Now everybody's here, and it's quarter to nine, so it's up to you. If you want to start at quarter to nine, you can start at quarter to nine, but if you want to start at 8.30, then you have to come earlier than you came today. We're studying Chapter 3 of Yabhadharmakosha, and I'd like to bring up a side, a related topic, which... Let's see, it's related, yes. It's not explicitly discussed in Chapter 3. However, it is explicitly discussed in the Abhidharma. Right now, in one sense, we speak conventionally as though... I'm giving you ideas or something.

[01:06]

But actually, according to the Abhidharma, I'm not giving you ideas. Do you understand that? In other words, I just presented you a paradox. I asked you if you understood that I'm not giving you ideas. In other words, I'm asking you if you got an idea, even though I just told you I don't give you ideas. According to the Abhidharma, what do I give you as I talk? I give you sounds. You don't have to say sound objects, but you can say sound objects if you want. And through group karmic, through group karma, there's some probability, some likelihood of you giving rise to certain concepts when I make certain sounds.

[02:18]

But is that it? May I help you? We have a sound source that produces these. sound waves, they interact with some receptor here, and the receptor gives rise to some idea. And through diligent effort on our part in the time we're little children, we drill to prove we're getting the idea that the person who's speaking wants us to get and we one of the ways we do that is we send sound waves back to them and then they they get a concept and they send it back to us to tell us back and forth we make these sound waves and somehow we settle on on some sense of confidence that when we make these sounds people will probably give rise to certain ideas but actually

[03:33]

I'm producing these sounds here, and you people are producing all kinds of different concepts as you're sitting there. And it's possible that some of you are giving rise to none of the concepts which I intend to ascend. Most of you smiled when I said that, but I don't know why you smiled. In one sense, you can say that, you know, I or the Abhidharma Kosher, or someone reading, talking to you about the Abhidharma Kosher, is giving you ideas or concepts from this teaching, but actually they're just making sounds. And the fact that they're just making sounds and that you put them together into concepts, reinterpret these sounds as concepts, that's an avidharma teaching, too, which we studied before, right?

[04:34]

Karaka 47 of Chapter 2. Remember? So, I can't send you concepts. They don't get sent. I can send you sounds. I can send you shapes. of the skill in communicating is can you make a shape that gives rise to the kind of thing you want to give rise to? Or perhaps are you just aware of what you're doing? In other words, some people may actually like to give shapes that in one sense everyone agrees this shape must be clear so you're not fooling around with conventional reality. Alright? So I'd say, I see somebody go like this.

[05:36]

Everyone in America knows this means hi and it's quite okay to do. Or I can say hello. So I'm not being strange and no one really will be upset with me and I'll get along alright in this world. But it may be that that's not my message and I actually know that and I know that when I go like this it means lots of things and but this is okay to do. And other people, they want to send all those other information, but they don't want to go like this, because they know this is not the message. So they give some unusual thing, but then they get in trouble. So it's not necessary to produce strange behavior in order to communicate strange concepts, because strange concepts are in the receivers. you have to do is just carry on your life normally and if you want to produce all kinds of strange concepts in people well that's erroneous you don't produce strange concepts you give rise to some causes in which they can produce strange concepts or anyway concepts unusual it's up to them now some people may want only the message that they have in mind they have an idea in their head and they want to send that message only

[06:58]

And that may be possible. However, it's extremely unlikely that anyone could ever do that. Anyone could ever have an idea in mind and get everybody to take it that way. Because each person is free to give rise to whatever thought, whatever idea they want to in regard to what is sent or what is evoked, produced in terms of sound and shapes. So here I am making these sounds in a context when I say, who knows what you're doing with the sounds I'm making. And in fact, in one sense, a teacher might get somewhat upset when they speak and then they talk to the people who heard them and find out what they actually

[08:02]

give rise to. It's, you know, it's only frustrating if you have an idea that you can communicate ideas. But in actual practice you find out it doesn't happen that way. Certain concepts that I have in mind I say over and over and over again. And I think, God, some people here must really be bored to hear this again. actually they don't hear the concept they hear the words maybe again and again but they don't hear the concept again as a matter of fact although i assume some people have heard it heard the concept again and again actually i don't assume that i've heard some people have heard that sound again and again i wonder is it possible that some people heard gave rise to the concept that i had in mind the first time i said it and then every time after that they hear it again and they're getting very bored hearing this the sound which now they give rise to the concept again and again Sometimes I find out that nobody ever has given rise to the concept.

[09:05]

So right now, I do not really know what, if you understand this stuff I'm talking about. Now, if you make faces or say something back to me, I feel like I can learn better. And actually, I can. There is a way to zero in on it. You can tell by certain things. by expressions people make. You get more information. Little by little, you can become more and more sure that there really is a sharing of the concept. Did you want to say something? the concept let's say let's take this concept concept i'm talking about now is this concept that you don't send ideas okay i have that concept and i'm talking about that okay but i don't know whether whether people have that concept now whether you have that concept too so and so that's my concept it's not always there but you know i may change that concept tomorrow i might

[10:43]

turn to a new chapter of Abdharmakoshi and find out that I misunderstood the whole thing and changed my whole concept. But anyway, currently I have that concept. And I'm trying to tell you about that concept by making sounds. So now what do you say? Do you mean when I think about you as a receiver of my sounds? Why is that confusing? Or why do you wish to be confused about it, I should say? I can't imagine somebody coming to you. I think I can imagine. You can't imagine someone else's point of view?

[11:44]

Well, it's not so much that you cannot imagine someone else's point of view. That's the next thing I was going to bring up. And yet somehow it seems that we can zero in and it's kind of like I can go and then somebody over there can give rise to a similar concept. In other words, I can make some sounds or something I make some shapes. I can have, for example, a visual image in my mind, and I try to communicate it verbally or with my body. And then I can watch and see if you can create it. For example, can you draw it on the board? So, like the receiver has this concept in mind, makes these sounds, mean the sender has that concept in mind makes it sound to the receiver gives rise to this idea yeah okay and you could prove it just by drawing it for example you could draw it and i'd say yeah you got you got it you could say it back to me but saying back to me is not the same as your concept of it so it's oftentimes good to translate it in several different modalities just to make sure

[13:09]

to make more sure and transmuting in several modalities means for example we sometimes say yes indeed you know or we say such and such and difficult indeed in other words it's difficult to do it so if i say some concept if i make some sounds and wishing wishing to convey some some idea to you i can tell by the way you behave afterwards somehow whether you whether you understand or not. Whether you're intending to show me or not, I can tell. I can't, sometimes I can't tell that you, what you did get, but I can tell you didn't get it. So in other words, if I say, that, behind that door, there's something very dangerous, which is not, you know, for human life and for your situation, I happen to know, would not be good and not see you open the door. you didn't get the same concept i did you got something perhaps but not the same concept because if you got the same concept you'd see that going through that door wouldn't work for your life but yet you go through so i can tell now you could also tell me about how you understood it so i could maybe tell before you go through the door too but sometimes you might tell me and it might sound good but then you go through the door and i see you didn't understand understand means you didn't recreate for yourself that image with the same values and everything that i sent

[14:35]

If you recreate the whole image, it's got all these little switches and stuff that make it work for you just like it works for me. But still, right now, again, I'm speaking, but I don't know what you're thinking about as I speak. Thank you. they really don't get your concept they get something but they can get something that you know you can judge how close it is it's never your concept you can only receive your own concepts it's something you create for yourself you can't recreate concepts for other people according to this and it's a question of by making sounds how close will be the thing that the other person creates upon hearing those sounds now in some cases you're talking to two different people

[16:11]

One creates something extremely close to your concept. The other one doesn't even hear it. I mean, there's nothing. And you cannot make people hear. And even with people who are hearing, they can do all kinds of different things. So given that I'm making these sounds now, all of you are giving rise to a whole bunch of different concepts, millions and zillions of concepts as I've been talking. And so is there something about my speech that will give rise to something useful to you? Is there something useful in this that I feel? Well, I do. For example, I feel usefulness with the authentic. I feel usefulness in the sense that I feel some intimacy with some authenticity of my thinking by talking about this. Yeah, that's that's what I'm leading up to what is it?

[17:18]

Yes That's a good example. For example, with a child, I have a concept in mind, and I do not wish at all for my child to have that concept at all. Rather, I have a concept which, if they have that concept, it will do them no good. What I have to do is, by my action, give rise to them producing a concept which I have no idea what it is, but which will produce a certain effect in their action.

[18:24]

So, I know that if If my daughter goes into the street, I have some concept about what that, how that works for life. Namely, it doesn't work for my life for her to go in the street with the cars going by. So I have that concept, but I can't, my concept will be useless to her. So what I do is I try by various means to create a concept, I mean, to make sounds so she will create a concept that will keep her from going out in the street. The concept she creates, which keeps her out of the street, is not my concept. It's got nothing to do with baby's arms being broken and going to the hospital and how upset everyone gets and deformed children and how difficult that would be for her life. That's not what it's at. I don't know what it is. It may be red. It may be big knuckles about three feet wide. I don't know what it is. That's not my concept. My concept isn't knuckles. But that may be the concept that will keep her out of the street.

[19:31]

She cannot understand, probably, or at least maybe now she can, but she couldn't understand two years ago what it means to go in the street and have a car hit her. Really, I can't understand either. All I know is somehow I have to stay away from that issue. I have various concepts by which I won't play with that stuff. So I want her not to play with it. So I do whatever is necessary so that she'll... in association with going in the street, she'll have this concept. So that's an example of where, in some sense, it's not that I pass her the concept. And in some sense, it's not communication in the sense of, I have an idea and she has an idea and the same idea. It's communication in the sense of, that I have an idea and she acts in such a way that it goes with my idea. but actually it's not exactly communication. And actually she may still go in the street.

[20:34]

Who knows? She may drop that concept, or that concept may become useless to her. The concept that worked for her when she was two may not work anymore. So she goes to the street, she sees red, she says, so what? That has nothing to do with me. She goes in the street. Hopefully she's learned some other things or given rise to other things which protect her from the cars by that time. But in this case, I'm not so much any longer trying to control you by my speech. I'm not actually trying to make you, in this class anyway, I'm not trying to make you be karmically good or something. I'm not trying to get you, well, Maybe some of you I am, but basically I'm not trying to get you to follow rules or protect yourself from physical harm. If you are in danger, then I hope that I'm also protecting you from that. I hope that this discussion of Abhidharma will keep you from falling downstairs and stuff.

[21:36]

But basically I'm not working on that level. I'm assuming that you can do it yourself plus, and you can do it fairly well, because here you are. You all got here today without hurting yourself very much. So I'm working more with giving you new ways to think or affirming certain ways of thinking that you have available to you. Or anyway, doing something so that you'll give rise to certain ways of thinking. And so I and all of us have to keep in touch with that. We're doing things like that more. then we're actually sending these materials. Now, that's one way to talk about it. Another way to talk about it is in this morning's reading, talking about heavenly eye, heavenly ear, and also talking about, let's see, heavenly eye, vision.

[22:48]

of others' mental makeup, he wisely knows with his own mind and mental processes of those Buddhas and Lords. And with the help of that cognition of others' mental makeup, he works the wheel of beings. And also we talk about knowledge of former lives. Now, In the Abhidharma, as you know, it says, in Chapter 1 of the Abhidharma Kosha, it says that you cannot use the sense organs of another person. You only have your own. You cannot see what another person sees. And actually, sense organs are also mind organs. You cannot have the manas of another person. You cannot receive the mental concepts, be aware of their anger and so on through their sense organ, their mind organ.

[23:58]

And therefore you cannot be aware of what's in their dharmadattu or their dharma ayatana. You cannot. However, you can be aware of the workings of their mind. And how are you aware of the workings of their mind? According to the Abhidharma? Through the sense organs, through the five senses, through eye, ear, nose, tongue, and touch. That's how you know other people's thoughts. yours in contact with them as they are things like this you know as i said last week we share we we touch each other through the material world we because we all create it we share in creation of this glass we share in creation of this water and so on that's where we overlap and it's there that we communicate however

[25:15]

Since we all create this, actually all of our minds are in this thing. And you can read everyone's mind right here in this glass. And if you want to get more specific, you can read individual people more directly and simply just by looking at them. Because they're giving rise to their own shapes. They're giving rise to their own voice. They're giving rise to their own body odors, and so on. Yes? Well, how does it happen then, according to Abhidharma?

[26:22]

There's only three ways to create karma, mental, physical, and vocal, okay? So I give rise to a thought. Okay? The fact is that philanthropy is actually connected with physical and mental. When you have to do something, you close to someone, but they're given rise to thought, just rise to some physical change, which is very subtle, but which someone close to them picks up the mind, which just rise to a similar kind of effect. We already know how to explain it that way, that even though there seems to be a long distance. You see, this says a such thing as a heavenly eye and heavenly ear. So if you have heavenly eye and heavenly ear, you can actually see the person, give rise to those things. And if you also, if you examine how they explain that you learn knowledge of other people's thoughts, it's totally in terms of this,

[27:28]

Namely, first of all, you attain the fourth jhana. In other words, you become very concentrated. When you attain the fourth rupa-jhana, I believe it's the fourth rupa, not the fourth arupa. Then you just study sounds. And then, or you never should study sights. Then you study sounds. By studying sights, you will be able to develop what's called the heavenly eye. By studying sounds, you will develop the heavenly ear. And to develop knowledge of other people's thoughts, what you do is you study your own mind as you give rise to physical gestures. And by understanding the relationship between what you're thinking and what your shape is, and you can tell in other people also by looking at them what they're thinking, But it's not that you're thinking what they're thinking, but rather you can tell by what they do what they're thinking.

[28:28]

And what they say, you can tell what they're thinking. By thorough knowledge of the connections in yourself and how all those complexities occur. So telepathy, my own dharmadhatu, you know, that I relate to, this is created by me. This is my thinking. But there's no, it doesn't take, you know, it doesn't go anyplace. I mean, there's no, I know of no way in Abhidharma for that to be known to someone else. So in this sense, Buddhist teaching is in some sense kind of, I don't know, it strikes me as being very straightforward, you know. It's not, it doesn't get involved in what other people often think of as mysteries. It's very straightforward. Yes? That's why I bring it up is because it appeared in the Sutra this morning.

[29:35]

And that is that this understanding pervades all this fantastic, mysterious, highly developed metaphysics of Mahayana Buddhism and Tantric Buddhism and Zen Buddhism. All this far-out stuff, you know, comes from this very straightforward, no-nonsense type of understanding. Namely, it all starts with simple awareness of what's happening. and imagination isn't eliminated, but imagination is not, doesn't get out of hand. That also brings another question to you about the psychic or about people who really seem to have some insight into somebody else's behavior. They're very straightforward, but on the other hand, the rest of their lives may be completely bananas. They wouldn't, in some sense, be capable of uh dedication or teaching anybody or teaching anybody then there's part of us which can acquire that level of concentration without necessarily having embedded themselves in the rest of our life would you say that last part again that somebody that any of us may be capable of

[31:00]

So in other words, it is, it is possible, it's possible to, you can attain psychic powers by a kind of partial concentration. If you attain concentration, you may not yet have psychic powers, but if you do attain concentrations, psychic powers will incidentally come. And you can bring them on more heavily if you want to. For example, heavenly eye will not necessarily naturally come to you as a result of practicing concentrations. It might come to you accidentally, but it won't necessarily come to you unless you actually meditate on sights and sounds and gestures and so on. Then if you do that, it will.

[32:02]

So it may or may not come, and some people are psychics without some discipline that we can recognize, but actually they were doing something like that if you look at their life. And they break through somewhat incompletely into this realm. That heavenly eye is not the heavenly eye that goes with the heavenly ear.

[33:08]

That heavenly eye is not one of the superpowers. That heavenly eye has to do with, it's a meditation on world systems. The heavenly eye that goes, that's one of the five eyes, those five eyes are actually meditation practices. And the heavenly eye is meditation on world systems. So the first step of that meditation is that you visualize various world systems, get all the world systems in your mind, and then so on. And then the heavenly, then the next one is the what? It's first the fleshy eye, then heavenly eye. The next one you imagine, you inhabit the world systems, okay, and so on. So it explains in the sutra a little bit. In other places it explains more. the details of how to do that meditation. That's not the heavenly eye in this sense. This heavenly eye means you actually can see a long distance. Or you can see around corners or through walls.

[34:12]

Because actually walls don't really stop light except that you say they do. You say walls have this function. You do that. If you study light thoroughly, you can do all kinds of things which you say now you can't do just because you haven't studied it. So once you attain concentration, then if you turn your attention on light, you'll learn all kinds of things which you never knew before, just because you never looked. So once you attain concentration, anything you study, you'll have supernatural powers in regard to that modality. Just because you'll break through your concepts of what's possible in those ranges will not stand anymore. So that's... heavenly eye in this sense that we're talking about here that goes with heavenly ear and knowledge of other people's thoughts and knowledge of past lives and magical powers like being able to jump, disappear and things like that. Did you have something? It's not through sound, yeah.

[36:16]

It's not through something... In other words, it's not mysterious. In a sense, this is all very mysterious, but the mysteriousness is based on... It's a straightforward mystery, you know. It's a mystery that's totally accessible to meditation. It's not a mystery that's sort of... What do you say? It's not a mystery that you can sell or something. I don't know if that's maybe not the right way to say it, but it's not mystery according to usual idea of mystery. It's mystery only in a sense of given ordinary ideas, it seems mysterious because you don't know how it happens. So it's mysterious based on ignorance. Ignorant looks mysterious. And if you're ignorant, then people can tell you all kinds of fantastic stories about how these mysteries can occur. Anyway, I guess I don't want to say what it isn't, but rather to say what it is, namely that these things happen very straightforwardly through your eyes, your ears, your nose, your tongue, your body, and your mental receptive faculties.

[37:37]

Okay, and that was an aside, but I think it's good to know that now as we go in, because we're going into the, to talk about the world, you know. We talk about stuff that you think you're experiencing and stuff that you think you're doing and so on. Transmission outside of Dharma. I didn't know what's meant by that. I never heard of it. Transmission outside the scriptures. Special transmission outside the scriptures. And what we mean by that is that there's these things called citrus. And transmission outside the scriptures means that transmission can occur

[38:47]

Here, here, here, here, here. In other words, transmission can occur anywhere, on any topic. It can occur inside the sutures or outside the sutures. And so, outside the sutures does not mean that it has to be outside the sutures. It just means it's free of the sutures, that it can be transmitted with the sutures or outside the sutures. Or it can also be just like this. Transmission inside the sutra is like this. See this? And once again, that seems like transmission inside the sutra, but actually what happens? Founder's sight. Is it in the sutra or where, you know? So once again, I can go like this and somebody hears the Diamond Sutra.

[39:49]

All of a sudden they say, an unsupported thought. So is it inside the sutra or outside the sutra? This seems like outside the sutra, but then they hear inside the sutra. I point to this, and all of a sudden they see a ball rolling down the hill. And they're awakened. It seems to be special transmission outside the sutra in their mind, but I use the sutra to initiate it. And all these possibilities are in the sutras. If there isn't a self, then what? I can't use your sense organs.

[40:54]

That's where I stop. And what are you saying after that? That's enough. You just say, I can't use your sense organs. That's enough. You can't use my sense organs. Sense organs, as you know, according to the Abhidharma, are acquired into a particular stream, into a personal series. Sense organs are individuated. They arise out of desire to have sense organs. Sense organs, for example, five sense organs, exist in the Kamadatu. And they come because some being wants them. And they're brought into a particular series. That's it. The consciousness says, I'm particularized. This is a particular set of organs, a particular set of receptive capacities. They have a particular point of view. I want that. I want a particular point of view. I want to try it out. Consciousness doesn't have to take particular point of views, but when it does, and it wants this particular set of organs, and when it wants to be in a kamadatu, and it wants to be in the human realm, then you get a human.

[42:09]

when it wants to do it again, you get another human. When it wants to do it again, you get another human. And it turns out that it wants to do this a lot, so you have a lot of people. And all these people together make the material world. Because once it makes all these different individualities, it wants to share. And the way it shares is through the physical. And the physical is that which it came from in the first place. So physical... location interacts with receptive capacity and gives rise to consciousness. And consciousness tends to incarnate itself into physicality, which then gives rise to consciousness. And then it does it again and gives rise to other physicality, other location, and other receptive capacities, and other consciousness. And all these consciousnesses give rise to which then give rise to further physicality as external rather than internal, named as receptive capacities.

[43:18]

Because each receptive capacity interacts with an so-called external, according to Abhidharma, external plaything. And by all these different, the sum total of all these different consciousnesses playing with the field of their organs piles up into creating a shared external reality. which is individually and differently perceived. This is an exercise. Is there some other question over in that area? Oh, by the way, excuse me, but you said if there isn't a self, and remember that when we say there isn't a self, that does not mean isn't a self in the usual sense of there isn't a self. It doesn't mean the opposite of there is. Okay? Just like, this is there is a self, okay? This is there isn't a self, okay? This is there is and this is there isn't.

[44:22]

When we say that there isn't a self in Buddhism, we mean this. That it's not stuck in this or this. no I think I'm now I'm saying that no one ever gets your concepts okay but rather you have to decide uh how you know how you have to decide by some means, what concepts they are giving rise to, even though you can't ever get theirs either. Only I see my concepts. Only you see your concepts. And yet somehow there seems to be some way for us to finally find out what the relationship between our concepts are.

[45:26]

It's kind of a mystery. That I can, for example, that I can be without concepts if I practice Buddhism a long time. and that finally I can see it here without concepts. Somehow this can be done by observing a person's behavior. We tend to... Yeah, we tend to assume that. Or we tend to assume that it's possible to have the same concept or it's possible to communicate concepts and things of all these assumptions. Anything is possible, but anyway, the basis of all this is, this Abhidharma basis is rather straightforward. And all these mysterious metaphysical phenomena that we hear about in Mahayana Buddhism are based on this very simple teaching here. Very simple or very straightforward. And mechanical. Maybe that's an important word to use, mechanical.

[46:32]

Lawful. When you examine it further, you see that the mechanics fall apart. They disappear. But it's this machinery that the more lofty teachings operate on. And they do not deny this machinery. They all agree on this machinery. They agree on worldly machinery. And then the first step of transcendent machinery is the Abhidhamic machinery. So the Mahayana, lofty Mahayana Buddhist meditations do not violate conventional reality, and they do not violate Abhidharmic reality. They do not deny conventional reality, but they do not operate on conventional reality. They generally operate on Abhidharmic reality. That's their point of departure. And Abhidharmic reality is the point of departure for Abhidharma, too. But it's the point of departure and also the conclusion.

[47:35]

They can use other pupils' bodies. Well, I just don't know what they, I don't know what they mean. Well, what I'm saying is that, not to deny such statements or whatever. But in Buddhism, if someone makes a statement like that, we wonder, what is the liberative power of that statement?

[48:47]

Okay? And so, if this statement was said by a Buddha, we'd examine it to see how it could be useful. But it turns out that if it was said by an insane person, we'd also examine to see what is useful about it. So such a statement requires examination to see what use we can make of it. Statements by Buddhas are not necessarily something that tells us by what is said what is going on. For example, sometimes Buddhas say, if you try to see with your eyes, you'll never understand. to hear with your ears you'll never understand. Only when you hear with your eyes can you comprehend what's going on. So this statement comes out of a koan where it's quite easy for us to see what's useful about it.

[49:58]

But we still sometimes have to study it for a while before it clicks in what the meditation that's being suggested is. So I think All I can say is that I don't see that that... If we want to work at trying to make all other schools of all other yogas make sense for Buddhism, we can do that. But the fact that it sounds different is not necessarily a problem. Because you see... And here's an example of a concept, you know, that I'm only going to say once today, and then I don't know if you're going to get it, but... And by saying that, maybe you'll be listening. And that is, if somebody says that it's X, and Abhya Dharma says something different, what Abhya Dharma is saying is that this is the way things actually are. The fact that somebody else says that it's different does not mean that they're right or wrong. But rather, if you understand the way things are, you'll understand what that is, too.

[51:03]

So... If Abhidharma says you can't inhabit other people's bodies, and this says you can, the meaning of this statement is in terms of the fact that you can't inhabit other people's bodies. And by understanding that you can't, when you understand what it means that you can't, then you can understand what it means that somebody says that you can. It doesn't mean they're wrong, it just means that if you want to know what they mean, and if you also want to know what Abhidharma means, you start here. Then you can understand other things later. to try to understand what that school is saying you have to go over there and find out what they mean and use that teaching okay but it doesn't mean it's wrong it just means that the way to understand is through over here rather than seeing that as different from this i didn't i didn't think that you were and what i'm telling you is that is that that thing the fact that it sounds differently is not a problem It is close.

[52:09]

It sounds similar words. But it may not be on the same level. Just like a Zen teacher says, you have to hear with your eyes. Our Zen teacher says, chant with your ears. But this statement, its meaning is based on avidharma. It's only because the abhidharma is so straightforward that those expressions have power. Okay, now back to chapter 3. Kamandatu has 20 places.

[53:22]

through division of the hells and distinctions of the continents. So the Kamadatu includes how many Gatis? Five Gatis? Any other comments? How many Gatis? Four plus what? What? Four gattis are completely contained in the kama dattu and don't exist elsewhere. And four twenty-sevenths, I mean six twenty-sevenths, of the divine destinies exist in the kama dattu. Any questions about that? Four gattis, four destinies exist entirely

[54:53]

in the Kamadatu and exist nowhere else. And the heavenly destinies, the divine destinies, exist in the Kamadatu and elsewhere. Six of the 27 heavenly destinies are in the Kamadatu. So 24 places, 8 hells, and as you see, around Karaka 58 of this chapter, the hells are described. And it starts at the top. The top hell is Samjiva, and the bottom hell is Avicii. Hmm? What? The four continents...

[55:56]

uh on this chart here okay this uh the one the triangular one at the bottom is jambudvipa it's on the south do you all have these charts well did i give you the charts back Anyway, you can get one of these charts. The southern part is Jambudbipa. Jambu Island, yeah. Let's postpone that for a little while, okay?

[57:04]

I just want to get the basic structure. And then, in this system, where we are is supposed to be in this Jambudbipa, where I hope we are, in Jambudbipa. This is the best place to practice. And the hells are... Below this, under the ground here, on this disc here, underneath this disc here, underneath this land area, below the surface of this water, below the surface of the land here, are the hells. They go down. This disc, although it seems thin, contains all the hells. It's actually plenty thick enough. Don't worry about it. There's no space problems in hell because being squashed together is part of where it's at.

[58:08]

What? What? Iron Mountain? Is it a hill? Hell. Hell? No. Iron Mountain is above the surface. Iron Mountain is above the surface of the water. Those mountains are higher than all around in here. All this is water, okay? Right here, this part here. Can you see this? See the islands? This stuff in here is water. Oceans. Hell is below this disk here, under the ground. All over the world, hell is conceived of as below the ground.

[59:16]

In China, India, Greece, Iran, Egypt, Persia, they always put hell under the ground. a worldly fact. It's part of the way, it's part of our group karma. But as you see, you know, this picture that Pam asked doesn't look like the way, so much the way Westerners think of the world. But, um, The fact that it looks this way and the fact that there's commonalities is part of the reason that leads us to realize that whatever way you visualize it is just the way you imagine it, the way people imagine these things to be.

[60:22]

In other words, this world is due to karma. Karma is thought. So if it's a little different from what you're usually used to thinking about, don't worry about it too much. It's just another way to think about it. Whatever world you have is the one you've thought up. To hear about another one that's a little bit different than the one you've thought up so far is not too much of a problem, as I hope you'll see. Okay. Then the common dot to contain 17 places, and the 17 places in this world, in this diagram, are just, see that sort of, palace there, that stupa. Remember the stupa, it's a palace. Starting from, you can just count the layers anyway, about 17 of these horizontal sections here, 17 are the Rupadatu heavens in this picture, and the last four are the Arupadatu heavens.

[61:27]

And the Kamadatu heavens start on this terrace, the four-level terrace going up here. See those terraces, the four levels going up, becoming narrower as they go up before that. terraces on the top level of these terraces right on this level here is the first level of worldly god realm that's where it's located mundane uh first level of god of heavenly abode is right here this is in the common doctor okay and these are the four uh we saw four great kings live here

[62:42]

Four great kings, each of them has 90 sons, 90 young men who are his son. These heavenly kings are often characterized as being dressed like generals. Next time I'll try to bring some pictures of them if you don't already know what they look like. 90 sons? Well, there's lots of other beings up here. These are just sort of like the figureheads of the place. If you should inhabit this realm by virtue of your good deeds, it's not that you necessarily become one of these heavenly kings, but rather you inherit the powers of these realms. These are prototypic, each of these beings prototypic representations of the powers that are available to you when you enter the first level of divine existence in the common, in the mundane, in the common doctor.

[63:55]

It's all mundane existence, but this is the visual realm. In other words, these beings can be seen in terms of, you know, gross matter. You can, you can meet these people without leaving this realm. And there's divine assistance or heavenly assistance living on all these layers of going up to there. Various kinds of beings, yakshas and so on. Various spirits that go up here. I'll show you pictures of those too. You've heard of them, yakshas, mohoragas, kimnaras, nagas. These kind of beings live around in here, too. Then the next heaven is up on here, and it goes up like this again. And they inhabit various levels up there.

[64:56]

Some of them live in this. This is actually a city up on top of there. Some of them live in the city around the base there, and some of them live actually in that palace. What? This is all commandatu still. Well, I... Starts what? What starts? Kamadatu is way down, all this stuff down here too. It's Jambudvipa. Kamadatu is Jambudvipa and all these other hauntments. And there's one behind here in the back. One in the back, as you can't see, is Butala Kuru. It's in the north. And underneath here, and out in various realms around in here are animals and freighters. They also exist in this space. And where do the heavens begin?

[65:57]

Heavens begin here. Heavens begin right on this terrace. And the bosoms of the heaven live on the top of this terrace before the Montsemeri flares out. Later, I'll give you the exact dimensions of all this stuff. And this is one world, okay? And as I told you before, this world is part of a cylinder, and there's many layers below this world, and there's other world systems, too. It's all described later in the chapter, but I think I can postpone further, more exact description for a while. You can ask questions about it if you want. I'll just answer them rather than presenting the whole thing for now.

[66:59]

So then the Rupadhatu is... Rupadhatu and our Rupadhatu are the 17 plus 4, 21 heavens above the top of that palace there. As you see, the highest one is one that you had trouble reading this morning in service. Remember? The para nirmitta vasa avartan. Remember that one? That's the top heaven. It means beings that... can basically get whatever they want just by thinking of it, by creating it mentally. And notice that it says in here that she fulfills the perfection of giving up to the 18 Buddhadharmas, and from the very beginning she fulfills the perfection of giving without seizing on its reward, just as the paranimitta,

[68:13]

Vartan gods satisfy their needs by mind alone. So does the Bodhisattva. Through that gift he serves upon the Buddhas and Lords. He gladdens the world with its gods and men as sure as and establishes beings in the triple world, triple vehicle through his having taken up that perfection of giving as well as through skill and means. So the Bodhisattva is are like these gods in that they attain their result just by wishing it. They don't have to even grasp it to get it. Somehow you can vow to attain enlightenment or practice morality without ever grasping it. As a matter of fact, if you do grasp it, you don't attain the bodhisattva's morality. And so it's sort of like these gods. in a way. Except the gods are attaining all kinds of pleasures rather than attaining the bodhisattva ideal.

[69:22]

So because of the particular object that they have, they are still in cyclic existence. So in here you have the names of all the different heavens. For example, In the Kama Datu, in the Rupa Datu, the first heaven is Brahma Kayikas, and then Brahma Purshitas, and then Mahabrahman. So the first one are just the inhabitants of the heaven of the first jhana. second one is supposedly the attendants or ministers of Brahman or Brahman, and the third is Brahman himself. So if you attain the first rupajhana, as a result of that, you can enter into states of bliss which are like

[70:39]

The top one is like being a Brahman himself. The second one is like being a minister to Brahman. And the third, the lowest, is like being an inhabitant of the realm wherein that kind of divinity exists. And some people argue that being a minister to Brahman is really just an aspect of Brahman. So that's why some people say, there's not really 17 of these heavens, but only 16. Because... There's only three in the rupa-doctor. But for now, you see, I'm emphasizing that these beings are prototypes, are ways to talk about, for us, are ways to talk about the type of existence that you have. However, it is possible to be born into these realms. But for us, it's more like, since we're born into human destiny, we would rather, through various yogic practices, Actually, this is a yogic.

[71:40]

You only would attain these jhanas by yogic, these heavens by yogic practice, by jhana. By doing yoga practice, you can have experiences which you would be perfectly happy, I think, to have these beings be your prototype or your symbol or metaphor of what you're experiencing. If you hear about what these beings are like. you'd find that they're good metaphors for your experience. But that's not to say that they don't also exist as beings as much as this cup exists. If you're into external reality, aside from mind, then there are these beings who have external reality to you. Since it's almost 10 o'clock, I wondered... I said I would stay later if you wanted to. How many people could stay later? I don't know what to do.

[72:42]

I'll stay a little later then. I don't want to stay too much later so that the groups get too different, but... Okay, so... It says the Arupadatu does not have places. So the heavenly realms of the Arupadatu are not actually places. They don't have location. They're defined by conception. They're conceptually defined.

[73:43]

They're just places where you exist in the concept that's the name of the heaven. So the first one's called Akasha Ayatana. Now Akasha... Akasha... Akasha Anantya Ayatana. Akasha Anantya means the infinity of space. And Ayatana, you know, means what? Door of arrival or door of production. In other words, the door of arrival at this realm or the door of production of this realm is the infinity of space.

[74:47]

So the concept of infinity of space is the door of production of this realm. That's how you make this thing. Of course, you already have attained the fourth rupa jhana. So as you imagine this realm, as you imagine this infinity of space, your imagination is highly concentrated, so it's very powerful. So you imagine yourself into this realm through that concept. They actually have locations, yeah. If you think that Thambudhipa actually has a location. If you think this is a location, that has a location. However, the location is, once again, determined by your attitude, by your thought. Okay? So Uttarakuru exists in Marin County. But so does John Budipa.

[75:57]

Anyway, all these places, they must, you know, they actually exist someplace. That's where you experience them in some locality. But they're states of mind. They're states of mind. They're states of existence. They're destinies. They're undefiled, neutral karma. They're retributive experiences of what they are. So they're states of experience. The state of retributive experience, all these gattis. Okay? So remember now, we're talking about gattis now. We're talking about retributive existence. Places are retributive existence. Places of existence are retributive existence. Okay? Active karma is not a place.

[77:05]

of angry consciousness is not a place according to the way they're using the word place here see it says kamadhatu has 24 places or has 20 places those places are all gattis are subdivisions of 4 and 6 tenths of gattis so places are retribution but active karma isn't really one of these gattis That's what we talked about last week. Active karma is not a retribution. It's not a place. However, you may feel you're located when you commit active karma because you just experienced a place, you get angry, and you experience a place. So you feel, well, I'm still in this room. But the feeling of being in the room is not anger. Being in this room is retribution for certain types of thinking you've been doing, certain karma you've committed.

[78:17]

While sort of feeling in the context of this gutting, you can commit anger, you can concentrate yourself or distract yourself, and so on. But as you do that, at that moment, if you look at yourself, you're not into being aware of the way you are. not what you're doing. In other words, you feel like you're sitting in a room. A lot of people feel like they're just sitting in a room, but actually, most of the time, you're not sitting in this room. Most of the time, or anyway, a good share of the time, you're actually in no place. You're just emotionally, you're actually just emotions. But you can't see the emotion. You can't locate the emotion. So it doesn't, it doesn't it doesn't interfere with this space. Yes? When you experience emotion, you mean when you create emotion?

[79:29]

That's all there is? It seems like you're still there. At the moment that you're aware of anger, for example, your object of your awareness is anger at that moment. So you're not really aware of the sense world. At that moment, you're not perceiving them. Now, the Vaibhashikas don't say that they disappear at that point. They're still potentially operable. They haven't died. but you're not actually perceiving them at that moment. So you're not an agati.

[80:34]

You're in karma bhava. You're doing active karma. It happens so fast that you see anger, again you see a physical reality. So you don't feel like there's a space where physical reality is pushed away then you're just into emotional reality but you can create states where physical reality is pushed aside and all you see is emotional reality or psychic you know psychological uh mental reality and those states you see what it's like just to see mental reality and know sometimes people in states of great emotion they don't see the physical world anymore i mean there's The floor, the wall, the ceiling, everything goes away. All they see is anger. All they see is lust. In a sense, they feel blinded. They can't see because their emotions are so strong. In other words, the intensity of emotional experience they feel to be so strong and so rapidly, emotions so rapidly following upon emotion in their awareness that there actually seems to be a parting in the physical world.

[81:48]

and they don't see signs like be good or stop or turn right. They're actually primarily experiencing emotion. Whereas most of the time what we experience is emotion and then physical reality and physical reality and emotion, retribution, retribution, emotion, or mental awareness and active karma and then passive or experience. And it happens so fast that there seems to be a continuity of all realms. So you feel like you're always thinking, and you're always seeing, and you're always smelling, and you're always hearing, and you're always feeling, and you're always emoting, and you always have a feeling, and you always have perception, and everything, all modalities seem to occur simultaneously in one sense. But this is saying, let's go back and see that actually they happen one at a time, in a sense, one object at a time. And this first quote says one at a time, but they all exist all the time. It's a question of which one's being the object.

[82:53]

So this is the starting point. Later we can sort of see that they all simultaneously exist, but it starts by saying that they exist one by one as objects of awareness. Or I should say objects of perception. Yes? Well, your observation brings up further things. In some sense, when you perceive an emotion, in a sense it's an illusion because... So when you actually do perceive an emotion, often you perceive a concept of the emotion because the emotion actually implies movement often, which is impossible to perceive in a given moment.

[84:08]

So in some sense, you have an illusory concept of the possibility that emotion would occur like it does, where actually it doesn't. Another way to say that is that the mind can, the mind has the power, has imaginative power, and imaginative power can exercise itself in many dimensions. And so the variety of the dimensions of imaginary power of imagination are often spoken of as emotions. So emotions are of a variety of possibilities according to the basic varieties of imagination. Now this is not exactly the Abhidharmic way of speaking.

[85:14]

The Abhidharmic way to say is that there really is such a thing as anger. There really is such a thing as lust. There is such a thing as faith. There is such a thing as samadhi, and mindfulness, and vigor, and so on, and flexibility, and all these other dharmas. But when you're bringing up the fact that if you think about it, a lot of these things, if you see them in a moment, they really couldn't function in a moment because they imply movement, which can't happen in a moment. So once you realize that, you realize that actually and this is leaving the Abhidharma school, then you realize that actually all these emotions are, if you see them as permanent things, then they're just imagination. But if you see anger as something that arises from various causes, it's a dependent thing.

[86:17]

It's not anger anymore. in the usual sense, you're now seeing it as a dependent thing due to various causes and conditions. That anger exists. But that anger can't exactly exist in a moment. Because that anger has movement in it. But it can't exist as a bunch of causes and effects congealing into this thing called anger. That can exist independent of imagination.

[86:47]

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