Okay, so I tried to coordinate three kinds of mind which embrace our life and which our life embraces. And the two approaches to directly realizing the way and three kinds of wisdom, three kinds of insight, and three kinds of compassion. And anything else? Any other threes? And then I wrote down the bottom here, so writing the three minds, conscious mind, unconscious mind, and wisdom, wisdom filled with compassion mind.

[01:03]

That number three, number two, in the realm of consciousness, there can be celebration of number three. And that celebration of number three transforms number one. So the celebration occurs in the conscious realm. In the conscious realm, we can celebrate Buddha's wisdom and compassion. In the conscious realm of thinking, in the realm of thinking, we can celebrate Buddha's wisdom and compassion which is beyond thinking.

[02:15]

So the celebration of Buddha's wisdom is in communication or communion with Buddha's wisdom. The activities in active consciousness, the thinking in thinking consciousness, can celebrate what is beyond thinking. the human activities for us in the realm of consciousness can celebrate that which is beyond human agency. So the zazen that's celebrated in the chant that we do at noon service, what's being celebrated there is the third type of of meditation.

[03:17]

What's being celebrated there is activity which is beyond human activity. One slight adjustment in this presentation is that I said the first two kinds of compassion occur within the thinking conscious mind. And the third type of wisdom and compassion occurs in the third type. Again, the first two types of wisdom and compassion occur in consciousness. The third type occurs in the third type. But actually, we do a perceptible version of the third type of compassion and wisdom in consciousness. And we do that practice until we realize the third type in which there is no discrepancy or no difference between the conscious activity and the activity beyond consciousness.

[04:40]

or I should say, the activity of conscious mind and that which is beyond the activity of the conscious mind. So the practice of sitting that we do is partly in something we can think about and which we can perceive And we do that practice as a celebration of the practice which is beyond our celebration. We think about it to celebrate something that's beyond our thinking. We praise it consciously. to celebrate, to honor, to worship, to pay homage to that which is beyond our conscious activity.

[05:42]

And we do that in wholehearted sitting for the sake of realizing that they're not the least bit separate. what's not separate, the activities in consciousness and the activities of perfect wisdom and compassion, which are beyond consciousness. But totally embrace it and save it, liberate it. Yes, a clarification. Two what? Two what? Terms. Yes. What's the difference? Why are there two here?

[06:46]

Oh, and here? Well, the Karuna's there because, kind of because Linda asked us to put it in. Because this is, we're talking about bodhisattva and Buddha, and it has, it's full of compassion. So we're honoring that this type of compassion is united with Karuna. This type of wisdom is united with compassion. And Linda's had some trouble with it. She said, how can there be wisdom without compassion? You could imagine that somebody who knew how to get out of prison, a skillful prison escape artist, who got out of prison and then maybe got put back in again and got out again. There's people like that that do that, right? They escape from prison repeatedly.

[07:49]

These people have wisdom escaping, escaping prison wisdom. But they might not be concerned about anybody else in the prison getting out. They might or they might not. If they want to help the other people, well then, their wisdom is coming together with caring for others. But some people actually do want to get out and know how to get out. And the Buddha was okay with that in the early teaching of teaching people how to get out of consciousness. How to escape from human agency. most humans are trapped in human agency. Because human agency is like an enclosed world view. And in that enclosed view is the wish to get out of it. But that's just more of the same view. Compassion is different. Wisdom is different from that, but not the slightest bit separate.

[08:53]

So the bodhisattva practice we're trying to eliminate the difference between saving self and others, the separation between saving self and other, the separation between consciousness and the objects of consciousness. These things appear separate, but they live together. They're part of the same process. Like I said yesterday morning, for the precept of not stealing, the comment is, in the suchness of mind and objects, the doors of liberation open. So by practicing the three types of compassion in the realm of thinking consciousness, in practicing the... Did I say three? The first two kinds, by practicing the first two kinds of compassion in the realm of consciousness, and by practicing the first two kinds of insight in the realm of consciousness,

[10:00]

we become liberated from the realm of self-conscious thinking consciousness and we open and enter the wisdom and compassion which is free of consciousness and is also free to care for and liberate consciousness. So it's liberated from consciousness and then it plunges back into consciousness and liberates consciousness and plunge it back into consciousness and liberates. It just keeps working all the consciousnesses that there are until they're all free. All the self-consciousnesses, all the thinking consciousnesses. The wisdom and compassion is working them, is embracing and sustaining them. And in the process of embracing and sustaining these thinking consciousnesses, they become liberated. And then some people, some consciousnesses think, well, what would happen if they all got liberated?

[11:08]

And, yeah, so we can think about what that would be like, but we're not there yet. There's more consciousnesses to be embraced and sustained and liberated. It seems, anyway, in my consciousness, it seems so. a lot of conscious beings come and tell me that they feel trapped in karmic consciousness and want to get out. So we practice compassion with the wish to get out. And some of them want to, or feel trapped in karmic consciousness, want to free other beings from karmic consciousness. And we practice compassion towards their wish to free other beings. And some of them wish to attain Buddhahood in order to free other beings. And we pray compassion with that thought, which is bodhicitta. We practice compassion for it. We don't exactly pity it. We kind of pity it in the sense of, oh, poor little baby bodhicitta. You aren't grown up yet.

[12:12]

But anyway, it's basically we take care of we nurture some of the thoughts in karmic consciousness with compassion and we understand them by practicing analysis and conversation with them, vipassana, if for instance. So again, our sitting in the zendo can be partly the first two types of wisdom and it could be partly the third type when there's no separation between the imperceptible, magnificent working of Buddhism, wisdom, and compassion, when there's not the slightest difference between that and our human activity practice. Like it says this morning, the way is basically perfect and all-pervading. And yet if there's the slightest discrepancy, it's like our practice, our human activity, our attempts at compassion and wisdom, and the inconceivably all-pervasive and effective activity of the Buddhas, it's like they're really different if we believe in any separation between

[13:42]

So we sit to basically become free of any slightest discrepancy between the way which is basically perfect and all-pervading and our momentary conscious efforts. And we use our momentary conscious efforts to celebrate, to worship, to pay homage, and to try to practice the Buddha's practice. But our attempts, our perceptible attempts, do not reach, but it reaches us. And the more we get rid of the sense of difference between reaching and being reached, that's another difference to let go of. So we sit to kind of integrate our practice and Buddha's realization. They never are separate. But if we think there are, then it's almost like they are, more or less.

[14:45]

So that's just kind of an overview of the overview which I've tried to present. And again, all this activity could be seen as in the first way of direct realization, which is listening to the teaching and discussing the teaching. And then our sitting practice, a wholehearted sitting, learns how to work with our activity and the Buddha's activity our practice and the Buddha's realization to work with them and make them basically one practice. Because, as I also said this morning, all Buddhas are on the same path and all Buddhas are practicing with each of us.

[15:51]

So this is already going on. It's a matter of practicing in accord with Buddha's practice. Yeah, accord with it. Another translation would be to follow it. No, please don't ask questions without your mask on. Please don't speak. If you want to speak, then we raise our hands, put the mask on, go to the mic, and so on. Okay. So is that enough presentation for me on the final day? Did I summarize this teaching well enough? If you have any questions about it, please let me know. I'll go over it again and again and again until we're all clear about it and then we can practice it. Yes.

[16:52]

Yes, please. Okay, thank you, Tenshin, for the explanation. I see today that the celebration part was added and seems very important in that with the celebration we're celebrating something that is already here, not bringing anything into existence. And sometimes I noticed in my own, especially previous practice, I had an idea that I was practicing to attain something. And as soon as I'm trying to attain something, that something is a moment in the future from what's happening right now.

[18:05]

And it creates that hairs difference and I feel separation. So it seems to me that what you were talking about on the first day that direct hit right now is here now. It's a direct hit here now because here now is where it's at. And we can celebrate that through our practice but we can't really attain that through our practice. Is that true? Well, I could say yes or I could say no. When we celebrate it, at that moment we attain it. But don't we have it already? Yeah. And that's why we're celebrating it. And that's why we celebrate it. But if we don't celebrate it, we kind of, then we kind of don't attain it. Even though it's already here.

[19:08]

Just like if we don't study ourselves, even though we're already ourselves, we're not really ourselves. We don't realize it. We have to study ourselves to realize that we're already ourselves. that's part of the way we are is that we're study machines or we're study beings and in order to and also we're compassionate beings so if we don't in the realm of conscious mind if we don't consciously practice compassion then it's like we don't realize that we're already compassionate, and also that we're already being embraced by compassion. But the studying also can create sort of a sense of separation because... Well, it's not so much that the study creates it, but that in the study our habit to separate things can live there too. Yeah, to know it. Yeah, like eating breakfast doesn't necessarily create a sense of separation from food.

[20:13]

But we have these, and part of the work is to study the consciousness. That's part of the work of celebrating Buddha, is to celebrate the teachings of studying the consciousness where we discover these afflictions in the mind and practice compassion towards them. And some of the afflictions are the built-in quality of consciousness to create a separation between subject and object. So it's not so much that the food or that the practice creates the separation, but the food that appears or the practice that appears in consciousness is seen as separate. So it's just practicing without that perception of separation. Did you say practicing without separation? Yeah. It's not so much without.

[21:15]

It's more like it's practicing by being compassionate towards the appearance of separation until you realize thoroughly that it's an illusion. It's not a real separation. It's a mental construction that's usually present in consciousness. And we can see that and not be fooled by it anymore without getting rid of it. If it wasn't there, what would happen when it comes back? We need to be able to deal with it without being fooled by it. So it's not like get rid of all trickery of consciousness. It's more like practice compassion with all the tricks and become free of them. Because knowing, again, knowing how to deal with the tricks helps other people, which is a great joy to teach them how to not be caught by the tricks. Thank you. You're welcome. And it does say in the Heart Sutra, you know, breaking up the Heart Sutra in English, with nothing to attain a bodhisattva, with nothing to attain a bodhisattva.

[22:24]

So it's not so much that they don't attain anything, they just have nothing to attain because they already have it. Right? Anything else? Yes. Sam. That's your sport? I think you can turn the mic, yeah. A quick clarification on getting hit. On what? Getting hit. Did you say... A quick clarification of... Getting hit. Did you say... Getting hit? Yeah. Yeah. Is that mysterious, like the hit, or is the effort included? Well, I'd say it's kind of mysterious because... In the hitting, the hitting is not separate from you.

[23:25]

The hit is to hit the mark of being where you already are. So one translation would be, again, hit the mark and settle down. But hit the mark also could be translated as right here. So The hitting is to be right here. It's to settle down right here. So again, hit the mark is sometimes translated as immediate. I'm getting confused again. Right here is immediate, and then hitting the mark is also translated as settle down. Which is a product of mystery? It's kind of a mystery to settle down where you already are. It's kind of mysterious. So effort is just working the precepts or the ethics and then just hoping for something perhaps to occur?

[24:34]

Yeah, and hoping for something is a thing, a phenomena, which we can be right there for. And being right there, completely right there for the wishing... to attain something, settle down there and directly realize the way with that. Thanks. You're welcome. Yes. Linda. You said that in early Buddhism, some people knew that they felt they were in a prison and the Buddha taught some stuff and they've learned how to escape from prison.

[25:45]

You said that, right? Probably. You can go on. Yeah. Did you say yes? I don't know. I couldn't hear you. You didn't hear me? No. Oh. You probably said it right. In early Buddhism... Are you... Should I say it again? Okay. Okay. Two people who have hearing aids. You said you didn't hear me right. All right. In early Buddhism... Okay. You said that some people in early Buddhism learned from the Buddhist teachings how they could escape from a prison. Yeah. And they did. Yeah. But I don't think they did. I think that they were still in prison when they thought they escaped.

[26:49]

if they weren't concerned about the other people left behind, they were deluded about that they had escaped. Oh, okay. I can see that. Maybe they escaped a little prison, they didn't escape a big prison. Right. So they escaped the prison of their own consciousness, but they didn't escape the prison of all beings' consciousness. Yeah. And the Buddha probably understood that. Yeah, Buddha did. Early Buddhism has the Metta Sutta and I think it has the Jataka stories. But it also has the story of the Buddha. Yeah. So I've always thought that Buddhism from the beginning taught that wisdom and compassion are one. Yeah, I think you're right. But people understood it or were interested in those teachings from the point of view of them becoming free.

[27:52]

And they didn't become free in the way that they wanted to be free. And Buddha was like, you know, good work, kids. That's great. I'm so happy for you. And he didn't say, and by the way, you're bodhisattvas. And he didn't say that. And then later he said, in the Lotus Sutra, he said, well, we became arhats, we became free, and now we're all pooped out, and now you tell us we can be Buddhas. We're very happy to hear this. But early on he didn't sort of emphasize that you got out of your personal prison, you know how to get out, but you haven't yet taken on the work, the real joy of working for all beings. Of course, these people were often very compassionate they didn't necessarily have the vow to liberate all beings. That statement is not floating around in the early teachings. And then at a certain point it's everywhere. At a certain point it becomes the main issue. So another distinction is the Buddha taught people how to develop personal purity.

[29:00]

And they did that and they were successful. And then later, the Buddha in the Mahayana teaches not so much about personal purity, although it's still good. It talks more about compassion as higher value than personal purity. So it's a new understanding of the precepts. And you can say that if you look at the Buddha, you can see the compassion in the early teaching. there isn't that much teaching about the Buddha saying, you know, let's help. You should learn how to help others. It's not emphasized. And yet people did become free and they're wonderful afterwards and during and it was all great. And then one theory is that these people who were on this personal liberation vehicle and maybe even some that became free, the emphasis on compassion gradually got even more, less prevalent. And so the Mahayana was kind of like a refreshment and revitalization of compassion as being really important.

[30:07]

Some of these people even seem to like not like the world, kind of like they disliked it rather than seeing its problems and kind of wanted to stay away from it. It seems something like that may have happened that these successful escapees started to like hate the prison and not want to go back in there and help these other people. So something like that can happen. But the Buddha didn't do that. The Buddha became free and totally went back into the weeds and the suffering of the world to teach the Dharma. So his example was there, but he didn't say, you guys should be like me. Well, I don't know why he didn't say that, but he was that. Yeah. And some people say that the Mahayana didn't really take off in India. Because Indians are really, a lot of them are really like, the world is really a place of suffering.

[31:12]

And so getting out of here is a really good idea. The idea of staying on again and again to help people is like Just silly or, you know, forget that. But somehow the Chinese kind of thought, okay, that sounds great. But it wasn't just that. It was a lot of other gorgeous sutras and stuff surrounding that idea. But some people say that the Indians just didn't have the mentality for, like, staying in the world forever to help people. That's kind of a tough thing to say, but there's some scholars. As part of the reason why maybe we thought, no, Mahayana, not right now. Let's start with this individual vehicle thing. So the last thing I'll say is just in my own practice, what I feel is that I go through those stages where I'm trying to escape from some prison situation

[32:14]

And then it seems like I do, but then I see that I'm still in some prison, and then I keep going. Yeah. And also another thing that they say is that in the early teaching there was not so much emphasis on nirvana being inseparable from samsara. And because there wasn't much emphasis on that, for other reasons too, people started to think, oh, let's go to nirvana and stay away from samsara. But the Buddha became free of samsara and re-entered it. The Buddha did attain freedom, nirvana, and demonstrated that they're inseparable by re-engaging samsara. But people, some people saw that he was teaching them how to get out of samsara. Thank you. And the word samsara was there before, as you know, before Buddha came along. So people had this idea of samsara and nirvana before

[33:19]

And he said, well, I got a way to nirvana. And he didn't sound strange. And I got a way to go from nirvana back into samsara. Didn't strongly emphasize that. But the bodhisattva does attain nirvana and gives it up. And the bodhisattva teachings say, we've got to be very careful in nirvana because we do not want to stop there. We want to re-enter. I think a lot of Mahayana practitioners would say it's all in the early teachings. The Buddha was demonstrating the Mahayana. He just didn't use the word, I don't think, much. So now we use the word quite a bit. Yes. Yes, please.

[34:22]

And the bodhisattvas do not want to talk about Mahayana. They don't want to praise it in any way to diminish the personal vehicle. The personal vehicle is a wonderful practice and bodhisattvas can use it. it can be very useful to bodhisattvas. And our bodhisattva practice really is encouraged and supported by the individual vehicle, just like that chant we do on evening service. we dedicate the merit to all the great sages in the ocean of enlightenment, in the 16 great arhats. We want, we recognize their great attainment. We honor it. So, and one more thing I want to say is, which I didn't emphasize so much, is that Celebrate, and consciously celebrating number three transforms number one.

[35:35]

I didn't emphasize that, just now. Did you get that? Celebrate, number two celebrates number three and transforms number one. So, number two celebrates three and transforms one. When we celebrate, when we consciously celebrate Number three, at that very moment, number one is transformed. Repeat. Our conscious efforts And our thinking mind, when it celebrates, number three, at the very moment of celebration, number one, the unconscious process, which is our unconscious cognitive activity and the neurons, the body which support that, they are transformed at that very moment.

[36:39]

So by doing this practice over and over, by consciously celebrating Buddha's wisdom and compassion, we transform the basis of consciousness. Consciousness is based, number two is based on number one. But number one has also been transformed by quite a few moments where we were not consciously celebrating the Buddha's wisdom and compassion, where we were celebrating something else. something maybe not kind or not wise. And that, at that moment, transformed the basis of consciousness. This is the storehouse of karmic consequence. So what we do in consciousness transforms the storehouse at that very moment, and then that becomes a support. So this whole process of number two celebrating number three transforming number one, number one setting up number two celebrating number three transforming This gradually transforms the basis of our consciousness to be more and more supportive of celebration of wisdom and compassion.

[37:50]

And the word celebration, I believe, has the etymology of to frequent. So we celebrate, we frequently remember and pay attention to Buddha's wisdom and compassion. And another thing I say, there's a verse for bowing which is, person bowing, person bowed to, their nature, no nature, my body, other's body, not too. my body and Buddha's body, not two. This practice is to let go of any distinction between number one and number two by celebrating number two, by celebrating number three and number one. And more and more that celebration transforms the basis so that not only do we think that, but our body has changed and we actually are physically more and more

[38:56]

in alignment with no separation between self and other, and with no separation between conscious effort and effort beyond consciousness. So this process changes our unconscious and our body. Yes, I don't know if you remember what you wanted to talk about. Actually, it's helpful because it was connected to all of that. I'm wondering if you could talk about how faith develops and I guess just how do we celebrate something authentically that's beyond perception? Like does it become available to perception? Do we look for where it is available to perception or do we imagine or just like frequent it? Those are two questions. One is, where does faith come from? Is that the first one? How does faith come? How to develop faith in something that's beyond perception. How to develop faith in something that's beyond perception.

[39:59]

Well... There's many ways, but one way might be to develop faith in something beyond perception is to develop faith in something that is within perception. And then sometimes the thing within perception, after you develop faith in it, it says to you, oh, by the way, I'm actually not what you think I am. And then the thing you perceive, which you trust, tells you more about how it's not what you perceive. And because you have faith in maybe who's talking, when who's talking tells you that they're not what you're perceiving, you maybe like gradually understand them better and have more and more faith that it might be okay to listen to that teaching. But I think not too many people develop at the beginning faith in what they can't perceive.

[41:08]

I think they start by faith in something that that they can perceive, and they say, that's what I want to bet on. That's what I want to give my life to. And then if what they believe in is like Buddhist teaching, then the teaching gradually, hopefully, skillfully lets them know that what they think the teaching is in this realm of thinking is a limited kind of distortion of it. However, there's ways of working with what's going on here to actually open to the imperceptible thing that is actually the source of this perceptible thing you saw. So another aspect of this is that, and I skipped over, but where does the faith come from? The faith comes from often, the faith can come from

[42:14]

a perceptible thing which you feel that you're in communion with and faith arises. But it can also come from an imperceptible thing and you don't know where the faith comes from. You don't see, but suddenly you have faith. But it comes from communion between basically the object of faith, which is both perceptible and imperceptible in communion with the person. And also the faith can also be something that is imperceptible. So you can meet a perceptible person and an imperceptible faith can come up. You can also meet a person and have a perceptible faith that comes up. You can also imperceptibly meet a person and have a perceptible or imperceptible faith come up. And the same with the special thing called bodhicitta, which is a little bit different from faith.

[43:22]

It's a very special kind of faith in attaining Buddhahood, but you can have other kinds of faith. And Again, part of the circulation is that those who realize, number three, they out of compassion, engage with number two. So they let the imperceptible, or they even are creative with the imperceptible to make it perceptible to have conversations with beings in conscious human realms. So in that case, the imperceptible makes itself perceptible. And then once one is practicing, one might be asked by another perceptible being to have a conversation about the imperceptible and see if the two conscious beings can both bring the imperceptible into the perceptible, for example, language.

[44:37]

So by talking, which is perceptible, we bring in we bring in the unconscious mind, because the language is based there, together with the imperceptible. And we gradually integrate these three realms because the imperceptible has integrated them. So once we have some realization of the imperceptible, we demonstrate a realization in the perceptible. That's the testing ground. for the imperceptible. We don't really test the imperceptible in the imperceptible, as far as I know. But we do test it in the perceptible because that's the point of it. To test it in the perceptible so that people can work with it and start celebrating it and realizing it.

[45:42]

Could you follow that? Partly. And then I guess the second question is, like, do you need to have faith in order to practice celebration of great wisdom and great compassion? Well, you know, in Zen centers, sometimes people have faith in sitting but they don't necessarily see that their sitting is a celebration of the sitting of the Buddha, the sitting of the Buddha which is beyond their ideas of sitting. They have faith in a perceptible sitting. Like they have an idea of what sitting is and they think they want to do that. And they do it and they feel good about it. But they mostly think, I'm sitting because I feel good about sitting. And I think it helps the world or helps me.

[46:43]

But they aren't necessarily thinking, I'm sitting here to celebrate the Buddha's sitting, which is not limited to my idea of sitting. because the Buddha sitting is sitting with everybody, and I'm sitting pretty much with myself and maybe some other people in this room. And I like that sitting, but I don't see, and I have faith in that sitting. I practice it. In other words, I practice consciously sitting. But I don't see my sitting practice as a celebration of a practice which is beyond my thinking and beyond my conscious activity. I don't think I'm doing that. However, now that you've heard this teaching, you might think that your sitting is not only something you think you enjoy or you think is good, but it's also a celebration of something beyond all your ideas.

[47:53]

something that's free of your conscious mind. And also you might think it not only is free of it, but it frees it. And it sends the message of how to deal with my conscious mind in such a way as to become free. So I'm celebrating freedom from my conscious mind. I'm consciously celebrating freedom from my conscious mind. and I could have faith in doing that practice. If I heard somebody say that celebrating what's beyond might be helpful to realizing what's beyond. Celebrating freedom from conscious activity might be conducive to realizing freedom from conceptual activity. part of the reason I might think that is because I read texts written, celebrate, which are, so the chant at noon and also Fugan Zazengi, they're celebrating it, so hmm.

[49:10]

And not only that, but the Fugan Zazengi, so the chant at noon service is celebrating, directly celebrating that that mind beyond thinking, the imperceptible realm of Buddha's wisdom and compassion. Fugan Zazengi is also celebrating the ritual of celebration. it's telling you how to do the celebration. The chant at noon is telling you what the thing that we're celebrating is kind of like. It gives a hint of how the enlightenment's resonating over to you and back from you to all things. And so it tells you about that stuff which we cannot perceive. So it talks, it works the imperceptible. In the book Gansazengi it says, sit and do that and that celebrates that. So those two actually are both, if you hear things like that over and over, you say, well, maybe I'd like to do that too.

[50:18]

I'd like to be devoted to something that's beyond my perception. Since it's being celebrated in this temple, maybe I'll join the celebration. So that would be a growth in your faith in the imperceptible and faith in celebrating it. And see that the ancestors are the people that you appreciate. They celebrated. Like Siddharth Garshi's teacher was known for having a callus on his forehead from celebrating the imperceptible. I think maybe she goes next. Is that right? Maybe? Okay. for Anne, Landau, Marie, Tracy, Kat, and Abbess, but I think maybe you're next.

[51:28]

Because the word celebrate is a verb, for me it seems like it's an important vehicle. And in looking to find a way to do it that's a receiving, because I believe what's imperceptible is... that sort of a gift, or it comes out of receiving in a surprise, sort of the creative intuition. And so I think what I'm hearing you say, and you can correct me, is that in showing compassion to all the ugly things that aren't working or the judgments or the failures or the divides, while also showing compassion to the beauty and the connection somehow,

[52:55]

There's a switch flipped, so the unconscious... Could you stop just for a second there? Because what you said, I'd like to celebrate the first part of what you said. You said, I think you might have said, by being compassionate towards the unlovely, did you say? Ugly or unlovely. By being compassionate to the ugly or whatever. Right. Conscious by being consciously compassionate to the ugly or whatever. Right. that's good. And I would say it's kind of good. If you do it, you might find it's good. But it could also be seen as a celebration of compassion for all things. So I'm not consciously being compassionate to this painful thing or this painful person. I'm working to liberate this painful feeling on this painful person. I'm doing all the compassion practices of generosity and sorry, consciously with this.

[53:59]

And my conscious effort is also a celebration of a compassion which doesn't have objects. So my conscious compassion has objects. like this suffering, this confusion. By practicing with that, it's good, it develops compassion. But now we're adding in another layer, which is saying, and make this or offer this compassion practice as a celebration or as an offering to a compassion which doesn't have objects. So my compassion has objects, my compassion which has objects I practiced and it's good to practice it, has many blessings, and it actually also can be used as an offering to another compassion which is beyond

[55:00]

all human agency. Again, you can practice something without it being a celebration of something else or something in addition. or with it. So, yeah, so that's, you got the compassion right, and then celebration, I would say, brings the practice to perfection, to fulfillment. I guess the only thing about that that brings up a question, because I do find it's very vital to practice compassion without an object, But what I get from spending a little time in the first or the second is that the parts of the world or myself, the little harming parts of me or the demons in me or whatever, they seem to crave compassion for themselves before it's just a compassion. You know what I mean? They kind of feed the engine.

[56:03]

They're not fully enlightened Buddhas. So they're calling for compassion for themselves, not for everybody else. Right. And that's what they want. And that's what's being called for. So that would be good to consciously give them that. Right. Thank you. You're welcome. One more thing about that. Yeah, so, again, if I... Oh, what I was going to say is that sometimes, you know, someone could come in here and sit down and give a nice Dharma talk, which would be nice. Somebody else might come in here, or the same person might come in here, and before they give this nice Dharma talk, they go to the altar and they might bow down to the ground before they give the Dharma talk

[57:09]

to pay homage and celebrate an understanding which is beyond their understanding. They're going to come now and consciously share their understanding with us, which is great. But before they share their understanding with us, they pay homage to what's beyond their understanding. And some situations people come and give good Dharma talks, but they don't acknowledge, they don't bow to an altar before they give the Dharma talk. Some scholars are really well-educated in Buddhism, but they don't necessarily go into the lecture hall and offer to Buddha and bow to Buddha before they give their talk about Buddhism. So our tradition is kind of the speaker humbles herself and then gives this Dharma talk because what she's saying is in the realm number two. to other people who are hearing it in number two. But we also, before we do that, we pay homage to number three.

[58:11]

We put it in context. And now we go back maybe to number two and maybe more praise number three in the talk. But before we give the talk, we first of all honor number three. Shugyo, please. you. Thank you for your teaching again.

[60:26]

So I remember... I'm so sorry, I keep forgetting this. I remember the first day you told Jackie that no mind is compassionate. No mind is compassionate. I think I said non-thinking is compassionate. No mind is non-thinking. for me beyond thinking. Yeah, so I didn't say that, right? You said it. Thank you. So that he, you said that... I'm saying non-thinking is a... Is compassion. Is a synonym in this teaching for compassion, great compassion, not regular compassion, not conscious compassion. but great compassion and great wisdom. And now Hsing-Yu is going to tell you what she thinks. Thank you. So this is my evolving understanding of your whole teaching task file.

[61:32]

Also because of the questions I have, what I told, what I presented, what I told you before. So it's like, okay, I will try to articulate it, not go all over the place. Yeah, the first thing is compassion and wisdom. So Tibetan has a saying that compassion and wisdom are the wings of a bird, and it is a well-celebrated teaching, which I always agree until the other day when Dinah Root, not Dinah Root, Dinah H, said that this compassion was missing. I'm sorry, I wrote down some notes.

[62:34]

I need to... say before I can fully articulate myself. So, and about what I said the other day about sensor triggering, right? So it's compassion manifesting and that There was no actor. There was no action of that triggering and I was not the actor. So it was just manifesting. One of the personal stories of my friends that got me thinking about wisdom lacking in compassion. But I have been having doubt about my judgmental mind on this.

[63:35]

So I have a friend who has a big heart for animals, especially pit bulls and cats. And so whenever she hears there is a pit bull to be put down in animal shelter, she will do all she could to rescue that pit bull. And she has done it again and again and again. And she always got herself into financial big trouble. So I used to think that that was compassion without wisdom. But now I'm kind of thinking that it is actually the wisdom is is already there in the compassion, in the egg of her compassion. Thich Nhat Hanh told a story which I really liked.

[64:42]

he is kind of a joke. He said that the God said that there be light. And the light said, I can't be there yet because darkness hasn't come yet. And the God said, darkness is already here. And the light said, in this case, I'm already here. So I kind of think of that. My friend said, compassion that my thinking mind, my dualistic mind thinks that there is no compassion, but that there is no wisdom. But there is already wisdom in there. It's just that. And it's not like... It's not like... Sorry. Sorry. When one side is illuminated, the other side is in the darkness.

[65:44]

No, there is no darkness, but it's already compassion and wisdom, light and darkness are already in the... And we don't see it doesn't mean that it is in the darkness, but they are in... Excuse me a second. Is everybody okay? So, how are you doing? Is this going okay? Thank you. Okay. So, this is the first part. So, I guess now my question is, I would like to know that I'm not heading into a dead end of this, but rather it's a heading towards a beginlessness, which is like, in my way of saying, it's like seeking the true mind, recognizing my true mind.

[67:00]

That's one of my first questions. Did you understand her question? What her question was? What was her question? I didn't understand the question. Okay. Maybe what I would put it the other way is like, am I on the right track? Is the question, am I on the right track? Yeah. I would say you're on the bodhisattva path. But I don't know about right track. You know, what you mean by right track? You mean everything you just said? Like reaching the true mind that I've been searching.

[68:07]

I don't know. I believe you're on the bodhisattva path, but I don't know if that's what you just said is the right track for you. And I hear you, I thought I heard you say you don't want to go into a dead end. Yes. I hear that's what you don't want. You want to go, I think, forward on the path of the bodhisattva. And I think you are on that path. But I can't really say that what you said is the right path or not the right path. Oh, no, that is not what my question is. My question is more like, I know I'm on the right path, but what I mean, my thinking, my train of thought about wisdom and compassion, when one is illuminate, it doesn't mean the other is in the dark, but they are the other side.

[69:21]

is also illuminate at once. Yeah, so if your question is, I thought your question was, am I on the right path? Yes, right, right, trying of understanding this. My answer is, I don't know if you are on the right path by what you just said. I don't know if what you said is the right path. I don't know. Maybe it is, but I don't know. And at the same time, I believe you are on the right path. But to say that what you just said is the right path, I can't say that. Okay. So may I have second question, which is actually related to this one? Pardon? May I have second question? Do you have time for her to ask another question?

[70:26]

It seems like you're taking a lot of time. Okay. and many other people are. Next? I don't know who's next. Do you know who's next? Yes? I have two questions. One, what is the difference between the sentimental compassion and the compassion with objects? Did you say compassion with objects? Yes, the second kind. Are there three compassions?

[71:27]

Yeah, there's three. The first two have objects. So, sentimental has objects as well, but is it like lots of ego and clinging and kind of, I want to help in a kind of, what's the difference between the one and two? So number one is compassion for beings as objects. And the beings are beings per se. In other words, as beings the way I think they are. That's the first type of compassion. That's the normal, unrefined type of compassion. And that compassion lives in consciousness where there's a sense of self with various afflictions. So there are still unliberated affliction surrounding the compassion for these objects which are taken to be just as they appear to me.

[72:36]

And that's sentimental in the sense of, sentimental in the sense of customary. That's a customary way of seeing things. And that way of, it's also called in Chinese, loving view compassion. So it's that kind of compassion and it has various drawbacks. It's very susceptible to burnout and self-righteousness and so on. It's unexamined compassion. It's compassion which is not taking into account Buddhist teachings about objects. Second type, the the overall consciousness may have evolved from practicing the first type of compassion, but basically the second type starts to examine the compassion and examine the objects of compassion and bring the Buddhist teachings into it and start to see that, well, actually,

[73:42]

what I thought I was is kind of an illusion and what I thought was compassion is kind of an illusion. And the beings that I've been addressing are kind of illusory versions of beings. And you start to become free of your earlier type of compassion and free of the drawbacks and dangers of that kind of compassion, the main danger being that you might give up practicing compassion because you're either slipping into, I don't know, attachment to the people you're caring for, or depression, and all that kind of stuff can happen in the first type of compassion. Even though it's compassion, it really is. And also, as I mentioned, in the Vimalakirti Sutra, that first type of compassion is called loving-view-great compassion. because it's an aspect of great compassion. It's just great compassion getting warped in this narrow, unexamined way. The second type of compassion examines compassion, questions it.

[74:51]

Is this really compassion or is this something else? First, that doesn't really question it. It just says, I want to help, and maybe even I am helping, and this is help, and this is not help, and that's more objects, but I'm not examining all this. Second type, I'm examining it. So you become free, you can become liberated from the earlier sentimental compassion, which is good. Thank you. But it still has objects. Thank you very much. You're welcome. The second part was this discussion of zanji, or ten shins, Reb is Reb, that teaching. I wanted to really make a distinction between Reb is Reb as that teaching and sometimes something that I've experienced where someone will say, hey, if I bring something up about their department or something, they'll say, hey, this is who I am.

[75:54]

kind of like, like it or lump it, or, you know, that's me. And I feel like that is not the teaching of Reb, that one isn't open to, according with conditions, like someone has a problem with you. Yeah, it's maybe more like if you ask a child who that is, they might say, oh, that's Linda. It's more like just a simple kind of naive impression of something. is not saying that whatever that thing is, it's okay.

[76:55]

It's just saying, a rock being a rock. A rock, tension is, a rock is a rock. Tension is, Linda's Linda. It's not, tension is not saying, it's okay that Linda's Linda, or it's okay that a rock is rock. It's just that we have to start with, okay, Linda's Linda. That's a basic thing to accept and work with. like a child would work with you or a rock. It's not a judgment about you, it's just not going beyond you, just what you seem to be, work with that, and nothing else. And that term, ten-shin, it's a colloquial word in Chinese. It's often translated as childlike or naive, but also as genuine. Like you're genuinely Linda, or that person's genuinely a jerk, or this person's genuinely a rock.

[78:05]

It's not saying that the way they are is okay. It's just saying the thing being the thing, that's what Tenshin is. And there's no judgment about it. But the technical, that word in the Buddhist dictionary, Tenshin, means ultimate reality. So it's used both in the sense of ultimate reality in the Buddhist technical term, but it's also in Chinese. In colloquial Chinese, it just means like the way a little boy is. He's just that way. But it's not like he's okay, that he's like maybe kind of a little bit doesn't know what's going on. He's just that way. And that... being, just being, the thing just being itself. Like evil, Sankaracharya said, evil is evil.

[79:06]

That's Tenchen. Our child sees something, that's mean. Mean is mean. It's just like simple things being themselves and nothing but. That's the basis for Zenki. And as you know, he also said, after he said, Reb is Reb, he said, people may have a problem with that. So it's not like Reb, Tenjin means Reb is Reb and Reb is okay. Actually, people may have a problem with that. And then he said, but can't be helped. A mean person, people have a problem with that. Arrogant person, you'll have a problem with that. But tension is arrogant person's arrogant person and mean person. It's not okay. Some people might say it's okay. Other people say, I have a problem with this reb. And I also have a problem with reb being reb. It's just saying, let's start with what a child would see and don't go beyond that.

[80:14]

Who's next? Pasha and Shindo. But you're not next. Tracy's before that. Who? Landau. Yeah, Landau. Maybe Landau's next. I don't know. What do you think? Okay. So now we got Landau, Tracy, Marie, Kat, Julian, Shindo, and Pasha. Yeah. Hi. I hope this works. I wrote something down because I'm always afraid that I'm going to mess it up.

[81:23]

which inevitably I will. Yesterday I spoke with two people about my Zen practice. And I guess the problem lies in my Zen practice. They were kind enough to point out a certain peculiar flaw. Those are my words. As to my approach to the practice it's kind of an all-or-nothing approach to live or die and I Was very thankful for their remarks because since then I've seen that as you undoubtedly already know I Have a similar approach to other aspects of my life as well And it has created problems for myself and others and Did you say it's a do or die approach?

[82:25]

Yeah. Did you also say all or nothing? Yes. So what does that mean, do or die? Could you say it another way besides that? There are two speeds for me, and one is off and the other is gone. There's like nothing in between. Okay. That didn't help much, did it? It helped a little bit, yeah. So... Okay, so, and that seems... Let's find some other words for that. Category-bound? Definitely. Yeah, okay. Right. I'm going to have to resort back to my notes. So that was one thing that people pointed out to you, and you agree, and then you brought that up.

[83:34]

Did you bring that up for some reason, just to let us know? Yes. To move into the second part. Okay. Because I started to question Zen and I started to, for me, like what is the meaning of Zen? What does Zen actually mean? I mean, being here, being part of this intensive, I practice what exactly? Why am I here? And I saw that my Zen practice is nothing but another attempt of ego improvement, of self-improvement, fueled by a deep-rooted feeling of deficiency. Failing to see the self as just another dharma or a body-mind appearing in consciousness, I utilize Zen to become the best version of myself, the perfect me. I'm doing so right now because I don't know any different. It's all or nothing. Sometime this morning, it began to dawn on me that this very attempt of self-improvement is the antithesis of my heart's desire.

[84:44]

The best way to perpetuate the feeling of inadequacy is to try to get away from it. The thing I perceive to be flawed with my Zen practice is the my part. I feel that Zen practice is not about me, or perhaps not just about me. because negating one's needs is selfish and creates suffering as well. I have done many things for which I am truly sorry and for which I right here fully and unreservedly apologize to anyone anywhere who has ever felt unskillfully treated in both ancient and recent times. Oh my ancient karma I fully avow. I had a talk the other day and that person asked me about my relationship with my parents.

[85:55]

And I said, that relationship is not very good. But I've been working over the past couple of Well, basically my entire life on forgiveness and in a way that felt very selfish. Trying to get rid of the guilt. And it's always been very hard for me to say, to imagine myself saying, dear mother, dear father, I love you both equally and you have my complete and unconditional forgiveness. somehow I was reminded by a poem.

[87:10]

Excuse me. Yes. Could I address the things you brought up so far? Of course. You said something about Zen. Yes. And so the Zen that I've been talking about during this intensive is the word I use that word to refer to the Buddha way. And if I have ideas of Zen, including the idea that Zen is the Buddha way, my understanding is that I would apply Buddha's compassion to my ideas of Zen. And if I had ideas that I was into self-improvement I would want to practice compassion towards the appearance of ideas or interest in self-improvement. And if I felt like I was, I feel inadequate, I would practice compassion towards the inadequacy.

[88:18]

So the things you brought up, I wonder if you want to practice, if you want to devote yourself to practice compassion towards all that you brought up. I do. Good. You brought up a lot of things that I think would be, that are calling for compassion. And I think, again, it's possible to learn to be compassionate towards all you brought up without trying, without doing that compassion for self-improvement, but just do it because you think it would be good and you want to do it. Or you could also let that attempt to be compassionate towards self-improvement would be another kind of sneaky way of having self-improvement. But if you notice that, then you can be compassionate to that too. So I think the things you brought up are, yeah, they all seem like really wonderful opportunities for compassion.

[89:29]

And I'm glad you told me and everybody about them so we can also support you in being compassionate to all these things you brought up. You can call them flaws if you want to, but the word flaw is another thing to be compassionate towards. I'm not prohibiting the word flaw. But if you say flaw, I hope there's compassion for flaw. I want to be compassionate to the word flaw, if you use it. And I want to support you to practice compassion with all these ideas of flaw-ness in you. And also compassion. I think you kind of told us indirectly you want to practice compassion towards your parents who are, for now, objects. But you want to practice compassion towards them. And then that's the first type of compassion.

[90:34]

The second type is you want to examine your compassion toward your parents and examine your compassion toward your own state, states. And that would move you into the second kind of compassion. So, yeah, that's what I'm calling our Zen practice, is to do those compassion practices towards everything. So the distinction fades between my Zen practice and Zen practice. Say again. The distinction fades away between my Zen practice and Zen practice. Yeah, you say it fades away or drops away or you become free of it. I'll sign up for that. All right. Pasha.

[91:35]

Sorry if I jumped the line. I didn't understand. I thought when you called my name to come up. I apologize. But I just want to reflect the way I understand. Oh, okay. Now you can hear me. Great. Sorry about that. I just want to reflect the way I understand those three minds. on day one when we arrived here it was kind of raining and I put the boots and I went to the beach I just want to get to the beach and I get there um And on the way back, I start noticing, oh, there is flowers on the way. There's a field of yellow flowers. And then I saw a banana slug trying to cross the tractor trail.

[92:45]

And it just will take it forever for him to cross. So I... took it, put it in the field and then I start to notice more and more things as I'm becoming more conscious of them. On the way to the beach I was just rushing and I didn't notice them. But now I'm noticing them. And I also noticed that, oh, I'm noticing more things. And then Then I stopped just to notice, and I noticed a tree, and I thought, okay, I'll just stand here and notice this tree. It took me a while and I keep noticing and keep noticing and then I realized I cannot really fully notice or comprehend or be conscious of the tree.

[93:54]

The tree is not just a T-R-E-E word I put on this thing that stands like this. And then I stand with it like this. And we swivel, we dance, we celebrate it. And that's it. Now help me, who's next? Tracy. And Tracy just turned and bowed to the altar. And again, I've been struck when I see, like, some people come to give a Buddhist lecture and they start by humbling themselves and then they give a nice talk.

[95:04]

Other people come in and just give a nice talk. And both talks are good, but... I'm not so much struck that people don't do that, that humble themselves, but just that You know, the Dalai Lama humbles himself before he gives a talk. So thank you, Tracy, for bowing before you give us this talk. When you said you are going to keep going over this until we get it, I didn't know whether to be encouraged or horrified because this could take a very long time. And yesterday when we ended the class or the other day, I just felt like everything was there, like I'd been rained on by a lot and I couldn't distinguish them. So my question was going to be, could you make a chart? And then I came in and here's the chart.

[96:05]

So that's very helpful. And I think it's a display of three awarenesses and three consciousnesses. or minds, and three, compassions. So, okay, I'm working with that. Then I went back to day one, and here's what I don't know how, I want to know, where does this fit on that chart? So on day one, you said there are two ways to penetrate body and mind. Listen to the teacher, and then wholehearted sitting. So I like that. It's neat and compact, but I don't know what it has to do with that. And there's another one, which is the three wisdoms of a bodhisattva, listening, thinking, discriminating, and the wisdom of meditation. I don't know. What has this got to do with that? Okay. So... On another chart, which has been erased, on the side of meeting the teacher and listening to the teaching, that activity applies to the first two types of wisdom.

[97:17]

The first two kinds of wisdom are to listen to the teaching, to discuss it with the teacher, And until you have insight into the teaching, that's the first type of wisdom, the first type of insight. The second type is you think about it, you study it, you examine it. Are we talking about wisdom or insight, and are they the same? Same thing, yeah. Wisdom and insight are the same, okay. Those two go under, I would say, the side of going to the teacher and listening to the teaching. And then the third type of wisdom over here is the wisdom which integrates the conscious work.

[98:21]

And that first two types of wisdom applies to going to the teacher, listening to the teaching, asking about teaching. They apply to that. And that applies to the conscious mind. Okay. Okay. The third type of wisdom is when you meditate in such a way as to contemplate the relationship between the thinking understanding that you have in the first two and the actual trans-conscious or beyond thinking wisdom of the Buddhas. In your sitting, you check and see if there's any discrepancy there between your conscious understanding and the Buddha's realization. until there's no discrepancy between the Buddha's wisdom which you're celebrating and your conscious mind which you've been working on in these first two types of wisdom.

[99:32]

The third type of wisdom arises from eliminating or becoming free of any discrepancy between your conscious work and the Buddha's work which is beyond your consciousness. Next, who's next? Okay, Marie. I have a similar type of question. we call conscious the conscious thinking and the unconscious not thinking? No. No. The unconscious is a cognitive realm

[100:33]

of great complexity, much greater complexity than what's going on consciously. And it supports our small level of cognitive activity and consciousness. But consciousness can do things the unconscious can't do. Like the unconscious cannot solve math problems. It doesn't really question anything. It just makes associations very skillfully and amazingly skillfully. It's more like a computer than an actual conscious person. And there's not really a self in the unconscious. It's the source of consciousness, not beyond consciousness. So it's not not-thinking. Not-thinking is something that is present in consciousness. Not-thinking is present in consciousness. Not-thinking is not beyond thinking.

[101:37]

Not-thinking is thinking. Non-thinking is what thinking really is. And that's in consciousness. So any thinking that's going on in your consciousness in any given moment is actually the whole universe in this particular form. And the whole universe is right there in that form. That's in consciousness. Now, if there were any unconscious phenomena, then the unconscious phenomena would also be not that unconscious phenomena. And that relationship, understanding that relationship between our whole conscious mind and any part of our conscious mind and the whole universe, that understanding is beyond consciousness. That's wisdom and compassion. Could you say that again?

[102:42]

Sorry. The relationship between whatever's going on in consciousness and the whole universe that relationship, which is that your consciousness is not your consciousness. That thinking, not thinking, that relationship, of your thinking being the whole universe in this form, and your thinking being nothing in addition to the whole universe, and the whole universe being nothing in addition to your thinking. That intimate relationship of your conscious mind and the whole universe, that is beyond consciousness, beyond the thinking. And that's Buddha's wisdom. So does unconsciousness have a relationship to wisdom? Wisdom embraces the unconscious, it embraces the conscious, it embraces the relationship between conscious and unconscious.

[103:45]

Just as compassion embraces the unconscious, embraces the conscious, and embraces the relationship between the two. Wisdom sees how the conscious arises from the unconscious. Wisdom sees how the conscious transforms the unconscious. It sees all that relationship between the conscious and unconscious, between the individual consciousness and other consciousness, between individual consciousnesses and the whole universe. But seeing how my thinking is the whole universe, is not my conscious thinking about that. It's the reality of my thinking. The reality of my thinking is beyond my thinking and therefore free of my thinking. However, even though it's beyond and free, it's intimate with my thinking. That's wisdom and compassion, which are beyond my thinking.

[104:51]

beyond my consciousness. It's the understanding of consciousness which is beyond consciousness. Consciousness, it doesn't reach that understanding of what it is, what itself is. It's circumscribed, but the wisdom is not. And it understands consciousness. It understands how all the things in consciousness are not separate, how they co-arise. And it also understands how consciousness co-arises with unconsciousness. It also understands how unconsciousness doesn't necessarily arise with consciousness. It sees that you can have a body unconscious without a conscious. It understands that too. Or realizes that. So our conscious can't, doesn't know what's going on in the unconscious. No, it does not. However, I should say it doesn't know what's going on in the conscious, unconscious, the way it usually thinks of as knowing.

[105:59]

But it does know in a very quiet way. For example, I often use the foreground-background analogy. when you look at that picture of the old lady and the young woman, when you look at the young woman, you know her consciously. When you know her consciously, you know her consciously. That's what you usually call knowing. And at the moment you see her, you don't feel like you can see the old woman. But you do kind of see the old woman. The way you see the old woman is as the young woman. That's the only way you can see the old woman at that moment. Then you can shift and see the background, and now you see the old woman, and you do consciously see her, and you also see you don't see the young woman, but you do see the young woman, because the way you see the young woman is actually the way you see the old woman. If the old woman wasn't there, you couldn't see the young woman. So it's like this, when one side is illuminated, the other is dark. So you know, but in an unilluminated way.

[107:03]

And consciousness is illuminated. It doesn't really know. So it can't be there without the unconscious. So it kind of knows the unconscious, but not really. The conscious, for various reasons, it can't know the unconscious. And if you know the unconscious, when you know the unconscious, which is the unconscious, you don't know conscious. So the unconscious doesn't know the conscious either. However, it supports it. And the unconscious does give glimmers of the — it gets visitors. Every moment the unconscious gives stuff to the — gives fries to the consciousness and gives the consciousness content. So I use that image of the conscious mind is like a clearing in the middle of a dark forest. The clearing can't see the dark forest, but things come out of the dark forest into the clearing. So the unconscious is feeding the conscious.

[108:04]

And in particular, like Jung said, dreams are the royal road to the unconscious. So when dreams come into the conscious, they are particularly helpful for us to realize where this content has come from. because stuff is coming into consciousness, but consciousness isn't feeding consciousness. Unconsciousness is feeding the consciousness. It's giving a rise to it and giving it its content. And when you're dreaming, you kind of get it, but you kind of get that you didn't make this happen. Kind of like, oh yeah, this is coming from someplace other than consciousness. This is coming from another mind. So you're getting a feeling for the other mind, even though you can't see it. You can kind of sense it because you can sense that it's just giving you something. A visitor has just dropped by and dropped, give us some conscious content. So it's an access. But the consciousness can't survive in the unconscious.

[109:11]

But it survives because of it. But the consciousness keeps it alive. Or I should say, keeps giving it life. Because it sometimes goes to sleep and disappears temporarily. Thank you. You're welcome. Is there another? Yes, Julian? Oh, who did I miss? Oh, Kat. Are you still here, Kat? Sorry. Please come. Okay. All right. Is anybody else before Julian? Maybe some kitchen people. But, yeah. Yeah. Okay, Julian, I think. Oh my, it's just right.

[110:30]

Like Goldilocks. What's that? It's like Goldilocks. Yeah, this oatmeal is just right. I have, well, I have a bit of a problem with the Reb is Reb, but don't take it personally. I've been thinking about it for a while, and it started with Joe Manchin is Joe Manchin, and it includes Julian is Julian. Could you back away a tiny bit? Sure. As I... Back away a little bit from the speaker, from the microphone. I did, but more? Okay. Is that okay? All right. As I understand both impermanence and dependent co-arising... Reb and the rest of us are the product of all the forces that produce us, which are always changing.

[111:41]

And therefore, in some sense, we are always changing. And Reb may always be Reb, but he isn't the Reb he was 30 seconds ago. Nor am I the Julian I was 30 seconds ago. And so there's still hope for Joe Manchin. Is that correct? Well, let's just say I agree with you. Well, I guess that's good enough then. I don't want to promote what I think is correct. Are we good now? Yes, please. I'll see if I can remember.

[113:09]

So I keep trying to understand the person that is doing all this thinking or not thinking or beyond thinking. And one thought I had is that when there's not thinking, that the person is, is the person perception? Is that all that it is? And then when there's non-perception or no perception... There's no person. Yeah, I was intending to go into great detail on this, but I haven't done it yet, but here we are. So in the conscious mind, one description of what the conscious mind is accounted for by certain categories of phenomena. Five. The five aggregates are, often we start with what we call form, which means the five sense fields and the five sense organs.

[114:22]

So that's the first set of phenomena in consciousness. Next comes feelings. positive, negative, and neutral. Next comes either perceptions or conceptions. Next comes a catch-all category, which has many phenomena in it. like greed, hate, and delusion, concentration, faith, concern for decorum, self-respect, or lack of those things, and so on. Many, many mental factors in that category. And the last category is consciousness. And so some Buddhists would say, if there's a sense of self in that consciousness, it's something in these five aggregates.

[115:24]

So it's either consciousness, awareness taken as a self, or feeling taken as a self, or a perception taken as a self, or an emotion taken as a self, or as a color taken as a self. It's one of these things. And then they would say, it's one of these things with self projected onto them. So some schools of Buddhism say, yeah, there is a self and it has a basis of one of the things, of one of these phenomena in consciousness. It's not an additional thing to something in those five categories. And the Mahajanamika school takes another step and says it's not actually projection onto one of those even. It's actually something that arises independence on those five. It's not actually, it doesn't even have them as a basis. Other than those five? It's an entity-ness?

[116:29]

No, no, no. It's a little bit less entity-ness. It takes even more entity away because if we say there can only be these phenomena in the consciousness, There's not an additional skanda or different... So there's only these things. So some people say, okay, then the self must be one of those things. And then they would say, but when we say the self, if we say the self is a feeling, that doesn't make sense to call that a self. If we say it's a color, that doesn't make sense. So it must be one of those. So they do say, yeah, well, there is a sense of self and it's one of those, but that does give it a little bit of basis. that it's a color, even though it doesn't make sense. And that would be a way to become free of the idea of a substantially independently existing self, other than some element of the five skandhas.

[117:30]

So all the schools agree that the self doesn't have independent existence. But some of them say, well, but it is kind of like imputed onto something that does. Like consciousness. Like consciousness, yeah. Like people say, my consciousness, right? Or my feelings. So you can easily switch from my feeling to make the feeling now as the basis for me or for self. And sometimes they say the reason why feeling is number three is because among... among the elements in the conscious mind's system, feeling is particularly powerful in setting up a sense of self. My feelings, my pain, my pleasure. And so, but a feeling, but if we look at that, a feeling isn't myself, even though that's all I have as a basis for this sense of self. Or you could say, well, the sense of self is an idea.

[118:35]

Certainly it is. But I don't think the self is just an idea. I think it's an idea of a self that has ideas and that doesn't have other ideas and so on and so forth. But that's a special idea of something that has ideas and feelings and so on. And then there's all these afflictions that arise with the sense of self. But they also aren't called self. But in a way they could be indirectly used to impute the existence of the self. So it's not that there isn't a self, it's just that you can't actually get hold of it. And so some people, the Madhyamaka would actually criticize people for saying that it even could be one of those elements of the five aggregates. Because then it gives it a little bit of, a little bit too much substance.

[119:40]

Rather than, it's just a conjuration of these elements. It's nothing in addition to them. It's not like you got these elements and then the self. It's like it's a particular conjuration and nothing more. So in terms of momentariness, the color, the feeling, which are transient moments, that's self. It's just a transient series of momentary... I mean, that's kind of where I was asking. Well, again, the slight difference between saying it is this transitory collection of elements, it is that, rather than it arises in dependence on them. It's not in them, but it also depends on them, so it can't be there without them. So it's not them or not them. So we're trying to realize the self is totally ungraspable. I'm getting that.

[120:42]

Yeah. So it arises independence on transitory complexes of phenomena. And it's not really any one of them. And it's not even all of them. Because it isn't them. It depends on them. And something that depends on something else isn't the thing and it is not the thing because you can't have it without. So, yeah. We'll continue. Yes. Exploration. Thank you very much. And I also wanted to tell you about the translation we're using of the Genjo Koan. I've had problems with it. So here's the part I have a problem with. It says something like, to bring the self forward and to say realize all things, experience all things. Another translation would be to be carrying the self forward and practice and confirm all things, that's delusion.

[121:48]

Got the self, practice. Got the self, realize. That's delusion, that attitude. And in the translation we have, it says, but for all the things, or got the self, practice all things, realize all things. The translation says, when all things come forth and realize themselves, they have a problem with that. For me, it's when all things come forth and realize the self. Not themselves, because they don't realize themselves. What they realize is the self itself. They realize it because the self rises in dependence on all things. So when it says realize themselves, rather than themselves, realize the self, I prefer that translation because in that translation you have this pivot on the self. which is one direction is the self practices and confirms all the things. That's delusion. The other is all the things practice and confirm the self.

[122:52]

That's enlightenment. So the self is in the middle of both enlightenment and delusion. Just in one case, it's doing things to others. And in the other case, others are doing it to him. And both of those go on. For me, they're equally part of the reality. And so there, self is pivoting and delusion and enlightenment are pivoting on the self. And some of the translations do say, you know, to practice and confirm all things while carrying the burden of a self is delusion. for the self to be born in the coming of all things is enlightenment. But in that story it's not like enlightenment is better than delusion. It's just two different sides of the pivot of self. The real practice is the pivot of delusion and enlightenment, or the pivot between I practice all things and all things practice me.

[123:59]

One's enlightenment, yeah, but enlightenment's about understanding delusion. Yeah. And I think I'm partly responsible for that becoming our translation. And I was just kind of too weak to argue with it when it came up. But I prefer having the self pivoting rather than, in one case it got the self being the deluded thing, in the other case it seems to have disappeared. Okay. And, you know, I don't think it would be a huge social project to change the translation. that we're chanting because everybody would be affected in the whole universe. Yeah, good.

[125:05]

Okay, well, I also wanted to mention that for the Dharma talks, we're going to set the chairs up, but also we're going to put some cushions down here if some people want to sit in the front for the Dharma talks. Do you want to sit on cushions? We'll have cushions in the front. and then chairs behind. And then also some people in the front part of these two tons, if you want to stay in your seat like you people are now, you can stay at your seats. But I request that basically it's hard for me if you're really far away. So I'd like you either in chairs up close here or cushions or on the tons for the Dharma talks. Pardon? Will you be using the whiteboard? I will not. But the whiteboard will be out on the deck if you want to take pictures of it.

[126:13]

And I appreciate your great participation in these offerings, your great listening, your great questioning during these classes. And also we had two lectures, we had two Dharma talks. they've really encouraged a lot of people. So thank you for your contributions to that. Someone said that what they really liked about the first Sunday talk was that it was almost like you could feel that there wasn't the slightest discrepancy between the way and what we were doing.

[126:54]

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