I mentioned yesterday that I wanted to talk with you about breathing. We share probably the experience that we are breathing. sometimes in Buddhist texts and sometimes Buddhist meditation teachers recommend being mindful of the breathing. One of the ways of being mindful, one of the reasons for practicing mindfulness of breathing is as an antidote to wandering thoughts, to wandering thoughts to an excited or agitated state of mind, jumping up and down thoughts, discursive thought, also as an antidote to worry.

[01:29]

which again worries, it can be a kind of a description of discursive thought. If one is mindful of the breathing process sometimes people say focusing on the breathing process, it may be the case then that there will be a subsiding of the wandering thoughts, a subsiding of worry, a subsiding of agitation. and then there may be a state of calm realized.

[02:33]

But I made this point before, I'm making it a little bit different today, that the mindfulness of breathing, or sometimes people say concentrating on the breathing, that's not the proximal or the primary condition for the calming. It's the giving up the wandering thoughts. It's giving up the discursive thought. That's the actual condition for the calming. If one goes shopping, and in the process of shopping one gives up discursive thought, one becomes calm. If one goes golfing and gives up discursive thought, one becomes calm.

[03:35]

If one pays attention to breathing and discursive thought is given up, one becomes calm. It's not that you're focusing on the golf or the shopping or the breathing that calms you. It's not that you're mindful of the golf and so on that calms you, it's the giving up discursive thought. But golf, shopping, and I guess I should say golf retail therapy, and mindfulness of breathing therapy may be a condition in which one let's go of discursive thought consistently and becomes more and more calm. So in this way, attention to the breathing could be setting up the condition for attention to the release of discursive thought and training the attention to have some continuity in the releasing of discursive thought

[04:49]

And when there's continuity, when the attention is trained in the mode of giving up discursive thought, of giving up elaborating on conceptual processes and so on, various ways to put it, the mind becomes calm through this process. But it's not the object, it's not focusing on the object that calms you, it's getting up the running around that's calming. And such a practice is used not only in terms of giving up the wandering thoughts and giving up the worry, which is nice, but also attaining deep concentration. In the works of the Zen school, there's very little recordings of teachers teaching mindfulness of or concentrating on breathing. There's various possible explanations about why this is so.

[06:00]

One might be, well, one is that they actually, many Zen teachers come right out and strongly express their feeling of the limitations of calming practice. So from ancient times, the Buddha is an example of it, people thought calming practices themselves would be sufficient to be calm, long term, and to accomplish our full potential. So in the Zen school in China, some of the Zen masters made some effort to point out the limitations of the concentration practices. And again, concentration practices, successful concentration practices, would be practices of giving up discursive thought. But they're still sort of a little bit critical of that type of practice.

[07:03]

I myself think it's a great skill to have available in Zen practice, or any kind of Buddhist practice, or any kind of life, to use that resource is great. But again, the Zen school, for some reason or other, wants to tell people, well that's good, or maybe a little bit good, but it's got limits. In the earlier versions of the Fukanza Zengi by Dogen, the general encouragements for sitting meditation, for the ceremony of sitting meditation, Dogen had quite a bit of comments in there about the power of concentration, the power of samadhi, and the virtues of samadhi, and how actually enlightenment depended on it. All that's true, but in later versions he took it out. And actually all he said in the version we usually chant is that the meditation we're teaching here is not concentration practice.

[08:14]

However, I would say, although the meditation he's teaching is not concentration practice, it needs to be supported by concentration practice. there are places, let's see where should I do, I'll do this next. I recently read a book, kind of an introduction to Zazen published by our sort of what we call Soto Zen Education Center and in this little something like this, that Suzuki Roshi, the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center, taught counting the breath, or taught breath counting, and that Kadagiri Roshi taught watching the breath, and then it said that Uchiyama Roshi taught doing nothing but breathing naturally and forget about breathing.

[09:28]

And then the author says that the way he instructs people is neither counting nor watching the breath. That's the way he teaches it. And in a sense it's true that Suzuki Roshi taught counting breath. or at least he tried, he actually, when he got some senior students he gave it up because it was hard for him to teach it because he got inhalation and exhalation mixed up when he was talking, but he did recommend counting the breath, even towards the end of our time with him. But I never heard him say, although he may have said it, I never heard him say, our practice is counting our breath. He usually said our practice is just sitting, or our practice is just to be ourself, or our practice is to forget all about ourself.

[10:44]

But he also said, and why don't you guys count your breath? Dogen Zenji taught that inhaling and exhaling are neither long or short. That's what he taught about breathing. And that's a response to that one of the ways of being mindful of breath is, in the early scriptures of mindfulness of breath, it says, when the monk inhales, the monk knows that she's inhaling. When the monk exhales, the monk knows she's exhaling. This is how she's mindful of her breath. When the monk has a long inhale, the monk knows it's a long inhale. When the monk has a long exhale, she knows it's a long exhale. When she has a short inhale, she knows it's a short inhale.

[11:51]

When she has a short exhale, she knows it's a short exhale. This is like mindfulness of breathing. So Dogen Zenji, and his sort of carrying forth his understanding of his teacher says, inhaling and exhaling are neither long or short. And let me say also, I can't say this every few seconds, I could actually but I'm not going to, if I say what Soto Zen is or what Buddhism is, what that means is this is, you know, Reb Anderson's version of Soto Zen. This is Reb Anderson's version of Buddhism or the Buddhist teaching. This is my understanding. or in my notes, this is Tenshin's version of Soto Zen. So my version of Dogen's interest in breathing process, his interest was to present and promote his teacher's understanding of breathing.

[13:05]

He didn't present breathing as something to focus on to get concentrated. He didn't do that. He presented breathing and then told us ways of looking at breathing that would promote a wisdom, that would promote a deep understanding of the nature of the phenomena of breathing. And his teacher did this too. When his teacher talked about breathing, his teacher was not talking about to focus on what you think breathing is to get calm, although that can happen. You can focus on what you think is breathing, and in the process of focusing on what you think is breathing, continuing to think that breathing is what you think it is, while still thinking that breathing is actually your dream of breathing, you might give up discursive thought and calm down.

[14:12]

They didn't teach that way. What they taught was, they tried to teach us what breathing was. Not to get us to be calm, hopefully we're already calm, listening to the teaching that inhaling and exhaling are not long or short, for example. That inhaling and exhaling, or perhaps I should just say, inhaling is not Hinayana. and it's not the same as Mahayana. Exhaling is not Mahayana and it's not the same as Hinayana. Did you know that? You probably already knew that, right? That your breathing is not Hinayana or Mahayana?

[15:14]

But also it's not different. Did you know that your breathing wasn't different from Hinayana? You didn't know that, did you? Did you know your breathing is not different from Mahayana? Do you understand? Your breathing is not different from the vehicle of universal salvation of all beings. It's also not the same. Your breathing is not individual liberation and it's not different from that. Your breathing is actually not long or short. And also your breathing, by the way, although they didn't mention it, I just thought I'd tell you, your breathing is not your breathing. But what that means is, your breathing is not your idea of breathing. Get over it. The true nature of your breathing is that your ideas, and mine, about your breathing, I have some ideas about your breathing too, that all of our ideas about breathing are actually absent in the way breathing happens.

[16:24]

That's the way breathing really is. And if you can see that, you're all set. And that's the emphasis in Tenjin's version of Soto Zen. but we don't usually teach that at Beginner's Instruction, Zazen Instruction, Zen Center. I don't know what the teachers are doing, but I think they're teaching counting the breath, or following the breath. Has anybody been to an instruction lately and done it that way? Yeah. What did you do? Yeah. And then later you had them find the absence of the imputation on the other day. Now, by the way, before you leave, just see if you can find the absence of your ideas of breath in the actual breathing process, and then you won't have to leave, or come, or stay. For me, that way, what I just said, to me, kind of clears up a lot of confusion between the different ways that Zen people talk about breathing.

[17:37]

I think generally speaking, the Zen teachers' presentation on the nature of breathing, on the nature of the phenomena of breathing in the text, they're talking about, they're expressing their wisdom about breathing, they're trying to help us understand the nature of the phenomena of breathing. Behind the scenes, you know, every Saturday and Sunday at their temples, people are giving instruction about how to calm down. But the Zen teachers don't mention that kind of teaching usually, because they don't want people to think that they're teaching just concentration. So there's a kind of contradiction between these two different ways of presenting and relating to the phenomena of breathing. in the sort of, not so much the early years of Zen Center, but more like the, I don't know if it's the medieval period or what, but anyway, during the 60s, during the later 60s, you know, early 60s where kind of Zen Center was like, you know, I guess there was a beatniks there and like non-beatniks in the early days and then the later part it was the hippies.

[18:55]

I came during the hippie time. and at that time Tassajara was opening and the intensity of inquiry about what Zazen was, I feel, got increased at Zen Center during those years. Lots of young people wondering what Zazen was, asking Suzuki Roshi questions, and the general feeling was, partly from reading certain books, is that Shikantaza, just sitting, was like the practice, and there Counting your breath, that's the beginning one, to following your breath, and then give up breath awareness and go to koans, and then go on to just sitting. So just sitting was the ultimate, so everybody wanted to do just sitting. I think Susakiri said one time, or told one of us, counting your breath is just sitting. And then one time when there was kind of like, you know, kind of rumbling in the community between the what do you call it, the people who were doing the beginning practices of counting their breath somehow, and those who were practicing Shikantaza, Siddhartha Krishna kind of tried to level the field.

[20:11]

This was like the beginning of 1970, and he said, let's everybody practice counting their breath in brackets. Even you advanced students, go do that concentration practice. still within brackets, which is actually Shikantaza anyway, so you don't have to worry, close brackets. And in the summer of 1970 at Tassajara, one of the people who heard Sikharaji say that, who had been following his instructions, said, you know, I think he'd like us to stop now, don't you? I said, I don't know. But I didn't hear a general announcement to, you know, move on to more advanced practices. Maybe he forgot. He oftentimes forgot the instructions he gave and didn't tell us to stop. Once again, it's okay with me, and it's okay, I've checked with the people upstairs.

[21:23]

It's okay if you count your breath. If that helps you give up discursive thought and you like to give up discursive thought in order to calm down, fine. We just want you to understand that it's the giving up discursive thought that calms you, not the focusing on the breathing. You don't calm down by looking at some external object like that. So, any questions about this issue of the phenomena of breathing? Yeah, right, and then in that same chapter he says, concentration is not trying to focus hard on something.

[22:38]

Concentration is just forgetting all about yourself. And when you forget about yourself, you notice your breathing. And if you notice your breathing, you forget all about yourself. It's the forgetting about yourself that's the point. Concentration is not trying hard to focus on something. Concentration is freedom, he says in that chapter. But it's not concentration. So one kind of concentration is just flat-out freedom. But basic concentration, Samadhi practice, initially, is freedom from discursive thought. Later Samadhis will be the freedom which arises from actually understanding what breathing is. So that's what these classes and lectures are about, is actually like looking at what is the nature of phenomena. And so we've heard all phenomena, including breathing, has these three characters. So breathing has this other dependent character, it has what we think it is, and it has a thoroughly established character.

[23:45]

So meditating on breathing, usually what people are looking at is their version of the breathing. In other words, most people are misconstruing the breathing process for what they think it is. And you can concentrate while continuing to misconstrue and to strongly adhere to the actual dependent-core arising breath. You can adhere to that as your idea of it. But we do have ideas of breath. there's the other dependent character of breath, and there's a thoroughly established character of breath. So, breath can be something that you study, and Dogen's teacher, when he studied the breath, he came up with inhaling and exhaling are not long or short. That's what he found out. Was there another comment about the breathing business? Yes. Six Settled Dharma Gates is a, you could say, a meditation text written by the founder of Tiantai school in China and the Six Settled Dharma Gates, that work presented by Jiri, this great Zen master, founder of that school, if you look in the Abhidharmakosha you'll also find in the chapter on the path,

[25:19]

In the section on calming, they have those same six factors, the same six ways of working with the breath. So actually, the idea of the six ways of working with the breath are from Indian scholastic source. I don't know what sutra it's from, but if there's a sutra back there that has them too, I don't know. could be. But anyway, you can find these teachings about how to relate to the breath in these six ways in Abhidharmakosha and in the work called Six Subtle Dharmagates. Okay, so in terms of wisdom practice, breath is another phenomena to study. When you use breath counting as a calming practice, you're not really using breath primarily to study, you're using it as, you're using breath mindfulness as an aid to develop calm.

[26:22]

Wisdom practice would be like to look at the breath and try to see the three characters of the breath. Let's see, I, yes? Could you speak up? Yes. Did you hear her question? So her question is, if I say study the other dependent character of breath, would that be like saying, well, the breathing depends on the air in the valley and on the planet.

[27:24]

It depends on my mother and father giving a body with lungs. It depends on me eating either vegan or non-vegan at Green Gulch. It depends on, you know, that kind of... She's wondering, is it that kind of meditation? Huh? Basically, no. Okay, so... Meditation on the Other Dependent is not, you know, fundamentally, basically it's not meditation on your thinking process. Meditation on the Other Dependent is fundamentally meditating on the character of the breathing which is beyond your thinking. The Other Dependent character of breathing is beyond your thinking. So you can start doing some thinking like, okay, we can all get together and start inputting into some big computer, well, breath is depending on this, and put all the different inputs in, but the sum total of all of our conditions that we come up with, and even check with each other and agree on as reasonable conditions for the breathing process, we would never accumulate enough information to actually account for this event called breath.

[28:51]

So that's not the basic approach to understanding the other dependent character of breath. But your question is very, you know, what do you call it, synchronous to one of my first questions I was going to ask was, how do we know the other dependent character? Okay? So what does the sutra say? How do you know the other dependent character? not just through imputation, you actually adhere to the other dependent as being the imputational. That's how you know the other dependent. Or as we said the other day, through a glass darkly. That's how we know the imputational. So, studying the imputational actually, rather than studying our story about the imputational, like it comes from the air and so on, which, that's a story, right? Which I think conventionally we agree. Now, it's kind of, let's see, it says here, yeah, this is a translation from another book.

[30:02]

This is Tom Clear's translation. The characteristic of dependent co-origination can be known through conceptual grasping superimposed on dependent existence. Was that clear? Should I do it again? This is from Chinese. We're trying to meditate on the characteristic of dependent co-origination of, for example, breath. And then the sutra says, For your information, the characteristic of dependent origination, and I'm going to add a phenomena of the breath, can be known through conceptual clinging superimposed on the dependent existence of the breath.

[31:09]

That's how you know the breath. But if that's how you know the breath, that's not the breath. You're knowing it by superimposing something on it. Or we know the breath, or breathing, through a glass darkly. This sutra, the other translation says, by strongly adhering to the other dependent as being the imputational character, the other dependent is known. Okay? So meditation on the other dependent, you could meditate on the other dependent by just looking at what you think it is. That's something. At least you're sort of like in the ballpark called meditating on other dependent because you say I'm meditating on other dependent. But actually meditating on the other dependent would be to meditate on

[32:17]

what's beyond your thinking about what you're meditating on. And again, in Tenzin's version of Soto Zen, or Tenzin's version of the teachings of Buddha and Yaoshan and Dogen, Yaoshan taught that non-thinking was the way to develop wisdom, the way to start. So, I understand non-thinking as the ancestral expression for studying what is beyond your thinking. non-thinking could be translated also as beyond thinking.

[33:25]

Beyond thinking is the way to study phenomena initially. So, as the Buddha said, initially I teach the other dependent character phenomena, and when people hear these teachings And I would say when they hear these teachings and then when they meditate on these teachings about the other dependent phenomena, or the other dependent character phenomena, when they hear them, I would say that you have to kind of like surrender your thinking. You have to surrender to what is beyond your thinking. You have to surrender to how it is that what's happening is depending on something other than you. So again, I'm saying that, I'm suggesting that

[34:41]

Non-thinking is meditating on the other dependent character phenomena, which is, by the way, how objects are beyond your thinking. So it's a meditation on how things are beyond your thinking. It is a contemplation of how we and all phenomena depend on and are products of the power of conditions other than ourselves and how we are therefore impermanent, unstable, unworthy of confidence and so on. This meditation then turns us towards virtue and makes us ready to study the other two characteristics of phenomena.

[35:54]

Namely, after we start studying what's beyond our thinking, which is the other dependent character, being grounded in that, we turn to virtue and then continuing the practice of virtue based on this new understanding, we are then ready to go and look at our ideas of breathing. In other words, to study the imputational character and the thoroughly established character. Because in the Sutra, towards the end of the Sutra you're chanting this morning, it says basically, although when they hear these teachings and they make great progress, still they are not fully liberated, because they have not yet... what does it say? They have not yet... however, because they do not yet understand, as they are, the two aspects pertaining

[37:13]

to the lack of own being in terms of production. So you've been meditating on the lack of own being in terms of production. You've been meditating on the other dependent character, which is beyond your thinking. You've been hearing teachings about it and contemplating these teachings, and these teachings tell you that what it is is beyond your ideas, and also that the way you know it is through your ideas. You meditate on those, you start to practice virtue, you make great progress, however, you do not yet understand the other two aspects which pertain to this other dependent character. The other two aspects are the imputational and the thoroughly established, or in terms You're meditating on the lack of own being in terms of production. You're meditating on that. You're making great progress. You're really centered. This is the central meditation of Buddhism. You're meditating on dependent co-arising.

[38:15]

You're meditating on dependent co-arising. You're meditating on dependent co-arising. You're meditating on the 12-fold chain of causation, et cetera. And this 12-fold chain of causation is beyond your ideas about it. You're meditating on the way birth and death happens, and the way birth and death happens, although it's presented to you in words, the way it's happening is beyond the way you're thinking about it. And you're learning to meditate not on how you think about it, but on how it's beyond your thinking. And you're doing really well, but you have not yet understood the two things that pertain to this, the other two types of lack of own being. and because you don't understand those yet, you're not fully liberated. Then it goes on in the next page, which you haven't chanted yet, and it says, so the Buddha teaches them the next two types of lack of own being which pertain to the one you've been meditating on. When they hear those teachings, then they become fully liberated, and then they understand

[39:21]

the other dependent character, then you actually understand what dependent co-arising is. But you can't understand dependent co-arising until, first of all, you meditate on it prior to understanding it, beyond your ideas. And when you get used to that, you're ready to hear the other two aspects of the teaching, which, when you hear them and understand that, you will understand this thing which is beyond your thinking. That's what it says on the next page of the sutra. And you will be fully liberated. But you always must keep doing the meditation on dependent co-arising because the other two aspects, the other two types of lack of own being are based on and are pertaining to the thing which you're studying. So you have to keep that dependent co-arising meditation mojo going all the time. and then these other two things help you understand it. So, how do you study something?

[40:34]

How do you study what's beyond your thinking? Now you're hearing me talk and you're using your thinking to hear instructions about how to meditate on what's beyond your thinking. For example, got a body or whatever, let's say breathing, how are you going to study the way the breathing is beyond your thinking? How are you going to study the dependently co-arisen character of the breathing which is beyond your thinking? You can think of it, I can think of it too, but that's not the way I think about the breathing and the stories I tell about how breathing happens, those are the imputational character. All the stories I tell about breathing are the imputational character. All the stories of all the beings together are the imputational character of breathing. How do I meditate on the actual way, the actual other-powered, other-dependent character of breathing, which is beyond my thinking? So I told you, I said the other day, here's some ways.

[41:37]

They're basically ways of surrendering, thinking about the breathing. or surrendering means not that you stop thinking about the breathing, you just give up using those ways of thinking as the way you're going to understand the breathing. So someone said to me, well basically then all I have to do is surrender, right? Except you don't do the surrendering either, because the surrender is another phenomenon, perfectly good, it's another dependently co-arisen It's also other-powered, you don't do it. However, it can happen if you hear about it, and it can happen if you don't hear about it, but still, you're hearing about it. So, surrender… So, Buddha first teaches dependent co-arising and also he teaches to surrender to the contemplation of the other dependent character of phenomena, and also

[42:41]

the Buddha's teaching to surrender to the contemplation of the self-production lack of own being of phenomena. So how can you do this? One way to do this is, one way this is realized is through practicing what? One way to realize the contemplation of the other dependent character, one way to realize the meditation on dependent co-arising, one way to realize the meditation on what is beyond your thinking is to practice what? Practice non-thinking. The way to practice non-thinking, the way to practice beyond your thinking is to practice how? Huh? How's good, yeah, how? Go around, how? That would be fine. Go, how? Do you do that?

[43:48]

Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you're a good uncle. How? You go, that! So, any other ways that you can practice beyond your thinking? Receiving, yes. Tell me more. Receiving what? Receiving what? Receiving gifts, yeah. So, what did you say? Receive what's given. In other words, receive what's given. What's given is a gift. Receive the gifts that are given. That's a way to practice beyond your thinking because our thinking is that only certain things are given, right? That's our thinking. Like, our thinking is certain breaths are given but other ones aren't. Certain breaths are gifts and other breaths aren't. That's our thinking, isn't it? That's our thinking, which is fine. That's thinking. That's part of the deal. The imputational character is part of the deal.

[44:50]

This is a gift and that's not. Or this is a gift and I don't want it. What's a gift that you don't want? That's a gift that your thinking is involved with. So the meditation here, one of the meditations is everything's a gift and you receive the gifts that are given. This way of being with breath is a way that's beyond your thinking. Does that make sense, Shannon? You ever have a lousy breath? Ever have a short breath? Ever have a lost breath? Ever have a distracted state of mind? Ever have a lousy period of meditation? Ever had a good period of meditation? Good periods of meditation are gifts. You do not make them happen. You think you do, or you think you don't. If you think you don't, that meditation period's a gift. If you think you do, it's a gift.

[45:51]

You're thinking about this period of meditation as you're thinking. Just put that aside, like what is it, Swakya Rosha says, cut your head off and just set it down next to you, put your head next to your ariyoki and sit. Seeing everything as a gift is beyond your thinking. You cannot see how everything is a gift, you cannot see it. You think that some things you got for yourself, that's what you think. Okay, fine. We're talking about surrendering that stuff and just seeing everything as a gift. And also, since it's a gift and since you're receiving it, you say, I have no complaint whatsoever. This is a way, this is a way, this way of being is a way beyond your thinking. And it's not so much, you know, thank you very much for the potential world war. It's that when the potential world war comes, when the conditions for war start assembling, already, you know, that's a dependently co-arisen threat of war.

[47:04]

As that happens, you're in the mode of, thank you very much, I have no complaint whatsoever. Not for that thing, but to get yourself beyond your thinking, to meet the mystery of the conditions of threat of war, to meet it. Because meeting the mystery of the conditions of war are the basis by which you're going to understand what's happening and be able to receive the next two levels of the teaching. This way of practicing is a way of practicing non-thinking. This is not thinking. This isn't like you think and say, figure out, oh, this is a gift, or this is good, or I like this. No. That's going on still, but you're not practicing that way. You're practicing whatever it is, how. Whatever it is, you put your hands together, whether you put them together or not, you have your hands together to everything, and you say, thank you very much, I have no complaint whatsoever.

[48:05]

Another way is ... so there's two ways. One is everything is a gift of the other dependent character. All other dependent characters are by definition gifts. So if you believe the teaching of dependent co-arising, you would gradually lull yourself into the samadhi of the self-receiving samadhi of everything you get, including yourself, is a gift. Everything is giving you yourself. Everything is giving you life, no exceptions. And you use your discursive thought to get yourself beyond your usual discriminations of, this is good, I want this, thank you, I'll take it, and this I'm complaining about. And the other way is you actually say, thank you very much, no complaint whatsoever. Another way to approach this is to be kind of scientific, which is a little bit like still using your thinking. Your thinking about what breath is is your theory of breath. Your thinking about who you're talking to is your theory of the person.

[49:09]

This teaching says who the person is you're talking to is actually not who you think they are. So now I can tell that story which I told several times. There was a time when I was at Tassajara, this is like when I was leading a practice period and I was having an interview with somebody in the abbot's garden, I was the abbot I think, so I was in the garden, and I was talking to a student and I stood up while I was talking to her, she was sitting in a chair and I stood up and I kind of started jumping up and down like Rumpelstiltskin. And I don't know if I was really jumping up and down, but I was kind of like being very emphatic. I do not believe what I think you are. I do not believe what I think you are. I do not believe what I think you are. I just said that over and over quite a few times. It helped me not believe who I thought she was, because it's not good to believe. It's not good. [...] It's not good to believe who you think people are as who they are.

[50:14]

It's not good. It's not good. Even if you think they're real nice, it's not good. It's not good. It is a source of affliction. It's a gift. It's a gift. It's a not-good gift. And you have no complaint. And you have no complaint. You say, no complaint. Then you're shifting. into the samadhi of meditating on the other dependent, when you realize it's a gift that you make this confusion over and over, and then you can confess it. And the more you confess, I do believe she is who I think she is, I confess that, that means I do not want to meditate on the other dependent character of her. I do not want to meditate on how she's other than what I think she is. I want to meditate on how she is what I think she is. That's much juicier, or horrible, or whatever. So I told myself that because I did not want to think she was what I thought she was because that would be very bad if I thought that was what she was.

[51:25]

It would be very bad, very bad. So I didn't quite fall for it, but it was close. That's why I'm still here. yakking away. So I just, can I say a little bit more? So anyway, that's it. Yes? You can say that if you want, that what I was doing was refusing the gift, but actually what was happening was not refusing the gift. It was beyond your idea of refusing the gift, that's what was happening.

[52:26]

That's what was happening. Is there any way I can tell you what it was? No, but I can tell you ways that you'll find out what it was, how you can find out what it was. Say, thank you very much, I have no complaint whatsoever about everything, and you'll understand what it was. And the experimental approach is, you know, you think somebody is like such-and-such, That's your theory, this person is such and such a way, do an experiment, see if it's true. Like ask them something or ask somebody else something. So this is like, maybe I'll open this up before, I've already talked to you about this before, but we do walk around all the time with an inner world of fantasy of what we think is going on with the world and with other people.

[53:33]

So part of what you can do with that, as trying to get beyond your thinking, is you can tell people what you think they are. But not tell them, you know, just to hurt them and cause trouble, but tell them in the context of an experiment, like, I have a fantasy about you and I'd like to check out what you think of the fantasy. Like, I think you're angry. I shouldn't say that. First of all, would you like to do that experiment with me? I'd like to test my theory about something about you. And it's something you might know something about, or you might have an idea about. Would you like to do the experiment? Say, yeah. Well, I think you're angry. The person might say, hmm, you're right. So then, you tested it. Now you both think that it's You agree that the other person is angry, and that external reality, that shared reality, has some correspondence, in a sense, to your inner version that she's angry, and to her inner version that she's angry.

[54:44]

However, that shared reality is neither one of your fantasies. It's another matter, it's another phenomenon called a shared reality. So you have a shared reality, for a moment anyway, that she's angry, and you have inner versions, inner fantasies about the anger. Okay? It's a little experiment you can do. Sometimes you find out it's not true. Did you find out what the other dependent was? Not yet. The way you find that out is to give up your inner version and the shared version and what's in between. That's where it's beyond your thinking. And that's the place where you play in the samadhi of dependent co-arising is in the space between those two, but you need those two, actually. It's hard for you to move out and let go of your inner fantasy until you find out, for example, that it's affirmed in the external world or not, and if it's not, to find out some shared version of it, and then you can enter into the realm beyond your thinking.

[55:58]

But part of moving beyond your thinking is to get some reality checking on your thinking, reality checking on other people's thinking on your thinking. It's still all story, still. And then you move to the space between, which is beyond your thinking, her thinking, shared thinking, individual thinking, all the different varieties. That's the play space where we actually enter the Samadhi, okay? Was there some other questions that were asked? Could you speak up, please? Did you say something about precepts? Are the precepts a way to check on internal and external realities?

[57:10]

Yes, they are. And they are particularly pointed towards checking. All phenomena are opportunities to check on this, but the precepts are particularly pointed at checking on this. For example, the precept of not taking what's not given. You may think that something's a gift. You may think, oh, you gave me that. I see, thank you very much. You know, it's like this cup, I understand it's a gift, and so it's fine if it goes with me out of the room. But the precept would include that you would check to see if other people agree. If you think it's a gift, is everybody in on this gift? Check it. I'm doing the practice of, thank you very much for this cup. I'm doing meditation on dependent co-arising.

[58:17]

But checking with other people is part of it. So the precept gives you a chance to check on finding out the real space where you feel the gift. And the real space of the gift is between your idea that it's a gift. Your idea that it's a gift is not the realm where you say thank you very much, because the realm where you think it's a gift is your thinking. That's the realm where this is a gift and that's not a gift. Okay? This is a realm where you think, that's for me and that's not for me. This is not a gift. That cup on the table is not a gift. That's the realm of your thinking. This cup over here is a gift. That's a realm of your thinking. The realm that I'm talking about is a realm where everything's a gift. Now, where everything's a gift, how do you find out whether you can take the cup or not? The cup's a gift. It's a gift before you touch it.

[59:17]

How do you get it in your hand and walk off with it? How do you get the gift of walking off with it? Well, in fact, if you walk off with it, there's the gift of walking off with it. There it is. You say, thank you very much for this activity. I have no complaint whatsoever. Nice cup. The gift of getting thrown in jail. Exactly. But also there's a gift of saying thank you very much out loud. And if this is a gift, you're not going to hide that you took it, would you? And you're not going to feel like you took it, would you? You wouldn't feel like that. You wouldn't feel like that. You would get the gift of looking like you took it, but you wouldn't feel that way.

[60:19]

This is beyond your thinking, right? You can't understand how to do that. And that's the meditation. And it includes experimenting with people and any other beings that you can experiment of expressing yourself, checking out shared reality, That's another way to practice, trying to practice beyond your thinking about situation. And they're all kind of like really different. It takes a while to dare to surrender to such a way of being in this world. And the precepts kind of like are helpful to do this very practice. And then when you do the very practice, then you can start using the precepts to help you actually meditate on what's beyond your thinking.

[61:27]

Then you can also use the precepts to check out your thinking. The practice of being beyond your thinking is a practice of thank you very much for whatever is happening. Now, if you're really grounded in that teaching, this cup is an impermanent unstable, unworthy of confidence, dreadful, discouraging, compounded thing. You gonna steal that? I don't think so. You don't think this cup's gonna give you happiness? You're very careful with this cup. You're very careful with this cup. You would not steal this cup. You would not take this cup unless it was given. And it's given before you touch it. Enough! You don't want to get more involved in it. You don't want to get excessively involved in it. You know that's dangerous.

[62:29]

Now you're ready to check out your thinking about that cup. Like, you know, I get the impression that you're giving me that cup. I'm meditating on dependent co-arising. I'm meditating on the, what do you call it, the self-production lack of own being of phenomena, including this cup. So I'm not into getting this cup and taking it and owning it and selling it or whatever. But I have the impression that you gave this to me. Is that right? And they say, yes, please take care of it. Are you actually asking me to take care of this cup? Yes. Hmm. Then you have some thoughts about what that means. Now, what are those thoughts about that have to do with dependent co-arising?

[63:37]

You can look at that now. You're like grounded in meditation on dependent co-arising. So now when people say these things about cups and what they want you to do with them, now you can look at what you think they're saying. And you're pretty much ready now to see how funny it is if you would think, if you would believe that what you think they're saying or what you think they mean or what you think they are really applies to the realm where you're living. You're in the realm now, practicing with the realm beyond your thinking, and now something in your realm of thinking is happening. You can start to see how silly it is that you would think that that, that you would believe that that would apply to this realm beyond your thinking. You can start to see that. So, when it comes to the cup, relating to it as though it's a gift initiates you into the realm where you would no longer

[64:45]

where you'd be ready to meditate on your ideas of gift and not-gift. Like it says in the Mila Sutra, realize the emptiness of giver, receiver, and gift. It's an illusion that this is a gift. So saying thank you very much and seeing everything as a gift gets you beyond your thinking where you realize that there's no such thing as a gift or a receiver or giving. But to see in your own thinking about those three, the emptiness, you need to be grounded in being beyond those three. You need to surrender. I need to surrender. I need to surrender. I can do what I want. I need to surrender. I'm in complete control.

[65:46]

I need to surrender. That's what I tell myself. I need to surrender. I got a mind of my own. I need to surrender. I'll be all right alone. I need to surrender. Don't need anybody else. I need to stop talking to myself about I don't need anybody else and how I'm in complete control. Or even how I'm in a little bit of control. I need to surrender that in order to do this meditation. And in that mode, then you can start studying your thinking. In that mode of studying non-thinking, of practicing non-thinking, then you're ready to hear the teachings about the imputational character. But as you start to listen to them, you continue to surrender your own power. Meditate on surrendering your own power, and meditate on that you don't have the power to surrender your own power.

[66:51]

Surrendering your own power is beyond your idea of surrendering your own power, beyond your idea of how to do that practice. But it may involve over on the shore of thinking, over on the shore of thinking, over on the shore of self-power, it may involve listening to teachings about giving up self-power and thinking about how to do that. And on this side, on this shore of self-power, of independent existence, in this realm of believing that your ideas about what's happening are what's happening, over here, Surrender of this comes on the horizon. And surrender of this, when the surrender happens, you're no longer on the shore.

[67:52]

You're in the meditation on the other dependent. As they say, you're in surrender now. You're not behind the plow. You're not plowing the ground anymore. You're plowing clouds. And you continue that practice forever. You continue the practice of being on the shore of self-power, pushing your plow, trying to arrange surrender, And then you confess that you're still over here on the self-power side. You're still trying to engineer letting go. You're still trying to engineer surrender. You're still trying to use your thinking to understand phenomena.

[68:55]

And you confess that and confess that. And you continue to think you're confessing by your own power. But the time comes when it dawns, it dawns that you're not confessing by your own power, and the root of this deep belief in your thinking melts, and you find yourself in the realm of dependent co-arising, beyond your thinking. And then you continue that practice. while you then develop the other two aspects. And as you develop the other two aspects, you continue that basic practice, and also you start to do the practice of meditating on suchness. And then you start to evolve in a spiritual way, beyond your thinking. I said to somebody this morning, it's like we're dancing with a very large number of people in the realm beyond our thoughts, where right now we're dancing with a very large number of people.

[70:22]

Of course, in such a dance, I couldn't be doing that by my own power. Even dancing with one person you can't do by your own power, but you can think you can, right? You can think you're a good leader or a good follower. It's possible to think that, right? or you're a bad leader, a bad follower, that by your own power you're a bad dancer, right? Isn't that possible? Can't you do that? I mean, don't you think you can do that? But when you tune into what's beyond your thinking, in that realm, you're dancing with so many people that you understand a little bit. that this dance is not by your power or any one of their power. The dance is occurring due to pretty much everything other than you. And then when you are in that dance, then when you turn back to dancing with one person where you think you could do it, then you see, well, maybe even there it doesn't apply.

[71:32]

Maybe that's just totally a fantasy that I can do anything by myself. And then you start to see that's really not here at all, this like me doing that. And then the test of that is to actually dance with somebody, with one person in the realm of thought. To see if you can actually dance with somebody and somebody can dance with you without either one of you think that it's happening because of either of your power. And to notice, also, prior to realizing the way things really are, the way the imputational character really is, how it is a lack of own being in terms of character, prior to realizing that, to see how anxious it is to dance with people, to see how frightening we feel about dancing with people.

[72:37]

The reason why we feel frightened is because we think that we're doing it. When we understand that's not being done by our power, we're not afraid to dance with people anymore. So the fear we have of dancing with people gives us another opportunity to say, I'm still dealing with this dance in terms of my thoughts and believing my idea. of how it goes, and that I have the power to make the dance happen, or not happen. I can ruin the dance by my own power, or I can create the dance by my own power. So we need to find the place between our fantasies and the realities we share with our friends, and move into that space between, where creation happens but not by our power. And again, if we are not in that place, or I should say we are resisting that place, because it's already here, then we confess that we're resisting.

[73:49]

And confessing you're resisting is really good. It's very close to not believing you're resisting. I mean, very close to not resisting, to not believing what you're thinking. This is a Ouija board.

[75:05]

May our intention equally penetrate every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way. Beings are numberless. The illusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. The Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. as I contemplate meditating on what's beyond, meditating beyond my thinking, as I contemplate that, a feeling comes up in me of being powerless.

[76:46]

Of me being powerless. Because I'm basically surrendering my self-power at the door of this meditation. I'm saying, I'm gonna put aside self-power for a little while and go over into other power. But that feels like I'm losing power. that feeling arises, and I think that makes sense that it would feel like that, because I'm transitioning from me

[77:12]

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