It's a drawing of a dog riding a bicycle on a tightrope and juggling, what are those called? What are they called? Bowling pins, right? Juggling bowling pins. a little fishbowl on his head with a fish in it too, I don't remember. But anyway, that's the picture. And the tightrope is high up in the air, and down below you can see a lot of people, maybe dogs actually, sitting in bleachers watching this dog. And then the caption said, high above the hushed crowd, The thought occurred to Rover that he was an old dog and that this was a new trick.

[01:10]

Children might have — it might be easy for children to learn — oh, the thing's working now, right? I think it's working. It might be easy for children to learn the teachings of emptiness in the Heart Sutra, but they aren't interested. Most of them. One famous Zen master He became famous in his later years. His name in Chinese is Dongshan. When he was a young boy, he was a monk when he was a boy. I don't know how old he was. He might have been seven or eight. But anyway, he was already living in a temple as a monk. And when they were chanting the Heart Sutra in his temple, and he got to the part which said, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, and so on. He said to his teacher, I have eyes, and I have ears, and a nose, and so on.

[02:33]

Why does the Heart Sutra say, no eyes, no ears, no nose? And then it says the teacher realized that this boy needed another teacher and sent him to another master. So when you hear the Heart Sutra where it says no eyes, no ears, and so on, this morning when you chanted that, did you think, but I have a nose. Did you think that? I have eyes. Why does the Heart Sutra say that?" But even though he asked the question, even it took that child many years to understand the Heart Sutra.

[03:34]

Part of what's necessary for an old dog to learn a new trick might be that when you hear the Heart Sutra you say, I have eyes. How come it says that? Or you just papped over it out and say, okay, this is a hard scripture, I agree. How are we going to learn this new trick of seeing that the way things appear to us is empty of the way things appear to us. How are we going to learn that? And do you have confidence from chanting the Heart Sutra in the past

[04:43]

that it would be good to understand, that it would be helpful to understand that everything that appears to you is imaginary, and that everything that appears to you is based on something that doesn't appear, Everything that appears to you as independent is based on the way it's not independent. The Buddha didn't say everything makes itself and is independent. The Buddha said everything is a dependent core arising. Everything, the existence of each thing depends on things other than itself. And based on that other dependent way that things are, we impose an image of independence upon it so that we can talk about it and grasp it.

[05:49]

How are we going to learn to understand that? Well, the way to understand it comes through listening to the teaching and being ready, being ready in each meeting, which means each meeting with each apparent, existent thing, which looks like it's out there separate from you, to be ready to see that that thing out there separate from you is actually without, void of, that separateness. That separateness is not really there. Are you ready to see that there's no such separate thing out there, without thinking that there's nothing there?

[06:55]

Matter of fact, there is something there, but that thing is not independent. It's an interdependent thing you're meeting. You're always meeting interdependent, fleeting things. You're being given a fleeting gift of an interdependent thing, moment by moment. We all are. But the way we perceive it is as independent. Part of learning this new trick is to, the first part of it would be to start to develop an image, an imaginary picture, to develop an imagination of what emptiness would be like.

[08:22]

So this is the trick, right? What you're seeing, what I'm seeing, what you're hearing, what I'm hearing what's appearing to us is an imaginary thing. Now we're going to try to imagine how what's here, how what is in our life, how our life is actually free of imagination. How our life is basically free of imagination. We're going to try to start to imagine that. So most of the things, not most, all the things we're usually experiencing are imaginary, in other words, are dependent on our imagination.

[09:27]

That's what we're usually experiencing. And we experience them as not being imaginations, but as being real things. So when we look at a person, we're being told that what we're seeing here is how ... what we're seeing is how our mind apprehends this person. So there is a person you're looking at, there is a person there, but what you see of the person is a packaged version. You see a packaged imaginary version of the person. The person is actually just like ungraspable ocean of relationships. Each person is a basically ungraspable, more or less unlimited being, which is nothing but all the things it depends on.

[10:29]

And there are people like that, and you're one of them. However, it's hard to name that person You know, like Betty and Nate, you don't quite make it to get a hold of that thing. And no one actually would name that thing Betty. You got to make it like a pint-sized version of it. And then, OK, Betty. So we do make a pint-sized version of people. and then we can put names on them and we know where to reach for their hand and stuff. That we can see. So we're being told that the way that person is, is nothing more than your imagination.

[11:34]

If you took away your imagination, the person would not be like that. Like, they often use the example of like, when we look at the world and we see a river, perhaps, and we see the river flowing, but the fish in the river don't think it's a river. They think it's a shopping mall. And divine beings, when they look at the river, what we call a river, they don't see it as a river. They see it as a jeweled palace. And when beings who are in infernal experience look at it, they think it's like molten, molten ketresins. The fish don't think their world is flowing just like we don't think our world is flowing.

[12:40]

We think the fish's world is flowing. They think it's stable. They think it's fish land. Each being projects their own small-scale, grappleable version on what's actually unlimited life so that they can get a hold of it for various animal purposes. So again, you can see this. You can see this imaginary world. It's the world you live in. And you can also hear that this imaginary world, in other words, what you're looking at is you're looking at the contents of your own mind. You're looking, what you're seeing is actually how your mind apprehends the world and it looks like it's out there separate from you. That's how it sees.

[13:42]

This is mind created. Things aren't that way if you take away the mind. And it's easy for us to understand that, of course, if the fish think that the water is a shopping mall, that they're wrong. Not really. That's just one way of looking at it. But that's the only way they see it. And the way we see the water is the only way we see the water. We can't see it another way. But we can hear the teaching which says the water is actually something that doesn't exist on its own. And actually the water is completely free of our view of the water. Now, how can we start imagining how everything we experience, everything we meet, every person we meet, that this person comes with this quality of being free of the way we see them.

[14:48]

So I look at John, and I see the way I imagine John, I see that way and I can see some change in the way I imagine John. And my change in the way I imagine John has something to do with John. The way John is, really, is the basis of my imagination of him. The way he is as a dependent being, the way he is as an interdependent being, is the basis for my imagination that he's an independent being. The way he is a dependent being, the way he depends on others, is the basis for my imagination that he doesn't depend on others. And then in addition, I'm trying to understand emptiness of John, which is how whatever he is, is completely free.

[15:50]

of the way I imagine him. Now can I develop an image of that so that I have that image to come along with my other image of him? So I have one image of him that he's independent. Now I also can have an image of him that he's interdependent. But that's not emptiness. Or, excuse me, that image is not the image by which you understand emptiness. The image to understand emptiness is to understand how John has a character, which is that he is actually completely free of the way I'm imagining him right now. And what is that emptiness of imagination? What is that emptiness of imagination of inherent existence? What is that lack of inherent existence?

[16:53]

can you start to develop, to learn the trick, learn the trick of carrying that fishbowl on your head. The fishbowl of whatever I'm looking at is completely void of the way I'm imagining it. I think it's good to keep it on your head rather than over, just have it be one bowling pin over to the right or left. It's good to keep it in the middle. this image. Keep it in the middle, on top of your head, so you have to sort of be upright to keep it balanced. Because again, if I don't keep balanced when I look at you and remember how you are actually free of my ideas about you, if I don't keep balanced, I might think that

[17:54]

that the image of you as being free of my ideas about you might be over to the right or over to the left, but that would be putting you back into my imagination. So balance is nice. Try to find the image of emptiness in your upright sitting, in your upright standing, in your upright being, in your upright reclining, in your upright walking. And then see if you can start to develop a clearer and clearer image of how your experience, how your life, this projection of inherent existence. If you can remember the teaching that you, me, every experience has this thoroughly established character, this suchness, this emptiness of inherent existence.

[19:09]

which means, again, emptiness of an imaginary thing called inherent existence, for an imaginary image of being out there on its own. Is there anything you, any questions about this that you'd like to bring up? Yes, what is your name? Oh, it's Michael. Hi, Michael. Were you here last night? No, I came this morning. Oh, I didn't think you were here last night. Okay, Michael? Well, I was thinking about the list of things that we've got, the thoughts, the eyes, the ears. It doesn't say those are us. You can add that to the list. You can add it to the list. So that part of the sutra is talking about when you actually are looking at, when you look at the image of being free of images,

[20:18]

you can't find anything, including the heart. However, as I mentioned last night, this practice of developing a vision of this freedom from imagination has to be based on an unshakable commitment to the practice of compassion. Otherwise, you might think that if you couldn't see the heart, that the heart didn't matter. But if you couldn't see beings, that they don't matter, because really they're just your imagination. So if you are meditating this way and you lose your heart, and you feel your commitment to the welfare of all beings getting weaker, then you should cool it on this meditation that we're talking about this weekend and go back to reinvigorate your commitment to the welfare of the world.

[21:48]

And when you feel strong in that commitment, practice precepts and generosity and patience to all beings, then you can go back to the wisdom practice But really, what it means by no heart is it means the heart which appears to you. There's no hearts like that. There's no appearances in emptiness. Because emptiness is the absence of the way we make appearances. Emptiness means that you see that the way you imagine a heart, the way a heart appears to you, is absent. So it doesn't mean that there's no heart, it means there's no appearances of heart, or eyes, or ears, or nose, or tongue, or body, or mind. Because appearances, to make you, or me, or our heart, we have a heart, but to make our heart into an appearance depends on imagination of the heart as being something separate from the rest of the body,

[23:00]

for example, the toenails, and all beings. That heart you don't see in emptiness. What you see, actually, is you see how the heart is free of any idea you've ever had, or anybody ever had, of what the heart is. That's how the heart really is. There is a heart, but nobody knows what it is. And there is a Michael, but nobody knows who he is. There is a practice, but nobody knows what it is. We have ideas about the practice, and we have ideas about Michael, and we have ideas about the heart. We have images of the practice. We have images of Michael, and we have images of the heart. Yes, we do. With those images, we can experience the thing called the practice, and so on.

[24:06]

But we need to also understand that basically Michael and the practice are free of our images of them. So one story about this is like a Zen teacher named Yaoshan was sitting in meditation And his teacher came up to him and said, what are you doing sitting there? And he said, I'm not doing anything at all. And his teacher said, well, then you're idly sitting. And he said, if I were idly sitting, then I would be doing something. The teacher said, you say you're not doing anything at all. What is it you're not doing? And Yashan said, even the 10,000 sages don't know. So when you're sitting and you're not doing anything, in a sense what you might be doing is working on learning the trick

[25:22]

of imagining how what you're doing is free of all your ideas of what you're doing. So you're not really doing anything in that way. And then somebody says, well, if you're idly sitting, well, then they're making it into an image of you idly sitting. Then that would be doing something. Yes, Art? And Louise? Yes, Art? Yes. Does this mean that watching thought and no thought at the same time can be mindful of thought and no thought? Actually, yes. But thought dominates no thought. So when you look at something, anything, actually what you're seeing is that you're seeing this... What you're actually seeing is this wonderful, dependently co-arising thing.

[26:37]

You're seeing all day long, everything you see, you're seeing beauty. Everything you see is showing you the beauty of it, of itself. Because the beauty of things is how they're actually being created. And how they're being created is they're being created not from their core, which they don't have, everything's being created by things other than itself. Every experience, every piece of life is simply this wonderful thing that happens due to the kindness of other things. That's what you're actually seeing. And you're also seeing, actually, that the way things are is completely free of the way the 10,000 sages would imagine them. Even the 10,000 sages can't imagine one of your thoughts, can't grasp it. All your thoughts are free of thought.

[27:38]

All your thoughts are free of thought, actually. They come free of thought. However, to appear to us as objects, we have to project an image upon them. And once you project the image upon them, the image always gets confused with the way the thing is before it's imagined. So then thought dominates the no thought. I like, I use the example frequently of if you look out, you know, particularly people our age, if we look out at the landscape here, and you see something like... I guess those are trees, you know? But sometimes you can't see each leaf on the tree, right? You put your glasses on, and suddenly you can see each leaf. And it's nice, huh? Especially if you're a leaf picker. But once you put your glasses on, it's very difficult to see the way the landscape looked before you put your glasses on.

[28:47]

You know what I mean? Well, you can kind of remember. Well, it used to be vague, but can you remember the way it was vague when you had your glasses on? And don't you think that the way it looks with your glasses on is more accurate and true than the way it was when it's vague? I went to a friend of mine who's an ophthalmologist, and he did eye test on me, and he said, you know, Rev, things are a lot clearer out there than they appear to you. So he actually is supposedly a Zen student, but he's typifying the ordinary human attitudes. We think that When you make things sharper, that's more truly the way they are. When you make them into more sharp definition, in other words, independent of the neighborhood, not mixed in with the other leaves, that's more the way things are.

[29:55]

When we see each independent leaf separate from the rest of the tree, we think that's sharper and that's the way they really are. So Buddhism is really in strong opposition to the ophthalmology industry. In a sense it is, because we're saying actually things are not sharply imagined. That the sharp imagination of things, as each individual person in this room, this is not the way things really are. Things are actually free of the way we're imagining it right now as all these independent people. And then there's this company called Sharper Image, right? You want to make your image really sharp. They have these special equipment for trimming the hair on your nose, right? They want you to have a real sharp image so you stand out independent of the environment, so you don't blend in with everybody.

[30:59]

You're like very sharp, right? And this is more real. Which means really this is more what we're kind of interested in as humans, because that's how we get things. Really, no thought is the basis of thought, but then thought, once it appears, dominates no thought. We can't see it anymore. And we think thought is real and no thought is less clear. Louise, did you have your hand raised? I did. Yes. I was thinking about the heart. Would you like me to interact halfway through your spiel? Say what you said before.

[32:15]

We attribute to the heart things which... You said something, we attribute things to the heart. I thought you said, I thought you said, we attribute things to the heart which have nothing to do with the heart. I thought you said that. We make up a story about the heart. Without making up a story of the heart, the heart will not appear to us. The heart will still be there, but it won't appear to us without us making a story about it. However, it's not true to say that our story has nothing to do with the heart. All the stories you've ever made up about your heart or anybody else's heart are based on the heart. The heart is the basis of our imagination about the heart.

[33:16]

And people, human beings, the person that you're imagining things about is the basis of your imagination. They're the basis of it. However, they're completely free of it. It's not that it has nothing to do with it, okay? It's not that people have nothing to do with your imagination about them. because they're the basis of your imagination about them, but rather that they're completely free of your imagination about them. So they're free of it, but that doesn't mean that they have nothing to do with it because they are the basis of it. That's a little bit harder to ... that's a new trick to learn that. So the way the heart is, is that there is a heart and it's a wonderful organ Okay? And it is an interdependent thing. It's a fleeting thing. The heart is not something that lasts.

[34:16]

It's a transitory thing. It changes every moment into a new heart. And it does not keep itself going. That's the heart that the Buddha teaches about. That heart, that fleeting heart, that impermanent heart, that unreliable heart that may stop any time or start any time, that heart is the basis of our imagination about the heart, and our imagination can be quite elaborate. But all the imaginations are based on the heart. They're also based on other things, but they're based on the heart. However, the heart is completely free of those imaginations. So it's free of them, and at the same time, the heart's freedom of our imagination is its emptiness. And the heart being the basis of our imagination is its interdependence.

[35:19]

So a heart does, is the basis, but our ideas ... We would change the fact that our imagination doesn't reach the heart to say it has nothing to do with it. It's slightly different from saying our imagination is based on it but doesn't reach it. So the way the heart originally is is it's free of all your imagination. It doesn't need your imagination except to exist for you. But when you make an imagination, it's based on the heart. But you can't go from the imagination back to the heart. But you can go from the imagination to the freedom of the heart from your imagination, because the heart is free of whatever you think it is. And when you see how it's free of whatever you think it is, you realize you will understand what the heart is. You don't have to understand how the heart is free of what other people think it is.

[36:22]

just free of your imagination. And then you'll understand the heart. And you understand how it's interdependent. And then you'll really have a purified heart. This is what purifies the heart, this vision of how the heart is free of your ideas of the heart, purifies the heart. and purifies your eyes and your ears and your nose and your entire body becomes purified by this vision. But it's kind of, see how that's kind of subtle, right? That difference between has nothing to do with and is free of. Based on, but our images are based on the way the heart interdependently is and the heart in its emptiness is free of our ideas of it. So I'm saying this to help you imagine what this emptiness of the heart or emptiness of form is.

[37:35]

Did you have your hand raised, Theresa? Yes. The thoroughly established way things are. The way you are all day long, every experience, the way you really are thoroughly established is that you're free of your ideas of things. That's your thoroughly established character. You're always that way. You always have that character. You are constantly changing. You're always being a new person. But each new person is always free of anybody's idea about you. It's free of your ideas about yourself. You're free of your ideas about yourself, really, all the time. And you're free of my ideas about you all the time. When we realize that, we realize the way we always are. the way we are as interdependent beings, our other dependent character is always different, because it always depends on circumstances. And the way we imagine things, however, the way we imagine ourselves as being independent, that's the way we imagine we're always the same.

[38:42]

But we're never that way. But we think we always are. So generally the way we think we always aren't is the way we always are and the way we think we are always are is the way we aren't. But we are that way in the sense of how we appear. We do appear to ourselves in this imaginary way. That's the way we are in an imaginary way. So we are that way. That's this way, this conventional world. That's the way we are. And we don't put this down at all because this is based on the way we're dependently co-arising, which is true, we are dependently co-arising, and it's also inseparable from the way we always are, which is free of all this, which is why we can live. I forgot your name, the tall man with the short haircut. Jim, yes. Correct.

[39:50]

At that moment, you can't see emptiness. Yes. Yes. But you have to start that way. you get clearer and clearer about the image of emptiness, just like you get clearer and clearer about your image of what a duck is. When you're a kid, you're learning duck, duck, duck, you know. So, just like when my daughter was young, you know, and she was learning what a dog was, you learned the word dog. For a few days there, I don't know, three days, five days, she specialized in learning dog, you know. And so she would see dogs everywhere. Like I'd see dogs, you know, Maybe I'd see three dogs a day. She'd see 100 dogs a day. She'd see dogs in the newspaper. She'd see dogs in magazines. She'd see dogs in people's patterns on people's shirts.

[40:51]

She'd see dogs on candy bar labels. She'd see dogs running down the street. She'd see dogs in cars. She'd see dogs in windows. She'd see dogs everywhere, because that's what she was working on. And then after a week, she got dog. And then next was airplane, you know. Actually she learned airplane in Chinese, which is feiji. You know, and so she'd see airplanes everywhere, up in the sky, you know, in magazines and so on, in people's, you know, play areas, airplanes everywhere. And one time we were sitting in a car waiting for something and she said, feiji. And I looked around, I couldn't see any airplanes anyplace. I looked. And I said, where is the Feiji? And she pointed. And up in the sky, like probably at 30,000, 40,000 feet, there was the tiniest little speck. And if you looked, you could see, yeah, that is an airplane. So you have to learn to look and find emptiness all over the place, the image of it.

[42:02]

This isn't the real airplane she saw. This is the image of the airplane. Children also are deluded this way. They're talking about the image. So you start to see the image. Once you start to see the image you actually start to get ready to understand, have a correct understanding of that image. And part of it is In the end you will understand that although you do have a correct understanding, a correct conceptual understanding of emptiness, you still confuse the image of emptiness with actual emptiness. But you have to get to that point. And that takes a tremendous amount of study to actually be able to understand conceptually that everything you meet, you actually understand that way, that everything you meet is free of your idea. It would be like understanding everybody you meet is your friend. How would you understand that?

[43:06]

You'd start by working with the concept of friend, you know, and everybody. Put those together. So the first

[43:14]

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