Mike says prajñā is neither a spiritual nor a physical force but the natural state before thinking, when mind and body are not separated

Complete English transcript — About transcripts

Today, this afternoon, I want to talk about the meaning of prajñā. Or what is prajñā? Or where does it come from? This afternoon I want to talk about prajñā. The meaning of prajñā. Where does prajñā come from? Many Buddhist groups that I know of chant the Maha Prajñā Paramita Sutra. Which is known as, in Japanese, as Hannya Shingyo. Hannya Shingyo. And people like to chant it because it's not very long, and it has, in Japanese, it has a kind of rhythm to it. The Hannya Shingyo, or Maha Prajñā Paramita Sutra, is in praise of prajñā. Maha means great. Paramita practice sutra in English means the practice of the great prajñā, which people often translate as wisdom. But I wonder what wisdom means.

I think I've explained before. Meanwhile, if we look at the Sanskrit word prajñā, it's formed of the prefix pra, and the participle jnana. And pra means before, and jnana means intellectual thinking. So prajñā means before intellectual thinking. So it suggests something before we think. So something like intuition. But what is intuition? Somebody wrote a sutra praising intuition. Hannya Shingyo.

But if you read that sutra, it's actually talking about something to do with zazen. The sutra which we chant has introduction missing, and the ending is missing. It's just the central part of what was written. But if you read the introduction, it describes a sesshin that Gautama Buddha held on Vulture Peak with lots of Buddhist people. The Buddha, Shariputra, and the Aka... My brain is not working. Alokiteshvara.

Roman: Avalokiteshvara?

Mike: Avalokiteshvara. And Avalokiteshvara may be some kind of legendary person, sometimes seen as a Buddhist god. So it's a very ancient sutra. But anyway, they're at the session. And they just finished practicing something called the Prajñā Paramita, practice of wisdom. They have the Buddha and Shariputra and Avalokiteshvara have a conversation in which Shariputra, Avalokiteshvara asks Shariputra, how shall I explain the state in the practice of wisdom to young people who might want to practice it? And then Shariputra explains how he wants to describe the state.

And that's where the sutra which we chant starts. And the sutra seems to say that the state of prajñā paramita is without everything. A state in which eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and so on, all cease to exist. But actually, what he's trying to describe is a peaceful state in zazen, when we stop thinking about the world. And when we stop thinking about the world, we stop discriminating. We stop using words and concepts in our brain to interpret the world. And that's what is described in the Hannya Shingyo. And that state is called prajñā. So it seems that the practice of wisdom is the practice of zazen, or the practice of dhyana, meditation.

But what is it that we get from zazen which we can call prajñā, or wisdom, or intuition? Are we making contact with some higher power that gives us special knowledge, or special information, or a special way of seeing? Or is it something in us? What is prajñā, or wisdom? What is this state before thinking? It's quite difficult to describe. We would normally think in the modern world that a state without any concepts is a stupid state, because our societies and our civilization are founded on intellectual knowledge, ideas, concepts, made real by human effort.

And our societies value concepts and ideas which we call principles. Principles are ideas that are so strong we believe in them. We believe these ideas that we believe in are very, very important. They're worth dying for. Worth living for. So we are taught to hold on to our principles. But a state before thinking. It doesn't contain principles. That sounds very dangerous. State before thinking doesn't contain any ideas or concepts.

What, so what value has it, in a society or in a civilization which is based on ideas, concepts and principles? What can a human being do, freed from ideas, concepts and principles? There would be no direction, no morals, no right and wrong. Nothing to tell us which way to go. Wow. Wow. That's the same.

Roman: Well, we accept...

Mike: Well? Sorry?

Roman: English expressions. We borrow expressions like wow.

Mike: Wow. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool.

Roman: Yeah, we say cool. Yeah.

Mike: Cool. Okay.

But this state is valued by Buddhism, praised by teachers of the past, and we don't know what it is, or how it can be valuable. In order to understand the value of the state of prajñā, we have to imagine what it's like not to have a mind separate from a body. Not to have a body separate from the mind. We have to imagine it because we can't think about it. What can it be? Normally we feel there's me, my mind, my consciousness sitting in my body, controlling it. Come here, go there. Like some kind of control center is my consciousness, and my body is doing what I want it to do. Sounds good. Sometimes, though, our body does something we didn't tell it to. In modern artificial intelligence research, some researchers are noticing that the model of the human brain is some kind of control center, and the body is like a machine, following the controls, might not be true.

Roman: This research may not...

Mike: Not be true. Yeah. Because of some problems with how fast it takes signals to travel in nerves. So they're searching for another model for the human being that is different from mental control center controlling a physical body. Now, from ancient times Buddhist teachers have insisted that there is no control center separate from the body. There's no body separate from the control center. There's one whole body-mind. It's the central belief of Buddhist teaching. However, human beings have become very skilled at separating their mental faculties from their physical faculties. Or rather, believing that mental faculties and physical faculties are two different things.

So through the centuries there have been many theories about where, where is the mind. Does it exist in our body? Or does it exist around our body? Or somewhere else? And the great religions have suggested that there is some kind of non-physical power which we make contact with, usually called God. And if we make contact with God, we can get nice instructions to control our body. It's called prayer. Please, all-powerful, abstract God.

Unfortunately, there's something, sometimes something goes wrong in the communication. And the people who are trying to receive instructions do very terrible things, killing people or... not behaving properly. So, to me, this belief is, doesn't make any sense, that there is some spiritual force existing outside the world which will tell us what to do. This is called spiritualism or idealism. We base the way that we live on spiritual knowledge or ideas or concepts or principles which are true.

Instead, I learned from Buddhist teachers that if I stop separating my mental from my spiritual, if I allow myself to become whole, then I can just do what is natural.

This is quite difficult to understand, because of our strong belief that we have to think before we do something. So it's difficult even to imagine a state where our thinking and our physical body are one. We're not thinking and then doing, we're thinking doing, or doing thinking, and what must that be like? The state of prajñā, before thinking, is just this state. It doesn't come from anywhere.

It already exists before we trained ourselves to think about how to do things, before we train ourselves to believe that we have to think about doing things and then do. The state of prajñā is there. Maybe we can see it in babies. Maybe we can see it in animals. Maybe when we, when we are near babies or animals, we can sense it. Naturalness. A freedom to live our lives without thinking before we act. This is the meaning of prajñā.

It's not a spiritual force. It's not a physical force. It's the natural state of living beings when they don't separate their mental area from the physical area. And when we sit in zazen, dropping off our mental thoughts, dropping off, focusing on our body, we are in the state of prajñā, not for long sometimes, because our thoughts come back. And we are thinking what to do. But from time to time in zazen, we enter a state of wholeness. A state without concepts, ideas or principles, without right or wrong, without good or bad. Just the state of being.

Maybe the state of a young baby. Maybe the state of a dog. This is the state that Buddhism reveres, because it has its own wisdom. But we find it so difficult to trust that our own behavior, our own actions can be right. We spend much of our lives thinking whether our action was wrong or right, deciding whether we should do this or that. Which is best? And so on.

And the ancient teachings of Buddhism say, return to the state of prajñā. Return to the original state. Return to the state before our parents were born. Which is a strange expression. And then we can do what we want. It's very difficult to have confidence in that. Very difficult. But sometimes, if a situation is very dangerous or very important or very urgent, we do it without noticing. Before time to think, we act.

And then often afterwards we think, Oh, did I do that? Because we're so used to having I in control. If I is not in control, we feel very, very vulnerable. If I is not in control, we feel powerless, but this may be an illusion. Prajñā has no I. It doesn't mean the person disappears. So that's the state of prajñā. Not a spiritual state, not a physical state, but a state where we are not separating, a state which Buddhist teachings revere, a state in which we are whole. And we can do what we want. Very difficult.

Roman: There is a sport, I think, which shows exactly this problem. I noticed that dynamic sports like skiing, swimming, cycling, maybe kayaking, sea kayaking, where people do something dynamically, kind of in a flow, they do it just on the level they can do it. So they do it naturally. So if you are a good skier, you naturally ski well, and if you are even better, you ski better. There is a sport, because I think in these dynamic sports we don't have time to think and we enjoy doing something, so because we enjoy it, we are just natural. But there is a sport called golf, which I have been, I have practiced a little bit...

Mike: A little bit, a little bit.

Roman: Just a half a year.

Mike: There's a sport you have been obsessed with.

Roman: Yes, okay. And what is interesting is that when you read about golf, there are lots of books, lots of literature, lots of videos, millions of instructions. And what is interesting is that maybe 99% of all golfers all around the world, including the pros and the best golfers in the world, they do not have such a big problem with playing golf, but they have a huge problem with the mind, because—

Participant: You have to put this in.

Roman: Yeah. And I think the reason is because, as you know, golf is standing and having lots of time to think and then doing something. And what most people do are they feel fear: I'm not going to do it well. I'm not sure how to do it well. So we, golfers, think a lot, and they block the natural, so they separate mind and body. And then I, you know, like, I don't know, I'm sure, especially if it's a very important shot. And when people watch you, like for me, I'm so, I'm such a... I have so little confidence in myself. But if you watch me play golf—

Mike: You have confidence in yourself now.

Roman: Not really. Which is... people are watching.

Mike: Cover up.

Roman: Anyway, so because there's so many ideas I'm going to blow it, I'm not gonna do it well, it's gonna be embarrassing. And I have seen people do the same thing, like struggling and, so because we have time to think, and then we have to do something with our body. So ideally, if all golfers in the world were completely stupid, if they have no idea how good they are at golf, everyone would play golf much, much better. You know, all golfers know this, so they sometimes seek some kind of... Psychology, golf, there are golf psychologists who help you mentally to play golf, like Zen, Zen meditation for golf or something. So it's very difficult to relax when you play golf.

Mike: Good.

Roman: So how much is such a golf psychology session? It's very expensive, I'll tell you.

Mike: But isn't it because golf is inherently competitive? You wouldn't go and play golf on your own, would you?

Roman: Yeah, some people do, yes. They compete with themselves. I play on my own most of the time, and I just like, wow, I'm not doing anything.

Mike: Well, because I think, like, kayaking or mountaineering or whatever, other more natural, normal sports are something that you do naturally, whereas golf is, is competitive sport. Yeah.

Roman: I don't want to speak too much, but I'll give you an example what happened, the difference between not thinking before you do and thinking. When I try hard to do the shot, to swing well, I usually blow it. Okay. It's quite a ridiculous occasion. Then when I want to just move my balls back where I started, just to move them, then I stop thinking about how to do it. I just need to move the balls, come on. And I always like, how come I did this? Because I don't know how to do this. Because I didn't care, I didn't think, I could swing naturally. So all the balls fly perfectly. But it's, you know, because I don't try.

Mike: Golf is teaching you prajñā.

Roman: Yeah, absolutely.

Mike: That's good. So I'd like to repeat and insist that the teachings of Buddhism don't belong to Buddhism. The truths of Buddhism don't belong to Buddhists. This is very important. Most religions or teachings claim the teachings as their own, and it separates between normal people and special people. But this is a mistake, or a delusion. The truths of Buddhism are everywhere. They can be discovered by somebody who never heard the word Buddha. They can be practiced by somebody who never heard about Buddhism.

But Buddhist teachings have, have put forward these understandings to help us live. If you practice zazen too much, you get problems with your body. If you practice golf too much, you get problems with your elbows.

Boris: If you know the state of prajñā, then you space where you are moving, it's quite big sometimes. How you... You know, you said that you act before you think, but it's sometimes very... strange. Strange. Strange. Where are you going?

Mike: Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Boris: And you are not afraid of this sometimes?

Mike: Me?

Boris: Yes, yes, yes.

Mike: No, no. No, no.

Roman: Do you trust?

Mike: Do you trust? Trust. Yeah. Yes. So that trust develops over years. So, for instance, everybody's character is different. When we're young, we often feel our character should be the same as other people. So we need to change ourselves to fit in with other people. However, sometimes our character is too strong, and trying to fit in with society is very painful. So to find the confidence to be ourselves is quite difficult sometimes, because there's pressure to be the same as everybody else.

When we need, when we, finding, finding ourself needs confidence that what we really like is okay. Usually we feel what we really like secretly. It's not so, not so okay.