This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. I'd like to bring up a teaching from the Mahapari Nirvana Sutra. This is one of the great Mahayana sutras, the teachings of the Buddha, that particularly emphasizes Buddha nature. And some say this is maybe the main source of Buddha nature teachings in early China that flowered into the Zen tradition. And one of the teachings in this sutra, in the scripture of the Buddha, is called the Four Reliances.

[01:00]

In Sanskrit, this is Pratisarana or Pratisarana. When we take refuge in Buddha, we say, which means something like, to the Buddha, For refuge I go. So this word sarana means like refuge or reliance. And this is not the three refuges of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. This is a teaching on four reliances in practicing Buddha's way. And so they're taught in different sutras. in different orders, so I'll just bring up the order that makes no sense to me, because they kind of build on each other.

[02:05]

So the first reliance when practicing the Buddhist teaching is to rely on the Dharma, not on the person. Or another way to say it would be, rely on the teaching, not the teacher. So persons, including teachers, are not really completely reliable because people are just conditioned beings. We try to be reliable, but we're basically out of control beings. more or less reliable. But in this case, the Buddha is instructing us to don't completely rely on any person, but rely on the Dharma.

[03:10]

Don't rely on the teacher as a person, but rely on the teaching that comes through them. It's a nice principle to remember. I heard a story that In a long, long time ago at this Zen center, there was an abbot who many people felt betrayed by and things kind of fell apart at that time. And I heard that many people left the Zen center at that time because of this person. And even long-term practitioners, I haven't heard stories, some people even burned their robes. I thought it was a dramatic thing to hear, which I understood as that this Buddhism thing doesn't work.

[04:14]

This person betrayed us, so it must not work. Let's get rid of it all. And if that's the case, I think there was I imagine then there's too much reliance on the person and not enough on the Dharma. Too much relying on the teacher rather than the teaching. So it's kind of tricky because the teaching comes through the teacher, so to some extent we do rely on the person. But the Buddha is urging us to not get too caught up in the personality of the teacher. But what we really, even himself, even the Buddha himself famously said, don't rely on any things that you hear from spiritual teachers, even me, without checking it out for yourself.

[05:17]

Even if it's... Everyone says, listen to this teacher, they have the thing. Listen to the Buddha. Even the Buddha himself says, rely on the teaching and test it for yourself. So this is the first reliance. Rely on the teaching, not the teacher. there's many Zen stories about this too, like the sixth ancestor of Zen in China was supposedly an illiterate woodcutter and not a Zen practitioner, but he had some understanding, almost like a natural understanding of the Dharma, of the truth, of the teaching. And he came and

[06:19]

to the fifth ancestor's community. But he didn't even practice meditation and go to Dharma talks with the rest of the monks. He just worked in the mill and milled the rice for the community. So he was just kind of a laborer there. But in the end, when the fifth ancestor wanted to pass on his teaching, he passed it on to this illiterate instead of the monks who've been practicing for a long, long time and were part of the monastery for a long time. And people were not so happy about that because they were into relying on the person. They thought the head monk of this monastery is... has been our leader for a long time, we should rely on him.

[07:22]

So this is one of the early teachings of Zen, I think, is really making this point that actually what's most important is the Dharma, is the true understanding and practice. And so even if it's manifested and expressed through an illiterate woodcutter, that's more important. than the long-standing status of this head monk. Rely on the teaching, not the teacher. And later in Chinese Zen, ancestor Bai Zhang said, don't you know in all of China there's no teachers of Zen? I don't say there's no Zen, there's just no teachers of Zen. could also be pointing to this rely on the teaching, not the teacher. And Dogen, our Zen founder in Japan, wrote a whole essay on not relying on the characteristics of the teacher, especially gender.

[08:39]

Dogen really got very passionate about saying if... If someone's a woman or a lower caste or a different race or something like that, that doesn't matter. What matters is that they are teaching the Dharma, the true Dharma. And if they're teaching the true Dharma, then practice with them. So don't rely on the characteristics of the person. their gender, their race, their background, their class. It's a good teaching for us always. Not get caught up in the outer characteristics of the person. But if we hear the true Dharma, then we try to practice according to it.

[09:41]

So this is the first reliance, rely on the teaching, not the teacher. So then we might wonder, well, what teaching do we rely on? So the next reliance is rely on the definitive teachings, not the interpretable teachings. This sutra says rely on the definitive sutras. the interpretable ones, or the explicit teachings, not the implicit teachings. And in this Maha Paranirvana Sutra, the way it categorizes these is, as you might imagine, it says that it itself, the Nirvana Sutra, is a definitive teaching. It would be kind of strange if it didn't say that. And generally it says that The Mahayana sutras, the bodhisattva vehicle of universal freedom for everyone are the teachings to rely on, rather than the individual liberation teachings for, like, if I can get free, then that's fine.

[11:03]

Rely on teachings that express freedom and happiness for all beings. And in particular, this sutra says, the definitive teachings are the Buddha nature teachings. Within this bodhisattva path of benefit and happiness for all beings, particularly the Buddha nature teachings are the definitive teachings. And other teachings are somewhat interpretable. So one example the sutra gives is in the earlier teachings of the Buddha, the Buddha teaches from the get-go and actually all different branches of Buddhism teach that all conditioned things, conditioned means anything that appears to us, anything that

[12:09]

that arises in our experience and ceases in our experience, that seems to arise and cease dependent on conditions. We could basically say any experience is what we call a conditioned phenomena. All experiences are impermanent. They're not permanent. And sometimes we kind of think They might be, or we kind of wish that they were, would continue, wish the good ones would continue. But the Buddha teaches, remember that all conditioned experiences, which is all experiences, are not permanent. And all experiences are therefore permanent. not ultimately satisfying.

[13:10]

Ultimately satisfying, I think something would have to be basically permanent. Because even if it's very satisfying, it's just fine, it's just great, it's actually not going to last. So because everything is not permanent, it's not ultimately satisfying. every experience. And because it's not permanent and not ultimately satisfying, every conditioned experience is not myself. It's not who I really am. Usually by self we mean something that's always the case. Just in this common word, self, usually we think of our self as something that is always here and doesn't change.

[14:24]

Therefore, the Buddha says, all experiences, all conditioned things, like we're experiencing the body right now, we're experiencing feelings. We're experiencing thoughts and conceptions and habitual tendencies. And we're experiencing dualistic consciousness, the mind that seems to know objects outside of itself. These are all experiences that I think we're having all of them actually right now. So these are Because they're all arising and ceasing. They're not permanent, and they're not reliable. Therefore, they're not really who I am. This body is not really who I am. These feelings are not really who I am. They're not myself. Even this consciousness that knows things outside itself, called dualistic consciousness, that's actually arising and ceasing dependent on objects.

[15:34]

It's not. It's not permanent. It's not satisfying, ultimately, because it's constantly changing. And it's not really who I am. It's not myself. And also all these conditioned phenomena, all these experiences, are not pure. Pure in Buddhism can mean different things, but here maybe we could say it means... Like, all these things are not free of my conceptual ideas. So this is the Buddha's teaching throughout the early teachings. All experiences are not permanent. They're not ultimately satisfying. They're not myself, truly who I am.

[16:35]

And they're not... pure, free from conceptual confusion. So because those are the early teachings, this sutra says these are called interpretable teachings. It doesn't deny that those are true. It just says that it's interpretable or it's an implicit teaching. And what is the explicit teaching, according to this Paranirvana Sutra? It doesn't deny those, but it says these experiences are not permanent, not satisfying, not myself, not completely pure. But the explicit teaching is there is a realm that actually is, in a sense, permanent. It is ultimately satisfying. It is myself, my true self,

[17:37]

And it is pure. So for those who've heard these early Buddhist teachings, this thing, this teaching, this definitive teaching sounds kind of strange because there's a lot of emphasis on the impermanent and the not what's not myself and what's not satisfying. But here the Buddha is saying we can rely on the definitive teaching of the permanent, the ultimately satisfying, even blissful, the true self and the completely pure. But he's not saying experiences are that way. Experiences are conditioned things. conditioned events that come and go. But there's a realm, a reality, we might say, that doesn't come and go.

[18:42]

A reality that's always satisfied. A reality that it really is who I am. A reality that is perfectly pure. And this is called Buddha nature. This Pāra Nirvana Sūtra even has a little dialogue where Buddha's disciple Mahakashapa turns up to Buddha and says, teacher, is there a self, a true self, anywhere in the universe? Because I've heard you teach so often that all these phenomena, all these experiences are not my self. Is there a self? And in this scripture the Buddha says, Yes, there is a self, and it's called Buddha nature. And so here the Buddha is saying, rely on these teachings, these definitive, explicit teachings.

[19:51]

And we might say, we might wonder, what is this realm that's not an experience If this realm were an experience, it would come and go. All experiences come and go. Arise and cease depending on conditions. But is there a reality that's always the case? It's permanent. It means it's always the case. Is there a reality right now that's actually permanent? not changing, is there a reality right now that is always satisfied, completely okay, always. We might even say, if sometimes I'm not okay, I, the person, am having an experience that's not okay, like I'm not having a good time,

[21:04]

this reality must be the case even when I'm not having a good time. There must be a realm that's having a good time. In other words, a realm that's completely okay. Always. And a realm that I could even call myself, my true unchanging self. And a realm that's always pure and free from dualistic concepts and confusion. If it's always the case, it must be the case right now. But if we try to grasp it as some experience, then we make it into a conditioned phenomena that is not satisfying because it's not going to last. So this is the second reliance here.

[22:11]

First one, again, was rely on the teaching, not the teacher. The second is rely on the definitive teaching, not the interpretable teaching. The definitive teaching of, in Japanese we say, jōrakū ga jō. The unchanging, the always satisfied, the true self, and the pure. So then the third reliance is rely on the meaning, not on the words. There's some words in the sutra that say this. The words say rely on the meaning, not on these very words or any other words. So we have to... I think we almost always have to open to the Dharma, the definitive Dharma, through words.

[23:13]

It's subtle enough that we don't just happen upon it naturally. We might sometimes, but the Buddha teaches in words. But he also says, don't rely on the words, rely to the meaning towards which the words point. In the Lankavatara Sutra, the Buddhist says, all my teachings are like fingers pointing to the moon. So we don't rely on the finger. We can get really caught up in the beauty of the finger. This hand is so great. It's pointing over there. But like, I'm looking at the hand. We have to follow the finger to its... Meaning. We don't reject the finger. We just let it guide us to the meaning.

[24:15]

We lie on the meaning, not on the words. And in Zen, we have various sayings like this, too. In one of the poems that we chant, hearing the words understand the meaning or understand the source. And another poem says, the meaning is not in the words, yet it responds to the inquiring impulse. So this is a dance with words that don't really contain the meaning, but words that reveal the meaning. In Zen, a lot of the Zen stories are very strange words. I think just to help us from getting too caught up in the literal meaning of the words, they're just words that unlock the meaning beyond the words.

[25:19]

So we don't rely on the teacher as a person, but we rely on the teaching of We don't rely on the interpretable teaching, but on the definitive teaching. We don't rely on the words of the definitive teaching, but the actual meaning of the definitive teaching. We let the words guide us to the wordless reality. And lastly, the last reliance, the last pratisarana. is rely on undivided, say, non-dual awareness, not on dualistic consciousness, which is really just the culmination of all of these teachings. Rely on jnana, not vijjnana.

[26:27]

Jnana is sometimes translated as wisdom, which I think can sound kind of abstract sometimes, to me anyway. So another valid translation is knowing or awareness. It has a little bit more experiential quality, it seems to me. But this kind of knowing or awareness is not divided. is not divided into a subject and an object like consciousness. Vijnana is divided into a subject and an object, or is divided into the appearance of a subject aware of an object. So in this case, the Buddha is saying, rely not on that actual illusion of a subject,

[27:31]

you being aware of something outside yourself that's not really how reality is. Reality or Buddha nature is this undivided knowing or awareness itself that's not divided into a subject and an object, into a thinker and a thought. into a seer and a seen, into a hearer and a heard, into a grasper and a grasped. Rely on this one. It's not divided. So in Zen, there's many teachings about this reliance. One Chinese Zen teacher, Hongzhi, has a poem about zazen, about sitting meditation, where he describes zazen as knowing without touching things.

[28:55]

This knowing here is a Chinese character, and it's the translation for jnana. So he could say, knowing without touching things or awareness, undivided awareness without touching things. If it's really undivided awareness, undivided knowing, that means it doesn't touch things outside of itself. Zazen is this being, this undivided knowing that appears to be divided into a subject and an object. So this Zen poem says Zazen is this knowing or awareness without reaching out and touching things. It is illuminating without facing objects. It is illuminating. That's another name for this Buddha nature of undivided knowing is

[30:08]

illumination or radiant light. And this radiant light must be always present. It's the one with which we are knowing right now. It's just that the one with which we're knowing right now seems to be divided into the sense of there's somebody over here knowing something over there. Doesn't it seem to feel as if there's somebody over here that's like seeing somebody out there and hearing a sound out there, feeling a sensation in the body over there? But the true nature of this dualistic consciousness is actually this undivided knowing.

[31:11]

It's not like we have to create the undivided knowing. If we were to create it, it would be a conditioned, created phenomenon. We just have to open to it. We just have to settle into being it. And I think these teachings help us to settle into it, and sitting still and quietly really helps to open to it. And exploring the stillness and silence when we're in it I think really helps to open to it too. We can creatively explore our experiencing awareness. I would even propose that another name for this awareness is experiencing. Experiencing is not an experience. The experiencing never changes.

[32:15]

As the experiences constantly arise and cease. So if there's an experiencing that's not divided into a subject and an object, how can we access this? non-separation, this non-duality. It so feels as if I'm over here and you're over there. So some of the exercises that I think are helpful are investigating and questioning, which helps to do in stillness, but we can try out right now. one question to ask. Once we're kind of already settled into the present, let's really just be here with all the experiences that are arising and ceasing, all these conditioned things are happening.

[33:23]

Can we settle more and more presently into just this knowing awareness? It feels a little bit like falling back into our self. Our attention is so forward-directed that this contemplation is like, what is it, we might ask, that's actually aware of all these experiences that are coming and going right now? What is it that's aware of the sensation in the body? What is it that's aware of the sound of this voice? When we ask that question, we can feel the attention that's outward directed. We can feel that kind of settle back. What is it that's aware of? The attention kind of withdraws a little bit from the outer

[34:28]

objects of experience and to look for what is experiencing. And we can't find what is the experiencing. If we find the experiencing as some kind of experience, we just made it into another object. But we can be it. We are it. So therefore we can be it. And then the more and more we're settled into it, we can start checking how things are in this realm of awareness. How things are like, for example, you're hearing the sound of the voice now, and we usually think of my awareness is going out and touching the sound. My ear consciousness seems to be going out and touching the sound of the voice. We usually feel as if that's so, and there's many early Buddhas teachings that describe experience like this, describing dualistic consciousness.

[35:39]

So we can ask, as we're settled into this present awareness, we can ask, experientially ask, these questions are not theoretical questions, these are experiential questions. Can I find In my experience right now, can I find a sound other than the knowing of the sound? We're hearing sound, and we're assuming that there is a sound that we're knowing, but if we look very carefully, I would propose that we can't find something called a sound other than the knowing of the sound. There's definitely experiencing. We would call it sound. And we can definitely say that there's knowing of the sound, but can we say that there's a sound other than the knowing of it?

[36:42]

And if there were a sound other than the knowing of the sound, how would it be different than the knowing of the sound? What would it be other than the knowing of the sound? Can you follow? There is awareness of sound right now, I propose for all of us. Can we find some thing called a sound other than the awareness of the sound? Likewise, with all the senses, can we find a physical sensation in the butt, or the knee, or the shoulder? Can we find a bodily sensation other than the knowing of it, the experiencing of it, the awareness of it? And if we start to get a sense of everything that we call experience, it's actually just our experiencing of it, is the knowing of it, is the awareness of it, then we're starting to

[37:54]

starting to erode this illusion of separation into subject and object because the object is nothing other than the knowing of it and the subject the feeling of like me as the hearer of the sound also is a kind of subtle experience it feels like there's a hearer over here listening to the sound over there but the One over here is also a kind of an object in this realm of awareness. Another kind of like experience is an experience called the subject. But can we find this experience called the separate subject other than the knowing of this separate subject? So if I, that my true self is just this ever-present, unchanging, never dissatisfied, pure awareness, it's never dissatisfied even when I'm dissatisfied because it is just aware.

[39:17]

It can't be dissatisfied. If there's dissatisfaction, the dissatisfaction is an experience. The knowing of dissatisfaction is never dissatisfied. So if I, we can say I am this knowing. Right now, this present awareness. We can use this word, that's myself. We can say I in a way that we're not talking about a separate individual here. We're not talking about the knower. We're talking about boundless, ungraspable, knowing that's not located in a body or a mind or any place. And yet it pervades the body and the mind and pervades all places. And from the point of view of me being the, and I say me, meaning also you,

[40:24]

It's the same awareness we're talking about here that we all share. This awareness, if this is me, then we can ask, how far away from me is the sound of this voice? You have to really stay in the realm of yourself as the knowing awareness. And you can ask this question, how far away from me is this sound? And if you say, The sound is, say, conventionally speaking, you're 10 feet in front of me. So you say, the sound is 10 feet away from me. Then you've reverted back to, now you are the body and the hearer. But you're not the body and the hearer. You're just the unlocated, boundless space of knowing how far away from you or me is the sound. Can you follow this?

[41:26]

This is an experiential thing. You've got to actually ask this. How far away would you say it is? Any answer? You can just throw out an answer. In your experience, how far away from you this present awareness is the sound. of this voice. Yeah, there's no distance at all. If you can really, like, taste that there's no distance from you, and you have no boundaries or edges, and therefore, in a way, the sound is you, right, experientially. So we can just, we can warm up to this, and then we're approaching not even approaching, we can just be the awareness that we always are.

[42:29]

It's hard to hang out there because our habit is so strong to believe in the separation, the perception of duality into self and other. But we hear our zazen practice is this knowing without touching. sounds and colors and bodily sensations without reaching them as something outside of our self. It's illumining without facing objects. And one of our Zen Chinese great Zen ancestors named Changsha calls this Buddha nature, he calls it the radiant light of the self. Based on this sutra and other sutras, this word self started being used in a positive way within Buddhadharma.

[43:38]

Buddhism teaches not self. I don't think the Buddha ever actually taught there is no self. He just said all experiences are not myself and all conditioned phenomena are not myself. didn't say there is no self in this sutra he says there is a self and it's called Buddha nature and Changsha says it's the radiant light kind of poetically because it's just it's knowing it's the light of knowing the radiant light of the self and Changsha says the whole universe in Ten directions, basically. The whole universe, everywhere, is the radiant light of the self. You could even say the radiant light of myself. You have to remember, myself is not different from yourself. It's not a personal self. It's not a separate self.

[44:39]

It's not an individual self. It is the one we share. It can't be divided into me and you. So the whole universe in ten directions is the radiant light of the self. Then he says the whole universe in ten directions is within the radiant light of the self. Same teaching but slightly different meditation. It almost feels like the radiant light of the self is like vast space and everything is appearing within it. But I think even more definitive is the teaching. The whole universe is the radiant light of the self. We can't distinguish all these experiences like sounds and colors from the radiant light of the self. So Changsha says the whole universe of experience that we live in is the radiant light of the self.

[45:45]

The whole universe is within the radiant light of the self. And then the clincher. Within the whole universe in 10 directions, there's not a single person who is not myself or this self. This is where, if we can relate to each other from this perspective, wow. Other people are not other from this perspective. There's not a single person who is not myself. Myself here doesn't mean Kokyo, the person. We have to not fall back into that perspective. This self is the boundless, ungraspable experiencing that we all share. Not consciousness, not dualistic consciousness. That one we don't. Our consciousnesses are kind of interdependent with each other, but it's not like we share

[46:48]

one consciousness. But in this realm of Buddha nature, it's not divided into me and you. And we call it the self. There's not a single person who's not the self. So, we rely on the teaching, not the teacher. We rely on the definitive teaching of Buddha-nature, of the permanent, the always satisfied, the true self, the pure, not in the somewhat interpretable teaching about conditioned things that are impermanent. satisfying, not myself, not really pure.

[47:50]

And then we rely on the meaning of the definitive teaching, not just the words. And in order to rely on the meaning, we have to rely on undivided, non-dual awareness, not on dualistic consciousness. Undivided jnana is another name for Buddha nature. Luckily, we don't have to somehow create it or conjure it up. But to not believe so much this appearance of duality into subject and object takes some work, some real investigation and unraveling, but what could be more fun, I say, than such work. Because we're talking about the possibility of opening to the always satisfied.

[48:57]

What could be more fun than the always satisfied? No fun experience could come close to the always satisfied experiencing. So this is very practical teaching. how it could be a kind of a helpful thing for us sometimes dissatisfied human unreliable beings and if you'd like to come back and question and answer we can talk more about this if there's questions things that don't make sense about it. Thank you for your attention and any positive energy and lightness and well-being that may have arisen here in the form of what we call merit.

[50:07]

We don't hold on to it ourselves, continuously release it and offer it throughout the Ten Directions to all beings everywhere. May they open to their ever-satisfied true self. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[51:00]

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