Immigrant Buddhism | 'Ask Us Anything' With Denny K Miu (11-24-2020)

We sum up the themes of our last two conversations on Mahayana and Theravada while adding in the 3rd Buddhist Council. We get into Zen Buddhism after wrapping-up the developmental history of Buddhism in China, South East Asia and Tibet.

Also mentioned:
-The Sutra of Forty-two Chapters
-Discourse on the Eight Realizations of the Great Beings
-Guanyin
-Daoism
-Green Tara and White Tara
-Yi Jin Jing
-Seon meditation
-The Search for the Buddha: The Men Who Discovered India’s Lost Religion

Transcript

Drum roll. Hi, Everyone. Thank you for joining our show. Last Tuesday of every month at 10 a. M. Pacific time, Josh and I, The dumb and dumber of Buddha Dharma. And I hope you guys don't mind and just humor us because we're doing it. We're doing it because it's just so much fun for us. Hi, Josh, How are you? Hey, Denny. Yeah, It's weird talking beforehand about Denny just shaved and I'm actually growing out a beard for the winter that I've done the past few years anyway, But starting early this year. But anyway, I'm not shaved today. It would take me another five years to get to where you are. So I wouldn't want to overstaying it by saying that I shaved. I didn't I don't know what I did, But you know, I probably just took the eraser and just broken off. But anyway, Like the Photoshop eraser. Yeah. And then also to tie in what we were picking up last time, We talked a lot about food in the different Theravada things for monks about food. And here Denny gets a refrigerator today and I'm outside picking up trash by the fast food restaurants in my neighborhood. So how about that? We're not necessarily talking about food, But we were talking about diet. Oh, Getting alms. Yeah, Getting alms. So the idea that. . . And storing food too, Or not storing food. What we were really talking about last time was really the comparison between the Theravada Buddhism and the Mahayana Buddhism. And with pointing out the irony of how those two really doesn't describe who they are, Because the Mahayana to be accurate is really the Chinese Buddhism, Whereas the Theravada is to be accurate is really more of the Southern branch of Buddhism. And if I remember correctly, We were talking about how sometimes one side takes something very, Very seriously, And then it turns around and takes something else kind of not so seriously. And we were talking about diet, Vegetarian diet and how the Theravada Buddhism, They can eat meat as long as they don't, They're not the one that caused the killing and the suffering because they do the arm, They go out and back for food, Right? Whereas the Mahayana Buddhism, Once they get to China, The Chinese culture just doesn't support bagging. It doesn't work for them. And so what they end up doing is that they grew their own food, They have to grow their own food. And so then they become very strict in the diet. But anyway- We talked about the council and the different rules of dispute, Right? The things of dispute. Yeah. Yeah. So we kind of went out, Went a big food circle and what we really want to talk about initially was really about American Buddhism. What is the future for Buddhism in America? And I make the point that we're not there yet. We're not even at the beginning yet. And because what I wanted to talk about is how there is no one Buddhism. Every time the teaching show up in a particular corner of the universe, They almost always fail the first time. And then they then have to come back and get localized into the culture. And so in that sense, All the Buddhism that we see in America, They have not been localized yet. So I make the distinction between American Buddhism, Which doesn't exist, But it will, Because we just have to go through that. And versus what I would call the immigrant Buddhism, The Buddhism that exists today are essentially practices that were brought here by immigrants who happen to come from a different part of the world. And so it's kind of important for us to really understand where they come from and their circle development. And so should we continue? Sure. Yes. And then that's you know, If it is there, If there is an American Buddhism, I would say it's, It's, It's very exploratory stages or pioneering stages or development stages. Yes. And then the last two shows, We kind of talked about what Denny just mentioned and also you know, The Theravada and the, And the, And, And the derogatory term, Hinayana. And also we talked a little about Chinese Buddhism too. So we're going to try to wrap that up and then possibly, Well, Denny, Where, Where, Where are you going to, Where are we going to lead to today after that wrap up? Well, We'd like to, We'd like to wrap up the historical development of Buddhism. And, And so that gives a context to all the different sects of Buddhism that show up in America. Right? So probably America is unique in that we have so many different sects. Whereas if you go anywhere else, It's, It, You know, You go to Chinese Buddhism, You might see Tibetan, You might see Japanese Zen, But it's, It's very rare and it's dominated by, By its own, Its own culture. So I do want to, The word that I was looking for last time was, Was tempus in a teapot. Oh yeah. So I do want people understand that the reason that we want to bring up this, This thing called the Hinayana, Which means small vehicle is that it is a, It is a tempus in the teapot in that it's a, It's, It's a terminology that is used by the Chinese Buddhist to kind of pigeonhole or classify the, The Theravada Buddhism. And, And unfortunately, Even though we're not supposed to use that word because it's, It's, It's meant as an insult not so much by the person who is supposed to receive the insult because he doesn't see it. The Theravada monk don't know what you're talking about when you say Hinayana. It's just, It reflects to me. I really want people to stop using it. And unfortunately the, The word Hinayana might not be used, But the Chinese version of that is used every day. It's used every day and that should be stopped. That should be stopped because it's, First of all, It's, It's, It's an insult and it's not even accurate both in context, In, In, In, In history. So let me just pop up this, This chart here. Cool. And you know, This, The that it's all about intent too. So if it's intended as an insult, Then obviously it's not wholesome, You know, Or skillful. And then some people might even use it and not even realize that if the initial, You know, Creation of the word was a, Was a derogatory intent and they just use it unknowingly. It's still, You know, It still has that intent built into it as you know, The superlative. So it's a good thing. I think there's a lot of terms that we use in our everyday life that we just stopped using because it's, It's, It hurts people, You know, It's meant to hurt people that, That should be stopped. Okay. Right. If it has the intent to harm, Then yeah, Then there's, Then that's causing harm and should, Ought to be stopped. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, Anyway, I think, I think this, This chart here shows kind of the, The, The title is called a proliferation of Buddhism. And of course it all start here. And here is the northern part of, Of, Of India. In fact Buddha, The historical Buddha was actually born inside of Nepal. And then of course most of his work now, Most of his work was done in India, But at the time, You know, Like 2, 600 years ago, There were no borders. So present day Nepal. Present day Nepal. Yeah. Now of course you just look at the timing. So, So CE is, Is what we call a common era. Well sometimes we use AD after death. So, So we don't do that because that's, That's Christian. So we just use common era, But that's basically a century after the birth of Christ. And then when we say BCE, That's before common era, Or we used to call BC before Christ. Right. So you can tell that just, Just kind of pick up. So when we say Theravada Buddhism, That's the yellow part. And, And I'll, I'll have the next chart to talk about how it first, There was a time when Buddhism kind of just spread out and it came to Sri Lanka. And then from Sri Lanka, It went to Burma or Myanmar, Or some people actually even argued that it went directly to Myanmar. Okay. Now this is Thailand. Now, Interestingly, When I have a chance, I'll talk about Buddhism in Thailand. Buddhism in Thailand is actually relatively new. It's less than a thousand years. It's actually interesting how new it is. And it has something to do with Mongolians, But that's a different story. I'll talk about that. And then eventually the Theravada Buddhism came, Went to Laos and Cambodia. And, And we don't hear a lot about it's a small country. Yeah. It's a small, Those two are very small country, Both in size and, And in number of people. And, And they're just now starting to open up for, For tourists. So a lot of people from the West and I know it's very little, We know a lot of, A lot about Thai because it's so open. And so we tend to think that, You know, The Thai Buddhism is very old, But I'm, My point is that it's actually not very old. And there's some Thai, A quick aside, There's some Thai forest traditions here, Or in California there's a Bai Giri is one of them. Absolutely. Absolutely. Again, I call that, I call all that immigrant Buddhism. Right. So, So they were here, You know, Initially to serve the Thai immigrants and maybe, Maybe, But now at one point Buddhism actually went all the way to Indonesia, Which is down here. This is Philippine, But they actually went all the way down to Indonesia. You can, You can see a lot of the ruins in, In Indonesia. Now, Of course, Then when the Indonesian became Muslim, Then, Then that, Then, Then that, They got kicked out. Okay. So, So all of that is, Is called Theravada. Okay. That's all called Theravada. Now then this part is what we call Mahayana, But actually there's two, Two distinct sects. One is what we call the Chinese Buddhism, And one is called the Tibetan Buddhism. Both of them are considered Mahayana Buddhism. Okay. And initially the, The Buddhism actually went to the, This, This region, Which is, Which is, This is North India and then North India borders with Pakistan, Pakistan borders with Afghanistan. And what we know about Kashmir is actually right at the, The China triangle. So it's interesting that actually Buddhism went to Kashmir first, Naturally went to Kashmir and went to, And again, You can see a lot of relics. You remember back when Taliban was in control of the northern part of Pakistan and northern part of Afghanistan, One of the thing that they did was that they blew up all the giant Buddhist statue. Okay. So you can, That's, That's a sort of relic of, Of Buddhism, You know, At first. And then from here, They actually went to, You know, Kazakhstan and all that. And then you went to the, Came into China. So that was the first time that, That Buddhism was brought into China. Now this says that first century common era. So this is, This is like four or 500 years after, At least 400 years after the death of, Of a Buddha. But I will talk about this a little bit because initially when it came to China, It wasn't Mahayana. If you look at the scripture that, That came at that time, It was, It's actually a lot closer to the Agama teaching a lot closer to the Theravada teaching. Okay. Which is very interesting. Now then eventually from here, It went to Korea. And then from Korea and it went to Japan. Now these, This is, This is actually fourth century and sixth century. This is when Buddhism first went to Korea and Japan, But not Zen Buddhism. Zen Buddhism actually went there much later than that. Okay. Because the Tom dynasty is, Is six, Around six centuries, Six or seven century. And the, When we say, You know, The Soto Zen and, And those are actually hundreds of years after the death of the sixth patriarch, Which, So they're, They're more like the 11th century and the 12th century. Okay. All right. So this is, This is a chart. So what I want to talk next is then how, How, What was the initial proliferation of Buddhism? Right. So if we borrow this word called proliferation, Where did it go first? Where did it go first? Because it didn't have, None of these happens. These kind of all kind of was much later when it first went out of India, It started. And so, So the next chart is, Is it's a good one. So the next chart is the, So this is, This is, These are the dates that are kind of more or less a group upon except that the Chinese Buddhism tend to think that it's much earlier than that. And there's a whole story on why they think that it's earlier than that, Because they have to date it before the birth of Confucius. Okay. Crazy. So anyway, But this, This is internationally, This is what we sort of agreed on. Okay. That, That Buddha was born and then Buddha passed away and he was, You know, 80 years old when he passed away and then and then a king, A king of Sukkah. And then eventually there was what we call a council. So, So historical, There has been three, Three or four councils. We're only going to talk about three councils. The first council was right after the death of Buddha was immediately after the death of Buddha. It wasn't exactly immediate, But only because they have to wait until the end of the rainy season and they have to wait for people to come back. And so Maha Kasapa is the most senior. So did I pronounce that right, Josh? That sounds right. Okay. All right. Maha Kasapa. Maha just means big. Maha means big. Now let me, Let me talk about this. So Kasapa is the name of the three brothers who actually brought about a thousand students to Buddha. So, So Buddha, Buddha was not in the retail business. He was in the wholesale business. He, He didn't actually have one or two, You know, He didn't get students one at a time. So when we talk about like the sutras, We say, Oh, He, You know, We always say like he had 2, 500 students. This is always the sutra. They say that. The first thousand students came from three brothers who also have the name of Kasapa. And so the oldest brother brought 500 and then the younger two brothers brought 250 each. And so that, So he, You know, He, He was, He, He, He, There's a lot of discussion on that because that was intentional that Buddha decided that what he wanted to do was to really enlighten the leaders, The religious leaders, And then, And then they brought them with them. Now that also explains why Buddhism is so complex because when you talk about the different sects, They actually start with, They already exist before Buddha. They actually exist before Buddha and Buddha kind of brought them into the fold. And so they each have their own kind of unique uniqueness because not because of Buddha's teaching, But because of the initial condition. You're talking about, You're talking about like, They were ascetics before, Right? They were ascetics before they have my own methodology. Okay. And then they, And then they came under the, You know, They joined the Buddha's kind of order, Right? Right. Right. So as a side note here, An addendum that there's plenty of suttas too, That were, You know, Just, You know, Here and there people would come to see the Buddha or he would encounter people and they would end up joining too. But it was more kind of an individual one, But you're talking to get more of the mass of the mass. So this, This, The first Buddhist council is, Is, Is there's no controversial in that. Really agree on that, That immediately after the death of the historical Buddha, His most senior student Maha Ksapa called together, You know, 500 of his, His disciples, His most senior disciples, These are all Arahant. And, And the word Theravada meant that, Meant the, The, The, The, The, The, The venue bulls. Except for Ananda has, That's an interesting story. He was an Arahant, But just at the last minute before he joined, Right? Well, The reason for that is that he couldn't be an Arahant. He couldn't, He, He was, He was, He wasn't even a bhichu. He, Because had he been a bhichu. I'm talking about the first council. I understand that. What I'm saying is that, Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, Ananda who, Who, Who was, Um, Who was Buddha's cousin on the day that he became enlightened, Who later on became his, Uh, His, Uh, Attendant, He, He had to be, Uh, Uh, Uh, A novice monk because had he graduated himself to become a full, Full blood, Bhichu, Bhichu, Bhichu, Bhichu, Bhi, Bhi, He would have been sent away. So he didn't want to be sent away. So he, He never actually practiced. He, He was the guy, He was like me, You know, Just like, Except that, You know, I didn't use my memory. I used my, My, My, Uh, My, My video recorder, You know, But I'm talking about that to be able, Since he memorized pretty much all the teachings, Right. He had to, He had an agreement with Buddha in that, Um, He had to attend, You know, To be for him to be the disciple. He has to attend all the lectures. And not only that, But had, If he were the missed one, For example, You know, If Buddha had went to a different realm for his teaching where another couldn't follow, He has to come back and repeat it. And so that's why, You know, He has his, His, His incredible photographic memory. And so, So he was invited into the council, Except that he wasn't a, He wasn't an Arahant because he never actually, So it took him three days. And then the interesting part is, You know, He was trying so hard and, And at the last minute, Right when he was laying his head down to go to sleep is when he, You have to give up. Right. Yeah. Yeah. No, No, It's true. I mean, It's just the moral of the story is that the harder you try the worse it gets. You know, The Taoists, Uh, If, If in the future, We will, We'll have a, We might have a time to talk about the Taoist teaching and, You know, The Taoist teaching come from Laozi, Uh, You know, Um, And his, His writing was something called the Tao teaching. I don't know the English. And in there, There's a, There's a very famous phrase that says that, You know, If you were studying, If you were studying, If your purpose is to study as if you're, You know, Like book knowledge, Then you would gain every day. You know, The more, The more, The more you study, The more you gain. And then it says right there, He said, But if you, If your purpose is to practice, Then the more you study it, The worse it gets. It's about, Yeah. Surrendering. That's a great story for surrendering, Relinquishing, Um, You know, Abandoning, Those are all languages used, Renounce renunciation. So yeah, Those are, Um, But it's, It's, It's most people in the West think of those things as negative thing. It's more about renouncing and abandoning, You know, The unwholesome. We need to talk about that in the future. So let's continue with this. And so the purpose of the, Of the gathering wasn't even about, Uh, Ananda. It was about another, Uh, Another, Uh, Uh, Senior student. And, And the reason for that is that as soon as, Um, Uh, Buddha passed away, All the students kind of say, Hey, We're free. And then, And then, Uh, Mahakasad Kapasad said, No, Not so fast. So he called the council and they spent most of the time, Um, You know, Really, Uh, Put together a set of rules, A set of, Uh, For the, For the monastics, You know, And then it was only after they did that, Then they call upon, Uh, Ananda to say, Hey, Let's focus now on, Unless let's now agree on a Buddhist teaching. So when we talk about the suttas that are study in Southeast Asia, That's all about, Uh, All the telewater teaching, Um, They came from that they were, They were pat, You know, Of course the back then there were no right, No written language, But they were actually pass on from generation generation by oral, By essentially, Uh, You call that high singing, Right? Uh, Say it again, Singing. They actually, Oh yeah. Cause a poly is such like a, Um, A lyrical language and the Buddha's, Uh, Teachings were kind of, Excuse me with my eye there were structured. So where it has like a refrain, Like a song, You know, It repeated over and over again for memorization. Um, And we also have to realize that, You know, This is what, Um, Was heard, Right? It's not exact, You know, It, It, It was based on the level of, Um, Kind of accomplishment of whoever recorded it as well. And like, Like I think we've said earlier, You know, One person will say one thing, But if another person says, Oh, I don't remember that, Well, Then it didn't go in right. There had to be consensus. Correct. Correct. So it was very, Very, Um, So they were, They were throwing out things more than they were, They were accepting things, You know, If one, If one, One disagrees as I didn't hear that and so, Well then, Okay. And which is amazing because the poly canon is so massive, The three. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So then that's, That's what we call the first council. So that, That's the, That's the beginning of all the televada teaching. Keep in mind that the Chinese Buddhism, The Tibetan Buddhism, They didn't, That wasn't even in the horizon yet. Okay. Now the second interesting thing, And we talked about that last time. So this is in some way, This is still a review that the second council happened about a hundred years later. And so, Um, Either a hundred or 200, But I, I, Um, A hundred, This is a hundred years later. Um, And it came from a disagreement, Uh, Between two different groups of, Of monks, Two twins of monastics. And it has to do with the issue of money. And the original teaching of, Of, Uh, Buddha was that, Um, They have to renounce the aim. So when they renounce the aid, They have no use of money. Now, Of course they did that. He did that because all her students were like super rich, You know, Like they were just super rich. So they have in order for them to, To, To be his student, You know, They have to give up, Right? So they have to, He, He would make him, Make them into beggars, You know, That's the, That's the word, Bhikkhu means. And so, Um, Then of course, As time goes on, It becomes impractical and, And still they will not accept money. And so the story was that then they put a, A pot and they allowed the decide the, The disciples to throw money into the pot and then they would collect it indirectly. And so the other side said, No, No, No, That's it. They can't do that. And so they had this, This big powwow. And that was sort of the split, You know, The initial split now between some people would argue that they're the Mahayana and the Hinayana, But that's not, That's actually not accurate, Uh, But it is accurate that there was a split. And always about money, Huh? That's it. It comes to this religion. Religion is all about money. Well, I mean, Just pretty much organized religion, Everything about money. And it has always been about money. And one of these things, The systems we're living in now as well, But I mean, That's for good and bad, You know? Well, Money, Money, Keep in mind that money, Religion is a language and money is another language. Exactly. Yep. It's a, It's a, It's an idea at the heart too, You know, There's an idea. So, So, So the, So we talk about that. There was this 10 points of controversy, Which very interestingly, The money was the last one. The first one is about salt. It was about, You know, Can you preserve your offering, You know, If you get enough today, You know, In other words, Can you, Can I, Is it okay for me to carry an icebox with me? Right. That kind of thing. Right. And, And so the, The, The, The very rigorous orthodox, Autodotic, Uh, Success, No, You can't do that. You can't even carry salt because the Buddhist original Buddhist teaching is very clear that you don't do any cooking. You don't do any, Any farming. You just go and beg for food and you do that once a day and you pick a random direction. So you're not repeating yourself and you go down and you go down five houses. It was very, Very clear. And so every house you don't enter you're not, And you don't say anything and it didn't come out, Offer you food. You go to the next one. And if you go through five and you didn't get any offering, Well, Then sorry, Try again. Next, Next year you go hungry. But if you, If you go five, Uh, You can't go to the six. And if you, If you go through three and you have enough for the day, You still have to do five. No, You can't stop it. You know, When you get enough food, So it was very, Very rigorous. Can't accept money. Um, You just have your bowl and just have your bowl out. Yeah. You cannot preserve them for tomorrow. If you get too much, You have to, If you take what you can and then you give it to the poor, It's very, Very clear. This is, This is about, Um, Uh, You know, An aesthetic lifestyle, But a middle way, Not too aesthetic where you're starving yourself, But you're, You're, You're reliant and dependent on the community. And also you're out there amongst the community, You know, Regularly and not just off, You know, On the mountain top all the time. So yeah, Actually it actually practices two of the 10 Permian. Right. The monks are practicing. Um, Um, He's practicing the, Uh, What's the word that you give things away. Generosity. Yes. No, The, The, The, The people are practicing generosity. He's practicing renunciation. Yes. So the monks are practicing renunciation, Practicing, Um, Uh, Being humble and, You know, Uh, Being, Uh, Uh, Discipline. And then the, The, The, The, The, The, The, The, The normal people are actually practicing generosity and also equanimity, You know, Because you, You're supposed to offer and not expect anything back. Right. So it's actually a part of the practice. So anyway, Um, So that was the second Buddhist council. There's not much, Uh, Um, Uh, Disagreement on that. Uh, The important things here is really the, The start of the beginning of the split, You know, Of different people's interpretation, One being very, Very rigorous, You know, Don't change a thing. And the other one says, Well, The world's so we should change with it. Now, Finally, Um, The most important, The most, Uh, Important, Uh, Person, Um, In the, Again, Proliferation of Buddhism is King Asukha, Uh, Asukha. Right. So he was, He was born about, Um, 300 years, Uh, After Buddha. Um, He wasn't a Buddhist, Uh, To begin with, But he became one. And then he decided that he, You know, He really wanted to tighten up the, The, Because he just saw too much, Too many people are not following what he would consider the, The, Uh, The, Uh, The Buddhist teaching. So then, Um, He got all the, All of them together and then there was a third council. So the third council was really to first kicked out all the non nonconforming monks. And then, Then they got together and they got there. This is actually the beginning of the, So we talk about the three, We talk about the two, One is the disciplines, The Vinanya. The second is the Buddhist teaching, Which is a Sutra. And then there's a third, The third are all the writings by the monks. Okay. And that started with the third person. So, So when we, When we talked about, Um, Uh, What's, Uh, Abhidhamma. Abhidhamma. You know, Well, There's some controversy, Not controversy, But there's differing opinions in that, And I'm not really qualified to talk about that yet. But the other ones are commentaries too. So that's like the third, The third basket. So that's not, That's not unique to Buddhism. All religions are like that. That's right. So for example, In enlightenment poems too, To throw in there. So, I mean, Look, I know, I know nothing about Islam, But I do know that in Islam, You have to, The, The, You know, What, What came from Muhammad. And then you have other stuff that came from other, You know, Scholars and people don't necessarily study the Quran, You know, They, They could be studying something else. So this happens a lot. So then what's interesting is that once he got all the documentations together and, You know, They start to say, Okay, Here, Here's just set of, You know, Complete, Uh, Set of teaching with the three parts, The, What came from a Buddha directly, Called sutras, The, A code of conduct, Uh, We called the, Uh, Vinanya. And then finally the, Um, Something like the, The Abhidhamma, Some, Some of the commentary, Some other things that are supporting interpretation. So all of that together, It's like the encyclopedia now. Okay. So now it's time to send out the encyclopedia salesman. So the, The history is that he, Uh, The king Ashuka actually sent out nine different, Uh, Missionaries, Nine different groups of missionaries. Um, The one that, Uh, One went as far as Greek. And so actually like in the museum in San Francisco, If you go to the top floor, The Asian Pacific museum, You go to the top floor, They would have the different, Um, Buddhist culture. And they would talk about how the Buddhist statue, Uh, How it changed over time. And there was a period where it looked very much like the Greek artwork. And so that was heavily influenced by, So the Buddhism went to Greece and then it came back with the artwork. Okay. And speaking of that real quick, Um, This is a kind of a fast forward and then a quick re rewind. I just got a book, Haven't got into it yet. It's called the search for the Buddha, The men who discovered India's lost religion, Basically about, You know, How it died out in India, But then it was rediscovered by some of these Westerners. So it's, Um, I've heard a little bit about it. So I'm looking forward to reading that. So, So it went as, It went as far as Greece, Greek Greece, I mean, Greece, I don't even Greek and then, And then it went to Kashmir. We talk about that. Um, And then it went to Miramar and Sri Lanka. Okay. And that was in, That was in the, The third century. So if I now go back to, If I were now go back to the first slide, The first line. So now, So this is, This is what happened is that, Is that, Um, During the, Um, Um, King Asuka time, Um, The Buddhism start to propagate and it went to Kashmir and from Kashmir, It went to Greece and went to Afghanistan, Kashmir, All that. And then it went to different parts of India. And then it came down to Sri Lanka and then it went to Miramar. So that was in the third century BC BCE before common era. Okay. So that hasn't changed, You know, Practically hasn't changed, You know, In terms of what, What the appearance to practice their literature that hasn't changed now. So that that's Theravada, That's Theravada Buddhism. So how did, What happened with the Chinese Buddhism or the Mahayana? So again, Let's go back and let's go back to why, Why the word Yana Yana. So again, We, Last time we talked about the Lotus Sutra and there was a, There was a analogy of a old man with his clan. He's trying to get them out and the house was on fire. And so this, This is about, This is really like us who are so still very much enjoying our material existence. And so the old man is like Buddha. He's trying to get us enlightened, Going back to, To being enlightened entity. And so he, He pulled out this three different cart. One is pulled by a deer and one is pulled by a horse and one is pulled by an oxen. So the idea is the small vehicle, The medium vehicle and the large vehicle. And so what Buddha was basically saying is, Well, The small vehicle is, Is about practice of yourself, You know, How you would relieve of your own suffering. Okay. And then the middle vehicle, And then the large vehicle is about helping as many people as you can. But he meant it as progression. He didn't meant it as a choice. So what about the middle vehicle though? The middle vehicle is, Is I don't, I forgot the word. I know the Chinese word is it's people who become enlightened on their own without actually studying Buddhism. Oh, It's a, Yeah. It's the private Buddha, Right? Yeah. Is that the one? Yeah. That they can actually just, So, So people think that the the Taoist, The, The origin, You know, The, The first patriot of the Taoist, The Lao Tzu was, Was one of those that he was able to enlighten without actually, You know, Without the Buddhist teachings or the Buddhist teaching. He's fully capable of doing that by just observing the nature, The rising and failing of the nature. And so that's different than full Buddhahood though. Right. No, I mean, It's all a path. Oh, You can still get there. Yeah. Oh, Absolutely. Well, The historical Buddha, You know, He, He had teachers, But he had to end up abandoning them, You know? Yeah. Yeah. I think, I guess what's important to me is that people think that there are three different choices. They're not three different choices. There's three different progression progression. Yeah. You know, I always thought, I always said that, You know, You can't be a lifesaver. You can't without knowing how to swim. That makes no sense to me. Right. And on the other hand, You can't be an expert Olympic swimmer, You know, Without wanting to be a lifesaver, Because then it's all about you. That, That makes no sense neither. Right. Because in the end, To be a full Buddhahood, To be fully enlightened, You have to have compassion, Loving kindness, You know, Empathy and equanimity. You can't hide in a cave and become a Buddha. It doesn't work like that. Right. Anyway. So, So that's the word Yana. And so unfortunately the Chinese Buddhism interpreted as a choice as opposed to the progression. So they focus on Mahayana, Which is, Which is the way of the Bodhisattva focusing on helping others, Thinking that in the process you will help yourself. That would be like saying that I don't know how to swim, But if I put on a pair of red shorts and become a lifesavers and you know, Something happens, I'll jump in the water. I will be an expert swimmer automatically. That makes no sense to me, But anyway, I don't know. Okay. So, So what's important to, So, So then after it went to the South Sri Lanka and Marama, Then it stopped to, And then it died out in, In, In Europe, Right. Because of, Because Islam. So then it, It, It went to China. And when you first went to China, It was first century. It was you know, We've been a hundred years after the birth of Jesus. So just looking at that, You can see that there's a difference of 400 years. Just, Just looking at that, Right. That when it first went to Sri Lanka and when it first became the practice of the televada to the point where it went to China, It's already 400 years, Except what is called the Mahayana didn't even start there. Didn't even start when it first, So when it first came to most famous, The most famous, Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, Relic of how Buddhism went to China is this temple or this, This, Uh, Been go to call the white horse. Bingo. There's a very famous, Uh, So when you talk about the silk roll, So this is in fact a silk roll, Right? So this is in fact a silver. Let me go back. So this is in fact a sit what's called the silk roll. Okay. There's another one that goes down, But this is in fact the original silk roll. And so there's somewhere in here, Uh, Um, There's, There's a very famous, Uh, Pangoda called the white horse Pangoda. And this was, Uh, Was the first century, First century. So this is, Uh, This is, Um, So this is, This was in, Uh, 67, Uh, 67 common era. Okay. So it was, It was, Uh, Six, Six, 67 years and two months, Um, Actually it came from, Uh, Actually schmear. It actually came from Kashmir. And then they, They, They, They, They, Uh, They settled into the presence of the case, Uh, Cause Sanistan and they think they came into China. And the story was that one day the Chinese emperor, Uh, Had a dream and the dream was that there was, Um, You know, Really bright light from the west. And so he call in his, His, Uh, His, Uh, His, Uh, His, Uh, His, His, His, His, His prime ministers and whatnot. And he says, I had this dream. And so one guy says, Oh, That was because a great man just was born in the west. And so he says, Well, Then we have to set people there to find out what's going on. So he sent a whole bunch of people. And then this, This group kind of left the capital when, And, And work towards the west. And so of course they were complaining about how they had to live the life of riches, You know, To go west, You know, Where there's nothing but desert. And then halfway there, And they saw these two monk, You know, Carrying all these books on the back of a white horse. And they said, Well, What did you come from? He says, Well, We came from the west. We're, We're going to bring these teaching from Buddha to you. And he said, Well, Then, You know, That's the end of our journey. Let's go back. So they, They built this, This white horse on pain, Gouda. And, And they, So the two monks live there and live in this temple when they start to translate. And so the first, The first, The first, A suit that they translate is called the suit of the 42 chapters. And it's a very simple, It's a style is very much like the, The, The, The Tara Bhatta teaching. Okay. So that wasn't even Mahayana. That was the original. And now, Now let's go back to that. That came, Was that, Was that, That was in Sanskrit, But where did that come from? What country or? Well, The two monks supposedly came from a part of Tibet, Not Tibet, But this is Tibet, But there's another one here called the, You know, Where all the, All the rigorous lift now, No, I'm going to stop here. Okay. No, There's some controversy now. See us. Okay. This is, This is the part that is very controversial right now because of the minorities or the, Or the Uighurs lived there and all the Han, The Han, Han Chinese, You know, Went in there and there's a lot of problem here. So they, They, They were actually, They were actually traveling scholars. So even though they came from that part came from because they actually originally came from Kashmir, You know, But they were traveling and their idea was to travel to China, Bring the teaching to China. And so, So so there, There are three sutras that are very, Very famous that were from that era. You probably know them one master talk. I wish I did. Well, Anyway, The chapter 42 chapters is one. I know the Chinese word. I just don't know the English. There are two others. They're very famous all three. Is it the 30 verses? No, That's, That's not, That's master actually taught one of them one time. Oh, It's a, Well, The retreat I was on, We did the the eight realizations of great beings, But I think that was exactly, Exactly. Okay. That's another one. And then there's one more. Oh, I see. Yeah. Those are very famous. Those are very famous. Yeah. Yeah. We probably will think of it here in a second maybe, But you know, Well, I'm wondering, You know, I always loved tracing the origins and it drives some people batty, You know, Like where did it come from in cash? It came from the era. It came back. So this is, This is worthy of another show is really the original pre pre the pre Mahayana Chinese Buddhism writings. Yes. Yeah. Writing because there's another, There's, There's another, Another story that, That there's another set of a Sutra that, That came from the south, Which came because so we, We, We talked about the elephant thing, Right? The guy that wrote on the elephant and what we're going off a little bit, But just strictly, You know, We all talk about this one month, The tongue tongue month that went to India, But there was another one that predated him. Okay. He went, He actually went there on land and then he came back on sea. And interestingly, When he came back, He went to Sri Lanka and he took with him the, What we call the gamma Sutra. So, So that let's, Let's talk about that in the future. So the point that I'm trying to make here is that there's a 400 year difference between Buddhism first went to Sri Lanka and Buddhism went to China, Except that there's another two or 300 years difference between when it first went to China and then what eventually became Mahayana. And the only thing that I want to, I don't want to give a lot, The details are not important. What is important is that again, We're going back to how in every place that Buddhism goes, It has to get localized, That it failed the first time. And so when we talk about the Buddhism going to China, It was all about renunciation. So if you, If you read the three sutras, The one that you talk about, Which is the eight realization and the one here, We 42 chapter, There's another one. It's, It's a, It's original Buddhist teaching. It's all about renunciation. It's all about practice on it. That didn't work for the Chinese. We forgot Bodhidharma. That's, Um, Bodhidharma is much later. That's another 700 years later. Okay. Yeah. So they, We've got a lot of ground to cover. Yeah. So, So, Um, So, So, Um, So in order for it to, To, Um, Uh, Be successful in China, It, It, Again, It had to be localized. It cannot just be translation. It had to be localized. So, So one example I use is that when I travel, Especially when I travel to Southeast Asia, I love visiting McDonald's and Kentucky fried chicken. When I'm in the States, I never go. And the reason is that I'm not interested in the American version of McDonald's or the American version of Kentucky fried chickens, Because all of those have failed. And what I'm more interested is the localized version of the McDonald's and the localized version of the Kentucky fried chicken. And they are, They're interesting. They are really, Really interesting. We mentioned the pizza effect or I mentioned the pizza effect last time. Yeah. It was like pizza went to Italy, From Italy to New York and the States, But then whatever happened with pizza in the United States went back to Italy and they incorporated that there, But it doesn't seem like America. So it's a localization that is, That is interesting. So again, You know, Um, The original idea of wanting to talk about American Buddhism is that American Buddhism doesn't exist yet. It will exist. And it would exist when we finally take the teaching and localize it to our knee. Okay. So what we have today in America is not yet the American, American Buddhism, What we have is immigrant Buddhism. Okay. And so, But even in China, In order for it to be successful in China, It had to be, It had to integrate, Um, Confucianism and Taoism. Okay. So, So when we say Mahayana, What we really saying is Chinese Buddhism and Chinese Buddhism is this crazy mix of Buddhist teaching, Taoist teaching and Confucius teaching. So there is no pure Buddhism. So if you can, If you just, If you say, Okay, I want to study Mahayana, I want to study Chinese Buddhism, Just keep in mind that you're studying Buddhism in China. Okay. Now, Because that continues, That continues. So, So now when you talk about Tibet, So here is how it says that the eighth century Tibet now, This is actually not true. When, When Buddhism first went to Tibet, It came from China. And so there's a very famous princess. There's a very famous princess that was married into Tibet at the same time, A very famous princess was married into Tibet from Nepal. So this King in Tibet actually had two wives at the same time, One from China and one from, From, From, From Nepal, They both, They both brought with them their version of Buddhist teaching. And in fact, The, The, We, We talk about the Guanyin, The Guanyin Buddhist Sapa, And then we talk about the what's the green and the white Tara. We talk about Tara. So there's many, Many different colors. There's red Tara and there's all that because, Because in, In Tibetan Buddhism, Most of the figures are male. So even in Guanyin has, Has mustache. Okay. So they had to kind of have this female version of all these, Because in order for them to practice, To practice, To, To, To, You know, Convey compassion, They had these female, This female Sapa got a Tara. And so the story is that one day Guanyin fly over Tibet and you see all the suffering and she or he shed two tears and one was the green Tara. And one was the white Tara. The green Tara was the princess from China and the white Tara was the princess from Nepal. And so they were, They brought the Buddhism into, Into Tibet. Again, That was immigrant Buddhism. Right. And it failed. It failed miserably. I mean, It lasted about a hundred years and then it failed. And so the Tang dynasty was eccentric. So, So the Buddhism actually went to Tibet 200 years before, You know, What he said here, Which is the eccentric common error, But it died. It died. Then, Then, Then Buddhism kind of resurrect itself by going back to India and bringing the teaching back to Tibet. But by that time it had to be integrated with his local religion. Bhan. Bhan. Okay. And Bhan is an animalistic religion. Well, They, I think that, What is the, What are the term that is used? It's Shama. Or shamanism or animism, I think. Animism. Animism. Yeah. But that that's okay. That's okay. Right. That's okay. I mean, Before Catholicism became the religion, The state religion in Italy, What do you think they, They worship? Right. Everybody worshiped them. And so then, Then what we call Tibetan Buddhism is another mixture, Unique mixture between what they would perceive as Buddhist teaching and then the local culture. And so there's a lot of ritual and they were, There are basically there, Those predates Buddhism. Okay. So very quickly, Buddhism went to Korea and it wasn't fourth century was, Was, Was not to be, The Buddha Dhamma came to China in the sixth century, In the sixth century. So, So this, This, This was this predated Zen. Okay. And then, Then eventually Buddha Dhamma Buddha Dhamma came in, In, Into China and brought Zen meditation into China. And then then we have, He was the first Patriot. And then we now talk about the sixth Patriot, Which is in the 150 years, A hundred years later, Seventh century now. And then eventually the Zen. So, So once, Once after the sixth Patriot, Then there were five different schools. Okay. So from the first to the second, From the second to the third and so forth, It was actually like one to one. It was really one to one. Now, I hope when we talk about. No, That by that, You mean like a transmission from master to student or master student and then old lineage holder to the new lineage holder, Right? Yeah. Yeah. Patriot. Yeah. So there's a very, Very famous saying called the one French five leaf. So there was just a one branch from the first to the sixth and then five leaves go through five. So what we know about the Japanese Zen Buddhism, We call the Soto Zen, And then we call the Ren Zen Zen. Those are the two of the five branches. Now, Very quickly, We will talk about Qi and Qi Gong and talk about Yi Jingjing. Okay. So master always talk about Yi Jingjing, Like he learned that from his grandfather. Okay. He always say that he learned it from, He learned it when he was five years old. And then eventually he came to United States and he met this one chief monk, Venerable Min-Chi who was the chairman of the Buddhist association in New York. Okay. And then one day this monk decided to teach master. And after he taught master, Master repeated it right away. And so the monk, The old monk was very surprised and master said, Oh, I already learned that from my grandfather. Okay. Well, What master didn't know, Well, He knew, He knew what is that this, This Min-Chi monk was the 49th abbot of a very famous temple in China. And of course in 1949, When the communists took over China, Everybody left, Right? Those who were behind got killed. Buddhism no longer exists. The temple was completely destroyed. So he was the 49th abbot. Well, The first abbot, Or maybe not even abbot, The guy who actually built the temple was a student of the fourth patriarch. So I have every reason to believe that the Yi Jingjing that we learned from master was handed down by Buddhidharma himself. Very well, Could be, Well, And where did his grandfather learn it from? Well, His grandfather was a Shaolin, He was a disciple of the Shaolin martial arts school. So there's that. Then real quick, How do we explain for the other versions of the Yi Jingjing? Isn't there like two other main versions? We'll save that for another show. Yeah, We'll have to do that. Okay. So then I want to talk about Zen Buddhism. The first one to the Buddhism went to Korea in the fourth century, But actually the Zen Buddhism went to Korea in around the ninth century. Okay. Because it had to be after the sixth patriarch, Right? It had to be after the sixth. So he went and today we call it the Sun Meditation, S-O-N. Okay. That's in Korea. That's what it's called, Sun Meditation. And that's basically ranzen, Mostly ranzen. Okay. And then from there, It went to Japan and ranzen went to Japan in around the 12th century. And there was a very famous monk from Japan that went to China and brought it directly to brought ranzen. Oh, Not Dogen, The Soto. No, No, That's much later. That's much later. So it's important to understand the difference between, Did I say it right, Ranzen? Rinzai, I think it's pronounced before. Okay. It's very important to understand Zen Buddhism in Japan because Zen Buddhism is very popular in America. It's very popular in America and you have to understand where it came from. Okay. So first of all, They actually came to Japan in the 11th or 12th century, First by way of Korea. And then you eventually in 1187, A monk went to China directly and brought it back. Now, This is very important because the ranzen Buddhism was the base for what we call the, What we call the, Here, Bushido. Bushido is the way of the samurai. So the Zen Buddhism in, The ranzen Buddhism in Japan is a little bit different from the ranzen Buddhism in China in that after they came to Japan, It had to be localized again. And it became, It got localized with Shintoism, Which is the worship of God. And then it also got mixed in with Confucianism and it became the basis for the samurai. So when we talk about Shigong in the future, We talk about Shigong. Shigong is really like just the body. It's not even, It's the body is the concentration of the body. It actually, The ultimate goal is not thinking, Not thinking in the sense of not using your analytical brain. Therefore you react without hindrances. That was the basis for the samurai that if they study, They practice meditation, They became a good source man and their soul will be so fast. And master actually talk about this, That if they cut someone, It was so fast that they don't, No blood remain on the soul. And the only reason they could do that is because they're completely in control of the five hindrances. So they don't let that interfere with their reaction. So the people who study, The people who are listening to this, Some of them are studying martial art. They will study the Yili trend. And they talk about that too, Is the top of no thinking. So then when. . . It slows everything down and takes too many resources, Right? By the time you think language or images in your head, Then you already lost time in reaction time, In action time. Correct. Correct. And then also there's Renzai in the Linji, There's parallels between Renzai in Japan and the Linji lineage of Chan, Right? But that's another. . . Correct. Yeah. The pronunciation is different. Pronunciation. But again, I just want to point out that it had to be localized. And they localized in Japan by combining Confucianism and Shintoism, And then it eventually became Bushido. Okay. And what's interesting is that if you look at the history of Japan is that the samurai up until then were servants and they were working for the royalties, The aristocratic. And then eventually because of Bushido, They became more powerful. And so the Shokun era, Okay, The Shokun era was one where the power resides with the samurai and the court was just for. . . Common, Or peasants. The court became just symbolic. And so that continued until like the mid 19th century with what we call the Minji Restoration, When Commodore Perry was sent by President Roosevelt to open up Japan. And then they decided that the only way that they would survive is that they become modern themselves. And so they switched. This is the time when they switch and they give more power to the emperor and they took away all the power from the samurai. So if you watch the movie from Tom Cruise, That's the story. Now what's interesting is that when they do that, Then they have to elevate Shintoism. They have to elevate Shintoism. And so then they push down Buddhism. And so one of the things that we talk about is the Buddhist monk in Japan, They can eat meat, They can drink alcohol, And they can have wife and kids. That's not the history. That only happened in the last 150 years. Politics, Right? Because they go back, They took the power away from the samurai, From the Shokun, They go back to the emperor. In the process, They elevate Shintoism. And then now Buddhism has the survival zone. And the only way that they survive is then they became family business. And so they were forced to have a wife. They were forced to eat meat. Otherwise they could have died out. Yeah, Otherwise they couldn't die out. Now. Okay, So let's go back. Let's go back to Ren'sai. So Ren'sai was brought into China and it was embraced by the samurai because that was the way that they can practice their swordsman and all that. So then about, Oh, Another, I would say another 50 years later, Less than a hundred. Another month, Doujin. Doujin, Yes. Doujin, Doujin went to China and he brought back a different sack called Soto sack. Okay, Soto sack. Then he brought it back and it was meant for the commoner. And so there's a very famous saying, It's called, The saying is called Ren'sai for the shogun and Soto for the peasant. And Soto's then became much simplified, Very, Very simplified. And so the Ren'sai is focusing on what's called the koumen. You have this like. . . Kowan. Kowan. That's pronounced in the west, I guess. Yeah, Kowan. Where you're supposed to. . . What's the sound of one hand clapping, Right? That's a very famous one. A lot of westerners know some of these. Yeah, Yeah. Very, Very, Very famous. Again, The idea is that it's a no thinking. So you're supposed to confuse your mind looking for an answer that doesn't exist. It's a riddle. Yeah, You can't have a logical answer to it. Yeah. So if a monk. . . How do you feel the sea in a sieve, In a colander? So it was supposed to have thousands of those. So they're customized. So the master would give that to the student and the student come back and say, I figured out, He got kicked out of the mountain. Now what's interesting is that Soto Zen, Because they had to be simplified for the peasants, Then there's a very famous saying called Shinkatasa, Which translates in English into only sitting. Or just sitting, Yep. Just sitting. Now I have a little bit of. . . Kind of experience with the Soto Zen. And so that's what they do. They just sit. They just sit. That's what they do. And so it's another method. Okay. So I think that's probably what we should do today. We'll pick a topic for next week. So again, In summary, I just wanted to say that I look forward to the day. When we actually have quote unquote American Buddhism, And we could very well be a participant in that, Into figuring out what Buddhism means for Americans or Westerners. And hopefully it won't include celebrities or reality TV shows. Cause that's pretty much religion. I think we had enough of that. Exactly. Well, That's America's religion almost, You know? So how are you going to incorporate me? Maybe when that fades away, Then we'll incorporate something else from America into. . . I actually think that, Well, I don't know if that is the answer, But my answer is that it has to integrate with science. Well, A lot of that's already happening. You have these monks that will go into machines and stuff. Yeah. I mean, When you talk about duality of particle and wave, That's very consistent with practice. I have to agree with this. Once we get some of the issues out of science, Because science has almost turned into its own religion now. It's become a scientism instead of. . . So I think at the very minimum, We have to reconcile with science. Yes. Okay. We have to reconcile with Christianity. Yep. And Thich Nhat Hanh wrote that one book, Living Buddha, Living Christ. But I don't know how much of an impact that had, But yeah, That's another thing that always came to mind as well. And finally, I believe it has to reconcile with capitalism. Or whatever economic system happens after all this. I believe that. I think going forward, I'm hoping that this is Renaissance. America is. . . We have enough of the other way. Let's try a different way. And maybe compassion. . . Maybe there's such a thing as compassion capitalism. Who knows? Right. And it's all. . . It's a great experiment here in America, The melting pot and lots of experimentation. Listen, Listen, Every day, Every day, I try to remember what the world was like when I was born. We were the first family that had a refrigerator. We were the first family that had a radio. We were the first family that had a television. When I came to America, 15 years old, 1971, We didn't even have plastic bags. There were no plastic bags. When I went to college, We didn't have microwaves. So there's no packaged frozen food. So I am sorry. I am responsible for destroying the world. In a way. On the other hand, If there's money to be made in destroying the world, I bet there's money to be made in restoring the world. I bet compassion capitalism is as good a way of making money. Yes. The true, Honest, The real version of that. Not just pandering and having window dressing and making yourself. . . I don't like the word virtue signaling, But unfortunately, Some of the stuff that people are getting into, Which is a good start, A lot of it is just a false veneer of goodness behind the scenes. A lot of stuff is still going on. But it's a start, Better than just outright exploitation of everything. It's worthy. It's worthy of a try. Yes. Right? Of doing, Because there's no trying. Of doing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Anything else, Josh? That's it, Denny. It's been a pleasure. I got to go down and try out my new refrigerator, Get some ice cream in it and see if it melts again. All right, Denny. I still remember the day I was five years old and my uncle bought a refrigerator. Isn't that cool? I mean, I hear these stories from my grandparents and folks too. It was really nice because I saw ice in there and then when they melt, It became water. And then I remember like a mile away from home, It was the place where they generate electricity and they have cooling towers with water flowing down. And I couldn't understand how the water could get from the cooling tower into the refrigerator. You had the Iceman come and bring it to you, Right? No, No, No, No, No. This was a refrigerator. This was American made emerald. Come on. Because I know they used to have people bring around ice and then. . . Oh no, That's called ice box. That's not called ice box. That's right. Okay. So that was, Yeah. Okay. Okay. I really enjoyed this, Josh. I really, Really enjoyed this. Yeah. Okay. Let's do it again. Okay. Next month, Same time, Last Tuesday around noon. I will put that on the calendar. So we can join Denny's new venture, Our continuing re-imagined venture on Zoom, Right? Yeah. So we have a. . . Thank you for that, Josh. So we have a practice on every Saturday at eight o'clock Pacific time. And there are two ways you can join. So this is like the David Letterman show. You can watch it on TV or you can come to the studio. Okay? If you want to come to the studio, You go to dennykmu. Com backslash fellowship. So then you can buy a drop in ticket and then. . . Which is free. We can participate on this thing called Zoom. So we can see each other and practice together. So basically it's a one hour of exercise and meditation. Actually it's all meditation. It's just that the exercise itself is meditation. Now that's if you want to come to the studio. Okay. This is David Letterman. So if you just want to watch it on TV, We actually last week started to do that on YouTube. So if you subscribe to this channel and you click on the bell, Then you will get a notification on email when we start to show on eight o'clock Pacific time on Saturday. All right. So Josh, You have something else too. Well, Yes. Shameless plug that you can read some of my work and see what I'm up to at integratingpresence. Com. So two words, Integrating and presence. Next time put the dot com in there, Josh. I didn't put dot com in there? No. Oh, I don't know if there's enough room on this. Oh, Maybe not. Okay. So it's simple enough. Integratedpresence. Com. Yeah. Integrating. Let me spell it real quick. I N T E R G R A T I N G P R E S E N C E dot com. There's a lot of good stuff on that. A lot of good stuff. Yeah. Okay. With that. Thank you. All right. See you next week. See you next month. Yes. Hope you enjoy this.