Yes, it is. [...] ask you the favor of turning off your cell phone or turning into airplane mode so that it doesn't interfere with our Wi-Fi connection for our Zoom link or the microphones.

[02:34]

So thank you so much for doing that. I was so interested in heaven's great faith by my mother, in an existence where I grew up in the middle of the day, which had been a hundred dollars in the middle of the income was.

[10:27]

I had made it to see and listen to, to remember that I sat. I am a brother among us who takes the spirit of the world, just a part of its violence, works. Good morning and welcome. It's good to be back here at Beginner's Mind Temple. I haven't been here for a long time. Of course, it's quite different now than the last time I remember it.

[11:31]

It's become much smaller. It's like one room, right? This one. And it's great to see that you all are keeping the practice going even when most of the building disappears. Maybe the rest of the building isn't even needed since it's working fine without it. But it'll probably be easier once that's finished. My name is Kokyo. I was living at Greengold's farm across the bridge for the last year and a half. Now I've been staying for a couple of months down south in the Santa Cruz Mountains at a Vajrayana retreat center called Pema O Soling.

[12:39]

lotus light land. And so when I thought about giving this talk today, I thought, what about a Zen story or something? Nothing was really coming to mind because I've been immersed in this Vajrayana world. Part of it was a personal retreat and then the last week or so has been group retreat, their group kind of summer practice period. So that's kind of filling my practice life these days. So I thought maybe there's no way to avoid talking about that a little bit. There's many traditions of Buddhadharma. I think in this country, the main lineages that have come to us are we call Vipassana, maybe the American version of Theravada, the early Buddhism, from Thailand and Burma mostly, the American versions of it.

[13:54]

And then we have Zen, I think most popular is the Japanese versions of it, and then Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism. with all its various lineages. It seems like these three, from the beginning, for the last 50 years or so, may be equally filling the Dharma space of this country. For whatever reason, there's more lineages and practices of Buddhadharma, but those three seem to have become the most popular, have kind of stuck, are flourishing everywhere. So I myself started Zen practice, and in my first years of Zen practice, I loved to study Dharma and explore all different aspects of it.

[15:03]

I basically just love Buddha Dharma in all its forms. Over the years, naturally, we started exploring outside the Zen realm a little bit. And so, these first years, I looked more into Theravada Buddhism and was really inspired by especially the Thai tradition, the forest monks. And I went to Thailand at one point as a Zen priest and practiced there for a while. I went with some monks there to visit an old teacher who was, rumor was that he was an arhat, a realized one in that tradition. And he saw me in my black robes that kind of stand out because everyone wears brown over there. And asked the translator, you know, who's this guy?

[16:05]

What's he up to? Oh, it's... He's Zen, Zen Buddhism. And I think this Thai forest teacher had heard of Zen, right? Everybody's heard of Zen. And he said something that was translated into like, he looked at me and the group and said, it's all one family of Buddha. And I thought that was a great thing to hear coming from an arhat. very accepting of a strange other tradition entering his country in practice place. And then, maybe after 10 years or so of practicing Zen, I somehow discovered Tibetan Dzogchen tradition. Dzogchen means the great perfection.

[17:09]

And I was really taken by that, mainly because I felt like this is talking about Zen in a very clear way, particularly the nuances of meditation, non-dual awareness, and making subtle distinctions that in my course mind I hadn't really noticed before through the Zen teachings. Zen teachings are, I think, intentionally trying to be very simple and not explain too much, too conceptually or rationally. And I think that's good because it gives our mind less to fixate on. But the drawback can be that it's maybe not necessarily that clear what exactly Zen meditation is. We discovered by doing it. And of course, we have many teachings also.

[18:10]

But I feel like these years of exploring this Tibetan Dzogchen tradition really helped clarify my Zen practice, actually. It was from another tradition, but I felt like, oh, this is what various Zen teachings are saying that I didn't quite get fully beforehand. it kind of refreshed my Zen practice through these meditation teachings of another tradition. When we're talking about non-dual awareness, of course, that just doesn't go with any particular tradition. That's just the nature of how things are. And then, Over the next years of meeting Dzogchen teachers, practicing with them, receiving teachings, doing retreats, I started to notice, maybe kind of obviously notice, that this Dzogchen, basically this Tibetan form of Zen, I might say, was kind of packaged in this Vajrayana package.

[19:35]

which for a while, for some years I felt like, well, that's kind of extra. And the teachers that I practice with, some of them just, you don't need all of that. This central meditation practice goes beyond all traditions even, and you can practice it outside of the Vajrayana package. But because I was practicing with these teachers over the years, the packaging became more interesting. gradually. So I would say the last 10 years maybe, I've gotten more immersed in the Vajrayana realm of practice. Of course, Zen is my root lineage and nothing's missing or lacking in Zen at all. But I just love the whole realm of Buddhadharma and I especially love Vajrayana. So it's kind of like, if you eat rice, why would you have cake at the end?

[20:56]

I mean, is something missing in the rice? No, nothing's missing, but you can just enjoy the cake at the end. True, right? So it's just... It's a way of expressing practice and hanging out with these other sanghas. They're very much like this one, but Vodra-flavored sanghas. And it's just a joy to me. And it's said that Vodrayana is the path of skillful means. So whereas Zen has a lot of skillful means too, it's kind of like pared down, simplified. And vajrayana is this huge array of skillful means, different types of practices, which is in a way that's one of its strengths, but also I think one of its weaknesses. When I first was getting into dharma practice, I was looking at different traditions, and when I looked into vajrayana a little bit, this is way too complicated for me.

[22:03]

And Zen is like, yes, just sit. So it took me maybe 20 years of Zen practice to really warm up to the complexity of this Vajrayana world and love it, love the complexity. I think it's meant to be a beautiful, creative expression and engagement in practice. So what is this Vajrayana? we're all speaking of. And those may be new to Zen practice, coming for a Zen talk, please excuse me in advance if I'm talking more about Vajrayana, but I will try to show where these two meet, where these two really overlap a lot. We actually have a lot of Vajrayana influence in our Zen practice. From way back. So one way to talk about this is... I mostly practice in the... There's different schools of Tibetan Buddhism and Vodrayana, maybe four main sort of schools with sub-lineages.

[23:23]

Then we have like Soto and Rinzai, right? There's these different lineages and... in Tibetan Buddhism, too. And the one that I'm most drawn to is called the Nyingma, the old school, maybe original form of Tibetan Buddhism, Vajrayana in Tibet. And probably I'm most drawn to it because that's the Nyingma lineage where Dzogchen comes out of. Dzogchen, this non-dual just being. extremely unelaborate practice like Zen comes from. It's kind of the pinnacle of the Nyingma school. And parenthetically, this is one way how Zen and Vajrayana relate. Zou Chen is this pinnacle of the Nyingma school.

[24:27]

and Zen is sometimes said to be almost like a pinnacle or the most profound teaching of East Asian Buddhism like in China and Korea and Japan most profound and most unelaborate they kind of go together and one way that these two connect is that I think I didn't even know this when I was first discovering Tibetan Dzogchen, but nowadays the scholars say that Chinese Chan, which is the early original Zen in China, and Tibetan Dzogchen were originally like the same thing. They came out of the same source in China. And this kind of radically simple, already complete, just be Buddha. practice and verification arose in China and then as it spread throughout China it mixed a little with the native traditions there Taoism and Confucianism influenced this Buddhist movement that we call Zen and as it moved as teachers spread this up to northern China into Tibet it kind of mixed with

[25:56]

Indian Vajrayana. And so they had these different flavors. But Dzogchen and Zen were originally one teaching. And you can find, as you explore the teachings of both traditions, they sometimes use similar images and metaphors and very similar teachings. So I think when traditions... criticize each other, especially these ones, it doesn't make any sense because they're really just one practice with different packaging. So one way to present what is this vādhāyāna culminating in this great perfection simply being kind of practice. This Nyingma system has what's called nine vehicles.

[27:03]

Kind of when it's presented conceptually, it's packaged as nine yanas, yanas or vehicles of practice. And I think it's a nice model. This is a conceptual model, but I think it helps present what vādhyāna is in a kind of maybe structured way, so I don't ramble too much, which is my tendency. So try to stay with this nine yana model, nine vehicles. And they're kind of like progressively developing in a more and more profound way. They're starting in a simpler way and becoming more and more profound, culminating with Dzogchen, or we could say like the supremely unelaborate practice of Zen at the top. But in between, there's some other things.

[28:07]

These nine vehicles. And they also kind of show a kind of historical development of Buddhadharma and Vajrayana through India, basically. that then got transmitted to Tibet. So here's these nine, briefly. The first one is called the Shravakayana, the vehicle of the Buddha's disciples, the listeners of the Buddha's teachings. And we hear about this in our tradition too, in the Lotus Sutra and so on, the Shravaka vehicle. Shravaka is not a disparaging term. It means disciples or listeners. And in the Theravada tradition, they use that term in their liturgy. They talk about the Shravaka Sangha. We take refuge in the Shravaka Sangha.

[29:08]

It's those disciples of the Buddha who've practiced well and have realized the fruits of their practice. So we might say foundational Buddha Dharma. the earliest teachings of the Buddha historically in India. And the understanding of the Shravakayana is that all conditioned experiences, we're having a lot of conditioned experiences right now, like experience of a body, an experience of thoughts, this body experience is arising from conditions and these thoughts are arising from conditions. They're called conditioned experiences. And the teaching of the Buddha is that these conditioned experiences of body and mind are impermanent.

[30:09]

They only last one moment and then we get a new body and mind experience. They're impermanent and they're They're not ultimately satisfying. Partly because they're impermanent. So even the ones that are like quite satisfying are not really ultimately satisfying because they're changing. They're already gone. Those pleasant experiences are already gone. And these conditioned experiences of body and mind are not really who we are. They're not our true self. The Buddha taught this in the foundational teachings, and that's the heart of the understanding of the shravaka vehicle. And by realizing, practicing and realizing that these conditioned experiences are impermanent, and they're not ultimately satisfying, and they're not who we truly are, we can realize

[31:15]

liberation, freedom from grasping conditioned experiences as ourself. And that fruition, that liberation in the Shravaka vehicle is called the Arhat, the worthy one, worthy of offerings, because they've personally realized that the end of discontent based on these teachings and meditations. So that yana is part of this whole Nyingma school of Vajrayana. The Shravaka vehicle is part of it. It's incorporated within it. And I would say the same in Zen. We practice within this... We study and practice teachings within the foundational teachings of Zen. Buddha Dharma.

[32:17]

Even something like practicing meditation, like following the breath, this comes from these early foundational vehicles of Buddhism. And refraining from harm and doing good, this is from the foundational teachings of Buddhism. It's concentrating the mind and understanding the many, many teachings of the Buddha are all encompassed within this foundational shravakayana, the vehicle of the disciples. That's one of nine. The second one is called the prateka buddha vehicle, or yana. Very similar, also part of foundational Buddhism. Prateka buddhas, like shravakas, like the buddha's disciples, are practicing and contemplating and meditating on how all conditioned experiences of body and mind are impermanent and ultimately not satisfying and not really who we are, not our true self.

[33:34]

And they also maybe are emphasizing the teaching of dependent arising, that All conditioned things are arising dependent on conditions and they're ceasing dependent on conditions. Pratika Buddha means Buddha awakened through conditions or through studying conditions. Pratika. Pratyaya. So they're realizing the same fruition of... an arhat, a worthy one, through contemplating interdependence or conditionality. And whereas the Shravakas, they're the disciples of the Buddha, the hearers of the Buddha's teaching, the Pratika Buddhas, I think maybe the common thing is that they don't have human teachers. They just contemplate conditionality, and therefore they realize

[34:40]

this liberation from suffering, by just contemplating alone, without the need for teachers. So it's a little distinction between the Shravakas and the Pratyika Buddhas. And then the third vehicle is called the Mahayana, the great vehicle. And this is emphasizing that it's not just about personal liberation. It's emphasizing great compassion. The bodhisattvas' vow is to free all beings from all discontent, all beings throughout space and time. There's a vast scope. There's no complete personal liberation without all beings being free. So it's going to take a while. rather than the Arhat path, could be kind of finished in a few lifetimes.

[35:48]

The Bodhisattva vehicle you see is said to take like three eons, born and dying and born and dying, while keeping this vow really strong, so the next time this continuity of mind... manifests a new body, the vow will still be there in the background and we can continue to develop and develop and develop until Buddhahood, until complete awakening of a Buddha, a fully awakened Buddha for the benefit of all beings is realized. So this Mahayana goes beyond the individual liberation. It's about all finding this freedom together. And Zen, our tradition here, is part of this Mahayana, this great vehicle. And all of the Vajrayana that comes next is also actually part of this great vehicle with the Bodhisattva vow for the benefit of all beings.

[36:57]

And just like Vajrayana, these next vehicles are kind of going... kind of building on the foundational vehicles and the Mahayana bodhisattva vehicle. Zen is also said to sometimes be like a separate transmission outside the sutras, outside the scriptures of the early scriptures and the Mahayana scriptures. It kind of goes beyond all these vehicles. And I think that's one similarity with Vajrayana. We're building on those, we're not rejecting the earlier ones. but were also going beyond them. And I think there was maybe some cross-influence there. There's also some studies about how Vajrayana, Tantra, and Zen in China also were kind of interfused. They're kind of this, as history develops too, it's like going beyond. There's this impetus to keep going beyond

[38:03]

anything that's where we can get stuck, basically. Zen has that spirit, and Vajrayana has that spirit, too. So these are these, you could say, sutra vehicles. Shravaka, Prataka, Buddha, and Bodhisattva, or Maha, great vehicle. Then the next six in this new school are... you could say vajrayana vehicles or tantric vehicles. Tantra means many things, but maybe the most common meaning is like continuum or like something that runs through everything and is always the same as everything else changes. That's one meaning of tantra. And vajra means the Vodra vehicle. Vodra means something like diamond, or sometimes means thunderbolt.

[39:12]

I always wondered what the history of that world, diamond and thunderbolt, are very different, right? But I think it has a kind of double meaning. But I think diamond is maybe better because it's emphasizing this indestructible quality of reality. There's an... There's an indestructible aspect of reality. Remember, the early teachings are saying all conditioned experiences are destructible. They're impermanent. They're constantly changing. But sometimes in the Mahayana and the Vajrayana, there's an emphasis on an unchanging realm. So it's not a conditioned realm. And it's not some thing. All things are impermanent. But emptiness, for example, is indestructible because everything is always empty. It can't sometimes become non-empty, for example.

[40:12]

Buddha nature is indestructible. Buddha nature doesn't come and go. And the Vajrayana and Tantra, these are really kind of synonyms in Tibetan Buddhism, are emphasizing this Buddha nature mostly. Emptiness and Buddha nature. Almost synonyms also. Emptiness is emphasizing nothing can be grasped. Nothing can be grasped in any way. Grasping the stick, I'm not really grasping it. There's nobody here to grasp it and there's nothing here to grasp. It's just empty luminous space. taking the form of what looks like a stick. So you could say this ungraspability is where the freedom comes in. And I think I like to translate, but not really translate, but loosely interpret emptiness, which is this difficult philosophical concept in Buddhism.

[41:16]

I think experientially, I like to talk about emptiness as just ungraspability. Everything is totally ungraspable. And Buddha nature is... the ungraspability of everything that's also aware at the same time. We are ungraspable, and we're also aware, and our awareness itself is ungraspable. Buddha-nature is something like this, in both Zen and Vajrayana. That's one similarity. between these two traditions is that, especially early Chinese Zen, after looking at some of the Vajrayana teachings, I go back to those early Chinese Zen teachings. They're so similar to the Vajrayana teachings, and they're both really emphasizing this Buddha nature. Emptiness also, but emptiness in this aware form of ungraspable awareness.

[42:26]

Mind itself is Buddha. The nature of this mind is Buddha. This is like Zen and all of Vajrayana is based on this understanding. So, through three vehicles. Here's the beginning of what we call tantra or Vajrayana. The first tantric vehicle is called Kriya tantra. Again, this is like... the development in India of these new traditions, kind of chronologically, historically developed in this way too. Kriya Tantra. Kriya means like activity in this case. And it's like it's starting to relate to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. So this is also in the Mahayana. The Mahayana Sutras have a lot of teaching about there's these cosmic Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.

[43:27]

I'm especially thinking of the Flower Ornament Sutra. It's one of our great scriptures of the great vehicle that had a big influence on the Zen tradition. And it's a lot about these Buddhas in Buddha lands and teachings about making offerings to these Buddhas and praising these Buddhas and paying homage to these Buddhas, and so on. It's a big part of Mahayana and Zen. In our Zen services, we enact these practices. Even in a little way, just before this Dharma talk, I came in and made offerings of flowers to Buddha, and we offer this light and fragrance and flowers to Buddha, and we prostrate to the Buddhas. and we praise the Buddhas. So I would say, like, Vajrayana is based on that Mahayana principle, but it really gets into it.

[44:32]

In a way, all through Vajrayana, it's almost like the main thing that I'm doing these past weeks down at this Vajrayana Center. We spend most of the day praising Buddhas and making offerings to Buddhists. So in this Kriya Tantra, It's like there are Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and we relate to them kind of like we're their servant. They're like our master, and we're their servant, their humble servant, because they're awesome, these Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. We bow before them in awe. And then through our devotion to them and our trust in them, their blessings help us to practice and realize Buddhahood. It's kind of the principle. This is Mahayana. This is Zen. We have all these principles too.

[45:33]

But this Kriya Tantra is just getting really into the ritual details of how to do this. And particularly a lot about ritual purity in Kriya Tantra. Like bathing a lot and eating pure foods and these kinds of things. This is Indian. Early Tantra. And the connection here to our tradition is we, I don't know if you do these days, but usually at these Zen centers, we chant the Daihi Shindarani in the evenings. Do you still do that? The evening service? That is, according to Tibetan Buddhism, the Daihi Shindarani is part of Kriya Tantra. Actually, this first version of Tantra or Vajrayana. It comes from the Dahi Shindarani Sutra, and you can read that sutra, where it talks about all these ritual activities, very specific ritual activities to pay homage to Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion, who we invoke through the mantra, or dharani, called the Great Compassionate Heart, dharani.

[46:50]

And in the sutra, Daishindirani comes from in India, there's a lot of far-out ritual stuff, like making all these potions, basically. You can find it online and read these medical prescriptions, how to make these potions, that then you can chant the Daishindirani over them, and they can cure snake bites and headaches. These kind of... almost like magical power, you could say. And for not necessarily for realizing Buddhahood, but just for like curing snake bites. This is Kriya Tantra, has a lot of these kind of worldly effects, benefits. Mantra, Dharani is like a Buddhist version of mantra, is a big part of the efficacy, potency of this Kriya. Tantra path.

[47:51]

Then there's the next level of profundity is the Upatantra or Charya Tantra. Charya means conduct. So very similar to Kriya Tantra, but it's relating to these Buddhas and Bodhisattvas by making offerings and praise. Again, it's the central practice. And but a little bit more like the relationship to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas is starting to evolve through these different types of vehicles. In this Charya Tantra, it's more like you're less like a slave or a servant to the master Buddha. You're more like becoming more like a companion to this Buddha, and you're relating to them as kind of a peer. It's becoming less hierarchical as it develops. The relationship between the practitioner and the Buddha is becoming less hierarchical as tantra develops.

[48:54]

So then the next vehicle is called yoga tantra, jnana vehicle. And this is where there's less emphasis on... perfecting the ritual activities. There's definitely still a lot of ritual activities, but there's more emphasis on just meditative presence and also kind of becoming more and more intimate with these Buddhas through resting in the meditation that they're in. So these three, Kriya Tantra, Charya Tantra, Yoga Tantra, were transmitted from India. This is like the 8th century in India. Tantra exploded in the country of India. Not just Buddhism, but the interesting thing to me is that it was across all religions.

[50:00]

What we call Hinduism, but even other non-Buddhist, non-Hindu religions, Tantra was like this... it really captured the imagination of the Indian people, it seems like, in around the 7th, 8th, 9th centuries. So much so that, like, if whatever tradition, whether it was Hindu or Buddhist or whatever, or Jain, if you didn't adopt some kind of tantric practice, you basically, everyone stopped being interested in it because they were so into this tantric thing. Why? There could be a whole other talk about that, I guess, but it's hard to know. I think it's very creative. It's a very creative movement, and it's very relational and artistic and inclusive. As it developed, women became more and more equal, when in Indian culture they weren't so much. this equality and non-hierarchy became more and more as part of Tantra, and that everything, like all our impurities and our defilements and afflictions of mind, our greed, hate, and delusion, these things that we're trying to constantly let go of in Tantra, they're more like, yes, they bind us, but can we

[51:30]

By being kind of one with them, can we be free of them? I think we have this principle in Zen, too. We say, if you're really angry in Zazen, don't try to push it away or get rid of it. Just fully settle into it, fully become one with your experience, and then it starts to settle and we become more free of it. I think as Zen practitioners, we know this. That's really kind of a tantric principle as well. So these first three tantras were transmitted from India to China and Japan and still flourish, especially in Japan in what we call the Shingon school. Shingon is the Japanese translation of mantra. So it's the mantra vehicle of Japanese Buddhism. And this was... developed around the same time as Zen in China.

[52:33]

And in Japan, actually, Tantra came to Japan before Zen. Tantra came in like the 8th century, 9th century, around the time it was developing in India. But it took like 400 years more for some reason for Zen to come in. Maybe because Zen is so profound. It's hard to know all the conditions for that. But when Zen did come, it came into a kind of Vajrayana-based country of Japan. Tendai school in Japan is also highly influenced by these three early tantras of Vajrayana. And so things like chanting the Daishindarani in Zen is the influence of tantra, actually. we don't talk about so much the meaning, we just inherit that tradition. But there's a lot in the larger Zen tradition and Zen in Japan that's tantric influence and the power of mantras and dharanis and making offerings to Buddhas and so on.

[53:44]

And also influence in Zen is like the teacher-student relationship is really central in Zen more than other forms of Buddhism. And this kind of like early Zen speaking of transmission of mind and direct pointing and immediately becoming Buddha, the sudden school of Zen. All these teachings you also find in Tantra. And I think they probably went both ways when they were developing. Some of that was Tantric influence on Zen. and some vice versa. So then the last three vehicles of these nine are ones that never made it to China and Japan for some reason. I think it's because all this, again, was historically developing. So in the 8th century, these first three made it to China, and they're like, we have enough to work with all this for the rest of...

[54:49]

the history of China. And meanwhile, the Indian tradition kept developing further and further, always trying to go beyond the present version of what is. And so these last three vehicles made it into Tibet, but not China. And so the last three are maha yoga tantra, yoga tantra, was the previous one, 7, 8, 9, was the sixth one, Maha Yoga Tantra, the Great Yoga Tantra, is the seventh vehicle of Vajrayana. And this is where this relationship to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas becomes not even just like equal companions, but more like the practitioner is becoming one with the Buddha.

[55:56]

Of course, we have this principle in Zen too, but it's more explicit, I think in Radhyana. The meditation is that you visualize yourself as the Buddha, not that you're visualizing the Buddha in front of you anymore. You are some Buddha or Bodhisattva, and And then you invite in the actual Buddha nature of that Buddha, the nature of that Buddha's mind, which is already the nature of our own mind. You can ritually merge them, and then you recite the mantra as your mantra. And the mantra, I think this mantra principle goes through even these earlier tantras as well. The mantra is basically, a Buddha in sonic form, basically. It's sound, not that's so much invoking the Buddha, but the sound, that Buddha or Bodhisattva's mantra is the actual Buddha or Bodhisattva in the form of sound.

[57:04]

So when it's in our mouth, it's like that Buddha is in our mouth. And in this case, it's like we are recite that mantra, and we are that Buddha. And so it's using the different senses, right? Mantra is using the sound sense, and the scene sense is created visually, and then we're also visualizing internally. So Maha Yoga Tantra is what I'm in the middle of this retreat right now down south. They're all about this Maha Yoga Tantra. long ritual recitation text, visualizing itself as a Buddha, reciting at great length the mantra. This upcoming section of the retreat is 10 days where it's like 24 hours. The mantra is going all night and all day. And then the mind is...

[58:09]

which was, I think, quite challenging and complicated. It wouldn't be so helpful, I think, for a beginning meditator, because you're trying to develop your concentration on this visual image and the sound of the mantra and the fact that all this is just empty awareness, which is the most important part. All this is just expression of Buddha nature. But the method of visualization is to concentrate the mind. And in some ways, I think, just like concentrating on the breath, the more complex the visualization, for some people, I think, the more it actually focuses their mind. Because the breath could be less interesting. The mind kind of wanders away, but like, okay, how many arms and eyes do I have? There's so much to focus on. I think it's designed for there's less room for the mind to wander out of the present focal. focus of meditation. And then the sound is included too.

[59:12]

So in the Maha Yoga Tantra, one is a Buddha. Everything one sees is a Buddha land. This is like one's trust and kind of like trying to open to this indestructible Vajra realm. We have this principle in Zen too. This is a pure land and we're all Buddhas. Sometimes we talk this way, understand things this way, really try to get into it through faith and devotion. And, you know, decorating the hall like a Buddha lamp too, right? Helps to kind of just visualize it. And all based on this principle of it really is this way. Our mind is creating reality moment to moment. So it's like... let's create it as we are all perfectly pure Buddhas, and this is a perfectly pure Buddha land, and then we love each other in this way.

[60:17]

So, a lot could be said about this, but that's maybe the heart of Maha Yoga Tantra. The next one is Anu Yoga Tantra. It's more like bringing subtle body, yogic... physical yoga into the practice. You might have heard about these inner heat yogas, vase breathing, bringing the winds, subtle prana into the central channel, working with the subtle body. All of this is mind made, but the body is this amazing pure land itself, made of subtle energy. and these channels and chakras and using breath and Indian yoga in this Buddhist way to include that whole element.

[61:21]

This is getting near the apex now, right? After this kind of visualization, bringing the subtle body and many complex teachings about that into the practice. And then the very last one, is ati yoga tantra, yana, the vehicle of, the final supreme vehicle. And that's basically just supremely unelaborate just sitting. The apex of this very complex system that the most profound is not doing anything at all. After all these practices, it's, just resting in Buddha nature. Extremely unelaborate. Everything is included. All the lower vehicles are included. Greed, hate and delusion are included.

[62:23]

Nothing is excluded. And by including greed, hate and delusion, by not rejecting anything, they naturally liberate themselves more and more. So it's not saying, let's just be greedy and hateful. It's the most subtle method to release our mental afflictions by kind of not doing anything about anything. This is really where Zen meditation and Vajrayana most meet. We have dharanis and so on, and making offerings to Buddhas, these tantric practices in Zen, but we spend most of our time sitting and just being. That's Dzogchen, the great perfection. So that's a lot of stuff, right?

[63:27]

Maybe I'll just stop and see. if you have any questions about all of that. Yes. Shosan-san. We have time for maybe one or two questions. So this is a short question. One time Kaluru Rinpoche came to Green Gulch. I don't know if you remember. Who is it? Kalu Rinpoche, oh yeah, no, it's before my time. The last one. Yes. And so he was sitting around with some people and he kind of asked, well, what do you do? And someone said, Zazen. And what's Zazen? So he said, you know, it's just unconditioned sitting exactly with everything just as it is. And he started laughing and laughing. And, well, what? what's funny?

[64:30]

And he said, you know, that's the end. We do that at the end. You know, you get these beginners and they're doing this and we do it at the end. So I would just like to ask, are we nuts? Are we nuts? Sometimes we could say that, yeah, Zen or like Ati Yoga is the most profound And so it's nuts to do that at the end. So some people would say it's nuts, like Kali Rinpoche, but some might say it's based on a lot of trust, trust and devotion, which I think is this, in Vajrayana too, that's one of the main factors that is necessary, trust and devotion. And if we have that, we can start practicing this way. And maybe we're not really practicing the zazen that Dogen is speaking of from the very beginning, right?

[65:37]

You could say the nature of our practice must be always that way, when in fact we don't trust it completely from the beginning. So then what we're doing, we're enacting it, and then over time, gradually we're developing the trust and letting it be more and more until we really are doing it. So instead of having all these different methods and skillful means, we just have one, and then it's a little bit more coarse at the beginning, and then it becomes the fullness of it gradually. And that's not so nuts. But I think you could say that is two different ways. One is just take this one method and just... do it for a long time until we're really doing it. And the other is, like, all these preliminary skillful means are very helpful for when you finally get to the Ati Yoga Tantra, then maybe it's just easy to just fall into it.

[66:39]

Thank you, yeah. One more question. What kind of Buddhism are you practicing right now? I'm practicing the kind that you're practicing. What kind are you practicing? Very good, very good. It's not really Buddhism even really. It's just we don't know what it is. What was the last word you said? We don't really know what it is. It's not really Buddhism. I think of the Ati yoga and the culmination of Zen is where we really don't know what it is anymore. But we're okay not knowing what it is.

[67:43]

At the beginning, we really feel like we have to know what it is. And in the end, I don't know what it is, but it seems okay. And so happy to meet you. fellow not knower. Thank you. You're welcome. Do we have time for one more? We have time for one more. Extra bonus. Thank you for your talk and I do appreciate the detail. But I want to go back to... So much more detail. I know, and it's probably too much for me even. But anyway, you were talking about the stick, and you held up your stick there, and said this is just a luminous, I'll misquote you, being of light. And I've made a few of those sticks, and I go to the lumberyard, and I buy a piece of wood, and at that point, it's a solid piece of wood.

[68:51]

Well, wait a second. To me... It seems that way, just like it does now. I mean, it still looks like a solid piece of wood. So even before we go to the store, when we first wake up in the morning and we have the thought, I'm going to go to the store and buy the wood to make a stick from, that very room, the ceiling that we're looking at when we wake up, and the thought, I'm going to go to the store today, all of those are already this empty... empty luminosity, empty in the sense of like if we really try to look for what is the ceiling of our room when we open our eyes, we can't really get a hold of it. What we find when we're looking at the ceiling is our awareness. That's what we mean by luminous. We are knowing this experience called the ceiling, but it's luminous in that we're knowing it.

[69:53]

appearing within our awareness and it's empty in the sense that we don't really know what it is. Somehow awareness appears as a ceiling and a thought and getting in the car and that wood and then a new piece of wood and it looks like it's transformed from the old wood but in the tantra, the continuity, the vajra indestructibility, nothing's changed at all. I mean the appearances are changing but there's a What's the element, the indestructible element from when we open our eyes in the morning to when we're like feeling a stick? What element is exactly the same to all those impermanent experiences? And that we could say is the empty luminous tantra, the vajra. indestructible quality, something is always unchanging while every experience is changing.

[71:05]

So my question... Oh, sorry. When you got to the Yogacarya Dhyana vehicle, you were talking about how in the voice... the Buddha is manifest and we are having, as you said, more or less, a mouthful of Buddha, right? And the sounds that we make, the being that we are in the group and in the chanting is bringing forward that impermanent yet very, I think you're calling it permanent underlying aspect of Buddhiness. When you get to that permanent, or you're talking about the sticks, permanent... Well, I didn't use the word permanent. I said unchanging, but it sounds very similar. Okay, and that's actually my sticking point. I'm thinking when I see the stick, I don't get stuck on the lumber, and I don't get stuck on the fact that the centuries of tradition of having that stick and all the Buddhas that have held it.

[72:08]

That's all kind of impermanent, right? That's what I'm getting at. And so... When we are seeking to manifest emptiness, what is the stick? When we're seeking to be Zen and use so-called apex moments, what is the voice or the stick or the body? Well, if we have to say it in words, we could say, right now we are present and aware, and the visual world is appearing within our awareness, including this, if our eyes are open, This is appearing within awareness. But it's not like poking into our awareness from the outside, right? It's not like a solid piece of wood poking into our sphere of awareness. It's actually, if we look carefully or investigate this carefully, do we not find that it is our actual awareness just taking the form of a visual appearance and taking the form of the sound of the voice?

[73:12]

and taking the form of these thoughts and bodily sensations. And you could say, it's like an unchanging mirror that's reflecting all these changing experiences. Thank you for that clarification. Including sticks and mantras and all these garbled words. So thank you for your attention. Sorry if you came for a Zen talk and it was a Vajrayana talk. Please excuse me. This is a principle, of course, through all of... Really, I think, a Mahayana principle that is through all of Vajrayana too. You don't find so much in the early teachings that any merit, any positive energy that we've gathered through our practice together, through the power of our mind, we... wish it to extend throughout all of space and time to benefit all beings everywhere.

[74:13]

May all realize their perfectly free, extremely unelaborate, ordinary Buddha-ness. and to create the impending place, where the true man is a couple of people who live this way. He is not a current man with us. I can't find any kind of Moses who said it yet. He is not a person who lives in the world. All the people who come to us will be the same. They will be the same. They will be the same. They will be the same.

[75:16]

They will be the same. [...] Good morning, everyone.

[76:56]

Thank you so much for coming. It's great to see so many people in the Zendo here this morning. As always, you're invited to come here and practice with us for everything we have, Zazen, classes, talks, Dharma events. We love having you here with us, and we invite you to come. Our schedule is completely on our website, sfzc.org, so please join us. A few announcements. By the way, my name is Kevin. I'm the Eno here, the head of the meditation hall. There'll be Zendo forms right after this talk with Michael. Michael, where would you like to meet people? Okay, so back corner in 10 minutes for Zendo forms. Michael can teach you how to move in the Zendo, how to bow, where to bow, all the things that are important for Zendo practice. Next Wednesday, there will be no Dharma talk because it's the full moon. We'll have our monthly full moon ceremony and you're invited to join us. as we renew our Bodhisattva vows. That will be at 7.30 p.m.

[77:57]

next Wednesday. Our next one-day sit will be June 1st, two weeks from today, and that'll be at the Haight Street Arts Center, which is at 215 Haight Street, right near the corner of Haight and Laguna, a lovely space. You can register for that on our website. We're also very pleased to host a three-day exhibit talk, and book signing. This three-day exhibit will celebrate the publication of the new book, Gardens of Awakening, a guide to aesthetics, history, and spirituality of Kyoto's Zen landscapes. Selected photographs will be exhibited to share the experience of meeting a Zen garden in its fleeting moments. All events will take place at the Conference Center, which is right next door at 308 Page Street. The exhibit opens on Tuesday from 4 to 7, so that would be the 28th. On Wednesday, it is open from 4 to 7, followed by a special Dharma talk here in the Zendo and book signing in person with Kaz Tanahashi and the other author, Mitsuhe, I can't remember her last name, at 7.30 to 8.30.

[79:12]

Kazumitsu will talk about the aesthetics, symbolism, characteristics, and history of Zen Gardens, as well as stories of making the book and what they learned in their fieldwork. The talk will also be live-streamed. In addition, the conference center will be open to visitors on Thursday from 3 to 5. So that's not to be missed. I would also like to introduce Shoko. There he is. Shoko is our director of development. Right now we have Zenathon going on, and he's going to tell you a little bit about Zenathon and how it works. So, yeah. This is usually the space where I would, or Kevin, would make an announcement about supporting Zen Center and considering becoming a member. But as Kevin led into, right now... We are holding our Zenathon, which is our spring fundraising event. And it goes from actually just a few days ago, the 15th of May through the 15th of June.

[80:17]

And in this time is sort of a special time where we are really putting out our begging bowl to raise funds for our operations budget. We are almost completely dependent on the generosity of people like you to keep our operations, all our programs and offerings available. And so this is a begging bowl. and it takes the shape of this square at the bottom. You can scan this, and it'll take you right to the main page. If you want, you can scroll down and see all the individuals that already have Zenithon pages, individual fundraisers, or groups that have joined. And so there are some affinity groups and others that are teams, although there are no separation.

[81:21]

proceeds will go to Benefit Zen Center and help us spread with our mission to spread the Dharma and help to heal a suffering world. So please help us participate by participating in Zenathon in any way that you can. Thank you for your attention. And so some of these will be, one of these will be in the hallway and you can see them at Tea and Cookies. And you could always just go to sfcc.org for all the information. So thank you so much. Okay, two more things. One is that Urban Gate Sangha comes in every Saturday morning and runs the 925 Zazen in terms of all the Doan positions, hitting the Han and the Densho and the bells and things like that. And they're always welcoming for new members. So if all the members of Urban Gate Sangha who are here this morning could raise their hand quickly, any of these people with their hand raised, feel free to, at the tea and cookies, which is my next announcement,

[82:32]

Talk to them about joining Urban Gate, and they'd be glad to welcome you into their sangha. Finally, there's tea and cookies. Tea and cookies right after this, right now, in the conference center next door. So when you go out the door here, make a right, go up Page Street, the very next building. There's a black gate around the building. Go up the stairs, and it's the doorway on the right, three-way Page Street. Probably Kokyo is there. You can ask him questions about his talk. and meet and mingle with other members of the Sangha. And normally I would ask you to bring chairs back to the Gaitan, but today we have an ordination. So if you could leave all the chairs here, that would be appreciated. And if a few Sangha members can help me start setting up for the ordination, that would also be very much appreciated. So thank you so much for coming today. It's great having you here. Have a great weekend.

[83:26]

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