

[01:06]

year. The high intensity of the summer has come to a close, and it's a good time of year to look at our own inner balance. And I think it's a good time of year to look at our own how our life is flowing. So I want to congratulate everyone for being here for the One Day Sitting. The word congratulate means to rejoice with, and it comes from the root to praise, to outwardly praise, to express praise with. So I rejoice with you in the fact that you've found it

[02:16]

possible to take this time today to sit, to arrange your lives in such a way that you can be here. And I know that takes a lot of effort and logistical work. So just the fact that you're here today, to me, shows you are making an effort to take care of yourself thoroughly and in a balanced way. I wanted to tell a story that I feel is an imbalanced story or a story about someone who is imbalanced. And this is a true story about Anne Aiken, who died actually just in the last couple of years, maybe two years ago. And she was

[03:21]

the wife and companion and helpmate of Aiken Roshi. And when Anne Aiken was visiting Green Gulch one year, and I think it was in the autumn, she was staying as a guest, and she asked someone, I think she was taking a walk in the garden, and she asked if it was all right to pick a bouquet, cut a bouquet of flowers. And the person she asked said, I have to ask the head gardener. And Anne said, oh, if this isn't something that everyone can do, then please don't ask for me. So I've always found that story to show someone who understands what it's like to be a person of no rank or not to set yourself above. I'm a special guest.

[04:27]

But just wanting to do what people do here, not to be set aside or above. Now, you could look at that story and say, oh, that's extreme self-effacement or anybody can get a bunch of flowers if they ask, but the delicacy or the subtlety of, oh, if this isn't something that everybody just does, and it's true, if everyone picked their own bouquet of flowers, the garden would be bare. So her appreciation of that and not wanting to be treated special. So, I find this very, it's interesting, when I tell the story and when I heard the story, I felt a kind of calm, in-balance feeling about how one might live in the world. Not putting

[05:34]

self forward and making sure that you get things for yourself. So, since we have the whole day to sit together, I wanted to talk about the five skandhas as a way of looking at how we think of ourselves, how we think of self, and bringing the five skandhas into view, and I'll talk about what they are, as a way of loosening this idea that we have of self, the kind of solid understanding we have of self. So the five skandhas, this morning we chanted the Heart Sutra in Japanese, so we didn't get to do it in English. In fact, maybe we could do it in English for the noon service

[06:36]

instead of that, okay. So the first line of our version of the Heart Sutra is, Avalokiteshvara, when practicing deeply the Prajnaparamita, perceived that all five skandhas in their own being are empty and was saved from all suffering. So, that's the first line, and it sounds really, wow, you know, someone can be saved from all suffering by perceiving that these, whatever these skandhas are, that they're empty, that, you know, okay, well, show me the way, you know. So that's what I want to look at, what are these five skandhas, and how can we today in our meditation, in our day of, our one-day sitting, practice with the five skandhas and try to bring them into view. So, the word skandha in Sanskrit means heap

[07:44]

or aggregate, and these five skandhas all make up what we perceive, what we perceive to be, what we tend to call a person or a self. And you can't have one skandha kind of by itself. Apart from the other four, they all support each other, interrelate or condition each other. They all come up together as five. You don't have separate skandhas kind of loose. They come up together as five. So, the Heart Sutra goes on to say what the five are, form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness. Those are the five. So, to bring them into view as a help for us to loosen our strong hold on, you know,

[08:53]

our self which will help us to be saved from all suffering and distress. This isn't academic, even though you might fall asleep while I'm talking or get bored. It's not sort of an academic exercise as much as a liberation, a way of liberation to bring these five skandhas into view. Because there's something about them that kind of clings and grasps. So, the first one, form, is the Sanskrit word for it is rupa. I'm watching people falling asleep, so kind of beginning to nod out. But anyway, I'm going to persist. I'm going to just continue on. So, the rupa, there's five sense organs, eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body,

[09:56]

and their objects, or the visibles, which go with eyes, the hearables, the smellables, the tasteables, and the touchables. And then there's an eleventh, which is called avijñapti rupa, which is like subtle material. These are all subtle material. Now, the rupa is the only one that's kind of in the material realm. The rest are in the mental realms. So, the eye, ear, nose, tongue, and body are called the organs, and they're subtle. They're like not the eye itself, not your eyeball, but it's the capacity to see, the faculty of seeing. But it's in the area of the eye. It's kind of located around here, but you can't actually find in a material way and kind of take hold of the rupa, the eye organ, in terms of rupa

[11:05]

It's the faculty of being able to see. It's the kind of miraculous faculty of seeing, or the eye, the ear, the hardwiring, is that how you'd say it, of our human way of existing, has this capacity. And so, along with the eye comes these visibles, they come up together, and along with the ear organ comes hearables, and with the nose comes smellables, and so forth. So, in the avijñapti rupa is subtle, it doesn't show up kind of right away. It's like over time, if you look at someone, you can see the traces of how they've lived their life. It's kind of a serial of effect. That's the avijñapti rupa. So, anyway, that's the rupa, that's the skanda of form. When we're talking about form, that's

[12:09]

what we're talking about, those eleven things. The next one is feeling, vedanā, and feeling is... Now, we think of feeling as like, you know, you feel something hard or softer, but in this system, in the skandas, the feeling, the vedanā, is a mental event. It's either pleasant, unpleasant, or neither pleasant or unpleasant. That's feeling. So it's not... This kind of feeling is in rupa, has to do with a touchable, hard, soft, rough, all has to do with material, and it comes under the form skanda of body and touchables, or tangibles. So the feeling skanda, which is its own skanda, and there's only three things in it, pleasant, unpleasant, and you don't know, kind of neutral, but it's really you don't know whether it's pleasant or unpleasant. How are we doing so far?

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The third skanda is samjna, S-A-M-J-N-A, which means together knowers, and it's perception, and the word perception, similar to the word occupy, it means to seize upon, and samjna seizes upon the characteristics of things and categorizes and calls it blue and yellow and long and short. That's where that happens in samjna. When you see blue light waves that we call blue and they hit your eye and you register, that's, in rupa, that's the eye and the visual, but you don't know blue, you wouldn't be able to call it blue in rupa. That happens in perception, in samjna. But the faculty of being able to be stimulated

[14:15]

by these light waves, supposed light waves, or by the visibles, happens in the form, and then you call it blue in perceptions. So that's form, feeling, perceptions, and then formations is samskara skanda, which means together makers. So there's samjna is together knowers, and samskara is together makers. So in this skanda there's almost, well, everything else except what's in form and feeling and perception, and the last one of consciousness. So there's a lot of, all sorts of emotional things come under samskara skanda. And then the last is consciousness or vijnana, which is, vi means to cut, and the consciousness is, it seizes the raw object. It doesn't seize on the characteristics of it, that's samjna, that's the perception,

[15:24]

but the consciousness seizes on the raw data. So altogether form, feeling, perception, impulses, or formations, used to call it impulses, formations in consciousness are the five skandas. And there's nothing kind of over and above that that's then called self. There's, like when you put those all together, there's not something kind of over and above that's acting and doing things outside of these five skandas, although we are under this impression, very deep-held belief. So what would it be like to bring the skandas into view today, or how would you practice with that? I wanted to look at Case 41 of the Shoyo Roku, just to kind of

[16:32]

look at a meditation instruction that points to the work with the skandas. And in Case 41 it's Lo Pu, about to die, it's kind of a complicated and long case, but I'll just kind of give you a brief synopsis of it. Lo Pu was a Zen master, and he was about to die, and he says to his assembly various things, which I won't get into, and then some of his disciples come forward and say things, and one of them is Yen Tsun, and he loves his teacher very much, and you can feel that he's trying to kind of understand, and the teacher is trying to break through to him. And so the teacher offers this, after they've had some conversation. Lo Pu says, you should experientially realize the saying of my late

[17:35]

teacher, and then this is the meditation instruction, before the eyes there are no things. That meaning, or that mind, is before the eyes. That is not something before the eyes, not in reach of the eyes and ears. So this is a meditation instruction that points to the bringing the five skandhas into view. So I wanted to try and look at this a little bit with you. So the first saying is that before the eyes there are no things. So when we look out, you're looking at me and you're seeing all these things, and I'm looking at you and I'm seeing all these things. So if we want to sort of let's bring up Rupa Skandha, let's try to bring that into view. So I'm looking this way and I see shapes, I see colors

[18:43]

and shapes, and a lot of actually squares, and kind of light, and outlines of bodies, and all of these things, these supposed things, I am processing and see them in my mind, and their meaning, like to see Manjushri there. Now if I was like a Martian and I was sitting here and didn't know anything about Manjushri or human beings even, I would look out and maybe it would be like brown blob, or maybe I wouldn't even see it, maybe I couldn't register brown, or the contrast of white and brown that I'm able to see from here. But unless we have, unless we pull together all these meanings, what we actually see out there is not things, but if you turn it around, you see your own mind, which is making meanings.

[19:50]

I mean, I see names of people I know. All of this exists, it doesn't exist out there, by itself, it exists, it takes me to my own apparatus to make heads or tails out of it. So that which is before the eyes, that mind or meaning is not before the eyes, it actually, the visibles, the only reason I see visibles is because I've processed it and called it long and short, and because maybe it's pleasant, I'll keep looking at it, if it's unpleasant, I'll turn away. So all of that goes on, does not go on sort of out there, it goes on, well

[20:51]

it doesn't go, it's actually neither out there or in here, it's actually one event that arises together. So to take something like rupa skanda, vedana skanda, feeling, you might do something like, especially with vedana, it's kind of easy one to start with, you have pleasant unpleasant and you don't know what it is. So let's say you have sensation in your knees hurt, in common parlance, your knees are killing you. So to practice with bringing the five skandas into view, instead of saying, my knees are killing me, you might try saying, there is a sensation, a strong sensation in the knee, which is unpleasant, or there is strong

[22:06]

unpleasant sensation due to touchable, due to a touchable in the knee. Now where is the I there exactly? There is a kind of neutral, kind of observing, actually looser way of thinking about it. And you can add to that, beware of hate, because what comes up often if there is unpleasant sensations is in the samskara skanda of hate and anger and all these emotions may come up along with unpleasant. So you might say, there is a strong sensation due to a tangible or a touchable, beware of hate. Now that is a very strong sensation

[23:07]

to me, has a kind of unlocking or unloosening feel to it about what's going on. Or maybe you hear some beautiful bird call like the owls or something and you kind of turn your attention to it and say, oh, I want to hear more of those. So you might try, you know, pleasant sensation due to a hearable beware of greed. This is a very strong sensation a practice of bringing the skandas into view, bringing these five rivers that flow through us more in view. Now I just wanted to mention that the two skandas which are at the root of all disputes, we just had this meeting about ethical, the principle of, the statement of ethical principles that's been written over the past four years for Zen Center and

[24:09]

it's interesting, I came upon this in my preparation for this talk, that the two skandas that are at the root of all disputes are the vedana, the sensation or feeling skanda, and samnya. So it's attachment to, the root cause of disputes are attachment to pleasant things and attachment to one's own opinions. And so, you know, if this is at the root of all disputes, and you might want to for yourself reflect on that or turn that, but the cause of war is and strife of all kind as well as kind of interpersonal has to do with attachment to pleasant feelings and then what comes up as you want to get more of those, and attachment to one's own

[25:12]

opinions or this aspect of samnya. You know, wouldn't it be marvelous, how marvelous to be able to unlock that tight connection one has with pleasurable feelings, give me more, you know, this is my opinion and I hold to it, rather than, you know, I'm looking this way and this is the meaning before my eyes and you're all looking this way and you have all those meanings, the kind of spaciousness around that and understanding that and giving each person their space, you know. I've used this example before, but when I was growing up I always thought of myself as tall and thin because in my family I was, besides my

[26:12]

dad, I was the tallest. My mother's 4'11", 4'10 now, and then my other sister was almost 5'0", and then my other sister was a little over 5'1", and I was almost 5'3". I was the tall one. And then we're all slightly chunky, you know, but I was the thin one. And I, that's how I am in the world, I'm tall and thin. Well, when I sort of went out into the world and sort of met tall and thin people, it was a big surprise, you know. Now Phu, those of you who know Phu, she was the shortest in her family. She's about, what, 5'9", or something. She always thought of herself as very short and squat. So there's Phu and there's me and we both have our own, you know, there is no long or short or thin or tall. Actually, it's all conditioned, it's all according to your circumstances, and it's constantly changing.

[27:20]

And if you hold to, I am tall and thin, you will find yourself in a dispute, you know. This opinion in the samnya, in the perception skanda, if you hold to that and cling, they're called the upadana skanda, because we cling to these and that causes suffering. So, you know, that particular example is, you know, one of a gazillion squared, you know, of examples of where in a situation we stand in our, we take a stance, we have an attitude, you know, attitude is like a position, and we hold, and somebody tries to say, how about looking over there, you know, it's all different, or looking over here, and we tend to hold, you know, tighter and tighter even. So, to bring the skandas into view, and the fact

[28:28]

that they, and this is what Avalokiteshvara perceived, that they are empty of inheritance and existence, they are not, they do not exist independently, they come up together, and the fact that Avalokiteshvara saw that all five skandas is empty and was saved from all suffering and distress is because the five skandas are our complete world. There is no nothing that we do or think or say that is somehow outside of the five skandas. So, if you can be liberated from the idea of the inherent existence of these five skandas and see their emptiness, you are liberated from the belief in the inherent existence of anything,

[29:31]

any, anything conceivable. So, it, what we call the world is only through our five skandas. There is nothing out there that is, that we can get at. That is not something before the eyes, not in reach of the ears and eyes. You can't get at the world in the way we kind of believe we can. You can't get it and have it and put it in your pocket. It's, all that is before our eyes is actually us, is actually our own mind. Well, just like I said, interpretation, how we process this flowing river of impermanent

[30:46]

ungraspableness that you don't, you can't even say anything about what that is. All you know is you can't get it. So, to be freed from this is to be free from all suffering and distress and all at once. So, before the eyes there are no things. And, you know, there's so much, Dung-Shan, who's To-Zan, we chant, he's in our lineage and started So-To-Zan, that's the To, So-To, To-Zan, once asked a monk, what is the, what is the most terrible thing that can be? And the monk said, to be in hell would be the most terrible thing. And Dung-Shan, To-Zan said, no, the most terrible thing is to wear these

[31:50]

threads or to wear the robe and to not understand the Buddha Dharma. So, there's this pain of, which I feel and I can feel in the room, of like, you know that song, Knock, Knock, Knocking on Heaven's Door? It's like that, it's like, Knock, Knock, Knocking on Heaven's Door. Like, okay, it's right before me, the meaning is before my eyes, but I don't get it, you know? And what is it that I don't get? I don't get that I'm trying to grasp after something and I have to let go of that. And Lo Pu is trying to help his disciple there and to try and show his disciple that he and his disciple are not to, you know, the Knock,

[32:52]

Knock, Knocking on Heaven's Door, you're already in heaven, what's this knocking all about? And the pain of not understanding that is, you know, it's excruciating, I know. So the Buddhas appear in the world for only one reason, the Ichi, Dai, Ji, Inen, the one great cause, and that is to help beings to open to the Buddha's teaching, to show beings what the Buddha's teaching is, so beings will understand the Buddha's teaching and enter the Buddha's way. That's the only reason that Buddhas appear in the world. They don't appear, you know, to kind of be big shots or to get all these wonderful offerings like, you know,

[33:53]

incense and rice that people give. They appear for these four reasons. This is in the Lotus Sutra, to open, to demonstrate or show, to understand and to enter, for beings to open, be shown, understand and enter the Buddha's way. That's why, that's the great cause of why Buddhas appear in the world. So the Buddha has all these teachings and it's for you, you know, it's for us, these teachings are for us to show us, to demonstrate so we can understand and enter. And this teaching about the five skandhas, that the five skandhas are empty of inherent existence, emptiness means that they are totally interdependent and we are totally interdependent. We're not our own separate little being who has to look out for number one, you know. And we have to take care of ourselves thoroughly, to be able

[35:00]

to show, demonstrate, understand and have other people enter. So I just offer this as something that you might, you know, it says, he says to Yen Tsun, saying experientially, he wanted his disciple to experientially understand, before the eyes there is, there are no things. That meaning or mind is before the eyes. How do you experience that? And so I just, if you want to, within some period of Zazen, if you want to, you can, or walking, to experiment with bringing into view, you know, hearables, visibles,

[36:02]

to call something a visible, you know, and to see shape. Visibles have shape and color and some schools say there is no shape separate from color, there's just color, different colors and they take shapes, but you can't separate out a shape from the color. So to look at things as shape, color and hearables and to watch how you hear something and first there's sound and then so fast it's bird and that's samnya. The hearable, the ear organ doesn't know bird or car or samnya knows that and it's instantaneous. So to drop into that and then if you hear a car screeching or something, ooh, I don't like it, you know, samskaraskanda, some kind of emotional cluster or something that's around that hearable and then the

[37:06]

consciousness of it all, that your consciousness, you're conscious of all that. So, I hope we have a lovely last day of summer and please, with your own posture, find your balance and take your time, every period of zazen to sway from side to side and to be until you find your balance. Take a long time, or as much time I should say, as much time as you need to find your balance and then readjust if it's not quite in balance, really find your balance, the autumnal balance. The word autumn means full maturity at the brink of decline, kind of like that, you know, that kind of full maturity and calm and right,

[38:13]

you know, right soon there's going to be decline. So this is our last day of summer, our autumnal equinox sitting of balance and calm. Okay, thank you very much.

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