For several weeks we've been meditating on the mind of enlightenment. And at the beginning we distinguished between a conventional mind of enlightenment and an ultimate mind of enlightenment. You've been mostly working on the conventional mind of enlightenment. Now tonight I'd like to start talking about the ultimate mind of enlightenment. The mind of enlightenment which is enlightenment itself. We've talked about how the conventional mind of enlightenment arises in a living being in the form of a mind which resolutely aspires to realize awakening for the welfare of all beings.

[01:31]

This is a wonderful conventional mind or relative mind. It's a deluded mind that aspires to the most wonderful thing. the ability to benefit all beings. That mind still, from at the beginning and all the way along, still thinks in a deluded way. It thinks in terms of, things existing and not existing.

[02:37]

Now this way of thinking and the language that speaks this way is a conventional, it's a truth. And the first five perfections, the first five bodhisattva training methods giving ethical discipline, patience, enthusiasm, and concentration on bodhicitta, on the mind of enlightenment, they're still thinking in terms of existence and nonexistence. Now we've seen that in the meditation process, by meditating on the equality of self and other, and by concentrating on exchanging our self with others, we purify the mind of the clinging to the self side or the other side.

[03:57]

We purify the mind of self-clinging. And we get the mind ready and willing to open to the suchness of self and other, to the suchness of mind and objects. We get ready to be open to the way things really are. We get ready to open to the ultimate truth about things. we get ready for the sixth training method of bodhisattvas called the perfection of wisdom. And the perfection of wisdom is a non-dual wisdom which has as its object ultimate truth. But it's a non-dual awareness of ultimate truth, so it is the ultimate truth.

[05:05]

It's focused on the dharma element, the reality of things. It's focused on the way things are, and it is the way things are, a wisdom which is the way things are. It does not think in terms of existence or non-existence. It thinks in terms of the ultimate truth of emptiness, And this emptiness which it thinks in terms of and which it is not dual with, the emptiness which it is, is an emptiness whose essence is compassion. This ultimate truth, this wisdom, is born simultaneously

[06:10]

with compassion. But this bodhicitta, this ultimate bodhicitta, does not think that ultimate bodhicitta exists or does not exist. the relative bodhicitta thinks that bodhicitta exists or does not exist. And it's working for the realization of bodhicitta, but it still thinks maybe that the bodhicitta that will be realized will then exist. There's still some duality there. So here we are developing now the perfection of wisdom, the prajnaparamita, which is the thorough liberation of beings from suffering.

[07:13]

So we say form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. Form is not different from emptiness. Emptiness is not different from form. Emptiness and appearances, emptiness and conventional things, like the wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, most wonderful conventional thing probably is bodhicitta. The conventional bodhicitta is the most wonderful conventional thing. But it's also just an appearance. But this appearance is insubstantial, is empty of having any independent existence.

[08:34]

So appearances, illusory appearances and ultimate truth are united, inseparable, and they're not the same or different Conventionally they're the same or different, but ultimately they're not the same or different. They're united. Emptiness is that emptiness is united with appearance. The inseparability of ultimate and conventional truth is ultimate truth. The ultimate truth is that the ultimate truth is insubstantial.

[09:37]

But the insubstantial ultimate truth, which is the same as the ultimate truth that conventional things are insubstantial, that ultimate truth also unites everything, makes everything coming together in one path and one practice. It's the unique breeze of reality. In realizing it, the mind turns in ease and joy to the welfare of all beings. The mind realizing it turns with ease and joy towards the welfare of others.

[10:51]

And we say, one of our ancestors says, The sitting meditation that I'm talking about is the Dharma gate of repose and bliss, is the true gate of ease and joy. Ease and joy in serving the welfare of others. This is the sitting meditation. of what you might call our school. But it sounds very similar to what? The perfection of wisdom. The sitting meditation of this school is the perfection of wisdom. The sitting that we practice is a conventional thing.

[11:58]

we have to like have this conventional thing that exists called sitting. But the sitting in this school is united with the emptiness of the sitting. And the union of the emptiness of the appearance of the sitting and ultimate truth, that is the actual meditation. And that is the true gate of working with ease and bliss for the welfare of all beings. The joyful devotion to all beings. And then teaching them emptiness so that everybody together will bring suffering to the place it always wanted to be.

[13:02]

So the perfection of wisdom follows the concentration on bodhicitta but also the perfection of wisdom is concentrated on being the perfection of wisdom. The perfection of wisdom is really concentrated. Wisdom is concentrated on being reality. Reality, when it's realized, is actually concentrated. Reality, when it's not realized, is kind of dispersed. The unique breeze of reality, do you see it? if there's a slightest bit of flickering away from where we are, if there's any movement or noise, if there's any dabbling in existence and non-existence, we might miss it. And when we miss it, we have some problems.

[14:20]

Today, I went to the Department of Motor Vehicles, sometimes called DMV, Quite a few years ago, I realized that almost all my problems had something to do with motor vehicles. You had a problem with a bicycle, too? Even non-motor vehicles. That was a recent thing. Anyway, so maybe in an earlier Yoga Room class I told you that my billfold was stolen from me at the Mill Valley Community Center. Did anybody hear about that?

[15:23]

Somebody stole my wallet. Where's that backpack? Here it is. They stole this backpack. And in this backpack was my wallet, cell phone, and a Buddhist book called, Dependent Core Rising in Emptiness. At first I was sad that I lost my wonderful Dependent Core Rising in Emptiness book, but then I thought, well, maybe the people read it. and become a great disciple of the Buddha. Anyway, a couple of days later I was at the community center and I saw something that looked like this black bag and I said, could I see that bag?

[16:29]

And they said, sure. I said, oh, that's my bag. And I reached inside and there was dependent core rising in emptiness, but no wallet. So one of the things I had to do was get a new license. And guess where I went to get the license? And when I went to get the license, they didn't pay me the money I lost. They asked me to pay them some money to give me a new license. And then they gave me a new license, and then in my attempt to go around the world teaching emptiness so that people will be happy. I went to the security line in Houston and put my driver's license, my identification, in one of those baskets. And I haven't seen it since. So you know what you do.

[17:31]

Then you go back to the DMV to visit again. And then you pay him some more money You also wait in line for a little while. And sometimes your trusty assistant comes with you to make it easier on you. Partly because also you don't have a driver's license, so she drives and sits next to you. And then while you're waiting, people come up to you and talk to you about Buddhism. And the time goes by very nicely. You don't mind how long it's waiting because you're studying Dharma there in the DMV. And then you think, hey, this isn't so bad because here we are. An impromptu Zen center. And you just have to pay a little money after giving the teaching.

[18:32]

You just have to pay some money. So I get the license. But I don't really get the license. What I get is a temporary license because they're going to mail me the real one with my picture on it. So I leave, and then I go about my business, traveling around. I go to Germany and Switzerland and Sweden, and I come back. When I get back, I kind of remember, shouldn't my license be here by now? Thought crosses my mind. I went and looked through the mail. There's no license. So then I go to the airport recently to pick up my grandson, and they point out to me that my temporary license has expired, so I can't have my grandson.

[19:34]

He said, well, I said, please. So they let me go to get my grandson, even though my temporary license had expired. And I had an old license with my picture on it. And he said, but you know, it's up to the, what are the initials of that place? T something? TSA. It's up to the TSA people. They let me through. So I got the grandson. And, uh, So then I called DMV and I said, it hasn't come yet. Would you send me another one? They said, we can't do it. You've got to go to DMV. So today I went to DMV on my way to BER, et cetera. So I go in there.

[20:41]

I'm waiting in line to get a number. And a woman says to me, Reb? I look, and there she is, an old friend. And she says, how are you? I said, fine, except I'm here. And she said, I missed that. Would you say it again? I said, how are you? She said, let's do that again. How are you? I said, fine, except I'm here. And she said, oh, now I get it. And then she said, you're here to help me. That's why you're here. You know, it I woke up. I was at DMV to help her. And that's where she was. She was at DMV.

[21:44]

She's a bus driver. So she goes to DMV a lot. She's going to be a Muni driver. She said, that's the goal of all bus drivers is to work for Muni. It's really a good job. So then we Again, you know, we were together through the whole thing, you know. She was G-183, and I was G-184. And she let several people go ahead of her. Because she was with me. And I remember it. But the point is, we're here, we go to DMV for the people in DMV, it doesn't matter where we are. Because the people in DMV are emptiness, and emptiness is the people in DMV.

[22:47]

And if you practice that, when you go there, you help the people in DMV, which is the dharmagate of reposing bliss. But you have to study and practice. Otherwise, people won't remind you of that at DMV. They won't say, you're here to help me. You're not here to waste your time. You're here to help me. They'll come up to you and tell you, don't worry. No problem. You're helping me by being here. And the other people were listening to us. It was helping them, too. Plus, she was letting these people go ahead of us. They liked that, too. And even some people who were ahead of us talked to me. They came and talked to me, and after talking to me, they left DMV. They realized they didn't need to be there. I don't know why. But this guy asked me questions, and I said, oh, I don't have to be here. And he left. Everybody moved up.

[23:50]

So... Emptiness is kind of a cold word, and if you think a better word, you know, there's other words, vastness, the void. But this emptiness, this ultimate truth, the coldness of it is that you don't get to get a hold of it. However, its essence is compassion. So now for this class and the next class we're going to be... And also remember that emptiness, realized emptiness, is wisdom. It's not the wisdom that knows the emptiness. The object of this wisdom is emptiness, but the wisdom is not something in addition to the emptiness. So the wisdom itself, this ultimate transcendental Transcendental wisdom, transcendent, super great wisdom itself is not something you can get a hold of either.

[24:58]

It's insubstantial. And it's the most wonderful insubstantial thing. Because it's the insubstantial thing that realizes the insubstantiality of everything and makes wherever you are where you're supposed to be. And wherever you are is helping people. And helping people wherever you are is emptiness. That's emptiness. So no matter where you are, nothing can stop you from being helpful. There's no form that has a substance that can stop you, stop the compassion working. This is the ultimate bodhicitta, the bodhicitta that works every place. We can just get distracted from it is all. Or not be ready for it. Or not be willing to open to it. The unique breeze of reality.

[26:02]

Wherever you go, it can wake you up and remind you of the wonderful work of helping people just by being yourself, really being yourself. So that's an introduction to the ultimate bodhicitta meditation. So now we try to continue the relative meditation of bodhicitta, continue to try to remember that others whether you are into their existence or not, are yourself. And keep checking to see if you're ready to change places with people. Just keep checking if you're ready to let people go ahead of you in line. Are you ready for that?

[27:09]

Are you ready to wish other people to get to the line quickly? Wishing for them to be first? So those practices are still part of the deal because the relative bodhicitta doesn't go away. We still need the relative bodhicitta. And you need to teach other people how to have relative bodhicitta, conventional bodhicitta. And now we're going to bring up the ultimate bodhicitta, enlightenment itself, which is never separate from the relative bodhicitta, which works along with the ultimate. Yes, Charlie. You're the one who said it didn't matter.

[28:14]

I didn't say it didn't matter. I don't think I did. Well, you've got the tape. You check it. I think I said no matter where you are, no matter. No matter where you are doesn't mean it doesn't matter where you are. No matter where you are, what really matters is you remember that no matter where you are, this is the place to practice. That this is the place. It's not better to... DMV is not better than the yoga room. Anyway, it's like it's closed now. The DMV parking lot isn't better than the yoga room or Zen center. It's that they're all equal opportunities for awakening. But still then you might say, well, then why go to a place where people tell you that wherever you are is a good place to practice?

[29:28]

And the reason for going to that place is so you learn to be more undistracted from this teaching. that you'll be with people who will allow you to think that way and talk that way to some extent. And will tease you a little bit if you're too sanctimonious or whatever. But that will help you actually be more consistent. So... In the conventional relative world, we do mention to people that it is good to go places where people remind you that wherever you are is a good place. And when they remind you, you get to also remind them. We remind each other and we more and more remember, oh yeah, this is the place to practice. This is the place to practice. These are the people to practice with. Not, let's leave the yoga room and go find some really good people to practice with.

[30:35]

Or let's leave the DMV and go to the yoga room where the really good people are. No. But still, let's go be with people who remind us. So the people in DMV reminded me. So the DMV proved that it was a good place. And if you're in places where you don't seem to remember very often, and you see some place where you think you might be able to remember more, it's okay to go there. So you can remember that the place you left was a perfectly good place to remember, but you couldn't. So I see two brothers with their hands raised. I just learned today that Josh, David, and Ben are brothers.

[31:39]

And now I see the family resemblance. Yes, Ben. Suchness. I'm wondering if you could just talk a little bit more about suchness. Well, the first part of suchness is the one we've warmed up to in the last few classes, is the suchness, for example, of self and other is you warm up to that by reminding yourself that others are yourself. And you warm up to that, you get over your resistance to the suchness of self and other by seeing if you can exchange yourself with others. Because the suchness of self and others is that they have no substantial separation. They appear to be separate, but the separation is an insubstantial appearance. That's the suchness of self and other, and that's the suchness of mind and objects, according to one of the main schools of Mahayana Buddhism called the mind-only school, is that the suchness of objects is that they are inseparable from the knowledge of them, from the mind which knows them.

[33:03]

That's their suchness. But another suchness is that objects have no independent existence and that the appearance that they exist on their own is an illusion. It's an insubstantial appearance that they're out there on their own. And their out there on their own-ness can never be found. Before, I thought it was like a ricochet between yourself and another person, or between yourself and the world. It's like, it's like you said, such as I had in English. So I was thinking that myself is very terrible and worried about it myself. Say it again.

[34:09]

The more you're yourself, then what? Right. That's right. And the fact that it's that way is the suchness. The consequence of that is that the separation cannot be found, and that all the elements have no substantial existence and no independent existence of each other. So how can we keep focused on that? How can we be focused on that ultimate way things are? This is our challenge. Yes, Tamar? Well, the first thing that comes to mind is when you're in pain,

[35:10]

Right. So you're in a situation where the thought, I'm not helping, arises and you feel pain. So this is a good opportunity to help yourself by being gracious and ethical and patient with your pain. That's how to deal with the pain. Then you're ready to start arousing your energy to meditate on this person who you think you're not helping is yourself. Now you're ready to be yourself more, to be yourself who has these ideas that you're not helping. But along with my ideas, me, the person who has the ideas not helping, and this other person who maybe doesn't have the idea that he's not helping, he may or may not have that idea, maybe he doesn't, But I have the idea that I'm not helping him. So I have to help myself who's got this problem.

[36:47]

If I don't help myself who's got this problem, I'm not really ready in a meaningful way to say he is myself and I am willing to trade places with him. But first is he's myself. Second is I will exchange myself with him. If I'm not willing to be patient and gracious with my pain that I'm not helping him, I'm not also ready to exchange places with him in his illness. I can't actually necessarily suddenly become autistic, but I can definitely train myself to be willing to be autistic. and wish him to be the therapist. Can you believe that some therapists are not actually up for having the disease that they're treating?

[37:53]

I'm being ironic. I'm being ironic. I think a lot of therapists are not ready to exchange places with their patients. And they are not up for and ready to see their patients as themselves. They're not doing that training. And if they're not, usually I think it's because they're clinging to their position, to their self as the therapist or whatever. You know, no hard feelings. That's quite normal, quite common. Now we're talking about training ourselves to get over holding on to our position in the process of trying to help people. That's our job. But to do that effectively, we have to take care of ourselves in the earlier ways of benefiting ourselves while we're still suffering. Then we start focusing on the bodhicitta and purifying ourselves of the problem.

[38:59]

First take care of ourselves with this problem, then purify ourselves of it in the first part of this focusing on relative bodhicitta. And more and more, the ideas I have of how I'm doing become, yeah, they become, they're just like, what do you call it? They're the barter I use in purifying myself. They're the material I'm using for purification rather than my problem. and then we're getting ready to open to the emptiness, this is where we're really going to help an autistic person and a non-autistic person. This is the real place of helping people, supposedly. And this is the place when we realize the emptiness, where we don't get exhausted in our work of helping others. But we need not just the relative concentration, the concentration on relative bodhicitta, we need also

[40:00]

the ultimate bodhicitta, so that we can have the joy of doing this work. Including a million times of thinking, I'm not being helpful. Or a million varieties of thinking I'm not being helpful. That's just like, yeah, right, that's part of the deal. And I'm up for this because it's all insubstantial. And I've learned to open to this because I know how to take care of myself when this stuff happens to me. And nigh that, but I realize other people are helping me too. Everybody's helping me do this practice. And I need that. I need it, and it's reality, and I need reality in order to realize reality. Reality's helping me realize reality. But I also have to do my work. I have to take care of my suffering in these basic ways. And then I have to train myself in ways to get over my self-centered points of view, which are, you know, we come with that stuff.

[41:11]

You need to remember it over and over and over and over until our perspective changes. And it will. The theory is it will change. in this little world where we're noticing what's going on, by focusing on that we change our karmic accumulations. By confessing that I see myself as separate from people and so on, that I don't see others as myself, by confessing that over and over, I address the place where that misconception comes from. I transform the ground of seeing others as separate. And I start seeing others as me, more and more. And I start seeing others as helping me remember that others are me. How wonderful to walk down the street and have everybody come up to you and say, remember, I'm you. Remember, you're me. Why do people talk to me like this at the grocery store? Also, this person I was talking to who said I was in DMV to help her

[42:23]

She also told me that she said, I wanted to tell you I got baptized. So this is a person who grew up in a Buddhist family. This is a person I knew from the time she was kind of a little girl. And now she's a big girl. And one of her step-sons just jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge a month ago. And she told me that she's baptized. And she said you had to get baptized because of her recovery work. She needed to do it. I said, so now you're a Christian, huh? She said, yeah. Well, I said, I'm a Christian too. I got baptized 67 years ago. But I still, I never stopped. I never kind of like, what do you call it? Be baptized. What? Be baptized. I never did baptize myself. I never went to the church and said, I'm not a Christian anymore.

[43:27]

I basically feel like all those Christian churches are my church, all of them. I don't press it on them, but they're all my church. And I kind of feel that way about synagogues, too, and I'm trying to feel that way about mosques. Not that I possessed them, but just... Anyway, and she thought I was going to be angry at her for getting baptized. I said, no, no, no. She was relieved. And I wasn't trying to help her, but that was helpful to her, that she was not going to be excommunicated from Buddhism. And she was talking about all the ways that Buddhism helps her through all these troubles she's been through. with drugs and alcohol and losing her husband and her children and almost killing herself. So Buddhism and recovery, and then she became a Christian to help her recovery work. Yes, Nancy.

[44:36]

I was talking to one of your friends a couple days ago. I was talking to one of your friends a couple days ago. Yeah. Beverly Tongri. She said, she says, does my friend Nancy still take the yoga room classes? I said, yeah, she's still there. Yeah. Yes, Nancy. Sorry. Last week, on the day of our class, I was walking down the stairs, a woman was walking in front of me who was sort of, you know, how she had me thrust her leg out in front of her lawyer. And I thought, oh, I'm so glad that's not me. And then I came to class and you said that you'd be willing to exchange places with another person. And I was sort of taken aback because I had been so strongly blacked out. That was not me.

[45:40]

And then today, I didn't say it didn't happen, it was a different person, but also a walking disabled. And I didn't have the same thought. I was aware of that. I didn't say it myself, thank God that's not me. Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah, before you felt that, you come to class, you hear some talk, your mind hears it, your mind thinks about it, and that changes you. Not 100%, but if you do this over and over, you start having a different response. What is it? There but for the grace of God go I? You know, there's something... there's something, it isn't there but for the grace of God.

[46:47]

Go I, in other words, there for the grace of God. I'm glad it happened to them. It's that that could be me. I'm not glad it's them. And I'm not glad it's not me. It's not I'm glad it's not me. It's more I could be that. That could be me. That way everything would be more in accord with this. That could be me. This person... Yeah, and that being the grace of God, yeah. That this whole process is the grace of the Buddhas. This whole process is arising from our relationship with the awakened ones. We're not making this thing run by ourself. And we are getting fed. We are getting stimulated. And we are evolving. Yes, David.

[47:49]

When it comes to me, a lot of the stories, how much help there is. Yeah. How much help there is. Right. Yeah. And you're being helped. Yeah. You've got your DMV help. Yeah. No, I mean, give it. Yeah. [...] And there was like a little, what do you call it, sort of a bevy of giving. It wasn't just me and her. It was all around us it started happening. And it's just... But... It's also fun that I kind of was, I mean, when I called the people on the telephone, there's also calling them on the telephone and waiting to talk to people. There's that. I couldn't even figure out how to do the thing. Deirdre had to help me get a person on the phone to talk to.

[48:51]

I couldn't figure out how to do it. So when I got to talk to the person, I actually kind of put my head down like this, kind of like, when the person said, you know, you have to go back to DMV. But maybe the next time they tell me I have to go to DMV, I'll remember. Oh, great. Without expecting it to be like it was last time. Without expecting the miracle. Go, huh? What? What? What did you say? Oh, yeah, the guy, these guys were very nice to me. They had pity on me. He said to me, you can make an appointment. He said, the next appointment is September 27th. So that means I have to be chauffeured until then. And I thought, well, maybe, I said, maybe this is all a thing that I should, oh, I shouldn't be driving.

[49:58]

I should be chauffeured. Maybe this is, maybe the world's trying to tell me, you shouldn't drive anymore. You never were good, and you're getting worse. You should go to DMV frequently, but never drive. Yeah, the guy, these people on the phone, they were taking pity on me. And they did say, well, you could make an appointment. And the next appointment is, he said, maybe you should go in, just go in. Well, maybe you should just go in. Maybe you should go to DMV. Hey, maybe you should go to DMV. Yeah. There's something waiting for you. There's a surprise waiting for you. Yeah, the world is helping us. The Buddhas are helping us. The path is there. So how can we remember that? That's the hard part. Because we have this deep reservoir of karmic accumulations which is kind of like challenging us to remember.

[51:01]

We had this little part, you know, we had this little circle of water where we're focusing and surrounded by this huge ocean of karmic accumulations. So it's a struggle. But remembering this huge thing actually I think is good. So we think, this is going to be hard to actually stay on message. Yes, Enrica. I'm trying to integrate the teaching to the real life situation. Yes. Good. Let's do it. I was talking to my mom as a professor. I don't know the English. She wasn't engaged into a certain activity that was out of integrity, and I had a real reservations about her, but she had no other really choice, and I kind of didn't want to do it, but then settled with myself that I think it was the last and the sum of mutual contract.

[52:08]

A translator. For your mother. And you said there was some problem of integrity? It wasn't an activity of integrity. And you were being invited to assist her in this non-integral activity. Okay. Yeah. concerned and reluctant to do that for her and all of that. But I said to myself that I could do that for her, being a translator, without just Yeah, I was, because my judgment doesn't work. And I didn't make a decision or anything. Your what doesn't help us? My judgment. Well, your judgment, yeah. My judgment, I didn't see that my judgment was helpful. So now fast forward 18 months later, there are consequences of that.

[53:11]

I'll tell you. and she would have to spend some money and learn some action as a result of that. And I was the one that communicated to her. Why? Because Machiavelli was lost. I was seeing her, you know, this first time actually in my life, I was seeing her as, as you said, as the real person, the way she was, although she wasn't perfect, it was okay. It's just a very new thing to me, that seeing her, that... She stood up, she put herself down. It's very painful to see that someone getting the... deep trouble, or at least trouble, and luckily doing something, and I wasn't stopping her, but because I wasn't stopping her, for some reason I was attached to, I wasn't attached to that.

[54:22]

I could see her as me doing that, and being grateful that I could see that, and not do this thing. Yeah, that's great, to see her as you doing that. Right. Yeah. See, I've done it in my life many times. Right. And this particular one, I had some more clarity than she did. And what's happening now is I still will have to help her with translation, obviously, across this. You'll never get away from her. No, I know that. That's good. That's the Bodhisattva way, never get away. Exactly. I wanted to get away from her. I didn't want to do that. Yeah, but now you sound more ready. Obviously, I see that it's not about me getting away from her. Yeah. It's actually... I see that... It's actually... It's really what it should be.

[55:29]

Right. It's really beneficial for you to not get away from her. Yes. Or really beneficial for you to stop trying to get away from her. Yeah. And if you can be that way, that will help her. That's the main thing that will help her. Exactly. I see that, too. I see that. Staying with her through this difficulty, with my integrity, however, not judgmental about her. Mostly, yeah. Or there may be judgment, but that's just like, what do you call it, a stone in your shoe. It's not the point. The point is you're going to stay with the stone in your shoe, the judgment or whatever it is. You're going to do this with her. That's the thing. And no matter what it is, you're going to do this. And there'll be consequences for everything both of you do, but no matter what, you're going to stay with her. Yeah. Yeah, the more you just walk with her,

[56:41]

through all this process, the closer she gets to realize how this is the consequence of her own karma, then she can realize that because you're just there with her dealing with the consequences of your karma. You're not trying to get away from yours, then that shows her how not to try to get away from hers. This is how we learn and help each other. And this is how you're helped. Yeah. Congratulations. What's the acronym for being with mother? BWM.

[57:58]

BWM's a good place to practice. Anything else tonight you want to bring up? Yes. Say a little bit more about Emptiness, the void, this undifferentiated void, and then somehow wisdom and compassion just emerged. Is there more words about that? More words about emptiness? Well, no, about compassion and wisdom emerging. Well, the emptiness... of the Buddhas is a wisdom which has an essence of compassion. Yeah, or another way to say it,

[59:10]

a vast, a vast space filled with love. That's emptiness, but that's also non-dual wisdom. And non-dual wisdom actually requires compassion because you have to actively engage all dualities, like you have to yet to be present and not run away from your mother, or not run away from your judgments about your mother, or not run away from the pain of being with your mother and the consequences of her karma. The willingness to completely embrace that without any sense of separation from it is compassion. But it's also wisdom. And when it gets to the point where you're not even into the existence and non-existence of the suffering and of the compassion, that's emptiness.

[60:31]

So there are kinds of people, or kinds of people, which means kinds of understandings. People are kind of different varieties of understanding, where they kind of understand emptiness to some extent, but it's not an emptiness that's filled with compassion, so it's not the correct understanding. Correct understanding of emptiness is filled with compassion. And that really makes giving ethical study patients vigor and concentration. It really makes them transcendent bodhisattva practices. But it also includes them. And the wisdom that doesn't include them wouldn't be Buddha's wisdom. So Buddha's wisdom knows this insubstantiality of everything, But because it's Buddha's wisdom, this knowing of insubstantiality, which is not separate from the insubstantiality, it's filled with great compassion.

[61:40]

It's amazing, yeah. And the amazement is empty, too, and filled with compassion. but also everything. The emptiness of everything is like this. The emptiness of fear and of pain is the same. It's not an emptiness over there. That's not Buddha's emptiness. That's not the emptiness of the Buddha's teaching. It's an emptiness which is non-dual with observing that. It's an observation which is not separate from its objects. This is, we have to train ourselves, we have to get ready for this and train ourselves in this work, in this practice. Anything else tonight? Yes, Ted? You mentioned how the mind plays tricks in making us perceive some other person who seems to be over there.

[62:51]

Yeah. And sometimes the words that we use seem to reinforce that, even when we say others as ourselves. Yeah, right. The mind which thinks that way and the language which talks that way, this is conventional reality. This is conventional truth. But it's called a truth because in the conventional world, you can say that these conventional truths of these conventional things are incontrovertible. They've been worked out. You know, you are Ted has been worked out. So it is called conventional truth and ultimate truth. But ultimate truth does not think in terms of existence and non-existence. Conventional truth does, and there's a language that goes with it, and the language that goes with it is part of what makes it incontrovertible. Because we work this out and it works for us in a certain way.

[63:51]

And it also works for the Buddhas to use our conventional truths to get us to understand the teaching and start doing the practice. So the language which reflects this conventional, dualistic, deluded way of seeing things is also the language which the Buddhas used to help people study conventional truth. And studying conventional truth leads to understanding conventional truth in such a way that you open to ultimate truth. You don't see this conventional truth first. Because we didn't see it as conventional truth first. Yeah, if we don't respect conventional truth, like Nagarjuna says, Before you're familiar, and it's kind of an understatement, but I would say before you're thoroughly familiar with conventional truths, the ultimate is not appropriately taught.

[64:53]

That's why we warm up for four weeks before we bring up the ultimate bodhicitta. With conventional things like your sense of yourself and sense of others, With these conventional things, we need to really be intimate and practice with them with generosity and ethics and patience and concentration and vigor. We need to be that way with conventional truth and know conventional truth. For example, know that others are ourself and know how to exchange ourselves with others is part of being familiar with conventional truth. So if you know something about conventional truth, good. Now, can you exchange yourself with everybody? If you learn how to do that, you know more about conventional truth than you did before. People who can do that are more skillful, are more knowledgeable, are more thoroughly educated about conventional truth than the people who can't. And without that kind of familiarity with conventional truth, emptiness should not be touched, taught or touched.

[66:02]

So now I'm teaching the ultimate bodhicitta, but I also should say, you know, there's some danger here. This ultimate teaching is not really appropriate unless it's grounded in your studying the conventional, being very respectful of conventional deluded consciousness, the mind which thinks in terms of existence and non-existence. You can see that mind will take care of it because caring for that is the basis for receiving the teaching of the ultimate. But we must, but without, but liberation is not possible just by conventional truth. We also have to have ultimate truth. So ultimate truth should not be taught unless we're well grounded in the conventional and we need the ultimate in order to have liberation. So don't forget the first four classes as you start to open to ultimate truth.

[67:11]

Don't forget the first four classes as you look and open to the unique breeze of reality, the one taste of everything. So we have one more class. Thank you very much for your wholehearted openness to these teachings. And I hope you come back next week. I hope I do too.

[67:51]

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