Although it has not been stressed in the transmission to the West, in the house of Soto Zen, the practice of the Buddha way is realized in the responsive communion between practitioners and Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. The Buddha way is not realized by a person practicing by herself, or even just practicing with other people who think they're practicing by themselves. Although in some groups of people who wish to follow the Zen path, if you interview the practitioners, it may be that most of them think that they're practicing by their own effort together with other people who are practicing by their own effort.

[01:16]

Or they may think that the other people are helping them somewhat, supporting them somewhat, to do their practice, and that they're helping the other people, somewhat, to do their practice. This way of seeing things is opening up a little bit to the realm in which we are not practicing by ourselves at all. That is an illusion. And if we believe it, that's a delusion. the living practice occurs in the reciprocal communion between all beings, the mountains, the rivers, the great earth, and all Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. This is a statement which you find in the writings of our ancestors, but which is not strongly emphasized, and I didn't really hear about this much myself.

[02:30]

during the first several years of practice here at Zen Center. I also did not hear much about precepts, and I did not hear much about ritual, ceremony, and those kinds of things were not emphasized. I am now emphasizing it with you. you and I are now giving rise to an emphasis on the spiritual communion and how ceremonies are used to stimulate the process of reciprocal communion. I mentioned on Wednesday night here, last Wednesday, which was the night before a ceremony, which was held on Thursday night, and the ceremony is called a ceremony of attaining the way, or attaining enlightenment, in Japanese, tokudo, attaining the way.

[04:01]

And the word do means way, the Buddha way. It also means awakening, attaining awakening, a ceremony of attaining awakening. The word toku can also mean to touch, a formal way of touching and being touched by enlightenment. such a ceremony occurred here on Thursday night. During that ceremony we offered incense and bowed and invoked. And by this mere performance

[05:03]

this mere profession of invocation and bowing and offering incense, the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas became present in this sanctuary. we stimulated, we called, and they responded. And in this communion, we had a ceremony. And during that ceremony, I felt good, very good. We really did a good job of stimulating, and they did a good job of responding. And the stimulus and response this communion occurred very clearly for about an hour and a half. After that, the stimulation process, as some of you who were here might have witnessed, the stimulation process lost its form to some extent.

[06:22]

we stopped offering incense and bowing and calling the Buddhas and went to the reception. However, some of us went into a side room and we read the document that testifies to the transmission of the Bodhisattva precepts and while reading the document we kept initiating a little bit more, we kept stimulating a little bit more And the communion went on a few minutes longer. And what I mean by the communion going on is that there was an apparent stimulation going on and there was a discernible response. There was an obvious, concrete, expression of intention and there was a discernible direct guidance which occurred.

[07:40]

But when the stimulation stopped it was as though the response stopped. Some of you were not here on Thursday night, some of you were. The ritual forms themselves, I propose to you, carry the power, have the function, have the capacity to accomplish the Buddha way. They make the Buddha present. And then there is touching enlightenment. During the ceremony, we do confession, exposing our ancient twisted selfish activity or our ancient twisted activity based on our belief in independent existence.

[08:45]

We confess it. And we have continued that confession through this retreat so far in the morning. In the Bodhisattva precept ceremony, after the confession, we state. we perform the speech saying that by performing this ritual of confession properly, the obstruction of our past karma has been dissolved, removed. We say that. And when we say that, I think some of the people in the ceremony, some of the people witnessing it, and some of the people in it say, Did that confession actually purify the body and mind of those people? Are they actually now unhindered on the Buddha path? Are they like free of hindrance to enlightenment right now?

[09:45]

Thoughts like that might arise in the minds of the people or not, but the statement is made and also the statement is made, that when the statement is made, it's so. Just like a long time ago when Buddha made the statement, when his friends asked him what happened recently, ah, I'm the Buddha, I have attained the way, I have touched the way, I have tokadoed, and they said, oh yeah, tell us about it, and that was that was at that time, according to what I've heard, that was the beginning of the Buddha way in a sense. Singing, as you do, professing the Bodhisattva vows, as you do, at the end of, for example,

[10:53]

Dharma talks and as we did on Tuesday night, no, on Wednesday morning here we professed the Bodhisattva vows in preparation for the ceremony. When you sing the Bodhisattva vows, when you sing the Bodhisattva vows, the stone woman gets up and dances. When wooden people like you and me start singing these vows, which just happen to be the vows that are supposed to have been made by the Bodhisattvas, which the founder Buddha said that she made for eons, the vows to save all beings, the vows to attain the unsurpassable way. When you say these vows, it transforms your mind on the spot. It is said, but not emphasized here in the West, that Bodhisattvas have been making those vows from beginningless time.

[12:07]

When you make them, you are transformed. You stimulate the Bodhisattvas, a communion occurs, and this actually happens, that your mind is changed by that vow. by that ceremony, by speaking that form. A wooden man or a wooden woman is a bodhisattva who sings and the stone woman gets up and dances. In the Bodhisattva ceremony, we give a precept. It's called the precept, in this tradition, it's called, the Chinese characters say, the precept of embracing and sustaining forms and ceremonies, the precept of practicing forms and ceremonies, forms which move the Buddhas, touch the Buddhas,

[13:34]

Invoke the Buddhas to come to meet us face to face in the Bodhisattva Samadhi in Zazen practice of Soto Zen when you sit and you are in the Samadhi of that practice you are facing Buddha your posture, your wholehearted effort touches the Buddha and brings the Buddha to meet you face to face. One person got a seat on this divider, you know, we have a divider here during meditation, so Vasudeva sits and faces the divider. What's your name, Ken?

[14:36]

Ken faces the divider. Sylvia faces the divider. And one other person was facing the divider, but I don't know what the reason, but she didn't like the seat, so we gave her a different seat. But I just thought maybe she didn't like the seat because Buddha was too close. Too much, you know, I'm a little bit, just more distance from Buddha. Or maybe Buddha was facing her face-to-face but the divider was between them and she wanted to get the divider out of the way. If it's the Zazen of the Buddhas, you're not practicing by yourself, according to this tradition. In this house, when you sit, you sit face to face with Buddha. That's Zazen. You sit quietly, upright, and you're looking at Buddha sitting quietly, upright, facing you. He's not talking to you during Zazen. After Zazen's over and we start chanting, then Buddha's talking to you.

[15:39]

But you can't hear it because you're talking, too. Buddha is right there when you say, I. Buddha is right there when you say, take refuge. When we chant, when we eat, when we sit, the Dzasan practice is you're sitting face to face with Buddha, and your body and your effort calls the Buddha to meet you. However, actually, Buddha is face to face with you all the time anyway. because there's something about you and something about me which calls the Buddha all day long. However, if that thing about me that calls Buddha all day long is unknown to me, then the Buddha meeting me

[16:42]

very well also might be unknown to me. But when what calls Buddha is known to me, then I can know Buddha meeting me, and it feels good when Buddha comes to town. It does, in case you haven't noticed. This teaching, it's not a doctrinal teaching, this teaching I'm giving you right now, it's a teaching in this house, it's one of those teachings in a sense that's a special transmission outside the scriptures, outside the doctrinal scriptures, to help us understand the doctrinal scriptures. It's part of the key that helps us understand the Buddha's formal instruction on the nature of reality, this teaching of reciprocal spiritual communion between Buddhas and all the practitioners, all the disciples.

[18:00]

You may have heard that as Buddhism, as the Buddha Way moved into China, it changed, new forms of Buddhism arose in China. The Indian culture wonderfully produced a baby Buddha who grew up to be an adult Buddha. And that person taught wonderfully and had great disciples and they spread the teaching throughout Asia. When it went to China they ran into a country that already had a lot going on. that already had Confucianism and Taoism since actually 500 BC, just like Buddhism, 500 years before the Common Era, BCE. And one of the forms that arose in China, which is somewhat different from anything you can find in India,

[19:08]

but is based on the Buddhist teaching is called Zen or Chan. And sometimes people describe Chan as a mixture of Indian Buddhism and Chinese Daoism. But actually, I think actually Confucianism is also mixed into Zen. Zen actually is a combination of all three of those religions, or all three of those paths, And this teaching or this practice of the reciprocal communion between practitioners or devotees and a sacred object, that interaction was actually first cited historically during what we call the Han period. The Han period is the period of the Han dynasties. there's a former Han Dynasty which goes from 200 years before the Common Era to 220 years after the Common Era.

[20:20]

For about 400 years there is called the Tan Period. During that time this responsive, this description of stimulus and response is cited and it was used in Confucianism to talk about how the Confucian rituals stimulated the cosmic process in a beneficial way for heaven, earth, and humans. And in Taoism also. So cosmologists, the yin-yang cosmologists, the five element cosmologists of the Daoists and the moral theorists of the Confucians, they both used this responsive situation and when Buddhism came it gradually absorbed and wove these indigenous philosophies into the Buddhist fabric.

[21:28]

To make a long history short, when we get to the 6th century, we find an amazing Buddhist disciple named Jiri, Tiantai Jiri, the founder of Tiantai School in China. And he worked with this teaching a great deal throughout his teaching. And he spoke of four different phases or four different, in a sense, permutations about this communion. The first is when the stimulus is basically unconscious, subterranean, asleep, maybe dreaming, and where the response is also indiscernible, imperceptible.

[22:36]

That's the first Next, I think, is when the... I don't know what's next. I don't know if it's next, but anyway, another possibility is the intention for the stimulus is still unconscious, but the response becomes discernible. Another one is, the stimulus is discernible, but the response is not discernible. The stimulation, the intention, the invocation is now apparent. but the response is not discernible or not direct.

[23:40]

And the final is a clear, discernible expression of calling, of moving the Buddha and the Bodhisattvas, bringing them, inviting them, and a clear response. in some ways the most basic is the unconscious, the unconscious intention and the indirect, imperceptible response. As I mentioned yesterday, this statement that All living beings are born together at the same moment with the mountains, the rivers, and the great earth.

[24:52]

What we are is a thing that nobody actually can find the beginning of the birth or the end of the birth. But we are born. We are born, but you can't actually find the birth. That's the way we're born. We're born in an unfindable way. You can't find your birth separate from mine and the mountains and the rivers and the sky. You can't find it separate. And it's not exactly the same either. And yet we're born and so are the mountains. We're born at the same moment. Meditation on this, we become more and more convinced and more and more enlightened about our nature, about our birth and our death. that neither can be found, and the person cannot be found, and the mountains cannot be found. But we are born.

[26:03]

And when we are born, because we're that way that we are, because we're unfindable, we want to realize that. The findable person that is born wants to realize the ungraspable way that they are. And they find that in the way that they are in communion with all things. So we have within us, with our birth, this intention we unconsciously yearn to realize this communion. And when it's unconscious, how the Buddhas meet us and how we're face-to-face with Buddha is also kind of... we can't see it. But that's going on all the time.

[27:07]

And, you know, it doesn't feel too good. It feels like being exiled. We're not conscious of our nature, which is that we are calling out and being met. And when we're not conscious of this, we believe that we're another way. We believe that what is apparent is not that we're in communion with the Buddhas, and not that we're calling out and expressing our desire to meet, but we feel like what's apparent is that we're all by ourselves, doing our thing. And this we confess, and again, when we confess, there is an apparent expression of the intention. Again,

[28:13]

this person who told me about, well I hate to say it but I really want to get enlightened during this session, this person had been reading that American Zen classic, you got a fly in your eye, the American Zen classic Three Pillars of Zen which strongly emphasizes getting enlightenment and sort of the The main teacher of that book is Yasutani Roshi, who is the teacher of the author of the book. When I first started practicing at Zen Center, Three Pillars of Zen was very influential to the people who started practicing. So a lot of people came to Zen Center wanting to get enlightenment. And now if you read that book again, you return to the 60s. which is... but it's fine, but that teacher Yasatanya also taught, and this isn't well known because it's not so appealing, he taught this, he was in this school which taught this reciprocal spiritual communion between Buddhas and

[29:34]

which he thought was a concrete example of this. He said he knew this guy who wasn't really interested in Buddhism, but his daughter was sick, so he wanted to take her to some pleasant environment. And this is in Japan. And he took her to a temple in Kamakura called Kenchoji. And Buddhist temples in Japan are in some ways often the nicest parks that they have. So, like some people come to Gringos to be in the garden. And sometimes for the good vegetarian food and bread. To smell the flowers, to see the mountains and the ocean, and to see the lovely Zen students. I thought you might laugh at that. Smiling beneficently in their spiritual communion.

[30:48]

So he brought his daughter to this place and then I think before they left they had tea with the Zen master who lived at that temple. And as they were leaving the Zen teacher gave him a book, a scripture, and he received it, but he thought it was just kind of a token gift, and didn't even open it. He went home, and although he wasn't interested in Buddhism, there was a shrine in his house, and he put the scripture up on the shrine. Then I think years went by and one day he was sitting in his room and he looked up at the altar and saw the book and for some reason he went and took it off and opened it and started reading it.

[32:04]

And he was impressed. how profound it was and how it applied to, even though it was profound, how it applied to his kind of unprofound daily life. And he purchased a number of commentaries on this scripture and studied them thoroughly. And then he actually started to visit temples to practice the practices which were described in the scriptures. And then he finally actually became a committed student and started training under that Zen teacher which gave him the book originally. Going through this story at various points, Yasodhani Roshi says, latent, unconscious, intention, and indiscernible response.

[33:23]

Then he says, unconscious intention, discernible response. conscious intention, indiscernible response, and then conscious intention, discernible response. After he actually started studying sincerely the scripture, he couldn't see, even though he was studying the scripture, he couldn't see who was training him. He couldn't see the Buddha who was like, yes, turn the page. He couldn't see that. But his life was such that he couldn't quite find the teacher, he couldn't find the Buddha and the Bodhisattvas. Buddhas are teachers, Bodhisattvas are teachers, they teach people the Buddha way. Sometimes you're studying the Buddha way, you're studying the scripture, you're practicing meditation, sometimes there you are, this is a discernible, this is a conscious intention you're expressing, you're doing something to express it.

[34:34]

But where is the Buddha? Where is the teacher? You don't see it. That's the way it is sometimes. It's there, but you can't see it. Not yet. That's the way he was. He was really practicing, really making a call, invoking, invoking, invoking. He didn't think he was invoking, but that's how you invoke the Buddhas. Open their books. Read about what they said. Memorize what they say, copy what they say, make gifts of what they say. This is a call to Buddha. But you may not be able to see, yes, can I help you? You may not be able to see that. Or, what is it? You may not be able to hear that. It's indiscernible. It's always there, but indiscernible. So then he actually went and expressed the same request in a face that he could see was a face, he brought his face to meet the face, and then there was discernible face bringing and discernible face coming, and that's the end of the story.

[35:48]

This particular story didn't say, and he became the famous Zen master so-and-so, but maybe he did, they just didn't mention it. According to this teaching, all of us at least, and actually all of us probably to some extent, some part of our vow, some part of our wish to become Buddha, some part of our wish to become completely enlightened, some part of it's probably still asleep. Even if you, to a great extent, think, yeah, I would really like to be enlightened, and not just me being enlightened, but I would like to be enlightened and also be very skillful with no hindrance to the skill for the welfare of all beings. Even though you feel that a lot, still maybe a little bit of it's not known, but if you don't feel that at all, like some Zen students don't feel it at all, as a matter of fact, they come and they confess, I don't really want to be a Buddha, I just want to, you know, become free myself.

[37:06]

That's my aspiration. that's part of the picture. There's something there and that gets met. That aspiration gets met, but sometimes you have that smaller aspiration that is conscious, but you don't feel it's met. The response you don't get, I want to be personally liberated, I'm not yet personally liberated. But whatever it is, it gets met. That's from the beginning. Although they didn't talk about this so much in India, you'll soon hear about it. At the beginning of practice periods, at the beginning, actually, I did a class in the yoga room on the Heart Sutra. I started out by asking people at the beginning of the class on the Heart Sutra, you know, what is your motivation?

[38:08]

What is the intention that brings you to this class on this very deep and difficult scripture about the Prajnaparamita. Can you find what your motivation is? Do you by any chance wish to become a Buddha for the welfare of this world? The Heart Sutra is for people who want to be Buddhas. If you don't want to be a Buddha, then your wish to become a Buddha is unconscious. All beings wish to become Buddhas, but that wish is somewhat asleep in many beings. Like the man who went to the temple as a park. His wish to be a Buddha was kind of asleep, and the Zen master gave him a book. He didn't see it. It wasn't clear that that was an instruction.

[39:10]

Later, he saw the instruction, then he lost it, and so on. In this house, the beginning, the source of this, is compassion, is the actual wish to become Buddha for the welfare of this world of beings who are not in touch with how they wish to be Buddha and are not in touch with how they're being met by Buddha and how they're on the Buddha way. We want to wake the world up to how we are on the Buddha way. And the first step is wishing to be on the Buddha way for the welfare of the Buddha way.

[40:22]

And if you don't feel that, understand, go ahead, understand that it's there anyway, that you really deep down do. But if you have other motivations that you find when you look down into that well, if you have other motivations when you look down into that well, fine. So some of you know what's coming next. When you can see the Buddha's face, fine. When you can't see the Buddha's face, the Buddha's face is still there. The Buddha's face doesn't necessarily look like my face or your face, or what you think a Buddha's face is.

[41:31]

The Buddha's face is actually vast like space. It covers the entire universe. However, in response to different types of beings, like us, it manifests in a certain way. Like us, we like it to manifest as like a girl or a boy or a man or a woman. We like that way because we're geared, our nervous system is geared to like find faces. You know about that? Like at Tassajara in the old days, well actually City Center too and the City Center Zendo, the surface of it is a little bit mottled, it kind of has a little bit stuccoed So during Seshins, when you look at a thing, your mind sees faces all over the place. Of course, there's some dragons there too, right? But more faces than dragons. Human faces. A few dragon faces, a few bear faces, some raccoon faces. There's other things there, but most of all you see faces on that wall.

[42:37]

And even these white walls, you see faces, don't you? We see faces, we see human faces, because we're geared, our nervous system is constantly looking for faces. Fish, however, look for different types of faces. Celestial beings look for different kinds of faces. Beings in different conditions, they look for other kinds of things. and Buddha manifests in whatever kind of face that they are inclined to see. But Buddha actually, the Buddha's face, this wish to be free and kind to all beings, it's vast, it's space, but it manifests in response to our thing, whatever it is, our call, and what we're up to see. So, one of the people in our house named Saoshan, he said to one of his friends, the Buddha, the Buddha body, the Buddha mind is vast like space, but it responds to the call of being.

[43:54]

How would you describe this process? And his friend said, it's like a donkey looking into a well. donkey looks into the well, and that's how Buddha responds, right? That's how Buddha manifests for a donkey. So if we look into the well, that's how Buddha will manifest for us. Look into the well, just stick your little snout down there and look in there, and that's how the Buddha will manifest. Whoa, it's dark down there! Or, hey, I think I see something It looks kind of like me, a little bit, but not exactly. Since days of old, I was ordained, what is it, in 1970, and they gave me a nice lacquer bowl. And so since days of old, when I raise up my orioke bowl at mealtime, I see this face in that bowl with a really big nose and receding cheeks.

[45:04]

Is that Buddha responding to me? I'm a Zen student. Here I go, boom, there's Buddha. And that's me. That's my bowl. That's a picture. This is Zen practice, coming to meet me because I hold up the bowl. I'm my little lotus pad here. You do that too. Do you see Buddha meet you in your bowl? Some of you don't have that dark lacquer, it's not so easy to see. So anyway, in our house, how does the Buddha manifest? It's like a donkey looking into a well. But the ancestor says, well, you've got 80% on that one. And the other monk says, well, what would you say? And he said, it's like the well looking at the donkey. It's not really the well looking at the donkey either. If he had said that, that would have been 80%. It's really 160%.

[46:11]

It's both. It's the well looking at the donkey and the donkey looking at the well. That's how the Buddha manifests. It's reciprocal. Well, I have a really great story and the kitchen's leaving. I'm so sorry, but it'll be taped. I could wait till tomorrow, but the other people don't want me to wait, do you? No. So here's the story. I won't be here tomorrow. I might be, actually. They postponed the surgery till the end of time. I hope that's not a prophecy. Anyway, there were these two villages in India before the Buddha was born.

[47:18]

And in those two villages, before the Buddha was born, I think almost at the same time, two boys were born. And it turns out that these boys because they were children of kind of, what do you call it, well-to-do families, their names were the names of the villages. So one was called Upatissa, one boy is Upatissa, and the other one is called Kolika, Kolita. And their families were friends, so these boys were very good friends from childhood. One day when they were, I think, teenagers or more, they went to a festival called, it was the annual Hilltop Festival, and it was, I guess, at least a three-day festival,

[48:34]

The first day they sat and they watched the festivities and they enjoyed the enjoyable parts and they were excited at the excitable parts. So the story goes. On the second day, I think towards the end of the festivities, they each had the same thought, approximately. They both thought All these people, and us too, are going to die soon. What's the point of all this stuff that's going on here? I think it would be a good idea to enter the path of liberation from death and birth. They had that thought. They were kind of sober by that thought. They weren't so excited by the show anymore. On the third day, they both were kind of still affected by this thought that had crystallized in their young mind.

[49:44]

And, I don't know, one turned to the other, maybe Upatissa turned to Kolita and said, you look kind of morose and depressed, what's going on? And he said, well yesterday and today I'm thinking, you know, maybe I should look for the path of liberation from birth and death. And the other person said, I was thinking the same thing. So then they said, well then let's go. So the first thing we have to do is leave home and practice the path of asceticism. but under some teacher. But under what teacher can we practice? Under who can we receive direct guidance? They couldn't find anybody, but then finally they heard about somebody.

[50:47]

I think the person's name was Sanjaya. And they went to the person, and he was a teacher, and he was a good teacher, and he accepted them, and they studied with him for a long time. And after a long time, they said to him, how are we doing in our studies? Have we learned what we need to learn? And he said, yes, you've learned everything. You've completed your study. Congratulations. And they said, thanks. But then they had the thought, both of them had the thought, but we didn't yet attain liberation. So I guess we should go find somebody else to be our teacher. So they excused themselves. and went looking for another teacher. And they looked all over India for another teacher. And they traveled separately and would occasionally meet at various, what do you call it, various ascetic summer camps.

[51:50]

And they had agreement before they went off on their separate journeys that the first one to have a glimpse of the deathless. The deathless means nirvana. Nirvana is a pre-Buddhist term. The birthless, the deathless, freedom from birth and death was an issue in India before Buddha. Question is, had anybody found it? So they had an agreement, whoever gets the first glimpse of the deathless, come and find the other one. So I believe it was Upatissa went to Rajagaha, I think in Sepali it's pronounced Rajagaha, and at that time there was a monk named Asaji, and Asaji was among the first five disciples of the Buddha.

[53:03]

the Buddha practiced asceticism with five very gifted, diligent, I shouldn't say gifted anyway, accomplished yogis, and Asaji was one of them. And he was also among the 61 arhats that Buddha sent forth to spread the teachings on the path of liberation. At a certain point he sent 61 of his disciples out away from him to spread the teaching and this Asaji was one of them. And when Upatissa saw Asaji, he thought, ah, this monk may be able to help me in a way that Sanjaya was not. And he studied with this disciple of Buddha, who was one of the first five to attain arhatship, which means personal liberation from suffering, from birth and death.

[54:20]

And in the process of studying with him, he attained a glimpse of And he said that he wanted to join the Buddhist community and become a monk under Asaji's teacher, the Buddha Gautama. And he was told where he was, and then he went back to the wanderer's camp where he knew his friend Kolita was, and when Kolita saw him coming, he could see that his friend had realized a glimpse of deathlessness. And very joyfully they met and Upatissa told him about what happened and so they both decided to go see the Buddha, who was staying at the bamboo grove at the park of Anantapindika, which is near Benares, right?

[55:39]

Anybody know? Near Sarna? So they went to see the Buddha. As they approached the Buddha, the Buddha was sitting in the group, in his group, with monks, male and female monks, and male and female lay people. And when he saw these two coming, he told the assembly, How nice, these two wanderers are coming. These two wanderers will be my first and second chief disciples." He already had numerous enlightened disciples, at least 61 of which had been sent out as missionaries. And now he's in this assembly, and these two new people come, who aren't even ordained yet, and as he sees them coming, he announced to the group, these will be my chief disciples.

[56:56]

And the reason why they will be my chief disciples is because in past lives, they had the aspiration to be the first and second chief disciple under another Buddha. They were studying with another Buddha, and while they were studying with another Buddha, they did not attain enlightenment, but they felt the aspiration. They looked into the well and they saw the aspiration. one of them wanted to be the first chief disciple of an enlightened one someday. And that Buddha said, you will be. You will be the chief disciple of Gautama Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha. And then he went and told his friend.

[58:03]

He also had a good friend, and he told his friend, Hey, why don't you be the second chief disciple with me?" And his friend thought, that's a great idea. And he also wished and had the aspiration to be the second chief disciple of an enlightened one. And the Buddha at that time also said to them, yes, this will happen. The Buddha Shakyamuni saw these two people coming, saw that these were his two chief disciples, told and knew about their past aspirations, knew about their aspirations and saw that it was going to come true. They didn't know about this. Upatissa and Kolita didn't know about this. They wanted to study with the Buddha. They did not at that time realize they wanted to be the Buddha's chief disciples. They just wanted to become monks. So they came to the Buddha and they said, World Honored One, would you let us become monks? And he said, Come, monk.

[59:07]

The Dharma has been well delivered. You may now enter the life of purity and the path of liberation from suffering." This constituted their ordination. The community had heard these would be the chief disciples, and then they entered into training. because before being chief disciples they had to become enlightened. They were already a massive enlightened being in the community. Two newcomers who weren't enlightened were now going to be trained to be the leaders of the group of enlightened disciples. So they were trained and when they were ordained, at the time of being ordained, Upatissa was given the name Shariputra, and Kulita was given the name Madgalyana.

[60:19]

So these actually were the two Buddha's first chief disciples. And the reason why their birth was before the Buddha was born is that these two people were older than Buddha. They were born in the world before the Buddha, They spent many years practicing and finally found the Buddha, which they had been for many lifetimes heading toward becoming the chief disciples. So they got their training, and the first one to achieve enlightenment was Moggallāna. then Shariputra. And some people wonder, well how come Shariputra attained it second because Shariputra was the disciple with the greatest wisdom?

[61:19]

Why did it take him longer to realize wisdom if he was the one who had the greatest wisdom? And this may be encouraging to you, but the greater the wisdom, the more training necessary. Some people get enlightened really easily, but it's not as deep, so it's taking you a while, maybe you're the Shariputra type. So anyway, they did attain it, so then they have an excellent pair come up and the Buddha says, now they're the chief disciples, from now on these two will be the chief disciples, and so Sarasvati Shariputra So Madgalyana trained the new monks first and then when they finished their basic training, Shariputra was director of the later phases of the training. And then at that time that they were appointed as chief disciples, they weren't chief disciples before this, but at that time that they were assigned this job, I heard that there was some displeasure in the community and some murmuring

[62:31]

And the Buddha asked, what's the problem? What are you talking about? And they said, well, it seems to us that you're showing some preference. Why choose these people? Why don't you choose one of the first five who were enlightened? You know, there's various crews of notable disciples. There was the first five, then there was another group of 30 that were like the 30 such-and-suches, and there was the 60 such-and-suches, and these various cadres of great disciples, why not choose some of them? And the Buddha said, because I don't show preference, I just give what beings aspire to. For example, Anya Kondana was in the group of first five disciples. Anya Konya, in a past life, during one harvest season, gave alms nine times.

[63:39]

And at that time, while he was giving this intense generosity practice, the aspiration arose in him to be the first person to attain liberation under a Buddha. That was his aspiration. And so it was that Anya Kondona was the first among the five and the first on the planet to attain Arhatship under Shakyamuni Buddha. The Buddha simply gives what we aspire to, just simply meets our response, meets our call. If you want this, the Buddha meets this. If you want that, and if you want bad things, the Buddha means that too, so be careful, because this spiritual thing also unfolds your unskillful intentions.

[64:44]

But he wanted to do this, and it happened. He said, now these two on the other hand, they in a past life, under another Buddha, Also in that past life they were close friends and they went to this other Buddha. Actually one of them went to the other Buddha. One was a lay person in past life and one was ascetic. The ascetic went to this Buddha. Actually I got it wrong. The Buddha at that time, that lived at that time with Shariputra when he was an ascetic in a past life, that Buddha was meditating and that Buddha kind of saw that there was a notable ascetic living on that land who was not a disciple and would be good to be a disciple so he went to see this actually teacher of many ascetics and when Sariputra in his former incarnation saw the Buddha he realized he had seen the Blessed One

[65:56]

Something about the way he was sitting there called the Buddha at that time. The Buddha went to see him, and when he saw the Buddha, he realized it was the Buddha. And he took refuge in the Buddha, and then he brought the Buddha a flower canopy and held it over the Buddha. And what Buddhas sometimes do when they're covered with flowers is they go into deep meditation states. They swoon into profound tranquility when covered by flower canopies. And he entered into a deep meditation that Buddha did, and Chai Putra held the canopy over him for one week. After the Buddha emerged from that, Chai Putra felt this aspiration to be the first chief disciple of a Buddha someday.

[67:04]

That Buddha taught at that time, by the way, a large assembly, and everyone in the assembly except Shariputra and Madgalyana, his friend, everyone attained arhatship. They wanted to, and they did. But Shariputra and Madgalyana in their previous life didn't want to attain arhatship. They wanted to be a chief disciple of a future Buddha. That's what they wanted, that's what they got. Some parts of this story may seem more historical than others, or more legendary than others. I mixed them together somewhat. And you can see, generally speaking, the part where we feel like we shift into the legendary archetypal sphere is when we go into past lives.

[68:13]

So the story of the Buddha, you know, we feel like it's historically valid because we have those stone pillars, you know, and they discovered, you know, in some tombs urns which had remains of Shariputra and Madgalyana next to the Buddha and so on. So we feel like maybe there really was historically those guys, but when we get into the past lives we feel like this is an archetypal dimension. But the Buddha anyway had to explain this to his disciples in order for them to support these newcomers being put in this position. But it's not really above or below, it's just We have to do it that way. That's the way the universe maybe works. Check it out. See if it works another way. But I think part of the Buddha's teaching is that this world is made by our aspirations.

[69:20]

That's what makes it. If we aspire to these things, unwholesome things, they seem to happen. If we aspire to wholesome things, they seem to happen. If we aspire to realize Buddhahood, it seems to happen. All the stories of the Buddhas are stories about people who aspire to be Buddhas. The stories of the Arhats are about people who aspire to be Arhats. The stories of chief disciples, who also have to be Arhats, are stories of that. But actually, they aspired to be a chief disciple. They weren't so interested in Arhatship. They wanted to be a chief disciple. which just happens to include arhatship. Buddhahood also just happens to include arhatship, happens to include personal liberation. But for some people, being Buddha's disciple is much more... that's the point.

[70:20]

Who cares about whether I'm free or not? I know I have to be free to be Buddha's disciple, but really I want to be Buddha's disciple. Or really I want to be Buddha. I want to free all beings. I want all beings to be free. And if I have to be enlightened and liberated in order to realize that, fine. If I have to be Buddha's disciple in order to realize that, fine. Or you may not realize you want to be a Buddha and just realize you want to be Buddha's disciple, or Buddha's chief attendant, or Buddha's chief whatever. What's your disciple? Look in the well, check it out, see what the donkey sees. Again, this is not the whole teaching, this is just a part of it which I want to emphasize a little while. One day the Buddha was walking along on this earth with his group and in his group were, you know, monks and nuns and bodhisattvas and gods and goddesses and he stopped and pointed at the ground with his finger

[72:06]

and said, this is a good place to build a sanctuary. And the king of the gods took a blade of grass and put it in the earth and said, the sanctuary is built. And the Buddha responded by smiling. If the Buddha had said, this is a good place to build a sanctuary, and nobody did anything, that would have been a different story. And the Buddha might have smiled at people not doing anything, I don't know. But somebody, some disciple of Buddha expressed something, I want to build a monastery, I want to build a sanctuary right here, with this blade of grass. And the Buddha responded, So each of us, moment by moment, wherever we are, can put this blade of grass.

[73:20]

If we want to build a sanctuary here, we can put the blade of grass here. Or put a blade of a body here. Or put a breath here. Or put a pain here. Or put a relaxation here. And say, the sanctuary is built. The sanctuary is built. With this step, the sanctuary is built. And the Buddha smiles. The Buddha smiles when we realize our aspiration to build a sanctuary, to call the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. They smile, they come. Sometimes we see them, sometimes we don't.

[74:03]

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