Direct perception is actually experiencing an impermanent phenomenon before you overlay it with concepts. So other dependent phenomena relate to other dependent phenomena in this direct way, and if you have a living being relating to another living being or a living being relating to a so-called non-living being, the impact between them, the actual impression that the object has on the consciousness, is an impermanent phenomena, is an other dependent phenomena, which is directly known. But it's known without being able to identify it. So moment by moment you and I supposedly are having direct sensory experiences of impermanent

[01:04]

other dependent phenomena, moment by moment that's happening, but we can't identify them, but they're our life, basically. Mechanical? Yeah, it's mechanical like a moron psyche making love, mechanical, it's a blissful mechanism, it's called life, it's called energy flowing without obstruction, which is going on all the time, but we get distracted from it because of packaging it and grasping it. So underneath the superficial grasping where all this misery occurs is this huge organic ocean of interrelationship where we're grooving with each other all the time. But because we want to know it, we exile ourselves from it, in the morning we eat up the unknown

[02:13]

and exile ourselves from this organic mechanistic bliss land, but we do get to know it and go to business school. Yes? I was thinking about Helen Keller. Yeah. She had a sense of touch, she had a sense of taste, a sense of smell. But according to her story, there was not a world, there was sensation. It was not until her teacher put her finger in her ear and she felt it. water, I think it was drinking water, or washing, and it flowed with her finger, W-E-T. That the world, I think this is what he's saying, that the world came into focus, what we call a conventional world, because there was now a symbol, W-E-T. And for her, at least, that brought her into, not a bliss state, into a narrow state, but

[03:20]

into a state of happiness. For her, the word, the beginning of the word for her, I can't remember what it is. Well, I would say that she already was packaging the world of bliss by imputing essences to it before she had words to put on it. So that's why she was miserable. And when she could put words on it, then she could join the conventional world where she had some friends. So, but she was already, she wouldn't have been able to come into the world of conventional designation if she hadn't been imputing already. So she was in like a limbo between the dependant co-arising and ordinary conventional world, which is worse, because then you can't hear the teachings. So that's worse. Anybody who's halfway between is worse.

[04:21]

So that's how I would understand her story. So when you watch children, they can impute language structures to things before they have the words to go on them, and they're dying to get those words on them, but they can't do it yet. But, you know, for a short period of time it's okay, because they get so much affection, and they can see it and hear it. But the language structure is based on this imputation, which she was doing, I would say, which made it possible. Once she got the words, she could put it right on there, and it started to work, because she had this language ability. Yeah, right. So it was part of her liberation to be able to come into the realm of language and where she can hear human wisdom, and then she developed really nicely. So that's how I would see the story. You think it's time to end? Today you're wrong. But you can leave if you want to. And it warmed my heart, and I was wondering if you could read it.

[05:44]

Sure. Do you have reading glasses there for me? This is kind of small writing here. Do you like my new reading glasses? Buddha, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is discord, unity. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is error, truth. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is sadness, joy. Where there is darkness, light. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console. To be understood as to understand. To be loved as to love.

[06:46]

For it is in giving that we receive. It is in pardoning that we are pardoned. It is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Thank you. Welcome. Who? Pardon? St. Francis, right. St. Francis. Why is teaching impossible? And I'm wondering if the light, suddenly, when you have a lamp, if God has a teaching like that, lighting a lamp, and a brilliant creation of thousands of phenomenal creatures, thousands of possible attributes,

[07:50]

that there's, you know, I've found it more possible to consider non-duality as a study of the phenomenal. There's nothing competing as to the intent, study of the phenomenal, which is, and I'm wondering if, to answer your question, if I couldn't hear you, it's kind of a delusion, isn't it? You know, it's kind of brought from that way. It's really being asked to look at something that, a fantasy. You say... Did you say you're being asked to look at something that's a fantasy? You're being... I don't quite understand what you're saying.

[08:52]

Is the object... I don't quite understand what you're saying still, but maybe other people do, so just keep talking. Yes. Yes. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. No, I'm not telling you to take the self and observe the self. I'm saying, the teaching is, these objects you're looking at, observe them,

[10:00]

which you're already doing anyway. The teaching is not asking you to ask that question. Yes. But right now, I'm just saying, just work with what's happening to you. And, just remember that whatever is appearing is impermanent. Not remember, but hear this teaching and you'll understand that whatever you're experiencing is impermanent. You're not being asked to look at yourself right now, but if your self pops up, look at it. Like Bernard's saying, when you're doing the form, suddenly there's a self there. I'm not saying go look for the self, but maybe when you're doing a form, suddenly there's a self appears doing the form. Okay, then apply this to that. Huh? Well, you may find that. But I'm not saying to look for it. I'm just saying when you see it in a superficial way, not when you look for it. We're going to look for it later. Now we're just dealing with the appearance of the self,

[11:02]

if it happens. I'm not sending you to look for it. I'm saying if it pops up there, just be present with it without touching it. Bring this teaching to bear on this self. If something that's not the self appears, then face not the self and apply this teaching to it. Later we're going to look for the self and we're going to find the absence of it. And then you're going to be one happy camper. Cedar? Oh, it's Sala. That was Sala, wow. Oh, and Fu's hand was Cedar's hand, okay. And Sala's hand was Cedar's hand. That's nice, wow. Kind of like, what do you call it? Marionettes or something, yes? The Three Stooges. Hey, wait a minute, Sala's turn.

[12:12]

Right view isn't the teaching about this. Right view is understanding this. This teaching is being given to help us develop right view. And right view of what? Right view of what's happening. We have some work to do in that department. Yes? I have a question. Yeah, he flew away. What does what look like? It looks like getting up in the morning,

[13:31]

get up in the morning and go to the Zendo and sit, that's what it looks like. And then there's Kinhin. And then there's Zazen. And then there's service. That's what it looks like. That's what it looks like. And it looks like you're there. It doesn't look like Psyche and Eros. It looks like you sitting there and you're Krishna. That's what it looks like. Well, that's what it looks like. When you go to Zendo and you think that what's happening is what you think what's happening, that's just Psyche. That's right. It's Psyche who can't see Eros anymore because she knows Eros. Because you know love now,

[14:34]

you can't really see him. But you know, huh? You have to know it before you can not see it, right? You have to know before you exile yourself. You exile yourself by knowing. You exile yourself by grasping. That's how you exile yourself from dependent co-arising. Of course, it's really still there. Otherwise, you wouldn't be exiled. You're only exiled from something that means something to you. Something that means a lot to you. You already do know dependent co-arising. You already do know dependent co-arising. And how do you know dependent co-arising John Wilcox? Yeah. You're going around wrong. You know it by grasping the other dependent as being the imputation. That's how you know it. That's how you know it. That's how you know love.

[15:38]

You know love by grasping it as what you think it is. You come into the Zendo, what you think is happening, that's how you know dependent co-arising Zendo. By taking it for the imputation. That's how you know. That's what the Sutra says. That's how you know. And what does it look like for you to get over your psyche? It looks like you coming to Zendo and sitting there thinking that this is what's happening. And here in teachings we're saying, John, there's another dependent character to this what's going on here. There's an Eros aspect here too. Which you actually are isolated from because you have converted it into a knowable thing. And you work with that year after year until little by little together with all your friends you achieve reunion. So one of the things she has to do is she had to go through a pile, a big pile of sesame seeds mixed with what? Huh?

[16:40]

I didn't hear that. Salt. Salt. Yeah. Yeah. Sesame seed mixed with salt. She was supposed to separate the sesame seeds and the salt. Not grind them together. Separate them. So that's what you have to do. That kind of stuff. You have to come in here day after day and separate. But of course she couldn't do it. She collapsed. And then the ants came and helped her. So you come in here and you try to do it day after day, year after year. And you won't be able to. But finally you'll collapse. You'll give up. You'll surrender to the practice. And the ants will come and save you. And then there's two more. But we'll go into them later. There's no isolation? Isolation is an illusion. The isolation is... No. The isolation is not an illusion.

[17:46]

The isolation is created by believing in illusion. The isolation is a conventionally existing unhappiness. You're not really isolated. You're not really isolated. You're right. The isolation is an illusion. The exile is an illusion. But the experience of the exile exile is based on the delusion that the thing is what you think it is. When you look at somebody and you believe how they appear to you, you exile yourself from them. You're not really exiled, but because you see them and believe that you actually feel exiled, you feel unhappy. So our practice is to overcome this belief which produces the conventionally existing feeling of exile and unhappiness. So we're starting by meditating on what we exiled ourselves from, the nature that we've exiled ourselves from. Even though we're not

[18:48]

quite back there yet, we're starting to re-initiate ourselves back home. And now it's getting close to time to take a break before service. Can we stop now? Is that okay? Thank you.

[19:07]

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