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 morning. Thank you all very much for coming out in this rainy November. The rain is really almost our first good solid rain that we've had and it feels wonderful hearing the sounds and the mixture of sounds, bells and raindrops and all the sounds of the valley. I wanted to talk today about the importance of hearing and the importance of listening, hearing the teachings, hearing the Dharma, listening to the Dharma, as well as listening to each other and really hearing each other.

[01:28]

In the Buddha's time, the disciples of the Buddha... were called in Sanskrit shravaka, and that translates as hearers or word hearers. So the shravakas were the disciples who were actually alive at the time of Shakyamuni Buddha and heard his teaching directly. They were called word hearers or shravakas. And perhaps the foremost, you could say the foremost of the hearers was the Buddha's disciple, Ananda. Ananda was with the Buddha for many, many years, 25 years. He was his attendant and he was at every Dharma talk, every teaching that the Buddha gave. Ananda was present and listening, hearing.

[02:34]

He was the maha or great shravaka, the great hearer. And he also remembered what the Buddha taught. So as many of you know, the sutras, the suptas, or the teachings of the Buddha that were eventually written down traditionally start out with the phrase, thus have I heard. Thus have I heard. And that's Ananda who was there and heard the Buddha speak saying, this is what I heard. And then he proceeds to say what the Buddha said. He describes the place and who was there and how the Buddha taught. Thus have I heard. And this formula, thus have I heard. became the formula for all sutras, even those that were generated from enlightened beings after Shakyamuni Buddha died.

[03:44]

So this phrase, thus have I heard, kind of is a seal or a stamp of authenticity, that this is what the Buddha taught. So the shravakas, or the word hearers, we can all practice this way now. We don't have to have lived at the time of the Buddha to hear the Buddha's teaching, to hear the Dharma, to hear the Buddha Dharma or the awakened truth because it has been passed on from person to person through 2,500 plus years and was passed orally and then was written down. And then there's all the ancestors, all the succession of enlightened beings who continue to evolve the Dharma and to offer unique and fresh ways of teaching the Buddha Dharma.

[04:56]

So we can all continue to be Shravakas to be word hearers, to listen to this day, now. There's a set of three, what are called three wisdoms, which are offered as a way to engage with the Buddhadharma and to expose oneself to the Buddhadharma and to have it permeate one's body-mind. And these are called the three prajna, or three wisdoms. And they are, the first one is śrutta maya prajna. śrutta comes from the same root.

[05:57]

as the word shravaka means to hear, shru means to hear. So shrutta is, shrutta mai prajna is the wisdom, the prajna that comes through hearing, that comes through listening and hearing and also reading. So we can't over and over again expose ourselves to the Buddha Dharma through listening to Dharma talks, going to hear. someone speak, listening nowadays, as you know, the access to Dharma talks that were given decades ago, you know, Suzuki Hiroshi's talks are online, audio Dharma, and people all over the world, you know, can avail themselves of these teachings and actually hear these voices through the digital means. So this is called Shrutta Mayaprasana and it's the teaching and the knowledge and the wisdom that comes in through the ears and also the learning that comes through the eyes and ears through those sense organs.

[07:11]

Shrutta Mayaprasana. And this hearing and listening to the Dharma is really, we start there. We start with the hearing, exposing ourselves through hearing and reading. The second prashna is called Chintamaya prashna, and this is also a knowledge or a wisdom, and it comes from the word chinta means to reflect on. So after we've heard the Dharma, it's not enough just to hear it, and as we know, We often forget pretty quickly. Actually, we walk out of here at tea and someone says, I missed the talk, what they talk about, and I have no idea. Or maybe someone remembers a little something, maybe a story, because we're geared, I think we're hardwired to remember narratives so we can remember stories. I'll tell you a story later.

[08:13]

But it's hard to remember that we're touched by the teaching It resonates with us, and yet it takes... We can't just hear it once. We need to turn the teaching over in our own minds, reflect on it, think about it, actually. And at this point, we don't need any more hearing. We don't need any more input. We've received the input, and that can be... set aside for a time. Now it's time to reflect and turn and ask and maybe bring it to another person at some point that we don't quite understand or that we're unclear about, we have some confusion about. So in Chintamaya Prashna, this second Prashna or wisdom, we have a chance to deepen our understanding by

[09:19]

asking, turning, reflecting, thinking. And out of that may come some original thoughts, something fresh, something that's come together for us in a kind of insight through bringing together our own experience, our own practice with the teaching that we've heard. So first we listen and hear śruta maya prasna, then we reflect and turn, think about it, write about it maybe, journal or write notes, this kind of activity. And then the third prajna is called bhavana maya prajna. Bhavana means to become or usually become through meditation, to make the teaching. own in the body so it means maybe to let go of the reflecting and turning and intellectual work and just sit just sit with the teaching as it reverberates throughout our body mind and live it out through our body through our body mind because we are not separate from the teaching and

[10:47]

how we exist, the reality of how we exist is one more instance of the teaching. Who we are is not separate, some kind of side event, but we are actually the teaching, the Dharma teaching made in a body form, psychophysical form. So we sit with the teaching We sit with this work that we've done and the Dharma then becomes us. It becomes no different from the way we think about things or the way we speak about things or act. So all the actions of body, speech, and mind become Dharma actions when the Dharma pervades the body-mind. We need this third part, the bhavana maya prashna, to have it enter thoroughly ourselves.

[11:54]

So srutta maya prasna, cinta maya prasna, bhavana maya prasna, and these three, it's important that we're able to distinguish when we're speaking, when we're talking with one another, where we're coming from. Someone may speak and sound as if they've actually experienced something when actually really they've heard about it and read about it and have been thinking about it, but that isn't actually their experience yet. So it's very important to be clear when we are speaking, when we're talking about the Dharma, to be clear of our own experience, not to be fuzzy about this. And in the Buddha's time, there were admonitions for, you know, the disciples to not say something about themselves that wasn't true, some accomplishment or understanding that wasn't true for them.

[13:13]

So this is something to be aware of. So the filling our ears and eyes and exposing ourselves over and over and over to the teaching is of great benefit. It's transforming. It's transforming for us. It's transforming for all those who live with us and speak with us. For all our actions of body, speech, and mind are... integrating and becoming the teaching is transformative for ourselves and all beings. So the enlightened, awakened nature, we talk about it in three different ways.

[14:13]

One is when we speak about the Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, who... awoke in this life and decided upon request to teach. You know, it's an interesting part of the Buddha's enlightenment story that after he woke up, he didn't right away say, oh, I'm going to go out and teach and gather students and disciples. And actually, there was some time where he thought, I can't actually express this. This is inconceivable. I can't put this into words in order to teach others. And not only that, all beings without exception, their nature is already awakened. And this is what he saw. And he almost didn't teach, but there was a request, a strong request saying,

[15:16]

No, there's people who are ready. They have a hair's breadth away from understanding. Please, please teach. And so he decided to teach. So these teachings that we have are the Buddha's, Shakyamuni Buddha, the awakened one, the world-honored one, his efforts to... meet whoever he was speaking with, whatever the audience was, whatever their understanding was, to offer a teaching that they could hear, that they could accept. Not everybody could accept the teaching. There's stories in the sutras of the Buddha teaching, and a big group of people, 500 people, were there. The Buddha was about to teach and they decided, you know, I'm not so interested in this.

[16:21]

I've got some other things I want to do. I'll see you all later. And they all left. 500. This is from the Lotus Sutra. So not everybody was ready to hear the Buddha's teaching or wanted to or gave themselves that opportunity. But there was this to bring the teaching, bring what he had experienced and understood, bring it into language, bring it into words, into sentences and words and stories and parables so that people could hear this and turn their lives around. So the dharma... The teaching is not, it doesn't only come in word packages, in word narratives and sentences.

[17:27]

The Dharma is not confined to words. However, human beings, sentient beings, respond very well to words. And this is an entry point, a gate, a great gate for people to hear the words. But the teaching, the reality body, so we have Shakyamuni Buddha who's called, there's a teaching of the three bodies of Buddha, the three bodies of the awakened one. So one of these types of bodies is called nirmanakaya or transformation body. or emanation body, and that's human beings who come into this world like Shakyamuni Buddha and all the other teachers and ancestors who come into this world in order to teach using language and gesture and actions of awakened kindness and compassion to help beings and to teach beings.

[18:40]

So this is... called Nirmanakaya Buddha, or transformation body, and it is born and dies, this awakened body. So this transformation body is coming from what's called the Dharmakaya, or the truth body, or the reality body of the Buddha. And this body is, it doesn't, you... It's kind of an inconceivable body, the dharmakaya that pervades space and time. It's the awakened nature of all things. The awakened nature of reality is called dharmakaya. Kaya is body and truth body or dharmakaya is this reality or truth body. So there's a koan about the reality body of the Buddha.

[19:43]

It's in a collection of koans called The Book of Serenity, 100 Teaching Stories. And this is case number 52. And in this case, we have two teachers who are talking. We have Sao Shan and and Master De are talking. And Saushan says, the reality body of the Buddha or the Dharmakaya is like space. It manifests form in response to beings. like the moon reflected in the water. And it manifests form in response to beings, meaning beings who are suffering, beings who need help, beings who are longing for awakening and the truth, longing to hear the truth.

[21:04]

So the Dharmakaya, this reality body of the Buddha, which is like space, inconceivable, ungraspable, manifests form. It takes form. It takes a shape. It takes the form of a teacher, of Shakyamuni Buddha, let's say, in response to beings. Dharmakaya, reality body, manifests form in response to beings, like the moon reflected in the water. The moon often is used as... symbolic of awakening or enlightenment. Shining down, the moon reflects on everything. Everything reflects back the moon. This responding to beings. And then he asks, how do you explain this? How do you explain the principle of this response?

[22:06]

That it manifests... in response, how do you explain the principle of this? And Master De said, it's like a pulley looking at a well. So I want to mention that just recently one of the scholars of Buddhism has found that what's in all the books actually was a mis- writing of the kanji for this particular, in this story, what was written for hundreds, thousands of years was a donkey. It's like a donkey looking in a well. A donkey. Which is kind of a wonderful image of a donkey kind of looking down in a well. But I tell you, it has stumped many a being for hundreds of Hundreds of years.

[23:08]

Anyway, it turns out that this same character is very similar to what was actually the character for this story, which was a pulley. So if you picture the kind of apparatus of a bucket over a well with a pulley and a hook and a whole thing, that's over the well. So he said it's like a pulley looking at a well. And Saoshan said, well, that's pretty good, but it's only 80%. So his friend says, well, what do you say? And Saushan says, it's like the well looking at the pulley. This is case 52, about the Dharmakaya taking form in response to beings. Being like... If you picture the whole thing, if you can imagine, I always imagine like a wishing well that's kind of this wonderful well with a little roof and the bucket and you have this functioning pulley that has action involved with it and that draws water from the well and brings water up for thirsty beings and it's a functional thing.

[24:29]

And then you've got this deep, well, maybe even a fathomlessly deep well of the Dharmakaya with life-giving water of reality, of truth that's ready for the taking. But we have to practice. We have to lower our pulley and our bucket. We have to pull it up. But the two are completely... Together, the two, what is a well with no bucket or pulley? It's just going to become, it can't be used. Who will draw from that well and, what's the word, slate their thirst? And drink deep of the teachings that we are so thirsty for. So we need the whole

[25:31]

The whole thing inter is, pulley and attached to bucket and water, and one looks down at the other, ready to draw, and the other waits, you know, until the request comes to give. This interaction and inquiry and response is the nature of our... our life together, our life of practice. But it is incumbent upon us. We need to draw the water, not just hang over the well and rust, you know. So the Dharmakaya is like space. It manifests form in response to beings because beings need these teachings of the truth of wisdom and compassion we long for them and need for need them and ask for them and inquire about them and request these teachings so this is this is the Dharmakaya and how we when we talk about the Dharmakaya has no we often say in some of our ceremonies the Dharmakaya has no coming or going no increase or decrease

[27:03]

Just like space, you know, it's coming, going, increasing. Those words don't really apply. And it's the same with the reality body of the Buddha, the awakened truth body. It has no coming or going. The nirmanakaya is born and dies, and the dharmakaya, neither. It's unborn and undying. is inconceivable in that way. And yet we can relate to it and there is relationship by virtue of our request, by virtue of our suffering. The Dharmakaya responds and it takes form. And the form it takes is in the form of words and teachings and practices. These are the kinds of forms that it takes. There's also a third body, a third body of the Buddha, and this is a body called the Sambhogakaya.

[28:22]

The Sambhogakaya, and that translates as, kaya is body, Sambhogakaya is sometimes translated as joyous, joyful body, or bliss body, or reward body, these different names for sambhogakaya. And someone might say, well, what? I don't understand what that is exactly, or what that's talking about. But one way in which the sambhogakaya is manifested, actually, and you can experience this yourself, this isn't reserved for stories in sutras or something. Sambhogakaya, the joyful body, the kind of bliss body one can experience when one is practicing and studying the Dharma, especially together with others. There is a joy that arises upon studying the teachings, studying the reality body of the Buddha in the form of words.

[29:32]

Sometimes you can read in the sutras where the Buddha is teaching, Shaktamuni Buddha is teaching, and he has, you know, he's surrounded by disciples and bodhisattvas, and he teaches, and it goes on all through the night, you know, and the The Dharma, it's said, is delightful in the beginning, delightful in the middle, delightful in the end. And this has happened sometimes for me and maybe for you as well, where in a class or a tea or seminar, where you don't want it to end. It's just so... Those teachings are coming in and one feels... a openness and energy to hear and study the teachings more and more. This is a kind of joyful, bliss-body Sambhogakaya, which is available.

[30:38]

It's available with Sangha, often with others, like-minded beings who are studying along with you, and it's available With other practices as well, sitting together with others, often in our sewing practice, people who meet and sew together either for their own Buddha's robe for an ordination or helping sew for another person, there's a great joy that's generated by these practices together. So this is the Sambhogakaya ritual. This is fruit, reward body. This is the fruit of our practice. This is by practicing planting our wholesome roots and practicing together with others. We receive a kind of this fruit or nectar sometimes, this sweetness.

[31:41]

And this is available to everybody. This is not some specialized thing. There's a poet, Su Tung Po, who is a Chinese poet, who speaks to this issue of bringing the teaching that one understands not through words. How do you bring it into words? And this is his story. He was a governor, a kind of official, and a great poet and a practitioner. And one night he was walking late at night in the dark, actually, in the mountains. And while he was walking, he heard in the distance the sounds of the stream running through the Chinese mountains that he was walking through. He could hear the streams. And he wrote a poem. Somehow listening to this rain, it's a wonderful poem to read while we're listening to the rain.

[32:47]

This poem is, the sound of the valley streams is his broad tongue. The forms of the mountains are his pure body. In the night, I heard myriad sutra verses uttered. How can I now relate? to others what they mean. So the, I'll read it again. The sound of the valley streams is his, his is the Buddha. The sound of the valley streams is his broad tongue. The forms of the mountains is his pure body. In the night, I heard myriad sutra verses uttered How can I now relate to others what they mean? So the teachings, the Buddha Dharma doesn't just come in words.

[33:56]

Everything is teaching the Dharma, actually. Everything is teaching impermanence, interdependence, the peace of being in alignment with impermanence and interdependence and our interbeing with all things. Everything is teaching that. Everything is that and everything is teaching that. And you may also have in a walk in the hills or you have to swim in the ocean or the sound of the creek, the rain. understood something, you know, understood something about the reality of our life and our life together that, how can you put this into words? What would I say? The words don't reach it. The words can't express it.

[34:59]

And what have I understood? So this question, how can I now relate to others what they mean, is a huge question. And we do depend, we do rely on words, but the teaching is not, it doesn't reside only in words. There's many stories where silence actually, where the Buddha was asked something and he was silent, or he raised a flower and twirled it and winked. And in that story, Makashapya saw the flower and the wink and smiled. This was their transmission ceremony. Actually, Makashapya became the Buddha's Dharma heir.

[36:06]

He understood. What did he understand? What did they understand together? What did they share as one life? So our wanting to hear the Dharma, wanting to expose ourself to the teaching, picking up the teaching in whatever form it comes to us, this very the act of coming to a Dharma talk, all of you have done that today. One might think, oh, that's nothing. I just sort of felt like going to a Dharma talk today. However, it has been impressed upon me in these last months that this

[37:15]

coming forward to hear the Dharma or to kick up the Dharma, to participate in situations where we're exposed to the teachings of wisdom and compassion, this very action is understood in the Dharma realm, you could say, as a request, as a request. And there will be a response. This is the Dharmakaya takes form in response to being. There's a response to this that comes up together with your actions. There comes up a response. Inquiry and response come up together. And not only that, but the very fact of your wanting to study and hear the Dharma is the Dharmakaya itself itself. looking out through your own eyes, this is the Dharmakaya taking form in you.

[38:22]

Now I say that kind of with, there's a fascicle of Dogen about Prajnaparamita, about the great wisdom beyond wisdom. And at the end, the last paragraph, It says about studying Prajna Prabhupada, it says, look into this. Study this. To dedicate yourself and take refuge in the manifestation of wisdom is to see and uphold the Buddha, the world-honored one. It is to be the Buddha, the world-honored one, seeing the Buddha. and accepting. So I'll just say it in my own words the way that flips there. So look into this.

[39:24]

Look into studying and the teaching and the Dharma, the Buddha Dharma. Look into this. Study this. And dedicating yourself in this way is upholding the Buddha Dharma and it is to be the Buddha Dharma up to be the Buddha upholding this is the Dharmakaya taking form you're taking it up is the Dharmakaya taking it up is the reality body of the Buddha seeing and accepting so I found that that inter connection that When we take up the teachings and practice, it is the teaching and practice taking up us. It is the Buddha taking us up. How can I now relate to others what they mean?

[40:33]

So the last part of what I wanted to bring up today was about hearing. more about hearing, which is about a month ago, I woke up unable to hear at all through my left ear. And, you know, this was a Wednesday, and the Sunday before I had given a Dharma talk, and some of you may have been there, and during the talk I said something like, oh, I thought it was like I had been swimming or something, just for a second. And I mentioned it's on tape somewhere, where I said, oh, something about it with my ear. And then nothing until about three or four days later when I woke up. Completely sudden hearing loss is what it's called. And it was very... and disorienting. There was no rhyme or reason. There was no illness. These are all the questions they asked. Have you been to a loud concert?

[41:39]

No. I didn't have a virus. I hadn't fallen and hit my head. There was nothing that could be pointed to. And so the diagnosis was basically inflammation of the nerve in the inner ear. So for this last month, I've been taking very high doses of medication, and it resolved. It resolved. It came back after about two weeks or so. It came back, two or three weeks. And while I was going through this, I just want to say the experience of, I think first, I talked with a number of people actually since this. who had the same thing happen to them and didn't know how to attend to it, which is usually from my reading and from what I was told, people often think, oh, it's nothing, it'll just pass, it's a little something, it'll probably clogged up or something, it'll resolve itself.

[42:49]

But in this case, it doesn't. And a number, I know three people for whom they did lose their hearing completely. So it does need, this is... a little health alert. If this should ever happen, you need attention right away. Don't think it'll probably go away. So during this time, it was very disorienting because it didn't happen gradually. I think if you lose your hearing over time, you adjust in various ways, but it was very, very disorienting. I didn't have... vertigo or anything, but I couldn't tell where sounds were coming from. Someone speaking over here sounded like it was here, and the ambient noise was... And as it began to come back, just a point about that, I did feel like if this is coming to be, if I'm going to lose my hearing, then that will be this next...

[43:54]

phase of my practice life then we'll practice with that and that will be and we'll learn about that and also the other side was less as well so if I lose my hearing then that that's that will be the next thing to practice with that was pretty clear how to practice with it you know when I would need help and But I was ready. But it did feel like going into a new realm, a whole new realm that had a different shape to it, you know, a different... And that other people share that realm. It's not a unique realm. So I was ready to do that. But it did resolve, so I wasn't... That wasn't necessary this time around to enter this realm.

[44:57]

Although it was very clear to me that there will very soon be other realms to enter of various challenges, various changes that are coming fast or slow or already happening. This is our life. And to be in alignment with impermanence and... our changing, ever-changing and flowing life. This is the task at hand. There's nothing more important than to be in alignment with the way things are. And there's, you know, it's a challenge, big challenge. So I had a taste of that, a real glimpse of what that might be, a big change, big, fast change. And it resolved. And I was... I can't tell you how grateful when I began to hear sounds coming through the sun.

[45:59]

It was like the sweetness of what I took for granted, of just sounds. And there were also a number of sounds that I usually thought of as unpleasant sounds that I didn't like. Would you please stop that? But it was like all sounds were beautiful. It didn't matter if they were what I might... before have called annoying or grating or... It was just like beautiful, sweet sounds. The sounds of the world, you know. Which reminded me of, you know, the Bodhisattva of Infinite Compassion is called the sound seer or the one who hears the sounds of the world or the cries of the world. who hears the cries of the world, all the sounds of the world, hears those and responds with compassion.

[47:06]

This is her practice, this is his practice. And feeling, when I realized what I used to call unpleasant was just one more instance of permeation of sound. you know, without pushing away or, you know, certain sounds I like, certain sounds I don't like. I hadn't even realized, you know, the subtlety of push-pull around sounds, pleasant, unpleasant push-pull. So to just allow all sounds to come forward and be what they are and appreciate and respond if needed. reminded me so much of Guan Yin's practice, which the Bodhisattva of infinite compassion who is ready to hear and is listening for the sounds of the world and ready to respond.

[48:11]

You just have to call out. That's the practice. Inquiry and response come up together. This is that Bodhisattva's main practice so all of us have the capacity to listen and hear those of you who have difficulty hearing or have no hearing we still hear we can still listen to each other listen to each other's body language and and to be heard to be truly heard by another is is great healing, is great peace to feel we've been heard. So I encourage us all to practice the practice of listening, listening to one another, really hearing the sounds of the world, especially sentient beings with language, because we're really set up to hear and respond in that way.

[49:21]

Thank you very much. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[50:04]

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