Lotus Sutra Class

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Dining Room Class 3

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good morning everyone the sun came up
just time
i wanted to read another one of dogan poems about the lotus sutra
how delightful mountain dwellings so solitary and tranquil
read the lotus blossom sutra with whole hearted vigor under trees
what is there to love her hate
how enviable sounds of evening rains in deep autumn

so last time we met three people volunteered to recite something from the lotus sutra site deanne and melinda and jackie are you all ready to
recite something absolutely where the rest of you and jackie
already so whoever would like to start please come
oh i was picturing seated if you'd like to stand up
check
that has several just i think the main thing is so everyone can hear to speak loudly enough
oof
the buddha in the great assembling proclaimed that i should become a buddha
hearing such a voice the law all doubts and regrets
a removed
on first hearing good is preaching in my mind there was fear and doubt
lest it might be mara acting as buddha distressing and confusing my mind
but when the buddha with various reasons and care will speak so skillfully
my heart he's worthless me
on hearing my next job with broken
the buddhist preaching
kiss me
the buddha preaches that the infinite extinct would as of passwords calmly established and intact always all likewise reach expand on his love
the present and future buddhas
hapless in their numbers also intact for ways
reach such allies this
the current the president world honored one after his birth and leaving home having gained the way and rolled the law wheel
also proclaims such a lot this
it is the world's honored one who reaches the true away evil and has no such truth as the hence i know for certain that it did not mara acting as buddha
because i had fallen internet of dad i can see it as the
hearing the buddhist gentle voice profound and variable
expounding july
my heart is filled with joy
my doubts regrets
if we're ever been
i rest in wielded
huh
huh
she's an issue
yes
focus

why such as i asked
their hands off
careful of such strong and
it said something
because it feels like the
no
he's had on little purchase happiness
now simply cancer
makes me own
does shine listen
she the last time
a sliding down

of it to time compose by his new pack for ways save all living creatures turned to the heroes thoughtless wisdom
of those are here the law not one fails to become a buddha
this is the original out of the buddha's by the railway which i walk i desired universally to cause
all creatures to retain the same way along with me
the group
the buddhas and future ages
though the buddhas and future ages proclaim hundreds thousands coatings countless schools darkly
in reality there but the one vehicle
the buddha is the honored ones know that nothing as an independent existence and that
the receipts spring from the cause so they revealed the vehicle
all things are by and they're fixed order hence the world abides forever
pinch you are very much
is there anyone who would like to volunteer to prepare something to recite
kate
danny
on which chapters well it can be from any were i think today
today we're going to talk about two and three and maybe four five six
i just sort of person the cape danny an average
thank you
we've been reciting the lotus sutra some people have joined a personal day to recite it and we've been resetting it
i'm not stopping for punctuation you know not reading it
as dialogue in so to hear it recited this ways is quite wonderful
so maybe we'll switch are reciting and read it that way for well too
so
i had wanted to go over a couple more things in chapter two and then move onto chapter three the the parable have
why won't ask

so just took over chapter to the world down of one has been sitting in meditation and as we've
i learned of the introduction of this ray of light came out of this twirl of hair and illuminated all these
our world systems in the people who are sitting there with the buddha saw all this who were just amazed and asked you know what this mountain we heard that town this had happened before and that the lotus sutra was going to be preached and then the buddha all during this time he had been sitting in meditation he
heat while this kind of display had been happening and then he gets up from this vegetation and he speaks first which is noted in the commentaries and also in the
in the poetry part it's it's reiterated that the buddha speaks first which is
remarkable whether worthy of remark because often the buddha response to questions and in this case the buddha just under zone begins to speak to sherry putra
seem to ask a question like usually happens
ah
so sherry putra is you know in the heart sutra words is sherry putra form of shy coutries in the mahayana is often used as
symbolically because shape which was the foremost in wisdom of the
the are how to the buddha's close disciples so that wisdom from the old wisdom school when it shifts into the mahayana where that wisdom as of a further wisdom
so sherry putra is is the one that there they often talk with and ah in the heart sutra you know that he's taught about form an emptiness and no eyes no ears and so forth and in this case the buddha is saying i have something i have a further teaching that i
want to teach this very profound and it's so profound that you're not going to understand and people are not can understand this
it's difficult to understand
and the shrub or has the the ones who heard the buddhist where the voice hearers i can understand the project buddhism and and the bodhisattvas
maybe they can apprehend but also they can't really understand this is only a buddha together with the buddha
i will understand this dharma so
ah
and the buddha says you know in this some
the poetry part he says he doesn't claim that this is his own that he discovered this heat says you know in times of your way way way way back the buddha's have been teaching this and i learned this way back so he's not saying he's originating just he's coming forth with this kind of parade
oh teaching that's been taught and taught through times of your and he's followed other buddhists who been teaching this so there's a kind of lineage their that the buddha is expressing
and then to hear you know the name of this chapter as tactful means also it's a skillful means expedient means this is a skillful way to show
the teaching and you use whatever's at hand i remember him
electric kathy fisher gave about picasso
something about picasso saying if you've got blue you use blue if you've got red you use read it's kind of a skill and means you just use what you have in hand to express your truth so that the skillful means of attack fullness or the expedient means
and suzuki or she emphasizes this in the commentary
his commentary that we have enough the young
reference shelf
skillful means is not seen as some kind of side thing or you do skillful means but the real thing as something else the the non duality of skillful means or action expressing our our understanding through our life through our actions through what we do
is
is the the most important thing or the rather than being a kind of secondary thing that you do
how you actually are in the world
is expressed through skillful means or tech fullness
now this is based on one's understanding so there is an understanding or direct experience which can't be talked about as soon as you begin to talk about it it becomes skillful means or tech fullness so making this clarifying this oh
over and over about
the impossibility of actually saying
a direct thing about the truth and yet words are said plenty of words are said
so only a buddha together with a buddha can fathom the reality of all existence and different translations none but to target turn sherry putra can impart to a detached to those laws which the to target to knows
and no one but the buddha's can completely know the real aspect of all phenomena
another translation the true entity of all phenomena can only be understood and shared between buddhists
only a buddha and a buddha can thoroughly master the true such lists of all things

ah
so the buddha taught in all these different ways these different ways to different groups according to the needs of the of the audience according to the needs of the people and this and this will go into in the parable is not seen as some secondary
i think some secondhand thing but the way to show people bring people to to
to understanding so it's seen as
ah
i'm not
a side issue but the real the real way the buddha expresses the truth
so skill in means is extremely important because without it there's no way to actually get at via the truth there's
no way to grasp the truth so the expedient means of the skillful means is some way to approach it and pass it on and point people so that wet so that they can experience it for themselves so it's extremely important

and

so there's this
just wanna touch on this vm or it's has only a boot anna and it together can fathom the reality of all existence and the am suzuki roshi mentions that this reality of all existence he translated translated sit as things as it is you know the way you
hertz read that instead of things as they are things as it is so you have the three thousand myriad things the ten thousand things as it is all the ten thousand and things are expressing or are non dual from the one
one being on one big mind
and
this particular teaching
right here in the lotus sutra this is the first place where it kind of points to this
all things as buddha nature things as it is things and buddha nature being
non dual
which is very difficult to understand and people have difficulty understanding it that's get gets reiterated over and over and so the buddhist says this is hard to talk about folks i really can't enough enough shape
woodrow i really can't talk about this anymore
and sherry putra than you know presses the buddha and says first the buddha head started out by unasked beginning to talk about this rate and then he says no no it's enough and i can't go on and then shared putra presses him and asks three times which is traditional and the buddhist has c c
it's and i really can't talk about this and
one
this may be setting up a kind of anticipation in the crowd you know you know when somebody says no no please i ain't aerial encanta oh come on command can you just tell known you you wonder understand it i will i'm so three times until the crowd is really ready to hear what the buddha has to say
ah
but what he says then is just more about tactful means and that i've taught in these texts different tactful ways in the past
but it was really one thing that i was trying to get at
and
ah
my dharma is subtle and hard to imagine
an oath yes right before he begins to speak as you know five thousand people get up and and leave that the haughty ones and i wanted to just stop there for a minute and and hear from anybody about your we heard a little bit some not be so comfortable with that
well five thousand people got up and left and the buddha let them go those are some aspects of this and i just i wanted to stop there for a minute to talk about that
about these five thousand and your feelings about yes
yeah

yes and at the end of that parable chapter it talks about what happens when somebody hears the teaching before they're quite ready and rejects it and and so you don't want to be the part of the causes and conditions for someone to to rejected that way yes
i saw
ha

stunning
there
and is very up to when what is said
this particular
yeah
salem said
yeah

does that
i just think

would you be willing to say how it is that you chose that to memorize that that section oh yeah i actually have
right
he says

that

i really like
i don't like
actually i've homes
as
but they actually
discover happening
people have any here
guys with ranchers away
a lot harder
i think i'm actually i'm not sure exactly that it illustrates that because there are a lot of the shrub or cause who stayed many thousands of them stayed and so these particular ones left and it was monks and nuns in there were people from all four groups who left
so
i think that actually
all the groups were staying to here and some people of all four groups left so the the interesting part is how was it that they left in what's what is it about
what was going on in their minds and i have a stray went to town a minute but was there other hands yes i recently came across our reading the gorgons extensive record there's a footnote and they talked about when he used the word hinayana that he wasn't necessarily speaking of the entire sub
from school and it was more of a term or referring to a just kind of an approach or kind of a way of thinking and i wasn't one thing in the voters to show that by really upset me actually i return heavy on it seems really derogatory manner i get it all and i'm the further that the
the chatter attack from this is it comes up a lot where just seems kind of way you know what we're just found those guys what they need to hear because they're not you know capable and this is the risk of mahayana is hand all the elements you know that's it and
so i i have this horrible feeling about of i'm wondering if it's possible that indiana a dozen us since some of the show it just stayed you know maybe indiana doesn't necessarily have to mean everybody that it was in the suburbs will just a certain approach where there are just kind of to fix which can be in any sector any school
and any good buddhist or not you know people have the best view and aren't kind of enough for themselves
you know this this point about the mahayana is better and all you guys are you know i think that lotus sutra ashley's
it's really important to see how the lotus sutra is not saying that it's saying i love you all you know i mean the buddhist says in the parable you know you are all my children i love you all have been trying to teach you in different ways and now you know you're ready to hear what i put forward but you couldn't quite understand before
it's not a better and worse it's each one of you was studying in the way that you could and now now we're already because we're really all together we're all of one blood you know one substance one family so it's it's not positing mahayana better than any and it's a lotus it's it's a
in fact that other mahayana sutras really do that more you know the v molecule tea and some of these other suitors where the
shrove a cancer the old wisdom schools kind of made fun of you know their the butt of jokes and che pre-trial shown to be you know all weird and scared and office in the momma kitty but this sutra it's a very inclusive integrative and
integrative
we actually all have been going along together
all this time and and you didn't really know it but it doesn't matter we're all here together we're not better i think that's really important for them the the real hard of the lotus sutra is speaking in that way but it's i think it's some it's easy to get
sidetracked or something or to see it
differently than that
the young
and the use of hinayana
right this indiana as a kind of spirit of practice in mahayana is another kind of spirit of practice that go together action that we can work with together and take them what we need from each yeah
rent
or the oscars with scheme
a person with a guy branum that you believing that he was an expression the remaining of that
expression of the expedient means fullness
they're being inclusiveness or
speaking to people where they're at and also getting a room and best that's his room for people to go in there is not health concern for from good speak to someone if there are names counterproductive
and what it says piano
lol those lines with inclusiveness sort of like the museum know others to pay support cushions available for everyone some people there's chairs
how think there's a understood going and i've experienced a clear very pronounced that all of these things are made available to all of us
two for each person for what they need and i don't but i feel that very been up to utilize that needed and i would and that the what's missing is the element the judgment and i think my yeah people leaving guess
and inclusiveness
the emphasis at your hand at the beginning i guess it was commenter mentioned how that that's when the big pyjamas roses
did everybody can you hear each other and we able to hear each other let's all try to speak loudly because i feel like everybody saying some very helpful and insightful comments in the last thing that stephen said was about the zendo that we have support cushions and chairs and different heights of cushions and
that
ah it's all made available for us to utilize according to our needs right according to would be can lie down in back trouble you can lie down on the zendo and there's no
they are offered freely according to your needs now whether there's judgment i mean i know people have said i refused to sit in a chair people are said this to me it's to i can't i just can't sit in a chair it's not xander something so people have their own judgments that they bring to it
but the feeling of the zendo is the ear you're able to take what you need to
within the form you notice to sit even lying down there's a form resolves in line downs as and
in a full lotus is the only way one size our food so i think that's a an interesting comment yes
valerie and david
excess of caution that years several times
or all of us that it really excited about the practice and when we belong to everybody and it says don't push it i because included in this particular chapter doesn't push the message on to the five thousand left in the next chapter the father has a moment
pretty says i can go save them all in the burning house and then decides to do it another way in the parable of the destitute son the king wants to rush out and save the side than on things take their way in phantom city you know you don't rush everybody to the final and excited that there's a good lesson in there for ah
old followers we get so hyped up about this exciting worship everybody to say
there might be resistance
and have you had experiences where you told somebody about your practice and they've like eyes glaze over like see later
so many bright and and i'm sure you've all experienced that remember it a party at my sister's house once somebody came up to me and said what are you really do i mean i really want to know and i thought our eight i'm really saying well
so what do you really interested when you do i said well when i'm really interested in is how feminism and the goddess intersect with buddhism and the lotus posture and how that traveled throughout and i watched and she began to suit a step ladder
and run over to the chip dip
that well scripted
david
you're stuck on here as a judgment
been you
why is new words such as the root of syrians their hearts haughty spirits buddha
the owner mystery me his or her judgment young vs just say your hundred and two years while this that your know
yes let me say something about that because there's some there's a particular army
affliction you might say
when i see the word sin i always in i use a coup shot or unwholesome that's my so
i think sin in the word sin in english as a lot of we have a lot of baggage around st especially if we come from particular religious background so for me i always say unwholesome because i think it's a crucial or that's probably being
translated are a crucial a meaning
unskillful really an crucial you know the coosa grass gathering the coosa grass to make your cushion the coosa grass is sharp and if you do it on you cut your hands so without skill kusama and a crucial so that's how i think of sin but there is an affliction that is to think that one has
attained something that one has not yet attained which is a particular affliction of
practitioners sometimes meditators who are may be very young
maybe add up sir is you know and they oh i've attained and then they go off and
ah
let it be known that they have attained what they have not yet attained and that seen as very harmful for themselves and others
and suzuki roshi comments on the saying it's a big important warning present students this to think one has attained that which one has really not attained so sometimes people have experiences and
you know kind of hang up their shingle and
without being authorized you know without having really worked with someone had been authorized so to that haughty i think
is pointing to this acting as if when hesitate or believing ones attain what one really has not and it's a particular affliction for those often who are very good students
and it's a kind of dangerous one two
the seventies i'm also seeing an assumption that this is why they love
i don't hear them speaking from so that worth reading this is all five thousand are assumed to me with this music so most with it
and remade himself saying that influence and therefore be rather than say i know it when yeah and so i'm still on yeah
the assumption that and yards
mythological know somebody's birth and just feel it
yeah
well the buddha you know when they described with the buddhist wisdom is you know he has some his wisdom is great he has the infinite mind the for unlimited you know brahma vihara as sympathetic joy in loving kindness and compassion and equanimity he's got the ten powers
the powers to know right and wrong the power to no consequences of karma all meditative contemplations to know what sentient beings understand to know it anyway the buddha is saying this so in some ways it harkens back to this is part of the powers of the buddha that he understands the minds of beings so
so maybe and on that basis you can say we don't know but the buddha is saying that maybe the other folks say i don't know why they left for the buddhist thing when he sang though so that's part of the awakened ones powers
well if it's simpsons so it is sent so it has said yeah yeah so does said in this in this teachings
i wanted to tell another story about the five thousand i was an associate
at green gulch ones that rev was leading maybe some of you said that session and rib offered the first day asked people to practice a certain practice he wanted everyone to practice and he himself included yes to practice counting the breath for this machine and there was a person at the session
and who basically said
you will get angry and said look i didn't come here to do that kind of a practice i'm
in that site elementary kid stuff and and i'm not going to stay be left in a kind of huff you know so it reminded me of this you know that was a very particularly it really affected this machine strongly so we i wouldn't i don't know the person's mind but they based
oakley said
that's not what i came here for so you know you can ask is that
is there a danger they're kind of risk to think to not have a
i guess the opposite of this kind of mine is beginner's mind where you just accept with the teachers offering and you work with said what how best you can are you ask questions about but rather than this isn't for me that might be the experts by re next for it's binders there's not so much room so
i am
i think it's it's something to look at in our own situation how that might be operating with us in subtle ways asleep
hydroelectric appreciate them

the wireless
see about a mighty careful about hearing a
what
and making excuses for its
our even a reaction from the away
the way i understand it i don't want any using for somebody else
in our won't they were so many so much he is based on religion
i really million
some of it from from after like this i think
all those people
yeah not one
to be that the present so
why do you get an easy
the
if of you
southern
our
so i was yes yes yes
thank you
i think it's true i mean there it sinks in this sutra that are like and wish they weren't there you know because i i can't swallow exactly what what's being said melinda
i find myself wondering if
in some way is maybe the williams using that language to try and galvanized the group means to live
and perhaps the language is actually part of miss skillful means in gathering group names to to hear walk through his message like creating some sort of
idea of a common understanding on mom and that he understands his invitation in that situation that you can't teach everyone is very minimal so he let the ones girl thinking maybe or maybe next week we'll get another lecture and will be prevents people who lack for me so so he's actually
it's actually part of his skillful means to allow them to go and then say
yeah they're not able to get this message and made here's why choose to gather everyone be removed
i don't know that makes sense but you can i find myself wondering that if it's not just you i don't want to get lost in language i hear the message you say i don't think these i don't think that be pushing out the door thing those people are dregs and you don't ever want to associate with them
i think they get predicted later actually the five thousand something
yes and wherever it was just it
the universe the very but they actually create year so that before it's over
the and hunters and i'd ask about the group easier with the rhythms of granderson that can i hear it
he's i think they just didn't actually
if thought it was over and they respect the they did bound respectfully left and it's time to go
when i've been reading this of i remember when you first started talking about it you talked about how it was translated from several languages and it was embellished passed down orally and finally hundreds of years later the whole thing would put down and bring in a very flowery and ornate way
is it just possible that would really are seeing a little bit of prejudice to the time put in there and we can just leave over that part because we know better and it just seems like we're all of one mind here we all understand that a buddha or the buddha wouldn't really say you guys are no good intrinsically it wouldn't happen so maybe we're just say
the a prejudice of the time and we just carry on and people will be digital what i would i would be okay to assume that what am i missing some debriefing there everybody seems to be picking for
i think there are the prejudices of the time in this book about women and slaves and you know it's it's in there so i think there's probably some of them in this and there's probably also just from your own experience you know and what is what is that phrase pearls before swine you know
no somebody in fact told me out there when they were coming down here it was so important to be at tassajara and then when people who didn't really know anything about it we say well how come you're coming down there why do you want they just couldn't speak they couldn't tell them it was too important a to to talk with an uninitiated person really doesn't know anything about
about your love of dharma and wanting to go to tessera it
sometimes we just can't do it and if we try we they don't get it we feel bad that you know so i think it's pointed to that phenomenon
and there's other things too but yes i think this is a this has its own comes out of culture you know everything was our desire to make the scriptures perfect it's a western thing it's a list is the inspired word of this case buddha and have all it's not but there's there's definitely june
rules in there stopping we're we're we're i find us slipping into this idea we're trying to make this into the sacred words of the buddha where where just grappling and struggling yeah we didn't really say that diddy and it doesn't need to do i think to find a usable usable
teaching you know their and their parents and the teachings not just this sutra but others that are not so usable for her right now so let's have a term that reader gross uses in buddhism after patriarchy that their to find usable the usable teachings now because they are fraught with
i'm
the societies
inclinations of the time as well as well
them
i appreciated spent time on his hand
i think this may not be as a boy since the david
let's see what happened that when a group of people needs
a practice sense of say or even a few people think it's really important to know why and things that don't really know maybe the buddha
they read their motives but not really no and their perspective why they left and
i was thinking of some people who came the summer to do work practice him i has a heart wasn't what they thought it would be and very unhappy employees
some of them laugh and i talked with a couple of them are some tesla and ran out
at the first time they can get
and but the ones they spoke to have valid things to say about the way our structure as authoritarian
this of right with us and i think it's important to have an exit interview on someone needs and situation me that
this a different time back
the people who have to have a different take on a path and site and so long
and it may not be the right thing for them ever made
sorry
thank you
maybe just a few more on this city who would like to see some more about the five thousand leaving
okay a wench good here
it's sort of rate is about this i'm curious to you know why i'm nothing would bring down for five hundred years and what from the buddhist time on mean why it was just orally yeah
ah
miniature i can answer why i think that
it was an oral tradition the way a lot of cultures had oral transmission of teaching oral teachings passed on and learned by heart and you know
but what is the what's behind your question or are just have this idea from the last boss i'd like to suggest that maybe it was because the buddha haven't nine that everything's changing how the sense that it was renowned frozen is sutured frozen
in japan and china fifteen hundred and you know that when it was raining
it was added to and completed probably the last chapter and five hundred is a agent so you know where studying something that was frozen in time or maybe the good intended for his teachings to be changeable you know relate to time so i'm thinking why don't we just rewrite this
you know why going sometimes fifteen hundred years old it's not exactly what you sell anyways and it just seems to me like why study something that sword and so
not applicable to our way your roadmaster just to me it seems i mean i really am joined the lives beautiful grain breads frozen in time moving
this idea that maybe it wasn't ran down originally because there's a sense of changing
everything constantly extrusions side is changing how and maybe it's packed from is not write it down that to allow it to be changing in teaching to be changing time so maybe the writing a sequence was kind of an untapped me too
ah
you know i appreciate what you're saying and how we can get caught with the written in the and it gets some
solid and
so i would love to see a new translation that takes out the
certain references and changes the sense to us good sense and good dollars sometimes this has good sense and good daughters but often it's good sense you know it would be wonderful to do and i think it would be completely in keeping with the the teaching the the teaching of the buddha and we should i think you should do that
and her but the i also feel that it is changing the lotus sutra is as were just talking about the way we're talking about it probably has never been talked about quite like this before right and our experiences with our practice here in two thousand and four men and women together
either
you know with all the streams of all the different buddhist schools that we know of that have come streaming through due to our this time in in the world you know where we have access to all the different teachings it's very unusual and so the lotus sutra will we split the lotus sutra it's now
not a book the cult of the book as i was saying last time it's the teaching of the wonderful dharma and the teaching of the wonderful dharma responds to beings response to the needs of beans that's why it's one of the reasons it's a wonderful i used to still feel i took teaching me a wonderful dharma
a in know the medieval china and not
what it may have been at it was orally passed now our relate and maybe some people will have the same
different yes i think you're right so in earnest understand saying that sounds much
stock you know then i think if we can pull out from the flowers and the and the
and the cultural things if we can pull out for us what the what the core truth is for us which we can you know if you get it down to one thing it's
the one great cause that it allows buddhist to appear in the world is wanting to help other beings you could say that's the wonderful law that's the wonderful dharma and and the by yana is stress is compassion helping beings with wisdom realizing your own true nature and from matt it comes
helping beings because self another i'm not separate that you might say as the wonderful all right there done close the book let's go said definitely a good
so so we take this up
i take this up to
out of
i want to hear i i find it amazing you know we do these practices up in the zendo or yogi practice and over you can read about in the twelve hundreds how dogan folded his wiping cloth you know and i find that just amazing
seven and fifty years or more after these people they would never believe it that you know if that you were to do tell them in a time in the future in the last five hundred years the time of the collapse of the good doctor and in a valley in tessera next to a hot springs men and women of all ages will be practicing or a yogi
people you have never seen before of all sizes and shapes of all abilities who don't speak japanese you know only a few feet japanese
in this valley at this time
they would never believe it you know it's so i'm interested in
reading about what practices went before and what the teachers have been you know and have been suffused with that and then making it our own making it our own fresh
offering that's completely unique to this time of place
then i was once there was a i'm not really resident strewn all not resting or the surgery long i mean this is my second time studying it said seven
something really are time can you hear dad and really hard time resonating with the sojourn we really put off by the language in the
i'm not i'm not getting from it what it sounds like a lot of other people here again from it so
that's kind of it
yeah back to the five thousand he bought i'm really actually empathizing with those people because i feel
hey everybody knows what i get you to talk to them the first cost of a how this sutra sort of this is is the wages that is when buddhism started trying to really say you know anyone can be a buddha
this chapter starts off with it feels like to meet you know the food of saying well i've put you know we're practice with hundreds of thousands of buddha's and know made a myriad cody's of offerings and he just goes online about all these elaborate things that he's done that i personally can't ever
the picture myself getting to you know like in this lifetime and the next two million lifetimes so the idea of becoming a buddha to me feel very remote and
it's depressing i shouldn't read it because it's like it doesn't
and it seems different to me then the stuff that i'm learning from suzuki roshi or other know more modern people i guess where it just feels like yard gouda and it's real simple when you have to do just washed dishes cooked carrots you know really be there with your activity i no i'm not finding that
in the sutra so much

thank you
i'm
ha
so are are
i studied for the practice period is you know taking off from the lotus sutra but are real steady in the practice period is
i'm completely being one with whatever activity is know so if it as in service or aoki work completely
being exactly one with whatever we do which means than were
this is this being one with whatever we're doing is an expression of
only a buddha and a buddha meaning all the ten thousand things all the activities all the practices
all the myriad things when we become one with each thing that we're doing there is just only a buddha and a buddha
right there
so i feel when this is talking about these things it's
our
our practice
i'm doing one thing completely
where we let go of our
ah self-centered way and just completely do it is
things as it is things anything that you do when you completely do it
there's no separation there really whether you know it or not whether you noted so so we just practiced completely with whatever we're doing with full sincere heart
and i would say that's the lotus that's the good dharma you know so i don't know what to say about you don't come into class and not resonating with the sutra
i think
others have you may be feeling the same way so to be in to be one of the five thousand and leave would be one way to go the other would be to just sit zazen while you're sitting here listen with
just being with your sangha members you know without
wanting to understand more or to force it in any way
and then maybe that's not possible but
maybe just to sit zazen here
found
no
yes
when we first started
museum passes
there was much younger men
i'm so very vigorous and
open
hang on
i came through was the heart
with the idea of becoming priests
but when the application
the application so
what is the reason you want to come in morning now
i didn't put down and i wasn't increase what happened was that it suddenly occurred to me
then why not just during the practice and see what happens so it'll be a stage by stage mom
would seen
have you
and now that i'm here
is another ship
and the shifting that gun
i did not take into account that i'm painting one
that are not
christine
and so conditions has the chain i don't have the strength you don't have
the flexibility
i don't have the ability to sit the way
and
i am now searching for away
to do the practice for different
and i see that the five thousand people getting out walking out
we're not perhaps
ready
they henderson
and maybe they have their own agenda maybe some of more older
i'm younger
anyway this is my my sense in terms and change things change
and i'm itching
him i am looking for another way to do the fact so i don't have i don't have that intensity
and i had before it's okay even if i change perfect the way it is
and this is what i am dealing with person
i don't know that
q how to say he has a banking and at you
yeah that's or something for me that
the five thousand
how a kitchenette and how
intimate were just as the self referential nature to the his the most that hydrometallurgy buddha is preaching the lotus sutra and he says you know twenty miles copies go when i was preaching the lotus the gentleman this the lotus sutra to happen you know i'm all mixed up
and i worked on parents that you're going to actually get to the lowliest of them you know that this really talking about and
anyway
dogan us about the okay sam okay the way over the world a secret dharma flower turns will grow
that you know our practice this is this like what you're saying it's about our practice is not frozen in time as long as we're practicing
and he also see as has been swimming in his fastball but you know he says there is turning the flower government in the manifestation of to retreat also was fine you which is the five cents
yeah
i think that that teaching that whether whether you know it or not or have experienced it or not you are completely supported by buddhist the way the earth's supports mountains or the you know that the water is the waves there's whether you know what or not it doesn't matter what you think one way or the other that this is the
true dhamma you know so so we struggle and where we're conflicted and were fighting with it you know and that's all part of a tooth
there's no way you can step out of being
supported by and in one way of saying it is supported by all the buddhas but we don't like that language so much we want to hear that we are one
we're big mind well you know there's certain ways we can hear it better than others you know i mean so if it said one way we say well i don't like it snap for me and say it another way and say
varna a practice harder so
i'm
i am i would like to move to the third chapter where do you think there's more in the second you know
the ten such illnesses that he lists the you know such as a form such miss of nature's embodiment the potency and all those ten sentences jury the tendai school takes those ten such notices and that's one of the foundational teachings of
ten days school which is lotus school so i'm you know when looking at it i i don't feel familiar enough enough familiar enough with it
to really teach them but that's something you might want to look at more than ten such notices means things as it is it's all the appearances of form and potency and characteristics and nature and then all those things together that causes and conditions and the retribution for actions and on
all that is one great big hole
or things as it is so that's this ten sections is to suzuki where she touches on it and but let's move on to chapter three parable
so the end of chapter two you know the buddha ends with you will all be buddhist you know he does that last thing
ah the buddha the leaders of the have no further doubts rejoice greatly in your hearts knowing that you will become buddhist so if this parable of the chapter three opens with shared pool to ecstatic with joy he'd never heard such a thing when he heard that you will become a it's like because he is
of the shrove aka group that were
i'm settling for you might say if it which is hardly a settle for the our hearts are you know and speak ugly developed and ah
ah
ah
wisdom beings you know but this
this is alluding to this that the shrub because we're more interested in self realization and how the schools the old western schools gut
more and more further away from the laity and also caught maybe in the analyzing of the sutras and and the spirit and the life of the teaching maybe got lost at a certain point when which is when there was this new reformed
and my has some geek is the ones who are outset who didn't go inside the cave where there is a big meeting they were outside the cave and and got their own thing going so so the shrub oak has supposedly were more interested in self realization rather than in the body south idea of helping and didn't think they would become buddhas they were our hats
so then they hear that the there's this prediction that they all are going to be buddhas and sherry putra goes on to talk about his own spiritual life how he he didn't really understand the buddha was teaching but he didn't understand the the true deeper meaning of it and he has a lot of self reproach and down
it's but now it's all ended he's at ease he's happy he's ecstatic really
and then the buddha begins does a prediction of shy putra basically he says to shape which drive taught you for long time we've been practicing together for long time you've planted your wholesome roots you've made a resolve to reese study the boot away long ago and that's now coming to fruition this
you know this seed
and and then he says even will become a buddha and and they he says the name flower light to talk to and you're going to live in this beautiful your buddha feel your due to land will be a and so and describes it you know this gets in the different predictions that chapter six i think
is all predictions of the other for great disciples
sibu t and my god yeah yeah and one more
so that it's very similar there they describe these buddha lamps that they're going to be in with golden you know
walkways and jeweled trees and adorned with jewels and or nate and just as incredible thing and in one of the commentaries of suzuki roshi says you think that this is really flowery and that they're you know they're saying all this and but they're not even saying enough they should be at putting more saying more stuff in there more buddhism more i read that makes
that well
because you always think enough is enough or rail right with the jewel canopies it's another mm suzuki roshi says they don't even say enough how this really is this
you know the buddha of fields or when you are completely
you know what this what this understanding is like they don't say a half of it is that interesting or find a few so
so they described this beautiful thing and then the four groups the late men and women in the nuns and monks there oh there's this thing with robes come down and world around in the sky robes i thought that was a great detail i i don't remember if that happens too often but for shy putra these robes come down go speeding anyway the for
groups
are kind of perplexed to love it they're happy they're happy for shy putra but they're kind of wondering they have never heard this before and these people chai pooch has been predicted to and they think they are too but they want to hear more about it and shy putra asks about the other twelve hundred people who are there they've kind of fall into doubts and then the buddha to
tells the parable of the burning house
how many of you have had heard this parable before reading it in the lotus where it was just something you had heard sort of here and there yeah it's it's own so shall we tell it davis yeah what's the guy i with
the value of stripe which prediction
in the other predictions
ah

well
there's this generalized prediction that's made all of you will be buddhists you know you're all buddhists and then
he takes particular care with those this is how i see it with those
disables who were so close to him where his closest and he really goes into detail with them and mrs house going to be and you've heard this generally speaking but you might think of it does that really mean me i can't quite believe it because i've been going this whole either way of and thinking this home either way for all this time
so he gives it to him really clarify really clearly in in detail so i think of it as a kind of gift a prediction juki a gift of and taking good care of these close disciples in that way chris them more and more and more people than how does it
how do you feel about the the predictions
a and role is say
ditto yeah the actual itself
ah so well
that said i
ah
and
yeah so i can see
gives prison sentence by
that will work
where say
yeah
yeah
yeah it's like who was i don't want golden let what i want good old earth to walk on i don't want golden lamp but inspire and
ah
it's funny it's so ornate and and magical and kind of
celestial and and so forth but it also feels like the buddhist trying to pin it down for him you know make it make it real in a funny way you know that this is this is what it's gonna be like in detail so it it's kind of its kind of has both things using using that language to make
something
ah
acceptable and and really clear and and this is how it's gonna be it's kind of funny that way yes if i can sing along with for myself it's something
all my conditioning most taught me i am
why are you
what what will happen to me and said others i really only
suddenly protection actually doing well in chapter three is telling us what you just did it with the terrible
describing
the father and really diseases this is carts of them to to lure
give out of and in sounds like wiki and trying to do with predictions just make
hold me over the top
stories are kind of like
somehow
lines and in and it is
wedding out the skill of means of it is this really human thing so
it goes this particular and mind that my i mean i think maybe our minds of or real nice major with everything don't match up because
ideas that yeah

right at it
just verso
the reminder season
he had a more formal
yeah
nancy it reminds me of a hunt said is that when
the suffering uses his mystical grandiose and points away from the historical
ultimate dimension
and what i just started with was the ten thousand carpenters so i'm thinking about this crew of six or seven people have been with us to in practice period in that that means one thing but when i think that ten thousand rpm hers
i'm on it means some else
i can't articulate the ways in which has partners will change me at this practice the way i can probably articulate more sense of seven competitive
so
this is one way of looking in that it's another way
that sounds lava married some proteins and minor helpless
reading list
it's true we you know we can grasp certain things if you describe something that you like like if somebody said that your buddha land will be kind of like us her their be hot springs and no flies back and to that no slice and and the food is always great and time and and you and it's and you can wrap
your mind around that you could imagine that but this is like it it's beyond your concept you eat at a certain point you drop off this was what happens i can feel it happening when they start going back and describing some of these qualities and myriads of and it's and that all happen in one afternoon and it's you to drop off
i drop off thinking i get it you know it it it actually it's like i can almost feel new neuronal pathways being forged you know ways that i thought in images that i've never conceived of before it's like the inconceivable that so in that way i'm what would it be like to be
fully enlightened in this way that he's talking it's it's inconceivable it's fathomless so he views it trade skillful means to
anyway those are some ways to think about i shall we tell the parable i was hoping we could all tell it because i think we know it rate
how do we know it so in a city and the kingdom there was what
a very rich wealthy man a great elder and what what was his circumstances like you to know what you kids rich running he lived in a in a riding house he'd had a great big house it was falling down the beams they describe it in detail decay
kane of it just needed about ten word parents to get america
a house is just really a wreck and it had how many doors what i want now one narrow door this big huge mansion that was dilapidated had just one know narrow door and
who wait
oh yeah there was a success
there was nasty critters in the poetry it really goes into how bad it really was in their house and who lived in the house to watch two kids either oh yes it's as ten twenty or thirty
kids lived in the house sons actually i think it's their children but i think he cousin two cents and so what were those kids up to in the house the as the
the playing with matches they been holiday animals' lives party animals yeah they were there they had play things they were completely absorbed in there they had a lot of toys and stuff he was very wealthy so they had stuffed to play with and they were completely involved and having a grand old time rate
and the house what happened to the house
it's caught fire fire breaks out in the house and what did the kit did the kids notice
the kids were playing they did not notice they were not afraid they weren't apprehensive they weren't
they didn't notice it all they they weren't surprised nothing they are just completely involved with their stuff their video games they had
all sorts of stuff in there so the the great elder what what did he think right then when he saw the fair break out what happened you're never gonna live this is what he thought that they'll never going to bleed as if ever going to believe this they're never going to go
he had a lot of fear right here at my goodness the houses on fire and the kids what's going to happen to the kids i can get myself out i know how to get out of here and i see the fire but the children are not even if they're just completely oblivious and i have no impulse to escape
so
ah and this is an important point right here he he had this thought about how it could get them out to remember somebody already brought it up a little bit earlier
right he thought i can i can just haul em out you know i've got a lot of strength i'll just gather them up stick him in this
the bench table or flower vessel anyway some kind of thing where he would just call them out
i could do that but then he thought if i do that one of a might fall out by mistake you know and get burned and
a good way that's a good way to to me to bodily bring them out so then he thought of something else that was his first start to to can haul them out himself than his second thought to get them out was what
words to warn them to you said i must speak to them and he began to warn them come out quickly all of you
and to kind of beg them to come out please everybody would you come out the house is burning you know
and what did they do the kids when he's begging them to come out with kind words
pay no attention they stayed there just playing joyfully have a randall time you know what's dead yapping about their you know we're busy ffs
ah playing so then he thought of a third thing this was the third way to get them out of the house what was that
reverend promises and great right thanks for the right so he thought let me think about this how am i going to get these kids out or i know that the i know my kids and i know there are certain dispositions what they like their personalities you know i'm going to often and plaything
that they're really going to want things they want that they'll they'll want to come out get that are very attractive playthings been thinking about this a lot
and and i'll tell them i've got them waiting outside and they'll and they'll
because they're so fond of playing the kids they'll come out and get them
so he said kids children i've got i know you've been wanting
these playthings these carts and i've got him for you have got the goat cart and i got dear cards and i've got a bullock cart out there and they said wow we've got what would dad thinks we've been wanting those and they just couldn't wait to get out falling over each other racing you would be first to get up that narrow
or door
because those things they they just they suited their wishes and they just scrambled out and then they were out outside of a burning house in the square safe and the father just breathe a sigh of relief
you got em out not only do i get about the out buy their own two legs they came up in himself