The 14th koan in the collection known as the Transmission of Light is about Nagarjuna and Kapimala. The teacher Kapimala was invited by a Naga king and he came and the Naga king gave him a jewel. Thereupon Nagarjuna asked or said that this jewel is the ultimate treasure of the world. And I wonder is it form, does it have a form or is it formless?

[01:13]

And Kapimala said, you still only understand that it's form or without form, you don't yet even know that the jewel is not a jewel. Thereupon Nagarjuna woke up deeply. I'd like to discuss with you what is this jewel and how to live with it.

[02:31]

We've been studying the teachings of Nagarjuna and I don't start every class by reiterating the whole program. And perhaps I should but then if I did, every class would be just reiterating the whole program and we wouldn't get to study, we wouldn't have time to study Nagarjuna's teachings. But I will tell you again the perspective which I'd like you to bring to the study of his teachings. A number of people over the years have, including me, have brought up the question of what about

[03:46]

all this intellectual activity that occurs when you approach his teaching about the Middle Way. As given by Nagarjuna and other teachers of the Middle Way, there is an intellectual, an intense intellectual energy around his teaching. There is also an intense emotional energy around it. So the first step in approaching his teaching of the Middle Way and his teaching of emptiness,

[04:48]

the approach to it should be through compassion first. It is a teaching about wisdom and compassion but the compassionate side of it is implied and expected to already have been established before you approach the text. So I ask you before you even look at Nagarjuna's teachings that you practice compassion with yourself, that you're already deeply compassionate when you start to study this material.

[05:55]

Based on compassion, the teaching of wisdom will be fruitful. Wisdom without compassion, well, is maybe at the least just a headache. So the first phase is to settle into the self by means of compassionate practices, to settle into self-existence through compassion, which means through giving, through ethical study, through patience, through enthusiasm and through concentration.

[07:14]

The next step then is to inquire into the self-existence. Once we're settled with our self, we ask, well, what is it? To ask what is it, before we've settled into it, is kind of dislocated and purely intellectual. But once you're really engaged with it, then to ask what it is, is natural. And you are really wondering because you're up to your eyeballs in it. So you really want to know, well, what is this? No one has to tell you, well, now practice inquiring into the nature of this self-existence. You want to know, you need to know.

[08:21]

If you haven't yet checked in to yourself, then you may feel like wisdom practice, insight practice, is a kind of requirement of the program, of the monastery, which you go along with to some extent. So again, deeply check into the self, and then we use teachings like Nagarjuna's fundamental verses on the Middle Way to examine what is self-existence. Once we're here with our self, then let's bring now our full energy, let's let the full energy of our being arrive and interact with where we are, what we are.

[09:29]

I've said this before, and I say it again, because in this world of engaging and studying the self, people forget to take care of themselves, and forget to practice compassion before and during the intellectual encounter. Keep taking care of yourself, keep giving, keep being patient with what comes up. Keep being enthusiastic, continue to concentrate while inquiring, while looking into existence. And again, I bring up the deities of this process, the process of settling,

[10:45]

and simple compassion is kanan, or kanzeyan. You listen to the cries of the world, you feel the pain of the world, you feel and listen to what's happening to you, you align with that process, namo kanzeyan. I align with the process of my experience, I'm with my experience. This is compassion, settling into my place, taking my seat. Then, we bring the next name of the bodhisattva, kanjizai. Now I contemplate the jizai, now I contemplate self-existence.

[11:49]

So with kanan or kanzeyan we settle into our place, and with kanjizai we see that the five skandhas are empty. Our experience is empty, our being is empty. This is the mahayana, insight into the emptiness of being. But first we have to be what we are, otherwise it's an intellectual drain to consider this, or it's a drain through our intellect. But once you're totally present with your being, with your five skandhas, then this kind of inquiry is a big relief. So mahayana is the insight into the emptiness of form, feeling, and so on.

[12:54]

But first we have to be the form and the feeling before the insight has any beneficial function. So before you study these texts, before you come to class, inhabit your being. Practice giving ethics, patience, and enthusiasm with your experience before you hear any words from the text. So what is the relationship between zazen and this study?

[13:58]

Zazen or being upright with the forms of practice, with the forms of your experience, with the feeling of practice, the feeling of your experience, your feeling experience, being upright with the five skandhas. Being upright with being, first of all, is to be compassionate with being. Being compassionate is not to ask for trouble and not to push it away. Not to look for it, not to look for how to get in a place where there isn't any. Just be upright and forms will uncover

[15:16]

all forms, all feelings, all perceptions, all mental formations, all consciousness, all these things will open up, will uncover your dispositions, your obsessions, your rigidities, your fixations, your sentiments, your habitual tendencies. All these things will be surfaced, will be freed up. The Nagas will bring you these jewels, which, when we're not compassionate, we can't see, we can't hear, we can't feel, we can't touch them. Sitting upright, the Nagas bring us all these jewels, treasuries.

[16:24]

We then are often surprised at the gift. We are unfamiliar with the treasures, and in our surprise we may shake, quiver, and roll a little bit, and misconstrue the gifts as poisonous, terrible, demons, or whatever. But something, anyway, that we don't understand is a gift that comes to us because we have been upright and compassionate. And not just, you know, we're not just exposed to our rigidities, our cynicism, our dispositions, and our obsessions,

[17:42]

but then even reactions to them also surface, so it gets to be quite a bustling treasure house. Bustling, prosperous treasure store of activity, of goods being delivered, and clerks running all over the place, energetically dispersing and moving things in and out of the process center, which has been closed down for some time due to lack of compassion. Now that you're compassionate, to be upright with your being, all these gifts come to show you yourself and your tendencies and your habits.

[18:45]

If you then, after getting used to the surprise, resume, or perhaps never even did lose, your practice of compassion, and you continue to be upright, then your eye opens, your wisdom eye opens, and you start to see the dependent co-arising of the arrival of these gifts, of these jewels, of these obsessions. Just like Nagarjuna, with his teacher, when the jewel came, he said, well, is this form or formless? And his teacher said, you still have that tendency. You're still obsessed with things in that logical form, of form or formless.

[19:59]

But because he was present with the situation, he could surface his obsession. He could put it out in front of him, and his teacher could see it, and comment, and say, here's the obsession, do you see it? And you do not yet see that the jewel is not the jewel. The jewel is not a jewel. And he woke up. He saw the dependent co-arising of his obsession, of dealing with jewels, of dealing with being, in this way, from beginningless time. He saw, and he awoke. Seeing the dependent co-arising of anything, you then see Buddha.

[21:05]

But anything means anything that is happening that you are right now, not theoretical, not abstract, but your being, your five standards, to be present so that they can surface. And then once surfaced, to not shrink back, and stay present, and then watch your obsessions come up. Watch how you, well actually I said not shrink back, but watch how you do shrink back. Even while shrinking back, be upright with the shrinking back. That's an obsession. Be upright with the leaning forward and grabbing. Be upright with all the ways you defend yourself from its radiance by categorizing. Watch that, and see how that dependent co-arises, and see what it causes. Watch all this from your upright position. This material looks like shit. It is jewels. It is jewels.

[22:18]

It is a jewel to see how we mistreat ourselves, to see how we mistreat phenomena. That's a jewel. It's telling us what we've been doing to throw ourselves off from the beginning of time. We are now being shown the cause of the problem. This is a great gift which is given to us because we have worked thoroughly enough to open up to it. It's not easy to get to the place of receiving the jewel. Once you've received the jewel, it's not easy to stay calm in the face of the gift. But that's what is needed in order to enter the vision of the dependent co-arising of our obsession, of our dispositions, of our entrenchments, of our sentiments. And again, stay upright in the midst of all that happens once the gift is delivered,

[23:28]

and then see its dependent co-arising, and to see Buddha. In every difficult-to-accept thing, inside there is Buddha teaching, turning the wheel of Dharma, saying, Can you hear? Can you hear? I'm talking to you through this. So first, namo kanveyon, namo kanan. First I practice uprightness by aligning myself with listening to what's happening,

[24:41]

with smelling and touching and tasting what's happening, with thinking what's been thought. Once I'm settled, namo kanji zaibosatsu, I align myself with the contemplation of self-existence. And kanji zaibosatsu is really the same as Manjushri. It's wisdom in the form of compassion turning into wisdom. Once kanveyon, kanan, kanji zaibosatsu, and Manjushri are present, then samantabhadra. The steadfast continuation of the practice, walking straight forward. Kanveyon rides a peacock, Manjushri rides a lion, samantabhadra rides an elephant.

[25:52]

The peacock, with eyes on the feathers, ears on the feathers, listens, listens, listens, listens. Then, riding a lion, enter the essence of no-essence, and then get on the elephant and continue this forever. Compassion, wisdom, compassion, wisdom. Enter being all the way to the bottom. Sit there. Watch the pinnacle of enlightenment. Enter again. Watch. Sit. Enter again. Watch. Sit. Round and round. Steadfastly. Take the peacock, the lion, and the elephant out for lunch. Make sure they get plenty to eat so that they can keep working.

[27:01]

Bring them to every meal. These three great Bodhisattvas working together, the Buddha is not affected. The Buddha doesn't do anything. The Buddha doesn't enter. The Buddha doesn't study. The Buddha doesn't walk. The Buddha is just upright. And with this uprightness, the settling, the compassionate settling happens. The daring insight happens. And the continuous practice happens. So at the center of all this is just, don't move. Be upright. You will settle into and be exposed to the material. The jewels will come. Then again, be upright. You will see the dependent co-arising. And then again, be upright. You will act correctly, which is to continue the process.

[28:06]

When we study some of these teachings, we go and define details of our obsessions. We see all kinds of examples of how our mind clings and has habitual ways of dealing with the jewels. As we watch how our mind works, please continue to come back to your body. Come back to your feelings. Stay with your experience. Don't get too much up in your head when you study this material, when you hear this material. Feel your whole body. So that your study will be balanced. Perhaps I would do well to remind you of this in the middle of our hectic media activity in our Bustle Lane classes.

[29:20]

To stop occasionally and have everybody just settle. Perhaps that would be good. But finally you know, there's nobody ringing mindfulness bells out there in the marketplace. It isn't necessarily good to ring the bell and stop. But maybe I'll do it now and then. Just so you remember, in the realm where there's no bells, to do it yourself. To feel your head overheating or your feet getting cold when you're studying this material. When you're entering the realm of insight into the emptiness of being. So, you've heard a little bit about some of my thoughts concerning case 14 of the transmission of light.

[30:46]

Thank you for listening. And good luck with the jewels. Please, take good care of them. The world depends on you too. You need a job. And it's a difficult job, so. I sympathize with how hard it is. And nobody said it was easy. But today it sounds simple, doesn't it?

[31:28]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ