I want to introduce a big, difficult teaching today, which some of you have already heard about, and I hope you hear about it again, because it's the main teaching of the Buddha. It's the teaching of dependent co-arising. You can call this teaching the slogan of Buddha, Buddha's slogan, and the word slogan means battle cry, Buddha's battle cry, in the midst of struggling with delusion, and in a sense

[01:13]

dependent co-arising is simply stated, and that is that everything that appears in the universe does so by virtue of innumerable causes and conditions, and in each of our lives, due to innumerable causes and conditions, each of our lives is due to, for example, all other life, and also each of our lives is also a cause and condition for all other life, so the universe causes us and we also cause the universe, so there's this mutual causation between

[02:18]

the universe and ourselves, and ourselves and the universe, and happiness is something also that dependently co-arises, misery dependently co-arises, freedom dependently co-arises, and bondage dependently co-arises. The causes of each of us is different, and the causes of misery are different from the causes of happiness. The causes of bondage are different from the causes of liberation. So, part of what is necessary in order to experience liberation,

[03:20]

or awakening, awakening is also dependently co-produced, is to become fully absorbed and aware of the causes and conditions of awakening, and also, in order to become free, we must become fully aware of the causes and conditions of being free, and in order to be free, we also need to be aware of the causes and conditions of bondage. However, you may be happy to hear that in order to be in bondage, you don't have to be aware of the causes and conditions of anything. You don't have to be aware of the causes and conditions of misery, you don't have to be aware of the causes and conditions of bondage, you don't have to be aware of the causes and conditions of evil, you don't have to be aware of the causes and conditions of good, you don't have to be aware of the causes and conditions of awakening. You can be in total denial and ignorance,

[04:24]

and then you can be very happily stuck in bondage and misery and of course ignorance. So ignorance is much easier in a certain way than liberation. Liberation requires very extensive work in awareness of what's going on. So part of Bodhisattva's work... Do you know what a Bodhisattva is? How many people know what a Bodhisattva is? Wow, courageous people! So Bodhisattvas are those who vow or wish to work for the supreme welfare of all beings.

[05:36]

They wish for and are committed to work for all beings attaining the highest benefit. The highest benefit is complete freedom and happiness. So they work for the complete freedom and happiness of all beings. In other words, they work for the supreme and superb awakening of all beings. And they work for this and they wish that this will be attained by all beings before themselves. These are Bodhisattvas, the people who have that tendency and motivation. So part of Bodhisattva's work is to lay out and explain what the work is and then also to try to kind of maybe encourage people to pick it up.

[06:37]

And they can do this by various means. They sometimes paint horrible pictures of what it will be like if you don't pick it up. They kind of like draw people's attention to how bad it is now and what will happen if you don't start, you know, getting with the program. Or sometimes they just make the program sound really good and like lots of fun. There's the cattle prod method and the seductive method. But anyway, by various means they try to encourage people to join the path of liberation and give up the path of ignorance. Give up the path of living in lack of awareness of the causes and conditions of our existence. Now not only does ignorance sort of like come to you without any work in terms of awareness work

[07:49]

and pretty much follows according to your habits, but turning around, in other words turning from ignoring things to paying attention to them is not necessarily easy. It's simple in a way, you just turn and start paying attention to whatever is going on. But it's not easy because if you start paying attention to what's going on in this society, in the world, but also if you start paying attention to what's going on inside yourself, you may notice that there's some pain there. There usually is some pain inside of us. Our inner life is very turbulent and changeable and chaotic and contradictory and full of conflicts and ambiguities and ambivalences.

[08:52]

Lots of anxiety inside of us. Again, the path of ignorance is to flee. Flee from this anxiety, run away from it, turn away from it, ignore it. That will get you into heavy-duty destructiveness, cruelty and extreme misery and locked into that pattern too. But the other way is difficult in the sense that not only do you work but you have to face anxiety. And you know anxiety means to be choked. You have to become aware of how you're choked, how you have trouble breathing. Also you may have trouble facing, if you notice that you're having trouble breathing, then you may flee that into fear. Fear is another kind that is produced by fleeing from this inner life.

[09:59]

So the basic cause is that we flee away from this inner life. Again, the way to liberation is to turn around and confront or face this pain. At the source of this pain is that at a deep level of our development we deny the nature of our self. Right around the time our self was born we again turned away from it. Right as it was born we turned away from it, we ignored what it was, we denied it. And the funny thing is we denied it and at the same time we grabbed a hold of it and started clinging to it and thinking that it was very important. We did both those things right away.

[11:00]

And then the funny thing is that because we think the self is so important from our early development we also, in order to protect ourselves, we also sold ourselves out. We prostituted ourselves in order to supposedly protect ourselves. So then a second level of problem and pain occurred. And so we have to turn around and look back into that space, which is all in here, all this betrayal and abandonment and selling out, and underneath that clinging and self-importance and self-ignorance. So it's really quite a feisty little mess in there. Not easy work. And not only that, but you can't just sort of jump in there and just sort of slogging around. You have to be... it's a matter of awareness. You have to enter that space and somehow keep conscious. And it's very difficult to stay conscious when you start to open up to this stuff.

[12:09]

Like I was saying to some people last night, when I first started spending time with my wife and she started talking to me about certain topics, I got very drowsy, even like in the middle of the day, pretty much any time of day or night that she'd bring up certain things, I'd get very sleepy. It's funny, you know, and I couldn't get enough sleep to stay awake during these conversations. But she learned not to bring those things up. She wanted me to pay attention. And certain things, if you talk about, I'll be very alert, you know. Now there's some people are so enlightened that when people are praising them, they go to sleep. But most people get pretty alert when you start praising and talking about, you know. You sort of like don't bring up anything that they're denying, just talk about the little tiny bit that they're paying attention to and tell them how great it is that they're paying attention to that.

[13:11]

So that's actually skillful, to get them to wake up and pay attention. Not to criticize my wife, but you know. Anyway, but then after you get their attention and they're awake, then you gradually, you know, might bring up a few other things if you have a chance. But then you're not going to sleep. So then they start to go to sleep and you say, but you're really swell, and then they wake up again. So back and forth like that, you can gradually start to introduce something to sleep. I noticed a lot of you are starting to go to sleep. Of course, you say, oh, it's because of the heat. But you can also say, because this guy's talking about boring things. Boring. Dependent Cauterizing is a very boring topic. Because it's threatening the source of your disease. And the source of your disease has all this denial around it because it's so horrible to look at the source of our disease. Horrible to look at the disease and the source of it, and so on.

[14:15]

So we have all this kind of sleepiness around it so that as we approach it, what is it like? What is that cartoon, that fairy tale about the princess that went to sleep for a hundred years? That's what will happen then if she starts to go into that area. And then there'll be the thicket, and all the brambles and stuff that they put around the castle to try to get in there to wake her up. It takes a real hero to cut through that stuff and go in there and kiss her. But she does wake up eventually. And I also mentioned again that actually in Greek, the word for hero, if you slightly change it, it turns into the word for eros, or lover, or love. It's similar in English. Heroes take the H away and it's like eros. So heroes are not like bullies and meanies and ruffians. They're lovers that care so much about something that they will cut through all the obstacles and find their way to the center of the issue.

[15:23]

Love is the way you guide yourself through the rough waters. Love is the best guide through the turbulence. So this is a kind of, maybe this is encouraging, but if you start looking back at yourself, if you start looking inward to what's going on, and can face that pain and that chaos, I propose to you that the center of that chaos is not chaotic. There's a center to the chaos. Like there's a center to a hurricane. Eye of a hurricane where it's calm and lovely. There's an eye in a tornado. It's a little tighter than in the middle of a hurricane.

[16:29]

Eyes are kind of big. Airplanes can fly around inside there. There's not much space inside a tornado. But anyway, there is a calm place in the middle of something that's turning rapidly. And inside of us, there's a calm place. Inside of the turbulence, there's non-turbulence. And at that place, in the middle of the turbulence, is the source, in the center of there is the source of our life, of our aliveness, is right at that place. And also at that place is our self, the way our self really exists.

[17:30]

And the way our self really exists is that our self is not really a self. The way our self really exists is called no-self or forgotten self. At the center there, your self is forgotten. The self you took in doesn't make it to the center. It gets forgotten just before you get there. You forget the old one and the real self shows itself. And this self is pure, unadulterated aliveness. And also Buddha doesn't make it in there. Buddha drops away before you get there. And pain drops away. Nothing is at that place. Nothing is there. And yet, the way you really are is there. It's called, you know, jizai, which means, you know, ji means self and zai means existence or abode.

[18:44]

It's the way the self actually exists. Self-existence or self-existence. Self-existence, self-existence. It means autonomy. It means the autonomous self. Auto-autonomy. Self-existence. It's the self that receives all the causes and conditions of the universe. It's the self that's actually been made and supported by everything. And that self exists everywhere in all human beings. Each human being has at their center the same... It's basically the same self. Even though the causes and conditions of each one of these selves is different, and infinite and different, each one is the same, because each one is basically the forgotten self. And from this forgotten self,

[19:47]

true self-expression comes, and it does express itself. From this forgotten self, the center of your inner life, comes the Buddhist precepts. Buddha comes from there. Dharma comes from there. Sangha comes from there. Not killing comes from there. Not stealing comes from there. Evil can't get there. Good can't get there. And from that place, from that center of your life, a refraining from evil emerges. Doing good emerges. Clarified mind emerges. Doing can't reach that place. But all kinds of good doing come from that place. Action can't reach that place. No karma can reach that place. But from that place of non-action, right action emerges spontaneously. Immediately. It immediately comes out.

[20:52]

Like in the Juhamir Samadhi, it says, although it's not fabricated, this place, although it's not fabricated, it's not without speech. This place can talk. And when it speaks, it's called right speech. When it acts, it's called right action. And the practice that you do to get to the center and sit there and then let right action come forth and let right speech come forth and let right intention and right livelihood and right meditation and right intention and right view, all that stuff comes forth from this place. The practice you do there we call being upright or sitting upright.

[21:58]

And you do that practice to get there and you do that practice when you get there. And you do that practice when you come out of there. And being upright is the great mysterious skill of the Bodhisattva. Nobody, nobody knows what being upright is. But even though we don't know what it is, it is possible for us to join the practice of sitting upright. If you do that practice, you naturally turn around and face your life that you've been denying. You naturally turn around and face your life and face your anxiety and start moving to its core.

[23:02]

And its core is self-betrayal, self-clinging and the forgotten self, those layers. You go through those layers. Pain, discomfort, revelation of self-betrayal and self-denial. And then behind self-betrayal and self-denial is self-clinging and behind that is the actual existence of the self. And then when you reach there, you sit there and let... let it blow out. At that point, you're called realized. The proposal of the Bodhisattva program is that you can return to this place. And returning to this place is called taking refuge in Buddha. Taking refuge in Dharma and taking refuge in Sangha. By taking refuge in Buddha,

[24:06]

when you say that, you start to go back to that place. And that place is right inside you. But you've got to go back and, you know, not overshoot it or undershoot it. And uprightness is the way to go... is the way to aid you or facilitate your going back. But also you go back in this kind of funny way of going back. Because the meaning of these precepts, like the meaning of the precept of taking refuge in Buddha or going back to Buddha, the meaning of not killing and so on, the meaning of these precepts is not moving. So if you want to know what it means not to kill, not to steal, to take refuge in Buddha, what it means is don't move. Because Buddha is not someplace else. Not killing is not someplace else. The meaning of practicing good is to not move.

[25:07]

And also the meaning of practicing good does not move. The meaning doesn't move either. So you don't go someplace to practice good. You don't go someplace to return to Buddha. Buddha is actually in exactly where you are right now. So you go to where you are right now. And the meaning of uprightness, or the meaning of not moving is take refuge in Buddha. Want to know what it means to not move? What does it mean not to move? Not killing. What does it mean not to move? Not stealing. What does it mean not to move? Not lying. That's what not moving is. What does it mean to refrain from evil? Don't move. What does it mean to practice good? Not moving. If you just don't move, your inherent goodness blossoms. If you move the slightest bit,

[26:13]

you deny it, and you lose it. I might say completely. However, even though you lose it, you've lost it completely, if you would just stop wiggling, it manifests again. And this not doing, I mean this not moving is also not doing. You don't do anything. So it's very hard for us to do practice of not doing anything. As a matter of fact, I gave one of the one of the senior people here, I gave him the instruction of, I gave him this difficult instruction about some time ago, six months ago or something, I gave him the instruction, I said, he was a good student, in fact, he used to be a good student, I mean, I like him. Those were the good old days.

[27:15]

Anyway, I told him to, I told him, I don't tell people things, but I suggested to him very generally, that he stop doing practice, that he stop doing any kind of practice. And I'm not going to say this to any of you even gently, unless you come and beg me. If you beg me, I'll tell you too, to stop doing any practice. If you beg me a few times, I'm going to tell you that. And I suggest that to you, gently. That's the kindest thing I could do for anybody. That's practicing. I wouldn't say it to somebody who's not practicing. People who aren't practicing, I might gently suggest that they practice. And lo and behold,

[28:22]

without me even noticing it, he listened to my suggestion and has been practicing it ever since. And he's been having a hard time. Because he wants to practice. He remembers some of the practices that he used to do, and he wants to do them again. And he's very frustrated, because he can't do any of the practices he used to do. I mean, he can, but he's trying to follow my instruction, and following my instruction means he can't do any of those practices. And he wants to. He wants to do something. So I was actually very impressed that he listened to my instruction, and I was also kind of proud of myself for saying that. Because I said, In other words, I told him to actually practice Zazen, instead of just more karma.

[29:23]

If you are doing something, that's just more karma. If you are doing something, that's just more karma. And there is wholesome karma, and if you are going to do something, please do wholesome karma. But it's not Zazen practice to do things. It's just delusion for you to do things. That's the basic, one of the basic definitions of delusion is when you practice some Dharma, some teaching. That's delusion. When you practice something. That's way out from the center of your life. At the center of your life, all things are coming to give you life. Okay? And then life spontaneously blossoms out of you. All things are dependently are dependently producing you. In other words, they are producing you, and you are producing all things. All the time. The whole universe is giving rise to your life. Your life is producing

[30:28]

everybody else's life. All the time. That's what's going on at the center of your life. That's your aliveness. That's the harmonious forgotten self at the center of your being 24 hours a day. That thing doesn't do anything. That doesn't do practice. Practice is this thing that kind of like erupts out of that place. Constantly. If you get out to the place where you do things, you're way away from that place. You're out in a place where you've got this self that is like this independent operator which does stuff. Not the person, not the being who is supported by everything and can't do anything. But the being who is supported by a few things, her friends and whoever, her own personal power and doing things. That's delusion. I said to him, why would you please stop being deluded and that's all. So then

[31:28]

he didn't completely stop but he tried so then he couldn't do all these practices he used to do. And he couldn't do all the practices he hadn't yet started. But I, you know, like in the Phuc Anza Zengyi, I directly indicated a practice or I directly indicated a way or no, I asked him to totally devote his energies to a way which directly indicates the absolute or the complete practice. And he, he's been trying and so he told me recently about how hard it was and I said, boy, keep it up, it's great. This is called also as you may know the term, this is called learning the backward step. Usually it's like the forward step is I'm doing this. Learning the backward step is to turn around and go back to the place not of I'm doing this but everything is giving me life.

[32:32]

And now, now you see what happens. Turn around and go back to the place not where you're doing life and you're doing practice and you're conferring and confirming everything but to where everything that happens to you gives you life. That's called learning the backward step. Turning around and go back to the dependent core arising of your life. Turn around instead of like starting with the self and then rejecting that on everything and laying that on everything and pushing everything around turn around and go back and see how you're made. Again, sorry but when you turn around and look how you're made you got to look you got to look through all this anxiety and pain that's all around the place where you're made. I don't know why it's that way I mean I do sort of but it turns out that this place this peaceful place is surrounded by toxic waste and you know stinking fire and pain

[33:35]

and anxiety the worst stuff chaos. So in order to go back to the center where you're where you're born you have to go through all this crap which has accrued from all the nasty things you've done all the betrayals that you've contributed to your life all the selfishness it all has caused this fuel for flames but this fuel is also the fuel for your life and for your creativity when you get to the center what was hard to get through is now like you know fuel when you're outside of it it's like barriers treacherous difficult barriers so you have to go you can't just fight your way through this stuff you'll get hurt you have to walk through this stuff lovingly otherwise you'll get all cut up walk through it lovingly patiently kindly joyfully basically

[34:35]

uprightly uprightly walk through it walk through it kind of like you'll be when you get there to the middle walk through it in this uprightness which you'll find when you get there but it will be difficult but you have to walk through it you have to walk through lots of nasty looking faces of lots of demons going your practice stinks and also some other really lovely faces who say your practice is really great you can take a vacation come fly with me let's fly far away from this pain and I'm not saying when this demon comes and says let's fly away out of my face creepo I know this one no no or if the demon comes and says your practice stinks say oh no rep told me this year you're just a demon no no

[35:38]

that's not upright be dignified about it when demons come and spit in your face be dignified and say hmm okay you're spitting in my face I know that I wonder what you're trying to tell me hmm and I mean really wonder kind of as in I wonder what you're trying to tell me I sincerely wonder what does it mean if somebody's got a demon spitting in your face and telling you that your practice stinks and it's selfish and blah blah blah or when they tell you you're doing fine also be dignified don't go meow [...] okay okay I hear you you think I'm doing fine okay if you can say thank you very much fine also when you're being insulted if you can say thank you very much without being sarcastic and dignified and you can say thank you very much when someone criticizes you can really

[36:40]

say thank you very much I I needed that if you can be upright if you can be upright you'll get a reward and your reward will be more toxic waste in your face toxic waste means the waste product from your own toxicity will be the waste product from your own self-betrayal self-hatred and cowardice all that stuff will come flying back at you as you start moving to the center of your life if you're upright with it it'll just fall right off you as soon as it comes near you it'll drop away it'll never reach you never reach you never touch you it won't hurt you at all and it's just like what you call being in a birth canal it's just pressure which will never touch you it just moves you through moves you through to your new life

[37:40]

but it's pressure it's pressure and you feel like it's gonna choke you but it doesn't if you don't move and again the reward for not moving when you get swept and the reward for not moving when you get swept is you get more and pretty soon you get more and you get more until you get it all until you get it all until you get the whole smear of what you have been troubled having trouble facing until you've faced everything and when you've faced everything you're done you're done you're cooked you're at the center of your life you're a Buddha you have walked through the flames you are initiated into your life all Buddhas sit there and they are turning the wheel of truth in the middle of those flames and you'll get there

[38:41]

and you'll have some friends these friends you won't know what they are I don't know what they are they don't know what they are they're there they are your true existence they are your autonomy and Buddhas are in the middle of those flames teaching the Dharma turning the wheel but they sometimes say although the flames are all around there's a cool breeze on the floor and you can work there forever for all beings and all this right action and right speech and stuff is blossoming out of that place but my friend you know like I said he's having a hard time not doing any practices he's dying there he told me something else which I thought was awful he in his stymied state he was he was contemplating

[39:42]

and aware not just you know what do you call it headline stymied but there's lots of experiences that go within stymied stymied is stymied frustrated and so on there's a lot of there's a lot of meat in there part of the meat is your body you've got a body and the body tells you secrets about about what it's like to not be able to be a karmic machine anymore things started moving around he had some pain around here and I said there's a pain here there's a blockage and I said oh where is it he said is that your solar plexus or your heart and he said look at my solar plexus and I said I think so that makes sense to me you know the solar plexus and the heart are close together isn't that funny the solar plexus chakra and the heart chakra are right next to each other very conveniently located for one stop shopping

[40:43]

great solar plexus is right on top of a diaphragm diaphragm is a thing you use to breathe it's a muscle you use to breathe and it's a voluntary muscle at the top of your breathing muscle is the solar plexus and the solar plexus is about control he was having some pain around the control center because I told him to stop controlling stop doing a practice which you can do if you stop doing a practice which you can do your solar plexus is going to say I need a workout what's happening give me some kind of workout I'm getting stiff I'm getting old I think it's good you should give the solar plexus some reasonable workout a good thing to give the solar plexus is a workout a yoga workout helping you learn how to lovingly work the diaphragm that's what you use it for

[41:50]

but what the solar plexus tries to do is it tries to control everything and if you're trying to practice with your solar plexus and somebody says don't do anything your solar plexus has some problems so he is and if you do this practice of this asana you shift from solar plexus to heart and there's a difficulty there heart means heart's the organ you know how hard it is stuff goes into the heart right? and out of the heart the heart is the place where everything in the universe comes all your relationships come to your heart your heart is like the organ where you can actually experience how everybody is helping you the heart is the place in your body where you can actually feel how everybody is helping you and when you feel how everybody is helping you that's called heart that's your heart and heart is also

[42:51]

the place where you go out and help everybody so you are actually helping everybody and everybody is helping you and it's at the heart that you feel that and opening your heart means opening to feel how everyone is helping you and everyone is giving you life and also how you are helping everyone else but you are open to that you don't go around saying I am giving everybody their life what you do is you open to that everybody is giving you life and you notice that you're giving everybody their life. That's at your heart, and it's right next to your solar plexus. And that's not about I'm practicing, it's about I'm being practiced. I'm being supported so that practice can happen. And also, my being supported supports others, because others supporting me supports them. The fact that others are supporting me, the fact that you're supporting me, the fact that your support of me supports you, and my support of you supports me.

[43:55]

That's the bodhisattva. That's what naturally happens there, at that place. When you see how all beings are supporting you, you first think of helping them. You naturally think of helping them first at that place, before yourself. The first thing that occurs to you is to help them, that give you life. You don't first think, oh, thanks for giving me my life, now let's do something for me. You're overwhelmed. You are overwhelmed. Your existence is simply overwhelmed by the kindness. And so the first thing you think of is, how can I help others? And it turns out, so the bodhisattvas want to help others first, but they never ever help others first. Because as soon as they help others, they immediately help themselves, at the same moment. So you can't help others before yourself. But you can want to help others before yourself, and if you don't want to help others before yourself,

[44:57]

you're kicked out of central city. You're kicked out of the place of who you really are, by wanting yourself to be helped first, or even at the same time as the other people. I want to tell one more story about one of the practitioners of this area. It's a human. This person told me... This person was doing some volunteer work around here. This person was filling the lamps in the cabin that I'm staying in. It wasn't this person's job. This person was doing it for extra credit.

[46:01]

It wasn't her job. So she started to fill the lamps, but she filled one lamp and she couldn't fill it because she ran out of kerosene. She was trying to do some good. But she ran out of kerosene, so then she went to the cabin crew area to get some more kerosene, but there wasn't much. So she took back what there was and went back and tried to fill the lamps again, but there still wasn't enough. And she was tired. And it wasn't her job anyway. So she didn't feel like going up to the shop to get some more kerosene. So she gave up. I don't remember exactly when it happened to her, but I think something dawned on her, even before she left that cabin. Something dawned on her, and that was she thought of her own room. She got this big flash about what a mess her room was. How she doesn't take care of her own room,

[47:12]

and here she was overtaking care of somebody else's room. However, I point out... I just can't stop it. Oh, I can stop it. Everything's fine? Looks like it. Turn back and study yourself, and realize where dharma comes from, and realize the precepts, and become Buddha for the sake of all beings. Okay? Here's my question. Do you want to... Do you want to commit to such a practice? Is that your response? Silence. Nobody's going to say anything? Wow. Well, what's the reason why you're not saying anything? I have to think about it. You're going to ask us, right? I'm going to ask... I asked you just then. Okay, I'll do one, two, three.

[48:13]

One. I'm going to do one, two, three. I'm asking you. Please answer. But I was... When you said nothing, I thought this is... That was surprising to me. I thought, wow, you guys got guts. One. Two. Three. I'm asking. I think it's quite annoying. What? I think it's quite annoying. There's no other choice. Good for you. No, all at once. Please. Okay. Yes. Are you worried that... Huh? Are you worried that... No, I was amazed. I was amazed that you guys picked... I mean, silence is a good answer. It's a good answer. It's a good answer, but I was surprised that all of you chose the same answer. Usually when everybody's silent, it's because 80 to 90 percent are afraid. I thought maybe... But maybe you weren't. Maybe you were actually...

[49:18]

Your answer maybe was... When asked, are you going to practice Buddhism? Your answer is... That's a good answer. But I'm surprised you all chose the same one. Usually when people do that, it's because nobody's present. So... I'm going to ask you again. That way I didn't get a very... I didn't get a very good response. I'm just kidding. I'm not going to ask you anymore. I'm not going to ask you anymore, but I do have that question, and I hope... Actually, I'm asking myself that. Thanks. See you. See you in nirvana.

[49:54]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ