For two months now, my dharma talks have been about compassion and wisdom, about on one side generating the mind of compassion and the vows of compassion, the practices of compassion. On the other side, talking about wisdom practice in terms of learning the backwards step, having no object of thought, and so on. And as I mentioned the other day, the text, 30 verses on the accomplishment of mere consciousness

[01:04]

are about insight practice, instruction of insight. Today again I'd like to talk about compassion and wisdom. We've been discussing the ten great transcendent practices of the Bodhisattva Samantabhadra, ten great vows and actions of Samantabhadra. And we're up to, today we could talk about number eight and number nine, I think. Last time we talked about number seven, number six and seven, number six is ... what's number six? Asking the Buddha to stay and teach the Dharma.

[02:11]

Number six is asking the Buddha to teach. Number seven is asking the Buddha to stay in the world. So I might start, I might just take a little backward step there, and if anybody wants to laugh, I bet they can go ahead and laugh. An opportunity, I'll just slightly pose a pun, you see it? Go ahead. So, asking Buddhas to teach, in a sense, I publicly ask Buddhas to teach, I ask people, please tell me about the effects of my behavior ... you want to open the other one too? Please tell me about the effects of my behavior in your life, if I hurt your feelings, please

[03:23]

tell me, I invited that. And in a sense, by doing that, I invited you to teach me, I invited the little Buddhas in all your cells to teach me. And so some of you have been teaching me since I asked that, coming and telling me that certain things I have done have hurt your feelings or disturbed you. And at that time that you told me, I think I usually managed to say thank you, at that time. But sometimes I wasn't able to say, at the same, sometimes I wasn't able to say, I'm

[04:25]

sorry. So I'd like to add to those of you who have been so kind as to tell me that I've hurt your feelings or something, I'd like to say I'm sorry also. When people tell me this, it actually is very humbling for me to see the little or big oversights. If I ask Buddhas to teach me, if I ask Buddhas in the form of each of you to teach me, then I, and if I behave in a way that's not respectful of you or reverent towards you, the little Buddhas inside you, the millions of Buddhas in each of your atoms of your body, when I am not respectful to you, when I'm not reverent towards you, the little Buddhas, they don't

[05:26]

get upset but they kind of say, too bad, maybe we should send a voice out collectively through this huge tongue up there and tell him something, if he wants to hear. And he said he wanted to hear, so let's send a message up to the nervous system and make that tongue say, pooch. And when the Buddhas tell me this, I feel pretty humbled, but that's good for me, so please keep it up, Buddhas, please keep telling me when I'm not reverent and respectful of each living being. Now, of course, I could spend all my time just bowing to everybody constantly, but even if I don't do that, I believe that should be my spirit, is reverence to each of you.

[06:28]

So if I don't live up to that, please help me by telling me, or whatever you feel like telling me, to help me do that. And again, I'd like to say I'm sorry if I have not acted reverently towards you or respectfully towards you. So this is in this morning's practice of number seven and number five. Okay? Five is confession and repentance, and number seven is to ask you to teach me. Also, please stay in the world so you can teach me. Don't drift off to heavenly realms. Whatever heavenly realms are for you. Please don't drift off there. Stay down here in the mud with us. Now that we've banned headphones, that's one outfit you can't take.

[07:36]

Okay, number eight. Are you ready for another bodhisattva bow? To be a zealous follower of Buddha's way at all times. Number nine, by the way, is to accommodate and serve all sentient beings for their benefit. Of course, these two are very closely related, but a slight difference. So I'm going to be reading a page of stuff now, okay? Again, O noble-minded person, how should one be ever zealous in following the Buddha's way? To do so, one should think. Also, I want to mention again that these bodhisattva practices are practices in thinking.

[08:45]

Bodhisattva wisdom practices are practices in thinking. And I was thinking that the compassion practices are kind of like practices in straightforward thinking. Sort of in thinking forward in a positive way. Ordinarily people think in a forward direction, but this is thinking forward and in a straightforward, straight to the heart of Buddha, thinking forward. And the wisdom practices are thinking backwards. All kinds of backwards thinking is okay. And some kinds of forward thinking are okay. So the bodhisattva practices are the wholesome and beneficent, compassionate, forward thinking. So one should think. The Tathagata, Bhairavachana, in this saha world... Do you know what saha means? Patience.

[09:49]

The world we live in is called saha, patience. This is the world of patience, because this particular world requires patience. There are some worlds that are not called saha world. There are some worlds that are much more pleasant than this one. This one requires patience, which is good, because since it's required, then you have to develop it. The gods on Mount Olympus did not need to have patience. What if they weren't patient? So what? They didn't need to have patience. They didn't need to have humility. They didn't need any of that stuff. We need both here in the saha world. And in this world, the Tathagata, Bhairavachana, who from the outset, when he made the vow to attain Buddhahood, exerted himself in the bodhisattva practices. So Buddhas, if four Buddhas are Buddhas, they do bodhisattva practices.

[10:53]

For almsgiving, she sacrificed countless bodies and lives. To learn the Dharma, she stripped off her own skin, her parchment, used her own blood for ink, and split her bones to make a pen. With which to write scriptures, which amount to the bulk of the great Mount Sumeru. In appreciation and reverence to the Dharma, she disregarded her own body and life. How much less did she regard the throne, the palace, the gardens, the towns, and all her other worldly possessions. He spared no energy in his ascetic deeds, self-surrender, and spiritual endeavors until he attained supreme enlightenment under the Bodhi tree. Thereupon, he displayed many miracles and wondrous conjugations

[12:00]

and presided over numerous assemblies, such as the assembly of the great bodhisattvas, of the Sravakas and Prajakas Buddhas. Does everybody here know what a Sravaka is? Does anybody not know what a Sravaka is? A Sravaka literally comes from the word śruta, which means to hear, having to relate to the ear. And Sravaka are the ones who listen. They are the disciples of Buddha that listen to the Buddha. Prajaka Buddha. Prajaka is related to the word prajaya, which means condition. They are Buddhas that are enlightened by conditions. In other words, they don't necessarily even come to study with the Buddha, but they can just be enlightened by studying physics or working in a chain gang or being a mother of ten or something like that. The conditions of their life in this lifetime cause them to have the enlightenment equal to that of the Sravakas, the arhats.

[13:02]

But they do it without any formal training. So they are called Prajaka Buddhas. Sometimes they are called solitary Buddhas. So, sometimes in the assembly of bodhisattvas, sometimes in the assembly of arhats, sometimes presiding over the assembly of Prajaka Buddhas, sometimes presiding over the assembly of great kings, rajas, kshatriyas, brahmanas, elders, lay people and gods, nagas, spirits, humans, nonhumans. At these numerous assemblies, he spoke in a voice of thunder to the audience in accordance with the occasion and their needs, ripening them with resourcefulness and ingenious instructions. In these ways, he helped sentient beings to accomplish Buddhahood

[14:04]

until he made the gesture towards entering into nirvana. I will follow not only these examples of Vairagchana, the world-honored one of the present time, but also those of all the Tathagatas in the infinite atoms of all Buddha domains in the ten directions and three times throughout the realm of Dharma and the realm of space. At each and every moment, I will follow their example with total devotion. This practice of imitation of Buddha will never cease until the realm of space and so on are ended, thought after thought without interruption, in bodily, vocal and mental actions without weariness. So this paramita, this perfection, this vow,

[15:05]

is the practice of imitation of Buddha. Narazaki Ikko Roshi says that basically Zen practice is imitation of Buddha, particularly imitation of your teacher. Thich Nhat Hanh said, Zen is not imitation. It's interesting that the Minnesota Zen Center, who now has Narazaki Roshi as their Sado Roshi, the people of that group took that quote by Thich Nhat Hanh and organized a world conference around it, asking various Zen teachers around the country to comment on that statement. I didn't answer it myself, not because I was opposed to it,

[16:09]

but because the deadline was too close to the time I got the letter. But there's some debate in that group. The teaching in some sense is, practice is to imitate, and also some people think practice is not to imitate. So that's something to think about, what Thich Nhat Hanh means when he says practice is not imitation, and what we mean here, and what Narazaki Roshi means when he says practice is to imitate. Just copy your teacher. Of course, you can't copy your teacher because you're not your teacher, right? So what does it mean to imitate your teacher or to copy your teacher? And what does it mean to say that Zen is not imitation? So here, anyway, this vow is basically imitate the Buddhas. Do the practices that Buddhas did before they were Buddhas, to get to be Buddhas, to realize fully their Buddha nature,

[17:12]

and do the practices that Buddhas did even after they were Buddhas. Now, some of those practices after they were Buddhas will be a little difficult to do. For example, speaking with a thunderous voice, which is perfectly helpful to all beings according to their circumstances, but still, we make the vow to do that practice someday, when the time is right. That's the eighth one. The ninth one is to accommodate and serve sentient beings for their benefit. Again, O noble-minded person, in what manner should one accommodate and serve sentient beings? To do so, one should think. Throughout the realm of Dharma and the realm of space, in the ocean-like cosmoses in ten directions,

[18:13]

there are infinite kinds of bodhisattvas, excuse me, infinite kinds of sentient beings. Some are born of eggs. Some are born of womb, of wetness or of metamorphosis. Some live by earth. Some by fire. Some by water. Some by wind, space, trees, flowers, dot, dot, dot, and so on. O, countless are their kinds, and infinite are their forms, shapes, bodies, faces, longevities, races, names, dispositions, views, knowledge, desires, inclination, manners, customs, and diets. They abide in numberless kinds of dwellings, towns, villages,

[19:15]

cities, palaces. And I might mention right here one thing that I thought was very interesting when I was reading about the invisible crowds, the invisible crowds of the dead, the invisible crowds of our ancestors, the invisible crowds of all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas and yourselves, the invisible crowds of our posterity. And I mentioned the invisible crowds of the devils. One thing which I didn't know about, which I thought was really interesting, is that devils, not only are very numerous, but they're teeny. I thought devils were kind of like, you know, 5'10", 6'3", you know, 5'2", something like that. You know, like, if I'm a human, devils would be about my size, right? To sort of tempt me or whatever. But devils are actually usually teeny. So like, you know, like there could be thousands of them right over here, around your ear level.

[20:15]

And, you know, millions of them under your armpits, you know, and thousands of them around your food, and your pillow and stuff like that. It's a different... I didn't... That's the usual understanding of devils, is they're little and there are all these little places around where you're not looking, you know. Lots of them. In this... It's... In that book I was reading about the invisible crowds, he mentioned that, but I forgot to mention that to you. I was quite surprised by that. This is the... And this was the way people thought about it up through the Middle Ages in Europe. But it's also thought of, that's the way they see it all over the world, before and in the place they still believe in devils. But isn't that interesting that they're little? Teeny. You can't close a door on them. They can sneak under the door through the keyhole. And they can fly too. It's like an angel. Oh, I also heard another interesting kind of pun the other day.

[21:25]

Somebody said, I'll be damned if I don't... Blah de blah. That's an interesting expression, you know. I'll be damned if I don't go to Zazen. I'll be damned if I don't, you know, do this or do that. It's kind of an interesting expression. Okay, so these Bodhisattvas give up all this... These beings are in all these different forms, okay? Different faces, different longevities, different diets, different customs, all that stuff. And again, when I was reading this... I'll finish the list. They comprise the Devas, the Nagas, the eight groups. The Mohoragas, the Kimaras, the Yakshas, you know, the Gandharvas, the Garudas, you know, all those things. You heard about that group? You haven't? You haven't heard of a Kimara? A Mohoraga? How about a Garuda? Oh, I have my second cousin. Anyway, these are various, from our point of view,

[22:27]

mythic sort of fantastic creatures. That we usually can't see very well with our usual eye. But anyway, they're flying all over the place. The world's infested with them. And we can, you know, we can tune them in if we need to later through the Sambhogakaya. Okay? We can have a party and tune them in. But anyway, there are all these beings. There's humans, non-humans, beings without feet. You've heard of them? Yeah. Like snakes have no feet, right? Anymore. Beings with feet, like two feet. This is also interesting. Two feet, four feet, and many feet. I thought it's very rare for a being to have one foot. You notice that? Or three. Except if there are two, like a four-footer who's disfigured can have three, right? But have you ever thought of a regular sort of

[23:30]

kind of healthy being that's got three feet, or one, or five, or seven? Gastropod? One foot? Gastropod. But still think about it. And some with form, and some without form. Some with and without thought. Some with thought and some without thought. And some neither with thought nor without thought. Now wait a minute. Okay, all these infinite kinds of beings, and I was thinking, in that one scene in Star Wars, remember? Where they went into that bar? Wasn't that a great scene? All those different kinds of beings. Now, add to those guys cockroaches, rats, scorpions, luges, flies. Okay. Put some more in there, and then

[24:30]

I will render my service and accommodate them in whatever way is beneficial to them. This is quite a vow. I will accommodate and serve all these beings. I will, I don't know, will I cuddle up to some of those guys? That's what it says here. All those infinite kinds of beings, I will render my service. I will accommodate to them in whatever way is beneficial to them. Now, the key is, what's beneficial, right? Is it beneficial to kill flies? Is that beneficial to them? Who kills the flies around here? I don't know. It's like, we have our head monk killing flies. Is he, are we asking him to benefit them? We've got a problem here. A little bit of textual tension here. Of course, you didn't take this vow yet, did you? But there it is.

[25:31]

This is, this is Samantabhadra's vow that you would accommodate and do whatever is beneficial to flies. Not necessarily from their point of view. No, from their point of view. What's beneficial from their point of view. It's for their benefit. It's to accommodate and serve for their own benefit, not for our benefit. It may be beneficial to get them out of their little fly bodies. If you really feel that way, then it's different. Are you doing that? Are we doing that? That's the question. This is a problem. Killing other things too, cockroaches and stuff. I have another confession to make. I killed a mole a while ago. I did, I killed a mole. And I did not, I really felt terrible after I killed it. Even though this mole was totally destroying months of work of mine. One mole, who? But I killed it. I drowned it with a hose. Did you do it on purpose?

[26:32]

I did it on purpose. I was trying to, yeah. I was trying to get it out of there. So I put the hose down the hole. And that killed the mole. I drowned. I'm sorry. I will provide for them with all they need and serve them as those serving my parents, teachers, even Arhats and Tathagatas, all equally without discrimination. So, I don't know, you know, that doesn't necessarily mean we have to leave the food out for the raccoons. At my house in Green Gulch, I have a compost thing and the raccoons get into it. I don't usually mind too much. If they want the compost, I let them have it. I mean, if they want the stuff,

[27:33]

I don't feel too bad. They do tip over the thing and spill the garbage all over the place, which is not so good. But when I really wedge the cannon strongly and they can get the top off sometimes by lifting the shooting brick off, this big cinder block, they can do that somehow. And they take the top off and eat the stuff. It's kind of nice, then it doesn't make such a mess. But when they tip over the thing, I have a little problem with that. I really don't mind them eating it. It seems like if they want to eat it, I don't want to anymore. It's a little bit harder about putting food out for them. But I think, actually, if you think about it, it's probably not good to put out regular food for raccoons because they probably will die if they start eating our milk and honey and stuff. Just like the bears at Yosemite, by eating a lot of human offerings, some of them are not able to get through hibernation anymore because they don't get enough weight from eating scraps and handouts.

[28:35]

So I think it isn't necessarily that you should think about what's beneficial for them. That's the point. To be thinking about what's beneficial and to do that for beings is the point. If someone asks you for poison, you don't necessarily have to give it to them. Yes? In thinking about what's beneficial for others, your example applies, in so thinking about it, if you think about it, we've come to what's beneficial sort of applies on some and what's beneficial, say, to human beings. And it may not be beneficial for human beings to have disease carriers, for instance. Right. So there you go. So there's some balance there. Yes. And yet it's clearly not beneficial. It's not beneficial to kill any being. For that particular being. How do we weigh this? No, it's not true that it's not beneficial to kill a being for that being. If a being is about to kill someone,

[29:38]

if a human being is about to kill another human being, it is beneficial to stop that. It is beneficial to the one, it is beneficial to stop a murderer before they commit a murder. That's beneficial to the murderer. Okay? And the more people the murderer is going to kill, the more beneficial it is to the murderer. So that is beneficial. You don't have to kill them to stop them. But if they get killed in the process and you can't avoid it, or if it looks like they're going to keep killing no matter what, you can't stop them, they'll just get up and try to kill again, they may have to be killed. And that's for their benefit. If flies, if flies are carrying possibly diseases and come into our kitchen and infest our kitchen, in the old days at Tassajara, the early days of the Tassajara kitchen, remember, people used to go like this. The flies were thick. People used to take the tops from those big rice things

[30:40]

and go like this, get the tops together, just go like this, and the air go like that, and you get flies. They'd kill them like that. You didn't have to go after them. Just bring two surfaces together and there'd be flies between them and you'd think they were pretty big surfaces. And at that time, the student said, well, what about killing the flies? I wasn't there when they asked to negotiate this, but... So I don't know if he really said this, but it was something like, I heard it was something like, kill the flies, or something like... Anyway, something like, he told them to kill the flies, because they couldn't work in the kitchen. It was so infested with flies. And... So I think we, at Tassajara, may have to make the decision that if we want to have cooking in the kitchen in the summer, we may have to kill flies. We may feel that we can't work if we don't do that.

[31:41]

But the... On what basis do we think that that's beneficial to the flies? Are we stopping them from interfering with Buddhist practice, which is very bad for them to do that? Is that why we're killing them? Now, on what basis can we... I think we've got a problem anyway. It's a matter of balance, but then it's... got a problem. My wife has no problem killing flies. Or ants. I can't... I don't like to kill ants. It doesn't seem... It doesn't seem necessary to me usually. So I don't kill ants or flies to speak of. I read this book about this guy who made friends with this one little fly, and... Now, the nice thing about it is he had one fly. If you had a house with one fly in it, you know, then you can make friends.

[32:47]

But the problem is, if you have several flies, you don't know which one's which, right? So what if one wants to be friendly and the other one's kind of not in the mood? It's kind of like... It's a little harder that way. So if you could sort of like get rid of all of them but one, and just say, this is my pet fly, and I'm going to start communing with this one, that would be a lot easier. But usually there's more than one. Unless you go someplace where there's no flies and one shows up to convert you. It's difficult. But still, it's a beautiful story, isn't it? To make friends with a fly. But that reminds me of something else. And that is, I remember one time I saw this movie about King Arthur. You know King Arthur? King Arthur had it. There was a certain point in his life when he was... He had this brilliant court, right, called... All these great knights, remember? And they did all this wonderful stuff. They made England a peaceful place. And then something happened to King Arthur. He got kind of wounded, psychologically or something.

[33:51]

His masculinity got damaged and he started to get sick. And the country started to fall apart. And then they had this... This quest for the grail. You know, to... basically to... cure his feminine, right? And one scene in this movie, he was walking around, he was kind of dressed as a beggar. And he wasn't exactly dressed as a beggar, but he was in such bad shape, he looked like a beggar. And he was walking along with some of his knights. I think he was walking with Sir Gwen and so on. And... He ran into this boy. This common boy. And somehow he asked the boy what he wanted to do with his life. And the boy said, I want to become a knight. And King Arthur kind of said, Well, what do you want to be a knight for, you know? I'm a... He didn't say I'm a knight. He said, I'm the king of the knights and that's really the pits.

[34:56]

Look at me. And the boy said, I want to become a knight because of the stories I've heard about knights. So, here we are in our kind of actual everyday life situation, where we have trouble not killing flies and so on, not killing other animals in order to live. But still, we may want to be a bodhisattva because of the beautiful stories of bodhisattvas that make friends with flies and bodhisattvas that make friends with other animals that are ordinarily considered to be pets. We still may dedicate our life to the story of a possibility of being friends with pests, of converting pests into friends, so we don't have to kill them. We still may want to go that way, even though right now we cannot figure out how to do it. So, some of us can say, well, I don't kill cockroaches, but I kill moles.

[35:57]

Other people say, well, I would never touch a mole, but I kill flies. Somebody else says, I don't kill either, but I eat meat. Somebody else says, I don't eat meat, and so on. Each of us has some problem area probably. But we still may be inspired to go towards and work towards the possibility of rendering service and providing and accommodating in whatever is beneficial to all these beings. We still may want to be that way. That still may be our true heart underneath and in the midst of all the encumbrances of daily life and the necessities of survival. I will provide them with all they need and serve them as though serving my parents, teachers, arhats, Tathagata, all equally without discrimination, so that I would serve each of you equally. And equal to you,

[36:59]

I would serve all these other beings. This is the ninth practice of the Bodhisattva's ninth paramita. To the sick, I will always be a good physician. To those who have lost their way, I will show them the right path. To the wanderers in darkness, I will light the light. And to the poor and needy, I will show the treasury. It is in these ways that a Bodhisattva should benefit all sentient beings without discrimination. Why? Because if a Bodhisattva accommodates sentient beings as such, she is then making sincere offerings to all Buddhas. If she respects and serves sentient beings,

[38:01]

she is paying respect and giving service to all probably Tathagatas. If she makes sentient beings happy, she is making the Tathagatas happy Why? If she makes sentient beings happy, she is making the Tathagatas happy. Why? Because the essence of Buddhahood consists in great compassion. Because of sentient beings, great compassion is aroused. Because of great compassion, the thought of enlightenment is aroused. Because of thought of enlightenment, the supreme Buddhahood is achieved. This is likened to a great tree in the wilderness of the desert. If its roots are well watered, it will flourish in full foliage, blossom and bear fruit abundantly. It is also so with the great Bodhi tree.

[39:04]

All sentient beings are its roots, and all the Bodhisattvas and Tathagatas are the flowers and fruits. If water of compassion is applied to sentient beings, the Bodhi tree will bear fruit of the Tathagata's wisdom. Why is this so? Because if Bodhisattvas can benefit humans with the water of compassion, she will most assuredly attain supreme enlightenment. Therefore, Bodhi belongs to sentient beings. Without them, no Bodhisattvas can achieve supreme Buddhahood. O noble-minded person, if you can help all sentient beings equally without discrimination, you will then consummate the full and perfect compassion. And with it, you will accommodate sentient beings. With which, if you accommodate sentient beings, you can make all Tathagatas happy and satisfied.

[40:11]

In this manner, Bodhisattvas should accommodate and embrace all sentient beings. This compassionate embracing will not cease until the realm of space is ended, the realm of beings is ended, the karmas, sorrows, passion desires are ended, thought after thought, without interruption, with bodily, vocal and mental deeds, without weariness or jadedness. So that's the ninth one. The next one is to dedicate, but I'm not going to talk about that today, that's a big one. Anyway, some other time. Yes? Is it possible to consider the individual consciousnesses, I consciousness and so forth, as being individual beings? Yes. How would it be helpful to do that? How is it helpful to do that?

[41:13]

Yeah. To consider them that way? Yes. Well, I'd rather not explain it, but I'll just tell you that that is a common... talking about saving sentient beings, you talk about all your experiences also as sentient beings. To think of benefiting, you know, your states of... the little parts of your states of consciousness too, that there are innumerable sentient beings in your own mind, in your own body. So that's another matter of balance. Taking care of this body, you're taking care of innumerable sentient beings in this body. Keeping this body healthy, you're doing that too. But it isn't just to say, well, I think there's zillions of sentient beings inside here, so I'll just take care of this body and forget about the other ones. You should take care of these and those, and your states of mind in that way too. So, anyway, whether you can understand that it's helpful or not to think of your own states

[42:13]

as sentient beings, in fact, that is the usual way to think, I mean, it's a traditional meditation. And it just seems to be beneficial to think of being beneficial in all directions at all times, in every direction at all times. Just always think of being beneficial to others. That's the practice. And there's no place that doesn't apply. Yes? Well, this is a very similar question. Excuse me. She had her hand there before and now it's up again, so let's let her go first, okay? She being Wendy. Well, when you were talking about the flies and cockroaches and everything, this came up at San Francisco Zen Center because there's lots of cockroaches. And I'm going to tell you a corny story first. When I lived in Southern California for a while, and I was working in this bookstore and it was really hot, and I was drinking some soda, and on the outside of the cup,

[43:17]

you know, there was all that condensation of water. And so I looked down and there was this little fly on the cup, and I could see whatever it is that it drinks with, and it was drinking little tiny drops of water on its cup. And I thought, oh, I mean, all this fly is doing is surviving. That's what I mean by being sort of corny, but I think about every creature is doing its job, and it irritates us. But, I mean, we're the ones who leave out the crumbs and the food and leave the tops off of things until cockroaches come. And somehow I think that that's part of it, that somehow we get irritated in a way because we're really not doing our job. We're sort of inviting all these irritations in a sense. So I just kept thinking, you know, what is the state of mind that does that and then

[44:18]

kills the cockroach? You know, and so I know I'm getting somewhere, but it just made me think about what karma is, and where do you start? And if all of us are waiting for somebody else to take care of inviting the creatures, then nothing will ever change. And the way I was thinking about this in terms of Zen Center is that if we wait because somebody else left a mess and we'll clean it up, then there'll be cockroaches, then we'll be irritated, and then we'll kill them. And not only that, we'll have all this irritation with all the people who have done this. So I just think, you know, it's really important when you think of killing something to think of how it got there. And somehow that it's just doing its job, you know, helps me to think that way. And that they're just living their minute lives even though you can't see them.

[45:20]

Janet? This goes back somewhat to Clutcher's question. In thinking about these small, almost invisible devils, or just presences, when I'm sitting in Zazen, there are some clear things that come to consciousness. And then there's a lot of business that's a bit like being in a stream and just having fish lunches in a lake. Something's going on, but it's hard to say just what it is. On the other hand, it seems important to acknowledge it. This is a question about balance, I guess. Even if you're not too clear, I mean, maybe just a touch of bad feeling or a touch of good feeling, just very subtle. And on the other hand, one doesn't want to develop the undo. And my particular problem is that if I acknowledge these points of what we call wisdom practice,

[46:32]

when sentient beings are there in front of you saying, help, you don't just sort of barely notice them. You actually serve them and accommodate them. You do take care of them with great respect. You serve them like the Buddha, okay? And that's a certain kind of practice called developing the great mind of compassion. But there is another kind of practice, and in the Zendo here, we emphasize that kind of practice when you're sitting, which is a little bit different. It's not to continue to apply your usual ways of thinking. In compassion, you can put to work your usual mind right now, but when we're sitting, we're trying to develop an actual revolution in our thinking. If you don't practice compassion, some people don't practice much compassion and still have

[47:37]

been able to enact, to realize a revolution in their thinking. But if you revolutionize your thinking, learn the backward-reverse type of thought, without compassion, it doesn't produce Buddhahood. It doesn't produce complete, perfect liberation for you and everyone, okay? It is possible to have wisdom, to have this reversal of that type of thinking, and to free yourself from your usual kinds of thought without compassion, but that's not Buddha. And also, compassion without wisdom is not Buddha either. So, you're touching upon the other part of my talk today, so I'll get into that now. And I'll start with Willie Mays. Willie Mays, people say, what's your secret, Willie? And he said, they pitch him, I hit him. They hit him, I catch him. That's insight practice.

[48:41]

It's not, they hit him and I sort of pay a little bit of attention to the flies in the stadium, or I pay attention to people eating popcorn in the stands. There's some awareness of that stuff, but you don't pay the least bit of attention to it. You simply concentrate on the ball, and you hit it. And when they hit you the ball, you don't pay any attention to the score, or the green field, or the blue sky, or your name, or a twinge in your toes, or birds nibbling on your elbow. You don't pay attention to anything but the ball, and you catch the ball. That's it. Okay? That's the effort of insight. That's not the effort of compassion. Compassion, you're totally distracted by all beings. Everybody calls you, you hear them, oh hello, hello, hello, hello. Okay? So you have to be clear about which practice is which, and how they help each other.

[49:46]

Without developing compassion, if you practice wisdom, it won't really produce the proper result. But again, if you practice compassion without wisdom, you will start abhorring sentient beings, and hating them, and becoming weak, and jaded. So, does that respond to what you're talking about, or do you still have something more than that? Well, it responds. And that's the ballpark. On the other hand, it's just always, I suppose, a question one needs to keep in one's mind, that it's possible to sit silently in a progressive way, and just push, just not admit states

[50:48]

as they arise. I mean, there are certain states of consciousness that persist from arising, no matter what you do. Yes. And there are others that are more shadowy because one isn't ready to recognize them. I would suggest to you that if you do these Bodhisattva practices, and you keep working on those, that those will... And then, when you said Zazen, if you can actually catch the ball when it hit it to you, and that's it, it doesn't mean that you don't have to worry about perhaps that you're just going crazy, and overlooking something. But usually, for a person to balance that, and actually do it effectively, they can't be repressing something too. If they're repressing, the energy and disturbance due to that repression will interfere with the actual efficiency of wisdom.

[51:49]

And you'll notice that they're not able to do the practice very well, because of the energy distraction around repression. And the active involvement and concern for other beings also helps, because it's not that you're not paying attention to anything else throughout your life. You're actually thinking. You're putting your thinking to work in a certain positive direction. It isn't that you just don't think at all. It's that when you do think, you think in a positive direction. And that also brings up lots of repressed stuff. So there is an arena, an emotional arena, where you can bring lots of emotions out and deal with them. There is an arena where you ask people to tell you how they feel about you, where you can feel the pain of your interactions with people. That is part of the practice. But there's another part of the practice where you just actually come down to, as we're

[52:54]

talking about, just hearing the herd. That's it. And if that was the only part of the practice, it would be hard for a lot of people to do it, to be successful, if we didn't have some other arena for it, to take care of these other things. So we need both of these things. Yes? There's that old story where someone asked Rinji if Haluki Teshvara has a thousand hands and each hand has an eye, which is the real one. Sounds like this situation. And also, one time I was mountain climbing. I went mountain climbing with Vanya in Austria, and when I first started climbing, I went with Jerry Fuller, too. They didn't tell me anything about how to climb the mountain. They didn't say, well, you do this, you do that, when you get to this, you do that. But as we got into deeper and deeper snow, and it got steeper and steeper and higher and

[53:57]

For example, they said, you know, stand up straight. When you're climbing up a mountain, there's some tendency to want to get close to it, you know? But that makes you slip, right? You're more stable if you're climbing like this, if you go up like this. But you don't want to go up like this because you feel like you're going to fall backwards down the hill. So you kind of want to lean forward like that. But if you lean forward, you turn more into like a slide. So you've got to walk actually straight up and down. But you don't feel so good to do that. But that's one of the things they taught me, that they told me to do. Because I did start to lean. I definitely didn't want to go this way. And then another thing they told me was, there was a pick, right? So you put the pick in and take a step. Put the pick in and take the step. It isn't that you take a step and then get the pick. It's not random. You put the stick in and take a step. And put the pick in and take a step.

[55:02]

When I was doing that, I realized that I really had to just concentrate on putting the stick in, put the pick in, take a step. Put the pick in, take a step. That was all I could do, really. And if I did anything else, I wouldn't survive, probably. However, at the same time, my mind did wander away for a moment. And I thought of my wife, who was down below. And she was running around in malls, right? Getting tickets to places and washing laundry and things like that. When you're up in the mountains, in some sense, you really have to just do this very simple thing. Pick in, step. Pick in, step. Stand up straight. That's it. But in a way, it's kind of juvenile to have such a simple life, to live that way.

[56:10]

And really, someone else has to be down washing laundry and buying train tickets and changing dollars into francs or something. But the two have to be blended, actually. You can't have one. You can't just be down in the world, just totally doing that stuff. You also have to have one step, one step, one step. It's the balance between these two that is what I value. One by itself is either childish or self-sacrificing or something. I don't know. So in a way, Willie Mays was, I think, his attitude was Zen.

[57:27]

I'd like the blue jays to be quiet for a while now, please. The sixth ancestor said, if you don't think, then your nature is empty. If you do think, then you will change yourself. So again, one side of our practice is to think. And when you think, you change yourself. If you think in certain ways, you will change yourself. You will go downhill. You will become more and more depressed. And I'm happy if you think one way. If you think another way, you will become happier and uplift yourself. So half the practice of something is to think and change yourself because of the way you think. The other half of the practice is to not think

[58:36]

and not change yourself, but just simply be empty. So we do these two parts of practice. One part is thinking, buying tickets, washing clothes. The other part of the practice is not to think. It's just simply pick, step, pick, step. That's it. Two sides of practice. And the Zen that we have been taught in America has, I think, leaned pretty strongly over onto the pick, step side and has been relatively unsuccessful because it hasn't pointed out the context in which that pick, step happens. Namely, the pick, step practice occurs in the environment of a certain type of thinking which these ten practices are demonstrating. It occurs in an environment that's dealing with

[59:37]

some real life problems like, do you kill this or not? Do you clean this or not? Again, to emphasize the practice of wisdom, I'd like to take again that early Buddhism. And the Buddha taught, he said, you should train yourself thus. In the scene, there will be just the scene. In the heard, there will be just the heard. In the reflected, there will be just the reflected. In the cogitated, just the cogitated. These four things, scene, heard,

[60:41]

reflected and cogitated are the four major categories of sensory or sense experience. These are conceptual categories. In a way, he's forecasting the teaching of Vasubandhu of what we call just concept or just concept or mere concept, concept only. Ordinary people, when they hear the heard, when they relate to the concept of the heard or the concept of the scene, they get involved with it. They bring a self to it

[61:42]

or they impute a self to it. They say it's substantial or they feel that something is seeing it or something is hearing it. This is the first type of response to this process. This is the vast majority of human beings who see in this way. The next category is a person who trains in this instruction. That he gave. So you could say it's a person who's training in Vijnaptimatra. A person who's training in mere concept. That person, when they hear the heard, when they hear, they train. When they hear, they train. They practice at just hearing. When they see, they practice at just seeing.

[62:46]

When they reflect, they practice at just reflecting. And when they cogitate or when there's cogitation, they just practice at cogitation. They train at it. This is called training in Vijnaptimatra. That's where we're at, most of us. Some of us haven't even quite started the training but you have started because the class, there's three levels of training. The first level of training, again, in Sanskrit, Shrupta is the first level. Again, like Shravaka, listening. The first level is to listen, to learn the instructions. The instructions are, in the seen, there's just the seen. You're hearing that instruction. You're learning that instruction. That's the beginning of training

[63:48]

in the practice of mere concept. You're hearing the instruction, in the seen, there's just the seen. I just saw Tia, you know, her dark figure against the garden, you know. And I could practice a little bit, I could train a little bit of just seeing this dark outline against the light background. Just that. Almost not knowing who she was. I can hardly see her face. Not even hardly seeing Tia yet. And certainly no emotional reactions or not even knowing that there really is anything there. Almost like it's maybe just a phantom. Training at that a little bit. Yes?

[64:55]

Yesterday you spent some time on the difference between percept and concept. Yeah. Why isn't it just mere percept? Why is it just concept? Because at the level of percept, okay, we do not know. You don't... At the level of percept, the basic sense data from which we make up the concept, there... the... the... the... what do you say? Yeah, the... the knowing is weak and indistinct. And because... and be... Yes? No, but you said as you saw Tia's figure, you weren't saying, that's Tia sitting... Right. Right, but that's not sensory experience. That's concept too. I had the concept of that shape. It wasn't... I wasn't... that wasn't a direct sense experience.

[65:56]

I was talking about that. You see, when it's just the level of perception, of sense perception, because there's not knowledge, okay, because there's not knowledge, there's not the sense of self. Which is fine. No problem. Okay? That level is going on. That level is not the problem in our life. The problem is when we get up to concept level. And then when we get to concept level, we add something, we... we add self, we impute some substance to that concept. Or we have a substantial self right next to the concept. But actually, it's a substantial self next to a concept that's substantial because it gets... the substantial self projects onto everything we see. Your questioning about this right now

[67:00]

is the next level of the practice of training, and that is to question back and forth, to reflect on what the instruction means, to think about it. It's called cinta. Cintamaya prajna. Srutamaya prajna. To reflect on the teaching, to have an understanding by reflecting on your various thoughts. And the final part is what we call bhavanamaya. When you do the practice, it actually... you become it. You become mere concept. So the first level of relating to concept is what most people do, and that is concept, self. Concept is at the level of knowing, and there's self-clinging, which is then a substantial self is projected onto the concept. Next level is training and trying to see if you can just let the concept be as concept. Just let the thing be by itself.

[68:00]

Just be at the level of they pitch him, I hit him. They hit him, I catch him. Just like that. Just be like Willie Mays, when a concept comes, just hit it. When a concept comes, just catch it. Not the slightest bit additional activity. In other words, in relationship to these objects, to these concepts, no thought activity in relationship to them. Just concept. No activity of thought around it. Stick the pick in. Take a step. Stick in. Step. Just like that. The slightest bit of distraction, you fall a thousand feet. That kind of concentration on just the concept. This is not the perceptual level. However, the perceptual level is what's fueling the concept in the first place, and the concept dives. After we can tune in

[69:01]

just to the concept, we dive back into the realm of perception. So it's a circular, it's a cyclic process that makes our life full. So three levels, or maybe four levels. One is first concept, as most people relate to it, namely concept and self-cleaning or self-imputation. Second is concept, and there's still some self in the neighborhood, but you're training at cutting away any substantiating activity around the concept. You're training at trying to just let the heard be the heard. You're training at having no objects of thought. The next level, next two levels, are when you have the state called vijnapti-matrata-siddhi. Siddhi means you're a master, or you accomplish the state of mere concept. In other words, you are just dealing with concepts.

[70:02]

That's it. There's no self-cleaning around there anymore. That's the way it really is, but you actually attain that state. You attain the state where there's no monkeying around things anymore. There's no activities around the objects. There's just the objects. Just the objects. Buddha does not deny that there's objects, does not deny there's concepts, just denies that there's some substance to them, that there's some self around them, or that there's some additional activity around them. There's just the concept. So the third stage is you actually attain that state called vijnapti-matrata-siddhi. In other words, you're an enlightened disciple of the Buddha. And the fourth stage is a Buddha, which is the same as the third stage. Namely, attainment of the state of mere concept, attainment of the state of just in the herd

[71:06]

is the herd. In the scene is just the scene. Notice the word just or only. As in Shikantaza, just sitting. You're sitting. You're not having, you're having direct physical experience while you're sitting, but you do not know the direct experience of sitting when you're sitting. This is not on the level of knowledge. On the level of knowledge, what you're aware of is concepts, concepts of body, concepts of breath, concepts of the felt and the seen and the heard. Dogen's practice is that you just have, just have the body there. That's it. No substance to it. Attributed. So Buddha says, dear disciples, please train yourself thus. This is a training he's giving. Training in Vijnaptimatra to sitting. Training in Vijnaptimatra.

[72:08]

Training in mere concept until someday you accomplish it, which is Vijnaptimatra to sitting. Mastery of mere concept. Mastery of just the heard being the heard. So, I would guess that now that we are in, together, the process of training in

[73:08]

just concept. We are in the process of training in wisdom. Training in Buddha's teaching. And there's considerable discussion, I feel, necessary, still, in order to understand how to, how to do the training. And that's part of the reason why we have this practice in Soto Zen called Memitsu no Kafu. Minute attention to details. So that each detail is like sticking a pick into the snow. You have to give your attention just to that pick. If you don't get it into the snow, you'll slip and fall. Each thing you do, you know,

[74:11]

opening your, for the priest, open your bowing claw. That's the pick. You have to do just that. You don't have time to think about your uncle. When we open our bowls, when we sit on our cushions, when we bow to our place, each thing we give our complete attention to. And only to that. As an exercise in training in the mere concept of this thing. So minute in attention to detail that there's no self to cling there. And as we train, there's still room for these little devils to sneak in around the edge of everything. But as we get more and more accomplished in the training, there's nothing around anything. There's no

[75:12]

mental activity around objects. I see Brian, that's it. I see Tia, that's it. I see Tia so much, after a while, I don't even know it's Tia. I just see black against white. I see Tia. If I see someone, if I see,

[76:16]

what I see when I see someone, I see a concept. And if I think there's, and then if I think there's something there, if I have time to do more than just see, and put a little bit more on there, then greed, hate and delusion can crop up. If I get down close enough to the bone of my conceptual life, there's no self-clinging, then greed, hate and delusion have no place to get a hold. So this wisdom practice is to cut deeply down to the bone of your conceptual experience until you arrive just at

[77:19]

mere concept, so that the mind terminates in mere concept. So we will train ourselves in having the mind terminate in mere concept in the context of great vows of compassion. Understanding that this kind of radical reversal of the way we usually think, this radical simplicity of mind is necessary in order to accomplish these compassionate, compassionate vows. And also that these compassionate vows are necessary

[78:26]

in order to clear away obstructions and give us the energy to clearly see just the scene, to clearly see just the concept, to clearly feel the pain. By intention, inquiry and theory

[79:31]

in that place, will you have a blessed way to your own state of mind? BUDDHO JINSEKANJAN OM MANI PADME HUM BUDDHADURJO JISEKANJU DEENS ARE ENDLESS I BOW TO WAITING WITH THEM DILUSIONS ARE INEXHAUSTIBLE I BOW TO END THEM DHARMA GATES ARE ENDLESS

[80:35]

I BOW TO ENTER THEM WORLD TO ME IS UNSURPASSABLE I BOW TO BE CONDEMNED WORLD TO ME IS UNSURPASSABLE

[80:50]

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