So what does it mean, you know, what does it mean that they can shake the moon or they can illumine things? Yeah, he says that, that the, you know, talk about wonder-mongering, he says the name of the beauty is to, uh, to conserve them in bees, in a sense. What, uh, uh, Great Emptiness here brought up was that It seems like reading about these kind of things is a kind of, it converts the reader. So just reading about some of these events, some of these miracles, as you read them, you somehow become converted. You convert yourself into a different type of a person, into someone who's saying, okay, after this, anything's okay. Or if you can believe this, you can believe anything.

[01:04]

Okay, so I'll say that again. If you can believe this, this stuff here, these riddhis that are talking about them, you probably will be able to believe almost anything else in the sutra. If you could think of some way to say yes to these, you might be able to say yes to something which is... Absolutely liberating. Actually, it's harder to say yes to the teaching that is later on given in the sutra because it's so multifarious. It's easy to say okay once. There's some miracle. In other words, to say yes, a miracle has happened. It's easy to do that, but it's page after page to say yes. It requires a little bit more effort.

[02:09]

But still, if you can do this, it's a good start. So where is the miracle? You see, that's another point. Is the miracle this? Or is it the miracle that I see this as a miracle? Some people can see this as a miracle. How could this be created? It all shines up. The people who, the cargo cult, the cargo cult people, they think that this thing that happened to them is a miracle. They can't. It's a miracle. But remember, they believe it. They think it happened. It isn't that this, that this ship, what? Cargo cult is, is when, like a, a space, a spaceship, but a, a, well, no, it doesn't have to be a UFO, but like if a 747 crashes in the jungle, okay, and the people find it, they may have some nice cargo in it, which is pleasant for them, but basically, this event, they think it's, they think it happened, right, but it's a miracle, it's a miraculous thing, you know, it like takes them to a totally different realm of existence at this,

[03:35]

747 just fell into the jungle. And in one case that I saw in some movie, a ship crashed in somebody's land, and they took the pieces of the ship and they reconstructed it and put it up on top of this beautiful precipice. And it wasn't complete. I don't think this whole ship was, I don't think, the whole spaceship, airship, was not intact, but they filled in parts of it so that they put it all together again, up on top of this beautiful jungle peak, and they go up and do services to it. They worship this wrecked plane. And so it often sometimes happens that, so a cargo cult means that some major event happened to some people or to some person, and they take this the cult side is not so good maybe, but anyway, for them it was a miracle, and they believed it happened.

[04:39]

For them it was a radical, something happened that they couldn't have imagined before, and that's the miracle. Now, it may also have extraneous benefits, maybe a bunch of, you know, lots of food inside or something, but I think that it's not necessary for them to get some material goods out of it. Just that it's really far out and nobody got killed, And it shows a whole other civilization, a whole other level of existence of maybe, you might say, a greater form. And then the people worship it. It expands probably their whole sense of the universe to something like that to happen. Anybody see that movie? They really made a temple out of this spaceship. Anyway, where is the miracle? Is it that airplanes crash in Southern California and it isn't a miracle.

[05:43]

It's a disaster. Even if it doesn't kill anybody, but if it does kill somebody, if it doesn't kill anybody, it's even less of a miracle. Just an airplane crashing and nobody gets hurt, it's not a miracle. Of course, people are used to it. It doesn't do anything to them. They're just sort of depressed, more worried when they ride the airplane. But Why don't they make it a miracle? Well, they just don't. Why don't people make this into a miracle here in this room? Why don't you make this into a miracle? You just don't. Well, what will you make into a miracle? Well, some of the things we're talking about tonight you could make into miracles if you wanted to. Just hearing them, you could. tell it that's right especially if the thing comes with you know some way that you can't without sort of equipment to explain why it happened without a message or some causal connection okay so there's various reasons by which miracles don't happen to you okay the reason why miracles aren't happening all the time is because of reason that's what it means

[07:10]

One of the main causes for lack of miracles is reason. In other words, you can't walk up to a car and be awestruck by it, because you're used to it. But you could make a miracle out of it if you just go and look at it. As a matter of fact, as you may know, many times that's what an enlightenment event is, is when somebody walks up to a car and they see the car, and they realize how this car happened. is very, very profound. And they're just completely wiped out by it. The car is a miracle to them. There's an occasion for milk. The more classical things are, you know, piece of pebble hitting, hitting, hitting bamboo, flower opening. Flowers open to people. People think they're pretty or whatever, but they are miracles to them because they do not They're not impressed by the, you know, ultimate reality happening right there.

[08:14]

So I'm just emphasizing the fact that the place the miracle happens is in the eye of the beholder. That's right, so you have... I won't say yes or no, I won't say it with one or the other, okay? I'll just tell the situation more widely rather than getting into that box, okay? If, in fact, the miracles are not only in the eyes or the senses of the miracle beholder, But the vividness and extremity of the miracle is determined to a great extent by the conceptual background of the beholder. Certain people need heavy-duty miracles.

[09:19]

Certain people are prone to certain extreme forms of miracle. Other people are not prone to that type of miracle. And other people are either prone or not prone to a certain type. Forget about that. So just those two types. Some people can be miraculously affected by slight events, like a pebble dropping on the cement, or a hand, or a landscape. That's all they need. for the occasion. Other people need something else. So then there's variations between the two, the whole spectrum, all right? Now, let's assume the simple case, or we can just make the complicated case, is that there's four categories of people, okay?

[10:26]

One who needs the extreme variety of event in order to conceive their miracles happen, in order to have a miraculous experience. The other needs a less big event. And then those two are broken down into those that can believe and those that don't believe. Or those whose threshold of being overpowered and giving up their resistance has been met or not. Everybody, at some point, everybody's threshold can be crushed by certain events. They won't believe. And, for example, one of our students studied Pentecostal Church. There are techniques by which you can crush people's resistance. You can make them have a miracle. It's possible. Everybody has that threshold. Some people's threshold are very low. Some people are very high. Okay.

[11:28]

Now let's take some situation. Some people are... You know, I mean, it's... Some people are very superstitious. And superstitious does not mean that they believe in necessarily ghosts. Superstitious means that they believe in stuff. A lot of Marxists are superstitious. They believe in Marxism. That's superstition. So very superstitious people are the people who, generally speaking, will need Anyway, a very superstitious person might need a more extreme form of event for them to feel like they've had a miraculous experience. So if a bodhisattva meets such a person, when a bodhisattva meets a person who needs a certain type of thing, in order for them to have that kind of experience, a bodhisattva will allow them

[12:34]

what they need to see in order to have that release. And does the bodhisattva do something? Does the bodhisattva actually emit rays because he knows this person needs to see rays? Because you see, it's not just the rays, because not everybody falls for rays. Only certain people, if they see rays, do they sort of say, okay, I give up. This is... I want to do this stuff. Whatever this guy does, I want to do. So, I don't want to say, you know, that these bodhisattvas are these people who, you know, are walking along and they can just give off raised. And I also don't want to say that they can't give off raised. I don't want to say that. It doesn't feel right to me to say that.

[13:36]

I want to say, well, they really don't give off the raise. That's just somebody else's idea. Because it's not giving off the raise that counts. It's the fact that the person sees them give off the raise, and when the person sees them giving off the raise, that the person is converted. That seems a whole point. In other words, A person sees what for them is extremely moving. In other words, they see what they want to see. They want to see this. So in other words, if you take a bodhisattva and you say, can this bodhisattva give off rays? As I say, I'd rather not say that they can or can't. But take this bodhisattva, a skilled person, and we'll talk later about what skills develop in order to do these magical powers. take this skilled person, skilled meditator, and you meet this who's vowed to save all sentient beings, and you put them in the presence of another sentient being, just one for another.

[14:46]

This person has a certain kind of weakness. This person has a weakness for a certain kind of conversion experience. There's a certain thing which they want to see, When the bodhisattva meets somebody who wants to see something, then suddenly this skilled bodhisattva can create the opportunity for the rays to occur. But they couldn't do it unless that person needed that kind of thing. It's not like they just can give off rays. They need the other person to give off the rays. And in fact, with the aid of the other person who wants to see these things, because that's the very thing that they want to have, in order so that they can believe. They just want some excuse. In other words, I'm saying people want an excuse to believe. You can do it all on your own.

[15:47]

You don't need somebody to help you do it. Well, excuse me. To be converted, I guess, you need some pretext, right? You need some opportunity. But you don't, it doesn't need to be anything special, as I said. For example, I was converted by a picture of Hisamatsu's Shinichi sitting as I was in. He converted me. And I saw a picture of him. You know, that was converted by a photograph. I was converted many times. That's one of the major conversion events. Wasn't it? Is it a bodhisattva? No, it's a piece of paper in light magazine. Just seeing a picture of a person's back, black clothes, on tatami mats, with a certain caption saying, in deepest thought, I was converted. I wanted to do that.

[16:51]

And I noticed that that picture did it. Did he give off rays? I could certainly say he gave off rays if I wanted to. I didn't need to say that. But some people, could I say he shook? Could I say he illuminated the room? Could easily say he illuminated the room. But he didn't do it, even the picture did it. That picture was Bodhisattva. Could I say, you know, what could I say? Could I say something on this list? I could and I couldn't. But it turns out I didn't need, I didn't need to say anything on this list. I could have easily said him if I needed to. Do you understand? But I just, I would say I'm the kind of person, and a lot of Zen students are the kind of people that don't need it. But some Zen students do need it. But I just didn't need anything on this list to convert me. I took other opportunities. But I would also say that certain things like this have happened to me.

[17:59]

I didn't think I needed them. But when it happened, in fact, they were big encouragement. I sort of plunged to a deeper level of sort of openness or something. I gave up another level, another layer of resistance when some of the other things happened. I didn't know I needed it, but, and maybe I didn't, but anyway, it was benefit to me. And I could see, particularly when one of them happened, one time I shook hands with Suzuki Roshi after I'd been practicing with him for a year and a half. And maybe I shouldn't tell you this kind of stuff. But anyway, I had an extremely strong experience of heat or warmth.

[19:04]

And he'd been very kind of, he'd always been very, left me alone very much until that time. He initiated the handshake. I never shook hands with him. I wouldn't even think of shaking hands with him. But he shook hands with me. He actually put his hand out and took my hand and shook it. First time. But that's after practicing with me almost every day of the week for a couple years. And he was being very important in my life. But then he did that. Was there something on this list? A lot of these things on this list aren't as impressive as that one. Of course, this list itself. You could say it's one of the things on this list. I could say it is. But I could say actually there should be 19 things on this list. They missed one. It's called being inundated in warmth. but not burned.

[20:10]

I wasn't burned. And I noticed at the time that I was very susceptible to that because of the way I practiced up to that point. That by having this rather strict and formal relationship with him, I became very susceptible to that kind of interaction. I was very ready for it. And it was very encouraging. All the time I knew, you know, that actually all the Zen teachers are generally rather formal, and at least I thought they were, and cold with their new students, that actually it's out of compassion that they're that way. They want to leave them alone and let them practice Aizan without disturbing them. So I sort of expected that. And I heard that other students also had the same experience. Maybe a year or six months in the situation wouldn't say anything to them, even after they already had become quite familiar with them some other way. So it was all okay with me. But still, that event was a confirmation that I had been practicing with him all that time, and that I was practicing then.

[21:19]

So these kinds of experiences can happen, but it's the person that made them happen. I mean, he could shake hands with a thousand people, and maybe none of them would have that experience. They might have other experiences too, but that would mean I had the experience. Was it a miracle? You know, you can talk about other miracles, you can bring some magician in here and do things, and even if bring somebody in here and float around the room, it may, it may not, I may ask him to leave the room. I may say, I'm sorry, we don't do that, it's innocent. And be quite irritated with him for polluting the atmosphere because of his body. So for me, it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be a conversion experience, perhaps. On the other hand, I may like it a lot and go study with him. So I'm saying, I feel that you can do things that people want you to do them. You can have super-knowledges and superpowers if people wish you to have them, if they want them, because people can see what they want and have experiences that they want.

[22:26]

People can have, you know, conversion experiences at movies that they want. So, I would say then, The bigger the front, the smaller the back. Some people have really big fronts. But those kind of people are the easiest in some way. You just do one other thing. Pow. There's a lot of people walking around the city who don't like Zen so much. But in fact, they wound up here they would have these big kind of experiences. You know what I mean? In other words, they have big fronts. So a lot of you could do little things with them and they would have these big experiences. Sometimes the people come here to lecture or just to visit and they have these big experiences.

[23:31]

They walk in the door and they say and they ask them They have some momentous experience when they come in here. Or some people meet some of our students and they're completely wiped out by a little thing. Some people come here and see rays and all kinds of other stuff and they're very encouraged. They see that stuff. And that's without even people knowing them. But if you get to know somebody and you find that they need something, I have to just go along with what they need in order for them to say that they've been helped, in order for them to say, that they've been pressed. And bodhisattvas can do that. They know how to do that. So is that clear about all this? It's somewhat important. It's one of the things bodhisattvas can do. In other words, when you meet someone, if you sense they need something, if you sense that they're, for example, once again, if you sense someone comes into the center and they say, I don't know what I've been doing.

[24:37]

You guys don't do that, do you? It's a sense that if you just say no, that they'll have a conversion experience. That's all you gotta do is say, no, we don't do that. And they'll go, oh God. And you say, is it a miracle? It's a miracle. It's a miracle because they came here. They came to Zen. They didn't, you know, the thing that they might often ask is, you people don't do such and such a kind of practice, you know, some kind of spiritual trip that they don't like. All the, they have an idea of a, if they went to Bank America and asked the people there, if you people don't do that, and if people said no, it wouldn't mean anything to them, because they don't expect those people to do it, right? But if they go to a real Zen center with a building, you know, and real people in there running around, hitting bells and stuff, and then you go and say, you do that, you know that they don't want you to do that, because they can't stand that or something, that's, If you do that, they'll resist.

[25:38]

And they'll say, here's another place where they do that, and therefore here's another place where I can't believe what they're doing. So they say, do you do that? Just say no, and they give up. They have, you know, who knows? Maybe they see lights all over the place. Maybe bells ring and all kinds of wonderful things happen. They have a miracle in you. All you have to do is just hear what they want to say and say it. And it's not exactly that you're lying either. Because actually we don't do whatever it is that they say you do. Like they come and say, are you strict here? No. Because they want you to say no. And if you say no, they'll be able to come here and go to Zaza and be on time every day and sit, say, and go on a diet. They'll be able to break their bones because they'll give up enjoying. They'll merge with the practice. If you just let them... Let go by saying no. So you say no. And you're not lying because, in fact, we aren't strict.

[26:41]

It's not a lie to say we aren't. It's also not a lie to say we are. So that's what a bodhisattva can do. A bodhisattva can sense, this person wants this, and I'll let them have it. Because if the left they wanted, that would be good for them if they had it. So here, here it is. Take it. Okay. I'll sign it. Like that. That's all it takes. All it takes is to know what they want, to know what's good for them. And these powers help you do that. So, now, what does the bodhisattva do in order to develop this particular power? He develops the four ridhipada. R-I-R-R-D-D-H-I-P-A-D-A. Riddhipada. And what are they? The first one's called the Chanda.

[27:43]

C-H-A-N-D-A. Which literally means will to do. Or sometimes called... In other words, like that. zealousness next one is virya which is related to virile vigor and energy so next one is citta thought next one is virya spelled v-i-r-y-a citta c-h i mean c-i-t-t-a and next one is Samdhi, S-A-M-A-D-H-I. Prahana, P-R-A-H-A-N-H.

[28:46]

That's called exploration. S-A-N-D-H-I. S-A-M-A-D-H-I. S-A-M-A-D-H-I. I think I mean Samadhi. But maybe I should check. I didn't think it was Samadhi. Jesus, Samadhi or Samadhi. I think it's Samadhi. Yeah. No. Prahana. P-R-A-H-A-N-A. What do you mean? exploration of the mystery of subtlety of the obscurity.

[30:01]

Now, as you'll see, this one is closely related to The Paracitta Abhijini. By the way, the way that the Chinese translate this Riddhi is, Riddhi is translated as magical, psychic, supernatural. Anyway, the way the Chinese translate it is like this. This character means a thus, or like, or as. And this character means mind, will. So you should translate months.

[31:04]

So together they mean at will. At your [...] will. And really part is at your, at will legs, the legs of at willness. So really means at will. I think it might be helpful to talk about the, to simultaneously talk about the paracitta, jnana, because it's related here. Paracitta, jnana, is, para means other, citta means thought, jnana, knowledge, the supernatural, the superpower of others' minds.

[32:21]

Actually, all these powers have a lot to do with other people. They have a lot to do with other people. So he developed the Riddhis by developing those four which you just mentioned. I mentioned how that might be construed, how those four work, or how you meditate on those four. I'd like to say about how you meditate on things in order to develop the power to know others' thoughts, to know others' minds. So what you do is, one of the meditations which are available to us is to meditate on the rising duration and extinction of certain dharmas, or certain, in this case, we would say citta, the whole consciousness.

[33:57]

And you can read about this in the Suryumagga or Abhidram Kosha. It's a somewhat advanced meditation. insight meditation prior to entering the Buddhist path. It's not strictly speaking a Buddhist meditation. Because it's prior to Buddhist insight, it's prior to entering the path. It's preparatory to entering it, but you still don't understand yet. You can practice this without having understood the first truth. Everything you do before you've caught on is prior Buddhist. Even though you say you're a Buddhist, it's not strictly speaking a Buddhist meditation, even though you're a Buddhist that's doing it. Just like driving a car, we don't say that the Buddhist method of driving a car, even though a Buddhist is doing it.

[35:05]

It really is a Buddhist driving a car, a Buddhist is doing it, but still somebody else can do the same thing. So a person who doesn't practice Buddhism can do this meditation. This power, chitta jnana, is a yogic power that existed before Buddhism. But it turns out that both this and the mridi are very useful to bodhisattvas. Well, let me say about it. It's not a trance. However, in order to do it, you'd have to have concentrated powers, you know, verging on the kind of power that a trance would need. You'd have to have that kind of concentration to do this. Particularly speaking, it's not a trance. You do not wish to enter a trance to do this practice.

[36:07]

You do not have to enter a trance to do this practice. Okay, so... Then what you do is, after you can do this practice of watching the rise and fall of things, then you turn your attention towards your own personal indications, gestures, your own personal gestures. And you thereby see the relationship by centering yourself on this meditation in the context of observing your gestures, you will see the relationship between thoughts and gestures. There are subtle, what do you call, nimitta, N-I-M-I-T-T-A, signs that you can discern in yourself for thoughts you have and for desires and so on.

[37:46]

And you can also then, or you can do it for yourself and then you turn it towards others. Yeah, but socialization is something that you do. You're quite active about it. You do it. You study it. But it's by studying them that you know. You don't do that, but if you did it, you'd be much better at it than you are. That's what I'm saying. These people are excellent at it. Very, very good. To the extent that they have the ability to read other people's minds.

[38:48]

But I'm saying that you do know how to do it to a certain extent. All of us do it to a certain extent. But you don't necessarily think, well, you didn't do it based on this other meditation, right? And then you didn't, in the context of that meditation, study your own and then study others. It's true. But you did. You have been interested to look at people, to try to figure out what they're looking like, what that means. We have done that practice. We all have. Because it's very useful to be able to tell by a person's face, hand, and body gestures, what they're going to do next, or how they feel. In fact, this is important, especially in poker. Right? So, people who play poker would like to develop this. So, anyway, people develop this ability, but they don't develop it very well because they don't do these meditations. This is just a way to do it perfectly, almost perfectly. But we already know how to do it, and some people know better than others.

[39:57]

People in New York are much better at it than people in Iowa. Yeah. Somebody told somebody that told me that the most difficult people, somebody said, who are the most difficult people to work with? in psychiatric situations. And he said, oh, you want to think of the most difficult people? Well, just go out into the Midwest town and watch the people who come out of their farmhouses to the mailbox after the mailbox, after the truck leaves. So those are the most difficult people to work with. Do you understand? Not the people who are waiting at the mailbox and say hi to the postman. The ones who live in a farmhouse.

[41:02]

And after the mail truck's gone, they come out, get their mail and go back in. In other words, that's the only time you see them. And that's maybe the only time anybody sees them except Aunt Edna. And I tell the story about these people, you know. A while ago, I was in, since I'd been ordained, I was in Minnesota, in a small town in Minnesota. And one of my friends was working for these people. They didn't even live in a farm, but they lived in a small town. And I was standing outside with my shaved head and my subdued clothing. And I saw them come in the window and look at me. And he was working, he had to do some work, just finish up some work for me. And he overheard them talking. The woman said to me, Fred? Fred. What is that? And he said, I think it's a monk.

[42:06]

She said, I didn't know we had any monks around here. So anyway, people in New York, or San Francisco, even more so in New York. When they go crazy, they're easier to work with in general. Because, you know, because they talk to people, you know, because they know when somebody's gone on the street, you've got to be able to tell something about what that guy's going to do by the way he looks. And people in New York know that other people in New York are looking to see what they're going to do by what they look like, so they change their face so they won't know. But people have to learn that too. So as a result, people in New York are much sharper about this stuff, and if they flip out, you've got all kinds of stuff to work with them. You can make faces at them and they go... They can spot all that stuff. So they're much better by virtue of their desire to survive or to get rich or whatever.

[43:11]

And so people, depending on their interest in being able to know what other people are doing, develop this as a sort of, just on their own. But meditators, if they want to develop this power, they want to develop this to a supernatural degree. So they really can know what people are thinking when they do this practice. This is one way to do it. And there's ways that you can do this. It's been laid out. I haven't told you enough now, but if you want to do it, you can do it. So your mental organ is entirely due to your karma. Nobody else's. However, people can know very well what you're thinking about in the sense that they can know if you're thinking a defiled thought, a good thought, a selfish thought. If you're confused, concentrated, they can tell all that kind of stuff because from their own experience. They know what gestures go with certain types of mind.

[44:14]

But still, even though they can tell almost exactly what you're thinking about, it's not that they're inside your head. experiencing your thoughts. It's more that they read it on your face, on your body. And if you do this practice, you can get very good at it. And it's a conversion technique, too, in a way. Because people feel confidence with you if they think you... One thing is they're afraid of you, but in another sense, they feel some confidence from you. Because they feel like they don't have to hide anymore, because you know it. That's right, a head monk, somebody who's been sitting with people for years, carrying a stick for years, day after day, day after day, with a clear mind. They know what you're thinking, and they can hit you, even when you're not asleep.

[45:09]

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