We just recited the lofty ancestors' verses on arousing the vow, or you could say for arousing the vow. And then it says, so there are verses for arousing the vow, and then he says, we vow. Actually, in the original, I think it says, I vow. He personally is vowing. So he's writing verses or an essay to arouse the vow, and one of the ways he seems to be arousing the vow is by vowing. Would you like a zombie time for your feet?

[01:00]

Would you like somebody to put under your feet? A cushion? It did occur to me. Although it's settling in now. I'm okay. I think one is going to be brought to you. So, there are verses for arousing the vow, and the verses for arousing the vow is to say, I vow. So like the vow to save all sentient beings that sometimes comes up in the heart of beings. I vow to live for the welfare of all beings. Those are words which might stimulate the arousal of the vow to live those words. I vow from this life on throughout countless lives to hear the true Dharma. saying those words might have something that might arouse the vow to live with all beings and to hear the true Dharma.

[02:20]

And then another thing, which doesn't exactly sound like a prayer, but it's more of a statement, that upon hearing, you could hear it both as a statement of fact, that when you hear the true Dharma, when you hear the true Dharma, you will maintain it. And when you're hearing and maintaining it, you together with all beings will attain the Buddha way. You together with the great earth and all living beings will attain the Buddha way. So you can both see it as, I want to hear the true Dharma, and I want that when I hear it, I will maintain it, and I want that maintaining it will be the attainment of the Buddha way by all beings in the great earth.

[03:38]

I want that and I'm saying that to develop my desire for that and to develop my vow for that. I'm thinking that I, together with all beings, want to hear the true Dharma. I'm thinking to say that I will hear the true Dharma. So I just want to mention that there's this phenomena of bodhisattva vow, or at least the word bodhisattva vow is somehow in my mind a lot.

[04:56]

particularly for the last, like, eight months, the bodhisattva vow, the word bodhisattva vow and the thinking about bodhisattva vow has been arising in my mind a lot, and I've also been seeing it with my eyes a lot, and I've been talking about it a lot, and I've been posturing it a lot. So you've noticed that, right? Have you seen me and heard me talk about the Bodhisattva vow quite a bit for the last eight months or so? And now, coming along with that now is the Lotus Sutra is coming. And it's a scripture. And And it's called the Lotus of the Wonderful Dharma.

[06:02]

The Lotus Flower of the Wondrous Dharma. And so that's the name of the scripture. The scripture is also considered by some people to be, the scripture is considered to be a Buddha. the scripture is considered to be itself, not just a scripture about the truth, but the scripture is the truth. And the name of the scripture is the scripture of the inconceivable, wonderful, subtle, truth, lotus. The lotus of the inconceivable, wonderful truth But dharma can mean truth, it can also mean teaching, and also can mean the law.

[07:04]

As some of you may have heard that sometimes people speak of the so-called Zen tradition as a special transmission outside or separate from the scriptures. And one person, the person who wrote the verses we just chanted, Ehe Koso, that ancestor, Ehe Dogen, he was devoted to the Lotus Sutra. He venerated the Lotus Sutra. I get the impression that he venerated the Lotus Sutra.

[08:52]

He worshipped the Lotus Sutra. And the word worship is a word that, again, people don't associate with Zen. Worship, the root of the word worship means to recognize worth or worthiness. It also means adoration or honoring. So this ancient teacher, who sometimes is called a Zen master, the founder of the Soto Zen tradition in Japan, he was a worshipper of the Lotus Sutra. And he taught that the transmission from Buddha to Buddha, he talked that that was really, that's very important, that's sort of the whole point, is the transmission that occurs face to face between Buddhas and Buddhas.

[10:16]

And what they transmit to each other is this wonderful dharma. They transmit this dharma. They also then, you could say, they transmit the lotus flower of the wondrous dharma. And they also transmit worshipping each other. Buddhas transmit the worship of Buddhas to Buddhas. all those who, according to this tradition, all those who become Buddhas are those who worship Buddhas. The Buddhas are those who worship Buddhas. The Buddhas are those who recognize, who acknowledge the worth of Buddhas. And they transmit the veneration of Buddhas to other Buddhas. The ancestors transmit the veneration of ancestors to ancestors, the veneration of Buddhas to ancestors, and the veneration of the Lotus Sutra.

[11:29]

They transmit that. And I feel like I'm receiving a transmission of veneration of the Lotus Sutra which is resonating off of me back towards you. And I don't know if you're going to receive this transmission of worship of the Lotus Sutra, but it's resonating around here. It's starting to resonate. But it's similar to veneration of the Buddhas. And similar, so the veneration or the worship of Buddhas also the veneration of Dharma and the veneration of Sangha, the Triple Treasure. Buddhas transmit veneration of the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha according to the transmission that I'm receiving and giving to you.

[12:35]

You can find this written in the works of E. H. Dogen, there's a chapter on the Triple Treasure, on going for refuge in the Triple Treasure, one of his works. And in there he says that when you venerate the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, you go for refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. And when you go for refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, you venerate Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. And some people, I think some humans, if you ask them, When you went for refuge in the Triple Treasure, did you venerate the Triple Treasure? They might say, I don't know if I did. I think I did go for refuge, but I didn't notice that I was worshipping the Triple Treasure because I'm kind of anti-worship kind of person. But I'll think about it maybe, whether I actually do worship, whether I venerate, whether I love the Triple Treasure.

[13:41]

whether I'm in a love relationship with the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. I'll think about whether, I'll consider whether I am or not. And I'll listen to the words that going for refuge in the triple treasure is worshipping the triple treasure. Going for refuge in Buddha is worshipping Buddha. I read some stories about Shakyamuni Buddha the founder of the tradition in India, and he had these interactions with people where he was meeting with them face to face, and in those meetings sometimes they had a kind of awakening experience. There's stories about that. Have any of you heard any stories about that? About the Buddha meeting with people and the people having awakening experiences? Well, there's a canon of texts in which the Buddha is talking to people and the people wake up.

[14:47]

There's quite a few stories like that. And at the end of them waking up, after they wake up, a number of them then say to the Buddha, well, now that I've awoken, I'd like to actually go for refuge in you. After awakening, they want to go for refuge in Buddha. After awakening, they want to worship the Buddha and, of course, the Buddha's teaching. And also, they want to join the group of those who go for refuge. They want to go for refuge in the group that goes for refuge in the Buddha. So in the early stories, our stories in this historical epic 2,500 years ago of people meeting this person, this human being, having an interaction, waking up to something transformative. I would say waking up to the truth of no-self, which was his teaching.

[15:50]

So his teaching is about no-self, and the teaching is about the truth of no-self, the dharma of no-self. the reality that things don't have an independent existence. People woke up to this in their face-to-face meetings with Buddha. They met the Buddha face-to-face and they woke up to the truth of no-self. They woke up to the teachings of the Buddha. And then they wanted to start worshipping the Buddha. Now some of them worshipped the Buddha before they woke up. But some did not. Some didn't even know they were talking to the Buddha until they woke up. Some people met the person, the Buddha, and had a talk with him, and they thought the person they were talking to was just another monk. And then they woke up while they're talking to this other monk, and they realized the monk they were talking to was the Buddha.

[16:52]

And then when they realized that this monk was a Buddha, they wanted to then enter into a formal relationship of worship, a formal relationship of acknowledging the worth of the Buddha which they have met and in relationship with which they woke up from the delusion of independent existence. Time goes on and the Lotus Sutra comes and now the Lotus Sutra has become, in a sense, another Buddha, another thing which can be venerated, which you can go for refuge in, which you can honor, which you can make offerings to, just like making offerings to a Buddha. Shakyamuni Buddha appeared and disappeared And the Lotus Sutra has appeared and disappeared, but although it appears and disappears, it keeps appearing again.

[17:57]

You can actually touch it and read it. However, it's a difficult thing to meet. I mean, once you meet it, it's difficult to deal with what happens if you open it and start reading it. Something will happen. And I'm here to protect you from all harm. Although I can't guarantee I'll be successful. The Lotus Sutra is like having, you know, if we deal with it properly, it will be like having a living Buddha. It will be like having Shakyamuni Buddha back here with us. I'm talking Shakyamuni Buddha, not the Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical Buddha, but the actual Shakyamuni Buddha of the Lotus Sutra, which is a super or supra mundane Buddha.

[19:03]

We can have that Buddha here with us. And there's instructions about how to do this. And so now I'm bringing this up Did you have your hand raised? Yes? When you said you can touch the Lotus Sutra and read the Lotus Sutra, it seemed to me that the Lotus Sutra that you can touch and read is not the Lotus Sutra that would be sort of like the carved dragons and a real dragon. Is that right? Yeah. There can be a real Lotus Sutra and then the physical Lotus Sutra. Even in the Lotus Sutra itself, it seems like there's a Lotus Sutra that's not in the words. Yeah, there's a Lotus Sutra that's not in the words of the Lotus Sutra, right. But it's the one that's worshipped, it's not the physical one in the words.

[20:08]

You might, it's possible to have a hierarchy of worship. But to, like you might, what do you call it, worship the baby but not the bathwater. But if you don't worship the bathwater, you might lose the baby. So I think that just to be safe, you should be careful. Now some people would say don't worship the book because It's a book about the inconceivable wonderful truth. Right? It's a book that has that title. So, the truth isn't the words, but without the words, if we throw the words out, we may be at loss for the truth. So, worshipping the words or worshipping the book If we don't do it with that, when do we start doing it towards the truth?

[21:19]

Does that make sense? So I hesitate to say, don't start worshipping until you see the actual, inconceivable, profound, subtle, unsurpassable, wondrous truth. Don't worship anything until you see that. Because that would encourage perhaps somebody to close their heart until further notice. So that's part of what's going on here is that I'm talking about now us start to open our hearts to everything in hopes of letting the truth in. But this is a dangerous prospect to start opening now. just like those early people who woke up with Buddha took refuge, seems like in that physical Buddha and his words of Dharma and the living Sangha, even though they'd already awoken to truth beyond the words.

[22:27]

Yeah, right. I'll be right with you. So we can use some of the teachings that supposedly come from the Buddhas to help us get ready to receive the teachings from the Buddhas at a deeper level, or at a deeper and deeper level than we have received them before, a more and more complete receiving of the truth is possible. A deeper realization of truth is possible for us. And part of the truth is instructions about how to receive the truth.

[23:34]

The truth comes with with skillful means to help us open to it. So that's another part of the Lotus Sutra, which I'll just mention before I go to Taiyo, and that is it is both skillful means, and it says this in it, the sutra says that it's partly skillful means offered so that we can receive the inconceivable wondrous Dharma. But the skill and means seem different from the truth which they are providing access to. And the practices of the skill and means can be distinguished or discriminated from the fruit of the practice of the skill and means. However, another part of the Lotus Sutra, I think, is that one part of the Lotus Sutra is that the fruit of the practice of the skill and means is the ultimate truth.

[24:55]

Realization of ultimate truth, which is the ultimate truth, is the fruit of the practices of the skill and means. But another way to understand it is that the fruit of the practice is the practice. And some great ancestors have said that the first part of the Lotus Sutra is about the skill and means to provide access to help us open to the truth. And the second part of the Lotus Sutra is the truth. But I'm now taking another step and saying that the truth is the practices of opening to the truth. Yes, Tayo? I think twice earlier you alluded to a danger.

[26:03]

You used that word once, danger. What is this danger you're speaking of? The danger is of negotiating your life in a state of openness, which is unfamiliar to you. But you're not suggesting we negotiate our life in a state of closure. No. I'm suggesting that we start opening and we admit beforehand that we have to be careful because this is going to be a new world that we're opening up. We're opening up to a new world plus we're opening up to a new world of being open. So like, it hasn't been so true for me lately but Years ago, after I would sit Sashin and sit cross-legged many hours a day for a week, after the Sashin was over, my joints would be, in some sense, more flexible and more open than usual.

[27:05]

So I had to be careful when I walked after Sashin because things were looser. Particularly if I went running after Sashin, it was a different body than before. So I had to be careful because I didn't have I had to learn a whole new way to run. Not a whole new way to run, but I had to be very careful because things weren't working the way they were before. So as you become more open, it's possible to try to do things we used to do in this new openness and perhaps be awkward or trip and fall. Whereas before, we tripped and fell also, but we tripped and fell in our state of tension and closeness. And so that was where we were. Now, if we open up, we should be aware that we still can trip and fall. It isn't like we're not going to fall anymore.

[28:09]

No more mistakes now that we're open. It's just that there'll be new types of mistakes, new types of falls. And the old types of falls, although we did fall before and make mistakes before, in fact we're familiar with those types. Now we're going to have new kinds and some of these falls we might not even notice because they're new. So there would be a danger of making mistakes and not knowing that we're making mistakes because they're new mistakes. Having new understandings allows you to have new misunderstandings. Does that make sense? If you do not understand that things lack inherent existence, you make... If you do not understand the truth that things lack inherent existence, you make all kinds of mistakes based on that misunderstanding. If you start to open to understand that things lack inherent existence, now you can make new kinds of mistakes based on that understanding.

[29:14]

And in some sense they're worse because almost no one notices your mistakes because they don't even know about it, because they're new and rare understandings. So that's why we need a sangha to keep an eye on us as we open. And the Lotus Sutra, as you open to it, I would suggest to it that it will start turning you. And as it turns you, you're going to get reoriented or disoriented and reoriented and disoriented. And if you try to then get a hold of something, you may pull a muscle, spiritual or physical or psychological muscle, if you try to get a grip after you start getting flipped around.

[30:27]

So that's part of what can happen. as you get more familiar with it, you realize that, you know, you sort of go with the flow of the turning and it's almost like you're turning the Lotus Sutra rather than it's turning you. So that's part of the teaching is how to negotiate your relationship with the Dharma wheel as it actually starts working in your life. So the basic warm-up is the practice of giving. And on one basic level, the practice of giving can be practiced as giving up or letting go of discursive thought.

[31:32]

which is the way a lot of people practice Zen meditation, is they sit upright and then they let go of discursive thought. They let go of wandering thoughts. They don't get involved in running around in their thinking. So it seems like it's a concentration practice, but it's actually a giving practice. And as you practice giving up your thinking, giving up your thinking, giving away your thinking, making your thinking a gift, rather than trying to steer your thinking in interesting directions,

[32:38]

as you give up trying to steer your thinking in interesting or uninteresting directions, as you give up trying to steer your thinking in wholesome or unwholesome directions and just let it go, let it go, let it go, let go of your thought, let go of your thinking, if you do that consistently, you calm down and you open up. And you also have a chance to see that actually what you're doing is not controlling your discursive thought into stillness. You're making your discursive thought a gift. And one of the rewards you get for making your discursive thought a gift is you get the reward of stillness, of tranquility, of stillness. And as you accept the practice of giving, as you make what you're thinking a gift, as you make what you're thinking a gift, you get to see that what you're thinking is a gift.

[34:11]

As you give away your thinking, you get to see that your thinking is given to you, or rather that your thinking is given and in the giving of your thinking is you. In other words, you get to realize that you're a gift. By giving away your thinking, you get to realize that you are a gift, that you have been given. that the self you have is a self you're receiving. The self I have now, the self you have now, is a self that has been given, not given to you, but given by everything to nobody. And what is given

[35:15]

is somebody. And the somebody is, for example, you. If you and I give away our thinking, we get to realize that we are gifts. And again, not gifts to ourself, but that ourself is a gift. And then if you wake up to the gift of yourself, which you've just been that you just, that was just given, if you then give that away again, let go of that again, you again get to, you open up to seeing that now another self has been given and you get to be there with the self which is given. Matter of fact, it's you. And your you're practicing this giving sitting still.

[36:26]

And also you're giving the movements of your thought. You're giving your moving thought and your giving is not emotion. And you're receiving the thoughts and the self with them I say you're receiving, but I should say there is receiving of a self and giving of a self and receiving a self and giving a self in stillness. We are sitting still or in this stillness. There is a receiving of self and giving of a self. And there's an opening of the self as a gift. And there is a giving of the self and a receiving of the Self. And in this realm, the Lotus Sutra is being taught. In this stillness, your mind and the environment which your mind knows enter the stillness

[37:39]

enter this giving and receiving and leave it. And enter it and leave it. And this happens in stillness. This giving and receiving happens in stillness. And this is an annex and instruction about how to open to the Lotus Sutra, how to open to the wondrous Dharma, and not just open to the wondrous Dharma, but open to the receiving and giving of the wondrous Dharma, and being turned by the Dharma and turning the Dharma. Yes? What is the entering it and leaving it part? Well, the entering of the realization, you mean?

[38:50]

We said in stillness there's giving and there's receiving. In stillness there's giving and receiving. And that you enter that and leave that. Well, you're in the giving and receiving, which is actually that you're in the giving and receiving is the same that you're in the wondrous dharma. We're in the wondrous dharma all the time. But if we don't practice, if we don't practice, we don't realize that we're in the wondrous Dharma. And in the wondrous Dharma, we are a gift. And we are a gift which we are giving, and we are a gift which has just been received. That's the way it is in the wondrous Dharma. But if we don't practice that, if we don't enjoy the giving and receiving, then we don't practice it, and if we don't practice it, we don't realize it. No, not quite.

[39:54]

The entering is when you enter the practice. When you enter the practice, you enter the realization. And we talked about this, I think, one or two times ago here at Noah Bowden. Lois was here, but she wasn't here this time. She... And she talked about being afraid, I think, upon or just before entering. And if you think that you're going to enter this giving and receiving and the environment that you live in is not going to go with you, you might get scared. If you thought your mind was going to enter this giving and receiving, but the things you know weren't going to go with you, like your friends or something, or your city, you might get scared and tighten up again. But you, your mind and what you know enter this practice and this realization together and also you don't stay there.

[41:00]

You come out of it too. What does it mean you come out of it? It means you come out again having another opportunity to re-enter. So you don't go there and stay. You also leave. When you don't go into realization, you also go beyond realization into another entry. Is this perceptible? It is imperceptible. It is not another perception. It is the way your perceptions... And what is the way your perception process and what you perceive, it's the way they go into the giving and receiving and come out of the giving and receiving. And as you practice giving and receiving in the perceptible realm, you open to entering the imperceptible realm.

[42:03]

So again, this is the carved version and the real version of the practice. Yes. When you talk about opening, you talk about opening your heart. But it seems, it feels to me like you're opening into big mind, and you're having to develop a more expansive awareness. Yeah. So that... Opening your mind and your heart and your mind. And your mind. Yes. So you have to open it beyond what your normal experience is so that it's not a quite anything, so that you include all of it. Yeah. And also... Not really leaving anything. Not really what? You're not really leaving anything. No. Mind, mind... To the point where you know you're not leaving anything.

[43:03]

You have to what? Extend to the point where you're not really leaving anything or giving anything up, in some sense. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And you can say expand so that you're not or open to how you're not. Open to how you don't leave anybody behind. Wherever you go, everyone comes with you. Matter of fact, you are nothing but everybody coming with you. That's all you are. And then you give that self, which was everybody coming, you give that away. Or that is given away. It's hard. It keeps slipping back into dualistic language, but... Yes, Steven?

[44:14]

I'm trying to imagine the practice of giving away thoughts about sitting meditation. Trying to imagine giving away thoughts, yes. So I'm sitting, trying to follow my breath, and I find I'm lost in thoughts. What do you recommend giving those thoughts away? So you say you're lost in thoughts, okay? So when I hear somebody say, I'm lost in thoughts, I feel maybe like they're trying to get some orientation in the thoughts. They're trying to get some grip on the thoughts so they know where they are in the thoughts. So they're kind of holding onto the thoughts when they feel like they're lost in thoughts. Which is similar to I'm trying to control my thoughts. I'm trying to control my thoughts but I'm losing control. That's similar to being lost in them. So lost in them sounds like you're trying to not be lost. or I'm losing control of my thoughts, sounds like I'm trying to control, or I'm finally in control of my thoughts.

[45:19]

So all these are kind of like not letting the thoughts go, not relaxing with them. But noticing that I feel lost kind of tips me off to the fact that I'm not really relaxed with my thoughts. Okay? So, I would suggest that whenever you think you, in this practice, whenever you think you're losing something, change what you think you lost into a gift. So, I'm lost in thought. Okay? Change it to I'm giving the thoughts which I'm lost in, or which I lost. I'm lost in thought means I lost my orientation. Okay, give your orientation away. Whatever, you got an orientation? Give it away.

[46:20]

Got another orientation? Give it away. I'm in this room with you guys. You know, you're to my left, you're to my right. And now, before I even lose my orientation of who's to my left and who's to my right, give it away. But now if I feel like I'm losing my orientation, I'm giving away my orientation. Lost in thought means I'm losing my orientation in thought, probably. Okay, I'm giving away my orientation. The thoughts are still there, but I'm giving away trying to know where I am in them. And I think I'll give the thoughts with which I'm not very well oriented, I'll give away orientation. not very well oriented, and I'll give away the thoughts. I'll make everything a gift. And in general, everything you think you're losing in life, like your youth, your memory, your vision, your teeth, your health, all the things that you either think you have lost

[47:32]

or that you might lose. Okay? Try to open to that potential loss and then gently turn all the potential losses into gifts. So there's these five recollections that the Buddha gave on impermanence. One is, there's various ways to say it, one is, I'm at risk or I'm subject to losing my youth. I'm subject to losing my health. I'm subject to a loss of life. I'm subject to losing everything that's dear and delightful. And I'm subject to my karma. So, okay. One, two, three. I give away my youth. I give away my youth. I give away the teenage years, the 20 years, the 30 years, the 40 years, the 50 years, which now look like youth.

[48:38]

I give away the early 60s. I give away all these years. I give away all these decades. I didn't lose them. At some point in my past, I thought I was losing them. But now I'm waking up. I realized I gave them. I gave all those years. I gave all those ribs away. I convert them all into a huge pile of gifts. I switch from losing my life. I switch from losing my health to giving my health away. Who is giving? The giver is giving away. And the giver is not separable from the gift or the giving or the receiving. As I open to the giving process, I open to my inseparability from all the things I... from my whole history which I've given away.

[49:44]

And the same with my current thoughts. I make them all gifts. I'm entering into the realm of giving which means I'm entering into the realm of opening to the Dharma. Yes, Gordon? The giving. The giving. The giving. Who's going to take that? Who's what? My first 60 years. Who is going to receive it? Who's going to receive my gift? You said it's all Mary Ann. Mary Ann is one volunteer. But we all... I don't think she's serious. I have been receiving you day by day. Every day you've given yourself to me. You may not have joined that practice.

[50:46]

That's the thing about entering. Now I'm inviting you to enter the reality. I should say, I'm asking you to enter the skillful means of seeing all the Gordons that you give to me every day. Enter into a constant giving process where you give Gordon to me every moment. Open to that giving that you're doing. You're not losing these Gordons moment by moment. they're impermanent, but also you join the impermanence by making them gifts. And if you open to that giving process, you will open to the true Dharma. The true Dharma is received in the practice of giving. So I am one person who's saying to you, you have been giving yourself to me, And I encourage you to realize that you're always giving yourself to me.

[51:49]

And then also that you're also giving yourself to all these people here and so on. And you're not losing anything. But only you can think that you're losing something. And when I think I'm losing my years, that view closes me to the Dharma. When I open to the, I have given my life to this moment, and now I give this life too, and I give it to you. When I open to that, I enter the realm of self-receiving and self-employing. And in that realm is where I'm enacting and realizing the Dharma. And I enter it with you. You come with me. I'm giving myself to you, and those who I give to come with me entering this realm. And now we don't stay there, now we come out again, and we're a new Gordon and a new Reb, and we now give that again together, and we enter again together. You and me together, me and you together, we enter.

[52:52]

You give yourself to everybody, and everybody you give yourself with comes with you into this realm. And when you practice that way, you realize that. Did you have your hand raised, Rosanna? I was thinking, I was seeing, like, we were filters. It doesn't stop, it just pours in and goes out. No, not filter. You are pouring in and pouring out. There's no filter. That's an additional thing. a new version of self. Something in addition to pouring in and pouring out. Can't even say we're a container. There's no container in addition to the pouring in. And then something, a container left when there's a pouring out.

[53:59]

There's no substantial container, filter, holder, you know, there's no receiver. They're just receiving and giving. And when there's a receiver, the receiver is also a gift. So the receiver is not just a receiver. The receiver is a gift and the receiver is giving. You are and I am actually giving. You are actually receiving. It's not you are receiving. The act of receiving is what you are. The act of giving is what you are. You are not anything in addition to giving. And you are a gift. You're not a filter in this process. And you're not a container in this process. Although there's lots of containers in this process, they're all gifts. And I think the next person was Kate.

[55:08]

Yes. I was questioning about action, and I think when you talked to this man, I saw, I want to ask, we practice in stillness, and that helps me when I'm in action, when I'm outside my own stillness. I give, I speak to you, I give. This is giving. Yes, this is giving. Right now, this is giving. Without moving a particle, this is giving. There's giving in stillness. And there's receiving in stillness. Without moving anything, there's giving and receiving. The Dharma wheel is turned without moving anything. Just like you think you're losing your life and suddenly it's a gift, nothing moved.

[56:14]

You went from being outside the practice into the realm of giving and losing and now you entered the practice and there was no movement. There was just a practice called make it a gift rather than make it an acquisition or a loss. In a giving practice, there's no gain or loss because you're a receiver and a giver simultaneous and a gift. So practicing stillness is a ritual to celebrate giving and receiving. Outside duality. Outside of duality. Outside of duality? It's not outside duality. Outside duality is duality. Beyond duality. No, you don't have to go beyond it. That's the nice thing about duality, about non-duality. Non-duality, you don't have to go beyond duality. Non-duality.

[57:19]

It's non-duality, yes. Giving is non-duality. Giving is non-duality. Losing is duality. Getting is duality. So mostly we're about getting and losing, or getting and try not to lose what you got. That's duality. Non-duality is giving. No gain or loss, just open to the truth. The truth of what? The truth of non-duality, which is what we're doing right now is giving, and giving is realization. And realization is something which we don't hold on to because we give everything, because that's what realization is. Realization is to give away your realization and also to receive your realization. So you're saying, thank you, here you are, here you are, thank you. That's a practice. I'm giving myself to you. You're giving yourself to me. Thank you. And thank you for letting me give myself to you.

[58:20]

I'm doing this practice. My karma is lining up with this. I'm performing this. And this is also venerating the truth. This is also worshipping the truth of giving. and worshipping the truth of giving, but practicing the truth of giving, practicing the truth of giving, I open to the truth, the dharma flower of the wondrous law. Yes? I wanted to check, because this was extra similar to the filter. I think my sense now is of self being a location. It's like a point of view that's just showing up here relative to everything else. And it's just what's showing up. It's not even personal. So it's more just this point of view that I have this thought. I can speak because it's what's showing up here. So it feels like a location that's It would not be personal attached to it.

[59:23]

It can be a location with or without something attached to it, personal attached to it. It can be a person. But a person you could say is not personal because you can't get a hold... Sometimes when we say a person is personal we mean we kind of think maybe that means that you can get a hold of the person. meant that anybody else in this location would be exactly me. That's right. Anybody who was you would be just like you. That's right. And that's just because that's the way you're given. And that's also just because that's the way you give. And that's what a person is, actually. In other words, a person is ungraspable. And the other part is somehow that the locations aren't fixed, they're relative. No, the conditions, the positions are relative. But because they're relative, they're not fixed. That's another aspect of the truth, is that we are relative.

[60:30]

We're all relatives? We're all relatives. We're all relatives, yes. Close relatives. And to open to that, the first practice to open to that is giving. Enter the practice of giving, you start to open to how we're all relatives. And that's also how we're all ungraspable, insubstantial, and changing. But it's also happiness and freedom from fear in that same place called what? The land of the lotus, of the happy lotus Buddha. Yes, John?

[61:58]

I'm a little stuck still on this concept. How does one open up to a book of concepts as the truth, not just a description of the truth, but as a living Buddha? And I'm stuck with the idea that that's viewing the Lotus Sutra's doctrine, in a sense. And so I've got this concept of doctrine as not being Did you say how can you open to something? How can you open to a book of concepts? Yes, how can you open to a book? So when I first look at the Lotus Sutra, I'm probably not open to it. I would guess.

[63:02]

Unless I'm already in the flow of giving and the Lotus Sutra shows up and I see that the Lotus Sutra coming realizes me and I see that I give myself to the Lotus Sutra then the Lotus Sutra and I are transmitting the Dharma to each other at that moment. And I see it's not just the Lotus Sutra transmitting to me, but me transmitting to the Lotus Sutra. And this can happen without even opening the book up. Any book can do this. As a matter of fact, when I went to Tassajara for my first practice period, we were supposed to be studying the Lotus Sutra because Suzuki Roshi was going to come down to the practice period and teach the Lotus Sutra. And I or some of the other students said, well, what's the difference between a comic book and the Lotus Sutra? And so we had that question.

[64:05]

So I would say that the comic book, I don't know what the comic book is saying, but it might not be saying to you that you have to open to the comic book to get the comics. I don't know if it's saying that. Do they teach you that you have to enter into giving with the superheroes to receive them? I don't think they do say that. Do they? It happens that way. It happens that way now. If you're a kid, you have to open to the reality of it and believe. You have to open to the reality and believe. So maybe for the superhero to work, you have to open to somehow the reality of the superhero. The possibilities of the superhero.

[65:08]

So for the Lotus Sutra, Anyway, the nice thing about the Lotus Sutra for me was that when I opened it, when I opened it at Tassajara, I could be aware that although I opened the book, my heart did not open. I could feel that very easily. Whereas opening a comic book, my heart in some sense did open, so I didn't realize that my heart was not open. Whereas the Lotus Sutra, on the first page, by the first page I mean the first page of the actual sutra, not the title. I didn't close to the book itself. I had to open it and read the first page. And I had to read a few words more than thus I have heard at one time. I had to start reading. That was okay. I felt open to thus I have heard at one time. I wasn't, but I thought I was. I mean, I shouldn't say, I wouldn't say that I thought I was.

[66:12]

It's that I was not aware that I wasn't. When I read Thus I Have Heard at one time, I was not struck by, I'm not open to that sentence. Now I see I wasn't. And I see I wasn't by what happened when I got to the names of the bodhisattvas. I was even okay with there being 1250 or whatever it was, arhats. That was okay. But when I started reading the names of the bodhisattvas, I realized I was closed to this event of these names. I was not seeing them as gifts to me. I was not seeing me as a gift to these bodhisattva names. I was not. And I could see that I was closed to the sutra. as a gift to me and me as a gift to it. I could see that. And so I closed the sutra. Say it again? Are you actually simply close to the veneration that the practice community that you're in has for the sutra?

[67:23]

This is the sutra that's venerated in the community. Was I close to that? Yes. Yeah, I was close to that. And I hardly even knew about that, the veneration of the community towards the sutra at that time. All I knew is that Suzuki Roshi was, for some reason or other, going to be lecturing on it when he got to Tatsahara. And he never did get to Tatsahara, so he never did study the sutra with him at Tatsahara. But I was closed to the practice, not completely. I was open enough to open the book. I had some veneration for Suzuki Roshi, enough to open the book. So I had a little bit of veneration, a little bit of openness, enough to read a little bit of the first page. So there was some veneration there, some devotion. There was a little bit of me being aware I was giving a little bit to the sutra. But then I was aware, in my case, I was aware, I'm not really that open to reading the sutra. I don't want to, and I don't have to.

[68:24]

So I closed it. And that was the last that I looked at it for quite a long time. Well, I have this thought that earlier, that when you talked about Dovian being devoted and worshiping the Lotus Sutra, that to me gave me the sense that I could open, because I venerate Dogen, I could open to his veneration, and that I could open to this book, not as a book or a set of concepts, but just to this community of veneration, if you will, or because I venerate Dogen, I want to open to the veneration itself. Yes, because you love your teacher, you want to open to what your teacher loves. Or rather, Because you're open to loving your teacher, you're open to loving what your teacher loves. Okay? You think. Is that where the living Buddha resides? Yes, that's where it resides. And you think that, but then you open the book that your teacher tells you that he loves, and you notice that you don't want to love the book that your teacher loves.

[69:26]

You don't want to. You think you love your teacher, but then when you open the book, you realize, I don't love my teacher anymore. If my teacher loves this, I don't love my teacher. In other words, I really only loved a little bit of my teacher. And when I found out that the Lotus Sutra came with my teacher, I realized that I only loved about one-third of my teacher, but the Lotus Sutra part of my teacher I didn't love. So the Lotus Sutra taught me that I didn't really love Suzuki Roshi. Isn't it more about understanding the love? It's about understanding the love. That's right. I really did love Suzuki Roshi, and I really did love the Lotus Sutra. I just didn't understand I loved the Lotus Sutra. I thought this is like... I didn't understand that I loved the Lotus Sutra, therefore I closed it because I thought love was supposed to be fun. I thought love was supposed to be like other kinds of love, but it wasn't that kind of love, so I closed the Lotus Sutra.

[70:29]

Not necessarily hard like that. I just close it, and I didn't throw out the window. I put it on my shelf. And I don't think I at that time thought, and I'm going to come back and give my love of this thing another chance. I don't think I thought about the time. But in fact, because of my teacher loving the Lotus Sutra and his ancestor loving the Lotus Sutra, the knock on the door comes again. Hello, here's the Lotus Sutra. And now it's knocking on your door. Lotus Sutra. Do you love me yet? Oh, well, I'll... So I open it up again. Whoop. And close it. Whoop. And I open it again. Whoop. And I opened it again. And... The love happened. It was time. I was ready to open to the Lotus Sutra. And it opened to me. And... And then he would even tell me, now close me, put me on the shelf and go help people and come back later.

[71:39]

And I would and I'd come back and open the load suit again. Now you can treat me for half an hour and that's it and go work in the kitchen. Same with your teacher. Open your teacher. Oh, close the teacher. Is there any difference in relating to this book to the way I would relate to everything? This book, it's possible to learn a way of relating this book that would teach you the correct way to relate to everything, which is, you know, the practice, the practice of giving, which is the practice of seeing how you're constantly giving yourself to everyone and everyone's giving yourself and how you're constantly turning the Lotus Sutra and being turned by it and how Shakyamuni Buddha is with you all the time.

[72:43]

That's, you know, and you're always following the instructions with everybody you meet. But again, you know, I don't want to put down these comic books, but the comic books do not seem to make, when people open a comic book and they close them, they do not feel like, I don't want to read this comic book. They don't notice. But when you spend a lot of your money to buy a big fat Lotus Sutra and you open it and close it, it's like, ooh, I don't want to read the Lotus Sutra rather than just closing a comic. The comic book doesn't shock you into awareness that you don't want to read it. Whereas the Lotus Sutras, it's really obnoxious when you don't want to read it. I don't want to read the most sacred text of Mahayana Buddhism. What's wrong with me? My God, well, that's who I am. I hate the Lotus Sutra. Wow. I hate my teacher. I hate Buddha. I don't want to ever see this sutra again.

[73:51]

Wow, what happened? What happened? What happened? You just used the expression, the most sacred text sutra of Mahayana Buddhism. Yes. And I just wonder about the relationship of this veneration to veneration perhaps of the Atasaka Sutra or the Prajnaparamita Sutras or the Diamond Sutra. I mean, is there actually a hierarchy among these Mahayana sutras? Yes, especially in Soto Zen of Dogen. We have a list of 10 Buddhas that we chant, 10 names of Buddha, but it's actually 11 names of Buddha, and the 11th name of Buddha is the Lotus of the Wondrous Dharma. It's the only sutra. Well, you could say, what about the Prajnaparamita?

[74:51]

Actually, that's there too, but it's at the bottom of the list, where the Lotus Sutra is right up there with the Buddhas. So in this tradition, the Lotus Sutra is queen of the sutras, supreme of the sutras. Now, the prajnaparamita are also annoying, but I've noticed that most Zen centers, when they chant the Heart Sutra every day, they go, all five skandhas are empty, and most Zen students just don't say, what? I hate that. How could you say that? But the Lotus Sutra says things about women, and people get very angry. The Lotus Sutra makes people angry. Heart Sutra almost never makes, except for really advanced Zen students, who are sometimes children, the children Zen students say, this is a bunch of crap. No eyes, no ears, no nose, tongue, what's a bunch? I got a nose, what are you talking about no nose? Most adult Zen students just read that, no eyes, no nose, this is very profound, I don't understand it, but you know.

[75:57]

They don't get angry. They don't say, I hate the Heart Sutra. Guest students ask, what does it mean? But we don't get it. Yeah. A lot of sutra people hate. Part of it is that you're told that you'll really get in trouble if you hate. Yeah, that's part of it, too. All sutras have that kind of death clause, if you don't believe it. Not all sutras have it, no. No. Especially the early sutras, the Buddhist early teachings, there's almost none of that. It does. It does. It's got a bunch of stuff in it that seems to make people aware. It helps you become aware, like me. it helped me become aware on the first page that I was not open to it.

[77:01]

And I enacted my not openness by closing it. And I didn't get to the more difficult stuff you're talking about. If you start to open, those are rewards to test your openness later. More and more tests. Yeah, it's tough. Curses, curses, sexism, racism, speciesism, all kinds of stuff in there. There's also the option to leave in the very beginning. What? There's also the option. And there's the option to leave, yep. I left before I even got to the option. So this is about, you know, I'm talking about getting ready. Get ready to start to open. Open to what? Open to the reality of that we do love our teacher. We do love everybody. We love all scriptures of all traditions. We love them. We don't like them or dislike them necessarily.

[78:03]

Or we do like them and dislike them. We do like the Lotus Sutra or we hate the Lotus Sutra. That happens to people. But actually we're in love with the Lotus Sutra and we're in love with each other. We do like each other and hate each other. But we... beyond liking and disliking, we merge in realization and go beyond it together. That's the truth that the Lotus Sutra is trying to provoke the realization of and the practice of and the practice as the realization and the realization of the practice of what? The practice of love. And now we're going to test it. Okay? You want to practice love? Yeah. Okay, now we're going to test it. Read the Lotus Sutra. And then you say, oh, I like the Lotus Sutra. Okay, well, that's not love. Well, I hate the Lotus Sutra. That's not love. What's love? Love is open up to your hate completely. Completely open to your hate and open to your like.

[79:07]

Open to your like and dislike so fully that you and your likes and dislikes enter realization and go beyond it without moving right now. Yes? I have two questions. One, you really love this thing, right? What? You really love this. I really love you. And you really love me. But we're not open to it. We're kind of like, well, I love her a little. Yeah. As long as she, you know, doesn't hate the Lord too much. We actually do love each other. We love all beings, and our love of all beings is that we and all the beings are entering into the Buddha reality and going beyond it, and entering it and going beyond it. Entering it, realizing it, and not holding on to it because it's ungraspable, but we are living it.

[80:11]

And the way you live it is to keep giving it away. And when you give it away, you enter it again. And if you're reliving it, you give it away and enter it again. That's reality, but we're trying to open to this. And this is the thing we're doing here, is trying to open. And the Lotus Sutra is a nice device because it's got within it stuff that shows us that we're not open. Whereas some other scriptures are either so profound, like the Diamond Sutra or the Lotus, pardon me, the Paramitas are so profound, you don't even notice you're not resisting because you don't even know the implications of what you just read. But the Lotus Sutra, the implications of this list of bodhisattvas is that I'm stumbling over a lot of Sanskrit words and the implication is this is a bummer. Because I'm not connected to it. I'm not connected to it, yeah. I can't relate to it. I mean, I'm awkward. I didn't plan on being awkward in reading this thing. I thought I was going to be a redhead. Now later there's some really nice stories I could tell you about which will totally charm you.

[81:15]

So what it does is it, first of all, turns you off and then you close it for several years and finally you read the names of Vrubodhisattvas and then they give you these sweet stories which you just totally love and then they smack you with some other stuff. They open you and say, oh, yeah, okay, now you're open. Now you have tears in your eyes. Now you're like goosebumps all over. Okay, ready? Now how about this? It isn't really that you close. It's just you reach a new level of opening. You're really opening now. How about this? No, not that. Please don't ask me. I've been betraying my whatever. What? It's exactly like life. Yeah, it's exactly like life. And another principle of Lotus Sutra which I would go over with you. So Lotus Sutra is big on the basic Zen thing of the horse arrives before the donkey leaves. Because the Lotus Sutra, the lotus, it's a lotus, you know. It's not a dandelion.

[82:16]

It's not a, what do you call it, sun-kissed orange. Those oranges grow in sterile soil. They grow on petrochemicals. The Lotus Sutra grows in the mud, and you don't grow the lotus before the mud, after the mud goes away. The mud's still there. So we're talking about with your present situation to grow the Lotus Sutra. She still had two questions. Wasn't there two questions from someone? Karen had two questions. In the other one you said something about opening to your hate. And I don't usually think of hate and generosity as a view. You don't say a lot. You don't? Yeah, that's why I said it. Is that the donkey of hate, the horse of giving,

[83:23]

The horse of giving arrives before the donkey of hate leaves. You practice generosity with hate and the lotus of the wondrous Dharma arises out of the hate before the hate goes away. The hate is nourishing the lotus and the greed. The horse of giving arrives before the greed leaves. And again, greed, giving, greed, giving, and the giving gets strong. Greed's not going to get much stronger than it already is, as far as I can tell. I think greed has reached, you know, its climax, and it's maxed out, and it stayed maxed out for at least several thousand years. It seems to be maxed out. Some people say, no, people are more greedy today than they used to be. Okay, fine, I don't know how you know that, but whatever you say. That's another greedy idea that we're more greedy now.

[84:27]

We're the top of the line greed here. Sounds like people used to be greedy when Buddha was around. But how about growing this practice of giving, the bodhisattva practice of giving? Where does it grow? It grows in greed, hate, and delusion. That's where it grows. And when it's fully developed, the greed, hate, and delusion are still there. being enjoyed as reality, which is the Buddha's joyful reality, which doesn't need to get rid of anything or move a particle of dust. The Lotus Sutra is big on this. From the image of the lotus onward, it's about non-duality. and it's about the sutras testing it, testing you to see how you're doing on that.

[85:31]

And it doesn't just keep battering you, it offers you sweet things along the way so that you can relax and then realize your tension. Well, thank you for Your gifts. Thank you for giving me... Catherine had a question. Your gifts. And thank you for receiving the gifts. And thank you for being gifts. And it's getting close to 1 o'clock now, so I thought maybe we could have lunch. Or did you want to prolong this agony longer? Oh, I wouldn't want to be the mud in the middle of the lotus. It's a tiny question. Well, what's your pleasure, Catherine? I say I'll ask it in the afternoon. It'll never happen. Go. Do it. Matthew, shall I ask my question?

[86:37]

I'm okay with it. Thank you. It's just that it seemed like the mud, the curses and the anti-women things and all those things, I just wondered if it would be okay to look at those as the mud in the sutra. You mean would I see them as mud? Are they sort of these sectarian or, you know, you listed off other aspects, things that were... No, I don't see those as mud. I see those as opportunities to realize, to get in touch with the mud, namely get in touch with your anger and your hatred and your greed about those words. and about your anger and hatred towards what those words seem to be conditions for. That kind of language seems to be conditioned for disrespect of women, for example. Right. It seems to be coming directly from the text. Or disrespect of people who... That's mud, too.

[87:39]

The fact you think it's coming from the text is mud. When you think it's coming from the text, that's mud. And you can grow a lotus in the mud of thinking that you think it's coming from the text. And also... Where is it coming from? It's coming from causes and conditions, which are gifts. That's where it's coming from. It's not coming from one thing, like one word. It doesn't come from there. Because that word depends on the fact that people, that word represents cruelty that we've seen in the world. It's related to cruelty. So it's not the word. It's the cruelty, but it's not the cruelty, it's the word. And the mud is that you don't see how this is all, you don't see the giving. When you see the giving... you see that that's not true. That's not true. The truth is we are giving to each other. We're loving each other. And if we resist that, we see cruelty.

[88:40]

We see a land of cruelty. And then we see words that are connected. The cruelty is connected to everything. But if we're not generous towards the field, the pollution of this cruelty, which comes from ignoring how the cruelty also is part of the giving, then we Then we'd get more greed, hate, and delusion. We'd contribute to more cruelty. And the Lotus Sutra tests us on this by bringing up these words that are associated with stories of cruelty, of disrespect. And you can say, again, you can say stuff about, you know, apocryphal parts and added parts. And, you know, we can edit the Lotus Sutra and we can make it basically Muzak and everybody would just sit, you know, and not realize that they were closed to Muzak because Muzak doesn't annoy people.

[89:43]

Oh, yeah. How many people are annoyed by Muzak? It's only if you recognize the original song. Thank you. But you have a point. Well, some people can be annoyed by anything, but there's been no court cases and nobody put in prison for new music. But there are major court cases against Lotus Sutra. This is the unadulterated, in some sense, most obnoxious Mahayana Sutra. and considered also the highest in East Asia. It's actually asking us to, this is going to sound funny, but it's actually asking us to come into right relationship with, you know, like a Rush Limbaugh type thing.

[90:47]

It's asking us to come into a compassionate relationship with, for you, Rush Limbaugh, and for some other people, Elenia, you know, or I don't know what. It's asking us to come into proper relationship with absolutely everybody. And it's offering us a way. And I'm just emphasizing, you have to start with giving. You can't skip over that. Well, you can skip over it, but then you have to come back to it. So why don't you just... It's basic. It's the first. It's number one. And it goes all the way to the end of perfect wisdom. So the name of our samadhi is self-receiving and giving. That's our samadhi. And that happens in stillness. So that's why we have kind of a nice practice here of sitting still and entering that samadhi and opening to the dharma, to the truth, which is where we're living already.

[91:56]

So it's just a matter of opening to where we already are. May our intention equally extend to every being and place.

[92:12]

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