Good morning, everyone. The sun just came out. Just in time. I wanted to read another one of Dogen's poems about the Lotus Sutra. How delightful mountain dwelling, so solitary and tranquil. Because of this, I always read the Lotus Blossom Sutra with wholehearted vigor under trees. What is there to love or hate? How enviable sounds of evening rains in deep autumn. So last time we met, three people volunteered to recite something from

[01:03]

the Lotus Sutra. So Dionne and Melinda and Jackie, are you all ready to recite something? Absolutely. Where are the rest of you? And Jackie? Already? So whoever would like to start, please. I was picturing seated, but if you'd like to stand up. Just I think the main thing is so everyone can hear to speak loudly enough. The Buddha in the great assembly proclaimed that I should become a Buddha. Hearing such a voice, the law, all doubts and regrets have been removed. On first hearing the Buddha's preaching, in my mind there was fear and doubt, lest it might be Mara acting as Buddha, distressing and confusing my mind.

[02:08]

But when the Buddha with various reasonings and parables speaks so skillfully, my heart is peaceful as the sea. On hearing, my nets of doubt were broken. The Buddha's preaching excuse me. The Buddha preaches that the infinite, extinct Buddhas of past worlds, commonly established and in tactful ways, all likewise preach, expound on this law. The present and future Buddhas, countless in their numbers, also in tactful ways, preach such a law as this. The present world honored one, after his birth and leaving home, having gained the way and rolled the law wheel, also proclaims such a law as this. It is the world honored one who preaches the true way.

[03:19]

The evil one has no such truth as these. Hence, I know for certain that it is not Mara acting as Buddha. Because I had fallen into nets of doubt, I conceived it as the being of Mara. Hearing the Buddha's gentle voice, profound and very refined, expounding such a law as this, my heart is filled with joy. My doubts and regrets have forever been relieved. I rest in real wisdom. The Siddhas, filled with self-conceit, and the seekers with unbelief,

[04:55]

were groups such as these, 5,000 in numbers, forsoothing up their errors and faults in their commandments. Careful of their flaws, such small fabrication. These threads of disassembly include the cousin Buddha's splendid 13-leaf tree. These men of little virtuous happiness are incapable of receiving this law. Now this assembly has no trees, figs, or leaves, but only those who are true and real. Shankaracharya, listen carefully to the laws obtained by the Buddha, which by infinite tactical means can expound for all living creatures. All of the Tathagatas, by infinite tactful ways, save all living creatures to enter the Buddha's

[06:17]

faultless wisdom. Of those who hear the law, not one fails to become a Buddha. This is the original vow of the Buddhas. By the Buddha way which I walk, I desire universally to cause all creatures to attain the same way along with me. Though the Buddhas in future ages proclaim hundreds, thousands, kotis, countless schools of doctrine, in reality they are but the one vehicle. The Buddhas, the honored ones, know that nothing has an independent existence and that Buddha seeds spring from a cause, so they reveal the one vehicle. All things abide in their fixed order, hence the world abides forever.

[07:30]

Thank you all very much. Is there anyone who would like to volunteer to prepare something to recite? Kate, Danny, well, it can be from any. I think today we're going to talk about two and three and maybe four, five, six. So, Kate, Danny and Everett. Okay, thank you. We've been reciting the Lotus Sutra. Some people have joined on a personal day to recite it, and we've been reciting it, not stopping for punctuation, you know, not reading it

[08:37]

as dialogue. And so to hear it recited this way is quite wonderful. So, maybe we'll switch our reciting and read it that way for a while, too. So, I had wanted to go over a couple more things in chapter two and then move on to chapter three, the parable. I won't ask. So, just to go over chapter two, the World Honored One has been sitting in meditation, and as we've learned in the introduction, this ray of light came out of this

[09:41]

twirl of hair and illuminated all these world systems. And the people who were sitting there with the Buddha saw all this and were just amazed and asked, you know, what this meant. And we heard that this had happened before and that the Lotus Sutra was going to be preached. And then the Buddha, all during this time, he had been sitting in meditation while this kind of display had been happening. And then he gets up from this meditation and he speaks first, which is noted in the commentaries and also in the poetry part. It's reiterated that the Buddha speaks first, which is remarkable, worthy of remark, because often the Buddha responds to questions. And in this case, the Buddha, just on his own, begins to speak to Shariputra. So he isn't asked a question like usually happens.

[10:46]

So Shariputra is, you know, in the Heart Sutra where it says Shariputra, Shariputra is in the Mahayana, is often used as symbolically because Shariputra was the foremost in wisdom of the arhats, the Buddha's close disciples. So that wisdom from the old wisdom school, when it shifts into the Mahayana, where that wisdom is a further wisdom. So Shariputra is the one that they often talk with. And in the Heart Sutra, you know, that he's taught about form and emptiness and no eyes, no ears and so forth. And in this case, the Buddha is saying, I have something, I have a further teaching that I want to teach that's very profound. And it's so profound that you're not going to understand it. People are not going understand this. It's difficult to understand. And the Shravakas, the ones who heard the Buddha's

[12:01]

word, the voice hearers, aren't going to understand the Pratyekabuddhas and the Bodhisattvas. Maybe they can apprehend, but also they can't really understand. This is only a Buddha, together with a Buddha, will understand this Dharma. And the Buddha says, you know, in this, the poetry part, he says, he doesn't claim that this is his own, that he discovered this. He says, you know, in times of yore, way, way, way back, the Buddhas have been teaching this, and I learned this way back. So he's not saying he's originating this. He's coming forth with this kind of perennial teaching that's been taught and taught through times of yore. And he's followed other Buddhas who've been teaching this. So there's a kind of lineage there that

[13:01]

the Buddha is expressing. And then he, you know, the name of this chapter is tactful means, also it's skillful means, expedient means. This is a skillful way to show the teaching. And you use whatever's at hand. I remember a lecture Kathy Fisher gave about Picasso. Something about Picasso saying, if you've got blue, you use blue. If you've got red, you use red. It's kind of a skill in means. You just use what you have at hand to express your truth. So the skillful means or the tactfulness or the expedient means, and Suzuki Roshi emphasizes this in the commentary, his commentary that we have in the reference shelf.

[14:02]

Skillful means is not seen as some kind of side thing. Oh, you do skillful means, but the real thing is something else. The non-duality of skillful means or action, expressing our understanding through our life, through our action, through what we do, is the most important thing. Rather than being a kind of secondary thing that you do, how you actually are in the world is expressed through skillful means or tactfulness. Now, this is based on one's understanding. So there is an understanding or a direct experience which can't be talked about. As soon as you begin to talk about it, it becomes skillful means or tactfulness. So making this, clarifying this over and over about the impossibility of actually saying a direct thing about the truth, and yet words are said,

[15:13]

plenty of words are said. So only a Buddha together with a Buddha can fathom the reality of all existence. And different translations, none but Tathagata, Shariputra, can impart to a Tathagata those laws which the Tathagata knows. And no one but the Buddhas can completely know the real aspect of all phenomena. Another translation, the true entity of all phenomena can only be understood and shared between Buddhas. Only a Buddha and a Buddha can thoroughly master the true suchness of all things. So the Buddha taught in all these different ways, these different ways to different groups

[16:23]

according to the needs of the audience, according to the needs of the people. And this, and this will go into in the parable, is not seen as some secondary thing, some secondhand thing, but the way to show people, bring people to understanding. So it's seen as not a side issue, but the real way the Buddha expresses the truth. So skill in means is extremely important because without it there's no way to actually get at the truth, there's no way to grasp the truth. So the expedient means or the skillful means is some way to approach it and pass it on and point people so that what? So that they can

[17:27]

experience it for themselves. So it's extremely important. So there's this, I just want to touch on this, where it says only a Buddha and a Buddha together can fathom the reality of all existence. And the Suzuki Roshi mentions that this reality of all existence, he translated, translates it as things as it is, you know, the way you've heard, read that instead of things as they are, things as it is. So you have the 3,000 myriad things, the 10,000 things as it is, all the 10,000 things are expressing

[18:28]

or are non-dual from the one being or one big mind. And this particular teaching right here in the Lotus Sutra, this is the first place where it kind of points to this all things as Buddha nature, things as it is, things and Buddha nature being non-dual, which is very difficult to understand. And people have difficulty understanding it. That gets reiterated over and over. And so the Buddha says, this is hard to talk about, folks. I really can't, enough, enough, Shariputra, I really can't talk about this anymore. And Shariputra then, you know, presses the Buddha and says, first the Buddha had started out by unasked, beginning to talk about this, right? And then he says, no, no, it's enough, you know, I can't go on.

[19:31]

And then Shariputra presses him and asks three times, which is traditional. And the Buddha says, cease, cease, I really can't talk about this. And one, this may be setting up a kind of anticipation in the crowd, you know, you know, when somebody says, no, no, please, I really can't talk. Oh, come on, come on. Can you just tell? No, no, you won't understand it. I will. So three times until the crowd is really ready to hear what the Buddha has to say. But what he says then is just more about tactful means, and that I've taught in these different tactful ways in the past. But it was really one thing that I was trying to get at. And my Dharma is subtle and hard to imagine. And oh, yes, right before he begins to speak,

[20:35]

as you know, 5,000 people get up and leave, the haughty ones. And I wanted to just stop there for a minute and hear from anybody about your, we heard a little bit, some not being so comfortable with that. The Buddha, first of all, 5,000 people got up and left, and the Buddha let them go. Those are some aspects of this. And I just, I wanted to stop there for a minute to talk about that, about these 5,000, your feelings about it. Yes. Yes. And at the end of that parable chapter, it talks about what happens when somebody hears the teaching before they're quite ready and rejects it. And so you don't want to be the

[21:38]

part of the causes and conditions for someone to reject it that way. Yes. And I saw people get up while he was talking and leave. And at the end of when he was talking, he said, I'd like to take questions. And people, everybody in the audience got up and walked out. It was stunning. And he said, I really wanted to answer questions. And then the mayor came out, and often the people were sitting and laughed. And it was very sweet. But what this particular passage brings up for me is that he never pursued people. He would say what he had to say, and people would do what they did, and he would continue on. He didn't need to correct or punish or say, you're a police or not. He would say, this is how I'm going to respond.

[22:41]

And he does that in the numbers. So I just think that's beautiful. Would you be willing to say how it is that you chose that to memorize that section? Oh, yeah. Well, I actually memorized a lot of it, but I was too nervous to say it. What I liked is the ending, which he says, the time is now. I really like that particular passage. I don't like this much really what it means, which is that it's actually taught. I'd always heard it as people not ready to do the teachings and teaching according to what we hear. But what he's actually apparently talking about is a schism

[23:48]

happening between Nayana and Hinayana Buddhism. And the people not ready to hear are actually just the Hinayana people going, you guys are new agers. Go away. So it's a lot harder from that I think, actually, I'm not sure exactly that it illustrates that because there are a lot of the Shravakas who stayed, many thousands of them stayed. And so these particular ones left and it was monks and nuns and there were people from all four groups who left. So I think that actually all the groups were staying to hear and some people of all four groups left. So the interesting part is, how was it that they left and what is it about what was going on in their minds? And I have a story I want to tell in a minute, but was there other hands? Yes? I recently came across reading the Duggan's extensive record. There's a footnote and they

[24:57]

talked about when he used the word Hinayana that he wasn't necessarily speaking of the entire southern school. And it was more of a term referring to just kind of an approach or kind of a way of thinking. And that was the one thing in the Lotus Sutra that really upset me. Actually, the term Hinayana seems really derogatory and I don't like it at all. And the chapter on tactfulness, it comes up a lot where it just seems kind of like, you know, well, we were just telling those guys what they need to hear because they're not capable. And this is the real school, the Mahayana is the end all be all and that's it. And so I had this horrible feeling about it, but I'm wondering if it's possible that Hinayana doesn't necessarily, since some of the Shravakas stayed, maybe Hinayana doesn't necessarily have to mean everybody that was in the southern school, just a certain approach where they were just kind of too fixed, which can be in any sect or

[25:58]

any school or any, you know, Buddhist or not, you know, people that have kind of a fixed view and aren't kind of in it for themselves. You know, this point about the Mahayana is better and all you guys are, you know, I think the Lotus Sutra actually is, it's really important to see how the Lotus Sutra is not saying that. It's saying, I love you all, you know, I mean, the Buddha says in the parable, you know, you're all my children, I love you all and I've been trying to teach you in different ways and now, you know, you're ready to hear what I put forward, but you couldn't quite understand before. It's not a better or worse, it's each one of you was studying in the way that you could and now we're all ready because we're really all together, we're all of one blood, you know, one substance, one family. So it's not positing Mahayana better than Hinayana, the Lotus. In fact, the other Mahayana sutras really do that more, you know,

[26:59]

the Vimalakirti and some of these other sutras where the Shravakas or the old wisdom schools kind of made fun of, you know, they're the butt of jokes and Shariputra is shown to be, you know, all weird and scared and all these in Vimalakirti, but this sutra, it's a very inclusive, integrative, we actually all have been going along together all this time and you didn't really know it, but it doesn't matter, we're all here together, we're not better. I think that's really important for the real heart of the Lotus Sutra is speaking in that way, but I think it's easy to get sidetracked or something or to see it differently than that. And the use of Hinayana, right, this Hinayana as a kind of spirit of practice and

[28:04]

Mahayana as another kind of spirit of practice that go together, actually, that we can work with together and take what we need from each. Yeah. Everett? Oh, excuse me, excuse me. The first thing was that I got from that, people leaving, that it was an expression, the relating of that as an expression of the expedient means, of the tactfulness, of there being inclusiveness for speaking to people where they're at and also there being enough room that that's, there's room for that, for people to go and that it's not, it's not helpful, it's not appropriate to speak to someone if they're not ready, it's counterproductive, it's not, and what it says again, and along those lines with inclusiveness, sort of like in the Zen note, how there's different support cushions available for everyone, some people,

[29:06]

there's chairs, how I think there's an understood feeling, and I've experienced it here very pronounced, that all of these things are made available to all of us, to, for each person, for what they need, and I don't, like, I feel that I'm very freed up to utilize that as needed, and that, but, and that what's missing is the element, the judgment, and I think with the eye on it, the eye on it, and people leaving, and I guess what, the inclusiveness, is the emphasis, at, taking out Han at the beginning, I guess, of his commentary on it, mentions how that, that's one of the big features of the Lotus Institute, is the inclusiveness. Did everybody, can you hear each other? Are we able to hear each other? Let's all try to speak loudly, because I feel like everybody's saying some very helpful and, and insightful comments, and the last thing that Stephen said was about the Zendo, that we have support

[30:11]

cushions, and chairs, and different heights of cushions, and that, it's all made available for us to utilize according to our needs, right? According to, we can lie down, we have back trouble, you can lie down on the Zendo, and there's no, they're offered freely according to your needs. Now, whether there's judgment, I mean, I know people have said, I refuse to sit in a chair, people have said this to me, it's too, I can't, I just can't sit in a chair, it's not Zen or something, so people have their own judgments that they bring to it, but the feeling of the Zendo is that you're, you're able to take what you need to, within the form, you know, to, to sit, even lying down, there's a form for Zazen lying down, Zazen, it's bigger than, you know, full Lotus is the only way, one size Zafu, so I think that's a, an interesting comment. Yes, Valerie, and then David. What I took from this was that it sets up a caution that appears several times in the Lotus

[31:18]

Sutra for all of us that kind of get really excited about the practice, and then want to go out and tell everybody, and I think it says, don't push it, because the Buddha in this particular chapter doesn't push the message onto the 5,000 that left. In the next chapter, the father has a moment where he says, I can go save them all in the burning house, and then decides to do it another way. In the parable of the destitute son, the king wants to rush out and save the son, and then let things take their way. In Phantom City, you know, you don't rush everybody to the final ending, so I think that there's a good lesson in there for all of the followers who would get sort of hyped up about this, and excited when I rush out and tell everybody to say, don't push it. There might be resistance. And have you had experiences where you've told somebody about your practice, and they've like, eyes glaze over, like, see you later, right? I'm sure you've all

[32:21]

experienced that. I remember at a party at my sister's house once, somebody came up to me and said, what do you really do? I mean, I really want to know. And I thought, all right, I'm going to really say. She said, what are you really interested in? What do you do? I said, well, what I'm really interested in is how feminism and the goddess intersect with Buddhism and the lotus posture, and how that traveled throughout. And I watched, and she began to sort of step back and kind of run over to the tip-dip. I thought, well, David. I still get stuck on what I hear as a judgment, actually, is, you know, words such as the root of sins, or haughty spirits, the Buddha, they're calling them useless, quakes, and wheeze. I hear judgment. Yeah. Versus just saying you're not ready to hear. Well, this, yes. Let me say something about that, because there's some,

[33:25]

there's a particular affliction, you might say. When I see the word sin, I always, I use akushla, or unwholesome. That's my, so I think sin, the word sin in English has a lot of, we have a lot of baggage around sin, especially if we come from particular religious backgrounds. So for me, I always say unwholesome, because I think it's akushla that's probably being translated there, akushla meaning unskillful, really, and kushla, you know, the kusa grass, gathering the kusa grass to make your cushion. The kusa grass is sharp, and if you do it unskillfully, you cut your hands. So without skill, kushla and akushla. So that's how I think of sin. But there is an affliction that is to think that one has attained something that one has not yet attained, which is a particular affliction of practitioners, sometimes,

[34:29]

meditators, who are maybe very, maybe adepts or yogis, you know, and they, oh, I've attained, and then they go off and let it be known that they have attained what they have not yet attained. And that's seen as very harmful for themselves and others. And Suzuki Roshi comments on this, saying it's a big, important warning for Zen students, this, to think one has attained that which one has really not attained. So sometimes people have experiences and, you know, kind of hang up their shingle and without being authorized, you know, without having really worked with someone been authorized. So to that hati, I think, is pointing to this, acting as if one has attained or believing one has attained what one really has not. And it's a particular affliction for

[35:33]

those often who are very good students. And it's a kind of dangerous one, too. For some reason, I'm also seeing an assumption that this is why they left. You know, I don't hear them speaking for themselves, saying this is why I'm leaving. And it's just all 5,000 are assumed to leave for this reason. So who knows what their reasons are? And they may themselves be saying, you know, I'm not ready for this. And therefore, I need to leave rather than saying, I know it already. And so I'm still kind of like, yeah, you know, it feels like there's an assumption. And yeah, it's what's the logical, you know, in some ways, but I just feel it myself. Yeah. Well, the Buddha, you know, when they describe what the Buddha's wisdom is, you know, he has, his wisdom is great. He has the infinite mind, the four unlimited,

[36:35]

you know, Brahmavihara's sympathetic joy and loving kindness and compassion and equanimity. He's got the 10 powers, the powers to know right and wrong, the power to know consequences of karma, all meditative contemplations, to know what sentient beings understand, to know. Anyway, the Buddha is saying this. So in some ways, it harkens back to this is part of the powers of the Buddha, that he understands the minds of beings. So maybe on that basis, you can say, we don't know, but the Buddha is saying that maybe the other folks say, I don't know why they left, but the Buddha is saying what he's saying. The, so that's part of the awakened one's powers. What? So it is said, so it is said. Yeah. Yeah. So it is said in the, in the teachings. I wanted to tell another story about the 5000. I was at a session at Green Gulch once that Rev was leading, maybe some of you sat that session.

[37:41]

And Rev offered the first day, asked people to practice a certain practice. He wanted everyone to practice that he himself included. He asked to practice counting the breath for the session. And there was a person at the session who basically said, got angry and said, look, I didn't come here to do that kind of a practice. I'm I'm, that's like elementary kid stuff. And, and I'm not going to stay any left in a kind of huff, you know? So it reminded me of this, you know, that was a very particular, it really affected the session strongly. So I wouldn't, I don't know the person's mind, but they basically said, um, that's not what I came here for. So, you know, you can ask, is that, um, is there a danger there, kind of risk to think, to not have, uh, I guess the opposite of this kind of mind is beginner's mind, where you just accept what

[38:51]

the teacher's offering and you work with it, how best you can, or you ask questions about, but rather than, this isn't for me, that might be the expert's mind, right? The expert's mind, there's not so much room. So, um, I think it's, it's something to look at in our own situation, how that might be operating with us in subtle ways. Leslie? I really appreciate the way that you're interpreting this chapter, and I think that's a great way for us to teach it, but I think a lot of us have hesitancy about, a lot of careful about, um, revering a book, a sutra, and making excuses for us, you know, to follow, even though we have to interpret it our way, and I think the way you're interpreting it is the way I want to interpret it. I want to understand it, but I don't want to make excuses that somebody else could interpret it the way, in our world today, where so many, so much hate is based on religion, and I think that could really come in Buddhism, and some of it could come from a chapter like this.

[40:02]

I could read, oh, those people, you know, they're not worth, you know, actually, we could go to war with them. I could read that, read parts of this, so, so I do get uneasy when I read this, and then, you know, I'd like to know, okay, it can also be interpreted this other way, where these people are included, and they're reading for now. So, I just wanted to ask. Yes, yes. Thank you. I think it's true, I mean, there are things in this sutra that are like, I wish they weren't there, you know, because I can't swallow exactly what's being said. I find myself wondering if, in some way, maybe the Buddha is using that language to try and galvanize the group that remains to like, I mean, perhaps the language is actually part of his skillful means in gathering the group that remains to be able to hear more clearly his message, like creating some sort of idea of a common understanding among them,

[41:14]

and that he understands his limitation in that situation that he can't teach everyone who's there to begin with, so he lets the ones go, thinking maybe, oh, you know, maybe next week I'll give another lecture, and it'll be for those people who left, or, I mean, so, so he's actually, it's actually part of his skillful means to allow them to go and then say, you know, they're not able to get this message, and maybe here's why, to gather everyone who remains. I don't know if that makes sense, but I find myself wondering that, if it's not just, you know, I don't want to get lost in language, I hear the message he's saying, I don't think he's, I don't think that he's pushing out the door saying those people are dregs, and we don't ever want to associate with them again. I think they get predicted later, actually, the 5,000, so, yeah. Yes? The way I read it was just that, when the Buddha said that they're already here, like, they actually couldn't hear, so they thought it was over, and they left.

[42:18]

And I think that, like, you know, the Buddha Dharma is preached all the time, and so I cannot hear it. So I think they just didn't actually hear it. They thought it was over, and they did bow and respectfully left, and it's time to go. When I've been reading this, I remember when you first started talking about it, you talked about how it was translated from several languages, and it was embellished, passed down orally, and finally, hundreds of years later, the whole thing was put down in print in a very flowery and ornate way. Is it just possible that we really are seeing a little bit of prejudice of the time put in there, and we can just leap over that part? Because we know better, and it just seems like we're all of one mind here. We all understand that a Buddha or the Buddha wouldn't really say, you guys are no good, because it wouldn't happen. So maybe we're just seeing a prejudice of the time, and we just carry on and keep looking for the jewels.

[43:23]

Would I be okay to assume that, or am I missing some deeper thing that everybody seems to be digging for? I think there are the prejudices of the time in this book about women and slaves, and it's in there. So I think there's probably some of that in this, and there's probably also, just from your own experience, you know, what is that phrase, pearls before swine? Somebody, in fact, told me when they were coming down here, it was so important to be at Tassajara. And then when people who didn't really know anything about it were saying, well, how come you're coming down there? They just couldn't speak. They couldn't tell them. It was too important. To talk with an uninitiated person who really doesn't know anything about your love of Dharma and wanting to go to Tassajara, sometimes we just can't do it. And if we try, they don't get it, we feel badly, you know. So I think it's pointing to that phenomenon.

[44:24]

And there's other things too, but yes, I think this has its own, comes out of culture, you know. It's our desire to make the scriptures perfect. It's a Western thing to say, this is the inspired word of, in this case, Buddha. Well, it's not, but there's definitely jewels in there and stuff. And I find us slipping into this idea, we're trying to make this into the sacred words of the Buddha. And we're just grappling and struggling because, oh, no, he didn't really say that, did he? And it doesn't need to do that. I think to find a usable teaching, you know. And there are parts in the teachings, not just this sutra, but others that are not so usable for us right now. So that's a term that Rita Gross uses in Buddhism After Patriarchy, that they're to find usable, the usable teachings now, because they are fraught with the society's inclinations of the time as well, as well.

[45:30]

Tova. I appreciate you spending time on this. And I think this may not be usable in the sense that David, me, and Leslie were talking about. When a group of people leaves a practice center, say, or even a few people, I think it's really important to know why. And it's things that we don't really know. Maybe the Buddha could read their motives, but we don't really know, from their perspective, why they left. And I was thinking of some people who came this summer to do work practice. And Pasahara wasn't what they thought it would be. And they were very unhappy and very angry, some of them, and left. And I talked with a couple of them. Some just left. They kind of ran up the hill, got the first ride they could get. But the ones I spoke to had valid things to say about the way our structure as authoritarianism didn't fit for them.

[46:37]

The practice wasn't right for them. And I think it's important to kind of have an exit interview when someone leaves a situation. I mean, this is a different time than the Buddha's time. But people who have a different take on a practice aren't necessarily wrong. And it may not be the right thing for them, ever. Maybe not just the right time. So I'm glad you're rolling on this a little bit. Maybe just a few more on this. Let's see, who would like to say something more about the 5,000 leaving? Okay, why don't you go ahead. It's sort of about this, or it is about this. I'm curious, do you know why nothing was written down for 500 years from the Buddha's time on? You mean why it was just orally? Yeah. I'm not sure I can answer why.

[47:43]

I think that it was an oral tradition, the way a lot of cultures had oral transmission of teaching. Oral teachings passed on and learned by heart. But what's behind your question? Well, I just have this idea from the last class. I'd like to suggest that maybe it was because the Buddha, knowing that everything's changing, had the sense that if it was written down, it would be frozen. This sutra is frozen in China, 1,500 years ago? Was that when it was written? It was added to and completed probably the last chapter in 500 A.D. So we're studying something that was frozen in time, where maybe the Buddha intended for his teachings to be changeable, relate to time. So I'm thinking, why don't we just rewrite this? Why study something that's 1,500 years old?

[48:44]

It's not exactly what he said anyways, and it just seems to me like, why study something that's so old and so not applicable to our way of viewing the world now? To me it seems, I mean, I really am enjoying it a lot. It's beautifully written, but it's frozen in time, really. And I just had this idea that maybe it wasn't written down originally because there's a sense of change in it. Everything constantly is changing, society is changing, and maybe it's tactfulness not to write it down, but to allow it to be changing, the teaching to be changing with time. So maybe the writing of sutras was kind of an untactful means. You know, I appreciate what you're saying and how we can get caught with the written, and it gets solid. So I would love to see a new translation that takes out certain references and changes the sons to all good sons and good daughters.

[49:46]

Sometimes it says good sons and good daughters, but often it's good sons. It would be wonderful to do, and I think it would be completely in keeping with the teaching, the teaching of the Buddha, and I think you should do that. Yeah. But I also feel that it is changing, the Lotus Sutra is, as we're just talking about it the way we're talking about it, probably has never been talked about quite like this before, right? And our experiences with our practice here in 2004, men and women together, with all the streams of all the different Buddhist schools that we know of that have come streaming through due to this time in the world where we have access to all the different teachings, it's very unusual. And so the Lotus Sutra will... The Lotus Sutra, it's not a book, the cult of the book, as I was saying last time, it's the teaching of the wonderful Dharma. And the teaching of the wonderful Dharma responds to beings,

[50:50]

responds to the needs of beings. That's why it's one of the reasons it's so wonderful. I guess I still feel like it's the teaching of the wonderful Dharma in medieval China and not what it may have been if it was orally passed to now, how it would relate. Maybe some people wouldn't have the same reserves about it because it would be different. Yes. Oh, I think you're right. I understand what you're saying, but in a sense it's very much stuck then. I think if we can pull out from the flowers and the cultural things, if we can pull out for us what the core truth is for us, which we can... If you get it down to one thing, the one great cause that allows Buddhists to appear in the world is wanting to help other beings. You could say that's the wonderful law. That's the wonderful Dharma, and the Mahayana stresses compassion,

[51:57]

helping beings with wisdom, realizing your own true nature, and from that comes helping beings because self and other are not separate. That, you might say, is the wonderful law right there. Done. Close the book. Let's go sit. So we take this up. I take this up out of... I want to hear... I find it amazing. We do these practices up in the Zen Dojo, or yogi practices and so forth, and you can read about in the 1200s how Dogen folded his wiping cloth. And I find that just amazing. 750 years or more after these people... They would never believe it. If you were to have told them in a time in the future, in the last 500 years, the time of the collapse of the good doctrine, in a valley in Tassajara, next to a hot springs,

[52:58]

men and women of all ages will be practicing oriyoki, people you have never seen before, of all sizes and shapes, of all abilities, who don't speak Japanese, you know. Only a few speak Japanese. In this valley, at this time. They would never believe it. So I'm interested in reading about what practices went before and what the teachings have been, and being suffused with that, and then making it our own. Making it our own fresh offering that's completely unique to this time and place. Dan. I just want to start by saying I'm not really resonating with the sutra at all. You're not resonating with the sutra at all? I mean, this is my second time studying it in Zen Center. I'm having a really hard time. Can you hear Dan? I'm having a really hard time resonating with the sutra and being really put off by the language

[54:01]

and I'm not getting from it what it sounds like a lot of other people here are getting from it. So, maybe that's kind of the purpose. But, you know, just back to the 5,000 people, I'm really actually empathizing with those people because I feel like... You know, what I get... You talked in the first class about how this sutra is when Buddhism starts trying to really say anyone can be a Buddha. And this chapter starts off with... It feels like, to me, the Buddha saying, well, I've practiced with hundreds of thousands of Buddhas and made myriad kodis of offerings and he just goes on and on about all these elaborate things that he's done that I personally can't ever picture myself getting to, you know? Like, in this lifetime, in the next 2 million lifetimes.

[55:02]

So, the idea of becoming a Buddha, to me, feels very remote. And it's depressing, actually, to read it because it's like... And it seems different to me than the stuff that I'm learning from Suzuki Roshi or other more modern people, I guess, where it just feels like you're already Buddha and it's real simple what you have to do. Just wash dishes, cut carrots, you know, really be there with your activity. I'm not finding that in the sutra so much. It's difficult. Thank you. So, our study for the practice period is, you know, taking off from the Lotus Sutra, but our real study in the practice period is

[56:05]

completely being one with whatever activity is, you know? So, if it's zazen, service, orioke, work, completely being exactly one with whatever we do, which means then we're... This being one with whatever we're doing is an expression of only a Buddha and a Buddha, meaning all the ten thousand things, all the activities, all the practices, all the myriad things, when we become one with each thing that we're doing, there is just only a Buddha and a Buddha. Right there. So, I feel when this is talking about these things, it's our practice of doing one thing completely

[57:13]

where we let go of our self-centered way and just completely do it, is things as it is. Things, anything that you do, when you completely do it, there's no separation there, really, whether you know it or not. So, we just practice completely with whatever we're doing, with full, sincere heart. And I would say that's the lotus, that's the good dharma, you know? So, I don't know what to say about coming to class and not resonating with the sutra. I think others of you may be feeling the same way. So, to be one of the five thousand and leave would be one way to go. The other would be to just sit zazen while you're sitting here, listen with just being with your sangha members,

[58:19]

without wanting to understand more or to force it in any way. Maybe that's not possible, but maybe just to sit zazen here. Now, I'll touch you. Yes. When I first started Zen practice, I was much younger and felt very vigorous and open. And I came to Asahara with the idea of becoming a priest.

[59:25]

But when the application came, when the application said, what is the reason you want to come and why now? I didn't put down that I wanted to be a priest. What happened was that it suddenly occurred to me that why not just do the practice and see what happens. So, it would be a stage by stage, moment by moment, which seemed accurate for me. And now that I'm here, there's another shift. And the shift being that I did not take into account that I'm 81, that I'm not 51. And so, conditions have to change.

[60:31]

I don't have the strength. I don't have the flexibility. I don't have the ability to sit the way I used to sit. And I am now searching for a way to do the practice, but different. And I see that the 5,000 people getting up and walking out were not perhaps ready to stay and listen. And maybe they had their own agenda. Maybe some of them were older, some of them younger. Anyway, this is my sense in terms of change.

[61:40]

Things change. And I'm changing. And I am looking for another way to do the practice. So, I don't have that intensity that I had before. It's okay. Even if I change, perfect, the way it is. And this is what I am dealing with personally. I don't know if that really could be done. Thank you. I had to say it. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Dion touched on something for me that the 5,000 people... We have to go back in the kitchen. That's right. Which is the self-referential nature of the Lotus Sutra. The Lotus Sutra is always talking about the Lotus Sutra. Buddha is preaching the Lotus Sutra

[62:41]

and he says, you know, 20 myo kalpas ago, when I was preaching the Lotus Sutra, and I'm like, this is the Lotus Sutra. How come, you know, I'm all mixed up? And one commentary I read said, they never actually get to the Lotus Sutra. You know, they're so busy talking about... And anyway, Dogen talks about the Hokkei Ten Hokkei. The wheel of the Lotus Sutra Dharma flower turns the wheel of the Lotus Sutra. That, you know, our practice, it's like what you were saying, it's about our practice. It's not frozen in time as long as we're practicing. And he also says, I've just been swimming in this past book, you know, he says, there is turning the flower of Dharma in the manifestation of to retreat also is fine. Which is the 5,000.

[63:43]

Yeah. I think that teaching that whether you know it or not or have experienced it or not, you are completely supported by Buddhas the way the earth supports mountains or the water is the waves. Whether you know it or not, it doesn't matter what you think one way or the other. This is the true Dharma, you know. So we struggle and we're conflicted and we're fighting with it, you know. And that's all part of it too. Right? There's no way you can step out of being supported by, I mean, one way of saying it is supported by all the Buddhas. But we don't like that language so much. We want to hear that we are one. We're big mind. We're all, you know, there's certain ways we can hear it better than others. Do you know what I mean? So if it's said one way, we say, oh, I don't like it. It's not for me. You say it another way and you say, ah, I want to practice harder. So I would like to

[64:49]

move to the third chapter. What do you think? There's more in the second, you know. The ten suchnesses that he lists, the suchness of form, suchness of nature, embodiment, the potency, and all those ten suchnesses. Juree, the Tendai school takes those ten suchnesses and that's one of the foundational teachings of Tendai school, which is Lotus school. So I'm, you know, in looking at it, I don't feel familiar enough enough, familiar enough with it to really teach that, but that's something you might want to look at more. This ten suchnesses means things as it is. It's all the appearances of form and potency and characteristics and nature, and then all those things together, the causes and conditions and the retribution for actions and all that is one great big whole or things as it is.

[65:50]

So that's this ten suchnesses. Suzuki Roshi touches on it. But let's move on to chapter three, parable. So the end of chapter two, you know, the Buddha ends with you will all be Buddhists. You know, he does that last thing. The Buddha, the leaders of the world, have no further doubts, rejoice greatly in your hearts, knowing that you will become Buddhists. So this parable, chapter three opens with Shariputra ecstatic with joy. He'd never heard such a thing when he heard that you will become Buddhists. Because he is of the Shravaka group that we're settling for, you might say, which is hardly a settle for. The Arhats are, you know, unspeakably developed and wisdom beings, you know.

[66:54]

But this is alluding to this, that the Shravakas were more interested in self-realization and how the schools, the old wisdom schools, got more and more further away from the laity and also caught maybe in the analyzing of the sutras and the spirit and the life of the teaching maybe got lost at a certain point, which is when there was this new reform. The Mahasanghikas, the ones who didn't go inside the cave where there was a big meeting, they were outside the cave and got their own thing and got their own thing going. So the Shravakas supposedly were more interested in self-realization rather than in the Bodhisattva ideal of helping and didn't think they would become Buddhists. They were Arhats. So then they hear that there's this prediction that they all are going to be Buddhists and Shariputra goes on

[67:57]

to talk about his own spiritual life, how he didn't really understand the Buddha was teaching, but he didn't understand the true deeper meaning of it. And he has a lot of self-reproach and doubts, but now it's all ended. He's at ease. He's happy. He's ecstatic, really. And then the Buddha begins, does a prediction of Shariputra. Basically, he says to Shariputra, I've taught you for a long time. We've been practicing together for a long time. You've planted your wholesome roots. You've made a resolve to study the Buddha way long ago. And that's now coming to fruition, this seed. And then he says, you will become a Buddha. And he says the name, Flower Light Tathagata, and you're going to live in this beautiful, your Buddha field, your Buddha land will be. He says thus and so and describes it. And this gets, in the different predictions, like Chapter 6, I think, is all predictions of the other four great disciples

[69:00]

Subhuti and Maugalyayana and one more. So it's very similar. They describe these Buddha lands that they're going to be in with golden, you know, walkways and jeweled trees and adorned with jewels and ornate and just this incredible thing. And in one of the commentaries of Suzuki Roshi, he says, you think that this is really flowery and that they're, you know, they're saying all this, but they're not even saying enough. They should be putting more, saying more stuff in there, more Buddhas and more. I read that and I thought, wow, you know. Because you always think, enough, it's enough already. All right, with the jeweled canopies, it's enough. And then Suzuki Roshi says, they don't even say enough. How this really is, this, you know, the Buddha fields or when you're completely, you know, what this understanding is like, they don't say the half of it. Isn't that interesting? I'll find a few.

[70:03]

So they describe this beautiful thing and then the four groups, the lay men and women and the nuns and the monks, they're, oh, there's this thing where robes come down and whirl around in the sky. Robes, I thought that was a great detail. I don't remember if that happens too often, but for Shariputra, these robes come down and go spinning. Anyway, the four groups are kind of perplexed a little bit. They're happy and they're happy for Shariputra, but they're kind of wondering. They have never heard this before. Shariputra's been predicted and they think they are too, but they want to hear more about it. And Shariputra asks about the other 1,200 people who are there and have kind of fallen into doubts. And then the Buddha tells the parable of the burning house. How many of you had heard this parable before reading it in the Lotus, where it was just something you had heard sort of here and there? Yeah. So shall we tell it, David? I just want to stop a moment and say, what's the value of this prediction? The value

[71:07]

of Shariputra's prediction? Right, and the other... And the other predictions? Ah. Well... There's this generalized prediction that's made. All of you will be Buddhists. You know, you're all Buddhists. And then he takes particular care with those... This is how I see it. With those disciples who were so close to him, were his closest, and he really goes into detail with them. And this is how it's going to be. And you've heard this, generally speaking, but you might think, oh, does that really mean me? I can't quite believe it because I've been going this whole other way. I've been thinking this whole other way for all this time. So he gives it to them really clarified, really clearly and in detail. So I think of it as a kind of gift,

[72:07]

a prediction, juki, a gift of... And taking good care of these close disciples in that way. Of course, then more and more and more people. But how does it... How do you feel about the predictions? I thought a lot of them were all the same, number one. You know, like, tall one prediction, we will all be good at that. Ditto. Yeah. And then the actual pyramids themselves are unappealing to me. Static realm. It's like, if that's it, I don't think I want to go there. Uh-huh. And yeah, so I can see I think there's an attempt to inspire. Uh-huh, uh-huh. I don't know exactly what will happen, but the way it's done here doesn't, for me, develop it. Yeah. And maybe walk it for them. I just don't know if there's another take on that. Yeah. Yeah, it's like,

[73:11]

who wants... I don't want golden land. You know, I want good old earth to walk on. I don't want golden land. But inspire and... It's funny, it's so ornate and magical and kind of celestial and so forth, but it also feels like the Buddha's trying to pin it down for them, you know, make it real in a funny way, you know, that this is what it's going to be like in detail. So it's kind of, it kind of has both things, using that language to make something acceptable and really clear and this is how it's going to be. It's kind of funny that way. Yes? If I put it in simple language for myself, it's something like

[74:11]

all my conditioning has taught me I am limited. Now I'm feeling I am limitless. And what, what will happen to me and to others if I really believe that and live that? Something he's actually, he's actually doing, in chapter 3, he's telling us what he just did with the parable of the burning house. He's describing this, the father and the way that he uses these carts or whatever they are to lure the kids out and it sounds like what he's kind of trying to do with these predictions of just making these like totally over the top, you know, stories to kind of like somehow open the minds and it's just like you have been pointing out

[75:14]

the skillful means part of it is kind of this really human thing so it's like it's it goes with this particular kind of mind that might I mean I think maybe our minds, our cultural minds or whatever kind of don't match up with this particular ideas but you know, he's kind of like using this tactfulness to try to just burst open the mind that he sees as kind of closed to the fullness of the teacher. Yeah. Nancy. It reminds me of what Thich Nhat Hanh said is that when the Sufra uses this mystical, grandiose quality to point away from the historical dimension and go into the ultimate dimension and what I just thought of was the 10,000 carpenters. So I've been thinking about

[76:15]

this crew of 6 or 7 people that will be with us during the practice period and that means one thing but when I think about the 10,000 carpenters it means something else and I don't know what it means and I can't articulate the ways in which the 10,000 carpenters will change me and this practice is the way I can probably articulate the way 6 or 7 people and some compressors will change me. It's one way of looking and then it's another way of looking. So that's how I'm seeing all the myriads of protes and minor calculus. They're kind of meaningless in the way that I'm used to thinking about. It's true. We can grasp certain things if you describe something that you like like if somebody said that your Buddha land will be kind of like Tassara, there'll be hot springs and no flies, right? No flies and the food is always great and on time and hot

[77:15]

and you can wrap your mind around that you can imagine that but this is like, it's beyond your concept at a certain point you drop off this is what happens I can feel it happening when they start going back and describing some of these kotis and myriads of encapus and it all happened in one afternoon and you drop off I drop off thinking I get it it actually it's like I can almost feel new neuronal pathways being forged, you know, ways that I've thought in images that I've never conceived of before it's like the inconceivable so in that way what would it be like to be fully enlightened in this way that he's talking it's inconceivable it's fathomless so he gives it a try, it's a skillful means to anyway, those are some ways to think about shall we tell the parable I was hoping we could all tell because I think we know it, right? do we know it?

[78:16]

so in a city in a kingdom there was what? a very rich wealthy man a great elder and what what was his circumstances like? he lived and had a bunch of kids rich, rotting house he lived in a rotting house he had a great big house and it was falling down, the beams they describe it in detail, decaying oh, it just needed about ten work periods to get that house, it's just really a wreck and it had how many doors? one narrow door this big, huge mansion that was dilapidated it had just one narrow door and who what? oh yeah, there was nasty critters, in the poetry it really goes into how bad it really was in that house and who lived in the house too? a whole bunch of kids he had, right? yes, it says ten, twenty or thirty

[79:16]

kids lived in the house, sons actually I think it says children, but I think he calls them his sons so what were those kids up to? in the house? playing with matches playing with matches party animals they had play things, they were completely absorbed in their they had a lot of toys and stuff, he was very wealthy so they had stuff to play with and they were completely involved and having a grand old time right? and the house, what happened to the house? caught fire fire, fire breaks out in the house and what did the kids did the kids notice? the kids were playing they did not notice, they were not afraid they weren't apprehensive, they weren't they didn't notice at all they weren't surprised, nothing, they were just completely involved with their stuff, their video games they had all sorts of stuff so the great elder

[80:21]

what did he think? right then, when he saw the fire break out, what happened? they're never going to believe this is what he thought the kids are never going to believe this they're never going to come out of the house he had a lot of fear right? he had my goodness the house is on fire and the kids what's going to happen to the kids? I can get myself out, I know how to get out of here and I see the fire but the children are not even they're just completely oblivious they have no impulse to escape so and this is an important point right here, he had this thought about how he could get them out to remember, somebody already brought it up a little bit earlier right, he thought I can haul them out, you know I've got a lot of strength I'll just gather them up and stick them in this bench, table or flower vessel anyway, some kind of thing where he would just haul them out

[81:23]

I could do that but then he thought, if I do that one of them might fall out by mistake, you know and get burned and I don't think that's a good way to me, to bodily bring them out, so then he thought of something else that was his first thought to kind of haul them out himself then his second thought to get them out was what? words, to warn them he said I must speak to them and he began to warn them come out quickly all of you and to kind of beg them to come out, please everybody would you come out the house is burning, you know and what did they do? the kids, when he's begging them to come out with kind words pay no attention, they stayed they're just playing joyfully having a grand old time you know, what's dad yapping about there you know, we're busy playing

[82:26]

so then he thought of a third thing, this was the third way to get them out of the house what was that? promises some great rides right, so he thought let me think about this, how am I going to get these kids out, well I know that I know my kids and I know their certain dispositions, what they like, their personalities, you know I'm going to offer them play things that they're really going to want, things they'll want that they'll they'll want to come out and get that are very attractive, play things I've been thinking about this a lot and I'll tell them I've got them waiting outside and they'll because they're so fond of playing, the kids they'll come out and get them so he said, kids, children I've got, I know you've been wanting these play things these carts, and I've got them for you I've got the goat cart, and I've got

[83:27]

deer carts, and I've got a bullock cart out there and they said, wow oh dad, thanks we've been wanting those, and they just couldn't wait to get out, falling over each other racing, who would be first to get out that narrow door because those things, they suited their wishes and they just scrambled out and then they were out, outside of that burning house, in the square safe, and the father just breathed a sigh of relief ah, we got them out not only did I get them out, they got out by their own two legs, they came out by themselves

[84:06]

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