Living beings suffer because they do not understand the nature of phenomena. Phenomena being the objects of their awareness. They don't understand them because they misconceive them and grasp them. because they misconceive them and grasp them, they suffer. And in the early teachings of the Buddha, the Buddha offered three characteristics to help people become free of their misconceptions. And the three characteristics were suffering, impermanence, and not-so. innately appear to have self.

[01:03]

Things innately appear to such a thing as the things that are before want appear to be out there in front of you. And then... And then things seem to be permanent, like we think that somebody's the same person they were yesterday. We acknowledge some little changes, but we think it's actually the same person, or we're the same person. And we grasp that. And also, these objects can be grasped and bring us happiness. So because of that attitude, Buddha says, well, these things are actually stressful. Stress. And in the Mahayana, there is a teaching which is also given for sentient beings, that all the things we know, all the phenomena that appear before us, are conscious constructions.

[02:20]

And we hear that teaching and when we enter that teaching, understand that teaching, we are enlightened. We are liberated from delusion. That's the story. There are a number of stories of lay people who have heard the teaching and entered it, lay bodhisattvas who have heard the teaching and entered it and become enlightened and liberated. And there's also stories of monastics, monastic bodhisattvas who hear the teaching and enter it and are awakened and liberated. So lay bodhisattvas can be enlightened and monastic bodhisattvas can be enlightened.

[03:30]

Some lay bodhisattvas, after they're enlightened, become... And some monastic bodhisattvas, after they're enlightened, become household bodhisattvas. That's one of the cartoons you've probably seen of this guy in a fancy suit and a cigar standing outside his Rolls Royce in front of a monastery and the monks are standing at the gate saying, thanks for coming back to visit us after your enlightenment. I was reading a commentary on the perfection of wisdom scriptures by a Korean bodhisattva.

[04:42]

And then I read a story about him. And his name was, the romanization of his name is W-O-N-Y, no, H-Y-O. I don't know how to say that. and he was a monk and he was traveling with one of his friends another monk on their way to China because they they'd heard this teaching about everything everything that we're looking at is nothing but mind Everything we're looking at is nothing but mind, which again is different from saying everything we're looking at... Everything is mind is nothing but mind is not the same as there is nothing but mind.

[05:48]

So anyway, they heard this teaching and they were going to go to China to get help from the great teacher. And on the way, They were in a downpour, and so they sought shelter for the night in a cave, which seemed suitable. And in the middle of night, Hong Xiu woke up really thirsty. He started groping around in the cave for a drink in the dark. And he found kind of a bowl or a gourd. It had some kind of fluid in it. And he went ahead and drank it. And it seemed to be sweet and refreshing water.

[06:57]

And he went happily In the morning he woke up and his friend, by the way, his friend also became one of the founders of one of the schools of Korean Buddhism. They noticed that actually in the daylight they could see it was a tomb and it was strewn with skulls, human skulls. And then they could see that the bowl he had drunk out the night before was a skull. So, you know. One translation said putrid, another one says moldy, another one said foul, another translation said brackish, but brackish is actually mixed with salt water. Anyway, when he saw this new appearance, when the mind appeared in that way, he vomited everything in his stomach.

[08:08]

But then he was so deeply impressed by the power of the mind to transform reality that he had a great enlightenment. And he and his friends canceled their trip to China and went back home. And then, I don't know when, but not too long after that, he left the monastery, left Manas. became a householder of bodhisattva. And he was... And he wrote 80 books. 240 scrolls, 80 books. Some of them, you know, commenting on the Nirvana Sutra, some on the awakening of faith. So he became a very important person in Korean Buddhism. And he was well known for singing and dancing in public. So he became a kind of folk hero.

[09:17]

Anyway, this is an example of... He entered into the teaching that everything is just an idea. All phenomena are just images, just imagination. Without imagination, phenomena do not exist. Their existence depends on imputation of imagination. He understood that. And his friend continued to be a monk, but he became a householder and married a widowed... Also, in the summary of Mahayana, a sangha says, who understands conscious construction only?

[10:17]

And one of the characteristics is they have a lot of permeation of their consciousness by listening to the teaching. Consciousness are very permeated by the teaching. They think about, they hear about, they read about the Dharma a lot, so their minds are transformed by this, by this process. They also serve innumerable Buddhas, and they also have One translation is single-minded faith, another translation is definitive commitment. And then the third thing is they're well-matured in meditation practice.

[11:22]

And of tranquility and insight, or shamatha and vipassana. But of course, in order to practice Samadhi Vipassana, you have to practice all the bodhisattva. It's just that the fifth and sixth aspect of the bodhisattva training is called Samadhi Vipassana. So I wrote Samadhi Vipassana on the board here. And also I'm making all the Chinese characters. This character in Chinese is pronounced jir. And this one's guan.

[12:31]

In Japanese, it's shikan. So this character, shamatha, can be translated as stop, stopping, or calm abiding. Tranquility. This character is on stop signs in Japan and China. And this character is translated often as contemplation or insight. This is the character in the Bodhisattva's name, Guanyin or Kannon. That's the Kahn. To contemplate the sounds of the world. But it also... overtone, undertone of insight to wisely contemplate. So these two practices are... Dogen, when he lived on Mount Hiei, which is a Tendang Buddhism

[13:46]

sort of temple complex with actually, I think, 3,000 temples when he was there on that mountain. So probably maybe 30,000. And so he stayed there when he was a young man until he left. The study was called Zen sometimes. And so he was exposed to the teaching of that school. One of the central teachings of that school is this shikan or shantmatavipashyana meditation practice, which the founder of the school in China was named Jiri. He taught this shantmatavipashyana and the Sambhinamacchana. The chapter on meditation, the chapter on yoga, starts out by saying how do bodhisattvas you know, based on what and abiding on what the bodhisattvas practice tranquility and insight.

[14:55]

And the Buddha says, based on and abiding in an unweighted resolution to attain supreme enlightenment and to teach the conventional dharma. That resolution is the basis of their practice of this meditation. The bodhisattvas... Samantan Vipassana is in the pre-Mayana teachings, too. But Dogen, in most of his writings, it's hard to find him talking about Samantan Vipassana, even though he grew up in that tradition. So I wrote something up here, which I thought is kind of his way of putting it, which is going with Samatha is... practice to just be totally devoted to sitting, which you're familiar with him saying that, Shikantaza.

[15:58]

And then going with the Vipassana side is going to meet the teacher and listen to the Dharma or ask about the Dharma. So the The sitting part, Dogen says, this kind of devotion to sitting is devotion to practice realization. It's devotion to uniting practice and enlightenment. Or it's devotion to the unity of practice and enlightenment. So in sitting, one sits as enlightenment. One is enlightenment, enlightened as sitting.

[17:02]

And there can be a spirit there of single-minded faith that what we're doing is enlightenment, and enlightenment must be what we're doing. is a description of the sitting. And that would also be calming. That would be calming. One would have this one-pointedness of mind. One would be flexible and buoyant about doing a practice which is enlightenment. when we're buoyant and joyful and undistracted about an enlightenment which is the practice of the moment. And again, this goes with, this could also be called tranquility.

[18:09]

We will be tranquil when we're doing a practice which is enlightenment. rather than a practice which is trying to get enlightenment. And the other side is where we open our mind up for... We give it free range to engage with the teachings. We express our questions and our opinions about the Dharma in dialogue with teachers. We listen to the teachers. We read the scriptures. We listen to the scriptures. We change. We permeate our mind. We think about the teachings. On this side you give up discursive thought, that side of

[19:16]

tranquility or it becomes very simple like it becomes one point it's almost given up and the other side you use discursive thought Some work just to do the part about sitting with single-minded faith that the sitting is enlightenment and that the enlightenment is the sitting or that what we're doing here now is enlightenment and must be enlightenment and enlightenment must be what we're doing. That's not enough. You have to also open your mind to its ordinary reality its ordinary turbulence and power to distract and somehow train it in concert or conversation with teachers and teachings.

[20:25]

Without that training, we do not enter into understanding. So, I don't know if a Korean monk had this single-minded faith, but I assume he did. I assume he did. Because when his mind encountered the story of the gourd with water and it being refreshing and sweet, and then he saw the gourd the next day as a skull with dirty water, when his mind worked with that, he understood the mind. And understanding the mind, he became free of the mind. But his mind had to work with something. It wasn't giving up dualistic thinking. Part of it is to give up dualistic thinking, and another part of it is to open to dualistic thinking.

[21:29]

give up dualistic thinking and then open and engage with dualistic thinking like sweet and putrid like bowl and skull those two together and Dogen says and also many other teachers say you have to have both you have to give up your discursive thinking you have to give up your thinking and you have to use your thinking Now, the first step is usually alternating between the two. So, maybe some people in this room are not in a state of shamatha. Let's just say somebody isn't, like maybe I'm not. But I am discussing discursively some teachings. Now, strictly speaking, if I'm not in a state of shamatha, by not in a state of single-minded settling in to practice enlightenment, tranquil and buoyant, then my discussions of the teachings are not, strictly speaking, the apostate.

[22:49]

But I still am discussing the teaching and thinking about teaching. That's that. However, if you are in a state of tranquility and you discuss the teaching, then you're doing insight work. Then it's vipassana. You can have tranquility without practicing vipassana. But you must, according to this teaching, you must have samatha in order that your thinking is vipassana. It seems like you do training in tranquility. You can do it. And you have enough teaching to do it. But basically the teaching is give up thinking about your teachings.

[23:55]

except in a very simple way like sit up, use your mind to think sit up straight, sit upright, [...] sit upright. Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake, sit up, wake up, sit up, relax, sit up, sit up, relax. Something simple like that to calm down. Stop all the movements of the conscious mind, the engaging of thoughts and views, that kind of thing. So it's a kind of exercise. Once you're tranquil, you can set that exercise aside. And then turn the light around and shine it back on the teachings which you've learned. And then you're doing Vipassana.

[24:58]

Vipassana. And then you go back and practice tranquility again. Because tranquility doesn't last forever. So it might last for several minutes. In a particular period of meditation, you might settle into tranquility. You might even settle into tranquility in a certain period. In the next period, you might still be in tranquility. You might get up from your meditation and do walking meditation in tranquility and sit down. You're still in tranquility. And then in meditation, you start to listen to the teaching while you're sitting. Teaching, mind, mind that is engaging the conventional teachings comes up while you're sitting. teachings which you've heard and heard and heard so they can come up in the mind effortlessly and clear this calm mind.

[26:01]

You can quietly explore the farthest reaches of these causes and conditions as this is the exact transmission of a verified Buddha. Buddha's teaching to explore, to contemplate, But the contemplation is most effective in tranquility. But the tranquility won't last indefinitely. So then you have to set aside the quiet contemplation of the causes and conditions. You have to set it aside and go back to the tranquility. And then when you're tranquil... you contemplate. And again, at a certain point, you give up the contemplation and practice tranquility. And then you practice contemplation within the tranquility. Go from one to the other. Back and forth. And also this can be, which many Zen stories, which also say the history of

[27:12]

of Zen is all these stories of students sitting and going to see the teacher about the Dharma and the teacher feeling that the person who's talking about the teaching is not calm and we better probably stop the conversation and why don't you go back and sit because you're trying to talk to me about these teachings these wonderful teachings which you actually well, but you're not calm enough to fruitfully discuss them with me. The teacher doesn't necessarily explain that. Sometimes they do. Oftentimes they just say, go back to the Zando and sit. Go back to the Zando and calm down. And then the student goes back and sits, calms down, and talks to the teacher again. But this time they're calm, so they have the conversation, and it's more well, appropriate to have a conversation and more fruitful. Have you heard those stories?

[28:19]

Sometimes a student is a little I don't know what, embarrassed that they're being asked to go back to the Zendo halfway through the discourse which they were planning on delivering or the enlightened conversation which they were wishing to have. But in some sense the teacher may feel it's not possible for us to have a conversation right now because we're not calm enough together. The teachers there, too, you know, if the teacher was really calm, the student would walk in the door hysterical and sit down and suddenly become totally tranquil. But not all teachers do that kind of like tranquility-induced mental... So my students are highly agitated and giddy when they come in. Sometimes the teacher, you know, we just go back and sit for a while. And when we're calmed down, we can talk about this important matter.

[29:29]

This is an important matter, but we're not in a good place to talk about it right now. We're too distracted. So that's been back and forth. Got it? And then when students are working on koans, you hear about, they sit, they go see the teacher, teacher goes, no. That's another short, go back to Zen, no. They present their understanding, no. Now it doesn't mean that as soon as they're calm, their understanding will be correct. Or even if that is correct, the teacher still might say no. That might be part of the sweet water, dirty water practice. So that's alternating the two. Both are necessary, but start with alternating usually.

[30:30]

Next phase is to combine them. So you're doing them at the same time. So not only are you calm and focused on what you're doing as the Buddha way, the Buddha way is what you're doing, what you're doing is the Buddha way, not only are you focused on that and of your faith and you're tranquil with that, but the conversation itself is also like that. The conversation is the enlightenment, and the enlightenment is the conversation. So the conversation, the activity of the mind in conversation is actually a tranquilizing conversation. So you develop a concentration by what used to be kind of like potentially disturbing your concentration. And also we have the experience at times that someone is fairly calm

[31:35]

And they start discussing the Dharma, and the calm is disturbed. So some calms last for, you know, ten minutes. Some calms last for fifteen minutes. But some calm, you know, lasting for fifteen minutes means that when the mind becomes active, there's not... continue with the activity of the mind. So, sometimes people say, well, you know, how can I tell? I say, well, if you're calm and teachings arise, and as you start to contemplate and you lose the calm, you start to feel more tense and just agitated, you put aside the thinking. But at a certain point, you can combine them so that the thinking actually deepens the concentration. And then when the concentration is deepened, it opens to the thinking. And then the thinking deepens the concentration. So that at first you alternate, and later you combine the other simultaneous, that each one is the other one.

[32:44]

The contemplation is actually insight work. I mean, tranquility is insight work, and insight work is tranquility. And then the third stage is they're united. So that listening to the teaching and calming down, and calming down and listening to the teaching are united. So, you know, just sit, in other words, just focus on not just that on sitting, but on sitting as the way, sitting as the Buddha way. There is that. But there's also many encouragements to condemn causes and conditions of conventional existence, causes and conditions of linguistic teachings.

[33:49]

And Here's an example of if in a tranquil state one could contemplate these teachings which I brought up the other day. I'll do it again because you can almost memorize it now. Gunakara, and this is easy to memorize this translation because it has three dependencies. Sometimes it says independence, in-dependence, in-dependence. Independence upon names that are connected with signs. The imputational characters. Independence upon strongly adhering to the other dependent character as being the imputational character, the other dependent character is known.

[34:57]

In dependence upon the absence of strong adhering to the other dependent as being the imputational character, the thoroughly established character is known. This is kind of related back to particularly to Sonia's question towards the end of the last class. And it's also a repeat. It's a permeation of our consciousness. So we've heard that whatever is conscious construction only, and also that whatever, whatever phenomenon it is, it is a dependent co-arising. And it has these three characteristics. And the first characteristic is that it has... That's called the imputational character because this fantasy is imputed on something.

[36:08]

It's imputed on the next characteristic, the other dependent characteristic, which is the other dependent characteristic is the characteristic of dependent co-arisings. All phenomena are dependently co-arisen. All phenomena are dependent co-arisings. And all dependent co-arisings They have the character of dependent co-arising. All dependent co-arisings have the nature of dependent co-arising. All dependently co-arisen things have a basic nature, which is the nature of dependent co-arising. That's their nature. often I'm going to have that nature of dependent co-arising.

[37:11]

But also, they have the nature of an imputation that's put on top of their dependent co-arising nature. And if you want to know what the superimposed nature or the superimposed character is like, well, just see if you can find any names that are associated with images or characteristics that are quite easy to find. Right? Got a name. You have some names that you maybe have trouble finding some image to connect it with. But when you have a name and you connect it to an image, you've got the imputational character. And then it also further says, that we associate the name with the sign together with an essence to the image and an attribute.

[38:22]

So it's that quality which allows us to then get a hold of something and then that makes it possible for us to be involved in conventional designations and talk and so on, which we're want to do. And there's a third characteristic, which is that our other dependent nature is actually free of this imputation. Now, the part that Sonya was asking about was about this this reality characteristic and it's interesting he says independence upon the absence of strongly adhering so the way you know ultimate truth is upon an absence of strongly adhering when you're in the mode of the absence of strongly adhering you're going to have a chance to know reality

[39:34]

Strongly adhering to what? To the other dependent nature as being our imputations about them. A short way to say this is in the absence of clinging, in the absence of conceptual clinging, we will know reality. But this is interesting because it says in the absence of strongly adhering to the other dependent nature of phenomena as being the fantasy nature, we will enter reality. We will know the thoroughly established character. We will know. So, Sonya kept saying, how do you know? How do you know? You know, you will know this absence. You'll know the absence.

[40:37]

when there is an absence. In dependence on the absence, you'll know the absence. In the dependence, on the absence of conceptual clinging, that's how you know the absence of conceptual clinging. That's how you know that. But it actually doesn't say that. It says, in dependence on the absence of conceptual clinging, you know the reality character. You'll know reality in the absence of conceptual clinging. The kind of knowing here is a knowing where there is an absence of conceptual clinging or an absence of strongly adhering to the concept as being the other dependent. Another translation is

[41:43]

The imputational characteristic, the characteristic of conceptual grasping. The imputational characteristic, the characteristic of conceptual grasping. The characteristic, all phenomena have a characteristic of conceptual grasping. It can be known through the association of names and characteristics. of dependent co-arising can be known through conceptual grasping superimposed on dependent existence. The reality, the perfect of reality can be known by not clinging to the conception superimposed on dependent existence.

[42:49]

If you're in a state of shamatha, we're doing vipassana now. If you're not in a state of shamatha, you're learning, you're permeating your consciousness so that when you are in shamatha, you can contemplate these permeations, or these permeations will support you contemplating these teachings again. So, now, we don't know if Timo is in a state of tranquility, but he's going to ask a question. His mind's working. Yes. I wonder, it says that you can know the other dependent in the state of cleanliness. And it says, yeah, he said you can know the other dependent in the state of cleanliness. Or another way to put it is, the way you know the other dependent is in a state of clinging.

[43:58]

The way you know the other dependent is by taking it to be what it isn't. Thank you for asking that question. Isn't that amazing? That we're being told that the way you know the dependent is The dependent core phenomenon, the way you know it, is by taking it to be something other than what it is. I just find it surprising that it says it can be known, not the way we know it that makes it. Oh, I see. Good point. No, it doesn't say can be in this translation. It says is. Can be is cool. That would open up other possibilities, but this translation says is. What does the other one say? The second one says is. The first one says is.

[45:02]

The second one can be. So somewhere resonating between is and can be. But normally... the way we know our other dependent nature is by taking it to be our idea about it. That's the normal way. Which again, this other dependent nature has an impure side and has a pure side. The impure side is the way we know it. The pure side is not about the way we know it. The pure side is the absence of the way we know it, the way we usually know it. There's three people. John, Susan, Carol, and John.

[46:03]

Two Susans, one Carol, a John, and a Johnny. Suzanne, sorry. I may be a little bit giddy right now. It's possible. Okay, we hear you. I was just struck by your wonderful example at the end of your lecture about the reality principle. When you asked if we could find the plaque of Alan Watt with the Buddha, and then had anyone seen it, had anyone seen it, and then maybe we could look inside and it would be there. So... Inside what? Inside the Buddha. Maybe the plaque's inside the Buddha. We did put some stuff inside the Buddha, but I can't remember if we put the plaque in. Maybe somebody remembers. It's awesome.

[47:04]

Well, we did. That would be a good place for it in a way. But then the development department might not agree. Carol? I would just like to ask you to repeat the is and the can be. Of which one? Of the, I think, the second one. Okay. So the second one, the first one is, independence upon strongly adhering to the other dependent as being the imputational character, the other dependent core character is known. Second translation, the characteristic of dependent core arising can be known through conceptual grasping superimposed upon dependent existence. I am fascinated by this

[48:06]

way in which we imagine an essence in order to place a name on it yeah would you talk more about that you know i understand manas as a way of creating a tendency to create a self but is there another mechanism, word, or process where we create an essence in a thing? Is that different from creating an essence of self in other things, or is it the same? Part of the story of the pinnacle rising is that not only do we have a name, which we associate with an image, but then we also have a... consciousness, which kind of holds a sense of self. So it then works with this name in association with image.

[49:12]

And it says that this image has an essence and also the name has an essence. So there's another meditation to look at the relationship between the name or the sign and the image. or the name and what we think is the object of the name. In both cases, there's some tendency deep within us, the self thing to projective existence on the name and the image. So that's in the background of this association. But you can catch the association by the name and the image, and then you can look to see, don't you think there's an essence there that justifies this association? And this next step, isn't there a characteristic that tells you that justifies and supports the essence. I guess my question is also around, I have an idea that language necessitates creating that essence.

[50:20]

So somehow in that process where language became possible... You said language necessitates creating the essence. Yes. word on. So somehow I imagine that in the development of the mechanism of the brain and its relationship to language is where that's necessitated. So did it arise in a physical way? I mean in a biochemical way also? I'm just very interested in it. Yeah. So I think some biologists would say if you of life, they would say that if you look at simpler forms of life, you can see the trajectory to develop a sense of substantial self in the cell. And one of the definitions of self is the way a cell can tell what belongs and what doesn't. And I guess cancer has some confusion about that sometimes.

[51:26]

And so there's something about basic biological things which has the potential to develop this idea, which then turns out is quite useful in certain ways to the biological world. There's another thing I'd like to draw attention to. One is this thing of strongly adhering. So it says, in the absence of strongly adhering to our fantasy superimposed on the other dependent as being the other. What if the adhering's not strong? What if the strong adhering is absent, but there's a weak adhering? So it allows the possibility that there's still some playing with the fantasy upon our other, but it's not strong. There's some flexibility there, some softness about it.

[52:29]

The strong is absent, but there's a gentle playfulness of the imagination with the other. The strong is absent now. And the teaching is the absence of the strong, in the absence of strong conceptual clinging, we will know reality. It doesn't say that the conceptual clinging is totally gone, that that's absent, it's the strong adhering. Some insight, even while the clinging was going on, which sounds good to me because It says there's three characteristics. It doesn't say there's three characteristics, and then when you know the third characteristic, the first characteristic drops away. It doesn't say it goes away. It says you abandon it. Strong adherence. It doesn't say there's no images. Yes? Yesterday, when we spoke, I mentioned that in my zazen now, I have to go to some effort to think of something.

[53:36]

But... What I hear you saying is that opening the imputation, I can have access to direct experience in a sense where the unity has texture, but there's not generative thinking about it. So would that then be the encounter of the thoroughly established, if you will? just a raw experience. Well, you know, I kind of got stuck when you said something about no generative thinking. I thought, whoa, wait a minute, that sounds like no other dependent character. If I am sitting, eyes open, and something moves over here, Something moves over here.

[54:38]

I don't want generative thinking to say so-and-so moved. Oh, I think that something moved over there is generative thinking. That's enough for me. Okay. I don't want to eliminate generative thinking because that's very much the other dependent character. The other dependent character is dependent co-arising. You name it. that has the characteristic of dependent co-arising. With that piece. So anything you cross off the list, you just crossed off an opportunity for the dependent... That thing has this dependent co-arising. This thing that you don't have, that also has all three characteristics. So the different qualities are equal opportunities. So that, just seeing the texture move, being textured... Is that absence of strong clinging? Seeing the texture move, if you want to know the imputational character, the imputational character just is the association of a name with an image in that thing you just talked about.

[55:56]

Now, the knowing anything in the process, that requires strong adhering. So it sounds like in order to know the reality of what's going on, there has to be an abandoning of strong adhering to the other, to the imputational character. It doesn't say no imputational character, because the imputational character when it was first introduced It was a potential for trouble, but it didn't say anything about strongly adhering to. It said just names and association with images. Now, that association has these essences, and what's being offered here is something to hold on to, something to cling to. It's the characteristic of conceptual grasping. It's not the conceptual grasping. but we like to know the other, we like to know dependable arising, some dependable arises we like to know, and then we use the conceptual clinging possibility, we strongly adhere to it, and then we know something.

[57:08]

If we abandon that strong adhering, we open to the reality aspect of dependable arising. Susanna and Linda. When there's a knowing, or maybe even a partial knowing, and then there's realization, it's sometimes that the realization may or may not have anything to do with the prior knowing. air may not have to do with the prior knowing. Like? The realization doesn't have to do with the prior knowing, but what is known has to do with the prior knowing. The prior knowing changes what there is to know, because it has consequence.

[58:13]

Any knowing that you've been involved in has consequence. We've been knowing stuff for a long time. It means that we've been strongly adhering to our images of things as the things. That's the way we've been knowing. So all those knowings provide the... is what our knowing is operating on. But sometimes when there's realization, the knowing It becomes something other than knowing. It becomes something different. A realization... Yeah, I can see realization other than knowing. It's other than the knowing we're usually talking about, when we're knowing the other dependent as being an image. So there can be knowing which isn't really just imagining.

[59:15]

All kinds of knowing is just imagination. But there can be the knowing of understanding, imagination, which is also just imagination. But there is that understanding. which has the quality of abandoning conceptual clinging. So it also is imagination, but it's an imagination. It's also just imagination, but it's imagination that goes with abandoning strongly adhering to imagination as something which is the pinnacle rising, which cannot be known by imagination. It is imagination. but it can't be known by imagination. And we like to know it by imagination. That's the way we like to know it. But when there's realization, the abandonment of conceptual clinging drops away on its own.

[60:31]

You say it drops away on its own, that's fine. Anyway, it drops away, it's abandoned, and you can say it's abandoned on its own. Yeah. But can that... I see Maria. I'm sorry. I don't want to hog. You're not hogging. I don't think so. I don't have that concept. I think the effort to try to add in some of the conceptual clinging I think sometimes doesn't work just in trying to abandon it because it's not, oh, there's... It's not of this one's volition to do that. Yeah, I haven't heard the instruction try. Just that there's practices which promote abandoning. But usually the trying to abandon is not on the list. But we do understand it would be good to abandon if we would like to see truth.

[61:36]

And there's practices which promote abandonment. And these practices promote abandonment, this tranquility side, and then also discussing these teachings and then bringing them closer and closer together. So let's see, we have Linda, and we have Maria, and Sonia, and Richard. Yes? Three small questions. One is the Shikan of Shikantaza and the Shikan that you have written on the board, those are totally different, but they happen to be... They happen to sound the same, yeah. There's no overlap in terms of characters. Shikan of Shikantaza means just, only. This is the first time I've ever seen one. Good point. The other thing about your way... The word know has positive valence, you know, to know things, to know homology. And in this case, the knowing is associated with our kind of karmic consciousness.

[62:48]

It's not realization. Knowing and realization. Not knowing is nearest. It's Knowing and realization in this situation. So every time I hear know or can be known, it is known, it's like that's now not necessarily positive, or it's got overstride, or it's realizing how that works, maybe, is what... Well, but there is... here. That's the third example. That knowing is going to be helpful. Because you're going to know the reality characteristic. But the other knowing is flawed. Because you're knowing the thing by taking it to be something other. Do you actually know the service that you know it? You know it as the absence of clinging.

[63:49]

Yeah, so it's a different, it's kind of a knowing of insubstantiality. But you do know it. But you know it. You can see how insubstantial this knowing is, because what do you know? You know it as the absence of clinging, and clinging is the way we usually know things. So you're going to know it in a different way. Could you speak to the third part of my question, which was, I had an experience... the other day about hearing a lot of very... somebody was telling me about extremely upset. And I, in listening to it, realized I too could be really upset about this, but it wasn't... what was coming up, I'm ashamed, was being permeated by the teachings of conscious construction. Only I kind of... upset and the clinging and the... was all... that's what was happening. And then I wondered, well, but I need to be upset about these too. I don't want to somehow just... Was there a loss there that I also was grabbed by this?

[65:02]

You know, I mean, calmly talking about it and looking at it. You need to be upset about that person's upset, but you don't need to be upset what they're upset about. If they're a beautiful person, or everybody loves them, and they think everybody hates them, you know, you don't have to be upset that everybody hates them, because they don't. But it would be nice if you were upset that they were so upset about what they're saying. Because your upset is compassion. I just don't want conscious construction only to be No, nothing really matters all the time. No, we don't want that. And thanks for bringing that up, too. And so, in the section of the bendowa, which we call self-receiving and employing samadhi, that picture there is a picture of dependent core rising, of the dependent core rising nature.

[66:06]

And it says, all this, however, does not appear within perception. The way you perceive that field of wonder is by projecting an image on it and saying the image is that. But that's not what it is. It's not that. And that's a problem if you think it is. So the other dependent character is the wondrous working of the enlightened mind. but it's not, you can't perceive it. However, what can you perceive? You can perceive the absence, you can know the absence of any of our ideas of this in that. That you can know. So you can know the reality of this wondrous program of the workings of the enlightened mind, you can know it as the absence, in the absence of conceptual clinging to it.

[67:12]

in absence of any of your ideas about it, that's how you know it. That's the reality of our basic situation. And that can be known, but the way you know it is like, well, no ideas about this apply. That's how you know it. You're there, and you've abandoned any kind of way to get a hold of it. You're totally open to it, and you can use it and be used by it, you can participate with it, you can paint the cage away, you can paint branches and stuff, you can participate in it, but you have no way of getting a hold of it. And in that absence of any way to get a hold of this situation, that's how you know the reality characteristic. So we can know that. And we can also know this wonderful other dependent thing, but the way we know it is by taking it to be something other than what it is.

[68:19]

So we can't know it. We can live in it. And we are living in it. What we can know is its reality. Its reality is we can't get a hold of what we're living. We can't get a hold of our life. We can't grasp our life. That's the reality of our life. And that will abandon the way we know our life in the ways we know our life. Is that clear? Almost? Sarah? Sarah? I just wanted to share with you about those classes about something terrible that happened to her and she's a Dalai Lama. And it seemed to me what you were saying, if the Dalai Lama, anyway, he took her suffering seriously and tried to help her with her suffering. But when she opened up, he saw that her story didn't reach it, but there

[69:24]

Anyway, there are all these codified conditions, and if she really was just adhering to the story she was telling about it, there wouldn't have been space for her basically to manifest as somebody trying to, well, live with compassion. Anyway, but what I... The question about strongly adhering without the question, and... So you kind of addressed it, but I still, I'm still kind of confused because I feel like even if I'm just weakly adhering to the imputational, and I'm praying, and I'm, you know, there's some flexibility, still, the way I know it, but anyway, I know it is my idea. Yeah, that would be the same, that would be the, If you're playing with your images of things enough so that you feel that you're knowing them, then it becomes strong.

[70:32]

If you can play with your stories about them but not yet strong enough to know them, then to know what your ideas are about, that would be the amount that you could use them. prior to knowing, because you've got to strongly adhere to know. So could you use names associated with images, but not enough to know them? That doesn't seem possible to me. It doesn't seem possible. I can imagine it doesn't seem possible to you. Well, maybe that's a good point too, is that when those are united, when the attenuation of imagination is united with imagination, you can use imagination without strongly adhering to it.

[71:36]

You can use it without actually coming to know something. Or so lightly that you're aware that you've just used it enough to know. I thought... That's kind of like the mindfulness, foundations of mindfulness. You use this just enough to touch some kind of like establishment of a phenomenon and no more. And you're being careful to watch that edge there. Maria? Maria? You've used the word imagination quite a few times. I've been kind of immersed in the works of Carl Jung lately, and he talks about active imagination. And I'm wondering, just in this context, how do you understand imagination?

[72:42]

Well, I understand imagination as... a key ingredient in our karmic consciousness. It's the way we use images and we use images in such a way that it has created a world that we feel and we can't get outside the consequences of our imagination. And even getting outside would be another example of imagination. So, This teaching is to use your imagination in such a way as to become free of the standpoint of your imagination. It's kind of like active imagination. But is imagination thinking? It's thinking with images. Yeah. Is there a playful nature to this? Yes, there is. And most people are not aware of the playful nature of it.

[73:48]

they don't feel relaxed enough to open to the playful quality of the quality of imagination. And, of course, another word is creative imagination. But imagination is creative. You know, the creative imagination is the other dependent character. So all of our experience has this creative imagination character. So that's why Johnny said there wasn't any generative thinking. Generative thinking, creative thinking, it's a normal part of our life. The question is how to get in touch with it. Well, you have to be playful to get in touch with it. And you have to be relaxed to be playful. And you have to take care of things and be reasonable to relax. So we practice generosity and ethics and patience so we think, well, maybe I could relax with the situation.

[74:51]

We've got problems here. We've got suffering. I can't relax with suffering. What could we do? How could we practice so that you would dare to relax with the suffering? I don't know. If the situation was infused with lots of generosity, would that be conducive to you considering relaxing with this suffering? careful with it, would that be okay? If we're patient with the pain of it, these practices somehow let some people who originally wouldn't dare relax with suffering and pain, they say, yeah, I guess I could relax with it under these circumstances. Like somebody's in pain and somebody gives them a gift, in their tents, somebody is generous towards them and they relax. So, There is a playfulness, there is a creativity, we're trying to enter that. But we need to do these practices to enter.

[75:55]

So that's entering the other dependent character phenomena. But in order to do that, you have to relax with the the images, the painful images, and then if you can let go of the clinging, you can realize the reality of the situation, and then you enter the other dependent character, the creative process of dependent co-horizon, which is going on all the time. We're talking about entering it by understanding. Sonya? The two words I want to bring in are empathy and liberation. Okay. Empathy and liberation. I was thinking, unfortunately, Linda was speaking, and then you were talking about holding things lightly, not appearing strongly, or holding things lightly.

[76:58]

It's not that you don't care anymore. It's just that it allows some space, and then you can... Maybe what happens is you empathize then, but there's room for empathy if you're not still identifying self and other, or situation. Yes. Hopefully there would be the possibility for empathy after you give up conceptual clinging. But I would also say you need to practice empathy to arrive at giving up conceptual clinging. The path to giving up conceptual clinging is to practice generosity, ethics, patience, and then relax and calm down. So you need to practice empathy along the way.

[78:01]

To be part of generosity is empathy. With yourself. With others. With yourself. Yes, you practice empathy with your own mind and with others. That's part of generosity and that's part of ethics. And it's part of patience, too. With yourself and with yourself in the presence of other people's behavior and other people's... Yeah, like someone insults you and you practice patience so that helps you then be able to be empathic with them, that you can handle the pain of them coming from and acting in an insulting way. So empathy would hopefully be facilitated leading up to tranquility and insight. And then after insight, it would be nice if it was still possible.

[79:01]

But again, as I mentioned before, in the summary of the Mahayana by Asanga, he says that the causes of entry into reality, the causes of knowing the reality of phenomena, this independence on the absence of conceptual clinging, getting to the place where there's an absence of conceptual clinging, the cause of that is practicing the six perfections. the result of entering into this practice of mystic perfections. It's just that after, you can practice them with considerably less addiction to conceptual clinging. So that's another way to talk about it. You're loosening your addiction to... conceptual grasping by entering the realm.

[80:04]

So when you enter the realm at that point, you do not know anything. You do not know for a while. And then when you resume knowing, you pick up the conceptual cleaning again but less. But you do the same practices before. So there would be empathy before this abandoning or absence of conceptual clinging, dash, did you say liberation? Yeah. There would be empathy leading to liberation and following it in this path. part of the advantage of liberation is not just that you're free, but that you're free from the... you become more and more free of the conditions which distract you from empathy. You become more... your capacity for empathy increases because of having abandoned conceptual grooming. And then you...

[81:07]

abandon it again. And your ability for empathy increases more. Then you abandon it again. But it's empathy and generosity and ethical thoroughness and patience. And, you know, empathy is great and necessary, but we're talking about being empathic and relaxed. Relax with pain. So you can relax with other people who are in pain and you can relax when you're in pain and you can relax when both of you are in pain. So two people who are in pain can play together and realize creativity together. And part of relaxing with pain is to be empathic for it. Right?

[82:11]

Because you have to recognize it to relax with it. Some people are denying their pain. But it's hard for them to relax with it. Got to get it out in front to relax with it. Are there any outstanding questions? Yes, Ken? Well, one more from Sonia. Well, I was wondering about the liberation part. Yeah. I can feel my mind trying to relax all these... you know, what you're saying, and the name. Anyway, it's not very easy right now inside here. And when I was just listening, I was thinking the whole point is kind of, for me, when you brought it in, but it's not the place name, but the point of all of this is actually That doesn't sound right there. Just move it towards liberation.

[83:11]

Yeah, I agree. The point is not to grasp all this stuff. The point is to be permeated by it. Permeate you. However, given who we are, in the permeation process, we try to grasp, well, since this stuff's going by, it's like bakshish, right? Since this stuff's going by, I might as well get a little money off it. You know, like I might, maybe I could become an expert since I'm being, you know, anyway. As you're permeated, you may notice this grasping, the point is not the grasping, the point is the permeation. Then we also have to practice this tranquility practice. And if we've been permeated, we practice a tranquility practice, then we can still notice when the grasping comes up because that will disturb the tranquility. So we can get more attuned to, like, I can work with these in a less grasping way. So now it's time pretty soon to go back and sit in the zendo and see if we can, like, let go of all this stuff that's permeated.

[84:13]

Because the point is not to get this stuff. The point is to be transformed And you are being transformed by it. In fact, it's happening. Yes? So, with something you were talking about, the liberation, I've been struggling, kind of, in generosity, I've been struggling with, like, that self-generosity versus greed. And I feel like... Like, I guess... I don't know what I'm trying to say. But just that, you know, there are things that I think I want, right? And there's maybe a happiness or a giddiness or it's fun to think about those things and maybe obsess about them sometimes.

[85:16]

And it feels very confining to let go of those, like completely. It feels less generous to me. You know what I'm saying? So, for example, I hear you saying that there's a way of thinking about letting go that doesn't seem generous. Yes. So, for example, I guess like the other night I offered things that we called burgers and they were shredded beets. It may have not been as much of a fun of a story to call them shredded beef patties, but it was a fun story to call them burgers, Coyote Ridge burgers. And so it was entertaining, but it wasn't true. I felt like I was calling for burgers, and I felt very tight. I'm trying to be happy. But then I have this great uprise when worst is offered. I have to have burgers rather than meat soup.

[86:26]

So you know where I'm going with that? Like there was that fine line in the dancing where I feel like I'm greedy, but also I want to be generous with myself, and I'm just struggling with that. That's a silly example. There's more serious examples. My hopes and dreams in this life, and that when I kind of let those go, I feel a headiness come on me. I feel a sadness come on me. Okay, so the abandoning of something, there was some possibilities in that story? Yes. But the abandonment, we're talking about it as abandonment that's based on being generous. So you start with generosity. You don't start with abandonment. So in the story you told, you and I are generous with your... that it seemed to be more interesting and creative to call them Coyote Ridge burgers than to call them shredded, but actually shredded beet burgers.

[87:32]

Somebody else might have thought, well, that's funny. I never heard of shredded beet, or I guess the burger part, right? Yeah, we have to draw a burger. But I feel like burger would be my attempt right now to be playful. Yes. And somebody else might say, might not be generous towards that. They might say, they might have some problem with that. And they might not be generous towards their own problem they have with you talking to them. This process would start for them by being generous towards the problem they have with you calling them burglars. and you to be generous towards them having a problem with you calling them burgers. And this is the way we'd move towards abandonment of the image of burgers and beets. But the imagery and the entry into the realization that what we're working with is our imagination, it starts with generosity towards the images you're working with. Don't try to get rid of them now.

[88:33]

try to really be open and generous and welcoming them. And then, you know, like there's some other things you could have called it that might have disturbed people. I don't know. I didn't hear anybody was disturbed by what you called them. We started with Coyote Burger, which we thought might have disturbed people. We're sitting there thinking it might have clarified the time. Okay, good. Oh, I see, yeah. Yeah. If you said coyote burgers, some people might have said, you know, I didn't really think you were serious, but I think that was kind of mean to say coyote. Even to think of serving coyotes, I find irritating. But coyote ridge burgers or green goat swamp burgers... Now that's, you know, I think we could say that. And you could talk, does that seem okay that you say Green Gulch Swamp Burger, Green Gulch Mud Burgers? So you're careful, you know. You think about whether you're being respectful and so on. And then you realize also that there's some pain in serving people and caring for them.

[89:43]

Now you're ready to move on and enter into a state of tranquility with this issue. And then actually realize freedom from the imagery. And if there's any greed involved in the process, be generous towards that too. And be careful of it. Because somebody might have thought of a really interesting name for these things and been kind of attached to it. So we have to be careful of that. That's the ethics part. You can be generous and greedy. It's possible. So you say, I got the generous part, but then I wanted to be this name. And I was kind of attached to that, so I was kind of careful of that. And I asked everybody, and they all said it was okay, but I still felt kind of, it was a little dangerous for me because it was my idea or whatever. So this is what, this kind of carefulness generosity and patience leads to the ability to calm down with this work that you're offering and then possibly to enter into insight about the nature of what we're doing here, that we're working with our minds.

[90:56]

And we can abandon this vision of it, which we can tolerate. Another way to say it is we can tolerate for a while not knowing what our life is. Just take a break from knowing. And we'll be able to take that break when we actually see that actually what we think about is absent in our life. That insight will liberate us and support us to tolerate some not knowing, which we just can't tolerate. Was there anything else? Yes? I want to go back to Sarah's question. Yes. As being something. As being the other kind of it. And I was wondering, and you said that it's a decision, but a name that's already a strong appearance. I don't think I said that.

[91:56]

It's a decision now. It says when you have a name... and then you associate it with an image, and now you think you know something, then that's strong adhering. But if you have a name, and you don't think you know anything, you're not strong adhering. Without thinking that you know it, yeah. If you did that, then you wouldn't be strong adhering. So in the example you gave about the monk, would that be an example of, it seemed like maybe he had strong adherence, but then he, the gold of the contrast between... He had two, two examples.

[92:57]

Right, so maybe that between them is strong adherence? Yeah, exactly. the jolt between them. He saw how the mind distorts, and he dropped the distorting power. He let go of it. Temporarily, he didn't get to know anything, but he understood conscious construction only. But you don't get to know the other dependent when you understand conscious construction only. But you do get to understand that it's conscious construction only. What you get to know is that any way of knowing it is not in it. That's superimposed. You get to know that. But you don't get to know it. You just get to know delusion is delusion. And he got to know that, so he had a good time after that.

[93:58]

That phrase of security is not always so, just leaked into my mind as not strongly apparent. Yeah, yeah, and also maybe so. The second thing is, I just... What you say, you know, maybe it's right. The menu writing and the effect that the menu has on the people coming to receive food is enormously, for me, a strong effect. And when it gets played around with, that may be creative and joking, but actually may not be so epic. I mean, there was a menu that was once written up Many, many years ago, that was, I mean, it was horrible. But it was all fooling around. So I bring up how that was worked with in terms of this menu plan.

[95:05]

And just I want to be on record to say it really matters. Thank you. Thank you, both of you. This is an example of, you know, the kitchen being generous, but then they have to be careful. patient with how careful they have to be. You know, this community is so complex and we have such a range of people and guests. It's really hard, you know. There's three kinds of things to be patient with. One is hardship. One is, you know, like hardship, like how complicated it is. And then there's insult, you know, and just regular pain. And then there's that things aren't produced. But it's a hardship to actually take into account the negativities of a community. That's actually hard. And we should welcome that and be careful of it and patient with it.

[96:09]

And then then making a menu with the community can be an opportunity to realize reality. I'm just like, okay, I'm going to realize the reality of menu. I'm going to practice shamatha vipassana with menu writing until you've actually realized that you're doing that with suffering beings all around you. A new insight came to my mind the other day which just popped in my head. Do the Jewish people appreciate the 23rd Psalm? Is it? So Jewish and Christian, at least. Anyway, I heard Aretha Franklin actually talking about it. And everybody knows. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff. I took that, huh?

[97:10]

They comfort me. When I heard her say that, I had my usual take on it. But then she said, thou preparest for me a meal. Thou preparest before me a meal, I think. What? Yeah. Thou preparest a table before me. And then she said, in the presence of my enemies. And I thought, what does that mean, in the presence of my enemies? And I thought, oh. we can receive nourishment even when we're surrounded by hardship. You know? That there's still possibility that nourishment will be provided when we're surrounded by difficulty. That enemies are not, you know, doesn't mean we can't be nourished. We have to focus on that. And a lot of situations are like that, right? And enemies can be the oppression of my own mind. that there's nourishment being put before me, and it's the teachings.

[98:13]

The teachings are right there. And then how do I, okay, I don't try to get rid of the enemy. Practice listening to the teachings and being, practicing empathy and so on with this situation and with the whole surround. Be glad to watch. Yeah, definitely. By the way, you are invited too. You're all invited. Welcoming the enemies would be part of the nourishment. Because they're there. My enemies are present. Richard. I had a question of A lot of what you said made it clarifying, but I'm still not quite sure. That you can know the other dependent by strongly adhering to it as the computational. And I guess what you're knowing is the defiled aspect of the other dependent.

[99:16]

a lot today and in the past about welcoming, generosity, intimacy with that experience which is all your own mind, right? And these teachings seem to be about doing that to the point where you get to see that other dependent is free of your imputations. But I'm sort of wondering, what's the relationship between strongly adhering to the other dependent as your imputations? On the one hand, suggests kind of a spasm almost, an addictive quality. But on the other hand, is there some relationship to relaxing, to the intimacy and welcoming and generosity that you're talking about? The relationship to what?

[100:22]

Is that strong adherence? Is it or can it be an attitude or a posture of generosity and relaxing? Or is that just the strong adherence is the wisdom and the relaxing is the... The strong adherence, like all phenomena, it also has another dependent character. The strong adherence is another phenomena that has this characteristic of dependent co-arising. It too, actually, has all this creativity in it, in playfulness. The rigidity of holding to our image of things as being them so that we can know them. That habit also has the same brilliant, inconceivable, wondrous nature beautiful nature as the enlightened mind.

[101:24]

It's the same nature. The way it actually is working is the working of the enlightened mind. So we don't have to stop that. We just have to let go of it. And we can let go of it, but in these practices. And when we let go of it, then we get to see The first thing you see is not that the other dependent nature of things is free of our ideas. You get to see that our ideas of the wondrous life we have are absent. There's a way that they're absent. Once you realize that they're absent, then you realize freedom of them. But absent doesn't mean they're destroyed. Because they themselves are part of the wondrous process. The imagination which we hold to defiles what we think we know. But that whole process has the same character as the enlightened mind.

[102:30]

So we should be gentle. So the defiling activity has the same three characteristics as the enlightening activity. So that's one of the big teachings here is that our basics of the dependent core rising quality of our life is both pure and impure. It's pure in the sense that it doesn't have anything to get a hold of. And it's impure in the sense that it allows itself to be grasped. It lets that happen. It supports grasping of itself, but grasping of itself is not itself. It can't be grasped. Yes. A little one who gave. You know, you had asked us to consider possibly helping to co-create a little study guide. Yes. A group that asked you to consider doing that thing upright.

[103:32]

If these classes were being taped and somebody would be generous just That in and of itself is study guide material. Yeah, I agree. In and of itself, I mean, these classes are really very dear. So it's a work in process. Yeah. So to recreate it is not necessary. It's already happening. But the particulars aren't being helped. It's not being taped. It is. It's not being taped. Sometimes, yeah, sometimes the taping works, right? Part is also already translated. Part is also that someone is thinking about a study guide. Okay. As you said, it's a work in progress.

[104:34]

And are you willing to continue? But if you'd like to just finish everything off this life and become enlightened and have that be all there is to it, that's also welcome. Yes? Empathy seems like such a positive thing. The impure thing about emptiness, about empathy, is that you would think that you would strongly adhere that your idea of empathy is what it is. That would be the impure. That would be the impure characteristic of empathy. We think our ideas of empathy is really what empathy is. That's the impure. The pure part of it is the absence of our ideas of empathy in empathy. And the empathy, the basic character of empathy is that it's a necessary part of the experience.

[105:45]

Yes? I would like some help with when I practice. I feel like you keep emphasizing welcoming, welcoming, whatever it is. And this is somewhat permeating me a little bit. However, I've lately been feeling the kindness getting stuck a little bit. I have to move for that to work better. Welcome that too. Welcome the sense something has to move. I guess I wanted to ask if you had a personal story when that... Like, for instance, you told the story of... Okay, I do. But before I tell my story, I just want to say that there's a thing here of you're having your experience and this thought, I'm stuck, the thought, I feel something needs to move, along with everything else.

[107:01]

And I'm saying, welcome the thought, I'm stuck. Welcome the thought, something has to move. And if you're really welcoming, something has to move, then also be careful of it. So we say you can move in the Zendo, but move carefully. Move quietly. Move in such a way that you don't... positive, move in such a way that you encourage the other people in the zendo. Like they feel like, oh, she's moving, but I feel the kindness of the way she's moving. She's considered of us and she's taking care of herself. You know, you're ethical about the way you help something move. And then you're patient in the process because maybe as you're in this process, things haven't really got to where you'd like them to be yet, but you're not concerned with that. You're like in the present. So you're either entertaining the thought of moving, or you actually are moving, and you're like there in the present with it.

[108:10]

And this benefits that that thought, that image, something has to move. It benefits it. And any stress around it benefits the other people you're practicing with. They can feel you're practicing compassion. Okay? Yeah, yeah. So here's a story. See if this applies. So I met Tassajara. I'm in the position of being abbot of And the Founders Hall at Tassajara has this mud on the walls, and the mixture for the mud was, according to Japanese climate conditions, but Tassajara is so dry, the mud was cracking and falling off the walls, so there was ideas of... And so somebody told me one of the ideas was take the mud off, put sheetrock up, and then put... What's the stuff you put on it? Huh?

[109:11]

Stucco. Put stucco on. And I thought, oh, fine. And then somebody else said, you know, there's a... in the mud, which will help it withstand dry climates. And, you know, it still would be mud, but it would have this chemical. And I thought, oh, that's a good idea, too. And Paul Disko, my dumber brother who built the Caesando, he probably would like that. Sounds better. That's probably a better way. And then I thought about it, and I thought, it really is a better way. Actually, it's definitely a better way. Just a second. Sorry, it's not over. So this will be me saying that I started to notice that I really started to cling to this idea.

[110:13]

So my example is clinging to an idea about how something should be done. It's a tangible physical thing, but also it's that I was actually thinking that way, I thought that way is best, so I was holding to the idea of best way. best way for my friend. So I was both holding an idea and it was connected to a position. So am I losing you now by this example? No, you're not losing me. I guess I'm thinking about the training around being a gracious host. Okay. And I've had it so endemic that in my being it's really challenging. Oh, you have a rich host. Being what it means to be a host, that metaphor? Yeah. Okay, so you're... We can change the story, okay? The story is, I had an idea about what generosity meant.

[111:14]

And someone had something they wanted me to do. This would be the way to be a generous host in this case. And I actually thought this would actually be not just a generous way, but probably under the various alternatives that people are suggesting, this way of being a generous host would be the best. And I noticed I'm starting to hold on to it. And the way I noticed it was that when people were discussing the various possibilities, and I suggested what I thought would be best, when I said it to somebody, they almost fell over because there's so much charge on it. So I noticed, oh, I think this is generosity. I know it's good, and I know the various qualities. I know what's the best generosity, and I notice I'm holding on to it. So there it is. We found it. we're actually not in a relationship to the idea of welcoming.

[112:22]

We're getting attached to the idea of welcoming. So this is a really kind of involuted but interesting story. So then I go to the Zendo and I sit down and, you know, during practice periods sometimes I'm quite calm sitting there. In particular, I feel like, well, I'm in a position of habit so I shouldn't be calm. Everybody's supporting me to sit and be calm. And so here I am, calm. But that day I sat there and I thought, whoa, I'm really not calm. This mind is really agitated. Wow. And I was kind of embarrassed. I'm sitting in this seat. If people knew how agitated I was, they'd probably say, what are you doing sitting there? Get off there. Anyway, I was embarrassed how agitated my mind was and sitting on the abbot's seat. And I got this image of, in the Blue Clip record, Dung Shan talks about three types of outflows.

[113:25]

And one of the kinds of outflows is called the outflow of holding to, you know, fixed ideas. For example, what generosity is. It says, when you hold to your fixed ideas, you're thrown into the sea. And I felt like I was in a poisonous sea. And I knew what I was there, I knew why I was there, because I was holding to this idea of generosity. In a way, what I was doing was kind of my idea of generosity towards my friend. I wanted to protect that building and my friend. I was holding to it. But then I also saw how that holding affected my sitting. My sitting was thrown into turbulence. And I was just really embarrassed. And then this voice came. The voice was clearly observed. And I heard that voice, and it was calm. And I let go of what I thought was the best thing to do. I just let go of it.

[114:27]

I still thought it was the best. I still had, for example, an idea of what generosity was. But I let go of it. So, in practicing generosity in meditation, Of course we do. But we also let go of our idea of what generosity is. And if we notice that we're holding on to our idea of generosity, we'll notice that it disturbs our mind. And then we should just clearly observe, I am like, what is it, I'm becoming very self-aware of generosity. I think I know what it is. And I'm very agitated because of that. And I should just clearly observe generosity. In that case, it was just this wonderful timing. That word came, and I just let go. I just let go of how to do the walls. My mind was calm, and I never said another word about it. And they did it the way I suggested. And I don't know why they did it that way.

[115:29]

I thought they would take revenge on me because I was being so rigid about it, but it was a good way to do it, and the walls are still pretty much up. So, practicing generosity with what's happening while you're sitting, then also practice generosity towards your idea of generosity. And you'll probably get stuck on your generosity sometimes. probably get rigid about this is the way i should do in this way rather than i really don't know how to be generous that's kind of that's kind of generous but then don't hold on to that either did we address it great thanks that was very interesting thank you yes I mean, it's like the only relatives that have ever died have died during the time when I was on an intensive sitting. And so two days ago, it happened again, and I started sitting this intensively causing it, but it's just going, you know, synchronistic.

[116:44]

Well, it might be that your calming down helps them calm down. I mean, so, but basically what happened was that a couple of days ago, I started having a voice saying, you need to get a flower sent to someone. And then it started saying, you need to buy a flower, have a flower sent to someone. And then I suddenly started bursting into sobbing for no apparent reason. And then I got a loud, strong message that I should call. I called my daughter, and she said, your sister's husband died suddenly in a bicycling accident. And this is the first time my sister's ever really had a deep, connected love in her life, and she's only been with this man for two years. And she recently had a very hard time accepting the loss of our money.

[117:47]

Anyway, so this sister had viciously attacked me when I had some emotional problems. And she waited six months and did it in my mother's hospital room when my mother was dying. And I found it very cruel, and I left the hospital sobbing that day. I haven't spoken with her since. So here, I'm physically manifesting sobbing, realizing I missed my sister's grief. And she's in terrible pain right now. She's maybe in big trouble, you know, inside. And so... Do I do anything? I realized I needed to, number one, forgive her and make a lot of space and compassion around her.

[118:51]

And suddenly I was given the equipment to forgive her. And I'd be noticing that at that time when she was hysterical over my mother's death, that she also has a belief that this kind of forceful scolding that she was doing is a form of love, that it's a form of expressing love. I suddenly have those two understandings. I was able to let go of what she had done and I asked my daughter, sent flowers, and write, go to the office, buy a card, write a card to her, and put it in the mailbox, and it was complete. But in that process, something got revealed to me, and that is that my whole life, because of witnessing trauma happening to other people, that I had...

[119:55]

Psychically, without bounding, like you were talking about cancer. Earlier today, you were talking about the cancer. It's a good thing that there's a boundary. The integrity of an entity. Well, that's where I got... This body had absorbed a lot of the dharma that really didn't happen to me. I witnessed it. So I became really sensitized. So today, sitting in tranquility in this room, whatever emotions, I got to watch that they were passing through the room. And then when emotions started to pass through this body, anticipating talking about this, I got to watch these emotions passing through the room. So now instead of being in the presence of my enemies,

[121:08]

I would say that the enemies of this lifetime have been intense and mine are not grabbing me by the throat and strangling me into something well now they're in the room and tranquility or not tranquility I can remember them in the room and necessarily mine because That's enough this morning.

[121:45]

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