We're on our second to last talk in Zenmine Beginner's Mine, which is kind of hard to believe. I think it was January of last year that we started looking at Zenmine Beginner's Mine, the first chapter, the first talk. And at that time, I was still living at Green Gulch Farm and was thinking about packing and getting ready to move to Enso Village in April. which is when I arrived here, did a long trip, long travel trip. I also, during the time I lived at Zen Center for many years, I raised a child who's now 31 years old. I found my life partner, and I waited through the passing away of several much-loved pets. So I was thinking about that, you know, that... There's so many different textures and stories that seem to have taken place during that year, stories that only I know, stories about my life.

[01:20]

And yet right now, the only thing I feel more or less sure of is the feeling of my body on this chair, the warmth in the room, and the sight of images of you. on the computer screen and also myself, rather enlarged at the moment. So this disjunct between conscious memories and so-called present moment is the source material for much of the Buddha's teaching. You know, although the Buddha also had lots of stories to tell, I mean, he'd been raised as a prince and had all kinds of adventures and so on, what he shared and what Suzuki Roshi shares is their insight into the nature of stories themselves, stories as the workings of our very own human minds. Many times I've told you this, but some of you are new, so I'll tell you again. A really long time ago, when I was in a sashim back in the city center, maybe it was my second or third sashim, the abbot of the time, Richard Baker, had invited Dr. Edward Konza, who wrote...

[02:33]

the ecology of mind. He was kind of a well-known intellectual back in the 70s, 60s, 70s. Anyway, he invited Dr. Kanza to come into the Zendo during the end of our Sashin. So the last morning, there's this deep, male, English-accented voice of Dr. Kanza, and he says, well, I've come to tell you some news that they've invented a computer that thinks like a human. And so in order to test this computer, they asked it a question, do you think like a human? So in those days, computers were rather primitive, so it whirred and it made noises, and then the little by little paper appeared, and it said on the paper, that reminds me of a story. So I've always appreciated knowing how much stories... are the substance of our way of understanding the world. We make up stories.

[03:33]

And they don't have to be true. In fact, I'd say most of the time, they're not true. So, excuse me, one second. I just got a note from my producer who said that I said Edward Konza. It was not Edward Konza. It was Gregory Bateson who wrote The Ecology of Mind. I'm very grateful. Thank you very much. So it was Gregory Bateson. And anyway, good story. Anyway, that's a good story too, who it was that actually wrote that book and who it was that I said wrote that book. So that's just another version of they don't have to be true. We can pretty much say whatever we like, you know, unless you have someone. fact-checking for you, you can kind of get away with it, right? So we know that from our political discourse these days. Pretty much anything's okay, or not okay, but can be said.

[04:37]

So this story that I want to talk about is in the last talk in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, which is called Buddha's Enlightenment. And then the sentence following the title of this talk is, if you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall. If you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic efforts, your practice will confine you by a thick wall. So this talk was given on Buddhist Enlightenment Day. one of the three big holidays that we celebrate or memorialize, one for the Buddha's enlightenment, one for the Buddha's birth, and one for the Pari Nirvana, which is coming up. Actually, we're going to honor or memorialize Buddha's passing away on Tuesday here in Enso Village.

[05:39]

So Roshi starts telling us that what the Buddha meant when he awakened and said, it's wonderful to see Buddha nature in everything and in each individual. So this is what he's going to talk about in this talk. How wonderful it is to see Buddha nature and everything and each individual. I have found this statement by the Buddha at his awakening to be somewhat shocking. Not everything has Buddha nature. Everything is Buddha nature. And I think when you first hear that statement, it's also kind of a surprise. It's kind of a surprise hearing it again right now. How can we see that everything... and every individual is Buddha nature. When there is so much conflict and fear and hate moving around in the news that's buzzing inside of our very own heads. Now this is one of those teachings that has to be what they call unpacked. And we have to unpack it a little bit, see what's inside of it.

[06:41]

So a statement that at first glance is not obvious to the point of seeming maybe not to be even true. So Roshi does what Roshis do and helps us to understand this teaching, not from our own narrow point of view, but from an awakened point of view, from the point of view of a newly awakened human, you know, the Buddha. He says that when we sit zazen, we have Buddha nature and each of us is Buddha himself. To which he adds, this doesn't mean that we only have or are Buddha nature when we are sitting, but that everything in the entire universe is of the nature of awakening. Meaning that mountains and trees and flowing water and flowers and plants, everything as it is, is the way Buddha is. So this means that everything is Buddha's activity. Each thing in its own way. So if Roshi stopped right there, I would still have trouble with his teaching, trouble finding awakened activity in warfare and famine and pollution and abuses of every kind.

[07:53]

And fortunately, he goes on in the next paragraph to say that the way that each thing exists cannot be understood by itself in its own realm of consciousness. So that means I can't understand in the limited realm of my own consciousness, my small mind, how everything is the nature of awakening. That each of us thinks or sees is only a very small part of what we truly are and what there truly is. So this is this big mind and small mind teaching that we hear over and over again, Suzuki Roshi. Small mind, that's my point of view, is limited. It's limited to my experiences and my memories and my way of thinking. Big mind is the vastness that we all share and that is the nature of reality itself. So it's when we're sitting... and silent meditation, or when we're observing our activities calmly and mindfully, that we have a complete understanding of our true nature without asking ourselves what our true nature is.

[08:59]

When we ask what it is, it vanishes. And why? Because we're looking outside of ourselves for something special, something that we can understand, something other than what we are right now and where we are right now. And then Roshi says, what Buddha meant by Buddha nature was to be here as he was, beyond the realm of consciousness, beyond the realm of our small-minded point of view, beyond the realm in which ideas of before and after, of right and wrong, of us and them, splits reality in two. Discursive thinking, interestingly, comes from the word discourse, which in turn comes from a Latin root, meaning to run away. Dis means away, and curere, to run. So discourse is to run away. Isn't that interesting?

[10:01]

To run away from this kind of unified field of reality, of the wholeness of reality, and cut it up into parts. Discourse. So Buddha nature, on the other hand, is our original nature before we are conscious of such a notion and before we practice upright seated meditation, before we were even born. So it's in this sense that whatever we do and whatever is here when we do it is Buddha's great activity, is the all-inclusive nature of the universe wherein devils and angels abound. So when we try to get a hold of it, of Buddha nature, when we try to understand it with our limited consciousness, as it bifurcates our experience of the world, we can't understand it. You know, when we give up trying to understand it and simply be it, you know, just sit, just walk, just smile, just live for the benefit of others, then true understanding is right there in that very activity.

[11:09]

Roshi says that the reason he gives talks is not so people will hear what he has to say, but so that they will be encouraged to practice zazen, you know, silent sitting. And to practice just this is it. Or as one student recently said, they had this amazing experience during a session of this two simple words. And the words are so simple. It's just so simple. And he went on to say that, you know, when he looks at problems now, instead of, you know, his forehead gets all crinkled up and he gets all worried and anxious because here's a problem. This phrase, so simple, returns to him, for him. And he looks at the problem as something, oh, so simple. The water main broke. Oh, so simple. I will call the plumber. You know, it's so simple. It's like we really have the capacity to deal with what's happening. You know, we've done so successfully, all of us, for our entire lives.

[12:14]

We've taken care of what's happening. You know, it's so simple. Yeah. So if we're caught up in the idea of practicing or not, not practicing, as many people have said to me, you know, I haven't been practicing. And I've thought the same thing about myself many times. And then I usually ask them, well, what have you been doing, you know, if you're not practicing? What they usually mean is I haven't been sitting. I haven't been going to the Zendo. I haven't been showing up, you know, at these various, at our Zen center, at our institutions and so on. Well, that's not practicing. You know, that's just coming and sitting with us. You know, practicing is everything you do all day long. There's no way not to be practicing with how simple it is, you know. You're just overlooking the simplicity of the assignment, you know. Just this is it. Now what? You know, meet it and take care of it the best you can. Or ask for help. That's good too. So if we can, and Suzuki Roshi also says that if we can't admit that we are Buddha, that we are awake, then we understand neither Buddha nature nor the practice of Zazen.

[13:26]

We have to start there by admitting we are awake. You are Buddha. So now the request is to act like it. So that's the hard part. Okay, you are Buddha. Now act like it. What would Buddha do? So then on the other hand, when we practice Azen the same way that the Buddha did, when we see Buddha nature, awakened nature in everything and every individual, we will see that our way of practice is really just like that. It's so simple. It's just something you know, something you see. You don't have to wonder about it. Roshi says, we don't talk so much, but through our activity, we communicate with each other. intentionally or unintentionally. And therefore, we should be alert to communicate both with and without words. Or we will lose the most important point of Buddhism. You know, the intimacy of our communication with one another. All the time, we're sending signals.

[14:31]

How we walk, how we pick up objects, how we meet people. You know, all day long, we are in the realm of the Buddha's true practice, the Buddha nature. This is our reality, you know, no way out. So whatever we do and say, wherever we are in each moment, we should not lose this simple way of life. Roshi calls such a practice being Buddha or being the boss, being a skillful master of our surroundings. And to attain enlightenment is always to be with Buddha, with the awakened nature of reality itself. Without trying to be Buddha, you are Buddha. Trying to be Buddha is to confine ourselves by a thick wall, a wall of our delusional, discursive thinking. I'm not Buddha. You're not Buddha. No Buddha. So such a way of living is without any future planning, you know, that's taken terribly seriously, without thoughts of achievement or of failure.

[15:39]

You know, just this is it. It's so simple. So when the bell rings, you know, we sit with our friends, sometimes online, sometimes we get to go to a nice place where others are sitting. That's a lovely thing if we have that opportunity. Sometimes our teachers are there, sometimes they're not. And then we eat our meals and we go home. So before we know it, another year has passed and another Dharma book is done. And how simple, so simple, you know. So that's what I wanted to say about this talk, which is the last talk in the book. And the next thing in the book is the epilogue at the end of Zen Mind Beginner's Mind. I looked that word up too because I'm not sure what that word means. I kind of know. But it was interesting to find out that epilogue, the cousin of dialogue, means additional speech, additional speech. So the epilogue for Zen Mind Beginner

[16:39]

beginner's mind is called Zen mind. And Roshi says, before the rain stops, we can hear a bird. Even under the heavy snow, we see snowdrops and some new growth. So after we finish with Zen mind, beginner's mind, I mentioned to you last few weeks that I was thinking about what we might look at next. And a number of you were affirmed the idea of looking at the mind-only teachings, and there's quite a lot of material that we could look at. Probably the best book that I've found and the most accessible is by Ben Connolly from the Minnesota Zen Center, who wrote Vasu Bandhu's 30 Verses. Is that the right title? Yeah. Oh, Inside Vasu Bandhu's... Sorry. inside Vasubandhu's Yogacara.

[17:41]

Yogacara is another name for the mind-only teachings, the yoga of the mind. So if we look at the mind-only teachings, there's another book that I just recently ordered called Making Sense of Mind Only by William Waldron, W-A-L-D-R-O-N, William Waldron. And I can't recommend that one yet, although I hear it's got good stuff in it. And I've read William Waldron before, and he's a very competent scholar. So it is on order. And I've also heard that Luminous Owl, some of you know, Kokyo Henkel, is offering a year-long study of this text. So I'm not sure how to access that. Lisa's in that group, and so maybe she can tell us in a minute how you can join in if it's possible. There's some other readings we could look at once we finish Ben Connolly's book, which would be a little sometime from now. But there's also this summary of the great vehicle by Asanga, Indian Indian.

[18:46]

Indian Buddhist teacher, a Sangha. And there's the Third Turning of the Wheel by Tenshin Reb Anderson, my teacher. And then there are the two core texts of the Yogacharya tradition. They're both sutras. One is called the Samdhinirmaljana Sutra. It's a mouthful. Took me a while to learn how to say it. Meaning untying the knots. Samdhinirmaljana Sutra. And another very famous sutra called the Lankavatara Sutra. Probably most of you don't know. Maybe you do know. But I thought it was very interesting when I realized or read that the original monks who came to China from India, starting with Bodhidharma, were called the Lankavatar monks. Because Bodhidharma brought the Lankavatar Sutra with him from India. And that's what he taught. He said, this is the only book you need, Lankavatar Sutra. And it's quite easy. It's not easy to read, but it's kind of easy to read. I mean, you can understand what's in it.

[19:47]

You know, when you read it, you go, oh, that makes sense. It's not so abstract. And it really emphasizes this idea that whatever's going on here is your mind. It's your mind. It's just your mind. So it wasn't until The Sixth Ancestor... that we switched in this tradition away from the mind-only teachings as the dominant way of expressing the Buddhist understanding to the Prajnaparamita literature, which in the most familiar form that you all know or have been exposed to probably in your practice centers is the Heart Sutra. So the Heart Sutra is Prajnaparamita, emptiness teachings. and the mind-only teachings are a whole other set of thoughts and a little more complex teachings. And the way they're kind of ranked, the Tibetans like to rank things, like this is the highest understanding, and this is the next highest, and so on. They're all good, but if you want the ultimate teaching, you go to the Prajnaparamita, emptiness teachings, and then next on the list, their list, is the Yogacara, or mind-only teachings.

[20:53]

So the Zen tradition has borrowed freely from both of these schools. And you'll find, as we start to study the mind-only, we can be looking at some of the koans in the Book of Serenity that are directly connected to the ideas that are in the mind-only sutras. Just mind. All this is mind. So I would like very much to hear from you and what you'd like to offer this evening or this morning for some of you. Please feel free to... There you are, Kakuan. Hello, Kakuan. Hi, Fu. Hello, Sangha. So great to see you all. Thank you so much for the wonderful talk. And I thought that that sounds like a great plan. I think everything was combined. I really like the idea of maybe fitting in some koan study in the middle of that, the ones that really relate. And I myself would be interested in

[21:56]

in looking at the sutras, because we've done a lot of more sort of maybe more modern study or interpretations. So I'd be interested in looking at some of that original text and then interpreting it here, hearing your teachings and everyone's thoughts as well. Maybe an interesting approach as well. Well, maybe we can do a kind of smorgasbord. Yeah, exactly. These are great, but we wouldn't want to probably read the whole thing. They're pretty... Right, right, yes. But we can take parts of that and then look at the commentarial tradition, too, to help us to understand. That's right. So that's great. I'm happy to mix it up. Yeah, no, that sounds good. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. I also wanted to just go through the... the gallery and just welcome all of you so i i like to do that before we continue talking so um drew hello drew take your hand in the air i'll call on you next welcome and nini hello nini and kathy and kakwan we said hello hi jerry and jason welcome jason i'm very glad you've joined us i just met him and at the at green gorge this last january he was part of the intensive uh

[23:14]

Helene. Hello, Helene. Good to see you. Jifu. And Chris. Hi, Chris. Nice of you to join us. And Jack. Hello, Jack. Australia. Yeah. Uh-huh. There we got another Australia side-by-side here. That's a big place for you to be so close. There's Millicent. Welcome, Millicent. Griffin from next door. And Kate. Hello, Kate. Jacqueline. Welcome again. Good to see you. And Shozan. Hello, hello, and Cynthia, and Carmina, and Marianne, and Senko, Lisa, Paul, and Kate. There's Corey, Alice, Tom, Carolyn, Ko-san, and Kira. Hello, Kira. And San-ho, and Gen-shin. So welcome, everyone. Nice to have you here with us. So, Drew. Hi.

[24:14]

How are you doing? Good. Isn't the Lakitavana Sutra the Lanka part about Sri Lanka, like it was written in Sri Lanka? Yeah. Or it's said to have been. Said to have been. All right. That's a, you know, a lot of times they'll credit their sources to something that would be well-known or well-respected. The Buddha ever got over there. No, but his material. They sent all the books over there, the monks were over there. The question about Buddha nature is I'm assuming that before the Buddha, or even before humans entered the scene, there was still Buddha nature. That's the story. That Buddha nature is just nature without any added conceptualization or something.

[25:23]

Is that fair to say? I think that's fair to say. I think Buddha means awake, so the nature of reality is the universe woke up, something happened, you know, it's like kaboom. And then many more things happened, and here we are, kind of looking back on what happened. How did this happen? And we don't know. We really don't know, but we're really fond of trying to figure it out and tell each other's stories, origin stories. Yeah, but I like that. I mean, I think that's very comforting to know that everything, all-inclusive universe, is what's meant by awakening, or the universe is awake. Yeah. You like that too? Yeah, okay. I like that. It helps me understand that it's in some ways nothing special. It's just nature, which is pretty amazing in and of itself. Yeah, yeah, so are you, right?

[26:28]

Yeah, you got it too. You got the bug. We all do. We're all Buddha nature. We're all Buddha nature. Thanks. Sure. Hi, Lisa. Hello, Fu and Sangha. I looked up the information for the study group. Oh, thank you. And I put a link to Kokyo's website in your chat. It doesn't go to everyone, but you might be able to forward it along to We post it to everyone in the chat. That isn't, I think you would have to email him and get on the mailing list for it. But that website link that I gave gives you his email address and a form for contacting him. You know, I don't see it. Do you have it? Send to events, gets it.

[27:29]

Bingo. Oh, yeah, there it is. Okay. It's on. Yeah, there you go. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Lisa. Okay. Now a question. Yeah. So going off of the... Okay, so I forget the name of the teacher, but the class that Kokyo did not too long ago about the levels of teaching. Who is it? Zhongmi? Zhongmi? Yeah. Zhongmi. Okay. Wasn't there a level above being sort of the bias of the writer? Wasn't there an Ekyana teaching that was even beyond? And they were the Buddha nature teachings? Yeah, that's particularly something that Kokyo likes. Ah. So that's why he likes that text. Because he happens to...

[28:32]

to have a real strong affinity toward this idea of Buddha nature, maybe in a more proactive way. I'm kind of working with it and trying to understand his approach, but it makes him smile. That's the one that he really feels most enthusiastic about. So that teaching kind of confirms that order of things. Okay, but again, it feels like so many of these... different angles, if you will, the Mahayana, the Yogacara, they all bring in the same ideas. I mean, Buddha nature didn't... You're talking about Buddha nature from the perspective of Zen. It didn't come out of... It didn't suddenly get... discovered and slapped on top, did it? Is this just a case where some group of students, monks, really did resonate and develop the teaching further?

[29:42]

Well, you know, I have kind of a vague memory of when I actually understood that answer to that question a little better. Maybe something can help me here. But I think the Buddha nature teachings, the Tathakadagarbha teachings, were... I think they were a product of China. And China, I think, was where this kind of thinking really ripened and became kind of brought forward as a major teaching. There's a book called Pruning the Bodhi Tree, a Japanese text, monk scholars who are criticizing this teaching very much because they said it's like eternal. It's sort of teaching something that's eternal. So it sounds a little for them like one of the great faults, which is something eternal or something that's nihilism. So either you have eternalism or nihilism. And the Buddha said in the very first sentence of his very first lecture, those are the two positions to avoid. Nothing or something eternal.

[30:44]

So there has been a great deal of criticism against that particular set of texts. And the... the Prashniparamita is like, well, even if there were rooted in nature, it's empty of inherent existence. Everything's empty. So, you know, it's not a bigger whoop than other things. It's just one of the ways we comfort ourselves. And so I think that's an ongoing conversation. It's happened, you know, over the centuries. And I'm not sorry, I don't have a better grasp of that particular sequence of... of debate, but I certainly am growing curious as we start to look again into the mind-only teachings, which also are criticized. You know, if you think there's no mind, you know that little two verses, when the babies are crying, you tell them, this very mind is Buddha. You know, that's mind-only teaching. Your very mind is Buddha. You are Buddha nature, right?

[31:46]

We like that. So when the babies are crying, This very mind is Buddha. When they stop crying, no mind, no Buddha. That's the emptiness teachings. How do you like that? It's a little chilly. And how do you know when to go for which one? Well, it kind of depends on your conversation with the people you're working with. Because if you start leaning too much into an eternal position, then they're probably going to pull you back to the emptiness side. Which is certainly what the Yogacara did. It was a corrective to the emptiness teachings, which kind of led in some cases to nihilism. The misunderstanding of the emptiness teachings, as Nagarjuna said, is like mishandling a poison snake. You know, you get bit if you misunderstand emptiness. So there's a caution there. in terms of how it impacts your practice or your understanding of practice or whether you want to practice at all.

[32:46]

What do I care if I'm already Buddha? I'll just go rob a bank. What difference does it make? So there's a way in which the kind of nihilistic drift can happen. And so the Yogacara is back towards much more of a declaring an ethical basis. It does matter how you behave. There are consequences to your behavior and so on. These are the things we'll be looking at when we look at the mind-only teaching. Okay? Thank you. Griffin. Hi, Griffin. Hello. So I am very guilty of ranking and wanting to understand and setting up an idealistic... practice that can only lead to discouragement, and it has to do with, is it Buddha nature?

[33:48]

Is Buddha nature ultimate truth? So in my experience, it's only or pretty much sitting Gazen in the Zendo with the support that I allow a certain lease of authority and judgment And if I am sitting there in this body, maybe sort of, you know, weeping profoundly sad about the universe. But it's embodied. It's as beautiful as it is sad. But that's something that is, to me, you know, for me, pretty much an isolated experience from the rest of my life where I'm sort of setting up this idea, or even as he says in the chapter, that Buddha nature is beyond conscious.

[34:53]

It's in a different realm. Which to me means like ultimate truth and emptiness and is not really embracing and embodying phenomena. and the world, and why do I need this body and to be here on Earth? You know, so that struggle of sort of longing for it to be, you know, just sort of dream off into ultimate truth, and yet Buddha nature is what really draws me into Soto Zen, because you still have a body and you're here on Earth. And if you're a sad, you could be a sad Buddha. Does that make any point? Well, of course. Of course it makes sense. And it's the struggle we're all, you know, looking at. It's like, how do we reconcile the human form with this something we imagine to be, you know, beyond this limitations of our conscious thinking?

[35:56]

And we know there's a... Tremendous amount beyond the limitations of our conscious thinking. You know, it's like my thinking is like, you know, about one inch outside of my head. I mean, I don't have this kind of access channel to the universe. Even though I'm a child of the universe, I got that. I understand that. You know, I come from here. We're all made up of stardust and all that sort of thing. You know, we get it that we're made of the universe, that we come from the universe, that we've... evolved from all of these different things happening, these causes and conditions that have come about to make us here and behave so badly. I mean, it's kind of amazing that this miracle is so badly behaved, you know, and it's shocking. And we may actually do so much harm to ourselves that we will simply vanish, or we'll vanish anyway, won't be long. So, you know, things are not permanent, we know that, another law that we respect. There's no permanent things. Your body is just parts. You're not a singularity.

[36:57]

You're a swarm. You're more like a hive of cells and moving things. You're a doctor. You know all that. There's all this stuff going on that you don't control. And if you had to control, you wouldn't live two seconds. So you're basically a gift. You've been given life. We don't know how or from who. And our job is to try and... put the thing that's been split by our bifurcation of our discursive thinking, to bring our thinking back into where you're talking about, which is where you are. Whether it's in the Zen door, in your chair, or under the painting where you're sitting right now, that's where the Buddha nature is found. And each place where each of us is, is the center of the universe. So it's a multi-centered universe. And we're all at the center. It just has to be. It has to be true. In every direction from me is the universe, and from you, and so on and so forth.

[38:03]

So there's all these ways we play with ideas, with science, with dharma, with words. But really, when you stop trying to figure it out, which is what Suzuki Roshi is saying, and you just do your job, and you go to the zendo, and you go eat your lunch, and you do this and that, just that. is living as Buddha. Not wondering if you're Buddha or thinking you're not or thinking you are. Whatever you're thinking is suspect. So, you know, it's just relax. Enjoy. Enjoy the water that you're drinking and the food that you're eating and the company you're keeping. And I don't know that we have any other choice. You know? Thanks, Griffin. Thank you for sharing. Chizan, welcome. Thank you.

[39:03]

Good to see you all. Thank you for having me. Welcome, welcome. My question is, is there any resolution between conceptualizing I am Buddha, everything is Buddha nature, and the actualization? Is there any resolution or acknowledgement so that it's not just a thought that one has or a concept that is put over their experience? So you would like some Buddha nature that's separate from your thinking? It comes from, I think, I can't recall exactly how Suzuki Roshi said it about like not thinking that you're not Buddha. or that this teaching that everything is Buddha, everything is expressing Dharma, those play well up here. But when I engage my world, is there any engagement or fruition or actualization of that Buddha nature?

[40:10]

Is there any resolution or any coming together that the concept goes beyond the concept? Well, it seems to me the concepts don't hold much water. You know, concepts just flip by. You don't have, you know, they're not really carriers of much of anything. Your experiential life, you know, the Buddha didn't talk about so much about what happened when he saw the star. It was an experience. Something that cleared his head of separation from everything. from the star, from other people, from the grass he was sitting on, from the tree over his head. He had a sudden understanding that wasn't intellectual. Later on, he talked about things in order to try to help people. He tried to share his vision, and that was so confusing that he pulled that back into his forehead. He showed this beam of reality, like, here's the universe, you want to see it?

[41:11]

Everyone looked up and was like, one quarter of the universe was being projected over their heads. And they were like, oh, my God, that's amazing. And there were demons and devils and good and bad and all that stuff, all-inclusive universe. And then, you know, they raised their hand. Somebody raised their hand and said, well, that's really interesting, but what does it mean? You know? Oh, dear. So the humans want to know what it means. You know, we want some language. Let's put a language on top of that thing, right? Let's explain that so that we can relate to it. So then he said, well, there are four noble truths. You're suffering. There's a cause of your suffering. There's a cessation of your suffering. That's the good news. And there's a cause for the cessation of your suffering. So he went right back to the four noble truths as something that people could relate to. You know, they couldn't relate to his vision. So I feel like we're applauding along with things we can relate to. So find the piece of the pie that you can actually take a hold of and chew and then just keep chewing it.

[42:17]

And when you're hungry, take another bite. We just keep taking bite-sized chunks of this teaching until we feel like we don't need anymore. We don't need to eat anymore. We're okay. We're kind of okay. I think feeling okay is kind of the heart. To me, that's one of the highest... accomplishments how are you doing i'm okay people ask me how i'm doing i'm good enough you know so i think we don't want to get off the ground we don't want to go up into some kind of heavenly you know trance i mean that's a danger for practitioners of meditation to try to escape so we're not trying to get out of here we're trying to deal with the relative world on its own terms And also to realize that's all it is. It's no more than that. It's just an explanation. All the relative truth is, is an explanation of things that's useful for us. But, you know, we also have joined a school of study that says there's more to it than that.

[43:24]

And what is that? You'll never know. In faith that we are Buddha. We enter Buddha's way. not in proof i could ask one more question yes of course the expression of zazen feels very intimate and straightforward there's there's no personal activity just sit down but as an aspiring bodhisattva there are is constant movement in our world there's things coming towards us and away from us is there a way to take the simplicity of the expression of zazen as an aspiring bodhisattva into a world that is moving at a much higher pace, or it seems. Well, it's moving at the pace of your mind. So you're right up with it. Whatever's moving is moving in your consciousness. Motion is not really happening, right?

[44:27]

Nothing's moving. There's stills. But we're created to see movement as a continuum, as a flow. So we think there's a past and it just turned into the present and it's about to turn into the future. We talk like that, we think like that. That's how we imagine things. When you meet each thing, Right there, where it is, you're not so much involved in where it came from or where it's going. You're really working with the information that's coming to you, like right now. And you can only do it at the speed of your mind, the speed of your body. So sometimes you have to say, could you just repeat what you just said? I'm not quite catching it, you know. You just kind of work at the level. You're talking to children, you talk to children. Around here, if you're talking to older people, you talk to older people and you speak loudly. So there's all kinds of conditions that we are responding to as bodhisattvas.

[45:31]

We're adapting, always adapting to the situation that we're finding ourselves in. We can't do the whole world. We can't find it. We can't meet it. We can only meet that thing that's right there for you today. And as bodhisattvas, And so the more bodhisattvas, the more opportunity for the world to actually get some real help. But we need an army of bodhisattvas. We need just not you. I mean, you're good, and everyone here is good, but we need lots, lots of beings ready to help and to be present. So that's our hope, is to get everybody on board. And that's your job. You know that. Hi, Chris. Hi, Fu. It's really wonderful to see you and wonderful to see everybody on here and to reconnect. So this is just today.

[46:34]

I've been encountering a lot of conversations and thoughts about paradigms, paradigm shifts, mental models, how what was possible 20 years ago when I first encountered the Zen Center. to now to be able to have a conversation halfway across the country over Zoom, it was impossible to have even thought what could be possible today. And so I'm working with that, and I'm thinking about ways to shift my understanding and my paradigms. And related to what Kakua was mentioning earlier, I would absolutely I also wanted to second his interest and my interest in what you mentioned earlier with Vasubando's book, and then also connecting that with the Lankavatara. I would absolutely love to be a part of a regular discussion on that and to be continuing that discussion with the group here, if that's possible.

[47:45]

And that's all that I have on my mind. And just so wonderful to see you and everyone there. You likewise. I'm so glad you're coming and joining us. Well, we'll do our best. We'll take a bite-sized... chunks out of the Yogacara, you know, it'd take a while. This took us a year to get through Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, so I don't know if I have enough life left in me to get through the Yogacara, but we'll do our best, you know, one step at a time. It's lovely material. I once, I said to Reb, when we first got a translation of the Sandhina Rantana Sutra, which was not in translation until 19, maybe 94 or something, so... you know, all of a sudden we're looking at the Yogacara source materials and we're like, oh, this is amazing. You know, so we started systematic study of that over the course of several years, actually. You know, every week we do a little bit of that. And I said to Reb, I was walking home with him, and I said, you know, this is the first time in my 25 years at Zen Center, because I was a Prajnaparamita person, heart sutra, you know, no, no, no.

[48:49]

Anyway, I said, first time I've been interested in my mind. And he said, that's good. That's very good. So, and it's true. I feel like Yogacara gives us a map of consciousness that was palpable. You know, it's eyes and ears and nose, all that stuff that the heart structure says you don't have, or it doesn't exist. That's what they're focusing on, is your sensory experience of the world and how you know things. And so I find it very helpful, and I think you will as well if you don't already. So good. We'll do that together. Millicent. Hi, Sue. Hi, everyone. What a feast we have here on... Sunday evenings, you know, the year of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, and all the times before that, and then the feast to come.

[49:52]

I'm so grateful to be part of this. Thank you, Sue. I do have a question, though. Just looking at the little notes that I made while you were talking to us about Buddha nature, reality itself pervades everything. The reality is beyond ideas. Any idea splits into object and subject. It's before reality, it's before consciousness. Whatever we do, devil or angel is Buddha's activity. So I get that, but it seems to me that in that case the only thing the place of the presets and the parameters becomes absolutely paramount as the only, as basically as guides on how to be a decent human being.

[51:02]

Yeah. But my question then, if so far... if so far so good, my question is what about our intuition? Sometimes we have a deep intuition of what is the right thing to do. And it's not always an easy thing to do. And I kind of trust that inner wisdom that But where does that come from? It's too easy for people who have grown up in a Christian culture to say, oh, you know, that sort of grace or divine prompting or whatever. So what's your thoughts on intuitions? You mean toward kindness? Intuition towards ethical behaviour?

[52:04]

Yes. Towards doing whatever you feel like? Yes. Yeah. Well, I mean, the first thing that often comes to mind around that is just the, and it's a little scientific, but the evolution of the mammals that cared for their young. I mean, we come from a line of living beings that protect their young. They shelter their young, keep them warm and keep them fed and all that sort of stuff. So we have built into our path... from the first living things to us, we have this nature, along with our Buddha nature, we have the nature of cherishing the other, the family member in many cases, or our own children in many cases. And then this, because we have that, or we are that, then we can also, as thinking, talking, and reasoning beings as well, we can imagine ourselves extending that same wish

[53:07]

of well-being to everyone. Why would I just limit it to my children? Why wouldn't I want all children to be cared for and fed and protected? Why wouldn't I want all people to be educated? Why wouldn't I want everyone to have medicine? So I think it's just kind of a simple step from me and mine to everyone. But it's not so obvious maybe, I don't know, that everyone automatically gets that. It seems like it needs a little bit of a prompt, you know, from like the Buddhist tradition is a big prompt for us to recognize it's not just you and your family that you care for. That compassion is for universal. The Bodhisattva is a universal well-wisher. So if we like that, then we can adopt it. I remember hearing the bodhisattva vow when I came to Zen. I never heard it. No one ever told me, well, you could live for the benefit of everyone. I never heard that before. You know, I was a Christian. I never heard that idea that I could live for the benefit of everyone, you know, as a vow.

[54:14]

And I thought that was really good, that that was much better than what I was up to. You know, what I'd invented for my own personal advancement. So I just said, yeah, I'll do that. I'll do that. And I did, and I have, and I still feel like it was a good choice. So I don't know that that's intuition. Well, maybe it was intuition that recognized that that was something very powerful and very compelling for me personally. And I think from all of you here, it's very compelling to live for the benefit of others. What do you think? I agree with you 101%. And the vows and the precepts and the parameters are wisdom that I have received and accept wholeheartedly and try to live.

[55:25]

and commit to and vow, and I've received them. Hence, having any deep trust that I might know because I might trust how to make appropriate decisions in different circumstances. You do trust or you don't trust? Well, I have in the past, but I suppose every decision I ever make is because of what I've received, come to think of it. Yeah, your conditioning. Yeah, from parents and then through the Buddha Dharma and receiving the precepts and the vows. I suppose every thought and every decision I make has been conditioned by previous experience.

[56:33]

I don't know. I don't know. I agree. I think that's right, that you're a liar, which we're going to look at as stuffed with conditioning toward you making, you know, good, fairly good decisions. And it's okay if they're not, because... your intention in making good decisions is also to follow up on how'd that go? How did that go when I did that thing over there? I gave birth to that idea and to that behavior. How did that go? I don't just turn away and leave the situation. I mean, some you do, but if it's with my people that I live with, there's going to be some response. And some feedback. And maybe it's like, well, that wasn't very good what you just did. Oh, okay. Well, then we have confession and repentance. That's built in as well. Well, I'm really sorry. And I will try next time to learn from this because I want to develop my skills. You know, I'm not, I didn't, I wasn't born with skills.

[57:36]

And I had to learn those. Those were also given to me and taught to me. And still, I am still learning skills. And that's what we are. We're learners. We want to be learners of how to utilize these gifts. But not worry about it too much. Thank you so much. Okay. Lovely to be here with you all. I see no more hands, so it's 6.05. That's a good time to say goodbye and thank you for coming. And next week, the epilogue, Zen Man Beginner's epilogue, which is quite nice, and Buddha's mind, or Zen mind, whatever I said. And then we'll be thinking about the Yogacara. Probably we'll start with Ben Conley, but I'll also bring some, I'll read you from Bodhidharma's statement about mind, which is very powerful, not very long, very interesting.

[58:41]

And I'll bring in some other things as we go through the teachings on Yogacara. Okay, you're welcome to unmute and say goodnight or good morning as appropriate. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning. Good night. Thank you all. Have a great week. Bye. Goodbye, world.

[59:13]

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