Welcome.
Hikoji
Some of us have been
Can you hear me?
Okay.
Some of us have been sitting on this past week
Meditation retreat, so
We're a little spaced out.
And I've been giving talks every
evening
And
So… I'm wondering what to talk to you about. I've been thinking
If you're new to Buddhism
It's based on
Well, there's
,000 dharma gates, they say. So
The one that
caught here from our teacher Cohen
And from Japan.
In Japanese, it's shikantaza, it's
Translated
Best is seamless sitting
So
It's difficult to
instruction
You have to try it
And then we get together and discuss how's it going for you?
It's also
Like
I don't really want to use the word enlightenment, but it's the sudden enlightenment school
You just drop into it. You don't
Do things to prepare yourself.
The preparation, so to speak, happens while you're sitting.
And then
content of this sitting is your own mind
Which at first seems like
Like it's yours
And as you
continue, you start to develop some permeability and recognize that this mind isn't
Belonging to anybody, it's all things
arise from mind
One of the
Aspects we didn't get into during this week was
We were exploring the content of mind and
Things arise and dissipate
And that's part of the practice of
This seamless sitting just to
Sit.
present and aware
Not using cognition, but
This awareness is
beyond self.
observing, being aware
Of things as they arise and as they dissipate without
Attaching to them or developing them. Some thought comes and
You see it
And you may even see yourself
From this broader view
Going, oh, look at that. That's cool
And you let that go as well
As you catch it, you let it
As you catch yourself, your mind, little mind
Trying to develop these things, you just
Let it be
Give it up
And
Some
Sense of space starts to
in yourself you start to get some sense of space
Then there's connectivity to other things.
And one of the things that
We didn't get to this week
So much about how to move in the world, how to
Like, when we get up from our cushion
We talked about getting up and how we
Maintain our meditation
Posture, both physically and in our posture of the mind
As we rise up to meet
What's coming next? What's going to appear next
And the other part of it is that
As we… particularly as we move
Stay with this awareness
And
Find that there's
You have some intention or some
Wow
That you bring or karma that you
Have the opportunity to shift that
Because as you bring that out, it
hits this
field of mind
Causes vibration which manifests as something could be thoughts could be
Action
And
So to consider those things, we have this structure in the Zendo and
Buddhism in general has a structure
Behavior or beliefs
And you can follow those, certainly.
We chanted some just now
You can develop your own keen
Understanding of
The direction
You're taking
So there's this bit about language that doesn't work so well as we say I and you and
In the big, big picture, there's
There is no I
So
I was going to introduce these
attributes that are
One of the sets… there's several sets
But
I want to be clear that the best way to approach these
is through
Developing that sense of space, the big mind
And
They appear naturally
So the first one, these are the six parameters that
parameters
Crossing over to the other shores is how it's described
But in that activity or that concept of crossing over
Realize it's the same shore that you're on right now. There's no no place you have to go
So generosity is
The first one, it's
Pretty obvious, but
It's giving
Freely to
others
And to yourself, sometimes you need some
Giving
Again, I say self, there's
This is operating in the field of
What we call ourself this construct
Which you will find someday may just completely collapse
And be reassembled. This can happen over
and over but
All beings are included in this sense of generosity
The other one is discipline, which is
continue to explore this
So you find yourself at home
And
Watching a movie on TV or something and you
Register what you're doing and
into this bigger awareness
develop a sense of space and then back to the movie.
Back and forth, you can
It's like flexing, you know, as you… when it arises, you remember
Big mind
Big awareness, observing, watching TV
And then that collapses
Back to it
It's more complex than that. It also
Could go into
Sense of morality
behaving
In accordance with this
Accordance to the way
You're talking about it earlier.
To be in accord with this
Bigger mind.
Then there's patience, which is
You know, the common patients
Of
Dealing with things that arise in a
Patient, compassionate way
My grandson is crying, I have to go see oh what's the matter? I bring
Comfort to him
But it's also the ability not to be
Disturbed by anything that appears. So because you have this seat that you've developed
And
It's
Unassailable
This posture
More in the mind than physically
I'm gonna skip that
jump to wisdom, which is
Direct
Insight. It's what the Heart Sutra is chanting, that Prajnya Paramita
is wisdom
So
penetrating understanding
And when
Find it, it
Good to check
Yourself about it, because
As you
Go into your regular day out in the world
Something's gonna come up
And you what
Oh, I didn't… I didn't have patience. So
You can go around this circle
The other one is it's part of the wisdom
Which is
Skillful means
Which is really how to deal with people
You know, it gets more and more esoteric and subtle
All of these
The
Skillful means, in particular truncorey writes about it beautifully about having compassion
Or sometimes it's
He calls it idiot compassion will appear, and
You have to be able to see
So it's good to come talk or read
And
That's why we gathered this week, is so that we had the opportunity to
Bounce things off each other
Let's see how we're doing
And
There's one other one that falls under wisdom, but it's Jinyana Paramita and it's that's like
Gnosis, you know, knowing God basically
Directly
So anyway
I'm going to leave it at that
know that
Buddhism is… or this practice
Which is not
It has devotion in it, but it's not a devotional practice. It's something
Internal that other people may not even see you
Exercising your mind this way, but
It impacts everything, because as
Whether you know it or not.
The way I see it is all of you
Have awakened mind
Already and
I have some doubt about that, and need some
Refinement
This awakened mind is all there is
It's just occluded sometimes, and so you
You're looking for it
You don't recognize it yet
This is awakened mind
And
your practice goes well
And
Do you have any questions?
That would be a good time
You're impatient.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's good.
He was asking how to practice patience that he's an inpatient person
Well, I'm a fairly patient person, so I don't know.
You can hang out with me and see how it goes.
First, you can be
As you have, observe your impatience
Your own impatience, as you said, you have
Allow yourself to be impatient.
And in that way.
You're being generous with yourself
And
Watch how
That impatience affects other people
And
Using
Compassion, I guess, is the word. Loving kindness
You can
For yourself and the other people, you can see
How they connect
Like how does it affect other people
Loving kindness, how
Can you
You can ask
How is this affecting you
How can I change this?
That's the
thing at every moment, we have the opportunity to change. We can insert
Like I was saying, when your impulse comes, you have
It sets a vibration and something is created, and you… you can change
What's inserted into the
Using a Western word
And
I didn't grow up with any Western religion at all
My parents were atheists, nature lovers, maybe
Sometimes talking to people who
Here in this country, they don't understand
if I say
Primordial light
And
So I throw out that word every once in a while. I don't have a particular belief in a however it may be perceived by you that makes it a trigger word.
And also, I did go to a Catholic mass for a friend of mine. It was probably the first time I'd ever done
Gone into a church
And I was watching the priests up very carefully because sometimes I have to do
I'm a huma up at the altar
And
There were 3 of them
And
At one point in the ceremony that this
Both the light came down right into the altar.
They're doing it.
And
I guess it's known, there's a name for it
So, you know, there's esoteric aspects of all religions that
We can see across
that point, but it's sort of the everyday stuff
Things get
used to control
It's okay if there's no questions, we can
Go outside
You should really read Trump Orempathy's section on it. Seriously, because it's he
But it's
It's just
Wanting things to be a certain way.
And if I
Take
Trying to make things better
When without resolving the problem
is idiot impass
In my view
has a more
elaborate explanation, but
Whereas true compassion might be saying no
Not okay.
Good. Oh
,000 prostrations, I think.
Well, seriously, there's no attaining.
Again, go to read the Heart Sutra. I mean
When
I'll let people practicing deeply the Paragnya Paramita
And it goes on to say that
You know, there's nothing to attain. That's part of the realization
Why? Because
This is it.
I mean
When I say this is it, I mean
In the most esoteric sense, this is
manifest enlightened mind
What you're experiencing right now
What happens is
You know, we have our
beliefs and
construct of how things should be
That can sometimes interfere with our
Ability to witness it.
to experience it
What's what?
Ready.
You want to know why, what I think about it because everybody has their own
Reason
Well.
Answer
Several things
But one is, and then I can't answer for anybody why they came really
Like some of you spent a lot of time with COVID
I spent a lot of time with COVID practicing and living together
And
That energetic is something I want
continue to put out
Transmit, if you will
I feel like Colvin dumped a lot of stuff into me
We practice being together, him being my teacher
And there was a point where it felt like this heavy ball I was carrying around of energy like
I got to get this
Delivered to the next generation
So that's part of it.
The other part is
Sangha practice, which is
One of the manifestations of Buddha body
And be able to gather like this
It gives us the opportunity
Test out
Our understanding together
So that we
You know, one of the things in the Zogchen Tantras, they're often presented, the ones I'm reading are often presented as
We
And an explanation.
Like we see blah, blah, blah, blah
It creates an image of a council
Of
practitioners
discussing
the practice and then making a statement about it
So that's part of it, is to get together and discuss
And ask questions
Of each other
The reason I'm sitting up here
Is
Because I'm the sacrifice
You give the talk. No. Oh, yes, you're going to give the talk
So
I hope it's
Helpful.
Also
Some of it too, you
Relatively recently, I
I almost lost my mind.
And went way, way out there
And in coming back
I
Thought about the things I just mentioned, like how
How to enter back into this realm
And why?
And, you know, a lot of times people who have a raucous who have
Made some vows that are very traditional and been passed down
But
I had to look at that again and basically set set up
How am I gonna rejoin the world
And so
And also
What that experience was of being beyond self and other I wanted to say
Not like, here's what happened, but also
What the ancients wrote
Is correct
It's true
So when you read those words, it is absolutely coming from
The place of no self or other, no birth and death
Oh,
What… what did I mean when I said I rejoined the world
Without going into too much detail
It was considered a traumatic brain injury
What happened?
So
Knocked out of the world
But into a place that I was familiar with from sitting
So I knew
What it was
And
very consciously
Decided to
Come back.
Because, yeah
Yeah, I've written some things down, but yeah
Just so that I would remember.
Family
My wife, my sons, grandchildren, and the Sangha
And
You know that I'm glad you asked because one thing about Coven's style that was
Clear to me was particularly at Hokoji
When he was alive in there is that
It was family style practice.
And he talked about no hierarchy
And everybody
Each person having their own
Awakened mind
How we relate together
Oh
About compassion. I think it's
I don't remember the name of the book. There's several books that he has of his talks
Or maybe he even sat and wrote them down, but
Anybody know which one it's in
Oh, and I know it's yellow with red
I think it is in there, cutting through spiritual materialism
As a red bhajra symbol on it
You mean like a place to practice?
I don't know.
I don't live here
But you should know that there's an academic paper that's online you can
Find it
And it talks about Zogchen and Zen
And there's differences, but
In essence, they're the same
It's just
From Shakyamini Buddha's awakening
The
Spread and went north into Tibet and east into China and became Chan, and in the north it became Zhou Qian
And
They're both
You
But it's the sudden school, not the progressive school. So it's different than Vajrayana
As we know it in the United States, where you go through a series of practices
It's more like this type of practice where you just get lobbed into the deep end of the pool and
Like, what am I doing here?
Nobody will tell me anything. And
And when they do, I don't understand.
And the
Zogtan is
The apex of Vajrayana Buddhism
And so you can read it when you read them, that's looking
Down, so to speak, and
All these accumulation practices
You don't need to do those. You don't need to recite mantras and do that. Just wake up to your original nature.
And that's the same message as in. It's just in a different language. I find it more fluid and more feminine
More accessible, I don't know
Yeah, I don't know
Okay
Thank you.