Dharma Encounter: What Is Buddha?
Photo by Raymond Klavins
In Zen, dharma encounter is a meeting between the teacher and the sangha—a live, spontaneous engagement of the dharma that takes the directness of daisan or private interview and opens it up so everyone can learn from the exchanges between teacher and students.
This dharma encounter closes the winter ango in the OMS, taking the question What is Buddha? and our study of the Vimalakirti Sutra as the springboard for the discussion. What follows is a lively, honest dialogue about practice, realization, and the embodiment of the wholeness we already are.
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard.
Transcript
This transcript is based on Zuisei's talk notes and may differ slightly from the final talk.
Dharma Encounter: What is Buddha
Today, we are bringing to a close our Ango, our winter 2024 Ango. To do that, we are going to do a Dharma encounter, Shosan. Shosan means Dharma combat, which gives you a sense of the poignancy of these exchanges between teacher and student in the company, really in the immersion in Sangha. It is not really combat, but it is an encounter unlike probably any other that we have in our lives, just like Daisan, the private version of these encounters.
The name is not arbitrary. If what we are dealing with is the question of life and death, and it is, and if what we are trying to do is to completely liberate ourselves from suffering, and we are, then it is appropriate to give these encounters the weight and the importance that they deserve.
As we begin, please ready yourself to meet the Dharma, to receive the Dharma, to offer the Dharma. We will do another one of these encounters in person at the end of our session in April, but this is no less important. If somebody can become enlightened just by seeing rainfall or plum blossoms falling, they can do so by listening to a well-placed word on and off the screen. They did not know about this medium at the time of the Buddha. But Daido Roshi always used to say that he thought that if the Buddha had had a computer, he would have used it. I agree. Use any means to help all beings liberate themselves.
For the next 45 minutes or so, really let yourself be fully open, fully present, fully awake. Fully awake.
Teacher Student Interactions
My teacher would always say at the beginning of one of these Dharma encounters that there are five ways, primarily, that teachers and students interact in Zen. Informally, in our own version of this, I would say, are the private sessions that we do, which, although they are not entirely informal—I mean, we're not just chatting—are less formal than the other ways in which we interact as a Sangha.
Then there are the study sessions, where we have a chance to bring to light a particular aspect, a particular topic of the Dharma, and to ask questions of one another. This is traditionally called a Mondo.
Then there is Daisan, or face-to-face teaching, which happens in the context of zazen, as you know. Either daily zazen, or during an intensive like, in our case, the half-day sits, an all-day sit, Zazen Kai, or Sheshin, the silent meditation retreats. These tend to be short. They tend to be more formal and pointed. It is not just a conversation. Particularly, this is true when a student is working on a koan because it is meant to cut through our usual chatter, inner and outer chatter, to point directly to the nature of the self and the nature of reality.
By the way, Doksan is specifically that face-to-face teaching with a Roshi, with an abbot of a temple or a monastery. Daisan is what you do with me, with a regular teacher, a sensei. Then there is an interview for a teacher in training, for a Dharma holder. Then there are the Dharma talks, in which a Buddha is speaking directly to a Buddha, where the Dharma is brought out and framed, if you will, for us to see and hopefully understand. Framed in the sense of giving—it is given shape, a form, a container so that we can talk about it, offer it, and receive it.
Then there is the Dharma encounter, where the teacher briefly talks about a particular topic, and then invites students to come forward and present their understanding, or to ask a question. It is different from Mondo in that it is brief, it is more pointed, so it is more like Daisan, but it happens publicly. One purpose is that it gives more junior, newer students a chance to see how we work together, teacher and student, where the student is a little more experienced, and it gives us a chance to learn from one another. It also has a little bit of that tension, where you are challenged to step forward and to not know, to not have a plan—just like a vow. You actually don’t know. You don’t fully understand what you are doing when you make a vow. And if you did, you might not make it.
It is good that we can only see as much as our doubt, as much as our aspiration, as much as our desire to be free. This is like that. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about what you are going to say. Don’t worry about how you’ll come across, because then you’ll never step forward. Trust yourself. Trust your practice. Trust your insight. If something isn’t clear, this is a great opportunity to ask.
Every single one of us here has lived a full life up to this point, for however many decades. Every single one of us has had all manner of experiences, has struggled through periods of our lives, has sailed through others. Every single one of us has known love and has known pain of some kind, which means that every single one of us has something to share.
The way that it works is when I am done talking, I will invite you to come forward. You will raise your digital hand, under Participants or Reactions. The order is important, since I don’t want to skip anyone. Maybe Komyo, if you wouldn’t mind, just keep track of who’s raising their hand, and let me know when I ask, please. Of course, you can raise your hand too. Ryusan will go first, since he is the Shuso. Then we will continue one by one until there is no one left, until we run out of time, or until we exhaust the topic. The last one is impossible. At the end, I will offer some closing words.
Any questions about the procedure? When it is your turn, I’ll call on you. You can do a seated bow, and then say what you would like to say or ask. At the end, I will say, “May your life go well.” That is the signal for the next person to go.
Nina, you have a question?
Just about the process. I wondered, if I, the student, am finished, do I say “thank you for teaching,” or is it always you, the Sensei, who says, “May your life go well”?
For Dharma encounter, I have only to say it. I will say it regardless, but you’re welcome to say thank you if you’d like. That’s fine too. Any other questions?
Vimalakirti
We have been studying the Vimalakirti Sutra, the Sangha, and we covered quite a bit of ground, right? We heard about Buddha fields and about how your mind determines whether you see them or not, whether you live them or not. We read about non-duality, and in that pointed moment where Vimalakirti expresses it in terms of silence, we’ve learned about inconceivability—the emptiness of sickness, of health, of life, of death, of gender. We heard about Dharma food and what it is, what really nurtures, about getting attached and not getting attached to forms, to insight, to emptiness. And, of course, weaving through all of these, the Bodhisattva’s vow.
The Bodhisattva who stays behind instead of crossing over to the shore of Nirvana—they stay behind, and they go into the muck, they go into the weeds. Sometimes they do things they would otherwise not do, not necessarily things they would choose for the sake of living beings. In other words, they understand that no one is fully liberated until everyone is liberated, and not just in theory, but in fact.
In this last section of the Sutra, a very important teaching is brought forward, and that is the nature of the Tathagata. The Tathagata itself is an epithet for the Buddha, the Thus Come One, or the Thus Gone One. The Buddha had many names by which he was called, but this is the name that he himself used most when he referred to himself in the third person, which he does often in the Sutras, in both the Pali Canon and the Mahayana Sutras. You can think of this version of the Buddha as the one who comes and goes like this. But what is the “this”? What does that look like?
After everything that Vimalakirti has taught—the various Bodhisattvas, the Brahmas, the disciples, the devas—the Buddha turns to him and asks, “How do you see the Tathagata?” Vimalakirti essentially says, “When I see the Buddha, I don’t see any Buddha.” Why? Because they don’t come from the past. (Here, let me change the pronoun to “they,” because he is not even speaking about the person.) “When I see the Buddha, I don’t see any Buddha.”
Why? Because they don’t come from the past. They don’t abide in the present, and they don’t go into the future. They don’t live into the future. They are not this or that. He goes through a long list of all the many opposites that the Buddha is not: they’re not good, they’re not bad, they don’t know, or don’t not know. Ultimately, you can talk about Buddha, you can describe or know, and in a sense even come close to Buddha. The Diamond Sutra has a line, one of our miscellaneous koans, that says, “If a person sees me in forms and hears me in sounds, they practice the wrong way.” One cannot perceive the Tathagata Buddha.
So, what is this that cannot be seen or pointed to? And if that’s the case, why do we talk about this so much? What does it have to do with your life?
Ryusen will go first, and then everyone else can raise your hand.
Ryusan, Elliot, Sonkai
Ryusen: Listening to you speak, Zuisei, what was really jumping to my mind is how, whenever I hear—and maybe for a very long time hearing these Dharma teachings—I’ve heard them in the context of a future me, not me right now. I was just doing it a little bit. Until I caught myself, what you were sharing about these teachings, I was seeing a future version of myself understanding them and living them, and not me right now.
Although lately, and for a little while now, the only place that I really see the Buddha is in my life, in me, in my surroundings, and in very real forms.
Zuisei: So, the Diamond Sutra says, though, if a person sees me in forms and hears me in sounds, they practice the wrong way. You can’t see the Buddha. So, how do you see the Buddha in your life?
Ryusen: I sit and I practice, and I see…
Zuisei: No, you can do better than that. How do you see the Buddha in your life?
Ryusen: My son calls me from the other room: “Hey Dad, you want to play cards?” And I say, “Yes, I’ll be right there.”
Zuisei: How is that not seeing in forms and hearing in sounds? Where are the forms and sounds?
Ryusen: And yes, “I’ll be right there.”
Zuisei: May your life go well.
Ryusan: Thank you for your teaching.
Elliot: So, what is the inexpressible? You can kind of demonstrate. You can kind of—if the inexpressible is expressing itself through you, that’s kind of the only way you can express the inexpressible.
Zuisei: Yeah, so how do you express the inexpressible right now?
Elliot: Well, how could I do that?
Zuisei: How could you not do it?
Elliot: How am I not doing that?
Zuisei: Exactly. That’s my question. How could you not do it?
Elliot: If we lack faith in ourselves, it’s hard to do it.
Zuisei: No. If we lack—where’d you go? If we lack faith in ourselves, we may not know that we’re doing it, but you can’t not do it. You understand?
Elliot: If it’s true…
Zuisei: If what is true?
Elliot: If we’re Buddha, even when we do something terrible. If we’re Buddha, even when we completely fail. If we’re Buddha, even when we completely succeed. Or if we’re only Buddha when we attain realization.
Zuisei: And which one do you think it is? Do you think it just goes on and on, like a switch?
Elliot: I think it’s both.
Zuisei: You do something terrible. Where does Buddha go?
Elliot: Buddha is kind of there watching.
Zuisei: And so why do you do something terrible then?
Elliot: Buddha is there watching, and I’m there living my life.
Zuisei: Well, we forget, we get confused. So, the work is to not get confused, or if you’re confused, to get unconfused. Right?
Elliot: Clearly.
May your life go well.
Elliot: Thank you for your teaching.
Zuisei: It is Sonkai, right?
Sonkai: Yes. Zuisei, may I address you as Sensei?
Zuisei: Yes, you may.
Sonkai: Thank you. Sensei, I want to continue that this month has been very productive, and I want to continue to practice even more rigorously than I have been.
Zuisei: How has it been productive?
Sonkai: I’ve weaned myself off pain pills. I’m nicer to people than I normally would be. I’m more open.
Zuisei: And what’s the connection between that and what we’ve done this month?
Sonkai: It just comes out of sitting. Not sure how to explain that.
Zuisei: Okay. And what stops you from doing that at other times, when it’s not Ango?
Sonkai: Well, I’m… I’ve been very productive throughout my life, and I find myself now—less is better. Am I really gonna get up at 6 o’clock again? It’s so easy to—I don’t know if it’s a character defect or not—but I don’t always do what I’m supposed to do.
Zuisei: Am I really going to get up at 6 again? I’m off my pain medication, I’m nicer to people, I’m living a fuller life, given everything that you’ve told me. And so, how do you help yourself remember at 6 in the morning when you don’t want to get up?
Sonkai: Well, there’s a couple of practical ways. I don’t want to take too much time. One is I bought a new alarm clock that will actually wake me up. The other is I’m in communication with Komyo a lot, and if she’s there, it’s just inviting to be there too. And I want desperately to get over my “just stepping over things.”
Zuisei: The hardest thing to remember, Sonkai, is not the doing, it’s to remember why we said we wanted to do it to begin with. You know, I love the story of—I’m blanking on his name right now—but the founder of the Sierra Club woke up in the middle of the night one day, because he worked on a farm, and his father was very strict, only let him read the Bible during the day. And one day, he woke up in the middle of the night, like midnight or 1 a.m., and realized, “Oh, I have four hours where I can read whatever I want. I can just study.” And so what did he do? He invented a rigged-up contraption with an alarm clock on his bed. The alarm would go off in the middle of the night and stand him up so he’d be awake. In that way, he had the time he wanted to do his own study.
So, one, you have to want it. You have to really want it, because it will be easier to go with the momentum: “I’ll just get up whenever, I’ll eat whenever, maybe I’ll do the reading, maybe I know…” I mean, Zuisei is going to explain it anyway. You have to have enough oomph to really keep it going. You have to want to, and you have to remember. And you have to create ways to remember. So, you have your work cut out for you.
May your life go well.
Liz, Nina, Shoho, James
Liz: Zuisei, how do we show up as the Buddha? How do we see the Buddha in our lives? First thing that came to mind was not knowing, most intimate.
Zuisei: Why?
Liz: Because we show up with what we have, and we’re open to what’s happening in that moment, whatever it is—good, bad, ugly. And we meet. We meet it. And we don’t get stuck on our cushion. One of the lines in this part of the Sutra talked about the Buddha doesn’t get stuck in form, formlessness, or the central realm. I had to think about that for a minute. But the formlessness, to me, means don’t get stuck on your cushion. Don’t get stuck in some idea of what enlightenment is, or you have some good feeling on your cushion—but it’s not about that.
Zuisei: So what does it look like in your life, your life specifically, you, Liz, to not get stuck?
Liz: It means to, like I said, meet the situation and to bring whatever skillful means I have to it, through the practice that I have, whether it’s me with my own self-doubt or self-criticism, or me meeting someone else that’s struggling—to really be there, and let this practice help me through it, because I know how to take the next breath.
Zuisei: Remember that. Yes. May your life go well.
Liz: Thank you for your teaching.
Nina: Yes. I think I see the Buddha in my life by not seeing them, by dropping the story, by not trying to plant seeds in the sky and hope they become flowers, by staying, like Manjushri says, in the muck, in the mess. So if I’m always worrying about planting the seeds—the perfect lesson plan, the conversation—it never goes that way. It’s like Jess’s birth. It’s “I can’t do this, I can’t do this, I can’t do this. This is not what I want.” So letting—my mantra has been “less form, more emptiness.”
Zuisei: And so where does practice fit into that?
Nina: Whatever I encounter. Practice is getting late, 20 minutes, 15 minutes late, walking into my class, having the tech not working—I have to let go of everything, pivot. That’s practice. I let go of planting the seeds in the sky and hoping they become flowers.
Zuisei: Okay, I like that. I like that phrase. May your life go well.
Nina: Thank you for your teaching.
Shoho: Sensei, I just want to say I’m having a crazy puppy moment. So if you hear a crazy puppy barking in the background, apologies.
Zuisei: I understand.
Shoho: Could you please repeat the question?
Zuisei: The Diamond Sutra says if a person sees Buddha in forms and hears Buddha in sounds, they’re not really practicing the right way because you can’t see the Buddha. But we talk about Buddha all the time. So what is Buddha, or what is the Thus Come One? And what does it have to do with your life?
Shoho: So that sounds a little different from how the question was posed initially, so…
Zuisei: You can answer whichever one you like.
Shoho: Okay. I think there’s the relative, and there’s the absolute.
Zuisei: What is that?
Shoho: The relative is—I’m talking to you. We’re all here on Zoom. We’re talking about concepts. And the absolute is not something that can be described.
Zuisei: Tandy is eating your bed. Is that in the relative or the absolute?
Shoho: It’s both. She’s limitless. If it’s not the bed, it’s something else. And it’s whatever she wants to eat. And of course, if I allow her… But then there is her being, which is limitless.
Zuisei: How about you?
Shoho: I’ve heard that it’s limitless. It’s limitless. I’ve heard that. I’ve heard you intimate that. I haven’t seen it.
Zuisei: So you know that Tandy is limitless.
Shoho: Yes.
Zuisei: But you don’t know for sure that you are. How come?
Shoho: That’s the question. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. You know, it’s a concept that I know and I’ll go along with, but I absolutely can see her. I can see her as a Buddha. I can see others. So that’s better. But for me, it’s like the factory shut down at lunchtime, and then when I was made… you know, so there was a break going on.
Zuisei: So that’s the place to look. Because you have everything that Tandy has, in some ways we could say, and more. And so the way that you spoke about her, you know your puppy is perfect and complete and is limitless. But there’s a gap, because you don’t know that about yourself. And yet, it’s impossible for that to be different. So that’s the place to look, right? That’s the place to practice.
Shoho: And it’s especially impossible, and I suppose evidence of that is because I can see that in her, right? If it wasn’t true, I wouldn’t be able to see that in her.
Zuisei: Exactly. Yeah. And I’ll go a little further and say that the fact you can see it means that you recognize it. Only a person of suchness can realize suchness. So it’s closer than you think.
Shoho: Big difference between realize and actualize.
Zuisei: Well, that’s why we’re doing this practice. May your life go well.
Shoho: Thank you for your teaching.
Trust yourself. Trust your practice. Trust your insight. If something isn’t clear, this is a great opportunity to ask.
Zuisei: Let me change the view. Is James next?
James: Shosanji, you asked why we don’t see the Buddha, why we can’t point to the Buddha. What’s the reference point? How do you point and see if you’re not outside it?
Zuisei: And so then, how do you speak about it? How do you bring this teaching out?
James: Notice.
Zuisei: And what about people who don’t notice?
James: We don’t always notice, right? We can get stuck in that relative, in those frustrations, but just… I, sitting here, rushing to get here, six people texting me. Everyone’s trying to like, keep me in the workday. I’m trying to get here, sit on the cushion. I’m sitting here, I’m immediately falling asleep and going into shutdown. And the whole time, I could be really, really frustrated, or I can just say, that’s another message. Let me attend to this. I’m sleepy right now. Look at that, and just see it, and remind myself to just see it.
Zuisei: I’ll take that, and may your life go well.
James: Thank you for your teaching.
kaito, Komyo, Guy
Kaito: As I try to do when we do these dharma encounters, really try my hardest not to formulate what I’m going to say or try to think of something pithy or, and as a result, every—what I’ve heard everybody say, I’m like, oh yes, that’s what I want to say. Oh, that’s it. That, I mean, from all the way down the line, starting with Ryusan and…
Zuisei: Well, can I interrupt you for a sec? So if you can’t see the Buddha in form, and you can’t see the Buddha in sound, then how do you perceive Buddha?
Kaito: In form and in sound.
Zuisei: But the koan says, and the Diamond Sutra says, it’s not in form and it’s not in sound.
Kaito: Well, there’s… you know, where’s the form, where’s the sound?
Zuisei: It’s… I’m looking at form right now. I’m hearing you speak. Am I not?
Kaito: Well, then you’re seeing the Buddha.
Zuisei: Then I’m… Then you’re seeing the Buddha. I am seeing the Buddha.
Kaito: Yeah, I don’t mean Adam Green, but oh, maybe I do. But I mean, I’m not claiming anything big about myself. I’m just saying the truth of each life.
Zuisei: And so why does the Diamond Sutra say you can’t see Buddha in form and you can’t see Buddha in sound?
Kaito: Because you can’t go chasing after it. You can’t say, “Ah, it’s the Buddha.
Zuisei: Ah, too much, too much. What form?”
Kaito: Excuse me?
Zuisei: What form?
Kaito: What form do I see the Buddha in?
Zuisei: No, that’s the answer. What form?
Kaito: Ah.
Zuisei: May your life go well.
Kaito: Thank you for your teaching.
Komyo: Actually, I’m next. I couldn’t keep my hand up, it kept going off. Thank you, Sensei. It’s Faith for me.
Zuisei: What is?
Komyo: Because I cannot see and I cannot hear. I mean, I was studying the Sutra, and I was reading it, trying to understand it, and I was listening to it and trying to understand it, but I can’t understand it. So I just listen to it and read it with faith. That’s how I…
Zuisei: And what does that do?
Komyo: It frustrates me, to be honest, because I want to understand, and I want everything to be precise, and exact, and easy to understand, but I can’t understand it. And so, I just have to relax and take it on faith, and just show up. But also, just show up for myself, and faith, and not try to understand my life either.
Zuisei: Yeah, because otherwise, it’s like trying to take the ocean and stuff it into a glass. The ocean is in that glass, but it’s also much faster, much more limitless than that. So in one sense, you could say that faith is the mechanism that allows you to be open enough to that limitlessness. So when you get frustrated, be frustrated. It’s not supposed to make sense. Remember, it’s not supposed to make sense. There’s an aspect where it is, you know, and so that we can talk. But at a certain point, let the sense drop. It won’t help you. May your life go well.
Komyo: Thank you for your teaching.
Guy: How do I see the Buddha? Well, I, like many people, had a very difficult childhood with alcoholic, mentally ill parents, and it was pretty unreleavably unhappy. At some point in my late teenage years, I just said to myself, this can’t be reality, this can’t be real. I started reading Western religion and philosophy and thinking about reality. Every once in a while, out of the blue, I would have these things I called epiphanies, which is all of a sudden just a sense that everything was all right, you know? That everything, where I was, everything that was happening was as it should be, and everything was okay. It was so consoling and nonverbal, and it’s hard to describe. I would try to hold on to these feelings and try to get them back, but it was impossible to do. For many years, my own addictions and distractions got in the way of this, and I didn’t feel that way again. It wasn’t until many years later, when I started practicing Buddhism, that I was able to get glimpses of that again, mostly when I sat a long time. It’s certainly not something I can summon at will, but it’s a sense that sometimes arises. Most recently, after a half-day sit, I was walking the dogs, the wind picked up, and I felt the wind, and it was like the world dissolved, and everything was all right. There is a kind of oneness to it, but it’s not a thing that words can describe. It was just, oh, okay. Then it fades away, and I go back to my distracted, busy head, and I keep practicing and hoping that it comes back. I think that’s a glimpse of Buddha. That’s how I see it.
Zuisei: Yeah. Well, don’t hope. Forget about the hope. Just practice. But that is quite something, right? For children of alcoholics, and I am one too, to be able to say, everything is all right.
Zuisei: Yeah. That is quite something.
Guy: It was a profound thing.
Zuisei: May your life go well.
Kathy, Marguerite, Jess
Kathy: I am going to go right up to it, so that I can see everyone.
Kathy: Shosanji, how do I see the Buddha? How do you express the inexpressible? How do you aspire to the unattainable?
Zuisei: Yeah, those are the questions, exactly. So how?
Kathy: Sit, get closer to what is, what is present.
Zuisei: How do you get close when you don’t want to? You’re in pain, you’re scared, you’re confused. How do you get close then?
Kathy: I think you allow what is present, even if it’s painful, so that you can move through it and get to another, maybe a new understanding.
Zuisei: And how do you allow?
Kathy: You let go, you let go, you let go, you let go, you let go. It might be painful while you’re doing it, but at some point, it mutates. It takes a different form, and then maybe it releases, I don’t know exactly, but…
Zuisei: Let’s go back to the “you let go, you let go, you let go.” Let’s leave it there. May your life go well.
Kathy: Thank you for your teaching.
Marguerite: Well, for me, I think Buddha is in all this confusion, in all this not knowing, and not getting it, and thinking, oh, well, maybe that’s it, not getting it. How can I—it’s too much of an I, I’m too engaged in this I stuff, I’m not this, I’m not that. And I hate to even use a word “I.” I want to go zip on I. It’s just, this is it. This is the day, it’s been shitty, but there’s impermanence. Oh my goodness, maybe Buddha is impermanence. It’s just, it’s gonna change, and I’m gonna get over this feeling of, why do I have to understand this? Why do I have to know it? I’m not able to, so I’m gonna just let go of it and think—in all that thinking that I should stop thinking. And then Buddha is in all of that.
Zuisei: Yeah, I think that’s the thing. You know, we just, we kind of, we go in circles because you will often say, I don’t understand. And then the next thing that comes out of your mouth is something that you’ve seen in your life and how you’re using it. So how about you just drop this story that you don’t understand because you have an idea of how you should understand it. And if you just let that go, as Kathy said, and then proceed from there, why don’t we try that?
Marguerite: Absolutely, thank you. Thank you.
Zuisei: May your life go well.
Jess: How do I cultivate fearlessness?
Zuisei: It can’t be apart from the fear. In other words, you have to not want for the fear to go away. So is that the right question? It’s not that it’s the wrong question. Is there a next question?
Jess: I understand. Probably, but that’s the question that I see right now.
Zuisei: How do you go into the fear?
Jess: There’s just so much aversion, so much aversion of going into fear. And it seems unnecessary, like life could continue without it. So, oh, the aversion, why?
Zuisei: So, how do you go into the fear? There’s no other way. May your life go well.
Jess: Thank you for your teaching.
Final Thoughts
And if you did not raise your hand, I will let it go if you haven’t been here that long. You know, perhaps the greatest challenge that we have is that we’re working really hard. We’re sitting long, we’re protecting our minds, we’re studying deep, we’re reading and we’re chanting, and we’re looking for ways to remember and to understand so that we can use these teachings. And they all point to something that cannot be seen, cannot be heard, cannot be given, but cannot be taken away. You know, it can only be realized by doing things like this, by meeting minds, hearts, open, wanting to know, wanting to understand, wanting to let go, so that we can be free. And when you don’t want to, going into that. Because the good thing is that it’s not mystical, it’s not far away, it’s not in some other time, and it’s not for some other person. It can only be seen in a moment, just like this one. And that’s it. And as I often say, it really is like that, it’s just a moment. So you want to be there for it.
May your lives go well. Thank you for listening.
Dharma Encounter: What is Buddha, a dharma talk by Zen Buddhist teacher Zuisei Goddard. Audio podcast, video, and transcript available.
Explore further
01 : Vimalakirti Sutra with preface by Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche
02 : Cave of Tigers (pdf) by John Daido Loori Roshi
03 : What’s in a Word? Tathagata by Andrew Olendzki