Good evening. Good evening. Hi. My name is Greg Fane, and I'm very happy to be talking to you here tonight. It's my great pleasure. And I'd like to begin by acknowledging and thanking my teacher, Mel Weitzman Sojin Roshi. I'm just here to encourage you in your practice. That's all. So hopefully some encouragement may happen. We've been enjoying a very robust practice period at City Center. I think many of you here have been part of it, continue to be so, and some of you not, but you can enjoy the good energy that's been coming there from all the same. In this practice period, we've been talking about the paramitas.

[01:09]

In Mahayana Buddhism, generally we talk about the six paramitas, which means the various practices of perfections, which are dana, which means generosity, shila, which is ethical conduct, more or less. Kshanti, which is patience, gentle forbearance, acceptance. Virya, which is energy, persistence. Jnana, which is absorption, or if you will, zazen. And Prajna, which is generally understood as wisdom. So... We set up the practice period as such that in each week, there have been a small group that meets every morning to talk about one of these paramitas in particular, and we've taken them in order.

[02:22]

And we've worked our way through the six, and this is the last week. And the person who led the small group during the week also is giving the Wednesday evening talk. So this is the last week. We've been talking about Prajnaparamita. And so I'm going to be talking about Prajnaparamita tonight. And I explained all this to Mel. And I told him how it was set up, how we were doing week by week in the small groups. And I said that Paul went first. He had the small group, and they talked about Dana Paramita, and then Jordan went, and they talked about Sheila Paramita, and he gave the Wednesday night talk and so forth, and he got it right away. He said, oh, it's reverse seniority. Yeah.

[03:23]

Very good. He approved. So I'm sort of batting clean up And, you know, I might like to say a little bit about all the paramedics. We'll get there when we get there. Prajna is generally understood, as I said, as wisdom. The practice of the perfection of wisdom. What does that mean? Okay, so... I would like to tell you a story. When I was a kid, I used to have this record album by Pete Seeger, famous folk singer, who's still kicking around. He's 87 years old. Pete plays the banjo. And on this record album I used to listen to, there's a song where he'd be like plucking the banjo and then tell some stories.

[04:25]

And so one of the stories was, Once Upon a Time... There was a king who was very powerful, and he had many wise men serving in attendance upon him. And he was kind of bored and kind of didn't know what to do with all these wise men. And frankly, they were getting in his hair a little bit. So he said, well, I better give them something to do. something to keep them occupied. So he said, gathered them all together in his court, and he said, wise men, I want you to take all the world's wisdom and write it down in a book for my son so that he can learn all the world's wisdom. So they went off, and they worked and worked. There were years at it. Three, four, yeah.

[05:27]

Took them a long time. And they finally came back, I said, your majesty, we've done it. Here's the book we've created. It has all the world's wisdom within these covers. The kid's like, oh, that's nice. Hmm. I'll tell you what. Why don't you go and sum up all the world's wisdom in one sentence? So they went off. This time it took them a long time because, you know, they couldn't really agree and they hashed it out and hashed it out. Finally, they came back. He said, your majesty, I think we have it. He's like, really? What is it? All the world's wisdom in one sentence? He said, yes, your majesty, you've got it. What is it? This too shall pass. So, you know, the king's kind of bored and he said, well, what the heck? Could you sum up all the world's wisdom in one word?

[06:31]

So they took it, they deeply, deeply sighed. They said, oh, okay, we'll do it. They had no choice. They were on retainer, you know? So they went off. Years, years later, they came back, your majesty. He's like, who are you? We're the wise men you sent off. This is not all the world's wisdom in one word. Oh, yeah, I remember you now. Yeah, well, what happened with that? Did you ever come up with anything? Yes, Your Majesty. What's the word? Maybe. I got a kick out of this story when I was a kid, and then, you know, when I grew up, I found out that... Somebody asked Suzuki Roshi to sum up Buddhism in a single phrase, and he said, maybe so. Maybe so.

[07:31]

But in Buddhism, wisdom, prajna, prajna paramita, is generally understood as wisdom that has gone beyond. Paramita means perfection, but it also means reaching the other shore, going beyond to the other shore. Usually, well, quite often understood as nirvana is the other shore. We're on samsara and, well, there's nirvana crossing over to the other shore to liberation. But actually in Mahayana Buddhism and in Zen and in the Heart Sutra, which finishes with the famous Prajnaparamita mantra, gatte, gatte, paragatte, it's really going beyond ideas of nirvana and samsara.

[08:35]

This can also be thought of as seeing into non-dualism. At any rate, that's how this monk understands it. Every day, In Zen temples all over the world, we chant the Heart Sutra, or the Makahanya Haramita Shingyo. Here we alternate, right? We chant it in English, and then we also chant it in Sino-Japanese. That's the same chant, actually. You probably already know that, but just in case you didn't, it's the same chant in two different languages. So, it goes something like Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, when she was deeply practicing prajna paramita, clearly saw that all five skandhas in their own being are empty.

[09:45]

And she was saved from all suffering. What does that mean, and why is it so important to the Zen school? Every day we chant the Sutra, the Heart Sutra, the Heart of Perfect Wisdom Sutra, the Heart of Prajnaparamita literature. When she saw that all the five skandhas, the five skandhas are form, feeling, perceptions, formations, or volitional bundles, if you will, in consciousness, constituents that make us up. At one point in the history of Buddhism, they tried to break everything down into constituent parts and then kind of got into a sticking place. And they said those constituent parts, you know, maybe there's no self, but those parts, they're real. So this is going beyond that. Avalokiteshvara perceived that there's

[10:50]

There's no independent existence. They're all empty. All dharmas are marked by emptiness, it says. It just means they don't have a separate existence. Nothing has a separate existence. Everything is interdependent. This is how I understand emptiness. It's impermanent without a fixed existence. And if you look into things, if you check it out, you can easily prove this for yourself. Thich Nhat Hanh talks about this a lot. He says, look, this piece of paper. Can you see the forest? Can you see the logger? Can you see the sun that made the chlorophyll work, that grew the tree that they logged to get that piece of paper? It's all there. without any of those parts, none of the rest of it would exist, and vice versa.

[11:52]

This is interdependence. So, I've been thinking about, I must say, there's nothing like the imminent prospect of giving a Dharma talk to spur a study and research. And it's fun. I'm like, why can't I be like this more often, you know? I've been having a lot of fun. I've been thinking about the Heart Sutra a lot. And I, you know, something occurred to me that I never thought about before, which was, why is it that Avalokiteshvara, or Guan Yin, or as it says in the Sino-Japanese version, we chant is Kanji Zai, This is the bodhisattva who embodies compassion.

[12:59]

And generally, the bodhisattva who embodies wisdom is Manjushri. Manjushri is the guardian deity of the Prajnaparamita literature. Manjushri is the person that's usually enshrined in the zendo. Why was it that Kanji's eye is preaching the Heart of Wisdom Sutra? I was kind of curious about that. So I was checking it out and I was talking to my Dharma brother, Eric Green. He's quite the scholar. Buddhist scholar. And he said, you know, that's a great question. It turns out, well, current thinking, we should say, maybe nobody knows for sure, but the Heart Sutra most likely was composed in China when the cult of Guan Yin was preeminent.

[14:15]

There's a great likelihood that the Chinese Buddhists there at that time distilled this out of the Prajnaparamita literature that existed to express their understanding. And it's so good that Xuanzang, who's very famous for bringing the Buddhist scriptures from India to China and helping to translate them, actually may well have taken this one back to India and back translated it into Sanskrit. So that's very likely why it was Avalokiteshvara. Besides, she rocks. And there's something else to be said about the unity of wisdom and compassion. that I think it speaks to me a lot.

[15:21]

That wisdom and compassion are like the two wings on the jumbo jet of Mahayana. Carrying all beings across. Yeah. So kanji zai. Kanon. those are all names in Japanese for the Bodhisattva of Compassion. And another thing that sparked my interest in this was when Dharmavidya David Brazier, my Buddhist teacher friend from England, he was here last summer visiting, and he said, in that name, Kanon, Kanon is like cry regarding, Kanzayon is regarding the cries of the world, and Kanjizai means freely perceiving.

[16:29]

But it's the same character, Kan. It begins all three names. It's the name of Abelokiteshvara in Japanese. And what he said was that this character, Kan, I had some visual aids. I went to Tsukoji and our friend Daigaku helped me out. He made this beautiful polygraphy. Okay, so this is the character, Kan. Alright, so it has these two elements. This one over here. Well, this one on this side. your right means to see. It's an eyeball on two legs. Okay? That's what it is. And then down here, he painted an eyeball on two legs.

[17:31]

And this over here is a bird. And then Daidaka painted down here a bird. See? And what Dharma Vidya had said was that this radical that is a bird... was actually a water bird. I was kind of curious about that. And actually, Daigaku said that there's an archaic form of making the same character that, he said, shows two mouths lined up and points to water bird. So, Kamavidya said, the water bird stands in the water The heron or the crane stands, you know, on their stilt-like legs in the water and looks down at the surface of the water. But, you know, it's going after the fish, but it's not fooled by the diffraction of the light. When it goes and gets the fish, it goes right to where the fish is, okay?

[18:37]

Not to where it looks like the fish is. It goes where the fish is, and thereby it can sustain itself. And I thought, what a great story. Whether it's true or not, actually, this con is more likely it's a pronunciation cue. But anyway, this one by itself means to see. But with this, the meaning of it is to perceive. So who knows? Maybe there is something to that waterbird story. Whether there is or isn't, it's a great story. Because that's how I think of the wisdom of Avelokiteshvara. And it's also interesting to me that in English, wisdom and vision share the same language root, the same European root. So seeing clearly, seeing below the surface,

[19:47]

seeing what's really going on, seeing through the story, seeing into non-dualism. This is more or less, that's what Prajna means to me. Mel says that Suzuki Roshi, I used to talk about the Prajnaparamitas, all the paramitas as the Prajnaparamitas. And indeed, I found that in here. It's a great book. If you haven't read it, you should check it out. Suzuki Roshi says, this is the chapter called god giving okay he says we have a saying dana prajna paramita dana means to give prajna is wisdom and paramita means to cross over or to reach the other shore our life can be seen as a crossing of a river the goal of our life's effort is to reach the other shore nirvana prajna paramita

[21:13]

the true wisdom of life, is that in each step of the way, the other shore is actually reached. I'll say that again. Prajnaparamita, the true wisdom of life, is that in each step of the way, the other shore is actually reached. To reach the other shore with each step of the crossing is the way of true living. Dhanaprajnaparamita is the first of the six ways of true living. The second is Silaprajnaparamita, or the Buddhist precepts. Then there are kshanti prajnaparamita, or endurance, virya prajnaparamita, or ardor and constant effort, jnana prajnaparamita, or zen practice, and prajnaparamita, or wisdom. Actually, these six prajnaparamitas are one. But as we can observe life from various sides, we count six. And Sojan Roshi says, that each one contains all the other six, so they're really 36.

[22:17]

There's many ways you can look at it. So I think it's very interesting to look at them in this light, because it makes them something more than a cool thing to do, a good thing to do. You know, I think we can all get behind generosity, giving, sharing. These are generally good thing. But what does it mean to practice dhāna prajnaparamita? In our meal chant, we chant the emptiness of the three wheels, giver, receiver, and gift. In giving and receiving, to see into, with prajna, to see into the non-separation.

[23:21]

To see that basically we're not separate. That it's completely interdependent. It's not like I give something to you and you feel good and you're better off and I'm impoverished. You just blow up that idea because that's not what's happening. Okay. So we're going to be sitting with Sashim pretty soon. And I think a lot of us are looking forward to that. And in the accounting office, Keith and myself and William are going to be trying to follow the schedule as much as possible. And so we asked the Eno to give us some duties during the session that would support that. And so she put us all on, I hope, that we're all on breakfast serving group. I think so. I think that we will all be on breakfast serving group.

[24:27]

Serving a meal in the Zen Dome is one of the most intimate and wonderful things that you can do. And that's where you practice dana prajnaparamita, with each other, with the people you're serving, with the people you're being served by. And similarly, during seshin or any time, Sheila, Prajnaparamita, you know, can just be following the schedule and the forms so completely that you just merge with them. Yeah, you just be forgotten. Shanti, this patient forbearance, knowing we're not separate.

[25:36]

What's there to be annoyed by? Kshanti and Virya kind of go together. This is sort of also complementary energies. The endurance, which actually Thich Nhat Hanh translates Kshanti as inclusiveness, which I like a lot. It has a nice feel to it. And then Virya. So I wanted to say in Paul's last class, just this Monday, he asked us what was the one thing we were going to remember from the class or from all the classes. And the funny thing was just before he had asked that, I was kind of my mind was wandering. I was thinking, but I was thinking, about what I'm going to remember from the practice period.

[26:41]

And so far, because it ain't over yet, folks, but so far, the most memorable thing that's happened to me was in one of our practice period teas, when we break up into a small group, we were in here, my small group was in here for the practice period tea, and we were talking about Virya Paramita, that practice of the perfection of energy. And actually, we were just about done. And Quang said, he sort of had this revelation. He said, I have energy when I feel connected to people. That's when I have energy, is when I feel connected to other people. And I thought that was, I don't know, maybe you had to be there. To me, it touched my heart. And I thought that this was really Viriya Prajnaparamita, reaching the shore with each step of the crossing.

[27:48]

Yeah. Reaching the shore with each step of the crossing. Phyana, the practice of sazen, and prajna also kind of go together. In Monday's class, Paul spoke about Huenang, the sixth ancestor of Zen Buddhism, who likened jnana to the lamp and prajna to the light. Huenang, that is, in the Platform Sutra, the first part of it is sort of Huenang's way-seeking mind talk. And he tells about when he was a young man and he first came to his teacher Hongren's temple. And I think it was actually the first exchange between the two of them. When I said to Hongren, I've noticed that prajna frequently arises in my mind.

[28:54]

And Hongren said, why don't you go pound this rice? And he put him to work, which I thought was a very appropriate response. I don't know what I would have said to him. That's nice. What do you say about prajna, actually? What can you say about it? It's the light. Okay. Well, maybe I've said as much as I can say about it, this monk. I spoke about the various paramitas. I'm trying in my way to sort of like, you know, because we're going to be moving into Sashin in a little bit. And this is an opportunity actually on your cushion to practice all the paramitas all at once.

[29:58]

And a very rare and special opportunity. So I hope that you will all embrace it. Now, I think there's some time left for questions, but I don't think there's going to be any questions. Because coming out real soon, at the end of the sesheen, Shuso is going to give us a Hosenshiki Dharma Inquiry Ceremony. So I decided, if you have any questions, save them for the Shuso.

[31:04]

That works, doesn't it? Well, I think so. I'm going to leave you with one more quote from Suzuki Roshi. Your perfect Just the way you are. Yeah, thank you. So that's not the quote. But I'm sorry to say this, and please forgive me. I knew that all y'all were going to say, and. I hear this quote a lot. They're perfect just the way you are, and you could use a little improvement.

[32:07]

I hear that quote a lot. And I'm sorry to say this, but I think the reason I hear it so much is because it feeds our neuroses. It feeds a little part that says, I'm not good enough. So I'm going to leave you with another quote from Suzuki Roshi. Maybe you think you are green apples hanging on a tree, waiting to ripen so that you can be Buddhas. But I think you are already ripe. Perfect Buddhas now, ready to be picked. So... Please, please, please practice as perfect Buddhas now.

[33:14]

Give yourself permission. Give the Buddha within you permission to shine its light, which, for lack of a better word, I'll call prajna. Practice. Practice for the rest of this practice period in Sashin and for the rest of your lives. Like ripe, perfect apples. It's apple season. Okay? Thank you very much.

[34:01]

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