i have a confession to make and that is that i never noticed before call on is the koran what they are missing view of last time also before i forget uh... uh... ronald press which is the What do you say? The Labor of Love of Alan Moyer and Linda Kokoza has just published a new edition of Dharma Talks on Zen Meditation called Warm Smile from Cold Mountain in a new indestructible paperback cover. And so if you want a new version, a new edition has to it has to box in it.

[01:01]

Here it is. Thank you, Donald, for taking care of it so nicely. Again, as a review of last time. It's, I think, helpful to see these first three sentences of the text. The first one saying that there's teaching and when everything's teaching when everything's the Buddha's teaching or the Buddhadharma, then there are things of the world. Or to rephrase it another way, when everything is the one fabric of the Buddha's teaching, then there are

[02:19]

various threads in that fabric, like delusion and enlightenment and practice, sentient being and Buddha's birth and death, and so on. Infinite threads make this one Buddhadharma, which includes everything as one fabric. And so you may feel, in some sense, sometimes if you look at the fabric, when you look at the fabric, you don't really feel so much in this way that this thread over here is really separate from those other threads. You understand that they're completely interdependent. And this is the teaching.

[03:24]

That teaching is that everything that happens is part of this fabric. And included in the fabric is the practice. And then the next two sentences say what the practice is. The first one mentions that when all the things that are this fabric and all the things that are the Buddhadharma, have no independent existence, have no abiding independent self, then there are no things. Or another way to put it is, in the same analogy, is when or as you understand

[04:30]

that the individual threads making up the fabric have no independent existence. On the fabric, you do not see. There are no individual threads. Understanding the fabric that way, that there are no individual threads like thread of Buddha, this thread of sentient being, birth, the threat of death, the threat of enlightenment, the threat of delusion, the threat of practice. But practice isn't mentioned on the list because actually when you understand that there is no independent, none of these threads are independent or existing by themselves, you don't understand that there's no practice. You understand that that is the practice, that understanding is the practice. Developing that understanding is realizing the teaching.

[05:35]

It's realizing the whole fabric. If I think of the analogy of the fabric, people can sort of think, oh, I see the separate threads. But when you really understand that those separate threads do not exist together, you actually do not see the separate threads. When you understand that delusion cannot exist independent of enlightenment and sentient beings and Buddhas cannot exist independent, in that understanding, when you have that understanding, when you have an independent existence, you actually don't see them. They're actually not there. This understanding liberates us or releases us from, for example, thinking that life is better than death or enlightenment is better than delusion.

[06:51]

and so on. Without this understanding, as it says a little later in the text, we live in a world where we do actually think sentient beings are not as good as Buddhists. We actually do think unenlightened beings are not as good as enlightened beings. We prefer We naturally prefer enlightenment over delusion, freedom over slavery. We prefer it. But preferring these things is not the practice. It's just one of the things that exists in the fabric of the Buddhadharma. preferences, all the different preferences, different things that exist in this one fabric, which includes all preferences and all freedom from preferences and so on.

[08:10]

So in the original list of where there is Buddhas and sentient beings and there is death, those can be seen as, you could see them as abundance and lack. abundance of enlightenment and lack of enlightenment, abundance of life and lack of life, abundance of enlightenment and lack of enlightenment. The Buddha way, the practice of the Buddha way, leaps beyond these as separately existing, leaps beyond an abundance which exists in dependence of the lack, leaps beyond that, and that leaping at leaping is possible in the context of where we see that there really isn't any abundance or lack.

[09:17]

As long as we really still see abundance, that's when we also are seeing that there is an inherently existent abundance a self-existent abundance separately existing from a self-existent lack. So if we don't see that, we can't leap free, and not being able to leap free is because of that. When we leap free, it's because we actually have found the practice which is selflessness of all the things that make up the Buddhadharma. And because we leap free, then there are threads in the fabric.

[10:22]

Because we leap free, then there are Buddhas and sentient beings, birth and death. But now, in this leaping free, there's birth and death in the context of leaping free, which is based on not believing that birth and death live independently. I wonder with you, how do you practice? So you may be able to envision that everything that you see for the first sentence, which includes the next two sentences, because the first sentence includes the practice.

[11:26]

So in that situation, everything, practice and not practice, Because even people who are trying to practice, or speaking strictly, even people, human beings who are trying to practice, who have an idea that practice exists independent of something else or independent of not practicing, they're not actually practicing. That's not the practice. It's an idea of a practice, and it can be activities devoted to the idea of a practice which exists separate from that practice. But when you're actually practicing, you understand that there's no independently existing practice . Your activity is now illuminated

[12:30]

or interfused with the teaching about practice. And the teaching is that all these things, everything you're working with, has no independent existence. How can you practice that way? How can you practice that way? After a first sentence you got the teaching, received the teaching about namely that when everything is the teaching then you have the world and the world is actually the entire world is the buddhist teaching and also the teaching about practice and the teaching about practice is that it is all dharmas are without abiding self and therefore there's no independent things. How do you practice that way?

[13:31]

Like right now. Any comments? Please, you're welcome to. By not being attached to sense, the senses, things that are happening, not being attached to the sound, just letting the sound be the sound.

[14:54]

Letting the sound be a sound? And how is that, how is letting a sound be a sound? that things do not have abiding self? How is it practicing that teaching? I think if you thought everything is interconnected, then there wouldn't be a lot of anxiety.

[16:14]

We wouldn't have to create more than what you said. What you said followed the statement of letting a sound just be a sound? Letting whatever happens. happens without adding to it, interpreting it. Without interpreting it. And the next thing you said was something about interdependence. So is there kind of an interdependence between the understanding of interdependence and letting things be what they are without adding to them? Mm-hmm. And is there a connection between interdependence and things lacking self? So giving up

[17:28]

We have ideas of things and realizing that the idea of the thing, the idea of the thing and the thing, even the idea of something that's not interdependent, the idea is interdependent and the thing is actually interdependent. If we don't think something's interdependent, it makes it more difficult for us to what? Included in the fabric, but also? Exclude. It makes it what? Exclude it. Take it away from it. It's all connected. I didn't follow. My question? Not independent. When you understand something's interdependent, then what? Then you see it in the tapestry, and what did you say?

[18:35]

You see it outside the tapestry. And you see it outside the tapestry. How outside the tapestry, when you see it as part of the tapestry? Well, it's because you're not labeling it connected and you're not labeling it unconnected. It's sort of there with it. Okay, and how long are things when you see it as interconnected? Yes? Change. Change what? There's a sort of impairment quality to it. You see impermanence. It makes it easier to talk. It makes it easier to talk? But you need to see the substantiality in order to see that. Insubstantiality. So in other words, something needs to arise. Do you need to see substantiality in order to see insubstantiality? To then apply the... Yes, I think even insubstantiality... So even insubstantiality is... doesn't have a self.

[19:47]

That's what I mean. So you have to make a substantiality, in other words... There's no problem about that, right? Everybody can make substantiality easily just by thinking of something. So we've got plenty of substantiality, but all these substantialities are interdependent, therefore they're insubstantial. Both substantiality itself depends on insubstantiality and insubstantiality also on substantiality so we don't make a self no self either and also if you are meditating this way it would make it easier to talk and it would make it easier to let things be as they are when you sit there seeing them as isolated and independent, we have to fuss with them.

[20:49]

And the fussing depends, you know, on more thinking about it along with seeing it as separate than your... you can't just leave it alone. You don't really have to fuss. What I'm saying is that it's hard to allow when you think something's independent. It's hard to allow it. Because if you think it's independent, you tend to like it or dislike it. It's hard to just be really even-handed with something when you've already done some imagination to it and believed it. So it's hard to then start being even-handed at that point.

[21:55]

Well, you don't really need to be even-handed. It's just that if you're not even-handed, then you're, what do you call it, you're deluded in your suffering. Because by even-handed I mean letting something be what it is without meddling with it, without turning it into a like or a dislike, which then, well, even before the like and dislike arises, there's already some exaggeration or some disturbance of what the thing is. So we're not saying that things don't exist. When everything is Buddhadharma, things do exist. There are these things.

[23:06]

But they don't exist independently. They exist as part of Buddhadharma. In other words, interdependently according to the principles of teaching, but they do exist in this way, in this context, as one big fabric. But when we look at the fabric, we substantiate it and parts of it, so then we can't leap beyond the... and we project abundance and lack upon it so then we get stuck in abundance and lack and we're still stuck in the fabric of the Buddhadharma but we don't realize it because we're spending a great deal of our life

[24:10]

uh... working with abundance and lack not leaping beyond abundance back into abundance and lack after leaping free of it and then leaping free of it again we are stuck in it so again how do we without having even a preference for getting unstuck or in the context of being unstuck How do we practice? The next sentence says, you know, that we do have preferences for the flowers and kind of dislike for the weeds. We live in that world. And it is at least a little bit uncomfortable, isn't it, to have preferences?

[25:17]

Some people that you want to be with and some people you really don't, you prefer not to be with. And it's hard to leap. With those preferences, it's hard to leap. It's hard to practice. Isn't it? Isn't it hard to practice when you have preferences? Isn't it embarrassing to have preferences? So one translation says, there's several translations, one that says, in spite of this, flowers are always amid our grudging and weeds flourish in our chagrin. That's more kind of difficult. The other, in attachment, aversion, weeds spread.

[26:23]

Or another one, still do flowers fall to our pity and weeds grow to our displeasure. Different emotions there, flowers and and weeds maybe this is familiar to this flowers and weeds situation and having some feelings of embarrassment chagrin some embarrassment or dislike or aversion or attachment or pity all this stuff in the middle of flowers and weeds we had that situation When you see things, when or as all the things don't have self,

[27:43]

then these things aren't there. Okay? Now the Buddha way... Correct. But it's that they're not there in the context of seeing their lack of self. So when I'm looking at you and I don't see you as independent of Diego and Laurie and Paul, when I see you that way, It's that in that context you're not there. And I don't have a preference for you in that context. As you don't have an independent existence from all of us, there is no basic Tracy. It's not that, you know, which means there is no independent Tracy. which is ordinarily what we call Tracy because you can't actually specify Tracy or Steven unless you project a self.

[29:00]

So the thing which we, you know, what we're naming is actually the self that we're projecting on the person. The person isn't a self and the name refers to the person but we put the name on the self of the person, we put the self on on the person who put the name on the self. So when we see that, then you can leap beyond the preferences. You can leap beyond the flowers and the weeds. It is possible to leap beyond birth and death. And aside from immortality, it's also possible to leap beyond intelligence and lack of it, or, I don't know what, Alzheimer's and non-Alzheimer's.

[30:04]

It's not exactly that I have a premonition that I'm going to have Alzheimer's, but I still wonder how one would practice if one had that condition. ...able to necessarily remember in any coherent way the teachings, you know, the way you usually do. But you might be able to continue the practice, which is what? The practice is of things not having a self that's the practice it's not me being out even outside looking over that see things that don't have a self i somehow have become part of the practice which is the lack of no self and is the leaping beyond gain and loss which includes leaping beyond having the condition of alzheimer's and not having the condition of alzheimer's abundance of alzheimer's and a lack of alzheimer's or vice versa

[31:10]

not that I have a practice which is going to do that for me, but rather that I enter a practice that is that way, that includes me and you in it interdependently and realizes that we're not independent of each other. And that practice, once one enters into that then the changes in your body and mind do not necessarily disturb you from that practice. They do not necessarily disturb us, and the practice is not disturbed. It's just a matter of getting people to realize it. But there's kind of a steep thing here again. How can you do this real practice? which is as all things actually are, which includes even as preferences like don't have a self.

[32:31]

So there aren't really any preferences. And then Leaping beyond preferences and leaping beyond the basis or the basis of preferences, you know, abundance and lacking and loss. This is the steep practice to consider how we can enter it. We sit and walk in our life, moment by moment, in interdependence, in this interdependence? How can we train our awareness to more and more fully realize this sense of interdependence and lack of self? Any other thoughts about how to practice this teaching? Yes? I would say I heard out there a train whistle.

[33:46]

Yes. But that would be kind of what I would kind of consider a phenomenal experience of a train whistle, kind of with my standard thinking. And I'm assuming that if I had a train whistle, I'd be there in the street at the crossing, and I can picture that in my mind. Yes. At the same time, It may not be a train whistle at all. It could be a tractor-trailer truck or something else. Mm-hmm. Yes. But I've created this conception of what I think I did. But at the same time, I realized that conception could very well be anything, and I really don't know what it is. Mm-hmm. But because I'm sitting here with this air pressure in this room, and I can hear the sound, and somehow that, it's all part of the fabric And I wonder when I'm sitting here, then I say, I'm sitting here. And that's when I get to the self.

[34:52]

And that, again, I think what you were saying with that self, that's the interconnectedness of me being. Right. You could apply the same considerations that you did to the sound. to this person who's sitting there. And we don't have to say, I or me, necessarily, and we also don't have to avoid it. But there is, I think, somebody sitting there. But what he is, sitting there by his own power or by his own... He isn't making himself happen. He's happening through the support of the entire universe. and therefore any idea he has or I have about him are just that actually comprehend him and the more I and he meditate on this the more each of us realize that he's because of his interdependence

[36:03]

because he's part of this unbounded fabric of reality, which the Buddha's teaching. And one of the tests, in some ways, of how deep this meditation has gone is if there's any preferences around him or about him, can there be leaping? Is there any stickiness around the preferences too? Because those are also same as hymn and same as the sound. There is a phenomena called preference. There is a phenomena of aversion and attraction. These are phenomena like people and sounds. Can we leave around the abundance and lack for this person, for all people.

[37:09]

And if we can't, if we turn our attention, what direction do we turn our attention such that we feel more flexibility, we feel more ability to not get bogged down in the preferences and also confession of being bogged down is a way to notice that we're getting bogged down in the preferences and how it is that we are forgetting and how it is that we've forgotten interdependence at that time. The more we're bogged down, the less we think of interdependence. The more we think of interdependence, the less we're bogged down. It's only easier to figure out when you're not practicing.

[38:15]

Yeah, it is. It's easier to figure out when you're not practicing because when you're not practicing, the practice doesn't have a self either. And again, some people say, oh, now I'm practicing. Okay, fine. But usually what they mean is they got this independently existing practice that they're because it's practice, and they like the practice. Practice is a good thing. It's like, I just got an A in math in high school. It's a good thing. I got it. So it's... And that's... But that's not practice, that way of talking, that way of thinking. However, that way of talking and thinking is totally in the fabric of the Buddha Dharma. That way of thinking is totally... interdependent and does not have an independent existence from the Buddhas who don't practice that way.

[39:18]

Buddhas who understand there's no such practice and no such thing, there's no such practice or not practice that's independent of this total fabric. So, but noticing that you're not practicing is an opportunity to confess And when you bring the confession out, then you can see, oh, here is the present phenomena, which I can remember right now that the present phenomena that I'm confessing about is making something substantial. And so I can say, actually, I do feel that I'm, although this whole event of feeling things are substantial and dependent, this is not an independent event. but the event is appearing as an independent event. And now I can see that I'm not looking at interdependence right now. How I'm not looking at interdependence helps me look at interdependence.

[40:24]

The more I see how I'm looking at independence, the more I become looking at independence and open to the bigger picture, the more complete picture, which makes the thing itself, generally speaking, look smaller. No gran cosa. Not such a big deal, whatever this is. not underestimating it because it... I shouldn't say no big deal, it's not exaggerated. Things are part of this great, wonderful, Buddha Dharma. Everything's doing its part nicely. So things are wonderful, really wonderful, but in this picture they're not exaggerated, they're not given too much exaggeration.

[41:40]

they're not given more existence than they have. And they have a complete existence which is totally dependent. So they're given not too much or actually they're not given any independent existence and they're given a big interdependent existence. It makes them look in a way smaller than when they had an independent existence. Because again, like I mentioned before, independent existence in some sense is really big because the universe and the self are kind of on a par. There's the universe. There's two things in the universe. Well, there's two things. There's the universe and plus this me. So I'm kind of on a par with the entire universe and everybody in it. So it's a kind of exaggeration of me. And yet everybody can do that, can think of there's the whole universe and... I'm not a big thing, but anyway, there's the universe and me.

[42:45]

So it's kind of like, you're not exactly upstaging the universe, but the universe isn't upstaging you. It's like, no way. The universe is great, but it's like, don't forgive me. Sure, there's going to be the universe plus me, just to make sure I don't get lost in the fabric someplace. And you won't get lost in the fabric. actually, because fabric's you. That's really what you are, is the fabric. You're actually nothing in addition to the fabric. So you will not lose yourself. You'll lose the independent self, but you won't lose what you really are because you are actually nothing more or less than the entire universe. I'm nothing in addition to the universe, which takes you back to to add anything to yourself or anything. And it doesn't mean the thing isn't there, it's just that the thing is the entire universe at this spot, in this way.

[43:52]

And again, this makes it possible to leap beyond this spot. You don't have to eat, it's easier to talk about it. And there's less embarrassment about it. And about the other things too, because the embarrassment is the preferences. And this is embarrassment for a Buddhist. It's embarrassing to be like preferring one part of the universe over another. It's embarrassing, but that's part of what a disciple of Buddha needs to do is be able to confess this situation. Yes, Petra. It seems to me that we would always live in both worlds at the same time, in the world of being the entire universe and in the world of being a limited self, constantly admitting that it's absolutely

[45:02]

You're right. We're actually living in both all the time. Yeah, you're right. And there's somebody else's right too. Dogen. He's right too. He said that too. He said, When all, when everything's Buddha Dharma, then there's this stuff. And when there's this stuff, that's one world. So we do live in that world where all this stuff. However, this, we don't really live in a world where this stuff is separate. But we do live in a world where there is this stuff, which means where there is projection of independence upon this stuff, which is totally part of one big fabric. But each of these that your name has a little cell put on it so you can name it.

[46:04]

So there's a universe, a world, it's all interconnected, and in that world that's all interconnected, there is imagination of independence in that very world of interdependence. There's not a world of independence in which there is the imagination of interdependence. Both of those exist in the world of interdependence. And also, in a sense, which is when you see that because of interdependence, you're actually looking at each thing which isn't interdependent as lacking self, then you don't see these things. And in a sense, it's another world. Because then there are no things. And there you cannot project self on them. Self isn't being projected, and you can't say what they are, because you don't have any concept to land the word on.

[47:11]

So there's a world where there aren't things, and you can't say anything, and there's a world where you can say whatever you want, any time, any place, about it, all connected. So in a sense, there are two worlds. One's called the conventional world, and one's the world of the ultimate truth. The conventional world, however, still doesn't have a self. It's just that the conventional world includes projection of idea of self so that we can . But actually we live in both. However, in practice most people go through a phase where they move from one to the other and back and then to the other. The Buddha is in both and sees both simultaneously all the time. But in practice, you move from one to the other. You see the emptiness and then you can leap back into the world. And now you're in the practice train, though.

[48:13]

You're seeing emptiness and jumping into the world of conventionality where there are these independent things. The appearance of independent things. So you can name them. And then you turn again to their emptiness and leap beyond them. And leaping beyond them, you return to the appearance of them so you can talk about them and, you know, and talk about the practices. But in order to do that, there is the imagination of beings and practices which you have willingly and happily entered into Because that's part of becoming a Buddha, is not just understand emptiness and be free, but be free in a world where a lot of people are caught. Be free in a world where there is projection of self and substance onto what isn't substantial, and practicing in that world, demonstrating leaping in that world.

[49:16]

and reconnecting to the emptiness so that you can continue to leap and demonstrate the leaping so that you gradually become a buddha where you can actually see both simultaneously in the meantime the practice is going back and forth for most people most of the time for a long time but the steep thing about now is the first big step is how are you going how are we going to practice being in the world where things don't have abiding self and therefore there aren't these independent and because of that we did not in the fabric how are you going to warm up to that awesome practice of meditation on lack of abiding self which is the thing that makes your practice into practice so we all have our practices now which are

[50:18]

our wholesome attempt to practice, which is good, but now to convert it into actual practice. And actual practice, again, is not separate from enlightenment because there's no self to separate them. That's a big step now to feeling for, which is the second sentence. Is it Linda? The Buddhas can see both worlds. The Buddhas, yeah. Now they're leaping. They're still leaping. They're leaping, but when they leap, they see both worlds while they're leaping. So they're leaping out of no self, and they're leaping out of gain and loss. But the big leap is they're leaping out of being Buddha.

[51:23]

They even leap out of making a self out of Buddha. And they can see the self of a Buddha and the no-self of a Buddha simultaneously, so they're double-leaping. And so leaping out of gain and loss or abundance and lack allows you to, as it says, Being able to leap out of gain and loss, there is gain and loss again. Being able to leap out of birth and death, there is birth and death. I cannot leap out of birth and death without some realization that there is no birth and death. As long as I kind of don't I mean, I know there's birth and death, but this thing about that there isn't any birth and death, I just don't get. Okay, fine. Then all you know is there is birth and death, so that's as far as you got so far, which is fine. But you can't get out of there before you realize that there isn't any in the context of there's no self to birth and no self to death.

[52:29]

And you've got to do that without being cavalier or insensitive to birth and death. You've got to do that without being sensitive to the precepts and morality and other people's feelings and all that. And then, which is part of realizing the emptiness of things, the real emptiness, then you can leap. But then when you leap, what do you get? Death. Buddha's ascension beings, delusion and enlightenment And every time you go back into that stuff, it's another time to study it, to find out what it is. What is birth? What is death? Another time to find out. But the details of how they're empty and the details of how not understanding them works, details of delusion.

[53:31]

So that's what we're going to next. those who understand, or even sometimes they say those who understand delusion, but clearly says something like understanding delusion is Buddha. Buddha is, the understanding is Buddha. Buddha is the past participle of waking up to delusions. But again, the big top step is the step of meditating on all the things in the fabric. This isn't a put-down. Everything should be... And because everything's in the fabric, the main reason why it's empty, why it doesn't have self, empty of self, is you keep track of the big fabric and now see the no-self. Did you have your hand raised, Stephen?

[54:33]

Because the universe has created organisms, particularly that have nerves. But if you look at the way, for example, the eye is created, the eyeball and how it works. You have the skin. But the eye is really nice. You have the skin for the eye. And then light comes in there. And you have like, what is it, I think something like 100 million retinal cells in the back of most people's eyes. And from the 100 million retinal cells, I think there's about a million nerve cells from the retinal cells up the optic nerve back towards the brain. So that means that each nerve is carrying the information from 100 sensors. So are basically all being in the same package or the same group as that one nerve.

[55:48]

So all those 100-fold variety of possible different takes on what was going on, they all get reduced into the category of nerve number. 6,000 or whatever. So our body, our nervous system naturally categorizes the world back to our mind. So we're built to categorize. And I think that beings that don't have nervous systems in the sense of like sense nerve collectors and so on like that, they do also some kind of categorical thing happens in simpler organisms too. Like for example, one-celled organisms have maybe like a category of what gets to come in and what doesn't. And there's this tremendous variety to come in and stuff that does get to come in. Now it may be that I don't know. But maybe there's a lot more things that don't get to come in than do get to come in.

[56:50]

But anyway, they have this great categorizing. So it seems to be part of being alive is for beings to categorize, to dichotomize, to split, to make a difference. It seems to be part of the life process. Whereas if you look at non-living things, They don't seem to make distinctions. They don't seem to be into difference. And, you know, if you want to see, if you want to, like, one of the ways to look for life on a planet is to look, is there some sign of difference other than what you're projecting? Is there some sign that the situation there is making differences? We can make differences with anything. But is there differences that you're observing in the pattern out there? It's making differences.

[57:50]

Then there's probably life. Like water doesn't really make a difference. But when water starts looking like it's making differences, it looks like whales, dolphins, fish, algae. So I think it's part of the deal of this kind of... It looks like, again, according to my categories, I would tend to call life a kind of unusual thing in the universe because of the way I categorize the universe. It looks to me like life's kind of like rare and wonderful and non-life is kind of common, especially in terms of math. That's what it looks like. This is my way of categorizing. But another way to do it is actually to say that has been created by living beings. That without living beings, the universe isn't really like a universe.

[58:56]

It's just the possibility of the universe. But when the universe somehow gave rise to these living beings and the living beings were able to imagine certain things, the living beings actually precipitated a universe in which there are distinctions. And one of the distinctions is living beings and non-living beings. And that there's more mass to the living, non-living than the living. Stuff like that. But that's just the universe that got precipitated because of life. Before that there was all these possibilities, and still is. In addition to the distinctions, then, there's the evolution of the idea of something in the universe that could exist independent of the rest of the universe. And that's a very powerful thing which makes possible, as far as I can tell, it makes possible language.

[59:58]

articulation of the suffering that comes from all the equipment that made language possible. So the imagination of self has created its disturbance, but then it also comes with the language which can point out the disturbance and bring our attention to it. And by attention to it, by attention to the delusion system which makes language possible, we can become free of the delusion. We can become a Buddha by understanding the process of delusion. And if we're trying to understand how to live in the world where things don't have abiding self, we have language to point out our delusions of thinking that's not true. we can notice, as Lee said, that we don't think that's true. We don't, we don't, we're hurt. But we really, also really think things are not interdependent.

[61:05]

And we can, we can talk about that and we can point it out to each other that we're not acting like we actually believe that. We can see that. And also a Buddha could see it too and see that the person, the interdependent person imagines she's independent and Buddha could actually see the appearance of the interdependent person as an independent person, but the Buddha would not believe that the appearance of the independent person was independent. But the Buddha could see that the interdependent person who thought she was independent was suffering because she believed that. And the Buddha could see her as independent and not believe it, and the Buddha would not be suffering because of that delusion. And the Buddha could also see that she wasn't interdependent and not be able to see her at all or talk about her. And then switch back to see her and talk to her and tell her how she can see the same.

[62:10]

And talk to her and show her how seeing things the way she sees them is part and parcel of all her misery. And she can Because she can see her delusions, and she can see how they're connected to her suffering. And she can see if she lightens up on her delusions, unbelieving them, that it changes the level of suffering. She can see this. So it is possible to see delusion and to... Mixing in all this projection of self, but seeing how you do it, catching on how your mind projects self onto things. The more you see how you project so, the more closer you're getting to not falling for it. We often use the example of a magician. An illusion. And the magician knows it's an illusion. But the blue magician sees the illusion because they have to be able to see it in order to be able to conjure it.

[63:13]

But they don't believe it. Other people watching it, they actually know. They see it and they believe it. to do creating this misleading thing. But the magician is not misled by it. He's just misled by the illusion of money, which he thinks he needs, and he's right. The magician even is misled by the money, but still goes through the motions in order to help people. The Buddha is able to actually not see the illusion at all, and see the illusion and not believe it and create the illusion sometimes and not believe it so that other people can see it, create it, and then point out to them how it's an illusion and how they're suffering because of it. This is this process of studying illusion and studying the appearance of self and studying how much you believe the self and how much you are not believe the self.

[64:21]

And you can notice that some days you believe it more or less. And you can see how you feel when you believe it a little bit more, a little bit less. I'm studying Spanish. Tengo razón. Which means I have a reason, which means I'm right. And then there's Tienes raison, means you're right. So you can do exercises when you think you're right and when you think other people are right and see if you can switch back and forth. That's a way to get in here and realize the selflessness of things. Part of it is remembering the teaching of practice.

[65:25]

The first teaching of practice is when things do not have independent self or body self, then there aren't any independent things. When you actually see that somebody doesn't have an independent self, you do not see them as an independent self. They're not there anymore and they're actually undesignatable. How are you going to open to that? So please think about that and maybe now how you're able to look at that practice. Maybe all you'll be able to tell me is how you failed and all you could see is how you couldn't do that practice, but that's part of it, too. Maybe, like Rochelle said, you know, Maybe you'll see some signs of what it's like when you don't adhere to the separate self, when you're open to that there isn't, there's a lack, there isn't any independent self of something.

[66:36]

Without slipping into that it's totally not there. Just that what's not there is the independent self. They don't, like, not exist, like, not at all. They just don't exist independently. Try to open up to this. and simultaneously study the delusion that things aren't that way, that things are not interdependent, that they're independent. See how that goes to both. You can, but at least you should be able to see that you believe in independent existence and at least you can see that and see how that goes and see how embarrassing that is. And what would even be more embarrassing maybe is that if you couldn't actually find it, all week you couldn't see. You know, I never saw that I actually saw a self of anything. That would really be embarrassing, right? Because then this independent person that you are would be like the independent person who was like the worst, all by yourself, all isolated, being the only one who never saw that they actually felt isolated.

[67:46]

But if you felt you could somehow be embarrassed by that, then that would be a sign that you're really feeling cut off from all the other people who at least know they're deluded. But you're so bad, you're the one who's deluded, right? You're so deluded, you don't even know you're deluded. Everybody else at least knows they're deluded. But you're, like, really bad. But what happens when you think you're not deluded and you sort of go to who to rest? Then... Yeah, thinking you're not deluded. If anybody gets to that place, we'd like to hear about that too. Please, if anybody gets to that stage, let us know. Thank you. Thanks, Gribble.

[68:50]

I got one, I reckon. Oh, this particular one? Yeah, Donald gave you one. Oh, how nice of him. You want another one? Oh, there it is. Really, many thanks for all your help. Cool. Yeah, just like... I... [...] Go on, then.

[69:19]

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