Good morning. This morning I'd like to talk about the first line of the Heart Sutra. The first line, you know, every couple of years or so the translation changes. So my translation may be slightly out of date.

[01:03]

But the first line is, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, when practicing deeply, the Prajna Paramita perceived that all five skandhas in their own being are empty and was saved from all suffering. I'm not sure we'll be able to cover the whole sentence, but you heard it once anyway. So the Heart Sutra is called the Heart Sutra because it's the core or heart of the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras. Because in the first line, the Prajna Paramita, when practicing deeply, Prajna is Wisdom and

[02:14]

Paramita is often translated Perfection, the Perfection of Wisdom. It's also known as the Wisdom which has gone beyond Wisdom or the Wisdom which carries you to the other shore, you know, Perfection or Paramitas also takes you to the other shore. From this shore, so-called samsara, suffering, to the other shore, nirvana. So the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra is in 8,000 lines or 25,000 lines or 100,000 lines or So the Heart Sutra is one page. So here it is. And then the first sentence says it all. Why say the rest? Except we have to do something while we're alive.

[03:16]

So rather than watching television, we chant and pass the sound of the Heart Sutra through our being and, you know, creating the sound, listening to the sound, and it's very cleansing to chant, to pass sound through you rather than, you know, the sound of your own voice and other voices rather than the sound of the television or the movies or the traffic, you know, pass the sound of chanting the Sutra through you. So, if I'm not careful, I'll just have asides all my whole talk, you know. But chanting is a wonderful kind of practice, you know. Sometimes people don't care for chanting and they actually worry about what does it mean. And the whole point of the chanting is don't worry about what it means and just let the sound wash through you. It's very cleansing. You let go of what's on your mind, you know, anything you've been holding on to while you're

[04:23]

chanting, you let go of it, the sound washes through, you're cleansed. Then when you're done, pretty quickly you can get back to stuff that you let go of and you don't have to worry. And, you know, each of the vowels especially are, you know, very powerful. You know, the vowel ah, ah, when you do ah, that resonates at your heart, your heart chakra. And it's really ah, ah, ah, and then your heart just resonates. And then oh, that's the chakra here. And then ooh, ooh, it's the root chakra. And then, you know, eh is the throat and ee is here. And ee, and pretty soon the top of your head is resonating.

[05:29]

So you can tune yourself up by chanting. But usually people, rather than, you know, considering that, it's like, what does this mean and why do we chant in Japanese? Why can't we chant in English? We want to be able to understand it. And I just told you the English, did you understand it? It's not like you're going to understand it anyway. The Prajnaparamita, perceive the five skandhas, I have to spend a whole lecture trying to explain it to you. And you could just, you know, and it's much better actually in Japanese, you know. Kanji, zaibo, satsugyo, jin, hanyahara, mita, jisho, kengo, kaiku, doi, saiku. It's much better, you know, you get much better tuned up than when you try to do, avalokiteshvara,

[06:29]

bodhisattva, when practicing deeply. English doesn't work, you know, they take the vowels in English and enclose them in consonants. You know, you put the vowels in the middle of consonants and that way you can't get your chakras tuned up. That's the whole point of English. Don't, you know, don't do that. Be estranged, you know, be alienated and, you know, and that's the whole point of English. Don't open up, you know, keep contained. This is a new, you know, historical analysis of, you know, linguistics and, anyway. I guess I want to say, well, first of all, I want to say a little bit about suffering in Buddhism, you know, and was saved from all suffering. We'll start actually at the end of the sentence, I guess, because I want to tell you, in just

[07:33]

a sentence or two, what is suffering, okay? Why not, you know? I mean, as long as we're just going to do one sentence, I mean, let's just, you know, do a sentence or two. Suffering in Buddhism, you know, we make like one basic mistake, one basic mistake, and then once you've made that mistake, you're going to suffer. And the one mistake that we tend to make is the objects of awareness we identify with awareness itself. So if you see something beautiful, awareness is beautiful. If you see something ugly, awareness is ugly. If you hear a harsh sound, oh, that's me, you know, that's my mind. So we confuse mind and the objects of mind, my mind, objects of mind. So for instance, if we want to be calm, we have the idea, I need to make all the objects of awareness calm.

[08:33]

So I need to get that sound to stop, and I need to, you know, close my eyes so I don't see anything, and I need to get my thoughts to shut up, and I need to not have any feeling happening because if I had an emotion going on, I couldn't be calm because that would be emotional, right? So in order to be calm, I have to control all these objects of awareness. I have to control what I'm seeing, what I'm hearing, what I'm smelling, what I'm tasting, what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling. I have to control all these things and get them to like turn the volume way down, you know, or just be pleasant ones, and then I could be calm, nothing to it. So the basic mistake we make is to think that the way to be calm or peaceful or happy is to control the objects of our awareness, objects including not only the external world, but our own thinking, our own feeling, our own sensations. Get those nicely under control and get them to do what you'd like them to and you'll be

[09:34]

happy. How well has it worked? You've been doing it for 20, 30, 60, 80 years, and has it worked out? Well, some of us take a lot of convincing, you know, this is suffering to try to control the objects of awareness because it's suffering because it can't be done, right? It's not suffering because, I mean, and then so we think then my skill level is very low. I could, maybe if I practiced Buddhism, I would have greater skills at controlling all these objects. Of course, you know, it doesn't work like that and actually we end up having some calmness to the extent that we stop identifying the objects of awareness with me and how I'm doing and there's a loud sound and we could be calm. There's an emotion and we could be calm.

[10:35]

There's thinking and we could be calm. We could be calm with whatever the object is because we no longer are identifying me with the object of my awareness. This make sense? I don't know. It can make sense but then, you know, practicing it is something else. It's very tempting to control things. So the basic problem we have is trying to control things and suffering, so-called, what Buddhism calls suffering is we can't control things. Things are out of control. They arise in an uncalled for fashion. Do you ever have that experience? I have that experience a lot. You know, whether it's a sound or, you know, I can be cooking and, you know, I cut something and then a few slices of celery fall on the floor. It's like, excuse me, but that was uncalled for. I wanted you to stay on the counter, all right?

[11:38]

You didn't need to do that. So, anyway, whether it's what somebody says or does or what you think or what you feel, it's, you know, things just, they're uncalled for and they're out of control. They don't particularly care what, you know, you want or don't want. And much as I've tried to develop my capacities for control over the years, I don't know, it's not working out, you know. So I've tended finally to, you know, being more and more convinced over the years to shift from control to compassion, okay? So whereas control, with control we're trying to get the object of our awareness to behave in the way that will make us happy or make us feel good about ourselves, you know, or, you know, reflect well on this. All right, so the first line here begins with Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva.

[12:43]

Avalokiteshvara is the Bodhisattva of compassion. Most of us are confusing, you know, compassion, you know, or love as, you know, love as control and love as compassion. You know, love as control means, you know, when I, when my daughter was little, you know, she's fussing and then after a while at some point I get frustrated, I love you, so shut up. Do you ever notice that? You know, because I love you, you shouldn't be upset. I love you, isn't that enough to make you, like, feel better? So, love, love as control, love does something for you. Okay, you know, if, you know, if you, when I first got married I thought, this person will do something for me, so this person will make me happy. So this means that actually I don't have permission to be unhappy because she loves me, she's

[13:46]

going to make me happy, so I shouldn't be unhappy. She loves me, I'll just be happy. So it's very easy for love to sort of shift over into love as control and love does these things for you and then actually you don't have permission to feel those other things or it would indicate that the person doesn't love you. But I love you, so stop acting like that. Have you ever experienced that? You can be on either side of that, I don't care, you know. I've been on both sides. Love as compassion is more like, it doesn't do anything, it's just with you. And love, you know, compassion doesn't abandon you, it doesn't run, it doesn't hide, it stays there and it receives, you know, compassion receives how you're feeling, what you're thinking, it's with you. Compassion is non-abandonment. So the Bodhisattva of compassion is said to listen and hear all the cries and whispers

[14:50]

of all beings and appear in just the fashion that beings are happy to meet and be with, you know. So I've looked as far as it can be a woman or a man or a bear or a hungry ghost, we're not sure, you know. Whatever, you know, she, he can appear. And then, you know, she's not doing something, she's not making you feel better, but she's also not rejecting you and pushing you away saying, if that's the way you're going to be, then go to your room until you decide to behave better, get over it, you know, don't feel like that. So, in some ways, compassion is not very helpful, the way we usually think about helpful. On the other hand, it's completely helpful because you have complete permission to experience whatever's going on in your life and not have to control the object of your awareness or

[15:53]

not have to control your feelings or your thoughts. And your awareness is, your awareness is compassionate enough just to stay with you, just to be with you, doesn't distance you or push you away or reject you or tell you to be other than you are. What a relief. And you can see how, you know, meditation is practicing compassion because if you sit down and you sit still, you will start to experience many more things that are uncalled for. Everybody who's meditated notices that right away. Your thoughts are racing, but I was going to have a quiet time here. It was going to be really peaceful. Start your knees start hurting, oh gosh, my knees are hurting. You know, I was just going to find some nice place to be away from everything and get some peace and quiet and all this stuff is going on.

[16:54]

My knees are hurting, you know, my thoughts are racing, I'm feeling frustrated, you know, all these things are happening. And so we're actually developing the capacity to experience and tolerate and, you know, be calm and peaceful with a much wider range of experience than we had before we started to meditate. Pretty simple, you know. So of course the key will be, do you do it or not? And it's not, you know, meditation in that sense is not a quick fix. You know, it's not like you have one insight and it changes your life forever. I'm sorry. But if you'd like, you know, you could spend five or 10 years seriously devoted to getting that one experience which will change everything. And great. I mean, I did that for, I don't know, five or 10 or 20 years. It's, you know, it's a nice thing to do.

[17:55]

It's as good as anything. Don't you think? Anyway, it's useful if you have that kind of idea that one moment can change your life, go ahead and try for it. And then, and make it, give it your all. And then eventually you'll be convinced, like, I've really seriously devoted myself to this. I tried harder than anybody in history ever tried. Okay. There's no such thing. Forget it. Anyway. I guess the next thing I'll tell you about is the perfection of wisdom. I'm going to start at the end and then we'll back up and then come forward again.

[18:58]

Perfection of wisdom. In the perfection of wisdom sutra, the Buddha asked Subuddhi, one of his disciples, Subuddhi, would you explain to the bodhisattvas, the great beings, you know, how a bodhisattva is to stand in the perfection of wisdom and how to go forward in the perfection of wisdom, how to cultivate and develop the perfection of wisdom and, you know, reside there in the perfection of wisdom. Would you explain to the bodhisattvas how to do that? And Subuddhi says, I would be happy to. But you know, when I look really closely, I can't really find anything to call a bodhisattva. I can't find a thing to put that designation bodhisattva on. And I can't actually get hold of anything to put the label perfection of wisdom on. So which bodhisattva will I instruct in what perfection of wisdom? If somebody hears this and they're not dismayed, they don't cower or tremble, they don't run and hide,

[20:07]

they're not frightened, you know, they don't despair, that's a bodhisattva and that's the perfection of wisdom. And then everybody says, well said. Of course, then Subuddhi said, then one of the other disciples says, Sariputra says, is that perfection of wisdom then something that is? And Subuddhi says, in the absence of thought, could you ascertain an is or an is not? And Sariputra says, no, not that. And then Subuddhi kind of teases him and says, well, was that a very suitable question you just asked then? Are you suitably lost now with, you know, nothing to grasp? That's the perfection of wisdom, that you have nothing to grasp, nothing to hold on to, nothing to, you know, rely on.

[21:08]

Nothing to get you through. There's not going to be anything to help you control the objects of your awareness. So to back up a little bit, I want to explain what, you know, early Buddhism said was wisdom. Wisdom in earlier Buddhism, before the Prajnaparamita, the perfection of wisdom schools, wisdom could be characterized as, you know, insight into what are called the three marks of conditioned existence. Conditioned existence is all of these things that appear and disappear, dependent on conditions. So things that appear and disappear, that's just about everything, isn't it? Light appears and disappears, colors appear and disappear, sounds appear and disappear, thoughts appear and disappear,

[22:11]

things come and go, right? Everything is transient. So conditioned existence is, you know, all these things that have seemed to appear. And anyway, the conditioned things that appear and disappear in our life, in other words, the objects of awareness, because we can't grasp mind itself, mind itself we sometimes say is Buddha, or we could say mind itself is not a thing, awareness is not a thing. So we say about awareness, in contrast with the things that appear and disappear, we say about awareness, does not come or go, does not appear or disappear, is not tainted, not pure, does not increase or decrease. Awareness itself is not a thing.

[23:12]

In order to be a thing, you know, we have to be able to separate it and identify it from all the things that are not that thing, right? If I'm here, then everything else has to be other than me. How does that work, you know, is mystifying. How could I possibly just be here and not over there? If I see you, okay, you know, am I just here or, you know, where are the things you see? You know, we tend to think, well, the things I see are outside. Unless, of course, you're looking at your own hand. But where, you know, seeing must be taking place in your awareness. We say in Buddhism, eye consciousness, seeing is happening in your awareness. Anyway, consciousness is not a thing.

[24:14]

Awareness itself is not a thing. All these things that appear and, you know, appear and disappear. So the things that appear and disappear have three characteristics. These are transiency, impermanence, you know, they arise and disappear. Everything comes and goes. The second is suffering, so-called suffering or dukkha, which I mentioned earlier, which is we can't control them to anywhere near what would be a satisfying level of control. Not even close. And the third is that there's not a self that can be grasped and held onto or attained or achieved or, you know, had. And most of the time, curiously enough, you know, people can sit in meditation and then after the period of meditation,

[25:14]

they'll say, well, I didn't get anything. You know, the whole period of meditation is characterized by wisdom. Things are appearing and disappearing. You didn't get anything to keep and have and hold onto, did you? Okay, wisdom. You weren't able to control your experience to anywhere near what is satisfying, were you? Oh, huh, the truth of suffering, insight, wisdom. I got it. And then no self, you didn't attain a self that is lasting that you get to keep and have and, you know, congratulations, and now I've gotten hold of it. So every period of meditation is invariably characterized by wisdom, but we tend to reject the wisdom and say, why didn't I get something permanent, lasting, you know, with some better capacity to control things and a nice self? Huh, darn it. So it's useful to remind yourself that actually your experience,

[26:15]

moment after moment, is always characterized by wisdom. What did you think? So, you know, the big problem in Buddhism is considered to be ignorance or ignoring the wisdom that you already have. You know, you overlook the three marks, transiency, impermanence, and no self. So, no, I'm not looking there. Thank you. In the early sutra, it said, you know, you can go into the shop and you see a nice bowl that would be a nice bowl for you to have and it's very handsome and attractive. And then, but unfortunately, when you look closely, it has these three holes in it. It's going to leak. And those holes are these three marks, impermanence, you know, no self, and suffering. So looking closely, we always see these three things. And yet, when we don't look closely, we like to think, I can control things better. I could have more, I could establish something,

[27:17]

you know, like I'll be calm. So if you're going to actually have calm or be calm, you know, how will you do that? So unfortunately, as soon as you set out to do that, you've just sabotaged yourself. Because if I'm going to have calm, that calm is now a thing that you're going to have. In order to ascertain that you have it, you know, you have to identify, what would characterize that I have this thing or not? And what would be, how can you measure this, except for noticing the objects of your awareness, are they calm or not? So how will you, so if you're trying to make all the objects of your awareness calm, now you will be even more agitated. Because you will be concerned like, uh-oh, this one isn't calm enough. What am I going to do about it? So you'll have to be on guard to make sure that the things that arise in your awareness are calm. And you'll try to get your thoughts to be calm

[28:19]

and your feelings to be calm and the sensations to be calm and the people around you to be calm. And then this is a state of agitation, guardness, anxiety, what will happen next? Can I sustain this? Can I keep it going? And right away you've set up the state of not calm. As soon as you try to have it, you won't. It will disappear. In order to, in order to have anything, you know, anything, if you want something to last, you are already fighting with the way things are, transient, impermanent, you know, no self, suffering. You will be, you know, trying to establish permanence and ease and well-being and happiness. And you will be identifying with the objects of your awareness and then measuring how well you're doing, dependent on what just happens to come into your mind. Have you ever noticed this?

[29:20]

I find it very frustrating. I've tried having little one-day sittings at my house in Fairfax in the little studio space we have outside the house and Saturday mornings is a big home improvement day. So while we're sitting there, you know, the leaf blowers are going and the lawnmowers and the electric hedge trimmers and the chainsaws and the buzz saws and the, you know, it's endless. It's amazing. How calm is that? I wanted calm. I wanted quiet. I had my heart set on it. So it doesn't work then right away. So, you know, it will be better then, you know. So once we have this kind of insight, we have this kind of wisdom, we can remind ourself to let the sound, you know, let the sound support you.

[30:21]

Let the sound wash through you. You know, stop trying to establish a mind which is apart from objects of mind or stop trying to control the objects of mind. Hmm. How will you ever do that? You see? Oh, I'm going to stop trying to control the objects of mind. Okay. Let me just be ready to do that. I'm going to get all ready now. And as soon as I see that controlling the objects of mind arising, I will get it. I'll get it. Now is that controlling or what? There won't be anything you can do or not do. I'm sorry. I'm not trembling, cowering yet, you see? If somebody hears this and they don't tremble or cower, they're not frightened, they don't run away, they're not dismayed, that's a bodhisattva.

[31:22]

This is the perfection of wisdom. So further, you know, in the perfection of wisdom it says, an unskilled bodhisattva, sometimes unskilled bodhisattva are characterized as foolish common people. But for today, let's say an unskilled bodhisattva which is not something that actually is anyway, but just a tentative designation for some beings that we, you know, are going to say, you know, have them appear for the sake of our discussion. And it's a magic show. You know, I've got on this outfit. I'm up here talking. Hey, it's a magic show. Okay? I'm putting it on for you. I'm appearing in front of you. Okay? Anyway, an unskilled bodhisattva is said to course in the skandhas.

[32:24]

In other words, sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touch, thoughts, emotions. Let's keep track of which ones are occurring now. Okay? This is what an unskilled person is. We'll keep track of which ones are happening and then we'll keep track of how well we're producing some and how well we're stopping others. How well we're producing the ones we want. How well we're stopping the ones we don't want. Which ones would indicate we're doing better now. Which ones would indicate we're doing worse. Which ones, you know, where I'm getting to be a better Buddhist, I'm getting to be a worse Buddhist, I'm a better husband, I'm a worse, you know, better, worse, better, worse. And then which would indicate that. And I'll just keep track of all that. And then I'll keep track of how well I'm doing at all of that. This is called suffering. This is called suffering. It's an endless, ongoing thing. You never arrive. You can never get anywhere. You can never get it down. You can never attain it. You can never achieve it. It's always better, always worse, always coming and going, you know, always out of your control, always uncalled for.

[33:26]

I mean, I have not, I have yet to get the traffic here in Marin County to get out of my way. And to, you know, go fast enough when I wanted to go fast enough and slow enough when I wanted to go slow enough. It just doesn't. And I keep thinking that all of you will realize what a spiritual person I am and clear the road. But somehow you don't. Oh well. And so I might have to start practicing, you know, like the perfection of wisdom, you know, when driving, rather than trying to control everything. Have compassion for everyone. Sometimes at stoplights, do you know how long it takes somebody, you know, when the light changes green to actually move forward? Sometimes I want to tell them, it's not that hard. Your right foot. It's your right foot. Press down with your right foot.

[34:29]

There's a space in front of your car now. The light just turned, that's green, did you notice? That's green. I've sometimes explained to people too, you know, like it's been important for me in my life, I've, you know, wanted to be a grown-up. Now, what would characterize a grown-up? This kind of goes along with this sort of cliche or, what do you call that thing, the image of, you know, what a good Zen student is. You wouldn't be emotional. You would be,

[35:34]

you would not have you would not reveal your emotions outwardly. You would contain your emotions because a lot of, a certain amount of, you know, Japanese Zen is actually just being a good Japanese person. That's what a good Japanese person does. You contain, you don't show your emotions outwardly, you don't dump them on other people, you know, you're polite. And you move through things and absorb everything, you just absorb things, you know, cheerful, energetic, vital. And you don't whimper or whine or, you know, sob or cry or, you know, you wouldn't do any of those things now, would you? Well, I happen to be someone I've never been good at that. I haven't been able to do that, but I wanted to be a grown-up. So every time there's some little indication that I'm not a grown-up, that's extremely disturbing. The last indication

[36:38]

that I might not be a grown-up yet, uh-oh. So then that's all the more distressing because I set out to be a grown-up. So even smaller and smaller indications of not being that are more and more upsetting. So wanting to be a grown-up actually makes me even more a baby than ever. This is the irony of our life, you know, we don't understand, we keep missing the fact that as soon as I try to control things, I'm going to suffer. As soon as I try to have only certain feelings and not others and certain thoughts and not others and, you know, images of myself, pictures of myself, you know, and get others to agree with them and, you know, as soon as I try to do that, I'm still a baby.

[37:38]

Oh, darn. And again, what's the basic mistake? I identify the objects of consciousness as being me. I identify them as mind itself. I forget that the basic nature of mind, mind itself, is not a thing. It doesn't appear or disappear. You yourself don't appear or disappear. You're not a thing, finally. We also say mind itself is Buddha, you yourself. Before you identify and characterize yourself in any way, you know, not a thing, you're not a thing, you're not a, you are Buddha. Buddha is not a thing. So we have these words like Buddha for not a thing. Something amazing, something already, you yourself are already one with everything. You yourself, you know,

[38:42]

aren't tainted or pure. The things that arise, you know, in conjunction with your consciousness can be designated tainted or pure, can be characterized as, you know, happy, sad, joyful, you know, angry, frustrated, discouraged. This is something that arises so-called in your awareness in conjunction with your awareness. It's not the awareness itself. It's not you yourself. It's a tentative, it's a temporary designation. It doesn't have any, you know, lasting reality. It doesn't stain mind itself. And, you know, we could say actually that the nature of mind itself is compassion. Because mind already, you know, if a sound arises,

[39:43]

you hear the sound. If there's color in front of you, you see the color. Mind in that sense doesn't discriminate. It's very compassionate. It receives, you know, what's going on. So mind itself will reflect feelings and thoughts and, and it doesn't say, you know, don't be that way. You know, mind itself before, you know, before your mind says don't be like that. So then a skilled bodhisattva doesn't, you know, is said to not to course

[40:44]

in, you know, which phenomena I'm managing to create or, you know, you know, what's going on right now, how does it reflect on me, which ones I'm able to stop, which ones I'm able to produce, which feelings I can have, which feelings I don't have, you know, which thoughts are present or arising, which thoughts aren't arising and then keep track of, the skilled bodhisattva then doesn't keep track of how well I'm doing that, how well I'm producing this and stopping that, you know, how calm I am. And because, you know, the skilled bodhisattva is not keeping track of how calm I am, this is called calm. How relaxing, I need to keep track of how well I'm doing at stopping, at producing and stopping various phenomena. There's actually the possibility then of peace

[41:45]

or calm or happiness because I'm no longer identified with which ones I'm stopping, which ones I'm producing and things arising and disappearing and, you know, in response to life we can allow our own response to life more. We don't have to produce and stop certain responses so that we have just the right response. So this also, you know, again, to shift the language a little bit, you know, mostly we're trying to, in that sense, we try to get it right. You know, we'd rather get it right and we think that if we get it right we will have approval. And in that sense we confuse approval with love. We think if we get it right

[42:46]

I'm able to produce this and stop that and this and that. If I get it right I will have approval. But actually then, of course, the love is being with what arises. You know, the love is, Dogen says, let things come and abide in your heart. Let your heart return and abide in things. And, you know, let your heart go out to things. Of course, if you let your heart go out to things you may not get it right. If you let things come and abide in your heart you may not get it right. So in order to, you know, shift in this kind of, you know, shift our life or practice, you know, we're shifting, we could say, from control to compassion. We could also say we're shifting from approval to love. We're shifting from, you know,

[43:51]

the head to the heart. So we've skipped over a number of, you know, things. I'm not going to try to explain to the skandhas today or how in their own being they're empty. I do want to say one thing about that, though, just a little, sort of, just a little bit. Hors d'oeuvre, appetizer. When we see with our eyes we never see a thing. The things that we see, all the sensory things, are in the first skandha, the skandha called form, rupa. So this is very interesting,

[44:54]

but if you think about it, you know, already this is the way, you know, where the world as we usually understand it starts to disappear, you know, because the eyes, our eyes never see things, never see people, never see objects. The eyes see colors. And then it's another function of mind that says that particular group of colors, that's a, oh, that's a Zafu, or a Joe, or a Bill, or a Bob. That group of colors there, that's called in Buddhism perception. But the eyes never see things, and the ears, the ears hear sounds. They never hear, ears never hear a jet plane or a chainsaw. You know, that's the mind, function of mind perception that says that sound is a chainsaw. That's a chainsaw. So we're actually creating the world, you know, with our perception. So we're creating, you know,

[45:57]

people and ourself. And then we believe in what we create. That it actually is there in the way that we think it's there. And pretty soon, you know, we're no longer just embedded in the flow of our life. And we worry about what these things are doing and what will happen to me when I never actually had a me in the first place. I couldn't, you know, if you look in the mirror, you don't see you, you see colors. You can call those colors me, the ones you see in the mirror. If you touch yourself, you don't, you can't actually touch a hand. You know, you can't actually feel your own hand. What you feel is warmth

[46:59]

and, you know, hardness and softness and elasticity and squishiness. You know, you feel various characteristics. That's what you can actually feel with your hand. You can't feel a hand. It's, you know, we just say that now I'm feeling my hand. Because touch can't do that. So, you know, partly we're trying to, as Buddhists, you know, we want to be able to live in both of these worlds, the world where we touch hands and the world where you can't touch a hand. Anyway, I have a little reading for you because I'm going to assume that I've told you enough.

[48:01]

You know, you've either gotten it or you haven't gotten it, which is to say you either think you've got it or you think you didn't get it. There was a thought one way or another. And is there any real difference between those two thoughts? There were both just thoughts and now you're going to have to do something else and the lecture will end and you're on your own again and you'll have to make up the talks, you know, and you'll be telling yourself your own thoughts instead of listening to mine. Anyway, I'm going to reach in my sleeve here and this is from one of Suzuki Roshi's lectures about sitting like a frog. So this is another way, you know, I gave you this kind of a much more intellectual talk than I usually want to give, as some of you know, but I thought, what the heck, I'd try it out. Sitting like a frog.

[49:11]

Recently, I saw one of Sengai's drawings of a frog on a calendar. Sengai is this, you know, Japanese artist, right? Along with Sengai saying, if we can become a Buddha by practicing sitting, dot, [...] dot. That's all that Sengai says. He doesn't say anything more than that, but there's the frog sitting there and we imagine the frog thinking, if people can become a Buddha by the practice of sitting, then I could be a Buddha too. That's what frogs do, they sit, you know. For those of us who understand practice, when we see someone sitting to attain enlightenment, we may think, oh, he's sitting like a frog. Actually, a frog's way of sitting is much better than our practice. I always admire the way they sit. They never get sleepy,

[50:13]

their eyes are always open, they're beautiful blue eyes, and they do things intuitively in an appropriate way. When something to eat comes by, they go like this, gulp. They never miss anything, but they remain calm and still. I always wish I could be a frog. You know, if you go to the city center, there's a big stone frog on the way upstairs, and people knew this about Suzuki Rishis over the years, many people gave him frogs. There's a big stone one there, and I think there may be some in the Kaisanda, they're all over, these frogs. If you understand what Sengai is saying with this picture of a frog, you have already understood Zen. There is a lot of humor in it and good understanding of our practice. Even though our practice is not better than a frog's practice, we will continue to sit. And when you've practiced a pretty long time,

[51:14]

you will laugh, partly at someone who's involved in the wrong idea of practice. I'm going to get somewhere. I'll become calm. I'll have some insight and clarity. Oh boy. Won't that be great? Partly you will laugh, partly at someone who's involved in the wrong idea of practice, and partly at yourself who's always sitting and doing anything without making much progress. You'll laugh at yourself, and when you can laugh at yourself, there is enlightenment. So, it's nice to see all of you frogs out there. Frogs are really,

[52:17]

when you're down at Esalen, there's that big pond in the garden and the frogs are always grr, grr, grr. And then when you walk up, you get to a certain place and they all go silent. Then you get past and they start up again. We will laugh partly at ourself who's involved in the wrong idea of practice, trying to fix our mind. We think it's to fix our mind mind or ourself or improve our mind or ourself,

[53:21]

but it's actually confused with trying to control ourself, trying to control others, trying to control our thoughts and feelings and sensations. And then, you know, when we don't try to do that, where do we ever get to anyway? How much better is it now? Well, you know, actually when you let go of control, well, darn it, you can't control things, but you'll be happier, you know, when you're, we're happier when we let go of control and, you know, we are in the midst of things, letting things wash through us and support us, letting things touch us. And not worrying so much about how well we're doing or at stopping or producing, producing or stopping various things

[54:22]

and not worrying about it so much. We haven't gotten anywhere. And, you know, it's finally a joy and an ease, you know, not to be trying to get somewhere. I was, I'm trying to stop, but I do, I'll say one more thing, you know, I've been reading Morris Berman's book again called, Coming to Our Senses. And he says, you know, redemption in the West will come when the need for redemption is no longer there. So in Buddhism, you know, this no need for redemption is mind itself is not a thing. Mind itself is Buddha. You yourself are not a thing. I'm not tainted, not pure, no increase, no decrease.

[55:28]

Thank you very much.

[55:35]

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