And then maybe we can start Chapter 24. Once I review, I look ahead to see how many 4 or 9 day evenings we have, we have 5 before the Sashim, and in one sense that seems like a few, and there's about 40 verses in Chapter 24, so we can do 8 verses a night, but that's kind of a lot actually, especially since some of the verses are very important, and we could spend quite a few meetings on, for example, verse 18 and 19. So I think maybe we need to have quite a few classes, I don't know.

[01:14]

I think there is a fairly deep sense among some of us humans that there is some kind of genuine causal link running through the process of our experience, and that way of seeing how things work is connected actually with thinking that things actually inherently exist. Maybe some of you are not into that, or not aware that you're into that, either into thinking that there's real powerful connections between things that seem to appear and disappear,

[02:31]

and you may also feel that you really think that things inherently exist, but those two things do actually go together, which is part of the reason why in his attempt to teach, Nagarjuna emphasizes causation a lot. I know Nietzsche is a controversial person in this world, but I think Jeremy did this research in my book on Nietzsche, and found this section from Beyond Good and Evil, which I thought was interesting to see him talking like this.

[03:33]

This is an English translation, so I don't know what the German original is for a lot of these words. Anyway, he says, if anyone should find out in this manner the crass stupidity of the celebrated conception of free will, and put it out of his head altogether, I beg of him to carry his enlightenment a step further. Do you understand what I've said so far? Pardon? What about in German? Did you understand that Nietzsche considers the celebrated conception of free will as a crass stupidity? Did you get that? So if one were to discover that this issue, that this celebrated conception of free will

[04:33]

was a crass stupidity, if one were to awaken to that, then Nietzsche would beg you to carry your enlightenment one step further. Oh, excuse me, I want to say also that he says that you would see that the conception of free will was a crass stupidity and put it out of your head entirely. Yeah, I would say, now you're going to put it out of your head, it would drop out of your head entirely. So he wants to take it one step further and also put out of his head the contrary of this monstrous conception of free will. By that I mean non-free will, which is tantamount to a misuse of cause and effect. One should wrongly materialize cause and effect, as the natural philosophers do, and whoever

[05:43]

like them naturalizes in his thinking at present, according to the prevailing mechanical dotishness which makes the cause press and push until it affects its end, one should use cause and effect only as pure conceptions, that is to say as conventional fictions for the purpose of designation and mutual understanding. So far that's identical to Nargajuna, and you may find some articles on the relationship between various comparative philosophy and religion books about Nietzsche and Nargajuna, but this is pretty much in here that's almost exactly the same as what Nargajuna is saying, except he adds one more expression, which again I don't know what the German is, but

[06:46]

he says, not for explanation, but for designation and mutual understanding is for explanation, but I think what he means not for explanation would be not to account for the reality of the process, because these stories of cause and effect do not account for the reality of the process, they just give a designation for mutual understanding, which we share and we use for various practical purposes. One should use cause and effect only as pure conceptions, or I would say as mere conceptions, just as mere conceptions, that is to say as conventional fictions for the purpose of designation

[07:46]

and mutual understanding. So this is just, again, just like Nargajuna, and he says not for explanation, but Nargajuna would say not as to indicate essences or inherent realities or genuine power relationships between the two. This next part is a little bit harder and may not sound quite so familiar. In quotes, being in itself, unquote, there is nothing of causal connections. In quotes, being in itself, unquote, there is nothing of causal connections, just like Nargajuna. The way things actually are, there aren't actual causal links between what appears

[08:51]

in disputes. In being in itself, there is nothing of, quote, necessity, unquote, or of psychological non-freedom, unquote. There is the effect, no, there the effect does not follow the cause, there the law does not obtain. It is we alone who have devised cause, sequence, reciprocity, relativity, constraint, number, law, freedom, motive, and purpose, and when we interpret and intermix this symbol world as being in itself with things, we act once more as we always acted mythologically. So it's just almost perfect correspondence.

[09:53]

And then that, there's another little thing I just found, I don't know how many of you have seen, it's always interesting. No, this is Walter Kaufman, who is also an expert on Nietzsche and existentialism. This is a book called Discovering Mind. No single explanation can really explain human behavior. In other words, there is no real, essential, inherent causal link. And again, a powerful cause, a cause that actually has causal power, a cause something else, goes with that cause and that something having essences and then inherently existing. So he said, no single explanation can really explain human behavior. It can, at most, illuminate human behavior and allow us to see something we had not seen.

[11:07]

In other words, it's practical. It can be practical. Explanations can be practical. They can help you see something, understand something, like, you know, say to a kid, well, you see, see that and that and that? And the kid goes, oh, yeah, well, I won't do that again, or I will do that again. See how if you hold a bat that way, how it sort of hits the ball? See how if you watch the ball, you hit the ball? See how if you, you know, add the eggs afterwards, what happens? But again, this kind of talk, we slip then into thinking that there is an essential connection between, you know, the eggs cause the cake, or whatever. An accident may be a convenient paradigm. Why did it happen?

[12:13]

The road was icy at that point, and the driver of the small car was in a great hurry because he was late for a crucial appointment, because the person who had promised to pick him up had not come, and his reflexes were slower than usual because he had hardly any sleep that night because his mother had just died the day before. And just before the accident, his attention was distracted for a crucial second by a very pretty girl on the side of the road who reminded him of a girl he once knew. Yet he might have regained control of the car if only a truck had not come towards him just as he skidded into the left lane. The truck driver might have managed not to hit him, but... Dot, dot, dot.

[13:14]

If we add now, that's one story, right? If we add now that the truck driver had gone through a red light and was moreover going much faster than the legal speed limit, the policeman who witnessed the accident, as well as the court later on, might discount as irrelevant everything we said before the three dots and be quite content to explain the accident merely in terms of the truck driver's two violations. He caused the accident. But that does not rule out the possibility, further possibility, that the other driver had a strong death wish because his mother had died

[14:17]

or that he punished himself for looking at an attractive girl the way he did so soon after his mother's death, or that the person who had let him down was partly to blame. Dot, dot, dot. Hence, of course, we know what we do is try to figure out if somebody gets killed and we say, OK. We pick a certain part of that and say the person with the gun shot him. He caused the death. He's the murderer. He's at fault. Now, if we can bring into the first part of the story sometimes, sometimes it's like, well, blah, [...] blah. Therefore, although he did do it, he's not a murderer because... But still, it depends on, you know, it's all explanation. And if they don't bring in the first part, then that's... This is just practical explanations to make you see something

[15:18]

that you wouldn't see without the explanation. So, again, as a basic thing, on one side, Nagarjuna wants us to notice the connection between the causal power view of causation. That's connected with the essentialist view of phenomena. If there's a causal power view of the stories, then you really do have a murderer. You really do have the essential cause of the accident, or whatever. On the other side, you have a connection between a conditioned view of dependent co-arising. And that's connected to a conventional view of phenomena. Not that these phenomena don't exist, but that there's just a conventional view of them. And you can still follow conventional processes,

[16:19]

and you can still, perhaps, decide that somebody is responsible for an accident. But your attitude is much different. You know it's just a conventional thing you did. For example, we have a convention in the United States of... What is it? If you stop, if your car stops and somebody hits you from the back, they're responsible, right? Pretty much all the time. It's a convention, right? You get hit from the back from somebody, it's a convention. Some other society, they might make a different decision, according to some other explanation. But I think that one you can maybe tell, maybe keep in touch, perhaps, with the conventionality of it, that it's a convention. There's also a movie, what is it? I won't get into it. There's a movie called Wong, I think it's... Is it Wong is missing, or what's his name? Chang is missing. The beginning... Chang is missing.

[17:20]

And it's... The beginning is this guy named Chang is missing, and they're looking for him, and this lady comes to visit, who is telling a story about how the policemen stopped him, and asked him, like, did you go through the red light or something like that, you know? And he couldn't understand the way the guy was talking, because, you know, the way he saw it was from this totally different explanation of the universe. And anyway, just... The situation broke down. Okay, now let's see if we can go through this chapter. So, first of all, first of all, let me read your translation. At nowhere and at no time can entities ever exist by originating out of themselves, from others, from both, or from a lack of causality.

[18:23]

So... So, at nowhere and no time can entities ever exist originating out of themselves. In other words, that they themselves have within themselves a power to make themselves arise. You can't find such a thing. Also, you can't find something existing that arises from the causal power of another. You can't find something that comes from both. And there's nothing around that could, like, come from no causes. Or a lack of causes. So this is, he's rejecting causation in the sense of causal power. That's what this whole chapter is about. Except that he does give an alternative, as we see.

[19:26]

There are four, and only four, conditions. Namely, primary causal, appropriate, 18th, or objectively extending, sequential or contiguous, and dominantly extending conditions. And there is no fifth condition. So again, he doesn't say there's no conditions, because, in fact, conditions means, he doesn't say there's no explanation of how things happen. He says you can explain how things happen, and that's fine. But it's just an explanation. That's all. But he doesn't reject that there are explanations, and the explanations follow certain laws. Because the explanations are conventional. So there's only four. There's not five, or 15, or 27, there's four. Because that's the convention. If you want to make a new convention, go ahead.

[20:27]

He's just saying this is the conventional world that I live in. There's not, there's actually four. And that can account for all the stories that I've ever heard of, he says. And all the stories that the Buddha ever told, and all the stories that his successors ever came up with. These conditions, however, are not causes in the sense of powerful connections, and linking between phenomena. Certainly, number three, certainly, there is no self-existence of existing things in conditioning causes. It's possible, but... Number three, certainly there are no existing, or there's self-existence, there is no self-existence of existing things in conditioning causes.

[21:28]

And so on. And if no self-existence exists, neither does other existence. Essence of entity is not evident in the conditions, and so on. You look at something happening, something appears, something arises, or something goes away, anyway, the arising of something. There is no... self-existence of existing things in conditioning things, in the conditioning causes. So here, he's already rejected existing things, so he's saying that the things that seem to appear, if you look at the conditions surrounding them,

[22:30]

that live with them, you will not find the essence of the thing in the conditions. Essence of the entity will not be evident, you won't be able to see it in the conditions, except metaphysically you'll be able to see it. So again, a wonderful example that Kathy brought up is if you look at the acorns in the neighborhood of the oak tree, you can metaphysically see the oak tree in the acorn, but it's a metaphysical vision that you're having. Understand? An ordinary person, a child, cannot see a bullfrog in an acorn. Right? They can tell, they can... maybe they can work at it a little bit, they can imagine a bullfrog in an acorn, and they also can't see... they don't see any evidence of an oak tree in an acorn. You could have...

[23:33]

you could take all the acorns away and put them around pine trees and put pine cones around oak trees, and then, if you want to, would you... you could metaphysically see oak trees in the pine cones. Or do you think that it's actually easier to see oak trees in acorns than it is to see them in pine cones? I don't know, maybe you do. But all this is metaphysical vision. It's not actually evident in a conventional sense. However, we do tell the story that acorns go with oak trees. That's a conventional story. One of the conditions for oak trees is acorns. But again, as I said, sometimes, for some of the conditions that we see associated with oak trees, we don't imagine that we can see the essence of oak tree in the conditions. So we mix it up. We say, well, actually, the essence of oak tree is in some of the conditions, but not in the other ones. So the ones that we say the essence is in,

[24:36]

those are causes. Those are genuine causes, because they have the essence of the thing in them. The Nagarjuna says, no, there are no such things as the self-existence of an oak tree in some condition of an oak tree. But we think that way. And the Buddha said, or has been reported as saying, something like, you know, unwholesome deeds lead to unwholesome results. So then people think, they might think that there is something in the unwholesome deed, some essence of unwholesome result in the unwholesome deed. And that goes with that there's an essence of unwholesome result in the unwholesome deed, and therefore there's an essence of unwholesome result in the unwholesome result. So unwholesome results are really inherently existing.

[25:37]

Right? They truly are. They're not just conventional unwholesome. Things are not just conventional evil, they are truly, essentially, inherently evil. And they come from causes which are inherently evil and have inherent, real, powerful connections to the results. This is the way many people think. And also many, that fits right into this other way of thinking of how to tell some stories and really believe they're true about how things happen. People get scared if I bring this up because then they think, well, if evil is not inherently or essentially evil and it's not caused by actions which are essentially and inherently evil, then is this all relative? Is dependent co-arising just all relative?

[26:44]

So we don't like that. We want, you know, we want to, you know, pin it down to some substantial thing because we don't like evil. It's bad stuff, right? If we recognize that it's dependent co-arising, it loses its substantial, essential reality and then we might take it lightly. And that fear of taking it lightly comes from not being sure how we actually feel about evil. So if you're insecure about how you feel about what's happening to you because you actually haven't really felt how you feel about what's happening to you, then what you do is you want to make it substantial in a hope that you'll feel more secure. Now if it's something good, same thing.

[27:55]

If you're insecure about something good because you haven't really verified how good it is, then, of course, you want to make sure about how good it is and not lose control of how good it is so then again you want to make it into a really good thing which is caused by a really essentially effective cause which has the essence of goodness in it. So then good things, things that go with good, conditions for good, then become essentially good, rather than good because they go with good. And isn't that good enough? Well, it is good enough if you look deeply in the situation actually. It's not good enough if you look at it superficially. So then you want to make it better so make it essential. However, there is a fundamental incoherence in this process of trying to do things that way. If one views phenomena as having

[28:57]

emerged from causal powers, one views them as having essences and as being connected to essences of other phenomena. And could it be that there's people like that that see things that way in this neighborhood? And to the extent that you do feel that way and you operate that way, then perhaps what's being studied here is a little bit disorienting, reorienting, upsetting, revolutionizing, whatever. Difficult to deal with. Partly because, not to make fun of you, but partly because Nagarjuna puts it not so well. Or his translators put it not so well. But also partly because we're just having trouble with this. It's just kind of like however you translate it, it's still a major reorientation. The first time through you might say,

[29:58]

well, yeah, that's a nice way to put it. But at some point it's going to hit you and you're going to have to readjust some things. I've noticed myself, since I've been studying this, the way I talk, I have to change. The way I talk about things is starting to change. This book I'm writing, I have to change things. It's about Pali's Precepts work. I have to change the way I'm talking about these things. I can see the substantialist, essentialist views slipping and sliding around with stuff I'm saying. I have to change. Not a lot, but change a lot. Not a big change, but lots of little changes, little verb endings and prepositions and stuff like that, which start to loosen the whole thing up. Anyway, this thing about viewing phenomena as having emerged from causal powers and viewing them as having essences

[30:59]

and being connected to other things that have essences, good things coming from good causes, essentially good things coming from good causes and good people coming from good people and bad people coming from bad people, this way of seeing things is ultimately incoherent. How is it incoherent? Because it forces one at the same time to assert inherent or essential existence of things by virtue of their essential identity or their essential self-existence. You do that and then you assert that their dependence and productive character is in virtue of their causal history and power. But such dependence and relational character

[31:59]

is incompatible with their inherent existence. The reason why acorns have the essence of oak trees in them is because of the history of acorns and oak trees. And because of that history acorns have all this wonderful essence of oak tree in them because of this thing that's developed over eons with DNA and all that working together. It's all gotten worked out so perfectly that there's this powerful real connection. But the very fact that there's this powerful real connection by which you establish the essence is incoherent. Because it wouldn't be any essence if it depended on history. Or depended on the connection which is essential. No connection is essential because connection is shows that things aren't essential.

[33:01]

If on the other hand wouldn't be one that we might be would regard things as dependently co-arisen merely on conditions then one regards them as merely conventional and conventionally existing by some story. And to regard something as merely conventionally existing is to regard it as without essence and without power. But this is a coherent story and it's nothing metaphysical about it it's quite mundane. A child can follow it. A child can also a child can follow it and also attribute essence to the whole process too with little help. We can learn metaphysics at an early age. And we do learn it by some frightening examples. On the other hand

[34:06]

if we do naughty things in other words if we do things which are conventionally considered as naughty which we are told are naughty we can be told you know about how things work we can be told stories about what will happen in a way that doesn't necessarily lead us to feel that we are essentially evil for the things we've done but just that if we do these things certain conventional things will follow or things will follow according to certain conventions. My father took me to the police station one time when I was a kid and he took me into the police station and he wanted me to see the police station because I had stolen some toys from the five and dime store. He took me and asked the policeman if he could show me the cells and the policeman said yes. So he took me in and showed me the cells and in those cells there were lots of bicycles. And he said do you want to be in there? But I got the picture

[35:07]

and I said no. And he also said you know it would kill your mother if you wound up in this place. This was pretty good. I didn't, this was pretty good. I was eight. Can I ask a question? Yes you may. Just to clarify for myself. If I attribute essence to something there's a functional incoherence there because by attributing essence to either the cause or the effect this is where I get a little bit lost. I'm saying there's no okay. I'm saying there's a connection between the cause and effect

[36:07]

and that connection then makes some essence without essence actually because essence means that they inherently exist which means they don't need conditions for their existence. So if there's a connection that means they don't exist. Yeah right. And if you're talking about the cause having an essence if it has essence that means it exists independently. Things that exist independently also don't produce anything. Okay right. Because if they produce something then what they are is they need to produce something because they produce something. So they don't inherently exist. And things they produce if they needed to be produced then they don't inherently exist. So in both directions it's incoherent. Is there a reason why it's just the translation

[37:12]

of the word karma does not mean something? I'm still not sure. They don't use the word karma in this translation for action they use kriya. There's other places in this book where they use karma but this chapter there's no karma they don't use karma here. The functional, number four the functional force does not inherit in the relational condition nor does it not inherit in them. The relational condition vice versa conditions vice versa do not inherit in the functional force nor do they not inherit in them. This word functional force by the way that's that word kriya and kriya can mean functional force activity power or potentiality. Functional force inherent activity power

[38:12]

or potentiality this activity the power to act does not have conditions if it did you know it wouldn't be then that thing wouldn't have the power to act because it would depend on other conditions. Something has the power to act it doesn't have conditions. There is no power to act without conditions. There are no conditions without the power to act nor do any have the power to act. Yes Sure

[39:20]

Sure Yeah do your own take it's good everybody can do their own take now. Seeing the acorn as an acorn and seeing the acorn as suchness no that's seeing it that way is exactly the same did you hear what she said? What she just said was exactly the same as what she said was not said. Seeing the acorn as the acorn and its suchness as having an identity of acorn that's connected with thinking that the acorn could cause the oak tree the same way of thinking that the acorn

[40:20]

if the acorn has an essence then maybe it could have the essence of oak tree in it. But I don't think you hear this in other aspects of Guru's teaching about just seeing each thing as it is or maybe it's presented maybe it's meant to be but I don't see what I'm saying about it. I do OK let's look at a thing as it is shall we? Nagarjuna is saying if you look at a thing what are you going to see? Are you going to see a thing all by itself independent? Are you going to see that? How can you see something all by itself independent? No you can't actually. For example an acorn can you see the acorn all by itself not connected to anything not even connected to you looking at it? No but he's saying that the teaching how can you see the teaching of suchness? The teaching of suchness is that the acorn arises in relationship

[41:21]

to conditions and we have a story we have a story you and I have a story which might be fairly similar to the story some other people have here about acorns and that story is how we conventionally come up with and talk about acorns for example acorns are not pen cones right? and there's ways to tell the difference between acorns and pen cones what are some of the conditions of an acorn? does it have a smooth surface? does it have a little hat? are these same conditions for acorns? or is there an essence of acorn that doesn't depend on any conditions? if it doesn't depend on being smooth or having some of these qualities if it doesn't depend on association with oak trees and so on and so forth if it doesn't depend on any conditions then you have essence of acorn the acorn by itself has such independent of the thing

[42:21]

but that's not teaching of suchness that's the teaching of essences and that way of thinking goes perfectly with acorns being the cause of something else and being a real powerful cause of something else not a wimpy cause of something else not a second class cause of something else that was great the way you did that because you stated one side of the way Nagarjuna would see acorns but then you shifted over to the other way of seeing acorns which goes with seeing acorns in the opposite way you saw acorns you did half and half and in fact we can do that we can pull ourselves up out of this essentialist view and go over to one side and then the other side of us is still on the other side and we slip back into the other side to really feel it like we're buddhists we're zen buddhists so we know that form is empty we know that conception is empty

[43:23]

we know that but then we get into causation we slip back into that form is not empty that form really exists that there really is something called blue and the essence of blue not that blue depends on having a certain electromagnetic energy or having a certain wavelength it doesn't depend on these things it is there is a thing independently existing in the universe that doesn't depend on anything called blue now we don't think that because we're zen buddhists we chant the heart sutra we don't fall into that that's why Nagarjuna points to causation because causation is an area where we slip in the process we sort of attribute it in there but you see it comes back that's why we really do think blue is blue and that's why we really do think that certain people are jerks really not just convention like us I have this story like I told you this story about this person who's like what dishonest right this person is dishonest

[44:23]

this lady told me about this person dishonest the story about this person but she didn't she didn't say I have this story about this person that I tell to arrive at her being dishonest she said the person really is dishonest I mean actually besides all the other people that I sort of like pretend like they're dishonest or sort of joke about them being dishonest like me you know kind of like I'm sometimes dishonest and sometimes I'm not and some of my friends are sometimes but this person is like basically a dishonest person essentially and my roommate on top of her so I had a chance to watch her very carefully and notice the conditions that I use to arrive at her being dishonest but if you have any conditions by which you arrive at to prove the person dishonest then the person is only dishonest by the story you tell you're not essentially dishonest but I don't think that I don't think that seeing the suchness of a thing

[45:25]

means that you're trying to fix it that's a stupid thing suchness and suchness at that moment you know and again I'm asking in that future suchness did you hear did you hear about have you heard I didn't hear about the seeing the suchness of something did you hear about that where did you hear about that oh where did I say it I could have I could have before I studied Nagarjuna I could have said suchness yeah show me show me and Nagarjuna wrote this book because some Buddhists were talking like that the people he was refuting were mostly Buddhists because some Buddhists actually say that things have a suchness a suchness now is a suchness kind of like what is a suchness is a suchness like just kind of like equality like you know like acorns are yellow sometimes but not necessarily acorns are not red is a suchness of a thing

[46:29]

is equality is that the suchness of it it's impossible to say what the suchness is is that what you're saying the suchness of the thing but a thing has a suchness anyway I don't know I don't the teaching of suchness doesn't say anything about that things have suchness the teaching of suchness is that things don't have suchness that's the teaching of suchness did you check it out right in light there is darkness but don't confront it as darkness right in darkness there is light but don't see it as light what's compelling you what's compelling you what's compelling me

[47:31]

yeah I don't know what that means you know what's compelling me is that you know we're made of glass well that's good that you say that because that's actually where we're at most of the time is that we are compelled by things and the reason why we're compelled by them is partly because we think that they are inherently existent and therefore we are enslaved so that's really good you are doing a service here by saying that and admitting that we all feel that way we really do think the wall is solid you know we really do we really do think that is green and blah blah blah we do it's all very compelling now the way to make it less compelling is to observe how the dependent co-arises that's the road to freedom

[48:31]

Charlie is suchness the failure of dependent co-arising is it the same as dependent co-arising no what's the difference hmm what's the difference well suchness is that dependent co-arising is itself also not a thing you have you can't if you say did you hear what he said can you see what he did he did the same thing Roberta did now he took so I said I said I don't know if he raised his hand before or after I said I kind of talked about dependent co-arising is ok ok so then he switched over and said dependent co-arising is suchness in other words dependent co-arising is that reality well is dependent co-arising the same as dependent co-arising pardon is dependent co- no it isn't definitely not

[49:33]

if it were then dependent co-arising would have an essence and it would be it would be identical with dependent co-arising and then it could be the actual powerful cause of everything to say that everything dependent co-arises does not mean that there is this thing called dependent co-arising which is causing everything to happen does not mean that but we slipped into that is dependent co-arising a conventional description yes yes that's what Nagarjuna is saying is saying dependent co-arising is just a conventional description that's all it is that's all we actually have is these stories about what things happen that's it and therefore they're nothing but that they're just conventional stories there's nothing to them and however we don't just say them at random like I don't say Roberta comes from I didn't say Roberta comes from acorns why don't I say that

[50:41]

you know before tonight anyway why don't I say that because it's not conventional that didn't stop me nodding either I actually I actually don't conventionally go around thinking that she came from acorns but we could all in our little valley here we could switch over and think okay at least acorns came from I mean at least Roberta came from acorns I can think that yeah but I mean I mean I mean it seems that there's some some some conventional stories are better than other conventional stories of course the better ones are the conventional that's the point those are the ones that get to be conventional the better ones the ones the thing about Roberta coming from acorns

[51:42]

is not a very good one actually I mean isn't it isn't it possible for there to be cultures that are ideological in some way where the conventional views may not in fact be what we want to call in a different in a society that has different conventional views better ones there is a thing there is a thing called called evolution and there are societies within which the conventional world the conventional view in other words is how they think things depend and co-arise there are societies in which they have stories and the conventional ones in that society are what they think are the best ones basically there are variations but then they sort of like there's some pressure to come along with that in Japan I'll get into that later but in Japan there's a lot more pressure for everybody to agree on what dependent co-arising or something is than in America now is it possible that two different societies in which there are two different conventional worlds conventional reality means that in different spheres

[52:43]

there will be different conventional realities absolute reality doesn't vary from sphere to sphere isn't it possible that this one could be better than that one that's what you're saying right? that a society with conventional reality could be better than this society with conventional reality I don't want to say that from any sort of absolute point but I want to say exactly exactly not from but from some conventional point of view like for example which one will reproduce you know something like that and as a certain philosopher who I respect a lot said he said well you know maybe this fundamentalist thing is not going to last you know maybe these people you know in the Middle East these fundamentalists maybe they won't last in other words maybe they'll get old energy maybe they won't get a chance to reproduce these things do happen again and there's a conventional story about how that will or will not happen if it does happen if they cease to exist if that form of existence can't live on this planet

[53:43]

with people going around bombing everybody to kind of like eliminate that thing then there will be a story about how that happened they won't be around to tell their story anymore if they get eliminated and there will be a conventional story on the planet about how that group of people didn't get a chance to keep going and the best story over the whole planet or in different things will be you know that's the one that will live and that's history too history is the same thing see again it's a tricky thing if you use history to prove this is really true but if you use history to prove it's really true it isn't really true it's only convention true if you use these reasons for why she's dishonest to convince me she's dishonest then obviously she's not dishonest because you can take away one of your reasons suddenly she's just sort of dishonest you take away two she's a little maybe dishonest take away three she's a person again and then also is she really a person then the reasons

[54:44]

for that take away the reason why she really is a person in other words all there is in this world is these stories which we conventionally tell and which anybody most anybody can follow and you don't have to attribute any metaphysics to it however we do and the reason why we do is because deep down in us there's a very strong drive to attribute substantive things because of our self-cleaning so we're looking and because of our self-cleaning we're basically insecure and because we're insecure we want to like project our self-cleaning on things because we think if we could get them under control that would make us more secure and so on Nagarjuna is graciously trying to go in there Buddha is graciously trying to get us in there and to let go of this stuff and realize that we can't actually live without projecting this substance all over the place we will survive a certain amount of time without it if we keep it we're

[55:53]

going to is because of not recognizing ordering of importance or significance of these conventional stories that aren't only relative to a particular society's views at the moment but maybe relative to this experience of having a separate having an embodied being embodied so that even though in a sense we might I mean we we can say that we don't believe that this there's an essence to the separate embodiment who says we don't believe in it well we do believe in it but we do believe in it but we might also believe that it's only based given a certain relative standpoint that this separate embodiment appears at least I believe that right so but I also believe that it seems that all these other apparent bodies around here are probably going to also take you

[56:53]

know believe that or believe in the kind of significance of that that is it's I more important story than acorns for example the important story is that we have separate bodies and we want to keep them going well it's a more important story than you know than believing in DNA or this or that I mean it's and it's a story that you know that seems to run through all apparently humans are you saying well I'm saying that there's stories like that but there you know

[57:54]

that there's some story that I mean just to say that they're all stories I agree that they're all stories but I think there's some stories that given the way things seem are almost inevitable stories and and that they're so important to us because they're tied to our kind of experience of ourselves that we then take this extra step and say that that's the way things are I mean we can't say that all things are relative but some some of these relative standpoints are well we have trouble that you know that all that all appearances are relative but some of these relative appearances because it's more it's somehow more it's somehow more subtle we're not I mean we we we want to be able to respect some of

[58:55]

these relative standpoints very much you know like the fact of separate embodiments all around we want to do that we want to do that yes we do we do but we don't and we do do it we do do that and it's confusing I think it's got using to say that's relative and so that it's easy just to say well that's what you're sorry it's incoherent the whole thing is incoherent incoherent which hope you do that right and thank you for doing it again you did it again by by telling us a story about how some stories are better than our stories no I say they're more they're inevitable oh they're some stories are inevitable and yes and that story has essence that's not just a that's just not a conventional

[59:55]

story this toilet only holds up by convention it's actually got an essence to it where's the essence weird is northward means faith and you say that's right it is weird it's our faith you know faith medical sounds similar to me I mean sounds what are you trying to say you're trying to say I do the same thing I'm just you know I'm not gonna I'm not gonna think you give all the examples from my own thinking people who come forth and demonstrate your own attachment to essences and you're doing it very nicely yes

[60:55]

I said that if there were one absolute reality it wouldn't change from one conventional reality to the other what is not the case if there is one absolutely I agree I agree I agree I don't think that way or act like that but there is this thing and we although you're right there isn't such a thing most of us act like there is and and and big part of our practice is to express ourselves so that somebody can spot that we finally found something really finally are like we saw we see the Dharma and the Dharma is really

[62:18]

but mostly you don't get locked up sucks is fine but tell us what it is that's how it works that's the point of the program is for you to show us how you do it so I said you can see what it is I have just start by saying you're not sure show us an example of that you think that you really are such a thing no I don't find that you're not an essentialist I can't buy any of my own hyper because every time you can't no really you really thought that was the true story didn't you definitely have a story about how you did it you definitely have a story about how you did that yeah you got you got more than hundred you got story for every situation and by that story you know there's some credibility to what you

[63:53]

think that's right that's that's enough for us that's what we're talking about that's what we use okay that's what we got here tribal stories now are you agreeing that it's only the tribal story or you're agreeing that it's at least the tribal story if I say it's only the tribal story that I'm gonna slip into something there too yeah I'm just gonna say there's nothing more than that or are you gonna say that you can't know that there's nothing more than that I'm not talking about metaphysics I'm not talking about knowing something else out there beyond what I can see and touch you know like the essence of acorns essence of Tom stories and all that stuff and essence of this higher level of story well the higher level that I'm talking about I mean there's something else about that which is that it's a cheap fix you know I mean that's what I was trying to say that if you know if

[64:54]

you believe in a certain in the same essence is that other people believe in then you're less likely to get locked up or to get killed if you're with those people which we seem to be I think the institutions are full of people who agree with the story going along a story completely that won't even work it seems to me that a lot of this way of seeing essence in things has to do with believing in our specific thinking

[65:55]

that if this then this and not only that if then this then this but I believe it because if then this then what before and and that continuing that process perpetually based on some perceived experience that just recreates that every time even though that's not so it's just this constant associative thinking that when I feel pain and what is forever yes what what then I what then I feel as I said what it makes me think there's there's a wisdom in the like you can't I feel so well I don't think I can get rid of my specific thinking because then I don't think I

[66:57]

know that it's just as you can think it actually seems to sort of lessen my belief yes I'm willing to have conversations of this okay I think I do you think it's not visible see some people my son was little he wanted to be a fireman and then it emerged that he said that firemen had started fires that's why he wanted to be a fireman and what's interesting is I keep thinking about that story we were very amused when we found out that he wanted to be a fireman because he wanted to start fires and then we explained to him oh no no the firemen they put out the fires

[68:09]

we should have said yeah they got it all wrong you know they should call them fire extinguisher people or something instead of firemen that wasn't very sympathetic to his view well yeah sure it sounds like firemen start fires and instead I laugh he was actually not very easy to convince on that when we say that Stuart and Curie's son was caused by certain activities on their part we call this substantive I'm bored and we call that substantialism when we talk about dependent co-arising to say that their son was caused by certain activities

[69:14]

to say that we cause means that there's a genuine powerful link between their activity and their rising in the sun that's causation in the sense that a lot of people meet in the sense that a lot of people reject but you can still say that their son is connected by conditions to their activity in fact that's a story we tell whether it's true or not we do tell that story right let me make a mistake say that this table actually exists and has an inherent existence if that table inherently exists we call that substantialism yes that's a conventional view that's a conventional view of substantialism? yes that's a conventional view that we call substantialism yes dependent co-arising is also a conventional view we call it the Buddha Dharma Buddha? the teaching of dependent co-arising maybe I've gotten you wrong on that

[70:15]

Buddha didn't teach it but he also taught that people attribute inherent existence to things if these are both he taught both those things that people do attribute that but he also taught that there is dependent co-arising right in other words he taught that there that the story that people tell about how things inherently exist is actually just a conventional story and that's it that's what he taught but did he teach that the story of dependent co-arising is just a conventional story? yes that's very important he taught that too that's very important he taught that dependent co-arising is just a story too dependent co-arising is not Buddha Dharma wait a minute, hold on

[71:18]

Buddha Dharma is a word no anything that remains of that conventional yes including what is true pardon? including what is true including what is true well, as I said, what is true including quotes, what is true unquote so the question I'm asking is are some conventional stories more useful for liberation than other conventional stories? are some conventional stories useful for liberation than other? more conventional you say? no, more useful I said more useful? uh-huh every conventional story could be a moment an occasion for awakening every single moment when you hear a conventional story

[72:21]

and know that it's a conventional story and don't add or subtract anything from it you are awake like he really just said you are enlightened when you understand that this thing about freeing will is just a crass stupidity but then, you know, don't take something away and say there's no cause and effect dependent co-arising is the way you understand that things are nothing more than stories and that is a story too and understanding things are nothing more than stories is understanding they're just empty nothing more than just a story and so is dependent co-arising this is the great thing that Margaret Jenner pointed out is that dependent co-arising is empty too that's why dependent co-arising is not suchness emptiness is not suchness dependent co-arising is the way

[73:29]

you understand that all the stories are empty and everything is just a conventional story if you don't have a conventional story for it it's not clear what we're talking about yet if I say a xamophram and you don't know what I'm talking about yet then we're not talking about anything yet but when the story becomes clear then suddenly something appears something seems to be there so it's just because we've clarified the story and then very quickly we can make it into the essence of xamophram because we have this powerful drive in us to attribute self to things emptiness of self is also empty therefore the self re-emerges and re-appears in the world as a radiant possibility of liberation for all beings otherwise everything would just be extinguished by this vision and everything would just go into nirvana

[74:30]

and that would be that but it doesn't happen that way the self re-emerges once it's liberated and gets right back into the story cool in the text it is said that a prehistoric man was making conclusions out of his being self-centered like, because I dance, it rains because I make a it was draining the world from his center and now we I mean this explanation is coming out of the human mind

[75:32]

again, every explanation would be self-centered so that's why we are not buying it buying it? sort of because whatever we are going to explain is coming out of our mind it's wonderful this thing about self-distinction they say the prehistoric person was doing that but that's where it started it took a long time to figure out that that was the problem that self-centeredness, that self-rejection on the processes of the world and so now we know the problem so now we have a story of the problem so this story, this dependent co-arising story is it a kind of de-centering story? a de-centering? yes I mean in the sense that it contrasts with this it's an emptying story it's one of the main ways

[76:33]

that the Buddha taught to quote unquote take the essence of it in terms of your own way of thinking about it you use certain you have means to make things substantial and if you watch how you make them substantial it's the story you tell and if you watch the story that's the very way that you let go of it but that process is also emptying which means you can tell the story again but this time from the point of view of liberation yes how do our physicians get into this book? you want the story about these physicians getting into this book? it feels like what we're just doing

[77:35]

over and over is deconstructing and yet if I understood some of what we talked about last year it seems as though these physicians were things that build up and build up and become like the economic experience so that they become like a button that's pushed it's beyond sub-thinking or it's not sub-thinking it's thinking no, it's thinking these physicians are dispositions of thinking these physicians are set up by thinking and thinking is set up by thinking it's getting mixed in with sub-thinking so this teaching

[78:38]

came before that teaching and that teaching came as a kind of supplement to this teaching because this teaching is so radical you keep pulling the plug and that teaching went back and talked about the dispositions that arise when the plug's still in and how the dispositions you know how they all work so Nagarjuna in the history of Buddhism he came before that school and that school came to sort of like show people a little bit about the landscape around this process it's more accessible in a way to stories this keeps telling you that you're telling the story all the time but it lets you tell the story if you can stand to be right at the core of your storytelling yes plug pulling is continual constantly finding yourself coming up with

[79:39]

some kind of essential story which is kind of alive but then you plug pulling is repetitive you keep applying the teaching of the tenet of co-arising you keep applying the teaching of look at your stories watch the stories see how you build the world keep applying that and you keep emptying things you feel funny about something you have a disposition towards somebody you have a disposition in certain situations and you look at how what a story you're telling behind that and you watch the story and you realize this is a story I'm telling a story about this person and then it's empty and you get faster and faster at that and you get looser and more flexible and quicker at catching yourself and noticing what you're doing and so pretty soon you're catching yourself more often at attributing reality to what you see and what you see is the conventional story you're telling which you can probably get a few people anyway to join in with you and say that's a good story

[80:41]

and if you can't then you're going to have a lot of trouble negotiating but that's we all have some troubles there is some difference in our stories the bonds don't have some troubles about that but the real trouble is not the difference in our stories it's that we make our stories into essence and then when we bump into people we bump real hard it's actually kind of fun to have different stories if if you're, you know catching yourself at what you're up to then it's kind of kind of like amplifies your appreciation of the importance of the situation and therefore amplifies your appreciation of the re-emergence of your story of yourself and your story of the other anyway, graciously uproots these fabrications fabrication is not the same as story story is not the same as fabrication

[81:42]

because to attribute essence to the process and to make these powerful connections between things which are actually just associative sometimes for our human circumstance we our political discourse looks like we pretty much have to choose between two conventional stories and we keep on reading about the fact that they're just conventional stories and nonetheless for whatever reason we have to adjudicate that it's between them are there better and worse ways of adjudicating between things which you know to be conventional stories you know what came to my mind when you said that was one time I was in Mexico and I woke up in the morning and looked at the ceiling in my room which of course happens in Tassajara too some of us when we first arrive anyway we wake up in the middle of the night and we don't know where we are what country we're in right it's Monterey San Francisco New York Boston Tassajara well Tassajara that's a good one

[82:42]

but anyway one time I was in this I was in Mexico and I was in this hotel and I looked at the ceiling and I went through it and I went through it a really long time before I decided which conventional story I was going to come up with you know we can say we feel that we have to choose one you know how long can you stand before we settle on yes it is Mexico how long can you sort of say San Francisco Texas you know Paris blah blah blah how long can you live in that world where you're running through these conventional stories each one is a conventional story each one you could discuss with somebody somebody could come in the room and say is this New Mexico or Spain or you know Guatemala what is this you know and they could say well it's Mexico and say well you know blah blah blah you might actually have a little debate about it and they say oh actually you're right you know it's possible you probably might just you might just say no it is Mexico and you say well I'm just going to keep thinking for the rest of the day Cuba you know you might do that but a lot of times we just feel like it's not that much fun it's more fun to do the conventional one you know

[83:44]

but whatever it's very well my question is having to decide what I mean I mean there are instances in which by convention widespread agreement about what you know what the conventional story is or is going to be by convention conventional stories by convention mostly like I choose Mexico because most people in Mexico choose Mexico that's all that's all if you didn't choose Mexico if you choose say Boston yeah but the night before you chose Mexico then if it was actually if it turned out you stuck to Boston are you talking about magic here no I'm talking about if you stick to Boston you're not you're not conventional anymore I don't know what you want to call that but conventional is when you're in Mexico the convention is to call it Mexico I guess I'm I mean they changed the name to some other like if they changed the name now they call they call this place over there like Deutschland they used to call it something else they used to call this something now they call it America it's convention that's all I mean I guess

[84:46]

I'm thinking about things like um um scientific debate um you know about things like equations there are some scientists who are pretty alert to the fact that you know most scientific stories don't keep sort of an open truth they're just the best stories and then what they're competing stories and there isn't a consensus among scientists let's say about what story is going to emerge as the best story and then what they have to come they do come they do come to a conventional decision and you know some of them were pretty frightened to make a conventional decision but they but in order for their purposes to conceive a scientist they need to make some sort of decision and I'm wondering if maybe it's an inappropriate question at this time but and there are other discussions like that that are sort of ethical that aren't scientific but we have to come for human purposes we have to come up with the best conventional story whether it's great today about what you know about what it is and I'm wondering if it is appropriate what you have to say about those types of situations that we're putting I feel like it's not an inappropriate question it's like the rest of the ones that have been asked it's the same

[85:46]

type of thing it's the same type of thing of trying to find some essence I'm not saying there is an essence but I'm saying I didn't say you were saying there is essence I said I'm pinning you I'm guessing you look like you're looking for an essence that's what you look like you're doing but it may not be what I'm doing I know that's just my story the story I see is you look like somebody looking for an essence that's what I see I don't see all scientists looking for essences I see sometimes what I hear from scientists recently the ones I think are most interesting are they saying if you say that such and such is going to happen certain things you can say such and such is going to happen and you can predict that it will happen up to like 18 decimal points you can get it down to what will happen you can predict such and such thing will come out up to 18 decimal points and you'll

[86:47]

get it like basically you'll get it to be there within experimental error every time if you go one more digit try to make it a little bit more exact like reading it down to the essence it suddenly goes from high predictability to zero zero so what these people are saying is that nothing can be predicted everything has a probability but they don't say necessarily they don't say the things with higher probability are better stories they just say this has a higher probability well but then they do more work with those stories I mean they do choose in some ways to ignore the stories with lower probability and invest in the stories with higher probability no no no not the scientists I think are interesting if you like those guys that's your conventional story the ones I like are the ones who don't then say that the one with higher probability is a better story for example it's a high probability that light goes straight when I was a kid they said light goes in straight lines that's what I was told it's a

[87:48]

high probability that it does but the scientists that I think are interesting do not say that light goes in straight lines they just say it has a high probability of going in under certain circumstances if you try to make it on a high level of resolution try to make it go straight it will never go straight I mean basically zero the probability of going straight under certain circumstances where you really try to make it go straight well you don't let it go wiggle at all if you try to do that then it will never go straight but still they do say most of the time it goes straight as long as you don't try to make it go really straight if you let it go the way it goes which is not straight but sometimes straight most of the times straight and you try to confine it and that's the thing we're talking about here if you try to make yourself like the story the conventional perfectly good conventional story if you try to make that the way you really are it goes from the

[89:16]

are and those are the philosophers those are the Yogis those are the scientists that I like Mark Arjun is like that um, excuse me, I'd just like to point out if we don't stop soon we'll have to adjust the schedule for the morning if we stop soon Yeah, but I think...

[89:41]

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