I was thinking about your response, thinking about your response to this teaching of Nagarjuna. I noticed I was getting a little excited and then I remembered the phrase from the Juhamir Awareness which says, if you're excited it becomes a pitfall. So this teaching, Nagarjuna's teaching, being one of our ancestors, he's teaching the same Juhamir Awareness, he's teaching the same practice of suchness, and when you see it manifesting, when you see it starting to come alive in the world, you might get a little

[01:04]

excited, but you have to be careful when you get excited about this, otherwise you can fall into a pit. And I feel like you're responding to this material as though this was really, it's touching your lives apparently. I sometimes wonder why people don't get more upset when they're reading the Heart Sutra, why don't they storm out of there or say, I don't know what. Why don't people get more upset? I guess maybe because nobody else is or something. But anyway, when you bring this new teaching in which is basically the same kind of teaching in the sense that it's a total affront to almost all of our entrenched habits, since it's new and you're all exposed to

[02:05]

at the same time, you can also say, you can all say together, does that guy actually have any clothes on or not? Looks naked to me, but they say, or rather it looks like the guy has clothes on and they say he doesn't. So like when Dungshan heard the Heart Sutra when he was a little boy, he said, but I have ears and I have eyes and nose and so on, so what's this business about this Heart Sutra? So you people are responding, just like little Dungshan, is that Nagarjuna is talking to you and you say, but I have essences in these things. I can see the causal essence working and so on, so I don't know, what's he talking about? Anyway, so that's good that you're actually feeling

[03:07]

this is pushing on something in you or in your society or in your friends or something. It's pushing on some sense that there's an essence in things. And one person graciously offered that she actually thought there was an essence of oak tree in the acorn, that you can see it. And getting more scientific about it, she pointed out that it's in the DNA, the essence of the oak tree is in the DNA, actually it's an essence in there. And that there really is a thing, and not only is there an essence of oak tree in acorns, but oak trees also have essence, which is in their DNA. So there actually are essences, some people think. And Nagarjuna is saying, well no, and he's not just saying no, he's taking the arguments of those who say there's an essence and playing them out. And we can maybe play them out

[04:16]

in some ways that he didn't, because this is a short text. We can think of other examples and other deductions you can make from the position of things having essences that would lead to some other incoherent results. Also I looked up the word efficacy, just in a regular dictionary, and it said that efficacy is the power or capacity to produce a desired result. The power or capacity to produce a desired result, the ability to achieve a result, that's efficacy. So Nagarjuna is saying that there are no causes like that, that have efficacy. There are no conditions that have efficacy. It's what he's saying. Also effect, the word effect, is something brought about by a cause or an agent. And a result is also

[05:22]

something that occurs or exists as a consequence of a particular cause. So Nagarjuna is challenging the reality of these words, that there are such things as these words propose. There are words, as you all know, in the English language, of things that don't exist. Are there even words which are pointing to the fact that some things don't exist, like there's an English word delusion. In other words, you can think that something exists or that things are a certain way and it's not true. Nagarjuna is saying that a cause, an effective cause, is just something that people have dreamt up. There is not such a thing, there are no such things. He rejects that there are things that have efficacy. And I've been writing this book about the precepts and I talked about how if you observe the causes and conditions, the dependent co-arising of evil, watch how it happens,

[06:26]

that evil will lose its efficacy. But I'm going to change that to say it will lose its efficacy which it never had. If evil does have efficacy, just meditating on the causes and conditions of it probably won't rob it of it. But actually evil does not have efficacy and nothing else has efficacy either. Good also does not have efficacy, but who cares? Good doesn't need efficacy, it's good enough as it is. So good is good enough without efficacy and fortunately evil doesn't have any efficacy and neither does good. But evil, if you meditate on evil, you see that it's not efficacious, you understand. If you study dependent co-arising of evil you will realize that it has no efficacy. It is ineffective, unfortunately. And you might be sad to find out that good isn't effective, but again don't be too sad because if you've got good that's enough for a non-greedy person.

[07:31]

For those of you who want more than that, that's called getting excited. So here we go into the breach. So the first karaka again is where he right off the bat explicitly rejects the existence of efficacy and points to cause. The word cause says there are no such things. So then in the next karaka he introduces these four kinds of causes and you don't necessarily need to know these exactly to follow this, but maybe it might help a little bit. So there are four kinds of conditions and the Sanskrit is etu, h-t-u, etu pratyaya,

[08:43]

this angle. Is it clear if I tilt it up like that? Etu pratyaya, pratyaya, pratyaye, pratyayo, and then the next one is alambana. Alambana, pratyaya. Next one is alambana, pratyaya. Last one is adhi, adhi, adhi, pratyaya. So etu, as I said before, means cause. So it's the condition of cause but not cause in the sense

[09:57]

causation. The cause in the sense of all those things that can be construed as, which were construed as some details of causal factors are included under the heading of this condition. And so for example, one of the causes is called sabhagahati. Sabhagah means similar cause. So there is this kind of causal relationship, if you can say conditional relationship, where similar things seem to be antecedents for similar things. But you can see that connection without saying that there is an essence in the

[11:00]

similarness of something called the next thing. Another one is what I said is karana-hetu, which means that the hetu are basically allowing something to happen. Under this heading, it could be a condition. But again, what Nagarjuna is rejecting is he's rejecting causal power and affirming dependent co-arising. Dependent co-arising. So that's what he says is happening. The next one is called alambana. Alambana means to hook onto. Alambana is something you can hook

[12:02]

onto. It's an object. So one of the conditions by which we co-arise with is objects. Objects of consciousness, objects of relationships, and so on. The next one is samanantaprajaya. Saman means same, and then it probably should be a long A there, and then an means not or without, and antara means gap. So same immediate condition. Or maybe same means complete or proper. So what it means is that there's a condition which you all have noticed probably that whenever anything arises,

[13:08]

it always arises immediately upon the ceasing of what was there before. Or what's happening now has to stop happening for something else to happen. That's a condition. The stopping of what's happening now is a condition for something else to happen. But I might just point out for you to consider, is the essence, this is a condition, but could you make this into a cause? It would be pretty hard to make this into a cause that you would imagine that in the ceasing of something, so that something else could happen, the essence of the thing that next happened was in the ceasing. So nobody's making a big case for that right now, but that's the point is that it's a condition. You have to have that happen, logically, for what's happening has to stop for something else to happen, has to cease in order for something else to happen. So whenever anything happens, it happens conditioned by or supported by, you know, or co-produced with the fact

[14:20]

that something else ceased. But also, the ceasing of that thing co-dependently arises with the new thing happening, because you can't have something cease unless something else happens. So you see, they co-create each other. It's not like one has the productive power and the other one is produced by it, and therefore it's not like one has the essence and the next one is produced by that essence and then carries on the essence. And the next one, Adhipatiprajaya, is what I said before, it's called Dominant Condition, and that's very similar to the Karana Hetu, just that it's allowed to happen. Okay, so Nagarjuna, in the second verse, lists them. He said,

[15:20]

there are these things. He doesn't say there's not these things. He doesn't reject the conditions. Then in the next verse, he says that in these relational conditions, in these conditions, the self-nature of entities cannot exist. From the non-existence of self-nature, the other nature cannot exist either. So he's just saying that in these conditions there isn't like a self-nature, there isn't like an inherent existence in these conditions. There's not an essence in these things. There's not an essence of things that you can find in these conditions.

[16:23]

Okay, so a condition so far anyway, up till this point, most of us agree, I don't know if I actually haven't done a survey, but some of us agree that one of the conditions for acorn trees is acorns. We don't have any acorn trees without acorns. One of the conditions for acorns is also acorn trees, a lot of us would agree. But what Nagarjuna is saying is that in the conditions, the essence of the thing acorn, or the essence of the thing acorn tree, is not found in the conditions. So we talked about this yesterday, that other conditions for oak trees is water, earth, air, carbon dioxide and oxygen, nitrogen, so on, sunlight. These are other conditions, right? And some people can see,

[17:33]

oh those are conditions, yeah, if you took those conditions away you wouldn't have an oak tree. But it's interesting that almost no one in our little discussion group thought, you have a question? I was going to come back and talk to this family. No, no, you didn't, you didn't. We had Chosan yesterday, and the acorn essentialist was in our midst, so he really got into acorns and oak trees. So in that discussion we brought up other conditions for oak trees and we noticed that most people would not think that in water was the essence of oak trees, or that in the earth was the essence of oak trees, or that in the nitrogen is the essence of oak trees, or that in the sun is the essence of oak trees, or that in whatever dozen things were, you would find conditions that most people would after studying the life of an oak tree, things that people would list as necessary conditions for the oak tree, that you would have the essence in there.

[18:34]

Are we also a necessary condition for the oak tree? And us too, right, yeah, put us on the list, whatever you want, you can put anything you want to put on the list, I welcome you to do so. And then we'll only take it off the list if somebody says no, that's dispensable. But yes, go ahead. It seems that there then isn't really anything that's dispensable, and I'm wondering if there's really nothing that's dispensable, then why would you bother categorizing these conditions? We talked about that too. So I've talked to somebody about this last night, that when a certain person was born in a certain room in a hospital, there was a fireman outside at that time, but they didn't list that fireman as one of the conditions for his birth, but strictly speaking, he was there, he was one of the conditions. And some people might say, what

[19:40]

was the fireman doing out there? Was there essence of baby in that fireman? So, in the totality of what happens actually, everything is the cause for everything, actually. And it's only for human explanatory regularities and for negotiation in the world that we limit the list at all. But in fact, when we usually talk about the birth of a human baby, we don't usually list very random people out in the street as primary causal factors, or even as conditions. We list the conditions that are of interest to us, like often we list the parents, the parents' social security numbers, their insurance policy numbers. These are causes which we're interested in, but they're all relevant. They wouldn't be in that hospital if they didn't have insurance and so on. But it's interesting that although you could make the

[20:45]

list very big, still, some people thought that there was not essence of oak tree in the water, but there was essence of oak tree in the acorn. Therefore, the acorn is an example of when we think the essence of something is there, and that essence of oak tree that's in the acorn would get transmitted into its effect, that effect would also carry the essence. So that acorns have oak tree essence, and oak trees have oak tree essence. Now, I think some people, some early phases of human science, may have thought that the water contained the essence of all things, or something like that. I don't know if they did. That water contained essence of oak trees, pine trees, and so on. But they saw the essence. This is a kind of metaphysical insight, or Nagarjuna would say metaphysical delusion, that you can see some very subtle mysterious essence of things, from which all this stuff emanates. The self, Brahman, which

[21:50]

emanates out into all these forms, and then the essence of Brahman goes into Agni, which is the spirit behind fire. There's an essence of a self behind the fire, and there's a special subset of essence of self behind the fire called the fire god essence. And then fire has essence, and so on, the self gets transmitted. So there is an essential inherent existence of things, which is transmitted from the basic sense of a substantial essence of things. But still, even the conditions are just, Nagarjuna is not saying, these are the conditions, and these are really the conditions, it's just simply by regularity. If there's regularly a fireman outside the room when the babies are born, you know, we watch. There's a mother there, and regularly the cervix gets pressed and opens, and the baby comes out, and the baby cries. These are things which are regularly associated, but we gradually notice. In recent decades, we have noticed always there's a fireman

[22:54]

lurking outside, you know. Is this new, or did we just miss this before? Let's do a little experiment, take the fireman, let's keep all firemen away, and notice the babies don't come out. They bring the fireman back in, just everything flows smoothly. Very mysterious, but it's one of the conditions we hadn't expected. So then we would say, well, that's a condition. But someone else would say, well, how about the earth? Of course, yes, we forgot to mention that, but yes. How about the sun? Yes. How about the air? Yes. So in all the causes and conditions that are necessary, we specify the ones that are, for our purposes, explanatorily useful in order to discuss and to observe how things happen. And this we can actually see, you see. And if we can see how things happen, and you can add on the list as much as you want, but if you can see enough to just disabuse yourself of the idea

[23:58]

of essence, the job's done. That's all you have to do. Yes? I was just going to add that, you know, the example of the fireman at birth seems kind of silly, but we do have a causal concept like that. We have the idea of catalysts. We think, you know, we don't know what they do in relation to things. There's no apparent interaction, but events only take place in their presence. In this part of what we hear, they think about, well, the fireman was needed at birth, that for this one specific birth, that fireman was a condition, but it's not a condition for all births. Now, you could say, well, it was if there's one condition for that one, but of course, there's always firemen somewhere, so firemen are conditions for all births. Everything in the universe, and someone said, well, isn't there essence of everything in everything? And in a sense, that's right. There is the essence of everything in everything. So what is the essence of everything, according to the Pranayama Sutra? The essence of everything.

[25:00]

Everything has the essence of having no essence. That's what essence is. Everything is marked or characterized by being empty of inherent existence. That is in everything, and that thing that's in everything allows everything else to happen. Because I have no inherent nature, I allow you all to be the way you are. Fundamentally, I have no agenda for you to be any particular way. Therefore, you can be however you are, moment after moment, day after day, and you also, in that way, you also allow yourself and everybody else. So our actual nature, you know, our non-inherent existence is what allows the world to be free. However, we have a tendency, because of our psychology and the philosophy which emerges to project self-existence all over the place, and then, because of that, essences get established and then things don't move very well. Because, you know,

[26:04]

this is really the way things are, and it's not just something which dependently co-arose, according to various … with a bunch of conditions. Yes? Um, you just said, like, when we start listing conditions for things, that we're doing it for our purposes. Is there something … I didn't say we were, I said we can do it for our purposes. If your purpose would be to make the longest possible list, then you would just keep going indefinitely. If your purposes were to explain the situation in order to figure out how to get the lights on, then you'd stop at a certain point maybe, when your purpose was fulfilled. It depends on what your human purpose is, and your human purpose is determined by, you know, the type of being you are. I mean, I can see, you know, like, that it seems to get beyond the, you know, just navigating in the world, you know, how to turn the lights on and things like that.

[27:11]

That the very process of listing the conditions of the world sort of tends to make a kind of metaphysics of it all, or something. There seems to be assumptions inherent in that that get us off course. And we're doing … in other words, there seems to be some varied purpose there, when we do it. Well, what is it? Um, bolstering our sense of self? But that's just, that's the thing I said. That's not hidden. That's right out on the table here. That's always there. You're always trying to bolster your sense of self. That's always there. It's not, it's sometimes hidden, but it's always there. So that's definitely the whole point here. Definitely. It's always lurking there, trying to pull another one off, get another point for, you know, number one. That's going on all the time. Just walking around, you know, so I just, you know, can I turn the lights on? Is that okay? I mean, can I have lunch? And, uh, sure, fine, no problem. Well, you know, could you tell me a little bit

[28:15]

about the conditions for lunch? Like, what room is it going to be in? And what's it going to be? And what time? And am I actually allowed to have lunch? And are there forks and spoons? And this is the kind of stuff I want to know about. And I want to know that partly because I regularly associate lunch with a particular time and a place. And I usually use utensils, so I want to know about that. However, all along, any explanation I try to establish, to negotiate, all along, my main thing, my main purpose, more important by far than having lunch, is to keep this self going. That's the only reason why I'm eating, basically, is to keep the self going. That's the basic trick. And that's why lunch is not very fun anymore. Because I'm eating not for the proper, for the real reasons, the happy reasons, I'm eating to keep this whole lie going. And in order to keep this lie going, it's better if I'm unconscious that that's really why I'm

[29:21]

eating. But that's why most people, as far as I can tell, are eating. They're eating to keep the lie going. They're not eating for hunger. They're trying to keep the lie of an essentially existing self alive a little longer. When you eat not for that reason, of course, eating is much more enjoyable. And then you can make all kinds of causes and conditions for, all kinds of conditions anyway, for how eating happens. And it's just a joyful creative process. And you've got, you know, and probably, and your tendency to eat for this selfish reason is still lurking in the neighborhood, but you've got it on, you know, you've got it on a leash, you know, you've had obedience training or whatever. It's not really a problem anymore. You can take it with you everywhere. It's not like it loses ability. It's just that you see it all the time, all the time. And if you don't see it all the time, then you just don't see it, but it's always there. So at any point, at any point of any

[30:25]

description or any explanation of what's happening for whatever purpose, the selfish motivation can always come and contaminate it. That we make lunch into something we can use, rather than something that's just plain happening. Something that I can use, that I can grasp, that I can relate to rather than a dependently co-arising event, that I have no control over, I can't get a hold of, I don't know what it is, but I can have lunch. Which would you prefer? Most people would rather get a hold of lunch than have lunch. Yet they have the choice of being in this totally new world, of where you were totally left out in the cold and starve. Most people would rather starve than lose their self, if they thought about it. But the person who's saying that is the self, is the essentialist, who's holding to that position, of believing in causal efficacy, rather than believing in dependent, or trusting dependent co-arising.

[31:33]

That seems to be, I'm seeing you, I, we, the person involved. Who is it? Why is it? It's a lie. It's a lie, what it is. You mean it's just a thing called a lie floating around? Well I call it a lie, it's just a lie, it's not even floating around, it's just a lie that you're telling right now. That you're saying things essentially exist. Isn't it that you're saying that a lie exists? Huh? I don't say it exists, I do not say it exists. That would be another lie. Pardon? Why not say an analogy? Why not say falsehood, why not say ignorance? I'll say those words too if you want. Want me to say those words instead? Ignorance. Ignorance doesn't exist, inherently. Ignorance doesn't have an essence either, it's not like enlightenment doesn't have an essence, oak trees don't have essence, people don't have essence, but ignorance does. No, nothing has essence.

[32:40]

Ignorance, and that's why, is ignorance does not have, what do you call it, efficacy. It doesn't, fortunately. Otherwise we'd be totally, it would just do its thing. Ignorance would cause its effects and we'd be done for. But Buddha saw that happening, saw how ignorance was a condition, but by seeing it as a condition you can turn it around. You can be turned around because it's not like a potential thing. Is it possible to use lying without making metaphysical assertions about the world? Maybe that's correct, what you just said. Before I said it was correct. I don't know. When she said yes, that might not have been a metaphysical assertion, I don't know. It didn't seem like it, I didn't pick up a big metaphysical thing there. I just saw her going yes. At that time we'd have to like, you know, open her head up and see if there's any metaphysics going on. Maybe she didn't understand what you said since she's a second language, you know.

[33:45]

Maybe she'd call you as something else, I don't know. Maybe there's no metaphysics going on. For example, if you should pinch my nose, I might go, Oh! Or I might say, Jeremy! But not really think, you know, anything metaphysical, just sort of like blurt it out. Right. Well, generally when we say I, it would be the case that we're just sort of making a vocalization without saying that there's an essence of I. Definitely. And so one who no longer believes in the inherent nature can say I with impunity. Right. That's why I get to say this stuff, you know. I don't know. The reason I reacted is because when Karuna asked, you used words like I, you, people, person, and you responded it's a lie. No, I didn't hear him say that. I misheard him, I guess. I thought he said, what is it? He said that afterwards. He said, you're using these words, I, you, people, person, and at some point he said, what is it?

[34:48]

Yeah, I was responding to what is it. And you said, it's a lie, and it's not clear to me that the use of the word itself is a lie. I wasn't responding to that question, and I agree with you. Okay. I was answering the question. The question I was answering was, when he said, what is it? He had this I, he's saying, what is it? I think he's asking me, what is it? It is nothing other than a lie. It's existence. It doesn't have an existence. I thought he'd say, well, you've got this stuff, but what is it there? What is the thing behind the I? There's nothing behind it. But it's a lie to say that it is something. The what is it, the is it part, the is it is a lie. That's the lie. That there is a is it. That's a lie. That's ignorance. There is no such thing, according to Nagarjuna. There's no such thing there. It seems like you have to, you do have to grasp the thing, but at the same time see it as empty. It's like there has to be

[35:49]

something that's empty. No. There doesn't have to be something that's empty. But, that doesn't mean that there's nothing there to be empty. It seems to me that at least the way I understand it, that it I guess I'm understanding it as an attribute or like a characteristic of that thing. No. It's not a characteristic. It is more like a it's an outcome of a thing being a thing that is empty. It comes along with everything being a thing. But maybe it's an attribute. Just stay with this earlier thing you had, okay? Now, we had this idea that if you have

[36:50]

in order to grasp the thing, there must be something there. Well, we say there's nothing inherently there. So there's something that seems to be there. There's an apparent there's an apparent thing there. So you say there must be an apparent thing there for something for you to try to grasp. That's true. But to say that there's something apparently there is a little bit different than to say there must be something there. There is a something there in the sense that something appears to be there, yes. I think that's what I meant by you have to grasp you have to grasp an object in a way. In order to have consciousness we have to grasp an object, right? We have to do that. As human beings we have to grasp objects otherwise we lose consciousness. And objects we grasp, however, are just apparent objects. They don't have an apparent existence. But we say they do. We do that. We don't have to do that part

[37:51]

but we have that ability and we use it most of the time. It's always like a dialectic there's always form in emptiness. There's always form in emptiness, right. And the very fact of the way a form is that is its emptiness. It's not like the very fact of the way a form is is its essence. But because of our tied right into that thing about meeting an object is that as the object arose as we're able to think of objects as external to ourselves, since a self is born and then in order to whatever, complete the process or complete the picture, we projected the self back out into the object and gave the object a self. So then we see in all of nature we see these objects as having essence in them.

[38:52]

All over the place. And it's a big change to stop seeing essences in things. It's a big change. Or not so much to stop but to realize that what you're seeing when you see the delusion, when you see the essence in something that you are now observing yourself in a deluded state. And then to enter into how that delusion works the causes, the conditions for that delusion. How does it happen? And as you see the delusion dependently co-arising, as you see your belief in the essence of what you're looking at arising that is called the emptiness of the thing. And seeing the emptiness of the thing will liberate you from grasping. Does that follow that essence is non-existent, non-causal? Because as I remember the definition, something that the essence is a thing and a thing that makes a thing itself.

[39:54]

Yeah, that would be an essence and there are no such things as a thing and a thing that makes a thing itself. That was a nice definition of essence but Nagarjuna does not see any of those essences in anything. There's not even a provisional? Huh? Not even provisional? There's a conventional essence, there's an essence which we just nicely define right over there. That's our working definition or a conventional understanding of what essence would be. But there are no such things to be found. We can imagine various other things that are not to be found. And there is a constant production of things which do not have essences. Things are constantly happening which don't have essences. Things are constantly produced which do not exist inherently. And also what is constantly produced is the belief that things exist inherently. There is, Nagarjuna would say, that there is maybe he wouldn't, but Asanga would say

[40:56]

that there is a constant production, it's true that there is a constant production of existing of the belief in existing things. We are constantly producing things which are not true, namely existences. We do that all the time. Every moment we produce existences and essences to those existences. We're doing that all the time. So that's going on. And however that if you just only go with that and think that that's true if you hear that there is a constant production of things which don't inherently exist and you forget that not inherently existing part, then you're totally caught by the process. For each of us there is a constant production of some things which do not exist inherently. It's kind of like attending a class and getting a concept of the class and oh, yeah, that is... Yeah, just like that. It doesn't, it's not. Right, you come to this class, things happen, and then there's a constant production of, well, this is what's going on in the class.

[41:58]

Well, now I get it. Yeah, first of all, this is this. Now I see this is what it is and then I'm not, so I get it. Once you can find it, you can get it. Maybe. The other night I was reminded of Golden's idea of being in time and that being to me has a sense of eternity and time has a sense of position. And so, like I said this morning and that's what we talked about, being in time and how there's something we also call the warmth or the ordinariness of everything. And this can follow. Just at the beginning of the practice period there was some feeling I had that I was trying to define or something and I read the words don't look around, it activates your mind. And I began to think, oh, if I look around and see things as objects, then my mind starts to give them characteristics and I make up this whole

[43:01]

object and story about how it relates to me and everything and everybody else. And so that's the eternity and position. What you're talking about is drawn out is, I'll just point you to where this is, what you're talking about is drawn out and that is Karka 18 of 24, where emptiness, the dependent co-arising and the, what do you call it? The conventional meaning or the conventional existence of things exist in a kind of triangle or this triad there, of dependent co-arising, emptiness and what does it say? Temporary or? Provisional, yeah, provisional. So there's a provisional

[44:02]

like, there's a provisional thing of the dependent co-arising of the idea of essence, its emptiness and its provisional or conventional existence in the world. Nagarjuna is all into, you know, totally for conventional appearances. But for him all there is is conventional appearances, there aren't any like real appearances. It's not like a kind of like a real thing out there, an essence, a truth. It's all just conventional, it's just, you know, kind of like oak trees and oh, acorns and water and people, this is like, you know, however you want to work it, that's what it is for him. There's no kind of like essence out there, truth lurking somewhere. Which goes with the Soto Zen teaching of there's nowhere to spit. Conventional world is entirely holy and sacred because because it's just

[45:03]

conventional. That's why the practice of joining your palms and bowing is an expression of understanding of emptiness. You don't just bow to the essences, you bow all around, to all beings. But you don't, the reason why I bow to all beings is because they have the essence. You bow to remember that they don't have essence. You bow to respect that all you've got to work with is the conventional world. Ordinary, common world. So this teaching comes in and is actually coming in and peeling away all this essential metaphysical stuff and leaving the world just kind of like naked and raw and ordinary. Without any kind of like special essences put in things. But it also leaves out you. And then after you're left out the world comes forth and you get to live in it.

[46:04]

Which is kind of a nice place to be. But if you hold on to the self it's the same as holding on to your philosophical positions which he's pointing at. If you let go of your philosophical positions, your self will go with it. Because your self is hooked into them and they're hooked into your self. And then you're just back in the ordinary world with everybody. Without any leverage. I open my wings and allowing my process of illusion to happen. And is there a purpose on doing it? Is there a purpose of all things of allowing you to have your process of illusion? Of having this process of illusion. Is there a purpose of it? Things, real are also

[47:06]

in use in mutual purpose. We're all together in this world of illusion. We're not the only ones that are deluded. We're not the only ones that are deluded, but we're deluded in a different way from the way the mountains are. I think we have a different role in the process than they do. But the mountains allow us to be how we are. And to the extent that we recognize how we process, how we function, how we change, to the extent that we totally are tuned into that, the mountains get to tune into the mountains. To the extent that the mountains cause us to be the way we are and we don't appreciate the way we are, to that extent, which is sometimes major, the mountains are harmed. When they give us the gift of our life and it produces beings like

[48:07]

we are and we don't appreciate and understand how we are, the gift that they've given us is not appreciated fully and they are somewhat offended and discouraged. Of course, that's also totally happening and real, that's the Dharma too, but it is the Dharma of the mountains being, their feelings being hurt or sometimes actually having their faces ripped off. But at least their feelings are hurt. But their feelings are different from our feelings. Their feelings are mostly physical. Physical feelings. They're dealing with that part of things. They don't have an idea of self, as far as I can tell. Dogs, for example, also don't. Most dogs don't have an idea of self, but they're very sympathetic to the problems that we have with our understanding of ourselves. So our suffering is very important to dogs and they're really hoping that we get our thing together.

[49:08]

Because then their life will be much more harmonious too. You know, they're very concerned, they want us to be relaxed. They want us to be happy, they want us to be safe, because if we're not that way, they're not that way, but they don't have the problems that we have exactly, but they share our problems. They're in the situation with us. Everything's with us and we're with everything, but we have our own special problem. Namely, we are the ones who see essences all over the place. Particularly here. But we also are the ones who can do something that apparently none of the other ones can do, is we can look around us at all the things that cause us and say they're not us. We can say everything's outside of us. However, we're also built such that when we do that, we hurt. It hurts us. We don't just do that for free. It hurts and it causes anxiety. Therefore, we know there's some cost in this. And then we're also told, of course, as part of our society, to ignore that anxiety. That's another one of our problems. But anyway, once we're back in touch

[50:11]

with the anxiety, we realize that this sense of separation, of not appreciating that all things are the conditions for our existence, and therefore all things support our existence. Not in the sense that they're essences of us all over the place. That everybody's contributing to some total us up. But rather that we are nothing besides all the things that give rise to our life. Therefore, the feeling of gratitude goes with this realization. And also, a feeling of no essence. And therefore, anything's possible. And what anything's possible means you can adapt appropriately to the circumstances to pay your respects back to everything that gives rise to you. But we have this ability to think that these things that are giving rise to us are external to us rather than identical with us. But the way we're built is that we have a sense that what is external to us

[51:11]

is identical to us as a contradiction. So our existence is self-contradictory. And I don't know if the other beings' existence is self-contradictory because I don't think they think of themselves as separate from us as far as I know. Mountains don't think they're separate from us even though they give us our birth. And the sun too, even though it gives us our birth and so on, I don't think it thinks that we're separate. I think that's some sense the breakthrough if you want to kind of like make human existence something special, that's a breakthrough and special contribution of human consciousness is that evolution happened in this section of the universe such as to produce something in the universe which can look out and reflect the universe back. And that's kind of something as far as we know it's fairly a rare occurrence in the cosmos. But the price of it is a mistake.

[52:15]

The price of objective knowledge is the mistake of thinking that what we see is actually external. Yes? If other beings or other apparent beings had consciousness that was similar to the kind of consciousness we think we have would we be aware of it? Would we necessarily be aware of it? I don't think we would necessarily be aware of it but I think if we watch carefully we might be able to see that they acted in certain ways. For example, if we watch dogs we see that they're neurotic and that they they have nightmares and stuff they seem to worry they malfunction, but mostly when I watch, I see mostly in relationship to humans. Right, but there are things whose time scale and analogy of sexual apparatus might be so different. I agree. No, no, I think not necessarily and it might not be possible for one generation of humans

[53:17]

to detect these beings. It might take hundreds of generations or thousands of generations of humans to detect these other beings who respond on such a different time scale that although they kind of wince or twist out of self-cleaning just like we do which is one of the ways you can spot if an organism is clean certain patterns you watch the natural flow of movement and you see they're holding on something, something catches in the flow you observe the way the cloud patterns move or the water moves or the way the blood moves, something hits there what was that? and it's repetitive and certain things stimulate it it seems like this thing's got a self, you could spot that maybe but you're right, that some organisms that might have this ability might move so slowly or so quickly so quickly that we haven't yet been able to see it or so slowly that we haven't studied over enough generations to see that actually there is something out there that's kind of just like us, but it's on a different time scale but it's not so much that I want to, I actually think there are other beings who are basically doing the same thing

[54:19]

because I think there's a natural evolutionary tendency to develop consciousness and also to develop reflective consciousness and therefore develop a sense of self and therefore suffering but then, as a result of the suffering to look back and study the whole situation and be awakened to the total potential of the universe which is our, you know, incredibly wonderful opportunity that in this human form we could understand what's going on but we have to like that's for the purpose that's not so much the purpose of the delusion, because the delusion is wonderful in itself the delusion is wonderful doesn't need any purpose as far as I'm concerned but the pain seems to be what's necessary, the suffering is the part that one might wonder why haven't suffering, why not just let people imagine whatever they want why not just go ahead and think of the essences but the only problem with that is that it's not correct it's not true

[55:20]

it doesn't hold up, the whole system by its own definition and the way it works doesn't hold itself up so you should appreciate the natural conclusion of the thing is that it's no problem at all however we would not go to the trouble of studying this if there weren't pain because in order to study it you have to do something more than just you know, carry out the program which you believe in you have to turn around and look at what you think is true, you have to turn around and look at the delusion, you can't just be deluded you have to study the delusion buddhas are born in delusion, they got delusion too just like we the difference is that the buddhas have exhaustively studied delusion but why would a person study delusion if there wasn't some problem it's not that interesting all the time it's not once in a while especially other people's delusions are sometimes interesting but even the people who think other people's delusions are really interesting get bored sometimes and say, I've had it but buddhas don't do that

[56:21]

they don't like to have certain hours and stop and then have the night off because it's all that's going on in them so the purpose the purpose of the pain is to get us to look at the delusion and the purpose of looking at the delusion is to realize what it is but the delusion as it is there's nothing wrong with it it's just a certain wonderful way of seeing that is very rare in the universe which we are a part of namely seeing something external believing it really is having a self, this is great as long as you understand what you're doing and the causes and conditions for it are cosmic but who would look at that not too many people would study it exhaustively unless they were in real pain and also seeing not just their own personal pain but seeing other people in pain and realizing that that is the problem for all basically all pain in the world, so then you think

[57:22]

well ok, I'll study it and is there any books that help? yeah, well here's one of the main ones and it's painful to study because it's painful to study, this is painful it's painful for me for many many years to study this pain, [...] uncomfortable, not interesting pain anxiety fear, that's what happens when you read this stuff that's why I'm so kind of like restraining myself from getting excited because you're having the proper reactions to this, your feistiness your aggressive energy your belligerence and negativity and resistance to this are natural reactions to when somebody tries to reorganize your universe so that's fine it shows you're actually listening to it rather than sort of like I'm not going to read this stuff well that's good too that's good too, that's fine but to read it and just to read through it and not even notice that energy is bothering you, it hasn't struck home yet, unless perhaps you're one of these people who doesn't have any attachments then of course it wouldn't bother you

[58:24]

it would just be kind of like feeling caught in your ear, ear, ear close on when you were caught for example mountain and the dog what and the dog? mountain and the dog, yeah I want to know if animals and mountains inherently have an intimacy with the universe or if human beings apparently have an intimacy with the universe you're asking do they have an actual intimacy and do we have an apparent intimacy what is one's actual and apparent alright um I think we are equally intimate with the universe with the animals and the mountains we're intimate with the mountains the mountains are intimate with us this is not our genius teaching we're all completely intimate and nobody is more intimate than anybody else with anything alright however most human beings are terrified of being intimate if they think about it

[59:26]

and if they don't think about it and they just sort of jump into it they're totally anxious about it whereas animals because animals cannot have anxiety because they can't have an object with what they're intimate with if you realize what you're intimate with if you realize what you're intimate with you would feel anxiety if you saw it as external to yourself as they say this closeness is heart-rending if you seek it outside it's heart-rending very difficult for us because we can see it outside they say we can see it but don't make it outside therefore they're comfortable with it it's exactly the same as life intimacy is life for us intimacy is life also but as we approach it it's not pleasant it's not all cuddly and warm and milky and creamy or we sometimes say there's broken glass in the milk as if as if as if Milarepa said I was raised on the milk of dependent co-arising

[60:27]

that's what he drank when he was a kid but there's glass shards in there for us but the glass shards are not because of dependent co-arising dependent co-arising doesn't have it all beings are dangerous to us because we make them external and they're pressing on us because they're external but actually they're not external they are exactly intimate with us and if there's any distance it's painful is it time to stop? 9.56 ok, 3 minutes, 4 minutes yes well I was wondering if you could indulge a little request of mine if you could just talk about how seeing our delusion of attributing selfhood to things and to ourselves is also similar to Mahayana vow of liberating all beings

[61:30]

and tie into that an early question that Tom raised is how when we become liberated you and dependent co-arising all things become liberated well the first thing was you're wondering is there a willingness to experience the belief in selfhood is that part of the bodhisattva vow? is that what you're saying? I don't think that I said that no you didn't, but I just rephrased it is that what you're saying though? do you want me to say exactly the way you said it? would you play the tape back? just kidding did that sound like a rephrase of what he said to you? I don't know I want to answer his question the answer to my question the answer to my question is yes the bodhisattva is willing to enter into all forms of delusion in order to benefit beings if you meet the deluded being and the deluded being tells them some story of delusion they're willing to try that on

[62:32]

and see how that feels and try to understand what that person might be talking about often times bodhisattvas right away have already gone through that themselves and know exactly what the person is talking about ask your question again if I didn't get it the latter part the latter part so the first part was addressed? did everybody follow the idea? that you have to be willing to go down into delusion all different types bodhisattva is one of the there's three kinds of all knowledge one is called sarva jnana which means all knowledge the other one is called sarva marga jnana which means knowledge of all paths the other one is called sarva akara jnana which means knowledge of all modes

[63:32]

so the arhats have knowledge, all knowledge they understand themselves and become liberated bodhisattvas now understand their own stuff but they understand all the different paths that all the different beings have to go all the different margas they learn they know all the different paths people have to take all the different delusions that they're on and buddhas know akara means aspect, they know all the different aspects of all the different margas, of all the different all knowledges so they look at all the different things from all the different ways so bodhisattvas have to go into all states of delusion and talk to all beings not they have to but also they vow to do that prior even before we're able to do it, we're willing theoretically to talk to anybody so actually doing that and studying just by watching how the conditions are basically attributing itself

[64:33]

and listening to stories and listening to stories about it Nagarjuna is telling about these great stories and listen and watch how people argue with him and try to defend their positions and listen to his response, follow that and maybe you can see some of that stuff maybe that you think that way to some extent too and can you understand that you're capable of following either one of those lines of reasoning and see how one line of reasoning is incoherent and the other one makes sense but only makes sense enough to sort of like release you from your holding and after that's done there's nothing more to it like we say, like you know the only purpose of Zen is to unload the saddlebags and take off the blinders and melt the glue and pull out the nails, that's enough once this stuff is released there's no more to be done we don't have to then put stuff into people and people just respond according to circumstances they don't need to carry anything with them after that pulling the stuff out

[65:35]

you have to go down into the place where the saddlebags are and where the blinders are and where the glue is and where the nails are you have to go in there get into the situation in yourself and if you can release it in yourself then you can go be with other beings and the releasing starts spreading that's the idea that's why that's Buddhist love to release beings from being stuck once they're released they're fine then we're just experiencing the intimacy with all of the universe and from that intimacy we respond appropriately as we always have been but it's hard for us to see because we think there's essence involved in the place Nagarjuna just talking

[66:46]

saying what he has to say Karka 11 is somebody is criticizing Nagarjuna on Karka 11 okay that's when a dialogue between him and his critic starts so realize that that's not him saying that's somebody criticizing him about Karka and then him responding see if you can tell how long the conversation goes on no chapter 1 Karka 11 is not Nagarjuna it's him talking but he's speaking he's criticizing himself he's setting up this argument now, it's going to be going on for a few verses can you see the argument and see who's saying what and see how long it goes on and then switch it back out of the argument

[67:31]

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