At this temple we're in the middle of a three-week period which we call the January Intensive. And the theme of the teachings for this intensive were named Avalokiteshvara's Perfect Wisdom. Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. Bodhisattva is a being who, a being who, or it's the A bodhisattva is a being who aspires to perfect wisdom for the benefit of all beings.

[01:01]

But you could also say a bodhisattva is when that aspiration actually becomes, starts to become alive, fully alive, then we have a bodhisattva. a human being who has that wish in her heart, the wish to realize perfect wisdom in order to benefit beings is not necessarily a bodhisattva. But if a human being were to take care of that wish, to remember it, and to remember it, and remember it, and And when forgetting it, would notice it and feel sorrow about forgetting such a wish, forgetting the aspiration, and then wish it again.

[02:06]

By that process, the bodhisattva spirit comes to live and, in a sense, take over the human being. And the human being, in a sense, becomes a vessel for this bodhisattva. And one of the bodhisattvas is called Avalokiteshvara. And that bodhisattva in particular is sort of the ensign or the banner of perfect compassion. The bodhisattva practices perfect wisdom, but this bodhisattva also is called the bodhisattva of universal compassion. When this bodhisattva is depicted as a human being, in India originally, it was depicted as a male human.

[03:09]

In China, maybe around the 5th century, would you say, female forms, female depictions of Avalokiteshvara started to appear in China. And then, maybe in the sixth century, new male forms started to appear, new male forms of Avalokiteshvara, new male forms of the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion. And one of the forms is called Bodhidharma, the founder of the Zen school. So the Zen school's founder is one of the depictions, one of the embodiments of this spirit of great compassion. A spirit of great compassion which practices compassion

[04:10]

I hesitate to say and, but anyway, compassion in the context of also practicing perfect wisdom or practicing perfect wisdom in the context of great compassion. They will practice together. So we've been looking at the teachings about this practice of perfect wisdom of this great compassionate being. not just in this intensive, but for the history of Zen Center, this Zen Center, and for more than a thousand years in Asia and now in the West, almost every day in places called Zen temples and many other temples too, the practitioners contemplate the practice of Avalokiteshvara. And the practice of Avalokiteshvara, again, is the practice of perfect wisdom within great compassion.

[05:27]

So in this temple, almost every morning, we say, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. When practicing deeply the perfection of wisdom, We say that day after day when Avalokiteshvara is deeply practicing prajnaparamita or is practicing the deep prajnaparamita. She saw that form is emptiness, that feeling is emptiness, that all emotions are emptiness, that all ideas are emptiness, that all forms of consciousness are emptiness.

[06:36]

And thus, in this vision, relieved all suffering and distress. Or, when seeing that form is emptiness, all suffering and distress is relieved. By this wisdom, all suffering and distress is relieved. We say that. We contemplate that. Avalokiteshvara is also contemplating that teaching. And we go on to say that Avalokiteshvara says, form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. What is emptiness? Well, emptiness is form.

[07:44]

And form is emptiness. We contemplate that. Avalokiteshvara sees that and contemplates that. We contemplate it. Avalokiteshvara contemplates it. We contemplate. Colors are emptiness. Sounds are emptiness. Tastes are emptiness. Smells are emptiness. Tangibles are emptiness. Also eyes are emptiness. Ears are emptiness. Sense of touch is emptiness. Form is emptiness. And when we see that, when we not only contemplate it, but see that with our wisdom eye, in that vision, all suffering and distress is relieved.

[08:56]

I heard the founder of Zen Center, Suzuki Roshi, one time said, emptiness is disciplined form. Emptiness is disciplined colors. Emptiness is disciplined blue and red. Emptiness is disciplined feelings. Emptiness is disciplined... He didn't say all that. He just said emptiness is disciplined form. I'm expanding. Emptiness is disciplined pain. Emptiness is disciplined pleasure. Emptiness is disciplined neutral sensation. In our consciousness, It might be that a color blue would appear.

[10:12]

It might be that pain would appear. It might be that pleasure would appear. For me, those kinds of things do appear in consciousness. In the place where I am is consciousness. Where there's a me, that's consciousness. And in that place, in that In that mind where I am, colors appear, pain appears, pleasure appears. If that pain is disciplined, that pain realizes emptiness. And that emptiness of the pain liberates all suffering and distress with that pain. and pleasure. If that pleasure is disciplined, its emptiness, the way it's empty of any self is realized and suffering in relationship to the pleasure is liberated.

[11:25]

Avalokiteshvara and all the Zen Bodhisattva masters teach and practice how to discipline pain and pleasure and colors and touches. They teach and practice it. This is their favorite thing because this is the realization of emptiness and this is the relief of suffering. And during this intensive, we've been talking about how to discipline form, how to discipline colors, how to discipline sounds, how to discipline fear, how to discipline envy, jealousy, anger, lust, confusion,

[12:42]

self-righteousness. Anything that appears, if it's disciplined, it becomes ultimate truth. And in that, liberation is realized. You might be wondering, well, how do you discipline this stuff? Well, I'll give a few examples. When a sound appears, when a sound is heard, the discipline is to not take it lightly and not give it weight. Avalokiteshvara, you know, the Chinese translated Avalokiteshvara in three main ways.

[13:58]

One way is they translated Avalokiteshvara as kanji zai, which means listening, no, excuse me, which means contemplating, self-existence. Another way they translate it, Avalokiteshvara, is kanzeon, which means contemplating the world sounds or the sounds of the world. Another way is kanan, contemplating the sounds. Avalokiteshvara listens to the sounds of all living beings. She also listens to the sound of avalanches and the surf and lightning. And when she hears a cry, when she listens to a cry, I say, when she listens to a cry, she disciplines the sound of that cry.

[15:09]

She practices disciplining that cry. She does not give it weight. She does not take it lightly. She listens to it wholeheartedly. As it is, she doesn't have to add any weight to it. If it's an extreme pain, she doesn't add weight to extreme pain. If it's a medium-sized pain, she doesn't add weight to a medium-sized pain. And if it's a little tiny pain, she doesn't add any weight to a little tiny pain. For example, she doesn't add weight to a little, well, for example, she doesn't add weight to a little tiny pain by saying, that's nothing. I have a lot more pain than that. In a way, that adds to the to the little tiny pain. You add to it by putting it down. But also she doesn't add to it by giving it weight. No pain does she add to it.

[16:16]

The perfect wisdom training doesn't add to the pain. It doesn't subtract from the pain. In this way you become more and more adept at every listening. You become more and more intimate with every color and every sound. When the ears, the listening does not give weight to the sound or take it lightly. The eyes do not give weight to the colors nor take them lightly. And in this way we become intimate with the form. And there we see its profound truth. And in that vision, suffering is relieved.

[17:22]

And then again with everything else, when confusion appears, we don't, we listen to it. We look at it when we're practicing the way of perfect wisdom. We listen, but we don't give it weight and we don't take it lightly. when we're practicing. When we do give it weight and we don't get it light, then we are distracted from that practice and we may notice and say we're sorry and try again. Color is emptiness. Pain is emptiness.

[18:35]

They're not the least bit different. You can distinguish between them, but they're not different. If you become intimate with a color, you become intimate with its ultimate truth. If you become intimate with a sound, you become intimate with its ultimate truth, you become intimate with freedom from suffering at that moment of that form. But not just you. All suffering and distress is released at that time in that way. However, some beings are not realizing this because they are not disciplining, for example, form. They might be giving weight to a color, and in giving weight to a color, they're not enjoying the freedom from suffering which is being realized together with them at that moment.

[19:51]

But all suffering is being released, relieved, and released. But if beings do not discipline the appearances in their mind, they don't realize this opportunity. Today I wore this would you call this brown robe? Is it a brown robe? And I just reached up here to get this corner here and I noticed that it had started to fall down and I'm tucking it in again. More than once, when I'm wearing this robe, I, more than once, this robe has fallen off my shoulder. More than once I put it back.

[21:03]

More than once after I put it back it fell again. And so on. This robe has fallen off me thousands of times. And this is not the only robe I have. I have other robes too that have also fallen off me thousands of times. And when they fall off, I put them back. Usually. I confess to you that sometimes I think how nice it would be to have a robe that didn't fall off. That you put it on and it just stays on you. And people come to me actually, Since I've been doing this for a long time, I've been wearing, not this robe, but I've been wearing these robes for more than 44 years.

[22:05]

So sometimes people who have recently started wearing them come to me and say, is there some way to wear this so it doesn't fall off? And I usually say, I don't think so. So now I would say to such a person, the emptiness of this brown robe is the discipline of it, or the discipline with it, the discipline with the tactile sensation. The discipline is the path to freedom from suffering. if you would get a robe that you could put on and just stay there and you didn't have to discipline it, then it would just be a tactile opportunity.

[23:11]

And there would be stress and suffering because you're not disciplining it. And not disciplining it means you take it, you give it weight, or you take it lightly. Giving it weight is What, you know, feeling like this is a little bit too much trouble. Or I don't care, just let it fall down. Who cares? I don't care about that robe. Every day, over and over. Not a thousand times a day, but maybe some people. More like a hundred times a day. If you have a day-long retreat, a hundred times a day this thing falls. And not only does it fall, but then also this part here that you put, the part you put over your legs keeps moving and sliding. And this part here that you fold up over here keeps falling down and over.

[24:17]

And your arm comes over here and I pull my right arm over here and it pulls this over like that. Couldn't we just get a kind of outfit, you just put it on like a Superman outfit and just skin tight and you never have to adjust it again? Or even like the football players now, they don't have sleeves on their shirts anymore so nobody can grab them. If we were naked, you know, then it would be like we wouldn't have any problems anymore. This robe is like what I would call medium-level difficulty. I have some other ones which fold in a somewhat different way, and they don't fall down as much.

[25:23]

And I have some that are like just, you know... I confess, when I wear them sometimes for some ceremonies, I've had the jisha... put a safety pin to hold them up. Because they are like, you know, they're just overwhelmingly out of control. You know, in this robe, the most overwhelming robe is the heaviest and the slipperiest. and it has the most complicated sewing. And so it's very difficult to wear that robe and accept how much discipline it needs to not give—it's very heavy—and to not give it weight when it falls.

[26:27]

and to not take it lightly, that it falls. And to put it back without giving it weight or taking it lightly. It's right on the edge of overwhelming. So I had this heroic thought this morning. I thought, I'm going to start wearing that robe more. just to see if I can meet the call for discipline. To some of you it might not be amazing to think that there's a being who who's really highly developed in compassion and who never misses an opportunity to hear the cries of living beings.

[27:36]

Somebody who always listens when somebody cries. But I'm saying today, yes, that is possible. But she doesn't just listen. She doesn't just listen openly. She also doesn't give weight or take lightly what she hears. This is a very challenging practice. Just listening is hard, but to find this balance in this ongoing discipline, it's not like once, there it is, I heard a sound, I saw a color, And I didn't give it weight, and I didn't take it lightly, and emptiness was realized, and suffering was relieved. It's not like once and that's it. It's the next moment again. And again. To keep realizing freedom from suffering, moment after moment, with what?

[28:43]

With sounds and colors. and feelings. They're coming. They're coming. And when they come, we project upon them a story. We project upon them a form. And we think this form we project upon them is them. When sounds come, the way we know them is by our story about them. Like this sound is more important, this pun is really important, this sound's not. So when a sound comes and we say this is an important sound, can we treat that not giving it weight and not taking it lightly? And when a sound comes that we have the story this is not an important sound, can we treat it the same way.

[29:46]

And I would say, yes we can learn that, but it's hard. The story we have about the sound is not the sound. The sound is emptiness. The sound is ultimate truth. It's not my story about the sound. It's the way the sound is completely free of my story of the sound. This is an important sound. That's my story. The sound is free of my story. You say, this is not an important sound. The sound is free of your story. The sound is free of what we think it is. The sound is ultimate truth. If we discipline this sound, we let go of our story about it. which is that it's a form or a feeling. And when we let go of our story, we see the truth of it, which was there all along, but our story obscured it.

[30:51]

If we discipline the story, the truth appears. What time is it? Ten to eleven. Form is emptiness. Pain is emptiness. Pleasure is emptiness. They're the same thing. You can talk about them and distinguish between them, but they're the same thing. Pain is emptiness, which means pain is liberatable. Another thing we talk about sometimes is the world of suffering and the world of freedom from suffering.

[32:03]

The world of suffering is sometimes called samsara. The world of freedom from suffering is called nirvana sometimes. Nirvana is freedom from suffering. Nirvana is peace. Samsara is peace. suffering. And again these two worlds, these two ways of life are not different. The world of suffering is the world of freedom from suffering. The world of freedom from suffering is the world of suffering. I say to you If there was a freedom from suffering that was different from suffering, that would not really be freedom from suffering. The real freedom from suffering is not different from suffering.

[33:08]

That's the real, that's the true Avalokiteshvara freedom from suffering. That's true peace. It's a peace which is not the slightest bit separate from all the suffering beings. Where I am right now, where you are together right now with me, we are together and we are together at the place where the world of suffering meets the world of freedom from suffering. That's where we live all day long. We don't live in the realm of the freedom of suffering, separate from the realm of suffering. We do not live in the realm of peace. We also do not live in the realm of war and suffering and fear.

[34:11]

We don't live there. We live together where they meet. That's where we live. We live where suffering's not the least bit away from us and where peace is not the least bit away from us. That's where we live. And that's the place where we realize and understand suffering, because it's right here. And that's the place where we realize and understand freedom from suffering, because it's right here. How do we realize freedom from suffering? By not leaning towards it, by not leaning away from it. How do we realize freedom from suffering? By not leaning into suffering and not leaning away from it.

[35:11]

This is another way to discipline the suffering we hear and the suffering we see. We observe all the suffering beings and we observe them without leaning away from them. That makes sense, right? A compassionate being wouldn't lean away from suffering, would she? Right? But she doesn't lean into them either. She is intimate with them, and intimate with them she also doesn't lean in to try to control them. She's not trying to control them. She's giving up trying to control them. She's listening to them, she's observing them, she's disciplining, not them, She's disciplining her hearing, her seeing.

[36:29]

And disciplining her hearing and seeing, her eyes and ears become clear and sharp. And she saves the beings that she's contemplating, not controlling them, liberating them, and showing them how to practice. Of course, it's hard not to lean away from suffering beings that you see, and lean away from your own pain. It's hard not to sometimes try to lean away from it. If you could look down on me right now, you'd find my face well illuminated. There's lights up there. Somebody said to me, you know, there's lights above you when you give your talks and it makes your eyes look really dark. You should change the lighting. Do my eyes look dark?

[37:37]

Yeah, sorry. Yours don't look so dark because you're not so lighted. So, yeah, it's understandable that we might want to lean away from suffering, lean away from pain, lean away from fear, and so on. It's understandable. And anyway, we do it. Sometimes. And leaning into, I don't know if that's understandable, but, you know, trying to fix it, trying to control it. It's understandable. But leaning into suffering, of course, is more suffering. And leaning away from suffering is more suffering. And it's not discipline, it's just habit.

[38:39]

It's just impulse. It's not discipline. But if you notice some leaning, that leaning can be disciplined. If you see yourself leaning, if you see yourself wallowing in your suffering, wallow, wallow, wallow, suffering. If you see that, don't give that weight and don't take it lightly. Wallowings, you know, makes it worse. Got suffering? Then wallow. It gets, generally speaking, or anyway, I don't know if generally speaking, it might make it worse to wallow in it. But you can recover by disciplining the wallowing. And the avoidance too. You can discipline the avoidance. Mostly I do this with myself, not with you. If I see you wallowing or avoiding, I don't discipline you. I discipline my vision of you wallowing or avoiding.

[39:43]

Now, some people also want to wallow in peace. Wallowing in peace is suffering. Avoiding peace is also suffering. So if freedom and peace should arise, we practice the same way with that that we practice with various forms of bondage and suffering. Does that make sense? Same practice for both dimensions of our life. The freedom which is always here, the bondage which is always here, until nobody knows how to do bondage anymore. If there ever came the case that everybody was fully disciplined, then we'd just have freedom. But that's not the situation yet, don't worry. So here we are, I propose, sitting together where freedom and peace are totally inseparable and our job is to live here without indulging in this either side or avoiding either side.

[41:03]

And we can actually, and I say we are, it seems to me, I don't know, I'll take away actually, it seems to me that we can notice when we're leaning. When we're actually not leaning, when we're realizing freedom by not leaning towards it or away from it, at that time we may not be able to notice that we're free, but we are. and we are at peace. And we are. But we don't necessarily think, I'm at peace. Some people don't like that. They say, I would like to be at peace plus know that I'm at peace. I would like to be free of suffering plus know I'm free of suffering. I would like to be free of worry plus know I'm free of worry. And that might be possible, but if you had to choose between the two, of knowing that you're free or being free, which would you choose?

[42:12]

Because, again, by the way, knowing that you're free might be a distraction from being free. That might be giving freedom some weight or taking it lightly. So now it's probably 11 o'clock. I see the kitchen workers leaving to go to the kitchen and deal with tactile things and sounds and smells and colors and of course, and knives and fire. So they have the opportunity to go in the kitchen and not take those things lightly and not give them weight. and realize the truth in the kitchen. I was going to say that I have this dream.

[43:59]

And the dream is that I said enough about this today and you kind of understand what I said. And part of my dream is you might think, like I do, that the practice I just told you about, of how to discipline form, in order and thereby realize emptiness that you might think and I might think that this is a challenging practice. So I have this dream that you understood me pretty well and you also understood that this is kind of a challenging practice. And in my dream I'm not sure you want to do this practice. My dream does not have that part colored in about whether you want to do it. It just has the part colored in that you understand me pretty well. or you understand what I said pretty well. And then when I thought, when I dreamt that I had a dream, I remembered Martin Luther King saying that he had a dream.

[45:13]

And if I could just briefly mention that I have a dream about him. And it is that he said he had a dream. And I also have a dream about him that he was listening to the cries of the world and that he was observing sentient living beings. I have a dream that he was doing that. And as he was listening, his listening became disciplined. When he first started listening, I think he gave weight to what he heard or took lightly what he heard to some extent. But he kept listening and kept observing, and I think his listening and observing became more and more disciplined.

[46:25]

I have a dream that he became more and more upright as he listened and as he observed. And that his listening not only became more disciplined, that he became more able to see the suffering and not give weight to it, and hear the suffering and not give weight to it, and also not to take lightly. But that his hearing and his observing broadened, broadened beyond the African Americans in the southern part of the United States, more and more encompass the whole world of suffering. That's my dream about him. And that his discipline developed and developed.

[47:26]

And that he finally came to see freedom in that observation. and he expressed himself from that place of realizing emptiness. I have a dream that when he first started listening he thought he had to do more than listen and observe and discipline his listening and observing, had something more than that. And some people may think he did more than that, and you can talk to me and question and answer if you think he did more than that. But I have a dream that by listening and observing a field of blessing was created.

[48:33]

That a great blessing came from his setting the example of listening and observing. And I would also say that listening and observing, that seeing suffering and injustice, and disciplining your vision is non-violence. The non-violent way of looking at the world of suffering is to discipline your observation and to show that the non-violent observation of the world, where you do not give it weight or take it lightly, that that non-violent listening to the cries creates an ocean of blessing

[49:38]

How that happens, I do not know. I'm just saying that is the teaching of Avalokiteshvara. And I think Martin Luther learned that practice and did that practice, and through that practice great blessings are coming, have come and are coming. How that works, he did not know. Avalokiteshvara does not know. Bodhidharma does not know. And they say, I don't know. And they don't. But even so, Do you want to know or do you want to realize it? He realized. He realized it. It means that practice realized it. And other people joined that practice, and other people are joining that practice.

[50:42]

I have a dream that you're joining this practice, that you're joining the practice of nonviolence, of nonviolently observing the suffering of the world. And that way of observing I had a dream that that somehow manifests blessings. May our intention equally extend to it.

[51:18]

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