And I add a prologue to the lecture. In a strict sense, a lecture is a discussion of a text. So I have a prologue. There's a few things I'd like to clear up. There's so many things to clear up. But there are a few things I'd like to try to clarify. The first one is a small matter, and that is the matter of enlightenment. Considering how much Shakyamuni Buddha taught, we could basically say, I think, that he really did talk about enlightenment.

[01:05]

Early on, he mentioned to people that he was enlightenment itself. But then after that, he mostly just talked about the practice. So it is a tradition in the actual practice lineages to mostly discuss practice and not say much about enlightenment. However, we should not misunderstand that and remember that still, as bodhisattvas, we actually do aspire to complete perfect enlightenment, even though we don't talk about it too much. Not only do we aspire to that for ourselves, but we aspire for the universal attainment of perfect enlightenment.

[02:16]

Okay? And bodhisattvas actually spend their whole life thinking about But that's a practice. It's not that they're thinking about enlightenment. And of course, as I said yesterday, Buddha doesn't think or talk about enlightenment. Nobody can talk about enlightenment by the nature of mind and language. Enlightenment cannot be an object of language or consciousness. Enlightenment is the true nature of life. So bodhisattvas, although they do not attain or hold on to nirvana until everyone does it, they do

[03:22]

attain a kind of nirvana, they do break through to suchness as part of their practice. The true nature of things does pulsate through their body and mind constantly, just like it does through all things. But Bodhisattva's attainment of nirvana is called Apanishtika. nirvana, which means non-abiding nirvana or non-clean nirvana. They drop body and mind, but they do not clean to the dropped state. Bodhisattvas are also characterized by a word which I can't remember in Sanskrit, but which means willfully re-enter the world.

[04:36]

Because of their non-attachment to nirvana, they enter the world. And because of their non-attachment to the world, they experience non-abiding nirvana. So bodhisattvas go through a kind of enlightenment as part of their practice, but they don't cling to it. OK? Is that clear? So the bodhisattvas realize the two aspects of emptiness. The first aspect of emptiness is the emptiness of all existence. Or the first aspect of emptiness is that the only thing that really exists is that things lack inherent existence. That's the only thing that exists.

[05:38]

But actually, there's one more thing that exists, and that is there is the existence of the non-existent. Or another way to say it is there is the production of illusion. There really is the production of things which don't exist. So Bodhisattva's going into the non-abiding nirvana is emphasizing the emptiness of existence. And the Bodhisattva coming back into the world is emphasizing the existence of the non-existent, the existence of illusion. Illusion doesn't exist, but there is the existence of illusion. Okay? That's why they go round and round. Exactly.

[06:47]

It's clear as mud. Good. And you know what to do with mud, right? Huh? Jump in and germinate. And one other point I'd like to make about the mudra, since you have another vague sip, and that is, I remember Suzuki Roshi used to say, talking about the mudra, he used to say, put some strength here. And when he said that, it always struck me because he said it, I felt he said it very softly or very tentatively, as though he was a little embarrassed to say put strength any place. He didn't usually say, he didn't usually give instructions like, you know, do this strongly or do this.

[07:53]

He didn't, but in this book, that's about the only time I talked about, heard him talking about, please inspect some place, and it was to put it in the mudra. And he also pointed out that you can vary the strength that you put in the mudra by the angle that you turn it. By angle, I mean it's like if you have your hand like this, can you see my mudra? And you would sort of put something flat across the front of your mudra, okay? There's a sort of a plane here that your fingers would fit in. By tilting this forward or backward, you could alter the sense of your strength there. So with the hands touching the abdomen, by tilting basically the thumbs back closer to the abdomen or away from the abdomen, you can vary the intensity of your presence there.

[08:56]

Can you see that? And different people might have different sense of what would be stronger. It would vary according to circumstances. I feel that tilting forward, if you have your hands touching your abdomen, If you tilt it forward, it makes it a little bit more emphatic. Can you feel that? I don't know if you can feel that way. For me, tilting it forward a little bit makes it a little bit more emphatic. But sometimes tilting it back, sometimes tilting it back almost so that the thumbs are touching the happy could also give more strength. You can alter or vary the presence there by just kind of tilting back and forth. So that's my quote on it. And part of the reason why I mention that is because someone told me that they become sort of sensitized to the Abhidhamasaka Sutra because they feel like it has to do with enlightenment.

[10:13]

Because in a sense, it's describing the world sort of from Buddha's point of view. This is how Buddha feels about things. But I would just say, don't be suspicious of the true dragon. So I spent two days, I think about two days, talking about the first word of the title, flower. And so far, I said basically that for me, the first thing that occurs to me about the meaning of flower is the meaning of zazen. And then I talked about how the flower can help us understand zazen, characteristics of flower. may be helpful to first understand what zazen is.

[11:18]

The next word is ornament. And I often call this scripture the flower adornment sutra. So I looked up adornment and ornament. And I was sort of happy to find out that ornament means to adorn, and adorn means to put on ornaments. So I'm talking about ornament and adornment, or ornamenting and adorning. So again, to me, the first thing that comes up is that these flowers, which is our practice, our zazen, our entire practice, not just sitting in the zendo, but our entire zazen practice, that is the adornment.

[12:42]

It is those flowers. Each of our practices is the adornment of the Buddha's body. The main Buddha of the Avatamsaka Sutra is Vajrachanabuddha. And Vajrachanabuddha is co-extensive with the universe. But the true body of Buddha is formless. And it is only by the flower of our practice that it is adorned, that it is made beautiful. Or what do they say? We loan the beauty of our practice to the Buddha's body. So all these innumerable oceans of practicing enlightening beings.

[13:44]

All their practices are the adornment of the Buddha. Raining flowers on the formless body. And although the practice is a practice of non-attainment, these flowers stick to one and only one thing. They stick to Buddha's body. so that you can see the shape of the Buddha through the practice of being like these beings. So now, continuing to talk about adornment of the universe, I'd like to shift gears a little bit and go from the great Mahayana scripture, the Aptamsaka, and go back to a basic scholastic text which is near and dear to some of your hearts called the Abhidharmakosha.

[15:09]

The Abhidharmakosha is a large text on Buddhist philosophy, and psychology, and metaphysics, and physics, and cosmology, and sociology, and et cetera. It's a kind of thing like that. And it is, I think, the most influential Adhudana text for Mahayana Buddhism. It's the most influential Abhidharma text for Tibet, Korea, China, Japan, those countries. In Southeast Asia, it's not so influential. The Suvi Magra and other books are a little bit more influential on their practice. But for the Northern Buddhists, the Mahayana Buddhists, the Abhidharma Kosha is their point of departure, kind of like their basic encyclopedia. In Chapter 3 of the Abhidhamma Kosha, the world, the universe, is described.

[16:23]

In Chapter 4, what does Abhidhamma students, what is dealt with in Chapter 4? Be shy. Okay. You want to say? I'll say. It's a chapter called Action or Karma. Karma. And the first verse of chapter 4 goes, see, it just followed the description of the universe. And Vasubandhu says, and where does this world come from? And the answer is, karma. or action. The world, the universe, is the effect of the action of living creatures.

[17:34]

The way the world is is the effects of the practice or not practice of all living beings for all time. Not just the humans, but also the trees, the flowers, and the cockroaches. Then it says, what is action anyway? And the answer is, Sanskrit, chetana, which means be confirmation or the shape of consciousness. Or I like, although you probably don't know the meaning of the word, it's the synergy of mind, of a given moment of mind. Synergy means that when you take the sum total of something that has parts, that you have something in addition to just adding up a list.

[18:44]

just like this group here of people, is something more than just some total of all the divisions. Something else happens besides just having all the people. There's another thing that happens. And mind is like that too. That synergy, that total sort of effect or inclination of consciousness in a given moment is what we call action or karma. And those minds, and the shapes of those minds is what makes the world. So in the Avatamsaka Sutra, the same theme is taken up on a much grander scale. Yeah, a grander scale than the Abhidhamma Kosha talks about. And here, too, in the fourth chapter of the Aptamsaka Sutta, which is called The Formation of the Worlds, Samantabhadra Bodhisattva looks over the world and then discusses how the worlds are formed.

[20:11]

So in this chapter, worlds or universes represent the consequence of the aspirations and actions of living beings. So one of the things that pops out of this for me is that The world is the result, partly the result, of our aspirations. But it's also due to our actions. In other words, the world is formed by our vows. And making vows forms the world. And transforming vows transforms the world.

[21:19]

Also, the actions we take transform the world or make the world. And by transforming the actions we do, we transform the world. So what I've been talking about is by concentration to let ourselves settle into the world where we can see, actually have a new vision of what our life is. And now I'm bringing up that the transformation of the way we see things actually transforms the world. And that the actions and aspirations that emanate from our transformed vision, they also transform the world.

[22:27]

So again and again, people ask, what do Buddhists do for the world? What do you do for society's problems, for the suffering in the world? And the fundamental thing is to change your vision and to help others change their vision. and then to let actions and aspirations, vows and activities emanate from that new vision. This is what transforms the world. It doesn't mean that you don't go out and do social action. It means the social action you do comes from your vision. But that you must work on your vision. If you just go and do things without having the proper vision, you just perpetuate things according to your deluded vision.

[23:35]

If you think things are permanent and then you try to do good for people, you just contribute to more misery. And it is the actions of those who think things are permanent, have self, and are not frustrating, those actions that come from that vision make the world in a certain way. And the actions that come from the bodhisattva's vision create another world. So there's this kind of competition going on between certain people with these views and people with these views. Anyway, we have to keep working and clarifying our eyes because that is the way to transform the world Yes. At this point, I'm asking myself, how does anybody know if he has the right vision in order to go out to, let's say, tell people what to do, or make suggestions, or help people?

[24:46]

Because there are many people right now thinking they have the right vision, or a proper vision to save the world, or something. Can you hear what he said? You do not know if you have the right vision. Anybody who knows they have the right vision can trouble me. But whether you have the right vision or not, you're still constantly getting off action from that vision. Whatever vision you have, that's where your action comes from. It can never stop. Every moment, your mind has a certain shape. That shape is your action. And that shape is determined by your vision, by how you see. So we're constantly forming the world. Whether you go tell people what to do or not, you're shaping the world. And in fact, some people who have very good vision, what they decide to do with their vision is to go sit and face a wall for nine years. Bodhidharma didn't go around and tell people in China what to do.

[25:50]

He went and sat. That was his action. That was his aspiration. That was the result of his vision. Before that, he went to see the emperor even. That was also something that came from his vision. And the way he talked to the emperor was his verbal karma. The way he stood in front of the emperor was his physical karma that came from his vision. And this is his compassion. Great compassion. Did it help the emperor or not? I don't know. Anyway, he had enough of that and went and sat for nine years. That was his action. So constantly, anyway, we're producing karma, verbal and physical and mental karma, and also constantly we have aspirations. What are our aspirations? Are our aspirations to help all beings? Are our aspirations to help

[26:53]

Our mother? Our dog? What are our aspirations? Anyway, if you clarify your vision and you can see emptiness, ill, not self and impermanence. Or rather, again, I don't say you can see it, because those aren't objects. If you can be the experience of these things, then the karma that comes from those is beneficial and transforms the world to the benefit of all human beings. But you don't go around saying, I know I have the right view, and it's making me benefit. That does not help. Maybe once in a million, trillion times that would be helpful. Usually, it's a Higgins. When it comes to the essential vision, knowledge does not reach it. As Nonjuan said, about things where knowledge doesn't reach it, it's better not to say anything about it.

[27:58]

Knowledge is too clumsy to get in there and know about what's actually going on. It's extra. But that doesn't mean that our light and practice can't be one with that which knowledge can't reach, and that our action and aspirations coming from that are helpful. No, they are helpful. So we have to keep working all the time to clarify our vision, to keep looking deeply into this world with a concentrated, imperturbable mind. And then we sit back and we watch what we do. We watch what we aspire for. And I'm talking about what I asked you to remind me about, in case you didn't notice. I'm talking about how this practice goes out into social situations and also into mountains and rivers.

[29:05]

So you can also check. You don't know, but you'd be so checked to see how things are going. Just like you check internally. Internally, in terms of your own experience. Do things stick? When you get angry, does it stick? Or does it get burned up instantly? When you have an idea or a story, does it come up and go down right away? Or does it stand up for minutes, hours, weeks before you see the emptiness of it? And also, in your relationships with people, do things stick? Do you have a conversation with somebody and it doesn't flow? And is it not? And do you leave that not and go about your business and let it fester? Or do you direct your life and attention to the thing that's stuck between you and another creature and look at it and study it and be concentrated with it until it moves, until it burns up, until it drops away?

[30:11]

If we have relationships with people and let things come up and let them sit there like rocks in our stomach, then it's not the way things are. And we're letting it be that way because we've got an appointment. We can't carry around these stuck things within our relationships with people. I mean, we do, but this is what causes our problems. And this is different, you see, from the way you're practicing your own zazen. I hope. So the rules of zazen. The kind of experience that the standards and criteria you have for your own mind, they should also be for your relationships. Namely, everything that comes up should go down. Everything that happens should move on. There should be no permanent thing between you and other people. Good or bad.

[31:13]

we should be willing to start fresh with other people and other creatures, just like we have to be willing to start fresh with our own consciousness. And just like we bring the forces through being concentrated, we allow the forces of our life to bear down on our experience so that everything starts moving there. And so impermanence is magnitudes. In the same in our relationships, we have to bring enough energy and concentration and commitment to the relationship so that the relationship doesn't get stuck. So it moves and it's free. We have to get in there when we feel entanglement, and we have to get in there and try to untangle it without destroying the relationship. And this is painful. So we don't like to do it.

[32:20]

But if we don't do it, the relationship rots and strangles itself. But even though we have to do this work, the production of entanglement is forever. Just like internally, entanglements are continually produced and have to be continually dropped, so in social relationships entanglements are continually produced. Entanglements aren't real, but the production of apparent entanglements is constant. So we have to keep working internally and externally with our own personal practice and with our relationships in order to keep disentangling. And again, we have problems about that, right?

[33:27]

I'm a little bit busy. I don't want to get into that right now. Sometimes when something happens between you and another creature, you can work on it by yourself. If you get angry at someone, you can just say, let go of it.

[34:29]

You'll feel much better after you do. Just let go of it. Drop it. Go on. Open your heart up to the person. Go say you're sorry, even though it was their fault. But it's never somebody else's fault that you get angry. People just give you opportunities to do it. Whenever you get angry, go after it. You'll feel better afterwards. You know you will. So tell yourself that. And you get there, and you're almost ready to say it, and then you remember what they did, and... And you held it. But again, if you actually say it clearly, I'm sorry, you're getting angry. You get gripped, and you block it. But sometimes you can drop it even before you get to that.

[35:31]

But sometimes it's necessary to go and say it in order to test it. Because you think you can do it, but then when you actually get there, you block off. You weren't really quite ready yet. I'm sorry. But sometimes you have to talk to the person quite a bit before you can get through the stuck friend, whatever it is. Sometimes you can't do it by yourself. For example, you can't forgive someone for something that you're not sure they did. It's very difficult to forgive someone for doing a bad thing to you if they didn't do it. So sometimes you have to go and say, did you do that? Somebody told me you said that about me. Is that true? And they say, yeah. You say, I forgive you. What if you apologize for someone who came in

[36:34]

They then lie. They give that to anybody. They just don't get out of here. Why do you do that? Why do you do that? Well, if somebody says, I'm sorry, they say, well, they don't accept it. That's the usual way. That's usually what happens. And you get another chance. You get another chance. I don't know what neighborhood you live in, but where I live, that's usually the way. I don't know for other people, but where I am, usually when I apologize, it doesn't necessarily work for the other person. They don't believe.

[37:45]

Oh, that's not a real apology. You should make that pattern today. For pony sauces, whenever they do a good thing, the panty gets upped. Because you do well, it's like that thing, what is it? That story of Rumble Stillskin. After the lady spun a room full of straw into gold, he said, well, now do a bigger room. It's like that. You see, but it's so nice because it gives you more chance to develop your patience, generosity, ethical conduct, and so on. That's food. That's the stuff that Bodhisattvas grow, easels. You can't practice patience if nobody's nice to you.

[38:52]

And if you don't practice patience, you can't really be a hero. So it's just, you know, it's really the food of the hero. It's insults. You can say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I really mean it. You can get your way into a really difficult situation. You can get yourself right in the middle of the intense sector of your life if you apologize to all the things that assault you as you're moving down the way. But if you fight back, You get knocked out to the cool area of your life. You get knocked out to the perimeter of your life, again and again. So anyway, all these Buddhas and bodhisattvas are working away.

[40:02]

Bodhisattvas are doing their vows all the time and transforming the world by their vows. That's why some bodhisattvas just go around vowing all day. They're just turning away. They chant, you know, beings are not the best I've ever seen. All day long they're doing, and just transforming the world. And other people are saying, you know, Beings are numberless. You know, it's impossible to help them. Beings are numberless and I like some of them. And that's transforming the world too. So we're working on those. So we've got to, you know, you've got to work on your vision and work on aspirations and just work away there. And although... The job will never be done still. Keep working. Because that's the joy of being in the mud.

[41:07]

And that's the situation where flowers bloom. If everybody is cooperating also, it wouldn't really be the mud. The flower that grows in a competitive environment is a really good one. I have a little case of democracy here. I have one paragraph which I was thinking of reading, but I think you won't like it, so I was going to change my mind. But if you want me to, I'll read it. So how many people want me to read one paragraph in your office? I'll read it. I'll read it and see if you want me to read it. So this is where Mata Padma was talking to Buddhist children and explaining about the 10 causes and conditions for the origination of the ocean of worlds, or the world oceans.

[42:17]

OK, so here's the 10 reasons. What are 10? They are? One, because of the Buddha's mystical powers. That's one of the causes of the universe. Because they must be so by natural law. Two, because of the acts of all sentient beings. Three, because of what is realized by enlightened beings developing omniscience. because of the roots of goodness accumulated by both enlightening beings and sentient beings, because of the power of the vows of enlightening beings purifying land, because enlightening beings have accumulated practical undertakings without regression, because enlightened beings' freedom of pure resolve, because of the independent power flowing from the roots of goodness of all enlightened ones, and the moment of enlightenment of all Buddhas, because of the independent power of the vows of Samantabhadra.

[43:41]

Thus is a summary explanation of the 10 kinds of causes for the origination of the world. If we were to explain full, there would be as many explanations as there are atoms in the ocean and worlds. But that gives you a stamp. Anyway, you see, the activities of the sentient beings and the activity of the enlightened beings and the activity of the Buddhas are all working to produce the world. And that world is That's it. That's what we're trying to work to transform into a great Buddha land, pure land. But we feel heartiness. So the next word is sutra. And sutra.

[44:45]

It's a Sanskrit word. And so for me, you know, at the time of Buddha, they had writing. They wrote things down. But they didn't write down Buddhist teaching. It was oral for a few hundred years. It was just oral transmission. But when they started writing it down, they called the written material citrus. And they wrote it on palm leaves, you think. And then we stack palm leaves. And then drill a hole in the palm leaves and put a string through the palm leaves and tie the sap. And yet, this string that goes through and ties the leaves together is called sutra. And I don't think you'd be too surprised if the word sutra was related to the word sutra. Right? So the leaves are sutured together by the sutra. But the sutra is the thread that runs through the whole teaching. Well, the Chinese, independently, before Buddhism even came, had sacred works called, for example, ,, and ,, and .

[46:03]

That's our problem. You just have to keep working on it so that it is non-defiable. We never know if we made it, but we keep trying to practice without defiling it, without adding anything to it, just true zazen itself. This flower is ornament of the world, and this flower of dharma is what runs through all things. So that's the end. I don't see her. So the flower

[47:09]

The flower of darnment scripture thread, a flower of darnment that runs through all things, we call bodhisattva practice, or dazen. Dazen is the body and mind of the Buddha. The true body of Buddha. called the Dharmakaya, is that sentient beings and Buddhas are not two. Bodhisattvas and Buddhas are not two. Beings that have completely attained enlightenment and those that are working for the enlightenment of all beings are not two. You can't have Buddhas without Bodhisattvas, and you can't have Bodhisattvas without Buddhas. And you cannot have Buddhas without sentient beings.

[48:17]

You cannot have enlightenment without delusion. Without delusion, there is no enlightenment. The dharmakaya is this nonduality, where form and emptiness are one, where the currently created and the uncreated are one. for the born and the unborn are non-dual. This is dharmakaya. The harmonikaya is the transformation body of Buddha. And this transformation body adorns dharmakaya. And the sambolikaya, the bliss body, is the enjoyment. is seeing all the people, all the beings in the world as the adornment of Buddha's body. It's a great bliss at the Bodhisattva to be able to see all beings as lending beauty to the Buddha's body.

[49:26]

Somebody's going to be listening to this. Thank you for your patience. I must be doing my battling for a week. I hope I didn't bother you too much. See? I get assaulted again. Yeah. So I'm sorry I know not about the future. I really appreciate your effort. You're really sitting well. Don't cling to your team, great or small.

[50:34]

Let them go. Water that is blue on the Great River. Brilliant red on the green water. Their color is the same as our hearts.

[51:46]

Their roots branch off. Ours can never be untangled. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

[52:20]

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