Direct perception is actually experiencing an impermanent phenomena before you overlay it with concepts. So, other dependent phenomena relate to other dependent phenomena in this direct way, and if you have a living being relating to another living being, or a living being relating to a so-called non-living being, the impact between them, the actual impression that the object has on the consciousness, is an impermanent phenomena, is an other dependent phenomena, which is directly known, but it's known without being able to identify it. So, moment by moment, you and I supposedly are having direct sensory experiences of impermanent

[01:05]

other dependent phenomena, moment by moment that's happening, but we can't identify them, but they're our life, basically. I keep having this idea that when you direct perception of love, it's mechanical. Mechanical? Yeah, it's mechanical like Amoran Psyche making love, mechanical. It's a blissful mechanism. It's called life. It's called energy flowing without obstruction, which is going on all the time, but we get distracted from it because of packaging it and grasping it. So, underneath the superficial grasping where all this misery occurs is this huge organic ocean of interrelationship where we're grooving with each other all the time. But, because we want to know it, we exiled ourselves from it. In the morning, we eat up

[02:14]

the unknown and exile ourselves from this organic mechanistic bliss land, but we do get to know it and go to business school. Yes? I was thinking about Helen Keller. Yeah. She had this sense of touch, she had this sense of space, a sense of smell, but according to her story, there was not a world, there was no sensation. There was not until her teacher took her finger, and there was no water, I think there was drinking water or washing water, and she wrote with her finger, W-E-T, that the world, I think it's what it was saying, that the world came into full, what we call a conditioned world, because there was a symbol, W-E-T, and for her, at least, that brought her into not a bliss state, into a hell state, but into a state of happiness.

[03:24]

For her, the word, the beginning of the word, the word of her life, what do you mean when you say that? Well, I would say that she already was packaging the world of bliss by imputing essences to it before she had words to put on it. So that's why she was miserable. And when she could put words on it, then she could join the conventional world where she had some friends. But she was already, she wouldn't have been able to come into the world of conventional designation if she hadn't been imputing already. So she was in like a limbo between the dependent co-arising and ordinary conventional world, which is worse, because then you can't hear the teachings. So that's worse. Anybody who's halfway between is worse. So that's how I would understand her story.

[04:28]

So when you watch children, they can impute language structures to things before they have the words to go on them, and they're dying to get those words on them, but they can't do it yet. But for a short period of time, it's okay, because they get so much affection, and they can see it and hear it. But the language structure is based on this imputation, which she was doing, I would say, which made it possible, once she got the words, she could put it right on there, and it started to work, because she had this language ability. Yeah, right. So it was part of her liberation to be able to come into the realm of language, and where she can hear human wisdom, and then she developed really nicely. So that's what I would see in the story. You think it's time to end? Today you're wrong. But you can leave if you want to. A couple of days ago I went to a friend's residence that passed away,

[05:33]

and there was a prayer by St. Francis of Assisi, and it warmed my heart, and I was wondering if you could read it in a short way. Right in here. Do you like my new reading glasses? Buddha, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is discord, unity. Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is error, truth. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is sadness, joy. Where there is darkness, light. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,

[06:42]

to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Welcome. Who? Pardon? St. Francis, right. St. Francis. Thank you. I am feeling very uncomfortable, because I am a figure of, quite a teaching in Oxford, and I am wondering if the light, the sun, and the people of the land, if God has given me something like that, lighting a lamp,

[07:44]

and a figure like this, with thousands of phenomenons, thousands of people like me, that there is, you know, I found it more comfortable to be considered non-reality, by studying phenomenons. There is nothing more pleasing than to be able to study phenomenons, which is, and I am wondering, I am wondering if creationism, like what do you mean, fantasy origination, is kind of brought from that way, and it is really being asked to look at something as a fantasy. You say, did you say, you are being asked to look at something as a fantasy? Yes, a fantasy of God and others. You are being... I don't quite understand what you are saying.

[08:55]

I don't quite understand what you are saying still, but maybe other people do, so just keep talking. Okay, so, the self, the so-called self, that I imagine, is, I am saying, that I am being asked to, is, dependently co-existing, depending on, all of the senses, they are not the so-called self, all objects are being perceived, one after the other, moment by moment, as the self, but the reality is not, there is no other self, and in the teaching, I am being asked to take that self and observe this other self. No, I am not telling you to take the self and observe the self, I am saying, the teaching is, these objects you are looking at, observe them, which you are already doing anyway. But who is looking at them? The teaching is not asking you to ask that question.

[10:09]

That's why I am wondering, is that going to come later? Yes. But right now, now I am just saying, just work with what is happening to you, and, and, just remember that whatever is appearing is impermanent, not remembered, but hear this teaching and you will understand that whatever you are experiencing is impermanent. You are not being asked to look at yourself right now, but if your self pops up, look at it. Like Bernard is saying, when you are doing the form, suddenly there is a self there. You know, I am not saying go look for the self, but maybe when you are doing a form, suddenly there is a self appears doing the form. Okay, then apply this to that. Huh? Well, you may find that. But I am not saying to look for it, I am just saying when you see it in a superficial way, not when you look for it, but when you look for it later, now we are just dealing with the appearance of the self, if it happens. I am not sending you to look for it, I am saying if it pops up there, just be present with it without touching it,

[11:14]

bring this teaching to bear on this self. If something that is not the self appears, then face not the self and apply this teaching to it. Later we are going to look for this self and we are going to find the absence of it, and then you are going to be one happy camper. Cedar? Oh, it was Sala. That was Sala, wow. Oh, and Fu's hand was Cedar's hand, okay. And Sala's hand was Cedar's hand, that's nice, wow. Kind of like, what is it called, marionettes or something, yes? The three stooges. Hey, wait a minute, Sala's turn. Right view.

[12:19]

Right view isn't the teaching about this, right view is understanding this. This teaching is being given to help us develop right view. And right view of what? Right view of what's happening. We have some work to do in that department. Yes? Yeah, he flew away. Yeah. What does what look like?

[13:28]

It looks like getting up in the morning, get up in the morning and go to the Zendo and sit, that's what it looks like. And then there's, and then there's Kinhin. And then there's Zazen. And then there's service. That's what it looks like. And it looks like you're there. It doesn't look like Psyche and Eros. It looks like you sitting there in your cushion. That's what it looks like. Well, that's what it looks like. When you go to the Zendo and you think that what's happening is what you think what's happening, that's just Psyche. That's right. It's Psyche who can't see Eros anymore

[14:32]

because she knows Eros. Because you know love now, you can't really see him. You have to know it before you can not see it, right? You have to know before you exile yourself. You exile yourself by knowing. You exile yourself by grasping. That's how you exile yourself from dependent co-arising. Of course, it's really still there, otherwise you wouldn't be exiled. You're only exiled from something that means something to you. Something that means a lot to you. You already do. Know can dependent co-arising. You already do know dependent co-arising. And how do you know dependent co-arising John Wilcox? Yeah. You're going around wrong. You know it by grasping the other dependent as being the invitation.

[15:33]

That's how you know it. That's how you know it. That's how you know love. You know love by grasping it as what you think it is. You come into the Zen Do, what you think is happening, that's how you know dependent co-arising Zen Do. By taking it for the invitation. That's how you know. That's what the Sutra says. That's how you know. And what does it look like for you to get over your Psyche? It looks like you coming to Zen Do and sitting there thinking that this is what's happening. And here in teachings we're saying, John, there's another dependent character to this what's going on here. There's an Eros aspect here too, which you actually are isolated from because you have converted it into a knowable thing. And you work with that year after year until little by little, together with all your friends, you achieve reunion. So one of the things she has to do

[16:35]

is she had to go through a pile, a big pile of sesame seeds mixed with what? Huh? I didn't hear that. Salt. Salt. Yeah. Yeah. Sesame seed mixed with salt. She was supposed to separate the sesame seeds and the salt. Not grind them together. Separate them. So that's what you have to do. That kind of stuff. You have to come in here day after day and separate. But of course she couldn't do it. She collapsed. And then the ants came and helped her. So you come in here and you try to do it day after day, year after year. And you won't be able to. But finally you'll collapse. You'll give up. You'll surrender to the practice. And the ants will come and save you. And then there's two more.

[17:36]

But we'll go into them later. The isolation is... No. The isolation is not an illusion. The isolation is created by believing in illusion. The isolation is a conventionally existing unhappiness. You're not really isolated. You're not really isolated. You're right. The isolation is illusion. The exile is an illusion. But the experience of the exile is based on the delusion that the thing is what you think it is. When you look at somebody and you believe how they appear to you, you exile yourself from them. You're not really exiled but because you see them and believe that you actually feel exiled. You feel unhappy. So our practice is to overcome this belief which produces the conventionally existing feeling of exile and unhappiness.

[18:39]

So we're starting by meditating on what we exiled ourselves from. The nature that we've exiled ourselves from. Even though we're not quite back there yet, we're starting to re-initiate ourselves back home. And now it's getting close to time to take a break before service. Can we stop now? Is that okay?

[19:06]

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