So what context have we established, did I, am I establishing in speaking with you? No, we had a Dharma drum and the Densho Bell hit by Florian. Yeah, now this says, yeah, it announces the time. Yeah, it says something about the time, too. Yeah, and then I wander in here with Atmar, showing me how to get here. And then I bow to the Buddha.

[01:02]

And I'm not bowing to the historical Buddha. I'm bowing to a cosmic Buddha. I am bowing to a cosmic Buddha. Yeah, of course. You think I bow to less than a cosmic Buddha? Yeah. And, yeah, a Buddha which is ever-present. I think there'd be a different feeling if I bowed to a Buddha of the past. So if I'm bowing to a Buddha that's present now, then that's certainly the feeling I have when I'm bowing. Then it must be present for me, it must be present for you, or could be present for you. Yeah, and then I sit down here.

[02:17]

And I am wearing some version of Buddha's robe. Originally, the Buddha's robe was mostly made from scraps of cloth sewn together. Now we take a nice piece of silk or cotton and cut it up into pieces and sew it back together. No, but still, it's not what I would, you know, it's not what I'd normally wear. So this big square piece of cloth I... tie around me. So I'm in the present wearing Buddha's ancient robe.

[03:20]

And then I take this posture, this posture which is the source of our teaching and practice, And very obviously I'm saying I'm speaking within a tradition from the posture from which this tradition arises. And you are sitting also in this position. Yes, this is already a pretty big statement. Now the Arhat, the aim of the early Buddhism was to become an Arhat.

[04:44]

To become an Arhat. A-R-H-A-T. Arhat. Ah, okay. Ein Arhat. Okay. It's just, you know, it's not an English word. Sorry. You're going to try to translate it? Yeah. It could be our old hat. Our hut. So gross meat hut. A few German expressions. Um... You know, Sukhirashi once said, you know, he used to say quite often, he'd say to us, look at us, talking, be talking, and suddenly he'd speak soto voce, or soto voce, in another voice, and say, you should be more our heart.

[05:51]

Yeah, so I would, okay, I try. And I'm practicing Mahayana Buddhism, but I'll try to be more a heart. And the arhat is one who frees himself, practices for himself or herself. To free oneself from desires, from resentment. From identifying with the self. From the self as conceived of as an entity, experienced as an entity.

[06:54]

So this was my practice for a year or two. Let's say a year. And it was good. And it was good. But then I realized that Japanese people can't say L, so they say R. So he was just saying, you should be more alert. So for a year I was practicing to be more alert. Just like Saindhava. You have to know it from the context. And this word Saindhava has become a symbol in Zen practice. But not only that all words are... really known through their context.

[08:09]

And so a lot of words, dharma, have lots of different meanings depending on the context. And koans try to, you know, sometimes they'll use the same word but change the context and if you stick to the same meaning you don't know what's going on. And in Koans, it is so that sometimes the same word is used, but it is put into different contexts. And if you hold on to the meaning that you know, then you have no idea what is actually going on. But Sanda has also become a kind of pointing out that contexts are always different, always unique. It's not only that the word in the context has the meaning of the context, the contexts themselves are not repeatable.

[09:23]

So if we have the early Buddhism emphasizing the historical Buddha, That you can free yourself from ignorance and so forth in this lifetime. But you can only achieve nirvana when you die. So this was the view of early Buddhism. And again, you practiced for yourself. I mean, there was a sense that someone has to do this, and if you do it, at least that somebody can prove it's possible in the world. And these ideas are also present in our Mahayana practice. If you really wish you could meet an extraordinary person and that you wish someone in the world really fulfilled your expectations and if you haven't given up hoping for this ideal person to exist somewhere

[10:55]

Then obviously you have to be this person. This is the root vow of Theravadan or early Buddhist practice. And in a sway, Mahāyāna carries it a little bit, one half a step farther. That only if you try to be this person can you recognize anyone else who is this person. So the slogan for that is only a Buddha can know a Buddha. But we can say more subtly, only if you've taken this kind of vow, can you recognize someone else who's taken this kind of vow.

[12:01]

So as soon as you make this kind of shift, you're in the world of the Mahayana. Where it's taken that you can assume that you can realize enlightenment in this life. And simultaneously, and not, you know... it doesn't compute exactly, you can realize enlightenment in this life, and yet everyone is already enlightened. These incompatible views, seemingly incompatible views, were the motivating vow and question of Dogen. If we're already enlightened, why should we practice?

[13:40]

Yeah. So, you know, a koan text like we're looking at, much to some of your bemusement or amusement, testing your English, This Koran text that we looked at You can't, a text like this gives you nothing, means nothing, unless you bring questions to it. And it was understood, you know, Dao Xiong, he was a Chinese guy. I lived with sort of three, sixty to four, thirty-four, something like that.

[14:54]

Anyway, he lived four more years than I'm alive now, about 74 years. And he's one of the sources of our Zen school. And... the ideas he developed came out of his commentary on the Lotus Sutra. All of the Mahayana schools have developed out of, we could say, largely trying to interpret the Lotus Sutra. Although that's the case, in Zen we hardly ever study the Lotus Sutra. But the shift in vision from early Buddhism to Mahayana that's incorporated in, expressed within the Lotus Sutra,

[16:13]

But how do you turn this extraordinary view? How does one turn, change, transform this extraordinary view into practice. And this effort over centuries has been the development of each of the Mahayana schools. Now, Niko Aldag expects me to do this in one week. I am. I am. Hi, Nico. So how can... Okay, let me start over. One of the things Tao Chung says is how do we develop deep views, vows?

[17:38]

You know, I think all of us have, as I often say, a basic vow to stay alive. You know, as you all know, I have a four and almost five-year-old daughter. Next month. No, two months. March. Yeah, a month or so. She'll be five. From birth, it was clear she didn't want to fall. She had built into her some vow to stay alive. One of my efforts when she was tiny was to make this clearer to her in various ways. This is the basic vow to stay alive. And when I look at adults, I often see they haven't really articulated this vow.

[19:09]

They haven't clarified this vow for themselves. And at the same time, we also don't want to stay alive at any cost. So the vow becomes more mature when we also ask, how are we going to stay alive? At what price are we going to stay alive? And then, how do we stay alive in this world and with others? And what ethical, practical, moral, spiritual views are the articulation, further articulation of this staying alive?

[20:18]

And Buddhism will say, would say, that this view, this vow to stay alive, is not really mature until you're also willing to die. We say to be willing to die and yet gladly stay alive. The Buddha was one who was willing to die. The historical Buddha. And one way we practice this, as I pointed out the other day, is that we allow ourselves, let ourselves disappear on each exhale.

[21:46]

And this is also a practice to, you know, you get in the habit of this, it's a practice to... Give up the sense of permanence. Give up the sense of carrying the previous moment into the next moment. Now, if you carry the previous moment into the next moment, yeah, it's probably unlikely you're going to be enlightened.

[22:50]

And these were questions that Dao Xiong and the whole development of Zen school have been trying to answer. And I remember in my early days of being suspiciously religious Doubtfully, resentfully, skeptically, that's all right. I mean, I was an aggressive atheist as a five-year-old. So, you know, how did I get myself wrapped up in this?

[23:54]

Bowing, you know. Well, people would ask me, why do you have an altar and all that stuff? Well, I mean, I tried one of my early explanations. Was it, yeah, implicitly I said Buddha is an activity, not an entity. It's the one who is awake, the epithet, the one who is awake. And, or the one who is enlightened. And that enlightenment is an activity. And that activity must always be present.

[25:01]

If it's always present, then Buddha is everywhere. Yeah, but we need some place to bow, so we make an altar. It has to be particular, but it's also all at once and everywhere. Well, this kind of view that brings, that this vision of the Lotus Sutra, the Mahayana vision, brings into our, you know, trying to explain things. So Daosheng says, what does deepen and mature our vows? And he mentions being born in suffering circumstances. Or some deep sorrow, empathetic, commiserating sorrow.

[26:12]

Commiserate, you know? Misery is misery. Co is misery together. Gemeinsam leid, that's it. That's good. Sounds right. And being bonded to being in delusion with others. And in some ways that's the basic clue in the world. Compassion expressed is bonding with others' delusion. It's true. And the fourth he gives is bondage. bonding with the potential of enlightenment and others' potential of enlightenment too.

[27:34]

The fourth one is bonding with the potential of enlightenment and bonding with the potential of enlightenment for others as well. So if you have this kind of vision, which I'm expressing in various ways, it requires you to rethink what is the Buddha. It requires you to rethink what is enlightenment. And it requires you to rethink what are the conditions under which enlightenment can occur. What kind of world is this? And if the conditions of enlightenment are there, As Yuan Wu, again my favorite Zen authority, the compiler of the other great hundred koan collection, says the whole entire, I said just a few days ago, the whole entire being is always before you.

[29:13]

Is that true? You know, the practice of sudden enlightenment depends on thinking, believing, that's true. The whole entire being, the ten directions, us, everything, all at onceness, is always before you. Ready made for you. This great intact potential. It's like pouring water into water. It is one suchness. This is a kind of incredible articulation actually of the basic views and practices that come from the Lotus Sutra.

[30:31]

What kind of world do we live in and how can each of us know this world in which the whole entire being is always in front of us? To be continued tomorrow. Or this afternoon, I don't know. like the serials I used to watch as a kid where the horse goes off a cliff on Tuesday and you go back Wednesday to see if the Zorro landed safely. The mark of Zorro. Thank you. Eat well, sleep well, spend your days well.

[31:46]

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