I've heard that the Buddha, in his first teaching, said that he had discovered a middle way, a middle path, free of extremes. free of the extreme of addiction to sense pleasure and free of the extreme of addiction to self-mortification. He continued to proclaim the Middle Way. Sometimes he also said that he found a Middle Way which was free of the extremes of the view of existence and the view of non-existence. or the view of eternalism and the view of annihilationism.

[01:04]

I would interpret this teaching of the middle way tonight by suggesting that what the Buddha said was, I found a middle way that's free of all conceptual thought. The extremes of addiction to sense pleasure and addiction to self-mortification are ways of being involved in conceptual thought. Eternalism and annihilationism are conceptual views. The belief in existence is a conceptual cognition. The belief in non-existence or the view of non-existence is a conceptual cognition. No one directly observes existence or non-existence.

[02:16]

These are ideas. The middle way is free, is free of conceptual thought, and it is being free of conceptual thought. In other words, the middle way is freedom from conceptual thought. In other words, the middle way is emptiness. It is the lack of conceptual clinging in our life. our dear, sweet, wonderful life freed in the absence of, empty of conceptual thought. This is the thoroughly established character which is also the middle way. Bodhidharma instructed his disciple, Hoika, outside cease all involvements.

[03:35]

And tonight I would say outside cease all conceptuality, cease all involvement with concepts like existence, non-existence, strict practice, lazy practice, good people, bad people, all involvements, all conceptual activity. Cease it! And inside, there will be no coughing or sighing in the mind. Your life energy will flow freely. This is having a mind like a wall, a mind that is not involved in conceptual activity. Thus you enter the way. This is Bodhidharma's instruction on the middle way. The Buddha, however, then went on.

[04:39]

After giving this nice teaching on the middle way, he kept talking. He was a talkative teacher. And he then analyzed the middle way. by mentioning the two examples of the kind of conception that the Middle Way was free of. He analyzed. He gave us a theory of the kinds of things. He gave us conceptual pictures of the kind of things to avoid. He then said that the Middle Way was a full path. He broke the Middle Way down into eight parts. He took the Middle Way and broke it into eight conceptual packages. and then he broke down the eight conceptual packages into mundane and super mundane eightfold path. In other words, he told his disciples, he told the world that he discovered a middle way which is free of conceptual activity and then he proceeded to offer conceptual opportunities

[05:50]

And as you will read tomorrow, perhaps if you come to morning service, we're going to do a new chapter and in the new chapter it's the chapter called the questions of paramartha samudgata, which means the Bodhisattva paramartha samudgata means born of the ultimate meaning. And so at the beginning of the chapter paramartha Samudgata Bodhisattva questions the Bhagavan and says, when I was in seclusion, practicing tranquility, a thought arose. This thought arose, quotes, the Bhagavan has spoken in many ways of the own character of the aggregates and further spoken of their character of production,

[06:56]

their character of disintegration, their abandonment and realization. Just as he spoke of the aggregates, he also spoke of the sense fields, the sense spheres, dependent co-origination and sustenance. The Bhagavan also has spoken in many ways four truths and further spoken of the realization of suffering, the abandonment of the source of suffering, the actualization of the cessation of suffering, and the meditative cultivation of the path. The Bhagavan is also spoken in many ways of the own character and so on. In other words, the beginning of this chapter the Bodhisattva says of all these different analytical categories of teachings.

[07:59]

He goes on and on and then he says, The Bhagavan has also said that all phenomena lack own being. that all phenomena are unproduced, unceasing, quiescent from the start and naturally in a state of nirvana. First the Buddha taught the middle way, which is, I'm suggesting to you, a lack of own being. It's a realization of a lack of own being. Own being is a conceptual event. The Buddha discovered the middle way which is free of conceptual activity, including the big one of own being conceptual activity.

[09:02]

Then he went and taught the own being of a whole bunch of stuff for many years. But then he taught that all dharmas lack own being. and this is what we call the first turning of the Dharma wheel where he taught the middle way but then he analyzed it and gave a theoretical conceptual structure to the monks, to the practitioners so they could realize the middle way beyond conceptuality, free of conceptuality. He taught them all kinds of concepts by which they could become free of concepts. After less than 500 years something happened in India. I don't know what it was but there were certain signs left of what happened and one of the signs is the Prajnaparamita literature where these words are coming out of the Indian soil which are saying, again, all dharmas are

[10:20]

free of concepts. All dharmas are innocent. All dharmas are not guilty of conceptualization. Conceptualization doesn't reach anything. In other words, another Middle Way teaching arose, but this one more radical and more immediate than the first one. with refusal to offer another set of conceptual analysis to try to get to the middle way. The Prajnaparamita literature denying the validity of conceptual analysis. So again, Buddha starts by saying, I found a way of freedom from thought, from conceptual thought like existence and non-existence etc. I found a way and then he gives a bunch of conceptual thought we can talk about later, theories about why he did that.

[11:28]

But anyway, it seems to have happened. Then his disciples, after about four or five hundred years, go through this big change and up comes this Mahayana, this universal vehicle, which is saying, okay, let's go back to the Middle Way and this time we're going to deny any validity to a conceptual approach, any validity to conceptual understanding. Of course, it always was invalid, but we're making that point again. So here comes the Heart Sutra, which says, no five skandhas. They're empty. The five skandhas, there's nothing to them. They're just fantasies. the Eightfold Path and so on. There is Eightfold Path but the entire presentation of it conceptually is just fantasy.

[12:31]

There's no such thing as the quotes Eightfold Path. There is Eightfold Path but there's no such thing as quotes Eightfold Path. being free of all conceptualization and analysis, the Mahayana has emerged and for about 300 years it has this big effect, and then there arises another thing to complete the picture, which is another sutra called the Samdhinirmachana Sutra, which is coming from emptiness but now is saying we affirm conceptual analysis to help people understand emptiness. There is validity and use to conceptual analysis to help people transcend conceptual analysis. Once again the Prajnaparamita presented a thorough critique of the conceptual approach to the Buddha way which was presented in early Buddhism.

[14:10]

It denies the validity of any conceptual understanding of the Dharma. The real understanding of Dharma is non-conceptual. It's not mediated by ideas, because if you understand the Dharma mediated by ideas, even if they're correct, the ideas are confused for the thing understood, and there is a mistake. The Prajnaparamita says that very strongly. The stress is now on being ready for enlightenment with no conceptual props. Wang Bo says, just give up all conceptuality.

[15:23]

Bodhidharma says, outside, put to rest all stories of the Buddha way. Put to rest all conceptuality. In other words, walk the middle way without using any concepts about how to walk the middle way. That's the mind like a wall in which you will enter the middle way. However, well, I won't say however yet. I'll say however later. Then, seven years later, Huayka comes to Bodhidharma and says, the disciple has put to rest all conceptuality. I'm no longer involved in it at all. I have realized the state which is innocent of conceptuality."

[16:33]

The story goes on. Well, maybe I'll finish the story. Then Bodhidharma says, you haven't slipped into nihilism, have you? Because when in our effort to transcend conceptuality, it's possible to slip into nihilism. So Bodhidharma says, you have no involvement in conceptuality. Have you slipped into nihilism? Quaker says, no. Bodhidharma says, what is your state? What is the state of my student? Sometimes translated as, prove it. Prove it means show me your state as proof that you're not practicing nihilism, that your non-involvement in conceptuality is not nihilistic. And Huayka says, I'm always clearly aware and no words can reach it.

[17:45]

Bodhidharma says, this is the mind that all Buddhas have been caring for. have no doubt. But there's seven years between the first instruction and when he comes forth with his realization of freedom from conceptual thought. And during that time this monk named Hueyka did not know yet how to be... he was not free of conceptual thought. He was caught by conceptual thought like all unenlightened people. And in his being caught, he used conceptual thought to go to his teacher and try to understand what it means to cease involvement in conceptual thought. And his teacher used conceptual thought out of his freedom with conceptual thought to teach him how to be free of conceptual thought.

[18:48]

But seven years of intimate chatting was necessary before Huayka understood conceptually how to put conceptuality to rest. In that sense, the approach of the Sambhidharmochana Sutra may give us a picture of what it's like between the instruction to learn to see that all things are free of conceptual activity and when you realize that instruction, that there has to be, for most people, some conceptual activity for a long period of time in order to understand how to become free of it. So the Samyukti Nirmachana Sutra comes forth in the tradition of immediate realization.

[19:53]

of readiness for awakening and giving up any conceptual approach to it and realizing it directly. The Samjhita Nirmachana Sutra comes from that tradition but wishes now to reaffirm analysis and conceptual theorizing. in order to help us understand how to get over it. To help us understand how we can put descriptions on things to become aware of how we put descriptions on things so that we maybe can take the descriptions off, take the concepts off and realize that they never did reach That was fast.

[21:24]

It looks like the Zen approach in some cases is just simply the teacher saying to the student, give up all conceptual activity. And then the teacher and the student interacting in such a way as to help that happen. Huang Bo just said it over and over, give up conceptual activity Give up conceptual activity. Give up conceptual activity. Eliminate it. Give it up. How many million times did he say that? He was always on his students' case, watching them, clinging to concepts, trying to get some kind of conceptual grasp on the practice and trying to show them how to let go of it.

[22:52]

There was a student in his group who you probably heard about. His name was Linji. He was a quiet little guy. And he lived with Wangbo for a couple of years. And the head monk said to him one day, so have you talked to the teacher lately? And Linji said, no. And the head monk said, well, how long has it been? He said, I never talked to him. And the head monk said, you should talk to him. He's really a sweet guy. He's seven feet tall, but he's sweet. I often mention that those were Chinese feet, though, so we don't know exactly how tall he was. But they say he was seven feet tall. Plus, he had one of his bumps on top of his head, which was kind of scary. So anyway, Linji went to see Wangbo and I forgot exactly what … did he ask him a question?

[24:08]

What was the question? What is the essential meaning of the Buddha dharma? He asked him and Wangbo hit him and Linji left the hitting session and went and told the head monk what happened. Head monk says, oh, you should go see him again. And so he went back and he hit him again. And I think he went back and told the head monk again. And did the head monk say to go back a third time? Or was two enough? Huh? Three? So he says, well, go back and see him. Maybe he won't hit you next time. He said, I don't want to go hit him. I don't want to see him hit me again. He said, ah, go ahead, give it a try. So anyway, he went again and he hit him a third time, I guess. Is that right? So then Linji said, okay, that's enough of that. Or maybe did Wong Bo say, go see somebody else?

[25:09]

Huh? Yeah. Go see somebody else. So he went to see somebody else. And when he went to see the other guy, he told the guy what happened about Wong Bo hitting him. And I think that guy said, Oh, Wong Bo's intensely grandmother kindness to you, so kind to you, right? And then he had a little awakening experience. Linji did. Right? Is that the way the story goes? And then he said, there's not much to Wong Po's teaching. Well, that's your translation.

[26:13]

There you got it. There's not much conceptuality to Wong Po's teaching. Not much Buddhism, not much Eightfold Path. Not much, you know, five skandhas. just, oh, here comes Linji, Mr. Conceptual Activity coming, my great disciple, here he comes, wacko. And then when he says that, then the guy, what was the guy's name? Huh? Dawu, you think? So Dawu says, after he says this is not much to Wangbo, then Dawu kind of criticizes him for saying that, right? And then Linji beats up Dawu.

[27:18]

And I think Dawu tells Linji to go back to Wangbo, which he does. So in this place we can have a combination of Zen practice like Wangbo style and then we can also study the Samadhi and Mochana Sutra and learn all kinds of wonderful ways that we use conceptual activity to try to get a hold of our life and how it never really makes it until we kind of understand that conceptual activity doesn't actually touch our life and our life actually is free of it and realize emptiness through the great teaching of the of the Samjniramachana Sutra. Meantime maybe we can practice Zen too and some of you won't have to study the Sutra. So we have this conceptual approach which you'll find very difficult and then we have another way which is non-conceptual which is easier but you can't get a hold of it.

[28:33]

So we're going to have two styles of practice for the rest of the practice period. One full of concepts to help you become free of concepts and another way which is pushing you to give up your concepts and isn't very difficult to understand conceptually called daily life of bowing to each other, etc. And one more thing I just wanted to mention was that some women actually have asked me about using the stick and yeah, all the people have asked me about it so far are women and I told them that we stopped using it for various reasons and that sometimes people ask but we don't use the stick unless everybody's up for it or unless even if people aren't up for it But I just was talking to somebody about that today and I thought, with a practice period like this with so much feminine energy, maybe there's some way to bring the stick out and use it in its true Zen way.

[29:57]

Just a thought. And to some extent I would I would think it'd be interesting to think about this stick thing, because there's so much, such interesting context. I don't think there's, there may never have been a practice period with so many women in the history of Tassajara, as far as I know. 40 women. So you might think about that, meditate on the function of the stick. on the stick, which is free of the imputational character, which is the basis for the conventional designation, stick.

[31:11]

What is that stick, really? And also, before I forget, I got the impression the day before yesterday that some of you thought that it was a good idea for you not to be going around talking about other people's shortcomings. I think that's generally pretty true, but how about going around talking about other people's virtues? Is there any problem in that? And are you open to giving other people your appreciation and your

[32:23]

happiness about how virtuous their practice is, are you open to expressing that? And are you open to receiving other people's expression to you of how much they appreciate your practice? I wonder. Maybe you can tell me tomorrow about that. Or tonight. Are you open to receiving people's appreciation of your practice? Yes. Huh? Yes. You are? Yes. It goes quickly to pride. What? It goes quickly to pride. Are you open to becoming aware of your pride? That might... Hey, maybe it would work like that. You go up to somebody and you say, I know this guy.

[33:34]

And he's really, really kind to people. He always, you know, is thinking of ways to help them and ways to encourage them in their practice. And then if you hear that, you might think, I wonder if he's talking about me. Could he be talking about me in this indirect way? And then you might say, when you were talking about this really wonderful person at Tassajar, were you by any chance talking about me? And then the person says, yeah, how did you know? I didn't think you'd guess. Because that was another thing about you that I thought is that you never even noticed that you did all these good things. and you might say, well actually I never did notice it but when you said it I sort of recognized myself there. And then this person just keeps dumping all this positive feedback on you and you just you just feel all warm and cozy with all this sincere appreciation and then in the middle of all that sincere appreciation you start to

[34:58]

become aware of some of your shortcomings. Like for example that, I don't know what, that you got proud about that or something. So one of the tricks you can do for these people that you don't want to bow to is you can find out what it is about them that you really appreciate, you know. and really like sincerely work on telling them how much you appreciate them and eventually they'll figure out what jerks they are without you telling them. They'll go, oh my God, I've got something to work on. And that person helped me find it by being so appreciative of me. I wonder if they did that on purpose. So I'm just kidding, but I really do think it would be a good idea for all of us to try to find something to appreciate in the people we're practicing with, or not in them, but about their practice, to try to find something pretty good about them, and then

[36:27]

maybe don't even mention that, but just keep, and then based on that, look for something even better until you find something really great, and then look for the right time to tell them, like when they're sitting down or something, you know, all ready, to really tell them something really wonderful about them before it's too late. I think it would be good if we practiced that here. And see if you can do it with every single person in the practice period. And if you find a few people that you can't do that with, well, be patient and just keep working at it until you find something really great about each person or even more than one thing. There's going to be several things. That's what I think. And you let me say it. Thank you very much. I mean you sort of did, let me say it, although some of you look a little bit not sure there was a good idea, let me say it.

[37:44]

And I would also like to, I think I would like to hear from anybody who thinks that's not a good idea. to talk to people that way in the Zen monastery, this one. And I hope that you tell me in a really skillful way so that I can understand your point of view. But anyway, I'll try to appreciate if you don't think this is a good idea. I definitely will try to appreciate that if you tell me. I had this concept that this way of relating to people is a non-conceptual way to overcome conceptuality.

[39:32]

But now that I said that, I'm not sure that's true. But I did have that thought that it was a kind of a non-conceptual way to overcome our conceptuality by which our mind apprehends other beings. Mako? Do I have any? Do I have anything to say about it? Let's see. I think that non-verbal ways are wonderful. For example, we have this thing called gassho, which is a way to non-verbally express appreciation. Did you say appreciation? This is a way to express appreciation, one of the ways. Another way is full prostrations.

[40:34]

But, you know, the priests had these little bowing cloths, you know, so that if we bow in the dirt we actually don't get too dirty. Our bowing cloths do but our robes don't, so if you're going to do full prostrations maybe you should get a bowing cloth or you know a tarp or something. But full prostrations are another way to express appreciation, but I'm not recommending that, but also quietly going up to somebody and handing them a flower is another way. Blowing them kisses, that's a nice way. Or you can kiss your guy's show, you can do it like that. or kiss this side and this side, put them together.

[41:41]

These are non-verbal ways of expressing appreciation. Handshakes are fine, too, if they can do it that way. Saying good morning, like, good morning. We have to verbalize. Oh, another one is like when it starts raining you can lie down in puddles for people so they can step over you or put some of your clothes over the mud. Holding umbrellas over people when it's raining. Let's see, what else? Those are good, I think, good nonverbal things. Turning pages of sutras for people. handing them, passing sutras to them in morning service, you know, like really nicely, like serving meals, like, you know, really serving.

[42:54]

I mean, I think some of you really do appreciate some of the people you're serving, right? And you really try to serve them well, don't you? The ones you like? And I think that really, you can feel it, that people really are trying to That's non-verbal. Cooking meals for us is a non-verbal way of expressing appreciation for the hard-working sitters. I think non-verbal is, in a place like this, there's more opportunities for non-verbal than verbal, because we spend a lot of time not talking. So for most of the, so like from about, you know, a few minutes from now, until class tomorrow anyway, because we have a class, mostly it's going to be non-verbal opportunities. I said to somebody today, how many times a day do you think I got Shobha?

[43:59]

Every one of those is an opportunity for me to silently express my love. And I thought, well, how do I count them? And I started thinking, well, if people are bowing to me, you know, like if I put my hands together in gassho and then I do a bow like this and I go like this, does this count as two or three gasshos or just one gassho with several bows? So I decided to count... if I put my hands together and I bow forward and then back and forward, I count that as two rather than just one gassho. And if I do that, you know, some days I do a couple hundred. just in that way, not to mention on the street. So, actually the non-verbal is the biggest opportunity here, generally, because we're silent so much. Yes? Is this expression of gratitude and love in every action that we do, is that the grandmother mind?

[45:03]

Or is that something like that? It's part of the grandmother mind, but I think the additional thing would... You're not just... I mean, you are expressing appreciation for this person. You do appreciate this person. This person you really do appreciate. And you think it's good... and you actually think it's good to let them know. You think that would be helpful to this person for them to know how not how much exactly, because you maybe never can tell them, but you think it would be good for them to gradually get the idea that you really appreciate them, you think that would be good in itself, but I think grandmother mind is also that you wish that this act of kindness will not just help this person, but will help the Buddhadharma, which will help many, many more people besides this person. that you actually hope to care for this person as a way to care for the Buddha, which you can't see so well, the Dharma and the whole Sangha.

[46:15]

So I care for you, not just for you, but for Dale too, you know, and I care for Dale, not just for Dale, but for Sarah. I care for each of you, for all of you, that's more like grandmother but it includes taking care of this person and appreciating this person, but not just this person. What is it? The all-pervasive? How do we say it? The all-pervasive? Is that what we say in the Echo? The eternal, all-pervading, triple treasure! So, each one of these little interactions with this one person, which you really do mean, are also for the all-pervading eternal triple treasure too, which, you know, here may be easier to get than maybe if you're out in the street someplace outside of Tassajara, but I think the grandmother mind is not just, well, only at Tassajara can I make this offering to the triple treasure.

[47:24]

No, everywhere. Grandmother mind is, I'm not going to let circumstances cause a break in this devotion to the triple treasure. Any situation I'm going to use as this opportunity. And even if I'm not expressing gratitude, if I'm just sort of saying, if I'm just listening to somebody, that also I want to use that opportunity. So the grandmother mind is more like the making everything into the Buddha way, including those kinds of things. But I just mentioned this one thing, because I got the impression from people that they thought that feedback meant negative feedback. And I didn't mean that. If you don't want to give negative feedback to people, fine. How about positive? And I know that a lot of you do have positive feedback for some people, so work on that and expand it.

[48:28]

to the whole Sangha and work on expanding it to the whole Sangha and be patient with yourself if it takes a little while. If there's a few people that you kind of like, well, you know, I can't quite see anything there yet. But just walk around a few times. And maybe by the third or fourth circumambulation you'll get the idea. A walk, Alice, I would suggest just generally speaking, walk clockwise. That's just, you know, traditional. Okay, is that enough for tonight? You giving me a thank you?

[49:28]

A thank you feedback? And I'll give you a you're welcome feedback. May our intentions be free and free in being and place. With you may darkness flee. Om Namo Buddhaya.

[50:00]

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