January 24th, 2013, Serial No. 04041
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A great intensive meditation retreat. I mean, a published theme, which was something like, Entering Reality for the Wheel of the World. The wheel, in this case, is spelled W-E-A-L, which means the benefit of the world. It's from the entry into reality that the world is most effectively benefited. So we have been considering the possibility of entering reality The reality of all life is that it is dependently co-arisen, that it has a character of dependent co-arising.
[01:19]
And it also has a character of conceptual grasping. The conceptual grasping hides and distracts us from the reality of our life. And it also has a character or a nature which is the absence of conceptual clinging. The whole picture of these three characters is the picture of reality. Reality includes that reality can be obscured. In reality, There's a constant production of unreality, but also there's a constant freedom from unreality in reality. Dependent Core Rising also sponsors obscuration of itself, but it also sponsors freedom from obscuration.
[02:25]
This is a picture of reality, these three characteristics. The third characteristic called sometimes the reality pattern, that's not the whole of reality. That's what's called the, sometimes it's called the reality pattern, but it's also called the complete perfection, the pattern of complete perfection. Or complete happiness. Or, you know, complete practice. When you practice completely, you realize that things are free of your ideas of them. And then it's possible to abandon conceptual clinging and live in truth. One way of talking about how to enter
[03:30]
reality for the wheel of the world, one way that bodhisattvas enter reality is by means of sitting upright in the midst of a samadhi, an awareness, a concentration on self-enjoyment. This, when we sit or stand in this awareness, this awareness is what's called the Buddha mind seal or the Buddha seal or the Buddha mudra. It's that we're sitting with the awareness of reality. We're sitting with awareness
[04:34]
of the Dharmakaya Buddha. We say, you know, Dharmakaya Virochana Buddha, Virochana Dharmakaya Buddha. Virochana means infinite light or sometimes infinite light Buddha or sometimes we say great sun Buddha. The self-receiving and enjoying samadhi, the self-enjoyment samadhi, is the samadhi of the Buddha inwardly illuminating the nature of reality by the light of wisdom. This is the Buddha's enjoyment of the light of wisdom illuminating all the world.
[05:42]
This awareness is how we enter reality. There's another samadhi which is spoken of, which is the samadhi where the Buddha meditates on the light and emits the light outwardly to illuminate all beings. The inward illumination, the enjoyment of the inward illumination is called Jiju-yu Zammai, the self-receiving and enjoying samadhi. The other one is called Tadgyu Samadhi, the receiving and enjoying for others. This is talked about.
[06:48]
The Buddha's inward enjoyment of wisdom and outward expression of wisdom, but this Buddha is not separate from sentient beings, so sentient beings actually also can enter this samadhi, this concentration, and enjoy the light and emit the light through the concentration. The Buddha ancestors take care of the take care of the Dharma, they take care of the Buddha's teaching and the method they use to take care of it is this self-enjoyment samadhi. That's the way they take care of it, that's the way they enter it, that's the way they maintain it, that's the way they transmit it.
[07:51]
And all their actions fundamentally as sitting still in all actions. Sitting still in all actions, there is this self-receiving and employing samadhi. Herein, the practice and the enlightenment are synonyms. The practice is the enlightenment, the enlightenment is the practice. Herein, Buddha's ascension beings are not two. Herein, gain and loss are not two. Herein, birth and death are not two. There's no concern for gain in this samadhi. There's no fear of it, and there's no concern for loss or fear of it. This is the other dependent character.
[09:04]
This is the dependent core arising of the Buddha's mind, freed of conceptual clinging. And this wonderful samadhi is also free of any of our ideas about it, of course. As you may know there's quite a few stories about the activities of disciples of Buddha in China who are sometimes called Zen masters where they sound like they're behaving rather roughly with each other and with students.
[10:17]
One of these people who and I won't really tell you these stories of these rough stories, but one of the people who was well known for being kind of rough was named Lin Ji, or Rinzai. When students came to him, they would come and talk to him, and he would sometimes grab them and shake them, or just grab them, and then he would yell at them, speak, speak. And yeah, he would do things like that. And I won't tell you any more of the rough things he did, but he kind of like had these rough interactions with students. I suppose he was trying to help them wake up to the light of all phenomena, help them enter reality, help them enjoy
[11:24]
self-fulfillment. And sometimes he didn't really treat people roughly. Sometimes he talked in a rather normal way. For example, he once said to his people, if you want to be a Buddha ancestor or a Buddha or an ancestor, Do not seek outside. The pure light of your mind is nothing but the Dharmakaya Buddha. All of us have a mind. That's the end of the quotation. Now I'm saying all of us are a mind so we have the mind to contemplate and the light there the light in your mind that's the Dharmakaya Buddha.
[12:36]
By the way, then he said even a good thing is not as good as nothing. So the light of the Dharmakaya Buddha, it's pretty good. It's the way you enter reality. But it's not as good as the insubstantiality of the wonderful light. So you can abandon your idea of the light and enter reality more deeply. I'm going to say this over three times. by three different teachers. And then I'm going to say it a bunch more times by one teacher. So Yun Men said, all of you have light.
[13:48]
When you look at it, or look for it, in other words, when you seek for it outside, you don't see it. And it becomes dark and dim. What is your light? And then he said... the kitchen pantry, or we should say the walk-in. Have you ever been in there? Do you see the light? Maybe we'll have a tour there later and the light can be shown. What is the light?
[14:58]
The kitchen pantry, the main gate. And another, sort of not directly in the lineage leading to us, but an uncle of one of our ancestors, Wangshi Shogaku, he said, it emits a light. And the great thousand-fold world appears. Each and everything, without exception in this world, is nothing other than the realm of self-receiving and employing, self-enjoyment of the self. Everything in the world is self-receiving and employing. being focused on how everything is self-receiving and implying of the self, you will discover the light of all things.
[16:04]
So maybe back more than a thousand years ago in China, when the young man said, what is everybody's light? And then he said the kitchen pantry, the main gate. Maybe people back in those days didn't think that the main gate and the kitchen pantry were the Dharmakaya Buddha of their mind. Maybe they were one step away from a time where people knew that the mountains and the rivers and the grasses were the sacred entry point.
[17:30]
Now, we're quite educated here. We know that. We know that the garden and the mountains and the grasses and the trees, we know that they're singing the Dharma to us. And we enjoy it, which is fine. It's true. Your light is the toilets and the bathroom and the kitchen and the main gate. That's your light. And your light is the grasses and trees and mountains and the ocean and the sky. That's your light. All of that is yourself enjoying itself. But these days we're a few steps more away from that. And it's psychological things that people can't believe could be the opportunities for light.
[18:36]
I heard someone say, Compassion is hard to find here. And I gestured towards the person and I said, is the here you're referring to this here? And I don't know what the person said. They might have said no or yes or whatever. But then I said, is it like this here? Like in this room, is it hard to find compassion? And they said, no, it's just more kind of generally a gringo, just hard to find compassion. And then we get into, well, how come it's hard to find compassion?
[19:54]
Well, because I'm not worthy of it. So wherever I go, compassion backs away. Or even if compassion comes towards me, I push it away because I shouldn't be receiving it because I'm not worthy of it. how can we get to a place where the appearance of no compassion, the appearance of a bad person here, how can we take care of that?
[20:55]
And the person said, do you think this practice is good for people who who have a bad opinion of themselves? Who have a sense of self but they think it's a low quality self? Do you think this practice is good for them? Like the practice of the teaching of no self? Is that appropriate for somebody who has a bad self? Who thinks they have a bad self? Who has the thought This is a bad self. Is the teaching no self appropriate for them? But then we come back again to how can we be kind to this idea that this is not a good person? Because this idea has trouble accepting kindness towards itself.
[22:05]
And another person said to me that observing the practitioners of this Sangha, it looked sometimes like they weren't being kind to each other. They weren't being compassionate to each other. And even sometimes people who had been practicing a long time weren't being kind to each other. What can one do when one sees long-term practitioners not being compassionate to each other? What do we do? And I thought of Confucius saying, when you see virtue, emulate it, copy it. When you see non-virtue, look at yourself. But then I thought later, when you see virtue, look at yourself. And when you see non-virtue, look at yourself. Turn the light around and look into the light, not look into the light, look into the mind, which is judging this person as not being compassionate, as not being precious, as not being the enjoyment of yourself.
[24:01]
which is the light of Vairocana Dharmakaya Buddha. One day, the Zen teacher Dungshan was with one of his students and he saw some birds fighting very aggressively. And the student said, what's that about? And Dungsan said, that's for your benefit. That's for your benefit. All the unskillfulness we see outwardly and inwardly are opportunities for the self-enjoyment samadhi. to look at that mind which is judging and find and realize the light.
[25:13]
Don't look for the light. Don't try to find the light. Look at the judgment. Compassionately look at the judgment. Calm down with the judgment and discover the light in the judgment. So this is called Buddha's samadhi of judgment, the self-enjoyment, the judgment enjoyment. The judgment is your self and there's a light in it. This light will be obstructed if we're not kind to the judgments the judgments of self and the judgments of others. It's naturally obscured by conceptual clinging.
[26:17]
By being kind to it and understanding this teaching, we have the opportunity to realize the light in all of our judgments of ourself and others. And once again, we will not realize this light, this mysterious light, this ineffable, ungraspable radiance of our positive and negative judgments. We will not discover it unless we practice compassion towards the judgments. It seems to me that we have plenty of judgments. I see them all day long myself. I hear from other people that they see it all day long towards themselves and towards others.
[27:21]
And then they get excited or discouraged by the judgments. Particularly I hear about it when they're discouraged about the judgments about themselves or others. Like the examples I gave you. A person who felt, had judged himself badly, as bad, and couldn't find any compassion towards it. And even noticed that when compassion came towards him, he pushed it away because it wasn't appropriate because he's not worthy of it. Love made me welcome, but my soul drew back, guilty with dust and sin. But clear-eyed love, observing me grow slack from my first entry in, asked me if I lacked anything. A guest worthy to be here, I said.
[28:28]
And love sweetly said, know you not that you are she? That you are he? I? Guilty of all this badness? And dust and dirt? Yes, you. Okay. Then I will serve you, love. And love said, then you must sit and eat my meat. And I did. That just popped out of some place. we have to be kind to our pushing away kindness.
[29:39]
We have to be kind towards pushing away love. And when we offer kindness we need to be kind to people pushing away our love and saying that it isn't good enough or isn't good enough or isn't sincere or anyway they don't want it today or it's not really love, whatever. Love that I'm talking about is not like or dislike. It's not the opposite of dislike. It is, of course, generosity, ethics, and patience. So, I'm not worthy of love. Love, I see it coming. I shrink away from it. It says, what's the matter? I say, I'm not worthy of you. I offer it and the person says, your love's not worthy of me, etc.
[30:48]
All these judgments of how people are not doing as well as they should It's not that I'm saying it's untrue that they can't be more compassionate. When they're bickering and so on, when I'm judging that they're bickering, I'm not denying that there's a judgment of bickering. I'm just saying there is the mind. The judgment of bickering is the mind. There's a light in there. And that light is the light of Dharmakaya Buddha. Am I concentrating on the light? Am I concentrating... on entering reality? Or am I trying to fix the judgments of the world and to get everybody to be the way I think they should? And to get me to be the way I should? That way is going on. We have that. And then there's, okay, all right, I'll practice compassion towards whenever I see people being unkind or unskillful with each other, I'll practice compassion towards that appearance of unkindness.
[32:13]
And I'll understand I'm going to practice compassion towards my opinion of them first. My opinion of them is they're not being skillful with each other. I'm going to purchase compassion towards the judgment in my mind. The judgment in my mind is they're not precious and perfect, wonderful beings. That's my judgment. I will study that judgment. I'm studying that judgment to get ready to enter the light of Buddha's wisdom. I think I'm being compassionate. Wow. I think I wasn't compassionate.
[33:16]
Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I think I did try to be kind to this negative judgment towards others. I think I did try to be generous towards this negative judgment of myself. I think, yeah, I think I was kind towards my pushing away of love. Yeah. I think I wasn't. So there's judgment again about whether you're practicing compassion towards judgments. That will go on as far as I know. There's so many different patterns, but basically the judgments and the judgments about the judgments will go on. We're not trying to stop them. They are the mind. And that all those judgments, all those judgments that are the mind, there is a light. That mind of judgment has a light. It's called, let's see, what is it called?
[34:23]
It's called the Samadhi of the Light of Judgments. The Samadhi of the Light of Positive and Negative Judgments. This is not a put-down of the judgments. It's a recommendation to focus on the light of the judgments because judgments are mental constructions and they have a radiance. Everything does, even judgments of anything. There's no place this light does not reach. But if we're not kind to this judgment that something is terrible, we will not enter reality at that moment anyway. But if we are kind to the judgment of a terrible thing, we can enter the light, enter reality, and bring wheel to the world where there's judgments of terrible things.
[35:35]
We can benefit the world if we enter this samadhi. So the key thing is that you wish, that you would like, that you think it's a good idea that you wish to devote your life to respond with compassion, which means generosity, ethics, and patience towards whatever you wish to. And when the judgments come up that you're doing it or not doing it, you just let them be and practice compassion towards the judgments and stay on beam with the wish to practice compassion And no matter what judgments come up, no matter how bad you judge your compassion practice to be, you remember that's just a judgment which I practice compassion towards.
[36:36]
But my wish has not changed. And your wish to practice compassion so that you can enter the Buddha's wisdom and save the world, that your wish is unhindered. You wish your wish to be unhindered by these judgments of whether you or other people are practicing this. This wish is immediately freedom. This wish to practice the self-receiving and employing samadhi, is at that moment, it is freedom. It is realization. But as I said yesterday, that is not grasped by your consciousness. Although immediately realized at the moment that you wish to practice this, it doesn't necessarily appear to your perceptions like, oh my God, it is.
[37:44]
But it is. It is freedom. I had a great meeting with Timo's uncle last summer in Germany. His uncle is an expert on Kant. And his uncle's understanding of Kant is very much in accord with Buddhism. Kant says the, what is it, I think the English word is, is it called, what's it called? Is it called manifest destiny? Is that what it's called? Oh, it's called categorical imperative. We, fortunately or unfortunately, we are a category called human beings. And there's an imperative of being a human.
[38:52]
And the imperative is to practice compassion. If we don't practice it, things are going to go very painfully. And we're not going to enter Buddha's wisdom. We are obligated... by our human category to practice ethics, to practice generosity, and be patient with judgments. Honoring that, respecting that, and then wishing to practice it is immediately freedom. This is called the practical critique of pure reason. And then there's, to get more Buddhist about it, then there's what's called a theoretical critique of pure reason, which is that it is impossible to know the reality of freedom.
[40:09]
And no means no as in perception. Practically, there is a way of freedom. And theoretically, please note that you don't get to know it with perception. If you want to know with perception, you get to be sitting in the bleachers watching from a distance. If you want to enter freedom, you need to respect compassion and ethics and want to practice them. That will be freedom immediately. But you don't get to know it. You don't get to grasp it. And the reason you don't is because it's impossible. But you get to enjoy it.
[41:11]
And actually everything is already your enjoyment of this light. But of course that will not be available, you will be hindered from that enjoyment unless you're kind to everything. And as we know, it's hard to be kind to everything. As a matter of fact, some people say, it's hard for me to find compassion here. And also I look out there and I see that they're having trouble finding it too. So these are the opportunities. It's so wonderful. All these opportunities. All these people who are appearing as living in stress. and appearing to meet other people who are in stress, and me who appears to have stress. All these opportunities for compassion. And all the compassion happens here. Here is the place to practice compassion.
[42:16]
Here is where the way unfolds. Here, right now when I'm looking at somebody and thinking that they're unskillful, here is the place. Right now when I'm looking at people who are being kind to me or unkind to me, I should say, who I judge, here is the place. Here the way unfolds. Right here when I'm not being kind to myself, when I'm thinking I'm worthless, here is the place. Here the way unfolds. The boundaries of reality are not necessarily distinct. And the realization of this comes with the mastery of Buddha Dharma. And the mastery of Buddha Dharma comes with being kind to what's happening and wishing to be kind to what's happening is realizing it. Yeah, so if somebody tells me that people in this temple are being cruel to each other, I might say, you know, well, you know, you should have seen him before.
[43:44]
Or if somebody tells me, you know, that they're no good, I might try to talk them out of it. You're fabulous, you're beautiful. And also, I want this person to see the light, the light. I want them to be kind to their inferiority complex. I want them to be kind to their judgment of other people as inferior. I want them to be kind to their judgment of themselves as superior. And I want them to be kind to their judgment of other people as superior. So that they will just enter the light. Enter reality. And I... Yeah, so I just think there's a great opportunity here.
[44:59]
There's a great opportunity here where it's hard to find compassion here. And it's a great opportunity here where there's abundant compassion. Every here is where the way unfolds. Every here is a place to practice compassion and look at the light of the mind without seeking it, without seeking it. Just realize the light is there. It's just waiting to show itself as soon as we stop moving. As soon as we stop trying to get anything, it will say, oh, you're not trying to get anything. Well, I think it's time to show you the truth. Like Kafka says, the world will take its mask off and roll in ecstasy before us.
[46:27]
It probably would be good for my nervous system to play video games, but I haven't been able to get around to it. But I watched some other people play them, particularly my darling grandson. And I remember I went to a restaurant with somebody A long time ago, when video games were just starting, and watched this program called Pac-Man, which has this guy named Mario in it. Is that right? No? Anyway, there was a video game with a guy named Mario. And he was running on horizontal lines back across the screen. He was eating something. And that was the point of the game, to get Mario to eat everybody. And I just thought, you know, we're like that.
[48:01]
You know, we have the opportunity to eat all these judgments, you know, positive judgment, negative judgment, to eat them, you know, to enjoy them, to open our mouth and eat the meat of these minds that are appearing. Eat them, eat them, eat them. Eat them and turn them into light. There's so many opportunities. Don't just sit there and say, oh, that's not too good. Eat it. Because if you don't eat it, then you get another one. It's not too good. Right? Oh, wow. That's another one. You see this not good person or these not good people. If you miss the chance of eating it, then you'll just pop off another one, and then another one, another one. Eat each one. Sit and eat them.
[49:04]
Turn, and they'll turn into light. Seems like that. I just think that there's this great potential to just eat your mind into light. it does turn into light. It turns into warmth if you eat it. But if you resist it, it's like, you know, it seems to push you all over the place and confuse you. So it's like looking for the light or looking for a better mind that's confusing. But just eat the one you have, even though it looks not too tasty. See? Sit up straight. You're a big girl and a big boy. Okay, it's time to eat. Just because this is what's being served. Eat what's being served. You can digest it, really. Because it's your mind.
[50:09]
You can digest your mind. It's yours. The mind can digest itself and turn into radiance. But if it pushes away, it just produces more, and there's more darkness. That's a good song that Hank Williams wrote. I couldn't hear you. What did you say? Frank Williams? No. I thought it was Hank. You think it's Frank? Mario Williams.
[51:12]
Yeah, Hank Williams did not know how to eat his lover. His lover didn't eat him, wouldn't eat him, found him disgusting, and he found his lover disgusting. He didn't say, oh, thank you for thinking everything I do is an evil scheme. Oh, wonderful. Oh, how wonderful that those memories you have from your lonesome past, make us so far apart. Oh, how wonderful that the one I want to be with is so far apart from me. Yum, yum, [...] yum. He's calling out for what he wants and not practicing it. Oh, what a great song. I vow to save Hank Williams and Frank Williams.
[52:52]
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