In the seen, there will be just the seen. In the smelled, there will be just the smelled. In the tasted, there will just be the tasted. In the touched, there will just be the touched. In the imagined, just the imagined. And I gave that as an instruction for giving up discursive thought. and developing tranquility, which we've been making some effort at for a few hours. And then the next part of the instruction is, when for you in the herd there is just the herd and in the scene there is just a scene and so on, then you will not identify with it.

[01:19]

You will not locate yourself in it. And there will be no here, or there or in between. And this will mean the end of suffering. And one way to look at this instruction is the first part is giving up discursive thought. by that instruction, and then becoming tranquil. And then in that tranquility, it's not that you're training yourself to give up discursive thought, but you've actually attained the state where

[02:30]

There's just the heard, and there's not you in addition to it. When something's heard, there's just the heard. There's not you hearing it. There's just what's heard. There's just what's seen. So again, that training your mind in that direction, involving or inducing giving up discursive thought, becoming calm, and then being in the state which you were previously training yourself towards, and the process of training yourself towards that can tranquilize you, but then in that state of tranquility, you're actually the way it is for you is that there's just the heard. There's not you and the heard. There's not you and the seen.

[03:35]

There's not you and the touched. There's just the touched. And when it's like that, that there's just the touched, then you don't identify with the touched. It's not you and the touched, so then you don't identify with it. And it's not you in the herd, so then you don't locate yourself in the herd. And it's not you in the scene. It's just the scene. If it were you in the scene, then you could locate yourself in the scene. But when there's just a scene, you can't put yourself into it. There's just a scene. And therefore, there's no here and over there, the scene. Or here and over there, the herd. And when there's no here and there, separate or in between, that's the end of suffering.

[04:36]

So you have tranquility and then you have insight. The insight is that you actually now in the state where objects not out there separate from the subject and that's how it is for you you are what you are is somebody who's not something in addition to what you're experiencing that when you experience something you're not in addition to it you're there because you're an experiencing being, but what you experience isn't something in addition to you, and you're not something in addition to what you're experiencing. Usually, there's the person we're talking to plus us. There's the sound we're hearing plus us. Now, there's the sound you're hearing to without, and you're hearing it, but you're not something in addition to it. Matter of fact, there's just the sound.

[05:45]

that fully accounts for you, the experiencer. The experiencer of the sound is nothing more than the sound. So at first you're just training yourself to give up making, adding anything to what you hear, to what you see, and so on. You calm down by that, And then when for you it is the way you were training yourself to be, then you can look at that. Now before that you haven't really been looking at anything. You've been looking at things, but you haven't been training yourself to look at things. You've just been looking at things and hearing them and seeing them, listening to things and hearing them, and training yourself not to be discursive about it. Now, you're still hearing something or seeing something. But for you, now, for you, you're not something in addition to it.

[06:51]

There's just what you're hearing. Now, instead of giving up discursive thought, which you've been training yourself on, now you can look and see how it is that a sound is not something in addition to you. Now you're actually considering this, you're examining this situation. And you can look and see, there's just the sound. That's all there is. There's not me in addition. You can talk to yourself about that. This is fabulous. There's just my hands, which I see, but I'm not something in addition to the hands I see. Therefore, I don't locate myself in my hands. Or there's the people I see. But that's all I see is the people. There's not the people plus me. All there is in the people is the people. There's not me in the people.

[07:53]

So I can't locate myself in the people. I can't identify with them. And therefore they're not over there and I'm not over here. I'm shifting my attention at first. I'm training myself to give up making more out of things. I train myself not to elaborate on what's happening and just let things be very simple. And then I find out that things really are very simple. They're so simple, they're not even like something in addition to me. That's how simple they are. And I'm so simple. I'm not something in addition to the world. But now I'm looking at that, and I'm thinking about it, and I'm thinking, hey, I'm not in the people I see. I'm not located in the people I meet.

[08:54]

And I'm not located over in me, separate from the people I meet. I have no location other than the people I meet, but I'm not located in the people I meet. Now I'm thinking about this. Now I'm considering that I don't locate myself in the things that I have been training myself to not elaborate on. And then I notice that they're not out there anymore. And noticing that people aren't out there anymore and sounds aren't out there on their own, separate from me, by out there I don't mean that there isn't any sounds, it's just that they're not out there separate from me. Then I think about this. I'm actually now using my thinking to realize non-duality. So the first half of the instructions to train in tranquility and move yourself towards a state

[10:07]

of nonduality. And the second part is to observe the nonduality of your state, to consider it, to contemplate it until you fully realize this new way of seeing things. They're not you, and yet they are you. A sound isn't you, but there's no you addition to the sound, so the sound is you. The sound's all you've got. You don't have anything else but the sound when you hear the sound. Because it isn't out there separate from you, and you're not over here separate from it. Any response to that or questions about that?

[11:37]

Yes? Is it too much of a shortcut to look at it that maybe it has to do with how we define me? Is it a shortcut to look at how you define yourself? That maybe what you're talking about has to do with something as simple as defining me in a whole new way. I think that you could say it. What's the new definition of me? You would be the whole space where everything's happening? Well, that might not be quite right because the other people are happening and that's happening in that space too. And you're not the other people

[12:39]

So it doesn't quite work to define yourself as the other people, unless you also say, I'm not the other people. So you can say, I am all the things that are happening in the space where everything's happening, but also I'm not those things. So that contradictory way would be all right. But just to say you are everything that's happening I don't think it's really yourself. I think yourself is that yourself depends on everything that's happening. Yourself depends on all the things you're not. But you're not those things which are not you. But you depend on them. And you're nothing in addition to all the things that aren't you. So you're nothing in addition to, for example, the colors that aren't you, that you depend on to be you.

[13:48]

Everything supports us, but we're not something in addition to that, all of our support. We're not all the things that make us plus something. And then you say, well, are you saying that the sum is not greater than, or that the whole is not greater than the sum of the parts? I guess I am saying that, that the whole person is not greater than the sum of their parts. People have parts, and when you put all the parts together you have the person, and the person is not something in addition to the sum of the parts. even though none of the parts are the person. But somehow you put all these parts together and you get a person who wasn't on the list. So then wouldn't that person be something in addition?

[14:53]

And I would say, no. The name of the person was on the list of things that made the person. You know, the name Tracy, for example, is on the list of the things that make Tracy. Yes? I found what jogged me out of duality, if I remember to do this, is when I bow, somehow that creates the experience of what you're saying, that I can't put it into words, but that's where I go on with my body. When you bow, you get jogged out of duality? I do. That's what bowing is for. Yeah, it's to jog you out of duality. Yeah, well good, keep it up.

[15:54]

But be careful, take care, you know, don't do too much otherwise your knees might swell up. In a non-dual way, of course. But that's what bowing is for, is to jog us out of duality. But not jog us out, like separate us from duality, because that would be duality again. So while we're totally in duality, we get jogged free of it. In other words, cut through it. Cut through duality between, for example, the duality between you and Buddha. We cut through by bowing. We don't bow to maintain the duality between us and Buddha. We don't bow to Buddha to reaffirm some separation between us and Buddha. That's not where we bow. And the Buddhas don't say, come on, bow to us to reaffirm that you're separate from us.

[16:59]

The Buddhas say, no, you should bow to Buddha to realize you're not separate from Buddha. Or Buddha says, bow to me in order to realize you're not separate from me. And if you can realize that you're not separate from me by not bowing to me, fine. Now bow to me and realize it too. But very few people that I've ever heard of have actually understood that they're not separate from Buddha without bowing to Buddha. The people who don't bow to Buddha, they usually think they're separate from Buddha. I'm not Buddha's disciple, so why should I bow to Buddha? And I'm also not Buddha, so why should I bow to Buddha? Buddha's not better than me. That's right. Buddha didn't say Buddha was better than you. Buddha said, I'm not separate from you.

[18:00]

That's what Buddha says. And if you think you're separate from me, again, it's not wrong to say I'm not Buddha. It's just wrong to say I'm separate from Buddha. Buddha doesn't say you're Buddha. Buddha says, you have all the wisdom and virtues of Buddhas you fully possess. And I'd like you to realize that. And one way is to bow. So the practice that you're speaking of be a way to purify call and response? Would it be a way to purify call and response? It would be a way to purify it and it would be a way to realize it. And realize it in a way that's purified of some separation between the call and the response.

[19:05]

There's never a call without the response. And also they're simultaneous. People usually, in the dualistic world, you call and then somebody responds. In this world, when you call, the response is right there in your calling. It's not later. And we're used to sort of like calling and saying, well, where's the response? because we think the response is separate from the call. But it's not. The call and response cross. It's like, as soon as the call happens, the response is there. Boop. Boop. Can't get it up there before it gets met. But people think that you can. In that case, the call and response process isn't purified yet.

[20:13]

It's still affected or infected by dualistic view. Because again, I cannot call without the support of the Buddhas. And when I do call, they're supporting me right while I'm calling, so then that's their response, is to help me call them. Strange response. They're helping me call? That's their response? Yeah. And when you stop calling, they'll help you stop calling too. So your not calling is also a response which they help you do. Yes? You know, you said it's already made a Would you say that again or slower?

[21:14]

Yeah. These are actually, even though the first five are sensory phenomena, they're actually, when you're doing this meditation, you're really dealing with concepts of them. So when you say in the scene, I'm not actually talking about direct perception of colors. I'm talking about a conceptual category of quotes, blue or red or something. So all these six categories are actually six conceptual categories. Because almost all ordinary people when they're experiencing sounds, smells and so on, they actually experience the concept of sound, the concept of taste. The direct perception is not ascertained. So you're already packaging even the sounds as concepts.

[22:24]

And then concepts in the realm of conceptual cognition, where you're conceiving, you're cognizing a concept, that's where we go to town. Because you've got a concept, and in that realm of concept you go, all these other concepts come up. In direct perception, you don't conceptually elaborate. So, may I go on this a little bit? Yeah, so this instruction is an instruction to people, is an instruction to your conceptual cognition. We're saying to your conceptual cognition, don't use your conceptual equipment very much right now. So when the concept of a color comes up, don't conceptually womp it up. Give it up. Give up the conceptual elaboration. So this is instruction to the conceptual consciousness. The instruction for tranquility is given to conceptual cognition.

[23:30]

And it's through training your conceptual cognition is where you do your conceptual thinking, your discursive thinking happens there. And that's where you calm down. Okay, so that's your reverie. Now you want to go on a little bit? Okay. Yes. [...] Call and response, I don't think so much of call and response as operating at the level of, for example, ordinary, like hearing a sound or seeing a color.

[24:51]

Call and response means when you actually call, you invite, you invoke Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. Now, if you want to say that you make your seeing an invocation of the Buddhas, that additional intention there would be the invocation or the call. If you wanted to say that when I look at people, I really mean that this looking is actually a request of the Buddhas to come and meet me. You could do that if you wanted to. But just to see a color without that invitation, without actually inviting the Buddhas to come and meet you, You're not actually saying, I want to relate to the Buddhas right now. In other words, you have to ask them to come. You have to say, please come.

[25:53]

You have to feel that way. Yeah? Yeah? I'm having trouble following you. You're saying when you cognize a sound, yes, something changes in your body? What you're cognizing, actually, is a change in your body, which arises because of the relationship between your body and this physical material. Separation comes up because of our imagination arising.

[26:56]

Mm-hmm. Sense consciousness is direct, but sense consciousness arises with mind consciousness, and mind consciousness arises with mind organ, and mind organ Part of its function, of course, is to help the mind be aware of its objects. But another part of its function is to defile the whole process with a sense of self. So even in direct sense perception, although the sense perception itself is direct and there's no conceptual mediation in the sense perception, there's no idea in the sense perception by itself of the object being out there. that sense perception arises with the mind consciousness.

[27:56]

And the mind consciousness has a partner called defiled mind organ. And the defilement that arises with mind consciousness pervades the sense consciousness too. So the sense consciousness arises and the sense consciousness has no concept in it. But it arises with the mind consciousness that does have a concept And it has the concept of self, and it has the concept of self-pride, self-delusion, self-love, and self-existence. Those four defiling activities arise with the mind consciousness, which arises with the sense consciousness, or sense consciousnesses. But the sense consciousness is pure. It just knows its object without any conceptual mediation and it doesn't by itself, sense consciousness does not have by itself any idea of self or separation between subject and object.

[29:00]

But it lives in the same world with mind consciousness which does have a misconception, a riding with it all the time. So sense consciousness is also infected or influenced by this misconception of an independent existence. Since consciousness is affected by it, and also, also, there is, with sense consciousness and with mind consciousness, there's a type of direct perception which is called apperceptive cognition. So when a sense consciousness arises, there is with it an awareness that the sense consciousness is occurring. So there's an awareness of the sense consciousness. And when mind consciousness arises, there is an awareness of mind consciousness.

[30:02]

And this awareness is a direct perception. But that direct perception also has a direct perception of the mind consciousness which is defiled. So even direct perception is affected by the idea of separate self. Where there's no conceptual mediation in the process but there is a misconception that's not mediating but that's influencing the whole process. Yes? So arriving in such a state, there seems to be a very

[31:04]

very narrow ledge there. On the one hand it's very spacious, and on the other hand almost suffocating. If there's no here, no there, no in between, it's as if there is no place to breathe. And similarly... Very nice, very nice. I think that what happens in that place is that this defiled mind consciousness kind of gets strangled. In this process of meditation, the defiling function of mind gets rubbed out. Actually, the mind gets transformed in that way that this organic function loses its self- projecting abilities and that can As you approach that you can feel the ego might be getting snuffed out.

[32:12]

There's enough room for the basic process to go on, but there's not enough room for the self-imaginer to keep living. It actually gets eliminated. It's so tight there. There's only room for the basic function of the sense organs operating and the mind consciousness to know its objects. in direct perception and also in conceptual cognition, but the self-imagining gets squeezed out. It's kind of like an angioplasty or something. It's kind of like you press on the thing and you just push the blockage out. It gets exuded onto your neighbor or something. But that kind of feeling is, I think, accurate. Things get so tight, there's not room for this big, puffy imagination of an independent self. There's no room for it anymore. Kind of like that. Whereas when it first arose, there was room for it.

[33:20]

Because there was no meditation squeezing it out. It's kind of like the mind organ says, hey, I'll serve the function of the mind consciousness being able to be aware of objects if you let me bring this sense of self in. And the mind consciousness says, okay, fine, we need you. And so it evolved that we have this imaginary thing and it has a lot of power. But the meditation process can turn it around and kind of squeeze it out. And as you approach it, you can sense you're going to lose something there. You're actually going to lose that defiling power. It actually gets suppressed eventually. In the meantime, before it gets actually squeezed out, you can get to places where you basically talk yourself out of it. or talk yourself into a state of non-duality, a state of mental one-pointedness where there's just, you can say, just the object, no subject in addition.

[34:36]

But another way to approach this, which some people actually like, instead of like having nothing in addition to the object, Another way to do it is also just the same thing is to say that you're actually, when you have nothing, when there's nothing but the object, actually what you're looking at is the inner stream of the meditating consciousness. That's actually what you're looking at. By not elaborating on the object, you're looking at the inner stream of the meditating consciousness. And the inner stream is not involved in all this conceptual elaboration. So sometimes we say simplify the object so that there's no subject in addition. The other way is look at the subject, look at the part of the subject that you're always looking at, regardless of whether there's any conceptual elaboration. It's the same, it has the same effect. So today I brought the teaching of look at the object without adding a subject.

[35:41]

The other would be look at a subject no matter what object you're looking at. Just keep looking at the subject which knows all the different objects and doesn't jump around depending on what you're looking at. Both ways will put you in the same tranquility. But some people have easier going one way or the other. It's good to be able to go both ways. Yes? Also, under these circumstances, in the Samadhi, it seems completely realistic, and most realistic, that there is no here, nor there, nor in between. But it seems almost impossible to integrate that with practicality of doing something or even speaking.

[36:45]

My experience is that almost as soon as I start to speak, there's a sense of my voice projecting across a distance to a hearer who is not then. So I am not then in the no here, no there, no in between. Right. So, as I said in the yoga room the other night, and you're familiar with this too, you take a teaching like, well, you just take this very teaching, and And you learn this teaching, and this particular teaching includes, I'm suggesting, it's a teaching but it's partly a teaching about how to develop tranquility and give up thinking, and it's also partly a teaching about how to reactivate thinking, or it's partly a teaching in which you have to use your thinking. So when the Bodhisattva in the sutra

[37:47]

ask in the Sambhya Nirmacana Sutra, when the Bodhisattva asks how do Bodhisattvas train themselves in tranquility and insight, the Buddha first immediately starts teaching, gives teachings. He says, I give you all these teachings. And when you get these teachings, you listen to them well, you memorize them well, you recite them well, you familiarize yourself, you analyze, you investigate well, All these activities would be activities that you're still doing probably with this sense of, I'm doing this stuff. I mean, that's how you're starting to do this. Then he says, after that, you go into solitude and then you inwardly contemplate these same teachings in the way you did before, which has probably still some duality in it. But now you're reflecting on them. Then, Then you change your meditation and you start meditating on the inner stream of the meditating consciousness.

[38:52]

Then you give up discursive thought, which you've been using in the previous ways. Then you attain the state of tranquility. Then abiding in the state of tranquility, you bring up these things which you did before. And when you did those things before, you weren't doing them dualistically. Now you bring up the things which you learn in a dualistic state and you look at them in the samadhi. So now these images which when you usually were working with those images, you were kind of like me and the images and me talking about the images. You bring the duality in the form of the way you dualistically dealt with the teachings. You bring this dualistic process. into the samadhi situation so that now these images which used to be images of subject-object separation are now seen as images which are focus of the samadhi. So it is very difficult to go from tranquility back into language and it's very difficult to go

[40:03]

into even language of the teachings without losing the tranquility or getting back into the kind of separation which you gave up as you entered tranquility. But that's exactly what you need to do. You need to find situations where you feel okay about bringing what used to be dualistic into a realm of samadhi. and seeing that there actually isn't dualism even in what usually is very difficult to be involved with without splitting. And even the hearing the teachings about non-duality, when you first hear them, you're hearing them in a dualistic way. And then when you discuss them, you're discussing them in a dualistic way.

[41:08]

And then when you meditate on them and understand them correctly, you really do understand non-duality, there still is a little bit of separation because it's a conceptual realm. So there's still a little mediation little separation with the concept. Then you take this correct understanding that you're not separate, which still has some separation in it, and you bring that into the samadhi. How are they dualistic? How are the teachings dualistic coming as they are now? It's not so much that the teachings are dualistic, but that in order to take them in, we have to like hear them. And we now, even though we're receiving the teaching that we're not separate from each other, we do feel like I'm here hearing the teaching that we're not separate. So I hear the teaching, but I mean, I'm hearing the teaching, but I'm not really hearing the teaching because I still feel like the person who's telling me that we're not separate from each other is separate from me.

[42:18]

But I do hear that teaching. So even a teaching of non-duality, as I receive it, I receive it in the mode of duality. In other words, it seems like there's a teaching over there and I'm over here listening to it. it's not enough to remember that this is all mutually arising? That's... No, it's not enough. You have to remember, but you have to do that. But when you remember that this is all mutually arising, and you remember that, and you remember that, and you analyze it, you get more and more familiar with it, but you still feel like that teaching of this is mutually arising is separate from somebody, namely you. it hasn't completely sunk in yet. But you do correctly understand it by working with it a long time. So it's not sufficient. What you finally have to do is you have to get over the sense of separation between that teaching that things are all interrelated and the awareness of that teaching.

[43:26]

It does seem like there's something out there. So it's necessary but not sufficient, what you're talking about. You have to do that. You have to take that teaching in. But it's not sufficient. You have to not only take it in, but you have to take it in and then you have to remove the means by which you took it in. Because you can't take something in unless you grasp it. And you can't grasp it unless you package it. And if you package it, you create a sense of separation between yourself and it. I'd like to be able to relate to you and understand you without packaging you, but I have to package you. I know no other way to find you. Just like Dogen says, you know, you can't find your meditation seat without packaging your meditation seat. You can't walk in the zendo and find a place to sit without like packaging the zendo and packaging the separate seats.

[44:30]

You have to look at the seating chart and see your name and do all that stuff to get to your seat. You say, what if people blindfolded me and took me by my hand? Well, that would work. That would be fine. But you still sort of wouldn't be able to feel their hand unless you package the touch of their hand. It's necessary. It's necessary. And particularly we have to package teachings in order to get them. The teachings are out there, the Dharma is out there, but we have to package it to get it. And then we've got it. Okay, but the packaging has just separated us from it somewhat. Because it's not, the Dharma is actually inconceivable. But we can't get access to something inconceivable right off. we have to conceive of it. And then we get access to it. That's not what it is, but we have access. Now that we've got access, now take the packaging off.

[45:36]

And now you've got the access, and you drop the packaging. So you have to get the Dharma that you just talked about. It's necessary to get that. And in order to get it, you have to put it in a little package. But in order to get this thing, which you do need, you have to, in some sense, separate yourself from it. Once you separate yourself from it, then you can go through the elaborate process of taking away the separation. And you also get other teachings, which you can access by packaging them, which tell you how to take away the packaging. And then, of course, you eventually have to take the packaging away for how you understood how to take the packaging away. so that we need, these teachings are necessary, packaging in them is necessary in order to get them into our life and then into our awareness, and then we have to take away the packaging, which separates us from the thing we want to have access to.

[46:50]

So we can have access to things just like you can have access to something by packaging it, and you've actually got a hold of the packaging. The thing inside is not packaged. It's not, you know, it's unpackaged inside the package. Things are actually, as you said, inconceivable. But we have no access to the inconceivable originally except by putting a little package on it called the inconceivable or inconceivable. So we know, we have a hint that everybody's not, everybody's beyond our ideas of them. but we still need to have some idea of them to like start looking for where they are beyond our ideas. And then we sort of like, okay, now I got the person, now how can I take away the concept? And then we have teachings of how to take the concept away, but in order to get those teachings, we have to do the same thing with the teachings. And that's why it's good to be tranquil so you can stand the process.

[47:51]

So you can sit through the process happily when you're tranquil. It's like, hey, this is fine. This is cool. I love this stuff. It's just great how hard it is. Do you focus on the package of the inconceivable? Well, you... You first actually, you first focus on the inconceivable, but focus on the inconceivable means you focus on the packaged version of the inconceivable. So you first focus on that, which means you focus on dependent core arising first. That's what he brought up, meditating on dependent core arising, right? That's the first thing you meditate on, but of course you're meditating on your idea of dependent core arising. But even meditating in your idea of your dependent core arising gets you ready to meditate on the packaging of dependent core arising.

[48:59]

Meditating on the packaging is not going to actually be that inspiring. Meditating on the inconceivable process of causation of the universe is very inspiring, and it's particularly inspiring to virtue. When you really listen to the teachings which you're getting conceptually about the nature of causation, it's very inspiring to virtue because you realize everything's undependable, unstable, ungraspable, so it doesn't make much sense to get really intoxicated about anything. And you actually see how valuable it is to keep meditating on dependent core arising because it makes you more and more confident and devoted to being virtuous. Then with that great inspiration from that teaching, now you can start looking at the packaging. Now that you're well established in virtue by receiving this teaching in a conceivable version of it, even a conceivable version of dependent core arising is very transformative.

[50:12]

And we continue to do that practice until we have a direct realization of dependent core arising, at which point we're a Buddha. So between the initial establishment of virtue until Buddhahood, we're dealing with the conceptual version of dependent core arising. It's still very inspiring, very necessary, very helpful. And then with that as a base, then you can start looking at the packaging. And then if you look at the packaging, look at the packaging, and you've got all this virtue to support you doing this dirty work of looking at packaging, looking at making a self out of everything, making little packages out of everything. And then you get to a point where you don't find any packaging anymore. You actually see this packaging is like totally like fantasy. It's not actually in the things, it's just superimposed upon them. Then you meditate on that for a long time, long time. it's called meditating on suchness or emptiness and that transforms you further beyond just being virtuous and enthusiastic about meditation you actually transform your vision of the world until finally you actually can look at the inconceivable and you know directly and actually see it and actually understand something that can't you understand it without any packaging in other words become fully realized

[51:37]

fully realize together with all beings. But that's this kind of big project, right, called becoming a Buddha. I sign up. Pardon? I sign up. Thank you very much. Would you be willing to pass around a little sign-up sheet to see if anybody else would? Thank you very much for your sweet presence today. It was a lovely day and we could conclude by doing a little service if you want. Let's just do a little service now, if you just want to set up for service.

[52:14]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_90.49