teaching of Vasubandhu, in particular the 30 verses. So we did that. We didn't really finish the Nadyamaka, of course, but we did it for more than half the practice period. And so now we could, maybe starting tomorrow night, we could start studying the 30 verses. But I thought maybe we could have some review of the Madhyamaka teaching, because the Yogacara teaching, the teaching which is given in the 30 verses, I think is a development from the Madhyamaka teaching. which I think we'll be able to see.

[01:05]

So since there's quite a few people in here that have been studying it, perhaps you can be, to some extent, a resource for the review of what we studied. So what is the Madhyamaka school? What is the Madhyamaka school? Could you speak up, please? School of the Middle Way. School of the Middle Way, yes. That's right. That's literally the name of it, but also it's true. It's a teaching to try to clarify what the Middle Way really is. This technique was a reputation of all of you.

[02:09]

As this technique was primarily, turned out to be primarily, as a philosophical technique, if you just sort of run into a Madhyamaka treatise, you'll probably see a lot of refuting going on. That's right. Its emphasis is distinct from any other schools is on non-being and non-existence. Its emphasis is on non-being and non-existence, which is also the emphasis of Mahayana Buddhism. And so we talked about what is that, what's that like. what it means to come from, to emphasize or take the point of view of non-being. Yes. I think of it as emphasizing emptiness, that all dramas are empty, and that there aren't somehow things that have some kind of one of this, that there's nothing that can't.

[03:31]

It's both Mariana and Pinayana schools, it's being based on dependent cultivation. And both Mariana and Pinayana schools, emphasize teaching of dependent co-regimation and that the Mahayana emphasis was the DCA of conscious rather than the DCA of birth and death? DCA is an acronym for dependent co-regimation, also known as DCO and DCP. P.S. P.S.? What's P.S.? P.S. Yeah, but that's mixed in Sanskrit.

[04:34]

Oh, I see, just P.S. Oh, yeah, right, just P.S. P.S. is D.P.S. and D.P.O. and D.P.A. Why would both the Hinayana, Mahayana, and primitive Buddhism Hinayana is not really primitive Buddhism. But primitive Buddhism, what is sometimes called the Hinayana and what is called Mahayana, you just say they all emphasize DCA? Why would they do that? Right. They emphasize that because that's the essential message of Shakyamuni Buddha. What do you think of that? Any comments? Yes. .

[05:38]

Now, there's one subtlety here, or many subtleties. Oh, so, before I get into that subtlety, Pam just said that both the Mahayana and Hinayana, and I added primitive Buddhism, central teaching is dependent co-arising. Dependent co-arising is the... What does dependent co-arising have to do with Buddha? Besides the fact that Shakyamuni Buddha taught it, can you... What does the pinnacle rising have to do with Buddha, and Shakyamuni Buddha? I don't know what I can say to himself upon what I believe, but... Could you speak up, please? I said, wasn't that Buddha's insight? Yeah.

[06:58]

On the night of Buddha's enlightenment under the bow tree, the content of his meditation was dependent co-arising. It makes Buddha's possible. It makes Buddha's possible, yes. It is also said, I believe in the Lotus Sutra, I think in the second chapter they say that the listeners, not exactly the same as arhats, but anyway, the listeners are disciples of Buddha. The content of their meditation is the Four Noble Truths. The listeners are the arhats. The content of their meditation is the Four Noble Truths. The content of the meditation of the Pratyekabuddha is dependent co-arising. The content of the Buddha is emptiness or perfect wisdom.

[08:00]

And I brought that up in relationship to the subtlety. And that is, to study dependent co-arising, If you approach dependent co-arising from the point of view of being, and you study how things that dependently co-arise interact with each other, if you follow that study exhaustively, you will naturally be led to realize that phenomena, well, first of all, that this personality lacks self, And you can even be led to realize that the dharmas, all the dharmas that go into the causation, are themselves empty. So you can, by studying, by approaching the being and studying its dependent core arising, you can realize that being is empty. But the madhyamaka position is not quite like that.

[09:03]

It's actually to approach the whole thing originally from the point of view of non-being. It's to start out from this other point of view. Do you think the TGIC codependent origination is in the formal truth? I think it's in the formal truth. Yeah, it is. The third truth, the fourth truth, is a path, right? And the first part of the path is right view. Right view entails... I think one of the reasons why the arhat has the Four Noble Truths, or the listener has the Four Noble Truths as the subject of their meditation, is because Shakyamuni Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths.

[10:05]

And the listeners, or the disciples, received Buddha's teaching of the Four Noble Truths. And based on that presentation, they had some realization. They actually achieved all knowledge from that teaching. The Pratyekabuddha, however, does not hear Buddha's teaching in this lifetime. They come to a realization of all knowledge without ever becoming a disciple of Buddha. They're sometimes called solitary Buddhas or rhinoceroses. So, and actually pratyeka, pratyeka pratityasamutpada, pratyeka comes from, pratyeka buddha means a buddha that's enlightened by causes or by circumstances. Either from a past life they were well-educated as a Buddhist, or just by circumstances in this life they awaken. So in other words, by circumstances, by causes and conditions coming together in a certain way, they are awakened. In other words, by dependent core arising they are awakened, or that their awakening is dependent core arising.

[11:07]

But they don't get the teaching of the Four Noble Truths, which include that teaching. They sort of pick it up just from the way what's happening. That's why their enlightenment is considered superior to ours. Is that what you call the self-enlightened ones? They're sometimes called self-enlightened too, yeah. You said the Madhyamka's approach, the original approach is that it comes from non-being. So the Prajnaparamita also talked about that there's no own being of dharma, dharma is empty. So that was already a thrust, or that was already being taught, right, the Prajnaparamita. And that Madhyamka, the new thing about it is that this thing of non-being approaching from nothing, Was Prajnaparamita approaches from negating being? I think actually the approach of the Prajnaparamita Sutras is basically the same as the approach of the Madhyamaka.

[12:12]

The Madhyamaka is a teaching which is derived from the Prajnaparamita Sutras. So at first there were these perfect wisdom sutras, And in the Perfect Wisdom Sutras, they say, you know, all diamonds are empty and so on. All diamonds lack eternal existence. They say all this stuff. And they say it in many, many ways. They say this, right? And they go through all the Buddhist teachings and empty everything, right? So then the Madhyamaka comes out and does that. But the thing about Madhyamaka that's a little bit different or distinctive or innovative... over and above the Prajnaparamita Sutras is, well, let me ask you, what did Nagarjuna do sort of over and above just coughing out the Prajnaparamita Sutras again? What did he do after he read them and was enlightened by them? What did he do that was so, you know, distinctive of his teaching?

[13:16]

Yeah. improving it, in a sense, or going through this whole reason, this force, dismantling the view of being a logical? That's what he did as a philosopher. If you look at his technique, he did do that. He then, being a student of the perfect wisdom school, he went and turned his teaching in the direction of of what had become of early Buddhism, namely, early Buddhism, which taught this dependent co-arising as enlightenment itself, was then converted into dependent co-arising, for example, of various kinds of things in the sort of

[14:23]

academic or abhidharma part of Buddhism. And Nagarjuna then approached or attacked that kind of rigidified approach to dependent co-arising and showed that these arguments didn't really hold up. So he did that, that's true. But he did something else which is, what do you say, is necessary. to do over and above just refuting these positions. Yes? . Yeah. So what he did over and above, showing that all dharmas were empty, which the sutra does, and also what he did over and above, turning his attention to all the various which had occurred to the teaching of dependent co-arising, in addition to that, he demonstrated that emptiness of phenomena and dependent co-arising are identical.

[15:34]

That was... That was one of the main things he did that we put emphasis on before. That dependent co-arising and emptiness are identical. This, just to say that all dharmas are empty is really good, and to realize it's wonderful. But then to be able to also say that the emptiness of all dharmas is identical with dependent or arising, this had never been said before. Here in Chakramuni Buddha did not say this, did not teach this. And I was going to say, his method of reputation was with the concern for the valid establishment of the truth of worldly convention. He also talked of the two truths. That's right. So the worldly convention was not separated. We weren't separated by a convenient other, ultimate truth, that it was.

[16:36]

Yeah. So his technique of refutation wasn't to just refute all views. It was a positive. He didn't refute worldly convention. What he refuted were Buddhist positions. Again, in early Buddhism, it was dependent co-arising of reality. In later Buddhism, or intermediate Buddhism, in jnana Buddhism, it became dependent co-arising of phenomena. Phenomena are the things which lack inherent existence. And dependent co-arising of phenomena implies that they lack inherent existence. But Buddha, when he first taught dependent co-arising, was not teaching dependent co-arising of the phenomena. He was teaching dependent co-arising of reality.

[17:42]

And the Madhyamaka was trying to reestablish the dependent co-arising of reality. The word for phenomena in this case is dharma or dharmas. And the word for reality in this case is dharmata. So the Madhyamaka was trying to reinfigurate the teaching of the dependent co-arising of dharmata Generally speaking, in the Bhavidharma schools, the dependent co-arising of dharmas was from the point of view of the causes and conditions which were dependently co-producing these dharmas, that these individual things, these individual causes, were not empty. They didn't say that they weren't empty, but you could tell by the way they talked, that they thought they weren't in, that they thought they had some being.

[18:45]

In other words, things that have being are getting together to make being. Causes that have some being or some existence dance together and conjure up other things into being. So that demonstration was how these existent things can come together to create an existent thing. And also, not only how these existent things can come together, but how they have a certain sequence, and how the sequence even has a kind of existence, like the 12-fold chain of causation. For a while they were talking about not only each one of these things was a kind of existent cause and an existent effect, and each of them depended on each other, but still, the fact that they depend on each other implies that they're empty, but they didn't mention, they didn't seem to convey that.

[20:00]

Plus the whole chain was seen to be a kind of existent thing. My Jamaka point of view is that non-existent things come together to produce non-existent things. Non-existent appearances come together to produce appearances. But if you say that non-existent things come together in an ordered sequence and produce non-existent things, then the non-existent things that are produced do exist. How? How? As dependently co-arisen suchness. What I'm wondering is whether or not the kindergarten schools didn't end up in a predicament of emphasizing diamonds in their systematization of Buddha's teachings and actually were trying to explain

[21:08]

how this ordered sequence was actually producing stuff. Mm-hmm. In fact, I don't know that much about it. No, that's right. That's what happened. They were trying to explain how these causes and conditions perform this magic, this dance, to create the appearance of phenomena. That's what they were trying to do. And what do, like, specific problems they had in, let's see, the relationship, the causes and effects and the amount of time that we take for one instant to sort of, like, move to the next instant, things like that. Yeah, and they even made instants into existent things. Yeah. But they... It says, they do that sort of like, because I didn't see an alternative, an alternative, but it's really quite the color of something else.

[22:11]

So in that sort of nitty gritty. I'm not following what you mean by they didn't see an alternative. But if you find yourself in a position of having to try and explain... You set up a system of causes and effects. How do you get from a cause in one instance, which you're calling a cause in one instance, to a so-called effect in the other instance? How do you deal with time, basically? You move from A, the cause, to B, your effect, so-called, and how does then B affect something else? You know, it's kind of a... When you say they had no alternative, you mean they were forced into making something up which would explain it? Something like that, yeah. Yeah, and they did, and they made up a system of six causes, different kinds of causes. Like, one kind of cause was what they called the sahabu hetu, cause which coexists with its effect. And they had causes which are immediate antecedent causes.

[23:15]

They had causes which cause similar results, namely, which are prior to the effect. and all these different kinds of causes and conditions to try to explain how this happened. But the point of view was, again, the point of view was the point of view of, from the point of view of being. So what they were explaining was basically birth and death. They were showing birth and death, and by watching their process, the process by which they explain the origination of these phenomena in these various ways that they did, What they were basically showing was dependent co-arising of birth and death. And Madhyamaka does not spend its time showing dependent co-arising of birth and death. The Hinayana people already did that. Madhyamaka is trying to show something else, dependently co-arisen suchness, by taking this radically different point of view on the whole thing.

[24:18]

where all elements in the process, like inherent existence, things which do not have the power to cause effects, come together, and there is the illusion of an effect. But if you, when you realize that these things cannot cause an effect, and yet do, and the effect they cause also cannot cause effects, but it can, And if the whole process is empty, all the individual things plus the whole process is empty, then that, that actually exists. In other words, there is actually an existence of the production of things which don't exist. There is that. Okay? That's dependently co-origin suchness. And that actually exists. It exists just as much as emptiness exists. And that dependently co-arisen suchness is identical with emptiness.

[25:26]

Dependently co-arisen birth and death is not identical with emptiness. Dependently co-arisen birth and death is empty. The fact that it's empty does not make it identical with emptiness. For example, form is not identical with emptiness. I mean, form is identical to emptiness, excuse me. It's not the same as emptiness. I don't know if some people have their hands raised. Did you have any more? My hand went up. I was like, why not? Why use suchness instead of emptiness? Why use suchness? Emptiness is not suchness. But it's identical, right? No. Suchness is basically the identity of emptiness and dependent co-horizon. That's what suchness is. Suchness is dependently co-arisen being from the point of view of non-being.

[26:33]

That's suchness. Could you use the blackboard? OK. These terms out. Draw the relation. Okay, so, first of all, there's dependently called rhythms, birth and death. That's a situation where you have an ordered sequence of causes and effects, and the causes and effects are from the point of view of that they exist, and they cause appearances.

[27:48]

And there's two levels of self in this situation. One is a self with a person and one is a self with things. So this is from the point of view of being. And this situation is entirely, without exception, nothing but misery. So that's the first noble truth. Now there is dependently co-arisen birth and death of pleasure and happiness and sadness. That also happens in this realm. But the teaching is that even pleasure in this realm is misery. Even neutral feelings in this realm is misery. The nature of this realm is that you want to escape. However, the wanting to escape is not sufficient to escape, because the wanting to escape is based on the point of view of being.

[28:59]

You never can get out of this cycle by just wanting to get out. And also, in this realm, there is not, in this realm, you're not trying to get out of dependently coalescing suchness. This realm is a realm that includes a possibility of dependently co-arisen awakening. There is such a thing as dependently co-arisen awakening as a matter of fact. There isn't another kind of awakening that isn't like awakening that doesn't dependently co-produce.

[30:04]

And what kind of co-production, co-dependent arising causes awakening? While we were talking about this, it's interesting, you know, it said, she has a clear knowledge of the own being of all dharma because she does not stray away from it. And so, the prajnaparamita has a clear knowledge of the own being of all dharmas. It knows that they're empty. But you can also read that as she does not stray away from it. It could be she does not stray away from her clear knowledge of the own being of dharmis. But you could also even say that she's also stayed close to the own being of dharmis. She even stays close to the illusion of inherent existence. Is that what you mean by not trying to escape? Yeah, there's no need to escape because the whole process is empty from the beginning. And how does it make sense to begin? Misery here?

[31:14]

Misery is a dependently co-arisen phenomena which is approached from the point of view of non-being. Is there any feeling? Feeling? Yes. All phenomena that exist up here exist here. Misery. Positive, negative and neutral sensation exist here and here. Both cases, there's no difference. The difference is only in point of view. The difference is only in point of view. This realm is the realm of beauty. This realm is not the realm of beauty. Because in this realm, beauty has inherent existence. And this is the realm where beauty has something to do with your idea of beauty. This is the realm where beauty is not beauty. Beauty is not beauty here.

[32:20]

Therefore, this is the realm of beauty. Here, beauty is beauty and beauty is not ugliness. Ugliness is ugliness and ugliness is not beauty. Therefore, this is the realm of misery. Therefore, you want to get out of here. You want to get out of the realm. where beautiful things are beautiful. And you want to get into a realm where beautiful things are not beautiful. Well, you're free of your idea of things, because your idea of things is fundamentally approached from its inherent lack of existence. However, in this realm, the things that appear here, they really do exist. Because they are the production of things that don't exist. That is their real existence. Because they are suchness. Suchness really does exist. Enlightenment really does exist.

[33:27]

Delusion, wrong action, and misery do not really exist. Dependently coerced in suchness really does exist. There really is the production of things which don't exist. That's really true. And also, it's also really true that the things that don't exist, don't exist. That they're really empty. They don't exist inherently. But from our point of view, forget about the don't exist inherently part, they just don't exist. What we think of as existence is totally not happening. I just wanted to see if I could get you to say something about language and naming in the context of everything you're talking about. It came up to my mind, talking about the early Abhidharmas, having some idea that these dharmas had some existence in the sense that language refers to something.

[34:31]

So that if we talk about a dharma, you know, even in a comic spec, that we think in terms that we're referring to something, to a thing. Or that dharmas do actually, the word dharma has the, I think part of the etymology of it is something that can bear something, like bear . Yeah, that can carry something or bear something. So one of the implications here is that dharmas actually can bear something, can hold something. And they got way off into that. But, you know, I think I don't feel ready to sort of get into that question right now. It's sort of like this is kind of a review. I think that your question about words and language would be much better handled when I get to 30 verses. I think 30 verses are very much created in order to cope with language and concepts.

[35:38]

You know the story of Billy Goat Gruff? Three Billy Goats Gruff? Is that the name of the story? Yeah. Three Billy Goats. You don't know the story? I think so. There was these three Billy Goats. They lived over on a pasture, and there was a bridge over sort of a gully or something. It was another pasture, and I guess they sort of mowed this one pasture kind of closely. There wasn't much grass left. We looked over there, and there was still quite a bit of grass over there. So they wanted to go over to get that grass. So they had this plan. They sent the littlest one over first. And the troll said, what are you doing on my bridge, man? And the little girl says, I'm going over to the other side. And the troll said, well, I'm just going to eat you up. Doug reached up and said, wait a minute, don't touch me. You're wasting your time. My big brother's coming. He's much bigger, much more better to eat. Don't waste your time on me. So he says, OK. And the next one, the next biggest brother comes. And he comes, and he is better.

[36:41]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah? What? The first one goes... The second one goes... And the troll says the same thing. Okay, I'm going to eat you up. He says, no, no, no, no, please. My big brother's coming. He's much better. And the big one goes... And the troll says, oh, now you're the big one. He says, that's right. I'm going to eat you up. He says, go right ahead. He comes up there and tries to eat him, and he goes... Knocks the troll out. They all go over and have their nice meal. So that's that. Don't bother me now about this one. This one. Vasubandha. Vasubandha is coming. He's going to really relate to this point. Nagarjuna is not so big on this one. At least we're not dealing with that side of it right now. Okay, so just wait. Yes. When you say it really means real, it sounds heretical, like the earth wants our help. There's nothing that's really real. But the only time I ever heard it, other than right now, is when Thich Nhat Hanh did this hugging meditation.

[37:48]

The part where you breathe three times and you say, I know that they are real. And it was very powerful to do that. But I'm sure it's of this, you know, I mean... I hope so. You know, or that we see... Mayana Buddhism does say that things are real. There are some things that are really real. There are. Enlightenment is really real. We're really saying that. You know, nirvana is actually real. There is such a thing as reality. And some things do really exist. For example, emptiness really exists. It really does. The fact that things don't have inherent existence, that is the way things really exist. They really do exist that way. In other words, totally beyond all of our ideas in existence is the way things really exist. There is a real existence. And also, another thing that really exists, it really is true that there is confusion in the world.

[38:49]

That really is true. There really is suffering. Suffering is empty. Confusion is empty. But there really is suffering and confusion. When the, what do you call it, when the primary suttas came along, they did a wonderful job, but they a little bit shot people so strongly out of their boots that people kind of thought, well, maybe there isn't even, maybe suffering is not there at all. Maybe confusion is not there at all. So they had to kind of restore, make clear that, no, we're not contradicting conventional reality that people are suffering and that people are confused. There really is the appearance of these things which don't exist. So that's why they went back to reality? Yeah. Because they got a little too far. They got a little too far. They got a little bit carried away. And then the people who, first of all, the so-called Hinayana Buddhists got a little carried away, and then these Pramita people got a little carried away.

[39:57]

And then Nagarjuna kind of restored reason to this situation and pointed out that there was something besides emptiness that existed. We don't just say that things are empty. We also say there is appearance of empty. There is really the existence of the appearance of empty things. There really is that. And now we want to approach things from the point of view of their emptiness and in that way realize suchness. And then the Yogacara school comes along to play this same scenario out in terms of consciousness. How does this work in terms of consciousness? How does this work in terms of subject-object? How does this work in terms of how you relate to objects? How does this work in terms of how you relate to words? Yes? So just to shield us from the wrath of Professor Kohana, none of these things you are talking about is what you would call a metaphysical phenomenon.

[41:07]

into the vocabulary, right? All of it is simply empirically verifiable experience. Isn't that right? Like, there isn't a, there isn't a cyclical assessment of the train of thought. It's sort of, yeah, somewhere beyond our experience, or it actually... No, it is not, it is not, what do you call it, well, Suchness is not a stuff. You have what's happening, right? And it's not like there's a metaphysical thing up on top of that. But there is the way things are. It's called . There really is that.

[42:10]

But that's not a thing over and above, metaphysically, over and above what's happening. It is just simply the facts of the matter. Which are accessible through experience. Which are nothing other than what we experience is. But you don't have an experience of it. You can't have an experience of suchness over and above what's happening. The fact of what's happening and including the fact that what's happening is empty, that's suchness. The fact of it being empty is not suchness. The fact of things being empty is not ta-ta-ta. That's emptiness, the fact that they're empty. The fact that things appear to be happening and that they're empty, that's what's happening. What's happening is something seems to be happening and also, not just that, but also what seems to be happening is not happening. What's happening is that it appears to be happening. And it lacks inherent existence. That's what's happening, and suchness is that.

[43:12]

But that suchness is nothing over and above just what's happening. So it's not a metaphysical thing. However, it is the absolute. But absolute in the sense that that's the complete story. Now, experience is involved here because basically we're talking about the true nature of our experience. We're talking about... There's two kinds of our experience. There's dependently co-arisen birth and death experience and there's dependently co-arisen awakened experience. Both of them. This produces... This is the production of experience. This is the production of experience. However, you don't... I'm not out here experiencing this or out here experiencing that in either case. It's just that in one case, the experience which is dependently co-arisen, I'm coming up from the point of view of being, therefore it's misery. In this case, dependently co-arisen experience, I'm coming up from the point of view of emptiness, therefore it's dependently co-arisen awakening.

[44:15]

Yes? I guess I'm reading a lot as to why that is. Well, maybe you should tell us why it is. Well, metaphysics is the study of within query to ultimate. Oh, you mean what I just said is metaphysics? Yeah. Well, what Kalupahana says is metaphysics too. To say, to go around and say that, you know, to criticize metaphysics is metaphysics, he's being a philosopher then. This is a philosophical discussion we're having here, okay? But the practice that's referred to in these cases is not metaphysics. This is not metaphysics. Mike, I'll tell you about it maybe in metaphysics, but this is just regular old suffering. This is regular old misery. This is regular over, I want to get out of here. That's what it is. But me talking about it is, I'm being a philosopher, right? You've been a philosopher for a very, very long time. No, I'm not saying now, but I'm just saying, if you say what I'm doing is metaphysics, fine, call me that. I'm no problem. You can call me anything you want. But what I'm describing here is not metaphysics.

[45:23]

What I'm describing here is the ordinary Joe walking down the street thinking that things exist and suffering to beat the band. That's what I'm talking about. And if you say that what I'm saying is metaphysics, I'll cop to that. You can call something else, too, and I could cop to that, too, maybe. And here, too, when I'm talking about this, I'm describing, however, a thing which is not metaphysics. I'm talking about approaching your experience as sin. Well, you know, what can I say? Should I say it in Japanese? Kore wa. Anyway, my teacher, Suzuki Roshi, said, that is sin. No, he said, if you look at a flower and say it's beautiful, that's a sin. And I agree, that is a sin. What is a sin in that case?

[46:24]

What was the sin, in terms of our class? One perception. Making it beautiful. You're doing this. I just told you about beauty, right? You think that's beauty? That's depending on the causes of birth and death. The point of view which goes with the penitently co-ordinated birth and death, that's sin. And in this case, the approach here, in this side of the thing, you take the point of view of, I sin all the time. In other words, every time I see something, I commit a sin. What is the sin I commit? I think it inherently exists. You want to call that sin? Drop the word. But that's what we mean by sin. We're going to use the word sin in Buddhism. Namely, it is to think that something inherently exists. And I'm proposing to you that everybody thinks that all the time.

[47:30]

And that's why enlightened people are confessing the sin of attributing inherent existence all the time. However, that approach is the approach that goes here. The people who are practicing from the point of view of non-being are the ones who are confessing that they think like this. Down in this realm of practice, you admit that you have this habit. Down here in Mahayana Buddhism, you admit that you have the habit of dependently co-arisen birth and death. But in the approach of practice from the point of view of being, you want to get out of misery, you want to get out of dependently co-arisen birth and death, but you're not primarily admitting that what you're doing is attributing being or existence to things all the time. You're just knowing you're in trouble and trying to do something to get out of it, and there's all kinds of good practices to do, but those practices don't work as long as you take this point of view.

[48:37]

And Shakyamuni Buddha... did not approach liberation from this arena. He approached it from this arena. And in this arena, one is constantly admitting that one is doing what makes this thing go around. We're all the time promoting and cranking up to birth and death. We should admit that. Yeah. I just wanted to throw out an alternative opinion to Albert's. I don't think this is metaphysics at all. This is epistemology. Pure and simple. That's what I thought before. When Greg responded to the other question, that sounded like not just how we know things, but what is really true. It's an honor.

[49:39]

Oh yes, please do. I think Carl Bohan's point, I think, is basic and important in that he accuses, you know, Mahayana creeps of inventing something that's kind of, you know, out there or above or beyond. called Nirvana or something like that. And that that was totally off base, that Buddha never really talked about that and never intended that. And that Buddha was primarily concerned with how you know things or epistemology or experience and not with something like God or anything along those lines, which is a kind of methodical entity. So my advice, I just want to make sure that you weren't talking about how we know things, rather than some other level of existence or something like that, which would lead to metaphysical, beyond our immediate realm.

[50:43]

One of the strange things about this key in looking at Mahayana Buddhism is that, of course, many Mahayana Buddhists are not Mahayana Buddhists, right? They got a card. Like, I have a Visa card now, but it doesn't work anymore. I've now lost his. He loses his, and then he tells the treasure, and the treasure discontinues. If I try to use my Visa card, I'll get arrested. Do you understand? So, a lot of Mahayana Buddhists, if they try to use Mahayana Buddhism, they should be arrested on the spot. because their visa card is expired. At the same time, the Mahayanas are looking at some Theravada people who have somehow drifted away from Shakyamuni Buddha's original teaching. and they think they're still holding on to it nice and tight, my honest look at them and say, you've drifted away from Buddha's original teaching, even though you call yourself the old school.

[51:53]

You're really not the old school. You're a development from the old school, and you've drifted away from primitive Buddhism and missed his point. So they actually became metaphysical from this point of view. So everybody's calling each other names, right? It's terrible. This is what you call... birth and death, you know, where you actually think there are some Mahayana Buddhists out there, right, who are metaphysicists. You know, they actually, there are really things out there, people who really think there is something out there. But next, you know, when we get to 30 verses, we're really going to get into eschemology. I just, on a metaphysical score, I was just going to say that, maybe, sorry to say it, but I don't understand if Nagarjuna was saying that this one realm was transcendent, you know, and that you sort of get into two truths. It's not like the world of ultimate truth is some transcendent, you know, realm outside of the worldly convention. No, it is.

[52:55]

No, he didn't. Mahayana Buddhism is saying that ultimate reality transcends and is totally other from conventional reality. It is saying that. It's not a thing at all. There aren't any things. That saves it completely. It also saves the conventional world, too. The conventional world entirely... Why don't you guys get tomorrow's... This is the kind of stuff I like to see people talking about. 490. Cup of you know what. Be careful. He's got some good stuff. Ultimate reality is totally other from conventional reality. However... Ultimate reality completely covers the entire world and so does conventional reality. So they're completely other and they occupy the same space.

[53:57]

They totally permeate each other. It's not like ultimate reality is up here and conventional reality is down here. It's like the whole world is completely permeated by ultimate reality and completely permeated by conventional reality. They coexist. They're completely other, and they're identical, because they refer to the same world. Good. You said it nicely. Question about how do we experience reality? And if we don't, where is our sense that it exists come from? Well, like the time sex who just says, You cannot perceive the truth. And when you realize that, that's what we call perceiving the truth. There is realization. It just can't be defiled. There is practice of realization, but it just can't be defiled.

[55:05]

The main way it can't be defiled, it cannot be defiled by knowledge. In other words, it's not contingent On knowledge. Not to mention belief in a self, personal self. Then there isn't any way for humans to talk about it. There is, yeah. There is a way to talk about it. The way to talk about it is conventional reality. We talk about it in conventional reality. We do talk about it. In the realm of ultimate reality, you can't say anything. As soon as, and if you're in the realm of ultimate reality and you make a peep, it suddenly is conventional reality. But that seems like we're playing with words. Yes. Buddha Dharma, the greatest miracle of the Buddha is his words. Buddha talks. But the words are educating us in such a way that we will be able to, you know, realize the practice of suchness.

[56:14]

And then we can realize ultimate reality, ultimate truth, which is identical to conventional truth, which we all pretty much know already. Once we're Buddha, we see that the conventional reality, conventional truth, which we already know fairly well, is identical with the ultimate truth, which we don't know anything about and never will know anything about. But we can realize it. When we realize it, we also realize that it's identical with conventional reality. That's what Buddha realized. That's what Nagarjuna realized. And not only that, but because of that, we should put a lot of energy into conventional reality so that people can understand that ultimate reality implies that we should be, for example, very importantly, ethical. We should not violate ethics. From the point of view of ultimate reality, ethics are totally empty. From the point of view of conventional reality, ethics are still contingent on historical circumstances, but still we uphold them because there's a reason why history has produced certain values that are now existent in this world.

[57:30]

And there is a way In practice, that's why Yogacara is nice, is because Yogacara then shows ways of working with your mental experience in such a way as to realize an approach which is based on emptiness and also an approach which will reveal emptiness, an approach based on and leading to the realization of emptiness. This approach also works But Zen practice uses both of these schools. It uses the Prajnaparamita school. But a lot of the Zen instructions, like that Bodhidharma gives and Sixth Ancestor gives, and a lot of the instructions that you see that happen in dialogue between people is this yogic charge instruction. Because, you know, yogic instruction. This tool teaches you the correct view that you should have inside of your meditation.

[58:37]

It helps you have the correct understanding of what your experience is. You take it into your meditation. That's what this is for. It is useful, at this point, that you develop that, what you're talking about with ethics, and getting to what you're talking about, this scene, and the precision of the power is beautiful. Do you want... Could you do more than that, please? What? Could you do a little more? Well, first step is you wanted to come in relationship between How ethics works here? Over the first step? Yeah, yeah. And does that tie back in to which bit you were talking about in the issue of sin? Again, it works.

[59:40]

We didn't actually talk about the two truths too much. And... when you came back. Yeah. I'd be a little more interested in the theory for that. Maybe I could talk to you about it just individually. Basically, I could say, though, that upholding conventional reality means you uphold language, which you use to establish what you need to have a valid cognition rather than a figment of your imagination. And that kind of thing would lead you to establish ethical principles. And sin, in the sense that I was using it before, is not really relevant, it doesn't even have to be brought to bear to establish conventional truth. The sin of attributing inherent existence to things, you can go right ahead and keep doing all through the process of establishing conventional reality, because conventional reality is, conventional truth has this quality of, you know, believing that things exist.

[60:50]

So that's the convention. That's the convention. So the act ethically is still the same. You can act ethically and still be attributing . That's right. But you can also act as part of your ethical life. You can be constantly confessing. This is a sin of attributing existence to people. Some other people are practicing ethics, but not high enough ethics to the extent of noticing that fault. But there's still basically people who are practicing ethics according to conventional reality. That's why in Buddhism we should not adhere rigidly to conventional reality. Exactly.

[61:54]

In other words, but you should never violate conventional reality either. It's like one of the false views of early Buddhism is rigid adherence to conventional reality. I didn't say that the antidote to that is to violate conventional reality. The antidote to it is to uphold conventional reality because it has a reality to respect it and follow it. without holding on to it. Now, if in the process you notice that you do hold on to it, then you should admit that you have that view, that you have that tendency. So what you're admitting is, in the case of ethics, that you're adhering to the existence of conventional ethics. That's one thing you do. You also, you know, are adhering to the existence of non-ethics too, and also everything else. But by doing that, at least you're admitting what you're doing, and the process is totally turned around because of that. And this is an example of... It sounds like Mahayana, but it's actually in early Buddhism that you're not supposed to adhere to conventional reality.

[63:01]

Originally, you're supposed to honor it, not violate it. Buddhism doesn't really violate conventional reality. However, That's one of the problems of early... That was one of the things about the early Prajnaparamita is that it looked like these people were... They didn't say you could violate conventional reality, but it looks like they would do it any minute. I mean, they were so wildly refuting everything that just, like, you didn't know what they would do next, you know? If you read the Prajnaparamita literature, you'd say, well, gee, you know, wow, I mean... How would I ever follow the precepts anymore? Everything's so empty. I'm empty, they're empty, the giver's empty, the hitter's empty, the hit is empty, the punch is empty. Who knows what's going to happen next? But no, conventional reality must not be violated in this wild scene of all this stuff being empty. And Nagarjuna made that very clear, very clear.

[64:10]

Yes, Charlie. How is it that the two truths are woven into this identity of dependent core rising and emptiness? How is it? Yeah. These two systems do not meet. Just like, what do you call it, dependent core rising and emptiness do not meet, but they're identical. The two truths do not meet. Okay? And these two systems of the identity of dependent core arising in emptiness and the system of the two truths, they don't meet. However, they perform different services to human beings. One gives you a kind of world view and the other establishes ethics. But they don't meet. That's why he had to do both of them. Because one was not enough. to satisfy the needs of human beings.

[65:14]

They complement each other, but they're other. I want to stop at 8.30 so you can not be staying up any later than that. . You know, they said, I asked at the beginning of the class, what is the Madhyamaka school? But another answer to it is snow piled in a silver bowl. Suchness is inconceivable. Liberation. See, on and on we can go.

[66:18]

In terms of your practice of sessions, it's not just your effort. Like, if you make the effort of admitting that you have the tendency to attribute inherent existence to things, well, that definitely is part of, what do you call it, part of what makes the teaching of Madhyamaka come alive for you. That, somehow, makes possible the practice of suchness. Without that kind of effort, the practice of suchness will not be available to you. But your effort is not the practice of suchness. I mean, in that conceivable realm that you're doing that, that's not the practice of suchness. That's why we say, you know, the meaning is not in the words. The words is, for example, I... I am attributing inherent existence to things. I believe this stuff really exists. That's words, right? The meaning is not in those words. However, those words are a total reversal of your whole approach to life and will just knock you through a loop if you do that.

[67:22]

Okay? That's called the inquiring impulse or literally the arrival of your energy on the path. The meaning is not in the arrival of your energy. That's not where the meaning is. In those words, which is all you can deal with, that's conventional reality, that's where you make your effort. That's not where the meaning is, but the meaning responds to our little theater here. When we talk about, when we make efforts to understand what dependently co-arisen suchness is, yes? that I was reading a Sufi lecture, and he was talking about that when he gives that lecture, he's like pointing to the moon. But we shouldn't hear the words and see that they were pointing to the moon. We should see the moon.

[68:24]

So I thought it was related. Yes, it is. And also you can say, you know, when you point to the moon, like somebody says, like we're outside, it's a moon night, it's a big moon, and I go like this and I say, what's this? And people say, it's your finger. And then you say, no, it's not the moon. But if you do it on a full moon night, people are very likely, if you point at the moon, people are very likely to say, what's this? They're very likely to say, it's the moon. You say, no, it's my finger. The finger makes the moon come alive, but the moon makes the finger come alive. There's this neutral thing, you know? So, this is called making an effort in the conventional world. This is called admitting where you're at, confessing your human state. Something responds to this. You get a gift for making an effort. And the gift comes

[69:26]

from someplace else. Something other. But again, the other does not mean, like, here's... The other does not mean... It's not this other over here, like the moon up there. That's not the other. That's the same realm. Do you understand? And the other is not... The other also doesn't mean, well, it's really your finger. The other is something that completely pervades your finger and the moon. That's what other is. That's really other. I mean, that's like totally other. We don't know about that. But that's what really helps us, something that's this pervasive quality of ultimate reality and conventional reality. Conventional reality is this finger pointing to the moon and the moon, which the finger points to. That's conventional reality. Conventional reality is that the moon enhances the finger and the finger enhances the moon. All that's conventional reality. Or, in terms of that colon 21 of the Book of Serenity, this is all busyness. There's a realm of not-busyness, too. And the realm of not busyness totally is in responsive relationship to our efforts on the path in the realm of busyness.

[70:34]

So we do our best here. The meaning is not in our effort, and yet our effort is in a total rapport with the realm effortless realm and our effort the inquiry of our effort comes up at the same time as the response it's not like i say hey suchness and such who says what is it hey suchness is right there is the response can you see it you know it's right there in other words it's still other that kind of thing Here's an example of practice such as this, too. Now, I say, Suzuki Roshi says in this little article, he says, if you have a strong conviction... Oh, no, he said, this guy named Takuan Zenji, the guy who invented the Takuan pickle. He really did. He was a Zen teacher, and he developed the Takuan.

[71:36]

Takuan is named after him, right? It's a daikon pickle. He learned how to pickle daikon. Now they call pickled daikon takuan. Takuan is a Zen teacher, and he also had some samurai as his students. So, as Suzuki says, someone, some swordsman visited another famous swordsman. I don't know whether it was Takuan Zenji or not. I don't know. Or if this is a true story or not. I don't know. Anyway... That man wanted to master swordsmanship and asked him, how long will it take me to master your way of swordsmanship? And the answer was something like, if you want to master it in three years, it will take a hundred. But if you have a strong conviction to be killed by it, then you will master it immediately. That is the way. If you expect

[72:38]

To study, to master it in three years, it may take you a hundred. But if you don't mind to be killed in this place right now, you will understand it right now. So I'm not saying that that is the practice of suchness, but I'm saying that in our realm of our effort, the willingness to die right now in the process of practice, that's the kind of effort that we get the response for. And the response is exactly at the same time as that. So that's what you call it. She can't talk about a lot of stuff. Which is, it's inconceivable. There is a conceivable part of it. Namely, the part you can conceive is you've got a head here, right? Or I guess you don't have a head here, right? So you don't have a head here, and you've got a body here. That's the way some people like to conceive of it, right? It's very nice. But that's still the conceivable realm. Like one conceivable realm is you walk around without a head.

[73:42]

Another conceivable realm is you have a head, but you're dying all the time. These are conceivable realms. But the practice of suchness is the totality of that effort. It's not only your effort, but it's the response. That is inconceivable. And to realize that is called perception of the truth. So is that enough of a review? Yeah. This stuff will come up again, because right off the bat, with 30 verses, we're going to be talking about dependent co-arising. Don't worry. Dependent co-arising is pervading that whole presentation. But you're free to, I mean, please, I welcome you to bring up as much of the Madhyamaka stuff as you want while we're studying Vasubandhu. So if that's okay, you can tell me otherwise, but otherwise, tomorrow night we'll start studying 30 verses.

[74:46]

Is that okay? Any last-minute comments? I still, in some way, appreciate seeing sessions and empties. It provides a relationship. Acceptance and emptiness drawn to where? You see the transformation, you see the acceptance. You need to look more on that? Okay. Yeah. You also don't look at reality, just in dharma. In what? Dharmas? Dharmas. I will try. Please keep bringing it up. It probably will happen. Oh, and also for the people who have just come, I have... Another part of the review which I didn't review is that I spent a little bit of time talking about the kind of... This presentation, this kind of philosophical presentation is trying to give you the equipment, the intellectual equipment to practice...

[76:06]

insight or wisdom practice, right? But I also emphasize that we also do here in Zen practice, we also do the more compassion-oriented or devotional-oriented or merit-accumulating and purifying side of things, too. But there's two causes of enlightenment. One is non-dual meditation, which it's trying to indicate. This is trying to introduce you to non-dual meditation. That's one side, but the other side is this accumulation of purification practices. And a kind of summary of those are the Ten Vows of Samantabhadra. So I have up here copies of the Ten Vows of Samantabhadra, which you can come out and pick up. And I also have here the 30 verses with Kalupahana's commentary. So you can come up and get that afterwards.

[76:55]

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