As I mentioned before, in the various different presentations of Buddha Dharma, in terms of schools in Buddhism, in all the different schools, emptiness or selflessness, well, emptiness means selflessness or self-emptiness, And there is the emptiness of things. But the emptiness of persons means the emptiness of the conventionally existent person. Conventionally existing person lacks inherent existence.

[01:04]

We don't say that there's no person at all or that there's not a conventionally existing person or a person which has nominal existence. And this is this way of understanding selflessness that there is a conventionally existing self which lacks inherent existence, avoids the extremes of exists and the extreme of everything does not exist. So one extreme would be this person, this nominally existing person, all these nominally existing persons do not exist. That would be one extreme. We don't go for that. There is an existing person. But everything exists. The other extreme, that there's an inherently existing person or a truly existing person, we don't go that way either.

[02:09]

Okay? So that's how we avoid those extremes in our understanding of emptiness. And this leads up to the cartoon I've been mentioning for some time. So this is a cartoon of... Actually, it's looked like Rozzy a little bit. It's like... This is a cartoon of... It's a far-side cartoon, and this is a dog who has... Yojimbo, is it? What's the yellow cat's name? Huh? Punko? Did Yojimbo leave? Huh? Oh, did Stanley take your Jimbo? Oh, okay. So, Punko, the Rozzy with Punko holding Punko in her mouth, and she's riding a unicycle on a tightrope, and she's working a hula hoop and balancing a vase on top of her head and juggling four balls.

[03:18]

Can you see, sort of? And then all these people down below watching. And the caption says, high above the hushed crowd, Rex, but I think it should be Rozzy, tried to remain focused and balanced between the two extremes. Still, She couldn't shake one nagging thought. And this was a new trick. So we're trying to learn this new trick, you know. You're not such old dogs, you know, in this lifetime, but

[04:24]

Huh? Some are, some are, even in this lifetime. But anyway, we have to learn this new trick, this balancing trick between these two extremes. These two views, these two philosophies. One, which many of us are familiar with, that the view the view of inherent existence of persons and things, and the other is, the other flip side is if you could understand that that was not so and give up that view, the other side of saying there really isn't anything. So... And I... If I present something, usually if I present something that helps get focused, but if I present something that people whose questions are waiting from yesterday might never get to ask their questions, so I thought maybe I'd start with the questions from yesterday and see how that works, and maybe just listen to them, and maybe they'll be incorporated into what I say, but let's hear them first.

[05:47]

The questions from yesterday from Brian and Owl and who else? And Peter, was there one more? Huh? Max? You had one yesterday? OK, so let's hear the questions. Brian? I'm not quite sure how to say this, but I'll try. And what you were just talking about, you have to download it. And yesterday we were talking about this, that sort of location that we go around doing. And he mentioned that part of that plot that was with sort of like a table with big dogs, you face a hell of a huge thing. or what purpose-based drugs are, or what they might mean for us, that they need to make sure you read the group, like that, et cetera, et cetera, in a category, in a context, based on, oh, I can use this for my coffee cup, for the purpose, in relationship to me, or in relationship to what you were saying, or in relation to my dominoes, et cetera, purpose-based.

[07:12]

Which, to me, that doesn't seem like, you know, a job. That seems pretty... We don't know about doing that. Let's sort of renew her in this realm. You know, it's one degree of, like, oh, I'm not going to talk about walls. You know, my family. What? No, I don't want to talk about walls. The questioning is pretty natural and I don't quite understand when we make those equal versus the ultimate realm. You have to nominate the person, just sort of act in a non-self-directed way. So one question easy to answer is, can't a nominally existent person act in a not self-centered way without much attachment?

[08:17]

Well, first of all, just a second. Answer the first question. Isn't it possible for a nominally existent person to act in a un-self-centered way? The answer is yes, it is possible. But a nominally existent person, a particular nominally existent person is a person you can specify a name. in relationship to some particular sets of psychophysical experiences. Okay? We're talking about a particular non-existent person because it's a name onto some set of experiences, some body-mind set up. Okay? That person can act non-self-centrally or selflessly if that person doesn't simultaneously hold this view of inherent existence.

[09:25]

If you hold the view of inherent existence, then you don't act selflessly. But this person could. A nominally existent person could act selflessly. So Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha, a nominally existent person, called him Shakyamuni Buddha and he lived in India and He had a nominal existence. He had a conventional existence in the world. But he became free of the view, the innate view of his inherent existence, so he could be selfless. So it is possible, though, that a person can become free of that. Now, your next question is, Isn't it possible a person could be like that refuting this belief in inherent existence? Isn't it possible that you can be selfless without refuting that?

[10:30]

Is that your question? Yeah? The answer is no. Because if you hold the view around, you act, that's what we call, you know, you know, you have this a priori beforehand sense of yourself, you have this preconception of an inherently existing self of that conventionally existing person. The belief in inheritance is applied to that nominally existing person, first of all. The nominally existing person is okay. And the nominally existent person without this, without being joined to the inherent existence would be a person who is free of that view. You wouldn't have that view. And then you could also not adopt the other view, which is that there's no existence at all to this nominally existent person.

[11:38]

So you could, this person with the middle way, would be a person who realized, who had given up that view of inherent existence of himself, and also hadn't swung to the other extreme of, I'm nothing at all. This would be a selfless, this would be, this would be at least, in terms of the analogy I gave, at least a magician. This would be somebody who is no longer fooled by the appearance of of inherent existence. You would no longer be fooled by the appearance of the solidity of this imputed person on top of the five aggregates. Now, it would be also possible to attain Buddhahood, which I'll talk about later today, which would even go so far as you wouldn't even see that this conventionally existing person was solid anymore.

[12:39]

Not to mention you wouldn't fall for it. But without refuting that, without dropping that view, which we carry, we keep carrying it. And we meet every situation of, okay, I'm going into the dining room. The inherently existent conventional person is going in the dining room. You hold that view. So you have to drop it. No, no, you could have a nominally existent person going to the dining room. Right, but you wouldn't necessarily think that it, for example, creates itself and that it's independent of other beings. And you wouldn't think that it's independent or the same as your body and mind. But if you think it's inherently existent, you think it's independent of other beings.

[13:46]

Now, you can still get into the dining room thinking that you're independent of other beings, but when you get there, you trash us, unless we behave properly. I mean, you know, you have some, you know, before you come down on us, but eventually you're going to, you will, you will get really mean to us if we don't line up with your independence. Or you'll get mean with yourself. You'll be mean to yourself, you'll be mean to others when you get pushed far enough on this independence thing. But you don't have to have this view of an independent existence. You don't have to have that. That's optional. It's optional even though it's inherent. I mean, even though it's innate, it's optional. It's optional to have it at the beginning of practice, but through practice we can drop it, we can become free of it. And it is a problem because even if you don't hurt people, even if they don't push you to the limit of your anxiety and patience, you're always afraid that they're going to hurt you.

[15:00]

You're always afraid. And also, when you believe in your inherent existence, that means you believe everything exists. And as Nagarjuna says, that goes with the view of eternalism. If you believe in internalism, then you know that the slightest change, not you know, but it implies. If an eternalism or your permanence goes with your belief in your annihilation, so you're scared of getting annihilated all the time. But understanding impermanence doesn't go with annihilation. So even if you don't get cruel right away, even if nobody pushes you at Tassajara very far, you're always nervous and anxious. You're never at peace. You're always perplexed. Like it says in this, as long as you hold this view, you're perplexed.

[16:03]

So it is a problem. But another way to talk about the problem is that your karma is pretty good, so you'll be OK as long as you stay at Tassajara. But at a certain point, you realize that you would like actually to be more than just get by from now until you're 76. you know, get by being, yeah, I'm nervous, I'm anxious, I'm upset, you know, but I don't care. Nobody bothers me down here that much, and the food's good. So I'll just keep meditating and be cool for the next 50 years. And that'll be, that's a good life. You know, I can stand it. But compassion eventually drives you to wish to do better. Better means wish to actually help these suffering beings. And when you start to see that that's what you'd like to do, then you realize that even though you may be able to get by for quite a while longer, they can't.

[17:17]

They're like in major suffering. And even though they're at Tassajara, they're not practicing as well as you. So they're totally miserable. They're on the verge of suicide all the time. And you want to help them. And you realize that just getting by isn't enough. You need to get past this belief in self because it actually does undermine you when you're working with some of these suffering people because you don't know how to help them because you haven't solved the problem that they have yet. So you actually aspire to solve this, resolve this problem of this belief. So it's a little bit of to people with good karma. But it's a big problem to some people with bad karma, and it's a big problem to those who have great compassion, who want to help beings by becoming a Buddha. That becomes their main problem, is to get over that, and then after getting over it, to getting over it.

[18:21]

And attaching to get over it You can get what's called Zen sickness, which you attach to the attainment and or you switch to the other extreme of saying there isn't anything at all. So, yeah. Does that make sense? That's how I see it. Mr. Owl? Two-part, yeah. Yeah. Okay, the question is, is the imputation, the naming, the conceptualizing? No, I think the third skanda is more centrally the point of the mental imputation is this the conceptual imputation well if you don't yeah if you don't if you don't if you're not going to have language yet you can still have five skandhas but babies don't don't necessarily have two and a half skandhas

[19:49]

So the concepts they're coming up with are uneducated, unsocialized, but they still, I think, have a concept of everything's me. Yeah. They have a concept that all this experience is me. Yeah. They have a sense of, here we are, This is it. And there's no division for a while. But then gradually they become aware that the milk supplier is not them, that it can leave the room. So then they freak out over that and work that out somehow by saying, the milk will come back and blah, blah, blah. So now you've got self and other. So between six months and a year and a half they developed the concept for self and other. Well, the third skanda is particularly important in setting up the experience of phenomena, but it's not exactly a delusion, except in the sense that all this activity, all this setting up of

[21:19]

and dualistic consciousness are based on ignorance. So that pre-verbal ignorance sets up this whole experiential realm. The pivotal thing in setting up an experience is conceptualization. So ignorance and conceptualization. Based on ignorance, we conceive, we have karmic formations and consciousness and so on. No. I mean, no.

[22:22]

That's what he said, right? There's a ceasing of conceptualization with the ceasing of ignorance. The skandhas cease. That's what it says, isn't it? Birth ceases. Old age ceases, death ceases, misery ceases. Well, even, you know, there's still the... He didn't say that the conventionally existing person is annihilated. It's just that there is the ceasing of all this stuff when there's a ceasing of ignorance. In other words, there is the realization in nirvana, and in nirvana there ain't no five skandhas.

[23:26]

There's no five skandhas, and you can't have a conventionally existing person without five skandhas. I did say that, yeah, and I'll still say it. What? Came back from nirvana? I'm saying that nirvana and samsara simultaneously. That's what I'm saying. But in nirvana... In Nirvana, there ain't no conventional existing people because there's no five skandhas. There's nothing, nothing's happening in Nirvana. There's nothing in my other cartoon. This may take, this one won't take me very, this one won't take me very long. So this guy's sitting on the couch reading the newspaper and he says to his wife, if something is bothering you,

[24:40]

...relationship, Lorraine, why don't you just spell it out? So then she's standing on the back of the couch and she's writing on the wall, nothing ever happens. So what's bothering her about their relationship is nothing. Whereas what bothers her about their relationship is that she's in nirvana. And she wants to come back to samsara where they have a relationship. But, you know, to say that in nirvana, the realization in nirvana there's nothing's happening does not mean that anything's been annihilated. Yeah.

[25:42]

Imputation is necessary in order for phenomena to... Okay? Belief in inherent existence is that those phenomena which are appearing to us do not depend on imputation. Say it again. Imputation is necessary, conceptual imputation is necessary for phenomena to appear to the mind. Our phenomenal experiences depend on our own conceptual imputation, the imputation of thought on what's actually happening. before we impute thought to it. Okay? Belief in inherent existence is, we think that the thing that whatever we're aware of, let's start with this closer thing, the inherent existence of this person is to not notice that this person depends on conceptual imputation.

[27:11]

So belief in inherent existence is to ignore the dependence of phenomena. So phenomena depend on many things, but for meditation purposes, one of the main things to point to is that it depends on conceptual invitation. Because that's at hand to observe. You can actually see how that's the case. You can see how there's mental imputation involved in the nominal existence of the person upon the five skandhas. Yes. That was last year's presentation, but it's... The confusion of thinking, the unclear vision, the ignorance, which conceptualization means that you're tricked by it in a

[28:34]

there's mental imputation going on, but you forget it. And you think that what you've created is actually there on its own. That's the belief in inherent existence. That's the problem. The conceptualization... Well, the conceptualization is not a problem if you understand it. So that you can actually... once you become free of the belief in inherent existence, you can then actually study the conceptualization without being caught by it. So the Buddha can actually see the products of ... simultaneously with seeing that they're empty. But when you first become free of your belief in inherent existence, What you see is your freedom from the existence. You can't simultaneously see the things appearing at the same time.

[29:45]

Can I just put a little quick thought on that? Yeah, yeah. I understood that The fourth standard is the specifics of the third standard. The fourth standard is if the chronic ailment can be the result of the, if it has big result aspect to it. so that the act of ignorance or averting from the dependently poor isn't. When things are, is the karmic, the karmic motivation to have it give, to have it actually give?

[30:55]

Is that what you're saying? Well, it might turn out to be, if I say okay, it might turn out to be a little confusing later to say that ignorance is karmic. But you could say, I guess, ignorance is karmic if you want to get into past lives. Formations are ignorance, and then based on ignorance there's karmic formations. So, to say that karmic formations... are the basis of ignorance. I guess it's okay if you go round and round, but usually you say ignorance... Right, but then the only problem is that you're conflating or putting together both of those things. You're putting karmic formation together with ignorance.

[31:57]

If you want to collapse all the different things into one thing, then they go together. But they can also be separated. So they can be ignorance as a separate thing from karmic formations. So they can be turning away without the karmic formations. So there's going to be this basic gesture of turning away from how things actually happen and how, because they happen that way, they lack inherent existence. They can be turning away from that. Then based on that turning away, there's karmic formations. So they're right next door to each other, but I just want to be careful to not give up on that. discrimination between those two aspects. You're saying based on ignorance or dispositions, based on dispositions, there's... Right.

[33:06]

I was looking at, like in the 75 Dharma Lift, ignorance is... ignorance is in the... Is it ignorance or is it confusion? Ignorance is usually avidya. And of course avidya and moha, avidya is usually translated as not, you know, not understanding or Avijja is usually the word for ignorance, and moha means confusion. Now, confusion is based on ignorance, but they're kind of the same, but they're also kind of different. So, strictly speaking, the way the Abhidharmas did it, and this is just... They had their reasons for doing this, but they didn't put ignorance... They didn't make ignorance a dharma. They had a dharma closely related to ignorance called moha.

[34:08]

But there's another dharma in the dharma list, which is called drishti. which could also be called ignorance, because it's a view. So, anyway. So, avijja is the, avijja is what, isn't a dharma for what makes the skandhas, vijja, the skandhas, a thing. Mm-hmm. Wisdom is what makes the skandhas into skandhas of skillful means, or whatever. Yeah. Wisdom also makes the skandhas into, you know, things that have no inherent existence. And ignorance, actually, the skandhas arise in dependence on ignorance.

[35:19]

Adverting, not paying attention to dependency leads to the vision of independency or inherent existence, and belief in inherent existence goes with the birth of the skandhas. So you see there, our experience is born with this ignorance. That's why it's so hard for us to turn it around. So, one other thing I wanted to say before I go on to the next question, because I think the class will be over probably on the next question. And that is that I mentioned this before, but I want to again mention these two meditative strategies.

[36:27]

or also can be called two epistemological styles of Samatha and Vipassana. Okay? And so... You tell me which style this is, okay? This is a little, not exactly multiple choice, but like matching test. Which style is this? Withdrawing the mind from sense objects. Vassar? Didn't you press the button? Oh, Princeton? Withdrawing the mind from objects.

[37:36]

Opening up the consciousness. Vipassana. Mind like a wall. Studying the self. Forgetting the self. expanding the mind's horizons, not grasping free of movement among objects, free of the experience of difference among objects. Vipassana. Unmoving without.

[38:43]

Unhindered within. Vipassana. Without meaning. Among the objects. Unmoving among the objects. If I separate the two, yeah? If you separate the two, they are separated. They're two different things. They're separated. These things are not blended. Huh? No. Samatha and Vipassana are not blended. Oh, I missed. I just skipped my joke. They can be united. They're united, but they're not blended. Just like the two truths.

[39:50]

The two truths are united always. You may not see either or both of them, but they're never blended. Is that the same as the skandhas? Is what the same as the skandhas? Are they united, not blended? Are they blended? Blended, blended, blended. Blended, blended, blended. Another thing I think might be is the first and second case of the Mumonkan. The first case, Samatha.

[40:59]

The second case, Vipassana. I would also, tentative, and that's sort of tentative, you know, but those two cases. One, from objects, disconnecting from objects. One, not grasping any objects. Saying no to mental elaboration. Whenever a concept arises, say no to conceptual, just say no. In other words, mu. No conceptual elaboration, no conceptual elaboration. In the seen there will be just the seen. In the heard will just be the heard. Okay? That's the first case.

[42:03]

Second case is expanding your horizons, opening the mind up to causation. Open the mind up to interrelationship. Open your mind up to what phenomena are. First of all, stop elaborating them. Then, when you're settled that way, then open up to what they are. Open up to their dependent core arising. So those two cases can be used that way. Now, this is even more tentative, but I would split the on a Gota Sutra into two parts. The first part, Samatha. The second part, Vipassana. Now, where exactly you start the second part, it's kind of like, it's kind of, in some sense, the second part is when he says, dependent on ignorance.

[43:06]

But you also could say, well, the second part starts when he says, everything exists. This is one extreme. Everything does not exist. This is our extreme. You could start it there. But the first part, he's basically telling you, Don't get involved in conceptual elaboration. Just watch the arising and ceasing of what they come to be. So it's a little bit mixed in there with the second part when he says, as they come to be. So he's telegraphing or forecasting what he's going to elaborate in the second part when he says, as it comes to be. To a certain extent, the first part is just Withdrawing from elaboration and being upright in the second part is opening up the horizons of the first part.

[44:14]

OK, now next question. Yes, Peter. Okay, so he said, a Buddha continues to impute, but the Buddha understands that the phenomena are dependent on imputation simultaneously. Yeah, that's right. The Buddha mind imputes, conceptually imputes, therefore phenomena appear, the world appears. But the Buddha also understands that all phenomena depend

[45:29]

On imputation, therefore, he sees that they lack inherent existence. So he sees that there are no phenomena. At the same time, there are phenomena simultaneously. So directly sees the emptiness of things while simultaneously directly seeing their appearance. Sees both simultaneously. But doesn't see doesn't see them existing out on their own. The independent side doesn't occur, but still can see them. When you first see objects of awareness are appearing and disappearing. All right?

[46:31]

Practicing Samatha, one way to practice Samatha is to attend to not seeing these objects as something. So you're attending to the attitude with which you see the phenomena The phenomena that appear and disappear, if you tell me what they are, I can tell you what skanda they go in. But anyway, the skandas are appearing and disappearing to you. So Samatha is not to analyze or examine these phenomena. It is simply to be attentive to a certain attitude towards all phenomena. So basically, You develop a sense where you're not moving among the phenomena. Different phenomena are arising, but you're not moving among them.

[47:34]

You always have the same unmoving attitude towards everything. Namely... No. [...] I'm not going to elaborate on what I see. You can't make me do it, no matter how you try. I'm not going to elaborate. I'm not going to see you as something. I'm not going to see you as anything. I'm not going to wish you were something else. I'm not even going to wish that you were you. I'm going to not elaborate. I have a mind like a wall. This is a shamatha practice. Or, in the scene, there's just a scene. In the scene, there's just a scene. In the scene, there's just a scene. This is shamatha. I'm not going to grasp I'm not going to reject. I'm not going to gasp. I'm not going to sigh. The mind's not activated. It perceives objects but doesn't get excited about anything.

[48:38]

There's enough excitement in the fact that something's happening. I'm not going to see not only something happening, but see something that's happening as something else and something else and something else. That's trained to attend in that way to the shamatha practice. When I'm weeding and totally not... When you're weeding? When I'm weeding and... Weeding? I'm not so conscious. I'm not paying attention to... I'm not paying attention to... Well, you are paying attention to the weeds, otherwise you wouldn't be weeding. You are paying attention to the weeding. There is a tension. You see very clearly this. This is the top of a cup. You see it very clearly. This is the floor. This is the pan. This is the beginning of the zabuton.

[49:43]

Next to the zabuton is a tatami mat. Very clear, very sharp. That's that. That's the phenomena. The mind does not accidentally or approximately impute the concept of an end of the zabhatan. It's very clear. That's not the shamatha practice. That's just my mental imputation doing its thing. The shamatha is a sleepy girl. Still sleeping. Take a look. Okay. Samatha is that it's not that I'm not paying attention. I am aware of what I'm seeing. I am, I am, I am. The more you get into it, the clearer things get and the brighter they get.

[50:45]

But what you're seeing actually more and more is the brightness and clarity of your mind. And the less you stop messing with things, the more bright they get, the more clear they get. It's the messing with them that actually blurs your vision. So the Samatha practice is not paying attention to it or not. You're already doing that. The Samatha practice is to not activate your mind around the objects that you're paying attention to. It's to say... Distract yourself from what's happening and jump to something else. It's just to deal with this. And that's it. That's the Samatha practice, which culminates when you get, after you can do that for a while, it culminates in a calm taking over your body and mind. This calm comes up from this effort. So actually, shamatha not only means this kind of application, it means actually the state of being calm, which arises from this not grasping at the things you're paying attention to.

[51:55]

Yes. So specifically when I, you know, in the early stages of practice of shamatha, I end up saying, Jai! In the beginning phase? Uh-huh. That's the beginning. The beginning of traumatized feeling. Not calm, distracted, reactive, a mind not like a wall, a mind like a whatever. A monkey, some people say. A mind like a monkey. And so when... When I realized... That my mind is scattered. When there's an awareness that the mind is scattered. Yes? To practice Shabba at that moment.

[52:59]

Yes? Yes. Right. It's like when noticing this hysterical monkey mind, Practicing Samatha is to go, oh, I see. But it's a little bit less than that. It's more like... At the beginning, it's like, no, I'm not going to get excited about this. Not me. I'm not going to get excited about this. I'm going to accept this, you know, hysteria. But after a while, it's like a little bit more quiet than that and not moving. It means whatever you give me, I don't move. Stuff's happening all over the place. I mean, stuff. We've got big distraction here. Big distraction.

[54:04]

Okay. But there's no movement in relationship. That's a shamatha practice. And we test the Samatha practice by, you know, making it happen. We have these classes. Some of you don't need them, but some of you do. So we have them. So something will be happening for you not to get excited about. These classes are for you not to get excited about. After Samatha practice, You can not get excited, but you can open your mind up to excitement. More and more wider ranges of excitement. I don't know who is next. These are old questions now. Let's do the old questions which we promised to take care of. Is it possible to do it in a non-dual way?

[55:13]

I feel like what I'm looking for is the kind of view of myself that's still alive. Samatha is based on this non-dual practice of vipassana. I mean, no, excuse me, vipassana is based on this non-dual practice of samatha. So you're based on the calm of non-duality. when you do actual vipassana work. To do insight without that conceptual base is not really what we mean by, you know, vipassana. You can do insight work, you can do examination not being based on this calm of non-conceptual, non-dual, unmoving mind. You can do it. We're talking about doing on that basis. So it is based in non-duality. But the activity of the vipassana at the beginning is a little bit dualistic.

[56:15]

But when vipassana is fully established, it also is actually aware of non-duality in the end. It drops conceptuality, but you're going to reactivate conceptualization and investigation as you start Vipassana, but it's based on this. And will eventually, it will supposedly come to like the Samatha practice. That's why, in some sense, the instruction, mind like a wall, at the beginning and at the end, at the beginning is Samatha, at the end is Vipassana, in the middle, you give up mind like a wall a little bit in order to study. So I'm asking you to give up the mind like a wall to look for a specific thing, namely your view in inherent existence. That's not a shamatha practice. That's the beginning of studying and examining.

[57:18]

Any other questions from yesterday? Okay, so We could start, I guess, new questions now. No, no, not you. What? You have a new question? Did you ask a question from yesterday? You didn't? Okay, go ahead. Uh, would you, would you, uh, Mr. Boyd, you're getting off the cushion, but walking out into, uh, the, uh, the, like, the, like, Slough Valley after. Yeah. Um, I'm trying to, uh, find out how, um,

[58:29]

No, I don't recommend one over the other. I just say, let's be clear about which one we're on, which one we're doing. But you really can't recommend shamatha. You can't really recommend... shamatha, you just recommend vipassana based on shamatha. But sometimes you work on shamatha, and then quite naturally sometimes, like I remember, I was just listening to a tape yesterday by Suzuki Roshi, he said, the flowers have wind, and the moon has clouds. The wind, you know, helps us understand something more about the flowers.

[59:39]

Clouds help us understand something more about the moon. So in Asia, they say that you really can't understand the moon if you just look at the moon. You can understand the moon better when you see it in relationship to a cloud. It's more round. get near it. Or you understand the fullness of the moon more when you look at it through branches of a tree. I thought, is that, do Western, can Western people understand that? Anyway, the Eastern people really feel like they never just look at, they never just like walk out, you know, outdoors and like look at the moon like we do in Arizona or something. Like, and you can't find any, look at the moon through a cactus. You know, it's hard. But we're used to seeing the moon sort of like all by itself, and we think, that's pretty round, right? But Asian people can see it through the mist or see it through trees.

[60:44]

You understand more of the roundness. You don't understand the roundness until it's somewhat interacted with. So, like, this can be understood in terms of form and emptiness, but it can also be understood in Vipassana. When you sit in a zendo practicing calm, you don't, you're not sitting there thinking about how calm you are. You don't really notice when you're calm in this way. So you're not really, you're not really feeling anything. You're feeling, you're feeling things, right? You're feeling this and you're feeling that. But that's not the practice. The practice is something you don't feel. Basically. The practice is that you just, whatever you feel, just... So you don't feel you're doing the practice. Now, does that make sense? Now, if you are that way for a long time about doing this practice, which is not a way you feel, but your way with what you feel, and it's not what you think, but the way you are with what you think,

[61:57]

You don't feel being just what you think. Non-thinking is not a kind of thinking. Right? So, the practice you really don't, the actual practice, you don't really feel anything. But then when you come out of the Zen, though, then you feel it. You know, people say something to you, and then you understand that you are calm. because you see there's a difference in the way it hits you, then your understanding of your calm is fuller when something happens to you. And in the Zendo, sometimes such that you understand, because in fact the practice is not something you feel, and yet somehow something happens and you get it, you understand, somehow you understand. You still can't feel it, but yet you see the roundness more, something like that.

[62:59]

When you get up from practicing that way, you might actually stop practicing that way. But you still might actually be continuing to practice that way. And you realize it when you get outside the zendo. But you may be effortless that you're paying attention in that way. that you see things without seeing them as something. But outside the Zen, maybe when you realize it. So I don't see any reason to stop practicing shamatha, but in fact, if you realize it to some extent, then as you start to interact with things and examine things, sometimes you understand that you have shamatha. But there's no reason to stop practicing Samatha unless you... I don't know what... Okay?

[64:05]

A willful practice of... I think it is willful at the beginning. But after a while, it's your state. And it's a state of calm and joy and clarity. When you realize non-conceptuality, first you train yourself into non-conceptuality, then you realize non-conceptuality. So you're walking around in the state of non-conceptuality and non-duality at your state. False views, which need to be studied at some point. As those arise, you can practice vipassana, but you can also actually encourage them

[65:22]

actually try to study them on purpose. That's also possible. But that's a little agitating. But even when they arise, it's a little agitating because then you say, oh, I'm calm. Here's somebody spitting in my face and I just feel running down. This is amazing. Where'd that come from? Fantastic. This is great. Then you're getting a little excited, right? Not that bad. Actually, it's very good. You're lucky. But you're getting a little excited. I don't know if it's Adam or Ana, because Ana's right in front. Were you before Ana? She's been there for a while. Okay, she's next. You had your hand up next to her. Oh, well, let's hear it then. It's yesterday's question? Can I have yesterday's question? Yes. How does that relate to a view of the midterms?

[66:30]

First of all, does anybody know where that article is? Anybody know what happened to that article? Got to find it again. It's not impossible. Basically, the wishing to be the top monkey... is a combination of testosterone and view of inherent existence of self and women have testosterone too you could be there uh prior to the wish to be the top monkey but the view the view to the wanting to be the top monkey is based on that view You could have a conventionally existing self and if you were free of that view, you'd want this self to be the top self. Matter of fact, you'd want this self to be a servant to all the other selves which you understand it depends on.

[68:14]

And you wouldn't be driven by this belief that this self is independent of those other people who hopefully will be your supporters in your rise to power. If you can become free of that view, then your relationship becomes one of, you know, love and compassion. But also to realize that freedom from that view, I think, requires that it's based on compassion and bodhicitta. Because this is a meditative project of great to clear up this innate view. So we have to be very kind to ourselves and others in order to have the conditions for this freedom from this innate view. Okay.

[69:23]

Yeah. Right. Wow. Good question. The belief in the inherently existing self is not created socially. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da. but the view of the conventionally existing self is a social creation. It's a social creation of the conventional self, but the belief in the independence of the conventional self from other selves, which of course, in fact, it was built independence on other selves. The conventionally existing The logical self is a conversational self. It depends on a conversation.

[70:27]

It's not an independent self. You need your loving caregiver to come up with this self, this sense of self and caregiver. Without that, we don't even develop that conventional self. But before we have a conventional self, which, as I said a minute ago, you start developing at about six months and you pretty much get it mostly together by 18 months, that social process starts. There is the belief in the inherent existence of something. You give it a conventional existing self, puts it on that. The belief in inherent existence is prior, is innate. It's pre-verbal and pre-social. It's a necessary part of being a Buddha. Buddhists must have this delusion appear, study it, and understand it.

[71:33]

Buddhists are those who understand this. They aren't just those who don't have it. They are those who understand it. So Buddhists have to be confronted with the same challenges of delusion that any ordinary person is presented with. And, you know, sort of the positive side is you have been with the same problems that Buddhas have been presented with. You're dealing with the same problems of Buddhas. These delusions that you have and that I have are the same delusions that Buddhas have. So you've got the same material. The anxiety you have is Like Shakyamuni. And you cannot develop the Buddha without the challenges that the past Buddhas have faced.

[72:37]

And they have faced anxiety. They have faced delusion. And they have studied them and understood them and become Buddhas. This is one story. that we tell today. Does it make sense to you, this story? So, Anna and Helen and John and Berend and Cedar and Max and Owl and... Is anybody following this besides Helen? I don't know if she's following it, but... We didn't say thing. Phenomena. Emptiness. Well, I would propose to you to consider that emptiness is a phenomena, and it does exist conventionally. Uh... Well, just let me say that anything that exists conventionally, would you say the description breaks down?

[73:55]

Yes, and the quality of the breaking down is emptiness. The quality of the breaking down is emptiness? The quality that the description of anything breaks down is what I refer to as emptiness. The quality of something breaking down is what you refer to as emptiness. Okay, that's what you said. I would say that the lack of inherent existence of anything is the emptiness. For me, the description of the thing doesn't break down. What breaks down is the belief in the inherent existence of the thing. That's the emptiness. Yes. But the description doesn't break down. Because if the description broke down, the mental imputation would break down. If the mental imputation broke down, then we'd have an inherently existing thing. Because we'd have a thing without depending on this conventional... But things do depend on conventional designation.

[75:03]

Therefore, they're empty of inherent existence. If the description doesn't break down, we have an internal description? Well, no, we don't have an eternal description. We have an impermanent description, not an eternal description. You have an eternal description when you don't have mental imputation. If something doesn't depend on mental imputation, then you have an eternal description. Namely, that thing inherently exists. That's the eternal description. But if something depends on the mental imputation, then it's impermanent, except for emptiness. Great. Helen? I'm not saying it's not a phenomenon.

[76:06]

Right. To me, the way it seems now is that there can be a non-conceptual awareness of something. And that something is a phenomena which depends on mental imputation. But the is not mediated by conceptualization, even though the establishment of what I'm non-conceptually aware of does depend on conceptualization. And this works for me because Buddhists can see the world of thing simultaneously with the world of emptiness. So there must be a conceptual imputation which set up the thing which they are looking at the emptiness of. So somebody's setting, impute, conceptually imputing on the world such that we have phenomena.

[77:22]

Buddhas look at the phenomena, see the emptiness, but they can simultaneously see the thing. Most people, when they look at the emptiness, they don't see the phenomena anymore. But the phenomena must be there because there's no emptiness floating free of... Because emptiness is the emptiness of something. But all the things that are empty are empty precisely because those things depend on something. What do they depend on? Mental imputation. So mental imputation is creating the potential for samsara. which is that when a phenomenon is created by mental imputation, you ignore that and see it as inherently existing, so then you're hooked into samsara by that view. But that same phenomenon is locked into its emptiness. It does depend on mental imputation.

[78:23]

It lacks inherent existence. So for the beginner at emptiness, you think, well, God, if I was looking at emptiness, I wouldn't be seeing anything. So who would be doing the conceptual imputation to make things happen? Because I'm not doing that anymore. I'm directly seeing it without any conceptual mediation. Now, there can also be a different level of the... I shouldn't say, you know... There can be another level of realization of emptiness where you're still thinking conceptually and understanding emptiness pretty well. You're relieved of your belief in inherent existence by reason, by examination, by conceptual, analytical examination. You're becoming free of your belief in inherent existence. At that time, you could probably still see, yeah, I guess there's still some invitation going on left and right around here. Phenomenal. But the direct perception of emptiness is the Heart Sutra.

[79:26]

No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no color. You actually do not, the mind, the stuff doesn't appear anymore. But that non-appearance, the literal non-appearance of things is locked into the appearance of them. Somebody's setting that appearance up. not somebody, but there is a mind which is setting that appearance up. Now, at the point of seeing the emptiness depend on mental imputation, at that point, in that realm, the appearance of inherent existence does not happen anymore. It's dropped. Hmm? What? ...appearing anymore. It isn't just that you are disabused of it and not fooled by it anymore.

[80:27]

So you can actually still see it but not be fooled by it. That's the magician. Or you can actually have it not even appear. But in the realm where it doesn't even appear, that can... ...the realm where you do see it does appear. But anyway, emptiness goes with phenomena, and phenomena... emptiness is emptiness of phenomena, and phenomena depend on mental imputation. So even a direct, non-conceptual awareness of emptiness coexists with the mental imputation which creates the phenomena simultaneously with that vision. And we may not be able to see both sides at once in this lifetime as a non-Buddha, but we can realize emptiness and understand that non-conceptuality does not mean that there's no mental imputation to create the phenomena in the first place. I'm saying the appearance of phenomena is simultaneous with the lack of inherent existence.

[81:42]

The appearance of phenomena as inherently existing is simultaneous with its lack of inherent existence. That's the two truths are together. Everything that you think is really there, substantially there, that's a normal to the innately conditioned wrong view is that they're actually substantially independently out there on their own, not depending on mental imputation. That way of appearing coexists with the way they really exist, namely they don't have an existence. Those are together. When you first start to reason with yourself and think about this inherent existence thing and become disabused of it, you're still involved in conceptualization. But if you would directly, without any conceptualization, actually, your mind would like in sort of the same way of the emptiness, your non-conceptual mind would be with this

[82:47]

non-conceptual reality, this lack of inherent existence. When that happened, there's no conceptual mediation. So Helen's question is, how is the phenomena then dependent on imputation? Simultaneously, the phenomena depends on mental imputation. And mental imputation is not this inherent belief in inherent, this innate belief in inherent existence. Mental imputation is just basic ignorance. It's not the view of inherent existence. It is just simply conceptualization. Imputation. Okay? More? Yeah. Yeah, in a way.

[83:52]

In a way. That's why I think the instruction, mind like a wall, it's like, it's the beginning. In the middle, there's some non-wall-like activity of the mind necessary, I think. Well, I don't want to say contrived, because I think mind like a wall is Bodhidharma's way of attaining tranquility without contriving, trying to reduce the contrivance just by not getting involved. OK, that's not so bad. Anyway, one case is maybe to say that you're not involved with moving among objects. And I guess I would say you're now also not involved in the apparent difference among objects.

[84:56]

But your mind, like a wall, somehow you're so not involved that you don't even experience the difference among objects. So it's like a deeper level of non-involvement Yeah, you can't even help it. No problem. Okay, let's see, what time is it? It's getting on to the bewitching hour. But Kendra hasn't asked a question yet. Anybody else that hasn't asked a question? John and Kendra? You thought... Sometimes when you see emptiness, it's just your concept of emptiness.

[86:05]

But it is possible to see emptiness when you're not looking at the concept of emptiness. Is that the only thing that can be seen as one thing? Well, I think some people would say there's some other things that you can see non-conceptually, like space. You know, actual cosmic space you can see non-conceptually. And maybe you can see non-conceptually. But that's about it. Nirvana you can see non-conceptually. So Nirvana is a little bit different than emptiness. Nirvana is your payoff for realizing emptiness. All the other phenomena, I think, do require some conceptual mediation.

[87:09]

Wait, I take it back. Take it back. Take it back. Take it back. I take it back. I take it back. You can see, not only can you see nearly, non-conceptually, but you can see other phenomena non-conceptually. You can see regular phenomena, impermanent phenomena, non-conceptually, and you can see nirvana, or emptiness, non-conceptually. You can see everything non-conceptually. But everything, often, is a conceptual imputation. It's just a question of whether, when there's conceptual imputation creating a phenomena, whether you then use conceptualization in your process of observing them. In traumatism, you're training yourself to not deal with phenomena, non-conceptual imputation. You train yourself to look at these conceptually dependent phenomena non-conceptually. in Samatha.

[88:14]

And as you remove the conceptual activity between yourself and phenomena of spiritualization, you calm down. That make sense? Separating. You say separating, okay? But you don't separate. They are separated. No, that's like vipassana. Samatha would be you're looking, shamatha is you look at phenomena, okay?

[89:16]

But you still don't have insight. So what you see is you see a phenomena. But what you see actually is the front end of this, the front end of a phenomena is the conceptual imputation. It's like phenomena are not just conceptual imputation. They depend on more than just conceptual imputation. But conceptual imputation is the thing that we want to because we think that that's all that there is, really, that it's the same as the phenomena. Okay? So now we see a phenomena, but really what we see mostly is our concept of it, which is laminated to other conditions it depends on. Okay? This is our current state. We confuse the two. We think they're stuck together. Samatha is, now you're looking at this phenomena, you try to train yourself at non-conceptually looking at this phenomenon, most of which you think is what you think of it.

[90:22]

But you stop activating your mind conceptually around this object, this phenomenon. You calm down with it. Okay? By the fact that you're not getting excited about the object. You're not trying to trade it You're not arguing with it anymore. You have a mind like a wall. Every kind of choice you want to make about what's happening, you drop. That's a chamaka practice. And you can do that with phenomena that have these three characteristics. Okay? Okay? And the vipassana is kind of like, vipassana is like you start to jiggle this thing a little bit. Start to jiggle. which is a little bit, a little bit exciting. But you're jiggling this to see if you could possibly notice that the phenomena depends on this mental incantation, what you think is the whole story.

[91:25]

And actually, the phenomena has a life of actually these two things being two different things, that the other things that the phenomena depends on are separate. The dependent nature of the phenomena is not ...conceptual imputation, even though the conceptual imputation is included in the dependent nature. So then you start to see that they're separate. Then you have insight. Because you realize that there is no phenomena aside from this dependence. And you thought that you had something that was really independent. And the irony about this is that The very thing we think the phenomena is, of being out there the way it is, is exactly the conceptual imputation which we don't realize it depends on. The very thing it most depends on is what we think it actually is of itself, rather than the fact that it depends on that thing is why it isn't anything of itself. So you've got to be calm to look at this and let this in and let this take over

[92:33]

And get the joke. It's a great joke. Yeah, see, now, if you had been in France like Jerome, you would have got it. What? Okay. It's 11 o'clock, so I think... I think we should consider whether we stop or not. Some people said that they would like to go sit again after the classes for a little while. Do we have time?

[93:16]

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