In one Buddhist text, it asks the question, from where or from what does the world come? And the answer is, the world comes from action. Particularly, of course, the world comes from the action of living creatures. The entire universe, according to this teaching, comes from the action of all living beings for all time. And then it says, what is action? And the answer is, action is the sum total of the mind in a given moment.

[01:12]

So the whole universe comes from the mind, from the mind, all living beings. Formation of the world is due to the shape of the mind and the aspirations and physical and vocal actions which emanate from the mind. This is the basis, this is the foundation of the world. And the transformation of the world comes to the transformation of the mind and transformation of the aspirations. and actions of this mind, of all minds.

[02:18]

At the moment of the awakening of a Buddha, the world is changed. At the moment of one of us giving rise to the aspiration to help all beings, the world is transformed. to give rise to the aspiration to harm some people, the world is transformed. So by the wholesome and unwholesome aspirations and deeds, the world is created by all of us and all of our ancestors. Today I'd like to talk about this mind or this basic vision of mind that is the source of the world and it's the place where the world is transformed constantly.

[03:29]

And it is the teaching of Buddha that a clear understanding of the nature of mind produces a transformative influence. And the transformative influence is in a helpful and beneficial direction for the world. So I want to talk about what the mind is, how to get in. get a view of it. But I give this preface so that you understand that for Buddhists, this kind of study has a direct ecological and social impact. People ask, what does your practice have to do? What does your study of the mind have to do with? How does it directly relate to benefiting the environment and being in the environment?

[04:33]

This is my prologue to respond to that question before I enter into the realm of discussion of the mind. Does that make sense? In a general kind of statement, some people have said that in the West, we tend to think of the mind as as contents of experience. And that in East there is some tendency to think of the mind as the container of experience. This of course is only true to some extent, but anyway, I just thought to say that at the beginning. One day, A monk, not so scooping the proper volume. One day a monk came to see the Zen teacher Yangshan.

[05:40]

It was in China. About 1,500 years ago. And Yangshan asked the monk, where do you come from? The monk said, a Yu province. And... And Yangshan said, do you think of that place? Do you ever think of that place? And the monk said, I think of it all the time. And Yangshan said... That which thinks is the mind. That which is thought of is the environment.

[06:53]

Therein are mountains and great landscapes, oceans, rivers, wild and domesticated animals, trees, buildings, palaces, and so on. Reverse your thought and think back to the mind that thinks. Are there many things there? And the monk said, when I get to that place, there's nothing at all. And Yangshan said, this is good for the stage of fate, but you have not yet reached the stage in person.

[08:03]

But in Zen meditation, in the early days of the Zen school, one of the ancestors taught that Zen meditation was to turn the light around, turn the light backwards and illuminate the self. We also talk about taking the backward step, to step back. To step back to the place where things and nothing are non-dual. Step back to the place where existence and emptiness are dancing.

[09:21]

In this story I just told, it's written in Chinese originally. And the way the Chinese works is somewhat helpful because it says, It has the Chinese character for thinking. And then it has connected to it another character, which is a marker of activity or an active marker. So when you put the character for thinking or plot with this marker, it means the ability to think, the ability to think, or that which thinks. They said, that which thinks, or the ability to think, is mine. And then the next, they have the same character for thinking, and then put another character, which means it's a passive market, which means that which is thought of.

[10:33]

So the active thought is what we call mind, and passive thought is what we call the environment or contents. That which can think is the mind. That which is thought of, or the contents of our experience, is the environment. So there's an internal and external environment. When you think back, to that which can think. Or think back to the activity of thinking of things itself. You don't find anything. And this is what he called the mind. Actually the mind means you see both of these passive and active aspects. The mind is not only that which can think, but also that which is thought of.

[11:43]

The mind is the container and the contents. But what we have to work at, apparently, is to get in touch with and to look back at the container, to find where does the contents of experience come from? What is the context of the content? of our experience. So, if you look back to the context, look for the context to the content, or look for what things of things, you don't find anything at all. The monk couldn't find anything. Or, another way to say this is that the context of our experience is emptiness, or the content, context, or container of our experience is space, vast space, boundless emptiness.

[13:00]

That boundless emptiness is what thinks these contents. We all know already how to think of contents. We all experience contents. We're recommended to take the backward step to look for the container, look for that which thinks of these contents, and to get some experience of how you can't get an experience of it, how it is space.

[14:03]

But the teacher said, when the monk looked back for the mind that thinks, couldn't find anything, and the teacher said, that's good for the stage of faith. But it's not yet the stage of the person. In other words, it's just the fact of spaciousness Being the mind is not enough. We have to also experience how the contents emerges from this mind, from this vast spaciousness which can't think this world. Someone gave poetry.

[15:19]

And this is a poem by a Suthi, which says the name of it, which is not really the name of it, is called This World. What? Should I be louder? Is that what you said? The title of this poem, which I don't think is the actual title, but the person who gave me the poem titled this, the title is This World. And the subtitle is Which is Made Out of Our Love of Emptiness. This world is made out of our love of space. or space's willingness to think in terms of content. This is by Rumi. Praise to the emptiness that blanks out all existence.

[16:26]

Existence. This place made from our love of that emptiness. Yet somehow comes emptiness. This existence goes. Praise to that happening over and over. Now, just something popped in my head, which is something that a Benedictine monk told me that John Cage said something like, everything is praise of nothing. Everything is actually just praise of nothing.

[17:35]

So here the Sufi poet says, praise to emptiness that blanks out existence. Existence, this place, made from that emptiness. Yet somehow, from emptiness, this existence goes. Praise that happening over and over. For years, I pulled my own existence out of emptiness. And then in parentheses, I don't know who wrote this part. Didn't want emptiness. No, not emptiness. Then one scoop, one swing of the arm, that work is over. Free of who I was. free of presence, free of dangerous fear, hope, free of mountainous wanting.

[18:42]

This here and now mountain is a tiny piece of a piece of straw blown off into emptiness. Am I talking loudly enough? No? Sorry. This here and now mountain This here and now universe is a tiny piece of a piece of straw blown off into emptiness. These words I'm saying so much begin to lose meaning. Existence, emptiness, mountain straw. Words and what they try to say, out the window, down in the slant of the roof. So for me, I always am surprised that

[20:04]

that for the worker, the enlightenment workers, the bodhisattvas, that their helpfulness is emanating from an awareness of nothing. I shouldn't say an awareness of nothing because you can't be awareness of nothing, but I should say emanating from nothingness, emanating from absolute nothingness, where there's not even a thing called nothing. I guess I have some feeling like, and I think, you know, maybe honor this feeling, that helpfulness or being beneficial to beings must be coming from some kind of nice warm spot someplace. That there must be some kind of essential warm loving place from which beneficial action comes. And if I honor that feeling like that's so, then I maybe think, well, this emptiness, this absolute nothingness where even nothing can't stand up, that maybe that warm, but not a substantial warm, but a warm, a completely free warm, free of my idea of warm.

[21:31]

But it's also, you know, this warmth isn't the warmth which is opposite of cold. And actually, that this emptiness, that this spaciousness, which thinks the world, which is the container of all contents of my experience, that this is essential for the helping person. But not just that, also the fact that it does think and that it interacts with existence and that when existence arises, the emptiness goes away. And when the emptiness is there, the existence goes away. And that the existence, that existence is arriving out of love for this emptiness. That our experience is praise of the space which contains it. And this interaction between praise and space.

[22:43]

If we can see this interaction between this praising activity of existence and space, that this dynamic is what we have to bring into our meditation, into our work. That just to see that container which thinks the mind is good enough for the stage of the person, the stage of fake. In other words, when the teacher said to the monk, reverse your thought, think back to the mind that thinks. The monk did it. That's fake. And that's good. But now he has to take another step out of that emptiness back into the world. That's the stage of the person. We need to praise. We can't just sit there and just stay in the emptiness, stay in the space.

[23:48]

We need to let the space come into things, which is the world. But there's a great deal of sentimental resistance to this spaciousness. In me, anyway, I feel it. But this spaciousness is not my idea of spaciousness. It is the ability to think. It is what thinks up the world. And it's really not such a bad place, but there is emotional resistance to it because it's, you know, it's out there. And I'm a little afraid of what's going to happen to me if I think about it. Because in fact, when I think of it, there's no me there. I, myself, is not the ability to think the things that I think.

[24:52]

So the same friend gave me another poem. This has a title called The Way In. And it's by Rilke. and subtitled, The Mudra of Returning Home. Am I still speaking loudly enough? Mudra means literally ring or circle. And when we meditate, we put our hands like this and make this little circle with our hands and call this a mudra too. And our body shape is in mudra and our community is in mudra. So the circle of going home is a subtitle for the way in. by Rilke. Whoever you are, some even, take a step out of your house. Take a step out of your house, which you know so well.

[26:01]

Enormous space is near. Your house lies where it begins. Whoever you are. Your eyes find it hard to tear themselves away from the sloping threshold. But with your eyes, slowly, slowly, lift up one, black tree. Up so it stands against the sky, skinny, alone. With that, you have made the world. The world is immense, like a word that is still growing in the silence.

[27:03]

In the same moment that your will grasps it, your eyes, feeling its subtlety, leap. This is almost exactly what the story between the Zen teacher and the monk are saying. Whoever you are, some evening, Take a step out of your house. In other words, take a step back. Turn the light around and think of that which is that which thinks. Your house lies where it begins. Well, excuse me. Enormous space is near. Your house lies where it begins. Yourself, your sense of who you are, the contents of your experience lie where the enormous space begins.

[28:12]

It begins right there at the edge of your experience. Whoever you are. Your eyes find it hard to tear themselves away from the sloping threshold. The threshold of our experience, the edge of our experience of sort of slightly slanting onto this vast space, we have a little trouble sort of taking our eye right from that and looking over the edge there. But most of us have fear of just looking over the edge there. It's right there, just to look over the edge. It's hard. What will happen? It's unknown. Anyway. But with your eyes, right there at the threshold, jump over it. And after you see the space, then lift one black tree up.

[29:14]

So it stands against the sky, skinny, alone. With that, you have made the world. And the world is immense. And it's like a word still growing in silence. At the same moment you grasp it, the world or the word, the same moment you grasp it, if your eyes are aware of how subtle it is, you leap it. And so what I'm proposing is that that vision, of how it is that when you grasp the world, it arises. But if you are aware of how subtle this interaction between the world, between experience, between the contents of mind, and the container of mind, if you can be aware of the subtlety, that that's how we let go of this world.

[30:16]

And then, in praise of letting go, in praise of spaciousness, you give rise to another black tree. and round and round we go. The vision of this dynamic is the vision of the enlightened worker, the interaction between form and entities. Keep our eye, keep focused on that world where the world is arising and falling, birth and death, birth and death, round and round. To watch that world in our experience, using our own experience as a form which we then look beyond and which we recreate to enter that realm of awareness, that that vision emanates the great aspiration to help people and that helpful activity. Is that clear? I don't know.

[31:22]

What? You mean white and black instead of yellow or a tree? White tree? Well, I don't know. I didn't write the poem, but it seems to me a tree is pretty good because the tree stands out. And in vast space, Other, you know, in praise of space, in praise of vast limitless space, we create a thing. We stand something up. The tree is nice because it stands up. And he said it's skinny, didn't he? And did he say it was alone? Skinny and alone. One thing created in vast space. And again, as you may have noticed, the word alone means all one. So one thing, standing up, all one, in vast states, this is how the world is made.

[32:26]

And we are doing that constantly. This is karma. And all of us are doing it all the time. And if we can catch the process, That vision which knows this process is not fooled by it and does not attach to it or try to manipulate it, which grasps it, as he said. But at the moment of grasping the production, you also are aware of how subtle it is. It's interaction. Because the world is very subtle. The world is just raised of this space. It's so subtle, you really can't get a hold of it. So you develop detachment in this way. by simply watching the relationship between what you're experiencing and that which thinks of it. And so black trees, or little green sprouts, or breath, or a body, or a color, something stands up there in this act of crazy space, all containing

[33:41]

mind, space, that thinks of the world, that thinks the world up. And the world that's thought up, as soon as you grasp it, at the very moment you grasp it, your will grasps it. And again, will is karma. Will is the basic definition of karma. Your karma grasps it, but if you're aware of that subtlety, you let go of it. You leave it. You leave the world. You leave the world. And he gave me one more poem, which I don't think has a title. I think it just starts out, you see, I want a lot. And the made up title is the whole works or taking a dive.

[34:49]

You see, I want a lot. Perhaps I want everything. This is by Rilke too. The darkness that comes with every infinite fall and shivering blaze of every step up. So many lives, no, so many live on wanting nothing, and are raised to the rank of prince by slippery ease of their light judgments. But what you love to see are faces that do not work and feel thirst. You love most of all those who need you as they need a crowbar or a hole. You have not grown old And it is not too late to dive into the increasing depth where your life calmly gives out its own secrets.

[36:00]

You see, I want a lot. Perhaps I want everything. The darkness that comes with every infinite fall of every step in back or beyond the threshold of your house. You step there and you fall infinite. And the shivering blaze of every step up of every tree you create. I don't know what he meant, but I think he does want a lot. He wants everything, and he wants nothing. And everything we want, or everything we want to create, can be seen simply as praise of

[37:21]

praise of space. And whether we like to see it that way or not, anyway, we keep creating the world and we keep letting go of it and creating it again. We're doing this all the time, so mainly it's just the question of whether we can sit still and turn around and look at what we're, turn around, turn the light around and shine it back on what we're doing. Actually, all the time, we're in our house and in the evening, we go outside into that huge space. And we love it so much that we create something again. We do this all the time. That's why they just say, just step back there into your workshop and catch yourself doing that. Just turn the light around. the right, left, or the right.

[38:25]

And you'll catch yourself creating the world out of love for vast emptiness and boundless space. This isn't something you have to start doing. This is just something you have to wake up to. And if you can see yourself doing that, that vision brings forth the aspiration and actions which transform the world. At least that's what something to say.

[39:04]

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