This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. We just chanted the words, I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Did you notice that? We chanted those words. The Tathagata is an epithet for a Buddha. It means one who comes from suchness or goes to suchness. Suchness, in other words, reality. One of the epithets for Buddha is one who comes from reality, who has gone to reality, and comes back from reality to visit us.

[01:03]

And when the Buddhas come back from reality, they sometimes have words for us. So we just chanted, I vow to taste the truth of these words. In the history of this tradition, The founder in India, the original teacher in India, would sometimes meet with people and express herself, and people would hear words. But not everybody that heard the words heard the truth of the words. But fortunately, quite a few people did hear the truth of the words. And when they heard the truth of the words, they became free of suffering and dwelled in peace.

[02:21]

We just said, I vow to taste the truth of the words. Of the Buddha's words. Now, I have a proposal for you. I mean, I have a proposal for us. It is that if I, sitting here, observe you wholeheartedly, this observation will taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. If I observe you wholeheartedly, such an observation will see the truth of the Buddha's words. I could say, if I,

[03:39]

observe you wholeheartedly, I will see the truth. Or, another way is, such a way of observing you, in such a way of observing you, the truth of the Tathagata's words will be tasted. If you of you or all of you, listen wholeheartedly. Listen to the words you hear and listen to the silence. If you wholeheartedly listen each moment, you will hear the truth of the Tathagata's words. Even though I'm talking, you will hear the truth.

[04:45]

If I say it's Sunday, if I say it's Saturday, if I say it's not a day at all, if you listen wholeheartedly, you will hear the true Dharma. So I think, well, this wholehearted listening sounds like a really good idea. If you continue after this talk is over and you leave the room to wholeheartedly listen and wholeheartedly observe, you will again and again taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. And in tasting the truth of the Tathagata's words, beings will be liberated and will dwell in peace.

[05:53]

The practice that this temple is devoted to is to free all beings from suffering so they may dwell in peace. That was the practice of the Buddha in India. That is the practice of the tradition today here. So we vow to make an unceasing effort to free all beings so they may dwell in peace. I hesitate to say that we Make an unceasing effort. Because sometimes we may get distracted. But I can say we aspire to make an unceasing effort to free each and every being so they may dwell in peace.

[07:11]

all the suffering people, all the suffering beings who are afflicted by fear and who are at risk of becoming violent when they're afraid and even become violent because they're so afraid. All these beings, I vow to free them so they may dwell in peace, so they may be peaceful and nonviolent and free of fear. So many of the people in this room, especially people in the middle of the room, have made the arduous journey to this temple today. So I wanted to let you know that we have just finished about a week, not quite a week, of an intensive period of meditation, of sitting meditation, of walking meditation, of meditating all day long.

[08:47]

And this period of intense meditation is for three weeks. So you could come next week and feel what it's like after another week. Enjoy the intensity of the meditation. It's a time for us to intensify our aspiration, our vow. and our practice. To free all beings so they may dwell in peace. It's a time to help each other be mindful, to remember. What are we here for again? To free all beings so they may dwell in peace. Really? Anthropologists watching us might say, when those people have formal meals, they say that.

[09:55]

They say, before they eat, they say, our unceasing effort to free all, no, no, it's not the meal. We have a dedication for evening service, and we say, our unceasing effort to free all beings so they may dwell in peace. But during the rest of the day, we don't actually say that to each other out loud. And if we did, some people might tease us and think we're too intense. But at the time of giving a Dharma talk, people can talk like that. Our unceasing effort to free all beings so they may dwell in peace. I actually vow to do that. I actually would like to remember that. So I'll give you an example of an opportunity to remember

[11:13]

an unceasing effort to free all beings so they may dwell in peace. For some time I've been trying to empty the house I live in of as much of the stuff in it as possible so that when I should happen to do that ceremony called death it won't be a big problem for other people to figure out what to do with the house full of stuff. All that nice stuff. What would he want to have done with it? I don't want to have somebody to go through that painful process, so I'm going to try to give it all away beforehand so you can come into the house and you'll know what to take and who takes it. or it's already gone. Recently, I got a... What do you call it?

[12:19]

An increased... A shot in the arm, as they say. In the practice of emptying the house, I read an article about hoarders. And the author said that probably hoarding... is often found among elderly people. And it seems to be associated with dementia. I look up the root of the word dementia, it comes from demens, which means out of your mind, from the mind, in Latin. So I recommend to all of you, even the younger people, empty your house. Or at least put labels on everything.

[13:22]

Who gets them? It's a difficult job. And I was actually in the process of giving some stuff away. And someone said, I'm not ready to give that away yet. And I made a sound like, oh, I missed a chance to go. Unceasing effort to free all beings so they may dwell in peace. I'm gonna give this away, okay? No, unceasing effort to free all beings. Here, it's for you. We have various little projects that we'd like to do, which oftentimes, let's say they're wholesome. But we sometimes forget when we're doing these wholesome things that every moment's an opportunity to remember to make everything we do to free all beings so they may dwell in peace.

[14:28]

A theme for this period of intensive meditation is Avalokiteshvara's perfect wisdom. Avalokiteshvara is the name of a great compassionate being who is also realizing perfect wisdom. So the theme is about the perfect wisdom of this great compassionate bodhisattva. But we could also say the theme of this intensive is Avalokiteshvara's zazen practice. Zazen is another name for our practice.

[15:41]

Our practice is perfect wisdom here because perfect wisdom is the unceasing effort to free all beings so they may dwell in peace. We also call our practice zazen, which is an Asian word, Chinese-Japanese word, which means sitting meditation. Our sitting meditation and our standing meditation and our walking meditation, all of our meditations are really summarized by this word sitting meditation, or zazen. All of our meditations are summarized by the perfect wisdom of the great enlightening beings. All of our meditations are Buddha's wisdom. We aspire to practice that meditation. We aspire to remember

[16:44]

to practice perfect wisdom. This room has several people in it, human people, and also has several statues in the form of human-looking people. The central and largest statue is a statue of an enlightening being called Manjushri, which means pleasant splendor. And Manjushri is the bodhisattva of perfect wisdom, that big boy in the middle. In front of him is Shakyamuni Buddha statue. Again, Manjushri is the representative of Buddha's perfect wisdom. And to Manjushri's right is a statue of an Indian monk who is said to be the founder of the Zen tradition in China.

[18:00]

An Indian monk who came from India to China to transmit the Buddha mind seal. Behind the bodhisattva of perfect wisdom is a statue of Avalokiteshvara bodhisattva. So in the middle there's perfect wisdom, and behind perfect wisdom is the bodhisattva of compassion who practices perfect wisdom. And to the right of the bodhisattva of perfect wisdom is an ancestor who transmitted the Buddha mind seal. And that Indian monk is a manifestation of Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. He came to India to transmit the Buddha mind seal because the Buddha mind seal is the mind that practices perfect wisdom.

[19:15]

It is the mind that liberates all beings so they may dwell in peace. So Avalokiteshvara in the shape of an Indian male with intense eyes. When you leave, you can look at him. He really does have intense eyes. He came from India to China to transmit the Buddha mind seal so that all the Chinese people could become free and dwell in peace. He is Avalokiteshvara in a male Indian body. And the statue in the back is Avalokiteshvara in the shape

[20:20]

of maybe, it's hard to say, but maybe a Chinese female body. Avalokiteshvara has unlimited forms of manifestation. So in a sense, we're doing one thing We're just practicing an unceasing effort to free all beings so they may dwell in peace. We're just doing one thing. We're practicing perfect wisdom in order or as freeing all beings so they may dwell in peace. Perfect wisdom is all beings being freed and dwelling in peace. That's basically the one practice, and we also say

[21:24]

Zazen. We have one practice. One practice. And it has different names, just so people with short attention span don't give up. Because if we just say, if all we ever say is Zazen, a lot of people might get bored and not be able to relax with the boredom and go to another place where they have more words. So we go along with that a little bit and use different words for the same thing. I was talking to someone on the telephone recently, an old dear friend, and she said, what's the theme of the intensive? And I said, Avalokiteshvara is perfect wisdom. And she laughed. And she said, I'm laughing because you always teach the same thing. And she said, maybe that's a good thing. She didn't say, you know, that new kind of idiom, and that's a good thing.

[22:29]

She said, maybe it's a good thing. I think maybe it's a good thing, but I have more confidence that Avalokiteshvara's perfect wisdom is a good thing, whether I talk about it or not. Sometimes someone might wonder, well, what is the Buddha mind seal? Let me tell you, I don't know.

[23:41]

But here's a story about it. The Buddha mind seal... is the same practice and the same enlightenment of you and all beings. The practice which you do, which you are doing right now, which you are participating in right now, And the practice of all of us and the practice of all the awakened ones from beginningless time and now, that practice, that's the same practice as all of us right now, that is the Buddha mind seal. And that practice is also the same enlightenment

[24:56]

of you and me and all Buddhas. It's probably not surprising to some of you that Buddhas are enlightened. But what may be surprising to you is that Buddha's enlightenment is the same as your enlightenment right now. Buddha's enlightenment is not the same as your delusion right now. Buddha's enlightenment is the same as the way you are enlightened right now is the way the Buddhas are enlightened right now. The Buddha's enlightenment is the way that you, together with all of us, are liberating all beings right now. Buddha's enlightenment, and that's Buddha's practice.

[26:01]

And the way you are liberating all beings right now, the way you're enlightened right now, is the Buddha mind seal. Avalokiteshvara, bodhisattva, bodhidharma, all the Buddhas are transmitting this unceasingly. Suppose someone thought, I would like to actually be mindful of the unceasing effort to free all beings.

[27:31]

I would like to be mindful of the Buddha mind seal. I would like to remember the Buddha mind seal. Someone might say that. And I also might ask someone, do you wish to remember this? perfect wisdom? Do you wish to remember this freeing all beings? And do you wish for your body right now to be participating in this Buddha mind seal? And do you wish for your body to transmit it right now? I'm not saying is it, I'm saying would you Do you wish for your body to express the liberation of all beings? Do you wish for your body to express the Buddha mind seal? These bodhisattvas, they wished, the story is Avalokiteshvara wished to express the Buddha mind seal.

[28:43]

Avalokiteshvara vowed to express the Buddha mind seal. Avalokiteshvara wanted to free all beings and lead them to peace, to nirvana, before herself. She had that wish. She made that vow. And by making that wish and making that vow and making that vow and making that vow and making that vow, dot, [...] That vow became Havalokiteshvara. That vow became Buddha. I must find that aspiration in myself and I must find it again and again and again and again in order to realize this unceasing effort and this freeing of all beings.

[30:12]

Wishing once isn't sufficient. But first of all, can you find it once? And if you can, then you have something to take care of. If you forget it, it's not the end of the story. You can find it again. And if you forget it, you can find it again, and find it again, and find it again, and actually find it every moment eventually. In other words, finally become unceasing in your effort to remember what you want in this world for all beings. Do you wish to remember the practice that you're doing that's the same practice as all beings? And the practice you're doing which is the same practice as all beings

[31:13]

The practice you're doing that's the same practice is the practice that frees all beings. The practice you're doing which is not the same as all beings is not the practice that frees all beings. The practice you're doing that's not the same practice is not excluded from the salvation process. you're doing that's not the same is what gets liberated. Enlightenment liberates you from the practice you're doing that's not the practice of all beings. Enlightenment frees you from the stress and suffering of what you're doing that's not the same practice as everyone. Doing a practice that's not the same practice and the same enlightenment of all beings is stress and frightening and et cetera.

[32:24]

And beings are into such practices. People are into doing things which are not the same activity as all beings, right? It's part of the deal of being a sentient being is that You're not completely liberated. And why are you not completely liberated? Why are we not completely liberated? Because we're doing things which are not the same practice as everybody. We practice compassion towards the practices which are not the same practices. And by practicing compassion towards them and practicing wisdom with them and remembering the practice which is the same practice and bringing that mindfulness of the precious, perfect wisdom of the Buddha mind seal to the practice which is not shared by all Buddhas and all living beings.

[33:28]

Bringing to that we liberate these practices. We don't destroy them. We don't twist them. We bring compassion to them so that are released from these limited versions of our life, from these confining versions of our life. Like, I'm a man, I'm not a woman. I'm white, I'm not black. Those stories I wish to liberate so that the beings who have those stories can dwell in peace. And I understand that in order to accomplish this Buddha mind seal, in order to realize the practice which...

[34:36]

I'm doing, which is the same as the practice you're doing, I have to remember that I want to and remember to give myself to mindfulness of it. And if I forget, I need to notice it and confess it and say I'm sorry. I'm trying to remember the Buddha mind seal. I'm not trying to remember how I'm not doing my life together with you. I'm not trying to remember that. That comes by habit. What time is it? Five two? Before. So that was maybe I could stop now and that wouldn't be too long, right? I just want to briefly mention and I'll say more about it in question and answer. that I have this story that there is a body which I hesitate to call mine.

[35:46]

But, you know, I could say I have a story that I have a body which is called mine. But I also would suggest that this body which I call mine lives with another body which I cannot call mine. This body which I call mine is not my true body or the true body. The body which I call mine is a body which appears in consciousness. And I, I live in consciousness. In consciousness, I'm here. In consciousness, there's somebody here, and it's me. And in this consciousness where I'm living, there's you. And in this consciousness, I imagine that you have consciousness, too, and that in your consciousness, you're there. You think you're there.

[36:54]

You feel that there's somebody there, and that somebody there you call I. I have that story in my consciousness, and in that consciousness... There is a body. And in that consciousness, there's some concern about the body, which is sometimes called my body. And there's a lot of stress, or there's some stress around my body. And I imagine that you had some stress around, in your consciousness, around your body. It's really sad how concerned people are about my body, or the body which they call my body. That thought body is just an image. It's not your actual, real, it's not the real body.

[37:55]

It's just a body that's imagined in consciousness. Simultaneously with that body is another body. which is not just an idea. And that body lives with another realm of cognition or another mind. So we have two bodies and we have two minds. One mind is consciousness and there's somebody there. And if there's nobody there, there's no consciousness. There's another mind or cognitive realm where there's not somebody there. And because there's not somebody there, it's not consciousness, but it is mind. And that mind lives with the body, but not the body that appears in consciousness, but a very big, inconceivable body. You know, an inconceivable body, and the mind that lives with it is a mind that is inconceivable.

[39:06]

And that inconceivable mind is the mind in which everybody else's mind is sharing. That's the mind where we're at. It's actually mind, and it's actually a body. And it's partly shared, and it's partly not shared. So now it's probably 11. In 15 seconds, it will be 11. Words have been appearing in consciousness. And I have been there for those words and spoken them to you. And I talked about the Buddha mind seal. And I'm thinking about the Buddha mind seal in consciousness.

[40:13]

But the Buddha mind seal is not my idea of it. The Buddha mind seal is the way my conscious mind and where my inconceivable, vast, unconscious mind are living together with you. And I, in consciousness, do not have the slightest sense of the actuality of this inconceivable mind and this inconceivable body. So when I try to remember the unceasing effort to free all beings so they may dwell in peace, I make the effort to remember in consciousness where I'm remembering those words. And I try to remember the Buddha mind seal and remember that it does not appear in consciousness.

[41:17]

So I'm trying to remember it in consciousness along with remembering that the way it appears in consciousness is not it. It does not appear in consciousness. I cannot consciously see or hear how I am doing the same practice as you. But I can remember the words, I am doing the same practice as you. And remembering the words And remembering the words and remembering the words and learning to remember the words without grasping them as our relationship opens this consciousness and liberates this consciousness to realize our inconceivable liberating practice that you're all involved in. So I remember the Buddha mind seal and I remember I have to do that in consciousness.

[42:20]

I have to take care of that in consciousness. And then I have to learn how to take care of it consistently without grasping it or dwelling in it. And if that can happen, then there is opening of this consciousness to the inconceivable realm and letting the consciousness be liberated by the inconceivable realm. If I ignore this practice in consciousness, if I close my consciousness in any way, then I close the door on the inconceivable process of freeing all beings so they may dwell in peace. If I close down on my little dream body in my mind, then I close down on my inconceivable body. which I share with all of you. And when I'm doing certain projects and you tell me we're not doing that project anymore, I may not remember that you are giving me an opportunity to remember transmitting the Buddha Mind Seal.

[43:37]

I may forget. But I can remember and say, sorry, I forgot. Thank you so much for frustrating my little dream so I could remember my big dream. Sometimes people help us, sometimes people don't frustrate us in our dreams. Sometimes in our dreams we think everybody's helping us. But if you close down in the dream, if you get tight about the dream, everybody's helping you, then you close down on the way everybody's actually helping you and the way you're helping everybody. But if you open to the dream that everybody's helping you and open to the dream, some people are frustrating me, then you open to the inconceivable Buddha mind seal. You open to the actuality and you can realize in this way the actuality of the life of unceasing effort

[44:44]

of perfect wisdom, which frees all beings so they may dwell in peace. If you have any questions, I may be around a little longer. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org.

[45:49]

and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[45:55]

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