As you may remember yesterday people recited a short and essential teaching from the sutra. In English it is clearly observe the dharma of the king of dharma. Clearly observe the dharma of the queen of dharma. The dharma of the queen of dharma is thus. And we heard it in Chinese, the original Chinese. Swedish, German, Italian, and Greek. So this is the teaching of thus, the teaching of thusness, the teaching of suchness, the teaching like this.

[01:13]

And we are told that this has been transmitted to us already. this teaching, this Dharma, if we maintain it, we vow that if we maintain it, the great earth and all living beings will attain the Buddha way. So we live on a great earth with many living beings and there's a possibility that if we take care of this teaching, all beings will realize the Buddha way. The Buddha way is all-pervasive, but if we look at the world, it looks like it has not been realized by many beings. It looks like the earth has not fully realized this teaching. So we need to arouse ourselves to see if we are willing to work

[02:32]

to realize this teaching so that more and more people will realize it and there will be peace and harmony. Great compassion over the land. And the first case of the Book of Serenity, uses this quote from the sutra. And it says, one day the world honored one, the Buddha, ascended the seat. And Manjur Sri, the great Bodhisattva, struck the gavel and said clearly observe the dharma of the king of dharma the dharma of the king of dharmas thus and then the Buddha got down from the seat

[03:56]

And then there's a poem celebrating this case. And the poem in English translation, the unique, the one breeze of reality. Do you see it? The mother principle, or some people might translate it, it says mother principle, but it's translated by some as creation. The mother principle is constantly working her loom, this is imagined as a vertical loom, and a shuttle. Creation is working the loom and the shuttle.

[05:09]

incorporating the patterns of spring into the ancient brocade. This is a poem celebrating the sutra's teaching, the teaching of this sutra. This is now a little philosophy of the sutra. philosophy of the sutra is for psychological beings like us and for spiritual beings like us. So the philosophy of the school is sometimes talked about as the four dharma realms, four dharma datus. The first is the realm of the upright, the fundamental, the universal. All things have the same nature.

[06:16]

All things are ungraspable, insubstantial, have no what is called inherent existence. This is the principle of all phenomena. All phenomena exist only depending on things other than themselves no phenomena exist depending on themselves they only depend on other things for their apparent existence in other words they're insubstantial they are vast and ungraspable and you could say wonderful that's And the phenomena are these insubstantial things. All the experiences, all the individual experiences of our life.

[07:23]

So the first realm is the fundamental universal applying to everything. And the other is the particular. That's the second. The third realm is that the universal, the fundamental, interpenetrates with the phenomenal. Or you could say form, I mean emptiness, interpenetrates with form and feeling and perception and emotions and conception and awareness. All those individual phenomena interpenetrate with the principle of insubstantiality, of the oneness, all the differences, interpenetrate with the sameness.

[08:26]

And this interpenetration has no obstruction. universal truth is not obstructed in the individual and the individual does not obstruct the universal. That's the third realm. And the fourth realm, which is most complex and difficult to believe, is that the phenomena also interpenetrate with no obstruction. That's the fourth realm. Many people say to me, you know, I find practice quite beneficial to myself, but I don't understand how it helps other people.

[09:33]

So this fourth Dharma realm is saying that if you do something, if you practice in a way that's beneficial to yourself, that's exactly the way it's beneficial to others. Your tears of compassion for other beings penetrates them all with no hindrance. And their suffering, their tears, penetrate you with no suffering. The kindnesses you do are exactly the kindnesses you're doing for all beings. Every kind act penetrates all beings everywhere. And

[10:44]

It penetrates all suffering beings, it penetrates all kind beings, it penetrates all cruel beings. The way you take care of yourself takes care of beings who are kind and beings who are cruel. The way you take care of your tears suffering beings is the way you take care of those suffering beings who might not be crying or the way you take care of your laughter is the way you take care of people who are crying it's not exactly that your laughter takes care of people but your laughter penetrates all beings and their suffering penetrates your laughter

[11:46]

So the aspects of our life, like pain and pleasure and blue and green, green interpenetrates with the whole universe without obstruction. But now I'm talking about practicing with green. I'm talking about practicing compassion. That also completely penetrates all other beings. This is very difficult to understand and believe, but this is what the sutra is saying. If you take good care of yourself, that's exactly the way you take care of beings who you can't see, who are far away. On the other hand, the way you don't take care of yourself is the way you don't take care of others. If you're unkind to yourself,

[12:51]

that's the way, that's exactly the way you're being unkind to beings all over the world. If you're impatient with yourself, that's the way you're impatient, that's the way you're teaching beings all over the world to be impatient. If you're impatient with others, that's the way you're teaching others to be impatient all over the world. So for me, this teaching is saying it's really important that I take care of the things right in front of me because it has such unlimited penetration. And similarly, it's very important that I don't do unskillful things. because it has so much consequence, not just for me, but for the whole planet.

[13:56]

This is the philosophy of the sutra. This is the fourth Dhammadhatu. Every phenomena interpenetrates with all other ones without hindrance. So you may have questions about that. It's difficult to understand, it's so complex. Yeah. So, back to the loom and the shuttle. Pardon? I can't hear you louder, please. Oh, a loom is like for weaving. We have horizontal looms also now, but they used to have vertical looms with these vertical threads, and then you have a shuttle that you weave into the threads.

[15:13]

So what the reality is doing is that it's weaving the current situation into the brocade. So we have this long brocade of cause and effect of the universe. And we're now incorporating today into that pattern. And that's the particular being woven into the universal. Oh, I forgot one line. The last line is, nothing can be done about Manjushri's leaking. So Manjushri, the Buddha sat and showed this, but Manjushri thought, people are not understanding, so I'm going to tell them to observe this, this teacher.

[16:16]

But the teacher already showed, this inner penetration of the universal and the particular. The Buddha demonstrates that all the time. But sometimes Manjushri thinks, people don't see it, so I'm going to tell them. It kind of, it's kind of an outflow. He wants them to get it. He's trying to get them to get the teaching, so he points. It's a little bit of a problem. And I'd like now to, for the time being, set this first case, the first case of the great Zen collection, which is quoting the Sutra, and move to the third case of this Zen collection in the Book of Serenity.

[17:20]

And the name of the case is... I think the name of the case is... The Eastern King of India. But it might also be... Anyway, it's about Bodhidharma's teacher. Bodhidharma supposedly was born in India and went to China. And his teacher was born in India and did not go to China. And his teacher's name was Prajnatara. which I think it means wisdom jewel, prajna jewel. And his teacher, like many Buddhist teachers, was invited to visit a king, or in this case a king of East India.

[18:24]

And oftentimes monks or teachers would be invited to come to people's house and then they would give teachings or recite scriptures in the house and then they get lunch to pay them for their services. And the king says to Prajnapara, who I guess did not recite scriptures, the king says, why don't you recite scriptures? And Prajnatara says, this poor wayfarer, you know the wayfarer, somebody who's going along the way, the Buddha way, this poor wayfarer, when breathing in, does not abide in the realms of body and mind.

[19:25]

When breathing out, does not get entangled in in myriad circumstances. This is another way to say, this monk, when breathing in, doesn't turn away or touch feelings, emotions, perceptions, colors, sounds, smells. I don't dwell on them. Turning away and touching is dwelling. And then breathing out, I don't get entangled, I don't indulge in them. And he says, this sutra, while breathing in, not dwelling, and while breathing out, not getting entangled, this sutra, I recite hundreds, thousands, millions of scrolls.

[20:30]

which reminds me of Bank's sutra, which is, how much should I study sutras? Over and over again, how much should I study sutras? Prajnatara's short sutra, this sutra says, Prajnatara's short sutra includes not just this huge Abhattamsaka sutra, but it includes infinite, scriptures. That simple statement. And the simple statement, how much should I study scriptures? That statement, that question contains unlimited teachings. Which is again the unhindered inner penetration of all phenomena. Now this teaching of Prajnatara, this scripture that Prajnatara recites, he didn't say, he's also practicing.

[21:39]

So he's reciting a scripture, which is he's reciting a description of his practice. So the description of his practice is a scripture. What's his practice? Basically, it's to settle into where he's sitting. So this practice is a scripture about how to settle onto your seat and sit in the presence of Buddha and in at your seat with the Buddha, enter the samadhi and maintain the Buddha Dharma so that the great earth and all living beings attain the Buddha way. So again, I'm suggesting that it's not me suggesting it, but I'm telling you, I kind of believe this.

[22:42]

I'm betting on this. What am I betting on? I'm betting on what we're doing here. This loving assembly, this room full of goodwill and appreciation and respect. This is penetrating the whole world. We're not just doing this so we get to be here and enjoy each other. The way you're taking care of yourself, the way you're taking care of each other, is not only having unlimited expansion, but unhindered. And the rest of the world is also penetrating us here right now. So we cry and we cry and tears flow because we are affected by the whole universe.

[23:48]

But what we're doing here might be something really good but it's not just for us. We come here to help each other help the whole universe. This is the proposal of this school. What school? The flower adornment school. What school? The Zen school. All over Japan and now in the West, all over Korea and China, there are beautiful Zen temples. But those temples aren't just for the people in the temples or even the people who visit. Those temples are for the whole universe. And the people in those temples should, of course, not be attached to their temples. But their temples are so nice that they have adjustment problems if they have to move out of their temple. Or if their temple gets smashed by tidal waves, like in Japan.

[24:56]

Many temples were crushed by the tsunami. build it again, not just to have another temple, but to have a temple for the whole world. This is the bodhisattva mind, not abiding in anything, which also means not pushing anything away or holding on to anything. And we don't do this practice just to be a cool bodhisattva, which we will be, We do that because practicing the mind that doesn't abide pervades the whole universe. And we just keep doing the practice because as you see, even though it's pervading, because people have attachments, they don't realize it.

[26:00]

They don't realize what? That they are being pervaded by this bodhisattva mind. And again, The sutra says in chapter 37, the Buddha says, now I see that all living beings fully possess the wisdom and virtues of the Buddhas. I see that. They do. The Buddha sees that each of us fully possesses Buddha's wisdom and virtue. But Buddha also sees, but they don't realize it because they're holding on to things. and have misconceptions. For example, they have the misconception that what they do does not pervade the whole universe. So the Buddha needs to teach us how to let go of our misconceptions and how to let go of our attachments. But again, once again, if you can stand it, we're not going to let go of our misconceptions and attachments by disrespecting them.

[27:07]

by disliking them, by trying to get rid of them. We will become free of them by loving them, by sitting right in the middle of them with great compassion. And that is very hard. And yet, even though it's hard, somebody gives me some green tea. We are being supported to do this hard work. The whole world's making such a big effort to make us able to hear this teaching and practice it. So let's practice it. Since we're being asked to, it's being requested. And if you don't think so, just check. Would you like me to listen to you? Yes, thank you. Everything is calling to us and everything is listening to us.

[28:13]

And we are calling to everything. We are calling to everything that we're doing. We are calling for compassion. But are we listening? We need to learn to listen to everything calling us for compassion. According to the... teaching as I understand it. As I understand it, nothing's not calling for compassion. And even the beings who are free, they're calling for compassion, but not for themselves. They're calling us to be compassionate to those who are not yet awake. So the Buddhists say, come on guys, give compassion to everybody. Everybody. Respect everybody. No. Not him.

[29:14]

Not her. And not him. That's calling for compassion too. Not her. That's calling for compassion. Everything. So we have an expression in English which you may be familiar with, I rest my case. For the time being. Because I will be called to make it again.

[29:51]

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