“…all Buddhas depend on Prajna Paramita and attain Annutara-samyaksambodhi.”
This translation is very poor; this “attain” is a poor word to put here. It’s like when a yell was enough to warn a primitive man from a big animal, and then this yelling sound became language. To communicate more was found to be necessary, so, in modern languages, words have become a more and more exact way of expression. In Sanskrit, “Depend on Prajna Paramita” is just one word. There is no separate verb, “depend on” or “attain.” Instead, a word is matched with another word. For example, this teacup sits still because the floor is flat. Their relation is ashritya, because the flatness of the floor and the flatness of the bottom of the cup matches. “Attain” is a very weak word at this point. “Fulfill” would be a good word. “All Buddhas based on Prajna Paramita fulfill Anuttara-samyaksambodhi.” Like a cocoon becomes a butterfly, it advances, like perfection advances.
Anuttara-samyaksambodhi is supreme and perfect awakening. Sounds marvelous! It’s the same as the blue sky. You want to swim in it. It has no end, and you don’t get to the blue, either. I’m so sorry! A more exact word for the experience is that there is a man, a woman, or being, that is deeper than the sky. This is a very important point. The strange thing is that only humankind has this experience. Or, I don’t know, maybe other beings have experienced this before. What is the virtue of life? How do we create virtue living on this earth, when we cannot measure people? The other day I went to renew my driver’s license. I lost my wallet so I had to renew it. I filled out all the forms and the woman asked, “What is your weight?” I answered, “I don’t know. I’m getting lighter and lighter.” She said, “I’m a little heavier than you, so let’s put a little lighter than me.” I said, “That’s fine.” Many things begin from this anuttara-samyaksambodhi. You can measure your height and other people’s height. The other day, at midnight, I saw a contest of the most beautiful girl in the U. S. A beauty contest. I had the feeling I was watching potatoes in the market! All of them were pretty, lively, and very beautiful. When they began to speak, I felt very discouraged. Their voices were fine but I felt that one girl had some different feeling from the others. And I was feeling the contest was not among those chosen people, but actually the contest was among the people choosing. It was a very hard place to be selected to choose what is a beautiful thing.
What makes people so different from other stages of life, living on the surface of the earth, like we are in some special, particular air on the earth which supports life? If we go to a higher place, we become like a balloon. If we go to a lower place we have to become a submarine, or beetle, with a hard skin, very strong to keep from exploding with the pressure inside. What makes people different from other stages of life is our sense that there is real virtue in being on this earth. We are not just like a rock or amoeba, or something. You can see the short history of this awareness, this questioning of what is the real virtue of life. Many plants, and races, died away in these many centuries. Many birds are disappearing, and many strange beasts, fishes are disappearing too. When we become aware of the real virtue of what it is to be a human, many new animals and plants will appear, because to make a field of life a desert or forest depends on human awareness now. To make a place a ruin or lively, depends on a little change of your mind, the degree to which you increase your energy in some certain way. This is why people, nowadays, are trying to really see themselves, and really see what is cubic, not flat. We can be flat, a very flat, broad existence, and at the same time this energy to become flat can be gathered to the center and become a cubic existence. The nature of water is like that.
Our mind is like air and water, so depending on how we take care of our mind, our life changes, becomes flat or cubic, or still or very fast-moving. Our mind is very formless, like water, wind. We cannot see it unless we see the expression of it. We cannot see pure water. The river bed, big ocean, is the container. The mind is water. The container is the visible part of the water. Unless you see it this way, the container is just clay, or glass. It doesn’t need to hold water, it can be empty, just another piece of furniture. We have to see what it is, get rid of our usual understanding of religion and see what it was that made the existence of the religious phenomenon on this earth possible during these several centuries. The size of your enlightenment, the size of your awareness or awakening, is as small as your faith, and it is a real way to measure people. How deeply you believe in yourself makes you or your world deep, or high, because of your faith. As you change, you find that your face changes, so possibly when your body changes, your mind changes also.
Body and mind are not different things, not different elements, just different emphases. It’s like light. Mind may be the spiritual element of being and then there is the physical element of being. This is the basic subject of all religions and philosophies: mind and body. Some religions and philosophies see the highest, deepest spiritual existence as one side, and the other side as myself. Opposite me is the one who is not me, and who is also me. Either I was projected by it, or I projected it. This is the very basic pattern of the religious mind. So this happened in India. Atman was conscious of the Brahman, he wanted something, and he became conscious of it. In darkness, light appeared. Similar to God’s will. It’s like being thirsty and imagining water, so water comes to you and you are no longer dry. This body is part of mind, and mind is part of body. You understand it in that way. So to work only on the body isn’t the way.
When a very unhappy situation appears, for example when someone hurts another very badly, people judge that he is a very dangerous man so they put him in prison. It is seen as important to separate the elements of a situation which had come together, so to scatter the elements you put the man in jail. That is a tentative solution. It is not enough. In his mind something is maintained and in the space where he is not allowed to live a situation is maintained. This is what we call mind. It is a force of life, as well as body. So body and mind aren’t a different thing at all. Like a red light and yellow light are symbols of something. If you ignore them, lots of things happen! The red is just a color, but facing it, you physically see something and mentally the symbolic meaning appears to you, which if you ignore it, something happens! Our sense of seeing is automatic, but very organic. The whole system of seeing is very, very penetrating action, very intuitive action. You can speak of super power at this point, when you really see. This is the nature of Prajna Paramita. Before it appears, you know it, because sound appears from it.
Prajna Paramita is actually everyone’s nature, which everyone is originally fully experiencing, reflecting each other, reflecting prajna in each other, in everything, penetrating. It’s like the warmth of the body penetrates. (Kobun holds his hands apart from each other.) Before I touch, something goes from this hand to that hand. Even through clothes, you feel it. If I say it goes into “my” body, it’s not so clear. If it is another’s body, it’s a very natural thing. If you go into the forest and go close to a tree, you feel the realm of the tree. The tree is not just the body of the tree, but a whole outer body of the tree exists. And when you break into this realm, you really feel “I am in the tree.” It is the same coming into someone’s house. “I am inside of Mary Kate, now.” Everyone is like that. Every being has the visible part of the body and a very broad outer body. And a very interesting thing is, when you separate from them, communication goes between. By imagining, you can let others imagine you…
Buddhas and Prajna Paramita and Anuttara-samyaksambodhi are actually identical, because Anuttara-samyaksambodhi is called “Buddha,” and what he is, is totally Prajna Paramita, which is wisdom. So if you say there is something called “Prajna Paramita” we have to look around to see what it is. You can never find it, as you can never find the form of a living Buddha, so you touch something and say, “This is Buddha.” If you really can say so, it is fantastic! You can say, “This is the bell. This is everything, too.” Then you understand what you are holding!
Anuttara-samyaksambodhi is like one who feels the whole sky as his body and the whole ocean as his body. It sounds funny to say this, but the form of the ocean and this little form is actually I. The sky is I, and I am I, and the ocean is I. By breaking from the ocean and disappearing from the sky anuttarasamyaksambodhi doesn’t change. Ocean is ocean, sky is sky, I am I. When many forms appear, you understand some go away, and some just flow together. If a form reaches to this awareness, everything is it. The next form is the next form, but it is not different from him. She may say, “These are my sister and brother.” Anuttara-samyaksambodhi, when it happened, was the morning the historical Buddha saw the morning star in the sky. Since that time all past Buddhas, before Shakyamuni, were confirmed in their existence, and all beings after him were confirmed in Buddha’s world. This was the origin of Buddhism. If you say “Anuttara-samyaksambodhi is truth itself,” anuttara-samyaksambodhi is Buddha himself.