I feel that it would be good to review some of the themes that we have studied this practice period. I'm not sure how well it all comes together for you, so I'd like to go over some of the things that we've talked about during the practice period and see if they can all find some relationship with each other, which I think is there already. I think perhaps one of the first images or themes was the idea of a cauldron.

[01:24]

The cauldron, the crucible, the vessel, the container, the container, the transformative container, the container in which you develop, in which you change, like a womb in which a, in which the embryo develops. What is contained in this transformative vessel?

[02:38]

Well, what is contained in the cauldron? What's in it? Piscondus. Piscondus. What's another word for it? All experience. All experience. Another word? Phenomenal reality. Phenomenal reality. Phenomenal reality. Uh-huh. Another? Light. Light. Light. Life and all sentient beings, all living beings are in this, in this cauldron.

[03:45]

So, uh, we study these five skandhas, we study this life, we study all these experiences, we study all sentient beings. And we try to stay in that study of life. And another idea is that we have to take care of the container, or take care of ourselves so that we can stay in it, because it gets hot in there sometimes, with all that life and all that experience. We sometimes, although it's impossible, might try to jump out of the container. Or, get away from some relationships.

[04:58]

And the precepts are very important in helping us be able to stay in the container. Once you're in the container, you still need to practice the precepts, but you can't really get into the container even, without first accepting the precepts. But actually, once you're in the container, if you just stay in the container, precept practice has already been taken care of, and you can more work on concentration, absorbing yourself in what's going on there. So sasheen, the practice spirit as a whole, but particularly sasheen, by accepting the

[06:22]

precepts, the regulations of the sasheen, we're all pretty well guaranteed to stay inside of the container. So if you accept the standards of the sasheen, if they're okay with you and you can work with them, that will keep you in the cauldron this week. That will keep you in the womb this week. And then another major theme for this practice period and last practice period is what we call one-practice samadhi, or the awareness of the one-practice awareness, the awareness

[07:44]

which realizes that all things are the same. So the practice is always really the same, you're always concentrating on the same thing, namely, all sentient beings. You're always taking care of life, always absorbed in caring for life. The one-practice samadhi is from a sutra, a Mahayana sutra, and the fourth ancestor

[08:48]

of the Zen lineage taught us about this one-practice absorption. I'm not too fixed on this, but in a way, most of the teachings are based on this one-practice that follow him, are just another way to say this one-practice samadhi. Just many, many ways of doing basically the same thing. I have a plan, although I'm not in control of what will happen, I have a plan to review

[10:35]

various meditation instructions that have come up in the context of just taking care of life, just being absorbed in the oneness of all life. Actually, I'd like to take a step backwards from the fourth ancestor to the first and mention that his practice of wall-gazing, his practice of sitting like a wall, I'm pretty comfortable understanding that the practice of sitting like a wall or making your mind and body like a wall, that is what the one-practice samadhi is.

[11:47]

That sitting like a wall is being absorbed in the oneness of all life. Sitting like a wall is being absorbed in the oneness of all life.

[13:17]

He is calmness, which realizes that all things are the same. The fourth ancestor said before he gave instructions about this one-practice samadhi, he said that you should understand the Perfect Wisdom Sutras. He said that if you have trouble practicing this one-practice samadhi, then you should think about Buddha all the time as a kind of warm-up to it. And then he explained that what he means by thinking about Buddha is to have no objects

[14:32]

of thought. To not have any objects of thought, this is what it means to think of Buddha. And if you work at that for a while, thinking of Buddha, that is, having no objects of thought, this gets you ready, this prepares you for doing the one-practice samadhi. This prepares you to sit like a wall. In concentrating on the oneness of all life,

[17:18]

these two dimensions which I mentioned this morning come up. One side is the celestial side, and that is firmness. The other side is the earthly side, being receptive. So in doing the practice, in one sense, you can use strength, or strength is involved. To be firm and steadfast is part of the absorption in life, is part of taking care of life. The other part is to be receptive and flexible.

[18:26]

This also has to do with part of the practice you can realize now, and part of the practice seems far away. And I'm not sure of this way of putting it, but I'll say that part of it can be done,

[19:41]

or maybe part of it can be done, and part of it is done. I don't want to quite say part of it you can do and part of it is done to you, but something more like part of it can be done and part of it is done. Part of it is voluntary and part of it is involuntary. By sitting here for a week, although you voluntarily set the stage, you make possible a lot of involuntary stuff to happen. You give your involuntary nervous system a...

[20:55]

You voluntarily support functioning of your involuntary activity. I got the image of, you know, making pudding or something, and you mix it with a spoon over the heat, and at some point it starts getting thick. It changes consistency. You can voluntarily pour the milk and the pudding stuff into the container,

[22:10]

you can pick the container up and put it on the stove, you can mix it. And the heat can come up and you can turn the heat on. All that stuff you can do, but the actual thickening of the pudding, you don't actually do that, it just happens. So there's a kind of thickening of the pudding that can happen here. By setting up these ingredients on the stove. Okay.

[23:15]

And in the middle of this review, I think I'm going to try to introduce you to a Mahayana commentary. The name of it is, in Sanskrit it is Ratna Gotra Vibhaga. Mahayana Uttaratantra Shastra. Ratna Gotra Vibhaga. Vibhaga means analysis of the seed or germ of the Tathagata.

[25:08]

No, excuse me. Analysis of the seed or the germ of the jewel. And Mahayana Uttaratantra Shastra means commentary on the ultimate teaching of the great vehicle. Commentary on the ultimate teaching of the great vehicle, which is the analysis of the seed of the jewel. The jewel is the three jewels, but it's really, as you'll see, one jewel, called the Buddha jewel. So this is a commentary on the ultimate teaching of Mahayana,

[26:12]

which is the analysis or investigation of the seed of Buddha. The first chapter is called, in Sanskrit, Tathagatagarbha. And that means the womb of the Tathagata, the womb of the Buddha, or the matrix. The matrix of the Buddha. So we have the name of the entire work, the entire text, is about the seed of the gem. And the main teaching, or the first chapter, is about the place, the situation in which this gem lived.

[27:13]

The matrix of the gem of Buddha. And I'll tell you right away, before the text tells you, the matrix is life. Life is the matrix of all sentient beings. The one life is the matrix in which the Buddha seed develops. This text next introduces seven Vajrapada. Vajrapada can be translated as indestructible or diamond-like subjects or terms.

[28:25]

The seven indestructible terms or subjects are the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha. The essence of Buddha, the attainment of enlightenment, the qualities of Buddha, and the acts of Buddha. These seven subjects are the indestructible basis of teaching enlightenment, which this treatise puts forth. I find this particular little layout of these seven topics quite helpful.

[30:03]

The way that they organized them is to first have the three jewels, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and then have this essence from which Buddhas come. And then talk about the emergence of this awakening from this essence. And then the qualities associated with this awakening, and then what this awakening does, and how it acts. So it's kind of nicely structured. You have in the center, the fourth item, the center of the seven, is this essential nature of Buddha, which I told you what that was, right? What is it? Huh? Life. All sentient beings. That's where the essence is.

[31:08]

And actually, you get it from the third item, which is the Sangha. You get this out of the Sangha, so it nicely follows there. And then, out of this pot, out of this matrix, this essence of Buddha, you can distill this thing called awakening. And then awakening always has qualities associated with it, and does something. So the last four actually cause the first three. So it's a circle. And the center of the circle, by making it all seven that way, put the essence of Buddha in the middle. So that's why I chose this text, because I feel it's apropos to the One Practice Samadhi.

[32:14]

Apropos to taking care of life. Because taking care of life is to concentrate on the essence of Buddha. Which is also why you need to take the precepts before you can enter the practice. Precepts are a requirement for the practice. Because the precepts are about how to care for life. How to take care of your relationships with all living beings. When we give the precepts, we sometimes say, this precept, for example, the precept of not to take life, this has been protected, sustained and protected by the ancient Buddhas, and transmitted by the ancestors.

[33:29]

And sometimes when I've been in ceremonies and sang there, and I say this precept has been protected and sustained by the ancient Buddhas, sometimes I get this little flash of some Buddha a long time ago, that actually was taking care of life. Actually was like, you know, down there taking care of life. That's one of the things that they're into. They're into that kind of stuff. Like Sekito Gisen, when he was a little boy. Sekito means stone head, right? When he was a little boy, he lived in a part of China, where there were, I guess, birdsmen or something like that, and they had a lot of superstitions. And so they sacrificed cows to get protection.

[34:40]

And Sekito used to go and destroy their altars and release the cows. And they knew he did it, but they just couldn't stop him. Even when he was a little boy. So part of the background of the practice is this care for life. And it's been going, these Buddhists have been doing it for a long time. The next thing that this text says,

[36:00]

I don't know if you'll find interesting, but you might, so I'll tell you. And it explains this word, Vajrapada. Vajra means lightning bolt or thunderbolt or a diamond, and conveys a sense of indestructibility. But also it can contain, carry the meaning of hard to penetrate. So, and the pada means, sometimes pada means like path, like it can relate to a word, you know, pod or peg, foot. In this case, pada seems to mean phrase or word. So you could translate it, which I sort of did, as indestructible statements or indestructible bases.

[37:11]

Bases is another possibility for pada. So the text says that the word Vajrapada means that the term, that is the basis, which expresses the meaning of enlightenment, which is similar to a diamond. Here it being difficult to penetrate by the knowledge consisting of studying and thinking. The meaning of enlightenment, which is not capable of being explained, is to be realized by oneself. So in that sense, this Vajra means indestructible, means hard to penetrate, in the sense that the meaning cannot be explained to you. You can't really, it's difficult to penetrate.

[38:15]

Doesn't mean you shouldn't study and think about the teaching, but it's trying to emphasize that it has to enter your own body. And this is possible, although it can't be explained to you, it can enter your body. And in the next part, the pada means, is just the, not the meaning, but the actual, the word or the basis upon which somehow the meaning enters your body. The words don't enter your body, but the words are a basis for the meaning to enter your body. So these seven phrases are words or an outline of this text, which is presented as a basis. And part of it can be explained, part of what's going on here can be explained,

[39:23]

but basically this is the basis for the meaning of enlightenment to enter your body. . And although it's just a basis for the meaning of enlightenment to enter our bodies, still, they chose what they said as somehow to be favorable or conducive to this happening. And when you do that, sometimes it's, sometimes you forget that it's just a basis. And you think that actually the words, since you're being so, since you're trying to be favorable to the absorption of meaning of freedom, you sometimes forget that these are just basis, points of departure.

[40:27]

. So today, I renamed or gave another name to the cauldron. Tathagatagarbha, the womb of the Tathagata. . So I've been saying all practice spirits stay in the cauldron. Now I'm saying stay in the womb of the Tathagata. . Of course you will, whether I say so or not, and yet still I say so, because I'm talking about a samadhi practice, right? I'm saying, although you're already in the ocean or in the womb of Buddha, where Buddha is born already,

[41:52]

we're talking now about absorbing yourself in it. . So most of what I intend to give talks about is just encouragement in absorption in this new life. Absorption in the oneness of all life. . And this absorption in the oneness of life is absorption in the womb of the Tathagata. And this is the situation in which Buddha is born. . And in this text it's offered as a study of what is Buddha, what is Dharma, what is Sangha. What is this womb like and how does awakening come up out of there?

[42:58]

And what are the qualities of awakening and what does awakening do? . This is also included in the matrix. And yet at the same time, as you know, sometimes you can stand around a pot and stir it, and sometimes you can even reach in and lay out some of it, feed it to people. So never getting away from the cauldron at the same time, there's a dynamic situation surrounding the cauldron too. Namely, the three jewels supporting it, and also the enlightenment that comes up out of it, and the qualities and the actions that come up out of it. .

[43:59]

What I'm sort of thinking about doing all the time. So for example, the thing I said this morning about trying to find the balance between firmness and flexibility, or between strength and receptiveness. Try to find that balance there. This is, I understand it's an instruction in the same practice. The same with sitting like a wall. Sitting like a wall has a strong, has an aspect of it which is strength. Or firmness. But also receptiveness and flexibility.

[45:07]

Of course I'm trying to make this thing work, and I'm trying to make it make sense, so of course it's starting to make sense to me. But I would imagine that although you might be able to understand that walls are firm, what does receptivity or flexibility have to do with sitting like a wall? And again, as I said, this makes sense to me, because if we sit like a wall, we need to be very receptive and very flexible, because what's a wall like? How does a wall sit? I don't know really much about how a wall sits, or what a wall is like, to tell you the truth. I do see that walls have a solid aspect of firmness, and they don't walk around. So maybe part of sitting like a wall is to sit still, firmly. But that's just what I know about walls so far.

[46:16]

Walls are not... I mean, I'm not a wall. I don't know what a wall is. So I have to be flexible. So someone may... you might be sitting like... doing your best to sit like a wall. And someone might ask you, what are you doing? And you might say, I'm sitting like a wall. And the person might say, gee, I don't think you're sitting like a wall. This is a hypothetical example, but it's very likely to happen, actually, that your attempt to sit like a wall, or my attempt to sit like a wall, might not be what someone else understands as the practice of Bodhidharma. So you might say, gee, I don't know about that. So, you see, in order to sit like a wall, you have to sit like a wall. You have to be receptive and open to comment. Because we don't know what it means to sit like a wall. None of us really know.

[47:23]

Bodhidharma didn't know what his practice was. Buddha does not know what zazen is. This is the flexible side. This is the receptive side. But also, there's a strong side. Namely, I am going to sit like a wall. I'm going to do the practice of the ancestors. I'm very firm on that. I have questions about it, but my questions are not going to dent my effort. I have doubts. Slings and arrows of outgracious fortune are being swung at me while I do this practice,

[48:35]

but it's not going to stop the practice. There is a definite, absolute sureness about the practice that doesn't wobble at all, that is actually firm. And this does not have to be softened up and eroded or compromised. As a matter of fact, it can be strengthened even more than that. However, it needs to be balanced. Because although I am now holding back in telling you how sure this has to be,

[49:37]

that is balanced by not knowing anything about what we're doing and just opening our hands and opening our hearts and asking for help and receiving guidance from all the Buddhas and ancestors and all sentient beings. And that also should be absolute. I mean really receptive, really flexible. Those two dimensions. If we can have those two, that's it. And there's zillions and zillions of other practices besides balancing those two, which are basically just to help us balance those two. And balancing those two is called the one-practice samadhi.

[50:48]

Balancing those two is to be absorbed in the womb of the Buddha. As I said before, everything I'll be talking about is basically the same thing. So I have this plan, which I've just told you, and I don't know if you got it, but I'll say it one more time, and that is, and I'll say it more than one more time, and that is basically I'm going to be giving kind of a kind of a instructions and encouragements in absorbing onto this essence of Buddha, which is called life, and then simultaneously, or mixed in with this, I'm going to be

[51:50]

telling you about this sutra, this Mahayana commentary, which is about the thing which I'm suggesting you look at. So I'm both giving instructions on how to stay with it, how to encourage you to absorb yourself onto it, and then I'm going to be using this scripture and other things and teachings of our lineage to delve into what it's like there. That's my plan for the week. Thank you.

[53:05]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[54:34]

Thank you.

[54:36]

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