At this temple we are now into the fifth day or sixth day of a 21 day  intensive study period or intensive meditation and study period.  We’re closed for our usual Guest Program and so on.  And so about 85 of us are just here in the valley most of the time meditating and studying and working together.  And so aside from our basic meditation practice we’re also studying some teachings from a scripture which I’ve talked about here before.  But I’ll just say again, this scripture is called the scripture which unlocks or unravels the deep meaning, the sutra of revealing or unraveling or unlocking the deep meaning.  And it’s referring to the deep meaning of the Buddha’s teaching.  So just like I just talked about Suzuki Roshi teaching, he taught in many ways but even …for example, I often give the example of him, one time when I was flying in an airplane with him as the airplane took off he said he was going to teach me how to count people in Japanese. And I learned from him how to count people in Japanese.  And that was useful because I can still count people in Japanese.  Partly because I keep telling this story over and over.  I was thinking though “What’s this Zen teacher doing?  He’s not a Japanese teacher.  He’s teaching Zen, so why is he spending his time teaching this Zen student, who’s his attendant, why is he spending time teaching him Japanese?  Why isn’t he teaching me something deep?” But anyway he taught me, in this case, something kind of superficial, like how to count people in Japanese.  But he had a deep intension, I think. What was it?  

I might’ve been willing to learn to count people in Japanese if I’d sat next to somebody else on the airplane and they’d just leaned over to me and said “Would you like to learn how to count people in Japanese?”  I might’ve said “Yeah, sure.”  You know?   So I might’ve learned from somebody else.  But then again I might’ve said “No thank you.”  But when Suzuki Roshi said “I’d like to teach you how to count people in Japanese” I didn’t say “No thank you.”  I generally thought “Well, here I am.  He gave me the opportunity of traveling with him on the airplane to go do this retreat.  So if he wants to teach me some Japanese, fine.  If he wants to teach me some scripture on the deep meaning of the Buddha’s teaching, fine.  I’m not going to say ‘No thank you’ to whatever he wants to teach me.”  I didn’t come to learn from him what I wanted to learn, exactly.  I came to learn who I am.  This is not necessarily what I want to find out about.

So in the process of him teaching me how to count people in Japanese, of course, I get to see how this person teaches me and I get to see how I respond to his teaching.  And then I get to see the way that he responds to the way I respond.  And then I get to see how I respond to the way he responds.  And through that I get a feeling somehow, somehow comes into me.  I receive a feeling of what it is that he’s up to, and how he feels about that.  And important it is to him.  

So he taught me how to count up to ten and then he told me to continue counting.  And then he went to sleep.  And when he went to sleep I stopped counting.  So he taught me. And my response was to follow his instruction for a while and then stop.  And when I stopped counting, he woke up, and said, well he didn’t say to start counting again, he just said the Japanese for one person, he said “story”, that’s the way you say “one person”.  So he said “story” so I understood he wanted me to start counting again, so I started counting again.  And after I was counting for awhile, he fell asleep again.  And after he fell asleep, I stopped counting.  And when I stopped counting, he woke up and said “story”.  So I started counting again and after I was counting for awhile, he went to sleep again. I think that’s pretty much it.  I didn’t think I stopped the next time.  I just kept counting, out loud, no loud, real loud, but so he could hear me.  I just kept counting the rest of the way to Portland.  And I didn’t disturb his rest by not doing what he’d assigned to me.  
So in some sense there’s something about the deep intention of the teacher of this teacher is that he teaches us something and if we don’t do it, he tries again.  And if we do it, well, then he can rest for awhile, until the next lesson. But that he would, if he were able, he would, he would keep asking me to do it every time I stopped.  So it wasn’t really, in some sense the main thing of the story is not that I learned Japanese from him, but I learned something about how to teach, and how to learn, and how to listen and how to rest.  

This scripture that we’re studying, one of the things that it teaches is that there were, at the time that the scripture was written, the scripture was telling us that the Buddhist tradition had three phases, or you could say three, what we say literally, the “in-house” way of saying that is, there’s “three turnings of the wheel of the teaching”. So we say in the Buddhist tradition sometimes, or in ancient India they said, they spoke of the “dharma wheel,  the wheel of the law”. And a symbol of Buddhism, as you know, is the “dharma wheel”.  

The first scripture of the Buddha is called “setting that wheel of the dharma in motion”; setting the wheel of the teaching rolling.  Dharmachakra parvartana…setting the dharma wheel rolling.  That’s the name of the first scripture.  But there were two more types of teaching that were set rolling and this scripture speaks of them and I thought I might tell you about these three turnings. I think it’s helpful to hear about these three turnings, kind of like learning to count people in Japanese.  It might be helpful sometimes.  But what’s the deep intention of offering these teachings?  And again, the name of this scripture is “unraveling the intention” and part of the reason for saying that is that the Buddha taught in different ways and different threads of the teachings kind of got entangled with each other because he didn’t lay them out systematically, so sometimes people got confused about what the teaching was.  

The Buddha, the historical Buddha, appeared in the world and the stories we hear is that he was asked to teach.  There was something about him, in his enlightened condition that was a condition for people saying “What’s going on with you?” or you know, “What happened to you”, or “Would you tell us what’s going on, why you look so happy but not too happy?”  And he said, “Well I don’t know, you might not want to hear about this.”  And so he would usually demure unless they asked three times.  And they asked three times, so then he taught.  And the way he taught, originally, his first turning of the dharma wheel was basically, he taught conceptually.  He offered a conceptual construction to people of the path to realize the state of Buddhahood, or at least to realize the path to the state of freedom from suffering.  He constructed a conceptual path to liberation.  He provided Logos of liberation for people.  This Logos of liberation he provided for humans.  And he spoke in a language that the people who were listening to him could understand.  So originally it was a conceptual teaching.  And it was a conceptual, logical teaching of how to analyze our experience. And the conceptual analysis of our experience had the….the intent of it was to reveal to the meditator that our experience is fleeting, that our life experience is fleeting, impermanent and unstable.  He didn’t exactly emphasize telling them that our life is fleeting, unstable and impermanent, although he did say that sometimes.  He actually more emphasized a way of looking at your experience so that the fleeting, unstable quality of life would be discovered.  And he taught the analysis so that we would not only see that our experience is fleeting, but we would also see that there was no receptacle or container or supervisor or controller or possessor or whatever, pilot in addition to the fleeting elements of the analysis.  

This process of analysis of our experience was also done not just, I just mentioned that it was done in terms of looking at the elements of the experience but it was also done looking at the different moral qualities of our experience.  So the analysis was also done in terms of whether our experience was tainted of pure.  And tainted means: Is our activity, is our living right now, oriented toward gain and loss?  So we look to see - is our activity oriented toward gain and loss, or is our activity not oriented towards gain and loss.  And see which kind it is.  Of course usually we’d find out that it was oriented toward gain and loss.  But the analysis with the moral dimension would reveal that there was no independent self in this field of experience.  And we would also be able to see, it would be revealed, that the concern for gain and loss is based on believing that something which is not in our experience is believed to be in our experience.  

If I see that what I’m doing is concerned with gain I will discover that I do think that there is a controller, a supervisor, a possessor, a container of the multiplicity of elements of my experience. I do think that.  And because I think that, I’m concerned with gain and loss for that controller, for that owner, for that container, for that independent self.

The more one analyzes that and sees this idea of independent self, which arises with concern for gain and loss, the more one comes to see that it can not be detected in experience.  There is the idea of a controller, but the controller cannot be found. There is the idea of a container of our experience, but the container cannot be found.  There is an idea of an owner of our experience but no owner can be found.  “Owner” goes with concern for gain and loss.  “No owner” goes with no concern for gain and loss. Owner of experience, controller of our experience goes with concern for gain and loss and turmoil and suffering.  This is what the early teachings of the Buddha were addressing.

Then you can also look at what actions are happening that are conducive to paying attention to what’s happening and being able to analyze what’s happening in such a way as to become disabused of the idea of independent existence and the suffering that comes with it.  And which ideas are not conducive to paying attention to what’s happening.  And that analysis also purifies the living system, and purifies it in a sense of helping it see more and more clearly the absence of a permanent anything and an independent anything.  And this first turning of the wheel was addressed to the person looking at herself, looking at her own experience, purifying herself through moral analysis and through empirical experience analysis,  purifying herself and liberating and becoming personally liberated in that process.  So the first turning was personal, conceptual and produced an individual liberation.  And the Buddha was happy to teach individual people a path, a logical conceptual path to personal liberation. The Buddha was happy to teach somebody and have that person become free of suffering and live in the world as a pure experiential event, which didn’t any longer believe that she was separate from other beings that had any independent existence and was physically a blessed, peaceful, fearless saint.  The first turning of the wheel was for that purpose and the Buddha was quite successful.  And a number of people who understood this teaching, or listened to it, understood it, practiced it, became personally purified from the belief in false things.  Became personally purified with concern for personal gain and became personally liberated.  

After about 500 years another turning of the wheel occurred.  The historical Buddha was no longer alive and so the next turning of the wheel was not using the historical Buddha.  It was now going to have to use a different Buddha.  A cosmic Buddha was now going to have to turn the wheel.  And the cosmic Buddha taught not a method of analysis of what’s happening into elements, into impermanent, fleeting, bouncing, dancing elements.  Not that.  But actually teaching that all these elements of experience of a person, they all lack individually have no independent existence.  And part of this then, refutes, completely refutes, the previous method, the previous path.  The previous conceptual approach to liberation is refuted in the next turning.  

In the context of all things, all human beings, all other animals and plants, all feelings, all material particles, all phenomena in the context of them lacking inherent existence, in the context of them being interrelated, and therefore, because they’re interrelated and interdependent, all of them are, ultimately not real.  All of them have no ultimate reality.  They’re just interdependencies.  They’re empty of inherent existence because they’re interdependent.  In the first wheel things were interdependent and real.  In the second turning they’re unreal because they’re interdependent.  

No conceptual approach is refuted, is condemned.  No logical approach to practice.  No approach to liberation.  No path to freedom.  And also, because all things are interdependent, including freedom, freedom is also interdependent.  And therefore freedom is also not real. Suffering is interdependent and therefore suffering is not ultimately real.  So in this second turning of the wheel bondage, turmoil and misery are interdependent phenomena and therefore, not real.  And liberation and peace and joy are interdependent and therefore, not real. Therefore, liberation and bondage have the same nature.  

Got any problems?  If you do, fine.  And any problems that you have have the same nature as being completely free of any problems.  That way that things are is right before us, right now and using any approach to it is a distraction.  This second path also is not a path about personal liberation.  The path where we see that complete freedom and complete bondage, or miserable bondage and blissful freedom – the path where we see that they have the same nature – that’s the path not of individual liberation, that’s the path of all beings liberated.  That’s not the path of the individual Buddha, or the historical Buddha, that’s the path of the Buddha which is the same as the entire universe.  The entire universe, in the second turning of the wheel, is always showing us the truth, no matter what’s happening.  And to access that, there’s no conceptual approach to it.  It’s just immediately presenting itself all the time.  And because there’s no conceptual approach, there’s no difference in the access between those who have received instructions about the path and those who haven’t.  Those who haven’t have no path to drop.  Those who have, have a path to drop.  

The Buddhists and the non-Buddhists are on the same level with this truth.  The non-Buddhists don’t have to give up Buddhism, the Buddhists do.  The non-Buddhists, however, have to give up whatever they’ve got.  Because we have to meet what’s happening directly, with no words, with no concepts.  And this is the path of universal liberation.  

The next path, the third turning of the wheel, which is talked about in the scripture gives us back a conceptual approach, offers us a logical path.  Just like the first one.  But this logical path is offered based on the reputation of a logical path.  It’s based on the second path, which says “If you take the slightest step toward the truth you move away from it.  If you use any means to realize what you are you alienate yourself.  That’s the second path.  It is actually the truest, in a way, the second path.  It just, unfortunately, refutes the entire teachings of the Buddha prior to that.  Which people found very useful and helpful.  

So the third path redeems the logical approach to practice but it bases it on the reputation of logic.  Again the first turning of the wheel constructed a path of liberation, the second wheel refutes the path, and the third wheel accepts the reputation of the path and redeems the path.  So this scripture offers a path now again based on the reputation of the earlier path and redeems the earlier path.  Or another way to say it is the first one gives the logic of liberation, the second condemns all logic and the third one overwhelmingly reconstructs logic, but based on the understanding that logic is ultimately, completely useless.  And the third phase used logic more than ever before and it could use it more energetically….[end of side one of tape]

So you probably heard this song “First there was the mountains then there were no mountains then there were”….That’s a Donovan song from the 60’s.  But it’s based on the Zen teaching, or a Zen saying which is “When I first was practicing the Way, the Path, there were mountains and rivers. After I practiced for thirty years I understood.  There’re no mountains and no rivers.  Now, finally, there’re mountains and rivers again.  But these mountains and rivers walk and talk.  These mountains and rivers leap through the sky and boogie in the basement.  These mountains and rivers are the fully realized mountains and rivers because these mountains and rivers are based on the understanding that there ain’t no mountains and rivers.  And you can’t really understand there’re no mountain and rivers until you understand mountains and rivers. And you can’t really understand that there’re mountains and rivers until you understand that there’s no mountains and rivers.

So we need these three wheels.  We need the conceptual approach.  We need to enter into an immediacy of our life that gives up conceptual approach to our life.  And then we need a conceptual approach to test actually that we really have given up the conceptual approach. We need a Zen center, with an address and a door, and a telephone number and an e-mail address and a website and with buildings and gardens and robes and hats and people and especially vegetarian feasts.  We need all that and we need the teachings of the tradition and then we need to refute the whole thing and have people at the door saying “This is not Zen Center”.  “There’s no Zen Center here”.  Otherwise, it’s not really a Zen center.  And then, just to test to see if we really understand that there isn’t any Zen Center, we take care of the Zen center.  But we take care of it and we see - Are we taking care of it with the understanding that there ain’t no Zen Center in ultimate truth.  

Watch the way we take care of Zen Center to see if we understand that ultimately there’s no Zen Center.  And of course, of course sometimes we notice that the way that we’re taking care of Zen Center it looks like we think there really is a Zen Center and there’s not much sign that we realize that there’s no Zen Center.  We look like we just think there is Zen Center.  That’s the way it is around here quite a bit of the time.  There doesn’t seem to be an understanding that this interdependent thing called “Zen Center”, because it’s interdependent, can never be found.  So then we confess “We don’t understand zen here at Zen Center”.  But that sounds pretty good.  

And then there’s also “We do understand zen at Zen Center and we’re confident about that because our understanding is based on “we do not understand zen at Zen Center’”. And also “We’re kind of happy about that because we kind of understand that nobody understands what zen is.  It’s not just us that don’t understand.  But we may be the ones who are happy about not understanding.”

The three wheels of the teaching are a conceptual offering to understand a non-conceptual approach.  Or I should say – to understand no approach to Buddhahood.  No approach to freedom.  A conceptual approach to understand no conceptual approach.  A conceptual approach to immediacy.  And the immediacy is not at all disturbed by being involved in a conceptual approach because in every moment of being involved in a conceptual approach we are immediately intimate with the ultimate truth of the conceptual approach.  Namely that it’s no real.  

So if you don’t have a conceptual approach that’s fine, although it’s very rare.  The main thing is that as you’re involved in your conceptual approach to whatever you’re doing you don’t miss the immediate, non-conceptual reality that’s there with you all the time; that I don’t miss it; that we can enjoy ultimate truth no matter what’s happening.  And this is not for me, this enjoyment.  This is for the liberation of all beings.  The conceptual approach, although it can be quite good, is for the conceiver, which doesn’t exist.  

Does anybody know that song, know any more words to that song about “First there were the mountains, then there were no mountains, then there were”?  Does anybody know more about that song? ….Oh Juanita? Can  you sing it?  Does anybody know the whole song? Oh Juanita?  So what’s the song about this?  The caterpillar sheds it’s skin and finds a butterfly within…  Hey there you go, that applies doesn’t it.  The caterpillar sheds it’s skin and finds a butterfly within.  Yeah, that’s it.  That’s good.  But!  The first turning of the wheel is what?  It’s the skin. And the larva…the little Buddhist larva disciples (laughs)…Right? The Buddha laid these little eggs and now they’re larva, but the larvas need a skin. And what’s the skin?  The skin is Buddha’s conceptual approach.  So you wrap that little larva in a nice tough conceptual package with lots of neat little analytic conceptual techniques and you cook it in there and then you shed the conceptual techniques and just be a butterfly.  And now that you’re a butterfly now you can teach other larvae about how to put a skin around them in a more selfless way because you got liberated from your conceptual approach, which you needed because you’re all….(laughs)…Like my grandson said to me yesterday…we went to this movie and it was about the immediate accessibility of ultimate truth.  It’s called “A Tale of Unfortunate Events”.  And it has this one scene where this guy’s getting attacked by leaches….So he leans over to his grandmother and says “What’s a leach?”  And she says “We’ll look it up in the dictionary later.” So Friday night he stayed over here and yesterday morning he woke up and the first thing he said was “Can we look up in the dictionary ‘leaches’?”  So we looked it up and you know what a leach is?  A leach is a carnivorous annelid worm, aquatic. And then he asked me…we got on the topic of leach bones and I said “They don’t have any bones.”  And he said “What’s this here?” And I said “That’s your vertebra.” He says “So what are they?”  I said “That’s the vertebra, so the ones have that thing back there are called vertebrates and the other ones are called invertebrates.” And he said “invertebrates”.  And I didn’t say “Keep saying that over and over.” (laughs).

But when we first come to the practice, in some sense we’re like invertebrate, little larvae, and we need, since we haven’t found our own inner truth yet.  So we wrap ourselves in the Buddha’s teaching, in the first turning, and we grow in that and then we drop that and then we just directly be ourselves, our butterfly self, and then we lay the eggs of the teaching so there can be another generation.  Yeah, so that’s a good song.  First there was the skin, then there was no skin, then there’s skin again, then there is no skin and so on.  This is the cycle of the wheel.  So it’s the first wheel, the second wheel, the third wheel, the first wheel, the second wheel, the third wheel…  We need to keep cycling our conceptual activity with the immediacy of reality and then test the immediacy of reality by re-entering the world of conception, of words.  And then enter the world and then drop the words, drop the signs, drop the characteristics, drop the conceptions and enter into the world of immediate, unmanipulative freedom.  And then test it by entering back into the world of manipulation with concepts.  And round and round we go. And that’s one of the teachings in this scripture we’re studying.

Was that kind-of difficult?  Well thanks for listening to this teaching of the three wheels, about the dharma three turnings of the wheel.

QUESTION AND ANSWER PERIOD:

Question inaudible
Reb:    Between the Buddha’s intention and the way-seeking mind?

Inaudible

Reb: Well the way-seeking mind or the Bodhi mind is the actual, the spirit of wishing or wanting to realize supreme awakening for the welfare of the world.  That spirit…. The Buddha has realized that and then the Buddha teaches.  The Buddha is the maturation of that spirit of the way-seeking mind.  The Buddha has realized the Way.  And then the Buddha who’s realized the Way, teaches.  And the Buddha teaches in different ways, so part of what’s going on in that scripture is the bodhisattva’s asked the Buddha, they said “Buddha you taught this way, you know, the first wheel way,  and then you taught the second wheel way so when you were teaching the second wheel way what was your intention?  So then he explains his intention, which turns out to be a third wheel way.  And then he goes on to explain that there are these three wheels.  This first way which is the analytical, conceptual approach, teaching the five aggregates, the five skhandas, the eighteen dhatus, the four noble truths, the lengths of dependent origination.  All these different kinds of teachings he taught to help people see phenomena in such a way that they would be relieved of the belief of independent existence of the self of the person.  And then he said “Everything, including the teaching, lack inherent existence, are unproduced, unceasing and naturally in a state of nirvana.” Then he taught that and then the bodhisattva said “That sounds very different from the early teaching.  What did you have in mind?”  So then he tells what he really had in mind in both those previous cases, which then becomes part of the third wheel teaching.  That’s the deeper revelation of the nature of ultimate truth.  To protect us from a narrow understanding of the second turning, the third turning occurred.  It’s possible accrued understanding of the second turning would deprecate the first turning. The subtle understanding of the second turning will enhance the first turning so that the first turning then can be taught in a more subtle and a more selfless way than it could be taught the first time.  When he first taught there was a little bit of self from the teaching.  But he couldn’t find any other way to get to people without making the teaching look like it was actually there.  And the second turning refutes that apparent existence of the teaching and all the methods.  And that was good. But then the third teaching we find the presentation of the first teaching such that it’s in accord with the second teaching.  So now we offer this systematic path, the conceptual approach, but even more selflessly than the first time.  Like I said, after you realize the ultimate, then you see if you can come back into the conventional, conceptual presentation of the teaching in such a way that you don’t violate the understanding of the ultimate.  So we go round and round and round until all beings have a correct understanding of the teachings.  And the wish to do that is the bodhichitta.  And the realization of the ability to do that is the fruition of the bodhichitta, of the way-seeking mind.  

Yes?

Q: I have a related question which is going back 2500 years ago…What was Buddha teaching differently to the people of India than they were experiencing at the time, among spiritual conditions which included Janism, the Krishna, so were these ideas of his, they sound quite revolutionary.  Were they for that time?  Inaudible…

Reb:  You know one Sanskrit scholar told me that if you look at all the words that Buddha used to teach with, almost none of them were new. Wherever he was he used the language of the culture.  The only new word this person could see that the Buddha used that wasn’t just regular Indian religious language was “bodhisattva”. It’s the only one he found that wasn’t around before him.  That word.  Otherwise he was using the words of the culture and you could say he was a revolutionary, but you could also say he’s a flowering of that tradition; he’s one of the great flowers of that tradition.  And he shared a lot with other yogis.  So you could see, for example, he had yogic powers, but some of his friends had yogic powers too.  So he could see where people were coming from and where they were going.  But other yogis could too.  But his interpretation of this process of change was, looks like it was unique.  Particularly in terms of his understanding of, the way he understood self was a little bit different that anything you see before.  And then again, that teaching of what self is, or the actual existential nature of the sense of a person, that teaching hadn’t been seen before as far as we know.  And then the way it was taught after his departure became even more subtle.  People in India at that time weren’t ready for him to give the full, all the subtle implications of his doctrine of no self.  So that’s why we have this next level of even more profound and subtle selflessness offered later.  He did say, while he was alive, he did say apparently, “All dharmas are empty.  Sarvadharmashrinya.  All dharmas, all things are empty.  He did say that, but he didn’t really play it out much.  Then later you have huge sutras really driving that home. He did say that and because said that then the implication was “This teaching I’m giving you is an interdependent thing.  I’m giving it to you because you’re who I’m talking to.  And there’s no reality, ultimately, in what I’m saying.  This is just a kind of a thing that comes up between us, like a dance between us.  Right? But because it’s interdependently arising it has no ultimate existential status.”  But he didn’t say that because then people might have said “Well then why should we listen to you?”  Or they might have said “Well why should we practice the precepts then, if they have no ultimate, existential status?”  So he had to really establish for this group a strong ethical basis.  And he had to get people to meditate on that.  And by meditating on that, they did attain personal liberation.  But he couldn’t, until the sangha was really strong, he couldn’t bring in the more subtle teachings which might’ve undermined the whole ethical foundation of the community of practitioners.  And then even later, after Buddhism was very strong, in terms of well established ethical disciplines and monastic systems to uphold the ethical discipline, still there’s always the danger, as you get into more and more subtle realms of truth that you will not be able to uphold the rigors of moral discipline, when you realize that the moral discipline also lacks inherent existence.  And if you can’t continue to be wholeheartedly devoted to ethical discipline while you go into the study of the profound emptiness of things, having any kind of independent existence, if you can’t uphold it then you should stop that analysis.  You should stop that study.  You should stop opening to that teaching.  So that’s why he had to found, in some sense, this community and so he couldn’t go too far during his lifetime without destroying the community.  So he died with the community quite strong and with lots of enlightened disciples.  But Buddhism had to more mature and stronger before it could withstand the impact of the second turning.  And once it could deal with the second turning, and the second turning was understood properly, then we can go back, in a sense, to the first turning, which is the third turning which is the first turning based on the second turning.  And these people realized that the Buddha was not around anymore, so they were saying basically  “Either this was taught by the Buddha but people weren’t ready for it so we’ve kept it sort of to ourselves until the world was ready for it” or they say “This is coming by divine revelation.  Buddha has told us now it’s time for us to tell the world about this teaching.”  That’s the third turning.

Yes?

Q.  I was thinking when you were talking before that, you know, don’t tell me that the Buddha didn’t appreciate all three turnings, you know, that …
He must have appreciated all of these turnings.  And so I was wondering if it was, if it might be better to say that these differences that we’re calling the three turnings, that reveal themselves historically, were historical unfoldings.  They weren’t really a function of what the Buddha decided to teach.  We actually don’t know exactly what he said.  So the first set of the Pali scriptures were created by the community over several hundred years, if that’s what they were ready to say.   It’s sort of confusing to say that the Buddha thought it’s better to teach individual liberation, that’s sort of confusing, sort of upsetting.

Reb: Well then don’t say that anymore.
Q: O.K. Are you going to keep saying it?
Reb: Am I? I don’t just keep saying anything.  I just keep saying “So what’s the Buddha’s deep intention?”  You know, and then the sutra tells that the Buddha did have an intention.  Intention of Buddha is to realize supreme enlightenment and to expound the dharma.  That’s the intention. And, so, he did have in mind these three kind of emptiness, he had them in mind.  So that’s his deep intention.  And then when he meets people something comes up, but what comes up is not necessarily his intention, it’s just what comes up. So that’s why the sutra says “What is the intention behind these things he said?”  So if he talks to people and this teaching of individual liberation comes up in the interaction between those people he is responsible for them feeling that he’s teaching them the path of individual liberation.  But that might not have been his intention that they would come up with that path of individual liberation.  Somebody else he might have been talking to came up with a different path but they weren’t writers or they weren’t monks so they didn’t make a canon.  But I wouldn’t say that he intended that they would come up with that.  It’s just that when the Buddha meets people something comes up. The Buddha does, however, have an intention, but the intention the Buddha has is not what comes up.  Does that make sense?  So buddhas have intention and they interact with beings who have intentions and when they interact then this thing comes up.  And one of the things that came up was this individual vehicle conceptual presentation of the path of liberation. And the people who came up with that had memories, they Ananda working for them, who could remember everything, and then they wrote down what he said so then they’re very influential.  The Buddha also talks, actually he said one time, he was talking about the past six buddhas before him, and he said all of them went out among beings and they would meet people, they’d have this interaction, the Buddha came with the intention.  What’s the Buddha’s intension? The Buddha’s intention is?  

Guest: To liberate us first.
Reb: Yeah, to liberate people first,  so intention comes, interacts with somebody and so Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical Shakyamuni said that buddhas came and met people and interacted and people were liberated.  He said that happened.  With all these previous six buddhas.  They would just go out and they would meet somebody and they go “Hello!” You know….liberation.  But the type of liberation would vary from person to person.  The way it would form and the path that they would follow to realize that or the no-path that they would follow to realize it.  And sometimes the path was very short.  Like sometimes they would just meet the person and  [claps hands] like that.  Sometimes it would take a week, sometimes it would take a month.  The Buddha said that. Right?  Shakyamuni said that and then with his own group – he had those five first students and within a couple months those five had all achieved personal liberation.  But he wasn’t necessarily saying “I want these guys to attain personal liberation.”  Just given these guys, and given him, what came out was our first five arhats.  But it wasn’t like “O.K. I’m going to go make some arhats.”  I don’t mean to say that.  So I agree with you.  He just wanted them to be as liberated as possible as soon as possible.  And what he got was arhats in fairly short order. But he was also teaching bodhisattvas at the same time, but bodhisattvas aren’t scribes, these boddhisatvas, they were doing other stuff.  So they didn’t write down what the Buddha taught them and what they were doing with the Buddha, or even how they helped the Buddha teach the arhats.  They didn’t talk about that at that time.  But anyway, back to the story of Buddha telling about the previous buddhas…they were teaching and they were successful, more or less, in their worlds at that time.  And he said their teaching lasted a fairly short period of time and three of them had long, long, long, after they taught, they had long, long teaching.  It lasted a really long time. And Shariputra says to the Buddha “Well how come three of them have really long lasting teaching and some of them had short living teaching?”  And the Buddha said “Because three of them didn’t have the monastic discipline of the precepts, and three of them did.  The ones that had monastic discipline, their teaching lasted much longer.” So Shariputra says “Well, lets have the monastic discipline then Buddha.”  And Shakyamuni says “The Lord will decide when to give the monastic discipline.   And that will be when our group gets so big that we need it.  But now with this group right now, we don’t need it yet.  But I do want this to last for at least two thousand six hundred years.  [laughs] So if our group gets big we will have monastic discipline.” And so later, after about 25 years he gave it. But he was teaching other people in other ways.  And he recognized that.  So I’m not saying that the Buddha’s intention is to make this path, this path and this path.  The Buddha has a basic intention and when it interacts with certain people certain paths arise.  And there may be some, you know, system to how they arise that people can see.  O.K.?  

Guest: I could go on but….
Reb: You could go on?
Guest: Yes.
Reb: Aww, may you go on. [laughs]
Reb: Yes?
Q:  What is the meaning of life according to Zen practice?
Reb: The meaning of life according to Zen practice?  The meaning would be, I would say, predicate the meaning on this intention.  So if we say that Zen is part of the tradition of the Buddha then the meaning would be, what would be meaningful would be what is in accord with beings realizing Buddha’s wisdom.  So what the Buddha wants is for beings to realize Buddha’s wisdom so that they will be free and skillful to help other people to be free.  That’s what the Buddha wants.  So what is meaningful is what helps that be realized.  
Q:  inaudible
Reb: Yeah.  What’s the purpose of the purpose?  The one question you asked was ‘What is the purpose of liberation?’ and that could be connected to what is Buddha’s purpose?  O.K. , so one way to look at this is that Buddha is also a dependent co-arising.  And how does Buddha arise?  Buddha arises in response to beings - when the universe makes living beings who are suffering and confused and don’t understand because of their confusion and the way their body and mind creates illusions of things and they believe the illusions and they suffer. And then they also do things based on that suffering and confusion which cause more suffering and confusion and hurt other people too. When desire arises to liberate these beings, to help these beings become wise, when that desire arises that precipitates a buddha.  So the basic thing is the wish for beings to achieve wisdom.  That’s a condition.  The great condition for the appearance of buddhas.  So buddhas want, their purpose, their goal, their desire is that beings will become wise and be liberated.  And you can say “What’s the point of them being wise and liberated?”  Or “What’s the purpose of that?” So that in their liberation and wisdom they will be happy and fearless and help other beings who are suffering enter into the path of freedom and happiness.  That’s the purpose of liberation.  And wisdom is necessary for liberation.  And buddhas wish and want people to have that wisdom.  And the desire for that makes buddhas happen in the world, in the universe.  So you could say “The universe has created living beings that somehow happen in this universe and these living beings, as part of this universe, they entail some confusion and some misunderstanding as part of their process of life and they suffer. And now the universe has responded to that suffering by wishing to free people from their suffering.  And then the buddhas are appearing out of that. So in that sense the Buddha, or the buddhas, are a characteristic of the universe.  The universe has this buddha-like component which is trying to help all living beings realize their Buddhahood, because everybody also has this within them because everything has this enlightened nature, including rocks. It’s just that rocks can’t talk to people, although they can be somewhat helpful, and they are emanating enlightenment, but it’s hard for us to hear it sometimes, unless we fall on our face on a rock [laughter]. Then they go “Hmmmmm…Somebody trying to tell me something?” Yes?  

Q: I go almost every year to Cuba and I get involved in conversations like this with groups of Catholic people.  And in not such good words I explain what you just explained.  But they ask the question “So what happens after you die?”  And I say “It really doesn’t matter because what matters is what I’m doing in this world right now.” But now I’m thinking that maybe Buddha has something, because I heard it reversed, and I wonder if you can tell me what is the philosophy after we die?

Reb: You mean what happens after we die?  Well the basic philosophy is that the process of how things happen is the same before and after death.  Namely there’s a causal process of interdependence by which things are born. By which they seem to go on for a while.  By which they die.  And the causal process doesn’t stop at death, the causal processes continue.  And in Buddhism there’s no annihilation or continuation.  Things don’t last and they’re not completely destroyed.  So the Buddha’s middle way is between the idea that things go on and that they’re annihilated. That’s very subtle.  So this middle way is very subtle.  How interdependent things exist is very subtle.  They don’t exactly exist ultimately because they’re interdependent. But they don’t not exist at all because they’re supported to look like they exist. So there is the interdependent magic of the universe creating these fleeting, unstable, interdependent, ungraspable, unfindable events which still are appearing.  So we have the appearance of things that aren’t really there. But they’re not totally not there either.  And so this applies to all phases of existence – birth, death and in between birth and death.

Salvatore:  One of the things that I remember ______ says is that “After I die, I had a life where I was doing good for beings and some beings maybe learned from my actions and maybe when I die… I am in some people….I am living in other people and so maybe what I learn from you or other teachers…some other people and ….there.

Reb: Right.  That’s part of the causal process.  But another part of the causal process is like even now you’re in other people, you know, even now you’re affecting other people, even now your kindness is transforming the world around you.  O.K.?  But even now there’s also a causal process by which we get ever fresh Salvies.  Salvies, Salvies, Salvies.  Each one’s new.  Each one’s not made by Salvie.  So there’s a causal process for making Salvies and there’s a causal process by which every Salvie affects the rest of the world.  That’s part of the causal process. You’re supporting everybody.  They’re supporting you and now there’s another you.  So there’s some kind of continuity of Salvies, even though Salvie’s not lasting.  So you’re not annihilated.  And you don’t go on.  Salvatore, that’s related to “salvation”.  Right?

Salvatore:  Yes [laughter].
Reb:  Yes?  Redhead?
Q:  inaudible
Reb:  Can I expand on something?
Q: Yes.  You mentioned something about joy and suffering being interrelated.  And I was wondering if you could speak on that a little more.
Reb: Joy is… All phenomena are interdependent co-arisings, according to the Buddha.  Joy arises because of certain conditions.  You know?  Like one person’s watching a football game and somebody scores a touchdown and they feel happy because they identified with the team that scored the touchdown.  Somebody else who doesn’t identify with them feels sad.  So the conditions for the arising of joy and the arising of suffering are different.  But they’re both dependent co-arisings and therefore neither one of them have any actual inherent existence.  And freedom is a dependent co-arising. And bondage is a dependent co-arising, but neither one of them have any inherent existence.  So they have the same nature.  And when you realize that same nature then you can say “Well now I really feel free because now I’m not stuck on being free and you can put me in prison and ties me up in a ball and I’m totally in bondage but I also understand simultaneously freedom is not the least bit separate from this.”  Now you can say you’re really free.  And that freedom, again, has the same nature as not being free. You’re frowning.  Now you’re smiling. [laughter]  So the second turning…One of the good things…TAPE RAN OUT…