Let me say again that there's an expression that's become well known in the tradition of then called sudden enlightenment. So one interpretation of sudden enlightenment is suddenly that not so much that it can happen quickly, but that enlightenment can happen now. The suddenness is what you're looking for. And enlightenment is awakening, sudden awakening is you understand that there's nothing to get. And when you awaken that's what you understand.

[01:03]

So you understand there's nothing to get and when you do awaken that's what you get, nothing. And you understand that. And that's the way it is. So if you're ready for that, that's like a big deal. The primary emphasis is then to be ready to understand that there's nothing to get. And that this idea of getting stuff, you know, I think this is basically me, this idea of getting stuff, gaining something, is something to get over. And being ready to get over it, even if you still have some, you know, habit in that way Being ready to get over it. Being ready to get over this.

[02:12]

Is to be kind of like committed to meet whatever. Meet every moment. But whatever it is. So that's the point. It's a psychological reflection of enlightenment. It's a psychological reflection of your involuntary mind system. About how to enter into this readiness. For this awakening that you can't get into. Or awakening that you don't get into. So this meeting all situations with no mind. And again, no mind means null, in that. Visual human mind. Which most of you have a visual human mind. Which I sincerely congratulate you on. And it's pretty funny to use that one.

[03:17]

And, but I wouldn't, you know, no mind also means don't try to get rid of that mind. It's one of the aspects of a normal human mind that a lot of people want to have removed. Or at least want to have other people to use. So, that's not, that's not no mind. No mind is to let the human mind be the human mind. Letting it be the human mind is to let go of it. Leave it alone. Let it be. Don't grasp anything about it, or see anything other. That's what it, that's what no mind is for. To leave your ordinary mind alone. To appear in a new way. That's the practice. Again, as I've been saying over and over, that means the same thing as whatever appears to the mind, no matter how many preferences and judgments might arise, you basically have to relax what you're talking about.

[04:22]

Let it be. That's the practice. Which you can't do without the practice. And as part of this relaxation, in this class, I must introduce the idea of play. The idea of relaxation and play are the way to enter into the realm of play. And the way to do it away. So, we have these stories to play with now. Do you want to play stories now? Ready to play a story now? Did you guys have a nappy? Okay, so we've got the main story, which I think you might have memorized by now. Did you? Have you been not memorized yet?

[05:25]

Okay, Liz and Jackie. Okay. Did Liz and Jackie pick up yet? I think we've picked and memorized the basic story. The basic story. 77. Do you know that? Did Jackie and Liz come up with this? Do they have to? No. You don't. Did Liz come up here? But you do not have to. Okay. I do. I like this now. I have one more story. Okay. Did Liz and Liz come up? Did Liz and Liz come up?

[06:36]

Did Liz and Liz come up? Did Liz and Liz come up? Did Liz and Liz come up? What? What? What? I'll get you. I'll get you. I'd rather be... I'd rather be on them. What's the basic story?

[07:41]

I like the little one. We don't want to pass this on. So now... You're in a much nicer place. A person, a person.

[08:51]

You couldn't compare to any other person. You're not the same person. You're now different. You're different. Okay. Do you know a written character? Yes. No. [...] Yes. Aye. Now... When you walk around... Walk around. One.

[09:57]

One. Nine. Oh. Now the five. Now the five. Now the five. Did you ask what character it is? No. Did you already pick a character? No. Perfect. Perfect? Perfect. Do you want to be more fun? Sometimes I'm more fun. Yeah.

[10:59]

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good one. No, go away. Just so.

[12:39]

Just so. Now. Thank you so much for joining us today, and we'll see you next time. What can I say, I'm dead, I'm going to have to do it again.

[14:36]

I'm going to have to do that again. What can I say, I'm dead, I'm going to have to do it again. Thank you. Thank you, I'm going to have to do it again.

[15:41]

We don't have to play with this story. We can play with another story, but we can't play with this story. You can learn a game quite well and still play it, but in this case, instead of having to learn it, instead of having to play the game, you have to learn it. So, how to play? Do you want to have a look? How can I help you? You can learn the game.

[16:55]

You can learn the game. Mark it. Like this. Do you want to learn it? Okay, thank you. And now, you can have a look at it. It's a game! I think you know this character. laughter ...

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... [...] And all manifestations of the basic tsunami, unified by the tsunami. Then there's another story. The Indian monk, so now this is kind of interesting to me,

[40:30]

that by this time in Zen history, this is the 9th century, and now you have Indian monks coming to China to check out Chinese Buddhism. Buddhism has been in China long enough now. This time in Zen history is about the time when the first people are going to Tibet, the first Indians are going to Tibet to teach Buddhism. And it's also the time when Indian monks are somehow getting to China. Now supposedly Bodhidharma has come almost 300 years before this. But now Indian monks are not just going as missionaries, but they're going not just as missionaries, but to check out to see how Buddhism is going in China. So this monk comes and finds a Zen teacher in Yangshuo. This is again the 9th century, this is a couple hundred years before the Muslims come in and kill all the Buddhist monks. Buddhism is still flourishing, in a sense, at this time in India. It's really flourishing.

[41:36]

It's hitting its prime time in Zen, the golden age of Zen. The Indian monk comes to call on Yangshan. Yangshan draws a half-moon on the ground. The monk came nearer and added to it, making a full circle. Then he erased it with his foot. Do you think there's any dirt on these tilts? Probably the floor might have been dirt, or the floor might have been tile. At this time, I don't know the state of Chinese Zen architecture, whether they were actually used on earth floors, or in court rooms. In China, generally speaking, by this time, it's been pretty much deforested.

[42:39]

So it's a pretty dusty, dirty place. Generally speaking, the feel of dust is going to be right on the tiles, right on the ground, and erased with his foot. What's the difference between the two? I don't know. I don't think there's a difference. Yangshan is like this, and Yangshan is like this. And Yangshan is like this. No? They draw it with their feet? Feet? With his hand. Excuse me. Erased it with his foot. Erased it with his foot. So they could have drawn it with their hand and erased it with their foot, or drawn it with their foot and erased it with their foot.

[43:45]

Yangshan extended both hands. The monk brushed out his shoes and immediately left, saying, I came to China to pay respects to Wenjue Xu, but instead, and that's a little shock to me. So, this is in, brushed out his shoes, or shook out his shoes, and then his feet, he left his feet, and it's a gesture of, it's a gesture of, and he's saying, Your judgement day is over, it's the day that you accept it. In China, you go back home, you shook out your shoes again, and, it'll be clear as day black, it'll be clear as day white, you shook them out, and leave, and then he's asking,

[44:48]

did you shook out your shoes? I think it's going to be just as easy to put the tape in as it's going to be to put the tape in. That's the next step. Now next I'm going to put the tape in. Yeah, I guess I would have seen it as reaching out to me. Gesturing as though reaching out to me. Yes? I'm just wondering if there's some particular significance to a train. We need a train to take us back to London.

[45:52]

Nowadays, you can only get in and out of a train if you need to take a train to Canada. I don't know whether it's because of that or whether it's because of that that the train has to go to Canada. There's some sort of relationship between the East and the West. I haven't heard... The Indians have somehow a different relationship to their mountains. So they don't have a sacred mountain tradition like we do. Where they have all these mountains and they have the mountains that we feel pretty soft about. In India, they don't seem to do that. The mountains are... I don't know. The mountains that we feel pretty soft about. And when Chinese Buddhists came...

[46:56]

When Chinese Buddhists walked in front of India and told Indian Buddhists about China, I get the impression that Chinese Buddhists were happy to hear about it. And really appreciated it. I think the Chinese came to India. And sometimes they're impressed with what the Chinese monks do. Indian monks. And so I think the Chinese monks came to India and told the Indians that these Bodhisattvas were living in their mountains. And I don't think Indian Buddhism had any problem with these Bodhisattvas being in China. You know, it's binary. It's a huge country. And I think that in the 1st century, all these Bodhisattvas had gone and set up shop in these huge mountains. And made these mountains sacred places for Chinese people to go. In China, they're very popular. Having that kind of thing going on, right? Sacred mountains. And so the Indians don't seem to do that.

[47:58]

They don't seem to celebrate the birth of it. You know. The type of power of these Bodhisattvas. I haven't heard of that. More rivers maybe. But I haven't heard of it. In China, it's well established that the sacred mountains, you know, you can't agree which Bodhisattva is the one. There's no argument. So the Wutai Shan is, for example, Manjushri, Hongmei Shan, Avalokiteshvara, and Putra Shan. And there's five of them. There's a big Bodhisattva. And there's no argument. I don't know how they did it. I don't know. I think Indians have Geomancy. It's like Chinese. But they're not doing Geomancy. Geomancy.

[48:59]

It's like studying the Earth, to see the configuration of the land, to determine auspicious locations for monasteries. Indians have that. Definitely. That Southern direction. They have the Chinese leading into it. Why would I say that? I'm not saying it's frustrated. I'm saying it's a gestural frustration. They said it brushed out of school, didn't it? Oh, it's not an instrumentation? Oh. Maybe that's why. Maybe he took it out, because people don't know it brushed out of his sleeve. Yes. No. He left. Excuse me. He brushed out his sleeves, and left, saying, at the end of China, to pay my respects to the Buddhists. But instead,

[50:00]

he said, maybe they either forgot it, or it's shaking out of his sleeve, but maybe he forgot it, because he looked at it directly. It's not world. World is a problem. There's no problem. But it is a gesture. Another way, I think another way associations have it. I warned you. No. I think it's more like, it's more like, I wash my hands of it. This is so great, I have to leave. This is so great, I have to leave, or I shake out, you know, I shake out the dust. It's like shaking out the dust, washing my hands, letting go, and leaving. They often shake out their hands and leave. They shake out their world and leave. But it's a gesture.

[51:01]

So, again, maybe I shouldn't send you a question. I mean, what do you do often when you shake out your hands and leave? You can say a few words. I don't know. No. I, I'm sorry, I, I, I feel like, actually, I've asked this many times, and many of them have explained it, and many of them picked up this tiny gesture of shaking out their sleeve and leaving, in a second or so. And, so that's that. The next story, related to this condition of the circle that you see. Yes, definitely, you could, please. Yes.

[52:06]

Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I, yeah, you might have, you might have been saying, I heard the dance floor was big on, on being very abrupt, you know, and, and very, discriminating with them, and, because that, because that kind of representation, in China, made, made them feel like that, made them feel like it was more like, worse in China, than the kind of, more balanced representation, that they were facing. Okay? Yeah. But, um, to try to figure out what it means, I don't think it's very clear, but, I'm, I'm not giving you anything, I'm just, I just, for anybody else, that perhaps, that, that might've been the case. That's the, that might've been the case. I, I don't, I don't think, that might've been the case at all. It's the only thing I can give you,

[53:09]

that you can respond to. But that's the only thing, that I can give you, is that, yes, that, that's what that is, okay? Nope, no, no, no, Yeah, we're over it. You and me are over it anyway. Are you guys over it? We're over it. We're over mongooseery outside in 10 minutes. We don't have that kind of mongooseery. If we did, we'd be a little confused. It's tempting, though. They've got some really cute mongooseeries that look like they're up there. But they're not really. They're just up there. Should we go on to the next story? Okay, story number five. So a monk comes and bows, and Yangshan doesn't pay any attention. The monk says, Master, do you know written characters?

[54:09]

Yangshan says, no. The monk also drew a half-moon sign. What? No. Sorry. Never mind. Never mind? Okay. The monk also drew a half-moon sign. And what is that? Read me what you have. Here's what I have. Yangshan says, no. The monk drew a circle and presented it. What did you have? Yangshan erased it with his sword. I skipped over it. The monk also drew a half-moon sign and presented it. Yangshan made a gesture of throwing it behind him with both hands.

[55:14]

The monk looked directly at him. Yangshan lowered his head. The monk walked around the master once, whereupon the master hit him. The monk finally left. The monk said, Master, I lost my sword. I lost my sword. The monk said, It's okay. I lost my sword. He erased it. The monk said, I drew a half-moon sign and the monk threw it away. Okay? So... So these two stories are, I don't know if they're prior to the other one, but you know, they're either prior or simultaneous, okay? And the commentator has something to say, which I'm going to skip and go to the sixth story. As Yontan was sitting, another monk came and made a vow. Yontan paid no attention.

[56:19]

Okay? The monk says, do you know written characters? Yontan says, enough. The monk circled him once to the right and said, what character is this? So, looks like the word's out. And he circles. He writes whole circles, write half circles, get him to write circles, walk in circles, play circle games with him. So monks are coming and trying this out. That seems to be important, huh? Yeah. Monks are going to come out and try to like, go meet the teacher and see what's naughty happening. Come to the teacher and watch some naughties around, see which one will help. Do something, having your legs circled, and see what happens.

[57:26]

Whether they're friends, they're friends with the teacher. Whether it's happening or not, I don't know. But generally people are telling stories that they're implying that monks come to meet teachers, interact with kids and naughty. And this one involves these 97 scenarios. Yes? I feel I'm very confused about what the lines mean. You are? Yeah. Do you know anything about the lines? Nothing? Well, I could probably figure out what it means, but... The lines are like, monk appears to be meeting the teacher. But there are ways, there are meditation practices that are all... Do you know anything? The definition of samadhi, the definition of samadhi, I think what samadhi means is subtle. The meaning of the word is subtle.

[58:33]

But the meaning, that's the meaning of the word subtle, samadhi means subtle. But the definition is chitta ekagata. And chitta ekagata means one-pointedness of mind. Okay? That's the definition of what this is. One-pointedness of mind is, in the one-pointedness of mind, the subtle is calm. The samadhi is calm. But we sometimes call it concentration. But one-pointedness of mind is sometimes interpreted as samadhi that makes the mind on a point. That's one-pointedness of mind. But that's not what samadhi is. Samadhi is that the mind is on a point. It's not to make the mind on a point. To make the mind on a point means to place the mind in the center. Bring the mind to, focus the mind on the object. Okay?

[59:37]

That's not calm. Okay. The power of chitta. Samadhi is the practice of chitta. The mind is one-pointed. The mind is always on the object. It's not that the object is one-pointed. It's not that the object is one-pointed. The mind is always on the object. And when the mind is on the object, the mind and the object are one-pointed. The mind depends on chitta. So one-pointedness is to settle in, to universalize, and to calm in. And it's also interpreted as samadhi. And we should do practices to celebrate and appreciate one-pointedness of mind and that samadhi practice. But people often misconstrue it.

[60:38]

What you're trying to do is get your mind to be stuck on the concentration, focused on hugging up your breath and your tongue. Here, samadhi is the fact and the understanding that your mind and your breath are one-pointed. Your mind and your body are one-pointed. And when you're aware of your body, the awareness of your body, the awareness of your body is one-pointed. One-pointedness of mind. And there's many samadhis because there's many one-pointednesses. And each one is very different. And they have a relationship. The samadhi practice is the one-pointedness of your mind and what you feel and feel. And your mind is the samadhi practice. So if I could give you an opportunity to have in my mind a view of an object, a view of you and me, a view of you and me as an object, you could see and accept the fact that I'm a samadhi.

[61:42]

That's the reason. The oneness of your perception of me is the samadhi. Because I'm both in the samadhi, and when you do this samadhi thing, you don't see anything. If you don't understand that, then you won't see the samadhi. Is it different from enlightenment? It's a little bit different because there could be samadhis in which you could understand samadhi. And the further unfolding of that understanding of the relationship with samadhi, the sort of unfolding of that would be that you would understand, for example, that there's nothing else there to attain.

[62:42]

But you still might not have that realization even when, for instance, the samadhi is realized. In other words, you might, a moment later, move out of the samadhi and start seeing objects as separate from yourself. That's a temporary situation. The state of mind that exemplifies the actuality of the state of mind. And it might be possible to understand the samadhi with the way things actually are. The attitude changes, the understanding changes. So that even when you're doing this thing, practicing samadhi creates the understanding that samadhi is not in that moment. I'm going to have to start producing that. It's not necessary. It's not sufficient. You have to produce something.

[63:45]

Okay, so that's the sixth story. And then there's a comment by the commentator which says, This kind of device, if you wait and let there be discriminating feelings, the essential message would amount to... What would the essential message amount to? That's a nice question. So, this device, in other words, this way of interacting that they're doing here, Getting sleepy? Is that getting sleepy? Tickle her, she's really sleepy. You can? Let's see.

[64:53]

Come on. You're not sleepy. So, anyway. This kind of device... Who asked the question? This kind of device... Working with these circles, these interactions. This kind of device, if you wait and let there be discriminating feelings... What did I say? Yeah, in other words, you start slipping back... In other words, you stop at nothing. You start kind of... You're interacting, you're using this device, and while you're using this device, you start to try to grasp what's going on. You slip back into... Not keeping, but retention. Into getting control of this interaction. Of being dependent, of being sleepy, of being interested.

[65:55]

So, at the beginning, if you let this discriminating feelings arise, then it says, what essential message is that amount to? And then the next sentence is interesting. Yet, if there is no principle at all, ordinary people in stages of India and China are peers in study. I thought that was kind of... Dynamic statement. Because, in some sense, you might say, well, that wouldn't have to be nice. You know? Students and the masters were peers. And you might also say, oh, how terrible. That would reduce the masses just to being ordinary people. And if it's terrible, you might think it's wonderful. Yeah. But actually... Yeah. So when ordinary people... It's not that there's no principle of practice. We do have a principle of practice. I mean, according to principles,

[66:57]

that we write in letters, we should know this. But to not have any principles realizes the quality. The teachers know the principles, but if they're masters, they're not holding them. The students don't know the principles. But if they don't have any, even though they don't know them, they don't have any, it's equal to the teachers who don't have any either. So when we don't have any of the principles, that's, we're equal, we're peers. The principles are still there. And you can learn them. And you can teach people. The point is that we don't really have any principles in the relationship. That's picky. It's tricky because when I work with principles,

[67:58]

we don't have any. So some of us like to avoid the realm of principles because we don't trust ourselves. We think, if I got any realm of principles, I would take that, take that. You know, you can't run off with them immediately because you're hiding in the womb and losing it real quick. But I recommend that you, you know, don't run away from principles. Just try not to grasp them, so that you don't have any of them. So you can be a peer. But you can still bring them out of the closet and put them on the table and see if any of them are potential. And if they're not, you can get over it. Okay, then the next story is also about this. This is like different. This is not about Yangshan, you know.

[68:59]

But this teaching, this teaching, this type of device is being used now by another teacher. You know, kind of. It's a contemporary. I kind of feel like maybe we're getting tired or something, so maybe we'll put that story off and forget about it. And then we come to the present case, after that device story. I think, now that commentary goes through this case, there's very interesting discussions about the different parts of history, which are also interesting, because I don't want you to grasp the interpretations. I have a lot of people, and they seem to be quite, there is this discussion, which is quite nice,

[70:02]

about all this. And there's another story, which I have the feeling is, you know, should be for later this year. And the other story is, where he's talking about what the new qigong means. Talking about, look at this insanity and this crime. And this brings this issue of prediction. But I feel like, intellectually, I'm overloaded to bring up this topic of prediction and this topic of prediction. This summer, in the next section of the class in July, then I'll go into the prediction side, the prediction dimension in this case, and I'll bring it up in the next story about prediction. But I think that's enough for now. You might want to do a little research on prediction, if you can,

[71:04]

it might help you. The Lotus Sutra is like a great place to study prediction. And there's a number of chapters on prediction. There's a chapter on prediction, the five hundred paragraphs. Sometimes it's a prediction, sometimes it's a prophecy, sometimes it's a confirmation, sometimes it's an affirmation. The Chinese character is jiu qi, the Sanskrit word. I don't know. I think it's jiu qi. jiu qi. jiu qi. So if you want to, you might find it interesting to get into the principles of this text, which you then don't have to grab, and do some research. There's a Lotus Sutra chapter on prediction. And also, there's a chapter in Shaolin that's called jiu qi. Shaolin is jiu qi, and also,

[72:05]

if you want to take this with you, there's a section on prediction. There's a section where he's talking to the Bodhisattva Maitreya, because the Bodhisattva Maitreya is going to be next year, right? And in this world system, Shakyamuni Buddha, next year, is going to be Maitreya. That Bodhisattva is going to be the next Buddha. And Buddha's name is prediction. And the Maitreya, having interaction with the Maitreya, and the Maitreya people, gives the next Buddha, a little bit of a lesson about prediction. So if you want to take this lecture on prediction, and Maitreya Buddha and stuff like that, Maitreya Buddha, and the Lotus Sutra, and the If you want to get into prediction, that's another dimension of this case. Because in this case, this monk does this gesture of this protective deity,

[73:06]

who has some problem around prediction. And at the end of this story, guess what happens? There's prediction. And the end of this story is a prediction. And the teacher says, guess so, take care of it. It's a prediction. If you take care of it, you will be good. So there was a prediction in this story. And prediction is part of this story. And in the mythology, or the theology, of this case. This is part of learning about learning of this case. Alright? Any questions? Present Buddha. Say it again? What if Maitreya Buddha is not super good? Is she always in your future? Is she always in your future? No. She was always in the present Buddha. But a part of the Mahayana Buddhist teaching

[74:09]

is that in order for the next Buddha to appear, the next Buddha to appear, what has to happen is everybody has to forget all the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha. Everybody. Not just one person. Everybody. And particularly the next Buddha has to ask if he has not heard the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha. If he has not heard them, he has to discover them all by himself. That's what they came to do. So this this world system of Buddhist practice has to end. And be unavailable. And be rediscovered. And that's why we have people who just want to get into good Buddhism. The disciples of Buddha are virtually Buddhists. They're like living Buddhists. Technically speaking, they're not Buddhists because although they're living Buddhists,

[75:10]

they've heard Shakyamuni Buddha's teachings. But although they understand it probably as well as Shakyamuni Buddha, maybe better, they are not the creator of the conditions in this world system. So Maitreya, the next time, the next one to discover, according to the Buddhists, according to the master Shakyamuni, he says, I suspect he's going to do it. He's going to do it. He's going to do it. He has to do it. As I said, he has to do it. He has to do it. There are a lot of people out there who are not Buddhists. Yeah, there will be a Maitreya Bodhisattva. There is a Maitreya Bodhisattva who is waiting for everybody, including yourself, to get the teaching. And we create it. Basically the same way.

[76:11]

And it comes first. So Shakyamuni is a Buddha, but there is no Buddha like him in this world before him. Because he did study with people in the past. And he said, I was a disciple. Just me appearing as a disciple does not contradict him. And I predict that there is a future for me. So Buddha has enlightened disciples, but they were not Arhats. And later, the Arhats were not trying to be Arhats. They were enlightened humans. And he said they were, and he appreciated them as Arhats. Then he came to the point that they might be Buddhists. Arhats didn't try to be. They might not be enough. To be a Buddha means to aspire to become a Buddha. That's correct. But still, even though we can't be Buddhas without prediction,

[77:14]

and also getting it right, all Buddhism disappears. We still, in one condition, practice prediction. Even though people are practicing prediction, but technically speaking, are not Buddhists. Because they can't be Buddhists because they're interacting with the Buddha's teaching and they probably love it. And they're devoted to it. So technically speaking, they're not Buddhists. But still, they go through the motions of being a Buddha. And they're not predicting things. Now, strictly by the Zen, to predict is to be Buddhist. But only a Buddha can predict what is meant to be a Buddha. And they go right ahead and do it, in some sense knowing that they're not Buddhists because they couldn't be Buddhists because they've had the blessing of Shakyamuni Buddha's teaching. It is a part of the realness of evangelism. Preventing the future Buddha? Yeah, in a way, we're preventing the future Buddha

[78:15]

by keeping the condition going. It's like a vital and not religious thing. And maybe that's good to prevent the future Buddha. The more we try to prevent the future Buddha, the better it will be for the future. Maybe, if we push it long enough, maybe this kind of a Buddha will come to us. Maybe we can forget the teaching that's supposed to come to us. That's not the Buddha we can do for this. Yes, Mark. Yes. Did you say that too?

[79:19]

Mark Goodman said, no matter, never mind. Yes. Mark, you look kind of sleepy, right? Yeah, I am. Yeah, you look kind of sleepy. But you managed to raise that alarm going pretty good. Why don't you stand up, please? Oh, he looks okay. Did the Dalai Lama wear you out? Yes. Thank you for my attention. It was shocking when he did it. I'm just wondering, just technically, when he woke up, did he remember? Right? Well, prior to his

[80:22]

his Great Awakening, he remembered his past life. I had met up since the Great Awakening. That was part of the Great Awakening, that he remembered how there were five strands in the path that were predicted by Buddha. By a particular Buddha, to be shockingly, he recalled that. Yes. He said he did. According to that prediction, he said he did. He also said he noticed that. Okay. That's very interesting. Yes. The teachings are basically the same. I was worried. I thought he was worried enough. The Dharma is the same, but it manifests...

[81:25]

The Dharma is actually the same all the time. The teaching of the Buddha is the same, but it manifests in relation to the beings. That's how it manifests, in a particular way appropriate for these beings. So that looks different than it manifests, but it's not manifesting in any of us. It's not manifesting like this. It's the way it manifests. It manifests in all of us. But the Dharma is the same. The Dharma doesn't change. The Dharma itself is dependent co-arising and emptiness. It's always the same. That's what the teaching all is, because in philosophy, the teaching is to think about it. That's what all this means, because the teaching is dependent co-arising and emptiness. We can't change that basic theory of Buddhism. That is always the same. But because of dependent co-arising, the way the Dharma, dependent co-arising, appears in the world, it's much more difficult. So the theory,

[82:26]

the logic of Buddhism, it's always the same. The teaching is always the same. The Dharma is always the same. All of that is different, in the world. It's the Dharma. Yes? Will Buddhas keep appearing in the world? Yes. There are no Sakyan beings other than Buddhas, and there are no Buddhas other than Sakyan beings. However, the appearance of Buddhas is a phenomenal event, which appears to come and go. The appearance of Buddhas suddenly comes and goes. So when Buddhas appear to go, then they're not appearing. That's part of the dual meaning of the response to suffering in this universe.

[83:28]

Somehow, this universe went to all the trouble of creating suffering, and then it went to the trouble of curing it. Part of the way to cure it is that sometimes there's a trinket of fear, and that helps. But then sometimes the Sakyan beings don't listen to the teaching, so they have to disappear. Some people listen to the teaching after it disappears, but if the person in the world is there, so it appears and disappears. If some people go forth on its own, people can go forth on their own. So Buddha uses appearance and disappearance to help us. But for us, the universe uses Buddhas to appear and disappear, to help Sakyan beings. The universe loves the Sakyan beings that it has created. It went to all the trouble to make beings like us, who could suffer in that particular world. There was a lot of work in the universe in this period. And it's making Sakyan beings like a lot of other characters, too. In each place that it makes Sakyan beings, then it makes medicine for the Sakyan beings. Once it makes Sakyan beings,

[84:29]

then it's got to be able to cure them, not want to cure them. And it can get over it, and move on. The universe doesn't want to stop. It's evolving. It makes Sakyan beings and medicine for the Sakyan beings. It's always doing that. Now it will, but the appearance and disappearance of Buddhas, when they disappear, they're gone for a while. And then when they appear, they're gone. So the coming and going seems to be useful. But they don't really come and go, because the universe is always working to evolve the situation. And now there's this amazing thing called life, which is so unusual in this neighborhood. We behave so differently from most of what's going on, which we shouldn't notice. We deliver our speech differently. Following the second law of physical dynamics, we don't. We do, but we don't.

[85:32]

I mean, we should be running down in the universe, but actually we keep recuperating, and nothing else does that. And we live there. It's ridiculous. So we're doing this amazing thing. Life is a very amazing thing. But we somehow do this thing that counteracts the loss of energy for a while, for a short time. And during that time, we also have acquired all kinds of ideas and images by which we can feel a kind of delusion, because it's powerful, and we would like to be able to do that, so that we can tell the universe that it's helpful. The stars require to be known, and we know what it is. And we do. We create a light that can take the stars, and the stars can go, Wow, we made you. And then there's medicine for us, to counteract our positive perceptions. And it's the Buddha. And there's all kinds of ways of medicine. One is to give a receipt,

[86:33]

and the other is to say, Bye-bye. And then we go, Where are you? Oh, now I get it. So it's one of those things, according to, this is particularly according to the Mahayana tradition, where we feel that we're just elaborating on what Shantanu inquires, by giving him a receipt. I don't know of anything in the Theravada tradition where Shantanu says, Well, actually I think I do, but I'm not sure if the Theravada texts say it. Do you think, that when the positive dies, it disappears, that's what I mean, that people laugh, that's what I mean. In either way, Shantanu inquires, that there's a new appearance. It looks like it. It's you. It's people. It's you. It's beautiful. It's good. It is good. Yes.

[87:37]

Except that you get born into this world, and then, and then, you're born and raised, and then somebody tells you the teachings, which you don't, you didn't really feel like you knew them, you didn't experience the creation of Shantanu, who was teaching you, the first time you heard it. Yes. He told you, he did, that's right. But, you got into learning that, by first of all, hearing it, when you didn't understand what he created. You thought that the first time you heard it, somebody gave it to you, because you thought you'd heard it, rather than you saw it created. So that's the difference between us, and Buddhists. It's not so bad. So, just take care of yourself, and I guess I, I mean, I would continue this case, and use one more class, next time, to try to, see if we can play with prediction a little bit. So have fun,

[88:56]

and spend a vacation. Thank you. I vow to enter that from a deep, star-boundness. I vow to enter that to learn ways that were possible. I vow to become.

[89:51]

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