This sutra that we've been studying the last couple of days about Buddha's talking to this person named Kacayana. Buddha says that in the world, for the most part, Kacayana is bound by approach, grasping, and inclination. For she who does not follow this approach, grasping, and inclination that determination of mind, that disposition, who does not cling or adhere to the view, quotes, this is my permanent self. She just thinks, you know, the suffering that is subject to arising arises. The suffering that's subject to ceasing ceases. She just watches the suffering that's susceptible to suffering arise.

[01:10]

She just watches the suffering that's susceptible to ceasing cease. She doesn't approach phenomena. She doesn't have an inclination towards phenomena. She's totally cool. She's an upright yogi. She knows what's best for her. She's not perplexed. She has no doubt about what's happening, which means she doesn't have any doubt about herself. This is right view. This is the right way to view. She doesn't use what's happening. She doesn't exploit what's happening, and therefore what's happening doesn't use her.

[02:22]

Now, if she does use things, then she keeps them at a distance. Keeping them at a distance, she can't help... Well, keeping them at a distance, she has an inclination to keep them at a distance. She grasps them because they're at a distance. And for the most part in the world, that's what people do. So she does that. She's not this one who has right view anymore. She has wrong view. So she's perplexed. And those things that you keep out there like suffering, they use you. You become a remote control woman. You become a man who was driven and controlled by suffering and everything out there. But if you face things and you don't even put them out there, you don't use them, then you have right view.

[03:58]

In this kind of meditation, you let somebody else select what you look at. Somebody else means everybody else. So there's no problem of selection in this kind of meditation because you don't select. Whatever comes, it's to you, it's the Buddha Dharma. So you say, thank you. I'll work with this. So you work with actuality rather than what's useful. What's useful is what you use. What you use is what you grasp, what you have inclination towards. What's useful is the stuff of wrong view. But we like what's useful when we have wrong view.

[05:03]

When we have right view, we don't like or dislike what's useful. We just let it be useful. But what we work with is actuality rather than what's useful. There's a lot of useful things, but if they're not actually happening for us, we just live with that. So we value what's happening rather than what's cool, interesting, useful, helpful, beneficial, any high idea of what would be interesting to study. which just doesn't happen to be happening. So we postpone our practice until we can get back to the useful thing. But to work with what's happening rather than what's useful or what we'd like to work with or what we'd choose to work with or the teachers or students we'd choose to work with, then whatever is coming to be

[06:06]

we discover and we discover how the world is other dependent. So this is how to train yourself to renounce the ways of the world because the ways of the world for the most part are bound by approach, grasping, inclination, selection, prejudice, preference, usefulness, that kind of stuff, rather than actuality. And as I pointed out this morning, the Buddha very nicely said, the world, for the most part, kachayana, is bound by approach and so on. Because sometimes, even in the world, people miss a beat on their worldly ways and forget to use things and accidentally use what's happening instead.

[07:11]

and act just like a Buddha. Once in a while, a lot of people act just like a Buddha. They forget their worldly ways. They work with what's happening rather than sort of what they would choose to work with. God, I just... I worked with this person rather than that interesting person across the courtyard. How'd that happen? Well, that's it. How did it happen? That's the point. When you see how it's happening, when you see how it happens, you no longer apprehend the extremes of eternalism or annihilationism. Our ancestor Dogen said that the sitting meditation of the Buddhas is beyond any formulation or notion or experience.

[08:39]

It's in conformity with non-duality of ultimate truth. And I say, as described in the Sampdhinir Machana Sutra, which we discussed last week. The sitting meditation of the Buddha is not motion or stillness, not practice or realization. It has nothing to do with mind or body. It doesn't depend on delusion or enlightenment. It doesn't empty mental objects. It doesn't cling to any realm of sense. It doesn't value form or feeling or perception or formations of mental making or discriminating consciousness. In the study of the middle way, we don't use anything. We don't use colors, sounds, smells,

[09:44]

We don't use feelings, perceptions, mental formations or discriminating consciousness. We don't act from form, from feeling, from perceptions, from formations or consciousness. If we do act from these things, then that is form and feeling and perceptions and mental formations and consciousness. It's not the middle way. The middle way is we don't use these things. We study them. And we study them just as they happen. We don't add anything like You know, as, what is it? We don't add anything. We see how they happen, and so we can't add anything. But if we don't see how they happen, then we might try to add something.

[10:46]

Like, when something arises, when something seems to exist, we might add that it really exists. When something ceases, we might add that it really ceases. But if you're intimate with it, and you're engaged with how it happens, you're too busy... working with the actuality to be a metaphysical philosopher on top of this very engaging dance. I just thought of my daughter, my homo sapien daughter. One time I was at the beach with her and a little boy and the little boy's mother were at a beach at a lake in Berkeley.

[11:49]

And the little boy and the little girl were nude. And The little girl was eating strawberries. And she said to the little boy's mother, what's that? And she said, that's his penis. And then the mother pointed to my daughter and said, what's that? And she said, a strawberry. This is called, you know, in the middle way we don't use form and feeling and so on. And then about ten years later, my daughter made one of her rare appearances at one of my talks.

[12:52]

I don't know why she came that day. I think maybe some people from her high school were visiting or something. Anyway, she came and she sat in the front. And... I was talking about this, how we don't use things, which is called the logic of unsupported thought. In other words, we have a mind that doesn't use what's happening. So when a color arises, we don't use it. So our mind doesn't depend on the color. Our mind studies. It doesn't depend or grasp. It doesn't rely on what's happening. We have this mind that doesn't rely. We have a thought that's unsupported by what's happening. It dependently co-arises with it but can't use it.

[13:55]

It is the use of it. So it doesn't lean on it because it's nothing other than depending on it. So the logic of unsupported thought is the fact that something, the fact that A is A includes or implies that A is not A. The very reason that A is A is exactly why A is not A. And the very reason why A is not B is the reason why A is not A. This is the logic of unsupported thought. And she learned that. At 13 she learned that, and she still knows that, I think, and tests her. But then she left the lecture. That was enough for her.

[14:58]

Where's that other sutra? Does anybody have that other sutra? Here it is. Okay, so remember when in the first sutra the Buddha said in that neat part about the cessation of suffering? Remember that part? What's the cessation of suffering? The cessation of suffering is the complete cessation of that very thirst. The cessation of suffering is giving it up, renouncing it, emancipating oneself from it, detaching oneself from it. The Buddhas have taught us that the bodhisattvas, the realization of the bodhisattvas is emptiness. That's their realization. These compassionate beings realize emptiness. That is their emptiness. That is their realization, emptiness. But...

[16:19]

And what is emptiness? Emptiness is the cessation of suffering. Emptiness is relinquishing all views. So Nagarjuna says the Buddhas the, excuse me, the conquerors The victorious ones have announced that emptiness is the relinquishment of all views. okay what what's a view is what you think is happening like you know if you think it's hot not you know you think it's hot means you think hot has arisen you relinquish that

[17:55]

That's emptiness. You don't use that. Your mind is not supported by that phenomenon. So, the Buddhas have announced that Emptiness is a relinquishment of all views. Emptiness has been said by the Buddhas to be the relinquishment of all views. But they have also said that those who hold to the view of emptiness are incurable. Or another translation is those who are possessed by the view of emptiness are said to be incorrigible. So, if we can watch what's happening without trying to use what's happening, we can see, we realize how things happen, and by realizing how things happen, we no longer can reify them.

[19:14]

We no longer can make them eternal or annihilated. We just experience their impermanent flux. We realize emptiness. We let go of all views. But if we hold to this realization, we become incurable. So, right view is not to hold to right view. So to leave what's happening alone and see how it happens, to not have any leftover energy to impute any metaphysical philosophies on top of what's happening, but just be involved with it, we realize what's happening. What's happening is revealed to us. How it happens is revealed to us. And again, we can't grasp any extremes.

[20:18]

We're on the middle way. we realize, this kind of mind realizes the middle way. But if we hold to this non-clinging, if we hold to this non-using, if we hold to this non-addiction, we become incurable. People who are holding to the addictions are curable. All they have to do is give up their addictions. But those who have given up addictions, if they hold to that, they're really in trouble. So I just wanted to mention that in case any of you happen to realize right view in the near future. I just want you to be careful. Don't hold to it. Because, you know, even the Buddhas, if they came to visit, wouldn't be able to help you. Pardon? Why couldn't what just be another addiction? Holding to right view is another addiction. Because it is a supreme addiction.

[21:19]

which you will never let go of because it's freedom from suffering. You think you're going to let go of freedom from suffering after you adhere to it? Well, if you adhere to it, once you zap onto that one, you're done for. But if you can realize it without attaching to it, then you're in fine shape. So, again, I'm sorry for the people who didn't take both these workshops, but There was a workshop last week about the two truths, the conventional and the ultimate. Ultimate truth is emptiness. Conventional truth is stuff that happens. These are risings and ceasings, like suffering, self. So, ultimate truth is emptiness. letting everything go, all this stuff that's happening, letting it go, seeing how it happens. Conventional truth is the things that are happening.

[22:21]

The middle way is to work with both of these, understand both of these, and not adhere to conventional truth or ultimate truth. But to study conventional truth in this way we're talking about here, this middle way, where you're not veering off into distracting yourself by addiction to sense pleasures and you're not distracting yourself by self-mortification and also when you're not running away anymore and you watch things happen and you see them happen you don't then overlay what's happening with making what's happening really existent and you don't make what's ceasing really annihilated you just let things exist without making it into existence. You don't become a philosopher of existence. You don't establish a theory of existence, which turns into paternalism.

[23:26]

And when things go away, you just let them go away without putting this extra thing on called they really went away, and you become a philosopher of annihilationism. And the same with self. This is also Nagarjuna's version of Buddha. Buddhas have made known the conception of self and the doctrine of no self. They made it known. They let you know about the self. Even you maybe knew about it, maybe you didn't. But anyway, he brought it up again, let people know about the notion of self, the conception of self, and he taught the doctrine of no self. At the same time, The Buddhas have not spoken of something as a self or as a not-self. Okay? This is like good teaching. They tell us about the idea of self.

[24:31]

They teach us about no-self. But they don't say that there is something that is the self and there's not something that is the not-self. This is like clean as a whistle. What? Sure, no problem. This is Nagarjuna. The fundamental verses on the middle. Chapter 13, verse 6. The Buddhas have, actually this is strange English, but I'm just going to say it the way it makes sense to me and somebody who, English majors can come up and help me afterwards, the way they actually have it translated here. I just say, and maybe I'm missing something, but Buddhas have made known the conception of self and taught the doctrine of no-self. At the same time, they have not spoken of something as self or as the not-self or the non-self.

[25:38]

So they say there's a conception of self, and also we have this teaching about non-self or not-self. So they show us the meaning of self, and they indicate the teaching of not-self, which is really part of helping us understand the self. But they don't say that there is something that's a self for the not-self. Okay? See, they don't say there's something that's the self. There's just this dependently co-arisen self, but there's not something that's that. And there's the dependently co-arisen no-self, but there's not something that's that. However, when you understand the dependently co-arisen self, that is understanding, that's the dependent co-arising of the no-self. But there's not something that's either one of those, or both, or neither. There's not something that's neither of them either.

[26:42]

Clean as a whistle. This is the middle way. Well, anyway, there's more of this kind of wonderful teaching for you to learn about. Like I said last week, we're just scratching the surface here, but it's nice to scratch it even a little bit. Leave our little, you know, our little, what do they call it? What do they call those things that you carve when you carve our little graffitis on the Dharma? Do you have any questions about this? Yes? I have a really gross question. You have a what? A gross question. A gross question, yeah? If you try to avoid the judgment right or wrong, why do you use it? You said, if we what? Well, if you're trying to avoid the, you say, avoid the concept?

[27:57]

If you're trying to avoid thinking right and wrong, then one of the reasons why they talk about that is to test your practice. How's it going? So that takes care of that. Now, after your practice has survived, hopefully, that test, you should understand that wrong doesn't mean maybe what you think wrong and right are. Wrong means that wrong means the view that will be refuted by what you see. That's what wrong means. And right means that which accords with how things happen. But wrong doesn't mean wrong like bad or incorrect. It just means refutable or confused.

[29:01]

It's just confused. That's what wrong means here. Wrong is one way to translate right. Right is one of the ways to translate right view, but another way to translate right view, which is samyak or sama, samyak in Sanskrit and sama in Pali, another way to translate it would be comprehensive, but complete. Not right like right and wrong right. And the other one would be like narrow, you know, incoherent, confused, not taking into account enough of what's going on. But before we get into that, you have a chance to test your practice of not getting involved in right or wrong. So there's all kinds of like little dharma opportunities coming to you. Ming? That's not a question. Okay, it's all right. There's also a question.

[30:02]

No, you can be a middle way philosopher. The Buddha is a philosopher. The Buddha was incidentally a philosopher. I don't know, you know, if being a good philosopher always comes with being a Buddha because we don't have that many, you know. But Buddha just turned out to be a great philosopher. The middle way is a philosophy. It's a philosophy which says don't adhere to any philosophy, including the middle way. But... you know, the world is generally inclined to these two types, watch out for those. That's part of middle-wave philosophy. And later disciples of Buddha got into the philosophical refutation of those views and all the different arguments that somebody could put up for them, which some of you may spend your time getting into, but the Buddha didn't really spend that much time refuting them. He just said, Stay away from there and go this way.

[31:06]

But he was a philosopher. So you won't be out of a job, philosophers. And everybody really is a philosopher. Because everybody has views. The word for view that they use here is the same word that you use for a philosophical position. Anything else? Yes. Yes. Yes? Well, it's kind of like I think it's kind of like a use like a dependently co-arisen use not a use that I don't use the action I don't use the response but You know, there was this French guy named Montaigne.

[32:10]

Is that how you say it? Montaigne? Yeah. And he had a boyfriend named Bautier. And he loved Bautier. And people said, how come you love him so much? He said, all I can say is, I was there, and he was there, and I was me, and he was him. So, you know... It happens. The appropriate response, you know, it happens. But you don't, if you do it, then you're using it, then you're inclined towards it, you're grasping it, you know, you're choosing it, you know, you're working with what's useful rather than working with what's happening. That's the appropriate use. And that's the way the world for the most part works. But as I say, I like it that he said... There's some gaps where we forget to use things and things just happen and you get to dance, you know. It does happen sometimes. And then stuff just happens. How many people heard the story of this improvisational theater exercise I did?

[33:15]

Juan, you have too, I think. But you just don't recognize it by that title. I think you have. Let's hear about it, Justin. Where I what? No, but that's another good story. Thank you. So what's the story, Helen? Yeah, the dancing one. The dancing one where she picked me up. That's a good one. rendition of it that would have been that would have worked too if she had picked me up that would have probably worked better i didn't think of that now the story that i was the way i saw it was i picked her up so here's i was in this this i was doing this exercise in this kind of like with this thing called theater sports which was uh we practiced at zen center about 20 years ago

[34:20]

And there's one exercise where two people get together and they write a poem together by one person saying a word and the other person saying a word. And if you get, if for most of us, for me, for example, if I was writing a poem with any one of you that way, it would probably be better than any poem I ever wrote. You know, so I would say a word, you would say a word, and then I would say a word in response to your word, right? Right. And that would probably make a better poem than I'd ever written before. The one we would do together. So we tried that, you know. But still, you know, there's still a little bit of thinking even, you know, even there. Which, let's think of a good word. This is called a mind that's supported by a thought. I want to use, I want to say a good word. I'm going to use this. I'm going to use my words. Okay, I got all these words. I'm going to use it. That's the mind of the world.

[35:25]

It's not the mind of poetry. Right, Elmer? Some people are so, you know, whatever, that they can do this without having somebody else involved. So, we did this. We were standing there saying, I was saying a word and she was saying a word and the instructor said, move, you know, so we started moving. And then we started dancing. And as we started to dance, I felt I had less energy available to think of what words I was going to say. You know, I was less able to use my vocabulary. And yet words came quite nicely. As a matter of fact, I noticed they were coming quite a bit more nicely than they usually come. And hers were coming amazingly too. Both of us were saying these amazing words. And they worked together so... So well. It was like poetry. And then I don't know what happened, but I picked her up above my head and started turning her in the air.

[36:31]

And we kept doing this. And there was even less ability to think of what the next word would be. She was certainly not thinking what the next word would be. And I was somewhat concerned too. You know, I don't know who was more concerned. I did not want to drop her. Very nice person, you know. Yet we continued, and I could hear the words. I don't know what those words were, but it was... And nobody wrote it down. We'll never know what they were. And I don't have much of an ear for poetry, but I have a little bit of an ear for poetry. I can tell when I hear Shakespeare that it's... I can get goosebumps, I can cry... I can melt. I can hear sometimes a little bit of poetry. It was poetry. I didn't write it. She didn't write it. I didn't use it.

[37:32]

She didn't use it. It happened. For the most part, we try to make stuff happen. But once in a while, we can't. And right here on planet Earth, where things happen and don't happen, where there's birth and death, right in birth and death there's liberation. It can happen if you get yourself into a situation where you can't get control anymore. It can happen to you if you're young at heart. But then we did the exercise again, but we both knew we couldn't do it again, we couldn't repeat it. It wouldn't work. Even though it would still be hard to try to think of the words, that little bit of trying to do it again would get in there and poison it. But if I thought of what Helen did, if she picked me up, that probably would have worked.

[38:35]

Because then there would just be like this, you know, me on top of her squashing her under the ground. Really good. For the most part in the world, we try to use things. But it doesn't always happen. In other words, there is a possibility right here in the world of duality to start practicing this yoga of a middle way. And then realize the world of ultimate truth. And then even not cling to that. and bring that realization back into the world of duality and manifest the Buddha body. It's possible. There can be freedom while you're still alive. So please, before you die, please start practicing the middle way.

[39:37]

Please sign up for it. commit yourself to it if you're ready. And remember that the foundation of the practice is great love, great compassion, because it's hard work to give up your favorite hobbies. But based on great compassion, we can do this practice. We can practice like the Buddhas. So although I'm kind of, you know, closing shop and packing up, I'm going to continue to enthusiastically study the teachings of the Middle Way and try to practice the study of the Middle Way myself.

[40:44]

I'm really excited about scratching deeper and deeper into this practice and into these teachings. I'm just amazed how interesting they are and how useless. They elude my grasp, and I'm getting more and more used to it. So does anybody know the lyrics to that song?

[41:51]

Da-da-dee, da-da-da, it can happen to you if you're young at heart. How does it start? Do you know? Oh, fairy tales can come true. It can happen to you if you're young at heart. That's enough, you know. Oh, you? All right, that's simple. Survive to 100 times. So anyway, please find those lyrics. And then there's... Pardon? So let's hear it. And here is the best part... Let's hear the whole thing now.

[42:59]

That's it? Diana, would you remind me to look for those lyrics? And then there's Jackie's favorite. What is it? When somebody loves you. it's no good unless they love you all the way through the good and lean years and in all the in-between years come what may deeper than the deep blue ocean that's how deep it goes if it's real so when somebody loves you it's no good unless they love you All the way. All the way. Are there more lyrics to that one? Probably.

[43:59]

How about let's do it? Let's do it. Well, let's hear it. Let's hear it. You don't know? How about. How about. Step right up. Walk right in. No, let your mind go long. If you want to do a way of walking, do you want to lose your mind? Step right up, walk right in. Baby, let your mind roll on. Yeah. R-E-S-E-B-C. Pardon? Pardon? You want it published? Do you want it? Do you want it? Do you really want it?

[45:03]

Are you ready for it? Pardon? There's a song called What a Party Booper? The question was. Robert! You've been accused of being a party pooper. Can you live with that? Hey, I don't think you're a party pooper. No, I think it does good. It helps if everybody knows the words. But I don't know who would come to the rehearsals for the talks. What? I might be surprised. There'll be a rehearsal for the next Dharma talk.

[46:07]

Learn your songs beforehand. So is there anything else? Is that it? Going once. Going twice. Going a third time. Gone. Not annihilated. Gone. Gone beyond annihilation. May our intention...

[46:38]

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