conventionalities and ultimate truth are asserted to be the two truths. The ultimate truth is not the province of dualistic awareness. And dualistic awareness is a conventionality. So sometimes we say, you know, that the ultimate truth is not an object of consciousness.

[01:19]

And that means it's not an object of dualistic consciousness. However, the ultimate truth and conventionalities are, can be objects of knowledge. Ultimate truth can be known, and conventional truth can be known. But conventional truth is known by a dualistic awareness, and conventional truth is known by an awareness in which dualities have disappeared. I have some other things to say, but maybe you want to start with that, if you have any comments or questions about that, what I just said, which is kind of a basic chunk of teaching.

[02:31]

Yes? I'm wondering who is observing the holistic awareness and who is observing the, or what Absolutely. Okay, so he's wondering who is observing the... There's a seat here, I think. I mean, there's a seat and I think it's available, right? So in the case of observing, in the case of conventionalities, there is an awareness and that awareness is a dualistic awareness. Okay? That sound familiar? I said that a little few minutes ago. Do you hear it? So, in that case, the awareness is, you might say, under the auspices of ignorance.

[03:35]

Okay? Dualistic awareness is, grows out of ignorance. So in that case, you say, who is observing in that case? Well, what's observing in that case, what one feels is observing, is a subject which is separate from an object. And when you have a sense of a subject separate from an object, you could call that subject a self, and you'd call the object other. You could feel, you could have a sense that that subject is a self. However, this awareness is an awareness that grows out of ignorance, so it's not. And for that ignorance, for that awareness which is growing out of ignorance, then this the sense of separation seems to be true.

[04:36]

And the objects that are out there seem to be really out there. And the self that's over here, or the sense of self, really seems to be really separate from the objects. And you really think there is a self that's observing the other. So this is the truth for dualistic awareness, that there's a separate self that can be aware of things. or if not a self, a separate subject, an awareness separate from its objects. This doesn't hold up if you study it, but ignorance doesn't go very well with thorough study. But it goes very nicely if you don't study it. Ignorance thrives in inattention and lack of study. Okay? Now, Any questions on that before I go to the second part of his question? Like, is that clear? Is it clear to you, Mark?

[05:39]

Okay, so then you said something like, well, who or what is observing in the case of the non-dual awareness? You could say, if you want to, Well, maybe the first thing to say is that there is no observer observing. That's not the way it is in non-dual awareness, that there's an observer observing. In non-dual awareness, the process of observation is not split into two parts. There's observation but there's not a subject separate from the object, established separate, and an object established separately from the subject. There's only an object which depends on the subject and a subject which depends on the object.

[06:41]

But if the subject depends on the object, then the subject can't do the observation by itself. In fact, no observation can happen by one part of the process of observation, taking the credit for the phenomena of observation. But with ignorance, then you switch back to the other side, then you can have one side being the observer and the other side being the observed. In other words, you ignore the interdependence and you can have an observer observing something. You can have an awareness separate from its objects. You overlook the interdependence. So in the process of awareness, you know, for example, awareness of color, it isn't the eye that sees, it isn't the color that sees, it isn't the consciousness that sees. Seeing, and it isn't the contact between consciousness, the eye, and the color that sees.

[07:45]

Did I say consciousness? It isn't the contact between those three. What seeing is, is something that happens when there's a color, an eye organ, an eye consciousness, and contact between them. All them working together is what we call seeing, or an experience of sight. But in ignorance we say, that the consciousness sees, or even we might say the eye sees, or we might even say the self sees, and add a self in there too. So in non-dual awareness there isn't an observer observing something. So you said who, I think maybe you said who or what observes, you know, and who is an acronym for world-honored one, which is an epithet for the Buddha. So you could say, when you say who is observing in non-dual awareness, you could say, that's right.

[08:52]

Buddha, Buddha's observing. But Buddha is the way of being that doesn't have objects. So an awareness or a way of being that doesn't have objects is observing. But it isn't like it observes something outside of itself. The Buddha is the whole process of interdependence of everything, including interdependence of the active and passive dimensions of the mind. So Buddha has no attachments. And having no attachments is the same as saying Buddha attaches to nothing. And the reason why Buddha attaches to nothing is because Buddha doesn't see anything out there. Buddha is when you don't see anything out there. You still see everything, you know, but nothing's out there anymore. It's not like I'm here and you're over there.

[09:57]

it's like I'm over there as much as I'm over here. Which means that there isn't really an over there and an over here. Therefore I can't attach to over there and I can't attach to over here or in between. And this is the end of suffering. And this is, basically this is Buddha. Which is slightly different from being a Buddha. Being a Buddha is a little bit different in the sense that you can do a few other tricks besides that one. But that is Buddha. Buddha is when you're not being attached to anything. Buddha is when you don't see anybody over there anymore. Or put it the other way, Buddha is when you see everything as who you are. That's Buddha. And when you... when you live that way or when you're living that way, I say you and you're living that way, but the you is kind of like conventional way of talking, right?

[11:06]

I could also say when there is life like that, when there is that kind of living, that's Buddha. And there always is that kind of living, okay? So any kind of life, any kind of phenomenal manifestation There is always this ultimate non-dual awareness and dualistic awareness. There's always that. But if you're caught in dualistic awareness, If you're involved in dualistic awareness, you can't see the non-dual awareness. And if you're in non-dual awareness, you can't see the dualistic awareness, unless you're a Buddha.

[12:09]

Then you can see both simultaneously. But when you're involved in non-dual awareness, you realize Buddha, even though you're not a fully enlightened Buddha. But I wouldn't lean too heavily on that last part I said right now. Don't let that distract you. Just work on the realizing Buddha now part. Okay, Mark? So, in non-dual awareness, there is no subject separate from the object, so there isn't a subject doing the awareness thing. There's awareness, but it's not split into subject-object separately. Now usually we wouldn't say that the object is the one that's observing, right? We don't usually do that. We don't say the color sees. But in non-dual awareness, the color sees as much as the awareness sees.

[13:14]

Neither one of them do the seeing in non-dual awareness. In non-dual awareness, the consciousness, the awareness, and the color together with the organ of the eye and with your heart and with the interaction between all them, all that is the seeing. If you take away any of them, the thing collapses. So any one of them, all of them are necessary and none is more important than the other. They're inseparable in the process of seeing. Alright? Any other questions about this? Roger? Yes. Yes. That's true. However, yes? So why would there always be Because in order for there to be something, in order for a phenomenon to manifest, as soon as they manifest, they have a conventional aspect.

[14:41]

There has to be some mental imputation for there to be a phenomenon. All phenomena have these two truths. So although one you could say is more basic or fundamental, namely the ultimate way that any phenomena is, is that it's interdependent. That's its ultimate or its essential mode is that it's interdependent. and it has a superficial mode of being kind of on its own. But you don't really have any phenomena manifesting without the appearance, without a superficial quality.

[15:50]

The profound mode in which everything exists, the ultimate mode in which everything exists, is so deep that it's really not a phenomena. There's no phenomena there. So like I said yesterday and like the Heart Sutra has been saying for quite a while, in the context of the most profound mode of being, which we call emptiness, which is interdependent arising, there aren't any highs and so on. There's no phenomena. Okay? Which is fine. But when there is phenomena, then there needs to be this superficial quality of the thing being kind of like a fact or a thing. Yes?

[16:55]

Yeah. There's still illusion? No. There are phenomena but they're not out there. So you can't find them. There's phenomena but you can't find them. You reach for them but you never get them. You can't get a hold of them. But it's not like they're not there, because then you could grab them in their non-being. This is the kind of absence that you can't check on your attendance sheet. You can't even verify that they're not there. I mean, you can verify that they're not there. You can be sure that you can't find them. You cannot find them and be convinced that you never will.

[18:04]

But it's not that you don't find anything, because in some sense what you find is what it depends on. So I reach for Roger, but I get Fred and Acacia. and Anne, and so on. But if I reach for Anne, then I don't get, you know, if I reach for Anne, then I get Acacia and Fred and Roger. So I can't get, if I really try to get a hold of something, I can never find it in non-dual awareness. But it's not like nothing's there, it's just that there, I can't find anything. therefore I can't grasp, therefore I can't separate. However, this inability to find anything, this interdependent quality of everything, that doesn't exist floating in mid-air. That is the characteristic of a phenomena. So the phenomena is there, it's just that I can't find the phenomena.

[19:12]

That's the way the phenomena really is. But I wouldn't even be able to talk about what I can't find if I didn't have something. So that's why I need the superficial. That's why phenomena need to be superficial also so that we can start with the superficial and see if we can find out what it is and not be able to find it. That's why it has to have the superficial quality too, otherwise we wouldn't be able to find its ultimate mode of being. But anyway, every phenomena has these two truths. They are locked together. And one's not better than the other. Although one is liberating and the other is not. When you study these two truths, you find out that it doesn't make any sense to prefer the world of liberation over the world of bondage and twisted karma.

[20:20]

It doesn't make any sense to prefer one over the other because if you prefer one over the other, the one that you prefer, you will lose. Because if you if you try to get away from the other one, whichever one it is. Well, let's see now, is that true if you preferred the conventional over the ultimate? Yeah, I think you lose both truths when you prefer one of them. It's clear that when you prefer the ultimate, the liberating truth, that you lose it. Because if you prefer it, you don't take care of the conventional And if you don't take care of the conventional, you have no place to realize the ultimate. Does that make sense? Because you wouldn't know where to realize the ultimate, because the ultimate is the ultimate character of a conventionality.

[21:23]

It's the deep quality of the superficial. So you have to have the superficial in order to realize the profound. And if you prefer the profound, then you don't give the superficial much attention. If you don't give the superficial much attention, you can't realize the profound. But how about if you prefer the superficial? Wouldn't that exclude you from the profound? Yes, it would. But would you also, if you prefer the superficial, lose the superficial? You would. You'd even lose the superficial because your preference of it would alienate you from it. Hmm? you'd be sort of like nowhere, which is like being in the superficial, attaching to the superficial understanding of things. But, you know, because of your preference, you really wouldn't even have the superficial. So you'd be like in super hell. Eventually that's where you go.

[22:28]

So, anyway, you can see it's very important not to prefer anything. And if you do prefer something, then we have a practice called confession. I confess I prefer something. I confess I prefer something. I confess I confess I confess I prefer. Did you have a wisecrack here? If you prefer not to prefer, you're preferring. That's right. If you want to be a happy camper, you have to give up preference without preferring to give up preference. You have to be willing to continue to prefer as long as that's what you're into. Willing to continue to prefer means not just sort of, what do you call it, signing a waiver and say, you know, okay, I'm willing to prefer and I'm willing to suffer with those preferences.

[23:44]

It's actually to do it and to not prefer, you know, to be different from this preferring creature that you are. while you know that you really do need to give up preferences in order to completely settle with the superficial and by settling with the superficial you will realize the profound. The California consciousness of whatever? Yeah, right. But again, whatever not in general but specifically with this problem right now. You know, like when you're getting whipped. Whatever. Whatever. Ooh, whatever. Ah, whatever. And then, nice massage. Whatever. Okay, massage is over.

[24:48]

Whatever. Whatever. Now you've got to be a man. Whatever. Now you've got to be a woman. Okay, whatever. I'll work with that. Non-preference. Hey, this is difficult. Whatever. But again, it's not whatever in general. It's whatever... in terms of what's happening now. It's that whatever. That's where you test to see if you really mean whatever. Okay? Maria? Are the two truths only accessible by humans? I'm not sure, but it's possible that only humans can awaken to the two truths.

[26:02]

It may be the case. I think part of the problem of not being human is that, for example, if you're a Buddha taught, Buddha is said to be the teacher of humans and celestials. But I think celestials have to give up being a celestial and kind of like come into the human realm to really get the Dharma. And I think if you're in other realms of suffering, the human realm is a realm of suffering, the celestial realm is a realm of suffering, and there's also a zone in between humans and celestials called the sometimes called the fighting, warring gods. These are people who are trying to power their way into celestial manifestation rather than to use the military-industrial complex to get into heaven.

[27:11]

That's a certain kind of mode too. But usually they have to get to heaven before they can hear Buddhism, which says, come on back to the human realm. People who are in lower realms, it's hard for them. Lower realms means forms of suffering that are more rough than human suffering. Rather than this sort of ongoing nausea and anxiety, they're in such heavy states of suffering that they kind of have to become a human in order to be able to practice patience sufficiently to settle into and observe the two truths. So it may be the case that it's really only in the human realm or a realm which is, you know, it may not be humans like humans with, you know, two eyes and two nostrils and two ears and stuff like that, but humans in the sense of being able to settle with their suffering

[28:14]

have the opportunity and ability to settle with suffering. But the two truths are characteristic, I think, of all beings who are in phenomenal existence. But it may be that only in the human realm do we have a chance to study the two truths and realize them. So sometimes we say that you have to be a human in order to be a Buddha. However, humans who are on the Buddha path are trying to encourage beings in all realms to move into the human mode of suffering as much as possible. Okay. Yes? What you just said about the celestial, you said that there's this celestial level of slayers that you said...

[29:16]

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the Buddha Shakyamuni could go into celestial realms. In the wee hours of the night, he taught gods and goddesses. They came for instruction. So Buddha could go into celestial realms without getting caught up by the bliss of celestial realms. So are the gods and goddesses in the celestial realm? Gods and goddesses are in celestial realm, right. They're either gods and goddesses or humans visiting. Or humans, non-enlightened humans or enlightened humans.

[30:21]

How many realms of heavens? You don't go, well you come back, you know, if you want to, you can go, there's lots of different varieties of celestial existence. Basically 17 types. that Buddhism teaches. But advancement towards Buddhahood is to come back to the human realm. Buddha attained enlightenment in the human realm. But a Buddha can teach gods how to become free of suffering. So gods have no negative sensation. They do not experience pain in terms of negative feeling. But they're still anxious, and they're still subtly anxious. They still, on some level, know that their bliss is impermanent. It's not eternal bliss in these heavens. And in some sense, the longer the worse. Because the longer you're in heaven, the more you get out of shape.

[31:26]

So when your heavenly term comes up and you come back down to human or lower, oftentimes you're kind of irritable. And then in your irritation, if you react impatiently to your irritation with this demotion, It's demotion in terms of feeling. It's like coming from where there's no pain to where there is some or a lot of pain. So if you're irritable and nasty about it when you come back, then you can go to a lower realm even. And if you're irritable about that, you go lower and lower and lower. Every time you get irritated, you go lower. Human is not in those realms. No. Human is... is not celestial, in case you haven't noticed. There is pain in the human realm, but it's not so intense that practicing patience is like more or less almost impractical.

[32:33]

It's almost impractical for beings in the lower realms of, or you could say the more intense realms of suffering, it's almost impossible for them to practice patience. However, they can do it a little bit, and if they can do it a little bit, that often promotes them having a chance to be in a more comfortable situation and then be able to practice patience better. The more comfortable you get, the better your patience is getting. And the better your patience gets, the more comfortable you get. But also, the more comfortable you get, the more challenges you can accept to your to your comfort and develop your patience more. So in some sense, the more patience you get, the more you open up to suffering because you're comfortable with the suffering you have. So it's not that you get higher and higher into bliss, which is a celestial mode. It's more you open up more and more to suffering, which is the Buddha mode.

[33:35]

And the human realm is a place where you can open more and more to suffering. Whereas in the heavenly realms, there really is a lot of limits because there's no physical pain and no mental pain. But there still is a subtle anxiety which you can barely feel because you're in so much bliss. And the anxiety is... that you sense the impermanence of the situation because it is impermanent. And you know on some level you're scared that it's going to end. And it is. This is not eternal happiness. The eternal happiness is the happiness of wanting to help suffering beings. That's eternal. Until we've run out of suffering beings. But so far anyway we don't seem to have that problem. So Buddhas are really happy because they always have suffering beings to teach dharma to. That's their happiness.

[34:38]

And they're even happy to teach gods and goddesses who are, you know, pretty comfortable, but scared that their comfort is going to be taken away from them. Okay? Liz? So what moves from realm to realm is everything kind of... Five aggregates move from realm to realm. Pardon? They died? No, they don't... Well, the five aggregates come together and disperse, come together and disperse, come together and disperse all the time. And what we call death is... is a dispersion where there's a hiatus in them coming together around a certain body. But there's some line of something. I mean, they're moving around the realm.

[35:47]

There's a line... It changes, right? Yeah. Well... In some sense, you can understand these different realms as things you can go through in what we usually call conventionally speaking. This is in the realm of duality and conventionality, right? In conventionality, you live 70 or 100 years, right? Or less. You're born, you live for a while, and you die. That's the conventional world, right? You can see that during that conventional world, you can visit these different realms, in a sense, that you can be in so much pain and so much fear that you can't practice patience. So in a sense, you're like you're in those realms. That's one way to interpret them. But another way to interpret them is that you die and are born in those realms. But I think that this is a little bit, if we get into this too much, I think you'll get distracted from more important considerations.

[36:52]

If we get into this rebirth thing, that's going to gobble up the workshop. So the mechanism by which you're reborn in lower states are higher states. But anyway, a Buddha can relate to these states and teach them. But mostly, all the Buddha or Bodhisattva or you or me can be kind to beings that we're aware of in the conventional world, beings that we're aware of who are suffering. We can be kind to them and our kindness is part of the way that they can start to consider practicing patience and evolving in a positive direction. It's hard to teach them Dharma because they can barely take their seat in the conventional world they're living in, in the dualistic world that they're inhabiting.

[37:54]

So we want to help beings, we want to encourage beings by being kind to help whatever state a being's in, to help them take their seat. We want to do that. Because when they take their seat, that's a kindness that they're doing themselves. And maybe they'll practice that kindness with themselves because you show them the example of kindness. That you're willing to be who you are and that's a kindness you bestow upon yourself. And therefore you can show them how you're kind to yourself and you can also show them kindness towards them. But your kindness towards them is founded on your kindness towards yourself. So you show them you're willing to be who you are and you're willing to let them be who they are. And they can feel the kindness of that. And you also want yourself to be free of suffering and you want them to be free of suffering so they feel that compassion.

[38:57]

So you can help beings who may be suffering in this more unmanageable or difficult to practice patience mode. So basically you teach them one of the main gifts you give them is the gift of helping them be unafraid of their suffering by you being unafraid of yours. And you can also give that to yourself. You can give yourself the gift of fearlessness of your own suffering. It's a great gift of kindness you can give to yourself. And you can give that to other humans too. who are on the verge of jumping off their seat. OK? Was there any other hands that were up? Yes, Rene? It seems like we find ourselves in the midst of suffering.

[40:00]

And when we talk about liberation, it doesn't make sense to talk about it as either before or after suffering, because time has sort of dropped out. And I'm wondering if one of the ways that it seems like we try to sit with our suffering is to understand the genesis of it, at least as I'm seeing it, and sort of goes something like we have preferences that lead to attachments. Attachments lead to suffering because of it. We're attached. We're losing. But where does the preference come from? Would it make sense to talk about the genesis of the carpets? It seems like we're sort of caught in the middle of the continuum, and we can't really. I don't know. I guess I'm asking where the basins have to talk about what leads to that continuum, where the carpet itself arises from. Why prefer as opposed to not prefer?

[41:04]

I guess I'm asking about the psychology of it. I guess I feel that the genesis of preference, the origins of preference and the origins of suffering will be revealed when we settle with suffering and we settle with preference. be itself rooted in understanding where it comes from. But rather, we have to just, as you say, sit with it. You said the root of what? The root of... Liberation? Whatever the path of liberation is, can't be rooted in the root of suffering, understanding that a priori.

[42:10]

Well, the way that the Dharma is usually taught is that the root of liberation is compassion. not understanding, because liberation is understanding. So the root of understanding is compassion, and compassion is rooted in suffering, and suffering is rooted in delusion. So we start with delusion, we start with ignorance, suffering, and then when compassion happens, this is the beginning of the process of liberation. And based on compassion, we're able to practice patience and so on, settle into the situation of our suffering. And by settling into the situation of our suffering, which entails, there's an origin there right in the suffering. So if we settle with the suffering, the origin's revealed. And when the origin's revealed, the end of it is revealed. When the arising is revealed, the ceasing is revealed. Right in the arising of suffering is the end of suffering.

[43:17]

Similarly with preferences, if you practice compassion, you can settle into the world of preferences. And by settling in, compassion is not a preference. Compassion is not preference. Compassion is not, I prefer to be with this person rather than that person. Compassion is, I prefer to be intimate with all beings So by compassionate to myself and others in the middle of preferences, I become intimate with preferences, and then I will see where preferences come from. When I see where preferences come from, that will be the end of preferences. That will be realizing the cessation of preferences. And then you will understand the cessation of preferences, the origins of preferences, and preferences. And you will, so. So is it fair to say that the origination of suffering is not based on a preference or a choice?

[44:22]

It's a condition that we find ourselves in. Is it fair to say that suffering is not based on preference? It's not as if we find ourselves in this life based on a choice, some original choice. It's kind of a choice. I mean, it's not really a choice. It's kind of like, yeah, it's not really a choice. It's just like given human, given our spectacular human genetic setup, we can't help but choose to ignore what's happening. We're built to ignore. So we really don't have a choice. If you chose not to practice ignorance, if you chose not to ignore what's going on, you couldn't really get to be a human. You couldn't, like, grow up, you know, and get toilet drained and stuff like that. So you kind of have to ignore.

[45:24]

And any being that doesn't ignore, I think, won't be one of us. And if they kind of are related to us, kind of like us, and they won't ignore, then I think they're kind of like a basket case. Because, you know, what would they be? So, if we're human beings, I think we fall into this ignorance thing. And then, based on ignorance, we have attachments And one of the varieties of attachments is preferences. But the wonderful, simple key to liberation from the misery that comes from preferences is turn the light around and shine it back on the suffering. Practice lovingly, compassionately, look at what the suffering is, see how it is, be intimate with it.

[46:31]

You know, out of wishing to be free, but when you're studying, the wishing to be free is at the root, but the actual study is like, what is it? And again, as you see more and more clearly and become more and more intimate with suffering, you will see its origins. When you become more and more intimate with preferences, you'll see their origins. when you become intimate with these origins, you'll see their cessations. When you see their cessations, if you're a bodhisattva, you're visiting nirvana, and nirvana is then not an object of awareness. Nirvana is realized by this non-dual awareness which comes to you when you start acting in this compassionate way which more and more approaches a non-dual way of being with things. In other words, to settle with what's happening okay yes Bob is Satori the realization of ultimate truth well okay yes

[47:53]

I don't like to say yes to that, but... Because I think it's not really right to say yes. But if I say no, then, you know, we're going to get into other trouble. Yes. Yes. I guess the reason why I don't like to say yes to that question is I feel it might distract you. Not to mention everybody else who was listening. Yeah. I think it might be distracting to say yes like one more word on top of this, you know, this thing called realization of ultimate truth.

[49:03]

Because, you know, there's, then there gets to be like a preference for realization of ultimate truth and a preference for satori and where is the satori and, but I said, you know, quite a few times, we shouldn't talk about realizing ultimate truth until we're, kind of like don't have a preference for it. The more we talk about it, the more we think, God, that would really be great. Wouldn't it be nice to be enlightened to ultimate truth and be liberated? Well, yeah, it would be nice. Of course. But we've got to be careful now because isn't it hard to do our homework with the conventional? Aren't we having a little bit of... Don't we a little bit now already kind of prefer something other than this? So I hesitate to say anything which is going to be the right answer, but actually be the wrong answer because it hurts people to hear it. Yeah.

[50:08]

One, how do you know you're grounded? And two, what are the dangers of pursuing... That was a question that Susan asked. How do you know you're grounded enough to... Remember? Yesterday? You can ask it again. I'm just saying. Remember you asked that question? How do you know you're grounded enough to move on to the ultimate? Right? That's sort of what you're leading up to, right? And what did I say to you, Susan? Do you remember? I guess, I don't know, I guess I would say to know that you're grounded is a little unground, is kind of, is kind of confused. Because if you were into, like, knowing that you're grounded, that would just be another delusional thought, like, I'm grounded enough. That would be another conventionality, right? But you wouldn't understand it as another conventionality. You would think it was a truth. I got delusion, [...] then I got this new delusion called, I've had enough delusions.

[51:32]

I've studied delusions enough. But then you think, this was delusion and that was delusion, but this one isn't. This one which says I've had enough of them, now finally that one's not. I've graduated from delusion. Well, that's a big one. Now you're going to think, well, that's true. And yes, it is true, but all the other ones were true too, but that you have realized they're true, but they're also false. Because they were dualistic. They're true from the point of view of ignorance. And also, I've had enough ignorance is true from the point of view of ignorance. From the point of view of non-ignorance. or non-dual awareness, you don't get into enough or not enough. That's not what we're concerned about, about enough or not enough. So when you're well trained in giving up enough or not enough, which means you're dealing with enough and not enough all the time and not trying to get out of there, then you're ready for the realm where there isn't enough or not enough.

[52:48]

But to go into the realm where it's enough, where there's enough and not enough and there's no difference, it'd be good if you were, like, not any longer concerned about enough or not enough. Which means you just accept that that goes on in your mind. Is that enough? Huh? Is that enough? It was enough at a certain point, and then it got to be too much. Okay, now, how about some people that haven't asked any questions who have some questions? If you don't have any questions, you don't have to ask them, but if you've got some, you're holding out. Yes? They were talking during sitting? She was talking about settling on your bones and having a strong sense of intention.

[53:59]

But I was thinking, Ben, and I was thinking when we were talking about preferring earlier, how do you have a sense of intention without kind of leaning into preferring your sense of intention? You said it. You said it right there. There's a sense of intention arises in you, okay? But you don't lean into it. Well, like, let's say you feel the intention of wanting to go to the toilet. You feel that you'd like to urinate. Okay, that's a desire. No. No. I think you could have a sensation in your body somewhere that... you know, there's a pressure there, a certain kind of pressure, and you sense that you could, you know, it would be easy to urinate now. But you're like you're in a zendo or something, so you think, well, probably not, this isn't a good place.

[55:04]

And you might intend to go to the toilet at the end of the period of intention. But you could be perfectly happy sitting with this sensation which indicates to you that probably sometime in the near future it would be fine to urinate. And so you wouldn't actually wish to be going now. You actually would be patient with this uncomfortable feeling, and you realize, I do not wish to go here. I wish to go someplace else. And I intend to do it, actually. Then you just put aside that intention, and you don't lean into it at all. Well, yeah, I understand that example, but I just want to kind of cultivate this sense, you know, right as you're saying it. Well, to cultivate some intention other than that one, you mean?

[56:09]

Well, it seems that you're cultivating, you're trying to cultivate some sort of pure non-preferential intention. Compassion, like, it seems like it's compassion. So, do you want to give some other example of some other intention that you want to talk about cultivating? Well, they all seem different. I mean, cultivate intentions to do anything to become a better person. Right. Right. No, you could cultivate the intention to become enlightened. Yes, basically the same. No, it could be basically the same. To cultivate the intention to play the piano and cultivate the intention to be enlightened, you could cultivate them in the same way. You could do both in a non-preferential way and you could do both in a preferential way. And I would say, you know, I don't know. You know, I haven't really looked at this that much in depth.

[57:15]

But in the case of the ultimate and highest, most complete enlightenment, the way to cultivate it is non-preferentially. To cultivate it preferentially is an oxymoron. And I think probably it's the same for the piano. I would guess that the real breakthroughs in the art of playing the piano happen for those people who start cultivating. Maybe for many years they cultivated preferentially. Right. And you get to a certain point where you see that the preferences you have are undermining your development of your intention to give yourself completely to this art. I would think that the highest levels of art would be the same as the art of meditation, that you would stop seeking and you would give up seeking in the process even though you're in that process of continually practicing without seeking would deepen the art. And I would think that would deepen your art of going to the toilet too.

[58:22]

And that's important, but in Zen we emphasize those things, you know, like going to the toilet, eating, and things like that, because everybody can do those things. Not everybody's going to play the piano, but everybody goes to the toilet, so everybody can practice this non-seeking around basic human situations. And then these can become arts. The daily life can become an art in that you can practice patience and develop compassion right around normal bodily functionings by bringing in non-seeking. Or if you can't yet bring in non-seeking directly, you can bring in awareness of the seeking and the pain of the seeking and practice compassion with yourself while you're seeking to do something that you don't have to seek. A lot of these things we add seeking in and it just makes life more uncomfortable and distracts us. Practicing compassion means, first of all, that's the beginning, is you settle with the pain of your seeking.

[59:26]

And the more you settle with the pain of your seeking, the more you'll be convinced that it's optional and painful, that it's not really worthy of your time. It doesn't really help. You don't need to do this in order to take care of your bodily functions. You can go to the toilet without seeking. You can eat lunch without seeking. You can rest without seeking. You can do all these basic things without seeking. But you have to practice compassion in order to be convinced. You have to settle with the way it is when you are seeking and when you do have preferences in order to be convinced that it's good to continue to settle and also to be convinced that these things can be dropped. Any other people who haven't asked a question would like to ask one? Yeah. So if someone, say, had a collapse of ultimate reality, or someone realizes that, wouldn't they need to keep cultivating that?

[60:34]

You have to live in conventional reality. You have to eat, feed yourself. So I would say a great teacher would not continue to cultivate by studying with a teacher or practicing. Are you saying if there was this awareness, this non-dual awareness was realized and there was then the realization of the ultimate truth and liberation and all that, would the person continue to practice? Well, you'd have to ask that person. But a lot of times they do. Like the Buddha actually continued to practice after realization, even though he didn't have to. You don't have to, though. You don't have to, like, do some kind of practice anymore. Because you're in a realm where there's not really, like, some practice that you do, right?

[61:36]

So you're saying, would they... In that realm, you wouldn't have to continue to practice. But... If this realization was based on compassion, well, the compassion would push you into realms that were helpful to people. And if it was helpful to people for you to be involved in the world of dualism again, you'd happily do so. And there'd be two basic reasons why you do so. One would be to help people and to show them the way. And the other is that you kind of like... you like the dualistic world. Because, in fact, all things have these two qualities. They have the one part where, like, everything's non-dual and there's no suffering. But then everything also has this other side where it's all dual and suffering and that's... that's going on too. So Buddha's like... They like both, besides the fact that going into the realm of duality is a way to teach people, which they also really like.

[62:46]

But they don't just do it just for that. They also like to do it. They actually have fun in the world of suffering, just for themselves, even if it wasn't helpful to people. Now, if it wasn't helpful, if they knew it wasn't going to be helpful, then they might say, well, I like to, but I'm not going to visit anymore, if it's not going to help those guys. But it turns out it does help them, so they do come back to set an example for other people, to show them how someone who understands ultimate truth behaves in the world of conventional truth, where not only are you seeing them under their guise, but they also are seeing things that way. But there's a thing that they're teaching Dharma at the same time. It's not really that it's different for them. It's the same for them, but they can teach at the same time because they understand that they're in the realm of falseness and that they're in the realm of dualism and ignorance.

[63:52]

They understand that. But they like to be in that realm because that realm is there right along with the other realm, and they know that. Matter of fact, Buddhists see both simultaneously. But it turns out that it is helpful for them to play the same game that we're playing. And they like it. So Shakyamuni Buddha actually said that. He said, you know, you may wonder if I'm liberated since I'm still here with you guys practicing. But I don't have to be. I'm just doing it for your benefit and because I like to. He said two reasons. And if there were no beings other than Buddha, then that's the realm of non-duality. So that's where Buddhas are living. They live in the realm where there's no other beings. But they also like to live in the realm where there are other beings, especially those other beings who only know about the world where there are other beings and don't know about the world where there are no other beings.

[65:01]

And they kind of want to know about it. And Buddha wants to teach us how to know about it. And Buddha says, if you want to know about it, then let's realize this, but you've got to not have a preference to know about it. Otherwise, your preference will keep you in the realm of where there's others. Because preference is about other. So the other thing I wanted to talk about today... is not really another thing. It comes right out of what I just said. But it's a little bit more like a yogic kind of instruction. What I've been talking about so far is yogic in terms of your understanding of the relationship between these two truths. And I'll keep coming back to talk about the two truths probably every day. But I'm going to make a shift a little bit towards a yoga practice around these. If you have no more questions about what's been brought up so far. Hmm?

[66:05]

Do you know a Buddha? Do I know a Buddha? Do you know a Buddha? It's not possible to know Buddhas because they're not like out there, you know. They don't come in physical form when they come to visit. No, they do come in physical form. Oh, you mean do I know a Buddha in the dualistic sense of where there's somebody other than me who's a Buddha? Is that what you mean? Do you do these things that come back to teach the Dharma? Do they come back in physical form? Do you know any of them? That's not a short question. So you can save that for, but that's a big question. And it's related to various things. But I think, can you remember that question for the rest of your life? Okay, so kind of the yoga practice is just elaboration in some sense about what I've been already talking about, and that is the two truths can be rephrased as everything that happens has like a, what do you call it, a

[67:33]

superficial aspect which is about preferences and alternatives. Okay? And every phenomenon also has a deep or ultimate mode which is about not preferences and no alternative. There's no alternatives in the realm of non-dual awareness. There's not even an alternative to, like, awareness and the object of awareness. Not to mention, like, alternatives to objects of awareness. There's just... Alternatives are not just... They can't get it together. They can't have any alternatives. The whole mechanism for alternatives of duality is not there. When your superficial, your superficial nature, or the superficial nature of anything you're aware of, dualistically, well that, there's some alternative to that, right?

[69:00]

Like there's alternative to cold, there's alternative to hot, there's alternative to you, there's alternative to me, when we think of these things dualistically. That's the realm of alternatives and preferences. And now I would like to introduce the idea of complaint. It's the realm of complaint. More or less non-stop complaint. Because it's an alternative, right? So we can't, we start complaining. Could be a little warmer, could be a little colder, could be a little sweeter, could be a little sour, more sour. You say, and is it ever possible to be satisfied with anything? And the answer is, N-O. And the reason is, not that it isn't perfect, you know, not that this isn't perfect, this isn't perfect, this isn't perfect, but there's an alternative to this.

[70:12]

Therefore, I quibble. Even though I know it's just fine, the fact there's an alternative, I get into, well, what next? You know, am I going to have another one of these? Or not? You know? The idea or the feeling of an alternative to what's happening, which is built into the dualistic way of seeing things, means that basically you're always complaining. You're never satisfied because you think there's an alternative. And the way the situation is set up, it seems like there is. Okay? So, good luck. Good luck in never being happy never being satisfied, and always trying to get something different. Pardon? It is.

[71:14]

It is perfect if you don't think there's an alternative to it. When you realize that in that world there's no alternative, then complaining is fine. Misery is fine. No problem if you have no alternative. You won't complain about it anymore. But we know that, but we think there's an alternative to this world where we think there's an alternative. And from that point of view, of that world, there is an alternative, namely a world where you don't think there's an alternative and where there wouldn't be complaint. And there is another world simultaneously. Locked together with that one is a world where there's no alternative and where there's no complaint. Because you can't complain when you think there's no alternative. It doesn't make any sense. It won't arise. You won't complain. So the yoga is the yoga of trying to understand what it's like to not think that there's an alternative to this. And compassion and patience and, you know, practicing loving kindness towards whatever's happening

[72:23]

is a way to settle into living as though there were no alternative to what you've got to work on. So in that sense you're shifting, without getting into alternatives, you're shifting from a world of alternatives into the mode of no alternative. So it's a kind of yoga which is being like, you know, developing the way you'd be if you understood there's no alternative, which means that you stop complaining right now. No more complaints about this workshop. But although you can't complain anymore, you can, you know, celebrate it and say how great it is. without any sense of alternative to this greatness. It's a wonderful workshop even though there's no choice for it to be wonderful.

[73:26]

Yes. I have no choice that she raised her hand. I have no alternative to this person here. Yes? So, is it, would you say it's beneficial to the practice Yes. When you look at it, okay, when you look at your complaint, that's the first step towards, you know, no alternative. It actually is a little chunk of, a little, a little, tiny thing. no alternative practice. That you're complaining that you think there's an alternative and you just look at yourself thinking there's an alternative. That's like no alternative. You know, here you are being this person who thinks there's an alternative and complaining.

[74:37]

And you just look at that and see, there she is. But you're not thinking, I wish she would stop complaining. You're just saying, there she is complaining. That's like, there's no alternative. I've got to face this. We've got a complaining Patty here. That's like no alternative. So practicing patience is very close to realizing the deep quality of everything that happens. Namely, the deep quality is there's no alternative. Because when you see how things are, that they're not dualistic, there's no alternative to the non-dual way things are. The interdependence of things you can't mess with. You can't find an alternative to interdependence. You can't find an alternative to the way you depend on everything. But there seems to be an alternative to how you're separate to things. Your separation seems to have alternatives, but your interdependence has no alternative. Okay?

[75:41]

And looking at how you think there is alternatives, that's learning... that there isn't an alternative. And that's also not complaining. Here you are complaining. You just look, there I am complaining. You're not complaining about the complaining. You're just saying, here I am complaining. I have no alternative. I'm a complainer. That's no alternative. Okay? It was Pim and Paul. Pim and Paul. When I start meditation, my right leg is in pain. It's only natural that I move my leg. It's not an alternative. Correct? Is what correct? What you said? Moving my leg when my leg is in pain. I can say it in two ways. When your leg is in pain, you can train yourself at there's no alternative to that. Rather than my leg's in pain and there is an alternative to that called a different leg that's not in pain.

[76:47]

You could approach it that way, right? And that's, so you're complaining. Well, I'm just saying, I'm just saying, that's complaining. That's called a complaint. I've got a pain, and I think there can be some other kind of leg than this one, so I've got a complaint. Okay? But you can also say, I've got a pain, and there's no alternative to this. Okay? And now... I move my leg, and there's no alternative to that. But I didn't move my leg out of seeking some alternative, and I didn't move my leg out of complaint. I moved my leg out of non-complaint and non-alternative to my pain. That's where the leg got moved from. And then this moving of the leg is a step forward on the Buddha path. Pardon? It's not an option. Yeah, it's a second one that you want to practice.

[77:49]

You want to practice the Buddha way rather than the complaining way. Right? The result is the same. Well, from the ultimate point of view, the result is the same. From the conventional point of view, the result's different. One case, you're complaining, and one case, you're moving forward on the path of liberation. So from the conventional point of view, those are not the same. From the ultimate point of view, they're the same. Paul? Powerful notions. Well, let's say we've got injustice. Let's say we've got an injustice manifesting, okay? A conventional phenomena called injustice. All right? That's the phenomena.

[78:55]

This has a superficial quality, which is that this phenomena is separate from other phenomena, and I'm separate from it. Okay? Dualistic awareness of this phenomena. Okay? That's one truth. And in that realm, I can complain. I can say, I wish I had an alternative to this injustice. Which is, you know, if you see injustice, and a person might, if you think there's an alternative, then you would complain. Right? So that's one world. And you're afraid that if you shift out of that world, that you'll just leave the injustice sitting there. Right? That's your fear. In the other world, what's it like? You've got this phenomena called injustice, all right? That's the phenomena. But what's its deep quality?

[79:57]

Its deep quality is that that is not separate from you. That injustice is not separate from you. It's not you and the injustice. Okay? There's just this injustice. That's it. There's no Paul in addition to it or less than it. There's just this phenomena called the experience of injustice. Okay? You having trouble? Looks like you're, huh? If you think there's an alternative to this line I'm taking you down, then you're complaining. And it's good to complain so we can look at the complaint and see if we want to complain or whether we want to move forward on this. So if you have a complaint, it's good to bring it up. Well, it doesn't look like you're talking abstractly.

[80:58]

Your eyes are moving in such a way that it looks like you're veering away from just following along with what I'm saying. Well, you can go to societies which have one, which accepts, and Buddhism has been often claimed about as ignoring justice. Tolerating that which shouldn't be tolerated. It seems to me it is the same. It's very hard for people who practice all the common to make that decision. yes okay so we got that that you said that okay now if you want to i could like talk about this a little bit how you walk the slippery slope okay so we got the world where there's injustice which is the world where there's i guess injustice usually means what that somebody is being unjust to somebody else that's one of the that's one of the that's one of them huh

[82:14]

take war and peace so you have a do you have a war that you're imagining a war and there's injustice involved in the war that you're saying but the only but you cannot but the injustice is in the war are the war involves many little injustices right so you can do with one justice at a time right you don't have to have a war to have an injustice do you can have just a little injustice like around your own house you could have an injustice right Do you have a house? Do you have a family? Okay, so there could be injustice. Do you have children? Do you have a wife? Do you have a husband? Okay, so you could be unjust to your husband. Possibly, right? Or your husband could be unjust to you, right? That could happen, right? So there's a case where you've got some injustice. And in that realm you think there's an alternative to injustice called justice. Right?

[83:25]

Okay. And you might prefer justice over injustice. Right? Because justice is, you know, more peaceful, it seems, isn't it? People feel good about justice because justice is like just the way it is, right? Justice is like, that's ethical, right? So, in that world, there's justice and injustice. There's you and your partner. This is the realm of duality. And when there's justice, there's complaint. Excuse me. When there's injustice, there's complaint. Okay? But also what I'm saying is when there's justice, there's complaint too. It may not seem so obvious, but you're in the realm of complaint. That's what I'm saying. Anyway, if there's justice, you don't have a problem. For now. I'm telling you, you do. When justice is happening, unless there's dualism there, you're still scared.

[84:28]

You're still anxious because you know this is a fragile thing. You still don't understand that there's no you and this other person who could be unjust to you or to whom you could be just. This is a fragile, impermanent, and suffering situation. Even when there's justice... But still, you can have the value, I prefer justice over injustice. I'm saying, that's fine. And Buddhism recommends practicing justice in the dualistic world. Okay? We don't recommend practicing injustice. I'm just trying to scope out the world of duality and make clear to you that our practice in the realm of dualism is to try to practice justice Buddhism is essentially about justice in the conventional world. And if there's not justice, Buddhism is about realizing justice.

[85:31]

Very strongly, that's what Buddhism is about. Ethical precepts of justice. If Buddhism is not addressing that, it's not Buddhism. So if you feel like Buddhism overlooks that sometimes, that's not really Buddhism that's overlooking it. That is some people who say they're Buddhists who have some problem in their practice. And it doesn't mean that they're not Buddhists if they're not addressing justice. It just means that they have to work on that. Okay? Go back to your idea of complaint. It seems to me that complaint is the source by which you raise injustice. No, you don't have to. But if you're in the realm of duality, you have to. If you're in the realm of duality, you can't, whether there's justice or injustice, you're into complaint. You can't avoid complaint if you're in the realm of duality, if you're in the realm of thinking of alternatives. Because even when you have justice, you're still involved in alternatives.

[86:33]

So you're still complaining. There's no end to the complaint as long as you think there's an alternative to what's happening. So even when you're happy because you feel like justice has been established, you're still in the realm of complaint. And I'm saying that that's the superficial world we live in. And it's got these problems. This kind of problem. We still haven't moved into the advantage of liberation yet. And maybe it's too much to even talk about it. But the point is that actually Buddhism proposes, and this is slippery, you know, unless you're grounded in the world of complaint, we shouldn't talk about the world of non-complaint because you cited the danger of that, okay? If you move into non-complaint before you've faced complaint, then you could think, well, justice doesn't matter. But it does in that world.

[87:34]

The question is how to realize justice and have liberation. How to bring liberation from complaint into the world and realize justice. And I say, I feel, that when I realize the non-complaint mode of living, when I realize the deep no alternative yoga practice, That then I'm better able to work for justice in the world where there seems to be alternatives. That's what I personally find and what makes sense to me. Because complaining is an energy drain. And if you're finding a manifestation called injustice and you complain, that complaining weakens you to work for justice.

[88:38]

And if you do it once a day, if you complain once a day about the injustice... then once a day you wasted time, and once a day you got weaker. But if you're really working on this injustice all day long, then a thousand times a day you complain, and a thousand times a day you drain yourself, and pretty soon you abandon the work of working for justice because you are burning yourself out by your complaining. Imagine somebody who's working on an injustice and just sits there and complains all the time. Pretty soon you have to just take them away to the hospital. They do get taken away from the hospital, and they often shoot their brains out. They're working on injustice, and they kill themselves. Like, what's her name? Petra Kelly. She did great work, but she shot herself, didn't she? Or she killed herself, right? The founder of the Green Party killed herself.

[89:41]

You know? A lot of people who are working on injustice, they do it, but they don't have enlightenment to assist them, to prevent them from draining themselves in the work. So they work on injustice, they work on injustice, but they're also complaining. And every time they complain, they weaken themselves and they lose energy by... fighting what is happening, which is an unnecessary drain on your work. I don't know, you know, I don't know that, I don't, I wasn't in Louis Pasteur's mind when he was working on finding, you know, what it is in the milk that causes diseases. But my picture of a scientist is that they don't like look in the microscope and hate what they see. They don't say, oh, those lousy little microbes in there, I hate them. I wish there wasn't any microbes here. I wish I was a microbiologist, but all the microbes were friendly microbes. I don't think they do that.

[90:45]

I think they look sick. Now, could that be the pathogen there that's going there? Could that be the pathogen? They watch. They study. They don't prefer something else. What they prefer is to look. But they don't even prefer to look, they just look. Because when it's time to stop looking, if they prefer to be looking, then they'll look too long and they'll hurt their eyes. So they should know when to stop and come back and look again. And you can look at a disease process not because you hate the disease or think there's an alternative to it, but because you want to understand it. And you can study justice that way too. But if you're strongly into alternatives, then if you study injustice or justice, that alternative thing will weaken you understanding the process. When you understand that there's no alternative, you will walk forward on the path of justice.

[91:46]

And you will come back to observe the phenomena of justice and injustice, whichever is manifesting. You will observe it in its superficial quality, but also you understand its deep quality, so you understand it better. And understanding it better will not will not undermine your study. But if you try to understand the no alternative to injustice before you've faced the injustice in the realm of alternatives, then you shouldn't be studying the no alternative yet. Okay? So that's why, that's what I mean if you studied the ultimate quality of some phenomena like injustice or the ultimate quality of justice, before you've grounded yourself in the superficial quality that isn't appropriate. So your sense that it would be dangerous to start looking at the no alternative too early before you look at the realm of where the phenomena is appearing in superficial alternative mode, that there's a danger there, you're right.

[92:58]

It is a danger. There's a danger there, but more than a danger, it is simply inappropriate. to study the ultimate before you are settled in the conventional. Okay? So those things like injustice, which we do want to cure that disease of injustice, we should study that. But you will never be liberated from the injustice by staying in the realm where it's just alternative.

[93:32]

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