This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Welcome. Thank you for coming. Thank you. Welcome to our online guests. The way is... perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent? How could it depend on practice or realization? The Dharma vehicle is free and untrammeled. What need is there for concentrated effort? Indeed, the whole body is far beyond the world's dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from one right where one is. What is the use of going off here and there to practice?

[01:00]

So this is the opening of Togenzenji's teaching called the Fukanzazengi, many of you are familiar with, the universal recommendation for Zazen, which is in our chant books. And if we just stopped right there at this opening statement, we could simply rest in how we are doing right now. and where we are right now, and how we have come to understand ourselves and the world right now. And that would be just fine. Perfect and all-pervading. However, Dogen continues, and yet, if there is the slightest discrepancy, the way is as distant as heaven from earth, If the least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion.

[02:04]

So here we are again. Back on the ground, away from this rarefied and effortless vision of the world and of ourselves, to some honest reflection on whether or not we are lost in confusion. Whether or not the least like or dislike arises in us. And whether or not we are splitting heaven from earth, good from bad, them from us, me from you, and all the other ways that we humans have invented for alienating ourselves from one another. So I assume, I imagine we are all in the same boat. And that we do experience a good number of likes and dislikes throughout the day. And if that's so, we can then ask ourselves if we're willing and maybe even determined to heal this splitting that we're doing, to find a way back to this awakened vision that Dogen gave us in his opening statement of a way that is perfect and all-pervading, all-inclusive, as we wish our Zen Center to be.

[03:22]

So how do we come to see as the Buddha sees? How do we bring ourselves to life, to the whole of life. I really don't know. But I do think there are some who do, such as the author of these sutras. And in particular, there's one that I've been studying together with many of you for the last many weeks, several weeks, a sutra called the Diamond Cutter Sutra, which has... pretty much filled me to the brim with the curiosity about the mechanism of my own delusions, while not splitting my delusions off from yours or from anyone else's. So as I tried to think about something else to say this morning, I kept noticing my attachment to the teaching of the Diamond Sutra, which is pretty ironic given that the whole point of the Diamond Sutra along with everything else that the Buddha taught, is to free ourselves from attachment.

[04:29]

To drop it, as Dobin himself said and did at the moment of his awakening. Drop body and mind. Body, mind, drop. But I think before I can drop the Diamond Sutra, I am going to need to talk about it at least one more time. And in particular, about a section, section 14, that includes two primary teachings. The first, a review of this teaching of no abiding self. And second, a teaching on the perfection of patience. When I first read through this text many years ago now, and again recently, I noticed myself skipping over this section about patience because I didn't like it. I didn't like the Buddha talking about a time that the king of Kalinga cut off the flesh from his every limb.

[05:33]

I didn't like hearing about how people torture one another, torture animals or torture plants. And so I just skipped over this paragraph. So today I am not going to skip over it. I am not going to split myself off. In fact, I've decided to think about it and to try to understand what the Buddha is saying to his beloved students that might bear repeating. That might help us with our deep wish to bring an end to suffering in this world. To not skip over it. To stay with the things that we don't like. So before getting to the part about patience, this section begins with one of the Buddha's most basic and important teachings, selflessness. This is a simple teaching that has three parts. There's a self, there are objects, and there's the way that we split the self from objects that causes our suffering.

[06:46]

That's part number three. And we imagine that there really is a me that is separate from all of you. So the Buddha has given this basic teaching to the assembly throughout this sutra, and now he's asking Subuti, the main person who's questioning him in the Diamond Cutter Sutra, to share his understanding of no abiding self, of no separate self. So this is from section 14. Thereupon, the impact of this Dharma, having been taught by the Buddha, moved the venerable Subhuti to tears. Having shed tears, he thus spoke to the world-honored one. Thanks to the guidance of the Buddha, I have now reached a level of understanding I had never reached before, which may well mean that Subhuti has had a profound experience by means of these wisdom teachings, much as Dogen had.

[07:50]

Of recognizing his own mind. Unobscured by the filters and the clouds of desire. A mind no longer lost in confusion. No longer existing separately from the world and from all that it contains. Wonderful. Wonderful. Subuti then goes on to talk about and express gratitude for this newfound freedom. Freedom from his own imaginary self, the one called subhuti. The subhuti that believed himself separate from the products of his own imagination. A self he believed had hands and eyes and feet and ideas that somehow belonged to him as objects. I think you can notice for yourselves about how you think right now. Are those your hands, your eyes and feet?

[08:54]

Are those your ideas? Do they belong to you? And if not, whose are they? How did they come to you? Why does it matter what you think? The usual way that Subuti and all of us tend to think about ourselves includes a notion. As this sutra points out again and again, that such a self, a me, is actually real and powerful. Maybe even in control of the things that it owns and the things that it says and the things that it knows to be true. The maker of worlds. And so Sabuti says to the assembly, If there is someone in the far-off future who hears the sutra, has faith in it, understands it, accepts it, and puts it into practice, then the existence of someone like that will be great and rare.

[10:04]

And why? That person will not be dominated by the idea of a self, a person, a living being, or a lifespan. Why? The idea of a self is not an idea. And the idea of a person, a living being, a lifespan, are not ideas either. Why? Buddhas are called Buddhas because they are free of ideas. So the idea of an abiding self that can be separated from its parts or from what it knows, or from anything for that matter, was the direct target. of the Buddha's inquiry as he sat under a tree. How did he hit the target? A target that, as it turned out, was no target at all. He hit it by watching for it. Very careful. For seven long days.

[11:06]

He watched as the clouds of ideas and notions and thoughts piled up. Thoughts that sometimes were clever and kind, and other times fearful and cruel. Thoughts that led to images in his mind of seductive dancing girls and boys, and then of bloodthirsty armies that were hell-bent on destroying him. And finally, of the master of illusions himself, or herself, Mara, the evil one, threatening to kill him if he didn't get up off that seat. if he didn't return to his conventional life as a prince, soon to be in charge of a kingdom, a maker of worlds. So seeing through the delusion of the self-made self is the first and most essential realization that often brings the followers of the Buddha way to tears. Tears of joy, but also tears of sorrow.

[12:14]

We miss the self. that we have carefully made. In particular, the one we are proud of and wish for others to be proud of too. There's a story I've always appreciated that Suzuki Roshi told about himself when he was a young boy. This class was off on a field trip, and it was a science class, and they were looking for some unique species of salamander. When he found the salamander, he shouted to the class, I found it! I found it! His teacher said to him as the others gathered around, Suzuki, we are looking for a salamander, not for you. So there's a section in the Diamond Cutter Sutra as well about this particular lesson that Suzuki Roshi is sharing with us, a lesson about humility. In section 16, the Buddha says to Subuti, when these sons and daughters of good family take up this sutra,

[13:14]

Bear it in mind, recite it, and study it. Well humbled will they be. And why? The impure deeds which these beings have done in their former lives, which would otherwise lead them to states of woe, in this very life will, by means of that humiliation, be purified, and they will gain the awakening of a Buddha. I can remember being struck by this particular teaching when I first read it, I wasn't expecting humiliation to be the gateway to enlightenment. I had a hope for some kind of path that would lead to a more elevated version of myself, kind of cleaned off and just kind of pop up. I wasn't expecting that the self I had protected for so long would really need to go. But go where? Well, nowhere, really. Just go. Body-mind dropped.

[14:16]

Dropped. Body-mind. The truth the Buddha teaches throughout this sutra, the truth that sees through the illusory structure of a self, is traumatic for almost everyone. Unless you happen to be one of those people who can't wait to witness how your ego simply dissolves into spaciousness. Over and over and over again. as Reb once described it, like snowflakes on a hot iron skillet. Given that many of us will need some means by which to weather the humiliating loss of our egos, the Buddha embedded within the emptiness teachings of the Diamond Cutter Sutra, the teaching of the six perfections, the six essential trainings for the life of a bodhisattva. And as I said earlier, I'm going to look at this teaching on the perfection of patience, which appears in section 14, right after Subhuti has been brought to tears, as he practices patience with the feelings he may be having of both joy and grief at the loss of his belief in a self, especially a very, very good self that he had cultivated for a long, long time.

[15:40]

Patience practice is the third of the six paramitas, right after generosity and ethics. And following patience is the paramita of effort, then concentration, and then wisdom. Prajnaparamita. Prajnaparamita is the place from which the teaching of the Diamond Sutra has been born. Ethical practice, such as the Bodhisattva precepts, is the training that begs need for patience and why because being ethical sharing our possessions giving up our egos delighting in others happiness and good fortune not lying or stealing killing or harboring ill will requires patience it requires training just like when we were kids if our parents were relatively kind and able They probably told us to share our toys and our candy and to play nicely with others.

[16:45]

And yet, it wasn't always our first impulse. Not the first thing that came to our childish minds. Just like little Suzuki, I found it. I found it. My precious. And just like the Buddha before us, before he was Buddha, we too have dreams of what is and isn't fair. of being appreciated or not, of liked or not, loved or not. And this is the mind that's lost in confusion. And yet, the mind lost in confusion is not in any way separate from the awakened mind. They are dependent on one another to complete the mission. The mission of connecting heaven and earth, as the Buddha did, and as Dogen did, and as we do. When we sit upright with our bodies like a mountain and our minds like the clear blue sky. Training in the six perfections provides the guidelines for living in a world that appears to be outside of ourselves.

[17:55]

A world that appears to be split. By paying close attention to the workings of our conscious mind, we will see and feel how our actions are either connecting. or disconnecting us from what we imagine to be the world. When our thoughts and actions are disconnecting, we feel stressed and isolated, as though closed in to a tiny and vulnerable space and prisoners of our own conceptions. This is the stress that arises from having ideas about things that we don't like, ideas that lead from not liking to ill will, and from ill will to hate, and in the worst cases, from hate to all forms of violence. And on the other hand, when our ideas about things are wholesome and kind, the mind feels spacious and peaceful, as though ourselves and the universe are connected, and that the split has been healed.

[19:02]

A split that was never really there in the first place. It's only our thinking. that made it so. I've often told stories about John Cage, some of you may know, amazing composer of modern music, who had a remarkable insight into this business of liking and not liking, of hating and not hating, which is the core of the problems of we are having as a species. John Cage described his music as purposeless play. an affirmation of life, not attempting to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest some improvement in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life that we are living. And he said of himself as an artist, when I see or hear something that I think is not beautiful, I ask myself, why do I think it's not beautiful?

[20:04]

And then after a while, I come to realize that there is no reason. And why? Because there's nothing that is not the actualization of the awakened nature of reality itself, the Buddha nature. There's nothing that is not the inconceivable mind of liberation. And there is nothing that appears that is other than a gateway to liberation. It's in the non-separation of mind and objects that the gateway opens, through which Buddhas and sentient beings merge. No inside, no outside. Just it. And yet, it takes great effort, another of the six perfections, great wholehearted effort, in order for the wholesome actions to reseal the gap that has been created in our minds.

[21:08]

And although virtuous actions based in ideas of myself doing them may bring some happiness, compared to the happiness of being liberated from the idea of myself doing good things, the first kind of happiness is really quite small. When I, as all beings, am freed from the false views that come from splitting myself off from others, those actions will be of even greater benefit to the world. those actions will taste like liberation. In the Diamond Sutra, the Buddha tells us over and over again that closing the gap may require many lifetimes of wholesome activity, or at the very least, the sincere intention to spend many lifetimes perfecting our generosity, our ethical deportment, our patience, our effort, concentration, and wisdom. The story the Buddha tells about the patience needed for such sustained effort, one that I used to skip over when I read this text, is about a previous lifetime when the Buddha-to-be was an ascetic living alone in the forest.

[22:22]

One day, the king of Kalinga went into the forest on a hunting expedition accompanied by several concubines. While the men in the party were out hunting, the women went exploring in the forest and found the ascetic sitting in meditation surrounded by an aura of tremendous peace. On the hunting party return, the king went looking for his mistresses and he found them sitting at the feet of the ascetic in a state of utter contentment and joy. In a fit of jealousy, the king ordered the ascetic's limbs to be cut off one by one. In the face of such tremendous violence to his body, the ascetic only said, kshanti, kshanti, patience, patience. In the Diamond Cutter Sutra, the Buddha recounts this story for Zubhuti, saying, most wonderfully blessed will be those beings who on hearing the sutra will not tremble nor be frightened or terrified.

[23:27]

And why? Because what the Buddha has taught as the highest perfection is not the highest perfection. It is merely called the highest perfection. And why? Subuti, when in ancient times the king of Kalinga cut off my flesh from every limb, I did not have any idea of a self, of a person, a being, or a living soul. And why? If when I was being dismembered limb by limb and joint by joint, Feelings of anger and ill will would have arisen in my mind against the king. Then I would have had an idea of a self as separated from him. Therefore, Subuddhiya Bodhisattva, detaching himself or herself from all ideas, arouses the desire for the utmost supreme and perfect awakening, a desire that is unsupported by anything. So this is the ultimate challenge for each of us as students of the Buddhist teaching, how to balance the practice of compassion for everyone, those we love and those we hate, without getting caught in and identifying with how we see it, how we hear it, what we believe and what we think about it, and how we truly believe that what we are thinking is so.

[24:49]

In truth, sentient beings are no different from illusions. And when there are no illusions, there are no sentient beings. There is, however, the vow to live for their benefit. Beings, beings as no being, meaning with no inherent or separate existence from us, and therefore we save all beings, and thereby we save ourselves. Buddhas are those who have transcended false notion, and the illusions that attend them, illusions that are created by notions of I, me, and mine, and who then is able to rest completely in things just as they are, the suchness of things. Accepting the suchness or the just-this-is-it-ness of the world that we perceive without lusting or hating and without clinging to suchness either is entering the gateway of liberation.

[25:54]

Liberation from all attachments. So here's a sample of such an awakened being from a text called The Transmission of Light. This is chapter 22, the story of Vasubandhu's enlightenment, which took place on hearing what his teacher, Jayata, had to say about himself. I do not seek the way, nor do I go against it. I do not worship the Buddha, nor do I look down on doing so. I do not sit in meditation for long periods, nor am I negligent. I do not eat just one meal a day, nor do I indulge in assorted foods. I do not know what it is to be satisfied, nor am I greedy. In my heart, I do not yearn for anything. This is called the way, the middle way. In the commentary on this statement by Jayata Keisan Jokin, who is the author of The Transmission of Light says that if you fast or do ascetic exercises with the thought of attaining Buddhahood, or you sit for long periods of time without lying down, all of this is raining flowers in a flowerless sky, or making holes where there are no holes.

[27:12]

Even if you pass eons in this way, you will never have a bit of liberation. Indeed, not craving anything is called the way. So even if it is the contentment of nirvana that you want, that is still based on greed. And yet, he goes on to say, even though this is so, beginners should study carefully to actually arrive at the stage of equanimity and peace, the stage at which they truly understand there are no deluded beings to save, there are no doctrines to realize, no further Buddhahood to attain. Someone who has attained peace is like someone who has had enough to eat. Even a regal feast is no longer appealing. If you want to maintain your true self, you should know that from birth to death, it is just this. Not a mote of dust to reject and not a single truth to grasp. Which brings me back to the story of the Buddhist patience while he was being cut from limb to limb.

[28:19]

Musang, who's the author of a book on the Diamond Sutra, which I quite liked, called Transforming the Way that We See the World, had some interesting things to say about this portion of the text regarding patience, particularly in the face of extreme suffering, like torture. Bringing to mind, for me, a statement that was made by Jesus, attributed to Jesus, as he was being tortured on the cross. He said, forgive them, Lord, they know not what they do. Forgive them, Lord. They know not what they do. I've always considered that to be one of the most stunning and amazing statements by any spiritual teacher. Jesus, like Buddha, James Baldwin, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and many, many others have recognized that we humans as a species are ignorant of how selfish and separated we are from one another. If we knew that, really knew that, we would not fight against each other.

[29:21]

No other. No other person. No other time. No other planet. Altogether or not at all. This is just what the Buddha taught in the Four Noble Truths. There is suffering. And you, all of you, are the cause of that suffering. Due to your ignorant desire for things to be different than they are. Different than they are right now. The liberation from suffering, noble truth number three, is the cessation of ignorance and desire. How? By making serious changes in the way you think and act in the world. By being deeply curious and committed to a way of life that is free from attachments, free from our self-centered views from which liking and disliking have arisen. And of course we don't like being tortured, and nor should we. However, the torture that the Buddha is teaching about is the torture that is taking place in our own minds.

[30:25]

As Musong says, it might be helpful for us in the West to remember that in traditional society, shamans commonly experience metaphorical dismemberment when they embark on a spiritual journey and may actually feel the sensations that such dismemberment entails. And furthermore, for those of us who undertake long retreats, as some of us will be doing fairly soon down at Tassajara, experiences of dismemberment are not uncommon. And why? Because seeing through the illusion of a self and of our notions of an external world, and as a consequence, losing the habitual structure that makes up the self, is traumatic for almost everyone. It's dizzying and it's disorienting, and therefore a very good time to take a walk or a warm bath. to talk to a friend or a teacher, and to reconnect with our senses as the most reliable gateway to the truth of our miraculous existence.

[31:30]

Sounds and tastes, fragrances, colors, and textures, connected by means of what Dovin calls the one true thing, and then he names it in his poem, black rain on the roof of Fukakusa Temple. The one true thing. So as we continue to live and to wonder about life, the study of the self is really recommended by just about everybody, by all the ancestors, by our friends and our teachers, our therapists, our employers, our lovers. The more we know and understand about ourselves, the more we know and understand the world, how suffering comes to be and how the cessation of suffering comes to be. And yet... Buddha then says, you should know, Subhuti, that the meaning of this sutra is beyond comprehension and discussion, and likewise the fruit that results from receiving and practicing this sutra is beyond comprehension and discussion.

[32:34]

To which Subhuti again inquires with his palms raised, well then what, O Lord, should we do? And the Buddha says, Take from this Diamond Cutter Prajnaparamita Sutra just one stanza of four lines. Bear it in mind, teach it, recite and study it, and illuminate it in full detail for others. And with what spirit should you do so? Without being caught in the appearance of things in themselves, but understanding the nature of things as they are. And why? Because the nature of things is like a star at dawn, like a bubble in a stream, a flash of lightning and a summer cloud, a flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream. So should you view all of this fleeting world. When the Buddha had finished speaking, the Venerable Subhuti, the monks and the nuns, the pious laymen and laywomen, the bodhisattvas, and the whole world with its gods, ashras, and Gandharavas,

[33:43]

were filled with joy of the teaching, and taking it to heart, they went their separate ways. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost, 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 sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[34:18]

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