Lotus Sutra Class

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SF-03193
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Chapters 15, 16, 25, 26, 2t

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give me

the
hello
continuing
the suture
he chapter fifteen we're gonna do work
fifteen or sixteen
maybe look for over twenty five a toy
and i think you're doing that we will last
the high points of etc most of the other chapters stuff with the exception of i think chapter
twenty was
check for twenty one
the supernatural powers
of the thus come on
in that chester there is one amazing thing that happens is too bad ever going to miss that but what happens in that chapter is that
and i encourage you to read that the rest of the suture even afterwards
with our class when the chapter never how they all the emanations from the buddha came they were all sort of
there's a tree and alliance seat and all the emanations of the buddha shakyamuni buddha from all directions
jamie sat there so you get the seen as this stupid still hovering in the air shakyamuni buddha and this other many treasures boot are sitting side by side of the ground or all this
a jewel trees with buddhists who are the emanation of shockingly good at coming from all the duration sitting under those trees and all their retinue or surrounding them
in chapter twenty one i forget what the
pretext is but the buddha sticks his tongue up
and as tongue covers the whole and of universe and all the other buddhist sitting under the lions and the trees they do the same thing and so you have this phenomenon
hey i'm all these sir
the and extending their long broad tongues and emitting immeasurable beams of light
when shakyamuni buddha and the other voters beneath the jewel trees just display their supernatural powers they did so for a fully over one hundred thousand years
after that they drew in their tongues again cost in unison
senate
and altogether snap their fingers all these you know
can you see this all this buddhists sitting on a show at all
hey here's
more in unison the numeric data
that's what i did and when they did that
this filled all the buddha worlds and ten directions and the earth and all of them quake and tremble and six different ways so are we sort of miss that part and another that the rest of the chapters are
either the ones that were not reading either those chapters are all
much more about how great this sutra is and with the benefits are of of keeping her reciting it and how terrible it is if you are to where to put it put suitor down
so which we've heard plenty of are already on the road so when not missing so much that there's also a few chapters that were missing which are very similar to
chapter twenty five twenty eight were a few other bodies officer mentioned that the things that they say and do our mission
he was this thorns yeah what
yeah we'll do that
at the end
back when i say i am into
so so
so we're gonna do fifteen and sixteen and then skip over twenty
by between fifteen and sixteen and somebody mentioned last time that fifteen and sixteen or kind of like the combination of the whole sutra and in a way that's true
in where everything comes together in these chapters
so

so all the body searches so there's the buddhists there's much buddha's under these trees and in that in each buddha as a whole retinue of body surface
so this places from lot of people there and all the bodhisattvas for their
stand up now
and say world out at on if you will permit us
in the age after the buddha has entered extinction to
diligently and earnestly protect recite read copy and off her arms to the as in this world we will preach the sutra why me if you will allow us to do this we can we have your permission to protect the recycle stitches and the buddha says no no you don't need to do that
because
in this world there are boot bodhisattvas and my thoughts as as numerous as the sound of sixty thousand ganges and each of them has a crew of bodhisattvas working for them that are just as numerous and these people are going at
protected recite the surgeon so you don't have to worry about
and just as the buddha said that yet another miracle occurred as you know for me that's not the ground these different borisov has emerged to they they just broke through the earth and they poured out of the ground and sort of hubbard and air
immeasurable thousand and ten thousand and millions of bodhisattvas in moss office with golden hued body with thirty two features bright measurably bright so on
each one liter of their own assembly each one with a retinue equal in number to the sands of sixty thousand good ganges and then a whole long paragraph here of
how many there were of them and how many
disciples they all have
only here unlike usually when this formula is given
they bring it up to a huge number and they bring it down to a really tiny number
only equals of the sands of one ganges river just seems like you know at this point food as nothing wrong with only that may half a ganges one quarter of a ganges one ten thousandth of a ganges murmured number of sense of
and then the way down to only four disciples five disciples three two one disciple and even know disciples it off just sick in themselves people who do solitary practice this kind of curious as the only time that you see that
thompson
maybe two or
for once honor
even small bands of
disciples
and then they all went to the tower or the stupa in the air with the buddha was sitting with many treasures
and then they praised the buddhist for fifty small carpus sang hymns and so on a phrase
to the buddhist
incidentally this is an interesting thing i mean you'd find this and our religion hymns of praise
the greeks and hymns of praise and in the old testament and the new testament you have hymns of praise
and here they sing all these hymns of praise and i think that's because
a mark of the spiritual life his gratitude
that a person
who was in the path feels a sense of gratitude for their life even though my nappy from a worldly point of view some fabulous thing and even though there might be suffering in it when you are in the way
if your gratitude it seems to be a feeling that arises spontaneously it's a canada
aware that you can tell the year
in accord with your practice you feel some sense of gratitude and then you want to praise the were older the buddha or god or whoever or whatever you designate as the source of your of this gratitude you feel an overwhelming of over my cup runneth over in know you feel gosh analysis
great that you could
the a tree instead you could walk stand six
so these bodhisattvas feel that way and me
prince the buddhists
in meantime my everyone sat there and listened to these wonderful hymns of praise and went on for many many years although the buddha made it seem like if it's only a little while
and so after they saying that hymns of praise of the leaders of the body sauces came forward
and they said
where it where did these bodhisattvas contract and
ah
in the
bodhisattva says the buddha says them
now let's see first they say of
i hope you're well
you know this is yes very well why am i well because
i'm
it's easy to teach with always one of the students they immediately understand
that worn out there does make me sick to put out all this effort because it's very easy
now as the time when other body surface who had previously been there
our thinking about this situation about how of a sudden all these body surface arise out of the earth so many many many of them whereas this place
the world empty space and are homeworld
while the saw world is this world and what's the empty space and well i don't know him in there seems to be like a cavities than willing to the earth
you know and this is exactly the question that that my trail and the other boys soft as are about to ask how you know that not not exactly what's this cavity but why are all these very surface here what's this is why we never suggested we never heard the idea that see they were coming forward and saying you know we want to take your the lotus sutra because they thought
everybody's here now you know
of a sudden they discover that there's as cavity this empty place under the earth and there's innumerable body starts was under their from up for where did they come from we have never in the past seen or heard of such a thing we want to know where they come from oh buddha would you please tell us where the conference this estimate we we can't believe it
and then all the buddhists who were all the emanations of shakyamuni buddha were all sitting on seats they to asked the same question
where did all these bodhisattvas come from and why are they here
then the buddha gives his answer on page two hundred nineteen he says that
i converted this and guy that these displacer i am responsible for their big here i train them
and i caused them to develop along for the way
they have all been dwelling for many years in this place empty space underneath this world
where they read recite and to understand the various sutras and they ponder them make distinctions and they keep the suitors correctly in mind
so these are wonderful you know police office
and in the here because i taught them the million untold numbers of bodies office i have taught them and i have developed them and that's what they're doing it that's how they got to
well this answer
made the body surface buddhists who asked the question very perplexed
how could this be
and they say and paste two hundred and twenty
they were puzzled
at this thing that had never happened before and they thought to themselves
how could the world honored one in such a short space of time
have taught and converted in immeasurable boundless awesome kaja number of a pretty was just sort and enable them to dwell in a new terrorism yeah somebody
because in the boot is only
teaching for thirty forty years now he was awakened he was a prince in the whole story was a witness a moratorium was teaching thirty forty years you can't teach an immeasurable infinite number of people and thirty four years say so we don't get it how did you do that and seems impossible they say
said they say it's of like if you saw a young man who is twenty five years old and that young man pointing to someone who is one hundred years old and said
that person there is my son
if you said that if we saw such as a movie as flabbergast and how could this be that somebody twenty five years all points as soon as one hundred years old and says that's my son this would be hard to believe and it's also hard to believe what the buddha has just said they said
ah
so the point of
like all s or against the plan for a actually saw that they just they can they'll come on savings on this surgery you know it's stupidity and if one of the leading up to you'll see with the point and then when we get to the point that we can discuss what you think about the point how you feel about it but notice that you know these p
people here have trouble believing and stuff you know what does the only ones who they said we don't really can we can't get it is hard to believe
yeah and they were there too
so in other words they and their opinion and you just recently attained the way and they give other similes it's also like something else welcome
ah
anyway it's impossible it's just doesn't seem to make sense that in such a short time you could have trained all these grey surface and the chapter is on that question
how could this be
and then the buddha now is about to reveal the highest message of the lotus sutra because three times he as now you must believe what i'm going to say and this repeat that you must
believe and they say we beg you to explain we will believe we will believe please explain and again he says you must believe in us and we regularly value and finally after they pledged themselves three times that they will believe in what he's saying they won't just be critical of us but they really listen hard and really try to believe
then the vertices to them what we've in a sense we already know what he's gonna say because we've been prepared for this and with the very in the beginning when it when they stupid rose in the sky and we saw this buddha who was already extinct appear before our eyes we already knew that something was up and so
the buddha here says you must listen carefully and here of the buddhist secret and transcendental powers
in all the world's the heavenly and human beings and assures all believe that the present shakyamuni buddha after leaving the palace of the shock has seated himself and the place of practice not far from the city of gaia and their attained complete enlightenment but goodman it has been an immeasurable
boundless hundred thousand and ten thousands millions of know utah's of coat of carpus since i in fact attained buddhahood there wasn't forty years ago in bodhgaya that i tend buddha that's not it was really an immeasurable amount of time ago that's how come and then a measure was montana
could have trained all his disciples because it's not really true that it only happened forty years ago
and then it gives another long metaphor for how much time it has been another one of these where you go to the east and to drop a grain of sink pulverizing versatile and one
that's how long
it has been since i attain buddhahood
ever since then
all this to not countless numbers of years ago ever since then
i have been constantly in this world not just for forty years but that from countless time ago
preaching the law teaching and converted converting and elsewhere i have led and benefit of living beings and hundred thousand ten thousand and millions of notices and announced of us of cares of lance
so
i implore the good to observe different people and see what there were their acts see if their faculties are keener dull and then i appear in different places and preached to them under different names they've even all the buddhas and as sutra maybe we're actually just meet under different names appearing a different guises to benefit different kinds of creatures
no i observe the buddha says how among living beings there are those who delight in just a little
simple kind of teaching and for those people
i describe how in my youth i left my house old and i attained enlightenment and all the store that you all know i say that story for those people who can't see the grasp anything beyond that so i tell him mr but in truth
in truth the time since i attain buddhahood is extremely long like i just said
and it is simply that i used this expedient means to teach and convert living beings and caused them to enter the buddha way this is why i speak in that manner
why do i do this
the thus come on the buddha's pursuit the buddha perceives the true aspect of the threefold world exactly as it is there is no ever flow of birth and death
zula there is no ever flow of birth and death actually
there is no existing in this world and later entering extinction these are not true things even though it looks that way it is need a substantial north empty neither consistent or the diverse
nor is nor is it what those who dwell in a threefold world perceive it to be
girl is not what people think it is i know that and so i size up people and see how close they are understanding the way the world actually is and i accordingly give them a story and the simplest one is but how i was enlightened and such a time on that
but
really ever enter extinction
like i said i like it looks like i did
i announce that i'm going to into extinction but this is only an expedient means number the sutra begin again with his concept of expedient means that this parable of the burning house so now we find out that the whole life of buddha and the and the extinction of the buddha is not real and it's only an expedient means
now why do i do this because
if i were to remain in the world for a long time and tell people the truth
people was shallow virtue would fail to plant good routes but living in poverty and lowliness will become attached to the five desires and be kind of the net of deluded thoughts and imaginings in other words if they see that the thus come one is lives forever and does not andor extinction
there's either they're gonna identify with the thus come on and say wow my teachers is endless
and become arrogant which will cause them to suffer more or they'll think since the thus come one is always gonna be you i don't have to worry about practicing because he'll take care of everything so i don't need to practice
so in order to prevent either one of these kinds of things from happening i show
the experience device of extinction an ordinary life it's not really true
spinning is another parallel suppose there is a skilled physician
who is wise and understanding and knows how to compile medicines and everything and he goes away
for a trip and while he's gone all his children drink poison
it makes them in a full of pain and suffering and they fall riding to the ground
some of the brain more poisoned than others and some of them are totally on their minds in some of them are just have a stomach ache and are miserable
so the father comes home and concocts different medicines and gives the medicines to the children to take to cure them
the ones who are sick but not completely out of their minds see that it's good medicine they take the medicine and they get better
but the ones who are completely out of their minds see the medicine and then they won't take it because they're completely out of their minds
they don't want poison has penetrated their faculties they don't trust the medicine they don't take father
they won't take it
what's the father gonna do
well the father says now i have to resort to some experience means
so he says them to the sun's do you need to know that i am now old and worn out and i won't live very long i will leave you this medicine it's up to you you can't count on me i'm just getting old and it goes away in another trip and he has someone send a message back saying that he died
so then the children
in shock and his death
come to their senses take the medicine and get better
same story with me access to birth i have to tell me and i'm going to extinction to wake them up and get them to take the medicine because people are so are their minds with the poison of greed hate delusion that they cannot see the world for what it is and they won't take the medicine and less i used this kind of experience device what do you think
he says do you think that this is a lie that i've said i was entering extinction they say no no world everyone because of your intent
so ah
in verse
two-piece more or less the same thing when i look at living beings i see the drown in a sea of suffering and therefore i do not show myself
causing them to thirst for me
then when their minds are filled with yearning at last i appear and preach the law for them
even though there's truly suffering in the world in my buddha realm which is always there
there is peacefulness
tranquility
and beauty
in all those who practice meritorious ways will see me will actually be in study with me
see me in person luck
so this is the the burden of those two chapters and so what does that so little bit interpretation what a what does that amount to again and the lotus sutra of
he's preaching this
a notion of good and not as a person as a teacher
but a universal buddha
that's present everywhere at all times
always available
who are
who's we remember also in the very beginning of the suture the buddha began by saying my teaching is not not understandable it's too vast human beings cannot grasp the world in which i live
so
ah this is
the that if if we can say that the early teachings in the early buddha it was psychological
in other words a person who achieved a kind of
a real peace in our deep psychological peace
based on perhaps a metaphysical truth but nevertheless stressing the psychological peacefulness
cricket said in the early buddhism was psychologically oriented non supernatural
we can say that the buddhism of the lotus sutra is quite supernatural and metaphysical
that even though the lotus sutra and and we talked a lot about these are christian ah tone or the christian similarity to christianity in lotus sutra even though the lotus sutra has that similarity does carefully fall short i've ever seen that the buddha created the world there is to put a created the world
i never says that the buddha is
it also resists actually that the buddha is eternal
doesn't raise concepts of eternity it does right it does make a great deal of the length of time incalculable amount of time but still time so the lotus sutra i think doctrinally as careful not to make the put it into a god and yet they certainly make the fact a boot
her into a metaphysical conception rather than a psychological one and they say therefore that that took to to to make offerings and someone is just as powerful as to do the psychological work that the early buddha taught people should do
so
one were common with and then we'll tap discussion i wanted to i see more thing you know
in japan yeah to get this one to make one more common and i see several people march two that is that the in in the in our seminar
we were discussing
the idea of found at that hum
impermanence
a phenomena
could not be an object consciousness couldn't you could see this happening this happening in this happening and you could think as you looked at that series of things happening there has been change
but the actual change itself you can never catch you mind can't catch it
so that the fundamental fact of our experience is not an object of consciousness this is what we were contemplating what we what we read in the in the text
and i was saying that
insofar as this is the case that are that the as you come to bear down and on the actual fact of human experience you end up with a great unknown this just as and physical sciences when you bear down more and more accurately on a nature of matter
the same thing happens you bear down on it let's find an atom and that's been a molecule by molecule that's when an atom let's find a proton and neutron and a cork and god knows what and then you can't find anything
is a great mystery they're the same with our own she was subjectivity that while we know on a conventional level that we are having experience if we really tried examine that we cannot grasp it
and so it's in the middle of this undress ability of this
human experience that we see this empty space under the earth that we see the vast cosmos that we see all the stuff that they all the mythology that this sutra is talking about
is a way of talking about the fact of vast mysterious unknown as that's right in the middle of our experience because the sutras are not telling us that over here there's these buddhism or over there here i mean they're telling us at all these multiple directions and all these vast
quantities of time or right in the middle of our life of art of an instance of our life
so that's how i would interpret this sutra and this has made while this sutra doesn't really explicitly say that is supplied but it's pretty explicit in the other tasca sutra where it actually says that's the case that that's where all these or elves are and outside of this present space in this present moment
sicca syndrome
so where do we going to have i just was searching end of this action general
sixteen where work and i am only just the wording or
could all the for virtuous deeds and are gentlemen of upright nature is all see that i exist and in beardstown in law and times for all their strong i preached the buddha's life is eternal
so expediently i can see you're saying that you that no one really says is to year yeah but i can share he does say as an extremely that expediently for the sutras nine is not the positives that are you in a right
yeah i think that the in his essay on this sub
super pickle seven are actually the discusses this point and he and he says that the
if you analyze
the sutra
how it is clearly not
this is cut cut a short of making put it into a god the creator and eternal and so on even though it approaches that the images are but it's not crossing over the boundaries
for the means and thaliana think it's still knows if the a number and then know exactly you know it's an uncountable number of yeah it's as the number he doesn't sound like a creator sounds like an appreciator
yeah that's different than actually creating yeah it is it is something you know the the difference between a creator and this buddha here is is the creator stands outside of causality see that's the thing you you you follow causality up to the point where causality is and then you say on the other side of there is the
creator and nor in buddhism is this ever the case because there's nothing outside of cause of causalities a circle that includes everything and buddha and not to see causality for what it is is to escape the will of becoming but escaping you will have become a is not outside of causality that's only a correct and true
true understanding of causality is not an in another place or and another time
so it would be
contrary to the basic fundamental impulsive buddhism for someone to say that there's something outside of causality in this regard as something outside of casella
of course and he said that you could also the are theists who would interpret god in a similar way to abroad in a buddhist where would i would call a buddhist way no to mean so the idea that this is
the theistic doctor this is a non theistic doctrine and never the twain shall meet as just not so there are many takes some fearsome that become very close to buddhism and there it takes on buddhism that smirk of fears of even though they are careful never to cross the lines or as a the estimate there
services questions
well i'm an expert on theism but i would say my girl my my sense of it is that the
christian mystics a christian mystics the hasidim of the jews
the sushi is among the are among the muslims
talk about union with that you know if there's union with god and you know them job as no outside of causality alchemy it's an experience of
let it go self from entering into something are being may empty was a christians have this idea for domestic savvy the idea of ketosis and emptying of the self and then god comes in so this mystical doctrine is sounds to me very similar to
much of what you could make fine points there have been the no positive guard outside of causality from somewhere else
but
course those points of view are generally minority points of view in the great theistic religions because theistic religions that we have the
happy young
feature of having the world's greatest authority at the head of religion god and who wants to give it up because of you represent god and you're the boss so people don't like to say well goddess you must have good seat and scottish use you could tell you
so it's fair for the establishment so the people who say these things are usually
ah canonized later he just perfect
st paul's conversion experience i mean i know i now no longer live but christ lives in yeah yeah yeah that's true
and that's where he
absolutely central rare
that's true in and yeah in the gospels have various sides them it depends on where you want to grab hold of it whether you want to see it that or not but no i think that's true so it's not so simple you know i mean the buddhist to the traditional buddhism will define theism like this and they will see that's what theism is and you know it's different but
i think we see from a suitor like this and also from certainly is in understanding of these things
the to these definitions are not hard and fast or any other depends on i interpret this or text says i attain buddhahood that again or expedient mean back and wasn't historical moment before they haven't liked to maria
when in this chapter he says that there is a time yeah i mean this is always never this has never denied that that he was a police officer training and that he became a buddha this is not denied in this chapter is just a that also happened way way way way way up
way back uncountable numbers of years ago it didn't have the forty years ago
so let's never denied because otherwise you have a that of immortality challenges there was never there wasn't time for their somebody again for welcoming
reebok ending the buddha
have you might have experience to have had time for him
rose on the donald
well there are other buddhists
can it wasn't for my referring to his that he's referring to himself and the same is true shall each to the other routers they were body such as they became for it isn't an ssl years since the so again than it is sort of immortal cascade of prison on his fear that's right
there's no the question of whether where it began and how it began that is not addressed
it's it just it was going on that song
and then ah the famous saying the buddha that that's not a question that tends to
yeah so we don't and furthermore speculation about it on is harmful to to to be obsessive about trying to answer an unanswerable question is not helpful
so
what else about this
her past i know before the surgery and this brings every game this thing and i
be outside
outside
that passion is being outside of outside oneself the and
and i don't know how to be either here and it's not that yeah well i don't think this is saying that it's outside oneself this is and mythology you could read the lotus sutra and i certainly would read it as some
as i said of a moment earlier as a religious document that
fumbles to try to say something about the ineffable nature of our own experience
this would ever say they don't think it's it's sir
i think what i'm saying is that that this world we live in right here and now in front of us
is more marvelous than we know
because of our conditioning and are small mindedness over many generations of our lives that life after life we have created a very narrow space of a world in which we see ourselves operating in this particular way
and so given that the buddha said well start from here do this to this to this service and you can have peace
the lotus sutra say well that's what the buddha said because that's what we need but in reality the world that we are inhabiting even now is this vast world a cosmic fantastic world we're just knows that available to us because we're not
we were not able to see it were not ready for now i'm preaching the lotus sutra because i know that you're ready for it so here it is another and i'll tell you finally know the way it really is because up to now i've just been using different experience devices and i will continue to do that of course for the benefit of beings but now
at this point we've all practice long enough so that i can really let you know what's really going on
this is really your experience it's really happening in right in front of you all the time
and time as this way ah not the clock hours that you think it is
what looks like things changing an impermanent is not really that at all
so and this is like i say again this is not that
far fetched i mean when we look at i get from the using analogies from the physical world
when we look at distant stars
and when we look at ah
you know the inside of our body and mind microscopically and on an atomic and subatomic level
we see that there are these patterns and universe is going on that are impacting us that are actually real world you know that are happening that is there they're not part of our human experience now we can think about them because if we have a scientific information but
the real mean you know even from a technological scientific viewpoint we would all agree that these billions of worlds and the galaxy are real and the and that the atomic subatomic nature of our bodies are real and at the in these ways that are body communicates with itself or with each other a real and measurable and so on and yet we don't it's the
part of our conscious experience so we know there are these vast universe in the world and this is a poetic description of those universes and worlds that are in fact what we are
so
ah i think this
yeah that's what the sutra is really about it and then it gives us a sense
you know
from an egotistical point of view a self point of view
oh
we really don't have that much of a chance you know actually have are all doomed right
we really can i mean how much can we experience how much can we enjoy how much can we live in such a short amount of time with this tremendous limitations of this body and mind
and i think that if we are
honest with ourselves and really settle into our experience we will see how limited we are and how ultimately frustrating it is
you know how to say unsatisfactory it is
so what the sutras telling us is that those limitations and then satisfactory this
can be transcended because right in the middle of these limited experiences that are human beings is this vastness that we can be in touch with through the agency of our practice in our faith room
think that's the me that's the message and burden of the sutra there's a kind of sense of transcendence here transcendence with which is not which is he right here if only we can go inside and the attachment
so
no
through our limitations to achieve or appreciate the ultimate
and that the ultimate is vast and jewish and available to us this is to me with the lotus sutra is telling us to really opening up the practice for us and many dimensions now i mean i realize too that the lotus sutra isn't for everyone and
there there are places and times and situations in which i would never bring it up
because
it just like the rudest thing and will shrink somebody out or they would think i was crazier they would misunderstand what i was trying to say
ah so
in general it is better idea to just as the buddha found out it has a better idea to talk about suffering him cause of suffering and suffering to offer helpful practices to be able to
work with are suffering and and ease at someone
you know so that's mostly what how we practice and mostly what we do but i'm
i think it is also available to get a glimpse of this world and appreciated don't see what is so once in awhile we pull out what is my her suitors and we reading from may's ourselves you know
since the procedure is that
what just occurred to me a set and vain as to see beyond ourselves lyrics i said i think i was just thinking i
such as thinking anybody navy us had children mean i haven't that you have children it's you almost have have it away see how that how you transcend yourself go outside or beyond yourself or any go for better and course whenever they can
canada you can see how that gets conveyed
a boring situation defense and which physicians to do because i used to it and it is an open ourselves to isolated tires here so i mean i even understand but i mean if you're if you're the of one of the apparent parent or family member you you feel that it's a mirror miraculous
unbelievable event and then of course in the course of a lifetime that gets squeezed the narrowed and sort of worked with such a way that it could become a big drag for all parties you know
and that's what we do we take miracles everyday on a daily basis we take miracles that we squeeze of in pushing with the ego until they become a terrible very often we want to get up and we want to get out of it you know
and the parents can hardly wait for their children to leave home because they're so troublesome and children can hardly wait to get out of the house because their parents are such a pan but and that's what this miracle has come to you know the ah so that's what we do i mean this is our job as human beings as it taking regular experiences
the pilot shift and smell so barrier to practice buddhism so that we can regain a sense of via an appreciation for the miracle that is our life right
that's what it isn't just for yeah
aetna right over our life is beyond our life you know thanks to you know our our experience is beyond our experience
ego is is
here he goes to be you know contextualizing a much wider way
say you know hey the certain people
who
jesse to
ah
have transcended
i only just takes years transit is what hell wasn't a faulty
and connected to anything about it who don't you know caught up and yeah old and young who seems like in the middle yeah
yeah i think about yeah children are a symptoms or no
yeah
yeah
that's the people yeah like i had a friend years ago true i wrote music and i said
you write such beautiful staff
and he said you know it just comes through me and for somebody to get that least twenty something yeah
it just it amazed me at the time
yeah well i think that movie and that's another good example because maybe artists could relate to something like the lotus sutra i yeah that's just how i feel i'm composing that's just what i feel like i'm writing poetry when i hear when i'm when i'm overcome with these creative
impulses i'm really not myself like i think and else happens when we were reading this is describing all in a stupor and the railings stuff i thought my customers triumphs the and hell yeah you must've just yeah transcendent something to help
yeah yeah throughout the ages in asia craftsman would take these searches and they will try to reproduce them
there's a whole on cars and i were translating a hua
passage and dogan where though get teacher is telling him describing to him how you supposed to go to see where the dharma teacher walks up the steps that gives a damn attack and he describes basically something that have a load of center with as is canopies and parasols and banners and bells or
hanging and it's made of gold and laps largely and they make they would make the stuff you know
and when they in on his big kingdoms were they had tons of money and they were in a very lavishly building temples and yeah they were try to
reproduce and as i said in an earlier class on the suitors and these ceremonies and rituals were enactments of stuff and citrus and they were actually enactment of somebody scenes would be inactive
through the different rituals and and tantric rituals like them
some to transformative far ritualized
using special implements that are crafted that people are making with a spirit of these sutures village the faithfulness of it all you can imagine a whole culture based on this faith in the these kind of sutras using these things as source texts the to recreate it in the flesh in the world through craftsmanship and the faithfulness of to
x memorization all this kind of stuff and music and so on a very rich ritualized life in which we could come together an experienced this feeling you know what we're doing just to read these words in her tail version of what of what because people would practice with the citrus and they would they would resign
ceremonies and so on so they really raised up
a sense of of the real stuff of it
so again we don't really in our practice zen practice is some it has all this overlay of the stuff in it but especially the way we do it here it tends to be much more concerns must worse more psychologically oriented because while some will come as people who are ready to have faith in the
sort of thing i become his people who are
am gonna figure this out so that any so we have to work on it and that's what s dusk expedient means right and you have to work on all that stuff
but i think that when we get to the place where
even though we we haven't perfected ourselves at least we have ah
put to rest the more nagging aspects of this kind of stuff we can appreciate this other side
and i think and do from his birthday kachin a difference can do better
oh my that language
the tax i think that
jack explains painting
at that transcend
actually has a i
described it can be
or adequate
i to do it
yeah
lap like to now aunt living death i just lacking as to i was in the sky
right yeah that's why when they try to explain that kind of comes out like this
that's a pretty good yeah it in all over the place and very poetic an extravagant them
yeah mom and five years just used to be pointing to someone
where exactly is straining at it at the edges of language right
yeah
then calculate if she grows up the world systems and to pick him
track one great a week and be sobering reality
well let's take a little bit of look at
this twenty five
and twenty eight and then we'll we'll see if people comments and posts

such after for twenty five as i said is this earth was it i think most scholars feel like some of these were tacked on at the end
i think it's pretty clear that the burden of the message of the sutra is already complete probably at the chapter but we just read chapter sixteen
and after that there's just pile on more detail about how wonderful the sutra is
and then after that have some little
in a way
snapshots of bodhisattvas who might have been in this great assembly and who they are how wonderful they are
and in for the far east there were cults of these different body surface
where were they were be a temples dedicated to them offerings made them of prayers offered to them and so on
so this one is procedure of the world sounds for who was unlucky to as far a bodhisattva
the bodhisattva who hears the cries of the world
in this compassionate
ah
any kind of been undergoing trials and tribulations if they call on this bodhisattva will receive relief
yes that's right and dogan as a favorite story diligence where he goes to china this is the true story doing went to china and they were in the middle of a tremendous storm at sea you know
and dogan was on the point of perishing and he called on of lucky this for every body siphon they were safe
so he he cause he knew lotus sutra and he knew that us what to do
so here is someone holding fast to the name of he sought for procedure of the world sounds should enter a great fire
the fire could not burn you
this would come about because of the boy soft as authority and supernatural powers if one were washed away by great flood and called upon the name of of located far and immediately you would find yourself in a shallow place
ah
suppose there were all these people who are
on the see looking through they were out there
sickie trade and find gold and silver and they run the see and as fierce wind blew their ship off course and it drifted to a land full of demons
if among these people there was just one person who call the name of the bodhisattva it would be delivered from their trouble with the demons
if person of faces an imminent threat of attack should call the name of a bulky thus far that the swords and staves wielded by his attacker could instantly shatter into so many pieces then he would be delivered
though there were enough for demons to fill the thousand and millionfold world and they should try to remit you if you call in a while lucky this far these demons will be
be able to look at you let alone do anything to you and so on so many things like their behalf all you have to do is call not lucky far and you'll be okay
and then
i pitched three or two i thought it was this was interesting in there
second paragraph there
this bodhisattva avalokitesvara candy store fearlessness on those who are fearful
pressing or in fearful pressing or difficult circumstances that is why
i'm lucky to spar is also called the bestowal of fearlessness
so
that's interesting
i'm lucky dish bar was the bodhisattva
who are
here's the cries of the world who listens and the important and operative say here is that the power and authority of of lucky dish far as saving grace
is that he's simply fears
the cries of the world
he actually is open to him and here's it
and it's the virtue of the hearing that gives up lucky to charlotte the authority of power that if you only call his name these great things will have the other oculus far and says he's doing anything is that showing up and making something happen
it's only by virtue of the power of the fact of his listening to the cries of the world all of them without being freaked out or fearful
that is the source of his power and therefore if we call it have we can become fearless
so this is an interesting thing that we how do we become fearless we become fearless by listening to the cries of the world fully and carefully i'm lucky to far hears the cries of the world in the line of emptiness
that's why i'm looking at this bar is not free dock on across the room that's a true and deep hearing
so today i was stuck into the phone with someone a student who lives with faraway was then a freaked out state of mind
totally full of fear
and
he said i didn't know what to do and he said well i was i'm looking for work and the winter
an old age home but i thought i'd better not work there because it's too depressing
and i said well maybe you should work there you go back and see
because maybe if you work there and just take care of people and just listen to them and watch them and try to be helpful in any way you can maybe you'll feel better
and i think that might be true maybe you'll feel better if his fear will be assuaged by his own listening
if he stops thinking about his fear and really listens to others troubles and truly listens maybe he'll be comfortable that's what this says to me
so that's something we can all think about
and on wonder about
so
seems like there's something thing
if someone wearing this sense there's something about he really hurt and he can create hear it as an inner strength then
your heart is that not in his present
aristocrat american spirits that sony factory hearing you can't find years to pillory group
yeah exactly
something just listening yeah doing asked person to me
the just first experience that that's that's the idea here that there's nothing more powerful and more savings than just
having someone listen and with just a true listening
yeah because there's no fear there's only fear when we are
are afraid for ourself when there's worry for ourself and is only word for a so in the present moment there is no such thing as no self and there's the worry
so ah
he has to be physiologic to how do we while i mean like imagine like when you experience period of certain chemicals oh you to imagine it's has those you know overabundance to certain we have stuffing is just firing and they're not as to they experience fear without any necessarily any
the stimulation for it in anywhere and he focused a north lincoln my object was scared it's
yeah well like mental didn't know a mental illness present yeah it's paranoid you know and then they're ill because kind of obvious obviously interesting area it's race but
you know what i always say that in a paranoia is the human condition and i mean everybody's everybody's paranoid to people who are paranoid as a diagnosis thoroughly more parents and the heck casino if we were all variety by
earth
the
that percent
which is dumb as well that's funny because it's so true
a victim
the
so
the the last after the sutra is
this is the month of other
shiny practice bodies and for we say but so much above your means the universally good are universally worthy or universal worthy
he shows up in the final chapter the sutra he comes from the east
and he came to hear the suitcases johnny come lately and another it's all over he shows up is a i can be a disgrace suits i heard about it
and
and i want to know
how will people
later on after the buddha has entered extinction how will they be able to acquire this sutra
and the food is as if they fulfill for conditions they will be able to acquire on the sutra first
they must be protected and kept in mind by the buddhists second they must plant the roots of virtue meaning do good deeds and actions third they must enter the stage where they are sure of reaching enlightenment which is one of us bodhisattva stages of no turning back
fourth they must conceive a determination to save all living beings so if they will fill these for conditions
they will receive the lotus sutra
and the boys sought the university where the says
that's wonderful and if someone does for those for conditions i hereby vow that i will protect that person
in the future
i will jump on my elephant cause
some of others pictured riding on a white elephant i will move my six tusked white elephant and with my harm your body soft as i will proceed right towards that person is and i will protect him or her
so then they say
and if if people should wish to practice this sutra so much about her says they should do so diligently and with a single mind for peer of twenty one days
and after that i will get on my elephant comfort zone
and i will get those spells and magic potions so there must be a proud don't know about a particularly when i'm sure that the and ten dive realism and especially in probably shingon buddhism there must be a twenty one day ceremony
this is a great thing you know this kind of like three week long rituals and two months rituals and native for pupils also have such things where they drop everything for a month and have a cerebral
so i'm sure that there's a twenty one day lotus sutra certainly with number of different rituals and so on
nice to check
i went to break a habit
the i did a change for twenty one day if you do it try my name's through the change for and whenever you trying to change constantly like quit smoking
quit it only been stop when i have a standard early in his extra two years now
are they between my age twenty one and i mean sure
well there you go extra it's this tends to work i walk into i know if it happened
human yeah hundred i'll do it for twenty one that is your
this is often
the
there why not
yeah
suggested that
well in the
and the body starts a ten stages of a bodhisattva one of the stages where the body software reaches that point where they can't turn back and they will definitely go on to enlightenment
leicester you know very important stage i feel a numbered is on the tip
so they must be at that so this is another where they must be advanced students of buddha dharma
and if they are event this extent they will hear the lotus sutra
so subtly us los it was very events center in i think it's in this chapter what says the lotus sutra is the earth
don't miss shepherd you know somewhere it says
elizabeth in another tab for twenty five
no anyway
in one of the chapters it says that of
the lotus sutra is the ultimate sutra
last sushi
see if i can find it quickly
yeah oh

page two hundred and seven said just and fourteen
that we didn't that
in the middle of the page or so and when they have one greatest things first says the lotus sutra will not be
heard by most people it's too much for them
but when they have one great distinction and merit and they wiped out the three poisons and they emerge from threefold world and destroy the nets of the devils at that time the buddhist filled with great joy and this lotus sutra is capable of causing living beings to attain comprehensive wisdom it will face much hostility in the world and will
difficult to believe does not been preach before but now i preach it manjushri this lotus sutra is foremost among all that is preached by the buddhist
when all those priests it is the most profound and i don't think than any other sutra says this message was always say how great this sutra is in a few just beside one my blog about that that's common but i don't know this far as i know there isn't another suitor that's as this surgery is the best sitter is the most profound it and so this was believed
really like i said earlier in my class in a can anti school there was a whole ranking of all the buddhist teachings and it placed the lotus sutra in the pinnacle that the buddha they even had a thing where they said they would have thought this this business has finally thought the lotus sutra and such and such a time
with all this leading up to it because it was the ultimate sutra
and it is given at the very last say
the way that powerful ruler daily took the bright juliet guarded for so long and finally gave it away this refers to a parable the i just told about a ruler who gives many thanks to great generals helps them along various ways but he has a jewel and the top not of this hairdo
that he only gives to the altar of a general who finally you know has accomplished everything because he wouldn't give that away easily you know he'd only give it to the person who is worthy other the right time so that's the same as the lotus sutra
manjushri this lotus sutra is the secret storehouse of the buddha's with thus come once among the suitors it holds the highest place so so on
so anyway that's the and here
to suit distress for such a fantastic sutra here it said it is
can vary hugs to criticize yeah yeah i know well as lava throughout and in the answer in all the different terrible things that will happen at you here
yeah i know it's flat yeah many faceted this is the and year of this chapter and samantha bot are all the terrible things that will happen to you if you don't respect the surgery and if you make fun of people who do respect the sutra
say to people that the upon lotus sutra if you say that this is useless and and will get you nowhere than as punishment for saying this you will be born eyeless in existence after existence
does the last page my experience is that three hundred and twenty four
at my lips again it costs and you'll have boils all over europe
here all this guy stuff with which we've seen before them in it's mentioned similar transformation in other chapters
emerald hill choice
yeah
and about a bot a departed
less the end of the suggest i would encourage any of you who would like to read the rest of its first the we haven't read
but i think we did on the whole a pretty good job
never recovered in twenty-one days ago i took along with and at this point has a very long
espanyol
so anybody take up the suggestion of besides martha of her know i i was right here i forgot
hi i'm going to get on
so manager is it true that nobody has been to kick it off smiled i saw more it really fast from a carolina
be shot were among friends
i have heard three may i say this
in my hour of darkness this body is mind burn with sadness but somewhere in the past or maybe today yet at least myriads of millions of natives of countless ago this world drops itself away and the fires day
an eternity only seem to say we're all burning but we are the flames answering flickering lighting up the sky for all
richard
if who else was the perfect
the actually had
you're just sort of embarrassing but i am not do it anyway you'll see immediately that i'm not an artist but and i'd like to show this to people because i think in a big their places that you real life and check that menace and when i took this fast before it was suggested that we pick something out of was it out of them
it out and so this one i can't see how he didn't hear that around the edge and just copy the passage in it there were these only start felt that i was conduct standing for than that was kind of superior conduct and pure
no a where many ancient and and then i made one as another passage and and i think is really nice that practice that i actually ended up giving away but it's fun in ireland or can help sticky driver and
a i'm a a current shut the necklace know and i say i recommend it the prisoners were to do and so i them
hard to follow that
is this fixes
it's actually gave it a table
called the story is the pet is to the path of conservation as the adams to science
skillful stories of a numeral body of innumerable thirty status inspiring a path of practice for the benefit of things the blood knows the bones the narrow knows yet they do not yet know that from a measurable value time immemorial the world island one
the southern voters before build at conveying compassion wisdom and devotion to our being spawn beans
in a ten directions and conveying the instrument deliberation
thank you
amazing getting all as and measurables fear i learned and
google's remember
it seems to be a key feature decision
who else knows what and know others do
i do but i can't like the applause at the end it was will reply and it won't overwhelm and fifty feels from the want to check
so at your vegas while coming and going to happen
on earth fire water wind each other we've locked to saw how world forever
but suffering makes love pickle or abusive and so we bring our suffering to this western slight parched souls refreshed in buddhist gentle rain once more all beings pony surface maha surprise maha passionate

more
it's very short so you like miss it
sometimes a stupor appears from a simple gathering of seekers listening to the old jew tenderly singing
the

with respect i go through their lines questioning if you talk to him
what that will stop as my heart is it that all pervading a compassionate presence listening and responding to the cause painful process is it within or without
most the different her it's interesting to them
different approaches

another war
as my fastness for the many who wants suffered and spiritual boy here within the sacred text is hope and equality and encouragement to attain while responsible think of what
expedition of the conversion is echoed in the palace thus come on world honored one who has been have one to all
larger than life means appeal to the masses and operate way
and even those who claim to the folly of their professed attain next up her only the humiliation of others terrific
no

why
german
the

so
happiness as time served him and to just three words or sunrise
some israel
your personal salvation room

alice
pitching know i forgot
kobe
i really mentoring registered as you can do an impromptu
hoof
you know and when one class and slaves class on
when woman took this vicinity of copying a lot of sutra and she found a picture life from magazines are different art things and whenever in the town one that represented each chapter is one of those a system happen yeah like a like
lincolnshire these color coffee so your whole book in picture when first i is really you
sort of that new age to the liver cooking etc
can you imagine copying the sutra for him the typical of course what they do
that will be a kind of neat thing to do in a position
the calligrapher it's can appreciate
our lives but that that was of course a major practice right a minute
now for us to copy the center would be
some we could do it but
in those days that's how they that's self cup is existed when you may copy man
throughout distributed processing
scribes in on the whole job of being
it's a great job i would like to a job you can imagine sitting there all they were running up
logistics
they still do it in all cases like and judaism
the only scriptures that are could really kosher for ritual use are written by hand to this day
then there are people who do not just kidding
well i guess we come to the end of our lotus sutra class thank you offer the sir
quite delightful for me because of
i can remember the last class i gave it into the classes are bigger than this and it's more fun for me but smaller and were internet and
you know this show up that feels like we're just sitting around the living room talking about the suture around them he says big event
so
i enjoyed having a smoked glass very much
at night the i appreciate that his faithfulness to the classes from the welcome
so onwards

really
the