I've heard that some of the monks here are having some difficulty in finding a way to practice these teachings. So let me try again. Welcome back, Betsy. The Buddha had two chief disciples. One was and the other was Shariputra. And when Shariputra was teaching the wisdom to the monks, he said that he would try over and over and over a thousand times until they understood.

[01:19]

And So these teachings that you've heard this practice period are teachings which you think about in the classes that you think about when you read and that you think about some other times, too. So in a sense, these classes are just... support to your meditation since the main thing going on is discussion of these well one of the main things going on is the discussion of these teachings things are going on in your mind too that might be who knows what but anyway this this this teaching is coming to you over and over and over and uh Like when Dogen Zenji teaches that the entire universe in the ten directions is the true body of the self, or when he says that all the Buddhas practice in exactly the same way as each living being, he says, how can you understand that?

[02:49]

He says, well, listen to it. Listen to it. And as I mentioned a number of times, I had a class on calculus when I was in college, and I had kind of a witty teacher, and he quoted Leibniz one time, who said, if you don't understand a proof, memorize it. If you don't understand a poem, memorize it. And if you still understand some of these teachings, you memorize them, that would help. So Wang Bo teaches that this mind is no mind of conceptual thought. And it's completely detached from any form or characteristics. So Buddhas and sentient beings do not differ at all.

[03:54]

If you can just free yourself from conceptual thought, you will accomplish everything. In other words, freedom from conceptual thought is accomplishment of everything. This is Wong Bo, this is the Samdhi Nirmocana Sutra. In your moment-by-moment experience, if the experience involves freedom from conceptual thought, conceptual thought is there, dependent core arising is there, but that freedom of dependent core arising from conceptual thought is suchness. And you thus accomplish everything. This mind is the mind of no mind, transcending all characteristics, and yet there is no difference between Buddhas and sentient beings.

[05:01]

If you can just realize this no mind, then that's the ultimate state of awakening. Now there are those who upon hearing this teaching free themselves of conceptual thought in a flash. Just hearing it they understand and their minds become free of conceptual thought. There are others who after following through the ten faiths, the ten stages, the ten activities, the ten dedications And yet others who even go through the ten bodhisattva stages, then they free their mind of conceptual thought. But whether they transcend having objects of thought by the longer or shorter way, the result is a state of being.

[06:03]

Whether they accomplish their aim in a single flash of thought or after going through the ten stages of the Bodhisattva progress, the achievement will be the same. So I wanted to say something about stages, and long and short. I think you maybe have heard that although it's It also is before Zen. There's a strong association in our tradition with being concerned with not falling into stages. So this is a Zen tradition. It's a bodhisattva lineage. And a lot of the bodhisattva teachings involve stages. Wang Bo's teaching, Daoxin's teaching, Bodhidharma's teaching, and so on.

[07:08]

They're teachings which are very closely associated with and inspired by the Avatamsaka Sutra, the Samdhi Nirmocana Sutra, which are full of descriptions of stages and states that bodhisattvas practice in. And yet the Zen tradition like Seigen Gyoshi going to Daikan Eno and saying, how can I avoid falling into steps and stages? So it's not that the Zen people don't practice in various states of bodhisattva practice and go through stages. The point is how not to fall into them, how not to make them into something, especially something external. How to practice and go through stages without these stages becoming, having some kind of construct imputed on them, without imposing any construct on reality, without imposing

[08:30]

imposing any construct on your religious practices, how can you go through the stages? This is the same as how can you avoid falling into stages. If there were no stages, they wouldn't be asking... If there weren't the false appearance of stages, they wouldn't be asking, how can you avoid falling into them? In order to become a Buddha, we have to go through all kinds of states and stages to test our relationship with all forms of being, to test and develop without camping out or getting stuck at any stage along the way. So Wang Bo says, as for performing the six perfections and many other kinds of bodhisattva practices, since you are fundamentally complete in every respect, you should not try to supplement that perfection with such meaningless practices.

[09:47]

It's not that you shouldn't do those practices. You shouldn't do those practices to supplement your perfection. You shouldn't do those practices to improve yourself or make yourself right. What is the reason for doing these practices if it's not to make yourself right? The reason for doing these practices is to, on one side, to develop the means to have relationships with all beings so that they will be freed. On the other side, it's to manifest the body of the Tathagata. That's why these practices are done. They're not done to make your body right, to make yourself perfect, to improve yourself.

[10:53]

They're done to manifest the Tathagata. When there is occasion to perform them, perform them. When the occasion passes, remain quiet. When conditions occur, give forth generosity and so on. When the conditions cease, be silent. If you are not completely convinced that mind is Buddha if you are not able to resolutely trust that this mind is Buddha then your practice will be incompatible with the way this mind is Buddha and there is no Buddha separate from mind

[11:57]

Daoxin says this, Wang Bo says this literally the same. The eternal Buddha is not a Buddha of form or attachment. To practice the paramitas and the myriad similar practices with the intention of becoming a Buddha thereby is to advance by stages. But the eternal Buddha is not a Buddha of stages. only awake to one mind and there will be nothing whatever to be attained. This is the real Buddha. Buddhas and sentient beings are just one mind and nothing else. When you realize this, then you naturally, out of compassion, start practicing stages. It's not that we don't devote ourselves and our energy to the practice of the bodhisattva path.

[13:02]

It's just that we do so with the understanding that Buddhas and sentient beings are just one mind. So again, Tao Xun and Wang Bo and so on offer teachings which are about ultimate reality and are intimate with the Avatamsaka Sutras, the Prajnaparamita Sutras, The Shanti Mirmochana Sutra. And these sutras lay out the Bodhisattva path in many ways. These Zen teachers and scriptures on the Bodhisattva are the same in that they first teach the yoga of no outflows. They teach the highest yoga which imposes no constructs on reality. They teach the yoga of suchness, the samadhi of suchness, the yoga of one mind, the samadhi of one mind, the yoga of no stages, the samadhi of no stages.

[14:11]

But it doesn't mean there's no stages. It means it's the samadhi of not falling into stages. Then, after we have no outflows, after we have no expectations, after there's no external objects, then we enter the path. And then this path develops our skill and means and wisdom more and more and more and more. Although we start with the Buddha mind, which has no objects of thought, although we start with the understanding that mind and Buddha are not two, although we train ourselves in this way, this mind of Buddha, which there's no distinction between sentient beings and Buddhas, this mind can be developed infinitely.

[15:17]

And when it is infinitely developed, the Tathagata is manifested in the world. So it's not that you have to wait to start doing the Bodhisattva practices until you understand that mind is Buddha and Buddha is mind. It's not that you have to wait to start practicing generosity, giving, precepts, patience, enthusiasm, concentration, until you have the wisdom of understanding that there's no objects of thought. You don't have to wait to do those practices, but it would be good to be careful when you do those practices, because until you understand this, those practices have outflows. They are defiled somewhat.

[16:23]

However, they also offer the support to the practice of learning what it means to be mindful without an object of mindfulness. They support enlightened mindfulness. They support Buddhist thinking. But until we have Buddhist thinking, these practices are not the actual bodhisattva practices. They're warm-up to bodhisattva practices. Bodhisattva practices actually start in the scriptures. They are presented after you understand mind and Buddha are not true. If you're not convinced that this mind is Buddha, there's a little leakage there, and you're not really ready to start doing these practices as a bodhisattva. It still is wholesome activity to try to practice generosity, but still, if you practice generosity without understanding that there's no object of thought, your generosity leaks and sucks.

[17:39]

It's still good, to try to practice it, to try to learn how to be generous. But until the three wheels are purified, giver, receiver, and gift, there's outflows, there's defilement. There's still believing in the reality of self separate from other. So that's why Wang Bo so strongly says, forget those stages and just realize the one Buddha mind. So that then you can start these Bodhisattva practices, but he doesn't talk about them too much. And that's because he feels it's so important to purify the practice So here's a little, just a meditation song for you, sort of, okay?

[19:16]

Meditation on ultimate reality. Meditation on emptiness, which is freedom from concepts. Meditation on suchness. Train yourself in suchness. In the scene there will be just the scene. That is, there will be no self in the scene. There will be no scene in Buddha. Bodhidharma says, make yourself like a wall, make your mind like a wall. In other words, all quiet on the outer front. Tao Shin says, no objects of thought, no objects of mindfulness, no object of thinking, no objects of mind, is Buddha's thought, Buddha's mindfulness, Buddha's mind.

[20:26]

No mind apart from Buddha, no Buddha apart from mind. Understanding this, the mind is pacified. Understanding this is understanding non-duality. Understanding non-duality, the mind is pacified with no contrivance, spontaneously. Nothing's attacking it anymore. Following all these practices, everything is the real body of the Tathagata. This is to use your imagination to unite self and other. Permitting self to identify with others. All the way down to those little genes, those little cells, those little genes that have little self-other detectors.

[21:39]

in our translation we chant, it says, in stillness, mind and objects emerge in realization. In realization, mind and objects are not two. And Vicki looked up the characters for this, and sometimes when you're not a native speaker, you can see interesting things. So the way she read it literally was, mind and objects in stillness show comes in go comes out show is verification a realization and go is awakening or liberation from illusion

[22:51]

In stillness, mind and objects. Mind and objects in stillness. Okay? No activation around that. Realization comes in. Awakening goes out. And that's what's going on in that self-fulfilling samadhi where it talks about in stillness, mind and object merge in realization, mind and object, okay? Everything that comes in is realization. So all the wind and water and fire elements, when they come in, they're realization. When they go out, they're awakening. So his resonance starts happening in the mind and objects that are in stillness together. So many of you are honestly admitting, for me, mind and objects, not quiet.

[24:00]

For me, mind and Buddha, not quiet. Some commentary. Mind, not Buddha. Mind, I can't believe Buddha. Mind, really Buddha? Mind, definitely not Buddha. Not just mind Buddha. Some noise there. Buddha, that's it. You don't have to say you're the same or different. just Buddha. Thought, sound, smell, taste, just let the smell be the smell, the scene be the sea. This is called mind and object in stillness. There are infinite ways to train ourselves in this teaching of Buddhas and sentient beings not to.

[25:51]

Sometimes the infinite number of ways is the same thing in infinite number of times. Sometimes it's infinity cutting two into two different things, half of an infinite time each. Sometimes it's many different ways of trying to remember, to be mindful without an object. I've talked about a few. But you can think of many others. Many ways to keep the mind free from making phenomena external. To keep the mind free from believing in separation. in Shobogenzo Kankin Charlie read me a little essay on that the other day and he was saying I think that Yaoshan in his community told people not to read scriptures or for prohibited scripture reading but he himself read scriptures and one time one of his monks said well how come you're reading scriptures and he said to shade my eyes

[27:32]

So when you read scriptures, are you reading to shade your eyes or are you reading to try to get something? So Yashan thought, these monks, I can't trust these monks. If they start reading these scriptures, they're going to try to get something from these scriptures. They're going to use these scriptures to insult themselves. They're going to use these scriptures from the point of view that they... Each one of them and Buddha are two. They're going to use these scriptures in order to become Buddha, to perfect themselves. Therefore, no sutra reading here. After they finish their training, if they want to read sutras, they can read them to shade their eyes like I do. What do you think he means, shade my eyes? Huh? His lids are cast down. What do you think he means, shade his eyes, Charlie? Mindfulness without objects.

[29:06]

Mindfulness without objects. Now this might lower your reading rate. Because all the sutras might be the same. In other words, you put them in front of you and your eyes get shaded. So there's no objects out there for you to accumulate any objects of information. Informational objects. But then, if you can read that way, you can read. Otherwise, if you're in Yashinan's community, you would say you're not ready to read these scriptures. About 26 years ago, I was studying the Abhidharma Kosha. And at that time, there was a typescript English translation, which had quite a few problems in it. And there was a wonderful, and still is, French translation with lots of footnotes.

[30:18]

And my fiancée could read French quite well. So she read me the Abhidharma Kosha in French, and then I would compare it to the English and also get the footnotes. And sometimes while she was translating the French of the Abhidharma Kosha, she wanted to chat about other things besides Abhidharma Kosha. She wanted to discuss other matters besides the treasury of Buddhist philosophy and psychology. And I would sometimes not want to do that and perhaps even get a little impatient with her. But I realized that that didn't make sense. I should not be reading this scripture or getting her to translate this stuff to get something. I should be studying the Abhidharma Kosha to see if I can study it without trying to get it or get anything from it or make myself closer to Buddha.

[31:33]

So all these years I've been trying to be like that and let various sentient beings distract me from shading my eyes with the sutra and let me use their speech to shade my eyes. and to see if I can go from talking to sutras to talking with people back to sutras with no preference. Um... Just to be able to do this experiment, to be able to meditate in this way and check on myself in this way and expose myself to humans and Buddhist texts, just to be able to do that, I consider myself to be so fortunate. So fortunate.

[32:35]

And you also can do that. You are that fortunate too, to study in that way. to see if you can listen to a conversation with a person or read a scripture with no gaining idea. You can actually practice like that. This is called training yourself in letting the sutra just be the sutra, letting the conversation just be the conversation. Just to be able to try is extremely wonderful, extremely fortunate. That's how I feel. I'm so grateful. I really am. Can you tell? Can you tell? Do you have a question? What do you understand?

[33:40]

that he would read the scriptures about Shri Mataji. Yes. I understand why you call that shade of the eyes. Well, there's two ways to shade. One way to shade would be to shade the world from his eyes. Right? He's got these Buddha eyes. Right? So he's lowering his lids and looking at the text, using his attention to text to shade the world from his eyes. The other way is to shade his eyes from the world. Okay? So, he reads the sutras to remind himself not to get anything from the sutras. If you look at certain things, the thing may not be telling you, don't try to get anything from me. But the sutras are saying that. The sutras are saying, We appreciate your devotion.

[34:41]

Would you please close this book and go help people? Yes, I will. Shading the eyes from objects. The sutra is saying... Have no objects. Don't think what you're reading is separate from yourself. That's how sutras help you shade your eyes. Could it be that, you know, everybody would come up to us and say, or in Kendra's case, come up to Kendra and say, Hi Kendra. No, don't make me an object. Huh? Yeah. Yeah. Don't make me an object now, Kendra. And you say, I won't. It's like that Zen story, you know, that guy Zvigan. He wakes up in the morning and he looks in his water bowl where he washes his face.

[35:47]

He looks in and he says, good morning, master. And he says, good morning. Are you awake? Yes, all day long. Don't let anybody fool you. Don't let anybody fool you into thinking they're an object. Everybody you meet, it's like, master, [...] master. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Wouldn't it be nice if they said to you the same? But that would be too easy. So they're giving you a little bit more advanced course. Kendra, please see me as an object. Please approve me as an object. Please like this object. Please like this object. This is a nice object. My nice object. Come on. What kind of an object is this? You're not an object. Get back in your skin. Yes, Brooks?

[36:50]

It could be like kill the Buddha. Yeah, kill the Buddha means don't make Buddha an object, right? That's what kill the Buddha means. Kill the Buddha means the Buddha out there is dangerous. Like when Dogen's teacher became abbot, as he's coming up into the hall, he walked by the Buddha hall where he's supposed to go in, you know, and bow. He walked by the Buddha hall and looked askance into the Buddha hall and said, looked at the Buddha statue and said, an arrow in the eye. Don't, there are Buddhas out there. So, we, you know, Wang Bo also has a famous story of Wang Bo, not famous, an infamous story of Wang Bo You know, he taught his students in, well, anyway, Wang Bo bowing to the statue of a Buddha, right?

[38:04]

So Wang Bo is saying, no objects of thought, and here he is bowing to Buddha. Huang Bo says, the primary thing is don't seek anything. No, don't seek anything. That's primary. Matter of fact, he says, making offerings to infinite Buddhas doesn't compare to making an offering to a person who doesn't seek anything. So, main thing is don't seek anything. So, here he is bowing to Buddha. and monk, actually monk, who happened to be the future emperor of China. Isn't that interesting? The future emperor of China comes to practice at the same temple as Wang Bo. Isn't that interesting? Of all places.

[39:10]

The future emperor of China comes and practices with Wang Bo. And he sees Wang Bo bowing to the Buddha. And he says, you know, you teach not seeking anything. So what are you seeking in bowing to Buddha? What are you seeking from Buddha? What are you trying to get from Buddha? And Wang Bo says, by bowing to Buddha, I practice not seeking anything from Buddha and slap the future emperor. And then, so then the future emperor says, well, then what's the point in bowing to Buddha? And Wang Vo slapped him again. And then he said, you're too coarse.

[40:12]

And Wang Vo said, what's it got to do with coarse or fine? And slapped him again. Can you bow to the Buddha up there? without seeking anything. Wang Bo, who highly praised not seeking anything, who really wholeheartedly practiced that, who knows how many millions of times he practiced not seeking, not seeking, not seeking, and taught his monks not to seek, super-mister not-seeking-anything, he still bows to Buddha. But his main way of paying his respects to Buddha is not to seek anything. If you're a disciple of Buddha, the way you pay Buddha is not to seek anything from Buddha. If you're a disciple of Dharma, the way you repay the kindness of Dharma is not to seek anything from Dharma.

[41:14]

That's really being respectful. That's saying Buddha is not an object, Dharma is not an object, and Sangha is not an object. That's why I respect them so much. After the monk became emperor, he gave Wang Bo a title. The title was, Course Acting Ascetic. And the prime minister who compiled the records, one of the records of Wang Wo's teaching, got him to give him a different name. Boundless Zen Master. So there's many stages of practice and there's many teachings for bodhisattvas to look at.

[42:38]

But what I've been stressing and what many Zen teachers stress is, first of all, purify your eye. Purify your eyes, which means purify your wisdom eye. Purify your ears. So that when you do study the many teachings that bodhisattvas use, need to learn, you do it without outflows. You study these teachings which benefit your understanding and benefit all beings. But there's no seeking in this study. Your eye is clear of conceptual imputation, of externality, self and other, Buddha and sentient being dualities, then you can study more clearly but also more purely, more effectively, but most of all more purely.

[43:48]

And as I said before, some Zen teachers just thought, no, these people can't study that way yet. So just basically, there's not going to be any study at this temple. And if any of my students can actually clear their eye of externality, then I'll just have them leave the temple and send them to a library someplace. But in the temple, you can't have anybody, nobody... Well, almost nobody can study that way. So no books. Now these monks had already been studying for quite a while before they came there probably. So they had some background in Buddhist teachings. They grew up in the culture, Buddhist culture. Wang Bo lived during a time when China was Buddhist, pretty much, for a few hundred years.

[44:59]

So it's a little different that we have lectures and talks and classes. But first, tune in to ultimate reality as soon as possible before you listen and look at the teachings Martin, and then Susan and Brooks. Here's number two for Brooks. Sarah. Martin. ...last lecture about finding an empty chair symbolizing Buddha. Yes. I came to read yesterday that the earliest symbolic form that Buddha was represented with an empty throne was there. It was there to walk away from it, signify that one who turned it back in there.

[46:06]

I hadn't heard that. So one of the sculpture representations of Buddha is a throne with steps walking away, symbolizing he left his kingdom. And other ones are like a teaching throne with the lotus pad down below the seat and his footprints, but no body in the throne. So... Edward Konza said the reason why they didn't make statues of the Buddha in the early days was because the early Buddhists considered the body ugly. That's what Edward Konza said. But, you know, that was Edward Konza. But another way of saying it was maybe the early Buddhists, although they didn't mention it so strongly, Buddha didn't say it so strongly, they didn't want people to confuse Buddha with the body of Shakyamuni as a person. You know, he had a wonderful person, and Buddha manifested very nicely as Shakyamuni Buddha, and all these great teachings came.

[47:14]

But maybe they didn't want to like... But Buddha did say, don't misconstrue the Dharma for the Dharma teacher, or the Dharma teacher, the teacher for the Dharma. Buddha said that. And there he was, being a Dharma teacher, saying, don't misunderstand the teacher for the Dharma. Rely on the teaching. Look at the teaching, not the person. Susan and Sarah, Rosie and Brooks. That's a poem, that kind of, isn't it? Yes? Yes. It seems to me that Vipassana is relying, at least to me, on study. Because if I'm not going to seek, and yet in the process of seeking, a rise certainly for me.

[48:21]

So she says that Vipassana seems to rely on study. Yeah, whereas Shemitah is more ultimate reality than Dharma. And that shamatha is more like ultimate reality. Well, I don't think that's quite right. I think shamatha also looks at ultimate reality. It's just that the objects of shamatha are conceptual objects. The objects of Vipassana are conceptual objects. And the objects of... of shamatha are non-conceptual, but the objects of both of them are the full extent of phenomena. The objects of both of them together are the full range of phenomena, so those phenomena are studied. So shamatha and Vipassana together study, examine, analyze all kinds of phenomena and look at the task that needs to be accomplished, namely

[49:28]

the realization of supreme enlightenment and the salvation of all beings. In terms of the plasma, it's a reminder of how to study. It's not just the object of conceptual objects. It's how to be with that object. I need to be reminded how to be with that object. And those reminders of not seeking come from plasma and study. And they arise from being exposed to You're saying that part of shamatha is how to be with objects of study? Well, both, but particularly Vipassana is different. Excuse me, you're saying part of Vipassana is how to be with the object? Well, I don't know about that. I think shamatha is more like how to be with the object. Yeah, that's right.

[50:37]

It's more easy to get caught up in vipassana than shamatha because shamatha is mainly about how to be with the object to optimize not getting caught up in the object. So then when you're not... Once I shift into this other, I need more support. But the support is the shamatha. That's usually the way it's seen. It's the shamatha what gives the support to the vipassana. Because the vipassana, you are starting to engage with objects. And so there's a tendency to get excited and distressed. Stressed and distressed in that negotiation between yourself and scriptures and yourself and beings. So shamatha is there to constantly tone the way you are with your study objects. To keep the eye pure from... the imputation or the imposing the construct of externality on whatever the topic of study is.

[51:42]

That's the shamatha side. And when you have that, then whatever kind of objects you're working with, you can really dance with it and you're very flexible and unattached to whatever you're studying. So that's sort of what shamatha contributes to the process, keeping it soft and fresh and raw. And part of vipassana might be to look at the recommendations for shamatha, for why it's okay to be so raw and how much you need it, and to remind yourself that if you get too excited, you should go back to shamatha. You get too excited in your examination and analysis. You're doing too much analysis, too much observation. You should go back and calm yourself. So in the process of like, what can happen is as you start to reason with yourself and analyze how it is that those people aren't external, as you start to become actually somewhat successful at not seeing people as external,

[52:58]

you can get kind of giddy about that. Can you imagine how giddy you might be if you felt like all these beings were like your skin? If everybody's house was like your house? So you can get kind of excited when you become successful at becoming free of seeing things as external. But you shouldn't get too excited about how wonderful it is to be liberated from dualistic thinking. But you might, people often do, get quite excited. Also, you can get depressed when you realize that everybody's house is your house. You mean I have to clean all these houses? You mean I have to go to all these hospital beds? I have to clean all these diapers? All these wounds are mine to take care of? So, becoming free of no object of thought, you can get depressed and giddy. So then you have to go back to shamatha, cool out. cool out and warm up.

[53:59]

Say, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, it's okay, all right, come on, come on, sentient beings, okay. Come on, come on, dirty diapers, hand them over. Come on, rich people, okay. So I'm just dumb, kind of dumb, you know, kind of like, okay, let's go, stick our nose in here if it helps. And then Vipassana is kind of like, well, what is this actually? What kind of shit is this? What kind of a sore is this? You can get kind of too giddy. Or depressed. Oh, this is a terrible disease. Oh, my God, this is so horrible. Got to go back to shamatha, which is like, okay, okay, okay. All right, okay, okay. Too much observation, too much vipassana. You get agitated, irritated, excited. Too much shamatha.

[55:02]

You get okie, [...] okie. It's kind of like, what was it again we were doing here? What is this place? It's time for zazen. It's food. Eat it. This is a sentient being. Study it. Rosie? I wasn't there. Who was next? Yes. Oh, Sarah. Sarah. I was looking so much at Sarah, I thought I answered your question, but it didn't work. Okay. I was already doing my question after. Your heart's pounding, yeah? It was, but I had this question when you were hunting him. You're right. Yeah. Yeah.

[56:10]

Yeah. It's really okay to do that. It's really okay to open your ear to everything in the universe saying, I'm not an object. This hears that all the time. I'm not an object. Guess what I am? I'm you. I'm you. You can hear that all day long. Everything in the universe is coming to realize you. Everything that comes is realizing you. I'm coming to realize you. That's what I'm here for. All those, say it again, all those things, all those moments of imputing,

[57:20]

Yes, and objectifying and externalizing are actually opportunities for seeing that they're not that. They're opportunities to deepen and extend the wisdom. They're massaging your wisdom. So every time sort of like not wisdom happens, you say, okay, thank you. Now, Rosie. No. Brooks. Well, he's already had one, so I'm doing first people first. Is that all right with you, Brooks? If I do the first people first, number ones before the number twos? It is? I thought of it. Yes, it's okay with Brooks. You missed your turn.

[58:21]

It was clear and then it went hazy in the house. Should we come back later when it gets clear? Yeah. Okay, Brooks. In our small group. In your small group? Yeah. Discussing what... you meant by the experience of molecules. Yes. We all have different interpretations of that. Like what? I mean, I had something to indicate that disagreement had something to do with vocabulary. So I'm going to say, no mindfulness, or mindfulness for that analogy, like the mindfulness was said. No activation or related object. Same thing. Same thing. In other words, if there's an object, or anyway, a phenomenon, call it an object or call it a phenomenon, you know, in Dogen's writing when he says mind and objects, okay, the word for object also can be translated as meaning.

[59:37]

Meaning. as meaning. Okay? So anyway, a phenomenon can be a meaningful thing or an object. Okay? So you got this phenomenon. If you think of it as an object, that's activating the mind around this thing. That's saying it's external. When you say it's external, in some sense you lose its meaning. You cover its meaning by activating your mind around. So activating the mind around phenomena makes them external. That's one of the ways you can make them external. You could also make them internal, which is the same thing. Anyway, separate from awareness. Then it becomes an object. But in stillness, when there's mind and object in stillness, then the object stops being an object. It becomes a meaning for the mind.

[60:41]

And then when the mind and objects are in stillness, that stillness means there's no activity of calling that phenomena which co-arises with the mind. And the mind which co-arises with the phenomena aren't calling each other names anymore. They're quiet, both of them. They're arising, which is a little bit noisy, but that's as far as it goes. And when things are like that, then there's no object of the mind. there's no object of mindfulness, and there's no activation of mind and conditions around the objects. And then realization comes in and enlightenment goes out. This kind of thinking is Buddhist thinking. So like again, Yaoshan is sitting in meditation, right? He's sitting still. The monk says, when you're sitting still, what kind of thinking is going on there? And he says, well, he says Buddhist thinking. But what's Buddhist thinking? Buddhist thinking is you're thinking of not thinking.

[61:45]

You're thinking of a quiet mind where mind and object live together quietly. That's the kind of thinking. So mindfulness without object is the same as a mind like a wall. And what's that? That's enlightened thinking. Okay? Were there any other interpretations that you can remember? They're probably all good. Okay, this is a big one. That when there's a mind like a wall, there won't be any object of mind. Right? So, does no object of mind mean that the object's really still there and you just don't call it an object? But still think it is?

[62:50]

When the mind's like a wall, there actually isn't an object. There isn't an object. Seriously. There's not an object out there. It isn't there. This is what's meant by There are no sentient beings to save. Bodhisattvas vowed to save sentient beings, but there aren't any. For the bodhisattva. Because the bodhisattva doesn't see any objects. There really aren't any objects. There's nobody out there. I can understand seeing in a physical sense has this... law of acute extension of space. I can wade through that into a new reality perception where there is no distinction.

[63:59]

There is no space based around any of these oppositions. Good. So, I mean, you're really talking about perceptions. I don't know. I'm saying that when the mind is like a wall, you actually don't see anything out there anymore. And except for a Buddha, you can't drive a car when you're meditating like that. So you don't see... Buddha can, yeah. So there's no out there. So you should have Buddha as your chauffeur. There's no out there. Or the Pope. No out there. It isn't that there's no out there. It's just that you don't establish anything out there. There's no out there. It's not that you say, well, there really is no out there.

[65:00]

There's no there. You can't find anything out there. You don't see any beings out there. You can't find them. You look and you can't find them. And you know you can't find them. In emptiness, there's no form. Yes, that's right. So, I mean, form is... Material awakening, right? Form is a material awakening. Form is inseparable from awakening. No, you're not. Yes, do you remember your question? Or you got a new one? Okay. And it has to do with this.

[66:04]

When you say that in the stillness, in the stillness, there is this mind. And there is this arising. No, it's not there's a mind and there's a arising. Mind... And objects arise together. In ordinary situations, mind and objects arise together. In ordinary situations, mind and objects are not quiet. They're noisy. So when mind and objects arise together in stillness... No, it's not that they arise together in stillness. They don't arise together in stillness. If it's still, there's no arising. I misheard what you said earlier. Okay, I don't know what you heard, but anyway, it's that mind and object in stillness merge.

[67:07]

The object and the mind can't stay separate in stillness. They dependently co-arise mind and object. In stillness? No. In stillness, they don't dependently co-arise. But when there's movement, you know, when there's arising, then they arise. That's a movement, that's a noise. But in order for them to be there and stillness emerge, don't they have to have arisen together first? In order for there to be emptiness, there has to be a dependent co-arising. There's no emptiness floating out all by itself. It's emptiness is associated with a dependent core arising. So if there's a dependent core arising, there's an emptiness. Okay?

[68:14]

And if there's an emptiness, then the mind and objects collapse. Their duality collapses. They merge. Okay? So you have dependent co-arising, something dependently co-arises, also there's mental imputation, also there's suchness, got a phenomena, in stillness, mind, and object which are dependent co-arising become free of any imputation of externality, for example. So they merge in that realization of their suchness. but they've already risen, therefore they can be empty. It isn't that you have stillness and then you have something arising.

[69:14]

Or you could have stillness and something arising, but then you lose the stillness. You just nullified the quietness. You've nullified the nirvana by having an arising. Now that you've got an arising, okay, mind and objects, if they're in quietness, they merge in realization. Let's see, what time is it? It is 10.17, the kitchen's left. And now the hands are really coming in. So now we have, let's see, we have Vicky, Yehuda, Peter, Luminous Owl, Susan, Elka, well, Helen, Kendra, Mind and stillness.

[70:16]

Mind and object. Mind and object and stillness. Is that what's happening now? Mind and object and stillness? Mind and object in stillness. Luminous color. There's nothing out there meditating on. There's everything but it's myself. Fine.

[71:23]

Victoria? So I read that patience itself was an outflow and that the... She read that patience itself is an outflow. And that the wisdom, and in other places, that the wisdom behind itself is a problem. The wisdom of I itself is a problem? Yes, that's the problem. Two shades you got? Two shades? I don't know. That's kind of... I don't know where... I think the thing about patience is in the Adhidharma kosha. The other thing was a story about someone... Is patience a dharma? All dharmas, 72, not all dharmas, there's 75 dharmas in that system, 72 of them have outflows.

[72:59]

Three don't. The three that don't are space and two kinds of nirvana. All other phenomena, dharmic phenomena, have outflows. And either something is a dharma or it's composed of a dharma. So either patience is a dharma or it's a composition of dharmas, and therefore it has outflows. However, there are three dharmas that don't have outflows, 72 that do, which constitute the whole range of phenomenal existence. However, there's one other thing that doesn't have an outflow called the path. And if patience is part of the path, it doesn't have an outflow. But if patience is a composite thing, it does have an outflow. Patience flowing out of some practice that we're doing has outflows, and patience as a... as a complete insight doesn't have outflows.

[74:08]

Patience as a complete insight does not have outflows. Patience which is the way or concomitant with the way, which is understanding that there's no externality, then that patience doesn't have outflows because it's part of the path which doesn't have outflows, which doesn't see anything outside. But patience just standing by itself There's a circuitry going on. Faith also is a dharma. It has outflows unless it's part of the path. Samadhi, diligence, all kinds of good dharmas have a dualistic circuitry unless they're in the context of the path. And then they have outflows. So there's some kinds of patience which are dualistic, like patience with something over there that's hassling me. That patience has outflows. But the highest patience is the patient acceptance that nothing happens, which is patience with nirvana. So nirvana has a patience that goes with it.

[75:08]

That patience doesn't have outflows. Patience acceptance of how quiet everything is, that patience doesn't have outflows. But patience with the noise that we see as external, that leaks. So that goes with what you said at the beginning, Bodhisattva. If you have complete confidence in reality, then it's Bodhisattva. If you have complete confidence in reality, then patience won't have outflows. Right. Or like Charlie was saying, first of all, if you're irritated, you practice patience before you figure out what your status is. Then you find out maybe that you're practicing patience with an idea that this is external to you, this thing is irritating you. Then you practice checking to see if you trust ultimate truth.

[76:16]

And then you seal that patience with that outflow of the patience. So it's the same thing with that. That's what Manjushri has to listen to. Yeah, right, right. Is that enough questions? Can we stop now? For the people who had their questions who had given up? No one wants to say they won't give it up. One quick one, yes. When you say make your mind like a wall and no object in line, are you saying no thoughts are arising along in this process? Or that you're just not catching when they do? Okay, so Susan asked, when we say make the mind like a wall, are we saying that no thoughts are arising? Is that what you're saying? When the mind is like a wall, okay, ready?

[77:18]

No thoughts are arising. No thoughts are arising. Because in order for thoughts to arise, you have to impute something to them. There has to be an imputation of externality. So, no thoughts are arising. There is no coming or going. You're realizing emptiness. And the mind is calm and quiet. And then everything that comes... If now something would come, if now there's a back into things coming, thoughts arising, once you have this insight, now everything that comes will be the real body of the Jatagata. But in the insight of the mind like a wall, there is nothing arising. No external thoughts.

[78:22]

There's nothing to think of. Nothing's arising. You're seeing how quiet everything is. You're seeing that everything is basically unarisen. If you make that into a thought, then in order for that to be a thought, that would have to arise, right? So then you'd have to attribute a concept to that event. Being unsuccessful at having an experience can then be made into an experience. Okay? You could make it into experience. You could say it happened. All right? But you might not say it happened.

[79:29]

You might not attribute externality to it and make it into something which exists out there. Okay, I'll say this again. When your mind's like a wall and you're not finding anything out there, you're not finding anything. through actually not having an experience. But you understand that. Now, if you turn around and attribute existence to that understanding, that would contradict what you just understood. But you haven't done that necessarily. That's why some people say that you can't understand

[80:30]

that nothing's happening, that you can't understand no objects of thought. That couldn't happen. You couldn't, like, cognize that or understand that or know that. In other words, the fact of things not arising, which is the same as no external objects, which is the same as Buddha's mindfulness, would be beyond knowing and would be beyond cognition. But some people say it has to be, because otherwise, if you know it, then that's happening. But things aren't happening unless somebody looks at them and says they are. That's the two truths thing. Ultimate truth is nothing's happening, because wisdom doesn't see anything happening.

[81:36]

Conventional truth is not true. Conventional truth is that we see something happen. So when you understand or see that nothing's happening, because you can't find anything happening, somebody could turn around and look at that and say that happened. But the eye that saw that nothing was happening and couldn't find anything, if it turned and looked at that understanding, it wouldn't be able to find that either. But right now it's not looking at that. It's looking at something else. Everything that this eye looks at, everything that the mind wall looks at, doesn't find anything, doesn't find anything happening. And that's how you enter the way. Once you enter the way, then you can do all kinds of other practices. You can come back to the world. And now you see things do seem to appear, but you understand that what's appearing is not true. In other words, you see external objects again, because that's the only kind of objects you can see.

[82:38]

You see events, and you see attribution of externality to them, but you understand it's not true, it's not truly external. You understand that the ordinary world of externality is false, even though you still see it. But at the moment, you don't see that the world of externality is not even happening. When you see that it's not happening, when you actually have a mind like a wall, you don't see anything happening. You gotta do some mental imputation in order for a phenomenon to arise. But when you see that that phenomena doesn't exist except for that imputation, and you see the imputation is separate from the dependent core arising, you see suchness, you don't see the phenomena anymore. And again, you can turn around and make that into something, but then you just stop doing the practice.

[83:40]

Or you can see that when you do make something into something, it's a falsity. Okay? That's kind of hard, what I just said, to understand. But you wanted more questions than answers, so you got them. Yeah? Two levels of mind like a wall. Two levels of mind like a wall, yeah? What do you think they are? Well, like, there's the sections that are the characteristics that are not going to do here. Well, it's not... You said... Both of you mind like a wall? Yeah. Well, there's two kinds of... I don't know if you remember, but before I talked about this, there's two kinds of... In a sense, there's two kinds of suchness.

[84:49]

There's the suchness, which is the suchness of... Well, I'm not getting into it right now, but anyway, there's two kinds of suchness. You want to do that now? Hmm? It sounds like it's related. Okay. There is a suchness, there's suchness in, what do you call it, suchness, which is the suchness engaged in the world, and there's suchness of truth. So you could say that the mind like a wall has two parts. The ultimate mind has two parts. One part is looking at the world, and the other part is looking at an unarisen world. When it looks at the world, it says this is false. When it looks at this, it says this is true. When it looks at this, it says in order to have this phenomena, there has to be this compounding.

[85:58]

But I also understand the separation, which makes it not happen. Yes. In that case, you would still see things? Okay, so you're proposing that it's possible to have a mind like a wall and see phenomena, to see all three characteristics.

[87:06]

to understand all three characteristics, which means that you understand mental imputation of externality or whatever, dependent co-arising, and suchness, and that you still be able to see something happening. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I guess. Well, there certainly is this possibility, is to see that what's happening is not true, even though you can see something happening. In the other case, you don't even see anything happening. And that's true. There's certainly that. The other thing, I feel a little, you know, we need to calm down a little bit and try to handle it tomorrow. Okay, now you may be ready to deal with the two different types of ultimate truth.

[88:17]

Two types of suchness. The two types of ultimate essencelessness. The two types, there's two types of lack, of ultimate lack of own being. There's like three kinds of lack of own being, you remember? There's own being in terms of pure mental fabrication. There's lack of own being in terms of pure mental fabrication or pure imputation. That's one kind of lack of own being. The next kind of lack of own being is lack of own being in terms of dependable arising or being other dependent. The third type of lack of own being is ultimate lack of own being. There's two types. And that's what we haven't... That's what somehow has come up today, is to deal with that, which I've been sort of postponing as long as possible. But now, if you want to, you can have it tomorrow. You want it?

[89:20]

Do you want it, Josh? Okay. Helen doesn't. Yay, Helen! Shading your eyes, that's very good. May our intention...

[89:38]

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