Now we're going to start tomorrow sitting upright for five days, and with this glass in the background and with the normal tendencies of our mind, either in the background and or the foreground, I hope we can sit upright in the midst of the extreme views that our mind is capable of taking. And not only those extreme views, but the turbulence between them that's created by moving back and forth. The extreme views are, on one side, that we ... one extreme view is that there are essences to things, and the other view is that there's not essences to things, and therefore there's

[01:09]

not even the possibility of dependent co-arising of things. You can't even appeal to the possibility of explaining dependent co-arising by these conditions which don't have essences. Those are the two extremes, and we can go in both directions. One's kind of overlooking causation entirely as empty and of no use at all, and the other one is that at the basis of our causal explanations is some actual genuine causal power that links cause and effect. That's one extreme. And I might mention that listening to some scientists, especially the scientists who teach the quantum QED, quantum electrodynamics, is that they feel like nothing can be predicted,

[02:15]

there's only probabilities. In other words, at the basis of the working of the universe, there's no basis to it. Anything can happen at all times, it's just that things have different probabilities. But anything can happen. There is no fundamental essence that's determining the way things go. And so our upright sitting is an emblem of mentally and physically cutting through these extremes of existence, of inherent existence, and actual real non-existence. So when you're sitting uprightly, you or I, we face the objects of our thought uprightly.

[03:21]

We abandon attributing inherent existence, or essence, or truth, to our thoughts, and we also abandon saying that there's nothing to them. We give up past and future, and so on, just be upright, and that will be the way to walk through these extremes, and watch how things actually happen. Not even actually happen, how things appear to happen, according to the conventions of your thought processes, how they appear to happen without imagining that there's some underlying foundation to it all. As Guishan said, all sentient beings just have karmic consciousness, boundless and unclear, with no fundamental to rely on.

[04:25]

Karmic consciousness operates according to certain probabilities, according to certain regularities, but it's unlimited and unclear, and there's no fundamental to rely on. The middle course between these extremes is to use convention as the basis for your observation of what's going on. That's the ultimate position, is to use convention without trying to put under the convention some reality, and also without rejecting convention and just saying whatever, as nihilism. So now I'd like to turn to the text where we left off, Karaka 10, and after class a

[05:36]

number of people talked to me about this karaka because they thought maybe Nagarjuna was denying the Buddhist teaching of dependent co-arising. In other words, maybe I should have a copy of the text just like you have it, see if somebody can loan me their copy. So I'll read what it says here. In your thing it says, As entities without self-nature have no real status, the statement, quotes, From the existence of that, this becomes, unquote, is not possible. The thing in quotes is quoting Buddha, and that's the basic ingredient in his teaching of dependent co-arising. From the existence of this, that becomes, or that arises. So Nagarjuna is saying, As entities without self-nature have no real status of existence, then Buddha's formula

[06:42]

for dependent co-arising won't hold. So, first of all, if you say that things that don't have self-nature or self-existence, did you say that? Self-nature. Self-nature. If you say things without self-nature, things without essence, okay, do not exist, I mean like really don't exist at all, then Buddha's formula of, given when this exists, this will be, won't work, won't apply. Nagarjuna doesn't say that that's true, that things without self-nature don't exist at

[07:50]

all. He doesn't say that. But if you do say that, then Buddha's formula won't hold. Things without self-nature are things which dependently co-arise. So, if things that dependently co-arise do not exist, then Buddha's phrase, From the existence of that, this becomes, or from when this exists, so will that be, that phrase won't hold, because things that arise because of something, in relationship to something, don't have self-existence, don't have own self-nature, therefore they won't

[08:53]

exist, therefore there will be no application to dependently co-arising, there will be nothing like that. So, Nagarjuna is saying, if you say that things exist, and that they exist inherently, then you're saying that the things that exist, exist inherently, those are the things that exist, and things that don't exist inherently, they don't exist. If you say that, then dependently co-arising can't happen, because self-existent things are independent. So, they don't need dependent co-arising, they don't need it. Things that dependently co-arise have no kind of essential nature, so if you say they don't exist, then there's nothing which dependently co-arises. So, he's basically showing that if you take the position of things inherently existing,

[09:57]

the Buddhist teaching of dependent co-arising is shot. So, he's stating the position of the realists, the people who say there's an essential causal power in things, and if that's the case, if that position holds, then dependently co-arising means that self-existent things don't exist, because they don't have essence, and therefore dependent co-arising, Buddha's teaching, doesn't hold. So, he's not denying the Buddha's teaching of dependent co-arising here, and he's not affirming it. He's just saying, if you like Buddha's teaching of dependent co-arising, then if you also like to say that things without essence don't exist, then you're going to have a problem, because you've got to throw that out the window, because you're going to have nothing to apply it to. Because things without essence don't exist, so you can't apply it to them, and things that do have essence don't apply to, because they don't arise dependently.

[11:00]

They exist absolutely independently, without conditions. And there's all kinds of problems with that. By the way, I looked up the word condition, in addition to the word cause. Again, the English word cause means something that has the power or agency to create an effect. The word condition doesn't say that. The word condition is something that is required for something else to happen. And the root, I thought, was particularly interesting, because the root of condition is to talk together. To talk together. The conditions talk together.

[12:09]

Causes have power in themselves to make something else happen. It's different. Nagarjuna rejects the idea of a cause, and he says there are conditions, because things do talk together, and out of that conversation comes a story which we have the existence to show for. Now, in the next three karakas we have it, Nagarjuna's anticipation and articulation of criticism of his position. Karka 11. The effect that is the arisen entity does not exist separate from the relational condition,

[13:14]

nor together in the relational condition. If it does not exist in either situation, how could it arise out of conditional relations? Another translation. In the various conditions united, in the various conditions together, the effect cannot be found. Nor can the effect be found in the conditions themselves. So how could it come from the condition? If you take all the conditions together, you can't find the effect in them.

[14:17]

If you take them separately, you can't find them there either. So how could these things come from the condition? Karka 12. How then, if non-entity arises from these relational conditions,

[15:21]

now then, if non-entity arises from these relational conditions, why is it not possible that the effect cannot arise from non-relational conditions? However, if a non-existent effect arises from these conditions, why does it not arise from non-conditions? Krishnamurti.

[16:24]

So the criticism entails that something is wrong with Nagarjuna because he can't... it doesn't make sense what Nagarjuna is saying because they think Nagarjuna is proposing an effect that's non-existent, that doesn't have inherent existence. So an effect which doesn't have any inherent existence, why can't you say that an effect that has no inherent existence comes from a non-condition? That's their argument. Which doesn't make sense, does it? A condition that you don't have. See, they're saying, if you say the effect doesn't have inherent existence, then why don't you say that the effect comes from a condition that doesn't exist?

[17:26]

But they're saying, of course it makes no sense to talk about an effect that doesn't inherently exist. It doesn't make any sense. And to show that it doesn't make any sense, I would say that if you have an effect that doesn't have inherent existence, then that must be connected to a condition that doesn't exist. But in fact, Nagarjuna doesn't go along with that in the first place. He doesn't go along with the idea that an effect has an inherent existence. He in fact says, yeah, that's right, the effect doesn't have an inherent existence and it arises from a condition which also doesn't have inherent existence. But the opponent, thinking that of course the effect must exist, have inherent existence, therefore if you say that's not so, then you must also say that there's no condition for the effect. But Nagarjuna actually says, no, I have effects which have no inherent existence

[18:35]

and they arise through a conversation with conditions which also don't have inherent existence. Thirteenth, the effect has the relational condition, but the relational conditions have no self-possessing natures. How can an effect arising from no self-possessing natures have a relational condition? Thirteenth, if the effect is the condition's essence, then the conditions do not have their own essence.

[19:36]

So how could an effect come from something that is essenceless? If the effect is the condition's essence, then the conditions do not have their own essence. So how could an effect come from something that is essenceless? So how could an effect come from something that is essenceless?

[21:01]

Thirteenth, consequently, the effect is neither with relational nor without non-relational condition. Since the effect has no existing status, herein are relational and non-relational conditions. Therefore, the conditions have no essence. If conditions have no essence, there are no effects. If there are no effects without conditions, how will conditions be evident? Therefore, the conditions have no essence.

[22:32]

If conditions have no essence, there are no effects. If there are no effects without conditions, how could conditions be evident? The very emptiness of the effect, an effect which the realists suppose to be non-empty, the very emptiness of the effect which the opponents assume to be non-empty, in fact follows from the emptiness of the conditions and of the relations between the conditions and the effects. The conditions are empty, and that will lead to empty results.

[23:40]

The conditions don't have inherent existence, and that will lead to essenceless results. And also, the result will be essenceless or have no inherent nature because it arises out of a relationship with the conditions. So, dependent co-arising is simply the common sense of the realist, conventional story that you tell about how things happen.

[24:45]

It's just a common sense story. Common sense stories make sense in a common way, just a sensible common story about how things happen. And they lack inherent existence because that's all they are, just a story that makes sense to somebody, and maybe to several people, because it's common sense. So there's a story that makes sense to me, and there's another story that makes sense to you, and there's a story that makes sense to both of us, and then there's a story that makes sense to most of us. That's a kind of conventional, coherent explanation of what happens. Even if we don't all agree, we might agree that that's the most probable story, or that's one of the most probable stories, and there's no basis of it.

[25:55]

The emptiness of it, or lack of inherent existence at the basis of this whole process, is just that. It's not taking away anything from the story, it's not adding anything to the story. The story is just a story. That's it. The results that are told of in the story, again, are just things that we observe, and that we have stories about. They have no inherent existence either. They're just things we commonly observe. But, if the story we tell about them has an essence to it, then they have essences too, rather than them being something which dependently co-arose by this conversation with conditions. Now, I could just open up to questions now, or another possibility is,

[27:04]

we can go through the whole text now, again, and do a karaka, and then I can say a little bit, and if you guys have questions, we can go through, or if you have any ideas how you want to proceed. Do you want to open up to questions now? How many people just want to go through the text one more time? How many people want to open up to questions? One, two, three. We want people with questions to ask questions. Three questions. Jack? If things have essences, does that mean they cannot change? If things have essences, does that mean they can't change? Yes. So, a forecast to Chapter 24 says, if something has inherent existence, it can't change.

[28:05]

How could it change? If it has inherent existence, it can't change. If it can't change, there can't be any suffering. If there's no suffering, there can be no cause of suffering. Or even if there was suffering, even if somehow you say, oh no, there could be suffering, even if things didn't change. But even if you didn't agree with that, okay, well, does suffering have essence? Does it exist? And if so, then it doesn't have a cause. If it doesn't have a cause, then it's there forever. If it has a cause, however, if it has a condition, I should say, take away the condition, and there's no more suffering. And in fact, the teaching that there's an end to suffering

[29:07]

is based on the condition for suffering not being there. And the condition for suffering is, coincidentally, attributing essence to things. So not only does attributing essence to things make Buddha's path impossible, but it is the cause of the need for the Buddha's path. So it's a nice thing, attributing essence to things, like attributing essence to causes, creates suffering, and then makes it impossible to get out. Because although you've created suffering, you've also said that suffering can't happen, so you can't deal with it. So it's a bad situation. On the other hand, if you don't have essence to things, then things can change. That can give rise to suffering because of the cause of suffering, clinging, because when you cling to things that are changing, you get problems. And also, because there's conditions for suffering, there can be the end of the conditions of suffering, the clinging, the attributing essence, and so on, therefore there can be a stopping of suffering.

[30:09]

And the path is the way to enter into studying the conditions of suffering, and studying the dependent co-arising of those conditions, the common-sense stories of those conditions, common-sense story. So anyway, that's how this chapter sets up the chapter on practice, in the chapter on the Middle Way, which is chapter 24. That's question number one. Question number two? Okay. Is number 14, is that Nagarjuna? That's Nagarjuna. Okay, then for 11, 12, and 13, it seems to me what's happening there is that the opponent, or whoever is talking, they just, if they don't believe that things have essence, they don't believe that, the only thing they... They do. Okay, they do believe that. They either take one position or the other, they say things have essence, if they don't have essence, therefore they must not exist.

[31:10]

That's the same position. To say that they have essence, and that if they don't have essence, they don't exist, that's one position. Okay, then they take that position, and they won't allow the possibility of dependent co-arising, therefore they can make these statements, which are basically absurd. They're absurd from Nagarjuna's point of view, and they're saying Nagarjuna's absurd from their point of view. Because they're saying, well, since the effects exist, what you're saying is ridiculous. Since the effects inherently exist, then you'd have effects from non-existent conditions. But he says, right, you do, except that it makes sense, because the effects in my case are non-existent effects, and they go with non-existent conditions. But it would be ridiculous to have... It would be ridiculous, they're right. It would be ridiculous to have an effect that has an essence coming from a non-condition,

[32:12]

a non-existent condition, that wouldn't make sense. In fact, if you have an effect that has essence, it doesn't even need a condition. All the more how ridiculous it would be to say it comes from a non-condition. But the whole premise of the argument for those three karakas is that the results do have essence, and so on. And Nagarjuna uses those arguments, those three arguments in 14, to say, therefore, conditions have no essence, and if conditions have no essence, there are no effects. In other words, if conditions have no essence, then the effects don't have any essence, according to you. And so there are no effects without conditions. So, how would there be conditions evident? You won't be able to see any conditions. Okay, number three, you're over? You're done?

[33:20]

And... Charlie's next. So, I was going to say that nirvana is not conditioned. Nirvana is not conditioned? There's a chapter on nirvana later, but it's not conditioned, so how does that fit into this whole argument? We have to look at that chapter. Stuart? I just wanted to point out that Kalupa Hemant has a somewhat different reading of the Karaka Twelve. And so the question that comes up is a somewhat more interesting question than the other reading. It says, if the effect isn't in the conditions, why can't the effect come from non-conditions? Yeah. If a non-existent effect arises from conditions, what do you say?

[34:23]

If the effect cannot be found in the conditions, you can't find the effect in the conditions, then why do you say that it comes from the conditions? Why can't the effect come from non-conditions? Yeah. Why doesn't the effect arise from a non-condition? Right. If a non-existent effect arises from conditions, a non-existent effect you wouldn't be able to find in conditions, right? Right? That's right. If you had a non-inherently existing effect, you wouldn't be able to find it in the conditions. Right. Because you wouldn't be able to find the essence in the condition. So, Agarjuna says, that's what we've got. We've got non-existent effects. In other words, effects that don't ... non-existent. In turn, in the language of the realist, non-existent effect means an effect that doesn't have an essence. Because you can't talk about an existing without an essence.

[35:27]

If you've got this kind of essence-less effect, you won't be able to find that in the condition. So, why don't you say, then, that it arises from a non-condition? What's the answer? Well, I think the answer is that this is returning to the description of condition as causes, and substituting the meaning of cause back in when you say condition, and it's probably not necessarily an element when the description goes around. That's right. But also, even if it didn't do that, how would you deal with the fact that somebody's saying, if you just have an essence-less effect, in fact, it doesn't have an essence, then, of course, then you'd agree. The condition is that the essence-less result, something appears, something happens.

[36:34]

That's something that happens, it's a result of something. You could say it's a result, but it's kind of funny to say result, because results usually come from causes. But maybe we shouldn't say effect or result, because that's already kind of leading that way, but we could still say it. We could say an essence-less result, or an essence-less thing that appeared. Either way. You want a fair result, you can be more dynamic. Anyway, you've got something that doesn't have an essence. Now, you say, at least, it had a condition. Because essence-less things can have conditions. But if it doesn't have an essence, you won't be able to find it in the condition. Because you're saying, it's essence-less. And he says, that's right. And Dr. Jun said, yes, and in the condition, you won't be able to find it. So he says, well, why don't you say it arises from a non-condition, then, if you can't find the thing in it? And the answer is, that's how dependent co-arising works.

[37:38]

It works in a conversation between an essence-less thing that arose, and a condition that doesn't contain its essence. It has a conversation with something else, not something that contains itself in it. So that's how, in fact, if he wants to know how would you... So he says, well, why don't you say, then, that it comes from a non-condition? Because they say, if you say that it comes from something that doesn't contain it, why don't you say it doesn't have a condition at all? Those aren't the conditions we're talking about. We're talking about conditions that don't contain it, that don't have the essence of it, that don't have any essence at all, plus they don't have the essence of something else. But we wouldn't say it comes from a non-condition, because what we might mean by a condition is something that doesn't contain the essence of it. Something that's different. It depends on something other than itself. Because it doesn't have itself. So that's why we would say it does have a condition.

[38:38]

That's why we would not say, oh yes, it makes sense, since it doesn't have an essence, that it comes from a non-condition. But again, the realist thinks, it makes sense to them that if you've got something that's got an essence, you can find that essence in the cause. And in fact, that's probably true. If you ever had anything that had an essence, and it was caused by something, then you'd probably find its essence in the cause. However, if it had an essence, it wouldn't have a cause. If it had an essence, it wouldn't depend on causes. It wouldn't mean anything to come from a cause. So the whole thing falls apart. Every way you come at it, it falls apart when you have essences. Every way. Come at it in all these different ways, all the different arguments. So Nagarjuna just did these 14 karakas, but we could make 50 or 1,000 karakas, coming at this in all different possible ways, all different kinds of weird criticisms we could make based on different assumptions. When you come from a different world, then Nagarjuna sounds crazy. But every time somebody criticizes Nagarjuna, he said, yeah, from your point of view, that would make sense.

[39:45]

And this comes back to, we're just talking about something that arises in relationship to something else. It has no essence, that's why it needs the other thing. And the other thing has no essence, that's why it doesn't cause an essence over here. They've just given one, and the other one happens. That's all. It's just a story. No more. Yes? Earlier, in another class, you were talking about a student who came to you and said, well, I can only be there sometimes. Yes. And so, the question I have... What did she say? Can I say? Yes. She said, she got to this place of uprightness, which she appreciated, and she said, I can't sustain it. And so, my question is, then, I just get this feeling, which I get once in a while, that within the ability to experience,

[40:59]

kind of polarizing, like my physical self and my body and my feelings, then what seems to happen, rather than more distance from what's happening, is more willingness to engage in what's happening. And I find that a little, almost ironic, or odd. And yet, that seems to be the result of what seems to come of seeing things like that even for a moment. Does that make sense? Yes. And when you say engage in things, do you mean engage in, like, just ordinary things? Yeah, like actually argue with people and get upset and cry. You know, do you think that, I'm sure you think you're human, but which, you know, at least I have a tendency to kind of resist or not think or kind of... You know, that sort of thing. It seems easier to be there.

[42:05]

It's hard to describe that thing. When it all seems to just be happening. Relationally. Okay, could you hear what you said? Yeah, and that's right. So this, when things are happening relationally, then your attitude is what's called an attitude that doesn't have any motive. Like in the Diamond Sutra it says, a bodhisattva should produce a thought, make a thought, that has no fixed motive, doesn't dwell on anything. So when you just operate, you're not something that has an essence. You're just something that has a story. Like your name, your address, you know, your address in the Zen dojo, your address in the room, your history, stuff like that. Just common stuff, that's all it makes you. That's all there is to it. There's no essence in that story. And when you're that way, you have no both. You have no essence. And you can respond to what happens fully.

[43:07]

Matter of fact, all you are is the next story. And you have no resistance to it, because you have no essence, which will tell you you can't participate in the next phase of the story. But if you have some clean self, in other words, there is a self and it's this rather than that, I mean, you have an idea of who you are, right? That's part of the story. That's the story. But it doesn't have any basis or essence. It's just a story. And when you operate, you face that, and you let it be just that. You don't put any more reality into it. You don't take any away. You don't say, this is the wrong story. What's happening here today is the wrong story. Or finally, this is the right story. Either way, if you say that, you can't move with circumstances. You can't embrace the next story, the next common sense story. So the Bodhisattva can fully engage in whatever is happening. Because of this kind of middle way between saying these things have essential nature,

[44:10]

or if that's not the case, then what's happening doesn't exist at all. This dependent recorder's story has no basis at all. Rather than, it has conventional existence. It has common sense existence. It's fairly coherent. It has some probability. It has, you know, not only probability, but a lot of other... There's some other things which have probability, even a higher probability, but no one will listen to me when I talk about it. So I can't converse with anybody. So I choose this less probable story. And there's some other things which have, you know, I don't know what... That's enough. And that's all there is to it. Just like whatever story I'm telling you about this Nagarjuna thing is just the story I'm telling you. It has no more reality than to whatever extent it makes sense to you. There's no more reality than the way you can follow it and use it.

[45:17]

There's no more truth in that. And no less. And if you can use it more, that doesn't make it more true. It just makes it more useful and you like it more. And it's easier to carry it around. However, as it becomes more useful, you might be tempted, even more than usual, to think that actually there's some kind of unknown reality to this story. And that's when, like Linda was saying, as things start to get more clear, you're more susceptible to attributing some reality to this story of your understanding of Nagarjuna. So one advantage that you have in this phase of study is that you don't exactly know where to put the substance or the essence to the story. You're kind of dealing with it as a story. And that way of dealing with it is heroic of you.

[46:27]

That you're actually entering into dealing with this material without being able to say, well, I've got it. Rather than, at this point, I have some understanding of the story and that's all I've got. When you don't yet settle into the story so much that you then attribute the reality to it, you're settling into it, but you're settling into your experience of it from what I feel. There still may be some tendency to look for something to grab, but for whatever reason, most of you have not been able to do that. So you're living in a situation which is like the situation that Nagarjuna lives in, even though he has a better grasp of his teaching than we do. He himself, in fact, can't get a hold of his teaching. And he lives with that anxiety

[47:30]

of telling stories that are just stories and not going any further. And the Buddha, I was talking to somebody the other day about the Buddha, in fact, does have feelings. A fully awakened Buddha still has feelings, but doesn't go any further and make them into something which he can grab. He just has feelings and then stories about how you have feelings. The reason why you evaluate things in certain ways. The Buddha goes through that and has feelings and judgments, but that's where the Buddha stops. And when there's pain, he just has pain. And when there's pleasure, he just has pleasure. That's very heroic. To just flat out have an experience without them saying if it's real or not. And also then you can't grasp it. And you can't grasp it. But actually, before they're grasping it,

[48:35]

there's a thirst, there's a yearning to get a hold of it. Or to get a hold of something. To get a hold of the feeling. Or to get a hold of some other feeling of the pain. To get a hold of pleasure, an alternative state from the pain. There's a yearning to get something other than this. And then that leads to grasping. To make it into something you can grab. But then, if you are practicing uprightness, then you'll always know that you'll always be practicing uprightness. You know what I mean? It's like, whether you think you understand or experience what Nagarjuna is teaching, you know that even saying that, the teaching itself, it keeps undercutting it. You know what I mean? You mean, are you saying that if you practice uprightness, you know that you'll have to keep doing that? Yeah. So, my friend who said when she was in a state of uprightness

[49:38]

and feeling the anxiety of that, but also feeling the rightness of that anxiety, because in that state you're really flexible and ready to respond, it feels like this is right, and yet I'm anxious, and yet I don't know what it is, and I don't have the standards to go on. In fact, you can't stand it to go on. You have to go on. You can't, like, hold it. You have to go on. And that's also part of the anxiety. And it's also part of the real exciting thing. So, you just have to do it again. You don't maintain it, you don't sustain it. You give it up. Like, I like that quote by Krishna, that Buddhism is not one of those religions like Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. I have to say,

[50:40]

Buddhism is when, you know, Christianity goes beyond Christianity, and Buddhism is when Judaism goes beyond Judaism, and Buddhism is when Islam goes beyond Islam. That's Buddhism. And it's a question of Buddhism when Buddhism goes beyond Buddhism. You know, true Buddhism is going beyond Buddhism. True Christianity is to go beyond Christianity. But we get to call Christianity going beyond Christianity Buddhism. Buddhism is when uprightness goes beyond uprightness. When you toss uprightness out the window, you don't make it into something. It's when you tell a story. Being upright is tell your stories. Tell your stories. You do tell your stories, right? But being upright is you just tell your stories, and that's it. I'm going to tell a story now. A story is, you know, this is my attitude. This is what I think is right. That's a story I'm telling. And if it's just a story,

[51:49]

the mind is calm, and I'm ready to respond. More than a story. The mind is disturbed, and I can't respond. And also, there's some situations which I do not want to get involved in, because the reality of my story won't allow me to be in certain situations. If your story is just a story, then you can do anything after that. If your story is you're a woman, and if that's just a story, the next moment you can do anything. But if your story about being a woman is a reality, and has essence to it, you're going to have some limitations. It doesn't mean that if your story is that you're a woman, that the next moment you're going to be a man. That probably won't happen. But even though you're a woman in one moment, and you know it's a story, in the next moment you're still a woman, maybe, but you're open to do whatever. But the funniest thing is,

[52:50]

even holding to your conventional existence as a woman, even though you're still going to be a woman in the next moment, holding to that limits you. If you're going to be a woman in the next moment, just let that be. You don't have to hold to it. Just let it be if the story goes on. And in fact, a lot of common sense stories do just keep happening over and over. But to hold to them, you get more and more limited. Being upright is to say, I got this woman's idea of the story of being a woman, I got the story of being a man, I got the story of being right, I got the story of being a woman, and that's my story. That's it. And being upright is having the courage to let it just be a story, which is something that depending on the color of the rose, has certain conditions, there's certain conditions by which you come up with the story that you're a woman, and certain conditions that you come up with the story that you're a man. Conditions. Make the story. That's it.

[53:51]

There's nothing more to it. And everybody can follow the story, it's a conventional story, there's no deep thing there. It's very superficial. It's like child's view of the situation. I don't know what age child, six, seven, five, somewhere around there. You know, like my name, some of you know, my name is Ten Shin, and the situation gave me that name. Ten Shin means red is red. Ten Shin is like a child's view of the situation. A child's view of this is what? Man. That's it. And then not for a second you're thinking, well actually there's something more to it than that. That view, that superficial view, is Zenki, is the total dynamic working of the universe.

[54:54]

Total dynamic working of the universe, sounds pretty fancy. And in fact, just taking the ordinary world as the ordinary world, it allows the total dynamic working of the universe. Allows you to like, do this fantastically totally dynamic thing. I mean, the whole universe can work through you then, if you don't add anything to the conventional world. But if you put a substance in, you block this fantastic working. If you make it more found, or real, that grasping blocks its flow. And the flow which is trying to come through, the superficiality and conventionality, causes suffering. When it hits, it happens to essence. But still it's hard to be upright and be like a child. And not be able to contribute, you know, some deep, you know, causal power to the situation.

[55:55]

But just like the story before, it's hard to do that when you have the ability to do it. Because that ability is just sitting there like, waiting to pounce. You know, the mind is like, how can I use this muscle? You say, well if you won't let me use this one, I'll flip to the other side. So that power of your mind is like, jumping from one side to the other. Because you live in that dynamic, you know, between these two tendencies of the mind. These two extremes are creating like, lightning bolts across you, across your consciousness. And to be upright means you sit in that field and you don't cop out and say, let's go over to one, let's take sides. Which, in a way, is less intense, more familiar, and then you've got some power. Like you're on one of the power sides, you know. You're over there and you can shoot lightning bolts over to the other side. Being in the middle, you've got nothing, you've got no power. No power. No cause of power. You're just something that is in conversation with conditioning. However, the benefit you have there,

[56:58]

is that you can respond to complete conditions and you can embrace whatever comes up. And how do you embrace it? By saying, well that's a hand, and that's a hand over there. And maybe what's interesting is that it comes at you, and then as you know, you've got a consciousness that follows drama, and Islam, and Jihad, because of that, you follow it. And all of that becomes pretty simple. One last thing I would say about is that what was his name, he was a Marine for Aloribaba. Marine for Aloribaba? Yes. After the fascination, when he went off, he really followed what was the knowledge of Islam. Really? Yes, very much. It's what he was talking about. He didn't push the spirit of Islam.

[57:59]

Right. He was talking about being attached to some particular point of view. Right. So it doesn't make any difference if Marine for Aloribaba was Aloribaba or not. It doesn't make any difference. the story we tell about Marine for Aloribaba must be a conventional story. We can't make a fancy story for how you... You can be a Buddhist or not Buddhist, but the story you tell about how you get there should be very conventional. It shouldn't be some thing that's kind of basically kind of like implying that there's something deep going on. Yes. No. I mean... I mean like...

[59:01]

Applying substance to it, we already know what that is. That's not conventional. That's a deep question. But what I'm saying is that if you... You see, if you go from... If you switch over from saying that what we're dealing with here is some... This story has some essential truth to it. There's some essential causal power in the situation. If you give that up, then what you might think is, well, then I can tell a story however I want. And I don't have to follow the rules of conventionality. That would be to switch over to the other extreme, the nihilist position, and say, well, I can say whatever I want. I don't have to follow ordinary logic. Since there's no essence of things, you know, I can do whatever I want. There's no rules. There's no precepts. There's no nothing. But if you look at the world... If you look at the ordinary world, the realist world still sees cause and effect,

[60:03]

still has explanations, but they say, we have these explanations of how things happen, for example, how the precepts work, and so on, right? How you do this, then that happens. They call it a regular causation thing, it's just that they go too far and they attribute reality to it. So then if you take away the reality, or the essence of the situation, then they say, well, then... Then they say stuff, well, if... If there's no essence to a good act, then there's no essence to a good result, right? Therefore, if there's no essence to a good result, and you can't find the essence of a good result in a good action, okay? If you can't find the essence of a pat on the head in being quiet in class, or something like that, then... then... then... if... if... if the condition has no essence in it, why don't you just say you have no condition? Right?

[61:05]

In other words, why don't you say, things happen with no condition. In other words, nonsense. See what I mean? So if... The realist position is, this usually happens, when this happens, this happens. That's... That's an ordinary story, okay? Everybody can follow. They don't... The realists don't make up strange stories. It's just that they say, since this follows from this, there must be some essence in here that connects these two. Right? But they follow the conventional story, but then they... they shoot essences through the... through the thing. Then if you take away the essences, they say... then they switch over to the other side and say, well then, you know, A equals B. That's what I mean by weird. See, it's not weird exactly. It's... Well, in the... in the etymological meaning of weird, it is weird that we attribute essence to things. It's weird in the sense that what weird means fundamentally is faith. Weird means faith, so it's a Norse word

[62:06]

which means faith. It is our faith that we have a strong tendency to attribute essence to process. So that's weird. So strictly speaking, the whole... the realist position is about faith or our... our fated tendency. And that's the way we usually go. Most people aren't basically nihilists. Nihilists are the people who have had the realism ripped away from them by Nargajuna or somebody and then flipped to the other side and then said, well, I'll do whatever I want. I don't have to follow convention, man. If convention doesn't mean essence, then I'm going to be not even... I'm going to be non-conventional. I'm going to be totally random. I'm not even... you know, always non-conventional. I'm going to be conventional some days and then I'm going to switch to the other side when you're not even noticing and switch back. I'll do whatever I want because you said that this conventional process has no essence so I can do whatever I want, right? Yes, you can do whatever you want. But what you'll do when you really do whatever you want is you'll respond according to conditions.

[63:06]

Perfectly. And that's what the voice after death... the perfect response. And the perfect response is that when something happens you completely embrace it. Only because it's happening. That's the only reason. And it's happening only because of this conversation. Every conversation that happens in your life moment after moment is a conversation with conditions. Conversation with conditions. Conversation with conditions. This is dependent co-arising. And you completely embrace this conversation with conditions which don't have essence and the conversation doesn't have essence. And because you realize because of that you boldly live. However, you do have that you are powerless. You're totally engaged and powerless. And everything you're engaged with is powerless. It's a conversation. In a conversation you don't have power. You know?

[64:09]

You give orders and commands and you have power. There's no In a conversation it's like something is happening between a certain number of things. Like a conversation with flowers. I named somebody a conversation with flowers. If they're out there conversing that's what's happening but they don't have power over each other and yet they arise together. And when one moves they do this thing together but they have no power and the wind doesn't have power. Power to cause. They're just conversing with each other. The wind goes like this, they go like that. Then the wind goes over there and they go back like that. Just like that. That's the way Bodhisattva acts and that's how Bodhisattva helps by demonstrating dependent cauterization. In other words by being completely conventional. And by

[65:13]

being conventional under conventional circumstances it's possible to be upright. When you're upright you push this way you go this way. You push that way you go that way. You push this way you go this way. You push this way you go this way. Because you have no abode. You just respond appropriately. But even when we're there and we're happy and we feel like although this isn't like reality it seems right. Because I feel like I can respond, I can live, I can breathe, I can go with what's happening. I am what goes with what's happening. But I don't know anything, I don't have anything, I'm vulnerable to this time. I don't have any kind of like causal power here. And it doesn't make it any easier. Well maybe it does make it a little easier. You know

[66:13]

that nothing else does. You're not being left out and everybody else is sort of like in this essential reality trip. No. You're actually being joined to all beings by this giving up of attributing essence to the process. And now there's not time to go through it again. But I think what my plan would be then when I come back from Japan, first class I'll go through it with you and see if the whole thing kind of like flows and makes sense. In the meantime we'll be churning it and we'll be running through your mind, see if you can work out some of the kinks yourself and then after that then we can use this understanding here as a kind of like an instrument or a way of being, kind of an upright way of reasoning and then

[67:14]

enter chapter 24. And then we'll have a pretty long continuity of chapter 24. It's a wonderful chapter and it really shows how this teaching makes Buddhism possible, makes it really work and how this other way makes Buddhism possible and actually causes all the problems. So the other way is nice because the way that Nagarjuna is criticizing it is nice because it guarantees job security for the people

[68:18]

who are doing other way you want to do it. I'm going into Sesshin. If you guys want to do it, somebody wants to put that together and type it up and get it copied and pass it off to people, fine with me. But I don't have time. I've got Sesshin coming up and I'm going to do a conference over there so I don't know if I'll be able to. I'm unreliable in this regard. I need some time to get that together. I trusted this translation because it's a reliable scholar and I think by looking at the other translations I have no problem with the others. It is extremely complicated too. But I trust it. I trust the scholarship and it has things in parenthesis that I know that they keep adding that and all that. I have no problem with it other than

[69:18]

the clunkiness and I do rely on clunkiness but the other ones I didn't feel so confident in their reliability but if you guys want to try these other ones it's fine but I don't know how you work that out. If you find me to do that I'm happy. And then there are books you can check out the other translations and copy them. I find it helps to look at different translations. I know you say we're going to review our study chapter 24 which shows how we can practice this teaching but I feel like tonight you're getting a really excellent exposition of how it works but just by looking at that it's because of chapter 24. Copy that. Thank you. Thank you everybody. And I wanted to say also that during this

[70:19]

session my plan for the Dharma talks is to give five of them one each day and I'm going to talk about five precepts and how in each case how the precept or how upright sitting is the way to understand the precept and how the precept is the way to understand upright sitting. I'm hoping that each of the precepts each of the five precepts can go both directions and show how the meditation illuminates the precept is and illuminates the teaching of the precept and how the precept is a way to get into upright sitting. What I wanted to say is that I'm starting with the second precept not the first. And the

[71:22]

reason for that is because I've already written a chapter on the first one which you could start but the chapter on the second through the sixth I have and I'm hoping to get these lectures organized so that they can be basically a good start for all these chapters. Please excuse me for starting with stealing instead of killing. But I'll tell you basically that the teaching of the first precept is basically the medication of the dependent colorizing of life and death. And the second precept is an extension of that meditation

[72:23]

on life and death into the realm of relationship between self and others and between mind and objects. It's still a meditation on life and death but moving in that expanding the meditation on life and death into awareness of self and others mind and objects. At the end of the practice period I'll hopefully talk on the first period. Tomorrow morning for the first period of Zazen we will face the wall but face out and then we will read the session admonition during the first period of Zazen so we

[73:27]

will the first of the session and then we read session then we So, once again, you know, when you're sitting upright, I like that, sit upright in the conversation of conditions, okay?

[73:48]

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