I welcome your feedback on the walking meditation. If you'd like to tell me sometime how it goes for you. Let's see, at the beginning of this year, I mentioned that I heard that there was an influential group of thinkers in America who came into their maturity after the Civil War. And they included people like William James and Oliver Wendell Holmes and Charles Peirce and Chauncey Wright. part of their group really influenced John Dewey.

[01:05]

And these people shared a belief. They shared a belief, an idea, which they believed in, which was that all ideas are entirely dependent, or all beliefs are entirely dependent. In other words, all beliefs are dependent co-risings. they're entirely that way. And so I offer this year to concentrate on what does it mean that something's entirely dependently co-arisen or entirely dependent or entirely contingent.

[02:17]

One of the meanings is that it doesn't have an inherent logic of his own, an inherent It doesn't have its own being, its own inherent being. Okay. So I also want to say, to kind of reiterate the basics here, and that is that the point of compassion is enlightenment. The point of compassion is enlightenment and that's the same as saying the point of compassion is helping others and helping them

[03:27]

in the most complete and liberating way. The point of compassion is to help others become free. Attachment is the central element in the dependent co-arising of unhappiness and suffering. Huh? The goal? The purpose? The intention? The heart? I'm surprised that he started with the goal. The point of Zen is enlightenment.

[04:35]

The goal of Zen is enlightenment. The goal of Zen is helping others. The goal of Zen is helping others become free of attachment. Okay? What I just said to you is an idea. which has dependently co-arisen in my mind, in my heart, and has dependently co-arisen out of my mouth into the room. And that's another belief. I just have a belief about how I have this belief, namely, it dependently co-arises with me and you. So causation is a teaching and when you receive the teaching you partly receive it in terms of ideas and these ideas you have about causation are dependent on causes.

[05:44]

So the teaching of causation is teaching that the teaching of causation and the ideas of causation are the same as everything else. So these people who I just mentioned, they came out of the Civil War. They were young or somewhat older than young adults after the Civil War was over. And they saw in this country what happens when people have ideas and they do not understand that these ideas are entirely contingent. When they have beliefs that they think but have their own goodness, which is immutable.

[06:51]

This is one of the main bases, I would say, this is an idea for you, for a main basis for violence. This cutting away dependency and contingency from contingent phenomena and being absolutely sure of them. This is what, and then you get two people who are, two parties who have certainty about beliefs and they can be very violent with each other. Part of what I kind of, and this desire I have, not like so much, it's more like a desire. I desire for the teachings, for these teachings to survive. And I would also say that these teachings, which I believe in,

[07:59]

that they'll survive by their adaptability rather than their immutability. So again, I would say that compassion for and loving suffering and the causes of suffering Okay? Love suffering and the causes of suffering. The causes of suffering in particular, attachment. Love, yeah, attachment and ignorance. Love, attachment and ignorance of the teaching of dependent core arising. gives rise to attachment.

[09:04]

Ignorance of causation sponsors attachment to things that are caused, and that is suffering. Attachment to things that are caused is suffering. Attachment to dependent co-arisings and even the teaching of dependent co-arising is suffering and it also is the cause of suffering, both. It both is suffering and the cause of suffering. So I'm proposing that if you can love ignorance and attachment, which are the causes of suffering, that this makes possible a loving study of causation. And lovingly studying causation sets up the loosening of

[10:09]

compassionately studying causation, the loosening or the uprooting of attachment. And in the fullness of this loving, in the fullness of this compassion for suffering and its causes, in the fullness of this study of attachment and its causes, the attachment is completely cut through. This is a belief which you and I can study the belief I just told you lovingly and study this without attachment. Study the teaching that if you lovingly study the causes of attachment, as you do it really lovingly, you won't attach to the study of the causes of attachment, and this will cut through in the attachments.

[11:21]

And this study, this compassionate study, or this study which is compassion, should be a practice with everything, not just with teachings of causation. Because everything is an example of causation, because there's nothing that's not the So another way to say this is I passed out that sheet of paper which says deep faith or deep belief in cause and effect or causation. So I guess that some of you do have deep faith. great faith in the Bodhisattva way, in the teachings of the Buddha, and so I request and encourage you and me to give up and not abide in your great faith in cause and effect, and not abide in it.

[12:45]

If you have deep faith in cause and effect, now I encourage you to give it up and not abide in it. And if you do have deep faith in cause and effect, are completely devoted to the teaching of cause and effect and the study of cause and effect, then you're ready to not abide in it and hopefully continue to study it without abiding in it. then this teaching will blossom as liberating beings from attachment. And another thing which I I think I've told you this before, but I'll just say it again. It's so good to remember. If you or we, if we are loving with attachment, if we love some teaching or some person or some state or some country, some practice, anything, with attachment,

[14:03]

if we love something with attachment or if we're dwelling in the love of something, attached to our love of something, then I propose to you that we need to love more completely. that our love is not yet complete if there's attachment. So rather than, and if you love with attachment, of course, because attachment's the central, you have a painful love. It's a painful loving. Which is, you know, there's something to be said for the pain of loving, because it's a little bit like compassion, but not quite exactly the same. And I can tell you more about that later. Right now, I'd just like to emphasize that if we love with compassion, if our love is compassion and we have attachment, we need to love more. And when our love becomes complete, there will be no attachment.

[15:17]

Charlie sent me a note asking me, one of the questions he asked me was, what do we do with people who are not interested in, not devoted to science? Do you say something like that? Not devoted to questioning. What do we do with people who are not devoted to science or not devoted to questioning? What do you do with people like that? I gave you a suggestion. What do you do with them? Huh? Be patient. Be patient, gentle, not overbearing with the non-questioners. And then you could say, you take no action with regard to this person to create attachment. Or, put it the other way, you act towards them in a way that you do not become attached to them or them learning to question.

[16:51]

And then if you practice that way, the fruit of this is this will fruit as, I should say, these beings starting to question. One of the questions will be, why you act so strangely? Also, I used the expression in the first class, arriving at understanding, and you questioned that. didn't seem to him like you arrived at understanding. Right? Yeah, it seems like it keeps changing. Understanding constantly grows as we Our understanding constantly grows. Yeah, right. But anyway, you arrive, you have some understanding right now. And so do I. And so do we.

[17:53]

Actually, and the understanding we have is the understanding more in accord with scientific knowledge, not personal knowledge. But still, and we arrive at personal understandings, and personal understandings are, according to me, according to my beliefs, personal understandings are delusions. By group understanding can be correct knowledge. And we arrive at that every moment the correct knowledge is arrived at. However, if we dwell in it, we flip back into our personal delusions. And we exile ourself from the understanding which comes from our group activity together. At the end of last class, I think it was towards the end, or towards the last class, or anyway, at some point in the class I brought up different ways that the Buddha denied determinism, causal determinism.

[19:11]

And so I just thought I might say that dependent co-arising, namely the Buddha teaches that everything arises in dependence through dependence. Everything arises through dependence and everything actually is co-dependently or dependently co-arising because not only does everything arise in dependence on things other than itself, it also contributes to the co-arising of other things which it depends on. So the things you arise in dependence with, they also arise in dependence with you. That's an expression of dependent co-arising. If you understand that deterministically, the nice thing about deterministic understanding is There's nobody outside that making it happen. There's no cause of causation in that story because it's so tight.

[20:22]

That's the advantage of determinism. It doesn't have a determiner. But the Buddha refutes strict determinism. And I shouldn't say, the Buddha denies strict determinism. And so I mentioned some kind of common sense, casual understandings of how things happen, that are an expression of denying strict determinism. So I'd like to go a little bit more into that tonight, and I think I can do it fairly quickly.

[21:26]

There's a denial of denial of a strict determination between action and fruit. The Buddha did teach action has consequence, but the Buddha, there's a strict determinism between action and consequence. And this, I think I'd like to call this the weak sense of determinism. There is some determining. We are yes, but this determination is weak. So another way to put it might be that we are influenced by causes. We are dependent on causes. We are influenced by causes. We arise in dependence on them, but it's more like they influence us rather than they . And similarly, we to other things.

[22:44]

We're influenced by everything and we influence everything. There's some determination here, but it's weak. So a denial of something could be not no determinism, but a weaker sense of determinism. Then there is this not common sense way of talking, which is Buddha's, you might say, a deeper analytic thinking about it, which is one simple way of putting it is, if this, then that comes to be. If this, then that comes to be. That's one way to state dependent core arising. Hear that, you could hear that as strict determinism.

[23:46]

So how do these two go together? And what's the problems with each? The weak determinism, the problem with the weak determinism is that Wait a second. Yeah, the problem with the weak determinism is it seems to conflict with the way in the dependent co-arising thing. If this is, if this exists, then that comes to be. So the weak determinism seems to conflict with that. So Buddha's denial of seems to conflict with his basic teaching of dependent co-arising. And when he teaches, even when he denies strict determinism, he also tells the practitioners to also deny the teaching of dependent co-arising.

[25:03]

So while you do not take a strict connection between action and fruit, you're also supposed to remember that there is this strong connection between action and fruit. This is the middle way. An indirect thing is that if you have this weak sense of dependent core rising or weak sense of causal determinism, then that It might necessitate the positing of an agent or controlling power, intelligent design. If you have this weak determinism view, which the Buddha does have, then it seems to imply

[26:06]

that we might need to deposit an agent or a controlling power or some kind of intelligent designer. That contradicts the teaching of no-self. So again, weak determinism directly seems to conflict with dependable arising. It seems to conflict with the teaching of no self. So now I'd like to speak to those concerns. Did you get those concerns? So regarding the first one, In the early teachings, the Buddha almost constantly warns of an overly strict and logically fallacious interpretation of his teaching of dependent co-arising.

[27:17]

His teaching of causation, he warns again and again not to take this strictly. So the Buddha says that it is false that, quotes, a man must reap or a woman must reap according to her deeds. It is false that a woman must reap according to her deeds. That's false. That's false. So this is a warning, even though he says actions have fruit, it's false to say that you will reap according to your actions. He says, but it is true that the reward a woman reaps accords with her deeds. It's false that you must reap according to your deeds, but it's true that the reward you reap accords with your deeds.

[28:33]

Whereas if there is a reward, then there are proper deeds which brought it about. But to say that there are proper deeds, therefore there is reward, is the fallacy of affirming the consequence. Fruit? Proper deeds? means proper deeds fruit. That's a fallacy. So another way to put this is, we had a philosopher in our class at the beginning of the year at Green Gulch, a Swedish philosopher, and he said that the definition of determinism is necessary and sufficient. So, a proper deed is a necessary condition for karmic reward.

[29:48]

An improper deed is a necessary condition for karmic punishment. But it is not a sufficient condition. So karmic dependence implied by Buddha's teaching of dependent co-arising is more of karmic influence than determinism. So this teaching is something which you can take care of. And I I think maybe next week I will go to the teaching of dependent core arising in the 12 links and show you how to apply this way of working with that particular formula. Do you know the 12 links?

[30:54]

You can memorize them tonight. The names of the links are ignorance, People are writing this on computers. Ignorance, karmic formations, consciousness, name and form, six senses, sense contact, feeling, craving, becoming, birth, again, ignorance, karmic formation, consciousness, name and form, which means body and mind, six senses, sense conduct, sensation or feeling, craving, becoming, birth, old age, sickness and death.

[32:08]

I missed one. Huh? Feeling. Oh, grasping, yeah, grasping. Grasping. Grasping imagine you're craving. Yeah, craving, grasping. Yeah, I miss grasping. Okay, read it again. Ignorance. Karmic formation. Consciousness. Mind and body. Senses. contact, sense contact, feeling, craving, clinging, becoming, birth, old age, sickness, and death. I think that's 12. What does karmic formation mean? What does karmic formation mean? It means...

[33:10]

Which, you know, it means basically making a story out of, you know, or out of the field of experience. So first ignorance, then story, then consciousness. Yeah. By ignoring dependent core arising, you can make a story about it. You're breaking off a piece of the universe to make a story about it. Breaking up... Breaking up... No, not breaking up. Breaking up... Taking away many pieces from the universe to make a story. Or taking one little piece of the universe, but it's really like... It's pushing away a lot of other stuff, too. Some graspable version of the universe, which means... And the universe means you in relationship to it. That's karmic formation. And that's something you make out of the universe.

[34:16]

It's a thought construction. Independence on ignorance of? Independence on ignorance, right. Of the dependent co-arising. Independence on ignorance of the dependent co-arising, right. Which also includes dependent of ignorance of the self of things. Where's my other little note in here? I'll find it some other time. I just want to tell you, actually, I looked up a word today, substantive. It's a word which somebody, some scholar used in discussing Buddhist theories.

[35:19]

And so in this class, I've been trying to really emphasize that all Buddhist theories are, you know, the point of them is how practical they are. point of them is how to practice them. Because how practical are these teachings in terms of relieving stress and suffering in the world? But there's another part, but people who are taking which have, which really need to have practical application, some of the people, and I think you people can join this project, also need to look at whether the teachings, even if they seem to work, Still, do they have logical consistency? Are they internally consistent? Are they intellectually clear? Are they substantive, is what somebody said.

[36:30]

I looked up the word substantive, because I thought, to me, I thought a better word would be sound. Are the theories sound? These theories need to be sound, is that at certain phases of human society, if you don't have a sound theory, someone can destroy it, can undermine it because it's not sound, even though it works really well. Sometimes Buddhist practices, teachings which have good practical application, in certain environments, they can be really undermined or almost destroyed unless somebody can show how they're intellectually clear. And India, during the time when Buddhism was really strong there, was a place where some non-Buddhists would attack Buddhists, and if they could intellectually, I don't know what the word, beat them up,

[37:35]

the Buddhist had to stop being a Buddhist. And it was kind of like the laws of the philosophical world at that time. So you actually had to be able to intellectually defend your practice, even though the practice is not primarily clarity, intellectual clarity. But I looked at the word substantive, and the first meaning of the word substantive is actually that it's something that is in accord with reality. The second meaning is something that has independent existence. That's why I don't like to use the word substantive. But the first meaning of substantive, our teaching should be they should be and we should find a way to take care of them such that we can explain to people how they're not incoherent and not in accord with reality.

[38:40]

That's another reason for this class. So you can protect this teaching which hopefully is useful. So any, yes, Michelle? seeing co-dependent, co-arising, and causing an effect. Because you feel co-dependent, co-arising is an experience. No, no, no, no. Dependent co-arising is not an experience. And experience is co-arising. All your experiences are dependent co-arising. All your experiences are arise in dependence on conditions, but the way they arise is not an experience. Support you in the way you support me is not my experience or your experience.

[39:44]

But we support each other to have experiences, but our experiences are not the way we dependently co-arise together. Okay. When you say there's a dependency, cause and effect, that is what the hard part, that seems to be more than an intellectual story. To me, it says that firstly, you need time for different things. Yes. Versus saying, well, there's only... It includes two different things. What are the two different things? Cause and effect. Yeah, okay, right. Pardon? Yes. So I explain and say, as the theory is cause and effect. That's what I said.

[40:56]

So that series is in the part. It's a theory. Yeah. Yeah, like a story. Yes. So that versus what is interesting, the existence of horizons. So I got that you're telling a story about cause and effect, and then the next step I didn't follow. What I'm trying to say is that coexistence and horizon lives in a different level. Codependent lives at a different level from what? From cause and effect. No, it's the same thing. The same. Cause and effect. Causation. Causation means the process of cause and effect. The pentacle arising is the Buddha's, the way the Buddha spoke of cause and effect.

[42:04]

the way the Buddha spoke of causation is dependent co-arising. But dependent co-arising in the Buddha's teaching means the same as the process of cause and effect and the same as causation. When I'm having a hard time, it seems like there's two things, two processes happening at the same time. Two processes, yeah. So cause is a process and effect is a process? Yeah, I agree. In the cause, there is already the effect. Otherwise, because cause doesn't have any meaning other than its effect, and also in the effect is already the cause. That's why both are processes and that's why their relationship is a process. So it's not even a relationship. You haven't seen it exist yet. The only thing that exists is a relationship.

[43:09]

I don't know about that. Because if you say the only thing that exists is a relationship, then you're excluding the things that are related. So a process includes the things and the relationship. It includes the thing, and it includes what it depends on, and their relationship. And if you have a story about that, and your story can be your story about what you think the Buddha's teaching, that story is something for you to take care of. That story you have, or the story that I have, that's not dependent core arising, but that is a dependent core arising. The stories you have about causation do arise by causal process. So we do have stories about causation and it's good to take care of these stories and realize that everything you have is actually a story of causation.

[44:22]

Right. Everything we have is a circumcision. Yeah, like a color. It's a story of causation. But that's not the thing that exists, it's not. In that sense, that's a story, behind the story, a different level. That's not what we mean to speak of. There is not just a rising cause beside the story. I didn't follow that. What? Nothing actually exists. Nothing actually exists. Things only dependently exist. There's no actual existing things. But there is co-arising existence. That's the only kind that there is. No, that's not a story, but we have stories about it.

[45:32]

And our stories about them are basically, the stories we have of the universe are really stories about you. And we're trying to learn that, you know, my story about you is actually a story about the causation of you, because it's not really a you other than all the things you depend on. And I actually include all those things in my story of you, but I can lose track of that. about something that's not a karmic formation. Because I ignore dependent core rising. If I don't ignore dependent core rising, then it's not really a karmic formation anymore. Then it's just a story. Dependent core rising. When I remember that. Say again? For example, doing the ceremony of practicing good deeds and avoiding harmful deeds, practicing that way, doing that practice, that ceremony,

[46:59]

That's a way to realize the teaching. The teaching of, for example, the teaching of, what do you call it, practice good and avoid evil. By practicing good and avoiding evil, you realize the teaching of practicing good and avoiding evil. When you do that, you start to realize, oh, what's good? And then you say, well, it's the pentacle rising, therefore it's emptiness. Practicing good, I get to meditate on selflessness and so on. But you have to do the practice in order to really realize what this teaching is. And you have to do the practice in these very kind ways.

[48:02]

Otherwise, you'll start dwelling in the practice. And if you dwell in the practice, then you get distracted from the practice because you're really back into dwelling in storytelling without realizing that you are. If you're very kind about these practices, You know, like if you practice good, if you think about practicing good, yeah, that's good, it sounds good, but practice good kindly. Don't practice good in an overbearing way. Don't practice good in a harsh way. Practice it gently. Practice it gently and kindly if you saw that good was... you know, empty of good, then that's the way you practice good. You practice it very gently because you'd realize that you have to be very gentle with something that you can't get a hold of in order to practice it. So you'd be taking care of these practices that are ungraspable. You'd be devoted to ungraspable practices.

[49:05]

But if you're very gentle with practices, you start to realize, oh, there's nothing there other than everything it depends on. Yes, Timo? You said we determinism from Buddha's teaching. Since we're talking about this sound theories, how do you think the we determinism fits to the contemporary view of science? It's just a probability function or potential of happen or not happen.

[50:08]

How do I think it goes with that? I think it goes very well with that. And the study of probability theory would be compassion in order to make it go well with the Buddha Dharma. Can you put that in another sentence? For example, you would be gentle with the probability theory. You wouldn't be overbearing about it. You would be patient with it. You would be calm with it. And you would act in relationship to it in such a way as to not become attached to it. If you were not lovingly studying, then the probability theory wouldn't by its own nature be compatible with Buddhadharma. But if you do study it lovingly without dwelling it, then it will be compatible with Buddha Dharma.

[51:17]

Like any other thing. Now you say, is it more compatible than other theories? In a way, yes. I just came to you mentioning the sound, the importance sometimes of the sound, the sound theory. Yeah. In that respect. In that respect, it's good. Yeah. In that respect, it's more conducive to, you know, supporting in a kind of direct way the Pentecostal rising. John? I was kind of confused last week because I was thinking of determinism in relation to every inanimate object, every living, sentient object.

[52:24]

You were talking about weak determinism. You said kind of denial of strict determinism between action and truth. Yes. So it seems like, in some sense, by even talking about weak determinism, you're kind of talking about actions. Actions and intentions? As opposed to... You know, actions and intentions might be with regard to... Regardless what? It seems like you're here of what you're talking about to human activity almost, or to the activity of beings that have intentions. We are focusing on intentional activity, yes. Right, and so by just focusing on that, it kind of clicked to see, well, of course things in a sense would be weaker in their determinism because you're kind of not talking about other kinds of factors that could be involved in causation.

[53:37]

You're only as limited to the sphere of it. In this realm, we need to make the determinism weaker. Otherwise, the practice is meaningless. Because if it's strict determinism, then our practice would be determined too. So we would just always be completely determined to practice anymore. And I was just reading something, I don't know if it relates, but I was just reading something in a kind of text about evolutionary theory by this guy. Can I say something before you go on? Can you remember what you're going to say? Pardon? Can you remember what you're going to say? Right now? Yeah. Can you remember if I stop you now? Yeah. Okay. So again, the Buddha right... Right view is action has consequence. He said that. He wants to get that message across. Then he backpedals for many, many years after, backpedaling on that. But keeping that out there, action has consequence, and then backpedals. Action has consequence. Don't, you know, that statement.

[54:41]

Do not attach to that statement. Keep listening to that statement. I'm going to keep saying it, but then after I say it, I'm going to say, be loving to that. Don't attach to that. Go ahead, Tom, John. And I'm just reading a guy who's printed to a philosophy of biology, and he's kind of contrasting it with physical sciences, and he says physical sciences people really use the term law a lot because... Excuse me. Yes. Can I say something about the word law? Pardon? Law? Yes. Okay. This is also called the law... Dharma means law. One of the meanings of Dharma is law. This is the law of cause and effect. This is the law of... But again, we take that word law, law of probability, probability theories, laws of probability, we take that to mean something to be loving towards. The law is not the way things always are. The law is the way things somewhat usefully sometimes are. The law is a path of inquiry.

[55:43]

This is a place to pay attention. And it's the same in science, actually. But some scientists forget that. They forget that the laws are not... And again, probability theory, some people think that probability theory is a law, rather than a very fruitful path of inquiry. Huh? A law is a story, and a useful story to study, not a story to believe that it would be useful to study, not a story to believe and hold on to and be overbearing and attached. So not all scientists will see laws. Okay, good. kind of get away from the idea of law and they get into the idea of theory or concept it's a gentler kind of in a sense weaker thing because he says that it deals with more complex systems with kind of more interdependence and he kind of essentially says something like the response of a complex system is virtually never a strict response to a single extrinsic factor but rather a balanced response to

[56:59]

and the end result of an evolutionary process is a compromise between several forces. In the study of causations, a biologist must always be aware of this potential pluralism. I don't know if it makes sense to you, but it kind of... It does. It makes sense to me, but I also think people in the physical sciences also see the laws as paths of questioning, not paths of being done. Right. So it depends on the science. We have a wide variety of science. Sounds like from Newton. And maybe even Newton was, you know, more open-minded than he dared to let us know. Because he, you know, he maybe wanted to be, you know, the most greatest scientist of all time, and he thought, better not tell people how open-minded I am about what I just discovered. Okay, so did you remember those 12 links?

[58:10]

So next time we'll talk about them a little bit and try to apply this loving way of study to this basic of dependent core rising. Sorry I was late. There was a traffic on the Richmond Bridge. I mean there was an accident on the Richmond Bridge. But I wasn't in the accent directly, just indirectly. So I got here not so late. Did some of you? Do you see it? So again, I thank you for your great faith in the Buddha's teaching. Please don't dwell on it.

[58:57]

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