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The Godess' Transformations - Kisei Costenbader, Sensei · Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks

• 0:00
  Jomon: Hello and welcome. This is the Zen Community of Oregon, making the teachings of the Buddhadharma accessible to support your practice. New episodes air every week.
• 0:25
  Kisei: So we're continuing with a summer read of the hidden lamp, stories from 25 centuries of awakened women. Many of you are familiar with this book. Many of you have been following along. And I just chose over the course of the fifteen or so weeks of the summer, I just chose some koans that are in this book. There's a 100 different koans from the women ancestors collected in in this book, and we have explored about 13 of them.
• 1:02
  We have a few more weeks, two more weeks, three more koans. And today is case 58, and this is called the Goddess' Transformations. It's taken from the Vimalakirti Sutra, And it's just a section of the interaction between Shariputra and the goddess. So I'll read the koan and then I'll talk a little bit about this koan, this story, and then we'll do a little bit of koan exploration together. The person who wrote the commentary to this koan, for those of you who are following along in the book or even if you're not, it's Chosen, Chosen Roshi.
• 1:55
  So it starts. A goddess met the Arhant Shariputra, and they began to converse. He was impressed with her great wisdom, but he wondered why she continued to be female since surely being male would be preferable. He asked, why don't you transform yourself out of your female state? The goddess said, I have looked for the innate characteristics of the female form to no avail.
• 2:29
  How can I change them? If a magician created the illusion of a woman, would you ask her, why don't you transform yourself out of your female state? Sherepucha replied, no. Such a woman would not really exist. So what would there be to transform?
• 2:50
  The goddess said, just so all things do not really exist. So how can you ask something that doesn't exist to change its form? Then the goddess, by supernatural power, changed Sariputra into a likeness of herself and changed herself into a likeness of Sariputra and asked, why don't you transform yourself out of your female state? Charipotra cried, I no longer appear in the form of a male. My body has changed into a woman's body.
• 3:34
  I don't know what to transform. She replied, just as you are not really a woman but appear to be female in form, all women appear to be female in form but are not really women. Therefore, Buddha said that all beings are not really men or women. Then she changed Sariputra back into his own form and asked, and where is your female form now? So that's our that's our koan.
• 4:14
  And I want to talk a little bit about the Vimalakirti Sutra and just the the context for where this interaction is arising. So the Vimalakirti Sutra is part of the Mahayana Sutras. So many of you know, and this is just a very, like, brief dip into talking about the history of Buddhism, but many of you have heard of the three turnings of the wheel. And that, is a one way that we have to kind of conceptually understand the different teachings that arose at different times, throughout the course, throughout the history of, current present day Buddhism and what we understand of Buddhism. So the first turning of the wheel is often the grouping of teachings, that are sometimes called the teachings of the elders or, the original teachings of the Buddha, the Theravatana tradition, and those can trace their roots back to the Pali Canon.
• 5:23
  So the time that the Buddha was walking this earth and teaching, that's the group of teachings that we sometimes call the first turning of the wheel. And the second turning of the wheel emerged two hundred to five hundred years after, the original teachings of the Buddha. And, you know, this is, you know, something weird like we'll we now, you know, two thousand five hundred ish years after the Buddha are looking back and cataloging this history that wasn't, you know, so linear and so defined. It wasn't like, okay, now we're in the Mahayana, and everybody agrees that this is the Mahayana. It was much more organic, like all things, like all ways that things change and transform.
• 6:14
  Like, it was much more organic. So even the collections of sutras that we call the Mahayana and the Vimalakirti very much falls into this, it's still the Mahayana trying to like figure out what it is. And so the teachings that are emerging that we call the Mahayana are in somewhat in a kind of reaction or conversation or, fleshing out of the original teachings of the Buddha and how they're being practiced at that time. So, after the Buddha died and hundreds of years after the Buddha died, there became this monastic elite. And even though the original teachings of the Buddha never said that only men can become enlightened, and only ordained men, and only people who are following these, like, 200 or so rules that are laid out in the Vinaya, only these people can become enlightened.
• 7:17
  The Buddha never said that, but that was becoming the message that was being practiced, at the time that the Mahayana starts to emerge. And the Mahayana is emerging kind of as a reaction to this this kind of purity fundamentalist way of teaching Buddhism that was that was emerging at the time. So they were, like, emphasizing certain teachings or certain readings or interpretations of the teachings that the Buddha never really said, but were becoming more and more part of the doctrine. And one of those that we're still finding today, still living with today, is that the only way to become enlightened is if you're in a male body. And that honestly does.
• 8:08
  There are streams of that belief that still exists in the world today. But the Mahayana was coming back to this really revolutionary idea of nonduality and trying to flesh it out and and trying to understand what does nonduality actually mean, and how do we live and practice that? And, you know, Zen also comes back to that. So in the Vimalakirti Sutra, we find, like, the beginnings of Zen. We also find still, this conversation with the elders and the original teachings of the Buddha, and we we see this emergence of the Bodhisattva ideal.
• 8:52
  So another reaction that the Mahayana was having or another conversation that the Mahayana was having was this idea that to become awakened means to to, like, go off into nirvana, to transcend the suffering of the world. And, like, from the teaching, from the spirit of nonduality, there was this appreciation that this isn't this is awakening. This life is awakening no matter what manifestation, no matter if you're male, female, genderqueer, trans, no matter if you're, lay or ordained, no matter if you're sick or healthy, like anybody, everybody has awakened nature. Awakened nature isn't dependent on anything. No matter how purely you keep the rules, no matter how much renunciation you practice, no matter if you're a householder and have many kids, like awakened nature isn't dependent on causes and conditions.
• 10:03
  And so that's and that's, you know, hard to really live and hard to really understand. So this Vimalakirti Sutra is a series of conversations that people are having with Vimalakirti, who is a lay person, and is, is manifesting as a sick person. So one of the first conversations that Vimalakirti has is with the Bodhisattva Manjushri. And the Buddha kind of sends Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of wisdom, to go check on Vimalakirti. And Manjushri is quite reluctant, and is like, like, I don't wanna go to that lay person's house.
• 10:47
  Like, he's too wise. He shows everyone up. Like, I'm not going. And the Buddha's like, come on. He's sick.
• 10:56
  Like, go check on him. So eventually, Manjushri goes. And one of the things Manjushri says to Vimalakirti right from the beginning is why come on, like, you are a realized being. You're a bodhisattva. Like, why are you manifesting as a sick person?
• 11:13
  And Bimalakirti says, I'm sick because the world is sick. That's one of the first lines in this dialogue of the Bimalakirti Sutra, and it's the expression of this bodhisattva vow. Like, I don't turn away from the suffering of the world. I am awakened right here in the midst of it, and that includes sickness. That includes old age.
• 11:38
  That includes death. So I wanna read just a little bit of what Joan Sutherland writes a really beautiful commentary to the Vimalakirti Sutra. It's called Vimalakirti and the Awakened Heart. And in her introduction, she's she's tracing the Vimalakirti back to, like, the early kind of precursor to the Zen koans. So this is before before the Zen tradition, this this sutra was recorded and, was being recited.
• 12:20
  So she says the sutra is also popular in China because it's about a householder living the kind of life many people could relate to. Vimalakirti embodies a number of provocative dualities. In addition to being a sick bodhisattva, he's a rich man who gives all of his money to the poor. Someone who lives among family and employees on a great estate, but remains solitary, has children and frequents brothels, but is celibate. Goes to bars, but doesn't get drunk.
• 13:00
  He's equally at home in a court of law, the women's quarters, a classroom, or standing on a street corner. The necessary antidote to any situation he teaches humility to the Brahmins and helps ordinary people gain prosperity and political power. The Koans speak of him as an extraordinary improbability. So it's a little bit about who Vimalakirti is. And, you know, this is it's a myth.
• 13:33
  This is a sutra that emerges, like I said, at a political moment, at a moment of this evolution of of the dharma of Buddhism. And so it's this conversation, these these principles, these ways of practice are being kind of worked out in the collective, and Vimalakirti embodies these, like, seeming opposites. And so that's really very much why, the Koan tradition traces its roots back to the Malakirti because, you know, so much of what we're doing in the Koans is we're being asked to hold this tension of opposites. And, you know, some teachers say, and find the third thing. But Chosin says it differently.
• 14:26
  So I wanna I wanna read a little bit about read a little bit from Chosin's commentary. And this is the first thing she said she says in her commentary. Once someone asked me, in India, is said that you cannot be enlightened if you are a woman. What does Zen say about this? So, you know, this is a this is an honest question that Chosen had now, like, you know, in in this era.
• 14:55
  And they say, what does Zen say about this? And Chosen said, I answered. In Zen practice, we say that in order to be enlightened, you must become completely a woman, completely a man, both and neither. And so she's also using skillful means in her reply to that to that question, and she might answer that question differently depending on who asked it. But, you know, this is what what Chosen Answers is important to understand from a koan practice perspective.
• 15:36
  So it reflects Rinzai's teaching called the four positions. And I'll I just wanna speak that first. So Rinzai says, sometimes I take away the person and leave the environment. Sometimes I take the environment and leave the person. Sometimes I leave both person and environment, and sometimes I take them both away.
• 16:05
  So Chosen says that and, you know, depending on the koan, she would say it differently depending on what the duality is. But she says, like, first, you need to be fully a, and then fully b, both, and neither. And that's the flexibility that koan practice invites us to be able to take up a position completely. You know, and we're human, so we try it on as best we can, and we notice what we bump up against, and that's all information. And then we try on b completely, as completely as possible.
• 16:45
  And then we see, oh, what's it like to hold both? And then what's it like to drop it completely? And so we've tried this on Monday nights, and some of you might remember of, like, trying on, and you can do this, like, in interpersonal relationship. Right? Like, trying on the other person's perspective if you're in a conflict.
• 17:15
  And then trying on your perspective, like, letting go of their perspective and then trying yours back on. And then see, well, what's it like to hold both? And then what's it like just as an experiment to drop it completely? And then sometimes as we move through that process and then the process of dropping, we know something about all of that territory, and perhaps have the ability to take whatever position we favored most or felt more like us, we felt like we had more stake in, to to take it a little more lightly, to see its empty nature. And that sometimes can give us, you know, better perspective on how to engage, you know, how to make a decision if we need to make a decision.
• 18:16
  So, you know, another example of this that we've been exploring more recently on Monday nights is, you know, a couple weeks ago, we were practicing with the Koan Mountain, and we're also practicing with the koan mirror. And these koans these are koans that really point us back to qualities of the nature of mind, but they also can be tried on in this four position perspective. So if we tried on a, that would be the stillness of the mountain or the clarity of the mirror. And so you would be invited to really sit as that stillness or as that clarity or move through your day staying aware of that stillness, that clarity. And then if you were trying on b, that would be the activity of the mountain, the movements of the clouds and the people and the trees and the ants and the critters and the dirt and the wind and all the things.
• 19:37
  So, you know, that's all the stuff of our life, the movement of mind and the movement of body sensations, changing, changing, changing. So we'd be invited to be aware of the change. And then we'd be invited to be aware of both. Can you feel the stillness and the change? Or in the midst of change, can you know the clarity of mind even as thoughts come and go, even in the midst of a conversation.
• 20:19
  And then we'd be invited just to drop that whole thing. Let the mountain dissolve. Let the mirror dissolve. But after going through that process of being the mountain, being the stillness, being the activity, being both, then dropping it, and there's a little afterglow that you sit in as you let go of all positions. So how might we engage with the koan of the goddess transforms or the goddess transformation the goddesses transformations?
• 21:01
  You know, one is we could look at the masculine and the feminine. So the masculine principle in Buddhism is more like the yang principle, active. In Tibetan Buddhism, masculine is thought of as the compassion aspect, the skillful means aspect. And the feminine aspect is more the yin principle, receptivity, spaciousness, pure potential energy. In the Tibetan tradition, it's the emptiness side of reality.
• 21:41
  And so you would practice recognizing or being the activity, the spontaneous flow of activity, and you would practice being the space. So it's not that different than the mountain koan in some ways. Receptive. And then you would practice recognizing both, the yin and the yang, and then you would drop it. Another way to take up this koan is to take up the characters in the story.
• 22:26
  And so this is less, like, archetypal, less, like, pointing out aspects of the nature of mind, and more, like, playing in the messiness of being human and taking on these different forms and perspectives. So it has more of a dream work element, but some koans are like this. They they show us more about the stuff of our life and the different perspectives that we might get hooked up on. And so first, we would be Sariputra. And in this story of the goddess so we just got a little part of the chapter, the goddess chapter of the Vimalakirti Sutra, and the the goddess chapter actually starts with, you know, the goddess is is listening to these conversations as these different bodhisattvas are coming in and having debate with Vimalakirti.
• 23:29
  And it's said that she has been in the room all along, like, for years, decades. She's, like, been in this room, and she manifests. She appears. She takes the form of the goddess. And when she does, when she appears, flowers rain down.
• 23:49
  And the flowers rain down, and they fall at all of the Bodhisattva's feet who are still in the room. At one point, there are, like, hundreds of people in this room that's the size of the Sanzen hut. So that's another koan that's part of this Vimalakirti Sutra is how do all the people fit in the room. But here's another koan. The flowers rain down, and they fall at the Bodhisattva's feet, but the elder monks, they attach to their bodies.
• 24:21
  And Shariputra, how he kind of enters the story, is he's trying to get the flower off, but it won't come off. And he's saying, like, well, I'm, you know, I I taken all these vows. I'm a renunciate. I shouldn't have a flower. I'm not allowed to adorn my body with flowers.
• 24:42
  And the goddess kind of gets into a conversation with him about nonduality from that. Like, okay. Like, it's just a flower. It's causing you so much distress. So that's part of where the conversation starts.
• 24:59
  So we have Sariputra. I just wanted to flesh out a little bit more who Sariputra is in this story. You know, it s a caricature of a being. So Sariputra is a celibate monk. He has a quality of purity, quality of kind of identification with purity with his vows, with his renunciation vows.
• 25:23
  He also has a confidence. He knows the doctrine that he's been taught. He believes that you really do have to be a man in order to become awakened. He has a logical quality. He's described as being very intelligent.
• 25:44
  And you might say he's also perhaps the part of us that wants to be right and prove that we're right. He has that quality too. And so, like, calling that aspect of being to mind, and you might notice, like, where you feel more identified with perhaps this character and where you feel very averse to aspects of this character or neutral. You might notice like if you were being Shariputra, and this is a part of Koan practice is this invitation to really just like let yourself embody that aspect of being and to notice where we kind of don't want to, like, no, uh-uh, that's not me. Well, that's curious.
• 26:39
  So how if you were being Charipotra right now, like, how would you sit or hold your body? You let yourself imagine into that. What's the Sariputra stance? And just notice what that feels like to let yourself inhabit or be inhabited by this wise, celibate, of know it all monk who has a great, great vows of purity, renunciation. Just how you might look at other practitioners from your Sariputra seat.
• 27:41
  And then be asked to step out of that and see if we can find the goddess. And so the goddess embodies a kind of Prajna wisdom. You know, it's said at the beginning of this story that Chariputra was impressed with the goddess's wisdom I'm told she's embodies a female body. She has a quality of sensualness, like the flowers come down with her, and she's interested in them, associated with flowers. She also has a playfulness.
• 28:25
  She turned Chariputra into a woman. She turned herself into Chariputra. She can shape shift. She's playful. She's a goddess.
• 28:36
  So there's a quality of royalty, of embodying a kind of royalty and a bodhisattva ideal. So just see if you can let yourself now move into this more sensual expression, female expression, playful expression of practice. And just notice where there might be resistance to that. And notice if the resistance has a flavor to it. Oh, I'm not supposed to.
• 29:19
  That's not for me or some other voice. And then see, like, see if you can find it even just a little bit. Oh, what's what's this goddess like? What does it feel like to allow the goddess here in you to be the goddess, to see through her eyes. And then stepping out of the goddess.
• 30:11
  And then see if you can find in your body both. So you now know what Chariputra felt like. You had a little taste of the goddess. What is it like to kinda sit in the middle to allow them both to be here? Maybe you feel one in one part of your body and one in the other.
• 30:36
  Maybe there are qualities of each that you can stay in touch with. Now can these two, you know, seemingly opposite or different energies coexist? And then see if you can step out completely. So maybe, like, shifting back a little bit and letting them, like, be in front of you or just kinda shaking out your body and just imagine energetically just dropping the whole story. Letting go of Shariputra, letting go of the goddess, and just being here now.
• 31:49
  I'm just kind of noticing what's in the afterglow. Emptying out. And then you can let yourself if you were exploring that koan, you can let yourself just shake it out a little bit. So there's, you know, different things we can learn from doing an exercise like that. One, like I said, it it teaches that flexibility.
• 32:52
  Tosin was really keen on that aspect of koan practice, and she really felt like Zen training gives us the ability to turn on a dime, like, to be able to respond and embody, you know, different qualities of awakening for different situations depending on what's needed, which is the quality of the Bodhisattva that's described in different sutras and Shantideva's way of the Bodhisattva. But it also can be a mirror for us about our projections, judgments, and get a sense of, like, where we feel more comfortable, where our identity lies, where we feel more strong sense of self, what we feel comfortable inhabiting. At the, end of her commentary chosen, this is kind of guided meditation as she talks about Zazen. And she says, Zazen allows us to zoom in like a microscope, past skin and hair sinking into the commonality of bone and flesh, of carbon and hydrogen, all the way down to gluons and quarks dancing in empty space. A field of potential energy filled with forms flashing in and out of existence.
• 34:35
  And then she goes on, Zazen also allows us to zoom out like a telescope past city, nation, planet, and solar system, all the way out to pulsars and black holes dancing in empty space. A field of potential energy filled with form flashing in and out of existence. So that's another aspect of doing something like this and then getting to the the neither is, like, sometimes and and this is part of the visualization practice in Tibetan Buddhism. You, like, put a lot of energy and concentration into visualizing these kind of elaborate forms and thankas. And then at the end, you just dissolve it all and you rest in spaciousness.
• 35:39
  And that's, you know, similar to, like, we're trying on these different perspectives in koan practice, and then we just drop it all, empty out, come back to this basic spaciousness that, you know, Chosin, one of the things I really appreciate about her, and we we just celebrated her eightieth birthday, and a number of her, successors got together, and we were talking about things that we really appreciated about her. And and everybody mentioned that she's both practical and mystical. Like, she somehow has a good balance of both of those. And that that, you know, meditation that she has at the end where she talks about Za Zhen, she's talking about spaciousness, This really fundamental aspect of our being, but in a really practical way of, like, oh, if you really zoom in, you know, zoom in past sinew and bone, there's, you know, the fundamental building block of life, of the atom, is space. It's mostly space.
• 36:50
  And if we zoom out, it's mostly space. And so we can entertain these different forms, but let spaciousness be our ground.
• 37:14
  Jomon: Thank you for listening to the Zen Community of Oregon podcast, and thank you for your practice. New episodes air every week. Please consider making a donation at zendust.org. Your support supports us.