As I mentioned yesterday, when the microphone was working, the Mahayana is sometimes characterized as consisting of three things. I think that's okay. Is that okay? It's okay, it's working now. Three things are compassion, the aspiration to attain authentic awakening in order to help all beings most fully, and realization of ultimate truth, realization of emptiness. But we always remember that the essence of the bodhisattva's realization of emptiness is bodhicitta. the aspiration to attain that understanding to help others.

[01:08]

And some people humbly ask, can a beginner in the practice of Samatha be of some help to people? And yes, definitely. It's possible to be helpful long before, even before the realization of bodhicitta, and even before the arising of bodhicitta, you can be helpful. Not to mention before the realization of emptiness. People who aren't so developed can help in ways that Buddhas can't help. And Buddhas can help in ways that people that aren't so developed can't help.

[02:13]

Buddhas can teach the Dharma in ways that only Buddhas can teach. And we need Buddhas. But also, people who are just beginning to practice are very helpful to make the practice accessible. because they show people that beginners are allowed to practice. So other beginners dare to start because they see that's possible. Some people, when they first come to Zen Center or whatever, Buddhist center, they get confused because they think everybody there is a Buddha. So they can't understand why these people are acting like that. And then we tell them, well, they've only been here for three days. or three years, or three decades. So yes, you can be helpful right away, and I do see people early in their practice, the day they arrive, they help.

[03:20]

Sometimes the next day they stop helping for a while, but then they maybe start again. So off and on, we can be helpful all the way along the path. Now I'd like to continue to discuss this story. This story, which I think is a nice bridging story between studying and practicing calm abiding in the nature of mind and insight. into emptiness, insight into the middle way. Although today we start to move into the nature of insight, I would expect that we will continue to discuss Samatha through the rest of the practice period, that people will continue

[04:35]

to bring up questions about how to practice Samatha, and that's fine. It's a delightful topic of discussion and practice. So that will be ongoing. We're not done with Samatha, the study and practice. But as I said, this story will be a way for us to start to move into studying these teachings on the middle way. These teachings on realization. So, the story, as I remember it, a monk came to visit the master of Zen, Yangshan, And Yangshan said, where do you come from? And the monk said, I come from Yu province. And Yangshan said, do you think of that place?

[05:41]

And he said, I always think of it. And then Yangshan said, that which thinks or that which can think is the mind. That which is thought of is the environment or objects. Therein, in the environment, there are mountains and rivers and trees and gardens and people and animals and palaces and freeways and gas stations and so on. Now I have instruction for you. Reverse your thought and think back to the thinking mind or think back to that which thinks.

[06:54]

And then it says dash, and then he says, are there so many things there? And in that little dash there, we will expand that dash into a big discussion about what happened between that instruction and that question, just like in other stories where there's a dash. And there's not history notes about how long the time interval there, whether it was a second or many years. Okay. So, then he says, are there so many things there? And the monk says, when I get here, I don't see any existence at all."

[08:01]

And Yangshan said, That's good. That's right for the stage of faith, but not yet for the stage of person. And then the monk said, Well, do you have any further instructions to guide me? And Yangshan said, to say that I do have any further instruction or not would not be accurate. Based on your understanding, you have one mystery. You can take the seat and wear the robe. And from now on, you have to see on your own. So that's the story pretty much. Did I miss any important parts? Okay.

[09:09]

So I'd like to go back now and look at the place he gives the instruction which I would first of all take as a destruction in shamatha. Reverse the thinking and look back at the nature of mind. Look back, and there's many aspects of the nature of mind to look into, but I would just choose to look at the fixation of mental representations. Look at the way the mind non-conceptually deals with concepts. Look at the way The mind fixes on a mental representation. As soon as a mental representation comes to the mind, as soon as it touches it, as soon as it impacts, it's like locked in.

[10:13]

That's what the mind deals with. There's no quibbling, no negotiation. That's the way the mind receives data. Like playing catch. Throw the ball to the mind, just catches it. Boom. It doesn't even say, I got it. It doesn't even say, that was a good catch. And it doesn't drop it. If it drops it, if it doesn't catch it, nothing happens. But if it catches it, we have an experience. The mind engages with an object. So we turn our attention back, we train our attention back to the way the mind receives data. We train our attention back to the non-conceptual mode of the mind's reception of objects. Okay? And we can discuss this over and over until we understand this particular mode. And there's other ways, other aspects of mind that one could attend to when one turns the light around.

[11:19]

I'm just mentioning this one. In training the attention back onto this non-conceptual mode, The mind is calmed through this non-conceptual mode. Or in training the mind back to the non-grasping way that the mind is. The mind catches the concept but doesn't grasp it. The grasping it is unnecessary. The mind can be aware without grasping. we turn to this non-grasping, non-seeking, non-manipulative, non-conceptual mode of the mind. And in that non-grasping mode, the mind calms. The whole system of mind and mental functions settles into a nice block of tofu. Mild, soft, but firm.

[12:30]

Easily sliced and no cholesterol. So good for certain people. So I think that he gave the instruction and then I don't know how long they talked back and forth before the monk understood this instruction on Samatha. But I think He realized Samatha. Then, Yangshan says, are there so many things there? Now that the mind has been, the light's been turned around, the attention's been trained onto the non-conceptual nature of mind the mind is calm now he says let's do some insight work here let's see what this calm mind can see let's see how this calm mind sees i had some questions for you before there were all those things you were thinking about now you turn the light you disengage the light from those things and turn it back

[13:54]

to this non-grasping mode of mind and calm down. Now let's look at two different ways. I'll just tell you these two different ways, two basic ways in Mahayana. One way is look, let's keep looking now at the nature of this non-conceptual mind. Let's keep looking at the non-conceptual nature of mind. The other is, let's turn back and look at the objects which are the reference for these concepts, for these mental representations. So first you were thinking about all these objects, and you turned away from them and looked back to the non-conceptual way of relating to them. You're not really looking at the objects now. They're still arising and ceasing, but you're orienting towards this non-grasping way of being with the objects.

[14:56]

Objects are arising and ceasing. You're just going towards this very simple way of being with everything that's happening. We turn, based on settling, based on this settled non-conceptual mode, we turn the light back out and look at objects. These objects, these phenomena, are the reference for these concepts. So we're looking at the concepts. But if we look at the concepts calmly, we can also maybe start to see that there's more to the event than the concept. and we start to see the nature of these phenomena. Or, and this is more what we call the Majjamaka approach to insight, the middle way approach, the middle way school. The Yogacara approach is more, let's look at the nature of mind. But the Yogacara also can look at the nature of phenomena.

[15:57]

As we talked about last winter, turn towards the concept, you can see that there's a concept is part of the nature of phenomena, but another aspect of the nature of phenomena is its dependently co-arisen nature. They coexist, these two natures, but they're not necessarily confused. If you look at them with a calm mind, you can see them as separate, and you can see that the conception is not the dependent co-arising. The conception is really empty, because it's just arbitrary, and the dependent coalescent nature of the object is also empty because it's dependent on other things. So you get to see that the objects are empty. By analyzing and investigating these objects in the environment now, one can realize that they are not really out there on their own.

[17:00]

and one can thereby realize their emptiness. I think this monk did realize their emptiness. So, that's good. But it looks to me like what he did after he realized the emptiness was that he turned the emptiness into nihilism. He turned emptiness into the extreme view of everything does not exist, which the Buddha talked about in the Kachayana Gota Sutta. He changed the interdependent nature of phenomena. The fact that they have no inherent existence, he turned it into they have no existence at all. So a simple but common characteristic of immature Zen

[18:07]

is you're mature enough to calm down and see emptiness, but you're not mature enough not to slip and make that emptiness into nothingness, into make the view which is actually the view of the middle, which is neither that things really do exist or that they completely don't exist. You avoid those two extremes when you see emptiness. That's how seeing emptiness is entrance to the middle way. But it's hard to stay balanced on this point, so usually you veer into existence or nonexistence. But approaching phenomena from the way this monk did, he realized emptiness, but then veered off into making it into the view everything does not exist. and said so.

[19:09]

When I get here, I don't see any existence at all. So there is realization in this story, I think, but immature. If this monk had been practicing a long time, and had had many, and had had a better understanding of emptiness, And then if someone said to him, do you see any existence at all? And he had said, I don't see any existence at all, then it would be a degeneracy in his practice. But it looks like this was early in his practice, so he's just immature. I think the monk calmed down, looked at objects, and for a moment, anyway, relinquished all his views about these objects and saw these objects the way they are when we let go of all our views about them, let go of all our conceptions about them. So Nagarjuna said, what did he say?

[20:15]

He said, emptiness has been fed by the Buddhas to be the relinquishment of all views, all concepts. But they've also said that those who hold to the view of emptiness are incurable or incorrigible. So when we When there is the relinquishment of all views, there is the realization of emptiness. But if then we possess that view of emptiness, it turns into nihilism, and we become incorrigible.

[21:16]

We can't learn now. But this does happen to people. People do move along quite a ways, realize emptiness, and then grasp a view, possess it, possess the emptiness, and then they become nihilists and very difficult for them to learn because there's some power in this view and some power in attaching to it. But it's an example of getting stuck in a stage of falling into a stage. So Yangshan says to this monk, this is good for the stage of faith. He has entered realization to some extent, but he hasn't moved on to the stage of person.

[22:18]

So again, we start with this story of some success and then slipping, some contact with realization of emptiness and then falling away from it. in the Samadhi Nirmocana Sutra, it says, if bodhisattvas miss the nature of emptiness, they miss the whole Mahayana. Or, bodhisattvas who fall away from emptiness, excuse me, bodhisattvas who do not fall away from emptiness, also do not fall away from all of the Mahayana. So, when when we reach, when we touch, when we're touched by emptiness, we have to be very careful not to fall away from it.

[23:34]

And the Zen teacher, Daishin, Daidoshin, Daidoshin, Daisho, said, the practice of bodhisattvas has emptiness as its realization. When beginning students see emptiness, this seeing emptiness is not real emptiness. Those who cultivate the way and attain real emptiness do not see emptiness or non-emptiness. They have no views. No views means They possess no views. They have views, they see things, but they don't possess these views. They don't have the view of this or the view of that. So the story, in order to be complete, it needs the first part of turning, the first part's good, turning the light around, shining it back on the mind.

[24:49]

that thinks on the wonderful quality of the non-conceptuality of mind, the non-grasping mode of mind, which is always there, always there to be turned around towards, settled into, and refreshed by. A clear, deep, delicious well. of non-grasping. But we have to give up our involvement with externals. We have to give up our entanglement with externals in order to drink this water of samatha. So this monk did that. We turn around and go into the deep non-conceptual nature of mind.

[25:52]

Then, stabilized, we turn the light back out and look at objects again. Not to get re-entangled, but now having disentangled, we investigate, we analyze in a non-entangling way. We don't pry into them. We just respectfully knock on the door and ask them to take their mask off when they're in the mood. Then realize emptiness through this dialogue. And then go beyond the stage of faith. Don't get stuck there. And go back to interweave the realization with phenomena. Interweave the realization with various modes of form, conceptions, emotions, whatever.

[26:58]

In the commentary of this case, there's a poem written by a national teacher, national teacher Da Shao, and it goes like this. Crossing the summit of the mystic peak, it's not the human world. Outside of mind, there are no things. Filling the eyes are blue mountains. Crossing the summit of the mystic peak, This is the environment that is thought of. It's not the human world. This is the non-conceptual nature of mind.

[28:07]

This is the fixation of mental representations. It's not a human thing. this mode. This is the mode of mind itself. We renounced our entanglement with the mystic peak at the summit and gone back to a place that's not the human world. Outside the mind there are no things. That is true. It is true that outside the mind there are no things. And that corresponds to, I don't see any existence at all. But to change, there are no, there are no things outside mind. In other words, all things depend on mind, therefore they lack inherent existence.

[29:11]

And also, because mind, there's no mind without things, mind doesn't have inherent existence either. That's true. But to turn that into the view, everything does not exist and stop there. This is the problem. The monk stops there. He gets one mystery. He gets one emptiness mystery. But the national teacher has another line. Fill in the eyes are blue mountains. He interweaves the phenomenal world back into emptiness, emptiness into the phenomenal world. And that's all it takes, one little line to differentiate between a good monk who's got a good start and a national teacher. How you doing?

[30:23]

Are you absorbing all this? Huh? Yes. Let's see, it's getting up towards the bewitching hour, the enchantment hour. The happy hour. So, I don't know, can you take one more story? Can you? Okay, so this is another story about basically the same thing. Okay, this is the story about Bodhidharma giving the instruction about a mind like a wall. So he says to Hueca, his disciple, who, by the way, is a heavy-duty conceptual elaborator, a very, very educated guy.

[31:32]

So he says to this very bright, super-conceptual, intellectual guy, but also a really a sincere guy, he says, outside, cease all involvements. Inside, no gasping or sighing or coughing in the mind. With a mind like this, with a mind like a wall, thus you enter the middle, thus you enter the way That's the instruction he gave him. And then, again, there's a dash there, right? Dash. We don't know how many years followed. Both of them lived, you know, hundreds of years. So, we don't know how many years it was between when he gave that instruction. But Dogen says, oh yeah, I think Kazan said, Hueyka

[32:39]

Master Huayka continued to discourse and expound on mind and nature. After he heard that instruction, he kept giving these discourses on mind and nature. And Bodhidharma would kind of go... So they did that for quite a while after that. That he would be just discoursing. And Bodhidharma didn't say much. He just would point out the error here and there. No, no, no. No, no. No, no, no. So how long that went on, we don't know. But finally, after some period of time, Huayka comes to Bodhidharma and says, I've ceased all involvement. There's no more involvement outside or inside. There's no more entanglement with these concepts, inner and outer concepts. Now, again, this is not just as he attained Samatha, but then he's tested the Samatha by turning back and looking at the objects and not getting involved with them, even when he's looking at the concepts.

[33:58]

So he's done the whole course. No entanglement. He's done the course. He's got the mind like a wall. He's entered the way. And then Bodhidharma said, well, there's two ways of... The Chinese character, I think, is Mie, which means cessation, but it could also be translated as nihilism, or it could be understood as the extreme of everything does not exist. But anyway, he said, Bodhidharma says, well, does this not involvement with all these objects, no involvements at all, does that turn into nihilism? Or another way to say it, does that turn into cessation? And Hoika said, uh well he used that he used that chinese character woo you know which or japanese in japanese is mu so you could translate it as no or i don't have any so does this turn into cessation or nihilism no or i don't have any no nihilism here and then bodhidharma says literally what is the student's situation

[35:24]

interpretively prove it. Does this turn into nihilism? Have you got a view on emptiness here? When you say you have no involvements anymore, that they've all ceased? And Hueca says, no. And Bodhidharma says, prove it. And Hueca said, I'm just clearly aware Or, because I'm just always clearly aware, I have no words to express it. Or words don't reach it. Does this remind you of something that happened a few generations later? What is it that thus comes? To say it's this, misses the point.

[36:28]

So this non-defiled way, again, because he is aware, clearly aware, he can't really say. He can't really say it. But he just did say it, didn't he? I mean, it has been said, but he couldn't do it by saying that he couldn't do it, it has been expressed. And then Bodhidharma said something like, have no more doubts. This is the way, the non-defiled way, that has been protected and maintained by all the Buddhas. So, both or troth, veka, and the national teacher and the monk all got to the place of samatha, seeing emptiness.

[37:40]

But the national teacher and veka didn't stop there. In one case, the blue mountains filled the eyes. In the other case, there's always clear awareness and I have no words to express it. There's clear awareness without any view of emptiness. Now we can continue to talk about the process of samatha and we can begin to talk about the process of based on samatha looking now at phenomena to see what their middle way is start looking at phenomenon to see how are things in the middle way what's the middle way that things are how are things such that

[38:59]

They aren't annihilated and don't last. How are things such that they avoid coming under the view of everything exists and everything does not exist? This kind of study is, this kind of examination must be sponsored by this... this shamatha body. An ordinary body either gets really bored by looking at the middle or really excited by looking at the middle. We need an energetic, vital calm to be able to steadily, clearly study what the middle is.

[40:03]

So we have to keep working on Samatha. So we have kind of a body and mind that's interested in studying something so deep and not of the human world. Human beings equipped with Samatha can enter and study in the non-human world without becoming nihilists and with becoming Buddhists. Although what I said might have been very, very clear, that doesn't mean that there won't be decades of questions.

[41:03]

Doesn't mean that there will be decades of questions either. But there will be. That's my weather prediction for today. So the kitchen has to go now, huh? That thing have to go? Pretty soon? You don't know? Huh? Have to go pretty soon? Okay, so let's stop then, shall we? And I just wanted to say now, and it doesn't mean I won't say it again, but this has been a very good session, and a lot of people, I think, have been sick in session, but they've been the kind of sick where sleeping doesn't necessarily help, actually. So I don't think it's been foolhardy that we've sat here.

[42:13]

But I really appreciate the wholehearted effort that people have made, even though I'm not feeling very well at all. I am inspired by the troopers that have really made this great effort on this little five-day sashim. And I hope this is a nice little warm-up for you, because we have a nine-day one coming up in a couple of weeks. And then after that, we have a seven-day one. And after that, we have no more sashims. Just heat and sweat and blood and tears. So hopefully you'll be enlightened by the practice period so deeply that you'll be able to carry on your Samatha practice even in the rice pounding area.

[43:25]

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