March 15th, 2015, Serial No. 04211
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we just, some of us recited the words, I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Is that what we said? At the beginning we said that the Dharma is rarely met with. The Dharma is a word that's used for teaching, but also it's a word that means truth. And also a word, it means phenomena. So it means phenomena but also means the truth of phenomena. And it means the teaching of the truth of phenomena. And other meanings too. One reason somebody might vow to hear the Dharma, or see the Dharma, is that one might imagine, one might have actually heard, that if we do hear the truth, this truth, the truth that comes of enlightenment, the truth of enlightenment, if we hear this truth, if we see this truth, that seeing and hearing of this truth
[01:32]
will relieve all suffering and distress. And many people are concerned with relieving suffering and distress. So if this Dharma, if hearing this Dharma would help, then I vow to hear this Dharma. If seeing this truth would help, I vow to see this truth. some people might say. To see the truth which we've heard, some people in the past have seen, and some people in the present are seeing. And these visions of the truth have brought and are bringing peace in this world of suffering.
[02:34]
I do wish for peace in this world. Someone said to me a while ago, she came to meet me and she sat face to face with me and she said something like, I'm so dissatisfied. I think she said dissatisfied rather than unsatisfied. I'm so dissatisfied and I listened to her say that and then she said something like, I'm so dissatisfied and I I want to fix it, I want to do something, I want
[03:52]
to do something about it. And then I cling to something, to do something about it. I grasp something. And then I make things, I create things. And that just makes more dissatisfaction. And when she said that, I thought, that sounds familiar. I've heard that story before. And then she said, why am I so dissatisfied? And I thought, oh yeah, right. The rest of the story is, based on ignorance, there is dissatisfaction. So I said to her, maybe, you know, I've heard that this dissatisfaction comes from ignorance, from ignoring the truth.
[05:00]
And actually it's ignoring the truth of creation, ignoring the truth of the creative process which we all are sharing as life. Ignoring that, then the created things that are arising in this process of creation, then the created things when we meet them we feel dissatisfied. They're not dissatisfying. We are dissatisfied with created things when we ignore the inconceivable process of creation. Then, because of the dissatisfaction there's a response to try to get something, get something that will bring satisfaction, and then to grasp, to cling, and then to try to make something come into existence.
[06:27]
And so that's the story she told me. That's what she was seeing herself do. And that's exactly what the Buddha says we do. When we're dissatisfied, that's independence on ignoring the inconceivable process of creation. If we do not ignore it, if we face the inconceivable process of our life, there will be no dissatisfaction. There may be pain, there may be pleasure, there may be neutral sensation, there may be conditioned existence. But if we don't ignore the wondrous, inconceivable process by which our life is arising in dependence on everything, If we don't ignore it, then life is not dissatisfying.
[07:37]
Life is peace. And that's what is being held out as possible when we give up ignorance and open to the truth. giving up ignorance, opening to the truth, relieves all suffering, opening to the truth, wisdom. Wisdom opening to the truth. And the funny, kind of the funny thing about the way this person told me the story was that she says she wants to create things as a result of ignoring the inconceivable process of creation leads us to want to create something ourselves in order to overcome the dissatisfaction.
[08:43]
And actually, let's go right ahead and try to create something. And in the process of trying to create something, let's practice the teachings. And in that way we may discover creation. Not the things we create ourselves, but the process of creation. By being intimate with the process by which we think we can do something on our own. By being intimate with the process of creating things to get satisfaction, rather than being intimate with creation in order to be free of dissatisfaction. We're not trying to get anything in the intimacy with the process of feeling dissatisfied.
[09:46]
We feel dissatisfied, intimacy with feeling dissatisfied leads to or is intimacy with feeling dissatisfied. Intimacy with feeling dissatisfied is freedom from dissatisfaction. Intimacy with craving something to fix the dissatisfaction, intimacy with that is freedom from dissatisfaction. Intimacy with clinging to things to overcome dissatisfaction is freedom from dissatisfaction. Intimacy with making things come into existence or go out of existence is peace, is freedom from dissatisfaction. the thought crossed my mind, maybe there's two kinds of dissatisfaction. One dissatisfaction is the one that depends on ignorance.
[10:49]
Another dissatisfaction is the dissatisfaction of enlightenment with suffering, with suffering beings. But I actually think there's not two kinds of dissatisfaction. There's just one. basically, and that enlightenment isn't really dissatisfied with delusion. Enlightenment isn't really dissatisfied with dissatisfaction. It's at peace with it. But being at peace, really being at peace with dissatisfaction, there naturally arises a compassionate wish to help all beings see the truth and be free of dissatisfaction. Enlightenment's not dissatisfied with suffering, it is intimate with it.
[11:53]
And from that intimacy comes the wish to encourage others to be intimate with it. With it, with dissatisfaction. To be intimate with the way living beings are satisfied and dissatisfied. Earlier this year and last year I talked a lot about something we call the perfection of wisdom or perfect wisdom. The perfection of wisdom is said to disperse the gloom and darkness of delusion. It's supposed to illuminate
[12:56]
the darkness of ignorance, and it relieves all suffering and distress. Perfect wisdom. Buddhas who have realized perfect wisdom wish to help other people open to perfect wisdom. They wish to demonstrate perfect wisdom. They wish that people will awaken to perfect wisdom and enter perfect wisdom. This is one story about Buddha's activity. They have become intimate with all beings, with all dissatisfaction. They have realized peace and freedom from and with all beings. and freedom from dissatisfaction, and they wish to help other people realize this wisdom. So we talked about perfect wisdom.
[14:03]
Now we're shifting to use some different words. In Zen temples of this tradition, in this temple, and in temples in other parts of the world, on a regular basis, in the early morning, we sing songs. We sing songs in order to become perfect wisdom. We sing songs in order to relieve all suffering and distress. We sing songs about wisdom. We sing songs about wisdom to relieve suffering. And sometimes when we're singing, I sometimes look at the singers and I think that they
[15:08]
They look like they're pretty serious. Maybe even, I don't know, uncomfortable or depressed. But anyway, they're singing. Some of them maybe aren't even singing. I don't actually go up and ask them. But their mouths are moving so little, I'm not sure they are singing. Anyway, we do sing these songs and if you stand outside this room you can hear them at some distance, these people singing. It's, well, sometimes it's amazing to hear. I think the awakened mind is always amazed to hear these songs. And one of the songs we sing is called, The Song of the precious mirror, samadhi. Samadhi is a word we use for a state of living in a concentrated, undistracted concentrated, undistracted life.
[16:24]
Concentrated, focused and open and relaxed and flexible state. It's a kind of awareness where we're not distracted and we're not uptight. We're open and not distracted. And we sing a song about being open and focused on the precious mirror. The precious mirror is an image, again, of perfect wisdom. So we sing about the heart of perfect wisdom, and we sing the song of the precious mirror awareness, the precious mirror samadhi. The Heart Sutra, I don't know if it appeared in India or China first, but it did appear in India and China.
[17:27]
the song of the precious mirror samadhi seems to have appeared in China around 860 A.D. in the later part, yeah, the later part of the Tang Dynasty. And it's written by one of the ancestors of this tradition whose name is Dengshan Liangzhe. Tozan RyĆkai, wrote this poem for us to sing. It's a poem about the wisdom which relieves all suffering and distress and dissatisfaction. It starts like this. In English, the teaching of suchness, the dharma of suchness, the truth of suchness, the truth of the way things really are.
[18:45]
This truth or this teaching, it's the same thing. The truth and the teaching, same. Truth is teaching in this tradition. Teaching is truth. The truth of suchness. Those are the first four characters. The song is in 94 four-character lines. The first four is the teaching of suchness. The next four are Buddha ancestors intimately entrust. The Buddha ancestors of the tradition, they intimately entrust this teaching. They intimately entrust this truth of suchness.
[19:50]
That's the next four lines. Buddha ancestors intimately entrust. The next four are, now you, or actually, you now have it. You now attain it. Right now, the song is, you now attain this teaching of suchness which Buddhas and ancestors intimately entrust. They have entrusted it to you now. And then there's 94 minus 12 more lines.
[21:05]
And the next four characters are right after now you have it, the next four characters are keep it well. take care of it." That's the song. The song is saying that the teaching of the Buddhas is intimately entrusted and it has now been entrusted to you. It has now been entrusted to you. I must say I feel astounded that I'm saying this, that we sing this song. the teaching, the main, the central teaching of the Buddhas has been entrusted to you now. And the next line is, so take care of it.
[22:06]
So those are the first four lines of four characters, sixteen characters. This is about giving up ignorance. This is about opening to the truth. Today I'm wearing a watch which was given to me by a good friend so I have some sense of the time. So I feel like I can say just a little bit more about this. I want to say a little bit about the word intimate. Buddha ancestors intimately entrust.
[23:13]
In our normal translation that we use here, we say, intimately communicate. I think, yes, Buddha ancestors intimately communicate. The kind of communication that they're into and out of is intimate. But the character, the more usual translation of the character is entrust or give. But again, because it's intimate, it's not clear what direction the giving is occurring. It's not like that it's going from Buddhas to somebody else. or from somebody else to Buddhas. It's not like it's going from you to me or me to you. The entrustment is intimate. It's so intimate we don't know who is entrusting who in that intimacy.
[24:14]
And also we don't know, we don't really know the entrustment. And since you don't know it, you have no basis for rejecting that you have it. You may have some basis for rejecting something else, like a diamond. Maybe you know a diamond ring, and you know you do or do not have one. But this intimacy, there's no way to say, I don't have intimacy. I don't have this teaching. I do have this teaching. There's no way. Except I do have this teaching. Even though I have no way to say it, I say it. The character for intimacy that's used here in this song, it also has many other meanings. One of the meanings is, another meaning is secret.
[25:17]
If you and I are intimate, that intimacy is a secret. No one else knows about it, people can't see it, they can't get a hold of it while we're being intimate, and also we can't see it and we can't get a hold of it. Even though we're intimate, even though we are, even though what we are is intimacy actually, The teaching of suchness is that what we are is intimacy. That's what we are. And we can't get a hold of it. And we can't get away from it. How does it go? So high you can't get over it, so low you can't get under it. You cannot avoid this intimacy. And Buddha's used the thing that nobody can avoid to transmit, to entrust the teaching of reality, the teaching of the reality of creation.
[26:31]
They use intimacy to communicate it, and it's a secret. And another meaning of this word is dense, dense, thick, Intimacy is dense and it's thick. And secret. And now you have it.
[27:44]
You have this teaching. You have this truth. You have something that you can't get a hold of, that you can't hold on to, that you can't get rid of. You have it. You have this intimacy with Buddhas and with all beings. You already have this. This is affirmed. This teaching is a teaching which affirms that we are it, that we have it already. If you agree, you're affirmed in your agreement. If you don't agree, you're affirmed in not agreeing. No matter what you are, you are affirmed in this teaching. Now you have it.
[28:46]
And this teaching is nothing but affirmation. No matter how I am, no matter how you are, no matter how we are, it is affirmed. And by being affirmed, the liberating truth is entrusted. And there's another dimension of this affirmation which is, you will be affirmed. you will understand this. You will understand that now you have it. If now you do not understand it, your present not understanding it, your present not fully believing it is affirmed, and that affirmation affirms that you will understand it.
[29:58]
You will completely realize that now you have it. And in order, not in order to, in order but also in accord with that you already have it, take care of it. It isn't now you have it so go get it. It's now you have it so because you have it, take care of it. And if you forget to take care of it, now you have it when you forget. When you forget to take care of this teaching, which has been intimately transmitted, not exactly to you, but it's been intimately transmitted all over the place. And it affirms everybody, and you're included, and also please take care of it. And if you don't, now you have it again, and please take care of it.
[31:04]
And if you don't, now you have it again, and please take care of it. The more fully we realize that now we have it, the more fully we affirm and confirm and predict that now we have it. So taking care of it is the practice, and taking care of it is the practice, and taking care of it is intimacy. every moment is an opportunity for intimacy. Every moment in this room now is an opportunity for intimacy. There's no situation, there's no moment that is not.
[32:05]
There's no breaks in the opportunities. There's only breaks in the samadhi, in the concentration on the intimacy, the concentration on the precious mirror, we seem to get distracted sometimes. We think and we believe the thought we have something other to do in life than be intimate with the suffering of the world. at this moment. We have something else to do besides being intimate with this suffering person or that suffering person. We actually think such thoughts and sometimes we grasp them and get distracted from the practice of taking care of the precious mirror. In the samadhi, the samadhi means we're not distracted.
[33:13]
We are remembering that our job right now is to be intimate and that in that intimacy this truth is entrusted and realized. And intimacy is in fact. Fact is, the facts of this teaching is intimacy. Now you have the intimacy. And because of that, you're hearing somebody say, please take care of it. Please protect it. Protect reality? Yeah. Guard it? If you don't guard it, is it lost? Not really. But you feel like it in a way, because you're not taking care of it. But it's not true. You still have it. Can you hear me in the back? I was talking kind of quietly for a little while there.
[34:16]
Ignorance is also ignoring the job opportunity of intimacy. And then ignoring the job opportunity of intimacy, we will feel dissatisfied. And then we're off to the races. Dissatisfied, craving, clinging, trying to make something happen, birth, old age, sickness, and death. Round and round until we start practicing intimacy. at which point there's no ignorance. There's just the truth. And nobody's separate from it, of course, but people are taking care of that. And so again, the story I started with, somebody is aware, somebody's aware, somebody's somewhat intimate with dissatisfaction.
[35:42]
So he can ask, why? And I can say, ignorance. And he can say, yes, of course, thank you so much. That's what he did. He was so happy to hear the reason for her dissatisfaction. She knew it was true. If I just walked up to her and said that, maybe she wouldn't have been so grateful. But she told me what was going on and I could say, yes, and this whole thing is dependent on this. But she wasn't really ignoring, she could feel the dissatisfaction. That's the path to freedom of dissatisfaction is intimacy with dissatisfaction. Got any dissatisfaction? Then you've got something to be intimate with. When you're intimate with it, there's freedom from it.
[36:49]
Is it easy to be intimate with dissatisfaction? Maybe not. Is it easy to be with suffering? Maybe not. But the song says, the song sings, What Buddhas are transmitting, they do so, they've given to you intimately, and if you wish to receive this medicine, then you receive it intimately. And it's not like, wait until this moment's over before you start. Start with your present situation. Now you have it. It doesn't mean that tomorrow you won't too, it's just that now you have it. If you skip over today, this moment, you might skip over the next moment. there's a thought arising, my job is to practice intimacy.
[37:59]
To take care of intimacy is to take care of this teaching, is to take care of this entrustment. There's a friend who lives in this valley who a couple of days ago had a seizure, a big seizure. they say, somebody says who knows a bunch of such things that it was a grand mal seizure. And there's a story that maybe because of the seizure he pulled some muscles in his back or maybe even pulled some ligaments because the movement was so energetic. And so now he's recovered from the seizure, but he's very uncomfortable. And so I was talking to him yesterday and I said, how is your health?
[39:07]
He said, oh, I hurt. I said, does your back hurt? He says, yeah, my back hurts and my leg hurts and my foot hurts. And he said, everything hurts. And then he said, that's not true. Not everything hurt, just those things and a few more. He actually also was feeling really good because he felt full of gratitude for all the kindness that he's experienced in this valley. He said, I can't believe how lucky I am. There's all this compassion and support. And he's got all these pains. And he says, how did that go again? How did that go? Your student, what's his name? He lives in Chicago. I said, Taigen? He said, yeah, yeah. What, that book you wrote?
[40:09]
Cultivating an Empty Field? Yeah, yeah. He said, how did that go? Something like, hundreds and hundreds of horrors, myriad monstrosities. In the midst of all that, the upright cauldron is naturally beneficent. The upright cauldron. Cauldron's a cooking pot, right? It's related to caliente. It's related to hot. It's a pot where you can cook things.
[41:11]
The second meaning is a situation characterized by instability and intense emotion. the upright cauldron, it's not falling over, it's staying upright somehow in the midst of the flames. And that cauldron that's upright in the midst of all these flames of dissatisfaction and suffering, from that cauldron that stays and welcomes all this, all of its welcome, nothing's rejected, nothing's pulled, nothing's pushed, that Kaldun is taking care of this teaching. And from taking care of this teaching of intimacy, beneficence naturally arises.
[42:18]
Now you have it. this teaching has been intimately transmitted, intimately entrusted to you. Now be an upright cauldron. And no matter what happens, let it be contained in this uprightness, in this intimacy. And you will be You'll be doing the job of Buddhas. You will be doing the job of intimately entrusting, intimately entrusting, intimately entrusted. You are entrusted to be this upright cauldron. Even after you have big pain and strokes and seizures, you're going to get a chance again. to be intimate. You are given this chance.
[43:35]
We are given this chance. That's the song. Now you have it. Be an all-inclusive, all-welcoming, cauldron, upright, like the Buddhas. And if you forget, put the forgetfulness in the cauldron. No matter what, welcome all beings into this process of intimate entrustment of the teaching which relieves suffering and brings peace in the midst of hundreds of horrors and innumerable difficulties. This is the teaching that sits in the middle of all that and is intimate with all that and relieves all that without fixing anything. And if there's anybody that's fixing anything, they're welcome to be here too.
[44:40]
Not to mention if people are breaking things, they're welcome to be here too. Everybody is included. This is unlimited intimate entrustment. So we have a job, which is the same job as the Buddha ancestors. They said they did this job. Now they say we have this job. It's been given to us. Whether you ask for it or not, it's been given to you. Whether you ask for it or not, you have an assignment. Take care of the gift which has been given to you. Please. May our intention be set free.
[45:40]
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