And the title of this course is Zen Meditation as Bodhisattva Vow. And the word bodhisattva is a word that was, I think, perhaps originally used to refer to the life of Shakyamuni Buddha prior to his becoming the Buddha, or a Buddha. So there's this historical person or we say that there's this historical person who lived in India and he had, according to him, according to himself, he had a long life prior, or rather, the person who realized this state called Buddhahood said that he had many lives

[01:28]

or rather that he has many lives. He had many lives means, I would say it means that the person who became Buddha depended on many past lives. He wasn't those people. I mean, just like you are not the person you were when you were a teenager, and you are not the person you were You are not the person who was a teenager. You are not the person who was a little child, who was an infant. However, there were teenage persons and infant persons who your existence depends on. They aren't they aren't you, you aren't them, you weren't them, they aren't you now, and yet you depend on these past persons, these past living beings.

[02:42]

I would say that. And that my understanding would be that Shakyamuni Buddha would say that his appearance as a Buddha and his career of teaching dependent on past persons, many past persons, but a particular, a special causal connection between a lot of past persons. And then the Buddha, the 35-year-old Buddha who starts teaching, and the 65-year-old and 75-year-old and 80-year-old Buddha who's teaching, those Buddhas depend on a bunch of past Buddhas. Close, intimate causal relationship with them But he's not any of them and they're not him. But he depends on them. And all beings. So prior to realizing Buddhahood, all those past lives, he called them the Bodhisattva.

[03:49]

The Bodhisattva so-and-so. And he might have conventionally said, when I was a bodhisattva, I took this form and that form. So that's one meaning of bodhisattva is basically a person who's in a process of evolving towards realizing Buddhahood. Etymologically bodhisattva means, bodhi means awakening and sattva means being. So another meaning of bodhisattva is a form of being. Sometimes people say a form of being whose essence is awakening. And you could say, you could think of that as a form of being who has this essence of awakening or whose essence is the process of awakening. Their essence is that they're in this process of awakening.

[04:50]

But you could also think that their essence is awakening. I mean, that they kind of like have this awakened essence, but also that this awakening is a process. So they have a process essence. And that this kind of being is the kind of being that's evolving towards more and more awakening. And the awakening is not the awakening of one person. And the process of evolving towards the awakening of not just one person, is also not a process of one person. It's a process of realizing the awakening of all beings. It's a process of realizing the awakening of all beings, and it's a process of all beings realizing the awakening of all beings.

[05:57]

So it isn't like one of us or several of us possess this bodhisattva, this bodhi being, that we have it by ourselves. But it is that kind of being in our life that's involved in the process of all beings waking up. And, yeah. That's the bodhisattva. Or that's, instead of the bodhisattva, that's bodhisattva. That's bodhi being. In a sense, the Buddha then, becoming Buddha, is no longer a bodhisattva. the Buddha or Buddha is no longer, in a sense, evolving.

[07:10]

It is just awakening itself. However, it is the, yeah, it is, yeah, it is, it's not really evolving. It's kind of the way everybody is related every moment. And the way everybody is related every moment, in a sense, isn't evolving. It's just always that way. But there is an evolutionary process of realizing it. So that makes, in a sense, that makes Buddha sound a little static. Yeah, it's like a state and the causal basis for beings evolving towards this realization and it's a causal basis for people, beings becoming free of

[08:19]

being asleep and believing that being asleep is the truth or being deluded and it's the source of waking up from being deluded. Enlightenment or Buddha is. So that's kind of abstract, I guess. And bodhisattva vow is then the vow of this bodhisattva, of these beings, or this being. So it can be beings, or it is a kind of being which can be beings, in the sense that it can get hooked into an individual being. an individual person can be entered or can enter this form of being.

[09:29]

In that sense we would say that's a particular bodhisattva. And these bodhisattvas, according to the tradition of the bodhisattvas, They have intentions, like other living beings do, and they also have vows. So what's the difference between a vow and an intention? We've been having lots of classes here on intention. Intention is the definition of karma. So normally in our life, moment by moment, in each moment, we usually have an intention. So I would guess, probably, that each of us right now has the intention to be in this room.

[10:35]

And although there may be some element in our attention that would like to leave the room, Most of us that are staying are staying because there's the intention to stay at least until about 9.15. So a vow, you could also say I vow to stay until 9.15 or I vow to come to the classes in this series. But that could also be I have the intention to come. So intention and vow are kind of similar. So in that way it sounds like intention and vow would be possible definitions for karma. But we don't usually say the definition of karma is vow.

[11:39]

We say, I have intention to go to this class or I have intention to go to sleep tonight. I have intention to have breakfast. We don't usually say, I have the vow to have breakfast. But you might say, I have the vow to come to this class. And intentions involve, therefore intention and vows don't have a real black and white line between them because intention could also be a wish and intention could be an aspiration and intention could be a prayer and intention could take the form of worship and you can intend to worship And you could worship in a sense of, you know, I honor this form of being.

[13:02]

I wish to become this form of being. I aspire to be this form of being. I worship this state of being. I worship this way of life. I honor this way of life. I pay homage to this way of life. I align myself with this way of life. So vow and these could all be called intentions or they could be called vows. Did I say prayer? Yeah. I pray that such and such would happen. I pray that you're well. I pray that we can continue to find a way of peace and harmony among all beings. I intend to work for that, I aspire to work for that, I aspire to give my life for that, I vow to give my life for that. So I think at this point it seems to me that there's a field of possibility there between intention, which is a definition of karma, and vow, which is not usually used as a definition of karma.

[14:15]

both vows and vowing and intentions or actions and karma, they are both said to be conditions for the arising of worlds of existence. Again, this is maybe kind of abstract. I'll just say a little bit more, and that is that I haven't so often heard the tradition saying that spiritual realms of peace and harmony are born of karma. They're usually said to be born of these vows. So vows a little bit tend to be used, you could say, for those forms of being which are particularly conducive to peace and harmony, although those forms and beings also contribute to worlds where beings are suffering.

[15:34]

They kind of join with the worlds where beings are suffering. And again, I just commented this, that I feel like I'm being a little abstract. Maybe that's enough of that. and come back to it later. So I'll say this. There is sometimes the language of speaking of a problem of birth and death.

[16:44]

Birth and death is the East Asian way of referring to what in India was called samsara. Samsara means going around. And it means going around between birth and death and also between different states of being. Samsara. And it's the world that arises in dependence on karma, which is the same as it's a world that arises in dependence on ignorance. And it's a world where there seems to be misery. This is paired with another world, another way of life called Nirvana, which is not a world of birth and death, but a world of peace and harmony.

[18:04]

And they're often taught to be very intimate and inseparable. and that understanding samsara, one enters and realizes nirvana. In East Asia, samsara was named birth and death. So they used the character for birth and death to refer to samsara. And so samsara, or birth and death, is sometimes said to be the problem of the problem that the Buddhas are concerned with, the problem of birth and death. And that there's many, many beings involved in birth and death. Many, many parents involved in the birth of their children. and many, many beings involved in the death of people they care about.

[19:11]

And this birth and death process is one that many, many beings seem to be very keen on and more or less struggling with. So all these beings in some sense form a great ocean of being that's involved in birth and death. So many beings live in this realm called birth and death or samsara and are confronted with various problems and challenges. So some people might say that coming from the East Asian tradition of Buddhism that there's one way of looking at this problem is that it's something that you enter into because of a mistake or some mistakes. Mistakes of past action, of karma. And that's how you wind up with other beings

[20:18]

in the realm of samsara because of mistakes, because of karmic accumulation. That you're in the world of suffering because of your past intentions, but you didn't necessarily intend to be in the world of birth and death. but you intended something and as a result of your intentions you're in a world of birth and death. And there's teachings for people who are kind of like looking at birth and death that way. There's teachings to help them under those circumstances. But another way to look at it is that you're not in birth and death forget about not, that you are in birth and death because you intended to be in birth and death.

[21:35]

Not that you intended to be in heaven, but actually heaven, in a sense, is part of birth and death. Not that you intended to be some great comfortable place. Not that you intended to be a Buddha, although you may have. but even along with intending to be a Buddha, you intended to be in birth and death. And you are in birth and death, but you intended or you intend to be in birth and death. Although you may sometimes in the past not intended to be in birth and death, sometimes in the past, or at least maybe now, you do intend to be in birth and death. And intending to be in birth and death, not in a masochistic sense, but in a joyful sense, you wish to be in the world of birth and death because

[22:43]

you really think that being in birth and death is going to be a great opportunity and that there's something to find here which is incomparably marvelous and wonderful and can only be found in birth and death and can only be found by wanting to be in birth and death for the realization of that. And that's more the life of vow. That's a way of using the word vow which is somewhat different than the word intention. You don't want to be in the world of turbulence and And what do you call it?

[23:49]

Attachment testing just for the pain of it. You wish to be in it in order to realize freedom from attachment right in the middle of the world which is born of attachment. And I guess almost everyone, as far as I know, can only get into the world of birth and death by at least a little bit of attachment. You have to, to some extent, give rise to a mind of attachment to get into the world, which is the result, for most people, mostly of attachment. But still, the part of you that's here because you wish to be here for the wonderful thing that can be realized here. That's more the way we use the word vow rather than just intention or mental activity.

[24:54]

And the bodhi being, the bodhisattva, this being which is actually, it's basically the being of awakening. It wants to live in birth and death. Its desire is to live in birth and death for the sake of its essence, awakening. So it's living in birth and death for the purpose of awakening, and of course not personal awakening, but universal awakening, which is the only kind that the bodhisattva is interested in. All the bodhisattva is interested in all beings who are interested in other types of enlightenment. So if somebody has a different kind of enlightenment they're interested in, that person is as interesting to the bodhisattva as people who would like to have everybody be more deluded All beings are part of this process of awakening and part of the misery of birth and death.

[26:07]

And bodhisattvas vow to live there and live there by vow, by that wish. And when bodhisattvas forget that, you could say, well, at that moment they're not bodhisattvas anymore. or a person who forgets this in some sense, has forgotten about being a bodhisattva or forgotten about the bodhisattva. They're temporarily distracted from this bodhisattva way of being. And Zen meditation, Zen practice, is basically about this vow and how to take care of it and let it work, this bodhisattva, this bodhi being, this awakening form of being in the world of beings who are, because of other kinds of intentions, somewhat closed to this bodhi being.

[27:16]

But the bodhisattva wants to live with all the beings who are open and not open to this bodhi being and open or not open to the vow to live here in every possible state of misery. So that's kind of That's a little bit about that. And so I just, I guess in this class, I'll just be going over many different ways of talking about how bodhisattvas basically dive into and play in the world of suffering and help other beings join the playing in the world that they're already in. We're already here so we might as well be friends. We might as well be friends with all the people who are here since we're here.

[28:18]

And then work that until it's like fully realized among everybody. And that those who want to do that are are those who are letting this bodhisattva work in them and zens about this process, you could say. Which includes studying all the beings who are not yet open to this process. All those beings who are still kind of maybe thinking, okay, here I am in birth and death and I'm going to do this for me. Beings like that bodhisattvas are totally into and devoted to those beings who are not like themselves and wish those beings to open to the wonder of the world of misery that they're trying to control. And one other thing is that the bodhisattva's wish or their compassion concerning individual people is that they wish beings to open up to this bodhisattva way of being

[29:29]

but they're not caught by the distinction between the way the person is now and what they hope for the person. So they see this person seems to be closed right now to the bodhisattva and I wish them to open and the way they are now and being open is two different things and I can discriminate between them but I'm not caught by the discrimination so I fully appreciate the person the way they are now and if it takes them eons to open I'm perfectly happy to hold their hand the whole time and not be the slightest bit impatient because I'm not caught by the distinction. And I'm perfectly willing to live with them moment by moment, again and again, joyfully plunging into the world where they're not making any progress. This is the bodhisattva, has that kind of attitude.

[30:31]

Okay, I see some... Jerry had her hand raised. Yes? Well, just trying to absorb. Yeah, trying to open to this. And you made it clear, but the idea, the difference between a being, a living being, is just happens to be here. They're in the world of birth and death. Living beings live... All of them are. Living beings live in the world of birth and death. But then a person who makes a vow is in the world of birth and death in a different way. Or not. In other words, you're present in birth and death. You're studying form, the form of it, and to form, to study form that could awaken Yes, yes. How it really is. Yes, great. So that's the person who is a bodhisattva living that life.

[31:35]

Well, this is a really good question. It's kind of, I'm going to get a little kind of comment on it. The person who's living in birth and death and who's, did you say studied? Yeah. The person who's living in birth and death and studying them is actually involved in the process of awakening. They actually are, because if they study this carefully, they will become more and more awake. However, that person who is in birth and death and studying this way still may not have yet reached the place where they are joyfully in birth and death to study. But they may be doing the same work that someone who was in birth and death in order to study the one who joyfully chooses to be in this area which has all these problems, which they can study. They're happily in there, and they're studying it too. But somebody else could be there and is doing the same study, basically, but not felt like they actually have chosen and continue to choose to be here.

[32:42]

That would be some difference between those two people who are studying. Someone who's actually making a vow. Yeah. About to... Now is the difference. Yeah, that's the difference. It's a level of awareness already, in a way. Yeah. And it probably depends on past beings who have studied quite a bit already, who now give rise to somebody who wishes to be in this difficult study situation, joyfully wishing to be here, knowing that... Studying here offers opportunities that studying in nirvana, you can still study in nirvana in a way, but it offers opportunities that nirvana doesn't offer. It develops things that nirvana doesn't, in a sense, offer. It's hard to think of patience in nirvana, patience in peace and harmony.

[33:47]

It's like, well... Yeah, well, fine. But what about patience in samsara? Oh, yeah, let's go there. Because we need some patience exercise. And that's how bodhisattvas can encourage people who live in samsara with them to start studying even prior to actually being happy about the study projects. Some people feel like, oh, okay, I can see that I need to pay attention to my karma, otherwise things are going to get really bad for me and everybody I care about. I can see that. Okay, I'll do it. But would I actually sign up for this if I didn't have to? If I could get out of this, would I... actually come back here? And some people think, well, let me get out of here. I'll check and let you know later if I would come back. Some people actually just want to get out of here or just want to solve the problem of birth and death.

[34:50]

Philosophically. Philosophically and psychologically and... beingly, but they don't yet feel like, I would like to be here and actually postpone my thorough understanding of this until everybody else is on board of the study program, and I'm happy, I'm really happy to do that. I'm being driven by the happiness of that, of everybody else studying is more important to me than me studying, although I I will study because I want to help everybody else study. So I'm actually going to get good at studying to help them. And I must have actually probably studied a lot in the past to be this interested in this whole project. But right now anyway, other people joining the study even prior to having this vow that I have, I'm happy to do. So that's a little bit different. That's the Bodhi being that feels this way.

[35:54]

Whereas it's possible to not have the Bodhi being but have some other pretty high quality state of being which wishes to study and attain liberation. And that's reasonable. If you do study, you actually will attain liberation on some level. There's different levels of liberation. And if you study this way, it will be kind of like a personal liberation. And bodhisattvas totally want to help people like that. And there's other people who do not wish to study at all. They want to help those people too. And they want to live in the world with all those people who are involved in birth and death around all those issues. Yes. Nancy. Even though you might not be joyfully studying this time around, what you are doing could give rise to the future.

[36:59]

Correct. Correct. Yeah, so if you're not up for these bodhisattva vows, you'll see some bodhisattva vows articulated in various ways other than the way I just said. You might say, well, I can't yet say I'm that way. And then I often would say to people, well, would you like to learn to be that way? And they'd say, oh, yeah. I'm not really the way that I wish primarily to work for the liberation of all beings. I'm not really there yet. Would you like to learn to be there? I mean, I could I can see that. But even if you weren't that far along, even whatever... That's right. Actually, whatever level you're on, you're actually in this process. And the way you're actually in this process is the bodhisattva. But the way some people are in this process is that they themselves are not consciously enjoying their bodhisattva nature.

[38:06]

They do not actually feel, or some people don't feel any enlightenment process going on, and some people feel an enlightenment process going on, but they do not yet feel the enlightenment process of wishing to be in misery because of the wonders that can be accomplished there that cannot be accomplished other places. They wish to be with all suffering beings rather than just with some. Like, okay, I'll be with my kids, that's it. Well, that's still pretty good, but some people don't want to be with anybody, of course, so that's a form of being which is they're not aware of this joyful plunging into life with all beings. They're not aware of that. And if you tell them about problems, they kind of say, I don't want any problems. Leave me alone. Whereas bodhisattvas, even if they say, I don't want any problems, they simultaneously are diving into the person who doesn't want to have problems and joyfully being, hey, I get to be a person who doesn't want to have any problems today.

[39:12]

This is great. But actually, I think everybody is in the same process, but some people are just not yet aware. But they're actually in the same process. Deborah? Since you're in the birth and death cycle of samsara, how do you know what there is to study in your life? Since one is in birth and death, what? How do you know what? How do you know what there is to learn in nirvana? Nirvana, I kind of... What do I say? Nirvana, there's not much to learn in nirvana. Nirvana is just like a very big encouraging situation. Like you're very at peace.

[40:14]

You understand samsara. for what it is. You're very happy, you know, and there's not that much to learn. You sort of have to leave nirvana and go back to samsara to learn some more. And bodhisattvas go to nirvana and come back into samsara, and go to nirvana and come back to samsara. Round and round. They do that, but they don't really hang out in nirvana. There's not much you can learn there. And also, I say they don't hang out there because they realize that nirvana is always right there with samsara. So when they're in nirvana, they just keep plunging back into samsara, but then they plunge back into samsara joyfully and they realize nirvana again. Their attitude and understanding of samsara keeps realizing nirvana. So they actually go round and round. Rather than birth and death, they go samsara, birth and death, samsara, birth and death. How is that different from the state of enlightenment?

[41:23]

Nirvana is kind of the result of enlightenment. It's a state which is a result of waking up. It's a... Yeah. Mm-hmm. When you understand your relationship with beings, you enter nirvana. Waking up to your relationship with beings is enlightenment, and the result is nirvana. But that's not the same as being a Buddha. Because you can be enlightened and go back into samsara and develop your enlightenment on more challenges of suffering beings and more challenges of beings who have various levels of practice. And testing your enlightenment on different types of practitioners who are at different points. And some people have no problem with people who are at this level, but they do have a problem with people who are at that level. Like some people have no problem teaching pre-school, but they really have problems with teenagers.

[42:31]

Or some people do well with teenagers, but they have problems with preschoolers. Different people have different challenges. The bodhisattva is going to do all the different grades, and that's what makes the Buddha. Any other feedback? Yes. I think bodhisattva cannot make intentional decision, although it looks like it makes it. You can make a decision or study and say, OK, I want to take the vow. Whether I'm ready or not, I just want to dive into it. If the karma is the karmic connection with them, you know, the way you were explaining, it seems like they don't have any other choice, you know? Is there life? Is it ending there? Yeah.

[43:32]

Yeah. So the spirit of awakening, in some sense, is a spirit which understands that decisions are not made by an individual. Just like they understand their whole life is not an individual life, separate from other individuals they also understand their decisions are not made separate from other individuals even though decisions the appearance of decisions arises but then they're happy because first of all they're joyfully willing to enter the realm where people think that decisions are made independently of other people. They're happy to live there with all the people who think that they're making decisions by themselves. And all those people are suffering because they think that way. And the bodhisattvas are happily living with them in that realm. And they're

[44:33]

their wish to live with them they understand at some point in their development they understand they don't decide that either all the people who think that they make decisions by themselves draw the bodhisattva into the decision which they don't make by themselves and they understand that so in that way they're joyful about their decisions because they feel lifted up by all beings and pushed down by all beings Isn't it true that the intention, you can change your intention, but you can't change the vow. It's like the one-way path. You just start and then you're in it. You said, isn't that true? And my feeling was, you can say that, what you just said. That's enough that you said that. You don't have to make it into truth.

[45:34]

You can just say that. And also, when you said you can change your intention but you can't change your vow, according to what we were saying before, you don't change your intention by yourself and you don't change your vow by yourself. If I have a vow X or vow blah-de-blah and then new people show up, then I have a new vow. And then if you go away, I have another vow. So I don't make my vows by myself, and I don't make my intentions by myself. Understanding that is part of what the bodhisattvas get rewarded with. Or those who understand that are more able to dive into the world with all beings. But they don't dive in by themselves, they dive in because of their understanding. In a sense, there's no choice. When you understand that somebody is your friend, you have no choice but to relate to them in certain ways.

[46:37]

But it can look like a choice. So we don't deny choice. We just open up the understanding of how choice happens. So we don't deny birth and death and misery. We just open up the awareness of how birth and death and misery appear and disappear. And that comes through study, and then the bodhisattva is somehow to wish to do that study, happily be willing to do this study. Yes? Is the Bodhisattva vow the opposite of living for kind of the illusory self? Is the Bodhisattva vow... It's not really the opposite, but I mean, I can see why you say it's the opposite, but it's not exactly the opposite because the Bodhisattva vow is to plunge into the thing you said it was opposite to. Did you not follow that?

[47:45]

No, no idea. So you said, is bodhisattva vow opposite of something? Doesn't really matter what you say, but you said something like illusory, personal, selfish, blah, blah, right? Is it the opposite of that? Well, I can see why you'd say that because it's really, in a sense, it's different from it. But it's different from it in this way that the Bodhisattva Vala wishes to dive into this petty, constricted, selfish, personal trip. So it's different from, but it's not the opposite from because it lives in it. Are you the opposite of your house? Well, not exactly. I mean, I'm different from my house. But I want to live in my house. And so is a bodhisattva different than a selfish, confused, frightened, violent person? They're not opposite. They love those people. They dive into those people. They're devoted to those people. They live with those people.

[48:45]

They die with those people. They go through birth and death with these people. So are they opposite? No, they're intimate with them. The bodhisattva vow is infinitely intimate with all forms of being, some of which seem to be really different from the bodhisattva. The bodhisattva is connected to all those people and beings that seem really different from them. So is the bodhisattva vow or the bodhisattva orientation one that is wider in scope than simply a selfish orientation, that it encompasses all beings? It seems to be wider in scope, but the more you practice it, the more you realize it's not wider in scope. But it seems that way. How is it not wider in scope? Because the petty, selfish, frightened, negative, violent person,

[49:50]

actually that person is supporting the entire universe. But they don't see it by definition, and they're afraid of everything by definition of their contracted, isolated view of their existence. The bodhisattva, by loving this being, by going through all these changes hand in hand with this being, realizes more and more, this person is like as wide and vast as me and my trip. I see that. And then you can show that person that they're that way. That's one method is to say, you don't have to be the slightest bit bigger and wider and vaster and open, blah, blah. You already are. And then they realize it. So then they aren't. So is the bodhisattva vow being fully awake? Is it being fully awake? Is that the... Or being fully aware of intention?

[51:01]

In a sense, the bodhisattva vow is not being fully awake because the bodhisattva vow is to live with all the beings who aren't fully, who don't yet realize they're fully awake. It's not like I'm fully awake and I got a vow that's, I got this great vow and so I'm fully awake because my vow is to be with all those who I wish were more, I wish and they wish were more awake. It's, you know, I'm not separate from that. That's the vow. But It's all about awakening. It's all about what it's about. And then it's about plunging into these various, like you're bringing up all these scenarios, we're trying to plunge into each one and open them up. Yes and yes? Maybe Elena and John? Are you saying that the release of the vow is alive in all beings? But normal beings are aware of it.

[52:03]

Right. That's right. That's right. We're all living in that realm. But because of our karma, we're more or less open to it. And we call a bodhisattva like a person who is a bodhisattva. That's somebody who can demonstrate and even without even trying, just the way they walk around and use the toilet, they demonstrate this openness. Most people can see it, even people who are really constricted. But some people are so constricted that when the Buddha walks by or a great bodhisattva walks by, they do not see this person's openness and love for them. However, if you give the bodhisattva a few more chances, most people will open up and see it. And then they will eventually say, oh, my God, I'm like that too, which is true.

[53:05]

eventually we will all realize that we have this bodhisattva living in us and all around us. That's where we actually live. And then we feel peaceful and harmonious and then because of that we wish to dive into the realm that's not peaceful and harmonious to deepen this being because it grows on those who don't realize it yet. It doesn't really grow on those, for those who have it, it doesn't really grow on the other ones who have it, or who are affected by it. John? This diving in, it seems like the joy of diving in to being with beings in various states sort of hinges somehow on understanding the process of devolutionary. And I'm just, I guess I'm struggling a bit to understand how this awareness of the evolution comes to the Bodhisattva.

[54:11]

From the Buddhas, from those who understand the process of evolution. But the Bodhisattva is not awakened at this point, so to have the patience with everyone that they all need to be awakened. Excuse me. You said the bodhisattva is not awakened at this point. I didn't know what point the bodhisattva was at that it wasn't awakened. The bodhisattvas are awakened. Bodhisattvas are awakened. They're just not awakened to the level of being a Buddha. The Buddha, during his bodhisattva career, had had many awakenings, had many enlightenments. But enlightenment is not the same as realizing a Buddhahood. Buddhahood comes from enlightened beings, awakened beings, jumping back into samsara repeatedly and testing it and deepening it. To practice in birth and death in an enlightened state develops virtues that if you're doing the same practices prior to awakening, the virtues would not be developed as fully.

[55:14]

you have to have some virtue to wake up. Then when you wake up, you plunge back in and practice all the same practices again, but now under the auspices of your awakening, and now you develop all these other virtues, all these other skills, and you actually develop all these other beings. Developing beings makes Buddhas. And then after that, before you poof, there's a teaching career as a Buddha. But bodhisattvas also teach, and many bodhisattvas are enlightened, and a Buddha was enlightened in past lives, but he wasn't a Buddha. The Buddha hung out with Buddhas, but he wasn't when he wasn't a Buddha. And those Buddhas predicted him to be a Buddha. So then the Bodhisattva has an awareness of its own evolution through these stages, from the Jujutsu to the Buddha. Yeah. In some people, yeah, on some level, it's hard to be willing to plunge in without some understanding of the processes that this is contributing to for you and others that you're swimming around with.

[56:32]

It's hard to imagine that a person... But the person might not be conscious of it, but you can see by the way they act that they actually understand it. Again, you can say in past lives they understood it in an articulate way and they gave courses on it, but now they don't think of it anymore. They just act like that. It's an implicit understanding. And if they heard the teaching, they might very well say, yeah, I already knew that, or that sounds good. I remember that. Yes? Yes. Excuse me. The process of plunging in, I didn't get anything else. Right. I tried to formulate it. The bodhisattva vow is awake in me in this form.

[57:41]

And then plunging in could mean seeing the parts within this form that need to be enlightened, and instead of washing those parts or being impatient with those parts, timing out those parts with patience. Yes. You'd practice patience with any lack of respect for certain difficult elements and certain challenging elements in the process. So bodhisattvas practice patience with that situation of the pain of lack of realization. So it might be just nice to say the one, I think I'll bring up many vowels, but one particular vowel is called the four vowels. And these four vowels, if any, I'll try to find out, but I haven't seen these four vowels in Sanskrit ever.

[58:51]

I haven't seen them in the Indian Mahayana tradition. But I have seen them in you know, East Asian traditions, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Southeast Asian, Mongolian. In the East Asian traditions, they have these four vows. The first one is something like, sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them, or I vow to liberate them. That's the first one. The second one is, afflictions delusions and afflictions are inexhaustible. I vow to cut through. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them or master them. And the Buddha way is unsurpassable.

[59:52]

I vow to become it. Those are the four vows. kind of universal bodhisattva vows. So there's the helping the people but there's also working with, you know, in yourself and in others, working with afflictions, working with delusions. And then there's working with all kinds of teachings or working with all kinds of phenomena as teachings. learning to work with everything that comes, not in terms of is it good or bad, although that could be what comes, is good and bad, but when good comes or bad comes, that you learn to understand the Dharma that's coming each moment, and that you're going to learn to do that with everything. This is your vow, to learn that.

[60:55]

And the last one is this Buddha way. You vow to become it. And the Chinese doesn't have a character for I, so you could translate it as sentient beings are numberless, vowing, and just say vowing to liberate. afflictions and delusions, or delusory afflictions, or afflictions due to delusion, are without, are inexhaustible, have no exhaustion, vowing to cut through. Dharma gates or Dharma doors are without bound, limitless, immeasurable, vowing to understand them or enter them in the Buddha way, unsurpassable, vowing to become it.

[62:04]

So that's a basic bodhisattva vow. But at Zen Center, at this point, we say, I vow. I think when I was abbot of Zen Center, I suggested changing that vow to sentient beings are numberless. I vow to awaken with them. I think during that phase, Berkeley also changed theirs, and I think Berkeley's still doing it that way, right? And then... Bob Thurman came to Zen Center and said, you people are kind of like evading your responsibility by putting it that way. So we went back to I-vow to make sure that vowing to awaken with them wasn't going to be like having them do the work for us, right? So it's a kind of like a thing that this pivot of the self, you know, if you drop the self, then could you think somebody else is going to do it?

[63:16]

And if you use the self, you think you can do it by yourself. So we don't do it by ourself alone and nobody else does it for us. We do it together with everybody, but that doesn't mean since we're doing it together with everybody, I'll let Bernard do it for me. You know, it's not like that. We're doing it together. I have to do it with you. You have to do it with me. Yes? I was actually... I think that's something I was wondering about, because it seems to me that we can have intentions, but when we make a vow, there's something ceremonial about that, or there's something public about that, or something that involves... intention versus making a vow? Well, it certainly can be that way, but you can also publicly make intentions.

[64:16]

So you can go through the bodhisattva. For example, we have ceremonies for the ethical vows, the vows of ethical discipline. That's one public ceremony we do. We chant these vows on a regular basis ceremonially in a group. And you can do this alone too, of course. And you can think these alone, of course. Alone means nobody else is saying them with you. But you could also say that in those ceremonies you're publicly expressing your intention. So I just, I think that the line, there's really not a line separating intention from vow. But by convention, we don't usually use vow for certain things where we would use intention. But I think it's often possible to use intention for things we do with, where we usually use vow.

[65:23]

But again, in most people's mind, The way they see the world in which they have an intention is they think of, I wish to practice, they have an intention like this, I, Reb, wish to practice with Jerry, and I see myself as separate from Jerry. So that's an intention I have, a wholesome intention, but there's still a sense of being separate from you, and that kind of intention is the kind of intention we usually mean by karma. But the feeling and the desire to live in the world of karma very well might come with a picture of my relationship with beings where I don't see myself as separate, which is part of the reason why I'm willing to dive into any situation. Because actually the willingness to dive into any situation is similar to seeing yourself not separate from the world.

[66:29]

So in some sense the vow is a special kind of a picture, it's a special intention. It's an intention in a way, the bodhisattva vow is an intention to be willing to live in any situation so completely that there's no separation between you and the situation. And then you want to do it all over the place to see, well, not to see if you can, but to discover those places where maybe you don't yet fully wish to be there. You want to be a little bit holding yourself back from it. So I wish to help almost everybody you know, is more like an intention or a karmic intention, like I'm still a little bit holding back. But if I intended to live with all beings with no reservation, then it would be like the vow. And I'm happy, I joyfully have this intention. So that's more like the bodhisattva vow. I think it's good to be able to test these words out in different contexts to test whether we get caught by distinctions.

[67:35]

Yes, Fran? So it's then centered when everyone is saying these vows together. Some of the people in Zen Center are saying those vows, and later some of them have come to me and said, I have to confess, that's not really where I'm at. I'm not really here at Zen Center to help everybody else. I'm actually here to help myself. You know, I admit it. I'm here to make myself more free and at ease in this world of birth and death. And I don't really care that much about almost anybody else at Zen Center. Or in the world, actually. And... So I may or may not say to the person, well, this is the way of the path, this is the path of bodhisattva to come and say that.

[68:49]

To come and say that these vows, to look at these vows and to notice that you're not really in accord with them is definitely part of the process of realizing these vows. And so saying the vows over and over at different times will bring you closer and closer to looking at it more directly. Yeah. And just to follow up on the evolution question before, so the person who is a bodhisattva, would they necessarily remember their past life from there and why? Part of being a Buddha is actually, you know, part of what comes along with being a Buddha is having that among other special abilities. But as a bodhisattva? Some bodhisattvas... Many bodhisattvas do not remember their past lives. The bodhisattva, the bodhisattva who became Shakyamuni, the bodhisattva life, the bodhisattva beings who were the condition for the appearance of this person, Shakyamuni Buddha, all those bodhisattvas

[70:13]

most of them did not know past lives. He and the bodhisattva Shakyamuni in the early years of his life did not know past lives. But that's part of what came with Buddhahood, but bodhisattvas can be full-fledged bodhisattvas and not have some of the abilities that will come to them later in the process. And some people also who are not bodhisattvas in the sense of, what do I say, they're they have not realized the Buddha's teaching. They haven't heard the Buddha's teaching even, but have attained the ability to see past lives through yogic practice. There are some people like that who have the same vision that the Buddha had. The thing about the Bodhisattva is this is when you start to become awake, you have this vow in the sense of this wish to attain Buddhahood, enlightenment and Buddhahood, that you wish for that to happen, for the welfare of all beings, in other words.

[71:30]

You wish it to happen, but not necessarily to you. You don't think about it for you. You want it to happen for the whole world. And that's the kind of thing it is. So you wish it correctly. And as part of that, you're happy to be in the realm where the practices and the beings who are included in it live, which is, you know, like right here, you know, right over there in the corner, just before class, this guy was crossing the street over there, and this woman, I don't know what she did exactly, but she came around the corner and And she stopped and let him walk, but she didn't give him enough room, you know. And he was pointing out to her that this is a walkway and she wasn't respecting it. And then he was just, you know, just so cruel to her, you know, and he spit on her, you know. And it just, it was right here, you know, just horrible things happened left and right around the yoga room.

[72:37]

And it's just terrible that this guy would get that upset. And I don't know how she... She didn't run over him. She didn't go on the crosswalk, but she got close to it. And I don't know if she was saying, I'm sorry, or what she was saying, but anyway, she did not run over him after that. She herself refrained from hurting him, but he really hurt... He really was cruel to her. And it was... And I want to live here. I want to be in a place that has people like that. I want to help that person. This is the spirit. This is the bodhisattva vow. Okay? And so I'll bring in more vows. You can bring your vows too, okay? Good night. Would it be possible to get a baby?

[73:42]

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