I got a letter from Carolyn this morning and she asked me to address some things before I went on to new material. So, you said, could I give an example of meditating on, quotes, just thinking about non-thinking? And then you said an out loud meditation? What did you mean? Now, when you say meditate on thinking of non-thinking, you know, the way it was translated was thinking of not-thinking and then how do you think of not-thinking? Non-thinking. So not-thinking is used to translate the opposite of thinking or the lack of thinking and non-thinking

[01:09]

is used to translate beyond thinking. So, first of all, I suggested, just like the Buddha suggested to start by meditating on the other dependent character phenomena and also Dogen recommends to start meditating, to begin the meditation, you begin with non-thinking rather than not-thinking. You don't understand the difference between non-thinking and not-thinking? Okay, so not-thinking would be that you wouldn't be thinking. Pardon? It's not so much a matter of controlling it, but just that actually not-thinking is, what do you say, not-thinking is an expression

[02:20]

for the absence of thinking. And it's not so much you have to control the absence, but actually that there is an absence available 24 hours a day. There is an absence. In fact, you know, things are happening all over the world right now and in this room and in your body and mind. Things are happening in the absence of your thinking about those things. Okay? There's lots of things you're not thinking of, right, but even the things you think of, they're actually happening in the absence of what you're thinking about them. So, like you could have some children playing here and you could be thinking about them, but actually the children are playing here in the absence of your thinking. For you, basically what's going on for you when you see these children playing here

[03:26]

is what you think is going on. You think what you think is going on is what's going on, but the children don't think that what's going on is what you think is going on, right? They aren't thinking, let's say they aren't, okay, but even if they did agree, you know, that if you thought, oh, they're little rascals and even if they say, yes, we're little rascals, still their actual activity is not what they think of it or what you think of it. There's an activity there that's beyond everybody's views of it and everybody's ideas about it. Does that make any sense? That's going on all the time. Like, for example, it's raining now in the absence of what we think about it. There's also raining in the presence of what we think about it and the rain that's in the presence of what we think about it is what we're thinking about it. That's how we could be

[04:29]

experienced of rain in terms of our idea of the rain, but the rain is also happening in a way beyond our thinking and being beyond our thinking, it's also our thinking is absent in the rain. The rain isn't coming down with all of our little thoughts stuck to it. You know, you can't go in and get East Raindrop and pull out all of our little ideas or any of our ideas, ain't in the rain. So, not thinking is not something you have to make happen, it's already going on. And non-thinking is a little different than not thinking. Not thinking is the absence of thinking and non-thinking is to be present and aware beyond your thinking. So, you have things happening and the way they're happening is beyond your thinking. And in addition to being beyond your thinking, there's

[05:36]

also an absence of your thinking. That's kind of hard, you look like you're having a little trouble understanding that. So anyway, this is not easy to understand, but this is a particular way of trying to teach how to develop wisdom. Now, you also say, can I give an another example of wisdom meditation? And so, one that might an initiatory type of meditation is just, this is a wisdom type meditation, is whenever you are aware of something, just listen to the teaching, which means you're going to think something about this now, listen to the teaching that what you're looking at is beyond what you think of it. For example, you're looking at me and you have some

[06:37]

idea about me, I appear as you have an image of me, but actually I am beyond, I have another character, I have one character I have or one nature I have is how you see me, that's part of what I am for you. And even how you see me is part of, if people know about it, it's part of how other people see me too, but I also have a other dependent nature which you can't see. So you look at me, you see what you think of me, but you hear the teaching that I have a other dependent character that you can't see. And you tell yourself that I have this character and I could be many other things besides what you think of me, or you could even think of different things in the next moment, like you can think I'm a rascal and then you could think I'm not a rascal. And it's good to keep open an option that what's in front of you is something really, really beyond good and bad, like what's in front of you could be a great Bodhisattva. So if you just meditate, like everybody

[07:43]

you meet, you could just say this person might be a great Bodhisattva. And that instruction opens you to that this person might be much more dynamic and inconceivable in their function than you can see. What I just said to you is a kind of initiation, it's a verbal expression to help you enter into the meditation on the other dependent, that you get used to being with things without grasping so tightly to them as being what you think of them. So you do think, oh this person is a nice person, but they're not just a nice person, they're also a vast mystery that no one can measure and no one can really know about. All the Buddhas don't even know the full extent of anybody, like it says, even if all the Buddhas got together and use their wisdom,

[08:45]

they couldn't measure the merit of one person's Zazen or one person's walking meditation or one person's lunch. Things are too dynamic for anybody to measure, but we do measure, our minds measure and then we come up with a measure and we tend to think, oh this is the measure of the person, they're a good person, and it's not that they're really a bad person, it's just that we don't know all that they are. So reminding yourself of that is an initiation into wisdom meditation on the nature of phenomena. Now if this type of meditation, if this one is disturbing and you feel agitated and confused, just put it aside for a while and you may remember I said this to you, just put it aside for a while and go back to just like, instead of like thinking a different way about things, so that you can see them differently, you can just switch to

[09:51]

like basically just sort of like let go of your discursive thoughts. So then in meditation, if you think somebody's a nice person, you just don't get involved in that, just let it go, relax with it. If you think a person is not a nice person, just relax with that and let go of it. If you think you're a good meditator, just relax and let go of that. If you think you're a bad meditator, just relax with that and let go of it. And if you can't relax and let go, if you think you can't relax and let go, and you think actually you're really bad at relaxing and letting go, then relax with that and let go of that. And if you can't do that, then relax and let go of that. And if you can't do that, relax and let go of that. And just keep, you know, not being able to relax and let go and not try to be somebody else different from a person who can't do the meditation and you'll relax and let go. Don't try to be a better meditator and you'll become a better meditator. Don't try to be something different than what you are and you will become different from what you are and

[10:52]

if you don't try to be different from what you are, you'll also be different from what you are. So if you become agitated by doing wisdom meditations, just take a break and go practice kindness in the form of calming meditation and go practice kindness and compassion in the form of patience with the process. Go back and practice kindness in the form of being generous with yourself and appreciating your practice. Go back and practice kindness in the form of precepts. Go back to practice kindness in the sense of enthusiasm for practicing kindness and think about how wonderful it would be if you're kind to yourself until you feel so happy to thought of it you start being kind. Do those practices and when you feel relaxed and kind of grounded and calm and energetic and upbeat, then go back and try wisdom meditations which are a little bit more challenging in certain ways because in wisdom meditation you're like putting a different frame on your world, right? You're reframing your perceptions, you're reframing your vision of the

[11:56]

world. So you look at people now you're putting a different frame on them. You're saying, okay I don't know who she is. She looks pretty good but I don't know what she is really. She looks pretty bad but I don't know what she is really. You just remind yourself of the limits of your vision at this time because you're in and you're accepting that you're a beginning meditator in the wisdom path. In beginning meditators on the wisdom path have some problem about being deluded. So and if you want to know how you're deluded, well you're deluded, your delusions are whatever you think is true. So you think, oh this person's a jerk but this was really a jerk. Now this person might be a jerk is not as deluded as well just in fact they are a jerk. I mean that's very clear, that's a delusion. People are not limited by that kind of distinction, fortunately. But we do come up with these ideas about people and we

[13:00]

sometimes even believe them and then we're in big trouble and then we have to calm down and then when you're calm you can start reframing this thing. Like this person actually has a character. One character they have is the character of a jerk, which I give them. The other character they have is a character far beyond anything I can think of them and I'm going to open to that character to initiate myself into meditation on wisdom and that's training and non-thinking, that's training beyond thinking. So you can use some short expression like that if you want to, to initiate yourself into wisdom meditation. And as you start to do that and change your frame around things, things actually start looking differently. When you look at somebody and say that might be a great Bodhisattva, you suddenly feel differently. Try it. Have you tried it? Hmm? Nobody's tried it? I tried it. When I look at you people and say, you come in

[14:01]

and see me, you know, I look at you as if this might be a great Bodhisattva, you know, let's listen to this person. They might have a message for me. It doesn't mean that I always agree with great Bodhisattvas and great Bodhisattvas could be like intentionally presenting me the wrong understanding of how to practice, just to see, well, how is he going to react to this one? Is he going to freak out and think, oh my god, all this time I've wasted on this person. Is he going to be patient with me? So, you know, when you come in there, I kind of like, oh, here comes the big Bodhisattva, okay. Sometimes I want to ring the bell to get the big Bodhisattva out of the room. You're testing me too much, but it really, you know, it does change the way you see somebody when you open to the possibility that this might be a great Bodhisattva and the Buddha has already told us that that is a possibility. Only the Buddha can see who

[15:06]

the great Bodhisattvas are. Until you're Buddha, you can't really see who they are and so then Mahakasyapa says to Buddha, well, then I guess we should treat everybody like they could be a great Bodhisattva, right? Or actually treat them as though they were, right? Buddha says, right. In other words, another way to do wisdom meditation and the initiatory wisdom meditation is respect everybody, give everybody the utmost respect, which means do not believe that they're actually accurately limited by your idea of them. Respect means look again. Oh, you think this is so-and-so? Look again. This is a way to get into wisdom meditation, okay? Yes, right. Okay, you're welcome and also you also asked

[16:10]

about the different schools of Buddhism. Could I get an overview? Yes, I'll do that as time goes by and also the different schools of practice. I just might briefly mention that in America, the main schools of practice in the Buddhist tradition are the Zen school and the two main styles in terms of language are the Soto Zen school and the Rinzai Zen school and there's also Pure Land school of Buddhism and that can be brought from China or Korea or Japan. Each country has a slightly different version of the Pure Land practice. And then there's also what's called the Lotus school, the Nichiren school. It's another important school that's in America. Actually that may be the school that has the most Buddhists, perhaps. They actually proselytize on the street. You know, I don't know if you've run into them. They come up to you

[17:12]

and they say, hey man, you want to get laid? Or you want a Cadillac? Want a better job? And then they tell you what to do, you can get it by doing this practice of chanting the Lotus Sutra. And another school is represented by the tradition from Tibet, Vajrayana school, and then there's four main branches of that. And then there's a Theravada school from Southeast Asia. And so those are the main kinds of practice that you find here in America. And they all share certain basic elements, but they all have the same elements, but some emphasize more one or the other. Like one may emphasize studying the scriptures more than another one, but they all study scriptures. One may emphasize sitting meditation more than another one.

[18:15]

One may emphasize chanting more than another one. One may emphasize taking care of daily life more than another one. Another one may emphasize relationship with the teacher more than another one. So all these different aspects of the practice they share, but they have different kind of like bar graphs and how much emphasis they make on them. And of course the Bay Area is the place that has the most, California and the Bay Area has like hundreds and hundreds of Buddhist temples. So California is full of different types of Buddhism, and the East Coast has quite a few, and the center part of the country has not so many, but they're all great variety in America. And so I would encourage you to just sample them and make friends with the different schools and learn about them all if you have time. Or you might just specialize in Zen for a while, get deeper into that before

[19:16]

you go study another one, okay? So, the style of instruction for meditation on the nature of phenomena is very different. In the lineage of Soto Zen here, which goes back to Dogen in Japan, and the ancestor

[20:30]

Yaoshan in China, and Yaoshan was the one who said, when he was asked when he was in sitting meditation, what kind of thinking is going on in there, he said, thinking of not thinking. So in that lineage, the kind of essential function or the essential teaching or the essential art of Zazen, of sitting meditation, is encapsulated in this short dialogue which you've heard about. And I'm suggesting to you over and over that this instruction in seated meditation is also instruction in seated meditation which examines the nature

[21:33]

of phenomena in accord with this sutra called Samya Nirmachana, this sutra which is trying to unravel the meaning of Buddha's teaching. And in that dialogue which goes, what kind of thinking is going on in the immobile sitting of a Buddha? And the ancestor says, thinking of not thinking. And the monk asks, what kind of thinking is thinking of not thinking? And he says, non-thinking. So in a way, it sounds like he's making an equivalence between non-thinking and thinking of not thinking. Does that sound like that, by that answer? So let's at least

[22:49]

tentatively consider that they do equal each other. So what is thinking of not thinking? It is meditation on emptiness. And what is non-thinking? It is meditation on the other dependent. So when you meditate on the other dependent, that is the initiation into meditation on the thoroughly established. Or meditation on the other dependent is the initiation into meditation on emptiness, which is the ultimate meditation in the Bodhisattva path. But you start by meditating on the other dependent, or you start with non-thinking and you progress from non-thinking to thinking of not thinking. The grounding way to get into studying emptiness

[23:58]

and meditating on emptiness is to meditate on dependent co-arising. If you just go directly to meditating on emptiness, it won't work. There's various problems which will arise. You need to be grounded in meditation on the other dependent in order to study the thoroughly established. But actually, when you study the other dependent, you're studying something that basically is equal to the thoroughly established. They must be distinguished and yet they're actually equal. But you start with meditating on the other dependent. I

[25:03]

think it's going to take a while before I'm ready to really walk with you into the meditation called thinking of not thinking. I need to have a sense that the community of people that are studying this teaching are really well grounded in meditation on the other dependent before we can get into studying meditation on the thoroughly established. I feel about ready now to start meditating on the imputational. But I still want to always make sure you continue to meditate in the form we call non-thinking. But at the same time, I want to remind you that that's not the full course. And in terms of yesterday's talk, what we're usually looking

[26:09]

at is the carved dragon. In other words, we're usually looking at our dream of what's going on and we need to move gently into an openness to the real dragon, non-thinking, which is also thinking of not thinking, which is there's no dragon at all in the dragon. And the idea of the dragon is nothing but the word dragon. The fascicle that this story appears in, the story of thinking of not thinking, is called Zazen Shin, which can be translated as Zazen

[27:16]

needle or needle of Zazen. And a needle in the sense of acupuncture needle. It's a character for the kind of acupuncture needles they used to use a long time ago, bamboo needles. So this is a story and the fascicle that it appears in our meditation on how to like, in two ways, it's both how Zazen is a needle which treats your life, but also this text is a needle which treats Zazen, which pokes and penetrates to the nature of Zazen. So people who practice Zazen, sometimes when they start, they practice Zazen in a compassion way, just as a calming practice, or as a precept practice, or as a patience practice, and that's fine to be grounded in a

[28:19]

compassionate approach to sitting meditation. But then the wisdom approach includes that you investigate, that you study, that you inquire into, that you analyze, that you probe what is sitting. And in this process of probing and finding out the nature of Zazen, we realize the practice of Zazen as body and mind dropping off. We realize the practice of Zazen as liberation from suffering. At the end of this fascicle, Dogen Zenji brings up a poem written by one of his ancestors in China, one of our ancestors in China, and the name of the poem is Acupuncture Needle of Zazen.

[29:25]

So this poem is a meditation, this poem is an instruction about how to probe into the nature of Zazen. Here is the poem. Essential function of all Buddhas. Functioning essential of all ancestors. It knows without touching things. It illumines without facing objects. Knowing without touching things, its knowledge is inherently mysterious. Its knowledge inherently subtle. It is ever without discriminatory thoughts.

[30:39]

Its illumination inherently mysterious. It is ever without a hair's breadth of a sign. Ever without discriminatory thought, its knowledge is rare without peer. Ever without a hair's breadth of a sign, its illumination comprehends without grasping. The water is clear right through to the bottom. A fish goes lazily along. The sky is vast without horizon. A bird flies far, far away. To me this sounds like meditation on the other

[31:52]

dependent. This sounds like non-thinking instruction. It knows without touching things. It illumines without facing objects. Knowing without touching things, its knowledge is inherently mysterious. Of course, usually we know with touching things and our knowledge is not mysterious. We also have that kind of knowing. We have knowing with touching also and that's not

[32:54]

mysterious. But knowing without touching, knowing without touching, this knowledge is inherently mysterious. Its knowledge inherently subtle is knowledge without discriminatory thought. So can we be kind enough to ourselves to sit in meditation and be able to tolerate? Can you be tolerant of yourself? Can you be kind enough to yourself to tolerate knowing without touching, which is inherently mysterious? So, as I just mentioned, when you meet someone,

[34:06]

you can reframe the meeting. First of all, the person, when you see people, usually you know them by touching and it's not mysterious. They are this person. Maybe a lovely person, but they're this person. Reframe them as a mystery and it changes the context, but you're still seeing something that's not a mystery, which you can touch. Open then to the space around what you can touch and notice that you can't touch that. Don't push the touchable, graspable person out of the picture, but just open to the knowledge which knows the space around them, which is a mysterious knowledge or knowledge of mystery, which you can't touch.

[35:17]

That's the disadvantage of the mystery. You can't touch it. So big you can't get over it, so low you can't get under it. I've read this thing a number of times and recently when I read it, it made sense to me, but I know that for a long time I just couldn't follow it, so I would guess that some of you who heard it the first time had a little trouble following it. The way it's presented is particularly

[36:24]

difficult for me to follow, because it starts off by first of all saying the essential function of all the Buddhas and then it turns it around and says the essential function of all the Buddhas and then it says the functioning essence of all the ancestors. It's turning. It has two lines using the same characters and reverses them, so it's a kind of turning thing done with pairs of verse lines. So it says line A is the essential function, line B is the functioning essential. Then it goes back to line A and given line A, then it tells you line A1, then it goes to line B and tells you line B1, then it goes to B1 and tells you line B, then it goes back to A1 and tells you A2,

[37:29]

then it goes back to B1 and tells you B2. So it keeps spinning you, which makes it hard for you to get a hold of it and I think that's part of the technique of present presentation is to see if you can find your sea legs in a space where you can't get a hold of what's going on and I don't know if it's after reading it many times you start getting a hold of it in this new milieu or if you start getting used to not being able to get a hold of it and then you understand it. Okay and since you probably didn't understand the last one, rather than go over that, I'll give you another one. So then after Dogen presents this verse, he says it's not that what the ancestor wrote in his Zazen Shin was wrong, but I just wanted to write one myself please and here it

[38:35]

is. This is Dogen's Zazen Shin. Starts out the same, the essential function of all the Buddhas, the functioning essence of all the ancestors. What's the functioning essence of all the ancestors? What's the essential function of all the Buddhas? The other guy said, it was knowing without touching and it was illumining without facing objects. Now Dogen says the essential function is, it is presence without thinking. Presence without thinking. It is completed without interacting. Presence without thinking,

[39:46]

its present is inherently intimate. Completed without interacting, its completion is inherently verified. Its presence inherently intimate, it is ever without any stain or defilement. Its completion inherently verified, it is ever without the upright or the inclined. Intimacy ever without stain or defilement, its intimacy sloughs off without discarding. Verification ever without upright or inclined, its verification makes effort without figuring. The water is clear through to the earth. A fish swims along like a fish. The sky is vast,

[40:56]

straight into the heavens. A bird flies just like a bird. Present without thinking, this presence is inherently intimate. When we meet other beings, when we meet ourselves, the essential function of the Buddha is in this meeting that there is a presence without thinking. Now of course there wouldn't be a meeting if there wasn't a thinking. When you meet with your Zazen practice, when you meet with your Zazen posture, there wouldn't be a meeting if there wasn't thinking. So we have that. There must be that. However,

[42:01]

the essential function is now, in that meeting, in that sitting, a presence without thinking. There is a presence with thinking, now there is a presence without thinking. The presence without thinking is inherently intimate. The presence with thinking is not intimate. The thinking is obscuring, is distancing, just like esteeming and despising is distancing. But without such thoughts, a presence without such thought is inherently intimate. In this way, we practice non-thinking. And this is the essential function. What is the functioning

[43:12]

essential? It is completed without interacting. The essential function is this way of being with objects of knowledge. The functioning essence is the way that things are. And they are completed without interacting. Without any interacting, they are completed. Without any manipulation, without any meddling, they are completed. One is intimacy, the other is completion. And these two sides work together. When you complete something, or when something

[44:22]

is completed without interacting, there is verification or realization inherently. I'm a little bit sad how fast the time's flying by. There's so much more to study, but I'm trying

[45:36]

to be patient with this sadness. Okay, well, I give up. Yes? The meditation on the other dependent isn't really based on meditation on the thoroughly established. You don't really need to be meditating on the thoroughly established in order to meditate on the other dependent. But in order to successfully

[46:41]

meditate on the thoroughly established, you must be based in meditation on the thoroughly established. So, there's a dependency between them, but you can practice the first meditation without practicing the second one. But you can't practice the second or third one without practicing the first one. That's one way to talk about the difference. And one type of meditation, although it's very ... I mean, I could talk to you a long time about how wonderful the effects of meditating on the other dependent are, that meditation does not take you all the way to complete non-attachment and liberation. So, the initiatory meditation is non-thinking, or meditation on the other dependent. The final meditation is meditation on the thoroughly established. And the intermediate meditation is meditation on your thinking. So, first you study non-thinking, then you study thinking, then you study thinking of

[47:44]

not thinking. So, that's one way to talk about the difference. But actually, not thinking really is non-thinking. So, non-thinking is the approach to realizing and understanding not-thinking, because not-thinking is that fact that the thinking you're doing, which refers to the non-thinking, is not actually ... it's not there in the non-thinking. So, there really is not any thinking in the non-thinking. There really isn't any ... pardon? I don't know what it was. But anyway, in terms of the Sutra, the thoroughly established

[48:46]

is the absence of adhering to, or it's the absence of the imputational in the other dependent, or it's the absence of thinking in non-thinking. But you have to understand non-thinking before you can find the absence of thinking in non-thinking, the not-thinking in non-thinking. You have to know non-thinking first. And the way you know it is non-thinking. And the way you know it is you know without touching. The way you know it is that you're present without thinking. The way you know it is you're intimate with things, and being intimate with things means you don't use thinking to meet them. You're just present with them, free of your thoughts

[49:51]

about them. Even though you do have thoughts about them, you're present in the spaciousness around them which allows them to be beyond your thinking. And you get used to hanging out in the non-touching presence without thinking around objects, while still taking care of objects as best you can, without esteeming or despising, which is the way you would take care of them if you understood them. And that way of taking care of them ushers you into being intimate with things that you're thinking about, to be intimate with things that you're touching. You gradually wean yourself from touching by weaning yourself from despising and esteeming, and at the same time you go into the spaciousness where there is no despising

[50:55]

and esteeming being touched. Yeah, it's kind of like a poster that gets slapped on something. Uh-huh. Yeah, even, pardon?

[52:15]

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Fine. I mean, fine means, you know, a while ago I was talking about how, in terms of a meditation process of practicing trust, relax, play, play together, create and understand. So, if you can relax with these teachings and relax with phenomena, then you can start playing with them. And as you start to play with them, you start to enter into the creativity of them, the other dependent process, and then you understand. So you can be creative, be playful. I should say, be playful with these teachings and be

[53:24]

playful with these objects. And as you become more playful, you start to enter into this ungraspable dynamism by which things appear and disappear. So, when you come up with your version, something that seems to make sense with you, I would say, that sounds fine, try it, see how it works. And then maybe you'll think of another approach. The point is to investigate in many, many different ways, many, many different plays with phenomena. You have to investigate, and in particular, investigate sitting meditation, which is a good situation to be investigating, as we talked about, because you can be investigating and really trying some different things, trying some really different ways to be with things, like dare to be with your sitting meditation without touching it, dare to be with your sitting

[54:24]

meditation without thinking about it, dare to be present without thinking, dare to be intimate rather than being able to grasp. Try these different ways of being with the sitting practice, try these different ways of being in the sitting practice, be creative. To be illumined by the radiance of the Buddha ancestors means to concentrate your efforts in investigating the sitting practice. You don't just take it as what it appears to be, investigate it with non-thinking, which means, I think, to be creative with it, not just to be stuck in your thinking about it. So, you made some suggestions, fine, okay? Does

[55:27]

that make sense? Yes? It's not what? It is purifying, but it's not the object of purification. It purifies you in the sense that it transforms your … when you start meditating in this way, your conduct will be revolutionized. You will gradually give up wrongdoing and just practice virtue. That part is a purification or a transformation, but it's not the object of purification in the sense that it's not the final object of purification, it's not the object which will purify you of all misconceptions about the nature of reality. But you can still have a little bit of misconception of the nature of reality and meditate in this way

[56:30]

and make tremendous strides in your practice. And not only that, but these meditations and these strides in virtue will be the basis then of the practice of meditating on the final object of purification. Yes? May I just reflect on what I've been learning? I've been learning that in the past I've been so often to be here, to be taught, to have a chemical resonance, to be affectionate. Yes. And it made sense to me, not that I'm illiterate, but it made sense to me because I feel the chemical resonance is just a wonderful description of emptiness. Maybe this would help. Dependent co-arising is emptiness, okay, but dependently

[57:39]

co-arisen things are not emptiness. They are empty. I think that did clarify whether you noticed it or not. The principle of dependent co-arising is emptiness. They're the same. And by the principle of dependent co-arising, things arise by that principle, and those are things that dependently co-arise. And nothing exists that doesn't dependently co-arise. A dependently co-arised thing is empty, it's not emptiness. So if you're meditating on dependent co-arising, you're not meditating on a phenomena, you're meditating on the principle, which is the same as emptiness. But if you're meditating on a phenomena and looking at its dependently co-arisen nature, now you're looking at a dependent co-arising. And the dependent co-arising

[58:45]

is not this dependently co-arisen thing, this example of dependent co-arising is not emptiness, it is empty. So you're looking at something that's dependently co-arising all the time, that's the only thing you can look at. As you meditate on that, you're ready then to start to see that it's empty. Before you see that it's empty, you have not yet realized emptiness. Even though you're looking at something which is dependently co-arising, you do not yet see dependent co-origination, you see a dependent co-arising. And looking at dependent co-arising in the form of looking at a dependently co-arisen thing does purify you, but you must see that it's empty before your mind is completely purified. So, again, dependent co-arising is emptiness, but dependent co-arisings are not emptiness, they're empty. And you must

[59:52]

see both dependent co-arisings and that they're empty, in order to realize emptiness, which means you also then realize dependent co-arising, and then you also realize that all that is just a conventional designation, everything we just said. So, because it's a conventional designation, it's based on dependent co-arising, therefore all that's empty. So dependent co-arising is empty, and so is emptiness. So what you heard before was right, and now you're hearing something more, you're going deeper. Congratulations. Frederick?

[60:58]

Are they new terms to the entire Sangha? Are they new to the entire Sangha? They're new terms to … well, I've been teaching them for the past few months, yes. Right. So some people have been hearing them for two months, some people have been hearing them for three months, some people have been hearing them for three years. So there's a range of familiarity with this, and I probably should apologize for exposing you to a work in progress. But I can't afford to not talk about what I'm working on. So, this is the millennium of wisdom. Sorry. Yes? Yes. Right. Can you hear what he said? He said he's probably in a position similar

[62:36]

to others who have just come to the Seshina, just for the past six days he's been exposed to these teachings. Without having had this previous learning, previous teaching. Right. Say in lay language, what is the other dependent? It's the way things arise in dependence on other things. Interdependent. It's interdependent, yes. It's that based on X, Y arises. That's the other dependent character thing. Is that lay enough? Okay. And the thoroughly established, in order

[63:43]

to understand the thoroughly established, you need to mention the imputational. The imputational is that which is imputed or put over these things that arise interdependently. It's kind of an imagination that's put over them in terms of essences and attributes in dependence on words so that you can talk about things that arise interdependently. Because without putting some kind of overlay on them, you can't talk about them because they're not identifiable until you package them. So, that's the imputational. It's to package the mysterious process of how things arise in dependence on other things so we can talk about them. That's the imputational. The thoroughly established is the ultimate, right.

[64:47]

But let me just say what the thoroughly established is, how it's the ultimate. It's the ultimate in the sense that it's object of purification but also it's the absence of this overlay on the other dependent. When you're looking at the absence of this fantasy of the overlay of self on things, we overlay self on things so that we can get a hold of them and talk about them. That absence is the ultimate. That's the thoroughly established. That's the other dependent. No. I think that it arises in dependence on the thoroughly established.

[65:58]

Because of the thoroughly established, because of the emptiness of things, there can be the arising. But the thoroughly established isn't the arising and the other dependent doesn't come from the thoroughly established, it comes in dependence on the thoroughly established. Because you're empty, you can happen. And because you happen, you're empty. Because the only way you can happen is in the dependence on other things. And because you happen in dependence on things other than yourself, you're empty. And because you're empty, you can arise again dependent on things other than yourself. So emptiness makes possible dependent co-arising, which is the only kind of things that exist. So emptiness makes existence possible. That the fact that phenomena are of the empty type, empty type phenomena can arise. If they weren't empty, they wouldn't be able to arise. But their arising is the way they're arising.

[67:01]

They don't arise emptily, they arise other dependently. But because they're empty, they can arise other dependently. Was that lay enough? Are you a lay person? Okay, you're with me here? Okay, good. Alright. You want to indulge something? While he's sitting, can you hear that? Can I repeat? Should I repeat what he says? Okay. Is that okay, Fred? Okay. I'll try to speak more loudly. I'll try to speak more loudly. Okay. Laughing. Still laughing. Exhaling. Smiling.

[68:04]

Quiet at the seat this morning. Not a lot of thoughts. Presence without thoughts. He felt that I needed an anchor. And did you have a listening? I thought that I could hear and see without getting caught in the narrative. There's a sound, but I don't know if it's a sound. Uh-huh. Yeah. There's a sound, a dependently co-arisen. The sound has arisen. And there's a dependent co-arising thing there.

[69:08]

And there may even be a, what do you call it? An image of it. However, there's also a presence with it, which isn't thinking. That's meditating on the other dependent in conjunction with this. Maybe. Pardon? That's non-thinking. And the fish are still swimming in the pond. It's getting hard to go on with the noise, don't you think? No? You're up close. Should we go on or not? What? Can you turn the volume up? Does that work better? Is that better? Okay.

[70:09]

By the way, it's okay to go to the bathroom if you want to. Still, please observe the gender distinctions. Timon? Now, this is a popular event, yes? A question about wisdom and calming practice? Non-thinking? When you're just with the things? Yes. Okay, let me say that again. The state of being with things and suchness. Can we take away the suchness and say the state of just being with things? I wonder where the investigation of thought comes from in that state. That it... Yeah. In that investigation of thought.

[71:09]

Okay. But what's the difference then in that state to be in a calming practice state, where you're just with the things? I mean, what's the investigation? It may happen or it may not happen. So I just wonder, could that be an interest in... The not... Excuse me, that's a good question. So he's saying, if you hear about being present without thought as a kind of description of non-thinking, that doesn't sound very investigatory, right? It maybe even sounds a little bit like calming practice, right? However, and I agree, it's more of an initiation into the investigation. The investigation really starts when you start studying the thinking, when you start studying the imputational character. That's when it will feel more like investigation.

[72:11]

But that sounds like somebody is doing something and not like... He says, that sounds like somebody doing something, that's not just being with things. Sounds like that, right? So now you've got something to investigate. Now the investigation starts. Because when you're just being with things that way, it's like you're entering into being with them without identifying them. You're in this non-thinking mode. Non-thinking initiates you into a different way of being with things, but not primarily to set up calm, but getting ready... You're not primarily giving... You're not trying to give up discursive thought when you're practicing non-thinking, the way you do when you're practicing calm. However, some people try to practice calming meditation by giving up discursive thought, and when they start meditating on the other dependent,

[73:16]

they actually are more successful at giving up discursive thought than they are when they're trying to give up discursive thought. So the difference is that with meditating on the other dependent, you're not trying to give up discursive thought. You're actually using discursive thought to think of a teaching which tells you that phenomena have this character of being other dependent, of being beyond your ideas about them. So you're not trying to give up your ideas about them, but you're meditating on a teaching which says things are beyond your idea, and for some people that's more calming than trying to give up their ideas of things. So in fact, I've heard some people tell me that when they're doing the other dependent meditation, they get calmer than when they're trying to practice calming meditation. Did you get that? That when they try to practice calming meditation, they're using their discursive thought too much to try to give up their discursive thought, and then it backfires. But when they actually use their discursive thought

[74:18]

to meditate on the way things are beyond thought, that actually is more of an effective calming meditation. However, it's simultaneously, in this case, the initiation into wisdom meditation, and it's okay, if you're doing wisdom meditation, it's okay if you don't get upset. It's alright. It's okay as you enter into wisdom meditation if you don't get upset. It's alright. It's okay even if you get calmer. But it's also okay if you do get upset. A little upset is okay. So for somebody who has been successful at giving up discursive thought and who has become calm, if they switched over to now contemplate the object, and with this, what do you call it, contemplate the object while hearing the teaching at the same time of the nature of the object, they would experience that as quite different. So again, things are happening,

[75:19]

you're aware of objects, and you're giving up being discursive about the objects. But you're not really concentrating on the objects, you're concentrating on giving up being discursive about them, and that calms you. The other case is you are concentrating on the objects, you're not concentrating on giving up discursive thought. As a matter of fact, you're using discursive thought to look at the object and to bring a teaching to bear on the object. The teaching you're bringing is, this thing is beyond what I think it is. And that may actually reduce your discursive thought radically, and you get calm at the same time you initiate yourself, which sounds like a good deal to me. But for some people it really feels different, and especially it would feel different for those who are successful at calming meditation. For the unsuccessful calming meditation people, wisdom meditation may accidentally calm them more than their calming practice did, plus simultaneously initiate them into investigating the object.

[76:20]

But the beginning of investigating the object is that you're actually contemplating things, like your body or something, and bringing the teachings about the nature of objects to bear on the object. And it may not seem very investigative, but it's a little bit investigative, because you're bringing teachings about the nature of things you're looking at to the things. It's a little investigative. It's a little bit like applying a teaching to the thing. Now after you apply it, now you go over and look at how you don't think that way. And you have a little discussion between these with yourself about what you do think the way things are. And that investigation may sound more like investigation and a lot less about giving up discursive thought and calming. And that might be further agitating or further calming. Did that make sense? It did? Did it make sense to anybody else? How many people did it make sense to?

[77:22]

That's pretty good. Thank you, Timo, for your question. Can I go on to somebody else now? No? To make sure you got the point? Okay. He's going to repeat an example about swimming on the surface and walking on the bottom. Why is it? Oh, this is terrifying. Good.

[78:43]

Lynn? Lynn? No? It passed? Cliff? A question about the relationship between the realm of the imputational and the realm of the other dependent. Yes? Yes? They're both characteristics of what's happening, of phenomena. Like the rain. They're both characteristics of the rain. Is it possible? You already are in the realm of the other dependent. Yes.

[79:48]

Yeah, okay. Right now, you feel like you're aware of the imputational, okay? Yeah. And most people are. The imputational means to experience that conceptual consciousness predominates over perceptual consciousness. So right now, a lot of us are having quite a few experiences of direct experience of the sound of rain. Right now, okay? And you are too, I think. However, we also have a conceptual version, a conceptual cognition of the sound of the rain, which overlays and gets mixed with the sound of the rain and dominates. The direct sensory experience of the sound of the rain is much subtler. We're barely aware of it anyway. And then when the big, strong conceptual version of

[80:51]

it's raining comes in, and it's beautiful, blah blah, when that comes in, it dominates it. So that's what you're saying, right? That's what you're aware of, this nice, clear, conceptual version of the rain. The imputational. Okay? Now you're saying, could it be possible, could you slip into the direct perception of the rain? That's your question, right? And the answer is yes. And actually, you are having that experience, but usually our minds aren't subtle enough to notice it. And it's very quick. But people do have that experience sometimes. And when you're experiencing that, you're experiencing the other dependent phenomena of the rain, and you're actually experiencing its other dependent character. But again, it's not only subtle, but it's unfamiliar because it's unidentifiable. So you'd be experiencing the sound, but without being able to yet identify it. In order to identify it, you have to put something on it,

[81:53]

a concept, an image. Is what we're doing then preparing for a happy accident? Yeah, that's one way to put it. That's the way Rajneesh puts it. How do I put it? I'd rather not say. I don't answer why questions. Do you need something? Huh? You seem well-equipped to me. I don't have a question. What did you say? I have another question that I think is related. You have another question which you think is related? Yes. We talk. We talk. Yeah. And that's happening in two realms, also. It's not exactly that it's happening in two realms,

[82:54]

but the talking has two characteristics. Three, actually. It has other dependent character and it has the imputational character and the thoroughly established character. Okay? So we're talking and the talking is a phenomena and you're having a direct experience of it right now and so am I, I guess. I mean, I am and I guess you are. Okay? So go on. Sometimes there's a moment of shared presence, yes. Yes? It doesn't sound like it.

[84:05]

It sounds like you... Again, we're always in the other dependent. Okay? That's the basis of the imputational. But there's a wide variety of other dependent events and one of them is an experience of being in shared presence together, which we always are, actually, in shared presence. But sometimes we feel like we're in shared presence. But when we feel like we're in shared presence, that's actually now the imputational. Okay? So every moment we're together, you and me, Cliff, in shared presence, creating each other all the time. But once in a while we have a dream that we're in shared presence, which is lots of fun. But that's a conceptual version called, we got shared presence. If you can't identify it, that's the usual situation, is we're in shared presence and we can't identify it.

[85:07]

It's not identified. It can't be identified. We don't know where it is or who's got it. But with the aid of the imputational, we can locate it and identify it and talk about it and have a party about it. Because it's such a nice thing, isn't it? So we're having a party about the other dependent character, but the other dependent character is actually being hidden by our party, even though it's a wonderful party. We do have to talk because we're human. The other dependent character is the mystery and the defining mystery of humans is that we have to talk about the mystery. But when we talk about the mystery, it's not mysterious anymore. So the mystery is that we have to talk about the mystery and miss the mystery and suffer because of it.

[86:09]

We want to bring the mystery into conventional existence and location because we think it would be so nice to have our own little packaged mystery. But then we feel sad because we got it and it didn't satisfy us. I often use the example when I was a kid. I had these nice wooden toys that were painted bright colors and I used to like to bite them. It felt so good to bite them, but then I lost my toy. Now I had a dented toy. It was so sad. I got to bite it, and I did this until a rather advanced age. So we've got these wonderful things, these wonderful, beautiful things, but we want to bite them. But then when we bite them, we feel sad because we've just dented the other dependent character with our concepts.

[87:11]

But you can't get a mouth hold on things without doing that. But you can also remember that if you didn't really get to the thing you were trying to get, that still the mystery has eluded you. It's 11.45 about now, so maybe we should stop, even though, again, I really do appreciate your interest in going on and on. And I kind of understand because there's so much more wonderful things to clarify. So please take care of your health so we can continue to study this longer. I'll keep trying to study this with you, but I think maybe we should take a break. Don't you think so, some of you? Is it okay to stop, Diana? Okay. Thank you.

[89:07]

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