Rohatsu 2024

* transcript generated by AI

Good morning, or good afternoon, I believe, on the other side of the pond.

So it’s Rahatsa, and this is like the only, for me anyway, this is like the only religious holiday that I still celebrate.

I celebrate other holidays, because they’re fun, and why not, but for me this one has religious significance.

And so typically I honor it, or one of the things that I like to do with it is to spend some time with the sutras, particularly the Pali sutras and the Pali Canon, because it’s like, well, that’s kind of the origin story, right?

But one of the things that I’ve learned through my studies is that our origin story, just like any practice’s origin story, is not a cut-and-dry linear process.

From the very beginning, it was sectarian, and that’s great, but one of the things that we don’t realize about that, or one of the implications of that, is that we do not, from any scholarly basis, know what the Buddha’s first sermon was.

Now, you’re typically going to have heard that it was the turning the wheel of the Dharma, and that’s the one that is generally accepted as the first sermon.

It’s often, that’s really more of a like a Theravada thing, right, because if you pay attention to your Zen practice, most of the stuff that was taught in that first sermon, we say is a bunch of sophistry and a bunch of BS, right?

There are no Four Noble Truths, there is no path leading to the end of suffering.

The Heart Sutra that we chant every service is basically negating a huge percentage of the content of that particular teaching, so that’s really interesting.

So one of the maybe little known facts, or less commonly known origin stories of our teaching is called the Aryaparyasana Sutta, which is a Sutta of the Noble Search.

And so in honor of this day, I’m going to retell the story in my fashion, and I’m going to read it to you, one, because that’s boring and it’s very long, but two, because that’s boring and it’s very long.

So we’re going to go ahead, and I’m going to kind of scan this and turn it into my own words to tell you the story of this Sutta.

So basically, Siddhartha was living at Sivati in Jetha’s Grove, which is Anathapindi’s Park, whatever that means.

But one of the things that’s really interesting here is that this origin story starts with the Buddha already being the Buddha.

So this is going to be the Buddha telling the story about how he awoke.

And if we all know ourselves, the guy once caught a fish this big, right?

So the Buddha is telling the story of his awakening to a group of people, which we get as a clue because it opens with him and Ananda doing their normal daytime stuff.

So Ananda gets a request, like, hey, it’d be great if the Buddha would come talk to us, and then the Buddha was like, hey, Ananda, I’m going to go get some food, and Ananda was like, okay, I’ll come with you.

And then the Buddha was like, hey, I’m going to go get a bath, and Ananda was like, okay, I’ll come with you.

And the Buddha was done with his bath, and Ananda was like, hey, you know, that guy’s house is right over there, maybe we should say hi, right?

And so Ananda’s subtly managing, he’s up managing the Buddha, and the Buddha’s like, all right, we’ll go say hi.

So what’s fun about that is that the Buddha is going to a hermitage.

Now, these are ascetic recluses deep in their meditation practice, but what happens when the Buddha gets to this hermitage is that he finds a group of monks sitting around BSing about the Dharma.

So that’s interesting.

He’s like, okay, all right, they’re taking their practice very seriously, aren’t they?

And so the Buddha then calmly waits outside the door.

He’s just kind of listening in.

And he waits for them to stop talking, and then he knocks, right?

And they open up, they’re like, oh, shit, it’s the Buddha.

And so they get a seat ready, and they have him sit down, and then he gets all settled in this regal magistrate, right?

Because at this point, he knows he is the living God, okay?

And so he sits down, he’s like, what y’all talking about?

And they’re like, you know, the Dharma and stuff.

And he said, well, you know, there’s two kinds of searching for the Dharma, right?

There’s the noble, and there’s the ignoble.

The ignoble is to search for the Dharma among that which has birth and death.

What has birth and death?

Literally everything that you guys are talking about, okay?

So what is that?

That’s like our partners, and men, and women, and goats, and sheep, and pigs, and elephants, and cattle, and gold, and silver, and acquisitions, and what your house is like, and what you think, and what you know.

All of this stuff is subject to birth and death, okay?

And then he goes on, and he just blasts them for about, I don’t know, five paragraphs.

And then he says, you know, there’s also a noble search for birth and death, or a noble search, and that is basically saying all of that stuff does not help me, so what does?

If all of that stuff isn’t going to help me, what will?

Well, Nibbāna, cessation.

That’s it.

If you want to actually understand the truth, if you want reality, if you want to do anything with the Dharma, then it’s got to be focused on Nibbāna, cessation.

Anything else is birth and death?

Okay.

Well then, can you tell us more about that, please, Mr. Producer?

And so he says, yeah, well, there was a time where I was wandering around as an unenlightened fool.

He actually calls it an unenlightened bodhisattva, which I love, because it really challenges a lot of conceptions that we have.

An unenlightened bodhisattva, right?

And we can say he was an awakening warrior.

He was one who was committed to the awakening process as a traditional understanding bodhisattva.

If you know me, you hear me say that bodhisattva is on the other side of Buddhahood, and we can maybe talk about that, but that’s not the focus of today.

And he’s like, so I’m wandering around.

I went into this whole hedonism thing, and I was protected, and I had everything.

And then I was like, man, old age, suffering, old age, illness, and death are going to happen no matter what.

This is not okay.

Shaves his beard, shaves his hair, goes off, and finds his first teacher.

Okay.

And that first teacher was Allāhakalāma.

I have no idea if I’m pronouncing anything in Sanskrit correctly, so Allāhakalāma.

And so he trained with this teacher for a while, and he was like, okay, well, I know everything that you know.

I can say everything that you can say proficiently.

I’ve got it, but I don’t feel like it looks like you feel.

So what’s going on here?

And the teaching is, by realizing for myself with direct knowledge, I enter and abide in the Dhamma.

Okay.

Well, how do you do that, right?

Well, he’s like, well, you’ve got to go do it.

Direct knowledge.

You have to go experience it.

You can’t just parrot what I say.

You can’t just learn what I know.

You have to go experience it for yourself.

And so he’s like, okay.

And then he goes on, does the thing, and he enters and abide in the realization of nothingness.

Nothingness.

And Allāhakalāma’s like, yeah, you have experienced what I’ve experienced.

Come into this community with me.

And Buddha was like, yeah, but that’s just rebirth in nothingness.

I go, and I change state, and I’m in nothingness, and then I change state again, and I’m back in this old age, sickness, and death thing.

It’s not doing it for me.

Your teaching isn’t doing it for me.

I’m not going to leave this community with you, because this is inadequate.

So it is.

And then he finds his other teacher, Uddhaka Ramputta, and the same thing happens.

And what does Uddhaka Ramputta teach?

Neither perception nor non-perception.

The next highest jhāna.

So the seventh and eighth jhāna are what these two teachers taught him.

And he’s like, oh, that’s just another form of rebirth.

That’s just another state change.

That doesn’t make sense either.

That’s not the thing.

OK, so then he was like, well, I’m going to go sit down under this Bodhi tree and figure it out for myself, because the best teachers that I can get my hands on aren’t teaching anything satisfactory that’s actually liberating me from suffering.

OK, so he sat down, and he was like, oh, well, it’s just this.

It’s just this interconnected life.

It’s just this.

Nowhere to go.

Nothing to do.

Just living, eating food, taking baths, talking to you guys.

That’s it.

But how did he get there?

What does that mean?

Well, it means that he went beyond either perception or non-perception into experience of cessation, where he saw that the entire process completely failed, and that all there was was the interdependency of co-creation, that form and formlessness merged together in this dynamic interplay of light, which we call life.

And he was like, well, shit.

I’ve been training really hard for a long time, and I barely get it.

And now that I do get it, it’s like the most subtle and normal thing in the world, which is just live your life.

Just live your life.

Stop making it so hard.

You don’t need to go anywhere.

You don’t need to do anything.

This messy, chaotic life that you’re escaping from is exactly what you need.

So he goes, I’m going to teach.

And then in the legend of the smith, then he was visited, and he was asked three times by God to be like, please teach, but that’s too good.

You can’t sit on this.

And so Buddha was like, all right, all right, bye.

So then he goes out, and he’s like, hey, guess what, everybody?

This is actually the text right here.

I’m going to read this part.

So this person met him and was like, wow, you’re all clear and bright, and the color of your skin is pure and bright.

Whoa, who are you?

Who is your teacher?

Where did you get this?

I want some of that.

And this is the Buddha’s reply, right?

We talk about not being arrogant or having an ego in Zen, but this is what the Buddha said.

I am one who has transcended all, a knower of all, unsullied among all things, renouncing all by cravings ceasing freed, having known this all for myself, to whom should I point as a teacher?

I have no teacher, and one like me exists nowhere in all the world with all its gods because I have no person for my counterpart.

I am the accomplished one in the world.

I am the teacher supreme.

I alone am the fully enlightened one whose fires are quenched and extinguished.

I go now to the city of Kasi to set in motion the wheel of Dhamma in a world that has become blind.

I go to beat the drum of the deathless.

By your claim, friend, you ought to be the universal victor.

That’s what this person says in reply, and he says, the victors who are like me, who have won the destruction of taints, I have vanquished all evil states.

Therefore, I am a victor.

Buddha knew that he got it, and he took his seat.

I think that’s very interesting.

So anyway, he was going, and this dude was like, okay, you little cray.

I’m not going to follow you.

You don’t seem anything like the other ascetic teachers.

And he was like, yeah, okay.

So then he ended up finding these five ascetics who he trained with before, and they were like, hmm, you got something.

You kind of like betrayed our ways.

You now live a life of luxury because like you eat food and stuff, and that’s lame.

And the Buddha was like, you know, that’s not really a life of luxury.

It’s actually just, you know, not dying.

And they’re like, hmm, but eventually he convinced them to train with him, and so he started training with them.

And one of the first things that he taught them was about sensual pleasure.

And what he said about sensual pleasure was this.

You can either be addicted to it by indulging it, or you can be addicted to it by denying it.

And if you’re doing either of them, you’re not doing it right.

And it’s only when you find that middle way and the path between clinging to it because you want more of it or running away from it because you’re scared of it that you can actually enter jhanas.

You can’t enter the deep meditative states while you’re either chasing after physical experience, sensual experience, or denying sensual experience.

Okay?

So whatever sensual experiences you have, which is your eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind, you just got to not care about.

That’s what it is, right?

And then once you do that, then you can start to practice the jhanas.

And just for context, everyone here knows, but somebody who listens to this one day might not, jhana became dhyana, became chana, became chan, became zen.

And there’s more to that.

You know, Chan picked up a lot of Confucian and Taoist influences, and then went to Japan and picked up some Shinto influences.

So the actual religious practice changed quite a bit.

But the center of it is this meditation.

It is this liberating insight.

That’s what it’s all about.

Four Noble Truths ain’t going to do it for you, right?

The path, Eightfold Path ain’t going to do it for you.

It’s all about liberating insight.

And until you got that, you’re just ignorant, and you’re doing what other people said to do, and you can never be a Buddha that way, right?

And in my world, that means you can never be a Bodhisattva because you don’t actually know what you’re talking about.

But anyway, then he says to go through the jhanas, right?

And I’m going to read this because some of you may stay on and meditate with me for another two hours.

So here’s a little refresher.

All right.

So, let me find my spot here.

Yeah, here we go.

Suppose a forest deer is wandering in the forest wilds.

It walks confidently, stands confidently, sits confidently, lies down confidently.

Why is that?

Because it is out of the hunter’s range, so too quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states.

A practitioner enters upon and abides in the first jhana, which is accompanied by applied and sustained thought, with rapture and pleasure born of seclusion.

This practitioner is said to have blindfolded Mara, to have become invisible to the evil one by depriving Mara’s eye of its opportunity.

For context, Mara is our self-referencing phenomenon that convinces us of all of the other things and keeps us distracted with aversion and attraction.

Again, with the stilling of applied and sustained thought, a practitioner enters upon and abides in the second jhana, which has self-confidence and singleness of mind without applied and sustained thought, with rapture and pleasure born of concentration.

Again, with the fading away as well of rapture, a practitioner abides in equanimity and mindful and fully aware, still feeling pleasure with the body.

They enter upon and abide in the third jhana, an account of which noble ones announce, the practitioner has a pleasant abiding who has equanimity and is mindful.

Again, with the abandoning of pleasure and pain, and with the previous disappearance of joy and grief, a practitioner enters upon and abides in the fourth jhana, which has neither pain nor pleasure, impurity of mindfulness due to equanimity.

Again, with the complete surmounting of perceptions of form, with the disappearance of perceptions of sensory impact, with non-attention to perceptions of diversity, aware that space is infinite, a practitioner enters upon and abides in the base of infinite space.

Again, by completely surmounting the base of infinite space, aware that consciousness is infinite, a practitioner enters upon and abides in the base of infinite consciousness.

Again, by completely surmounting the base of infinite consciousness, aware that there is nothing, a practitioner enters upon and abides in the base of nothingness.

Again, by completely surmounting the base of nothingness, a practitioner enters upon and abides in the base of neither perception nor non-perception.

Again, by completely surmounting the base of neither perception nor non-perception, a practitioner enters upon and abides in the cessation of perception and feeling, and their taints are destroyed by their seeing with wisdom.

This practitioner is said to have blindfolded Mara to become invisible to the evil one by prying Mara’s eye of its opportunity, and to have crossed beyond attachment to the world.

They walk confidently, stand confidently, sit confidently, lie down confidently.

Why is that?

Because they are out of range of the evil one.

That is what the Blessed One said.

The practitioners were satisfied and delighted in the Blessed One’s words.

And so that’s that.

That’s our practice.

That’s what we do.

We sit until we see through.

We sit until we see through so thoroughly that we’re always seeing through.

And when we’re always seeing through, all that there is is the never-ending, never-failing manifestation of the mysterious unfolding of truth.

Mindful awareness, clear intention, acting wisely, compassionately, and skillfully.

That’s it.

That’s it.

We can practice both together.

We can work on living more skillfully every day, just like we work on stilling our mind and seeing through every day.

But this is the core.

Stilling the mind and seeing through is the core.

It is what supports and facilitates and enables mindful awareness, clear intention, wisdom, compassion, and skillful means.

So I say that we can practice living skillfully day by day in addition to our insight practice.

What is that?

Well, that is our bodhisattva precepts.

I take refuge in the Buddha, in the Dharma, in the Sangha.

There’s three.

There’s three more.

Refrain from all that is evil, do all that is good, purify the mind.

Then we have 11 more.

Affirm life.

Act generously.

Be loving.

Manifest truth.

Honor silence.

Respect clarity.

Be giving.

Invite compassion.

Steward the earth.

Manifest this way.

Celebrate others.

I missed one.

Celebrate others.

There’s 11 more.

11 plus 6 plus 6.

That’s 17 precepts that when we get, when we bring into our lives, facilitate ourselves being skillful in an increasing way every day, which then facilitates our ability to come onto the cushion and to really get silent because our life is taken care of.

And these two support each other.

And that is what we do.

That is what our practice is.

And it’s a delight to share it all with you.

A real delight.