By the way, last time I told you that there's a term for bodhisattvas who stay at home and the ones who leave. And... And what? What are they? Do you know how to spell them? Oh, I haven't said them out loud? Oh, it's a prajita and grahastha.

[01:11]

So that means that some bodhisattvas monks and some bodhisattvas stay home and so the bodhisattvas actually whatever if you've got a bodhisattva bodhisattva can be included in the four categories of buddhists either male or female monk or male male or female layman but they're listed separately in the sutra because all the four groups include the bodhisattvas. The bodhisattvas are included in four groups. If you have four groups, you don't necessarily have the bodhisattvas included there. You may see four groups, but there may not be any of these kind of bodhisattvas we have we're talking about now. So they want to make these bodhisattvas are not necessarily present every time you have four groups. They're listed separately. Okay, so last time we talked about the

[02:13]

acquiring of the Dharanis. And I just thought I'd mention that it looks to me like we'll be talking about the eyes tonight. It looks to me like, in a sense, what this Dharani we talked about in some detail. What's it called? Gosha. This Durrani is Gosha Pavesha. Durrani. In a sense, it seems like it could be called the combination of what's sometimes called the divine eye and the dharma eye.

[03:31]

And tonight we'll talk about the divine eye. wisdom eye comes after the heavenly eye or divine eye and then the wisdom eye or the deva cakshara and the prajna did I say dharma I should have said wisdom eye it's a combination of the heavenly eye and the wisdom eye or the deva eye deva cakshara and prajna cakshara So in the sutra, on page 77, it says, what is the bodhisattva's perfectly pure wisdom eye? A bodhisattva knows the heavenly eye of the gods. A bodhisattva wisely knows the heavenly eye of the gods, beginning with the four great kings.

[04:44]

But the gods do not wisely know the bodhisattva's heavenly eye. With his perfectly pure heavenly eye, he wisely knows, as it is, as it really is, the decease and rebirth of all beings in the world systems numerous as the sands of the river Ganges, in each of the ten directions. This is the bodhisattva's perfectly pure heavenly eye. What is the bodhisattva's perfectly pure wisdom eye? The bodhisattva who is endowed with that wisdom eye does not wisely know any dharmas, be it the conditioned or unconditioned, wholesome or unwholesome, faulty or faultless, with or without outflows, defiled or undefiled, worldly or super-mundane. With that wisdom eye he does not see any dharma. or hear, know, or discern one.

[05:46]

This is the perfectly pure wisdom eye of the bodhisattva. Okay? So, this Durrani is like the combination of these two. And on page, I don't know if you have a big sutra, but on page 372 in the sutra, it talks about the heading under the Abhisamaya Lankara is, it is hard to do. And Saburi says, doers of what is hard to do are those bodhisattvas, great beings who have put on this armor Quotes, all beings we will lead into nirvana, unquote.

[06:51]

And yet, therein no being and no concept of a being have apprehended, have been apprehended, is apprehended, excuse me. And the Buddha says, so it is, Subuddhi, so it is. Moreover, Subuddhi, the armor of the Bodhisattva, the great being, is not tied up with form and so on. Why? because absolutely form and so on does not exist and also not a bodhisattva's armor therefore it is said that not tied up with form surely is this armor and so with feeling and so on to the knowledge of all modes so the wisdom eyes in a sense the wisdom eyes i mean the divine eyes like putting on the armor. In other words, you actually are concerned with the birth and decease of all beings in the world systems numerous as the sands of the river Ganges.

[08:11]

Birth and decease means all beings means all human beings and all other types of beings. And birth and deceased means, for example, for human beings, how they transmigrate through various destinies in our life and how other beings also transmigrate through various destinies in one lifetime or many lifetimes. So you actually care. You wouldn't be seeing these things if you weren't watching to see them. So you watch people's, you watch them become animals and go to hell and become hungry ghosts and become gods and become humans. And you watch all other beings go through these transmigrations because you care. So that's like the armor. But you also have the wisdom eye. And with the wisdom eye you don't see any dharmas at all, any beings.

[09:15]

whether they're conditioned or unconditioned, wholesome or unwholesome, faulty or faultless. So you watch these people going into good destinies, into wholesome realms and unwholesome realms, into defiled realms, undefiled realms, realms without flows, realms without flows, and so on and so forth. And you care that they go, and you care where they go. That's why you know they go there, because you care. At the same time, you do not wisely know any of these things. So this is another way to put what's meant by this dharani. Complete detachment. So the dharani that we were just talking about was specifically related to how the bodhisattva enters into the world and yet words never, in this particular case, words

[10:21]

never insult him. That's a particular one. But this kind of Dharani and other kind of Dharani demonstrate the ability to go into the world and to maintain the good and to avoid the bad. So this is, could be placed to see, you could say this type of Dharani equals those two eyes. And those two eyes working together equal not only the bodhisattva's armor, talked about later in the book, but this special quality. It's hard enough to put on the armor, but then to put on the armor correctly, that's really hard to do. It's actually not so hard when you do it, but that's what these bodhisattvas can do. They can put on this armor, which is to save all beings, and yet not apprehend the notion or concept of a being. And even not get entangled in the idea of the armor.

[11:26]

And even not get entangled in the idea of the armor. Okay. So that's the places I referred to in the in the sutra are in this case it's p77 and 78 which just also happens to be page 76 and stage 77 and then page 372 necessarily this particular one does though i think actually this particular one is slightly more specific than the working of these two because it was talking about particularly how you manage to go in among people for endless culpas and never be bloated by their compliments or disturbed by their insults and then it talked about various specific techniques by which you wouldn't but the activity anyway of going into a

[13:15]

making yourself vulnerable to people and caring about people. In other words, putting on the armor. In other words, having the wisdom on, the heavenly eye. And then yet not being, taking it all seriously and not being hurt even though you're vulnerable. That's the wisdom eye. Or that's the side of not apprehending beings for whom you put the armor on for. So I think there's other Dharanis too which are, related to certain problems, which might be like this. Other Dharanis, which are not necessarily related to your own... Some Dharanis are related to purifying yourself, like this one. Some Dharanis have a function of protecting the Dharma, the written word, or protecting the temple. Well, there's a chapter in the Lotus Sutra about Dharanis. called the Durrani Chapter, and they have a variety, they have different types in there.

[14:18]

They have some that are for protecting the sutras and some that are for purification, some that are for remembering beings. And so there's a very large number of Durrani's and they've found just a few categories. For protecting the Dharma, for protecting beings, for remembering beings, and for purifying yourself and protecting yourself from getting involved in distractions. The next characteristic of the bodhi, yes? Well, the heading is just, the heading in this sutra is just acquisition of Dharanis. And I just talked about three Dharanis. There are many other Dharanis. As a matter of fact, we'll run into another one in number four.

[15:21]

And the description of the one I just gave you is in the commentary on this sutra. But the Lotus Sutra has other Dhranis that aren't talked about here. And there's other Dhranis still. There's an infinite number of Dhranis, actually. We only mentioned three, but it can go on forever if you talk about them in detail. So this is just talked about one, just to give you an idea of what what it's meant by Durrani. So now we come to what it literally says in the text is Samadhi Gochara. Samadhi Gochara. And Samadhi means absorption or one-pointedness.

[16:29]

And gochara means realm, realm that is a dwelling place. So the dwellers in Samadhi and understood by that is three Samadhis. So the dwellers in Samadhi and understood by that is three samadhis. First samadhi is called shunya samadhi. Next one's called a-prani-hipa, or And as you may know, these are called the doors of deliverance.

[17:45]

to nirvana. Strictly speaking, these are practiced after you've already attained concentration. After you've already attained what's called shamatha. Pardon? Yes. Shunya of Samadhi is dwellers in emptiness. Apranihita Samadhi is... Sphere and signless? No, that would be... Apranihita is who have not fashioned any desire for the future. And their sphere is the signless is animita Samadhi.

[19:06]

It doesn't actually say that. He expands that here. That's understood. That's what it means. So... First word is shunya. Shunya is... can be translated as empty. Shunya is actually, I would say, roughly speaking, shunya is an adjective. Oh, excuse me, I spelled this wrong. This is not shunya samadhi, it's a shunyata samadhi. So the first word is shunyata.

[20:23]

And that will be translated by emptiness. So shunyata, roughly speaking, is a noun. And shunya, It doesn't have exactly those, that kind of grammar, but I can roughly say that. So we see these two words, shunyata and shuna. Here we have shunyata, samadhi. In other words, absorption on samadhi or in samadhi, and absorption in emptiness, on emptiness. That's the first one. you've all heard about this word and on one sense it's talked about as a when it's an adjective it it me it sort of means that when it's when it's modifying when it says bloody bloody shunya so you say sarva

[21:56]

all, dharman, svalakshana, his own marks, or own characteristics, shunya. What that means is all dharmas, own marks are lacking or are empty. All dharmas are empty of own marks. So shunya kind of means, he's saying such and such is lacking, such and such is lacking, or we don't have such and such. But shunyata, being a noun, doesn't mean something lacking. It means that since this stuff is lacking, Because of shunya, because all dharmas are free of or lacking own marks, shunyata means freedom.

[23:04]

So the noun means freedom, total freedom, because it's unobstructed due to the lack of something. But shunya seems to be a negative thing. So the noun, based on a negative adjective for something or other, some limitation, some fact, then becomes unlimitedness. So you're meditating not on a negative thing, but you're meditating on freedom. You're meditating on unobstructedness. But unobstructedness of particular things. So it's a kind of Even though you don't turn off the world, the world takes a rest. It's a rest from multiplicity and from change.

[24:07]

The next one's called a pranihitta. And there's two ways it's translated. One is the way you see here, not fashioning any desire for the future. And the other one is not taking into consideration. Pranidhana actually means a kind of vow or wish. Pranidhana is like a vow. So it's kind of funny because you're meditating now on not a vow. You're meditating on not making a vow, in a sense. Or not taking anything into consideration. So there's various ways that these are... And then the last one is no marks, animitta. So some people say that

[25:25]

that this shunyata is to see the five constituents of our experience, the five skandhas, as an-atman, as non-self. And seeing your experience as non-self means you don't see any self-nature. You see no limitation. You see the interrelatedness of them and the borders between them break down. This is one way it's talked about what we mean by meditating on emptiness. Now this is the point that Terry brought up a while ago and that is apranihitta

[26:28]

is in this context. In the context, now, of seeing your experience, the constituents of your experience, as not being formed into a self, and also the constituents themselves as also not having an own mark. So the constituents aren't gathered together into self, plus the dharmas themselves, which are the constituents, they themselves don't have own marks. don't have characteristics. There's no overall heading called self, and there's no subheadings or definitions on each one that holds still. In that situation, still, although you've attained this, which is excellent, still you may yearn. You may hope that definitions will return. Or that things will go a certain way. Or that something might happen someday.

[27:35]

Or that you could return to your old way of seeing. And in fact, you can return to your old way of seeing after you've seen this way. You'll never return to, you know, the gross belief in itself after you see this. but you can return into levels of seeing dharmas as solid. So the bodhisattva also meditates on apranihita, namely, not hoping that in the future something will be different. Another way to say it, that's saying not fashioning any desire for the future. The other way to say it is not taking into consideration namely not taking dharmas into consideration and that means not taking into consideration as particular definitions but also not taking them into consideration as empty you don't take them into consideration first of all as their ordinary marks like this is perception perception works this way feelings work this way

[28:55]

Impulses work this way. Various emotions work this way. Various other equipment of mind works this way. In other words, you really don't take psychological functions into account anymore. Now, you have learned what they are. You knew what they are. And by learning what they are and doing the four station forced four foundations of mindfulness on these dharmas you have now been able to you are now able to start doing this practice is everyone familiar with the four foundations of mindfulness they're called smithyupasthana first one's mindfulness of body next one's mindfulness of feelings next one's mindfulness of consciousness next one's mindfulness of dharmas so by by applying these insight meditations and then by using that concentration and that insight into the Abhidharma and then doing various meditations with the Four Noble Truths, you are ready to do this meditation, which now means that now you see how your psychology works and you know how it works, and at any given moment you are mindful of how it works.

[30:13]

Now, you no longer take into consideration these functions. It doesn't mean you don't see them anymore, but you no longer take them into consideration. And you have no desire that they'll go a certain way. And now you don't want you to take them into consideration in terms of seeing how their mechanical nature and karma is functioning. But you don't even call them empty or non-empty. And you don't even call them existent or non-existent. In fact, they aren't. And if you think they're existent, you'll be quite upset because they're going to get you in trouble. And if you think they're non-existent, you'll be quite upset. So people can frighten themselves away from nirvana by thinking that these things are non-existent. Nirvana is not non-existent. And it's kind of a trick you can play on yourself by thinking that it's non-existent, and then you'll flinch away from it.

[31:16]

And of course it's non-existent. But even though it's non-existent, it's easy to attain. And even though it's existent, it's hard to merge with. So this, then also in the same situation, it's all in the same situation, even the three called three samadhis, but they're really three aspects of the same type of practice, same Bodhisattva's practice. It's actually called dweller in samadhi. It's one samadhi, really. So animitta means that the object, whatever object it is, is exempt from ten marks. And five of the ten marks are the five das. The five das are external objects. So the objects, the sense objects, are exempt from being das, are exempt from being external.

[32:25]

So you don't see... So practicing now, once again, you're in the context of emptiness and in the context of not taking into account dharmas. So emptiness takes into account dharmas, but then sees their interrelationships and sees their lack of self because of the law of conditioned origination. Then, in that situation, you don't have any desire for future, And you don't even take into account these dharmas. You don't even consider these dharmas, which you've already let go of as individual self-defined things. And now in addition to that, you take them as not having a mark. Namely, they don't have the marks of the five dusts. They aren't external. And they're not male or female. And they don't arise. They aren't maintained, they don't deteriorate, and they don't perish. Okay?

[33:36]

So now you've got the whole picture, you see. Now you've got what's happening. Anything's happening. If you look at it carefully, you see the poor thing, whatever it is, is due to, you know, an endless web, a totality of causes. And actually all there is is the causes. There's nothing other than the totality of causes. There's never a thing. There's only a sum total of causes. There's never, like who talked about, there's never such a thing. There's hearing, but hearing's not the ear. It's not ear consciousness. It's not mind consciousness. It's not the sound, and so on and so forth. It's not the greed that's at that moment. It's not the anger. It's not the distraction or concentration or faithfulness. It's none of that stuff. None of the dharmas. And yet hearing is what you're talking about. What is it? It's just all those things as causes. And all those things as they relate to each other as mutual causes.

[34:36]

And simultaneous causes. And on and on. It's emptiness. There's some lack. Lack of what? Lack of anything you want to say. Try to find a thing. You can never find it. because it's just nothing other than the sum total of its causes. Whereas its borders, they're only there by discrimination. Even the discrimination is only there by a bunch of other causes and a bunch of other relationships. Everything's completely open because there's a lack of anything definite. And lack of anything definite does not mean that something's missing. If you took something away, then that would be definite. But you can't even have some particular thing missing. You can't take something and throw it out. Because you can't get a hold of it aside from everything. You take one thing, you throw everything out. There's no way to pull a hole, put a hole in this thing and change it. That's the emptiness.

[35:39]

Then the other thing, you're in that situation again. And all this stuff which you now looked at and you looked at very carefully and you saw the causal net and after a while you couldn't see anything but the causal net and the thing merged into its causes and all the other things did the same now you don't even look at the things take them into consideration as something to even look at and consider or wish about then on top of that now looking as the same thing again from a slightly different angle Now you don't take them as external, as male or female, or as arising and so on. Before you saw the arising, but you saw the arising as relative to...

[36:28]

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