(upbeat music) This podcast is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for Your Life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. Thank you and happy listening. - Thank you very much, Jinewati. I think that was probably the nicest introduction to me I've ever heard. Thank you for that. I'm very happy to be speaking on this weekend, partly because it's on the vinna-kirti, and the vinna-kirti near the issue is my favorite text. But also because Jinewaj is leading the weekend and Papa Badger is also speaking and we will go back a long way. Papa Badger and I will ordain together just the two of us in Setford 33 years ago. So I'm very pleased that Papa Badger speaking as well. I'm very pleased that Jinewaj introduced me. Thank you. It's interesting because what he said about not being nice, because I often say in beginners classes in Buddhism, Buddhism, it's not about becoming a nice person. So it's funny that you've said that because I often make that point but nothing to do with being nice. So I'm taking, as we go through the talk, I'm taking it that you know the text. I'm doing that because I gave a very similar talk to the one I'm going to give now. Standing here a year and a half ago at the Men's Order Convention. And quite a few people afterwards said it was too long and it was too long, partly because in order to make the points I had to make, I had to tell people all about the text. It took ages. How long do it take last night, but half now, wasn't it? And I've got all these other points to make. So at the end of it, well, even halfway through it or even quarter of the way through it, I could see people sort of peeling with the amount of stuff I was giving out. So I'm not going to do that this time. I gave the summary last night. Some of you may have even read the text, but I'm taking it as red. And I hope that you all know of Sangra Kshta's lecture series, The Inconceivable Emancipation, which is his commentary on this text, eight lectures, made in the book of the same name because that is, in my opinion, his best ever lecture series. It's a really wonderful series. I've known the text ever since Sangra Kshta gave out lecture series a long time ago. And I've brought the book immediately, the firm and translation of the text. And I read it immediately. And I went, I've been back to it, read it many times. I've studied it, studied sections. I've written an article on it in a learning journal. I've given talks on it. I've done seminars on the text. And I've read it out aloud a number of times on Solteri Retreat. And the last time I did that was about two years ago on the Solteri Retreat. And I read it out aloud. And for the first time ever, there was nothing in it that struck me because I hadn't noticed before. And I thought, oh, I know the text now. I've got it now. That's it. It's foolish me. It's as I just said. I feel like my spiritual life has been one of ever-increasing humiliation. This was yet another humiliation. I thought, ah, got the text under my belt now. I know it. Then I was going to give a talk. I was preparing to give this talk on the Men's Order Convention Life. And I've got a book at home called Text as Father, "Paternal Seductions in Early Mahayana Buddhist Literature." Why Alan Cole. And he takes four Mahayana sutras, one of them the Vimalakit in Edesha. And he analyzes them. Text as Father, "Paternal Seductions in Early Mahayana Buddhism." I think the man who wrote it, Alan Cole, he's the son of a professor in English. And I think he's been very influenced by modern readings of text. So I think it's a post-structuralist, deconstructionist, feminist reading of the Vimalakit in Edesha. Very, very strange book. The chapter on the Vimalakit in Edesha is called Vimalakit or "Why Bad Boys Finish First." And it's very, very interesting. It's quite hard to read, but I have to say that it really opened me up to a new way of looking at that text. And I realized how foolish I'd been to think that I'd understood it. It's just completely new way of understanding the text. And I have to say I've been very influenced by Alan Cole. By the way, he looks at the text, but I disagree quite profoundly with his conclusions. Basically, he sees the text as a propaganda text, the Mahayana propaganda text, and the text of power. No doubt it is a propaganda text, but I see it as a text of love, rather than a text of power. I've also been influenced by a paper published by someone called Edward Hamlin called "Magical Upya" in the Vimalakit in Edesha, Sutra. So the title, "Who is Vimalakit?" I'm going to try to answer that question by looking at the text primarily as a drama, which means not just taking into account what Vimalakirti and others say, the verbal teachings, but also what they do. In a sense, more importantly, what they do and how they interact. So I'm going to quote from Edward Hamlin, his paper "Magical Upya" in the Vimalakit in Edesha. He says, "The Vimalakirti is eminently a teaching in motion." I love that, it's a teaching in motion. A text which unfolds as much through its plot events as through the dialogue of its protagonists. To grasp its philosophical orientation correctly, it's essential to give due weight to the narrative and aesthetic structures which underpin it. And it's this quality, an artistic quality to put it simply, most simply, which sets the Vimalakirti in Edesha in a class of its own, making it one of the most enjoyable Mahayana texts to read and reflect on. Absolutely, I think he's dead right. So he refers to the text's artistic quality. It's well known, I think, that artists are not always conscious, not always consciously aware of everything that they're expressing in a work of art. And it's possible, I think, that the writer, or the writers of the Vimalakit in Edesha, was not consciously aware of what he was doing, or they weren't consciously aware of what they were expressing. When I read it, I feel that the text is straining against its traditional constraints. It speaks explicitly in Mahayana traditional language, "Travaka, Arahant, Bodhisattva, Buddha." It speaks explicitly in those terms. But at the time, I feel that it's trying to say something, perhaps unconsciously, that goes beyond those traditional categories. And this idea, or these ideas, these teachings, this message is expressed through the strange and wonderful character of Vimalakirti. Now there's this phrase, isn't there, larger than life? And Vimalakirti is a larger than life character. Larger than life has become something of a cliche. But I think in this case, what it means for me is that Vimalakirti is larger than the bounds that he's trying to work with him. It's as if he comes out of the text at you, as if he overflows out of that text. There's a kind of an overflowingness about this text who sort of comes out of the book. So, to understand who Vimalakirti is or what he expresses, we also have to look at the other main characters of the text. We went through some of those last nights. And how they interact with Vimalakirti. There are four main characters in the text. There's Vimalakirti, of course. There's the Buddha. There's Shari Putra, and there's Manjushri. Those are the four main characters. There are also two other characters that you might call minor characters, because they don't have big parts in the drama. But in my opinion, they're very, very important. And they are the Bodhisattva Maitreya, and the Chravaka, and Arahant, Marakarshipha. There are two other important characters in the play. Let's call it a play in the drama. The goddess from chapter seven, and the emanation Bodhisattva, but I'm not going to speak about those two particular characters, because they don't really have much bearing on what I'm going to say today. So I've been referring to the writer of the text, or the writers of the text. And in doing so, I'm disagreeing explicitly with what the text wants us to believe. The text wants us to believe that this is an oral, from the oral tradition. It begins with the word, thus have I heard. This is meant to show that it's the word of the Buddha, being told by his attendant and close friend, Ananda. But I don't believe this. Apart from anything else, Ananda only appears in the first, or he's only present for the first, for each, for chapters one, three, and four, and then at the end again, he's not present for most of the teaching of immacurity. But apart from that, it's pretty obvious to me that this was written by somebody. So I believe there's an author or authors. And that each of the characters in the drama, although based on historical characters in some instances, are in fact all fictional characters, characters from the author's imagination. It's a work of imagination. They act as in his play. And they serve his intentions, his vision, his particular vision of the spiritual life. And the first two chapters are introduced in the... Sorry, the two of the characters are introduced in the first chapter. These two characters are the Buddha and Shari Putra. And they're introduced in the chapter, "Purification of the Buddha field." Now, I went into this in some detail last night, so I don't really need to go into it in much detail now. But just to remind you that it begins in Anra Pali's Park, with the Buddha surrounded by thousands of beings, 8,000 bakus, all our hands, 32,000 bodhisattvas, thousands of goddesses, and also the fourfold community, bikshus, bikshunis, laymen and laymen. Ratnakara and 500 youths come to see the Buddha from Vai Shari. They present him with these... Each one presents him with a jeweled parasol. And the Buddha does a magical act and he makes these 500 jeweled parasols into one, jeweled parasol, and all over, arching the whole assembly. And you can see the inside of the jeweled parasol, reflecting the whole of the universe, with all the different Buddhas speaking from that parasol. Amazing image. But I talked about all that last night, so I'm not going to say very much more now, but then Ratnakara equates the Buddha, and then he asks the Buddha a very important question. "What is the purification of the Buddha field?" he asks me. And the Buddha's answer is quite long, but there are two main points he makes. He says, "noble sons, a Buddha field of bodhisattvas is a field of living beings. Why so? A bodhisattva embraces the Buddha field to the same extent that he causes the development of living beings." Then the second point comes in the last paragraph of that teaching, where he says in effect that the purity of a Buddha's Buddha field reflects the purity of that Buddha's mind. And this is where Shari Putra comes in. Shari Putra has this thought, "Well, if that's the case, here we are in an impure Buddha field. That means the Buddha's mind must be impure. The Buddha reads Shari Putra's mind, touches the ground with his toe, and this world, this impure world is made as you can see it as a pure Buddha field. Then the Buddha taps the ground with his toe, and then it comes back to an impure Buddha field. So that's the first chapter. I'd like to just say here that Shari Putra, in this text, is a fictional character. But based on the historical character of Shari Putra from the early text, the Pali Canon, and they're very two different characters, you mustn't get them muddled up. The Shari Putra, who was one of the Buddhist chief disciples, is a wonderful character. He's noble. He's wise, he's kind, he's magnanimous, and friendly, courageous. The wonderful character. In the Vimnicate in Edesha, the writer of this drama makes him seem foolish, silly, petty-minded, a buffoon. I find that a bit of a pity, actually, that this wonderful character is made into such a buffoon in this text. But still, that's what he's done. Last chapter one, chapter two, inconceivable skillful means. Now, the main character is introduced. It begins, at that time, they lived in the great city of Vaishali, a certain lituary, Vimnakirti by name, and then the writer of the text describes Vimnakirti in some detail. But he's pretending to be ill. He's employed what's called a skillful means, so that the people of Vaishali will come and visit him, and he'll be able to teach them. And we see in this chapter, we see thousands of citizens of Vaishali in Vimnakirti's house. And he teaches them a very, very simple teaching. He teaches them to announce their physical body and aspire for the body of the Buddha. And as a result, the bodhi-chitta arises within all of them. They become bodhi-sattvas, thousands of people. That's the second chapter. For years, I've been puzzled by the first chapter. What's it got to do with the rest of the text? There's the Buddha, Ratnakirti, and the 500 youths. The Buddha gives this wonderful teaching of the way a bodhisattva purifies the Buddha field. Shari Putra has this thought. The Buddha shows that actually we're in a pure land. Let me move from Amvapali's Park in the Buddhist of Vimnakirti. I mean, more or less stay with him for the rest of the text, right? Until the end. What's that first chapter got to do with the rest of the text? What's the first chapter got to do with the second chapter? How do they relate? And Sangha Akshta, in his book "Eternal Legacy" thinks that maybe the first chapter was added later. I think it might have been a little sutra of its own, actually. The first chapter may have been a little independent sutra, but was later added to the Vimnakirti in Adesha. However, there's a way of reading the text, which makes that first chapter essential for the rest of the text. So, how do we do this? The Buddha's Amvapali's Park teaching the Dharma. And then we move to Vimnakirti in his house in Vaishali. Amvapali's Park is out of town. The Buddha didn't stay in town. He lived out in the forest in the wilderness. He's just outside of town in Amvapali's Park. Meaning that the Buddha has renounced the world. That's what that means. He's homeless. He's living in Sangha's Park for the time being. It represents the first chapter represents ascetic Buddhism practiced on the edges of the city outside of town. Vimnakirti's house is in the middle of the town. He is not homeless. He's a layman. He has a house. He has a wife. He has children. He has servants. He's a business man. He takes part in the government of the city. He's rich. He represents Buddhism practiced in the midst of worldly life in the city. As well as the two different locations, they're seen very differently by the writer as well. Although the Buddha's outside of town homeless, he's described in magnificent terms. He says, "The Buddha, surrounded and venerated by multitudes of many hundreds of thousands of living beings, sat upon a majestic lion throne and began to teach the Dharma. Dominating all the multitudes, just as Sumeru, the king of mountains, looms high over the ocean. The Lord Buddha shone, radiated and glittered as he sat upon his magnificent lion throne." Amazing scene. It's kind of help thinking that what the writer is doing is he's saying that although the Buddha had nothing, he was just living on arms, living outside of town with no possessions. He had everything. He was grand. He was rich. Yeah, magnificent. Whereas Vimla Kirti, the rich man, is lying on his bed. Yeah, ill. It's as if you could say the writer is saying that the home life, even if you're really successful, is an ill life. You're laying on your bed, ill at home. That's the difference between those two kinds of lives. Anyway, more importantly, perhaps we've moved from the first chapter to the second chapter, from the Buddha's place to Vimla Kirti's place and we stay there more or less throughout the rest of the text. Why? The second chapter begins with the words "at that time" and it was Alan Cole that made me see what this meant. At the same time, it's happening simultaneously. When you read a book, let's say when you read the Vimla Kirti, because you read the first chapter first and then you read the second chapter subconsciously, you think what happens in the second chapter happens after the first chapter, but it doesn't. It happens simultaneously at that time. So, if you were to do this in cinematic terms, you'd have a split screen. You'd have the Buddha in Amrapali's on one side of the screen and Vimla Kirti in his house in his bed on the other side of the screen. They're happening simultaneously and this is very significant, I think. Why is Vimla Kirti at his house teaching the Dharma? Why isn't he at Amrapali's part with all the other 32,000 Bodhisattvas listening to the Buddha? Yeah, that's what he should be doing. That's what Bodhisattvas are supposed to do. They're supposed to always be present when the Buddha gives a teaching. He's not. Now, you might give in an excuse. You might say, "Well, he's ill." But he's not really ill. He's pretending to be ill so that you can teach others. So, he's teaching others while the Buddha's teaching at the same time. This is significant, I think. The Buddha says in the first chapter, a Buddha field of Bodhisattvas is a field of living beings. Why so? A Bodhisattva embraces a Buddha field to the same extent that he causes the development of living beings. At the same time the Buddha's saying this, Vimla Kirti is doing it. He's exemplifying it. He's teaching the citizens of Vaishali. And at the end of his teaching, the Bodhi Chitta arises within all of them. Vimla Kirti is, in fact, purifying the Buddha field. Or building the Buddha lands to use Sengarash terminology. He's doing what the Buddha's teaching. There's another point I'd like to make. Who does Vimla Kirti teach? The text tells us the king, the officials, the lords, the youths, the aristocrats, the householders. The businessmen, the town folk, the country folk. And how is Vimla Kirti described? He was honored as the businessman among businessmen. He was honored as the landlord among landlords, as the warrior among warriors. The aristocrats among aristocrats, and so on. It's as if the text is saying that Vimla Kirti is himself a Buddha field. Or a community, or a Sanga. A Buddha field here is purifying a Buddha field. A Buddha land is building a Buddha land. So here's the first possible answer to this question. Who is Vimla Kirti? Perhaps Vimla Kirti is not one person, after all. Perhaps he's a community of practitioners. He's a Sanga, an order, a movement. Vimla Kirti, in fact, is rather like a Buddhist center. A Buddhist center, not only with Dharma teachers, but also with businessmen, landlords, policemen, slisters, doctors, tradesmen, all sorts of people involved in the Sanga. Each one of them exemplifying the Dharma in their own particular sphere of activity. Because one man cannot do everything that Vimla Kirti does. No matter how spiritual developed he or she may be. Not even the Buddha was able to do what the Buddha, Vimla Kirti is doing in this text. Okay, we're going to leave chapter two. We're going to go on to chapter three, which is the reluctance of the Shravakas. Don't worry, I'm not going to go into each chapter in such detail. We're only going to do a few chapters this morning. So at the beginning of chapter three, Vimla Kirti has a thought that the Buddha reads. And this echoes the episode of the first chapter where Shari puts a read to the Buddha's thought. Only this time there's an important difference. Vimla Kirti intends for his thought to be read by the Buddha. It's all part of Vimla Kirti's plan. It's his way of involving the Buddha in his own purification of the Buddha field. So what does Vimla Kirti think? I'm lying here seeking bed. Why does the world-honored one in his great compassion fail to show some concern for me? It's interesting, isn't it? Vimla Kirti uses the word fail when he's talking about the Buddha. He fails to show concern for me. So we return to the Buddha and Rapali's part where the Buddha reads Vimla Kirti's thought and plays Vimla Kirti's game. But rather than going to visit him himself, he asks Shari Putra to go. Shari Putra says, "Lord, I'm indeed reluctant to go ask about Vimla Kirti's illness." Then he recounts a story where he was meditating one day doing his thing and the Vimla Kirti came along and told him he was meditating wrongly, told you about that last night. We won't go into that, except to say that Shari Putra is left speechless, dumbfounded, unable to reply, unable to respond to Vimla Kirti. That's why he's reluctant to go visit him now. Then the Buddha asks each of the other Shavaka's, each of the Arahants, one after another, will they go to visit? And each one of them says no because this happened. I've had a confrontation with Vimla Kirti and I'm not willing to have another confrontation with him. Except for one, but we'll come on to him in a moment. So here we encounter a side of Vimla Kirti that wasn't present in the second chapter. In the second chapter he taught and encouraged the people of Vishali. He didn't give them a hard time. But here in the second chapter we see another side of Vimla Kirti, a socratic type of Vimla Kirti, a gadfly. In Rilke's "Durino Elegies" translated by Leshman and Stephen Spender. In the commentary to the first Elegie, Leshman says that the angel in the Elegies is both an inspiration and a rebuke. It's a wonderful phrase there and I think we can apply that to Vimla Kirti. He's an inspiration and a rebuke. In the second chapter he's an inspiration. The citizens of the Vishali are not afraid to go and see Vimla Kirti. They are not reluctant at all. They go there very happily. In this chapter and in the following chapter and in most of the other chapters he's a rebuke. Here's another question. Why is Vimla Kirti an inspiration for the citizens of Vishali but a rebuke for the Shravakas? And later on we'll see for the out for the Bodhisattvas too. Well he rebukes the Shravakas because from the Mahayala point of view they've got stuck in their spiritual lives. Because they've come to what they consider to be the end point of the spiritual life. Arahantship in Lightland. Now, Sangha actually once made the point that Maha, the evil one, only becomes interested in you when you start making spiritual progress. Why are you hanging about and faffing about and talking about the spiritual life but not really doing it? He's not interested because you're doing his work for him. Well actually once you start taking the spiritual life seriously and you start making progress, Maha becomes very interested because he wants to prevent you. In a similar but contrary way we could say that Vimla Kirti only takes an interest in you if you think that you've made it in some way. If you think you've made the grade. If you settle down into a Koti niche, if you're satisfied with your spiritual progress so far, at this point Vimla Kirti turns up and he confronts you with your actual spiritual limitations. And this is uncomfortable and painful. So we could say that Vimla Kirti is the second answer to the question who is Vimla Kirti. Vimla Kirti is the spiritual imperative. The desire to go beyond your limitations, your spiritual limitations, the desire for complete freedom. But this desire is in conflict with our all to human desire to settle down. The disciples of Shravakas have all, according to Vimla Kirti, settled down. Except for one. Enter the fourth character, Mahakashva. I told you all about him last night, what happened. When he's confronted by Vimla Kirti, he's also really taken aback. But at the end of it he says to the Buddha, "Lord, when I heard his teaching I was astonished and thought reverence to all Bodhisattvas. If a lay Bodhisattva may be endowed with such eloquence, who is there who would not conceive the spirit of unexcelled, perfect enlightenment? Who is there who would not become a Bodhisattva?" Very, very interesting this because I think I'll leave this bit till later in the talk before I say what I should about to say. If I remember. So, but still, and thus Lord, I'm reluctant to go to this good man to inquire about his illness. He's very interesting, very inspired by Vimla Kirti. It's like Vimla Kirti opens his mind for him, but he's still reluctant to go and visit him because Vimla Kirti is an inspiration and a rebuke. Sometimes our most positive skillful experiences are also painful. I can tell you this from experience that most of my positive spiritual experiences have also been painful. So, I said earlier that in the second chapter we could see Vimla Kirti as a spiritual community. Now, when I gave this talk a year and a half ago, I said that when we come to the third and the fourth chapters, we can't really see Vimla Kirti as a spiritual community anymore. He's definitely one person speaking. But more recently I've been thinking a bit more about this. And I think we could see him in a different way. I quoted Edward Hamlin earlier, referring to the Vimla Kirti Nadesha as a work of art. And I think that Vimla Kirti Nadesha, like some other Mahayana sutras, is as much a work of literature as it's a work of doctrine. And what I mean by this is capable of multiple interpretations. Yesterday in the chapter in the order meeting, I, Jinarajir asked me, so what are you going to say in your talk? Because it will help the study leaders to know what you're going to say. So I said, okay, I'll tell you. One of the main points I'm going to make is that Vimla Kirti is not a person but a spiritual community. And Jinarajir's got a wicked sense of view and he said wrong. But instead of thinking in terms of wrong or right interpretations, when looking at the Vimla Kirti Nadesha, it's better I think to think in terms of creative interpretations. That is to say interpretations that open up the text for us. That open us into meanings that allow us and encourage us to practice the Dharma more effectively and more imaginatively. In his excellent book, "The Land of Bliss" by Louis Gomez, he writes that interpretations of traditional texts, while I'm quoting here, often reflect the interests of a tradition. Living or literary that tends to supersede the scriptures that serve as their foundation. I don't know if you've followed that, but in other words, what he's saying is later readers of a text may see meanings in a text which perhaps were not originally in that text. They interpret the text in the light of their own tradition and their own experience within that tradition. And that's what I'm trying to do in this talk. I'm interpreting the Vimla Kirti Nadesha in the light of my understanding of the Dharma, as taught by Sankarachta, within Sankarachta's tradition, you could say. So, with this in mind, let's return to the Vimla Kirti of this chapter, the rebuke, the Socratic figure, the gadfly. He's rather like a Zen master, isn't he? A guru who knows his disciples well and knows just what they need and is not afraid to tell them. So, in the F.W.O., we don't have a figure like this who confronts us with our limitations. Perhaps you might say that in the very early days of the movement, Sankarachta used to perform this kind of function when we were much smaller. He would notice things that were going on and make a comment, and you would feel very, very challenged by that. But now the movement is much bigger. He can't have a person relationship with every disciple. So, we don't have this, and I know that for some people, this is a problem. They want a teacher, someone who knows them well, who can say, "No, you're doing this wrong. You need to do it like this." However, I would argue that we do in fact have this, or perhaps more accurately, we could have this if we wanted it. I think we could see Vimla Kirti of this chapter as representing Sankar too. And if you fully involve yourself with the Sankar, you will find yourself rebuked inevitably. Not that anyone in the Sankar will necessarily rebuke you, although they may from time to time. It's more that your spiritual limitations will be exposed in your relations with the Sankar, sometimes exposed quite painfully. This will be rebuked enough. I said sometimes someone in the Sankar might actually rebuke you, and sometimes that does happen. But of course, you need to be a bit careful here, because they might just be in a bad mood. Or they might be looking at the way you're practicing from their own particular way of practicing, and criticizing you from that narrow viewpoint. So, we need to be a bit careful of that. So, I'm not saying that we act as Vimla Kirti to each other. It's more that just by fully involving yourself, by being open with other members of the Sankar, by being really honest about yourself and what you think and where you're at and so on, you will be rebuked. But not by them, but by your inner spiritual imperative, your own inner spiritual imperative will rebuke you enough if you're honest enough. But returns to Mahākāśipa. He seems to me he's singled out in the text, is the only Shravaka, the only Hara hand who changes in the text, who sees the point and responds positively. Why Mahākāśipa? Why not Shari Putra? Why not Magalāna? They're great disciples, why not Ananda? He's chosen Mahākāśipa. Now, I think it might be because of Mahākāśipa's role after the Buddha's paranoia, after the Buddha's death. People responded in different ways to the Buddha's death. Many people were very upset when they grieved. Our hands in light in ones weren't upset, they didn't grieve because they knew that all things were impermanent. But there was one of the Buddha's disciples, a monk, who said, "Enough friends, do not grieve, do not lament. We are well rid of this great ascetic, the Buddha. We've been troubled by his telling us this is befitting, that is not befitting. Now we can do what we like and we won't have to do what we do not like." So this is Subhadha. So Mahākāśipa heard this news very alarmed, he thought, "Whoa, if we go down that road, that's the end of the Dharma, the end of the Sangha." So he called together all the Arrahants for what's called the First Council. And Shari Putra and Mogulana were both dead by that time, they were the Buddha's chief disciples. And the Buddha had said once that he didn't want anybody to lead the Sangha after his death. But I think Mahākāśipa was the kind of defector leader of the Buddhist Sangha after his death, because he was so looked up to, he was so respected. So maybe that's why the right of the text singles out Mahākāśipa. And interestingly enough, Mahākāśipa is very important within the Zen tradition. He's seen as the first patriarch of the Zen tradition. It's that wonderful teaching of the Buddha where the Buddha just holds up a flower and smiles. And the only person in the assembly who understands it is Mahākāśipa, who smiles in return. And that's the beginning of the Zen tradition. It's quite interesting that the Vimli kid in Edesha is very, very important in the Zen tradition. So, chapter 4, the reluctance of the Bodhisattvas. Same things happens with the Bodhisattvas. This is very important and significant, I think, in that up until now, the Vimli kid has been criticizing the Hinyana. He's been criticizing the Shravakas. But now he turns his criticism to the Bodhisattvas. Nearly all of them he criticizes. Not in the text, the only four in the text. He's only got time in the text to criticize for. But actually all, it's going to say all $32,000. But it's actually $31,999 of them. So, you could say, on the one hand, Vimli kid is portrayed as a Bodhisattva. And so, in that sense, he's partisan. He's for the Mahayana against the Hinyana. However, on the other hand, he criticizes the Mahayana too. So, you could say that he transcends the distinction between Hinyana and Mahayana. You could say that Vimli kitty represents the great way that transcends the distinction between the small way, the Hinyana and the Mahayana, the great way. So, he begins by criticizing the Bodhisattva Maitreya. How are we doing for time? I can't really say very much about this because I'm running out of time. But I just do want to say that this is significant because Maitreya is a Hinyana figure as well as a Mahayana figure. So, he acts as a bridge. He is the next Buddha according to the Mahayana, according to the Hinyana. But he's also a Bodhisattva within the Mahayana pantheon. So, he acts as a bridge between the Hinyana and the Mahayana. But I can't really go into this chapter. We're running out of time. Let's move on to chapter 5, the constellation of the invalid. Now enters Manjushri, another important character. The Buddha asked him to visit Vimli kitty. Manjushri replies, "Lord, it is difficult to attend upon the literally Vimli kitty. He is gifted with marvellous eloquence concerning the dharma of the profound. He's extremely skilled in full expressions and in the reconciliation of dharmatones. His eloquence is inexorable and no one can resist his imperturbable insulate. This is the Bodhisattva of wisdom speaking here. He accomplishes all the actuses of the Bodhisattvas. Thus, although he cannot be withstood by some one of my feeble defenses, still sustained by the grace of the Buddha, I will go to him and will converse with him as well as I can." Exciting moment. So, off he goes. And with him goes a sizable proportion of the assembly. 8,000 Bodhisattvas, 500 trabakas and a great number of gods and goddesses. And I think most of you know what happens next. They meet. Vimli kitty knows Manjushri's coming and transforms his house into emptiness, and they have a dialogue, a long dialogue about emptiness. Don't have time to go into that now. We're going to move on to chapter 6, where Shari Putra has another problem. So, Shari Putra was one of these shavakas who came to watch this debate. And again, I spoke about this yesterday, so I'm not going to say very much about this, but Shari Putra says, "There are no chairs in this house. Where's everyone on the sit?" This has his thought, innocent thought. Vimli kitty picks up on that thought, exposes him to the rest of the assembly, and there's a whole teaching that happens as a result of that. Well, there's a more than a teaching, there's a miraculous happening. Vimli kitty magics, 32,000 line thrones from the pure land in all the universe that has the best line thrones, brings them all down into his house, 32,000 line thrones, and asks the Bodhisattvas to sit on them. The Bodhisattvas sit on them. Then he asks the Shravakas to sit on them, and they cannot. I explained a risk yesterday, so I'm not going to say more about this now. Now, just stay with Shari Putra for a minute. As I said, the writer of the text makes him a real buffoon in this text, thinking silly thoughts that are exposed is petty-minded, is rule-bound, is literal-minded. But Alan Cole makes a very good point about Shari Putra. It's Shari Putra that makes everything happen, or he's the cause of most of the things that happen in this text. The second miracle in the first chapter is caused by Shari Putra having the thought about the Buddha's impure mind. Now, Shari Putra has another thought, and the Buddha of Vimli kitty brings these 32,000 line thrones. This is the first example of the Achintia Vimoxia, the inconceivable liberation. Bringing these line thrones to his house massive, 32,000 of them. The house doesn't get any bigger. The thrones don't get any smaller, but they fit into his house. That's the Achintia Vimoxia. It's partly because of Shari Putra that this happens. And this happens throughout the text. Things happen on account of Shari Putra. If it was left to man's usually, there would just be a long debate. Nothing else would happen. There would be no magical action. It would be yet another perfection of wisdom, sutra, but it wouldn't be the Vimli kitty in Niveshah. Yes. But then, Mark Asheva speaks. So he came too. He speaks directly to Shari Putra. He says, "Whatever you show to a blind man, he'd be unable to see it. In the same way, all the followers of the Hinniana are unable to see this Achintia Vimoxia." He says that when the whys see that Achintia Vimoxia, the Bodhi Chitta arises within them. They become Bodhisattvas. But, and I'm quoting here, "As for us, whose faculties are deteriorated like a burned and rotten seed. What else can we do if we do not become receptive to the Mahayana?" We, followers of the Hinniana, upon hearing this teaching of the Dharma, should utter a cry of regret that would shake this billion world galactic universe. Now, it seems to me that this cry of regret that Mark Asheva is talking about here is his insight into the Dharma. It's his way of moving from his stuck position of thinking he's made it to a much bigger understanding of what the Dharma really is. This cry of regret that would shake the whole galactic universe. And it seems to me this is a very painful cry, but it's extremely positive. It's insight. Very often we think of insight very cognitively of knowing, "Oh, now I know impermanence. Now I know, no self." But, actually, there's a very strong emotional element because once you see this bigger vision, you realize how small and petty you've been up to now. And you look back at your life and you regret your life. You cry a cry of regret. It's like, "Oh, my life, I've been living so in such a petty way, looking after myself, calculating from my own designs." So small life. And now there's this big one. There's this massive life that I could have been living. So this cry of regret is extremely positive. So, Mark Ashba says this. "As for us whose faculties are deteriorated like a burned and rotten seed." And in Burton Watson's translation from the Chinese, he says, "But what of us who have a forever cut off at the root with regard to these Mahayana teachings we've already become like rotten seed, seed that cannot grow?" This is because according to the Mahayana, once you become an Arrahant, you're not reborn again. So you can't make any further progress. You're unable to fulfill the much greater goal of supreme enlightenment. Now, this is all really technical, I think. And we have to ask, does this mean anything to us at all? Are there really two indictments in spiritual life, Arrahant and Buddha? Is it really possible to become an Arrahant became this lesser enlightenment and then never be able to become a Buddha? It seems unlikely to me. So what can we do with this text? Do we just write off passages like this as Mahayana propaganda or some weird historical mistake? Well, we could do. Or we could try to see if the author of the text was onto something else, something behind this strange, literalistic way of looking at Buddhism. And I think he was onto something. I think he was onto something quite extraordinary. The text doesn't tell us in words what this is at this point. Or it doesn't tell us in words at all what this point is. But all the main characters of the text, the Buddha, Vimalakirti, Charyputra, Mandushri, Maitreya and Mahakashiva all play out this point. And when we understand this, we'll come to the third or the fourth meaning of who Vimalakirti really is. But I just want to put off that discussion for a bit longer. Chapter seven, the goddess, which Pavravadras is going to talk about tomorrow. Chapter eight, the family of the two targetters. I think I'll leave that out. And we'll move on to chapter nine, the Dharma door of non-duality. The last chapter I'm going to mention. Because this is said to be the climax of the text. Vimalakirti says to the Bodhisattvas, "Good sirs, please explain how the Bodhisattvas enter the Dharma door of non-duality." And 31 Bodhisattvas reply, really good replies. Mandushri congratulates them all on their replies, saying that he's spoken well, but in fact, all their explanations are dualistic. And he says to know no one teaching, to express nothing, to say nothing, to explain nothing, to announce nothing, and to designate nothing, this is the entrance into non-duality. He then, Mandushri then asks Vimalakirti to elucidate the teaching of the Dharma door of non-duality. And Vimalakirti does, by remaining completely silent. So, now, for this final point I want to make. At the beginning of chapter five, when the Buddha asked Mandushri to visit Vimalakirti, remembering that after 8,000 Travakas said, "No, I don't want to go and visit him." And 31,999 Bodhisattvas have said, "No, I don't want to go and visit him." Mandushri says, "Okay, I'll go and visit him." But what does he say? Well, come on to what he says in a minute, but when Mandushri agrees to go, everyone in the assembly had this thought. Surely the conversations of the young Prince Mandushri and that good man, Vimalakirti, will result in a profound teaching of the Dharma. And at this point in the drama, we may think that Mandushri and Vimalakirti are equals. Mandushri, after all, is the Bodhisattva of wisdom. He's the only one who, though admitting he's reluctant, agrees to visit Vimalakirti. And we may think he's modest. He's just being modest when he says, "Thus, although he cannot be withstood by someone of my feeble defenses, still, sustained by the grace of the Buddha, I will go to him and converse with him as well as I can." No, you may think, "Oh, he's just being modest." But he's modestly. But actually, I would say they're not equal. Mandushri just about manages to keep up with Vimalakirti in their conversations. Vimalakirti doesn't make Mandushri look foolish in the way that he does with everybody else. But Vimalakirti takes all the initiative in all of their exchanges. Yeah. He opens up all the conversations, apart from one, and that's the one that Pavlovaj will be talking about tomorrow. And now, with this chapter, with Vimalakirti's silence, the text is showing us in dramatic terms that Vimalakirti is the greater of the two. He is greater than the greatest of all Bodhisattvas. So, now we come back to the question, who is Vimalakirti? As I said earlier, to answer this question, we have to look at all the other main characters in the text, too. So, let's start with Shari Padra. Shari Padra represents, symbolizes, personifies the Hinyana. He's a Shravaka. He's also enlightened. He's an Arahant. He's got no further to go. He thinks. He couldn't even go further if he wanted to. He's reached an end point, the end point of the Hinyana understanding of the path. Mandushri personifies the Mahayana. He hasn't reached the end point of his spiritual life, not because he's less spiritually developed than Shari Padra, but because his end point, Buddhahood, is much further away than Shari Padra's end point is. It will take him many, many, many lifetimes to reach it. The Buddha, he personifies the Buddha. He personifies full and supreme Buddhahood, the end point of the Mahayana understanding of the spiritual life. Where does Vimnakirti fit into these categories? Well, the text says he's a Bodhisattva. That's what the text says. Although more often than not, he's referred to either as the literally Vimnakirti or the layman Vimnakirti or the rich man Vimnakirti. It's very rare in the text that he's referred to as the Bodhisattva and the Kirti. But sometimes he's referred to as the Bodhisattva. So that's what the text says. But how does the text actually portray him in dramatic terms? I would say that these portray those fully enlightened. But the text can't say he's fully enlightened, because if he was fully enlightened, he'd be a Buddha. They have one Buddha at a time in a world system, so they can't be two Buddhas in the text. But even that's not quite right. The Buddha represents the end point of the spiritual life of the Mahayana. Vimnakirti doesn't represent an end point of anything. Vimnakirti in fact stands outside of all the usual Buddhist categories. Buddha, Ratcheke Buddha, Shravaka, Arahant, Bodhisattva. You could say that Vimnakirti is a fully enlightened Bodhisattva, except you can't say that, because Bodhisattvas by definition are not fully enlightened. But he does stand outside of these categories, so I am going to say it. He's a fully enlightened Bodhisattva. Why do I say this? Just look at the way the text is constructed. We begin with the Buddha at Amrapali Park. And in the second chapter, we move to Vimnakirti's house. And from then on, most of the action takes place with Vimnakirti. Right until the end. He does much more teaching in the text than the Buddha. That's why it's the nadesha rather than the sutra. The sutra is the word of the Buddha. Nadesha is the word of somebody else. He's shown putting the Buddha's provisional teaching of a hinyana into a Mahayana perspective. The Buddha plays along with Vimnakirti's skillful means. Every one of the Sravakas, and all but one of the Bodhisattvas are reluctant to visit Vimnakirti. As I said yesterday, Ferman translates reluctant. Watson translating more literally says not competent. And not competent to go and see Vimnakirti always Bodhisattvas. Vimnakirti is even shown humiliating Maitreya, who's the next Buddha. He must be the most spiritually developed being there. Vimnakirti shows him up. In Chapter 2, the narrator says of Vimnakirti, he lived with the deportment of a Buddha and was praised, honoured and respected by all the Buddhas. In Chapter 3, the author has Upali say of him, "With the exception of the Tathagata himself, there is no Shravaka or Bodhisattva capable of competing with his eloquence or rivaling the brilliance of his wisdom." So, why would the author of the Vimnakirti in Odisha want to portray Vimnakirti as a fully enlightened Bodhisattva? Because, in reality, there is no end point to the spiritual life. Or to put it another way, the end point of the spiritual life is the realisation that there is in fact no end point to the spiritual life. Enlightenment is not, in fact, an end point. Vimnakirti acts as a corrective to the misunderstanding that enlightenment, even Buddhahood, is the end of the road. Now, this isn't my idea. Sankraksha has made this point on a number of time occasions. He said that you could say that enlightenment represents the horizons, as far as you can see. But as you walk towards a horizon, the horizon recedes, ever, ever in front of you. You never actually get there. And it seems to me that Vimnakirti personifies this position. He's fully enlightened, yet he's a Bodhisattva. He's fully enlightened, yet he's not reached the end point of the spiritual life. And as you read through the text, you get the very strong impression that actually there isn't an end point. There's nowhere to rest. There's nowhere to hide. There's nowhere to settle down. You get this impression, particularly in the third and the fourth chapters, where Vimnakirti criticises the shravakas and the Bodhisattvas. Any ideas at all that they've fostered about the spiritual life, any ideas and practices that they've gone for refuge to, that they've rested in, Vimnakirti takes away from them. When that point where Shari Putra is wondering about the chairs, and Vimnakirti exposes him, and he says, "If you're interested in the Dharma, you won't be interested in chairs." Then Vimnakirti goes for a whole list of things. If you're interested in the Dharma, you won't be interested in anything else. And at one point he says, "The Dharma is not a secure refuge. He who enjoys a secure refuge is not interested in the Dharma, but is interested in a secure refuge." Tremendous teaching. It's as if Vimnakirti personifies the spiritual life itself, the spiritual imperative, what Sankarashtra has called the going for refuge, or the Bodhisattva principle. Vimnakirti is not a Bodhisattva, he is the Bodhisattva principle. The spiritual life that never, ever comes to an end. And it's also interesting that Vimnakirti, during the course of the text, calls up for pure lands for people to look at. And what's the pure land? You could say that a pure land symbolizes enlightenment constantly in the process of being realized, but which is never fully realized. What about Mark Ashper, though? We've forgotten about him. What does he personify? He, like Shari Putra and the other great disciples, is stuck in the lesser enlightenment of our handship. However, whereas Shari Putra recognizes the greatness of the Mahayana vision, he's unable to follow it, he's unable to convert to it. Mark Ashper not only recognizes the greatness of the Mahayana vision, but he has a positive response to it, too. So Mark Ashper personifies the fact that redemption is always possible, to use a Christian term. There are no real cul-de-sacs in the spiritual life. There's no places that you can't get out of. In Western literature, there's often a hero in a story. And a hero is someone who has certain adventures, they go through certain ordeals, and through those adventures and ordeals, they change either themselves or their circumstances. And the reader identifies with that hero and imaginatively lives through those adventures and ordeals. So is there a hero in the Vimalikitti Nadesha? Not Vimalikitti himself, because he has no adventures, he has no ordeals. We don't see him coming up against obstacles, which he has to overcome to get what he wants or needs. He's in fact inscrutable, he's never challenged, he never puts a foot wrong, he's more or less perfect. So he can't be the hero of the tale. What about Shari Putra? He'd be the next obvious choice. Because he does undergo a number of ordeals in the text. But he doesn't change. Manjushri, no, doesn't go through any ordeals, doesn't change. In fact, here's a strange thing for Buddhist text. None of the main characters in the text change in the course of the text. Loads of other beings change, loads of other beings onlookers. Because of what they're seeing, they change. They both sat for arises with them. They become Buddhas, they become our sort of sorts of things happen. But none of the main figures in the text, except for Mark Hasheper. He does change. He seems to realise how limited his understanding of a spiritual life is. He realises that although he thought he reached the end point of a spiritual life, there was still further to go, a lot further to go. And this was very obviously painful for him, but he does rise to the challenge. So I would say that Mark Hasheper is the real hero of the Viminakit in Adesha. Even though he doesn't play a big part, even though he only says a few words, he makes a big mistake in thinking that he's made it. But he recognises his mistake. The Viminakit in Adesha is often read as a text that propagates the lay life. Viminakit is a lay Bodhisattva and a very good one, very good one. He somehow manages to be a very advanced Bodhisattva and also have a sexual relationship. Children, a very successful career as a businessman and a lovely house. Then we begin to think it might be possible for us to do what he's doing. We think that we might be able to emulate Viminakit but forget it. Forget it, we can't emulate Viminakit. If we read the text carefully and honestly, we will see that the text isn't really saying this at all. Viminakit appears to be a layman, but in reality he isn't one. He appears to have a wife and children, but in reality he doesn't. Viminakit isn't really a human character at all who we can emulate. Mark Ashabhar is much closer to us. He's more human in that he's capable of making mistakes, but he's also capable of realising his mistakes. I think that Mark Ashabhar is Viminakit's true Dharma heir. He says, we, all the shravakas and prasya kebuddhas, upon hearing this teaching of the Dharma should utter a cry of regret that would shake this billion world galactic universe. You could say this represents Mark Ashabhar's insight. It's his turning point. It's when he becomes a Bodhisattva. He sheds his old limited small self for something much greater. It's Mark Ashabhar, who is the hero of Viminakit in Odisha. It's Mark Ashabhar, humble Mark Ashabhar, the monk, the man who went to the poor places of every town to beg food of those people because they needed merit more than the rich people did. It's he who is the man who should emulate. [Applause] We hope you enjoyed this week's podcast. Please help us keep this free. Make a contribution at freebuddhas.io.com/donate. And thank you. [Music] [Applause]
