This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening, everyone. It's good to see you all. Thank you for coming out on a dark and stormy night. Welcome back. Did you have a nice vacation? Great. Good. It's good to see you. Perhaps the most fundamental teaching of Buddhism is that of codependent arising. The teaching that everything, without exception, is a result of causes and conditions that give rise to phenomena and are themselves, in turn, caused and conditioned and are themselves ephemeral. There are various ways of

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in which this teaching is discussed in the sutras, the five skandhas is one. This is an atemporal deconstruction of what we think of as the self. And it's a fairly simple way of looking at things. The 12-fold chain of causation examines conditionality over time and is very complicated and hard to understand. At least I find it so. If anybody else has figured it out, you can talk to me later and tell me about it. But perhaps the simplest formation is this. This being, that is. This ceasing to be, that is not. So the this includes everything from galaxies to fleeting mental states. All things are contingent and contextual.

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We, for example, exist in the context both of our past and the present. From the past, we inherit the genetic material that creates us. From our parents, their parents, etc., back to the single cell in the early oceans. And before that... to the explosion of ancient stars that created the heavy elements of which our bodies are composed, and on to the Big Bang, and whatever came before that, I don't think we know. We are also contextualized by our culture. Our language, our history, the dynamics of our families, and all of our experiences up to this point. And our understandings and judgments should take into account their contextual nature as well.

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Nothing of us is not dependent. Nothing of us does not change. This is the core teaching of the Buddha, his most profound and radical insight. So, Let us look at this a little bit more closely, particularly the skanda of consciousness. So, as you know, the five skandhas are form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness. In the early teachings, as far back as we can go, consciousness was not understood to be some sort of unified event, some sort of light that illuminates consciousness. all the other psycho-physical aspects of the person. Rather, it was understood to arise conditionally, dependent upon contact between a functioning sense organ and the object of that organ.

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For example, my eye. When I look at that cushion, there is a functioning sense organ, there is an object of... the sense of sight, and there is contact between them. Thus arises eye consciousness. When I close my eyes, our contact is somehow otherwise broken off. There is no eye consciousness. And the same is true with ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind. Because remember that in Buddhist analysis, The mind also is considered a sense organ. And thoughts, feelings, memories, etc. are the objects of that organ, the mind. The mind is, in this analysis, not independent, does not exist on its own, but as contingent as the other organs of sense are.

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So this is what we read in the earliest teachings, in the Pali Suttas, in the examination of how things and us and we come to be, right? Arising and falling continuously, moment after moment. Eye consciousness, mind consciousness, ear consciousness, again and again and again in a stream that seems unified because it sort of goes so quickly, kind of like an old-fashioned movie, right, where the frames go by very quickly. However, this understanding, which is the closest we can get to what the original teachings might have been, and remember, of course, that the suttas were not written down to somewhere between 200 and 300 years after the Buddha died. Before that, it was all oral tradition. But as close as we can get is in flat contradiction to later teachings, of Tathagata Garbha, Buddha nature, and original enlightenment.

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So, what should we make of this? At some point, centuries after the Buddha's death, the teaching of Tathagata Garbha was introduced. This in itself is actually a pretty ambiguous doctrine, open to a number of different interpretations. The word itself is actually quite ambivalent. So as you know, or I'm presuming most of you do, in the Pali Suttas, the Buddha often speaks of himself as the Tathagata. And the word can be translated either as the one who thus comes or the one who thus goes, depending on how it is parsed. My own favorite translation is the guy who shows up. That's the Buddha, the guy who shows up. Garba, Tathagata Garba, Garba can mean either seed or embryo or conversely the womb or container in which the seed or embryo is contained.

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So Tathagata Garba can indicate either the potential for awakening in all sentient beings or which is more in line with the earlier teachings, or as the fully awakened Buddha contained in each being already and primordially, only covered up by our ignorance. This is a radical shift from the earlier teachings. And in India, the teaching of Siddhartha Garbha was never, it was kind of a, it wasn't a big deal. It was a late teaching. It never was really developed into something tremendously important in the streams of Indian Buddhism. It's in China that it became more important. And in China, the latter term, Tathagata Garba, I'm sorry, let me go back. In China... In China...

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We move from the teaching of Tathagata Garba into what is translated as Buddha nature. So the term Tathagata Garba in its Chinese translation goes out of play, and we get Buddha nature instead. And of course, this idea of Buddha nature fits better into traditional Chinese religion and philosophical structures and going all the way back to Taoism. and also works well with the Chinese emphasis on the value of the phenomenal world. If Buddha nature is something inherent in the phenomenal world, then the phenomenal world is revaluized. Valorized? Anyhow, you know what I mean. This doctrine is that all things arise from Buddha nature. or as it is sometimes called, one mind, which is defined as pure, permanent, pleasurable, and I think most interestingly, self, which is rather interesting when you consider the teaching of anatta, no self, no soul, going back to the Buddha.

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So this is, in fact, a pretty far cry from what we understand of early Buddhist teachings on the mind itself. consciousness, and how beings arise. In Japan, the notion was further developed into what is called Hongaku, original enlightenment. And this is the teaching that all things, not just sentient beings, but all things are manifestations of Buddha nature. That grasses and tiles, as the saying goes, are in and of themselves Buddha nature. And in some ways, you know, this is a really beautiful idea, right? It reminds me, when I was thinking about this, it reminds me of the poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, which begins with the line, the world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out like shining from shook foil. So there's a sort of mystical ecstasy to this, right?

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To see the world suffused with some sort of mystic light, just as it is, just as it is in this moment, calm, perfect, eternally at peace, and that all of our sufferings and difficulties are caused by our inability to see this innate perfection in ourselves and in the world. There is, however, a worm in the apple, as always. There are unintended consequences to such a teaching, as there are to all points of view. The unescapable corollary is this. If everything is Buddha nature just as it is, perfect, a manifestation of awakening, if you are upset by something, some injustice, for example,

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it is only because you are not awakened to the perfection of things just as they are. Maybe so. But you can see the problem, right? And not surprisingly, such teachings have been used as a justification for maintaining the status quo. Though, not surprisingly, it is rarely, if ever, the poor are disenfranchised to make such arguments. Go figure. Go figure. In fact, all systems of thought, all teachings, doctrines, descriptions of reality fail and fall apart when closely examined. The only description of reality that covers every contingency is reality itself. So, going back to Buddha nature, when we examine the notion, we can see that it is a far cry.

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from the earliest teaching. And what do we make of that? We, these latter-day Buddhists in America coming from a tradition that emphasizes such things as original awakening, Buddha nature, et cetera. What do we make of that? You know, the Mahayana exegetes in India and China were not unaware of the problem. They came up with some creative ways to explain and justify these new teachings. One way of explaining them was the notion of a secret doctrine, dear to the hearts of conspiracy theorists down through the ages. In other words, the Buddha didn't tell everyone everything, but held some of the Dharma back, entrusting it only to a small number of his disciples who were able to understand and accept it at the time. And they passed it down secretly until such a time was ripe for it to be revealed.

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This, by the way, forms the basic foundation of Chan Zen claims to a special mind-to-mind transmission, as well as the novels of Dan Brown. There is also the claim that some of the sutras were hidden for centuries. One story is that they were given to the Naga king, who kept them in his kingdom down under the sea until they were revealed to Nagarjuna, who brought them back and disseminated them throughout the world. Another possibility, which isn't much discussed in the classical texts, but which I find interesting, is that the later teaching is somehow implicit in the earlier, and that over time it was teased out dialectically. This is the stance taken by the preeminent... European Buddhist scholar, Etienne Lamotte, who wrote, we are of the opinion that the Buddhist doctrine evolved along the lines which its discoverer had unconsciously traced for it.

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So in other words, that implicit in the original doctrine are the doctrines that came later and simply needed to be sort of worked out over time, as I said dialectically. That's another possibility. And then It could also be that these teachings of a permanent Buddha nature are simply the reinterpretations of those who are uneasy with the teachings of impermanence and non-self, who couldn't take their emptiness straight, so to speak, and retreated to a more comfortable position. So we have these teachings which seem to be quite in dissonance with the earliest teachings as we found them, and we are given the opportunity, the puzzle, the task, if you wish, to reconcile or not reconcile the two, to figure it out or to not figure it out, to accept or not to accept.

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Whatever the causes and conditions that created the teaching as it came down to us This isn't really the point of what I wanted to talk about tonight. I really don't care all that much about Buddha nature. I'm just using it as an example. We could just as easily have examined karma or impermanence or the transmission of patriarchs or any of the other teachings. Buddha nature just happened to be up for me. What I really... to bring your attention to are some questions which seem important to me, more important than the question of the nature of Buddha nature. Some of these are, what do you believe? Why do you believe what you believe? In the Kalama Sutta, the Buddha says,

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Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing, nor upon tradition, nor upon rumor, nor upon scripture, nor upon surmise, nor upon axiom, nor upon spacious reasoning, nor upon bias towards a notion pondered over, nor upon another's seeming ability, nor upon the consideration, this monk is our teacher, So in effect, in this sutta, he is suggesting that believing something because you have heard it from your teacher, or by extension because Dogen said it, or because it is part of the soto tradition, etc., etc., is not your best basis for belief. The other questions that follow from this, of course, are, what are you doing here? What do you expect or hope

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to accomplish through this practice? Is it enlightenment? And if so, what would that look like, enlightenment? And what can you validate through your own experience? Or maybe you're looking for something else, a community or some lessening of anxiety or other psychological relief. None of these things are good or bad in themselves. but I think it is very useful to understand our motives and desires and expectations. It is too easy to dress something up in robes and rituals as a way to avoid examining ourselves and our beliefs and activities in a way that might make us uncomfortable. So I encourage you to ask yourself, to question yourself, and your assumptions, your practice,

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and your beliefs, fearlessly and at depth. Doing so, you may have to discard some things that seem precious to you now, or you may find that you are exactly where you need to be, doing exactly what you need to do. But ultimately, I believe that the more diligently we question ourselves, the greater the benefit will be to ourselves and to others. and that our practice will be founded upon a more stable foundation, allowing it to mature without illusion. Suzuki Roshi said that nirvana is following one thing to the end. Now, I know more expect Suzuki Roshi to be infallible than I expect anyone else to be, but for me, I think this is a pretty good working hypothesis. Follow one thing through to the end. And that is all I have prepared to say this evening.

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I think we may have a little bit of time if anybody wants to say something or not. Phyllis, hi. Hi, Jeff. Thank you very much. So what is it that you would follow through to the end? And how do you know you get to be? Well, I'm not there yet. Um... I think what I'm following through to the end is looking for what's true. And I know that sounds a little amorphous, but what can be depended upon that doesn't fall apart upon close examination? You know, yes, kind of. The practice of zazen You know?

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The practice of zazen is something that I am following through to the end. Hi. Hi. I have a question. You were talking about how one can use rituals and ceremonies to kind of cut off... And fancy dress. Yes. That's a good question. That's a really good question. That is something you have to follow through to the end. And I'm not trying to cop out here. I think that if you actually are questioning what you're doing, that's a really good thing. If you're saying to yourself, you know, what do I mean by this? What does this mean? What is the dynamic here between myself and... the practice or the teacher or the organization or the tradition. You know, there's that saying that comes from the Gospels, the Christian Gospels, by their fruit shall you know them.

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If your practice is leading you towards greater compassion, greater openness, greater ability to look at and entertain other points of view, maybe that's a good thing. If your practice is leading you to become narrower and narrower, where fewer and fewer things become acceptable to you, and one way is the right way and the only way, that might be something to look at too. Does that make sense? Does that respond to your question at all? Well, my simplest definition of refuge is where do you go when the shit hits the fan?

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Right? When everything is falling apart, where do you go? And, you know, we say I take refuge in Buddha, I take refuge in Dharma, I take refuge in Sangha. But what does that mean? You know, I say that every morning when I offer incense. You know, I use it as a mantra. Throughout the day, I take refuge, I take refuge. And each time I have to ask myself, what does that mean? When I take refuge in Buddha, is it some dude way past? Is it Buddha nature that I don't necessarily believe in? Is it my capacity to be compassionate and awake? Is it my connection with others? Is that Sangha and Dharma? Dharma is simply the way things are. You know, without me trying to without living in denial. Because of the nature of language and thought and the way we talk, we say these things as though they were real, but actually they are processes.

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To take refuge is like, where do I go? Where do I go? Where do I find some stability, some comfort? Where do I find a place to stand that allows me to take compassionate action. That's the best I can do. Sorry. Anybody else? Hi, Mae. Okay. So, you know, if you... I've been reading a lot about this lately. So if you go particularly in the Chinese, because that's where the whole Buddha nature thing really evolved, much more so than in the Indian. What you see is they keep saying, oh, but it's all emptiness, like to just CYA. But basically, you hear the literature over and over again talks about the one mind from which all things arise. And for me, that sounds...

[26:05]

very much like creating some sort of like an unchanging ontological foundation from which everything comes. And as I understand the Buddha's teaching, that's not what he was saying, that all things are in flux through cause and effect, right, which is karma, but still there is nothing permanent, nothing that does not change You know, and it could get very convoluted, but I don't know. Is that even beginning to address what you're asking? Yeah, yeah, it is. And I guess my sense is that Buddha nature, the awakened mind, I'm wondering, I guess, how could that possibly be fixed? Yeah. as I said, you know, in, you know, over and over in, you know, you know, in the Chinese, Chinese exegetes, the, you know, the philosophers, the, the various things.

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It's like, it's, it's spoken of as, as self. You know, there's the, you know, the, the things are, you know, changing, dukkha, anatta, and sometimes the fourth is added pure, impure. You know, but you have people like in, you know, within the Buddhist tradition saying, no, you know, Buddha nature is pure, pleasurable, permanent, and self. I mean, they come right out and say that in places. And of course, we're talking about a wide variety of teachings and teachers and schools over centuries. But what I'm talking about is the kind of thing that tries to fix something as permanent as I said, like kind of a ontological foundation from which all things, which strikes me as more Hinduism or Taoism than Buddhism. Yeah. Is that okay? Okay.

[28:33]

Christian, you had... I vow to live and be lived for the benefit of all beings. Yeah. And that, you know, I think that the precepts, the precepts are not commandments, they're questions. You know, if I take on the precepts as questions, you know, I must constantly ask myself, what does it mean to live and be lived for the benefit of others? What does it mean not to kill? What does it mean not to take what is not given? And so forth, you know. And to... So I think a vow is something that we give ourselves to as a process of transformation. It's not something I take. Sometimes we say we take the precepts or we receive the precepts, and we have to say something because we've got to talk about them somehow.

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But in fact, I think what we're really doing is we're giving ourselves to this process of transformation which we can neither control nor predict. And I think that's where faith comes in. And that's the best I can do with that. And let's see. Did somebody other than Vicki have a question? Okay. You had your hand. No. Which is, you're describing a process. Yeah, you're describing a process, yeah. And, you know, A lot of the problem is just how we speak, the language, right? And so I try to avoid saying nature because it sounds like something permanent, fixed. But yes, the process could be that.

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And I think that the process is like what Christian and I were just talking about. I don't remember Gregory. The only time I ever saw Gregory Bateson, he was dead. Yeah, he was the first person that I ever sat with here, and he was dead. And I remember I walked into the room, and I was really surprised, not because he was dead, but because the beautiful scarf that I had given our friend Nina for Christmas she had used to tie his jaw closed. I thought, well, that's very odd. I often wonder if it got cremated with him or she took it back and wore it. Anyhow. Anything else or should we end on a chuckle? Okay, thank you all. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

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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, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

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